excuse my ignorance but owning a breed that rarely is tested for HD i need to ask as i want to have my dogs tested from now on.how does one go about getting their dog tested and getting the results ?

Contact your vet. They will have the form to fill in proving your ownership of the dog, and they'll take the x-rays and send them off to the KC for scoring, then the results will be sent back to them and you.

Please ask your vet how many Hip Scoring X rays they have done-do they do them frequently ? Not because your vet isn't a good GP vet, X rays for hip scoring need to be of the best quality. I have no problems with my GP vets, but I take my dogs to another vet who has been doing X rays for hip scoring for many many years(over 30)she has never had a set of plates returned & is also a very good reader of hip x rays.(& elbow ones as well)

The process is quite simple, you complete a form & supply a copy of the pedigree & KC certificate, the vet will then X ray your dog(should show you the X ray plate afterwards)sends it off to the BVA then when the vet receives the result & plate back they will either send them on to you or call you to collect them(I live 40 + miles away from my X ray vet so she posts them to me)

can anyone suggest any good vets in the north east of england that are very familiar with the practice

could anyone tell me the average cost of this please?

As it involves a GA it'd vary according to the size of the dog, but it's usually in the region of £200 in total.

thanks for such a quick reply.

> can anyone suggest any good vets in the north east of england that are very familiar with the practice

Depends on far you are willing to travel my X ray vet is Jill Reid @ Norton, she has GSD people from all over the country take their dogs to her because of her expertise-I should be on commission for the number of people who take their dogs to her-but I'm not sadly

The last hip x-ray/score I had was a few months ago, that was about £130 all in!

There's a really, really good site about what you, as the owner of the dog, should be looking for in the x-ray prior to it being sent for scoring.  As someone's said, there's a lot of merit in using a vet that is very used to dealing with the scoring and how to align the dog in the x-ray.  The site says, a good x-ray will not make bad hips come out with a good score, but by golly a bad x-ray can give you a really false, and bad score.

... I can't find the web address!  I will re-post as soon as I can find it, I've got it stashed away somewhere safe!

Always ask to see the x-rays prior to them being sent off.  When my bitch was done a few months ago, I saw the x-rays with the new nurse ... she nearly refused to allow me to see them!!!  I pointed out that I was paying, that I'd seen previous x-rays and that I was not going to waste good money if they were awful!  Fortunately they were good, though I think they could have been better - I'd been told my bitch had been difficult to align as she was so skinny!!!!