Hello. I've got a 1 year old dog, he's had all his health tests and yesterday he was hipscored. The vet said his hips weren't perfect and one side was worse than the other, so now I'm worried he won't have a score low enough. :( That would be typical of my luck to fail at the final hurdle! But she did say there was no problem with them so at least he's not likely to develop HD, which is the main thing. Now the long wait for the result. None of his relatives were scored as he comes from a working kennel and they seem to go on proof of the pudding rather than scoring. Each to their own but for me personally I wanted to do every test, both essentials and recommendeds. Fingers crossed we don't have too long a wait. 

i wish you luck! its horrible waiting! sometimes vets say its not to good but could mean its at the higher scale but could still be ok, i remember waiting for our boys score to come back plus there was a mix up so it took longer then it should i was ringing and emailing friends that had been done around same time and they all got theirs back :( But when they did come back at 0-0 it was like wining the lotto lol we were on cloud 9 for weeks, the vet just said to us hes hips look good when he was done so really wasnt expecting that! all the best with the wait x

Thank you. Congrats on your dogs score, thats fantastic. I'm only doing all this as Storm is a cracking boy and I'd love to have a pup from him one day, but if his score is too high then obviously it wasn't meant to be. :( I think the panel last sat beginning of June so hopefully we wont have too long a wait. When I got him I had no interest in breeding from him, he's my 4th dog (first spaniel) and I'd never bothered with the others as I didn't feel they were good enough but within a few months I'd changed my mind about this little guy. His Dad had been tested but not Mum so I had to do every single test going (£450 later! :/) so I will be very disappointed but what will be will be and all that. In the meantime he's practicing on the one of my other dogs, a neutered collie male, who is not impressed lol.

Well done you on having his hips done and other health tests.  Saddens me that many of the working fraternity seem to think that the illnesses in their breeds don't affect their dogs.

When I went to see the litter, I asked about hips and was gobsmacked to find they didn't do it but she told me it wasn't one of the cocker tests. When I decided I wanted to breed from him I looked on the Cocker Pro-health site and it was recommended but not a must have. He's been DNA tested for FN, pcrd-PRA and had his Gonioscopy and Adult Eye Test, all clear. I suppose they work on the theory that none of the dogs in his pedigree have bad hips. He also has 32 FTCh in his pedigree. I know plenty of working gundog breeders who do health test for everything, unfortunately this one didn't. I knew he couldn't be affected as Dad was clear. Funnily enough his hips were the one I wasn't worried about, I don't think his score will be awful, probably a few over the maxium but it's still disappointing.

We went for a long walk on the beach tonight to remind myself I still have a fit healthy dog and I'm being silly letting it bother me. :)

Hi Darkstorm, good for you doing all the tests for your boy. Really just for other people reading this who want to breed from their dogs can I ask if you work your boy?

I do agility with him. He 'works' himself as a gundog everytime we go out, last night it was an hour and a half of chasing the seagulls across the beach, but I have no inkling to train him as a gundog myself.

It's really for anyone else reading this, we try to educate people to breed responsibly and that doesn't just mean doing all necessary health tests although it is a very good start. Responsible breeding also means breeding to better the breed, not just breeding because you want to. So for anyone else reading this you shouldn't be considering breeding unless your dog has proved itself in some field, be that working (agility in the case of the OP) or showing or to improve genetic diversity in a rarer breed :-)

At a year old your boy won't be competing yet, but hopefully he will do very well for you and people with others in agility will want to use him, and there will be working (agility) homes lined up, I think it's great that you're going about everything the right way :-)

Well I wasn't planning on even advertising Storm for stud, if he does well in agility, which there's no reason why not as he is already showing a lot of promise, then I was prepared to be approached about using him, and if the bitches owner met my high standards as a breeder, and just as importantly I felt comfortable about them as a person, then it's something I would discuss further. As I said, my main reason was because I wanted a puppy from him for myself one day. But as the stud dogs owner the pups would be just as much my responsibility as the breeders, so anyone who wanted to use them would have to convince me they were worthy. But it may well not happen now, unless the vet is wrong, which I doubt somehow as she's very experienced. :(

There's  difference between radiographic perfection and functional normal.

Remember different breeds have different mean scores and that anything below a score of around 20 total is a functionally normal score. 

When comparing scores with the US grading system scores roughly below our 18 are in the Normal range (which they divide into Excellent, Good and Fair) and then they have a Borderline category (18 - 25), then above that they are considered Dysplastic and graded as Mild, Moderate and Severe.  This helps put our scoring system into perspective.

Yes the vet did say he was fine as far as his hips go for him, it's just for breeding purposes that I think it'll be too high, but probably just a couple over. For cockers it's 13, knowing me it'll come back 14 lol.

i know many breeders will go over by 2 or 3 they know their lines and whats behide their dogs! and like your dog theres more to a dog then just hips :) xx

I too know of very extremley experienced breeders that will go a few points over the breed average.They explained that many a quality dog could be potentially overlooked due to a few points over.

Thank you everyone. I guess it will be up to any prospective breeder if they still want to use him, at least I have had him scored so they have the information there to make an informed decision. I'll report back with his score when I get it. x

Don't forget you only have your vets opinion - the panel could see things very differently... I've recently had two bitches done, mother and daughter (accidental mating which was why I hadn't had mother's hips done!) - vet said that the daughters were much more even than the mothers and looked considerably better - you could see a slight unevenness on the mother's xray.  Results came back - mother 4:6 and daughter 7:7.  So don't worry until the results come back - as folk have said the hip score is but one aspect of breeding - it's a pity you haven't got more relations done as this could give an indication of what's happening with the scores. A lot of people wont submit the xrays of very poor results so the average is probably artificially low.  If a dog is a fantastic example owners of bitches with a better hip score may well want to use him even if his are above the average.  Don't forget that it depends on which genes the parents pass on - they could both have excellent hips and still produce pups with HD because of the complexity of the numerous genes involved.

Darkstorm I think I might know you :-)

Heheeee hello :)

Maybe I should get some guinea pigs to recoop my loses on his health tests? ;) (sorry, that's not going to make a lot of sense to anyone else lol)

> Don't forget that it depends on which genes the parents pass on - they could both have excellent hips and still produce pups with HD because of the complexity of the numerous genes involved.

Which is why things are much more reliable/predictable the more generations of the whole pedigree have been scored all scoring within acceptable limits that using two dogs with low scores with no family history of scoring.

:-) :-)

Unfortunately, until the KC make scoring a must have test I think a lot of working kennels will continue to not bother. Some, of course still wont. I have a 5 generation pedigree for my boy, and not one of the dogs is hipscored. Goniscopy is another one that is recommended but not a must have. The must haves are PRA, Adult Eye Test and FN. I chose to do all of them because I felt it was the right thing to do. I can't do anything about his relatives not being health tested as thoroughly as they could but I've done all I can to prevent knowingly passing anything on through my boy. It's another reason I will be choosey about who he goes to.

When Storm was a pup I met someone who worked and bred WCS. I told him he was having his tests done. He asked what tests, I told him, he squinted into Storm's eyes, and told me there was nothing wrong with them. That, it seemed, was as far as health testing his breeding stock went!

Sad isn't it, and such people will say that they know of no problems in their stock (duh if you don't look you won't see)

Storm's hipscore is back...4-8. Not brilliant but not awful either. Glad its over!

Storm's hipscore is back...4-8. Not brilliant but not awful either. Glad its over!

That's fine I'm sure, could have been a lot worse!  I know what you mean about the waiting - I'm waiting for CEA DNA tests for two of mine with another 4 to do next year, plus hip scores etc it's always a nervous time :-(

Thanks Penny. :)

Argh, mine was x-rayed 4 weeks ago and not heard anything yet!!

Mine was done 3 weeks ago yesterday, so yours shouldn't be far away. I know my vet personally so she rang me from home, having left instructions with the receptionists to let her know when they came through, otherwise I wouldn't have heard till next week as she's on days off now. Good luck!

Fingers crossed it's just held up at my vets then! It's not on the KC website yet.

Penny, do you need your CEA results to show up in the KC database or are you happy just to know for you? There is a lab in Slovenia that is really cheap for CEA testing - all the silken folk are using it now and they accept buccal swabs rather than blood. PM me if you want the details :-)

Thanks - I do like them to show up though :-(  I even have the genetically clears done so that they do ... madness isn't it?

There is a lab in Slovenia that is really cheap for CEA testing

Why is it my message was taken off here because you all thought i was advertising my pups, yet i look on here and there is this message telling some one "There is a lab in Slovenia that is really cheap for CEA testing" why has this not been taken off?????

Mandy

Because if you read the ToS you are allowed to mention places that you're not affiliated to ("*Members may post links to informational sites (commercial or otherwise) which are relevant to the topic subject matter. However you may not post a link to a site with which you are affiliated.")

It's advertising your own business/puppies etc that's banned.

But i was not advertising my pups, or my girl, or the stud, i was just given the hip scores. like every one else on the page! Looks like one rule for one and one rule for another!

As the TOS states, what constitutes an advert is soley down to the moderator. If they feel it was an advert, no matter how cleverly worded, then it will be removed. You may not agree but that's life :)

> I even have the genetically clears done so that they do ... madness isn't it?

Do you mean that the genetically clears aren't shown at all on the KC site or you just prefer to have the extra certificate?

One of mine is genetically clear for PRA and this is shown on both her KC document and on the KC health checker site as 'hereditary clear'.

In silken windhounds every dog is dna tested to ensure correct parentage, but I don't think this happens in any other breed so it's probably good policy to have dogs that are genetically clear tested anyway every few generations, just to make sure nothing has gone wrong.

That's interesting

ok checked again and whilst before it didn't have any of hereditary clears it now has one TNS, but not the CL, so that's great, as I've had CEA test done it won't show she's clear anyway... perhaps they've got this sorted, it wasn't showing up when I had her CEA test done a few years ago :-(  thanks

> There is a lab in Slovenia that is really cheap for CEA testing
>
> Why is it my message was taken off here because you all thought i was advertising my pups, yet i look on here and there is this message telling some one "There is a lab in Slovenia that is really cheap for CEA testing" why has this not been taken off?????
>
>

Because it is not an advert for a cheap Lab, the 'lab' in this context, is short for "Laboratory" 

Bring  back the rolleyes smiley.. please.

:-) :-)

>Because it is not an advert for a cheap Lab, the 'lab' in this context, is short for "Laboratory" 

D'you know, it never occurred to me that someone could misunderstand quite so spectacularly! :-D :-D

Ooooops!!