Hello everyone! I have been viewing your forum for a while now,& learned heaps from your queries & comments. I have asked my family etc to buy me 'book of the bitch' & others for my birthday,as I want to give my bitch the best of everything,& these seem to be highly recommended by yourselves,& I want to be a knowledgable owner. I have a vet who is new to the area,but i like him because he takes his time & we communicate well,which makes me feel comfortable. However,he is not able to hipscore my yr old goldie,because he is honest enough to say he doesnt have the expertise,& you only get 1 shot at it. I rang a vet he referred me to,they can hipscore,but not eye test. The only vet who can eye test in my area[it seems] wont hipscore my dog cos she's not their patient. I rang back the vet who can hipscore,but they said go back to my vet,cos it seems silly to have 3 vets on 1 dog.My vet was astonished! I have found a vet to hipscore,but no nothing about them. Can anyone tell me where to go from here? Politely please! I am considering breeding my dog,but I want to be sure to have everything right for both of us. Plymouth area.Thank you.

Hi guest,

I think you will have trouble finding a vet that does hips and eye test all in the same practice.

The Vet will take the x-rays, which are then sent away to the Royal Vetinary College for scoring/checking.

I am in Taunton, and whilst my own vet took the x-rays, I had to go to Bristol to the vet college itself for eye testing.

You may be best to contact the College in Bristol and ask about eye testing clinics/practices.

Please give serious thought to breeding from your girl. At 1 year she is only a baby herself etc.......I'm sure you've read the other postings on the subject of breeding. And I'm not suggesting that only "breeders" do it either.

Julia & Hooligans

You are looking at two totally different procedures. Any vet can take the x-rays for hip scoring after which the plate has to be submitted to the KC/BVA panel for the actual scoring procedure. With eye testing you must see one of the 29 panelists who service the whole of the UK.

Although any vet can take the x-rays for hip scoring, as you will have already seen, some are rather better than others! It is not cheating to use the best vet, no one can make a hip better than it really is but it is easy to make it appear worse! The vet might be able to give you a clue to the possible outcome of the scoring you will not know the score until sometime after the x-rays are taken. Hip scoring is a once in a lifetime test.

Although there are only 29 eye panelists several of these hold clinics at more than one surgery. Breed clubs often book a panelist to hold sessions at their breed show and there is often one in attendance at Game Fairs. Quite a few people hold their own sessions, booking a panelist, advertising the session and taking bookings. The panelist will tell you the results at the time of the test. Because several eye problems can occur quite late in the dogs life the eyes should be retested each year.

Best wishes, John

So I'm not muttering complete cxxp then!!!:D