We have just found out our 2yr old newfoundland has torsion on his testicle,
but we are wondering what cause it and why,the reason why i am asking is because he was diagnose with hip and elbow displasia at 6 months old so we were
wondering is it the breeders fault.
thanks joanne

Hi Joanne, tortion of the testicle happens by pure chance, so it's nobodys fault. Did you ask about the hip and elbow scores of your dogs parents before you bought him? Hip and elbow displasia is largely inherited, but it can be affected for the worse, by wrongly exercising puppies at too young an age. I'm sorry you dog is affected by these awful problems, and I hope you and your vet are managing to keep the dog as comfortable as possible. I don't know what the breed mean score is for the Newfoundland, but as long as the parents were below this level, then there is little you can blame the breeder for.

Dawn R.

Hi,

It is also possible for dogs from parents that come from very low scores for number of generations to throw a puppy in a litter with a high score unfortunately we cant completely control genetics or mother nature we can only do our best with the information we have and health schemes available
Also trauma can also affesct hipscores especially if the score is un even like 7:23 for for example.
Diet ,and exercise like previous poster says also can plays and influence ,like not too much protein from about 16 wks of age or climbing of stairs til after 9 months or older or too much free running and no proper organised long walks until at least after 12 months.
The only way to see how bad your dog is to have a hipscore done after 12 months of age find a vet who is very experienced in doing them and who understands about importance of good positioning of hips which then gets send away to panel of experts who score your dogs hip accurately  your own local vets cannot do this
they have to be sent away to the BVA AND THERE IS A FEE.However when the scores come back check them against breed average but bare in mind there is never any gurantees .

Hope your dog doing better and is relatively pain free.
Im sure others will explain in more depth

Briony :-)

Also bear in mind that Newfoundlands, being big heavy puppies are rather more at risk of damaging hips through injury or over exercise when young. Their hips are not their fortune at best, their Breed Mean Score being 28 total.

Regards, John

A friend of mine that has a champion sired girl with both parents and grandparents with very low hip scores for the breed, has just been told by a lady that had a puppy from her 5 months ago, that the vet has now said the puppy is sufffering with hip dysplacia, on enquiring the owner said that the puppy had shown no sign until it went into kennels for 2 weeks on collection he was limbing, the weight of this puppy at 20 weeks is 5 1/2Stone. The lady was given a full feeding and exercise chart the problem cannot always be laid at the breeders door. |Even with all the checks done there is no guarentee any dog will not have a problem.