Hi,

I'm an American who purchased a Border Collie puppy that has two imported parents.  The parents were described as having "clear" hips at time of exportation.

I'm now interested in understanding the BVA hip scheme.  I have been to their site but they only say that dogs with hip scores WELL BELOW the breed mean should be bred.  How do breeders determine what "WELL BELOW" is?

For example, the Border Collie Breed Mean is 14.  What should the parents' highest hip scores be to consider them "clear" or worthy of breeding?

Thanks!!!!

Tammie
DarnFar Ranch
www.darnfar.com

Our breed has the same mean as yours.  Maybe this comparative chart with OFA results will help.

OFA CLASSES                    BVA/KC SCORES
                                       Total Both Hips

Excellent                           0-4  no > than 3 / hip
Good                                5-10  no > than 6 / hip
Fair                                  11-18  no extremes
Borderline                          19-25
Mild Dysplasia                    26-35
Moderate Dysplasia             36-50
Severe Dysplasia                51-106

Here is a web addy with abridged details of our scheme
http://www.thecanaandog.co.uk/lib-health/hdscoreuk.htm

Breeders will make their own decisions based on theoverall probelm within the breed.  In my breed where a high percentage of the dogs bred (about 20%, and all breeding stock) are scored, giving a pretty acurate picture, our range has been 0 to 61, and only a couple of dogs have scored above 40 (in the moderate dysplasia range or above), the vast majority will score better than the Borderline range.

I personally would breed from a bitch or dog that scored around 20, but would look for a low scoring partner from low scoeing parents so that the average of the two proposed mates scores was below the breed mean.

The advice to choose parents with scores well below breed mean applies when trying to improve scores, most applicable in breeds where the mean score is high anyway, and a real effort has to be made re hips. 

Yours and my breed are in the fortunate position where improvement woudl be nice, but the current status of hips is pretty OK anyway so just needs to be kept that way, or improved if possible.  Hips are only one area when selecting, and important as they are are not the only thing to be taken into account when breeding.  a perfect set of hips is useless if the dog has no other merit.