i had my bitch hip scored a few months ago and the vet told me the hips where between 60/70, i sent them off and they came back as 31, i have my other bitch in today for her hips done, ive just phoned the vets and they say her hips are not so good (i took her to a diffrent vets than the last time), i have not seen the xrays yet as ive not picked her up but i was wondering if anyone has been told that there dogs hips were bad but when they came back from the bva they were alright? im still going to send them off but im just wondering if vets could make a mistake(again)

I'm sorry about your bitch's hips (at 31) ruling her out for breeding. I hope you have more luck with the second, but it's not looking promising. Are the bitches related?

Well your vets made a mistake with the first dogs results so yes they can get it wrong but it really depends on how experienced they are.
I think it is bad practice for vets to suggest that you do not send off for scoring ( if that is what they have done) as if everyone did that the true breed average will never found as it will only be the average of the best.
Good luck
Amos

The guess at an actual score would for most vets be pretty haphazard, but any vet should be able to tell if the dog has HD or not, and in your case your vet was right about that, the dog does have HD, it just wasn't quite as a bad score as expected. In reality though it makes no real difference of course as a 31 shouldn't be bred from either. I cannot see any vet making the mistake of saying hips are bad when they are in fact of a GOOD score.

Hi Guest,

What is the breed of your dogs and what are the individual scores of left/right hips just out of interest.

Briony :-)

interesting post:

What score would people class as HD

Say with my breed then Rottweiler, breed average is 13.....
So what would not be good score to breed from?

I understand it can come from down the lines sometimes, but also think it is what owners let there puppies/dogs do.

It depends on the breed. You can only be guided by the breed average (which in some breeds may not be a good indication as so few dogs have been scored). Common sense has to come into it, as has been said many times, hips aren't the whole dog. Both potential parents' scores have to be considered together, whether the scores are even (11:12 or 6:7), what sort of scores the parents have produced before and the scores of other siblings & the parents' parents etc. I don't think it's sensible to try and put an actual figure on it and say it's OK to breed from 14/15/16 but not 17 for instance. If only things were that simple.

For my own use I use the comparison with OFA that grades. 

Comparing our scores with OFA Mild dysplasia would be at a BVA score range of 26 - 35, Moderate Dysplasia at 36 - 50, and severe dysplasia at 51 - 106.

For breeding I would only consider dogs with scores Excellent 0 - 4 (with no more than 3 per hip), Good 5 -10 (no more than 6 per hip) and Fair 11 - 18 (No extremes).

In breeds where very few dogs score low I might consider using a dog/bitch with scores in the Borderline range 19 - 25.

>What score would people class as HD<

Technically a score of 1 is HD the only dogs clear of HD are those whose score is 0

Then that would make some of the Erupean evaluations that are shown as HD free a nonsense. 

I think we need to distinguich between radiographic perfection (and there will be natural small differences within an acceptable norm between breeds and individuals) and CLINICAL HD.

For this reason I like to use the OFA gradings as an additional  guide, though I do prefer actually have our numerical score, though having these graded wouldn't hurt to make things clearer.  Especially when you have a puppy buyer or novice owner being told by vets their dogs hips are bad if they score higher than 8!  That would mean that all my dogs (and most of my breed which is generally acknowledged as very healthy) are cripples, and not the healthy creatures who take plenty of excersise even at 13 1/2 years old :D

My puppy had a green stick fracture of his hip as a baby puppy, although it healed, it has affected his hip score. He has scored 3/8, (my breed BMS is 9), the BVA have been in touch with me to say that they would still score him as usual but as the break is obvious, they would attach to his permanent record notes to the effect that it is obvious the poorer scoring side is the result of damage due to a green stick fracture.

9 is a very low BMS and I wonder if this is a true record, it would only take a couple of dogs especially in a numerically small breed who have a high hip score to alter this. If some x rays are not sent off to the BVA because they look like they are going to be high then this will continue to get lower but it is not a true picture and will then rule out a lot of very good dogs which will reduce the gene poole even more. This can not be a good thing.
It may be a good thing if breed clubs suggested that all x rays be sent off.
Amos  

Totally agree with you there Amos.  Why bother having your dog x-rayed if you don't send it off!!

In reply to Amos - 9 for our breed is a pretty accurate record - you only have to read the BRS to see how many in our breed are scored and have been for over 20 years.

It is when only a handful are scored that you get dubious averages. 

In the year 2004 approx 280 flatcoats were scored.  If you say that 1400 are breed every year this represents 20%.  I think that is a pretty good average.

As a breed we have always been very good about hip scoring and until recently it was unusual for a flatcoat with a high hip score to be bred from.

Becky

Sounds similar to our breed, we have around 120 pups bred a year, and over 20 scored each year.  Our mean varies from 13 to 14 and median is 12, been the same for years.

Same here, we have a high percentage of Sibes scored and BMS is 7 which is pretty reflective.

It may be that only low scored dogs are bred from and it may be that your breed have a high level of scoring  but what you do not know (and there is no way of finding out) is how many who were x rayed wern't scored. That is my point and why I think they should all be sent off.
Amos

I DO agree that all scores SHOULD be sent off - I know of an instance about a year ago when a bitch was taken to the vets and one side was completely out of the socket and it was not sent off - however the bitches' brother has a good score.

It would give a far more complete picture if all scorings were sent off.  Many times when I have taken mine to be done the vet has "guestimated" a score and the actual score has come in much lower. 

I do not agree with "sweeping under the carpet".  However unless the KC made a ruling that anything taken for scoring had to be sent in I can not see people doing this.

Becky

When my bitch was at the vets having her hips xrayed I received a phone call from the vets advising that they didn't look good and therefore not to send them off.  I decided to have them sent anyway and she came back scoring 16, the average for GSD's is 19 :-) 

Stacey x

That's the problem with having GP vets do your plates for scoring. I use a vet miles from where I live, but who is an excellent x ray taking & even better a top quality reader of X rays she is never more than 1 point off the total & usually spot on

I have just started with a new vet and entrusted him with taking the x-rays for my 5 year old girl, 6 foot high jumper :d  He was pleased with the x-ray and thought that it wouldn't be too bad and it came back 6/4 which i was really pleased with as it's below the breed average that we know of.  I hope that people in my breed don't take their dogs and if they see a bad x-ray decide not to send them off because as a newish breed (13years in the UK) we need to ensure that we get a true story on what they are going to be like.

Up to now I've had 2 below the average and 1 just above but as I say we are still so small my boy could actually be average, until more are done I'll never know!