how do i find a vet that does hip scores .my vet does them but was told to find on that does it for scoring reasons and not just for medical reasons.

Do you mean if you are planning to breed?

I am going through this process at the moment and have decided to go to the best place recommended to me that does it by sedation.

You will have to be prepared to travel .
I am travelling from Merseyside to Southampton for a hip-score.

If you put in a search on hip-scores you will find lots of information plus some recommended vets.

Roni

have done this but am having no luck in finding a vet:rolleyes:

yes i mean when planning to breed.

As you are only in Aylesbury I would recommend using Marilyn Baker in Southampton, she is really good and only sedates the dog rather than knocking it out.  She will also re-do the x-ray until she has the perfect shot - I had to take Alf in 3 times :rolleyes: (but I did get to wear a lovely leopard print lead apron :D :D

Hi Roni,

Are you going to the vet in southampton because he uses sedation not anaesthetic?  Dr Jeff Sampson from the KC said there was a vet in Southampton that did this.  If it is the vet could you please PM me their details as I want my young bitch scored this year.

Me too please can I have the name and address ifyou P.M. me, I really do not want my bitch knocked out only sedated.

Thank you very much

Hi dont know where you live, butArmitage Vets in Nantwich Cheshire, do a very good job, they will also give you there opinion on the state of the hips, before they send them off to the BVA, the dog is only sedated for a few mins and not knocked out, so you can bring them straight home.  which is much better than leaving them languishing in a cage for most of the day. 

>they will also give you there opinion on the state of the hips, before they send them off to the BVA

you see this is what shouldnt happen, when vets do this people dont send off the ones that are going to have bad score, therefore not giving an accurate breed average.

Just because a vet gives an opinion on the hips doesn't mean they don't send them to be scored My X ray will "guessimate"(BTW very accurately)the score & always sends the plates in. She will not X ray for scoring & then  not send them in if they are bad as this is against the agreement the owner signs on the pre X ray submission form.

Nurajay said before they send them off to the BVA which says to me that the vet doesnt bother sending them in if they arent very good.  Marilyn will tell you if they are good or bad too, but I think by then we had already paid for the BVA etc ;)

Another thing to bear in mind when the vets are sending plates off for scoring- my vets phoned to *advise* me not to send the plates off since they didn't look very good- as ClaireyS said, we won't get a true average for the breed, this coupled with curiosity I had them sent in and the score that came back is 16- breed average is 19 :-)

Stacey x

I have heard of this happening too

Someone in my breed thought that her dogs was going to be bad and so did her vet, she already knows re. hips because of her previous breed.  They were sent off and after a worrying 6 weeks they ended up with the lowest score in the country of 7 !!

When i got 1 of my saints hip scored i went to a vet who said he could do it.I eventually got the scores 7 months later. 1st he sent them away without dating the form.Resent them and was told the xrays weren't good enough quality. Had to redo the xrays, which meant another GA.Then wanted to charge me for the 2nd lot of xrays,(that was in december)told me to give him a ring in january, he said it could take longer because of the christmas period. I rang in Jan to be told that they were still waiting for them . I rang every week for the next 3 weeks, still no joy.Eventually rang and got the receptionist to check my files, and there were my xrays sitting in my file. They forgot to send them off.I found out afterwards that this vet is the most expensive around.I paid nearly 400 irish pounds(b4 we changed to euro).If there is anyone living in the County Kerry, be very careful which vet you use.I better not name him on this forum, i'm not sure what thhe rules on this are.
I took my other saint to the veterinary college in Dublin for her hip scores.They were brilliant, i got Hips & elbows scored and got her heart tested cheaper than the other vet charged just for hip scores.Plus she got a head to toe checkup free of charge by 2 trainee vets supervised by a qualified vet.I couldn't praise them highly enough. i would definately recommend anyone hip scoring in Ireland to use the Veterinary college.

Jim

Best not ask, to be honest, you only set yourself up for disappointment. I know Marilyn has a good rep for this, but she was very out on one that I bred.

M.

Jill will give a guessimate before the plates go off & always sends them in no  matter how bad(my boys were 34:34=68 & Jill was spot on unfortunately :( )

Please do not assume that all vets are the same ;)

Gosh, it doesn't seem to matter what you say someone will have an issue with it, when I take a dog for hip x ray, I always see the plates myself, and say to the vet, how do you think they look, this conversation has no bearing on the plates being sent away, they are always sent away, whether they be good bad or indifferent, otherwise how will we ever know if the breed's mean score is improving.  Perhaps it would be a good time to point out that it is the owner who decides whether to send the plates away, not the vet.   So it would only be owners who feel they have something to hide that would decline the proper scoring through the BVA.. Personally I would only go to a vet that did a lot of hip x rays for the BVA as poor/wrong positioning can affect the scores dramatically.  How do you know if they do a lot, and get accurate ratings, by word of mouth and forums like this.

Technically when you sign the submission form for the BVA you are entering into a contract to submit the plates with the Vet & the BVA & of course the form should be completed before the X raying

I agree that I would only use a vet skilled in taking good X rays & who doesn't require the dog to be left for hours in the surgery. I know Jill has probably done 1,000s & 1,000s of X rays over 20 years I've known her & as others on here found she is very knowledgable & helpful. We had a real giggle when one of my beardies wagging his tail all the time even when he was under the GA, he was without doubt the waggiest dog I have ever known

MY BC puppy is from ISDS parents who have been hip scored under the mean/average/median

Nurajay I dont know if this was aimed at me having an "issue" with it, i was only saying because I had heard that vets often RECOMMEND people not to send them off if they are cr#p I never said vets refuse to send them off if they are bad and I also never said ALL vets are the same.  And yes it is the owners who have something to hide who dont send them away but it is usually the vets that advise because to be fair I wouldnt know a bad hip x-ray from a good one.  I dont know why people on here always jump down your throat just for giving your opinion or what you thought was a good bit of advice :rolleyes:

There is a vet that does hip scores in Bromsgrove, with seditive NOT
anaesthetic. You are with your dog through out, and bring them home with you. He is excellent.

I had a bitch sedated at a cost of £90 including BVA and I was in and out with in 30 minutes.  She was groggy and she came home to bed and slept.
I prefer this over the vet giving a GA and my other vet who I dont go to any more because he is useless, charged £170 and kept the animals from 8am in the morning to 5 pm at night, and they got very stressed.  So all vets are different, just pick which one you like.

This thread reminded me of an ad on our work noticeboard yesterday.
A woman was trying to sell a young german shepherd and she listed all the things which she thought would encourage interest - good with children and other dogs, toilet trained, fully innoculated, wormed, high hip score.......
When I queried this she said, well I don't know much about dogs really !

I've had mine done under GA and been shouted to take them back home soon after they've come out of the theatre.  They love their mummy and didn't want to stay at the vets for a second longer than they had to :d

I have also been advised that it is easier to bring a dog round from GA if there's a problem, it's not so easy if they are sedated.  There are risks in both ways!  Like everything in life I suppose.

I'd just like to point out, as I have before, that sedation is not foolproof. I had an horrendous experience when my bitch (weighing about 25lb), simply could not be sedated to a point where she could be positioned for the x-ray. Once she was under GA, whole thing was over very quickly, I was was with her the entire time (except when being xrayed obviously) & took her home very shortly afterwards. I would never attempt to have a bitch done under sedation again.
I simply cannot see the need to travel from one end of the country to the other for hip xrays. I trust my vet & the scrutinising panel to get a true result. 

I took Idõ to be hipscored on Thursday and I was very pleased with how quick and efficient the vets were. He was weighed by a nurse, the vet came in and gave him the sedative jab then about 5 minutes later he was flat out on the floor! The actual x-ray took about 15 minutes max and he was awake again in another 10...a bit wobbly but perfectly ok.
We travelled, but only an hour and half, because I didn't want him to have a GA and his breeder has used this vets so I trusted them and I wouldn't hesitate to go there again. We had Chloe done under GA about 6 years ago now and although I don't remember much I do remember she looked and probaby felt awful for a least the rest of the day. By the time we were home you wouldn't have thought Idõ had been sedated....back his usual bouncy self :)

My three have been done under GA and have been up and about a couple of hours after their x-ray.  Maybe my dogs are different but they've been fine after their GA and definitely not out of it all day :d

Thats where im lucky, I only live 20 minutes from Southampton.  I also only paid £15 for the actual x-rays and sedation where as Alf had some x-rays done this week for something else and I was charged £191

Remember it is important to find out from your vet what anaesthetic agent is used for a GA. Differerent products are used in a variety of ways and given via different routes. We used Propofol for induction at our surgery and although it is expensive, it is given directly into the vein/bloodstream so in turn passes through the system very quickly. They are then maintained throughout the procedure on Isoflourane. Patients are usually up and about within 20 of going back to their kennel and have a smooth recovery.
Sedation, usually Domitor is given via an injection into the muscle and has to work its way through the system, even though its effects can be reversed with another injection.
Some of the old style anaesthetic agents (Saffan, Thiopentone) can take hours for the effects to subside and definatly has been overtaken by newer products.
I used to use a vet in Leicester who only did hip scoring and used sedation only but found out he had several patients that fitted during the scoring and one who actually died. He has since retired and I would only use GA now. Just one opinion..