Hip Average

[sandaharr]

BVA Hip average as June '07=22,Total BB's scored 36.

[vicki]

how did you get on today?

[sandaharr]

Yep,all looking good,thankfully knees are perfect too,the cruciate is always my biggest worry.Hips are average,not perfect but I will live with that.

[vicki]

GOOD GOOD, i get so nervous waiting for the scores!!! i cried when i got tia's scores. i was so sure she was going to be rubbish after being told by so many people that she was no good. shouldnt listen really

[bulieboerboels]

congratulations Sandra.Its always a nail biting time until you get the results.Regards Paul.

[sandaharr]

We will do the BVA at 1yr-18mths,this was only a pre-screen to satisfy me as she is having bad growing pains.Hopefully all will be fine.

[buliebuse]

Hi Sandra
Great news - well done, you deserve that 'silver lining' this year.
I remember when Buse was growing a couple of times she would seem to be lame - we then rested her for a week etc & all was well. I think it is just growth spurts .
Ju

[jenny]

Can I ask a question? When you have your dogs "pre-screened" what do you do if the results aren't good? Do you then find a good pet home for the dog and inform the new owners? What do you do about future formal hip/elbow scoring? Does the new owner do that, or not?
Sorry, that's four questions. Just interested as to how this affects hip score averages if the not so good ones aren't put through the system after pre-screening. We don't tend to do this in S.A. we usually wait until the dog is old enough to be X-rayed then go through the system, (well some do, some still don't test at all!) unless there is another reason to have a look before then.

[sandaharr]

Jenny,this is the first time I have had a dog pre-screened.To be honest I would probably still want to know the results at over a year for my own satisfaction.I would probably then re-home in a pet home as we did with big Brucie,who had fantastic hips but rotten elbows.Yes,new owners were informed and given paperwork as evidence.
I never normally pre-screen but Jj was so bad with growing pains that I wanted to double check it wasn't anything else.As luck(bad?) would have it she seemed fine about a week before going to the vet so I guess she had stopped going through another spurt.She is now the same size as her mum and bigger than Prizey at only 8mths,but still stocky too..

[Shaun Eric Ewing]

Hello Jenny, we nearly always prescreen, we use PennHIP which is accurate and usable from 4 months of age. The reason we do it is that if the puppy has bad hips, we can place it in a pet home without too much training from the new owner, it also saves a lot of expense and time for us if we can rehome the dog at an early age not to say how hard it is to say good bye to an older dog.
A kennel dog that has reached the age of 1½-2 years is not always houseclean and sometimes has picked up some habits from the other dogs that would not make it easy to find a new home (for example eating bedding). Sometimes the only real solution for an older dog is euthanisation. Therefore it is important for us to find out as early as possible what the future of the dog will be.

All dogs/puppies sold by us have a veterinary inspection first and the new owners are informed of any problems, the sales contract has also a paragraph where it states whatever problems might have been found and the new owner signs to say that they have read this paragraph, this stops any misunderstanding at a later time.

We have a really strict HD/ED policy, and because we have been able to concentrate our resources on the dogs that have good hips and elbows, the average hip score from puppies from our kennel are within the best 10% for the race (PennHIP). We have several hip scores under 0,30, which is fantastic for a mastiff type race where the average scores are about 0,65. The average score for Boerboels with the PennHIP method is 0,56. There are about 350 dogs tested worldwide and we have tested about 70 of these.

Our PennHIP scores have changed from an average of about 0,68 when we started to an average of about 0,42 today. Within the next year or so the oldest of our females, those we started breeding on, will be phased out of our breeding, the younger generations have better hips than their parents and that should make our averages even better.

It has been 2½ years since we last had to replace a Boerboel due to hip dysplacia, a real incentive to hip test methodically!!

Regards
Shaun

[jenny]

Thanks Shaun for the info. I think that the breed average is so much more important than the score of individual dogs. Do you test whole litters? What are the sort of ranges you are finding within a litter? Are the scores generally quite even or are you getting some low and some high within the litter? I think the first thing we need to aim for is more evenness within litters whilst also working on bringing down the breed average overall. People are misled here by 0:0 scoring dogs thinking that they will get good hips from them, when in fact the other dogs in the litter score much higher and disappointment is suffered when high hip scores are attained in the puppies from these dogs. It is a common misconception that if you use dogs with clean hips themselves, you will get only good hips, not true if there are poor hips around in the line.

[Shaun Eric Ewing]

Hello Jenny, the average of the race is dependant on the individual scores. The PennHIP system would only give a fair evaluation of the average for the race if all dogs were tested. The improvement for the race over the time we have been testing is a bit false as it does not distinguish between dogs that have many generations of testing, and dogs that do not. Let me give you an example. Obviously a dog that comes from lines that have not produced HD for many generations is less likely to give puppies that get HD than a dog that comes from lines that consistantly give HD.

The trouble with the 0:0 1:1 system is that the scoring is too loose. If a dog that scores 0:0 can be an "a" or a "b-" then if 2 dogs that are bred together that have scored 0:0 can also be either a:a, b:a, or b:b if they are b:b, then the chances of some of the offspring (about 1/3) being "c" are quite high. This is one of the main reasons that we prefer the PennHIP method. Our results also show that it works!
It is impossible for us to test whole litters, but we do encourage our owners to test, in fact it is written into the sales contract as a demand from our side. This results in a high percentage of our pups being tested.
In the beginning there was a large spread of results, they could range from 0,70 to 0,33 in the same litter, these days, as we use lower averages and the older dogs disappear out of our breeding, the results are nearly all under the breed average. As you can see from my early post about 20% of the total dogs tested in the world have been tested by us, that means that our results have a big effect on the breed average. As our averages get lower (better) the breed average follows. This puts some people in a difficult position. When we started the breed average was over 0,65, these days it is 0,56 but I bet that if all Boerboels were tested, the average would rise to >0,65 again. anyone breeding on a dog that scores over 0,56 today will believe that they are breeding on a higher than average hip score, when in fact the real average is around 0,68. PennHIP is not available in RSA.

Regards
Shaun

[jenny]

Hi Shaun
I must admit to being a bit of a numpty about the PennHip system, having only read about the method, not seen it in action as it were. How do the results relate to say the BVA/KC scoring system (the one I am most familiar with)? I understand that the system tests the joint laxity in a vertical direction when the dog is on it's back, does it also measure any abnormal bone remodelling? At what age is the testing done and do the results differ as the dogs get older?
I have the utmost respect for your efforts in testing and health matters and only wish that your ideas were contagious!!! I agree with you that any average hip score for the breed is somewhat misleading as in effect it is only the more caring breeders that test at all and therefore try to reduce the overall effect of the diseases, the other less responsible breeders carry on regardless of the fate of the puppies or the breed in general. But individual scores must be seen in the context of the related family members to give an accurate prediction of their breeding potential and even then, nature can bite you!
Enjoying the discussions, thanks for your time.
Jenny

[Shaun Eric Ewing]

Hello Jenny, the PennHIP system can most likely be bettered, but in our opinion at the moment, it is the best there is.
It looks at the hips in different ways, one way is to measure the joint laxity as you mentioned. The theory is that joint laxity can be selected for in the breeding decision process and the more laxity in a joint, the higher the probability of the dog developing damage to the hips at some time. We think of the hip joint as a piston in an engine, the more the piston (leg bone) can move, the more force is directed against the cylinder (hip joint), think of it as a hammer that can either hit with tiny little hits or well over the shoulder swings, obviously the last description can instill ideas of what I am talking about. The tighter the hip the less movement and therefore the less damage.

The second criteria is damage (DJD), there is also a scale for what damage is already caused: none, mild, mild/moderate, moderate, moderate/severe and severe.
This speaks for itself and we do not use dogs that have had any damage at all.

The pennHIP system can be used for dogs down to 4 months of age, in this case PennHIP say that there is no significant difference in the DI (distraction index) in the results of a 4 month old dog to when it is 2 years old. They have the statistics to prove it so there is no reason to doubt that it is true. Personally we wait a bit longer, not because we do not believe PennHIP but more because we want to have a realistic look at the elbows and vaginal hyperplasia as well, and we would rather get everything done in a single trip to the vet.

It is difficult to say how the PennHIP results relate to the BVA/KC system. The BVA/KC systems are utterly reliable on personal evaluations, and in the case of the BVA system it still uses unsure methods such as the Norberg angle as an integrated part of the answer. Believe me although all vets think that they can judge x-rays as good as the next vet, I am convinced that if you sent the same x-ray to 10 different vets, you would get at least 4 different results. I have personally been witness to several cases where the vet has judges the dogs as unfit yet the PennHIP result was perfect. I have been recommended to put one dog to sleep with the ordinary method, yet with PennHIP he had the 3rd best hips of all the Boerboels tested(0,25/0,29). That dog is still alive today and has never had any medication at all for his hips, his movement is superb and he is a living reminder that vets are proud, maybe too proud to admit to their own limitations. It would have been a shame if I had not insisted on sending the results to PennHIP and had listened to the vet instead. The vet had advised me to stop the pennHIP and let him put the dog to sleep!!!!

Regards
Shaun

[jenny]

Hi Shaun
Thanks again for even more info. I agree with your thoughts about the BVA/KC system being subjective, I had a meeting with Gary Clayton-Jones (Chairman of the hip scoring panel) once about this very aspect and his honest opinion was that the scores can vary by up to 30% depending on who reads the plates. I was horrified. This could mean the difference between breeding and non-breeding at the very least. It sort of put the whole hip score thing into perspective for me. Don't get me wrong, I do agree with testing all dogs for everything we can to try to avoid future pain and distress, but I am wary of individual scores and much prefer to base decisions on a broader base of information rather a single piece of paper.
I am fortunate with our vet out here, he breeds and shows working dogs, so at least we are starting from a similar basis. He is also a very nice guy who loves dogs. We are lucky, I hear so many stories out here about unlicensed vets just opening a clinic and treating animals without any qualifications or training, it makes my hair curl!
Just another question, what are the current thoughts on elbows? Has the research come any closer to proving an hereditary predisposition yet? Is the 0-6 system still in use as developed by the Bernese people?
A bit out of touch and trying to play catch up.
Regards
Jenny