Hip dysplasia refers to a faulty
fitting of the hip joint which is a ball (femoral head) and socket (acetabulum)
arrangement. It is a polygenetically inherited trait amd can be assessed
radiographically from a specific age. In the USA the minimum age for the
OFA scheme is 24 months but in all other countries it is 12 months. Note
that the objective is to reduce Clinical hip dysplasia (CHD) but the technique
is to assess Radiographic Hip Dysplasis (RHD).
A high correlation will exist between those two
features. Animals with severe RHD may show very few symptoms of CHD. This
may arise because a dog may be very muscular or of a very tough character
or both and thus it shows little sign of poor hips. However, breeding from
severe RHD cases which do not exhibit CHD could lead to serious problems
in their stock which inherited the poor hip status, without the character
or muscularity and thus had severe CHD as well as RHD.
Hip Dysplasia will only be reduced if breeders
deliberately select firstly from the best hip animals (without ignoring
other features) and follow this up by using best progeny tested sires.
Evidence on over 90,500 hips scores suggest that the best hip producing
sires will have good hips themselves (if examined) but that good hipped
animals will not necessarily all be good hip producers. However, the chances
for sucess in hip status is greater with better parents and better
hip pedigrees. As yet no sire sire has been located in any breed which
had poor scored hips himself yet was a good hip score producer.
FACTORS AFFECTING HIP DYSPLASIA
AND SCORING
Positioning, Readers, Anaesthetic, Sex, Age, Breed, Muscle, Exercise, Synovial
fluid, Hormones, Vitamin C, Type, Unilateral Hip Dysplasia, Breeding.
BVA/KC Hip Dysplasia Scoring
Scheme : A description of each scored part.
1 THE NORBERG ANGLE ,
4 DORSAL ACETABULAR EDGE ,
