There will always be those who rebel against evidence, and pick a seeming exception on which to build a contrarian theory. It’s like the cults that take a verse of the Bible, misinterpret or mistranslate it, and build a whole religion on it. They balance an Egyptian pyramid upside-down on its pointed head. Eventually such a structure will fall.

On the other hand, there is plenty of support for the fact that “overnutrition” and more rapid growth are responsible for the genetically pre-disposed dog to develop worse and earlier HD than might be the case if on a restricted diet. My new revision of the HD book will deal with this in detail. While some have claimed that exercise is needed to maintain a “deep acetabulum”, there is likewise no controlled study to back up this concept. It is “common wisdom” that hip-extended radiographs seem to show less laxity in young dogs that have been kept lean and frequently exercised, such as in training for schutzhund and police work, than found in dogs living a more relaxed life, but stress radiography shows every case of laxity. Muscle tone can have some positive effect on the tightness of the joint capsule, as long as regular exercise is maintained. It has no effect, however, on the genes, so a dog that has been “lean and mean” until its skeleton had fully ossified, is just as dangerous to breed to as is his littermate who has reclined on a couch most of his growing-up life.

At the end of Year 2000, an article appeared in the underground media, primarily Internet and e-mail discussion groups, called “The Error of the Millennium in Veterinary Medicine”, a sequel to a “compendium” pamphlet called “The Thirty Years’ War”. The reason it was there but was refused by all legitimate journals and magazines was that its premise was so preposterous. It reminded me of the inflammatory claim of the same decade that the Nazi Holocaust never happened. Of course, history is full of examples of error that promenade as fact, and discoveries that are suppressed for long years until someone else proves their validity. For one, an Australian researcher named Barry Marshall stated that stomach ulcers were caused by bacteria, and even proved it by swallowing the microbes, developing ulcers, and curing them with antibiotics. Yet the textbooks for years continued to give the “risk factors” as smoking, alcohol, stress, and genes. We now know that TB and peptic ulcers are infectious disorders, as the November 27, 2000 issue of Newsweek stated, in its review of “Plague Time”. In that new book, Amherst biologist Paul Ewald put forth the equally revolutionary concept that parasitic germs are the cause of many forms of Alzheimer’s, heart disease, cancer, mental illness, etc.

But the exception does not become the rule. A lot of error can be cloaked in a very little truth, and if viewers want to see only the flashy ornamentation, then that’s all they will see. The authors of the current heresy that HD is not genetic, but is caused by nutrition, make at least as many false claims as did the purveyor of ascorbate as a preventative and cure for dysplasia. While doing so, they hypothesize (or fabricate, really) a monstrous conspiracy drama in which the villains are “the dog breeding associations in the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Germany [that] developed X-ray systems”. They claim that attempts to eliminate HD through selective breeding “proved fruitless” for three decades, and they make the illogical conclusion that this is the reason the incidence “persists at around 60-65%”. Quoting themselves in their book, a vet named Torel and a journalist named Kammerer make amazing far-out statements such as “breeding programs… cannot hope to bring about any fundamental improvements …because CHD is not heritable and existing dog food… is in fact the original cause of CHD.”

How ridiculous this is, can quickly become clear by asking yourself why the dogs I and countless others have bred selectively for good hips are not ruined in spite of lavish helpings or restricted diets (doesn’t matter). Why do Greyhounds not get HD, when they eat the same rations that Clumber Spaniels do? Why are some of us who use selective breeding successful, while those who do not, have multiple failures, and yet we all feed basically the same commercial preparations?

The base cause of HD and other orthopedic diseases is a collection of enough genes that act together to bring on the condition and the signs. Since it is extremely expensive and difficult to find specific genes, even in this day of genome mapping, it is more convenient, when speaking of the “causes”, etiology, or pathogenesis (they all mean much the same thing), to focus on the secondary causes. These may include development of a deep or shallow acetabulum, weak musculature and ligaments, speed of growth of bones vs. muscles, synovial fluid aberrations, and other features which might be identified early, but remember that all these have their own “bad genes”. No matter how much research into the role of those factors you support, you must still practice good genetics if you wish to make progress in your own kennel or breed

Dr. Lust of Cornell, for example, says flat out “Canine hip dysplasia is a hereditary disease”. All of the best work of hundreds of dedicated scientists in a score of countries is summed up in that simple, concise statement of truth. Unadorned, forceful, and direct, this says it all.