Hip Scoring

[Kerry Webster]

Firstly, I hope Bob Wyburn recovers fully from his illness, and I'm sure everyone wishes him well.
This has been an interesting subject to follow. Over the past twenty years I have used both AVA and Bob Wyburn. I have been satisfied with both, whether good or bad. They do their job and send me the results; who am I to question their ability at this highly qualified profession.

My question to some people making comment here is, what qualifications have you got to make assumptions on the abilities of the different radiologists that do hip and elbow scoring ? Assuming that one radiologist is much harder in his/her scoring than another is very presumptious, so what qualifies anyone to make this comment ? Hard scoring indeed !! It is done on measurements, and yes a fraction of a millimetre can make the difference in scores, particularly in elbows, but saying one person scores hard and, what, another soft (??), is ridiculous.

If dog owners have hips and elbows to be scored just send them to who is available to score them. If the Dr's have studied their whole career and have the qualifications to be able to read the films then why should any of us question their ability.

[Jadine MacKenzie]

Not really rediculous. All professionals take their own slant on things no matter how exacting the science that they are involved in (why do people sometimes ask for second opinions when faced with serious illness?), and there is no reason why hip scoring should be any exception.
This is not to say that there are "bad" scorers and 'good" scorers, but just a little different. It's simply human nature.
This may be getting a little off-topic, so am happy to discuss at length with you in private, if you wish Kerry.

It is, however, very encouraging to see breeders and triallers taking an interest in health-testing their dogs - hip scores are just one aspect of the whole package. With my breed (GSPs) in their country of origin, hips have been scored for generations and are published on pedigrees, along with all working test (and some conformation) results. Other hereditary problems produced by stud dogs/bitches are also recorded - they may not necessarily exclude a particular animal from future breeding, but at least people are aware of what they might produce with any given liaison. Of course, some serious faults would preclude a dog/bitch from being bred from at all.

Testing/recording in themselves do not eliminate problems, but they allow breeders to make more informed choices.
It would be nice if there were a little more focus on this side of things in Australia, with all breeds of dogs.

[Diane McCann]

Testing/recording in themselves do not eliminate problems, but they allow breeders to make more informed choices.
It would be nice if there were a little more focus on this side of things in Australia, with all breeds of dogs.

And a lot less on hiding defects and refusing to share information which would be for the good of all breeds and breeders

[Kerry Webster]

Hi Jadine,
I can tolerate "different", which is understandable. I didn't like the inference that one person will score more leniently, or adversely, more severely, than another with the same qualification. Certainly slight differences might occur but to blanket all the scores done by a particular person with that type of description is unfair and unjust.

I also take it from Diane's comment that she has come across people less than willing to give information on the testing results of their dogs. I think we all have, but, also there are many people (breeders) who are more than happy to let anyone know the results of their testing on dogs whether it be eyes, hips, elbows or EIC etc. Good on them.

[Gareth Tawton]

I wonder if anyone has the figures as to how much improvement there has been in any given breed, say Labs over a twenty year period?

[Jadine MacKenzie]

The "breed average" for Shorthairs has decreased from 8.57 (in 1999) down to 7.49 (in 2010). I've had my dogs scored since 1993, but breed averages were not mentioned on the reports back then.
Because scoring is not compulsory, it is possible that some breeders may only submit healthy-looking hips for assessment, which would warp the avarage and therefore not give an acurate picture.
To ascertain the true health of a breed, in regards to hips/elbows, all (breeding, at least) dogs/bitches would have to be scored.
The OFA in USA collates all hip/elbow scores (and a range of other health tests now) all on the one website. If a dog is scored anywhere in the country, its results end up on this site, which is then available to be viewed in the public domain. It is possible to view dogs' whole pedigrees with hip evaluation information on them.
It would be nice if we had something similar available here in Aust.
So, in answer to your question Gareth, I'd say that the answer would be "no". Of course, if there was a prolific breeder who had been around for several decades and had scored all of their dogs (and hopefully a large number of those that they sold had been scored) and they took heed of those scores in their selection of future breeding stock, I think that it would be possible to see an overall downward trend.
In OFA terms, "excellent" parents might still be able to produce some only "fair" offspring, but I would expect that the mean average of their progeny would at least be "good", especially if their ancestors had very low scores.
It's a bit like inheritance of working ability, I think - there are no guarantees, but you are narrowing the odds of getting what you want by selecting from those specimens (and their families) that have what you want.

[Gareth Tawton]

Wayne,

Having researched Penn hip a little now. It seems that in any of the articles comparing the two systems I could find, all agreed penn hip gave a better more accurate picture. The difference being not in the reading of the xray (the vets fault) but the fact penn hip requires 3 different xrays (gives more info to make a judgement) while "traditional scoring" requires only one.

I suspect also that your figure of 20,000 labs is a bit out of date and substantially inaccurate. I have a penn hip qualified vet finding out for me what sort of numbers they are now up to. It seems more like closer to 200,000.

In the USA the majority of professional organisations like police, army, guide dog and the like Penn hip as they can get an accurate picture at 16 weeks. This inturn saves an enormous amount of time and money training a dog that may break down at an early age.

The down side of Penn hip is it costs more. Training and certifying by Penn State University as well as the extra xrays makes it impossible for Penn Hip to compete with Willis on a financial basis. Could it be that the almighty dollar has pushed people to continue with the willis system not that it is a better method? The other downside of Penn Hip is they still do not have a registry like OFA. According to the Penn Website they are trying to get one organized.

According to the Vet at Australian customs he believes there is a place for all methods. Customs Australia are starting to Penn Hip as well as use the AVA method. It would appear money is not an object. He did feel that the court was still outin veterinary circles as to just how much better the Penn Hip method is. So if the vets are struggling how are we to go???


I don't know if the ANKC recognises both methods but wouldn't it be great if they did and we would all have a choice......


It is interesting to note that in several countries 3 people are used to compare scores using the willis not just one. It seems they think more is better.


Gareth