Your Opinion on Soundness

[FlyByNight]

Another problem with hip scores is that they are not necessarily indicative of what the dog will throw.

 

Coming from German Shepherds, there have been sires who had OFA Excellent/SV Normal hips, but who threw dysplastic pups. On the other hand, there were dogs with OFA Fair/SV Fast-Normal hips who threw excellents. In those kinds of cases, family history seems to lend more evidence as to how a breeding will turn out.

 

That said, few GSD breeders will tempt fate and breed a Fair/Fast Normal to another Fair/Fast Normal. They will almost always "breed up" and find a dog who not only scored well him/herself, but who has a family history of sound hips.

[Lenajo]

Is there a link to the milatary study? I would like to read it. Thanks!

[Liz P]

I will have to track down the dr and ask him where to find it. Maybe it is even on PubMed or something.

 

I know a BC with mild HD who is 15 and can still do light farm work. This dog worked hard her whole life too.

 

ETA: I used to run sled dogs. A dog with HD won't last a month on a team and as a result working bred huskies have almost no HD. They never check hips prior to breeding, they breed to a true working standard. My brain is still working on figuring out how that translates to BCs.

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

Comparing your first example (light farm work) to the sled dogs, is apples and oranges. I have had two dogs with moderate to very severe hip problems, who are capable of rounding up sheep in a field, holding them for various things, and moving them from point A to point B. One of them was in his teens, also. But that kind of work doesn't compare to the hard work these dogs do on full time livestock operations, whether rounding up ferals in the deep south, or caretaking huge flocks in the midwest, or big sheep trailing operations in the west - or of course on their native hills overseas. Just as with the sled dogs, an unsound dog shows up as such pretty quickly under the burden of work there.

 

Even at our teeny place, Doug the Dog, who is six going on seven with mild to moderate CHD, can't work more than a few days straight, even when he's not the only dog working. The intensity of work over time is what you have to look at.

[Liz P]

Comparing your first example (light farm work) to the sled dogs, is apples and oranges. I have had two dogs with moderate to very severe hip problems, who are capable of rounding up sheep in a field, holding them for various things, and moving them from point A to point B. One of them was in his teens, also. But that kind of work doesn't compare to the hard work these dogs do on full time livestock operations, whether rounding up ferals in the deep south, or caretaking huge flocks in the midwest, or big sheep trailing operations in the west - or of course on their native hills overseas. Just as with the sled dogs, an unsound dog shows up as such pretty quickly under the burden of work there.

 

Even at our teeny place, Doug the Dog, who is six going on seven with mild to moderate CHD, can't work more than a few days straight, even when he's not the only dog working. The intensity of work over time is what you have to look at.

 

I wouldn't expect any 15 yr old to do hard work. She does light work now, but up until she was 11 yrs old she was the main dog on at a commercial sheep farm.

 

And yes, sled dogs to light working sheepdogs is like apples to oranges, but I wasn't trying to compare sled dogs to hobby herding dogs. I think the only way to compare them is sled dogs to full time sheep/cattle dogs.

[HighDesertSpice]

This is a very interesting discussion. So how do you manage the discomfort of a working dog with mild to moderate HD? Hailey would be a "hobby herder" at most. Or is it not that big a deal? My vet, a pet vet, basically precluded any quick turns or jumping. What do the working dog vets recommend / advise?

[SoloRiver]

ETA: I used to run sled dogs. A dog with HD won't last a month on a team and as a result working bred huskies have almost no HD. They never check hips prior to breeding, they breed to a true working standard. My brain is still working on figuring out how that translates to BCs.

 

The thing about sled dogs is that they don't have to be able to move the way Border Collies must. Extreme efficiency at a sled dog's normal working gait and style dictates a tight joint with very little lateral deviation. This isn't an original idea by any means, I think I got it from Coppinger and Coppinger or something like that. So selection for a working standard probably does yield hips that are what would be considered radiologically perfect. Just typing off the top of my head, it would seem to me that the average exploits of a working Border Collie (and probably to a similar extent, a dog used for agility) would call for a joint that allows more lateral extension than would be ideal for a sled dog, such that producing dogs that display sound lifetime working (or sport) condition might also result in hips that are relatively loose compared to a sled dog's.

 

It seems pretty clear that hip joint morphology can be selected for, what is unclear is the range of variation that is functionally desirable. I don't need x-rays to tell me that Solo has one very unsound hip (although I have seen the x-rays, and I'm not a radiologist but what I know about osteology tells me that Solo's hip looks really really awful), but on the other hand he also did not become functionally unsound in a way that was noticeable until he was almost eight years old despite being very active. Were he a real hard working dog, I imagine his defect would have become apparent sooner, but on some lighter-duty operations and as a sport dog I'm not so sure, and at almost eight years old he is certainly mature enough to have been used for breeding were he an intact working dog of merit (which he is not). I think soundness should be evaluated using all the evidence available, which to me should include radiographs. Obviously they should not be taken as the only criteria of functional joint health, and I personally would not have much of a problem breeding to a dog who was, say, still working hard at 12 even if his x-rays looked only "fair," as long as my bitch had hips that looked better. I'm not a breeder so all this discussion is probably moot.

 

My feelings about conformation are as follows. I used to be a pretty big horse geek, and I do think that conformation is rather important to horses, in a way that it isn't so much for dogs. Horses are much larger, are typically asked to carry or pull weight, and in general have stricter engineering requirements than dogs do. The range of variation that is ideal for a given type or breed of horse is relatively narrow. On the other hand, when you're talking about dogs, your tolerances tend to be much broader and a number of morphologies will be equally useful and functional at a given job, for many breeds, including Border Collies, in whose case what's between the ears is really what's most important. Some dogs, like sled dogs and racing Greyhounds, might be different, and benefit from a narrower range of variation. This is reflected in the fact that they tend to be more morphologically homogeneous, structurally, than working Border Collies do. "Dog fancy" folks should take note of the fact that this homogeneity has been produced in the total absence of a written conformation standard and is the result of selection for actual work. Yes, these dogs vary quite a bit in terms of irrelevancies like ear set or color, but if you look at the dog and not its outfit you see the true story.

 

The idea that a single ideal morphology can be described for any given job is generally untrue for most breeds (like Border Collies) and unnecessary for others (like racing dogs or sled dogs), and it remains true that if you want to produce an animal that is optimal for a given task, it makes the most sense to make breeding decisions based on proficiency at that actual task. What conformation breeders do is breed according to a just-so story about what a breed is supposed to do, which dictates a just-so standard describing what a dog would look like as if you were breeding for that task, and that isn't the same thing. It's topiary.

 

I don't doubt that "structure" has some importance for working or sport dogs, but to me it makes more sense to select for function, which in turn selects for structure, rather than selecting for the shape itself.

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

As much activity as posible without causing additional inflammation. Managing inflammation is your job! Strong muscles and connective tissue are your friend, and they can only be developed through moderate activity, correct diet, and managing that inflammation with your vet's help.

[Wendy V]

I agree with Rebecca above. I once had a Chesapeake Bay retriever with terrible bilateral HD - that never showed any clinical signs of it until she was 9 yo. She was well muscled and very fit and appeared very sound. I managed the inflammation with NAIDS until her liver blew up at 13 yo. (Rimadyl-I didn't know any better then). However, she had a very good quality of life for several years.

[HighDesertSpice]

Please explain what NAIDS stands for. My Golden is currently on Derramax for his osteoarthritis.

[PSmitty]

It's actually NSAIDS: Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Derramax is an NSAID.