Bill Fosher Posted December 2, 2003 Report Share Posted December 2, 2003 Denise writes: Is it possible that I'm also a good stockman who knows about and understands what you're talking about? Is it possible that I know about and have taken all of the things you know and fear into account as well being in a position to have additional information on which to base recommendations for breeding for sound working dogs? Is it possible that I have more, appropriate overall information even given your definition of appropriate? All of these things are possible. But in our correspondence, you have yet to persuade me that the ABCA's hip committee has taken these concerns as seriously as I think they should be taken. I believe the ABCA's hip committee's work product as embodied in its recommendtions about CHD shows that. I am not Tommy Wilson, nor am I Denise Wall. I am who I am. I've made no secrets about where I'm coming from. Three years ago I was going into the winter with 30 sheep. This winter I'm going in with nearly 900. That doesn't make me a better shepherd than I was three years ago, nor does it make me a better stockperson. But it does color my thoughts on the subject of breeding because it has been very difficult to find good stock to make this expansion. Top breeders of purebred sheep have strayed so far from performance criteria in their selection process that what we have now are more like gazelles or giraffes than useful sheep. Mothering ability is lacking in most of them, lamb vigor is laughable, and even feed conversion and growth rates are being selected against. None of the breeders started out saying, "We need to make a sheep that is useless to the commercial market, that doesn't mother its lambs, whose lambs need to be taught that they should live, and who put more feed into bone and neck than anywhere else on their body, and who have to be born in December to make show size by August." These were all unintended consequences of other breeding decisions (and probably of "flavor of the month" breeding as well, which I see as another alarming trend in Border collie breeding). If I remember correctly, you raise Dorsets or Dorset crossbreds. This is one breed where there has been a split between production breeders and show breeders. (Sound familiar?) You still have the option of finding good useful sheep from the production lines. Ever try to find a useful Suffolk ram? Or Hampshire? I have great respect for *everyone* who is involved in the thoughtful breeding of working Border collies, even if I don't agree with every point of their breeding programs because at least they are putting performance ahead of conformation for its own sake. I believe that judgments about hip function should be left to the breeders of working dogs. If there needs to be a recommendation about CHD, I would like to see it leave room for the possibility that functionally sound hips might not be classified as acceptable by an organization that has little experience with any working dog, let alone the Border collie. After all, we trust breeders to make judgements on working ability, which is probably at least 10 times more genetically complex than CHD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eileen Stein Posted December 2, 2003 Report Share Posted December 2, 2003 > Denise certainly doesn't need defending by me, but I can't help noting that the fact that Denise has not persuaded you does not undercut the possibility that she has more information, and more appropriate information, about this than you do. After all, you haven't persuaded her either , and undoubtedly one of you has more information than the other. If the piece of information you feel you have that Denise does not is that sheep breeds have been ruined by shortsighted and improvident selection, well, that's pretty common knowledge, and I have to think Denise knows it too. > Yes, but like your Holstein example, this applies equally to relying solely on working ability (which all of us in this discussion agree is the paramount goal) in selecting border collies for breeding, and ignoring emerging collateral problems which, if overlooked until it's too late, could compromise that paramound goal. No one intends to create a breed with functionally bad hips, but if that is indeed happening, some (those with the most extensive information?) are going to notice it sooner than others, just as someone must have been the first to notice bad legs and feet becoming more prevalent in the Holsteins. Was that person dismissed as a well-meaning alarmist who was going to jeopardize all our hard-won gains in milk productivity, I wonder? When I raised this point before, you said that it was different with border collies: > Since I don't think it's true that if a dog is doing well at three or four, that means it's going to be sound through retirement age, maybe that's the crux of our disagreement? If the facts showed that soundness at age three or four was as good a predictor of soundness through retirement age (and soundness of offspring) as radiography was, I would be much less supportive of relying on radiography in making breeding decisions (though I guess I would then have to be supportive of guidelines advocating not breeding before age four). If the facts showed that soundness at age three or four was not as good a predictor of soundness through retirement age (and soundness of offspring) as radiography was, would you then think it appropriate to rely on radiography in making breeding decisions? I don't know if data of any kind on this even exists; I'm just trying to isolate what you would consider persuasive evidence. > Well, they are being left to the breeders of working dogs. The guidelines are simply a way of informing breeders that those who have probably had more time and inclination to study the issue and acquire expertise about it believe that CHD is a concern in our breed, and that given the current state of our knowledge, these are the best measures to keep it from compromising the overall soundness (and therefore the working ability) of our breed in the future. Are we beating this to death and getting nowhere? I will accept your judgment on that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Northof49 Posted December 2, 2003 Report Share Posted December 2, 2003 I stand by my statement that anything that bars an otherwise qualified breeding dog from breeding is a damage to the gene pool _________________________________________________ Bill, I guess different people have a different definition of a "qualified breeding dog". A dog that is one hell of a working dog with CEA or PRA or epilepsy - or doesn't have epilepsy but produces it in his/her offspring doesn't constitute a "qualified breeding dog" for me. FOr me that goes for carriers as well. Why increase the percentage of carriers in a population if you have access to other dogs with working equivalent that will not. As you increase the number of carriers, you increase the number of affected. A few years ago when talking with the ISDS with respect to the reduction of CEA affected Border Collies through testing, the information that I received was that even if a population have an affected incident of 6%, the percentage of carriers in that population was at 35%. Pehaps Denise has the proper formula that is used. I know other breeds use a formula as well to see what percentage of a breed population are carriers depending on what percentage of the population are affected for a genetic problem. A dog that is capable of working for a few years with enough muscle and ligament strength to keep his hips together despite the fact that the dog actually has no hip sockets, to me is not a "qualified breeding dog". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Fosher Posted December 2, 2003 Report Share Posted December 2, 2003 Eileen, I'll stipulate that Denise has more information about CHD than I do. No question about that. She has been kind enough to distill it for me, to point me to abstracts of studies that she feels are important, and to lay out the reasoning behind the ABCA's hip committee recommendation. When I raise my concerns, I am told, in so many words, we have considered these issues and they are less important to the breed than CHD. That's where I disagree. Another thing that you don't seem to be grasping here is that with truly bad hips, a dog cannot demonstrate working ability. I know that people disagree with me on that point, and I think the problem lies in what constitutes working ability. Has a qualified nursery dog demonstrated working ability? I'd say not necessarily. He has demonstrated potential or promise. Has a dog that has won open trials demonstrated working ability? Again, not nessarily. A dog that has made it to the top 20 in the national finals? Both Denise and I can point to dogs that have accomplished that feat that we wouldn't want to have pups from. Working ability is an elusive quality, and no single dog has the whole package. In my opinion, we need to keep options open to breed dogs that are worth breeding. And if we are going to rely on radiography, we need a better test than OFA or Penn-Hip. DLS may or may not be that test; it sounds promising, but it's not widely available nor does it have much of a track record. You keep asking me under what circumstances I would not object to an ABCA recommendation on CHD, and I thought I had answered that questions. I wouldn't object to recommendations that didn't preclude breeding dogs that are worth breeding. If you're actually asking what scientific data I'd need to see to persuade me that CHD is more important -- or at least as important -- to the breed as working ability, I guess I'm not sure. The ABCA predicts that one dog in four is CHD affected. That means that 25 percent of the breed is ineligible for breeding under the ABCA recommendations. But I don't believe that anyone is suggesting that 25 percent of the breed is debilitated. The ABCA makes the following statement: The possible incidence of one in four dogs may seem falsely high if the presence of HD is defined by dogs showing significant lameness. The clinical symptoms of HD do not always correlate well with the severity of the disease as judged by radiological findings. Border Collies with HD that are fortunate enough to show few if any symptoms may have progeny that are not so fortunate. And they may have progeny that are so "fortunate." Is it possible that luck may have less to do with this than biomechanics and functional soundness? Is it possible that funcitonal soundness may be just heritable as lameness? We don't know. And taking a quarter of the breed out of contention for breeding to reduce the incidence of a "disease" that isn't causing symptoms in many of the dogs that have it seems over the top to me. Maybe if I thought the problem was getting worse, I'd be more likely to be concerned about CHD. But the OFA's statistics for the breed show a remarkable increase in the percentage of "excellent" hips (from zero to 14.2 percent) and a huge decline in the number of dysplastic dogs (from 21 percent to 7.3 percent, or a drop of 65 percent) over the 20 years between 1980 and 2000. http://www.offa.org/hipstatbreed.html?view=2 I don't think owner selection of films to submit would account for all of that change. I guess the first step in persuading me that we need to restrict the breeding of working dogs based on radiographic diagnosis of problems would be to persuade me that CHD is a bigger problem than it seems to be based on my experience and on the OFA's own data, or that the trend was for it to become a bigger problem within the breed to the extent that it would interfering with working ability. No one has shown me anything that leads me to believe that either of these conditions is the case, and I am even still having a little bit of difficulty accepting the proposition that CHD is entirely a genetic condition. So I can't set a threshold for my acceptance of the recommendations because I question so many of the assumptions underlying them. In the final analysis, whether I accept them or not is of little importance. My involvement in this thread didn't start out as an attack on the ABCA's recommendations, but I allowed it to become that, unfortunately. I became involved with this thread to counteract what I felt was a knee-jerk over-reaction to the diagnosis of CHD in an eight year old dog. It seems that this very kind of over-reaction was part of the reason that these recommendations were written in the first place. As Denise says, we may not be so different after all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wildairbc Posted December 2, 2003 Report Share Posted December 2, 2003 Bill Fosher wrote: Has a qualified nursery dog demonstrated working ability? I'd say not necessarily. He has demonstrated potential or promise. Has a dog that has won open trials demonstrated working ability? Again, not nessarily. A dog that has made it to the top 20 in the national finals? Both Denise and I can point to dogs that have accomplished that feat that we wouldn't want to have pups from. Hi, I was just wondering- if determining "working ability" (ie-breeding qualification) is this subjective, then obviously breeders using "working ability" as a selection criteria are not all on the same page anyway. I also wanted to note, that from what I have learned about CHD over the past thirty years, it is often time the more severely affected that show little pain, as the acetabulum and femoral head have little or no contact. Just a couple of thoughts from following this most interesting discussion. Bonnie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Denise Wall Posted December 2, 2003 Report Share Posted December 2, 2003 I'm just going to randomly address some things. Bill, The recent improvement in OFA stats is great but if you look at the reports almost all of this data is coming from AKC registered border collies. Over the past few years there has been a major flocking to OFA from this group and a major exodus by the working community. (This trend was the reason the H&G committee started setting up the collaboration with Cornell for hip consults nearly three years ago.) So I don't know what to make of the new 7.3% figure with respect to working border collies. We really don't know what the incidence is but I'll speculate it's around 20% overall in the breed. As for you worrying that a possible 25% of the working population will be culled for bad hips, thus one in four good working dogs might be lost from the gene pool -- I, like you (I think), believe the work itself does a pretty good job of selecting for good hips. And I believe the culling here (culling from work not killing them) is not all from obvious physical impairment. If you remember my discussions with those who x-ray potential goosedogs who were culled because of not being up to behavioral working standard on livestock work, a disproportionately high percentage of these dogs are found to have HD by x-ray. Even though some of these HD dogs may not be showing physical symptoms at that time, this higher percentage makes me think their behavioral performance has been affected because of the HD. Between this and the culling from actual physical causes, the percentage of bad hipped dogs drops lower and lower as the work standard and time take their toll. So the case of the functionally sound bad hipped dog is certainly not anywhere close to one in four. I would contend that the percentage is low enough to not affect the gene pool adversely if not bred but high enough to affect the gene pool adversely if bred. As for not excluding these "functionally sound" HD dogs until we understand more about it -- The situation where the debilitation of the individual does not match the severity of disease as seen on the x-rays is a very common finding in humans for a number of osteoarthritic and bone conditions. I myself have a few of those "Oh my, should never be able to do the things you do" type of bone and arthritis problems. The pain threshold and drive of the individual has a lot to do with how these things are tolerated. But I'll tell you this, I sure know those problems are there whether anybody else does or not. HD is genetic and there are numerous studies that have proven this. Anybody can say the words "it's never been proven" just like the tobacco industry can claim there's no link to cigarette smoking and lung cancer. But the evidence is certainly there that there is. It does no good to discuss this because even though people act like they want studies, they don't believe them when they don't support their views. I'm going to try one more time using examples to explain what I mean when I say a little "give" may be stabilized by the protective factor of good pelvic muscle mass resulting in a good hip structure. I don't mean a slightly dysplastic hip is best because there is enough "give" for the system. The assumption that a dysplastic hip that has "enough muscle mass to compensate" is a functionally sound hip and maybe even the best hip for work is not right because if there were truly enough muscle mass to compensate that hip wouldn't look dysplastic. A dysplastic hip in not an efficient hip. Here is a dramatic example of protective pelvic muscle mass mitigating passive laxity (in this case, severe injury induced passive laxity in one hip) from my own kennel. Tod, a then 12 month old dog I bred from two OFA excellent parents, had his left hip completely dislocated by being kicked though the fence by a horse. This is what the lateral view looked like on admission minutes later: As you can see, the hip is completely out of the socket, which tore all of the internal and much of the external ligaments and other supporting structures away. You can't really tell in this view but the head of the femur was displaced about 6-8 inches above the outside ridge of the cup part of the joint. When they tried to reduce the hip, it didn't snap back into place like a promising reduction should. They described it as passively going back into the joint and feeling mushy as they tried to seat it tighter. This type of finding did not make for a good prognosis for this hip healing and Tod gaining recovery of function. The x-ray after putting the hip back in the socket is below: As you can see it was not well into the joint, even when x-rayed in a favorable position to hold it in. I sent all his x-rays to the vet hospital at NC State for consultation and they concluded the hip would never stay in. It did stay in and it is still in to this day, more than eight years later. This dog's hips have been sound all his life with the exception of a couple of times when he was lame for a few days for unknown reasons. Here are his x-rays for OFA where he received an OFA good rating. Now, I showed all this to demonstrate how good pelvic muscle mass can compensate for laxity inherent in the joint. If this dog were to be pennHIPed, that hip would fly right out of the socket because there is nothing holding it in except fibrosed joint capsule and his muscles. If he were put under general anesthesia for a normal OFA type x-ray, the laxity would probably appear marked on that side. But overall factors taken into account, this dog has got good functional hips and also good hips by x-ray. That is my definition of muscle mass compensating for laxity resulting in a functional hip. Denise Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deb Posted December 3, 2003 Report Share Posted December 3, 2003 Whew...what a wonderful thread. My travel schedule has been hell and this is the first time in a while I've had the opportunity to wander through here. Denise - thank you for posting the rads and history above. It would make a great article... Do you know if anyone is looking at knees with as much interest as there seems to be in hips? Based on my observations and anecdotal data, knees seem to be a significant problem for the working Border Collie, too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Denise Wall Posted December 4, 2003 Report Share Posted December 4, 2003 Hi Deb, You wrote me a private message through these boards about this early last year that I answered but see is "unread" so I'll answer here. (Try clicking on "my profile" to see my private response.) Basically, I said ACL surgery is the most common surgery in dogs, in general. Knees are not very stable joints and if a dog is involved in certain types of activities, knees are at great risk for injury. Many border collies are doing things such as working stock, agility, Frisbee, etc., that put them at high risk for ACL injuries. I don't know of any studies on ACL injuries in border collies. Some vets have postulated a heritable component in some of the larger, more inactive breeds. However, I think most people in the veterinary medical profession feel its primarily cause in an active dog is injury related. Denise Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JenniferK Posted December 15, 2003 Author Report Share Posted December 15, 2003 Border Collie Boards Hello from JenniferK, whose post on Duncan?s hip dysplasia seems to have started some interesting and controversial threads. I had checked the board once a few days after my last post and it was fairly quiet, so being busy with other research (and not having much access) I left it alone for awhile. I was greatly shocked when I checked it on Fri. to see how many posts there were. I just finished reading them on Sunday and have a few thoughts. First of all, MSM has been mentioned a few times. What is that? Where do I buy it and what does it usually cost? Duncan is currently on Arthri-Nu?, which is: glucosamine 500 mg, Vit. E 25 IU, Selenium 25 mcg, Copper (as Copper Proteinate) 2 mg, Zinc (as Zinc Proteinate) 12 mg and Omega-3 Fatty Acids from fish oil 10 mg. I intend to increase the fish oil asap, but I have some questions on that ?see below. We have also started the Adequan injections ? he?s had two, one given by the vet and one given my me last Thursday. I do not know if my doing it was effective. Rodney held him and I injected, but I have never injected anything before and so have no notion if I did it correctly. I did allow him to chase his soccer ball some today, and there was no limping when he came in. However he was quite stiff and reluctant to get up after he?d been in for about 15 mins. I made him lay on his special pillow and that seems to have helped. RE: the fish oil. Duncan normally is a very picky eater, but will eat pretty well if he?s been exercised hard enough. He cleans his bowl over the course of a full day of interaction and exercise, but lately he?s really been picking at it since he?s been a little more restricted. (By trial and error I have learned that a 25 minute power walk ? trotting - is as long as he can go until the limping starts.) Getting back to the fish oil ? Duncan absolutely LOVES fish, especially tuna (a little canine self medicating?). Is it possible to buy fish oil just as oil and then sprinkle a standard amount each day on his food? I suppose I could just give him tuna, but I am not sure how much from a can of tuna in water would equate to fish oil capsules. Is it possible to do standardized dosing from just fish oil? Is it okay on dog?s stomach? I am thinking he would eat a little better and enjoy his food more with a tuna/salmon flavor. In response to the post by Haven ? I have tried desperately to reach Duncan?s breeder?s spouse. If anyone has any way to reach him, please let me know. Duncan?s breeder was E. Carole (and Bob) Hall, formerly of Timberlane Farm, 61056 CSAH 28, Litchfield MN 55355. I kept in close contact with Carole during Duncan?s puppyhood and initial obedience training. After that I sent her yearly Christmas card updates with photos. Two summers ago she died and in response to my Christmas card, Bob Hall wrote back saying that she had died and he was moving into town. The dogs had all either been retired or sold. He was keeping a couple older ones as pets. Bob didn?t give a forwarding address and didn?t indicate to which town he was moving. I tried their phone number, but it was disconnected. I dialed directory assistance and got the numbers for all the Bob Halls in the nearby areas and called all 10 or so of them. No luck. Bob, if you are out there ? please email me at jenloke7@yahoo.com. I was favorably impressed by her as a breeder and referred a neighbor to her. He currently has two of her dogs and they are both fine. I called him the same night we received the official diagnosis and he was quite shocked. His dogs are full-time outdoor dogs and constantly out with the sheep. One is very stocky and overweight even though he?s running a lot. Neither has shown any lameness. Both are a bit younger than Duncan, and one is even a sibling, but not a littermate (same sire/dam ? diff. year). Duncan?s sire and dam are Rob (from Wisp ISDS and Imp. Kim) Hope (from Snoopy and Nuff). Rob was registered with the American Border Collie Association, Inc. and Hope was registered as an American-International Border Collie. I can give their numbers if you need them. Rob?s registration shows almost solely dogs from N. Yorkshire, Scotland and Wales ? only Kim is from Wisconsin. Hope?s paperwork indicates American breeders, largely in Minnesota and Illinois. I have a written health ?guarantee against hip or eye abnormality, hemophilia or any hereditary defect,? signed by Carole. I was reluctant to take him without it. Duncan was neutered at around 7 months and was initially begun as a pet/best friend/cattle dog, but due to a variety of circumstances and a move, the cattle dog part didn?t work out. He did suffer an injury at about 1 ? years to his leg muscle, but after reviewing the discussion, I don?t think that contributed much. I was throwing the Frisbee for him on a snowy day and he came down wrong on a patch of ice and did the splits with his right hind leg. He was laid up for awhile (ever try to explain rest period to a 1 ? year old BC? and took a long, long time to recover. Given his health, background and guarantee I am afraid that hip dysplasia never even crossed my mind. My vet even remarked that he took a long time to heal, but never suggested screening for hip dysplasia. For which omission he did apologize - saying that it never crossed his mind that Duncan could have CHD either. However, the x-rays clearly show HD and, interestingly, that Duncan?s HD is slightly but noticeably worse on his left hind quarter. As far as I am aware, many of Duncan?s littermates and siblings from other breedings are working sheepdogs ? some in Montana I believe. I want to thank both Bill Fosher and Denise Wall. Although your discussion was a bit contentious at times, it was interesting to have such diff. perspectives. You both made me really glad I am not a breeder, and I do mean that in the nicest possible way. I never wanted to deal with the complex issues surrounding creating new life and all it entails. Your discussion made me realize that good breeding is even more difficult than skimming the back pages of dog books has led me to believe. In some ways, I do agree with both you. You both raised many good points and thanks for the links to the other articles ? those were all interesting as well. Carole?s dogs were not OFA certified. Looking at the number of ISDS initials after their names, I can begin to see why ? the hills were proving the dogs. However, this did make me leery at the time since I had researched the breed and was concerned about HD. Her explanation was that her vet had actually recommended against it, saying it was unnecessary anesthesia and stress on otherwise perfectly healthy dogs. Perhaps that was a red flag, but then she did give me a written health guarantee. And, I was looking primarily for an energetic, intelligent pet, with some stock dog work thrown in just for fun. Responding to one of Bill?s posts (which I think was in response to Haven?s post) - - Duncan is not and has never been overweight; I did start jumping games perhaps too young (6 months or so? Maybe it was 8 months ? it?s hard to remember now ? he only jumped as far as he felt like to get the Frisbee and I never pushed him to jump any higher to get it than he wanted to ? we also did agility on logs out on the woods where he maybe jumped two feet or so); I don?t think he was on a particularly high protein diet ? he?s always been on Hills Science Diet ? is that high protein? Northof49 mentioned something called ?CEA.? What is this? Finally, (I know ? really long post, but there was lots to respond to) how do I explain to Duncan that he cannot run like he used to? This summer I worked him pretty hard and he did come in limping a lot, but I thought since I was getting in shape and coming in limping too that both of us were simply out of shape. It was only when it became darker earlier and we couldn?t do our long runs and he still came in limping that I realized something was wrong. I have been working him for about 25 mins. at a stretch and then we go in and he?s limping, but he?s also puzzled. I think he feels penalized or rejected or something. I am thinking of starting a program wherein I reward him for going in and maybe we play hide and seek with the indoor toys or something when we go in. Any thoughts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tassie Posted December 15, 2003 Report Share Posted December 15, 2003 Hi Jennifer. Thanks for starting this thread ? I?ve found it interesting too. CEA is Collie Eye Anomaly ? a genetic (I believe it?s autosomal recessive) disorder which can affect either just the retina (where there is a weak patch caused by it not developing properly (choroidal hypoplasia)) or in more serious cases the dog can also a coloboma ? a sort of pit near or at the optic nerve head ? obviously more serious. I know this stuff because my little bitch has mild CEA (choroidal hypoplasia only). It was picked up at the 6 week eye check, and the breeder gave me a choice of not taking her, but since the dog was going to be neutered anyway, and the eye specialist assured me she would be able to do all the things I wanted to do with her, I took her anyway. As far as convincing Duncan about his restricted activity levels, I think you?re on the right track about rewarding him for coming in, and setting up indoor games, especially scent games. Once your weather improves, you can transfer those scent games outside, and do some play tracking, or seek backs and scent discrimination like in obedience competition. They say that mental activity can tire a dog as much as purely physical activity. Here?s a couple of suggestions: http://www.flyingdogpress.com/scntgame.html And a book by Roy Hunter called Fun Nosework for Dogs available e.g. http://www.workingdogs.com/book007.htm . And a dogpile search will throw up other scent games sites. Hope Duncan enjoys learning new things ? what am I saying, he?s a Border Collie ? of course he likes learning! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Fosher Posted December 15, 2003 Report Share Posted December 15, 2003 Jennifer, The general advice these days is to avoid frisbee, agility, etc. until the dog is nearly full grown -- which means 18 months in Border collies. I'm glad you've taken my writings on the subject in the spirit in which they are intended. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JenniferK Posted December 16, 2003 Author Report Share Posted December 16, 2003 Thanks for the links to the websites, I will work on some of those right away - they look like fun. Duncan already knows hide the frisbee (although he tries to cheat by peeking under the doors in our house ). He enjoys the hiding games a lot and does a proud little dance when he finds stuff. In the well duh department, I actually knew what collie eye anomaly is - just apparently had a brain freeze that day and it didn't even register that CEA was the abbreviation for that. I look forward to more responses to my above health questions. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amc Posted December 19, 2003 Report Share Posted December 19, 2003 What does anyone know about hip replacement for dysplastic dogs? Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AK dog doc Posted December 19, 2003 Report Share Posted December 19, 2003 It should be done by a board-certified veterinary surgeon, so either at a university or at a referral center. Costs vary; about $3500 per hip is the ballpark I'm familiar with. Usually the worst hip is done first; sometimes both hips are done, sometiumes only one, since if you give the dog one solid pain-free hip, that may solve the majority of the lameness (this would depend on how bad the other hip was and what the dog was doing activity-wise.) This surgery was pioneered in dogs before being used on people, so it's peobably at least as well-understood for dogs as for people. There are some possible failure situations - for instance, if the dog has a reatction to the implants (rare) or if the femur splits when the implant is inserted into it (quite uncommon, from what I understand). Luckily in dogs there's a salvage prodedure in case this sort of thing happens, called FHO; this would give the dog a pain-free useable leg, but it would not have the 'ball' part of the ball-socket joint, so it would not be a "normal" leg. As far as function on that limb for something as strenouos as herding, I'd think you might be looking at retirement in that case, but it might depend on individual cases. Here a surgeon and your own judgement might be better guides than me, and it might be you'd have to try it to find out. Hip replacements do break down eventually; in people I think the expected life of a replacement is about 15 to 20 years. Obviousy this would be more than long enough for the average dog. As far as level of athletic function, I think the surgeons could better advise you how a dog would do after hip replacement. I do know that the only time I knew of a client going for the bilateral replacement (which is kind of pricey) it was a fairly young field-trial labrador. They did it because they weren't hurting for cash and they intended to continue working the dog (not sure if in trialling or just normal hunting). The surgeons didn't seem to think that was an unreasonable goal after bilateral hip replacement. If the dog had been older, they might've been more cautious, since dogs don't heal as well when they're old as when they're young, just like us. What that age cutoff is varies, and the surgeon would try to advise you after assessing the dog by physical exam and Xrays. That's a basic outline; to get more detail, you might want to consult at a referral center or a university where they do the procedure. They'll have all the latest updates. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juliepoudrier Posted December 19, 2003 Report Share Posted December 19, 2003 I have discussed this prospect with my regular vet and my holistic vet, so I can tell you what they said, for what it's worth. The surgery can return the dog to a useful herding life, but not all dogs are good candidates for the surgery. Age aside, apparently hip structure is important too. For example, if the socket just doesn't really exist, or the pelvis isn't structured correctly, then a replacement may not be advisable or possible. Also if there are any other "weaknesses" in the dog's leg (a bad knee for example), then the dog wouldn't be cosidered for hip replacement until the knee is repaired. When I was discussing this with the vets, they said that FHO is strictly a salvage operation (as AK dog doc said) and that it shouldn't be considered except as a last resort to relieve chronic pain if the dog was expected to continue to work. However, I have a friend whose dog was injured and the vet did an FHO and told her the dog would work just fine. Granted, she is not trialling at the open level with the dog, but as she has a goose control company the dog is important to her income. I haven't seen the dog since the accident and the FHO, but expect to see her at a trial early next month. I'm quite interested in how the dog works now. I have been quoted a price closer to $2k per hip, but I imagine that varies across the country. J. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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