I had my girl OFA prelim. Came back elbow unilateral grade one. Had finals done, came back bilateral elbows grade one. Went for a second final, came back elbows normal. I have little faith in the people who read these xrays.

perhaps you should be questioning the quality of the films not the quality of the readers. If there's as much as a stray dust speck in the wrong place, the bones can appear to have DJD when they do not.

So do you plan to resubmit again for 'best two out of three' finals or just assume that the prelims and first finals were wrong and the elbows really are clear?

I can't believe a stay speck of dust can have any affect on an xray. I work with xray techs and a speck of dust isn't going to make a difference, they can see it in an xray. If there is something floating around that shouldn't be there, they know the deference, it has nothing to do with the structure of the bones.

OFA has a long, long way to go before becoming reliable on elbows; speck or no speck.

Did you do anything different? I have a girl who failed one elbow - grade one. Dr. Keller said very mild arthritis. Was thinking of resubmitting. Any suggestions?

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I had my girl OFA prelim. Came back elbow unilateral grade one. Had finals done, came back bilateral elbows grade one. Went for a second final, came back elbows normal. I have little faith in the people who read these xrays.

I wonder if it was a speck that made a labrador i know go from moderate hips to excellent hips within a year? moderate was sent in with AKC papers, when the girl took her back to redo, forgot the akc info, just wanted to get an idea on her hip condition, if worse, etc. Came back excellent on a dog without "papers", just a chocolate lab.
My faith in them was gone a long time ago.

Well gee, easy to figure out why OFA requires Perm. ID like MICRO CHIP be VERIFIED every time an xray is taken to be sumbitted!
DUH!
AKC papers or no, a micro chip tells all!!!

Well, I would resubmit. I came back with 3 different results on elbows. Three different Vets. did the xrays. I think I'll go back a forth time to see what happens.

Linda- what were the differences between the 3 times your dog was radiographed? (age at prelim and each "final"; and did you have different vets take the radiographs each time... were any of them ortho or radiologists?)

OFA is a subjective reading; while this sort of discrepancy is *not* common- there are certainly individuals who have had it happen. I'm never surprised by differences in prelim and finals... if OFA thought anything less than 2 years of age was consistently accurate they would allow final readings at a younger age.

If I were you I would call OFA and ask them about the difference in the 2 final readings-- you can also get info on what each of the 3 radiologists rated the film

Regarding Elbow Prelim's; Depending on the age and if the growth plates are open it can be tricky to read elbows. I have seen them on more than one occasion prelim grade one when growth plates are open. I have gone to specialists for prelim's and finals that x-ray and say with certainty they will pass, and yet OFA wont' pass.

I personally don't think OFA is experienced and reliable enough in this particular area for a breeder to base a breeding program on. It is not due to the fact that they change their rating to the better, because that is normally in the right direction. They far too many times rate dysplastic, when that isn't the case. I never have had a problem with breeding 1's and I have never had a problem with the dogs rated with 1's consistently throwing elbow dysplasia. Why, because when they were x-rayed and evaluated by a specialist they did not see any signs of a problem. Yet why is OFA giving 1's when they shouldn't be and on a pretty regular basis?

Hips somewhat yes, elbows absolutely not. Even on hips their rating system, if you can call it that, is iffy at best. You can never nail down exactly what they will rate. There is no real system. It really comes down to matters of opinion. There are hips that should be excellents that come back as goods, and I have seen some that should be solid goods come back as excellent. Even the rating system they use isn't that helpful to breeders and their program. Hips should be rated individually, like they do in other parts of the world and the method Penn Hip uses here in the US. Touching on Penn Hip; Too bad they don't do elbows.., but in regards to hips, Penn Hip is under rated and under used, yet it is an excellent and very insightful hip evaluation method. Some people's argument against Penn Hip is that they grade on a curve, but if you get down to it, so does OFA and other organizations. The better or worse the hips are within any given breed, so goes their rating system. Back to OFA; Each hip should be individually evaluated and rated and it should be done numerically. I think we would have a far greater chance of breeding out the genetic dysplasia, due to the fact we would have a better understanding of each hips make-up. Excellent, Good and Fair, doesn't tell you much other than what they think they look like. By rating them numerically and each hip individually we as breeders would know exactly what each hips make-up was and what we were dealing with, thus having a greater understanding and insight to know how to proceed.

People who only care that their dog is passing, would be satisfied with the current method, but for those of us who are serious about the future of our breed and truly want to do more to improve it is eager for a better method and more than OFA can provide. OFA was fine in the beginning, but we most definitely need a better and more reliable orthopedic source that rates the way they do in England and other countries.

Be what may, when keeping a MALE , this OFA method is disasterous , how many of you would keep a male with out positive prelim elbow results. These are potential stud dogs, you can keep them for yourself, and use them, but nobody else will. So their questionable elbow readings have a very negative impact on our breed. Lovely dogs are neutered that may be perfectly sound.

I know of a few stud dogs, that are used and have produced some very nice offspring, that have a grade 1 elbow.

I can speak out of my ignorance to tell you, I had a boy I bred for a while, probably 50 litters between myself and other breeders, and when they started doing elbow ratings, I took him in to check him. They saw arthritis, said "don't breed this dog" So we stopped, wondering what the fallout would be with his pups.

Do you know...not one single solitary pup EVER had elbow problems, and about 1/4 of them were x-rayed AND rated as normal (many of them were kept by breeders or I kept many over the years). The other 3/4 have lived to old/middle age with no incidences...

We never knew if it was because we bought him second hand, and the original owner had him sleeping on cold concrete floors the first two years of his life, or if it was an injury...we'll never know I guess.
But all his pups I kept, and second generation have had great elbows...

She was 18 months, 26 months and 27 months. Three different Vets took the x rays.
Thank you for your input.

First, I will say that I like the BVA (UK) system of hip scoring. You get a separate number for each hip AND a report showing in which area the hip was less than perfect. This system has been in effect for a long time now. I don't see that it has dramatically changed the incidence of CHD in the UK.

WHY??? Because it is just a tool. Breeders have to decide how to use that tool and for what purpose. You can have the best graduated socket wrench set in the world and only use them as a hammer! (Don't laugh - I have seen my hubby hammering with his wrenches) The problem is NOT with the tool, but in how it is used that makes it valuable or not.

I have been using OFA for orthopedic evaluations since their beginning and mine 40 years ago. I can testify that careful use of their hip system rescued one of my breeds from a pit of despair. I find their elbow system less than ideal in that it uses only one view, but many people would not spend the extra to do multiple views as is required in some countries. It is a compromise that hopes to catch the problems when they SHOW UP and still get a good rate of submittals from the fancy. However, using one view or many is not the problem. It is understanding the results and using them wisely that seem to be the real issues.

Can a dog's elbow conformation change over time? OF COURSE! Can it get better? Maybe. Can it get worse? Certainly. Can the quality of the film make a difference in rating? Absolutely! The readers are not equipped with crystal balls, just eyeballs. A mediocre quality film will get a mediocre quality reading IN ANY SYSTEM. If you want more clarity in readings, then there must be more clarity in the x-rays sent for evaluation. Poor raw materials make for a poor tool.

Whether one really likes to think on it or not, even the most measured methods of x-ray evalulation are measured by HUMANS. They have to decide where to measure, how to interpret anatomical markers, etc. There is still a lot of subjective evaluation that goes into the numerical grading systems. I recently had a prelim evaluated by OFA as being borderline. The digital x-ray was sent to another country for numeric evaluation and was rated 0-3 - a very good rating in case you are not familiar with the numeric system. Which rating do I accept??? BOTH! The hip bone conformation is very good, but there is laxity in one hip. It was not sufficient in itself to get a high numerical score, because it is only one area scored and the others were all excellent. However, it was worrisome enough to get a borderline rating from OFA, which makes me worry about how the hip will develop as the dog matures. As a breeder, should I ignore the OFA "subjective" rating and embrace the more scientific "numerical" rating? THAT IS THE REAL ISSUE!!!

Both rating systems are useful tools, but how I choose to USE those tools will make a big difference in the outcomes over time. Don't curse the systemn and in the next line say you frequently breed from grade 1 elbows. I have been x-raying elbows since 1991 - the second year that OFA accepted them for evaluation. I have only had 3 litters with an individual that failed to pass elbows. Half of one litter failed on prelims and their sire also failed his finals. That sort of cured me from breeding based on prelims Both of the other litters were sired by dogs that did not have elbow clearance when I bred. That cured me from breeding to dogs without elbow clearances

I have used the OFA tools to HELP guide my selections and have overall been blessed with favorable outcomes. Yes, I still get some CHD, but elbows have not been a real problem in my line when I use dogs that have adult (24 month or older) elbow clearances. This means I don't breed to imports or foreign dogs that were rated at 12 months in another country. Others may use the tools differently, but I like the outcomes I have had and am happy with the flexibility of the OFA tool. As to sleeping on concrete, early exercise, etc. - all of my youngsters are raised in a "rough'n tumble" environment with others their age or even the older dogs. My kennel has concrete floors and they are likely cold in the winter - although the building is heated a bit. I have not had any elbow issues from this environment - probably because I am breeding from sound stock that is not prone to environmental disruption. I'm glad there have been tools I could use to select my breedings over the years so that I am currently blessed with resiliant dogs with strong bones. It was not the tool alone that brought me to this point, but how it was used.

Having had this conversation in depth with several vets, the conclusion we came to is that there is nothing you can do to get OFA to standardize a protocol and explain it to vets that are saying the dog is clear when they say it's not. Basically OFA is saying "my way or the highway" and not even discussing the matter. They took a database and turned it into a money making empire that has caused many breeders to toss the best out the window. Anything out there they want to be the only authority on. Hips, elbows, eyes, thyroids? (I think I would listen to an endocrinologist on thyroid first thank you) The only way to prove them wrong when another vet says the dog is clear is to do an MRI on the joint and submit THAT. No way anyone can argue with an MRI. Granted, it is expensive and you may not want to bother unless you are talking about a potentially important stud dog- in that case you would WANT to know EXACTLY what condition the joint is in. This is going to become a much larger topic of conversation in he near future. While you cannot wipe out gene pools, you must recognize it (elbow issues) and work towards a goal of sound dogs with breed type.

I like that people will say that they had xrays done 3 different times, the dog was a different age each time, and each time a different vet/clinic/xray tech did the film, yet ya'll blame OFA for reading the films incorrectly.

Someone tell me that they had the same vet take the xrays at the same clinic and over a period of time got significantly different OFA readings...then we can talk about OFA doing a poor job.

Different Vets., not Techs. I said I have little faith in OFA. I never said they read the x-rays incorrectly.

The thing that gets me crazy is, one unilateral elbow grade one. Than bilateral elbow grade one, than bilateral elbow normal. One would think with age the elbows would get worse. My question is, how are hips rated, when maybe, just maybe they should pass.[USA}

I am sorry, just want to breed to dogs that pass. Want mine to pass. Bad elbow and you are out. We want to improve and have sound dogs. Alot go to familys that do want to do things other than just show. They want a working Lab. They want a sound family pet for the next 13 years. Do you keep testing until you find someone to say what you want to hear ?