Just curious if a dog has an upper percentile on Penn-hip has anyone had them fail OFA? Would you breed a dog that has a high percentile yet has failed OFA (if that has happened)?

Thanks!

Percentage within the breed is not a good way to look at your question. For example, a Bull Dog might be in the upper 20% within their breed, but Bull Dogs have such a high rate of hip dysplasia in the breed overall that the top 20% might still be dysplastic by OFA evaluation.

What is the DI of the dog about which you have a question? If the DI is less than .3, it is highly unlikely to develop degenerative joint disease--whether evaluated by PennHIP or OFA.

Thanks Kate. I know virtually nothing about Penn-hip, can you tell? LOL I was just wondering if dogs that are considered within an acceptable range using Penn-hip will sometimes not pass OFA? If they are acceptable using Penn-hip and don't pass OFA, would breeders still use the dog, even for themselves (I know some breeders will still use a dysplastic dog for themselves under the right circumstance).

Thanks Kate. I know virtually nothing about Penn-hip, can you tell? LOL I was just wondering if dogs that are considered within an acceptable range using Penn-hip will sometimes not pass OFA? If they are acceptable using Penn-hip and don't pass OFA, would breeders still use the dog, even for themselves (I know some breeders will still use a dysplastic dog for themselves under the right circumstance).[/quote]

Both PennHIP and OFA will tell you that the two methods of evaluation cannot be compared.

That being said, after over 13 years of using PennHIP, I have not seen a dog with a DI less than .4 be evaluated as dysplastic by OFA. However, I have seen dogs with DIs .57 (about the lowest 20th percentile in Labs) be given an OFA E and and OFA G.

I really can't say what other breeders would do. I am trying to produce dogs with DIs less than .3 so that I don't have to worry about hip dysplasia. I have not found OFA to be a useful tool in getting to my goals.

I guess what a breeder would do depends on the goals of their breeding program.

Just FYI, Kate, I have a dog that scored .3/.35 on Penn-Hip (at one year) and was later diagnosed with mild hip dysplasia...on the side that was scored .3 by Penn-Hip. So it does happen...and this wasn't just poor positioning, either.

The best thing you can do is to read what it says on the PennHIP website.

http://research.vet.upenn.edu/Default.aspx?alias=research.vet.upenn.edu/pennhip

One thing to keep in mind is that the HIP in PennHIP stands for "hip improvement program". Their recommendation is to use dogs whose scores put them in to top half of their breed. That would be from the 50th percentile and up. (I have only seen one score that came back as "greater than 99th percentile")

I have been collecting scores since my first dog was evaluated in 1994 - 17 years ago. The scores are from my own dogs, dogs of friends and dogs whose scores were listed on their websites. There are now 121 dogs. That is a DROP IN THE BUCKET considering how many labs have been done by now. Under no circumstances should it be considered statistically significant.

On my list, there are 31 dogs whose scores came back in the 40th percentile, which is less than the PennHIP recommendation. The DI's for those dogs ranged from .50 to .58. In that group 16 also had OFA done. 1 was OFA Excellent, 2 were OFA Fair, 1 was OFA MILD and 12 were OFA Good. The MILD''s DI was .56 On my very small list, the dogs that went borderline or worse had DI's greater than .56

So you can see, the 2 do not correspond. PennHIP, because their goal is Improvement, has higher guidelines than OFA.

Good luck with you query.

Good point, Susan, the two evaluation tools can't really be compared--according to both OFA and PennHIP. And I think that this would be especially true when the dog is evaluated at different ages. I can only speak to what I have seen over the years.

I also don't evaluate my dogs until they are 2 years old, and sometimes I forget that others are drawn to PennHIP because evaluations can be done earlier. But the one year evaluation is not a complete correlation with the two-year PennHIP evaluation. I can't help but wonder what your dog would have gotten on a two-year re-evaluation by PennHIP. Would be interesting data.

OFA also says that a mild dysplasia of a two-year old can be re-evaluated. Did you do so? Did you discuss the situation with the OFA evaluator?

Did you use the dog? I think the OP is wanting to know precisely about a situation such as yours, which I have never experienced.

Yes, I spoke with the evaluator, but I knew when I sent his 2 yr old x-rays in that his right hip was unlikely to pass. The vet, a certified PennHip evaluator (though not the one that did the one year pics), was so surprised at what he saw, he took several pictures to be sure.
He had been used, based on OFA good prelims and the acceptable PennHip scores, though I doubt I would make that decision again. He is neutered now.

Superb points, summed up well Joan. I never knew what the HIP part of PennHIP meant. Thanks for clarifying it along with the fact that the 2, OFA & PennHIP; don't correspond.

I learned more from your post than any other PennHIP posts I've read prior that are much longer.

Here is one you will find interesting Kate.

My first Champion, Am/Can Ch BonaVenture Grace Under Fire. Grace had Pennhip done in 1997 at 2 years of age when I had her final OFA's done. Her DI was .62 and she came back OFA Fair. Because I am a person who wants facts I continued to x-ray her hips as she aged. Under the theory of PennHip she should have showed signs of change in her hips due to the laxity in her hips. Interesting I re-submitted her hips to OFA at 3 1/2 and she was upgraded to a Good rating! I x-rayed her every 12-18 months till she was 8 years of age. While I didn't submit them I can tell you she still would have passed OFA at 8 years of age and she was 100% sound. I discontinued the use of PennHip. The goal is to produce sound healthy pets. For me PennHip was not a reliable indicator of a dog that would be unsound at a later age. Just my experience

Susan, What a shame, I looked at your website and he is a beautiful boy. I saw his picture before and always admired that gorgeous head.

That prompted me to see if I could find anything on the OFA website. What came up was 13 labradors whose PennHIP scores are listed. Several had OFA elbows, but no hips. That is not surprising as the owners were probably satisfied with the PennHIP results.

Interestingly there was one dog with Mild Unilateral and PennHIP scores of .40 and .32 Those scores would probably put him in the 70th percentile. I tried to find other information about him online, but nothing came up. I would love to know what his story is.

So as to Wondering's question, would I use a stud that flunked OFA but had great PennHIP results? I can't say for sure. You can bet I would be looking at OFA results far far back in his pedigree. I think I'd also talk to the PennHIP guys at U. PA and ask what they thought. Very interesting question.

Liz, as I'm sure you already know; OFA rates dogs compared to their ages. So if you submit a 5 year old dog's x-rays, he will be compared to the 5 year olds, not the 2 year olds. Same at age 8 or any age.

Very interesting, Susan. So both OFA and PennHIP evaluated him as breeding stock at 1 year old, and the OFA evaluation changed substantially at 2 years old. Did you also do a second PennHIP evaluation at 2 years old?

I know that OFA says that a two year old dog who is rated as mildly dysplastic can be evaluated again. Did you consider another evaluation?

What were the ratings of the offspring he produced?

Liz, not surprised that the two evaluation methods didn't correlate well with the appearance of soundness. Most visible signs of unsoundness don't show up until middle age or later.

Only a little surprised that OFA changed from Fair to Good because OFA is a subjective evaluation. Did OFA think she had improved over time?

Good for you in continuing to evaluate her over time. Followup is so important Did you consider a second PennHIP evaluation?

What was Grace's experience after 8 years old? Was she bred? What did she produce? Kate

Kate, of his offspring that have been prelimed, all have been good. None are old enough for finals yet. I do not have pennhip scores for any of them.

I should correct my earlier statement, though. My memory failed me - something that seems to happen more often, I find. :(
His pennhip scores were .40/.35, with the lower score being the side that was later diagnosed as mild.

Joan, thank you. It was a shame, but the only thing I could do and live with myself. His scores and his OFA ratings are publicly listed on OFA.

I surely can understand the memory difficulties. Have them myself :(

The last time I had a dog evaluated with PennHIP the breed average/50th percentile was .46. When I spoke with Dr. Smith, he was actually recommending breeding the top 40% if your goal was hip improvement in offspring. With .4 approaching the breed average, you probably made the right decision with your boy--though I guess I could also have made a case that you might have only used him with bitches who had exceptionally good hips.

Kate - I never considered another PennHip. Not sure what it would have gained me as PennHip claims the DI does not change. Other than that it may have proved what I have always felt and that is the DI can be influenced by the amount of pressure applied by the person using the device.

Obviously OFA felt her hips were good in relations to other dogs of her same age. I continued to show her in veterans until she was 10 at which point she became lame on an elbow. I did not see physical signs of arthritic hips until she was12. She was bred but reproductively she was nightmare. Produced 6 puppies in her life, of those 5 were x-rayed. 1 OFA Excellent, 3 OFA Good and 1 OFA excellent prelims at 15 months (that dog passed away unexpectedly before 2). I did not do PennHip on her get.

To the person who says that OFA compares hips to others in the same age. Not sure what you were implying?? My point of view is that my vet and myself reviewed the films of my girl at 8 years of age and there was next to no arthritic change. In fact my vet who did the PennHip was pretty surprised how nice they held up through the years given the .62 DI. I stopped taking x-rays at 8 years of age because it was my vets opinion that you should expect arthritic change after 8 years of age due to age - not genetics.

I'd be happy to speak further about my experience via email. Don't want to drag the list down with my one dog. Just thought I'd share my own experience with PennHip as I doubt many people actually follow up with continued x-rays.

I am most grateful about people sharing their experiences, especially because you did followup, which is rare.

Actually PennHIP does not claim that the correlation between 1-year evaluations and 2-year evaluation is 100%. If my memory serves me, the correlation is *about* 90%. So it is, indeed, possible that the 1 year evaluation could be different from the 2 year evaluation.

In addition, my PennHIP vet believes that the time in her cycle in which a bitch is evaluated affects hip laxity--and, therefore, PennHIP scores.

I only did PennHip at 26 months when I did first OFA films. Are you suggesting she may have had a better PennHip DI at 3 1/2 when I did x-rays again? I thought PennHip could be done as early as 16 weeks and the DI was to remain consistent. Has that thought changed over time? I haven't done a PennHip since 1997.

Yes, I guess I am suggesting that she could have had a better PennHIP at a later evaluation.

First of all, whenever you see a test result that doesn't make sense, you should do the test again. Nothing is full proof.

I started doing PennHIP in 1997 too. At that time, it was difficult to access all the research that existed, and I had to talk directly with Dr. Smith to flesh out what I learned from my vet. And lots more research has been done since that time. It's difficult to keep up.

When I first started doing PennHIP, my vet didn't pay much attention to the timing in relationship to heat cycle. But my current PennHIP vet recommends waiting until mid cycle because of the laxity caused by hormone changes.

I can't quite remember the exact figures but I think the correlation between 6 month evaluations and 2 year evaluations is about 80%, which is far better than OFA 6 month evaluations but still far from consistent over time. Yes, 6 month evaluations could change by the time the dog was 2 years old.

Thank you all for your wonderful posts. I am glad to see an interesting and civil discussion though opinions vary. Like I stated above, I don't have much info on Penn-Hip and thought maybe I could gain some more information to help with a breeding decision.

I have a bitch that finished before she was two. She has two specialty wins. I took her in for her finals and they said she would not pass. I did not do a prelim as I was enjoying showing her and wanted to finish her. Now that I have a gorgeous finished bitch, I'm trying to decide what to do with her and if I should breed her just once. She comes from a strong line of good hip producers so I was surprised when I saw the x-rays. I was just wondering by doing Penn-Hip if her score was high enough, if that would justify breeding her. All her other tests came out normal (including her elbows). I would keep the entire litter and do prelims on the pups before placing them.

Open to suggestions.

Did you actually submit the films to OFA? If not I would send them in! A dog I bred was recently x-rayed and the vet who did the x-rays (and has a good reputation) felt that based on ratings he had been receiving of late the hips would not pass. I told the owner to send them in. She also sent me the digital films to review. I told her my suspicion was the vet was wrong and the dog would pass just fine. The dog came back OFA Good.

If you have sent them to OFA and have received a non-passing rating I would wait and have her re-done by a different vet. I don't know who did the first x-ray but positioning makes all the difference in the world and going to someone who has a great reputation is well worth the money spent.

Just my two cents

This is hearsay, so don't bet the ranch on it. I heard that a person who worked at the vet school of the University of Pennsylvania was asked several times to bring her dog so that students could practice taking PennHIP x-rays. Over time, the dog's DIs improved very slightly.

I will be taking 4 month old puppies to U PA for exams soon. I will ask if that is true and also what experience they have with dogs with more than one PennHIP evaluation.

Remember that producing puppy hips involves two dogs, not just your bitch. Dr. Smith recommended breeding the tightest hips to the tightest hips over three generations to get good hip scores. PennHIP is designed, as Joan said, to improve hips over time. It is not just an evaluation for your bitch, but a guide for your future breeding to produce good hips.

If you get a PennHIP evaluation of your bitch, you will have a good idea where she stands related to other Labs, and you could also find stud dogs who have remarkably good PennHIP evaluations who might help her to improve hips over time. But I would want to know where her hips stood in relation to other Labs so that you know if she is worth the risk of producing less good hips in her offspring.

Joan, I am not sure what you are saying is "hearsay." The reliability of 6 month compared to 24 month (and 1 year compared to 2 years) PennHIP evaluations was published on their website. Both are very good (especially compared to OFA), but they are not 100%.

If you are *only* doing 6 month evaluations, you are taking a chance that the evaluation will not be reliable over time. The excellent reliability over time of PennHIP involves adult evaluations. But I think it would be wonderful if you ask questions about the reliability of 6-month evaluations when you have a chance.

The joint laxity that occurs during pregnancy is a pretty well-known phenomena to every woman who has had a baby. Because bitches have hormone changes similar to pregnancy during each cycle (aka "false pregnancy"), it seems prudent to avoid that time period for PennHIP evaluation of hip laxity. Waiting and timing cost nothing and decrease the risk of getting an evaluation affected by hormone laxity.

The bitch I am taking for evaluation today is 3 years old and about 3 months since her last season started. Because my bitches are late developers, I usually wait until at least 2 years old. Knowing that adult evaluations are reliable over time allows me this freedom.

How much influence could physical conditioning have on the DI?

I don't know why these discussions have to be X vs. Y. Each system provides different information about hip joints. OFA evaluates hip CONFORMATION based on what is considered normal appearance for breed and age. PennHIP evaluates LAXITY based on distraction under light stress. Frankly, I want to know BOTH. If a hip is really tight, but shallow, do I want it in my breeding program? If a hip is beautifully formed, but lax, do I want it in my breeding program? Neither system gives the whole story by itself - but EITHER one can be applied intelligently to reduce the problems of dysplasia. Just pick a method and stick to it.

To answer your question, NO - I would not breed to a dog that didn't pass OFA regardless of PennHIP score.

Back to my little list. If you are not confused enough already, the following are counts from the top percentiles. Once again, this is interesting, but the sample is so small it can't be considered statistically significant.

90th percentile - 9 out of 13 dogs evaluated by both systems were OFA Excellent
80th percentile - 3 out of 9 dogs evaluated by both systems were OFA Excellent
70th percentile - 5 out of 14 dogs evaluated by both systems were OFA Excellent

Just back from getting my girl's elbows and hips x-rayed. Although both my vet and I are cautious about any conclusions, we were both pleased by what we saw. My vet did three views of each elbow, including the OFA version (which will be sent to OFA). My girl is 3 years old so I am particularly happy about the way her elbows looked.

The PennHIP x-rays include the standard OFA hip extended view as well as the distraction view and the compression view. (The hip extended view is used by PennHIP to look for any evidence of DJD).

Although it would be easy to send the hip extended digital x-rays to OFA and my girl's hip looked lovely and deep, I'm not enough interested in the OFA interpretation to pay the extra money (already cost me about $550 for what I did). My vet also has not recommended to me getting OFA interpretations.

I have no problem with anyone else getting both PennHIP and OFA. I just haven't needed OFA to produce the kind of hips that I want.

Yes, I would breed based on the PennHIP evaluation if the dog evaluated was at least 2 years old at time of evaluation. Breeding based on PennHIP is what I normally do and has produced good results. But I do not use PennHIP as simply a "certification" to breed. I look at the whole dog package and evaluate the hips in the context of the other merits of my dog and the potential mate. I look for a PennHIP'd dog who could improve my dog in all ways, including hip health.

If I could find a suitable mate that stood a good chance of improving my dog, I would not hesitate to use a young dog whom OFA had diagnosed with mild dysplasia but PennHIP had rated with a DI .4 or less. I have not heard of any other examples where a dog has not "passed" OFA but has a decent DI. I make decisions individually based on the whole dog and the mate I am choosing so I can't speak to general and hypothetical situations.

It seems you have chosen what I also recommend:

You chose PennHIP. Others may choose OFA. Both can lead to lowering the incidence of dysplasia IF they are applied rationally and used with other criteria for selective breeding.

What I hate is all the yappy debate over which one is better. The one you use consistently is better for YOU. In 25 years, the hips on your dogs may not look exactly like the hips on dogs using another system, but your risk of dysplasia will be lowered either way. Isn't that the real objective?

I think both systems are good tools for breeders. Both have provided useful information to me.

Yes, well, the OP titled this thread PennHIP *versus* OFA and presented a scenario that required a decision. The two strategies will not consistently yield compatible results so choices must be made. The reasons you choose one over the other speaks to which strategy you think is better--for one reason or another.

That was what made me pipe in. The very topic makes the discussion adversarial. It leads to contentious posting. I hoped that pointing this out might get a few people to open discussions that are more helpful and less divisive. Both systems have their value and suppporters.

The OP wanted an opinion comparing the strategies, and they were given. In fact, the OP complimented the nature of the discussion.