PennHIP for the Win on Reducing Incidence of Hip Dysplasia

[caption id="attachment_14411" align="alignleft" width="399"] Dr. Karen Potter showing one of her German Wirehaired Pointers.[/caption] Host Laura Reeves is joined by Dr. Karen Potter to discuss the value of PennHIP evaluations to reduce the incidence of hip dysplasia in a breeding program. “While yes, I do PennHIP my dogs,” Potter said, “I typically will go back and still get an OFA score on them. So I have both avenues to look at as I'm going through my breeding. With Penn Hip, we're able to have a number that I can use in order to then go forward with breeding and that gives me an idea of if I have a dog with a higher laxity score to then breed that to a dog with a lower laxity score to try to continue to bring the number down in the offspring trying to improve the quality. “What the PennHIP program has done is they determined the laxity score, which is how much the hip joint is able to luxate during movement. We all know the hip is a ball and socket joint and the laxity being how much the ball can come out of the socket. And so when that ball comes out of the socket, in each step, they found that those forces and each concussive force is what we then develop osteoarthritis from. “When we're looking at a PennHIP score, we're looking for a score that is smaller, lower numbers are better. So it's a distraction value saying this is how much we can passively distract the hip from the socket. And I say passively because we're doing this while the dogs are under heavy sedation or anesthesia.” Listen in to take a deep dive into the world of PennHIP scores, how the test works, what it tells breeders and how to use the scores in a breeding program. For additional information on the studies done on the efficacy of this testing method check out this LINK.