[peppersb]

Great response from Outwest who has a lot more experience and knowledge on this than I do.

My opinion for what it is worth: GET A NEW VET!!!!!

I mean really. This is a pet with no symptoms, right? Does your vet think every puppy should have a hip Xray under sedation!?!!! I can assure you that my vet does not think so.

Based on OFA statistics, about 12% of the standard poodles that they test have hip dysplasia. About 12% are excellent. PennHip does not have a rating that specifically says that a dog has dysplasia. They just tell you how your dog looks compared to others of the same breed. I think that leaves lots of room for an unethical vet to interpret what PennHip scores in whatever way suits him. Sorry if I sound cynical. But I would not trust a vet who was trying to sell PennHip exams on a pet puppy that had no signs of any problems.

 

[peppersb]

yeeks, I did it again. Sorry peppersb! (not peppersby. ).

Outwest, you are so funny. I LIKE "peppersby"! It makes me smile. I think that y sounds sort of friendly and it goes nicely with the sb. So don't stop!

Jacamar, I think one of the issues is that we humans have very different attitudes about how much medical stuff we want going on for ourselves and for our pets. I'm instinctively on the "less is better" end of that spectrum and I'm pretty cynical about the reasons for all those tests and procedures. But other people take a very different approach. And that's fine.

I feel very fortunate to have found a vet who is an excellent diagnostician and up-to-date on the latest in vet medicine, but he is quite restrained in the treatment and procedures that he recommends. So he's the right guy for me. No way that we'd consider the kind of testing and possible surgery that your vet is suggesting. But I know that hip dysplasia is serious, and as Outwest said, “come back and slap me in 9 years if he gets hip dysplasia.”

I totally agree with making sure that you get a pup from tested parents. Cammie's parents were both OFA good. My rescue boy Bob is clearly very poorly bred, and take a look at the way he sits! Not good.

 

[peppersb]

Does Bob have hip dysplaysia? I wonder if there are up to date stats on how many standard poodles do...I'm thinking the OFA (who have found it to be on the lower end of the spectrum) stats might be skewed because maybe more people who are knowledgeable and have a decent quality poodle send their results there? Unfortunately I don't know that many standard poodles so even anecdotally, I have no idea.

Well I think Bob has hip dysplasia, but my conversations with the vet have not exactly used that term. A few months ago, the vet tested him for Lymes disease just to rule that out as a possible cause of his hip problems. Well it turned out that he did have Lymes and the treatment for the Lymes made his hips much much better. But even though they are better, he certainly still has problems with his hips--not uncommon for a 12 year old dog. Our walks are now limited to about half a mile. If we go longer, I take a stroller for him. Bob has always been completely put together wrong. I got him when he was 4 and he was never able to run as fast as other dogs. He never had that beautiful poodle prance. For years, his back legs have looked bowed and stiff. My groomer has even suggested that maybe he is not all poodle, but I had him DNA tested and it came back 100% poodle. Photos below show his bad structure and the funny way that he sits.

On the bigger issue of how many poodles have hip dysplasia, OFA says that 12% of the standard poodles that they tested over a long period are dysplastic (12.2% to be exact). My guess is that the poodles that get OFA tested are generally better than average, because they are the ones that someone is thinking of breeding. So dysplasia in the general population is probably something more than 12%. But maybe the 12% is about right if you are looking at poodles from health tested parents (excluding the poorly-bred Bobs of the poodle world).