That website is wonderful-I learned a lot from it in the past. What I found was 
that some people care and take correct xrays and others could care less. So some 
vets will be offended at the idea of learning from the internet!!!  At my 
vet hospital I specifically ask that Jill do the xrays. She does the best job 
possible positioning a dog. The other techs still don't know as much and some of 
the vets are awful. I walked in to see Maggie's xray results and immediately 
asked if they had done two. I was told: "No this was the only one and I 
shouldn't bother sending it in because she has obvious problems and OFA says you 
should only breed excellents. " I pointed out the poor positioning, and that 
this was a small population, OFA certainly wouldn't expect all breeding animals 
to be excellent. The vet got huffy. She was not pleased when I told her to send 
it in anyway. I wanted to see what OFA would do. 

The OFA sent back a note and said to rexray in 6 mo as they couldn't rate her at 
all. Does that tell you something? 

I had her redone by the good tech and she came out fair. In Maggie's case I 
think what she really needed was a chiropractic appt.to straighten her up but at 
least we saw major improvement in positioning so we saw a truer story.
In the past I have seen xrays of good hips and bad hips and if properly 
positioned it is fairly easy to see what the results will be. Take photos of the 
xrays before you send them out!! It can be quite interesting for your records 
and you can study them alongside the website information. Barbara Hollands



________________________________
From: Merry C. <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Sun, February 13, 2011 11:56:35 AM
Subject: [FARMCOLLIE] OFA and Jarratt line was RE: [FARMCOLLIE] Hip dysplasia

Thanks for sharing your experience!  Now the question is how to get my puppy 
buyers to agree to do OFA... the company suggests pushing for prelims at the 6 
month vet checkup while the new owners are still freshly concerned about the 
health of the line, so I guess I'll try that.  *sigh*  One thing I've found here 
in the Pacific NW is that vets who charge less than $200 for OFA films don't 
know what they're getting into and don't do a very good job without help.  A 
country vet I've used for years irradiated my stud dog 7 times to get a decent 
image only to have the OFA reject it.  So for anyone considering getting OFA 
films, if your vet doesn't do them very often, make sure they read this page 
ahead of time: http://leerburg.com/hipart.htm  I could've saved my relationship 
with that particular vet and Maynard a huge dose to the jewels if I'd just 
printed that and brought it in.  Live and learn, I guess.  


I'm not sure I've heard of the Jarratt line!  What is their working type like?  
:D 


Merry  


> Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2011 09:01:08 -0500
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [FARMCOLLIE] Hip dysplasia (was RE: [FARMCOLLIE] MODERATOR! for 
>Andy Re: Scotch Collie needs a home in OR)
> To: [log in to unmask]
> 
> One of the guide dog organizations breeds their own dogs (others get  
> dogs from select breeders). The one with their own closed selection  
> has virtually eliminated CHD from their dogs by properly applying OFA  
> - which basically means xraying all dogs and applying the results  
> forward.  With OFA the parents and grand parents xrays are important  
> but so are uncles, aunts, cousins, siblings, and the whole broad  
> family so results from OFA are slow because you so seldom have enough  
> datapoints. Still, over time, even poorly applied OFA will bring  
> results.
> 
> I can offer my own experience. My Cally came from un-xrayed parents.  
> At the time her father's line hadn't been bred on, the dogs and their  
> owner were quite old and I was afraid this 50 year family line would  
> disappear (much like farm collie folks worry about the Dunrovin  
> dogs...). Ultimately Cally's father OFA'd good at 9 or 11 years of age  
> - so he certainly had some good hips (good hips at 2 years of age is  
> much easier to get than at 10 once you've put some wear and tear on  
> them...).
> 
> Anyway, Cally had one hip that wasn't great.  I decided to breed her  
> anyway, to a stud with good hips.  Of the 8 pups only 1 didn't pass  
> OFA (he prelim'd fair but by the time he was old enough to be  
> certified he did not pass.). Like his dam it was his left hip that  
> wasn't good.  One of the OFA good pups was bred and all her pups were  
> OFA good. The dog with the one bad hip also fathered two litters and i  
> have a grand pup of his - like her grandfather and great grandmother  
> her left hip is not as good as her right.
> 
> I personally believe in Cally's line (and I've seen this with some  
> other ES where there's one pup with good hips from a litter with  
> mostly bad) that her bad hip came from her mother and its  
> inheritability is pretty predictable - either a dog gets that bad hip  
> gene or it doesn't and if it doesn't then it's gone from the next  
> generation. Not all hip problems are so easy to explain or breed away  
> from. Sometimes it seems to come out of the blue.
> 
> The good news about the Jarratt line of dogs is that Russ fathered a  
> couple more litters as did Cally's brother (OFA Fair, again the left  
> hip the less good one, but better than Cally's)  and there are still  
> Jarratt dogs out there carrying on a really great line ES.
> 
>