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Hi Amy, Welcome to the list and thanks for a thoughtful statement of your ideas on the subject of hip evaluation. It is a touchy subject of course, so I hope all of us will be able to keep our respectful stance toward one another even as we talk about our differences of opinion on this topic that is so close to many people's hearts. > My concern with OFA certification is that by using this as a bench > mark of sound dogs and culling those dogs that do not measure up > that we are losing genetic diversity and opening up the door to many > more problems and diseases within the different breeds. There is no doubt that this can be the case, if it is not deliberately avoided with great care. There are many many traits to consider in breeding dogs and any one trait put way way ahead of others in selection surely could be detrimental to the gene pool no matter how very very important that one trait may be. I would say that for any breeder to use OFA or PennHIP or GDC hip evaluation/certification as a BENCHMARK or sole criterion of soundness is a big mistake. Soundness is much more complex than radiographs can show. However, at this time radiographs are about the only way to see whether arthritic changes have already begun and before the onset of overt signs (clinical signs) of lameness or such. So radiographs, while not by any means the whole story on soundness, can give very important information that is relevent to deciding whether an apparently sound dog is actually has begun to process of arthritic degeneration. Of course, as you have mentioned the evaluation process is not without risks. Sandra N. made the case very eloquently a while back that vets are perhaps generally not concerned enough about the potential effect of xrays on the eggs and sperm. I know my own vets are not "breeder vets" and are therefore look at my dogs with a somewhat different set of priorities than I do. Most of their patients have been altered so consideration of the effects of treatment/evaluation procedures on reproduction doesn not come up that often; sometimes I have to remind them of special concerns. Given that most of their xrays are done on an injured animal that NEEDS radiographs NOW, it may be perfectly understandable that no procedure for protecting the reproductive organs has been already established in their practice. But breeders can request such protection for their dogs undergoing xrays, and surely vets should respect the request and have some method for doing so (as with humans, lead shields?). The anesthesia risk is also not to be poo-pooed. I know that our vets who put animals under anesthesia every day may not always understand this concern. I am fortunate that at least one of the vets I work with is very concerned about anesthesia risks. I was personally opposed to the use of anesthesia for hip xrays for a long time but I now see that for some animals it might be psychologically rather traumatic to be physically restrained for xrays and some may simply not hold still enough, and for some the positioning could cause physical pain. I am looking into going to Michigan State where they do thousands of hip and elbow xrays with sedation and not anesthesia. A remaining question is whether the sedation is just as risky as full anesthesia... but no doubt it is far less expensive. My own vets are currently pretty set about using anesthesia for hip and elbow radiographs. The only reason I am able to take that risk with my own dogs, is that it I would feel worse not knowing about their hip status. Naturally, given the apparent polygenic nature of the disorder, I know that my dogs may still produce pups with hip dysplasia even if they are not affected. I will feel very badly if any of my puppies do turn out to have hip dysplasia, but I would feel much worse if I didn't know the evaluations of their parents. Xrays give me the possibility of avoiding the situation of finding out after the fact that I'd bred together two parents who already had arthritis in their hips but without clinical signs at the time of breeding. Even in a breed where there might be a small and closely related population, and if it is considered by most conscientious breeders as necessary to breed from dogs with hip dysplasia because otherwise the breed would go extinct (such as I think may be the case with St. Bernards and Neopolitan Mastiffs), it makes sense to take the precaution of not breeding two dogs together who both have arthritis. Amy, I'm sure you've thought about all of this as you've given a considered statement of your position. As a caring person, I'm sure you have deeply thought about all this and clearly believe you are doing the best for your dogs. I would hardly expect my own brief statement of my position to be sufficiently in depth to affect your thought process on this subject. However since my opinion does differ from yours, I felt the need to register that with some small explanation of my own. Very best wishes for your puppies: hoping they each get truly great homes and have a long and wonderful life! Gina [log in to unmask]