Help please - hip displasia question

Hi everyone - I have just found out that my Northern Inuit dog's brother from the same litter has severe hip displasia. They are 1 year old this month.

Does this mean our pup will develop it too? His other brother seems ok as far as we know and his mother seemed fine when we met her when we bought our pup.

Any advice will be appreciated. Thanks.

No not necessarily. Do you know the hip scores of your pups parents? Even breeding from good scored parents may not prevent HD because not all HD is genetical it can be as a result of environmental problems as well.
If you are at all worried then you can ask your vet to have a quick examine of your dog and advise you whether he feels she may have a problem or not.
Becky

Thanks. We were going to take him for a general health check and weigh in anyway, but I wasn't sure if they had to xray to tell if there was a problem. I dare say they will have an idea from feeling the joint.
We got him from an established breeder who do quote hip scores on their website but I am not sure what his parents hip scores were.

You cannot diagnose HD except by X raying, I had a BC who had a hip score of 34:34=68 He never had any problems with his hips & could jump a 6 foot fence, any vet that tells you they can tell you if your dog has HD with an X ray is talking a load of tosh.

My first male BC hurt his left hind leg & the vet I saw told me that it was related to his HD, he could tell from feeling his joints & the way he walked ! I had him hip scored by an experienced vet who does many many hip x rays & his score came back 3:3=6 well below the breed median, mean & average !

Even though your dog isn't KC registered you can have him hip scored via the BVA & I would only get my dogs done at a vet who is experienced in doing hip x rays

You need to get him hip scored to know whether he is likely to develop it. The mean average for Utes at the moment is 22, one of mine (Cariad) is a 6:6 giving her a score of 12 (I haven't got Maelona's back yet due to a mix up with the paperwork). I would imagine NI's would be about the same.
I do know the NI's are working on getting it down and trying to breed from parents with low scores, the same as we are. But sometimes even breeding from low scoring parents you will get pups that throw back and get HD.
The GSD people have been trying to eradicate it for years and it is still fairly prevelant amongst their breed, so it is obviously a difficult thing to breed out.

Do you know the brothers score or is he just showing signs of HD. My previous bitch had a high score but unbalanced ie one hip under 10 the other 29 & her brothers were all below the breed average so the vet said this was most likely due to trauma at or just after birth, the fact that she seemed to prefer walking on two feet to four didn't help.(By the way her superb soundness was often commented on in the ring) This could be the case with your dog's brother.I'd have your dog scored as soon as its one year old for your own piece of mind, but remember unless you are thinking of using him at stud a high score need not mean problems. My bitch never showed any sign of a problem until the day she died at nearly 13.

I agree that yes to be sure hips do need to be properly x-rayed and scored by the BVA to know for sure. Vets are not hip experts & often get it wrong.

As for the Utes Breed Mean Score being 22 that is incorrect, the current Breed Mean Score for the Utonagans is 27 according to the BVA with a range of 6 - 106.

The Northern Inuit Breed Mean Score currently stands at 11 (less than half the Utes BMS) with a range of 4 - 25.

Heidi1 if you could please let me know the reg name of your dogs parents & the name of the breeder (by PM if you prefer) it would be greatly appriciated. The Northern Inuit Society takes the breeds hip score status very seriously & knowing this we would like to keep an eye on the line so if a problem is found it can be erradicated before it becomes an issue.

sorry, thought it was 22, was commenting really from memory as I saw it on a chart ages ago. Don't know whether you know or not but the guy who apparently compiles the chart is off sick at the present time so it has not been updated for a while and won't be until he is back.
One dog has had a very high score which has made all of ours go higher than would be expected. We have some good ones in, and more of them are being done now as well, so things should be looking better for us now,(in fact they won't be accredited for breeding without a good score)congratulations on your scores and hope we get to your excellent scores soon!
I know my vet told me that the recommended age for hip scoring was after 15 months of age. I would say that if the parent's hip scores are actually displayed then the breeders are obviously going about things the right way, it is probably just one of those things that happens sometimes.It doesn't necessarily follow that because the brother has got it yours will have it.

Yes for a breed the size of ours the optimum age for a bitch to be scored is 15 months and 18 months for a dog.

Tawneywolf my papers were sent back to the vets too, they forgot to sign them so felt like I was waiting ages for Angel's too, so can sympathise with you on the waiting front. He got a 5:5

well meant to call in at the vet's on Friday after I had been on the market, went to the chippy, had fish and peas, read the paper - and went home!!! Completely forgot about it until Lyn B rang me asking if I had got Lona's hip scores!!!
aaaaggghhh!!!!
As soon as I know (I will deff go on Monday) I will post them up here.
Hope Heidi1's dog is OK. I am sure it is just a fluke.