Elbow displasia and elbow scoring - particularly in labs

Hi - I am very new to this site but I just wanted to highlight this.

Please, please if you are thinking of buying a lab make sure the sire and dam have been elbow tested along with hip and eyes.

Some of the more notable gundog breeding studs do advertise elbow scores but there are many people out there who are unaware of it.

Hip displasia is, thankfully, being bred out now but elbow problems are becoming more prolific.

My lab (excellent field trial pedigree) was diagnosed at 6 months with an elbow problem. Unfortunately he had OCD and not just a bone spur which could be operated on successfully. I was offered keyhole surgery with a not very good success rate and then of course his other elbow could go - which it has.

I have managed this problem for Toby and he has led a full and active working life - as long as I am very careful with the terrain he works over. One specialist told me he would not live beyond 5 but he is now 7 and just completed a full season

I know he won't make old bones but I am giving him quality of life and letting him do the things that excite him most over quantity of life - whether you agree with that or not is up to you.

But I want to make the message loud and clear.... Elbow score your dogs .... please!

I would hate anyone else to go through the stress, upset and not to mention expense over a much loved dog.

So... got it yet? eyes, hips and ELBOWS!!!


PS: It would appear that this is mostly carried down through the male side but when I told the breeder of Toby's problems she had his sister (to whom she wanted to carry on her line) tested and she got the worst score even though she hadn't shown any lameness at that point. Fortunately this is a very responsible breeder and had her dog spayed - if only everyone was as responsible as that!

My Lab is a rescue so of course we have no idea where he's originally from, and I already have a slight concern about his hips.

But thanks for your post - last year when I thought I'd never find the right Lab for us, via rescue, I did reluctantly start contacting breeders and also scouring any ads for Labrador litters.

I was horrified at the sheer number of people who were breeding Lab puppies without doing even the most basic health tests. These were not professional breeders, but just people who didn't care that their pups might develop terrible health problems.

One woman even told me 'Oh we're not worried about the puppies' eyesight - after all, their parents are both here and we haven't had any problems with them!'.....!!

We have 3 labradors and Cassie who is now 8 was diagnosed with OCD at 6 months. She had the keyhole surgery but has been on Metacam most of her life. She had her elbows and hips x-rayed last year and has arthritis in all of them. She was sired by a popular FTCh and is a good gundog but we have to be careful not to let her do too much. She now has Cartrophen injections every 3 months which have really helped.

When we bought our 2nd lab 4 years ago we made sure that both parents had low hip scores, 0/0 elbow scores, current eye certificates and were Optigen clear. She has had no problems at all so when her breeder had a repeat mating we got her full sister last October.

I wouldn't get a lab unless all of the above tests were carried out on the parents.

We just diagnosed a 2 year old lab tonight with Elbow displaysia. Poor baby is crippled at 2 years. Very sad indeed. Luckily, its unilateral, and her other side in unaffected. Many people have never even heard of elbow problems so its good to get the word out.

The KC/BVA site has a list of breeds with their BMS for hip scores.

They also have a list of breeds which are on Schedule A or Schedule B for eye tests, and which ones apply to them.

Breed club sites will have a health page which indicates what health issues should be considered in their breeds and what tests (if any) should be conducted on breeding stock.

All KC Breed supplements (quarterly) have pages with the names of dogs which have been tested under the KC/BVA schemes and their scores.

If you want to check if a dog HAS been tested and for some reason the papers are not available you can check on the Health finder page on the KC website provided you have either the full pedigree name of dog or the KC reg number.

For those who do not know, elbow scores are calculated differently to hips.

With hips there is a score for each hip and these are added together to give a whole score.

Elbows are are graded from 0 - 3, but are not added, so if, for example your dog has one elbow which was scored a 1 and another scored as 3 the total score would be 3 not 4.

No dog should be bred from if it has a score higher than 1 at the very most.