Ah, maybe that was the 2005 doc, over a year ago? The breed mean is now 16

in which case its improved which is good.

As many have pointed out I wouldn't get too hung up about hip scores and breeding, by all means take them into consideration, but also consider the breeding dogs age, type of breed, and general health and circumstances.

Many have the hip scores done when the dog is still young and some breeds take longer to fully develop so the scores can become meaningless.

Our Doberman bitch was done late on when she was 4 just prior to breeding, the scores were not bad but above the average, naturally we were disapointed but when we investigated more we found the general trend was to score dogs when not fully developed.

We also took into consideration various other factors, like the fact she had been raised by us in a house with laminate flooring (we now realise the mistake!! ), also she had injured herself countless times leaping off high banks as she is a bit batty like that, and she had been hit by a Vauxhall Frontera and had many similar accidents where she had likely suffered trauma to the hips, she had also been engaged twice weekly in agility and competition, which can present some injuries.

The male had not been scored, but was reputable breeder, his excercise consisted of running a treadmill every day and he was younger and I would reckon that his hip scores would have been very good.

The resulting litter was great, one particular owner of a pup was an ex vet and a stickler for the rules and had the dog hip scored when the pup was older and they were excellent.

So the moral of the story is take note of hip scores, but don't be fooled by just numbers as there are a lot of other factors to take into consideration