Hip Dysplasia In A Japanese Spitz Puppy?

[dancinbcs]

OT - but welcome to the JS world dancinbcs - hope you come see us and share pics in the Jap Spitz/Samoyed breed thread

Thanks stonecutter. I have been involved with the breed for about 9 years now, helping to handle at occassional shows but finally have one of my own. You have seen my little Tango on FB.

[stonecutter]

OT - but welcome to the JS world dancinbcs - hope you come see us and share pics in the Jap Spitz/Samoyed breed thread

Thanks stonecutter. I have been involved with the breed for about 9 years now, helping to handle at occassional shows but finally have one of my own. You have seen my little Tango on FB.

Ah - I know who you are now Can't wait to meet Tango out on the show circuit - we've seen him entered on the catalogue a few times.

[benshiva]

. Greyhounds are a perfect example. A Greyhound with HD cannot run so they simply do not exist in the gene pool. Despite their size there is no need to hip score racing Greyhounds. Apart from Greyhounds, HD and ED are very much related to the weight of the puppy at a critical stage of their development.

I would disagree with this, plenty of greyhounds have been bred from that can't run, after all they are the 5th cousin twice removed from the current top dog! ;) Why they can't run is often not investigated.

You are absolutely right there Rebanne.

[Miss B]

Just on the topic of hip scoring in JS, it's something that is done routinely in some of the Nordic countries and I'm not really sure why it's so uncommon in Australia. I have had two JS hip scored so far and my bitch will also be having hers done before I mate her next year.

[JS11]

Hi everyone,

I thought I would let you know what is happening with my little girl. I took her back to the same clinic but saw a different vet who had obviously spent a lot of time looking at her x-rays and showed me that the other vet missed that she was having problems with the joint growing plates (sorry can't remember the proper name). He said it may be uncommon in JS' but that it was very common in small dogs when he worked as a vet in NZ as meat was so cheap there back then that people gave their puppies nothing but meat. He believes the excess protein was the cause of the problem. He gave her cartrophin (sp?) once a week for four weeks. She has been on a huge diet and I have still been exercising her (off lead at beach and park).

Her hips have stopped clicking completely, but are still causing her some discomfort -she rarely runs full speed unless having a good day.

Just out of interest:

The vet said that his 11 month old poodle had exactly the same problem and couldn't walk and can now after the same diet and medicine.

My brother's mate's dog (x breed) had same problem as a puppy, they stopped feeding it meat until it was a year old, it came good in a couple of months. I obviously realise that some protien is natural in a puppy's diet...

So hopefully her hips will be fine, they have already improved remarkably. She is just going to have to go through life as a giant JS through the initial overfeeding as she is still 8.1 kilos at 7 months after being on a severe diet all this time She's not fat, she has a nice shape and you can feel her ribs!

Anyway, thanks for your kind help earlier.

Jess

[stonecutter]

Good to hear you've found a vet that seems to know a bit more Jess

The other thing that might contribute to her size is genetics. When JS were first introduced into Australia, the maximum size was a couple of inches bigger than is now set. You don't mention whether she came from a registered breeder or another source - but breeders who don't show or are not registered often have breeding lines that are the old size. I've seen some JS that were bought off Gumtree that are very large - from old lines (or it's a JS x breed that the seller wasn't fessing up to!)

[persephone]

I'm glad the vet has now given you some way of helping