Should I worry or not on this hip score

[Newbie101]

Hi everyone.  I'm in touch with an ANKC registered breeder who has ticked all the boxes I was looking for in a good breeder and appears open and honest. Due to breeders being pretty swamped with interest there's no guarantee we'd even get a puppy as it will depend on what personalities the pups have around 6 weeks as to who would be suitable.  We are after a wonderful pet, not a dog to breed.

 

But because I worry about stuff, I'm not sure if I should be concerned or not about the hip scores for the mum of the litter mainly due to a potentially mitigating factor (read on) so I'm just doing my homework.  The sire (via artificial insemination) has 2:1 hips and 0:0 elbows and is from a well known breeder with lots of champions (sire's sire is a grand champion).  The dam has 12:2 hips and 0:0 elbows - but she had a bad bone break when she was still developing and the breeder thinks this is why her hip score is like that.  The dam's brother has 3:4 hips and the dam's daughter who was retained from her previous litter for breeding scored 2:5.  Anyway the breeder deliberately chose a sire with very low scores just in case.  I also would have thought that if there were concerns, the sire's owner wouldn't have been willing to let this match to happen?

 

And if we assume worst case and that the 12:2 wasn't because of the injury, are we still only talking a small risk of having issues esp as the pups of this pair would likely improve on the dam's score?

 

Online, there are multiple conversion tables where a BVA 12:2 is a OFA "Mild", FCA "C" (eg. wikipedia) - but other places like the OFA website (www.ofa.org) says it would be an OFA "Fair", or FCI B1 ie a normal rating.  Now that is extra confusing...?

Edited October 20, 2020 by Newbie101

[Tassie]

From what I know, and for my breed, the unevenness of the dam's scores would be a bit of a worry, rather than the total score . (and how worrying the total score is, depends to some extent on the breed average.   It would be good to know a few more familial scores .. good sign that the breeder has shared those two .. although again the 2:5 is a bit uneven.    Can you get a bit of an opinion  from your own vet?  My 12 year old boy (2:2 hips} had a dam who was 6:7 .. sire was low.  But his breeder places a lot of emphasis on familial scores - siblings and other offspring.   And my bopy was xrayed at age 8 .... not for scoring, but by the same vet who took his scoring radiographs - hips were still good with no significant arthritivc change, and nmy boyis still running in Mastera agility at age 12.

TO some extent it's going to depend on what you want for your puppy, but all other things being equal,  it should probably be OK.   Maybe just be cautiouys about keeping the puppy lean, not overexercising etc.etc