# PennHIP vs OFA



## Claudia M (Aug 8, 2012)

Collie - I have been reading up on the two as well in the last couple months. The more I read the more I think I would want both done.


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## KeaColorado (Jan 2, 2013)

Interesting. I am leaning toward doing both as well. More information can't be a bad thing, IMO.


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## Colie CVT (Sep 15, 2013)

The plus side with doing the PennHIP procedure is that one of the 3 x-rays is an OFA style shot! So you get that with the PennHIP and can just get a copy to send into OFA.  I do agree both of them play a part, but I find it interesting that even hips that pass OFA can not do as well with the PennHIP because it really looks at how the joint will function. 

I am glad that I did it with Myles. It also let me know that his right hip is a little looser than his left, so I know what leg will probably have some issues later on in life.


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## Ljilly28 (Jan 22, 2008)

I have had both done on three of my goldens, and the results are curious in terms of discrepancy. 
I am not sure if it bc they measue different things ( laxity v joint formation??) or bc my vet is better at Penn Hip than OFA positioning? 

My ortho vet loves Penn Hip but is cynical about the OFA database bc people do not check the box to report all results..

Meanwhile, I fell like my dogs MUST have OFA hips done, with PennHip optional. I have somewhat given up on Pennhip bc I am not sure how to use the information. Copley looks like a hip rockstar with Pennhip, but soso with OFA. It confuses me.


The dogs seem sore after Penn Hip, so some breeders are against all that pulling on a knocked out dog. With OFA hips, the option of staying awake is attractive.

Copley was OFA Hips Fair, but the best PennHip( better than 90th percentile in both evenly 0.33)

Finn was prelims Hips Excellent, but PennHip 70th percentile 

Tango was Hips Good prelim, Pennhip better than 90th percentile BUT she had bilateral FCP/Elbow dysplasia grade III


Go figure. Copley had been Prelims Hips Good, so I am not sure if it was the positioning or his hips got worse in 6 months, lol.


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## Sally's Mom (Sep 20, 2010)

The issue for me is that Penn Hip is closed mouthed about their results. I need to look things up... And if I remember correctly how accurate Penn Hip results correlate with DJD depends on the specific breed. I think that I am remembering that it is very accurate for GSD'S, but maybe not other breeds.


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

The only two concerns I have about Penn Hip as a puppy buyer and dog owner is (unless I am wrong) - there is no requirement for the dog to be at least 24 months old.... and then I've heard about the dogs getting hurt/achy afterwards.


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## Colie CVT (Sep 15, 2013)

PennHIP is breed specific. Your dog is compared with every other dog who they have tested and the percentile that your dog gets correlates with its place in the group. So the more dogs who have it done the more accurate it will be. So the percentage tells you how much tighter your dog's hip joint is in comparison to others. So Myles has tighter hips than 70% of the dogs they tested. Hopefully that makes sense! The laxity of the joint contributes to osteoarthritis later in life or possibly even sooner if they have a really loose hip. It can be done as early as 4 months, however, you can do it any time after that. 

There is a chance they can be sore after. I personally noticed no change in Myles when I had it done. The two extra shots beside the OFA style pelvis require their hips to be pushed completely into the socket (compressed view) and then alternatively pulled as far out as they can be with the device that has the specific vet's ID number on it (distracted view). The final view gives the numbers that they compare with. 

So ideally you would want a dog with good or excellent OFA, and a PennHIP in the probably 80th or better to really have good form and function if that makes sense. 

Elbows are totally different than hips. You have just the OFA for that one.  If your dog has no clinical signs, you could have a CT done on the elbows to see if there is any bone changes or obvious osteophytes. They can look at the joint 3 ways with that! 

However if the x-ray is not properly positioned and exposed, you can have false results! 

Hopefully that answers some questions?


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## Sally's Mom (Sep 20, 2010)

And the vets who do Penn Hip around here are not allowed to disclose the statistics for the different breeds. I don't get what the big deal is... The vet that I know who does it, says that Penn Hip finds it acceptable to breed dogs in the 50 th percentile and higher... Goldens tend to have some joint laxity and it does not always correlate with developing DJD and having a hip rating of dysplasia.


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## Brave (Oct 26, 2012)

Does OFA grade specific to breed? Or against what would be considered perfect hips, regardless of breed?


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## Sally's Mom (Sep 20, 2010)

Just went to a meeting where Dr. Keller spoke. They do rate the hips comparing within the breed, so a golden would not be compared to a greyhound. He also mentioned several breeds that have a high incidence of radiographic dysplasia but are not affected clinically, so he believes that those results probably should not influence breeding plans. He also recommended that all dogs be sedated or anesthetized which is what I have done with my dogs and clients' dogs.


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## Colie CVT (Sep 15, 2013)

To my knowledge, OFA doesn't compare your dog to others of the breed. They instead evaluate the way the joint is put together and the way that the bone looks. The PennHIP however does, since the reports come back with a percentile. I would need to dig up where Myles's is to show what the results look like. Upside with that method, is you get an OFA style radiograph too, so you can always send that in if you wanted to lol. 

Interestingly, my roommate's GSD would OFA passing hips more than likely, however she shows signs of having trouble with her right hip. She bunny hops when she runs and her gait is off when she's trotting. You really can tell it when she's tired. Plus the way her legs look when she's laying flat down reminds me of my definitely dysplastic past shepherd. I am suspecting that her joint likely is much looser on that side, which can be a factor in what's going on. We saw no evidence of injury to cause her issues. I was certain that hip had to be visibly bad.

There are really many thing that can factor into DJD and OA, not to mention actual bone diseases. Myles has mild DJD in his elbows, and while he showed some signs of pain as a puppy when really twisted on, now as an adult, even AFTER an incident where we got elbow pain, a few days after the surgeon palpated him for me and found nothing wrong. Genetics may play a part, but how the dog is raised and other factors can change things around too. 

Ha! Being on my PC I can dig up Myles's x-rays from his PennHIP









OFA style image









Compression view









Distraction view

Not the best images since I was using my phone to capture them on a computer screen lol. And I really didn't take a great one of the distracted view, but you can see his joint has more space in the distracted view than the OFA style, which is supposed to still have some laxity seen if the hip subluxates any. Not nearly as dramatic as the distraction view. 

My boy was neutered and I so have no interest in breeding dogs, however after Kenai, I'm very interested in having a structurally sound dog. 

And apparently the statistics that they were getting is actually available as of this last month to veterinarians who participate in the program.  I should see if the radiologist that I work for can. It would be rather interesting to see what they've discovered with this method!


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## Ljilly28 (Jan 22, 2008)

My vet could not do PennHip on Copley bc she is petite, and did not have the upper body strength even though he was fully knocked out, and we had to go to the orthopedic vet. He was really muscled. That stuck in my head- how much force must really be used to perform the positioning. I wonder if Copley's PennHip score is so much better than his OFA score bc of the muscle?


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## Sally's Mom (Sep 20, 2010)

For those who don't know who Dr. Keller is, he is head of the OFA. Direct from his notes from the meeting I attended ten days ago, "Due to breed variation by size, shape, and pelvic conformation the OFA hip evaluation is based on comparison among individuals of the same breed and approximate age." So there you have it...

And we were taught in vet school that the hip rads do not tell the whole story. There are dogs with terrible hips who show very little hip pain. A good example of this is a GSP I radiographed many years ago. His hips had remodeled to the point that he had no femoral heads. Yet, he had no hip pain and remained sound and hunted well into his teens. And you can have mild hip changes and have severe hip pain.

I have felt comfortable with OFA's rating of my dogs' hips. They have all been done under sedation and my current oldest who was OFA GOOD is now almost 11.5 years old. She remains extremely sound, just got her CD this year, shows in AKC Veterans Conformation, and just went Reserve Altered BIS in UKC. Even my second golden who was OFA FAIR at two years and then became mildly unilaterally dysplastic was still jumping sound in the rally ring at almost 12 and two weeks before she died from hemangiosarcoma.


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## AmbikaGR (Dec 31, 2007)

The object of doing hip exams is to help predict what they will produce. Really does not matter to me what they compare them to, just that they be consistent and OPEN about it. PennHip I believe is more consistent in that they have actual measurements where as OFA uses a constant changing review board of subjective eyes doing the evaluations. Unfortunately PennHip is not open at all with their results. Big problem for me as PennHip has been around for 20 years now and still not very forthcoming with information. Just as big (or maybe bigger) is the fact that if a person does not feel an xray will clear they do not submit it. It very much skews the results.


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## Sally's Mom (Sep 20, 2010)

At the meeting I went to, many of the foreign speakers were recommending something called an estimated breeding value (EBV). They use the EBV as a way to quantify relatives' information to assess an individual's genetic liability, then formally calculate the accuracy of the estimate of true genetic liability(EBV).


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## Tahnee GR (Aug 26, 2006)

Sally's Mom said:


> At the meeting I went to, many of the foreign speakers were recommending something called an estimated breeding value (EBV). They use the EBV as a way to quantify relatives' information to assess an individual's genetic liability, then formally calculate the accuracy of the estimate of true genetic liability(EBV).


That sounds really interesting but I would suppose the more relatives tested or checked, the more reliable the EBV would be, and vice versa.


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## Sally's Mom (Sep 20, 2010)

Apparently in the UK, they have much more information than we do... Since here, most people do not send in the rads that they don't think will pass... The people in the UK have worked it out with labs and there is good correlation with results and hip and elbow health.


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## Sally's Mom (Sep 20, 2010)

Apparently, The Kennel Club and the Swedish Kennel Club are much more involved in the hip and elbow genetics than the AKC.


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## AmbikaGR (Dec 31, 2007)

Sally's Mom said:


> At the meeting I went to, many of the foreign speakers were recommending something called an estimated breeding value (EBV). They use the EBV as a way to quantify relatives' information to assess an individual's genetic liability, then formally calculate the accuracy of the estimate of true genetic liability(EBV).


Actually I have a very close friend who is among a group of vets, geneticists and breeders that are VERY close to opening a database that would calculate the EBV's for Goldens.


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## AmbikaGR (Dec 31, 2007)

For those with scientifically inclined minds here is a link to a paper about them.

http://www.seeingeye.org/cms/uploads/HowToUseEBV.pdf


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## Sally's Mom (Sep 20, 2010)

Yes, I saw those equations at the meeting I went to...


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## Colie CVT (Sep 15, 2013)

Walk away for a day of work and woo the reply list get long lol. 

I will have to look more at things that were posted. That's interesting about the OFA. I grabbed a booklet thing a few years ago at a conference that explains a lot about the testing and all the data they had in depth. It didn't really mention comparing dog to dog as much as the kind of shape and form that the hip joints should be in, among other kinds of things they rate. I didn't think they really compared dog to dog, though it mentioned something about some breeds getting some more allowances and the like given some unique features. I'd have to drag it up again lol.

The compression view looked like it would take some effort to do. Especially to keep from pushing one side of the hips too far up. Even sedated or anesthetized, depending on the dog and their unique situation, it can be hard to get their legs straight or level! It takes a certain amount of skill to eyeball the way the bones look underneath the flesh, especially on some of those chunky ones.  My day is mostly radiographs and surgery. I'm a CVT rather than a vet, however I definitely learn a lot at my job. It being a teaching hospital is useful lol. I've learned a lot about different diseases over the years.

I do think regardless of clearances, some days it is just a gamble. A friend of mine had dogs who were OFA in good for years in the hips, no signs of dysplasia and one of her females, the last one she had of that line, turned out to be unilaterally dysplastic. Which was the end of that line for her, she refused to breed her. Really makes you wonder how everything factors in. I know my girl with the bilateral lived her life like nothing was wrong.


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## Sally's Mom (Sep 20, 2010)

If I understood things, the EBV calculations would allow for breeding of dysplastic dogs if all siblings were clear and parents and their siblings were clear. In other words, a dog with many known clear relatives has better breeding liability than a good with no known clearances on the relatives....


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## Tahnee GR (Aug 26, 2006)

Sally's Mom said:


> If I understood things, the EBV calculations would allow for breeding of dysplastic dogs if all siblings were clear and parents and their siblings were clear. In other words, a dog with many known clear relatives has better breeding liability than a good with no known clearances on the relatives....


Which is what the OFA has always said. It is just not that easy always to get enough information on siblings and other relatives. I like the theory, would be interesting to see it in practice.


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## AmbikaGR (Dec 31, 2007)

Tahnee GR said:


> Which is what the OFA has always said. It is just not that easy always to get enough information on siblings and other relatives. I like the theory, would be interesting to see it in practice.



Actually it is not theory. Just look at what the Seeing Eye has accomplished. It can be done but too many people like to talk the talk but are not as willing to walk the walk when it comes to clearances. EVERYONE wants a pet with traceable clearances back to the 19th century but when it is time to get the info on their pet it is not worth it as they are not going to be used for breeding. I know of two breeders in my area that are able to screen and choose their families carefully enough that it is RARE they do not get back this valuable info. Some consider them as "controlling" or "difficult" but they don't care as they get a ton of important info by doing so.


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## Colie CVT (Sep 15, 2013)

I'm one of those rare weirdos lol. Myles was never going to be bred, nor will he, but I got his PennHIP done and he has had at least one CERF. I need to repeat it again because it's been a bit. Last summer a lot of money went into his sister so I didn't spend as much lol. Leia had her OFAs when I got her (hip/elbow). I did her CERF last summer, and I plan to PennHIP her once I have the money. All things considered she has some really nice hips and watching her move still takes my breath away lol. She has offspring though, including some that are showing and reproducing. Seems only right.


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## StephanieCG (Jul 26, 2017)

AmbikaGR said:


> Actually I have a very close friend who is among a group of vets, geneticists and breeders that are VERY close to opening a database that would calculate the EBV's for Goldens.


Hello from 2020! 
I was wondering if anything came of this wonderful database idea?

Thanks!


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## Prism Goldens (May 27, 2011)

nada...


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## Maggie'sVoice (Apr 4, 2018)

Never heard anything about it other then this thread so i am not so sure it ever had a real chance.


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