# "fair" hips? Breedable?



## Taz Monkey (Feb 25, 2007)

I was looking at the breeders website that Taz came from. They redesigned the website with pictures of the [pedigree and the OFA results. Would a good breeder breed a dog who has "fair hips? Just wondering. Taz's dad is still listed on the sight and is listed as fair, while all tje others are listed as good except one female.


----------



## HiTideGoldens (Dec 29, 2009)

There's another thread discussing this same issue right now....I can't remember which one though. (Arg.) 

Fair is within the range of normal, so theoretically, no one should be wary of fair hips just because they're fair. But I would look at the history of clearances in the pedigree regardless of the hip rating of the dog/bitch - even if rated excellent.


----------



## Pointgold (Jun 6, 2007)

"Fair" is a passing rating. I would not throw away a Fair if the vertical pedigree were stacked with Goods or better. If, however, there were more fairs, or relatives that did not clear, then I would think twice about breeding that dog.


----------



## Taz Monkey (Feb 25, 2007)

Ok thank you. Taz is spayed, and I will only ever rescue, so it's not really a concern. I was just curious about it.


----------



## West (Jul 9, 2010)

I'm currently studying dog genetics and I've learnt that hip dysplasia is inherited quantitatively and is multifactorial, so a dog with fair hips, if crossed with one with excellent hips may have pups with excellent or good hips. There's a chance of her having some pups with fair hips and she will rarely produce one with worse hips than her. You'd have to analyse the pedigree to see if the dog should be bred or not nd also control all the environmental factors such as weight and amount of exercise to ensure good hips in her descendants.
Also, dogs with excellent hips may ocassionally have offspring with fair or worse hips.


----------



## HiTideGoldens (Dec 29, 2009)

West said:


> I'm currently studying dog genetics and I've learnt that hip dysplasia is inherited quantitatively and is multifactorial, so a dog with fair hips, if crossed with one with excellent hips may have pups with excellent or good hips. There's a chance of her having some pups with fair hips and she will rarely produce one with worse hips than her. You'd have to analyse the pedigree to see if the dog should be bred or not nd also control all the environmental factors such as weight and amount of exercise to ensure good hips in her descendants.
> Also, dogs with excellent hips may ocassionally have offspring with fair or worse hips.


I'm confused. So you're saying a dog/bitch with fair hips will rarely produce puppies with hips worse than fair, but a dog/bitch with excellent hips may produce dysplastic puppies? That doesn't make sense to me. Can you clarify? 

ETA: not trying to be rude at all, just really confused by your post.


----------



## tippykayak (Oct 27, 2008)

The short answer is this: fair hips are hips with no evidence of disease; therefore it's perfectly legitimate to breed a dog with a fair rating.

There's a lot more that goes into a good matchup in terms of hips, but a fair is not a red flag at all.


----------



## West (Jul 9, 2010)

goldenjackpuppy said:


> I'm confused. So you're saying a dog/bitch with fair hips will rarely produce puppies with hips worse than fair, but a dog/bitch with excellent hips may produce dysplastic puppies? That doesn't make sense to me. Can you clarify?
> 
> ETA: not trying to be rude at all, just really confused by your post.


Sorry, it is kind of confusing. I'll try to make it easier to understand.

Hip dysplasia is caused by multiple factors. Some of these are genetic. But it is not only one gene that determines if a dog will have dysplasia or not. You have several genes that take part. Each gene is composed of two alleles. Each allele in each of the genes that take part in determining the hip quality of a dog has a certain value. You have to add up the values and see if the total is over or under a threshold level. If it's over it, the dog is prone to have hip dysplasia, but environmental factors can enhance or worsen the chances. For example, a dog whose total value is just over the threahold but is not overfed or overexercised as a puppy may never actually suffer from hip dysplasia. Of course, if you have a dog with a level well over the threshold, it will suffer from dysplasia even if you control diet and exercise.
Going back to how it is inherited, a puppy gets one allele from the mother and one from the father. It can inherit the allele with the lowest value or the one with the highest. If wee have two parents with excellent hips, they can produce a pup with worse hips if it inherits the highest value alleles from both of them. On the other hand, a mother with fair hips, if bred to a male with better hips, may produce pups with good hips if they inherit the alleles with the lowest values. Of course, chances are better with parents with excellent hips, but it doesn't guarantee that all the pups will have excellent hips. At all. The fact is that quantitative inheritance is a bit random and hard to control.
It is always important not only to check OFA clearances but also to check the environmental factors like exercise, diet and so on...
I hope that was a bit clearer. I'm only studying it now, so I'm not an expert, but I find it very interesting.


----------



## Bender (Dec 30, 2008)

I find with goldens, they tend to have 'good' or 'fair' ratings more often than 'excellent', as a rule anyway. Border collies tend to have 'good' or 'excellent' more often than 'fair', again not a big deal, just a different breed and how they rate up. Otterhounds for example, you'd be dancing in the streets to get a good, most are displastic or at least used to be anyway.

The rating is only PART of the issue - it's how you raise the pup that is important too.
If you feed poor quality food, take them jogging/running/biking/hiking and really put the miles on young joints at a young age, let them jump in and out of the vehicles, launch off the deck into the yard or otherwise overdo things in the first 18 months or so, you're likely to have a worse hip rating than you could have, regardless of the parent's hip scores. 

It happened to a dog I knew, he had parents etc. with excellent hip scores, and because of all the hiking they did with him as a pup and the poor quality food, he had the worst hips the vet who treated him at 17 months had ever seen, I think surgery wasn't an option at the time, and they kept him alive for a few years before the pain was too much for him.


----------



## Loisiana (Jul 29, 2009)

Flip's mom was fair, but I wasn't too concerned because her parents were good and excellent. Plus his dad was good, with his parents both being excellent. The fact that his grandparents were 3 excellents and a good and his dad was a good made up for mom being a fair in my mind.


----------



## Pointgold (Jun 6, 2007)

Depends on who is reading the radiograph, as well.


----------



## winewinn (Jan 7, 2008)

Pointgold said:


> Depends on who is reading the radiograph, as well.


Or at times, positioning for the radiograph.  We have had just the best experiences so far with a vet who formerly worked for the OFA. He knows how to position them correctly.


----------



## Maxs Mom (Mar 22, 2008)

Ok piping in, you can all shoot me... 

I have an HD dog, granted from a back yard breeder my fault so I don't know her genetic history. However West's post makes sense, I think it needs to be stated that ANY crossing of hip ratings "can" cause an HD pup. However that being said, when the reader read the dogs pictures and gave it a "fair" reading what were they basing that on? Were they seeing laxity in the joint? If so isn't that dysplastic? I guess I don't understand the difference between "fair" and mild dysplasia. 

One more thought Bender says most goldens have fair or good ratings. Couldn't that be improved on? Just my observation and I have no proof to back up my statement but in my search for a puppy, it seemed the show lines were hanging on to the fair hips a bit too much. Sure there are other traits you are trying to work on, but if one pup in a litter is the fair pup, should that be the breeding stock? All this confuses me. I have been told I have a naive understanding. That may be, however once you have an HD dog, it really changes your whole way at looking at things. 

I realize there is no guarantee Gabby won't have issues, I did the best I could with my research to stack the deck in my favor. Both her parents were good, best I could find, and her full sister my breeder did a prelim on and the vet said her xrays looked better than her moms. So I have that as hope too.


----------



## AKGOLD (Nov 9, 2010)

winewinn said:


> Or at times, positioning for the radiograph.  We have had just the best experiences so far with a vet who formerly worked for the OFA. He knows how to position them correctly.



I have had the great luxury of experiencing a vet who is not as well practiced in the art of OFA hip placement and the results came back inconclusive/possibly HD. The result was to have the exam re-run with a vet in Oregon that is almost daily completing X-rays for OFA certification and his comment after seeing the results is they are a Good rating, but will only come back as FAIR due to the original poor X-ray results.

OFA and HD can be affected greatly by who is reading your X-rays and how well informed your Vet is on hip placement. When in doubt re-submit.


----------



## Loisiana (Jul 29, 2009)

Maxs Mom said:


> One more thought Bender says most goldens have fair or good ratings. Couldn't that be improved on? Just my observation and I have no proof to back up my statement but in my search for a puppy, it seemed the show lines were hanging on to the fair hips a bit too much. Sure there are other traits you are trying to work on, but if one pup in a litter is the fair pup, should that be the breeding stock? All this confuses me. I have been told I have a naive understanding. That may be, however once you have an HD dog, it really changes your whole way at looking at things.


Here's my take on it, I'm not a breeder so take it for what it's worth. 

We have a gazillion things we are looking at when we breed. Does the dog meet the standard? Does the dog have a retrieve instinct? Does it have correct temperment? Did it pass all its health clearances? If we take out all dogs from the breeding pool that have fair hips but are wonderful representations of the breed, we are severely limiting our gene pool. If you are deciding between two dogs to use for breeding and everything is identical in every way except one has fair hips and one has good hips, then use the one with good hips. But while we have to be selective in what we do want to use to breed, we also need to be selective in deciding what traits we don't want to breed. No dog is perfect so at some point we have to decide what is most important and what is less likely to cause problems for our breed.


----------



## West (Jul 9, 2010)

I have to agree with Loisiana. While it would be ideal to breed a great dog, who's an amazing retriever with an incredible temperament, who fits the standard perfectly and has excellent hips, it may be a bit difficult to find such a perfect dog.
And with the knowledge that any breeding can produce a litter with one or more dysplastic pups, regardless the parents' hip rating, sometimes breeders focus more on other aspects and can perfectly breed a dog with fair hips. They should always breed a fair-hip dog with a good or excellent one to improve the chances of the litter not having dysplasia, though.


----------



## Terv owner (Dec 3, 2020)

Taz Monkey said:


> I was looking at the breeders website that Taz came from. They redesigned the website with pictures of the [pedigree and the OFA results. Would a good breeder breed a dog who has "fair hips? Just wondering. Taz's dad is still listed on the sight and is listed as fair, while all tje others are listed as good except one female.
> [/QUOTE I just had my bitches hips rated. FYI The owner can check a box to not display the dogs results on the website if they are not within normal range.


----------

