Hip dysplasia and your Toy or Mini Aussie

Since most people I talk to have heard of hip dysplasia but don't seem to know how it effects their dog or what the chances are they will get it, I thought it was something I needed to share.

Researchers agree that hip dysplasia is a genetic disease. If a parent has hip dysplasia, then the animal's offspring are at greater risk for developing hip dysplasia. While most effected breeds are larger breeds than the Toy or Mini Aussie, it does happen. Remember these little guys started out as a smaller breed, then they were crossed with larger dogs to create a herding dog that could handle cattle. Now they are being bred back down in size and so are the hip problems.

We have our breeding dogs X-rayed by our Veterinarian. With his guidance we determine which dogs are fit to breed and which dogs should not be bred to each other based on those X-rays. This can be heart breaking when you have nurtured a dog until they are 14 to 18 months old and they fail. Some breeders use the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals (know as OFA) to certify their dogs. You will often see this on breeders websites. While this is awesome, we don't do OFA certifiation at this time. The dog has to be heavily sedated to take the X-ray's required to be certified. I am opposed to doing that if we don't have to. I feel very confident in Dr. Bret Whites ablitliy to read the films and he spends a great deal of time going over them with me, using the OFA standards to determine the hip condition of every dog we have.

If you would like to know more about Hip Dyslpasia, including some information about how diet and weight can effect how it will effect your dog if he is pre-desposed to the disease please visit Toy and Mini Aussies.com