I have been holding my breath since I had Ridley's films taken for her PennHip. Not because I was worried that they wouldn't pass-- I had seen the films and thought they looked great-- but because I was certain the numbers would be so low I could barely wait to shout it from the rooftops!
Today the letter arrived. I was surprised to see her results were .42/.46. Her dam has the best PennHip scores of all Dutch Shepherds in the database. Her dam and siblings also had terrific scores. The sires scores were not as stellar, but still nice enough. Damned if Ridley didn't take after the sire's side of the family! There are currently only 89 dogs in the Dutch Shepherd database and the median is .41. Statistically I know that this isn't a fair representation of the laxity in the breed as few people use PennHip. Heck, there are still quite a few breeders out there who don't Xray at all and instead will tell potential buyers "well, we've never had a problem..."
I will probably have an OFA film taken when she turns 2, just out of curiosity. I've seen the films and they look so darned good, but the laxity is what PH measures. I like her temperament and her drive, the size and the better rear angulation. She has a wonderful full, calm grip. There is just so much to like about her that I was sure hoping the hip scores would have been better.
I do not hide from the results and scores of my dogs, whether it be in trialing or health checks. So there it is. Having seen and owned dogs with horrible, horrible hips, the flip side is that hers aren't bad. They just aren't as good as I had hoped.
