What does this mean?

[Kev]

On a breeders site, I noticed that one of his Czech import has hip ratings at o/o. I was wondering what that hip rating meant.

[Maria99F4]

hey, i looked this up and came across this, i copied and pasted it for you to read to answer your question.




So much for the history, but how are hips scored, and what does it all mean?

The hip joint is a simple ball and socket, the ball being the Femoral head and the socket, the pelvis. The dog to be “scored” is taken to the owner’s vet who will ex-ray the hips in a specific manner and submit the plate to a panel of experts at the BVA for evaluation. From the point of view of assessing this joint it is subdivided into nine separate features, shape, clearances and angles. These features are awarded marks for any deviation from the optimum to a maximum of 6 marks for eight of the features and 5 for the ninth. (Think of it as loosing marks rather than gaining marks.) This means that a perfect hip will score 0 and the worst possible hip will score 53. Of course you have to remember that a dog, just like us, has two hips so a perfect pair would be written down as 0/0 and the worst possible as 53/53 (The right hip is always the first figure and the left hip the second.) I have to say that there are not that many dogs with absolutely perfect 0/0 hips, and thankfully even less loosing 53/53! Often hip scores are referred to by a single number which is the sum of the right and left hip. For example, a dog loosing 5 marks for the right hip and 4 marks for the left could be written down as 5/4 or might be referred to as 9 total.





And here is the web sight for you.


Information on Hip Scoring for Labradors from Labrador Health by John Weller