# The Limits of OFA Certification



## LaurelCreek (Jun 22, 2016)

I am doing my homework and due diligence before purchasing a GSD puppy. I appreciate the service provided to dog breeders and owners by the OFA, but I have noticed a problem with the data collected that is probably obvious to all of you: it's incomplete.

If the sire and dam are HD-Good and ED-Normal that's great news and a good beginning, but what about siblings? I notice that very few siblings are ever submitted for certification, no matter how high the pedigree, at least that's what it looks like to a beginner searching the PDB.

Is there any way to determine how many pups produced by a dog have gone on to reach certification? The cynical assumption is that bad hip and elbow x-rays usually don't get submitted, right?

Is it any different with the SV, is the data more complete? I have read that SV data is available somewhere, perhaps by subscription. Is that the case?

I welcome comments and corrections.


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## LaurelCreek (Jun 22, 2016)

Thanks to the staff for clearing my post. I spent part of the evening reading the Iceberg Breeders thread. Carmen posted a link to a pdf document that addressed the very issue that is concerning me ( post #143 p.15...I'm not allowed to post links yet). It's very good of people like Cliff, Carmen and others to share their knowledge, experience and resources.

I don't see a problem with breeding out HD, or at least attempting to do so. I've read some people say that you can't just breed for hips without causing other problems. But would it be any more detrimental to the breed than selecting for "roach backs" or "black and red" has been in the SL's? The challenge would be how to do it.


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## LaurelCreek (Jun 22, 2016)

Does anyone have membership in the SV? I'm interested in knowing what information is made available to members for the HD Zuchtwert. I know how to search for the individual score, but members appear to have access to the data that was used to calculate the numbers and any historical revisions to the number.

For instance, I know of a dog at stud with a score above 100 with "a" rated hips. His original score would have been the average of his parents scores which is about an 85. Is any data available on the SV site related to hip scores of a particular dog's progeny that might have caused that dog's score to go up?


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## Cassidy's Mom (Mar 30, 2003)

LaurelCreek said:


> The cynical assumption is that bad hip and elbow x-rays usually don't get submitted, right?


Not necessarily. I think a lot of people just don't bother having their dogs xrayed at all, or if they do they don't bother submitting them to the OFA. My vet's office thought I was nuts when I had Dena OFA'd because she was spayed because they said that most people don't unless they're planning to breed. 

I had Keefer xrayed, but the films were read by my vet and a consulting radiologist rather than sending them to the OFA for an official rating. With Halo, I had her xrays done at the same time as her spay, when she was 13 months old. Because she was under two I couldn't get an OFA number for her, but I did submit them to the OFA and they're published on the site as preliminary. 

All three of them were either Good or Fair, with normal elbows, which was really all I needed to know because that means they're free of HD.


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## Xeph (Jun 19, 2005)

The vast majority of siblings of dogs aren't xrayed because they're just pets.

That said, it's in my sales contract that all animals must be OFA'd hips and elbows, regardless of what they were sold for, and they must be submitted. I also require copies of the xrays.


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## lhczth (Apr 5, 2000)

My contract also states they need to at least have prelims. Maybe 4 out of 6 pups will get done and then a couple might do the final OFA's or 'a' stamp. Many pet people don't care and I am not going to take the dog back because of this. No way to force people to do it.


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## LaurelCreek (Jun 22, 2016)

You all are to be commended for doing the best that you can for improving the breed, your bloodlines and caring for your dogs. In the report Carmen posted which I mentioned above, over 500,000 SV registered dogs were studied. Out of those, only 33% ever submitted x-rays. The author contends that many of these are not submitted because they would fail to pass.

With the SV, I believe you do have to submit x-rays and receive an a-stamp in order to breed a registered litter. I realize this will never happen in the US, but it should hopefully continue to improve the dogs we are importing. 

Fred Lanting's article on the SV Zuchtwert system says that something similar to the SV ZW has been successfully used in the past to reduce the transmission of genetic illnesses in cattle.


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## Cassidy's Mom (Mar 30, 2003)

lhczth said:


> My contract also states they need to at least have prelims. Maybe 4 out of 6 pups will get done and then a couple might do the final OFA's or 'a' stamp. *Many pet people don't care* and I am not going to take the dog back because of this.* No way to force people to do it.*


Agree with Lisa. For me, prelims were sufficient to know that my dogs were free of HD and elbow issues so I didn't need to limit their activities. Halo is my flyball dog, so it was particularly important for me to know that prior to starting a sport. And she was old enough when I did the prelims that the accuracy is statistically quite high. At 13-18 months old, it's 95.2%. So a "good" rating at 13 months old would probably been the same if I had her re-done at 24 months old, and at worst might have gone "fair", which is still okay, even for an athlete. I didn't see any need to pursue it further since I already knew what I needed to know. 



LaurelCreek said:


> In the report Carmen posted which I mentioned above, over 500,000 SV registered dogs were studied. Out of those, *only 33% ever submitted x-rays. The author contends that many of these are not submitted because they would fail to pass.*


That is certainly possible for some of those dogs. But the major expense is having the xrays done, OFA fees are a pittance in comparison, so if someone does go to the expense of having it done, they may as well just submit them to the OFA. Although as mentioned before, in the case of a pet dog where the owner just wants to know for themselves they may decide there's no reason for an OFA number, regardless of the outcome. 

But I don't see why an owner wouldn't submit xrays if they knew their dog had bad hips, which is why that contention doesn't ring entirely true for me. I don't have a breeding program to protect, so it's no reflection on me if a dog I purchased from someone else ends up having bad hips. In fact, I can see why some people might be even more inclined to want the results published if their dog turned out to have problems.


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## lhczth (Apr 5, 2000)

There are dogs in the SV system with much more than 33% submission. Some are 50-60% submission. For example Quardes Staatsmacht has over 58% submitted in Germany as of the end of last year. That gives a pretty good feel for how the dog is producing as far as hips and elbows.


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## onyx'girl (May 18, 2007)

If you do get an OFA grading, it is not required to be posted publicly...so dogs that fail are usually not put into the database. IMO, this is wrong...the statistics should be put out there so there is some transparency. 
Generally if the dog fails per xray, no one would send it in....and if sent in, they do have the option of not having it posted.


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## onyx'girl (May 18, 2007)

lhczth said:


> My contract also states they need to at least have prelims. Maybe 4 out of 6 pups will get done and then a couple might do the final OFA's or 'a' stamp. Many pet people don't care and I am not going to take the dog back because of this. No way to force people to do it.


Which is very frustrating for a breeder...they need this information for future breeding decisions. I had my males both prelimbed at just under a year of age so the breeder knew what they were producing(and because my dogs are working, I need to know). It wasn't because of a contract that I did it but out of respect for the breeder. I didn't send them in for grading, it is fairly obvious to those that are experienced, to read and see what is going on.
It is always a good thing to do if you are putting the pup/dog into a sport.


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## LaurelCreek (Jun 22, 2016)

lhczth said:


> There are dogs in the SV system with much more than 33% submission. Some are 50-60% submission. For example *Quardes Staatsmacht has over 58% submitted in Germany as of the end of last year.* That gives a pretty good feel for how the dog is producing as far as hips and elbows.


Yes, I think that is significant. But according to the doctor who helped develop the SV Zuchtwert system, percentages aren't important in determining the ZW...



> 5. How accurate can the Breed Value Assessment be, if for more than half of the whelps, no HD information is available?
> 
> In the Breed Value Assessment, the percentage of the pups does not matter, but the absolute number. The last Sieger has at this point in time, 91 x-rayed progeny, who characterise his heredity well. In the breed Value Assessment it is not the percentage of the whelps that counts, but the total number! The last Sieger, at this point in time, has his heritage well demonstrated by 91 progeny.
> 
> ...


This chart posted on Daryl Ehret's website gives total number of progeny, totals x-rayed and not x-rayed, and finally the percentage of total progeny who were graded HD-1. It seems like the dogs producing the best hips are also seeing better than a 33% x-ray submission rate, and that makes sense.


http://www.ehretgsd.com/Best-producers-HD1-1.pdf


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## LaurelCreek (Jun 22, 2016)

onyx'girl said:


> Which is very frustrating for a breeder...they need this information for future breeding decisions. I had my males both prelimbed at just under a year of age so the breeder knew what they were producing(and because my dogs are working, I need to know). It wasn't because of a contract that I did it but out of respect for the breeder. I didn't send them in for grading, it is fairly obvious to those that are experienced, to read and see what is going on.
> It is always a good thing to do if you are putting the pup/dog into a sport.


That seems like a very reasonable approach. I spoke with a breeder/vet yesterday who provides prelim x-rays when a litter is produced by a new, younger mother at her kennel. She needs the information.


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