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Frequency of canine hip and elbow dysplasia decreasing in Finland

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Katariina Mäki

By Katariina Mäki

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Frequency of canine hip and elbow dysplasia is decreasing in many breeds in Finland.
The largest improvement in hip dysplasia can be seen in the Saint Bernard, the Smooth Collie, the Newfoundlander, the Beauceron and the Bordercollie. In elbow dysplasia, the Rottweiler and the St.Bernard have improved the most.

Read more about the trends in the pages of Finnish Kennel Club.

Also available in our Downloads section.

 

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    Gleroy

    Gleroy

    Advanced Members

    comment_14

    This is really interesting, and may show a real improvement of Finnish dogs relative to hip and elbow dysaplasia status...

     

    I have however a few (classical) questions: on what proportion of breeds has this assessment been made? Waht are the bias do you expect in such investigation?

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    • Katariina Mäki

    Katariina Mäki

    Administrators

    comment_15

    This assessment was made for all breeds which have EBVs for HD and/or ED in Finland. They are all included in the Table 2.

     

    The improvement has been very slow, and it has not happened in every breed.

     

    Could you explain a bit more what you mean with the bias? We of course have the bias that not all the "bad" x-rays are sent to the Finnish KC. On the other hand, there are many owners and breeders who urge to get those results for everyone to see in the breeding database. And this may have even increased during the years. So I would not be very concerned about this.

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    • Gleroy

    Gleroy

    Advanced Members

    comment_16

    I was indeed talking about this kind of sampling bias. That's really interesting anyway...

     

    When talking about proportion of breeds, I was interested by the number of dogs within each breed with HD results. Does it increase and in which proportion?

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    • Katariina Mäki

    Katariina Mäki

    Administrators

    comment_17

    It depends on the breed. In most breeds it has increased. It varies between 10 % (Finnish Hound, definitely the lowest; an exception in the EBV breeds) to 70 (Flatcoated retriever). Most breeds at this moment about 50 %. For instance Rottweiler increasing from 50 to 60 in a few years.

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