Greetings to Those in the Know,

At the breeder’s request, I recently had the OFA hip and elbow X-rays
and interpretation performed. The elbows were fine but there was mild
dysplasia of the hips. My dog is a three year old Welsh Springer
Spaniel.
The question: Are there any activities that he should avoid that
could make the condition worse? Things I was thinking about were
jumping for a Frisbee or jumping from the car seat of a station wagon
onto hard pavement. My assumption is that the less impact stress the
better but it is just an assumption. What is your opinion?
Thanks for any information you can give me.

wrote:
Greetings to Those in the Know,

The question: Are there any activities that he should avoid that
could make the condition worse? Things I was thinking about were
jumping for a Frisbee or jumping from the car seat of a station wagon
onto hard pavement. My assumption is that the less impact stress the
better but it is just an assumption. What is your opinion?
Thanks for any information you can give me.

Great question. While I would avoid repetitive leaping onto hard
surfaces, I'm not sure that jumping for a frisbee on grass would be a
bad thing necessarily. While dogs take off with their rears, they land
on their fronts. And his elbows are fine.

The very best way to help keep your Welsh going strong for a number of
years is to keep him very fit and very thin. NO extra weight on him. And
the more muscle he has in his rear, the more those muscles will help
keep the hip socket in place. The less movement in the socket there is,
the less arthritis will build up. So while I'd say watch your surfaces,
I'd also say exercise the heck out of him. Swimming is good, but also
sports like agility, free running, etc. I actually know quite a few
dysplastic dogs doing agility and doing very well at it for a number of
years.

You might also want to go ahead and put him on a glucosamine/chondroitin
supplement. I like Glycoflex (www.kvvet.com) but you can use almost
anything. It will help increase the lubrication of his joints, again
minimizing damage. Since his dysplasia is mild, I think you can still
have many great, active pain-free years with him. Especially now that
you know and can take some steps to help minimize damage.

By the way, huge kudos to your breeder! That's the mark of a responsible
breeder, asking you to test.

Robin covered the bases pretty well. Especially the lean-and-mean
part.

Balance your dog's need to be active/super-active against the obvious
potential for injury. I'd tend to let the dog do what s/he wants but
watch like a hawk, back off any activity that causes discomfort
muy pronto

I've an 11-yr-old Brittany (very active hunting breed) who came
up lame at age 5. X-ray indicated -acute- HD. The dog lives to
run/jump/hunt. I curbed jumping for 6+ months, then slowly allowed
her to do what she wanted. She's showed no HD symptoms for about
6 years, now. I keep her at about 28 lbs: weight can be critical.

Hollywood produces beau coup horror movies every year. I could watch
any/all of 'em, they'd put me to sleep. When I look at her X-ray, I
kinda shiver and quake. We've been lucky.

Peetie

On Wed, 27 Aug 2008 06:14:04 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

Greetings to Those in the Know,

At the breeder’s request, I recently had the OFA hip and elbow X-rays
and interpretation performed. The elbows were fine but there was mild
dysplasia of the hips. My dog is a three year old Welsh Springer
Spaniel.
The question: Are there any activities that he should avoid that
could make the condition worse? Things I was thinking about were
jumping for a Frisbee or jumping from the car seat of a station wagon
onto hard pavement. My assumption is that the less impact stress the
better but it is just an assumption. What is your opinion?
Thanks for any information you can give me.