Why we don't hip x-ray our breeding dogs

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You’ve probably heard a million times, over and over and over again, that responsible breeders hip and elbow x-ray all of their breeding stock.

If a breeder doesn’t hip/elbow x-ray all of their breeding dogs, then they must be hiding ill health in their breed. These are the cheap backyard or puppy mill breeders who don’t care about the health of their dogs.

Sometimes that’s true.

There are terrible breeders out there who could give a rip about the health of the dogs they produce… who are only in it for the money.

The Dire Wolf Project is not one of those.

We use our thinking brains to analyze health issues in our breed.

We do NOT blindly follow the loud masses simply because that’s what the “collective” says to do.

Instead, we think!

And we share our thoughts with you so that you can use your noggin to think for yourselves, too.

Those who follow us understand what makes the Dire Wolf Project stand out above all other breeding programs.

We don’t mince words or give you fluff answers.

We speak the truth in love so that you can see what is real and good.

Sometimes it’s hard for us to be heard through the shouting from activists and purists surrounding dogdom with weaponized verbal armies to keep you all in line.

We are a small movement right now… so many don’t see us as too much of a threat at the moment, but when our message gets out… we know there will be HUGE backlash.

From time to time we are targeted, so we know how evil and divisive the opposition is.

Mandatory “hip and elbow x-rays” is believed by many.

If you are in that camp, we don’t really blame you.

It is, after all, what the system wants you to believe.

All breeders who want to be applauded and given the imaginary “responsible breeder” award fall right in line, whether they need toor not.

But let me share the truth with you, as I did in an entire chapter of the Dire Wolf Project: Creating an Extraordinary Dog Breed book.

OFA is 0% effective at predicting hip/elbow issues in a dog’s offspring.

OFA can ONLY tell if a dog currently has hip/elbow dysplasia, not whether said dog will get it in the future.

PennHip is more accurate.

A 2010 study found that many dogs judged as clinically normal on OFA radiographs demonstrate laxity on PennHip radiographs, including 52% of dogs with hips that were ranked “excellent” on OFA radiographs. (1)

Can you imagine eliminating 52% of the “excellent” ranked dogs from a rare breed’s gene pool simply because PennHip’s scores said so?

If you didn’t know, PennHip gives a score based on the average score of the breed as a whole.

The directive set forth by those in authority, such as Direct Veterinary Surgery, state, “the optimal plan is to choose parents with hip scores significantly better than the average hip scores for the breed.”

This sounds great on paper, but not in reality.

How many countless dogs without any hip dysplasia have been stricken from a breeding program because of a score from OFA or PennHip?

Well-meaning breeders, including myself, have eliminated sound dogs from the gene pool because of this hip/elbow scoring NONSENSE!

They want you to fear a breeder who does not hip/elbow x-ray every single breeding dog.

This narrative that the collective has been able to radicalize and mandate is absolutely ridiculous.

We do NOT comply!

If that’s a problem for you, thanks for checking in. There are many other dog breeds to choose from who will tow the collective line.

And despite NOT hip/elbow x-raying all of our breeding stock, hip/elbow dysplasia is extremely low in our breed.

In the last 8 years, we have a reported incidence rate of elbow dysplasia at 0.2% (1 dog in 2017).

In the last 8 years, we have a reported incidence rate of hip dysplasia at 0.7% (3 dogs, one of which was a first generation from a purebred German Shepherd Dog).

How is that possible??

How can that be?

Surely, we must be lying, right?

People who subscribe to the narrative mandated by the system cannot understand. There has to be a sinister reason, because in their minds only conforming breeders can possibly show an extremely low level of hip/elbow dysplasia in the breed… especially when our dogs come from breeds with high levels of hip/elbow dysplasia.

Here’s another truth bomb for you.

Reality says otherwise.

Guess what?

There is actually something to our claim that function follows form.

What about all those wolves, coyotes, and fox in the wild?

They don’t get their hips/elbows x-rayed before they decide to produce young.

How is it that those animals aren’t riddled with joint issues?

They could develop hip/elbow issues years after they have produced many litters.

Where are all the wild canids running around with hip/elbow dysplasia?

They don’t have hip/elbow dysplasia because they aren’t bred for EXTREME LOOKS.

Wild animals are bred for superior health above ALL else.

They have to be healthy. Nature demands it.

Guess what else?

That’s exactly what the Dire Wolf Project does.

We breed for health above ALL else.

Nothing else matters if we don’t have great health.

When health issues arise, we work to find where it is carried and then eliminate it from the lines.

If we had a significant level of hip/elbow dysplasia in our breed, we would figure out where it entered and ELIMINATE it by any and all means possible as quickly as we can.

Sometimes that may mean spaying/neutering an entire line of dogs, if required.

It might also mean we informally hip/elbow x-ray our stock (not using third-party scoring, just getting an x-ray) for a while to make sure, but generally, we can tell which dogs have tight hips by watching a dog move.

Yeah… I have heard those who argue a breeder can’t tell simply by observing a dog’s movements.

Those who say that probably can’t tell.

But a good breeder who pays attention to even subtle issues with overall health of their dogs can tell.

Just look at the low percentage of hip/elbow incidence in our breed as proof.

Oh… but that’s not third-party proof.

Right.

First of all, if you don’t trust your breeder, what are you doing here?

Second, if you don’t believe the Dire Wolf Project’s meticulous health reporting, you are free to spend your own money to find out. We take donations. If you want to pay for hip/elbow x-rays for our dogs, we are happy to prove our work.

You could also just talk to the thousands of American Dirus owners, too.

As I state in my book, no amount of proof is good enough for a skeptic.

If you don’t have an open-mind, this is not the place for you.

We don’t follow the collective… the loudest voices… the system.

We use our brains and think through the issues we face.

It is an entirely different way of breeding that mimics nature.

The reason is because breeding for the whole health of a dog, including structure, form, stamina, etc. naturally eliminates many of the structural issues that arise when dog breeders focus on winning arbitrary points in the show ring.

Bottom line: If you must have third-party proof of hip/elbow x-rays, you won’t find it here.

You will only find healthy dogs living wonderful, full lives, as God intended.

If you want to really delve into the arguments for why we donot hip/elbow x-ray all of our breeding dogs, get the book.

With 387 pages teeming with information, you will come away with a very different understanding of dog breeding.

The information provided in this book took one woman a lifetime to develop and another woman twelve years to fully understand.

https://www.amazon.com/Dire-Wolf-Project-Creating-Extraordinary/dp/1950333019

1.    Powers MY, Karbe GT, Gergor TP, et al.Evaluation of the relationship between Orthopedic Foundation for Animals’ hipjoin scores and PennHIP distraction index values in dogs. J Am Vet Med Assoc.2010;237(5):532-541

Jennifer Stoeckl is the co-founder of the Dire Wolf Project, founder of the DireWolf Guardians American Dirus Dog Training Program, and owner/operator of DireWolf Dogs of Vallecito. She lives in the beautiful inland northwest among the Ponderosa pine forests with her pack of American Dirus dogs.