I’ve scored more hips than I can count, and I’ll tell you the same thing I tell every breeder who rings me after getting results back: the number tells you part of the story. How you use that information tells you the rest.
Hip dysplasia is one of those conditions that gets talked about constantly in herding breed circles and yet, in my experience, remains widely misunderstood. Owners know it’s bad. They know their dog should be scored. Beyond that, the picture gets fuzzy.
Let me try to clarify it.
What Actually Goes Wrong
The hip joint is a ball-and-socket arrangement. The ball is the head of the femur; the socket is the acetabulum of the pelvis. In a normal hip, the ball sits snugly in the socket, moving smoothly through a full range of motion.
In a dysplastic hip, the socket is too shallow, the ball too flat, or both. The result is a joint that doesn’t fit together properly. The ball shifts around in the socket instead of rotating cleanly. Over time, that abnormal movement causes inflammation, cartilage breakdown, and eventually secondary osteoarthritis.
Here’s what’s important to understand: hip dysplasia is a developmental condition. Puppies are born with normal-looking hips. The abnormality develops as they grow, driven by a combination of genetic predisposition and environmental factors. You can have a dog with terrible genetics that develops reasonable hips because its growth was managed carefully, and a dog with decent genetics that develops significant dysplasia because it grew too fast on an inappropriate diet.
The genetics are complex, involving many genes rather than one simple inheritance pattern. This is why breeding two hip-scored parents doesn’t guarantee hip-scored puppies — the individual dog you’re looking at is just one expression of an enormous genetic lottery.
The Breeds at Risk
Among herding dogs, German Shepherds carry the heaviest burden. Breed surveys consistently show rates of significant dysplasia in 20–30% of the population, depending on the line and the country. That’s not a fringe concern. That’s a genuine epidemic within a single breed.
Belgian Malinois are often assumed to be healthier because they’re more athletic and leaner in build. The evidence doesn’t entirely support this assumption. Malinois used in working lines do tend to have better hips than many German Shepherd lines, but hip dysplasia occurs in the breed and responsible breeders take it seriously.
Border Collies are generally in better shape than the large shepherd breeds, but they’re not exempt. Working Border Collies, particularly those from sheep-herding lines, tend to have better hip scores than show-line dogs, which I suspect is a result of decades of selection for working ability that correlates with sound conformation.
Australian Shepherds sit somewhere in the middle. The breed has a scoring scheme and active health committees, but I see a meaningful number of Aussies with significant hip problems in clinical practice.
Understanding the Scoring Systems
In the UK, we use the British Veterinary Association/Kennel Club scheme. Dogs score 0–106 total, with each hip scored separately out of 53. Lower is better. The breed mean score — the average for that breed — is your benchmark.
What the score measures is the degree of observable hip abnormality on a radiograph taken at a specific point in a dog’s life, under specific conditions. Hips must be scored at 12 months or older, and the dog must be properly positioned for the X-ray — an incorrectly positioned radiograph is unreliable.
A dog that scores below the breed mean has better-than-average hips for its breed. A dog that scores above it has worse-than-average hips. Neither number tells you how the dog will actually function, or how quickly it will develop arthritis.
This is the part that frustrates breeders, and I understand why. You score your bitch, get a total of 8, and think you’re done. Then she produces a litter and one of the puppies has a hip total of 22 at twelve months. The score is a risk indicator, not a guarantee.
The European equivalent — the FCI system used in Germany and most of the continent — grades hips A through E rather than numerically. A and B are normal to near-normal; C is borderline; D and E are abnormal. It’s a different way of expressing similar information. Neither system is meaningfully superior to the other for breeding decisions.
Clinical Presentation: What Owners Actually Notice
This is where theory meets reality, and where I want to spend some time, because the clinical picture varies enormously.
Some dogs with terrible hip scores are athletically capable, competing at the highest levels, well into their later years. Others with moderate scores become significantly compromised at six or seven years old. Radiographic appearance and clinical function are not the same thing.
The classic presentation of hip dysplasia in a younger dog — bunny-hopping when running, reluctance to rise, pain on hip extension, reduced exercise tolerance — is something I see most often in dogs between six months and two years old, during the period when the dysplastic joint is inflamed and the dog is growing through it.
In working shepherds, this early phase is often missed or attributed to working too hard. The dog slows down, is a bit stiff in the morning, gets better with warmup. The owner adjusts, the dog compensates, and the underlying problem trundles along until it can no longer be ignored.
By middle age — five to seven in German Shepherds, a bit later in Border Collies — the secondary arthritis that’s been building quietly starts to become the primary problem. This is the dog with the classic senior arthritic gait: stiff, slow to rise, reluctant to jump, muscle wasting over the hindquarters. It connects directly to what I’ve written about recognising pain in stoic breeds, because the herding breed that’s been managing pain for years often presents with far more advanced disease than their behaviour suggests.
Management: What Actually Helps
If you’re reading this because your dog has already been diagnosed, let me be straightforward about what makes a real difference.
Weight management matters more than almost anything else. A dysplastic joint bearing excess weight degrades faster, causes more pain, and responds less well to treatment. Getting a dysplastic dog to lean body condition — genuinely lean, not just “not obviously fat” — is one of the highest-value interventions available, and it costs nothing except discipline and the occasional refusal of treats.
Exercise must be managed, not eliminated. The temptation is to rest a dog that seems sore. For chronic hip dysplasia, restricted rest is counterproductive. Muscle bulk around the hip joint provides crucial support; if you let that muscle waste, the joint is less stable and function declines. Swimming is the gold standard for low-impact exercise in dysplastic dogs. Walking on soft ground is better than hard surfaces. Avoid jumping, sudden stops, and rough play.
Pain management requires proper veterinary oversight. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatories remain the mainstay of treatment for most dogs. Modern veterinary NSAIDs are well-tolerated by most patients, but they require regular blood monitoring — particularly in older dogs where kidney and liver function may be declining. Do not manage your dog’s hip pain with human NSAIDs. Ibuprofen is toxic to dogs. Paracetamol is toxic to dogs. Ask your vet.
Surgical options exist and should be considered. For young dogs with severe dysplasia, triple pelvic osteotomy can significantly improve hip geometry if performed before arthritis is established. Total hip replacement — yes, it exists in veterinary medicine, and it’s excellent — is an option for dogs where medical management is insufficient. The evidence for total hip replacement in appropriately selected canine patients is genuinely impressive. It’s not a last resort; it’s a treatment option worth discussing with a specialist.
Supplementation and What I Think About It
The supplement market for joint disease in dogs is vast and mostly disappointing. Most products make claims that aren’t supported by high-quality evidence. A few are worth discussing.
Omega-3 fatty acids from fish oil have the best evidence base of any joint supplement. Their anti-inflammatory effect is real, if modest. I use them routinely in dogs with joint disease.
Glucosamine and chondroitin have weaker evidence but a reasonable safety profile. They’re unlikely to be dramatically effective but may contribute as part of a broader management approach. The quality of these products varies enormously — veterinary formulations are more reliably dosed than many supplements.
Injectable polysulphated glycosaminoglycans (Cartrophen in the UK) have reasonable evidence for modest benefit in osteoarthritis and are worth discussing with your vet for newly diagnosed dogs.
The various herbal and “nutraceutical” products I’d largely pass on, not because they’re necessarily harmful, but because the evidence doesn’t justify the cost. Better to spend that money on omega-3 fish oil and an orthopaedic bed than on a supplement that’s more marketing than medicine.
The Breeding Conversation
I won’t write at length about breeding here because I’ve addressed it in more detail when discussing health clearances generally. But a few points specifically for hip dysplasia.
Use scored dogs. Both parents. Full stop. Breeding from unscored animals in breeds with significant hip dysplasia prevalence is not responsible.
Use scores intelligently. The breed mean matters. A German Shepherd with a hip total of 12 from a breed mean of around 18 is quite good. The same score in a Border Collie with a breed mean of around 9 is below average. Compare within breeds and against current breed means, which change over time.
Don’t breed from dogs with poor hips, even if they’re clinically unaffected. The radiograph captures something real about joint anatomy. Function may be masked by compensation, youth, or good muscle condition. Those genes are still being passed on.
A Word on Prognosis
The question owners ask most often after a diagnosis is: “What does this mean for his future?”
The honest answer is that it depends. Many dogs with moderate hip dysplasia live comfortable, active lives with appropriate management. Some dogs with severe dysplasia become significantly disabled. Individual variation is enormous.
What I can say with confidence is that early diagnosis, appropriate weight management, consistent exercise management, and timely pain control all shift the trajectory significantly in the right direction. The dog that comes in at five years old already carrying two extra kilos, never been on pain relief, managed to develop arthritis on top of dysplasia without intervention — that dog has a harder road than the dog whose dysplasia was identified at twelve months and managed thoughtfully from the start.
Monitoring and adapting matter. What works at three may need adjustment at seven. Keep the dialogue with your vet open rather than assuming that what was prescribed two years ago is still the optimal approach.
Your dog’s hips aren’t a sentence. They’re a management challenge. And with the right approach, most dogs meet that challenge rather better than their X-rays might suggest.