Why can't i get my dog's hip xrayed just because she is not KC reg, according to the vet?

Question

I was going to breed, being sensible i decided to ask the vet to do any health checks needed and was told i would have to ask the Kennel Club's permission first. Why?

Answer 1

The decision to breed or not to breed is a very serious question. In the event that you are not able to find good lovable homes for your puppies, are you going to be willing to keep them? The sheer number of animals in shelters, be them pure-breed or mixed, proclaims that a fair number of people are not willing or able to make that 15 year commitment. Your vet is right, if your dog is not registered with any of the recognized organizations, then it is not necessary to have the hips certified. You will be selling the animal as unregistered pure-bred, not as show quality.

Did you know?

Each day 10,000 humans are born in the U.S. - and each day 70,000 puppies and kittens are born. Put another way, for every person that is born, 15 dogs and 45 cats are also born. You do the math, there is no way we can find homes for them all. As long as these birth rates exist, there will never be enough homes for all the animals from here to eternity. As a result, every year 4 to 6 million animals are euthanized because there are no homes for them.

In El Paso, alone, 22,000 animals lose their lives. What’s the alternative … Let them roam the streets, and get hit by cars, or bullied by children, or starved to death? That is not the solution, spaying and neutering is …

One un-spayed female dog and one un-neutered male dog and their offspring can produce 4,372 puppies in 7 years. For cats it is even worse. One un-spayed female cat and one un-neutered male cat and their offspring results in 420,000 kittens in 7 years. Can you find nearly A HALF A MILLION HOMES in the next seven years? Every animal which you allow to be brought onto this earth is your responsibility.

You Do The Math!

© Number of dogs and cats in U.S. households:
© In 1996 there were approximately 52.9 million dogs and 59.1 million cats living in households in the United States.
© More households (31.6%) had dogs than cats (27.3%), but the average number of dogs per household was 1.69 and the average number of cats per household was 2.19.
© Number of litters a female cat can produce: up to 3 per year
© Number of kittens per litter: 4 to 6 in an average litter
© Age at which a female cat can first produce a litter: 4 to 10 months
© Gestation period (length of pregnancy) for cats: 58 to 70 days
© Number of litters a female dog can produce: up to 2 per year
© Number of puppies per litter: 6-12 for medium or large breeds, 4 to 8 for smaller breeds
© Age at which a female dog can first produce a litter: 7 to 9 months
© Gestation period (length of pregnancy) for dogs: 58 to 71 days
© In six years, one female dog and her offspring can theoretically produce 67,000 dogs
© Approximate number of animal shelters in the U.S.: 4,000 to 6,000
© Average number of animals handled by an animal shelter in the U.S. each year: 5 to 7% of the human population of a community (5,000 to 7,000 animals per year in a community of 100,000 people — El Paso euthanizes approximately 21,000 per year!)
© Estimated number of animals entering U.S. animal shelters annually: 8 to 12 million
© 1 million puppies from households that produce litters, but do not place the pups in new homes
© Strays, about 3.5 million
© Owner surrenders, about 1 million for euthanasia, 2 million for adoption
© Estimated percentage of lost animals reunited with their owners by U.S. animal shelters each year: 4% (cats) to 14% (dogs)
Estimated number of animals euthanized by U.S. animal shelters each year because homes are not available: 4 to 6 million because they are not wanted by anyone, anywhere. Although the number of animals euthanized varies by geographic region, approximately 30-60% of all animals brought into animal shelters are euthanized nationwide. This amounts to 13,698.63 pets killed each day, 570.776 each hour, or 9.51 every minute of every day...

What can you do to stop the suffering?

Spay and neuter your pet! In addition to saving lives, spaying and neutering can also drastically improve your pet's health and life expectancy. The idea that pets become fat or lazy when they are spayed or neutered is a myth. Sterilized pets lead healthier, longer lives. Spaying a female eliminates the possibility of uterine and ovarian cancer and greatly reduces the risk of breast cancer. Neutering a male reduces the risk of both prostate enlargement and prostate cancer. Neutering also will make your pet more affectionate and less likely to roam, get in fights, or become lost.

Answer 2

If she is not registered, she is not a purebred for breeding purposes. But that is not to say she can't get her hips x rayed.
But why breed an unregistered dog, her pups won't have papers, you can't register the litter, and you won't get top dollar. All you will do is put your dogs life in danger and subject yourself to eight weeks of whining, pooping animals. Mother dogs do not care for their pups after six or seven weeks, spending less and less time looking after them, the job of keeping them clean and fed falls to you. If you have a mutt or crossbred of some type, you are only contributing to the excess of dogs already in the world.
Breeding dogs should only be done with the time, space and proper lines. Any other dog that you breed will only take a home away from some other poor stray.

Answer 3

First of all, why would you want to breed your dog if she isn't KC reg? it seems a bit pointless. If you want to breed her..it would be wise to find out if her parents were KC reg, then ring the KC cos they could then register her, but there must be a reason she wasn't registered in the first place, and that usually means bad breeding, which means you would be producing unhealthy litters. If her parents were KC reg, then they should have had their hips scored, in which case you should get a clear idea about what her scores would be.

Answer 4

From your question, it sounds as if you are in the Uk, in which case it doesn't matter whether your dog is registered or not, you can still have her hips examined under the BVA/KC scheme.
Think you must have misunderstood your vet.
Very sensible to get health checks done first. Definitely not sensible to breed from an unregistered dog. What would the point of such breeding be?

Answer 5

If she is not registered there is no sense in breeding her. Her offspring cannot be registered, so you won't be able to make very much money off of them. The only reason to get her hips certified is to add it to her list of credentials, but without papers she has no credentials to add to. The vet is probably trying to discourage you from breeding her, with good reason.

There are plenty of puppies and dogs in shelters if people want an unregistered dog. Please do not produce more puppies that may just end up thrown away like so many others.

Answer 6

I don't know what the AKC has to do with it at all. A vet cannot guarentee that your dog won't pass hip dyspasia.........a lot of dogs can get this(mostly large breeds). No responsible breeder would ever guarentee this either, how can they? Just because the dog may be large breed, doe not mean they will get this. My friend's German Shephard has this, my AKC Labs did not, just the luck of the draw.

Answer 7

Getting an OFA hip rating on a dog has nothing to do with AKC or any other registry. You do not need to have a registered dog to have an OFA rating done. If your vet told you you did he is wrong.
Maybe he thinks you should not breed the dog. That could be true. Most people with unregistered dogs are not going to spend the several hundred dollars to get a rating done.
You need no premission from anyone to get and OFA rating have you vet shoot the films and ship them to the Orthapedic Foundation and you will get a raing from them.

Answer 8

That sounds really stupid - there is no reason why you need the kennel clubs permission - its your dog! If the vet you are seeing won't do the x rays then go somewhere else. Good on you for wanting to make sure that your dog is healthy before breeding. Check with the kennel club if there are any other genetic problems that are associated with your breed - for example, collies are prone to eye problems and can have those tested for. Good luck with the breeding.

Answer 9

What your vet probably means is that you won't be able to get the xrays read by the Kennel Club for any official pruposes.

The Kennel Club runs an official scheme to check for hip dysplasia, which is a malformation of the hip joints leading to a high risk of arthritis. The scheme is mainly designed for breeds such as German Shepherds, Collies, Labradors and Rottweilers, which can be at risk of serious joint problems at a very early age. Hip dysplasia is not completely genetic, there are many factors which can contribute to a dog developing arthritis. However, by checking hips before breeding and not breeding from those dogs found to have poor confirmation it may be possible to reduce a common and debilitating problem.

To get a hip score, an xray is taken of the dog's hips, which is then sent away for official 'scoring'. A specialist vet will look at various parts of the xray to deterimine things like how well the femur sits in the hip joint and the angles of the joint, and will assign points for anything potentially bad. The dog is then given a score for each hip and an overall score. The lower the score, the 'better' the hips, i.e. they are less likely to develop hip arthritis. It is not recommended to breed from a dog who has a high hip score, as the shape of their hip joints leaves them (and their puppies) at higher risk of arthritis.

If you are breeding from a pedigree dog of most breeds a hip score will be required before most breeders will allow their dog to mate with yours. For crossbred dogs there is no such scheme. Traditionally it is thought that crossbreeds are less prone to certain problems, and to a certain extent this is true. However, it is still very common to see German Shepherd or Labrador crosses with significant hip arthritis so they are still at risk. Although your dog may not be able to take part in the official scheme you may still be able to get your dog's hips xrayed before using them for breeding. Vets in your average practice are not qualified to give any official 'score' but experienced vets will be able to give a subjective opinion of your dog's hips and therefore its suitability to breed from.

As I mentioned earlier, hip dysplasia has many factors which can contribute to its development, so just relying on a hip score is never a good idea. Owners and breeders of larger dogs need to pay careful attention to nutrition and weights of growing puppies, and also need to ensure they are not exercised to excess as overweight and overworked puppies have too much strain on their joints, and this can cause far more problems than the shape of their hip joints.

Answer 10

That's total nonsense,if the animal is or is not KC registered has no bearing on getting an x-ray or health check for your dog,i suggest you consult another vet

Answer 11

Change Vets
You can have a health check on any dog any breed no matter what, if it is insured then the cost should be met by Insurers.
Our vet charges about £160 for an xray.
www.eurobichons.com