Understanding exercise and hip dysplasia

There is a lot of advice out there about when puppies should be permitted to jump, or run with owners, or begin training for certain activities. All of this advice stems from the idea that hip dysplasia, a common and debilitating joint disease in dogs, can be prevented or caused by our actions.

None of this is true. Hip dysplasia is the mis-growth (dysplasia = dys; wrong; plasia: molding (or in modern language, growth)) of the hip joint resulting in the femoral head (a rounded bone joint at the top of the thigh) not fitting tightly in its socket.

Exercise can neither cause nor prevent this. The disease in congenital - meaning inherited.

A puppy with normal hips can play and jump and do whatever and be fine - just as children with normal joints can play and jump and even do organized sports from a very young age and be fine. A dog with hip dysplasia, as it grows and exercises, because of the laxity of the joint, will be constantly stretching the ligaments that attach the pelvis to the femur, this will exacerbate the preexisting disease and cause lameness.

Exercise did not cause the disease; it, in combination with growth, caused the symptoms of the existing disease.

This is a huge distinction, and one that owners of puppies need to be made aware of. All of the dos and don'ts of exercise in puppies are predicated on this fallacy.

The next fallacy is that we need to wait until the dog gets older to treat hip dysplasia or that hip dysplasia is inevitable. Because hip dysplasia is a disease of growth, fixing it can be done as puppies grow. In fact it is cheaper, and better for the puppy to fix the disease before movement, weight, and age take their toll on the joints, causing osteoarthritis.

A puppy at 10-16 weeks can be sedated by a qualified veterinarian, palpated for hip laxity, and radiographed utilizing the PennHIP method, this will produce a solid understanding of that puppy's future chances of disease. This method is far superior to the current OFA standard (Adams, Dueland, et al JAAHA 1998)

If a puppy is found to have hip dysplasia, a surgeon can stop the growth of certain parts of the pelvis to change the pelvic shape; this allows better contact with the femoral head. The surgery goes by the lengthy and unhelpful name of Juvenile Pubic Symphysiodesis (JPS). This surgery, unlike not allowing puppies to jump until they are a year old, can actually halt hip dysplasia from occurring in the first place. This surgery (in conjunction with full hip replacement) is considered to be the most effective surgical treatment for hip dysplasia*.  A randomized trial of the method showed that 75% of treated dogs showed no signs of degenerative joint disease two years post op. **

Waiting until the dog is older and showing symptoms signs the dog up for a lifetime of pain, disability, drugs, blood tests (to make sure the pain killers aren't destroying the liver and kidneys) and impaired function. Stopping the disease early involves foresight, a veterinarian able and willing to recommend early diagnosis and intervention, and an owner willing to invest today to save the dog's health and their money in the long run.

No one solution fits all cases, of course, Some dogs are born with such congenitally abnormal hips that they lack a joint altogether. These dogs, while likely to benefit from the same early intervention, will likely never have normal hips, and may need more proactive surgery to hopefully avoid a life of reactive pain medication and impaired function.

Like everything else you read on the internet, please take this with a grain of salt. Check the resources provided here, and speak with your own veterinarian. But, be aware, that as I have grown older, I have noticed that more and more veterinarians seem to be falling further and further behind on the latest research. Demand that your veterinarian be up to date on recommendations. Demand that they earn those higher and higher fees that we all pay with better and more up to date information and research. It's the least that we can do for our dogs' futures.

*  Bergh and Budsberg, Veterinary Surgery, 2014


** Patricelli, A. J., Dueland, R. T., Adams, W. M., Fialkowski, J. P., Linn, K. A. and Nordheim, E. V. (2002), Juvenile Pubic Symphysiodesis in Dysplastic Puppies at 15 and 20 Weeks of Age. Veterinary Surgery, 31: 435–444. doi: 10.1053/jvet.2002.34766


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Tools

Tools are what connect us to an animal we are training. A collar, a leash, a halter and a bridle are all tools. Treats are tools. All tools communicate. How harshly they communicate depends on the tool and the handler. The discussion of tools is often tinged with the queasy whiff of religion. People 'believe' or 'don't believe' in this or that type of tool.

Tools can be largely neutral, a flat collar or a halter on a horse are perfect examples. Yes, we can use them to guide an animal, and to correct errors, but they don't have a lot of teeth, and a determined dog or horse will easily brush these tools aside to do what they please.

The harsher the tool the more vehement becomes the rhetoric concerning it.

From my horsey past I can say that I developed a strict set of rules about the use of tools, and always used the least aggressive method to produce my results. I was an excellent trainer who usually had plenty of time, so I had no issues living in my judgmental bubble of superiority.

Then a client bought a beast of a horse. This thing was a tank. Big, bullish and with just enough training to be dangerous. She bought it for her husband who had a bad back. This horse could not pull on him lest he end up in the hospital. They did not have infinite resources of time and money and I had to make this thing somehow safe for this man in less than 30 days.

I started him like I started thoroughbreds off the track and quickly learned that this method was doomed to failure. He wanted to run through me. He was a moose and a buffoon, and remedial work to put the kind of equipment on him that I wanted was certainly going to take far longer than 30 days!

So, do I tell the new owners to get a more appropriate horse? Yes. Does it work? No. Do I tell them it will certainly take more than 30 days? Yes. They spent all their money on the horse.

Do I throw in the towel and break all of my rules and put this horse in a harsher bit than I would like? Yes. Absolutely. Because otherwise he will injure his owner. I chose what I considered the lesser of evils. I could have refused to train the horse, but who does that help? The horse would either sit in a barn until sent down the road, or the owner would have been injured, or they would have found a different trainer who perhaps would have used even harsher equipment.  In what way would the horse have benefitted from my stand for purity?

I think that it is wonderful that there are skilled trainers able to get amazing results with the most neutral tools available. I am glad that there are owners willing to provide these trainers with the time to use these skills to help their animals.

I am not such a purist (though in retrospect I may have once been) as to believe that any trainer lacking these skills should not be training. I do believe that we all owe it to our pets to use kindest tools necessary to achieve the desired results in the time allotted.

Lastly, I want to point out that in the story above, the main point was that had I not resorted to tougher equipment than I felt strictly comfortable using, the animal would have injured someone. In no way am I implying that I would have used harsher equipment in the face of training failures on my part, on a fearful animal, or to speed along training for any other reason. Also, when all is said and done, I still trained the horse using far less bit (kinder mouthpiece) than most people use on their everyday horses, and with less equipment than many professionals slap onto horses willy nilly and daily.

I hope that this helps to illustrate a point. In the right hands, most tools are just that. They form a line of communication. A well-trained dog will no more fear a prong collar than a flat collar if the uses of both are clear to the dog. In a perfect world, perhaps no dog would ever wear a prong collar. In a perfect world no trainer would reach for one first. But until we live in such a world, we need to understand that the religion of tool usage can be as laced with arrogance, judgement, fanaticism, and superiority as any other religion, and as such we should divest ourselves as much as possible from such emotion.  A tool is always neutral; it is the user who turns it into something else.

Please join the conversation on Facebook. Also, you may have noticed the PayPal button on the top right of the page. I have tried over the years to use ad revenue to pay for my blogs, and have failed, so, I am trying a radical new idea. No more ads. If you like what you read, and think it is worth it, drop me a few bucks now and again - if not, no worries - I hope you come back and read us regardless.