Canine hip dysplasia is a sad and debilitating disease that can steal your beloved pet of his mobility. While it is not directly related to arthritis, dysplasia can lead to arthritis in dogs' hips. It is a orthopedic disease that develops and worsens throughout the life of your pet, which can eventually lead to crippling a dog.
This disease starts with a malformation of the hip, resulting in loose hip joints. As the ball of the hip joint bounces around in the socket, it damages the cartilage of the joint. While the cushiony tissue degrades, arthritis sets in, and this is what causes the crippling effect of the dysplasia. Normally, the problems build up as a dog ages, but sometimes signs of the disease can be seen at a young age and corrected before the cartilage accrues too much damage.
Canine hip dysplasia is actually passed on genetically. Therefore, if you can get a health history of a puppy's parents, you may be able to determine if your dog is at risk for hip disease. You may want to consider getting the dog's hips x-rayed to see if the joints are loose and prone to arthritis.
Large dogs are more at risk for the onset of dysplasia-related arthritis due to the amount of stress put on the hips. Thus, many large dog owners decide to have their pets x-rayed to see the amount of looseness in the joint. This is especially a good idea for pet owners who want to breed their canine companions for raising and selling puppies. Puppies can be x-rayed and certified that they have healthy hips.
The Orthopedic Foundation for Animals, or OFA, takes radiographs of a dog's hips and grades the joints as to whether they are tightly-fitted or not. The two main categories are normal and dysplastic, and there are several subcategories underneath each of these. Dogs with normal hips can either have excellent, good, fair, or borderline joints; canines with dysplastic sockets are determined to have mild, moderate, or severe joint looseness.
While there are several options for non-invasive treatment, such as weight loss, physical therapy, and pain medication, the main way to treat hip dysplasia is via surgery. Prophylactic procedures work to stop any further arthritic damage from occurring, while therapeutic methods actually try to fix the root of the problem.
With prophylactic surgery, the surgeons cut the hip socket into several pieces, which they then manipulate to form a tighter space for the ball. They usually add a bone plate to tighten up the area. Therapeutic surgery is more like human hip replacement. Vets may choose to put a completely new ball-in-socket joint in a dog, or they can completely cut off the ball of the femur. This allows scar tissue to form and harden, filling up the space in the hip socket.
by Joseph Devine
