Orthopedic Foundation for Animals' database
The hip scores and pedigrees used to generate these breeding values originated in the public part of the OFA database. The OFA is acknowledged for accumulation of radiographic data over the past 40 years. The OFA hip scores and pedigrees of these dogs in the database were used for the genetic evaluation. Hip radiographs were taken by a veterinarian with the dog in the hip-extended, supine position according to the American Veterinary Medical Association guidelines and were mailed to the OFA by the owner. The radiographs were independently evaluated by 3 randomly selected board-certified radiologists from a pool of 20-25 with concordance rates averaging 74% over 1.8 million radiographs. Dogs were scored into seven categories: excellent, good, fair, borderline, mild, moderate and severe hip dysplasia. The first three categories (excellent, good and fair) are generally considered “normal” dogs although they will carry some of the mutations that contribute to hip dysplasia. The last three categories (mild, moderate and severe) are considered “dysplastic” dogs. The development of this breeding value web site was made based on our careful evaluation of the public OFA data base for Labrador Retrievers and we have submitted this research to a journal for peer review. This analysis was undertaken independently of the OFA. Before July 1985, only records of the normal dogs were released as “normal”. Between July 1985 and 2000, the “normal” dogs were released according to hip score (excellent, good and fair). Since 2001, all seven score categories were released. The seven categories were characterized into seven numerical scales, starting with excellent as 1 and ending with severe as 7. A numerical value of 2 was assigned to the combined category of “normal”.
