I had been showing bull terriers for almost 20 years before I started showing and breeding beagles. Although I never bred bull terriers, several of my males were used at stud.

I started the beagle program with a female puppy and then added another female from the States, already a champion. Three years later I acquired a young male from Quebec.

A friend, also a beagle breeder, used this male at stud. When the puppies from this litter were about a year old, I received an unfriendly call from my friend stating that her puppy had hip dysplasia because of my male. The puppy had been in an accident, and the vet took a hip x-ray to see what the injury was. The sire had received a rating of OFA fair, the damn was never tested. Another puppy from the same litter received an OFA good rating.

I later spoke to another breeder who is involved in a larger breed who noted that she always x-rayed her beagle males, but hadn't realized that dysplasia was a problem in beagles. At my first National Specialty in 1991 in Mesa, Arizona, I found this opinion was shared. I mentioned hip dysplasia and again was told it was not a problem in beagles. When I started talking of how I had used clear dogs rated both OFA fair and good and some of the offspring did not pass, someone else remarked that they had sent 6 sets of x-rays to OFA and none had passed. Someone else mentioned submitting 20 x-rays without a passing grade on any of them. The conclusion at that time was that the OFA did not know how to read beagle hips.

With the information now available to breeders from a wide variety of sources, we know that a beagle's hips are read no differently from any other breed and these were actually warning signals that there is indeed a problem. Part of the problem rests with only testing the males in our programs. The females contribute half of the genetics, and so need to be cleared as well. Hip dysplasia is multiple allelic mode of inheritance. It is impossible to completely eliminate the potential for hip dysplasia. It is best to breed clear dogs to clear dogs for improvement in the hips. Dogs that have received clear ratings can still be a carrier. This all makes it difficult to predict and impossible to lay blame on any single dog.

Another word of caution that I would point out from experience is to consider the age of the dog you are testing. I know of one that was x-rayed at eighteen months and cleared by the vet who took the x-ray. This same dog was rated border-line at a full two years by OFA and then later failed by OFA when retested at two and a half years old. When retested at six, he received a certificate from OFA rating him "Good". The reasoning for this is that when there is no sign of DJD (Degenerative Joint Disease) by this age, the dog is cleared. These clear results at an older age are misleading when what we are looking for are signs of poor hip confirmation which later lead to the crippling effects we want to avoid. Likewise, this would not be the first dog to look promising at an early age and receive poor results at full maturity. This is the reason why OFA will not certify before the full two years.

Now I check the hips of all the dogs in my breeding program religiously. After my experience with a dysplastic puppy, discussions with my vet and personal research, I have found that if the hips are not x-rayed and evaluated, the formation of the hips in the breed will decline.

Although this sounds overwhelming and unsolvable, other breeds have shown tremendous success in reducing the frequency of dysplasia through joint effort and clear, open and honest communication between the breeders. Different forms of testing and recording results are also available.

Traditionally, the best know method of testing is through the OFA (Orthopedic Foundation for Animals), but recently I started testing with the PennHip method. There are several advantages to the PennHip; you can test as early as four months old, the readings are done by computer measurement designed by an engineer which removes human subjectiveness from the results. The results are in numbers which are then placed on a chart for your specific breed and each hip is rated separately. This lets you measure progress and improvement with beagles themselves. The system takes three sets of x-rays. The first is the OFA view and you can have a duplicate of this plate sent to OFA for a preliminary rating. The second is a natural standing position, just taken upside down and the third is again done in the upside down position with a bar apparatus pushing against the leg and hip joint. This test produces a reading on the hip joint's laxity.

I have attended seminars on both the OFA and the PennHip. Both agree that it is important to have the hips tested and also to have a consistent reader. Dr. Corley of the OFA advised that if you always use the same vet and he/she has the knowledge and is comfortable reading x-rays, that would be fine as well. All strongly encourage submitting both the good and the bad x-rays to a registry as well as accurately tracking the progress. In the past ten years I have tested over twenty-five beagles, some more than once, and have had results ranging from moderate dysplasia to excellent. The effort and expense has been worth it.

Most beagles that I have tested with failing results, live very full and healthy lives. Some will hitch one rear leg every once in a while, but the beagle's smaller size is on our side for reducing severe symptoms. There are many treatments, but the best remains prevention.

Beagle breeders do not have a history of testing for hip dysplasia. If we all begin now, with a clean start regardless of the past, the breed can have a future. If totally ignored, the probability of finding acceptable hips will be bleak.