64 Saber Tails Summer 2017

Petit Basset Griffon Vendéen Club of America

other health considerations when planning a breeding or 

acquiring a pup, we need more data, not less. 
For your average non-athletic PBGV, hip dysplasia may 

not have health consequences until the dog’s senior 

years, when joint degeneration can lead to painful ar-

thritis. The only data we have in PBGVs comes from the 

2011 Health Survey, which showed bone/joint problems 

in 11.6% of the dogs. But that survey does not allow us 

to correlate an earlier hip dysplasia evaluation with later 

arthritis. Fortunately, we can glean some information on 

this matter from the Swedish dog population. This is pos-

sible because 75% of Swedish dogs are covered by health 

insurance and these health records can be mined for as-

sociations between hip status and veterinary care. Toward 

that end, Malm et al. (2010) studied the health records 

of 30,000 dogs of 5 prevalent breeds in Sweden (one of 

which was the Labrador Retriever, which is ranked #92 

in the U.S., right next to PBGVs). They found that the “ef-

fect of hip status was highly significant (P<0.001) for both 

life and veterinary claims related to HD [hip dysplasia] in 

all five breeds with increased hazard ratio for deteriorat-

ing hip status. Dogs with moderate or severe hip status 

at screening had a markedly increased hazard of HD-re-

lated veterinary care and mortality compared with dogs 

assessed as free or mild.” In other words, they found that 

dogs who were graded with moderate or severe hip sta-

tus were more likely to need veterinary care than those 

graded as free or mild. From this article, I learned that the 

Swedish Kennel Club takes hip dysplasia very seriously. 

Malm (2010) writes, “Genetic control programs imple-

mented by the SKC [Swedish Kennel Club] in many breeds 

require screening of all breeding animals and in several of 

these breeds only dogs with normal hip status (FCI grade 

A or B) are accepted for breeding. The use of dogs graded 

as dysplastic in breeding is unusual in most breeds and 

the Swedish breed clubs for breeds included in this study 

recommend to use for breeding only dogs with normal 

hip status.”
For athletic PBGVs and couch potatoes alike, it is impor-

tant to breed away from dysplastic hips. At this time, the 

OFA database shows that only 3 PBGVs have moderate 

dysplasia and 12 have mild. But we must keep in mind that 

Keller et al. (2011) showed that when the sire and dam 

have fair hips, 20% of their progeny will have dysplastic 

hips. At this time, we have 211 PBGVs with fair hips! Mat-

ing a dog with fair hips to one with good or excellent hips 

reduces the chances of dysplasia in offspring. Without the 

appropriate data, whether a prospective mate’s hips are 

excellent, good, or fair cannot be entered into the mate 

selection equation.
When PBGVs were a CHIC breed, no one was forced to car-

ry out hip dysplasia evaluations on their dogs, but a dog 

could not get the special CHIC stamp of approval without 

that evaluation. Being part of CHIC was an incentive to do 

the test. There is no question that hip evaluations are ex-

pensive, but those dollars help us to keep hip dysplasia a 

minor health concern in the breed. 
In their decision to withdraw from CHIC, the Club Board 

noted that other breeds participating in CHIC do not in-

clude hip testing as a requirement. The implication being, 

why should we have to do this if they don’t. I must say that 

I tried that argument with my mother a lot when I was 

a teenager and it never worked. One example that the 

Board gave of a breed without a hip evaluation require-

ment was the Basset Hound. When I asked Dr. Bell about 

this, he said it would be great if the Basset Hound club 

asked for hips to be included as a CHIC test, but all they 

asked for was the eye exam and gonioscopy (for glau-

coma). Even with those few requirements, only 14 Basset 

Hounds currently qualify as CHIC dogs. By comparison, 

over 300 PBGVs qualify as CHIC dogs. We should be proud 

of that! Given the prevalence of hip dysplasia in the Basset 

Hound (ranked #12 with 39.5% dysplastic), this should be 

a required test for Basset Hounds and, indeed, the Bas-

set Hound Club of America lists radiographs of hips and 

elbows as tests that Basset Hound breeders should use 

in their selection of dogs for breeding. As another com-

parison, the OFA database shows that, over the years, 

hip evaluations have been submitted for only 135 Bas-

set Hounds, as compared to over 700 PBGVs. I think that 

we should aspire to be a breed club with strong health 

consciousness, not one that merely meets the minimum 

requirements.
As noted above, PBGVs have hip dysplasia but it is not a 

paramount problem in the breed, like POAG is; however, 

that could change quickly under the influence of a popu-

lar sire with fair or mildly dysplastic hips. It is too late to 

evaluate a dog’s hips after he has become a popular sire. 

One cannot grade a hip just by watching the dog gait. 

Without ongoing hip evaluations, we will have no way to 

know what is happening in the breed over time.
On a side note, there was another issue raised in Dr. Bell’s 

seminar that I wish the Club’s Board had been present to 

discuss; that is, we are a shrinking breed. Dr. Bell showed 

that 323 PBGVs were registered with AKC in the year 1995, 

273 in 2000, 289 in 2005, 186 in 2010, and 132 in 2015. 

He explained that healthy breeds require expanding, or 

large stable, populations so that breeders have increased 

choices for selection. Unfortunately, the PBGV population 

is contracting. One consequence of population contrac-

tion is a loss of breed diversity. In other words, there is 

the potential to lose superior breeding dogs. In his recent 

analysis of the Bearded Collie, which is also suffering from 

population contraction, Dr. Bell advised, “it is very impor-

tant that breeders increase their matings and that new 

breeders are recruited to halt the genetic drain on the 

gene pool” (Bell, 2017). Dr. Bell gave the same advice to 

his audience at the 2016 PBGVCA National. This is an im-

portant issue that should be addressed.
Many PBGV owners who trot around the conformation 

ring, run the agility course, and chase after hounds on 

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