
Hip issues are something that is very common in dogs, especially larger size breeds like golden retrievers. The Penn Hip is an x-ray screening developed by the University of Pennsylvania to evaluate the health of a dog’s hips and assess future risk for hip dysplasia and arthritis. This procedure is normally done by a trained veterinarian between 6-12 months of age.
Penn Hip measures the looseness of the hip joints and assigns a numerical decimal score on an index from 0-1. A score of 0.3 and below indicates a very low future risk of hip dysplasia or arthritis. A range of 0.3-0.7 indicates mild to moderate risk. Scores above 0.7 confirm that hip problems are inevitable.
Studies have shown that the Penn Hip method is the most reliable indicator of future degenerative hip disease in canines. The other standard hip assessment, OFA, also relies on x-ray screening. OFA utilizes one x-ray view compared to Penn Hip’s three different views. OFA’s categories (Excellent-Poor) are more subjective and less evidence based. OFA screening cannot be undertaken until two years of age/maturity, essentially too late to identify and address problems. Penn Hip requires specific certification training for vets and techs administering the process. This ensures greater accuracy and consistency.
While more expensive, Windy Knoll Goldens recommends the Penn Hip test. All of our breeding dogs (dams and sires) have their Distraction Index scores included with other relevant data on our website. For an overview of the actual procedure, check out this short video. For further information about Penn Hip versus OFA screening, read this article.