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Originally Posted by Sugar's Mom  What age would think would be good to have it done since most vets are under the impression that ALL puppies have loose knees to a degree. This is something I would be interested in doing on all puppies. |
I have knees checked on all puppies at 12 weeks old-- whether they are staying or going to new homes. The exam is done by my vet and it is the same thing they do for OFA but I don't do the forms or pay the OFA fee. In my pap puppies I have had loose knees on two puppies at 12 weeks-- each had one loose knee. By they time they were at the vet for rabies vaccine at 6 mos the knees were tight. Same father, different mothers. One has been spayed and at 3 years old her knees are still tight, the other lives with me and I will have her checked at her first annual exam and on her second annual exam before I would ever consider breeding her.
I have my vet check knees whenever they are there, so annually or more frequently if they happen to be there for a dental or something, and I have him chart the checks. If I were to register the checks with the OFA forms I would probably do it at a pre-breeding check (when they get their brucellosis test). For a male offered to the public for breeding I would register new results annually.
LP is something that should (in an ideal world) be fairly easy to eliminate in a breeding program because it is something that you can usually-- there are always exceptions-- find before breeding a dog, unlike some other heritable conditions (mitral valve degeneration found in many toy breeds comes to mind) that don't emerge until they are mid to old age. However, I have heard of LP showing up in a puppy whose parents, grandparents, siblings and half sibs are perfectly fine, so "flukes" do happen even with the most careful of breeding programs.