If you go back as far as the 1930's and
earlier, you will not to be able to find any mention of hip or joint
dysplasia or any simpler terms describing the type of problems dogs
face today. There were plenty of vets evaluating canine health,
universities doing research, and breed associations in the US and
Europe,
all studying, evaluating, and compiling
information and empirical data on dogs. No dysplasia, none.
By the mid 1950's there was a
tremendous amount of concern and all those organizations named above
were not only familiar with the problem but were already working on
ways to cure the problem. There were some larger breeds in
particular where the problem was present in 70 to 75 per cent of the
dogs.
Now if you believe in some or all of
things like science, breeding, genetics, and natural selection, you
have got to wonder how did this happen. In less than two full
decades, there had developed in almost every large breed of dogs, a
skeletal problem, a genetic malady, that manifested in one principle
symptom, joint deterioation and weakness. This trait mutated from
numerous breeds of dogs from family trees so unrelated and so
unparalleled but all ended up with the same symptom. How could
genetics have converged to such an intersection from such a
divergence of factors.
In addition, there are professional
breeders who pore over blood lines, study traits, compare show per-
formance, and all the activities that
are supposed to improve the lines. They have cross-bred, out-bred,
and in-bred and to contrast even more, there are dog owners who breed
without giving a flip about what they come up with. They might as
well throw all the males and females into a tank and see what comes
out. Eureka, the level of hip and elbow dysplasia stays about the
same. Explain that to me if- you can.
There was in Germany a veterinarian
named Marc Torrel and a scientific journalist studied in medicine,
Klaus Dieter Kammner, who combined their research and study to
produce a book that rocked the canine world. They believed they
found the intersection, the crossroads if you will.
Back to the 1930's and before, there
were no commercially produced dog foods. Pet owners fed their dogs
table scraps and often went to the local butcher shop for bones and
sometimes inexpensive meat products; tripe would be a good example.
These satisfied most of the needs of their pets and kept their
puppies growing slowly but solidly due to their moderate levels of
proteins, carbohydrates, fats, and fibers.
In the late thirties and fhrough the
forties(even during WWII), commercially manufactured dog food came
into its' own and more and more people began buying their dog food at
the grocery store. These dog foods were grain based and had little
if any meat in them and when they did, it was low quality meat
by-products and the extrusion process that developed made it so the
dogs could be sustained on grains and processing left overs.
The growth of grain based doog food was
a superhighway to convenience and profits but it should have been
recognized as four way stop for progress in the canine world.
These dog foods were very high
carbohydrate and high protein causing the young dogs to grow much
faster and larger. This was something that made the dog owners and
breeders happy but there was a problem that was below the radar. The
dogs were growing faster and larger but their bones and in particular
their joints did not develop as they had in the past. The strength
and the bone density suffered and then came the problems.
The most critical loss was the
softening and weakening of the top of the femur and also of the
acetabulum which is the three bones that form a cup for the upper leg
ball to fit into. This is more often than not the site of the
beginning of dysplasia because this is the joints that receive the
most stress and are leveraged the most from daily activity.
In summation, genetics is always
important but because of history, feed manufacturing habits and some
other issues, hip dysplasia is a tremendous “man-made” problem
but genetics alone cannot cure the problem because genetics alone was
not the base cause of the condition.
