I am interested in our 2 year old blue Great Dane becoming a stud dog in the future. Any info would be
greatly appreciated.

Hi
First off I would recommend you go back to his breeder for advice & support and secondly, if you are really serious about this, I would recommend you get out & about to some Champ shows with him, get him seen, hopefully get him winning, then if he is a good example of the breed people may approach you with their bitches.
But do go back to his breeder first.
Nicky

Hi,

What breeding is your Dane boy, and have you had his hips scored by any chance?

I have not has his hips scored. How do I get this done? As i mentioned before I've never done this before but have been approached by people saying what a great specimen of the breed he is and that I should consider putting him to stud. I have his five generation pedigree papers here. Not sure what info you need from this. You could also contact me on my email at LynneProud@aol.com.
Thanks for the advice.

Ask your vet to x-ray him for hip scoring you will have to take your Kennel Club registration card with you as the vet has to mark the number onto the x-ray plates and check that the dog he is x-raying is the dog on the registration and that he does belong to you. It then takes 3 to 4 weeks for the results to come back and providing he is within or better below breed standard then he will be OK for breeding as far as his hips are anyway. Jackie H

Hi.Just a quick question on this hip scoring.When I got my dane pup ( he's 6mnth old now) His breeder and I have to say a couple of others too said that they didn't have there Danes hip scored as they didn't believe Danes suffered from problems often with their hips ect.They said the problems came from their hearts.So whose right???
Would value your opinion.
Rach

Hi Rachel

<<they didn't have there Danes hip scored as they didn't believe Danes suffered from problems >>

Quick question - if you don't test for something (that is not obvious to the naked eye) how do you know whether there is anything wrong or not?

There were 1,752 Danes registered last year. Up to 10.10.01 there were only 198 (since the beginning of the scheme) Danes hip-scored with a range of 0-59 and an average score of 13 - who knows what the average score would be (for any breed) if all breeding stock HAD to be scored before breeding.

Bi
Christine

I'm not going to breed from Holly but I will be having her eyes checked and her hips scored. I'll then pass those results onto the breeder and the stud dog owner so that they can use that info to make further decisions about breeding.

Fiona
x x x

Give the girl a gold star, if only every one thought like Fiona, mind you it is expensive and should be one of the things taken into acount when deciding if you can afford a puppy. JH

As a breeder I would love it if all the pet ones were hip scored and eyetested, but can't blame then for not doing it when the the cost would be nearly half the puppy purchase price, and most hate the idea of (to them) an unecesary anasthetic!

Now if the BVA were keen to improve hip status they would charge aq lot less for hip scoring!

Hi Brainless

Some conditions can be tested for (eyes) as a litter when the pups are between 4 and 12 weeks old. There are no individual certificates just a litter certificate and the cost is around £25 for up to 5 pups and then £5 per pup in addition to this. This means the breeders can sometimes get them done before they leave for their new homes.

Christine

It is only applicable to the conditions that are aparent at a very young age, unfortunately those our breed get often are not apparent until 3 to 6 years!

The BVA element of the hip score is only around £25, it's the vet's part that's the expensive bit! - particularly where you're taking anaesthetics for a breed the size of a Dane into account.

Hi Christine, haven't a clue about danes, but in deerhounds clinical HD is almost unknown, so very few deerhounds are scored. If all deerhounds had to be scored, as you say, who knows what the average score would be. But is that really a reason to start scoring them routinely? Surely if there was a breed problem there would be clinical cases? Its hard enough to get people to test for known problems that can be tested for as puppies/before breeding age (eg PSS in deerhounds) and even harder to persuade everyone to be harsh about breeding away from conditions with complex inheritance that shows up late (eg cardiomyopathy in deerhounds). In a perfect world, I suppose everyone would test for everything, but the world isn't perfect, anaesthetics are not risk free - and my vet bills are hefty as it is

Spot on, Christine - as with many breeds, until more people bite the bullet and get their dogs scored, we will have no idea of the true state of Dane hips in the UK. However, to be tactful, anyone who spends a reasonable amount of time around Dane rings will regularly see dogs that would benefit from scoring before being used in a breeding programme!!

The reason for my original question to Lynne was that my friend scores all her breeding stock. However, never easy to find stud dogs who have been scored.

Most of the Danes I see look unco-ordinated when they move, can't think of a better way to put this and Dane people around the ring have told me this is perfectly normal movement.

However there is a Harlequin bitch in a local pub and she moves as soundly as my Dobes do, no wobbling or looking like they are large puppies - perhaps she is the abnormal one?

Christine

No, 'unco-ordinated' is definitely not the movement of a normal sound Dane! You can imagine the movement of dogs owned by the people who tell you it is normal, can't you .........