Hip Dysplasia
Conventional veterinary medicine regards hip dysplasia as a genetic disease. The malformation of the hip joint leads to osteo-arthritis, which can eventually lead to pain and debilitation. The hip is a ball-and-socket joint, where the top of the femur fits into the socket of the pelvis. Tendons and ligaments hold this joint together.
Hip dysplasia occurs when the socket is poorly formed or the ligaments are loose, enabling the ball of the femur to slide out of the socket. This causes cartilage damage in the joint. The cartilage loses its thickness and elasticity, which are important in absorbing the effects of weight and stress on the joint during movement. Eventually, through normal wear and tear, the hip becomes extremely painful, and range of motion may be decreased.
No one knows when or if a dysplastic dog will start showing clinical signs of lameness due to pain. Long before actual limping occurs, the stoic boxer may swing his legs out slightly to avoid bending the hip in a normal gait. Boxers may also become somewhat sullen or surly. It is difficult to assess how much hip dysplasia affects a boxer's life span, but it definitely affects his quality of life.
There appears to be no rhyme or reason to the severity of changes that occur in the hip when X-rayed. Plenty of dysplastic dogs with severe arthritis and hip dysplasia can run, jump, and play as if nothing was wrong with them. Some dogs with barely any arthritic radiographic changes are severely lame.
The following factors can worsen the effects of hip dysplasia:
Excess weight: Extra body weight puts extra pressure on the hips.
Excess or prolonged exercise before maturity: Among the larger of the medium-sized breeds, boxers tend not to have bone maturity (when the growth plates of the bones close, and growth is finished) until between eighteen months to two years of age.
A fast growth rate in a puppy: This may actually be a bone overgrowth disease, such as panosteitis or osteochondritis, which may be the result of a high-calorie or over-supplemented diet, or even injury.
The raw-food movement takes the position that feeding a raw diet supplemented with vitamin C helps eliminate the effects and even the genetic tendency toward hip dysplasia. While long-term studies have not been done on this, many breeders recommend that you add additional vitamin C to a puppy's food to aid in the development of good ligaments, tendons, and cartilage.
Watch for decreased range of motion in your boxer's hips, as this could indicate hip dysplasia.
Because of the risk to the pups' bones in terms of bone over-growth diseases (panosteitis and osteochondritis) and a tendency to hip dysplasia, it is critically important to not over exercise your young puppy. Dogs, especially males, should not jog or run long distances regularly before eighteen months to two years. Males seem to be more prone to bone overgrowth diseases and mature later than females.
