Hip Dysplasia
Hip dysplasia (HD) is a crippling hereditary disease in which the dog's hips are malformed. Therefore it is very important for your rottweiler's parents to be OFA-certified with a hip rating of good or excellent. Your breeder may choose to get certification through PennHIP.
Hip Dysplasia in Rottweilers
Between the years 1974 and 2002, breeders and owners registered 81,313 rottweilers with the OFA. Out of these dogs, OFA diagnosed 20.7 percent as dysplastic. Since OFA is a voluntary registry, the percentage may be higher due to failure of reporting dysplastic dogs. Clearly, hip dysplasia is common enough in rottweilers to warrant caution when selecting a dog or puppy.
Hip dysplasia is prevalent in all purebreds and in mixed breed dogs. It can be very mild to severe. There is no way of telling that a dog has hip dysplasia except through x-rays. Corrective surgery is very expensive. In many cases, it costs several thousands of dollars.
Nutrition and Hip Dysplasia
No amount of good nutrition can prevent hip dysplasia. There are nutritional supplements that will mitigate the effects, but food cannot cure the disease. You can, however, cause environmentally induced hip dysplasia by subjecting a puppy or young dog to extreme physical stress or poor nutrition.
Options in Hip Dysplasia
In mildly dysplastic cases, your veterinarian may be able to mitigate it with anti-inflammatories such as Rimadyl, Metacam, Dermamax, or Zubrin, or nutritional aids such as glucosamine, chondroitin, and creatine. Serious cases may require expensive surgery. Some extreme cases of hip dysplasia may be so painful that the humane thing to do is to euthanize the dog.
