PennHip Testing Comes to Prancing Pony Farm and Valley Veterinary Services!

Today was an exciting day for Prancing Pony Farm and my Maremma Sheepdog breeding program. Right before Christmas, my wonderful veterinarian, Kayla McCrone, of Valley Veterinary Services, became certified to do PennHip exams on dogs. She has been doing OFA exams for a while, but because PennHip is superior for screening for hip dysplasia, I have urged her to add that to her offerings for YEARS. But I patiently waited since I knew she had a lot on her plate in building a new business. ​

In the meantime, I have used another local vet to do the PennHip exams on my breeding dogs. This compromise was better than "settling" for only an OFA exam, but I don't like taking my dogs to strangers, so I always dreaded it. I love MY vet and her entire staff, and there's no one I trust more with my animals, so I was really itching for her to offer this service. And hey, if I'm going to pay hundreds of dollars per dog for testing, I'd rather give my money to my vet than strangers! 


Kayla was on holiday vacation, and today was her first day back at work. I made sure to have an appointment for two of my dogs on the first available day. Two more are going on Friday. These are all young (never bred) dogs over two years old, so I opted to go ahead and do PennHip and OFA (hips and elbows) on them. 


I will be testing my other breeding candidates shortly. Some are close to two, so I'll wait and do PennHip and OFA simultaneously. But some are still under a year old, so I will do PennHip on them for now and do OFA after they turn two. One great advantage of PennHip over OFA is that you can get accurate permanent results as early as 16 weeks old. Why keep a breeding candidate for two years to determine if it will pass its testing? If it fails, you've wasted time and money and gotten attached to a dog you can't breed. I prefer to get either good or bad news sooner rather than later.

The other exciting part is that I can PennHip test my entire litters now. I have wanted to do this for a long time, but it was just too expensive with the other vet. And more than that, I didn't trust a strange vet with my precious puppies! But I trust MY vet 100%!


It will still cost quite a lot of money to PennHip test an entire litter. We are talking thousands of dollars for an average Maremma litter of 8-10 puppies (I've had litters as big as 13!) But this cost will be worth every dime. I can choose the puppies with the best hips as breeding candidates (weighing in other factors) for myself or others. If you buy a Prancing Pony Farm Maremma as a breeding candidate, you will already know their hips are breeder quality—no waiting and wondering if the dog will pass.


By testing all of the puppies, I will also have an overall picture of how my breeding program is doing. I will know if my puppies will be sound enough to do the hard work that LGDs need to do. If problems arise, I will know about them and can take steps to fix them: choose different pairings, make diet changes, or change whatever environmental factors need to be changed.


There are no guarantees in breeding dogs. Even dogs with "perfect" hips (and elbows) can produce dysplastic puppies. Many factors contribute to hip dysplasia; evaluating breeding dogs doesn't guarantee success. But you can't fix a problem you don't know you have, and refusing to test breeding stock is not the answer. 


At a minimum, breeders should be testing breeding dogs and choosing the most sound dogs possible for breeding. Anything less than that is irresponsible and unethical. I suggest anyone looking to buy a puppy steer clear of any breeder who can't produce passing PennHip of OFA scores on their dogs. 


But a breeder who also PennHip tests all the puppies in a litter is a cut above the rest. I only know of a couple of breeders who are currently breeding who do that, as well as one former breeder who did it with all of her litters. She inspired me many years ago, making me want to test my litters. I knew it was valuable and something I wanted to do. I knew this would benefit my dogs, their future owners, and the breed as a whole. But I also knew I couldn't rush this, that it would all come together in time. And now the time has come. ​

Reserve My Maremma!