OFA was established in 1966 and is a non-profit organization created to
assist breeders in addressing hip dysplasia. They have recently expanded
their registries to include elbow and patella deformaties, craniomandibular, osteopathy, autoimmune thyroiditis, congential heart disease and copper toxicosis in Bedlingham Terriers and DNA registries.

Additionally OFA collates and disseminates information concerning orthopedic and genetic disease of animals, advising, encouraging and establishing control programs to lower the incidence of the diseases.

CANINE HIP DYSPLASIA REGISTRY

Purpose

The purposes of the registry are: to provide a standardized evaluation for hip dysplasia and to serve as a database for control of hip dysplasia through selective breeding. To date the OFA maintains the world's largest data base on hip conformation.

What is Hip Dysplasia?

Canine Hip Dysplasia (CHD) is an inherited trait involving multiple gene pairs which results in a spectrum of radiographic conformations. CHD is a developmental disease. All dogs apparently are born with normal hips but in
affected individuals the radiographic signs of CHD can become evident within
several months to several years. Therefore, the accuracy of diagnosis increases with age to about 95% at 24 months of age. OFA preliminary evaluations (dogs evaluated between 4 and 23 months of age) are about 90% accurate when compared to repeat studies at 2 years of age.

Recommended Breeding Principles

1. Breed normals to normals.
2. Breed normals with normal ancestry.
3. Breed normals from litters with a low incidence of CHD.
4. Select a sire that produces a low incidence of CHD.
5. Replace dogs with dogs that are better than the breed average.

For more information on OFA visit their website at: www.offa.org/