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PENNHIP

Understanding PennHIP: Protecting Your Dog’s Hips for Life

When it comes to your dog’s health, prevention is always better than cure - especially when we’re talking about hip health. Perfect hip joints are rarely found in the dog population as some degree of canine hip dysplasia is present in most dogs.

PennHIP (short for Pennsylvania Hip Improvement Program) is a scientific, evidence-based method for evaluating a dog’s risk of developing hip dysplasia. It’s one of the most accurate tools available to breeders, veterinarians, and owners who want to make informed decisions about breeding, training, and long-term care.

Note: Pennhip does not give a certification or grading such as Excellent, Good, Fair etc.

While OFA (Orthopedic Foundation for Animals) evaluations (USA) use terms like Excellent, Good, and Fair to classify hip health, PennHIP does not.

What Is PennHIP?

PennHIP is a radiographic (X-ray) technique developed by the University of Pennsylvania. PennHIP measures hip laxity i.e. how loose or tight the hip joint is, even in young dogs.

This is important because hip laxity is the single greatest risk factor for canine hip dysplasia (CHD), a painful, degenerative condition that can severely affect quality of life.

How It Works

PennHIP testing involves three special X-ray views of the hips:

Distraction View – measures how far the ball of the hip can be displaced from the socket.
Compression View – shows how well the ball fits into the socket.
Standard Extended View – similar to the traditional hip X-ray used for other scoring systems.

PENNHIP VIEWS.jpg

From these images, a Distraction Index (DI) is calculated.

The lower the DI (closer to 0.0), the tighter and more stable the hip joint.
The higher the DI (closer to 1.0), the looser the joint, and the greater the likelihood of developing arthritis later in life.

PennHIP results are compared to a database of dogs of the same breed or mix, giving a percentile ranking so you can see how your dog’s hips measure up. For example: dogs with a 90% percentile ranking means that the dog is 90% better than other dogs of its breed or mix.

No OA/Mild Risk: Low risk to develop radiographic evidence of hip OA early in life, however OA may manifest after 6 years of age or later (diet, weight, exercise, wear and tear etc). Risk of OA increases as DI, age, body weight, and activity level increase.

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