It could be a lack of experience doing hip x-rays.There may be a number of reasons for this: The importance of positioning is often overlooked by the vet that is shooting the films. But at a young age, positioning is critical. There may not be as much of a difference in older dogs. As they get older, their ligaments are not as loose and they will probably not stretch as much. If I took some of the falls that my eleven-year-old son does, I would have numerous broken bones. They have loose ligaments (just like a young child). Some people ask how the difference can be so dramatic. The hip in the red circle is a much deeper seated ball in the socket than the picture in the yellow box (which is a result of poor positioning). It shows the same hip joint on the same dog x-rayed on the same day. Figure 4 - Close up of hip x-ray of our 10-month old German Shepherdįigure 4 graphically shows the results of poor positioning. The pelvic wing under the leg is noticeably larger on the left than the right. You can see the upper right hole through the body cavity is noticeably smaller on the right than the left. Again this is the same dog as the good x-rays above. Figure 3 - Another example of poor positioning of our 10-month-old German Shepherdįigure 3 is an example of poor positioning. The result is the hip is pulled further out of the socket (the single red arrow) because of poor positioning. Notice how much more the pelvic overlaps the leg bone (the green arrows) on the left than on the right. Figure 2 - Poor positioning of our 10-month-old German Shepherdįigure 2 above is the same dog only with a different x-ray than the first one. Figure 2 shows a much larger overlap on the left of the screen than on the right of the screen. The picture above shows an even amount of overlap on both sides of the pelvis. You can see the overlap through the leg bone. If you look at the pelvis, you can see that with the legs fully extended straight down, the legs overlay the very corners or tips of the pelvis. They point to the amount of pelvis bone that is covered by the leg bones on the x-ray. The red arrows are the first things I look at when examining an x-ray. This is most noticeable in the lower right hole being smaller than the left side lower hole. That's why the holes on the right are slightly different than the left. The positioning is good on this dog, but not 100% perfect. When the body positioning is correct, the 2 holes on the left side are the same shape and size as the holes on the right side. The yellow arrows point to holes in the bone structure. When the position is 100% perfect, both wings will look exactly alike. You will notice that you can see more of the wing on the right than the wing on the left. The green arrows point to the bone that the hip socket is built into. We don't want to see one leg straight and the other going off at an angle.įigure 1 has three sets of colored arrows (green, yellow, and red). The first thing to look at in an x-ray is to see if the legs come straight down from the hips with the kneecaps square and looking alike. Figure 1 - Good positioning of our 10-month-old German Shepherdīecause this article is directed to the general public, I will attempt to not use the proper medical names for a lot of the terminology in this article. It shows the various points on an x-ray to look at to determine if the dog was positioned properly. While the dog is slightly angled on the x-ray plate, the positioning for the hips is pretty good. How to Read a Hip X-Rayįigure 1 is a photo of a hip x-ray done on a 10-month-old German Shepherd from my kennel. As time goes by, I will continue to add examples of poor x-rays to this article so people can learn what to look for. ![]() Over the years, I have seen some absolutely terrible jobs of x-raying dogs. You will also see that no matter what you do with positioning you can never make a bad hip into a good hip. ![]() You will see that with poor positioning, a dog's hips can look worse than they actually are. One set has good positioning, the second set has poor positioning. It will show 2 different sets of x-rays done on the same dog on the same day. The article will demonstrate correct positioning and poor positioning. The purpose of this article is to teach the average dog owner how to determine if a hip x-ray is done properly on their dog's hips.
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