HD

guy · HD

I have had a most interesting conversation this weekend. Apparently there is a conservation project capturing and breeding African wild dogs with a view to then return them to the wild to reinforce the natural population.

They have found is that none of the wild dogs have a hip score better than 12. This surprised them until they considered the benefits of slightly loose hips in absorbing stresses and so facilitating fast turns and thus improving hunting success.

doganjo

I'm surprised it isn't a lot worse than that - 12 is quite good hips. Unless you mean each side is 12? A total of 24 is above our average but still not that bad.

Victoria

I would like to compare the hip xrays of a contortionist with say, I don't know, someone who leads a sedentary life. I would guess that the configuration of the hips in the contortionist would be lax, thus if he was a dog, that would make him dysplasic!! In the Manxie, particularly the rumpy, there is sometimes very little movement in the hips which leads to the characteristic bunny hop/bear roll.
While anyone would appreciate this group's objectives, perhaps they need to be reminded that perhaps their efforts could be better employed in helping the people to create incomes that do not necessitate the decimation of the flora/fauna in particular those predatory.
It is no use releasing heaps of wild dogs hips and all back into their local environs if there is little to survive on.