As frequently as the phrase is bantered about, there are still a lot of people that don’t have a comprehensive grasp of what hip dysplasia in coton de tulears is, how to screen for it, how dogs get it and what to do about it.

Would you know if your coton had hip dysplasia? 

What would you look for and how would you treat it?

Causes Of Hip Dysplasia In Coton de Tulears

The first cause is genetics. It has been the thorn in the sides of breeders for eons. Because there never seemed a simple inheritable pattern from parents to pups, it was felt to be polygenetic in nature.

This means not one, but several genes, may play a role in whether a dog develops dysplasia.

So trying to do selective breeding around multiple genes acting independently was about as easy as nailing jello to a wall.

In May 2014 I found an article stating a breakthrough has been made in the search for the genetic basis for hip dysplasia in dogs. A specific gene has been found in the German Shepherd Dog. YAAA HOO!

So finally there may be some objective means to determine which dogs to breed. It will take time to isolate the gene in other breeds but at least there is some progress. 

A) How Genes Affect Whether There Is Hip Dysplasia In Coton de Tulears

We think that the genes cause dysfunctional hips in a variety of ways such as:

1) Laxity

For example, a hip that has greater laxity in its ligaments (stretching ability) means that the ball and joint don’t sit snugly together when in motion.

For a visual example, make a fist with one of your hands and cover that fist with your other. That is what the hip looks like. Now imagine if you could pull the covering hand off the fist by an inch or two. That would give the two pieces the chance to bounce around and wear away bone in the wrong places. Wearing down bone causes pain and bone spurs and eventually hip dysplasia in dogs.

2) Depth Of The Socket

Another issue is how deep the ball of the femur (the “fist” of the hip bone) sit in the socket (the hand that covers the fist). Even if it is a snug fit, a shallow socket can let the ball of the joint slosh around easier, and again wear away the socket in places it shouldn’t.

This allows more and more movement in the wrong directions and again total wearing away of the joint.

A shallow hip joint can cause hip dysplasia in Coton de Tulears as early as 4 to 6 months of age.

3) Osteoarthritis

How a dog ages is another possible hereditary factor. Osteoarthritis, usually develops as a dog ages but to what degree may depend on his genes, we think… 

How long the body can maintain the cartilage on the ends of bones is thought to be genetic.

Cartilage is that white, very smooth, relatively hard substance at the end of every joint that allows it to move with very little friction.

Next time you go to prepare a chicken for dinner, as you cut it in pieces look at the exposed end of the joint and maybe you will see what I mean.

In the aging process, the cartilage loses protein and gains water making it softer and easier to wear away. Once the cartilage is gone, the bones rub against each other every time the joint is moved. This causes the bone to wear away, causing pain and bone spurs.

B) Environmental Influences That Can Cause Hip Dysplasia In Coton de Tulears

In addition to the genetics, there is a big environmental aspect to this illness of hip dysplasia in dogs. A gene may be present but the right circumstances allow it to be expressed in that individual dog. 

1) Obesity

I know no one is going to want to hear this but being overweight, yes, obesity can be a big problem. More pressure on a joint and it will fail faster and easier than if less stress is placed on it.

It is a simple matter of mechanics.

2) Onset Of Sports / Pattern of Exercise

The type and extent of exercise your coton pups experience when they are young also has an effect. Puppies should be allowed to run and play freely and puppies do jump for joy frequently. That’s not a problem.

What is a problem?

Taking your puppy jogging long distances before they are mature and growth plates in the legs have closed (finished growing) at around 18 months to two years of age in cotons can create a problem. Endurance training in general should wait ‘til then.

Agility training the jumps. Repetitive jumping at a young age can cause damage to the joints. I would think even weave poles with the rapid zigzagging could do a job on some joints. Let him learn other stuff first like the dog walk, the A frame, hoops, etc.

Symptoms Of Hip Dysplasia In Coton de Tulears

Most dogs, including cotons can be pretty stoic when it comes to pain. They don’t whine or complain. Dogs just stop doing something when it hurts too bad to move.

At some point however, you may notice:

• Lameness, or inability to bear weight on a back leg
• Decreased range of motion in the back leg
• Loss of muscle tissue in the affected leg. In other words, one leg looks skinnier that the other as it wastes away.

Understand that by time you see these things, your coton is probably pretty far along.

How do you know for sure? Sometimes we need a professional to make a diagnosis like hip dysplasia in dogs. The symptoms listed above could also be due to other problems, such as cruciate ligament tears for example. So you need to go to your vet.

Unless you have X-Ray eyes, you need X-Rays taken at the vet’s. 

No one said owning a dog is cheap.

Preventative Measurements

• Buy a dog from good, healthy parents. Hip dysplasia in dogs is almost certainly in some way genetically based. Ask what the parents hip X-rays results were.
• Maintain a calorie controlled diet
• Make sure there are appropriate amounts of minerals in the food to prevent rapid growth
• Appropriate, moderate activity that the puppy freely engages in, until puppy is mature
• Chondroitin and Glucosamine supplement (or bone broth)

Diagnosis Of Hip Dysplasia In Coton de Tulears

X-ray. Simple.

Treatments

Things YOU Have Control Over:

• Weight loss in obese dogs. Please don’t say, “But I don’t feed him that much.” Because he only eats what you give him. He doesn’t take the car keys and drive himself to McDonald’s. Whatever you are feeding him is either too much or the wrong kind. 
• Don’t free feed your coton because dogs that are free fed (i.e., you put a bowl of food out and leave it down all day) tend to be more overweight than dogs who have access to food only limited amount of time during the day. Give him 20 minutes to eat then pick it up until the next regularly schedule meal time.
• Over the counter anti-inflammatory herbal supplements.
• Moderate exercise.

Things Your Vet Can Do

• Diagnosis with an X-ray
• Prescription pain meds
• Prescription meds to reduce inflammation
• Surgery for severe cases

Types Of Surgery Include:

• Triple pelvic osteotomy and femoral osteotomy on puppies without degenerative joint changes gets the head of the femur in the socket deeper.
• Pectineus myectomy is when muscle is removed to relieve pain for a while.
• Femoral head/neck excision relieves pain in small dogs.
• Total hip replacement similar to human surgery is very effective.

Frequency Of Hip Dysplasia In Cotons

Frequency varies based on the breed. What are the chances your coton has hip dysplasia?

COTON DE TULEAR ranked 130 in a list of 217 breeds

Out of 1,375 evaluation of hips by OFA:

• 1,222 were considered normal (89%) Included in this category are the classifications of excellent, good and fair
  • 138 had excellent hips(10%)
  • 829 had good hips(60%)
  • 255 had fair hips (19%)
• 136 cotons were considered to be affected (11%). Included in this category are mild, moderate and severe dysplasia
  • 117 had mild dysplasia (9%)
  • 16 had moderate dysplasia(1%)
  • 3 had severe dysplasia(0%)

What Each Of The Categories Mean

Taken from the OFA website:

• Excellent: This classification is assigned for superior conformation in comparison to other animals of the same age and breed. There is a deep seated ball (femoral head) which fits tightly into a well-formed socket (acetabulum) with minimal joint space. There is almost complete coverage of the socket over the ball.
• Good: slightly less than superior but a well-formed congruent hip joint is visualized. The ball fits well into the socket and good coverage is present.
• Fair: Assigned where minor irregularities in the hip joint exist. The hip joint is wider than a good hip phenotype. This is due to the ball slightly slipping out of the socket causing a minor degree of joint incongruency. There may also be slight inward deviation of the weight-bearing surface of the socket (dorsal acetabular rim) causing the socket to appear slightly shallow. This can be a normal finding in some breeds however.
• Mild Hip Dysplasia: there is significant subluxation present where the ball is partially out of the socket causing an incongruent increased joint space. The socket is usually shallow only partially covering the ball. There are usually no arthritic changes present with this classification and if the dog is young (24 to 30 months of age), there is an option to resubmit an radiograph when the dog is older so it can be reevaluated a second time. Most dogs will remain dysplastic showing progression of the disease with early arthritic changes. Since HD is a chronic, progressive disease, the older the dog, the more accurate the diagnosis of HD (or lack of HD).
• Moderate Hip Dysplasia: there is significant subluxation present where the ball is barely seated into a shallow socket causing joint incongruency. There are secondary arthritic bone changes usually along the femoral neck and head (termed remodeling), acetabular rim changes (termed osteophytes or bone spurs) and various degrees of trabecular bone pattern changes called sclerosis. Once arthritis is reported, there is only continued progression of arthritis over time.
• Severe Hip Dysplasia: assigned where radiographic evidence of marked dysplasia exists. There is significant subluxation present where the ball is partly or completely out of a shallow socket. Like moderate HD, there are also large amounts of secondary arthritic bone changes along the femoral neck and head, acetabular rim changes and large amounts of abnormal bone pattern changes.

Medical Clearances Of The Pup’s Parents Is A Start

In order for a breeder to get the best picture possible of the inheritability of hip dysplasia, obtaining hip X-rays on ALL pups from ALL litters would be ideal, but the cost and ability to get new owners to agree to this is daunting. So, most reputable breeders have to rely on testing only the parents that they use for breeding. 

There are a few ways to do the evaluation. All would require an X-ray.

The Cheapest Way

Have your vet complete an X-ray and give you an opinion on whether there is any dysplasia evident. I imagine most all vets would give their honest opinion, good, bad or indifferent, but if they aren’t a board certified orthopedic vet, their opinion would carry less weight. 

The Traditional Way To Evaluate Hip Dysplasia In Coton de Tulears: OFA

Have your vet mail the hip X-ray they have taken to the OFA (Orthopedic Foundation for Animals), where for an additional fee, 3 orthopedic vets will evaluate the X-ray and give it a rating of Excellent, Good, Fair, Borderline, Mild, Moderate, Severe.

Inter-rater reliability of the orthopedic vets has been sited at about 95%, which is pretty darn good there still can be disagreements as to the category to place a dog. Generally, what is being evaluated in the X-ray is how well the ball and socket fit together and if there is any wearing away of the bone or other bony abnormalities.

Anything less than Fair is generally considered unacceptable for breeding. 

Most reputable breeders use the OFA process for screening their dogs’ hips.  A preliminary test can be done before two years of age, but a final evaluation should be done after the pup reaches two.

When I was still breeding shelties, I found a graph for Shetland Sheepdogs’ OFA scores over the course of several decades. There was essentially no substantial increase in the number of “Excellent” scores over the course of decades.

This says to me that we were not doing anything helpful with this X-ray. And while it might feel good to get an “Excellent” rating for your dog, if it won’t help you choose the right specimen to breed for improvement in the future generations, what’s the point?

The Better Choice: PennHip (IMO)

I prefer to use this method of evaluating hips. Developed at the University of Pennsylvania in 1983, it was a newer way to measure the probability of dysplasia more accurately. Not only is the fit of ball and socket evaluated, but the laxity of the joint was measured (how far the hip joint could be stretched away from the socket).

The greater the ability to stretch, the greater the chance the joint could wear down improperly and cause canine hip dysplasia (CHD).

It requires that the pup is anesthetized (not my favorite thing to have to do to my dogs but ya gotta do, what ya gotta do) and the X-rays performed by a veterinarian certified by PennHip. 

The X-rays are then sent to the PennHip folks to be read and there are two measurements:

• an objective number for the amount of laxity of each joint. 
• a rating compared to other dogs of the same breed

The greater the amount of laxity in the joint, the greater the chance the dog will develop canine hip dysplasia. So this test helps in determining if a dog with good hips may eventually go bad in the future.

In addition to these two criteria, the hips are also reviewed for current hip dysplasia. 

This is the test I prefer to use. Why? ‘Cause I love throwing tons of money away? (Lots more expensive than OFA, BTW).

Nooooo! 

Because I think I get better information from this type of test in spite of the low number of breeders using it. (I swear the number of shelties in the data base only went up when I would submit a test.)  As with the shelties, cotons tested using PennHip are very few. Only 145 as of 2026.

What’s Good Enough When Evaluating for Canine Hip Dysplasia?

When dealing with canine hip dysplasia, I want my breeding stock to be within the range of other cotons, preferably above the average. With subsequent generations, where both parents have been tested, improvement in distraction index is what I strive for.

The thing with any test is, you don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. If, for example, a lot of a particular breed have loose hips and you take ALL of those out of the gene pool, there won’t be anything left to breed. It would be the proverbial genetic bottleneck.  Then you have inbreeding to a degree that isn’t helpful in other respects.

Nevertheless, culling the poor specimens is necessary. ‘Tis a hard pill to swallow to see an otherwise a lovely bitch or dog who doesn’t make the grade. Been there, done that. 

Think about what it’s like to choose a dog, raise them, spend $700 on a hip X-ray just so you turn around and sell her as a pet because her hips aren’t good enough. UGH!  I’m already in that position with the cotons.

People tend to think breeding dogs is easy until they see the cost involved to do it right and the tough choices that need to be made when testing reveals a problem. But if those tough choices weren’t made, the result could be someone stuck with a puppy that quickly turns into a debilitated mess.

The other point to keep in mind is, you can’t cull if you don’t know where the problems lie.

Why Bother You Ask?

But, you say, evaluating canine hip dysplasia is as easy as looking to see your coton running and jumping effortlessly. He has to have good hips, right? Why X-ray at all? 

HA! 

I had an English Shepherd bitch evaluated using PennHip when she was 1 ½ yrs old. She could fly over farm gates and run like the wind. She could go all day long. And she already had evidence of hip dysplasia on the films.

No way would I breed her. I sent her back to the breeder from whence she came. And he promptly bred her. Can’t cure stupid…

I now also have a coton the same age, that behaves the same way. You would never know he had mild osteoarthritis, but he does. So as much as I am attached to him and love everything else about him, he must not be used for breeding. I found a wonderful pet home for him.

The final reason I like PennHip better when dealing with canine hip dysplasia is because the X-rays can be reliably done as early as 16 weeks old. There is no guesswork as to the soundness of hips before they are used for breeding.