Tor, Starcastle Hound’s Thundercloud, was born in 2002
When he was about 2 years old, his owner wanted to start him in Agility but wanted to have his hips X-rayed first.
This is when it was discovered that his last vertebrae had a medium deviation from normal – sacrilisation.
One side of the pelvis is slightly higher than the other as a result
This was the reason why I started to X-ray my own dogs, imports and several of the dogs I had bred.
Only two (!) had a completely normal last vertebra.
Except for Tor, the others had minimal deviations from normal. So small such deviations were normally never reported when dogs were X-rayed. The vet saw them, but the info never reached the dogs owners. Because it was considered too minor to care about.
At that time, German Shepherds (GSDs) were by far the breed most commonly X-rayed in Sweden.
During those days, only one single vet in Sweden, Lars Audell, evaluated EVERY single hip X-ray!
Audell told me that about 15 percent of all X-rays of GSD showed this anomaly to some extent, but the anomaly was too minor to go into the reports.
He also told me that it is obvious that there is a genetic factor, but nobody has made any studies into this and inheritance is unknown.
Unfortunately I have a feeling we are still more or less at the same point today…
From the X-rays of my own dogs, I knew one thing, every single one had perfect hips. There was never any question about that. It was the last vertebra that bothered me.
For a couple of years I tried again and again to draw attention to my findings, in Sweden, in Europe, in USA. Crickets!!!!
Nobody cared. At all.
So I gave up, why spend a fortune on X-raying dogs when nobody cares? I stopped taking my dogs to have their X-rays done.
Many years later, LTV came on the radar for sighthound people, to a large extent from Finland, where a Finnish Whippet breeder wrote a series of very enlightening blog articles, and now people sat up and took notice!
- What on earth is LTV?
- Update on LTV situation (2019)
- The latest whippet LTV statistics from Finland (2014 – 2/2024)
It doesn’t seem that Sweden has a veterinarian specializing in LTV, but Norway does.
Jon Andre Berg, Ph.D., wrote his doctoral dissertation on lumbosacral transitional vertebrae (LTV). The full dissertation can be found here.
Berg also wrote an article about LTV for the Norwegian Whippet club. As it was written with Whippets in mind, it may be worthwhile using an online translator if you do not read Norwegian.
Also worth noticing:
There is an old article mentioning Bonnie Dalzell (Borzoi kennel Silkenswift, USA ) where she talks about transitional vertebrae in Borzoi.
Let’s not forget Dr Anne Midgarden (Borzoi kennel Teine, USA) and her speed studies discussing speed in Borzoi and spinal anomalies. Unfortunately I can’t seem to find them online anymore.
It is not just about Silken Windhounds and Whippets, it is in Borzoi too.
The knowledge is not new, the world just hasn’t been ready for it until now.