{"id":5655,"date":"2026-06-25T08:01:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T06:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ericka.templweb.com\/starcastlehounds\/?page_id=5655"},"modified":"2026-06-25T08:07:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T06:07:08","slug":"ltv-lumbosacral-transitional-vertebra","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ericka.templweb.com\/starcastlehounds\/about\/health\/ltv-lumbosacral-transitional-vertebra\/","title":{"rendered":"LTV, lumbosacral transitional vertebra"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Svensk version<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tor, Starcastle Hound’s Thundercloud<\/a>, was born in 2002<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he was about 2 years old, his owner wanted to start him in Agility but wanted to have his hips X-rayed first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is when it was discovered that his last vertebrae had a medium deviation from normal – sacrilisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One side of the pelvis is slightly higher than the other as a result<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was the reason why I started to X-ray my own dogs, imports and several of the dogs I had bred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only two (!) had a completely normal last vertebra<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately I have a feeling we are still more or less at the same point today…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a couple of years I tried again and again to draw attention to my findings, in Sweden, in Europe, in USA. Crickets!!!!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nobody cared. At all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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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!<\/p>\n\n\n\n