Hip Dysplasia
Hip dysplasia is known to affect German Shepherds and any other dog breed, but this doesn’t mean that other large dog breeds aren’t at risk, such as Saint Bernards (that are known to have a 50% incidence).
This is mainly due to the fact that these days, bigger breeds grow much faster, and they put on muscle mass that outpaces the growth of their skeleton.
The imbalance of such growth oftentimes affects not only the weight distribution on the hip joint but also the formation of the bones around the hip joint.
What’s worse than that is the fact that indiscriminate breeding of dogs has made this a problem for most large breed dogs, who are prone to suffering from severe arthritis of the hip joints as they get older.
