the golden study has an overall rate of hd for their golden retrievers at 7.5% ........ ofa , with 140,000-150,000 dogs evaluated , has the breed at 20% dysplastic , and without question that is a low estimate ....... so it appears that study is not representative of the breed as far as hd for some reason ? the rottweiller study has an overall rate of of hd for the breed at 12.5% , ofa with 95,000-96,000 dogs evaluated have the breed rate of hd at 20% , again biased toward normal , the true rate is unarguably higher ....... those are significant errors for a scientific study ............. there is a reason for it
Firstly, they are surveys, not studies. A study is research that includes interaction and testing of living patients (think a sleep study, where participants are actually coming into a facility and being monitored). A survey is done by a group of research scientists who want to find evidence of correlating factors, often so that they can propose their "study" to a financial backer with evidence to support their reasoning for wanting to perform a study. A survey compromises, as you would probably guess, a literal physical survey, usually with hundreds of questions pertaining to the subject's health, history, etc. The dog does not have to be alive at the time of the survey completion.
Secondly, the Rott study does not list a percent dysplatic rate, it lists the percentage of the dogs diagnosed with osteosarcoma, which is 12.6%.
Thirdly, current OFA statistics of 139,411 evaluations of Goldens have them at 13.2% dysplastic. While those numbers still vary from the survey results, the variance isn't nearly as dramatic as you are suggesting. I'm not sure where you got your statistics, but they're inaccurate (I pulled mine from the OFA site, here:
Orthopedic Foundation for Animals).
Also, I'm not sure where you got the 7.5% number as the percent dysplatic rate. Unless you simply took this sentence: "Outcomes at the 5 percent level of significance are reported. Of early-neutered males, 10 percent were diagnosed with HD, double the occurrence in intact males," and added 10+5 and divided by 2. Which does not come close to representing what that actual dysplatic rate of Goldens in the survey, as you are missing late-neutered males, as well as all of the female dogs. Unless I'm missing something and you got that number elsewhere.
Because these are surveys, and NOT studies, errors in these statistics can be directly contributed to the smaller study groups used by the survey researchers versus the OFA. Comparing a sample group of 700 dogs to a sample group of 150,000 dogs is going to yield slightly different results.
As it were, I'd suggest actually reading the surveys thoroughly before discrediting them because you skimmed and pulled inaccurate data from the abstracts instead of actually reading the entirety of the published conclusions.
Again, everyone can, and should, make their own choice when to alter based on their particular breed, their particular lifestyle, etc. And NOT everyone has to credit these survey results - they are controversial because of the essential nature of surveys, and some veterinarians do take issue with the way some of the information is presented. The giant breed and oncology specialists I have personally spoken to all do heed these implications and recommend altering after 16-18 months, but not all vets across the board are in agreement with that.
My intent is to make sure everyone has access to the information I was missing before I made the decision to alter Loki so that we all, as individual pet owners, can come to our own "more informed" conclusions.