Hudson's Huskies & Malamutes
Hudson's Malamutes - Frequently Asked Questions - Hudsons Malamutes OFA CERT....
31. This is a little information on OFA certification and the ability of a dog to perform with dysplasia. And some of the myths behind this subject.
One myth that has circulated around for many years is that a dog can not be OFA hip certified for dysplasia until two years of age.... THIS IS FALSE. A dog can be certified at any time in their life. A dog that is certified before two years of age is certified as "Preliminary Evaluated". The information in this paragraph is taken from the OFA web site:
http://www.offa.org/hipprelim.html -. "Reliability of preliminary evaluations increased as age at the time of preliminary evaluation increased, regardless of whether dogs received a preliminary evaluation of normal hip conformation or HD. For normal hip conformations, the reliability was 89.6% at 3-6 months, 93.8% at 7-12 months, and 95.2% at 13-18 months. These results suggest that preliminary evaluations of hip joint status in dogs are generally reliable."
What that means is that a dog CAN be certified at any age. And if you read and understand the information above what that means is if a 3-6 month old puppy is OFA preliminary certified then the reliability of that puppy having the same certification at 2 years is almost 90% likely. So if your dog has dysplasia you can most likely rely on his/her OFA ratings at any age of the dogs life.