After all these years of working with Nihon Ken, I finally got around to registering a dog (Doru) with JAHD http://www.jahd.org/ which is like Japan's OFA. I thought it could be useful for people within and without Japan, and I probably should have done this years ago so all the overseas breeders could have had their adult imports graded before export, with results listed on their Japan Kennel Club export pedigrees.
I think the most difficult part of the process was educating and making my veterinarian aware of the importance of positioning, in order to get good x-rays. This will probably be the same for anyone else trying to get a dog rated by JAHD here in Japan. JAHD was quite surprisingly much more forgiving than OFA as far as information that has to be included on the x-ray itself. They say that dog name, hospital name etc etc all have to be listed on the x-ray on film or in DICOM format, but in the end they accepted the pretty barebones data provided by my veterinarian (though of course with a signed/stamped form attesting to all data).
I got Doru's knees graded as well (0 normal), but he started to come out of anesthesia before we finished the second elbow, so did not get that rated. X-ray can be taken with or without anesthesia, though I opted for anesthesia since I've never done it this way before, and because I wanted the positioning to be correct.
JAHD fees are quite reasonable, as they only charged 4000jpy to grade hips+knees (3000jpy for just hips) and took 1 month to grade and process everything. I've attached two shots of his hips so that everyone can get an idea of what the grading system here is like. The right was graded 4, and the left 4, for a total score of 8. JAHD's scoring system gives points (0-45 for each hip) with lower scores being better, and the JKC translates them to FCI grading. Grade is given based on the worse hip. Each point is awarded for things like laxity etc (it's quite a detailed and clear list they have going). Anyway JKC considers 0-4 A, 5-11 B, 12-15 C, 16-20 D, 21-45 E. https://www.jkc.or.jp/certificates_and_breeding/hereditary_disease/pedigree_certificate1
I wasn't sure if they'd give Doru an A or B, and I guess I was spot on as they gave him 4 for each hip, which is A, but he was pretty close to getting a B.
My veterinarian gives me great discounts but it did cost me 32,000 for the x-rays and anesthesia. I imagine the whole process will end up costing me about 50,000JPY. Once I've recorded the results to his JKC pedigree, I'll post a picture of it for future reference.
This is just part of my effort to wrap up some of the things I had left undone for the Nihon Ken.
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