My GSD puppy is almost 9 months old – and I’ve had two vets look at her hips (just standard vet, nothing special. No X-Ray yet, just touch). Both say that she seems fine – she’s large (almost 70 pounds) but she’s skinny for her size (vet and breeder recommendation). I bought her from a well known, and respected breeder with no known hip problems, but I don’t want to chance my baby being in any pain. Is X-Raying the only way to know if I’ll have problems down the road? I feed her large puppy brand food with high Glucosamine product, as well as Glucosamine supplement tablets.

My only concern with her recently, is she stretches her back and hips a lot. She doesn’t have trouble getting up, walking, or jumping into my small car’s back seat. But she does stretch quite a bit more than I thought would be normal. Vets say she’s fine.. am I just being paranoid?
Well, for her bloodlines, I know the most of them were VA and V for Schutzhund(hope I spelled that right). I asked about her half and full relatives from previous litters, and said nothing has come up to their knowledge.

One of the vets said to X-Ray her at 8-12 months, because they could do a new surgery to fix her hips (if needed) so she wouldn’t get HD later on in her life – or if she did, it’d be minor.

I was looking at some info for glucosamine enriched food products. I found that this is something not usually available from daily food and have to get supplement tablets or juice for cartilage improvement.

Am I right? Does anyone know any natural food that can give that glucosamine? Please mention the source of your info.

thanks