How scammers are using PennHip to receive fake scores - Bar Area Bullies

Parties involved: Rashad Richard (Rash Richard), Dante Good, Bay Area Bullies American Bulldog

This is another breeder-scammer. Two days ago, Dante Good posted a banner of his apparently co-owned dog "Logic" with PennHip scores of 0.35 / 0.27.

I asked for a copy of the PennHip report and for the x-rays. Normal reaction would be - "Of course! Here they are!" Because 0.35 / 0.27 is a damn good score, and the breeder/owner would be proud to show off such an achievement in all the accompanying detail.

After initially refusing to do so, Dante Good reluctantly posted a photo of the incomplete PennHip report (only the 1st page) and also photos of x-rays that did not identify the dog with the microchip number as is normal practice. Otherwise, how do you know whose x-rays they are? The way it all unfolded seemed to have some red flags, but I just wrote it off to this guy's potential naivete and inexperience as a breeder. Anyway, he did post the photos, including some x-rays that have nothing to even do with PennHip, and called my approach insulting and even asked that I apologize to him.

Upon closer examination of the distracted-view x-ray - I noticed that the rubber on the rod that is used for the PennHip procedure was barely if at all indented on the hips. This means that the vet failed to follow PennHip procedures to actually produce the real laxity score. What the vet did based on the x-rays Dante posted will artificially make the hips appear TIGHTER. And such caveat information would appear on the 2nd page of the PennHip report, if they even provide a laxity score instead of rejecting the film outright and forcing the vet to redo the x-rays correctly.

In the now deleted post from 2 days ago, which Dante Good himself deleted yesterday, I brought up these issues with his x-rays and asked him what the SECOND page of the PennHip report states - as I suspected that PennHip wrote about this breach of PennHip procedure by the vet. Dante did not respond to that nor did he show what his 2nd page of the report stated. He just deleted the entire thread. Yesterday, he reposted that same banner advertising his dog's PennHip as 0.35 / 0.27, but of course all of my comments are gone. Attached are the screenshots from the beginning of that thread and also the photos he had posted of x-rays claiming to be this dog's.

So, here we are.

Just as I suspected.

Is the score 0.35 / 0.27 real? Well, NO.

Attached is the full report for Logic, with the 2nd and 3rd pages included, the pages that Dante Good hid yesterday, because of how much wrong was found with the x-rays by PennHip radiologists, the pages that clearly indicate to anyone with a brain that you can't trust this PennHip evaluation. PennHip itself doesn't trust this evaluation. They ask that the vet redo the x-rays correctly IN THE REPORT.

Conclusion -

Dante Good is a scammer.

Dr. Gurpreet Singh out of Stockton, CA is incompetent at PennHip at best, but more likely a participant in "helping" breeders make their hips look better on x-rays than they actually are. In the real x-rays for this dog, the hips had less than 10% indentation on the rubber - meaning the vet did not even pull the legs out of the hips for the distracted view. This score is not real. This dog has much looser hips than 0.35 / 0.27.

PennHip is slipping in legitimacy very fast in my eyes - instead of threatening to reject the x-rays when their certified veterinarians send in trash like this, they SHOULD reject the films, and DEFINITELY not provide a laxity score or any evaluation for Osteoarthritis. Read what the PennHip report for this dog named Logic says, which Dante Good conveniently concealed from everyone:

"The knees (stifles) on this hip-extended radiograph were externally rotated (positioning can affect Osteoarthritis reading).

The patellas should be centered in the trochlear grooves of the distal femur and the femurs and tibias should be approximately parallel to each other.

[...]

The rod-rubber was less than 10% indented. The rubber is observed as a linear radiolucency just lateral to the rod shadows.

Generally, where the femurs contact the rods you should see 25-50% rubber indentation indicating that sufficient adduction (distraction) force is being applied to the lower tibias (or hocks) during distraction.

**If a breeding dog, we recommend a repeat PRIOR to breeding and fixing the above 2 issues. See proper rubber indentation:"

Based on this commentary from PennHip, I am leaning towards concluding that this veterinarian they used - Dr. Gurpreet Singh out of Stockton, CA, is potentially complicit in this scam.
He probably intentionally positioned the hips to make them look better on the extended-view, which is used for diagnosing Osteoarthritis.
He probably intentionally did not fully distract the hips to make the hips look as tight as possible on the distraction view.
Based on his PennHip number, he is not a newbie, and has been practicing the PennHip method for at least 10 years. He appears to know exactly what he is doing.
He also very possibly partially distracted the hips on the compressed view, to minimize movement and hence the amount of distraction, since that position is compared with the distracted view to measure the distance the femur head moves between the 2 x-rays to calculate the actual laxity number. You can see that the head of the femur is out around 50% out of the hip socket even with essentially no distraction force being applied.
Normally, that would correspond to about 1.00 hip laxity. (This number is a ratio of the distance the femur head moved from the compressed view to the distracted view, divided by the radius of the hips/femur head). So, if the femur head moves out of the hip socket exactly by half distance, which is equal to the radius of the femur head, that is 1.00.

I am still in shock that PennHip played a role in this scam by giving this dog a hip laxity score and full report. They need to stop this nonsense.

It's not enough for the PennHip report to state this on the 2nd page which the breeder can just conveniently hide, like Dante Good did, and parade his fake scores, because PennHip still opted to issue a report:

"**If a breeding dog, we recommend a repeat PRIOR to breeding and fixing the above 2 issues."

If you can't properly evaluate the hips and the actual laxity because the veterinarian didn't take the x-rays properly, why the hell does PennHip still issue the fake scores?

I'm just stunned - their veterinarian, Dr. Gupreet Singh is probably complicit, the two owners of this dog, Dante Good and Rashad Richard are definitely complicit, and PennHip is complicit. And who suffers? Not them....

The other people who may end up possibly breeding to this dog in our community because they fell for this scam and believe that this dog has great hips, and who may go on to produce dogs with hip dysplasia as a result because the owner of this dog took advantage of PennHip's procedural flaw of issuing a score on x-rays that were done completely improperly. I'd not be surprised at all if this dog, Logic, has diagnosable Osteoarthritis and hip dysplasia, and hip laxity closer to 1.00 than it is to 0.30 on both hips. That's a rather big difference with 0.35 / 0.27 and no OA as is being claimed.

Again - No OA diagnosis because the vet positioned the dog incorrectly on the extended-view, as is explained by PennHip on page 2, so we don't know whether this dog has OA or not.... and fantastic hip laxity score because there was no force applied to actually pull the femurs out of the hips, as is again, explained by PennHip on page 2.

If anyone has any questions or clarifications to help them understand this entire situation better, please feel free to ask. I know this may all seem confusing to people unfamiliar with how PennHip works.

When Dante Good asked me why I want to see the actual PennHip report and the x-rays 2 days ago after refusing to post them initially, I told him because we have experience with scammers who falsify objective results, so we need to see the evidence. We do this to protect our community. Turns out my hunch was right. These people are scammers.

The buck stops with PennHip. They need to regain our trust - make the full reports accessible with the owner's permission on their own website, and definitely they need to refuse to evaluate and provide results for x-rays that were taken improperly to manipulate the said results. Damn PennHip... damn.

If you need to include this caveat with the PennHip report - "**If a breeding dog, we recommend a repeat PRIOR to breeding and fixing the above 2 issues." then don't issue the report to begin with! I still can't believe PennHip actually gave these scammers a score.