Prices & Booking

Before Your Appointment Once you have booked your appointment with us you are then required to contact your own vet to request your dog's medical record be emailed to us at Lancashire Hip Scores via info@lancashirehipscores.co.uk This is a requirement of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) Under Care Guidelines. It is also really useful so that we are aware in advance if your dog has any additional medical needs. Please do not feed your dog after 9pm on the day before your appointment. Your dog may have access to water overnight. At the Appointment Please bring your Kennel Club Registration Document for your dog or any other registration document that you may have to the appointment. When you arrive at the practice please go to reception where the receptionist will check your documentation. Vicky or Michelle will admit your dog and a consent form will need to be signed. Your dog will be weighed and its microchip will be scanned and number recorded – this needs to be recorded on the X-ray. Your dog will then have a health check by Michelle before the sedative injection is given into the muscle in the back leg. We like to keep everything calm and as stress free as possible for your dog, so if necessary you may stay with your dog when the injection is given. Your dog will then be taken through to the diagnostic imaging area while the sedative takes effect. Once your dog is relaxed enough we will position for the X-rays. As soon as we are happy with the X-rays we have taken, your dog will be given another injection to reverse the effect of the sedation so they can ‘wake up’. We will call you back into the practice where Michelle will show and discuss your dog’s X-rays with you before your dog is returned to you. Your dog will be a little sleepy and less active than normal. We recommend a quiet afternoon for them to sleep and recover fully. They will be back to full form by the next morning! Following the Appointment Your X-rays will be submitted to the British Veterinary Association (BVA) or other scheme as requested later the same day. As soon as we receive your certificates back from the BVA they will be emailed to you. The results may appear on the Kennel Club website before we receive them from the BVA.

When you book your appointment on lancashirehipscores.co.uk you will receive a confirmation email with information about the next steps. If for some reason we need to change your appointment we will contact you as soon as possible to find a suitable alternative. We will require payment at your appointment and on collection of your dog.

The British Veterinary Association (BVA) charge set fees for the submission and confirmation of X-rays. These fees are additional and are to be paid for directly to the BVA. How it works... once we have submitted the X-rays to the BVA you will receive an email from them direct to you, with a payment link to pay the submission fees.

A dog should be at least 1 year of age to allow BVA submission, however hip and elbow scoring can be done at any age above 1 year's old. The dog's hip and elbow joints are fully developed by 12 months of age. Therefore X-rays performed from 12 months reflect a more accurate picture of the dog's hip and elbow health. We can do earlier X-rays for general interest or if there is any concern of lameness. This can still be valuable but are not able to be submitted for official scoring. Learn more about Dog Hip Scores and what they mean here.