Canine intervertebral disc disease — Occurrence by age, breed, and sex among 8,117 cases

Abstract

To study the effect of the variables breed, age and sex on the occurrence of canine intervertebral disc disease (CIVDD), 8,117 cases reported by 13 veterinary colleges in the United States and Canada were contrasted with a reference of 356,954 dog-years at risk; the data indicated a crude hospital/clinic-rate of 23 cases of CIVDD/1,000 dogs/year. While 84 individual breeds of dogs were reported to have at least one case of CIVDD, only the Dachshund, Pekingese, Beagle, Welsh Corgi, Lhasa Apso, and Shih Tzu had 5 or more cases reported for the breed and a significantly increased risk (p≤0.01). The age distributions for new cases of CIVDD by individual breeds showed a rapid rise to a peak at 4–6 years for high risk breeds, followed by a somewhat less rapid decline, and a peak at 6–8 years for low risk breeds, followed by a gradual decline. There were small, but significant, differences in R by sex, with males and spayed females at a higher risk than females.