Abstract
Studies of animals that visit primary and secondary veterinary centres dominate companion animal epidemiology. Dogslife is a research initiative that collects data directly from owners about the health and lifestyle of Kennel Club (KC) registered Labrador Retrievers (LR) in the UK. The ultimate aim is to seek associations between canine lifestyle and health. A selection of data from Dogslife regarding the height, weight and lifestyle of 4307 LR up to four years of age is reported here.The majority of the dogs were household pets, living with at least one other pet, in families or households with more than one adult. The dogs typically ate diets of dried food and daily meal frequency decreased as the dogs aged. Working dogs spent more time exercising than pets, and dogs in Wales and Scotland were exercised more than their counterparts in England. Dogs in households with children spent less time exercising than dogs in other types of households. There was considerable variation in height and weight measurements indicative of a highly heterogeneous population. The average male height at the shoulders was 2–3cm taller than the UK breed standard. Dog weights continued to increase between one and four years of age. Those with chocolate coloured coats were heavier than their yellow and black counterparts. Greater dog weight was also associated with dogs whose owners reported restricting their dog’s exercise due to where they lived.These findings highlight the utility of wide public engagement in the collation of phenotypic measures, providing a unique insight into the physical development and lifestyle of a cohort of LRs. In combination with concurrently collected data on the health of the cohort, phenotypic data from the Dogslife Project will contribute to understanding the relationship between dog lifestyle and health.
Highlights
In human medicine, it has been well demonstrated that lifestyle has health impacts, such as links between smoking tobacco and lung cancer (Doll and Hill, 1950), or exercise levels and mortality (Irwin et al, 2011)
SAVSNET quoted the number of individual pets involved in the project between September 2012 and February 2014 to be over 89,000 (SAVSNET, 2014b) and the running total on the VetCompass website in September 2014 (VetCompass, 2014) indicated that they had information relating to the veterinary care of over 800,000 dogs
In the absence of exact data, that each registered dog was associated with a single owner, contact details were available for the owners of just 35% of all eligible dogs
Summary
It has been well demonstrated that lifestyle has health impacts, such as links between smoking tobacco and lung cancer (Doll and Hill, 1950), or exercise levels and mortality (Irwin et al, 2011). SAVSNET quoted the number of individual pets involved in the project between September 2012 and February 2014 to be over 89,000 (SAVSNET, 2014b) and the running total on the VetCompass website in September 2014 (VetCompass, 2014) indicated that they had information relating to the veterinary care of over 800,000 dogs. Both of these projects have great scope to investigate disease in dogs seen at veterinary practices.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
