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Mortality In North American Dogs From 1984 To 2004


shortstep
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That is not a random sample BTW, it is data taken from medical records and doesn't represent the entire population of dogs. If you extrapolate that data you would get an incorrect picture of purebred dog health. I haven't read it all but I'd also be wary of any study that didn't insist on seeing a dog's papers to prove it was purebred. Lots of owners say they have a pedigree dog that either isn't or has been bred by BYBers who don't health test.

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That is not a random sample BTW, it is data taken from medical records and doesn't represent the entire population of dogs. If you extrapolate that data you would get an incorrect picture of purebred dog health. I haven't read it all but I'd also be wary of any study that didn't insist on seeing a dog's papers to prove it was purebred. Lots of owners say they have a pedigree dog that either isn't or has been bred by BYBers who don't health test.

There seems to a lot of research being released or close to release that has to do with longvity and cause of death. Seems like there is a real move to collect data to prove certain points. I am wondering what exactly will be done with life expectency rates for each breed. It is unforutnate that KCs world wide can not do some of their own research.

The KC has done some but the numbers of dogs is very small.

Here is the Dachshound survey and it would be all pedigreed dogs,

spinal/neuro 11% cause of death and almost 12% Dx at recent vet visit.

http://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/download/1539/hsdachshund.pdf

Anyway I think it is wise to read as many of these studies as possible.

Edited by shortstep
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Interesting article, I hadn't seen that yet, thanks for the link. Not sure it tells us anything that veterinarians didn't already know - that dogs of different ages, different body types and different lineages are predisposed to dying from different causes. Quantifies it somewhat though, which is useful.

Worth buying? Depends what information you're after. Doesn't survey the entire canine population so just gives the proportion of dogs that were taken to the clinic that died from each cause. i.e. by that I mean this study can tell you that x percentage of Bernese Mountain type dogs that died at the clinic died from cancer - won't tell you what chance the average BMD has of dying from cancer. Not sure if that is of any use to you.

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It won't tell you the number of each breed living a full and healthy life either because it is based only on animals presented at clinics and I shouldn't have to tell you how that is not a representation of the entire population of each breed. Also, as I said if they don't sight the papers for each subject then your breed stats are worthless because unregistered dogs cannot be claimed to be a breed for research purposes. If you are a layman then proceed cautiously because it is easy to misinterpret the results of these vet record based studies.

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Out of 20 years of owning Dachshunds, only ever lost one dog to that and he came from a PP.. My grandads standard ran up and down 22 stairs dozens of times every single day of her life until she was PTS for cancer at age 13... and yes she was still running up and down those stairs that morning. Never had a problem with her back. So I wouldnt like to see this study being used in a negative light.

But that's a disturbing figure none the less, if you think of the mortality just for that disease... not taking into account all the other things that can happen to them including accidents and other diseases.. doesnt seem like too many live to a ripe old age now does it? :(

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Out of 20 years of owning Dachshunds, only ever lost one dog to that and he came from a PP.. My grandads standard ran up and down 22 stairs dozens of times every single day of her life until she was PTS for cancer at age 13... and yes she was still running up and down those stairs that morning. Never had a problem with her back. So I wouldnt like to see this study being used in a negative light.

But that's a disturbing figure none the less, if you think of the mortality just for that disease... not taking into account all the other things that can happen to them including accidents and other diseases.. doesnt seem like too many live to a ripe old age now does it? :(

This was all I could find on the prevelance

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2873269/

Intervertebral disc disease (IVDD) in dogs is one of the most common disorders in veterinary neurology. The chondrodystophic (hypochondroplastic) breeds are affected more frequently and in the Dachshunds the breed prevalence of IVDD is around 19% [1-4]. Degenerative changes in the intervertebral discs can be detected already in the newborn hypochondroplastic dog and at the age of one year most of the discs will show chondroid metaplasia [2]. The degeneration can lead to subsequent mineralization (calcification) of the discs. Calcifications have been reported to be present in 46-48% of the intervertebral discs on histological examination in Dachshunds

edited to add.

Following the above, there is evidently a maditory screening program in some european countires for IVDD in dachshounds but I could only find the African program on line. Seems they screen the dog' spines for calcifications and attempt to eliminate the most affected dogs from breeding.

http://vetimagingspecialists.com/Downloads/IVDD%20Dachshound%20breeding%20program%20RSA%20final.pdf

Edited to add

This is the UK KC report, they state 1 in 4 or 5 dogs is affected. They vetoed setting up a screening project at this time. On their owner survey almost 40% of the people responding reported back problems in their pet. Though they did not get a lot of responses to their survey.

http://www.dachshundbreedcouncil.org.uk/

There is also a yahoo group with current 4000 members Dachshound with IVDD. 22 new members this week, about 1000 posts per month. Is a consultation groups to help owners through the treatment/surgery or long term care. Called Dogerslist.

Edited by shortstep
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Doesn't survey the entire canine population

Show me a study that does! :laugh: These sorts of studies are not expected to give a full picture and I don't know anyone that would interpret them as such. I've always interpreted them as an information gathering exercise. Useful to launch further research or to check results of another study against.

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That is not a random sample BTW, it is data taken from medical records and doesn't represent the entire population of dogs. If you extrapolate that data you would get an incorrect picture of purebred dog health. I haven't read it all but I'd also be wary of any study that didn't insist on seeing a dog's papers to prove it was purebred. Lots of owners say they have a pedigree dog that either isn't or has been bred by BYBers who don't health test.

You can't get an entire representation of dogs it's like TV and Radio ratings, you take a group of 1000 and there's an actual scientific calculation to determine these things.

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That is not a random sample BTW, it is data taken from medical records and doesn't represent the entire population of dogs. If you extrapolate that data you would get an incorrect picture of purebred dog health. I haven't read it all but I'd also be wary of any study that didn't insist on seeing a dog's papers to prove it was purebred. Lots of owners say they have a pedigree dog that either isn't or has been bred by BYBers who don't health test.

You can't get an entire representation of dogs it's like TV and Radio ratings, you take a group of 1000 and there's an actual scientific calculation to determine these things.

Umm, hello scientist here, I know about experimental design. What you said is not relevant to this study because the sample is only a representative of dogs bought into clinics. You can obtain decent representations of a population if you know what you are doing, it is possible. The danger here is that this sample of dogs representing dogs bought into clinics will be taken by the media and laymen as being representative of the entire population of dogs of that breed.

It only is a sample of dogs presented for treatment, it ignores dogs that are not bought in and therefore not a true sample of both dogs treated and dogs untreated. It deals with a subset of a population but already people in this thread have assumed that the stats apply to all in the breed.

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Just read

40% of Dachshounds die from intervertebral disc disease.

and this link was listed

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21352376

published March 2011

Anyone have access to this study? and give a report to us?

My 'pooter tells me the article is free from the publishers website

(hope I've got the linky correct)

ETA: the Skeptivet blog has reviewed the paper here

Edited by vizeuse
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That is not a random sample BTW, it is data taken from medical records and doesn't represent the entire population of dogs. If you extrapolate that data you would get an incorrect picture of purebred dog health. I haven't read it all but I'd also be wary of any study that didn't insist on seeing a dog's papers to prove it was purebred. Lots of owners say they have a pedigree dog that either isn't or has been bred by BYBers who don't health test.

You can't get an entire representation of dogs it's like TV and Radio ratings, you take a group of 1000 and there's an actual scientific calculation to determine these things.

You can collect data that can be extrapolated to the entire population if it is collected from a random sample of that population. As Reverend Jo is saying, the sample of dogs in this study is not respresentative of all daschunds as it only samples those dogs that presented to the clinic, while excluding those that do not present. Therefore, these figures cannot be applied to the entire dachshund population.

It may be possible, however, with a lot of time and effort to gain a more representative sample of the entire population, which enables researchers to make generalisations. You are right though, there are statistical calculations that help with this that tell you how big your sample needs to be and then there are calculations to determine whether certain findings are statistically significant or not.

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Just read

40% of Dachshounds die from intervertebral disc disease.

and this link was listed

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21352376

published March 2011

Anyone have access to this study? and give a report to us?

My 'pooter tells me the article is free from the publishers website

(hope I've got the linky correct)

ETA: the Skeptivet blog has reviewed the paper here

Thanks for both links! Certainly is helpful to read the study.

Also the review was excellent and brought up the concern of the narrowness of the sample, (also this was not just vets, it was only teaching hospitals which would further narrow the samples and tend to increase severe or complilcated DX, and would certain explain the high rate of IVDD as this is a disease with a complicated treatment).

But the review also relates that there is still ability to see the trends within the sample. It says there are a few surprises but for most breeds it pretty much is what would be expected. At least in the reveiw, that attention seems to be directed mostly around the development and effectiveness of medical treatment, vet training and these sorts of issues.

Edited by shortstep
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Thanks for both links! Certainly is helpful to read the study.

Also the review was excellent and brought up the concern of the narrowness of the sample, (also this was not just vets, it was only teaching hospitals which would further narrow the samples and tend to increase severe or complilcated DX, and would certain explain the high rate of IVDD as this is a disease with a complicated treatment).

Have you read an earlier AKC white paper (? from 2004-ish), based on the VMDB on breed-specific risks of disease? It also briefly mentions limitations on using this type of data.

http://tinyurl.com/3sjmc46

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