It’s a Dogslife – using the web to understand dogs’ health over their lifetime

Dylan Clements, Carys Pugh, Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies

A quarter of UK households own adog, which makes them the UK’s most popular pet. However, beyond vaccination and parasitic treatments there are few preventative measures to keep dogs healthy. The primary reason for this is the lack of research into the factors which are associated with health or disease over the lifetime of dogs. Since launching in 2010, the Dogslife project has recruited nearly 8000 Labrador Retrievers which are being followed over their lifetime, making it the largest cohort study of dog health in the world. Dogslife uses a website-based platform to capture data provided by the dogs’ owners, detailing their pets health. Join us to learnabout the challenges researchers face and overcome when using data collected through the internet. Hear how this dataset is helping to identify and understand genetic and lifestyle factors which are associated with the healthy aging of dogs and the illnesses dogs develop.