An open science study of ageing in companion dogs.

The Dog Aging Project is a long-term longitudinal study of ageing in tens of thousands of companion dogs. The domestic dog is among the most variable mammal species in terms of morphology, behaviour, risk of age-related disease and life expectancy. Given that dogs share the human environment and have a sophisticated healthcare system but are much shorter-lived than people, they offer a unique opportunity to identify the genetic, environmental and lifestyle factors associated with healthy lifespan. To take advantage of this opportunity, the Dog Aging Project will collect extensive survey data, environmental information, electronic veterinary medical records, genome-wide sequence information, clinicopathology and molecular phenotypes derived from blood cells, plasma and faecal samples. Here, we describe the specific goals and design of the Dog Aging Project and discuss the potential for this open-data, community science study to greatly enhance understanding of ageing in a genetically variable, socially relevant species living in a complex environment.

Treatment and management of Salmonella prostatitis in a heartworm-positive intact male dog: a case report.

BACKGROUND: Salmonella spp. represent a significant zoonotic concern to pregnant owners as infection can cause septic abortions and post-partum illness. Enteric salmonellosis is well documented in canines however urinary salmonellosis is rarely described and Salmonella prostatitis has never been described in dogs. CASE PRESENTATION: This case report describes the diagnosis and management of a five-year-old, intact male Labrador Retriever mix dog that was diagnosed with Salmonella prostatitis among other comorbidities including heartworm infestation. Additionally, mitigation of zoonotic spread is emphasized as one of the owners was six months pregnant at the time of diagnosis. DISCUSSION: The pathogenesis of Salmonella prostatitis is unknown but explanations pertaining to enteric salmonellosis, such as the lifestyle and stress of living as a stray may have contributed and contamination from an enteric infection may have also been possible. Several recommendations were made to reduce the likelihood of zoonotic transmission including frequent hand washing, avoidance of the patient's mouth, change in location of where the patient was fed, the use of an isolated area outside for urination and defecation, and the use of dilute bleach to clean areas soiled by the patient's bodily fluids. Monitoring of the prostatic infection was facilitated with prostatic wash instead of urine culture. This decision was made as prostatic infections have been shown to intermittently shed bacteria into the urine, leading to possible false negative urine cultures and potential catastrophic zoonotic infection.

Small Animal Resident Selection Processes at a University Teaching Hospital: An Analysis and Recommendations for Improvement.

Concerns regarding resident performance within a small animal department prompted a review of selection practices, with the intent of improving validity and efficiency. Information was gathered from semi-structured interviews and descriptions of current processes; emphasis was placed on determining how the Veterinary Internship and Residency Matching Program application was used. Processes were found to lack standardization and rely heavily on arbitrary judgments. In addition, faculty members expressed concerns regarding their reliability and the time spent generating candidate rankings. Suggestions for improvement were based on current practices in personnel psychology and human resource management. The need for standardization within and across specialty groups was emphasized, along with a multiple-hurdle approach in which a substantial deficit or red flag in any component results in candidate disqualification. Comprehensive recommendations were made for the selection process as follows: Each application undergoes initial administrative screening for employment eligibility and academic cut-offs; eligible applications are scored by 2-3 faculty members using defined ratings on four equally weighted pre-interview criteria (i.e., veterinary education, post-graduation experiences, personal statement, and standardized letters of reference); phone calls to colleagues with knowledge of the applicant follow specific guidelines and a rating scale; veterinary-situational structured interview questions with appropriate rating scales are used to assess candidates' standing on specified competencies identified as important for success; and the interview score is weighted equally and added to the four pre-interview components to determine the final rank. It is hoped this new approach will take less time and facilitate the selection of successful residents.

Pilot Study of Small Animal Rotating Intern Telephone Communication Training Using Simulated Referring Veterinarians.

Proficiency in client communications is now widely accepted as a significant requirement of veterinary student education, with numerous training systems in use and documentation of outcomes required for academic accreditation. Little information is available concerning communication training for veterinary house officers (interns and residents), despite the large number of new graduates who enter such programs seeking further training and mentorship. The majority of student communication training focuses on face-to-face interactions with clients and development of core communication skills. By contrast, veterinary house officers in specialty hospitals frequently communicate about cases with practitioner colleagues by telephone, to assess emergent and urgent referrals and follow up on shared cases. Successful telephone communication with these colleagues is a valuable skill to cultivate in novice interns. In this pilot study, self-reported veterinary intern confidence with communication skills improved after a telephone-based simulated referring veterinarian (RDVM) communications training experience. The use of simulated RDVMs, and telephone-based training, shows promise for incorporation into future training experiences of veterinarians at this level.

Body size, inbreeding, and lifespan in domestic dogs.

Inbreeding poses a real or potential threat to nearly every species of conservation concern. Inbreeding leads to loss of diversity at the individual level, which can cause inbreeding depression, and at the population level, which can hinder ability to respond to a changing environment. In closed populations such as endangered species and ex situ breeding programs, some degree of inbreeding is inevitable. It is therefore vital to understand how different patterns of breeding and inbreeding can affect fitness in real animals. Domestic dogs provide an excellent model, showing dramatic variation in degree of inbreeding and in lifespan, an important aspect of fitness that is known to be impacted by inbreeding in other species. There is a strong negative correlation between body size and lifespan in dogs, but it is unknown whether the higher rate of aging in large dogs is due to body size per se or some other factor associated with large size. We used dense genome-wide SNP array data to calculate average inbreeding for over 100 dog breeds based on autozygous segment length and found that large breeds tend to have higher coefficients of inbreeding than small breeds. We then used data from the Veterinary medical Database and other published sources to estimate life expectancies for pure and mixed breed dogs. When controlling for size, variation in inbreeding was not associated with life expectancy across breeds. When comparing mixed versus purebred dogs, however, mixed breed dogs lived about 1.2 years longer on average than size-matched purebred dogs. Furthermore, individual pedigree coefficients of inbreeding and lifespans for over 9000 golden retrievers showed that inbreeding does negatively impact lifespan at the individual level. Registration data from the American Kennel Club suggest that the molecular inbreeding patterns observed in purebred dogs result from specific breeding practices and/or founder effects and not the current population size. Our results suggest that recent inbreeding, as reflected in variation within a breed, is more likely to affect fitness than historic inbreeding, as reflected in variation among breeds. Our results also indicate that occasional outcrosses, as in mixed breed dogs, can have a substantial positive effect on fitness.

Multiple-Choice Questions in Small Animal Medicine: An Analysis of Cognitive Level and Structural Reliability, and the Impact of these Characteristics on Student Performance.

Students entering the final year of the veterinary curriculum need to integrate information and problem solve. Assessments used to document competency prior to entry to the clinical environment should ideally provide a reliable measurement of these essential skills. In this study, five internal medicine specialists evaluated the cognitive grade (CG) and structural integrity of 100 multiple-choice questions (MCQs) used to assess learning by third-year students at a United States (US) veterinary school. Questions in CG 1 tested factual recall and simple understanding; those in CG 2 required interpretation and analysis; CG 3 MCQs tested problem solving. The majority (53%) of questions could be answered correctly using only recall or simple understanding (CG 1); 12% of MCQs required problem solving (CG 3). Less than half of the questions (43%) were structurally sound. Overall student performance for the 3 CGs differed significantly (92% for CG 1 vs. 84% for CG 3; p = .03. Structural integrity did not appear to impact overall performance, with a median pass rate of 90% for flawless questions versus 86% for those with poor structural integrity (p = .314). There was a moderate positive correlation between individual student outcomes for flawless CG 1 versus CG 3 questions (rs = 0.471; p = < .001), although 13% of students failed to achieve an aggregate passing score (65%) on the CG 3 questions. These findings suggest that MCQ-based assessments may not adequately evaluate intended learning outcomes and that instructors may benefit from guidance and training for this issue.

2019 AAHA Canine Life Stage Guidelines.

The guidelines are an update and extension of the AAHA Canine Life Stage Guidelines published in 2012. A noteworthy change from the earlier guidelines is the division of the dog's lifespan into five stages (puppy, young adult, mature adult, senior, and end of life) instead of the previous six. This simplified grouping is consistent with how pet owners generally perceive their dog's maturation and aging process and provides a readily understood basis for an evolving, lifelong healthcare strategy. The guidelines provide the following recommendations for managing 10 health-related factors at each of the first four canine life stages: lifestyle effect on the patient's safety, zoonotic and human safety risk, behavior, nutrition, parasite control, vaccination, dental health, reproduction, breed-specific conditions, and a baseline diagnostic profile.

The Educational Resource Preferences and Information-Seeking Behaviors of Veterinary Medical Students and Practitioners.

The overall purpose of this study was to assess the information-seeking strategies of individuals representing different stages of veterinary training. More specifically, we conducted a survey to evaluate textbook ownership, to determine the preferred types of educational resources and why these preferences exist, and to determine if changes arise as training progresses. We asked students in the veterinary curriculum, interns, residents, and recent graduates from the University of Georgia (UGA) College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM) to participate in a confidential online survey. A total of 184 individuals participated. Respondents were grouped into one of six categories: recent graduates (n = 6), interns/residents (n = 11), fourth-year students (n = 21), third-year students (n = 46), second-year students (n = 73), and first-year students (n = 27). The results showed that veterinary students used class notes and non-veterinary search engines initially, whereas interns and residents consulted textbooks and the primary literature as their first sources to answer a veterinary question. Veterinary students had accrued textbooks over sequential years in the curriculum, but many interns and residents had almost twice as many textbooks as those who had not pursued additional training after graduation. An ANOVA showed that first-year students reported a preference for printed textbooks significantly more frequently than the third-year and fourth-year students (F(5,163) = 3.265, p = .006, and p = .012, respectively). Decreased cost was most frequently cited as the factor that would increase textbook purchases.

Analysis of Small Animal Rotating Internship Applicants' Personal Statements.

The primary purpose of this study was to identify themes that are consistent across veterinary internship applicants' personal statements and that are correlated with the statements' perceived overall quality. A secondary purpose was to investigate the reliability in personal statement quality scoring among six experienced internship candidate evaluators. One hundred applications to the University of Georgia Small Animal Rotating Internship program were evaluated. Each evaluator wrote a description of what he or she values in personal statements and his or her beliefs about content and presentation in high- and low-quality statements. After statement de-identification, each evaluator reviewed 15 randomly selected personal statements from internship applicants and assigned each a score ranging from 1 to 4 according to the following criteria: 1 = would not rank for an internship; 2 = would rank in the bottom third; 3 = would rank in the middle third; and 4 = would rank in the top third. A subset of these scored personal statements was chosen for qualitative analysis. A qualitative document analysis using grounded theory was performed for both the evaluators' descriptions of preferences in personal statements and the subset of personal statements. Agreement among evaluators' assigned scores was slight (Fleiss's κ = 0.11). Analysis of the evaluator statements and the scored candidate statements indicated that important factors in a personal statement include the applicant's ability to articulate experiences, to convey maturity, to demonstrate understanding of what an internship entails, and to describe reasons for pursuing an internship.

Impact of Expert Commentary and Student Reflection on Veterinary Clinical Decision-Making Skills in an Innovative Electronic-Learning Case-Based Platform.

One challenge in veterinary education is bridging the divide between the nature of classroom examples (well-defined problem solving) and real world situations (ill-defined problem solving). Solving the latter often relies on experiential knowledge, which is difficult to impart to inexperienced students. A multidisciplinary team including veterinary specialists and learning scientists developed an interactive, e-learning case-based module in which students made critical decisions at five specific points (Decision Points [DPs]). After committing to each decision (Original Answers), students reflected on the thought processes of experts making similar decisions, and were allowed to revise their decisions (Revised Answers); both sets of answers were scored. In Phase I, performance of students trained using the module (E-Learning Group) and by lecture (Traditional Group) was compared on the course final examination. There was no difference in performance between the groups, suggesting that the e-learning module was as effective as traditional lecture for content delivery. In Phase II, differences between Original Answers and Revised Answers were evaluated for a larger group of students, all of whom used the module as the sole method of instruction. There was a significant improvement in scores between Original and Revised Answers for four out of five DPs (DP1, p =.004; DP2, p =.04; DP4, p <.001; DP5, p <.001). The authors conclude that the ability to rehearse clinical decision making through this tool, without direct individual feedback from an instructor, may facilitate students' transition from problem solving in a well-structured classroom setting to an ill-structured clinical setting.

The dog aging project: translational geroscience in companion animals.

Studies of the basic biology of aging have identified several genetic and pharmacological interventions that appear to modulate the rate of aging in laboratory model organisms, but a barrier to further progress has been the challenge of moving beyond these laboratory discoveries to impact health and quality of life for people. The domestic dog, Canis familiaris, offers a unique opportunity for surmounting this barrier in the near future. In particular, companion dogs share our environment and play an important role in improving the quality of life for millions of people. Here, we present a rationale for increasing the role of companion dogs as an animal model for both basic and clinical geroscience and describe complementary approaches and ongoing projects aimed at achieving this goal.

Relationship between Small Animal Intern Rank and Performance at a University Teaching Hospital.

The purpose of this study was to determine if there is a relationship between selection committee rankings of internship applicants and the performance of small animal interns. The hypothesis was that there would be a relationship between selection committee rank order and intern performance; the more highly an application was ranked, the better the intern's performance scores would be. In 2007, the Department of Small Animal Medicine and Surgery instituted a standardized approach to its intern selection process both to streamline the process and to track its effectiveness. At the end of intern years 2010-2014, every faculty member in the department was provided an intern assessment form for that year's class. There was no relationship between an individual intern's final rank by the selection committee and his/her performance either as a percentile score or a Likert-type score (p=.25, R2=0.04; p=0.31, R2=0.03, respectively). Likewise, when interns were divided into the top and bottom quartile based on their final rank by the selection committee, there was no relationship between their rank and their performance as a percentile score (median rank 15 vs. 20; p=.14) or Likert-type score (median rank 14 vs. 19; p=.27). Institutions that use a similar intern selection method may need to reconsider the time and effort being expended for an outcome that does not predict performance. Alternatively, specific criteria more predictive of performance outcomes should be identified and employed in the internship selection process.

Analysis of 2,570 responses to Dog Aging Project End of Life Survey demonstrates that euthanasia is associated with cause of death but not age.

OBJECTIVE: The Dog Aging Project End of Life Survey was used to evaluate factors associated with manner of death (euthanasia vs unassisted death), including cause of death (CoD), reason for euthanasia (RFE) if performed, medical symptoms, old age characteristics, and perimortem quality of life (QoL). SAMPLE: Responses collected between the End of Life Survey launch (January 20, 2021) through December 31, 2021, from 2,570 participants whose dogs died. METHODS: Response frequencies were described. Associations between manner of death and medical symptoms or old age characteristics were evaluated using logistic regression. Factors associated with RFE were evaluated using multinomial regression. The effects of CoD, age at death, and QoL on the frequency of euthanasia as the manner of death were evaluated using multivariate logistic regression. RESULTS: 2,195 (85.4%) dogs were euthanized, and 375 (14.6%) experienced unassisted death. The most frequent owner-reported CoD was illness/disease (n = 1,495 [58.1%]). The most frequently reported RFE was pain/suffering (n = 1,080 [49.2% of those euthanized]). As age increased, RFE was more likely to be "poor QoL" than any other response. In a multivariate regression including CoD, chronologic age, and QoL, euthanasia as the manner of death was not significantly associated with age. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Euthanasia was a common manner of death for dogs in the US. Compared with unassisted death, euthanasia was associated with CoD illness/disease, lower QoL scores, and the presence and number of medical symptoms and old age characteristics. Understanding factors associated with manner of death is important to veterinarians who care for dogs at the end of life.

Validation of the shortened version of the Canine Behavioral Assessment and Research Questionnaire (C-BARQ) using participants from the Dog Aging Project.

The Canine Behavioral Assessment and Research Questionnaire (C-BARQ) is a 100-item owner-completed survey instrument used for assessing behavior and temperament of companion dogs. The shortened version of the C-BARQ (C-BARQ(S)) consists of 42 items of the long C-BARQ. We aimed to validate the shortened C-BARQ(S) by comparing it with the long questionnaire in the same human-dog pair. We examined data from a nationwide cohort of companion dogs enrolled in the large-scale longitudinal Dog Aging Project (DAP) study. Among 435 participating owners who completed both the long and shortened versions of the C-BARQ within 60 days of each other, agreement between individual questions of the long and shortened C-BARQ using an unweighted kappa statistic and percent agreement was examined. Associations between the two questionnaires for mean behavior and temperament domain scores and mean miscellaneous category scores were assessed using Pearson correlation coefficients. Of 435 dogs in the study, the mean (SD) age was 7.3 (4.3) years and 216 (50%) were female. Kappa values between the long and shortened C-BARQ for individual questions within the 14 behavior and temperament domains and a miscellaneous category ranged from fair to moderate (0.23 to 0.40 for 21 items and 0.41 to 0.58 for 26 items, respectively). Pearson correlation coefficients above 0.60 between both questionnaires for 12 of the 14 mean behavior and temperament domain scores and a category of miscellaneous items were observed. Kappa values for individual questions between the long and shortened C-BARQ ranged from fair to moderate and correlations between mean domain scores ranged from moderate to strong.

Dog size and patterns of disease history across the canine age spectrum: Results from the Dog Aging Project.

Age in dogs is associated with the risk of many diseases, and canine size is a major factor in that risk. However, the size patterns are complex. While small size dogs tend to live longer, some diseases are more prevalent among small dogs. In this study we seek to quantify how the pattern of disease history varies across the spectrum of dog size, dog age, and their interaction. Utilizing owner-reported data on disease history from a substantial number of companion dogs enrolled in the Dog Aging Project, we investigate how body size, as measured by weight, associates with the lifetime prevalence of a reported condition and its pattern across age for various disease categories. We found significant positive associations between dog size and the lifetime prevalence of skin, bone/orthopedic, gastrointestinal, ear/nose/throat, cancer/tumor, brain/neurologic, endocrine, and infectious diseases. Similarly, dog size was negatively associated with lifetime prevalence of ocular, cardiac, liver/pancreas, and respiratory disease categories. Kidney/urinary disease prevalence did not vary by size. We also found that the association between age and lifetime disease prevalence varied by dog size for many conditions including ocular, cardiac, orthopedic, ear/nose/throat, and cancer. Controlling for sex, purebred vs. mixed-breed status, and geographic region made little difference in all disease categories we studied. Our results align with the reduced lifespan in larger dogs for most of the disease categories and suggest potential avenues for further examination.

The companion dog as a model for inflammaging: a cross-sectional pilot study.

Inflammaging, the chronic, progressive proinflammatory state associated with aging, has been associated with multiple negative health outcomes in humans. The pathophysiology of inflammaging is complex; however, it is often characterized by high serum concentrations of inflammatory mediators such as tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α), interleukin (IL)-6, and C-reactive protein (CRP). Few studies have evaluated the effects of age on inflammatory cytokines in companion dogs, and most of these studies included dogs of a single breed. In this cross-sectional study, we measured multiple circulating inflammatory markers and hematological parameters in banked serum samples from 47 healthy companion dogs of various breeds enrolled in the Dog Aging Project. Using univariate linear models, we investigated the association of each of these markers with age, sex, body weight, and body condition score (BCS), a measure of obesity in the dog. Serum IL-6, IL-8, and TNF-α concentrations were all positively associated with age. Lymphocyte count was negatively associated with age. Platelet count had a negative association with body weight. IL-2, albumin, cholesterol, triglyceride, bilirubin, S100A12, and NMH concentrations were not associated with age, weight, BCS, or sex after adjustment for multiple comparisons. Our findings replicate previous findings in humans, including increases in IL-6 and TNF-α with age, giving more evidence to the strength of the companion dog as a model for human aging.

Clippers are superior to scissors in the collection of hair for chemical analysis in companion dogs: a Dog Aging Project preliminary study.

OBJECTIVE: To identify the safest, most efficient method for hair sample collection from companion dogs among clippers, scissors, and razors and to validate obtained samples with cortisol concentration analysis. ANIMALS: 25 healthy, privately owned dogs. METHODS: 2 hair samples were collected from each dog's ischiatic region with different implements (scissors, razors, or clippers). The collecting clinician completed a Hair Collection Questionnaire (HCQ) for each sample that compared subjective sample quality, time of collection, restraint needed, and patient experience. Each sample was evaluated by cortisol enzyme immunoassay. RESULTS: Clippers had higher overall HCQ scores than scissors, and scissors had higher HCQ scores than razors. Collection was faster for clippers than scissors, and scissors were faster than razors. There were no differences in sample quality between scissors and clippers, and sample quality was lower with razors. There was no difference in restraint needed or patient experience. Collection of long hair had higher HCQ scores than collection of medium and short hair. Collection of hair from dogs with an undercoat had higher HCQ scores than collection of hair from dogs without an undercoat. Dog size had no effect on HCQ score. Hair cortisol concentration did not vary between scissors or clippers (P = .111). Hair color and age did not affect hair cortisol concentration (P = .966 and P = .676, respectively). CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Clippers are recommended for hair sample collection from companion dogs. Scissors are an adequate alternative.

DNA methylation and chromatin accessibility predict age in the domestic dog.

Across mammals, the epigenome is highly predictive of chronological age. These "epigenetic clocks," most of which have been built using DNA methylation (DNAm) profiles, have gained traction as biomarkers of aging and organismal health. While the ability of DNAm to predict chronological age has been repeatedly demonstrated, the ability of other epigenetic features to predict age remains unclear. Here, we use two types of epigenetic information-DNAm, and chromatin accessibility as measured by ATAC-seq-to develop age predictors in peripheral blood mononuclear cells sampled from a population of domesticated dogs. We measured DNAm and ATAC-seq profiles for 71 dogs, building separate predictive clocks from each, as well as the combined dataset. We also use fluorescence-assisted cell sorting to quantify major lymphoid populations for each sample. We found that chromatin accessibility can accurately predict chronological age (R2 ATAC = 26%), though less accurately than the DNAm clock (R2 DNAm = 33%), and the clock built from the combined datasets was comparable to both (R2 combined = 29%). We also observed various populations of CD62L+ T cells significantly correlated with dog age. Finally, we found that all three clocks selected features that were in or near at least two protein-coding genes: BAIAP2 and SCARF2, both previously implicated in processes related to cognitive or neurological impairment. Taken together, these results highlight the potential of chromatin accessibility as a complementary epigenetic resource for modeling and investigating biologic age.