This study was conducted to provide basic data on physiological and hematological characteristics, and organ weights of beagle dogs. A total of 237 beagle dogs were used to determine differences in physiological and hematological parameters, and organ weights depending on sex and age. The respiratory rate of both sexes tended to increase as they grew older and the female heart rate was slightly higher than that of males. Male and female body weights increased rapidly to 33 weeks old followed by a gradual increase to 41-weeks-old. The relative weight of the brain was negatively correlated with body weight, whereas the weight of reproductive organs was positively correlated with body weight. The platelet count of female dogs was slightly higher than that of males. The red blood cell, hemoglobin, and hematocrit of both sexes increased non-significantly with age. In the leukocyte differential count, the neutrophils, and eosinophils of both sexes tended to increase as they grew older, whereas basophils, lymphocytes, and monocytes decreased. In the serum biochemical profiles, alkaline phosphatase was slightly higher in males than females, while the total cholesterol of female dogs at 9-months-old was higher than that of males at the same age. Other biochemical components, including alanine aminotransferase, blood urea nitrogen, creatinine, triglyceride, and total protein increased non-significantly with age in both sexes. To conclude, we observe no significant physiological or hematological differences with sex or age, although decreasing and increasing trends were detected with some parameters. These data provide valuable reference indices of the normal physiological and hematological characteristics of beagle dogs, which should prove useful in toxicological and pharmacological studies.

Objectives: Recently the use of customised percentiles is recommended. In practice, maternal characteristics are entered into a software program (gestation-related optimal weight (GROW)) to calculate an individually adjusted optimal weight. We compared the GROW standard, Hadlock standard, and the new Korean reference for birthweight. Methods: This is a retrospective pilot study in Kangwon National University Hospital, which was conducted on 100 of the most recent women who delivered from January 2018 to June 2019. We exclude the women who are younger than 20 or older than 45, had multifetal pregnant, are foreigners, had the fetal anomaly, and had obstetric complications or medical complications that are known to affect the weight of the fetus. We compared the groups less than 10 percentile in GROW, Hadlock, and the new Korean reference. Results: When using the Hadlock standard, less than 10 percentile was 5 (The Hadlock and the new Korean reference had a perfect agreement). However, when using the GROW standard, less than 10 percentile was 11 (the GROW and the new Korean reference had a moderate agreement (kappa = 0.60; 95% CI 0.311-0.883)). In maternal factors by fetal growth status, there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups. Conclusions: The GROW is considered to be more clinically useful in Europe. However, in Korea, there is incomplete data on this, and thus its clinical value is low.