Demography, common disorders and mortality of Boxer dogs under primary veterinary care in the UK

Abstract

Background The Boxer is a popular dog breed with a distinctive appearance. However, the breed has been linked with several health conditions, some of which have been associated with its moderately brachycephalic conformation and its white colouration. Anonymised primary-care veterinary clinical records were explored to extract data on the demography, common disorders and mortality of Boxers in the UK in 2016. Results The study population of 336,865 dogs included 3,219 (0.96%) Boxers, of which 10.71% were recorded as white. The mean adult bodyweight was 30.43 kg (SD 5.73 kg). Annual disorder counts did not differ statistically between the sexes or between white and non-white Boxers. The most prevalent fine-level precision disorders were otitis externa (n = 230, 7.15%), epulis (188, 5.84%), corneal ulceration (161, 5.00%) and periodontal disease (149, 4.63%). Of the 34 most common fine-level disorders, none differed in prevalence between white and non-white dogs. The most prevalent disorder groups were skin disorder (n = 571, 17.74%), neoplasia (457, 14.20%) and ear disorder (335, 10.41%). White Boxers had higher prevalence than non-white Boxers for two disorder groups: dental disorder and brain disorder. The median longevity of 346 Boxers that died during the study was 10.46 years (IQR 9.00–11.98, range 2.76–18.00). Median longevity did not differ statistically between the sexes or between white and non-white Boxers. The most common grouped causes of death were death – unrecorded cause (n = 73, 21.10%), neoplasia (43, 12.43%) and brain disorder (33, 9.54%). Conclusions There was minimal evidence of substantial health differences between white and non-white Boxers. Among the four most common disorders recorded in Boxers, two were typically common across all types of dogs (otitis externa and periodontal disease) while two suggested strong predispositions for the Boxer breed (epulis and corneal ulceration), showing the value of eliciting breed-specific disorder patterns for insights for potential health reforms. The overall longevity of Boxer dogs was consistent with other breeds of similar body size.

Demography, common disorders and mortality of Shih Tzu dogs under primary veterinary care in the UK

“…The median age of Shih Tzus in the current study was 4.1 years which is comparable to median age reported in other breeds e.g. English Cocker Spaniel (4.57 years) [ 77 ], Boxer (5.81 years) [ 78 ], Labrador Retriever (5.23 years) [ 39 ]. In the present study, the most common causes of death were enteropathy, heart (cardiac) disease and poor quality of life which are comparable to the patterns for the most common causes of death reported in other similar studies of dogs.…”

Comprehensive representation of health-related phenotypes in one million dogs using topic modelling of electronic health records

“…In the veterinary health literature, the identification of which breeds (ages or sexes) are affected by a specific disease or which range of diseases affect a specific breed has typically been studied using comparatively small cohorts of animals with a specific condition, for example, animal predisposition to mammary cancer [36] or of breeds of animals where records could be screened for wide-ranging diseases, for instance, diseases affecting French Bulldogs or Boxers [23,25]. Such studies typically include hundreds to small numbers of thousands of individual animals.…”