What Kinds of Dogs Are Used in Clinical and Experimental Research?

BACKGROUND: Dogs are widely used in research to answer questions about canine or human conditions. For the latter, research dogs are often used as models, since they are physiologically more similar to humans than other species used in research and they share similar environmental conditions. From a veterinary perspective, research findings are widely based on academic research, and thus are generated under experimental conditions. In that regard, the question arises: do the dogs used for research adequately represent the dog population seen in veterinary practice? It may, for example, be assumed that Beagle dogs are often used as experimental animals. The objective of this study was to evaluate the signalment of dogs used in veterinary research. Furthermore, we aimed to assess other relevant criteria regarding the validity of clinical trials in the context of six different veterinary medicine specialties: cardiology, internal medicine, neurology, orthopaedics, reproduction, and surgery. METHODS: A literature search was conducted and 25 studies per specialty were randomly selected. The breed, sex, neuter status, median age, and median weight of the dogs used for clinical studies (n = 150) published between 2007 and 2019 were evaluated. RESULTS: In total, 596,542 dogs were used in the 150 trials. Breed information was given for 33,835 of these dogs (5.7%). Of the latter, 1.9% were Beagles. Nine clinical trials exclusively used Beagles. The most frequently used breeds were German Shepherds (7.3%), Labrador Retrievers (6.7%), and Golden Retrievers (4.7%). The major reporting deficits found were missing breed specification in 25.3% of the articles; missing information about the sex of the dogs in 16.2%; missing age and weight information in 22.7 and 32.7%, respectively; and missing neuter status in 38.7% of the clinical studies. The median sample size was 56 (Q1:29; Q3:365) dogs. CONCLUSIONS: The presented project revealed that Beagle dogs represent only a small proportion of dogs in veterinary research. Based on the evaluated publications, it seems that some relevant dog attributes differ between the specialties. The results, however, show deficits in the reporting of demographic data for the dogs. The need for an improvement in the documentation and/or reporting of animal signalment is obvious and should be addressed by authors, reviewers, and journal editors in the future.

Study design quality of research on dogs published in peer-reviewed journals.

BACKGROUND: In the past it has been criticised that only a low proportion of well-designed and well-reported studies in some medical specialities is available. The objective of this study was to systematically evaluate the quality of literature about canine medicine published in peer-reviewed journals in relation to six specific veterinary medicine specialities. METHODS: A literature search was conducted and 25 studies per speciality were selected. The quality of the articles (n = 150) published between 2007 and 2019 was evaluated with a validated checklist. RESULTS: In articles related to all specialities, deficits were found, such as not adequate number of animals in 60.0% of the studies. In 88.0%, information about housing and feeding of the dogs were not specified. In 69.4% of the prospective clinical studies, an ethical approval was reported, and written informed consent of the owners was obtained in 46.2%. CONCLUSIONS: The findings revealed extensive deficits in the design and reporting of studies in canine medicine. The demand for improvement is obvious and should be addressed by authors, reviewers and journal editors in the future. Our results underline that practitioners should critically appraise the quality of literature before implementing information into practice.