Dental Disease Tops The List Of Most Common Problems

London, UK: A study from the Royal Veterinary College (RVC) has found that dogs' most common health problems are dental disease, obesity, and ear infections. 
 
The study is part of the RVC's VetCompass programme which include anonymised veterinary information from over eight million UK dogs. From this pool, a random sample of 22,333 dogs were followed for a year, identifying all health issues that were diagnosed during this time. 

Key findings include:

• The most common health problems of dogs are dental disease (12.5%), ear infection (7.3%) and obesity (7.1%)
• 65.8% of the observed dogs had at least one disorder in the single year of the study
• Male dogs had higher risk than females for 10 disorders: ear infection, aggression, coughing, seizures, foreign body, drug reaction, moist dermatitis, wound, laceration and arthritis
• Female dogs had higher risk than males for four disorders: urinary incontinence, urinary tract infection, mammary lump and overgrown nails

The study showed that health in dogs generally deteriorates as dogs age, with older dogs generally having more health problems per year than younger dogs. 

Dr Dan O'Neill, Senior Lecturer, Companion Animal Epidemiology, at the RVC, and lead author of the paper, said: "Owners should work closely with their vet to plan appropriate dental and weight care programmes at each visit to their veterinary clinic."

 *This article can be found in the June 2021 issue of Pets Magazine