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  1. #1
    Senior Dog Jeff's Avatar
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    Interesting scientific study on Labradors. Lifespan, causes of death,

    Labrador retrievers under primary veterinary care in the UK: demography, mortality and disorders | Canine Genetics and Epidemiology | Full Text

    Link above to the study, I found this an interesting study. The average lifespan of Back and Yellow Labradors was 12 years. However, Chocolate labs the lifespan only averaged 10 years. Also chocolates were more prone to certain ear diseases and skin issues and allergies. Muskoskelital problems more prevalent in males vs female. The most common disease in Labradors is otis externa, ear nose and throat diseases, which is also way more common in chocolates. Followed by obesity being the second most common disease in labradors.

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  3. #2
    Senior Dog Berna's Avatar
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    Very interesting article, thank you for sharing!
    Cookie Black Snowflake
    July 12th, 2006. - May 25th, 2023.

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  5. #3
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    I actually had Bruce enrolled in this study. I had to upload info monthly until he was a year old, and quarterly thereafter. I was also able to talk to people involved in the study when I was at Cruft's a couple years ago. I think what they are doing is pretty interesting.

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  7. #4
    Senior Dog janedoe's Avatar
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    How do Labs become obese? Nikki still jumps in place and she's coming up on 15. She's a walking calorie burner. I call it dancing for her dinner.

  8. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by janedoe View Post
    How do Labs become obese? Nikki still jumps in place and she's coming up on 15. She's a walking calorie burner. I call it dancing for her dinner.
    Chloe looks at food and gains weight. She is very active, but has a very efficient metabolism so really doesn’t need much food - never has, even when she was younger. None of mine get much (they all get 3/4 cup twice a day plus training treats), but she is on a much lower calorie food. Lately I’ve been switching Sass to the same food for one meal a day as she has gotten a little plump recently (mostly over the summer because she overheats easily so wasn’t getting as much exercise). Cookie on the other hand has zero problems maintaining on the same amount of Pro-Plan as Sass is gaining on. If anything, despite being the oldest, Chloe is also the most active because she is my running companion.

    Heaven forbid I ever tried feeding them the recommendations on the bag! Just for Chloe’s, it says she should be getting 4-5 cups a day to maintain ... she maintains on 1.5 so not even close. It would be really easy to let her get fat if I wasn’t paying attention, but I am very conscious of maintaining healthy weights on them, especially since they are performance dogs so I need to ensure their continued good health and athleticism.
    Annette

    Cookie (HIT HC Jamrah's Legally Blonde, UDX, OM2, BN) 6/4/2015
    Sassy (HIT Jamrah's Blonde Ambition, UDX, OM2, BN) 6/4/2015

    Chloe (HIT HC OTCH Windsong's Femme Fatale, UDX4, OM6, RE) 6/7/2009

    And remembering:

    Scully (HC Coventry's Truth Is Out There, UD, TD, RN) 4/14/1996 - 6/30/2011
    Mulder (Coventry's I Want To Believe, UD, RN, WC) 5/26/1999 - 4/22/2015

    And our foster Jolie (Windsong's Genuine Risk, CDX) 5/26/1999 - 3/16/2014

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  9. #6
    Senior Dog Shelley's Avatar
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    I also read the study and asked a few friends in research... And the study is pretty sketchy at best, claims of peer reviews are inconclusive, the study itself is sub par from a research perspective, and is biased towards what they intended the outcome to be.


    So I am going to call a big fat BS on this one.



    Whoops, forgot to include the link to the study. Labrador retrievers under primary veterinary care in the UK: demography, mortality and disorders | Canine Genetics and Epidemiology | Full Text

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  11. #7
    Chief Pooper Scooper JenC's Avatar
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    I call BS too.

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  13. #8
    Senior Dog Berna's Avatar
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    Elaborate please? Except from the small sample, I can’t say it’s BS. People are like “yeah but I know (chocolates, labs, etc) that lived to be (number of years)”. It’s statistics guys. It’s a sample. We can say the average is (number) years. We can say the most common deseases are (name them).

    It’s statistics. It’s the average. It’s the most common. There are always exceptions.

    So I’d like to hear your scientific opinion except from calling it BS.

  14. #9
    Chief Pooper Scooper JenC's Avatar
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    Well, my guess the reason is that we are still reeling from the days of badly bred chocolates. They don't identify anything other than color and illness. My chocolates and the chocolates of the breeders I know (all reputable breeders) see healthy dogs and longevity. But we know that with the rise in popularity in the chocolate color in the last 20-30 years, crap breeders were putting together any brown dog with no regard to clearances or temperament or even just general health. Most of us are aware of the stereotype of chocolate labs being hard to train, being crazy etc. It comes up on these boards all the time. It's really not just a myth, there is some basis behind him. All stemmed from the BYB's trying to make a buck.

    The article states they pulled stats out of the database ... "Clinical health records were explored for 33,320 Labrador retrievers in the VetCompass™ database under veterinary care during 2013" … most of these dogs were probably born during the years of "trying to meet the demand" for chocolate dogs.

    The article doesn't address breeding practices, whether clearances were done on the dogs. In the USA, there are over 90k Labrador puppies registered each year, and reputable breeders are no where near meeting the demand for the folks buying dogs. Meaning most of the dogs purchased are from BYB's and even worse.

    The straight data is what it is, but it's not the whole picture.

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  16. #10
    Senior Dog Berna's Avatar
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    As I said, the sample is the problem. It's too small. Also, there is no distinction between pets bred by BYBs, reputable breeders or dog farms. Also, if you look closely:

    The most common recorded colours were black (44.6%), yellow (27.8%) and liver/chocolate (reported from hereon as chocolate) (23.8%). The median longevity of non-chocolate coloured dogs (n = 139, 12.1 years, IQR 10.2–13.9, range 0.0–16.0) was longer than for chocolate coloured animals (n = 34, 10.7 years, IQR 9.0–12.4, range 3.8–15.5) (P = 0.028).
    The range for non-chocolate dogs is 0-16, and for chocolate 3.8-15.5. The oldest non-chocolate was 16, the oldest chocolate was 15.5 . Not a big difference to draw the conclusion that non-chocolate dogs are longer lived.

    Also, the number of non-chocolate dogs was 139, the number of chocolate dogs was 34! That is a big difference and we can't talk about a balanced sample in order to draw any conclusions.

    Other than that though, I think the results of the study are not surprising.
    Cookie Black Snowflake
    July 12th, 2006. - May 25th, 2023.

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