New tool reveals how much more time you have with your beloved pooch

While dogs make our lives immeasurably better, their own lives are heartbreakingly short compared to humans. As the late American writer Agnes Sligh Turnbull observed, this is his only fault.

And while losing a dog is clearly the worst part of owning one, it’s often preceded by another difficult phase: making important health care decisions on behalf of a beloved senior canine.

In a new study, researchers at North Carolina State University propose a new way to help people navigate this stressful process. They’ve developed a tool to help pet owners and vets assess the frailty of older dogs, potentially removing some of the uncertainty surrounding these already difficult choices.

Combined with a veterinarian’s assessment of a senior dog’s body and muscle condition, the new tool can predict the likelihood of short-term mortality, meaning dying within six months, and provide pet owners with information useful about your dog’s health and quality of life.

“In humans, we classify frailty as a physical or physiological state associated with loss of strength, slow walking speed, weight loss, exhaustion, and reduced activity, which is what happens when the your body starts to relax,” says co-author Natasha Olby. , professor of gerontology at NC State.

“In humans, frailty correlates with disability and mortality, and we have tools to assess frailty in humans,” says Olby. “However, this is an emerging field in dogs, and screening tools that can be easily applied are needed.”

Olby is a principal investigator in the canine neuroaging program at NC State, where she and her colleagues work to shed light on the mechanics of aging in dogs. A tool that could measure the frailty of dogs would be valuable for multiple reasons, he explains.

A tool like this could help make difficult decisions that many older dog owners face, Olby notes. This could mean opting for aggressive treatment in less fragile dogs, or it could mean palliative care or euthanasia, but potentially with more clarity and less guilt.

“One of the most common questions veterinarians get from owners trying to decide on treatments for older dogs is, ‘How long will my dog ​​live?’ Olby says.

“If we could develop a phenotype that is reasonably predictive of short-term mortality, it could be useful for owners facing treatment decisions.”

Olby and his colleagues designed a questionnaire to be completed by pet owners to determine frailty in older dogs. It asks questions about a dog’s nutritional status, exhaustion, muscle weakness, social activity and mobility, based on five “domains” that are also used to assess humans. fragility.

The researchers explain that dogs with an impaired score in three of the five domains are classified as frail in general, and are almost five times more likely to die within six months than dogs that do not meet frailty criteria.

“Of course, the reality is that you never know how long a dog will live, but this questionnaire along with body condition and muscle scores is good at predicting six-month mortality,” says Olby.

Part of the appeal, he adds, is also the simplicity.

“It’s an easily deployable screening tool that doesn’t require any lab work—a veterinarian can assess body and muscle condition with a simple palpation,” says Olby.

This is still an early step, the study authors acknowledge, but it is necessary. They hope their research will help get the ball rolling, leading to an ever more complete understanding of how frailty manifests itself in dogs.

“It’s definitely still a work in progress, but this screen is a simple tool that owners and veterinarians can use as a starting point to discuss care options for older dogs,” says Olby.

The study was published in Frontiers in Veterinary Science.

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