Dog-study data could be golden

Cancer is the leading cause of death in dogs over two years of age and something diagnosed in half of dogs older than 10.

Most dogs get poked and prodded at the veterinarian's office. Piper, a 4-year-old golden retriever in Chicago, gets far more scrutiny than that.

Her annual checkup this month took three hours. Her flaxen hair was trimmed and bagged, her toenails clipped and kept, her bodily fluids collected. Everything was destined for a biorepository in the Washington suburbs that holds similar samples from more than 3000 other purebred golden retrievers from across the United States. The dogs, though they do not know it, are participating in an ambitious, US$32 million ($45.7m) research project that researchers hope will yield insights into the causes of cancers and other diseases common to goldens, other breeds and maybe even humans.

All the dogs were enrolled in the Golden Retriever Lifetime Study before they reached two years of age, and all will be closely tracked all their entire lives. The researchers, from Colorado State University and the Morris Animal Foundation, are not just analysing biological matter. They're also compiling exhaustive data, recorded and reported each year by the dogs' owners, on every aspect of the pooches' lives: What they eat, where they sleep, whether their lawns are treated with pesticides, whether their teeth get brushed and more.

Longitudinal studies like this - with information gathered in real time - help researchers detect causes and effects that might be missed in other kinds of studies. Some focused on humans who have tracked thousands of babies born in the United Kingdom during one week in 1970 and monitored the cardiovascular health of residents of Framingham, Massachusetts. But this is the first and largest lifetime longitudinal study of pets, and the hope is that it will shed light on links between golden retrievers' health and their genetics, diets, environments and lifestyles.

Some of "these dogs will get cancer as they age ... but in the meantime, they are doing everything that dogs do", said principal investigator Rodney Page, a veterinary oncologist who directs Colorado State's Flint Animal Cancer Centre. As for tracking the minutiae of participants' lives, "some of these things seem kind of silly, but you never know what you're going to identify as a significant risk factor with an outcome that you could easily change".

That information, by extension, could be useful for other breeds, as well as people, who develop cancer and respond to treatments in similar ways to dogs.

At its core, the study is about cancer - what Page calls "the No1 concern among dog owners".

It is the leading cause of death in dogs over two years of age and something diagnosed in half of dogs older than 10. The prevalence is believed to be slightly higher in golden retrievers, which most often succumb to mast cell tumours, bone cancer, lymphoma or hemangiosarcoma (originating in the lining of blood vessels).

But that is not the only reason the bouncy, amiable breed is the study's focus. Goldens are the third-most popular dogs in the US, which made it easier for researchers to find 3000 subjects; they also tend to have besotted owners who pay close attention to their health - an important criteria for a project that demands years of owner commitment.

Golden retrievers "are right beside us when we're running, when we're having dinner, when we're out travelling. They basically reflect a lot of the same exposures and activities that we have," Page said.

The study began in 2012. It has produced no major revelations yet; its oldest participants have reached age seven and are not widely afflicted with cancer or other ills. But annual surveys have yielded interesting tidbits about the dogs' lives. One in five sleeps with its owner. Forty per cent swim at least once a week. Twenty-two per cent drink or eat from a plastic bowl, and about one in four eats grass.

And the researchers' prediction - that the breed's owners would be an enthusiastic study group - has been validated.

They have an incredibly active private Facebook group, plus local meetings with their "hero" pets.

"We have a really passionate cohort, is the best way to describe it," study veterinarian Sharon Albright said.

When a Chicago golden named Piper briefly fell ill last year, her owner, Joe Brennan, posted a photo of her wrapped in blankets to the Facebook group. More than 100 well-wishers quickly responded, he said.

Brennan and his wife had enrolled Piper in the study shortly after they purchased her from a breeder. Brennan's mother had two golden retrievers that died of cancer.

Owners commit to spending a few hours for the study every year. They say goldens are well worth it.

"They're the smartest dogs ever," Brennan gushed.

"They're the most loyal things you'll ever meet in your life."