Feeding Patterns and Medical Diagnosis Frequency in a National Survey of Older Dogs
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Veterinarians and owners are often concerned with the nutrition of dogs, but most knowledge of real‐world pet feeding practices is anecdotal. A survey was conducted among owners of dogs aged ≥ 5 yrs at general practice veterinary clinics across the United States (2016–2017). Owners participated in a clinic visit with their dog, and demographics including age and breed were collected. Veterinarians documented the dog’s medical history and completed a physical exam including Body Fat Index (BFI) rated using a visual scale. Owners completed a nutrition survey by estimating the proportions of dry, wet, human food, treats, and other foods (including homemade petfoods) offered to their dog the prior day. Complete nutrition survey information was obtained from 992 dogs (5.0 to 20.8 yrs, median 9.4 yrs); of these 982 (99%) had complete medical histories. Dogs represented 15 states: PA (17%), CO (17%), NY (12.7%), IL (8.5%), VA (7.9%), FL (7.8%), MO (6.8%), NJ (5.0%), MI (4.6%), MD (4.5%), TX (3.3%), LA (2.5%), GA (1.5%), CT (0.6%), and CA (0.2%). In addition to mixed breeds, 115 dog breeds were reported by owners, most commonly: Labrador Retriever (13.1%), Golden Retriever (5.3%), Shih Tzu (3.9%), Other (3.7%), German Shepherd (3.7%), Dachshund (3.3%), Yorkshire Terrier (3.1%), Beagle (2.7%), Bichon Frise (2.6%) and Pug (2.4%). Giant breeds together represented 3.8% of all dogs. The 10 most common diagnoses observed in the medical history were mild/moderate dental/gum disease: 83.7%, benign tumors (including lipomas): 46.2%, overweight/obese: 34.8%, otitis (in which atopic dermatitis was ruled out): 20.3%, arthritis (elbow, stifle, back, and/or neck): 19.6%, atopic dermatitis: 15.3%, hypothyroidism: 13.1%, sebaceous cysts: 11.3%, arthritis of the hip: 10.7%, urinary tract infection: 10.0%. BFI as assessed by vets at the time of the survey ranged from 10 to 70, median 30; 69.2% dogs had a BFI of 20 or 30 while 23.5% had a BFI of 40 or more. 92.5% of dogs were offered any dry food while 72.6% of dogs were offered ≥ 90% of their intake as dry food and 19.5% of dogs were offered exclusively dry food. 23.6% of dogs were offered any wet food; 2.6% were offered ≥ 90% of their intake as wet food and only 0.7% of dogs were offered exclusively wet food. 58.8% of dogs were offered any treats, 32.0% of dogs were offered any human food, and 5.0% were offered other food, including homemade petfoods. Most owners of older dogs fed predominantly dry food and only a minority fed wet food exclusively. Treats and human food were commonly offered. The frequency of breeds and diagnoses observed in this population were generally similar to other national surveys; this analysis provides important information about feeding patterns among older dogs. Support or Funding Information This study was funded by Hill’s Pet Nutrition, Inc.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".