Exploring frailty in apparently healthy senior dogs: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Background: As dogs age, they face various health challenges, and preventive care may be overlooked, impacting their quality of life. Frailty, a concept established in human medicine, has recently been applied to dogs using validated tools like the frailty index and frailty phenotype. This study aims to characterize frailty in senior pet dogs and investigate associated factors. To achieve this goal, 88 apparently healthy dogs, as reported by their owners, voluntarily participated in thorough consultations. These consultations included supplementary examinations such as urinary analyses, hematological assessments, and blood biochemistry. Additionally, owners completed questionnaires addressing their dog's overall health, cognitive and locomotor status, as well as their own attachment to the dog and personality traits. Subsequently, each dog was classified as robust or frail based on the presence of multiple criteria out of a set of five. All collected data underwent preliminary screening by a multiple factorial analysis, followed by binomial logistic regression to model frailty.

Results: The final population consisted of 74 dogs, with a frailty prevalence of 41.9% (95% CI: 30.5 - 53.9). In the statistical analysis, older age of the dog, lower owner attachment score, lack of regular deworming, and a disparity in extraversion between owner and dog were identified as contributing factors to frailty.

Conclusions: This study emphasizes the importance of regular deworming and strong owner-pet attachment in reducing frailty in dogs. It underscores the significance of proactive pet care and highlights the complex relationship between owner-dog personalities and canine frailty. This research advocates for a holistic approach that considers both human and canine traits to promote better health outcomes.

Keywords: Aging; Attachment; Canine; Deworming; Owner; Personality; Preventive care; Well-being.

Fig. 1

Inclusion process of the dogs. A total of 100 dog owners completed the recruitment form for the study, of which 88 attended the consultation. Among those who did not attend, 5 owners did not respond upon recontact, 4 owners were unable to make it due to time constraints, and 3 owners reported that their dogs' health had deteriorated since the initial contact. From the 88 dogs presented at the consultation, 14 were excluded from the analysis: one owner declined the blood test, one dog had a purulent wound that affected blood test results, and 12 dogs were deemed not "apparently healthy" based on clinical observations (including 3 with labored breathing, 2 with multiple large masses, 2 obese dogs, 1 exhibiting all visible signs of hypothyroidism, 1 experiencing weekly seizures for 4 months, 1 previously diagnosed with cancer, 1 cachectic dog, and 1 displaying all visible signs of Cushing's syndrome)

Fig. 2

Venn diagram of the criteria of frailty met by the dogs. 16 dogs did not meet any frailty criteria, while 27 displayed one criterion, 17 had two criteria, 12 had three criteria, 0 had four criteria and 2 dogs exhibited the five criteria. Low physical activity (n = 30) was the most prevalent frailty criterion, followed by exhaustion (n = 27), undernutrition (n = 24), weakness (n = 17), and poor mobility (n = 9)

Fig. 3

Individual factor map of the Multiple Factor Analysis (MFA)

Fig. 4

Cos2 values of the 15 first variables structuring Dimension 1, excluding frailty phenotype