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• While demand for brachycephalic dogs remains high, understanding whether the body shape of brachycephalic breeds can be refined to reduce the risk of conformation-related disease is of priority. RVC research in this area worked to identify conformational risk factors for common disorders, and define ‘healthy conformational limits’, thresholds beyond which the risk of disease becomes unacceptably high.

  Investigating healthy conformational limits

  While demand for brachycephalic dogs remains high, understanding whether the body shape of brachycephalic breeds can be refined to reduce the risk of conformation-related disease is of priority. RVC research in this area worked to identify conformational risk factors for common disorders, and define ‘healthy conformational limits’, thresholds beyond which the risk of disease becomes unacceptably high.

• Investigating the epidemiology of canine heatstroke presenting to UK primary care veterinary practices

  Hot Dogs – investigating the epidemiology of canine heatstroke presenting to UK primary care veterinary practices

  The study will apply the VetCompass™ database to review the clinical records of over 900,000 dogs registered with UK primary-care veterinary practices for heatstroke events

• During the past decade, education campaigns from major animal welfare and veterinary organisations warning of the health consequences of these body shapes have not resulted in the desired reduction in popularity of these high-risk breeds, and indeed some breeds such as the French bulldog have paradoxically increased in numbers in the face of strong messaging.

  Understanding brachycephalic ownership

  It has become increasingly clear that understanding the motivations and desires of both current and prospective brachycephalic dog owners is key to devising more targeted human behaviour change interventions in the future. To date, RVC work in this area has uncovered a number of key findings.

• Due to breeding trends 12.7% of British bulldogs suffer from ear infections, 8.8% from skin infections and 8.7% from obesity

  Disorders of bulldogs

  Ownership of the iconic British bulldog has doubled but the breed is particularly prone to ear infections, skin infections and obesity, according to the largest ever study of British bulldogs treated in first opinion veterinary practices.