KC Survey 2014

In 2014, the Kennel Club carried out the Pedigree Breed Health Survey. This was a nationwide survey of UK pedigree dogs to help understand the health of each breed.

The questionnaire was divided in to sections which concentrated on such topics as general health, behaviour, causes of death, breeding and birth defects.

Download the KC's reports for each of the six varieties of Dachshund.

Dachshund (Long-Haired)

Dachshund (Miniature Long-Haired)

Dachshund (Miniature Smooth-Haired)

Dachshund (Miniature Wire-Haired)

Dachshund (Smooth-Haired)

Dachshund (Wire-Haired)

View infographic summaries at the links below (click an image for a larger version):

The KC’s 2014 Breed Health Survey was reported in February 2016 and the Breed Council’s Health Committee has reviewed the results and published summaries of the key findings for each of our 6 varieties.

The Health Committee welcomes the data reported by the KC as it adds to our current understanding of the health of our breed. This report builds on our summary documents and presents our “position statement” in relation to actions we need to be taking.

Overall conclusions:

The KC’s reports mostly confirm what we already know, having carried out 2 extensive surveys of our own in 2012 and 2015, together with our ongoing health reporting tool.

It is difficult to make comparisons with the KC’s 2004 survey because the data provided in their reports are summarised differently. In 2004, results were reported by disease category (e.g. neurologic or cardiac), whereas their 2014 results are presented by disease (e.g. IVDD or Mitral Valve Disease).

IVDD is, as we know, the key health issue in Dachshunds and this is unsurprisingly confirmed by the 2014 KC survey.

The KC data on Smooths and Longs is from very small samples which means it is impossible to draw many conclusions where only one case of a particular condition has been reported. There are more reports for the other 4 varieties, from which we can draw more useful conclusions.

There are some KC results which could usefully be grouped together to provide a more meaningful insight into higher prevalence issues. For example, there are several variants of skin disorders and allergies which, when taken together do appear to show a more significant problem than the individually reported prevalences would suggest.

Mortality data once again shows the breed to be generally long-lived; the oldest Standard being 16 and the oldest Miniature being 19. The exception is when dogs suffer from IVDD and this results in them being euthanised, typically in the age 4-6 range.

The response rates don't necessarily have to be high for the results to be meaningful (statistically). It's a simple matter to identify sample size required for any given confidence interval.

To answer the question "have things changed since 2004?" requires a few basics to be available... Mean and/or Median for both years, Standard Deviation for both years, No. of responses for both years. That information, at survey level, breed level and disease level would enable more analysis to be done and more insight to be gained. At the moment, we don’t have that level of data in the KC 2014 reports, so we are limited in the comparisons we can do.

We have been able to do some additional analysis with the available data which we have summarised below for each of the 6 Dachshund varieties.

Smooth-haired:

Food Allergy and Heart Murmur are conditions where Smooths have twice the odds of having these compared with the overall dog population surveyed by the KC in 2014. Heart Murmurs were also identified in DachsLife 2015 as being of some concern, with a prevalence of 6%.

74% of Smooths had no disease reported in 2014, compared with 65% of the total pedigree dogs surveyed.

Long-haired:

There were too few reports to be able to identify any additional insights.

67% of Longs had no disease reported in 2014, compared with 65% of the total pedigree dogs surveyed.

Wire-haired:

Umbilical Hernia and Heart Murmur are conditions where Smooths have four times the odds of having these compared with the overall dog population surveyed by the KC in 2014. Heart Murmurs were also identified in DachsLife 2015 as being of some concern, with a prevalence of 8%.

Allergic skin disorders, plus chronic itching were reported with a prevalence of 3% in the KC survey and 12% in DachsLife 2015.

73% of Wires had no disease reported in 2014, compared with 65% of the total pedigree dogs surveyed.

Miniature Smooth-haired:

Hypersensitive skin disorders, Dermatitis and Unspecified skin, ear or coat disorders are conditions where Mini Smooths have twice the odds of having these compared with the overall dog population surveyed by the KC in 2014. The combined prevalence of these three conditions is 9%.

Allergic skin disorders were reported with a prevalence of 15% in DachsLife 2015.

The median age of death of Mini Smooths in the 2014 survey was 6 years (Mean 7.68). This is of concern because the reports show a bimodal distribution with 70% of the deaths being at the age of 6 or under. We presume this is a result of dogs being euthanised following diagnosis of IVDD.

67% of Mini Smooths had no disease reported in 2014, compared with 65% of the total pedigree dogs surveyed.

Miniature Long-haired:

Epilepsy is a condition where Mini Longs have five times the odds of having this compared with the overall dog population surveyed by the KC in 2014. The prevalence for this condition was 4% in both DachsLife 2012 and 2015.

Lipoma is a condition where Mini Longs have 3 times the odds of having this compared with the overall dog population surveyed by the KC in 2014.

The combined prevalence of Hypersensitive skin disorders plus Dermatitis conditions is 7% and was reported with a prevalence of 12% in DachsLife 2015.

65% of Mini Longs had no disease reported in 2014; exactly the same as the 65% of the total pedigree dogs surveyed.

Miniature Wire-haired:

Alopecia/Baldness was reported with a prevalence of 4% in the KC 2014 survey and this was the second highest reported condition. In DachsLife 2012 it was reported with 1% prevalence.

75% of Mini Wires had no disease reported in 2014; compared with 65% of the total pedigree dogs surveyed.

Recommended actions:

• 1. The KC 2014 Survey confirms IVDD as a key health concern for Dachshunds in general and for the Miniatures in particular. Our current plans for a UK X-ray screening programme, together with other planned research should remain our Number One priority. Rowena Packer (RVC) is currently carrying out further analysis of our DachsLife 2015 data using multi-variate techniques to establish whether there are further insights which we can use to provide advice for owners. [In progress]

  2. The Wire Club should be asked, once again, to consider establishing a heart screening programme. Smooths may also benefit from participating in this. N.B. In South Africa they have already established such a programme.

  3. We should implement the proposed Epilepsy Reporting database and publish the pedigrees of affected dogs. This is particularly important for the MLs. [In progress]

  4. We should add skin conditions (allergies, dermatitis etc.) to our “Watch List”. We know this is a particular issue among Australian Dachshunds, but the KC data suggests it may be more common issue and worthy of more investigation than we previously thought.

  5. We should update the disease categories in our online health reporting tool to include conditions highlighted in the KC survey (e.g. Lipoma, KCS-Dry Eye and Skin Cysts) [Done]