The New Scientist är en välkänd, veckovis utkommande populärvetenskaplig tidning som ägnar sig åt teknik, vetenskap och biologi inklusive djurliv. Upplagan ligger runt 124 000 och den har en onlinesajt.
Det här var en rubrik våren 2022. Delar av artikeln följer.
French bulldogs are the shortest-lived dog breed in the UK
Life expectancy tables for 18 breeds show that Jack Russells are the top dogs for longevity, while French bulldogs come in last
LIFE 28 April 2022
French bulldogs, the most popular dog breed in the UK, are also the shortest-lived
Jack Russell terriers are the longest-lived breed of dog in the UK and French bulldogs are the shortest-lived, according to life expectancy data for 18 breeds.
Dan O’Neill at the Royal Veterinary College in Hatfield, UK, and his colleagues analysed data from over 30,000 dogs in the UK between 2016 and 2020. The team wanted to go beyond producing an average life expectancy for each breed.
The
researchers produced a life table for each breed, allowing dog owners
to estimate how long their pets will continue to live depending on
how old they are already. The team determined this by calculating
what proportion of dogs died after each year of life.
“This has never been done before,” O’Neill says. The large sample size is based on anonymised records provided by 30 per cent of vet surgeries in the country. “It took 10 to 15 years to build these systems,” he says.
The researchers found that Jack Russell terriers had the highest average life expectancy of 12.7 years, followed by border collies with 12.1 years. French bulldogs had the lowest life expectancy – just 4.5 years – followed by English bulldogs with 7.4 years.
However, the
estimated lifespan for French bulldogs is probably an underestimate,
O’Neill notes. This is because they are the most popular dog in the
UK right now and so there is a huge overrepresentation of younger
French bulldogs in the population which is skewing the team’s
calculations. (Min
fettning.)
Om en ras består av övervägande unga individer, därför att uppfödarna skaffar fram så många valpar de kan av den trendigaste rasen, så kommer givetvis en del av dem att dö unga. Det händer i alla raser. Det händer blandraser och vildhundar också. Men om de unga döda är oproportionerligt många, drar de ner den förväntade livslängd som hundar av den rasen beräknas ha vid födseln, om man bara räknar på genomsnittligt antal förväntade levnadsår. Därför behöver man titta på hur dödligheten fördelas över åren.
Det var just det den här studien gjorde. För första gången.
Bodil Carlsson
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