More Dogs Needed for Project to Improve Canine Lifespan
The Dog Aging Project is a national effort to improve dogs’ health and longevity. Meet two owners and their mixed-breeds who participate in the project and learn how you can help.
A road trip gave Colleen Sweeney a lot more than souvenirs and photographs of pretty views.
While making a pit stop, she saw someone in the parking lot with a cardboard box full of puppies and a “Free” sign.
The Seattle, Washington resident had been searching shelters for the right dog and said, “It seemed meant to be, so she came home with me.”
“She” was a black female pup that Sweeney named Watson. “She is intelligent and loves to work doing tricks, games, puzzles and loves fetching her ball and riding in the car. Every night, she puts away her toys by name into her toy box,” Sweeney said.
During the four years she has owned Watson, Sweeney said she has become a “dog person,” learning everything possible to give Watson a great life.
“I read dog blogs, dog books, dog research, the works. I find it fascinating. I first heard about the Dog Aging Project on one of the blogs, and it sounded intriguing, so I signed up,” Sweeney said. “They had long-term goals for the project, and I wanted to help.”
The Dog Aging Project is a national study to improve longevity in all canines. The goal is to understand how genes, lifestyle and environment influence aging. The study brings together a community of dogs, owners, veterinarians, researchers and volunteers.
“The Dog Aging Project has captured the imagination of dog owners around the world. Not just because the project’s discoveries could lead to more time with our beloved pets, but because what we learn will be directly transferable to human health as well. Ultimately, it will lead to longer healthier lives for both humans and their canine companions,” said Dr. Audrey Ruple DVM, MS, PhD, an associate professor at Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine, Virginia Tech.
Ruple is part of the Dog Aging Research Team, which includes representatives from 28 universities around the world.
There are 35,000 volunteers in the Dog Aging Project Pack, who report regularly on their dogs’ health, lifestyle and care. But more dogs are needed, Ruple said. The team is particularly interested in studying more large dogs and dogs that live in central and southern United States.
“All dogs are welcome: Any size, any breed, any age, and any health condition! However, we can learn the most from dogs enrolled as puppies, ideally before they are spayed or neutered,” Ruple said. “We can only enroll one dog per household so it’s particularly helpful if the owner nominates the dog about whom they know the most.”
To contribute to the project, you can nominate a dog by going to dogagingproject.org and clicking on Nominate Your Dog. You create an online personal portal and then receive an emailed invitation to complete the Health & Life Experience Survey.
The survey is in-depth and covers many topics including demographics, environment, behavior, diet, medicines and more. The survey is lengthy, but you can take your time and complete it in sections, as long as it is submitted within six weeks.
Participants are also asked to upload their dogs’ veterinary records, and project team members can assist with that if needed.
“There is an annual survey for every participant, but it is broken into manageable chunks that can be done in 5 to 30 minute sessions over a few weeks,” Sweeney said. “The information collected is fairly comprehensive because they’re trying to account for as many variables as possible, but it wasn’t onerous to complete.”
Kentucky resident Len Chelius joined the Aging Project in 2018 because his dog suffered from a long-term kidney disease, and he wanted to contribute information to help other dogs with the same condition. After that dog passed away, Chelius adopted Buko, a husky-malamute mix, from a Michigan shelter and nominated him for the Dog Aging Project.
“I support their base concept of making dogs’ lives better through their research, and who wouldn’t want their dogs’ lives be longer and better overall?” Chelius said.
The 69-year-old Chelius said Buko is a major part of his life and helps him stay healthy too.
“Buko is the total package of a caring house dog and loving outdoor companion. He is my exercise device as we walk 1.5 miles twice a day every day,” Chelius said. “Buko’s favorite activities are digging and, boy oh boy, he does that very well, the other probably sharing his love with my neighbors.”
Participating in the project has been easy and fun as it enables you to connect with other dog lovers around the country, he said. Their website includes a feature called the Dog Park where Pack members can interact.
“They have a member forum for us to discuss dog issues, swap photos of our dogs, and offer advice, and I visit it daily,” Chelius said.
The Dog Aging Project began forming in 2007 when Dr. Daniel Promislow of the University of Washington and Dr. Kate Creevy DVM of Texas A&M University collaborated on a study investigating the causes of death among companion dogs. In 2013, they joined forces with Dr. Matt Kaeberlein PhD of the University of Washington, and the collaboration began in earnest.
In 2018, the National Institute on Aging, part of the National Institute on Health, funded their grant proposal for the Dog Aging Project. Creevy now serves as Chief Veterinary Officer for the project, and Promislaw and Kaeberlein as co-directors.
“When the Dog Aging Project launched in November 2019, the response exceeded our wildest expectations. Within a week, the project grew from 4,000 nominations to over 70,000, and we are now at over 92,000,” Ruple said. “Thousands of media outlets covered the project, including the Washington Post, the New York Times, CNN and NBC Nightly News.”
The project’s work is centered on two goals: understanding how biology, lifestyle, and environment influence aging and intervening to increase healthspan, the period of life spent free from disease. Currently, there are five major research components:
- Defining frailty and successful aging in dogs. Unlike in humans, there are no clearly defined metrics to determine how well a dog is aging, no canine equivalent of the chair stand test or grip strength, nor predefined age-specific ranges for clinical chemistry measures. To fill this gap, they are developing new metrics of canine aging, which will form the basis for a new veterinary specialty: canine gerontology.
- Genetic analysis of aging in dogs. Genome sequence data for the 10,000 canine participants is being integrated with health measures and behavioral traits to carry out comprehensive genome-wide association studies.
- Systems biology of healthy aging in dogs. Identifying molecular biological predictors of disease and longevity and developing an epigenetic clock that predicts biological age in dogs.
- TRIAD—Rapamycin Intervention Study. Conducting a large-scale trial of FDA-approved rapamycin, a drug shown to increase lifespan and delay the negative effects of aging in mice. They are testing the effects of the drug on cognitive function, heart function, immunity, and cancer incidence in 500 middle-aged dogs.
- Canine Cognitive Health. Monitoring cognitive health in aging dogs through a variety of cognitive assessments as well as physiological and structural measures of brain health in order to understand the progression and correlates of canine cognitive dysfunction.
The research team invites subsets of the Pack dogs to join more in-depth studies, like the genetics study, TRIAD and the brain health study.
Sweeney and Watson participate in one of those studies called Precision Cohort. The work involves more in-depth surveys and visiting a veterinarian for a collection of Watson’s biological samples.
“Lately, there was another voluntary experiment, but it also could be done in manageable chunks of times except for the actual experiment that took about an hour. For Watson, it was super fun – lots of interactions and treats,” Sweeney said. “She loves being the center of attention.”
Participation in special studies is voluntary and has no impact on their membership in the Pack, Ruple said.
“If a dog is invited to join an additional study, we give the owners all the information they need to make an informed decision about whether or not to participate,” Ruple said. “If they don’t want to, that’s fine; they remain valuable members of the Pack and will have the opportunity to opt-in to other activities in the future. “
To reach the project team, contact team@dogagingproject.org
More information is available at:
Website & Blog: https://dogagingproject.org/stories/
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8QZWbRu0RQ&t=1s
YouTube channel has video recaps of monthly Pack Appreciation Events, which include interviews with our research team:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCprnBPHZ8VYgzVfIkP1H7dQ
FAQs have details about participation: