Background: Canine diabetes mellitus (DM) is a disease with multiple etiologies, with genetics known to play a strong role.
Objective: To study the impact of breed on development of canine DM and determine if sex and sterilization status play a role in disease development. Animals: Electronic records (2014-2024) from 8.6m dogs in a large veterinary clinical database.
Methods: Records were filtered for breeds for which >70,000 dogs were present, resulting in a dataset containing 29 breeds among 6.4m dogs. Odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals were calculated.
Results: 30.7k dogs were diagnosed with DM. Average age of onset ranged from 6.8y (French bulldogs) to 10.5y (Bichon Frise). Compared with mixed breed dogs, breeds with increased ORs were Miniature Pinscher (7.9 [7.60,8.25]), Miniature Schnauzer (3.6 [3.48,3.80]) and Bichon Frise (3.0 [2.84,3.18]). Breeds with decreased ORs were French (0.03 [0.02,0.04]), English (0.03 [0.02,0.05]) and American (0.09 [0.06,0.13]) bulldogs. Neutering increased risk in Miniature Schnauzers (6.9 [5.75-8.35]), mixed breed dogs (4.4 [4.21,4.64]) and English bulldogs (1.4 [0.53,3.73]). Compared to females, increased ORs were seen in male Yorkshire terriers (1.4 [1.27,1.46]) and mixed breed dogs (1.1 [1.09,1.15]) and decreased ORs were seen in male Pit Bull terriers (0.4 [0.36,0.53]). Conclusions and Clinical Importance: Development of DM in dogs is strongly influenced by breed, but sex and neuter status also impact disease etiology. This knowledge allows more targeted and personalized monitoring and client education, improving the potential for earlier diagnoses and interventions.
