Lifespan and Causes of Death in the Irish Wolfhound - Vetsuisse ...

2 Introduction
"It is impossible to understand the present without knowing the past."
The Irish Wolfhound is a breed of dog that has been gaining in popularity
considerably over the past three decades (see chapter 6.1.1). As a result, the
number of veterinary papers on the subject has been increasing steadily. Thus, it
suggested itself to bring some organisation into the work that already exists on the
subject, and conducting some original research was added as an integral part of a
thesis.
As this study shows, there are a substantial enough number of articles on health
conditions in Irish Wolfhounds in the veterinary literature to warrant writing a review
article. The goal was to provide interested clinicians with a tool to broaden their
knowledge of Irish Wolfhounds as a breed with its specific disease predilections, as
well as to enable them to counsel breeders and owners on the modes of inheritance
of different diseases and, subsequently, selection against them.
The author has also been frequently confronted with a number of questions on the
genetics and lifespan of Irish Wolfhounds in the past, such as:
- Did Irish Wolfhounds live longer in the past than they do nowadays?
- Are there familial and/or geographical differences in lifespan?
- Are there familial and/or geographical differences in the incidence of certain
diseases?
- What are the genetic bases of lifespan?
- Are there negative effects of inbreeding in Irish Wolfhounds?
- Can founder animals for certain diseases be identified in the breed history?
- What strategies should be used to improve health and longevity in the breed?
Opinions on these questions vary greatly among different dog fanciers, but rarely are
they based on anything but what is referred to as "personal experience" – a person's
own subjective impressions, which are not usually based on a significant number of
observations, nor on any statistical evaluation thereof, and the value of which is
probably as inconsistent as the opinions are themselves. Confirmation bias might
also play an important role in the variety of opinions encountered.
This study endeavours to find some responses to these questions that are based on
a large amount of data and standardised statistical analysis. While not all of the
above questions could be answered satisfactorily, it was possible to shed some light
on demographic trends, inbreeding influence, lifespan development over time,
founder animals of the modern population and, to a certain degree, geographical,
familial and founder influence on lifespan and cause of death through this approach.
When reading veterinary papers on hereditary conditions in dogs in general and Irish
Wolfhounds in particular, it is common to find publications that were unable (or
unwilling) to track pedigree information of the studied dogs going back more than just
a few generations. Putting a pedigree database together from national studbooks and
other sources is a time-consuming task that few researchers have the resources to
undertake to reach the highest possible number of generations. As a consequence,
inaccurate results when calculating genetic parameters such as lowered inbreeding
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