The English Shepherd Source (eshepherd.org) conducted a survey April-May 2015 to gather needed health statistics on the ES breed. Media utilized was our website, e-newsletter, The Shepherd’s Post, as well as Facebook posts with a survey link. We hope to conduct another health survey in a few years to compare data and see if trends have changed.
Following is a comprehensive overview of the results we received. We hope this data is useful to those in the English Shepherd community. Feedback is welcomed. Please use our Contact Us form or discuss in our Forum. We’d love to hear your thoughts.
[Warning: While we feel the survey results represent an excellent cross-section of the ES population, take heed when interpreting the results shown below, as they do not include the entire ES Breed. Surveys were voluntarily submitted by ES owners and supporting documentation was not required.]
English Shepherd Health Survey Results – April/May 2015
@2015 English Shepherd Source (www.eshepherd.org)
Locations represented:
Countries: Canada, UK, USA, Scotland [USA: 39 states]
138 surveys were completed, representing 252 English Shepherds. 111 dogs have had no health issues, while 141 had health ailments reported. Of the 252 ES included in the survey, 74 females were spayed and 47 males were neutered (Table 3). 64% of the 252 dogs had MDR1 status reported. 88% of the MDR1 statuses were “n/n” (Table 4).
When reading the results below, keep in mind that the same dog may have multiple health ailments. To clarify, there were 141 dogs with ailments, but those 141 dogs had a total of 267 ailments reported. Looking at Table 1, for example, the same dog is counted only once per category, but that dog could appear across multiple categories. The average ages shown represent the age the dog was at the time of the survey.
