Occurrence and Clinical Characteristics of Canine Rickets: A Retrospective Record Review with A Clinical Case Series

Abstract

Canine rickets is a metabolic bone disease of growing dogs. This study reports the proportion of rickets in veterinary clinical records and describes the sex, age, breed and clinical characteristics of a separate series of confirmed clinical cases. Records of 45,000 canine cases from veterinary hospitals, private clinics and polyclinics in Pantnagar, Rudrapur, Haldwani, Bareilly, Dehradun, Moradabad and adjoining areas were reviewed retrospectively. Separately, 24 confirmed cases presented for treatment to the Teaching Veterinary Clinical Complex, College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, were characterized clinically. Data were summarized as frequencies and percentages. Locomotor problems were documented in 2,096 of the 45,000 records and 404 cases were recorded as rickets, which is 0.90% of all records and 19.27% of dogs with documented locomotor problems. Area-wise occurrence ranged from 0.54% to 1.06%. Among the 24 clinical cases, 17 (70.83%) were male, 16 (66.67%) were in the 3 to 6 month age group and 22 (91.67%) were up to 6 months old. German Shepherd dogs were the most frequent breed (7/24; 29.17%). Lameness (75.00%) and bowing of the limbs (58.33%) were the most common clinical findings. Rickets accounted for about one in five dogs with documented locomotor problems in the reviewed records. The distributions in the clinical cases describe only the 24 dogs examined and do not indicate group-specific risk, because population denominators were not available.