Your Dog Can Help Researchers With The Dog Aging Project

Dogs and cats are helping researchers learn about diseases such as cancer and how animals and humans go through the aging process. You can help researchers by enrolling your dog in the Dog Aging Project.

In this video, I interview Harmony Diers from the Dog Aging Project about how pet owners can help researchers for free by just answering a few questions. The transcript is below the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8Zg9MVkDAI

Hi, it's Beverly from the Well-Trained Dog and Pet Care. Glad you could join us today. With me is Harmony Diers from the Dog Aging Project. We're going to discuss what exactly the project is, how you can get involved, and what exactly the project will do now and in the future.

So welcome, Harmony.

Thank you, Beverly, for having me. I'm so happy to be here and excited to talk about the Dog Aging Project.

Well, what is the Dog Aging Project?

Great question. The Dog Aging Project is a longitudinal and observational study of companion dogs in homes around the U.S. And we observe and learn about dogs from many different environments, lifestyles, ages, breeds, the gamut. We learn about these dogs, again, from a distance through a series of annual health surveys where we keep up with, you know, annually we review the records that are also sent in if they can, if the dog owners are with a veterinarian that has access to an electronic medical record system. We love to see the records as well. So annually, we learn how the dog has been doing year to year, and we compare those findings of the aging process to all the other dogs across the country that are enrolled.

And we want to learn, ultimately, what leads to the longer-lived dogs? Why do we have some, let's say Labrador Retrievers, we both have labs. Why do some labs make it to 17 or 18 years old, and then others, we lose at 10 or 11? There's reasons, and it can be reasons of environment, genetics, access to advanced medical care. So those are the questions that we're answering.

And you mentioned labs, and my lab Zippy was a member of the Dog Aging Project until he passed in March of 2023, and then I enrolled Hokie, who's kind of sleeping behind me here, so she is a member currently. How old or how young do you need to be to be a member of the Dog Aging Project? Do you have to be a senior?

You do not. We need to learn from a diverse demographic of dogs to not have any gaps in our data. You can enroll the youngest of puppies to the most senior of companion dogs, and everyone in between. Any breed, purebred or mixed, again, any age and any status of spay or neuter, there are no restrictions. We need to learn from all the dogs.

But you can only enroll one dog at a time, is that correct?

That's right, one dog per household at a time. And what we are, what we, this year has been exciting because a lot of folks who have enrolled, they have enrolled older dogs, and along the way, just through the natural process of life, we lose some of our dogs. I lost my German Shepherd in March, you lost a Zippy last year, and so now when a pet or when a dog that is enrolled leaves the household, whether it be to go to the great beyond or other, you can enroll a second dog, but it is one dog per household at a time, yes.

So you mentioned that the taking part is by annual surveys. Is there a cost to sign up or a cost to these surveys?

Not at all. We appreciate the outpouring of volunteerism that our participants partake in. There is certainly no charge for this. We just ask that folks repeat these surveys every year. We also send invitations to do other very interesting activities, and one of them measures cognitive changes in dogs, and it's called the 1-2-3 Treat Activity, and it's a memory game, and so that is a great one. We measure those results of that annual activity year after year, again looking to see if we're finding any cognitive changes.

Another that's really interesting is called the Mobility and Measurements Activity, and again, year after year, we have participating dog owners measure dogs in certain areas, checking for, you know, the muscle mass, and are we seeing changes in this muscle mass over the years? Are we seeing changes in how quickly they can run 10 meters? There's several different activities that we measure and compare over the years that helps us follow along with the aging process. Now, those activities are not mandatory. They are definitely volunteer, but the more data that we can collect consecutively year after year, the more information that we can gather about the aging process in dogs, and so we really appreciate the volunteerism on our participants' part. And they're fun activities as well. It doesn't cost anything, you know, just a little, a few minutes of your time maybe to fill out the survey or to do the activity.

That's right, and as you mentioned, the survey, again, there are about 200 questions in the annual survey, but you can stop and pick it up again whenever you have more time, as long as you get that completed within 40 days.

How many participants do you have right now?

We are very close to 50,000 participating companion dogs across the U.S., and we're so proud of that number.

What is your ultimate number?

That's another great question. We have no ultimate number. The largest part of our, of the Dog Aging Project, again, longitudinal observational learning about dogs from a distance, we have no limit to the number of dogs that can be enrolled, and the enrollment process is really simple. You, you know, an interested dog owner would go to dogagingproject.org, fill out a short initial survey, you will be invited to set up a portal, and then your survey will come shortly after that, and we keep our participants up to date through newsletters, through YouTube events called Pack Appreciation Events. We do everything from interviews, some of our researchers about their latest discoveries, to, you know, again, giving updates about the project in many different facets.

Some people might be concerned about their information, you know, getting out there. How is that kept, you know, confidential?

It is, we keep all of a participant's private information completely private. This does not get shared. We will anonymize that very delicate information, whether it be address or email. It is strictly used only within the Dog Aging Project. It is not shared outside of our project in any way. We have very strict standards for security of information, and those standards are actually listed out on our website as well, but we take security of information very seriously.

This is only in the U.S. right now, is that correct?

That's right, that is correct.

Do you want to go worldwide? Any, any plans to do that?

Currently, due to funding, we are pretty restricted to staying within the United States, and so for the foreseeable future, that is what the project will remain just within the United States, but the future is bright, so we never know what might happen around the corner.

How is the study funded?

The study is funded a number of different ways. We, back in 2019, got a five-year grant from the National Institute of Aging, and we have now resubmitted another grant for that funding, but we're also funded through philanthropic organizations, you know, donations from different places. We're actually moving into a new funding frontier where we may consider corporate funding, but the direction of our research would not be influenced by a corporation or a philanthropic group. And we actually, the founders of the project have just started a 501c non-profit called the Dog Aging Institute, and the Dog Aging Institute supports not only the initiatives of the Dog Aging Project, but as well other scientific initiatives that look at canine health.

Well, it's been going for several years now. Have you made any discoveries, or what discoveries have you made, I should ask?

Sure, there's a handful that stand out in my mind. We have, first of all, we have a very, we've published lots of papers, and those also can be found under our publications page on the dogagingproject.org. But a couple of interesting ones that I will mention here, we have shown through our research, and again, this is through the surveys that our participants fill out and the activities that they do for us in comparing year after year, we've discovered that there's strong correlations between exercise and cognitive function. We have a publication out specifically about that.

We've also shown that as well as in humans, a stressful, disadvantaged environment is associated with less exercise and poor health outcomes for our companion canines. We've also looked into feeding behavior and health, and that's a very interesting paper. We've gotten a lot of attention about that. Through three years of research and reviewing, again, the surveys, we were able to establish in those three years that there were healthier outcomes for dogs who were fed once a day versus twice a day or three times a day. And we never make the recommendation for our participants to change anything that they're doing. We are learning, and then we are sharing what we learn.

And then finally, one that's just top of mind is that we have established detailed patterns for the role and size for the size of dogs in diverse diseases, small versus large. And we have probably three or four more publications coming out before the end of the year, and it is just a very long, interesting list that I would love your viewers to go and check out on our website. We also do an accompaniment of a blog for each of these publications that's a quicker bite, if you will, of the important information that we've discovered. And they're enjoyable reads.

Well, it's interesting that you mentioned feed once a day, because traditionally it's always three times a day when they're puppies until they're about nine to 12 months old, and then you go two times a day. And I've had clients that'll feed once a day, and I'm like, do you eat once a day? No, because you want the sugar and everything not to spike, but to kind of keep it a level keel. And then to find out that, wow, they're actually, according to the paper, healthier if they are fed once a day. That's interesting. I'd love personally to find out more about that.

Hokie might not like that idea, but...

Right. And again, in puppies, like you mentioned, these were adult dogs that we included in that data. You're absolutely right. A puppy wouldn't be able to sustain comfortably being able to eat once a day, but in adult dogs, these were the findings.

And I guess it depends too on how active they are, if they're actively herding or working as a service dog or something like that versus a pet dog. So interesting.

Is there anything specifically that you're studying now, or you're just kind of gathering data and then you kind of follow the data to where it leads?

Well, as far as papers that are soon to come out, I don't really have the list to share until they become peer reviewed. But we have a team of over a hundred people that include many, many researchers that are working on a lot of projects every day. And so we will have other research papers that come out very soon.

One interesting group that we're studying closely are groups of dogs that we survey their owners on, specifically on certain behavior patterns. And among that demographic of dogs, we have a smaller study looking at canine cognitive dysfunction. So that is an important project to our hearts. As we know, there's many links between canine cognitive dysfunction and human Alzheimer's. And ultimately what we hope to discover about our dogs, because they lead such similar lives to us with diet environment, you know, and again, access to advanced medical care, we are hoping that in a shorter period of time, we can learn things that can be translated to human health as well.

That's great. And again, it's free to sign up and, you know, free just takes a few minutes of your time to fill out the surveys once a year or to do some of the little activities, dogagingproject.org. Correct?

Yes, that's right.

Okay. Thank you.

That's right.

Any last minute thoughts?

Well, again, I just want to thank you for having me here today. Our team is passionate about the health and longevity of companion canines. They've touched so many of the lives of the people in the world. It's just a work from the heart, mixed with research and science to push these discoveries as far as we can. And, you know, we call it the power of paying attention. We pay attention to what happens through these, you know, within these surveys and activities. And we want to put that information to good use for the greater community of dogs and people

.

All right. Harmony Diers from Dog Aging Project. Thanks for joining us today.

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Beverly Amsler is the owner of The Well-Trained Dog & Pet Care. She has been a professional dog trainer, dog walker, and pet sitter since 2014.  Beverly is a Certified Dog Trainer through the Victoria Stilwell Academy and a Certified Professional Pet Sitter through Pet Sitters International.  She is a member of the Texas Pet Sitters Association and the Association For Professional Dog Training.  Before starting her business, Beverly spent more than 30 years as a journalist for newspapers, magazines, and radio and television stations in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Indiana, and Utah. Learn more about Beverly.