Dog Aging Project by Charlotte Reed

Thank you so much for hosting me on The Pet Buzz!  I am really excited to share with you about the largest dog science project ever endeavored, the Dog Aging Project.  We are enrolling tens of thousands of companion dogs throughout the United States into our longitudinal study.  This will allow us to closely monitor this population of dogs over a long period of time while they go about their lives as usual.  Through this project we will unlock the secrets to healthy aging in dogs and in people, too.

Our study is being conducted by a large group of scientists from a number of colleges and universities from across the United States, but the strength of this project really comes from our team of citizen scientists – dog owners like you!  For each of the dogs enrolled in the Dog Aging Project, we will collect information about their health, habits, activity levels, environment, lifestyle, and many other things.  There is no way that we can collect this level of detailed information about so many dogs by ourselves.  So we decided to partner with the people who know these dogs best – their human companions.

You don’t need a PhD to make important contributions to this project.  In fact, anyone can participate.  We view the owners of enrolled dogs as our partners as we attempt to unravel the causes of healthy and unhealthy aging.  It is through this partnership that we will be able to learn how we can live longer, healthier lives together.

If you and your companion dog would like to be part of the Dog Aging Project, you can nominate your dog at dogagingproject.org.

Audrey Ruple, DVM, MS, PhD, DipACVPM, MRCVS
Assistant Professor of One Health Epidemiology Chair
Senate Equity and Diversity Committee Department of Public Health
College of Health and Human Sciences Purdue University