Introduction: To ensure optimal health and performance of working dogs, both the handler and veterinary
team require a standardized method for assessing the condition of their canines. The
objective of this study was to assess the level of agreement between handlers and
their veterinary team in the assessment of canine body condition score (BCS) and muscle
condition score (MCS); hypothesizing that there would be a significant difference
between graders of BCS, but not MCS.
Materials and Methods: This prospective study analyzed variance and inter-rater intraclass correlation coefficients
(ICC) of agreement within BCS and MCS assessments collected from 43 Explosive Detection
Dogs (EDD) by 4 blinded graders (the EDDs’ respective handler and 3 veterinarians
with varying levels of canine sports medicine expertise).
Results: The veterinary team and handlers graded 67.44% and 74.4% of the EDD population respectively
at an ideal BCS (4–5/9); however, the graders scored different subsets of individual
EDDs as ideal. The handlers graded 86.05% (n = 37) of EDDs as having normal MCS (3/3) versus 70.54% by the veterinary team. Handlers
significantly under-scored BCS in comparison to the veterinary team (p < 0.001). There was no statistical difference between ICCs of veterinary graders
on BCS or MCS.
Discussion/Conclusion: Although MCS scoring displayed better inter-rater reliability, the current MCS scale
is designed for disease detection and therefore limited in identifying positive muscle
development. Standardization efforts are necessary to achieve global agreement on
BCS in working dogs, given the discrepancies observed between handlers and the veterinary
team in our study.
Acknowledgment:
There was no proprietary interest or funding for this project. The views and information
presented are those of the authors and do not represent the official position of their
affiliated institutions. We would like to thank all of the handlers, dogs, and veterinary
staff for their time and participation.
