500 Golden Retrievers and Their Owners Join Groundbreaking Lifetime Health Study—Denver Dog Helps Mark This Milestone
Morris Animal Foundation Reaches First Recruitment Milestone Toward Goal of 3,000 Dogs
Denver/June 10, 2013—Denver-based Morris Animal Foundation reached a major milestone by enrolling 500 dogs into the first-of-its-kind Golden Retriever Lifetime Study. The 500thdog to enroll is Sora, a lovable and happy Golden Retriever who is also coincidentally from Denver. The Foundation is recruiting 3,000 Golden Retrievers under 2 years of age to participate in the largest and longest observational study ever conducted in veterinary medicine. So far, dogs are enrolled from 47 of the 48 contiguous United States. Find out more at www.CanineLifetimeHealth.org
Sora, who recently turned 1, shares her home with the Cluff family, loyal and passionate Golden Retriever owners. Golden Retrievers have been a part of the Cluff family for many years but sadly in 2012, they lost two of these dogs within 10 months of each other to cancer. A few months later Sue Cluff read about the Golden Retriever Lifetime Study in the newspaper.
“Since we had just lost two dogs to the diseases Morris Animal Foundation was going to study, we were determined to support this study in any way we could,” she said.
Each year of the study, the Cluffs and the other participating Golden Retriever owners will complete an online questionnaire about their dogs’ diet, activity and living environment. Owners will also take their dogs to the veterinarian for annual physical examinations and collection of samples for laboratory testing and long-term storage.
“The Golden Retriever Lifetime Study will determine how diet, genetics and environment affect a dog’s likelihood of developing cancer and other diseases,” said Wayne Jensen, DVM, PhD, chief scientific officer for Morris Animal Foundation. “We are excited to have hundreds of owners and veterinarians joining us in this effort, and we look forward to recruiting the remaining dogs.”
If you have a qualifying Golden Retrievers, the two of you can join this groundbreaking effort to improve the health of dogs. Register at www.CanineLifetimeHealth.org to see if your dog qualifies for the study. Veterinarians can also register through the website.
The Golden Retriever Lifetime Study is part of Morris Animal Foundation’s nationwide Canine Lifetime Health Project. The Mark and Bette Morris Family Foundation serves as the primary sponsor of this study; platinum partners include VCA/Antech, Blue Buffalo, Petco, Hill’s Pet Nutrition and Zoetis with The Golden Retriever Foundation participating as a gold sponsor. Additional sponsors include Mars Veterinary and the Hadley and Marion Stuart Foundation.
About Morris Animal Foundation
Media Contact:
Tina M. Martinez
tmartinez@MorrisAnimalFoundation.org, 303.708.3418
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