
Scientists in the US have collated results to show dog size and patterns of disease across all ages of dogs

Launched in 2011, the Dog Ageing Project is a US venture that brings together dogs, owners, vets, researchers and volunteers to investigate how ageing can affect the health and happiness of our dogs. 27,541 surveys were collected including information on dog demographic, health status and owner demographics.
The size of our dogs is a major factor in disease risk, though the patterns are complex. This study outlines how body size is associated with lifetime prevalence of conditions and how age also factors into the pattern. Positive correlations were found between dog size and prevalence of skin, orthopaedic, gastrointestinal, ENT, cancer, neurological, endocrine and infectious diseases.
However, sex, purebred vs mixed, and geographic region was found to make little difference to disease prevalence. These results align with other studies suggesting a reduced lifespan for larger dogs in most disease categories.
The full paper can be accessed here: