A register of diabetic dogs built up over nearly two decades in the United Kingdom has yielded one of the largest single pictures yet of how canine diabetes presents, which breeds it strikes hardest, and how veterinarians actually treat it. Researchers analysed 1,072 cases of diabetes mellitus submitted to the UK Canine Diabetes Register and Archive between December 2005 and December 2019, comparing the diabetic dogs against a reference population of nearly three-quarters of a million non-diabetic pets under primary veterinary care. The results, published open access in the journal Companion Animal Health and Genetics, confirm striking breed disparities in diabetes risk and reveal a quiet revolution in treatment habits, with twice-daily insulin dosing now firmly the norm in British practice.
The archive itself is an unusual scientific resource. Established in 1999 at the Royal Veterinary College, it collects both clinical information and blood samples from diabetic dogs across the UK, submitted voluntarily by first-opinion and referral practices in response to advertising in the veterinary press. Practitioners who sent in samples for fructosamine and glycated haemoglobin testing, returned free of charge, also filled in forms recording each dog’s age, sex, neuter status, breed, bodyweight, concurrent conditions and insulin treatment. Over more than 20 years the archive has accumulated over 2,000 samples, and the median annual submission was 53 cases, arriving from 161 unique practice postcodes. For the current analysis, the team restricted the dataset to cases submitted after December 2005, when testing methods changed, giving a consistent 14-year window.
Because canine diabetes is not one disease, the researchers split the cases into three aetiological groups. Only 15 cases, or 1.4 percent, were juvenile-onset diabetes diagnosed at a year of age or younger. The overwhelming majority, 951 cases or 88.7 percent, were adult-onset dogs that were male entire, male neutered or female neutered at diagnosis, a group the authors call non-dioestrus diabetes. The remaining 106 cases, or 9.9 percent, were entire female dogs, whose diabetes is frequently driven by the insulin-antagonistic action of growth hormone released from the mammary glands during the progesterone-dominated dioestrus phase. Nineteen additional dogs diagnosed between one and three years of age fell outside all three groups and were excluded.
The juvenile cases, though few, carry outsized scientific interest. The median age at diagnosis in this group was just 0.31 years, and Labrador Retrievers were the most heavily represented breed with four of the 15 cases. The authors note that this early onset mirrors monogenic forms of diabetes in humans, raising the possibility of a distinct, potentially single-gene form of canine diabetes separate from the polygenic disease that typically appears later in life. Without a national register, cases this rare would surface only as isolated reports; pooled together, they become a dataset capable of pointing geneticists toward candidate breeds and variants.
Among adult-onset dogs, the median age at diagnosis was 9.2 years in the non-dioestrus group and 9.6 years in the entire female group. But averaging across breeds hides real variation. When the researchers examined breeds with more than five diabetic dogs individually, mean age at diagnosis ranged from 6.83 years in the Standard Doberman Pinscher, the youngest, to 11.24 years in the Border Terrier, the oldest. One-way analysis of variance confirmed a significant difference among breeds, and post-hoc testing showed that Standard Doberman Pinschers, Rottweilers, Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, Dachshunds and Labrador Retrievers were all diagnosed significantly younger than Crossbreeds, the reference population. The authors suggest this could reflect differences in ageing speed and life expectancy, in genetic burden of diabetes risk, or in the underlying disease mechanisms across breeds.
The breed risk analysis produced the study’s most eye-catching numbers. Using the VetCompass programme, which collates de-identified electronic health records from UK primary-care practices, the team built a control population of 749,827 dogs aged three or older with no recorded evidence of diabetes, after screening out 9,898 animals with diabetes-related terms or insulin prescriptions in their records. Against this denominator, multivariable logistic regression showed that Samoyeds carried roughly 23.5 times the odds of diabetes compared with Crossbreeds in the non-dioestrus group, followed by Tibetan Terriers at 11.1 times and Dachshunds at 10.9 times. In the entire female group, the Samoyed odds ratio soared to 118.7, with Border Collies at 10.9 and Huskies at 9.1, though the authors urge caution here because the control population included male and female dogs of varying neuter status. Border Collies were also significantly over-represented among entire female diabetic dogs relative to the non-dioestrus group.
At the other end of the spectrum, four breeds produced no diabetic submissions at all despite each having more than 5,000 representatives in the reference population: the Boxer, German Shepherd Dog, Pug and Cockapoo. The Labrador Retriever, one of Britain’s most popular breeds and the second most common breed in the archive with 83 cases, had near-neutral odds of 1.14 compared with Crossbreeds, suggesting its high representation reflects sheer popularity rather than elevated risk. The four highest-risk breeds in this analysis matched the top four in an earlier archive report, and the low-risk breeds aligned with previous VetCompass studies, lending the findings external consistency.
On treatment, the data document a clear shift in clinical practice. Twice-daily Caninsulin, a 40 iu/ml porcine insulin, was the largest treatment group by far, with 582 non-dioestrus cases, followed by twice-daily Insuvet lente with 131. The once-daily Insuvet lente group contained just 17 dogs, and the Insuvet protamine zinc insulin groups fewer than 20 combined. Insuvet products were discontinued in 2010, while ProZinc, a longer-acting recombinant human insulin, only became available in 2016 and was widely marketed for dogs from 2019. Across all insulin types, dogs treated twice daily received a significantly higher total daily dose than those treated once daily, yet the median daily total in twice-daily groups was less than double the once-daily median, meaning the per-injection dose was lower. Notably, fructosamine concentrations, which reflect average glycaemic control over the preceding one to two weeks, did not differ significantly between once-daily and twice-daily treated dogs in this study, in contrast to the archive’s first report, where twice-daily treatment was associated with better control markers. The authors stress the study was designed to report treatment choices, not to evaluate insulin efficacy.
The register also captured concurrent disease, though reporting was inconsistent. Cataracts, pancreatitis, hyperadrenocorticism and skin conditions were the most commonly reported conditions among the adult-onset groups, broadly matching other canine diabetes studies. Sixty-three non-dioestrus cases and five entire female cases carried more than one reported condition. The authors caution that the free-text reporting could not reliably distinguish confirmed from suspected diagnoses, and that a ‘none reported’ entry does not mean a condition was absent, only unrecorded. No clear seasonal pattern of diagnosis emerged in either adult-onset group, though December saw notably fewer diagnoses, a finding that contrasts with earlier reports of a winter peak.
The study’s limitations frame how far its conclusions travel. The archive relies on practitioner-reported diagnoses and voluntary submissions, so recruitment bias is possible; the authors note, for instance, that owners consenting to a clinical database may also be more likely to neuter their pets, which could help explain why entire females made up only about 10 percent of adult-onset archive cases versus roughly 19 percent in the wider VetCompass diabetic population. The control population came from a single year, 2016, while archive submissions spanned 2005 to 2019, so shifts in breed popularity over time are imperfectly captured. Concurrent disease and environmental risk factors such as corticosteroid use could not be analysed. Even so, the shared breed profile between dioestrus and non-dioestrus diabetes points to a compelling hypothesis: similar genetic factors may predispose high-risk breeds to both forms, perhaps by affecting the survival, function or renewal of insulin-producing beta cells, with dioestrus acting as only one of several possible triggers. A redesigned online submission form now collecting environmental and co-morbidity detail aims to test exactly that in the archive’s next chapter.
Subject of Research: Epidemiology and clinical management of canine diabetes mellitus using a UK veterinary register of 1,072 diabetic dogs
Article Title: Epidemiology and clinical management of 1072 dogs with diabetes mellitus in a UK diabetes register
Article References: Denyer, A. L., O’Neill, D. G., Brodbelt, D. C., Holder, A., Catchpole, B., & Davison, L. J. (2025). Epidemiology and clinical management of 1072 dogs with diabetes mellitus in a UK diabetes register. Companion Animal Health and Genetics, 12(1), Article 7. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40575-025-00146-x
Image Credits: AI Generated
DOI: 10.1186/s40575-025-00146-x
Keywords: canine diabetes mellitus, dog breeds, UK Canine Diabetes Register, VetCompass, Samoyed, Tibetan Terrier, insulin treatment, juvenile diabetes, dioestrus, veterinary epidemiology, breed risk, beta cells
News Source: William Thompson. (October 29, 2026). Samoyeds and Tibetan Terriers Top UK Register of 1,072 Diabetic Dogs. Scienmag.
