Interobserver Variability of Assessing Body Condition Scores and Muscle Condition Scores in a Population of 43 Active Working Explosive Detection Dogs

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.

Publication History

Article published online:
09 April 2024