Vol. 9, Special Issue 11 (2020)

Author(s):
Harneet Kour, Sushma Chhabra and CS Randhawa

Abstract:
The present study was conducted on 20,108 dogs aged one year or greater presented for various health reasons from June 2018 to February 2020 to small animal OPD, Teaching Veterinary Clinical Complex, Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Ludhiana, Punjab with signs of endocrinopathies. On the basis of low levels of T4 and higher levels of TSH, a total of 35 dogs were diagnosed with hypothyroidism. In the present study the hospital prevalence of hypothyroidism was found to be 0.174 per cent (N=35). The highest prevalence was in Labrador retriever (N=18 dogs, 51.43%) followed by Pug (N=7, 20.0%), Samoyed (N=3 dogs, 8.57%) Dachshund and German shepherd (N=2 dogs, 5.71%) and Pitbull, Shih Tzu and Mongrel (N= 1 each, 2.86%). Results of the study revealed that majority of the cases were from middle age group (21 cases, 60%) followed by young age group (12 cases, 34.3%). The mean total thyroxine level was 0.44 ± 0.61 µg/dl that was significantly (P≤ 0.01) low compared to mean concentration of healthy dogs (2.17±0.26 µg/dl). The mean thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) levels was 6.79± 0.01 ng/ml in hypothyroid dogs, that was significantly (P≤0.01) high as compared to mean concentration of healthy dogs (0.95±0.04ng/ ml). In the present study, significantiy low (P≤ 0.01) levels of serum total thyroxine and elevated levels of thyrotropin were recorded in hypothyroid dogs.