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| © Poole Hall Labradors |
The idea? A lifetime study of 20,000 Kennel Club registered Labradors, asking pertinent questions about health, weight, diet and exercise.
So enthusiastic was the Kennel Club about this study that the KC Charitable Trust threw a whopping £100,000 at it to fund it for just one year.
For slightly less than £100k (like, say, a tenner) I can predict with confidence that the study will find that being overweight increases the likelihood of joint disease and decreases longevity. This has, in fact, already been established with the Purina study, which found that Labradors kept lean lived almost two years longer than lardier ones.
But there are other good questions to be answered by this study - and not least the role diet plays in health and longevity. Reckon kibble poisons dogs and a raw diet is the road to rude good health (or, indeed, vice versa)? Here's a chance to prove it.
I'd urge everyone with a Kennel Club-registered Labrador born since 1st January 2010 to enrol. And not least because the researchers wanted 20,000 and so far have recruited, um, just 631 owners.
Perhaps Poole Hall Labradors in Shropshire (pictured above) could encourage some of their puppy buyers to enrol their pups? Haven't checked their 2010 stats yet, but these Kennel Club Accredited Breeders registered no less than 126 litters - 880 puppies - between January 2005 and September 2009.
That's an awful lot, isn't it?