Francisco Herrera

E. Galvez
BIO 1615
November 14, 2016
Breed and sex differences in growth curves for two breeds of dog guides.
Introduction
A group of scientists wanted to determine which dog breed would reach an ideal adult
weight faster to become a guide dog. In order to help reduce cost for breeding and training, the
scientists know the desired weight for a dog guide is between 18 to 32 kg as an adult. A dog in
that weight range can safely guide their owner around. There has been very little research done to
determine how fast a dog breed will research its ideal adult weight, but in order to help save
money on breeding and training this group of scientists came up with the idea to develop a
selection protocol (Helmink, Shanks, & Leighton, 2000). The scientists conducted their study
on these test subjects, which were Male and Female German Shepherd (GS), and Male and
Female Labrador Retrievers (LR). Their study was to help build a growth curve between the test
subjects, and also to help one be more efficient in determining which dog breed to choose for a
dog guide.
Materials and Methods
These scientists followed 1,558 GS and LR from the Seeing Eye, Inc., Morristown, NJ.
between 1992-1997. They were able to gather 18,235 weights over the five year period. The
dogs were weighed daily for the first week of life, then weekly until the dogs were 6 to 8 weeks
old. When they reached this age group they were taken to caretakers to begin their training and
become more social. The dogs would later be weighed again when they reached 12 to 14 months
old. If a dog was not weighed between 290 and 550 days after birth that specific dog was taken

out of the experiment. To prevent any outliers in the data gathered, the scientists came to the
agreement that they would use the Gompertz Function to help show the growth curve between
the test subjects and show the growth of individual dogs. They created this formula from the data
they gathered Wt = Wmaxexp{-e[-(t-c)/b]} where
Wt = weight at time t
Wmax = Mature body weight
b = proportional to duration of growth
c = age at point of inflection
t = age in days.
Results
After analyzing all the data, the scientists found estimated mature weight was 2.4 +_ .3
kg higher for LR than GS and 4.7 +_ kg higher for males than for females. The breed x sex
interaction was not significant for mature weight (Helmink, Leighton, & Shanks, 2000). . The
mean mature weight for each test subject were the following: female (GS) = 24.4 kilograms,
male (GS) = 29.1 kg, female (LR) = 26.8 kg and male (LR)= 31.4 kg. They found that the dogs
would reach ideal mature weight for male (GS) 326 days, female (GS) 325 days, Male (LR) 335
days, and female (LR) 319 days after birth. Each test subject fell in the ideal weight range for
being a dog guide (18 - 32 kg).
Discussion
With all the information gathered by the researchers, the use of their growth curve
function was proven helpful when choosing guide dogs. For a more accurate growth curve the
researchers should have collected more data from a larger population, then repeat the experiment
to see if they obtain the same results. Also it would've been beneficial if the dogs were weighed
more often, when they were with caretakers to get more data to construct a more accurate growth
curve. The experiment started with 1,558 dogs but ended with 880 dogs who met the

requirements of the experiment. A larger sample in any experiment is beneficial to help find
outliers that can affect results. Overall the experiment went well, and they were able to obtain
useful and insightful data to create a function that can be used to predict if a dog will meet the
ideal weight to become the proper guide dog.

Bibliography
Helmink, S.K, R.D. Shanks, and E. A. Leighton. Breed and sex differences in growth curves for
two breed of dog guides Journal of Animal Science 2000 478:27-32