Beagle dogs are the most frequently used nonrodent animals in biomedical research, because of similarities in their anatomical morphology and physiology to humans [2]. In biomedical research, it is well recognized that individual animal variability can affect study results. Therefore, highly defined dog models should be used in biomedical studies [3]. In clinical or non-clinical tests, the normal range of blood constituent is a standard means of diagnosis when identifying diseases or abnormalities. Thus, they are very important values, although they can vary significantly depending on the individual environment (e.g., species, sex, age, and conditions) or genetic characteristics [13,15-17]. This means it is essential to reduce errors by determining the normal range as accurately as possible to facilitate the exact diagnosis of diseases or confirming abnormalities. The current study was conducted to determine basic physiological data on the body weight, organ weight, body temperature, heart rate, and hematological, biochemical and urological parameters for male and female beagle dogs.
In the physical examination of male and female beagle dogs aged 6 and 9 months, the body temperature and respiratory rate did not differ significantly between the sexes, although the respiratory rate of both sexes tended to increase as they grew older, while the heart rate of females was slightly higher than that of males (Table 2). Ferasin et al. [18] reported that dogs aged less than 1 year appeared to have a significantly higher heart rate than older dogs, while the heart rate of healthy dogs undergoing routine clinical examination was related to their age.
The body weight of male and female dogs increased rapidly up to 33 weeks, followed by a gradual increase to 41 weeks. The body weight was significantly different between the sexes (Figure 1). Their body weight increased by 0.18±0.07 kg/week in male dogs and by 0.14±0.06 kg/week in female dogs. Nunamaker et al. [19] reported that the body weight increased by 19.7 g/day in a control group of dogs. The relative organ weights were similar to those reported for a control group in a previous report [20]. The relative reproductive organ weights of both sexes increased rapidly up to 7 months (Table 6). These results indicate that puberty may be reached at 7 months of age.