What is this study about?
Border Collies are a popular breed across the world, famed for their working abilities and general intelligence. Today, many Border Collies are still kept in a working role, with many others finding success as companions, or in competitive dog sports.
Sadly, studies indicate that Border Collies are predisposed to epilepsy, a brain disorder characterized by recurrent seizure activity, while others show behavioural abnormalities including fly-catching, tail and shadow chasing. We are interested in brain development in the Border Collie and how seizures and behavioural abnormalities arise in this breed. As such, we are conducting a series of studies focusing on brain health and behaviour in the Border Collie.
This survey is the first of these studies, and will explore your dogs day-to-day behaviour and their health status. This study will improve our knowledge of brain function and behaviour in Border Collies, and help us to understand the wider effects of epilepsy on the canine brain.
Who is eligible to take part?
- All Border Collie owners
- Dogs both with epilepsy and without epilepsy
- Dogs of any age, sex or neuter status
- Dogs from any part of the world
We would be grateful if you could complete the full questionnaire, which is estimated to take around 30 minutes. If you cannot complete the survey in one sitting you are able to re-access your answers by following the link.
We very much appreciate your help in this study. If you have any queries regarding the questions asked, please contact Dr Rowena Packer (rpacker@rvc.ac.uk)
Data Protection and Consent
The data collected in this questionnaire will be collated and stored at the Royal Veterinary College in London (RVC). Your completion of the questionnaire indicates your consent to participate in this study. We would appreciate it if you could include your contact details, but this is not required if you prefer your answers to remain anonymous. Your data will be anonymised as appropriate, and your contact details will be used only to contact you if we need clarification of the answers to any questions forming part of this questionnaire. Your personal information will be held and used in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation and will not be disclosed to any unauthorised person or body. We are happy to send you an electronic summary of the study results at the end of the study. Only the principal investigator in this study (Dr Rowena Packer) and members of the RVC Canine Epilepsy Research Team (Prof Holger Volk, Miss Sarah Hobbs) will have access to the data on the returned questionnaires. The anonymous results will be published on the RVC website and in a scientific journal.
N.B. The study was approved by the Royal Veterinary College Social Science Research Ethical Review Board (SR2018-1561)
