Catalog · Breeds

Dog and Cat Breed Health Guides: 50 Age-Anchored Directories

Fifty breed guides written the way a CVT reads a chart. Age-anchored predispositions, home-observation cues, and the short list of questions worth asking your vet by life stage.

Rachel Howland, CVT (ret.)

Updated Apr 24, 2026 · 50 breeds · Edited for Veta

It's 10:47 PM, the new puppy is asleep, and someone in the family has just typed "beagle health problems" into a search bar. The first three results are the AKC marketing page, a clinic blog that reads like an affiliate brief, and a Chewy explainer that lists nine conditions without quantifying any of them. I've watched this exact Wednesday-night spiral play out more times than I can count, usually at the eight-week well-check the next morning when the owner walks in with a printout and a knot in their stomach. The information on the printout isn't wrong. It's just framed as a diagnosis list when it should be a planning document.

The breed guides indexed on this page refuse that framing. Each one is built the way I was taught to read a chart: what's elevated for this breed and at what age, what the earliest home-observable signs look like, which screenings are worth putting on the wellness calendar, and which questions the reader should bring to the next visit. No breed-standard marketing. No prophecy. A planning document you can close the tab on.

What's inside each guide

The five sections repeat across all 50 pages, in the same order, because the mental model is the same whether the pet is a Bernese mountain dog or a Siamese cat. Predispositions come first, with the recurring conditions flagged across reputable sources: the Merck Veterinary Manual (the reference textbook clinicians use), the vet-school breed publications, the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals database, and peer-reviewed cohort data from sources like the Royal Veterinary College's VetCompass program. Early-warning signs follow, written as the home observations that matter: the weight trend, the breathing pattern, the appetite shift, the lump you didn't have last week. Preventive milestones come next, age-anchored to the life stage where screening changes outcomes the most. Then the screening protocol itself, the imaging and bloodwork cadence your vet may recommend. Finally the FAQ, which catches the specific questions that come up at the front desk over and over.

How we chose these 50

Three criteria, in order. First: US search volume, pulled from public keyword data and filtered against the Intent-Mesh pain-point signals already in our pipeline. Golden retrievers, Labs, French bulldogs, and Maine coons sit at the top of that list by a wide margin; the tail runs out around 50 breeds before the data gets thin. Second: predisposition diversity. A breed earns a guide when its clinical profile is distinct enough from the rest that a dedicated page produces real new information rather than recycled paragraphs. Brachycephalic syndrome (the airway trouble in flat-faced breeds) in French bulldogs, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (thickening of the heart muscle) in Maine coons, bloat (gastric dilatation-volvulus) in deep-chested working dogs, syringomyelia (a spinal-fluid condition) in cavalier King Charles spaniels. Each carries a distinct screening calendar. Third: owner population size. A guide for a breed with ten thousand US owners helps more families than the same effort spent on a breed with three hundred.

Honest about what's not here yet: hybrid breeds (goldendoodles, labradoodles, cavapoos, puggles) get their own treatment in Wave 2 because the predisposition math on two-breed crosses requires its own editorial frame, as the AKC Canine Health Foundation's hybrid-health commentary lays out clearly. Landrace dogs and cats (mountain breeds, feral-founded lines) wait for Wave 3. Rare breeds with small US populations are last in line, not because the owners don't deserve guides, but because the peer-reviewed evidence base is thin and writing a speculative page in the meantime would betray the sourcing-discipline this site runs on.

Breed is a probability, not a prophecy

One frame across every guide on this index, because it's the frame most of the open web gets wrong. A breed predisposition is a population-level statement about incidence: this breed develops this condition at a rate higher than the baseline population does. It's a planning tool, not a forecast for your specific dog or cat. Most golden retrievers don't get hemangiosarcoma, the blood-vessel cancer that tends to show up on the spleen. Most cavaliers don't develop syringomyelia. Most Maine coons never show up on a cardiologist's schedule for HCM follow-up. The reason breed data matters is that the incidence is elevated, not that the incidence is certain. Reading a one-in-three probability as a verdict is the error SEO content tends to reward because fear generates clicks, and it's the error every guide on this index is built to resist.

The longer version of that argument, with the math on purebreds versus mixed breeds, where DNA testing fits, and how to read a breed profile without spiraling, lives on the breed-health-map page. It's the companion read to this index. If you've landed here after a panic-Google about a specific condition, open that tab first and this one second.

Conditions cross the breed line

Some conditions concentrate in one breed; most don't. Hip dysplasia recurs across large-breed working dogs. Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) shows up in Maine coons and ragdolls and sphynxes and Norwegian forest cats. Brachycephalic airway syndrome is a French bulldog and pug and Persian cat issue all at once. The guides don't duplicate the condition-level explainer across twelve pages; they link to a single deep page on each condition and focus the breed page on what the screening calendar and the home-observation cues look like for that specific animal. Over time the condition pages and the breed pages form a grid the reader can move through in either direction: breed-in to see what their dog is elevated for, condition-in to see which breeds are the common presenters and what the early signs look like across them.

One last framing note. Every guide on this index closes with the same line the wellness visit is supposed to close with, which is: write the two or three questions down, bring them to the next appointment, and let the vet tell you whether each one earns its spot on the calendar. The guide isn't the appointment. It's what you read the night before so the fifteen minutes in the exam room are a conversation instead of a handoff.

The directory

Fifty Wave-1 breeds, filterable by species, size, and energy level. Cards link out to the full guide where it's shipped, and hold a quiet placeholder where the guide's still being written.

Species

Size

Energy

All 50 breeds

DogLarge10-12 years
Golden Retriever
High energy. Commonly screened for hip dysplasia, elbow dysplasia, and hemangiosarcoma.
Read the Golden Retriever health guide →
DogLarge10-12 years
Labrador Retriever
High energy. Commonly screened for hip dysplasia, elbow dysplasia, and exercise-induced collapse.
Guide in progress
DogLarge9-13 years
German Shepherd
High energy. Commonly screened for hip dysplasia, elbow dysplasia, and degenerative myelopathy.
Guide in progress
DogSmall10-12 years
French Bulldog
Moderate energy. Commonly screened for brachycephalic obstructive airway syndrome, intervertebral disc disease, and skin allergies.
Guide in progress
DogMedium8-10 years
Bulldog
Low energy. Commonly screened for brachycephalic obstructive airway syndrome, hip dysplasia, and skin fold dermatitis.
Guide in progress
DogMedium12-15 years
Poodle
High energy. Commonly screened for progressive retinal atrophy, Addison's disease, and hip dysplasia.
Guide in progress
DogSmall12-15 years
Beagle
High energy. Commonly screened for obesity, epilepsy, and ear infections.
Guide in progress
DogLarge9-10 years
Rottweiler
Moderate energy. Commonly screened for hip dysplasia, elbow dysplasia, and osteosarcoma.
Guide in progress
DogLarge10-14 years
German Shorthaired Pointer
Very high energy. Commonly screened for hip dysplasia, GDV bloat, and von Willebrand disease.
Guide in progress
DogToy12-15 years
Yorkshire Terrier
Moderate energy. Commonly screened for luxating patella, portosystemic shunt, and collapsing trachea.
Guide in progress
DogSmall12-16 years
Dachshund
Moderate energy. Commonly screened for intervertebral disc disease, obesity, and dental disease.
Read the Dachshund health guide →
DogLarge12-15 years
Siberian Husky
Very high energy. Commonly screened for hip dysplasia, progressive retinal atrophy, and cataracts.
Read the Siberian Husky health guide →
DogLarge10-12 years
Boxer
High energy. Commonly screened for arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy, mast cell tumors, and hip dysplasia.
Read the Boxer health guide →
DogMedium12-15 years
Australian Shepherd
Very high energy. Commonly screened for hip dysplasia, MDR1 drug sensitivity, and epilepsy.
Read the Australian Shepherd health guide →
DogGiant7-10 years
Great Dane
Moderate energy. Commonly screened for GDV bloat, dilated cardiomyopathy, and hip dysplasia.
Read the Great Dane health guide →
DogSmall9-14 years
Cavalier King Charles Spaniel
Moderate energy. Commonly screened for mitral valve disease, syringomyelia, and luxating patella.
Read the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel health guide →
DogLarge10-13 years
Doberman Pinscher
High energy. Commonly screened for dilated cardiomyopathy, von Willebrand disease, and hip dysplasia.
Read the Doberman Pinscher health guide →
DogSmall12-15 years
Miniature Schnauzer
Moderate energy. Commonly screened for hyperlipidemia, pancreatitis, and urinary stones.
Read the Miniature Schnauzer health guide →
DogToy10-18 years
Shih Tzu
Low energy. Commonly screened for brachycephalic airway issues, luxating patella, and intervertebral disc disease.
Read the Shih Tzu health guide →
DogSmall11-13 years
Boston Terrier
Moderate energy. Commonly screened for brachycephalic airway issues, luxating patella, and cataracts.
Read the Boston Terrier health guide →
DogToy12-16 years
Pomeranian
Moderate energy. Commonly screened for luxating patella, collapsing trachea, and dental disease.
Read the Pomeranian health guide →
DogToy14-16 years
Havanese
Moderate energy. Commonly screened for luxating patella, cataracts, and hip dysplasia.
Guide in progress
DogSmall12-14 years
Shetland Sheepdog
High energy. Commonly screened for Collie eye anomaly, MDR1 drug sensitivity, and hip dysplasia.
Guide in progress
DogGiant7-10 years
Bernese Mountain Dog
Moderate energy. Commonly screened for histiocytic sarcoma, hip dysplasia, and elbow dysplasia.
Guide in progress
DogToy14-16 years
Chihuahua
Moderate energy. Commonly screened for luxating patella, hydrocephalus, and dental disease.
Guide in progress
DogToy12-15 years
Maltese
Moderate energy. Commonly screened for luxating patella, portosystemic shunt, and dental disease.
Guide in progress
DogLarge12-15 years
Vizsla
Very high energy. Commonly screened for hip dysplasia, epilepsy, and hypothyroidism.
Guide in progress
DogMedium12-15 years
Border Collie
Very high energy. Commonly screened for hip dysplasia, Collie eye anomaly, and MDR1 drug sensitivity.
Guide in progress
DogLarge11-14 years
Weimaraner
Very high energy. Commonly screened for GDV bloat, hip dysplasia, and hypothyroidism.
Guide in progress
DogLarge12-14 years
Collie
Moderate energy. Commonly screened for Collie eye anomaly, MDR1 drug sensitivity, and hip dysplasia.
Guide in progress
DogSmall12-15 years
Cocker Spaniel
Moderate energy. Commonly screened for ear infections, progressive retinal atrophy, and hip dysplasia.
Guide in progress
DogSmall12-15 years
Pug
Low energy. Commonly screened for brachycephalic airway issues, obesity, and skin fold dermatitis.
Guide in progress
DogGiant6-10 years
Mastiff
Low energy. Commonly screened for hip dysplasia, GDV bloat, and dilated cardiomyopathy.
Guide in progress
DogMedium11-13 years
Portuguese Water Dog
High energy. Commonly screened for hip dysplasia, progressive retinal atrophy, and GM1 storage disease.
Guide in progress
DogGiant8-10 years
Saint Bernard
Moderate energy. Commonly screened for hip dysplasia, elbow dysplasia, and GDV bloat.
Guide in progress
CatLarge12-15 years
Maine Coon
Moderate energy. Commonly screened for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, hip dysplasia, and spinal muscular atrophy.
Guide in progress
CatMedium12-17 years
Persian
Low energy. Commonly screened for polycystic kidney disease, brachycephalic airway issues, and progressive retinal atrophy.
Guide in progress
CatLarge13-18 years
Ragdoll
Low energy. Commonly screened for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, polycystic kidney disease, and urinary stones.
Guide in progress
CatMedium14-20 years
British Shorthair
Low energy. Commonly screened for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, polycystic kidney disease, and obesity.
Guide in progress
CatSmall15-20 years
Siamese
High energy. Commonly screened for amyloidosis, asthma, and progressive retinal atrophy.
Guide in progress
CatMedium15-20 years
American Shorthair
Moderate energy. Commonly screened for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, obesity, and dental disease.
Guide in progress
CatSmall11-14 years
Scottish Fold
Moderate energy. Commonly screened for osteochondrodysplasia, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, and polycystic kidney disease.
Guide in progress
CatSmall8-14 years
Sphynx
High energy. Commonly screened for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, skin conditions, and dental disease.
Guide in progress
CatSmall15-20 years
Russian Blue
Moderate energy. Commonly screened for urinary stones, obesity, and dental disease.
Guide in progress
CatMedium12-16 years
Bengal
Very high energy. Commonly screened for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, progressive retinal atrophy, and pyruvate kinase deficiency.
Guide in progress
CatSmall9-15 years
Abyssinian
High energy. Commonly screened for pyruvate kinase deficiency, progressive retinal atrophy, and amyloidosis.
Guide in progress
CatMedium12-16 years
Birman
Moderate energy. Commonly screened for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, polycystic kidney disease, and dental disease.
Guide in progress
CatSmall10-15 years
Oriental Shorthair
High energy. Commonly screened for amyloidosis, asthma, and progressive retinal atrophy.
Guide in progress
CatSmall9-15 years
Devon Rex
High energy. Commonly screened for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, hereditary myopathy, and skin conditions.
Guide in progress
CatLarge14-16 years
Norwegian Forest Cat
Moderate energy. Commonly screened for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, glycogen storage disease, and hip dysplasia.
Guide in progress

Questions owners ask about breed guides

My dog is a mixed breed — is there a guide for her?

Not directly, because mixed-breed predispositions depend on the parent breeds, and this index ships one guide per breed. What works instead: pull up the guides for the two or three breeds your dog is made of (an Embark or Wisdom Panel result is enough) and read the recurring conditions across them. If both parent guides name hip dysplasia, that's worth screening for. If only one does, the risk is lower but still non-zero. The Cornell Riney Canine Health Center's 2023 owner-facing material on interpreting DNA-test results maps almost exactly onto this protocol.

Why only these 50 and not all of the AKC-recognized breeds?

Wave 1 covers the 50 breeds with the highest combined US search volume plus the most clinically distinct predispositions, which is the set where a real editorial guide beats what the open web currently surfaces. Waves 2 and 3 expand to 150 and 315 breeds over the next year, gated by indexing signals on Wave 1. We'd rather ship 50 guides a CVT actually wrote than 315 guides generated from a keyword template, and the AKC Canine Health Foundation's breed-specific survey work backs up the quality-over-breadth tradeoff.

How often are these guides updated?

Every six months at minimum, with earlier updates when a major study shifts the clinical picture. When JAVMA (the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association) or a specialty journal publishes a review that changes how a clinician reads consumer DNA testing, a screening cadence, or a breed-specific risk, the affected guides get rewritten within a week. Each guide carries a visible last-updated date in the header, and the source citations in the body link to the specific edition or publication year, not to a generic landing page. That way the reader can check whether the evidence a claim rests on is still current before they bring it to their vet.

I don't see my cat's breed in this index. What should I do?

Fifteen cat breeds are in Wave 1, chosen for search volume and distinct predisposition profiles. If you have a domestic shorthair or longhair, which covers a plurality of US pet cats, there isn't a breed-specific guide because domestic cats carry the full population-level risk without a single concentrated predisposition set. The American Association of Feline Practitioners (AAFP) publishes age-based wellness guidelines that are more useful than a breed page for most domestic cats, and the Cornell Feline Health Center's senior-cat materials cover the conditions that actually matter after age seven.

What's the source for the predispositions listed on each page?

Four source tiers, layered. First: the Merck Veterinary Manual's breed-specific entries, which veterinary faculty maintain. Second: the relevant US vet school's breed publication (Cornell's Riney Canine Health Center, UC Davis's Center for Companion Animal Health, Penn Vet's Ryan Hospital breed pages). Third: the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals (OFA) and Canine Health Information Center (CHIC) databases, which carry the screening-program data for purebred dogs. Fourth: peer-reviewed cohort studies (VetCompass at the Royal Veterinary College, Morris Animal Foundation's Golden Retriever Lifetime Study, JAVMA survey papers). A predisposition makes it onto a breed page when it recurs across at least two of those tiers.

Should I only worry about the conditions listed on my breed's page?

No. The list is a short set of breed-elevated risks, not the full list of conditions your dog or cat could develop. Every pet is also vulnerable to the baseline conditions any dog or cat can get: tick-borne disease, foreign-body ingestion, trauma, dental disease, cancers that aren't breed-concentrated. The breed page narrows what's worth screening for early. It doesn't narrow what's worth calling the clinic about at 10:47 PM. If your pet is off food for three days, the answer is a phone call whether the symptom is on the breed page or not.

How do I use a guide without sliding into a panic spiral?

Read the guide once, note which two or three predispositions recur in the FAQs and the body, and translate them into specific questions for the next wellness visit. Write them down. Close the tab. The spiral happens when a guide is read as a list of inevitabilities instead of probabilities, and the planning tool turns into a forecast. A breed predisposition means the breed develops the condition at an elevated rate, not that your specific pet will. The reading-once protocol is described in more detail in the breed-health-map page, which is the longer version of this same argument.

When Veta is ready

We'll tell you first.

Veta is the pet-health passport being built to hold breed-aware screening reminders, wellness trends, and the short list of conditions worth asking your vet about by age. No roadmap emails. One note when iOS ships.

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About the author

Rachel Howland, CVT (ret.)

Rachel Howland, CVT (ret.), spent a decade in clinic: seven years in a mixed practice in upstate New York, then three on the internal-medicine floor at Angell Animal Medical Center in Boston. She left practice in 2017 and has written about small-animal health since. She lives in Somerville with Juno, an 11-year-old hound mix managing chronic kidney disease, and Bishop, a Siamese cat.

Rachel is Veta's lead editorial contributor. She does not diagnose or prescribe; she explains what your vet's records are telling you and what questions are fair to ask.

Sources

AKC Canine Health Foundation. Breed-specific health surveys and hybrid-breed health commentary. akcchf.org.
Bellumori, T. P., Famula, T. R., Bannasch, D. L., Belanger, J. M., Oberbauer, A. M. (2013). "Prevalence of inherited disorders among mixed-breed and purebred dogs: 27,254 cases (1995-2010)." JAVMA 242 (11): 1549-1555. avmajournals.avma.org.
American Association of Feline Practitioners. Feline life-stage guidelines and breed-specific screening recommendations. catvets.com.
Merck Veterinary Manual. Breed-specific entries and inherited-disease overviews. merckvetmanual.com.
Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine. Riney Canine Health Center and Cornell Feline Health Center owner-facing materials. vet.cornell.edu.
Orthopedic Foundation for Animals. Breed-specific screening programs and health statistics. ofa.org.

What's inside each guide

How we chose these 50

Breed is a probability, not a prophecy

Conditions cross the breed line

The directory

Golden Retriever

Labrador Retriever

German Shepherd

French Bulldog

Bulldog

Poodle

Beagle

Rottweiler

German Shorthaired Pointer

Yorkshire Terrier

Dachshund

Siberian Husky

Boxer

Australian Shepherd

Great Dane

Cavalier King Charles Spaniel

Doberman Pinscher

Miniature Schnauzer

Shih Tzu

Boston Terrier

Pomeranian

Havanese

Shetland Sheepdog

Bernese Mountain Dog

Chihuahua

Maltese

Vizsla

Border Collie

Weimaraner

Collie

Cocker Spaniel

Pug

Mastiff

Portuguese Water Dog

Saint Bernard

Maine Coon

Persian

Ragdoll

British Shorthair

Siamese

American Shorthair

Scottish Fold

Sphynx

Russian Blue

Bengal

Abyssinian

Birman

Oriental Shorthair

Devon Rex

Norwegian Forest Cat

Questions owners ask about breed guides

We'll tell you first.

Rachel Howland, CVT (ret.)