Dog as an Animal Model in Pre-Clinical Research

Dogs had served mankind as a valuable tool in biomedical research. Dog studies are a crucial step in the pre-clinical toxicology and are used to determine absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion in the pharmacokinetic studies, similarly maximum tolerated dose studies, dose range finding studies, repeated dose studies and safety & efficacy studies are conducted for the evaluation of drugs and a wide range of implantable medical devices. Dosing of dogs is done through various routes like intradermal, sublingual, intra-articular, intravenous, intraperitoneal, intraosseous, per-rectal, intramuscular, subcutaneous, and per-oral. Techniques like gastric intubation is used as and when required for dosing studies. By implanting telemetric devices, valuable information on the effects of the drugs under scrutiny on vital parameters can be retrieved from dogs. Starting from the preparations for surgical procedures including surgeons scrubbing and animal's preparations, a set of protocols are crucial in successfully completing implantation studies. Anesthetizing the dogs and its postoperative care and data collection are important and all the personnel involved requires adequate qualifications, training, and experience. Dental implantations in critical size defects (that does not heal on its own during the animal's lifetime) are tested using dogs as an experimental model. The chapter in depth using photographs and well detailed explanatory text describes all these procedures to enlighten the readers to know and also replicate dog studies.