2016 Volume 19 Issue 2 Pages 82-87
The American Animal Hospital Association（AAHA）set forth the nutritional assessment guidelines for dogs and cats in 2010. Whereas the World Small Animal Veterinary Association proposed the body condition score（BCS）as a global standards of the nutritional assessment. The BCS and muscle condition score （MCS）were included in the screening tools. MCS is assessed by the visual examination and the palpation over following the five body areas: temporal bones, scapulae, ribs, lumbar vertebrae and pelvic bones. However, the MCS assessment has not been prevailed in the veterinary practitioners. Therefore, we aimed to develop a MCS model to allow more accurate assessment. Twenty one dogs which were bred at the university and general family were used for this study. We palpated the above mentioned five body areas that are based on the AAHA guideline. In parallel, the hardness of each body area was measured by Muscle Hardness Tester （Sato Tech. Tokyo）to digitize the palpation score. The body fat percentage was measured by Kao Healthlab Body Fat Analyzer BIF-D02 for dog（Kao, Tokyo）. The range of body fat percentage in 21 dogs was from 14％to 39％, and the range of BCS was from 2 to 4. Pearson 's correlation coefficient test was conducted between MCS value and the hardness of each palpation area. The average score of the five palpation areas showed stronger correlation than the score of individual palpation area in the MCS assessment. This result suggests that MCS value can quantify. Therefore, we will further investigate materials necessary to make a MCS model in reference to this data.
