New study shows which dog breeds have a higher likelihood of getting cancer

Leonard Nunney, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Riverside, and lead author of the paper, told ABC News that researchers were trying to understand how cancer starts in certain breeds.

Unlike humans, whose cancer risk grows as the body gets bigger, dogs don’t seem to have a similar correlation between the disease and their size.

“You have things that range in size from a chihuahua up to a mastiff, or a Great Dane,” he said. “So there’s a huge range of size.”

The largest dog breeds generally die at a younger age so they tend to have less of a risk of developing cancer because they don’t live as long as medium-sized dogs, research shows.

“That’s simply because they’re dying younger,” Lunny said.

The research showed that terriers have a higher likelihood to develop cancer than previously expected, given their size, Lunney added.

Approximately one in four dogs will, at some stage in their life, develop cancer, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association. Almost half of dogs over the age of 10 will develop a malignancy.

Some of the breeds that are most prone to getting cancer, according to the research, are flat-coated retrievers, Bernese mountain dogs and West Highland terriers.

Flat-coated retrievers typically get a rare cancer that develops in the bones and soft tissues at a high frequency, while terriers have higher incidences of bladder cancer.

The results show that only a few breeds seem to be excessively likely to develop cancer.