Trauma Etiology in Dogs and Cats: A Retrospective Study of 4626 Cases

Traumatic injuries are a major health hazard having an important impact in animals’ welfare. The outcome following a traumatic event in the animal’s life, depends on multiple factors, the most common ones being the cause of trauma, the location of the trauma and the amount of kinetic energy and the way it was distributed to the animal, but also human activities and lifestyles, human-pet relationships and pet-management local strategies. This retrospective study aims to evaluate the impact of traumatic injuries in 4626 dogs and cats that presented to the Surgical Department from the USAMVBT’s Veterinary Hospital between 2000 and 2020. The most frequent traumatic injuries were represented by road traffic accidents, young animals under 1 year of age being more prone than other age groups χ2(4, N=4626) =43, p<.001 and dogs being more affected than cats χ2(1, N=4626) =107.66, p<.001.  Although non-accidental injuries had a low frequency in our study, there is a tendency of misdistribution these cases in the other categories like road traffic accidents. By reporting non-accidental injuries, it could provide a better understanding and better perspective on the real number of abused animals.