For those people interested in the research evidence of IVDD prevalence, we have summarised some findings of peer reviewed papers here.
2. Gage ED: Incidence of clinical disc disease in the dog. Journal of the American Animal Hospital Association 1975,11:135 - 138
3. Priester WA: Canine intervertebral disc disease -- Occurrence by age, breed, and sex among 8,117 cases.Theriogenology 1976, 6(2-3):293-303.
4. Ball MU, Mcguire JA, Swaim SF, Hoerlein BF: Patterns of Occurrence of Disk Disease among Registered Dachshunds. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 1982, 180(5):519-522.
5. Hansen HJ: A pathological-anatomical study on disc degeneration in the dog. Acta Orthop Scand 1952, Supplement 11:1-120.
6. Hoerlein BF (ed.): Intervertebral disc disease. Philadelphia: WB Saunders; 1987.
These are obviously quite old references, but our 2015 DachsLife study reported the prevalence of IVDD in Dachshunds to be 15.7% (average across all 6 varieties and all ages), with the most commonly affected Dachshund variety being the Smooth-haired (24.4%).
Previous studies of IVDD occurrence in multi-breed populations have utilised insurance data e.g. Bergknut and colleagues (2012), who reported an overall incidence rate of thoracolumbar disc herniation at 3.5% in all breeds combined, but found much higher rates of 24.4% in Miniature Dachshunds and 13.0% in Standard Dachshunds.
Bergknut N, Egenvall A, Hagman R, Gustås P, Hazewinkel HAW, Meij BP, Lagerstedt A-S: Incidence of intervertebral disk degeneration–related diseases and associated mortality rates in dogs. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 2012, 240(11):1300-1309.