Publications
Details of publications and journal articles, researching topics affecting companion animal health and welfare, by members of the Small Animal Veterinary Surveillance Network (SAVSNET) team.
We know not everyone has enough time to read full research articles, so we've also compiled bitesize summaries of a selection of our research papers. These are available to download as one-page PDF documents.
Peer reviewed papers
2026
- Understanding disease in one million dogs using topic modelling of electronic health records. Journal of Big Data
- Epidemiology of major canine tumours in the UK: insights from a national pathology registry of one million tumours. Veterinary and Comparative Oncology.
2025
- The impact of air pollution on pet care utilisation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)
- Using health records to detect medication errors. Frontiers in Veterinary Science
- Streptococcus infection in guinea pigs. Veterinary Record Letter
- Using veterinary health records at scale to investigate ageing dogs and their common issues in primary care. Journal of Small Animal Practice
- Updating the epidemiology of canine leishmaniosis in the United Kingdom through the use of electronic health data. Veterinary Parasitology
- Developing electronic health records as a source of real-world data for veterinary pharmacoepidemiology. Frontiers in Veterinary Science.
2024
- Premature mortality analysis of 52,000 deceased cats and dogs exposes socioeconomic disparities. Scientific Reports
- When to tell vets about increases in disease in their local area. Frontiers in Veterinary Science
- The impact of air pollution on petcare utilisation. Grantham research Institute on Climate Change
- Updating the epidemiology of canine leishmaniosis in the United Kingdom through the use of electronic health data. Veterinary Parasitology
- Text mining for disease surveillance in veterinary clinical data - part two: training computers to identify features in clinical text. Frontiers in Veterinary Science
- Temporal trends and factors associated with vaccination uptake in dogs and cats from 2016 to 2022 in the United Kingdom. Vaccine
- Explainable text-tabular models for predicting mortality risk in companion animals. Scientific Reports
- Emerging variants of canine enteric coronavirus associated with outbreaks of gastroenteric disease. Emerging Infectious Diseases
- Recording of suspected adverse drug reaction reporting in veterinary free-text clinical narratives. Journal of Small Animal Practice
- Text mining for disease surveillance in veterinary clinical data - part one: the language of veterinary clinical records and searching for words. Frontiers in Veterinary Science
- Risk factors for tick attachment in companion animals in Great Britain: a spatiotemporal analysis covering 2014–2021. Parasites and Vectors.
2023
- A mixed-methods approach utilising electronic health records to examine antimicrobial prescription surrounding gastrointestinal clinical presentations in dogs and cats. Frontiers in Veterinary Science
- PetBERT: automated International Classification of Diseases 11th revision (ICD-11 syndromic disease coding for outbreak detection in first opinion veterinary electronic health records. Scientific Reports
- Evaluating ChatGPT text-mining of clinical records for obesity monitoring. Veterinary Record
- Stakeholder opinion-led study to identify canine priority diseases for surveillance and control in the UK. Veterinary Record
- Dogs with cropped ears in the UK: A population-based study using electronic health records. Veterinary Record
- Seasonality and other risk factors for fleas infestations in domestic dogs and cats. Medical and Veterinary Entomology.
2022
- Incidence of alimentary and respiratory disease in brachycephalic dogs presenting to primary care veterinary practices participating in the SAVSNET project. Veterinary Record
- Approach to initial management of canine generalised epileptic seizures in primary-care veterinary practices in the United Kingdom. Journal of Small Animal Practice
- UK veterinary professionals' perceptions and experiences of adverse drug reaction reporting. Veterinary Record
- Do socioeconomic factors impact management of suspected canine multicentric lymphoma in UK first opinion practice? Veterinary Record
- Analysis of canine cardiovascular therapeutic agent prescriptions using electronic health records in primary care veterinary practices in the United Kingdom. Journal of Veterinary Cardiology
- Surveillance of heat-related illness in small animals presenting to veterinary practices in the UK between 2013 and 2018. Open Veterinary Journal
- Using electronic health records to explore negotiations around euthanasia decision making for dogs and cats in the UK. Veterinary Record.
2021
- Using topic modelling for unsupervised annotation of electronic health records to identify an outbreak of disease in UK dogs. PLOS One
- Temporospatial distribution and country of origin of canine transmissible venereal tumours in the UK. Veterinary Record
- A text-mining based analysis of 100,000 tumours afecting dogs and cats in the United Kingdom. Nature Scientific Data
- Clinical findings associated with N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide measurements in dogs and cats attending first-opinion veterinary practices. Veterinary Record
- Seasonality and risk factors for grass seed foreign bodies in dogs. Preventive Veterinary Medicine
- Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2) neutralising antibodies in dogs and cats in the United Kingdom. Current Research in Virological Science
- Temporal, spatial and genomic analyses of Enterobacteriaceae clinical antimicrobial resistance in companion animals reveals phenotypes and genotypes of One Health concern. Frontiers in Microbiology
- SARS‑CoV‑2 neutralising antibodies in dogs and cats in the United Kingdom. BioRxiv
- A virtual biobank for companion animals: a parvovirus pilot study. The Veterinary Record
- Small animal disease surveillance 2020/21: SARS-CoV-2, syndromic surveillance and an outbreak of acute vomiting in UK dogs. The Veterinary Record
- A randomised controlled trial to reduce highest priority, critically important antimicrobial prescription in companion animals. Nature Communications
- Backyard poultry cases in UK small animal practices: demographics, health conditions and pharmaceutical prescriptions. The Veterinary Record
- Outbreak of severe vomiting in dogs associated with a canine enteric coronavirus in the United Kingdom. Emerging Infectious Diseases.
Peer-reviewed papers from 2010-2020
2020
- Evidence of exposure to SARS-CoV-2 in cats and dogs from households in Italy. Nature Communications
- Evidence of exposure to SARS-CoV-2 in cats and dogs from households in Italy. BioRxiv
- Factors associated with prescription of antimicrobial drugs for dogs and cats in the United Kingdom, 2014–2016. Emerging and Infectious Diseases
- Seasonality and risk factors for myxomatosis in pet rabbits in Great Britain. Preventive Veterinary Medicine.
2019
- A real-time spatio-temporal syndromic surveillance system with application to small companion animals. Scientific Reports
- Small animal disease surveillance 2019: pruritus, pharmacosurveillance, skin tumours and flea infestations. Veterinary Record
- Pharmaceutical prescription in canine acute diarrhoea: a longitudinal electronic health record analysis of first opinion practices. Frontiers in Veterinary Science
- Reservoirs of resistance: polymyxin resistance in veterinary-associated companion animal isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Veterinary Record
- Small animal disease surveillance 2019: respiratory disease, antibiotic prescription and canine infectious disease complex. Veterinary Record
- Small animal disease surveillance: gastrointestinal disease, antibacterial prescription and Tritrichomonas foetus. Veterinary Record
- Risks of xylitol poisoning in dogs. Veterinary Record
- Exploring sematic deep learning for building reliable and reusable one health knowledge from PubMed systematic reviews and veterinary clinical notes. Journal of Biomedical Semantics
2018
- New approaches to pharmacosurveillance for monitoring prescription frequency, diversity and co-prescription in a large sentinel network of companion animal veterinary practices in the United Kingdom, 2014-2016. Preventive Veterinary Medicine
- Small animal disease surveillance: pruritus and Pseudomonas skin infections. Veterinary Record
- Use of vaccines and factors associated with their uptake variability in dogs, cats and rabbits attending a large sentinel network of veterinary practices across Great Britain. Epidemiology and Infection
- Risk factors for cutaneous myiasis (blowfly strike) in pet rabbits in Great Britain based on text-mining veterinary electronic health records. Preventive Veterinary Medicine.
2017
- Small animal disease surveillance: respiratory disease. Veterinary Record
- Heightened risk of canine chocolate exposure at Christmas and Easter. The Veterinary Record
- Small animal disease surveillance: gastrointestinal disease and salmonellosis. The Veterinary Record
- Demographics of dogs, cats, and rabbits attending veterinary practices in Great Britain as recorded in their electronic health records. BioMed Central (BMC) Veterinary Research
- Patterns of antimicrobial agent prescription in a sentinel population of canine and feline veterinary practices in the United Kingdom. The Veterinary Journal
- The passive surveillance of ticks using companion animal electronic health records. Epidemiology and Infection.
2016
- Small animal disease surveillance: respiratory disease. Veterinary Record
- Small animal disease surveillance: pruritus and coagulase-positive staphylococci. Veterinary Record
- Use of cefovecin in a UK population of cats attending first-opinion practices as recorded in electronic health records. Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery
- Canine babesiosis and tick activity monitored using companion animal electronic health records in the UK. Veterinary Record.
2015
- Small animal disease surveillance. Veterinary Record.
2014
- How often do primary care veterinarians record the overweight status of dogs? Journal of Nutritional Science
- Surveillance of diarrhoea in small animal practice through SAVSNET. The Veterinary Journal.
2011
- Antibacterial prescribing patterns in small animal veterinary practice identified through SAVSNET. The Veterinary Record.
2010
- Developing a network for small animal disease surveillance. The Veterinary Record.
Bitesize summaries
We've created bitesize summaries of a selection of our full research papers which you can download using the links below.
- A national outbreak of severe vomiting in dogs (PDF, 2.9MB)
- A controlled trial to reduce highest priority antimicrobial prescriptions (PDF, 3.1MB)
- A text-mining based analysis of 100,000 tumours affecting UK dogs and cats (PDF, 2.7MB)
- A text-mining based analysis of one million tumours affecting dogs in the UK (PDF, 4.6MB)
- A virtual biobank for companion animals - a parvovirus pilot study (PDF, 3.3MB)
- Alimentary and respiratory disease in brachycephalic dogs (PDF, 3.6MB)
- Analysis of canine cardiovascular therapeutic agent prescriptions (PDF, 2.9MB)
- Antimicrobial prescription (PDF, 2.3MB)
- Backyard poultry cases in UK small animal practices (PDF, 3.7MB)
- Canine transmissible venereal tumours (PDF, 3.5MB)
- Chocolate toxicity (PDF, 11.9MB)
- Dogs with cropped ears in the UK - a population-based study (PDF, 4.4MB)
- Enterobacteriaceae clinical antimicrobial resistance in companion animals (PDF, 1.9MB)
- Factors associated with prescription of antimicrobial drugs for UK dogs and cats (PDF, 2.9MB)
- Heat related illness in pets (PDF, 3.3MB)
- Initial management of canine generalised epileptic seizures (PDF, 6.5MB)
- Management of suspected canine multicentric lymphoma (PDF, 2.6MB)
- Myxomatosis seasonality and risk factors (PDF, 3.6MB)
- Negotiations around euthanasia decision making for UK dogs and cats (PDF, 3.4MB)
- Perceptions and experiences of adverse drug reaction reporting (PDF, 2.9MB)
- Pharmaceutical prescription treatment for acute canine diarrhoea (PDF, 2.8MB)
- Prescription frequency, diversity and co-prescription (PDF, 19.3MB)
- Real-time spatio-temporal surveillance (PDF, 2.7MB)
- Risk factors for flystrike in rabbits (PDF, 12.9MB)
- Seasonality and risk factors for grass seed foreign bodies in dogs (PDF, 936KB)
- Semantic deep learning from human and animal data (PDF, 2MB)
- Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 in Italian cats and dogs (PDF, 3.6MB)
- The health of one million dogs explored by topic modelling (PDF, 4.8MB)
- Tick surveillance (PDF, 2.2MB)
- Using veterinary consultation data to describe tick activity (PDF, 691KB)
- Vaccination in pets (PDF, 2.2MB).