Adapting Human Trauma Injury Coding System for Use With Military Working Dogs to Aid in Canine Body Armor Development

The Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) is a globally recognized system for classifying human trauma injuries based on anatomical location and severity of injury. It is currently used by the U.S. Military to study combat injuries and develop materiel improvements. No equivalent system exists for scoring canine trauma injuries. A canine-specific AIS will enable the detailed analysis required to develop effective body armor systems for military working dogs (MWDs) and bridge the gap between historic animal tests and mission-focused MWD injury risk mitigation strategies.

An interdisciplinary team edited the 2015 AIS dictionary of 2,006 codes to account for anatomical and physiological differences between the human and canine species. The team then assigned severity scores to each code using published research and clinical expertise.

Veterinary adaptation of the human AIS dictionary containing 2,006 codes resulted in an MWD-relevant dictionary consisting of 1,477 codes. Major changes included translation to quadrupedal directional terms, addition of the tail, revision of blood loss parameters, diagnostic criteria for head trauma, and considerations for the limited use of advanced imaging in veterinary medicine.

The Veterinary Abbreviated Injury Scale is the first coding system in veterinary medicine based on the anatomical structure and severity of anatomical damage. Integration of the Veterinary Abbreviated Injury Scale into the Joint Trauma System's Military Working Dog Trauma Registry will provide the necessary granularity to address common combat injury patterns with advanced protective materiel solutions.