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Most people have heard one human year equals seven years for a dog. Is this factual or merely an old wives tale? Today we are going to look at the true age of your dog and how you can discover this information. Most vets will look at a dog’s teeth and eyes as a way to estimate the true age of your dog but are there better methods than these?
One thing that I find very interesting is if we go by the traditional one year equals seven years why is it that a dog one year old in human years is in our eyes actually seven years old, yet this dog can breed and have a litter of healthy puppies? On the same vein of thought a ten year old dog who we think is actually seventy years old can also still breed and have puppies. How many people who are seven or seventy years old can claim the same physical abilities? None, so this shoots down the old one to seven ratio when you’re comparing dog years to human years. This is not an accurate way for estimating the true age of your dog, so is there a better way? Yes, actually there is.
A French veterinarian began to study this dog to human age theory in the 1950’s, and he came up with what appears to be a very accurate formula for precise aging of dogs. He took a new approach by factoring in the age when a dog reaches puberty and when the dog becomes a fully mature animal. By comparing this information with humans he came up with 15 years old for the first year of a dog’s life, and by the end of the dogs second year he or she would be 24 years old when compared to human age. Now the aging slows down to equal four years added to the dog’s life for each human year.
Base on this new formula for aging a dog, how old would your dog be? If you have a 5 year old pooch he is 35 years old according to the old seven to one ratio. Using the new formula he is 36. Not a big difference, but when the dog has reached ten human years of age he is now 70 years old using the 7 to one. Using the new formula he is actually only 56 years old.
I believe this French Vet was on to a more accurate formula for aging dogs, so what is the true age of your dog?
What is your opinion? Please leave your comments below.
Shevaughn
Mar 28, 2014 at 7:30 pm
What breed of dog is this?
Buddy
Jul 16, 2013 at 4:17 pm
My dog is 16yr.old bichon frise…. Hes got a long way to go 81 is
not that old today!!!! I look forward to many more years with him….
Aside from being deaf, he is healthy eats and sleep well too!!!
Flea
Jul 9, 2013 at 2:13 pm
Oh, I like this! That makes my dogs only 60! Which means they should get another four dog years, at least! Thank you!
M Wms
Jul 8, 2013 at 7:54 pm
I think the breed and size of the dog matters and strongly influences true age.
Baileys
Jul 8, 2013 at 1:02 pm
And just who is this mysterious French veterinarian? Why does it never occur to the authors of these articles that some of us might be interested in learning more about a topic? Why are there never any references? Any cited sources? I appreciate that this is a fluff online mag but still, you could give your subscribers the benefit of the doubt that we might actually find your articles interesting enough that we might want to take it upon ourselves to learn more about the topics you bring to our attention and so give us some basic idea of where to start looking. French veterinarian; as if there’s only a handful in the entire country so it’ll be easy to figure out which one Dogington Post is referring to.
Jill Smith
Jul 8, 2013 at 12:56 pm
I think this formula needs to be adjusted to take into consideration the fact that the smaller the dog, the more likely they are to live longer.
laura m genovese
Jul 8, 2013 at 10:16 am
You also have to take into account the SIZE of the dog when deciding its true age.
Sherry
Jul 8, 2013 at 8:52 am
Looking at this from a different scientific perspective, dogs and humans are not the same species, so why would their aging be compared to a human’s in the first place? I have always wondered that.
JRBW
Jul 8, 2013 at 1:22 pm
Just as a sense of comparison and curiosity, I suppose.