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As a responsible pet owner, knowing your dog’s age can be a vital factor in maintaining and improving his health and quality of life. While all dogs should be given the highest quality, appropriate food and treated according to their health and activity levels, young dogs and seniors may have different needs.
Since many of us adopt or rescue pets, whose exact birth date and health history is unknown, we must rely on other ways to estimate our dog’s age.
1. Examine the condition of your dog’s teeth. Puppies normally get all their baby teeth in when they’re about 2 months old, and their permanent teeth will not start to appear till they’re about 3 ½ months. All of it shall be in around the time your pooch turns 7 months and then it will stay white and clean until your dog is one year old. After 3 years, your pet’s teeth will most likely show some dullness and tartar build-up. From that time until Fido reaches 5 years old, all of his teeth will indicate tartar build up and wear. Beyond that, serious wear and even oral diseases may be observable.
2. Check the color of your dog’s fur. Some canines start to grey by the time they are 7 to 10 years old.
3. Assess your dog’s hearing. As dogs grow older, they often lose some of their sense of hearing.
To better understand your dog’s basic needs according to their age, it’s useful to compare against how old they might be in human years. We’ve all heard the very basic calculation of taking the dog’s age and multiplying by 7. But, this method is actually quite inaccurate.
How to Calculate Fido’s Age into Human Years
Dogs generally mature so much faster than humans; reaching the equivalent of our 21 years in only 2. However, after the first couple of years, the ratio tends to settle down depending on the size and the breed of the pooch. For small breeds, the ratio decelerate at the rate of 5:1, 6:1 for medium breeds, and then 7:1 for large breeds. To give you an idea, a 10-year old Great Dane, for instance, would be about 80 years old, while a pug of the same age would only be about 64.
Using the table below, we can translate Fido’s age into human years with the use of the following general ranges for sizes of dogs:
· Small dog = 20 lbs. or less
· Medium dog + 21 to 50 lbs.
· Large dog = More than 50 lbs.
|
Your Pooch’s Age in Years |
Small Dog in terms of Human Years |
Medium Dog in terms of Human Years |
Large Dog in terms of Human Years |
|
1 |
15 |
15 |
15 |
|
2 |
24 |
24 |
24 |
|
3 |
28 |
28 |
28 |
|
4 |
32 |
32 |
32 |
|
5 |
36 |
36 |
36 |
|
6 |
40 |
42 |
45 |
|
7 |
44 |
47 |
50 |
|
8 |
48 |
51 |
55 |
|
9 |
52 |
56 |
61 |
|
10 |
56 |
60 |
66 |
|
11 |
60 |
65 |
72 |
|
12 |
64 |
69 |
77 |
|
13 |
68 |
74 |
82 |
|
14 |
72 |
78 |
88 |
|
15 |
76 |
83 |
93 |
|
16 |
80 |
87 |
120 |
william valli
Feb 14, 2014 at 10:24 pm
this is very stupid
Barbara Gracey
Feb 7, 2014 at 11:47 am
Our yellow lab is 17 – chart not high enough. So over 120 years? ?
Bonnie Dirks
Feb 6, 2014 at 10:03 am
Emme Lou is 16, that makes her 70 and that is 7 years younger than me.
Teresa
Feb 5, 2014 at 2:40 pm
My dog will be 14 in 3 weeks, the chart makes her 72. It doesn’t take into account any past health issues, though. Does that make a difference? She has had some problems due to having been inbred, and also some injuries when she was attacked by other much larger dogs (twice). Would that make any difference in the calculating?
Even though she is slowing down in her old age, she is still happy, and as healthy as possible with her history. Hope she can keep going for many years to come!!
Becky Reed
Feb 7, 2014 at 6:30 am
Keep providing her a healthy lifestyle.
Judy
Feb 5, 2014 at 3:07 am
My dog passed away @171/2 years old. He was a border collie. How old was he since your chart stops at 16
Kelly
Feb 4, 2014 at 10:08 pm
My dog is 18 . Chart only goes to 16
Mike
Feb 7, 2014 at 5:25 am
Your dog would have been 96. Look at the sequence it goes 4 then 5
Becky Reed
Feb 7, 2014 at 6:28 am
That is great your dog is living beyond expectations… I’m sure the ratio will work with your dogs age. Keep up the good work of providing your dog a healthy lifestyle.
Cat Hester
Feb 4, 2014 at 8:19 pm
Thank you for the info and chart, very helpful!!’
Easy to read and understand, Will “share’ on my
page!!:)