Dog years: How do you calculate a dog's true age?

[klr]

The low down is here:

It's often said that the age of dogs can be better understood by multiplying their age, in human years, by seven. But is that really true?

Meg, my West Highland Terrier died a couple of months ago. She'd reached the grand old age of 19 years and four months.

A few days later, I was reminded of the oft-quoted statistic that every human year equates to seven dog years. This mental calculation looms more largely in an owner's mind as a dog gets older, and thoughts turn to how long the pet has left.

But if that stat were really true then Meg would have been 135 years old when she died, which seems very unlikely.

No human is known to have lived beyond 122.

So if the seven dog years to one human year is wrong how do we work out an accurate calculation?

Dogs are the most diverse species on the planet. They can vary in weight from 6 lb (3kg) to 200 lb (90kg) when fully grown and have widely differing body shapes and hair types.

This also means that there is a lot of variation among breeds in terms of life expectancy. And unexpectedly, small dogs like Meg live longer than big ones.

...

Continued http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22458083

[pErvinalia]

I've often thought the 7:1 conversion was stupid.

[Mysturji]

Subtract the dog's birth year from the current year (or the dog's death year), then multiply by WOOF! WOOF!

[pErvinalia]

[Animavore]

I thought you just chop off the head and count the rings.

[Pappa]

I heard about this on Radio 4 today. It was pretty fascinating hearing the differences between types of dog. They said there was a "dogulator" on their website but I couldn't find it.

[Azathoth]

Sniff its arse

[hadespussercats]

Sniff its arse

/thread.

[FBM]

Or lick its balls.

[JimC]

They almost certainly live for a lot longer than before they found humans...

[mistermack]

I've never had any problem calculating a dog's true age.

All you need is it's date of birth, then you subtract that from the current date.

[Tero]

When Lone Green, the Alpo man in his twilight years, was over 400 in dog years when he died!

[klr]

An actual dog age calculator here (only some breeds covered):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22479412

And some heart-warming stories of long-lived mutts here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22536727



Zippy (right) is 18 years old, her son Munky (left) is closing in on 15 years of age.