Dog age vs human age,
in proportion according to race.
in proportion according to race.
The famous question of the age of the dog in human age!
Although unscientific, the following conversion chart ( dog age vs human age) may help you better understand your dog's aging stages.
After consulting several websites, encyclopedias and magazines, I come to a conclusion on this famous question: Not everyone agrees on the aging chart for dogs compared to humans. In addition, some tables do not take into account the 4 categories of dogs related to size. For some, there is no category and for others there are only 3, however each of the books consulted agrees that the rule of 7 is totally false. The rule of 7 is the mathematical equation that multiplies dog's age by 7 to find the sum referring to human age. I suggest this one since it is the median between the 79 tables compared to each other.
The age of the dog multiplied by 7
The idea of multiplying your dog's age by 7 to find the equivalent in human age is somewhat misleading. Imagine a dog living almost 20 years (20 X 7 = 140 years). wow! This is a surprising result! At this rate, a large majority of dogs are centenarians, while few humans are. Keep in mind that our goal here is to find the equivalences between the age of the dog and that of the human! What about the dog who got the title of dog the oldest in the world at the age of 26 ! This dog is now deceased but he won the title of “canine dean”.
The age of the dog, in proportion according to the breed
Surely you know that there are between 340 and 390 different breeds of dogs. Why can't we come up with a precise figure? According to the countries and books that we consult, the number of canine breeds diverge for the good reason that certain breeds are not recognized by certain associations. Everyone agrees on one thing: the categories of dogs are mainly related to the size of the adult dog.
There are then 4 categories of dogs
- Small breed: under 20 lbs
- Medium breed: 21 to 55 lbs
- Large breed: 56 lbs to 100 lbs
- Giant breed: 101 lbs and over
There would be another method of calculation.
SEE TABLE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE ARTICLE
You should know that all species of mammals go through similar physiological stages during their life, from birth to death, through puberty and aging.
This is the case of Canis lupus familiaris and Homo sapiens that we are.
Can we successfully transpose the age of your canine friend into human age, and how?
Geneticist Trey Ideker and his colleagues at the University of California, San Diego, in the United States, believe that it is possible to obtain a general estimate thanks to a new formula that is more accurate than simply multiplying by 7.
These scientists used a recent technique that involves mapping common epigenetic changes in mammalian genomes as they age.
These chemical changes observed in DNA over the course of a lifetime make it possible to read the "epigenetic clock" of these mammals.
Their work has thus made it possible to draw evolutionary comparisons between humans and dogs, and thus to develop a comparative model of aging between the two species.
All dog species follow a similar developmental trajectory, reaching puberty around 10 months and usually dying before the age of 20. All dogs show a similar physiological and pathological development, despite their lifespans which vary enormously from one species to another: from 6 to 7 years for certain large breeds such as large poodles and Danes, and up to 17 or 18 for small dogs like Chihuahuas and Bichons.
However, this work has focused on a single breed: the Labrador Retriever.
The researchers analyzed DNA profiles in the genomes of 104 dogs aged 4 weeks to 16 years.
They then compared this data with that obtained from 320 humans, aged 1 to 103, and 133 mice.
Their analysis revealed that dogs and humans had similar age-related characteristics in certain genomic regions with high mutation rates.
These species similarities allowed researchers to develop the Canine Natural Logarithm (CNL) and create a mathematical formula to calculate a dog's human age.
To obtain the LNC of your animal, you can use the calculator developed by the researchers, by clicking here.
Thus, the human age of a dog corresponds to: 16(LNC) + 31.
For example, the “human age” of a 2 year old dog is 42 years old.
Using this formula, certain stages of development seem very well harmonized. For example, a seven-week-old puppy corresponds to a nine-month-old baby in humans, which is equivalent to when baby teeth grow in puppies and infants.
The average lifespan of the two species was also similar, 12 years for Labradors and 70 years for humans.
Other details, however, do not correspond as well, such as sexual maturity, which occurs much earlier in dogs than in humans.
One thing is certain, for the authors of these works published on the site bioRXiv (in English), their formula is the most accurate to date for estimating the age of a dog that corresponds to that of a human.
