We love our dogs — so much, in fact, that we are obsessed with comparing their age to our own. The problem is that the formulas we have used to calculate dog years may be completely wrong!
A new study of doggie DNA by the University of California, San Diego shows that young dogs with a lot of energy may actually be older than you think.
After comparing the results of over 100 labrador retrievers with around 300 humans, the study shows that:
Dogs mature quickly in their first year, but their aging slows over time.
By age two, the DNA of a labrador is similar to a human entering their early 40s.
By age ten, a labrador is most comparable to a human aged 68.
This data on dog years, yet to be peer-reviewed, shows many similarities between the aging process between humans and dogs, researchers found, with an eight-week-old puppy resembling a nine-month-old baby.
“The expected lifespan of labrador retrievers, 12 years, correctly translated to the worldwide lifetime expectancy of humans, 70 years,” researchers noted.
Unfortunately, the new equation isn’t as simple as multiplying our dog’s age by 7 to find out their age in human years. Here’s the formula: 16 x ln(your dog’s age) +31.
If you have a scientific calculator on hand, you can calculate the dog years to human years yourself — or follow the guide below. We’ve done the math for you!
The aging rates of different breeds could vary drastically, so future research will be needed to determine the differences. Studying different breeds with different lifespans could shed some new insight on the aging process of both humans and dogs!
