Why is knowing your dog’s age in human years important? Well, you wouldn’t treat a teenager the same way as a senior citizen, so calculating your dog’s physiological age as accurately as possible can help you and your veterinarian give them the best care, food and exercise that’s appropriate for their age. Via National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health Why Are Dog Years Important? As you can see, size does matter, and two dogs that are the same age can have very different ages in human years if they’re different sizes: Using that, they came up with a formula for converting dog years to human years that’s a bit more complicated than multiplying by seven (and not easy to do off the top of your head).īelow are the calculations the scientists found when they applied the formula to dogs in different weight groups. Patronek’s team collected data on more than 23,000 pet dogs from veterinary databases to determine the average life span for different sized breeds. Large breeds, like Great Danes, tend to age faster relative to small breeds, like Chihuahuas. One issue they found with Lebeau’s work was that it didn’t account for breed, body size and weight, which can influence a dog’s lifespan and the rate at which it ages.

In 1997, a team of veterinarians led by Gary Patronek set out to find an improved method for converting dog years to human years or, as they put it, “chronological ages” to “physiological ages.” “You may have a pet that goes through his infancy, his preteens and his teens and gets into adulthood by age two.” She calls these first two dog years “the first 15 to 24” human years. “Aging is very different across species, and it is absolutely true that dogs and cats age faster ,” she says. Kathryn McGonigle, clinical associate professor of internal medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, dogs generally reach adulthood within the first two years of their lives and every year after that is equivalent to approximately four human years, not seven. While dogs do mature and age faster than people do, the relationship between our ages and their ages isn’t constant over time, so just multiplying by seven doesn’t always work.īy looking at dogs’ and humans’ maximum life spans and “life-stage markers,” like puberty, adulthood and old age, Lebeau worked out a system that scientists and veterinarians think is more accurate for determining dog years.Īccording to Dr. Lebeau recognized that converting human years to dog years wasn’t so simple. It’s not clear how we got stuck on that ratio, but scientists have determined that this method of age calculation isn’t really accurate. If you ask someone how many “human years” are in a “dog year,” the most common answer will probably be seven.

Animal age to human age