Speaker 1: Welcome to brain stuff from how stuff Works. Hey, welcome
Speaker 1: to brain stuff. I'm Christian Seger and you may have
Speaker 1: heard that dogs age differently from people. It's the old
Speaker 1: notion of a dog year, right, the idea that one
Speaker 1: year for humans equals about seven years for a pooch.
Speaker 1: But is this true or just some tall tale, ash
Speaker 1: shaggy dog story If you will, well, yes and no,
Speaker 1: and it's mainly no. First, let's talk about aging. Age
Speaker 1: isn't just some hard and fast measurement of chronology. It's
Speaker 1: also a measurement of how time affects our bodies. Animals
Speaker 1: all age, but at different rates. By way of example,
Speaker 1: let's look at this seven year myth. By that logic,
Speaker 1: a fifteen year old dog would be in equivalent years
Speaker 1: a one hundred and five year old person. But why
Speaker 1: do so many dogs live to or past fifteen years
Speaker 1: old and so few people lived to a hundred and
Speaker 1: five It just doesn't add up. And this is because
Speaker 1: we can't make a simple one to one comparison. There's
Speaker 1: no concrete equivalency that applies across the board. First, dogs
Speaker 1: don't all have the same life expectancy, and they don't
Speaker 1: age at the same rate either. Think about it this way.
Speaker 1: A Chihuahua can live to be over fifteen people years old,
Speaker 1: yipping at us the entire time. However, a larger breed,
Speaker 1: like a Great Dane, they have a shorter lifespan on
Speaker 1: the order of seven to eight years. So the size
Speaker 1: of a dog affects its life expectancy, as does its
Speaker 1: breed and expected adult weight. Generally, we can make a
Speaker 1: good guess at a dog's age range based on these factors.
Speaker 1: Back to the rate of aging, So dogs undergo a
Speaker 1: maturation process just like people. A puppy's first year on
Speaker 1: the planet equals about more than a decade of people years,
Speaker 1: but this rule doesn't apply for every year of a
Speaker 1: dog's life Afterward, after about two years on Earth, a
Speaker 1: puppy is a sly mature, able to sexually reproduce, and
Speaker 1: if it were a person, hey, it could buy booze,
Speaker 1: it could vote, and maybe it could register for the draft.
Speaker 1: But in biological terms, dogs also fall victim to the
Speaker 1: ravages of age, just like humans. As a pooch ages,
Speaker 1: she or he may begin to develop arthritis, poor hearing
Speaker 1: or vision, and other ailments that are common in elderly humans.
Speaker 1: And they appear to age more quickly in the early years,
Speaker 1: while they're aging slows in the latter years. But if
Speaker 1: you'd like to gauge your dog's age and life expectancy,
Speaker 1: never fear well. It's true that there's no simple multiplication
Speaker 1: exercise applying to all dogs. You can use handy estimation
Speaker 1: charts to make an educated guess about your pups lifespan.
Speaker 1: Interesting side note, if this whole seven years thing is
Speaker 1: a myth, and and we've pretty much established that it is,
Speaker 1: then where did it come from. In an interview with
Speaker 1: The Wall Street Journal, veterinarian William Fortney speculated that this
Speaker 1: may have originated as a marketing ploy meant to encourage
Speaker 1: pet owners to bring their dogs in for checkups once
Speaker 1: a year. So there you have it. Dogs don't exist
Speaker 1: in some weird rip Van Winkle asque time I Balance,
Speaker 1: and every year for you isn't automatically seven for your
Speaker 1: favorite canine. However, they do age at a different rate,
Speaker 1: and it's important to keep this in mind. Make sure
Speaker 1: you stay up to date on vet visits, vaccinations, and
Speaker 1: field trips. Check out the Brainstuff channel on YouTube and
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com.