There's A New Formula To Help You Calculate Your Dog's Age!

One commonly accepted saying that we are oh so familiar with, is the concept of “dog years”. Most of us have been told that one dog year is equal to seven human years. According to scientists, however, the calculation is not as straightforward as we may have thought!

This “rule of paw” actually changes over time! We, humans, have different life stages (from new-born to senior), just like our canine companions. However, the stages of life for our favorite furry friends come at different times to ours. Scientists have come up with a new formula, different from the accepted “times seven” that we know.

This formula to calculate their equivalent human age looks like this (if you were to plug it into your calculator): human age = 16 × “log””natural”(dog age) + 31. This calculation has been shown to make sense, as an eight-week-old pup is the equivalent age of a nine-month-old human baby. It was also proven to be quite accurate when it revealed that a 12-year-old Lab is equal to a 70-year-old human, which is the accurate life expectancy for the breed.

This new formula was worked out in a study done by scientists at the United States National Institutes of Health. This research group has made long strides in calculating more accurate ages of the Labrador size breeds. They do, however, say that there is still work to be done, as they strive to figure out accurate calculations for smaller breeds. Pretty awesome work for the future of our canine companions, right!

Feature Image Source: Pixabay