I came across this picture from winter 2017 when we first got Charles. 5 years is a long time in ‘dog years.’ A dog year is an interesting concept. In the 1950s, A. Lebeau, a French researcher created a system to determine the age of a dog. No one really knows where the ‘multiple each dog year by 7’ comes from, that wasn’t what Lebeau did. He had “life-stage markers” to determine dog age by life events, like puberty, old age, etc. That was OK but around 1997, a bunch of veterinarians created a chart to do it more accurately (via National Library of Medicine NIH).

Where ‘dog age’ is the chronological age of the dog and ‘human years’ is the physiological age by weight group. The scientists decided that size matters when it comes to two dogs the same age unlike with humans.

So, that means Charles, who is 13 and 17 lbs is about 65 years old, Sofie at 11 and 60 lbs is 62 years old, and Louise at 12 and 65 lbs is about 66 years old. I guess they all could apply for social security payments (Bark Out Loud). Actually, I would have thought that size would have made a larger difference.

How old are you in ‘Human Years?’

Just another DogDaz morning at the zoo ❤