This equation provides the "doggie age",  the dog equivalent of human physical maturity for cats and dogs in varying weight ranges. 

Description

The doggie age is the pet equivalent of the animal's lifestyle and health-equivalent age compared to normal human years.  In other words, this is a gauge of the dogs predicted health and lifestyle based on how old they chronologically are.  This is fundamentally based on the rule-of-thumb that "a year for a dog is like seven years for a human".  This equation takes into account the weight category of the dog because larger dogs age faster. 

As you'll see in the data set, the dogs in the largest weight category most likely do not reach 19 or 20 years of age.  And a dog who is greater than 90 pounds and who reaches the chronological age of 18 years is feeling like a human who is 139 years old.  That is, the doggie age of a dog that was born 18 years ago is 139 years.

Example

My golden retriever, Brutus, is about 12-1/2 years old and at this writing weighs about 55 lbs.  So, he falls in the lower end of the 50-90 pound range and is reported  by this equation to be  77 in doggie years.  He has, in just the past approximately year and a half, started exhibiting real signs of age.  Stiffness in the joints and a few other symptoms which also correlates closely with the transition the Doggie years data set shows from the doggie year age category of senior to the doggie year age category of geriatric.  Its a sad thing when your friend of so many years starts to really show aging symptoms and this data set appears to correlate well to at least my one personal example.

We would most appreciate if you would compare your own dog's experience  to the equation and provide comments at the bottom of this page.

See also

1. Doggie years [data set]
2. Doggie Years Age Category