We’ve all heard that old saying that one human year is equal to seven dog years. It sounds pretty solid, and we’ve all sort of learned to accept it as fact.
But what if that isn’t true at all? What if dog aging is more complex than a 1:7 ratio? Well, as one vet on TikTok points out, that may be the case after all.
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Dogs age differently from humans.
This is a pretty well known fact. Dogs only live a fraction of our lifetimes (sadly), because they age much faster than we do. At one point in time, you’ve probably heard someone tell you that dogs age roughly at seven times the speed of humans. We’ve never really known where that comes from, though.
So how fast do they age?
It almost seems like, in a flash, our hyper little pups become grumpy old dogs. We all assumed the science behind their aging was pretty consistent in comparison to our own, but that may not actually be the case.
Dr. Hunter Finn has another idea.
In his viral TikTok, veterinarian Hunter Finn explains that seven dog years does not equal a single human year. In fact, according to his TikTok, a 1-year-old dog is the equivalent of 31 in human years! That’s definitely a lot more than 7.
That’s completely bonkers!
A 2-year-old dog is the equivalent of 49, and a 7-year-old dog would be around 62, according to Dr. Finn. That’s definitely a lot older than any of us would’ve thought. I kind of feel like I’ve been living a lie.
But the aging process does slow down.
As per Dr. Finn, by the time a dog reaches the age of 8, its age will be around 64 human years. Since that’s only up by two years compared to age 7, it’s a little more comforting to think about. Our pups won’t slow down too much year per year.
The claim is backed by science.
Dr. Finn recently had the chance to speak to Buzzfeed .
There, he discusses a study that was performed in which specific aging markers in both human and dog DNA are pinpointed and compared to one another.
Our DNA is different, but comparable.
The study , conducted by the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, looks at something called “methylation marks,” which are found in both humans and dogs, and change as we age.
The results were very interesting.
The researchers found that the marks didn’t reflect the 1:7 ratio we’d come accustom to. In order for the markers to match up between humans and dogs, the aging process became much more complex. But it does slow down the older a dog gets.
But at the end of the day, we’ll love our dogs no matter what!
Knowing what we know now, it’s more important than ever that we take care of our dogs by getting them regular vet checkups. Dogs age so quickly in comparison to humans, meaning that their health can change dramatically in a shorter period of time.
Even if our dogs are secretly all older than we’d assume, we still want to keep them around for as long as possible!
