A Dog Year Isn't Seven Human Years, Scientists Find, And Pets Might Be 'older' Than You Think

Morning walk with dog (black labrador retriever). Young man is training his puppy walking on the leash.

While we all thought a dog year was seven human years, we now know that might not be true. A new study shows pets might be older than we think.

The study done at the University of California San Diego’s school of medicine revealed that changes to DNA happen in dogs where genes are essentially switched on and off but not modified.

The study was done on 100 labrador retrievers, ranging in age from young to old, and found that puppies age fast but as they grow older the rate of aging, compared to humans, slows down.

For instance, a one-year-old dog would have a human age of about 30 and by the age of four, the dog would have a human age of 54. By the age of 14, they would be similar to a person in their mid-seventies.

If this is true, how old is your dog?

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