dog teeth facts

hello, welcome to brainstuff. you’re you,hopefully, i’m ben, and you may have heard that dogs age differently from people – it’sthe old notion of a “dog year." the idea that one year for humans equals aboutseven years for a pooch. but is this true, or just a tall tale – a shaggy dog story,if you will? well, yes and no. mainly, no. first, let’stalk about aging. age, you see, isn’t just some hard-and-fastmeasurement of chronology. it’s also a measurement of how time affects our bodies. animals allage, but at different rates. by way of example, let’s look at this seven-year myth. by that logic, a 15 year old dog would be,in equivalent years, a 105 year old person.

but why do so many dogs live to or past 15years old, and so few people live to 105? it doesn’t add up. and this is because we can’t make a simpleone-to-one comparison. first, dogs don’t all have the same life expectancy, and theydon’t age at the same rate, either. think about it this way: picture a chihuahua.a chihuahua can live to be over 15 people years old (yipping at us tirelessly the entiretime). however, a larger breed, like a great dane, has a shorter life span, on the orderof as little as 7-8 years. the size of a dog affects its life expectancy,as does its breed and expected adult weight. generally we can make a good guess at a dog’sage range based on these factors.

back to the rate of aging. dogs undergo amaturation process, just like people. a puppy’s first year on the planet equals about morethan a decade of people years, but this rule doesn’t apply for every year of a dog’slife afterward. after about two years on earth, a puppy isofficially mature, able to sexually reproduce and, if it were a person, heck, it could buybooze, vote and register for the draft. i'm getting derailed. in biological terms,dogs also fall victim to the ravages of age, just like people. as a pooch ages she or hemay begin to develop arthritis, poor hearing or vision, and other ailments common in elderlyhumans. and they appear to age more quickly in the early years, while their aging slowsin later years.

but, if you’d like to gauge your dog’sage and life expectancy, never fear! while it’s true that there’s no simple multiplicationexercise applying to all dogs, you can use handy estimation charts like this one to makean educated guess about your pup’s lifespan. interesting side note - if this whole “7years” thing is a myth (and it is!) then where did it come from? in an interview withthe wall street journal, veterinarian william fortney speculated that this may have originatedas a “marketing ploy,” meant to encourage pet owners to bring their dogs in for check-upsonce a year. so there we have it. dogs don’t exist insome weird rip van winkle-esque time imbalance, and every year for you isn’t automaticallyseven for your favorite canine. however, they

do age at a different rate, and it’s importantto keep this in mind. make sure you stay up-to-date on vet visits, vaccinations and field trips. fine, i added the last one. but it’s important!what dog doesn’t love a little fresh air and adventure? so get out there, have fun,and as always stayed tuned for more brainstuff.