Sweetie's Blog
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(source: joshuahoffmanphoto)
I’ve always heard that dogs age at a rate of 7 years per human year. But is this really true or just an urban myth?
I did a little research and found out that it’s completely untrue. We, as humans, want to relatively compare ourselves to our little pooches, and inaccurately measure their age. Many of us can only distinguish between a “puppy” and “old dog” and not much else.
Let’s think about it—an 18 month old dog has the ability to reproduce, and if we compare that to 7 dog years per human year, that would compare to a 10 year old child having the ability to reproduce—which is very unlikely. Also, when a dog is 15 human years old that would means that the dog is 105 dog years old. Many dogs live beyond 15 years but there aren’t a lot 105 year olds hanging around playing at the park!
FPSI has created the following table to give us a rough estimate of the developmental human age per dog year. 
Please wait ...
Thank you for the post. I stumbled across a very similar age comparison chart 4 years ago, that I’ve yet to “refind” on the web. In my opinion this is very accurate, and is something that should be utilized when effectively determining a dogs training abilities, health and happiness needs, etc. That old adage about 7 years per human year is so off mentally/physically. You’d think by now there’d be more information available to dog owners based on this premise. I’m happy to say that my 5 year old (36), 18lb. Jack Russell acts exactly as I’d expect a 36 year old female to act. And at the same time, her son, who’s 2 years old (23), acts just as I’d expect a “still figuring out his place in life male” to act. The only balance that comes into question is… how did my then 23 year old Momma have a puppy who’s now only 13 years younger than her (mentally)??? I guess dogs are funny that way, but you gotta love them.