There is a common saying that to estimate a dog’s age in human years, simply multiply the dog’s age by 7. However, it is known that dogs and humans don’t reach physiological milestones at the same rate over their lifespans. For example, dogs can reach reproductive age between 6-12 months which is earlier than humans, even if you multiply by 7.
Researchers have recently published a report that suggests a non-linear relationship between dog age and human age. When comparing DNA methylation changes over time among 104 Labrador retrievers against that of humans, the relationship between dog years and human years can be represented by the following formula:
human_age = 16 ln(dog_age) + 31
According to the researchers, “We found that this function showed strong agreement between the approximate times at which dogs and humans experience common physiological milestones during both development and lifetime aging, i.e., infant, juvenile, adolescent, mature, and senior.”
For more information, see the full report.
Bonus tip: if you want to calculate your dog’s age in human years, you can’t calculate natural logarithms in your head, and you don’t have a calculator, just go to www.google.com and search for “16*ln(dog_age)+31” where dog_age is your dog’s age in years. For example, if you search for 16*ln(5)+31, you’ll find that your 5 year old dog has an equivalent human age of 53.18 years, physiologically speaking.
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