Image: Getty
Do you know your dog's age in 'dog years'? You know: supposedly a dog is seven dog years old on its first birthday and all that? Well, as it turns out, that figure isn't really accurate at all, and it's thrown even further out of whack when you realise that all dog breeds age at different rates. So if you want to figure out your pooch's actual age in dog years, here's how to do it.
It's fundamentally hard to find an equivalent between dog years and human years as our life cycles and biology differ considerably. Dogs reach sexual maturity at around one year old, for example, so already the 7 year equivalence doesn't make sense, but even if you move that up to 13 or 14, it still doesn't quite fit the model.
Compared to humans, dogs age quicker in the start of their life, and then slower towards the end of their life, so it takes some more complex maths to figure out a conversion from human years to dog years.
If you can't be bothered to figure it out yourself, here's a chart from Business Insider that'll help you figure out exactly how old your dog actually is. And yes - the higher numbers at the bottom of the table really drive home the difference in lifespan between small dogs and large ones.
Small dogs are classified as 9.5kg or less, medium are 9.6kg-22kg, large are 23kg-40kg and giant dogs are over 41kg.
Image: Business Insider
Interestingly enough, 'dog years' have been a concept for far longer than you'd think, with a text from 1268 saying that a human year was roughly equal to nine dog years. A different figure, but turns out they were still wrong about it back then, too.
So your one year old dog? Actually a naughty teenager. Have fun with that!
Now that you know your dog's real age, you might have to stockpile a few extra candles for the next doggy birthday you celebrate.
