You’ve probably come across the calculation before – to work out the human age of a dog, you simply multiple its age in doggy years by seven. Easy right?
Well, not quite! A new study suggests that this formula is actually a bit of a myth.
CALIFORNIA (News agencies).- Researchers have come up with a new way of converting dog years to human years and it uses a little more science compared to the more popular formula.
The DNA of species like mice, chimps, wolves and dogs are thought to go through similar changes to humans, and researchers at the University of California in San Diego have used this to find out how the human biological clock compares to that of a dog.
For their research, the team focused on a a single breed of dog – Labrador retrievers! Their findings revealed that dogs (or at least this particular breed) and humans share certain similarities in their aging processes and they were able to use this information to translate a dog’s age to their human age.
According to the new formula which can be used for dogs aged one and above, a canine’s human age roughly equals 16 x the logarithm of your dog’s age + 31.
To get the logarithm of a dog’s age you enter the number and press the ‘ln’ button on your calculator.
Then multiplied this figure by 16, and add 31.
Using this formula, a two-year-old dog is 42.1 in human years, a five-year-old-dog is 56.8 and a ten-year-old dog is 67.8!
(Photo: bestplacesintheworldtoretire.com)
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