People who love dogs read a lot of things about them on the internet. While most of it is true and makes us acknowledge how pawsome they are, some of it ends up being fake.
Yes it is true dogs grow faster than our kind but 7 years faster? No, that’s actually not the case.
According to a research conducted at the University of California, puppies are middle-aged by the time they are two. They then age slowly after the initial few years.
This means by the time get get to the age of 3 they are equivalent to a 50-year-old human being.
The research conducted using the DNA methylation of 104 labradors focused on dogs aged between 4 weeks and 16 years old.
The findings were then compared to the results accumulated from 300 humans.
The findings indicated that the labrador DNA, at the age of 2, was equivalent to humans in their early forties. Traditionally you would say 14 if you went by the earlier belief.
However, it was also found out that aging slows in dogs over time, meaning by the age of 10, a labrador is similar to a person aged 68.
The long-held formula, used earlier, was based on the assumption that humans had an average-life expectancy of 70 compared to 10 that of canines.
On this the researchers said:
The expected lifespan of labrador retrievers, 12 years, correctly translated to the worldwide lifetime expectancy of humans, 70 years.
Our bond with dogs goes well beyond age and number and this new study goes on to prove it once again.