Dog Years -VS- Human Years

Have you ever wondered how to convert dog years into human years?  Since we have three large breed dogs I have tried to figure out what their human age conversion would be. What I find is that each chart is different and while someone may actually have figured out the best solution it is probably lost in the hundreds of charts that are simply guesses. The old equation of 7 years to 1 could be the correct one.

What we know for sure is that our beloved canine friends live a much shorter life than we humans. In comparing charts if we take the same fur friend from chart to chart using the same weight, breed, age, our best friends range from 62 human years old to 80 human years old.

We humans seem obsessed with calculating age in both ourselves and our canine friends. Where does it lead us? Basically no where. Careful observation of our canine friends reveals to us that they live each day and each moment and do not make long range plans like we from the human species do. They live to please us and be with us and near us. They seize the moment to give us love and attention each opportunity we allow them to. They are all about relationships and pleasing us with good behavior and as much love as they can muster. They wait and watch for an opportunity to wag their tail and give us sloppy kisses.

Without an accurate life chart we flounder trying to figure out their age. Our past vet once told me that our dog was senior at 10 years and implied he may be past his life expectancy. We enjoyed an active and productive 2 1/2 more years with him and that vet is no longer used by us. We need to enjoy each minute with our canine friends and not gauge our time with them based on what is probably a faulty chart anyway.

Our three dogs are ages 10, 7 and 4. That translates on one chart as 80, 59 and 38. Is it important? I personally don't think so. All three are active and enjoy relative good health. They gauge their activity to us and while signs of age are present in two of them if they have aches and pains they work through it to keep up with us. In conclusion I would say we humans need to learn from our canine family members. They live for the moment, don't anguish over yesterday and don't worry about tomorrow. They love and want to be with us in the moment and our lives would be so much fuller if we adopted the same attitude. Time to bring this topic to a conclusion so I can go spend some quality time with our best friends.