For dog owners, having an idea of their companion’s life span will enable them to take different steps at different key stages of his or her life (another diet, less sustained physical activity, etc.) to sustain it. good health. Members of the Royal Veterinary College therefore applied themselves to determine the life expectancy of dogs in the United Kingdom based on a sample of more than 30,000 canids according to breed, sex and sterilization. The aim of the study was to allow the owners of “developing realistic expectations for the typical residual length of their dogs through knowledge of life expectancy“. Guiding them, along with veterinarians, in the most appropriate medical decisions to make.
18 breeds and 30,563 dogs were studied
For this study, the researchers decided to approach the problem of life expectancy differently from other studies of the same class, in the form of a mortality table. “Instead of offering a value for the average age of death, the life record is a tabulated expression of life expectancy and mortality rates in different age groups in a population.“, In the words of the authors of this study. This format is for example used by the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (Insee). Then it is possible to follow, for each age, the probability of death in the year and to determine the overall health of the group.This study provides the first table of its variety for British dogs.It used the anonymous VetCompass database and interpreted the life expectancy of 18 breeds and crosses from after 30,563 dogs of which 47.7 % were females and 57.4 % were sterilized.
Jack Russell took the lead
According to the results obtained, the birth life for British domesticated dogs is 11.23 years, and this number decreases with age. In fact, the probability of death at each interval of the year increased almost systematically (except at the beginning of life). Females maintain up to 12 years of life expectancy longer than males. Then, it became the same for both sexes. The study revealed that sterilized dogs had an overall better life expectancy.
For dog owners, having an idea of their companion’s life span will enable them to take different steps at different key stages of his or her life (another diet, less sustained physical activity, etc.) to sustain it. good health. Members of the Royal Veterinary College therefore applied themselves to determine the life expectancy of dogs in the United Kingdom based on a sample of more than 30,000 canids according to breed, sex and sterilization. The aim of the study was to allow the owners of “developing realistic expectations for the typical residual length of their dogs through knowledge of life expectancy“. Guiding them, along with veterinarians, in the most appropriate medical decisions to make.
18 breeds and 30,563 dogs were studied
For this study, the researchers decided to approach the problem of life expectancy differently from other studies of the same class, in the form of a mortality table. “Instead of offering a value for the average age of death, the life record is a tabulated expression of life expectancy and mortality rates in different age groups in a population.“, In the words of the authors of this study. This format is for example used by the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (Insee). Then it is possible to follow, for each age, the probability of death in the year and to determine the overall health of the group.This study provides the first table of its variety for British dogs.It used the anonymous VetCompass database and interpreted the life expectancy of 18 breeds and crosses from after 30,563 dogs of which 47.7 % were females and 57.4 % were sterilized.
Jack Russell took the lead
According to the results obtained, the birth life for British domesticated dogs is 11.23 years, and this number decreases with age. In fact, the probability of death at each interval of the year increased almost systematically (except at the beginning of life). Females maintain up to 12 years of life expectancy longer than males. Then, it became the same for both sexes. The study revealed that sterilized dogs had an overall better life expectancy.
The breeds with the highest life expectancy at birth were Jack Russells (12.72 years), Yorkshires (12.54 years), Border Collies (12.10 years) and English Springers (11.92 years). ). In contrast, the French Bulldogs, particularly vulnerable, have a life expectancy at birth of only 4.53 years. Little semantic point: “Life expectancy at birth is equivalent to average life expectancy“to the dog, explains the Science and the Future Kendy Tzu-yun Teng, co-author of this study published on April 28, 2022 in the journal Scientific reports. “We calculated life expectancy for this age (0 years, editor’s note) using all dogs still alive up to that point. As all dogs in this condition are alive at birth, the life expectancy at that time is equal to the average life expectancy of all dogs.“, said the researcher.
Life expectancy at birth of 18 breeds and a set of crossbred dogs, UK (click image to enlarge). Source: Sciences et Avenir
Country differences
This study focused only on dogs in the UK because average life expectancy can vary between countries. Thus, Labrador lived an average of 14.1 years in Japan versus 12.5 years in the United Kingdom and 10.5 years in Denmark. And in France? “Life expectancy at birth is somewhat comparable in France, mean to Science and the Future Benoît Hédan, veterinary and research engineer of the dog genetics team at the Rennes Institute of Genetics & Development (CNRS). But in the case of the French Bulldog, in France as well as the United Kingdom, there is a very large heterogeneity in longevity, mainly due to the existence of more or less brachycephalic dogs. These hypertypes are responsible for health problems (respiratory, cardiac, etc.) but their effects can be limited to some extent by surgical operations that, in particular, prevent the dog from having high soft palate.. So operated dogs are more likely to live longer.
However, the figures in this study have limited scope due to dog trends, which vary by country. “If one is different than popular, then there are many young dogs and some older ones. This will automatically result in over-representation of mortality in young dogs because they are older than they are. In contrast, in a declining race, life expectancy increases artificially.“, says Dr. Hédan. Small or even small breeds, for example, are more numerous in Japan than in the United Kingdom.
However, even among the same breeds, the life span of dogs in Japan is longer than in the UK. “These differences between countries may stem from a cultural difference between the owners and the veterinarian, for example euthanasia or vice versa, the maintenance of an intensive therapeutic follow-up, such as chemotherapy, promoted by Benoît Hédan. And some countries are more interventionist than others in terms of prevention. For example the policy of early sterilization or not, which will affect the health of the animal“. Acquiring a homogeneous and global picture of the life expectancy of dogs therefore seems difficult.