The standard concept of seven years as "dog years" is no more correct than the standard concept of "keep records for seven years". It is primarily useful to comedians on the Tonight Show or Late Night.  It is a simplification to try to make humans think that animals age at the same rate they do. For both dogs and cats, the correct version is a lot more complicated. The most easily understandable version, is First year = approximately 15 human years. Second year equals about 6 human years and following years equal about 4 human years.  So a twenty year old cat or dog (not common, but not unheard of - I've had two cats that lived to that age) is not the same as a 140 year old human (definitely unheard of, unless you take biblical ages to be accurate.) but more like a  93-year old human (15+6+(18x4)). Even this is an oversimplification, as dogs and cats age more quickly as they get older, but that formula is about as accurate as possible.

David McLallen
Boulder County Records Manager
Boulder, CO

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