We’ve all heard this formula: multiply your dog’s age by 7 to figure out its human age. We like shortcuts; they’re useful. If you tell someone that your 10-year-old dog is the equivalent of a 70-year-old person, they’ll immediately understand why your pooch has arthritis and barks for no apparent reason. But this formula isn’t accurate over your pet’s entire lifespan.
The widely-accepted shortcut is not as short but is a more accurate rough guide: For the first 2 years, a dog year is equal to 10.5 human years. After that, each dog year equals 4 human years. So, in the world of people, your 2-year-old puppy has become a 21-year-old college student gearing up for the work world. Try the dog calculator provided.
If you’re a life insurance adjuster type, you can use more complicated calculators that factors in your pet’s breed and its health issues.
Converting the age of cats is a finicky process because cats also mature faster in their first 2 years than in later years. By the time your feline is 2 years old, in the people world, she’s in driver’s ed and looking forward to her sweet-sixteen party. This is not the time to let her roam around the neighborhood unchaperoned if you haven’t had her spayed.
Here’s how to do the cat conversion yourself: add 15 years for the first year of life. Then add 10 years for the second year of life. After that, add 4 years for every cat year. So, by year 3, your cat is about 29 human years, well out of college and scraping an independent living for itself. If you try to boss it around now, you’re in for a fight. Try the cat calculator below:
Just for fun, you can select "I am..." from the drop-down men on both calculators to get your own age in dog or cat years. Next time someone pries into my age, I’m gonna answer, “Seven cat years.” Let them do the crazy math.
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