GSD Life Span ? - Page 1

Can anyone share info on documented long lived GSD's? I am gathering info to get a more precise equation on the old "dog years vs human years" formula. The general formula now used is that the first two years of a dogs life, equals 25 human years (this being based on sexual maturity) and then each year over the first two is equal to 4 human years. So a dog five years old would be equivalent to a person 37 years old. I would like to figure out a more breed specific formula for GSD's. Please only give info that is known to be accurate. Also, please only provide info that directly relates to pure breed GSD's. An email to me or a posting here would be appreciated. Thanks in advance. conditionfreak@wmconnect.com

You don't say what kind of info you want. I have a 13.5 year old intact male GSD (His mother lived to be one month short ofher 16th year. I also have an 11 year old female. Over the past 3 decades I have had 2 other GSDs that made 13. Just what kind of info could we provide that would lead to a formula of what a particular number of dog years equals in human years. It would seem that most owners could only provide you with anecdotal information of their own dogs and there would not be likely to be too many old ones per owner unless he/she was a large breeder or owner of many dogs who had decades of experience, even then, it would not be scientific but anecdotal. You would need to have a large number of GSDs to make up some kind of control group and then perhaps the information you gleaned from the long-lived ones might be the basis of a scientific study.

I can't help with the age of a shepherd as until River all of my shepherds were mix breeds but this may help you with your formula. The formula now used is 10.5 years for the first two years of life and 4 years for every year after that. There is also this calculator that goes on health and activity. http://www.dogage.com/reg/regassess.aspx There is also this chart which I think would be the most accurate and goes by weight and age. http://www.cdhs.net/dog_age.htm Dogs can have kids at one year. How many humans have kids at age seven or ten?

A Galapagos tortoise reaches sexual maturity and is capable of breeding at about 40 to 50 years of age. The oldest recorded Galapagos tortoise is 160 years old, and was brought to Australia by Darwin himself. The average human lifespan is probably around 70 years in developed countries if you ignore gender differences, SO-- A human in Galapago tortoise years is 40 years old at sexual maturity when they are about 16 cronological years old, so a human who is 32 is about 77 years old in tortoise years. Snicker.