Why do dogs age more quickly than humans?
by 
Trish Tompkins
ANSWERS: 1
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Of all the species of land creatures on earth, I can only remember elephants and some turtles having life spans as long as mankind's, so why SHOULD dogs live as long as we do? Dogs have lifespans appropriate to their species' needs. The old saw about one human year being seven dog years was never accurate and is no longer useful in times when most people and pets live out a full life span. Think of the first year of a dog's life being equal to twenty in a human's, and every dog year as four human years thereafter. The bell curve shows that very large dogs live only about ten years, very small twenty, in between about fifteen. One interesting fact is that female mammals die fairly soon after animal menopause. What triggers the death of male mammals at about the same age, I don't know, other than that it seems to be designed into their telatomeres (you can google this, or look up "programmed cell death".)
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