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06 Sept 2025

Longford dog owners: how are your pets really ageing?

Scientists' study makes for interesting reading

Longford dog owners: how are your pets really ageing?

Longford dog owners: how are your pets really ageing?

Longford dog lovers will be interested to learn that the much quoted suggestion that dogs age seven years for every human year is a myth, scientists have claimed.

According to University of California researchers some dogs are middle-aged by the time they are two, and by the time they are three are closer in age to a 50-year-old human.

The study looked at how dogs aged by focusing on the DNA methylation in 104 Labradors aged between four weeks and 16 years.

The DNA contains marks that change over time as a cell matures, allowing scientists to track the animal’s biological age.

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