Our pets’ needs vary at each stage of their lives. And so does our relationship with them. Time passes for everyone, not just people, and understanding how it affects our ARISTODOGS and ARISTOCATS is crucial to being able to rise to the occasion and help them live a full and satisfying life at every stage.
Because the wild, restless puppy with seemingly endless energy has little in common with the senior dog it eventually becomes. Its body changes. Its mood does too. Although it is clear that when it looks into our eyes, we know it is still the same dog… it is important to adapt to its stage of life.
In this regard, determining a pet’s actual age helps veterinarians do their job properly at every stage. This applies to both nutrition and medical treatments, should they be necessary.
It has always been said that one year of a dog’s or cat’s life is equivalent to seven human years. Although this belief has some logic behind it, based on owners’ observations (in the absence of more scientific methods), the truth is that dogs’ and cats’ ages differ greatly from each other. The same is true among members of the same species, since size and breed have a significant impact on pets’ life expectancy.
In general, larger animals tend to have shorter lives than smaller ones. In cats, this may be less obvious, since most felines fall within very similar ranges (Maine Coons would of course be exceptions). While with dogs there is a fairly wide spectrum of sizes. You only have to think of all the sizes between a Chihuahua and a Great Dane.
With this in mind, the American Animal Hospital Association has created a guide to canine life stages, which divides dogs into six categories: puppy, junior, adult, mature, senior and geriatric. According to veterinarians, this classification is more useful, accurate and descriptive than the number of years itself.
1. Thus, a puppy ranges from 0 to six months. This is the birth and nursing stage.
2. The junior stage covers six to nine months and is a period of growth.
3. The adult stage begins at nine months and lasts until six and a half years. At this point, growth ends and sexual and physical maturity is reached.
4. A mature dog is between six and a half and nine years and nine months old.
5. The senior stage runs from nine years and nine months to thirteen. At this point, the dog is presumed to have less than 25% of its total life expectancy remaining.
6. A geriatric dog is already in need of geriatric care, since by 13 years of age it has surpassed the average canine life expectancy.
This guide is practically identical for cats, which are classified as: kittens, juniors, prime, mature, senior and geriatric.
Of course, this classification influences our pets’ “actual age”, as do size and breed. For example, an overweight junior dog may, medically speaking, be older than an adult dog in perfect condition. In that case, what matters is not what your dog’s ID says or the date it was born, but the age it carries inside.
That is why it is important to “listen” to our pets and be able to read beyond their veterinary record, taking into account how they live, what their routines are like and what their temperament is like.