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YOU’RE
ONLY AS OLD Journal of Healing – Aug. 9, 2006 By Mary
Koch What’s with this seven-year formula people use to figure out so-called “dog years?” Yes, it’s me again. Sadie, the people dog, celebrating a birthday amidst great consternation and confusion. It all started earlier this summer when the boss lady began commenting to friends, “Sadie’s slowing down.” I’m doing no such thing. I’m just taking a little more time to smell the, um, well, NOT the roses but various other objects of aromatic interest. What difference does it make if I don’t run quite as fast as I used to when she calls? She’s going to give me a doggie biscuit whether I make it there at break-neck speed or not. She knows she has to give me a treat, or I’ll stop coming. Call it “positive motivation.” I’m positively motivating her to give me treats. When she started telling people I was slowing down, they’d ask, “How old is Sadie?” “I think she’ll turn eight in August,” the boss lady would answer. Hmm. Wonder if she shaves years off her own age too. * * * AS I SAID, my birthday’s coming up Aug. 11. I absolutely do not mention that in hopes of getting gifts – but if you insist, low-cal doggie biscuits only. No frosting. I’m watching my weight. Besides, I don’t think there’ll be a party this year. We used to have them. And we’d get invited to other doggie birthday parties until the time I bit a lawyer’s dog while partying at another lawyer’s house. I guess everyone decided doggie birthday parties were too big a liability. We haven’t been invited to one since. With my big day approaching, the boss lady finally decided to confirm my age. She pulled out my pedigree – not to brag or anything, but I do happen to be a purebred English springer spaniel “Sadie’s not going to be eight,” the boss lady gasped. “She’ll be TEN!” That’s when this “dog age times seven” nonsense started. “That means in dog years she’ll be SEVENTY!” someone said. “That’s EL-derly,” someone else said. And they all looked at me as if I’d become a different dog simply because I had a new number attached to me. I smelled ageism. * * * THE COMMON myth is that every year a dog lives is equal to seven years of human life. If that’s true, I figure I’ve been shorted, let’s see, 10 times 6 additional years equals . . . holy chow, sixty years worth of food rations somebody owes me. Some humans studied this a little further and decided the 7:1 ratio is incorrect. They claim that we dogs mature more quickly than humans and after that our aging process slows down. A dog at age two is supposedly equal to a human at age 21. I’m skeptical. I’ve heard how humans celebrate their 21st birthdays, and I think a 2-year-old dog is much more mature than that. According to dog-age conversion charts on the Internet (those humans will put ANY-thing on the Internet), I’m anywhere from 53 to 65 in human years. Or is that dog years? This is getting confusing. All I know is, according to those same charts, if the boss lady were a dog she’d be somewhere between 9-and-a-half and 12. Depending on her breed. The experts say the aging process in dogs varies according to size and breed. Spaniels, says the UC Davis Book of Dogs, become “geriatric” at age 10. Geriatric, my paw! Those people need to spend less time with their conversion tables and more time playing with their dogs. Get a dog, then get a life. © Mary Koch, Omak, Washington 2006 |
