There's Life In The Old Dog Yet

Working out a dog’s age used to be simple and inaccurate. Multiply it by seven and you learn how old it is in human years. But a US study has thrown this method on the bone heap and produced a new way of assessing the age of Man’s Best Friend. Better still for pooches and owners alike, it takes years off the age of older dogs. Environment Editor John Ingham reports

- John Ingham

My 12-year-old black Labrador Inca got some good news yesterday – she’s younger than we thought.

Once thought of as “84”, she has now been born again after shedding 14 years to become a youthful “70”.

An American team says traditional calculations of dogs’ ages are wide of the mark. Instead, it has found a more accurate method by analyzing chemical changes in a dog’s body.

Professor Trey Ideker, of the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, said this “epigenetic clock”, based on the rate chemicals are added to genes, is as good a clue to age as the wrinkles in a human’s face.