I ran into Daisy today. She instantly turned me into a reluctant philosopher! That is because Daisy, a beautiful elderly "chocolate Labrador retriever," seems to be at the sunset stage of her life. She is barely mobile, yet, she begs to join her owner to take daily walks with other younger dogs. Daisy is 13 year old. She is overweight and thus according to scientific research, she is prone to give up the ghost faster than if she is more svelte.
You see, life expectancy of dogs is 12.8 years.... Wait a minute, whenever I come across statistics, I tend to go off in a tangent because statisticians seem to know everything to the tenth decimal point... But I digress... let's get back to beautiful Daisy. With that in mind, you can easily understand that a dog's year is about 7 that of a human being. Daisy is 91 human year old! Labrador retrievers are expected to live 10 - 14 years, and indeed Daisy is stretching it.
Do you know that in general, smaller breed dogs live longer than larger ones; and heavier dogs die younger than dogs of the same breed but lighter?
So, if you want a new dog, pick one like Gizmo on the right because this bubbling cutie will outlive many larger and heavier dogs and she will keep you company late into your geriatric stage.
When it was time to say goodbye, Daisy lost tract of where she was and went off in the wrong direction... Just like me, forget where I was just a minute ago! How sad for me because in dog's year, I am but a toddler!
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