How Old In Cat or Dog Years?

Heather R. — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 22:09:53 +0000

Catster has a really interesting article up illustrating the time line for how quickly cats actually age compared to humans. Because their typical lifespan is so much shorter than ours, their milestones and physical aging obviously come on a lot sooner than ours do, thus the “how old is he in cat years.”

The old “seven cat or dog years to one human year” doesn’t seem to hold true, either. In fact, a cat ages to about 24 within its first two actual years of life, and by the time a cat reaches the end of its lifetime around 14 years of age, he’s already the equivalent of 72 years old! And the interesting thing is that outdoor cats age a lot faster – I assume because they’re subject to more dangers and diseases than an indoor-only cat.

Dogs also age faster than we do. The typical formula for them is 10.5 dog years per human year for the first 2 years, then 4 dog years per human year for each year after.