thoughts on the news of the day: dog days

hmmm…..

            Age seems to be the topic of articles on the web today.  I noticed one on the ages of dogs and cats.  We usually think that you can determine a dog’s age by multiplying the animal’s chronological age by seven.  So, if your doggie is three by human years, then it is twenty-one by dog years.  There is a new theory that suggests that using the traditional formula is not really accurate.  For example, a puppy quickly matures the first two years of life – after one year, it’s usually twelve dog years and by age two, the age increases to twenty-four years old.  The new premise is that dogs are likely to have babies even at one year old and on up to as old as age ten.  So, the math doesn’t really add up.  If the traditional formula is used that would mean that dogs could have babies from seven years old to as old as seventy.  Not a likely scenario with humans.

            On to cats …. A really cool “cat” is Dick Van Dyke.   You might remember him as the dancing chimney sweep in “Mary Poppins”.  Well, he just got married at eighty-six; that’s in human years, not dog years.  His bride is a blushing forty years old.    It gets better.  They got married on February 29.  Does that mean that in four years they will only be celebrating their one year anniversary?

            I like Satchel Pages comments on age: “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?”  And even better: “Age is a case of mind over matter, if you don’t mind, it don’t matter.”  Most dogs and most aging chimney sweeps would probably agree with that.

            hmmm…..