----- Original Message -----
From: "John Francis"
Subject: Re: Cat photo :(
On Thu, Dec 03, 2009 at 05:12:53PM -0500, Doug Franklin wrote:
P. J. Alling wrote:
At 19 he was a very old dog...
For some reason, I have it in my head that the average lifespan for pet
cats is a couple of years longer than for pet dogs.
That's because they are smaller. Seriously (albeit slightly tongue-in-
cheek; different species are not directly comparable). But large dog
breeds have, generally speaking, shorter lifespans than smaller breeds.
This is true, and some of the large breeds are getting decidedly shaky. I
was talking to a trial judge last year who told me that over the past decade
or so, the Great Dane has grown several inches, often as much as 36-38
inches, which is 8 inches over the minimum height standard.
Breeders have done this to win shows, but have done it by breeding big to
big with less attention paid to other criteria.
These big Danes also live a couple of years less than a more normally sized
dog of 32 inches, which is the preferred height.
Some of the larger toys can have very long lives, and Cockers do seem to be
capable of long lives. Our girl who died at 16 was a Cocker crossed with
some sort of terrier.
She was the typical "little brown dog", which seems to have the best chance
of carrying a light genetic load.
William Robb
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