Age of 'veteran'

Following on from another thread......

Why are veterans in all breeds aged 7. Would it not make more sense to look at the average age in the breeds and grade veterans accordingly?

IMO 7 is not old, certainly looking at KC breeds terriers etc ought not to be. OTOH Great Danes average age is so low that 6 might be more appropriate.

Of course all dogs are different but one of the effects of generally accepting that 7 is veteran seems to be that people then look at their dogs as old and start to treat them differently.

Thoughts?

rune

Totally agree.
I`d say a GSD is a veteran at 9 or 10. Daisy is 6 and she`s not signing up for the free bus pass any time soon.

I completely agree. It should be a breed thing and not a blanket thing.

My Lab is is approaching 9 1/2 and starting to show his age a bit more now, but I don't consider even this to be 'proper' old just yet. I think when he reaches 10 I will consider him to be a senior dog.

Maybe it should be based upon 3/4 of the average life expectancy of the breed. If for example, human life expectancy is around 80 (78 for men, 82 for women) then a human 'veteran' would be 60 (which may be a bit young - I'm 64 and I certainly don't feel like a veteran in any way).
In my breed, the life expectancy is about 14, so a veteran would be 10.5 years. This would mean my 9 yr old, who still thinks he's a puppy would still have a year to go until he became a veteran. This was him winning veteran at a Champ Show last year:



Our old boy Raz, who is 19 would only be approaching his double veteran status, rather than triple!



Mick

Definitely agree that it should not be a blanket thing that aged 7 is classed as Veteran for all breeds.

I only started considering Roxy, 10kg crossbreed, as an 'older' dog at the end of the Summer last year, aged, over 10 and a half years old, when we noticed her starting to ever so slightly show her age - meaning she was quite tired after a longish walk, whereas before she would march on home quite spritely. Oh, and she's more ditzy than usual.

Apart from that she is very fit and healthy and still very lively, loves to play with her balls etc.

She is, however, still wired to the moon quite a fair bit. Those of you who have met her will know what I mean.

Molly, Westie, will be 9 in a few weeks time. While I don't consider it old for a small dog, particularly terriers, Molly as an individual dog has got lazy in the past couple of years! Although can move when she wants to.

Again though, Molly is fit and healthy and loves her soft toys and small, squeaky Kong balls and her tuggers. She also loves clicker training which I still do with her.

Neither have any apparent stiffness in their joints, but both are on senior foods now and joint supplements as an additional benefit (hopefully!).

Mick can you tell me the breed of your dog in the first pic please

I was discussing this with a friend at a show last week. Her eight year old Estrela was in the veteran stakes. By Estrela standards he's getting on a bit. There was a Bichon in his class the same age that was only really middle aged!

Both dogs pictured are Siberian huskies

We were talking about this at a show on Sunday, as from the end of December, Jess is classed as a veteran. She REALLY doesn't act it though. Most people think she's younger than Harley (who's nearly 3) when they see them.

I put her on a fun agility at the show and she bounded up the A frame and round the course like a whippersnapper to say she's done less than an hours agility in her life, and when the person on the course asked her age, she was gobsmacked when I said she was nearly 7!

I'm not sure people will believe me when I enter her into veteran next year as she's barely any grey on her muzzle either.

Totally agree - a 7yo Dane is not comparable with a 7yo Yorkie! :-0