Misconceptions About Longevity “For encouragement for this breed”
Misconceptions About Longevity “For encouragement for this breed” By Barbara Gile
Please post how old your dog has lived without being diagnosed with any life threatening medical condition. I'm getting discouraged seeing all the goodbyes and diagnosis. Does a clean line exist in this breed at all?” In other words, “where can I get a wolfhound that will live a long life and not have any problems?” A fair concern, but the wrong idea entirely. There is no such thing as a “clean line”, much as I wish there was. Every living creature eventually dies of something. Death is a genetically inherited condition, if you like. Cancer, heart disease, system failure and accelerated old age are not as a result of lines that are not “clean”. They are an unavoidable by-product of the size of the dogs. Look at it this way, the size of an organism, loosely increases according to the cube of it’s height.
There are several implications to this, but there are three fundamental ones that effect longevity:
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1. Large dogs do not take ten times longer to reach maturity than small dogs. Dogs, like humans, are made up of cells, and the cells in a small dog are basically the same size as the cells in a large dog. Consequently, a large dog needs a lot more cells to make up it’s physical form. So in order to produce all the additional cells, the large dog has to accelerate the cell growth during the time that it is in the womb, and as a puppy. This accelerated cell growth has a bad side effect, errors can creep in. This may then result in faulty organs, cancer and other problems at a later stage.
2. The cells are basically, on an individual level, the same strength, regardless of the size of the dog. Consequently, more strain is put on any one cell at any given time in a large dog, than in a small one. Think of it like a pile of bricks. A small pile will last a long time, but the bigger the pile, the more strain the ones at the bottom take, until the weight of the pile starts crushing the bricks at the bottom.
3. Lastly, you have design. While dogs have evolved over time, with and without human intervention, the structure of their bones, internal organs and so on have not. It remains basically the same across all dog breeds. This is also a problem, as the bigger the dog gets, the harder all the individual components have to work just to keep going at all. So they wear out more quickly in bigger dogs than in smaller ones, all other things being equal. If you then look at the giant breeds, you see dogs that are living very close to the limit of what their design is capable of sustaining. And yet, every year, we breed for more height and greater size in the giant breeds, and then wonder why our pony sized dogs don’t live as long as we think they should. This is the reality of giant breed dogs. But there is also another reality here, a malignant, social media inspired one, that, even when we know about it, can affect how we perceive and feel about things. It is two-fold, and it is ubiquitous.
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The first part is a Negative Reporting Bias. The second part is selective consumption of facts, or cherry picking. The Negative Reporting Bias is easy to explain. Somebody who might never post anything about their dog on Facebook posts about the death of their much missed family member. Everyone takes notice, and offers their commiseration etc. Factor in the fact that people are social animals, and tend to feel the grief of other they “know” quite acutely. These deaths touch people more deeply than, say, puppy pictures and the like, so we are more “conscious” of them. If you add the fact that almost all of us feel that our dogs have left us “too young”, it creates an impression of a breed with an average lifespan less long than it actually is, short as that average might be. Cherry Picking facts is part of the human condition. Part of the reason why scientist do not accept anecdotal evidence as anything other than “interesting” is because we tend to cherry pick, or select, our facts based on our unconscious biases. What makes this an even bigger problem is the emotional response to various events. Death triggers a higher level emotional response than, say, a notification of a fourth birthday. These two trends are a big part of the reason why social media use can lead to depression and other negative feelings. They also can cast a negative light on the prospect of, for example, owning a giant breed dog. So, looking at this with a little bit of objectivity, here are a few things to consider. Irrespective of the perception about “clean lines” and other such things, the reality is that giant breed dogs, on average, do not live as long as smaller breed dogs. If longevity is a primary concern, don't get a giant breed dog. If measured objectively, giant breed dogs all die as often as other breeds. If you want to own a giant breed dog, but are concerned about what you are reading on social media, get your giant breed dog, and stop participation in social media. The fact that small dogs live longer might not always be an advantage (said with a wink and a smile). There is no logical metric that one can use to measure what type of dog will best suit a person. That is ultimately an emotional, not a rational, decision. You will have to go with your heart. (P.S. Added later as an edit.
I would also like to categorically state that I believe we should all be trying to encourage breeding for fitness, health and to avoid genetic problems or the perpetuation of the same, while trying to avoid genetic bottlenecks. The above was not about these issues, but since a concern with regard to them was raised, (this is my opinion on the matter for the record.)