I was looking to get a dog (in the next few months) and figured why not run a little mini-mprize. One of my hobbies is dog training (I train them to do cool things: Open the fridge, and hand deliver a beer, collect fruit in the garden, play frisbee etc).
So I wanted to get a dog that was:
- Inteligent - fun / rewarding to train
- Standard sized - It needs to be big enough to do things like pickup fruit in my orchard and play frisbee etc..
- Healhty - I don't want to be taking care of chronic conditions if possible.
- Long lived breed - makes the training an investment with a longer payout and the dog has more time to get smarter
- Finally I would put it on CR - This actually makes training MUCH more effective and i can get the dog to live longer Win Win.
- Sharp looking - If its going to be hanging around for a long time, it might as well be easy on the eyes...
Here are some quick facts to get you up to speed on aging in dogs:
- Most dogs live ~12 years, but this varies greatly per breed.
- Short lived dogs like the irish wolfhound live only ~8 years while other dogs like the miniate poodle live 14.8 years
- In general, smaller dogs live longer than larger dogs (as do smaller humans than larger humans, (unfortunately for me))
What i found in all of my searching is that the longest lived breeds are the toy poodle, Miniature Schnauzers, Maltese.
These were really small dogs and not really what I was looking for; the following compromised some of the longevity for other traits that I liked: Australian Sheep Dog; German Shorthaired Pointer; Saluki.
But then I stumbled across the rare breed: Xoloitzcuintli. This dog appears to be an outlier in terms of dog longevity and health; living 15-20 years beating the pants off other breeds (some website say 12-15 not 15-20 so I'm not sure). It comes in a hairless and coated variety. It also ranges in size from toy to standard. It is also pretty smart.
Anyone else know of any other really long lived dogs?
Anyone have any ideas to stretch out their longevity aside from CR? (I hear neutering in females increases longevity for example)
Once I pick a dog, I'll probably make a dog longevity club or something and we can try to get our pups into the guiness book of records for dog age.
Edited by lucid, 01 May 2012 - 06:34 AM.