How Long Do Dogs Live? Dog Lifespan by Breed, in Dog and Human Years

Most dogs live 10 to 14 years. Across the 55 breeds in our dataset the average typical lifespan is 12.3 years, from 8 to 9 for the Cane Corso up to 14 to 15 for the Cairn Terrier. Size explains most of the gap, but not in a straight line: toy, small, medium and large breeds all average between 12.6 and 13.2 years, and then giant breeds drop to about 10.3. In human years the order flips, because big dogs age faster once they are grown.

Below: lifespan by size class, the full chart for every breed with its human-years equivalent and the age it becomes a senior, then what actually shortens or lengthens a dog's life.

Dog lifespan by size

Average of the typical lifespan ranges for the breeds in each class, the same span in human years on our size-adjusted age curve, and the age each class turns senior on the AAHA rule (the last quarter of expected life).

Size class	Breeds	Average lifespan	Range	In human years	Senior from
Toy (up to 12 lb)	6	12.6 yrs	9 to 15	66.4	9
Small (13–25 lb)	13	12.9 yrs	9 to 15	67.6	9
Medium (26–50 lb)	10	13.2 yrs	11 to 15	80	9
Large (51–90 lb)	14	12.7 yrs	11 to 15	88.2	9
Giant (over 90 lb)	12	10.3 yrs	8 to 12	86.3	7

Two things stand out. First, the toy average is pulled down by one breed (the Affenpinscher, quoted at 9 to 10 years); without it toys would sit at the top of the table, which is where population studies put them. Second, the giant class is the only one that is clearly separate. A Great Dane at 10 to 12 years lives two to three years less than a Labrador at 13 to 14, even though both are big dogs.

Dog lifespan by breed chart

All 55 breeds, longest-lived first. "Human years" is the top of the lifespan range run through the age curve for that breed's size, so it answers "how old is this dog, in human terms, at the end of a typical life". Each breed links to its own age calculator, with a year-by-year chart and the breed's health screening tests.

Breed	Size	Weight	Lifespan	Human years at the top	Senior from
Cairn Terrier	small	13 to 14 lb	14 to 15 yrs	76	10
Havanese	toy	7 to 12 lb	14 to 15 yrs	76	10
Shiba Inu	small	17 to 23 lb	14 to 15 yrs	76	10
Australian Cattle Dog	medium	35 to 50 lb	13 to 15 yrs	89	10
Bearded Collie	medium	45 to 55 lb	13 to 15 yrs	89	10
Poodle (Standard)	large	40 to 70 lb	13 to 15 yrs	102	10
Australian Shepherd	medium	40 to 65 lb	13 to 14 yrs	84	10
Beagle	small	20 to 30 lb	12 to 15 yrs	76	10
Border Collie	medium	30 to 55 lb	13 to 14 yrs	84	10
Cocker Spaniel	small	20 to 30 lb	13 to 14 yrs	72	10
Collie	large	50 to 75 lb	13 to 14 yrs	96	10
Dachshund	small	16 to 32 lb	13 to 14 yrs	72	10
English Springer Spaniel	medium	40 to 50 lb	13 to 14 yrs	84	10
German Shorthaired Pointer	large	45 to 70 lb	13 to 14 yrs	96	10
Golden Retriever	large	55 to 75 lb	13 to 14 yrs	96	10
Labrador Retriever	large	55 to 80 lb	13 to 14 yrs	96	10
Maltese	toy	4 to 7 lb	13 to 14 yrs	72	10
Miniature Schnauzer	small	11 to 20 lb	13 to 14 yrs	72	10
Pembroke Welsh Corgi	medium	24 to 30 lb	13 to 14 yrs	84	10
Shetland Sheepdog	small	15 to 25 lb	13 to 14 yrs	72	10
Vizsla	large	45 to 65 lb	13 to 14 yrs	96	10
Whippet	medium	18 to 40 lb	13 to 14 yrs	84	10
Yorkshire Terrier	toy	4 to 7 lb	13 to 14 yrs	72	10
Portuguese Water Dog	medium	35 to 60 lb	12 to 14 yrs	84	9
Samoyed	large	35 to 65 lb	12 to 14 yrs	96	9
Shih Tzu	small	9 to 16 lb	12 to 14 yrs	72	9
Weimaraner	large	55 to 90 lb	12 to 14 yrs	96	9
Basset Hound	large	40 to 65 lb	12 to 13 yrs	90	9
Bichon Frise	small	12 to 18 lb	12 to 13 yrs	68	9
Pomeranian	toy	3 to 7 lb	12 to 13 yrs	68	9
Boston Terrier	small	12 to 25 lb	11 to 13 yrs	68	9
Cavalier King Charles Spaniel	small	13 to 18 lb	11 to 13 yrs	68	9
Chihuahua	toy	3 to 6 lb	11 to 13 yrs	68	9
Pug	small	14 to 18 lb	11 to 13 yrs	68	9
Rhodesian Ridgeback	large	70 to 85 lb	11 to 13 yrs	90	9
Siberian Husky	medium	35 to 60 lb	11 to 13 yrs	79	9
Akita	giant	70 to 130 lb	11 to 12 yrs	99	8
Boxer	large	50 to 80 lb	11 to 12 yrs	84	8
Brittany	medium	30 to 40 lb	11 to 12 yrs	74	8
Doberman Pinscher	large	60 to 100 lb	11 to 12 yrs	84	8
German Shepherd Dog	large	50 to 90 lb	11 to 12 yrs	84	8
Greyhound	large	60 to 70 lb	11 to 12 yrs	84	8
Newfoundland	giant	100 to 150 lb	11 to 12 yrs	99	8
Great Dane	giant	110 to 175 lb	10 to 12 yrs	99	8
Great Pyrenees	giant	85 to 115 lb	10 to 12 yrs	99	8
Bernese Mountain Dog	giant	70 to 115 lb	10 to 11 yrs	91.5	7
Bullmastiff	giant	100 to 130 lb	10 to 11 yrs	91.5	7
Rottweiler	giant	80 to 135 lb	10 to 11 yrs	91.5	7
French Bulldog	small	16 to 28 lb	9 to 11 yrs	60	7
Irish Wolfhound	giant	105 to 120 lb	9 to 11 yrs	91.5	7
Affenpinscher	toy	7 to 10 lb	9 to 10 yrs	56	7
Bloodhound	giant	80 to 110 lb	9 to 10 yrs	84	7
Mastiff	giant	120 to 230 lb	9 to 10 yrs	84	7
Saint Bernard	giant	120 to 180 lb	9 to 10 yrs	84	7
Cane Corso	giant	90 to 110 lb	8 to 9 yrs	76.5	6

The ranges are typical lifespans from breed longevity references, not maximums and not medians from a single study. Individual dogs regularly beat them: the oldest verified dog, an Australian Cattle Dog named Bluey, lived to 29 years and 5 months.

Why big dogs die young

Across most mammals, bigger species live longer: elephants outlive mice. Within dogs it runs the other way, and the reason is speed of ageing rather than a shorter start. A study of more than 50,000 dogs across 74 breeds (Kraus and colleagues, 2013) found that large breeds age faster: their risk of dying climbs more steeply with each year of adult life, and each extra 2 kg (4.4 lb) of breed weight costs roughly a month of life expectancy. Rapid growth is the usual suspect: a giant puppy multiplies its birth weight about a hundredfold in a year, and the cancers that dominate giant-breed deaths (bone cancer above all) are diseases of cells that divided fast.

That is why the age curve adds 4 human years per calendar year for a small dog after age two, 5 for a medium dog, 6 for a large dog and 7.5 for a giant. It is also why the flat "multiply by seven" rule fails at both ends; the ×7 myth guide walks through the numbers.

Lifespan in human years

People search for a dog's life span in human years to answer a practical question: how old is my dog, really, at the end? On the size-adjusted curve the answer converges more than calendar years do:

• A Chihuahua at 13 is about 68 in human years; a Yorkshire Terrier at 14 about 72.
• A German Shepherd at 12 is about 84; a Labrador at 14 about 96.
• A Great Dane at 12 is about 99, older in human terms than the Chihuahua that outlived it by a year or more.

In other words, most dogs that die of old age die somewhere in their late sixties to nineties in human terms, whatever their size. The difference is how fast they get there. For any single dog, the dog age calculator does the conversion from its breed and age.

The longest and shortest-lived breeds

Longest-lived in this dataset:

• Cairn Terrier: 14 to 15 years, a small dog of 13 to 14 lb
• Havanese: 14 to 15 years, a toy dog of 7 to 12 lb
• Shiba Inu: 14 to 15 years, a small dog of 17 to 23 lb
• Australian Cattle Dog: 13 to 15 years, a medium dog of 35 to 50 lb
• Bearded Collie: 13 to 15 years, a medium dog of 45 to 55 lb
• Poodle (Standard): 13 to 15 years, a large dog of 40 to 70 lb

Shortest-lived:

• Cane Corso: 8 to 9 years, a giant dog of 90 to 110 lb
• Saint Bernard: 9 to 10 years, a giant dog of 120 to 180 lb
• Mastiff: 9 to 10 years, a giant dog of 120 to 230 lb
• Bloodhound: 9 to 10 years, a giant dog of 80 to 110 lb
• Affenpinscher: 9 to 10 years, a toy dog of 7 to 10 lb
• Irish Wolfhound: 9 to 11 years, a giant dog of 105 to 120 lb

The longest-lived group is mostly small and medium dogs with ordinary proportions: working herders, terriers, a spitz. The shortest-lived is mostly giants, plus the French Bulldog, which at 9 to 11 years lives like a dog four times its size. The Pug (11 to 13) also sits below the small average. Flat faces bring airway, eye, skin and spine problems, and a 2024 study of over 584,000 UK dogs (McMillan and colleagues, Scientific Reports) found flat-faced breeds at a higher risk of a short life than long-nosed breeds of the same size. In that study the overall median lifespan was 12.5 years, small long-nosed breeds lived longest, and females outlived males by a few months.

What shortens or lengthens a dog's life, beyond breed

• Body weight. The strongest evidence of anything an owner controls. In a lifetime study of 48 Labrador Retrievers (Kealy and colleagues, 2002), dogs fed 25 percent less than their paired littermates stayed leaner and lived a median of 13.0 years against 11.2, and needed treatment for arthritis later. The dog calorie guide has the daily figure by weight.
• Growth rate in large puppies. Fast growth on too many calories or too much calcium is linked to hip and elbow disease. A large-breed growth food and the growth chart for the size keep it steady.
• Dental disease. Common in toy breeds, and a source of chronic pain and infection in old age. Daily brushing and periodic cleaning matter more for a Yorkie than for a Labrador.
• Preventive care. Vaccination, parasite control and, once a dog reaches its senior age in the chart above, checkups twice a year with bloodwork. Many conditions that end a dog's life early (kidney disease, heart murmurs, tumours) are found years earlier at a routine exam.
• Breed-specific screening. Each breed page lists the inherited conditions with a recognised link to that breed and the DNA or screening test that exists for each, from the MDR1 drug sensitivity in herding breeds to dilated cardiomyopathy in Dobermans.
• Mixed breeding. The evidence is mixed: some studies find crossbreeds living a few months longer, others find purebreds ahead. Avoiding extreme body shapes matters more than pedigree, and size still dominates: estimate a mixed dog from its adult weight with the size-class pages.

When does a dog become a senior?

The American Animal Hospital Association's canine life stage guidelines define the senior stage as the last 25 percent of a dog's estimated lifespan, rather than a fixed birthday. That is the "senior from" column above: about age 9 for a typical small dog, 9 for a large one and 7 for a giant. It is the point to switch from yearly to twice-yearly checkups, to watch weight more closely as activity drops, and to adjust calories: a senior or inactive dog needs roughly a fifth fewer calories than it did as a younger adult.