Skip's Dog Jake

One of my favorite post topics - Jake - is experiencing his 4th big birthday today.... well, 5th if you count the actual day he was born, but he has only been alive for 4 full years. Anyway, he is such a big dog now and his mom and I are pretty excited... after all, we treat him like he is a human child anyway. Oh well, our prerogative. He will probably get some treat or new toy or something special, because he is spoiled and his mom (who is wired for just this type of motherly instinct) makes sure to gush and fawn over him on his birthday... okay, so do I (and his birthday is just one of 365 other days he is gushed and fawned over!).

So a lot of people like to say that a dog's life is measured against human lives by a factor of seven dog years for every one human (or realtime) year. This logic would make Jake 28, the same age has his dear old dad. There are two reasons I hate this stupid tradition of marking a dog's life in this manner. First, he is a dog - an earthling - not an alien from another planet or universe where their years don't consist of a 360 degree gyration around the sun. He lives his life 24-hours-a-day in and 24-hours-a-day out just like a human or any other living organism on this planet, therefore he should be allowed to live out one year at a time, as opposed to seven.

The other reason I don't like it is quite obvious. This formula is simply a measure of a dog's relatively short life compared to a human's (approximately 7 years shorter, give or take, for all you math whizzes out there). What the hell kind of a system is that?!?! So by comparing a dog's life to ours we have to remember every year that he is equivalent to 7 times older than he was just one year ago, and just that much closer to the end of his life. It's a horrible system and people need to stop using it. When Jake is 10 (which will be a celebratory milestone in our household, rest assured) I don't want someone to tell me, "Oh boy, he is 70! What an old man! Teehee, yuck yuck..." Thanks for reminding me, asshole. NO! I don't want his life to be taken for granted at a rate 7 times faster than my own - that's bullshit. We cherish every single year around here.

So to summarize, Jake is 4 today, not 28, not 50, not 2. Happy 4th birthday, big man... we love you!