Long faces are more popular. It doesn’t refer to a character inclination, we know that facing life always handling it from the broken side doesn’t help longevity. The English study actually talks about tapered noses. And the noses are those of dogs. Bad news therefore for Bulldogs and for all those breeds that grunt laboriously through their barely noticeable “French” noses rather than breathe. The journal Scientific Reports has published the conclusions of the Dogs Trust scientists.
The team led by Kisten McMillan and Charlotte Newell examined data on more than 155 dog breeds, for a total of 584,734 specimens. Small dogs with long noses such as Whippets are associated with the highest life expectancy, while Molossians and medium-sized flat-faced dogs, such as Bulldogs, appear to be the least long-lived.
These are obviously general indications, each animal can make a story in itself, and moreover the authors of the research were keen to point out that these results are representative only with regards to pets in the United Kingdom and cannot be generalized to all breeds in the United Kingdom. world. The research team assembled a database using information from 18 different UK sources, such as registers, vets, insurance companies, charities and academic institutions. A huge job, set by precise parameters and methods.
For each individual, data relating to gender, date of birth and death, breed and size of the dogs were collected. Average life expectancy was calculated for all breeds individually, for mixed-breed groups, and for each combination of gender, size, and head shape. So, just to give a few examples: small breeds with elongated snouts have a higher average life expectancy, i.e. around 13.3 years. Dogs with flat faces and Molossoids, on the other hand, are the least long-lived, and live on average between 9.1 and 9.6 years in the case of male and female specimens respectively. Among the 12 most popular breeds, which represent more than 50 percent of all varieties in the database, Labradors live an average of 13.1 years, Jack Russell Terriers 13.3 years and Cavalier King Charles Spaniels 11.8 years. «Pure» breeds have a higher average life expectancy than mixed breeds, with a difference of 0.7 years more for the first category.
Now, it is clear that if the reader shares his life with a Pug, a French Bulldog or a medium-sized fancy breed, he is required to take the information collected here with the benefit of inventory. But above all he is fully entitled to think that his dog is the exception that proves the rule. As interesting as they are, certain data are anxiety-provoking for anyone who is not lucky enough to have fallen in love with a long-nosed dog. And we know that (often) you can’t choose who you fall in love with. It applies to people and it applies even more to dogs because they are the true bearers of love at first sight. Most of the stories we have heard about it tell of certain looks from which neither of the two (dog and human) has ever managed to escape. We get to know each other with people, we recognize each other with dogs.