Life expectancy usually varies within a range. For example, a
Beagle (average life expectancy 13.3 years) usually lives to around 12–15 years, and a Scottish Terrier (average life expectancy 12 years) usually lives to around 10–16 years. The longest living verified dog is
Bluey, an Australian Cattle Dog who died at 29 years.
Bobi, a male purebred
Rafeiro do Alentejo, was claimed to have died at age 31 in 2023. Two of the longest living dogs on record, "
Bluey" and "Chilla", were
Australian Cattle Dogs. This has prompted a study of the longevity of the Australian Cattle Dog to examine if the breed might have exceptional longevity. The 100-dog survey yielded a mean longevity of 13.41 years with a
standard deviation of 2.36 years. The study concluded that while Australian Cattle Dogs are a healthy breed and do live on average almost a year longer than most dogs of other breeds in the same weight class, record ages such as Bluey's or Chilla's should be regarded as uncharacteristic exceptions rather than as indicators of common exceptional longevity for the entire breed. have been made to determine the causes for breed variation in life expectancy.
Sorted by breed or life expectancy The following data is from a 2024 study published in
Scientific Reports. The total sample size for his study was about 584,734 unique dogs located in the UK, of which 284,734 were deceased.
Factors affecting life expectancy Apart from breed, several factors influence life expectancy: • Frequency of feeding — Researchers associated with the
Dog Aging Project report that dogs that are fed just once daily are healthier on average than dogs fed more frequently. Dogs that received one meal per day had fewer disorders of their dental, gastrointestinal, musculoskeletal, kidney, and urinary systems. •
Diet — There are some disagreements regarding the ideal diet. Commonly, senior dogs are fed commercially manufactured
senior dog food diets. However, at least two dogs died at 27 years old with non-traditional diets: a Border Collie who was fed a purely vegetarian diet, and a bull terrier cross fed primarily
kangaroo and
emu meat. They died only 2 years and 5 months younger than the second oldest reported dog, Bluey. •
Spaying and neutering — According to a study by the British Veterinary Association (author AR Michell is the president of the
Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons), "Neutered females lived longest of dogs dying of all causes, though entire females lived longest of dogs dying of
natural causes, with neutered
males having the shortest lifespan in each category." Neutering reduces or eliminates the risk of some causes of early death, for example
pyometra in females, and
testicular cancer in males, as well as indirect causes of early death such as accident and euthanasia (intact dogs roam and tend to be more aggressive), but there might increase the risk of death from other conditions (neutering in cited paper only showed an increase in the risk for prostate cancer but has not been repeated in subsequent papers) in males, and neutered males might have a higher rate for urinary tract cancers such as transitional cell carcinoma and prostatic adenocarcinoma. Caution should be used when interpreting the results of these studies. This is especially important when you consider the frequency of transitional cell carcinoma and prostate carcinoma in a
male dog versus the chance an intact male dog will succumb to death from roaming (hit by car or other injuries), benign hyperplasia of the prostate causing prostatic abscesses or inability to urinate (causing euthanasia if this does not resolve with therapy) or euthanasia due to fighting or aggression. :Another study showed that spayed females live longer than intact females (0.8 years more on average) but, unlike the previous study, there were no differences between neutered and intact males. However, both groups lived 0.4 years more than intact females. For more information, see
Health effects of neutering. A major study of dog longevity, which considered both natural and other factors affecting life expectancy, concluded that: :"The mean age at death (all breeds, all causes) was 11 years and 1 month, but in dogs dying of natural causes it was 12 years and 8 months. Only 8 percent of dogs lived beyond 15, and 64 percent of dogs died of disease or were euthanized as a result of disease. Nearly 16 percent of deaths were attributed to cancer, twice as many as to heart disease. [...] In neutered males the importance of cancer as a cause of death was similar to heart disease. [...] The results also include breed differences in lifespan, susceptibility to cancer, road accidents and behavioral problems as a cause of euthanasia." ==Effects of aging==