My dog is getting old. She is around 12 and definitely slowing down, despite our best efforts. Oh, she is healthy and happy enough, and will probably live for several more years unless something unexpected happens to her. But it got me wondering…why can’t we bread dogs (and cats) to have extended lifespans? Human lifespans haven’t really changed, but life expectancy has certainly gone up almost across the board world wide. And increasingly we have people living to 100+…and most likely that trend will continue. In addition, at least from what I’ve read and heard about, scientists and geneticists have been able to double or even triple the life spans of other mammals such as mice and rats. Supposedly, at least in theory, those techniques might eventually be used on humans and our own lifespans perhaps increased. Ok, so that’s speculation, but the mice/rat thing is real enough, at least I think it is (a quick Google search shows many hits anyway, though I haven’t tracked them down to see where they lead), and while testing such things on humans, especially human embryos, it’s hard to believe no one is doing such testing on dogs and cats and other domestic animals. So, in the decade or so we’ve been working on this stuff why has no one come out with a way to allow us to extend the livespans of our four footed friends? Is there some fundamental reason we can’t do it, or just don’t have the skills or techniques yet? Or something else? Can’t be the price, since I’ve seen people fork over truly astonishing amounts of money either to buy or to provide health services to their pets (heck, I’ve spent a thousand on my own dog when she needed surgery after being hit by an asshole driving to fast in my neighborhood). So, what’s the GQ reason?
all living things are “programmed” to die at some point. because if nothing on this planet ever died, it would have become inhabitably overcrowded a hell of a long time ago.
Not necessarily, I get the impression we are designed to stay alive long enough to create autonomous children, after that our self repair mechanisms fail as there is no selective pressure to keep organisms alive past that point. So mice die of old age at 3, dogs/cats die of old age at 15, horses at 30 and humans at 80. Animals like lobsters, turtles and some others can live to 200+ and still be healthy, lobsters could possibly live forever if protected from trauma and predators.
As for the GQ reason, I don’t know. Is there a market for untested medical interventions for people’s pets to extend lifespan? I’d assume humans would get it first, then dogs (not the other way around).
There is a market for cloning your dead pets.
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As for the GQ reason, I don’t know. Is there a market for untested medical interventions for people’s pets to extend lifespan? I’d assume humans would get it first, then dogs (not the other way around).
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My assumption is that human testing of any sort of gene therapy or whatever would be dicey, with lots of folks nervous or opposed (for religious reasons, to name one) to embryo research, and that it would be easier to test such things on dogs or cats (or dog or cat embryos). As for a market, I’m pretty sure that most pet owners would jump at the chance to buy a dog or cat that would live, say, 30 or 40 years in good shape…it would make the inevitable heart break something that could be put off, and would bring us even closer to our pets over that sort of extended lifespan. So, my WAG is that, yeah, there would be a market for it at any reasonable price (say, less than $10k for a dog or cat with a double lifespan).
if that’s the case, then biologically humans don’t really need to live much past age 30.
Well, yeah…but so what? We have already been tinkering with this and have been able to do it with other species that are ‘programmed’ to die. My question is why haven’t we done it with dogs and cats.
Two factors:
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Breeding for longevity is harder than for other features because there are many reasons why organisms eventually perish. You’re essentially trying to select many genes at the same time, and that takes many generations to accomplish. And of course the closer you get to your goal, the longer wait you have each generation.
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Historically we didn’t do this kind of breeding because we didn’t need / want to.
10-15 years lifespan was perfect; enough time for a dog to be trained and useful for some years, but short enough that you could breed them for particular features. If any age-related breeding has happened it has been to make them keep puppy-like features for longer.
Alas, evolution doesn’t have that kind of foresight.
There is a strong selective pressure to live long enough to at least breed one generation, and raise that offspring to adulthood (for those species where parents have that responsibility).
It’s interesting, in a game theory kind of way, but for most species living just long enough to accomplish the above and having a fast turnover of generations seems to work better than individuals all trying to live longer and therefore reproduce more. I’d be interested to see a full analysis of how this plays out.
We already have doubled the lifespans of cats and dogs–just by domesticating them. After that milestone, there has been little interest in stretching it further. What would be the ROI?
How long do you think dogs or cats live in the wild, on average?
Hint: It’s a LOT less than our pets typically live.
We HAVE extended their lives by providing adequate food and nutrition, safe shelter, protection from larger predators, and medical care.
We can. To bread a dog, first you cut it into thin strips, roll them in an egg mixture, then flour. Bake or deep-fry to a golden brown. They’ll keep for a while in plastic bags in the fridge.
That’s the thing: human life expectancy has gone up, mostly due to control of infectious diseases and other health advances, but maximum life span hasn’t changed that much. People occasionally lived to 100+ thousands of years ago. And increasingly we have people living to 100+…and most likely that trend will continue.
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In addition, at least from what I’ve read and heard about, scientists and geneticists have been able to double or even triple the life spans of other mammals such as mice and rats.
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Such studies are discussed here.It doesn’t look like the technique may necessarily be extendable to other species.
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But it got me wondering…why can’t we bread dogs (and cats) to have extended lifespans?
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It’s more difficult to breed for extended life span because whether or not an animal will have a long birth isn’t evident at birth. You only know it’s long-lived after the fact. And old animals will often be less fertile than young ones.
This.
I’ver been an owner of pets that died way too early and known pet owners who’s animals died way too early and find and give comfort in that most likely, the animal lived a much longer and happier life than they would have out in the wild.
presumably in the future once we make more progress on anti-aging tech in humans (I mean keeping the body healthy and active longer, not just extending our senescence) then the demand will be there from rich pet owners to do the research on extending the lives of their beloved companions.
How many people actually have the expertise to do meaningful life-extension research? Maybe there aren’t enough to spare on pet projects (heh).
You, for one.
In addition to increasing lifespan by just removing animals from the wild, we appear to also have been increasing pet lifespans in general too.
Blog | The latest in food and animal safety | Neogen The study mentions a 4% increase (half a year) in lifespan for dogs since 2002. This is definitely not the 50% increase that we’ve seen in humans over the past hundred years, but it is a pretty good start considering how much less money is put into the goal.
Life in dog years: Many pets living longer is another interesting article. It particularly mentions some owners that believe they are breeding towards longevity.
Probably somewhere in the 50s or early 60s if you’re talking hunter-gatherers, which is still a long time (20 years or so) past their reproductive years.
My guess is that there was some advantage to families with grandparents around, so children of long-lived people reproduced more effectively, and presumably conveyed those longevity genes to their offspring, who also thrived due to their parents’ longevity.
What’s happening now is that through public sanitation, safety and modern medicine, we’re knocking out a lot of the things which might whack people before they died of “old age”, such as nutrition, communicable diseases, accidents, infections, injury, etc… which is a lot of why we live past 60 on average these days.
Same thing with humans, really. Separating the sewers from the drinking water has arguably done more to increase life expectancy than anything medicine has done. That, plus ensuring access to food, enables most people to live reasonably long lives. You make big gains early on, and then spend a lot of effort trying to eek out a little bit more.
And in fact we appear to see that same trend in pets. According to this 2013 survey the average lifespan of cats improved by a year between 2002 and 2013, the average dog by half a year in the same span.
Yes, as others have said, we have already extended life spans in cats and dogs due to access to better nutrition and healthcare. I have a childhood book (written when FeLV was much more common) that stated cats were expected to live 8-10 years, and so did dogs. Now, it is not uncommon for cats to outlive those 8-10 years. And while many bigger dogs are still considered “old” when they reach 10 years, they can still live a few years more. And smaller breeds of dogs can last much longer than larger dog breeds.