‘Sup, Dawg?

rchie will turn 14 next month. It’s a wonderful achievement for him, and a blessing for us, especially considering all his health issues over the years that vets have told us would shorten his life. He’s got some kind of heart anomaly, liver problems, bile duct “sludge”, heat intolerance, and poor defenses against water-borne infections (bad luck for a pup who loved to swim in the Bay!).

And now he’s developing the standard old-man issues: he can’t see or hear as good as he used to, he’s going bald (especially the end of his tail), and one eye is starting to droop. He is getting less able to handle cold as well as heat, and much more interested in short walks as opposed to long walks, and short games of fetch-the-ball as opposed to long ones. And he’s developing a little of an old man’s crotchety-ness, though he started out so sweet that he’s still better natured than his canine neighbors (or, truth be told, his human housemates sometimes).

I attribute Archie’s vigorous Third Age to his dinner regimen. His supper every night consists of the same three things:

(1) Some ridiculously expensive veterinary “Hepatic” diet especially designed for dogs who can’t keep their liver bloodwork values down where they should be;

(2) A big bowl of green beans, preferably french-cut, cooked to softness; and 

(3) Just a little bit of everything else in the world that comes through our house, considered edible or not. Except chocolate or raisins, ‘cause they’re poison.

I can’t think right now of anything Archie isn’t willing to eat. He used to turn up his wet nose at celery, but in the last couple of years he’s acquired a taste for it, and now it’s his second-favorite snack (tied for second place with almost every other food in the world).

His first favorite snack is broccoli, which he loves boiled, steamed, grilled, nuked, puréed, deep-fried (I’m sure, tho’ we’ve never tried) or raw. His favorite beverage is water used to boil broccoli. I’m pretty sure I could tempt Archie away from a steak that has fallen on the floor with the promise of a broccoli floret. One time we needed to train him to go up and down some stairs, and the only effective incentive we could find was to give him a bit of the broc every time he took another step.

Archie is also quite partial to other broccoli-like vegetables, which is not surprising since they are all really the same species of plant, Brassica oleracea, that has been bred into different shapes and sizes over the centuries. These veggies are all “cultivars” of the same plant as broccoli: cauliflower, kale, collard greens, regular cabbage, Savoy cabbage (but not Napa cabbage), brussels sprouts, kohlrabi, and broccolini (but not Broccoli Rabe, which is the same plant as Napa cabbage).

Once we had a friend over for supper who was allergic to “nightshade vegetables”. I had to look up what vegetables were in the nightshade family (the Solanacaea family, taxonomically speaking), and found to my dismay it included almost every plant we had envisioned as part of the supper menu: all kinds of potatoes (but not sweet potatoes), tomatoes, eggplants, and all kinds of peppers (but not black pepper).

Fortunately, we had a few representatives from the Brassica clan in the fridge and were able to redesign the dinner. But who knew that so many of the wide variety of veggies we eat come from so few families? You biologists probably knew that, but I didn’t.

I’m sure Archie doesn’t know or care how closely related tomatoes are to potatoes, or kohlrabi is to kale, as long as he gets a sample of each and every one of them now and then. His enthusiasm for everything he can sink his teeth into, from stinky old crab parts on the beach to the scientific rice-based “hepatic” brown nuggets that make up most of his meal, keep him happy and young, I think. I hope I’m in as good a shape when I’m his equivalent age.

What is his equivalent age, exactly? Following the folk wisdom states that one year in a dog’s life ages him as much as people age in seven years, Archie will be like 98 in March. But according to the American Kennel Club, that old rule of thumb is wrong. Different breeds and different dogs age differently, but they a better effective age for old dogs can be given by the formula:

By the above new-and-improved formula, this March Archie will be the equivalent of 84 years old. The article goes on, though, to provide an even more better formula (and by better, I mean more sciencey and complicated), developed at the University of California San Diego:

UC San Diego developed this formula by studying the “epigenetic clocks”, the systematic altering of DNA by addition of methyl groups, that occurs in the aging process of both humans and dogs. By this formula, next month Archie will be only the equivalent of 73 years old! I like this formula best by far, and from now on I’ll only use this one, to keep Archie young and sprightly!

Thanks,
Dorn
2/6/2020