Breed Weight and Lifespan

Last edited 02/01/2008

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How long do most breeds live?

Longevity varies greatly among breeds.

Breed Longevities (not split by weight classes)

[Longevity for each breed is the weighted average (weighted by sample size) of the longevities from all available questionnaire surveys, and using only breeds for which the total sample size was greater than 20. See Breed Data page for details.]

More than 50% of breeds have longevities between 10 and 13 years, and nearly 50% between 11 and 13 years. There is a second, minor peak in breed longevities between 6 and 7 years. This group of short-lived breeds lives only about half as long as the majority of breeds.

Do small dogs live longer than large dogs?

Yes and no. In the breed longevity chart below, breeds are grouped into weight categories.

Most of the longest-lived breeds are small. Most of the short-lived breeds are large.

However, not all small breeds are long-lived. Many small breeds have median longevities between 9 and 11 years.

By the same token, while most large breeds have median longevities of less than 8 years, many breeds in the 80+ pound groups have median longevities between 9 and 12 years.

Note also that a few of the shortest-lived breeds (Miniature Bull Terrier, Bulldog, and Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever) are medium-sized dogs.

Appendix: Longevities and weight classes of breeds used to create the charts

This table shows how I distributed breeds into weight categories. (The data in the table are split into more weight groups than the weight and longevity chart.) Breed names are abbreviated to keep the table a reasonable size.

Note that these data are the questionnaire averages, weighted by sample size. For some breeds, longevity was considerably different between countries. Manchester Terriers are one of the most striking examples. They had a survey longevity of 12.8 yr in the UK (based on a survey with a small sample size of 32), but only 8.3 yr in the USA/Canada survey (based on a survey with a larger sample size of 110), giving a weighted average longevity of 9.3 yr (closer to the USA/Canada longevity because of the weighting by sample size).

	5-6 yr	6-7 yr	7-8 yr	8-9 yr	9-10 yr	10-11 yr	11-12 yr	12-13 yr	13-14 yr	14-15 yr	Total
< 10 lb					Jap Chin Pom		Affenpin Lanc Heel	Maltese Yorky	Papillon	Toy Pood	8
10-20 lb					Man Ter	Eng T Sp Ital Grey Norf Ter	Aus Ter CKC Sp Ger Spitz Min Schn Pekingese Pug	Bichon Fr Brus Grif WHWTer	Cairn Ter Fox Ter Lha Apso Norw Ter Russ Ter Schip Shih Tzu	Bord Ter Min Dach Min Pood Tib Span	24
20-30 lb		Min BTer			Fr Bull Wh Dach	A Cocker Bost Ter Scot Ter	Fin Spitz Skye Ter Sh Dach	DD Ter PW Corgi Sheltie Tib Ter Whippet	Basenji Bedl Ter		16
30-40 lb					K Blu Ter		E Cocker S Munster	Beagle Brittany CW Corgi Keeshond Whea Ter Staf BTer			9
40-50 lb		Bulldog NSD Toll			Field Spa	Pol Shep	Ssx Span	PBGV Bord Coll E Spring Saluki Sib Husk W Spring			11
50-60 lb					Chow Ir Wat Sp	Bel Terv Bull Ter Ger WhP	Af Hound Aire Ter Dalm Ger ShP Gor Setter Stan Pood	Aust Shep Bea Coll Samoyed Bel Sheps			15
60-70 lb				Boxer	Chessie FC Ret Greyh	G Schn	Basset H En Setter Ger Pinsc IRW Sett Ir Setter L Munst	Eng Point Gold Ret Lab Ret R. Collie			15
70-80 lb					Ital Spin	Cl Span Doberm Weim					4
80-100 lb	D Bordx		Bern Mtn	Sc Deer	Borzoi	Akita Bouvier Cur Ret Otterh	Briard OE Shep				10
100-120 lb		Bloodh Ir Wolfh GSw Mtn Leonberger	Bullmast		Ger Shep Rottweil	Ana Shep					8
> 120 lb		Gr Dane Mastiff	St. Bern		Newfndl						4
Total	1	9	3	2	17	19	28	30	10	5	124
Percent of 122 breeds	<1%	7%	2%	2%	14%	15%	23%	24%	8%	4%

Edit History

Aug 3, 2007. Major edit. Rewrote text, reformatted charts, added a chart, corrected some errors

Aug 5, 2007. Added Belgian Tervuren from USA single breed study. Kept UK KC Belgian Shepherds (all 4 varieties combined) as a "separate" breed.

Oct 27, 2007. Minor. Some rewording. Fixing of typos and grammatical errors.

Feb 1, 2008. Moved Boxer from 10-11 year class to 8-9 year class because of the addition of the German Boxer longevity studies.

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