What's That in Dog Years?

I have a friend who owned an English mastiff named Max who almost made it into the Guinness Book of World Records. Unfortunately, the 300-pound dog died before he could be verified as the biggest dog in the world.

Max was so big, in fact, that when he was diagnosed with cancer, my friend had to drive him to Auburn University’s equine veterinary center for his radiation treatments. Max was too big for the canine machines.

My friend was proud of her almost-world record holder. I wasn't so impressed, though. I have three potential record holders.

Dachshunds, apparently, live longer than any other breed. The oldest dog in the world last year, for example, was a 21-year-old dachshund named Chanel. Then there's Otto, a 21-year-old dachshund in England, was listed as the world's oldest dog this past October by The Guinness Book of Records.

My former in-laws had a dachshund named Brandy, an outside dog with an addiction to heavily chlorinated pool water. She was well into her twenties when she died.

I think dachshunds could save the federal government a gazillion dollars every year on geriatric research and longevity studies. Hell, if you want to live a long time, just act like a dachshund.

Dachshunds pace themselves. They laze about all day long, preferably in a nice sunny spot. But those siestas are broken up with 30-40 barking windsprints every day. Barking windsprints are not scheduled exercise to be obsessed about, either. They are spontaneous expenditures of energy precipitated by the appearance UPS guys, squirrels, or garbage trucks. The dachshund exercise prescription for humans: sleep 20-22 hours every day, and run like hell yelling wildly at your children the other 2-4 hours.

Secondly, those crazy dogs might possibly have the most highly developed immune systems of any species on the planet. Copperhead bites, for instance, can kill us humans. But dachshunds react to a poisonous snake bite by blowing up like Rosie O'Donnell at a Ho-Ho buffett. They're back to normal and ready to harass mail carriers by the next business day. The reason their stellar immune response works so well is because it’s tested and fine tuned daily. I caught one of my dogs rubbing her face on a mouse corpse this morning. She was building antibodies to combat the bubonic plague, I suppose.

Finally, dachshund personalities are a fine mixture of not giving a rat’s ass combined with enough self-confidence to propel them, as Buzz Lightyear would say, “To infinity and beyond.” In other words, they don’t give a shit what you think about them, and they’re going to do what makes them and only them happy. We should all live that way.

It's not like I need any of their life-lengthening tips, though. Upon the advice of a financial planner, I took the quiz on the website livingto100.com, which asks a multitude of questions and then predicts how long you'll live, barring Darwin Awards winners or unfortunate situations like being on an airplane with a crotch bomber.

The first time I took the quiz, three years ago, the result was that I’m going to live to 97. My kids went white when I told them. I said it while taking my daily dose of vitamins, and Hunter actually said to me, “Mom, back away from the antioxidants.” So I decided it would be okay to ratchet my healthy lifestyle down just a hair. I quit drinking pool water and replaced it with more alcohol. I now brazenly neglect to wear sunscreen on overcast days. After throwing caution to the wind, I took the quiz again last night, and now it seems I’m going to live to 99.

Maybe I’ll outlive my dachshunds.