What is the deal with “dog years”? I have been puzzled by this since the first time someone told me; “Dogs have seven birthdays for every human year.” That’s just weird. Dogs don’t celebrate birthdays. If they did they would have one every 52 days or so. You know; that would be awesome. If you think about it, birthday parties are so much fun. Cake, party hats, presents. All our friends would come with their dogs as if our dogs were friends. I think I will start sending out invitations to my dog’s birthdays this week. But if I do should I have a belated birthday party for the one I missed two weeks ago? I’ll need to plan these things out.
Do people with cats have cat birthdays?
Hold on.
OK, I just checked the web and found that there is a lot of contention about this whole animal year’s thing. Dog years to human years are progressively reducing in number as the dog gets older. Like the dog turns 15 in his first human year, and 24 in the next human year. But they only age 4 dog years to every human year after their 24th dog birthday. Cats are about the same.
Horses have some weird declining conversion that basically suggests that a horses age will freeze when its 16 human years.
All of this is pretty bizarre to me. I grew up on a horse farm –we never worried about animals birthdays after they were born. I think that we should just celebrate life every day. We should all have random parties throughout the year after age 16. We should have premade cakes and cards that say “Happy Life!”
We could sing “Happy life to you, were very glad you’re here, it’s been great having you around so far this year.” or something like that. I find that celebrating any birthday is really just that, a celebration of life. We celebrate the fact that everyone is here to enjoy the cake, to provide cards and well wishes. The presents are just an added benefit.
For me my birthday has had little impact on the many lives I have lived so far. I had an awesome but rough life as a small child. With multiple surgeries, several cases of pneumonia, chicken pocks, ear aches and so forth –very little of which I can remember. Mom says I was a very happy child. I had a great life as a school aged kid –I won lots of art contests, learned to swim, paddle a canoe, and developed a love for the outdoors and a pension for reading and learning that still benefits me today. I was very blessed in my life as a teen ager in that I lived through these years to become a stronger, more independent, wiser and more cautious person. College life was, well let’s just say all my experiments, experiences, expansions of thought and relationships made me who I am today and put me in contact with my wife and best friend. Then there’s my life as a husband, father, artist, professional and so forth…
People have just about as many birthdays as dogs we just fail to celebrate these pivotal times of our year. We really should just celebrate life. Apparently dogs do.