Ever wonder why your dog is so happy to see you when you get home?

Have you ever wondered why your dog is always so very happy to see you when you come home? Assuming you work 8 am to 5 pm, it may be because you have been gone for 56 hours in their timeframe!

Assuming the idea that one human year is seven dog years, every hour to us works out to 7 hours for a dog.

Here’s my math…

There’s 8,765.81277 hours in a year
168 hours in a week
And 1 year = 52.177457 weeks

So a dog year would be 7 * 8,765.81277 hours a year = 61,360.68939 hours to a dog
61,360.68939 dog hours / 24 hours = 2,556.69539125 dog days a year
2,556.69539125 dog days a year / 365 = 7.004644907534247

1 day for us, 24 hours of human time, is 7 days in dog time.

Breaking that down a little more, 24 hours human time = 168 hours dog time (7 * 24)

So 168 / 24 = 7 dog hours for every human hour.

Going backwards…

7 hours * 24 = 168 dog hours a day

168 dog hours a day * 365 days in a year = 61,320 dog hours a year

61,320 dog hours a year / 8,765.81277 hours in a human year as comparison = 6.99 dog years for every human year (rounded)

Yikes.

The whole seven years to every human year is really a guideline more than a rule, and the lifespan of dogs vary greatly from breed to breed, but regardless I think I’ll take my dogs out to run and play catch a little more this week.

15 thoughts on “Ever wonder why your dog is so happy to see you when you get home?

  1. This was very helpful. Ive been going through some things and recently got a rescue puppy who was born about July. And its now october. But I’m gone for about 8-10 hours a day but have my mom check on her. And i always wondered how long ive been gone to her. Finding out that 1 hour to us is about 7 hours was exactky what I was thinking. I sort of remembered how to do the conversion but I felt I did something wrong Lol. Anyway. Thank you very much.

  2. This is b******* dogs do not age in 7 years compared to one human year that is not how all dogs age

  3. Dog years are not an actual timeframe… this isn’t true at all. Of course 1 day for us isn’t 7 days in ‘dog time’.

  4. Pingback: How to Accurately Know How Long Is an Hour in Dog Time

  5. I’ve always heard that about the 1 human years equal seven 7 years to a dogs em…. Things we hear and believe.

  6. I was always confused why my dog of three years was so excited to see me come from school everyday since I was only gone for a couple hours. Now I know!

  7. Wouldn’t time go by faster for a dog, if 1 human year is 7 dog years. Therefore they live life 7 seven times faster. So if you are at work from 8-5, it would be 1.28 hours in a dogs perspective?

    • I think what OP is trying to say here is that dogs perceive time in a way that would equalize it with a human’s perception of time, thus making the dog believe it has lived the same amount of time as a human. So OP is hypothesizing that time is stretched out dramatically for them, like how a housefly might perceive everything in extreme slow motion. Maybe that’s why they’re so good at dodging our swats.

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