How can dogs bounce back from fairly major medical events in a way humans can't?

Are you applying the “dog years” multiplier?

Dogs are descended from wolves, who evolved to be tough enough to survive as a wolf. And they are small and have fast metabolisms.

I don’t need to apply “dog years.” I know roughly how old in literal years she is, and the average age of German Shepherds, which is 9 to 13 years. That is twice the life span of a wild wolf, which is 6 to 8 years. Most wolves don’t live long enough to develop geriatric illnesses like strokes and stuff. Dakota tore a meniscus 5 years ago that would have doomed her in the wild. She’s only experienced strokes in the last year and a half.

Humans would have benefited from recovering as quickly as dogs, especially since we lived 4 or more times longer, even before modern medicine, so why don’t we look for the gene in dogs that allows for it? Why would dogs have this evolutionary advantage and not us?

I meant, what if you also multiply the recovery time needed by the same factor?

i.e. if one roughly feels dogs progress towards end of life at 7 times the rate of humans, maybe they heal at about 7 times the same rate. So a day of recuperation might be like a week for a human. Roughly. Ruffly. Just a thought.

Wolves may live shorter life spans than domesticated dogs… but wolves live in the wild. Life expectancy for a wolf living in the wild is not so high. Also, wolf wound healing rate is probably pretty impressive, since wolves with such traits would tend to survive more than ones who, well, died from getting wounds they couldn’t recover from and/or were abandoned by the pack for having.

I don’t think there is really one factor that translates rates of age and healing from canine to human, but it might be guesstimatable. I do think wovles and dogs tend to have faster metabolisms and except for huge dogs, less mass to heal, and probably are more specialized for healing, and also it’s probably a bit hard to really tell since they’re animals and don’t talk about their condition as much as humans, and may try to seem healthier than they feel.

And it is an interesting one. Thanks for clarifying.

Good question. I think partly, this could be due to dogs just being less vocal about pain and less inhibited about what they do versus what they think they can do.

Hugs. I know how hard that is.

Little kids do that too. They bounce back where adults would still be moaning and groaning.

The darn dog is now acting like nothing happened! But I pretty much have her on bed rest. I bring her food and water to her so she doesn’t have to get up. She’s doing so well.
However she’s dehydrated. Pretty sure she won’t drink Pediylight (sp) so we’re getting cans of chicken broth and beef broth to encourage her to drink more water.

@Zaku I think that wolves that aren’t in the wild probably have about the same life span as a domesticated German Shepherd.