Abstract
Humans, as well as their closest ancestors, the higher African primates, exhibit female-biased survival and multiple sex differences in causes of death. However, the effects of sex on aging and longevity in an excellent model of human health, the companion dog, have not been well explored. Using two large independent databases on companion dog longevity and causes of death, we performed the most extensive analysis of sex differences in dog aging to date. Unlike the findings in humans, we observed only a small effect of sex on canine longevity. When broken down by neutering status, we discovered a small male advantage in survival among intact dogs but a clear female survival advantage among neutered dogs. Overall, the effect of neutering on life span was greater than the effect of sex. However, we found few sex differences in causes of death in either intact or neutered dogs. The results of this study suggest limited sex effects on either longevity or causes of death in the companion dog. Our analysis suggests that the majority of apparent sex differences in the wider canine populations may be due to the effects of neutering.
Highlights
Women live longer than men in all human populations for which reliable demographic data are available [1]
Ignoring neutering status, females overall were longer lived than males in both the VMBD and VetCompass datasets by about half a year (Figure 1; P
Females were much more likely than males to be neutered in both data sets (VMDB: 71% females neutered versus 42% of males; VetCompass: 58% of females neutered versus 47% of males, P
Summary
Women live longer than men in all human populations for which reliable demographic data are available [1]. Females live longer than males in diverse nonprimate mammalian species including pilot whales, red deer, African lions, pipistrelle bats, and prairie dogs [1, 4] It has become an accepted general rule that female mammals are longer-lived than males with a few unusual exceptions such as in socially monogamous species, e.g. the meerkat [4, 5]. In one well-studied case, nearly 500 banner-tailed kangaroo rats of each sex were followed for 7 years without observing any appreciable sex difference in longevity [6] In other species, such as Brandt’s bat or caribou, without notably unusual mammalian mating systems, males appear to live longer than females [4, 7]. There may be no safe generalization we can make about which sex is likely to live longer among mammals and each species may need to evaluated on its own data
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