“The most fascinating observation was that if a Havanese survives beyond their 9th or 10th birthday, they are likely to live a lot longer than just 13 years. Their average lifespan would then rise to over 15 years.”
at the bottom of the survey tab; it takes just a fewminutes to fill out and return, and is open to HCA members and non-members. This article has been approved by the Board of Directors of the Havanese Club of America. ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Dr. Rafe H. Schindler is a professor of Physics and As t rophys ic s at Stanford
average age of 13. This is described by statisticians as a “bi-modal lifetime distribution” and has been observed in some other canine breeds as well. Since there was a rise in deaths at a certain age; we would expect to see a dip in the number of living dogs at that age as well. Indeed, we also observed a small dip in the age distribution of liv- ing dogs at about that same age. These two observations independently sup- port the conclusion that there are one or more health issues that appears around nine to ten years of age ef- fecting a small percentage of males and females. You can find the full text of the 2017 Longevity Survey report on the Health Committee page of the Ha- vanese Club of America website: https://havanese.org/health . In 2018, in response to the findings of the Longevity Survey, the HCA Board approved a follow up survey (designated the “2018-2019 Rainbow Bridge Survey”) to try to uncover the major causes of natural death, as a function of age, sex and lifestyle with- in the entire Havanese population. This information will not only help us learn more about our breed but will also give us a much clearer direction for investment in future research. The Health Committee is currently collecting data for this new survey and anticipates releasing the first re- sults at the end of 2019. The Rainbow Bridge Survey is available on theHCA website https://havanese.org/health
collected for only threemonths and in the end included 512 Havanese. Hoping for a large response, the sur- vey did not ask how or why their dogs died—just how old their dogs were now, andatwhat ageothers hadpassed away of natural causes. The goal was to answer the question of longevity in a largely unbiased fashion. The survey documented living Ha- vanese as old as 18+ years. When males and females were combined— the average age at death was just over 13 years, with an uncertainty of about 0.5 years. It didn’t matter if the dog was a male or a female—the average lifespan was consistent with being the same. The most fascinating observa- tion was that if a Havanese survives beyond their 9th or 10th birthday, they are likely to live a lot longer than just 13 years. Their average lifespan would then rise to over 15 years. In- deed, those making it to an age of greater than ten years meant they had a good chance of surviving far out to an age of 16, 17, or 18 years. Some of the real “old-timers” in the breed have commented that this was a long observed—but hitherto unsubstanti- ated—characteristic of the breed. A second important observation from the survey was the existence of a dis- tinct group of Havanese (making up about 20% of the population) which only lived to about nine to ten years of age. Thiswas seen as a small peak in the distribution of the age at death, ly- ing below the much larger peak at the
University. He is a member of the HCA
Board of Directors and is chair of club’s Health Committee. Rafe is an HCA Breeder of Distinction having shown and bred Havanese for more than 12 years.
Sara Dellorto is a retired CPA currently working with a Pathology group in Lake- land, Florida. She.has been an active mem-
ber of the Health Committee since 2014. Sara has shown and bred Ha- vanese for over seven years and Great Danes for almost 30 years.
T op N otch T oys , O ctober 2019 • 63
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