Longitudinal research on dog cognitive aging is revealing risk factors and protective factors for cognitive dysfunction, enabling evidence-based recommendations that support healthy brain aging.
Longitudinal cognitive aging research in dogs is beginning to provide the evidence base for welfare-protective recommendations that can genuinely extend the period of cognitive health across a dog lifetime. This represents a welfare advance beyond reactive management of established cognitive dysfunction toward proactive promotion of healthy aging trajectories. The emerging evidence points to familiar lifestyle factors — exercise, social engagement, dietary quality — as having genuine protective effects. The Dog Aging Project is the most ambitious longitudinal study of dog aging ever undertaken, and its data will continue to inform evidence-based aging welfare recommendations for years. Individual dog welfare is served by applying existing evidence now while remaining open to updating recommendations as longitudinal data matures.