The Science
The same kind of biological-age testing that's reshaped human longevity research — adapted, peer-reviewed, and built for the dog who already feels like family.
What we're actually measuring
Every cell in your dog's body carries chemical tags — small methyl groups — attached to specific positions on their DNA. The pattern of those tags drifts predictably across a lifetime. By reading thousands of these positions and comparing them to a curated reference set, we can estimate how old your dog's biology actuallyis, distinct from the number of birthdays they've had.
Two dogs born on the same day can sit a full two years apart biologically. That gap is the signal we're built around.
In a sentence
We read the chemical marks on your dog's DNA that change predictably with age, then translate that pattern into a personalized wellness baseline.
Where this comes from
The idea that DNA methylation can serve as a biological clock began with Steve Horvath's landmark 2013 paper on humans. The first epigenetic aging clock specifically for dogs followed in 2017, published in Aging by Thompson, vonHoldt, Horvath, and Pellegrini at UCLA. It identified a 41-CpG signature in canine blood that predicts age with a median error of roughly 0.8 years.
That work has since broadened dramatically. The Mammalian Methylation Consortium — a multi-lab effort including the Pellegrini lab — has now characterized methylation patterns across 185 mammalian species from more than 11,000 tissue samples. The resulting universal clock estimates age with a cross-species correlation above 0.96, and the CpG sites it relies on cluster around developmental genes controlled by Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 (PRC2).
In other words: the same mechanism running an epigenetic clock in your dog is the one running it in you. We're standing on a body of literature that's now decades deep.
What each test reads
Cells slough naturally into saliva. A two-minute swab gives our lab partner enough DNA to run every assay below.
Age Test
A targeted methylation read on the CpG sites most correlated with canine biological age. The model returns a biological-age estimate, an aging-rate ratio (how fast their cells are accumulating age signal relative to peers), and a life-stage band calibrated to size and breed.
Breed Test
A panel of 55 wellness-relevant genetic variants — the ones that influence things like joint resilience, weight regulation, coat and skin tendencies, drug metabolism category, and dietary sensitivities. Plus breed composition for context.
Oral Test
16S rRNA sequencing of the bacterial community in your dog's mouth — a window into oral inflammation that's increasingly tied to whole-body wellness, including cardiac and renal outcomes in canine longevity literature.
Lab methodology
Cheek swab
Cells from the inner cheek are stable at room temperature and capture the same methylation patterns as blood for the CpG sites our clock relies on.
Bisulfite conversion + sequencing
DNA is treated with sodium bisulfite, which converts unmethylated cytosines to uracil while leaving methylated cytosines intact. Targeted sequencing reads the methylation state at thousands of age-informative sites.
Clock prediction
Methylation values are fed into an elastic-net regression model trained on thousands of canine samples. The output is a biological age estimate with a tight confidence interval.
Sample destroyed
Once analysis is complete, the physical sample is destroyed. Sequencing happens at a research-grade U.S. laboratory partner under a strict data-handling agreement; the lab data we receive back is stored in our PIPEDA-compliant Canadian database.
The biological picture
The CpG sites that move most reliably with age aren't random — they cluster around genes that govern development, cell identity, and inflammation. Two pathways stand out in the canine literature:
None of this is unique to dogs in isolation. Conservation of the aging mechanism across mammals is what makes the field meaningful — and it's also why a wellness protocol grounded in this read can be precise rather than generic.
Where we stop
Our reports are wellness reads. They surface signals from your dog's actual biology and translate them into supplement, nutrition, and routine guidance. They are not — and will never be — a substitute for working with a veterinarian on anything symptomatic, acute, or medical.
What we do
What we don't
Further reading
We're not the ones who discovered any of this. We're translating the field into something your dog can benefit from.
Aging · 2017
Thompson MJ, vonHoldt B, Horvath S, Pellegrini M
Read the paperNature Aging · 2023
Lu AT, Fei Z, … Pellegrini M, … Horvath S (Mammalian Methylation Consortium)
Read the paperPNAS · 2022
Wang T, Ma J, Hogan AN, et al.
Read the paperNature Communications · 2024
Mammalian Methylation Consortium
Read the paperGenome Biology · 2013
Horvath S
Read the paperPellegrini Lab · UCLA · 2026
Pellegrini Lab, Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology, UCLA
Read the paperThe Hero Bundle runs all three reads from a single swab. Two weeks from doorstep to protocol.