Dog Aging Project Expands With About $29 Million in NIH Funding

What happened

• The National Institute on Aging is funding the next five-year phase of the Dog Aging Project, with approximately $29 million in total and a first-year award of $6.1 million, according to Texas A&M University (announced October 27, 2026) ¹.
• The project says nearly 55,000 companion dogs are enrolled ¹.
• Tufts University is the primary award recipient and Texas A&M holds a subaward. The project is co-directed by Dr. Kate Creevy of Texas A&M and Dr. Daniel Promislow of Tufts ¹.

What the next phase will study

• Following dogs for longer, with a focus on cognitive and physical decline ¹.
• Collecting drinking-water samples, using tags that absorb airborne chemicals, and putting activity trackers on a subset of dogs ¹.
• Expanding research on nutrition, and on how genes and environment interact ¹.
• Studying exceptionally long-lived dogs, identified statistically by longevity for their size ¹.

Why it matters

Studies like this follow dogs for years in ordinary homes, which lets researchers look for real-world factors linked to healthy aging. Results will come slowly, and we will report them as they are published. See also our report on the project’s June metabolite study.