When looking into adding a Bernese mountain dog to your family, one of the things that you will need to take into account is its lifespan.
As with all large dogs, the Bernese is not expected to live a particularly long life. Usually their general lifespan is around 10 years. However, due to poor health, often the breed only lives until it is around 7 years old. So why is this and why does the Bernese have such a short lifespan?

The Things That Affect the Bernese Mountain Dogs Lifespan

It is thought that the average age of the Bernese mountain dog has decreased as time has gone on. Whilst it used to be 10 years, now the average lifespan of the breed is 6-8 years.
Generally with larger dogs you expect that they will not live that long. However the Bernese mountain dog did usually used to live for 10 years. Some dogs still do and they are perfectly healthy. However there does seem to have been an increase in diseases such as cancer within the breed and that is why many are now dying earlier than they should.
In fact the breed suffers from quite a lot of health problems including:

Joint problems

Cancer

Blindness

Autoimmune problems

All of the above are fairly serious but it is cancer, autoimmune problems and joint problems which seem to cause the most damage. Bone problems in particular have also increased within the breed and it has to be put down to poor breeding selection. People these days mainly tend to think about the money and whilst there are some genuine, careful breeders, many are simply after the money. So health problems do occur and that is why you need to be careful when you are choosing your next Bernese mountain dog.
The American Kennel Club is currently looking into why there are such problems with the breed and research is being carried out in order to find some kind of explanation.
So if you are planning on bringing a Bernese mountain dog home with you then you will need to ensure that you know all about the potential health problems. Insurance is definitely something that you should consider. However with the problems becoming more widely known, insurance companies are likely to take this on board and so you may have to pay a fairly high sum of money to insure the Bernese from now on.
Overall the breed is prone to illness and it is becoming very worrying for owners now. You should make sure that you take your dog to the vet regularly for check ups, especially after the age of three. It is always better to be safe than sorry and with the serious threat of illness with the Bernese, it is much better to be prepared.