mine has recentley passed awy and was only 8, i was told this was old, upon purchase of the animal the grandad was there and he was 13yrs old!

I wouldnt consider that old at all. I've groomed 3 for the same owner, 1st one was 10, second was 12 when they died. The youngster she has now has a granddad of 17 I'm told.

The average would seem to be about 12 to 14

wolf i am still in shock over that i was informed that it was due to old age and theyr lucky to see 10..... i srongly disagreed with my mothers vet at the time but was assured  this was the case, he was right as rain on the saturday then by the monday we took him to the vets and was told his organs were packing in due to old age he lasted three weeks!!!!!!!!!

The KC Health Survey results for OES have the median age of death as 10 years 9 months with the oldest being 15 years 1 month.

There was a 'Purebred Dog Health Survey' carried out a few years ago and the results for Old English sheepdogs is here: http://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/download/1604/hsoldenglishsheepdog.pdf
"The median age at death for Old English Sheepdogs was 10 years and
9 months"

Kelly Cassidy's site, which includes other surveys besides the KC's 2004 effort, states that the weighted average is 11.19yrs. Small sample sizes on the surveys, though; more data is needed.

http://users.pullman.com/lostriver/breeddata.htm

Jemima

Someone from my ringcraft had a st Bernard, he was 8mths.  He went poorly and his organs packed up, the vet was next to useless.  Went to another vet who tried pull him round.  What they found was his blood had solidified, the vet tried thining it to no avail.  If first vet had picked it up might have been saved.  Maybe its something like this or it was just the dogs time to go.

My breeder had a healthy dog, woke one morning to find him gone and was fit as a fiddle, he was 5.

I get one into groom and he is now 14yrs old!

I've seen a few die around 6 years through my vet practice. One owner told me this was their 3rd and all of them had died at a young age from cancer. I've also know a oes cross die at 4 years from an immune problem.

I grew up with OES, my parents having had them since 1959, maybe we were lucky but we never lost one under 10, most were 12-14 yrs of age