Dogs should be living to age 20 or more. That's their natural lifespan. But it's being cut short by chemical toxicity in your dog's environment and in commercial petfood, which is fed (to a greater or lesser extent) to over 90 per cent of pets in modern society.

Whether you feed your dog fresh meat or home prepared food as your primary food source, if you're giving ANY commercial petfood to your dog, the chances are that you're cutting your dog's life short. Add to this the toxicity of most veterinary-prescribed and over the counter drugs, including your dog's vaccinations, cortisone (given for a multitude of problems), and parasite treatments (worms, fleas, ticks, mites and so on), and you've got a chemical cocktail which is causing premature ageing and death in companion animals all over the industrialized world.

Does it have to be this way?

Pollutants affect us all to some degree, but there ARE a number of steps that you can take to minimise your dog's exposure to toxic compounds that affect your dog's health and longevity. There ARE chemical-free dog food programs. There ARE natural alternatives to most toxic drugs routinely given to your dog. And you CAN reduce the pollutants and chemicals that your dog is exposed to on a daily basis.

(c) 2005, Brigitte Smith, Healthy Happy Dogs