반려견이 길고 행복한 삶을 살도록 돕는 12가지 열쇠 #62

protocol to follow because the first three dogs I've ever owned, they lived to be an average of 15 years, 16, 14, and 15 respectively. But what I noticed around age 12 or 13, those dogs really went downhill mentally. They would be, you know, as 13 year olds staring at a spot on the floor for a long time. They really weren't as cognitively involved as my dogs. My last two dogs both lived to be over 17 and a half years old. And as I mentioned in my last episode where I shared about the life of my current dog, 17 year old Encore, she'll be 17 years old in just a little over a week. You'll want to watch that episode, but 17 years. And quite honestly, when my dog's bodies, they wear out before their brains do. And so, in kindness to my dogs, I have the veterinary income and we have a wonderful celebration of life here. And we euthanize the dog here at home. And the last time that Dr. Kelly came to the house, I was, you know, as you are very broken up. And I said, just look at her, her brain's engaged. She's still that happy dog. How many other 17 and a half year old dogs do you see look as good as she does? I mean, all of my dogs, their eyes are clear. I'm going to, I'm going to share with you a photo of my three 17 year old dogs and how clear their eyes are. You can see the spark is still there for life. And Dr. Kelly looked at me and she said, Susan, we just don't see dogs live the ages that your dogs do and in the clinic. So, there's nothing for her to compare to. And that was a big aha for me. So, clearly I'm on the right path and I want to share those things with you. But let's just talk first a little bit about, and I've got notes. Like normally when I talk from the heart and I'm talking from the heart, but I got notes for you today. I got big time notes. So, normally when a cell has a shortened telomere, it's a sign that it is aging or that it is dying. What happens is we have as animals, we have three cellular enemies, things that we want to avoid. Number one is inflammation. So, you know, I'm probably telling you things you already know. We need to avoid things that inflame our body, AKA a lot of our diets, right? Number two, insulin resistance, which isn't as massive a problem in dogs as it is in human. Although a lot of dogs and cats with insulin resistance, your veterinarians will tell you a lot of those animals are obese. And oxidative stress, that's a biggie. And that is when, I don't want to get too technical, but the free radicals in our body overpower the antioxidants. And the free radicals are, they are things that we can avoid. And the antioxidants are things we can

build up. That's really what I want to dig in now is we want to replace the imbalance of free radicals in our dogs' bodies and ideally in our human bodies, right? So, that the things that create this oxidation are things like, you know, viruses and funguses and bacteria, but things like radiation, heavy chemicals and obesity and stress. So, that's the thing I mentioned in the last episode, stress. So, I'm going to jump right in and I'm going to talk about the 12. That's a lot of fingers. You know, normally I talk about the three key points to dog training. I'm talking 12 here, people. 12. Do you know what? Up here in Canada, that's one more than 11. 12. That's 12. Okay. So, I'm going to talk about the 12. We're going to jump right in. Things that we can do to help improve our dog's quality of life and length of life. Number one is exercise. Consistent daily exercise. And you could vary that. You can vary it with things like, now during your dog's lifetime, they may dictate what type of exercise they do. You know, my 17-year-old, she loves swimming, but as she's gotten older, we curtail that. And that swimming happens with a life jacket on her. And she doesn't go nearly as often. It's more like a special treat for her rather than, because it's just so hard on her body and she is so stiff after she does any swimming. But daily consistent exercise is really important. And walking on different terrains and, you know, where it's not just walking on pavement, but you're going into the forest or over hills or in fields, things like that. Body awareness, fitness, getting your dog to do different things, tricks that you train that involve them moving their body. And like I said, that it should be done every day. Encore still goes out for four or five short walks a day. Now the rest of my dogs, they probably average 90 minutes a day, maybe two hours a day of exercise. And I know maybe you can't do that, but get out daily and aim for at least 45 minutes to an hour. That would be ideal. It's going to be great for you and for your dog. So, the friends of mine, Dr. Karen Becker and Rodney Habib, they are coming out with a new book, The Forever Dog. I can't wait for that one to hit the press. But they went around and interviewed some of the World Guinness' longest lived dogs. And they didn't actually interview the dogs. Okay. That would be a little weird. Possible, but no. But anyway, they interviewed the owners. And what the average of these dogs that who lived over 20 years old, they were getting two hours of exercise a day. So, that's a biggie.

Number two, the obvious is nutrition. Now those first three dogs of mine, I fed them really high quality kibble. They did not eat raw. The third dog I was around when I transitioned to raw because the big crisis for me was when my second dog went into kidney failure and everyone said she was going to die. And I transitioned to raw and she lived an extra year and a half with other supportive therapies as well. So, I feed a commercial raw and you need to seek out a balanced commercial raw. And one, I personally prefer one that is with human grade meat. And it's important for me that I rotate through seven different protein sources for my dog. I could probably do an entire podcast just on what I feed my dogs. But I add things like probiotics. You know what? Our dog's immune system, it starts in the gut. So, daily probiotics I add and digestive enzymes. And I'm going to tell you right now, I use a lot of Dr. Mercola's products and I think they are incredibly amazing quality products. So, Dr. Mercola, I'll put a link in the show notes. Joint supplements. You know, I feed my dogs joint supplements. I am a big fan of 1TDC. I'm going to put a link to a place where you could actually save some money on 1TDC. That's a great thing for soft tissue, dental, especially dental ligaments. So, I give a lot of antioxidants. My dogs get a tablespoon of wild blueberries every day. We freeze dry and grind up broccoli that they get broccoli stems every other day. Like there's a number of things that I add. Turmeric paste, like a turmeric paste that's got fresh ground pepper in it and coconut oil. So, there's a lot of things that I add to the diet and it's all about adding some good quality antioxidants or omega-3s. Everyone should be feeding omega-3s to their dog. That's another biggie. Okay. So, nutrition, huge, huge, huge. It's a way to fight the free radicals with good nutrition. We know that, right? As people, we know reduce the free radicals by getting rid of a lot of the crap in our diets. All right. Number three is brushing your dog's teeth. Now, I will admit, I did not brush my older dog's teeth and it is something that like Encore's mouth, it's a little bit of a cesspool. So, at 17. So, I brush my younger dog's teeth and it's just something that I'm getting into the habit of doing every day. It's not something you can do once a week. It really is not going to have that much effect once a week. You really have to do it daily at the minimum like four or five days a week. And if you do it in a compliant way, then the dogs are,

they're loving it. They're just going to open their mouth and let you do it. And it's like, literally it takes me about a minute and a half to do my dog's teeth. This is a biggie. I'm going to leave a link to a blog post on nail trimming. So important. My good friend, Dr. Leslie Woodcock did a talk for me on why it's so important to keep our dog's nails cut short. I'll give you the little reader's digest is that when our dog's nails grow long, it causes pain back in the joints. It causes them to sit back. But most importantly, the dogs sense magnetic true north through the pads of their feet. And when the nails get long, the pads don't contact the ground the same way. And that changes their equilibrium. So very important that you cut your dog's nails. I do my dog, well, I don't really do my dog's nails. Somebody here does my dog's nails every week. My dog's nails are cut short, so you can't hear them. How short? You can't hear them when they're walking, click, click, click on the kitchen floor. You can't hear them, then they are short enough. So, check out that blog post. We talk about how to cut it. But also what goes hand in hand with this is a compliant way. So, cooperative health for my dogs means they just lie on a bed. They're happy to have their nails done because the way that I've built this up, that's something those of you in Recallers, you're familiar with the new program called Pedicure Please program. I'm teaching how I've taught my dogs to not just be tolerant of having their nails done, but actually liking. And some of them are moving into, they love their nails done. If I open that door, they fly in on the bed and on their side, they're all in. So, it's not just about cutting. You got to cut your dog's nails. You've got to get comfortable with that Dremel. I'm going to leave a link to my favorite Dremel to use. It's a simple, easy one. It's inexpensive. We have two. The bigger one that we use is faster. It's a diamond tip. All right. I'll try and get both of them. I'll get both of them in there then. Okay. So, brushing your dog's teeth daily, nail trimming weekly, brushing. Getting a brush and brush through your dog's coat. It engages the blood flow to all those areas. Get your hands on your dogs. And then you can, like that's where you can feel for little bumps, new little bumps that might come up. So, those are another thing that we do. We do light therapy with our dogs. If they have some sort of injury, I have a laser that I use on them whenever there's any kind of problems.

And our older dogs like Encore gets laser therapy every week. There's something that gets done. Okay. Moving on to number seven. Number seven. Oh, so big. Mental engagement. So, very big. I belong to a study. I got a random phone call. There's a study that goes across Canada and it's a study on longevity in humans. So, probably 20 years ago, I got a phone call. They asked me if I'd be volunteered to be on a study where I go in every five years and they do blood and they do all sorts of testing and they ask me all these questions. But a lot, I mean, the questions focus around the things you'd expect, diet and exercise. But a lot of the questions, they focus on your social structure. There's a reason why a lot of people, once they go into a retirement home, the vast majority of people die within a year. Because they don't feel needed. They don't feel part of something. And so, mental engagement of our old kids is so seriously important. So, a little shaping game. If you've taught your dog tricks when they're younger, you can ask them to do them when they're older. So, have a routine of predictability. Like Encore knows when in the day she gets cookies. And so, she like at 5am, she climbs up on a bed in the kitchen and she's there for me when I come out. And it's just a routine of predictability. So, mental engagement, the importance of our dogs feeling needed and engaged. Talk to those dogs throughout the day routinely. If you're home, I mean, when you're home. Make a point to talk to them like they're special. Older dog, they're sharing all that great wisdom with a younger dog. So, make sure they're sharing the right stuff. Number, I don't know what number. I'm giving up on telling you the numbers. Big adventure time. Big adventure time. So, this is something I started when I got, my first dog got to be older. Every day I take her out one-on-one and I do something with just her and I. And guess what guys? Sometimes it was just walking around the car and telling her how amazing she was. Or I might put a little bar down on the ground for her to walk over because she spent her career doing agility. And when she'd walk over the bar, I would say, champion of the world. And I would tell her how amazing she was. So, just one, a big adventure time. Make your dog feel special every day. It goes such a lot. You know, it might take you a minute. It might. I mean, if you have more time than you could like with Encore, quite one of us, Kim or myself or Chelsea who works here, we'll take her for a big one-on-one around the pond by

herself every day. She goes out something special. Big adventure time. A lifetime of training that's free of judgment. I personally think this is a big, big part of my dog's longevity. That the training is constantly focused on building our dog's confidence, building our confidence, reducing any fear or anxiety. Everything we do is about that. And that is in the book, The Telomere Effect, they talk about people who are raised in a unstable home. Like when you're raised by alcoholic parents, or if you fell down, you know, it's not about never failing. It's about if you fell down that your parents were there to tell you it wasn't a big deal, to give you the confidence, borrowed confidence to how you should respond when you fail. So, they talk about that it could shorten your telomeres if you were raised in a household that that wasn't available to you. A lifetime of training and engagement and a household of relaxation. I think that's just super important. Regular body work. So, my dogs see the chiropractor once a month. They see the osteopath once a month. They get a massage every week. A massage therapist comes to the house every single week. And of course, we put our hands on them almost daily. I think, of course, I like to look to alternative therapies. So, things like acupuncture where appropriate, if possible, T-Touch, like different modalities that can help stimulate life chi and keep your dog living a very, very long time. Have a great, point number, whatever, a great relationship with your veterinarian, right? That you do regular wellness checks where you go in and you get geriatric blood profiles taken, including a complete thyroid panel. That's super, super important. But also have a great relationship with an integrative health practitioner. If you're lucky enough to live near an integrative or holistic veterinarian, that's phenomenal. I am blessed to have an amazing naturopath who helps me with just, not just with myself, but with supplementing my dogs as well. So, I think that traditional medicine is super important and we've got to have that great relationship with a veterinarian, but also look beyond the walls of traditional medicine. That works for me. And if that works for you, then I think that's going to be super, super important. Okay. Creative comforts and assistance around the house. So, as our dogs get older, they're going to be less stable on their feet. So, things like, I love dirty dog doormats. I should have shares in the company with how many I have around this house. If you have any kind of slippery floors. Now our floors aren't really

slippery, they're slate. But as Encore got weaker, as she got older from her past injuries, we just put these doormats and she can run like a kid now. Well, okay. I'm exaggerating. She doesn't run, but she gets around on these doormats. She does not, she doesn't lose her footing. Ramps. So, we've put in a ramp to go down the outside and we've put a ramp to go up the couple of stairs that she goes from the area she likes to sleep and hang out into the area in the kitchen when she wants to hang out with us or go in the bedrooms or whatever. So, ramps. We use a harness on Encore. If the ramp is too icy or snow, we'll just put her in a harness and carry her down. And I have a harness that I use during her rehab, but a harness you might want to look into is called Help Em Up. So, Help Em. That looks like a really, really good harness. And if the Help Em Up people are watching, I think you should send me one of those because they look like a really, really cool harness. Have comfortable beds for your dogs. My dogs, I love underdog beds because they're filled with air. I've got a number of beds that I love. I have an issue with dog beds. Okay. I admit that. But dog beds, when our dogs are older that are going to support because they don't have as much fat or muscle on them. And so, you want to get them up off the floor. Love the underdog beds, but any bed that gives your dogs a lot of cushion. Okay. Stress reducing activities. Things like hiding cookies, letting them use your nose. One of the last senses for our dogs that they lose is the sense of smell. They have that sense of smell for a very long time. So, use it. Teach them scent games when they're younger. It's a great way for them to relieve stress. And you can use it when they're older, but just hiding cookies. When you're out going for a walk, let them stop and smell the pee mail that other dogs have left. It's super, super important. Okay. So, I believe that is my list of all of the amazing things that you can do to help your dog live a long and happy life. Now, here's the things that I strongly encourage you to avoid. These are stressors and stressors or toxin that they're going to shorten our dog's telomeres. They're going to create free radicals. They're going to have impact on the mitochondrial health of our dogs. So, number one, chemicals. Household cleaners, use things that don't have a lot. You know, if you can, please use things that are kind to the environment and kind to your dog. Our dogs are laying on surfaces and a lot of them are

licking surfaces. So, detergents that you wash their beds in and things that you wash their counters that they might come in contact with. Avoid things with the word fragrance added or flavors added, as well as the kind of bowls that you feed your dogs out of. I'm a big fan of food quality, the kind you see in big professional kitchens, quality, high-grade stainless steel. Big fan of the basis bowls. I looked high and low for some really good bowls and I found these on Amazon. I'm going to give you a link in the show notes to the bowls that I feed. But things also like chemical stressors that like scented candles or the plug-in deodorizers or using spray deodorizers. Like I just don't use anything that adds artificial fragrances to my dogs. And a lot of essential oils will do the same things, guys. So, you might want to avoid those. Perimeter sprays or household sprays that are killing fleas or ticks or, I mean, I know sometimes you have to use them. Then get the dogs out of the house. Go to an Airbnb for a couple of days if you're, if you have to absolutely use those. Things like, it used to drive my late husband crazy that I wouldn't allow him to use, to use any sprays on the grass or the trees or the garden because I just didn't want my dogs exposed to that. So, I never did. Yes, I live near a golf course, so I do have that added stressor, free radicals popping everywhere there. But I try to combat that with the good things that I already mentioned. Topical stressors. So, again, I live in an area that doesn't have a lot of fleas and ticks. So, I use natural flea and tick preventative if I use any. But when you're putting topical monthly flea and tick prevention, that is just another stressor, another toxin that you're adding to your dog that they're going to have to fend off, that runs the risk of shortening the telomere length, right? And the same as scented shampoos or perfumes that your groomer might be spraying on your dog. All of these things are just extra, extra things that are attacking the DNA. The ingested stressors, poor quality dog food. I printed off a recipe or ingredient list of a popular, not a good dog food, a popular like a grocery store dog food. I'm not going to tell you the one because I don't want to get sued. But here's the ingredient list of, you would all know the name if I told you the name of this. Corn. Don't eat corn. Don't feed your corn to your dogs. Soybeans. I'm a vegan. I avoid eating soybeans. Bone and beef meal. If it's got the word meal in it, you don't want to feed it to your dog. Whole wheat. No, dogs

don't need gluten either. Animal fat. Corn syrup. Really? Our dogs don't need sugar. No. Wheat middlings. No. Water. Okay, good. There's one ingredient I agree with. I could go on. I'm not going. I'm not reading anymore. You get my point. Don't feed your dogs crap. Because what happens is your dog's not getting any good nutrition to support the immune function that has to help clear that body. Table straps. So, a lot of your table scraps aren't going to be good for your dogs. Not only don't they need the excess calories because the number one thing we want to avoid is obesity. That's another stressor. But we want to keep our dogs at a nice healthy weight. If I ever went to a drive-thru for a coffee, they would say, Oh, you've got a dog. Do you want a little donut hole? No. Do you know what I mean? That's sugar, right? So, we're immediately at dumping sugar into the bloodstream and immediately we're triggering our body cytokines and that is going to create an immune or inflammation response in our dog's body. They don't need it. Don't give them to it. Okay. So, we don't want to do things like, you know, if we can avoid the overuse of antibiotics and steroids and all those things are just not good for our dogs long-term. Again, I know sometimes necessary. Use them and then go and try to combat them with some good homeopathics. Injected stressors over vaccination. I am not an anti-vaxxer. My dogs get vaccinated, but I don't vaccinate every year. I do use titers where appropriate and I don't vaccinate for every antigen available. I vaccinate for the antigens I feel are necessary. So, there's a lot of things out there that you can vaccinate for that, again, use your best judgment on that one. But see your veterinarian every year. Absolutely. Go for a wellness test every year. Now there's energetic or emotional stressors. So, the training method that you're using, the blame, the judgment, the punishment. You know, I talked about that the environment, that environment of kindness that builds confidence is what you want to establish for your dog. You don't want to create an environment where they can't meet your expectations. So, you want to decrease even the tension between family members. Remember in a past episode here on Shaped by a Dog, I talked about the research of Dr. Biagio Dianelio from Italy, where he said, our dogs sense and take on the emotions in the environment. So, if there's a lot of stress and screaming and yelling, that will stress the dogs. All right. Do you want to also decrease the tension

between other dogs? If you have two dogs that don't get along or even marginally don't, project togetherness, guys. You've got to get them liking each other or heartbreakingly consider placing one in another home. Right. We want to decrease the stress level for everyone. Okay. Here's one that most people aren't even going to consider. Radiation stressor. When I say radiation stressors, you're thinking, oh yeah, like x-rays. I don't want to x-ray my dog. Well, sometimes you have to x-ray your dog, but that wasn't what I'm talking about. I'm talking about everyday radiation, like from a cell phone, right? That there's a lot of scientists that believe that future generations are going to look back at our use of cell phones the way we now look back at smoking. Remember smoking when it first came out. There's a lot of doctors who said it's good for your health. Yeah, we know that. And there's a lot of experts that believe that the radiation that we're exposed to with our cell phones is like a quadrillion times more than we need. So, if you're going to have a cell phone, get something like this. This is called a safe sleeve and it helps to block radiation, EMFs, electromagnetic frequencies that come through to you. And things like if you can turn off your routers or your ID, like I turn my Wi-Fi off every night here. I, um, don't put your dog bed near your router or right near a big nest of electrical appliances or, you know, if you have a microwave, I'm doing you a favor right now. Get rid of the microwave. It is emitting radiation even when it's not turned on. And an air fryer is much healthier and does better for you. I haven't had a microwave in the house, I don't know, 25 or 30 years. Okay. So, you want to decrease the EMFs that are surrounding yourself and your dog. It's just good health. Okay. This was a super, super long podcast. I hope you've got something of value from it. And I really hope that you share it with every dog owning friend or pet owning friend. They could own cats. They could own ferrets. Every friend you have that owns a pet, please share that with them. We want to keep the stress down, have nice fit dogs that aren't carrying all that excess weight. It's just not good for them. And all those other good things that I mentioned here on the podcast. And please come back to YouTube, give me a like, subscribe to the channel, and hit that bell so you get notified when our next episode's upcoming. We'll see you next time on Shaped by Dog.