German Wirehaired Pointer Club of America

[Hunters Edge]

OK here is what I have tracked down. Also it says about the same but will give a more accurate account.

The beginning of the thread is HOW LONG DO YOU WANT YOUR DOG TO LIVE, ITS UP TO YOU

How long do you want your dog to live, its up to you.
I thought this topic may be of interest to everyone, if you have not read some of the information that has been periodically released.

I had the fortunate opportunity to attend the National Conference of the American Society of Animal Scientists in Pheonix this week, which had a large participation by many of the world's leading companion animal nutritionists to commemorate the release of the updated edition on canine nutrient requirements.

One of the presentations encompassed the topic in the subject heading and was a 14 year study performed by Purina on 48 Labrador Retrievers. Some articles on this study have already been written in a few sporting dog journals, but I thought it might be worth mentioning for anyone who hasn't seen them.

To give a general summary, the dogs were separated into two groups and paired with a littermate. One litter mate was fed ad lib (which is short for "as much as they want"), while the other was fed 75% of the amount that the ad lib dog consumed (referred to as the restricted diet).

The findings were quite striking. One in particular, was the time to death of half of the dogs in a feeding group. For the ad lib group, the age which half of the dogs died was 11.1 years, WHILE the age which half of the dogs died in the restricted diet group was over 13 years. Also, at this 13 year mark, only ONE of the 24 dogs in the ad lib group was still alive.

They also observed that the restricted diet group had a later onset of osteoarthritis and other age related diseases. By later, I mean years, not months. Overall, the health of the restricted diet dogs was much better.

They did show pictures of some of the dogs, in which a pair of littermates was side by side. The restricted diet dog had the slender hourglass body condition, but alittle on the lighter side, while the other was NOT obese, but was in the slightly overweight category.

The bottomline is, WE as pet owners have a significant amount of power to not only extend the length of our dog's lives, but to improve the quality of our dog's lives just through feeding to keep the dog's weight ideal. ALSO, the economic impact of this is significant. Feeding less not only means a bag of food lasts longer, but the potential for reducing vet related issues is also a factor.

This data is expected for publication by late summer. I hope this was informative. I will check periodically to see if anyone wanted any other info. Later all.

[admin]

You know.. I think the scariest thing about this study is.....
.....

What does it mean for humans???