I love my dog; a sentiment felt by most pet owners, I’m sure. He stinks, snores and chews pillows if he’s left alone too long, but he’s also loyal, trusting, and a great running buddy. He’s always there to listen to my problems, and he never talks back. My dog makes me feel special just for coming home at the end of the day.
Because I love my dog, my world was rocked when I took him to the vet for what looked very much like a tumor. It turned out to be an allergic reaction to a vaccine, but it caused me to spend a good amount of time researching cancer in dogs. Rocky is a Boxer, and as I found out, Boxers are particularly susceptible to cancer and stomach diseases. Since I would prefer he didn’t get either of these unpleasant conditions, I need to be very careful about the products I give him.
It turns out that cancer is rapidly increasing in dogs, and is now responsible for 46% of disease-related deaths. Prevention seems pretty straightforward; good, wholesome food and natural products…much like for people.
Lifekind has wonderful pet beds that are made from the same organic materials that our “people” mattresses and bedding are made from. I hadn’t realized how important this is until I came home one day to a yard full of a substance I later titled “radioactive fluff.” Honestly, that’s the best way to describe the mystery material that had been inside the pet bed Rocky had decided that day was a chew toy. It was blue, had the consistency of fiberglass, and I’m pretty sure it could glow in the dark. Whatever the stuff was, it wasn’t healthy, and it put me in the market for an organic pet bed.
I think I owe it to my dog to take the best care of him that I can. He trusts me, after all, to not knowingly have him eating chemicals and sleeping on radioactive fluff beds. It’s hard sifting through all the marketing claims and mystery ingredients put into modern pet food, toys, etc., but I think it’s worth it because, not to sound repetitive, I love my dog.