Dogs have been part of human culture for 20-40 thousand years. They have evolved from wolves, and humans gave them scraps of food, which brought them closer to our camps. They eventually integrated themselves into our tribes, and were used for hunting. The early dogs looked like their wild wolf counterparts, but today we have 100s of varieties of dogs for different purposes.

Healthy Diet

About 95% of pet food is manufactured using the extrusion process, which turns ingredients into kibble. It also causes significant damage to those ingredients. The extrusion process involved heating the food to extremely high temperatures, which diminishes nutritional value. This process has been shown to negatively effect vitamins, lipids, and starch. The best diet for pets is homemade and raw. This allows you to know exactly what’s in the food. You can also cook it, but will not get all the enzymes in the food.

Spaying and Neutering

The main argument for these measures is pet over population. Female dogs come into heat twice a year and lasts between 10-14 days on average. Within that heat cycle she is viable for 3 days. These means a female dog can get pregnant only about 1 week out of the year. This is not a very good argument. We know that neutering increases the rate of obesity. This study shows how it dramatically increased obesity in male dogs. There was a study in Golden Retrievers that showed a myriad of joint disorders from the procedures. I found 1,2,3 studies that actually show an increase in aggression. Another study shows how it will increase cancer and urinary incontinence risk. These effects are likely do to the fact that sex hormones are not just for reproduction, but they are critical for everything from cognitive, cardio vascular, and musculoskeletal function. Unless your dog is running around with other intact dogs all the time, I don’t recommend doing this. We tend to do things out of ritual, not because it’s helpful. Even in this case, it’s better to do a vasectomy, or ovary sparing spay. These alternatives let your dog keep their organs, while not being able to reproduce. This is much healthier than the alternative. Some research shows that spaying and neutering can help with behavior change, but most of it isn’t positive. At the end of the day we really need to do our own research and make our own decision.

Chipping

A microchip is a glass vial that contains a radio transmitter, antenna, and a 10 digit code. For it to work it has to be picked up by a scanner. It is not a GPS system, which means that you won’t be able to tell where they are from a computer. It is injected in between the shoulder blades of the pet with a painful 12 gage needle. Most times it will stay in place, but can migrate to different places in the body, and potentially out of the body. There are different types of chips that are registered. Most vets and humane societies don’t have universal scanners. There is some research that shows that tumors have formed on the site of injection. This makes sense because they emit radiation. It’s important to weigh risk and benefit to make a decision.