To Your Dog's Health!

Jenny has started to slow down a bit. While she's still eager for walks, it takes her longer to wake up, jump off the couch, or get into the car. As the owner of a twelve-year-old boxer, Jenny, I thought it would be a good idea to learn more about nutrition for dogs. Boxers who live to see "double digits" are apparently rare. While walking Jenny in the park I've been stopped by other boxer owners who marvel at her age and inquire about her diet. She has always had Pedigree Choice Cuts in sauce, which she laps up eagerly, and some kibble (which is mostly organic) that's delivered to the house as needed.


Jenny rarely gets any table scraps, and except for a few tomatoes and avocados that she manages to "steal", she sticks to this diet and is not overfed. Recently, I took her to the vet for a physical, and her blood panel showed that she is affected by hypothyroidism. For her age, though, she's quite healthy, except for her thyroid, which is a tad sluggish. Reluctantly, I give her a tiny pink pill (levothyroxine), twice a day with her meals. (I say reluctantly because I really don't like to give her any medication, especially one that she must take for the rest of her life, but if it makes her feel better, I will.) I haven't noticed a dramatic difference in her, but she seemed fine before ever taking this med. I picked up To Your Dog's Health!: Canine Nutrition and Recent Trends Within the Pet Food Industry by Mark Poveromo to find a possible "food cure" for hypothyroidism in dogs.


“Let food be your medicine.”
~Hippocrates, the father of medicine

This book is a joy to read. It has adorable photos of dogs, and includes some recipes to treat specific canine diseases, such as kidney disease, diabetes, and cancer. Before writing To Your Dog's Health!, Mark Poveromo raised thirteen labs and opened Thomaston Feed, a store which sells nutritionally sound, holistic pet food for dogs and cats. He was inspired to write this book and share with a larger audience his knowledge about the importance of animal nutrition. I enjoyed reading this book, which is a good guide book for dog owners with an interest in optimum canine nutrition. The one thing that I wish this book had was an index. It has a table of contents, but I think an index would have come in handy as well, even though the book is short (under 100 pages). I really wanted to find out about hypothyroidism, had to search this book with a fine-toothed comb to find mention of it, and didn't discover any foods that would specifically help Jenny's condition.

Special thanks to Lisa, The Online Publicist, for sending me this book.

Marley and Me

I'm a cat person, and agree wholeheartedly with Leonardo da Vinci who said, "the smallest feline is a masterpiece". But I'm also a dog person. I grew up in a household which seemed to favor cats. We were cat people, after all, and had two cats during the early part of my childhood, a gorgeous calico and a sweet black cat. However, one fateful day my family decided to change things, and suddenly we had a large, shaggy puppy as well, an Old English sheepdog we named Chaucer (even though she was female). As a child, it was difficult for me to break the news to my cat people friends. They wouldn't understand why we had gotten a dog, but somehow I managed to utter the words. Overnight, it seemed, I became a cat and dog person. Since then, I've had no qualms about this, adore my cat, and enjoy taking my wiggly, exuberant boxer, Jenny, for long walks in the park. To Jenny, it's not just a walk but a grand adventure. Together we get exercise, and socialize with other dogs and their friendly owners, and I marvel at the variety of dogs we meet, everything from Greyhounds to American Eskimos to adorable Pugs and mixes (formerly referred to as mutts). Jenny's favorite activity besides going for a walk is sleeping.



















Obviously, I 'm a dog person (who also happens to be a cat person), so I suspected that I'd enjoy Marley and Me, a film based on John Grogan's bestselling book. In 2008, the novel was adapted into a family movie, also titled Marley & Me. Released on December 25, 2008, the film stars Owen Wilson, Jennifer Aniston, Eric Dane, and other talented actors, and is directed by David Frankel. The role of Marley is shared by twenty-two labs. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, which is a tearjerker. Marley and Me is not just a dog movie, but also a touching story about writing, following your dreams, unconditional love, and the passing of time.

Book wise, Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog is a New York Times bestselling book written by journalist John Grogan. Published in 2005, this autobiographical novel portrays Grogan and his family during the years that they lived with their yellow Labrador Retriever, Marley, who's high-strung, rambunctious, and generally uncontrollable. From the start "the world's worst dog" is quite "a handful"-- always hungry, strong and active, often destructive of their property--and he remains a challenge to live with. Repeatedly, Marley misunderstands what's expected of him, but he's forgiven, because he's still lovable and has a heart of gold.

Marley & Me has been rewritten into three versions for younger readers, Marley: A Dog Like No Other, a picture book for beginning readers called Bad Dog, Marley!, and A Very Marley Christmas.