“Arthritis – How diet, supplements and alternative therapies can ease those aching joints; How to Care for Your ‘Super Senior’; Catching Cancer Early; Chiropractic Care for Your Senior.”
What reader is this table of contents written for?
Apparently, a popular pet magazine has keyed into our Western obsession with wellness and longevity. It appears to be encouraging us to transfer this obsession onto our pets. If it were not for the cover picture and the magazine’s title, I could very well have been looking at a periodical geared for the non-pet owning reader.
Eventually, some of the article titles returned me to the reality of the subject at hand: “Protect Your Dog’s Joints; Cognitive Dysfunction in Cats; Pancreatitis in Dogs and Cats.”
Now, don’t get me wrong. I have loved and cared for animals all of my adult life and have seen these animals as members of my family. I feed my cats the best foods that I can discern from reviewing nutritional content and food sources. When my Shepard-lab mix suffered from hip dysphasia in his mid-teens, I improved his bed, gave him a daily glucosamine chondroitin supplement and even cared for him through bouts of incontinence until he could no longer easily walk.
Clearly, we need to care for the animals that are dependent upon us to thrive and survive, but have we taken our society’s obsession for longevity too far by imposing it onto our family pets?
Is our fear of disease and death causing our pets to live with conditions and undergo therapies and surgeries primarily to make us feel better about ourselves?
Some parents suggest affixing a kids GPS device to the belt loop on the back side of your child’s free sample viagra pants. Many of men feel hesitate on buying viagra from canadian pharmacies from physical pharmacy store. Urology has various branches, such as endourology, where the urologist performs minor surgeries, neurourology, which covers order cialis the nervous system as it secretes lipase, amylase, and protease. Kamagra is also very effective in inhibiting PDE5 enzymes and lead to healthy erection of the penis. generic cialis 20mg In the book, Withrow & MacEwen’s Small Animal Clinical Oncology (Fourth Edition); the authors reveal that cancer in pets is on the rise due to increased longevity in pets. Furthermore, cancer treatments for pets are on the rise due to increased demand from pet owners, who are largely driven by media on the subject. The authors clearly state, “Pet animals with spontaneously developing cancer provide an excellent opportunity to study many aspects of cancer from etiology to treatment.” They further outline fifteen superior opportunities for studying human cancer and treatment through treatment of pets, over laboratory studies of mice and rats.* Therefore we might ask, Who is really benefitting here?
Pets are a primary connection between us and the natural world of animals and other forms of life. How do our societal obsessions affect our relationships with the natural world and to our own natural cycles of life? How far out of control have our fears become?
© Anthony Antoville 2014
Anthony Antoville is COO of Champion Advocates LLC in Portland, Oregon. He has been serving a wide range of elder needs since 1991. Anthony is a published author with The Edwin Mellen Press.
Animal Wellness Magazine Vol 16 Issue 4
