If you feed your dogs (or cats) one of the well-known or supermarket brand commercial kibbles, PLEASE LISTEN. They are almost all not only nutritionally deficient, but dangerous! Unfortunately, I used to feed my two ‘boys’ Magnum and Taylor what I refer to as “garbage” food because like most pet owners, I didn’t know any better. And hey, they all come in pretty bags with attractive TV spokespeople hyping them all day long. I lost Magnum at only 8 years old from cancer and Taylor at 12 from liver disease. Magnum’s passing was not only a devastating blow to my heart, but a huge eye opener, and I now try to teach pet owners that there is a better way. Many people respond that their pets have been on whatever pet food for 5 or 10 years and they are “fine”. Well, they are always fine until they are not, when you get that gut-wrenching cancer diagnosis, as I did with Magnum. We know so much more now about the effects of a nutritionally and probiotic deficient diet that sabotages gut health and the ability to keep the immune system strong! I have made it my mission to find a better way and to spread the word to folks like me who love their pets.
Here are my ‘boys’, Magnum and Taylor, with my wife Sharon, as puppies. My son brought them back from a road trip to TX. We were actually supposed to be getting only one……. but you know how that goes. How can you resist two adorable litters of puppies! They are half-brothers with a Border Collie father, and an Australian Shepard and Black Lab as mothers.
Here they are all grown up with their proud Dad
Before I tell you more about why I do what I do, I’d like to go back in time about 55 years. When I was a young kid living in Meriden CT, our family had a pup named Silky. She was a beautiful Springer Spaniel/English Setter cross. Silky was with us for 16 years and was a big part of our family. She never had any issues and basically ate Alpo, and meat and vegetables from our table. I know……. But she was a healthy girl, who only saw our veterinarian, a family friend, once a year for a checkup.
Since that time, I had never really had another dog. I had my own business that took up a lot of my time, not to mention a family to raise. I didn’t think about having a dog again until my son Josh’s fateful road trip to TX.
We picked up a well promoted kibble, and figured we were doing right by our new canine kids. Until… Fast forward eight years to Magnum’s illness.
What followed was an almost four month downhill spiral, marked by occasional hopeful moments, and lots of trips to see my brother Mark who is a veterinarian with a practice 2 hours away, as well as trips to our local veterinary emergency clinic.
In the end, we did absolutely everything we could, and Magnum fought the good fight, but with a hemangiosarcoma on his heart, we made the heartbreaking decision to let him go.
Magnum passed in my arms on May 8th, 2013. This was almost as hard on his brother Taylor as it was on Sharon and me. And then we lost Taylor a few years later to liver disease. They are no longer by our sides, but forever in our hearts and if you have ever loved a pet, you know exactly how that feels. I was a 58 year old man who bawled like a baby and mourned for a long time.
My wake-up call was that my brother the veterinarian told me that with both conditions, a contributing cause could be nutritional. And both Mark and I remembered that with healthy, long- lived Silky’s mostly non-commercial diet, she was never exposed to ‘iffy’ ingredients with unpronounceable names and preserved to infinity. With my next pair of dogs, I was determined to take a different route, and I started to read everything I could get my hands on.
Maggie 
Daisy
I currently feed my two ‘girls’ Maggie and Daisy a raw diet. I’ve tried to recommend raw to others but many people simply don’t want to deal with it. It certainly is a commitment. Then further research led me to Life’s Abundance, a privately held company that actually cares about the health and well-being of our companion animals. And I now feel I can confidently and wholeheartedly recommend the Life’s Abundance pet foods to others as the best alternative to feeding raw. Life’s Abundance has NEVER had a recall, uses human grade ingredients, is not available in stores, and is delivered very fresh to your door. The food is never older than 4-6 weeks when you receive it. People tell me their dogs go nuts sniffing out the delivery box that the sealed bags are packaged in!
I am not someone trying to sell you pet food. I’m just a guy who loves his dogs and passionately cares about the health and well-being of our pets. I am also MAD that most commercial pet food companies only care about big profits, at the expense of the health of our beloved animals. My passion for canine nutrition and search for knowledge in this area has even led me to take courses on the subject, and I am proud to say that I am now a Certified Pet Food Nutrition Specialist.
My sincere and heartfelt hope is that the stories of Silky and Magnum and Taylor can lead to better and longer lives from optimal nutrition for Maggie and Daisy and all of YOUR family pets.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. Please share it! And if I can help you in any way with your own pets, please don’t hesitate to call me anytime. I love to talk ‘dogs’. 😊 603-401-7032
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