Pets and Their People Blog

Niki Tudge, PPG President, reviews The Forever Dog – Surprising New Science to Help Your Canine Companion Live Younger, Healthier, and Longer by Rodney Habib and Dr. Karen Shaw Becker.

I consider Dr. Becker’s book “The Forever Dog” my go-to User’s Manual for optimizing my dog’s life and certainly as the framework to adding quality to her years. (Full disclosure – The Pet Professional Guild is included in this book as a Training and Behavior Resource).  The common sense and practical approach offered to optimizing the quality and longevity of a dog’s life is thoroughly researched and given the technical nature of some of the topics, easily understood.  Dr. Becker has also included several convenient appendices which alone justify the price of entry.

With my workload, I especially appreciated the convenient “Longevity Junkie Takeways” for each chapter and the numerous special information boxes sprinkled throughout.  These special features give you the most information with the least effort on the topics you may not need to drill deeper on, or they give you a wonderfully efficient way to review what you’ve already read.

But the greatest value in the book is the real-world, executable steps outlined that show you how to take better control of your pet’s health putting you and your pet on a well mapped path to the health and the longevity we all want for our beloved pets. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that to a large extent “The Forever Dog” could also serve as a guide to “The Forever Human.”

Niki Tudge MBA PCBC-A CABC CDBC is the founder and president of the Pet Professional Guild, DogNostics Education and The DogSmith. She has substantial leadership experience in business management and administration, particularly in the nonprofit sector, which encompasses her role as the president of Doggone Safe, a nonprofit educational organization. She has published numerous articles, which have been featured in publications such as the New York Times. She has also authored five books; her most recent project, Pet Training and Behavior Consulting: A Model for Raising the bar to Protect Professionals, Pets and Their People, which she co-authored, was published in 2019.