I'm an Australian in my late 50's and can remember when it was nothing unusual to see dogs of many breeds that were in their late teens or even early 20's.

Nowadays, dogs are seen as old if they reach 14-15. I can't remember the last time I saw a dog that was any older than mid-teens.

I realise it's anecdotal, but back when I was young, dogs were fed a wide variety of raw foods and table scraps. People did feed their dogs commercial dog food, but it was canned, not dry pellets in a bag. The decline in health and longevity seems to correspond with the huge rise of cereal-based kibble as the major (sole?) food source.

Hopefully, my Kelpie is an exception to that rule and lives a very long and healthy life. He's only been with me for less than three months, and prior to that, he was being fed mainly a kibble diet of unknown quality. He had issues with dry, flaky skin, occasional diahorea, and a massive amount of flatulence. He also seemed to be drinking far more than I'd have thought natural.

I started introducing raw foods into his diet immediately and kept on increasing the amount while reducing the quantity of kibble. I have also continued adding to the range of different foods I offer him, and his diet is quite varied. I still feed him some kibble, but it's a premium product that lists a range of animal protein as being the first four ingredients. It doesn't contain any carbohydrates from wheat, corn, or soy, but does contain a percentage from peas. I use it as a standby, and it only makes up about 20% of his total diet. The other 80% is mainly meat, offal, fat and bones with a small amount of vegetables and other food items such as eggs, sardines, a tiny amount of some dairy products etc.

He's now just over eight months and is thriving. He's still growing and increasing in size, but showing no sign of putting on too much weight. He's absolutely thriving and in peak condition for his age. He now has no flaky skin or itchiness, no gastrointestinal issues, and I don't remember the last time I noticed he'd farted.

We own a natural feeding pet shop in Leigh on Sea, Essex and promote raw heavily. The trouble that we get with our local vets is off the scale! They blame anything from anal glands to aggression on raw feeding and we are at our wits end. Nick helped us by email with our dog Woody. We also visited Wylies in Upminster when our own, wonderful vet suggested feeding Hills Hepatic diet. Thanks guys for your support and for spreading the word. We know how good a decent raw diet is, it's attitudes within the vetinary profession (particularly franchises) that need changing

Wondering where to listen to the other Friday night discussions and readings?

It's the fear of liability. If the encourage raw feeding there is always going to be those individuals who do it on the cheap. The mindset is a balanced kibble is better than an unbalanced raw.  My vet did not say anything bad... Just asked a lot of questions and voiced her concerns.  They are definately curious

Are you all nuts! I feed my dogs a raw food diet, been doing it for years, thanks to the great ian billinghurst...i have only had good results.  Anyway why you are all nuts? Thr whole sick care system of most vet. Practices would come crashing down.lol similar to the human side of this debacle. The boggie man is fear of loss of income.

Plus, something i think ALL of you guys are missing...the average pet owner does not even bother to pay serious attention to their own human diets, do you really think it has crossed their minds to make the effort to invest time in their pet?????

While listening to you guys, If I were you I would write a new degree and then offer it to a university that is into the science of nutrition. Nutrition is such a specialist area and so much more scientific work could be carried out to benefit our pets.  It is great to see you all brainstorming ideas together. We have some great universities doing some great work at the cutting edge of the science of human nutrition, why not have a degree in animal nutrition? For instance Norwich did some great research on gut flora and discovered that every person that touches a baby prior to the age of three, impacts upon the child's gut flora. Makes me wonder if it is the same for animals. Following on from your conversation, a copy of Conor's book could be sent to every university. One of my old sayings, the body was made to process food, not eat processed foods.