How my dog lived for 21 good years
We got Jimmi (my doggo) when I was probably six years. He was healthy, playful, and had a very good life span – 21 years. Jimmi met all of our friends from school to Master. Anyway, I really hope he is having a good time wherever he is.
Not going deep into the story, don’t want to get emotional, I will rather share what we did that might have extended his life span. We aren’t cent percent sure but these factors must have contributed to his good health and life.
1. Breed
One of the most important contributors to his good health may be because his breed. He was a crossbreed Japanese Splitz (and not sure about the other half could be stray). Longevity and good health are more important to us rather any breed, though I can understand people have different preferences.
2. Good Food
Undoubtedly food plays a vital role to make anyone healthy. Rather than any dog food, we fed him normal but more vegetarian food. The meat was probably given once a week or fortnightly – properly cooked and not raw (mostly chicken meat not bones). Most of his diet included rice, milk, and curd, and fed it about 2 (sometimes 3) times a day. Also, Jimmi was a bit moody so he needed to have his plates cleaned before he’d eat. Please check this article to learn what foods SHOULD NOT be fed to the dogs.
3. Drinkable Water
No matter where we go, we always have plenty of drinking water made available to him. And he used to drink quite a lot of water – more than other dogs I know actually.
4. Exercises
Well to be frank we hardly took him outside our house premises. Most of the time he spent was with us playing on the terrace – we do have quite a decent size terrace and top place where he could jump around and play along. His playtime in his younger days was about 30-1hr per day. As he got older (after 15 years) the playtime was highly reduced – we only played when he wanted to but he used to get tired fast.
5. Vaccination
We only gave him two vaccinations a year – Rabbies and Distemper. Didn’t give any other vaccines except when he was sick -not a vaccine but some medicines via injection.
6. Flea and tick
We never used any medicines (oral or anything) to get rid of flea or ticks off him. We used all-natural means, gave him a shower (twice to thrice a year), combing and that’s about it. No medicines were given.
7. Deworming Dogs
We used to give him some deworming medicines as per his weight max once a year (and only after the consultation with the VET).
8. Regular Checkups
There weren’t scheduled checkups for him but on vaccination day – we used to consult the VET and have him thoroughly checked. Of course when Jimmi was ill – we timely took him to the VET. As far as I remember we took him to the VET about 3-5 times in his 21 years of lifespan.
9. Brought a new puppy
At about 15 years of age, Jimmi was very weak and we all felt that he probably won’t live long. However, then we brought another dog (Bruno), not sure but that made him more playful and possibly added 6 more years to his life.
10. Neutering
No, we had not neutered Jimmi meaning there was no surgery conducted to remove his testicles. However, Jimmi wasn’t very sexually active.
Please note that lots of factors affect the life span of a dog. Fortunately, Jimmi has lived very long in my whole circle – maybe his breed or genetics might have made a huge contribution too. Regardless, spend a good amount of time with your dog and give him a good life 🙂
