NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Adding to the growing evidence that calorie-counting might make for a longer, healthier life, a study of dogs suggests that cutting down on Fido's treats could tack up to 2 years onto his life.

Researchers found that Labrador retrievers raised on a lower-calorie diet not only lived longer than their more gluttonous litter-mates, but also avoided common canine conditions like osteoarthritis for a longer period of time.

Past research in organisms ranging from yeast to rodents has suggested that calorie restriction aids ( news - web sites) longevity. The authors of the new study believe this is the first to tie low-cal living to a longer life span in a mammal larger than rodents. Research in rhesus monkeys has already suggested lower-calorie diets can forestall chronic disease.

Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and Nestle Purina Pet Care in St. Louis, Missouri, led the study. The results were published in a recent issue of the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association.

In the study, 48 Labs from seven litters were paired off to compare the effects of two diets. One dog in each pair was fed until his heart's content until about age 3, when their diets were reigned in to keep them from becoming obese. The other dog in each pair ate 25% fewer calories than his partner, before and after age 3.

The researchers found that the median life span--the age by which half of the dogs had died--was nearly 2 years longer among the calorie-restricted dogs (13 years, versus 11.2 years). The dieting dogs also tended to go longer without needing treatment for chronic conditions--age 12, on average, compared with age 10. In both groups of animals, osteoarthritis was the most common medical problem, but the calorie-restricted dogs developed the condition an average of 3 years later than their litter-mates.

"Because osteoarthritis is painful, this deferral represents a substantial boost in quality of life," study co-author Dr. Gail K. Smith, of the University of Pennsylvania, said in a statement.

Throughout much of their adult lives, the calorie-restricted dogs also had less body fat and lower levels of certain blood fats, blood sugar and the sugar-regulating hormone insulin. In humans, these traits are associated with a lower risk of major disorders like type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

SOURCE: Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 2002;220:1315-1320.

This is not "news" in that it's more than 10 years old.  But interesting, nevertheless:

Does your dog have breath that would knock a pill bug off a garbage truck?
Is it so atrocious that you've started calling him Hal for short - as in halitosis?
When your dog walks into a room, does someone invariably ask, "What died under the sofa?"

If that's your problem, pal, there may be hope for you and your smelly little best friend. A company in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, has a product it claims will cure your dog's mouth P.U. factor and make him socially acceptable.

About a capful of Oxyfresh Pet Oral Hygiene Solution in your dog's drinking water, says Oxyfresh CEO Richard Brooke, and you can stay in the same house with the animal without holding a rag over your nose. "Where we get most of our business is from pets that humans sleep with or ride in the car with, where the pet is in such close proximity to the human they can't stand the pet's breath," said Brooke, who doesn't have a dog. If I knew as much about bad dog breath as this guy does, I wouldn't have a dog either.

Pet owners are buying the jeepers out of this stuff, Brooke added, so there must be a lot of raunchy dogs out there. "It's really going crazy," Brooke said. He estimates 20,000 bottles of this stuff are sold a month - (800) 33-FRESH. The retail price is about $7, and much of the selling is done by distributors. "We have veterinarians and pet stores and breeders and everybody else coming out of the woodwork to buy it and sell it." Only in America, or perhaps France, would a product sold for the purpose of improving doggy breath be a hit. What's next? Doggy deodorant? Probably not, but only because dogs don't have underarms. Of course, if you keep your dog on the floor where he belongs, you might not need this product, unless you sleep on the floor with the dog. "One lady who sleeps with her dog said that her dog had such bad breath that she couldn't tolerate sleeping with the dog anymore," Brooke said. "So she went to the vet and asked if he had anything." He did. "She was just ecstatic," Brooke said.

Brooke said his company also heard from a rancher who, thanks to the product, can again ride in the cab of his pickup with his previously stinky dog. "We get letters all the time," he said. The reason dogs can use this mouthwash is that, unlike many mouthrinses, it has no alcohol. Instead, it contains an ingredient called Oxygene® that acts on the cause of bad breath - a gas-creating microorganism that hides in dental cavities and around the gumline. Wow. And I thought dogs have smelly breath because they eat weird things. Like my dog, Rufus, who loves used Kleenex. He even sneaks up on it and steals it. Don't even ask. Actually, for the past 10 years the company has been marketing Oxyfresh Mouthrinse for humans, a product that, except for its peppermint flavor, is the same as the dog product. But when the company found out through word of mouth that many of its customers were putting their mouthwash in their pets' water bowls to clear up dog breath, it decided to capitalize on the situation. About a year ago, the company began marketing a dog mouthwash by putting a new label, one showing a dog and cat, on the human mouth rinse. (It also works on cats.) "It was not the result of any brilliant marketing or research development on our part," Brooke said. "It was just creative uses of our products by our customers, and us listening to our customers."

But will your dog drink water with this stuff in it? No problem, Brooke says. In fact, he's heard from customers that dogs prefer it that way. "I just heard one the other day where the dog's water was downstairs and the cat's water is upstairs, and they started treating the dog's water and the cat started drinking out of the dog's dish," Brooke said. "Don't ask me why." Maybe the cat had a date. Yeah, that must have been it.

For more info on Oxyfresh, click here.