What makes some dogs live longer, healthier lives? This is the question Fountain Hills veterinarian Dr. Karen Shaw Becker and her co-author, Rodney Habib, wanted to answer in their new book and New York Times bestseller, “The Forever Dog: Surprising New Science to Help Your Canine Companion Live Younger, Healthier, and Longer.”

Becker was born in Cedar Falls, Iowa, going on to attend the Iowa State School of Veterinary Medicine.

“I knew I wanted to be a proactive wellness doctor and I knew that probably wouldn’t work too well in Iowa, so I moved to Chicago and set up the first proactive wellness hospital in the Midwest in 1999,” Becker said.

While much of the medical field deals with handling health issues after they occur, proactive medicine puts an emphasis on preventing those issues from ever taking place.

An example Becker gave was that, in school, they were taught how to treat canine heart failure. What she was most interested in – and nobody seemed too capable of addressing – was how to prevent that heart failure from occurring in the first place.

“Treating the body once it’s broken is an option, but I’m focused on how to keep the body from breaking,” she continued. “If you can prevent the body from breaking down, you have an excellent quality of life and potentially a longer health-span and lifespan.”

Becker said she is obsessed with longevity science, exploring why the body breaks down and if anything can be done to prevent disease and degeneration from occurring. She’s been passionate about this type of longevity science in humans for years and got to thinking, how does it apply to our canine friends?

Becker’s co-author, Habib, on the other hand, has a fondness for tracking the oldest dogs in the world. He contacted Becker about three years ago and informed her there was a 30-year-old dog in Australia, a fact that took Becker by surprise.

“So from that, our question became are these old, vibrantly healthy, extra-long-lived dogs genetic outliers or did their owners do something different,” Becker said. “And if they did do something different, what was it and can we potentially replicate it?”

To that end, the duo began travelling the world and interviewing the owners of the oldest dogs in the world. Becker said their entire lifestyle was scrutinized, and then that information was taken to the top longevity scientists and researchers in the world to reverse engineer what was and was not being done to help these doggos live longer, healthier lives.

Becker laughed, saying that they were told these leaders in their fields were very difficult to get in contact with under normal circumstances but, once they heard dogs were involved, they were happy to lend their expertise to the project.

Another stroke of luck came with timing. Becker said she returned from her whirlwind tour of the world on Feb. 28, 2020, just before COVID-19 shut everything down. The result was that she had a relatively uninterrupted pandemic to spend working on the book.

“We wanted to give passionate dog owners the tools they need to make better choices and not have regret,” Becker said. “People are desperate to do things to keep their animals living longer, but they don’t know what to do. Being a proactive doctor, my message resonates with this.”

The book came out a few weeks back and gained quick success and acclaim. Becker said she chalks that up to the fact that “The Forever Dog” is basically a how-to manual on how to extend the health and wellness of a dog, something many dog owners clearly have an interest in.

Becker said the number one question she and Habib have received after hitting the New York Times bestseller top spot is, “When is ‘The Forever Cat’ coming out?” Her answer? “It’s coming!”

Becker said they never expected “The Forever Dog” to be so successful, but that success shows how many people in the world love their dogs and want to make informed, intentional decisions to improve their lives.

“That warms my heart,” Becker said. “…The popularity of this book, I believe, is a reflection of how committed pet owners are. This book is a gift to dog owners around the world, to be able to have actionable steps to provide their dogs with optimal health and wellness.”

“The Forever Dog” is available in print, digital and audiobook formats. It can be ordered from foreverdog.com, or pretty much anywhere books are sold. For more information on Dr. Becker, visit drkarenbecker.com.