Don't you think a dogs lifespan might just be a little longer with a quality diet? I do. And to me, that is what this is about.
:) Hi, my dog is 18 years old and the funny part is that people always ask "What do you feed him?" Well we try to feed him good stuff, meaning canned dog food with chicken, ham, turkey, or hamburger meat mixed. Previous owner fed him almost everything that was on the table.
We had four prior dogs, two at a time. The one that lived the longest was 12 1/2 years old. This dog was 13 1/2 years old when he adopted us. To me, it's like some people just live longer, and there is no real explaination as to why.