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I just get frustrated because *everything* is blamed on smoking. The house could’ve had terrible insulation or the animal could’ve had bad food. But if there’s a smoker - well, that *must* be it.

I didn’t start smoking until I was 24 and I didn’t allow a cigarette near my kids until I was almost 30. (By then they were 8 and 9 years old)

I was the Sterilization Mom from hell.

But a funny thing happened when the kids would go to stay at my mom’s farm. Their allergies, welts, rashes, and asthma would magically disappear within a week. Wood smoke from the fire, hay mounds, cigarette smoke, animal dander, and animal poop... Yup. At the farm, they’d be exposed to all of it and they’d be healthy as horses.

Then they’d come home to the sterilization nazi and be sick as hell within another week.

Then I came across the hygiene hypothesis and realized that I might be *too* clean.

I had a dog that came down with spinal cancer right before that realization and sent her to my mom’s farm to live out her last days. The dog’s cancer went into remission and she lived for another eight years.

Go figure.

All I’m saying is that cigarettes are being demonized and that the dangers are exaggerated.

Anecdotal evidence is not proof - one way or another. Your stories are no less valid than mine, but that’s not science.

(And, as for why our animals live for so long, I believe that it’s a lack of stress and constant company. There’s always a mom at home, we all believe in dog doors so the animal never needs to hold it, self-feeders so they can graze, and it’s peaceful. The animal can come and go as they see fit, eat and drink as they wish, are part of a family and always have the company of a ‘pack member’ in the form of a stay-t-home mom. There’s a reliable schedule and they always have slept in the bed with a favored kid. That’s the only commonality that all of our long-lived pets have had.)