A recent study reported that pet owners have longer, healthier lives on average than do people who own no pets. Specifically, dog owners tend to have a lower incidence of heart disease. In light of these findings, Sherwood Hospital should form a partnersh

The author of the statement above believes that by making people aware of the health benefits of owning a dog, they would adopt dogs and the instances of heart attack would dwindle. This conclusion is based on an unclear recent survey which seemingly shows pet owners have healthier and longer life than others. Going on making assumptions instead of incorporating conclusive evidence into the argument, the author renders the conclusion untenable.

To begin with, based on the survey, the author has taken for granted that people start to have a healthy life at the moment they own a dog. The link is not substantiated with reasons. According to common sense, just having a dog may not be effective; for instance, one may own a dog, and give it to a servant to take care of it, and the owner seldom see that dog. Here, would merely owning a dog stand in a good stead for the health of owner? The link might be due to playing with dogs and the physical activity that makes people healthier. As long as the argument left no clues to see why owning a dog is beneficial for health, it can barely be acceptable.

Secondly, the author further assumes that owning a dog also comes in handy in a rehabilitation process. However, nowhere in the argument we see that having a dog would obviate the need of medicine in recuperation of the people with heart conditions. Furthermore, the efficiency of owning a dog for those who already had heart attacks may be different from those who not. Therefore, it is not reasonable to generalize the result of the survey to those who experienced a heart attack.

Thirdly, the author believes that with people being aware of the benefits of having a dog, they would certainly adopt more dogs. Nevertheless, people may already know the benefits of having a pet, but they are allergic and they cannot own a dog. Also, the cost of adopting a dog and caring it, in terms of money and time, may not be affordable by many families. Hence, not having a comprehensive view renders the assumptions an oversimplification.

Finally, even if people have adopted the dogs in a significant number, the author assumes that in future there would be no opposing factor to undo the positive effects of owning a dog. People may promote an unhealthy lifestyle such as smoking or excessive eating. The stress of the society may increase because of an inflation or war. With all these scenarios being the case, the reduction in the instances of the heart conditions is not convincible.

In short, as it is conspicuous in the body paragraphs, the different fallacies such as oversimplification and hasty generalization makes the assumption-based-argument untenable. Only by conclusive evidence can the author convince the readers that people would adopt dogs and the heart attacks would dwindle.