Finally I am beginning the newsletter again. Please let me know what you would like to learn about, how I can best help you heal your animals and yourselves while healing our planet. There is so much information on the internet and now so many integrative veterinarians and other animal practitioners that maybe coaching on strategies rather than specific techniques will be most useful. Let me know if this is useful. Prior newsletters can be found on my site.

Most importantly, please sign up for the RSS (click on the Right) as I have been continuing to make topical blog posts during this newsletter phase. I will continue with blog posts, posting from other useful blogs as well.

July 2014 index

1.      Classes

2.      Holistic Perspectives

3.      News

1. Classes

Coming in August to the Baltimore/Washington area - the incredible 6-day introduction to homeopathy for animals: August 15,16,17 and August 22,23,24. Students in the past have come from all over the world (Hong Kong, Israel, etc) and loved this class.  Pet parents, veterinarians, wildlife rescuers, shelter workers - anyone working with animals will benefit from this class.

 

2. Holistic Perspectives

Making the "right" decisions for health care for your animals and yourself:

• Your conventional veterinarian, whom you love and have been with for years, gets mad at you when you want to feed a different diet;
• You have been feeding raw food, your dog is stung by a bee and the veterinarian tells you the reaction was from the raw meat (true story last month);
• You have been purchasing a frozen raw food and it is recalled, so you wonder if processed would be better, but they are recalled, too. Make it yourself? Many internet sites say it is not possible to feed a homemade balanced diet;
• Your cat is gagging with occasional vomiting. Should you have a veterinarian physically examine your cat (maybe it is a string around the tongue or a foreign body in the intestines) or try some holistic treatments first?

 

As you can see, each of these questions looks like they have a "right" and "wrong" answer. When using hindsight, you may say your decision was the best one or not, but at this moment there is no way to tell.

 

Planning is useful for all aspects of our lives, and health planning is critically important. Now is the time to think about your strategies for health.

1. Build overall health so you never see problems (probably unrealistic);
2. Choose approaches to build health, knowing they will need tweaking and that acute problems will still occur;
3. Do not think about it too much until there is illness;
4. Follow what your veterinarian tells you to do.

 

Well, I would recommend #2.

1. While I and others have put together basic health keys, you still need to see if they make sense to you.
2. Ask questions until you understand why you make each decision. Vet says,  "give this heartworm preventative monthly". Do you even know how your dog gets them? Did you know mosquitoes have to live for 2 weeks at over 65 degrees F for the larvae to become infective? How does the preventative work? Vet says,  "only feed raw meaty bones and no grains and no vegetables."  Why? Is this how dogs eat in the wild? What nutrients are in a mouse?
3. Watch for early hints of ill health. 
4. Do not assume - for people or animals - that advancing age causes illness. Stiffness, cataracts, dental tartar, incontinence, etc. are not caused by "old age", they are caused by not having discovered which diet, lifestyle, and treatments are needed to stay healthy.

 

Build health

1. 7 keys to health (at my site) include decreasing toxins, drastically decreasing vaccines, feeding the best food.
2. Look for Early Warning Signs of Internal Imbalance (at my site). My cat, Ed, is a Maine coon type. His long hair is my clue. It is usually soft when I give  VetriScience Nu Cat vitamins. It is soft with no vitamins since I started this new batch of food and I do not remember which supplements I put in it. I continue to explore different ways to keep the coat soft - not because that is critical - because that indicates that his vital force/Qi/pranna is balanced, so he will live a longer, healthier life.
3. Do regular physicals to look for the Early Warning Signs and to get your pet used to being examined.
4. Be honest with yourself. Rationalizing is not helpful. He started peeing in the house because my husband has been sad lately. This may be true, but a deeply healthy cat would be able to tolerate the sadness without acting out that much.
5. Study and read...then study and read some more.  Then ask more questions.
1. Animal Wellness, Whole Dog Journal and Dogs Naturally Magazine all cover different approaches to health.
2. New books come out often on feeding your cherished pets. Paleo Dog by Dr. Jean Hofve and Celeste Yarnell; Unlocking the Canine Ancestral Diet by Steve Brown; Dr. Becker's Real Food for Healthy Dogs and Cats by Dr. Becker and Beth Taylor; The Royal Treatment by Dr. Barbara Royal are some newish ones.
3. Internet - blogs, newsletters - follow the ones that make sense to you, that "call" to you. Take with a grain of salt the ones that are too righteous - "my way is the only way."
4. Move heaven and earth to take my class in August or to host me in your town!
6. Keep a journal to track all symptoms, even minor ones, and the changes that happen with each treatment or lifestyle change. We do not remember as much as we think.
7. Work with animal communicators/intuitives. Get a "check up" twice a year to identify any early problems, and so you have found a person you trust for when illnesses occur.
8. Learn as many healing modalities as you can, remembering that once you take the classes, you own that knowledge for life. Then use them regularly, not merely for acute problems. The following are almost 100% safe, so are the first ones to learn.        
1. Reiki (maintained peace in the house when done weekly);
2. Tellington T-Touch (got an angry puppy calmed down);
3. Healing Touch for Animals (prevented ear infections when used at the start of one);
4. Acupressure (slowed lipoma growth for 10 years or more with daily work);
5. Flower Essences;
6. Magnetic therapy;
7. And many more.
9. The following, while not 100% safe can still be learned and used
1. Homeopathy;
2. Herbs;
3. Essential oils;
4. And many more.

 

Plan for illnesses, injuries and annual physicals.

1. Every animal should see a veterinarian at least once a year. I recommend timing this with your annual heartworm check for dogs (one month after you have seen mosquitoes and the temperature has been over 65 for at least 2 weeks) - anytime for cats. Find an integrative veterinarian if possible to do this. A TCVM (Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine) one can use pulse and tongue to identify slight imbalances. If none are near, interview many different veterinarians until you find one willing to work on building health and support your holistic approaches. See my article on Selecting and Working with an Integrative Veterinarian. With conventional vets you may need to take them out to lunch (out of the pressure, stress environment) or at a minimum pay for an interview appointment.
2. One you have the above, acute problems will be easy to treat. You will have someone you can call to say, "My cat has been licking her belly so some of the hair is shorter. Is this critical, or might I try some holistic approaches?"
3. Have several basic holistic treatment books available, depending on what modalities you like and maybe have studied.
4. Have basic first aid remedies on hand:
1. Rescue Remedy (or one of the other companies' emergency care solutions);
2. Hydrogen peroxide for wounds or to induce vomiting;
3. Live aloe vera plant or some organic drinkable aloe;
4. Cornstarch to stop bleeding;
5. Yunnan Bio to stop bleeding;
6. Powdered Marshmallow root to make a slurry for any mucous membrane problem - vomiting, diarrhea, cystitis;
7. Bright light. I just discovered a baseball cap sold by hardware stores with bright LED lights in the brim. I can look in a mouth or ears, etc.
8. Others depending on your animal's issues - consult with me or your integrative veterinarian.
5. Spend the time to train your animals to present every part of their body for examination. Roll on your belly, hold up your tail (or let me hold it up), give me your paw (and let me get a good look), etc.

 

You are now in a position to have healthy animals and every time you choose locally raised GMO- free, Roundup-free meat and vegetables; avoid antibiotics; avoid flea and tick chemicals; - you will be helping our planet stay healthy.

 

I will review this in a year to see what needs to be added per your response. You questions and suggestions will be answered in the blog or in future newsletters.

 

3. News

Conventional veterinarians now are hearing that fewer vaccines are needed. I went to a free steak dinner sponsored by Meriel, a vaccine company. The speaker, Alice Wolf, had been on the Texas A & M Veterinary Faculty. Among other facts, she told the veterinarians to use only a few core vaccines, to give only every three years, to stop once the animals were older (7 years!) and not to give when ill.

 

The AVMA House of Delegates (HOD) voted resoundingly to not prohibit veterinarians from using homeopathy in their practice. This had been requested by the Connecticut VMA. It took two years of incredible work by a few holistic veterinarians and a few calls to our delegates from the rest of us to turn this around. They carefully educated the HOD about homeopathy.

 

The AVHMA also voted to admit the 900-plus member American Academy of Veterinary Acupuncture as a constituent allied veterinary organization of the HOD. Keep asking your veterinarians for more healing options to be available to your cherished pets.