Vital Animal News: February 22, 2026
What old timer vets knew about vaccines / Kibble reality: It's testing toxic! / Flu Remedies! / Safe heartworm prevention sale / When Dog Heals Human / and MORE
The Good Ole Days
Pet Convenience Food + Toxins
Beat the Flu with Homeopathy
Prevent Heartworm w/o Drugs (Sale)
Dog Heals Her Hooman
Along the Natural Path
Old Doc Knew. One Shot.
I can’t tell you how many times I hear a version of this one, from Northern Grower, commenting on my last newsletter:
Thank you for all the information! My uncle had farm dogs... Never vaccinated.. all in tact. They all lived to ripe old ages of 18, 19.. My favorite dog Shep, an English setter lives until 21!! It’s unheard of these days and it’s so sad.”
All the old school vets, pre-late 70’s also knew that once they vaccinated an animal, they were done. They knew the immunity lasted (probably life long, according to the vet immunologists I quote in my efficacy article).
Sometime in the 80’s, the drive to annually vaccinate became the norm, entirely without scientific merit.
It was a convenient excuse to get pets in for an exam. Cha ching!
And chronic disease followed, so that now, if you follow the typical “prevention” as prescribed by Dr. WhiteCoat, you’ll be assured to have created a patient for life for your vet.
He’ll call it atopy and act like it fell out of the sky. You’ll know it as The Itch, and will do anything to get it stop, as it drives you, your pet, and the family crazy.
Wait. Patients for life? Hmmm, where have we seen this before?
Oh, right. An entire generation of young people, or is it two gens by now? All starting when the vaccine “schedule” for kids skyrocketed and pharma was relieved of all liability for injury or death as a result.
If you haven’t found it on my website yet, please take the time to read my free series on vaccines.
You’ll see why I’ve long considered this area to be your #1 most important decision.
You can change junk food out for something fresh and see benefits in a couple weeks.
But once you vaccinate, especially in the usual combo wombo method, you’ll set up a chronic disease state that’ll be difficult to cure even with professional homeopathic prescribing.
And impossible to cure with conventional medicine.
Kibble’s Death Rattle
Wow. If you had any reservations about switching to fresh food or better, raw food, here’s a serious nail in kibble’s coffin.
Or the spur in your side to Just.Do.It.
Kibble on the Lab Bench
Susan Thixton uncovered a recent study of great concern to kibble feeders.
The Clean Label Project found an exceedingly high amount of arsenic, cadmium, mercury, and lead in dry, air-dried, and freeze-dried dog food.”
And those were top selling brands, so you’ll want to explore her article further.
Kibble had horrendously high levels of lead and arsenic. The fresh/frozen foods in their tests were much lower.
It seems pet food gets a big pass on the levels of serious toxins allowed compared to human foods. By design.
Sounds Like Polio: My 2¢
Suzanne Humphries, MD did a deep dive on vaccines when her patients were repeatedly losing ground after shots, and published her findings in her book, Dissolving Illusions.
She spent extra time on polio, as that’s often the one vaccine that people sternly cling to as the savior, keeping kids out of iron lungs.
What she found was rather startling.
Interestingly, the “polio” cases began in areas where a new pesticide came into wide use: lead arsenate. And no one guessed it was a problem for several years.
Those two nasties, lead and arsenic, show levels in the tests way higher than any human food would ever be allowed to contain, especially in kibble.
Seeing any signs of paralysis in your dry pet food eaters? Or anemia? Or unusual fatigue?
Rather not feed highly poisonous ingredients to your beloved pets?
Probably time to ditch the kibble and get on the real food bandwagon.
The Flu Remedy 2026
Let’s deviate into human medicine for a bit.
If you’ve tuned into homeopathy at all, you know it’s a great tool to cure the flu.
The proper remedy has been getting people rapidly cured for ages.
The most famous example was the Spanish Flu of 1918, in which we really had pandemic conditions, with WWI soldiers bringing it home from the battlefields of Europe on ships.
While allopaths were doing all sorts of crazy treatments that were failing left and right, a common homeopathic remedy emerged as the cure: Gelsemium.
The homeopaths of the day were curing the vast majority of their cases, and this same remedy has served many flu sufferers over the years, as long as the symptoms were a good match.
Acute Remedy for All: The Genus Epidemicus
The beauty of acute infectious diseases is that oftentimes, people will suffer very similar symptoms, regardless of where they live.
Homeopaths have known this and strive to find that common pattern of illness in the disease du jour.
It’s one of the things I’ve been keen to find when each flu season comes, as when we know the genus epidemicus or the “remedy of the masses,” a common $5 tube of remedy can both cure and prevent the illness at hand.
The Current Flu Scene
It’s too soon to know how widespread this is, but one of my Alpha students was part of a cluster of GI based flu, with the following report on our private discussion group:
A stomach bug is making its way through my circle of friends. What can I have in preparation just in case? Ars and Nux?
Sharee is in upstate NY and wondered about two remedies, known for GI challenges: Arsenicum album and Nux vomica.
We were ready to help, but needed to hear what the symptoms were in those afflicted, as the name of the game in homeopathy is finding the substance that could, if taken in excess, cause those same symptoms.
That’s the “homeo” part of this art and science: like cures like.
For more on this, you’ll love my Homeopathy Short Course.
I asked my son since he had it. He said it started in the middle of the night with gurgling, sharp feeling. He was restless and couldn’t sleep. Only relief was a heating pad with him lifting hands over his head laying flat. It eventually turned into a nauseous feeling in his throat and he didn’t get much relief from vomiting . He was thirsty (phosphorus?) all the time. Woozy when standing. Lots of mucus in the vomit.” —Sharee
Dawn, a fellow student, beat me to the response: “Sounds like Arsenicum album” and I agreed.
Key symptoms that lead us to Ars:
Middle of the night onset. Ars symptoms are often worse after midnight (parvo puppy owners, make note)
Restlessness
Vomiting (often with diarrhea. Again: put in your Parvo notes)
Chilliness
Thirsty but only for small sips (Sharee confirmed that was her son’s thirst)
Her son wasn’t alone.
I have 7 people in my direct circle come down with it, the last one being sick last night. They have aches like the flu as well as head congestion.”
Response: Rapidly Better
As expected in acute diseases like flu, when the best matching remedy is found, the return to health is quick and painless.
Sharee’s circle of friends included a couple who were willing to try homeopathy for the first time, and they were left in awe:
I’m happy to report that the 2 people I gave Ars to yesterday are completely recovered after 3 doses”
Better in a day, with a few doses of a safe, non-physical medicine?
Yes, that’s the potential when you know a bit of how to wield this modality.
Respiratory Variant in Hubby
Finally, her husband fell sick but only had respiratory symptoms, no vomiting or nausea.
…major head congestion with burning nostrils. It was strange. He was extremely restless, chills, drank tons of warm tea (in small sips), wanted warmth so we heated lots of corn bags for him. He didn’t get nauseous but had absolutely no appetite, had a bad headache. He definitely got worse at night and couldn’t sleep a whole lot”
See the highlighted symptoms? They are strong ones for the remedy Arsenicum album, aka Ars.
Sharee saw the symptoms matching, gave it and he was better in a day, sleeping the next night as normal.
Your Flu Remedy?
If you come down with similar symptoms, Ars may be a great help as well.
Worth having a tube on hand, as you don’t want to trek to the store or send for a remedy when you’re already down and out.
At the first signs, if you’re struck with a “sudden and violent invasion with fever,” Aconitum napellus is a good place to start. The common 30C sold in stores will work, but 200C or higher potencies may be even better. Take a few pellets and get thee to bed as soon as you can. If you find relief, that may be all you need.
If symptoms evolve to those we saw in Sharee’s circle and family, move to Ars 30 and take a pellet every half hour for a few doses and see how you do. Slow the dosing as you improve and stop when you’re back to your healthy state.
If you’ve had flu this year, let us know in the comments. Listing all your symptoms will help us determine if this remedy is likely The One, at least for this season’s flu.
HW Prevention Sale
This may seem a bit early, but likely you’ll be thinking about this year’s heartworm prevention pretty soon as the weather warms up and mosquitos return to the living and pestering.
When I realized I was really a holistic veterinarian, I was in Hawaii at the time. I’d finished my rabies quarantine research and turned in my paper to the State Vet and that segued into a position as the Deputy State Vet for Maui county.
Yes, I was finally starting to luck out after a year of struggle resulting from my intuitive leap out of conventional medicine, but I really missed practice.
Holistic Veterinary Care was born, and I started seeing animals on weekends and evenings.
One of the things bugging me (pun intended) was the year round HW “threat” with Hawaii’s lack of freezing weather, and I just rebelled at the thought of giving toxic pesticides year round to control a parasite.
I dug in, researched deeply on heartworm, its life cycle, the side effects of the usual drugs, and came to my drug free HW prevention protocol, based entirely on strengthening the dog so he could resist not only this ugly worm but really all manner of other illnesses.
At first it was all spoken word, client to client, and early indications were, it worked.
Realizing I needed to reach more folks, the ebook followed, years later the audiobook, and finally the bundle with both versions + a course framework, complete with lessons and quizzes.
And the reports from happy pet owners were coming in from all over.
Florida, where they brag about the size of their mosquitos, and Louisiana, and Texas all known as endemic states, prominent on the heartworm incidence maps that scared the public into increasingly year round “protection.”
Happy Heathifying this Year!
Ha! Imagine thinking the monthly pills or spot ons are making your dog healthier the longer you’re giving them!
I well remember a client bringing me a dog who got sick monthly. When I questioned further, whoops, it was always around the first of the month, which just happened to be when she gave the popular HW “preventative” pesticides provided by Dr. WhiteCoat.
So, this special is finished. Clicking this image will give still give you more details about the protocol I’ve honed over the years.
Dog Healing Human
It’s funny the good things stumbling around the internet can bring you to.
Oh, I know, there’s the dark side as well, but you always have a choice to read the uplifting and useful, so let me introduce you to a friend and fellow author and medical heretic, Jennifer Margulis.
If you haven’t met her yet, you’ll be pleased to know she teamed up with pediatrician Paul Thomas to co-author some books to help new parents navigate the vaccine happy medical establishment.
But one of her links lead me to this fine piece, which of course caught me:
As the article reiterates, dogs lend a big paw in healing the sick.
Jennifer’s been “gifted” with stage 4 cancer that was first found in her eye, which ultimately had to be removed.
It’s been a few years now and amid pain and multiple drugs and alternative healing modalities, she remains positive, though clearly tired by it all.
If, like I just did, you opt to become a paying subscriber to her work, you’ll gain far more than you shell out. And, you’ll help her make a dent in the expenses that cancer inevitably slams sufferers with.
She’s an excellent writer (actually teaches writers…), understands what we’re up against with Big Ag, Big Pharma’s strangle hold on legislators and main stream media, and what the vaccine schedule has wrought with an entire generation.
You’ll find buttons on that lovely article above to subscribe. I hope you’ll join me in supporting this fine woman.
Along the Natural Path
It was a lovely morning for a dawn bike ride today. Just chill enough to enjoy a jacket but warm enough now that gloves and long woolen underwear are no longer a necessity.
Breakfast choices vary. It’s the roadside diner for the wanderers…
…but breakfast in bed for those cows who provide milk for the family.
One amazing deep red fruit on fresh buffalo milk kefir for me:
And, young or old, it’s playtime while the day is cool.
That’s all for this issue, and I’ll have more in a couple weeks. Remember, if you’ve weathered the flu, let us know what that looked like, symptom wise. And of course the comments are there for anything that resonated with you or that you wonder about.
Meantime, keep on making those wise decisions on behalf of those who look to you in deep trust and love.
Will Falconer, DVM
p.s. If you have any tech challenges with the HW sale (or anything else, really), my team will help: support@VitalAnimal.com
I appreciate the way this update pulls several “everyday” pet-health decisions back into first principles: risk, evidence, and unintended consequences, rather than habit and marketing. The vaccine section (and the “old-timer vets” perspective) is especially thought-provoking because it points at a real tension in animal care: population-level prevention works, but blanket, reflexive medicalization can also create downstream problems, especially when the conversation skips individual context (species, age, exposure risk, geography, prior reactions, comorbidities). The most trustworthy path is usually the unsexy one: clear indication, the minimum effective intervention, and honest monitoring, with decisions anchored to the animal in front of you, not to slogans.
Your kibble point landed too. If we’re going to make strong claims (either pro- or anti-kibble), I’m always grateful when someone grounds it in actual testing data and the realities of ingredients, processing, and quality control, because pet food is one of the most “wellness-branded” industries on earth. (And owners deserve better than vibes and pretty packaging.) 
And then the practical thread that ties the whole post together, such as flu remedies, heartworm prevention, feels like the right tone: people want approaches that are safer and less aggressive, but still rooted in reality. The win is not “never use conventional tools,” it’s use them intentionally, with a clear rationale, and don’t let fear (or convenience) become the decision-making system.
Two comments, my wonderful Vet that I have had for over 30 years has left the practice she was in. I visited with her the last month she was in the office. Part of the reason she has left is because her clinic got sold to Vet Corp. She was in the practice with at least 5 other vets and 2 of the vets unbeknownst to her and the other vets and vet techs and office staff made arrangements behind everyone else's back and sold out!! I didn't get to ask her how they managed it! Disgusting!! I am not sure what I will do for emergencies now. We have the University of Missouri Vet school in our community, but they are totally conventional vet med.
So, (2nd comment) what I have been doing is treating as much as I possibly can myself. An example that just recently occurred with one of my three dogs.....Cooper, our year and a half Brittany injured his leg, not exactly how. It was his back left leg and he was definitely hurting and not putting any weight on his leg. Of course it was a Sunday. I thoroughly checked him out and nothing appeared to be broken but I did notice a smallish wound on the inside of his leg, looked like a puncture wound. The first thing I did was get out my Arnica 30C, ground up the pellets with my ceramic mortar/pestle then took the powder and mixed it with distilled water and used a oral syringe to squirt the liquid into Coopers mouth....very easy. Gave him 4 doses over about 4 hours (5 pellets per dose). I noticed an almost immediate improvement in his
demeanor....less pain, less limping and more cheerful...less depressed. I looked at his wound and realized that he must have gotten poked by some fence wire or a stick. Consequently I cleaned the wound and used a chlorine dioxide product from Frontier Pharmaceutical called Ciderm SP Gel....excellent product from that company. I also gave Cooper some Ledum 6X once or twice for the puncture wound. By the evening he was no longer limping and the wound looked reddish but not inflamed. By the next day he was completely back to his usual exuberant self and the wound was no longer red and was healing up completely! Thank you Homeopathy and Chorine Dioxide products! For people that are interested the Frontier Pharm company has numerous other Cl02 products for both humans and animals....generally topicals and some oral (mouth/teeth and nasal) products for humans. Great company. Website: frontierpharm.com
Thank you Dr. Falconer for your excellent news letter, I always look forward to reading it. At some point I intend to join your Alpha program, just couldn't due to financial concerns.