Vital Animal News: July 14, 2024
Goats, Guilt, Rabies, and a Quiz
Goats: First Line Firefighters!
Revelations and Guilt
Quiz: What Killed the World’s Tallest Dog?
Rabies: Vaccinate or Not?
Tasty Tips: Safe Socialization
Along the Natural Path
Got Goats?
Fire prevention in California is employing goats!
How cool is that?
Michael Choi, the proprietor of Fire Grazers Inc., leads a team of approximately 900 goats that can consume up to an acre of brush daily. This method is not only effective but also environmentally friendly, as it reduces the need for mechanical clearing and chemical herbicides.
As a past goat herder (for the milk, not their muscles), I can tell you if I had hundreds of goats who’d be happy to browse an area of fire potential, I’d be there with a smile on my face and goats happy to follow me anywhere!
That’s goats.
They make their owner part of their herd, and love to go for goat walks, where ever you lead.
In this case, the herder is hired to bring his goats to fire prone areas, where their browsing habits clear brush that would otherwise be tinder for the next forest fire.
I’m always inspired when Nature does it better than high tech.
Besides, what machine would leave natural fertilizer behind?
We Feel So Guilty…
I’m writing this on the heels of presenting my webinar on holistic health for pets.
I opened with the chief pitfalls on the road to raising wildly healthy, naturally disease resistant, long lived, joy-to-be-around animals.
Then, in flooded the questions, and I was happy to see so many, and good questions at that.
But, at least one revelation of mine brought a response of…
We feel so guilty for not knowing this…
I’d just pulled the covers back on kibble, how its ingredients are often waste products from the meat industry, its processing makes it devoid of “life,” and how while convenient, it is clearly detrimental to health.
Maybe a different pitfall gave you similar feelings.
Guilt vs Determination
If those feelings of guilt for not knowing better ever creep in for you, banish them!
You were doing the best you knew to do, before you learned another perspective.
The best response, as you kick guilt to the curb, is determination (and I hear this as well, especially when you’ve lost an animal too soon to one of the many man-made diseases).
Never again! We won’t be fooled again!
And you stride forth, determined to improve things, knowing what you now know and applying it.
Your next gen of animals excels and shows you what’s possible when you work with Mother Nature’s timeless guidelines.
And even your present animals brighten up, sleep less, smell fresher, lose their eye gunk, and stop shedding, all because you gave then a diet upgrade to something akin to prey:
Fresh, raw, and alive.
Something “species appropriate.”
I never knew either: Nutrition
When I went through vet school in the late 70’s, I knew next to nothing about nutrition. (Though I’d lucked out in my family of origin and learned how to feed myself when I moved away with the help of Diet for a Small Planet)
Literally, its only mention was in a couple of afternoon sessions before graduation where we were told by a Hill’s Pet Food rep,
We’ve got you covered! We’ve got prescription diets! If you’ve got a cat making crystals in his urine, just feed our C/D. If derm (skin) problems, D/D, kidney disease, feed K/D.”
Imagine my joyous surprise when I learned 12 years on, during my homeopathic training, that owners of cats with kidney failure who quietly ignored the admonishment to feed a low protein diet saw vast improvements!
They’d observed their kidney cats craving the raw diets the other cats in the household were eating and said to their charges,
Well, my dear, if you’re never going to recover anyway (true of kidney disease in any species, btw), and you have such a strong desire to eat this way, here you go!”
And those cats literal woke up, started grooming, put on weight, and started playing again.
Would you need more research before you tried this with your own cats?
I didn’t. I told that tale over and over again, and tied it to the revelatory Pottenger’s cat studies.
Vaccines Neither
In my schooling, we heard zero, zilch, nada about vaccines being anything other than miracle drugs, trickily stimulating immunity to deadly infectious disease.
“Here’s the schedule to use,” that’s it. Done deal.
Again, the light only started dawning 12 years later, when Dr. Pitcairn revealed to us that, while homeopathy is powerful enough to cure, truly cure, chronic disease, it could only do that if, somewhere along the prescribing path, “vaccinosis” remedies were appropriately chosen and prescribed.
That term sprung to life from a brilliant British homeopath named J. Compton Burnett, whose seminal work, still available today, revealed how deeply disease causing vaccines were.
And how a remedy or two could help reverse long standing, crippling disease when it had a focus on vaccine damage.
Did I feel guilt for all the animals I’d vaccinated?
No.
I was doing the best I knew. And I vaccinated hundreds before this light went on and I tossed the vaccines in the trash and started to share this knowledge on my early blog.
Carry on. You’ve got this.
We all start where and when we start.
You can make significant changes in your animals’ health, even if you start with baby steps.
Maybe cracking a raw, pasture raised egg over that high priced kibble.
Maybe hitting the pause button on vaccines, as you learn more about something the vet immunologists call “duration of immunity.”
Maybe trying my drug free heartworm protocol that’s been bringing in negative tests year over year for decades now, conceived while I lived in Hawaii and learned through my research that wolves and coyotes rarely die from HW.
At what ever pace you choose to make your health upgrade, my advice is: just do it.
Mother Nature has long held out her examples of the wild cousins of our domesticated animals for us to learn from.
And, free of hubris, she’s far wiser than anyone who’d work against her in the name of health.
No guilt. Only determination to do better now that you know better.
What Killed the World’s Tallest Dog?
Okay, pop quiz! (Our physiology prof in vet school was famous for these. We’d groan but we really learned a lot from him by continually brushing up, never knowing when the next quiz would pop)
Did you read about the unexpected death of the Guinness World Record breaking tallest dog in the world recently?
Kevin was a 3 year old Great Dane, and though the article kind of skipped over his actual cause of death, I think you may be smart enough to figure it out.
Here are your clues, and the answer will be forthcoming after your answers come in.
Deep chested dog, as are all Danes
Fed kibble, not clearly stated but this was: “Kevin ate between six and 10 cups of food per day.” And his mom worked at a vet clinic. Most conventional vet clinics don’t deal with any food except commercial brands, mostly kibble, some cans.
His death happened suddenly, a couple of weeks after his record setting, "following an unplanned surgery after falling ill."
So, what did this youngster die of?
First one to get it right by writing us at support@VitalAnimal.com (they’ll be dated and time stamped automatically) will get an honorable mention in a follow up article with the answer and more details.
And maybe a free gift… I have to think more about what, but I like the idea of rewarding smarts.
Ready, set, go!
To Rabies Vax or Not to Vax?
I’ll be helping you answer this key question, as we get ready to reopen my signature rabies course called Rabies: Knowledge is Power at the end of the month.
It’s a key question because:
Rabies can be both a pet disease and a human disease
It can be fatal, after a brutal set of symptoms that include suffocation
The vaccine, while protective, is one of the most side-effect laden of all
It’s not uncommon to see rabies like symptoms in your rabies vac’d pet:
Aggression, not present prior to rabies vaccination
Seizures
Fear
Choking, reverse sneezing
Eating indigestibles
We’ll start with a free 4-part series of videos called the Rabies Masterclass.
It’ll be yours to take part in at your own pace, starting on Tuesday, 23rd of July, and your comments on each video are welcome (and encouraged! We all have varied experiences with this disease, so sharing your experience can help others evaluate their need for rabies vaccines).
I’ll announce the Masterclass when we go “live” on the 23rd, and I’ll be interacting with your comments on a daily basis. Keep an eye on your inbox.
Don’t miss this, as when you’ve completed the free Masterclass, you’ll know how to evaluate that key question and have a chance to go deeper in my coaching class that follows, Rabies: Knowledge is Power.
Tasty Tips: Safe Socialization
One of the most important things in raising healthy, well balanced animals who are a joy to live with (and whose behavior is often so appreciated by others), is socialization.
What is it?
It’s exposure of the youngsters, from about 3 weeks old up to and even beyond 12 weeks, to a wide variety of stimuli that are new and different.
It’s one thing to be in the comfort of Mom and your littermates and your significant human caretakers, but it’s a big world out there!
And the younguns who get an early and non-threatening exposure to that big, big world are likely to avoid some serious behavioral issues, like fear and aggression.
Some of those exposures include:
Other animals outside their home group: curious but friendly dogs, cats, horses, etc.
New people, including those wearing hats, shades, and speaking in booming voices
Stores, friend’s houses, parks, forests, farms with animals
While I’d not normally recommend the AVMA as an info source, this article on socialization is pretty solid, with a notable exception (vaccine misinformation).
How to Protect the Wee Ones?
Those who’ve chosen to forego vaccinations in their youngsters often have this question, however:
“How can we do this early life exposure to the world, other animals, and new places safely? We sure don’t want parvo to take our youngster’s life!”
A valid concern, as I’ve mentioned in past issues and my podcast with Dr. Cooney.
While the AVMA thinks it only safe if you’re doing this:
“At this age [8 weeks] the puppy or kitten is more mobile. Activities will begin to occur outside the home but these should be limited to areas that are not used by with unvaccinated animals as vaccination coverage is not complete. Steps should be taken to avoid contact with dogs of unknown temperament, health or vaccination status or surfaces that may harbor disease vectors such as grass on public parks.
Prior to full vaccination a common source of well-vaccinated playmates includes socialization classes and friend’s pets.”
They are obviously way bought into the “safe and efficacious” mantra amid so much evidence to the contrary in all species.
And they think immunity only comes from jabs. Meh.
Safe Exposure w/o Vaccinosis
As I explain more in depth in my Smart Vaccine Alternatives short course, homeopathic nosodes are a very effective, very safe way to protect against the two major viral killers in dogs, parvo and distemper.
The beautiful thing about this energetic method of protection is that it begins as soon as you start the protocol!
They won’t produce a positive titer, as nosodes are diluted beyond physicality, but that will come in time as your pup gets out and gains “immune experience” from safe contact with these viruses.
So, don’t let the fear of infectious disease keep you from early life socialization.
You’ll be way ahead in the balanced behavior department when you start early and do this safely.
Along the Natural Path
The fields around me in my India village are shifting. They are being flooded and planted in the mainstay crop of summer, rice.
Women are the planters, deftly placing individual plants in straight rows, all by sight. They’ll grow until Fall, then allowed to dry and be sickled down by men and women and threshed by hand to separate stalk from grain.
Prior to flooding, this dog was just happy to get some “earthing” in in some newly plowed soil:
As my deep old growth forest was left behind in Uttarakhand last week, these are my new microbiome enhancement species:
The thunder in Uttar Pradesh, where the monsoons made a striking appearance the day I returned, is unworldly.
A gray sky, a hot humid day with no defined clouds, and, all of a sudden, completely unexpected, a deafening CRACK! splits the silence. And the air, instead of catching fire, starts to cool a bit.
It took a full 20 minutes before the downpour started, a soaking, pelting rain that no tree could possibly shelter you from.
Huge, steady droplets, slamming everything in sight until the road couldn’t adequately carry it all away.
After a solid 20 minutes of heavy showers, the thunder made a grumbling return, as the welcome cool air accompanied me home on my bike.
“Ah coulda done so much damage, but you’re lucky this time… grumble, rumble, grumble…”
Where ever you find yourself on this amazing planet, remember to keep making those wise decisions for the innocents in your care.
Until next time,
Will Falconer, DVM
I'm not sure what I appreciate most about you: your writing, love of animals, knowledge, or ethics. Combined, they make a fantastic Substack. Thank you.
Great article! I love the goat idea--nature's natural "weed-eaters"!
Still working my way through Vital Animal Alpha...loving it. Since I am new at all this, and trying to kick the guilt feelings to the curb, I thankfully read this message today,