Vital Animal News: March 17, 2024
Pet food poisonings update
How much/When to feed?
Long vax? No: Vaccinosis
Water, water everywhere
Poison pet collars lawsuit
Tasty Tips: Cup o’ Joe (for pests?)
Along the Natural Path
The pets are (still) sick from pet food
Dr. Judy Morgan, my colleague who’s been testing pet food for pets that have been sickened or killed when a new batch of commercial food was the trigger, has updated us on Youtube recently.
If you’re feeding Purina or any commercial food to your pets, this is a must watch.
High points for those in a hurry:
Thousands of cases of pets, carefully screened, have been sickened or killed in relation to feeding a new bag or can of food. Many brands have been implicated.
Chief symptom is hemorrhage (bleeding). Could be bloody vomit, stools, nose or internally. Seizures have also been reported.
Chief suspect is a rodenticide, commonly used around grains, a big part of pet foods. Most interfere with blood clotting.
It appears a coverup is in progress by Big Pet Food (seen: huge quantities of pet food in dumpsters and landfills recently)
If you have an animal affected, I stand by my homeopathic remedy choice as the likely cure, posted here earlier.
ICYMI: If you have any food refusal by your animal or any symptoms like those listed, STOP FEEDING that food and start the homeopathic treatment on your way to the ER.
More details in the video above.
Feeding: How much? When?
As is often the case, I write based on what you have uppermost in your mind.
This recent question came from Katherine:
One concern I have: Not only knowing what to feed my animals, but HOW MUCH! I've been doing a fair amount of research about preparing healthy food for my animals, but I always come up short trying to determine WHEN and HOW MUCH to feed them!
Feed What?
I’ve written earlier about the “what” question, which really speaks to WHO you are feeding. This is one of my favorite points, though it may shock the itty bitty cutie patootie dog owners to read they are really caretakers of a wolf!
So, let’s say you get off the kibble wagon after you’ve come to realize how much this ultra processed food-like particle is a nasty.
Byproducts, rendered dogs (!), phenobarbital, and the latest, something poisonous yet to be named. (See #1 above)
So, the WHAT is ideally something approaching prey, aka “species appropriate” food.
But How Much?
Ah, that depends, in part on what you’re feeding.
Like carbs do to people, the carbs that hold kibble into its chunks, tend to make animals hungry.
Cat owners who haven’t learned yet about how damaging kibble is to their beloveds, often called their dry food “kitty crack!”
But, once you make the jump to a raw food diet, I can say with surety that no one overeats that!
I’ve never seen a fat wolf, have you? Or a chubby cheetah? Nah.
Similarly, the raw fed dogs and cats I’ve seen gleam, but they are appropriate in weight, and no one is having to restrict them.
When to Feed?
Ah, this is even more fun, because it gives me a chance to preach a sometimes uncomfortable topic: fasting!
Why the discomfort?
Well… we tend to equate food with love. You know this one?
Food and treats are the stuff of love, and when they are overused, are one of the chief causes of obesity in pets.
But fasting? Great idea, and mimics those wild ancestors who, as you might guess, don’t eat daily, let alone twice a day.
Set aside a day a week, offer TLC in other ways (special fetch! Walks in the deep of Nature! Wrestling in the grass! Cats: Thang on a Strang!), and just be sure to keep the water bowl full and the food dish empty.
Super benefit: Sadie’s busy digestive system gets to take a break, cleanse a bit, and she gets a healthy reset appetite when food arrives the next day.
When to feed when it’s a feeding day?
I’m partial to morning or mid-day. One meal a day.
Ayurveda would agree: that’s when agni, or the fire of digestion is growing to its full flaming height. We want to harness that power to fully, efficiently digest that meal!
Who you gonna call?
As with so many things, when in doubt, look to Nature for the best examples of how to raise your animals. She ain’t lying, and she’s been at it for far longer than we’ve been on the planet.
Vaccinosis: Name That Disease!
Lest you think vaccine injury is something recent, history shows it goes way back to smallpox, the first vaccine that got a wide roll out, including mandates in the US and England for years.
When we studied veterinary homeopathy in the early 90’s, we learned of a key term that’s remained applicable since its origin in the late 1800’s:
Vaccinosis.
It simply means illness following vaccination.
The originator of that term was an English physician who turned to homeopathy, named J. Compton Burnett.
Among his many publications, he wrote a treatise called Vaccinosis and Its Cure by Thuja in 1884 and it’s still available, free, via Google books.
The illnesses were many, most were chronic, and most were debilitating to a large extent.
Burnett’s book is short and well worth your time to read.
What’s in a word?
Dr. Pierre Kory, who along with his co-author Jenna McCarthy, authored The War on Ivermectin, likely hadn’t heard of this older word when he suggested “long vax” as the term for those suffering from the Covid mRNA jabs.
He feels this disease of the jabbed is likely far more common than the “long Covid” illness that’s been named for the actual infection.
I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case.
I’d only suggest that “Long Vax” holds connotations that might be misconstrued.
Like a slow release capsule, the unaware might think anything so labeled would confer a longer immunity. “Great! Where do I sign up?”
Vaccinosis is a simpler term and to the point: it’s the condition (“osis”) or illness produced by vaccination, regardless of the symptoms.
We see it daily in veterinary medicine, but only if we open our time frame of damage beyond 48 hours post jab.
The commonest interval from jab to sickness my homeopathic colleagues and I have observed for decades, is about one month.
Give or take a couple weeks, one month is when the vaccinated often break with what I call simply, “The Itch.”
The allopaths prefer to call it atopic dermatitis.
Whatever the term, it’s clearly a mistuned immune system that’s responsible.
Now your pet is mysteriously allergic to all manner of normal things:
Pollen
Mold
Flea bites
A bite of chicken
And, an entire industry has grown around testing just how many things your poor dog or cat is allergic to.
Oftentimes, the lengthy list of substances Sadie is reactive to include things she’s never eaten or been exposed to!
And, while the conventional veterinarian has no cure, there’s money to be made in treating this vaccinosis disease!
Among the commonest, most expensive (and most side effect laden) drugs prescribed for Sadie’s itch?
Apoquel. (My most popular post, and the one that caused my website to get hacked after it was originally posted).
Check the comments on that post, whose chief side effect appears to be, wait for it… malignant cancer of the immune system!
Oops! But Sadie’s no longer itchy, right?
History repeating itself
So, here we are once again in deja vu land. Let’s hope we learn this time from the recent mRNA jab fest that circled the globe with disastrous effects.
Smallpox’s sordid history found people getting sicker after that jab and efficacy was merely a figment of Jenner’s imagination. (Also, he wasn’t a doctor, as the link reveals.)
Vaccination is (grrrr…) mandated from time to time, and in the animals, the only one with a mandate is rabies.
You can start your rabies education (and learn why I often put rabies “law” in quotes…) with my free Rabies Short Course.
And learn more about this historical term vaccinosis in my blog: You Want to Detox a Vaccination? Think Again.
Dr. Kory? What do you think about a renaming?
You and Dr. Burnett would have had lots to discuss, had you been contemporaries.
Water, water everywhere…
A Midwestern Doctor who writes The Forgotten Side of Medicine had a great post on water recently.
So many choices! So much you (or your animals) don’t want to imbibe from tap water these days!
In the US, for example, we find:
Glyphosate, a known gut microbiome disrupter
Many other pesticides, depending on where you live
Fluoride, banned in China and most of Western Europe
Chlorine, which like fluoride, negatively impacts the thyroid gland
Lead, arsenic, nitrates, and PFAS (the “forever” chemicals)
What’s the best?
Well water? Spring water? Water imported from island nations in the Pacific?
I was tickled to see he’s recommended what I’ve long held as the best, mainly due to the degree of purification that this method goes through.
That’s reverse osmosis, aka RO water for short.
And further pleased that, in his top of the heap, he’s a fan of the one I’ve been recommending for years, made by my friends at Ideal Living.
AquaTru’s water has been independently tested to be free of the usual contaminants, and our long time environmental watchdog (watch person?) Erin Brockovich has endorsed it.
While there are many RO units for sale at Home Depot, one of the distinct advantages of the AquaTru is installation.
Dead simple, no plumbing, no electricity, no diving under the sink to install, this unit sits elegantly on your counter and provides you and the fam with fresh, pure water.
Get you some purity, slake those thirsts, guilt free.
Seresto: Convenience at a steep price
Ever thought a flea collar was a pretty benign way to keep those pests off your dog?
Marketing would have you believe you’re really graduated into the Smart Pet Parent Club if you do.
It turns out, at least one well known one, Seresto, has been making pets sick for years and the EPA (who deals with pesticides) has dropped the ball on it, big time.
This from Susan Thixton of Truth About Pet Food:
“Recently a lawsuit against Seresto flea collars was settled for $15 million. Pet owners would be eligible for “up to $13” for every collar purchased, and “If your pet died in a manner ‘allegedly related’ to wearing a Seresto product, you’re eligible for $300 plus medical costs plus fees for burial or cremation.”
The collars give off two pesticides, flumethrin and imidacloprid.
The first is a pyrethroid, but don’t envision beautiful daisies, as this is a man made chemical somewhat related to the chrysanthemum that’s got thousands of years of use to thwart pests.
The second, imidacloprid, is a neonicotinoid, which you may have heard of as “neonics,” implicated in the vast honey bee die offs in the past decades.
They, like most pesticides, kill by paralysis of the pest.
From the EPA report Susan links to:
…in March 2021, news media reported that over 1,500 pets had died and many more had fallen ill while using Seresto pet collars.
Furthermore, from 2012 through 2022, the EPA received more than 100,000 incident reports related to Seresto pet collars. By November 2022, the EPA had received more than 2,500 pet death incident reports and nearly 900 human pesticide incident reports regarding Seresto pet collars.”
Needless to say, killers of one intended species rarely leave others untouched.
There are better ways to control these buggers without risking your animal’s life.
Maybe less convenient than tying a pesticide laden collar on, but would you don one of those to, say, keep mosquitos at bay?
I thought not.
Tasty Tips: Coffee kills!
The ants have returned to my room in No. India.
A sure sign of Summer that I never welcome, but it’s just part of living here.
They are uniformly starving, apparently, and being tiny, will find the slightest trace of anything remotely food related on a counter, floor, or (worst of all) my bed. When they try to feed on me, that’s IT.
They have reminded me of something though, that may be of use for your own pest control.
Did you know that the coffee we cherish every morning tastes so wonderful because it’s actually an insect deterrent?
It’s true, the chemical signature of the coffee bean deters insects as a plant defense mechanism. (It maybe even kills them, depending on who you read).
I learned this first hand. In my tiny kitchen.
My morning fave is a “fat latte,” with all the cream I can skim from my buffalo milk plus butter plus coconut oil.
Ants LOVE anything milk related but would assiduously avoid any spills that had coffee in the mix. No feeding frenzy, no ant anywhere near that drop!
So, will they deter every bug?
Fleas, for example?
I’d not be surprised, and maybe you’ll try a coffee rinse for your flea ridden dog and inform me of your results?
Or you’ll spread some spent grounds around the sleeping area where your pet gets her zzz’s?
I mean, who doesn’t like the smell of fresh brew?
Insects, that’s who!
Let us know in the comments if you try this or have any experience warding off the pests that bug your pet with good ole Joe.
Along the Natural Path
Winter wheat and mustard are both coming to ripeness and harvesting is close at hand here in No. India.
I love to get my exercise while circling our little village ashram, now swelling with thousands of visiting devotees as we get ready to celebrate the festival of Holi.
Far from the madding crowd, last evening I ran into two groups of goats, out for a bit of foraging with their people:
Firewood in hand, a bit of shyness from Mataji until I called out “Radhey Radhey,” and all was well. “Radhey Radhey, bhaiya” (brother) rings out her response. One of God’s most beautiful and loving forms is Radha and Her divine name is taken commonly here as a form of greeting.
Goats are milk animals here, as most Hindus are vegetarian and dairy is a nice source of protein, calcium, and ghee, the amazing fat for cooking. Goats are also, bar none, the healthiest species I see here. Shiny, in “good flesh,” never lame or sickly.
Buffalo may be a distant third after cows, with their Old World look and dual purpose as draft animals and milkers. And they are everywhere:
And guess who’s got the right of way?
Beep! Beeeeep!!
Yeah, right.
When someone is acting obstinate, the Hindi word for buffalo is applied.
Where ever you find yourself on this amazing orb, rocketing through space, be sure to get out on the land, rub some animals, sit in the dirt and get your shoes and socks off.
And, as always, keep on making wise decisions for those innocents in your care, who’ll take what ever you okay.
See you in a fortnight,
Will Falconer, DVM
p.s. If you haven’t yet, please join my free Vital Animal Pack, where a small library of goodies awaits, including a course on Bach Flower remedies for animals.
And, if you’d like to be part of my ongoing efforts to make a difference in the lives of the poorest of the poor here in India, consider becoming a paid member here on Substack. I regularly empty my bank account to support our many ongoing charitable endeavors.
Thank you for that excellent essay! I, for one, celebrate the crossover of “red pilling” that’s happening in both the human & the veterinarian vaccination industries!
Since I do not drink coffee I can’t say, but I do know that ants really hate pepper. I sprinkle it all over inside cabinets and drawers where I get a bunch of ants, and it does the trick for me. I freshly grind pepper for cooking, but I buy pre-ground pepper just for ant problems, I don’t know if fresh ground might be even better since it’s fresher, but the store bought pre-ground pepper seems to do the trick for me, for ants at least, just thought I’d share. I feed my dogs tablets with garlic and brewers yeast which does the trick for fleas for me so I haven’t tried pepper for that. Thank you for all that you do!