Vital Animal News: September 8, 2024
An ounce of huh? Keep your cat happy; Trees: Good; Worms: Ewww; Free raw food training
An Ounce of uh, What?
Happy Cat Month!
Mo Trees, Mo Bettah Health
Tasty Tips: Worms!
Raw Dog Food Summit
Along the Natural Path
AVMA Talks Ounces and Pounds
Hoo boy. The AVMA has revisited the old saw, An Ounce of Prevention…
But, since my blinders came off in the early 90’s, I’ve seen that same “prevention” as the chief cause of the chronic disease epidemic we’re seeing in our animals (and, of course, in our kids).
Here’s their standard argument for regular “check ups”:
“Veterinarians recommend regular wellness [? Ha! -Ed] exams for the same reason your physician and dentist recommend them – if you can detect a problem in its early stages, it's more likely to be treated and resolved with less expense, less difficulty and better success.
As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Vaccinations, heartworm prevention and routine deworming are important components of wellness care and can prevent diseases that are not only life-threatening, but very expensive to treat.”
They lead with vaccinations.
I do as well, but it’s my #1 caution, as I’ve long noticed the more vaccines an animal gets over its lifetime, the greater the odds of chronic illness plaguing them.
If your goal is better health and “less expense,” chronic diseases like allergies (itchy skin and/or ears, long the #1 reason dogs see vets) are best avoided.
And we who’ve awakened have been watching the explosion of The Itch for generations of pets now, and know its chief cause is vaccination!
Wait for it…
Oh, not right away. You’ve got to look out about a month from the vaccine jab to see The Itch begin.
Scratching the ears. Shaking the head more than before the shots.
Chewing the paws. Hot spots on the rump.
It comes on slowly and at first you probably don’t even notice.
But, when it occupies Sadie’s days and nights, and her collar jingle-jangling disturbs your sleep, it dawns on you: Sadie is Sick!
Big Expense with a Side of Side Effects
If you run her back into Dr. WhiteCoat, he’ll have drugs for Sadie (and won’t see the vaccines as involved, because this didn’t start in the first 48 hours post shots).
Expensive drugs, the commonest being a nasty one called Apoquel. (<— Do hit that link so you know what you’re up against. Be sure to scope out the comments from real people with real pets, and real serious side effects).
I wanted to get a bead on how costly this was, so imagining I had a 50 lb dog to treat, and I was bent of saving coin, I looked it up on 1-800 Pet Meds.
Oh my.
In over 40 years as a vet, I’ve never (not once) seen a drug sold By. The. Tablet.
And, you can bet they’d not send you a single tablet, right?
No, you’d buy a bottle of this prescription only med to start tricking your dog’s immune system into ignoring that allergic nightmare the vaccines have set in motion.
So, at $2.98 a TAB, you’ll start by giving two tabs twice a day for the first two weeks.
Let’s round up: $3 bucks X 4/day, that’s $12 a day.
And you’re looking at $298/bottle… but wait!
Price changes with market conditions? Sound fishy to you? Or just more egregious Big Pharma profits-before-patients behavior?
The Side Effects
Like the article I’ve written shows, if you dig into the reviews on this pill pushing site, you’ll see a wee little side effect mentioned:
“MY DOG HAS DEVELOPED LYMPHOMA AFTER TAKING
My dog was diagnosed yesterday with stage 4 to stage 5 lymphoma! He WAS fine!! After getting the diagnosis, I told my daughter about reading that one person's comment before I gave the medicine to Max (my dog). She looked it up last night and found that 12% of dogs who take this medicine develop lymphoma and very rapidly and very aggressively. RESEARCH THIS MEDICATION BEFORE YOU GIVE IT TO YOUR BABY!! I WOULD GIVE ANYTHING TO GO BACK AND NOT GIVE IT TO MY MAX!!!”
If you’re hearing this word lymphoma for the first time, it means cancer of the immune system. You know, the very system that’s designed to ferret out foreigners, including cancer cells!
So… Prevention?
Still think “an ounce of prevention” the way it’s sold in conventional veterinary practices is a wise investment?
Did you know a majority of practices at the last estimate I saw still recommend annual vaccines?
I hope you’ll rethink prevention before you fall victim to this old saw.
A pound of cure?
It may be more like 50 pounds of your life’s love, leaving you far too soon.
And that after exhausting your bank account.
It’s Happy Cat Month!
You may not know it, but September has been named Happy Cat Month, at least in the States.
(Unheard of here in India, where cats seem to be creatures of lurking, maybe victims of superstition, while they take out untold rats and mice).
Both my site and I could be considered “dog-centric” as that’s the species my avid readers generally have owned.
And, I can only vaguely blame my mom, who was, since childhood, deathly afraid of cats. She said it was due to a cat leaping into her baby carriage when she was a wee lass. I only know that even seeing one across the street sent her into panic mode.
So, I grew up with dogs, one at a time, who, never having leapt into her carriage, were more than okay with her, as long as they knew to stay off the furniture.
I briefly entertained a cat in my vet school days, but wasn’t charmed by her leaping to my kitchen table and leaving raspy tongue trails in my butter. My bad.
And she wasn’t replaced when she met an untimely end, hit by a car racing down my street.
Still and all, I have a deep respect for the species, with their more obvious window into “wild” than most dogs, who’ve taken domestication more seriously.
If you are a decent translator of “doglish,” everything I’ve pointed out as foolishness or downright danger in the raising of dogs applies equally to cats.
Over vaccinating (cats, more than dogs, get a tumor at the site of the rabies or FeLV shots). They are also victims of The Itch, but can do so much more damage with claws and tongues made to tear prey to shreds.
Feeding crap (cats should never, ever, NEVER eat kibble. Here’s why.)
What’s more, we owe cats a deep debt of gratitude for revealing to us the immense value of feeding a “species appropriate” diet, thanks to the experiments of Dr. Pottenger. His research had a huge influence on my understanding of the importance of diet early on as I explored holistic ways.
Pesticides for all manner of pests (cats are exquisitely sensitive to toxins, and are now being pushed into monthly heartworm “preventatives”).
Keeping a Happy Cat
If you’d like a homeopathic vet’s intimate take on keeping your cats healthy, be sure to hit up the Vital Animal Podcast episodes with my friend and colleague, Dr. Andrea Tasi. I liked her so much I invited her back, so listen to both.
She’s all cats, and all homeopathy.
Like me, she sees prevention as a two edged sword.
And you’ve likely gleaned that happy cats are less medicated cats.
Trees Making Headlines
Well, if you needed more evidence that greenery is beneficial to health, we have a recent study that objectively verifies that for you.
In this study, it was trees, planted in Louisville Kentucky neighborhoods, after that city got smacked with some nasty statistics:
Louisville has received an F from the American Lung Association for annual ozone days since 2012
Our air quality ranks among the worst in Kentucky
Our tree canopy loses about 54,000 trees per year
(If you need help pronouncing that city’s name correctly, Zoltan Kaszas has you covered)
Boyhood Loss
And oh, I remember tree loss, painfully. I grew up in a Wisconsin mid-sized city and our street, like most I walked to school along, was lined with huge stately elms.
Lots of shade, greenery, back rests, leaves to pile up in the Fall and jump in (and later, burn, a preadolescent fascination that smelled wonderful).
One summer, we left for a three week vacation in No. Michigan, and returned to <gasp> a denuded street! They were all leveled to stop the spread of the elm beetle, and replaced with spindly little locusts, painful reminders of the forest we’d just lost.
It felt like I’d lost my very childhood.
Plant Trees, Reap Health Bennies
But Louisville did the reverse.
They planted trees, some 8500 mature ones, in one area and left an adjacent area alone (which had no or few trees).
The researchers measured residents’ blood levels for CRP (c-reactive protein), a marker of inflammation that’s often higher in those ending up with heart disease, immune disorders, and more.
Chronic inflammation is a friend to no one.
After two years (data just in), those in the tree planted areas had a 13% lower level of CRP than the control people, a very significant drop.
Reason enough to move to a tree house?
Maybe, but at least, if you live where trees are sparse, get thee to the green belt or forest closest to you on the regular.
Animals in tow, obviously.
What’s good for you is good for all the creatures you call your own.
To Deworm or Not to Deworm?
My Vital Animal Alpha homeopathic students all know I don’t chase intestinal parasites with homeopathic remedies.
Nor do I find drugs a necessity in the youngsters, who are the usual group (puppies and kittens) to harbor worms, often from Mom at birth.
What I’ve long noticed is that a proper species appropriate diet is all that’s needed.
Once again, it speaks of this foundational principle:
“Make the body healthy, and parasites will have no home.”
Those pups raised on raw food, in my experience, would lose any worm burden within a few short weeks.
The time will be shortened when vaccine alternatives are sought and when flea/tick poisons (let’s call them out for what they are: looking at you, Bravecto!) are avoided.
Imagine the marketing that moves you to give pesticides to your charges and think you’re doing them a favor!
Would you surmise then, that the longer you use these killer products, the healthier your pet will become?
Tapeworms
If you’ve got tapeworms bothering your pet, you’ll have to pay more attention to flea control, as the flea is the intermediate host for these buggers.
Here’s my take on ridding fleas non-toxically.
Also, note that while the tapes are the most visible (rice grain sized wigglers, often left on stools or crawling around the anus), they are the most benign worm your pet could be carrying.
The drugs to rid them are probably more risky than the tapes. Time is on your side, in other words. No need to panic.
Rescues may be the exception
One of our Alpha regulars is Barbara, rescuer of all manner of kittens.
It’s not unusual for her to receive very medically abused younguns, barely alive after way too many vaccines piled on to a starving body and who knows what else.
She says,
I have to say that in my experience the parasites rarely left after a couple of weeks of feeding raw food. I feed raw to my kittens but many wouldn't have survived because they couldn't gain the weight/strength to counter the diarrhea and vomiting, lethargy and dehydration… Of course, the kittens in my care all have had rough starts in life.”
I agreed, of course. Barbara is in the trenches with some of the toughest cases and she’s doing the work largely on her own, from her own budget.
And having learned acute homeopathic prescribing? Doesn’t hurt and Barbara’s got some sweet successes to report.
If your pet hasn’t been through rescue at an early age, odds are the raw diet approach will quietly make your youngster’s gut inhospitable to worms in short order.
If you haven’t had the bejeebers scared out of you around garlic in dogs, you could also mince a bit, let it sit in the air for a couple of minutes, and mix that into something tasty for Sadie to consume.
As the “dose makes the poison,” so it is with garlic. The herbalists know it’d take several big cloves in a full grown dog to whack the red blood cells. Search that out and you’ll see.
Worms? Meh. Temporary hitch hikers you can show the door to.
Raw Dog Food Summit!
This is the real deal, and it starts tomorrow (Monday)!
Learn from one of the grandfathers of the raw food movement, veterinarian Ian Billinghurst who authored Give Your Dog a Bone, Raise Your Pups on Bones, and more.
This free summit will help you make the all-rewarding jump to raw feeding, with help from several of my colleagues and other experts in the field.
Once you learn this, you’ll watch your dog pack do a 180º turn in the direction of wildly healthy and naturally disease resistant.
Summit 2.0 begins tomorrow, Monday the 9th of September and runs through the 12th.
If you’ve been waiting for any reason to take this step up to raw, this is a great opportunity.
Ian makes it easy and the rewards are like compound interest. They keep growing the longer you’re feeding real food.
Typical and expected when you dump the commercial food for raw:
Softer, shinier coats
Bright eyes, no more gunk
Sweet breath and teeth that gleam (w/o brushing!)
Compact, odorless stools
A renewed excitement in eating, as you’re now offering real food
Energy increases, yes, but balanced energy, not ADHD
The cool thing to me is, your dog becomes a “story teller” at the dog park.
People can’t resist petting her and asking “How did you DO this? She looks so great!”
Then, you can tell a bit of the magic that you’ve unleashed in the kitchen, and out go some inspiring ripples.
She tells her friend, her friend tells her hubby, hubby tells his work mate, and no telling how far your impact travels.
Here’s where to get registered for free:
And please share your results with me, once you’ve made the jump for a couple of weeks. Those stories never get old…
Along the Natural Path
The days are finally notably shortening, and a few early signs of Fall are gracing our village in No. India. It brings hope of cooler weather and less humidity.
Those grasses above show off their annual flourish of seed heads.
“Tree huggers” takes on a slightly different meaning here. These brick circles are how young saplings withstand goat grazing, so they can become big strapping trees with all their good effects and majesty.
Boring activities are often called out as “watching the paint dry,” but here, it appears that one could “watch the rice grow” and actually see it! These fields are now thigh high and it seems they got there overnight.
All things being equal, the chief crop of the region, both for sale and for home consumption, looks to be a record breaker.
Finally, I realize I’ve let you down for local animal color, and then this guy popped up as I headed home to boil my morning buffalo milk:
He’s clearly dual purpose in his color scheme. He’ll be able to disappear against a tree trunk, folded one way, and yet able to attract the females when he opens his arms widely.
Where ever you find Nature, rich colors, green growth, and fresh air where you live, imbibe it deeply. It’s a balm for these difficult times, as is what ever spiritual practice you partake in.
And keep those animals close, swap some microbiome with them on the regular, and keep on making wise decisions on their behalf.
Till next time,
Will Falconer, DVM
Love this! I started down the rabbit hole several months before covid when a friend’s toddler died a horrible, gut wrenching death right after a round of vaccines.
Now I am WIDE AWAKE and downright evangelical about telling the world how awful vaccines are for pets and people.
Food is the medicine. I believe that the ingestion of supplemental b vitamins is a major problem. The b complex is a delicate balance and nutritional yeast is an excellent source of that balance I have noticed that most nutritional yeast these days have been “fortified” with b vitamins which I believe has been done intentionally to disturb the balance and make it toxic. Thank you for spreading the word about the toxicity of “vaccines”