Care

I was trying to be a responsible dog owner. We lived in a rural area of Northern California, in a house with no fenced yard. My boyfriend's Irish Setter had recently been shot and killed while chasing a neighbor's goats. A hard lesson to learn, and one I wasn't about to repeat. So when we were leaving the ranch for a day I insisted we tie up our recently acquired St. Bernard, Bear. We tied him to a tree, made sure he had access to plenty of water and shade and was nowhere near a fence that he could climb over. Confident that we had done the right thing, we drove off.

What's new in holistic pet care? Try apple cider vinegar—or, as its fans call it, ACV. Okay, it isn't new, but this centuries-old product is enjoying new popularity in canine circles. Those who are old enough remember when Dr. D.C. Jarvis of Vermont made apple cider vinegar a household word with his 1958 best seller Folk Medicine. According to Jarvis, native Vermonters used cider vinegar to cure migraine headaches, arthritis, diabetes, obesity, indigestion, and a host of other ailments.

When I was growing up, I knew a family that kept a dog just for finding and killing skunks. My friends lived on a big cattle ranch, and all their dogs had jobs. They had a couple of Australian Kelpies for working cattle, a number of tall, rangy hounds for hunting wild pigs, and then there was poor Frank, the skunk dog. I don't remember where my friends had obtained Frank, or even what breed of dog he was, but I recall that there had been numerous cases of rabies in the county where I lived as a child, and that skunks were the main carriers.

St. John’s Wort (Hypericum perforatum) IS often used in topical wound healing creams and ointments, as it demonstrates broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity. Taken internally, however, it has not demonstrated any ability to heal injuries, but has well-documented abilities to lift depression and lessen anxiety.

As with the death of a relative or close friend, losing a dog can have long-lasting effect on the owner's lifestyle. For example, I am surprised to realize that I have not been cross-country skiing or running (both previously major activities) since the death of my first Malamute, Omaha Beagle, well over 10 years ago. Grieving is a painful, yet necessary process. At the time of the pet's death, owners may lose perspective, tending to focus on all the bad experiences associated with the last few days, weeks and sometimes months prior to the pet's demise.

We know from innumerable modern research studies that a person's immune strength and resistance can be improved through a positive mental outlook, and that people who are happy heal more quickly than emotionally depressed people. Stated simply: emotional states can affect the physical body. Most veterinary health care professionals would probably agree that the principle is true for animals, too. For example, most healthy dogs are usually happy dogs – or is it the other way around? And have you noticed how, just as with people, very often an anxious or angry dog also tends to be prone to more injuries and illness than a content and cheerful dog?

Megaesophagus truly is a horrible condition, both for the dog, who really suffers, and for the dog’s owner, who can’t do very much to help. However, there are a couple of holistic healing methods that I’ve seen help dogs with megaesophagus. I use a lot of homeopathy in my practice, so of course, my first suggestion is to use homeopathy, which is entirely dependent on the body’s ability to respond. Homeopathy is “energy medicine;” the purpose is to present the energy picture of a specific problem to the body so the body will raise a defense, a response to that trigger at both the physical and the energy level.

Car rides. Some dogs love them. Some dogs hate them. Helping car anxiety in dogs, and getting a calm passenger is a step-by-step process.

Your kids always buckle up, and you usually do. It's time to take the next step, and get that dog a seat belt. We'll tell you which one is a winner.

People fear Rottweilers for a variety of reasons, and only a few of those reasons are due to the media. Some Rottie owners deliberately foster the intimidating look, fastening huge Gothic collars on their dogs and encouraging their dogs to be aggressive. Many Rottweilers are used for guard and protection work, a task they were bred for and excel at. And, face it, whether you want to blame nature or nurture (poor breeding or wrong-headed training), there are a certain number of aggressive, unpredictable, dangerous Rottweilers in the world.

It’s really a safe and simple procedure; one that most dog owners can easily learn to perform on their dogs. I have done it to my own dogs since I was a little kid. So it never ceases to amaze me when I ask my training classes how many owners clip their own dogs’ toenails and an average of only one out of eight raise their hands. That means the other seven either neglect this important procedure, or spend hundreds of dollars over a dog’s lifetime to pay someone else to do it.

Calendula Officinalis (also known as the Marigold plant, but usually called calendula) and hypericum (also known as Saint John's Wort), are very safe, yet incredibly effective at cleaning the site of an injury and encouraging the body to heal. Homeopathic and herbal preparations of calendula and hypericum have proved invaluable in modern-day holistic dog care. In fact, it's difficult to find an herbal wound preparation that does not contain some form of one or both of these potent plants.