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1 Alternative medicine for pets may not be as widespread or well publicized as the human variety, but it’s growing faster than a sprig of St. John’s wort.
—Time magazine, November 3, 1997
VETERINARIANS SAY THAT our companion animals are suffering from an epidemic of poor health. Too many pets are becoming sick and dying well before their time.
The veterinarians also say that while great strides have been made in diagnostics, surgical treatments, and acute care, the overall ability of their profession to deal with widespread chronic disease leaves much to be desired. Conventional methods often just relieve symptoms temporarily but fall short of healing animals or effectively raising their levels of health.
Over the years, in veterinary as well as in human medicine, the shortcomings of a system emphasizing drugs and surgery have motivated many doctors to look beyond what they were taught in medical school. Increasingly, they have found answers in a global potpourri of healing arts collectively and popularly referred to as “holistic” or “alternative” medicine. More and more consumers, too, are turning to such practitioners for their own health, and the health of their pets, because they are wary of drug side effects and the invasiveness of surgery.
The veterinarians I interviewed for this book told me they became partially or totally alternative because of dissatisfaction with the results of surgery and drugs alone. They found that conventional methods often merely suppressed symptoms, while the cause of disease would rage on untouched, continuing to destroy tissue and life force at ever deeper and deeper levels. This is why they felt a need to expand their healing horizons by learning acupuncture, chiropractic, homeopathy, nutritional therapies using food, supplements, and herbs, and other methods not taught at medical schools.
Nino Aloro, DVM, of Virginia Beach, Virginia, has been practicing veterinary medicine for more than fifty years and long ago turned to alternative medicine because many clients told him they were discouraged with the side effects of drugs and the lack of lasting improvement in their animals. “Sometimes side effects are worse than the disease,” he says. “Standard medications have the potential to cause frightening problems with the liver, heart, kidneys, skin, immune system, and digestive tract. And veterinarians know this.”
Maria Glinski, DVM, of Glendale, Wisconsin, became frustrated early in her career with the limitations of medicine as she had been taught for the treatment of arthritis, cancer, and chronic conditions of older animals. She recalls treating an old, arthritic Collie whose owners would carry the dog up to their second-floor bedroom each night. The standard treatment she was using caused disturbing side effects without significant relief. The owners were interested in alternative medicine and heard that vitamin C along with an injectable combination of vitamin E and selenium might be helpful.
“I knew absolutely nothing about alternative medicine, but I figured there was no harm in trying,” Glinski says. “The dog responded very favorably and was soon walking on his own up and down the stairs. This remarkable reversal so impressed me that I started learning more about holistic methods and have been involved with alternatives ever since.”
Veterinarians like Aloro and Glinski say that after learning and applying alternative methods, they can often turn sick pets around, optimize their health, extend lives, and improve the quality of life of severely ill animals. Such practitioners use methods that harness and rally all the resources of the whole animal—the mind, body, and spirit—in an effort to encourage natural healing mechanisms. This approach revolves around a central concept as old as the art of healing itself: that each person, each living thing, possesses on a deep level the will and intelligence to be healthy and that these elements can and should be enlisted in effecting a cure.
The Western medical tradition tends to take control with invasive and powerful methods. Alternative methods nourish the whole body and its natural tendency for health and homeostasis.
It’s important to understand, however, that no one single approach—neither conventional, with its powerful drugs and sophisticated surgery, nor alternative, with its less invasive, more natural “whole” body solutions—has all the answers. Increasing numbers of doctors and veterinarians believe that the future of medical practice lies in an integrative or complementary approach that uses the best of both worlds: the high-tech advances of Western medicine along with the natural methods that maintain and optimize health.
The faster that integration takes place, the better for all of us—human and canine patients alike. We can then start to expect that the practitioner we see will use the most effective and least invasive and toxic method, or combination of methods, he or she possesses. Such practitioners will choose from a menu of many choices—herbs, homeopathic remedies, vitamins, drugs, or surgery.
Many of the veterinarians whose comments you will read in this book have developed this practical, combined approach long before the term “integrative medicine” was popularized several years ago by Andrew Weil, M.D.
“There is a growing vision of a triad of complementary and conventional medicine, along with the element of the human-animal healing bond,” says Allen M. Schoen, DVM, of Sherman, Connecticut, who operates an integrated practice. “The three combined is a powerful approach. I try to fit the particular program to the individual animal and the individual animal caretaker. If our highest goal is to help animals, we should look at whatever we can to help them.”
Alternative veterinary medicine encourages pet owners to learn what makes their animals sicker or healthier and take appropriate action. Becoming involved is critical, and for many veterinarians the most important thing they can do is to empower and involve their clients in a health education process. They are glad to educate you about your dog.
People become part of their own health and healing process or they just take a pill, wish for the best, and go about doing the same things that got them sick in the first place. We can make healthy choices or not-so-healthy choices. But companion animals totally rely on us. We can feed them any cheap food and then get a prescription when they get sick. But that’s not what being an active partner in your animal’s care is all about. Involvement requires that you know your dog, a point strongly made in the foreword of this book. There is no substitute for knowing your animal and watching for signs that may indicate changes in health. You are the closest person to your dog, not your veterinarian. You can see changes that may not be obvious to others or are too subtle even for medical tests to pick up. When you see such changes, trust your observations and tell your veterinarian.
Keeping a journal is a practical and effective method for recording changes in the behavior or health of your dog. A move to another location or a dramatic event in the household could cause a problem related to stress or anxiety. If you make a diet change, log the date, and the details, and if your dog had a response. Observe your dog closely after treatments or vaccinations, which have the potential to create new symptoms.
Ask your veterinarian to show you how to routinely check your dog’s teeth, ears, eyes, and other body parts. When you pet your dog, run your hand easily over the body in a search for any bumps, lumps, or anything abnormal.
The bottom line is this: The more you know about your dog, the better you can carry out your responsibility as companion and caregiver.