Care

If your dog is reactive to other dogs but you are thinking about getting another dog anyway, read the following for both a sober warning as well as cautious encouragement. It’s a wonderful case of a seriously dog-reactive dog improving enough to be able to live with another dog – but it took tons of the kinds of work described by Pat Miller in the previous article to get there, and the dog’s training and mangement is ongoing.

Responsible, holistic puppy care begins long before the puppy arrives at the homestead. In fact, the first step to creating a healthy puppy is the selection of the puppy’s parents! The best predictors of long-term health of puppies are the health history and personality of the parents. Breeding stock should be proven to be sound in body, mind, and socialization.

When I'm driving on the road and see a dog in someone else's car, it makes me smile. I love it when people care enough about their dogs to chauffeur them around town. I love it even more when the dog is in a crate or seat belted in place. My smile quickly vanishes, however, if the dog has her head stuck out the window, is sitting in the driver's lap, darting back and forth across the seats, or worse, riding loose in the back of an open pickup truck. And the ultimate crime – leaving a dog in a hot car – motivates me to grab my cell phone and call out the animal cops. As much as we love our dogs and want them with us all the time, we have an incontrovertible obligation to transport them safely, for their own welfare as well as ours, and that of other drivers on the roads. All dogs, large and small, should learn to ride politely in their cars. There's a long list of safety hazards concomitant with having an unrestrained obstreperous canine in a moving vehicle.

What if animal healthcare practitioners were only paid if animals were healthy? In times of old in China that is the way it worked. The Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) doctors, known as “barefoot doctors,” would go from village to village and receive housing, food, and payment only if the community was healthy.

Depending on who you talk to, dog parks are either the greatest invention since microwave ovens or the devil incarnate – either the perfect place to exercise and socialize your dog, or the best environment in which to traumatize your dog, make him dog-reactive, and perhaps get him killed. We're told that perception is reality, but these two perceptions are worlds apart. Which one is right?

Your dog just had surgery, stepped on broken glass, caught her tail in a door, has a puncture wound, got bit or scratched, tangled with barbed wire, or has an abrasion that came from who knows where. You want the wound to heal quickly without bleeding, pain, or infection. The following strategies help achieve that result.

Readers of canine health books and magazines, including this one, can be forgiven for assuming that holistic or natural pet care is a recent breakthrough, something developed during the past two or three decades by a handful of revolutionary veterinarians and researchers. Not so. Today's holistic pet care movement began over 70 years ago when Juliette de Bairacli Levy defined natural rearing.""

In mainstream medicine the mechanisms of detoxification are often viewed as unpleasant symptoms of illness that need to be remedied. Eye drops are administered for goopy eyes, dandruff shampoos for flaky skin, surgery for removal of cysts, and so forth.

Willard Water is one of life’s mysteries. Most people have never heard of it. Those who have, tend to use it religiously, even though they aren’t sure what it is or how it works. They say it improves digestion, reduces migraine headaches, relieves arthritis, improves skin health, heals burns and wounds without scarring, helps balance blood sugar, treats gum disease, supports detoxification, lowers high blood pressure, alleviates pain, and is helpful in the treatment of dozens of other conditions, including cancer.

Frequently, we refer to “holistic” veterinarians in the pages of Whole Dog Journal, as in, “Discuss this with your holistic veterinarian.” What we generally mean by this is a vet who offers her patients complementary and/or alternative methods of healthcare, in addition to her conventional Western medical treatments. The goal of holistic practitioners is to look at the entire animal patient – body, mind, and spirit – and to do more than treat his illness in times of crisis; they must also promote his total wellness, with an eye toward disease prevention.

The immune system is a dog's great protector." To be immune (from the Latin immunis

You can find them everywhere – at dog parks and doggie daycare centers, in dog training classes, in your neighbor's yards ... perhaps even in your own home. They" are canine bullies – dogs who overwhelm their potential playmates with overly assertive and inappropriate behaviors