Paws to Heal

As more people are seeking reliable information on alternative health options for both themselves and their pets, it is becoming increasingly necessary to have access to accurate and easily understood sources.
On this  information highway, there also needs to be somewhere to stop and take time to reflect upon the ideas that appeal to us. I tell my clients that this involves listening to their own gut feelings about what seems right for them.
I am prompted to post this today in response to this need and in the hope that some of you will take inspiration and encouragement to look a little deeper into alternative health options.

Much of the philosophy on disease and natural healing presented here will be inspired by homeopathic teachings of luminaries such as George Vithoulkas and Constantine Hering amongst others. Although the principles outlined here are applicable to all species, I will be speaking mainly about domestic animal health.

Disease is a disturbance to the vital (life) force. This same force then causes symptoms to appear that mirror this level of disturbance. These symptoms represent the disease and what is to be cured. Recognising these symptoms leads us to identify a remedy as in the true homeopathic sense, ‘like cures like’.

The tenets of natural health practice are, in essence, very simple. There is, however, an abundance of conventional practices that we have acquired over many years that we need to feel confident to abandon in our search for better health.

Some of these trusted processes include yearly vaccinations, commercial pet foods, over medication of long standing disease and the definition of cure.

These will be addressed simply and separately in the following paragraphs.

Vaccinations
Vaccinations are not required to be given every year to protect against disease.
In fact, for dogs, a single vaccination at maturity after five months of age is sufficient to confer lifelong protection from distemper and hepatitis and many years protection from parvovirus and rabies. The overuse of vaccines creates numerous health problems. See vaccination alternatives. Similarly cats do not require repeated vaccination to protect them from disease. Feline leukaemia vaccinations have been directly implicated in causing cancer at the injection site in many cats.
One of the founding principles of natural health practice is to reduce the incidence of repeated vaccinations.

Commercial pet foods
Tinned and dry foods are not the best diets to feed your animals unless nothing else is available.
They should be termed convenience foods and, to be fair, we all need to use these sometimes. I suggest feeding them as little as possible.
The tinned and dry food diets are ‘dead food’. Apart from the high grain contents that they all contain, any meat products in them are so old and overcooked and of such poor quality, that it is a miracle that many animals survive as well as they appear to do on them.
By far the best food for all species is fresh food. Raw meaty bones for all carnivorous species is not only more appropriate, but essential for optimal ongoing good health in these animals.
Despite extensive efforts by pet food companies to convince us of the benefits of their foods, a diet of raw fresh meaty bones constitutes the basis for a fully balanced diet for cats and dogs. With the addition of a little raw fat or oil and raw vegetable slurry, it is far superior to a ‘scientifically balanced diet’ in a packet.
Australian veterinarians, Drs Clare Middle and Ian Billinghurst are well known for their contributions in this area and fresh food forms the basis of all good natural health practice.
See also chewing things over.

Medicating long standing disease
This practice can actually drive disease to an even deeper level in the body as a result of being denied a normal expression or outlet.

The following information will challenge many conventoinal concepts of disease and cure but this is what is required for alternative practice to be effective.
For example, it is quite common for minor external ailments like skin rashes to be treated with cortisone or antibiotic at the first appearance and sometimes for extended periods.

Often these rashes are merely an indication that the body needs to eliminate something.(something more than bacteria which are usually normal and harmless bystanders)

It is a common misconception then that these drugs cure disease. They will often cause symptoms to disappear but this is not a true cure of disease. The underlying cause has not been addressed, in this example, the need to eliminate something other than secondary infection which may or may not exist. The skin is a major route of detoxification and preventing this will cause problems.

With extended use of pharmaceutical preparation, the body is forced to find new outlets for disease.  In this way, disease can effectively be driven into deeper layers of the being until major organ disease or cancer eventually becomes life threatening. As the skin and the nervous systems are connected both developmentally and homeopathically it is quite common for nervous symptoms to arise following such an incomplete cure.

There is also no coincidence that allergy prone animals with skin disease generally have a lot of nervous anxiety.

Before undertaking any form of treatment it is advisable to find out how it is intended to work and what the possible ramifications are likely to be for future health.

Conventional medicines or ‘allopathics’ are designed to work against the symptoms and hence against the vital (life) force that is expressing these symptoms.
Homeopathy will work with the vital force and assist it to overcome the disease.

Once homeopathic treatment is undertaken it is also important to remember that the cure will often follow the reverse order of disease. A recurrence of previous ailments in lesser severity is therefore quite common as cure progresses. This is the body’s way of eliminating disease by throwing it to the outside and to lesser important organs or areas like the skin.
The vital (life) force that is responsible both for disease symptoms and cure is going to focus on the most important and deepest disease. An animal showing signs of liver cancer may therefore seem to have been cured of his inflammatory bowel disease when in fact it has just been over ridden by a more challenging disease process on which the vital force is now focussing and expressing itself .
Successful treatment in this case may then see a recurrence of bowel symptoms of lesser severity as healing of the liver progresses.
The skin is generally the last organ of cure and if an animal has had a life threatening condition and ends up with only a skin rash, then this is often cause for celebration.
Sometimes treating this skin rash is ill advised as it may be a necessary last remaining and ongoing outlet for disease in an animal with truly ‘incurable’ disease. It can live with skin disease!

Summary Statements

There is no need to repeatedly vaccinate animals
The best diets are raw and fresh foods. (freezing is OK)
Avoid the over use of pharmaceuticals like cortisone, antibiotics and other ‘allopathics’.
Recognise that symptoms are an attempt to throw off disease and are not the disease itself.
Forcefully eliminating symptoms is not treating or curing disease.
Cure occurs only by nurturing the vital force and restoring strength.
Remember that cure usually occurs in the reverse order to the appearance of disease.
Cure moves from inside to outside with skin symptoms being the last to remain.

and finally,
Trust the process you choose.