Know Your Options For Family Health & Happiness

By Christina Chambreau, DVM, CVH.

More and more articles are showing ways to help your pets become and stay healthy. Conventional medicine, and I worked from age 11 to 37 in conventional practices, is excellent for diagnostic tests and treatment of some acute problems. It can be life saving. Often it creates more problems and does not deeply heal the whole family. Please begin with holistic approaches. Since every animal is unique, some will respond to one treatment or lifestyle, and others may need multiple different approaches over the years. Every illness can be treated, but not every animal can be cured.
 
All the wonderful ways humans can be helped holistically apply to animals. Some you can provide yourself and others need trained professionals. A few include: Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine, Acupressure, Chiropractic, Osteopathic, Homeopathy, Reiki, Massage, Flower Essences, Tellington Touch, Healing Touch for Animals, Herbs, Animal Communication, Homeopathy.

Bob had a multi-cat household and when a new cat turned out to be a bully who constantly went after an elderly kitty, Jade, he opted for flower essences. First he tried Safe Space (Spirit Essences from Jackson Galaxy) for all the cats. Then he added Bully for the new cat and Self-Esteem for the elderly cat. He used them intensively (rub on fur, in the food, on the sleeping areas) for a few weeks. Issues finally resolved and Jade lived happily ever after, passing away at over 20.

Many companies make single essences and you can use your intuition to select them and some make combination flower essences for specific animal emotional and physical issues.

Carol’s guardian knew that steroid injections, now needed every six weeks, was not the answer for her 9 year old cat who had been licking his belly till it was raw for 8 years. With 6 months of veterinary prescriptions of homeopathic medicines and changing to a raw meat diet, Baby never licked the hair off again and lived to 17 years old.

Diet is sometimes enough, and you can learn to use homeopathy for acute problems, and with professional help even life long diseases can be resolved. Never give up.
 
An injured 5-year-old Mastiff, had trouble walking and tests showed spinal damage. After a few weeks of twice a week acupuncture treatments, then every few weeks, then monthly, Jeb began to improve and was totally normal in a few months. They continued to feed a raw meat diet, avoid vaccinations and other chemicals, used lots of love and occasional acupuncture until they said goodbye to her when she was 12.

Wait – these were examples of ill animals who totally recovered. Not all do recover. What can you do to prevent illness? Even though each animal is unique, promoting vitality and balance in our animals makes them resilient to the stresses of modern life, especially when the humans in their lives are staying positive and loving.

One big key to promoting vitality is to use symptoms as guides for taking effective holistic actions, rather than fearing them and trying to immediately stop them. Stopping symptoms often weakens vitality. For example, giving steroids to stop itching quickly, you could use Reiki or other energy healing, maybe along with deeper professional treatments. You could tweak the diet. You could use soothing topical treatments (aloe, oatmeal, calendula and many more to choose from). This creates whole new levels of vitality, balance, happiness, health, and ease which will naturally resolve or dramatically improve the itching or other symptoms. 

With all the choices possible, and the individual responses, keeping a journal is really key to remembering when illness happened, what may have triggered the problem, and how your pet responded to your treatments. Another article will be on making your own journal or you can order one now (it is also a member benefit at Holistic Actions).

The earliest clues that you need to make some changes, and to tell if you are moving towards better health are BEAM and EWS.

BEAM stands for Behavior, Energy, Appetite, and Mood, great clues to quality of life. Look for trends, since ups and downs are normal and do not immediately panic at BEAM changes. Just record them. If over time, you notice lower energy on walks, becoming a picky eater, needing a lot more attention, try a holistic change and see if BEAM improves. When treating more serious problems, seeing improvement in BEAM will encourage to continue the current treatment.

EWS – Early Warning Signs of Internal Imbalance – are problems that many veterinarians and pet parents consider fairly normal and just need to be managed – hairball vomiting, aversion to nail trims, doggy odor, waxy ears, tarter on teeth, training problems, etc. Each of these do not need treatment because they are clues that a holistic lifestyle change may be needed. Read here for a complete list of these signs.

The following are 10 more steps to help your animals live long, healthy lives – usually for a lot less money than you have been spending.

1. TRUST YOURSELF TO BE IN CHARGE. You live with your animals 24/7, so your gut feelings/intuition are key. You can just say no, then take the time to research alternatives.
2. EDUCATE YOURSELF. Joining the Holistic Actions Academy, reading the many wonderful articles and books on holistic pet care, and taking the many classes and talks now available. Most important is to observe your animals and listen to what they want and need.
3. FEED THE BEST. Commercial, processed food just does not support great health in most animals and people. What is best for you – the same organic pot pie twice a day or a variety of fresh ingredients from local, sustainable sources? Ignore the industry, and vets, who say dogs and cats cannot eat fresh food (AKA well balanced table scraps). Species appropriate food! There is no one right diet. Read the great books on fresh feeding, join some list serves and have fun sharing your food. Schedule an advising call with Dr. Chambreau for any help you need to make fresh feeding affordable and easy.
4. MINIMIZE TOXINS AND VACCINES. They are not needed after baby shots, if even then, and not even at the AVMA recommendation of every 3 years. Only Rabies is a legally required vaccine and there are ways to minimize damage from it as well.
5. PROVIDE MENTAL AND PHYSICAL STIMULATION – this is for cats as well as dogs. Each individual may need different levels, so do not force him/her to follow your schedule. This is much more important than many realize for happiness and longevity for people and animals.
6. ENCOURAGE THE BODY TO HEAL ITSELF, NOT JUST STOP SYMPTOMS. Often when drugs, and even herbs and other holistic treatments are used to merely stop the symptoms, the animal’s health deteriorates in other ways..
7. EVALUATE RESPONSES TO TREATMENT. Just stopping symptoms often palliates or suppresses, leaving the animal less healthy. Our goal is to cure, and you know that when the Early Warning Signs of Internal Imbalance and BEAM issues resolve along with the “ill” symptoms. make this process much more effective..
8. STUDY A WIDE RANGE OF HEALING METHODS. You can learn how to treat acute problems with homeopathy, energy healing and much more by taking classes for people or animals, and from reading books. There is no one best treatment – discover what works the best for you. Learning homeopathic philosophy and principles will help you regardless of the modality..
9. FORM A HEALTH TEAM OF VETERINARY AND LAY HOLISTIC PRACTITIONERS.
   First you want a local veterinarian, holistic or conventional with whom you can work with for diagnostic tests, physical exams and help understanding what may be happening with your animals. I recommend an annual exam, which if you chose well would include a chiropractic palpation, TCVM pulse and tongue evaluation, osteopathic exam along with a conventional physical. A homeopathic veterinarian could be your primary vet and prescribe virtually if not near you. You may want to work with a vet well trained in all aspects of traditional Chinese medicine (TCVM). Until you are trained, you may want lay people for Reiki, massage, etc. I recommend finding an intuitive whom you feel can really connect and evaluate your anima’s physical and emotional state, and do an appointment (usually by phone) twice a year.
10. Love is really the key. Check out a few of Holistic Actions talks on you tube by Bernie Siegel, Anitra Frazier and more on how your mind set makes such a difference. Members have access to 7 years of weekly webinars! Read about Heart Math on-line and how your emotions affect beings many feet away from you.

Most importantly, have fun, live in the moment and learn how to play from your cherished companions.

With her 45 years of practice, Dr. Chambreau can virtually help you choose the best options for healing your animals so they can live a long and healthy life. https://christinachambreau.com/welcome-to-my-practice/welcome-to-holistic-pet-health-coaching