Comments on Disbelief: When Seeing is Not Believing

Hi Dr. Falconer,
I live in Spring Texas right outside of Houston. I wanted to get your opinion on the Primal Raw diet. I've been feeding frozen nuggets thawed (all proteins) to my Yorkie for 8 months and recently read on a FB blog that there food is not raw if it's HPP. Can I get your opinion on this food, and also if you suggest a better commercial raw food. I don't think my girl would eat plain bloody meat.
Thank you so much.
Regards,
Debbie

Hi Dr. Falconer!
Thank you so much for your newsletter! I'm learning so much!
I rescued a dog 5 months ago - a woman who almost hit him on the highway took him in and then gave him to me.
It's my first dog. I had dogs growing up but we did what everyone else seemed to do and bought kibble at the grocery store and neglected our dogs...nobody really took care of them emotionally by playing with them or taking them on walks...I just remember the dogs lying around looking depressed. But I want better for my doggie!
My question is what to do (holistically) in the event of what seems like an emergency?
Please let me explain...I've been feeding my dog raw food (Primal) and giving him raw marrow bones as treats, as well as sardines, bully sticks, freeze-dried raw duck nuggets and eggs. He's seemed really healthy although he's been battling yeast. I've been giving him AZO pills for yeast 3 times a day for the last 2 months and it was keeping the itching under control and I'm seeing more and more pink in his mouth/gums and less black...
Everything was going great THEN on Monday he pooped what looked like could be blood and mucous...he ate some grass threw up four times and then wouldn't eat the whole day!
I was extremely concerned!
I have not been able to find a holistic vet in the Houston area so I took him to a "regular" vet. I let them know that Sunday night he ate a small piece of wood (a piece of a craft stick) so they ran all these tests and $550 later they said that he had mild pancreatitis probably triggered from the wood (although he's eaten some wood before and had no issues)...their solution was antibiotics, pain meds, and anti-nausea meds plus they gave him some fluids...I did not like their solutions one bit BUT I FELT LIKE I HAD NO WHERE ELSE TO TURN!
There's nobody that I can bring my dog to in an emergency and they give me holistic treatments for him. So what are we to do if we don't have a holistic vet in our area and we have an emergency?
My dog seems so lethargic right now and is not eating much, I'm concerned I made the wrong decision bringing him to the vet and giving him all these meds, but I didn't know what else to do for him...are there (online) holistic resources in the event of an emergency like the one I had?
Thank you so much for your blog, your expertise and your time!
Anita
:)

I've also experienced this first-hand with my vital animals over the years. The most absurd time that comes to mind was when I had to take my "Buddy" to the specialist clinic for xrays and ultrasound to look for possible blockages in his intestines. The doctors and techs were greeting him and me normally in the exam room until we discussed his diet- raw. Then they looked at each other and at me and explained they would have to protect themselves from bacteria and would be wearing gloves while handling him. They looked at me like I had just let them walk into the lion's den, like I had put them in danger. Immediately their demeanor towards Buddy and I changed and they would barely touch him even with the gloves, to the point he nearly fell off the exam table and I had to grab him to keep him from falling off. Idiots. (A**holes, really~) We got the ultrasound because it was imperative at that time, and promptly left. These days, I steer clear of most whitecoat interference. We're fortunate where we live in an unincorporated rural area that we don't have laws effecting how we care for our animals (but that also goes both ways out here....). But I wonder about when and if we do move back to the city how to keep them from being registered, which at the very least means rabies tags or fines.

As with humans who don't want to be educated on changing their behavior to achieve better health, so it is with people and their pets. I've about given up on trying to persuade others that natural prevention may be better than treating illnesses later. Just do the best you can with your own pets.
There are no guarantees of immortality anyway.

Great post! My thoughts:
There are groups of people all over the world that subscribe to certain sets of beliefs. Those beliefs can be based on their parents' beliefs, their church, their teachers, the newspapers, television, peers, etc.
When two people come together, one having the beliefs espoused by a brilliant homeopathic veterinarian and the other having beliefs promoted by mainstream vets, it can become an uncomfortable situation for both.
Even if the person who believes in the natural path gets through to the conventional minded person with logic, there are places that the conventional person may not want to go. Such as, perhaps their previous two dogs have died of some terrible disease like cancer at the age of 2, etc. Now they're opened up just slightly to a whole other field of beliefs that could have saved their animals had they known about it which can elicit anger, grief, regret, and resentment (plus a "kill the messenger" mentality-hehe!). Some of these folks will not want to know because they don't want to bring up those emotions. They don't want to feel that they might be responsible for the demise of their beloved pet(s).
I'm facing this situation right now with someone I know. Their last two dogs have died early and gruesome deaths and the emotional pain they're facing is overwhelming. If I tell him about the practices I follow and why I follow them, then I dare to tread in this place of emotional pain for him. And I hesitate to go there.
How do we share our knowledge in a way that doesn't put those who are uneducated about these things on the defensive? How do we broach a subject where the listener is asked to take responsibility for the medical situations their pet faced (or faces) when this is something they've probably never even imagined?