This classic natural pet-care book is written by two celebrated veterinary specialists in chemical-free nutrition, treatment, and natural healing for pets. Dr. Pitcairn's Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs & Cats offers valuable natural and holistic advice on a host of pet topics, including, but not limited to, diet, exercise, environment, coping with a pet's death, and how to care for a sick animal.
In addition to their thorough discussion of the above, Richard Pitcairn, DVM, PhD, and his wife, Susan Hubble Pitcairn, M.S., offer a comprehensive "quick reference" section on animal illnesses, organized alphabetically and including a brief description of each illness, preventative measures that may be taken, and holistic and natural treatment options for both dogs and cats - treatments that should always be discussed with one's vet before being used.
Included in this book:
- What's really in commercial foods
- Updated fresh food recipes
- Special diets
- Expanded information on calcium supplements
- Non-toxic grooming
- Benefits of exercise
- How to select a healthy animal
- Natural care for common ailments
- Alternative treatments with homeopathy, herbs and wholesome foods
- First aid tips
- And much more!
For more than 20 years, this classic guide has been equally invaluable to both veterinarians and pet guardians alike. Paperback, 466 pages.
About the Author
Dr. Richard H. Pitcairn, DVM, PhD, graduated from University of California at Davis Veterinary School in 1965. He started working in a mixed practice (small animals, farm animals, horses, circus animals) and saw a wide variety of health problems. He did not see the results he expected to have using the treatments learned in veterinary school and was greatly disappointed.
Dr. Pitcairn decided to continue his education at Washington State University which eventually into a graduate school program. While there he worked on a Ph.D. degree emphasizing the study of viruses, immunology and biochemistry. This training finished in 1972 and he graduated with a degree in Veterinary Microbiology. Staying on for a while at the university, he did research in muscles diseases and taught public health in the veterinary school.
After a few years, he left the academic world and returned to practice. During training he learned a great deal about how the body worked, especially the immune system, but did not know any better how to cure disease. This led to his studying nutrition as he realized its importance in maintaining a healthy body. Finding out about the pet food industry and what sources were used to make the food led him to recommend fresh foods for animals, prepared at home. Many animals were greatly helped by making this change.
Dr. Pitcairn learned, however, that there are animals that are not helped by nutrition. These are the ones that are too ill to eat or that have injuries or illness that is so severe that there is not time for nutrition to have an effect. He continued to look for some other means of restoring health in a true sense, not just covering symptoms with drugs or removing diseased tissues with surgery. Looking into many approaches he settled on homeopathy as the most practical and effective. He found homeopathy to be intellectually complete and satisfying. As a 200-year-old system of medicine it has been very well developed and an incredible amount of experience and information have given us the tools we need to work with almost any kind of health problem. The difficulty for him was to learn how to use the books, the repertories and materia medicas that were developed for human beings, to help animals.
Fortunately, Dr. Pitcairn has taught other veterinarians how to do this homeopathic style of work. Since 1992 there has been a yearly course, the Professional Course in Veterinary Homeopathy, and to date over 300 animal doctors have been trained in using this method.