Posts Tagged ‘Dogs Health’

Suffering and Loss

Wednesday, June 10th, 2009

We all want love. We all want to give it and to receive it. With our pets, we find it unconditionally. And once they are gone, we feel that emptiness. And we suffer. We can want to have it back so badly, and that can hurt so very much. The finality of death is so very difficult for us. I wish it wasn’t, but it is a truth we all have to face.

 

I wonder if we could feel the ‘enough’, would it relieve our sorrow. If we could appreciate the year, five years, 16 years, we had with our beloved pets, is there a point where we can be grateful for that time more strongly than wanting more of it? If we could celebrate that joy, that love, that togetherness that we had as the be all and end all of everything?

 

It is a huge challenge, but what a great way to walk through life, feeling we have enough. To focus daily on being grateful for what we have, what we have had in our past. I want to take this on, joyful in the ‘enough’ of life. Grateful and appreciative more that needy and wanting.

 

It is very powerful. It is very beautiful. And it is what our angels want for us.

  

This blog is contributed by Alex in Welderland at www.custompeturns.com. His twitter contact is @CustomPetUrns

TEACHING YOUR DOG TO READ

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

Contributed by Nadine M. Rosin, author of The Healing Art of Pet Parenthood http://www.TheHealingArtOfPetParenthood.com

It always surprises me how willing we are to believe that if it’s being sold in a store (even a health food store), it’s safe for us and/or our pets. Recently, a friend of mine alerted me to a post he had read on a dog trainer’s blog about Rescue Remedy. Rescue Remedy is a Bach Flower Essence that has been around for decades, and is used homeopathically to clear the emotional/energy body of trauma. It’s great for dogs who have anxiety about thunder, fireworks, or going to the vet, to name a few. When I first started using it for my dog, Buttons, an 11-year holistic cancer survivor who liver to be 19, it was packaged only in liquid form. These days, it also comes in a spray (which I now use) and eatable candy pastilles (which I don’t). The official RR website also has a form packaged specifically for pets.
Long story short, the trainer had suggested that this pet parent try Rescue Remedy for her dog and the pet parent bought the candy pastilles and gave them to her dog. One of the ingredients listed on that label (pastilles only) is xylitol- a natural sweetener made of corn or birch bark; healthy for humans, DEADLY FOR DOGS!!!

In my opinion, there are two important things to consider here:

1. ALWAYS read the label. If you don’t know what something is, or how it might affect your animal, PLEASE INVESTIGATE. Most vets could tell you that xylitol is toxic for dogs. A simple google search: “xylitol dogs toxic” will generate all kinds of information.

2. Don’t assume anything, but do your own research. The reason why many wonderful herbs have gotten a bad rap is because people were not responsible in learning how to use them. Many herbs are incredibly medicinal at one dosage and highly toxic at another. I have read about herbs referred to as deadly in mainstream publications, that I know from personal experience are beneficial and non-toxic in proper dosage. On the other hand, just because it’s sold in a health food store, doesn’t mean it’s always healthy.

Until our sweet doggies can read and be informed to make their own responsible decisions, it is up to us to do it for them. On the other side of that coin, had I followed Buttons’ obvious opinions about a few of the men I’ve dated, I could have saved myself a lot of heartache!

Dogs predict Cancer and more

Wednesday, March 11th, 2009

It has been recorded that dogs can sense when an earthquake or tsunami is coming. Heightened sensitivity to changes in barometric pressure, tremors and other animals may allow them to ‘predict’ a future event, offering a scientific explanation for this particular type of event.

But what about those dogs that save lives? Service dogs are utilized for their ability to predict epileptic seizures or low blood sugar in diabetics, alerting their companion in advance to avert an potentially life threatening episode. It’s not just service dogs who preform these phenomenal acts; accounts of dogs with no training alerting their companions before life threatening attacks are common. How is this possible?

There have been accounts of dogs predicting heart attacks and perhaps most interestingly, cancers. Perhaps the explanation for this behavior lies in our canineDog Doctor companion’s acute sensitivity to changes in odors or changes in behavior that are missed by humans. Rather then being ‘psychic,’ perhaps in addition to science, our dogs are so in tune with that from which we are blocked, they truly can assist us in connecting to that which we are removed from, due to the convoluted structures of modern life.

New studies do conclude that dogs can ’sniff’ out cancer. A major study on this topic was conducted by the Pine Street Foundation, a research organization in San Anselmo, California and more studies utilizing canines to detect cancer are underway.

As dogs can have the ability to smell chemical traces in the range of parts per trillion, dogs are able to discern the breath of lung and breast cancer patients from that of healthy people. Cancer cells emit different metabolic waste from normal cells and these particles can be detected by dogs, even in very early stages of the disease. Previous studies have confirmed the ability of trained dogs to detect skin-cancer melanomas by sniffing skin lesions. It is hoped that dogs will also be able to detect prostate and other cancers by sniffing urine samples. Early detection is vital to a good prognosis for cancer patients and it may be the super-sniffers of dogs that are able to detect disease before any human-made screening methods.

Accounts of untrained house pets repeatedly sniffing or pawing at an area on a family members body are common, only for the human to later find out they have a cancer in the very region that the dog was so focused on. Clearly, the science behind the dog’s abilities are tapping into the natural capabilities of the dog.

This was a guest blog written by Hilary Sloan Canine Aficionado www.caninebark.com