A Path With Paws

And check out Simon’s website!

Send me your favorite animal photos and I will post them here. lena@pathwithpaws.com

With the holidays coming up I wanted to add a few more of my all time favorite books!

Animal Dreams

My favorite book, Animal Dreams, is the story of Codi Noline who returns to her home town after a string of failures and finds what it truly means to belong. Through an environmental catastrophe, caring for her dying father, and falling in love Codi is able to see that success is not always about degrees and money but more about how you look at life.

Animals dream about the things they do in the daytime, just like people do. If you want sweet dreams, you’ve got to live a sweet life.

I highly recommend this book! Did I mention it has one of the sweetest old dogs in literature?

The Color of Distance

A close second to Animal Dreams, The Color of Distance is about a young scientist, Juna, who is left on a distant planet by mistake. She is saved by a race of beings with incredible healing powers, the Tendu. This is an amazing book about healing, love, and how differences between us, no matter what species we are, can be bridged.

My favorite parts of this book are the rich healing experiences that Juna learns and shares not just for the creatures in this world but also for their planet and the balance that is held between all living things.

While not directly about dogs or cats, this book very much touched my heart as someone who lives with companion animals.

Although out of print you can still easily find this book used.

Carl’s Christmas
Who couldn’t love Carl’s Christmas? From the Good Dog Carl books comes the tale of Carl’s Christmas night of babysitting. Who wouldn’t trust their baby with a Rottweiler like Carl? Although without words, the illustrations of this book tell this colorful tale well.

Also see Holiday Books for Cat Lovers

This is a repost from last year but important enough to go back on the front page. Please take care.

Christmas lilies are extremely beautiful but also deadly to cats. Every year cats die from nibbling on lilies and once they become sick it is too late. Just a couple bites of lily will destroy the kidneys of a cat and send them into renal failure. Usually they die within 24 to 72 hours. Please do not bring lilies into your home if you have cats even if you think they will not eat them. It is heartbreaking to have to tell a cat’s person that there is nothing you can do. If your cat does eat a lily call your veterinary clinic or emergency hospital immediately and get instructions to induce vomiting.

I’m attempting to get the forums on this site up and running again. Many times I get questions from people that don’t fit into any article or sometimes someone just wants to share a story.

The forums are available for all of this!

Hopefully if we can get them going again you will get more then just my answer to your questions! And until they get more traffic I will do my best to answer all questions.

If we are lucky our animal friends only have to go through surgery once, when they are spayed or neutered. However many animals do need to be under anethesia other times either for a dental cleaning, to get sutures, or to have surgery. Whatever the reason, surgery and anethesia are hard on our animal friends. But there are things you can do to help them recover faster and more comfortably.

As always, check with your veterinarian on any supplements you use.

1. Arnica
Arnica is a homeopathic remedy which helps with bruising and trauma. Over the years I have been amazed and impressed at how much difference this very safe remedy can make in healing. I have seen incisions heal in half the time and dogs have very little bruising and swelling in situations you would normally expect to see it.

I always recommend Arnica for all my animal patients who have to undergo surgery or any other procedure that there will be tissue or bone trauma. Because it is a homeopathic remedy it is very safe ever for old and debilitated animals.

I use the Arnica 30c pellets and dose them at 2-3 pellets (usually 2 for cats/small dogs and 3 for dogs) the morning of surgery, the evening after surgery, and then three times a day for three days. Because the pellets are so small they can safely be given the morning of surgery.

Arnica can be bought at most health and supplement stores or by clicking on Arnica.

3.Yunnan Baiyao
While I don’t recommend Yunnan Baiyao (also called Yunnan Paiyao) for all animals undergoing surgery or anethesia, it is still one of my most important herbal formulas. I mainly use it in any procedure or surgery where there is a concern about bleeding. This includes many tumor removal and abdominal surgeries. I have seen this wonderful herbal formula save animal’s lives before.

Please see my article, A Magic Vial of Yunnan Baiyao and the wikipedia article.

I usually dose Yunnan Baiyao at one capsule twice a day for a few days before and after surgery for your average sized dog. Cats and small dogs, I use the powder and put about a 1/8 of a teaspoon in their food twice a day.

Yunnan Baiyao can be bought in most international districts and by clicking on Yunnan Baiyao above.

I hope these simple suggestions are helpful! I know they have helped many of the animals I work with and my own beloved animal companions.

Rose DeDan, a local shaman and healer, wrote a wonderful article today on her blog, The Dance of Life, The endless cycle of birth, death and our relationship to the food we consume. It give new meaning to the saying “you are what you eat.” She talks about the energetics of our food and how the way animals are raised can affect our health. We are all energetic beings and just as we take on the energy of those around us, we can also take on the energy of the animals we consume. If they have been treated well and fairly we end up with nutritious food, if they have not been it can lead to many health problems for us.

The Chinese take this one step further. They also look at the normal energetic characteristics of the animals we eat in determining a proper diet. Many of my clients who have asked about diet for their animals have seen this in action. For example for a flighty nervous dog I would never suggest rabbit or deer because both are nervous animals. An anxious dog would do best on beef or bison which are both large and grounded creatures. On the flip side a very sluggish dog may do better on something light and energetic like a deer or rabbit.

Food also has a temperature and other characteristics in Chinese Medicine. Trout is the hottest meat and a dog who is always cold would do well on it. Seaweed and Cucumber are considered cold and can cool a dog with excess heat. Sweet potato and pumpkin are sweet and help with digestion. Beef is good at tonifying the blood and helping with weakness. Carrots and other root vegetables are very grounding and help an animal be more connected to the earth.

There are many great books on this subject!

For further reading

My favorite book on this subject (although written for people) Prince Wen Hui’s Cook: Chinese Dietary Therapy

Another good book although with more information then the average person needs Healing with Whole Foods: Asian Traditions and Modern Nutrition

One of my favorite books on Chinese Medicine with a great food section in back Between Heaven and Earth: A Guide to Chinese Medicine

From Rose DeDan –

I became interested in Tellington TTouch, a long time ago, but that interest kind of got sidelined while focusing on my shamanic training.

Recently I read some very impressive stories by a long-time animal communicator that fanned that interest back into action, especially since I have wanted some additional assistance for Puma, my wonderful dog companion, as he enters his senior years. And lo, and behold, Shannon Finch’s name crossed my path. So, Wild Reiki and Shamanic Healing is now hosting a TTouch class in Seattle for the very first time! (And I believe there will be a live demo with said dog, and perhaps one of my cats who is shy of being handled – I may borrow a video camera for that!)

• Do you have a shy or aggressive dog?
• A cat who is getting along in years?
• A bird who squawks incessently?
• Are you interested in enhancing the bond with your animals?

Then this hands-on workshop is for you.

For more information on TTouch see What is TTouch?

When: Saturday, December 5, 2009, 9:30am-12:30pm
Where: Wild Reiki and Shamanic Healing Office, Alki (directions sent at time of registration)

You’ll learn how to improve your animal’s health and wellbeing with several TTouch techniques
that release the tension, fear and anxiety that lead to behavior problems.

You’ll learn how to ease the ailments associated with aging as well as first aid measures that can
save your animal’s life.

And while TTouch can assist the healing of injuries and illness, and help change undesirable behaviors, it also builds a deeper rapport between humans and animals, so your critter doesn’t have to have a problem in order to benefit from this class.

Please do not bring your animal to the workshop, we’ll be practicing on willing stuffies (stuffed animals) this time around!

Registration: Fee $95/person. Class size is limited to a small number of participants. Call Rose De Dan at 206-933-7877 or email her at wildkingdomreiki (at) earthlink (dot) net for more information or to register.

TEACHER BIO
Shannon Finch is owner of The AnimalKind Company in Stanwood, focusing on positive training for all species. She is a certified Tellington Touch practitioner for both companion animals and horses. She has worked with of animals of many species, from dogs, cats, and horses, to birds, reptiles, rabbits and pocket pets, and even farm critters such as cows, goats, and chickens.

Shannon has taught TTouch all over the west, including Best Friends Animal Sanctuary and the Hawaii Humane Society, has given presentations for numerous local animal welfare groups, including PAWS, the Alternative Humane Society of Bellingham, Hooterville, (now Homeward Bound), Canines for Citizens’ Independence, Pasado’s Safe Haven, Purrfect Pals, Skagit Humane Society, and the Monroe Pet Expo. She’s also taught animal behavior and TTouch classes for Everett Community College. She is currently working on her thesis for a Master’s Degree in Humane Education.

With all the talk of H1N1 in the news, I have started to get some questions on the canine influenza virus also known as N3H8 virus. And this year because a new vaccine for canine influenza came out, many of the questions are about if vaccination is important.

So what is my overall recommendation.

Don’t vaccinate for it

So from the beginning – here is what we know

• This virus has been around since at least 2004 and probably since as early as 1999 but was originally thought to be a problem in greyhounds only.
• At first there was a lot of fear because greyhounds can get a hemorrhagic symptom from this virus that involves bleeding into their lungs and often times death. We have since found out that this virus does not cause that problem in other breeds.
• Most canine influenza presents as a mild kennel cough with a mild fever. A full 20-25% of dogs with canine influenza do not show any symptoms at all. Some dogs do get very sick with canine influenza and a very small percentage die of secondary lung infections. From my research it seems that canine influenza is no more of a problem then kennel cough and most dogs recover with no medical intervention. Occasionally antibiotics are needed.
• Canine influenza is not causally passed. It usually takes 3-4 days of exposure with an infected dog for a dog to catch it. This is most likely in boarding and shelter situations.
• Earlier this year a new vaccine for canine influenza was released on a conditional license. What this means is the USDA allowed release of this vaccine without as much testing as is normally needed to release a vaccine. While the minimal drug company studies showed that this vaccine is safe, there is no long term data on how safe this vaccine is in the long run or how effective it is.
• From my experience, most vaccine side effects in dogs are not immediately observed.
• The vaccine also doesn’t prevent infection with or shedding of the influenza virus (same as the vaccines for H1N1), but rather decreases the symptoms of the disease.

So we have a vaccine which we do not know much about and like most vaccines probably has side effects, which doesn’t prevent infection or transmission of influenza, for a disease that is not deadly in most dogs. Hmm…. Once again doesn’t sound so good to me.

To me the benefits of this vaccine do not outweigh the possible risks. If you haven’t read my article on dog vaccination I recommend it. I have seen more dogs suffer from vaccine side effects in my practice then I have seen dogs vaccinated with a minimal core protocol (as I recommend) come down with infectious disease.

What is worrisome is that many boarding kennels and groomers are requiring this vaccine. I believe that this vaccine should be a choice between a dog’s person and their veterinarian. I also think most boarding kennels do not realize that this vaccine does not prevent disease.

For further reading here are some good resources on canine influenza –

The Center for Food Safety and Public Health of Iowa State University

Ten thing to know about the H3N8 dog flu from the New York Times