I Think, Therefore I Am “Ego cogito, ergo sum” … Rene Descartes Most of us have heard the statement, “I think, therefore I am,” by Rene Descartes, the French scientist and philosopher.  The time was the 1600s and it was a great time for thinking and understanding.  What made this philosophical quote one for the ages is the fact that many people still debate what it actually means. Recognizing the mindset of people during Descartes life, most people dealt with life with an attitude of “Just the facts, ma’am.”  Based on the human senses, beliefs were pretty limited and simple. 

If you have been researching pet food recently, you will know that feeding dogs and cats is a hot topic.  I would go so far as to say there is a war going on between the naturalists and the pet food industry and unfortunately, the pet caretaker is caught in the crossfire.  Let’s take a look at some history and we can find out why.  Then, I will let you know “the rest of the story.” Up until the last generation or so, pet food was not a top priority.  The pet caretaker went to the grocery store and bought

Soon after I started vet school, a scientific report was released that that said if you drink more than two cups of coffee a day, you would get pancreatic cancer.  This meant that I was going to have to spend about 14 hours a day, studying, going to class, taking early exams and doing clinic work on two cups of coffee a day.  I did and it was not fun.  The year that I graduated, a new scientific report was released that the amount of coffee you drank actually had nothing to do with pancreatic cancer.  Ouch.  Bad timing. Let’s

In the last two blogs, I discussed the meaning of holistic health care, why conventional veterinary medicine is a conditioned perspective dealing with an imbalanced mindset and why it is imperative that a new paradigm occurs if we are to truly move into a holistic health care for our pets and ourselves.  Only then will we start healing instead of treating. Using the old left-brain, right-brain understanding as to how the personal mind works, it is obvious that conventional medicine is predominantly a left-brain perspective.  Physicians and veterinarians are highly educated and subsequently practice from a mindset that deals almost

In the last blog, I discussed the meaning of the word, holistic, and how it is been applied to health care.  I defined a holistic health care approach as one that comes from a balanced brain/mind.  Conventional veterinary (and human) medicine is steeped heavily in left brain (rational, intellectual) thinking and has created a conditioned mind approach to medicine.  It uses Newtonian Science to focus on the body as an object and theorizes that the best way to know how the body works is to break it down into smaller pieces and look at all the pieces.  It slowly advances

Here in the US, we are really into trends.  All you have to do is look around, watch the television ads and peruse FaceBook to see what is the latest trend.  In health care, the trend is holistic health care, also known as functional and natural medicine.  There is nothing wrong with this trend as it is certainly moving us towards a better health care system, but in the whirlwind of a trend, we often miss the intention that should be behind the trend.  Even, conventional medicine is taking note of the trend and is beginning to open up to

In many far east countries, people hang bells on doors in their homes so that when someone opens the door, the bells ring.  They call these “mindful bells” and their purpose is to remind them to return to the present moment and be mindful. We humans have become so thought-focused that we spend very little time in the present moment.  Sure, our body and actions are always in the present moment, but research tells us that our mind spends less than 5% of our day in the present moment.  Our mind is busy remembering the past in order to control

Imagine waking up one morning and noticing that your cat is ill.  He has vomited a couple of times during the night and he is listless and has no interest in his food or water.  You gather him up and rush him to the veterinary clinic.  The veterinarian examines him, takes some blood for analysis and informs you that your cat is in kidney failure.   “How can that be?  He was fine yesterday,” you say. “That is how kidney failure works,” the veterinarian answers. Statistics tell us that one in every three indoor cats will die from kidney disease. 

“In acceptance, there is a decreased preoccupation with “doingness,” a growing focus on the quality of beingness itself,”  ― David R. Hawkins, Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender For many years now, I have focused on helping people empower themselves to take charge of health care for themselves and their pets.  This mantra seems to be resonating across the country, but unfortunately, it is often misperceived.  I look around at our society and see people believing that they have empowered themselves only to recognize that they are spinning their wheels.  I also see this in our pet health care. Every

We are all familiar with the statement, “The squeaky wheel get the grease.”  It is an American saying that conveys the idea that the loudest problems are the ones most likely to get attention.  Whether it is the screaming child or the painful knee, whatever is making the largest ruckus will get our attention.  This is a great natural response.  If our pet is suddenly screaming, we want to drop what we are doing and see what is happening.  Otherwise, the attention that we were giving the book we were reading might not give way to the pet emergency. We

Nothing can take us to the depths of despair than losing a loved one.  It is one of our greatest fears and one that we seem to believe that we can never escape.  It is such a complex of hurtful emotions and painful thoughts and it weighs us down until we can hardly function. As a holist veterinarian for many years, most of the clients that I deal with have a pet that has been diagnosed with a terminal illness.  They call me in deep despair, trying to help their pets, and without knowing, help themselves.  They are often desperate

During my father and his father’s generation, it was common that they kept the same name for each subsequent dog that they had.  At that time, it was usually the father that initiated getting a dog and usually that dog had a purpose.  It might be a hunting dog, herding dog or just a family protector.   The father would name it some simple name like Max or Buddy, simple and firm.  When the dog died and the father picked out another dog, he would name the new dog the same as the previous dog.  I remember hearing the old

There is an ancient prophecy that originated by the tribes of the Amazon.  It seems very appropriate today.  According to the prophecy, human societies would split into two pathways; that of the Eagle and that of the Condor.  The Eagle is the pathway of the mind, the industrial and the male.  The Condor is the pathway of the heart, of intuition and the feminine. The prophecy tells that around the year 1490, the pathway of the Eagle people would become so dominant that they would almost eliminate the Condor people.  This was the period of the conquering of the Americas

When you or your pet goes to the conventional western medicine doctor, the doctor will use intellectual medicine to try to resolve the problem.  There is nothing wrong with this, up to a point.  Western practitioners, from the time they enter medical/vet school and into their practice, intellectual medicine is their mindset. The intellectual mind, what used to be referred to as the left-brain mind, deals with problem solving.  It likes to look at something, breaks it down into pieces, see the causes and effects and puts it all together to solve the problem.  Illness, to the intellectual doctor, is

Socrates, considered the father of medicine, once said, “Everything in moderation.”  This is pretty good insight and something that many of us have forgotten.  Health care is no exception, for ourselves and our pets. Most of us are aware of an enormous movement from the conditioned, conventional approach to health care using drugs to a more natural, functional approach.  As a veterinarian who practiced conventional vet medicine for over 30 years and personally witnessed the self-imposed limitations, I am very happy to see this change.  In time, we will see more and more options appear as well as a greater

I was just reading an article about a new drug that is now being used to treat depression.  I thought to myself, “Oh no, some drug company has found another way to make a bunch of money by not resolving the problem.”  Then I found out the drug that was being used and I almost spit my coffee all over my computer screen. The drug that is being used is ketamine and will be marketed as Esketamine.  It gained a “fast track” approval by the FDA and will be used as an intranasal drug for the symptoms of depression.  Let

Here in the west, conventional medicine and pet health care is based on whether the individual is sick or not.  If the individual has an illness then it is considered sick and treatment is administered.  If the individual is not sick, it is assumed that it is healthy. Unfortunately, there is a large gap between healthy and sick and our conditioning allows us to ignore this, and ignoring this will usually expedite the altered state from perceived healthy to sick.  It is time that we start focusing on where our pet is along this scale and do what we can

There is a storm brewing in our professional world.  Presently, it is a mere rumbling, but unless something is changed, it soon will be an earthshaking experience. Veterinary medicine has always been a wonderful profession.  I remember many years ago, a young lady client smiled and said, “Oh what a wonderful way to spend your days working with all the animals.”  I have never forgotten that.   I have been a vet for almost two scores, and that seems like a long time.  I can still remember the challenges getting into vet school, making it out of vet school and

I have often heard people say, “A person of character is virtuous.”  I pause and think about that.  If I look at its definition, the dictionary states that it is a person of high moral standards.  Sounds fair enough.  But, I don’t stop there.  If one must be of high moral standards to be virtuous, we must entertain the question of what a person must be or do to have high moral standards.  Morality, is defined, once again in the dictionary, as being aligned with what is right and accepted.  I guess that means in today’s society. I play with

In this moment, there are millions of actions and reactions that are happening in your body.  Some of them you may be aware of, while most of them you are not.  You might be aware of your eyes blinking or your breathing, but you are not aware of your blood and lymphatics circulating throughout your body, your digestive enzymes being released and processing your breakfast or the hormones that woke you up this morning and will lead you to bed tonight. For many, many years, we used to think that these “autonomic” processes that happen in the body were controlled