Vital Animal Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Dr. Madalyn Ward: Horses -- feeding their needs, vaccine concerns Nov 17, 2020

Show notes

#012 Dr. Madalyn Ward has been working with horses since well before vet school and joined a conventional equine practice early on.

We both graduated in 1980 and our paths crossed first in 1992 when we both joined the first Professional Course in Veterinary Homeopathy, taught for graduate veterinarians by Dr. Richard Pitcairn, in Eugene, OR. She traveled from Austin and I from Maui repeatedly for a year’s study (5 or 6 trips as I recall).

After that training, her practice changed fundamentally, as did mine.

When it came time for me to move to Austin, Dr. Ward graciously offered me a place to practice and her small animal clients, as she was too busy with the horses at that point.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

In the episode, Dr. Ward takes on two of the commonest horse health management issues:

how to feed horses appropriate to their “always browsing” nature
how to think about vaccinations in this, probably the most over vaccinated species

One of the most amazing revelations to me from her interview: these huge beasts can benefit from very small doses of whole food supplements. One might think an animal weighing 1000lbs or more would need a ton of supplements compared to a dog, she’s seen the opposite to be true!
For the show notes and links to this episode, please visit: http:/VitalAnimalhttps://VitalAnimal.com/12

Breeders: Please STOP Doing This! Nov 10, 2020

Show notes

#011 As a blog writer and podcaster, I get a lot of email, especially when things have gone badly in an animal’s world.

One recurring theme that has always rubbed me the wrong way is the reports that puppies were vaccinated, often more than once, before they were sent home. As most leave for their new homes at 8 weeks of age, that translates to vaccines given to pups of 4 weeks or 6 weeks of age, and maybe again at 8 weeks, before they travel!

As there is plenty of science behind this being a dumb practice, I’m calling it out as such in this episode.

Minimally, the early vaccination of pups and kittens does no good but more concerning: every vaccine, given at any age, carries a very significant risk of long term damage to the recipient. Witness the explosion of allergic itchy skin and/or ears over the past many years. Most of this follows vaccination, but often a month later (so, unless you look for this pattern, you'll miss it).

It boils down to what’s long been known about Mom’s colostrum and “passive immunity.” We’ve generated data on that since at least the 1950’s! And that is the #1 reason for “vaccine failure,” meaning the hoped for immunization has failed.

As I understand the breeders’ intent (“We don’t want to lose youngsters to infectious disease!”), I do offer some safe and effective alternatives to all this crazy over vaccination.
Please join me for this discussion and tell me in the comments if you need anything clarified.

The show notes and comments for this episode are here: https://VitalAnimal.com/11

Dr. Pitcairn: would you inject a disease? Nov 03, 2020

Show notes

#010 Have you ever thought of giving a vaccine as giving a disease? Dr. Pitcairn talks us through the logic and how we’ve been tricked into thinking that we are only helping our animals when we give a vaccine.

This helped Dr. Pitcairn discover the significance of vaccination in trying to cure his chronically ill patients many years ago. When they got well only to a point, he began to wonder if “vaccinosis” was at work (the illness that comes after a vaccine).

Does “giving the disease” by injection also explain why pets who’ve been injected with a killed rabies vaccine often change their behavior as well? Once content to be home, they now want to wander, or eat strange things, or seem more edgy or even downright aggressive.

You’ll see vaccines in a new light when you listen to this episode. With the understanding of Dr. Hahnemann’s homeopathy, so much more starts to make sense about how vaccination is anything but a benign procedure.

For links and more on this episode, see the show notes: https://VitalAnimal.com/10

Thomas Sandberg: Laughing at life expectancy statistics Oct 27, 2020

Show notes

#009 Thomas Sandberg is an Animal Naturopath who’s seen first hand the power of feeding a “carnivore model” diet.

His own Great Danes on this diet doubled their expected lifespans and he knew he was on to something. That early “Ah Ha” has grown into a much larger study now and his aim is to enlist 20,000 dogs and 5000 cats who are being fed raw to see how far the boundaries can be pushed.

Some key ideas from this interview:

Forget everything you’ve heard about balance and bacteria, the two biggest impediments to starting raw feeding.
It’s almost impossible to screw up a raw food diet short term (1-2 months). You can feed only one protein source during your starting period and still do much better than kibble ever could.
Organic? It’s great if you can afford it or even find it. Tom has never used organic sources and has seen amazing results with plain old grocery store bought meat.
“The sicker the dog, the more they need raw food!”

Join us for this exciting episode on why raw feeding need not be complicated and how you’ll see benefits within the first two weeks of switching from kibble.

For links to more resources, visit the show notes at https://VitalAnimal.com/9

Dr. Andrea Tasi: 100% Cats, 100% Homeopathy Oct 20, 2020

Show notes

#008 It’s not often you find a vet like Dr. Andrea Tasi, who knew even before vet school that she’d do an all-feline practice. What makes her unique, though, is that she shifted her practice to fully homeopathic and that changed everything.
Join us as Dr. Tasi speaks to the uniqueness of this species, the challenges they face in “domestication” (Ha! Let’s use that word loosely), being both a predator and prey simultaneously, the challenges of homeopathy, and how to interpret litter box troubles, the area that leads many cats to be given up for adoption. It need not be so!
For links and more from this episode, see the shownotes here: https://VitalAnimal.com/8

Dr. Scott Treadway on formulating and detox Oct 13, 2020

Show notes

#007 Dr. Scott Treadway has one over arching philosophy when it comes to formulating supplements: they will be most useful when they are wholly made from natural ingredients.

Scott is a friend and partner in our Vital Animal Health sister company that makes our supplement line. I invited him on this week to talk about our latest supplement, Vital Animal Detox.

We discuss the need for detox supplementation in pets and Scott goes into detail on why his formulation, based on highly purified zeolite and several synergistic herbs, is so effective in pulling toxins safely and surely out of your dog’s body. (Cat owners, stay tuned, he’s working on a cat version of VAD).

Our VAD was borne from Scott’s work with war veterans from the war in Iraq, who came back with radiation poisoning (and likely vaccinosis!) and the VA hospitals were just giving them pain killers. His original formula helped detox these soldiers and the idea for Vital Animal Detox came from this work as we began to talk together.

Join Dr. Treadway and I for an interesting journey into the world of natural detox.

The shownotes for this episode can be found here: https://VitalAnimal.com/7

How one cat's death sentence changed Kasie Maxwell's life Oct 06, 2020

Show notes

#006 It all started with a 9 year old cat given a death sentence: 3 months to live. Today’s guest spent an entire night studying, realizing she’d been doing it all wrong, and changed her cat’s diet over the next year with what she learned. Her cat recovered and was never sick again, dying at the respectable age of 22.

Raw food for pets got its well deserved introduction to San Francisco in a big way when Kasie Maxwell Grujcic got a bunch of people to make an “assembly line” in a friend’s garage in 2001. She provided the direction and know how, gave everyone a task towards one end goal: everyone goes home with excellent raw dog food for a month.

The rest, as they say, is history, and countless lives have been changed for the better with Kasie’s guidance, kindness and inclusive attitude. “Bones scare you? No worries, you don’t have to feed bones yet!”

This episode is packed with gems of hard won knowledge, health challenges others would have given up from, bold decisions and successes that will inspire and amaze you.

"It’s all about honor for me, honoring the land, the environment, the animals being raised for food, honoring the producer of that food… and honoring the animals in my care which are carnivores…”

Listen closely and be inspired by this living example of determination and selfless service to the animals and the planet.

Link to the show notes for this episode: https://VitalAnimal.com/6

Why homeopathic vets need to kill this joke Sep 29, 2020

Show notes

#005 First, a dead serious discussion of why an oft-told joke among homeopathic vet colleagues needs to die. The longer this joke is true, the more animals suffer and the more money is bled from well meaning pet owners. None of that is funny!

The “disease of our day” and why Dr. Falconer now almost never takes new patients these days.

Modern medicine’s “dirty little secret” and just how are you supposed to find a solid homeopathic vet when there are so many “fauxistic” vets out there?

Be sure to tune into this episode to get the joke, help kill it for my profession, understand what you’re up against, and get proper homeopathic veterinary care at the best time possible.
Thanks for listening! Do share this episode and if you would, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts!
You'll find all the links to this episode at https://VitalAnimal.com/5

Dr. John Robb Titers and Immune Certificates Sep 22, 2020

Show notes

#004 Dr. John Robb joins me and shares a lot of helpful knowledge on titers in pets. He’d like to see titers accepted widely by all licensing authorities as a means of preventing over-vaccination.
Listen in as Dr. Robb shares these gems with us:

02:34 “The titer tells us the pet has already achieved immunity. So there’s no benefit from the vaccine…you’re injecting something that can only harm, with no benefit. That’s malpractice, in my opinion.”
04:34: “I don’t really agree with the numbers game, because the lowest titer is the same immunity as the highest titer.”
05:06: “Dr. Schultz (Univ of Wis immunologist, Dr. Ron Schultz) said it best, ‘It should be a yes or no answer.’ …If your pet has any measurable antibodies…it’s a pregnancy test, you are or you are not (immune), period.”
17:32: “One state requires a titer: Hawaii. Because they know the vaccine certificate doesn’t tell you that the dog is immune. And since they don’t have rabies in Hawaii, you can’t get in there without a titer.…when it becomes real, like ‘we don’t want to have rabies here,’ you better have a titer to prove your pet’s immune.”

At Dr. Robb’s website, ProtectThePets.com, you’ll learn how you can save money on titer testing and get his official “Immune Certificate” for your animal. Also there are petitions to help you get your state’s legislatures to change their out of date rabies laws and letters you can use to write individual law makers.
Be sure to see the show notes for links and resources from this episode.

Dr. Todd Cooney: Parvo - Better, safer prevention + treatments Sep 03, 2020

Show notes

#003 Dr. Todd Cooney has had remarkable success with parvo. He's actually wiped it out of his practice after decades of struggling with it. His past conventional prevention failed 40% of the time and his clinic greeted him every morning with the stench unique to this deadly disease.
What changed? And why is his patient population now seeing zero parvo incidence?
It's all because Dr. Cooney shifted his prevention to homeoprophylaxis, the use of nosodes instead of the old school injections we were all trained to use.
You'll learn from Dr. Cooney's data, gathered from his practice over the years, what actually works, both for prevention and treatment. (Neighboring vets refer all their parvo cases to Dr. Todd, as they know his success with homeopathy is so high!)
To see the show notes and download some valuable free reports, click on this link:
https://VitalAnimal.com/todd-cooney-parvo-prevention-treatments-ep-3

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