Noticing something about your pet’s skin or fur that concerns you?  You’ve come to the right place!

Just like with humans, an animal’s skin is the largest organ of their body, and as such, can offer clues to the state of their internal balance and overall health. We may say skin dis-eases are “caused” by allergies or other conditions; this fails to address the question of what causes allergies and other conditions in the first place.

Any dis-ease your pet may experience is an expression of an underlying balance in their system. Balance (or lack thereof) involves many different factors, including diet and nutrition, exercise and activity levels, socialization and current care environment, genetics, history of vaccination and exposure to toxins, and more. When each of these factors are optimized, your pet has a  much better chance of having a balanced system. A balanced system is a strong, stable system with high immunity to disease. For this reason, symptoms of any kind (including skin symptoms, allergy symptoms and so forth) are an alarm that it’s time to rebalance your pet’s system. As balance is regained, symptoms naturally disappear or are dramatically reduced.

To help your pet regain their balance to resolve or reduce their skin issues, you’ll first need to become a pet detective. By learning to look at your pet’s symptoms as valuable clues for guiding holistic actions, you’ll get to the root cause of the trouble, increase your pet’s resistance to all forms of dis-ease, and give them the happy, healthy life they deserve. 

Ready to start sleuthing? Let’s begin!

Itch is the #1 symptom you can expect to see with allergy-related skin-disease secondary to a compromised immune response. Itchiness can seem to “come out of nowhere”, leading to changes in the skin due to self-trauma from biting or scratching. Skin conditions resulting from self-trauma include hair loss, inflammation, thickening, color change, or a secondary infection like bacteria or yeast. 

Let’s list the symptoms of skin inflammation, both primary, from the skin disease, and secondary, from self-trauma:

1. Itch
2. Hair loss (alopecia)
3. Papules (raised bumps)
4. Pustules, blisters, or hives (urticaria)
5. Crusts or scaly skin
6. Bloody or purulent (pus) discharge 
7. Odor
8. Redness or discoloration
9. Thickening of the skin

If you’re noticing any of these symptoms, you will also typically see changes in at least one aspect of their BEAM. (Beam stands for Behavior, Energy, Appetite and Mood). Generally speaking, the more changes you’re seeing across BEAM, the more severe your pet’s underlying issue may be. 

Do take careful note of your pet’s symptoms, when they occurred, their location and severity, and especially what makes them better or worse.  This will help your holistic vet help you to address your pet’s problems.

The presence of GMO (genetically modified foods) and chemicals in food can damage the GI tract causing a leaky gut and skyrocketing food sensitivities. Up to thirty percent of pets can have at least one sensitivity to a certain food, making multiple food sensitivities very common. Although the appearance of symptoms may be sudden and seem to come “out of nowhere,” you can be sure that an imbalance has been building for some time. Once symptoms appear, a “tipping point” has occurred, and you’ll want to take holistic actions without delay.   

GMO foods are present in almost all commercially prepared pet foods and are found in 75 percent of processed food and 90 percent of all soy. Cows, chickens, pigs, and even fish are fed these foods, which in turn are fed to our pets. GMOs can have a toxic effect on the GI tract, causing inflammation and “leaky gut syndrome,” increasing food sensitivities. 

These food sensitivities express themselves in both cats and dogs (and often in humans) as itching. Cats may have a sudden onset of itching, often concentrated at the head and neck.  Dogs are more likely to have a sudden onset itching anywhere on their body. These reactions often occur in relation to a certain food the animal has been eating for some time, and their itching often isn’t responsive to steroid treatment. It is important to find and eliminate the trigger food or substance (such as exposure to household or environmental toxins) to lessen the toxic stress on the liver, spleen, and GI tract. This approach will provide your pet short term relief while you work on helping them regain their balance in the long term.

The “gold standard” to determine if your pet has a food allergy can be run at home. You can do this by eliminating foods from the diet for at least 4-6 weeks. If their itch resolves or improves, try adding the good back to see if the itch or other skin symptoms (like irritation around the head of kitties) returns. If it does return, don’t worry! Just re-eliminate the trigger food and the itch and skin symptoms should resolve. When running an elimination diet to test how your pet responds to the removal of certain foods from their diet, it’s important to track the amount of time between the removal of a particular food and the reduction or disappearance of itchiness. If it subsides fairly quickly, it is likely a food sensitivity and not an allergy which is more common and makes it likely that you’ll be able to reintroduce the food later on if you’ve also been working on their internal balance using homeopathy or Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine (TCVM). There are other diagnostic tests to help determine if your pet has food sensitivities including the Nutriscan saliva test, and blood tests (which are not very accurate).

There are three main approaches that work well in tandem when addressing your pet’s skin dis-ease: optimized nutrition, restoration of the “hypothetical” immune imbalance using homeopathy and TCVM and topical support. 

Optimized Nutrition

Of all the holistic factors that contribute to your pet’s inner balance — diet and nutrition, exercise and activity levels, socialization and current care environment, genetics, history of vaccination and exposure to toxins, and more — diet and nutrition have the greatest impact. If you want to resolve or dramatically improve your pet’s skin dis-ease, you need to focus on optimizing their diet. 

An optimized diet begins with the elimination or reduction of canned and dry pet foods, replacing them with a wide variety of fresh foods and select nutritional supplements. If your pet has been treated with anti-biotics, it will be especially important to introduce pro-biotics to their diet to help repopulate their system with beneficial bacteria. 

Minimally processed food is the best choice for your pet. Cellular vitality — the foundation of true health and high immunity — is most powerfully enhanced by raw food, followed by cooked food. Commercially prepared canned food and dry kibble rank much lower on the vitality scale. To learn more about the Food Vitality Scale to get an even better idea for how to optimize your pet’s diet, check out our fresh feeding page.

Internal Energetic Optimization

Current conventional veterinary medicine does NOT recognize any internal energetic balance. However, many holistic vets feel that true healing requires restoration of this inner balance.  Natural treatment methods (modalities) help our animal companions achieve this balance, or homeostasis.  Guardians should closely observe and record their companions’ signs and symptoms which will help point us toward the most helpful treatment method, and show your pet’s response. These observations about symptom changes are especially important in choosing appropriate homeopathic medicines.

Topical Support

You can often immediately relieve or reduce your pet’s itching with an aloe vera or oatmeal shampoo treatment. You can help relieve their itching with spot treatment using black tea, aloe vera gel, colloidal oatmeal soaks, and even a combination of baking soda paste and Rescue Remedy cream.  Some acupressure points and essential oils, such as discussed on the AnimalEO site may be helpful as well.  

You can give your pet a body-rinse composed of solution of water, lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, and green tea. If your pet has itchy ears, some topical treatments are aloe vera, black tea, almond oil, Zymox without hydrocortisone, herbal cleaners, and a solution of one part water and one part white vinegar. Never introduce large amounts of any topical solution forcefully into your pet’s ear. Either instill the product slowly in small amounts, dip a sterile cloth into the solution, wring it out, and apply to the affected area. To help with the anxiety that often accompanies itching, use essential oils, flower essences or essence combinations similar to Rescue Remedy.

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Skin Webinars

All the Pet Health webinars! below cover aspects of skin.
Read the descriptions and topic lists next to the videos to find your topics of interest.

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Flea Webinars

All the Pet Health webinars! below cover aspects of flea.
Read the descriptions and topic lists next to the videos to find your topics of interest.

2. What improvements can I expect from the adoption of fresh, vital feeding?

First of all, it’s important to understand that food falls on a spectrum of cellular vitality, from highest to lowest. Topping the list is raw food, followed by cooked food, freeze-dried food, commercially canned food, and kibble. (To learn about the Food Vitality Scale and to find recipes you can use to add variety to your pet’s diet, check out this page!) The improvement you’ll see in your pet’s health from fresh-feeding is overwhelming. You can see improvement even if you only replace one processed-food meal per week with a fresh-food one. The more you eliminate processed foods, the more positive health changes you can expect. Among them: 

• Shinier, smoother, thicker, odorless hair with less shedding
• Cleaner, healthier ears
• Disappearance or reduction of eye discharge and tear stains  
• Breath improves and less plaque forms
• Hairball vomiting slows and stops
• Sociability with people and other animals improves
• Stiffness and limping resolve
• Activity level and running speed increases
• Performance and interest in training improve
• Weight normalizes and preoccupation with food ends
• Current illnesses or health challenges resolve or greatly improve
• Stool volume (and odor) decreases, as more of the food is used by the body, less is eliminated
• More enthusiasm at meal times!

Each animal is different and will react differently to a change in their diet, but overall fresh food is beneficial to all animals.

4. What is the difference between the vital foods I should feed my dog vs my cat?

With their protein-based meals, dogs can make good nutritional use of veggies, fruit, and small amounts of fully cooked grains to add with their protein meals. Ideally, dogs should take in about 80-90% of the diet as a fresh meat-based protein, with the remainder pureed fruits and vegetables. An easy example of going about this is to feed your dog half of a raw chicken with the skin, bones, and even organs still present, and serve it with a small amount of pureed vegetables. If you want to cook the chicken, feed only white meat during the transition to fresh food feeding. Never feed cooked bones of any kind.

Dry food is abnormal for dogs, but it is even worse for cats. Cats originated from the desert regions of the world, and their kidneys adapted to conserve water, making them less dependent on drinking than dogs. The water provided in raw, cooked, or even canned food is usually sufficient for balanced cats. Truly healthy cats on a fresh food diet who drink may be giving you an early warning sign clue to an internal imbalance. 

Healthy cats that are being fed an unprocessed, truly vital diet rarely drink liquids. When cats are fed dry food, or their system has become compromised by nutritional deficiencies, only then must they drink water to allow their body to function properly. However, because cats are not adapted to drink water in this way, it represents a stress on their system and over time, they may develop cystitis and kidney diseases. To prevent this, feed your cat raw or cooked meat and fish with an additional 5-10% pureed vegetables or baby food to ensure they’re getting adequate nutrition. To make a great meal for your cat, throw some raw liver, veggies, and eggshells in a blender and puree them. 

Calcium / phosphorus balance is the biggest cause of unbalanced home prepared diets.  Vet nutritionists see nutritional imbalances because people don’t pay enough attention to it, and feed too much meat and not enough bone. If your pet is not eating a diet containing bone, add 1,000 mg of calcium carbonate or calcium citrate (finely ground eggshells can also be used) should be added to each pound of boneless meat.  Puppies and kittens require special attention to prevent developmental diseases from diet imbalance, so consult with your holistic vet about appropriate diets for them.  

Calcium is an important nutrient that can be given through supplements but is also well absorbed through foods containing raw bone. Supplement your pet’s calcium needs with the edible bones or ground bones of the meat you feed them. If your pet’s meals don’t include bones, then it’s important to ensure adequate calcium levels with finely ground eggshell or seaweed calcium, both of which are excellent substitutes for bone-based calcium.

HANDOUTS

Wondering about homeopathy and whether it might help your pet? You’ve come to the right place!

What is homeopathy? 

This resource area has lots of information about the homeopathic medical system in seminar format. Homeopathy is a powerful, gentle, and effective way to work with your pet. However, it is not yet part of the practice of veterinarians in the US as it is in other countries but you can still learn how to use it along with your vet. 

Personally I (Dr. Jeff) have found the practice of integrating homeopathy into modern veterinary science incredibly exciting and effective. This resource is a brief introduction to this wonderful system and my understanding of how it can be used within the current veterinary medical system.

Here are the important words we will need:

Homeo = Similar (like or with)
Anti = Opposing (opposite or against)

Homeo-pathy is a way to work with your pet’s body using symptoms as clues of internal imbalance.

Homeopathy (also known as homeopathic medicine), is a medical system that was developed more than 200 years ago by the genius scientist-physician Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann.  It is a holistic way to interpret changes in external and internal symptoms (which are called “signs” by veterinarians). 

“Every symptom change reflects a physiologic change.”

Closely evaluating symptoms allows you and the vet homeopath to select homeopathic medicines which can help re-balance your pet’s vital systems.

Homeopathy is based on one primary principle (which homeopaths consider to be a natural:

“Like cures like”—the principle that a substance which can cause symptoms can treat similar symptoms. Homeopathic medicines can activate the natural healing processes of the body.

That sums it up! Using the “Law” of Similars and working with pets bodies to resolve abnormal symptoms.

What are homeopathic medicines and how are they made? 

Homeopathic medicines are derived from plants, minerals, and animals.  These include substances such as onion, poison ivy, nightshade, salt, arsenic, milk, bees, and many, many more. Homeopathic medicines can be used to coat sugar pellets to be placed under the tongue; they may also be in other forms, such as ointments, gels, drops, creams, tablets, and tinctures. The choice of the homeopathic medicine is individualized or tailored to each patient—it’s common for different pets who appear to have the same condition to receive different medicines. 

The unique pharmacological process for making homeopathic medicines, called potentization, is where much of  the controversy about homeopathy starts. Each medicine is, diluted in a 1:10 or 1:100 solution in double-distilled water in a glass test-tube that is vigorously shaken 40 or more times.  This process of dilution and succussion (vigorous shaking) is repeated 3, 6, 12, 30, 200, 1,000, or more times.  Based on our current understanding, it would seem that the solution (medicine) would be too dilute to have a therapeutic effect.  However, both experience and science of nanotechnology show that these highly dilute substances medicines contain active particles and can  have physiologic effects.  This supports more than 200 years of successful treatment with homeopathic medicines. In addition, there are significant research studies showing the effect of homeopathic medicines in both people and animals. 

How it’s Done

The process of homeopathy is NOT just giving the sugar pills. It involves a detailed initial evaluation, which commonly takes 1-2 hours, that starts with a full history of symptoms throughout your pet’s life including diagnostic test results. The goal is to characterize every aspect of their dis-ease (internal imbalance). Vet homeopaths determine their patient’s specific susceptibilities (sensitivities) to dis-ease producing agents and then use homeopathic medicines that work with nature and the body.

Homeopaths believe that homeopathy uses cellular communication pathways to activate natural healing in all animals. It is hypothesized to do this by providing vital cellular information that normalizes cell function and decreases abnormal symptoms and dis-eases.

Your Pet’s Individuality, Susceptibility and Symptoms

The concepts of individuality and susceptibility in homeopathy are keys to understanding how any pet (or person) will respond to a stressor and possibly (depending on susceptibility) develop dis-ease (imbalance). 

Recent research is unlocking many “secrets” of the body. These include the molecular processes defining the individuality and susceptibility which are the foundations of choosing a homeopathic medicine. 

These are concepts that transcend your pets genes and genome and are defined in molecular biology by the concept of the “exposome”. This relatively new ‘omic science has brought homeopathy closer to mainstream medicine. It describes the biochemical reactions that occur in people (and pets) in response to the environment throughout life (and even before birth). 

As Hahnemann did with homeopathy, the Human Exposome Project is currently defining a new paradigm by which to understand medicine. This is extraordinarily exciting and starts to give us a bridge between homeopathy and mainstream medicine.

It’s All About Energy and Information

However, individuality and the exposome is just one of the puzzle pieces that explains how homeopathic care can stimulate the natural healing processes.

The other critical piece is the energy needed by all cells to work optimally in order for our pets to remain in balance and to not get dis-eased. This energy is well described by laws of physics which say that systems work better when they conserve energy. This is important for our companion animals because homeopathic medicines help them do this. Individualized remedies seem to “tune-up” your pet’s bodies to help them conserve energy and avoid the health challenges that occur when the fuel for the body runs low.

Think of it like a car that gets great mileage vs. one that is a gas guzzler. Fuel-efficient cars conserve energy (gas) whereas it gets used up faster by the gas guzzler. The same principle applies to the complex systems of the body which work most effectively when they are tuned-up to conserve the cellular energy needed by the cells to work properly and heal..

The principles of individuality, susceptibility, energy and internal balance are well described in the basic science literature. For example, the May 2020 article in a highly regarded journal of molecular biology says that “host response” to the SARS-CoV-2 virus and not the germ itself is what creates the symptoms of covid. In other words, susceptibility as when the immune system doesnt have energy to work properly, is more important for balance than exposure to a stressor (in this case a virus).

However, these important scientific concepts are not commonly connected to the ways that pet parents and vets can help pets. But you can do this by using these concepts yourself and sharing them with your vets. For example, when it comes to dis-eases like kennel cough or feline leukemia, they help explain how you can reduce your pet’s risk of dis-eases. You can easily use these principles along with homeopathy to help optimize their host responses. 

If homeopathy is part of my pet’s treatment, what might I expect? 

At Holistic Actions!, we teach HMDM (which stands for Holistic Medical Decision-Making) using homeopathy integrated into conventional medicine. They help you decide on and reach the goal of complete cure when possible. Some conditions can’t be completely cured, so we may aim for more attainable goals. The full range of outcomes include… 

1. Cure (resolving the underlying issue by fully restoring balance and vitality)
2. Progress towards a cure (accepting that cure isn’t likely or possible in the near future, but has a good chance of being achieved over time)
3. Palliation (making symptoms less severe or unpleasant)
4. Suppression (eliminating symptoms without addressing the underlying imbalance that’s causing them)
5. Nothing (sometimes homeopathic medicines appear to have no influence on the particular issue we’re trying to treat)

Let’s talk a little more about what you can expect from each. 

CURE refers to the restoration or improvement of balance and vitality in your pet’s system, and thus to the resolution of both the underlying disease and its associated  symptoms. When your pet has been cured by homeopathic treatment you will notice improvements in their BEAM (which stands for Behavior, Energy, Appetite and Mood).

Progress toward a cure refers to continued improvement of BEAM and specific symptoms, but incomplete resolution of the health challenge. Your pet is better and is responding to treatment but changes in primary symptoms may not yet be detectable. 

PALLIATION refers to approaches that bring rapid relief but require ongoing management to prevent the recurrence of symptoms. The symptoms are being covered up. There’s no deep healing in palliation, it just provides temporary relief, in much the same way that an oatmeal bath can help to soothe your pet’s itchy skin.  By definition, palliation means that symptoms return once you cease to manage them.  This is your pet’s system’s way of telling you that the underlying issue has not been addressed. 

SUPPRESSION also involves quick and often total relief. Eventually, your pet may respond with more serious symptoms that once again signal that the underlying issue (imbalance) has not been addressed and cured. There are times when suppression may make sense in the short term. However, this will always come at a cost, since this approach tends to worsen the underlying imbalance. When you silence the “smoke alarm” of symptoms without putting out the “fire” of the underlying imbalance, the fire just gets bigger and does more damage. 

Homeopathic medicines are just one prong in a much broader holistic approach to health. At Holistic Actions!, we give you the resources to optimize every aspect of your pet’s life and health.  This includes optimizing diet, nutrition, supplementation, socialization supports, exercise and enrichment activities.  We also aim to neutralize or reduce the impact of genetic predispositions, vaccinations, history of abuse or neglect, and other adverse exposures. This empowering big picture approach enables you to restore your pet’s inner balance, boost their vitality, make them more immune to disease, and help them live the healthy happy life they deserve! 

ARCHIVE

Homeopathy Webinars

All the Pet Health webinars! below cover aspects of homeopathy.
Read the descriptions and topic lists next to the videos to find your topics of interest.