Review: The New Holistic Way for Dogs & Cats, by Paul McCutcheon, DVM

Dr. Paul McCutcheon sees things differently. When a client makes an appointment for him to treat a dog because the dog is compulsively licking and chewing his skin, for example, the Ontario-based veterinarian doesn't immediately reach for a shot of prednisone. Instead, he starts asking questions.

After more than 35 years as a holistic small animal practitioner, his focus is to identify the early signs of "unwellness" before they explode into full-blown disease. And, as he explains in his important book, The New Holistic Way for Dogs & Cats: The Stress-Health Connection, "there are important differences between the way mainstream medicine and the holistic way attempt to find out what's wrong when a pet is not well."

Rather than rushing to eradicate the symptoms of an animal's illness, Dr. McCutcheon becomes a detective, seeking to identify what external forces may have tipped the balance in an animal's equilibrium and garbled the energy flowing through his "living terrain," compromising his immune system in the process. In this respect, he differs sharply from conventional veterinarians who reach for a quick fix--that shot of prednisone--to quell an animal's pain and discomfort, without worrying too much about how a steroid injection may simply further impair the animal's ability to heal.

In a life devoted to animal healing, Dr. McCutcheon has emphasized the power of prevention, and it's here that he empowers animal caretakers by helping us to become mindful of the insidious and often unrecognized sources of stress that affect our animals in ways we never intended or imagined. In Dr. McCutcheon's view, "stress is the sole cause of everything that happens to our pets' health."

It's when stress becomes chronic and unrelenting, and morphs into distress--from the high-pitched noise that never stops, the shock collar, the processed foods, the annual vaccinations, or the exposure to toxic household or lawn chemicals--that problems can ensue:

"Because it is prolonged and persistent, chronic stress can wear a pet down over time. Its effects manifest differently in each individual. One animal may show it through a behavioral issue; another, through a gastrointestinal disturbance; and a third, through unexplained weight loss. It may also produce problems with organs or glands, such as heart disease or diabetes. . .

Chronic stress can also compromise a pet's health indirectly. For example, she may become more susceptible to infections, and eventually to degenerative conditions such as cancer or allergies."

Dr. McCutcheon challenges his clients, and his readers, to become their animals' stress monitors and to ask themselves how their own habits and lifestyle choices may be putting their animals' health at risk. He urges us to watch for subtle signs of unwellness--such as changes in our animals' behavior, appearance, energy level, habits, appetite, weight, and even smell--and regard them as early warning signals that something may be wrong.

The New Holistic Way for Dogs & Cats offers a refreshing--and some would say, even radical--approach to protecting, preserving, and enhancing our animals' health. For those whose efforts to "cure" their animals from illness or chronic conditions have dead-ended, it offers options. And for those whose animals are facing daunting diagnoses, it offers hope. I highly recommend it.

Talk with Dr. Paul McCutcheon, Author of The New Holistic Way for Dogs & Cats during April 28th Teleconference

The next "Conversations with Animal Authors" teleconference will feature Dr. Paul McCutcheon, DVM, who will discuss his recent book, The New Holistic Way for Dogs & Cats: The Stress-Health Connection, on Wednesday, April 28th at 8:00pm (EDT).

Dr. Paul McCutcheon is the founder of Toronto's East York Animal Clinic, and a former Director of the American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association.  For more than 40 years, he has been helping small animals recover from the stress in their lives and the physical and emotional problems it causes them.

In Dr. McCutcheon's view, stress is the underlying cause of every health problem that affects our animals, initially weakening their immune systems, and, if not alleviated, leading them down the road to "unwellness" and ultimately, to serious disease and chronic health issues.   He looks at the underlying roots of an animal's affliction, and unlike mainstream veterinarians, seeks to treat not simply the symptoms but to understand and correct the dis-ease that is compromising the animal's health. 

In The New Holistic Way for Dogs & Cats, Dr. McCutcheon presents a revolutionary way of preserving, maintaining, and enhancing our animals' well-being, with the goal of leading them "toward a more vibrant state of wellness."  He discusses his personal protocol for immunization (which probably differs from anything you've heard before), the role of homeopathy, the stress that can be created by an improper diet, the role of stress in cancer, the natural process of dying, and so much more. You won't want to miss this call!

If you'd like to have an opportunity to chat with Dr. McCutcheon about your own animal, you can join the "Conversations with Animal Authors" call by dialing 712-432-0180 and entering PIN # 1063739 on Wednesday, April 28th at 8:00pm (EDT).  Long-distance charges may apply.  If you can't participate live but would like to hear the interview, it will be recorded and archived on this site within a few days after the event.

The Healing Art of Pet Parenthood

On the March afternoon that my dear cat, Casey, had undergone surgery to have an anal sac tumor removed, I breathed a sign of relief. I actually saw the tumor, and thought that now that it had been expertly excised from her body, it couldn't hurt her anymore. For the moment, I clung to the belief that she had been cured, and that we would live happily ever after.

That sense of relief was short-lived, however, and when the the pathology results revealed a more ominous prognosis, I was faced with a terrible choice: put Casey through chemotherapy, which might offer an eight-month reprieve with potentially gruesome side effects, or opt for a more holistic approach, which would support Casey's quality of life while giving her an uncertain number of days to enjoy it. I opted for the more natural, less proven course of treatment, and for nine months, Casey thrived on it, even as the cancer continued to spread through her body and eventually caused it to surrender.

Having so recently gone through this experience with Casey, I was magnetically drawn to Nadine M. Rosin's account of her transformative journey with her cancer-striken dog, Buttons, in The Healing Art of Pet Parenthood.

Long before holistic veterinary medicine had begun to take hold as a viable alternative to traditional allopathic techniques, Ms. Rosin bravely trusted her own instincts and intuition, in defiance of conventional wisdom, when her veterinarian prounounced that Buttons would be dead in a matter of weeks unless she adhered to the recommended "slash and burn" protocol. But rather than focus on destroying the virulent squamous cell carcinoma that was invading Buttons' tail, Nadine charted a roadmap to wholeness that would eventually not just stop the invasive march of the cancer, but would support Buttons through another 11 years of vibrant and joyful life.

Of course, Ms. Rosin's determination to forge a holistic path for Buttons was not born in a vacuum. Throughout her adult life, she had instinctively shunned artifice and artificiality, gravitating always toward a natural way of living, one that was in sync with the flowing rhythms of life. And so when she was confronted with the prospect of seeing Buttons's body maimed and her spirit mutilated, Nadine simply chose another way.

The surprise of the book, reflected in its title, is that this is a saga not just of Buttons' healing journey, but just as importantly, of Nadine's. She seesaws between periods of health and physical disintegration, all the while sustained by her love for her dog and Buttons' love for her.

At one point, when she had reached a particularly painful nadir of despair, she became convinced that even Buttons had forsaken her. But when she confided that fear to a friend, he laughingly but knowingly admonished her:

"'Your dog loves you more than most people are loved by anybody. And
that is not my opinion, that is fact.

'How do you know that?' I questioned.

'Because,' he stated emphatically, 'if she didn't love you and want to be
with you, she would just leave.'

'She couldn't. I watch her all the time. She never has the opportunity to
get away.'

As if he were explaining to a child, my friend then very slowly and
exactingly said, 'She absolutely could leave you easily. She would just
have the cancer come back and die.'"

In that instant, Nadine re-embraced Buttons' unconditional love for her, and it gave her the strength to soldier on, successfully battling many more personal crises and health challenges, buoyed by her bond with the dog whom she lovingly called, "her daughter."

And as for Buttons' cancer, it never returned.

***

I recently interviewed Nadine M. Rosin for the "Conversations with Animal Authors" teleconference series. You can listen to it here.