Review: The Complete Guide to Holistic Cat Care, by Celeste Yarnall and Jean Hofve

Celeste Yarnall and Jean Hofve want to change your mind. In their bold new book, The Complete Guide to Holistic Cat Care, they challenge our notions about the appropriate care and feeding of our cats, and make a persuasive argument that most of us are doing it wrong.

Is there a cat person among us who has not lost a cherished feline friend to cancer, chronic renal failure, diabetes, leukemia, thyroid problems, or other ravaging diseases? When bad things happen to our cats, we fight the good fight and support them with drugs, prescription diets, surgical procedures, and love, but we may not have dared to ask the question: how could we have prevented this?

In The Complete Guide to Holistic Cat Care, authors Yarnall and Hofve affirm not only that most chronic diseases can be prevented, they also tell us how. And they offer health-affirming prescriptions which, if we follow them, will enhance our cats' daily happiness quotient, and add many years to their lives.

It all begins with feeding. With a Ph.D. in Nutrition, Ms. Yarnall is an ardent advocate of a carefully formulated raw food diet, but, as she takes care to emphasize, it's not enough just to feed your cat raw meat and think you're giving him all he needs:

"It's vital to remember that cats cannot live on meat alone. There are many case histories of unfortunate cats who suffered and died from being fed only meat (or fish or liver). As an example, there is virtually no calcium in meat. A cat fed on a meat-only diet must satisfy its calcium requirement by stealing from its own bones, and ultimately can fracture a leg just walking across a room."

One of the things I didn't know until I read The Complete Guide is that, contrary to what we've been led to believe, most fish is bad for cats. Yarnall and Hofve posit that "the fish used in canned pet foods usually includes bones and are high in phosphorus and magnesium, which can be an issue in cats with a history of urinary tract disorders or kidney disease." And, even more alarmingly, "there is a known link between the feeding of fish-based canned cat foods and the development of hyperthyroidism in older cats."

The book has an excellent guide to "anti-aging supplements," and, equally important, a list of commonly used foods, ingredients, and other substances that are highly toxic to cats. Ms. Yarnall and Dr. Hofve recommend that you look for products that carry the National Animal Supplement Council seal.

And that's just the beginning. It's not just what a cat ingests in the form of food that will shape his future, it's how he copes with stress. It's here that Yarnall and Hofve are at their best, with innovative tools and techniques to ease anxiety and boost our cats' immune systems. They advocate incorporating play therapy, massage, TTouch, Reiki, the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), flower essences, and even telepathy into your cat's routine. If you're thinking that you can't do any of those things because you don't know how, don't worry. The authors will show you.

While The Complete Guide to Holistic Cat Care breaks with many commonly held assumptions of conventional veterinarians, it does invite the reader to have a reasoned conversation with her own practitioner, armed with facts, rather than rhetoric. Perhaps the most controversial section of the book deals with the topic of vaccinations. Citing studies by researchers Ron Schultz and Tom R. Phillips, the authors contend that not only is there no solid evidence justifying annual vaccinations, but that they actually do more harm than good. Indeed, there are studies that suggest "a causal relationship between the panleukopenia vaccine and the development of CRF (chronic renal failure)." And there is little debate about the causative role of the rabies and feline leukemia vaccines in the development of "malignant, fatal tumors called fibrosarcomas."

What no one can question, though, is the recurring theme that runs throughout this revolutionary volume: it's critical that everything we do for, to, or with our cats, is done with love. At first blush, that sounds like a cliche, but there is actually scientific support for the idea that we shouldn't be feeding our cats (or ourselves) when we are unbalanced, upset, or in the wrong frame of mind:

"I recommend that you do not feed your cat (or eat your own meals) when he or you are stressed. Acute stress releases adrenaline, which shuts down the digestive system. When anxiety accompanies a meal, your food cannot be properly digested, so nutrients can't get into your cells and function properly. This can compromise the immune system, making you vulnerable to infection and degenerative disease. All of our digestive functions work best when conditions are pleasurable. It's a double-edged sword for you, the caretaker of your family and pets."

How many times have you ever rushed home from work and, still in a harried state from your commute, literally thrown down the food for your cat (or dog, for that matter!)? I know I have. But after reading The Complete Guide to Holistic Cat Care, I won't do that anymore. My animals' lives might depend on it.

Review: Memoirs of the Bathtub Psychic, by Bethanne Elion

Call it intuition, psychic sensitivity, or just being "tuned in," Bethanne Elion had it. But, like so many of us, she renounced her innate ability to see more than meets the eye, to perceive what was going on energetically around her, and to heed forebodings when they arose, unbidden. The results were painful, and when it came to her beloved Newfoundland, Sophie, even tragic. Memoirs of the Bathtub Psychic is the saga of Bethanne's personal journey to find herself again, and in the process, become the person--the healer, the seer, the gifted empath--she was always meant to be.

As far back as she could remember, Bethanne had a magical connection with animals. "It seemed that the only time I felt at home with my gifts was when I was around animals," she admits. "I intuitively knew they had an understanding of my abilities. She could mentally hear what they were thinking, as clear as day. Fearing ridicule, however, she soon learned how to sabotage her psychic perceptions:

"By immersing myself in my classwork, with music on in the background,
having a few cocktails in the early evening, and leaving the television on
all night while I slept, I could keep the psychic side of me at bay. Noise
helped to stop the clairaudience. Drinking aided in suppressing clairvoyance.
Studying nonstop made it possible for me to avoid deep or meaningful contact
with others. That helped in keeping my soul from wandering off into other
people, animals, or lifetimes."

Bethanne's life changed forever on the day she drove from her home in California to a dog breeder in Oregon, to pick up a seven-week-old Newfoundland puppy, whom she named Sophie. When she brought her precious puppy to get her first shots, she intuitively sensed that something terrible was about to happen, but not trusting herself, she handed Sophie over for the injections. Her big black dog was never the same after that, and within two years, she was dead.

Bethanne subsequently adopted two more Newfies, Emma and Cubby, and when they, too, experienced a series of health problems, she went for help in a different direction. She implemented the nutritional recommendations offered in Wendy Volhard's The Holistic Guide for a Healthy Dog, learned everything she could about homeopathy, and her dogs improved. But when it was time for Emma to have a rabies booster, Bethanne faced it with dread, instinctively understanding that it would be the beginning of the end of Emma. Within weeks after the vaccination, Emma had developed cancerous tumors at the site of the injection. Bethanne knew that in order to save her dogs, and herself, something had to shift. She decided to move to Vermont.

It was in the quiet of rural Vermont that Bethanne began to allow herself to hear again, and to feel again, and it was there that she began to honor her psychic self by making energetic connections with animals in need. She discovered that she could home in on lost dogs and cats, vividly and accurately describing their whereabouts, but sometimes having to tell bereaved owners that their pets were not coming back. She soon learned to dread such cases.

Bethanne learned to ask permission from an animal before initiating a "conversation," and she came to understand how to distinguish the difference between "that which is symbolic and that which is real" in a telepathic interaction. She learned that some animals simply do not want to be found, and that sometimes, there is nothing that can be done to retrieve them.

Bethanne calls herself an "energy translator," explaining that she is simply a conduit for "information funneling in from the universe." What comes through most of all in this honest and sometimes searingly painful Memoir of the Bathtub Psychic is the author's absolute integrity as a searcher, as a selfless caretaker of her creature companions, and as a bona fide intuitive whose ego never gets in the way of the truth. Hers has been a jagged road, but one truly worth following.