On Face Book I asked what people want to learn about. We address these all ( now or in the future) in detail at the Holistic Actions! Academy in the many classes and resources. Please comment below if you have a specific area you would like a class on, or a blog post, or just an answer.
The next webinar is on behavior and brain diseases – August 5 at 11AM eastern. Learn more here.
The first step for most of your concerns is to remember that we are treating individuals, not illness, not yeast, not hematoma, not epulis, mast cell tumors, etc. Homeopathy is based on matching all the symptoms and characteristics, not merely the “illness” to resolve the vital force’s need to produce these symptoms.
While you can chose homeopathic remedies from many sources, to find the real match (similimum) takes training and practice. You can try a remedy or two, but if they do not work – seek professional help.
What you can do that may help many of these problems, and prevent almost all of them is to follow the 7 keys to health – feed the best, vaccinate the least, minimize chemicals, form a healing team, learn home health care and USE THEM regularly, understand and remind yourself how we all get ill and get well. Finally, keep a journal to continually evaluate where her health is NOW.
Health is a journey we are on, and sometimes we do not achieve full health in this lifetime. A dog could get recurrent hematomas that you can learn to treat at home, and be full of energy, taking long walks, emotionally stable, no other symptoms and that may be the best level of health she can attain. Keep trying new things, carefully.
Having set the stage for ALL conditions, I will post and answer each question as a separate post over the next few days.
To fine tune what you are doing for your animals, consider a Pet Health Coaching call with me.
What makes a little maltese/poodle bark so much and what methods can I use to help her
Janet, you are asking this question at the perfect time. Holistic Actions! Academy is having a webinar next Saturday, Aug 5 at 11 AM eastern on behavior and brain problems. As soon as you register, you will get the power point/audio to watch before the class, then we will discuss cases and questions from the attendees. Dr. Jeff Feinman and I will be leading it on Aug 5. To register, click here.
First, I suspect that you have already tried to figure out why your dog barks. It is important to know if it is from a noise, being protective or you or the home, from seeing something outside, because of a visitor, etc. While good to have that information, it is less important than what you can do to build his health and train her. That is one of the main goals of the Holistic Actions Academy – to empower you to make holistic medical decisions.
As you said little, much of what I suggest you may have tried.
Step one is to build up health. Follow the 7 keys to health, especially feeding a fresh food diet and avoiding toxins. The healthier the dog, the better they can be trained. If you want some coaching in this area, you can schedule a Pet Health Coaching phone call with me.
Step two is training. Tellington T Touch has lots of books, videos, You tubes, and classes. A local trainer for classes to help with basic training and then you must follow through at home. 100% consistency is necessary to break habits like barking. It may take several months, then you should be able to be less consistent. Clicker training is excellent, especially for barking dogs. There are other approaches to training, so you may need to try one, then another. Keeping a journal can help you know what is helping the most. As we talk about on the Aug 5 webinar slides, you need to pay attention to all symptoms and behavior, not merely the barking. You may try one training method and she stops barking but her appetite becomes picky, or she wants to hide a lot, or gets diarrhea. Then you know it was the wrong approach. This is a great article by Karen Pryor about barking dogs and connects you to many other clicker training tips. This article about Tellington T Touch is about barking dogs. Their main site is here.
Step three is to learn the many different, 100% safe approaches you can do at home. Flower Essences (maybe you have heard of Rescue Remedy) are great for emotional issues. Read my article on them. Reiki can be learned locally (best so you will have a community) or via the web and I suggest you offer it daily to “all living beings in the house”. Once you are attuned (does not have to be an animal class which are less common), you can attend a monthly phone seminar (free, I think) with kathleen Prasad.
Read some books on acupressue – Dr. Schwartz (four paws five directions) and Zidonas (acudog).
Are you overwhelmed yet? Remember that everything I have suggested here will build up your dog’s health so she should be able to live past 20 and stay super healthy, so it is not just about stopping barking. As fun book by an owner of a Maltese is Scared Poopless by Jan Rassmussen.
I hope you can attend the Holistic Actions Webinar next Saturday, or purchase it to view on your own time.