Holistic vet gives advice

I talked on the phone last week to a holistic vet. He had a lot to say. Some points that stick in my mind:

--Western medicine doesn’t have much to offer for nerve degeneration, but homeopathy, herbs and acupuncture do help.

--It’s NOT clear to know if and when to euthanize a dog. I heard it was “really clear,” but he said it wasn’t, that dogs have good and bad days, and different people have different limits.

--Get booties now to try to prevent sores from developing on the feet from being dragged. Once the sores start, they are almost impossible to heal.

--Walking is good for a dog with hip dysplasia and nerve degeneration. Don’t worry about it injuring him further -- it won’t. Walk him as far as he will go.

--Regular pharmaceutical medicines speed up the dog’s demise.

He prescribed 2 herbal formulas and 2 homeopathic formulas -- one of each for arthritis and one of each for his spine/nerves. I started giving him the new remedies 2 days ago.

And all this effort is paying off!

He’s been acting like he can’t feel or move his hind legs at all, but today he yanked his hind foot away when I was trying to pull a Band-Aid off his toe! I know it seems like a small victory, but it could be a sign of more to come. I know that all this is colored by my own experience of losing a lot of my walking ability, using a wheelchair, and bouncing back. It makes it impossible for me to give up on my dog the way that I probably would if I had always been an able-bodied person, or as we say, a TAB (“temporarily able-bodied”).