How’s Your Sleep?

Do you lie down at night and lay your burden down? Or are you constantly checking out the window with a flash light, rechecking the locks on your doors, and listening to the police scanner?

Do you have the peace that comes from knowing you’re caring for your animals in a way that’s in line with Nature’s laws? Do you rest with the understanding that a long evolutionary history has your back?

Or are you running scared, from one trend to the next, seeking the latest, greatest way to fight this germ, protect your animal from that deadly parasite, or nourish your loved ones with this absolutely necessary nutrient (that somehow you never heard of until today)?

Trying to Sleep in a Noisy World

Amid all the flux in the world, we need to find what’s true and lasting. That’s often quiet and patient, and goes unadvertised.

The internet is full of noise, less full of truth. Anyone can write anything they like and put it out for all to read. Is there any truth to it? Good question. Will beer prevent heartworms? I don't know.

Marketers are famous for selling the “next big thing.” Often, that is a drug with a well crafted name, promising a solution to a problem you never knew you had.

Modern medicine, aka Big Pharma, has a wonderful model of creating disease (and then selling you the cure):

They lower the range of test values considered normal.

A diagnosis of diabetes used to be made when the fasting blood glucose values were higher than 140. The American Diabetes Association decided in 1997 that 126 should be the new 140. Instantly, 50% more people had “diabetes.” Great move for business, if you profit from pharmaceuticals.

The American Heart Association did a similar trick with cholesterol in 2004, and instantly, millions of people “needed” statin drugs. (And if you buy the idea that cholesterol causes heart attacks, I’ve got some lovely sink hole acreage in Florida I can sell you. Cheap. But first, pass the butter, would you?)

In a similar vein, vets 40 years ago vaccinated an animal once and considered their work done. Until vaccine manufacturers, likely to the delight of vets looking to make a buck, spuriously labeled vaccines for annual use. The science behind those new labels? Nada, zilch, zip.

Is Science Robbing Your Repose?

The usual post-WWII thought, still prevalent today, is that “science knows best.” Anything can be achieved, conquered, found, or cured if we throw enough money and science at it.

Science brought us processed pet food in a bag, and marketers told us it was the best. And that led us to believe we couldn’t possibly make homemade food that would nourish our pets on our own. “Look how many ingredients are in that kibble! How could I ever know enough to do what Hill’s Prescription Diet does?”

Antibiotics came out of this same era, as did chemotherapy, pesticides, herbicides (now in everyone’s fat, including every newborn on the planet) and the latest and most insidious to date, GMOs.

The same thought pattern brought us the Green Revolution of the 60’s and 70’s, which ruined our once life sustaining wheat.

Now, it’s technology that dominates “health” care. CAT scans, MRIs, injected radioactive dyes that light up radiographs of your insides. It’d be extremely rare to get a simple diagnosis without a battery of diagnostic tests.

Are we more at peace and sleeping better because of all this science? I doubt it.

Solid Ground: Rest in Nature’s Arms

There are many things about Nature that have withstood the shifting sands of time. Examples include:

• Bare spots on the Earth will eventually be filled in with plants. Another way to say it, “Nature abhors a vacuum.” That’s the seemingly impossible weed pushing up through asphalt, stretching out its green solar collectors to make a go of it.
• Mammals will suckle their young. Whether that’s in vogue or not for women is another story entirely.
• Entropy is a force of Nature, and left alone, things tend to get messy. See the floor under my bed as an example.
• Water, soft as it is, wears away harder stone.
• Volcanoes create new land where none existed before. I lived for several years on an example called Maui.
• Animals (us included) breath in necessary oxygen, and give off a waste product called carbon dioxide. Plants thrive on that waste product and give us back life sustaining oxygen.
• Everything that is born will one day die.

These are things you can count on. They’ll be here long after our present bodies have returned to soil.

And there are similar principles in health you can take to the bank. Things that let you rest easy, knowing your animals are taken care of.

Ways to Sleep More Soundly

It’s often said, “Knowledge is power.” It follows that knowledge, true knowledge, is the best sleeping pill on the planet.

One example, oft forgotten, is that we have an immune system resident in us and our animals that’s been tempered by the ages to be inherently intelligent and protective. It’s constantly on the lookout for foreigners that could harm us:

• Bacteria
• Viruses
• Fungi
• Parasites
• Cancer cells, those mutations that run amok, dividing like crazy.

That immune system is anything but the new kid on the block. It’s got thousands of years of experiencing and responding to threats behind it, and it’s carried the information gained from our ancestors and those of our animals forward to the present day.

The understanding of how the immune system functions is still in its infancy. What we know is quite fascinating, but what we don’t yet know is likely to be even more so.

What I’ve seen over the years is this: the immune system, if allowed to fully function, is amazingly good at keeping you and your animals disease free. Vaccines are the main cause of immune dysfunction. Antibiotics come in second, but that’s a fairly distant second in my experience.

Allow me to make some sound sleep prescriptions.

Sound Sleep Rx #1:

There are two important things to help your animal’s immune system be strong:

1. Stop vaccinating her, especially if she’s already been vaccinated. Why? No efficacy, unsafe.
2. Stimulate her immune system on a regular basis.

Stopping the first is not always easy, but it’s well worth your valiant efforts. That one step alone is central to raising a vital, disease resistant animal. You remember Tigger? This handsome young cat almost died, twice, from “just a rabies vaccine.”

The immune booster I take myself and give my patients regularly is Transfer Factor. You can read more about that here on the Immune Path.

Sound Sleep Rx #2:

Follow the Wild Model

Our domestic animals haven’t dropped from the sky, been brought by a stork, or “invented” by any breeder. They all have wild ancestors and relatives, and they all carry 99% of the genes of those wild ones.

Mimicking how the wild cousins live is wisdom in action.

From wolf came dog. From wild desert cat came domestic cat. From wild horse came Quarter Horse, Belgian, Lipizzaner, and miniature pony.

How those ancestors and wild cousins eat, how many drugs and vaccines they get (yep: 0), and how they use their bodies sets a great example for you to raise the healthiest, most Vital Animal you can.

Sound Sleep Rx #3:

Hang With Those Who Have Gone Before You

New to all this? Sounds great, but how to put it into action? Feeling a bit overwhelmed?

The cure: Get with others who’ve taken this understanding and applied it to their own animal raising. Find your pack that thinks like you, who can help you further your Vital Animal goals.

Ready to leave the “But, everybody does it” mindset? Ready to be the pioneer your animals depend on? You don’t have to struggle alone. Join others who are walking the talk, feeding species appropriate diets, radically avoiding vaccines, preventing parasites with natural means instead of pesticides, and sleeping well through the night, knowing they’ve got Nature working for them.

The comments after the articles on this site are rich with people sharing what’s worked, to help you get your charges to Vital Animal status faster. There’s a thriving, sharing community over at Dogs Naturally Magazine as well.

Sweet Dreams

Sleep well in the knowledge that there are natural forces waiting to help keep your animals well. They are eons old, and ready to work for you just as soon as you stop interfering with them.

Know that time is on your side. You can rest easier in increments: a healthier diet, a skipped vaccine this year, a skipped month or two of heartworm pesticides, a non-toxic DIY flea control approach. Your learning will come as fast as you allow time and energy for it. And your animals will get more vital the more you apply your new understanding.

To the extent that you trust this deeper, older knowledge, you lay your worry burden down. You sleep like the blissfully innocent baby sleeps, confident that her protecting parents are near and have her back.

How’s your sleep these days? Are you more confident and less afraid of health concerns since walking the Natural Path? Found your healthy pack and shucked some old friends who no longer speak your language? Let us know in the comments.

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