If you ask the wrong questions, you won’t get the answers you need.

Alesha asked potential vets, “Do you vaccinate?”
Vets she asked did.
She felt defeated. “Can’t work with this one, or that one, they vaccinate!”

When you’ve listened to this episode, you’ll have answers to help you control WHAT is given to your animal and HOW to get your vet on your side. Promise.

Listen up!

There are times when asserting yourself makes all the difference. This is especially true in health care, where the norm has been, “Just do what the doctor says. He or she has a lot more training that you do…”

As you may know, if you’ve listened to this podcast for a spell or read any number of my articles on https://vitalanimal.com, it’s commonly the case that your animals are damaged in the course of getting “prevention” from your vet.

It took me some years to realize this fully, as I saw droves of seriously sick animals. Owners had tried their best to get their
• wildly itchy pets cured at their conventional veterinarian
• or tried for months to get Sadie’s ears to settle down and stop being stinky and itchy and red
• or tried to get seizures under control
• or tried to get any number of chronic illnesses cured w/o success

When they’d finally arrive at my homeopathic vet clinic, their stories were often prefaced with the words, “We’ve already spent thousands of $$ with our vet trying to fix this, and it’s still going on, now 2 years later.”

II Why was this happening? And What set it off?

What slowly dawned on me, after so many cases of suffering pets, was that these animals were set up for getting ill by getting too much “prevention,” often early in life.

— Too many vaccines, many of them moving from puppy and kitten shots to annual vaccines, a practice that is based on zero science and 100% greed on the part of the vets recommending it.
FIRE any vet suggesting this is normal and expected of you!

— Devitalized and toxic food, even if it was so-called premium or “prescription” food in bags or cans. It often came from the vet clinic, as part of a “Wellness” package

— Pesticides to control fleas, ticks, worms, & heartworm, masquerading at “medicines” Is anyone made healthier by a regular dose of pesticides??

So much for letting the vet make all your decisions for you about health care!

This isn’t always obvious at the outset, but
those who studied it deeper, on https://vitalanimal.com or elsewhere, saw this same light go on in their minds: all of this so-called prevention is what got me here!

[One quick example of why this may not be immediately obvious, is that the majority of vaccine injuries in animals are not immediate. A very common interval to see The Itch begin (the commonest chronic disease we deal with) is ONE MO after that round of shots. NOT the day of, a day after, but 1 mo later. Jot that one down and ask to see your vet records; you’ll find this in most cases of chronically ill, itchy allergic pets]

Those whose light bulbs went on, got especially keen as I told them there are better, safer ways
• to feed (the best diets being balanced raw food),
• to immunize (minimally, we’d STOP all future vaccines and start homeopathic treatment to help reverse the damage done; but as the years went by, people learned enough to bring me their newbies and want to know how to keep them from succumbing to parvo and distemper with zero vaccines. Yes: it was done and can still be done today — I’ll have a link in the show notes to a free How to Naturally Immunize Your Puppy Report
• to safely deter fleas, ticks, and HW with zero poisons

None of this was rocket science and slowly but surely, these animals got better.

III. Why weren’t they getting safe prevention in the first place?

Their vets didn’t know how to do it.
The owners didn’t know what it looked like.
And, now that many of you do, perhaps you didn’t know how to ask for what you wanted!

IV. Time to change vets?

Perhaps you’ve learned enough about natural ways of raising your animals that you largely have stopped going to vets.

That may not be the best approach to getting your pets’ needs served.
There are definitely things vets are capable of that you may not have available to you:
✓ Solid, experienced physical exams (The old timers who taught us in vet school knew this to be true: 90+% of the time, a diagnosis can be arrived at with just two things: a good physical exam and the history of how the pet came to be sick)
✓ From abdominal palpation to anal exams to dental exams, chances are a trained vet is better at this than you are. Take advantage of those skills (and stay with me here, as I’ll lay out how to do that without risking your animal’s health)
✓ Diagnostic work when indicated. From blood work to imaging like radiographs and US, vets have tools that can be useful when indicated. [Some of you are already going in for annual bloodwork, and while I don’t recommend that, no harm is done by drawing blood. Perhaps another episode is needed on this…]

BUT: Do these skills have to be married to vaccination?
No, a 1000X NO!
Are they often married to vaccination?
Yes, but when you know how to ask for what you want, they need NOT be!

How to know if you need a new vet?
annual vaccinations
anti-raw food
stubbornly adhering to “this is what we do” “Do it our way or see the highway”

So, you need a more sympathetic vet.

V. What’s a sympathetic vet?
Often a holistic vet or a homeopathic one
Someone who appreciates your goals of natural rearing

Someone willing to work with you and provide the services you ask for, while not pushing others on you.

While they can certainly suggest other services or tests, they would ideally allow you to decide.

[A great way to handle these requests from your vet, sympathetic or not, is this line:
“I’ll think about and research a bit more on this and get back to you if I choose to do this with Sadie.” ]

A sympathetic vet really worth his salt will also be a source of waiver letters to groomers, trainers, apt managers and boarding facilities. They can, like I did so often, write a letter stating that we’re choosing not to do further vaccinations, etc and can mention something about DOI and/or health concerns.

Often, that’s all these people making vaccine demands need: a letter on file, signed by a DVM. Done, of course you’re welcome to board here, groom here, etc

VI. How to interview potential new vets.
I submit that you’ll still need to interview any vet, whether he calls himself holistic or homeopathic or alternative, or whatever.

Why? Because these labels are often self assigned and could be meaningless.

They could be used by someone in conventional vet practice who took in a lecture on acupuncture, or herbs, and maybe does a few natural things. But his thinking is far from holistic and he still views the body as a bunch of parts that he can fix with his drugs, and he’s still enamored with vaccines, lifeless “Scientific” food, and pesticides for all pests.

So, you’d want to know this before dropping any money in his pot,right?

Let’s pause for a second here:…
Who’s paying whom in this relationship of veterinarian and client?
You’re HIRING someone, yes, a professional and all, but shouldn’t you be getting your needs met before you fork over your hard earned dollars?
Please, please, remember this: you are paying for vet services. You should only pay for things you want, not things forced on you against your better judgement!

When the questions are wrong, how can you get answers that help you move ahead?

Instead of asking “Do you vaccinate your patients?”
ask instead: “Are you willing to treat my animals if I choose not to vaccinate them?”

Similarly, “will you work with me if I don’t choose to partake in everything you sell other pet owners?”

You might mention that you’ve been studying natural rearing methods for some years, or you’ve got a homeopathic vet as your primary vet, but she’s long distance and you’re looking to have someone local who can help me keep my animal well.

diagnostic work when I need it
a physical exam now and then
or God forbid, emergency work, should the need arise.

When I had a busy homeopathic practice, I was often the “primary care physician” for my patients, but I tried to get even my long distance clients to strike up a relationship with a sympathetic local vet for things like this.

Most, when asked politely, would be happy to do this.

But, it’s up to you to lay out how you want the relationship to work.

And you need to Ask The Right Q!

You are wise to take “prevention” very very seriously, as it can go either way, depending on how you allow it to unfold:
—either too much of the wrong kind, which can start chronic disease that lingers for years or life

OR — natural prevention that can keep your animal wildly health, naturally disease-resistant, and truly, wholly VITAL!

That’s it for this week.

Be sure to stop in to the show notes for this episode at VACom/35 for more links and information to help you get your needs met.

See you next time.