I believe that apart from a loving home and as much freedom (and exercise for dogs) as is possible where you live, the two most imortant aspects of keeping a pet healthy and happy are diet and immunisation.

DIET

Carnivores (cats) and omnivores (dogs) have evolved, from the very start of life, on a diet of raw food.
Cooked food is not natural, alters the nutritional value and kills vitamins and enzymes. Additionally, processed pet foods often contain harmful additives, such as preservatives, colours, flavours, etc which are not in a pet’s long term interest. The synthesised vitamins and minerals which are added are often in a form unavailable to the body.

Commercial Pet Food

Processed pet food often contains diseased meat, some of it cancerous, along with other rejects for human consumption, giving the overall balance of very low grade food.
There are no laws governing the quality of commercial pet foods. This means anything can and usually does go.

Generally, only about 40% of commercial pet food is meat, usually by-products which can be anything from ‘waste’ meat from human meat processing plants, to diseased carcasses to hair. (Different proteins have varying digestibility. Much of the protein used in commercial pet food is difficult to digest.) The other 60% is made up of grain (usually discarded as unfit for human consumption) and often in a form that is not nutritional to the pet. Then come the additives, to preserve, improve the flavour, make it look better, redress the lack of mineral and vitamin content, etc.

“Nutritionally complete” or “scientifically proven” processed pet foods which are advocated not only by the pet food manufacturers, but also by many vets may contain harmful substances. An example is sodium nitrite, which gives a nice rosy colour to food and can produce powerful carcinogenic substances known as nitrosamines; ethoxyquin was originally developed for the rubber industry and is suspected of causing severe health problems; propyl gallate used as a preservative is now suspected of causing liver damage; propylene glycol used to maintain the right texture and moisture content is now known to cause illness in dogs; salt, up to 1000 times more than in natural food is believed to cause hypertension and heart disease; sugar in a refined and unnatural form is believed to contribute to hypoglycaemia and various mental problems, and so it goes on.

Raw Food

Cats and dogs on a natural diet are less prone to disease and live healthier lives. They are more resistant to fleas and worms. Vet bills can be drastically cut.

Dr Edward Bach (1920s) and Dr Pottenger (1930s) both found huge improvements in health in people and animals on a raw food diet.

Dr Bach discovered that the bowels of those people who ate mainly raw food, had only a small amount of bacteria as the food was processed easily, with little food held up in various pockets. The smell of the resulting faeces was inoffensive. Those people on a mainly cooked diet had a larger (more unhealthy) concentration of bacteria, the food was not processed through the bowels as quickly and the resulting smell of the faeces was more foul. They had more gas and a greater tendency to digestive disorders.

Dr Pottenger headed a research project showing the offspring of cats fed only cooked food, even though the diet was perfectly balanced, would be born with immune deficiencies and that within three generations, if little or no raw food was fed, the immune system deteriorated to virtual uselessness. It took another four generations to build the immune system back up to an optimum level of efficiency where the cat was capable of fighting off severe chronic disease.

Dogs normally happily convert to a natural diet, but it can sometimes be challenging converting cats.

Read what some vets say about a commercial diet versus a natural one.

For more in depth information of having a healthy cat, puchase my ebook Naturally Healthy Cats. This goes into greater depth, provides nutritional information and has a chapter of home prescribing homoeopathic remedies for your cat. It carries an eight week money back guarantee, so if you're not completely satisfied with it, you can return it for a full refund.

IMMUNISATION

TO VACCINATE OR NOT?
Whether to vaccinate or not is a difficult decision for many people to make. Vets vigourously recommend vaccinations (it is the backbone for any animal practice) and fear is a frequently used tactic to persuade those who are hesitant. However, there is growing concern in the alternative health profession and even within the medical profession itself, that vaccination is not all it is professed to be.

Many papers are constantly being published by concerned medical scientists who recognise both the ineffectiveness of orthodox vaccination and the side effects.

Homoeopathy has always recognised the link between vaccinations and chronic diseases.

When making your decision to vaccinate, don’t undervalue your own thoughts and feelings. Take time to consider all the angles.

THE IMMUNE SYSTEM
While the animal is in its infancy, the immune system is very immature, with disease protection coming from the mother’s milk. As the animal grows, the immune system gathers experience from various viruses which invade the body in the normal way - through the mouth, nose, etc. This gives it a chance to deal with them before they invade the body. So antibodies may not develop. The presence of antibodies in the blood tell us the virus has reached a much deeper level. The animal was not able to prevent invasion as the immune system was not strong enough.

The best way to a healthy immune system is a good diet. If the immune system is working well, the animal will shrug off chronic disease. A good diet is a natural diet. See leaflets: Why a Natural Diet, A Natural Diet for Cats, A Natural Diet for Dogs.

Immunisation is not necessarily a faulty idea. The problems arise from how the vaccines are made and how they are used. To immunise orally, a healthy, mature animal against a potentially serious disease is one thing. To inoculate directly into the bloodstream, a very young animal against an uncommon diseases is quite another.

ORTHODOX VACCINATIONS
Vaccinations are routinely started at very early ages and are repeated annually. They are directly injected into the blood stream, bypassing all the body’s natural defences. An immature immune system is particularly vulnerable with more problems arising the younger the animal vaccinated.
Vaccines are frequently given as a multiple vaccine, giving the immune system a much tougher job to deal with, than if they were introduced one at a time. Another tendency is to give the vaccines at the same time as the animal is undergoing surgery, again making a much tougher job for the immune system. Some immune systems can’t cope with the overload and the animal succumbs to one of the diseases in the vaccine, one they are already harbouring or fails to recover from the surgery.

Vaccines are made from toxic substances which are then ‘processed’ through animal tissue (ethical and cross species issues) and ‘stabilised’ with the use of hazardous chemicals (mercury, aluminium, formaldehyde). This is then injected directly into the blood stream, by-passing all the subtle levels of the body’s immune system. The resulting antibodies are claimed to be protective. But antibodies are only produced when the disease has gone to a deep level. Other forms of defence, not medically recognised, keeps the disease at a superficial level.

There have been no studies done on the long term side-effects of vaccinations, so they cannot be termed ‘scientific’, as claimed. Short term claims of success tend to be exaggerated and fail to take into consideration other contributing factors at the time the vaccines were introduced.
The effects of vaccines depend on the vaccine and the strength of the immune system. In those with a weak immune system, vaccinosis can show up as eczema, arthritis, epilepsy, allergy, an organ disturbance, immune deficiency, gingivitis, Key Gaskel syndrome, warts, bleeding problems or permanent brain damage. In stronger animals they may whine inconsolably, throw a fever, develop anaphylaxis, lymph or glandular problems, etc

RESEARCH
In the late 1980’s, American vets noticed an unusual disease, fibrosarcoma, in a large number of cats. The site, between the shoulder blades, was unusual for tumours, but the normal place for . They found that the risk for this disease was 50% higher in cats who had had a single vaccination, 127% higher for those cats who had had a double vaccination and 175% higher for those who had had three or four vaccines.
In a study done on vaccinated and unvaccinated cats, when feline enteritis was introduced neither group became sick. Antibodies were present six years after the single vaccine in the vaccinated group.
As a result many vets now recommend vaccination every three years, instead of annually.

HOMOEOPROPHYLAXIS
There are other options to orthodox vaccination. Homoeopathic treatment is very effective, so you can wait for symptoms to appear before prescribing a remedy, if your pet is generally healthy. However, many people feel under pressure to vaccinate. So the other approach is homoeopathic immunisation (homoeoprophylaxis).
Whilst no method is 100% effective, homoeoprophylaxis nosodes give an average efficacy of 88.8%, well within those claimed by conventional vaccines (75 - 95%). The remedies are  oral, have no side effects and are totally safe.
Occasionally, an animal will react to a remedy. These reactions are NOT toxic reactions, but represent a clearing effect. Typically they are mild and short lasting.

CANINE DISEASES
The most common diseases in dogs which are routinely vaccinated against are Distemper, Infectious Canine Hepatitis and Parvovirus. The canine immunisation complex contains these three nosodes. Other specific nosodes are available for protection against various other viruses, such as Kennel Cough.

FELINE DISEASES
The most common diseases in cats which are routinely vaccinated against are Feline Influenza (Feline Viral Rhinotracheitis), Feline Enteritis and Feline Leukaemia. The feline immunisation complex contains these three nosodes. Other specific nosodes are available for protection against various other diseases, such as Feline Infectious Peritonitis, Feline Calici virus, Feline Aids.

OTHER SPECIFIC PROBLEMS
Homoeopathic Heartworm protection is available.
Vaccinosis can be effectively dealt with under homoeopathic treatment, but is likely to recur after booster vaccinations.

Trusting Your Animals in Another's Care

Marta Williams has a brilliant webpage on general care for your pet. Clck here for Trusting Your Animals in Another's Care