Stress. It's the single, universal cause of both wellness and illness. While this theory is widely supported in the human medical community, it's still controversial among veterinarians. Dr. Paul McCutcheon examines the all-important health-stress connection while drawing upon the latest scientific thinking and combining it with a comprehensive, preventive, and holistic philosophy of pet care. So if you're among the millions of caring, responsible pet owners who visits the vet more often than your own doctor but still wonders what more you can do for your dog or cat, The New Holistic Way for Dogs & Cats is the next best thing to a consultation with Dr. McCutcheon. If only he saw human patients in his practice, too!

Chapter 1

When an aging Rottweiler called Liberty first walked into my clinic, her tragic past was years behind her. Surgery had helped repair her broken bones so she could live a normal life, and the people who adopted her after she was rescued made her life wonderful. But as she got on in years, arthritis set into her old injuries and she needed additional support that mainstream veterinary medicine could not provide. So her people, Maria and Catherine, brought the valiant old gal to me, hoping I might be able to offer her something more.

Years earlier, when she was three, Liberty had been thrown out of a moving van onto one of the busiest highways in North America. Although she broke a leg in the fall, the young Rottweiler managed to get off the road and run for hours before animal rescue workers finally tracked her down. When they found her, she was exhausted and confused.

According to the people who eventually adopted her, this extraordinarily gentle soul had been a junkyard dog who had been beaten, starved, and shot with a bullet in a futile attempt to make her vicious. Her collar had torn her neck and she had cigarette burns in her mouth. This disturbing story made the front page of a major Toronto newspaper and was picked up by the media across both Canada and the United States. Liberty became a celebrity for Rottweiler rescue and other animal welfare organizations in North America and helped raise a lot of money for dogs in need. Donations also paid for the multiple surgeries she needed to wire together her fractured leg, remove the bullet still lodged in her body, and do emergency repair for the other physical damage she had suffered. When Maria Armstrong and Catherine Fogarty adopted her and took her home to join their other dogs and cats, they were committed to giving her the best life they could.

By the time she was nine, the dog's old knee injury had become arthritic, and her leg and back were also compromised. "It was something she developed over the years, and we had to take care of her," Maria says. Her people knew that steroids would ease her pain, but didn't want to risk that they might also make her need to urinate frequently. "She was a very proud dog. It really bothered her if she had an accident in the house, so we knew that steroids would be stressful for her in that way. Sometimes those things are necessary, but for Liberty we needed an alternative." That's when they brought her to me.

When she came in for her first appointment, Liberty held up her left hind leg and had difficulty walking. X-rays showed that she had broken a cruciate ligament in her knee. I had orthopedic surgeons discuss the options with Maria and Catherine, who decided against further surgery because the knee was already arthritic. Liberty was also severely obese, weighing in at 128 pounds, and had a thyroid condition. However, she was psychologically sound, according to Maria and Catherine, who said she was a sweetheart of a dog in spite of her background. My staff and I made it our goal to do everything within our capability to rehabilitate Liberty so that she could live out the rest of her days with the best possible quality of life.

Copyright © 2009 by Paul Mccutcheon.

Tags: Pets

About the Author

Paul McCutcheon, DVM, is the founder of Toronto's East York Animal Clinic, serving 5,000 patients, and a former director of the American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association and the Human-Animal Bond Association of Canada. Dr. McCutcheon penned the "Ask a Vet" column for Chatelaine magazine and has contributed numerous articles to Pets Quarterly, Dogs Annual, Alive Magazine, Health Naturally, California Veterinarian, Canadian Veterinary Journal, and the Journal of the International Institute of Stress. He hosted the popular Canadian television series Perfect Pet People and the radio show People and Pets.

About the Author

Susan Weinstein is a writer with a special interest in animals and health care. Recent articles have appeared in The Whole Dog Journal and Dogs! Dogs! Dogs! Based in Eastern Ontario, she has worked with Dr. McCutcheon as a client-collaborator since 1988.