Dogs are susceptible to a condition known as chocolate toxicosis. They can be poisoned and possibly die by eating chocolate. Chocolate contains theobromine, a substance deadly to dogs. The effect of theobromine on the nervous system depends of the amount/type of chocolate and the size of the dog. Unsweetened baking chocolate is more toxic than milk chocolate. Two ounces of baking chocolate and eight ounces of milk chocolate are harmful to a 20-40 pound dog.

Signs of toxicosis include vomiting, diarrhea, lack of bladder control, labored breathing, muscle tremors, seizures, hyperactivity and ultimately coma and death. Emergency veterinary care is needed to save the dog. Dogs like the taste of chocolate and some owners use it as a treat. For your dogs safety and health do not give it. No amount of chocolate is safe for a dog.

Toxoplasmosis is a disease that is greatly misunderstood. The disease is spread by contacting the eggs, called oocysts, from cat feces, eating raw or poorly cooked meat and soil contaminated by infected feces. When the eggs reach the intestinal tract, they release sporozoites that spread to the brain, heart, liver and muscles. The signs of infection are flu-like in nature as sore throat, headache, muscle pain, loss of appetite, lymph node swelling. Most pets show no signs of this disease.

Humans are the greater victims, pregnant women in particular. Owning a cat does not make one susceptible to this disease. A common sense approach can lessen the risk considerably. Eat well cooked meat, change your cat’s litter box every day, and wear gloves when working in the yard or garden. The reason for the largest number of human toxoplasmosis cases in the United States is from eating raw or undercooked meat not from cats.

If your dog or cat eats and/or swallows objects that have no nutritional value, the condition is called pica. Some of the causes to consider are parasites, poor nutrition, deficiencies of certain vitamins and minerals, liver disease, anemia and psychological problems. The psychological reasons can include stress, boredom, playing in which owners use tug of war games and attention seeking.

Major problems can develop from this condition. In extreme cases, surgery to remove foreign objects from the intestinal tract is needed. I find most cases of pica to be associated with a deep chronic disease layer in the immune system. It rarely exists in any animal without other serious health problems whether a pet owner or veterinarian can see these health issues or not.

Dogs and cats are susceptible to a condition called vestibular disease. This is a disturbance of the equilibrium or vestibular (balance and coordination) systems of the body which consists of parts of the inner ear and nervous system. This condition can be acquired or congenital. Certain dogs are prone to this condition as the incidence is greater in German Shepard, Beagle, Doberman Pincher and Cocker Spaniel breeds. Also Siamese and Burmese cats. But any and all dogs and cats can develop this condition.

The signs are head tilt, tendency to lean, fall, roll or turn in a tight circle, involuntary rapid twitching of eyes from side to side called nystagmus. There may be paralysis of facial muscles, drooping of the face and inability to close the eyelids. The onset of symptoms may be rapid or gradual although rapid is the usual case. Veterinarians tend to say the animal had a “stroke”. Not so. Animals do not develop strokes like humans as they do not have arteriosclerosis or plaque develop in the arteries.

The most common causes are infections, trauma and tumors. There are many cases where no apparent cause can be found. These cases are mainly due to the immune system damage caused by the excessive use of multiple live viruses given every year to our pets. These vaccines also contain antibiotics, chemicals like formalin which is embalming fluid, mercury, etc. These substances are neurologically damaging to the body’s systems.

Conventional medicine has no treatment or cure as it is primarily responsible for this condition to develop in the first place. Homeopathy is the only therapy that is successful in returning the animal to a normal state.

House plants and flowers may be nice to look at and beautify our homes, but they can be harmful to our pets. Most pets enjoy chewing on greenery, but they can be poisoned if they choose the wrong plant.

Symptoms of plant poisoning can include vomiting and diarrhea, low body temperature, irregular heartbeat, muscle spasms, drowsiness, dehydration and coma.

Some of the common plants your pet should avoid are lily of the valley, rhododendron, daffodil, poinsettia, mushrooms, buttercup, foxglove, morning glory, oleander ivy, yews, tobacco and dieffenbachia.

The best treatment is prevention so prevent your pets from having access to these plants. Then provide them with a source of greenery by adding raw or slightly cooked vegetables to their food, add different sprouts to their diet like alfalfa, grow fresh grass in boxes or containers to their can eat when they want.

Coprophagia or eating stools, unpleasant as it may seem, is not all that rare or always an abnormal dog behavior. The mother with new puppies or kittens eats their waste in order to keep the litter clean. Stray dogs, famished, eat stools probably for the slight food value.

The most common reasons for coprophagia include lack of trace minerals, poor diet lacking the proper protein (the reason dogs eat cat feces) fat and carbohydrates, and psychological or emotional problems. The mineral and diet reasons are easily control by feeding a complete natural human grade quality food.

The behavior problems will need the attention of a trained animal behaviorist or a homeopath using homeopathy to help the animal acquire a mental and emotional balance. Whatever you do not punish the animal for this action or let them see you clean up their toilet area.

Antifreeze, ethylene glycol, is willingly consumed by most dogs and cats. It is sweet, readily available and more enticing than water. If your pet licks or consumes any amount of antifreeze you must rush it to the veterinarian immediately for first aid treatment. The chemical can cause death within hours. Ethylene glycol destroys the kidneys, causing renal failure (shutting down of kidney function) which causes a buildup of waste products and leads to death from uremic poisoning. Ethylene glycol causes crystals in the kidneys leading to damaged tissue which causes the kidneys to fail.

Transfusions, antidotes and supportive care can save some but not all animals. Speed of treatment after drinking antifreeze is the most important factor. Homeopathy and other natural therapy helps the recovery rate of conventional medicine treatment.

Cancer is synonymous with death in most people’s mind. It is an increasingly common symptom of modern day life. A “cancer”, present in a human or animal, is a symptom of a much deeper process occurring within them.

Besides carcinogens, stresses from viruses and pollutants, there also exists an insidious degenerative process within the person or animal and the family connected to them. This process starts in the mind and emotions. It is an illness that leaves the individual paralyzed in poor self esteem, powerless to control their lives and destiny and feeling they or the body cannot create anymore.

It could involve suppressed emotions like anger, grief from loss of love or respect, guilt from resentment toward a person close, augmented by a loss in ability to communicate and trust. A big factor is the physical loss of a loved one. This despair is the breeding ground for an unhealthy attitude towards life. In such an environment a cancerous process grows strong. Remember our pets are generally affected by our emotions and act like sponges taking away from us.

It seems certain cells or parts of the body, for reasons not always understood and being unique from individual to individual, separate and start a creation process leading to a tumor. Cancer never has been or ever will be solely caused by viruses, carcinogens, toxins or other foolish substances promoted by uniformed ignorant people, they can only add fuel to a fire that is already there.

In fact, those substances have little or no responsibility in “causing” cancer. Otherwise every living being would have cancer and be dead. We all live on this sick degraded planet. NO! Cancer is specific for the person or animal that develops it and each case deserves to be treated as such, individually.

The most obvious difference between sharks and other land or water creatures, is that sharks don’t have bones. Their skeleton is entirely cartilage. This accounts for up to 8% of a shark’s gross weight. In humans cartilage is found in the harder parts of the ears and nose, around joints, at the ends of bones and between spinal segments. In addition to their unique skeleton, sharks have a strong effective immune system. Whereas the human immune system responds to each antigen (a foreign substance that stimulates antibody production) with various types of antibodies, the shark immune system consists of a single nonspecific antibody that remains continuously alert and active against all foreign invaders. The single antibody circulates through a shark’s blood-stream even when no antigen is present, constantly killing infection.

A shark’s cancer rate is estimated to be one out of 1 million or less. Even when researchers have deliberately exposed sharks to high concentrations of known carcinogens, or cancer-causing substances, they’ve been unable to produce a single tumor in the fish.

For reasons scientists don’t fully understand, shark cartilage causes blood vessels in some mammals to stop fully growing. Since a cancerous tumor must develop new blood vessels to enlarge, if you block blood vessel growth, the cancer will slowly die. This is what happens when treating cancers.

Shark cartilage is a natural, nontoxic substance that acts as a therapeutic agent and protective measure against some forms of cancer and other diseases that are dependent on the growth of new blood vessels. This research goes back as far as 1970 and in 1985, Dr. John Prudden, a Harvard-trained surgeon, published a major clinical study of his patients that indicated shark cartilage could inhibit tumor growth.

Shark cartilage is an excellent source of calcium and phosphorus. It also contains amino acids and a family of carbohydrates called mucopolysaccharides. It is this last substance that seems to be the more active ingredient in preventing blood vessel growth. Additionally, shark cartilage has been making great inroads in the treatment of arthritis, bronchitis, and asthma related conditions, as well as psoriasis.

More than 500,000 Americans die from cancer each year so you can see why there is such intense interest in using shark cartilage for humans.

Trace minerals are one of the body’s front line defenses against free radicals. Free radicals are the unstable molecules that attack and damage body cells. They occur naturally but in numbers that a healthy immune system can handle. When we do not live an optimum lifestyle, in all phases, the free radicals can increase in number, overwhelm the immune system and do damage to the body tissue causing symptoms.

Trace minerals are greatly missed and ignored, for the most part, in the diet of most Americans. Modern agricultural practices, with the heavy use of specific petroleum based fertilizers to maximize crop yield, have depleted the soil of many trace minerals. Thus our conventionally grown foods lack the mineral and trace elements needed for proper human nutritional needs.

Trace minerals process free radicals particularly oxygen radicals. Oxygen is the life-giving molecule of respiration. All body cells use oxygen to convert food energy into the cellular usable form called adenosine troposphere (ATP). ATP can be used immediately for energy functions in the body or stored for later use.

Oxygen is the kicker in this process. Like fire, oxygen can be both dangerous and beneficial. Pure oxygen can save lives in acute cases of oxygen deprivation but if given over long periods of time and under high pressure it can cause rapid death because of damage to the nervous system.

Under normal condition the body finds oxygen both good and bad and when dangerous, the trace mineral antioxidants come into play. With normal respiration the body’s metabolism produces highly reactive and toxic oxygen free radicals which are molecules with either a positive or negative charge. Theses molecules are called super oxide and when they contact stable body molecules the unpaired electrons are dumped into the stable molecules making them unstable.

One favorite target of the oxygen free radicals is the polyunsaturated fatty acids of the cell membranes. Once these cell membranes are damaged chaos occurs because vital nutrients cannot enter the cells and toxic waste products stay inside. More free radicals are produced, above normal, when the metabolism increases, stress occurs, in trauma or from surgery, injury, inflammation, drugs or radiation.

The absorption of trace minerals is complicated. All minerals have a different pH whereby absorption occurs with maximum efficiency. Some are more soluble in acid pH, others in alkaline pH. The best is for minerals to be taken in combination with amino acids called amino acid chelates. The body uses amino acids, from digested food protein, to combine with trace minerals. This only works if the amino acids can attach to the minerals before they reach the intestines. If the minerals are amino acid chelated, as in supplements, they can be absorbed for longer periods of time and more efficiently.

The absorption of amino chelates is complicated. There is approximately 20 feet of small intestine all covered with tiny finger like projections called villi. Thus, there are millions of cubic centimeters of absorption surface available to take the amino acid chelates into the blood. The villi recognizes the amino acids and the minerals ride along hidden in the protein complex. This is the ideal scene from a physiological point of view. The minerals are protected by the amino acids but once inside the cellular body the minerals break free and are used by the cells.

We have a built in enzyme system for handling the oxygen radicals. There are two steps to this process. First the enzyme super oxide dismutase (SOD) eliminates the radical super oxide producing hydrogen peroxide which is also unstable. Second the enzyme catalase or glutathione peroxide converts the hydrogen peroxide into harmless water and oxygen. Catalase can be both inside the cell or freely in the bloodstream protecting the blood vascular system from damage.

So the best way to be sure you have your trace mineral antioxidants is to take the amino acid cheated forms. This way if your diet is optimal, not likely in this society, no harm is done as the cheated forms are non toxic to the body.