Holistic Guide for a Healthy Dog

[pitgrrl]

Holistic Guide for a Healthy Dog by Wendy Volhard and Kerry Brown, D.V.M gives really good, if not extremely in depth, overviews of various alternative therapies, including kinesiology, homeopathy, iridology, chiropratic and five element theory (from traditional chinese medicine, including accupuncture, but not touching on the use of chinese herbs), which is, along with homeopathy, the modalities written most at length about.

Diet and nutritional supplementation is gone into pretty extensively, and although I personally wouldn't follow exactly the recipes included in the book, the ideas on holistic feeding and the info on supplements is really good.

What really makes this book a great reference, and worth buying even if the you already have an understanding of various types of medicines which exceed the scope of this book, are the various reference charts.

Various bodily systems are addressed and presented with charts to help understand blood work or other testing related to these areas.

A chart of various conditions and treatment options from each of the appropriate practices covered in the book is really helpful and includes some things I haven't found in various other 'holistic dog health' books.

Vitamin and mineral charts, including lists of what foods they're found in, their uses and signs of deficiency was fascinating to me, but ofcourse, I'm a geek like that.

There's also a pretty good resource list, which I'd probably like a whole lot more if I lived in the U.S.

So yeah, good book, great, easy to read and understand reference material, but more of an "intro" book on various "alternative therapies" than an in depth exploration of each. I sort of think it makes a good companion to Dr. Pitcairn's New Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and Cats as, although there is some overlap, it covers a lot of what Pitcairn doesn't and is very much the same style or level of book.