Dr. Pitcairn's Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and Cats by Richard H. Pitcairn, Susan Hubble Pitcairn (1995, Paperback)

There are three editions to this book; I own two of them. Each edition just gets better and better!

This book is very thorough concerning dogs and cats, their needs, behavioral and physical issues, and natural alternatives for treatment. Those natural alternatives include nutrition, homeopathy, herbal remedies, and more.

While this book has been extraordinarily helpful with day-to-day issues, what makes me thankful for this book is that by using the nutritional information (and then "cooking" for my pets) I have literally saved the lives of three of my pets.

The first one, Roxie (white cat with black spots), is the reason why I bought the book. She lost 25% of her body weight in two weeks and her bloodwork showed a very high white blood cell count. What was even more strange is that apparantly there are two kinds of white blood cells, and she had very few (less than 20%) of the kind that are supposed to make up 80% or more of the white blood cells.

We even took her to an oncologist, who couldn't identify what was wrong and told us chemo was an option if they did exploratory surgery and found something treatable. Oh, and there was a very good chance she wouldn't survive the surgery.

So I got this book, and without "diagnosing" her I began "cooking" all her meals (I say "cooking" because there wasn't any heat involved). This book gives lots of recipe options, even including vegan recipes, so that you can find the right recipe that fits into your budget.

Based on the homepathic emphasis in the book, I also called a homeopathic vet in Colorado (she ended up having about 2 doses of a rememdy).

Roxie got sick at 2 1/2 years old and the oncologist and my vet said she had about 2 weeks to live. That was over 12 years ago, and she's still going strong! She doesn't live like a weakly or sickly cat - she is heathy and active. Oh, and I only had to "cook" for her for about a year - after that I was able to switch her to a high quality, no by-products kibble.

Two of my dogs have also been saved out of life threatening situations through using this book - I won't tell their stories because I think you get the idea! Currently I am using this book to treat a young dog with heartworm. While she still may need the traditional arsenic based treatment (it is very hard to treat heartworm), this book has helped me build up her immune system so she will have a much better chance of surviving traditional heartworm treatment and she is much more likely to need fewer treatments than the 3 originally recommended.

Thank you Dr. Pitcairn!