Stories from a holistic vet and animal intuitive: Let the cows eat cake while celebrating animals with Xena in Chicago (aka The latest on human-animal relationships)
“Stories from a holistic vet” is the blog of Dr. Laurel Davis, a holistic vet and “animal interpreter” with a clinic in Asheville, NC and also offering intuitive animal health and lifestyle advice for animal companions and their human friends across the USA.
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I’ve been handing out my advice in this blog, but I’m not the only person spending my life working with human-animal relationships. Here are some of the great things going on out there.
I know you’re used to sharing the love with your cat or dog, but please remember to…
Be nice to the pigs, cows and chickens. In Australia, Paul Hemsworth from the University of Melbourne’s School of Land and Environment, and Director of the Animal Welfare Science Centre (AWSC) says that the way livestock handlers interact with the animals they’re in charge of has significant effects on animal emotions (of course) and animal production. “We find the attitudes and behaviour of the stockperson towards the animal can have very influential effects on the animal’s welfare because inappropriate handling can lead to animals developing a strong fear response to humans. If an animal has a negative emotional state, like fear, this can create high stress levels and the release of stress hormones can disrupt the animal’s growth, health and reproduction, limiting not only animal welfare but also animal productivity.”
Read more to discover how this research is being applied to change the awareness and approach of the handlers and bring better relationships with their animals. “It’s a win-win situation (for animals and humans),” he says.
And, since we’re being nice to the animals…
Let them eat cake! Animal therapy provider Dale Preece-Kelley shares her reasons for celebrating our animal companions’ birthdays in this recent post.
Here’s a tidbit: “So, why worry about celebrating their birthday? Well it helps both animal and owner – by lavishing all of this attention on our pet (and okay, they don’t understand the card or the singing), we are showing them the love and thanks that they so dearly deserve for enriching our lives every day. For us, we are strengthening that human-animal bond and clearly stating, ‘this animal is very important to me/us.’ It also give us a focus away from the problems or concerns that we face on a daily basis: like the animal, we are living in the moment.”
And, by the way, she doesn’t mean to let them eat our kind of cake. The “cake” she made for Stoosh, her pet skunk, was a quiche with worms on top! (Stoosh loved it…wouldn’t you??)
And, speaking of animal companions as therapists…
Earn $1000s by researching the human-animal bond. The Morris Animal Foundation and the Human Animal Bond Research Initiative (HABRI) are awarding up to 10 research grants totaling $300,000 for people researching how the human-animal bond can help seven human medical conditions: autism, cancer, heart disease, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and childhood allergies and immunity. Read more here.
Expanding on the theme of pets helping humans with autism…
Experience this beautiful story of the healing shared between a human and his animal companion. Jonny Hickey, an 8-year-old boy diagnosed with autism, would seldom speak and often isolated himself from others until Xena, a seriously abused and neglected Staffordshire terrier/pit bull mix, came into his life. Since their new-found friendship, Jonny has completely changed his demeanor, and has become exponentially expressive. His mother told the Today Show, “He is the happiest child that I’ve ever seen him be in eight years.” Check out the photos and video (below) of Jonny and Xena.
Animals helping humans with serious conditions is yet another reason to…
Celebrate the importance of animals. In honor of “Be Kind to Animals Week” (which was >ahem< last week), the American Humane Society has posted this article detailing 11 ways to “join the compassion movement.”
And if you want to have an immersion into the latest story, tale and science of the relationship between humans and animals (which, here at Sunvet, we’re all about)…
Take a fall trip to Chicago. Starting in October, varied voices such as Temple Grandin (writer and autism activist), Atul Gawande (award-winning writer, surgeon and medical thinker), and Maria Tatar (Harvard professor and leading scholar of fairy tales), will gather for Animal: What Makes Us Human, the 2013 Chicago Humanities Festival.
This post about the event asks, “Are humans animals? Not long ago, the question produced a predictable standoff. Now it is quickly becoming the start of a fascinating conversation.” Over the past decade, “a veritable revolution has been taking place in the academy. Spurred by developments in genetics and cognitive science, on the one hand, and new approaches to animals in the humanistic disciplines, on the other, we are witnessing an unprecedented convergence in once-distant fields of inquiry. Nowadays, evolutionary biologists speculate about art as an adaptation, while literary scholars challenge the species divide and theorize about animal communication. And interdisciplinary initiatives are sprouting all over America’s campuses.”
Sounds like my kind of event. Anybody want to carpool?
Shine on,
Dr. Laurel Davis is a holistic vet offering phone and Skype consultations for animal lovers everywhere.
Call 828-254-2221 or order an Ask Dr. Laurel™ phone or Skype session or bring your dog or cat to her downtown Asheville, NC clinic.
Read more patient stories.
Get to know Dr. Laurel by reading her blog.
Do you have a story about Dr. Laurel’s dog advice or how she helped your animal companion? Please post your comment on our Facebook page or write a Google Review.
