My Story of Loki

Loki is a nine year old, full breed, 15” beagle who is mildly overweight and is being treated for a low thyroid.He has also been battling degenerative disc disease since he was three.Loki’s first instance caused excruciating pain. Our veterinarian at the time practiced conventional medicine and ordered x-rays, steroids, and pain medication.The x-rays did not show much, except for a possible area that may be affected. The steroids and pain medication were able to bring Loki back to normal again.However, we did not discuss possible long term treatments.The issue was left at the statement that he had the same chance of slipping a disc again that he had originally.

Pellinore's Story

Pelli is a rescue BC that we adopted at approximately 6 months of age.At roughly 17 months of age in January of 2008, he came up lame in his left rear leg after apparently slipping in the carpeted hallway of our home whilst playing with our other BCs, Dred and Gael. Our traditional medicine veterinarian diagnosed Pelli with an ever-so-slight strain of the ACL. With Rimadyl and crate rest he recovered fine. In late 2010, Pelli was occasionally coming up "tender" on his left rear leg, after running in a couple of classes each day at NADAC trials. His knee didn't seem any worse to our traditional vet, so we also sought the opinion of our alternative therapies vet. Pelli's lumbar spine was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay "out" of alignment and he also felt that same very slight movement in his left stifle. X-rays followed and EVERYTHING came back "within normal limits" EXCEPT for some arthritic/pre-arthritic calcium deposits on Pelli's right elbow.

Peppercorn is a seven year old rescued Doberman Pinscher.  She first started seeing our integrative veterinarian right after she was adopted. Pepper had been put in a rescue because her previous owner lost his job and stopped feeding her to save money.  She was twenty pounds underweight when she entered the rescue.  When we adopted her, we were very specific that she must be good with children as we have several nieces and nephews.  Pepper settled into our home.  Within the first week, I needed to get something out of the refrigerator while Pepper was lying in front of the fridge.  I nudged her with my foot to move and she snapped at me.  I assumed she was being territorial.  Two days later a similar incident happened, again resulting in her snapping.  The next episode occurred when I was sitting on the floor with Pepper.  She was lying on a toy and I reached under her to move the toy.  Again she snapped.  My husband and I discussed that she would need to go back to the rescue as she was not going to be a trustworthy dog.  However, by this time we had fallen in love with her.  She was obedient and worked for kisses.  My husband and I talked about what was making her snap.  It seemed that she was snapping every time I had touched her near the small of her back, at her waist.