When Wilson walked into our lives in June of 2010 as an abandoned street dog, we never thought he would bring us so much love and joy as well as challenges.  He had clearly been abused and under-socialized as he displayed anxiety, distrust of strangers and fear driven aggression.  The trainer we hired wouldn't touch or interact with him without using aversive techniques and the initial veterinarians we took him to for the first couple of years wanted to sedate him before giving treatments.  When his started breaking out with a rash all over his muzzle, we set out to look for an integrative veterinarian.   After an examination and tests the integrative doctor diagnosed Wilson with autoimmune disease and recommended a raw diet along with Chinese herbs instead of antibiotics and steroids- after a few weeks his rash was completely gone. We were totally sold on this gentle integrative approach.

Recently, Wilson was on a hike and got bit under his chin by a venomous rattlesnake, which put him in the emergency hospital for 48 hours.  Luckily he survived after 3 vials of antivenin, but the doctors at this emergency animal hospital told us that he would need surgery to close up the open wound on the neck when necrosis set in and the skin started sloughing off.  I called Our integrative doctor and he recommended that we add crushed Arnica Montana pellets to Wilson's food, shine a low-level red laser pointer around his wound twice a day and rub castor oil directly on his wound everyday after flushing it with saline.  Castor oil helped reduced both inflammation and pain. We followed his advice and did this for two weeks while keeping his wound bandaged with sterile gauze.  We could see improvements every day and after a couple of weeks, we took him back to the emergency hospital where the doctors examined him and told us that he would no longer need surgery to close up the wound since it was healing so nicely without an infection.

We believe that Wilson wouldn't be so happy and healthy today if we had not switched him to a raw diet and introduced him to integrative holistic veterinary care.  We have also seen tremendous improvements in his behavior with the help of  raw diet and Chinese herbs and he's not nearly as angry and reactive towards strangers and other dogs as he once was.  We hope that his story would help spread the word that this approach to veterinary care really works and there would be more research done and such practices available to help other animals in need. We urge everyone to support AHVMF!

-Alyssa & Samson