By Laura J. Sanborn, M.S. INTRODUCTION Dog owners in America are frequently advised to spay/neuter their dogs for health reasons.   A number of health benefits are cited, yet evidence is usually not cited to support the alleged health benefits. When discussing the health impacts of spay/neuter, health risks are often not mentioned. At times, some [...]

Creating and maintaining a strong immune system is an important part of good health.  Toxins like vaccines, wormers, drugs and processed foods all present a challenge to the immune system, making our dogs more susceptible to disease and parasites.  Despite our efforts to the contrary, our dogs are exposed to a number of toxins every [...]

Spring has been wet and cool in most states this year and that means increased mosquito and black fly activity this summer.  Those pesky bugs are a painful nuisance for you and for your dog…and mosquito bite prevention can be an important step in preventing heartworm in your dog.  Luckily, there are effective ways to [...]

By:  Catrherine O’Driscoll Running Canine Health Concern for the past sixteen years, I have been contacted by hundreds of dog owners  who tell me that their dogs became ill within a few hours, days or weeks of a vaccine event.   Indeed, I formed Canine Health Concern after three of my own young dogs died of [...]

Regardless of the spring of 2007 largest ever pet food recall that resulted in the poisoning and deaths of thousands of dogs and cats across North America, my answer to this question, unlike many of my veterinary colleagues, I have come to believe that dogs and cats should not be fed most manufactured pet foods [...]

by Jan Rasmusen  Whombo combos, mumbo jumbos: that’s what veterinarians who understand immunology call combination shots. Unlike a vaccine such as rabies, which contains a single virus, combination vaccines contain multiple “modified live” viruses mixed with various bacteria. Think of them as toxic soups, biochemical wolves in sheep’s clothing. When your vet sends out reminders [...]

Ronald D. Schultz, Professor and Chair Department of Patho-biological Sciences School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Wisconsin-Madison It has been common practice since the development of canine vaccines in the late 1950′s to administer them annually. The recommendation to vaccinate annually was based on the assumption that immunity would wane in some dogs, thus to [...]

Pet owners are becoming increasingly aware of the long period of duration for vaccines and are vaccinating every three years, or not vaccinating their adult or senior dogs at all. Although it is becoming increasingly obvious that yearly boosters – or any boosters – are at best unnecessary and at worst harmful, the risks and [...]

I am a reformed kibble feeder. I admit that many years ago I used to love going to the pet supply store where I would pore over food bags, sagely pontificating on the confounding and lengthy list of ingredients on the labels. I would stroll through the aisles, taking in the beautifully packaged bags that [...]

Do you really regularly see puppies dying of distemper? That’s a first for me, the vets I speak to in the UK tell me they haven’t seen a case of distemper in ten years. As for parvo, there are examples in my book of vaccinated pups dying of it, with expert opinion stating it was [...]