Treating Your Dog With Chinese Herbal Alternative Medicines

 Treating animals with Chinese herbal alternative medicines is nothing new in the Orient. Traditional herbal remedies and acupuncture meridian charts have long been developed for dogs as well as people. Dogs are treated as livestock in China, and only occasionally as members of the family. But livestock have traditionally seen to be incredibly valuable; so many centuries have gone into the making of Chinese herbal alternative medicine for farm animals, including dogs, to protect valuable property.

Finding a TCM Vet

 There are some illnesses that will always work better with a traditional vet, such as for healing traumatic injuries, but some maladies seem to recover better under Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). TCM includes acupuncture, acupressure and herbal alternative medicines. Canine arthritis, for example, seems to lessen after TCM treatments when all conventional treatments have failed. Unlike humans, dogs often take a nap during acupuncture treatments.

 Modern veterinarians are opening their minds more to cooperating with herbal alternative remedies than doctors are for human patients. But do not seek to replace traditional medicine completely with TCM. For your dog’s best health, you need to seek a balance of both conventional and herbal alternative medicines.

Tidbit #2: Throughout history, ancient civilizations in Egypt, India and China used herbal medicine for all illnesses as well as for taking care of their injured warriors. Over the years they perfected their practices but unfortunately, most of the botanicals that were compounded were not written down and subsequent generations had to rely on the memories of their elders to carry on the practice of herbal medicine in those cultures.

 If your vet does not know of any TCM or holistic vets in your area to recommend, you need to get online to do some research. Yes, you can spend hours bent over phone books and animal care magazines, but you want to find herbal alternative medicines for your dog in your dog’s lifetime. The best place to check is the American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association website.

·         Veterinary Tui Na

 You might have difficulty finding “TCM vet”, but you may have better luck looking for a “Tui Na vet”. They mean the same thing, but Tui Na is the usual name for this specialized branch of TCM medicine. The Tui Na vet does not have to be Chinese in order to know what they’re doing. “Tui Na” means “push pull lift” (roughly translated) and getting their hands on your dog is part of the treatment.

 As well as prescribed herbal alternative medicines, your dog will most likely undergo a lot of therapeutic massage. The massage or manipulation helps with the diagnosis, and also to see if any acupuncture is necessary. A good Tui Na vet will teach you any massage or acupressure points on your dog to administer pain relief at home. Your dog may need periodic treatments, depending on the ailment.