Just as with human health care, non-traditional, alternative, or holistic treatment options are available for your dog.
Today, discover the difference between Western and Eastern veterinary medicine from our guest speaker, Dr. Marc Smith.
In this episode, learn about your dog’s constitution with 5 Elements in Eastern Medicine.
Show Highlights
- First interview with a veterinarian on the show!
- Dr. Marc Smith, owner of Natchez Trace Veterinarian Clinic
- Owner of Pet Tao holistic pet foods
- Has a life-long passion for strengthing the human animal bond
- Has done veterinary medicine for 18 years, and has been working in the industry for about 30- 35 years
- Has written a children’s book and many articles, especially about acupuncture
- Chose his profession because he wanted to work outside and to do an occupation that was hard, which forced him to develop his skills over time
- Went to school at University of Tennessee, where at that time there was no talk about alternative medicine—it was all about diseases and medications.
- He came upon alternative medicine because mainly horse people would ask about chiropractic work, which he laughed at intitially.
- Then realized that in order to grow, he would go back to school, and is still attending for traditional Chinese medicine to obtain his masters degree, in addition to his chiropractic degree
- A look at Dr. Marc’s approach to a case:
- First he evaluates the animal
- Then he starts talking and finds out how the client wants to handle the situation at hand
- For instance, if a client has a dog with a tumor in the belly and doesnt have $3k to remove it they may want to seek out eastern medicine to reduce it or eliminate it
- Eastern vs. western medicines regarding behavior
- Bennie and Devin have spoken in multiple epsiodes regarding behaviors in which owners would bring their dog(s) to a vet to fix a behavior
- The most common behavior brought to Dr. Smith to be “fixed” is separation anxiety or storm anixety
- Owners come in for medicaiton because they think it is an easy fix
- They are overwhelmed by fixing the behavior because they don’t know what they are doing or they are not willing to do what needs to be done
- Western medicine is based on scientific method—you develop a question, you disprove it and prove it and do it again; radiology, pathology, etc.
- Eastern medicine is about the energy that flows through people and the planet and everything needs to be balanced
- 5 branches of eastern medicine:
- Acupuncture
- Herbal medicine
- Food therapy
- Tunia – massaging a human or animal
- Tai-chi for humans
- One other context for animals you can look at is that a lot of pets take on a lot of the emotional energy that is exhibited from the owner which is an eastern concept
- For treatments of anxiety Dr. Smith would do/prescribe:
- Always ask his client first what do you want—eastern or western. If they respond with “well i just want them fixed – i dont care about side effects,” he would change the dogs food – fewer carbs and get a behaviorist. He might prescribe fluxotine or prozac. This approach would be used for a fix for people who just want a fast fix
- Another type of owner is someone who doesn’t want drugs – change diet – you don’t want excess of calories then go to an eastern herbal drug
- Remember there are sometimes outside influences that can affect a dog’s behavior
- The constitution of your pet is your dog’s personality, which you can identify through the 5 element theory.
- This is an eastern medicine thought process and can have some insight to abnormalities that these pets may develop in the future, such as health or behavior problems.
- Dr. Marc Smith with Natchez Trace Veterinary Clinic has a pet video on his website at PetTao.com
Homework:
The Constitution of your pet in Eastern Medicine:
- 2 main elements in Easter Medicine:
- Yin Yang Theory
- Black side has a little white in it and the White side has a little black in it which denotes balance betwen universal natural events such as cold and hot
- The 5 Elements
- In the natural world, there are 5 elements that encompass matter in the universe
- Fire, earth, metal, wood, water
- Each of them strengthen one another
- And each one also restrains one another
- Each organ in your body also corresponds to an element, per Eastern philosophy
- To go further, each personality corresponds to a certain element
- People who are aggressive, nervous, high energy, etc. are prone to higher blood pressure or heart attacks and in Eastern medicine are known to be wood personalities, which are liver people which means they have an irritable personality. That leads to personalities of the element.
- They have a Rottweiler dog you can’t pet because they are aggressive – they will have eye issues, ligament issues, etc. all caused by the liver, etc.
- Other dog types:
- Liver dogs: hyper, aggressive, ligament, skin disease issues
- Heart dogs: associated with joy or sociable animals
- Spleen & stomach dogs: stoic dogs, don’t move around a lot
- Lung dogs: very regimented in what they do and are easily trainable
- Kidney dogs: are dominated by the emotion and most will run underneath the bed
- Identifying your dog’s personality or constitution helps you understand that some of these personality types may not be environmental, and in fact may be genetic or ingrained. This may help you in solving certain problems—especially behavior issues.
- In Dr. Marc’s video on his website, he correlates the Constitution to the 5 elements, as well which corresponds to the predictor of disease
- Research the 5 Elements by visiting PetTao.com and check out his video!
Call to Action
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