the reason! Rushing home, I dropped my bag the moment I got in the door and ran outside to my haven in the back yard where I kept all my pets and ”patients.” Today I needed to hurry to check on my current patient, a Muscovy Duck named PeeWee. I had raised him from birth when his mother decided she didn’t want babies anymore. The night before he had been missing, so I searched and searched until I found him, injured, lying on the bank of our canal. When I picked him up, I noticed his right foot had been bitten up badly by a snapping turtle or alligator. So, like I always did when I found a wounded or hurt animal, I cleaned the wound, applied antibiotic and bandaged him up. As I approached his pen, I was anxious to see how his foot was doing. PeeWee was so excited to see me, and as I unwrapped the bandage, I realized his foot had rotted off and it was just lying in my hand! I was horrified, but PeeWee was completely unfazed and spent the rest of his life happy and carefree—with one peg-leg. I was always amazed at how quickly animals could heal themselves, adapt and move on, with just a little bit of help. What is neat about this story is that I was about 8 years old when it happened, and now I’m 50—not much has changed, except that my toolbox for naturally helping and healing animals has greatly improved, and I now understand WHY and HOW animals are able to heal themselves naturally. It was with this knowledge that I founded Fire Flake Farm, a rescue farm for farm animals and dogs, where our specialty is caring for sick or geriatric animals. Although I had so much experience with so many different animals, I didn’t get my first dog until 2000, when I adopted her from a family whose schnauzers had ”accidentally” mated. Her name was Lucy, and I loved her to pieces. At that time I still lived in Miami, and a brand new, state-of-the-art vet opened literally across the street from my house, so that’s where I took Lucy. I did everything my conventional veterinarian 6 YOURNATURALDOG.COM here for the animals BY: ANGELA ARDOLINO instructed me to do. I fed Lucy the best (most expensive) kibble Purina had to offer, I got her vaccinations done every year, I applied the flea/tick and heartworm meds every month, and she was dead seven years later. My baby girl didn’t just die, she suffered. And I stopped keeping track of the over $15K I spent trying to save her. I even got an autopsy to see what happened, and all they found was IBS. This set the course of my life, as I soon discovered that by doing everything I was told, from diet to meds, I had killed her natural ability to heal herself, and my veterinarian had no idea. Veterinarians, just like most Doctors, are NOT taught about diet and nutrition in school. How is that okay? They are also NOT taught about the Endocannabinoid System, or how cannabis medicine interacts with this system, which is responsible for keeping all our other physiological systems operating correctly. And since most Veterinarians don’t know about diet and nutrition, the only thing they have in their treatment arsenal is pharmaceutical drugs. Because most vets know nothing about diet and nutrition, big corporations like Mars and Smuckers created ”Science Diets” or ”prescription diets” so that veterinarians could recommend and sell food at their practices. The problem is that these ”diets” are NOT based on science at all, and most are non-food made with the worst ingredients possible. I won’t go on about how corrupt the pet food industry is right now, that will be in my next book: ”How to Not Kill Your Dog or Go Broke Trying to Save It”. Did you know that most veterinarians get out of school facing $200-300K in debt? And if they want to go out and learn about holistic remedies, diet and nutrition, or eastern medicine, they must enroll in continuing education and pay more money to learn about ancient ways of health and healing that has been proven to work for thousands of years!
