More pets receive holistic care, but watch out, vets say

Just over a decade ago, Bette Loughran noticed her dog becoming violently ill after eating the commercial pet food she'd been buying for years. Loughran, a Connecticut resident, called customer service and the company responded promptly by sending her a new bag. "I thought, 'Cool, a free bag of food!" she recalled.

That bag, however, turned out to be worse, and Babe, a 9-year-old golden retriever-Labrador mix, became even sicker. When the diarrhea and vomiting wouldn't stop, Loughran rushed Babe to the animal hospital. But the aflatoxin mold in the food--which showed up in another brand last December and forced a recall--had taxed Babe's kidneys and heart to the breaking point.

"The last bag of kibble I used was the bag that killed my dog," Loughran said.

That's when she learned about the raw diet, a regimen consisting of bones, raw meat and supplements, and decided to start her own pet food company, Bravo (which stands for bones, raw ground meat, all natural, vegetables and organ meat). She distributes the frozen pet food to online retailers and pet stores.

Ever since Babe died, Loughran has kept her four other show dogs on the diet and says they have more energy, better skin, brighter eyes and less body fat. "It's almost like Atkins for dogs," she said.

Loughran sees the raw diet as part of an all-natural approach to caring for her dogs, which now are treated only by a holistic veterinarian. The raw diet, in fact, is just one of many unconventional approaches to pet care that have become more popular recently. Driven by an enthusiasm for alternative medicine, many pet owners are taking their dogs and cats to veterinarians who prescribe treatments ranging from raw meat diets to acupuncture, chiropractic procedures, aromatherapy and herbal supplements.

But like alternative medicine for humans, so-called holistic veterinary care includes many treatment options that have not been tested. In February, a study published in the Journal of American Veterinary Medicine concluded that the potential for food-borne illnesses makes the raw food diet too risky for dogs and for the people who prepare the food. In general, experts advise pet owners to use caution when taking an unconventional route.

"The problem is that there's so much hype and it's spread by the Internet," said Dr. Narda Robinson, who heads the complementary and alternative medicine program at Colorado State University's School of Veterinary Medicine. "A central theme here is evaluating what's real and what isn't."

Alternative veterinary care in the United States got its start in the early 1970s, around the time that Americans first learned about acupuncture following President Nixon's historic trip to China. But the field has really taken off over the last decade.

The most scientifically accepted alternative treatment is acupuncture, which studies have shown can help animals heal by stimulating nerves. Recently, Robinson said, she treated a dog that was thought to be suffering from severe neck pain. The vets who treated the dog weren't sure exactly what was wrong, but when not even the highest dose of morphine would keep the dog from screeching each time it tried to turn its neck, discussion turned to euthanizing the animal.

But the dog's owner had tried acupuncture herself and asked if that might help. Robinson was called in to treat the dog, and the symptoms vanished. What the doctors had suspected was a tumor was actually just tense neck muscles. "We were really able to extend quality of life," Robinson said.

Interest in alternative treatment reaches well beyond academia. Dr. Gary VanEngelenburg graduated from veterinary school in 1972 and treated pets using conventional methods for 20 years before he learned about animal acupuncture in 1991. Since he opened a holistic clinic in Des Moines, Iowa, seven years ago, his practice has grown from a handful of patients to around 80 appointments a week.

VanEngelenburg uses a variety of approaches. If a dog is brought in to a clinic with hip dysplasia, a conventional practitioner would reach for pain medication. But VanEngelenburg prescribes herbal supplements, performs acupuncture and makes diet recommendations. And if a cat comes in with diabetes, he'll avoid prescribing insulin and instead suggest putting the cat on a raw meat diet, which he says helps 95 percent of animals within two weeks.

"The commercial pet food industry has become the garbage disposal for the human food industry," he said. "For half the cases I see, nutrition alone is the problem."

But often alternative treatments have not been tested, and some veterinarians say they're dangerous. Little is known about how animals metabolize raw food and herbal remedies. And with something like chiropractic procedures, doctors aren’t sure how much force animals can withstand. In the past two years, Robinson said, two horses, one in North Carolina and one in California, died after receiving neck adjustments.

And then there's a lesser-known Japanese treatment called gold bead implants, used for younger pets that suffer from arthritis, epilepsy or spinal disorders. In this treatment, an animal is anesthetized and injected with hundreds of gold or stainless steel beads through 14-guage hypodermic needles into muscle tissue in the back, hips or shoulders--what the doctors consider permanent acupuncture.

"It's like magic if it's done properly," VanEngelenburg said. "I've never seen a negative effect."

But Robinson has. One dog was brought in after receiving the treatment for arthritis. The pet's owner wondered why the dog was still limping, and the doctors suspected a tumor. The only way they could find out for sure was with an MRI, but the doctors couldn’t administer one because there was so much metal in the dog's body from the implants.

“Because of the implants, there was nothing we could do,” Robinson said. "In the human field, we'd call that malpractice."

Perhaps the most controversial alternative treatment is the raw diet. Advocates accuse traditional veterinarians of resisting change and fill message boards on special interest Web sites with thousands of positive testimonials.

But some pet owners have posted messages saying that their animals have died when bones became lodged in their gastrointestinal tracts. Robinson says she has seen several dogs on the diet that have been hospitalized with bacterial infections from E coli and salmonella, which can be found in raw food.

Loughran, however, believes her dogs are much healthier eating raw, and her customers think the same thing about their own pets. In the company's first month of business in 2002, it sold 10,000 pounds of food. Now, four years later, it sells an average of 300,000 pounds a month.

Loughran says her pet food feeds a 50-pound dog for a month for about $50, compared with about $10 for a bag of regular pet food. But she adds that her customers can save money with fewer visits to the veterinarian.

“It’s a question of whether you want to pay on the front end or on the back end,” she said. “My 14-year-old chow-shepherd cross has never had his teeth cleaned.”

For Robinson, the goal is to evaluate more extensively each holistic procedure to make sure animals are safe. "Clients need to know the risks and benefits of all approaches," Robinson said. “That way, they can make more informed decisions."

E-mail: cew2111@columbia.edu