The Nature of Animal Healing: The Path to Your Pet's Health, Happiness, and Longevity

Responding to an alarming increase in cancer and other diseases in ever-younger pets, Goldstein, founder of the Smith Ridge Veternary Center in upstate New York, offers a vivid and engrossing account of how toxic environment and poor diet are proving as deadly to our animals as they are to us. ""Cancer is the far marker, the defining outer limit of how toxic our world has become, and of what those toxins can do to animals,"" writes Goldstein. Declaring himself one of a growing number of holistic veterinarians, Goldstein outlines an approach to healing that revolves around strengthening the immune system through diet and such holistic healing techniques as acupuncture and homeopathy, so that an animal can heal itself. Describing how he has treated an alphabet of medical problems, Goldstein reveals that the most radical vision is often enacted through small, commonsense steps--anemia requires iron, wasting diseases such as cancer indicate a need for increased protein. Although some readers used to conventional medicine will find Goldstein's views and proposed cures too drastic, the case he builds is exuberantly persuasive and actually inspiring rather than dire, which is not surprising since veteran Vanity Fair writer Michael Schnayerson is his co-writer. Goldstein also acknowledges the works of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, which in this case lends the notorious guru a bit of the author's positive, compassionate spirit. This is a life-affirming book that should interest any pet owner. 100,000 first printing. (Feb.)