Latest / Destination Unlimited with Victor Fuhrman / Dr. Doug Coward – Healing Both Ends of the Leash

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Dr. Doug Coward – Healing Both Ends of the Leash · Destination Unlimited with Victor Fuhrman

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Speaker 1: My name is Victor Furman. Some call me the Voice.
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Speaker 1: I've always been fascinated with human nature, spirituality, science and
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Speaker 1: the crossroads at which they meet. Join me now and
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Speaker 1: we will explore these topics and so much more with
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Speaker 1: fascinating guests, authors and experts who will guide us to
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Speaker 1: Destination Unlimited. What does it mean to heal both ends
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Speaker 1: of the Leash? My guest this week on Destination Unlimited,
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Speaker 1: Doctor Doug Coward, knows this firsthand. With a path leading
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Speaker 1: him to veterinary medicine. Doctor Doug learned to recognize that
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Speaker 1: healing ill pets also healed their owners. Taking a holistic,
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Speaker 1: integrative approach, Doctor Doug found that each type of animal
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Speaker 1: has its own natural dietary needs and that addressing these
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Speaker 1: with tender, loving care healed companion and human. His website
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Speaker 1: is Healing Both Ends of the Leash dot com, and
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Speaker 1: he joins me this week to share his path and
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Speaker 1: book Healing Both Ends of the Leach. Please join me
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Speaker 1: in welcoming to Destination Unlimited, Doctor Doug Coward. Welcome, Doug.
1:25
Speaker 2: Oh, it's a great honor to be here, Reverend doctor.
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Speaker 2: You have so many degrees, I'd probably take me five
1:30
Speaker 2: minutes to say your name properly. But thank you so much,
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Speaker 2: doctor Furman. I'm really honored.
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Speaker 1: Actually, just plain Victor is fine. The only time I
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Speaker 1: use the reverend doctors if I'm doing something official in
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Speaker 1: an interfaith capacity. So just just Victor is wonderful. Thank you,
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Speaker 1: Thank you, so Doug. In the hit science fiction series
1:49
Speaker 1: Stranger Things, the protagonists get involved with a place called
1:54
Speaker 1: the upside Down. Your path and career could be called
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Speaker 1: the outside in. Please share with us, Please share with
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Speaker 1: us your early path and what your expectations were for
2:04
Speaker 1: your life.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, everything went wrong. Unfortunately. I loved basketball, and I
2:12
Speaker 2: decided I would be a pro basketball player even though
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Speaker 2: I was only British six one and with skinny, and
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Speaker 2: I loved ecology, the relationship between plants and animals and
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Speaker 2: their interaction. And so my college goal was to go
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Speaker 2: to a D one school with a scholarship that had
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Speaker 2: been on the cover of Sports Illustrated. So UCLA was
2:33
Speaker 2: way out of my league. So I went to Santa
2:35
Speaker 2: Clara University, which had been on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
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Speaker 2: They were like Gonzaga in the old days. And then,
2:41
Speaker 2: like an idiot, I didn't realize when you major in biology,
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Speaker 2: you have afternoon labs right when there's basketball practice. So
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Speaker 2: I was exhausted. I didn't sleep much, and you know,
2:52
Speaker 2: I wasn't doing great in practice. I got hurt my
2:55
Speaker 2: last year, which was supposed to be my breakout year.
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Speaker 2: But I loved the school. I was not a Catholic,
3:02
Speaker 2: but I found I had to take religious studies courses
3:06
Speaker 2: to graduate, and so I go, oh, what will I do?
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Speaker 2: So I took courses in mysticism, which were fascinating, psychology
3:14
Speaker 2: of religion, we had to read William James' book, and
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Speaker 2: the ecology classes were out of this world. We were
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Speaker 2: near the Santa Cruz Mountains of Pacific Ocean, and so
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Speaker 2: I loved all that. But I had a miserable basketball career.
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Speaker 2: But my coach was very kind, coach Carol Williams, and
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Speaker 2: he said, do you want to go play in Australia
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Speaker 2: when you're done? Got a team for you? And I said,
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Speaker 2: you got to be kidding. In Australia was one of
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Speaker 2: the places I'd studied in evolution and physiological physiological ecology course,
3:44
Speaker 2: so I signed right off. Off I went and loved
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Speaker 2: Australia every second of it. And basketball. There is not
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Speaker 2: real professional like here, with more like semi pro, so
3:58
Speaker 2: we all had jobs. I was lucky. Some college needed
4:02
Speaker 2: a basketball coach and a biology teacher, so I ended
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Speaker 2: up with a job that I learned more than the
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Speaker 2: students did. I had learn all the plants and animals
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Speaker 2: in Australia. It was absolutely fantastic. So I stayed there
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Speaker 2: for quite a while, and then I thought never to
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Speaker 2: be attached to any females, so I could travel anywhere
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Speaker 2: I want. And I met this American girl. She was
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Speaker 2: leaving in three weeks to go on her round the
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Speaker 2: World trip, and I go, she's a safe bet, so
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Speaker 2: I dropped her off at the airport when she's supposed
4:33
Speaker 2: to leave and there was an airline strike. There'd been
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Speaker 2: a beer strike, would have been over in two minutes,
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Speaker 2: but this lasted three weeks. So tell us to make
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Speaker 2: a long story short. Fell in love and anyway. She
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Speaker 2: traveled with me for a year after I was done
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Speaker 2: with my basketball contract, and we saw wild animals and
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Speaker 2: wild places. We saw like hunter gatherers in New Guinea
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Speaker 2: and the highlands. It was just a fantastic trip. And
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Speaker 2: when I came home, I was all excited to go
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Speaker 2: to the ecology graduate group at Davis. Was so thrilled
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Speaker 2: and excited. And we had my first meeting with my advisors,
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Speaker 2: and I was really excited, and I'd met a few
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Speaker 2: of them before, and one was ahead of the wildlife department.
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Speaker 2: One was my major advisor, who was a deer researcher,
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Speaker 2: and then there was an unknown guy, a vet Aaron.
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Speaker 2: I thought, why was I Vet Marin in my committee?
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Speaker 2: And for some reason the head of a wild apartment
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Speaker 2: just started raiming me about my stupid background, wasting my
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Speaker 2: life playing basketball going to Australia. If I'd been serious,
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Speaker 2: I would have gone to Berkeley or UCLA or UC Davis.
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Speaker 2: So that went on for ten minutes. I'm a pretty
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Speaker 2: calm guy, but eleven minutes I'd had my limits or
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Speaker 2: let him have what I thought of him. He was
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Speaker 2: a portly duck researcher, and so he stormed out of
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Speaker 2: the room. I humiliated my major professor because that was
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Speaker 2: her boss. And I'm left with a veterinarian and he said, well,
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Speaker 2: I've you ever thought about vetnary medicine. I'm not sure
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Speaker 2: you have a career in wildlife anymore. And I just laughed,
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Speaker 2: and then he mentioned a vetnarian's name, doctor Murray Fowler.
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Speaker 2: I started laughing because I'd done volunteer work in Nepal
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Speaker 2: at Chipwaw National Forest. I just went it up there
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Speaker 2: on a fluke. We met an English girl and I said,
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Speaker 2: I want to go look at wildlife. She said, Oh,
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Speaker 2: my next door neighbor in Katmandu's got this big project
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Speaker 2: in the jungle. Why don't you go visit him. So
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Speaker 2: this is seventy nine. There's no email, there's no Google,
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Speaker 2: there's really you just show up. And so we showed
6:41
Speaker 2: up and he needed some help and we're tracking tigers
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Speaker 2: and prey species on elephant back because the grass is
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Speaker 2: so thick. And I got paired up with this French
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Speaker 2: volunteer and we ended up trying to help a deer
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Speaker 2: escape and he's in the net we caught him in
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Speaker 2: and he's telling me to kneel on him like a horse.
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Speaker 2: I'm going I'm from Berkeley, California. I don't know how
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Speaker 2: to kneel on a horse. Anyway, he finally saves the
7:09
Speaker 2: day and kneels on this monstrous sambardier and he gets
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Speaker 2: some a radio collar put on him, and afterwards we
7:19
Speaker 2: go back together and asked what I'm going to do,
7:21
Speaker 2: and I said, oh, I'm going to well ask what
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Speaker 2: he was He said he's a French vetner and he'd
7:25
Speaker 2: want to work on pampered poodles in Paris. So he's
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Speaker 2: a elephant doctor in Thailand. And when he asked me
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Speaker 2: what I was doing, I said, I'm going to UC
7:34
Speaker 2: Davis free collogy and he just went crazy, goes Murray Fowler,
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Speaker 2: the best wildlife zoo vent in the world. I've read
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Speaker 2: every book. I kept trying to tell Claude it was
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Speaker 2: his name. Now I'm going to ecology. I don't want
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Speaker 2: to be cooped up inside. But anyway, when doctor Zinkl
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Speaker 2: was a gentleman's name who rescued me at that meeting.
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Speaker 2: Doctor Zinkle said Murray Fowler, I started laughing. Go I
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Speaker 2: heard about that name in the jungles of Chipwan, of
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Speaker 2: all places. We went over the next day and they
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Speaker 2: needed a little extra help. The Vetnorans were so kind
8:06
Speaker 2: so nice. I was in shock because my brother was
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Speaker 2: an orthopedic surgeon and I'd gone to some rounds with
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Speaker 2: him and seen him. And they just treat their residents
8:15
Speaker 2: and interns like dirt and here. But he's saying, oh, come,
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Speaker 2: you should go to vet school, Doug. You'll have a
8:21
Speaker 2: great time thinking this is you see Davis. It's really
8:24
Speaker 2: hard to get into him, just Dug from Santa Clara.
8:27
Speaker 2: But anyway, I went to the zoo with him, and
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Speaker 2: I was really amazed because I've seen all these animals
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Speaker 2: in the wild. Now seeing them in the zoo was different.
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Speaker 2: And at one point they were flushing an eye of
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Speaker 2: a Asian elephant and off on a ladder with a
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Speaker 2: turkey paste that'd been sterilized, and they said, your turn, dog.
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Speaker 2: I go on, I'm just the college. I've never done this,
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Speaker 2: and the vet students go neither of well, you get
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Speaker 2: up there. So I got up there and I flushed
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Speaker 2: the elephant's eye and something just clicked. My spine shivered.
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Speaker 2: I go, I'm going to be a vet now. So
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Speaker 2: that completely changed my career and I loved every bit
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Speaker 2: of veterinary medicine. And I got to work with doctor Fowler.
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Speaker 2: That's in book two. He was a riot. And anyway,
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Speaker 2: when I finished, there were no wildlife jobs. So I
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Speaker 2: got a baby on the way. I married that blonde
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Speaker 2: girl I met in Australia and the only wildlife job
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Speaker 2: I could find was in working for a wild life
9:27
Speaker 2: dermatologist was quite famous and it was an internship, so
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Speaker 2: low pay, long hours. I didn't care. I was so
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Speaker 2: happy to get work and it was mostly dogs and
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Speaker 2: cats it turned out, and it turned out to be
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Speaker 2: really fun and it was exciting and interesting. And this
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Speaker 2: guy was the greatest mentor I could ask for, because
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Speaker 2: I knew nothing about dogs and cats after studying to
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Speaker 2: be an exotic animal vet there, and he kind of
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Speaker 2: told me I'd have way more fun if I stayed
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Speaker 2: in private practice, and I kind of ignored him. I
9:57
Speaker 2: thought he's kind of a jaded old guy there was
9:59
Speaker 2: way than me, and eventually that's what I did. I
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Speaker 2: was in love with this little baby that was she
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Speaker 2: was born. I know if I did a residency and
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Speaker 2: wildlife medicine, I would never see her. So I dropped
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Speaker 2: out of all the resident programs I'd applied to and
10:16
Speaker 2: we ended up taking over one of my boss's friends.
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Speaker 2: When my boss, Doc Thorson, was a colorful guy. He
10:24
Speaker 2: had a peg leid courtesy of the first day of
10:27
Speaker 2: battle in World War Two in Okinawa and looked like
10:29
Speaker 2: a pirate, but he was a really kind man to me,
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Speaker 2: a great teacher. So one of his colleagues was retiring,
10:36
Speaker 2: had a bad heart. Nobody wanted his practice because it
10:39
Speaker 2: was in It was doing exotic animals, which no one
10:43
Speaker 2: wanted to do. And I did integrative medicine, which no
10:46
Speaker 2: one wanted to do. But it was perfect for me.
10:48
Speaker 2: I couldn't believe it. So we took it over in
10:51
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety one and I'm still there. I'll be there
10:53
Speaker 2: on Tuesday working. I would never believe that happened.
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Speaker 1: So you went from ecology and outdoor work to working
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Speaker 1: indoors twelve hours a day. What was that transition?
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Speaker 2: Like? I vowed never to do that. You know, I
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Speaker 2: was a big student of Threau. Don't live a life
11:12
Speaker 2: of quiet desperation, you know, let the morning find you outdoors.
11:16
Speaker 2: But I lucked out. We found the cheapest arey we
11:19
Speaker 2: could live in, which was San Clemente. And everybody's a
11:23
Speaker 2: surfer in San Clementy. So one of my neighbors, I
11:27
Speaker 2: had an old VW. Van. He said, you know, I
11:30
Speaker 2: just moved up here too, but he knew how to surf.
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Speaker 2: You know, let's go in the morning and i'll teach you.
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Speaker 2: So we'd get up about five point thirty and go
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Speaker 2: and I was terrible. It's a really hard sport to learn.
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Speaker 2: But I just loved being up at the croca dawn.
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Speaker 2: Out in the water, we'd see dolphins, pelicans, all kinds
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Speaker 2: of wildlife, and when I got out of the water,
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Speaker 2: we just all felt good. I couldn't figure out why,
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Speaker 2: and I didn't care. I was just happy. And surfers
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Speaker 2: call it being stoked, and actually what was as I
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Speaker 2: found out and studied human medicine, it was generating all
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Speaker 2: these unbelievably healthy, happy neurotransmitters dopamine, oxytocin, epinephyrin, sarah tonin,
12:13
Speaker 2: and then brain derived neurotrophic factor, which makes the brain
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Speaker 2: get fertilized. Surfers, again, they're simple guys. They just call
12:20
Speaker 2: it being stoked. They're super happy. So I would go
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Speaker 2: to work just stoked out of my brain, so happy
12:26
Speaker 2: from being in the water for an hour and a
12:28
Speaker 2: bunch of guys all the same. We all got to
12:31
Speaker 2: catch a few waves and get to eight o'clock work,
12:33
Speaker 2: and then I love being indoors with all of them.
12:36
Speaker 2: And then I come home and we live pretty close
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Speaker 2: to the ocean, watch the sunset, and I was really
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Speaker 2: happy doing that. Instead, I thought I'd be a wildlife
12:46
Speaker 2: researcher out in the savannah, up in the Sierras, and
12:50
Speaker 2: just a big flip flop, but I still got my
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Speaker 2: outdoor fix a little bit in the morning. I never
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Speaker 2: would have dreamed I would end up doing that and loving.
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Speaker 2: It's a long story, Victor. Sorry it took so long.
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Speaker 1: No, not at all. So you caught away when you
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Speaker 1: were sitting on top.
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Speaker 3: Of the world.
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Speaker 2: You know the Beach Boys song.
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Speaker 1: I know the Beach Boys very well.
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Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, so that's I'm still doing it, to be
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Speaker 2: honest with you, and still loving every day of it.
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Speaker 1: Wonderful. What inspired your book, Healing Both Ends of the Leash?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was really a novel experience in a winery.
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Speaker 2: I was a young VAT and we're meeting up in
13:32
Speaker 2: Central Coast or family reunion, and I saw this dog
13:35
Speaker 2: running around that just looks so healthy and happy, And
13:40
Speaker 2: it turned out he belonged to the wine poor where
13:42
Speaker 2: my wife and her sister were sampling how wines. I
13:45
Speaker 2: was watching the kids. I said, that's I helped this
13:48
Speaker 2: dog I've ever seen and she remarked, you know that
13:52
Speaker 2: the stupid vets told her to euthanize it, and so,
13:56
Speaker 2: and make that long story short, it turned out the
13:59
Speaker 2: dog out horrible hYP dysplasia and was saved by a
14:04
Speaker 2: human chiropractor who got it off the terrible food we
14:07
Speaker 2: vets fed them. According to the chiropractor, we feed them
14:11
Speaker 2: foods that are toxic. Then we give them drugs that
14:13
Speaker 2: are toxic, and these dogs get sick, and if you
14:15
Speaker 2: just give them real food, they all heal. And I
14:18
Speaker 2: couldn't believe it, but I certainly thought I would try
14:22
Speaker 2: that because it made sense. All the wild animals I
14:25
Speaker 2: saw ate real food, and all these pets started healing
14:31
Speaker 2: that had either diseases that had to have surgery or
14:34
Speaker 2: get euthanized. So my families would start saying, you got
14:38
Speaker 2: to write this down in a book. Nobody knows this well.
14:40
Speaker 2: This is in eighty eight, so it's a long time ago,
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Speaker 2: and I just didn't have time. I had young kids,
14:45
Speaker 2: and surfing got in the way in the morning. I
14:48
Speaker 2: loved doing that. At night, I got home late, and
14:50
Speaker 2: then I wanted to be with my kids, and so
14:54
Speaker 2: finally I got around to going Okay, I'm going to
14:56
Speaker 2: write this down because still even on Tuesday, I'll get
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Speaker 2: five patients that have been told to eat kibble. And
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Speaker 2: the vetterarians mean well because the vet schools are all
15:04
Speaker 2: sponsored in part by the pet food industry, which does
15:09
Speaker 2: a lot of good for the vet schools. They couldn't
15:11
Speaker 2: survive without them, but they also would like them to eat,
15:14
Speaker 2: you know, scientifically formulated food. And so I started writing
15:20
Speaker 2: a book. And then I got really sick with autoimmune
15:22
Speaker 2: disease and the only way I could get better was food.
15:27
Speaker 2: And I'd been pretty strict in my diet than a
15:30
Speaker 2: vegetarian since I was twenty two, but this, you know,
15:33
Speaker 2: I had to go on a very strict diet. I
15:36
Speaker 2: was gluten free because I had celiac. My joints were
15:39
Speaker 2: killing me, so I had to give up plants and
15:42
Speaker 2: in the eight plant family and a few others. And
15:47
Speaker 2: so I thought, maybe other people are having the same
15:50
Speaker 2: miserable experience with auto immune disease, and don't realize if
15:54
Speaker 2: you can just heal the gastrointestinal track, a lot of
15:56
Speaker 2: these autoimmune diseases will go away. So I decided to
16:00
Speaker 2: write the book, but I didn't know how to do it.
16:02
Speaker 2: And then I met an MD and integrative, brilliant integrative
16:07
Speaker 2: doctor and who'd been at SCRIPTS for years as a
16:10
Speaker 2: cardiologist and she had her own practice in La Jolla
16:14
Speaker 2: that I had been referred to by a friend who
16:17
Speaker 2: had autoimmune disease, and she had a beautiful poodle under
16:20
Speaker 2: the table. During the exam, I said, that guy's eating
16:23
Speaker 2: real food. I said, his coachs too nice. And I
16:25
Speaker 2: told her I was thinking of writing a book on
16:29
Speaker 2: food as medicine and maybe people, and she said, go
16:32
Speaker 2: to my conference. You know, it's a big, huge integrative
16:36
Speaker 2: conference for medical doctors. And so I went, and everything
16:41
Speaker 2: would have taken me twenty years to learn. I could
16:43
Speaker 2: learn at that conference and start writing the book. So
16:46
Speaker 2: that's when I decided to call it healing both ends
16:49
Speaker 2: of the leash. Not being an MD, but I've got
16:53
Speaker 2: eight or nine and mds in my family, and they
16:56
Speaker 2: all admitted they don't know anything about food is therapy
17:00
Speaker 2: they and they all feed their dogs my diet. You know,
17:03
Speaker 2: they believe truly in that. So I just took a
17:06
Speaker 2: big risk and thought, I'm going to call it healing
17:08
Speaker 2: both ends of the leash and try to make it
17:10
Speaker 2: a simple book, not too complex, with an easy recipes.
17:14
Speaker 2: And you know, if a few pets live a long
17:17
Speaker 2: time from changing the diet from the book and a
17:20
Speaker 2: few people are saved, it's worth the seven years it
17:23
Speaker 2: took me to write it. Sorry, these are long answers.
17:26
Speaker 1: No, no, these are These are wonderful answers. And these
17:29
Speaker 1: are really fulfilling. And I was going to ask you,
17:31
Speaker 1: so why both pets and people?
17:35
Speaker 2: You know? I started lecturing at this meeting called the
17:41
Speaker 2: Surfers Medical Association. Their surfers who gather once a year
17:44
Speaker 2: in oddball places, surf all day, then at night we
17:47
Speaker 2: have meetings, and so I always would mention about feeding
17:52
Speaker 2: pets and then autoimmune. And one empty came up and said,
17:56
Speaker 2: my daughter's twenty three. She's got seven autoimmuneune diseases. Her
18:01
Speaker 2: life is miserable. No one's ever told her about food therapy.
18:05
Speaker 2: And he said, where do I find a doctor for this?
18:08
Speaker 2: He's an MD, But I said, I don't think there
18:11
Speaker 2: are any autoimmune doctors. You know, the closest thing might
18:14
Speaker 2: be an endocrinologist. And he said, you know, you've got
18:18
Speaker 2: to write about people an autoimmune disease. He says, there's
18:21
Speaker 2: so many out there with it, but nobody knows what
18:24
Speaker 2: to do with it. And he said, you've seen totally
18:27
Speaker 2: convinced that it starts with Kaling. The gastrointestinal trek said,
18:31
Speaker 2: my daughter was never told that. So I thought, okay,
18:34
Speaker 2: I'm going to do that and then try to refer
18:37
Speaker 2: people to autoimmune doctors. I'm certainly not a human doctor,
18:42
Speaker 2: but oh I do spend a lot of time talking
18:45
Speaker 2: to people with auto immune disease and telling them, you know,
18:47
Speaker 2: I'm drug free. I don't take any drugs, but I
18:50
Speaker 2: don't have to eat very discipline, which the food is
18:53
Speaker 2: absolutely delicious. To be honest with you, I love the
18:58
Speaker 2: paleo diet for lack of a better words. So that's
19:01
Speaker 2: what trigger did, is I just see human suffering without
19:04
Speaker 2: immune disease, especially the younger generation. My kids are in
19:08
Speaker 2: their thirties, mid thirties. There's so many in their twenties.
19:12
Speaker 2: It comes up all the time in the exam when
19:14
Speaker 2: people will just ask me because they know I've got
19:16
Speaker 2: out immune disease, my daughter, my son, my brother, this,
19:20
Speaker 2: you know, can you call them? Can you tell them
19:22
Speaker 2: what to do? So that's really why I wrote it,
19:25
Speaker 2: to put a little simple guide for how I've treated
19:29
Speaker 2: my out immune disease and try to direct them to
19:31
Speaker 2: an integrative doctor, which I didn't know they existed till
19:35
Speaker 2: I met doctor Guernari in Southern or in San Diego.
19:41
Speaker 1: This organization that you belonged to, does everybody serve on
19:44
Speaker 1: the board, that's a brand. I'm sorry I had to
19:50
Speaker 1: do that.
19:50
Speaker 2: I'm sorry. I say we have board meetings, but years
19:54
Speaker 2: it's way funnier.
19:56
Speaker 1: Thank you. So you mentioned integrative care. How do you
20:00
Speaker 1: find integrative medicine?
20:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, we used to use the term holistic, but you know,
20:04
Speaker 2: some people, you know, thought it was for lack of
20:08
Speaker 2: a better word, ports and crystals and things like that.
20:12
Speaker 2: So I use the term integrative because that's what doctor
20:14
Speaker 2: Gernari calls her association, a human integrative medical and health.
20:22
Speaker 2: And so integrative means you integrate all the various practices.
20:25
Speaker 2: So I based my food. I put every dog who
20:30
Speaker 2: comes in, every cat, every bird, every rabbit, every guinea
20:32
Speaker 2: pig on real food, and so I have you know,
20:37
Speaker 2: recipes for that. So the basis is food therapy, which
20:40
Speaker 2: is coming from Arabatic medicine, which I never heard of
20:43
Speaker 2: in that school, and traditional Chinese veterinary medicine, which I
20:47
Speaker 2: never heard of either, but I've taken courses in and
20:50
Speaker 2: so the basis of all those forms of medicine is
20:53
Speaker 2: food first, herb second acupuncture, which I don't have skills in,
20:58
Speaker 2: but we have two on staff. After that, then drugs
21:01
Speaker 2: than surgery. So we integrate the best of Western medicine
21:06
Speaker 2: and the best of Arabatic and traditional Chinese veterinary medicine.
21:11
Speaker 2: And I'm sure you know an advocate of human medicine.
21:14
Speaker 2: I am walking and surfing ten thousand times better because
21:17
Speaker 2: I got a new hip last August after being grippled
21:20
Speaker 2: for seven or eight years. So I say thank goodness
21:24
Speaker 2: every day for skilled surgeons. But so many people go
21:28
Speaker 2: get new joints replaced, when all it would take with
21:31
Speaker 2: him being on a diet of you know, similar to
21:37
Speaker 2: what I eat, where you're eating really pure fits or meat,
21:41
Speaker 2: a bunch of colorful veggies, no eggs, no sugar, no dairy,
21:46
Speaker 2: no eggplant family, and a few to no lagoons. And
21:52
Speaker 2: I could believe how I healed from years of every
21:56
Speaker 2: joint in my body killing me. I couldn't even lift
21:59
Speaker 2: a file. My brother Chell is an orthopedic surgeon. I'd
22:03
Speaker 2: send him the actress. Oh you look fine, Doug, I go,
22:05
Speaker 2: I can't lift my arms, I can't walk upstairs. So
22:09
Speaker 2: I wanted to share that with as many people as
22:12
Speaker 2: I could and try to direct them to a they
22:14
Speaker 2: call them functional medical directors or integrative medical doctors. There's
22:19
Speaker 2: not many out there, but I think there's more and more.
22:23
Speaker 2: Doctor Mark Hyman has a great podcast, who's a really
22:27
Speaker 2: well known integrative doctor, and he's I direct everyone to
22:30
Speaker 2: his books as well. So it's it's a brave new world.
22:34
Speaker 2: There's so much more known now than there was in
22:37
Speaker 2: eighty eight. It's a really good time to be ill.
22:39
Speaker 2: I say, because there's so many great ways to get
22:41
Speaker 2: well now.
22:42
Speaker 1: Absolutely. My guest is doctor Doug Coward his book Healing
22:46
Speaker 1: Both Ends of Elation. Doug, please share with our listeners
22:49
Speaker 1: when they can get your book and find that more
22:51
Speaker 1: about you and your amazing work.
22:54
Speaker 2: That's a good question, because I just thought you'd write
22:56
Speaker 2: a book, and you're done, and my publisher goes, you
23:00
Speaker 2: have no social media. You can't sell a book. I go,
23:04
Speaker 2: why do I need social media? I'm busy. She goes,
23:06
Speaker 2: you don't know what's happened. In the last thirty year
23:09
Speaker 2: or so, I got help. And so now you can
23:13
Speaker 2: just type in Healing Both Ends of the Leash. It
23:16
Speaker 2: will direct you to Amazon where the book is. And
23:20
Speaker 2: then I have a website Healing Both Ends of the Leash.
23:25
Speaker 2: And then if you type in my name, Doug Coward,
23:29
Speaker 2: the Veterinarian, I think it goes right to way the
23:31
Speaker 2: Healing Both Ends of the Leash website, all of which
23:34
Speaker 2: I didn't know how to do. I had to have help.
23:36
Speaker 2: I've had to have so much help to this book
23:39
Speaker 2: because I was living in a bubble. So and then
23:43
Speaker 2: anything any proceeds from the book, I'm donating to help
23:47
Speaker 2: homeless animals and the hopeless homeless people who have animals,
23:54
Speaker 2: and then Wildlife Care at UC Davis. So any book
23:59
Speaker 2: you'd be kind of to buy them, like donating to
24:02
Speaker 2: a good cause to help animals out.
24:05
Speaker 1: That is absolutely wonderful. And we'll be back with more
24:07
Speaker 1: of doctor Doug after these words. On the own Times
24:11
Speaker 1: Radio Network.
24:13
Speaker 4: The Cutting Edge of Conscious Radio Home Times Radio IOMFM.
24:18
Speaker 4: Ome Times Magazine is one of the leading online content
24:21
Speaker 4: providers of positivity, wellness, and personal empowerment. A philanthropic organization,
24:27
Speaker 4: their net proceeds are finaled to support worldwide charity initiatives
24:30
Speaker 4: via Humanity Healing International. Through their commitment to creating community
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Speaker 4: and providing conscious content, they aspire to uplift humanity on
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24:44
Speaker 1: Back on Destination Unlimited. My guest this week is doctor
24:48
Speaker 1: Doug Coward. We're talking about his new book, Healing Both
24:51
Speaker 1: Ends of the Leash. Doug, I have to ask you
24:54
Speaker 1: before we start talking about your current practice. Some of
24:57
Speaker 1: the work that you did when you were doing outdoor
24:59
Speaker 1: met to send an ecology work. What kind of animals
25:02
Speaker 1: were you working with in the wild.
25:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was initially just volunteer work and that was
25:11
Speaker 2: in first was in Borneo and they were a bunch
25:17
Speaker 2: of ecologists from UC Davis and they were studying hornbill
25:21
Speaker 2: birds and orangutang's pigmy macacus, variety of monkeys. But I
25:27
Speaker 2: was looking for many collegists. I didn't have a clue
25:29
Speaker 2: about disease at at that point. And then we were
25:32
Speaker 2: hitchhiking and Kenya got picked up by an Australian wildlife
25:36
Speaker 2: photographer who just wanted someone to talk to. So he
25:39
Speaker 2: was somewhat knowledgeable about wildlife. Again, I wasn't quite that interested,
25:44
Speaker 2: but then when I got into vet school, then a
25:48
Speaker 2: lot of it was zoo work. Mostly we would go
25:51
Speaker 2: to various zews, usually Sacramento, San Francisco, and the most
25:58
Speaker 2: of the wildlife we saw was birds of prey, a
26:02
Speaker 2: lot of raptors in the Valley of California, so they
26:06
Speaker 2: all ended up in the zoology department at that school.
26:09
Speaker 2: So a lot of work repairing raptors that have been
26:14
Speaker 2: either shot or were chasing something and ran into a
26:18
Speaker 2: fence or a wall, broken wings, and that was really fun.
26:22
Speaker 2: I loved working on birds of prey, but we didn't
26:25
Speaker 2: see as many wildlife in the clinic. My goal was
26:31
Speaker 2: to be the state vet, where you do a lot
26:34
Speaker 2: of keeping wildlife healthy, not working on the individuals for
26:39
Speaker 2: more like herd health, trying to make sure they have
26:42
Speaker 2: a plentiful food supply and their ecosystem is good. The
26:46
Speaker 2: sea otters in California started getting sick, and it turned
26:50
Speaker 2: out they were getting sick from a cat parasite called
26:54
Speaker 2: cockfitia that gave them a pretty nasty disease, toxoplasmosis. So
26:58
Speaker 2: that was kind of what I was in in the
27:00
Speaker 2: interaction between wildlife and disease prevention, and that's what I
27:06
Speaker 2: thought I'd be doing for the rest of my life,
27:08
Speaker 2: but didn't work out, unfortunately.
27:12
Speaker 1: So I'm reading and healing both ends of the leash
27:14
Speaker 1: and I get to a nickname that you were given
27:17
Speaker 1: and I start laughing hysterically. Who hold you or who
27:20
Speaker 1: named you the voodoo vet? And why.
27:25
Speaker 2: I was trying to think of which nickname because they
27:27
Speaker 2: called me motormouth on the basketball teams. I never said
27:31
Speaker 2: a word. My dad told me better to keep your
27:33
Speaker 2: mouth shut and let everybody assume you're full than open
27:35
Speaker 2: it and let them know you're right. So the voodoo
27:39
Speaker 2: vat was, you know, people would come expecting high tech medicine.
27:44
Speaker 2: Being a UC Davis graduate. UC Davis has been voted
27:47
Speaker 2: the best bet school in the world in the past
27:50
Speaker 2: few years in the country, and we did learn really
27:53
Speaker 2: high tech stuff. But they would go home with a
27:55
Speaker 2: reciped vegetables at the grocery store. And I heard some
28:01
Speaker 2: guy complaining to you, I come here to see a
28:03
Speaker 2: vet and I'm supposed to go to the grocery store.
28:05
Speaker 2: What kind of a voodoo idiot is that? So that's
28:09
Speaker 2: kind of how it came because I was prescribing food
28:12
Speaker 2: as the first form of medicine, which was vood to people.
28:15
Speaker 2: You know, they wanted penicillin or some chemotherapeutic drug or
28:21
Speaker 2: this or that. And I'm saying something that's been done
28:24
Speaker 2: for twenty thousand years. Just eat real food that were
28:27
Speaker 2: meant to eat by our ancestors. Absolutely forgot about that name.
28:32
Speaker 2: To be honest with you.
28:35
Speaker 1: That's funny. That's funny. So let's talk about food for
28:39
Speaker 1: people and food for animals. What mistakes do most pet
28:43
Speaker 1: lovers make in their animal companion's diet.
28:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, they do. They do the right things that they're
28:50
Speaker 2: told by their vets. And we're told at the vet
28:53
Speaker 2: school to only feed scientifically formulated food, never give table scraps.
28:58
Speaker 2: And again I wasn't paying attention to I was only
29:00
Speaker 2: going to be working with wildlife. But when I got
29:05
Speaker 2: my first job with Doc, he was showing me how
29:08
Speaker 2: he was able to correct surgical disease which is quite
29:13
Speaker 2: frightening to the male cats where they were getting obstruction
29:16
Speaker 2: in their plumbing and they'd get their male unit cut
29:21
Speaker 2: off as a treatment. And Doc, my boss, said, no,
29:24
Speaker 2: it's food related. He said, if you get him off
29:27
Speaker 2: that junk food. I was taught to feed at UC Davis.
29:32
Speaker 2: He was curing it, but nobody believed him because he
29:34
Speaker 2: was a small practice there. He wrote, he wrote reports
29:39
Speaker 2: about it, but you know, nobody respected him because he
29:42
Speaker 2: wasn't at a big university. Although he was published in
29:45
Speaker 2: current vet therapy, nobody believed this. And so he first
29:49
Speaker 2: made me aware that food could actually help surgical conditions.
29:53
Speaker 2: And then the big one was seeing that the wine dog,
29:56
Speaker 2: as I call him Brodie, where I was taught, you know,
30:00
Speaker 2: that could only be treated hip displasia with a hip
30:04
Speaker 2: replacement surgery. It's called the triple pelvic osteotomy, where we
30:07
Speaker 2: actually break the pelvis into three pieces and realign it.
30:12
Speaker 2: And that was just mind boggling to me that food
30:16
Speaker 2: did so much good. And then other thing. I remember
30:20
Speaker 2: some of these dogs I treated for hYP displasia, Their
30:22
Speaker 2: skin got better, one dog stopped seizuring, and I go,
30:26
Speaker 2: this is the greatest drug on earth. I got to
30:28
Speaker 2: learn more about it. So I started researching it and
30:33
Speaker 2: and found that's got to be the basis for treatment first.
30:36
Speaker 2: But it takes so long to explain food therapy. I
30:39
Speaker 2: was always behind people get mad, when's it going to
30:42
Speaker 2: be done? And he's so slow. So it's been kind
30:44
Speaker 2: of a frustrating career trying to fit in food therapy
30:47
Speaker 2: and half our appointments now they're our appointments. But that's
30:51
Speaker 2: kind of the basis form for all of that is
30:55
Speaker 2: just by stumbling into all these things. Really started by
30:58
Speaker 2: Doc and then the Wine Country Dog and then just
31:01
Speaker 2: I wrote every holistic vet I could find in a
31:04
Speaker 2: little layman's book, and they were so nice to write back,
31:08
Speaker 2: especially doctor Dodds, who wrote a book on nutrient genomics
31:11
Speaker 2: where food and nutrition can actually change the DNA, And
31:15
Speaker 2: it's just been fascinating. I love seeing the magic of
31:20
Speaker 2: food work on a patient who was said to be
31:22
Speaker 2: beyond help. It just never ceases to amaze me. I'm
31:26
Speaker 2: just hoping, including the other end of the least, that
31:29
Speaker 2: a lot of people might be interested in their pets.
31:31
Speaker 2: But read about that and go, you know, I'll try
31:34
Speaker 2: this diet and see what happens for thirty days, and
31:38
Speaker 2: if they get better, I will be so happy and
31:41
Speaker 2: grateful for writing that book.
31:43
Speaker 1: Wonderful. You offer many examples of healthy diets for pets
31:47
Speaker 1: and including their owners. Please share with us some of these.
31:51
Speaker 1: Since many of our listeners have feline friends. You touched
31:54
Speaker 1: upon one cat thing. What's a good diet for a cat?
31:58
Speaker 2: That's a really good question. And I've just been spending
32:01
Speaker 2: this weekend with pickles family, and Pickles was a cat,
32:07
Speaker 2: and my niece asked me to take a quick look
32:12
Speaker 2: before I was just going through town, and Pickles was
32:15
Speaker 2: very overweight and had a growth on her nose and
32:18
Speaker 2: on his nose. Sorry, And I thought, no big deal,
32:21
Speaker 2: will be fine. Well I was gone. That growth spread
32:25
Speaker 2: everywhere and all the joints started hurting, and Pickles turned
32:31
Speaker 2: out when we buy seed the nose to have a
32:33
Speaker 2: disease unheard of in California called histoplasmosis. It's a fungus
32:37
Speaker 2: you find by the Mississippi and treatment was extremely difficult.
32:43
Speaker 2: But Pickles had been eating kibble, and kibble for cats
32:48
Speaker 2: by law, you have to cook it for thirty minutes,
32:50
Speaker 2: and they don't often use the greatest products, you know,
32:55
Speaker 2: they'll use what's economically feasible, and so the cooking process
33:00
Speaker 2: creates these waste products called activated glycation end products that
33:04
Speaker 2: creates some inflammation in the intestines and the joints and
33:08
Speaker 2: the skin and even in the brain, and then it
33:10
Speaker 2: also damages the microbiome. World of friendly bacteria live in
33:14
Speaker 2: the air like another organ in our bodied. They have
33:17
Speaker 2: five really important functions and if you damage then the
33:21
Speaker 2: overall health is lowered, and so all these kibil eating
33:25
Speaker 2: cats are inevitably going to have a shortened life. We
33:29
Speaker 2: were told thirteen years would be a good lifespan for
33:33
Speaker 2: a cat. And then I started doing this diet, but
33:39
Speaker 2: we had a staff member joined us. She'd moved from
33:42
Speaker 2: England and just wanted to work with animals, and she
33:47
Speaker 2: started a rescue group a few years later, and everyone
33:50
Speaker 2: was fat. She called it the Doctor diet. Was just
33:53
Speaker 2: eighty percent real meat and twenty percent chopped up veggies
33:57
Speaker 2: with a few supplements. And her cats are living into
33:59
Speaker 2: their thirties and the only medical care they're really needing
34:04
Speaker 2: is some teeth cleaning now and then and some help
34:07
Speaker 2: with their kidneys. And that just you know, was so
34:11
Speaker 2: lucky to be associated with their sanctuary and witness this.
34:16
Speaker 2: It's still going on. It's called Brighthaven. It's now up
34:19
Speaker 2: in Sonoma. So I've been lucky to be privy to
34:22
Speaker 2: this living laboratory of seeing these cats thrive on real
34:26
Speaker 2: food and do not so well on kibble. Kibble's convenient,
34:32
Speaker 2: I have to admit, if you have like four kids
34:34
Speaker 2: and a job in a busy life, it's a lot
34:37
Speaker 2: easier to poor kibble. But in reality, the diet I've
34:43
Speaker 2: advocated is so simple. You can just nuke it for
34:45
Speaker 2: thirty seconds in the microwave and it's all ready to go,
34:50
Speaker 2: and it's the best medicine I know of.
34:53
Speaker 1: We had a cat in the family. It was actually
34:55
Speaker 1: my mother in law's cat, who lived to be twenty
34:57
Speaker 1: and I thought that was an amazingly long period of
34:59
Speaker 1: time you sit into the thirties. Is that correct?
35:02
Speaker 2: Yeah? Do you have one kitty that came into her sanctuary.
35:05
Speaker 2: Usually they come in because people have either been deployed,
35:08
Speaker 2: you weare near a military base and down here at
35:11
Speaker 2: Kemp Pendleton and naval bases, or sometimes there's a death
35:16
Speaker 2: in the family and nobody can take these animals. I
35:20
Speaker 2: end up with them Mark ailed us or similar. And
35:23
Speaker 2: so she had one that came in with a really
35:26
Speaker 2: nasty tumor, and we had talked about food as healing cancer.
35:31
Speaker 2: We weren't quite sure, but we thought light as well
35:34
Speaker 2: to keep trying. We added a few herbs and lived
35:36
Speaker 2: to be thirty four, lived like ten years with the
35:39
Speaker 2: tumor never quite went away, but it never spread or anything.
35:44
Speaker 2: And so personally, I rescue cats that nobody else wants.
35:48
Speaker 2: They're about to be euthanized. So my personal best is thirteen.
35:53
Speaker 2: I feel like a veterinary failure. But they all came
35:56
Speaker 2: in pretty dire strait so in many ways as they
35:59
Speaker 2: had a long life compared to what they were all
36:02
Speaker 2: youth and asis, and so twenty is really good. I
36:07
Speaker 2: would be so happy if mine made it to twenty Victor,
36:09
Speaker 2: So well done to your mother in law.
36:12
Speaker 1: Okay, what about canines? What should dogs be fed?
36:16
Speaker 2: And that's a really good question. And again it's what
36:19
Speaker 2: they've been eating for twenty thousand years. Dogs have just
36:22
Speaker 2: been living with people, so people just gave them whatever
36:25
Speaker 2: they ate. And for twenty thousand years or more, people
36:29
Speaker 2: were either hunter gatherers or herdsmen, and so dogs are
36:34
Speaker 2: used to eating people food and table scraps, so to speak.
36:39
Speaker 2: And so when dogs are not quite as carnivorous as cats,
36:42
Speaker 2: cats have different dental arrangement, different length of their intestines.
36:46
Speaker 2: Dogs are a little bit more like us, more omnivores,
36:49
Speaker 2: so dogs usually just I try to create simple diets.
36:54
Speaker 2: Dogs are sixty percent some type of meat, and most
36:58
Speaker 2: of my patients are are in flames, so turkey burgers
37:02
Speaker 2: are the easiest thing. Or eggs. You can use Mediterranean
37:07
Speaker 2: yogurt from my vegetarian clients. You know, we just do
37:10
Speaker 2: vegetarian diets that have adequate protein. We try to pick
37:14
Speaker 2: colorful vegetables. Each vegetable has a different healing property, you know,
37:19
Speaker 2: so there's a lot of colors of the rainbow. I
37:23
Speaker 2: keep it simple. We just use like white bananas or apples, red.
37:27
Speaker 2: You can use tomatoes, watermelon, peppers. For green, there's so
37:32
Speaker 2: many greens, but like broccoli, spinach, hail, and for yellow
37:38
Speaker 2: or orange carrots or sweet potatoes. I try to keep
37:41
Speaker 2: it simple to not make it much work for especially
37:44
Speaker 2: a single guy who loves his dog and is never
37:46
Speaker 2: cooked and never will, but for his dog, he'll he'll
37:49
Speaker 2: get frozen veggies and some frozen burgers and add some
37:52
Speaker 2: supplements and you know, when they thrive. So it's a
37:56
Speaker 2: pretty simple diet and people can eat the same thing
38:00
Speaker 2: and do well. But no kibble, you know, I kind
38:02
Speaker 2: of try to eliminate kibble, or it's not all or none.
38:06
Speaker 2: If they've got cancer, they really need real food. But
38:09
Speaker 2: otherwise they can mix, you know, the best of the
38:11
Speaker 2: kibbles with a lot of people food and do really well.
38:15
Speaker 1: We have a friend who has a beautiful white dove
38:18
Speaker 1: named Shanty. What about wing pets.
38:22
Speaker 2: That's a really good question. My yogurt teacher's name was Shanty.
38:26
Speaker 2: In Australia, the whole world birds was a real eye
38:30
Speaker 2: opener to me because I don't, as I mentioned, when
38:34
Speaker 2: you ask mostly with birds of prey in that school
38:38
Speaker 2: and daole, rats and mice, and they were so healthy
38:43
Speaker 2: they just got injured. So I remember with my boss
38:47
Speaker 2: on one of the very first patients, it is clinic.
38:51
Speaker 2: We know, we take an X ray of this bird
38:53
Speaker 2: who we can feel something in the abdomen and Doc goes,
38:59
Speaker 2: it's probably a fact liver because the blood work supported it.
39:02
Speaker 2: And I said how and he said, people just feed
39:06
Speaker 2: him seeds and they're really high and fat. And in
39:10
Speaker 2: the wild these birds, you know, lived in Australia where
39:12
Speaker 2: there're parrots everywhere, thousands of them, and they're eating a
39:17
Speaker 2: huge variety of foods. They're just not eating a bunch
39:20
Speaker 2: of sunflower seeds. And I'm going to put this in
39:23
Speaker 2: my second book because I say it with great reluctance.
39:26
Speaker 2: But I got a little parent from the flea market
39:29
Speaker 2: in Australia, in Melbourne, and the guy told me, just
39:32
Speaker 2: beating sunflower seeds after you're done weaning in my hands.
39:37
Speaker 2: Fat in that little glow. I was a pink and
39:40
Speaker 2: gray carcatil. He followed me everywhere. He lived on my shoulder.
39:43
Speaker 2: He rode to school on my steering wheel. And all
39:46
Speaker 2: of a sudden, he's sick one day and my housies roommates,
39:51
Speaker 2: basketball players go, you better get him to a vet.
39:53
Speaker 2: He's going to die. Go he's sick one day. I said,
39:56
Speaker 2: you know, what do you mean? He goes, Oh, you
39:59
Speaker 2: don't know any about birds. The day of birds sick
40:02
Speaker 2: is a day it dies. So I rushed him to
40:03
Speaker 2: a vet and he kind of told me the same thing,
40:06
Speaker 2: and he was, you know. The vet kind of took
40:08
Speaker 2: pity on me, said, you know what happened is you
40:10
Speaker 2: fed him sunflower seeds, only they're high and fat. The
40:13
Speaker 2: fat crowded out the liver and then he shows up
40:17
Speaker 2: with upper respiratory disease. But the problem was my diet
40:21
Speaker 2: killed my best friend at that time in Australia. So
40:25
Speaker 2: birds are really susceptible to diet. So we do the
40:29
Speaker 2: same with birds, you know, we find out what they are,
40:32
Speaker 2: you know, if they're I've had one l species that
40:35
Speaker 2: eight mice, but most of them eat chomped up veggies.
40:38
Speaker 2: You know, we have a handout on what veggies to
40:41
Speaker 2: chop up, same healing properties, you know, with some high
40:44
Speaker 2: quality seeds, and birds thrive on that diet. But I
40:50
Speaker 2: found out you can kill a bird that's supposed to
40:52
Speaker 2: live sixty years in one year with the wrong diet.
40:55
Speaker 2: I confess I'm responsible for the death of my very
41:00
Speaker 2: first bird pet of my own. That's in book two.
41:03
Speaker 2: I was too embarrassed to admit it.
41:06
Speaker 1: And what about our companions who have fins and gills?
41:10
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I know. I don't treat as many fish
41:14
Speaker 2: because there is a fish specialist, but occasionally I'll get
41:18
Speaker 2: some in and again the same thing. Most of them
41:20
Speaker 2: are feeding a commercial fish food and I tell them to,
41:24
Speaker 2: you know, find out what they eat in the wild
41:25
Speaker 2: and just feed them that earthworms or you know, other
41:29
Speaker 2: types of plant matter. It kind of That's what I
41:33
Speaker 2: call it, healing both ends of the leash. Every species
41:36
Speaker 2: there is thrives on the food they're meant to eat,
41:39
Speaker 2: and they're ecological surroundings or ecosystem and they go sideways
41:46
Speaker 2: if they're eating processed food. And rats are a really
41:50
Speaker 2: good one. You know. The rats are off in rodent
41:52
Speaker 2: laboratory blocks, and we just get rat after rat coming
41:56
Speaker 2: in with tumors, and so I just tell them to
42:00
Speaker 2: make up real food. And these rats just do really,
42:04
Speaker 2: really well. But so much of the food out there, unfortunately,
42:08
Speaker 2: is not tightly regulated and there's stockholders to please, so
42:13
Speaker 2: they don't always put in the best quality ingredients, and
42:16
Speaker 2: there's just no substitute for real food. It's just magic
42:20
Speaker 2: in my forty year experience.
42:22
Speaker 1: My guest is doctor Doug Coward. His book is called
42:25
Speaker 1: Healing Both Ends of the Leash. We'll be back with
42:28
Speaker 1: more after these words on the Old Times Radio network.
42:32
Speaker 5: Humanity Healing International is a small nonprofit with a big dream.
42:37
Speaker 5: Since two thousand and seven, HHI has been working tirelessly
42:41
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42:45
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42:53
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42:57
Speaker 5: dot org. Humanity Healing is where your heart is.
43:02
Speaker 3: This is Kathy Biele, host of Celestial Compass featuring astrology.
43:07
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43:11
Speaker 3: on in the sky and what you can do with
43:13
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43:23
Speaker 3: Join me the first and third Monday of the month
43:25
Speaker 3: at five pm Eastern Time for a Celestial Compass. It's enlightening, entertaining,
43:31
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43:34
Speaker 6: So I'm a cat and I just moved in with
43:36
Speaker 6: this new human and she's got this little toy she's
43:38
Speaker 6: always playing with all day long. Tap tap tap tap,
43:42
Speaker 6: bloop bloop. She can't put it down there it is.
43:45
Speaker 6: Oh and get this, She even talks to it. Last
43:48
Speaker 6: week she asked it for Chinese and guess what Eggrel
43:51
Speaker 6: showed up Like magic. Humans have cool toys.
43:55
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43:56
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Speaker 6: ad Council and the Shelter Petproject dot org.
44:04
Speaker 1: Back on Destination Unlimited. My guest this week doctor Doug Coward.
44:08
Speaker 1: His book is called Healing Both Ends of the Leash. Doug.
44:13
Speaker 1: How does the Animal and Bird Clinic of Mission v
44:15
Speaker 1: Aho differ from other veterinary practices.
44:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was kind of unique in that gentleman I
44:23
Speaker 2: took over for doctor Perry Spadeen was a primarily a
44:28
Speaker 2: raptor vet near in a birds of prey, and that's
44:32
Speaker 2: not much of a clientele for ninety nine point nine
44:34
Speaker 2: percent of the vet clinics, so he had quite a following.
44:38
Speaker 2: And he invented a technique for devocalizing peacocks. He devocalized
44:43
Speaker 2: all of you Heppner's peacocks at the Playboy Mansion, and
44:47
Speaker 2: he invented a lot of different surgeries, and then he
44:50
Speaker 2: was called integrative. He believed you could heal with food, herbs,
44:54
Speaker 2: things like that. So when I took over for him
44:57
Speaker 2: when he retired, he made me promise that I would
45:00
Speaker 2: continue to practice the same way as his, and so
45:03
Speaker 2: we do most of the animals nobody else wants to do.
45:07
Speaker 2: Because birds usually hide their signs of being ill for
45:11
Speaker 2: about three weeks in the wild that they acted sick.
45:14
Speaker 2: A predator would get them immediately, so they act like
45:17
Speaker 2: everything's normal even though they're very ill. Than just before
45:21
Speaker 2: they're about to die, they puff up to look bigger
45:23
Speaker 2: to the predator in the case of birds, and then
45:26
Speaker 2: they die. But usually they die in my hands and
45:30
Speaker 2: you squeeze them or something. It's not a great practice
45:33
Speaker 2: builder to work on exotic animals. A lot of the
45:37
Speaker 2: rodents or rats, mice, they hide their signs of being
45:41
Speaker 2: ill because they're prey species. They don't want want to
45:44
Speaker 2: look sick or they get eaten in the wild, and
45:46
Speaker 2: so same with rabbits. So they all have this genetic
45:50
Speaker 2: DNA built into them, just like we do. We basically
45:53
Speaker 2: have the DNA of a hunter gathered from forty thousand
45:56
Speaker 2: years ago who's used to running from tigers instead of
45:59
Speaker 2: running from the deadlines like we do now. And so
46:03
Speaker 2: again it's not a practice most people want at all.
46:08
Speaker 2: And also financially, you know, when somebody gets a rent
46:11
Speaker 2: for three dollars, you know they're not as inclined, you know,
46:15
Speaker 2: want to spend as much and I certainly don't want
46:17
Speaker 2: to charge as much on them. So that was one
46:20
Speaker 2: side of it. Then the integrative when people come in
46:24
Speaker 2: for integrative care. I'm directing them to the grocery store,
46:27
Speaker 2: so financially, there's not a big sale going on there.
46:30
Speaker 2: So I never cared. I never went into it to
46:33
Speaker 2: make a dollar. I just loved what I was doing
46:35
Speaker 2: and you know, hoped we would be okay. And so
46:41
Speaker 2: it's very different. I was the only integrative practice that
46:45
Speaker 2: did exotics in our area, so we didn't did get
46:49
Speaker 2: a lot of referrals. You know, I'd worked for a
46:51
Speaker 2: lot of vets thinking I was going to eventually move
46:55
Speaker 2: up to Central California. That fell through, which is a
46:58
Speaker 2: disaster in a book, but it was you know, it
47:01
Speaker 2: all worked out in the end. But it's just an
47:05
Speaker 2: area that most vet Nearians don't want to go into.
47:09
Speaker 2: You can't do a lot of ultrasound or workups, bloodwork
47:13
Speaker 2: on some of these tiny ones, so you have to
47:16
Speaker 2: just guess and do the best you can, which I
47:17
Speaker 2: found interesting, you know, from an ecology point of view.
47:20
Speaker 2: I was interested in the whole pet anyway, and not
47:25
Speaker 2: just looking at one organ or the other. So it
47:27
Speaker 2: was not a great business move, but it was perfect
47:31
Speaker 2: for me, to be honest with you, I was already
47:33
Speaker 2: trained to be an integrat of that from doctor Thorson
47:37
Speaker 2: and trained from vet school to do all these unusual
47:40
Speaker 2: animals just well. As you mentioned earlier in our discussion,
47:45
Speaker 2: it's synchronicity probably is the best description of what.
47:49
Speaker 1: Happened, absolutely, since your work and book address both ends
47:55
Speaker 1: of the leash. How do human emotions affect their animal companions.
48:00
Speaker 2: Oh a lot. It's been proven scientifically that a dog
48:06
Speaker 2: can smell stress on you when you get home. In fact,
48:09
Speaker 2: I was reading one book they called The Forever Dog
48:11
Speaker 2: a great book, and other I'm saying facetiously, when you
48:15
Speaker 2: get home, if you had a tough day, go take
48:16
Speaker 2: a shower, and then our dogs definitely experience stress. There
48:20
Speaker 2: are so many examples of dogs that owners never came home,
48:26
Speaker 2: you know, a fatal accident or something, and they're just waiting,
48:32
Speaker 2: stress to the max. Where are they? Where are they?
48:34
Speaker 2: There's even a statue in Gungadee, Austray about a dog
48:37
Speaker 2: whose owner went on a train one morning and never
48:40
Speaker 2: came back, and he greeted the train station every day
48:43
Speaker 2: waiting for the rest of his life. So they have
48:46
Speaker 2: the same adrenal glands that we do. Work similarly, and
48:51
Speaker 2: dogs get so excited just like we do. And they
48:54
Speaker 2: also experience stress, and again this is more my second book,
48:58
Speaker 2: but they try their best to heal us. They they
49:03
Speaker 2: do like you do. You're a healer, and they, I've
49:08
Speaker 2: been told, send their energy trying to heal us too.
49:10
Speaker 2: So it's either a magical existence or a stressful existence
49:14
Speaker 2: depending who talks and cats and birds are living with.
49:18
Speaker 2: It's really a fascinating world.
49:21
Speaker 1: Does a calm and compassionate human result in the same
49:26
Speaker 1: from their companion?
49:28
Speaker 2: I believe so because the dogs are getting the same
49:33
Speaker 2: energy from their their human and they do that in
49:36
Speaker 2: Zeus too. You know, the cheetahs are manic, you know,
49:38
Speaker 2: because they're they're a predator and they're always trying to
49:41
Speaker 2: find food. Where they put a mellow dog inside the
49:44
Speaker 2: cheetahs cage just to calm them down. So the Animal
49:48
Speaker 2: Behavior List have taken advantage of that. And you know,
49:51
Speaker 2: for a lot of people, getting a pet is wonderful
49:56
Speaker 2: and vice versa. You get some of these poor well,
49:59
Speaker 2: I've got and I've got a It's a long story,
50:01
Speaker 2: but my most recent adopted dog just had the most
50:06
Speaker 2: terrible happenings to him as eighty eight year old owner
50:09
Speaker 2: died nobody knew either of them were missing for a
50:13
Speaker 2: few days when they finally went in to see what
50:17
Speaker 2: was wrong. What I haven't seen this poor old lady
50:19
Speaker 2: and Muggsy he's guarding her. The paramedics want to do CPR.
50:23
Speaker 2: Unfortunately she's already passed away. Muggsy grabs, you know, the
50:27
Speaker 2: paramedics bites him. He's put in the kennel. He's barking
50:30
Speaker 2: man maniacally. They want to euthanize him, and they thought
50:35
Speaker 2: he's only three. There's got to be a sucker out there.
50:38
Speaker 2: And his name was Doug Coward. So I rescued this
50:41
Speaker 2: unadoptable dog, and so we do our best to be
50:45
Speaker 2: calm around him and to try to keep him mellow
50:48
Speaker 2: because he's just been so horribly traumatized. And he is
50:52
Speaker 2: a great dog. He just loves all of us. But
50:54
Speaker 2: he still has trouble in the general public. So that's
50:58
Speaker 2: along withed answer to absolute. We can calm our dogs down,
51:01
Speaker 2: or they can be used to calm us down as well.
51:05
Speaker 2: You get a doctor Gernari, who I mentioned earlier. She
51:09
Speaker 2: wrote a prescription for a doll my age, you know,
51:12
Speaker 2: in her late sixty seventies, who are suffering from all
51:15
Speaker 2: these illnesses, lived alone. She wrote a prescription to go
51:18
Speaker 2: adopt a dog from the pound. The lady thought she
51:21
Speaker 2: was crazy. She comes back a month later, glowing, healthy
51:25
Speaker 2: and hugs. Doctor Gernari said, you have saved my life
51:29
Speaker 2: with this dog, not with medicine. So it's a reciprocal relationship.
51:33
Speaker 2: Both ends of the least can heal each other.
51:36
Speaker 1: Absolutely, from my personal experience, and I know from the
51:40
Speaker 1: experience of many listeners, I know how hard it is
51:44
Speaker 1: to bring our beloved companions to be euthanized. How does
51:48
Speaker 1: your practice address this and what advice would you share
51:52
Speaker 1: with our listeners.
51:53
Speaker 2: That is a really tough question because vett Nearns are
51:57
Speaker 2: number one in suicide, and you know, part of it
51:59
Speaker 2: is having to do so much of that. We were
52:01
Speaker 2: blessed and that we had two staff members who were
52:05
Speaker 2: just oozing compassion, and they would often go in the
52:08
Speaker 2: rooms with me and we would just, you know, go
52:12
Speaker 2: really slowly and try to make sure it was the
52:17
Speaker 2: right time. I would go through just three simple signs
52:20
Speaker 2: of suffering, and if they had any, then we tried
52:22
Speaker 2: to let the pets go when they had their pride
52:25
Speaker 2: and dignity, not when they were really suffering in pain
52:29
Speaker 2: and miserable, and swear adviser did a big survey of
52:34
Speaker 2: all these VET clinics all over the country and we
52:37
Speaker 2: came out number one in euthanasia. I'm going I don't
52:40
Speaker 2: know if that's the Booby Prize or if that's something good,
52:42
Speaker 2: but apparently we had a hospital that did euthanasias very
52:52
Speaker 2: gently and humanely and left people feeling well in one
52:57
Speaker 2: of the most difficult situation in anybody's life. I mean,
53:00
Speaker 2: it's been misery for me every time I've lost mine
53:04
Speaker 2: or had to put one of my own to sleep.
53:07
Speaker 2: So having really compassionate staff, having simple thoughts on when
53:12
Speaker 2: it's time, and then I found the pets don't want
53:16
Speaker 2: to go unless the famili's all given them their blessing,
53:19
Speaker 2: and then they go so quickly and it's peaceful and easy.
53:23
Speaker 2: But it's changed a lot over the years. Now we
53:26
Speaker 2: encourage the families to be there to hold them. We
53:29
Speaker 2: try to have a quiet designated room. We make sure
53:33
Speaker 2: the whole hospital knows we have end of life going on,
53:38
Speaker 2: and our whole staff has experienced it, and so they
53:44
Speaker 2: use as much compassion and kindness as possible, and so
53:48
Speaker 2: usually can be a blessing to be honest with you
53:50
Speaker 2: rather than the only time it's been horrible is when
53:53
Speaker 2: I euthanize my own dog, Muggsy at midnight, a rooting
53:57
Speaker 2: at midnight because my kids wanted to spend more time
53:59
Speaker 2: with and I had to do it by myself, and
54:02
Speaker 2: I just broke with mountains of tiers for hours, and
54:08
Speaker 2: then I started writing the book after. But it was
54:13
Speaker 2: really hard on me and I you know, it brings
54:15
Speaker 2: tears bis and I have to think about putting my
54:17
Speaker 2: own dog to sleep. I hope no vetnoran never does that.
54:22
Speaker 1: My guest, doctor Doug Coward his amazing book Healing Both
54:26
Speaker 1: Ends of the Leash. Doug, one more time, please share
54:29
Speaker 1: with our listeners where they can get your book and
54:31
Speaker 1: find out more about you and your wonderful work.
54:34
Speaker 2: Oh well, thank you, Victor. And as I told Victor,
54:36
Speaker 2: I had no social media until I published this book.
54:39
Speaker 2: So now you can go on Amazon, and the website
54:45
Speaker 2: Healing Both Ends of the Leash will direct you to
54:48
Speaker 2: where you can purchase the book on Amazon. If you
54:51
Speaker 2: type in my name Doug Coward, VET Narrator author, it'll
54:56
Speaker 2: direct your right to the website or LinkedIn al those
55:01
Speaker 2: purtacy of a publisher fixed all that up. We'll direct
55:03
Speaker 2: it to the website, where again any sales I donate
55:07
Speaker 2: to helping homelessening helpless animals. So thank you so much,
55:12
Speaker 2: Victor for having me on. I have learned way more
55:16
Speaker 2: from you, and I'm so honored to be part of
55:20
Speaker 2: this podcast on your incredible organization and your incredible voice.
55:25
Speaker 1: Doug, thank you, and I'm grateful to you because the
55:28
Speaker 1: message that you shared is so important. There are so
55:31
Speaker 1: many people in this world of stress and angst who
55:35
Speaker 1: have pets or are contemplating bringing companions home, and your
55:40
Speaker 1: advice to them is so welcomed. Thank you so so much.
55:44
Speaker 2: Now I'm grateful to you, and again thank you for
55:48
Speaker 2: letting me share my saga. But I truly learned way
55:51
Speaker 2: more from you. Thank you for the Victor, so thank
55:54
Speaker 2: you for all you enlighten me with. And I look
55:58
Speaker 2: forward to meeting you in person one of these days
56:00
Speaker 2: in the future on these coasts. Thank you so much.
56:03
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and when your next book is published, you've got
56:06
Speaker 1: to get a hold of me right away because we've
56:07
Speaker 1: got to have to have you back on again.
56:09
Speaker 2: I would be so honored. Thank you so much, Victor,
56:12
Speaker 2: and thank you.
56:12
Speaker 1: For joining us on Destination Unlimited. I'm Victor the Voice Furman.
56:18
Speaker 1: Have a wonderful week.