How I came to practice homeopathy

I was a very happy new graduate veterinarian in 1980, when I moved back to my home state of Wisconsin and embarked on my chosen career in a mixed practice, seeing lots of dairy cows, horses, and pets in the beautiful Kettle Morraine country. The drugs and surgery I had been trained in seemed to “work” for the most part. Yet, I felt some discontent, even as I gained mastery in the treatments of the day.

After seven years in this conventional practice, I felt a calling from within that made me move on. I felt there had to be something more, though I didn’t know what. I explored chiropractic for animals, nutrition with homemade foods, and took a year long certification training in acupuncture. All of this gave me some useful tools to offer my patients, but it wasn’t until I took certification training in homeopathy that I felt as though I’d really come home. At last.

Attending Dr. Pitcairn’s first year long post graduate homeopathy training in 1992-93 was a real eye-opener. I immediately began incorporating homeopathy in my practice, even before finishing the course, and found amazing results in quite difficult cases. My “homeopathic honeymoon” saw cures of epilepsy, skin disease, chronic ear infections, poor behavior, even cancer. And all of this with medicines so dilute that the skeptics would not believe they could possibly work. But work they did, these tiny pills! And I knew that animals could not possibly have placebo effects like people might!

So, I devoted my entire practice to this gentle, effective medical treatment. And I saw something I never saw before in conventional practice: upon proper treatment, the WHOLE ANIMAL gets well. For example, I’ve seen tartar encrusted teeth clear up and become white in an animal I was treating for skin disease! I regularly see animals stop shedding, smelling badly, acting crazy, and having eye discharges, while I am treating for some other problem. This is the definition of holistic health care.

While I haven’t forgotten my conventional training, it is with great enthusiasm that I embrace the ongoing training that it takes to be a homeopathic veterinarian. To be a good homeopath, you really need to study each case, and keep learning more about the remedies and proper management of the chronic cases. While very challenging, I thoroughly enjoy my work, treating animals homeopathically throughout the globe.