Announcer: You are listening to PetLifeRadio.com.

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Announcer: Is your pet stressed out? Does your pet need annual vaccines? Which pet is best for a child? Would you know if your dog was in pain? PetLifeRadio {.com} presents "The Pet Doctor". Where you'll learn everything about keeping your pet healthy and happy. From pet care, pet meds, and grooming, to pet food, pet insurance, and dental care. This is the place to find out everything there is to know about pet wellness.. Whether you have a dog, cat, reptile, or rabbit, you'll find answers for your pets straight from the vets. Because your pet's health matters. Please, welcome your pet doctor host, veterinary media consultant and veterinarian, Dr. Bernadine Cruz.
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Dr. Bernadine Cruz: If you've already had a pet for any length of time, you've likely utilized traditional commercially manufactured diets for your pet. And your veterinarian has probably been treating your pet with traditional Western medicine, but there are alternatives that may better suit your pet. My name is Dr. Bernadine Cruz and you're listening to PetLifeRadio.com and "The Pet Doctor" show. Dr. Sally Perea, a board-certified veterinarian and nutritionists and Dr. Caroline Goulard, a certified acupuncturist and Chinese herbalist, are my guests today. We'll explore why would you want to whip up your pet's meal at home, and if the traditional Eastern medicine is maybe just what the doctor ordered. After this short commercial break we will be back and speak to Dr. Perea. Sit! Stay! We'll be right back.

Announcer: Please, have a seat in the waiting room. The doctor will be with you shortly, right after this message.

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Announcer: Let's talk pets on PetLifeRadio.com.

Announcer: Welcome back to "The Pet Doctor" on PetLifeRadio.com with Dr. Bernadine Cruz. The doctor is in and will see you now.

Dr. Bernadine Cruz: You're listening to PetLifeRadio.com and my guest is Dr. Sally Perea of BalanceIt.com. Dr. Perea, thank you so much for being with us today. Get us a little bit of a background of who you are and what made you come to BalanceIt.com.

Dr. Sally Perea: Okay, thank you, first of all, for having me on your show tonight. And just to give you some background about myself, I am a veterinarian and, actually, prior to that school I had developed an interest in nutrition and had thought about pursuing that as an alternative path to veterinary medicine based on where the #curves led me. But, luckily, I was able to do both things. And while I was at the veterinary school, I did a Masters degree in nutrition, and that kind of started me on the path. And then after veterinary school, after I did an internship for a year in Chicago, I actually came back to Davis, California, where I went to that school and entered a residency program called "Nutrition". And that kind of led me to where I am today, because in Davis there is a company that was started by Dr. Sean Delaney, who is also a board-certified nutritionists, who develops the BalanceIt {.com} software and supplement. And he recruited me to work with him, here in Davis.

Dr. Bernadine Cruz: Now after we had the food recall earlier this year, the pet food recall, I know a lot of people, who have been very nervous about feeding commercially made foods. Are there some pros and cons about making your own food at home?

Dr. Sally Perea: Yes, there are definitely some advantages and disadvantages to home cooking. And a lot of these advantages and disadvantages apply even prior to the recall, because we've worked with a lot of people with home cooking. And I'd say the number one advantage that people like is that they have control of the ingredients they're feeding, and that just provides some assurance that they know the ingredients they're feeding are wholesome. And they can also collect things that they themselves could eat it, which really makes sense. When you think about feeding your pet, you want to feed them something that you yourself would feel comfortable eating. So that's one of the advantages as far as maybe a healthy bet.

And for other pets that may have medical problems there is often times when there isn't a commercial food that can address all of their needs. So, that's another good advantage to home cooking, because we can formulate the recipes specific to that pet's needs.

Some of the disadvantages are that whenever you're home cooking, there is always room for error and, although, we, as the veterinary nutritionists might formulate it to be nice and balanced, once it's in the hands of the pet owner, there may be some misinterpretation or substitution of ingredients - something we always worry about, we call it "diet-dressed". So, pet foods are a little bit more standardized and many of them have been tested through feeding trials, where home cooked recipes are not necessarily standard and haven't undergone some of the feeding trials. So, just on that level they could have some flexibility and more room for an error. That would be one of the major disadvantages.

Dr. Bernadine Cruz: I know there is a lot of different websites and books that are now available, again after the pet food recall, that people are saying: "Well, a veterinarian has said that this is okay to feed". Why is it so different versus myself? Yes, I'm a veterinarian, but I wouldn't feel comfortable recommending a diet? Why do they still have to be careful about, even if it does say "veterinarian approved" on some of these home-cooked recipes you're finding online or in books?

Dr. Sally Perea: Well, some of the main problems I've seen with some the recipes that may be in books or online is that the recommendations can be fake. One of the nice tools that we like to use when teaching our students is having them go online, and pick a recipe, and then enter it into our software to have it analyzed. And just watch how different students interpret the instructions. Sometimes instructions can be very vague: "add one multi-vitamin supplement", or "chicken", where they may not specify such things as "chicken breast", or chicken thigh".

And so, sometimes, you can run into problems with published recipes that aren't very specific. And, depending on human that interprets the information, they may have some deficiencies created, or they may take something that might actually create and excess. So, there probably are some nutrition and the recipes, or veterinary approved recipes that have been specifically balanced and okay to put. But just because there is this #wildst of information online, it makes it hard to know, if it has been current, or if the recommendation is standardized or precise.

Dr. Bernadine Cruz: Sometimes you pay for what they get?

Dr. Sally Perea: Yes. So, it's kind of a long way of saying that you just have less precision and it may not be something that's been updated in a while. There are some recipe books that are pretty outdated, and so, some of the information may be hard to interpret.

Dr. Bernadine Cruz: I find it interesting, you were saying that there is a difference in the calls for a chicken, whether or not it's going to be chicken breast or chicken thigh, for instance. It's… People would say: "It's chicken!" So, why should it make a difference?

Dr. Sally Perea: Yes, it's a good question. If you balance the recipe with a regular chicken breast… If you look at the chicken breast itself, most of the calories and the nutrients in the chicken breast are gonna be coming from protein source. Versus, if you see a chicken thigh, where… In the same amount of calories from that chicken thigh there is a larger percent of those calories that's coming from fat. So, depending on where you take the protein level in the chicken breast, if you've substituted with that chicken thigh, you're actually going to decrease the amount of protein in your recipe and increase the amount of fat. And that may not set up a problem. But if you did have a particular recipe, where the protein requirement was kind of just above the minimum level, and then you switch it for a thigh, you might actually bring the protein down below the requirement. Or if you had a pet that was having fat intolerance problems, and you've switched it for a thigh, you might run into some problems with the fat levels.

Dr. Bernadine Cruz: Interesting. Now, there are a lot of people who say: "Okay, I'm going to feed a commercially made food. I feel comfortable with that. BalanceIt.com is a great place but I don't need that right now. I am just going to give some of my own people food to the dog." Are there foods that people should not give their pets?

Dr. Sally Perea: Yes, that's also a good question. There is some other standard foods that a lot of people have heard of, like: "You shouldn't feed chocolate to dogs". Also a lot of people have heard about not feeding Macadamia Nuts to dogs as well, because those things can cause seizure type problems.

There is also concerns about feeding onions and even garlic to pets, especially cats, because they can be more sensitive than humans and can develop a high pneumonia, which is basically an oxidative damage to the red blood cells. And that's something that we see more commonly in cats, because they are more sensitive than dogs. But there have been reports of the same occurrence in dogs. What hasn't been shown is really, where is the exact safe dose. So, most of the time, we'll just recommend that people avoid onion and garlic altogether. But there are… You might find some foods and treats out there with a small amount of garlic. And that's probably not causing a problem.

And the other big one that's come on the list in recent years is grapes and raisins for feeding these to dogs has been associated with canine kidney problems. And that's something that a lot of people haven't heard about. So, I have appointments commonly and people will mention that they feed grapes as a treat, and you do want to avoid that if you have a pet dog, because I have that associated with canine kidney failure.

Dr. Bernadine Cruz: Can you explain a little bit about what BalanceIt.com is? Is it a site that can be used by veterinarians, or pet owners, or both. Why would we go to some place like that?

Dr. Sally Perea: Sure. BalanceIt.com was originally created as a site just for veterinarians. And then, about a year ago, we opened up a site called PetLovers {.com}. And so, that's a site that pet owners can go to to create recipes for pets. And then, just in June, we opened up another site called the VetExpress {.com}, which is a quicker tool for veterinarians to create home-cooked recipes. So, this was all started about three years ago when Dr. Delaney finished his residency and saw a need to having an updated software programs for balancing home-cooked diets for pets. And so, it was originally created as a tool for veterinarians to create home-cooked diets when they have patients that cannot be on commercial foods. With the expanding interest of people in home-cooking for their pets, we added that site for the pet lovers. That site is actually using software that's on our professional site, but it's virtually behind the scenes. So, the pet owner can go on and select recipes that we've already preset into our software. We have a module called the "Auto-balancer" where we've set the requirements and set the core distribution for this recipe.

Dr. Bernadine Cruz: Is that determined by the breed of the dog, the age of the pet, activity level? What determines what type of diet is best, or it's just what you think: "Oh, this looks good! I want to give that a try."

Dr. Sally Perea: Yes. Well, there is a lot of variety on the PetLovers site, because what's good for one dog might not be good for another dog. So, we have standard combination recipes, where the distribution of protein fat carbohydrate is pretty much what you see in the commercial food. And then we have low-carb recipes for people who want to feed a higher protein diet with a low over carbohydrate content.

And that might be more appropriate for a younger animal, or, potentially, an animal with a diabetes. And you may want to avoid this for animals that have urinal disease, or pancreatitis. So, you will see if you go to the site, that we have a lot of variety, because there is not always the one best diet for all animals. So, it kind of depends on the specific pet, but there are a lot of different options, and there are different combinations of meats and carbohydrates. And some of them… you can actually create some vegetarian diets for dogs, if you're a pet owner that's a vegetarian.

Dr. Bernadine Cruz: Would you recommend vegetarian diet for cats?

Dr. Sally Perea: Actually, it's really difficult to balance a diet for cats that are vegetarians. And one of the main reasons is because cats require an amino amino acid called the arachidonic acid  in their diet, and you can only source that fat from animal fat, or you can get it from some #{use, east, ease} cultures, but that's not readily available for people to purchase at stores. So, on our website we don't actually have any Tofu diets for cats, because it was difficult to meet some of their amino acid requirements for that protein source, because it's pretty low, and some amino acid. And we do have some cottage chese diets but you have to add turkey fat to those recipes to meet that arachidonic acid requirement.

Dr. Bernadine Cruz: So, there are times when home cooking just isn't going to fit the bill?

Dr. Sally Perea: Yes, exactly. There are some commercial vegetarian diets out there for cats that use those east culture sources for arachidonic acid, but that's just something that's not readily available for somebody cooking at home.

Dr. Bernadine Cruz: If somebody wanted to try doing some home cooking for their pets, where can they go? And you told me that there is going to be a special for the listeners to this show. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Dr. Sally Perea: Sure, if you go to our website, which is www.BalanceIt.com, and select the PetLovers {.com} site, you can create a recipe for your pet. And when you get to the checkout page, the check out shopping cart window, there is a box there for a promotional code, and I've created a code that's titled "Pet Doctor" as the name of this segment. And that's two words with a capital "P", and a capital "D". And that will apply a $20 credit, which is a price for one balanced recipe. So, that'll give listeners an opportunity to go on and take a look, and get a recipe without having to pay for it to see what they think of the recipe, and if it's one that they like. And we also do have a policy that if you purchase a recipe and your pet doesn't like it, we'll exchange it for another one.

Dr. Bernadine Cruz: Well, great. And you also have vitamin supplements, as I understand, too?

Dr. Sally Perea: Yes, we have a… what we call, kind of a all-in-one vitamin and mineral mix for balancing recipes for pets. And we also on our website will provide instructions for balancing the recipes with human supplements, and both are good options. And we can have a biased viewpoint that I personally think that the BalanceIt supplements that are available, are easier to use. It is a all-in-one powder and it's scoopable, so balancing your pet's recipes using that supplement is pretty simple. You just scoop it into the food and mix that.

But you can use a combination of human supplements, which normally include a multi-vitamin and minerals supplements, calcium and phosphorus supplements, and, occasionally, will add in collagen or zinc with additional nutrients that aren't always provided by multi-vitamins and multi-minerals. So, you can have up to five or more touring for cats and of human supplements. So, they're all-in-one supplements, the BalanceIt supplements, they're a little bit easier, and, usually, it's more cost-effective than buying all the human supplements. But those are viable options just as long as you are supplementing your home-cooked diets.

Dr. Bernadine Cruz: Well, great you've given us some wonderful information for those people that want to take the time and effort and come up with a great diet for their pets, instead of just going to the Internet not knowing exactly what you're getting. You can have it made specifically for your pet by going to BalanceIt.com.

If you have questions about pet foods after these recalls, treats being recalled, food being recalled, a lot of pet owners are understandably very nervous about what they're feeding their pet, great source that you can go to for constantly updated reliable information is www.avm.org. That's the American Veterinary Medical Association. They are constantly updating that site. So, Dr. Perea, thank you so much for being with us. Stay tuned, we'll be back with Dr. Goulard talking about acupuncture and Chinese herbal treatment. Stay tuned.

Announcer: Please, have a seat in the waiting room. The doctor will be with you shortly. Right after these messages.

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Lets talk pets on a PetLifeRadio.com.

Announcer: Welcome back to The Pet Doctor on the PetLifeRadio with Dr. Bernadine Cruz. The doctor is in and will see you now.

Dr. Bernadine Cruz: When you hear the words "traditional medicine" it is really a matter of where you leave as to what is considered traditional. As early, as 2800 B.C. the Chinese have been using herbs to restore and preserve health. Many of modern medications in use today are based on old herbal formulas. My guest is Dr. Caroline Goulard. Thank you so much, Caroline, for being with us.

Dr. Caroline Goulard: You're Welcome!

Dr. Bernadine Cruz: Well, I think people are hearing a little bit of an accent in that "You're Welcome!" Can you give us a bit of background as to what your training has been in traditional Western medicine and now getting into Eastern?

Dr. Caroline Goulard: Wes, absolutely. So, I've graduated from Montreal University in Canada in 1988. So, I've been practicing conventional medicine, what we're doing in clinics these days, until the last two years. So, two years ago I took an acupuncture course that's certified in animal acupuncture by the International Veterinary Acupuncture Society and it has kind of opened the door for this wonderful voyage in physically holistic medicine for animals. After I got more advanced courses in acupuncture, and Chinese herbs, and whatever it also covered, what we call traditional Chinese veterinary medicine, and I've got totally interested also in #punp therapy, and also whatever is Western type herbals, and some nutraceuticals  .
 
Dr. Bernadine Cruz: Why did you go to the Eastern side, since you've been trained in Western medicine?

Dr. Caroline Goulard: Physically I've always been interested by the asian way of doing things that are very cultural, that are very dear with nature, they are very in tune with nature, if you want. And I've always heard, when I was a veterinary student: "Oh, well, you know, we know that #country back problem in horses just might be able to release some of the pain". And so, knowing the Asian culture, knowing that there might be other types of medicine that could be working, it took me all of that time to kind of discover where I could take a course in just, like I said, start this voyage. I didn't know I was gonna take .

Dr. Bernadine Cruz: With acupuncture, a lot of people would say: "This has to be just a placebo effect, you know, person goes in, has a couple of needles popped up in their body. It must make me feel better, so I feel better." What would you say about the placebo effect?

Dr. Caroline Goulard: I would say a couple things. Well, first, I've had acupuncture myself, so, I can definitely talk about whatever happened to me. But, basically, when you take animals, the placebo effect is, I would say, almost nil, because, basically, the animal doesn't know that you are trying to make them feel better necessarily. And so, when you're trying to do something to them, you give them a medication, or you do acupuncture, or any type of therapy, if you see them get better, you know it's not a placebo effect. And, when I said having it done to myself because of that problems, I can definitely attest that it's great for muscle analgesia.

Dr. Bernadine Cruz: A lot of people would wonder how does acupuncture work? You have this needle that you pop into the body in different places. How do you know where to put it in, and what does it do?

Dr. Caroline Goulard: Well, basically it's for sure #depths all the points on the body. There is about, I think, a thousand points that are known in humans. And the easy way to explain to people is that with acupuncture you access the nervous system. And how does it work is still not understood for 100%. There is a lot of research in human medicine of what happens exactly. There are some points that are extremely well-known, and when you stimulate a point, it can totally tell you exactly what's gonna happen in terms of heart rate, or even what happens to your digestion.

And when you put a needle, basically you're gonna access a point, where you gonna have like microscopically, like if you have cut the tissue, and you look under the microscope. Some of those points have been checked under a microscope and, basically, you see more nerve endings there. You're gonna see more mass, so you're gonna see more lymphatics. So, there is a lot of, I should say, like connection there that makes that point really exist.

And even they've shown by research that thermograph that works at the temperature body that… When you put a needle, there is a change in temperature around that needle. And basically when you do this, also when you put a needle in certain areas, you can even do whenever you do an MRI, or other type of brain study that it does stimulate certain areas of the brain. And physically it's for short that we know the word acupuncture namely analgesia, which means pain control.

Dr. Bernadine Cruz: So, what are some of the indications that you typically use acupuncture for? Is it really just pain or there are other implications besides analgesia and pain control?

Dr. Caroline Goulard: Exactly. Well, that's definitely one of them. The thing is, basically, like I said, you access the nervous system by doing acupuncture. So, what does your nervous system control? So, we know, we talk about motor function, we talk about pain control, we are talking about even your immune system, we're talking about, what we call, a sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. And those two systems will control whatever goes with your digestion, and your breathing even, and your heart rate, and blood pressure. So these are all areas where acupuncture will do something. So, that means that you can, let's say, treat high blood pressure in a person, you might be able to treat asthma, you might be able to treat megacolon in cats.

Dr. Bernadine Cruz: So, that's constipation. Megacolon is a constipation problem.

Dr. Caroline Goulard: Yes, and it's for sure that at some point everybody has to realize that there is a limit to acupuncture. It's not a cure of all, it's not gonna cure every problem in the world. And so, basically, you know, whenever you practice acupuncture, it might be a little drop in the whole scheme of things, sometimes you still have to do your normal conventional therapy.

Dr. Bernadine Cruz: It is a matter of you using Western medicine along with this Eastern medicine?

Dr. Caroline Goulard: You basically can use both at the same time. There are some cases where I'm going to use conventional medicine. I mean, whatever we do, we call that, basically, Western medicine what we do in our clinics these days. And Eastern medicine is the acupuncture and traditional Chinese veterinary medicine. So, depending on the case, you can use both, or just one of them. It depends on the case, how we respond, and also on the owner's philosophy. Some people are just, you know, do not want to have any Western medicines. And whenever I see a patient, I can talk to the owner, I say: "Well, this is what I can do for you, and these are the limits of where we can go." So, people don't have false hopes in whatever we're going to try to do.

Dr. Bernadine Cruz: You were saying that there is many of the same points that animal's veterinary acupuncturist, or is it really safe and advisable for somebody who wants their cat treated to look in the phone book and just find a person who practices human acupuncture and take their pet to them?

Dr. Caroline Goulard: Basically, the only people that can practice acupuncture on animals to this day are veterinarians. And, basically, if people want to say: "Hey, I would like to try acupuncture or any traditional Chinese veterinary medicine" then you need to look for somebody who has done some training. And you can look at different organizations. You've got the American Animal Acupuncture Association, you have the International Acupuncture Veterinary Society, the institute where we've taken all of these advanced courses, will list some veterinarians that have taken their courses. So, you want to make sure you have somebody that has taken some training. You definitely want to have somebody who knows what they're doing.

Dr. Bernadine Cruz: You're also talking about Chinese herbs that you are a Chinese herbalist. Now, is that something that a person can just go to their local health food store and find Chinese herbs and use those?

Dr. Caroline Goulard: It’s for sure. Yes, I would say, almost unfortunately, you do have some of those Chinese herbals that are there on the market. And basically whenever you talk about Chinese herbals, you're talking about herbals that are grown in China and brought here. And, slowly by slowly, we're gonna see all these reciticals, and all Chinese herbals, and everything that's not normal medication, if you want to go under, what we call "The Good Manufacturing Practice Bill". And that basically tells you that everything from the ground up from the building to the training of people, and how the herbals are processed, have had some strict laws about how it should be done, so that whenever you get those herbals, you know they're safe.

Dr. Bernadine Cruz: I think that's a real concern that people would have about these Chinese herbals right now, after the pet food recall, and the toys being recalled. They're worried: "It says: 'Made in China', I don't want to use it".

Dr. Caroline Goulard: Exactly, and that's a very legit worry. And basically what happens, like we have the herbals I order. I order them from the First Veterinary Chinese Herbal company. And those herbals are taken from one company that is based in the United States. So, what that company does, is that they go in China to see how everything is grown and they test it in China, and they test it again, when they come back to the US.

Dr. Bernadine Cruz: What would be some medications for these herbs being used? So, that they're safe and they're effective in your hands and somebody who has training. What are some of the indications, why can't you just use traditional Western medicine? Don't they do the same thing?

Dr. Caroline Goulard: It's basically, I think, a lot of people are trying to look at certain herbals that might not be as potentially have the side effects that the normal Western medicine. And, basically, a lot of the herbals were taken for meaningful chronic problems. So, if somebody comes in and brings a very painful animal, we have to be honest with them and say: "Well, we might help you whatever it's in the chronic stage and the pain is a little bit more under control". But when it's already acute: "Well, we're sorry but we really think that your normal Western medicine is gonna be the best thing at this point." It depends on the case.

Dr. Bernadine Cruz: So, it's fascinating. You with your training now are able to use Western in the cute cases or something that's suddenly came up, and then control it in when necessary and keep the negative side effects under control with using your Eastern medicine, and using acupuncture. What's one of the most fascinating cases that you've worked on, that you've seen improvement where Western medicine had failed the pet?

Dr. Caroline Goulard: Well, the question [laughs]

Dr. Bernadine Cruz: I know you've worked on horses as well as dogs and cats.

Dr. Caroline Goulard: Yes, I'm trying to think.

Dr. Bernadine Cruz: And you were mentioning that this is used for, you know, the nervous system is being accessed. Can you use this for behavioral issues?

Dr. Caroline Goulard: Behavioral issues. Sometime it will work, sometime it will not. There are some of the pets that were initially very aggressive and scared that became more socially acceptable after some acupuncturist's sessions. And I'm  they're gonna still be painful with the diseases like hip arthritis, or their back often is hurting. And after an acupuncture session and also some Tuina, which is part of the traditional Chinese veterinary medicine concept, you know, I leave the house and the pet is doing great, the back is almost treated, the dog is happier. So, definitely I can see certain cases that… I think the only one you have to mention anti-inflammatory onboard, potentially it doesn't take care of all of those muscle spasms, and potentially all that acupuncture and all the Tuina riches of type of Chinese bodywork will help those animals.

Dr. Bernadine Cruz: And do they see results immediately, or is it going to take multiple sessions of acupuncture or use of herbs to see an improvement?

Dr. Caroline Goulard: Both. I have some pets, where right after the session I can see a difference. And other ones that might take some time up to four sessions before I see a difference.

Dr. Bernadine Cruz: So, if somebody tries it, they shouldn't give up after just one trial?

Dr. Caroline Goulard: Exactly. It's very important. Whenever I see a client, I say: "We need to give it one to four treatments before we see if it's working, or it's not working for this animal, or this case". And that's basically for some of those cases, It really does depend on what you're dealing with also. If you're dealing with nerve injuries, well, that's gonna take much longer, you'll have to give it 5 to 10 treatments before you say: "It may help, or not". Because we all know that with nerve regeneration it's a very long process, it may be months.

And in those cases it's proven, and, if you can read some articles on the human medicine, basically, you'll have some of the experiments they've done on rats, or even the latest articles on #disk disease in dogs that basically the acupuncture seems to be helping to improve the rate, at which the spine or the peripheral nerve heal. So when you're talking about certain type of diseases, you have to give yourself time. But for most processes we're gonna say: "Give yourself one to four times, and then we'll see how it goes".

Dr. Bernadine Cruz: Dr. Goulard, this is fantastic information. I think it's very interesting for a lot of people. I, myself, personally was very skeptical from first being exposed to Chinese herbology and acupuncture but I'm now a believer, and I definitely see a need for it. If somebody wanted some more information about you and acupuncture and herbology, where can they contact you? Where can they get some more information?

Dr. Caroline Goulard: You can give me a call on my physically, my business phone number which is 949-836-3772. They can also look on the web, on my website which is, basically, my name, CarolineGoulard.dvm.com. And, basically, you will have some of the information there in my contact information, and have my e-mail and whatever you want more for information.

Dr. Bernadine Cruz: Great! And they can just go to our website at PetLifeRadio.com, learn all about Dr. Goulard and how they can contact her. So, we may not know exactly how acupuncture works, or even how modern medications work and bring about recovery from illness, but we know, they do, and that's really the critical issue.

So, if you have questions regarding your pet's health, the best person to contact is always going to be your primary care veterinarian. But you could also e-mail me at Bernadine@PetLifeRadio.com. I promise to answer all your questions either during telecasts, or by personal e-mail.

My name is Dr. Bernadine Cruz and you've been listening to PetLifeRadio.com and "The Pet Doctor". The goal of this program is to entertain, educate and increase the pleasure, you and your pet share in life. And why is this important to me? Because it's your pet. Health matters. Thanks for listening.

[outro]
Announcer: Pets can be a wonderful addition to your life. Because they are a member of the family, keeping them healthy and happy is important. PetLifeRadio {.com} presents "The Pet Doctor", with veterinary media consultant and veterinarian, Dr. Bernadine Cruz. Whether you have a dog, cat, reptile, or rabbit – you'll find answers for your pets straight from the vets. On demand, every week, only on PetLifeRadio.com.
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