Customer Reviews

The Last Chance Dog: and Other True Stories of Holistic Animal Healing

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Okay, once I got past the 50's-textbook-cover design (which does an inadequate job of expressing the vitality of the book and its author), I discovered a dynamic, articulate animal advocate; a very knowledgeable veterinarian (both conventional and holistic, explaining acupuncture and the Chinese medicinal theory behind it, chiropractic, herbal & homeopathic solutions, and other alternative approaches); and a delightful storyteller. Her enthusiasm and personality fairly jump off the pages; her stories are well written and heartwarming/heartbreaking (18 chapters, 18 bouts of tears), and her advice is absolutely essential. The only challenge is keeping track of it all - I have tattered sticky-note bookmarks spewing from the book edges. She uses an interesting and effective structural rhythm: case stories followed by explorations of the medical issues and alternative medicine solutions each story brings up.

Dr. Kelleher is impassioned and opinionated (without ever judging or making me feel inadequate because, for example, I can't get my cats to eat home-cooked food), compassionate (her love of animals is glaringly apparent), brutally honest (revealing her heartbreaking frustration and despair at some cases), thoughtful and interesting (her embrace of holistic medicine is both well-reasoned while also quite intuitive as she tells the tale of her medical-intellectual-emotional-spiritual journey), and, at times, funny, like when she crawls around in a dirty crawlspace looking for her escaped tortoise muttering, "I am the worst tortoise mom in the whole world." By this point in the book, you can see her doing this and chuckling while a tear escapes the corner of your eye.

A great read: entertaining, heartwarming, informative, and ultimately hopeful. Any person owned by a pet will love (and benefit from) this book, even more so if your animal companion has medical challenges.

I just got my book yesterday afternoon and couldn't put it down. It is eloquently written with warmth and love towards our very best friends. I highly recommend this to anyone who truly wants to explore the horizons of alternative medicine to a successful healing of your pet. Includes recipes for Natural Foods and simple safe remedies for common conditions your pet may suffer. A complete and caring look into both the physical and psychological needs of both pet and human. Definitely come away with a wonderful feeling that someone truly understands the beauty of a life with pets, never giving up on them and they never give up on us.

If you are an animal lover, and are interested in miraculous stories of animal healing with alternative medicine -- YOU MUST OWN THIS BOOK! This is the best book on alternative healing I have seen. It is written in story form, very enjoyable to read and will have you crying with joy through the entire book at all of the animals' lives who were saved because this vet thought outside the box, and never gave up on an animal. I have taken this book to my holistic vet and we are helping a very sick cat of ours with the information we gleaned from it. He is getting better and would probably have had to be put to sleep if not for my having read this book. Thank you, Dr. Kelleher for your wisdom and compassion!

Written and compiled by holistic veterinarian Donna Kelleher, The Last Chance Dog And Other True Stories Of Holistic Animal Healing is a heartwarming anthology of stories about treating animals ranging from dogs and cats, to horses, turtles, birds, and more, through the application of alternative medicine. Engagingly narrated in a down-to-earth fashion, The Last Chance Dog is an engaging, entertaining, informative, and very highly recommended read for animal lovers everywhere.

I read a LOT of animal-related books, and this is one of the very best. It is so well-written and engaging, that you can hardly put it down (although I had to often, just to process all the new information that Dr. Kelleher gave in each and every chapter). I have learned so much about holistic vet care from this book and really appreciate her knowledge and the way she shares it with us. Each chapter gives a beautiful, moving story about a particular animal and the health problems he or she has been going through, as well as the fears and frustrations that the animals' humans are experiencing. Probably most of us who have ever lived with animals have gone through those most difficult times, and I especially appreciated the love expressed by both Dr. Kelleher and the animals' caretakers in each instance.

I am now determined to find a holistic vet for my cats and am excited about starting them on the homemade cat diet that Dr. Kelleher gives us in the book (and, yes, there's a dog one too!). This is a must-have book for everyone who lives with an animal, and the stories are wonderful to read for all animal lovers.

I am the holistic skeptic in the title of this review. I picked up this book and figured it would be full of touchy-feely nonsense, but instead, I was enthralled. The case studies were entirely believable and the treatments were explained so well that the basic aspects of alternative veterinary medicine began to make sense. When I finished the book, I immediately began to explore educational opportunities so I could learn more than just the western medicine I'm familiar with (I'm a vet tech student). I even gave the book as a gift to a couple of friends because the stories were so wonderful and full of hope.

The only section of this book that I think should have been edited out was an odd description of the author sort of sashaying through her garden and listening to the plants talk to her or something peculiar along those lines. All the holistic medicine was professionally described and explained, and then the educational tone was tainted, in my opinion, by the peculiar fantasy passage. I think the book would be better off with those few pages removed, because it turned the author from "genius" to "crackpot" in my mind. I guess I'm still a bit of a skeptic about some stuff, but most of the book was excellent!

I read about this book in our local newspaper, and after reading it, was so enthralled by Dr. Kelleher and her effective methods of curing "incurable" problems with animals, I discovered, to my delight, that she practices in Seattle, where I live! I finally managed to get an appointment in her very busy practice, and my two elderly cats and I have been going to see her regularly ever since! She is a Godsend, and a miracle worker. She has managed, through acupuncture, chiropractic, and herbal remedies, to help what has been diagnosed as "kidney failure" in one cat, and has completely eradicated a serious skin condition in the other one, that traditional vets could not do anything to help. I buy several of these books at once, and give them to all my friends, especially those who are struggling with pet problems that are not being solved by traditional veterinarian medicine. I highly recommend this book to every caring pet owner!

I tried to get my old dog Sadie in to see Dr. Kelleher. Sadie had terrible arthritis of the lower spine and needed acupuncture. I live far from any veterinarians who offer acupuncture. I took Sadie for acupuncture once (had to take a day off work to do it). The acupuncture helped a lot. But the acupuncture wore off before I could get Sadie back. I couldn't take off a day every week! My employer would not allow that. I was only able to get Sadie to acupuncture about once every 3 or 4 weeks. This was not enough, she needed something more long-lasting. I found information stating that gold bead implants had a longer lasting effect than regular acupuncture. Further research revealed that Dr. Kelleher's office was only a couple of hours away.

Reading everything I could find, I read about Dr. Kelleher. It sounded wonderful. The treatment cost a lot more, but lasted a lot longer.

I called Dr. Kelleher. NO call back. Sadie would cry in pain after a week without acupuncture. I called again--repeatedly. NO call back. I explained the situation and left pleas for help. NO call back. I called and called. NO call back.

Doctor Kelleher never called back even though I knew, through desperate phone calls to anyone I could think of, that she was still in town. People told me she was busy trying to move away.

I finally had to put Sadie down because Sadie could not tolerate the pain and she didn't react well to medications for it. Gold bead implants were supposed to work longer, but Sadie never got a chance to try them.

So this may be a great book. But is it true?