I saw Jazz yesterday. She is a 3 yr old mini Aussie and is affected by an auto-immune disease of the red blood cells. In resume, her immune system is recognizing her red blood cells as foreign bodies and it is trying to destroy them. She is on heavy duty conventional medications by her primary care veterinarian and has now finally stabilized. I am also treating her with acupuncture, food therapy, discussed supplementation and so far so good. She is looking so much better then 2 weeks ago. Her owner, Amsten, is very dedicated to her dog and has done a super job keeping Jazz afloat. Guinness, her other dog, is showing some signs of anxiety due to the change in the order of the pack. Jazz is usually the leader, and Guinness follows. At this moment Jazz is not up to speed to fulfill her boss duty; Guinness is left with the job, which I think he does not feel qualified yet to do :-).This brings us to emotional disturbance when the pack (human/dogs/cats) is stressed by unforeseen events. It is important to recognize that if one pet is sick, the other members of the pack can be emotionally affected and attending to it can smooth things up as much as possible.
