New Patient Profile: Share Your Pet’s Unique Story
During your pet’s initial evaluation, we will be constructing a medical timeline and personality profile for your pet. This will allow us to start optimizing their balance by addressing every aspect of their being.
Some pet parents even write up 1-2 pages of description before their appointments and send them to Dr. Jeff to help with the evaluation. Here are two examples of timelines and personality profiles submitted by pet parents prior to their first consultation:
Example 1 – Knucklehead’s Timeline /Personality Profile:
Knucklehead was adopted as a kitten. He had been found outdoors in a storm. Shortly thereafter, Saul adopted his brother’s cat “Snowy” and the two have lived together since.
Knucklehead had an allergic reaction to flea and tick shampoo as a kitten and needed to be taken to emergency hospital. He was sent home with no further complications.
Knucklehead is now about 13 or 14 years old.
He has always been skittish and sometimes will aggressively swat at visitors’ feet when they come near him.
We were never able to take him out of the home for a vet visit, so we found an “at home vet” to visit our boys in our NYC apartment (lived there until 2000). He would become very upset, and even needed to be sedated to be examined in the home at the time. Our home vet at the time was a holistic vet.
He has “mellowed” somewhat in the last two years or so. Now he is able to leave the house for a vet visit and usually does not require sedation while being examined, but he is still super sensitive and it shakes him up quite a bit.
It took my living with him for about 1 year before he would let me handle him at all.
Knucklehead loves to sit and sleep in warm areas. He actually used to sit right in front of the space heater and go to sleep. He seeks out the sunny spots of the house or surfaces where baseboard heating rises up (on top of dressers or desks that are above baseboards).
Behaviorally, Knucklehead used to be difficult with visitors and before the past two years or so was difficult for anyone but Saul to handle. Now he is much calmer and seeks both of us out for comfort and affection. He is now quite a loving mush when he’s with us. He is also much calmer with visitors.
We found a vet who made house calls, however it turned out that his approach was strictly conventional. At the time, we were just looking to find somebody who could come to our home, since Knucklehead was still a very “high maintenance” patient.
It was at this time, when we started working with Dr., that he received vaccinations. I was resistant to it, but they insisted that he had to have rabies vaccinations by NY state law. I believe he was vaccinated for other things, and I am looking into any others he has had. The onset of all of his symptoms happens to coincide with the time he had the vaccine(s).
Knucklehead began the odd behavior of eating plastic bags and materials like them two or three years ago. We slowly realized that he was doing this and made an effort to remove all plastic from his environment. He would still find things occasionally by knocking over the garbage pails, etc. We have since been able to more effectively prevent him from getting to plastic. He also began having arthritic changes in his hind quarters around this time.
About 6 months later (roughly 1 1/2 years ago), he started occasionally vomiting, which we attributed to his ingesting plastic. We soon thereafter consulted his vet, who informed us that the eating plastic is symptomatic of IBD and that IBD is also the likely reason for the vomiting as well. An x-ray revealed thickening of the bowel walls.
Dr. suggested changing his food to single ingredient food (IVD brand) to see if any changes occurred.
Knucklehead refused the wet IVD food, but we were able to get him to eat the dry IVD food. The change seemed to alleviate the vomiting and curbed the plastic eating a bit for about 8 months.
It has been roughly 2 months since Knucklehead has started vomiting everyday (with a day here or there where he doesn’t vomit). He cries before he vomits and it seems like he is in pain. This vomiting occurs at about 3 am 95% of the time. It seems to be occasionally alleviated by feeding him earlier in the day and in smaller amounts. Following vomiting, he comes into bed with us and curls up for comfort, it seems (for about the past 1 1/2 months).
Last night, for the first time, he went under the bed to vomit, and then ran out to vomit again, and retreated back under the bed. I was able to get him back up on the bed where he slept for the night.
We took him back to the vet about a month ago concerned about the vomiting and also a bald patch on his right hip area. The doctor determined that the patch was from (yikes!) fleas…this was confusing since he’s an indoor cat, but we had recently had a guest dog at the house and figured it could have been from him. They gave us Advantage topical solution to use on both Knucklehead and Snowy, which we did.
During this visit Dr. did blood work which revealed elevated liver enzymes. They reported to me that they did not feel this was related to his symptoms.
Dr. felt that the diet change to IVD temporarily alleviated Knucklehead’s symptoms, but that the IBD was still present and the symptoms had returned. He recommended bringing him back in the following day for an endoscopy/biopsy to determine the stage of IBD and possible bacterial involvement as well as whether it had progressed into lymphosarcoma.
As directed, we fasted Knucklehead from 10 pm the night before the procedure and brought him in the following day. At 5 pm they attempted to do the endoscopy, but were unable to because he apparently still had a belly full of food. The doctor explained that they wanted to keep him overnight for observation to determine if he would pass his food.
By morning he had passed it indicating that there wasn’t an actual blockage or mass. An ultrasound further corroborated this. They were unable to do the endoscopy at that point, because the surgeon was not available. So Knucklehead came home and continued vomiting, and we waited to hear from the vet with a new appointment for the endoscopy.
It was then that we started researching alternative remedies for IBD. As I mentioned to you, we were uneasy with the idea of pumping him with steroids to suppress this disease (and his immune system), and we especially hated the idea of chemotherapy drugs…We wanted to try any alternative that has had success in similar cases.
In the past month or so, Knucklehead has definitely lost a bit of weight. He also has lots and lots of dandruff. He always had a little bit of dandruff, but now it is coming off in big flakes and it seems to get much worse if I brush him.
I hope that this information helps give you a picture of our little guy and his history.
Example2 – Skippy’s Personality Profile
Early History
Skippy was found in Waldeboro, Maine, wandering the neighborhoods. He was brought to a shelter in a severely emaciated state and his age was estimated to be about 4 months old. Nothing is known about his life up to that point. After he had put on some weight and was neutered, he was put up for adoption. The shelter thought he was a beagle, but I quickly realized that he was mostly Brittany. He was adopted out to a number of families, but quickly returned as he was not housebroken and very high energy.
I adopted him in July of 2000 at an approximate age of 7 – 9 months. At that point he had been living at the shelter for 3 _ months. I visited him at the shelter 2 times and decided to take him on my 3rd visit. He bonded to me on the first visit and recognized the sound of my car by the 3rd visit. He was eager to please, alert, and highly sociable. I trained him to do a couple of new things each visit, which he picked up and retained quickly.
I had him housetrained within a few days. I took him on very long walks and jogs right away to burn off some of his energy, and socialize him as he had limited experience with the world. I got him to be comfortable with a wide variety of stimuli – people, children, dogs, bicyclists, joggers, skateboarders, rollerbladers, horses, traffic noise, etc.
If I had to guess, I don’t believe that Skippy was physically abused. I think he was either abandoned, or simply got lost. I sometimes think that his owner died of a lung ailment, as the thing that makes him the most anxious is if I cough.
Personality
Skippy is a rather submissive, “soft” dog, the type of dog that makes a wonderful pet. He is not timid or fearful, except when charged by a dog he does not know. He is more intelligent than any dog I’ve ever had, and an excellent problem solver. Although he is a master manipulator to get what he wants, he is never pushy or challenging,
Anxiety
Although Skippy loves people of all ages, he is definitely a one person dog. If I leave him with friends when I travel, he picks one person in that family and is literally glued to their hip. He’s most anxious when I leave him, even if I leave him with people he knows well. He quickly settles in with them, however.
I would have to describe him as being an anxious dog. My biggest problem with him was separation anxiety. I spent about 3 months getting him over this problem and although he’s not happy about being left alone, he no longer panics.
There are other things besides being left alone that make him anxious and they are: if I cough, basements (he still hasn’t been in one!), laundry being folded (he slinks out of the room), white bags or boxes (slinks out of the room, brown ones are okay). He becomes anxious with new and highly unusual noises in the house, such as a loose shutter banging against the house on a windy night, or a loose storm window rattling. If I fix the noise, he settles immediately. He’s not afraid of other noises, such as loud traffic, vacuum cleaners, thunderstorms, or fireworks. But this could be because I worked on “jollying him up” when these noises occurred when he was a young dog.
Skippy chews I think to relieve anxiety. If left alone, he won’t chew on anything, but as soon as I come home, he’ll chew on a bone for hours. He can go through a large bully stick in about a half hour.
Likes & Dislikes
Skippy’s two favorite things are to be with me and food.
Skippy adores people, especially children in the 6 – 12 range. For example, although he loves to “fetch”, he will only fetch if I, or a friend he knows, throws the ball. He will fetch for any child, however. He will roll on his back and almost go into a trance-like
state when a child pets him. The only other time he does that is when he’s had Reiki, or I’ve taken him to someone who does energy work on him.
He also like car rides; going to new places; visiting people in their homes; chasing squirrels, ducks, and geese; camping; hiking; fetching a ball; hanging out in the yard with me if I’m gardening; and going for walks.
He’s very athletic and excels at agility and jumping. When he was younger could outrun and outmaneuver any dog – even a whippet. He’s the only dog I’ve ever had who actually was capable of catching squirrels. He’s caught dozens.
He loves learning new things and is easily trained. I have mostly clicker trained him and he is trained to a pretty high level on a variety of commands. He will also fetch about 20 objects in the house by name. He has a terrific sense of humor and loves to play games. His favorite game is if I hide something in the house (in very hard places) and ask him to find it, such as my keys.
He likes cool weather, however will always choose a sunny spot to lie in. He gets cold very easily and shivers quickly in the winter. I have to put a coat on him if I leash walk him. He’s fine if he’s running around off leash. He also can’t take the heat of summer. As a young dog I had to put him on his leash off and on as he didn’t know how to pace himself.
Skippy likes other dogs, but is happier in a one-on-one situation with them. He likes to play chase games with dogs. He doesn’t like to wrestle. He was attacked badly by a few dogs. In all cases, they charged him from out of nowhere and attacked him. He was well socialized enough that he didn’t develop a fear of dogs, but he doesn’t like being charged. He doesn’t like puppies – particularly lab and golden retriever puppies, or the “doodles”. I think it’s because they usually charge at him. He used to actively attack them. But I’ve worked hard on this and now he’s appropriate and warns them 2 – 3 times before correcting them. If they get the message, he’s fine with them and will play with them.
Conclusion
Skippy is a very well-liked dog. My friends and neighbors all adore him. He’s very well-mannered and actually gets me about _ of my clients just from people seeing him about town. I’m known as that trainer with the wonderful dog, Skippy. He’s helped a lot of children get over their fear of dogs, and many families have decided to get a dog after meeting him.
For all of his anxieties, he’s actually a pretty happy dog. I’ve worked hard at developing his confidence. I’ve also worked hard at not spoiling him, and he lives a pretty nice life.