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Testimonials

Roxie's Miracle

After three months of near paralysis and facing a prognosis of euthanasia, Roxie made a miraculous recovery through holistic treatments and hydrotherapy.

Roxie is our supernatural companion, but last summer she became unable to get up, walk or stand on her own. For three months her life consisted of wetting her bed most nights and being carried outside each morning, which was a two-person job considering Roxie then weighed 106 pounds. We had taken Roxie to our previous veterinarian who had recommended a specialist and one led to another. After seeing three vets and consulting two on the phone as well as a dentist and a dermatologist, Roxie’s only prognosis was euthanasia.

We knew there had to be more hope for a nine-year-old dog who was itchy, arthritic and had some bad teeth. After hours of searching the Internet we discovered a holistic veterinarian Dr. Donna Kelleher in Bellingham, who was the answer to our prayers. After Roxie’s first chiropractic and acupuncture treatment, she took the first steps she had taken in more than three months. We discontinued the pricey, problematic pharmaceuticals she had been on for three years. After eight weeks and at Donna’s urging, we enrolled Roxie for hydrotherapy and made our first appointment at Heavenly Spa in Fall City. I won’t ever forget lugging our girl—a Mastiff/Rottweiler/German Shepherd/Lab mix—to her first swimming session and then carrying her back out of the pool to the car.

But fast-forward to today. Roxie now weighs 76 pounds, swims twice a week, is on a raw diet supplemented with herbs, and only needs acupuncture every five to six weeks, down from her original weekly appointments. We now bring five of our seven dogs to Roxie’s bi-weekly appointments at Heavenly Spa and everyone has lost a total of over 100 pounds combined. Our animals especially Roxie have a new existence on this planet being in the best shape of their lives.

Roxie has gone from not being able to move on her own, to going up and down stairs and getting in and out of the pool. Her favorite thing besides playing ball used to be standing in the car with her head out the window, now she is able to do both and has even jumped out of the car to speed walk to the pool and gotten her front legs back in our SUV after an hour of warm water therapy. Even today April 24th Claire McLaughlin her hydrotherapist and I witnessed her first attempt run again.

Every day is a blessing with Roxie as she continues to amaze us. We are forever grateful to Dr. Donna Kelleher as well as the owner of Heavenly Spa Teri Sahm and Roxie’s therapist Claire for giving her a chance and believing in her, then going above and beyond and allowing her heal and thrive. If it weren’t for them Roxie would have departed this earth well before her time. She is truly a miracle.

—Chelsea Carrigan

Topper and Friends

Thanks to chiropractic treatment and herbs, Topper now lives in comfort.

Topper was riding in the back seat of my car when I was rear-ended. His back was hurt, and he was in pain and had trouble walking. He was treated with pain relievers, which helped a little but not a lot. I took him to an acupuncturist vet a friend of mine recommended. The acupuncture helped a little too, but he was still in pain. The acupuncturist vet recommended I contact Dr. Donna as you are a vet chiropractor.

The chiropractic work you did worked wonders for Topper's back. He was his old self again. With chiropractic maintenance every two months, his back pain is gone.

Topper has had several episodes of diarrhea and severe stomach pain over the years. The emergency vet clinic said he probably had Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), and if he had another episode we should come in for a scoping procedure, which would cost about $2,000, and that if IBD was confirmed he would have to be on a special, very restrictive diet, and treated with steroids for pain episodes.

I checked with you and you told me you had had great success treating IBD without using steroids or needing to do the scope procedure or significantly restricting a dog's diet. You did NAET allergy testing on Topper and prescribed herbs for him to take twice a day: cat’s claw, slippery elm, marshmallow and passion flower.

This was over a year ago, and Topper has had no more IBD problems. He is a happy, healthy dog, loving life and bringing much happiness to everyone in the family.

Last winter, my sister, who lives in Arizona, emailed me that her dog Tsunami was very ill, having diarrhea and severe stomach pain. I told her it sounded like the problems Topper had had. I knew my sister was on very limited funds, and had no money to see a vet, so I told her which herbs you had prescribed for Topper that had helped him so much. My sister was familiar with slippery elm and cat’s claw, as she had used them herself with good results, so she gave some to Tsunami. The results were spectacular. Tsunami recovered quickly, and is still in good health today.

My sister e-mailed me a couple of weeks ago and told me about another dog saved by your herbal prescription for Topper. A friend in another state had e-mailed my sister asking for prayer support as their dog Mozart was very ill. They thought they would have to have him put to sleep, as he was in severe pain, plagued by diarrhea, and their vet could not find a way to help. Putting a beloved animal to sleep is always hard to do, but in this case the woman has special needs children who are very attached to Mozart, which made it even harder. My sister thought Mozart's symptoms sounded the same as Topper's and Tsunami's, so she e-mailed the woman back and told her about these "miracle" herbs and how they had helped our dogs. The woman e-mailed back that they had been within hours of "putting Mozart down" when they received my sister's e-mail. After reading her email about the herbs, they tried them, and Mozart made a miraculous recovery. He is now a happy, healthy dog once again.

So thanks to you Donna, these three dogs, two of whom you have never met, are healthy, happy, pain free and enjoying life to the fullest. And their human companions are happy too, and send their grateful thanks to you.

—Peggy

Dahlia

Dahlia is a beautiful
Dalmatian who was a
stray we rescued

Dahlia is a beautiful Dalmatian who was a stray we rescued from a shelter 2 years ago with the intent of finding her a new home. Little did we know it would be our home! It quickly became apparent that Dahlia had some issues. While obviously a very intelligent dog, she would often get a far away look in her eyes and it seemed we couldn't communicate with her. And then we found she was obsessed with eating things, mostly fabric. She ate potholders, clothing, part of a comforter, dog toys, tennis balls, you name it. We became proficient at using hydrogen peroxide to get her to vomit when we knew she had eaten something, but she also spent numerous days and nights at the vet after she had eaten something we didn't know about. Our conventional vets tried numerous anxiety medications to no avail, and we worked with our trainers, but this was clearly well beyond a training issue.

Luckily for Dahlia a friend told us about Donna. Using NAET, Donna diagnosed and treated numerous food allergies, and came up with a homemade diet for Dahlia consisting of chicken, tofu, hard-boiled egg, cottage cheese and vegetables. She also treated Dahlia with herbs and acupuncture, which really helped calm her. After a few short months, Dahlia was a different dog. She is now calmer, no longer gets that far away look in her eyes, takes no medication, and most importantly no longer eats inappropriate items. She is a very happy girl who loves her visits to Donna!

Donna has since treated 2 more of our Dalmatians, Jacob and Susanne. Jacob had been seeing a dermatologist for over a year for his allergies and getting weekly allergy shots with no improvement. Donna used NAET and acupuncture to treat Jacob and we saw improvement right away. Donna treated Susanne with chiropractic and acupuncture for her back problems. Susanne no longer needs any pain medication, she can run and play like a young dog again!

—Cindy and Daryl Hickman

Sadie: The Dangers of Overvaccination

Sadie's case illustrates the harm
we do by overvaccinating.

Sadie was born on October 24, 2004 of a mixed breed. She was brought into a new loving home as an eight-week-old puppy, cute and full of life. Wanting to give her the best care possible, her family signed Sadie up for pet health insurance at a pet hospital through a big-box pet store. And it seemed like a good deal, too. An annual fee and buys you unlimited visits to the clinic. It was through the family’s good intentions but lack of knowledge that Sadie received 23 vaccinations in less than two years.

Sadie's vaccination history, copied from her medical record report printed by clinic, shows that she was vaccinated for Parvovirus and Corona virus five times in about two years. She was also vaccinated for Bordatella, Lyme disease and Giardia three times each over a period of about a year, and received two Leptospirosis and Rabies vaccination in the same time period. On one day—January 26, 2005—she received three separate vaccinations and was given dewormer on the same visit. She was also vaccinated for Corona virus four times within three months.

When my family adopted Sadie at the age of two at the end of 2006, she was showing clear signs of internal distress. She itched constantly. I took her to two local veterinarians and spent over $1000 on diagnostics and prescription pet-food. Nothing worked. Her immune system was acutely reactive and the only option we knew of at the time was the desensitization route through a veterinary dermatologist. We proceeded with the tests.

Miraculously, I read The Last Chance Dog by Dr. Donna Kelleher the night after the dermatology testing. I read the book cover to cover in one night and knew there had to be a plan and solution for Sadie. I tracked Dr. Kelleher down, and she never hesitated in taking us on as clients. Maybe she could tell from my voice that this was the last bit of hope for Sadie.

At first we had to visit Dr. Kelleher every week for about five weeks because Sadie needed to clear out a lot of junk. Thankfully, she was young. She experienced healing crises that consisted of dramatic displays of regurgitation and hot spots that covered her entire back hip. Through a homemade diet of turkey (the only protein source she could tolerate,) NAET, acupuncture, herbs and salve, Sadie decided to heal.

Sadie is now practically allergy free, and we are closely bonded. She has progressed to agility classes, and I even bought a dehydrator on Craigslist to make her turkey treats. Occasionally, she gets a mild reaction of itchy skin and stinky poo and we visit Dr. Kelleher. And guess where else she shows it? With a scabby sore on her old vaccination spot!

—Carla

Lincoln

We were ambling across the parking lot at Lincoln Park in West Seattle after a summer evening picnic when Melissa saw a sweet little puppy trotting after a woman. "What kind of dog is that?"

"It's not my dog," snapped the woman and hurried on. The puppy veered over and started following us. He was a sturdy ball of light golden fluff with a white stripe on his freckled nose. His tail was like a duster. We asked everyone at the park, ran adds in newspapers, called vets. We looked at the little fluff ball curled in the back seat. "Guess he's ours." We named him after Lincoln Park.

We hadn't had him a week when I came home from work and found the floor of the kitchen covered with diarrhea and vomit-every square inch. It was five o'clock on a Friday night so we loaded him into the car and took him to the emergency vet. They put an IV catheter in him and re-hydrated him. The intestinal virus disappeared.

Lincoln

Almost immediately after he got his vaccinations, he started developing hot spots on his skin-lots of scratching chewing and licking. The vet put him on a steroid and antibiotics. Every other month we were back. His skin would clear up for a few weeks, maybe a few months, but never permanently. It felt like a revolving door, and no one was interested in tracking down the root of the problem. They did a skin scraping and diagnosed a yeast infection and prescribed more of the same. After a couple of years his skin got really bad. The area by his tail was a big weepy sore. The vet referred us to a dermatologist. He gave Lincoln an allergy test and said we would have to give him allergy shots. At that point we said "enough."

It felt so futile, when nothing worked and he just got worse. We felt like bad parents and were depressed and anxious. I did what I love to do—I talked to a lot of people and found out what they did for their dogs. Fortunately, I spoke to enough people that told me about trying holistic medicine.

We'd heard of a naturopathic vet in Renton, so we made an appointment. He put Lincoln on a natural diet, especially parsley and dandelion leaves for his liver and gave him homeopathic remedies. Lincoln got better but still had problems. Lincoln did worse on raw bones and meat. He got another weepy sore on his tail. A friend told us about acupuncture. When Lincoln first met Donna, he was in pain and had very little hair past his last rib.

She put him on a cooked diet of millet, vegetables and chicken plus vitamins and herbs. He improved immediately. Over the past year, Donna has also used NAET to treat him and he is a whole new dog.

Now we enjoy our time with Lincoln. We love to watch him carefully open presents. He takes the wrapping paper delicately in his mouth and rips it. He never damages the present inside. He bows on command. We absolutely love him.

—Melissa and Mindy

Andy, Matti and Remy

My German Shepherds are my family members. Each one is different. Andy was my first dog and he was my protector. From the first day he walked into my life he just plopped himself down into my room and started taking care of me. With acupuncture, I was able to take better care of him in his elder years and perhaps it was a way to pay back all the good care he gave me early on. I will always miss him.

Matti is eleven years old and was always the problem child. I love her to death but she is a high maintenance dog. She has always been scared of everything. Holistic medicine has not only helped with her stiffness and hind end weakness, I feel it has helped her personality as well. She is calmer and more able to deal with stress. Donna has helped me find herbs that are good for her head as well as her weakening backend.

Donna has helped me with Remy's digestive issues and at three and a half years old, I am happy to say that he can and does eat everything. On the BARF diet he is perfectly healthy.

—Mary Schurr

Samantha

Karen and Samantha

Now Samantha, our thirteen year old cat, has the good health of a two-year-old cat. When we put her on home-cooked food and after Donna began acupuncture, chiropractic care and herbs, she was transformed. Her arthritis disappeared, her coat became glossy and her eyes bright, her energy increased and she became calmer. Her calcium level, which had been too high, returned to normal.

We still consult a mainstream vet for certain tests and yearly checkups, but consider Donna our cat's primary-care physician. Holistic veterinary care is a revelation and I recommend it highly.

— Karen Fishler