The following interview with Dr. Deva Khalsa by Alan Schmukler as seen in Hpathy Ezine, February, 2010.

AS : Greetings Dr. Khalsa and welcome to Homeopathy4Everyone. We’re honored to have you here. At what point in your life did you start exploring homeopathy?

DK : I came upon homeopathy by accident before I began veterinary school. I was out camping with some friends and came down with a strange case of sudden, propulsive vomiting. A gentleman from another campsite gave me the remedy Arsenicum album and the vomiting immediately ceased. I was very curious and asked for more information and recommendations for reading. After this I could not stop learning homeopathy! I studied once a week with Julian Winston in a laypersons group before and during veterinary school. After I graduated, I went to England to study with George MacLeod and went to India to study. In fact, everywhere I went I just came upon people who loved homeopathy.

I was in Brazil for a vacation and flew out to the Matta Grossa which is way up north. The last white person they had seen was, strangely enough, a friend of mine who had gone there to study the children of a very primitive tribe about 10 years prior. I wondered why in the world I had flown to this desolate place and was trying to make a car rental person understand with my Berlitz “Portuguese for Travellers” book, that I really needed a car, even though it was Easter Sunday. We passed a veterinary clinic that said ‘Homeopathique Veterinaria’. I wanted the car rental person to call the veterinary clinic and let them know that I was also a veterinarian practicing homeopathy. It took about two hours to get it all across, but it was well worth it! The veterinarian was a professor at Brazil’s veterinary school and had published a paper on his use of homeopathic Curare to cure Myasthenia Gravis in a dog. There was an American veterinary student from Cornell who was at his school at the time. About a year later, a professor of neurology at Cornell Veterinary School discovered Myasthenia Gravis in dogs and became very well known because of it. But my friend’s name was never mentioned once. He recently contacted me because he has created a line of homeopathic remedies for large animals.

I went to all of the NIH courses and also studied with Robin Murphy and Dana Ullman. At this time, there were very few veterinary homeopaths so I took all of the human courses and just translated it into veterinary medicine.

AS: That story shows a lot of serendipity, but also an openness to discovery that seems to characterize your approach. Let me illustrate with an anecdote. My dog once ingested poison, became lethargic and almost paralyzed. The local vet said it was “too late to do anything”. I rushed the dog to your office and you gave him Gelsemium 200, acupuncture, and an IV drip of vitamin C. By that evening he was running and playing again! Was that a typical experience at your office? What other therapeutic approaches do you use?

DK: Thanks for that story, Alan, I had forgotten that! And yes, that was a typical experience. And once again it came from a life experience. I was in Costa Rica, which has one of the most poisonous snakes in the world- the Bothrops snake (one or our remedies). I was talking to a guide and he told me of an old fashioned remedy for snake bites which is to eat the juice of something like a hundred lemons very quickly. He told of a guide who was bitten by a snake and it had saved his life. It’s the vitamin C in the lemons along with the drastic change in pH that does the trick; the body becomes more alkaline and the Vitamin C works as a powerful antioxidant. Giving vitamin C intravenously works much more effectively.

In deciding what approach to use on my canine patients, I have never excluded any option that I thought would help. I like to think of these techniques as comprising a literal ‘body of knowledge’ of how to heal disease. Some are time honored and others relatively recent, but all utilize the body’s innate intelligence.

I have discovered a myriad of wonderful technologies that recreate health and change lives. Allergy Elimination 4 Pets, which is an allergy elimination technique, works beautifully by teaching the body that the substance it has ‘learned’ to react to is, in fact, innocuous. JMT (Jaffe Mellor Technique) works to reprogram the body to function efficiently, sort of like cleaning viruses out of a computer hard drive. Prolotherapy is a medical procedure in which a sugar compound is injected into ligaments and they grow strong again. It’s commonly used by veterinarians certified in it for knee problems in dogs. I am a CVA- Certified Veterinary Acupuncturist.

Most of what I do, I can do via phone consults. Clients send me fur samples and I use Applied Kinesiology and check for allergens, JMT body malfunctions and pathogens. I then mail them vials to treat their dogs and cats with. It works incredibly well. Of course I also can prescribe indicated remedies, herbs or nutraceuticals during the consult. I enjoy working this way because my attention is totally on the client and patient. The strong bond I have with my clients can still exist within the context of a phone consult.

There are also many new, incredible products for cancer and other problems, and this makes it easy to find workable solutions. I have always compared allopathic medicine to a weedy, dry lot in New York City and holistic medicine to an unending rain forest, filled with a vast variety of solutions. It’s a very interesting and exciting profession to have and I just love it. I’m always learning, always challenged and always solving problems. And in the course of all this, I get to improve and save lives. I couldn’t think of anything more rewarding.

AS: You seem attuned to some very subtle methods. I’ve seen you hold a bottle of homeopathic remedy up to an animal’s head. Were you doing a pupil response or some other diagnostic technique?

DK: That is simply Applied Kinesiology (AK). There are courses in this technique for doctors that create in the practitioner a very precise and fine tuned ability to perform this test. I am holding the bottle in the energy field of the animal and doing what is also called ‘muscle testing’. I can also do this from a distance using the fur or blood or saliva of a patient. Oftentimes, choosing a potency for a remedy is subjective. Homeopaths have their differences concerning low potency vs. high potency, how long a remedy should be given, organ drainage, number of times a remedy is given, etc. In all honesty, this is subjective. I am sure many of them have excellent success with each of their methods and they all seem to work.

I hold different potencies right in the energy field of the patient (with my focus on the patient) and check out the AK response. This AK response will tell me if it makes the energy field stronger or weaker, along with gradient levels of strength. The best potency of the remedy will make the energy field the strongest. There are many ways to do this. Some people have computers they can test this on and it does basically the same thing. The Voll machine from Germany has been in use for a long time. The remedy is put in a well and a probe is placed on the patient which creates a reading on a meter. The practitioner is simply using whatever methods he/she can to make the best choice in order to move along the healing process.

AS: You said earlier that you studied human homeopathy and just translated it to veterinary medicine. Does that include an ability to perceive animal constitutional types? Can you give us some insight into a couple cat constitutions?

DK: Yes- as far as perceiving animal constitutional types. It would be awfully hard to prescribe if you could not. Owners typically invent reasons for their animals doing unusual things – it’s sort of like they fill in the blanks. ” My cat is sleeping more because it is cold and it’s winter.” ” My cat is sleeping more because it is hot in the summer.” I am sure human homeopaths have had moments they wanted to tear their hair out taking a case. Imagine a married couple giving you completely different answers when you take the case on their pet. And inevitably, if a rare and unusual symptom were to come up, it would be as an aside, as you were about to exit the room! So you have to be very observant.

Several years ago I gave a lecture at AHVMA on how to recognize the constitutional types of dogs by observing and tuning into them. People still talk about that lecture, so I guess they really did love it. I’ll describe a few cat constitutional remedies and some keynotes. An easy one is Phosphorus. They are usually orange cats and oftentimes, if you look at their lips they have freckles. They may like to drink water out of strange places, such as bowls you are using to root plant seedlings. They like cold water. And when they want affection- they want it- and will not take no for an answer. They are very personable, very charming. I always say that when you have a Phosphorus cat you do not need a dog, because they are always with you!

The Nat mur cat will be more aloof and the owners will tell you that the cat doesn’t really want affection, will not sit in their laps and that they run and hide when company comes. When you give them Nat mur these cats do open up and become more receptive to affection.

The Pulsatilla cat is often seen in kittens who are purring and snuggly and look up at you with trusting eyes as their noses run with some sort of upper respiratory infection. Grown up Pulsatilla cats often like to sleep on their owners faces, although Phosphorus cats will do the same thing. But the Pulsatillas cling and can get easily rebuffed. The Phosphorus demand and if they do not get their due admiration and affection they demand more. You can see how much fun it can be to do homeopathy for animals. As a tip, there are these cats that run up and bite their owners for no reason…. on the ankle or the leg as they walk buy. Tarantula is a great remedy for those cats.

AS: I think I found both my cats there! Maybe one day you will put all those into a book. It may be difficult to pick one, but is there one case over the years, that stands out as an unexpected success?

DK: Many years ago a Standard Black Poodle came to my office after being thoroughly examined at the University of Pennsylvania Veterinary School. Physical examination and films (x-rays) revealed a large mass the size of a largish child’s football, at the back of her right jaw. It was a malignant melanoma and was spongy and painless. Calcarea carbonica is specific for a spongy painless mass on the lower right jaw. This dog was also a perfect Calcarea carb constitution. Fat and flabby in puppyhood with slow dentition. It had remained the same constitution at the age of 12. I gave the dog Calc carb (forget what potency… I think it was high, 1m). I sent them home with a few doses of it. I have found with cancer you need to keep up with what you believe is the correct remedy; one single dose does not seem to do the trick. Anyway, this tumor was pretty huge considering and it smelled and was rotting, as it was outgrowing its blood supply. (I had them flushing the mouth with diluted Calendula tincture because of the fetid odor.)

The people called me about 7 days later and told me that they thought it was gone. I was scheduled to see them 14 days from their first visit, and quite honestly thought they were being deliriously hopeful. They told me all that was left was a almond sized reddish area that looked like a tooth had been pulled. ” Yeah, right.” I thought. Remember, this thing was the size of two avocados or a large mango. The tumor had eaten away a lot of the bone in the jaw… you could see it in the x-ray. They came a week later and the entire tumor was gone. X-rays were taken and nada… nothing. Dr. Harvey at U of P Veterinary School wanted me to write up the case and publish it in a Veterinary Medical Journal. I didn’t do it. You see, it was such a perfect Calc carb case and if all these conventional vets read it and just used it on malignant melanomas that commonly occur in the mouth, it would not have worked and homeopathy would be deemed quackery. But it’s nice to tell you the story again and remember how much of a win it was to totally cure that aggressive cancer with just one remedy!

AS: A marvelous story with a happy ending! How is your new book, Dr. Khalsa’s Natural Dog being received? What projects are you working on at the moment?

DK: Dr. Khalsa’s Natural Dog was released in July of 2009. It’s doing very well and has been nominated by the Dog Writers of America for the 2009 Award. The awards dinner is in Los Angeles in February. I won’t be able to be there but my publisher will be sending someone. So that is exciting and rewarding for me. I am working on the design and proposal for my cat book presently. I have also designed a special line of pet vitamins, one for dogs and one for cats called Deserving Pets.

AS: People who brought their animals to you have said they thought you were communicating with the animals. Is that one of your skills and is it something others can learn?

DK: Animal communicators are people who have taken courses in how to mentally communicate with animals. Some of them are very good. Many clients of mine call animal communicators to see how their animals are feeling and to ‘listen’ to what they want, through the communicator. I have actually asked some of my clients to call and get information for me. We humans can just tell a doctor that our knee hurts and it began hurting after we played football on Sunday. Veterinarians are at a real disadvantage; some dogs yelp if you just touch them and some are so stoic they will never indicate what’s hurting. So it comes in very handy at times and clients can save money on tests that would not be necessary if our furry friends could just speak up.

I had one client whose dog was limping. I couldn’t tell if it was her knee or the hip and films showed nothing. This dog had kept 3 of her puppies and they had all been together for a few years. The dog told the animal communicator that she had hurt her knee romping and playing- in her own words- with one of the ‘youngsters’.

I did take a course, years ago, in animal communicating and was rather good at it, but I don’t use it in a professional manner. When I first started studying homeopathy I realized that I had to carefully observe the animals when they were in my office. The average veterinarian focuses on the pet owner until the moment they poke and prod at the patient for a few minutes. I found that when I focused on the dog or cat while talking to the person, the dog or cat sensed it and really appreciated being granted that courtesy. They wanted to tell me what was happening and many times they did send me pictures and stories that I could absorb. Once I was joking with a cat-patient, as I was examining his teeth, saying that he had ‘the biggest teeth’ and must be so feared in the neighborhood. In response, he sent me a picture of a nasty, viscous large black cat, along with the palpable emotion of fear. I jokingly said to his owner, “He says he is not the most feared cat in the neighborhood!” She quickly responded that a black cat, aptly named Killer, terrorized all the cats in the neighborhood. The funniest part is that she never asked me how I knew or how he told me.

An animal communicator named Colleen teaches classes in this and has written a book. I have found her to be very good at what she does. It’s not that hard to learn and the people who take the classes are always fun to be with, as you can imagine!

AS: Thank you Dr. Khalsa, it’s been a pleasure talking with you today!