This is the latest edition of Juliette de Bairacli Levy's (a.k.a. the grandmother of the natural rearing movement) classic Herbal Handbook for the Dog. Juliette has been breeding, naturally rearing, showing, and traveling the world with her Champion Afghans since the 1930s. This book is dedicated to her Turkuman Afghan Hounds who "have never known disease." As always, Juliette is opinionated, uncompromising, cantankerous, and a tad eccentric, but also full of wisdom and vast amounts of valuable info, and every one of her books makes a fascinating read. The first section of this book deals with nutrition (she emphasizes the importance of feeding a raw diet), breeding and natural rearing (no vaccines, insecticides, etc.) while the second part deals with herbal remedies for everything from mange to distemper. Of course most of her suggestions are out of synch with current veterinary advice, but many dogs are living proof that her methods work -- extremely well. Our dogs have remained disease and parasite-free without vaccines, worming pills, insecticides, antibiotics, steroids, etc. The best protection we can give our beloved Wires is a strong immune system, and all of the above have the effect of weakening our animals' immune systems. Even if you are not ready to go "all natural," this book will make you question the conventional wisdom and hopefully encourage you to further research the many harmful practices (e.g., annual booster shots, combo vaccines, antibiotics and/or steroids for every minor infection, routine wormings, feeding of commercial convenience foods with highly questionable ingredients, etc.) we have learned to accept as both necessary and harmless.