Second revised edition dated Friday, June 18, 2010.

Have you had occasion to reflect on the continuing escalation of debilitating chronic illnesses like cancer, heart diseases, various forms of arthritis, and the many other autoimmune diseases, despite our advanced development and medicine? Maybe you've also wondered why some people and animals are so naturally healthy despite this trend?

The author Euan Fingal has offered up a free ebook to try to help us understand how we might improve our well-being and that of our domestic animals in general, but especially that of our canine companions.

The book brings together considerable unbiased scientific evidence, and the experiences of many naturally oriented caregivers, to clear an illuminating swath through the propaganda surrounding well-being, and the misguided understandings it fosters. Due to the book being much more comprehensive, and more thoroughly researched, referenced, and reviewed, it supersedes the previous Ol' Shep articles on this site.

After a year of feedback, additional research, and rewriting, this second revised edition is significantly better reasoned and understandable.  In the opinion of many, it's also more readable.  Bon appétit!

This freely downloadable ebook is now split into two PDF files, to breakup download times for those with slower internet connections.  Even so, depending on individual internet connection speed, these are larger files that can take from under 10 seconds to more than 10 minutes each to download.   To be reasonably sure you have the author's intended version of the book, you may check the MD5 sum of each file.

Click on each of the book's two parts to download each individually. With some browsers/browser-settings you may need to right/control click the hyperlink, and select "download file" from the context menu.  To view the book, all that is needed is one of the free pdf readers like Adobe Reader® (multi platform) or Preview® (Mac platform). The book is formated so that it is best viewed in single page mode.

Ol' Shep's Well-being: A Natural Perspective by Euan Fingal
Second revised edition dated Friday, June 18, 2010
Licensed under Creative Commons (Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0)

Click to download Part 1 of 2

[11.3MB; MD5 sum ba6cee05c9162a78902d5d5297bdd1dc]

Click to download Part 2 of 2

[13.3MB; MD5 sum f86767866901d46f7844b37a714a336f]

The external supplement
Heartworm: A Natural Perspective (a paper by Euan Fingal)
is not yet available.

The book cover and table of contents, along with a how to get the most out of this book, are shown below for your initial appraisal.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments_______________________vi

Getting the most out of this book___________viii

Introduction____________________________x

The Human Aspect____________________x

A Word about Veterinary Practice ________xli

Section One - Model Evidencing ____________1

Origins _____________________________3

Domestication _______________________15

Nature, The Ultimate Laboratory ________ 25

The Diet of Wolves _________________25

A Wolf’s Digestive System ___________33

Wolf Behavior_____________________ 45

Wolf Health_______________________ 62

Nature's Lessons _____________________73

Section Two - Model Applications ___________77

Species Appropriate Diet _______________79

Avoidance Considerations ______________ 109

Exercise and Rest ____________________ 135

State of Mind________________________ 141

Concluding Comments____________________149

Appendix A: The Natural Order _____________153

Appendix B: Divisions of Geologic Time ______ 155

Appendix C: Inert Ingredients Issue Example _ 156

Appendix D: Nutritional Derivatives in a
                   Carnivore Whole Prey Diet ______ 157

Appendix E: Hyperlink cross reference _______ 171

References  ____________________________ 183

Editing Notes ___________________________ 206

Getting the most out of this book

The "Introduction" should be read to understand what it is in our advanced society that impedes pursuing natural well-being.  The idea is to promote personal responsibility, and set the stage for examining potential individual approaches to improving well-being.  A bit of an author profile is also included.

"Section One - Model Evidencing" of the book details the natural sciences basis of what follows in Section Two.  Except for the "Nature's Lessons" subsection, Section One may be skimmed in an initial reading, and studied more thoroughly when one is later relating the scientific evidence to what is presented in Section Two.

"Section Two - Model Applications" is the meat of the book, and all subsections should be read carefully, maybe more than once, to achieve a full understanding.

The "Concluding Comments" section is a synopsis of the overall perspective of the book.

 Understand that this book is intended as a springboard to help those interested expand their comprehension of how to facilitate ongoing vis medicatrix naturae [noun: the body's natural ability to heal itself, from Latin ‘the healing power of nature’].  Thus this book begins by trying to explain what impedes better comprehension in our advanced society and economic model.  Such is not intended as a soapbox to demonize human nature, but rather to lift the veils that obscure insight.  Following the introduction, this book attempts to bring together a species appropriate natural approach perspective to well-being, by accumulating as much unbiased natural sciences evidence as possible, drawing general inferences from such, and including some of the more common application experience.

Opinions and confusion abound because of prolific commercial propaganda and pseudoscience that distorts unbiased natural science.  On the other hand, reaction to such has fostered enclaves of opinion that, in seeking more natural well-being, reject not only industry's misinformation to varying degrees, but even that unbiased natural science evidence that doesn't "fit" subjective ideology.  It doesn't help that it's only too human to regard other higher life forms (especially pets) anthropomorphically.

Among the reasons this book is distributed freely is so commercial appeal wont taint objectivity, and to make the book as readily accessible as possible.

Those truly interested in the natural well-being of our domestic animals can help improve this book by making the author aware of additional pertinent, unbiased, corroborated scientific evidence they learn of, and commenting on the interpretations of the evidence as a whole.  Translation inquiries are also welcome. Initial contact with the author should be made via the Contact Author form on the source web site (achinook.com).