I first saw Chloe the Dog around August 9th, 2005. She was about 8 months old, completely hairless and bright red with inflammation and swelling from a systemic mite condition. Her dog family broke out with ringworm and were all treated by a vet. Soon after, the entire group got parvo, including the vaccinated mother and all 5 pups. 3 pups survived along with the mother. While they were on a heavy regimen of antibiotics and whatever else was prescribed, they all broke out with a horrifying systemic mite infestation, probably because of their damaged immune systems. One dog was tested by a vet, and all were then given the same treatment. I don't know if they found demodex or the more serious sarcoptic mange (my daughter can't remember) but they were treated with the product "Revolution" and a search of mite sites indicates this was more likely for the sarcoptic mange than demodex.

My daughter couldn't cope with the sick dog anymore and sent her to me to care for. The antibiotics and topical solutions were obviously not doing Chloe any good, so I "winged" it and took her off everything in hopes that her immune system would improve without the antibiotics, which destroy the good intestinal flora--a primary component of the immune system. Since a mite infestation involves a secondary bacterial stage, which Chloe seemed to be in given the horrible ordor from the dog, I replaced the antibiotics with goldenseal/echinacea, which has a natural antibiotic effect without ruining the natural immunity, and other things from Dr. Jordon Rubin's "Garden of Life" line of health food store products: for inflammation, the immune system, probiotics, and Perfect Food from the same line for nutrition, after reading that animals were being given this product with success. She seemed to recover very quickly, although she was still bald. I also used the light salve light salve part of the cancer salves detailed on this site to kill any remaining mites and bacteria on her skin. She made the appearance of a rapid recovery, so I sent her back and she was placed in a new home with instructions to continue the treatment for a while. They didn't and she relapsed and was sent back. The following journal covers the second treatment.

Sweet Chloe had thick, leathery, gray, wrinkled elephant skin now. She broke out in bloody or pus-filled eruptions all over her body. There was an almost invisible stubble of hair on her back, but even petting her made it fall off in your hands and it caused the skin to sting. I would pet her, rub her, scratch her, play with her and then have to shower to get the stinging hair stubble off.

With no hair, Chloe also had no tolerance for the cold and spent most of the time right in front of the blowers on our wood-burning stove, just to keep warm during the winter. I gave her a throw rug of her own and that became "home." Someone's bed is "home" at night. Chloe loves everybody and everything, including old Tasha, the rat terrior. No, she wasn't hugging her. I just caught them wrestling around in play.

I tried the same regimen as before but saw little improvement this time. To make things worse, pustules had broken open on her feet and in between her toes, top and bottom. Her feet were raw. It was so painful to walk that it was difficult getting her to go out for fresh air and to do her business. In fact, it was so hard on her that she started wetting the bed, or the rug, or whereever she was when we weren't around, even though she was housebroken. I tried different things on her to no avail and we began talking about the necessity of having to put this loving, brave dog down. Euthanized. Killed.

As a last resort and with no expectations, it "came" to me to give Chloe some of my Ocean Plasma seawater. Just 2 tablespoons of seawater a day, mixed with 2 parts spring water. It didn't occur to me to take any "before" photos because I didn't think anything would save the dog. Who knew?

Dec.2, 2005: All photos began on day 4 of treatment--before that she was completely bald

Day 4: Chloe the Dog went from no hair to a baby hyena pelt in 4 days. Look above at the photo of Chloe with old Tasha, the rat terrior, for a better view. 1.Hair. Little tufts on the back of her head and new growth on her ears, spine and tail. 2.Soft pink skin developing beside gray elephant skin.  Photo 2 shows the skin with her ear lifted up.

Day 5: As bad as these feet look on day 5, they were far worse on day 1, with raw exposed tissues leaking a clear sticky fluid (lymph?) that she could barely walk on. Now a fragile layer of skin is covering most of the raw flesh.

Day 7: A rat tail transforms into a lion tail. Chloe also gets a new black muzzle.

Dr. Juergen Buche from the Ocean Plasma seawater site http://www.oceanplasma.org advised me that once Chloe started healing and her immune system was stronger that she would go into a HEALING CRISIS and to expect skin eruptions, in particular. The information on Cat Donnelly's alternative pet site http://www.alternativepets.com/cancer.html, based on the work of veterinarian Dr. Pitcairn's Complete Guide to Natural Health for Cats and Dogs and a book by Kymythy Schultze, also advised the same--a healing crisis (detoxification and healing symptoms arising from the actions of the immune system) that would involve not only skin eruptions, but yeasty ears and mattering eyes as the dog went through a detox reaction. Poor Chloe did all of that...and then came into heat. I knew from the pet site that "heat" creates terrible stress on the immune system, and that Chloe would probably not get better until she was spayed. I hoped she would improve some before taking her to the vet, but she stayed the same. Skin eruptions all over her body refused to heal, her feet didn't get any better and I feared gangrene would set in, in fact the pads on her feet started to rot off, and her other symptoms remained unchanged. The signs of heat stayed for almost two months. We finally took her to the vet on March 8th, 2006.

My camera broke down and eventually had to be sent off for repair to the company when they couldn't fix it locally so we missed the progression photos. This is a picture of Chloe watching us leave the house. After being bald for a year, all of her hair grew back in.