Pets are often vaccinated every year though there is no science to assert the necessity for it. In fact, vaccinations often harm animals and can lead to chronic disease a few years down the road. I encourage anyone to read Dr. Jean Dodds who has spent years researching this issue and reconsider whether, after the initial vaccines, more is necessary. There has been an increase in cancers and automimmune disorders since the practice of frequent and multiple vaccinations has become commonplace. Vets, who depend on vaccines for a significant part of their income, have been very reticent about disclosing the dangers of over vaccination.

Also, vets throw powerful medications at the slightest malady when many of these medications have serious side effects.Frequent use of antibiotics can cause resistance to disease and lead to long term and deleterious results such as colitis. Steroids which should only be used short term are used way too often and way too long also can result in significant damage to your pet's health over time.Oftentimes natural alternatives are eschewed in favor of expensive medications. For example, garlic/mullein oil works very well for my cats' ears when they are inflamed and is of minimal cost.

Finally, the pet's diet (again just like us) is essential to maintaining health. Any petfood that lists meat by- products as one of the first ingredients is garbage. Quality pet food geared to your animal's needs go very far in maintaing wellness. Cats are often fed dryfood which is very bad for them and can lead to urinary tract infections in males. In nature, well over 50% of a cat's nutrition comes from protein whereas dryfood is mostly carbohydrates. Over time, this can lead to problems like diabetes and kidney failure.

After many thousands of dollars spent on conventional treatment and increasingly sick animals as a result, I now use a homeopathic vet. In an emergency I will go to the conventional vet but otherwise I find the holistic approach cheaper and, most important, have far healthier animals as a result.

Ken Wilber is obviously a very, very smart man but I can't help but be put off by his arrogant "I've been there, you haven't" attitude. His positivist approach, "this is the way things are" and it's too bad so many don't get it is, I believe, a reflection of "little self" and big ego.

Almost all spiritual traditions write of the danger of too much self obsession; some even posit the self is an illusion. But in this interview, and perhaps it's an unfair portrait of his complex body of work, Wilber is all about aggrandizing self under the guise of calling it "big self." There is virtually nothing about compassion or service or the ways in which one's spiritual/trans-rational experiences help one live in a world of such suffering. Every other sentient being is simply a prop in our great human journey.

All head, no heart; I am left completely cold by Wilber.