DEAR DR. FOX: I just finished reading many accounts of people who have experienced contact from deceased pets.

I must back up a bit to introduce Fiona, our labradoodle. My husband and I got her as a puppy and adored her. While she loved both of us, she really was closer to me since my husband traveled extensively throughout her life.

Last fall, just before she would have turned 13, we had to relieve her of her suffering from various ailments. After we lost her, I experienced many things that told me she was near: sounds, smells, drastic temperature changes, glimpsing her on our property, etc.

I was crushed to lose Fiona, and couldn’t see adopting another dog. Still, I found myself drawn to a 4-year-old standard poodle, Donner, at a local rescue. He joined our home in February and was just ecstatic to be with us.

Two weeks ago, I woke up early and Donner followed me downstairs, as usual. I put him out and fed him, then we both went back to sleep for another hour, with him on his bed beside mine. I was stunned to see upon awakening that he could barely move and did not want to come downstairs. I of course rushed him to the vet, who saw splenic nodules and evidence of bleeding into his abdomen.

We then rushed to the same specialty group that had cared for Fiona. On X-ray, a surgeon, a radiologist and an oncologist saw multiple lesions in his lungs and near his heart. His belly was getting distended and tender, and the surgeon refused to anesthetize him due to the state of his lungs.

I took Donner home, making an appointment for him to pass at home two days after that. The specialists had been very concerned that he would crash in an awful way before that, but he made it till then.

Unlike with Fiona, I have not "heard" from Donner yet, and I am bereft at thinking that he may not have formed enough of an attachment to us to visit as Fiona did. Because we only had him a few months, and because he was so young, I have become concerned that his soul is somehow “lost” from me, or that he wasn’t with us long enough to feel loved and at home. This breaks my heart.

I believe that he was a part of us from the time we brought him home. I loved him so much. It was like a lightning bolt, his being here -- so healing. Do you have any experience with people who have experienced a loss similar to ours? -- M.G., Larkspur, Colorado

DEAR M.G.: I can sympathize fully with your situation, and I send my condolences. Despite the many communications I have received over the years about deceased animals "returning" in various ways and at different times, it seems to be more of an exception than a regular phenomenon. In other words, most deceased companion animals rarely return, as is the case with your second dog.

The strength and duration of the human-animal bond during life, and the intensity of grief experienced when the animal dies, may all play some role in after-life manifestations. Once the grieving dissipates, the visitations often cease. This seems to indicate that some animals' spirits come back to provide comfort, which many people have told me they felt. This is all part of the great mystery.

I hope you find comfort in the fact that you provided love and security for a dog who was not long for this world; with cancer at such a young age, he otherwise probably would have suffered alone. He is now free from suffering, and if there is reincarnation, as some cultures and religious traditions believe, his soul will journey on, enriched by the time shared with you.

To learn more about reincarnation research and transmigration of the soul, see the book “Signs of Reincarnation: Exploring Beliefs, Cases and Theory” by James G. Matlock.

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.

Visit Dr. Fox’s website at DrFoxOneHealth.com.)

DEAR DR. FOX: FYI, here is my latest article in Veterinary Practice: “The live food sector: pets eating pets” (veterinary-practice.com/article/live-food-sector).

I am concerned about the feeding of live animals to various pets, and also about how the "prey" animals are handled, whether alive or dead. There is ever more evidence of sentience in insects and other small animals. -- C.W., London

DEAR C.W.: I enjoyed and appreciated your well-articulated article, and it will get some people thinking. The bottom line, as you stress, is: Whatever arguments justify having to feed live animals to captive predators in small containers, what quality of life, otherwise, do such animals have?

The entire trade of “exotic,” nondomesticated, wild-caught and captive-bred reptiles, amphibians and small mammals should be outlawed, in my opinion. But regrettably, in these times, money rules. There is not a unified voice in the veterinary profession, since some do specialize in treating these exotics -- talents that would be better spent on conservation and captive propagation of endangered species for eventual release under concerted rewilding initiatives.

It is notable that the CDC has recently reported people contracting salmonella infections after handling bearded dragons in nine states, and that it advises not having these animals in homes where there are young children, the elderly and the immunocompromised (and always washing hands after handling). My advice is not to bring any “exotics” into the home environment. Those who do have these animals should find a sanctuary for them and never, ever, release them into the wild -- and that includes goldfish, which are a problem in many freshwater ecosystems across the country.

MUSHROOMS WITH NUTRITIVE AND MEDICAL BENEFITS

In developing purely vegan pet foods, there have been concerns about the necessary inclusion of vitamin D, which is usually vitamin D3 of animal origin -- making false the claim that the diet is vegan. There is an answer for this question in veterinarian Dr. Robert Silver’s book, "There’s a Mushroom for That."

Silver writes: “Dogs and cats are unable to convert UVB from sunlight into sufficient circulating vitamin D3 in their skin. For this reason, dogs and cats are dependent upon dietary sources of vitamin D to maintain healthy vitamin D levels. ... (A blended mushroom powder) source of vitamin D2 is gaining a lot of traction in the natural health industry as a healthier source of vitamin D for people and pets. As a non-animal source of vitamin D, it may provide a more hypoallergenic, organic and vegan alternative to animal-sourced vitamin D3.”

The medical benefits of mushrooms are being documented for humans and companion animals, some helping with cognitive decline and having anti-inflammatory properties. Some of Silver’s formulations for dogs include cannabis extracts that are recognized as calming and anti-inflammatory. For details, go to: wellpetdispensary.com/doc-silver-naturals.

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.

Visit Dr. Fox’s website at DrFoxOneHealth.com.)

DEAR DR. FOX: With all due respect, I need to disagree with your position about cows being a problem. As a veterinarian, you should know that cows are just one of about 200 species of ruminant animals, all of them methane emitters. In my area, the white-tailed deer population has grown to the point that they are obnoxious vermin, chewing on anything green in addition to emitting methane.

All around the world, there are people dependent on water buffalo, reindeer, yaks, goats, sheep and other animals for their entire livelihoods. Elimination of domestic cattle would hardly make a blip in the total methane emissions into our atmosphere, the majority of which comes from the extraction and burning of fossil fuels, oil and gas leaks, garbage dumps, volcanos -- and, of course, wars.

Ever since the dawn of humanity, we have been meat-eaters. Many times, the only thing between humans and starvation was a chunk of wild animal meat. Some think that meat consumption enabled us to develop larger brains. If anyone wants to be a vegetarian, fine, go ahead. But the strident demands for all of us to convert to vegetarianism are ridiculous and probably impossible.

Most of the people making those demands are of the pampered class who have never been hungry, never produced one bit of their own food and have no idea of what food production requires. With widespread hunger around the world, those same people are blind to the irony of being able to ponder over their choices for each meal. And those hoping to make meat-eating into a moral issue are running counter to Christianity, Judaism and Islam, all of which recognize meat-eating.

The new artificial “meats” lack flavor, are too expensive and may be up to 15 times more damaging to the environment than real meat. It is impossible to grow, harvest, collect, transport, manufacture, distribute and cook artificial meat ingredients without a huge environmental impact, including water usage.

I do not like factory farms any more than you do. Those places are the result of economic forces and the constant mergers of ever-larger corporations that have driven the smaller farms out of business. Cows free to graze on pasture are the ideal situation, which in many ways replicates the effects of the millions of bison that once roamed North America. But farm commodities are subject to prices mostly controlled by large corporations. Only a few companies control meat production, five corporations control world grain prices, and milk processors are continually undergoing mergers. We have laws to limit monopolies, but our government seldom enforces them.

Here is a simple fact: Given a choice, people are going to eat what they like. The militant vegetarians, the new moralists and our medical establishment have all refused to accept that fact. -- D.D., Niles, Michigan

DEAR D.D.: As my friend the late Nobel Prize-winner Konrad Lorenz would say, “I could not disagree with you less” -- that is, regarding many of the points you raise!

However, I do regard vegetarianism, and ideally veganism, as ethical imperatives for those who do have choices. The estimated 800 million people around the world who are malnourished have no such choices. Using good agricultural lands to raise feed for factory-farmed animals, rather than people, is ecologically absurd, socially unjust and a major cause of the loss of biodiversity. India has millions of undernourished people, yet is a major exporter of meat.

How can food be produced sustainably -- and social, economic and eco-justice upheld -- with a global population of 8 billion, where many factions are at war or victims of extreme climatic events, when those with disposable income demand more meat? Producing animal proteins through cell culture/biofermentation is still limited by economies of scale, while the farming of insects is taking hold -- along with establishing food-safety and humane standards, since insects are sentient.

Monopolistic corporate control of agriculture, as you observe, is part of the seemingly unstoppable juggernaut of “progress,” decimating rural communities and the nexus of family farms, as I documented in my 1986 book “Agricide: The Hidden Crisis That Affects Us All.”

As for the methane issue and livestock-keeping: When herbivores such as deer browse vegetation, they stimulate plant growth, which creates a bigger carbon sink. (Study: "The role of large wild animals in climate change mitigation and adaptation" by Yadvinder Malhi et al., published in Current Biology, 2022.)

Deer emit much less methane than sheep, and far less than cattle on the same diets. (Study: "Comparative methane emissions from cattle, red deer and sheep" by N.M. Swainson et al., published in the Proceedings of the New Zealand Society of Animal Production, 2008.)

A modeling study of introducing bison into natural habitat showed that ”animal presence fundamentally changes the relationships between plants, microbes and the environment. In turn, this leads to large changes in the amount of carbon captured and stored in ecosystems relative to conditions that exclude animals. Hence, animals can be allies in fighting climate change as a key addition to the growing portfolio of nature-based climate change solutions.” (Study: "Rewiring the carbon cycle: A theoretical framework for animal-driven ecosystem carbon sequestration" by Matteo Rizzuto et al., published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, 2024.)

The "vegan dream" of no cattle, sheep or goats grazing/browsing would simply contribute to increased atmospheric CO2 without the stimulation of plant growth. Grasslands need to be restored, and indigenous herbivores such as the buffalo and antelope (and eventually wolves) need to be reintroduced. Consumption of vegetation also helps reduce the incidence of wildfires, which are a significant factor in climate change.

In the interim, it would not be “greenwashing” for ranchers to transition to optimal numbers of grazers, including cattle, sheep and goats. Mixed grazing could be coupled with rotational grazing at low stocking densities, with eventual reintroduction of indigenous wild herbivores. The transfer of diseases such as chronic wasting disease, hemorrhagic fever and brucellosis between wild and domestic herbivores will call for heightened veterinary involvement and the prudent use of available vaccinations.

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.

Visit Dr. Fox’s website at DrFoxOneHealth.com.)