Page 5 - Spring 21

He is protective of my wife: he will not let anybody come near her unless I am there: when I am there, he is fine (this is in the office, where clients are received). He will bite anybody, who comes near to my wife. When there is a noise outside, he will immediately run to be where my wife is. When you say it is ok, he is fine. He does not protect anybody else. He just feels she is vulnerable.
This behaviour started a year ago. He protected me once when a builder jokingly threw something at me. He has always been nervous. He does not run like a springer spaniel; he must have some border collie in his ancestors.
He is nervous about the horses, he barks at them and runs after them. When they turn, he will run away and turn them around (like a border collie?). He herds up the chickens, he nudges them, he does not hurt them. He does this when I ask him to, never out of his own accord. He enjoys being told what to do, he does not chase birds.’’
I ask the owner what he means by ’he likes being told what to do’.
‘’He is always the first to respond to commands and he is always the first everywhere, when we tell them to do something. I tell him to go and then I also have to tell him to stop otherwise he will keep going. When I ask him to come back he will be straight back. We did some training when he was young.
When we hide on a walk, he will come looking for us. He does not like other dogs coming on our land but when I tell him stay, he will stay with me. He is spoiled; he asks for sweets and he gest them. He loves being in front of the fire, we have to tell him to move when he gets too warm and then later he comes back. He will bite the tires of the tractor all day long when I am out and about working in the yard around the horses.
He took to Tilly (the other dog) straight away; they cannot
be without each other. Tilly tends to stop the play when they play. He works things out easily, he is more intelligent than Tilly; he is a worldly wise. He would run a successful business: he has commons sense. When he gets told off, he sits down and starts thinking of doing something else. He knows straight away what he did wrongly.
AssoonasIgetoutofmychair,hewilljumpinit:‘Iamhere now’. He looks strong outwards but can be quite nervous. He watches and listens; he is attentive; he is there in the world. He remembers people; he will know straight away who they are.
When the whole family is there, he sleeps by the front door and has to guard them all.
He responds in the same way to my wife and myself. If he is put in kennels, he its by the door looking out. When you open the back door of the car, he always shakes and looks out before jumping out. He will come up to us on a regular way and taps us to say: ‘I am here’. He is sometimes too quick and jumps up against the door. ‘’
Solution
I initially did a Scholten approach. Duty was such a strong theme in this case and also, he liked/wanted to be told what to do. Looking to the left of ferrum metallicum in the element table I spotted manganum. I knew of the theme of cooperation in this remedy and therefore verified what further information I had on manganum (G. Loutan and AFADH).
I prescribed Manganum aceticum LM6 for 3 weeks.
According to G. Loutan: Manganum does not exist on his own and improves the others by his help. In this relationship with the others, he exists as a minority part. He does not trust the future unless he is somewhat in control of things to come. He wants to be the actor of making sure that unity remains. Note that manganum
plays an important role in alloys. Adding small amounts of manganum improves a variety of qualities of many other metals.
Ten days in the treatment, the owner started noticing a difference. Harry took the remedy daily for 3 months. Then dosing was reduced to twice per week and in the second year the repetition of the remedy was reduced further and stopped in the 3rd year. I did increase the dilution every 2- 3 months depending whether the movement in the carpal joints was improving or not.
All joints went back to normal. No more reduction of flexibility (ROM) of the carpal joints, no lameness, he lost weight (his body became more streamlined), he is much calmer and not so nervous anymore. He is happier sitting near the owner, whereas before he tended to sit at a distance. He is not worried about the horses any more.
In the first year, when the owner stopped giving the remedy, some of the improvements tended to wear off, to return and soon as the medicine was started again.
It is interesting to note that this owner did not think I would be able to make any difference to his dog. Conventional medicine prescriptions and having tried homeopathy treatment before, both had made very little difference to his lameness.
I used manganum aceticum, as this is the original substance that was used in provings and of which I had information in the form of remedy studies.
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