OOOOOKKKK .... Thanks for validating my deer repellent experience :) and saying "I'm sure lots of things work" ... In MY experience ... this did, so I thought I would share :) I think perhaps a more productive way of addressing this whole topic could have been, "I appreciate your excitement of finding old fashioned ways that worked for our grandparents in gardening, and I'm sure some of them worked great, but a lot of valid research has been done since then and is worth investigating," instead of the aggressive, "This guy is a quack and preys on the ignorance of new gardeners," resulting in the reactive, "You all suck and I'm ignoring you." It's not rocket science psychology that's going on here. Just be nice ... and validating ... and supportive. If the price of an egg makes her plant grow and that makes her happy, and it's the calcium from the shell and the nitrogen from the decaying protein, etc etc etc, who are we to rain on her happy? We're not talking industrial farming here ... it's a back yard garden. You can say the same thing with kindness and get a lot more accomplished, ya know? :) -v

Hey Kathy - here is something that may take your ? away from autoimmune: is the failure of an organism to recognize its own constituent parts as self, which results in an immune response against its own cells and tissues. Any disease that results from such an aberrant immune response is termed an autoimmune disease. Prominent examples include Coeliac disease, diabetes mellitus type 1 (IDDM), systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), Sjögren's syndrome, Churg-Strauss Syndrome, Hashimoto's thyroiditis, Graves' disease, idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, and rheumatoid arthritis (RA). See List of autoimmune diseases. I know that that's a lot multi-syllabic words, but basically, it is the body attacking itself, due to the inborn lack of ability to recognize it's own DNA. It is sorta like you kill your son when he comes in your home, cause you don't recognize him. Very sad, very scary. Hope you know I don't think you'd do that, but it is the best way I can explain how Be-Be's own body is attacking itself. ((((Hugs and purrs)))))) Nancy, Midnight, Nicademus, Sylvester and Ozzie!!!

I hesitated a couple of days before posting this, because it's a little bit of a wet blanket (not much, though). One of my dogs had itching problems that we were first told were seasonal. They started out fairly minor but got worse and lasted for longer each year, till she was scratching all the time, all year. Nothing helped but prednisone shots, and even those didn't last long. She was miserable, and none of the vets we took her to knew what was causing it. This went on for about ten years. We finally found out about the terrible trinity of dog allergens: wheat, corn, and soy. We removed all of those from her diet, and within two months the itching stopped completely. I mention this because I used to make all sorts of treats using wheat flour (also cornmeal), which is what the standard recipes call for. If you simply tweak them and use rye flour instead of wheat, the treats will be just as good (maybe not to people, but the dogs never seem to mind!), and you won't risk creating allergic symptoms, like itching, hair loss, hot spots, dull coat, etc. Not all dogs have a bad reaction, but if yours does, it's a very easy fix.

I'm so sorry about your precious boy. I think some people grieve more over losing our pets than losing our fellow humans. And there is nothing wrong with that. My parents lost two of their dogs this year. One in April the other in August. To this day my dad is still grieving. One of their dogs had cancer, the other had liver problems and went downhill very quickly. The had two other young dogs at the time but that didn't help the pain. My dad recently adopted two puppies, one of which is almost a spitting image of one of the dog that died of cancer. When I was there for thanksgiving, seeing this dog reminded me so much of Petey the one they lost) that I cried and its been since April that he passed away. My dad orginally called the new puppy Little Pete and my mom made him change his name because it was too similiar to the dog they lost. I know this doesn't help much now, but you have all those wonderful memories with your boy and think of what a great life you gave him. He was a very lucky dog and I'm sure he knew how much he was loved.