With April Fools day less than 24 hours away, I thought I was reading a joke when Joseph handed me an article today about pets – and antidepressants. Yes folks, even the pooch isn’t immune to being labelled with some kind of mental disorder nowadays.

The article starts:

MENTAL illness in pets is on the rise, with an increasing number of animals being prescribed anti-depressant medications. Dr Gabrielle Carter, from the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Veterinary Science, said she was seeing more animals with anxiety, depression and phobias.
“We’re diagnosing more animals with mental illness,” Dr Carter said. “The main mental distress would be some sort of anxiety. That probably underlies about 95 per cent of the problems. “There’s also many animals with separation anxiety, phobias and aggression.”… “We use a lot of drugs like Prozac and other anti-depressants and Valium,” Dr Carter said. “And we always prescribe behavioural treatment plans.”
Mentally ill cats and dogs taking anti-depressants March 30th, 2011

Now, I honestly mean no disrespect here, but what are these animals eating and how do they spend their time? Last time I looked, most pet food is laced with sugar and additives, and how many breeds of dog were actually bred to live in a small suburban backyard?

Speechless…

picture: photostock

Brachiation Ladders can make an incredible difference for any child’s neurological development. I’ve written about these – what they do and  why they are important – on the Brachiation Ladder page.

On the Grow Foundation website, we’ve published a success story about a girl who was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder & Developmental Delay. Her family purchased a Brachiation Ladder last year and over the following 8 months, Allyssa achieved profound results. Her parents believe the Ladder helped her enormously. You can read Allyssa’s story here, well done Allyssa!

In order to keep our prices low, we now make our Brachiation Ladders to order every other month. What this means is that we will be making Ladders in April, then in June, August, October and December 2011. Anyone wanting to order one must have their orders in by the end of the previous month, with the 50% deposit paid by then also. Therefore, if you would like to have your Ladder made in April, you will need to have your order confirmed and deposit paid by the end of March.

A family in Canberra recently purchased a Ladder for their child, and had it sent by a transport company who charged a very reasonable rate. In fact, the quote from this company was less than half what we were quoted elsewhere…

The company is:

CK Interstate Furniture Removals 02 6851 6958 www.ckinterstate.com.au

This is another company who also offered very competitive rates:

AUSWIDE VANLINES on 1800 554 661

www.removalsinsurance.com.au

We are also now looking to supply mats for the floor below the Ladders, so if you are interested in those send an email.

To read more about our Brachiation Ladders, click here.

Kristen Morrison & Sarah Delarue

We are thrilled to say that our Grow Foundation is now up and running! Our launch event was a great success, with most of our guests commenting that we have opened their eyes to potential they were not aware of before the event.

You can now read on the GROW FOUNDATION WEBSITE the Six Australian Stories we published in the Launch Event Program. These are stories of children with a variety of challenges who are all defying the odds and getting better, naturally.

As well as entertainment from Jazz trio Anna Gilkison and Gary Pinto,  guest speakers Dr Peter Holsman and Dr Nahla Khraim, shared their insights into how natural lifestyle and natural / alternative / complimentary

Dr Peter & Dalia Holsman

therapies can be of huge benefit for children with neurological challenges. Click here to read more.. »