Twin sisters Reagan and Jordan Carnwath, 29, decided to open a different kind of veterinary clinic in Scotland, one that offers herbal remedies to its patients.
Named Herbal Vet Scotland, Reagan says the clinic is the “first of its kind” in Scotland.
Take a look at the video to find out more about this vet clinic!
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Video credit: Rumble
Both of them were “obsessed” with animals as they were growing up and often cared for sick or injured creatures at home. They both decided to become veterinarians and took up veterinary medicine at the University of Glasgow.
Reagan finished her studies in 2013 while Jordan followed a year later.
After graduating, Reagan moved to Dumfries and Galloway where she worked at a rural veterinary surgery. In 2017, she came back to her home city to establish Herbal Vet Scotland.
Unlike most veterinary clinics, they don’t offer spaying and neutering. While they offer complimentary holistic treatments, they can refer the pets to regular medical care to other veterinary clinics when necessary.
Treatments include recipes that owners can cook for their pets and even acupuncture for pain relief.
Reagan holds the fort at the Glasgow clinic while Jordan travels to farms to visit patients.
Reagan said: “We’re the only dedicated herbal practice of its kind in Scotland.
“If animals need conventional treatments we’ll send them back to their regular vets but we choose to model on holistic medicine and it seems to work well. In North America, it’s really big with vets that work in this way. It’s important because it shows these treatments are effective.
“A lot of people worry about coming across a vet like us and wonder how effective it is. We’re not replacing conventional veterinary care. We see a lot of animals with skin diseases and cancers. We’re not saying ‘we can cure cancer’, but we have a whole lot of treatments we do such as injections of mistletoe and diet changes.
One of our patients got diagnosed with a rare form of cancer of the adrenal gland and the vet said it would be weeks to months to live.
“We saw the dog and started him on weekly injections of mistletoe and now he’s doing really well – he’s full of energy and acting like a puppy again. We won’t say we’ve cured him, but he’s living a really good quality of life. He’s on medication to control his blood pressure, that’s the only conventional medicine he’s on. He’s also on a home-cooked diet and medicinal mushrooms as well.”
While both sisters affirm that animals can benefit from raw diets, they also give owners recipes so that they can cook meals for their pets.
Reagan, from Cambuslang, Glasgow, said: “We give the owners recipes and they cook them up at home. They cook a big batch up and can freeze it so it’s not too time-consuming. An advantage is you know exactly what’s going on. Dog food can be quite processed with meat derivatives.”
The sisters also prescribe herbal powders, creams, and ointments as well as perform mistletoe injections.
Reagan added that home-cooked meals combined with the herbal treatments can be “preventative” and maintain the health of animals so that they require minimal conventional veterinary care.
She said: “Some conventional medicines like steroids are super cheap but others are really expensive. We offer puppy and kitten consultations to get diets right, reducing needs for over-vaccination – setting them up to be as healthy for as long as possible. It’s preventative. It’s really the future of preventative medicine.”
Reagan added: “Since little girls, we were obsessed with animals and we’ve been lucky to grow up and realize our dream to become vets. We were animal mad and always bringing injured ones home to our mum, much to her delight.”
Replaced!