MENDING BASKET CASES: Dhabar with furry friends

Snoopi settles himself on the couch, paw placed possessively on his owner. He growls incessantly at the stranger in the room, hating her for denying him-even for a few minutes-the attention he considers his birthright. Sometime later, he decides he has had enough and drags his owners out, trying to get in a nip at canine counsellor Shirin Dhabar on the way.

Perhaps he's passing judgement on her diagnosis: Snoopi suffers from the "Dominant Dog Syndrome". The pampered pooch has happily deluded himself into believing he "owns" his people, not the other way around. Snoopi, says Dhabar, needs to be put in his place. So she chalks out a behaviour regimen for pooch and family.

Bizarre? Not any longer. Pet therapy-a well-established practice in the West-is in India. And despite animal shrinks getting more than their share of raised eyebrows and nasty cracks, they are gradually finding acceptance among pet owners bewildered by their pet's inexplicable behaviour.

HEALING TOUCH: Reiki masters Devyani and Shivranjani Singh with their dog

"Reiki works beautifully with animals-they have an open mind minus the scepticism." Shivranjani Singh, Reiki practitioner

Like Mumbai businessman Vijay Kumar, who couldn't figure out why Tango, his beloved German Shepherd, had transformed overnight from a friendly creature to a menace with a mean bite. Overcoming his scepticism, he set up an appointment with a dog counsellor. After a few sessions, he was told that Tango was suffering from separation anxiety. The family kept travelling out of town to attend to a sick relative. Tango was deprived of his "pack" and he reacted aggressively.

This isn't a fad all pet owners want to get in on: taking your dog to a shrink carries a stigma in India, just as going to one yourself does. "Most people hate to accept that their beloved pooch is whacko," says Dhabhar. "But in most cases it is the owners who have no clue to handling the animal, and the dog develops behaviour problems."

In canine psychology, the couch trip is meant not just for the troubled pet, but for its harassed owner as well. "We study the body language of the animal, observe his behaviour and talk to the owners, which helps us understand what the dog is thinking," says Mumbai-based canine counsellor Kshitija Koppal. Long separations from a beloved one-human or animal-death, tension and fighting in the family could make the family pet withdraw into a shell or become mean and aggressive.

From the temperamental to the purely biological, alternative healing seeks to address the gamut of pet problems. And the pet owner can choose from a variety of therapies: herbal medicine, Reiki and pranic healing, acupuncture, even aromatherapy.

SINGLE-POINT THERAPY: Fernandez works on a patient

"The horse's back pain was crippling. After a month of acupuncture, he won the Great Indian Derby." Leila Fernandez, veterinary acupuncturist

For pets that waddle rather than walk, for instance, herbal remedies are a substitute to good old exercise. Many vets are now prescribing Herbal Life, a slimming product that's the rage among weight-watchers of the two-legged kind too. When Cleopatra a beautiful golden Labrador, lost her figure, Delhi-based vet Anil Sood put her on a diet, substituting one meal a day with Herbal Life. The result was worth the trouble. Two months and Rs 1,500 later, Cleo had woofed goodbye to 8 kg, and is a cinch to enter the canine equivalent of beauty pageants: dog shows.

The results are turning sceptics into believers. Delhi-based Smita Singh did not believe in Reiki, the "transfer of divine energy", as a method of treatment. But when her vet told her that her pooch Toffee was about to die due to a tumour, she pushed her doubts aside and circulated Toffee's photograph among a number of Reiki practitioners who performed distance healing upon her. Toffee survived. But was it Reiki or the antibiotics she was gulping? "Both," says Bhavna Kalra, Toffee's veterinarian, adding that alternative treatment is best used in conjunction with medicine, but only after consulting a vet.

For Delhi-based Reiki masters and pranic healers Shivranjani and Devyani Singh, there's no doubt. "Reiki works beautifully with animals-they have an open mind, no scepticism," says Shivranjani. Biju, their pampered monkey, refused to eat. "Reiki provided the healing touch, and Biju improved rapidly," says Devyani.

From one ancient healing process that originated in China to another. Mumbai-based vet Leila Fernandez, who has studied veterinary acupuncture, uses it to treat ailing horses, and her growing client list includes racehorses. Fernandez recounts the case of a patient who went on to win the Indian Derby. "The horse suffered immense back pain, which was crippling him," she says. A month of acupuncture had him kicking sand into his rival's eyes. Not all Fernandez's patients take kindly to needles being jabbed into them. A disgruntled horse aimed a kick at her face, while another one took a sizeable bite off her shoulder. "Part of the job," she shrugs, adding that acupuncture works best in chronic back pain, hip dysplasia, respiratory diseases and skin problems.

A more painless healing process-for both the patient and the therapist-is aromatherapy. Gauri Apte, who runs a pet saloon in Mumbai, has found tea tree oil useful in treating skin allergies. "Lavender and sandalwood oil improves the skin texture and hair quality, while neem keeps the pests away," she says as she expertly massages a furry patient.

It's the era of the New Age Pet. A disbelieving public might scoff at alternative therapy for the four-footed. But doggone it, who cares? Certainly not the family and other animals.