by K.W. Harp, Durango Herald Staff Writer

Angel first met Durangoan Carol Bennett while suffering from pneumonia. Angel was malnourished, had metabolism problems and fought a thyroid condition that required medicines that affected her mentally.

Bennett then did something relatively unknown in the veterinary community; she had Angel start eating algae.

Angel, a female black leopard native to Africa and Asia, felt the effects of the supplement almost immediately, said Pat Craig, director of the Rocky Mountain Wildlife Conservation Center near Denver.

"(Angel) was a little bit on the skinny side," said Craig, who has 20 years of experience in the animal-care industry. "She started to gain weight pretty quickly with (conventional) drugs, but she just kept gaining weight. Then it started to get to where she was too heavy.

"It seemed like the medicine was affecting her mentally."

That's when Bennett stepped in with Super Blue Green Animal Algae, a nutritional supplement for animals manufactured by Simplexity Health, a networking company based in Klamath Falls, Ore.

Simplexity Health initially manufactured supplements designed strictly for humans until Bennett arrived on the scene. In 1993, she fed this type of supplement to her ailing dog, "and it worked," Bennett said. Her dog started to look better, and as far as Bennett could tell, also started to feel better.

She organized a conference call with anyone who knew about animal care. More than 100 people were involved in the call, and it has turned into a monthly tradition for Bennett.

"I didn't know how the products helped animals, I only knew they did because of my dog," Bennett said.

She started to study nutritional supplements and basic animal nutrition. Bennett talked with a veterinarian in Texas to better understand why the algae worked.

She has produced 18 different publications and sold more than 300,000 newsletters and 400,000 audio tapes to people interested in natural animal health care. She also markets the Super Blue Green Animal Algae through Simplexity Health.

All this, plus her work in animal therapy, is part of her company, Animal Connection Network. Her headquarters is a room in her Durango house.

"I don't consider myself an animal activist, but I have a strong connection with animals," she said. "Occasionally, something will touch me, and I know I can help out.

"I have my belief system that animals are a really important part of our daily lives," she said. "I am for the proper treatment of animals, but I think a lot of the groups with real strong memberships can often create more problems. I try to keep it low key."

After Angel had been on the Super Blue Green Algae for six months, "She came back to life and was happy and playful," Craig said. "She looked more like a leopard and started acting like one.

"I really didn't get behind (algae) at first, but when I saw her attitude start to change, I really started to believe in it."

The sanctuary has more than 24 exotic animals, including lions, tigers, jaguars and mountain lions. The algae is now a part of all their diets.

"After 20 years, I can tell quickly whether something is making a difference with the animals," Craig said.

But not everyone in the veterinary community is convinced about the exact benefits of the algae.

"It supposedly boosts their immune system," said Jennifer Schoedler, a doctor of veterinary medicine at Alpine Animal Hospital in Durango. "I personally don't buy it, but a lot of my clients swear by it.

"It definitely doesn't cause any harm, but I question anything that has such broad uses. As far as scientific proof, there isn't any. Nothing has been published in any major journal that I've seen."

The algae has been used to treat animals for about 10 years and does have a steady base of believers, Schoedler said.

Bennett is one of those believers, although she does concede the algae is neither a medicine nor a drug, but rather a nutritional support that assists the body to heal itself.

Besides Angel, she has also worked with mustangs, using more than $8,000 worth of algae to help improve their coats and hooves. The ribs, hips, pelvic bones and spines were showing on the 28 horses she treated.

"They were actually starving to death, and several of them died before they could be treated," she said.

Within 30 days, Bennett said, the horses' ribs were covered, their coats were shiny and their hooves hardened. She is currently producing a video about the horse project to educate others working in animal rescue.

Bennett, marketing the Simplexity Health algae nationwide, also works with All Creatures Sanctuary, a Florida company that treats about 700 animals a year, all endangered and native to Florida.

"We work very closely with Carol because she's one of the first people to use our supplements in the animal kingdom," said Justin Straus, vice president of customer fulfillment for Simplexity Health. "You can definitely give her credit for jump-starting this new market. Carol was our first distributor who really built her entire network solely through connecting our products with animals."

Bennett related all her work with therapy to create a "touch-balancing" therapy for animals. She is the only endorsed instructor for Bowen therapy for animals in the United States, she said. Bowen, a technique from Australia, is a form of physical therapy that works at the origins and insertions of tendons in the body, Bennett said.

She is endorsed by the Bowen Academy of Australia.

"It is somewhat a deep-tissue work," she said. "It actually works with the nervous system to release unnatural holding patterns in the body, as in spasms or misalignments."

She uses the therapy in conjunction with the algae, and that has given Bennett a following.

"I credit algae for my horse still being alive," said Kim Nemecek, a horse owner in La Plata County just south of Durango. "I've had it since high school. Between algae and Bowen, I think it saved her life and gave her a good quality of life." After Bennett's work, Nemecek started studying Bowen herself.

Schoedler said she has not heard of Bowen, but said the benefits of physical therapy are real.

"Touch relaxes a lot of things," Schoedler said. "People are more and more into alternative things right now. I think it's a healthy thing."

But despite Bennett's success with the algae and therapy techniques, Tasha Mayberry warns against giving supplements to animals without first contacting a veterinarian.

Mayberry, an office manager at Durango Animal Hospital, said certain things the human body can consume, such as chocolate, may be toxic to animals.

"We definitely take precautions and don't advise people to use things that aren't tested," Mayberry said. She was not specifically familiar, though, with Super Blue Green Algae.