Why Your Pet's Diet May Be Causing Disease with Dr. Marlene Siegel

Here we go, Dr. Marlene Siegel. We've just started. We are— we've been talking offline, now we're live. Um, well, not really live, we're recorded, but I'm super excited to talk about this because I am a fur parent and I want to make sure I'm doing the right thing selfishly as well. Sure. So, you know, we try to do the best things. And it's interesting, one of the supplement companies that I worked with before actually had a bunch of supplements for pets too because they were just kind of redoing the supplements that we would use and tweaking them for pets. So I'm not sure that was the right thing to do, but probably.

So that's, I would like to actually talk about supplements when we get there. Yes. I'd like to go from the bottom up, you know, and really create the conversation so people can follow. But definitely the supplement companies, it's a wild west out there and it's very, very hard to navigate.

It's, the whole thing feels wild westy to me. It feels like there's very few of you, which I would consider you I guess, a functional vet. So before we get into it, how did you become, what do you call yourself? Are you an integrative vet, functional vet, what? Crazy.

Oh gosh, crazy. I used to say integrative, but then that word became, I don't wanna say bastardized, but, you know, integrative veterinarian medicine was then allopathic veterinary medicine substituting instead of a pill for the ill, it was an acupuncture needle or an herb. But they still weren't getting to the root cause of the problem. So it was still symptom suppression. So I didn't wanna be associated with that. And holistic, the true meaning of holistic is whole body, but it's not interpreted that way. You know, when people talk about holistic medicine, they think it's this woo-woo thing out there. So what I literally do is more bioregulatory medicine. And in bioregulatory medicine, which is an old, old science, comes out of Europe, It's really understanding the body's biology. And when you understand the biology, then you're— oh gosh, here we're gonna say the biohack word, but you're biohacking the biology. We're just— we know what the body has and we know how it's supposed to work, but we're living lifestyles that are either suppressing it or interfering with it. And so therefore we have symptoms to show us there's a problem. So what I do is I go through very thoroughly figuring out what are the deficiencies, the toxicities, what's causing mitochondrial dysfunction, and then we fix it.

And it seems to me, now correct me if I'm wrong, so I'd love to kind of know the current statistics on pets, but it seems like pets are getting sicker and fatter right along with their owners.

Yeah.

Is this the case?

Oh, worse actually, because cancer rates in dogs right now, The last, it was a 10-year-old statistic, 1 outta 1.65. It is so much higher than that. I would literally say, yeah. So 1 out, 1 outta 1.65 is almost 100%. And we're also seeing cancers in animals under a year of age. That, like, let that sink in. Remember, cancers, when I started practicing 40 years ago, was an old animal disease. We didn't see it in their younger years. And then it went to being a teenager, and then it was a 6-year-old. And now I literally have a cancer patient in my office diagnosed with intestinal lymphoma at a year of age.

What is happening?

Well, this is interesting because we did genetic testing on this tumor that was taken out of his intestines. And the company that we use, they test for genetic defects, but they look at those that were inherited and those that were acquired. And this was an acquired, meaning that the toxic lifestyle, unbeknownst, nobody does this on purpose to their pets, but toxins that this dog was exposed to and it just, the number of things that happened altogether at the wrong time, it was a perfect storm and it created the cancer at a year of age. Oh, you know, it didn't happen at a year, it happened before that. So.

Right.

Yeah, he was having some GI problems probably 6 months before the cancer was actually detected. And in this dog, one part of the bowel tunneled on another part, it's called an intussusception. And it was because of that crisis emergency of the bowel being tunneled like that, that they had to go in surgically and repair that and it couldn't be undone, so they had to resect it. And that's when they discovered that there was actually abnormal tissue inside the intussusception. If it wasn't for that, he may have gone longer without being protected. So it was really a blessing.

Well, so you're seeing this big rise in cancer, and you mentioned toxins. What— where are the toxins coming from?

So we are being inundated. Since World War II, there have been over 85, probably now in the 100,000 range, of synthetic toxins that have been dumped on our food, our water, our crops. We have chemtrails in Florida a lot being sprayed on us. Those are full of heavy metals.

That fog we had recently.

Yeah, wasn't that— because you live half an hour from me, and, uh, all of that was very interesting, looking up at the sky and seeing those patterns. It was really different.

It was frightening. We actually were— unfortunately, it was during New Year's, and we were down in Naples, and we were outside for a New Year's, like, um, black tie bash on a boat dock, barefoot and black tie on a boat dock. But it was barefoot, black tie, and, and I'm like looking at this going, oh my gosh, we are getting like bombarded with this fog. Yeah. That's not fog.

So. Yeah. And it's in our tap water, you know, the toxins and the heavy metals and the glyphosate. It's raining on us in rain. And it's all the things in processed foods, the hormones, chemicals, pesticides.

The same thing that's hitting us as humans.

Yeah.

But I would think, you know, these are much smaller little bodies.

Yeah, for, for the surface area of their body, it is creating a bigger problem because cancer rates in men are supposed to be 1 outta 2. Well, dogs are higher than that. And cats, they say more like women, 1 outta 3, but that is so highly underreported. We're seeing so much more cancer in cats than the statistics show because probably they're not all being reported.

Oh my goodness. I had no idea. Well, I've got, 3 doggies, a 19, a 3-year-old, and a 9-month-old who's very mischievous, who's chewing up all our rugs right now.

Which is dangerous.

Yeah.

Foreign body, linear foreign body, and the toxins in—

I know, what do you do?

Right? Yeah, give them other redirected toys and supervision. Kind of you would with a toddler that was crawling around, you redirect them to appropriate toys. Good. Yeah. So, all right, so here's the operative question, JJ, what do you feed your pets?

So I hope we're doing the right thing 'cause I thought we were, we've been feeding them, uh, oh gosh, what's the name of it now? It gets shipped to us. Farmer's Dog.

Okay. All right, so let's talk about Farmer's Dog. Okay. Um, not all of their products are organic, so I'm gonna say that that's the first thing. The ingredients in a diet need to be grass-fed. Grass-fed, grass-finished if it's cattle or deer, and if it's chicken, free-range without any feed being given to them because all of the feeds that are given to these animals are corn-based and 98% of the corn in the United States is genetically modified. So remember, whatever they're eating, you're eating. And so yeah, we gotta be really careful about the feeds that are being fed to these animals. First thing is, what are the ingredients? And a lot of these companies are adding in vegetables because it sounds great to us, doesn't it? Like we eat vegetables and so shouldn't our pets eat vegetables? However, in the wild, and this is what I use to base my, my decisions on, 'cause there's not science behind everything, but what is, what happens in nature? 'Cause I think nature trumps anything man has ever done. So a carnivore, which is our dogs and our cats— cats are actually obligate carnivores. They have no dietary requirement for carbohydrates. So where did they get their carbohydrates? Well, when they hunted something, you know, they got up in the morning, they were hungry, they found something that they could chase, wrestle with, kill. And as they were tearing through the abdomen to get to the organ meat, they would have had to pull the intestines out. And when they did that, they would have torn them and chewed through them. And so some of that intestinal effluent would have gotten in their mouth. Well, what is that material made of? Fermented grasses and things that the herbivore was eating. So they ate those products already digested for you. So dogs and cats do not have amylase in their saliva, literally. So nature doesn't waste energy doing things that are inappropriate. So if nature wanted them to eat carbohydrates, they would have chewed their food thoroughly like we are supposed to, mixing it with the saliva, predigesting our carbohydrates. But they don't do that in the wild. They kill something and they tear, gulp, and swallow. And a lot of people go, oh my gosh, I— it's so frustrating to me 'cause I pay for this wonderful delicious food and my dog eats it in 10 seconds. But that's what they were biologically designed to do. And think about it, if you're a carnivore in the wild and you've just chased something, wrassled it, killed it, and you're about to eat it, you've attracted other carnivores. There's other scavengers out there that are going, oh, something's happening, there may be a free meal. Or while you're distracted eating your meal, somebody can come up behind you and eat you, right? So by preservation, they were designed to stuff themselves when food's available and then go back to their den and digest. And that's the same for dogs and cats.

So how often are dogs and cats supposed to eat then? Do they eat once a day, twice a day? Like, what's the recommendation?

So most people would feed them twice a day, and they would hunt twice a day. They would hunt at dawn and they would hunt at dusk. Were they always successful? No. So do they have to eat every 12 hours? Probably not. And I think that intermittent fasting, done appropriately with supervision, knowing the animal's biological health status, is a good thing because in the wild when they stuffed themselves with food, they didn't know when the next meal was coming. If we're feeding them twice a day, we can feed them to their biological need, not to satiety. Does that make more sense?

My dogs know when their meal is coming. They know.

Oh, they know the sign. Oh, absolutely. So you're doing better than most, but your Farmer's Dog is not all organic. It does have a lot of vegetables. And if you're gonna pay meat prices, for raw food, then you wanna be buying meat. You don't wanna be paying meat prices for vegetables.

Well, do you need, because you know, we ship in all of our meat from various sources like Butcher's Box and Piedmontese. And, um, do you need to get animal-based food or could you get people food?

So I'm not sure what you mean by people food.

Meaning like I'm already ordering like grass-fed, grass-finished ground beef?

Okay, I see. Well, it's not just the meat. In order to be balanced, they would eat the meat, the fat, the bone, and the organ meat.

Hmm.

So most people are not that great about doing their own diet. So having the right proportions of grass-fed, grass-finished product like that, it's so much easier if it just comes to you in a little hamburger patty. And that's what my company does, is we make the product, which is all the chickens are free-range, the cattle are all grass-fed, grass-finished. Now your audience probably knows this, but I just feel like I need to say this, that grass-fed, it could be on the label and mean that animal was outside for one day of its life. So grass-fed, grass-finished means they spent their life outside and they weren't subsidized with grains and corn and soy and other genetically modified foods. So that very important distinction.

It was interesting. I went to, um, I've been going to, um, Expo West for years. I'm sure you've been to that. Yeah, uh, back, back in the day when there was like a— it was like a couple, a couple halls. And Expo West, for people listening, is the world's largest natural foods expo. But I feel like it's a farce completely. Um, it's kind of like, it's, it's like as much ultra-processed food as you can imagine with a lot of canola and soy. It's kind of crazy. But at the time I had a catering, a healthy catering business, and I was searching for pastured chicken and trying to find chicken that hadn't been fed GMO corn and soy was not possible.

Yeah.

Not possible. And that's when I was like going, you know, I think I'm just gonna eat meat and fish.

Yeah. And this is, you know, think about us. Like when you're like me. So I eat extremely clean. I've reduced the inflammation in my body. I don't have my allergies and, you know, the little things that we had when we were younger. However, I recently went to a wedding a few days ago, and I ate everything that was there. It was catered. I couldn't talk to the chef ahead of time and make sure there was no gluten and seed oils. And so I literally thought, okay, you know, I'll be sneezing tomorrow, but I'll have antihistamines. I've got a week that I can recover. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that that level of inflammation, which was horrific, landed in my back. So I'm standing doing this podcast because it hurts to sit.

Wow. Yeah.

And it's been 5 days already. So I thank God I can biohack all the things to make it better and I'm getting better. But I mean, it was just out of the blue because inflammation goes to the weakest link in the body. And that just happened to be— I was straining my back, 5 hours in a car, looking down at a computer, sleeping in a hard bed, you know, all the little things that were just out of my norm. And I was just stretching and I felt it pop on my sacroiliac. So it is getting better, but I did it to myself. I ate that food and I will tell you it wasn't worth it. So I'm telling you the story that way because Your animals can't tell you that. They can't say, oh, you know, the food that you're feeding me is inflaming me. But they are telling you through their symptoms. And so even if you don't do it for yourself, you really have to think about what is your animal eating. So going back to your farmer's dog, our dogs and cats are not designed to be the primary eater of vegetables. Did they get 'em? Yes, they got 'em digested in the intestinal tract of the herbivore that, ate it for them. So you're actually adding inflammation 'cause now you're adding another layer of digestion, causing the pancreas to work extra hard because now it has to send out more enzymes for a product that otherwise they would not have had to bother with. Does that make sense?

Yes. So back to the detox piece of this, you know, and I'm thinking like already my dogs have beaten the odds, but we're really careful about like cleaning supplies and water and air purifiers and all the things, um, except for them eating the rug. But what can you do? Like, if someone's listening to this thinking, oh shoot, I've been feeding my dog tap water— hopefully everyone's filtered their water— um, or some of this crappy food, what can they do at this point? And alongside that, I'd love to also have the vaccine discussion, because when you started to talk about these turbo cancers, I immediately went to where's the vaccine, you know, the vaccine situation in all of this as well?

Yeah. So let me back up just a tad and I'm gonna give you my 6-step process because again, this is not like symptom management and it's not an isolated, this is a lifestyle. So once you're doing it for your pet, you're gonna improve your own life a lot. So this is good. Step number 1, stop doing the things that are causing the disease. All right? So the food that, I know it's like rocket science, but obvious. Thank you. It is, but people don't look at it. Like, we've lost critical thinking along the way. So this is really important that we have our critical thinking skills back on and we go, okay, what does food look like? So, you know, feeding a species-appropriate, raw, grass-fed, grass-finished diet that is properly balanced. And I'll explain how I made my diet in a moment because packaging laws are, are really not designed for our health. So number 1, food. Number 2, water. You know, are you— I am a water snob. I travel with my water. So it has to be highly filtered, getting out glyphosate and heavy metals. It has to be structured. And in my case, I prefer to have molecular hydrogen available as well as my antioxidant. So that's our water. And then cleaning supplies. You mentioned everything that you're cleaning with should be free of any chemicals, hormone disruptors, no products that are coming from petroleum-based goods. So essential oils, vinegar. And if anybody— we actually make a lot of cleaning products. So if anybody is interested, I'm happy to share.

You do?

Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

I remember hearing about a dog. I mean, I never use these things, but, you know, someone's dog died from, like, licking up their Swiffer thing.

Yeah. No, it's a big problem. So we really have to be thinking. And it's not good for you either, right? So when people buy brand new clothes, and they take it and put it in their closet, it's off-gassing. You got all these toxins in there. So air quality is important. We live in Florida, lots of mold down here. That's one of the big things I work with people is, you know, just check for mold. It may not be the mold under your sink, but it may be leaks somewhere in the house. So real important. And then the electromagnetic frequencies. So all of 5G and Wi-Fi and those are huge as well. You know, people sleep with their phones next to their head and kids do that. And, A lot of people put the bed for the animals under the Wi-Fi router. So it's like we have to really stop and pay attention to all this. And then the last one under the stop the things that you're doing is the ants that live in our brains as our pet parent. And those are automatic negative thoughts.

Oh, you're a Dr. Amen fan.

Well, yeah, I mean, I think I was saying it before he did, but he might be a little bit older than me, I don't know. Anyway, these automatic negative thoughts produce neurochemicals that then send out messages to ourselves, but our pets entrain to those energies that we're giving off. That's a physics principle called entrainment. So I didn't even— that's not woo-woo. So it's really important that we start writing down what are the thoughts that you're having every day. Is it predominantly glass half empty? Is it very negative? Is there a lot of stress going on in the household? Are you always yelling at the kids? The the spouse, you know, money problems. The list goes on and on. I call it the standard American day because it's filled with all of these stressors that keep you in high sympathetic tone, and then you never really have a chance to go into parasympathetic tone. What your animal feels is, there's a boogeyman, there's a lion or tiger out there, because I can feel my pet parent is on high alert. So they're, you know, like when you watch herds and they're all communicating that way. So they're saying to themselves, oh, there's something horrible out there. I need to be on a higher alert. So they're gonna be in a higher sympathetic tone. We don't heal in high sympathetic tone. We heal when we're parasympathetic. So again, principles to live by. We, I think a little bit of stress is good for everybody, but not constantly and not without having that break where you can actually rebalance your body and create good terrain, good homeostasis within the body. Okay, so, so that was just step number one.

So, and tip number one, it's— this is pretty funny. Um, we started studying Dr. Joe Dispenza's work years ago, and, you know, started first. First we only had Daisy, our 19-year-old Chihuahua, but the minute she would hear eyes closed, she would like, foomp. And then when we got Daffodil, our— we have a flower garden of doggies— she like her too. So now all of them, they, if they hear Dr. Joe start his eyes closed, they all just chill out and go. And I was telling Barry who does Dr. Joe's music this, and he actually goes, oh yeah, the dogs meditate to it. And he sent me the music for the dogs.

Yeah. Well, they're in training to you, right? Because you're their pack leader. So whatever you're telling them is going on environmentally, that's what they understand. Yeah. So even though it looks like they're sleeping a lot of the day, there's still a level of sympathetic tone that's going on, which is contributing to a lot of the health challenges.

Hmm.

So you're expressing through all these neurochemicals, you're expressing a different genetic code because you're telling yourselves this is not a healthy, safe environment. We need to have other things expressing that could survive this negative terrain. And so we really shift our microbiome, we shift everything to this negative state, which is not good. So that's all step number 1. Step number 2, we have to supply the essential nutrients. And the essential nutrients are those nutrients that the body does not make in sufficient quantity on its own. So there's a certain number of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and fatty acids that need to be in our diet. Well, we all know we're eating nutrient-deficient food these days, and I live in a food forest. I literally have food growing 360 around my house, and I use all regenerative agriculture, permaculture, to grow my food. But I still couldn't tell you, does my broccoli have all the nutrients that it's supposed to have? I don't know, because I don't know what my— those micronutrients in the soil are. So I think it's just a lot smarter and a lot safer that we supply that in a supplement. So now I'll digress for a second because when I went to create my own diet, I approached dozens of raw companies, as was 15 years ago, and none of them wanted to produce a healthy diet. It was really interesting. Oh, people won't pay for grass-fed, grass-finished, or, you know, we have to add other stuff in there to make it more affordable.

What do you— like, are these were pet food companies?

Yeah, existing. Yeah. So I slam my fist down, I'm gonna make my own. And then I went, who said that? I looked over my shoulders, is there somebody else here? You know, maybe that's my clone. And literally I just said to the universe, I'm a big manifester, if I'm gonna do this, I need the right people in front of me. And within 2 weeks I met the largest producer of grass-fed, grass-finished meats in the entire US. And he was willing to produce the diet and then Within that same period of time, I met a gentleman who had been doing a 20-plus-year trial, diet trials on animals with cancers. He would go and adopt them from the shelters and just feeding them raw foods, like balanced though. Like, so he was playing around with formulas and he was watching to see how the animals responded. Did the cancers go away? Blah, blah, blah. And, and so with his research based on 20 years of actual clinical trials, that's unheard of, by the way. When you listen to some of these food companies, they go, yeah, we did a clinical trial. We had 20 animals and we checked them for 3 weeks.

Yeah.

Like, what kind of a trial is that? I wanna see, does their disease go away? Does their cancers resolve? Is their longevity improved? Because right now animals are living 7 years shorter than they did 25 years ago.

Oh my gosh.

7 years shorter.

And the average lifespans vary per breed, right? The bigger the dog, the shorter the lifespan. It does.

You know, they really should be living to 20 and beyond, honestly. My cat was 23 when he transitioned, and he was eating processed foods the first 10 years of his life until I learned. And, you know, once you know better, you do better. Yeah. So I changed him to a raw diet and he had no health challenges up until literally the week that he transitioned.

Yeah, that was our 22-year-old cat.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, your lifestyle, even though your food may not have been perfect, A lot of the other things you're doing are, including your attitude. So I think that has a lot to do with how well these animals will do. And belief systems are important. You know, I call it a belief system is your BS. Sometimes it's good and sometimes it's not, but it's what we all think to be our truth until you have an opportunity to change your truth. And when you're willing to look at facts and then consider some changes, it's pretty marvelous. Okay, so number 1 was stop doing the things that were causing disease. Number 2, supply the essential nutrients. Oh, I was finishing the story. So when I made my food, I couldn't label it complete and balanced unless I added those nutrients in. And for most raw— for most any kind of company, pet food company, they use synthetic vitamins and minerals, vitamins and fatty acids, because they are shelf-stable, right? So they're not healthy, and they're certainly not helping the body, but they can say they put it in. So it's kind of— I don't know, it's almost defeating the purpose. But the big box companies control what labels say. So I said, okay, how do I get around that? And it was pretty simple. I made my macronutrients, and I separated them from my micronutrients. So my micronutrients are Fresh, organic, plant-based, all bioavailable. I can dose based on body weight or biological need. So how interesting is that? 'Cause you're feeding, let's say you're feeding the same food to a 10-pound dog versus a Great Dane. It's not like these nutrients are distributed evenly in the diet. They're not. So how do you know how much your pet's actually getting? And is it rancid fatty acids? 'Cause you have now opened the bag to air, there was all of these problems that I couldn't allow my cancer patients to have another drop of toxins. So I had to do something different. So that's what I did. I separated my macronutrients from my micronutrients. And then we don't label it complete and balanced. Wow. You know, but it's education. I have to teach people. And then the next part is healing the leaky gut because animals get leaky gut just like people do. And it's important to heal the leaky gut because all of those proteins and foreign material that are coming into the body get transported by the bloodstream to the liver, and the liver mounts this inflammatory storm to take care of the invaders, which is what it's supposed to do. It's actually a good thing. That's why we're biologically still here thousands of years later. But when it's happening every bite of every meal, every day, multiple times a day, now it becomes very chronic. And then you start getting autoimmune diseases and that inflammation lands in the weakest links of that pet's body. Number 4 is detoxification. And there's 6 organs of elimination, which is fascinating. The pets have it, we have it. We have the kidney, the colon, the lungs, the liver, the skin, and I'm going to say lymphatics/fascia because our Cinderella tissue, the fascia, we now know how important it is and lymphatics run through the fascia. So I kind of bundle them together. But those are the 6 organs of elimination. And when I do blood work on a lot of our patients, I'll see liver enzymes that are in the 20 or below number. That is exceedingly, exceedingly low. When I started practicing, liver enzymes were 45 to 90. And it's not the number that's so important. It's understanding the meaning when it's too low. So most practitioners they get alerted when the number's high. It means that a lot of those liver cells are busting open, something's damaging them, they're dying, and they're releasing this enzyme that we measure. But when it's low numbers, it means that organ is so bogged down, it can't function. It's like the little engine that's trying to go up the hill and it can't quite get there, right? So recognizing when the body's overwhelmed, the lymphatics can't do their job, the liver can't do its job, which are hundreds of different functions. Now we have a problem because your two major organs of detoxification aren't working. So those are super important to make sure we understand how to do that. Number 5 in my process is supporting the mitochondria. Not only do they make the energy that we need to function, but they also create the communication between themselves and the microbiome, the organisms that live in and on us. And where do they communicate through? The fascia. So it's fascinating to me how important these structures are, and yet no one is being taught how to fix it or how to support it until they come into my world. And then of course, that's all I talk about. And then number 6 is clearing trapped emotions, because we all know that with every dis-ease, there's always trapped emotions associated with that. We could do 3 podcasts on that topic. But that's the overall plan, number one.

Okay, wait, wait, wait. How would we know if our little being has trapped emotions?

So let's go woo-woo now.

Let's go.

We're going to the quantum world. All right, we're good.

I think our listeners are a little— I call it science woo. I think we're all on the same page. But it's been quantified enough that we know this is science.

Oh yeah, they have energy fields like we do. They're souls. And so all of that exists. So I don't, in my personal belief, I believe everything happens for a reason in our little hologram. So I think we live in a hologram and I think we incarnate into this hologram in order to have experiences, in order to be able to grow and learn and expand and to leave this hologram better than we came into it with, right? So that's the fun. It's sort of like playing a puzzle. Right? If you played a little children's puzzle that had 3 pieces and we're adults, it would be kind of boring. We wouldn't like to do it. But we love those puzzles that have 5,000 pieces. I know people that they get done with them, it takes them a year, they frame it, right? Because it's such an accomplishment. So that's what life appears to me to be. It is all of these experiences that we get to have. And I believe that all these experiences come to us to give guidance. So when I'm experiencing something in resistance and it seems like every door shuts, I— everything goes wrong, nothing's moving, nothing's flowing— that tells me in my guidance system that I'm off track. When things are in flow, then you're just going down the river, right? It's just easy peasy. You're not trying to swim upstream.. And so it's never usually 100% one way or the other, but it's some being aware of the emotions that you have and what they're telling you about your experience in Earth school. Where do the pets come in? Because I think they are our soul pets and they volunteer to help us with learning and messages and experiences and awakening. At times in our life when we really need it. And I have yet in my 40 years of practice, with almost 30 now doing this more bioregulatory integrative kind of medicine and really getting into the emotional side of it, never failed every single pet if the pet parent is willing to wake up. And that's the operative. So How I help them to understand where they're at is, how many times have you had this emotional experience? So let's say it's grief or fear, like the animal's gonna die and I feel outta control. Okay, like we'll use that one. And then I'll ask them, how many times have you felt that feeling in the past with a family member, a friend, yourself, whatever? And they go, oh, It's like this repetitive— it's the GPS coming back around and saying, here's your sign, here's your sign. And then at some point you either get it or you don't. And it's not wrong if you don't. If you don't want to wake up in this life experience, that's okay too. It's a choice. But when we do wake up, you can't unsee, you can't unknow, and you can't unhear, and you can't unthink either, which I think is a beautiful thing. And then what do you do with it? So every pet is either reflecting or mirroring something that the pet parent needs at that time in their life. But there's never a coincidence that you have a particular pet with a particular problem at this particular time in your life that you have to stop and deal with. Like, there's no accident that you and I are having this conversation, JJ. You know, we've, we've kind of brushed circles for years and years and we never actually talked.

I know. And what's so cool, like for people listening, is we're neighbors. We're only like 30 minutes away. My, um, my, my ex-husband and my other son actually live up in Wesley Chapel. They have two doggies up there.

Oh my gosh. I didn't know that. Yes.

So I was like, how thrilled when I found this, cuz I was like, oh my gosh.

For— yeah, and we have besties in common, like Dr. Eric Zelinsky and Sabrina. They're my besties.

Oh wow. Yeah, how amazing.

Yeah, so, you know, I've heard about you for years. I followed your work for years. But, you know, ask that question, or, you know, why are we having this conversation now? So I know there's— whether it's you and me and listeners— that there's something that they're going to hear that is going to change the trajectory of their life in one shape or form, whatever that is. I just trust that it's going to land where it needs to land.

Okay, I'm gonna go one step farther woo, and then we're gonna go over to vaccines, polar opposite. I'm assuming you've listened to the telepathy tapes.

Have you? Telepathy?

So, okay, so just for the listeners, we'll put a link to this this. Um, one of my, one of my girlfriends, Dr. Anne Shippey, turned me on to them. But in these telepathy tapes, they actually have a piece in there where they talk about the telepathy of your pets. And I'm listening to this and I'm thinking to myself that I watch my dogs, and especially our middle dog. When we got our middle dog, we were not home, we were out on trip across the world. And so my son, who is 26, picked up the dog from the airport, and this dog fell in love with my son. And so much so, we come home and the dog's like, what are you doing here? Why are you in his house? You know? And this dog will sit and cry by the door when, you know— but what's so funny is, so my son drives in electric car, and you can't hear the electric car pulling up. But my son, the minute— it's all— it's every single time she'll start to cry by the door, and he's not, you know, he's 5 minutes away driving in, but she knows. Yeah, they actually described this, and I went, oh my gosh, I watch it every single time.

Yeah, that's a soul connection. So I am actually trained in mediumship as well. It was something that I had that intuitive. I didn't know when I was little because who knows, you know, like you just do things and you think everybody does that. But as I got older, things were happening in my life and then I really wanted to have more of an expertise and have more control over the experiences. So I do a lot of mediumship work. I do a lot of, I guess you would call it, energetic work, huh? You know, where I even work remotely because energy is energy and there is no time and space. So getting through that quantum understanding, you allow yourself a more expanded understanding of what it means to exist and to heal and to grow and to thrive. And so I'm able to do that, but the emotional connection is one that's very, very big.

Yeah, this was in the telepathy tapes. And it was funny because I'm in another group called Transformational Leadership Council, something Jack Canfield created. And in there we have a pet medium, and she describes this. And then I'm listening to these telepathy tapes, and they're describing someone whose pet would just sulk in the corner. They, you know, it was a rescue dog, and she came in and did some medium work long distance with the dog. And was able to understand what was going on, explain to the owner so the owners could then, you know, make sure the dog knew when they were leaving and coming. The dog was just afraid she was going to be given up again. And so she was, and I was like, oh my gosh. So now I make sure that when I'm leaving the house, I tell them when I'm coming home.

Yeah, what's going on? Yeah, um, you know, they're understanding the energetics of, of your emotions. So that's really, really important. And I think for all of us, we're entering a really interesting and exciting time in the world where we have an opportunity. We have an opportunity to have discussions and to make changes like never before. Think about the, you know, like 50, 100 years ago, they didn't have the ability to communicate worldwide. And people weren't talking— even 20 years ago, people weren't really talking about acupuncture and energy medicine and Reiki and mediumship. Like, you, you got burned at the stake still. So these weren't conversations. And nowadays people are doing breathwork and they're talking about going into your higher consciousness, which is amazing because now it's becoming more of the norm. And the more we transform the energy in this planet, the more we make choices that help support better health, the quicker we're gonna make these changes. But there's so much responsibility that we have to learn and then use our dollars wisely. Can't go out to a restaurant and just eat whatever they put on your plate and then pretend you're living a healthy life. Uh, no, you're not. You know, I did go to the wedding and I didn't ask because of the circumstances, and I will never do that again.

You know, it's interesting. I always say, you know, we're doing this so we're resilient. So in those times like that, you can get away with it. But the challenge is when you feel great all the time and then you go have these things where all of a sudden gluten and glyphosates and seed oils and all this garbage sneaks in, you're like, oh yeah. And I think most people that are eating a lot of ultra-processed food, and this would follow to our pets too, they just, they're low-grade inflamed. They're low, they just feel—

They don't have good energy. They probably don't sleep well. Right, right. I'm rounding 70 and I am the Energizer Bunny. Like I accomplish what people think 5 people could do and I can do it by myself. I mean, I'm still practicing full-time and I'm lecturing all around the world and podcasts and interviews and going to conferences and teaching. And, you know, the list could— I have my own raw food company, our own supplement company, educational company. I have all that going and I don't slow down until I over-inflamed myself, which was ridiculous. So, you know, for people who the brick hasn't fallen on their head directly yet, but they, they're not equating the fact that they don't feel good or that they're on some medicines or they have some body parts going south. They don't equate that with their lifestyle. But when they finally get it, hopefully not too late, then they start making changes. But it's going to be we the people that make those changes. Yeah. Until we start saying no. When I go into a restaurant, I literally tell them I'm allergic to canola, to soy, to gluten. And then I actually travel with my own homemade olive oils infused.

So Ben Azadi, I had him on, I don't know if you know Ben, he made these little cards that we could give to the waiter or waitress to take back to the chef that says I'm allergic and he used Dr. Cate Shanahan's Hateful 8 and it just says it right in there.

Oh, that's a great idea.

It's fantastic. So we travel with them.

So I will have to do that. That, that is great. It will save me the phone call ahead of time. And then sometimes they make mistakes, but I find the chefs are thrilled to do the right thing.

Yeah, because it's like, just butter or olive oil, like, and real olive oil. That's always the challenge. And then Cassandrinos makes little olive oil packets and little olive oil bottles. So yeah, so we are those people. I do not— I always say I don't travel light, like we travel with a coffee maker, our own coffee, like the whole, the whole nine yards. Now Tim wants to travel with the sauna, and I'm like, okay, I don't know, I think that we might be at our limit. I think, I think we're where we need to be. All right, back over to the pets. Okay, so, um, because I feel like vaccines are finally out in the open and we can discuss them. And, you know, when, when we were— when my kids were young, I really looked at all of them and said, okay, what do we need to do? I was pushed that my kids should get the HPV vaccine. I'm like, not a chance. Or chickenpox, I'm like, why? So, you know, and we've done the same with our pets. It's like this assumption we're going to get all these things. Talk about pet vaccines. Which ones, if any, should we do? Which one should you avoid? What's the story?

So it's a long story. Number one, the only legally required one is rabies, but there are mercury free rabies vaccines out there. So you just need to find a veterinarian who offers that, but obviously we do. And then we do a homeopathic remedy to that rabies vaccine after we vaccinate to help mitigate some of the side effects. Um, because I really don't want to lose my license yet, so I follow the law. Now I vaccinate my rabies, my younger animals at 6 months of age, not at 4 months. I let their maturity get there. And then the law in Florida requires 1 year, a 1-year vaccine when they're 6 months or older. And then 1 year after that, they have to get 1 more booster, and then they can go to every 3 years. So that's the law. What people do in the privacy of their own home is one thing. The one caution is that if you have an animal who escapes, who could bite somebody, it's a serious consequence because if that animal bites somebody, they have to be quarantined for 10 days. And if you don't quarantine, the health department has the ability, they have the legal right to take that animal, euthanize it, and then test the brain for rabies because it is a fatal disease in humans. So I would say don't make rabies the hill you die on. Make sure you're feeding a species-appropriate diet, that you're using good water, that you're helping your pets detox on a regular basis, that you have good gut health. Do all of those things and then make an educated decision on your rabies.

How does a pet get rabies?

It's saliva transfer from an animal that is infected. So wildlife, if they get into a fight with a possum or coyote, and we have all those here in Florida. So, you know, you have to know where your risk factors are and just use some common sense. But that would be the one vaccine, getting it thimerosal-free would be the way I would go. And then From there, just using your best judgment. The other vaccines, we'll start with dogs. In the dog category, there's distemper, hepatitis, parainfluenza, parvo, leptospirosis. And I try to help people understand what their risk factors are. What is your lifestyle like? Are you going to dog parks? Are you traveling to other states? What is your exposure? Or is it a little guy that is potty trained on a pee pad and the 16th floor in an apartment complex and they're not going to see anybody and you don't have other people bring their dogs over, right? So you have— are you going to be going into the woods? Are you going to go traveling? Are you going to go into states where Lyme disease is a problem? And then evaluating what your risk factors are, then you make some educated choices. For a lot of our puppies, we'll do an initial vaccine starting at 14 weeks or older. Because they have maternal antibodies that are blocking the vaccine anyway. So we vaccinate starting at 14 weeks of age. We do a second vaccine 2 to 3 weeks later, and then we do a titer. And it's a titer for distemper and parvo. This is dog only. As long as we test on a yearly basis and their titers are adequate, they don't need to get another distemper or parvo titer— I mean, shot. And there are university studies by Dr. Ford who shows that these vaccines, once they've had their second set of immunity, is good for 7 to 9 years. But what is the overall health of that animal? Are they eating processed foods? Are they drinking tap water? Are they exposed to all kinds of hormone disruptors in the house? Are you pouring chemicals on them? You know, those are All part of the questions that we have to ask.

Or chemicals on their dog or cat.

Well, you know, there's a lot of shampoos and conditioners which are made with petroleum products and they're nasty and, you know, they have plasticides in them and there's all kinds of stuff they're exposed to. So we just have to be, we really have to sit down with ourselves and ask those questions. What is the overall lifestyle? Because when somebody makes a stand on flea products that say, oh, I would never put that toxin in my animal, animal, you know, I'm a great pet parent, but you're feeding processed foods. So every day you're loading them up with chemicals and sugar. I, I don't get it, you know, like, you make sure that the hill you die on is the right hill. And we live in Florida, so parasites are a huge problem here. Just had somebody email me today, what's your, what's your holistic option for flea and tick control? And I literally have to say I need to know where you live because different regions have different problems. Is your animal on heartworm preventative? Is it a dog? Is it a cat? Do they have allergies already? Because if it's an animal that already has a flea allergy, one bite will send them hairless. They'll chew and scratch and stay up all night long. So we have to really understand it's not a pill for the ill. What is your lifestyle and what can you do to improve the immune system. Think about a garden. And I live in that food forest. I can't wait to see it. And, you know, when the terrain is healthy, I don't have a lot of pests. And I use natural things to help my plants stay healthier. But there are gardens where people just get weeds everywhere. Well, why? Because the weeds are coming in as that first line of establishment. It's not that they're bad, it's telling you that the terrain is horrible. So when we have pathogens that are expressing themselves in our pets' bodies, they're telling us that the microbiome is off, the terrain is off. We need to fix all of that so that the pathogens aren't needed anymore and the good microbiome can flourish.

Wow. Are you— Are you training other vets?

I am. So I have, I have programs for veterinarians and I have programs for pet parents. And I'm really pushing the pet parent one because it's going to be you, the pet parent, that is going to go back to your veterinarian and say, I heard this podcast, or I, I got this ebook and I wanna do these things for my animal. Can you support me? And if they are smart, they'll say, well, let me learn more about it because it's good medicine and it's good practice. There's no veterinarian that I have ever, ever met that has ever happily said to their pet parent, I'm sorry, there's nothing more we can do. Euthanasia, right? Nobody feels good about that. In fact, the suicide rate in veterinarians is higher than any other industry. Really? Because we do suffer from that compassion fatigue. You know, when somebody yells at you or they blame you for the death of their pet or the illness or whatever. I mean, go look at my 1-star reviews. These are the people that if I didn't have a compassionate heart and know that they're hurting, which is why they're trying to hurt others, right? But they just haven't got it yet. That could affect me if I wasn't the person that I am. So think about veterinarians who are more fragile in their emotions and somebody writes a bad review and attacks them personally, which is horrible to do. And so we see a lot of compassion fatigue, which is a shame because it takes so much to go to veterinary school and this as a profession are the kindest, most compassionate, most giving and loving people I've ever had the joy and honor of being associated with. So it's very important that pet parents learn the material and encourage their veterinarian to explore the path. That's all they have to do. I have a 30-hour course for vet— 34— for veterinarians. You don't have to do anything different, but if it speaks to you, then you can start incorporating a couple of little modalities and start making a difference. I was in Thailand at a conference recently and a couple veterinarians came over and they wanted me to go back to their clinic and they had all of this amazing high-end material. I mean, really high-tech. It looked like me on steroids. And they were selling processed dog food in the waiting room. Oops. And I looked at them and I looked at the food and we had a language barrier already. And I went, mm. You gotta get rid of that.

I see this in biohacking and it makes me nuts. We're all like, and literally at New Year's Eve, I was sitting next to someone who was proudly telling me about how they were going to this longevity conference and that longevity conference. They were doing this biohacking thing and that biohacking thing. And I go, what do you do for exercise? Crickets. I did a little yoga a few days ago. I'm like, oh, Oh boy, okay. Yeah, but it's— it is, you know, there's, there's so much. But as I'm listening to this, it's so similar to the— to what we tell people around their own health, and that you need to educate yourself so that when you go to the doctor you can ask the right questions. And if they're not on board, then you find another doctor.

Absolutely. Yeah, there's something for everyone.

You have a— I think an ebook that you're giving our audience. Yes, yes.

Yes. Oh, good. We went over it already, but now they're gonna have it, you know, as, uh, as part of their, their gift. And, uh, and that's an outline really of understanding those 6 steps. And then I just encourage pet parents to take the next deep dive, go explore a little bit more because in my course I teach them how to identify the deficiencies and the toxicities. Not every lab does that. And I don't understand why they don't, but, you know, veterinarians aren't trained in non-traditional healthcare.

I look at the labs for humans and how lame so many of 'em are.

Yeah.

That's why I've been using more Function Health with Dr. Mark Hyman, cuz it's like, you know, I mean, they're not even testing vitamin Ds and fasting insulins.

Oh, thank you for mentioning vitamin D. Here's a statistic for you. 85% of dogs eating a processed food diet. Are vitamin D deficient. Now here's what makes it even more interesting. Dogs being carnivores— carnivores do not get vitamin D from the sun. Herbivores get vitamin D from the sun. So your cows and deer and those guys grazing, they get vitamin D from the sun, which is why if they are not outside as a normal cow would be Mm-hmm. Then they're gonna be vitamin D deficient. The dog eating that protein source will then be vitamin D deficient because they, carnivores only get vitamin D from their protein.

Wow.

How interesting.

And then you'll have lowered immune function, lowered hormone production.

Yeah. The entire innate immune system is shut off. Wow. It's another branch. So you have your regular immune system, then you have the innate immune system, the one that operates without you telling it. And it literally has to have vitamin D and magnesium as the cofactors to run that pathway. So if you're either deficient in vitamin D and/or magnesium, which most of them that are deficient in vitamin D will be deficient in magnesium as well.

Just like humans. Yeah. The big, the biggies. All right. So we'll put all of this at JJVirgin.com/pethealth. We're gonna put the link to the ebook that's free that you can download, and then I'll link over to all of the food and supplements and everything else as well, which I'm going to obviously be switching over to.

I'm so excited! We're going to get video of your guys, of our little gals. Well, we have a little—

yeah, all the little gals in there are little— we call it our dog flower garden of daisy, dandelion, and daffodil. Um, and the supplements that you give, like, you know, we've tried various things with the dogs and they're very picky.

Mm-hmm. So that is something that we teach people: do not put supplements in the diet. Okay, that food is sacred. You don't want to put anything in there that they're gonna go, oh, I don't know, like, you know, I hate taking pills. I have to because I want to make sure my nutrition is good, but I don't always like having to take a bite of my food and then swallow a pill. Right? It's just annoying. And if they taste bad for them, they're not going to want to do it, right? So we make sure that the supplements are all done separately, and we teach people different hacks on how to make that happen.

Okay. Yes. Well, was doing that wrong. Glad I brought that up.

Thank you for being so vulnerable.

Yeah. All right. Well, I appreciate your time so much. I'm looking forward to getting together with you seeing your, seeing your whole area there. Wow. And, uh, we have a little, we have a great health group here in Tampa too that I've been putting together.

I, let me know how I can serve because, um, I, I do, this is my passion and my love. I don't treat people, but I model for people what does that lifestyle look like. And once they're doing it for their pet, then they're more likely to transition and do it for themselves.

Yeah, and what I hear is, you know, most people I'd say listening to this are doing all these things for themselves but may not be aware that you're actually, you know, just like I thought I was making a good choice with not serving bagged food for the dogs, right? So, you know, you're just, you're just not aware. So now that we are, we can do better, which I super appreciate all of this. This is fantastic. I'm so excited that you exist. And you're near me. Selfishly. All right. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Bye, everybody.