Antibiotics & Raw Food Diet - Listener Q & A - Mini Episode

Hi, this is Rita Hogan and welcome to the Dogs are Individuals podcast. I'm a clinical canine herbalist and I've been practicing for over 20 years. This podcast is all about your dog through an herbal lens. So let's get to it and dive right in. Hi everyone, this is Rita Hogan, your host of the Dogs Are Individuals podcast. Before we begin, I would love to thank my sponsor, Real Dog Box. Real Dog Box is amazing. Check them out. I'll have a link on my podcast notes. But it's basically Real Dog online and Real Dog Box helps you feed your dog reel. They're basically a San Diego based company. I've been there. I'm amazed by their facility. They're a dog wellness company and they've basically pioneered kind of like a new category of convenient food that's healthy that connects dogs with real nutrition. And this is for any type of dog, Kibble, Fed Dog, Raw. Fed Dog. They have some really great offerings for sure and you can see them at FeedReal. They make deliveries. They have a box that you can get for a monthly delivery of free fresh dog treats and chews. They also have whole food supplements. They're expanding. What I love about them is that you can utilize their offerings pretty much on every budget. So check them out at Real Dog. I'll have a link in the show notes. So for this short, I'm going to be answering some questions from people. We've been getting some people writing into the podcast and again, you know, this is, this is ramblings from an herbalist whose life has gone to the dogs. And you never know what you're going to get on the podcast. But a listener wrote in and wrote asked me the following. So she said, we feed our dogs small batch raw food since they are puppies and they are four now. We always add water, additional veggies and some, some things like hemp and chia and kefir and salmon oil. Is this a good diet? I have so many contradictory opinions from Betts. Well, you're going to get those contradictory opinions from Bets. She says one of my dogs has very dry skin, including dandruff. What else can I do to help her? Lastly, do you have recommendation for a holistic vet in Southern California and Las Vegas? We split our time between both locations, so I don't know any vets in Las Vegas. I'll try to find that out and get back to you on that one. But let's talk about diet. So small batch raw food is a very good company, very ethical. Love, love, love them. So That's a good food. I definitely would find a few proteins that you can rotate and give some variety. One of the things is that, you know, you said that you have multiple dogs and unfortunately you cannot feed multiple dogs the same diet because dogs are individuals. Now it may turned out that you can feed them the same diet if that's the case. But you want to look at their energetics, I would definitely check out my energetics course on K9Herbalism.com see how your dogs come out. As far as their energetics additional veggies. I'm not sure what you're feeding seeds like hemp. Hemp is warming. So if you're feeding your already pretty warm dog hemp, that's going to exacerbate some issues there. But make sure your hemp seeds are organic only. All hemp related products should be organic because hemp is a super accumulator, which means that it can clean the soil of toxins and it goes right into the plant. So don't feed non organic hemp products. We also have chia kefir and salmon oil. Make sure your kefir is raw. I don't feed pasteurized or homogenized dairy to dogs. It's not good for humans either, but I definitely would not give it to dogs. It's quite inflammatory. And salmon oil, make sure it's wild caught salmon oil and that it's not farmed. And salmon oil is quite warming. So you want to make sure that you are giving it to dogs that are more on the cool side. And dogs that are more on the cool side love heat. They seek it out, they want it, they like to be cuddled, they like to be covered up, they love to bask in front of the fire. They're much more cool and easygoing than a warm dog who's much more energetic, doesn't want to be covered up, doesn't like sitting by the heat. I mean, those are just simple ways to figure out if your dog is warm or cool. But I definitely would look at your diet energetically from a basic question. Yeah, small batch is a good food, but if you're looking at your dog that has very dry skin, including dandruff, that dog could definitely be a warm dog. And you're feeding a lot of warming foods. I don't know what proteins you're using, but if you're using proteins like lamb, salmon, venison, chicken, then you're exacerbating that heat and could likely be causing too much dryness. So I definitely would look at the Energetics. But thank you so much for writing into the podcast. I really appreciate it and I definitely hope I answered it to the best of my ability with the kind of things that you have given me to go by. I do know a good vet in the Southern California area, Dr. Barry Sands. She was rated the best holistic vet in the country last year by the Holistic Veterinary Medical Association. She is wonderful. And then there's Dr. Katie Kangas, I believe is in. I think both of them are in the San Diego area. Katie Kangas, two really good holistic bets. I have a second question from a listener. Let's check that out. If I could pronounce your name, I would. So I'm going to forego that and we're just going to go to the question. Hi rita. Our beautiful 13 year old Brussels Griffon has had a very rough year. In November of 2021, she had an oral surgery to remove nine teeth. Oof. Antibiotics and anesthesia were given. We were feeding kibble at the time. Shortly after, she had an ear infection. More antibiotics. Then in the summer of 2022, she was hospitalized for two days for what they said was acute. Well, basically gastroenteritis, which, which is basically bloody diarrhea. More antibiotics. Another ear infection followed in November. With more antibiotics, the ear infection will not go away. I started to wash your ears with nettle tea, distilled water and apple cider vinegar. This seemed to really improve things for a while. But here we are again with another infection. We feed raw, but she also gets some dehydrated raw food, quote unquote kibble as well as even though it's not a true kibble. I recently collected some usnia in the forest to make another ear wash and made a decoction to add a bit to her food to see if this clears the infection. Any advice for us? Well, first of all, I tell everyone I work with, don't go down the rabbit hole of blame, but I'm quite honest when it comes to kind of getting people to understand how this stuff happens. And antibiotics are the problem. So antibiotics save lives. I have nothing against antibiotics, but they're given out like candy. They're given out in a preventative manner. And in my opinion, antibiotics should not be used unless your dog's life is in danger. I'm gonna say that one more time. They should not be used unless your dog's life is in danger because they wreck your dog's insides. And it's really, you know, it takes a lot of patience and continued support to reverse that damage. And so basically she had oral surgery to remove nine teeth. Did she need the antibiotics? Was there an infection in those teeth? I don't know the answer to that question. But if they were preventative, I wouldn't have given the antibiotics. I would have supported the heart. Probably did a silver hydrosol, an usnia rents or some type of natural antibacterial bacteriostatic, which means it keeps bacteria from forming like little parties to gain strength, which we don't want them to do. So I probably would have found out, you know, does she need the surgery or the antibiotics in the first place? Shortly after she had an ear infection, most likely from the antibiotics, from the surgery and the anesthesia on the body, more antibiotics. Then in the summer of 2022 she was hospitalized for two days when they said she had acute basically bloody diarrhea and more antibiotics. So bloody diarrhea, if it's bright, blood in the stool most of the time is not a five alarm fire like it is in humans. It's inflammation in the large intestine and it usually clears up in a couple of days. You can do like slippery elm or marshmallow root or yarrow and things like that. Bramble, bramble, phytoembryonic bramble gem or therapy, things like that to astringe the tissues, tighten them up, bring down the inflammation. A demulcent like slippery elm or marshmallow root could be used to bring down again that inflammation in the large intestine. And then the blood goes away and things start going down. And we wanna ask ourselves what caused it in the first place? Did she get into something? Was she having a hard time? Was she reacting to food? But antibiotics should always be the last step. And they're awesome because when a dog needs them or a human, we want them to work. And if dogs and cats and humans have too many antibiotics, a lot of times they don't work when you really want them to. So we had another ear infection and now this one won't go away. So I think you're on the right track with using like an usnia wash. Mullein and garlic oil are excellent, like infused oil to use in the ear. For ear infection I would definitely support the kidneys. Here I would be giving milk thistle or like a liver remedy. In my store there is a section called phytoembryonics. I would go to that and look under L, there's a picture of a liver. That is the liver phytoembryonic. I would use that for a while. I would also get some nettle seed and use that for a while. We got a Brussels griffon. So the dosage for that for herbal support is I would say the liver tonic. The liver support is I would use probably four drops twice a day in the mouth before food. And then you can mix that with the nettle seed. And I would use two drops twice a day before food. There also is a product online called Eco Ears that I really like. It's one of those things just like anything else. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't. But you could try it. But the ear infection is a product of the damage in the gut and to the kidneys and to the liver from the trauma that your dog has had. So you want to support the liver, you want to support the kidneys, you want to support the digestion. I would definitely work with someone to deal with diet and figure out why your dog is reacting to things in the first place. I would add Saccharomyces bolidarti to the diet because the antibiotics have caused a lot of damage. Looks to me like three to four rounds of antibiotics. It takes two years. If you do nothing to help the gut heal from antibiotics. And we've got four rounds for every round of antibiotics, it takes two years. So we've got a lot going on here. Okay. And you can always contact me for a consult. I hope you enjoyed this short today. You guys take care. And again, right into the podcast, ask me some questions. Go to my website, k9herbalist.com and click podcast Questions. Have a great day. Thanks for listening to this episode of Dogs are Individuals. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review in your podcast app. And don't forget, sharing is caring. So if you love Dogs Are Individuals Podcast, share it with your friends and family who love dogs. This will help me so much. And remember, as a listener, I appreciate you much. Thanks to Resonant Media, my podcast production team. This podcast is produced by Drake Peterson and edited by Mike Fry. Any questions, email the show, go to k9herbalist.com, click podcast contact in the menu and then fill out that form and I'll answer any questions here online. Okay, so thank you so much for listening to this episode of Dogs Are Individuals Podcast and I'm going to talk to you in our next episode. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for veterinary care. This podcast doesn't constitute a provider patient relationship. As always, talk to your doctor, veterinarian or healthcare provider first before starting anything new, and that includes herbs. I'm not a doctor and I don't treat disease or prescribe anything. I'm a traditional herbalist providing herbal support education only. Regarding any products I may suggest the statements made regarding these products have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. The efficacy of these products has not been confirmed by FDA approved research. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. All information presented here on the podcast is not meant as a substitute or alternative to information from your vet. Please consult your veterinary professional about potential interactions or other possible complications before using any product. It.