Feeding Frozen Food To Your Dog

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.

Hey everyone, how are you this week? I'm hoping you're doing good. I'm doing good. I'm getting ready for my book tour. I'm, you know, it's so hard to send out emails this time of year because everyone's sending out like buttload of emails and so the timing of my book coming out February 4th is a little non advantageous for me. Getting the word out, timing everything correctly. It's all about timing, right? So yeah, I'm working on book tour stops. If you have a place that you'd like me to come if you're near, you know, if you're within an hour of a major city hour or an hour and a half, let me know. Right into the podcast, go to k9herbalist.com send me a email k9herbalistmail.com let me know. If you are a store and you want me to do an event, let me know. If you are a business and you want to get my sponsorship information, let me know. One thing that's changed is that the herbaldog.com is live and that is going to be my resources email. Like email, sorry, website resources website where I list brands that I love and know they're not paid to be on there. They're just on there because I want them on there. And this is a site for everyone. Check it out. It's going to be growing and growing and I'll keep you updated here on the podcast. I know that the people who sponsored my podcast, Real Mushrooms and Goodness Gracious are going to be on there. Goodness Gracious is listed under the gently cooked food and treats listings and then the real mushrooms will be under the mushrooms and herbs resources, which I don't think is on there yet, but it's getting there. So they will definitely be on there because they're so awesome. On the short that I did recently, I talked about Figgy Nubbins and the grain juju mushroom fermented mushroom probiotic which I love. But Goodness Gracious has their gently cooked food and Figgy Nubbins has been eating it and doing really well. She is on what's called the rejuve and she's doing really, really great on it. She was having a problem with puking so we gave her gently cooked with digestive enzymes. And her coat is beautiful. And she's doing like. She's doing so much better than she was. And I think the gut can't repair itself if it's inflamed. So her inflammation is way down. And I really feel like her gut is repairing itself. But I'll keep you updated. I'll keep you updated. I helped formulate that diet. I did that herbal component of the rejuve and their restorative diets. There's three other three others there. Check them out at goodness gracious. Treats.com we are going to talk about something controversial. I didn't know it was controversial, but I guess it is. So let's get McCracken at talking about it. So recently I sent out a post on social media. Don't we love social media? That was a joke. It can get very mucky. Mucky muck. And people can say whatever they want on social media, which I think some people should check themselves. But, you know, total self expression. I'm a big believer in 100% free speech, whether it be something I disagree with or not, because the lack of free speech is not gut. I put out a meme that told people to stop feeding frozen and cold food. Now, I should have said very cold food, but I didn't. I just put cold food because I don't believe you should feed cold food on a consistent basis. I did put that in there. I did put that in there. I said do not feed cold food on a consistent basis. Okay, Consistently. Because what does that do? Okay, so there's a few things. Frozen food. Don't feed your dog frozen food. The occasional frozen treat is not going to do hardly anything. It's going to be fine. If it was me, I would definitely minimize them. I wouldn't feed it every day, for sure. I wouldn't feed frozen foods with meals. I would give them as a snack, away from food, away from their meal. Don't microwave your dog's food. You can add a small amount of lukewarm water. And I did mention to, you know, thaw and warm food to around room temperature. This is what I do. And I'm not afraid of bacteria. Okay? That's thinking as a human. I basically take my food out of the fridge, I put it on the counter. I get all my supplements going. You know, herb supplements. Do my infusion. If I'm doing that, get it all going. Get all the bowls out. I've got a lot of dogs, so get all the bowls out. Right. I do infusions and I add warm water, I pour it over the food, I mix it up. If a couple of my dogs eat on a platter, so I pour it in a bowl, I mix it up, warm it up, and then I put it on the platter, you know, with a little bit of water over the top of. Goes in the little junctions in the. Or the little ravines in the platter. Some of my dogs eat out of bowls, depending on what their routine is. And that's it. I mean, it's. I don't know, for me, it's not rocket science. However, dogs are individuals, so however you, you deal with your dog is up to you. But a lot of people got upset about my post, and that's okay. If that's where you're at, I'm fine with that. Some people said nasty things which called me an idiot. I'm fine with that. I've been called an idiot before. It's not doing much for me. So I know I'm not an idiot, so we're okay with that. But I might be an idiot to them, but let's. Oh, and a lot of people wanted scientific evidence about not feeding your dog frozen or cold food because they thought that frozen. Well, I'm especially concerned about the frozen food, frozen food. They were definitely concerned about that, you know, and I was concerned. They were concerned, but just in different, like, camps of concern, you know, they wanted scientific evidence, and I really wanted someone to give me scientific evidence for the positive attributes of feeding frozen food to your dog. No one could come up with those. I don't have scientific evidence. I mean, I'm sure there's some out there. There's definitely in functional medicine for humans. There definitely is some stuff out there about feeding cold food, frozen food, and what it does to your gut digestion. But here's the thing. This is common sense, okay? It's common sense and it has its roots in traditional Chinese medicine, which is thousands of years old. And tcvm, which is traditional Chinese veterinary medicine, is not a thousand years old or thousands of years old, but it is practice and it is based on human traditional Chinese medicine. However, it's still common sense. So let's work through this, okay? When you feed frozen food, it takes an inordinate amount of energy to process it in the gut of your dog. And the gut is not very long, okay? So frozen food stays longer in the gut, and we don't want it to do that. It puts a lot of pressure on the liver, on the gallbladder, on the pancreas, on the spleen. But, Rita, my dog's fine, and I feed frozen food. Yeah, your dog's fine today, okay? You can't go in there every day and go, huh? What's going on? You know, who's being pressured? Is there any stagnation? Because these types of things work up, these type of things work themselves into things. The body, in my opinion, does not need any extra help in being chronically ill. Frozen food puts pressure on digestive enzymes. It interferes with digestive enzymes, okay? Because digestive enzymes are set up to eat warm foods, okay? Room temperature. Warm, slightly cool is fine. But warm foods, dogs eat prey out of stomachs that are warm. And yes, dogs will eat frozen food in the wintertime in snow country. They will drag off a frozen carcass, let it thaw a little bit, and eat it, okay? That is called survival. But we had quite a few of those in that camp, which is fine. Like I said, I love you all. I love your candor. I love your passion. I love even the ones that called me idiots. I love you, too. It's fine. We're all in this together. I totally understand. However, a lot of wolves and coyotes, it's the weak ones that die in the wintertime eating the frozen food because it takes so much energy to digest frozen food. They'll eat it out of survival for sure. Okay? But a lot of those weak animals die, and I wonder if they would have died if they would have had warm prey. A lot of the weak animals can't catch warm prey, all right? So I think that we just need to consider it. You know, anything I say is not an absolute. Like my mom says, try it on like a pair of jeans, you know, See if it fits. If it doesn't, try a different pair. So, but just think of common sense, okay? When you mess with digestive enzymes, you mess with. With proteins being broken down in time when they get to the small intestine. And if they're not broken down into the correct amino acids, they get targeted for termination by the immune system, okay? So it increases food sensitivities. It also interferes with nutrient absorption. Okay? Again, your dog's digestive tract is short, so much shorter than ours, and it contributes to dampness. Now, I can tell you dampness is a huge problem for dogs in this day and age because of all the processed crap that our dogs are given and all the stress that they have from yours truly. And if you're in the car, just look at yourself in the mirror. You know, we all contribute to our dog's stress levels, which contribute to dampness. If you don't know what dampness is, check my podcast episode out about dampness. But it's when the dog's body has too much moisture and it messes with things it can cause. You know, if your dog has a lipoma, if it has, like a lot of growth, I can never say that word, growth. If it has a yeast infection, there's dampness there. Okay? So frozen food and super cold food contribute to elevated dampness, and it decreases immune function because it puts pressure on all of those organs, and that decreases blood flow and circulation. It's like a domino effect because of that consuming high amounts of energy to warm that food up so it can be processed so it's sitting in the gut much longer. All right? It decreases appetite. And here's the kicker. So any of you who have been through my Energetics course, look at cold, cool to cold. If your dog falls into the cool to cold, where their core of their body is more cold, and they do much better when you give them things like ginger and turmeric and things to warm them up. Angelica, you know, different types of warming herbs. Calendula, which is lovely for warming the core. These dogs can move towards cold so quickly when fed frozen food. All right, if it's the dead heat of summer and you're feeding some frozen herbs or watermelon or something as a snack, that's not what we're talking about here, you know, but if you're feeding consistent frozen food every day, I would suggest that you try it on to stop that practice. That's what I'm talking about here. Just to try that on, stop the practice and see if your dog is completely healthy. And you really, truly believe that frozen food does not matter, go ahead and keep feeding it. But I wouldn't recommend it. But if. If that's where you are, that's where you are. Dogs are individuals. You know, a lot of people say, well, my dog won't eat fish unless it's completely frozen solid. Okay, I don't know. You know, maybe they won't eat it once, twice, three times, five times, maybe even 10 times. But if you start giving them little pieces of fish, you know, it needs to be frozen for a while, but then you can thaw it. You know, I tend to sear it, but if you give it a little at a time, little pieces, it's like getting a cat to go to raw. Sometimes it can take three months because your dog's used to it, give them little pieces in Their food, get them used to it. You know, sometimes it's a texture thing. Okay, that's fine. You know, just be mindful. Be mindful of what you're doing. Be mindful of how the body logically works. You know, it just. It's all about elimination and assimilation in the body, and it's all about access to digestion. And what is digestion? It's enzyme function. Enzyme function and breaking proteins into amino acids and assimilating vitamins and minerals and fats and peristalsis, which is how quickly the food moves through the gut. It's all those things. It's supporting the microbiome, having access to fiber, having access to prebiotics and probiotics. So I implore you, I implore to explore this idea of feeding frozen food. You know, think about it for yourself. Do some research on how the gut works. Holistically. Everything is connected. Everything is connected so that frozen food in the gut is literally putting pressure on the liver. It's also putting pressure on the gallbladder and the spleen and the pancreas and the portal vein and the lymphatic system, okay? Because things are not being recognized or broken down in a timely fashion. Now, some dogs can do just fine, okay? Some dogs can do just fine on frozen food. I'm not saying dogs out there that cannot do fine on frozen food. I am talking about chronically ill dogs. And there is a lot of them. And then. Well, basically, that's all I see. So, you know, for the last 20 years, you know, especially the last 15 years, I've worked with chronically ill dogs, right? And. Well, no, I actually worked with a buttload of chronically ill dogs 20 years ago with Pug Rescue. We rescued so many pugs, and, you know, all of them were chronically ill in one shape or form, except for some of the puppies that we had. But they were still pretty unstable. So, you know what I feed a little puppy? Frozen food. No, I would not. You know, weakness. Dogs that are weak, dogs that are lethargic, these are usually cold dogs. Feeding them frozen food is such a detriment. You know, dogs that are hot, that definitely need cooling in the core, I would say they're more tolerant from a. From a thermal standpoint, but not foods being broken down and still putting pressure on things. You know, just think about it. That's what I'm asking. Think about it. Think about what you're doing. And, you know, in my upcoming book, the Herbal Dog, if you have not purchased it, if you have not Pre ordered. Please pre order. Please pre order the Herbal dog. You can pre order it at Barnes and Noble, at Target, if you're in Australia, you can go to. Oh, God, I can't remember the name. Narni. Narni. I think it's on theherbaldog.com. you can check out the places to pre order the book. But in my book, one of my recommendations is don't feed cold food. You know, don't microwave it either. We talked about that. Microwave is never a good idea. I don't microwave water. It messes with water. I don't microwave hardly anything. So you can microwave all you want. I'm not a big fan. I don't do it. You can look that up. There is scientific research on the negative effects of microwaving food and water, but I'm just not a fan. But warming a food up is not rocket science, okay? Work with the food. See how long it takes to thaw, and just try not to feed super cold food consistently. That's what I'm. That's what I'm talking about. Okay? And you can write into the podcast if you want. You can write in and call me an idiot. I'm fine with that. But this idiot is definitely showing up every week to do this podcast. No matter how many names are slung at me, I can take it. So I don't make it mean anything. It just means that we disagree, right? And we should be able to disagree with each other. That is so important to our existence as humans. Because the thing is, is we can come from all different feeding backgrounds. We can come from different experiences. I can only come from the experience that I have. Right? And I love hearing about your experiences, even if I don't agree with them, you know, because what bonds us together are dogs. Right? We can have different political backgrounds, different religious affiliations. We can have all of these different things that make us completely different from each other. But what we don't have as a difference is the love for the furry ones, for our dogs and our cats and our animals. I just actually just acquired two rescue chickens. We named them Netta, N E, T T A and Henrietta, but I'm calling them Etta and Netta. I don't know what kind of chickens they are, but they're very small right now, so they're very young chickens. And they let you pick them up and hold them and they coo. They do. We made them a little chicken coop. Painted it. My partner painted it this weekend and they did their first night in there yesterday. So cute. They got to run around in our yard, in our gardens and eat worms and do chicken things. So I'm really excited about that. Got them some organic grubs. I will not be feeding them frozen food. Just joking. What I'm basically saying is try it on. Okay, just try to think about it logically. That's what I really want you to do. Okay, think about it logically. On a more exciting note, I will be giving away some of my Herbal Dog books in the next few weeks. So check out my socials for that Instagram and Facebook. I will be giving away signed copies of the Herbal Dog. So yeah, over the next three weeks and then towards the like in a couple of weeks I'll be having a 20% off sale on all my courses@canineherbalism.com and if you don't know about my cancer cancer Intensive Cancer Care and prevention series that I'm doing, check that out on my website, canineherbalism.com I don't know when this episode is gonna drop, but on December 7th we are doing the second part of the canine cancer series. Each session is about 15 is $15 and the session lasts for between two and three hours. We talk about what I call my cancer pyramid, which I will go over on the next episode of this podcast. So just want you to know about those things. I will be doing cancer series talks probably for the next couple months until I work my way through all of the subjects that I need you to know about cancer. And I'll be talking about that here on the podcast as well, just not as an as in depth. So you can check that out@canineherbalism.com under webinars on my website.

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And edited by Mike Fry.

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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, deck, 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.

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