How to Extend Your Pets Life | Rita Hogan

We want ourselves and our pets to flourish. We want vitality. We want happiness. You know, like, science has really explored this, the gut in general, and has come to the consensus, which I completely believe, that food and gut health equals behavioral health. Food is the number one thing that you can do for your dog. You know, change the food and. Because that's what you're doing consistently every single day.

So for people listening, I originally got connected with Rita through one of my really good friends, Leslie Mosher. She is the dog mom of Doug the Pug. And I was having. It's funny, Rita, I don't even remember what the emergency was now, but I was having some, like, really scary thing happen with turkey, and the vet couldn't figure it out, and they wanted to do all these, like, crazy wild tests that were going to cost me thousands of dollars. And the only issue that I have with vets and going to see a vet is they tell you that they have no idea what's going on. And they're just like, we could do X, Y and Z, all this different stuff. And I'm sitting in my car crying, completely overwhelmed, because it was during COVID so, like, I couldn't even be in the vet's office. And I was like, I have no idea. And I'm asking them, like, should I do this? Is it going to help? And I was just like, I mean, you're asking me to spend thousands of dollars, and then you're. You're not giving me any sort of direction. And I called Leslie and she was like, okay, I have to connect you with Rita. She's literally a miracle worker in her own words. She was like, rita has literally saved Doug's life, like, multiple times. And I'm so glad that you and I got connected because you have helped me so much over the years with turkey, and I wanted to bring you on to share your wealth of knowledge all about pets, so that we can help everyone else with their pets and their health.

Great. That's awesome. Yeah, no, I remember. Totally remember you and turkey. So turkey is just a little one.

Yeah, he's a little guy. He's about £12. I haven't recently weighed him, but yeah, he's a little chiweeny Wawa dachshund mix.

Yeah, I remember Tricky. And yes, Doug the pug, Doug. I work with Doug a lot and love Doug, Love Leslie and Rob. They're great. And they love Doug so much. So it's nice. I just spent some time in, you know, physical proximity with Doug. I went and saw Doug In Nashville. And it was super fun. Yeah.

Actually, Leslie and I were chatting while you were visiting, and she was like, courtney, you got to get Rita on the podcast because she knows so much about pet health. And it's a conversation I've been. Been wanting to have on the podcast for a while, because I think a lot of people, when they start their health journey, they're so focused on their diets, but they're not even thinking about what they're feeding their pets. And I think this is such an important part of the conversation. If you have a pet in your life that you love, why are you not also worried about what they're eating, if they're drinking filtered water? And we'll get all into that before we dive into diets and all that. Can you tell everyone a little bit about your past and what you do?

Yeah. So I am a clinical herbalist. I work with dogs and people, so I work with both. My history is, you know, I grew up on a farm, and I spent a lot of time with my dad in the garden. And he would. You know, he'd. You know, I'd say, daddy, what's this? And he'd say, you know, that's does. And I'm like, can I pick it? And, you know, and he tell me yes or no. But the cool thing about my father is he was not an herbalist. He was just a farmer. But he, his dad, and his brother knew a lot about plants. And I didn't even know this when I was a kid, because I didn't. I wasn't thinking about it, but he'd literally tell me, you know, go pick that little red plant in the corner of the field. You know, it's about yay high, blah, blah. And then he would give it to a chicken or a pig or the cow. And, you know, we never had the vet over unless, you know, a baby was stuck. It was fascinating. I didn't really know what was going on when I was a kid, but now that I grow up, I'm grown up, it's like, oh, and then. My grandmother was definitely an herbalist, Except I don't think they were called herbalists at the time. She grew up in the Great Depression with 16 kids and only a midwife. They never went to the doctor ever. She just go into the woods with a big basket and come out in, like, three hours. And my mom always used to tell me, you know, that story, and I just find it fascinating. So, you know, I. I picked up herbalism again when I was about 29. Years old, 30, and really got going around 2002. I ran a rescue, a pug dog rescue. And we rescued about 332 pugs and I used a lot of herbs on them with another woman in Nashville. And then I started Farm Dog Naturals, which is an external product company. And. And then I sold that with my business partner about a year ago. And I've been doing full time herbalism since about. About 2003. And I learned so much from dogs. You know, dogs have taught me so much about herbs and people. And I had the big aha moment with one of my pugs when I was 30 and couldn't figure out what was wrong with him, why he had to go to the vet every month with pneumonia or some type of breathing problem. And it all came down to food. It all came down to food. He was at the vet like every other month. Sometimes every month just, you know, with pneumonia, with bronchitis, with lung inflammation. And so I was feeding prena one with yogurt at the time. You know, this was two decades ago. And.

Which is notoriously garbage, by the way.

Yes, it's just garbage. And I never even bothered to look at the bag. It had yogurt and the front of the bag was beautiful. You know, I remember it. It had like this sheen to it, you know, and the yogurt was there and the fresh cuts of chicken and, you know, all this stuff. And, you know, I thought, oh, this is great. And every night didn't hit me that, you know, my dogs growing up never ate kibble. Yeah, Kibble is a convenience food that came out of basically World War II. And, you know, and it's a byproduct.

Sorry, It's a byproduct of the food industry. It's basically all the scraps and the oils and just everything that we don't put in human food. It's not even considered, like human grade food.

No. And so I, you know, and that was my big wake up moment, like, okay. And then I had a dog boarding facility. And that's when I really understood the need for natural healing in the dog world. Because my clients that were boarding their dogs with me, I mean, they'd literally give me like a sack of pills and then this horrible dog food. And their dogs weren't well and they were looking sick and they had early aging and then arthritis and over vaccination and no supplementation. And it was a big eye opener. And so I started educating my clients and things went there from there and it just got rolling and I just have been headfirst in herbs and natural medicine since then.

I'm always in complete awe of the ability that you have to really like hone in on what a dog is dealing with. You know, like I said, Leslie has a bunch of stories about this with you and her dog, Doug the Pug. I have a couple stories of you and with turkey where you know, you were just like, oh, he has X, Y and Z symptom. Oh, it's probably this. Just give him that, do this with him. He'll be fine in a couple of days. And literally every time he was fine, I'm like, wow, I'm so in awe of you and that ability. It's such a gift. And you touched on a lot of things that I want to talk about. One being what should we. Well, before we talk about what we should be feeding our pets, what is the junk that's in pet food today that people may not be aware of when they're opening those like bags of burnt balls or kibble as we call it?

Well, I mean, you know, you deal with people and food, right?

Yeah.

And it's the same thing as, you know, McDonald's, all of our fast food. That's what kibble is. It's fast and convenient food. I get the convenience of it for sure, but it's not real food. It's dead, it has no live enzymes, it's filled with rancid oils. There are, you know, there's a hierarchy of kibble for sure there. You know, there's kibble companies out there that are putting, you know, if you have to have your dog on kibble. There are some kibbles that I would say are absolutely superior to many of them.

Which ones are those? So we can tell people.

Familiar with the kibble market right now because it changes so much. But like Carnivore, okay. I think Carnivore is one of the best kibbles on the market. The honest kitchen makes like a baked kibble looking kibble looking food. There's also Open farm.

I don't know if you know about open farm, but they apparently don't heat it up too much so that it doesn't kill off all the enzymes is what I read. And I do know they use like pasture raised meats and non GMO vegetables.

Yeah, Open Farm is a good attempt. Yeah, My opinion on that. It has some freeze dried offerings. So I like that. The only natural pet makes a like a raw kibble looking food. I like to use it as a transitional food from raw to from kibble to raw or kibble to, you know, lightly cooked. But you know, there's in the, I like to say the bottom of the barrel kibbles. There's plastics, there's sugar, there's artificial sweeteners, there is high fructose corn syrup, There is wheat, there's GMOs out the wazoo, there's byproducts, which means that it's not anything to do with meat. There's feathers, beaks, feet. The meat industry has a ton of waste and it goes into a rendering plant. And so a lot of kibbles have rendered meat in them. And that includes road kill and nastily, and that is a made up word, nastily. It includes euthanized cats and dogs. And so cats and dogs are eating other cats and dogs. And that's cannibalism. So not. Okay. So, you know, my advice to so many people is that when you are looking at your dog's health, the first thing to do is look at the food. And the food is the most important thing. Good food can get you off of lots of medication. Some people. Well, I don't have, I don't have the money. Well, good food can get you off a lot of medications. It can get you off, you know, prescription flea and tick meds. Once your dog's become vibrant, they don't have that vibrational kind of like sickness. Animals can pick up on that in no time. And I'm talking about fleas and ticks. They're much more drawn to dogs that are more sickly and that are filled with sugars and inflammation. And that's, you know, and as you know, the open door to most illnesses is systemic inflammation. And that's what you're trying to bring down.

Yeah, absolutely. That's really interesting. I've never heard that about fleas and ticks. Not wanting to go after the healthier dogs. But it makes a lot of sense. I really, since I've had turkey, I don't have him on a traditional flea medication. I actually have him on what you got me on initially from day one, which is the forgetting what it's called. I think it's eco flea. And it's a little eco flea. Yeah, yeah. It's a little chewable every day. And I've, I've never had an issue with him in two years. But he also eats really well. I'm really on his diet. He gets a lot of pasture, raised meats and et cetera. And I'm really careful about what he eats. And he Hikes every day with me. So he's really healthy. So I think this is really important for people to know. Another thing that I noticed in conventional dog food, I picked up a package not that long ago and saw that it is very similar, like you said, to processed food. And it made me so angry to see this. That they also add natural flavors in there.

Yes.

And artificial flavors. I'm just like, in the fact that people are unknowingly feeding their dogs this and their cats. Not to bring any shame to anyone. Like, I didn't think about this when I first got a dog when I was younger. But this is why I want to do this episode. Because it's so important for people to understand this and to start, like, paying attention what their dogs are eating. Because our animals are not even our dogs. Our animals. Our animals are like an extension of our family. And we want them to live a long time, and we want them to be vibrant and healthy and, um, not get all these diseases at younger ages. And it's important. So I'm also curious to know what you think about how important is it for animals to eat meat? Because I've been seeing this trend lately of people trying to feed their dogs and cats. Oh, I think I've just seen dogs feed them vegetarian, which I think is insane.

Um, you know, one. My biggest thing is dogs are individuals, okay. So I have used. I've used a vegan and vegetarian diet for specific healing, very short term. But in general, cats are obligate carnivores. So feed. You know, I get upset about even seeing cats eating, like, fruits and different type of vegetables. It's not what they would pick naturally. Cats eat meat. That's what they thrive on. That's what they eat. They have to eat meat. They'll die without meat. So they're obligate carnivores. So that just is out of the question with dogs. I recommend a raw food diet. And, you know, there's the whole sustainability issue with that. And I totally get that. I'm much more would be an advocate for less dogs than crap food. Because I think that everything that's born into this world deserves a vibrant life. And it's unfortunate that we, you know, that we have meat animals. They deserve a vibrant life as well, during their time on this planet, for sure. And I'm an advocate for that as well. Sometimes I wish I was a rabbit herbalist. Then I wouldn't ever have to have these conversations. I'd be like, oh, I'm a rabbit herbalist, of course.

Actually, wait, I do want to say something really fast because I have done about five or six podcast episodes about this now so people can go back and listen. It is a fallacy, actually, that meat is contributing to climate change. Factory farmed meat is, and we are fighting this pretty hard. But it is not the meat itself, it's not the cow, it's the how. And I just want to say that because I want people to go back and listen.

Yes, dog food is factory farmed.

Yes, exactly. I just wanted to make that differentiation for people because it's very nuanced and in, in everyone's getting this information where they're just being told that it's meat is the problem. And I just want to be very clear. Meat is not the problem. It's the way that we are producing the meat. And these factory farms are what we need to be fighting and those need to go. So if you want to buy meat, get the regenerative, organic, pasteurized meats, and if you can, get that for your dog or your cat. But I know that that's, I mean, we're, we're worried about budgets right now, inflation and. Yeah, so I just wanted to be clear because I think it's incredibly important that people understand that.

Yeah, absolutely. And the thing is, is that, you know, where we put our money is where we have our power. And the more we, we support small pasteurized meat, the more we can, you know, give that opportunity. People who want to farm and put small farms back on the map. Yes, because if we, if we all sourced our meat locally, it would be a completely different paradigm as far as talking about, you know, meat based animals. But factory farm, you know, definitely is a real thing and it's contributing climate change for sure. But yeah, I completely agree with you.

What are common diseases found in pets that are diet related?

Oh, God, all of them. You're like so many.

How much time do I have?

We could have a podcast about that. So many things, you know, arthritis, hypothyroid, all gastrointestinal. Almost all gastrointestinal issues can come down from food. So I work on a system of energetics and I have an energetics course on my website and I really start there with my clients to eat energetically. And it's not the same as TCM energetics. It's on the same kind of wavelength as that. But I differ in a little bit of my energetic assessments of food. For me, pork is a refrigerant. It's a very cold meat and animals and people are born usually either warm or cool, then you can act accordingly. When you feed your dogs and yourself energetically inappropriate foods consistently. I'm not talking about having this every now and then something that's not appropriate. Like for me, I can't do spice. You will immediately see the inflammation in my body when I have something like Thai food. I'm a zero spice. Spice does not makes me feel really, really poor, poorly. Do I have spice every now and then? Yes. But if I ate spice every day, I would get very ill. And so I'm a very warm person. So when I add heat to my already warm constitution, it goes out of balance. And it's the same for dogs. So consistent feeding, I'm talking about consistency here. But fortunately a lot of people feed their dogs the same thing every single day. So consistent feeding of foods that are energetically inappropriate. So cool. Dogs eating cooling foods will push them towards cold and warm. Dogs eating a lot of warming foods will push them towards hot. And when you figure out your dog's energetics, things really start to open up. As far as supplements, not wasting money on supplements that aren't going to work. A lot of times people will use herbs and they'll be like, well, this didn't work for me. And when I look at them and look at the patterns in their dog and look at what they're feeding, a lot of the time, I would say 7 out of 10 times we come back to an energetic inappropriate diet. And a lot of commercial diets are heating. They use a lot of ginger and turmeric and kelp and different types of heating mushrooms, cordyceps, reishi, shiitake. Those are all, they all add heat and different, various amounts of heat, like ginger is more warming than turmeric or curcumin. You know, it depends on what levels of heat. But when consistently fed, you're bringing your dog either to the different polar opposites, which is cold and hot, and cold and hot are disease states. That's where you start to get, you start to see disease, inflammation, show them up and inflammation. So I start there and it's a new concept for a lot of people. But once you really get it, you understand. Like, I work with a lot of cancer clients, both human and animals. When you're dealing with a time sensitive issue like that, working with your own energetics can bring cancer regimens. Just so focused, where you're not taking something that just you heard was good for cancer. Oh well, this is really good for cancer. I think I should take this, this, this and this and like 40 other things that I read that was good for cancer. When you know your energetics, when you know what kind of like moisture levels you have, and when you know how warm you are on that spectrum, you can pick supplements and herbs that are going to work with your body instead of against it. So that's why I love energetics.

Yeah, it's amazing. So people listening that are wondering where to start with all that, how do you go about figuring out the energetics of yourself and of your pets?

Well, you can take my energetics course.

Amazing. We'll leave a link in the show.

Notes, but this is how so with, with people and dogs. Okay? So for instance, you will never find me with a sweater on unless it's really cold out. Okay. I'm not going to curl up on the couch with a blanket that doesn't breathe. There's lots of very popular blankets right now that are made up out of different types of polyester and they don't breathe at all. I put that on my body and I start to get super warm, super, super warm. So how many blankets do you sleep with? Are you a cold person? Do you tend to feel cold a lot? Do you thrive in the. Can you go out and be in the sunshine? You know, like, my partner can just be in the sunshine all the time. Just loves to sweat, loves to be really, really hot because she's cold all the time. Okay. She's a cool person, just completely cool. And then like, for dogs you look at, you just kind of start to observe them. Do they lay by the heat vent in the wintertime? Do they sit. There's some dogs that'll sit there and just bake themselves. That is not a warm dog. A warm dog will not do that. They may lay on the heat vent for like five minutes and then they'll get up and leave. You can put a blanket on. Like if you put a blanket on turkey and you know, does he love it? Does he like to stay under the blanket and get all, you know, warm and fuzzy? Or does he leave the blanket on for five minutes and then move somewhere else? You kind of like, look at your dog there. We could have a two hour conversation on learn how to learn energetics for your dog. So, but I basically start to look kind of look at how they are and cool dogs are usually they are more of your dude dogs. Like, they're more subdued. They're more kind of what we would call Lacy. They're kind of very lot calmer where warmer. Dogs are much more hyperactive. They have that in your Face behavior. But really how they deal with heat, you know, like, I have two cool pugs. You'll always find them laying in the sun. If there's a ray of sun in the house, they will be in it. Right. They love a nice warm blankie. They love to be, like, stuck to your side and like, feeding off of your heat. If you put a heating pad on, they're going to be sitting on it. You know, that's a big indication. So you can kind of start there.

Okay, that's great. That's super helpful. And then obviously people want to dive more into that. They can take your course. Yeah, sounds like really helpful. Yeah. So what are some signs that your dog might be dealing with some sort of, like, inflammation, poor gut health, or, you know, just in general, like poor health?

One thing that is, there's some kind of red flags. Acid reflux, burping, farting, chronic loose stool, chronic constipation, a lot of discharge from the eyes, ear infections. The coat, their coat needs to be soft. You know, a dog's coat should be feel like, you know, really soft. Not a lot of excess shedding. Arthritis is a, you know, a red flag. Fearful dogs, dogs that are really afraid of things. That's a red flag for the kidneys. Inflammation in general, like the inability to eat certain foods. Reactivities, what people always refer to as, I think my dog has environmental allergens. That's a red flag that the liver needs an adjustment. It needs support. In fact, dogs in general need a lot of liver support because they're laying on the floors. The average American dog gets 15 minutes of exercise. 15 minutes. So they're living in our homes, you know, kind of like their life is like the pandemic all the time. You know, they're living in our homes. They get 15 minutes of exercise. Some people exercise their dogs a lot longer than that. And kudos to you guys, for sure.

I would turkey an hour a day. He's excellent. In great shape.

That's really good. And you know, it's good for people to be outside. It's good for people to breathing air outside. And our homes are just filled with air pollution and dogs are on the floor, so they're breathing all the chemicals that come from our floorings and the cleaning products.

Sorry, interrupt you. Cleaning products as well.

And, you know, candles, artificially scented candles and, you know, diffusers, essential oil diffusers. People are diffusing essential oils like they're a fragrance, they're not a fragrance. So you're getting a physical, chemical, medicinal treatment. Every time you use essential oils in a diffuser, and your dog may not need that treatment. So, you know, I'm a big advocate at being intentional about essential oil use, so especially around our pets. So there's a lot of things, but those are some of the red flags, for sure.

And another thing, because we're talking about this, that I don't think a lot of people think about, if you are spraying Roundup or other weed killers in your yard, your dog is absolutely being exposed to that as well. And I think this is one of the many reasons that we're seeing a rise in cancer rates in pets.

Yeah, there's a huge. There's a plethora of reasons why 1 in 2 dogs will die of cancer, which is super sad. 1 in 4 people will die of cancer. I'm a cancer survivor myself.

Congratulations.

Thanks. But, yes, Roundup needs to be illegal. Stop using pesticides. Deal with insects. You know, insects are a part of our world, and without insects, we'd all be dead.

Part of the ecosystem. They keep the soil healthy.

I mean, if you look at the statistics about how the environment rebounded when we were locked in our homes. Yes. Just that short period of time, Mother Nature was like, yes, this is awesome. So glycophate is a huge issue with dogs right now in this polluted world. I really advocate for supplementing with humic and fulvic acid because it can help heal and protect the microbiome against glyphate, which is the active ingredient in Roundup. Glyphosate completely interacts with our microbiome and our animals microbiome negatively and causes depletion of it, which is our immune system. So, yeah, definitely. I'm glad you brought that up.

Well, it's a major concern and something I talk about quite frequently here on the podcast as well as my Instagram, because it is one of the bigger things that we have to worry about in our lifetime because we are spraying it so much now that it is showing up in our drinking water. It's showing up in. They're testing women's breast milk. It's showing up in the breast milk placenta. It is very pervasive. And I don't say this to scare people, but I say this. We need to be informed. One, to be more involved in our local. Local legislation, you know, with our local legislators or politicians. Like, we need to be really aware of glyphosate and how pervasive it is and also, like, so that we can take steps to at least minimize our exposure. And one of the reasons is eating organic, not using it obviously in. In homes, using like spraying it in your yard, etc. And just being really aware of that. And it's. I think a lot of people don't think about the added layer of not only are we being exposed, but if you have small children that are playing in the yard, they're being exposed to it. If you have pets, more specifically dogs, unless if you're one of the people that has a leash for your cat, which some of my friends do. But yeah, any of your pets are going outside are also getting exposed. So that's something that's incredibly important to mention. Another thing I really want to talk about because we brought up cancer and I think I know your stance on this. And also, please tell me if you don't want to go into this, because I know that this is a divisive conversation sometimes people don't like to have. But what do you think?

Conversations?

Yes, my girl. Because so do I. I like to really get in the meat of it.

And I don't mind it at all. I think. You know, Courtney, the biggest thing is people need to be able to listen to opposing views without making that other person into a diabolical killer. You know, like, we have to be able to listen to everybody. And the biggest thing is a lot of people just want to be heard and they don't feel heard. And once they're heard, you can diffuse that situation. But we have to learn how to. I listen to people and sometimes I'm just like, oh, my God. Oh, that hurt my ears. But you have to be able to listen to it because we have to learn and we can learn from each other. So I love divisive conversations. Bring it on.

So do I. Honestly, they're the conversations I gravitate to the most because I feel the same way as you do. To live in a world where everyone can have an opinion and voice it, and then we can have open conversations and open dialogues about harder conversations because that's really where we learn from each other, you know? So I wanted to ask you about vaccines with dog. Well, with pets in general, I keep saying dogs, but just for everyone listening, anytime I say dog, I'm trying to make this about pets in general. So if you have a cat, et cetera, I just say dog. Because I'm a dog owner. I want to know your thoughts about vaccines because I have been heard that they're now starting to believe that we're seeing a rise in cancer in pets because of the over vaccinating of our pets.

Oh, absolutely. So anyone that knows me knows that I don't believe in over vaccination. In the United States. Rabies is required by law. So I cannot say anything against rabies because it's required by law.

Yeah.

But I can say that you can do a three year rabies vaccine and I highly recommend getting that and that you advocate for the appropriate dose for your dog. Because the issue is that a Great Dane and a Chihuahua can get the same amount of vaccine. And that's not right. That is not okay. More is not better. Vaccines don't work on a bank basis where you put more vaccine, you're going to get more immunity. That is a fallacy. It is not true. Ask a scientist, they will tell you. It doesn't. That immunity doesn't build that way. Once you have, once you have exposure, your immune system kicks in and you can expose it and expose it. It's still going to be the same. So you know, I advocate for puppy shots. Distemper parvo, one time, one and done. You can have a booster. Sometimes there's a booster advocated. I'm not big on boosters. I've never given my dog boosters for anything. I do tighter testing which checks for antibodies and no, it's not 100%, it's not infallible. So there's that argument. It's not infallible. I don't, I don't agree that it's infallible, but I've never had an issue. I've had about 16 dogs in my life so far. And one of the biggest issues that we have with over vaccination is boarding facilities and groomers asking for ridiculous vaccines based on grooming and boarding. So I had a boarding facility for 12 years and I already knew that I was getting dogs that are vaccinated through the gills. I already knew that. I never even asked for vaccinations. I never had any kennel cough ever. Because the dogs weren't packed on each other, they weren't in tight places. It was a kennel free boarding facility. But we have to advocate for those facilities to stop asking and stop boarding your dog there and let them know why. Let them know why you're doing a pet sitter. Let them know why I will no longer give my dogs these unneeded vaccinations because they're getting sick. And they will stop because money, we all know money makes the world go round right now. And you need to let people know this is why I'm not boarding with you. This is why I'm not using you as a groomer anymore. And they'll stop because it's not required by law. And so the only one that's required by law is rabies. You do not need to vaccinate your pets every year. That is not needed. And some vets are moving away from that. It's a big portion of their income and I get it. But it's at the expense of the health of the pet. And so does that answer your question? I hope so.

Yeah. No, that was perfect. Because I love that. I think people hate having these conversations because it always goes to one extreme or the other where it's like, you can't even be talking about this vaccine save lives. I just feel like there's no breathing room for in the middle of what you were saying, because as a rational human, I'm hearing that I'm thinking, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So don't over vaccinate your pet.

Don't get vaccines every year.

Exactly.

I got vaccinated when I was a kid and that was it. And we're not. I mean, let's take the COVID vaccine and put it in a basket and just leave it alone for this patient. Right. But all the other vaccines, there's too much vaccination. Vaccines do saves lives for sure. I'm not an anti vaxxer, but I am a preventative healther and we don't need those types of vaccines. You know, when I was growing up, we had I think like three to four vaccines and that was it. Now, I mean, kids are getting like 16 vaccines over a period of, you know, such and such years. I don't know a lot about children, so, you know, I can't speak to that, in fact. But I do know that I looked it up one day and I was like, I can't believe the amount of vaccines and dogs are getting vaccinated. New vaccines are coming out all the time, like the Lyme vaccine and the leptovaccine and parvo and distemper giving every year. Parvo, distemper and parvo affect younger dogs, distemper young and old dogs. Parvo usually is a situation where it's uncleanly and you're in contact with like, don't bring your puppy to a dog park.

Yeah, exactly.

So, you know, and then I'm just, I'm not an advocate for vaccinating geriatric dogs either. You know, dogs that are sitting in the house, they get up and they go for a walk. And they come back in, like, yeah, they don't.

They don't need it at that point.

But we don't need to vaccinate our dogs yearly.

Yeah.

You know, do tighter testing, see if they. They have antibodies for parvo. See if they have antibodies for. For distemper. I'm not an advocate of the leptovaccine. I'm not an advocate of the Lyme vaccine. I think the Lyme vaccine causes more harm than good. I think that the leptovaccine. There's so many types of leptospirosis. I just dealt with a client that had leptospirosis, and they had been vaccinated every year for lepto. And of course, it wasn't the strain that they were vaccinated for. You know, keep your dogs out of dirty puddles. And there's other holistic ways to deal with that. And leptospirosis is nasty, for sure. And some dogs die. I get it. But you have to out. You know, you look at the benefit versus the cost, and a lot of the more, you know, kind of like side vaccines, the benefit does not outweigh the cost, for sure.

Yeah. Yeah. Well. And so I think the important takeaway here is obviously get them when they're puppies. Get them all their vaccines when they're puppies, and then you probably don't really need to vaccinate them every year for the rest of that stuff. Especially, like, I have a vet here that does tighter testing, so definitely look into that. People, if you don't know what that is, you can. Well, you can explain it better than I can, but basically they just test to see if your dog's body has the antibodies. That way, then you don't have to give them another shot, because if they already have the antibodies, you're just adding insult to injury. Like, you don't need to give them more. And that's the. That's the only reason that I wanted to have this conversation. I'm not sitting here trying to say, don't vaccinate at all. So, like, I just want to, like, be very, very clear about the messaging. I don't want anyone to misunderstand. I just. I knew about this part of the conversation that I don't think a lot of people are hearing. And it's that we are giving them unnecessarily. It's as if we are giving our animals or, like, if we were taking medication that we didn't need. So, like, why are we taking it? You know, that's kind of.

And we're hyper stimulating their immune system. And you know, the thing is, is autoimmune was almost completely not even in dogs when I was a kid. And now there's tons of auto. Autoimmune diseases in dogs. And you have to look. What are the similarities between dogs and humans? Yeah, because one out of two dogs will die of cancer and one out of four people will die of cancer. Okay, so that's nuts. What is the similarities? One, poor diet, number two, over vaccination, number three, environmental factors. Our dogs have so much in common, and they also live in our space. They share our vibration. They share all of our stress. Stress is a killer. It causes inflammation. It shuts down the liver, disallows you access to your parasympathetic nervous system, which our dogs have in our vagus nerve, which I'm sure you've talked about sometime in your podcast. And that's really important when you have all that stress. Don't underestimate how our dogs share our stress. Without parasympathetic activity, without learning how to get rid of that stress and bring that stress down, your liver can't detoxify correctly. And that's a huge one. And you can't digest food correctly. So, yeah, there's, you know, so many things that we have in common with our, our cats and dogs. And that's what I look at as a holistic canine herbalist, for sure.

I love that. I think another thing, we don't have to spend a lot of time on this, but just something to note too, if you guys are filtering, well, one, you should be filtering your water because we are now being exposed in tap water to pharmaceutical drugs, pesticides and herbicides that are coming out of, you know, the farm runoff. Heavy metals, there's fluoride, there's chlorine. There's so much in tap water that we should be concerned about. And filter your dog's water, too. So just like use the filter for everyone in the house, including the pets. I keep saying dogs, pets, cats, you know, everything. Because that's a really important thing to note and probably another reason why we're seeing a rise in disease and in pets.

Yeah. And there's so many things that are, you know, there's so many airborne pollutants. There's also, I read this amazing research about xenobacteria in, like, things like spirulina and chlorella, where how it's being grown and it's being, you know, in the air and it's, it's causing huge increases in ALS in the areas where it's grown. So now we have things like that to worry about as a particulate in the air. And then we also have things in our water. And one really cool, actionable step I think that everyone can take away and start doing really easily is one thing that you can do to really up your dog's nutrition and basically help is filter your dog's water and then add in humic and fulvic acid. There's a product on the market called Ion Biome. You can get it for people and pets. It's basically humic and fulvic acid. It's a really good supplement because a lot of times filters will remove minerals and trace minerals, and then you want to add that back in. So doing that, and it's just like a couple drops a day. It's really not a big deal.

Okay, that's. That's a good idea. You know what's so funny? I didn't even think about that for my pet. I love. I learned so much stuff in every episode that I do, um, because I'm adding minerals back into my water, but I didn't even think about turkeys. Can I use the minerals that I use for me in his water, or should I be buying one that's specific for dogs?

What. What one do you use?

Uh, the one I have right now, or I use a brand called trace minerals. I think that's what it's called.

Yeah. Trace minerals you can do. Yes, you can use that.

Okay, perfect. Yeah. Oh, I love that. Okay, so I want to go a little bit of a different direction. So Leslie told me that you do not consider dogs elderly when they're 8 to 10 years old. Can we talk about that a little bit?

Yeah, sure. So there's this thing called baseline theory. Right. I'd love to do a TED talk on baseline theory alone. That would be super fun. It's one of my goals. So baseline theory. So when my dog. I'm 51 years old, and I was born in 1971, and my dog Susie lived. It's a debate in the family, but she lived to either 24 or 27. She was there when I was born, and she was there when I graduated high school. And she was there for a long time. And then she passed. I think I was God. It was. My parents sold our farm. She passed before that. And Susie was not spayed. She did not go to the vet. She ate farm scraps, raw milk, meat, things off our table. My mom, she cooked farm Food, meat, potatoes, things like that, veggies. And that's all she ate. So. And she was outside all day long. She came in, you know, when we. We made her come in at night, you know, like, Susie, let's. Let's come in the house. She was with us all day, breathing fresh air, having great exercise, having really good stimulus. You know, she was living a really great dog's life. And she had a couple litters of puppies. I remember that. And that was it. But so at that time, dogs were living until they were in their early 20s or mid-20s, okay. As a normal life span. And we have forgotten about that. And that's where baseline theory comes in. So we have brought that baseline from. Let's just say the baseline was 20. Let's just put 22 on there. Okay? Let's say the baseline was 22. The average death would be 22 years old. Okay? We have brought that baseline all the way back to age 8. Like, oh, I've had so many conversations with people saying, my dog is 8 years old. You know, he lived till he was 10. Isn't that great? No, it's not. It's not great. It's just a travesty, you know, And I'm not talking about like, you know, 180 pound or 200 pound dog. You know, the bigger the dog, it seems that they don't live as long. Okay. But I've seen Great Danes live until they're 16. You know, really well cared for Great Danes. So a Great Dane may be geriatric at, I would say 11. They're kind of heading into that, those years. But, like, you know, let's just use pugs as an example. You know, I've talked to so many pug owners and they're like, yeah, my pug died at 10. Yeah, at least he made it to 10. He was pretty old. No, he's not old. Pugs should live. I mean, pugs should live until they're at least 17 and 18, for sure.

That makes me happy to hear. Sorry.

Yeah. You know, the issue is that some diets are so crappy. And this is not about the people feeding those diets because most people feeding dog food think they're feeding a really good food. And I am not talking about people because what I experience with people is they have the best intentions for their animals and they love their animals. And, you know, knowledge is power. Like I said, many years ago, I had Purina with yogurt. Thought I was doing my little pug fin a service. Now he finn Passed away when he was just going to be 18. I got him off the crap food and he lived a great life. But the thing is that you've got to look at early onset aging. We've got dogs that have completely white faces at age 6 or 7. That's not okay. That is toxic load. That is a liver that's not functioning, that is kidneys that aren't functioning correctly. We're just dog food. I'm not good with acronyms, but the AFFCO I think it's called, you know, like it meets the requirements in the United States. Those are the requirements for just being alive? Yeah, you know, just maintaining life. We want ourselves and our pets to flourish. We want vitality, we want happiness. You know, like science has really explored the gut in general and has come to the consensus, which I completely believe that food and gut health equals behavioral health. And we are learning more and more. And food is the number one thing that you can do for your dog. Change the food because that's what you're doing consistently every single day.

Yeah, that's so important. Ok, so I have two questions around the food. First of all, what do you think about cooking? I've always found it a little bit daunting to cook food, food for turkey because I don't know like what vitamins he needs, if I need to supplement him or like, I don't know, I find it really daunting. And then can we also talk about food brands that you really love that we can give people suggestions on?

So cooking for your animal, I think you need to be careful. Okay. I think that you need to make sure nutrition is, is acquired over time. There are some like dog food. I think Dogs Naturally magazine has one. It has a, like a diet formulator. There are some diet formulators online that are really good. Dr. Judy Morgan has a great cookbook and that is very popular. I have the book myself and it helps a lot. But there's some really good books on cooking for your dogs. The thing that you got to realize when you're cooking for your dogs is that you're killing the enzymes in the food. Okay. So any dog that is getting lightly cooked or cooked food needs to have digestive enzymes. It's a non negotiable. You have to have enzymes in the food because the heat is killing them. So we want to add a digestive enzyme to that diet. But I don't have anything against cooking for your dog just so that you know, you're just not giving them like a ton of grains that are going to turn into sugar. I'm not completely anti grain. Again, dogs are individuals. Some dogs need some grain and some dogs, like, they thrive on, you know, they do better with a small amount. But I am an advocate for a raw fed grain free diet. But again, certain dogs need other types of feeding. And so it's not, you know, it's not a black and white situation. It's definitely. There's a ton of gray area in feeding dogs and you need to look at them as an individual. And my biggest thing is that you're feeding an energetically appropriate diet because that's where, that's where I see people go really deep into being really frustrated about feeding their dog. It's because you're feeding an energetically inappropriate diet. And that's an issue. There's a really great little company out of the Pacific Northwest where I live right here called Green Juju. I believe they're nationwide now. But Kelly and Billy, they're two people that kind of like the face of Green Juju. Billy helps formulate different types of diets and ingredients in the products. And Kelly Marin started the company. They're fantastic. And Green Juju is a really great way to boost your dog's nutritional levels. They have added like fresh veggies and mixes that you can add to the food. They do pasture. It's all pastured, all organic pastured goat's milk that you can. They teach you how to ferment it if you want to at home, or you can feed it plain and it's raw. There's lots of things that you can do to add to that cooked diet. But I do not have a problem with cooking. You just need to know what you're doing. So purchase a book, purchase a booking for your dog. Just don't wing it, you know.

Yeah, well, that's exactly why I asked because, yeah, I think there's. There, there needs to be guidelines and you need to be following something if you are going to do that. So I like the idea of providing that cookbook for people. So we'll throw that in the show notes as well. So do you have any food brands?

So some brands that, that I, I've recommended before and. But again, dogs are individuals, so you want to look at the ingredients. But there's, there's a whole bunch. There's, there's Darwin's, there's small batch. There is, there's a whole, like a lot of like local craft kind of raw food companies have, have kind of shown up. But there's all provide Makes of food. They have a gently cooked and then they have a raw Open farm has some dehydrated food that I like. The Honest kitchen is an option. There is. There's a raw food that I like for small dogs. It's called purpose. That's a good one. There's Northwest Naturals, there's Tucker's. These are all commercially made, pre made foods.

Are you familiar with Primal pet foods?

Yeah.

Are they pretty good? I was buying. They're good.

Yeah, they're fine.

I was buying them for a while for turkey as well. Turkey right now is on Open Farm. The little dry, like the freeze dried raw nuggets. He eats those.

Okay, cool. You know, in the raw food world, Courtney, there is a hierarchy as well. You know, there's hpp, which is high pressure pasteurization that some of the raw companies have. You know, I don't know if they have to do it, but they do it. You know, I'm not a big fan of that, but it's 100% better than kibble. You know, there's a hierarchy. My favorite diet is a traditionally raw diet, you know, but again, you kind of need coaching for that and how to do that and that's a different show. But like, but when you're starting out, you know, looking at your dog as an individual, moving to, you know, a dehydrated or a frozen already prepared patty is a good way to go. Because my thing is with people getting used to it, not being scared of it and baby steps, these commercial raw can be a huge move in the right direction for sure.

Awesome. I love that. And what do you think about supplementation? I mean, I already know your answer to this, but I want to talk a little bit about probiotics for dogs. And I know you're a big proponent for herbs. You mentioned earlier dogs having liver issues. And I know when I first got turkey, he was dealing with a lot of anxiety. I will tell you, we haven't talked about this in a while, but turkey is a totally different dog than when I first got him, thanks to you. Put him on a bunch of really nourishing tinctures when I first got him, because he was a really anxious dog and he is completely calmed down now. He has a little bit of like stress and anxiety when I leave, but it is so different than when I first got him. So I want to talk a little bit about that. Yeah. So supplementation for dogs and kind of how you feel about it and herbs.

I am an advocate for supplementation. I think, you know, there's like, some core supplements like pre and probiotics are important for some dogs. Digestive enzymes and then, you know, again, I think energetically so for cool dogs, I, you know, I like different types of grains for them. Organic spinach, organic kale. Make sure they're always organic for those two because they're super accumulators. And different types of greens for them. Cabbage, you know, and kale, spinach, cabbage, those are all warming, you know, as far as vegetables are concerned. They bring, you know, bring nice nourishing warmth to the body. And then, you know, for warm dogs, I like cucumbers and watermelon. And watermelon seeds are extremely nourishing. Very cooling. Leaf lettuce. If you can get your dog to eat it. I usually puree it and put it in the food. Nice and cooling and nourishing. Different types of greens. I love greens because it doesn't feed yeast. And then you can do berries and different types of, I guess, fruits. I feed them away from, away from food. So I don't feed fruit with, like, meat together. I always feed fruit as a snack. And then, like, you know, starting out with those basic supplements, the prebiotics, the probiotics, the greens, and then adding a digestive enzyme, if that's appropriate, I think that's a really good place to start. And then essential fatty acid supplementation is, I think, imperative for brain function, for gut health. And again, I look at it from a warming to cooling standpoint, where you have things like ahi oil and green lip mussel oil, which are more on the warming side, and camelina oil and algae oil are more on the neutral to cooling side. And then I'm not an advocate for krill. I don't think people should consume it. Squid oil is cooling, and that can be given to dogs. Dr. Peter Debias has a really great supplement company, and he does a squid oil, a culinary oil. I believe he uses an invasive, invasive species of squid for the oil that's, you know, that needs. The population needs to be brought way down because they're causing a lot of ocean damage because of climate change. And some people will do, like, anchovy and sardine oil, which is pretty neutral. I'm not a huge fish oil person, so. But yeah, essential fatty acid supplementation is very important. And then you can also use organic hemp seed oil, which is also warming.

But so what about, like, when we first started working together, you were giving me a bunch of little tinctures for turkey. Like actual herbs.

The herbs, yeah.

Yeah.

So Herbs can be either nutritive, where they are digested by the stomach, and you give them as powders and, you know, ground herbs or dried herbs, or infusions, which is like a long, steep tea. I like to use infusions for dogs especially, like chamomile or marshmallow root are good as infusions. Chickweed, great infusions there. And then I also advocate for tinctures. So in my practice, I use flower essences. I use phytoembryonic therapies, which is plant stem cells, and they are in tincture form. And I use full plant tinctures or mature, mature tinctures. And those are more on the medicinal side. And we give them in the mouth so that they are absorbed into the bloodstream. And then I also use homeopathy. So I, you know, I have got quite a few things in my toolbox there. But, yeah, I think herbs are important. I think they can give a lot of nourishment to the diet. I like to use a seasonal approach to herbs for just, you know, nutritive and diet approaches. And then more medicinal in the form of tinctures and sometimes powders.

Amazing. Well, if people are interested more in that realm, they can reach out to you. I'm going to. At the very end, we'll give people a way to get a hold of you. So if you guys are interested in if your dog is dealing with anxiety or a very specific thing, as with humans, that I always say that we are bio individuals, so are your pets. So I would definitely seek out help if this is something that you are concerned about with your pet. So before we go, I want to ask you, is there anything regarding pets that we haven't gone over that you think is really important for people to know as pet owners?

My biggest thing right now is I think that we just can't underestimate Peter, our own influence on our pets, our stress, it affects them exponentially. I mean, I think it's really important to take care of ourselves so that we can take care of others. And I don't think stress should be underestimated. I think always look at liver health and kidney health and gut health very seriously. You know, I guess my antibiotics would be one of them. Courtney. Like, my thing is I don't advocate for antibiotics unless a dog's life is threatened or they have a severe staph infection that needs antibiotics. Antibiotics are given out like candy. There's a lot of preventative antibiotics. Some antibiotics are needed when there's, like, a really horrible dental Like a dental cleaning that's done that's really horrible, like abscessed teeth and things like that. And that's okay because that does affect life expectancy, it does affect quality of life. But other than that, I mean, antibiotics, if you bring your dog into the vet for diarrhea, you are going to go home with flatyl, which is also called metrodicinol. That is an antibiotic and it's going to annihilate your dog's gut health. Yes, it is going to clean up any type of bacteria that might be overstimulating the gut and causing inflammation for sure, but at a huge, huge cost. And you know, I see multiple, multiple, multiple clients every week and when they fill out their paperwork, they're. I hardly ever see dogs that aren't on multiple rounds of antibiotics and that antibiotics are a killer. They decrease health so much. They bring down health and immunity so much. I think they're definitely a precursor to cancer. Antibiotic use needs to stop in this country. We need to stop giving our animals antibiotics. We need to stop giving our feed animals antibiotics. We need to stop crowding animals and we need to be intentional with our antibiotic use. Antibiotics save lives for sure. I would hate to see the world without antibiotics. You know, they're an amazing, amazing discovery, but they have been. They're being used inappropriately.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's the problem. They're being over prescribed. This is another conversation that I feel very passionately about having because we are often like you just mentioned humans going to the doctor and they don't even know exactly what you have, but they're like, oh, we're just going to throw some antibiotics at it. Well, if you have a virus, the antibiotic is not even going to do anything because antibiotics target bacteria. Exactly.

I think people give it too quickly. Like I have an example from just yesterday. A friend of mine has strep throat, went and got antibiotics. Strep works itself out in period of 12 to 14, maybe maximum 16 days. It works itself out on its own and you can do so many natural things and use homeopathy for different types of strep throat. But fear made her go get antibiotics and she's not a well person as it is and so now she's going to get sicker and that, that, you know, that that frustrates because, you know, I, this is someone I care about and strep is the stand. Antibiotics is a standard of care with strep throat, but it, you know, it. Strep is a temporary issue it's very uncomfortable, for sure. Absolutely. And the antibiotics going to get rid of it? Yes, they are, but at a huge cost. Again, you know, it is scientifically proven that if you do nothing, if you have one round of antibiotics, it takes two years for the microbiome to recover. One round. And so everyone who's listening to the podcast should ask, how many rounds has your dog got and how many rounds have you had, you know, have to address antibiotic use?

And again, I want to give a caveat here. We are not saying we do not advocate for antibiotics, like you just so eloquently said, but I am very much in agreeance with you that we need to be more careful about the way that we are using antibiotics because not only is it completely destroying all of the good bacteria in our body, so yes, we're getting rid of the bad bacteria, but we are completely destroying our microbiome, our microflora, which we know runs the show when it goes, when it comes to our immune health, our gut health, our brain health, our moods like it, it controls so much of our health. And when we are destroying that, it takes a while to build that back up. And not to mention, like you were saying, we are over prescribing them. And then the other really massive problem that we've been talking about for a long time in the mainstream media for at least 10 years is antibiotic use resistance. And there's a lot of pathogens that we have to be concerned about that eventually are. They're, they're now learning, they're getting smarter. Basically the bacteria is outsmarting us. And we've been using antibiotics so freely, especially in our livestock, that we are now seeing antibiotic resistant pathogens. And that is a huge problem because like you said earlier, I don't want to see a world in which we do not have access to antibiotics at all. And if we continue down this path, we might, because we were just creating these superbugs that no longer respond to the antibiotics. And that's really frightening.

Yeah. And that's what we're saying. Like, I am not an anti antibiotic person. They saved lives. They have saved my life once. So, like, I love antibiotics. However, we need to be intentional about them and we need to not do them as preventative medicine. But one thing you said reminded me of something, Courtney, that I'd love to say before we end. Yeah. And it goes back to how important food is. So science has figured out that if you take a normal commensal bacteria, which is a good bacteria, and you Feed it a poor diet. Okay. A toxic diet. That bacteria will change into pathogenic bacteria. And people need to understand that. And so really, the way you feed yourself and your dog dictates what their microbiome is going to be. And that is huge. That is a huge revelation. And it is so powerful. That is so powerful. So when you are looking at food for yourself and when you are looking at food for your pets, you are basically making choices that dictate health and dictate behavior. And that I think is really important. Bacteria is a fascinating subject. They are way smarter than we are and they can communicate with each other. They work towards the common good in each other, which humans really need some practice in. And they can really produce really vibrant health. But they can also make us so sick. And it's not part of preventative care to feed.

Food that are good bacteria.

Yeah, yeah, we want to feed our bacteria good food. Yes, we do recognize.

Yep. So a question that I always ask my guests at the very end is what are their health non negotiables? But I want to switch it up today and ask you, for people listening, if you have a pet, what would you say should be the health non negotiables for their pets? So meaning no matter what, you make sure every single day your dog gets exercise or gets this type of food or what would be some tangible health non negotiables for your pets?

I would definitely say a non negotiable is getting outside and breathing air for at least 30 minutes. That's a non negotiable for sure. Other non negotiable is stop using toxic cleaners. That's a non negotiable because they're affecting our pets. So I try to not. I try not. I try to bring down my dog's toxic load and that's really important. And watch your stress levels around them.

Yeah.

And again, I'd like, you know, to see all the dogs in the world eat a nourishing diet for themselves as an individual. But you know, people are learning about that. So I'm not going to put that in the non negotiable. But definitely, I think a non negotiable listeners is to reassess the diet.

Yes, I love that. So for everyone listening, where can they find you? And we'll also put this in the show notes. But I want people to be able to access you if they have any questions or if they want to hire you, they want to take your courses.

Okay. So I'm on social media, I'm on Instagram, I'm on Facebook. I have a business page and a private group on Facebook. You just type in Canine Herbalist. And then I have a website, which is canineherbalist.com that's where I have a store. You can do consulting with me. And then I have a course platform, which is canine herbalism.com and that's where I have my Energetics course. I have a subscription community if you want to learn more about pets and dogs and herbs and how to use them correctly. I think that's about it. I have some courses coming out in the fall, and I also have a book coming out, hopefully in the next two years. I have a series of books coming out, so I'm busy.

Amazing. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today, and I'm excited to release this episode.

Thank you so much for having me on.