1. Can pumpkin cause diarrhea in dogs?
Suppose your pup has been on pumpkin twice a day and things are not good and when you feed a canned food the stool seems to get more formed. If that’s the case, then I am suspicious that there’s a couple of things going on. It may be that there is a fiber that is present in the canned food that’s helping to bind him up or you’re taking out something in what you’re cooking that’s making the stool better. What I would ask you to do is take a photo or send a copy and paste the ingredients of the canned food into the comment here or into the comments on YouTube for that matter, and then a list of ingredients of what you normally cook for him which is going to help me compare and contrast. But my guess is that there is something like flaxseed in the canned food or some type of gum that’s actually getting your pup’s stool more solid. If the pumpkin is just not helping, what I would do is take that out because there are some pets with pumpkin sensitivity.
Now, there’s a couple of other options you can try: boiled turnips, boiled sweet potatoes and boiled white potatoes. They often have a different type of fiber that can be very helpful. Chia seeds can be extremely helpful, so you would take a tablespoon of chia seeds and add a couple more tablespoon of water, let them soak overnight to kind of suck up the water, refrigerate it, and then use about a teaspoon of that per meal and see if that doesn’t firm him up. But if you will, put those ingredients in both of the food and what you’ve been cooking so I can help you a little bit more here.
2. What is JustFoodForDogs?
JustFoodForDogs is really interesting, they started out as a Kitchen in LA. They do offer some DIY homemade kits. Also, I think PetCo was carrying their kits in store for a while. What I don’t like about their food is that it is extremely high in carbohydrate – it’s back to 70%. They do add in veggies and things of that nature which is okay but not ideal, but that’s the whole reason you all are doing CrockPet so that you can control exactly what’s going in into the food. They do use kelp for iodine in the JustFoodForDogs, and I think the big difference in my supplement and theirs’ is truly the glandular materials.
This JustFoodForDogs is definitely a step up from Kibble and if that’s the way it’s going to work. Sometimes, just shipping the food pre – made is what it’s going to take to get people feeding real food for their pets. One of the other things that really worries me about all of that is the environmental cost. I mean, there was a study not too long ago that showed that it costs something in the order 2 times a mid – sized SUV energy wise, and to the environment itself to maintain a dog or a cat. A lot of that is due to shipping but some of that is due to the high amount of animal proteins that they eat and so it’s one of those things that’s been weighing on my mind quite a bit. I’m not quite sure how to address it. I think CrockPet is a step in the right direction as far as using vegetables and things that has lower impact in the environment but these guys still need a fair amount of meat. The upside is that, that’s about all we can do – to keep up.
3. How to prepare your dog’s diet to help keep its stool firm up?
What I would do is try boiled potatoes and sweet potatoes, and see if that’s what’s is helping your pup to firm up the stool. Also, 86 the pumpkin and see where that takes you. If that’s not doing it, then the other thing you can use is the flaxseed because it’s a great source of fiber. As long as your pet is not sensitive to it, then that could be a real reason. The other thing is that there’s not a lot of veggies in here, so it is possible that some of the brassica specie veggies in particular, could be creating a problem. Give that a shot and let us know if the boiled potatoes work or don’t work and substitute those in completely for the pumpkin and see if that gets you there.
4. Is a loose stool an indication of another health problem?
We want to make sure it’s not a food creating sensitivities that’s creating a loose stool and if it is, we need to get rid of it but if it’s not a food, then we need to look at why is his gut not working as well as it should be. This is where sort of it can be kind of normal with excess exercise or really strenuous exercise but this is not normal so we want to keep working on it. Now, with Merrick, you do not have so much of the pea protein but you do have flaxseed in there. There are no potatoes in this one. I guess that was just in the dry food but there are three gums – locust bean gum and xanthan gum.
5. What is Astronex?
Antronex is very interesting. If you’re not familiar with it, we do have the veterinary one on the website as well as the human one. Antronex is made from this very interesting product called yakriton which is a liver fat extract that helps the body detoxify. What’s said on the website from standard process is somewhat limited because the FTC and FDA are ugly. The other weird thing about standard process products is that they don’t put all of the ingredients in there but you can see that the calcium is 30 milligrams and then the bovine liver fat is about 16 milligrams. Now, the veterinary product was not available when I was back in day-to-day practice and there is sort of less information present about what’s in this, but the calcium is 40 milligrams.
So, if we’ve got 40 milligrams of calcium in the veterinary product and we’ve got 30 milligrams of calcium in the human product, then there’s roughly 25% more yakriton in the veterinary product than in the human product. Having said all of this, this dosing schedule is what I used to use in practice, so with the human product I would use a tablet per day for dogs under 20 pounds and for cats and then a tablet for twice a day for 20 to 50 pounds, and then for greater than 51 pounds, three times a day or a tablet and a half twice a day is kind of what ends up being more effective so they are roughly the same product back-to-back so it’s perfectly fine to use that. The other thing is that it is cheaper to buy the human product. It’s 1540 for 90 tablets although I guess at the end of the day it’s all kind of six of a one and a half dozen of the other. I hope that is helpful.
6. Asphalt Safety for your Dog’s Paws:
Asphalt can absolutely burn. Black asphalt is worse that concrete. When it’s hot outside the concrete and the asphalt temperature is much worse, so with that hot temperature, if you don’t have access to walking on just grass or ground, I would do my walks really early in the morning or really quite late in the afternoon so that your risk of their feet burning goes down considerably. I hope that is helpful.
7. What is nosodes and what are its benefits?
Nosodes are interesting. The rabies vaccine nosodes has been a little dodgy. What I have seen more commonly is people do parvonosodes and distemper nosodes. There’s a veterinary homeopath that published a study, and what she was recommending was going to the dog park with a new puppy on a schedule of starting like one to two minutes, sort of a low traffic dog park too and exposing them and taking them away. The theory is that most likely if your pup had ever had a parvo vaccination, it will probably never need one again. The reason is that when they are out and about sniffing, they get exposed to parvo and so essentially what they’re doing is continually inoculating themselves for parvo. I think the chances of exposure to distemper is very low and frankly, it’s one of those diseases that puppies seem to outgrow once they become adult dogs. The rabies vaccine nosodes gets a little dodgy.
I think in our files there is a 2016 compendium and, in that compendium, they discuss that if a dog has ever been vaccinated against rabies, then it is considered up to date which is kind of bizarre. I think what is more likely to be successful is to actually use vaccine titers. So, check that out. I think titers are a better option than nosodes.
8. Is CBD Ease a helpful fur baby?
Suppose you’re using CBD Ease and feels that it is helping you but the pup shakes a little when it gets up first thing in the morning when it’s cold and that started shortly after the CBD, and you’re using 25 milligrams a day. What I would do is make sure that it is not creating an additional problem. Also, I would try a half dose for a week. So, if you’re using 25 milligrams, then use 12 and half milligrams and see if that takes away the shaking and if it makes any impact on the amount of pain and discomfort she’s having.
As far as other options there, things like T – relief, there is the pemf loop, and the assissi loop. And there’s a handheld laser you can use at home made by Tendlite which works really well so check that out. So, if you’re not familiar with it, it is a pulsed electromagnetic frequency product and it has been extremely helpful for many pets with arthritis.
9. How should you approach your pet’s medication detox?
I would take this very cautiously as far as detoxing. What I would suggest doing is supporting the liver to assist it in getting rid of garbage. I think that right now if you cycle off of previcox, things really kind of go to hell in a hand basket so I would use milk thistle probably a hundred.
The capsules are weird because they’re usually 175 milligrams to 240 milligrams a piece, and I would use one of those a day for 3 to 4 days and make sure that’s okay. If that works and your pup doesn’t get sick or anything of that nature, then I would suggest twice daily for a week on and then a week off. The other thing you could consider is liposomal glutathione to help support the liver but I would approach that with caution because it is pretty potent and if your pup got a fair load, that’s going to make it difficult.
10. What is prostatic hyperplasia and how to treat it?
With prostatic hyperplasia, men get sort of a benign thing or whether there’s some concern for prostate cancer but most often at his age it’s going to be more than just inflammation or infection. Now, standard process does make a couple of products to help support the prostate and that may be one of the better options for you. Most veterinarians will routinely just say, “okay we got a neutering now” sometimes that’s the truth and sometimes it’s not. So, there’s a couple of things you could add in. One of them is the prostate PMG which is going to help support healing of the prostate.
I think that is the questions I’ve got for today. I will see you all next week. Keep the questions coming, you’re doing a great job. Remember, your pet’s best health starts in the bowl. I’m Dr. Ruth Roberts, your pet’s ally.
