Detox your pet!

We all want our health span to equal our life span, and we certainly want our pets  to live a happy, healthy and long life. Unfortunately we cannot make this an “eternal” or forever life – but we can try to help them bypass the poor quality events–arthritis, dermatoses, otitis externae (ear infections) and cancer caused by poor diets,  and toxins.

The simple answer to detox is to feed fresh, organic balanced foods that are species appropriate, and to provide ample sources of pure clean water. www.catinfo.org gives great information about feeding cats, and our clinic www.animalwellness.com.au can help with soecific diets.  Adding a good quality Spirulina or chlorella and Zeolite can help to bind out toxins that have accumulated in one’s body. If there is heavy metals- such as Lead -eg. in Mt Isa or Broken HIll mining towns, Zeolite given as small amounts weekly can help remove some of the toxicity. Each patient is an individual,  and the amount and type of detox will vary accordingly. Some animals- such as man, primates and guinea pigs require exceptional levels of vitamin C to prevent scurvy during the clearing process, and small amounts of vitamin B and Selenium are also necessary. A complete blood count and serum analysis prior to embarking on a diet change or “detox”  helpful to customize a particular organ system recovery.  For example, renal problems are helped to detoxify with the herb Rehmannia, and liver toxins are cleared with s-AME, milk thistle, dandelion root and vitamin B’s. All require thorough rehydration therapy.

  Where are these pollutants? Our pets, and us, drink them  in our water (fluoride, oestrogens “the birth control pills”, agricultural chemicals), and eat them in our food- insecticides, herbicides (GMO produce are glyphosate friendly-meaning you will get a big dose of BT toxins and Round up ready gut problems if you ingest corn, maize, wheat!  We also absorb them from our skin- which is a carrier NOT a barrier.  Avoid putting unnecessary toxins onto your, or your pet’s skin: Did you know that your skin is a carrier, NOT a barrier- as was previously thought. That means whatever you put On your skin is carried INTO your body and absorbed until it is eliminated. This has implications for nanoparticles in sunscreen (linked to cancer)  and phthalates and parabens in soaps, shampoos and cosmetics.

Bodies also produce endogenous toxins- that is stress and its dependent hormones- adrenaline, cortisol etc cause some wear and tear on internal tissues and produce some waste that also needs to be cleared out. Think your dog is chilled out and not stressed? Think again. Most little white fluffies (maltese, poodles, shitzu) just love and miss their owners so much that they can burn out their adrenals the same as their humans. Talk to an animal behaviourist to improve their attitude, and work on “Calm and mindful” pet therapy.

Check your food labels: Natural does not necessarily mean “Natural” as in “gift from Nature”.

It is commonly a marketing tool- it  means “can taste like a natural food” or smells like a “Nature derived smell” when in fact it can be entirely synthetic and made from plastics and coal tar- a by product of the petrochemical industry. Its a lot cheaper and therefore more profitable for the company  to , and make Liver, or chicken flavor and Red erythrosine dyes onto plastic “food” chews that so many dogs go Whacko from. (you know the TV commercial!)

Its the same for us- Vanilla, an orchid seed pod is very expensive to grow and then bottle.  That’s why most of your chocolate  (which of course you do NOT feed to your pets) and cookies use ethyl vanillin- its cheap, but WHAT is THAT doing to your body and organ systems- especially if your body has no way of breaking it down? Where is it stored (think fat, liver etc! ) and how is it removed from your body? Much of  it must pass through into urine and  faeces- because it is found in our seawater, which means both the liver and the kidneys had a “go” at filtering it.  What does it do the the environmental food chain then?

Some contaminants in our food chain bioaccumulate. This means that if it is in the soil or seawater (via sewerage)  the smaller organisms eat it, incorporate this into their bodies, and as the larger organisms consume them in turn, there is a greater toxic dose per gram ingested. As Man and his pet charges are  “Apex” predators we all end up with the stuff back in our bodies at a higher dose.  This is true for everything that is NOT food that is ingested and cannot get removed with the waste.  Food gets broken down by your digestive system or by your liver to its primary components: Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Nitrogen plus some sulphur micro and macro minerals calcium, magnesium etc. Every cell gets washed in the serum that carries these molecules and each cell tries to figure out if it is food or foul—If you can’t  build cells or run enzymes with the molecules there, then the chemicals are either stored  in fat or liver–or put away in between muscle layers if it cannot be flushed out.  Its vitally important that you feed your  pet’s and your body daily with the building  blocks for your cells to regenerate and that you avoid putting bad stuff into the system.

Don’t be fooled! If a substance has “not yet been found” to cause cancer it might just mean that the correlation has not been documented in enough places- and that possibly too many doctors /research scientists are on the receiving end of a pay back! (Conspiracy theorist?  nah, its just business as usual! If  your research funding pays your mortgage who/what ya gunna call??) . You can  check pubmed entrez – the scientific research  site– for information about the anthropogenic (ie synthetic man made substances) found in the atmosphere that DO NOT BREAK DOWN in the ocean’s waters.  Type in any number of “food” preservatives and see what comes up.

As a rule of thumb: think

1) fluid therapy ensure food is hydrating (this *not * dry food)

2) avoid all “food” colourings (that are NOT food)  and most preservatives (vitamin E, C are ok)

3) Fresh is best.  The organic produce and pulp from your juicer is an awesome addition

4) add some green chlorophyll (spirulina, chlorella, kelp powder) – small amount for cat, larger for dogs.

5) seek help from an Integrative, Holistic Veterinarian.