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Cats and dogs detox diet
Quote from Guest on January 9, 2019, 1:50 pmI think I’m going to give my dog a little vitamin C since he is virtually off all commercial food. I thought he’d be fine with mainly meat and rice but apparently dogs require sunlight to make vitamin C and right now he’s not getting a lot beyond potty breaks with the gloomy weather.
Just like humans, dogs can also suffer a deficiency of ascorbic acid despite being able to make vitamin C on their own in the presence of sunlight. People often think that since dogs are able to make vitamin C, they don’t need vitamin C supplements. This misconception, however, often results in illnesses, bad health, and even death for dogs. It’s important to provide sufficient amounts of vitamin C as it helps dogs maintain good health as they often fail to produce sufficient vitamin C by themselves.
Oh that is good to know, thank you Guest!
Haha, this reminds me I still haven’t tried to make Macaroons... Sometime soon! Thanks, Liz. 😋
@bella Wow!! I’m happy your dog is doing so well. 😃 How remarkable that even “age” spots disappeared. That’s just crazy to me.
While I am here, I will give a little update on my mini pooch. When I first saw her again in December, it seemed that she couldn’t hear so well anymore. She used to be very skittish towards certain sounds, and always jump or run away upon hearing them. This Christmas she wasn’t responding that way to her trigger noises, or following verbal commands. I tried to get her to do tricks, but she seemed to respond only to the hand gestures not my voice. But today she was turned away from me, and when I whistled her ears perked up and she looked at me. 😀 So there has been improvement in her hearing.
Also, at Christmas she had many red sores on her belly. That looks to be completely clear now, though I do think she still has some sores and flaking skin on her back.
I decided to scroll back and see if there was a pet thread already started and here it is! Very interesting comments above. I'm going to look into egg shells and vit c further. I've heard sodium ascorbate is a good form of vit c for pets. I wonder how egg shells compare to bone meal. Anyway, I esp. resonated with this comment from guest:
"I asked a vet about this and he said early in his practice the majority of dogs admitted to him were trauma related, like accidents and such... now it is tumors, diabetes, rashes, epilepsy, mental symptoms, etc..."
I grew up with a small dog. It lived to 18, died overnight one night in her basket at home. No medical issues at all. My parents never brushed her teeth and when I later heard that some people did that, it made me laugh. Like, really?
She ate a (soft) commercial pet food called 'Gainsburgers' and leftover people food. My siblings and I still laugh when we remember her ability to spit out any green peas in any people-food she got. This was in the 60's. I don't remember my parents taking her to the vet for vaccinations. She may have gotten puppy vaccines, idk.
I mentioned my dog at the end of my initial log because I had just learned that my 8 year old westie had dental issues that I was shocked to learn about. Shocked because I really tried hard to feed her well. My previous dog, I lost to thyroid cancer at 12 and so I looked into alternatives to commercial kibble as well as the usual... protecting her from over-vaccination etc..
I initially bought 'high quality' kibble but any of the ones I tried gave her diarrhea for the 2nd BM of the day. Something in all of them was irritating her gut. Next, I tried raw for a whole year which she liked ok but the skin on her back developed a black oily film...perhaps a fungal thing? I thought it might be that the raw food I was buying might be from animals that were fed gmo corn and soy. Maybe she was reacting to that? I often think, eye-rolling, this is something my parents never had to think about in feeding my childhood pet. (Raw is great for many dogs, just didn't work out for mine.)
Then I came across a premix which is supposed to be good for dogs with gut/skin problems and so that's what she's been eating for a few years now. I add my own meats and vegetables plus cranberry juice, oil, and eggs, then it's lightly cooked in patties. Her skin and gut symptoms cleared. This was all pre-VA knowledge but the premix happens to have no liver or retinol palmitate added. The ingredients are brown rice, oats, whole jasmine rice (does that mean brown I wonder now?), calcium phosphate, kelp, carob, alfalfa, marjoram, oregano, parsely, ginger, rosemary, turmeric, de-caffeinated green tea, shitake mushroom powder and garlic. Geesh, now that I'm writing this out there sure is a lot of carotenoids in there even if no retinol. The recipe calls for an orange veg and a green veg to be added as well as daily fish oil on the side. After learning about VA, I cut out the fish oil and the orange and green veg. I substituted peeled 'fuzzy melon', a white vegetable from our local Chinese market. (it's kind of like a big zucchini). Now I'm thinking I should just make my own dog food without all those 'superfood-esque' additions. After reading Grant's books in February, I stopped the liver I was using as a topper on many of her meals. She really liked it and I thought it was doing her good.
Back to the dental issue: a few weeks ago I was shocked to notice one of her very small lower incisors was loose! and I took her to a non-sedation pet hygienist. The tooth fell out during the cleaning and then she started to sneeze 10X in a row and frequently. So I went to the vet and got the bad news about her dental health.
So , I'm embarrassed to write she lost 10 teeth! Pockets of infection here and there had developed. Something was also eating away at those wee tooth ligaments. The vet says small dogs are more prone and I'm not discounting that. But I suspect it is the VA in the liver I gave her.
I was reminded by the vet that dogs have 40 teeth so she still has a good number of them left. I have to say, I am grateful to her for mopping up the dental problems I unknowingly caused my dog and after everything is healed I will be cleaning my dog's teeth daily from now on. jic. Chances are, with even 10 teeth missing, this pet may outlive my last one.
I am currently in the same boat--I think one of my cats might be vit A toxic and I have no idea what to feed him. I'm currently still leaving out their dry food but giving small amounts of canned tuna and raw burger about 4 times a day. They are old guys and are snackers.
I've read a few articles now about cat vitamin a overload and this one in fact scares me :'0
quote:
"Once cats have developed signs of vitamin A toxicity, there are usually high levels of vitamin A stored in the cat's liver, which will last indefinitely."
https://vcahospitals.com/know-your-pet/vitamin-a-toxicosis-in-cats
Edited to add (definition): Indefinitely: for an unlimited or unspecified period of time.
They do go on to say quote "Fortunately, many cats will improve if the diet is changed and any vitamin A supplementation is stopped. "
I guess I read that as "infinitely" or "unfixably" but really it just means there is no way to tell HOW LONG the liver will be full. It is indefinite. Could be next week. Could be 5 years.
@lil-chick, one of my sons has 2 young cats. The smaller female cat developed itchy skin at about a year old causing open sores where it was scratching itself... poor thing! The vet my son goes to leaned towards allergies and recommended novel proteins... The cat also had one steroid injection which helped but I only see that as buying time to get the diet right. I thought smaller cat, smaller liver perhaps already overflowing with VA.... but I also read somewhere cats can tolerate VA ok so maybe the problem is VA palmitate (because it is synthetic and water soluble). He was feeding his cats canned food with RP and other additives.
I've been looking for a cat premix without Retinol palmitate or powdered liver but haven't found one yet. (If we do make our own pet food, I've read it is important to have a good ratio of phosporous (muscle meat) to calcium (bone). Even commercial pet food always states the calcium/phosporous ratio somewhere).
Here's one recipe for homemade raw cat food I found online. I made up a few batches for my son's cat. I'm no vet of course and feel kind of alone making diet decisions like this when I don't really know what the problem is but I omitted the liver and made up the weight with the raw meat. I found bone meal on iherb. I added taurine but I'm thinking there should be enough taurine in the meat. Not sure how much VA heart has but I omitted that as well as the salmon oil. http://tcfeline.com/original-raw-cat-food-recipe/
So far so good, the cat's skin is healed for now. Could be the steroid injection is still helping but that was given a few weeks ago. Might also have been allergies to some additive in the canned food. Anyway, it shouldn't be this complicated, should it?
And we have to be healthy first and foremost too to be able to help our pets.
Thank you! That's a great resource, Sheila
I am relatively new first time dog owner. Having tried to solve my own health problems with nutrition and filled my head with dire warnings re processed food, additives etc I was keen to feed her well. I decided to feed her raw food. On the whole she has thrived on it and has no obvious health problems. She is only a year old though so long term problems haven't had a chance to manifest.
Up to recently I was buying a complete food which was muscle meat, bone, offal, veg / berries and salmon oil. She was getting 10% bone, 10% offal with 5% of that being liver.
Having learned about VA toxicity I've become concerned about the fish oil and liver content. She was also getting some dried liver as training treats and an egg yolk once a week.
All complete raw food I've been able to find in the UK has 10% offal half of which is liver. I think it is an industry standard and might even be a legal requirement to be met in order to call it a complete food.
I've recently found a new raw supplier who in addition to selling completes also sells offal free components for so called DIYers who want to make up their own foods and add offal etc themselves. Now I buy some packs that are ground meat with bone and some that are just meat. I mix and match to give her a general balance of 90% meat and 10% bone. I'm leaving out the veg for now but she does get a few berries which she loves. She gets mostly chicken, turkey and beef (most economical) with some duck, lamb and venison. Those are more expensive but I do give her some to increase the number of proteins she is getting. I add a little coconut oil and apple cider vinegar. These were recommended on the raw dog food forum I joined and so far I have not read any negatives around them so I've kept on with them just swapping to refined coconut oil from virgin.
I'm omitting the egg yolk and offal completely at the moment (it's only been about a month since cutting out the VA). In time I might give her the odd egg yolk and perhaps a little non liver offal, I'm not decided yet. I worry more about her nutrition than my own in a way because she is totally dependant on me to make the right decisions for her. I have a horror of her needing to go to the vets and it turning out to be some deficiency or another because I haven't understood how her needs differ from my own. Still I'm pretty sure she doesn't need VA and am getting some reassurance from the fact than when people worried less and fed scraps etc dogs were generally more healthy than when fed all these designer dog foods.
For training treats she gets mostly cooked chicken. I also use dried sprats which I chop up and dried sausages from the pet store. Any thing that is all meat and soft enough for me to cut into small pieces (I have a small dog).
She gets the odd tin of sardines in water. Handy for when out and about or if I've forgotten to defrost her food. Oh, I also give her chicken feet or chicken wings roughly once a week. She enjoys them and I think it is good for her to have some food that isn't already broken up to keep her jaws and teeth strong and clean.
Bit of a pampered pooch but being a midget it is affordable 🙂
Bit of an aside but on the raw food forum when liver is discussed people often say that you can't give a dog too much liver and that the worst that can happen if you over do it is a bit of a runny tummy. Now I think, why does an animal get a runny tummy? Maybe it is trying to get rid of all that VA? It's also rather ironic that I've read that a dog mustn't have more than 5% liver which means that anything over and above the 5% already in the food is too much. Also if 5% is the max why is there no mention of a minimum? Funny how you spot all these inconsistencies once your eyes have been opened.
Anyway I've enjoyed this thread and it's good to hear what others are doing for their pets and how they are responding. Especially those older pets that are seeing real benefit from it. Gives me more confidence and it's nice not to feel alone in trying to work out how to do the best for our furry friends.
Wow that was a great post, Rachel! Do you mind sharing the forum?
There is an abattoir nearby and a small town butcher not too far away.
I really feel that (already?!) my VA-toxic-cat's fur seems softer! Is that the first inkling whenever an animal is starting to detox? I felt it with myself, and also I tousled hubby's hair and thought it seemed softer as well. We are all about 3-4 weeks in of less A. I'm pretty sure I heard VA-toxic-cat running upstairs yesterday which I haven't heard for a while.
There is a bit more to my his story. VA-toxic-Cat ended up at the vet a few months back-- and the vet and I both thought he seemed poisoned, but the vet found nothing. The scariest symptom was lack of coordination. But neither of us thought about vitamin A toxicity! Thinking he had poisoned HIMSELF I went through my house and removed ALL plants. And made a point of keeping him out of cellar and attic. He is an indoor cat.
Strangely enough, the vet was super impressed with VA-toxic-cat's teeth (he is 16). These foods are great foods... until that darn bucket is full. It's like a bad joke.
@lil-chick Thanks. The forum I mentioned is a facebook group run by the raw food supplier that I originally used (Bella and Duke) in the UK. So that is the one with complete foods with liver and salmon oil. It was a good intro for me into the world of raw feeding though. They have a generally holistic outlook and it was a friendly place for a complete novice.
To learn more about DIY raw feeding it's probably best to search for the term BARF (Biologically Appropriate Raw Food) which is commonly used in connection with raw dog food. You will most likely hear the same "you must feed 10% offal of which half should be liver" advice but apart from that you should get good advice on the ratios of meat to bone, how to feed bone, which bones to use etc.
There's also dogsnaturallymagazine.com which has advice on raw feeding and how to do it yourself. You just need to put a VA filter on the advice. For me personally I don't want to totally DIY it. Maybe I would if I had a big dog and was dealing with bigger quantities. It would just be too fiddly with mine as she eats such small amounts. Finding a company that does at least part of the work for me works well. Also I have pretty limited energy so I simply can't do much food prep for her.
Having a local butcher could be a great help! It's interesting that your cat looked like he had been poisoned. Glad he is showing signs of renewed energy and improved condition.