Health and Longevity Course for Dogs Chapter 3
In the second chapter of the Health and Longevity Course, I revealed how you can find out if your dog's diet and body is tainted with toxins and heavy metals.
Most of us know toxins can build up in the body and cause disease, but how does this happen and what can we do about it?
Most dog lovers get completely overwhelmed by reports online and in the news about what is safe and what's not. It's often only a matter of time before a scientific discovery or a claim is proven wrong or a substance that was considered safe turns out to be carcinogenic or toxic, such as glyphosate, the active ingredient in RoundUp. In 2015 the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer classified glyphosate as "probably carcinogenic to humans.”
When it comes to food, we have all seen the endless recommendations being published about what food is good and bad for us. Butter is good, butter is bad, margarine is better, margarine is the worst, fats are bad, fats are essential.
The same could be said about chemistry and technology. DDT and atomic power were once considered the greatest inventions, but now we understand how dangerous they are.
Are you tired yet? I'm tired just typing this list!!!
What if you didn't need a long list of do's and don'ts and could just follow a few simple core principles of avoiding toxins instead? I believe if you are well informed and learn a few basic principles, chances are you will be able to protect your dog from chemicals and toxins.
To achieve this goal, you first have to understand what happens when a foreign, artificial substance, or toxin, gets into the body.
Explaining the effects of toxins on the body
Let’s step away from healing and dogs for a moment. Think of your favorite song and then imagine the singer performing it for you and your friends in a small, intimate and private performance at your home. You get lost in the experience of the sound and rhythm. The moment is perfect!
Suddenly, you hear a noise and there is a drunk man banging at the door of your house. You try to negotiate and convince him to go home, but he keeps coming back. You know there are only two ways to deal with him – ignore him or call the police to take him away.
A drunk can spoil your concert experience, but neutralizing his effect can restore the harmony and balance.
The obnoxious, intoxicated intruder at a concert is an analogy for toxins in your dog's body and your dog's health is definitely your favourite song.
Good health is a state where all the instruments and vocals resonate perfectly with ease and every cell and organ play their part flawlessly. Toxins and chemicals interfere with good health the same way the drunk spoils a good time.
Toxins take over the receptors of the body and disrupt metabolic reactions, which represent the music.
How do you know what's good and what's harmful?
This question is impossible to answer. The interactions of drugs, chemicals, pesticides and other toxic substances are so complex that no testing and research can decipher them. The minimal research requirements for approving drugs and chemicals don't consider the long-term effects of these substances. The truth is no one can say with absolute certainty that any artificial substance is safe in the long term.
For example, if a dog gets cancer there are thousands of factors that may have played a role and no one can be certain what the exact causes are. There are still many people who dare to claim certain artificial products are absolutely safe. The truth is there are no absolutes in medicine.
The only solution to this dilemma is to limit any artificial substances in your dog's life to a minimum. Some people get very anxious about this and end up paralyzed by reading too much conflicting information.
One cannot achieve an absolutely toxin-free state, so lowering toxin levels is all you need to do.
It's also true some pharmaceuticals can be life-saving, especially in acute situations such as trauma, emergencies or when a dog loses its ability to produce life-essential hormones, such as insulin or its own corticosteroids. With conditions like diabetes and Addison's disease, treating them with drugs may be the only solution.
However, the medical conditions where drugs are the only solution are relatively rare. Many years back, I made a commitment to minimize the use of pharmaceuticals in my practice. I was shocked when I was able to reduce the amount of drugs to less than 10 percent of what I used to prescribe and had better results!
I'm not opposed to the use of medication when no other options are present, but it's important to keep in mind that drugs are not a true cure, in the same way pouring chemicals in water to purify it is not true purification, but a different kind of pollution.
I see drugs as a last resort
I love my mother! She has never stopped being a teenager, even in her 80’s, but there is one thing about her and her generation that is very frustrating. She simply does not get the concept that drugs are toxic chemicals that should be avoided whenever possible.
In the best-case scenario, drugs are "the crutches" in the healing process and you want to get rid of them as soon as possible.
"This pill for that" approach to medicine is one of the main reasons why doctor error is the third cause of death in the United States. We all should be asking if it is possibly more important to change, transform and rebuild our medical system than be terrified of terrorists? Is it possible that there are more people dying of side-effects of drugs and ineffective treatments?
Is it possible that the most important task for our society is to prevent drug companies from conducting their self-serving research? Wouldn't it be safer if independent, government-regulated bodies conducted research in all areas of medicine, so the main focus is not on developing toxic drugs?
Many people still fall for the idea that this pill is for the heart, this one is for a cough and this one is for sore joints.
They don't seem to understand that pills are chemicals that are foreign to the body. One can never be 100 percent sure a drug is completely harmless because, in most cases, it's not naturally occurring in the body.
The body is programmed to get rid of everything foreign. The process is called cleansing or detoxification. In a young individual, these cleansing processes are more effective, but with age, the efficiency slows down, similar to a water filter.
The cleansing process
I can’t resist going back to the concert and your favorite song. If an obnoxious drunk appears, security may remove him or if there is no security, your good friends and allies will help you get rid of him.
In the case of your dog's body, the process is not much different. Some toxic elements are pushed out because essential minerals compete for the same spot in the cell. For example, calcium and magnesium are capable of pushing lead out of the body. Cadmium has less of a chance to remain “on the stage" if your dog's diet is abundant with zinc.
The problem is that soil is depleted of minerals and therefore, so is food. This allows toxins to have a greater chance to stay in the system.
The most important detox pathways are closely connected to the liver, kidneys, lungs, anal glands and digestive tract.
Tears can also help eliminate toxins. Many dog lovers report their dogs' tears are no longer staining the hair around the eyes or that their dog’s eye discharge stopped after a simple cleanse.
Logically, if you want to keep your dog healthy, you need to do all you can to avoid the use of chemicals whenever possible. That means in your dog's body and also in the environment.
It may seem overwhelming to try to understand what chemical product is safe or not, it's actually very freeing and simple to say that the safest way is to avoid any artificial chemical you can.
That includes washing powders, cleaning products, the food we buy, drugs, flea products, pesticides and so on.
It is quite simple and I will touch on this topic in more detail in future articles on the principles of longevity.
So here is the 3rd principle of longevity
When picking a product, choose ones that are made or grown by nature and try to replace chemicals with natural alternatives.
The only remaining thing I’d like to share with you in Chapter 3 is what I do for my patients when it comes to a cleanse and detox.
Similar to home water filters that need to be serviced from time to time, your dog's detox system is no different. You need to keep the "filter" in top-notch shape.
A simple cleanse program for your dog
It's sometimes hard to get orientated in the infinite number of cleansing and detox protocols out there, but the following protocol works very well.
Step 1. Push out toxins by supplementing your dog's diet with essential minerals, chlorophyll and amino acids. I mentioned above that good minerals compete with toxic elements. Imagine there are only a certain number of chairs in a concert hall and if all of them are taken, the 'uninvited guests' will have nowhere to sit.
Step 2. Clean your dog's main filter - the liver - by doing a liver cleanse. The initial cleanse is four weeks long and then one week per month as part of preventive care.
Step 3. Follow nature's footsteps and use water as your dog's internal cleansing agent. Offer your dog fresh, filtered, dechlorinated water to support the kidneys and general cleansing. Water should be dechlorinated because chlorine can have a negative effect on probiotic bacteria in the digestive tract. If you still use plastic bottles or water tanks for your water needs, remember that any packaging that is not made by nature is potentially harmful. A glass container or a built-in water filter is the best solution for your dog and your environment.
Did you know this is only one article from our free Holistic Health & Longevity Course?
To read the entire Holistic Health and Longevity Course for Dogs click the links below.
© Dr. Peter Dobias, DVM
