Dr. Judy Morgan 0:00
Welcome to the naturally healthy pets podcast. Let's get to it. This week, I am so excited to have as my guest, Michelle Allen. Michele is the founder of Monkey's House Dog Hospice and Sanctuary, which is an internationally acclaimed award winning hospice and sanctuary, utilizing fresh foods, herbs, Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine Principles, and other integrated modalities. She was a member of the International Association for Animal Hospice and Palliative Care, a 202 USA Today Animal Kind award winner, and a 2017 CNN Hero recipient, which you have to be pretty special to get those awards. Michele, thank you so much for agreeing to join me today.
Michele Allen
Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
Dr. Judy Morgan 0:52
So Michele and I have been friends for actually quite a long time. Michele, when did we first meet? Because I know you know that story better than I do.
Michele Allen
I met at a benefit. I hope you can excuse I have a background singer. He'd like to be part of like doowop group.
Dr. Judy Morgan 1:10
Absolutely appropriate for a podcast about animals? Yeah, it's an act of hospice. So you know, we're doing our best to keep quiet. But if they're happy, they're happy. It's it's so funny how we met it was really Kismet because I had had a dog that had liver cancer and was trying to find out ways to feed her right and feed her better and just hit roadblock after roadblock and couldn't really understand what I was doing or the principle for it. And that's not a way that's not a way to feed a dog, you shouldn't do it blindly. So you were speaking for a benefit for one of the places that I fostered for, and it was way long ago was like $35, it was three hours. And you know, it's so funny because I went because maybe maybe you could answer one question, you know, maybe maybe this would help a little maybe you could point me in the right direction I really wanted to support the the place that I that I fostered for and I thought maybe maybe you maybe might know what you're talking about. And it was just, it's it's just one of those moments in life where like, it was like, boom, boom, boom, boom, you just answered every single question that I had. I left that three hours, understanding some basic principles, having a plan, having a backup plan for if a 94 pound counter surfer eats all of the food, you've thawed, what can I have in the house for a backup, understanding basic balance, understanding that there was other things I could do with food, although there was more to learn, but other things I could do with food to help my dogs. And that's that three hours, I didn't think I would ever see you again.
I went home and implemented those principles. And at that point, we were fostering dogs, we had old dogs, we had dogs that were handicapped, we didn't have any young dogs. And in in just a few weeks, we were in our backfield walking around and, and my husband and I were talking and all of a sudden, we noticed they were behaving kind of badly, like kids on recess running all over the place. And, and, and, and it was almost like we realized suddenly that they were acting younger, and they were more playful and boisterous and more vocal, and it's just amazing how it impacted us. And that was just with your with a three hour talk. So then I made an appointment to bring three dogs in. And that was the end of that.
Because you were so far away, you were like an hour away. And then I became you know, a weekly member.
Dr. Judy Morgan 4:04
You did and one of the dogs the first dogs that you brought to me was Monkey. And so we're going to talk a little bit about more and more about Monkey because the name of your hospice is Monkey's House, Senior Dog Hospice and Sanctuary. But I will never forget, first of all, for those who do not know Michele personally or have not listened to broadcasts with Michele, she has a sense of humor that not everybody gets, but she's actually one of the funniest people I know. So she came in and I walked in the room to see this little dog Monkey who I'm gonna call him cute, but he's actually he was pretty homely. He had teeth that kind of stuck out.
He's cute in his own way. And so I walked over to the table to take a look at Monkey and Michele picked him up and backed off and said, Well, he's not user friendly. And I thought well, okay, here I am in my Veterinary Practice, I'm supposed to examine a dog who is I've never heard that term before. Not user friendly when, when talking about one of my patients, although I, over the years had quite a few not user friendly patients. So it actually became a term that I used quite often after that. But Michelle said, Well, I'll hold them, and you tell me what you want to see. And I'll show you those parts. But it actually ended up working really well, because Monkey was suffering with heart disease and actually wasn't suffering with it. He was living with heart disease, and in and out of heart failure. And Michele just needed help with tweaking medications, supplements and diet. So it actually ended up working quite well. But you had Monkey for how long did you have him?
Michele Allen
we had him for 17 months, 17 great months.
Dr. Judy Morgan
Which was a lot more than what his original timestamp was. But when Monkey passed, Michele came to me and said, I want to do something to honor Monkey, and I want to start a senior dog Hospice and Sanctuary. Now remember, Michele was over an hour away from my clinics, and I lived close to my clinics. So we had this time and distance that was separating us and she said, I want to start this dog hospice and sanctuary, I want your help. I want you to be the veterinarian that works with these animals. And I went, that's an interesting idea. Nobody's really done that. Because this was quite a few years ago, I said, okay, and I agreed with her, and I agreed to be the veterinarian, because I said, in my mind, I was thinking she'll never do this, she'll never get this off the ground. I don't have to worry about it. I could agree to anything I want to because it's never going to happen. Yeah, kind of proved me wrong.
Michele Allen 6:50
Sorry about that. You know, it was I had, I had been wanting to do this for a long time, when I was fostering I was fostering sick dogs, that the places where I'd be foster partner, I was a nurse, they would send me sick dogs. And conventional medicine only offers so much. And I remember so much about my first visit with you because it was a consult. And I had sent records in advance with every single of all three dogs that I had, had brought with me. And you, you knew who they were right away. And you know, when you were examining Monkey, he was having behavioral changes. And I was so afraid that he was having chest pain, and that he his quality of life was suffering. He was highly he was a very happy loving dog to me. Not really many other people. But he was hiding in the closet. And I had taken him to my vet examined him his blood work was fine. Like they couldn't find a problem. She said, don't bring any new Fosters, give them a week or two, maybe consultant a behaviorist. And my consult just happened to be right in the middle of all that. And you said to me what happened in May? And I thought a minute, and I burst into tears. And I said, Well, my horse died. And I had spent $10,000. And I went from feeding him really high quality freeze dried that I was looking to kibble to help restore our nest egg because my animals aren't insurable. And you were explaining to me about his Qi deficiency and how that dryness was impacting his mind. And at the time, I'm a traditionally educated nurse and things are very black and white, true or false, right or wrong. And
Michele Allen 8:39
I was willing to try anything because I didn't want to lose him. I was so tired of losing dogs and not being able to impact their life. And you sent me home with very basic feed him some sardines, some beef heart and some eggs. And, you know, I'm driving around thinking, well, this might be nuts. And I did it. And man, within a few days, Monkey was back. Monkey was leaping through the air, not hiding in the closet. And it's one of those things had I not sought out someone with a different background, I probably would have ended up euthanizing at that point, because his quality of life had deteriorated. You know, no one wants to go hiding in a closet. I don't want that for anybody.
Dr. Judy Morgan 9:21
Exactly. So because of the changes that you saw in your own dogs, really just, we were very rudimentary at that point, just making diet changes, getting them off of highly processed food and moving them over toward whole food ingredients, human grade ingredients. And it obviously was clear very quickly, how small changes can really make a huge impact. And so when you came to me with this idea for Monkey's House, one of the things that was discussed and then once Monkey's House actually got up and going, we had to sort of set the guidelines for how was Monkey's House going to run? And how were we going to impact these dogs? Which dogs,and we'll talk more about this later in the segment. But how are dogs selected to come to Monkey's House and, you know, where do they come from? What are their backgrounds? What kind of things are they dealing with, and then different things that you have utilized in their care. But one of the things that we found very quickly with Monkey's House and the changes that were utilized is, these dogs that were time stamped with a few days or a few weeks, weren't staying with you for a few days or a few weeks.
Michele Allen 10:50
No, they weren't. And that that was so neat, because when when you pick them up from the shelter, you know, they were timestamped for that evening that they're going to put asleep that evening and really didn't, people did not see that there would be anything we could do for them. And within whatever life predicted lifespan, they would have, the changes you would see in them were incredible. Just dogs that were coughing, dogs that were passing out, dogs had all kinds of problems.
We could reverse a fair amount of that. In the few days it would take to get to get an appointment, I would want to sort through what was a problem that I could fix with my knowledge of food therapy, you know, so that I could present you with what I couldn't fix and or change or impact. And it's incredible. It's really incredible.
Dr. Judy Morgan 11:51
What's the longest period of time that a dog after admission into Monkey's House has stayed with you?
Michele Allen
I think that was Lucy. And I think it was seven years.
Dr. Judy Morgan
Seven years. And what was her time stamp when you adopted her?
Michele Allen
They weren't sure she was surrendered because she was 18 and too old to hunt. She was surrendered with two other dogs. And so they came here for hospice, a veterinarian ended up taking the one dog that was the sickest and early on Lucy had about six weeks of focal seizures that didn't that we couldn't break. But they, they weren't horrible. So we kept pushing, because it wasn't like a grand mal seizure. She didn't have any grand mals. We were working with food with medication with traditional medication. And she's had her ups and downs but she had a really good life here.
Dr. Judy Morgan 12:51
Which is amazing. So we're looking at transforming the lives of dogs. These are dogs that are time stamped with a death sentence. We'll talk about that more in the second half of the show. But when you can transform a dog's life from you have a few days or a few weeks to you have a few years. That is a huge impact. So stay tuned. After our break. We'll be back and we'll talk about how dogs are selected and how they're treated at Monkey's House.
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Dr. Judy Morgan 14:07
Welcome back. I'm here with my good friend Michelle Allen from Monkey's House Dog Hospice and Sanctuary and you are located in New Jersey, which is where I used to have my practices and I'm no longer there, unfortunately. So I don't get to see the dogs at Monkey's House quite as often. I said that we would talk about how dogs are selected to be admitted into Monkey's House because I know that you get emails and phone calls and messages from people all the time saying I need to rehome my dog. Will you take my dog you're the perfect place for my dog. And for those who don't know Monkey's House is inside of Michele and Jeff Allen's home. They live with all of these dogs. There's a few dogs that are in sort of long term foster care with other families but these dogs are in your home. What's the highest number of dogs you've ever had living in your home with you?
Michele Allen
35
Dr. Judy Morgan
35 dogs. I can't even imagine the most I've ever had is 13. And even that was a little bit nuts. But so 35 dogs, what's your average number? Because I know it changes and it changes with time.
Michele Allen
It changes depending on what's going on with the acuity level is because it's a, it's an ever changing thing. Post pandemic, our numbers are just lower. We have fewer volunteers, you know, donate fewer donations. So to be responsible, our numbers are lower. And I would say now, we're between 15 and 20 dogs here at the house and eight to 10 dogs in foster.
Dr. Judy Morgan 15:44
Now I know this, we're going to get back to how they get into Monkey's House, but and I know this changes, but you may have a pretty decent handle on this. What's that average cost? Do you think per year to house and care for one of these hospice dogs?
Michele Allen 16:05
I would say it depends on the dog. I would say not less than $10,000.
Dr. Judy Morgan 16:15
Right? And that's partly because the dogs at Monkey's House really do not lack anything that they need. So if they need an echocardiogram, if they need major surgery, if they need dental care, they get that. There are if they need an MRI or a CT scan that is going to be done for them. So it's it's a very, very high level of care. This is not dogs that Michele is bringing into her home and then just watching them die or waiting for them to die. It's a very, very active process of care. And it's not when we're talking about hospice care, we're not talking about curing anything, although sometimes you've been very successful at curing some of the problems that these dogs have. So how do dogs get the opportunity? And this is the opportunity of a lifetime? Really? How do these dogs get the opportunity to come to Monkey's House? How do you choose because I know you have a long list of people who would love to get their dogs into Monkey's House or into some sort of hospice care or pawn off their problems on someone else, sadly. So how do you choose?
Michele Allen 17:38
So I, I work with shelters and other rescues. And that's it. So when a dog comes up that meets our criteria. If I have a spot, I can't just say yes, we all have our dogs have arthritis, most of them can't hear. They weren't raised in this kind of environment. So they are suffering from chronic inflammation of old age, which shouldn't be a disease, it shouldn't be a disease. So I can't if you have too many blind dogs, or too many dogs that are blind and deaf that can't hear the growling, or the warnings or see the body language of an arthritic dog that doesn't want to be stepped on. It is not a relaxing or harmonious environment. And that's this place is the most zen place in the world. Which is so funny because I am not a Zen person.
Michele Allen 18:24
One of my personal dogs Zora taught me about being Zen. And it's very important that I that I guard that and that's that's why the dogs are everywhere. And that's why if you come over, you have to sit on the floor because the dogs are on the sofa. This is their like getting adopted, this is their last stop. And I want it to be amazing. When people reach out to me to take a dog. If they're overwhelmed, if they're working with a vet, if they're feeling frustrated, I'm happy to to walk them through some of the processes help them understand the disease process better. I'm a human, I'm a registered retired registered human nurse. And teaching about health and illness was a career that you don't just hang up. So I'm happy to help people understand about kidney disease about heart disease about having them both together. And when you have them both together. A lot of people are told this is it and and sometimes it is but not every time and you know if you can restore vibrancy, I always say if you can just take when they're acutely ill when they're when they're in the emergency room in an oxygen chamber. And the cardiologist is seeing them that's that's acutely ill when they're back home taking pills three times a day that's chronically ill, and that's when you can still have fun and still enjoy life. And so you want to just dial things down and that's my approach with cancer. I'm not trying to kill it. I'm not trying to cure it. I'm trying to quiet it down and just get them well enough that they can still feel good and enjoy what we're doing. And I'm happy to share what we do here with the general public, when if they're working with a vet if they have labs, and if they're realistic about what they're what they're seeing if, you know if they say that 10 People want them to put their dog down, and then they send me a video of their dog, I'll say you need new friends. Or if they say, 10 people want me to put my dog down and their dog looks really bad. I'll say, why don't you talk to another veterinarian? You know, what I'm seeing is some stuff that is showing that they're not happy. So I do want to help every dog I just can't.
Dr. Judy Morgan 20:37
Yeah, exactly. So even the shelters I mean, clearly, every shelter could call you with 50 dogs a day. So how do you place hierarchy on that? Let's say they call you and they say, look, we've got this senior dog in here, it's not doing well, in the shelter, it's blind, it's deaf, it's arthritic? Is that a dog that would qualify to come to Monkey's house?
Michele Allen 21:06
No, it's not. And, and these, now, if you could throw in a heart murmur, an advanced heart murmur, or really bad lab work, but the longer I do this, like, what I used to consider kidney failure, I have dogs with that have lived very stable in stage two chronic kidney disease for seven years. So you know, it's, the more you do this, the more you see that it's hard to predict longevity. But like I said, The dog has to be a good fit for here. And like, right now, I'm exhausted. So if I'm going to be pulling any dog, it needs to be a dog that is an easy fit. And an easy fit is dog friendly, cat friendly, can see and hear. So it can have a 15 pound mass, it can be in heart and kidney failure. But an easy fit is one that can that can see and hear. And, you know, I can have them navigate the other dogs because when the acuity, you know, it rises and falls. And there can be many sleepless nights.
Dr. Judy Morgan 22:20
There are many sleepless nights.I know that for a fact, because there used to be a lot of text messages that went back forth in the middle of the night. So luckily, you and I are both pretty much insomniacs. So that worked out pretty well for a lot of years. But so the dogs that are coming into Monkey's House are not just old dogs. And they don't necessarily even have to be old, what they have to have is a life ending diagnosis. So whether that's an advanced cancer, or advanced heart disease, advanced kidney disease, advanced liver disease, really, you've seen just about everything. You've seen dogs with severe neurologic disease, you've had dogs with liver cancers, and mammary cancers, and lung cancers and advanced heart disease.
Dr. Judy Morgan 23:08
So let's talk about some of the modalities that you use. Obviously, food and food therapy is just that that's your foundation. And that's the baseline. What else do you use for these dogs? And how critical is it to have a veterinary care, lab work or somebody that you're working really closely with?
Michele Allen 23:32
So I would say, and everyone that reaches out to me says, you know, I've decided to just proceed with hospice for my dog, I'm not going to go to my vet anymore. And I say please don't cut your vet out of this part, please don't cut your vet out. So what we start with is a very thorough vet exam. A very involved veterinarian. Bloodwork, if if the exam leaves that they need X rays, if the exam shows that they might need a CAT scan, if they need to see the cardiologist, all of that is done, we need to know looking at the bloodwork my veterinarian is very good. It's sifting through priorities, but then we really need to know what is is a problem and what we need to address and there's so much I hate all these diseases that end in the word failure, heart failure, lung, lung failure, liver failure, because that sucks. That's who's going to be upbeat about that, who's going to say what else can I do? Can I change their diet? You know, when you say failure, that's that's kind of it sounds like the end of the road. And it doesn't have to be it really doesn't have to be.
Dr. Judy Morgan 24:44
on the on the note of diet. Do you ever use prescription veterinary diets for your dogs?
Michele Allen
I don't. I did I did for a dog for a paralyzed dog that had a bladder stone and he was completely blocked. And the surgery that they would do for that was contraindicated because they were going to have to cut...they were gonna have to reroute the urethra just below the rectum. And we needed to get him peeing. So he was on the stone diet for a month. Got him off that as fast as we possibly could.
Michele Allen 25:17
Because I know that that's not an ideal situation, that's not something that dog should be on for life, it's really meant to be for a very short time. And this was kind of an emergency a weird, weird situation that was an emergency.
Dr. Judy Morgan
So the only time you resort to prescription diet is in an absolute emergency.
Michel Allen 25:46
when there's nothing else when there's nothing else that I could think of to do or that my vet could think of to do to keep them alive. He also turned out to be a very bitey dog. And, you know, my, my vet said, she really wasn't, didn't really think that we should send him to a hospital for that surgery. We did because he was really biting. And he didn't have much of a nose. So he really wasn't muzzley, he was very happy in his life and his foster home.
Dr. Judy Morgan 26:09
Alright, so we're using food therapy, what else do you use for these guys?
Michele Allen
So TCVM. Well, fresh food. First off fresh food I use really very dependent on AllProvide, fabulous fresh food. And then TCVM Food therapy, which is it takes fresh food to a higher level to and to a whole new level. And it's something as simple as adding a little bit of parsley, a little bit of radish and a tiny piece of pear, like tiny, tiny bits to a dog's diet to help help them get rid of excess fluid. To help maintain them on lower doses of, of diuretics. It's, it's very, it's amazing what it can do. One time, I was taking a class, and they said that they wanted everyone to add something to their dog's bowl that hadn't been in a refrigerator, in a freezer or in plastic. And they just wanted to add something to their bowl and for a month and see what the changes were. And so dandelion leaves, I mean, I have a farm, I don't use fertilizer. So at that time, I think I had 26 dogs. So I, you know, needed to be smart about what I was adding, and I just randomly threw dandelion leaves on the, you know, I didn't say a big dog gets a big leaf, you know, I just cut it up and everyone
Michele Allen 27:31
And lumps would disappear. And like, I know that I know that dandelions do that. But it's not something that I was consciously working on at that moment. And at the end of the month, I was like, wow, you know, wow, you know, I didn't, I didn't, you know, do bloodwork I just was this was the observation of lumps. But I imagined that, you know, some liver values may have improved more, and I am much quicker to harvest dandelion, and to be conscious of my sources, and to not overextend that plant.
Dr. Judy Morgan 28:04
Absolutely. So I know that you use food therapy, you use a lot of supplements from a lot of different companies. And I know these dogs get laser, acupuncture, chiropractic care, physical therapy, you have a physical therapist who comes to the house, and works with these dogs, which is really critical for old dogs with mobility issues. We're almost out of time. But before we end, I want to talk about an idea that you and I came up with, which was to make a course, for pet owners and pet professionals.
Dr. Judy Morgan 28:39
Talking about what you do at Monkey's House, and how you accomplish what you accomplish with these dogs. You want to talk a little bit about that course quickly?
Michele Allen
Yes, first off, that was an amazing opportunity. And what's so incredible is you know, when when you talk about a dog that's in heart failure and kidney failure, and and you're feeling like it's the end of the road and the dog hasn't eaten in two days. This course is about what to look at. It helps you to understand what's going on? What are the options, what are the things you can do? How can you squeeze a little more life out of those kidneys, take a little more pressure off of the heart, what doctors need to follow up with, the lab work that needs to be done. And we'll share a case study of a dog that lived long and well with co-morbidities. And I hope that it's going to empower people to change the way they're thinking during this time of life.
Michele Allen 29:41
Because in the end, the dog is going to die. But if you take this time and consciously shift your thinking to making every day the best it can be to stop to stop your life and say we're riding this out into the sunset really, really well. You will and you know the grief is hard. But getting past it is easier.
Dr. Judy Morgan 30:04
Yeah, absolutely. It's one of those things where you say, I know I did everything I could. And a lot of it is not rocket science. A lot of it is just making changes in the diet, making changes to the routine. And for me, personally, when I go through this with one of my dogs, I can say I have no regrets. And I know that that final period of life actually was one of the best periods and certainly for the dogs that are coming to Monkey's House that is absolutely true. This is where they come to live, not to die. And for many of them, this is absolutely the most joyful, happiest, best part of their life. And that is what we wish for, for all dogs and frankly, for cats too. Our course is about dogs and Michele has a dog hospice, but the same holds true for really any animal that we're dealing with. Michele, thank you so much for joining me today. You are a wealth of information, you're always fun. You're always cheerful. And I love spending time with you.
Michele Allen
Same here. Always great to catch up with you. Thank you so much for this opportunity.
Dr. Judy Morgan
Thanks for listening to another great Naturally Healthy Pets episode. Be sure to check out the show notes for some helpful links. And if you enjoy the show, please be sure to follow and listen for free on your favorite podcast app. We value your feedback and we'd love to hear from you on how we're doing. Visit DrJudyMorgan.com for healthy product recommendations, comprehensive courses, upcoming events and other fantastic resources. Until next time, keep giving your pet the vibrant life they deserve.
Disclaimer
The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. It is no substitute for professional care by a veterinarian, licensed nutritionist or other qualified professional. You're encouraged to do your own research and should not rely on this information as professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Dr. Judy and her guests express their own views, experience and conclusions. Dr. Judy Morgan's Naturally Healthy Pets neither endorses or opposes any particular view discussed here.