Intro 0:00
My guest today, veterinarian Jessica Fusch has a wealth of information that she is going to share with you today on what you can do to keep your dog and cat healthier and happier, because it's all about having a longer, healthier life, and there are easy things that everyone can do. Stay tuned for more tips.
Dr. Judy Morgan
Hello and welcome to the Naturally Healthy Pets podcast. I'm your host. Dr, Judy Morgan. My guest today Dr, Jessica Fusch is someone who aligns pretty well with me, because she's really a fan of making your own pet food, and she has a YouTube channel, Farmer's Market Fido, where she does lots of cooking videos. And frankly, cooking videos are one of the things that just explode on our channel. So we know that you all are really interested in feeding your pets better and knowing how to do that. Jessica, thank you so much for agreeing to be on the podcast today.
Dr. Jessica Fusch 1:09
Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor.
Dr. Judy Morgan 1:13
So you actually are trained in TCVM modalities, correct?
Dr. Jessica Fusch 1:18
yep, acupuncture and food therapy. I never did the herbal course, or at least not yet
Dr. Judy Morgan 1:24
Yeah, me too.
Dr. Jessica Fusch 1:28
The Chinese language felt daunting. And, you know,
Dr. Judy Morgan 1:33
it's like going to vet school in a different language, when you go, it's like, it doesn't matter how much you know about veterinary medicine from a traditional standpoint? Did you go to Chi Institute? yeah. So when you go, I mean, it's just funny, because Dr Shea speaks in Chinglish, and is so funny for probably the first three acupuncture modules, he kept talking about liver hypie, and I kept writing it down, and I kept trying to find liver hypie. It was liver happy. yeah, for nine months, I'm like, What is liver hypie? I'm asking everybody how I don't, I can't find this herb. What is this? Yeah, so once you learn the language
Dr. Jessica Fusch 2:18
Well, I was lucky enough to go to the University of Florida and actually work at the University of Florida. And follow him around. You know, in the Large Animal Hospital, whenever he was out there, when I was a technician, I would follow him around. So I got used to his accent before, but
Dr. Judy Morgan 2:36
that is very cool. Yeah, the man is a genius. I would, I would love to be one of those, like little miniature people and run around in his brain for a good hour or two and just see what I could pick up. brilliant.
Dr. Jessica Fusch 2:48
Yeah, he really is. And then I went to Costa Rica and did the balance method, which is kind of an advanced approach to acupuncture. And I still feel like I because I really haven't practiced it a lot. I still feel like I need to practice, get in there and do it. It's really cool. I mean,
Dr. Judy Morgan 3:09
it's amazing. I mean, Chinese medicine in general, is just, I mean, it's ancient. It's an ancient art, and particularly with the acupuncture, it is an art. And everybody does it differently. And I don't like the more Americanized teaching of acupuncture, because it's more formulaic. It's like, well, they have a back problem you, you know, just use this prescribed set of points. And frankly, I feel like with corporatization of veterinary medicine, we are now doing generic like, if, if they present with this symptom, this is the exact treatment for every same animal. And it's, I mean, that's something we learned in Chinese medicine. There's an art to it. And there's, you know, not all kidney failure is the same, not all pancreatitis presents the same. And so, I mean, I love the art of Chinese medicine, and, you know, watching different people play with it, and so you're really into food therapy, and you like to do these cooking segments, which is great, because that's one of my favorite things. But there's also an art to that. No two people formulate the same.
Dr. Jessica Fusch 4:20
Yeah, I don't know. I kind of have a pattern now, you know, I think you just learn ingredients that you like,
Dr. Judy Morgan
right? And, yeah, sometimes I feel like I get stuck in a rut because I'm like, oh, I need, I know I need some zinc. I'm going here. I know I need some iodine. I'm going here
Dr. Jessica Fusch 4:35
Oh, yeah,
Dr. Judy Morgan 4:37
you have your favorite things that you like to use. But for pet owners who are just learning how to put formulas together, sometimes it's just easier to say, Okay, well, I know this is going to be my iodine source, this is going to be my zinc source.
Dr. Jessica Fusch 4:51
Yeah, no. I mean, kelp is a super food, so why not use that for iodine, right? Like it has so many other benefits as well. Yeah, I actually read a study recently, and it was for people, but kelp can reduce oxalates, because there's no, you know, the prescription foods, right from the big companies, whatever. There isn't one for cats and dogs that have oxalates.
Dr. Judy Morgan 5:21
Yeah, you know, really a low oxalate diet is so easy to formulate because, I mean, there are lists of high oxalate foods, good. We'll just, we'll just avoid those. And for people who have those breeds, you know, Schnauz, Miniature Schnauzers, Yorkies, Maltese, they are so prone, and cats are prone to making oxalate stones. It's like, okay, well, fine, we can avoid that. And guess what? There's no oxalates in meats, folks and our What are cats? Those carnivores? What are dogs? Yeah, they like a meat based diet. So, you know, it's kind of easy to avoid them.
Dr. Jessica Fusch 5:55
Yeah, cats shouldn't be getting stones at all. Like, it's just kind of ridiculous. They shouldn't be getting diabetes. They shouldn't be getting stones. I mean, kidney failure. I don't know if I could say 100% but I can say if you don't feed kibble, your cat will not get diabetes.
Dr. Judy Morgan
I would agree with that, although,
Dr. Jessica Fusch 6:15
have you ever seen it?
Dr. Judy Morgan 6:16
Yes, there. And I'm trying to think which veterinarian it was, it was in one of our email groups, and it was in the botanical group, and one of the veterinarians had, oh, I knew it was, it was Barbara Royal, her cat, she was away teaching overseas, and her cat became diabetic, and It's a raw fed cat, and it was a very weird presentation. They had a hard time diagnosing it, and the cat was actually keto acidotic. And she said, I have to fly home to take care of my cat, because nobody can figure out what's going on. And she did manage to solve the problems, but, yeah, very, very, very rare.
Dr. Jessica Fusch 7:01
Yeah, if you're not eating carbohydrates.
Dr. Judy Morgan 7:03
And frankly, a lot of the diabetic cases that we see in practice with dogs, it's like, yes, they're on a high carbohydrate diet. Carbs break down to sugars, folks, and that's how we get diabetic dogs. So, you know, they're, they're, I mean, almost all diabetic dogs, I mean, it's, it's a very large majority. Most are going to be obese.
Dr. Jessica Fusch 7:25
Start out obese,
Dr. Judy Morgan 7:27
They're going to be obese. They're going to be on a high starch, kibble based diet. They're not going to be exercising well, and they're going to have multiple endocrinopathies. So we end up with hypothyroidism, diabetes. They have multiple bouts of pancreatitis that leads up to the diabetes and you know, so and then many of them become cushingoid as well, because all of the endocrine glands play together, and when one of them is out of whack, they're all going to be out of whack. So, huge problem for our dogs, so we can solve this by feeding them correctly. so tell me about Farmers Market Fido.
Dr. Jessica Fusch 8:08
I think it was about six years ago I started that channel, and one of the big motivations for me, well, okay, the first motivation is making healthier, longer lived pets, right? Sure. I mean, I can't prove it. I know there are a lot of studies, but I think it's just logical that if you feed fresh food that has the phytochemicals that are antioxidant and all of the things that we don't even know are in plants that we're discovering new things all the time, right? Like medicinal mushrooms, for example, like this is kind of a new thing the microbiome. There's a lot of reasons why we know that dogs that are fed fresh food will be healthier, right? But the other reason was, people are cooking for their dogs. People are doing it, yeah, right. And they're not always doing it right. You can't just do mixed vegetables, rice and chicken,
Dr. Judy Morgan 9:12
And I saw that so much in practice. Yes, I home cook for my dog. That's great. What are you cooking? Yeah. One woman, her dog was on hamburger, peas and rice, for two years
Dr. Jessica Fusch 9:24
And it's shocking how well they live
Dr. Judy Morgan 9:26
Exactly I work on the dog. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, it's normal, but the body is going to maintain homeostasis in the bloodstream, so that the lab tests are going to look good, right? For instance, if we did a hair mineral analysis on that dog, we'd find out that, oh my gosh, we are missing all of those minerals. Like, yeah, they're just not there. And, you know, there was no vitamin D in there. There was very little vitamin A, yeah? And, you know, so she was very hard to convince, you know, and this is just kind of the stereotypical client. There are many. There are 1000s. Of these. She was very hard to convince that she needed to change this diet or add a vitamin supplement or do something, yeah. And so I said, All right, we're gonna start off simple. I want you to go get some beef liver or chicken liver at the grocery store, and I want you to incorporate that. Yep. She came back two weeks later. She goes, liver is yucky and gross, and I am not doing that.
Dr. Jessica Fusch 10:22
it is pretty stinky, but
Dr. Judy Morgan
yeah. And I was like, okay, eggs.
Dr. Judy Morgan 10:28
Can we add eggs? Maybe I'll think about it comes back. Yeah, he doesn't really like eggs, so it can be very difficult. Sometimes it's very easy to get stuck in a rut. And one of the problems that we see is that people start off with really good intentions.
Dr. Jessica Fusch 10:45
Yeah, people do sometimes shift, which is one of the arguments that you know, sure, regular vets have against doing it. But I do not think that everybody who owns a dog who wants to cook for them is too stupid to actually stick to a recipe, which is basically what that study said, right? I'm like, That's so rude and definitely not true. As long as they understand why it's so important, they'll do it
Dr. Judy Morgan 11:12
but, but there definitely is drift like, Oh, I couldn't find any muscles this week for the zinc content. Or I couldn't find any oysters. You know, I don't live near the ocean. I couldn't find cod liver oil, so I just left it out. And you know, not that these are things that have to go into every single recipe, but if you have a recipe that has some ingredients that maybe are a little tricky to source. So like my pup loaf recipe, it has multiple iterations that are out there, because you can, you can vary the ingredients and still have something that's balanced. Sometimes I tweak it and add or take things out, but people tend to be like, Yeah, I couldn't find chicken gizzards, so I just left them out. Oh, I couldn't find beef heart, so I just left it out, yeah, well, everything that's in there, pup loaf, you could make a recipe with many less ingredients and much simpler and still have it be balanced. But pup loaf is also designed from a TCVM standpoint. So when I was using my food therapy, it's like, oh, well, you know, those gizzards are a really good chi tonic. They're really good for digestion, like, treats, like, that's the digestive part of the chicken anatomy. So that's really good for digestive health. And then we've got the heart in there, because, like, treats like we want, you know, heart for the heart, you know, I've got things in there for the Omega three content. So, but it's really funny, because now pup loaf has become a, I mean, it's still, it's my trademark, and it's still assigned to me. And people will say, Oh, I'm making Dr Judy's pup loaf, but I'm making a rabbit pup loaf. I'm like, okay, the original recipe is not balanced with rabbit, We would have to reformulate.
Dr. Jessica Fusch 12:59
Yeah, yeah. People don't understand that just shifting the protein source actually does change things. Going from say, you know, spinach to kale, or putting a little less spinach or more spinach isn't going to change it that much, because the vegetables aren't quite as impactful as those protein sources, but the organ meats are very important. You must have a supplement if you're not using organ meats, yeah? Like, you're not going to get your B vitamins. You're not going to get your taurine, yeah, you know, regular muscle meat doesn't really have much taurine,
Dr. Judy Morgan 13:34
Well and rabbit's very low in taurine, which is tricky. That's my cat's favorite protein, of course. And it's interesting, I bought ground mouse for my cats. Now, I have now seven outdoor Barn Cats. Their job is to catch mice. They get their own mice, yep. And so there's a company that makes ground mouse, and I said, I'm gonna get some, and I'm gonna, I'm just gonna see what they do. They didn't like it. I'm like, really?
Dr. Jessica Fusch 14:02
Yeah, no, my cat is very picky. He will catch things and eat, you know, hunt for himself, but he will not eat raw like, he gets canned food. He won't eat cooked food. He doesn't eat any food, like in the house. He will actually eat birds and rabbits and mice and rats outside. But what that's a thing that I like to talk about a lot is that watching my cats hunt really taught me how much variety cats need. Because one day, they'll eat this, the skull. They'll eat the head, right? The next day, they'll just eat the leg. Sometimes they'll just eat the insides, you know, the intestines and things I'm like, Huh? They know what they need today, yeah.
Dr. Judy Morgan 14:46
And it's really interesting how much fur and feathers they ingest
Dr. Jessica Fusch 14:51
Right and that's going to be very nutritious. Actually, it's very high in minerals. That's where they're going to get their zinc, right? They don't have to go find oysters. Because if they're eating fur and bone, then they can get the zinc they need.
Dr. Judy Morgan 15:02
And so many people are like, so grossed out by that. And interestingly, we we started processing our own meat chickens. So a few weeks ago, my daughter processed four chickens, just four, well, she literally had a couple bushel baskets of feathers just from four chickens. So she's like, What am I gonna do with all of these feathers? So, and a lot of them are the real soft feathers, not the big spike ones. And so she took them home and she started adding them to her dog's food. She's like, this is going to be a great mineral source for them, great fiber source for them. So we feed on platters. And her dogs are one is 50 pounds and one is 75 so they're eating a decent amount of a raw meat diet. And she literally just would take two big handfuls of feathers and add them in those dogs Chowed she sent me a picture. I was like, that's a lot of feathers. She's like, they are snarfing these down. And she said, when I cleaned up the yard, they're not, there's, there's no feathers in the poop. They are digesting the feathers.
Dr. Jessica Fusch 16:12
I mean, you know, hate to talk about prescription diets again, but there is one that there is a
Dr. Judy Morgan 16:16
hydrolyzed chicken feather. I
Speaker 1 16:21
Do you know at AFFCO, they actually got the name of that. It's now hydrolyzed poultry protein isolate, because we made such a big deal of telling people that you're basically feeding chicken feathers to your dogs. And, you know, just read the label. It says hydrolyzed poultry feathers. And so they actually got the name changed so that, you know, to protect the guilty.
Dr. Jessica Fusch 16:51
That one's just weird, because it, like, only has feathers, yeah, it's like, it's not a variety.
Dr. Judy Morgan 16:56
Can you imagine, like, grinding up feathers, and that's, like, the only thing you eat.
Dr. Jessica Fusch 17:00
I just, I don't see, and then, like, you know, artificial supplements,
Dr. Jessica Fusch 17:07
I still don't really understand it, but
Dr. Jessica Fusch 17:09
yeah, anyways, and so I was gonna tell another story in the beginning when we were talking about why I started the channel. So I do emergency medicine, and also I love French Bulldogs. So there's something about French bulldogs and also Cavaliers, right? They have that, like, kind of shorter face, and it makes them look very human. And so people cook for them, like, way more than other dogs, I feel like. So this Frenchie came in and it had just like, jumped off of one step, like by the front door, and broke its elbow, essentially, essentially, the lateral epicondyle here just broke off. And I'm like, This is a young adult who seems otherwise healthy. What's going on here? So I asked them, what were they feeding them? And they were cooking for him and there was no calcium source. So yeah, it's very common that people just don't have a calcium source, and that's one of the really big ones. It's also so easy just grind up eggshells.
Dr. Judy Morgan 18:15
Calcium is one of the easier things to fix in the diet. But a lot of homemade diets do not have a calcium source. Many of them are low in vitamin D. I actually have a blog on the most common vitamins and minerals that are left out of homemade diets. So we need to take a break to hear from our sponsor. When we come back, we're going to talk about how difficult is it to make food for your pets. Can anybody do it? What if you're really busy? Stay tuned.
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Dr. Judy Morgan 19:42
welcome back. You're listening to the Naturally Healthy Pets podcast. I'm your host. Dr, Judy Morgan and my guest today Dr Jessica Fusch is really interested in helping pet parents learn how to prepare meals for their pets at home. So before we get into some of the nitty gritty, why do you feel like more people should be making their own food?
Dr. Jessica Fusch 20:13
There's so many reasons.
Dr. Jessica Fusch 20:17
You know, one of the biggest ones is that some of the main ingredients in commercial pet foods, especially after the whole you can't feed grain free debacle, which I just do not think is and true.
Dr. Judy Morgan 20:34
The cardiologists are still going with that, still going with it
Dr. Jessica Fusch 20:38
Not all of them, not all of them. I went to CSU for Ultrasound Training, and that cardiologist was like,
Dr. Judy Morgan 20:45
Oh, good, yeah. He went with the Yes. It's been debunked, because the cardiologist that I took my dog to a few months ago here in North Carolina, oh yeah, because you gave me the handout with the whole and Cavaliers don't even get dilated cardiomyopathy. They get mitral valve disease. So I got the whole handout linking to Tufts. And you know how they've proven No, they didn't. They did a letter to the editor. They didn't prove anything. They didn't do any studies. They got no proof. And so she handed it to me with all the links. Please go to these links and learn how you should feed your dog. And I said, when you got the referral from my veterinarian, she did tell you that I am a veterinarian, correct? Oh yes, I know you were a veterinarian. Awesome. That is great. And we're not going to have the conversation about this right now, because you're not going to like what I have to say. But thanks for the information. Bye. Bye,
Dr. Jessica Fusch 21:31
Yeah. Also, I'm one of the most famous veterinarians for teaching people how to cook for their dogs. So, yeah, no, let's not do that. So anyways, the grains are highly sprayed with glyphosate, and glyphosate kills the microbiome. It causes cancer. We know that like, so that's one. It's dry, it's like, overly heated, and so it's basically burnt. So, you know, we can't grill on a grill every day, or we will get cancer, right? We can grill once in a while, and that's fine, but if you grill every day, you will ingest these things called advanced glycation end products, and those things cause cancer. So you know, every single day, the same food, usually for years on end. I also think it's going to cause deficiencies, because they may not actually absorb or digest that food well. And allergies, because you're just being exposed to the same thing, same thing, same thing, and your body is gonna react to it eventually, sure. I mean, not always, right? We know those dogs that lived to be 15 on old Roy or some crap. But exactly, you know, whatever, these are outliers we have, you know, old people who smoke and drink every day, and they're fine too, right? But in general, these things are going to cause cancer, and our dogs and cats are dying from cancer. Like, really, really young,
Dr. Judy Morgan 22:59
yeah, the stats are horrible,
Dr. Jessica Fusch 23:01
like nine years old. I just talked to somebody yesterday on the plane actually coming here. She was, like, nine years old, bone cancer. That's awful. I'm so sorry. So those reasons where there are and also mold toxins like, that's a whole nother topic. So those are the big three advanced glycation end products, glyphosate and mold toxins. And then the fact that it's like, you know, destroyed, and they have to add all the things back in
Dr. Judy Morgan 23:29
Yeah And then we're going to talk about synthetic vitamins and minerals and, oh yeah, a little bit of excess vitamin D that killed. How many 1000s of animals? Yeah, there are melanin killed. How many 1000s of animals, all these add ins and euthanasia solution in rendered products, which the head of the largest rendering association in the country gave the keynote speech at AFFCO a few years ago, and in his keynote speech, he said, it is virtually impossible to have a rendered product without euthanasia solution in it. So I don't know about the rest of the world, but how much euthanasia solution in my pet's food is too much that would be any so
Dr. Jessica Fusch 24:09
these are barbiturates. I mean, at the very least, it's gonna cause liver damage, right?
Dr. Judy Morgan 24:12
So how many animals do you see come in with elevated liver enzymes and they're eating kibble? Well, let's see, is it because of the aflatoxins? Is it because of the barbiturates? Is it because of the synthetics? Take your pick. I mean, there's just so many things that it can be coming from so and you're younger than me, but back in the 90s, late 90s, we actually had a problem euthanizing dogs and cats, like they would come in for euthanasia, and we would have to use like, triple doses of euthanasia. So we would give them the prescribed dose, and they would sit there and stare at us and not even collapse.
Dr. Jessica Fusch 24:47
Oh weird. They were developing a resistance to it.
Dr. Judy Morgan 24:49
Yeah, they because and I had a tolerance. I had a paper posted on my food shelves at my clinic, and it was the FDA statement back I think it was 1998 where they said that, yes, there is euthanasia solution in pet food. We realize it. And basically what was happening is the animals livers were learning how to process it, and so when we had to use it for euthanasia, it didn't work. So that has shifted over the years, because they've cleaned up their act a little bit.
Dr. Jessica Fusch 25:22
Think it's better. Yeah, I do think it's gotten better
Dr. Judy Morgan 25:25
but, yeah, it was a huge issue back in the 90s. Yeah. So I don't know about the rest of the world, but you know, no euthanasia solution in my pets food. Thank you very much. So what do you have to say for those people who are like, Listen, I got three little kids. I got two dogs. I work a full time job. I don't have a lot of extra money, and I sure don't have time.
Dr. Jessica Fusch 25:51
So I tell people, it's not all or nothing, yeah, like you do not have to cook for your dog every single day. To cook for your dog, right? Some fresh food is going to be better than no fresh food. So when you can do it, if you can buy a done for you, product, the home cooked food that's done for you, or, you know, make a big batch one weekend and just use that some of the time, then that is going to benefit your dog or cat if they eat it?
Dr. Judy Morgan 26:23
Yeah, yeah. Cats are a little picky. Cats are definitely they're definitely harder.
Dr. Jessica Fusch 26:29
But what you shouldn't do is use kibble as, like, the vitamin mineral supplement. That's the other thing that we see all the time. So they're doing, like, chicken and rice with some vegetables, you know, the unbalanced diet, and then they're putting in some kibble, thinking that that's their vitamin mineral supplement. But that's not how it works
Dr. Judy Morgan 26:48
50% kibble does not make up 100% of the vitamins, minerals that you're missing
Dr. Jessica Fusch 26:53
So give yourself grace, do the best that you can. That's what I tell these people. And then there's a lot of things that you can do, even if you are feeding a kibble diet, like you can feed blueberries and broccoli stems, and, you know, a little extra protein if you're going to be feeding treats, use some freeze dried liver use, you know, other protein sources, because these kibbles are way too high in carbohydrate. And don't for the love of God, buy basically, cookies. You know, essentially, they actually have sugar in them. They look like cookies even. Have you seen those treats? Yep. I mean, they're pretty they look nice. But this is not what your dog needs
Dr. Judy Morgan 27:33
if you're buying any sort of a cookie treat for your pet, read the ingredient panel, the number one treat biscuit in the world has absolutely and you all know what it is. I don't have to mention names, so I don't get sued, but the ingredients are horrible. Yep, it's, it's, it's not the way to go. No. So, you know, free, it's so easy now, like the pet food come the newer pet food companies are doing such a great job, and the newer treat companies are doing such a great job using whole foods, fresh foods, and freeze drying has been like the biggest boon. Yeah. So my dogs eat frozen either gently cooked or raw food. A lot of times it's commercial. Sometimes it's what I have made. And every once in a while I go forgot to thaw anything out, didn't take it out of the refrigerator. It's not room temperature. Now what? Well, I have a whole shelf full of freeze dried food that I can add warm water, and poof, we have a meal. And so I have a few fallbacks if I absolutely have nothing. You know, those times when you're like, Oh, I didn't get to the grocery store this weekend. I've got 16 meetings after work. The kids have soccer. We have gymnastics, like, I don't have time for anything. There's no food in the cabinet. You know, Old Mother Hubbard lived in a shoe. No, no, nothing. So one of my favorite meals, and it's amazing how close it comes out to being balanced. Open a can of sardines, scramble up a couple eggs, mix them together, your dog or cat is actually going to love it. And it's actually pretty close to balanced. It's, like, it's like, my okay, there's always eggs in Well, in my house, they're on the counter, they're not in the fridge, because they're homegrown eggs. But there's always eggs. And I buy sardines by the case, so there's always sardines. Yeah, and it's a great in a pinch, like, I got to throw something in the plate
Dr. Jessica Fusch 29:39
Yes and if you're doing that once in a while, it's totally fine. It's totally fine. You know, I know I made a I have, I use, what is it animal diet formulator. So do I right with Barbara Royal and I some client, this breeder, she had gone fishing, and she had a whole bunch of frozen haddock, and Haddock like the whole. Fish. I was like, it's, like, balanced the fish itself, the whole thing, it's that that's all they need.
Dr. Judy Morgan 30:06
I mean, feed them fish. Yeah, I had a client who loved to go fish for blue fish when we were up in New Jersey, and he had these two big Weimaraners, and they had always had gunky, horrible ears, skin problem. They were a mess, and he was feeding kibble, and they were overweight, and he was in my office every week. And so we got talking about, you know, making his own food and stuff, and he's like, I fish for blue fish every week. I hate blue fish. Can I feed it to the dogs? I need to. I didn't know what to do with the blue fish. Like my friends were like, stop giving me blue fish. I was like, Absolutely, your dogs can eat blue fish. So, you know, we designed basically their diet around the blue fish. And oh my gosh, those dogs were gorgeous. The guy was like, I wish I'd done this 10 years ago, because, one, I'm always fishing, and now I have a reason to fish. So, you know, there's a lot of a lot of ways that that you can do it. My husband's younger daughter has a German Shepherd, and they want to feed raw. And they they've got three little kids work full time. They don't have a lot of extra money to go buy pre made raw food. Well, they have a lot of friends who hunt deer. Their friends are dropping off coolers full of all the parts and pieces from the deer, all that's awesome. And their dogs are doing great. So, you know, there's a lot of different ways. There's, there's not only one way. I mean, think about it, do we eat the same meal day in and day out?
Dr. Jessica Fusch 31:53
No, and not that, you know, people should, you know, do their dog's diet like theirs? Because most of the time in America, our diet's not that great. It's pretty imbalanced and it's pretty incomplete. But if you eat healthy, you know it's healthier to have variety. For sure. Your gut needs that. The body just needs that, right? I think it's ridiculous to feed the dog the same thing for years on end.
Dr. Judy Morgan 32:20
Well, there was a great study that Conor Brady cited in his book Feeding Dogs. It was done in Europe, where they analyzed dozens of different brands of canned food and kibble, and over 90% of the canned foods were not complete and balanced, even though they were advertised as such, and over 60% of the dry foods were not complete and balanced. So it is a total myth that by putting the same kibble in the bowl day in and day out, your dog is getting complete, complete and balanced diet. It's probably not. There's probably some excesses and deficiencies in there. I mean, we saw that when we had the vitamin D problem, there was a lot of excess vitamin D. And if you're putting the same thing that is toxic in the bowl twice a day, every day, because that's what you're told to do, you've got a big problem.
Dr. Jessica Fusch 33:14
Yeah, and on the label, it even says at least this much, yeah? Like, it doesn't have a guaranteed analysis right on the label.
Dr. Judy Morgan 33:24
Well and some of the things don't have maximums. So, for instance, copper doesn't have a maximum, has a minimum, doesn't have a maximum. And so our copper levels that, you know, the minimum is like seven. Some of the foods, when they're analyzed, have 70. I wonder why we have copper storage disease. You know, maybe we should have a maximum. Maybe we should try to get within a range, yeah. And so it, it makes it easier for the giant pet food companies to, you know, basically, ah, we met the minimum requirement. That's good. Good to go.
Dr. Jessica Fusch 33:56
Yeah. I actually think there needs to be a lot more research and information for us veterinarians. Because, you know, I talked to one of the teachers from the TCVM, the food therapy course, who is a boarded nutritionist. I was like, Is there any way I could do like, part remote and then, because I just can't go back and do a residency as much as I would like to do. I have three kids right now. I can't do it. So he's like, don't even bother. Like, I don't know why. He didn't elaborate that much, but I think my assumption is that they're basically teaching you how to formulate for big pet food companies, and also, you know, the IV nutrition that hospitalized pets need in the ICU,
Dr. Judy Morgan 34:45
yeah, yeah, though they're really not teaching. So, you know, one of my problems with a lot of the food courses that are out there for pet parents, they're basically told, pick a protein, pick a carb, pick. A vegetable and then use this synthetic vitamin mineral mix to right, like that's not homemade food that's adding synthetic vitamins. So that would be okay, yes, you can use peas, rice and hamburger, and then just give them this mineral mix. Is that easier for people? Sure. Is it way too high in carbs? In my opinion, absolutely. Are we relying on grains? Yes, because their starch is going to be a grain or a pasta. What's pasta made out of? Hey, that would be wheat. We're back to a grain. Do our dogs need grains? No. Do our cats need grains? Absolutely not. And I can tell you that I have never seen my cats run out and nosh on corn and wheat and other grains in the field, they are out there getting bugs and crickets and grasshoppers along with their, you know, furry and feathery friends.
Dr. Jessica Fusch 35:53
I mean they're probably getting some fermented product from the GI tract
Dr. Judy Morgan 35:59
But it's I don't know, 2% of their diet, yes, it's certainly not, you know, a high starch canned or kibble diet. And that's the, you know, especially for our cat friends, even finding, I mean, they should never eat kibble, but even finding a good canned food that doesn't have synthetic vitamins and minerals added, and that doesn't have a starch in it, can be really tricky. So, you know, there's, it's a very short list of how many that we can go to
Dr. Jessica Fusch 36:27
eah, and I just try to meet people where they're at. You know, because cats are so hard, if your cat will eat raw, or if you're able to start them young, yeah, hallelujah. But if you have a 10 year old cat who has never had it. It's actually a process to even get them to eat the canned food. And so, I mean, it's not as good. I would like there to be as many whole food ingredients as possible, but I use synthetic zinc capsules often, because it's just easier.
Dr. Judy Morgan 37:00
well, it's really interesting, because oysters are the best source of zinc, so that's a great thing to add in, and cats and dogs love them, so it's not a problem, except there's a lot of people with shellfish allergies, right? And so they're not going to be able to handle making food that has oysters. So yes, sometimes it's like, and we need to go get that zinc capsule. We actually carry zinc capsules for that reason. So you know, you've got to get it from somewhere, or you could feed fur and feathers. But those are actually not really approved ingredients for AFFCO to add fur and feathers to a commercial diet. So except for that hydrolyzed feather one, so it makes it makes it a little bit tricker
Dr. Jessica Fusch 37:43
I wonder if they did a lot of that in the beginning and got in trouble or something. Why?
Dr. Judy Morgan 37:48
I don't know. I feed my dogs and cats whole ground rabbit and whole ground quail. So they are, you know, it's part of the rotation of a million things. So they are. And like I said, my daughter's feeding our dogs these huge amounts of feathers right now, which is kind of funny. She's like, there are feathers everywhere in my house, like my granddaughter went in her playroom. She's like, Mom, there's feathers in everything, because, you know, the cat jumps in the middle of them. There's just feathers everywhere. Anyway, we need to take a break to hear from our sponsors. We'll be back in just a minute.
PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT #2 38:20
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Dr. Judy Morgan 39:10
Welcome back. You're listening to the Naturally Healthy Pets podcast. I'm your host. Dr, Judy Morgan and my guest today Dr Jessica Fusch is very, very committed to helping pet parents understand the benefits of whole food diets for their pets. So for those who are just, you know, really crunched for time, maybe crunched for money, need some sort of a pre made less expensive, so do the best you can on what you got base for their pets. What are some of your favorite toppers?
Dr. Jessica Fusch 39:47
I have not memorized them, and I really haven't. There are so many available.
Dr. Judy Morgan 39:52
No like, whole food toppers.
Dr. Jessica Fusch 39:55
I was like, I was there are actually bases that you can get. And you just like, add. The meat or whatever, yeah, very simple. I haven't really used those myself and but I know they're out there.
Dr. Judy Morgan 40:07
I have a few that I really like so and unfortunately, many of those base mixes are very carb heavy as well. Yeah, so Dr Harvey's has Paradigm, and here I'm doing commercial for them. Dr Harvey's has Paradigm, which is a very low carb because they originally made it to be a more keto friendly diet, and then they have Raw Vibrance, which is lower in carbs. I think it has a little sweet potato in it, but much lower in carbs. And those don't have any grains in them, for people who don't want to feed grains, and so something like that. There's a lot of companies
Dr. Jessica Fusch 40:41
grandma Lucy's also
Dr. Judy Morgan 40:47
honest kitchen.
Dr. Jessica Fusch 40:48
Honest kitchen is basically potato flakes. I mean, I'm not trying to bad mouth them,
Dr. Judy Morgan
like I said, there are a lot of them that are very high carb. So that's why I kind of stick with those two Dr Harvey's that are lower carb.
Dr. Jessica Fusch 41:01
I tried the turkey and quinoa one, and that one seemed a little better.
Dr. Judy Morgan 41:04
I think there's meal mixers. I mean, there's a lot of different ones available out there. So yes, if you want to, like, start getting your feet wet. And I have a course called Homemade Dog Food 101, and kind of walks people through the different ones that are available, kind of, you know, getting your feet wet with like, Okay, I'm gonna start with this base mix. All I have to do is add meat and oil, yay. So simple. I can do that, you know, a little warm water, bone broth, whatever, to moisturize it, and you're good to go. So that's an easy way to start, but if you're not even ready to make that step and you've got kibble, what are things that most people would have in their kitchen that you would say, these are going to be amazing additions.
Dr. Jessica Fusch 41:46
We love broccoli, right? And so the stem of the broccoli, I just steam the whole broccoli right, and then I cut the stems into little rounds. And those are excellent dog treats. They love them. And it has sulforaphane, which is a very great antioxidant. Blueberries, or any berries, are probably the number two, one pumpkin so like canned pumpkin. I wish we had more. I was reading a study on pumpkins and the varieties that there are and the benefits of the different varieties, and I was like, you can't find these things in the store, unless you go to a farmer's market or something like that. But again, we're getting more complicated. So I would say those are my that, and eggs. Eggs, like just a raw egg, I just put it in the bowl.
Dr. Judy Morgan 42:33
It's funny, we have 50 chickens, so we have a lot of eggs. And it's we originally bought six chickens when we lived in New Jersey, and they were in our backyard, and I bought them because I wanted fresh eggs for the dogs, not the family. I wanted fresh eggs for the dogs. Well, that has now blossomed into over 50 chickens. We're breeding them. We're having meat chickens and processing them. I mean, we've become a chicken farm. And I never, ever would have envisioned that. But one of my dogs, he's got hydrocephalus, and he's kind of challenged in a lot of ways, and he just cannot figure out a raw egg to save his life. He's just usually he can manage to get the yolk down, and the whites are so slimy, he just absolutely cannot figure them out. He likes his a lot better. If they're gently cooked, he's going to chow down the rest of them. They just slurp it up like they're slurping it through a straw. They absolutely love them. So, yeah, I'm a huge fan of eggs.
Dr. Jessica Fusch 43:27
Yeah, eggs are so nutritious. Yeah, they're really good, especially if you, you know, have backyard chickens, it's really great. Well, yeah, but really, you can add a lot of other vegetables as well, yeah? Like just fresh herbs, parsley, I think parsley, it makes their breath smell good. Yeah, so I like that one. I like to do a little bit of apple, not a lot of the sugary fruits. But dogs usually really love watermelon. Pineapple cores, because we don't eat them right. And those have bromelain, which is a digestive enzyme that help them digest protein and then all of the vegetables. So like dogs can eat tomatoes, dogs can eat cucumbers, dogs can eat red peppers, bell peppers. I like red ones, so orange, yellow, whatever color, and my dogs love them, yeah. Well, at least Bruno does.
Dr. Judy Morgan 44:18
We had our vegetable garden went crazy this year, and at one point I had so many Cucumbers I was picking 20 cucumbers a day. I was picking 20 squash a day. What am I going to do with all of this? And so I posted my haul on my kitchen counter. I posted a picture on Facebook, and everybody was like, Oh, you can grind those up. I grind them up and put them in my freezer, and then I'm adding them to my dog's food, or if I'm making my dog's food, and I was like, what like? How dumb am I? So I ground up a combination of the summer squash and cucumbers and put it in little containers and threw it in the freezer. Well, that's such a the cucumbers in particular are such a cooling treat. And so we had about three weeks where the weather was 100 degrees every day, and I'm like, Oh my gosh, this is perfect. I'm adding a spoonful of this to every meal for my dogs that are chowing down, they don't even realize it's mixed in there, and it's such a nice cooling treat for them. And the other interesting thing that I see with my dogs and my cats is I'm really into herbs, so I have pots of herbs everywhere. I have them in my raised beds for natural pest repellents, and in my house inside, I grow herbs as well, because it's in the kitchen and I'll watch my dogs. And they're just over there, self selecting all the time. What's their favorite? They're really it varies. They're really interesting. So one day, I was watching two of them, and there were three pots of herbs next to each other. There was curry, sage and lemon balm. Okay? And so they sniffed each one, they kind of tasted each one, and they honed in on the lemon balm, and they just sat there and chowed down. When I had dill and parsley on the bottom shelf in the kitchen, the dill and parsley were disappearing all the time. And one of my Dobermans I was trying to plant Yarrow in my garden. I was doing it as an ornamental. I wasn't even doing it as an herb. He pulled up everyone and eat them.
Dr. Jessica Fusch 46:21
There must be something in that that they need exactly.
Dr. Judy Morgan 46:24
And I had another dog who pulled up all my radishes and ate them. Yeah. Like, okay. Like, I wouldn't think a radish is a good treat for a dog. Clearly, he needed it. So it's really kind of fun, like, if you're into having herb gardens and things. And one of the things that we've done in the past there, there's a woman in England who makes herb gardens for cats. So it comes in a pack with 10 little packs of herbs. And so she has one for grief and one for, you know, arthritis or senior cats. She has one for like acclimating to a new home, and it has 10 different herbs. So it's really fun. It's very cool. And so you can do this yourself. You don't have to go buy herbs, but basically, you take a blanket or a towel and you put it on the floor, and you put a little pile of each one of the herbs you want to test out. And then you watch what your cats do so I and dogs will do the same thing. But I did this with one of my indoor cats, and of the 10 herbs that I put down for her, four of them, she rolled in them. She ate them. She was, like, trying to put them on her face, and the ones that she didn't need or, like, she just ignored Yeah, it's kind of messy, but it was so cool. So and you know what I learned with herbal horse keeping is you should have a hedgerow with all the different plants and herbs and let your horses self select what they need. And it's really interesting. Every once in a while, our donkeys will get into our backyard, where I have all of our flowers and herbs. They love chrysanthemums. Gone, gone. Eat them all. Deer have eaten all of my tulips in the past. It's really interesting watching animals select for what they want. So you do the same thing with your dogs. I when I first was learning food therapy, I had two Dobermans and a Rottweiler. Wasn't a really good idea, but a lot of sibling rivalry there. But I just come home from the grocery store, and I had just learned all this about food therapy and it was the middle of summer, and I'm like, All right, I'm gonna do a test here. So I took some put the dogs outside, I put some beef in a pile on the floor, I put some watermelon in a pile on the floor, and I did all these different things, and just kind of put them around the kitchen. And the dogs came in, and you would think, okay, Dobermans Rottweiler, they're going for the beef, right? They're going for the, you know, the liver, like, Absolutely, that's gonna be first choice watermelon.
Dr. Jessica Fusch 49:01
I knew it well, no, they love it, yeah? And in the summer, it is a cooling treat, yeah.
Dr. Judy Morgan 49:08
So, you know, if you want to play food games with your pets, I mean, there's so many ways you can do this
Dr. Jessica Fusch 49:15
It's also enrichment. And so that was another thing I wanted to talk about here, is that the food is a huge piece of our dog's health and longevity, but it's not the only piece, right? So exercise and enrichment is way up there. Yeah, it's very, very important. Now, if you live on a farm, that's very easy for you, right? But if you have your dog in the house all day while you're at work, it does need to be intentional, and it's good for you too go for a walk. Yeah, you know, go for a walk. This is going to help everybody, and it's going to keep your dog healthier and happier, and being happier will help them live longer. Yep. And then the other thing was water. So like I looked up my water on the EWG.org, and it was high in stronium. And I had had my dog's hair analyzed, and I thought, because she was eating a lot of fish, because she's allergic chicken, that that's why it had so much stronium. And I was like, it's the water. Oh, my gosh. And then, where I first worked, in Colorado, there was radium and uranium in the water. Nice, yeah. So these are radioactive compounds for people who don't know, and they definitely cause cancer. Yeah. So there was a big spill, like nuclear spill, many, many years ago, but it's still in the water as of a few years ago, if you look up your zip code on ewg.org, you can see almost all tap water has some funky stuff. You know, they take out, they add chlorine, right? But they, you know, they do their best, right?
Dr. Judy Morgan 50:56
It's actually interesting. When we lived in New Jersey, we were in town, like most of my life, I've had well water, but we moved in town for a little while. And funny, we had two acres, but we were in town, and so there were three different water towers and well systems for this small town. And so I said, Well, let me, let me look up and see when, when was the last time these were tested? Let me see what the test results show. They hadn't been tested in three years like so we have no idea. Yeah, they don't do it often. We have no idea what's in our water wall. I think New Jersey statute, at the time, said they had to be tested every year if they were a little behind, shocking. And so now we have a well on our farm, and we had it tested when we first moved in, and we had it tested a year later, because the water started having this funky taste to me, and nobody else in the family tasted it was just me, and I said, Something's not right. And they came and tested it was contaminated. And so we ended up having to have a reverse osmosis system put on, which, again, is not ideal, because now you've taken out all the minerals that you need from the water. And I just learned this week that there is a mineralization system that you can put back.
Dr. Jessica Fusch 52:09
Yeah the newer osmosis, yep, the newer ones are adding they have this separate piece. You can also do a very tiny pinch of good sea salt, you know, like the pink ones, the Himalayan sea salt, yeah, not to do the best that we can. We cannot make ourselves crazy over it
Dr. Judy Morgan 52:27
Another thing with the water, I had a client who's she had one dog who just kept making bladder stones. And so we would change the diet a little bit to change the pH of the urine a little bit. And she was so good about monitoring it. And so this dog would flip back and forth. Every year it would, we would try to keep her as close to seven as possible. But one year she'd have oxalate and the next year she'd have struvites. And every year this dog kept having surgery frustrating. Then finally, she found a urologist who was going up and getting them out with a scope and getting doing other ways to get them out. But she, she was the first person who kind of brought this to my attention. She got pH strips because she was always testing the dog's urine, and she had three different kinds of water in her house, and she tested the pH of all the waters. Now, water pH should be seven. It's neutral. That's the definition water neutral. Yeah. One was an eight. One was a six and a half, and the other one was like seven and a half. Why so different? I don't know. And I said, Well, there you go. That like she did her tap water and then a couple different bottled waters. And she said, so this is contributing to why my dog's making stones, and I can't keep the urine pH where I want it to be. So if you have a dog who has a propensity to making stones, like those little kids who want to make oxalates, test the pH of the water. Test the pH of their urine. See what's what's going on, you might be contributing, just like the strontium in your water is contributing.
Dr. Jessica Fusch 53:56
I mean, there's heavy metals, there's back. I mean, bacteria and parasites and things, I think they do a pretty good job of trying to get those out, but they don't get the they don't get the heavy metals out. And there's actually, like, medications that we have excreted from our bodies humans, yeah? So like birth control. So there's hormones in the water too, oh yeah, there's testosterone in the water, in Boulder, because all those Olympic athletes interesting. It's so interesting. That was the most interesting piece for Boulder. I was like, wild.
Dr. Judy Morgan 54:28
That's kind of cool. Well, great studies out of Europe showing Fipronil in all the waterways so big and they they're blaming it on so many people applying topical Fipronil products to their dogs and cats, for flea and tick prevention. There was even a study where they tested hair of French children and it was loaded with fibronil Just from washing their hair in this water. So water's a huge component,
Dr. Jessica Fusch 54:55
Yeah and that is, I feel like a little bit easier, like it's kind of a one and done, if you get yourself a reverse osmosis filtration system for your house. They even have, like, countertop ones that are less expensive, then you just give that to your dogs or cats.
DR. Judy Morgan 55:09
But if you are doing that, like we learned, a little bit of salt in the water is a really good idea, because they're missing some minerals. And so what we started doing is we have one we have three water bowls down, one has salt in it, and two don't. And so they have the option to choose. So, you know, for our pets, just like us, giving them choices, not forcing things on them. So, you know, testing out different foods, testing out different waters, and seeing and herbs, see what they're attracted to. We were, we were processing a bunch of basil and making pesto the other day. And so, you know, all the little beggars at the feet, I'm like, I don't think you guys are gonna like this, but here you go. And we started throwing basil leaves overboard, and for all of the dogs, the first response was, yum. They spit them out, and then slowly, they came back one by one, like, all right, if this is all you're offering, I'm going for it, but I will say the goats were thrilled with all the leftover leaves and stems. They were, they were all over it. So nothing goes to waste at our house, the chickens, interestingly, do not like basil very much. Everything else. Man, they are all over the chicken scraps or kitchen scraps, but including chicken, that's one of their favorite meals, little bit of cannibalism there. So where can people find out more about the work that you're doing and you're cooking videos, because they're kind of cool.
Dr. Jessica Fusch 56:40
So on YouTube, Farmers Market Fido is the name of my channel. It's not related to that. Now, very popular food. I started this before I learned about that. But I am also working on a course and a book. It's not done so I mean, just look at the channel and you will be notified when I actually get it done.
Dr. Jessica Fusch 57:09
Yeah, get some of these other things done.
Dr. Judy Morgan 57:10
Yeah, courses and books take a while to put together. Yeah, I know that from experience. So yeah, Jessica, thank you very much for coming all the way here today and for being my guest, this has been enlightening, and I hope that people have a lot of good takeaways on how to do a little bit better, even if you can't go all in on home cooking. Let's start with some toppers. Let's start with some easy things, and remember, exercise, sunlight, all that good stuff, little bit of enrichment for your dogs and and cats. Indoor cats are very stressed, so let's give them a little love as well. Thank you very much.
Dr. Jessica Fusch 57:48
Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor, and it's been fun.
OUTRO/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.
