2010-06-10

Here’s our story.

We have 2 rescue Chihuahuas, one is a mix, we believe, with Jack Russell Terrier. His name is Lucky and he is approximately 8 years old. We rescued him 3 years ago. Our other little guy is Chico and he is about 2-3 years old. We rescued him November, 2008 and they said he was 2 but we think he was younger, just looked older and acted older because he was undernourished. We have been feeding NutroMax and Iams dog foods, which we believed were on the better side of commercial grade pet food.

Lucky has lost some teeth and recently developed allergies with wheezing and coughing. The vet gave us 2 medicines for him to give twice a day. On Saturday, May 29, 2010, he came to his breakfast, sniffed the food, shook and shuddered and walked away. I thought that was weird!, but when he gets hungry he will eat. Saturday night he did the same thing and also Sunday morning. By now my husband, Robert, and I are getting a little concerned. Lucky is a little chunky, but not obese, so missing a few meals probably wouldn’t hurt him as long as he was drinking his water, which he was. Well I tried giving him the canned food, which he ate for a couple of meals and then did the same thing as he did with the dry. Sniffed, shuddered and walked away. Well, for a week I tried several things, canned chicken, cut up chicken (sautéed) and then on Friday, June 4, 2010, I started searching the internet for homemade pet food. Praise the Lord! I found your website. I immediately switched both dogs to raw food on Saturday morning. I happened to have thawed a chicken breast, cut it into small pieces and they both chowed down!

Saturday I bought some ground meat, turkey and some beef (lean), and have been feeding them both raw meat mixed with some chopped frozen veggies ever since. The immediate improvement (within 6 days) in both dogs has been just short of miraculous. Lucky is not wheezing and is back to his old bouncy self. He gets the bounce from the Jack Russell side of his family. He hasn’t had his meds since he quit eating because we thought they might have been part of the problem. Chico is more relaxed and not as fearful, which is a strange benefit, but I’m loving it. We believe he was quite abused in his former life and even after being with us for 1-1/2 years still acted fearful. Both their coats are smoother already and their bowel movements are much better, still firm, but not hard. Believe it or not they are even getting along better with each other. I guess just generally feeling better overall.

I am so excited about their new diet, oops, new life style change, and am telling everyone about it and giving them your web site info and a copy of the condensed version of your book.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for being there when we needed you.

God bless you and keep up the good work taking care of His creation that give us so much love. And isn’t love the key to everything?

– Hazel

2010-07-18

My story begins a little differently. As far as I knew — I did not have a sick pet.

My dog, who is now 8 years old, was getting gray hair far earlier than I thought was normal — she's had two operations on her back legs due to stretched out ligaments from chasing squirrels, and had the mid life bulge around her mid to back section — but the vets never said anything about her being too heavy at 60 pounds.

I purchased a juicer and wanted more info on juicing and came across the Juicing Book website. As I read further, I saw the pet nutrition link and forgot all about me and was intrigued that there was even a reference to pets on a juicing site.

I had been making my dogs food since the Chinese scare of tainted pet food. What I didn't know then, was while I was looking after her best interest — I was slowly killing her at the same time.

So, long story short, I dove into the whole raw diet for Rudy. I cut her off of all cooked foods starting in either February or March of this year, 2010. She wasn't keen on it and wouldn't eat for several days, no matter what I put in her bowl. I soon discovered that she didn't mind eating meat that was partially frozen. Now, she eats her food enthusiastically, cold or room temp.

Her change in diet did come with some repercussions. She had the most awful gas for a couple of days in the beginning and it about killed us. Jesse informed me that this was her body detoxing and should end shortly — which I'm all too happy to report did.

He suggested that she would benefit from some supplements; especially the digestive enzymes and the Pet GO which supports the organs and glands for a reason I don't remember... but I too have to use digestive enzymes among other supplements, and this made sense to me as well.

About 4 or 5 months into her new eating regiment she started urinating what looked like coffee colored urine. She didn't behave stressed out, still ate her food but it was a pretty disturbing sight. So I took her to the vets and they did an ultra sound and said she had no blockages, and wanted to send me home with antibiotics (which I didn't use); but in the meantime I hit Jesse with an email asking him what his thoughts were. Again, he informed this that this was more likely another sign of detoxification as she was expelling kidney sediment from her kidneys. He never knew that she had bladder problems from an infections as a puppy; but because of the dark urine it was a kidney issue. Sure enough, without any antibiotics or other drugs her urine cleared; she had terrible gas again for a couple of days and every so often it will creep on us again — but we are now familiar with the fact that this is a detox mechanism.

Jesse also explained to us that the flushing of the kidney sediment from the kidneys has helped prevent the forming of kidney stones, which obviously make me happy to know!

By the way, while at the vets office, she weighed 53 pounds (which means she has lost 7 pounds while eating all the food she wants). She looks amazing, her coat is becoming back to normal and her figure looks really good — the middle age spread is gone and she doesn't waddle when she walks.

The picture doesn't do her any justice — but hope that you can see the color of her hair becoming natural again as opposed to gray.

We can't thank Jesse enough for holding our hands thru this process — it will be much easier for the next puppy that we get — but all the information and assistance is beyond words.

— Nancy and Rudy

2008-09-14

I took on a dog that was very, very skinny, extremely stressed, and sick with a major cold and diarrhea caused by an intestinal parasite that he picked up at an overcrowded animal shelter. That was August 22, 2008. He was only the second dog I've had, and I didn't feel all that equipped to handle him (I'm still learning!).

I was scared to death he was going to die on my watch. But I immediately ditched all commercially prepared food and started feeding him by hand, scrambled eggs, rice, and cheese. I started doing research and found your book, which I enjoyed and printed. I've employed its recipes (for the most part — I still have a cultural need to just sear the meat before serving, still mostly raw, and I still include rice), but the results have been phenomenal. I bought a $20 food chopper at Wal–Mart to chop the vegetables and the organ meats, and for most things it works just fine. I use cheese as training treats. And this was while he was on medication, which as we all know can hinder weight gain.

Now he's a happy bundle of energy, more than I can handle, actually. We go out for long, energetic walks and today I bought my first set of running shoes in over 15 years. We may wind up saving each other here!

Because of his poor health, I took pictures of him every day to examine his progress in detail to make sure I could tell for sure whether he was improving or getting worse. They wound up being great before and after testimonials for the power of healthy food for your dog. These pictures are only 10 days apart! Except for the last, which is 3 weeks from the first, I think. I'm allowing him to stay lean and energetic, and we're working on building up muscle.

Thank you for your very helpful website – Nancy