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
