315: How to Optimize the Health and Longevity of Your Pets

This episode is extra special because it addresses our family members who don't get enough attention here on CHTV… our pets! Board certified animal naturopath Thomas Sandberg is joining me today to discuss how to support our pets. From living long healthy lives, free from disease to lowering their risk of cancer.

Thomas is the founder of Long Living Pets Research Project, a 30-year observational study into longevity in dogs and cats, with a primary focus on a balanced raw food diet in conjunction with unique holistic strategies.

We don’t get to talk about animals enough on CHTV, and I’m excited to dedicate this episode to our beloved fur babies.

More about Thomas Sandberg:

Thomas Sandberg is a board certified animal naturopath. He is the founder of Long Living Pets Research Project a 30-year observational study into longevity and cancer in raw fed dogs and cats. Long Living Pets Research Foundation is a nonprofit organization supporting research into natural prevention and healing modalities for dogs and cats. He rescues/adopts pets from shelters that are not suited for adoption due to health and behavioral issues. Thomas heals these pets using holistic strategies and teaches other pet owners the same.

Show notes:

NuWTR

Raw Feeding for Dogs: The Best Diet for Your Fur Babies by Merily Pompa

How To Start A Dog Or Cat At Any Age On A Raw Food Diet – by Thomas Sandberg

CytoDetox: total detoxification support where it matters most – at the cellular level.

Dr. Pompa's Beyond Fasting book – now released!

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Transcript:

Ashley:
Hello, everyone, welcome to Cellular Healing TV. I am Ashley Smith, and today we welcome board-certified animal natropath, Thomas Sandberg. Thomas is the founder of Long Living Pets Research Project, a 30-year observational study into longevity in dogs and cats. He's here today to discuss how to make pets live long, healthy lives disease-free. He'll include his strategies to lower the risk of cancer. Thomas has a primary focus on a balanced raw diet and other holistic strategies. We don't get to talk about animals enough on Cell TV, and I'm excited to dedicate this episode to our fur babies. So let's get started and welcome Thomas Sandberg and of course, Dr. Pompa! Welcome, both of you!

Thomas Sandberg:
Thank you. Great to be here.

Dr. Pompa:
Welcome, Thomas. You actually found me because my wife wrote an article on what we do with our dogs. I actually even did a Facebook Live on we fed our dogs raw. My 11 year old runs 10, 15 miles still with me behind a mountain bike, and my 5 year old, no problem. Anyways, you reached out to us. I said gosh, we have to get him on Cell TV because these topics, these are topics people want to hear about. How do I feed my dog for longevity and health? It's not what you think. What about supplementation? What about detox? What about vaccines, exercise? I mean, all of these things I think are topics that people need to know about, right? This is an area of expertise. This has been a study of yours for a long time. So yeah, with that said, Thomas, let's just—let's jump right into diet. I mean, I think that's the big one. You go to the pet store and by the way, folks, I'll link the article that my wife wrote here. Ashley will put that in for you, and that'll be a big help. We're also going to add all Thomas's links, too, just because he has a wealth of knowledge and in all of these topics, you're going to want to educate yourself; I promise you.

Okay, diet, right? You go into the pet store and you see all the different foods. I would say less and less are having grain in them; before, they all had grain in them. Dogs aren't meant to eat grain. I think most of my viewers know that or at least believe that. Now it's this—about raw, right? Why raw? I mean, this is what my dogs—I would say it's why they live so long healthy. What about raw versus all these other foods that they see in the pet store?

Thomas Sandberg:
Yeah, for me, this started about now 20 years ago, but I remember my parents back in Norway—I'm from Norway. That's why you have that accent. They fed raw all the time. I never even thought about it before I really came here, that the food was different and saw these beautiful kibble bags and they make the most beautiful packaging of anything, makes it—see actually pieces of raw meat on the bag. The problem with raw—with that food is it was never designed for what a dog is, and a dog is a carnivore. That's a whole other discussion because there is—some people now claim dogs are involved in omnivores, which I'm not—

Dr. Pompa:
I would argue that their intestinal tract length hasn't changed. I mean, their K9s. When we look at how we identify what a carnivore is, has anything changed there? Why do they say that?

Thomas Sandberg:
Nothing, absolutely nothing, and the time is too short for change. If you think change—what would you change anything? If you change—because of the kibble food, that at that time will change or evolve into some different type of species. It's way, way too short. That takes thousands and thousands of years to change that. Dogs are still the whole—from the mouth through the intestines, it all screams carnivores. It's a super fast system. It has little or no ability to digest any type of vegetables or fruits. They are carnivores, and carnivores, by definition, are flesh-eaters and the way they eat is hunt down something and eat it, something wild. You don't want that to happen, so you just need to mimic that, and you're not mimicking that with kibble. Kibble is completely changed from the resources. The resources might be there. It started as maybe raw meat and things like that, but they cook anything living in there, it's cooked to death.

Dr. Pompa:
Right, what's typically in a typical dog food? I know grains, which I know, my gosh, people make the argument people shouldn't even eat grains, but there's grains. There's a lot of other things. What's in there?

Thomas Sandberg:
Well, they're starting with—it could be anything. I don't even know exactly what's in there, honestly, but the things that goes to the rendering plant maybe been meat at one point, but they can legally take any animal that die on the field for any reason. They can be shipped to the rendering plant. They can take dogs in kill shelters. They can legally send that to the rendering plant. They have found not that long ago, maybe a year or two ago, they found the place they use to kill dogs in shelters in dog food, traces of that. We know dogs are coming from there, and then they have all kinds of fillers. Now they're starting to use vegetables and some other things instead of the grain. It's mostly some type of meal product or meat product.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, you're seeing more grainless products on the market. I think even vets now are coming around to the fact okay, grain causes arthritis and other problems in dogs. Now we're seeing grainless products, but talk about those products because even they're falling way short.

Thomas Sandberg:
With what, sorry?

Dr. Pompa:
Grainless products that you're seeing. You're seeing more of those.

Thomas Sandberg:
Yeah, to be honest with you, I don't follow exactly what they put in there because I'm all focus about feeding a raw food dog and not what they're putting in there.

Dr. Pompa:
One of the things I've realized is it's still loaded with way too many things, from tubers, potatoes, to all kinds of fruits.

Thomas Sandberg:
Yeah, that's what they do, yeah. They put in vegetables, potatoes, and those things instead of the grain.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, exactly, it's grainless but it still has very little meat, and the meat that's in it is not organic and who knows what it is. Okay, so why—

Thomas Sandberg:
The main problem with the whole process is it's heated two or three times to kill any type of bacteria. That denatures anything that's in there, especially the meat, even changing the composition of the amino acid. Amino acids gets locked into different type of chains that the body can unlock later in the stomach. They become a foreign product to the dog, especially a carnivore. They don't recognize this.

Dr. Pompa:
How old is your dog?

Thomas Sandberg:
He's ten and then you can tell—

Dr. Pompa:
What kind of dog is he?

Thomas Sandberg:
He's a Great Dane.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, I thought—I had Great Danes. I was like, is that a mix?

Thomas Sandberg:
Okay, that's enough.

Dr. Pompa:
Matter of fact let's talk about that because standard food—I had a Great Dane, and my Great Dane died at seven, which many of the big dogs do. They get bloat, the stomach bloats. Now, I didn't know to feed my dog raw then. How old is he and then how long can you expect the big dogs to live if you feed them raw?

Thomas Sandberg:
My Dane lives into the teens, mid-teens, which is pretty much double the life span, very close, and I see others do the same in joint breeds. That's basically because we now feed what the body is—what their digestive system is designed to take the nutrients from, and that's raw meat and a variety of raw meat. If you can feed two or three different proteins and then also add two or three different organ meats, then you are down 95% of the—and bones, of course, some bones.

Dr. Pompa:
In the wild, my dog will eat grass periodically and grab some other—animals do eat a little bit of roughage and foliage What is the percentage? If you're buying a raw food and it's going to be another question, like what raw food do you recommend and how do we recommend this, but should there be some percentage of vegetable or roughage in there at all?

Thomas Sandberg:
This is where I differ from some raw feeders, but I have many in my study; I have over 6,000 dogs in my study, and many are doing the same. I'm one of those, I don't—believe they have no benefit whatsoever from vegetables and fruits. In 20 years, my dogs never got one piece of fruit or vegetables. Many doesn't agree with me on that, but also many that do the same and have the same great results. They can eat it fine; that's no problem, and I'm not against it in that sense, but I don't see how they benefit from it because they're really missing vital enzymes to break this down and also the ability for fermentation. You need that fermentation to be able to take the nutrients from vegetables and fruits. Cellulose, it's very hard to break down. This is from 20 years ago or something when I really figure out because I started with the Barf Diet here in the States, and that has a—normally it has 10 to 20% vegetables or fruits in it. My dog had constant diarrhea I added up the bone. I took fat out of the diet and still had diarrhea

One day, I'm looking at his poop because that's one the way I was figuring am I doing the right thing. I'm looking at his poop and I see this beautiful green grass in his poop that came from him, in through the whole system. I said, wait a minute. I just fed my dog the meal that actually came out. When that was fed, that was big chunks of bone in there. It had some big wings and there was some thighs in there. There was quite a big of bones because I had to feed him 20% bones to keep his stool normal.

The dog is actually breaking down the bone fine. It's not the piece of bone in there but that little piece of grass, so I had the whole process. I realized there's something seriously wrong here. Why am I feeding him vegetables? I saw pieces of blueberries, bits of carrots, and some things that I feed him is in the poop, so they don't digest it.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, and honestly, if my dog—sometimes an animal will eat that just to—for their stomach's upset. They eat grass, but he'll eat it by himself outside anyway.

Thomas Sandberg:
Well, there's two things I thought about because I've witnessed this a lot now and there are some trends I'm seeing. I'm not saying I'm right nor wrong, but this is what I believe; there's a mineral deficiency that creates the urge to eat grass and dirt and sticks and things like that. If you supplement with more trace minerals, you will see a difference. Another big one is iodine. I think all humans and dogs are deficient in iodine because there really isn't any iodine in the food. I think you know that more than I do, actually. I actually—my Dane—the other one I have is eight years old. He was double-vaccinated within a week before I got him. I got him from some drug raid over in Wyoming, and they called me. “Can you take one of the Danes, please?” and it was a big—a difficult story.

I took him and I later found out he'd already been vaccinated twice because they mixed up the dogs so gave the same dogs twice before they realized. He had been a mess, not really a mess but one thing I can never, never fix is a very itchy chest, really hot spots here and there. I could never touch his leg and his leg start going like crazy, the itching. He has itchy ears most of the time and eyes running. It took me five years to figure it out and what it was was iodine. I just started putting two or three drops of iodine in his food and within a week, everything was gone.

Dr. Pompa:
Wow.

Thomas Sandberg:
I just woke up in the middle of the night. This is how I find things, because I read way, way too much and I can't digest it all. I just woke up in the middle of the night and all I was thinking was put iodine in the food. I don't even know why I did it. I did it, and it worked.

Dr. Pompa:
I'm going to make the argument. People go, don't dogs need certain vitamins? Cows eat the grass, and obviously they're getting a certain amount of nutrients. When the dog eats the meat, they're getting those nutrients in a very bio-available form because when your dog tries to eat the vegetable, they're not getting the nutrients, but the cow eats it and then it's in the meat. That's what they're designed. They're designed to get the nutrients from the meat that the cow eats the grass and gets the nutrients. I understand that.

Then also, just like humans, Thomas, is that when a human is in a state of ketosis or a carnivore diet, they don't need the antioxidants because the fuel source changes. When the glucose is really low, you don't need all the antioxidants that the world tells you you need. Same with dogs. In a carnivore diet, the antioxidant needs are so little because they're not producing all the glucose.

Thomas Sandberg:
Yeah. Again, the thing about dogs that humans can't do, they can produce their own vitamin C and are pretty good at it.

Dr. Pompa:
That's right.

Thomas Sandberg:
They get that from the raw food diet. People ask me what I feed my dog—give my dog vitamin C and I said no, it's no point. It's probably going to get destroyed in the stomach and never, ever reach the cells. That is the problem I've seen with a lot of nutrients and vitamins and things with dogs. It goes through a pretty brutal area there in the stomach with a lot of acidic acids that could kill because of the bacteria that would probably be in food and things when they eat in the wild. They eat often animals that have been laying around for weeks and weeks and weeks. You can see these wild animals going to eat cadavers that are full of maggots and stuff and they still don't get sick. That's because of the composition of their stomach. The nutrients and capsules and these things that we put in our dogs is—I don't know how much that ends up where it's supposed to end up in the cells. I tested so many supplements now, probably up to 50 or 60, and in the most cases, I see no difference.

Dr. Pompa:
You're saying there's no difference in what?

Thomas Sandberg:
In any improvement, feeding supplements in a capsule form. I'm now testing ionic supplements, liposome supplements, and see if that makes a difference.

Dr. Pompa:
There's a product that Ashley'll tell you about. I've been experimenting with a group of people, and it's from humic acid and folic acid. It carries an ionic mineral, an electrolyte, meaning what it's from is you get thousands of years of decay of plants, and it makes these peat bogs. What's there now is a mineral that the human can take in. As I'm hearing you speak about this, I think I'm going to give it to my dogs. To your point, an animal can just eat raw but there's some minerals that we have to be careful about because—not because the dog's flawed. It's because of the soil today, so depleted in some materials, particularly iodine.

Now, magnesium is a tough one, too, because a lot of the—so magnesium might be another one that we'd have to worry about.

Thomas Sandberg:
I supplement with magnesium, too, MSM, always MSM.

Dr. Pompa:
Okay.

Thomas Sandberg:
Those are things—yeah, because the soil is ruined today. Anything that grows in the regular soil have extremely poor in vitamins and nutrients, especially minerals. I think actually there is a company here in Salt Lake that get the minerals from underneath the lake there. There seems to be that and the Dead Sea is one of the richest mineral sources in the world. I have seen a difference in that. A little bit early to decide but the one set I've done now, I supplement with trace minerals. I'm definitely seeing a difference.

Another very interesting product that I'm studying also with the—the way I do things, I get four or five dogs and test the product. I test it; I take it myself. Anything I give my dog, I do, too.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, me, too, yeah.

Thomas Sandberg:
Now I do more.

Dr. Pompa:
I'm going to send you that humic acid, folic acid. Most of them are—this one was tested. It doesn't hold toxins, which is one of those—do it because they come from the ground. I'm going to send you that. I want you to test it. I'm going to give it to my animal too. Maybe I'll have Ashley—Ashley, if anyone else wants to test it, I have a source that they can hook it up and Ashley can make that. If anyone else wants to try it, let's do a little experiment. I love doing that.

Thomas Sandberg:
You mix it so I can draw from all the 6,000 people I have. They're not [18:18] they're all over the world, but they have the test oil thing. Another thing I will say, probiotics that are now seeing it's almost [18:26] Other than these soil-based probiotics. I'm doing a test on that now. I think that's going to work much, much better.

Dr. Pompa:
That would make more sense to me.

Thomas Sandberg:
Absolutely. [18:39].

Dr. Pompa:
The probiotic's created from a dairy, right? In the wild, they're not getting that, but they would get soil organisms, so I agree with you, the soil bacteria. We have a couple companies that we do folks. I'll put some links to soil bacteria.

Thomas Sandberg:
I want to learn about what you have, too, because I'm researching that and testing a couple—two different soil-based spoors. In theory, it seems like that's going to pass through the system and actually end up in the body much more than the regular probiotics that is so heat-sensitive. I used to get probiotics from a place in Tennessee that were made to order. They make it, they freeze it, and they ship it frozen, so it's actually alive. I think you can get some benefit from that, but still, most of that's going to be killed in the stomach.

Dr. Pompa:
Even the high acidity, it's a carnivore and won't survive it, but it doesn't bother the soil bacteria. We have iodine; we have magnesium; we have minerals, certain minerals in general; and then we have the bacteria from soil. I think all those with just raw meat—that's right now your recommendation, just straight-up raw meat. Where can they buy it? I have a source that I have, but where do you buy it? Where's your source? Give your source.

Thomas Sandberg:
I make my own. I never bought it from anywhere. There are people that can't make their own and they don't want to make their own or they are in a family situation where one member don't want to have any meat in the house, the vegans. They hate touching raw meat. There are a lot of people that can't make it so definitely, there are people that need to buy pre-made raw meat. Then that's a big risk in the beginning. You need to do your research very, very carefully.

Dr. Pompa:
So a grass—a farmer that does 100% grass-fed and grass-finished, that would be a good resource, but there's something about organ meats, and what about bones because they eat bones. They should be eating bones, too.

Thomas Sandberg:
Yeah, they can. I think most dogs, what I see, they've taken bones from chicken. They can handle any type of chicken bone. Beyond that, turkey bones, yes, rabbits, things like that, you can get that online. They start to get expensive. Part of my research is to make raw feeding available to as many people as possible, so I actually buy my raw meat and everything in a regular grocery store. I'm trying to prove that actually you can do that, and we all know that is not the cleanest food in the world. We know where most of that chicken's coming from. For me to tell everybody you cannot feed raw unless you go and buy it from Whole Food or some other—get super organic, people can't afford that. Most people can't afford it. There's enough people that can't even afford to buy the regular raw meat from the store and that pre-made, again, is the most expensive type of food. It's difficult for me to tell people you only feed a raw food diet; you're slowly killing your dog.

Dr. Pompa:
Are you saying hey, you're better off, just to save money—I mean, if you went to Sam's and just got raw meat, you're better off than anything else, so don't let organic be—expensive organic be—now, if you can afford the organic and 100% grass-fed, by all means, do it. You're saying to go raw, it's so much more important. Just go get some chicken and meat or something.

Thomas Sandberg:
Yeah.

Dr. Pompa:
Okay, got it.

Thomas Sandberg:
That's why I like to supplement, because I try to balance out that. [22:08] in a way because if you have a strong immune system, you can deal with a lot of toxins or chemicals. If you feed a raw food diet, you supplement pretty well, you can boost immune system up to handling those toxins and chemicals that comes with that not-so-perfect food in my theory. Then if you also then exercise your dog extensively, you will purge these things pretty well.

I mean, the proof is that my Danes live to 13 and 14. I've never been on a—never had a piece of organic meat in their lives. It's part of my study. I ran this experiment on my own dogs and see what they did and mainly, that does the same. In my study, probably three, 400 that—or more than that that feed their dogs food from the regular grocery store.

Dr. Pompa:
I'll tell you, I think it's great advice. The raw is so much more important. Just get raw meat, chicken, chicken bones, because dogs do, in fact, need bones. Every once in a while, you can give them a cow bone from a—as a treat. Yeah, so is there any need to mix it up? Should they do beef sometimes, lamb sometimes, chicken sometimes, a little bit of fish here and there? I mean, what's the advice?

Thomas Sandberg:
I think that is very, very important You need to figure—try to get access to three to four different type of proteins I'm actually very fortunate. The store up in Kamas is unbelievable, the Kamas Food Store.

Dr. Pompa:
Thomas and I actually live actually right by each other, so I'm going where? Where is this?

Thomas Sandberg:
You know what you can do there? I buy in cases of kidney. I buy cases of pancreas. I buy cases of turkey necks, which is not—it's not organ meat, but I get three or four different organ meats from that store and that's not normal, and you can buy cases of it so you don't have to go there every day to buy.

Dr. Pompa:
Oh, man, they probably have elk there, too. So many people hunt elk.

Thomas Sandberg:
I get elk around from hunters once in a while, but it's not anything I can get on a regular basis. In that store, I get beef, turkey. I can get gizzards, of course, and I can get the pork. What else do I get, lamb? That's expensive, but that's mainly—I think you need four different protein, liver. Liver should always be one of the things you feed, so five to—

Dr. Pompa:
How much do you put in? How much organ meat versus other meat, regular meat?

Thomas Sandberg:
I follow, which nothing is set in stone, but I roughly do an 80% meat, 10% bone. I'm actually higher on bones and higher on organ meats, so maybe 70% meat, then about 10 to 20% bones, and then 10 to 15% organ meats. That's just roughly.

Dr. Pompa:
Folks watching this, if you think yeah, this would be harder to care for. My dogs have never been sick. My 11 year old, he's never been to the vet, not one time. He still runs like the dickens is what I say. He still runs behind me on my mountain bike. Come on, he has no arthritis. He's amazing. You're going to save money on vet bills, trust me. You can keep your pet alive without debilitating arthritis and all the hair and skin problems. You saw my dogs. They can't believe my dog's 11 years old. He's still [25:36].

Thomas Sandberg:
I can tell a raw food dog from a kibble-fed dog [25:41]. I see the muscle mass. I see the shininess in the coat. I see even the look in their eyes. They look more alive. There's something there, and I can tell right away, definitely on the poop. That's a giveaway. Since we're talking about all the different meats, what keeps people away from raw food is the falls and misunderstanding of balance, how balance works. They think they have to balance the food, and they get that from the kibble bags. That's not but one argument from a vet that said you're never going to be able to balance a raw food diet. He's absolutely right; you can never do that and you don't need to. [26:23]. The balance happens from within. You just provide the resources that the body needs and the dog needs. Then the body will figure out how to balance. It will take what it needs, leave the certain things it doesn't need and just purge it. If there's something they need for [26:40], it will store it. It's the easiest way to feed a dog. There is no calculations, no nothing. You just do that 80/10/10, 80/15, 70/15/15. You don't even have to think about that.

This is I tell how people get on a raw food diet. Forget everything about balance or anything. Just feed chicken for a week or two, nothing else. Stay the chicken. During that time, they're going to see a big difference in their dog, and they're going to get so encouraged to continue and then I said okay, after a week or two, take two or three ounces out from the chicken and replace it with some red meat or something else. Then keep doing that til you get to a point where you feed a variety in the same bowl; that's fine. You don't have to do one thing one day, one thing other day. That just complicates it. If you want to do that later, that's fine. Do only one bowl and just keep replacing and come up with four or five different organ meat and proteins and two or three different organ meats. Add an egg two to three times a week, and you have an almost absolute perfect meal for a dog.

Dr. Pompa:
I was going to ask you about eggs. I'm glad you brought that up, yeah, two, three times a week.

Thomas Sandberg:
They have to be raw.

Dr. Pompa:
Alright, yeah, and we talked about supplementation. What about detox? It's something that humans, we have to do now because of our environment. What do you think about dogs?

Thomas Sandberg:
Well, before I get a dog from kibble to raw, what I do then, ask them to fast for 48 hours to bring that dog into ketosis. I am a big opponent of food-induced ketosis in dogs. It's not a good thing. You do it with fasting, and it goes much faster, too. If you want to do that once a week, it's perfect. Fasting for a dog is—

Dr. Pompa:
How long?

Thomas Sandberg:
Forty-eight hours. I would do a 48-hour fast if you come from kibble to raw and then immediately with the raw, forget all the kibble. Throw it out; don't do a mix. Some people like to mix it up, and I don't say not to do that. I would never do it and never done it. I've switched so many dogs to raw and we all do cold turkey. That works much, much better.

Dr. Pompa:
I wanted to ask you. That was one of my questions. You keep nailing them; that's great—about fasting because I believe humans are programmed to fast. We need to fast. Let's say we have a healthy dog; we're not switching. My dog, for example, how often should I throw a day or two fast in?

Thomas Sandberg:
I fast my dogs either on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. I just don't give them any food that day, but I also feed once a day. I highly recommend because then you go into a mini-ketosis in the end of the—

Dr. Pompa:
[29:26] intermittent fasting daily, so just like today, I'm going to eat one meal a day, me. That's how I do it. I don't do that every day, but I do that many days.

Thomas Sandberg:
I mean, [29:36] diet for five years, six years. I started with the Adkins. First time I went on Adkins was in 1996. I never had a weight problem or anything. I'd always done weightlifting and a little bit of bodybuilding, stuff like that, so I experimenting with Adkins diet. When I did that, was in—I used to be in gym business. I opened gyms all over the world, and I had opened two or three gyms in Hawaii, so I lived in Hawaii, and I started on Adkins diet. I got so many people, “What are you trying to do, trying to kill yourself? Look at all the fat you're eating, all the butter you're eating? What are you, crazy? You don't eat veggies or fruits, nothing.” I did get veggie and fruits but on the side. I didn't scare me. I, at one point, said maybe they're right because I couldn't find any sort of research that this could go wrong. I wish now—no, I don't really wish but I stayed on it for a year, and I wish I continued it because I got back on more carbs and all that, and I never felt that good as I did back then. I was thinking gosh, I felt good on that diet.

Dr. Pompa:
You should read my book called Beyond Fasting. I talk about diet variation in humans and you know how important that is. We're not full carnivores, so how to go from [30:56] and how to move in and out of ketosis and some other different diets because that's what cultures did. Humans, we were forced to change our diet. Sometimes we were full-blown carnivore diets. Sometimes we're plant-based diets. Sometimes—

Thomas Sandberg:
That's the whole problem, so disconnected from what we were designed to live as and eat. We're not in this society full of—a synthetic type of society and the disconnect is so big. We need to narrow that gap and get back to what we were designed to live like and all that, and that's exactly what you're doing.

Dr. Pompa:
Here's my wife.

Thomas Sandberg:
Oh, that was your wife? Yeah, okay.

Dr. Pompa:
She wrote the article about the pets.

Merily Pompa:
Oh, very good. Oh, right, you live here.

Thomas Sandberg:
Yeah, I'm over here [31:49].

Dr. Pompa:
I've already learned so much.

Merily Pompa:
That's fantastic.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, I'll share it with you. This is a great episode. It's a Great Dane.

Thomas Sandberg:
My puppy, yeah.

Merily Pompa:
Very good, awesome, so nice to meet you. I'm so glad [32:03].

Thomas Sandberg:
Yeah, nice to meet you, too. Nice to meet you, too.

Merily Pompa:
I'm glad you reached out. Okay, I'm sure we'll be seeing each other.

Thomas Sandberg:
No, I'm glad you wrote that article. I mean, it needed to come from a little bit outside this raw feeding community because we are very close, small community in a sense. When you think about it, there's probably 2 to 3% that feed raw. Everybody else feeds kibble.

Merily Pompa:
There's a girl where I—my groomer in Heber, Tracy, she has Mountain Dog Lounge. You might want to reach out to her because she also feeds her Frenchie and her [32:36] both raw. That's where I go to the groomer. She's fantastic. In fact, I think she's going to start carrying some raw foods, so you might be able to influence her. Take care. Nice to meet you.

Dr. Pompa:
Listen, this is some awesome stuff. Okay, this is the topic near and dear to my heart. We've been talking about dogs, though. I mean, let's just talk about—I have two cats here that eat all raw. In the summer, they eat mostly mice, honestly, with a little bit of raw that we give them. In the wintertime, we have to give them more food. Same things apply to cats?

Merily Pompa:
Absolutely. I have two cats, too, who were actually rescued by my—Odin, my other Great Dane, found it one year apart in my yard on each corner. I thought—first one, I thought it was a rat and said oh, my gosh, that's a big rat. It was just a kitten, and I don't know. Somebody dropped it off. Same thing happened a year after. I put them both directly on the raw food diet and they've been on raw ever since. These are the healthiest cats people—

Dr. Pompa:
My cats, if my wife drags one of them in, you'll see them. They're Maine Coons. I have one that's huge, literally, outweighs my dog. I literally—it's 35 pounds, the cat.

Thomas Sandberg:
Wow!

Dr. Pompa:
He eats all raw and mice; that's it.

Thomas Sandberg:
How much do you feed him?

Dr. Pompa:
Well, my wife probably overfeeds him. In the summer, they eat what they get. They bother us at night if we don't feed them more, but cats eat twice a day whereas our dogs just eat once a day. I don't know why they eat twice a day; just because they demand it.

Thomas Sandberg:
[34:19] for the longest time just fed my cats once a day. If I ever say that online, I get a lot of criticism for doing that because they think cats have to eat several times a day, but I don't see why because in the wild, they wouldn't be able to find food every—

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, honestly, it's the same twice a day, just [34:42] –

Thomas Sandberg:
When they get sick, they can go—if they get sick or eat something, they can go without food for two or three days, which it's not recommended. I tell people never to do that, but I've witnessed it. These cats can survive fine.

Dr. Pompa:
My father-in-law trapped by accident in a shed outside his house and he trapped this cat in there for three months. Didn't have water. It ate bugs and spiders and insects. It lived. Is that an amazing story or what? It was like ahh, when it came out, but it lived.

Thomas Sandberg:
Yeah, according to every vet, everybody around, a cat expert, that would never, never happen. They will die in two or three days.

Dr. Pompa:
Maybe it grabbed a mouse or two. I doubt it.

Thomas Sandberg:
Must have because they get water from—my cats barely drink any water. My Danes doesn't drink water.

Dr. Pompa:
We theorized there might have been a slight leak, so when it rained, it may've been just enough water that would come in certain storms.

Thomas Sandberg:
They don't need much.

Dr. Pompa:
We saw where there could've been a little bit of water but anyway, yeah, he might've gotten some water but obviously days without water. Anyway, interesting story, but cats are—

Thomas Sandberg:
Amazing. I've never heard that. Oh, my gosh.

Dr. Pompa:
Anyway, let's talk about the—again, you're not going to make any recommendations here. I don't—I'm not going to ask you to make recommendations here. There's a lot of controversy around vaccines. I'll just tell this story. Just this week, I think it was Monday, so just two days ago, there was a story, my wife's Facebook. The person just got their puppy vaccinated, and the dog was screaming in pain. Now, I've heard this story again and again and again. It's a story that I can only say to people watching, you need to educate yourself. I tell them the same story about humans. Educate yourself I'm not going to tell you when to vaccinate or not to vaccinate. I don't think you're going to make that risk, either. However, educate yourself. What would you say on this topic?

Thomas Sandberg:
No, exactly what you said. For my own sake, I vaccinate as little as I can legally. I'm totally against it because I think it's an unnatural way of create immunity in dogs and humans, all that. Normally when we create some sort of immunity or get a virus, we get it through the mouth, the nose, maybe eyes and get captured by the mucus systems. It's already there. It's getting encapsulated and diluted. The mucus systems then send signals to the body; hey, something's coming down. Start making antibodies. The process is beautiful. It's a nature process for creating antibodies and start the process of immunity.

It's sticking a needle straight into the body with a massive amount of this virus combined with chemicals and other things that carry this into the blood stream. It's completely unnatural. It doesn't happen anywhere. That's [37:49] invented. Somebody that has a compromised immune system and had other maybe problems, stress and all that, can have a massive antibody reaction, so massive that reaction just kills the body. I've seen dogs have died and I've seen where people in my study—

Dr. Pompa:
I've seen dogs die immediately after vaccination.

Thomas Sandberg:
Couple of [38:12] things in the brain swelled up in a dog.

Dr. Pompa:
Happens to kids; happens to children.

Thomas Sandberg:
To me, it's—I believe in natural vaccination. I know people that actually get a puppy not vaccinated, take it to the dog park, walk through the dog park hoping to pick up something. At one point, go home, see if the dog's fine, and they try to do it again to catch some virus.

Dr. Pompa:
I thought that was the old say of vaccinating when we were kids.

Thomas Sandberg:
Yeah, and it works.

Dr. Pompa:
There's mumps. There's chickenpox. Send your kid down. That's what my parents did.

Thomas Sandberg:
Yeah, exactly, that's what they did, yeah. Why won't you do that now? We know the reason why you can't do that.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, there's a lot of money to be made. Again, educate yourself, folks. There's another side to this story.

Thomas Sandberg:
There is, and that's why I recommend to just go on and google vaccination in dogs. Are you for or against it? You can find some really good articles. Anything you search online, you get 50% saying one thing, 50% saying another thing. Use your—

Dr. Pompa:
Your recommendations, feed raw. There's certain depletion that we talked about because of soil, iodine, magnesium, that we can look at some mineral that's missing in the soil. We talked about probiotics, not regular probiotics but soil because of course, that's what animal carnivores would be exposed to. We talked about the need for exercise. E didn't really focus a lot on that. How much exercise would you say? My dogs run a lot because I mountain bike, but the average person's not going to do that. What would you recommend?

Thomas Sandberg:
Well, if you understand why you want to exercise, and the main reason for exercise is more than the cardiovascular system; it's the lymphatic system. The lymphatic system is not working if the dog is not moving and the same with humans. [40:12] lymphatic system is not doing its job good. It's main job is to purge toxins and chemicals, waste products that the body creates all the time and also what you're breathing in and getting exposed to. The moment you start moving and then the pump, that's the pump, the muscle, the movement of the body is the pump for the lymphatic system, and that only works when you move. I tell people, especially I deal with a lot of dogs with cancer, and I see an enormous difference in the success rate of dogs that are exercised and dogs that are not getting any exercise. I'm not talking about anything crazy. You're probably way over what you need by running your dog like that. It's going to extend their life tremendously.

Also when you recover from any type of disease, if you practice fasting combined with a lot of exercise, [41:04] crazy running around [41:06].

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, he wants your attention. Fasting was another big one that I probably need to add more of. My wife's a softie. We understand; we fast all the time. I am fasting because I feed them once a day and that was another big question. If you're out there, feed your dog once a day because that's get a fasting. My followers understand the benefits of fasting, but they probably don't understand that for their animals. Once a day and then every once in a while—you said once a week, just go a day without food, correct?

Thomas Sandberg:
Yeah, and then maybe move on to something every two days without food. My dogs would never—if I didn't start preparing the food, my dog wouldn't know they will get food. It's the sound of me making food that gets them excited. The days I don't do anything, they just lay there. They never even ask for it. They don't understand because they don't hear those signals that I'm making food. Not feeding doesn't bother them one bit. You and I suffer more thinking they're starving. We're the ones who suffer when we do it.

We can just look at animals when they get sick. They lose their appetite. That's the number one way for them to start the healing process. The process of digesting food is resourceful. They take all the resources. You know that. That's what to me the kind of program to believe that when they get sick and lose their appetite, oh, they need to eat something. You need some soup. You need this and this. No, my body telling me I don't want anything. I would just want water. Back in the Middle Ages, that's the first—got a sick person? Fast them, no food or nothing. That was the first thing they did after I'm cooling and heating, cooling and heating, dried the toxins out of the body and help the body to maximize its resources not used in digestion but for healing and the same with dogs.

Dr. Pompa:
My wife and I fast five days four times a year.

Thomas Sandberg:
Yeah, exactly, and I know people with dogs that do it every quarter. They do a three or four or five-day fast on their dogs. I think that's extremely healthy.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, they're programmed genetically for it like we are as humans. Dogs would instinctively fast, as you pointed out, when they're hurt, sick, or whatever it is. Humans, not so much.

Thomas Sandberg:
Yeah, they don't find food every day in the wild. They are 99.8% similar to wolves. They are descendants of wolves. They have everything a wolf has in it, especially when it comes to the digestive system [43:50] not everybody agree, but I have never seen any proof that they're not. That's where—dogs don't eat every day. Yes, they nibble on fruits and other things during a famine and things like that, and then people say oh, we got to give blueberries. Oh, we got to give this, fruits and stuff, because they have all the antioxidants in it. Yes, for us, maybe, that you work a little bit, but it doesn't really [44:14].

Dr. Pompa:
We don't produce our own vitamin C and we—again, if you're on a pure carnivore diet, you don't need the level of antioxidants, obviously. You don't need it.

Thomas Sandberg:
No, I think raw food, fasting, lots of exercise, and I claim this and I said it many times on my website. You can reduce the risk of cancer down to less than 3% by adding some cancer-fighting supplements. I think we can all together protect the dog from every getting cancer. I know I sound crazy, but my study over 20 years now with 6,000 dogs, and they're all fed. These dogs now outlive their lives. The percentage of dogs that get cancer in my study are less than 3%.

Dr. Pompa:
The percentage of dogs getting cancer today, unbelievably high.

Thomas Sandberg:
Sixty, seventy percent. I think it's higher. Over 10 years old, probably 80, 90% of dogs die from cancer.

Dr. Pompa:
Oh, man, absolutely.

Thomas Sandberg:
I mean, think about that now, 60, 70%, and then when you feed raw and the dogs in my study—I have now almost 6,000 dogs. I'm going to go to 10,000 and it's going to be a lifetime report on these dogs. My control is what's reported, the statistics that's out there, the veterinarian report when it comes to chronic diseases, cancer and all these things that take dogs. I documenting the same thing. I know it's not scientific. Nobody could afford a lifetime, 30-year scientific study. What am I doing? It's more of an observational study, but it's going to have some value to it because I would show that less than 5, maybe 3% of these dogs have cancer. I can always already now—the few dogs that are getting cancer now, I can tell why they did it. They got into some—they either did a vaccination. They did some other things and they had a dog that they didn't know the past. A lot of these dogs are rescue dogs, and you don't really know their past. Every time a dog gets adopted out, they come back in, they get vaccinated. Some of these dogs are adopted in and out two or three times, so they can be in a horrible situation in the beginning. A well-fed puppy, I don't see any cancer in these dogs. It's unbelievable.

Dr. Pompa:
Thomas Seyfried is a scientist.

Thomas Sandberg:
Yeah, I know him.

Dr. Pompa:
You know Thomas. I was in a little mastermind with him, and he said, “Oh, my gosh, Dan, you have to get this. I have to send you this study on Oscar the dog.” It was back from the early 1900s, but what happened was they were fasting dogs to find out where their primordial state was, meaning how long would they fast before they left? Well, Oscar kept finding food and breaking out of the study. They'd start another study and 30 days in, Oscar found food. Oscar did so many fasts because they kept putting him in the next study. He ended up, after 101 days, he was just water, 101 days, they said in the study that Oscar was jumping in and of his cage. They literally had to stop the fast because they couldn't kill Oscar. Oscar outlived them because he had fasted so many fasts. He kept getting healthier and healthier and healthier. He went 101 days and he wasn't dying any time soon, so pretty amazing.

There's a human fasted 289 days. There's a lot of room for fasting. The point I wanted to make about Thomas Seyfried, he gave me that study. You'll enjoy reading it. He said that a human fasting one fast a year decreases their cancer 95%.

Thomas Sandberg:
Absolutely, I believe it.

Dr. Pompa:
We would see the same with dogs, obviously.

Thomas Sandberg:
Oh, we see it in certain religion, religious groups. They have fasting is a big thing in some of them and they are super healthy. That's a good thing. I can't think where they are down in LA, but the cancer rates is super low and they do a lot of fasting.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, it's funny, I always say fasting—every religious group differs on everything, even prayer, except one thing: fasting.

Thomas Sandberg:
Yeah, they knew. That's a healing type of modality is fasting, absolutely.

Dr. Pompa:
It's exciting. Thomas, thank you so much for being on the show.

Thomas Sandberg:
Oh, yeah, we could go for hours.

Dr. Pompa:
I know, we could go on for hours.

Thomas Sandberg:
It's every time.

Dr. Pompa:
It was a fantastic show, great advice on the raw, on fasting, intermittent fasting, feeding your dog once a day, the supplementation, great advice, just amazing. Thank you so much, Thomas.

Thomas Sandberg:
No, you're welcome, more than welcome. It was nice to finally meet you.

Dr. Pompa:
Yes, likewise.

Thomas Sandberg:
If you need any help in anything, you know where to find me, too.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, thank you. We'll put your information here as well in the links so people can find you. Thanks, Thomas.

Thomas Sandberg:
Thanks, awesome.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, bye.