33: Healthy Pets

Transcript of Episode 33: Healthy Pets

With Dr. Daniel Pompa, Warren Phillips and David Asarnow.


David: Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of Cellular Healing TV. This is David Asarnow, and I’m here with Dr. Dan Pompa.

Dr. Pompa: You almost said doctor.

David: I know, since you guys introduce me every week, though. And, our other co-host Warren Philips is over the pond, over in France right now. We’ll see him back next week. This week we have a very special guest. We have Valerie Candar and Doug White of loveyourpetbakery.com. That’s www.loveyourpetbakery.com. Valerie, tell us a little bit about Love Your Bakery and why you guys got started.

Valerie: We got started because I had a very sick golden retriever that was poisoned and he had a lot of neurological problems. I started researching dog foods and there were really none that I thought would help him, so we started making our own.

Dr. Pompa: You know, David, when we came up with this show, we’ve had more emails about this show because people are concerned about the health of their pet. Of course, to date, we’ve never talked about the health of animals, so this is the first show. Not the last, I can tell you, just because of the response that we got, questions coming in. I gathered up a lot of the different questions that people had, and some of the things and concerns people had. I can’t wait to ask some of those questions. You all were supposed on last week, and it was actually a blessing because people obviously had time to respond when they saw you weren’t on. This topic of pet health, this is a growing topic. One of the things, when I met you all, I was really impressed with both of your knowledge about the subject. There was something else that impressed me a lot. I had Great Danes in the past. I said I’m never going to buy another one because these big dogs, I love them, but yet they don’t live very long. Well, you all have, and I’ll let you tell the history of this Newfoundland family that you have there, but you have big dogs that have lived to 16, 17 and 18 years old. Tell us a little bit about that because that is unheard of.

Doug: I’ll speak to this, Dr. Pompa. One of the things Valerie failed to tell you in the history of why she is in this industry was the results that she saw after feeding raw food to this golden retriever that had been poisoned and had all this neurological damage when he was just a puppy and he had lost weight from 60-plus pounds down to 28 pounds. He was only two years old and subsequently lived for another 14 years, until he was 16. If that wasn’t testimonial enough, the dog shed less, their waste on a daily basis was much, much less condensed because they assimilate the food that they ingest, and they assimilate a large percentage of it, rather than just what goes in comes out the other end, and is just because it’s been affected by a different pH level, and it takes on a different shape. That just didn’t occur. As our family of four-leggers grew, we implemented this diet.

Dr. Pompa: I said Newfoundlands. I made a mistake; it’s Bernese Mountain Dogs you have now, correct?

Valerie: No. You’re correct, Newfoundlands.

Doug: Newfoundlands. The last one that left us was 17 years and 5 days. Unfortunately, we have not found anything that works particularly well with their cognition, and so he had dementia so bad, that we would find him in a corner standing there, not knowing where he was. The point was that he was able to stand there and still enjoyed eating a couple times a day, and other than his mind being completely gone, he was quite healthy. Seventeen years old for a giant breed dog is a remarkable story. We’ve had another two Newfoundlands that lived to be 14 years old. They have been on this diet that Valerie developed their entire lives. That’s all that they eat.

David: Let’s talk about it because there’s so much controversy and I got the emails of curiosity, I think, more than anything. We feed our dogs all raw. Many, well two of the people that emailed in, they changed to raw because of a health condition. Maybe one had cancer and the other some arthritis. In both cases, there was an immediate turn-around in the health. Valerie, I’m going to look to you. Why is that? We know that when we feed these dogs raw, we see all this healing occur. Isn’t that enough to break this debate that a raw diet is better? What are your thoughts?

Valerie: I think that people need to do their own research and that they shouldn’t just trust somebody. They should formulate their own opinions and I think the easiest way to do it is to try it. Look at it, look at kibble or whatever they might be feeding and look at something that’s live, full of nutrients and look at something that’s been processed and try it for a couple weeks and see what they think. Most people will see a shinier coat, cleaner teeth, less doggie odor, and less waste. A lot of people like the less waste part, particularly.

Dr. Pompa: Something that I have noticed, when we lived back east, there was definitely more ticks, more flea issues than where we live now here in wonderful Park City. However, when we switched over to raw, our dogs didn’t get fleas anymore. Is that something that’s true, or is that just to us? No ticks as well.

Doug: We haven’t been able to draw a correlation between the two, unfortunately. I would love to make that claim. That would be a claim that would—but we just haven’t found anything other than to suggest that the pet is probably healthier.

Valerie: Not as attractant.

Doug: There’s not as much—many attractants for a parasite to invade them. That’s the only thing that we’ve been able to find. We talked to some folks that also live out here, close to us. Not quite at the elevation that we do, and they’re in the bottoms of the valleys quite often and into the thicker areas around the rivers, and there are some ticks. I don’t hear any flea issues with any raw food dog, but I know that they occur back in the east and in the southeast. They’re much easier to manage for some reason.

Dr. Pompa: Right, and I don’t want to get off the subject we’re on right now, because we’ve got more to explore there, but, the flea treatments, and again I deal with neurotoxic elements. I know the toxins that are in those treatments, and they’re neurotoxins. That’s how they work. Those things are extremely dangerous whether it’s the collars, the powders, just about everything around flea treatment is extremely dangerous. You might have some – obviously I mentioned the raw diet. Our problem went away with that, what are some natural things? I do want to give people a valid and natural solution. Fleas and ticks, I gave a problem, and what is another solution besides feeding raw?

Valerie: Cedar oil.

Doug: Derivatives of the cedar tree. There’s a product called Cedar’s (Dime). I’ve only seen it available online. It comes in a powder and in a liquid suspension.

Dr. Pompa: Your store is filled with these natural products. It’s your whole shtig there. How can people order these things online and how do they do that?

Valerie: Go to loveyourpetbakery.com or give us a call. 435-655-8227.

David: You’re going to have to say that slower. Say the number slower.

Valerie: Okay. 435-655-8227.

Dr. Pompa: People might have some other questions, too, some follow-up on some of the topics.

David: I have a question. We’re talking about dogs. I grew up with dogs, and we’ve become cat people, so does the same thing work with cats as far as the raw food?

Valerie: Absolutely.

David: On some technical trouble last week, that’s why you weren’t able to be on, but I was just—this generation gap. I missed it by one, too folks. Warren’s ten years younger than me, and he figures it all out. Forget about it. I feel the computer pain. We feed our cats all raw as well. As well as the mice they eat.

Dr. Pompa: And they bring you daily.

Dr. Pompa: Exactly. We learned that lesson when we had a cat in the neighborhood that ate all raw, and I swear that cat lived well over 20 years old. There is something to this, and Valerie, I love your advice. I would take it further. Do your own research, period. You start reading and researching on line, which is so much easier today. I believe you will come to the conclusion that raw is better. I know, and I’ve heard this, I want to address it because, I hear, “animals have evolved today,” to where grain—they’re carnivores. Carnivores aren’t meant to be eating grain. “Well, they’ve evolved,” is the excuse. I can speak of human history because I’ve done the homework then, right? When we look at the history of grains in humans, on this scale of the history of man. It’s like we just started eating grains yesterday, literally. Where is the evolution of this, or adaptation is probably a better word, of eating grains for humans? It doesn’t exist. That’s why we have so many problems. Can we eat some? Yeah, absolutely, but I would argue that humans have more of an ability to eat a cross-over food and too much grain, when we get over a certain caloric intake, then it becomes very bad for humans. Dogs, where is this time to adapt? There isn’t any.

David: They’re not going to be going out baking bread.

Dr. Pompa: Exactly. Here’s the thing. Carnivores, their digestive tracts are very short, very acidic, so it doesn’t putrefy. Last I checked, it’s the same length. There is no adaptation. That’s me as a physician talking, and also my love for looking at history and this subject of adaptation with food.

-Inaudible- Dr. Pompa: Absolutely.

Doug: They would have grazed, you know, you would’ve seen wolves grazing in wheat fields if there was any way that genetically, they were able to process the grain. It would’ve been much easier to graze in a wheat field than it would be to chase down your prey and kill your prey. They haven’t adapted, you’re correct. That is probably a better word than evolution, because the time that they’ve been force fed this grain-based, baked product has only been in the last 75 years. There weren’t dog food manufacturers before that. It’s cheaper, and we believe that they still don’t have an enzyme that occurs in their body that can even deal with it. Which is why, on the waste end, we see such an enormous amount come out that has gone in.

Valerie: It’s an assimilation problem. They simply cannot process it and we’re of the belief that kibble are for the convenience of the owner, not the health of the pet.

Dr. Pompa: I agree. I could not agree more. Now, you all make your own, but we buy our raw food from you all. We tried many brands, and you know, I—my dogs love yours. Knowing what I know, I love your brand. Number one, it’s grass fed meat, which by the way, that’s a whole other subject because you don’t feed your dog grain-fed meat. We don’t—humans. The people on this show, folks, they get that we eat grass fed. We’re not meant, as humans, to eat grain-fed meat. Well, your dog’s not either. Arguably maybe more so. You not only have a grass food product, but you put some other things in there, too, that dogs will typically eat. Dogs eat a little bit of grass, just to keep things moving through, and they eat bone to get minerals and things when they eat a raw animal. We would tend to maybe not give enough of that, but you provided for that in your food.

Valerie We mix bone right in our food.

Doug Try to maintain a 2:1 calcium/phosphorus ratio in a product which some of the more progressive veterinarian colleges have suggested that that’s—that was the way their ancestors ate. When they killed the prey, they ate a certain amount of bone and a certain amount of fat, certain amount of meat. Eventually ate it all.

Valerie The parts that they would go to first. We also offer bones. Elk and buffalo bones, knuckle and marrow bones. It’s great recreational chewing and it helps strengthen the jaw and set the teeth straight as well as clean the tartar off. Our formulas do have bone, species specific bone mixed in, but we also do have bones.

Dr. Pompa: Sometimes you’ll hear crunching on the show next to me. Giving one of your bones, I’m serious. They love those darned elk bones, which again, it’s just one of those mineral sources. I could go on and on and on about the raw food thing, but there’s so many topics that people had questions on, and one of them was about the vaccinations. We don’t vaccinate our pet, but the way I answer the question in the email was, “You’re going to run into a problem with rabies.” There’re states that you’re going to have to do the rabies thing, but this listening audience, watching audience, they understand the dangers of vaccinations in humans. They get it. For some reason, when it comes to their pets, I don’t know, I think it’s almost sometimes even a harder battle. What’s your thoughts on that?

Doug: That’s a prickly subject.

Valerie: That’s a long topic.

Doug: We personally see, just in our little store and in our community, more issues with pets that have been vaccinated chronically or recently, then probably any other single issue. UC Davis released a study that had been done for ten years on issues that were presented at a veterinarian clinic and they said that arguably 65% and perhaps as high at 80% of everything that was seen in a veterinarian’s office, with the exception of course of trauma, was due to what is called vaccinosis.

Valerie: That’s being related to the…

Doug: Which is all vaccine related. We see paralysis and we see neurologic damages, we see site tumors, we see excessive shedding, we see difference in behavior of the animal. What’s happening in the industry today is that they’re doing what’s called multi-(thaline) vaccines. They will take as many as seven different antigens and put it into one vial and then inject it into your dog.

Valerie: Or cat.

Doug: Or cat. Without any idea of what antibodies may already exist in the animal’s body. We are of the opinion that if a dog or cat is kept with their mother for a long period of time, so that they fully get the colostrum and get some of the immune building nutrients from their mom through the milk, and then are subjected to normal environmental issues. There may be justification for an initial set of vaccines. I’m not in a position—I don’t think either of us are in a position to debate that. The dog’s immune system continues to build on whatever they’ve been exposed to that first time. The strength of the resistance of that anti-body will be such that it falls within a range that’s acceptable to say, yes, they’re prevented against that disease. We and many, many veterinarians across North America now suggest that you run titers on your animals once a year, once every couple years and look at the strengths of the anti-body against the antigen for the specific disease. Then, discuss it with your veterinarian. There’s also single pill viruses that you can order that are a couple dollars more that will target that specific disease and it’s a virus that—that virus alone and not mixed in with many different serums that some of these pharmaceutical companies.

Dr. Pompa: – all the autoimmune and all the arthritis and things that we’re seeing in pets. The skin problems, is vaccine related. By the way, the same in humans. Obviously, humans is what I know. It’s the same thing. How old is that cat there Valerie?

Valerie: 25 years old. That’s Sedgewick.

-Inaudible- Dr. Pompa: The Newfoundlands. I wish you could parade those danged Newfoundlands by there, but…

-Cross talk- Doug: They’re 200 pounds. The ones we have right now are just 9.

Dr. Pompa: They’re 9 years old. How long did their parents live? Tell me the ages of the parents.

Doug: You know, we had Ajax and Argus that were. Argus is the one that lived to be 17 years and 5 days.

Valerie: Five months.

Doug: Five months, sorry. 17 years. Ajax was 14, and Ajax got—he was sick overnight. We did everything, he started bleeding from pretty much everywhere. It had to be an autoimmune disease. He had DCI, which is disseminate cancer.

Valerie: We had Oliver, who we rescued when he was 10 years old. Oliver was a Lancier, which is a black and white Newfoundland. He had cardio-myopathy, he had cancer, he had arrhythmia and he was basically, I think we had pictures of him, 70% of his body was a hotspot. By the time he died, which was three years later, there was only one spot where he still had a hotspot, but he did die of cancer.

Doug: There’s some of these pictures of our family members are on the website.

Valerie: People can see them.

Dr. Pompa: It’s amazing though, that you get these big dogs to live that long. It is unheard of. It’s the raw diet, David. David, you might have some other questions.

David: I do. Your cat is 25 years old, correct?

Valerie: He is.

David: You should contact the Guinness Book of World Records, because that’s the oldest living cat. You actually have—I just did a Google search, the oldest living cat is 23 years that they have in the Guinness Book of World Records. What that will do, obviously, Dr. Pompa knows, I put my marketing mind on, all of a sudden you’ve got publicity about raw food. You’ve got reason.

Valerie: The only problem that have with this story is we rescued him in Chicago and I don’t remember the name of the vet. So, I’d have to…

Dr. Pompa: It is extraordinary. It’s extraordinary how long all of your pets have lived. You got them when they had all the problems, it is really extraordinary. That’s proof positive to what you all do and why your passion’s behind it.

David: Obviously you sell all over the country. I went on your website on my phone while we’re here, and while we’re talking, it looks like I could order 24 pounds, it comes in individual one pound packets, and then will we freeze everything and then start thawing it?

Valerie: Yes.

Dr. Pompa: That’s what I do. Our stuff we get from them frozen, David, and you don’t have to use it all. You can keep it in the refrigerator. Typically, our dogs eat one packet. If Marilee were here, if she comes, I’ll have her show you, what it comes in. You can order the dog food, the raw food, all around the country, right? You guys ship everywhere.

Doug: We do. We’re diligently working to have a distributor in your area in particular, David.

Valerie: Do you see that?

David: I can’t see, raise it up higher? Here, I’ll freeze it on your screen.

Dr. Pompa: Now, talk to it, because it’ll come up. Talk, Valerie and they’ll see it.

David: That looks like wild elk.

Valerie: A vegetable, can you see that?

Dr. Pompa: That’s the wild elk, which my pets love the wild elk.

Doug: We’re fortunate because it happens to be elk hunting season right now, so we have fresh product, as we speak.

Dr. Pompa: There’s the wild buffalo, there’s the venison. There’s more than one flavor here. The animals can be picky.

Valerie: They can, or maybe the humans are.

Dr. Pompa: They like their variety. That’s true, you give them kibble. Is that what we’re calling it, the dry food? You give them kibbles. Imagine if you had to eat kibbles every danged day. At least our pets get to choose between buffalo, elk, deer, beef, I mean, come on. Give ‘em some variety here, folks. David, you might have some other questions. I think I had a couple.

David: That brings up a great question. Do you offer variety packs so that way people can order a sampling of the different—I saw that you right now have bison, you have elk, you have venison. Do you offer a sampling pack for our viewers?

Doug: We also have chicken, David.

David: The chicken? Okay, I didn’t—I was doing a quick search on the phone.

Valerie: Lamb. We have a grass fed lamb as well.

David: I’m getting hungry.

Doug: Yes, you can mix and match pretty much however you’d like to. We don’t specify that you have to take this much of this or that much of that. We actually feed our dogs a variety. To Dr. Pompa’s point about eating cereal every day, i.e., the kibble or the dry food that dogs eat, we think that once they’ve been on the Love Your Pet raw food for a while, that perhaps they’d like to have variety there, too. That’s why we don’t do just one protein source.

Dr. Pompa: I have a question. I think it was in one of the emails or Facebook was about heartworm. Are there natural solutions for heartworm? Heartworm cannot be dangerous to your pet—what’s your feeling about that? The treatment I should say, not the heartworm but the treatment for it and/or the prevention of.

Doug: Well the prevention of, unfortunately, is a difficult question because right now, there’s not much treatment for it other than a pesticide that you put on your pet. The virus is borne by a mosquito and there’s these little micro-filaria that once the animal’s infected, that live in the bloodstream and really only live off of nutrients in the bloodstream. Ultimately they end up around the heart and they will strangle the blood supply in the animal and the treatment is just about as bad as the disease. It’s a strychnine. They still use strychnine is the only product that’s—I hesitate to say it’s approved, but it’s generally used in that profession. That’s the only thing they found that kills the actual micro-filaria, the worms that they end up just strangling and blocking the arteries of the major blood vessels. It’s a horrible problem.

David: It’s a poison.

Doug: We don’t know of a natural—

Valerie: Alternative.

Dr. Pompa: I wouldn’t think with once they get it, but what about prevention? What about prevention? I know they give ‘em the heartworm prevention pills. Maybe the question was is that dangerous? Is there consequences? Is it good? Bad?

Doug: Well, it’s certainly not good, let’s put it that way. But, if you truly have the risk, that’s one of the things, too. I don’t want to say gamble on it, but do you have mosquitos in your general region or state or tri-mountain region that are carriers of the disease? As a pet owner, you need to be responsible enough to know what is in our area. Are there any reported cases of heartworm that the animals weren’t imported into your area? Have a discussion with your veterinarian about it before it happens. Again, do your research. To your point specifically, I don’t think that there is a prevention other than the…

Valerie: The Ivermectin. Which is in—

-Cross talk- Doug: Again, it’s made by someone called HeartGuard and they’ve done a remarkable job with it. At the same time, it is a poison you’re giving the dog on a monthly basis.

Valerie: I think what Doug is saying is you need to check in your area of how prevalent the mosquitoes are and how much of a threat they are to then decide what you’re going to do. We don’t have to do that here, fortunately.

Dr. Pompa: Yeah, I’ve never done it with my pets because I remember this was some years ago. I remember doing research on it, thinking, should I do this? After I did that research, there’s no way I was going to do that. Again, there might be an argument for it Doug. You live in a mosquito infested place and a lot of mosquitos are carrying this, seems like you have no choice. Again, do your homework and find out where you live with the mosquito population. The vaccination thing, too. There are state laws around the rabies probably more than any, right? That’s where the big issue lies. I know that many natural vets will give such the minimal dose, just to raise the titer and just so your pet’s legal now. What are your thoughts on that?

Doug: Well, I think we’re seeing a change in the entire industry about the perception and about the facts have been blown out over years and years of pumping up your animal vaccines and there’s a couple of great books that you can download from Amazon very affordably. One of them is a $3 paperback, it’s called Stop the Shots.

David: Say that again.

Doug: Stop the Shots.

Valerie: Stop the Shots.

David: Stop the Shots?

Valerie: It’s an hour read at most.

Doug: It’s a very simple read. It has a lot of information in a few pages. There’s another book that is a case study book that is much more involved that is called What Vets Don’t Tell You About Vaccines. It’s a woman who did a 10-year case study. Valerie’s going to get both books, I think, out of our library. It is remarkable, the case studies that she has presented in this book. It really gives you cause to think about.

Valerie: You see that?

David: Yep, What Vets Don’t Tell You About Vaccines.

Valerie: This is a great book. Very involved. It spends about 30 years of dogs in the U.K. which they are more progressive then we are.

David: Yeah.

Doug: Dr. Pompa, back to your point, and to Valerie’s point, it wasn’t that many years ago that you had to quarantine your dog if you were traveling to the U.K. They were given an enormous number of injections, vaccines. Today, it’s illegal—it’s illegal to give your dog a rabies vaccine in the United Kingdom. That’s a 180° change up from us.

Dr. Pompa: I believe that. We were so distraught that we had to give that vaccine to be legal here. It’s a big deal here. It’s different everywhere. Thank God we worked with such a great holistic vet that doesn’t believe in rabies vaccines either. She gave our dogs a homeopathic afterwards, again, just gave them absolute minimum amount, just to push the titer. Again, just like people, how many teenage girls do we need to see that end up with gastroparesis and all these other horrific neurological disease right after the vaccination? It’s the same with pets, and more so that we see all these conditions starting to occur in the pets and specifically autoimmune. I don’t want to just think that you just sell the amazing raw dog food or cat food, because our cats and dogs eat the same food, but you also sell the best looking collars and pet stuff on the planet. For you to be functioning here or in Park City, at that point, better carry some high end stuff, and boy you do. If my wife were here, she would’ve— she was ready last week. She was going to show them all the collars that we bought at the store. David, you might’ve seen them. They’re gorgeous collars, right? You guys have the most amazing stuff. Even the blankets you have.

-Cross talk- Dr. Pompa: They can buy all that stuff online, too.

Doug: That stuff, Valerie has done a remarkable job. Has dealt with the same couple that are from Europe. He travels to Milan and gets the leather products and then he travels into the Czech Republic and gets all the crystal stones from the Swarovski family and foundation and then they assemble them in Los Angeles. They’re friends and acquaintances and of course, vendors for us. Valerie’s bringing a handful of different ones here to show real quick.

Valerie: This gives you an idea the size of our dogs. You can’t see, this was Ferguson’s puppy collar. This is hand tooled. This is his current collar. He said he wanted the colors of the rainbow, so there we go.

Dr. Pompa: Gosh, I swear, I think we have a collar like that.

Valerie: It could be Marrily belt, for sure.

Dr. Pompa: Look at that, that’s gorgeous, yeah.

Valerie: Here’s just one more. It kind of gives you an idea of how big the dogs are. These are 34” neck size.

Dr. Pompa: Everywhere we go, when people see the collars that my dogs have, they stop and they go, “Where did you get that collar?” Give your website out again because that’s what people are saying right now. What’s the website where they can order the food and the collars?

Doug: It’s www.loveyourpetbakery.com. Our Facebook, you can send us a message there, that’s Love Your Pet. We weren’t able to get the love your pet domain on the website years ago, someone else had it and didn’t want to relinquish it. Valerie did start with the raw food 25 years ago having—baking a few cookies in our kitchen and we still do that. In the store, there’s always organic cookies available.

Valerie: Gluten free.

Doug: They’re gluten free and this week we happen to have organic peanut butter and oat with some ginger in a very small batch, and they’re available to anyone that would like.

Valerie: Our cookies are so good, you could eat ‘em, David.

David: Yum.

Valerie: Maybe we’ll send you some.

Doug: Send you a couple cookies, David.

David: Yeah, well, I can’t wait. We just lost our second cat, she was over 18 years old. When my wife allows me to get a couple more, hopefully for my birthday coming up soon, now I know how I can feed her and him.

Dr. Pompa: It’s remarkable. Listen, I hope we made an impact. I want to send this to you. We talked a little bit about healing pets and I have a bank of testimonies from pet people giving pets the cellular formulas. This one gal, Pam, sends me testimony after testimony of different pets that they have given the cellular formulas to and remarkable healing has taken place. This is cellular healing TV. The same applies for the pets that apply for the humans. We’re talking about eating what we were meant to eat on this show all the time, avoiding what humans are not meant to eat; same with the pets. We’re talking about the same thing. Give them what they’re meant to eat and get these cellular nutrients in them, especially if there’s a condition. Especially if there’s problems. Fix the cell, the pet gets well. No doubt there’s the same message for the pets. As we get for humans. Any final words? Anything you wanted to say?

Doug: We’re excited for the opportunity to get to try some of Dr. Pompa’s cellular healing product on a select group of pets. That’s all just in the discussion stage right now, but we’ll be moving that way very soon and so we’ll be able to add along with him because as you say, it all happens at the cellular level, that’s where we want to have some of our focus.

Dr. Pompa: I want to thank you both for coming on. I know this is going to be a very shared show. There’s a lot of people that care as much, more, about their pets as they do themselves. Probably more than themselves. I was going to say children, but that might not be fair, but at least themselves.

Valerie: Enjoyed it, thanks a lot.

David: Thank you, Valerie. Thank you, Doug. Thank you, Dr. Pompa.

Dr. Pompa: Absolutely.

David: Bye-bye. Have a good weekend.

Valerie: You, as well.