The Most Followed Vet in the World
On this week’s episode we talk all about holistic pet care and why it’s important to prevent common pet issues before they begin. Often for conventional medicine, for humans and pets alike, the reigning principle remains to treat a problem once it occurs, not prevent it in the first place. Dr. Karen Becker is on a mission to change just that. Through her new book, The Forever Dog, and through her work as a vet, she works diligently to change the way people think about pet care.
Meet Dr. Becker:
Our guest this week is nothing short of extraordinary. Dr. Karen Becker is the most followed veterinarian in the world, and for good reason. She believes in a deliberate, common sense approach to creating and maintaining vibrant health for companion animals and an unconventional, integrative approach to addressing disease and re-establishing wellbeing in ill pets. This refreshing, proactive approach that intentionally focuses on creating or restoring wellbeing has been embraced by millions of pet lovers around the world.
Some Topics We Discussed:
What’s going wrong with the conventional veterinary medicine system? (4:19)
Has the health of pets declined over the decades? (9:51)
How can pet owners empower themselves to start helping their pets live healthier lives? (14:00)
What does Dr. Becker address in her new book, The Forever Dog?
What are some supplements that are out there to help maintain health for our pets? (34:04)
Key Takeaways From This Episode:
Veterinary medicine has just mirrored human medicine, which means unfortunately, we are still kind of enrobed with a reactive mindset in medicine. (4:32)
In veterinary school there is not a single class on how to prevent the body from breaking. (5:13)
Dogs are wired like athletes and need to have a lot of movement and muscle mass. (11:04)
Follow the DOGS strategy for a healthier pet: Diet, Optimal Movement, Genetics and Stress.
Dogs have emotions and can feel stress in their environment and it can impact their health. (27:29)
Products + Resources:
Get Social with Dr. Becker:
CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Brian Strickland 00:23 Hey everyone, welcome back to the Holistic Navigator Podcast, where we believe in the body's ability to heal itself if it's given the proper nutrients and care it deserves. My name is Brian Strickland. I'm the producer of the show. And I'm joined today as always by our host, Ed Jones in the studio today. On today's episode, we're speaking with Dr. Karen Becker. She is widely considered the most followed veterinarian in the world. And for good reason. Dr. Becker believes in a deliberate common sense approach to creating and maintaining vibrant health for companion animals, and an unconventional integrative approach to addressing disease and reestablishing well being in ill pets. And that's what we're going to talk about the majority today, she is a wealth of information, she has so many things to talk about. And quite frankly, we're honored to have her on the show today. So we've got a lot of ground to cover. Let me go ahead and pass it over to your host, Mr. Ed Jones.
Ed Jones 01:29 Thank you again, Brian, for that introduction. I you know what I've talked about a lot of guests over the period of three years in our 100 Plus podcast, but never have we waited one entire year to interview a person is and I'm honored I mean honored with a capital H that today we have Dr. Karen Becker, who is a functional medicine veterinarian. And I've spoke to her a few minutes before the show and just I'm just lining up with this. She has the same passion that I do in the same passion you will have heard with me over the past many years with my podcast about empowering ourselves. And not just hoping hope alone will not keep us healthy. And we have to know that we are the ones responsible and she completely validates that exact feeling that I also share on the holistic navigator. So welcome Dr. Becker to the Holistic Navigator.
Dr. Becker 02:26 Well, thank you so much for having me. It's a joy to finally be here. And I'm so excited to connect.
Ed Jones 02:33 And so am I and for people who don't perhaps know you, you know, I've had Dr. Mercola on my podcast before and we're buddies and I value him his his courageous nature of telling truth telling, probably beyond almost anybody who's fighting a system that seems to be corrosive and sometimes broken, and he's stepping up as very few have the bravery to do. I will continue to support him in any way that I can. He is helping to change the world for the positive with truth, even though he's been censored a lot that will not continue forever. The pendulum always swings back the other way after a period of time. And Dr. Becker has been part of Dr. Mercola's promotion of truth, I guess I will say and you are an integrative wellness vetranarian. And you do believe I love this the art of medicine. I love the fact that you can't learn real true health just from a textbook. It's an art as much as a science. There's science that's very important. But it's also an art in understanding how the like myriad of insults that create disease and creating a toolbox of more non toxic innovative approaches. And the thing about pet food, pet health, and and our whole animals that we have within our love life, is it people are actually far more educated about their own human bodies and their foods and connections to it. And then I think most pet owners are and I will have to say I have been a pet owner, probably the first 50 years of my life, but the last 14 Since divorce and this and that I've not had one. But I've had over 50 dogs and I've cherished every one of them. So Dr. Becker, let's get started. I know that you got a lot do you want to discuss or actually educate people about what's going wrong in the system and what can they do?
Dr. Becker 04:32 Well, I think part of the issue is foundationally veterinary medicine has just mirrored human medicine, which means unfortunately, we are still kind of enrobed with a reactive mindset in medicine. So whether you're going to medical school or veterinary school, what I was taught in my eight years of education was we wait till the body breaks. And then the four years of medical training I got was how to treat those symptoms with drugs and triage for acute trauma and infectious disease. So my veterinary training was remarkable when it came to infectious disease or truly contagious diseases. And if God forbid your dog or cat be hit by a bus, I gained the skills necessary to effectively put a body back together after acute physical trauma, what was sorely and grossly missing from my medical training was So when I got to, I knew I grew up in a proactive wellness home. So I knew I was going to start the very first proactive Animal Hospital in the US that was already a part of my goal going to that school. Nothing is more frustrating to a wellness proactive mindset than having to sit through four years of a reactive education. So at the end of all my classes, they're like, Okay, this is how you treat heart disease. This is how you treat congestive heart failure. Here's how you treat treat stage one, stage two, stage three and stage four kidney failure. My question was always thank you. This is fantastic. How do we prevent kidney failure from occurring and you just get blank stares from your professors. So it's wildly frustrating as a wellness doctor to not have any wellness courses being taught to young medical doctors, whether veterinary or human, we're not taught how to prevent the body from breaking. So that's a frustration and out of that, if you were to go to the average human medical doctor or veterinarian and say, Hey, I have a young Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, that is, I know prone to heart conditions genetically, my dog's heart auscultate fine. Now there is not a murmur. But I don't want my dog to express that DNA. What do I do? You will have veterinarians just give you a blank stare, because they weren't taught how to prevent, you know, predisposing epigenetic triggers from actually firing off. And so I've had to create my own animal hospital with a proactive mindset. And I think that that's the root of what the issue is, Ed. I think that because we wait to the body breaks and then try to fix it, we're always backpedaling. And what we end up with is animals that never reach their full physiologic potential. They also don't go through life with vibrant health, they grow through life with a lot of symptoms, resulting in midlife degeneration, and then the exact same medical issues that plague humans plague our well loved dogs and cats. We have obesity, diabetes, and cancer right up there with autoimmune disease, uncontrollable allergies, raging gi problems, like IBD, IBS, and of course, autoimmune disease, organ failure, and then a bunch of different cancers, the reality for human dogs and cats in North America. And when I set up my productive animal hospital, my thought was, you know, if we, if I can't switch, or fix the medical system, right off the bat, I can empower the people coming to my office, my clinic, my patients, to recognize their critical role in foundationally, intentionally creating health through well and excellent lifestyle choices. So that's what I've done, I created the first proactive wellness hospital in the US. And really, I believe my attempt is, is my goal is to create a movement of super knowledgeable, empowered pet parents that know enough to make amazing choices to prevent their animals from getting sick. And that's what I do.
Ed Jones 08:22 I love that. I love the whole context. And when I told you that our listeners Dr. Mercola was very brave, you go right along, you're partnering because you're bucking a system. And I know from my own personal life of bucking the system for the last 40 plus years in the empowerment business of nutrition, health, what the knife and fork can do and what supplements can do. It's a lonely journey. And, you know, COVID has been a blessing in some ways, and certainly been hardship and many others. But I think COVID has actually turned the corner for some of the people who were in the gray area of really kind of thinking their, their bodies were like a Ford F 150 truck, you get, you know, your breaks down, you go the doc, he's gonna fix you and you go back on the road. But now we're seeing, you know, the lancet just with the lancet recently, of the 6 million people they, they studied with the high BMI, as are the ones who are suffering from the terrible side effects of COVID. And the same thing filters to pass. Now, I will be honest with you, because I've been out of my personal pet journey for some time. And I love the fact that you said pets are not experienced the vibrant health that they have capacity for because they can't speak to us. We don't know that we can see our word complaining we can see the symptoms, but we can't really tell so much about if they could speak how much would they be kind of complaining about how they're just not feeling well, many, many days and they just get used to it. Let me ask you. I mean, I'm 64 I remember a lot of pets in my early days, has the health of pets declined substantially over the decades?
Dr. Becker 10:00 So sadly, yes. And it not in all breeds across all classes. But the the UK Kennel Club did a really quite a provocative study that demonstrated that many breeds were losing a year of longevity every decade. So instead, for instance, even the lifetime a golden retriever study done in the US in the 70s, Golden Retrievers oftentimes lived to be 17. And now the average age of a Golden Retriever is 13, maybe 12 to 13. And so despite the fact that we know more about medical advances, you know, we have in veterinary medicine, we have MRI, and we have CT, and we have some advanced blood diagnostics, and I'm thankful for all of this modern technology. What we haven't addressed Ed is lifestyle issues. And so despite the fact that we do know how to treat infectious disease, we know how to treat Parvo and distemper in veterinary medicine, we know how to knit a body back together after acute for blunt force trauma, like being hit by a car what we don't what we don't focus on, is how to prevent that midlife arthritis. And veterinarians don't do an amazing job of talking about how dogs are wired as athletes, and they need to move their bodies everyday. And they need to have unbelievable muscle tone. And we need to maintain that muscle tone as they go from midlife to seniors. Because most animals are stuck inside of our houses and not getting enough exercise and developing behavior problems. It's this cycle of basically an unhealthy lifestyle, which oftentimes mirrors their moms and dads. The problem is, as you mentioned, dogs typically don't do a whole lot of complaining, we know that dogs get headaches, and we never administer meds for headaches, we know that dogs can have a whole host of physical symptoms that may decrease the quality of life. And yet dogs are so amazing. They're just magical best friends, there's a reason why we call them man's best friend, because they fill a role in our lives. That really can only be filled by, by pets, by animals by dogs and cats, spouses and kids and human family members are amazing. But there is something different our relationship with our animals is very, very different, very special and very unique. And out of that what I'm hoping to do is to inspire pet owners, pet guardians, pet parents, whatever term you call yourself to your animal, their well being ultimately rests in your hands. And so it's up to you to know enough about what's going on, you have to be able to read your animal well, you have to be able to identify symptoms and changes, subtle changes in in symptoms, physiology coat, stool change, change in their bark, change of behavior, you have to be so astute and tuned into your animal that you're capable of identifying changes really early on. And that's something that I don't think most people are intuitively or innately born with. And so being becoming your animals advocate is something that will take study and education and learning on your part just as you have done for your own body, you'll need to do it for your pets.
Ed Jones 13:05 Makes total sense. And I think very few people would think about those concepts. But one reason they would not is because they don't have a go to person that would do anything of what the nature you are speaking up because, you know, I've spent a lot of decades never battle with people. But I can stand up pretty firmly with with my philosophy of health, which is similar to yours. And a lot of times, you know, even the hardest physician, sometimes you can kind of crack the door open. But I've seen some veterinarians that are very, very harshly reacting when when our clients go to the vet and say certain things like what you would talk about and in fact, we want to talk about a new book you have coming out very soon called the Forever dog. And so they're so frustrated because they can't get any good answers, one of which is the vet is not trained. So they're completely clueless. So they get defensive with that. So what what can a pet owner right now do and what can you teach them as far as how can they empower themselves to have the tools necessary to once they get this intuition for their dog, their quality of life? Where is the scale and the vibrant health that they're having or not having? And, you know, what can they do? And secondly, just my personal comment, I know hearing everyone's health stories, I tend to hear some of their dog pet stories too. Even though I have a pet expert which is not me but the price that these people are paying for veterinarian chronic care. And you are so right you you guys and girls in the veterinary industry are heroes with acute care. I remember too many times taking one of my beloved pets in and you know, had a very high fever or had terrible UTIs are I got hit by a car. I mean you are life saving, but that does not play into chronic management of disease because that's where it all falls apart. So but the cost of these Drugs and these costs of these visits is, is more than people used to spend in the 60s and 70s. On the grandmother would go to the doctor. So why don't we do that?
Dr. Becker 15:08 Yeah, you're spot on with that. And part of the reason that is that humans not all humans, but a lot of humans in the US. We do have health care insurance, there's we use the exact same medications, we use the same surgical equipment, we use all the same tools as a human medical doctor, but there's no insurance. So the cost of veterinary medicine is astronomical, not because the vets are getting rich, actually, veterinary incomes are about 1/4, that of human doctors. So veterinarians are not rich folks by any means. However, the cost of medicine is the same. And that becomes just as you mentioned, incredibly prohibitive when midlife when because pet owners have not had the tools, or had been empowered to gain enough knowledge to make wise lifestyle decisions to prevent the pets from breaking their pets break. And not only are they confused about why their pets are breaking it because their veterinarian hands are not empowered with the tools to prevent disease from occurring, or to rapidly get themselves out of a lifestyle disease to then regroup and rework lifestyle changes from the ground up providing a better path, none of those things are in place. So the cost becomes outrageous. And the future, looking at the well being of your beloved animal becomes very bleak, and very dark. And that's exactly actually why I wrote the Forever dog book. So interestingly, I have an obsession. And so my co author he actually has the largest social media platform in the world for dog health. He I met Rodney about seven years ago, when he approached me his dog suddenly got cancer after a stem cell treatment. And he said, Listen, I don't think it's super happenstance that I gave my dog a stem cell treatment. And 30 days later, she had cancer. I said, Yeah, I don't think so either. He said, will you helped me fix my dog of cancer. That's how we met. And we're both obsessed with the oldest dogs around the world. So Rodney started calling the owners of 30 year old dogs. And then I'm obsessed with research. I started interviewing the geneticists that were doing DNA on these ancient dogs. And what we discovered is that the oldest dogs in the world, of course, there may be some genetic blessings or some curses involved in those dogs. But their owners were doing very key things. They were things that their owners were intentionally doing. And there were a lot of things that the owners didn't do that actually created very long lived dogs. So I heard about these, I'm going to call them outliers. But after writing the book, they're not outliers. They were intentionally created dogs with empowered owners that made excellent decisions. And I was like, You know what, I spent my career I did the math about a year ago, and I face I have hour long appointments, if I saw 12 people a day, so I took 12 appointments, or 12 hours a day, five days a week. By the end of my career, I could see about 81,000 patients in my entire career. Or if I wrote a book about how to intentionally create health through better lifestyle decisions, I have the potential to maybe maybe maybe impact 81 million people. So this book became front and center for me, because I want to give every dog lover the tools that these incredible owners innately had or educated themselves to head. But then most importantly, I think you're a science junkie too. I went to the very top longevity experts around the world. I went to MIT, Salk Institute, Harvard Broad Institute, Broad Institute, we visited the top people doing the most amazing longevity research right before COVID hit. And we asked these top longevity and anti aging scientists to reverse engineer these ancient healthy, long lived dogs. And that's the premise of the book. And the reason I wrote this book is everyone's number one question to me is just tell me what to do. And what I realized is, you know, that old saying, Give a man a fish and eat for a day Teach a man to fish and he can nourish his body for a lifetime. If me just telling my 12 clients today what to do is a blessing for those 12 clients. It's a blessing for me because those 12 animals are going to have an improved life. But what about the billions of other pet owners that don't have access to this information? So that's why I wrote the book and what, in a nutshell, the premise is exactly what you would think that I labeled it as a dlgs strategy. So D is D which spells dogs, the D stands for diet. The O stands for optimal movement or exercise. The G stands for genetics and epi genetic triggers. And the S stands for stress in the environment, and that's about emotional stress, physical stress, and then chemical stress coming from both the home and the veterinarian. We know we vaccinate we put pesticides in it on animals. We do a lot of things that create chemical stress. So the strategy the premise of functional medicine is you know, we understand that diet and lifestyle, create disease and Then we also know diet and lifestyle remedies can cure lifestyle diseases. So applying this dlgs strategy is the path out of chronic disease and degeneration. So I wrote the book as a blueprint to help people when they say, I don't know what to do well, I get it. And I just wrote a manual to tell you what to do. And it really is my passion project. And this has just become Rodney as well. We're just really committed to taking people from a place of fear and frustration and confusion about what to do and why to a place of clarity and resolution, because they have the tools now to make better choices.
Ed Jones 20:44 You just gave me cold chills.
Dr. Becker 20:48 Can you tell I love my job?
Ed Jones 20:51 Let me see.
Dr. Becker 20:53 I can't even call it a job. It's it's, it really is not even fair. This this is this is what I do. And I just want, I want people who love animals as much as I do to have them in their lives for as long as possible. And I know that they are being cut and robbed short of a vibrant, long life, because their owners don't know what to do. And that's devastating for me.
Ed Jones 21:17 That is just feels so authentic when I hear it because it applies also to humans. But I'm, again, not seriously into the pet area. But I know from having all the dogs I had exactly what you're saying just resonates with just strong truth. And you're right, they're robbed short of lifespan, they're robbed short of quality of vibrant newness in their life. And it just is I love the tools that you have created not only the book that you have the Forever dog, but also your website is blows me away with the amount of writings you have done over the years also to help educate people. And you know, we do a lot of pet sales. In fact, the holistic navigator I mean is sponsored by nutrition world, which is the the retail establishments, nutritionw.com. But very, very, I mean, I've had to learn so much about the despicable nature of pet foods. And it is far worse than almost the human side of it, because it seems to be borrowers because they can hide things so much more legally than you can even and human foods can hide through the games of the labeling games. But the pet foods, I mean, it's all about packaging, the color, the look the beautiful scenes on a bag of food. And its success in I mean, it makes us think, Wow, this is healthier than the foods I eat. And we know better. And I mean, we've vetted everything on the nutrition ws site. But I, I want you know, to really keep being able to empower us and I know you the book, you're exactly right, instead of 81,000, at least 810,000 and hopefully 8.1 million or 81 million. And part of that also is why I do the podcast, the Holistic Navigator, because I mean, I only talk to one person every 15 minutes. And that's still nothing compared to what we've already reached with this podcast and like you're gonna reach with, with with being on here with me. So the book is going to give people a good, complete toolkit to be forward thinking and have the access to the information that they truly need. So obviously, you're going to discuss all the components, the foods, the drugs that pretend potentially the VAT might want to give Blank, blank blank, is that what it's going to cover?
Dr. Becker 23:40 So the book covers the book covers, of course, how to objectively evaluate not only the food that you're that you're currently feeding your dog, but you need to identify the food you want to feed your dog and with their nutritional status, how species appropriate they are, where's the nutrition coming from? Is it metabolically stressful? And then correct it. We identify what types do you want to customize exercise around your dog, a three legged 12 year old dog has totally different exercise requirements than a nine month old Springer Spaniel. And genetics, you know, there are their genetics plan to dogs well being more than it does for humans, because we've intentionally bred related ancestors and dogs to create certain features and dogs. So inbreeding has created a lot of genetic heartbreak and we discussed that. But just because your dog is born with a genetic predisposition does not mean that you are helpless. And we cover that extensively in the book. And then of course, the stress and environment that's something that has been really underestimated for pets. And I think that humans beginning to identify everyone knows that there are health benefits to owning dogs of course, but this book will highlight what what are the dogs benefits of living in Your house and how healthy of a house is your dog for us to live in. So I, you know, our dogs, I don't want to say are trapped in our homes. But in essence, we control every aspect of a dog's well being we control what they eat, how much they eat, when they eat, what time they go outside, where they go outside, what they walk in weed control everything. I encourage owners to choose exceptionally wisely, because you're the health and well being of your animal rests solely in your hands. And for you to make optimal decisions, you need maximum knowledge. And you're not going to find that knowledge said that your veterinarian is a lovely human, but they were not taught how to coach you through preventing disease. And that's the heartbreak. So all of these, all this information is it started out in 1000 pages, and like literally nine inch thick, it was like an encyclopedia and HarperCollins said, We'll give you 400 pages. And that's it. I so I have 350 references and a 400 page book with my top, not just my tips, tricks, ideas and information. But the unbelievable emerging science on intentionally extending mammalian life is wrapped up in there. So it's a it's inspiring, it is educational, but it also allows you to become aware as your dogs advocate of all of the things you need to be doing to intentionally create a forever dog.
Ed Jones 26:27 That is so impressive. And I loved your previous story of you delving into the dogs that are the old ancient ones of 30 years old, I didn't even know dogs could live that long. Isn't that amazing? Yeah. And why would we not look for those super success stories and, and help educate ourselves as to what did they do that others are not. Now I know, I'm involved in that with a lot of the clients that I see when I look at blood work and have for many, many years, I look at someone who's 80 years old, and then compared to the next person at 80. And when I see someone who's vibrant and resilient and robust, is generally pretty strongly indicated on more optimal blood work. And so I'm always my whole goal is Let's achieve the most optimal blood work we can and that gives us the best chance of journeying into the longer years of life and Father Time can be cruel to all living creatures at a certain point. And we have to step up the game. I will say and you mentioned the stress. It was odd because my daughter Katie, we just actually had a talk yesterday about a a Buchon that I had a muffin was her name and just a lovely, lovely, sweet dog. And back when I was starting to get divorced, she suffered probably equally to me and she ended up dying and it was 100% the stress of what was going on in the house and me leaving the house and she just basically wasted away and we took her to the vet, there was no disease. It was literally heartbreak heartbreak and I know that you know we sometimes just think that the dogs are not absorbing this but there's no doubt that muffin and I think most dogs are very intuitive to the owners energies and sadness and and it's contagious to them.
Dr. Becker 28:17 It's so fantastic. When I say fantastic. It's so astute of you to recognize that and to own it. Yes, it is heartbreaking to look back and think about that. But I'm so proud of you for recognizing that her environmental emotional state was impacted by the emotional state of the whole right before COVID Hit Run and I flew to Italy to interview Dr. Biagio, Daniela and he was the man that had a Nature article that kind of rocked the entire world when he announced about two years ago. Dogs can Smell, smell fear and identify fear and joy within one second, they can smell our skin and identify our emotion note when scientists first heard this everyone called the bull card. Oh dogs can't smell emotions. But not only was he correct he has gone on to demonstrate with beaten that beyond a shadow of a doubt with no scientists arguing this, that actually dogs can identify up to nine emotions instantly through our skin. And here. Here's what's even more it on top of identifying fear, sadness, grief, depression, rage, Joy. They can their physiology response to it, which means when dogs if we have a fight with our boss during the day at work, and we're driving home, and we come in the door and our dogs, of course run up to greet us and say oh my gosh, it's so I'm so glad you're home. Our dogs can smell within one second the cortisol that we released at 1030. That morning after our boss screamed at us and we had a physiologic response. Our dog is now having the same physiologic response. And the measurement of cortisol a dog's stress hormones is is distinctly linked to their owners. So during COVID When there was this massive of Out of inhome stress, we are seeing dogs with a massive amount of stress based hormones being released, which is affecting their physiology negatively, but it's also negatively affecting their behavior. There had been more dog bites during COVID. We're having an epidemic of dog bites and an epidemic of behavior problems. And an epidemic of dogs with emotional issues is I guess we'll call it. And I'm so thankful that you bring up this topic because there again, we speak English in my situation, we speak our native tongue to our dogs. But how well are we focused on speaking dog or understanding dog we expect dogs to take in our emotions, take in our language, adapt to our social norms and be perfect little saints in a home that's oozing with stress, and environmental toxins and a whole lot of emotions that are not necessarily helpful helpful for them or their physiology. What are we doing for damage control? What are we doing to intentionally improve their emotional behavior and physical well being? What are we doing to make sure that we get ourselves to a good emotional place, but also working getting our dogs to a place of emotional homeostatic balance? Those are questions that a lot of people haven't thought about. But when we interviewed these top tier scientists, they thought all, every single one of them said, we have underestimated a dog's mental state as playing in to their physiologic well being. And that's a chapter in the book that I think when most people have read it, they said, you know, this hit me square and center in the heart. Because I didn't think my dog was a little robot, but I didn't think he was picking up on all that I know. Now. He's absorbing dogs are little sponges, they absorb the chemicals and toxins in our home, they absorb the emotions in our home, they, our dogs are as healthy as our homes and our hearts are. So if there's ever a motivation, to work on yourself, physically, emotionally, spiritually, to work on your home, and get the toxins out of your home to get the pesticides out of your backyard, if there ever was a reason, if you won't do it for yourself, do it for your dog, because your dog is probably more influenced by these factors than even your two legged kids. So including your fuzzy, your four legged kid in the mix of emotional mental well, being environmental health is a really good idea.
Ed Jones 32:31 That's very inspirational, because you're right make, especially Americans, we tend to be selfish about self care. And the inward journey, especially as we get older seems to be to me the most important journey of finding a place of contentment, and peace within the torrent of visible ghost and all the things that go on within our life. In fact, just real quickly, and I want to ask one more question after this. And then we'll start winding it down. But I go to a lady who is a practitioner of the Emotion Code, it's a very interesting book that has to do with a type of treatment for getting rid of locked in patterns that can be destructive from our past. And I was with her yesterday, believe it or not, and I asked her, I said, Do you ever do animals, she gave me some of the most amazing stories, because she can do the same energy transfer on an animal, she does a human and I've been to her seven times. And I just think it's just amazing. Amazing what's happened to me? Well, I didn't even think about the pet thing. But it just goes right along with what you've just said. And you know, they they have many times all of us can have emotions, even from early on, that just becomes locked within a big box inside and it doesn't ever open and it's toxic. It really is. So realizing that as a pet owner is a huge step in the positive direction. I don't want people to feel like well, all of a sudden I have to be perfect, but it does open the conversation within that can help both the pet and the owner. Now lastly, as far as you obviously are positive toward quality supplements to help maintain health and secondly, in some of these emotional things I know I recommend, you know, kind of a ray of, of calming natural products, from theanine to GABA to lavender. This is that something that pets can utilize also?
Dr. Becker 34:26 So certainly there are many, many supplements that are fantastic for pets. But what I have found as is probably exactly what you what you have found that you can't eat a Big Mac every day and take a multivitamin and or get yourself jacked up on caffeine throughout the day and expect an amazing good night's sleep. The veterinarians are the last remaining group of health and wellness professionals that still advocate that their patients only eat Ultra processed foods from the time that they're born to the time that they die. Veterinarians most of them now, not me, I'm what I call a fresh feeding veterinarian. But the vast majority of my colleagues will say never feed anything but a little brown crunchy ball from the time that you're born to the time that your pets died, because if eating anything else could give them an upset, tummy couldn't be good for them. It's asinine to think and also remind you that unless you're feeding one of the four human grade dog foods out there, that 99.97% of the foods that you buy anywhere are made with feed grade materials, which means these are raw materials that failed human food inspection. We don't have time to go into why they failed humans beutics batch inspection, but just take my word for it. The foods that you think that you are feeding that you're paying a lot of money for with incredibly beautiful packaging. Those foods are not visions of health that allow a body to sustain vibrant well being throughout a lifetime. They're just not no different than if you put your kid on total cereal every day, all day total cereal has 100% vitamins and minerals. But you wouldn't give it from birth till death never giving your kid anything else. And yet we do that for dogs and cats. So first of all, because we are not nourishing their neural mechanical machinery well, how can we expect a dog's brain to work when they are on a diet completely deficient of omega three fatty acids? So no amount of L theanine, Kava Kava, hops, Valerian, no amount of Rhodiola is going to fix a massive nutritional deficiency. So first and foremost, we can't supplement our way out of poor nutrition, we have to fix the diet. Once you fix the diet, you have to recognize now I need to do what I can in terms of communication, how well can I communicate with my dog? Once you've identified all the big buckets and you've worked on them, then yes, there are some supplements that can be quite beneficial. But the truth is the vast majority of dogs don't have a Bukoba deficiency. They're not dealing with, you know, any type of supplement deficiency for calming, they have an exercise deficiency. Dogs need to move their bodies everyday to decrease cortisol and improve their field good hormones. Most dogs are just walked around the block once or twice a day, dogs have their own set of emotional needs that involve olfactory or smelling. How many times have you seen people out they let their dog go pee and poop. But then when it comes to actually sniffing and being able to breathe in and really take in their environment, humans don't have time. So we drag our dogs along a walk at our pace for the amount of time that we want to be outside and then we put them back in our houses and we go to work. If we can begin focusing on intentionally improving our dogs quality of life, you will be amazed at the emotional and mental changes that can come about by just making our dog's emotional well being of front and center priority.
Ed Jones 37:53 That is fantastic. And what a perfect definition of functional medicine is going into the roots like the roots of a tree, rather than focusing on the leaves and things because that's where everything is built from those roots. And the roots are stress management, nutrition, the right food, the right environment, that the less toxicity. I'm a huge kind of counselor on mold in a house. And I don't know anything about this, but I know mold significantly affects humans and I would guess it would do the same to pets. Right?
Dr. Becker 38:22 Well, and yeah, of course. And when you think about the fact that 1/3 of pet foods have known contaminant mycotoxins in them. So human foods are we actually do test mycotoxin levels and human foods, everything that fails inspection and guess where it goes, it goes into pet foods. So pet foods, I don't want to say all but if you are feeding dry food, you are feeding some level of mycotoxins on a daily basis. And if you are aware of what happens if you eat mycotoxins on an ongoing basis for every meal that you are consuming, not to mention the glyphosate, not to mention the heavy metals, not to mention everything else that goes into feed grade pet food. These little bodies have a whole lot of metabolic toxicologic burden that most pet parents are completely unaware of. And that plays into brain chemistry. And that plays into Oregon Health that plays into physiology and structure. So when we think about the quality of food that we're giving our animals, it's really not hard to see why they're their behavior breaks, their body breaks, and we lose them younger with more degenerative diseases than we ever have before. And I am on a mission to change that.
Ed Jones 39:33 Oh, and I love love, love your mission. And yes, I so connect with everything you said. And the word kibble. I mean, that's kind of the bad word right? Dry food that everybody buys. Is that the word kibble?
Dr. Becker 39:49 It is yep, yep, kibble. Little Brown crunchy pellets that we say is the best we could ever feed our animals. And that's a sad sad statement. Right?
Ed Jones 39:57 They're very sad and you know, I've done I think three other podcasts on the holistic navigator on pets. And I remember one of which I think one of them was speaking about the fact that I mean, she's witnessed it. And it obviously seems to be true that the like the chickens that were slaughterhouse waste chickens, which were going to go to the pet food, they're transported on trucks with no air conditioning, well, they get to the plant, and they actually deodorize them and put tons of chemicals to kill all the bacteria that's grown on them because they're rotting flesh. And that becomes in the pet food. I mean, some of the stories are sickening. And to think it's horrible that they're gonna be packaged in bags that are have beautiful nature scenes, and the word natural will be on that bag. So I think anyone who's listened to you, Dr. Becker will have their eyes open from this moment forward, when they start shopping. And your book, The Forever dog is going to add 400 pages. I'm blown away that it's that many. And I want to write we
Dr. Becker 40:53 We had to get it down. Sadly, oh two? Yeah, we had to get it down to 400. Shocking.
Ed Jones 41:01 Well, honestly, if I look at a book and it says 1000 pages, I'm not going to buy it. So that's good. That was good advice, whoever gave it to you. And obviously, it's going to be a lifelong reference book for people who will purchase it your website is?
Dr. Becker 41:15 Foreverdog.com
Ed Jones 41:17 Okay. Perfect. And, again, empowering people. This is what it's all about. And now can people contact you or do any do any zoom consultations or anything?
Dr. Becker 41:29 So I you know, it's illegal in veterinary medicine. You have to do you have to complete a physical exam on the patient, which means you physically touch them palpate ears, eyes, nose, and throat, listen to their heart, you have to physically make contact with them once and then within 12 months, you're able to do a zoom call, but if I have not given your animal a physical exam, it is illegal for me to talk to you, which is frustrating. I understand. I mean, I understand why those laws are in existence because you the owner could say my dog has cancer, but they really don't or vice versa. You I could say well, it appears to be cancer and is that I understand that but it's frustrating. Nonetheless, what I will say is that there is a website, civtedu.org so the College of integrative veterinary therapies. Edu edu so CBT edu.org If you go there, you can click on Find a functional medicine or find the integrative veterinarian if you click on that button, you can search by country, and then by state in the US and you can try to identify a local integrative practitioner in your area. And that's going to be your best your best asset. Just as for humans, you know, we we may have a chiropractor and acupuncturist and a nutritionist and a massage therapist and an ER we know where our ER clinic is. And we may have a family practitioner family doctor, if you have a dog or cat you you don't need to fire your conventional veterinarian, we're so thankful you know, if God forbid you have an animal that needs urgent care go to them. But when it comes to intentionally creating health, you may have to branch out and ala carte additional wellness services like bringing on a functional medicine veterinarian in your area to second opinions, wellness checks, proactive wellness, medical protocols, supplement protocols, all of those dynamically changing protocols that we know will change as a pet ages, that is a that's the role of a functional veterinarian. And you can find one of those on that CIvtedu, that org website.
Ed Jones 43:26 What a jewel of information, I'm so glad you brought that up because I probably don't go one single day without advising a client that the way to journey into older age gracefully is you must have a team a team approach and I tell them, I say keep your regular Doc, you get a bad UTI, you sprain your ankle, you do this, you just guide them. And I always say I always defend the people in the medical system. And I want to do it in the veterinarian industry because what they're doing is they're actually trapped into a broken system, they truly can't seem to help it because they don't know what they don't know one. And the system is promoting a way to make income through a city a kind of an organized plant, that patient is sick. That's right, and treatments and and and, and so these are great people, they're just in a broken system. So I respect all the huge passion and trainings even if I don't agree with what they do. I still respect them greatly. But amazing way to end this show is to tell people to create a team approach because if you only have one team member, you're not going to get the full flavor. There's no possible way because you can't be an expert in everything. That's right and and having a functional practitioner and I had no idea there was a site where you could locate these and I'm sure it's going to be a growing industry because the fact that we have so much interest in regard to people listening to our the other two or three podcasts. I know it's a growing industry and I love the fact you talk about cable and lastly, when people hear this like I know my sister, she's had 100 Dogs she's fed them kind of inexpensive food, she doesn't do anything of the healthy origin. And she'll always say, you know, my dogs live to be 17 years old, and they never have any problems. Well, I wouldn't tell her to her face, but she's going to the vet every month. I mean, there's always an issue, something always just popping up. And you know, the thing is bad food is what activates the, the unhealthy genes. So we can talk about nutrition and deficiencies all day long. But what's the bottom line, the bottom line is wrong lifestyle, too much stress and the wrong nutrition activates genes that we should keep silent. Well, so nothing could be better for us than to keep the healthy genes active. The ones we want silence to stay active. And that's not going to happen with kipple. Nor Krispy Kreme Doughnuts for us. So, Dr. Becker, you are one awesome person.
Dr. Becker 45:51 Oh, well, this has been a joy. We are two peas in a pod with what we believe in terms of making wise choices. Pet owners have one step of a more difficult problem because we are designing for a life that's not our own. And that with that responsibility comes a lot of pressure to make sure that we're making excellent decisions. So the goal is to empower people who love animals, to continue learning so that you don't have regrets later. And I love the fact that you are doing that for human health. I'm doing that for Animal Health. And I love the fact that we can come together with a mutual goal of helping things that we love, live healthier, happier lives. So thank you for having me on. And I'm so thankful that I had an opportunity to be on your podcast.
Ed Jones 46:34 Well, it's an honor for me. And hopefully we may meet someday, and maybe a year from now we'll do another update. But remember the Forever dog book with Dr. Karen Becker. And, you know, the masses have really never thirst for truth in this society. But I see a growing amount of people who are just gobbling up things like what Dr. Becker, the truce that she spoke about, and many of the other people I interview and sometimes just my own podcast. So I am just very optimistic for our future, the pendulum is gonna swing back to more of a normal life, we are going to, in some ways, we won't return to the old old status quo. But in many areas, it's going to be a positive change. And that positive change will be the fact that people really have finally connected with the fact that lifestyle, food nutrition truly affects not only the way we look, but our length of life. It's obvious now that the people are unhealthy are the ones who are suffering far, far, far more. It's not just about having to buy big clothes anymore. It's actually about dying. And so the empowerment is coming around. Now, again, the masses generally don't wake up. But but we can only do what we can do. Dr. Becker is doing what she can do. I'm doing what I can do every single day and then we have to just let it go and keep waking up every day to do that. So everybody, thank you again for listening to the holistic navigator with Ed Jones.
Brian Strickland 48:00 The information on this podcast and the topics discussed have not been evaluated by the FDA or anyone of the medical profession and is not aimed to replace any advice you may receive from your medical practitioner. The holistic navigator assumes no responsibility or liability whatsoever on behalf of any purchaser or reader of these materials. The listing Navigator is not a doctor nor does it claim to be please consult your physician before beginning any new health regimen.