Raw Feeding with Joy Eriksen

In this episode, I speak with Joy Eriksen, a Certified Small Animal Naturopath with a specialized certification in Advanced Canine Nutrition. Joy introduces the foundations of raw feeding for dogs and offers thoughtful insight into what it means to nourish our canine companions with real, raw, whole foods. Whether you’re new to raw feeding or already incorporating it into your dog’s diet, this conversation is sure to offer fresh perspectives and valuable takeaways—because there is always more to learn when it comes to feeding our dogs a healthy and balanced raw diet.

To find Joy's website, please click here: https://joyfullyhealthypets.com/


For more information on my dog training: https://www.caninemovementlab.com/

And the new manifestation of my work: Center for Canine Somatics

Transcript

Leah: 0:03

Hello, my friends, and welcome to the Somatic Hound Podcast. My name is Leah Lykos. I will be your host. I currently live in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and I have a dog training business called Canine Movement Lab. However, I am evolving myself and my business towards something that I don't call training at all. It's really a type of nervous system support and canine co-regulation coaching, which will be hosted at Center for Canine Somatics dot com. So please check that out. And I just wanted to welcome you to the podcast. And we're kicking things off here with Joy's interview, Joy Ericksen, a certified small animal naturopath, speaking about raw feeding and how you might transition your dog to a raw diet. So please enjoy. Today I have a special guest joining me. Her name is Joy Ericksen, and she's a certified small animal naturopath. Joy, did you want to kind of introduce yourself and your background?

Joy: 1:31

Sure. Like Leah said, my name is Joy Ericksen, and I am certified as a small animal naturopath. I also have a certification in advanced canine raw nutrition. I've been doing it a few years now, about five years. And my passion has been to get the word out, let people know that raw feeding, what raw feeding is actually able to do for your animals. And I decided I wasn't gonna, it was my second dog I lost to cancer. I wasn't gonna lose anymore that way. So I uh I learned in the trenches. Um I found a mentor and um started going through uh SF Rog with Casey Maxwell, learning from her, buying her food. Uh, and then uh I started in 2015. I uh got trained as a naturopath, graduated, and started helping people. And I always like to say, I always like this little story with Harriet. I have a 10-year-old golden retrieval, she'll be 10 in uh next week. And uh we were out, we go out walking, and uh there's a field that I like to let the dogs play in. And people come up to me and they'll see Harriet bouncing all over the place and playing and running and everything. And they a woman the other day asked me how old Harriet was. I said, Oh, she's 10. And she goes, Really? I thought she was still a puppy, you know, because she's uh she just has this vibrancy, and both my dogs do have this vibrancy, this this life in them. And it's because they're not eating dead food. And so that's it. So that's that's what I've been doing. I'm passionate about this. I want to get the word out, I want to teach as many people as I can um about the benefits of the raw feeding.

Leah: 3:51

Awesome. I didn't realize that the canine nutrition was actually a separate certification. Yes, yes, it is. Okay, cool.

Joy: 4:02

Yeah.

Leah: 4:03

All right. Well, I mean, I feel the same way, even though I'm not a naturopath or certified in canine nutrition.

Joy: 4:11

You don't have to be doing that.

Leah: 4:14

Yeah, I just tell like I've just seen the difference. Like I've been raw feeding almost 10 years now, kind of like in the beginning. I went back and forth between like home cooking, and then sometimes I'd get lazy and go back to kibble. Um, but then I just uh the more I learned about it and the more I saw the differences in my dogs, I really just got it dialed in so I could make it affordable. And even when it does seem like um spending a lot on this raw food for my dogs, the thing is that like they literally never go to the vet. My two older girls now are 11 and 14. They're not on any drugs, they're super healthy. Yeah, I never have to have their teeth cleaned. And so I really feel like the return on the investment, both the investment that you put in learning how to do it, and also like, yes, it's you know, it's more it can, to be honest, it can be more expensive. But there are ways to do it. So that's actually one of my first questions is um, you know, can somebody just well, first of all, can they just transition off of kibble straight onto raw?

Joy: 5:36

Yes. Yes, and how would they do that? But with a caveat, it depends on your dog. Um because it uh it one, it could depend on the age of the dog, another, it could depend on the health of the dog, and also it could depend on the dog's preferences. Um, now number one, you a puppy, a puppy is no problem. You can transition them right away, you know, uh from one day to the next. That's what I did with uh Harriet. She was a kibble-fed puppy. I got her 10 weeks. First thing I gave her was a meal, was raw chicken weights. And she had been eating kibble with the breeder. So I transitioned her right away, and it was a no-brainer for her. She loved it. And so that was that was it. No problem with her. She's she can be a bit of a picky eater, but um, but she's always been that way. Um Dottie was weaned to raw, she was came from a raw-feeding breeder, so she was weaned to raw. So she's never had kibble, so that's not a problem. So puppies are usually the easiest to transition. Older dogs, um you know, anywhere from up to about um a year up to about seven or eight, nine years old, they can be a little more um tricky to transition because they may be set in their ways of what they're eating. They may really like their cuble, they don't want to try this, you know, slimy stuff stuff. So you might have to um like I always recommend, even if they are not picky eaters, to fast them for 24 hours, make sure they're good and hungry, and then introduce the raw food and start with something that is really tasty and really kind of smelly. So I always recommend green tripe. Um, it's easy to digest, it's nice and smelly, the dogs love it. Um, so I always recommend just try a meal with possibly half green tripe, depending on the size of the dog. Half green tripe, half maybe just some ground hamburger. Um, maybe throw in a chicken wing, but don't do that chicken wing just yet. Do the do the beef tripe and the ground beef. That way you're staying with one protein uh until you get them transitioned and find out if they actually, you know, do you love it? You know, does your dog really love it? If he loves it, you're good to go. Um then there's the dog that is gonna give you a hard time and just say, yeah, no, I'm not. My son's dog is that. My son's dog is really picky eater, very difficult.

Leah: 8:33

Um what kind of dog is it?

Joy: 8:35

He's an American cocker spaniel, and he's almost 14 and a half, but they've been, he's always been a picky eater. And then about five years ago, I finally convinced my daughter-in-law to try giving him raw. And um now, now his favorite thing is try. Um, so but he was very difficult to transition. And then you've got the older dog, the senior dog, dogs, you know, 10, 11, 12, and on up, who um maybe they don't have all of their teeth, maybe they're having some gastrointestinal issues, maybe they've got some allergies, which is actually connected to the gut. They've got something going on, and they can be a little more hard to transition. Plus, a dog above 10 or 11 years old, I don't recommend fasting them. So it can be harder to, I mean, if your dog has been fasting all along, like Harriet is still fast one day a week, um, then then you know it's it's not a problem to fast them. But if you're bringing a dog off of um, you know, a generic brand of kibble, like you know, the ones I'm talking about, and you want to put them on onto a raw diet, that can be a little bit longer of a transition. And you might need to um uh do uh transition them slowly by giving them uh a part of their kibble meal in the morning, and then say give them three quarters of their kibble meal in the morning, and then late afternoon give them a balance of what the food they'll need in the afternoon as raw. Um, does that make sense? Yes. So if say they get two cups, they say we're talking about um a lab, and say they get two to three cups of kibble. And so what you want to do, let's say they get two cups, because I'm not very good at math, so we're gonna do it easy. Give them one and a quarter, one and a half cups of kibble in the morning, and then in the afternoon, give them about four equivalent of a half a cup of raw meat, which is probably about four ounces of the raw meat, and do that for a couple of days. Hopefully, they eat the hamburger in the afternoon. Um, and then the next day, do that for a couple of days and then transition it down to one cup of kibble in the morning, and then the equivalent of one cup of meat in the afternoon, which say is about eight ounces. So the labs can be kind of chunky and have some weight on them. So I'm assuming this our fictional lab is about 70 pounds. Um, so give them about eight ounces, uh, which is a half a pound. Now, my golden, she eats a pound and a quarter every day of food. Um then it depending as long as it's not too fatty. If it's too fatty, then we cut back. Um, and then the next day, you do that for a few days, and then the next day you're gonna cut it down to where they get a half a cup of kibble in the morning, and then the balance of their meal in as raw in the afternoon. And the thing of it is when you're starting them out, you want to stay with the same protein for a while until they're adjusted, fully, fully transitioned to the raw diet. And I recommend beef. Uh, start with beef because that is um um it's the easiest for them to assimilate, it's got the best nutritional profile, and um dogs don't usually um have any kind of a reaction to it, like a lot of dogs react to uh ticket. So um, so just like for the first uh few weeks, just just keep them on the beef. And it can be stewy, it can be chuck roast, it can be hamburger, it could be um, I don't recommend short ribs because they're pretty expensive, but just you know, whatever you can find on sale is is and that's what you that's what you feed them. So that's uh there's different ways that you can transition.

Leah: 13:03

That was gonna be my next question because um, yeah, obviously you don't want to be feeding like top sirloin or whatever is you know, um, you know, and sometimes I'm quite thrifty and I shop the uh sale section, you know, it's all frozen and it's the sale section at like natural grocers, and it's Mary's chicken, it's good chicken, and sometimes it's like half off, and it's not always organic, but um, you know, is that okay to buy just buy at the grocery store and just absolutely.

Joy: 13:44

I buy, I buy what's on sale. Like the other day, there was chicken on sale for 99 cents a pound. Around here, that's a really good price. So you you stock up, you buy those chicken legs, those chicken thighs, whatever. Now, my dogs are kind of large, so I don't give them the chicken wings, but for smaller dogs, chicken wings are great. Um, make friends with a butcher. I at the little grocery store in my neighborhood, just across the street, I made friends with Dina the butcher, and she gives me um, I get turkey desserts, I get turkey hearts, I get turkey tails, turkey necks, turkey carcasses. Um, she'll give me uh scraps of beef that are gonna get thrown out. And I just get this for free. Wow. So um go for the cheaper cuts because what like a chuck roast or a cross rib roast, you know, those tough, chewy things. That's what a dog wants, you know. You know, the bite, it's all about the bite, and it's all about the chewing. And when they're chewing that tough piece of meat, it releases feel-good chemicals into the brain. And um again, um blanking on the name, but if you watch your dog chew on something, you can see the muscles in the head working, and that releases those feel-good chemicals into the brain. And Dr. Patricia Jordan says that dogs who have issues are dogs who've never been allowed to chew. Yes. So you want a piece of meat, um, and and ground meat is fine. I give my dogs ground meat too, but once in a while you want them to have a big hawked piece of meat. And so just go to the grocery store, buy what's on sale, stock up, get the cheaper cuts. Pork is fine. I just I just picked up a big old pork roast that was on sale for $1.99. And a big old thing, I paid ten dollars for it. That's gonna be several meals for both my dogs. Cornish hens are great and they're cheap. Um, don't go for Fazer, don't go for rabbit, they're very expensive. So go for the cheaper cuts. Chicken, um, chicken, Cornish hens, whatever you can find on sale. The grocery store cuts are fine, Walmart's fine, Costco's fine. Um I always say if you can do organic, great. That is great. If you can afford it and you can do it, good. I'm all for that. But if you can't, you get the best quality meat you can afford.

Leah: 16:39

And that's still be way better than way better than kibble or alpo.

Joy: 16:44

My husband always teases me, you know, said he says, if you if you leave me, they're just gonna, I'm just gonna go get them a can of alpo. You know, so like if I leave, I'm taking the dogs. Um, so just get the best of quality that you can afford. As then and lamb, if you can get lamb at a good price, great. Another thing that a lot of people do is um, you know, we have these neighborhood groups, like uh, you know, neighborhood uh what is it? Stand next door, the next door communities. Put up on there or put up on Craigslist or anything, people who are cleaning out their freezers and they find freezer burnt meat that they're gonna throw away, it's perfectly fine for your dog. And you know, if you're gonna throw away some meat, I'll take it. My dogs would love it, or offer to pay them, you know, 50 cents a pound. You know, offer to pay them something, a little something for something that they're gonna throw away. Um, now SF Raw just did that recently. They found stuff in the back of the freezer that was kind of old and they just sold it off at a really, really cheap price. Now, I go through to SF Raw to get things that I can't get at the grocery store, which is like tripe, which is the the lining of the chambers of uh a ruminant animal, or the stomach of a ruminant animal. It's full of vitamins, minerals, probiotics, enzymes. It's really incredible stuff. It's not a complete protein though, so you don't want to feed it just that. Um, so for um, so for some things, you might want to go to a specialty place like um green trite.com is great to get green tribe. I can get different types of green tripe from SFRI. I can get lamb, elk, bison, venison. Yeah. And um, so I I will go there. I I can also get day old chicks with the fur on. I can get rabbit heads with the fur on, I can get um baby quail with the feathers, and that's good for the microbiome to have that. That counts as their fiber uh to feed the microbiome. Now it's it's good to have, it's not critical. It's you know, you can definitely get by without fiber. Anybody can, but it's always nice to have that in there to keep your colony and micro eye micro eye microorganisms vibrant. So um so for specialty things, you might want to go and find a place like that.

Leah: 19:29

Okay, and I did start ordering from greentripe.com, which you referred me to, and their stuff is great. And I will tell people the tripe smells, but the dogs love it. And when I first started feeding raw, and I really didn't know what I was doing, like I basically just was giving my dogs chicken quarters and I had not with the bone in, so like I was doing part of it right, but like I really didn't know that like a certain percentage had to be organ meat, and I didn't know. About, like, the prey model or like the whole prey, like what you're talking about with the feathers and the fur. Um, you know, and I researched and I my raw feeding has evolved. I did notice when I started adding tripe that the dog's fur gets very shiny and very soft. And I don't know what that is, but it was like kind of specifically when I started feeding the tripe.

Joy: 20:25

Yeah. It's um it's the nutritional profile, I think, that's in the trite. And it's it's got a uh very balanced phosphorus to calcium ratio, which is good for dogs who can't chew bones, like dog, older dogs who maybe don't have enough teeth or strong enough jaws or something. The trite is um and or somebody who doesn't want to have ground to grind the bones. Um it's really good for that to to you know uh strengthen their bones and and stuff. But yeah, I think it's the enzymes. Um body can't function without enzymes, and that's what's so worrying about feeding kibble all the time because it's a dead food, they're not getting anything alive. And uh enzymes are so critical. Without enzymes, there's no life.

Leah: 21:16

Right. And so the issue with the kibble is that because it's been cooked at a very high heat, doesn't it also not only does it kill off all the healthy enzymes and bacteria and whatever that the dog would normally use in their gut, um, but doesn't it actually change the protein structure? It does. Yeah.

Joy: 21:36

It does the protein structure and the structure, the um amino acids, which are the building blocks for proteins, and the um uh the carbohydrates. And when you process them that at that high of a heat, they both become carcinogenic. And uh yeah, and then then you've got it's it's a crazy. I wrote a I wrote a blog on it on my website talking about when you process this and extrude this at such a high heat, and you're producing these um carcinogenic cancer promoting properties out of the amino acids and out of the carbohydrates, and then heterocyclic amines is one of them. I can't remember the name of the other one. Um I'm sure I'm not even I'm sure I'm butchering the pronunciation of that. But then you're feeding that to your dog with a tuple that is more than 50% carbohydrates. What does cancer feed on? Sugars and carbohydrates. So you're giving your dog a cancer promoting property, and you're feeding that cancer promoting product all in one thing, all in one food. So it makes absolutely no sense to me to be feeding that cancer promoting, cancer-causing, cancer feeding product to your dog. Right. And then you're looking at um, this is something I'm looking into. I just found out about, and it's kind of crazy. Tyrosine is one of the amino acids that your dog needs, and tyrosine is um needed to keep dogs, and I'm just I'm kind of blown away by this, to keep your dog's fur from turning gray. So that's why dogs turn gray, like at four years old, they're turning gray.

Leah: 23:54

I've always wondered that because I'll see like a young dog that's like three or four years old, and already the muzzle is gray. And I'm like, How old is this dog? Yeah, it'll be like a three-year-old dog.

Joy: 24:06

Yeah. I had my golden Josephine was her face was all gray by the time she was four, and she was a cubo fed dog. But now I look at Dottie, who is going on seven and a half. She hasn't got it, she, you know, she's a springer, she's got a brown face. There's a gray bottom, gray hair on her body. Now I can't tell with Harriet because she's white. Always had, you know. So, but she doesn't look like she's got any gray, gray. So this is something I want to look into. I wanna, I wanna do a deep guide into tyrosine and and write um a post about it. Um, I did do um uh uh wrote some articles for my website about reasons why your dog is not a vegan. And in there I wrote about the the um um amino acids and and the processes of um making kibble and how dangerous it is for your dog.

Leah: 25:03

So so that would be something that would be missing from kibble. Yes, yes, okay, okay. Oh my gosh, I have so many questions. I just don't know even know where to go next. But um that's really interesting because, like I said, like my girl dogs now are like 11 and 14, and they're just starting to get a few white hairs on their face. Um I mean, eventually they have to age.

Joy: 25:31

I guess well, yeah, we all do. We haven't found that fountain of youth yet.

Leah: 25:36

Not yet, but I did want to mention um, you know, I am a client of Joy's, and so when I finally did my official consultation, she helped me get my dogs off of carbohydrates because I thought they needed carbohydrates or they needed like a little bit of plant matter because there's many different like raw feeding models, and some of them do include vegetables. Um, and I was giving my dogs uh, I would roast sweet potatoes, and the dogs love them. And I was like, well, this is their fiber and their plant matter. But when I took them off of that, they were even better. And that was all they were already raw fed, but it was just like removing the carbs and removing the vegetable matter, I immediately noticed a difference. Um, and now sometimes some people are extremely shocked when I tell them that they literally just eat raw meat and organs. And they're like, well, don't they need vegetables? And I'm like, no, they actually don't. No, they don't. I just want to be clear that like we are talking about raw meat, raw meaty bones, so like raw chicken with the bone in, and then like recreational bones that are raw, because a lot of times I start talking about raw feeding, and they're like, Oh, but you cook the meat, right? And I'm like, no. Or they'll be like, I thought you couldn't give dogs bones. And I was like, No, you can't give cooked bones.

Joy: 27:13

Cooked bones, correct.

Leah: 27:15

And so sometimes, you know, and I've transitioned five dogs now, plus my cat, plus Freya's puppy went right from you know, nursing to raw food. I've never had any issues with any of my dogs just chewing through the bones.

Joy: 27:35

No, you don't. And to be to clarify it though, you don't want to be giving great big honking, weight-bearing beef bones to chew. They could for recreational bones, you can give a big like a hawk, uh, you know, hip bone sort of thing, um, to chew on as for recreation to keep their teeth clean. But yeah, there's nothing wrong with giving um, you know, the the bones or I feed chicken bones, beef bones. I don't feed beef bones. Uh deer ribs, if you can get them, are great. Um uh yeah. A beef kneecap. Yeah, that's good to chew on. Yeah. I've never given one to my dogs that have actually chewed it to swallow it. Um, I've never actually been able to get a hold of one. And I live in ranch country.

Leah: 28:30

You think I could, but my dogs eat the whole, like, and that's the other thing that's like a little freaky too at first. Like you think, oh, this is a recreational bone, they're just gonna chew it, and then it's gone.

Joy: 28:42

Yeah.

Leah: 28:42

Well, a kneecap is soft, actually.

Joy: 28:45

It is actually, yeah. You think about it, it is actually soft, and it's kind of like I'm not saying hollow, but kind of like you know, honeycombed looking.

Leah: 29:00

Yeah, so different bones have different structures. And like, you know, I've given Freya a lamb bone, which I thought was gonna be recreational, and she ate the whole thing.

Joy: 29:09

No, they could they'll eat the lamb bones.

Leah: 29:11

Yeah, they will.

Joy: 29:12

They'll eat the lamb bones.

Leah: 29:14

So here's my point. What I what I meant to circle back to was the fact that like you need to do a lot of research in order to feed this raw diet the correct way with the correct ratios of is it calcium and phosphorus?

Joy: 29:32

Calcium and phosphorus.

Leah: 29:34

Calcium and phosphorus, and then a rotation of different proteins, and then you have to feed a lot of organs. Um, you know, you want to feed every different type of organ. The fastest way to really do this is to talk to somebody. Obviously, I would recommend that you do a consultation with Joy. Um, and then you're still, even once you start feeding, you're gonna be learning. It's a it's there's a lot to learn about it. So I don't want to give people the impression that they can just listen to this podcast and then just start giving their dogs, you know, just feeding them chicken every single day, you know, which is kind of like what I was doing like 10 years ago. Um but like I said, I was still learning, I was researching, I was educating myself, and my raw feeding has been, you know, kind of constantly evolving. Now I feel like I have it pretty dialed in. Um and yes, the chewing is really important. That was the other thing I was gonna mention. I think it's like after I don't know how they measure all this, it's like 10 or 15 minutes. The endorphin, they get like a big endorphin rush from from the chewing. Um, and I know like when I give my mastiff, he eats all he can eat almost a whole chicken depending on the size of the chicken. It takes them about 10 minutes to get through it because of all the little bones that are in it and the you know, the legs and whatnot. Um so the chewing's really important, and like when I ask my clients who have dogs with behavioral issues, if they give them, you know, I know most of them are feeding kibble, but I ask them if they give them some sort of recreational bone to chew on, and usually they're giving them something like a nylobone, which is plastic.

Joy: 31:33

Yeah, those things are not not real safe.

Leah: 31:36

I really think, and the reason I'm bringing this up is because we were talking about how important the chewing is. I really think that real raw bones are actually one of the safest things you can give your dogs. Yeah. Now you do have to be careful if you have a multi-dog household, and if you have any dog that's like a resource garter, a real bone is a high value resource. So you just want to be careful with that in terms of like the dogs potentially fighting over them. I feel like my dogs, I mean, I do keep everybody separate when they're eating, and I keep them separate when they're chewing bones. Every once in a while, there will be a bone out in the yard. I feel like because they get them so often, they're just like whatever, it's just a bone. But like if you have a kibble-fed dog and then all of a sudden you give them a raw bone, they might resource guard it. So I just want to prepare people for that. If a dog is not used to having real food, raw bones and raw meat are going to be high value. So you want to like make sure you separate dogs, leave them alone while they're eating. That's just my spiel about the behavioral side of it.

Joy: 32:54

Yeah, yeah. That's a good point. That's a really good point, yeah. Because um, even though I mean my girls are, especially Harriet, she's pretty bomb-proof. But every once in a while, Dottie can resource guard and she'll she'll go for Dottie or for Harriet. And then I have to separate them and get Dottie into her crate so that she, you know, they have their alone time. I don't I don't feed my dogs together. Harriet eats outside, and here and Dottie eats in her crate, so they're never together. But there are bones laying around my backyard that but there's usually enough of them that laying around that they don't fight over them. So and one thing that I would say too is to um there's uh this thing with the deer antlers. I would say steer away from those too. They can be too hard. Yeah, they can be too hard, especially if they've been processed in any way. Um, they can get too hard and they can break teeth. So raw bones um are you are softer, but once they've been outside and in the sun for a couple of weeks, then you want to throw them away because they will get start to get hard. So you want to uh throw them away. Oh, they'll get brittle. Yeah. So you want to throw them away. Um and then another thing too, we were talking about good ways to get food um inexpensively, is um if you've got now, I live where there's a lot of ranches, so there's a lot of um co-ops, food co-ops. And what you can do, I um if you join a couple co-op, if you're lucky enough to have one nearby, um, sometimes they will throw in, if you order so much meat, they'll throw in free bones. Free um, I get pig's feet all the time. And I don't give my dogs pig's feet because I want them for the broth that I make. But I can get free beef bones, marrow bones, big ones that the dogs can chew on. And um, sometimes they make broth. But that's another way to get uh to get a free resource is if you've got a food co-op that can throw in free free stuff um for how if you but you you know, like if here it's uh if you order more than $50, then you get a bag of free bones. So just a thought, maybe there might be somebody there.

Leah: 35:24

And then so here's my question. I've never done this for myself. Um, but is it is it like if you do have multiple dogs, you're feeding a lot of dogs raw. Is it um do you think it's important to have a separate freezer so you can shop those sales and stock up on stuff? No, you don't have to.

Joy: 35:46

No, I just happen to because somebody gave me a freezer. So that's why I have the two freezers. I do use the smaller one mostly for the dog. It's the smaller one is all for the dogs, and then the big one has the overflow. Like if I order too much tripe or something, then the overflow goes into the big one. But no, I don't, I don't think it's necessary, you know. Frozen frozen meat is frozen meat, and uh so uh yeah, you don't have to have a separate freezer. Um it's helpful, it's helpful, but um yeah.

Leah: 36:23

Now what about um uh that just brought up two more questions? One because you were talking about the co-ops and the butchers. What about hunters? Do hunters ever give away or do they are there certain parts of the deer that they don't want to eat that would be okay? Is it okay to get wild game?

Joy: 36:43

Yes. Just the only caveat with wild game is to freeze it for two weeks at least before you serve it to your dog, just uh to be on the safe side for any parasites um in the meat. Um, but yeah, hunters are a great resource. My son-in-law is a hunter, and we get oh man, we get my dogs have had bear. My dogs have had um deer, a lot of deer they get, uh duck, all different kinds of wild duck uh they've had. So hunters are a fabulous resource, and there are hunting clubs near me. I actually haven't um contacted the hunting clubs for for any resources because I have my son-in-law, but uh yeah, hunt contact the hunting clubs and tell them you would love to have what they leave in the forest. And one of the best things they leave in the forest is the trite.

Leah: 37:46

Oh, they leave the stomach?

Joy: 37:48

Yeah, yeah. Oh, wow. And I actually have some trite up in my daughter's freezer in Oregon waiting for me. So they they processed a goat. So we're gonna get some goat tribe. Oh, nice. So um, so yeah, trite, they'll leave it in the forest. They have because it's not edible for humans, humans can't eat you know, green tribe, so they just leave it there. Um so all of the um innards they leave. A lot of times they'll eat the organ meats. Um, they usually take the heart, but uh yeah, if you can get in touch with hunters and just say, hey, I'd like to have what you leave in the forest, um, then and even offer to, you know, go with them or go pick it up or whatever. Uh learn to field dress, maybe, and and go out and field dress it with them. And they'll let you have what you want if you if you're lucky enough to have hunters in the area. Um so yes, hunters are a fabulous source. Wild game is absolutely amazing. Just remember to freeze it.

Leah: 38:53

Okay. Yeah, I know when I order that green tripe, they do um include. I'm just thinking like all the different body parts, because sometimes I mean, like I used to be vegetarian, then I was vegan, now I'm like a reformed vegan. So like it's uh sometimes it's hard for me when like one thing that you recommended for Eva, which was really good for her, was the beef tongue. Now I'm pretty squeamish when I get a whole beef tongue and it's very recognizable as a tongue. Um, you know, but it's big, it's huge. So I had to cut it up and it's like rubbery and tough. So uh, but I, you know, I did it, you know. If I can do it, and trust me, anybody can because I'm pretty sensitive about that, even though I now I'm eating like eggs and fish and stuff. I'm not vegan anymore. But um, it's hard sometimes because it's like, is this really the best thing? And it really is, you know, it really is, especially if you do your research and you find out what kind of factory farmed meat. Go into the kibble, that is gonna turn you right off, especially if you have any compassion for animals and you watch the videos of the downed cows, and you know, so I'd much rather be feeding them quality meat or wild game. You know, I just wanted to put that in there.

Joy: 40:23

I I and it's a great point. And if you also understand that in addition to the sick animals, the downed animals, there are there's also roadkill, and there's also euthanized domestic animals being rendered into that also. And the um AFCO has admitted that that is a truth statement, that that does happen. And he said that, you know, yeah.

Leah: 40:57

Don't they find um, you know, whatever the drug is that they use to euthanize phenobarbital?

Joy: 41:02

Yes, don't they find that in kibble if they test that's what a lot of recalls are about is there's a high level of phenobarbital in the kibble. So a lot of times the recall is for that, um, through the phenobarbital.

Leah: 41:17

Yeah, so that's I mean, uh, even now I'm getting just like chills and like bad feelings about all that. But I think my point was what I was gonna say is when I order the green tripe, I get the they will as like a treat, they'll um they sell the hooves and they stuff the hooves with um tripe. And that is one of my dog's favorite treats. And because it's it's not cooked, it's not smoked, it's a real raw, fresh hoof. And it's soft, it's pretty soft and pretty easy for them to chew through and to digest. So, like that's a really good treat for my older dogs, although Freya's digestion is still good, but you know, Eva, um, she doesn't quite have the digestive fire that she used to, and so the cow hooves are really good. Um, and it's just like a lot of things that you wouldn't think of, but if you realize that in the wild, they would eat. I think first they go for the organs because that's the most nutrient. That's correct. The liver, usually, yeah, nutrient rich rich or dense or however you want to say it. It's very yes. Do you want to say more about that?

Joy: 42:43

Sure. The organs are um there are secreting and non-secreting organs, and so you've got the liver, you've got the heart. The heart technically is a muscle, but it's also technically an organ. It can go either way. Usually, I usually count it as muscle. Uh heart is a very rich source of taurine, and uh, so you want to, if you're worried about DCM, which is dilated cardiomyopathy, um, basically it's heart failure or congestive heart failure for a dog, then you want your dog eating heart meat to get that taurine to keep your heart to keep the heart strong. Um, it's got CoQ10, things like that in it. So um the heart is very important. It also includes the brain. So that's why I like to give rabbit heads, even though Harriet is a stinker and won't eat the rabbit heads. Um, I have to give her chicken and pheasant and duck heads. Duckheads are another really good source, so I will give that. Um, so you you're talking about the brain, the liver, kidneys, adrenal glands, if you can get them. Um, they're a very good source of vitamin C. Um, it was surprisingly. And uh, and then you've got uh glands. You've got uh when you give a give your dog the brain, you've got all of the glands that are in the brain, like pituitary and hypothalamus, and all of those that are in the in the brain. And then you've got pancreas, and you've got the spleen, and you've got um whatever else is in there. Those are the ones I feed anyway. I'm sure there's more. These are critically important for uh because there's a thing in homeopathy called like life cures like, and in the world of nutrition, there's kind of the same thing. So if you're suffering from a heart problem, you want to get some heart meat. So if your dog has a weak heart, feed him heart. If he's got kidney problems, feed him kidney, um, things like that. And so, but the caveat with that is it doesn't take very much, just a little bit. So you want to feed like um the golden, kind of golden rule of thumb. A lot of people go by this, a lot of people go don't, but I kind of tend to at this point in what I'm advising, this is kind of what I'm going with. It's the 80% meat, muscle meat, and I include the the uh trite and the heart into the muscle meat. Okay. So it's 80% muscle meat, 10% bone, and um 10% uh organ and glands. Some people go 85% meat, 10% bone, and 5% organs and glands. Um, it's it just depends. Some days my dogs don't get any organs and glands at all. Other days, other days they get three or four of them. Just depends on what I've got thought out. So uh, but I do like to get some kind of heart meat into them uh three or four days a week. So chicken hearts, turkey hearts are great, duck hearts if you can find them, um, beef heart, lamb heart. Um, these are all things that I can get from SF Raw or from my local co-op. Um, if you've got and there are male, you know, sources online where you can get this also, get these sorts of things also. So organ meets, okay, I'll start with liver. Liver is your powerhouse of nutrition. Liver has iron, it's got copper to balance out the iron, it's got B12, it's got your B vitamins, it's got just about anything in there. I mean, it is amazing. People think, oh, well, the liver's toxic, it stores toxins. No, it doesn't. It filters them out and gets rid of them. It does not store, it's a conversion tank. It can convert uh things into other things. It um it will bring now in the human body, it takes cholesterol and convert and brings it and recycles cholesterol. Cholesterol, people don't realize how important cholesterol is to the human body. Sorry, I have training in human nutrition too, so it kind of overlaps, but um cholesterol is not your enemy. Cholesterol is your vester. And when it takes cholesterol and puts it into what I call a taxi called HDL, HDL is not cholesterol, it's the vehicle to transport cholesterol. Okay, it takes the recycled cholesterol, puts it into an HDL taxi, and sends it to where it's needed. Like if you have been eating crappy seed oils and Doritos and Cheetos and all this other stuff, you've got tears in your arteries. So it brings it to that site to repair, and then it gets transferred to an LDL taxi and goes back to the liver to get recycled and replenished and put back into an HDL. That's how important cholesterol is, and that's what the liver does in humans. I'm not sure about dogs, uh whether it happens that way with dogs or not. I don't know. But but what I'm saying is that's how important the liver is, and liver in dogs and in cats in um humans can get very easily taxed and overworked and gets clogged down. So we have to be constantly on the alert to feed our dogs because their livers get clogged too with all the toxins in the world, and to to be um feeding them things that will help to clear out their liver. And liver is the best way to do that. Now, the only thing I um don't warn people about, but I let people know about is you want to start small with liver. Otherwise, you're gonna have a dog with that's gonna need to run out to the bathroom for you know, you know, because he's got the runs. So if you want to start slow, Harriet still can't handle a whole lot of liver at one time. A half a chicken liver is about what she can handle. Um, beef liver is the best uh as far grass-fed beast liver, if you can get it, is the best source for um uh copper. And uh copper, you need copper to balance out iron. Otherwise, if you get too much iron, it gets stored in places you don't want it to get stored in. It's unbound to copper, there's not enough copper to bind. So then you're good. That's where your dog can get achy, stiff joints. It's too much copper in the joints to copper. I mean, too much iron in the joints, the iron gets rusty, and you've got stiff joints. So you want to make sure you're balancing out your copper and your iron, and liver's the best way to do that. Liver is just a phenomenal um thing, it's got D in it, vitamin D. Do not supplement your dog with vitamin D. Do not supplement yourself with vitamin D. It's toxic. Get it in food, and liver is your best source. It outside it's done. So um, D3, do not ever supplement D3 with your dog. It's not necessary.

Leah: 50:29

Okay, cool. Yeah, some of this stuff is overlapping with like um, you know, I always tell people to listen to the Wise Traditions podcast, which is Weston A Price. Absolutely. And a lot of it is the same for us. We need those organ meats as well. And in particular, when you brought up copper, I think they just did a podcast, or it's one that I just listened to on the importance of copper um in the human diet. So there is a lot of overlap. Um I agree.

Joy: 51:03

Yeah, another another good organ or gland is the thymus. Uh some people call it sweet breads, uh, because the thymus, if you can get it, I I'm able to get it surprisingly at the little grocery store across the street. I can get it every once in a while. So when they've got it's it's a little pricey. So when I get it, I stock up on it, and then it's just like a half to one ounce per dog per serving. And uh the thymus can be pretty big, it's a pretty big thing. So um, if you can get that, that's awesome for their immune system.

Leah: 51:42

Okay, yeah. I tried when I lived in Maine, I tried getting that at the farmer's market, and they were like all sold out because it was like a delicacy, I guess. It is, it is people eat at fancy restaurants, so um I haven't tried it. Yeah, sometimes you can get some of those organ meats at the farmers market. Um, you know, I used to here I haven't been, but um, I used to get almost all of my raw dog food directly from local farmers, so that was good. Um and then the green, there is a bleached tripe that people can sometimes you can find at the grocery store, and that's not what you want to give your dog. So that's why we're talking about green tripe. It's untreated, unbleached.

Joy: 52:32

Untreated, unbleached, and let me tell you, it's green. It's stinks. Well, it's stinks, but you I actually enjoy the smell of it because I I grew up in farm country in Pennsylvania. I did not live on a farm, but I spent a lot of time on farms, so it's it's a very reminiscent smell for me. So I'm okay with it. The worst one is the lamb. Oh the worst one, even that one will make me like gang just a little bit, but um but the green tripe.com, their stuff in the in the chops is pretty tame compared to some of the other stuff. But dogs love it. It's it for my dogs, it's the first thing they go for.

Leah: 53:16

Mine go for the tripe, they go for the liver.

Joy: 53:19

Yep. Um they go for.

Leah: 53:21

I feel like I'm pretty lucky. My dogs do, in general, have really strong digestion, but yeah, you do want to when you're first introducing a dog to liver, you do want to be a little bit um cautious with just the amount that you're giving. Correct. You don't have a complete blowout.

Joy: 53:44

I mean, it works if they're constipated, but yeah, I don't recommend it.

Leah: 53:47

Well, oh yeah, that's the other thing I was gonna ask you. Um, and this is something actually I'm learning so much right now.

Joy: 53:56

Even after like eight or ten years of raw feeding, it's like you just keep learning and evolving, and your dog's diets keep evolving.

Leah: 54:06

Yeah, absolutely. But one of the most important things that I learned when I started um working with you, Joy, was that I didn't have to worry about every single meal being balanced, that it was just had to be a balance over time in terms of the ratio of the bones and the muscle meat and the organ meat. So that took a huge amount of pressure off of me because I would still sometimes just give a commercial raw just to be sure that they're like getting everything they need. But you have to watch out because some of those commercial raw foods aren't technically raw. They're irradiated or they have added minerals. Or what I've noticed now is that since I've taken my dogs off of carbs and vegetable matter, is that like if I do like say we're traveling and I pick up a commercial raw food at a pet store, has a lot of vegetable matter in it, and that will upset their stomachs sometimes more than like if I would have just given them a little bit of kibble, like if we're on the road and I can't feed raw, you know what I mean? Like the freeze-dried raw that you would get at a big box pet store.

Joy: 55:28

Yeah, I don't recommend a lot of them are what is called high pressure pasteurized, which means it's killed everything in there. There's no enzymes, there's no probiotics, it's a dead food. It's technically raw, but there are a lot of people out there who are terrified of any kind of a germ. And they, you know, they're that's what they want to buy. So it's catering to a certain um certain group of people, and that's the only thing. And if that's the only thing they'll feed their dog, it's better than kid. It's still better than kid. It's still not ideal. It's not ideal. Yeah, I've never fed um freeze dry to my dogs, but uh when I first started out, I did feed um one of those commercial frozen ones that I could get at uh Whole Foods. And uh Harriet had problems with it. Don Donnie has digestion of steel, she can probably eat anything, but when Harriet was a puppy, she had pika. And she was eating. We've got these decorative rocks in my backyard that are actually, I mean, they're pretty small, but they're very sharp. They've got sharp edges on them. And when she was four months old, I mean, she um she was uh she made herself very, very sick on these uh rocks, and it actually damaged her intestines. So she would um I I gave her this raw food and it came out as she was bloody. The you know, her so it made her bleed. So I couldn't I couldn't give those to her anymore. So uh that's uh yeah, and and the thing of it is in those formulas, if people are observant when they're cleaning up after their dog, they'll see that it went it came out the way it went in, especially carrots.

Leah: 57:39

Yeah, it is confusing because you think it's raw, but it's it's not, it's either irradiated or it's actually pasteurized. And then if you really look at the ingredients, like after the first couple ingredients, it's like all vegetable and fruit matter.

Joy: 57:59

So like that or added um vitamins and minerals, which is you know, that's a red flag right there. If they're having to add vitamins and minerals, then that's telling me that they're not confident in the formula that they've put together. And then you've got people talking about oh, well, wolves eat um vegetables in in the wild. No, they don't. Now, if you read David Mate, Mech, he's the wolf expert, he says that they have well, they'll say, well, they eat the contents of the stomach. No, they don't. Mech says they shake out the contents of the stomach and then they eat the triad. And wolves will be seen to eat berries, and they will eat wild herbs, but wild herbs are medicinal. So with wild herbs, there's a reason that they're eating the wild herbs, right? And then um then they might graze on on wild grasses and things like that. Yes, but those are not that's vegetation, that's wild vegetation. Yes, wolves will eat that, but it's not eating, it's not carrots, it's not celery, it's not any of this other stuff. And cabbage, cabbage, cooktail, collards, um, all of those brassicas, they're they're all the same thing. They're all pretty much the same thing. And uh so if you want to feed your dog greens, give him some parsley, give him some herbs, give you know, do that. If if you have to feed your dog some greens, give them herbs, you know.

Leah: 59:47

Or if you take them out in the woods and they munch on some grass, yeah, yeah, that's fine. I see people freaking out when their dog's eating grass. It's probably because they've got an upset stomach from the kibble. Yeah. Or they're

Joy: 1:00:00

After now, Jeannie, Dr. Jeannie Thomason, who is one of my teachers, she hypothesizes that they are after the um SBOs, the soil-based organisms that are in the ground. And I find that to be a plausible theory. So I allow Harriet to eat. Harriet likes to eat the grass. I do not allow her to eat it if I know that it's been treated with any kind of fertilizer or weed killer. So pretty much she's only allowed to eat the grasses in my backyard. So I don't freak out about that. I don't freak out. My dogs don't eat the horse droppings that are on the trails. They're not interested in that, but I wouldn't care if they were. Because that is full of organisms. It's full of organisms.

Leah: 1:00:50

My mastiff was just doing that. And I was like, would Joey think this was okay? I think it's okay. It's okay.

Joy: 1:00:57

It's okay. I mean, it grosses people out, but um didn't eat a lot.

Leah: 1:01:01

I think he's just like what you're saying. I think they're trying to diversify their microbiome.

Joy: 1:01:06

I would agree with that.

Leah: 1:01:08

Yeah, yeah.

Joy: 1:01:08

I would agree with that.

Leah: 1:01:09

It's not like he was hungry and he was eating it out of hunger.

Joy: 1:01:12

No, you know. No, it's just um now, neither one of my dogs have ever eaten any poop. Um, my first golden, he ate he ate it a lot, but he was kibble fed. So it, you know, I don't know.

Leah: 1:01:25

I know a lot of kibble fed dogs, mine included, when they were kibble fed, I had one dog that would not leave it alone, the cat poop. I mean, I won't go way into it, but I think it's because they're they're actually kind of starving for nutrients.

Joy: 1:01:42

Right. Right. And that's why. Um, now I know there was an experiment with rabbits. Rabbits or rats? I'm trying to think. Anyway, um, they some kind of nutrition, nutrient, oh gosh, so many years ago. Um, they were eating their poop to get the nutrition that had come out in the poop because the body, their body had created this one nutrient that they were deficient in or something. Anyway, it was in the poop, so they were eating the poop to get this nutrition nutrient that they needed.

Leah: 1:02:17

Oh, it's like because it's missing in the diet, then the body actually creates it, but then it passes it. Exactly. Yeah.

Joy: 1:02:24

And then they're inter then they're eating it to get it.

Leah: 1:02:26

So then they're interested in eating it, yeah.

Joy: 1:02:29

Yeah, so I found that yeah, a little gross, but yeah, kind of an interesting little tidbit. But uh, yeah, so I think it's possible that they could be after microorganisms that are in the soil, because a lot of um what we would call um probiotics are in the soil, and that's why Dr. Zach Bush talks about um, because he's big on uh he's a soil. Can you hear that siren?

Leah: 1:02:57

Um a little bit, that's okay. Okay.

Joy: 1:03:00

Um, he's big on soil because our soil is so depleted. But uh he talks about, you know, when you're weeding an organic garden, just and you're pulling up weeds, he says, just the bouquet coming out of the ground is full of the um microbiome, full of probiotics. And he says, just breathe that in. Just doing that changes your microbiome. And you talk about letting dogs dig in the dirt, you know, and you know, it's so so Harriet's got this huge hole in my backyard. But I let her do it. I fill it in when it gets too big and I fill it in, and she goes back over and digs it back up again. But it's healthy for them and and kids, children. You know, let them take in the dirt, let them get muddy, let them have fun, and that builds their immune system. A child before the age of two doesn't have an immune system. Let him build it, let him build it right in the dirt, let him get dirty, don't wash his hands before he eats, you know, let him play in the dirt and then feed him and then wash his hands. You know, that is how you build an immune system. It's not fill in a vacuum, and it's the same way for our dogs, you know, they have to have that.

Leah: 1:04:22

And I have uh a couple dogs that well, all my dogs so far are rescues, and um some of them have lived on the street. So when we go for a walk, they'll literally eat the most rancid trash if they can find it and I'm not paying attention because I try to let them sniff and do their natural behaviors, right? And then all of a sudden Freya's gobbling up some piece of trash. Her stomach's actually fine.

Joy: 1:04:52

Yeah, oh gosh. Yeah, Dottie did that the other day. What did she pick up? I don't remember what it was. I think it was old chicken bone or something. It's like Harriet doesn't do it. Harriet's a bit more picky, but that's good. Yeah, Dottie does.

Leah: 1:05:05

But yeah, people shouldn't worry so much about the germs and the oh, they think, oh, you're feeding your dogs raw chicken, won't they get salmonella? And I'm like, I've my dogs have been way more sick from eating kibble and getting vaccinated and steroids for yeast infections and all of that stuff has made my dogs way more sick than any raw meal. Even if I do give them a little too much organ meat, a little too much liver. It's not really a big deal. They're adjusted, and then the next meal I give them a little extra bone and everything firms back up. Um, but they don't have that like low-grade chronic illness that they used to when we used to do all the vaccines and all the chemicals for the fleas and the kibble for food. And you know, Sophie used to have just so much inflammation in her ears, and then you take them to the vet and they give her a steroid shot, and they give you this nasty stuff that you have to use to clean the ears when it's really originating from the gut, the gut, and what she's eating, and the vaccines which are disrupting everything, and um, we won't get into all that, but right, but yeah, I think people yeah, people will be surprised. Your dog has a very strong digestive system, and even if you wouldn't eat the raw meat, that's because you're not a wolf. Like these dogs, like you know, we read in our book club, The First Domestication, and um he was basically saying there's almost no difference between dogs and wolves genetically. Now that doesn't mean behaviorally and whatever they're different, yes, but yes, yeah.

Joy: 1:07:08

They're really they're really their digestive system, they're you know they're um they're there's a few differences, but not not significant. We they do have the Amy to B gene for um um there's an AB Amy Amy2B gene for digesting carbohydrates. And the dog does have more cares for that, but that does not make them an omnivore. That makes them so that they can, if they encounter it, they can handle it as an emergency situation or as but not as a chronic feeding situation. It does not mean that they can easily handle and digest 60% of their diet as carbohydrates. It does not mean that. Um so yeah, a dog can have a wolf has two pair, a dog can have anywhere from four to I think it's 30 pairs of this gene, like huskies have four. So they're more closely related to the uh the wolf, but still no, it does not make them an omnivore, and it certainly does not make them vegan. Dogs are not vegan. I'm sorry. Read my five-part articles on my website. I get into it a lot. I get into what you know what they I do need to write a series of articles on why your dog is a carnivore. But uh, but I had way too much fun with the with the Your Dog Is Not a Vegan series. And it was a lot of fun to write, and it was a lot of fun to research. Some of it was, you know, I got into the the ethical dilemma, and some of it was a little sad. Uh, you know, they're trying to take land away from where the elephants are to grow avocados. And I'm going, you know what? First of all, I hate avocados. I live in California. I hate avocados. There is no way. My my friend from Mexico, she makes amazing guacamole. That's the only way I will eat an avocado. Do not give me an avocado. Slimy little things. But anyway, we grow avocados in North America. I have my friend, uh Yessi, who makes the avocado guacamole, her husband, they own in Mexico, they own 300 acres of avocado trees. They grow here. Why are we growing them in Africa to put them on a container ship and ship them halfway around the world? And then you've got everybody complaining about, you know, your your what is it, your footprint of some sort. Why? I don't get it. But anyway, I digress. Um, so I had a lot of fun writing those articles. They were they were a lot of fun.

Leah: 1:09:59

I would encourage everybody to go to Joy's website and is it joyfully healthy?

Joy: 1:10:07

Joyfullyhealthy pets.com.

Leah: 1:10:10

Okay. Yeah. I'll put a link to your website because um, you know, like we talked about, if you want to start feeding raw, you do need to kind of know what you're doing. So there is a balance. And then um, once you're confident that you have the meal completely balanced, you won't worry. Oh, are they getting this vitamin or that vitamin? Or um, you know, it it will be in there, you know.

Joy: 1:10:39

It will. You're feeding meat, you're feeding organs, everything they need is going to be in there. And like I said, I don't there's some days, there's some days, all I've got thought out is hamburger. That's what they get. And maybe I'll throw an egg on top. Um, I think that's what they got last night. They got uh no, they had tripe the night before. I didn't have any tripe thought out. So they got a big chunk of pork and an egg, and that was their dinner. And but last night they had tripe and beef and eggs, and they had something else. I don't know what. They're getting chicken feet tonight. If you can find the amazing source of collagen uh for the dogs, and um so don't worry, eat it what you got. You know, make it up the next night. If it's a little bit light, like okay, my Harriet usually gets a pound and a quarter. If I've only got a pound, give her a little bit extra the next day. So don't make it harder than it needs to be. And yes, find somebody like me or somebody else, you know, find somebody who can hold your hand. Literally, I mean hold your hand and walk you through the process, pull you back from the edge of the cliff when you need to be pulled back from the edge of the cliff and say, Hey, you can do this, you can do this. And and after like two or three sessions, you're gonna say, Okay, I've got this. I can do this. This isn't that hard. I made it way harder than it needed to be. It's not rocket science, and I can do this. And and then pretty soon you're gonna be mentoring somebody and pulling them back from the edge of the cliff. And uh, that's what happened to me. I had a mentor named Tina, and she had to pull me back from the cliff a few times because I was almost like, I don't know what the heck I'm doing. And so she just and she was very sweet, and she just you know pulled me back and said, Okay, this is where we're gonna go. And yeah, and then all of a sudden it'll click. Yes, it'll click and you'll get it. And then you keep doing research and you keep going and saying, Okay, I want to incorporate this into the diet, and I want to take that out of the diet. Like I want to take the carbs out, I want to take sweet potatoes out, and I want to put in the glands, I want to put in the finest, I want to put in the eggs, and um, and and your dog's diet will continue to evolve. My dog's diet isn't the same today as it was five years ago. And Dottie's diet is a little bit different than Harriet's because Harriet's a little bit more picky.

Leah: 1:13:22

So that's the other thing I was gonna say is that I have noticed between all my dogs, like some do better on certain proteins than others, and some do better on like one does better on beef, and one does better not on beef, but with other like venison is fine, you know, or lamb is fine, or you know, I do feed, I do still feed them quite a bit of chicken because it is one of the cheaper it is cheaper. They all love it, and thankfully all of them digest it very well. Um, but I forgot where I was going with this. Oh, you just start, you start really observing your dog. It I I feel like it actually makes your connection with your dog stronger because you'll start noticing differences in like maybe their muscle tone or their bowel movements, or maybe their teeth are cleaner. I really think in the long run it all evens out because like I knew somebody who had four dogs, kibble fed, they were only two years old, and the most tartar I've ever seen on dogs.

Joy: 1:14:29

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Leah: 1:14:31

And these dogs were only two years old. And I was like, you know, you have to get their teeth cleaned because this is building up fast. And the quote to do all four dogs was like $2,700.

Joy: 1:14:42

Wow.

Leah: 1:14:43

That's what the vet quoted him. Wow. And I was like, 20, and they're small dogs. I mean, to me, they're small, they're like all between like 20 and 30 pounds. I was like, for $2,700, you could have fed them for a year all raw food.

Joy: 1:14:57

You could have fed them for a couple of years on that. Yeah, they wouldn't have any tartar. Right. I mean, my dogs Dottie, my husband let Dottie in. Um, Dottie was seven in November. Harry'll be 10 in a week. Neither one of them have ever had a cleaning. Now, I have occasionally scaled their teeth because I have the the tools to do it. So I have occasionally had to scale a little bit of tartar off of their teeth, but nothing severe. And they've never had a cleaning. Donnie's never even seen a vet. She doesn't even know what a who a vet is. Harriet's been twice because she got foxtails in her ears twice. So uh she has been to the vet for, but for foxtails, nothing else, neither one of them, anything else. And uh, so it how much money have I saved on vet bills, on dental bills, on flea treatments, on worming, on all this other stuff. And the raw feeding may cost a little bit more, uh but like you said at the beginning, it it saves you so much in other areas. And um, so I I highly recommend it for everybody. And just and like and one thing I wanted to say too about rotating proteins, as many protein, and once you get them going, start with one protein for a few weeks and see how they do, and then introduce another one. But rotate out the proteins as many as they can as you can find for them, and um, that will give them an even healthier and even more broad spectrum of nutrients and and proteins and things. And what you're after is those amino acids. So you want to make sure that you know, and meat has all of the amino acids, all of the building protein uh building blocks you need to make those proteins. So um uh yeah, so just and and there's nothing wrong with getting a lot of chicken, just so long as it's not the only protein they're getting.

Leah: 1:17:05

Yeah, they also are eating beef, and like I said, I give them quail and turkey and venison and um they they're eating a lot of tripe too. They love it, yeah.

Joy: 1:17:15

They do. And tripe is cheap. I mean, it's not I mean I get how much is it? It's like 40 pounds, and I spend maybe 170 on that's the most they will send is like 40 pounds, and it's like 170, and that lasts my two dogs, um, plus what I uh probably about six months. Um, but I do get some from SF Raw. I'll get that. I picked up 20 pounds last month. I still have most of that, but uh yeah, they love it, and it's it's just and if you get the big pieces now, the ground it won't do it, but if you can get big pieces, it's like brushing their teeth. Um they're chewing on that, it's like brushing their teeth, and along with the bones and the the chewing the red meat, it's just the best for their teeth. Um now they'll still get ground down, like Harriet's teeth here in the front are ground down, but they're still healthy, you know, there's nothing wrong with them.

Leah: 1:18:21

I just have one more question, and then I I would like to just interject also, you know, we talked about the chewing being really good behaviorally as well to relieve stress and to release those endorphins and calm the dog down. It really tires them out too. Um, like it's very satisfying for them because it's just a primal instinct, like, and it's a need that they have to bite, chew, and really work their jaw. And um, I also think now I haven't looked at any studies on this, and I don't even know if there are, but it's to me, it's kind of like you know, when you have children who are eating kind of like junk food with additives and preservatives and not really real food, and then they switch them to like a true whole food diet, and a lot of behavioral issues will go away. I kind of think there must be some correlation also for dogs, and I'm not saying that like feeding raw is gonna fix your dog's behavioral issues, but I think it's part of it.

Joy: 1:19:36

I agree, I agree with you, okay. Uh, because a lot of times they're not getting the nutrients that the brain needs, they're not getting like that's like that's why it's so important to feed brain, is so that they get those uh nutrients, those uh glands, they're feeding those glands that are in the brain. And um I know this sounds horrible, but I like to feed my dogs beef eye eyeballs. And the best place to get those that I have found is uh Raw Feeding Miami. And they've they've got them. For female dogs, placenta is wonderful. So um I I have even fed them testicle. I digress. So but um and and another another good source too thing too you want to feed them is their EPA and their DHA, their omega-3s. So the best sources for that is uh sardines. And any sardine you get, and I this is one food, and I'm looking at another food, um, one food that's cooked that's okay to feed, and that's the candy sardines in water. Okay. Feed them in water because sardines are always wild, and those bones are so tiny that it's not a problem for them to digest those. But um they have the EPA and the DHA, and to get the heads on them. Um, I don't know, but you can also get them raw uh if you can find a source. Sometimes I can get them at SFRA, sometimes you can't. Uh Roth Eating Miami usually has them. Uh so um try and get the EPA and DHA critically important for the brain. Um, yeah. So right.

Leah: 1:21:26

So I'm just thinking holistically, like if the body isn't healthy, then it's really hard to be healthy mentally and emotionally. Absolutely. If your body's sick, you're gonna obviously express that in other ways. It's not just like, oh, I'm I feel fine even though I'm missing all these nutrients and actually like in a state of deprivation. And I feel like that's partly why kibble-fed dogs just act like they're always hungry because they're just never satisfied in they're just not getting what they need, and so they never reach that point of feeling like satisfied and satiated. So I think I just wanted to bring that up because I I do think there's a huge connection between the physical and the emotional.

Joy: 1:22:16

I agree, I agree a hundred percent, absolutely.

Leah: 1:22:19

And then I think we should wrap this up, but I just had one other question um because obviously we're storing a lot of this raw food in the freezer. I usually thought out in the fridge and then give it to them straight from the fridge. Um, should it actually technically be room temperature?

Joy: 1:22:40

I do, I do whatever. I'm a minimal, I'm a minimalist. Okay, so I'll take it out of the refrigerator out of the freezer. I usually I'd I'm I'm bad. I'll thaw it out in the sink or on the counter. I do have a Cornish hen thawing out the refrigerator. I put it in there last night. Um, I don't I don't usually think that far ahead. So sometimes I'm going, okay, I've got to feed the dogs in three hours. I don't have anything thawed out. So I'll grab something out of the freezer. If it's sealed in plastic, like some of the tripe is, or if it's uh a cornish hand in you know, sealed up, I'll just run a pan of uh sink full of warm water, throw it in there, and in two hours it's thawed out. Um so it doesn't have to be room temperature uh for me. Like the chicken thighs that I gave them last night were still half frozen. They didn't care. Oh that's fine. Yeah, Tom Law or yeah, Tom Longstale, no Thomas Sandberg from Long Living Pets, he really emphasizes feeding it warm, you know, at room temperature. Um, I have never found it to be an issue with any dog that I've ever worked with, or even my dogs. So I think it goes with what works best for you and what works best for your dogs. I have a friend, Holly, whose dogs won't eat anything that isn't half frozen. They like their food half frozen. Oh, interesting.

Leah: 1:24:13

I think they preferred it warmer.

Joy: 1:24:16

You would think, but no, she they had it has to be how uh and she she has and they won't eat it unless she's hand weaving them. So which is fine. But um, she's not an MDT person at all. And yeah, NDT person. Sorry. Um, but her dogs won't eat it. She's got three little um Maltese. So but they want their food half frozen. Other dogs, they won't touch it unless it's been rolled around half buried in the dirt for a day. You know what I mean? So you have to go by what your dog likes. And if he wants it half frozen, okay, give it to him half frozen. But if he wants it, you know, half rotten, let him have not half rotten, but if he wants it warm, let him have it warm. It's just, you know, whatever. I don't stress too much about thawing it out in the refrigerator or thawing it out on the counter. I don't stress about that. I don't stress about cleanup. You know, what special things should I do to clean up? Um, well, uh I just clean up after, you know, like I would do after I cleaned up after fixing our food, you know, fixing meal for my husband and me. Hot soapy water with the sponge, and I just clean down the counters and everything. And I have no special equipment for fixing the dog's food. They eat with they each they eat off of a little plate. Um, and then I just throw the plate in the in the hot soapy water with the rest of the dishes. I don't do anything special. I've never had a problem. Um, so it's uh it's but it's whatever you are comfortable with, however you want to clean up, however you normally clean up. That's what you do. Don't do anything special. You don't need special equipment, you don't need a knife just for your dog's food. You know, it's just meat.

Leah: 1:26:01

Just yeah, I'm not that picky about it. My dogs aren't either. They'll eat frozen, they'll eat yeah, they'll eat it out of the fridge. I just didn't know if there was like a special, you know, if there was something specific about the temperature of the food.

Joy: 1:26:16

Not that I'm aware of. Yeah, not that I'm aware of. Some some people will say, yeah, it has to be at room temperature. Um, others say, no, it doesn't matter. Because, you know, in the wild, if a wolf makes a kill in the wintertime, he's not gonna eat it all at one time and it's gonna freeze. So, and then he'll need to come back to it. And if he's gonna eat it, it's he needs to he'll have to eat it frozen. So um, and it'll be at least half frozen. So I don't think it's um something that is uh something that people need to be really stressing about. It's just okay. The world is stressful enough, we don't need to add more.

Leah: 1:26:57

Yeah, so I guess we we should wrap this up. Uh, I mean, I know you and I could just go on and on many different topics. Um, but I think the main points, one, I just want people to not feel overwhelmed, like this is doable.

Joy: 1:27:15

Absolutely.

Leah: 1:27:16

There's a lot to learn, but when you first start, you can keep it simple.

Joy: 1:27:21

And um and don't let yourself be overwhelmed. Yes, yeah, yeah, don't start overthinking it. Don't start just just start small, keep it simple, and grow. It does it's baby steps, you're not gonna do it all at one time, all at the beginning. It's simple, small steps.

Leah: 1:27:46

Progress slowly, there's no rush, and then you'll learn more and it will evolve, and you'll start introducing different proteins and different organ meats. And right, all right. So, everybody check out Joy's website, Joyfully Healthy Pets.

Joy: 1:28:06

Pets uh-huh.com.com.

Leah: 1:28:09

Okay.

Joy: 1:28:09

Yeah, and you'll see my girls are there somewhere, they're in the pictures there. And I think the last article I wrote was linking to one of your articles, Leia, about um not bothering dogs when they've got food.

Leah: 1:28:28

Oh, yes, leave your dog alone while he's eating.

Joy: 1:28:31

Yes, that was the last. I haven't written anything since, but I am uh it's percolating. Okay, we need to bring it to a boil.

Leah: 1:28:42

Yeah. All right, cool. So everyone check out Joy's website and um you can leave a comment if you're watching this on YouTube with a question, or just go straight to a consultation with Joy if you're ready to jump jump into this and transition your dog to raw. So I think that's it.

Joy: 1:29:05

Thank you so much, Joy. Thank you, Leia. It's been a pleasure.