Building the Best You

Helping Pets Live Longer with Dr. Judy Morgan

• Jeanne Collins • Season 3 • Episode 105

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Whether you're a lifelong pet owner or simply passionate about living a healthier life, this conversation with Dr. Judy Morgan offers a fascinating look at how nutrition, prevention, and holistic care can transform the health and longevity of our beloved animals. 

Dr. Morgan shares her journey from traditional veterinary medicine to becoming a leading advocate for integrative pet care, discussing everything from acupuncture and chiropractic treatments to fresh food nutrition, vaccines, environmental toxins, and proactive wellness. 

Host Jeanne Collins explores the surprising parallels between human and animal health while uncovering practical ways every pet owner can help their furry companions thrive naturally.

Dr. Morgan's book recommendation: Heaven

More about Dr. Judy Morgan:

Dr. Judy Morgan DVM, CVA, CVCP, CVFT has over 40-years-experience as an integrative veterinarian, acupuncturist, chiropractor, food therapist, best-selling author, international speaker, podcast host and owner of Dr. Judy Morgan’s Naturally Healthy Pets. Her goal is to change the lives of pets by educating and empowering pet parents worldwide in the use of natural healing therapies, and minimizing the use of chemicals, vaccinations, and poor-quality processed food.

• 2018 Woman of the Year in the Pet Industry
• 2019 Pet Age Woman of Influence
• 2019 IAOTP Veterinarian of the Year
• 2019 Veterinarian Hero Award Nominee
• 2021 IAOTP Empowered Woman of the Year
• 2022 Game Changer Award Winner and 
• 2023 People's Choice Award Winner
• 2024 IAOTP Holistic Veterinarian of the Decade
• 2024 Inc. Magazine Regionals: Mid-Atlantic #48 with growth of 201% over a Two-Year Period
• 2024 Inc 5000 America’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies with 991% Three Year Growth
• Holistic Pet Care Pioneer Merit for 2024-2025

https://drjudymorgan.com/

https://www.facebook.com/JudyMorganDVM
IG: @drjudymorgan
https://www.youtube.com/@DrJudyMorgan

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Introducing Dr. Judy Morgan

SPEAKER_03

Welcome to Building the Best You, a destination for you to reimagine what is possible in your life and then create it. Welcome to the show, everybody. I'm your host, Gene Collins, and today we are going to talk about animals and animal health. And this is a subject that I absolutely love. We have Dr. Judy Morgan on the show, and Judy has just the most incredible background. She's a retired veterinarian, acupuncturist chiropractor. She specializes in health and nutrition for pets. She has a podcast, guys. We're going to put that in the show notes. We're going to talk about that. And her passion in life is exposing people to how to get their pets to live a healthier, better life. And I love that subject. So, Dr. Morgan, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you very much. I'm very happy to be here.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, thank you. So give us a little bit of background. Were you always like, I must be a veterinarian, or how did that come about in your life?

From Traditional Veterinary Medicine to Holistic Healing

SPEAKER_01

I've been, I must be a veterinarian since I was about 12 years old. And I was so single-minded all through high school, all through undergrad. I was so anxious to become a veterinarian that I did my undergrad in three years. So taking 20 to 22 credits a semester, doing summer school, like just around the clock. I I must, I must, I must. And being from New Jersey at the time, we didn't have a vet school. And I think there were maybe 23 vet schools in the country at that time. And only seven would even take my application because I didn't live in the state where the school was. And so the chances of getting in were 13 to one. Wow. At that time. And there weren't very many women in the profession back then. So my class, I ended up at University of Illinois, and there were only about 25% women. Now it's about 95% women. I think we need to switch it back and get it a little more even again. But, you know, I was, I was just so excited. Um, and you know, then all through vet school, I just I could not wait to go out into practice. But I was trained uh University of Illinois, so middle of the Midwest in the early 80s, very, very, very traditional acupuncture, herbs, uh, chiropractic, none of that existed, none of that was talked about. And I think if we, if anybody did try to mention it, we would probably be given the, oh my gosh, like you're crazy. Um, when I started changing over about 10 years into practice, was when I got first introduced, first to chiropractic care in animals, then acupuncture, herbs, food therapy, all the different things that I explored. I had a business partner in uh my clinic at the time, and he was the majority partner. And after I'd been doing all this stuff for a few years, he said, you know, I don't understand the black magic that you're doing. It's voodoo. It doesn't make any sense to me. I don't want to be a part of this. And I said, okay. And so we parted ways on very good terms. His clinic, the main clinic, was only five miles up the road from my clinic. And so I bought out his share of the practice and it became mine. And then eventually I started a second one. And I never gave up on traditional medicine because I think it certainly has value. But uh, by having all these other tools in my toolbox, I could do a lot more and I could actually get some healing instead of just chronic medication, chronic inflammatory disease treatment, which is so unrewarding.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Uh, versus I can take an animal who comes to me with a laundry list of problems and a laundry list of medications, and within usually a pretty short period of time, we can reverse so much of that and we can get rid of all or most of the medications and really see healing take place. And it's it's in my mind, it really is miraculous. But in my mind, I've also come to understand that God gives us all the tools to keep our bodies healthy and to heal. We just have to use them. And unfortunately, traditional medicine doesn't use those things very often.

SPEAKER_03

It's true, and it doesn't matter if you're talking about humans or pets. Exactly. It almost sounds like functional medicine for animals. Is that a good way to describe it for people to understand the connection between that? Uh and I've never even knew that existed, to be honest. I would think there are probably very few people or a very small set of veterinarians in our country that are like that. Or is that growing?

SPEAKER_01

It is growing, not as fast as I would like it to. Uh, there's about 60,000 veterinarians in the country. And so the biggest veterinary conferences have 20,000 veterinarians will show up. The AHVMA, which is the Holistic Veterinary Medical Association, their annual conference gets about 300 people. So you can see there's a huge difference. Um, and not everybody can come, obviously, the their membership is larger than that, but it's still very, very small percentage. There are, um, so we have this wonderful doctor, Dr. Weishong She, who opened the Qi Institute, which is now the Qi University in Florida, to train veterinarians in acupuncture and Chinese herbs and food therapy. And since he started that right around 2000, he has trained about 40,000 veterinarians in acupuncture worldwide. Wow. But that's a huge shift. So there are a lot of traditional practices who might have that one practitioner who knows how to do acupuncture and knows that maybe we should be doing things a little bit differently. But for instance, my ex-partner's clinic, he had eight doctors. I had one or two. They were five miles up the road from us. And one of the doctors that worked for both clinics when we were together, when we split, she stayed with my clinic for a couple of years and then she went back to the bigger clinic. While she was with me, she was trained in chiropractic and acupuncture. So when she went back to that clinic, I thought, okay, well, I'm not going to get as many referrals from there. And, you know, well, maybe some of our people who like her are going to go back up the road with her. And that didn't happen. And so I kept getting new clients from that clinic. And so finally I started asking people, you do know that there is a doctor at that clinic who practices acupuncture and can do chiropractic, right? And they're like, really? There is? Like they had no idea. And the problem was seven doctors in the practice were very traditional, thought that stuff was voodoo and black magic. And they wouldn't tell their clients, like, hey, we, you know, this might help. And so nobody referred within their own practice. Instead, people, you know, by word of mouth, found out about my practice five miles down the road. And so, you know, I always said to people, well, they have somebody up there who could do this if you want to, you, you know, just leave and go back there. And I would say 99% of the time, people are like, no, we're here, we like you, we'll we'll just stay. And but so there are a lot of clinics like that where they have someone who can do these alternative therapies. But if the other people in the practice don't believe in it, they're not even going to tell you. Sure. So you have to ask. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03

And they're not going to advertise it if the people that are running the clinic don't think that it's valid, then you can have that skill, but you're not allowed to practice it there. Right. Yeah, it's really weird. Is which is so strange. It really is so strange.

SPEAKER_01

Well, if you're really stuck in the traditional medicine model, you know, there's there's a lot of blinders on and a lot of closed minds, unfortunately.

Acupuncture, Chiropractic, and Natural Therapies for Pets

SPEAKER_03

Which I would just think the progression in human medicine towards an acceptance of more alternative practices. Like I don't even consider a chiropractic an alternative medicine anymore in our country. I mean, like they're everywhere. They're all over the place. They're in strip malls, they're everywhere. So it's like chiropractic isn't, I would say to me, doesn't feel alternative at all for humanity.

SPEAKER_01

In the veterinary world, it absolutely isn't.

SPEAKER_03

Clearly it is. I've never even heard of it and wouldn't have even I wouldn't even, I would think about my dog and be like, I don't even know how you do, like, how on a dog are you doing like a spinal adjustment? I mean, they don't even sit still.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, they do when you adjust them, they love it. Um, but I've I've done humongous draft horses, I've done all kinds of weird species, I've done birds, I've done rabbits. Um, it's not about force. It's because people look at me, I'm I'm short, I'm like five foot three. Yeah. Uh so you know, people look at me and go, How are you going to adjust a horse? And it's about speed, it's not about power. And in the early days of chiropractic with horses, people would literally use sledgehammers, mallets, uh, two by fours, like crazy. There was one guy in Minnesota when we were first talking about doing spinal adjustments. He literally would hook chains up to each end of the horse and have two tractors and pull in each direction.

SPEAKER_03

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_01

That's dangerous. That is bad. That gives that gives the term chiropractic a really bad image and a bad reputation, and nobody would ever have chiropractic done on their animals, but that's not how it's done. Right. And the changes that we see with it, it it is miraculous. I did a lot of horsework for a while when I was doing a lot of chiropractic and acupuncture. And, you know, the animals, they can't, they can't lie, they can't make stuff up. You don't get the placebo effect. It's like he was limping before I did the adjustment and he's not limping now. Okay, that's real.

SPEAKER_03

That is wild. And acupuncture. So I think about acupuncture, and I think like they put the needles in and you have this period of zen that you're supposed to lie and let it happen. So is it the same with animals? And you have that period where the needles sit in them and somehow you're supposed to keep them calm.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, but 90% of them, you put the needles in and they fall asleep. Really? Yeah, they fall asleep. And so the first time I ever had acupuncture done on one of my animals is before I learned it. Uh, we had a pony who had something called moon blindness where they periodically go blind. They get an inflammation in their eyes. And so the pony had gone blind that morning. This is one of my daughter's show ponies. So I called a friend who did equine acupuncture, and I said, you know, I know you're an hour away. Can you please come down and do my pony? I'll pay you whatever you need. You know, you need lunch. What is it I gotta do to get you to come work on this pony? And so she did, and she came in my barn and we had the pony tied in the barn, and she couldn't see anything. And she put the needles in and the pony fell sound asleep. Like her head was hanging so low, she was literally like hanging on her lead lines. And I said, Well, what now? And she said, Well, just gonna stand here and wait, we'll chat. I'm like, okay, I don't know what's gonna happen. And about 15 minutes later, all of a sudden the pony's head popped up and her eyes blinked open and she went and did a full body shake and needles flew all over the barn. And I went, That's cool. She said, Yeah, they all do that. Okay. So, you know, the zen period was over. Yeah. And, you know, so in practice, we tend to set a timer, but with horses, I never did. It was like, they'll tell me. Yeah. Uh, and actually the other animals will too, but you know, we tend to be on our own schedule. So we're like, I'm setting a timer for 10 minutes. Right. Um, so I said, Well, that was really cool. Now what? She said, I'm done. And so I went to lead the pony out of the barn. And coming right out of the barn, there were a couple of puddles. And I'm leading the pony, not really telling her where to go. The pony gets to the puddle and walks around it. I'm like, oh my gosh, she can see. So we went from blind 15 minutes later, the pony can now see because she had acupuncture needles in her. And for me, it was that was one of those life-changing moments. So I was like, okay, I am going to school, I am learning this. That's the coolest thing I've ever seen in my life. And literally, I mean, with my chiropractic and my acupuncture, we saw those miracles all the time. Wow. It's like if I went, if I went five days without seeing a miracle, it was like, what am I doing wrong? So the animals are so great because of that.

SPEAKER_03

That is so wild. Is it more common in, let's say, horses, because you use horses as an example. Is it more common to see people practicing on larger animals like horses? Or it's just as common in dogs and cats and smaller.

SPEAKER_01

Probably more common because there are more small animal practitioners than large animal. Yeah. Uh, but I mean, we do it on all animals. I was in China studying acupuncture. It was a group of 50 veterinarians, and one veterinarian gave a talk on acupuncture points in llamas because he did a lot of llama and alpaca work. And another one gave a talk on acupuncture in dolphins because she was a marine biologist. So she's in the tank doing acupuncture on the dolphins. How cool is that? That is wild.

SPEAKER_03

Oh my goodness. I love that. And is there a common reason why someone should seek out acupuncture or chiropractic for their dogs?

Preventative Wellness and Helping Pets Live Longer

SPEAKER_01

Frankly, I think that we should be using them to keep our animals healthy. Like for me, I don't have back pain. I don't need to go to a chiropractor, but I do. I go for maintenance, which, by the way, disability insurance companies will not allow you to do that. I know. Very odd. I'm like, no, I'm using this for maintenance. Uh-uh. So they made me go two years without seeing a chiropractor. It's like, man, this really stinks because now I am going to have back problems. Thanks a lot. I know. Um so, really, for our animals, we should be starting when they're fairly young and just having routine adjustments. And if you get someone who um, if you have a veterinarian who understands Chinese medicine, it's all about keeping the body in balance. Sure. So here's an example I'll use me. I am a wood personality, which means I think up a lot of ideas, but I kind of have a problem with follow-through. Like I get 90% through, and then I'm like, I'm sick of this, I'm done. So, you know, somebody else has to either make me do it or pick up the pieces. I'm very easygoing until things are not going my way. And then I get so frustrated, and then that frustration comes out as angry, like really angry. So you're the the wood personalities are volcanoes. Right. Like like we simmer along, simmer along, simmer along until like somebody really ticks us off, and then you're dead to me. You take it off, that sort of thing. So I know that about myself, and I'm ruled by the liver and gallbladder, and that's where I'm gonna show issues. Well, the element that keeps the wood element in check is the metal element, which is lung and large intestine. And so now that I'm older, my metal element is really struggling because it has spent 67 years trying to keep my wood under so the metal is the axe that chops down the tree. Yeah. That axe has been working so hard for 67 years to keep this tree under control that I now struggle with weakness in the respiratory system because that's metal and my metal is worn out. So I know what foods I can eat, what herbs I can take to strengthen that element so it can keep that wood personality in check. And so we can do that same thing for our animals. Actually, on our website, we have a pet personality profile and we have a human personality profile. So you can figure out where their strengths and weaknesses or yours are, and then we tell you how to what what foods to use to strengthen or calm down whatever element needs whatever issue. So it's really about keeping things in balance. So I would love it when people would come in with with an apparently healthy animal and say, no, I just want to do maintenance. I just want to make sure that we keep them this way. Like tell me what their personality is, tell me where their struggles are gonna be so that I can be proactive. That's really how we should do this. But unfortunately for holistic practitioners, almost always we get to see the animals after they've already been to four different traditional practitioners, they've been to a bunch of specialists and they're frustrated, fed up, and out of money. And then they come to us and go fix it. And, you know, the great thing is we have more tools and they're different tools. So a lot of times we can fix it or we can at least make it better. Um, but it would be so much better if we could start earlier.

SPEAKER_03

Yes, right. Prevention.

SPEAKER_01

And that and that was the great thing with my practice. I did this for so it was almost 40 years that I was in practice and I was doing alternative medicine for 30 of that. So I was on a lot of my clients were on their second or third generation of pets. And so after they came to me with the first one, kind of at the end of the line, with, you know, can we solve this? Uh, then when they get a new one, it would be like, okay, I'm starting off on the right foot. And, you know, so then we saw great differences in health and longevity and health span, which is really what we want for everybody. Like my goal is to have dogs, no matter what size they are, living to 20 and cats living to 30.

SPEAKER_03

Wow.

SPEAKER_01

And we saw a lot of that in our practice.

SPEAKER_03

Okay, so how are you gonna make my precious little fur babies live to 20? Because, you know, I got big dudes, and I'm like, if they live past 12, that's like Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So most of our big dudes, we were getting 16-ish. Um, but again, most of those were dogs that came to me already with a lot of problems. So the fact that we could get them turned around and get to 16 was always just, you know, yay. Yeah. Uh so uh there's a lot of things. First of all, mental stimulation, exercise, outside time, um, pack time. And so that pack may be with other dogs, it may be with the people, uh, whoever your dog's pack is. And so

Reducing Environmental Toxins and Everyday Health Risks

SPEAKER_01

if you have a single dog and then you have a bunch of kids, that's the pack.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Uh, but they they need, you know, we need to keep them emotionally healthy. So, like for me, for the if your dog's a wood personality, if they're not getting exercise and they're not getting movement, oh, we're gonna have all kinds of problems. So that's number one, and that's the easiest one to fix. It's like just get them outside, play with them, take them for walks. You know, if you do dog parks, if you have a dog that's good with that, then do that. If you don't, like my dogs would never do well in a dog park. So, but just keep them stimulated mentally, physically, keep them moving. Second, we don't want to use harsh chemicals on our pets. And unfortunately, the traditional veterinary world is now all about feeding pesticides to our pets, either in a monthly pill or every three-month pill, or in a monthly injection, or now the 12-month injection, which is just beyond horrible. Why are we feeding pesticides to our pets? Would we ever do that to our children if your pediatrician said, here's this pesticide pill, your kid won't get bitten by a mosquito, or you know, it'll kill the mosquito after your child gets bitten? Like, what good does that do? Why would I do it? I like I would never poison my kids. So that includes my kids with four legs.

SPEAKER_03

So wait, can I ask you a question? When you say, I I just want to know, like, specifically, because not everybody will understand what you're talking about. When you say we shouldn't be giving them pesticides, are you referring to, you know, the three-month tick pill and the monthly flea pill and heartworm and all the things that we give to our pets?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So heartworm falls in a slightly different category, but what I'm talking about are basically the flea and tick pesticides. So either pills that you give or topical things that you put on them are now the injections that they're giving, they're all neurotoxins. Yeah. And they're only supposed to affect the bugs, the insects and the arachnids, which are the ticks. But we have a certain subset of dogs and cats where it crosses the blood-brain barrier and we don't know why, and it causes them to have seizures and tremors and not be able to walk correctly and death. And it's a huge number. There are hundreds of thousands of reports. Like the veterinarians will say, Oh, these are so safe. We've, you know, millions of doses have been sold. Yes, and hundreds of thousands of adverse events have been reported to FDA and the European Medical Association, and they tell us flat out that only 1% of adverse events are reported. So if you have 300,000 reports and that's only 1%, then how safe is this really? Right. Yeah. So I I just I don't use chemicals on my animals. And we along that line, chemical, cleaning chemicals, candles, Teflon coated pans, all those things that we use in our household, we're all being poisoned by all that stuff. You know, the fire retardants on all the furniture and the carpets and the flooring and, you know, the VOCs from the paints. It's toxic for us. Our pets superconcentrate those things. So when we look at studies of hair, urine, and stool samples and blood samples from dogs and cats and people living in the same household, the people will have a lot of those toxins in those samples. The dogs will multiply it by about 10 times, and the cats will multiply it by about 20 times. Cats are superconcentrators of all those chemicals. And we know that a lot of them cause cancer. The cancer rate in dogs right now is 1.68 out of every two. Wow.

SPEAKER_02

That's a lot scary.

SPEAKER_01

That's a lot of things. It is really scary. Yeah. So we're we're feeding them pesticides, and then they live in an environment full of chemicals. So we need to clean up our environment. We need to not use pesticides and herbicides on our yards where our dogs and cats are out there. Well, maybe you're cats, but uh I have outdoor cats. Yeah. I live on a farm. Um, but if your dog is out there on the yard that's just been sprayed with pesticides and herbicides for the weeds, they're sucking all that up into their system. And, you know, so we need to clean up our environment and we need to not be purposely poisoning them with all these things. And, you know, the line that you're fed is well, fleas carry tapeworms and they can carry, you know, other diseases. And ticks carry Lyme disease. Oh my gosh, we should all, you know, shudder. But they also carry about 12 other tick borne diseases. Most of those chemicals, the tick has to bite your pet in order to get the chemical to die. So we're not preventing our pets from being bitten. So if you have a dog with a flea allergy and you're Using the pills because you don't want them to get bitten by a flea, it doesn't work. They're still getting bitten by the fleas. Sure. Um, 95% of the flea intake life cycle is not spent on the animal. It's in the environment. It's in your house, it's in your yard, it's where you go for a walk. So if we focus on only the animal, we're only focusing on 5% of the life cycle we need. So if you have a flea infestation, you better be treating your house in your yard and not with chemicals. Right. Um, there's a million different ways you can do it. You can use essential oils, you can use herbs, you can use diatomaceous earth. There's a lot of things. And so if you go to our website, naturallyhealthypets.com, just type in fleas or type in ticks in the search bar and all the different things that you can use that you so I live in the south. Fleas are definitely an issue. So we layer things on. My dogs all wear a scalar wave tag. They also are fed a product that has neem and garlic and yarrow and all the things, V vitamins, all the things that don't taste good to fleas and ticks.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And then if we're going out for a walk in the high grass where we might have more of an issue, then I'm also gonna spray them with essential oil spray that's made specifically for pets. Be very careful with that. Yeah. And so I use multiple layers to keep them free from pests. And so there are natural ways that we can do that. And, you know, I get people that push back all the time. It's that's not gonna work, blah, blah, blah. Let me tell you, I've had people who live in Florida that have had horrible flea infestations in the past. And so we give them multiple layers to put on, and then every year I get the no more fleas this year, no more fleas this year. And, you know, so when you have people who live in flea country and they're like, yeah, I don't have a problem uh using all natural products, we know it can work. So from there, we'll go to vaccines. Overvaccination is a huge problem in our pets, just like it is

Vaccines, Individualized Care, and Empowered Pet Owners

SPEAKER_01

in children and humans in general. And so there's a certain subset of people. I just saw a study on this the other day. There's a certain subset of people that are gonna say yes to every vaccine that is recommended, whether it's human or animal. Sure. Probably not gonna change the minds on those people. There's a certain subset of people who are gonna say no to every vaccine, whether it's human or animal, probably not gonna change their minds on those. Yeah. And then there's a sliding scale in between. And so I have been accused of being an anti-vaxxer many times. I have never ever said I am 100% anti-vaccine, although the more I study them, the more I move toward that side of the scale. Um, and especially with, you know, the things that have happened in the last five years. I'm like, yeah, we maybe should move toward that side of the scale. But, you know, I went to vet school in the 19 early 80s, and that's when Parvo first raised its ugly head. And so when I was in vet school, we had isolation wards filled to the gills with dogs and puppies, with bleeding from both ends and dying. And it was tragic. Like, you know, we're trying to, it's viral, so we don't have good antivirals. And, you know, it was tragic. And so here we are as vet students, we're we're here because we want to save the world. We want to save all the animals, and we're like, they're dying right and left. And uh, so I it was either my junior or senior year, they started using a feline, so a cat parvovirus vaccine, which, you know, has a different effect in cats, um, but it was a related virus. So they said, well, we'll just use this because we have this, and it worked. And then they developed the canine parvovirus vaccine. And so when we opened my first clinic, it was a very low-income area. And so there was a lot of backyard breeding of Rottweilers and Dobermans and Labradors and Mastiffs, like all these, you know, big breeds. Sure. And, you know, they were all tied on chains outside and they didn't get any veterinary care. So we saw a lot of heartworm, we saw a lot of parvovirus. And so every spring, we're like, oh, here it comes. Every spring and summer, we've got litters of puppies coming in with parvovirus. And, you know, so we kind of started a campaign. Um, it was before I was as holistic as I am now, but we started a campaign and we said we need to reach these people. So I signed up to do the free rabies clinic in town, and we vaccinated 900 animals in like a three-hour period. So it's, you know, march them in, march them out, march them in. But it was a free rabies clinic. New Jersey does that. And they hire a veterinarian to do that. So every single person who came through with the dog, I'm like, okay, I can only give you the rabies vaccine today, but we've got a huge parvo problem in the area. We need to educate you, we need you to get in, get this dog in, we'll we'll give you a parvo vaccine. Yeah. And so we did a big campaign and we stopped seeing parvo. And, you know, because once we got the mamas vaccinated that were having all the puppies, then they're passing that immunity on to the babies. And so we were able to make a difference. So that's the kind of time when you can say, yeah, vaccine's good. This made a difference. We're we're not having puppies dying of parvo right and left. So I'm not anti-vaccine, but I'm anti-over-vaccine. And we now know that the core vaccines, distemper, hepatitis, parvo, and rabies, last five to seven years.

SPEAKER_03

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

And when I graduated, and actually, still a lot of the schools are still saying vaccinate every year, every year, every year, every year. Why are we vaccinating every year? We don't need to do that. There are some vaccines that only last a year. The other thing is that we've been taught for so long every pet gets every vaccine that we have. Right. And if you have a Maltese that lives in your high-rise apartment and uses a potty pad and never goes outside, that's got a really different exposure level from the guy who lives on a farm with a hunting dog that's out in the fields all the time. Yes. And for sure. So we really need to look at individualized medicine, individualized care. If you walk into a vet clinic with your new puppy and they go, here's what we do for all puppies, and they hand you the list. Yeah. No. Right. Like, let's have a conversation about what my puppy is going to do. Let's have a conversation about my cat. My barn cats have a very different lifestyle from my indoor cats. So what do we need to do for one versus the other? So it really is that individual conversation. And so one of my books, Raising Naturally Healthy Pets, the vaccine chapter is actually the longest chapter because it talks about every single vaccine for dogs and cats, how the disease is spread, how your pet might, you know, catch that. Would they need the vaccine? How long does the vaccine last? Is it a good vaccine or a highly reactive vaccine or a vaccine that really only has a 50% efficacy rate? So, you know, the whole point is being educated so that you can be empowered. When you walk into that appointment, you can say, Well, my pet has no exposure to that. I really don't need that. Uh, we are backed into a corner with a couple of things. Rabies is required every three years, pretty much everywhere. Everywhere. And for people who take their dogs to boarding, grooming, or daycare, that's a kind of a nightmare because a lot of those facilities require a laundry list of vaccines. And a lot of them don't recognize that the core vaccines last longer than a year. Right. And so for me, that's an education problem. We haven't educated the owners of those facilities. And a lot of times, like in New York City, the bureaucrats are the ones that are setting the laws for what boarding, grooming, and daycare have to require. And it's like, which one of them went to med school or med school or knows anything about vaccines? Maybe somebody needs to get in there and lobby and say, hey, you know, let me stand here in front of your meeting and tell you what they really need and how long these last and what a more realistic requirement would be. Um, so it's it's that's an education problem. Yeah. Um, and so then that brings us to food. I was saving food for last because it's a big thing.

SPEAKER_03

I was like, oh, I hope she gets to food. And if not, I'm asking about

Why Nutrition Is the Foundation of Pet Health

SPEAKER_03

food because that's I've been kind of working my way through the easy ones.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_03

I was like, I know we're gonna definitely talk about food here, and I can't wait.

SPEAKER_01

So, oh man. So I, you know, the great thing right now is we're hearing so much about ultra-processed food for people. Yes. And we don't really always equate that to ultra-processed food for pets. Right. So when you go to the grocery store, we're told, you know, if you're going to eat healthy, well, if you're if you're like me and you're gonna eat healthy, you're raising all of your own meat and produce. So I do it different from everybody else because I'm a little nuts. Right. Uh, but I've learned over the years, like, oh, I don't want to eat that stuff. That's good for you, though. That's great. There's a few things I can't grow, so um, I eat less of those. So when you go to the grocery store, you're told shop the perimeter. That's where the fresh stuff is, right? That's where the produce, the fresh meats, all that stuff. Where's the pet food? Yeah. It's in the middle. It's in the ultra-processed food aisles. Right. Because it's ultra-processed food that is at the grocery store. Yes. And when you go to the big box stores, it's also mostly ultra-processed food. So, where are we going to find less processed or minimally processed food? We're going to find it from all the smaller pet food companies. Luckily, in the past dozen years or so, there have been many that have hit the market because they're doing it in responses. Just like I saw this great article the other day that talked about, you know, how are these changes in vaccination status for children and ultra-processed food? Where did those changes come from? Where did it start from? It started from the mamas. The mamas who said, My kid was fine until he got those six vaccines yesterday, and now he can't talk and he's shaking all over, and I'm never going to see my normal child again. Yeah. And so millions of moms got together and said, there's something wrong. And it took those millions of moms to make the difference. Well, guess what? There's millions of pet owner moms and dads out there who are saying the same thing. Yeah. Like why does my pet have chronic ear infections? Why is my pet scratching and itching all the time? Why does my pet have chronic pancreatitis, chronic arthritis, chronic encephalitis? Now we're seeing so much of. Where's all that coming from? Coming from overvaccination, overuse of chemicals, and feeding ultra-processed food. So the ultra-processed food industry for pets is basically owned by Mars and Nestle Purina. Yeah. Two candy companies that also make pet food and human food ultra-processed. And where do the waste products that they have left over from their human food go to? Pets. So the pets get like the worst of the worst. And then, you know, they've done such a good job buying the veterinary industry and sponsoring their continuing education and chairs at their, you know, professorship chairs at their uh, you know, endowments, all that kind of stuff at the schools, uh, giving free or very low-priced ultra-processed food to the vet students who are starving and have huge debt and have to feed all their animals because we all have way too many. Yeah. Uh, you know, and so we're all like, oh, I'm so grateful to them. They gave me food, you know, the $50 bag food, they gave it to me for $10. Like, I'm so grateful. I'll certainly recommend them when I get into practice. I mean, that's what I did. Right. I didn't know any better. It's like, oh, well, that's the food we're supposed to recommend. Right. Uh my first book has a chapter in it called Pet Food Salesman, where I sold more prescription diets and, you know, the the ultra-processed food than probably anybody in my class. Like I was, I was the poster child. Yep. Um, because that's what we were taught was the best of the best. And now I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry to all those animals. Right. Uh, so we don't want them eating ultra-processed food. And guess what? There's no such thing as people food. Okay. The veterinarians will tell you, don't feed your dog any people food. Right. How horrible. You might unbalance their nutritionally balanced, ultra-processed food that's full of synthetic vitamins and minerals that we had to add back in because there was none left after we cooked it with high heat six times. So, you know, what we're seeing is the pet parents going, oh, oh. And so what I push for now is real food for our pets, not the waste products and leftovers, not the rendered meals. I want to see on a label chicken, chicken hearts, chicken livers, uh, cranberries, blueberries, broccoli, green beans. Like I want to see real names for real foods. Yes. And um, it can be a little bit difficult sometimes to balance the diet for our pets without sometimes having to resort to some sort of a vitamin. So zinc is very hard to get up to the levels that they need unless you want to feed oysters. And those are great. But you know, if you have a seafood allergy, you're probably not gonna do that. Um, you know, vitamin D, vitamins like the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K are harmed very easily in processing. So even if the diet starts out as it's balanced, like it, you know, everything looks like it's there by the time it goes through freeze drying or freezing or canning or you know, gently cooking, whatever, a lot of times we are destroying some of that stuff. Yeah. Um, so sometimes we have to add that back in. There are natural ways we can do it too. Like, you know, what are great vitamin D sources? Hey, salmon, egg yolks, these are great things. We can put them in the bowl. So for people who are feeding an ultra-processed food and have no idea where to start, the place that you start is just get some fresh food in the bowl. So if you're feeding kibble, uh, by the way, holistic and natural mean nothing on the labels, like just ignore those words. Interesting. Doesn't mean anything. Okay. Um, there's no definition for that. Like you can put that on the worst of the you can put it on shoe leather and say it's natural. Um naturally processed. Yeah, ignore those names. So, you know, I want to see real, real food names. And I'm my pets have been raw fed for 25 years. I've never had a problem. CDC, AVMA, AHA, and most veterinarians have signs in their offices and on their websites that say, don't be raw food to your pets. You'll all die of salmonella, E. coli, and listeria. Well, I've never had a problem at my house. We eat raw milk, we eat raw eggs. I've got I've got all those animals outside. So uh, you know, and it's never been a problem. Obviously, be careful on your sourcing on that. Makes a difference. So, you know, I'm a huge fan of raw feeding. It's not for everyone. Everybody wants convenience. That's really why we have dry kibble and we have cans that we can pop open because it's convenience. But guess what? These companies that make gently cooked and raw food that's complete and balanced for your dogs and cats, they put them in single serving size packages or a package that might last you a day or two that you can split up. Like I have four dogs and I buy my food in frozen one-pound packages. That's one meal. Yeah. So it's great. I thaw it out, I warm it up, I split it four ways. Yeah. Easy to do. Uh, our seven barn cats, they eat two pounds at a time. So it all goes on their little platter and everybody chows down. Um, so it to me, it's really no less convenient. If I'm traveling, I love to use freeze-dried food. Yeah. Freeze-dried food is made to be rehydrated. It's not exactly the same. We do lose a little bit of the nutrient density with the freeze-drying process, but it's not a high heat thing. It's it's definitely a huge improvement. And so you rehydrate it with bone broth or warm water. And so they're eating that high moisture diet that they're meant to eat. The dry food is much more of a problem for our cats. In order to make an extruded dry kibble, it has to have a starch to hold it together to go through the extrusion process. Uh, so most dry foods are going to be 40 to 60% carbohydrates. Our pets have zero requirement for carbohydrates, and cats are obligate carnivores. They're little metasauruses, little pelociraptors who are supposed to eat meat, and we're feeding them all wrong. And that's why we have obesity, diabetes, pancreatitis, urinary tract problems. And so, I mean, that was the great thing about my practice. People come in, they've got a cat, it's got chronic constipation problems, chronic urinary problems, it's obese, it wants to be diabetic. And it's like, hey, we're gonna switch their diet. We're gonna put them on a species appropriate diet, which for a cat is a lot of meat and a lot of moisture. Yeah, and poof, all the problems go away. And it's like, Doc, you're a miracle worker. No, I just actually fed them what God designed them to eat. You know, yay, yay, me. Yeah, you know, so um, you know, and so those are the kind of miracles we got to see, but only because we were doing things the way God intended them to be, which is this is what your dog should eat. And, you know, people who want to have a vegetarian cat, please trade your cat in for a hamster.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Vegetarian cats don't survive, right? They die from really awful things. And I don't care how many synthetic vitamins you add back in there, it is not the same. And so if I had a client who came to me with their vegetarian cat, I would invite them to go somewhere else because I was not going to be a part of losing that cat to something that was preventable. Right. So, and that may sound harsh, but it's like get over yourself. And I I have a lot of vegetarian clients who have spent a lot of time making meals with liver and hearts and you know, all the gross. Like I have one woman in one of my books, I had people write stories, and she wrote a story about how she had to actually go ask somebody in the grocery store about meat because she had never bought it. And she's like, What does liver look like? Where do I find it? Do you even have that? And she didn't want to touch it. So when she had to make the food for her dog, and she actually took cooking lessons to learn how to cook because she didn't know how to cook. And, you know, this is what people will do for their pets. And she's in her story, she said, I put on three plastic aprons and three layers of plastic gloves to handle the meat that I had to handle to make the food that my dog needed. Yep. But, you know, it she was willing to do what we needed to do to get the dog healthy, and it worked. So she was very thankful. And then she started cooking meals for her and her father. And it's like, okay, well, see, this was a good thing. I mean, you can still cook vegetarian meals, but this was a good thing.

SPEAKER_03

This is a good thing. It is, it is. I have to say, I've and to your point, I've been feeding my dogs raw food that I have delivered to my house frozen, um, for over 10 years. And my vet is completely against it. Um always is constantly telling me I am doing the wrong thing. It's terrible. And only once I had one talk hood cancer for five years, and only towards the end of his life did his doctor suggest I move from the not cooked raw food to a freeze-dried raw food version of it because of his health. And uh, so that was the only time. But we still stuck to the raw, but it was like, you know, freeze-dried for her. So towards the end, she was like, I because he had a lot of issues and he was sick, but he lived with cancer for five years on raw food. And everyone comes to my house and they're like, Your dogs have the most beautiful coat I have ever seen on a dog. And I was like, that's because they eat a raw food diet. And I would, I don't eat meat. So I mean, I would never touch any of the stuff other than like the carrots and the spinach and the, you know, the vegetables that are mixed into their food. But their food does come with like pieces of bone in it and you know, stuff, you know, and because the company who makes it, their belief is like, you know, if they were living in the wild, this is what they would be eating.

SPEAKER_01

Well, and they need that bone for calcium. Yes. So and that's one of the problems, one of the reasons veterinarians are so against any alternative diets, because they don't feel that they can be complete and balanced. Well, believe me, the companies that are making these gently cooked and raw foods, they understand the rules. And if it says on there that it is balanced to AFCO standards, then it's complete. And it's it's it's as complete as any of those ultra-processed diets are, which interestingly, there was a study done, I think it was in 2017 in Europe, and they tested like 170 different ultra-processed foods, canned and dry kibble. And of them, they all said complete and balanced on the label. And when they tested them, over 90% of the canned foods were not complete and balanced, were not up to standard, and over 60% of the dry foods were not up to standard. So this whole, these are the only ones that are complete and balanced. Well, there's a myth.

SPEAKER_03

Right. You have to do your homework. I think just like just like I have guests on here all the time, and we advocate, especially women, women's health, you have to be the CEO of your own health. You have to get educated, you have to advocate for yourself, you have to do the research, you have to read the labels, you have to read the studies about the things that you're going to put into your body. It is very similar to animals. Like read the label. What's the first ingredient on it? What's in the product that you're giving your right?

SPEAKER_01

Well, read the label and understand what it means. Right. Uh, so here's one of the uh games that they play. They'll change the names on things. So there's a very expensive hydrolyzed hypoallergenic diet, kibble, made for dogs. They may even make a cat one. But when they first came out with it, it's made by one of the big companies. When they first came out with it, the first ingredient was hydrolyzed poultry feathers. So I'm like, okay, the main ingredient in this is bird feathers, like chicken feathers. This is our protein source. Right. And this stuff at the time was $90 a bag, now it's like $150. And I was like, like, really? Are you you know what I so I would go live and ask people, are you are you really paying $90 a bag? And do you know that you're feeding your pet bird feathers? Like, they're getting those. For free. Yeah. So uh at an AFCO meeting a couple years later, the company stood up and said, We need a name and uh ingredient name change, and we want to change the hydrolyzed poultry feathers to hydrolyzed poultry protein isolate. Oh, geez. Oh my goodness. If you're if you're the pet owner and you're reading the ingredients, you're like, eh, bird protein. Okay. Yeah, right. Sounds okay. Yeah. Must be good. Yeah. So, you know, these are the games that they will play so that you don't understand what it is. So, you know, yes, be a label reader, but do you have any idea what it means? Do you like what is that? What is a meat byproduct? Well, byproducts are the parts that are not human edible. Yeah. Which, you know, hearts and livers are actually great, but it's also includes, you know, feet and beaks and heads and you know, which may not be all bad. I mean, when we process chickens, our dogs eat the feet and the heads. Yes. Uh, but if it says meat byproduct, which meat?

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_01

Is that bird, cow, pig, duck? I don't know. Yeah. Um, so never buy anything that is an unnamed meat. That's like the bottom of the barrel. Yeah.

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_03

And it's but it does make a difference, I have to say. I mean, I have found in my dogs like they don't have allergies. I mean, I've rescued almost all my animals, and they always come with, you know, skin issues and allergy issues and no fur and all these things. Ear infections. Oh, yeah, all the things and the limping and the all the things. And it is, I personally, as a case study of one, can say it is unbelievable how much better they can get by having a good diet of good food.

SPEAKER_01

It is we've we've probably brought in over a hundred rescue animals. Uh, good for you. Uh in our house. With we started out uh rescuing Cavalier King Charles and English toy spaniels. So we've had a bunch of those go through, which you know, now I've become kind of an expert in the breed just because I've had so many of them and they've all come with all of the spaniel problems. Yeah. Um, but now that we have our farm, we even rescue farm animals. So, you know, we rescue, I've always wanted a donkey since I was a little kid, and I finally got them when I was 62 years old. Good for you. Um, and you know, of course they came from the kill pen. So they came with you, I mean, they had lice, they had respiratory infections, they had overgrown feet. Oh my gosh, what a mess. And again, we're like, okay, well, what can we do to change this? Well, diet is a huge, you know, just giving them care for one thing. Yeah. But we got rid of the lice and the, you know, the parasite infestations all naturally, using herbs and powders. And we didn't have to resort to using chemicals to solve the issues. And now they're thriving. I mean, they have the best life in the world. They don't do a darn thing. Yeah. I have all these all these pasture ornaments. Um, but you know, they had a rough start. And I'm like, you know what? If you can live out your life here and just be loved, yay.

SPEAKER_03

Right. What's wrong with that? Good for you. All right, before we run out of time, I have a question. Grain free, I feel like just as in people, in animals, grain-free is like all the craze, it's all over everything. What's your take on grain? Because I will say I do know that if a food product for your pet is like, you know, grain is one of the first three ingredients in different words, like that's probably not that good for you. But what's your take on grains and grain-free?

SPEAKER_01

Our pets have no requirement for carbohydrates, so they have no requirement for grains. The grains that are used in

Grain-Free Diets, Natural Behaviors, and Self-Healing

SPEAKER_01

pet food are usually the moldy broken grains because they can't be used in the human food industry. And yes, we can fumigate those big tankers full of grains to get rid of the mold, but when the molds die, they release mold toxins, which are very toxic to our pets. And there have been probably the biggest recalls that we've had have been for mold toxins in pet food, mostly dry kibble, because that's where the most grain is used. Yeah. We can also get those toxins from peas and lentils. And the pets that eat the food that contains all of those grains and legumes have high glyphosate levels when we test them, versus the raw-fed pets who aren't eating all that stuff have very low glyphosate levels. Really interesting. I don't really want glyphosate in me or my pets either. Uh, the veterinarians have all gotten on this craze due to a really, really bad thing that happened in around 2018, where one veterinarian who happens to be sponsored by a lot of big pet food companies said, Oh, I think we're seeing more dilated cardiomyopathy in pets who eat grain-free foods. There must be a connection. And then wrote a letter to the editor, not a peer-reviewed article, not a study, wrote a letter to the editor that every veterinarian latched on to, like white owned rice, and said, Oh my gosh, we have to feed grains to our dogs so that they don't get dilated cardiomyopathy. Uh, wrong. But veteran, like my cardiologist that I take my dog to still tells me that. And I'm like, oh my gosh, it's been debunked. Even the FDA put on their website that they found no connection. Like, get over it already. No, you do not need to feed grains. I will not feed grains. My dogs don't eat grains, my cats don't eat grains. They're not gonna eat grains. I don't even need that many grains. Yeah. It's true. I don't need you. I don't either. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

No, it's you're right. It's so true. Okay, good. I just wanted to make sure we are a grain-free household for the most part, especially for our pets. And but it is, I mean, I know my vet has the same thing, like, oh, that's ridiculous. They and I'm like, I just don't know that they need that. Like, I don't know that we need to add something that isn't necessarily.

SPEAKER_01

When's the last time you saw your dog go out in a wheat field and eat grain? I know.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I know. Yeah. It's weird. Well, and the other weird thing is like my dogs like grass, but they eat grass like when their stomach hurts, is when they're eating grass. And it's like they do.

SPEAKER_01

Uh interestingly, cats, cats really like they need a fiber source in their diet. And so a lot of people, if you have indoor cats, if you grow the little trays of wheatgras for them when it's really young and tender and soft, oh man, they'll chow down on it. Yeah. But that's because they need that fiber to support their microbiome in their gut. Yeah. So sometimes when your dog is eating grass, he might be looking for part of that microbiome support. And sometimes they're eating the dirt with the grass. And so they're getting folvic acid and humic acid. And so a lot of times when they're doing that, yeah, maybe they have a GI upset, but maybe they're just self-medicating or they're trying to give us a hint. So one of my dogs who um came to me with everything under the sun wrong, and every parasite you can imagine. And so he was anemic, and he would go out and steal the really good potting soil in my plants. And he would just chow down on that stuff. And I'm like, oh, you need iron, you need fulvicin humic acid. Got it. Thanks for letting me know. Yeah. And, you know, he'd be fine for a while. And then every once in a while I'd see him out there chowing down. I'm like, uh, we gotta pick it up again. You need more. Okay. Um, so uh it's zoopharm necognosy, where it's basically allowing them to pick their own. So, you know, in horse fields, we should plant hedgerows with all kinds of herbs and plants. And actually, I have huge herb gardens. My dogs and cats are out there picking stuff all the time. They are self-medica, and it's really fun to watch them. They'll go to one and go, nope, go to the next one, taste it, go, nope, go to the next one, and then eat the whole plant. And I'm like, oh.

unknown

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02

So that's kind of fun. That is.

SPEAKER_03

That's really cool. I love that. All right, we're gonna before we run out of time, I do have two last questions for you. One, I want to make sure we covered everything that is important to cover. I mean, you and I could talk for hours, literally hours. There's so much to talk about. But I want to make sure, did I miss anything or is there any message that you want to make sure you convey that we haven't covered?

SPEAKER_01

I think we hit all the high points, you know, for people that are curious. And my website, naturallyhealthypets.com, has so much information, free downloads, blogs, videos. Um, we also have courses available, but they're, you know, it's the best thing that people could do is empower themselves through education. So just start reading.

SPEAKER_03

Yes. And your website is phenomenal. It's like a rabbit hole, people. You can just like you can just go

Book Recommendation: Heaven

SPEAKER_03

dig down a rabbit hole. And you can also go to YouTube and look you up on YouTube because you have your podcast on YouTube and you have just some really fascinating guests. And it's almost almost as you're watching it, you almost forget that you're talking about animals because so much of the subject matter is exactly what is so popular today for humans. But you're bringing that subject matter of holistic health and wellness to pets. And so absolutely go to YouTube, guys. It'll be in the show notes. You can definitely go check it out because you have just a wealth of information and knowledge on your website. So thank you for that. It's amazing what you're putting out for the public. Okay, I'd love to ask everybody to recommend a book. I love to share books. I think books change lives and educate and inform people. And I would love to know is there a book that you would like to recommend to the listeners and the watchers?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so uh in April, my husband and I did a spiritual retreat for a few days at the Billy Graham Center in North Carolina. And so we had a one-on-one with one of the leaders, and my husband was questioning a little bit. And so, and you know, I was I was a little surprised. I was like, oh my gosh, I didn't know we I I didn't know there was a question here. So, so that was a little bit shocking to me, but gave me something to focus on. But this was what they recommended, and it's a book called Heaven. Okay. And uh anyone who has any any question at all, read Heaven. And from there, we're on like book number 20 that it came out of. Yeah. Uh, you know, oh, now we have to go to this one and then this one and then this one. So uh it's it's just been um it's a journey, and I I'm really enjoying it.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, I love that. I've never heard of that book, but oh, that sounds like a really good one. I'm gonna have to pick that one up. I love it. We'll put it in the show notes for everybody,

Closing Thoughts

SPEAKER_03

also. Great. Dr. Morgan, thank you so much for your time and your intelligence and just your passion and commitment to educating people on something that honestly doesn't get enough air time. So I thank you so much for taking the time to be a guest and for everything that you're trying to do for our four-legged friends. So thank you. We will definitely tag you when this comes out on social media. We'll share it, we'll educate as many people as we can on our platform. So I thank you so much. I hope you have a beautiful weekend. Thank you, and thank you for the opportunity. Great, thank you. Thank you for joining us for this week's episode of Building the Best You. If you are ready to take a deeper dive into transforming your life, check out my Empowerment Fundamentals course on my website, houseofgermar.com. Thank you, and I will see you next week with another inspiring guest.