The Allergy Trap Most Dog Parents Fall Into

What if the real question isn’t “How do I make the symptoms stop?” but “Why is my dog reacting this way?”

In this episode, we take a deeper, holistic look at dog allergies and explore that it's not as simple as diagnosis = drugs/avoidance.

Instead of simply treating the symptoms, we’re asking a bigger question: What could be contributing to your dog’s allergic response in the first place?

🐾 In this episode, we explore:
• How the diagnosis of "allergies" is very misleading
• Environmental allergies in dogs, including pollen, grass, dust, and mold should be a red flag
• Why some dogs develop itchy skin, licking, scratching, or recurring ear problems
• The possible root causes for your dog's system to be in overdrive
• What if "Allergies" are not always permanent
• A holistic perspective on understanding your dog’s allergies
• Why managing symptoms may not address the bigger picture

If your dog is constantly scratching, licking their paws, rubbing their face, developing hot spots, or dealing with recurring skin or ear issues, this conversation may help you start asking better questions about how to start working your dog out of the problem.

👉🏼 RESOURCES 👈🏼

💭Ready to give your dog a gut reset and learn more about the holistic approach to animal care?  Get Wellspring's free intro guide!
https://stan.store/WellspringHAA/p/a-great-introduction-to-the-holistic-approach

🐕 Want to learn how to switch your dog onto the natural path?  Check out Wellspring's "Basics Bundle" and address the two most important lifestyle choices holistically!
https://stan.store/WellspringHAA/p/vitality-bundle

Don't miss future episodes!

Make sure to follow to catch more insight into the holistic approach for animals in an inviting, honest, and realistic way, right here on The Crunchy Carnivore Podcast.

Connect with Dr Levy & Melissa

Instagram |  wellspring_haa

YouTube | Wellspring Holistic Animal Academy - YouTube

Website | wellspringhaa.com

Email | wellspringhaa@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The amount of dogs that are showing up with allergy, allergies to things that are outside is crazy. Right. They're outside where the dogs are supposed to live. They're supposed to live outside. We've domesticated them. We bring them inside. Some dogs are they some dogs do live more outside on farms or whatever else. But it's like when you like stop and think about that for just a second. Right. They are genetically identical to wolves. Picture a wolf being allergic to pollen.

SPEAKER_02 0:29

Like what? What's the wolf gonna say? Like, let's not put the den here. It's too close to the poison ivy.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

It just it it really does not, it does not align. Welcome to another episode of the Country Carnivore Podcast. I'm Melissa Weidenhammer and I'm here with Dr. Jessica Levy, and we are gonna discuss uh probably one of the top problems that dogs battle today, which is allergies.

SPEAKER_03 1:06

Yes, indeed. So if you've ever had a dog with uh itchy feet or blisters that develop between the toes, ear infections, anal glands, skin rashes, uh crusting lesions on the skin, hair falling out, lick themselves, um uh any of these symptoms, even uh things like vomiting their food, uh you know, just dogs who are generally kind of smelly sometimes. Um, and what do all those dogs get diagnosed with? They all get diagnosed with allergies. Isn't that interesting? And so allergies imply, you know, it's like a simple word. And like how hard can it be to treat allergies? I mean, a lot of people have allergies and you know, they just take a pill every day and they're fine.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

So what what do we think of, I think, when we think of allergies or or a person or a dog being allergic to something. So, first, yes, it sounds very simple. It's like, oh, they're allergic. Yeah, they have an allergy. Like it's an allergy, like that's just super normal. Um, I think, I think, oh, oh, it's it's probably something they were born with, right? Like it's something in them that's kind of broken, like they're allergic to something because they were born with an allergy. That's another thing that I think of.

SPEAKER_03 2:27

Right, and it's probably something in the environment. So like ragweed or dust or you know, maybe chicken or something like that. But they're sensitive to like a specific thing. And then if you, you know, find out what that thing is.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Well, right, and if if it's something that you're that that you're born with and it's just kind of part of you that's broken, it's permanent. That's another thing I think that people think of when they think about allergies. You know, when we were just really kind of planning this episode, I was like, what to your average person or to like maybe me before I know what we know now, I would have thought this way about allergies. And so then another thing that goes along with that is that it's it's there's really nothing you can do to change it or fix it. Right. There's no you, you know, it's unaltered by lifestyle, it's just the way it is. And so then you just need the right drug, basically.

SPEAKER_03 3:25

Exactly, because the dog will always get an ear infection in the spring and you know, or the fall, or you know, both, or something like that. But it's just gonna be that way.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Right. And so then I mean it really and you think about this just as simply as with people. Oh, I get seasonal allergies, I'm gonna take, I don't know, Allegra. Yeah, I think is one of those antihistamine or some sort of, or or if you go a little natural, you're like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take quercetin, which can can be helpful, you know, sure. Uh and so it's it's this very like kind of inside of a box, oversimplified idea of what allergies is. I feel like, especially when it comes to dogs, people just get very black and white. Oh, my dog has allergies. And so we have to give them this drug for their allergies.

SPEAKER_03 4:16

Right. Well, because people are thinking about, you know, the way it's perceived in humans. I always think like, you know, how bad can it be? I mean, those people on TV, they just take a pill every day and they live clariton clear. Right, exactly. And then you can ride your horses through the tall weeds and you'll never sneeze. You're like golfing with your buddies, and the pollen isn't gonna bother you, and it just makes life better.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

So having allergies is like if you just do it and take the right drug. So what we've learned is it is a way more complex conversation than your dog is allergic to this thing and needs this drug. Right. It's just it's way more complex than that. And um, and so where we kind of want to start when when we're looking at this is what are allergies really? Because it's not as simple as I was born with this allergy, so I need to avoid the allergen or take this drug and then I can deal with my allergies. Right.

SPEAKER_03 5:20

You tell you you take the pill that fixes that little broken part of you. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah, but allergies are actually an indication that the immune system is not functioning normally. You should be able to, even as a human, you should be able to eat shellfish, uh, rub cats all over your face, bring home the beautiful bouquet of goldenrod, and not have your immune system go haywire.

SPEAKER_00 5:47

Well, and to double down on that, now let's think about dogs. And the amount of dogs that are showing up with allergies to things that are outside is crazy. Right. They're outside where the dogs are supposed to live. They're supposed to live outside. We have domesticated them, we bring them inside. Some dogs are they some dogs do live more outside on farms or whatever else. But it's like when you like stop and think about that for just a second. Right. They are genetically identical to wolves. Picture a wolf being allergic to pollen.

SPEAKER_02 6:21

Like, like what? What's the wolf gonna say? Like, let's not put the den here. It's too close to the poison ivy.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

It just it it really does not, it does not align. It does there, it does not make sense that all of these dogs are quote unquote allergic. Now we're not saying that dogs don't have issues with things or that we're not we're not saying that. But what we're saying is that what is causing that reaction is is not something that is just part of how they're built is broken.

SPEAKER_03 6:58

Right. Right. What's happening is uh there's damage to the immune system. And uh we have a theory about how this happens. Yep, it's it's a theory. And so, uh, because again, it's just it doesn't make sense that so many dogs would be allergic to things in the environment where they're designed to live. Um, and so in that case, what is happening in the immune system? So I the way that we've thought about it, we've given this a lot of thought, is that something revs up the immune system. So common things that do this might be um vaccines are probably going to be one of the main things that annoy and cause the immune system to kind of gear up for a fight, basically. Vaccines, processed food, processed food. When we say processed food is pro-inflammatory, that's what that means, is that it annoys your immune system. Your immune system sees that processed food time and time again and gets ready to go to battle with it. And then any other chemical that's going to disrupt the immune system in a similar way. So lawn chemicals, flea and tick chemicals, household chemicals, uh, new furniture, new carpet, things that off-gas, there's all sorts of unimaginable amounts of chemicals in the environment. And so all of those things are going to affect the dog system in a similar way. They cause the immune system to become aroused. So just in the same way that we know that after vaccination, uh antibodies will develop to the dog's own connective tissues, right? Tendons, ligaments, bones, and blood, in the same way. If at the same time you're repeatedly putting down that bowl of chicken-based dry food and their neighbor's spraying lawn chemicals, and whatever is blooming in the environment or whatever pollen is happening, that's how dogs become allergic to those things. The immune system is going haywire, making all sorts of antibodies to a variety of different things. And given these associations, that is basically how you build allergies into your dogs. So that is our current working theory. So conventional medicine, like they're aware that allergies have something to do with the immune system because the treatment is immunosuppression. So if the immune system is behaving badly in the conventional point of view, we can say, you know, bad immune system, quit doing that. And we can stop the immune system in its tracks. So that's where you get the modern array of allergy drugs that are used. So between cytopoint, apoquil, xenrilla, atopica, good old prednisone. So there are a number of ways to either at least stop the immune system from functioning and potentially, in the case of some of these more severe drugs like Apoquel and Zenrillia, basically dismantling it and causing it to completely dysfunction. So so then so then the next thing that people often think of is well, if my dog has allergies, can't we do a test? Let's find out what he's allergic to. And then we can either avoid it or I can go out and cut down all the goldenrod or whatever. Um, or you know, if it's cottonwood and I have a cottonwood tree in my yard, I can cut that thing down. Um and yet the testing, testing is not great. Allergy testing is extremely difficult. It's hard to get good results. I don't think that there's a good way to allergy test for foods or or even a lot of the environmental stuff, although there are tests out there, and there's many, many of them that would purport to do just that. I don't think that any of them give really good, reliable results between the skin tests, the blood test, the saliva test, the hair tests. I think all of these are unreliable, and the vast majority of test results that I've seen are not the here's the thing, you know, don't ever feed them eggs again, and everything will be great. Yeah, except the testing does not usually give neat, concise results like that. And I've seen some dogs where they had all the symptoms, they were itchy, they licked themselves, they licked their butts, they had bad ears, and yet upon testing, they didn't have any allergies. And so then what does that mean? It means the tests are unreliable, and I often think that they are not worth the money.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

There is one that seems to be, if you were gonna do it, uh, we would recommend. And I think is it done? It's fun, Dr. Dodds has Dr. Dodds. Oh, the Nutriscan test? Yes. I mean, that one's not um that one's actually you know decent, but I think I think that one's only for food. Yep, that one is only for food. It's a saliva test. Yep. And so, but what I think what and this is just with our experience and again, uh kind of our understanding. If if the test is gives you some somewhat accurate results, okay, so it it does make sense that chicken would be kind of a problem because it's so overused, the quality is low. We've actually done a whole little video about that if you check out our YouTube channel. Um, so you know, having a sensitivity to chicken make makes sense, but what we have really picked up on is that these, if it's accurate, these are typically temporary sensitivities because it is something that has been overintroduced to the system. And so when you eat the same food every day, like a lot of dogs do, because in conventional veterinary medicine, you're told you never switch the food. Right. Um, and there is even if the the food that you're feeding isn't a chicken recipe dry food, a lot of times chicken is snuck in there. And so it's it makes sense that if these dogs are getting it every day, every day, every day, that they would create kind of a sensitivity to this. But what we've seen is that if you kind of make the switch uh with a gut reset to whole food and raw diet, and you just take a break from whatever that heightened sensitivity is for a time, down the road, after they've had a variety of proteins introduced, you can try that protein again and you try it for a couple of days and then give it at least a week before you're gonna introduce it again and see if if anything happens. Right. Um, but the point of this is this idea that allergies are permanent. My dog will always be allergic or sensitive to this thing, we believe is actually not true.

SPEAKER_03 14:16

Right. You don't know until you test it in the future. Um, however, it is true that any kind of allergy test is a snapshot. So it's it's showing you right here, right now, what is the immune system uh perhaps manufacturing antibodies against? And that has no bearing really on the future. In fact, a lot of people do these kinds of tests and then they change. They change what they're feeding, they change what they're exposing the dogs to. And then you would expect that if you make those changes, then six months, a year, whatever later, you should get different results if you were to redo the test, which hardly anybody ever does, because it is kind of taken as like set in stone. Oh, he's allergic to these things, therefore I can never. But the whole point about holistic treatment is modifying the immune system so that it regains its normal function and so that you're not necessarily allergic or reactive to XYZ for the rest of their lives.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

So let's talk about treatment next, because this is um this is something that we really want to bring some clarity to. Um because we've we've heard from countless patients for you, clients for me, where they will do whatever is prescribed or recommended from the conventional approach and it does not help. Or if it does help, it's for a period of time, and then you see it come back, or you see something else come back in its place. So maybe, you know, they were super itchy, and then you give whatever's prescribed, and so then the itching subsides, but then you know, they're intensively, you know, licking and get chronic ear infections three months later, right? Like maybe it's something a little bit different. Please, please, please understand the drugs that are prescribed for allergies suppress the immune system. The analogy that we like to use is basically imagine your car and your dash in your car has all sorts of warning lights in case something is wrong in the mechanics of the car. What these drugs are doing is just shutting off the light. They're not fixing any of the problem, it's just dampering down the immune system to stop showing you that there's a problem. Right. And so, in suppressing the immune system to not do what it was originally doing, you mess more with the immune system and you weaken the immune system. And so, even if that's why it works so quickly, you give ApoQuil, for example, and it says within four hours, you're gonna start to see a reduction in itching. Who doesn't want that? My dog is itching and licking like crazy. I want it to stop. They're suffering. You're telling me I give this thing and it stops, and for and then it does, and then it works. I'm gonna keep giving that thing. But inevitably, what I hear, and I'm sure you do too, is that it's temporary. And eventually you're going to see other problems and more problems and a cascade of other issues because not only have you not addressed the original thing, you have now weakened the immune system to a point where it's going to start having other sensitivities, other heightened reactions to things, other they're weaker, there's it's easier for them to get sick. All of this stuff, that is what these drugs do. So does it make the symptom go away for a little while? Right. Right. Or even if it's for a longer period of time, which I don't usually hear, I usually hear it's a few months, and then they're kind of like back where they started.

SPEAKER_03 18:13

Right. And these side effects are significant. So uh for Apoquel, for example, one of the things it says is that it doesn't cause cancer, but it may make existing cancers worse. And what that means is, well, we didn't give your dog, your dog already had cancer, you just didn't know it. And now that the drug is suppressed and damaged the immune system, now you know it. Uh, but you know, that's a big problem that we will discuss in another video.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

So you've kind of got these drugs that are given or injections that are given, and this is what they do, and then you've got like the medicated shampoos and the mouses and the you know, the the medicated creams which all the all the topical treatments.

SPEAKER_03 18:56

Um I had a client in recently with a German shepherd who was told to bathe her dog three times a week, and she whispered to me, I'm I'm not, I'm only doing it once a week. I'm like, I can't believe you're bathing this dog at all. Who tells somebody with a German shepherd to bathe it three times a week? That seems like, you know, here's your torture session. Oh my goodness. And so um, those things are sometimes useful as management tools, but they're not going to the underlying problem, which of course is in the immune system, which is in the microbiome. So everything comes around to the intestinal tract, the gut lining uh stability. And so if bathing your allergic dog makes it less itchy, then absolutely bathe it unless it's a chore you absolutely cannot face. Um, but that's not going to fix the problem.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

Right. And the other thing to keep in mind too, um, again, I repeatedly heard this from clients that your dog will have, you know, skin issues, hot spots, whatever, and they're they're using these medicated shampoos or these these medicated ointments or whatever it is, and it seems to really aggravate whatever it is, it doesn't actually help anything. And I and and so um to use a more gentle natural product, if you are gonna do uh the cleaning for management is always gonna be what we would recommend because I just I have yet to ever experience it actually helping a dog.

SPEAKER_03 20:31

Yeah, I mean, because I'm kind of a stalwart about holistic things and doing things more naturally, so I have actually used the natural stuff that we recommend, and you have too. And it works.

SPEAKER_00 20:42

Yeah, yep. And we have videos on our YouTube channel about that too. Yeah. If you want to kind of see different ways to kind of gently manage the skin. Um, but just what we really wanted to, the message we're really trying to convey with this particular episode is to break this misunderstanding of using the term allergies for so many different problems as an umbrella term, as if there is just a one and done solution in a drug that's gonna fix this problem. It is it is different for every single dog. It comes from a different place. And so we don't want to ask, how do I stop the itching? We wanna ask, why is my dog having a reaction in the first place? Why? Right. Why is it having a reaction? It's not diagnosis equals drug. This is we have some investigating to do. There's some investigative work, you've got to figure out where this is coming from. And if if you try and just medicate this problem, um you're gonna kind of just it's gonna be very frustrating and very expensive. Right. Right. And that's why at the same time.

SPEAKER_03 22:02

While you're trying to resuscitate your dog's immune system, you have to stop putting toxins into the system. And so you cannot continue to use the flea and tick chemical or the toxic lawn care company. You have to stop doing those things because you're just stopping any progress that you might be making. And granted, these are difficult things to treat, especially when you're thinking about treating them with more permanence in sight. We want to get more out of this than help the dog out today or this week. We want their immune system to basically rebuild itself so that they can stop having these problems. And so it is more of a lifestyle change. That's why we kind of harp on about the diet and supplements and stuff like that, because that is actually how this work is done.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

So I think we we have to also address a huge part of the prescriptions for dogs with allergies in the prescription diets. Like we have to talk about that. Because even if you're listening to this episode and you're like, oh my gosh, I didn't know that's what Apaquil did. Uh I'm gonna stop. I wanna figure out something else to do, but you have them on a prescription kibble. We need to talk about that because holy cow. We looked up labels on several of the most popular, right? There's like the three big names of pet food that have this the most recommended prescription diets by veterinarians. Yeah. These things are so expensive. I was look, we were looking at it price per pound and we're like, you just feed raw. Oh my gosh. Oh, yeah. But what was the most appalling was when we read the ingredients. I could not believe if you've ever looked at the ingredients. If you feed your dog a prescription, flip the bag over. Yeah, read through the ingredients. There were several that we looked at that I'm like, where's the food? I know.

SPEAKER_03 24:06

I remember there's no food in here. Yeah, Melissa said, how did dogs survive eating this? And that is a good question. It is unclear. Yeah. We do not know how they survive eating these foods.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

I mean, it was like a lot of times it was like brown rice, uh corn. Um, if you were lucky, there was soy protein as a protein source.

SPEAKER_03 24:31

Some of these foods have no protein.

SPEAKER_00 24:33

Some have none. And I mean, you want to think about like when you when you really start to look at what fosters a healthy immune system, every single part, and their carnivores. Where's the food? It was all grain-based, broken down, vegetable oil, this, chicken fat. Sometimes we saw chicken fat or chicken flavor, but it was like most of the time, it was like it was like non-food things that a dog can't even use, even if it sort of is food, with a bunch of synthetic vitamins and and minerals. And I'm just like, I don't know. And you're I mean, it was a 20 a 24, 28 pound bag for $143, and there was no food in the ingredients. And I was just like, I so this is crazy to me. The per I'm being very, I'm being very transparent with y'all today. Um, that was crazy to me. I could not believe what I read.

SPEAKER_03 25:30

And uh many years ago, when I wanted to know what was in pet food, I gathered some bags of kibble around me and sat in front of my computer and I just googled every single one to see what it was and where it came from. Uh, and so that was basically how I learned. That was like my intro to education about pet food. Um, and I know that reading the ingredients is uncomfortable. A lot of chemicals we can't pronounce. Um I just think about it on the basis of this is not human-grade food. So if it says brown rice, it's not brown rice that you or I would eat. It is brown rice that is not good enough for humans. And think about all the things they make out of brown rice, right? Rice flour, rice milk, rice gluten, rice whatever. Uh, if you can't use it for that, then it's going to be fed to livestock. So all the ingredients that are in pet foods are after we've fed livestock. This is stuff that cannot be fed to livestock for one reason or another, and it is funneled into the pet food chain.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

And so not only, you know, is the truth of the quality of the ingredients kind of appalling, because it's like you you do think a cup of brown rice. Like you think what you and I would eat is brown rice. But it's like, even if it was that, dogs are not supposed to eat that. And so to have that as the first ingredient on this bag of food is just it how how I don't know how they survive.

SPEAKER_03 27:00

I don't. And for the final exam, remember that my favorite ingredient is powdered cellulose.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

When you see powdered cellulose, it's basically sawdust. It is sawdust.

SPEAKER_03 27:10

Yeah, that's sawdust. Um, so so there's the the big challenge. So uh in so in short form, then how do you climb your way out of this? Number one is gonna be diet. Yep. You have to give the body the nutrients that it needs in order to rebuild the immune system. Uh, this requires a lot of gut integrity on the dog owner's part because you are likely gonna have to put up with some symptoms, and you have to really grit your teeth and be determined and decide this is how I want to treat my dog's issues, and I'm not gonna cave to the easy road, the drugs, the you know, whatever else it might be, having to bathe my dog three times a week.

SPEAKER_00 27:55

So you have to think about the fact that, you know, it's taken a while and a lot of a lot of things to put your dog in a compromised position. And so they do have kind of this hole that you have to help dig them out of. Do not be surprised that they're gonna exhibit some symptoms as you're going through this. Maybe it's loose stool, maybe it's, you know, a little bit of vomiting, maybe like their body is trying to pick up the pieces and get better and and through it, and a lot of toxins have been put in at this point too. And their body's job is to get rid of the things that are waste or that are harmful. That is detoxification, and that happens through all of the different natural holes in the body. And so when you think about what are the holes in the body, the ears, the nose, the mouth, the butt-like that's where toxins are gonna come out. It's probably not gonna look real pretty as they're going through it, but that's a good thing. Their body is getting rid of these things. Right.

SPEAKER_03 28:56

And that's where it's helpful to have somebody to work with, somebody to advise you so that when you're thinking, oh my gosh, now why is this thing happening? Right, so that they can explain it to you and walk you through it. Uh, out of all the drugs that are used for allergies, I probably have four patients, I believe, who are on prednisone. Even though it is old school, it is much safer than the newer immunosuppressive drugs. So the immunosuppressive drugs such as Apoquel, Atopica, et cetera, are more popular because they are A, way more expensive. B, uh, there's no overt side effects. So you don't see anything happening. You give your dog the pill, and all you can tell is that, oh, they're less itchy. Okay. Whereas prednisone has known side effects. Prednisone is a much easier drug to wean a dog off of while you're making your underlying corrections. Because it is a it's a known quantity, the side effects are very overt, um, and it's a lot easier to predict what will happen as you wean them off the drug. Typically, the immune system is like, oh, hello, I'm back, which is what you want to have happen. Uh, whereas with these other drugs, it's much more challenging to deal with dogs who are on those medications.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

So, Dr. Levy, I'm gonna, because I could I can imagine there are a lot of people that'll listen to this episode that maybe have their dogs on one of these drugs and they're like, oh my gosh, I gotta quit giving them this. But but we have to be careful about how we do that because it has been suppressing the immune system, right? Right. So, what would be kind of maybe a good I obviously they should have they should have an ally in their own holistic veterinarian and to walk them through this because it can be very challenging. Um, it you do need to have somebody that can encourage you or give you some some sense when you're dealing with something, because it can be hard. Um, but just kind of um as an idea, if if you're trying to like wean your dog off of something like Apiquil, is there is there kind of a a gate, like a recommendation, or I mean I know every dog is an individual, but what would you say about that? Um as far as how to do it, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:10

Like you've got to be careful. Yeah, I tend to kind of step them down by 25% of the dose. Um, so if it's like one tablet, then you reduce by quarter tablet uh every seven to ten days. But sometimes, not with every patient, sometimes I will put my supports in place. So go ahead and switch the diet, go ahead and add some supplements before you start to wean off the drug. Because most of us are not fast enough to whip the drug out of the way and slide those supplements in. It's okay to have a little bit of overlap where you're putting your supports in place before you completely remove the drug. Obviously, if the dog is having a reaction to the drug itself, you may need to stop it more precipitously. And that's just the way it is.

SPEAKER_00 31:58

So to kind of bring this to a close, I just, you know, we don't we want everybody to realize that just because there are symptoms present that fall under the umbrella of allergies does not mean they have allergies. There could be something very different going on under the surface, but it's you kind of have to start uh at ground zero and work from the gut out and and start figuring out kind of what's going on. But when you really stop and think about, hey, these dogs were were made to live outside. They were made to they're they're opportunistic scavengers. They should be able to like they're they're not that you want to give them this, but I mean they'll be eat out of a garbage can, right? Like, yep. So so the idea that all of these dogs quote unquote have allergies, that uh they need to be on these prescription drugs that suppress the immune system. Uh, you're gonna do medicated shampoos and things like that, which are gonna aggravate the skin probably more than anything else. You're disrupting the skin microbiome, which is gonna bring health and all of that stuff. Then you put them on something like a prescription kibble that is really void of nutrition. What is in there their body can't use, you put them in an even further inflamed state. It's just you're you're you're on a hamster wheel that you just don't want to be on. And so we're trying to put this umbrella term in its place and and really break it apart and help people realize there's much more to this. And we always want to ask, why is this happening? Not just how do I get this to stop?

SPEAKER_03 33:32

Right. And that's that's a really good point. So basically, when your vet says to you, oh, fluffy just has allergies, prick your ears up. That's an important message telling you that your dog's immune system is in trouble. Stop aggravating it and start rebuilding it.

SPEAKER_00 33:48

So, where would we tell you to start? Where would we tell you to start if you if you are are just kind of in this on this hamster wheel? What would we tell you to do? Um, first thing we're gonna tell you to do is gut reset and get them on fresh food, give them some real nutrition. Um, obviously get yourself a good holistic vet. Dr. Levy does virtual appointments. Um, I'm pretty well versed in this. I do consultations with people, but but I'm not a vet, so I'm not trying to pretend to be a vet. Um, but get yourself somebody that can walk alongside you in this process, but really resetting that gut, giving them support there and getting them on a good variety of fresh food is like step number one. And then your holistic vet can kind of hold your hand to a degree, walk you through um the rest of the process. You know, there might be specific supplements. Dr. Levy uses a lot of homeopathic remedies to support her patients. Um, there's a lot of ways that you can do in and around that. We have a free guide that has the gut reset protocol in it, and it's a great transition from kibble to raw process. Um, it tells you exactly what supplements to use, how to do it. That's in our free holistic um intro guide. I'll put that in the description box below. And then, of course, we love raw feeding here. So we wanted to make a resource that was super easy for people to follow and understand the foundations of feeding raw. It's a really great place to start that also has the gut reset protocol in there. Um, so that would be like step number one, start giving your dog real resources to be able to rebuild this. Um, and then, you know, if you're really panicking, you're like, I want to get this dog off my drug off this drug, um, again, maybe get some of those resources in place as you very slowly um start to wean off. But you really should have a holistic practitioner helping you with this.

SPEAKER_03 35:39

Um and the bottom line is that more often than not, your dog's immune system can be salvaged, it can be pulled back out of the garbage, and it can be rehabilitated, and you can end up with a more or less functioning immune system. Uh, I know that in the conventional world, because I've had clients who have asked their regular vets, is there anything that could be done to help my dog's immune system? Or is there anything that could be done to heal them so that they don't have to be on this medication? And the answer is uniformly no. But you're asking people who don't know how to rebuild the immune system. Um, and then the other thing that I would like to say is that it's very easy to go online and you can Google top 10 natural things to do for your dog with allergies, and it's always the same list: nettles and probiotics and colostrum and quercetin, and some of those are potentially halfway decent management tools, but they will not fix the problem. And so, if you are trying to use supplements or use homeopathic remedies while you are still feeding a processed food diet and while you are still using fleontec chemicals, because you're terrified of your dog getting Lyme disease, you are not gonna have a lot of success. And that's why we talk about food so much, because it will support everything else that you do, and it's the most important piece. So, probably about half the dogs who are diagnosed with allergies who are put on a very correct, balanced, raw diet, will probably normalize at that point. And those people don't have to do anything additional.

SPEAKER_00 37:20

We've hope we hope this has been um informative and maybe um a little bit enlightening if if you've been struggling um with symptoms with your dog, uh, and this gives you some maybe clarity and perspective that you didn't have before. Um, we're always here to try and bring um, you know, kind of truth to light. We want to find root causes for things. We want dogs to heal, we want them to be vitally healthy, we want to restore health in dogs that are compromised. We want to help the owners that have and love them and are trying to do all of these, you know, things to take care of them. Um, you know, you guys are why we do this. We are trying to bring value. We want to save you money. Um, and so uh hopefully this kind of puts you on a different trajectory if you weren't on this before and gives you some reasons why. And this is kind of one of the main, you know, things that we talk about is is always working from the inside out. That's why we talk about what we talk about, is we're trying to give people real, real solutions that get you true healing in your dog. Join us next time on the Crunchy Carnivore podcast. See you then. Thank you so much for joining us. Our goal is always to encourage others to seek out the holistic approach by way of education and empowerment. You can check out our online resources at wellspringha.com. You can follow us on our YouTube channel, Wellspring Holistic Animal Academy, and you can also find us on Instagram at wellspring underscore ha. We hope that this has been helpful and that you continue with us on your journey to holistic health for your pets. As always, we're here to be unapologetically all natural.