298. Dr. Judy Morgan: What Kibble Does to Your Dog's Liver

“Cats are obligate carnivores. They're little meat-eating dinosaurs. Like, think velociraptors. I'm going for the meat. Mice, rats, mice, rats, rabbits, birds. But what do we feed them? We feed them dry kibble that is over 50% carbohydrates. Wow. They have zero requirement for carbohydrates in their diet. They need a little bit of fiber. That's it. So we are feeding them completely wrong.”

“Instead, when we look at ultra-processed dry kibble, the maximum amount of meat you can put in an extruded product is 30%. Wow. So there's no way the protein content could even exceed 30%.”

“is what? Kibble. Because it's ultra-processed food. It's sort of like taking your pet to McDonald's and expecting to get good health when that's and part of the fallacy and myth of the veterinary push for the ultra-processed food, because that's what they all push.”

“That's a great upcycled product for my dogs who need it for their heart health. I'm in. So, but they also use the really awful ingredients in that extruded kibble. Like I said, it's very little meat. It's what's the cheapest ingredients we can put in there and get.”

“You don't want to feed that high protein kibble. Right. Oh, my lord. So, yeah, we need to change what we're doing. So my animals, sometimes I make my own food, but I'm a little busy and I travel a lot.”

“Like it's a big process for the pet food companies. So for big kibble, ultra-processed food, the law states that animals who have died otherwise than by slaughter.”

“Yeah, all those. Those cause liver failure in animals. And one of the largest recalls ever was for mold toxins in dry kibble. Wow. So you can fumigate it all you want and kill the mold, but nothing kills the mold toxins.”

“Right. So, you know, if I had an animal come in the clinic and I did lab work and the liver enzymes are high, I'm like, well, which kibble are you feeding? Because you know that's where it's coming from most of the time. So back to my animals. No, they don't eat kibble.”

“And that's so widely known, and that's an inexpensive source. And so they grind it up and it becomes kibble. What else is in there? Like, what else is it ground up animals? Is it ground up vegetables?”

“Is it, I know seed oils and other highly processed ingredients are in there? So the thing with kibble, it goes through the extrusion process. So think of, you know, cereal, breakfast cereal. That's the extrusion process that the Kellogg's invented. And then, hey, we can make pet food out of that.”

“Oh, wow. So they were putting it in ingredients that were used to make pet food, which, you know, dried kibble. Actually, it was even in some canned foods. And a lot of animals died before they figured out what the problem was.”

“And I'm so thankful because it is so much better than ultra-processed kibble, but they still have a price point that they need to make.”

“kibble. And they truly are addicted. And the problem with cats is you cannot starve them into feeding them the correct thing because cats will go into liver failure in about three days if they don't eat.”

“No, he'll just die. Cats are a big problem. It took so what do you do? Transition very slowly. And so for anybody who has a cat that is kibble addicted, you could try offering them canned food. Sometimes they'll lick the juice and then walk away.”

“It's still a complete diet. And so I would put their kibble in their bowl and then sprinkle some of the freeze-dried over it. And kind of not, and don't put a ton in. Like at the very beginning, like crumble a piece. And then, you know, a couple days later, it's a couple pieces.”

“I'm a huge fan of CBD for dogs. And they all react differently. Some of them, it calms them right down. Others, like when our cleaning lady comes every Tuesday, Gilly and Forrest lose their minds.”

“We have homeopathics. There's one called travel anxiety. Pretty easy to know what that one's for. We use melatonin. We use CBD. We have herbal tinctures. So, and it depends on the animal. Sometimes you have to layer on a lot of different things.”

“Wow, it's great. So, you know, it's just kind of knowing what is accepted. Like CBD is not accepted in all circles. So is that something they can test for? I don't know if they're testing for it or not. It's really interesting. I'm traveling around the world speaking this year, and in some countries, CBD is not allowed.”

“And I was talking to one of the people on your staff who said, I just moved into a new apartment and they required a rabies vaccine for my indoor cat who never goes outside. And so she had to go get a vaccine for her cat. Wow. So we get stuck. If you want to take your dog or cat to the groomer, if you want to fly on a plane with them,”

“Probably from the same companies. Merck. So rabies for dogs and cats, influenza for dogs, which I never gave the regular influenza vaccine. So why would we go here? But boarding, grooming, daycare.”

“they knock on doors. And of course, your dog barks at the door and they're like, oh, let me see the license for your dog. You don't have a license? Okay. Then you get 10 days to get your rabies vaccine and your license. Wow. Yeah. So is there some big pandemic of rabies or, or is this like the scare tactic that's a scare tactic?”

“And the guidance for this is on your website where they can get these different concepts. Yeah, it's on the website. And I didn't bring that book with me, but I have a book that's Yin and Yang Nutrition for Dogs. And it's 62 recipes. There's the original one, and now there's the 2.0 version, but I would do the 2.0.”

“Like when you look at my recipes in the yin and yang nutrition book, they're formulated without any grains. And then at the bottom, it'll say, if you want to add grains, this is the grain that would be appropriate based on the constitution or whatever it is that we're working on.”

“So that's kind of a fun book. And then I said, well, I'm going to write a serious book. So I wrote my first yin and yang nutrition for dogs based on Chinese medicine food therapy. And then I said, you know, I need to write something that is more for somebody just entering the holistic space and not necessarily into Chinese medicine.”

“So tell me about the books that are on the table right here. Keeping your pets naturally healthy, raising naturally healthy pets. So I wrote my first book, which is Needles to Natural, back in 2014. And that one's sort of autobiographical, like how I went from being traditional to what I ended up doing in my career.”

“not necessarily into Chinese medicine. And so that's when raising naturally healthy pets came out. And so that's it has things in there like how to find a holistic veterinarian, how to talk to your traditional veterinarian if you can't find a holistic veterinarian and not get kicked out of the office.”

“Here's trazodone for it. You know, they're going to give you something. We used to use ace promazine before we had other drugs. But we can end up suppressing respiratory function in some of these animals who are kind of on the edge with that anyway.”

“And if they have pets, their attention is drawn to it. So what is constitutional matching for? So I actually have a line of food called Constitutions, and it's made by All Provide, but it basically matches the Chinese elements.”

“And it's helped my help the dog a lot. He's BPC 157 for his hip dysplasia. You could noticeable difference in the pain that the dog had walking around. Now it's actually pain-free. And like I say, it's going on 17 years or going on 18 years.”

“Which is really interesting. So one of the VIP members sent in a question about Bravecto. Bravecto is one of the flea and tick pesticides that we feed to our animals. They now have a 12-month injectable. Like you put it in, you can't get it back out, and there's no antidote if they have a problem.”

“Probably from the same companies. Merck. So rabies for dogs and cats, influenza for dogs, which I never gave the regular influenza vaccine. So why would we go here? But boarding, grooming, daycare.”

“And if they have pets, their attention is drawn to it. So what is constitutional matching for? So I actually have a line of food called Constitutions, and it's made by All Provide, but it basically matches the Chinese elements.”

“Encephalitis. And when I took him to the neurologist, he went blind overnight. And so I took him to the neurologist and he said, oh, that's probably from his distemper vaccine. Now, that should have been my first clue. Like, wow. These vaccines might be a problem. But I was still in the every vaccine for every animal, every year, part of my life.”

“I can't imagine that stuff's very clean either, because sometimes, yeah, you come in and it smells like. So the litter that I use is a dried grass. Like potpourri over it. Yeah, yeah. So mine's a dried grass litter, because I have two indoor cats. It tracks a lot, but where I have it, it's not a problem. So talk about, you know, how to choose that.”

“I might have Evermore, Raised Right. Some of them are raw foods. Some of them are gently cooked. I'm fine with gently cooked, but these are all companies that are not using synthetic vitamin mineral mixes and they're not throwing a bunch of starchy carbs in there.”

“any better, I started with freeze-dried raw food because it is dry texture, more similar to a kibble. It's still a complete diet.”

“Keeping your pets naturally healthy, raising naturally healthy pets. So I wrote my first book, which is Needles to Natural, back in 2014. And that one's sort of autobiographical, like how I went from being traditional to what I ended up doing in my career.”

“And that's a lot. You can put a bunch of cheap ingredients in there. And it's really interesting. I remember my first few years in practice, we used to say, oh, too much protein is going to wreck their kidneys. You don't want to feed that high protein kibble. Right. Oh, my lord.”

“So then I said, okay, well, for somebody who's already been in the holistic field a little bit with their animals, and they want to dive a little deeper, that's where keeping your pets naturally healthy came about.”

“We have homeopathics. There's one called travel anxiety. Pretty easy to know what that one's for. We use melatonin. We use CBD. We have herbal tinctures. So, and it depends on the animal. Sometimes you have to layer on a lot of different things.”

“Actually, put them on immune suppressants. Oh, so my Doberman was put on at that time. We had prednisone. So he was on that. And I think the second drug was might have been cytoxin.”

“So lots of tidbits in there for how to treat your animals. Oh, geez. What else? Oh, protecting your pets from parasites. So this one started out as an e-book, and we said, oh, we need to put it in print as well. And it's actually on Audible and coming out in Spanish very soon.”

“dog, any scrap, whatever went into that vat. There was a lawsuit against Rachel Ray dog food in 2023 because somebody tested the DNA and there was dog DNA in there. No. Ended up in the rendering vat.”

“I might have Evermore, Raised Right. Some of them are raw foods. Some of them are gently cooked. I'm fine with gently cooked, but these are all companies that are not using synthetic vitamin mineral mixes and they're not throwing a bunch of starchy carbs in there.”

“She always gives them two choices twice a day. But our animals also get raw milk from our cow, the yogurt that we make. They get the eggs from our chickens. We process our own meat chickens. So, you know, it's sort of a combination, but we've kind of gone off the deep end.”

“Yes. So we have, so what's really interesting is we also use flower essences. And a lot of people have heard of Rescue Remedy and they tend to want to use Rescue Remedy for everything, but it's actually pretty specific. But there are other flower essences that you can use for specific situations.”

“But there are other flower essences that you can use for specific situations. So we have one called Safe Journey. Well, that's pretty easy. We're going on a journey. I need to be safe. Get it. Is that like an immune booster? No, their flower essences. They call it emotional training in a bottle.”

“So they get an herbal tincture called Tranquil Times and CBD the night before and the morning of. Makes life a lot better. Is that something that would help them travel too?”