VEGGIE SMOOTHIES!!

Posted on by TayBham

In our quest to reduce sugar, and thereby reduce yeast and trim the waistline, I worked on a few smoothie options that contained more veg and less fruit. These options have been working. Pearl’s urine is clear, that potent smell is now gone, and she’s lost over half a pound in 2 weeks!

There are some base ingredients I put in all their smoothies, so it may look like a long list of stuff, but half of it is the routine add-ins, including:

A pinch of sea salt because the body needs salt to function properly, and they’re eating whole, unprocessed food that contains no salt. So, we have to add it back in.

Raw honey for its antimicrobial, antibacterial, and homeopathic treatment of environmental pollen allergies. For a more detailed account of all things marvelous about honey in your dog’s diet, read this.

Raw, fermented goat’s milk for the protein, probiotics, and natural antihistamine.

A+ Answers pet food raw fermented goats milk
It comes out clumpy, which freaked me out until I read on the carton that it contains curds. Shout out to Little Miss Muffet, yo!

1 clove of freshly minced garlic. I’ve discussed it before. It’s on every veterinarian’s list of what not to feed your dog. This article in Dogs Naturally Magazine explains why that is and refutes it. In such a small quantity, it’s good for the gut. It’s anti-fungal, antibiotic, antiviral, and boosts immune health.

The other thing I’m adding is blueberries while they’re in season. Blueberries are such great antioxidants, and good for the smooth muscles of internal organs. A small handful doesn’t bring in too much sugar.

These two recipes below include several “cooling” foods that also support the liver.

Cucumber Mint

  • small bunch of fresh mint, stemmed
  • 2-4 slices of cucumber
  • 2 kale leaves, stemmed (I use flat leaf kale grown locally)
  • 2 oz fresh blueberries
  • 1 clove fresh garlic, minced
  • pinch of sea salt
  • 1 tsp raw honey
  • 2 oz Answers raw goat milk
  • 2 oz filtered water

Avocado Basil

  • 2 kale leaves, stemmed
  • small bunch of arugula
  • small bunch of fresh basil
  • 2oz fresh blueberries
  • 1/2 avocado
  • 1 clove fresh garlic, minced
  • pinch of sea salt
  • 1 tsp raw honey
  • 2oz Answers raw goat milk
  • 2oz filtered water

Note: The avocado makes a thick and creamy smoothie. You may want to add more water to make it thinner.

Broccoli Carrot

  • 3-4 broccoli florets
  • 2 kale leaves, stemmed
  • 1 small carrot, chopped
  • 2 oz fresh blueberries
  • 1 clove fresh garlic, minced
  • pinch of sea salt
  • 1 tsp raw honey
  • 2 oz Answers raw goat milk
  • 2 oz filtered water

These have been super easy and very popular. Of course, my dogs will eat just about anything I put before them, but they’ve not turned a nose up even once. Plus, I really feel good about feeding these things to them. At night, they of course get meat protein, and I don’t have to worry about balance because they’re getting these wonderful greens to start their day.

I also feel confident that we’ve got our yeast, bladder, and liver issues on the run.

pugs & kisses,

Ring-a-ding-ding! Time for Chicken Wings!

Posted on by TayBham

I still get stares of disbelief whenever I tell folks I feed my dogs chicken bones.

YES. They eat the RAW meat ON THE BONE.

They eat the bone.

Because it’s Raw, it does not splinter. It crunches, and even Pug jaws are strong enough to break the bone into bite size bits. Their stomachs have high levels of hydrochloric acid, so they have no trouble digesting.

When I shop, I usually look for sale items at Whole Foods. In the poultry section, they have bone-in, skin-on wings and thighs in a strip of 3 perforated pouches. Because more people want boneless, skinless breasts for their own use, the wings & thighs are cheaper.

I buy in bulk and freeze. My freezer is my friend.

I do a lot of prep on the weekends so that my weekday mornings and evenings are stress-free.

Once I learned I was overfeeding, I cut back to 3-4 oz twice per day for these 25-lb Pugs. One hormone-free raw chicken wing is about 3 oz.

Truman & Pearl have no trouble crunching the bones, but they do have trouble–with their tiny front-row chicklets–tearing the meat from the bones. So I help them out by cutting the meat away from the bones, and then cutting the bones at the joints. (Sharp kitchen sheers are also my friend.)

Here’s what they ate all week last week:

  • 1 raw chicken wing
  • 1 oz raw goats milk (for probiotics) OR
  • 1 oz fresh bell pepper
  • 1 tsp raw, local honey (for allergies)
  • sprinkle of ground milk thistle seed (for liver support)
  • sprinkle of ground roasted pumpkin seed (in case of worms)

You can do this. It’s not that hard, and it’s no more costly than those prescription bags of kibble I bought for years.

pugs & kisses,

Benefits of Probiotics in Your Pet’s Diet

Posted on by TayBham
A+ Answers all natural raw fermented goat milk with probiotic curds

It seems like probiotics are everywhere on TV these days. Jamie Lee Curtis trying to get you to eat yogurt. That other girl on the flag football team talking about probiotics in the huddle. *eyeroll*

Setting aside massive mistrust of advertising, I believe probiotics–in the right amount and quality–make a positive difference in digestion, nutrition, and health. I take them myself daily, and I can tell a difference on the days when I forget.

I had never thought my dogs might benefit from them until this past summer when Pearl was on round after round of antibiotics. I fed her plain yogurt during those times to keep her stomach from being torn up by the medicine. But feeding it to them as a matter of course did not occur to me until I began to focus more intently on their wHOLe health.

Maintaining a healthy gut and the digestive flora that thrives there is so important to good health, both in people and pets. Poor diet weakens or destroys the good bacteria in the digestive tract making the breakdown of foods and the concomitant absorption of nutrients more difficult or impossible. When we get sick because our immune system is weakened by poor nutrition, we take synthetic medications to rid ourselves of symptoms, which further inhibits normal gut function. When we don’t absorb nutrients, then the food we ingest is literally a waste. We get hungry again quickly, and before long, we are in a cycle of just filling the hole without thinking too much about what is being tossed in there. We have no energy, we turn to sugar and caffeine to get through the day, we gain weight. Sound familiar?

We treat our dogs the same way. We are all guilty of giving little or no thought to what we toss in the bowl.

Scoop a cup of kibble from the bag and go on about our lives. (Please stop)

We get frustrated when they come begging. We supplement with doggie junk food (Snausages, anyone?), or we train to control the behavior without thinking that maybe they really are hungry because their nutrition is deficient.

If you popped a multi-vitamin and chased it with a bowl of cereal twice a day, would you look longingly at someone else’s hot meal? Probably. 

One simple way to improve the gut health of your dog, even if you’re still not on board with a RAW, wHOLe food diet, is to supplement with probiotics. They are of course in yogurt (thank you Jamie Lee), kefir, and more recently, I found them in the raw goat’s milk that A+ Answers makes. It’s an additional protein source that is easier for dogs to digest than cow’s milk. A+ Answers has fortified the “Additional Answers” raw, fermented milk with curds containing over 200 different living species of probiotics.

Goat’s milk is also a natural antihistamine. Adding local raw honey to the goat’s milk has made a difference, particularly in Truman’s nasal allergies. Pugs, with their short noses, have a tendency to cough & snot, sneeze & wheeze. Compared to my previous Pugs, these guys do so at a very minimum. I rather enjoy waking up to a Pug in my face when he doesn’t spray me with the former residents of his nasal passages.

I highly recommend A+ Answers raw goat’s milk. A couple of ounces at each meal is all you need.

Pour a little love!

pugs & kisses,

Pugs & their Paws: A splinter’s tale. #SMH

Posted on by TayBham
#pugs, #puglife, #puglove, #pugsofinstagram, #flatnosedsociety.

Since starting down our HOListic road, I’ve realized how quickly I run to my vet for every little thing. If I took the time to gain a little bit of knowledge of my own, perhaps I could address some problems at home.

Exhibit A: The abscess on Truman’s paw that healed with topical application of raw honey.

But we haven’t quit our vet habit yet.

Pearl picked up a splinter.

I didn’t know she had a splinter. She wouldn’t let me touch her hand to get a closer look.

Pugs & their paws. #smh

Of course, my over-active imagination immediately went bananas:

SHE BROKE HER WRIST JUMPING OFF THE BED!! SHE’S ONLY 3! HER BONES ARE SO FRAIL, SHE MUST HAVE BONE CANCER! THIS RAW DIET ISN’T WORKING! WE’LL HAVE TO CUT OFF HER LEG!! OHMYGOD!!!

No, freak show. It’s just a splinter. Calm your crazy ass down.

I tried to treat it with honey, but after a couple of days, her limp was more pronounced (which convinced me she had a torn ligament. Hypochondriac much?).

So, off to the vet we went. I heard her scream from the back of the clinic when the doc removed it. A quarter-inch long, it took 3 people to hold her down to get it out.

Feeling a tad better about my own limitations when it comes to Pug paws, thank you.

I have never had a Pug who would let me touch the feet. Even the most laid back of them all (Truman) has a big fat fit when I try to do something as gentle as rub a little bit of honey on his boo-boo.

People give me a sideways glance when they see the excessive length in the toenail area. They gently scold me with a note of condescension when I try to explain that it’s not for lack of trying. They say with their eyes, ‘Yeah, whatevs. You just don’t want to do it, lazy human.”

SCREW ALL OF YOU!! IT TOOK 3 PEOPLE TO HOLD HER SCREAMING, 25-lb ASS DOWN TO GET THAT SPLINTER!

Post-splinter extraction, something decided to grow in its place. Great. We’re not living a real-life story of the lion with the thorn that loves the little mouse forever. That lion didn’t get a wart chaser in its paw. Or if it did, that nugget didn’t make the story.  Unlike the lion & the mouse, we get to go back to the vet because this shit just will not quit.

The quickest fix is the traditional medicine route. To my knowledge, there is no holistic vet in Birmingham, and I simply don’t have the knowledge right now to adequately treat whatever this growth is at home.

I’m still using honey on it, but in truth, I think the steroid is doing most of the work because in the days before we went back for the follow-up, the honey didn’t seem to make much difference.

So, it’s not time to say farewell to western medicine just yet. My hope at this point is that if it IS a wart, and thus a virus, her immune system is robust enough to fight it because she has such a healthy diet.

pugs & kisses,