How I healed my dog's gut microbiome

Written by: Michelle Palmer, Advanced Master Herbalist, Certified Integrative Medicine Provider, Certified Human-Animal Intervention Specialist

***Disclaimer*** I am not a veterinarian, nor do I claim to be. This is not medical advice and does not take place of your vet's medical recommendations. Please seek veterinary medical care prior to instituting this protocol.

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I am an herbalist and integrative medicine provider, and on a daily basis I help to support human gut microbiome for overall mental and physical health. I also have 10+ years experience as a certified human-animal intervention specialist, spending countless hours around my own dogs and utilizing them as an adjunct to my own mental health counseling practice. However, when my 12 year old beloved Brittany Penelope came down with a sudden case of colitis, I was unsure where to start. At first, of course, we pursued elimination diet. And while some meats were seemingly easier for her to digest, every few days the colitis would rear it's ugly head and we were back to square one.

In December 2022, it started where our poor girl would ask to go outside several times per night, and we were getting up every hour on the hour. Some nights were better than others, but we could tell she was not herself, and it was uncomfortable for her. We tried supplementing her dinners with her favorites, like lettuce, cabbage, carrots, oatmeal, millet, rice, etc. but all ended up giving her the same results. And we were getting worried. So, in February 2022 we took her to the vet for blood work, and waiting for the results was nerve wracking to say the least. This is our baby, and we've loved and cared for her for 10 years, and we didn't want to get terrible news. Turns out, her blood work was healthy, and there was nothing to be alarmed about. But, this sent us back the drawing board of course. The only advice I received from the vet was to try a meat source that she wasn't used to. So, immediately we went to turkey, but it wasn't the answer. Then, we switched to buffalo, but still it wasn't helping much. We tried fish briefly, but that made her throw up, so we were kind of at our wits end. Until we tried chicken breast.

Chicken breast for the most part is pretty lean, about 4% fat per breast, which is less than beef but more than turkey, so a middle of the road type of meat she ended up being able to tolerate best. And, finally was able to digest it properly; without blood, without gurgling stomachs, and without getting up a million times throughout the evening.

Her colitis symptoms at first were blood, diarrhea, stomach gurgling (loud), loss of appetite, occasional throwing up and lethargy. To begin to soothe the gut lining, I supplemented all of her meals with organic chicken bone broth, either homemade or store bought, and she seemed better with that. Secondly, I worked to heal gut lining with fresh cut aloe. The aloe helped her stomach heal because it's mucilaginous and helped to coat her stomach lining and heal the intestines. An important piece to note is colitis, like most any other disease is inflammatory, so we want to do everything we can to reduce inflammation without triggering a flare-up. After working in the aloe, I began to incorporate several other herbs including parsley, marshmallow root, banana, slippery elm, ginger root, plantain, pumpkin, bentonite clay, and chamomile. In addition to that, I added organic carob root powder. The herbs, along with the carob helped to solidify the excrement so the diarrhea stopped pretty quickly. It was important to work on the diarrhea issue first because I wanted her continue to absorb all the nutrients she could so that she didn't lose unnecessary weight.

While on that topic, I want to warn you that Penny did lose weight throughout this process, and we continue to slowly feed her what she can handle to increase weight gain.

In addition to the herbs, came the pre and probiotics. I researched all of the most important strains that have been found in a dog's gut microbiome, and they include some of the following:

*Saccharomyces boulardii (soil based)

*Bacilius coagulans (soil based)

*Bacillus subtilis (soil based)

*Bacilius licheniformis

*Bacilius pumilus

*Lactobacilius acidophilus

*Lactobacilius casei

*Bacilius thermophilum

*Enterococcus faecium

*Akkermansia mucinophilus

*Bifidobacterium

*Lactobacilius paracasei

I also added the following digestive enzymes such as amylase (A. oryzae), protease (A. oryzae), lipase (A.niger).

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My process

I utilized sweet potatoes, apples, chicken bone broth, oatmeal and chicken as her meal source and split the meals up to two feedings throughout the day. I blended the chicken bone broth, baked organic sweet potato, organic steel cut oatmeal (cooked), and frozen cut organic gala apples all into the vitamix blender to incorporate. Next, I would add the herbs and probiotics and since the mixture was warm from the baked sweet potato, which activated the probiotic mixture. I let the mixture sit for about 10 minutes until it "bloomed". Then, I added the mixture to her dinner bowl, incorporated the chicken and mixed. I also incorporated 0 fat greek yogurt as a treat and slowly began to work my way up to whole milk 4% fat organic yogurt, and eventually on to full fat raw milk.

Because I was able to puree some of her meal, she was able to absorb nutrients more effectively, and it was easier on her stomach as well. As soon as I started to puree with the above mentioned herbs and probiotics, the gurgling went away and thankfully the diarrhea stayed away.

The process isn't perfect by any means, and it takes some time and dedication to the process every day to ensure that you're giving them enough time to heal properly. I want to emphasize that prior to this bout of colitis which, we are still unsure what the cause of this all was, Penny was a happy and healthy 11 year old girl. She's eaten organic dog food, mixed with homemade cooked and raw organic veggies and grains all throughout her lifetime. She eats a lot of what we eat, organic and straight from the organic farm with no herbicides, pesticides or fungicides. I attribute her healing ability to based on the idea that she was strong when this happened to her, and it was because of the foods we feed her, the exercise and play that she gets on a daily basis and of course, the love we give her.

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Keep in mind, that this is not easy. It can be mentally draining, and seemingly as if there is no light at the end of the tunnel. But, keep working. It can take months of this process to ensure that gut lining is healed and that there are enough pre and probiotics flourishing in the gut microbiome before it should be stopped. While I understand it's easier to turn to "prescription" or vet based diets, the truth remains that kibble, dog food in general is for the most part unhealthy, and is linked to many, many ailments and dis-ease for your dog. Please always research yourself to ensure you're getting all of the information before making decisions for the pets that depend on us to help them when they cannot help themselves.

For more information on healthy feeding for dogs and cats, make sure to follow @TheBKPets.

This time we were lucky, and I couldn't have done it without constant support and guidance from Penny's Papa.