Proactive Pet Parenting for your Dog's Health

Hello this is Krista with episode #126 on the Wag Out Loud pawdcast. Have you checked out all of the amazing partner products that I highly recommend? These are products that I have tried and put through the paces, and that can help your dog to thrive. Just go to WagOutLoud.com and check out the Partner Products section. And notice that I've negotiated discounts for most of the products, so why not see what can make a difference in your dog's life? Check them out!

You and I have two eyelids per eye, an upper and a lower, but our dogs have three eyelids. And this third eyelid is called the nictitating membrane, also called a haw. And these third eyelids serve four purposes: they protect the eye from injury, they keep the cornea clean, act is a lymph node which produces antibodies to protect against infection, and they produce additional tears. Here's another fun fact… Dogs have two tear glands in each eye. But us humans only have one. Fascinating stuff right?

Welcome to the Wag Out Loud pawdcast, where we are obsessed with bringing you helpful tips on canine health care, nutrition and overall well being. If you'd like to support the show, check out the amazing online events, products and resources that I personally recommend on WagOutLoud.com. I'm your host Krista and I'm super excited to be bringing you yet another tail wagging episode.

Erin Scott admits she was somewhat of a reluctant dog owner but her husband’s insistence that they adopt a dog transformed her into a “dog person” and changed her life in all the best ways. Erin’s dogs have become teachers, healers and inspirations in her life. After experiencing cancer, allergies and mystery illnesses with her dogs, Erin was inspired to create the Dog Health Journal to bring peace of mind to pet parents struggling with their dog’s health. Erin is the founder of HugsAndBellyRubs.com and the host of the Believe in Dog Podcast featuring heart-centered conversations with pet parents about how the love of a dog can impact our lives and the world. Erin lives near Baltimore, Maryland with her husband Tim, and adopted pit bulls Penny and Neno.

Welcome dog lovers to another informative episode of the Wag Out Loud pawdcast. I am joined by fellow dog freak and podcaster Erin Scott, and she's going to be sharing proactive pet parenting for your dog's health. Erin, thank you so much for being with us today. Please introduce yourself and tell us why are you on a mission to help other pet parents struggling with their dog's health?

Hi, Krista. Thanks so much for having me. Yes, I am…what's funny is I'm a bit of a reluctant dog owner. It was never my idea to have dogs and my husband really pushed the issue. And guess what, I'm a dog person. And, you know, over the years, our dogs have suffered with all kinds of strange illnesses and allergies and autoimmune and cancer and mystery illnesses that we couldn't get diagnosed properly. And I would have these notes to myself everywhere. And we would constantly be changing our you know, regimen and supplements and trying all these different things. And so I started trying to get myself organized and created what I'm calling the Dog Health Journal. And I was realizing that oh, this is really helpful to me, I want to help other pet parents also, who might be struggling, who might have a dog with a complicated diet or regimen or medications. And if this can help somebody else, then I always want to do it. So that's why I'm here today.

Wonderful. Well, I can't wait to learn more. I know you've put in a lot of blood, sweat and tears into this Dog Health Journal. So why don't you tell us how it all started to where it is today?

Well, the original sort of drawings were actually back in 2014. I had my old girls, Lucy and Kahlua who were our original dogs. And they were both suffering with cancer. Lucy has this sort of rare illness that we had a hard time getting diagnosed. Kahlua had mass cell cancer, that we had a hard time getting diagnosed. And every day I was leaving notes for our neighbors, they were so lovely to help us with checking in on the dogs throughout the day, when we were at work, and I'd be leaving all these notes and saying try this, try that. And I still have to take photos, one of these days of all these crazy notes that I would leave all the time. And then that sort of Season of Our Lives passed on. And then around the beginning of 2020, my current girl Penny started suffering with some skin issues. And again, we were having a hard time getting it diagnosed. And we were trying, you know, we're doing epsom salt soaks one week in green tea foot soaks the next week. And I'm trying to determine like, Is any of this working? What am I doing? And you know, our vet would be like, Well, here, try this, try that try this. And I was just kind of getting I'm not kind of naturally an organized person. And I was very confused and overwhelmed. And so I was like I have to get myself organized for the dogs’ sake. And so that's kind of how all of this really came into fruition during the year during COVID actually during 2020.

Okay, so what you're saying in this Dog Health Journal that helped you is to have with each of your dogs, all of the regiments, all of the medications, I assume the changes that you either saw or didn't see, you know, how much time went by what else is involved as far as the information that one would put into this Dog Health Journal?

So there are daily pages where for each day, you can record this is the diet, this is the time I gave the morning meal, the evening meal, whether they had a good appetite or not, whether they're taking poops or not. What does their poop look like? their level of thirst because you know, if they're drinking too much, sometimes that can be a sign for us. And then there's kind of space to write notes about each day about, you know, physical characteristics, like sometimes I would be counting, you know, Penny has five lesions on her right foot. But then the next day, you know, be like, Oh, you know, now she has three, you know, two of them have healed. And then there's space for like behavioral updates, because that was one of the things I really learned throughout this process is really knowing my dogs, knowing their behaviors, knowing their routines, was showing me so much information. And during the course of all this, I actually saved Penny’s hearing. she had it's called an ototoxicity reaction to her ear medication. And I realized this because like the mailman came one day, and she didn't bark at him. I'm like, wait a minute, she always barks at the mailman. And I had, you know, left to go out. And I came home. And she was, I mean, I literally dropped to my knees because she's laying in the dog bed in the living room, and she doesn't get up to greet me. And I mean, my first thought is, Oh, my God, what's wrong with her, you know, and it's just, she was sleeping so soundly and didn't hear me. So I contacted my vet. I'm like, you know, in the last few days, we've had these things where she's not hearing things. And she's like, Oh, well, that can be a reaction to this ear medication so stop using it. Sometimes they're hearing comes back, and sometimes it doesn’t. But I had been making notes of these types of things that this is odd, you know. But then for instance, when I realized she was starting to instigate play with our other dog, Neno, I'm like, Oh, this is a good thing. She hasn't instigated play with him in two weeks. So she must be feeling better. And so I have space to record all of these things. And I think, you know, when you have like a chronic or a health issue that we're really concerned about, you know, cancer, allergies, auto immune, you know, all of this information each day is so helpful to have, and to help you communicate to your vet. The other piece of it is having templates for your vet visit. And you can record like I need to make sure I get refills of these medications, you know, I need to make sure I ask these things because I've totally been that person who gets halfway home from the vet. And it's like, oh, my God, I never asked them this, you know, oh, my goodness, I forgot to get this refill. And you know, keep track and making sure that I'm getting copies of the bloodwork and the test results. And I want to make sure that I have all these for my records also. And so I'm starting to release this sort of in pieces at first as digital downloads. And so one of the next parts that will be coming is a bloodwork tracker, and it's going to be a pamphlet that'll describe what are all these numbers that you're looking at, and like a spreadsheet to help you track those, because that's something else I found is, you know, your vet might tell you, oh, this is in the normal range. But just because it's in what's the technical normal range, it might not be normal for your dog. And if you have that, you know, on a spreadsheet to look at, you can see, oh, this went from, you know, this one to the really high end of the normal range, but they're not necessarily bringing that to your attention all the time. And I guess that's one of the things that I've had to learn the hard way is that sometimes, either you need to find a vet that you have you know, the utmost confidence in or you need to be tracking a lot of these things on your own. make sure, because you you'll be the first one to notice the changes in your dog's behavior. And you might be the first one to notice these other changes also.

Absolutely. And I think this is the perfect example of how we can be the best advocate for our dog's health and wellness is just by tracking every little thing. And, you know, I don't think people realize what you said that you saved Penny's hearing, because you were paying attention. And you thought to ask the vet, you know, oh, she's not acting right. Is there something that's going on? Unfortunately, your vet probably should have told you the side effects to begin with of the ear medication.

It was one of those things where they said well, four times in 20 years, we've seen this reaction, but I didn't like that. I didn't know that that was something that was a possibility. And I'm just glad we caught it as soon as we did. And eventually it still took I mean, we only used the medication for like three days and it still took probably three months for her hearing to really return to the way that it had been. And I still don't think it's 100%. But, you know, it's certainly, you know, hardly noticeable.

Well, that's great. Good for you. I mean, a proactive dog, mom. Yay. That's awesome. And in addition to this information being tracked for yourself and your veterinarian, I can think of so many other people in your dog's life that would love this information. You know, the pet sitter, maybe a boarding facility. If you take your dog to somebody for other treatments like acupuncture or chiropractic. I think everybody would really know your dog, not just personally but on paper, what is their health history? I think it's phenomenal. So kudos to you. We're gonna take a quick commercial break and come back with Erin Scott, who's going to share more about her dog Health Journal system.

Sponsor Ad

A special thanks to the team at Tickless USA for sponsoring this episode.  I am so thrilled to share this great company and their products with those who want. To prevent ticks and fleas without the use of toxic chemicals.  “That’s right! No more toxic chemicals need to be applied to your dog! Tickless devices are ultrasonic flea and tick repellers that emit a series of ultrasonic pulses that humans, pets and wildlife can’t hear. These outstanding patented products  are the #1 selling chemical-free repellents in Europe that are proven safe in multiple studies. They offer various versions to be worn on the collar and also have units for the home. You can’t go wrong with these environmentally friendly, chemical and fragrance free ultrasonic devices, making them perfectly safe to use for your entire family.   Order your tickles device today by going to ticklessusa.com and use the discount code wagoutloud (that’s all one word with no spaces)to receive 15% off of your order.

Hello, everyone, we are back with Erin Scott, who is telling us about this brand new brilliant product that she has come up with the Dog Health Journal. Okay, Erin, we talked about all of the things that we can track with our dogs. I am just blown away. So with Winston my dog, he's 12 now and he literally has a folder that I would say is probably four inches thick. And if you were to ask me right this minute to find his blood work from five years ago. Yeah, that's gonna take a while. Yeah. So how is your Dog Health Journal organized? Is it hardcopy only? Or do you foresee that it's also going to be able to be in digital form?

Right now is a digital download. And then in the future, I'm going to sort of put all the pieces together and have it available in a hardcopy format. But I wanted to get the pieces that are available out right now that you can digitally download and you can fill in a PDF or you can print it whatever works easier for you. And then just you know, you can keep reusing, you know, save a new one for each day or save a new one for each time you change their regimen, you know, their supplements, their medication, their diet. So for now digital only and the physical product in the future because I want to be able to incorporate what you're saying like I want to have like tabs for bloodwork and tabs for you know, each year's records or something like that. Because like I said, I'm kind of not naturally organized. But when there's some sort of issue. That's what makes me go, Oh, I need to get myself organized here. And I know I have a huge folder also with Penny. I mean, just from last year, there was one point where we were going to the vet every week last year for about six weeks. And then we went to like every other week and now we're at like once a month and that's amazing. I feel like I have my weekends back.

Well, it's funny that you're saying this because I'm right now looking at switching doctors myself, and I have had the hardest time getting my records transferred. So how amazing would this be for your Dog's Health Journal? And let's say you do switch vets or maybe your dog has an emergency and you have to go to an emergency vet. You can't see your regular vet because it's not regular hours. You have it all there. It's all documented that is just amazing,

Right. One of the things that I'll have as a freebie if anybody wants to come to the Hugs & Belly Rubs.com website is I'll have a free download of a medical history chart. And so that's something that I created that sort of like a quick at a glance of, you know, every time they've gone to the vet, which vet did they go to what did they go for? Was it an ear infection? What did we you know, give them as a medication? And with Penny, this is pages and pages. But, you know, like for our guy, Nino is, you know, it was a pretty easy thing to, to complete for him. But I really like having like the at a glance, and then sort of having like the detailed also.

That is great. again, everybody if you want to get this template for the dog health history chart, hugsandbellyrubs.com. Thank you for doing that. Oh, my gosh, Erin, how long have you been working on this?

For about a year now. I was doing like some beta versions, and really trying to get it down. And I worked with a designer to really get it the way that I wanted to. And then the hardest part honestly, was trying to you know, build a website and figure out how to deliver these things to people because that was not my natural skill.

You've done great work so far. And I'm, I'm excited that you're adding along the way as well. I know one of the things that you're a huge fan of is finding the right veterinarian. Right. How do you find the right one?

There's a couple ways. One of I think the best ways is word of mouth. And not just going on the internet, like Hey, does anybody live in, you know, Baltimore and go to a good vet? But the way I found our current vet was we have I take Penny Penny and I actually have the same chiropractor, she treats both animals and people. And she's the one that gave me the recommendation because, you know, I like the way that she takes care of my animals. I know how she's taking care of her own animals. And she was able to give me you know, a great recommendation when I was ready to try somebody new. One of the other ways is, you know, the American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association website. I'm sure I'm butchering the name of the organization. But you know, I'll put it in the show notes. I'll put the link in. Perfect. And you know, I'm a big fan with Penny with her issues. What we found, so she had had a series of issues with UTIs in 2019. And she had been on several different courses of antibiotics. And then a couple months later, she started having these horrible skin issues. And the first thing they did was put her on more antibiotics. And we feed a raw diet. We're doing Answer’s goat milk and Answer’s fish stock, and I thought we were doing all the right things to repopulate her gut health. But when we switched veterinarians, what our new veterinarian did right off the bat was I want to do an AnimalBiome test (use code WOL-20 for 20% off). And it came back so bad.

Yes. And what's interesting is just for the fun of it, the first time I had ever heard of AnimalBiome and collecting dog poop samples for fun, apparently I had gotten a sample at the beginning of 2019, before she had ever had any of these issues. So I actually had proof from early 2019. Post four courses of antibiotics over the course of the year to the beginning of 2020 and see exactly how much damage was done and how much the changes were. And so it's been through doing things like the fecal microbiome transplants and ozone treatments, that we were really able to restore her health. And so I'm such a huge fan of ozone treatments. I know you've talked about that on the podcast before. And so going to the I think it's https://www.o3vets.com/ website, they have a link to find a veterinarian that uses ozone in their practice. And so that's another place that I would go because I want to make sure that my vet, you know has that tool in their toolbox.

That's a great tip. Well, you mentioned that you're going to be releasing the blood work tracker. And I don't know about you, but a lot of conventional vets, they're not really thorough about how they're looking at bloodwork results, or how they're telling you like as you mentioned, they might be within a certain parameter, but that doesn't mean that it's right for your specific dog. I think you have a story to share about Lucy and her cancer diagnosis.

Yes, so Lucy was our old girl. She was my first dog and now If you see I have ever seen the Believe in Dog Podcast logo, that's actually a rendering of my Lucy. And so Lucy had a very rare form of cancer called insulinoma. And it's cancer of the cells in the pancreas that make insulin. So it was causing her pancreas to over produce insulin, which in turn drives down the blood sugar. So it's basically like the opposite of diabetes. And what this results in with low blood sugar is seizures. And so she would be having these episodes. First, it started as like she fell over when we were on a walk. And then it progressed into sort of like these twitching episodes, and then eventually it went into full blown what we think of as like a grand mal seizure type thing. And our vet was having us do cardiac workup because she had had a congenital heart murmur that had not changed over 11 years. And then we had to go and do a neurological workup. And nobody could really tell us what was going on. So I got really frustrated with how our vet was handling things, because I felt like they weren't really listening to me, he had had me taking videos for seizures, because it was almost like he didn't believe me, when I was saying that she had a seizure, it was not a good match with our vet, even though we had been going there for 10 years, this sort of brought all of the issues to a head. And so I said, Well, I'm going to go find a holistic veterinarian, and I got a recommendation actually from somebody I know. And they started going through all of Lucy's records and found that three months ago, when she had the first episode of falling over, she had actually had a really low blood sugar reading, and just nobody ever followed up on it. Like her blood sugar reading has been like 49. And that's definitely in the low, like anything below 60 is considered low. And all of her other readings had always been much more normal in the 80 or 100 type range. and just nobody ever followed up on this. And when I contacted them about this, I had to find out why this wasn’t brought to my attention. You know, nobody could really kind of give me any kind of answer of Oh, well, sometimes just from. it sitting out, sometimes it goes lower. I still don't understand that one. But so our holistic vet ended up finding this reading and then that's and then she ordered some other tests. And that's what enabled us to finally get the proper diagnosis. And that was like my hard lesson of learning, I need to be the one who's looking at these, I can't rely on the vet. And I want to track these for my own purposes also.

Well, that's gonna be a great addition. Well, as we're wrapping up Erin, and I know that you also wanted to mention the daily gratitude that you're going to include in the journal as well. what is that going to be like?

Yes, for each daily page, there is space for your grateful moment of the day. And I have found whether my dogs are healthy, or, you know, when we were dealing with dogs with cancer, you know, there's always some point during the day that they make me smile, they make me laugh, we do something fun, we go for a car ride, I would go for a walk. And I never want to forget those moments. And sometimes, you know, if your dog is really sick, you can get very lost in the woods, it can feel very lonely, it can feel very depressing, especially if there's like a terminal situation. And I just love having these silly moments to look back on. And to make me smile and to make me remember, you know why I'm doing all of this. And I just wanted to make sure that I included that for everyone else also, because that's some of the most important, you know, memories that we have with our dogs. Is all these times that they make us smile and are there for us.

I totally agree. Oh my gosh, you've thought of everything. Well, Erin, I can't thank you enough. Where can people find out more about you and actually get their own Dog Health journal and learn more about your Believe in Dog podcast?

Yes, I have made HugsAndBellyRubs.com sort of the my central website for everything right now. And that'll link you to the podcast that will link you to any of the downloads for the Dog Health Journal. Like I said, Get your free health history download. And then you'll find out more about when all the other pieces are available and when the hardcopy product will be available. And I'll be sharing some other just tips and tricks that I've learned along the way. And so that's the best place to go. And I appreciate you having me here today.

Well, I can't thank you enough for putting this together. This is going to help so many dogs, so many people. I just I recommend everybody do this because we've all been there we just if we don't write it down somewhere either hardcopy or digital, we forget, you know, when was that? What did they do? What medication was that? So This is just amazing, and I can't thank you enough for taking the time to put this together. So everybody go to https://www.hugsandbellyrubs.com/ check out everything that Erin has to offer with the Journal as well as her amazing Believe in Dog podcast. Erin, thank you so much. Have a tail wagging day.

Thank you.

We want to again thank our friends at tickles USA for sponsoring today’s episode and for making such incredible products.  Why not order your dog a Tickless device today by going to ticklessusa.com and don’t forget that the code wagoutloud (no spaces) gets you 15% off! 

Thanks for listening. You'll find some helpful links in the show notes and if you enjoy the show, please be sure to follow and listen for free on your favorite podcast app. And please, please share your feedback. Visit WagOutLoud.com for great product recommendations with discounts, amazing online events and fantastic resources. That's also where to visit our Bark About It page where you can suggest topics, guests or products. Be advised that this show offers health and nutritional information and is designed for educational purposes only. You're encouraged to do your own research and should not rely on this information as a substitute for nor does it replace professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. If you have any concerns or questions about your dog's health, you should always consult a veterinarian or a nutrition expert. Have a tail wagging day and we'll catch you next time.

Hey Winston was that another tail wagging episode?