How to Reduce Toxic Load in Your Dog and Cat

What is toxic load? 

A 'toxic load' is the quantity of chemicals, synthetic derivatives and inorganic substances that accumulate in the body of an animal over weeks, months and years. Your pet is exposed to toxins in their food, water, air, and environment and are also subject to genetic predispositions of disease.

The most important step you can take to help detoxify your animal is to use healthy, natural and safe products. It is recommended that you detoxify your pet annually and more frequently if your pet is routinely exposed to synthetic vaccinations, medications or topical flea/tick products. 



Ways to reduce future toxic load:

1. Upgrade food & treats: Improving the quality of your pet's diet is the first and most important thing you can do to also help improve well-being and longevity. If you are feeding grocery store or big box chain foods & treats, you are undoubtedly giving them a dose of inferior proteins, fats and carbohydrates, plus chemical additives, artificial colors & flavors and probably other ingredients you would refuse to feed if you fully understood its contents. Also consider that not all ingredients have to be listed on packaging.....

Commercial food and treats have plenty of toxic indigestible ingredients, along with poor quality proteins and fillers that tax your pet's digestion and increase the toxic load on their bodies. Instead, choose the highest quality, truly premium, holistic food you can afford. Grain free, raw, or homemade foods may be improved options to dry kibble. 


2. Filtered water only! The water that flows into our homes is considered  "fit to drink," however, it contains toxic mineral and metal levels that can damage your pet’s health, including fluoride, heavy metals, chlorine, and trace amounts of hormone-like compounds. Remember that your pet metabolizes everything at twice the rate as you do as the pet parent. Water filtration units are readily available and you don't have to spend a lot of money to get a good quality unit. 

3. Cleansing herbs and nutraceuticals: Supplements that contain cleansing herbs, super foods, Omega 3’s, sea vegetables and other "greens" can help support your pet’s health and wellness tremendously. Cleansing herbs each have unique properties that support the health of one or more organs and body systems, help to stimulate lymphatic function and to help remove inorganic materials from your pet’s body. 

Super foods and green supplements like spirulina, add a wide variety of nutrients commonly missing from even the most holistic, premium foods, and include full spectrum amino acids, chlorophyll, antioxidants, trace minerals, and essential fatty acids. Like humans, animals require supplementation for optimal health. We simply can no longer get everything we need from our food supplies. 

Natura Petz offers Shake Ur Groove Thing as a suggested starter herb to gently cleanse and safely detoxify your dog and cat. 

4. Avoid unnecessary vaccinations: Despite the best of intentions, vaccinations are laced with medications that can offer healing potential, but can also be toxic, and even lethal for your dog or cat. Vaccinations and medications require veterinary guidance to be maximally safe and beneficial. Your veterinarian will work to reduce potential problems by regulating the amount and frequency with which they are administered. Your pet may need to come in for blood tests and exams to ensure all is well prior to recommended vaccinations.  

There is a growing holistic movement against over-vaccination of cats and dogs in part, because vaccines disrupt immunity. Many holistic veterinarians recommend a single-dose parvovirus vaccination at age 10 to 12 weeks, followed by a single-dose distemper vaccination four weeks later and a rabies vaccination after age six months. Some holistic vets will examine the effectiveness of vaccinated animals with blood titer tests. If a dog or cat presents a strong immune system, it is possible to avoid further vaccination. If an animal is weak, a vet may decide to revaccinate to provide protection. 

Vaccination labels warn veterinarians not to vaccinate a sick animal, but that warning also applies to injured, convalescing or stressed animals. Many veterinarians suggest waiting to vaccinate an animal that has just been spayed, neutered or treated for an injury until the animal has recovered and its immune system can contend with vaccination.  

5. Support the Liver and Kidneys: The liver and kidneys manage the majority of your pet’s toxin elimination process. Antioxidants can assist the liver in this process, and many detoxification remedies such as Love Your Liver, offer a gentle but effective cleansing support to help remove toxins and pollutants from the animal body both in the blood and cell lining. Hepa Protect also removes toxins,inorganic compounds and other pollutants, but also delivers a deeper systemic level of liver and kidney cleansing and rehabilitative function (Phases I, II and III).

While young healthy pets are unlikely to require a daily liver support, older pets, immuno-compromised and convalescing pets may benefit from regular use of liver support products. As always, consult with a holistic vet to determine whether and how liver-supporting remedies may be of benefit to your companion. 

If your animal has ever used any steroid drugs in its life (prednisone, prednisilone, meticorten, dexamethasone, etc.), this must first be cleansed from the system in order for any herbal remedy (or any therapy) to be effective. 

The animal body has to have a functional immune system to fully support detoxifying, cleansing and balancing actions, and steroids depress the immune system. 

Suggested cleansing herbs include: Shake Ur Groove Thing and The Daily Paws.

Practical and easy recommendations for lowering your pet's toxic load 

• Keep your pets away from indoor areas often saturated with chemicals such as the laundry room and outdoor areas such as the golf course, which are known to contain pesticides, herbicides or fertilizers. If you're not sure what your dog or cat might have been exposed to, or you suspect something indoors or outdoors is causing a skin irritation, give your pet a simple foot soak. Regular foot soaks can help to get rid of chemicals and allergens that picked are up on paws.
• Wash your dog and cat regularly, especially if your dog or cat has irritated skin. Bathing washes allergens away, along with any chemicals and other foreign molecules that might be riding around on the animal’s fur. Make sure you use a holistic shampoo specifically made for dogs and cats as human shampoos often contain the very ingredients that cause skin allergies in our dogs and cats.  
• Buy your pet shampoo from an independent retailer that specializes in all-natural pet shampoos. Most big box, commercial stores will carry shampoos fully of toxic chemicals, despite the packaging declaring the product as “natural.” Dogs and cats typically require different types of shampoo to suit the needs of their coats.   
• Improve your pet's indoor air environment by forbidding smoking in your home and office. 
• Use non-toxic cleaning products. Approximately 47% of consumers now seek green cleaning products to use in their homes. While it’s difficult to find a good, all natural or organic cleaner, using a product like Simple Green can go a long way to help reduce your pet’s overall toxic load. 
• For pets with chronic allergies, you may want to consider investing in an air purifier to control dust mites. An air purifier will likely benefit everyone in the house, people and animals alike. 
• Supplements formulated to address chronic and seasonal allergies such as Life’s An Itch! No More Sneezing or Wheezing and I Feel Good help to reduce the histamine (allergenic) trigger your pet experiences, and over time, may work to reduce and perhaps eliminate your pet’s allergies.
• As with humans, regular exercise provides your pet with countless benefits, including helping your pet’s natural detoxification efforts. Physical movement promotes regular elimination, which moves wastes from the body in urine and feces. Exercise also stimulates blood circulation and lymph fluid transit, cleansing the blood and moving toxins more efficiently to the liver and kidneys to be processed out of the body.  

Watch this video for more information on toxicity 

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