Should we start a pets corner?
After the latest SCENAR teleclass with the Haches, one of my long-time subscribers, Karla Kay, wrote to me with a fascinating story which I am dying to share with you all.
Dear Dr. Keith,
We have a situation here that needs medical observation, consideration, and analyses by a great brain such as yours!
I have a friend, Alaina, who is an “animal person”. She’s lived in Alaska, raised and drove sled dogs, has been involved with horses, dogs, cats, and all animals all of her life. She KNOWS when an animal is sick and/or dying.
She was visiting a friend this AM, whose dog was down. Hadn’t risen for two days, cried/screamed when his back around the kidney area was touched, couldn’t urinate, eyes becoming glazed, not moving. She thought that his problem was kidney stones, and prescribed green olives. Yes, green olives, either with OR without the pimentos. Cheapest kind will do. (This dog is a 100 lbs. Malamute)
They gave the dog 6 green olives as a trial dosage, as he lay there, kept him company for a couple of hours, saw that his eyes had begun to clear, his ears were twitching and swiveling, and he was becoming more alert in general. Six more olives, and they were able to move him, supported by a towel, out to the yard, so that he could urinate.
He was left laying in the sun, and the friends called her to tell her that he had moved to follow the sun himself. He had gotten up and MOVED.
He was brought in the house as it became cooler, and after awhile they invited him out to the yard again, where he again was able to urinate.
Six more olives, and another dose tonight, and it looks as if they will be able to take him to the vet for some other problems.
This isn’t the first time this has worked. The first time was when a cat, who had been diagnosed by a vet as having crystals in his urine and calcification, demanded some of the green olives that his owner was eating while looking at TV (gave him 3-5 slices this time, and worked for subsequent attacks). It still works, and 3 more cats, one small dog, and one very large dog seemingly owe their lives to this cure. We really, in our minds, have enough anecdotal information to want to “spread the word” !
The dosage is probably one olive per 10 pounds, twice a day. Perhaps more often, at first. The animals have no inclination to drink the juice it comes in – and don’t object too strenuously to having the olives, sliced or whole, put down their throats.
My question to you is – (being one of the few doctors in our world I feel comfortable talking to about this-): What could be in green olives that is seemingly making this an effective remedy for kidney stones/problems?
Awaiting your answer –
Karla
P.S. Alaina is going to try it on herself. She is prone to developing “gravel” here in Kingman – high mineral content in our water – Should I let you know if it works on her?
PPS. The olives are in the jars/cans one purchases at any store. In the case of the Malamute, they fed him cocktail olives – expensive ones – that they had around the house for their martinis. I asked about the pimentos – she said it didn’t seem to make any difference. It still worked. The lady with the cat was eating from small cans of sliced olives from the store. Cheapest ones will do!
Alaina hasn’t tried black olives – don’t know if they would be effective.
So, readers: I know that olives contain oleopurines, which are good anti-inflammatory compounds. But that hardly seems enough in the present case. Do any of you have any ideas what else might be at work here?
Of course it would help to have a proper diagnosis but let’s assume it was kidney stones for now.
Simple acid base chemistry here, folks. You probably won’t find textbook reference available, however, the real reference is household everyday usage of baking soda or vinegar, the 2 most common chemicals with the most uses and incredibly simple mechanisms. But for those who think it just my opinion, please forgive me, because well it is! Green olives are usually pickled in vinegar, black olives are in salted water. Anyone who is giving their dog the same water as the humans drink which is “hard” water or water high in calcium is possibly creating stones or crystals which are calcium based. This is called calcium “scale” in plumbing pipes and water faucets and is simply dissolved by soaking or washing in plain white vinegar. Giving the dog vinegar soaked or “pickled” olives is increasing its intake of available acid to dissolve the crystals naturally. I would advise against giving the dog black olives for this reason as the salt content would probably make him worse. Animals instinctively know what they need but have difficulty asking us poor ignorant humans how to give it to them. I have acidic well water which must be treated with “calcite” which helps neutralize the acid, just like drinking bicarb of soda (adding baking soda) to neutralize acid upset stomach. This is exactly the opposite chemical reaction occurring in the dog. The calcite leaves calcium scale on my plumbing which has to be removed with vinegar treatment when it builds up. If you examine the “hard food” being given to the dog for the content of calcium, sodium and other positive ionic substances, you’ll find the answer to the “big picture” of why the combination of “hard” water and “hard” food is causing the dog to go into alkalosis blood chemistry which supports the calcification reaction. Dogs and cats are obligate carnivores which means they must eat meat to support their natural physical chemistry. High consumption of meat produces acidic blood chemistry normally and should keep the crystals at bay. However, Frank Zappa has been gone from the scene now for a few years and people in the animal food production industries are more mindful of corporate profits than they are of “Watch Out Where the Huskies Go”. You’ll find they have slowly and steadily increased the content of grains and cereals like rice, corn, wheat, gluten, meal, etc., in animal food because they are cheaper than putting in the higher contents of meat required to keep animals healthy. Due to this, you would also find higher propensities of animal obesity from extraneous carbohydrate over-consumption (I have a 32 pound cat with an emotional based eating disorder who gorges on hard food as proof and I have seen other examples). Less meat also means less preservative required to extend the product’s shelf life, so once again less cost for the mfr. Look at the ingredients and disclosure labeling on dog and cat hard foods and you’ll see they rate protein content in “minimum percent”. Fancy way of saying “you certainly aint gettin’ more than that!”. There are likely a whole lot of medical ills in animals that are being created by this “trend” that veterinarians are probably clueless to properly ascertain and treat. Would they (the vets) suggest you spend more money to cook your dog or cat eggs, chicken, fish or beef and feed it to them instead of buying whatever medicines or special dietary packages they are prescribing for continuous treatments of the symptoms of these dietary disorders even if they knew the cause? Certainly depends on the vet and their scruples and integrity doesn’t it? Baking soda and vinegar……. learn all you can about them and you’ll also find that cancer…. the Andromeda Strain of modern living will never get hold of your blood chemistry or your pets’. Knowledge is power. Share this with your friends and empower them, too. Love and light, Vince.
Nice try Vince but COMPLETELY wrong. Pickled olives are ACID and will not neutralize an acid state, Wrong theory I’m afraid.
Prof.
Green Olives have vinegar and are high in chlorides – chlorides will break up the crystallization. Drinking apple cider vinegar was long ago recommended for kidney stones. Sorry I don’t have sources to cite – but will search for them if wanted. Some of my knowledge comes from 20 years of research using the old Doc Reams Urine/Saliva Test – learning first hand what various foods do to the chemistry of the person. I ended up not subscribing to his recommendations at all but being able to control kidney function very well.
I would love to see a pet corner. Have an item to share myself for the moment. My pet – a domestic long-haired cat by the name of Fluffy is approaching 16 years of age and had been ailing – losing weight, growing listless, pulling his fur out, and started in on a constant vomiting binge. Remembering Dr. Pottenger’s nutritional research on cats many many years ago I came up with the idea he needed “raw” food so purchased raw hamburger – not sure that was the best thing to do but I was desperate. He took to the raw meat with gusto – consumes a pound inside three days, is gaining back his weight, more active, and becoming his old pesky self. Recently I switched him to fresh halibut though baked for a couple days which he greatly enjoyed, and now back on the raw hamburger diet.
Hi Doc, did I make it unclear somehow that I was saying olives pickled in vinegar are acid? Do I need to edit my post to be of better service to those who read it? I believe I said the dog was experiencing alkaline formation of calcium crystals, not acid. Of course acid doesn’t neutralize acid! We’re not talking about neutralizing acid, we’re talking about neutralizing the alkaline chemistry that forms the crystals and dissolving the crystals using vinegar as a natural gentle acid that is well tolerated by the animal. The post following yours about the raw meat helping the cat seems to reinforce the statements I made regarding food and blood chemistry. Geraldine’s mention of olives being high in chlorides provides the perfect answer to the where the ions go. Positive calcium binds to negative hydroxyl in alkaline environment to form the painful crystal. Negative vinegar acid ion breaks apart calcium hydroxyl bond to dissolve crystal leaving negative chloride ion free to bind calcium which is easily excreted with the helpful formation of water formed by H+ from the vinegar supplied acid and OH- from alkaline remnant of the crystal dissolution. If I got it wrong, please correct it.
Please forgive me as I know you have 10,000 emails to read, but I think my all to often over-wordy explanation was misunderstood by you. Diets high in meat products produce acidic blood chemistry as you have always stated in your posts. The dog suffers from alkaline based crystal formation which might indicate too little meat or too low of an acid blood chemistry. Since we don’t know the hard food diet factor involved here, is it possible to suggest also that his diet is too high in grains? That kind of diet is good for us to alkalize and keep away acid, but not for the dog. Would anyone suggest feeding dogs and cats fruits and vegetables? Your work on alkalizing blood to fight cancer is what I’m agreeing with here as with all the other work such as Baroody’s “Alkalize or Die” book. We’re simply applying the acid base question to the dog. Sorry if my plumbing comparisons made this unclear. If you believe my post will cause others misunderstandings or problems, please delete it.
In addendum, I’d like to compliment you on your recent post about ractopamine in meats while commenting on the dog situation. Is feeding dogs and cats fresh meat diets cause for a question about the possible consequences of feeding them meat containing these substances which would possibly cause other problems? Your bit was very informative. I wasn’t aware of ractopamine until your latest Serendipity post, which I read regularly and enjoy greatly. Vince
Great comments ( so far ) thanks to all for sharing! I have friends who visioned LONG ago ( 20yrs at least) about the ongoing/future pollution of the food chain. They decided their best safeguard was to intensively self educate and become ” back to the landers “.
Fortunately, they were financially able to launch and are able to support their eat-only-what-we-grow-or-farm-chemical-free lifestyle. They created a sophisticated home/garden filtration water system to go with their a toxic free home and surrounding farm environment. While most of us cannot create this utopia for ourselves, we can ” do our bests ” to make informed choices and live the walk. Infinite thanks to Prof and others for sharing information…a gift that always keeps giving.
HI:
Thanks for the wonderful olive story. I will keep that trick in mind. I have been feeding an organic raw diet to my dog for 8 years now with awesome results. If you would like to read and watch a video about how I make the food and what I feed my standard poodle visit: http://alivenjuicy.com/Raw_Pet_Food.html. There is also a video on the home page showing you how to make simple delicious treats for both cats and dogs. To read more about the raw diet for your pets check out Kymythy Schultz “Natural Nutrition for Dogs and Cats”. My favorite pre made raw food is Primal. http://www.primalpetfoods.com/ Hope this helps, would like to hear more success stories.
Diondra
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