Expert Strategies to Extend Your Pet's Life, with Dr. Marlene Siegel, DVM

In this episode, Amy is joined by Dr. Marlene Siegel as they 
explore new and innovative ways to help our pets live longer. Dr. Siegel is a pre-eminent expert in bioregulatory veterinary medicine, emphasizing the crucial role of addressing the root causes of disease rather than suppressing symptoms. Dr. Siegel shares her holistic five-step approach to pet health, covering everything from diet and water quality to emotional well-being.

Takeaways:

• Address the root causes of disease with a comprehensive, biologically-based approach.
• Inflammation is a common underlying factor in disease; managing it involves more than just treating symptoms.
• A species-appropriate diet and clean, structured water are essential for pet health.
• Reducing exposure to environmental toxins and considering the emotional well-being of pets are crucial steps.
• Educate yourself to make informed decisions that positively impact your pet's health and longevity.

For more information about Dr. Siegel, go to www.drmarlenesiegel.com
For her free e-book, or to learn more about Dr. Siegel's courses, go to: www.transformingvetmedicine.com

The first 10 people who buy the pet parent course, share a photo of their completed purchase on Instagram and tag @drmarlenesiegel and use the hashtag #starlight will get a free 15-minute online consult with Dr. Siegel. 

 Big changes are coming soon to Starlight Pet Talk! 🚀 We’re excited to share that we're evolving to bring you even more engaging content and fresh perspectives. Stay tuned for new features and exciting updates that will enhance your listening experience. We can’t wait to reveal what’s next—keep an eye out for more details! 

Transcript

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 You're listening to Starlight Pet Talk, a podcast for pet parents who want the best pet care advice from cat experts, dog trainers, veterinarians, and other top pet professionals who will help you live your very best life with your pets.
 
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 Welcome to Starlight Pet Talk. I'm your host, . And my special guest today is Dr. Marlene Siegel, a true pioneer in bioregulatory veterinary medicine. When traditional treatments fall short, Dr. Siegel steps in with innovative solutions. She's an international lecturer, researcher, and consultant who is always finding new ways to help pets and their parents. In her practice, she uses therapies like ozone and photodynamic therapy and focuses on identifying and treating the root cause of disease, just symptoms. Dr. Siegel also shares her knowledge with the world through journal articles, webinars, and online courses for both pet parents and veterinarians, which I think is awesome. I definitely want people to check out those courses. When she couldn't find the right diets and supplements for her patients, she created her own raw food and supplement company. And now in her latest venture, she's gearing up to launch Spas Family Wellness Centers, which are detox centers for pets and their people.
 
 So Dr. Siegel, thank you so much for joining me here today. you're so welcome. And I'm excited to be able to speak to your audience. I know. We've been looking forward to this for a while because I think you're doing so many cutting edge things that people haven't heard of. And some of it's a mouthful, kind of like bioregulatory veterinary medicine. What exactly is that? Well, thank you for letting me define it because we are now hearing about more and more veterinarians that are saying they are holistic.
 
 Well, what does that mean? And holistic actually was defined as whole body medicine. But what it's being used at currently is if a veterinarian takes an acupuncture course or they take a course in herbs or chiropractic, they call themselves a holistic practitioner. But they're really not because in order to truly understand holistic medicine, you have to understand biology and the whole patient. And then the term integrative medicine came about.
 
 which means that they're mixing a little bit of Eastern medicine, the alternative holistic integrative stuff, along with the traditional allopathic Western medicine. But the problem that I have with a lot of veterinarians who say they are integrative is they're using their acupuncture needle as instead of a pill for the ill, now it's a needle for the ill, and they're still not addressing the root cause of disease. So bioregulatory medicine,
 
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 There's no way to mess that one up. It really means that you understand the biology of the body for that particular species and you're able to direct your diagnostics and your therapeutics to enable the body to do what it innately and intelligently knows how to do. So Amy, most people think they go to the doctor and they get a pill and the doctor made them better. No, their body made them better when they gave their body the opportunity to heal.
 
 In most cases, the body heals despite us because we're doing so many things to screw it up. But in bioregulatory medicine, it's truly understanding the biology of the body, the biochemical pathways, what gets turned on, what gets turned off by our epigenetic lifestyle. What are we doing in our world? What are we eating? What are we drinking? What's our thoughts? What's our behavior? And how is that affecting the biology of the body? Are
 
 hurting it or are we helping it? And that's as simple as it gets. Right. Well, and you know, when you said about giving the pill and we think it's healing it and it's really your body healing, but sometimes, isn't it true that sometimes it's not even being, it's being masked, it's not being healed at all. You're just covering things up. We call that symptom suppression, which is a beautiful point that we want to make because we are a society.
 
 where we have been conditioned and trained by the medical institute to have a symptom and immediately go for suppressing that symptom. We get a headache, we take an aspirin, which is a non -steroidal anti -inflammatory. Despite all the side effects, people still do that. And if you have, let's say diarrhea, we don't question why we have the diarrhea or why did you have the headache? Because it's your body talking to you.
 
 and you take a medication that makes the symptoms go away. And when the symptom is gone, you go, look, I'm all better. But we wouldn't do that to our car. If the dash light on your car came up and said, you have a check engine light, or nowadays it's just a general, you need to go find out what it is. But back in the day when I started driving, it actually told you there was a problem somewhere and it told you what the problem was. Well, we wouldn't consider unplugging the dash light.
 
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 and saying, look, the problem's gone. It's insane, right? We laugh at that, but yet we do that to our body. And our body is the most magnificent machine who is communicating to us all the time. It's okay if you want to treat your symptom, just don't stop there. Ask that big important question. Why do I have a headache? Why am I having GI problems? Why do I have skin disease?
 
 And that's for yourself. And we're taking the exact same application to our pets, which is even more important because, you know, they say they don't talk to you. I think they do talk to us. We just aren't listening with the right ears. let's just suffice it to say they're showing us the symptoms that they have. And instead of addressing the root cause, the average veterinarian has only been trained to address the symptoms. We name it, we blame
 
 and then we come up with a treatment or a pharmaceutical and then we make it go away. But most pets' parents would agree that their pets relapse and now the symptom comes back. And oftentimes it's worse than the initial or it comes back as a more severe complaint from the body, a more severe disease. Yeah, that's such a good point. mean, I even, I was having a lot of problems with my knee, which it has a torn ACL, so there's definitely damage in there.
 
 to the point where I thought, okay, I probably need to seek surgery because it's just, it was miserable, miserable, miserable. Anyway, go to the orthopedic surgeon, doesn't think surgery is gonna do anything, prescribes a drug for it and it worked. But what I discovered after the fact, when I made some diet and lifestyle changes, that I truly believe that the key to a lot of my aches and pains were inflammation. And I have eliminated some inflammatory inducing things from my diet.
 
 And I've not had to take a pill for any of that. And nothing else has changed. It's just that one element. So it is so amazing how much the body can heal itself if we just let it. Absolutely. And inflammation, as you just said it, is the underpinning of all dis -ease. Now I said it that way, I did D -I -S space E -A -S -E.
 
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 because I truly, after 40 years in practice, I truly appreciate the fact that there is no disease. There is dis -ease, the body not being in balance. And when the body is in balance, we have ease and flow. So number one is addressing why are we seeing the inflammation? And that inflammation will settle in the weakest link in the body. So for you on your ACL, it actually stemmed from leaky gut.
 
 which led to inflammation along your spine, which caused a decrease in blood flow and circulation from the nerves of the spine going out to the end users, i .e. the cells and the joints. And so your joints become weak because they don't have good nutrition and they can't get rid of cellular debris and they get weak. And then all you have to do is step the wrong way or make a turn and poof, that's a weakened joint. But it came from the gut.
 
 leading to inflammation, leading to the spine. I'm using that as an example because we see so many ACL tears in dogs now more than we have ever seen. It's almost epidemic. And we're also seeing when we do radiographs that a majority of our patients are having spinal disc degeneration or osteoarthritis in the spine. And so it makes sense. The story actually plays out. If you have all that inflammation in the spine, just like in your case, you're gonna have
 
 a weakness of energy and blood flow and circulation and nutrients getting to the end user that those nerves are supposed to be feeding. And then you get a weakened distal area and then it has more of an opportunity to break. Yes. The whole thing to me is completely, completely fascinating. I'm assuming you didn't learn all this stuff early on. This is stuff that came in later in life. How did you develop to the point where you have taken
 
 journey into looking so much more deeply at our pets and their biology? You know, I think it's true for all people that step out of the box and are willing to do great things in the world is there has to be some pain point that you experience, whether it's in yourself or someone that you love. And so for me, it was one of my horses becoming injured and that horse had saved my daughter's life, physically saved my daughter's
 
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 So when it came time for me to understand what had happened in that riding accident, I was determined to fix this horse. And when I had equine veterinarians come out to see her, their short answer was, we don't know what's wrong with her. She's not safe to ride. You'll never show her again. And you could put her out to a pasture for the rest of her life, or you could put her down. And it was those words, the, is nothing more that can be done.
 
 that lit something up in me. First of all, I refused to accept that. And I think there's so many stories of people who are diagnosed with stage four cancers and they're told, go home, get your affairs in order, there's nothing more you can do. they just, something in them says, no, I am not willing to accept that as an answer. And they are able to heal themselves from stage four diseases. And it was that kind of motivation. I was determined to fix this horse because I owed that to her.
 
 And this passion came up in me that I had no idea was that strong. And despite the fact that I had an incredibly busy life and my practice was busy, I was raising and homeschooling two children. And I just, I don't know, you find room. And when the universe says it's your time to do something, you just step up to the plate and you do it. Cause if you don't, it's gonna come back at you and you're gonna say, you missed the first opportunity. We're gonna come back and tell you again. So.
 
 That's how I started my journey was really to try to fix the horse and as I learned more tools to fix her I incorporated those into my small animal practice into my personal life and You know, honestly Amy when I look back at pictures of myself 20 years ago, I Look older then than I do now and I'm almost 70 years old
 
 And it's the difference on how I have learned to understand my biology. So I biohack my own body and not for any other reason that I wanna be here for a long time and I wanna feel good and I wanna have lots of energy and I want my brain to work and I have so much I wanna do and I don't wanna be slowed down. So at pushing 70, I have zero health issues and I'm on zero allopathic medications but I take a boatload of
 
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 nutritional supplements that are all geared towards helping my biology do its job. Yeah, and I would highly recommend that everybody go out and we're going to put in our show notes a link to your website. But the video where you're telling in more detail the story about your horse Lily, I was boohoo. And when I was watching that video,
 
 You're a very good storyteller, but it's a very compelling story about that pivotal event and how much it changed you and how you see things and how much people's pets have benefited as a result. You know, on a spiritual level, I believe everything happens for our highest and best good and everything is a blessing, even the most ouchy things that you can go through. So if you're experiencing a painful moment in your life or it's been going on a long time, just know that if you can lean into it and ask
 
 for evidence of the blessings, you will find it. And when you look back, you go, my gosh, I wouldn't change a thing because I wouldn't be who I am today if I didn't go through what I did then. And every experience in our life helps to mold us who we are today. And then we find our purpose and our passion. And then after that, it just lean in and do it. Yeah, I agree with you 100 % on
 
 So we know the story of what got you down this path. And like I said, I highly recommend people go check out that video because it was very compelling. But tell us about your five step approach to pet health. It seems simple, but yet so profound at the same time. When we talk about medicine and health, and you go from the allopathic perspective, it's so complicated that you sit there and you go, I don't know how to figure out my own health challenges, let alone my pet's health challenges.
 
 And I just asked for some clarity on how do we make it concise and clear and easy to follow and sustainable? Because if you don't have a sustainable plan, you're not going to keep doing it. Yeah, that's huge. So what I came up with was it's actually six steps, but in my book, I only say five because the sixth step is our woo woo step. It's our emotional side, but let me go through them for you because it'll make more sense. step number
 
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 We have to stop doing the things that are causing the dis -ease. Like we can't go and take a pill for the ill or a diet for the disease and expect things to be different when you haven't changed any of the things that you're doing. Einstein, one of his famous quotes was, insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. my gosh, that is so true. He also said, you can't solve problems with the same mindset that created them.
 
 So not only do we have to do something different, but we have to think differently. And the world that we're living in right now isn't the same world that we had even 20 years ago. So it's extremely important that we have an open mind to say, okay, what else can we do? So with that setting the stage, step number one is stop doing the things that are causing disease. And we look at the diet. In diet, are we feeding a species appropriate diet?
 
 I just did a talk with a gentleman who is all about doing webinars and we were having this business conversation and I said, do you have pets? And he said, no, I don't have a pet yet, but I know my pet's name when I get one. And I said, well, what are you gonna feed your pet when you get it? This is a very intelligent man who lives an organic lifestyle. He and his wife, they cook organic, they try to grow their own food, they're in a CSA. They're really into exercise and all the things that are biohacking human health.
 
 very handsome man, very well built. And when I asked him that question, he goes, well, I guess based on the commercials I watch on TV, I think I would feed Purina. And it was such a beautiful opportunity for me to help him understand why it is that I'm trying to get my programs out to the world is because he is going off of a belief system. We will now call it BS. A belief system is not a bad word.
 
 And that BS is that he is simply learning from what he's being taught around him. We're taught from our parents and what they did if they had pets and our caregivers and our teachers and what we see on TV. And if we believe that, then we don't go any further in asking, is that actually a healthy diet? Like we know we wouldn't go to McDonald's and Wendy's and Taco Bell every day and expect to be healthy because it's processed foods.
 
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 Why in heaven's name would we think it's okay to feed our pets? Processed foods. But if you don't know better, you can't do better. that's step number one is learning about a sustainable species appropriate diet. What does that look like? And then water, my gosh, that water we could spend two hours talking about just water, but water is not the water that comes out of our tap that we want to be drinking. That water is full of heavy metals and chemicals and pesticides and genetically modified
 
 glyphosates in there. It's horrible. Depending on where you live, it could even be worse. You know, I live in Florida. We have terrible water. So learning how to get good, clean, filtered water and structured water, which structured water is the water that is in our bodies. We all know we're made of 70 % water, but that's not the water that's coming out of the tap. This is actually a different molecular construction and it's a gel phase.
 
 So yes, we are made of 70 % water, but it is structured water. And that structured water is what is critical for our body to be able to function. It surrounds every cell in our body, the organelles in the cell. It's a communication highway between the mitochondria and the microbiome, the guys that make energy and the bugs and parasites and viruses and all that live on us that actually contribute more genetic information to us than our own genetic information. Isn't that a shocker?
 
 We don't want to be just cutting out all the different parasites. It's not about making the bacteria and the viruses the villain. It's about the environment that they're living in. We call it the terrain, you the internal terrain. And we've all seen gardens and land where there's a lot of weeds because the terrain isn't healthy, the soil is not lush. Well, what happens? You get a lot of weeds that come in because they're trying to establish something for other things to be able to grow after them.
 
 and that's what happens in our bodies. When the terrain is poor, then the pathogens start to multiply as the first line of defense to try to at least maintain a home and then hopefully things improve and the host organism gets a little smarter and then starts to nurture the body and then the terrain goes back to being a healthy terrain, which is a balance for all the microbes to live in and on. And then we
 
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 all the pollutants that are in our air, in our home environment, what are we cleaning with, what are we doing laundry with? And last but not least is the ants that live in our brain. And they are called automatic negative thoughts. So the acronym is ants. And it may be the most important of all the things, because if you think it,
 
 what you're gonna get. So if you believe you're going to have a certain outcome, you probably will because you're focusing on it and you bring that into reality. And I know it sounds a little woo woo, but I think nowadays people are starting to understand that if they stay in a negative mindset, they actually make neurochemicals that are derived from this negative mindset that is communicating from the hormones that you're producing to the cells and your DNA.
 
 and it says, bad place here, we're going down the tubes, things are not good. And so that leads to more inflammation, more high sympathetic tone, which is stress and everything just starts to go south from there. But when we have a very positive mindset, when we're thinking the world is half full of wonderful things instead of half empty, when we are in gratitude and kindness and we can give compassion,
 
 you send out an entirely different group of neurotransmitters. And you can stay in a parasympathetic tone where your body can actually heal and repair. Why this is important for us to be talking about what our thoughts are is because our pets entrain to what our energies are. So if you're giving off a lot of anger, frustration, hatred, bitterness, all of that, then your animals are in training to
 
 energy, they don't understand why. All they know is there's something bad, there may be danger, there's something not good happening. And what do they do? They come over to us and they put their head underneath our hand to be petted or they get on our lap or they lick us or they just lay next to us. And instinctually, what do we do? We reach out and we start to pet them. And every pet owner says yes to what I'm about to say. No matter how bad they feel.
 
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 when they start holding and or petting their fur baby, they start to feel better. And that's because you're taking some of that low vibration energy and you're offing it to that pet. Not to be guilty, you're not causing them disease. I think they incarnate with us for that purpose. I think they're here to help us navigate this very dense fifth dimension. And isn't it interesting that of all the species on the planet,
 
 They say dogs in particular have unconditional love. What a great model. If we just start paying attention to dog behavior and how happy they are and how in the moment they are, that alone would change people's lives. If they could just be happy and be in the moment. So that's step number one. And of course, electromagnetic pollution. I didn't include that, but it's very important. That's the EMF that we're exposed to, our wifi, our computers, our cell phones and all of that. And 5G.
 
 devastating to our pet's health. So that's all step number one. Any questions on that one? Yes. Well, because it's a lot. It's a lot to digest and say that I, as a pet parent, am working two jobs and I have three pets and I'm running and gunning with my, I don't have little children, but you know what I mean? You've got a very busy life. How do we take charge of that? mean, EMFs and toxins and whatever. mean, it's...
 
 What's the starting point? Because obviously we're not gonna do it all, we're not gonna do it all right away, but what are some of the first things we should be doing? Like the water thing to me is a huge thing. Like that to me should be pretty easy to control. The ingredients in your pet food and avoiding toxins from that perspective, even if you're not gonna like make your pet its food kind of thing. Absolutely. Step number one is awareness. Like step number one is recognizing what does my life look
 
 Am I stressed out all the time? Are we in high sympathetic tone all the time? Am I using cleaners that are full of xenoestrogens and toxins? Am I doing laundry in something that isn't organic, that is actually contributing to endocrine disruptors, these chemicals that change our hormones? awareness is number one. It really is the first step. And then step number two, there has to be a desire to change.
 
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 Sadly, I think a lot of people aren't motivated to change until some crisis happens in their life. I would love to encourage people to make little baby steps before that, but it is what it is. even for me, the big motivator was saving my horse when I thought I was too busy to take on anything else. And amazingly now I look back and I go, wow, I took on so much more and I'm so much happier and
 
 so much more productive because I have learned how to manage my sleep and my mind and my energy and my body. It's amazing. Like people hang out with me and they go, how do you do what you do at your age, at any age? And it's because I am constantly biohacking and staying in a positive energy. I do gratitude exercises throughout the day, not just in the morning and not just at night, throughout the
 
 But step number one is awareness. Step number two is deciding, is it important enough to you to make a change? And then it's really simple from there because I have people when they take my course, it's very thorough. It's a three hour course. And I have them take a piece of paper and fold it in half. They have a column A and a column B. Column A are all the things I'm talking about that they should be doing in the course, but they're not doing that yet. No judgment, you're just gonna write it
 
 Column B are all the things you should not be doing and you still are because we haven't taught you what to replace it with. So column A, all the things you should be doing, column B, all the things you shouldn't be doing. And then I simply have them pick what's the one most important thing on column A that you should be doing. Pick that, start doing it. What's the one most important thing on column B that you need to stop doing? And sometimes it's the same thing. It's just replacing a behavior. And then just stop doing
 
 And then when that becomes comfortable and it's who you are, you don't have to think about it. It's your routine, it's your behavior, it's your habit. Then go back to your list and pick something else. For most people, they're not in a crisis situation where you're never gonna make the whole list change in one day, right? It truly is a lifestyle. So this isn't about what you're doing. It's about who you become in your lifestyle. Now it's very hard to go
 
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 So for me, as an example, I only eat organic. I don't do gluten. I don't do canola oil and soy oil or anything genetically modified like that. So when I go out to eat, I have to call ahead to the restaurant, ask them what oils they use on their food. And if they can't accommodate me, then I won't eat there. So I have a great story to tell about Bonefish Grill. We had a going away party for one of my staff members. And know, Bonefish brings you a little plate of oil.
 
 with herbs in that and then you can dunk your bread in it. So I asked the gentleman, what is in your oil? I already knew it was half canola oil and half olive oil. And they said, well, I can't eat that because it has canola oil in it. So I said, I'll pass. This young man went next door to Carrabba's, which is their sister restaurants, got straight olive oil with nothing else in it, came back to my table and gave me straight olive oil with the herbs in it.
 
 just for me. my gosh, you talk about a wonderful tip for going out of his way to do that. But you know what's even more important, Amy, is that that made an impression on him because he learned that canola oil is bad. People are inherently good people, especially in the restaurant industry. They don't wanna know that they fed you a meal that's gonna make you go home and be ill or promote your cancer. They really don't, but they don't know better and people aren't demanding anything different.
 
 So when people start to demand things, this is where I'm going with the story. When we start voting with our dollars and we make those behavior changes and we choose certain things that are not going to be in our lifestyle because they're bad for us and our children and our pets, the world is gonna respond because we still live in a world that is based on consumer demand. So when we the consumer start to demand healthier items,
 
 whether it's your laundry soap, whether it's your food, your condiments, whether it's your water, whatever it is, when we start to demand it, the companies will shift and start to offer it. So if you get nothing else out of this podcast, know that you have a tremendous amount of control and impact when you make buying decisions. It's the only way we're gonna make change. And, you know, it's obviously when you're referring to that, you're talking about our pet products as well. mean, it's, you know, absolutely.
 
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 If we continue to buy the stuff that's full of unhealthy things, then it's gonna continue to be made. until you start making, I mean, what it brings to mind, and I'm not, I don't wanna go down the path of having a discussion about vegan diets for dogs and cats, but there's no way on this earth that that would have even come about had there not been some type of demand for it, because it's counterintuitive and it creates a whole nother process for the pet food companies. And
 
 You know, the fact that there are entire vegan pet food companies and pet food products is a testament to the consumer demand and the impact that that can have. Absolutely. And when you look at the number of raw companies and fresh food companies that are coming out in the last 10 years, obviously there's a major trend. Now, all raw food is not the same. You have to learn to read labels and understand what those labels mean.
 
 Because there's a lot of people jumping, lot of companies that are jumping on the consumer demand bandwagon, and they want to make the money off of that. And that's wonderful. But they're taking and producing a less than appropriate diet and calling it raw. And if people don't understand what makes a balanced, healthy raw diet, then they're better than kibble, but they're still creating problems. again, back to education.
 
 Yeah, and it's the same, mean, you know, anyone that's done any research or seen any of the many, documentaries and such that have been out about, you know, just the human food and what's allowed to be called natural or organic, and it's really, really not, and it's not very natural or, you know, even the grain free, if the grain gets taken out, something else gets put in its place. And do you know what that other thing is? And is it just as bad, if not worse than
 
 for your pet. I think, I mean, if people didn't change anything else, other than go to your pantry right now and pull that pet food can bag, whatever you're feeding out and go down that entire list of stuff in there and identify what the heck is it, that would be a step in the right direction. Cause you'd be shocked and probably appalled at some of the things in there that are not good. And that's, you know, to end that part of the discussion
 
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 No pet owner that I have ever met is joyful about harming their pet. Even veterinarians, are veterinarians do not want to do harm to their patients. We spend so much time in medical school. put so much of our emotion into our jobs. We love what we do and we want to do good, but if you don't know better, you can't do better. So part of my program is also in educating veterinarians.
 
 so that they learn that there are other things that they can do. Our toolkit needs to expand because the level of complex diseases that we're seeing today didn't exist 20 years ago. So we have to do something different. We have to have a different mindset in order to meet those challenges. So, if you have a veterinarian and you love that veterinarian and this sounds good to you, then encourage them to at least go on a webinar that I do
 
 consider taking my course for veterinarians or something that helps them to start expanding that toolkit and the mindset. Well, that was all number one. That's such a huge piece of it. It's the foundation for everything. There's so much. And if you don't go there first, then everything else you do is really doomed for failure. And I literally will have doctors come up to me and go, I use ozone in my practice and I don't get results like you do. Why?
 
 Well, because you're still feeding processed foods and you're still doing toxic things to that pet. How do you expect them to get better? All right, so number two is identifying the essential nutrients that that animal needs to have. Now I am a test, don't guess kind of gal. So I do the nutrient testing for my pets, my patients to see what are they actually deficient in and then also test for toxicities. And then I make sure that I supplement the diet with those essential nutrients that the animal needs to have.
 
 Let me define an essential nutrient. It is defined as that nutrient that the body cannot manufacture in sufficient quantities on its own, so you have to get it from your diet. Guys, when I tell you food today is nutrient depleted, it's a blanket statement. The foods that we're eating as humans are grown on nutrient depleted soils. So we've known for over 30 years that the food that we're eating is nutrient depleted.
 
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 which is why so many of the government laws say that if you're gonna sell a food, particularly pet food, as complete and balanced, that you have to add the essential nutrients into that diet before you can sell it. They already know it's nutrient deficient. But the problem is they don't qualify what those nutrients are gonna look like. And so they allow synthetic nutrients to go in, which aren't getting us any further down the road than having a poor level of them.
 
 Again, it all comes back to education and understanding how to read labels and how to get the right diagnostics. The essential nutrients are going to be obviously species specific, but is it also individual to the pet? So you can't just say this is what cats need or am I wrong on that? I would say more species specific than individual case specific. But let's say an animal, we do a test and they're low on vitamin D. Well, then we know we have to supplement the vitamin
 
 But the essential nutrients are the essential amino acids, vitamins, minerals, and fatty acids. It's those four categories that we – and you can look them up on the internet to see what they are. And if they are not in the diet in a biologically available form, that animal is going to be nutrient deficient. And they're the building blocks for many – the fatty acids are the building blocks for the cell wall. The proteins are what we use to make muscle and to grow.
 
 and aminos, they're the base material for the proteins. So all of these are critical to be able to have in the body. And we just, we're just not taught how to make sure that we have the proper nutrition in our body for our bodies to be able to function. And then number three was heal the leaky gut. And there are specific protocols that we follow for healing the leaky gut. Obviously you have to stop damaging it before you can heal it. So think of the gut lining.
 
 as a piece of cheesecloth. Okay? If you're going to strain chicken soup that has your meat and your vegetables and your herbs, but all you want is the broth. So you take and you cook your chicken soup for whatever time, and now you're going to strain it out. You take your cheesecloth and you put it over the container. And when you pour it, the cheesecloth catches all the elements that aren't supposed to go into your bowl. But if
 
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 caused holes in that cheesecloth, like somebody took a pen in the middle of the night and made big holes in your cheesecloth and you didn't know it and you go to strain your soup. Now you're getting material that can fit through that hole to go into your soup. It's coming through the hole when it wasn't supposed to. That is literally what is happening to the lining of our gastrointestinal tract. But instead of having a cheesecloth, they're called tight junctions and the cells look like this.
 
 like one cell next to another, and then there's this protein that exists between them. Glyphosate is one example. It melts the actin filament that holds that cell together, and then it causes it to become separated. So if you can appreciate how tight that is versus how tight that is. So now things come into the body that aren't supposed to, and they travel by the bloodstream to the liver, the liver sees those foreign materials and goes,
 
 my God, we have an invader here, mount the inflammatory response. And so it mounts this cytokine storm of all these different mediators that are designed to go out and kill the invader. That's how we have survived for as long as we have. So it's a good thing, but it's not a good thing when it never turns off. And in today's day and age, it just never turns off. gut health, mean, I think so many people are so unaware of not only how important it is, but
 
 far reaching impact. I think when people sometimes hear gut health, they think, if my dog doesn't have gas, it's not burping, it doesn't have diarrhea, then it's got a healthy gut. It's so much more than that. Yeah. And then we have a lot of people talking about gut health. They come in, they say, my dog's fine, no problems, or my cat. And then when I ask the right questions like, does your animal ever spend a day where it doesn't eat? yeah, happens at least once a
 
 Do you ever hear a grumbly tummy? yeah, does he vomit periodically? You know, these are symptoms that are not big enough to make them go to the vet because by the next day the animal's better, but there's certainly the dash light coming on and saying there's a problem here. Or the biggest one, the biggest one of all, my animal's a picky eater. Well, have you ever watched a lion or a tiger when they're hungry on a National Geographic's video? They don't hesitate. They spend a tremendous amount of energy to chase down
 
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 kill and devour their prey when they're hungry. That's a healthy animal. They're really driven to be able to use all that energy to be able to feed themselves. But when an animal goes over to the bowl, kind of looks, I'll take a bite or two, but my tummy doesn't feel good, so I'll just do a couple bites and I'll come back later and see if I feel better. That is the number one indicator of an animal with a problem, is a picky eater.
 
 So that was number three, heal the leaky gut. And we have lots of protocols to be able to do that. And then number four is my heart passion, which is detoxification. We have six organs of elimination. Our pets have the same six organs of elimination. The kidney, the colon, the lungs, the liver, the skin. And I used to say the lymphatics. Now I say the lymphatics and the fascia, because the lymph.
 
 runs through the fascia, so they're very important. And we just live in a society where everything is so toxic and we've been exposed to so much that these organs can't keep up with the elimination process, so they start to get backed up. So that is critical to either being healthy or healing. Like what would that entail? What tools are available for pet parents? know, obviously if I live near you, I could come to your practice and
 
 and have you assess my pet and then employ all these things that we're talking about. But if I'm not there, if I'm in Houston, working with my regular veterinarian, what kind of things would we be doing to detoxify our pets? Well, some of them are supplements, some of them are behavioral things to do, and then some of it requires technology. But I think it's so divine
 
 As I was going through developing systems for detoxification, I was looking for the next tool, the next tool, the next tool. And at the end of, and I'm always still looking for tools, but at the end of a period of time when I had a really good toolkit, I had something for every organ, I sat back and I went, isn't that interesting? Every technology that I have can be purchased by a pet parent and used at home. I thought
 
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 That is not an accident. How divine is that? That doesn't mean that every parent is going to spend $100 ,000 and equip their home as a spa's family wellness center. Probably not. Some people might want to buy a franchise from us and open their own franchise, open their own spa's family wellness centers. But the point is that people can purchase certain things, and I think there's a hierarchy of what's most important and then the layers that go along with
 
 so that they can start to implement the things that need frequency and need to be maintained because it's like an ever growing issue. Like you just don't detox in 10 days and then go back to your old lifestyle. This is a lifestyle that we're talking about. So one of those is using ozone and hyperbaric oxygen. So to me, those are two things that should be in everybody's toolkit as a pet parent.
 
 When they come to me, we talk to them about that pretty low investment and for ozone and we do the training for them so that if they purchased equipment through us, we do all the training for them. It's included, there's no extra cost and we help them with protocols and then hyperbaric oxygen the same way. You can do that at home now and it's neat because not only does the pet benefit but the people and the house benefit as well.
 
 So can you imagine if during the C word when it happened a couple of years ago, if people had the ability to stay healthier and make themselves healthy and get rid of illnesses quicker by simply having the tools in their own home? How cool would that have been? But don't go out and this is one warning I would say or one caution. Don't just go out and buy the shiny object or think you're buying something because the ad says, it's
 
 water bottle and it produces hydrogen. You don't know the quality of that product and is it really doing it? Yeah, it's kind of like CBD. You know, that was the whole thing with CBD is how much is really in it? What's the quality? Has it been verified, et cetera, et You know, Amy, when I was looking to develop my supplement line because I couldn't find a clean line that I could stand behind, it was four years.
 
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 and going from company to company to company to company to find a company that didn't just wanna throw me out a product and say, here, but we're gonna put all these additives in there. I go, no, I'm not gonna do that. one company had the audacity to say, well, nobody's gonna know what's in there. I know what's in there and I know it's harmful for my patient. I'm not going to do that. But I finally found a company that makes pristine products.
 
 that are effective, that are backed with science and testing. And so that's what I ended up working with is a company that has that kind of level of integrity. So back to my caution statement is don't just go out and buy something because it's on Amazon. You really have to understand what you're buying. Does it actually do what you're thinking it's going to do? Is it cost effective? And I'm not saying you have to buy the most expensive because most expensive doesn't always relate to being the best,
 
 you know, when you're looking at something like CBD, you wanna know that you've got a quality product in there. And then number five is the mitochondria. They are these little organisms that live inside our cells. We got trillions of them and they produce energy for our bodies to function. But they do more than that. They are actually the communication network that helps to dictate
 
 what should and shouldn't be turned on or off or how we should be responding. And so they send chemical messages from them to the microbiome through the fascia. So we want to make sure we have the healthiest microbiome, that we have the healthiest mitochondria, that we call it mitochondrial biogenesis. We want to make bigger, healthier, more robust mitochondria so that we have more energy and better communication to be able to function.
 
 And the number six, which is so important, it's not in my ebook because it's a little woo woo, but it is critical and that is clearing the emotions that are associated with the dis -ease. So with all dis -ease, there are always associated emotions. How animals play this role is really interesting because they can be reflectors to their soul family.
 
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 They're two -legged family about things that need to be addressed. There's never a coincidence that you have a particular pet at a particular time in your life with a particular problem. There's always messaging there. or so they're either reflecting or they're mirroring or they're delivering a message. You know, there's some, there's always a meaning behind everything that happens. I'm just absolutely convinced that nothing happens by accident. So.
 
 then it's a matter of how do I receive the message and how do I make things better? So that's the six steps. So how do we pull all this together for the pet parent? What else do we need to be doing next? I know one of the things that jumped out at me on your website was having pets that could live 20 years. I mean, there's nobody that I've ever met that has said, I wish I had less time with my pet. Yeah, absolutely. In fact, when I ask people, what is your goal? They go, I want you to help my pet live forever.
 
 Yeah, exactly. You know, we all know we're leaving this planet, right? Everybody has an exit strategy. We don't know when that is, but we know we're all going to leave. What they're really asking for is quality time. We don't want to be spending it nursing an animal that is miserable and itching or in pain. And we don't want that. We want to have a vibrant, healthy, fun life for ourselves, for the animals in our life. We want our family to enjoy life.
 
 and that's what we came to Earth School to do. We just have to figure out how does that look? And it's about making decisions like we talked about in the beginning. where do you start? You start with education. And I am going to shamelessly encourage people to take our Pet Parent course because it is three hours of solid information with case examples telling
 
 how to know what testing to ask your veterinarian to do, how to know the detoxification steps for your pet, what diet looks like, what supplements should look like, what emotional clearing looks like. So it really takes you from the beginning all the way through to understanding the framework. Now, for most people, they want to have somebody help them a little bit more, because maybe they're...
 
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 already into a challenging situation. So in order to do a consult with me, we require that they do the Pet Parent Course. Because if they don't understand the basics, I can't explain it to them quickly. You have to let it sink in, it has to become who you are. And you can't do that in a 10 minute conversation. So they start with the course, which is $197.
 
 It is very inexpensive. It is less than an hour with me and you get three hours of content. And then we have an intelligent conversation to move forward. But by then people have already gone through and go, I'm not doing do, do, do, do. And I am doing do, do, do, do. And they need to stop that. They may not know what to replace it with, but that's where
 
 consult time comes in. And so very effectively, I can help people make massive changes. And I work with their veterinarian as well. So that's where we need to start. We all need to start with taking that first step, which is taking back our power. And we take our power through education. First of all, I highly recommend everybody who's listening to this to check out the course. But I understand that you have a special offer just for our listeners that you wanted to share. I'd love to hear about
 
 Okay, so the first thing is that they can download a free ebook that is the five steps to holistic healing for your pets. So you go to www .holistichealingvet .com. It's all one word, all lowercase, holistichealingvet .com. And the second thing, and I don't do this very often, but I I feel it on my heart to do this for your audience.
 
 And that would be for the first 10 people who purchase the Empowered Pet Parent course, that they can have a free 15 minute consult with me after they've completed the course. So I can help them with implementation or answering questions. I'm very strict. I'm going to keep it to the 15 minutes, but I think that would be a tremendous value add for somebody who seriously wants to make this a way of life for themselves.
 
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 we'll create a coupon code that you would just put in Starlight. And that way we know that it's from Amy's audience. And then you can have a free 15 minute consult with me after you've purchased the Empowered Pet Parent course. That would be great. Thank you so much. I feel like in doing this podcast, every episode I learn something that benefits my own pets. You I've made a lot of changes, but I think this one in particular could really lead to some significant changes and significant benefits to my pets.
 
 So I had mentioned the lymphatics and the fascia and how important the fascia is. And I co -created a course for pet parents and it is fascia decompression for your fur family. And you learn how to do the fascia decompression for your animals and all you use is your hands. There's no equipment needed and we walk you through large animals, small animals, cats, and we teach you how to actually work in the fascia.
 
 It is one of the most remarkable pieces that I have ever put into my practice. And I've got a video of a dog. is in some, if you go on my YouTube channel, there's a lot of talks on there. And there's one in particular about this little dog who came in walking like an L. And he was doing that for six weeks before the owners brought him to me. And I did a chiropractic adjustment and the fascia decompression. And in six hours,
 
 He was back to normal. He'd been that way for six weeks. It was like watching a miracle change in this dog's body. It's really remarkable. On my website and in the course, I go over miracle stories after miracle stories after miracle stories, and they're not miracles. They're really understanding the body's biology and just fixing the biology. So dogs that were diabetic that are no longer diabetic, animals that were paralyzed that are running around with no surgery and no steroids.
 
 And cancer cases that were reversed, some as little as five weeks, some longer. But the fact that we can actually reverse cancer is remarkable when on the people's side, they struggle, right? So, you we have the ability to show in so many different aspects, skin disease, allergies, GI problems, autoimmune diseases, in every aspect. I have examples of that in the course.
 
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 then that doesn't mean that we fix everything, but we always improve quality of life. Right. Well, and the allergy thing is just such a big thing that pet parents are facing now and spending tons of money on band -aid fixes for allergies. It's like, did our pets not have allergies back then? Well, yeah, we probably didn't have the toxins that we have in our environments, like you said. So such a huge thing.
 
 Any final thoughts, words of encouragement that you want to share with us before we wrap up for today? You know, a lot of people feel like they're a victim in the world and things are happening to them. So my message is life isn't happening to us. It's happening for us. When we choose to look at our life as a gift, when we choose to realize that we are
 
 creating everything in our life for our highest and best good and that the pets that are in our life are here as part of that messaging and that experience. Then we have that opportunity to be the victor of our life, to look for answers sometimes where answers didn't exist. That's my story. There were no answers for me back when I started doing this.
 
 There was no class I could take. There was no one to go to. Thankfully, functional medicine had just started on the human side. So I just started consuming everything I could come across and figuring out how to apply it to pets. So there was no roadmap. I had to create the road when one didn't exist. And I will tell you, it's the most gratifying feeling in the world to be empowered, to be in charge, to know that you're making a difference.
 
 Every single one of us has that opportunity. The power to heal is truly ours. We just have to own it. For sure.
 
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 Well, Dr. Siegel, thank you so much for being here with us today. And I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed, but luckily we can go back and listen to this podcast and learn even more by taking your course. you've really, hopefully opened some eyes. I know you've opened some eyes and got me really thinking about the very simple, but powerful things that we can be doing to improve not only our pets lives, but our own. So thank you so much for being here. You're welcome. Many blessings.
 
 Thank you again to everybody for listening to another episode of Starlight Pet Talk. We will see you next week.
 
 Don't forget to tune in next week and every week for a brand new episode of Starlight Pet Talk. And if you don't do anything else this week, give your pets a big hug from us.