Transform Your Pet's Health: Expert Nutrition Tips from Elizabeth Casas

Hey there!
In this episode, you’ll hear us refer to the show as Starlight Pet Talk—that’s what we called it before we decided to embrace the fur, mess, and mayhem. Don’t worry, you’re in the right place for Muddy Paws and Hairballs—same great content, just with a name that fits! - Amy

Confused about what’s truly best for your pet’s diet? In this episode, certified pet nutritionist and holistic health coach Elizabeth Casas breaks down everything you need to know about creating a healthier, balanced diet for your furry family members.

Discover how to:

• Decode pet food labels and avoid harmful ingredients.
• Add superfoods to your dog’s or cat’s diet for better health.
• Avoid common pet nutrition mistakes that can impact long-term wellness.

Whether you’re navigating pet food aisles, researching natural pet diets, or simply looking to improve your dog or cat’s health, this episode is packed with actionable advice tailored to real pet parents.

What You’ll Learn:

• The truth about commercial pet food and what to look for.
• Easy, affordable ways to make healthier choices for your pet.
• How holistic pet nutrition can transform your dog or cat’s life.

Listen now to give your pets the healthy, happy life they deserve!

 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

TheTruthAboutPetFood.com - Susan Thixton's Website

Feed Real Institute

Dr. Ruth Roberts

Learn more about Elizabeth's services, workshops, and resources at wellnesswisdom4pets.com

Quick Update: We’re taking a short break and will be back with a batch of fresh episodes starting August 10! 
In the meantime, binge your way through 100+ past episodes packed with pet-saving sanity—and maybe even solve that one issue that's driving you (and your pet) nuts. 
Catch up, take notes, and we’ll see you soon! 

Chapters

• 0:00 Navigating Pet Nutrition With Certified Experts
• 9:35 Making Informed Choices for Pet Nutrition
• 22:53 The Impact of Pet Nutrition
• 31:21 Personalized Pet Nutrition Coaching
• 43:23 Navigating Pet Nutrition Advice and Resources
• 49:55 Lively Pet Podcast Banter

Transcript

Amy Castro: 0:30

Hey there, friends. We've talked about pet nutrition before, but this week we're diving into a question many pet parents are asking how can I get more help in figuring out the right thing for my pet when it comes to nutrition? Well, there's a lot of conflicting advice out there, and figuring out the best diet for your pet's specific needs can really be overwhelming. So today we're gonna be talking with certified canine nutritionist, Elizabeth Casas, and she's joining us to break it all down and help you decide if personalized guidance is the key to your pet's healthiest life. Stay tuned.

Amy Castro: 1:01

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. Pet professionals who will help you live your very best life with your pets. My guest today, Elizabeth Casas, is a certified canine nutritionist and integrative pet health coach driven by a passion for empowering pet parents with straightforward, effective solutions for optimal pet wellness. She has expertise spanning nutrition, optimization and holistic approaches that helps guide pet parents towards measurable success. Driven by values, years of corporate experience, Elizabeth helps pets and their pet parents thrive through workshops, coaching services and speaking engagements All right. So, Elizabeth, welcome to the show.

Elizabeth Casas: 2:06

Thank you so much. Very happy to be here.

Amy Castro: 2:09

You know I had mentioned in my teaser of the show that we have talked about nutrition before, but I think it's one of those subjects that you can't talk about enough because it's so important. But why did it become so important to you? How did you get started down this path of becoming a nutrition coach for people?

Elizabeth Casas: 2:27

So I started about. It's almost seven years ago. I had my beautiful cat Lumiere. He's a Berman and we got him when he was nine months old. He was supposed to be a show cat. He was the most beautiful cat you have ever seen and he has always been very healthy.

Elizabeth Casas: 2:44

When he was about four years old he started growing up. He wasn't eating, he was getting dehydrated, he was just under a chair. He wouldn't come out, he was just really sick. Took him to the vet. They did some blood work. They did some you know some tests, urine samples, and it turns out he had pancreatitis. So the veterinarian goes okay, so keep him in, we're going to give him some fluids because he's highly dehydrated and then we'll call you later and see how he's doing.

Elizabeth Casas: 3:17

So a couple of days passed and they call me and they said okay, he's eating a little bit, you can go home. We're going to send you with a prescription diet specific for pancreatitis, and then you should be good. So this prescription diet was probably twice as much as any other food, right, but you would do it because it's for your. You know you love your animal and it's the only solution that they give you. They also gave me some nausea medication, so I went back, I did everything they told me to do. He was not great, but he was a little better. He was eating the food begrudgingly and then, about maybe a week or two later, he started throwing up again and he started, you know, having issues and pain taking back to the vet.

Elizabeth Casas: 4:01

Pancreatitis is back. This happened a couple of times and then the last time he just said he's not getting any better. The only thing we can do is just keep him comfortable until he passes. Unfortunately, there's nothing we can do, you know. My first question is what did I do? Like what? Why does he get pancreatitis? They couldn't give me an answer, and my kids at that time were eight and nine years old and they were, of course, devastated. This is their pet, this is their best friend that they've known forever, and I've decided to take him out. I'm like there must be another solution, like it cannot be that my cat is going to die at four years old. He's too young yeah took him out.

Elizabeth Casas: 4:36

I had a vet, a friend who's a veterinarian in columbia and, uh, he believes in food and medicine. It's a combination of the two. So he told me, just keep the nausea medication, get him some boiled chicken breast so he doesn't have fat, and give him probiotic yogurt to help his gut. And we did that and after a week or so Lumiere was fine again. He had no more issues.

Elizabeth Casas: 5:05

After that I started looking at nutrition and real food. I found out the reason he had pancreatitis was because the food had a high level of fat. And then I started you know, you start going into this rabbit hole of looking for things and learning about nutrition and I started cooking for Lumiere at that time. I then got my puppy, felipe, who's a rescue, and I always gave him cooked food.

Elizabeth Casas: 5:28

There was always the question am I doing it right? I did a lot of investigation and then finally, about a few months ago, I decided to get a certification as a holistic pet health coach and a canine nutritionist, and so that gave me a little bit more of the tools to be able to help my pets. But also I wanted to help other pets because I remember during that time I didn't know what to do, and so I wanted to be able to help people and educate and share the knowledge on how to make decisions when your pets need a little bit of help, right, and there's so much information out there but it's very hard to know what's right, what's not right.

Amy Castro: 6:06

There's so much conflicting information and I find it shocking sometimes that I mean I love my veterinarians and they have, but the go-to thing is put them on a prescription diet and most of that food, if you look at, I'm sure you have right, it's not good quality food. It might solve the issue because they've eliminated that one thing that's causing most of the problems. But nutritionally it's not good food and, like you said, it costs a fortune. And for those of us who have more than one pet, unfortunately my cats are not picky eaters, so they love eating the prescription diet and now everybody's eating it and I'm feeding the whole household this three times the amount of regular cat food food, and half of them don't need it. It's just, it's kind of maddening. And then you, you just kind of say, what do I do?

Elizabeth Casas: 6:54

Right. And so the thing is, veterinarians are wonderful, but they were never taught about nutrition. You have to understand that. Their understanding of nutrition came from the sales rep from Hills that said you know, if you have obesity, get this, if you have pancreatitis, if you have kidney issues, and that's all they know. There's some veterinarians that are starting to learn about nutrition, but there's also people like me and others that are learning about how to make sure that we give a balanced diet, because what's very scary is, if you look at the back of the food labels, it just sounds very scientific and it's like we can't give that. I need to buy the food. I can't make it at home.

Elizabeth Casas: 7:33

The reality is that it is not that scientific. It is just food. Is food, is healthy food, what we eat is what they can eat. There's certain things can't, but it is not as complicated as people are making it to be. And there's something you said there's so much information out there that is conflicting and what's happening is just becoming very polarizing. It's like you have to eat raw and the raw eaters say there's nothing better than raw.

Elizabeth Casas: 8:01

And then there's the ones who only feed kibble and veterinarians you can only feed pet food and the you know the lightly cooked people. You can lightly cook it and it becomes like my way or the highway, when the reality is all animals. They're like us, right? Keto doesn't work for me but it might work for my friends. You know I might be, I might have issues with milk, but my son doesn't have issues with milk. Pets are the same. Some of them have more sensitivities than others, but they will thrive in food. I personally give my dog a combination of lightly cooked and raw. Some dogs do very well in only raw and some dogs don't. So the key here is to understand what's going to work for my specific pup and feed the dog or cat in front of it.

Amy Castro: 8:52

Right, yeah, and you know, when it comes to pet parent education and I know I mentioned this to you when we had our conversation before the recording is that I spend a lot of time um, at least once a month sitting at a local pet store with our adoptable pets, and I see people walking out who look like people of means and I you can't try necessarily judge a book by its cover, but look like people of means, and you can't necessarily judge a book by its cover, but look like people of means or you have a conversation with somebody and they seem relatively intelligent and then they walk out the door with this bag of garbage over their shoulder.

Amy Castro: 9:45

You know why is it that? Is it simply that the pet labels are too confusing? And so I don't know. I kind of feel like people don't look Like they just go for it's all pet food, it's all approved by blah, blah, blah, or it says it's nutritious, or it says it's got meat or whatever it is, and so they don't really read the nitty-gritty on the label, like, why aren't we doing a better job already? It doesn't seem like it should be that hard.

Elizabeth Casas: 10:18

Well, because it can be confusing, right, and pet food manufacturers are very good at convincing you that the best thing to do is to eat their food. So they put this really fantastic picture of a cut of meat and then it says with meat, and you trust it? You believe it Because, like, why would they lie to you? The thing is they don't have to tell you many things as long as they're balanced and complete according to AFCA. And it's just confusing, you know, and sometimes we also fall I fall under the convenience role, right. We are busy, we have a lot of things around our life, we have work, we have kids, we have families and it's convenient to grab a bag and serve. A lot of us don't even cook for ourselves, so why would we cook for our dog? So it's also convenient, right? What I'm trying to help people understand is that it's really not that hard and that you can start with a very little step-by-step and it would make a big difference to your animal. It really shouldn't be that complicated.

Amy Castro: 11:21

Yeah. So let's talk about that, because I know I have had experience with so. You know, when raw started becoming a big thing, I had this beautiful Doberman pincher and I wanted to do the best by him so and this is how dumb I was back then. So he went from basically eating kibble a good kibble, as good as kibble can be and I made him this like completely raw food meal and of course he gobbled it down and then proceeded to throw it all back up all over the place and I said, nope, no raw food for him, it's no good. Obviously I overdid it and, you know, did too much at the same time. But what are some of those little things Like? If we're either trying to transition to a different way of doing things or just trying to do a little bit better than that bowl of kibble, what are the small changes we could start making?

Elizabeth Casas: 12:13

So there's a lot. There's a wide range of things that you can do. First, learn how to read a label. If you're not willing to move away from kibble, there's better kibble out there. I don't advocate for kibble, but I also don't kibble. Shame. If you are not ready to change world and different paths in our journey, then learn how to read a label and choose the right kind, the better kind of table or not as bad table. The ones that have whole proteins named in the first ingredient. The ones that don't have a lot, that they don't have colors or flavors because they don't really need them and they're not good for your pet. The ones that have whole ingredients, also like for vegetables and different things. Try and look for that.

Amy Castro: 12:55

Yeah.

Elizabeth Casas: 12:56

The second step is just adding something natural to their bowl. I do advocate for one tablespoon at a time, like take out a tablespoon of kibble and bring not a whole thing of chicken, wings and raw eggs.

Elizabeth Casas: 13:08

There's also a process. Right, there's also a process. They are more sensitive than we are. So just one tablespoon at a time of superfoods. So learn what are those superfoods that are going to make a big difference. For example, sardines. I am a fan of sardines. Sardines are at the bottom of the food chain so they don't have as more mercury as other fish. They're little fish. They have a lot of omega-3 fatty acids, which are fantastic to avoid inflammation. They have CoQ10. They are really one of those superfoods that if you add, it's not going to hurt them and it's really going to help.

Elizabeth Casas: 13:46

What happens is when you add just one tablespoon of good food, you're feeding the good bacteria in the gut. What we need to understand is that 70 to 80% of our immune system is in our gut, including our pets. So if you feed that good bacteria, you can go wrong like it's going to help. Even if you're feeding kibble, it's not going to make them, you know it's not going to completely change, but it's going to help their immune system. It's going to help their digestion and the absorption of those nutrients that are so important. The other superfood you can add is mushrooms. I know some people believe that mushrooms are not good for pets. That couldn't be further from the truth. The mushrooms that are good for humans are good for pets. So it's very easy to know. You know, and the mushrooms that are poisonous for us are going to be poisonous for that. Whatever you can get in your supermarket lion's mane, reishi, any, any mushroom is a medicinal mushroom. This little.

Amy Castro: 14:43

We actually did a whole episode on mushrooms for for pets. So if you want to learn more about some of these mushrooms that she's mentioning, make sure you go back and listen to that episode, cause that was fascinating to me, cause I, you know, I feel like I know a lot. I mean, I worked for a vet for eight years and I, you know, rescue animals and I have a lot of animals and I just the mushroom thing never crossed my mind until that episode and it was just wow, just never thought about all those benefits.

Elizabeth Casas: 15:11

Yeah, it's one of those superfoods, right, it has beta-glucans, it has adaptogens. Those are fantastic and just adding maybe less than a tablespoon. You can have one teaspoon, but replace it or put on top of their table, you do need to saute it so the goodness of the mushroom comes out. Raw mushrooms don't do as good as the salt eight ones.

Elizabeth Casas: 15:35

So you know it's two little things that you can do already. Yeah, that are starting to help your pet to have a better gut and better immune system. Uh, antioxidants you cannot fruit, like you know, blueberries. So just little things like that. That's a good start.

Elizabeth Casas: 15:47

If you're not ready, a lot of us, you know, we grew up with veterinarians and our parents telling us the dog or the cat should never eat traps from the table, only eat pet food. There's a history of pet food. Right, dogs and cats existed before pet food and they've been eating normal food before for 15 000 years or more. So they. It's just a matter of how you do it. So that's the next step.

Elizabeth Casas: 16:14

If you want to transition to another food, like going to raw or like going to lightly cooked, you have to do that gradually as well, because the acidity in their stomach has been ready for the amount of carbohydrates that they get from kibble. So when you move to something like raw or lightly cooked, it's going to be very heavy on your stomach. They usually get diarrhea. They do get gas. So you just start slowly, depending on your dog, until you get to the level where their stomach and their gut is ready to absorb that type of food. So it really you know you can go from choose the best kibble to a combination of the two, to a slowly transition to fresh food.

Amy Castro: 16:59

Right, I want to go back to what you had, just because I want to make this point about the labels, because there was a time where, when I was trying to educate myself about the information on the back of the labels and all those you know monosyllabic words that I had no idea what they meant, and I think, anybody out there. I challenge you to go and flip that bag or that can around and literally look up what every single one of those things is and you're going to be shocked to know what those ingredients are and what else they're used for in this world and it's not for consumption. So definitely do that. But I want to address like just something as simple as one very common like A versus B ingredient, right? So you've got a dog food that the first ingredient is chicken and a dog food that the first ingredient is chicken byproduct.

Amy Castro: 17:51

There's a lot of people that would look at that and say chicken, chicken, chicken. Right, it's a. You know it's part of the chicken. Can you just give an example of just something as simple as byproducts? What does that mean? And, without getting too gross, that is a very good point.

Elizabeth Casas: 18:07

When you look at the protein, you are bang on. You need to look at one word protein salmon, meat, pork, byproducts and meals, because you also get a meal right. A meal is it comes from. A rendering facility is a kind of where they put the beaks, the feathers, the bones. There's nothing wrong with that, like beaks, feathers and bones is what they ate when they were, uh, woods, and there's nothing wrong with that. Big feathers and bones is what they ate when they were wolves, and there's nothing wrong with the problem with it is the source. Where is this meal coming from? To the rendering facility. And render facility get the 3d disease, dead and disabled animals Right, and so you don't know that with that meal is coming from a disease animal, a disabled animal, you know a dead animal. So there has been some recalls because there's euthanasia chemical in the food, because the dead animals that are euthanized, or the roadkill animals, they go to the rendering facility. The same thing with byproduct it's not, it's a meal, but it's the pieces of the chicken.

Elizabeth Casas: 19:13

So is the beak, is the feather? Again, nothing wrong with it. But what is the source of it? Where is that coming from? Is it human grade or is it feed grade? If it's feed grade, that's where you're getting disease-disabled dead animals that you don't really want your animals to eat, that, so that's where it's coming from. So when you see that in your pet food and we don't do this, I don't think anyone does call the manufacturer and say what is your source Right? Yeah, right, but there is a very good. There's another source, right? You can go to Susan Dixon's list of approved food. She has a list where she's gone through, you know, if they do third-party manufacturing, so they don't know what's happening with their food the sourcing of the food, if it's human grade, if it's organic, and you can choose from that list.

Amy Castro: 19:58

There's kibbles, there's raw, there's lightly cooked, there's canned, there is all sorts of this kind of food yeah, yeah, it's funny that your dog started barking at the same time I was barking, I muted, I muted myself, but then she started again. She's a little further away. It's okay, it's a pet podcast. We have people. They're like I'm reinforcing what you say. Don't feed me those beaks and feathers. And you know, feathers are good. Just where are they coming from? Well, it not only that, but it's like okay, if you had the option, so you know, rather than thinking of them as equal, would you rather hand your dog a plate full of nice chicken breast or beaks and feathers on a regular basis? You know, probably would like to have some of that meat in there, especially for what we're paying for pet food these days. The pricing is really crazy.

Elizabeth Casas: 20:47

I need to take him out.

Amy Castro: 20:49

Okay, go ahead.

Elizabeth Casas: 20:50

Yes, I'll take him out.

Amy Castro: 20:51

Okay, oh man, oh man, of course, yeah, when my daughter left out right before we started, my daughter had to leave because we got a call from friends with animal control that a cat that we adopted out in june of 2023 had been picked up. And, of the thousands of animals that we've had adopted through the rescue, we've had four that we've adopted out as young animals Because you can't you know, it's such a catch-22. You don't want to spay and neuter a baby because that causes problems later in life, but at the same time, now you're trusting that the persons, even though they've already paid for the spay and neuter, you're trusting that they're going to actually follow through and we've only had four people of the thousands of people in the you know, since 2017 that have not followed through, and that's one of the cats that just got picked up as a stray, so now he's going to come back to us.

Elizabeth Casas: 21:55

So anyways, when?

Amy Castro: 21:55

she when she left. She's like I shut the front gate so the dogs don't bark, because we have Amazon coming a hundred times a day out here, so, but they're still barking. Sorry about that, okay. So I want to get back to this idea because I'm thinking about the sardine thing and I'm thinking well, that's simple enough. You know, you get your sardines, you have them in the, you know, once they're open, you have them in the fridge, boop, boop, boop, one on each bowl, and it becomes part of the habit or part of the routine.

Amy Castro: 22:24

And I think that's maybe one of the biggest challenge challenges for people is is changing that routine. I mean, one of the things I joke about which I joke about it, but it's actually sometimes true is there have been times where I'm in such a hurry and I have so many dogs between my own and the rescues that I have literally taken a big thing, a scoop of food, taken everybody out to the patio and just here you go and threw it on the ground. And they tend to, you know, based on their size and their mouth size, for whatever reason. It seems to work that everybody gets the right proportions, maybe close. I mean, I don't do that often.

Amy Castro: 22:59

But and I know that's an extreme example You're probably like oh my gosh. But you know it's just, people need simplicity or they want simplicity. And if it starts to get complicated then it's going to be like this is too much trouble, even though in your heart you know it's not too much trouble. You know, on one hand you do anything for your pet, on another hand, you know, am I going to cook for them every day? But what are some ways that we can start making that a routine? Or is there a way we can make the routine easier? Like could we prep a bunch of stuff in advance or freeze things and then just take the frozen stuff out in the morning and put it in the fridge and let it thaw? Like do you have any little tricks for us there?

Elizabeth Casas: 23:38

Prepping is definitely your friend, but the thing is it does need to have. You do need to do this and make sure you're ready. For example, the sardines I want to make sure that I do mention this. They need to be packed in water with no added salt I was gonna ask about.

Elizabeth Casas: 23:53

Yeah, if you can't get them fresh, which I've tried here in Houston. I can't get them fresh, so I need to order them online because I can't find them without salt. But if you just take them out, you know how many you're going to give and you have them ready in the fridge, just to do like you said. Everyone gets their share and it's that simple. For the cooking of the food, it's not that hard. A lot of people are like I don't even cook for myself, like I don't even want to know what to do for dinner every day. They are easy, like you put all this stuff that is really good in a crock pot. The crock pot is overnight for eight hours. You don't even need to touch it. So the only thing you need to do is cut it, put it in the crock pot Next day. That's ready.

Elizabeth Casas: 24:34

You put the oil in it. Then you cut it into batches of how long it takes. It's five days, right, so that it's five days right, so that it's not rancid and it stays fresh. You freeze the rest and then it's like you're pulling your kibble. You just take it out. You take a scoop, you serve it, you put your sardine off, you go. It's as simple as that, and then you pull out the frozen one for the next week and so on and so forth, so it's really not that hard. Prepping for raw food is very similar, except that you just need more space in your freezer and your fridge, because you can just do it by meal and put all the pieces you know, the muscle, meat and the bones and everything in there and then just have each meal ready. You just need more space. You just need more space.

Amy Castro: 25:21

Yeah, you know I had written down a question and as I look at it again I think that's kind of a dumb question, but I'm going to ask it anyway about choosing fresh versus processed.

Amy Castro: 25:35

I mean because the manufacturers tend to make it seem, you know, it's healthy. They use all this verbiage that makes us feel like it's good enough, good enough. But I hope by now we all know that, whether it's for ourselves or our pets, that you know fresh food is better than processed food, because of the processing process itself and because of all of the other ingredients that we don't need to take into our bodies, and neither do our pets, that make it shelf stable or box stable or whatever it may be. But to give people a little more motivation, like, what is the long-term impact of feeding processed foods to your pet? Like what problems do you see? Because oftentimes you don't see it for years. Or people will say, well, I fed my dog and I won't name any brands, but I fed my dog this bag of garbage and he lived to be 12. And I'm thinking to myself well, he probably could have lived to be 16 if you'd have done this, or he wouldn't have had itchy skin or he wouldn't have had that, you know. So what's?

Amy Castro: 26:30

the impact of bad processed food versus whole fresh food.

Elizabeth Casas: 26:34

The question here is, again, it depends on the pet. But the bottom line is quality of life, because, yes, some people do well, they survive in processed food. Right, they go to 12. They go to 14. But, like you said, were they in pain? Because sometimes they're survivors, right, they come from the wolf. They don't tell us much until they're really suffering. Were they itching all the time? Were they having bad breath and having infections? Were they having loose stools and diarrhea? Are they thriving? Are they really thriving? They start getting. So what is the cost? We are seeing a rise in chronic disease. So you know we're seeing dental issues. We are seeing kidney disease. Cancer is rampant, like right now. All dogs are getting cancer is one out of three or one out of four dogs are getting cancer, and if they're older than nine, it's almost like 50 to 60% of dogs are getting cancer.

Elizabeth Casas: 27:30

That is the cause. So you're saying I don't want to spend too much money on food and he's fine, but then you're going to have to pay the vet bill that is going to be constant for your pet that now has a lot of chronic issues. Right, obesity is a huge issue now because they're eating basically French fries and, you know, mcdonald's every day.

Amy Castro: 27:52

Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, if you think about it that way and say every time that I'm making this choice versus this choice, or I'm not taking opportunities to put the good choice in, it's kind of like if you were going to take your children or take yourself to McDonald's three meals a day, seven days a week. You can live, right, you can live, you'll survive, but you're not thriving.

Elizabeth Casas: 28:14

You're not thriving, you're going to have heart disease, like our pets. You're going to have arthritis, exactly so. You'll survive, but are you thriving Right? And the age of our pets is declining too. They live longer.

Amy Castro: 28:29

Yeah.

Elizabeth Casas: 28:30

That's the cost of not investing in your pet, and the bed fills are just through the roof right now. And then they give you those prescription diets. Then why don't you just cook for them? It's cheaper.

Amy Castro: 28:43

Yeah, Good point. You think you're prescription diets, then why don't you just cook for them? It's cheaper, yeah, Good, yeah, Good point, Good point. So it's like you might be you think you're saving now, but you're going to pay the price later, and so is your pet, who has no choice in the matter. So you know, making some of these changes is definitely something we should all um, look into, uh, look into doing so.

Amy Castro: 29:00

I know you talked about Lumiere and you know the improvements that you saw in changing his diet. Do you have other examples or stories of kind of, because you're a coach and I do want to talk about coaching and how that all works, because you know we're sitting here, we're having this conversation, and people are probably listening and thinking I can do that, but then they're going to because I know, I know it's happened to me, You're going to start doing it. And then my first thought was but I've got four dogs. They're not all mine, but I feed four dogs every day. Do they all need the same thing? Probably not. Do they all have the same issues or needs or whatever. But let's get to that in a minute.

Elizabeth Casas: 29:45

But what are the success stories that you have experienced? I love the story of the pet parents that tell me that their dog. So I'll give you a couple of examples. There is one. He's a Yorkie, eight years old. His name is Choco.

Elizabeth Casas: 29:59

Choco is a beautiful Yorkie and his mom was starting to be annoyed because he was losing hair on his ears. You know, yorkies are supposed to have this luscious, beautiful hair everywhere and his ears were bold, so he looked like a bat. You know. His mom would say he has bat ears and he was starting to get some patches of you know, and he was overweight. But the vet would say, well, that's normal, you know, he's eight, you know the hair. So we start normalizing those things. We start telling ourselves well, you know, he's eight, he's starting to lose his mind or his hair, and it's fine.

Elizabeth Casas: 30:33

And the vet gave her uh, I can't say the name of the brand, but it was specific for yorkies, which I find hilarious because food is food, and it didn't work. He just gained more weight after. It was specific for Yorkies, which I find hilarious because food is food, and it didn't work. He just gained more weight After. It was 20 days after he was in the food that I gave him, his hair started growing and then she said but it's not just the hair, he looks amazing and everyone stops and says what are you giving chocolate? He's beautiful, but it's also his energy. He's acting like a puppy again. He's just having this energy. He lost a pound. Bear in mind, this is a five pound dog.

Amy Castro: 31:08

That's a lot for a Yorkie 20% of his body weight.

Elizabeth Casas: 31:12

Yeah, yeah. So when he jumps now he's just hitting himself with the table because he's just making the effort, because he used to be so heavy, and so that's one of the success stories. Another one is I'm working with a lady that has three dogs. I'm working with two of them. One has Cushing's disease and she is, I think, 12. Her name is Chloe. And there's also Jagger who has. He's four years old and he had alopecia. The veterinarian said alopecia is normal, there's nothing we can do. And then Chloe with Cushing's. You know she needs to get her medication and every so often you need to increase it. But we started the food specific for Cushing's and she had pancreatitis so we need to be careful with that. So we did do two different diets. Like you say, we can feed the same for both of us. So for Jagger, we did increase a lot of omega-3 to a lot of fish oil as her deans, and we worked on inflammation for him. And what his mom told me is she's like he's getting hair, he's getting hair back and he doesn't have alopecia anymore. And then he said he's not as nervous or anxious anymore and he loves his food. He just seems happy, nervous or anxious anymore and he loves the food. He just seems happy. The cushioning baby also. It's just the best thing is to hear they just seem more energized and happy and alive, like you get the result that you were there for, like the cushioning. We're working on the cushioning and she lost you know she was losing some weight so we worked on that and she's looking beautiful but she looks happier and she has this energy to her. And she's looking beautiful but she looks happier and she has this energy to her and she's just acting like a puppy again. I love when they tell me they're just acting like puppies again. Another one we were working because she had smarts right, it's in her hip. Uh, she had an accident before. She was. Her name is lola, uh the doggy, and her mom says she's just mischievous again. Now she was like this mischievous dog after eating, for I think she's been with me for a couple of months. She's doing better with inflammation, so it's it's preventive for the hip right to make sure it doesn't get worse. But she's getting mischievous and happy and having like a different flair in life. So those are the stories.

Elizabeth Casas: 33:20

There's one story, and this is one of my fosters and I have have another story with my Felipe that we saw, who was barking like crazy and if we have enough time, you saw me. I can tell you so many stories. But I got this foster and we named her Lovebug. She was a Chihuahua, she was nine years old and she was flea infested absolutely flea infested and her skin. Of course she gets an allergy in her body. Got rid of the fleas with medicine, because you know when you need medicine you should use medicine. But then I managed her itchiness and inflammation with just food and mushrooms and she completely transformed. She was beautiful I have some pictures of her and some reels in my Instagram and her hair was starting growing. It was about two weeks and the skin changed and she was just beautiful. Unfortunately, they took her away from me because I was feeding her food so I couldn't foster her anymore. So that's one of those stories Like that is so sad.

Amy Castro: 34:25

She was thriving but they took her away uh, yeah, well, we won't get on that path, but but yeah, I mean it just well, but it it's, it's evidence and I will say, coming from a rescue standpoint, um, you know, obviously, if I knew my foster was a professional nutrition expert, then I would defer to her expertise. Sometimes, when we have people that foster that decide to, I say they go rogue like they, and I'll just give you?

Amy Castro: 34:55

I'll give you one. I'll give you one quick example. We had a volunteer who was constantly asking questions about some issues that we had going on, and they were acknowledged issues and they were things that we were working at the vet on. But she took it upon herself to change some of the routines and one of the things that she changed was, rather than cleaning their bowls the way that we clean them, she started cleaning them with rubbing alcohol. And this is for cats. It's highly toxic to cats.

Amy Castro: 35:19

So we don't like people going rogue, but I'm certainly open to alternative nutrition, but yeah, I mean, it has to be people that are experienced and understand the benefits of that. Otherwise, you know, people can be sometimes kind of closed minded about it. So I understand, yeah, I kind of understand that. So so you said these are, these are clients of yours that you're talking about, other than the foster. How does that work with a pet nutrition coach? Like you know, I know I do coaching of executives on how to communicate more effectively with their employees, but obviously that's a little bit different. So what exactly do you do with your?

Elizabeth Casas: 36:00

clients and how does that work? So it's pretty much like what you do, but instead of talking, I mean I talk to the pet parent, the one that knows them best. What we do is we go through. There's different things that people need right. They might have a chronic condition that they want to deal with, like you know, pushing, or a low PCH, or they might just want to transition safely, and that takes time because they are sensitive.

Elizabeth Casas: 36:21

You can't just some dogs will do it and change and nothing happens to them, but some don't, and so, depending on what they want, we get together, we talk about it and then I give them there's a questionnaire where they would give me all their information about the pet. One of the things that I like about being a coach is that it's very personalized and you do sit down and learn about the dog or the cat. What are the issues. It's a time intensive process. I then take that questionnaire and put together a very detailed plan to go through on how to do what we're going to do, whether it's fight inflammation or fight a chronic illness or just transition. We get together, we talk about it. It's very important that the parent is very involved, because they're the ones who know it, and they're the ones who are executing the plan.

Amy Castro: 37:12

Yeah.

Elizabeth Casas: 37:13

And then we adjust because, like you said, you give them something and they might not like it, especially our kitties. They might not agree with our plan. Some kitties would rather die than change their food, no matter what, and so, if they, we need to make sure that our pets agree. Most dogs do agree with our plan. And then we adjust. By the end of the process it can be two months or it could be three months, depending on the complexity Then you walk away with three complete recipes, all the supplements if necessary or I prefer to give fresh food instead of supplements if not necessary. So how do you supplement for omega-3s? How do you supplement for probiotics? And then they walk away with the knowledge of identifying the right food, the three recipes and everything they need to be able to support their animal's longevity and health.

Amy Castro: 38:06

And is this something you're doing like? Are you coordinating with their veterinarian? Are they just letting their veterinarian know what they're doing that?

Elizabeth Casas: 38:14

is a very good question. It's independent and I would love. I usually tell my customers to make sure they tell their veterinarian. I am a true believer that it's a collaborative approach. I don't think that some people believe that holistic approaches and functional approaches exclude traditional medicine. I don't believe in that. I think it's a good combination of the two. Sometimes you need one, sometimes you need the other one and sometimes you need both. So I do tell them to tell their veterinarian what we're doing. Some of my customers don't feel they should tell the veterinarian and they tell me I can't tell him because he gets angry.

Amy Castro: 38:54

Which to me that's more of a sign that you maybe need to look at having a different veterinarian. I mean it's you know obviously if I'm saying I'm feeding my dog rocks and glass, then yeah, I mean I think your veterinarian should try to stop you. But I mean it should be a conversation and it should be a well, here's why I believe this and here's this, you know it's, here's the science to back it up. I think that's, that's a big piece of it too.

Elizabeth Casas: 39:23

It's like, you know, it's not just my opinion, it's what's backing it up, and I think exactly you know, everybody needs to do a little more homework, and I do give them all the tools to have those conversations with the veterinarian, because what I'm putting together is not something I invented. So the diet that I work with was created by a veterinarian, who is you know who creates this, and it's approved by the American Veterinarian Board. Like I didn't just, I just don't create in my house on my own. There's some guidelines that we need to go through and there's some we need to make sure that the right nutrients are being included, and so I give them all the documents and I tell them talk to your veterinarian about it. The most important thing is to help them have a conversation with the veterinarian, ask the right questions, because sometimes we don't know right, right. So that's what a pet health coach also does it tells you make sure you do this, make sure you ask this question, make sure you're comfortable with the answer to a specific question.

Amy Castro: 40:15

Make sure you know.

Elizabeth Casas: 40:17

You know what you're doing. Right, because not knowing is one of the worst feelings. Right, when my cat had pancreatitis, I didn't even know what caused it and I didn't even know what were the questions or what were the things to say or do.

Amy Castro: 40:50

And I didn't even know what were the questions or what were the opportunities to do that, like don't decide to have the conversation when you said, oh, I just want to come in for a quick nail trim with a vet tech and then say, oh, dr, so-and-so can I talk to you for? And then now you've taken an hour. I mean that's why their schedules get messed up, because oftentimes our veterinarians are too nice to tell you you really need to make an appointment. But what I would recommend is you know whether it's part of your pet's annual exam or you want to make a special appointment, with or without the pet, to go in, pay them for their time, because that's what they're there for, and then you can have a conversation about. Here are the things that I'm concerned about, here are the things you know. I think that's. I think that's only fair.

Amy Castro: 41:32

It's kind of like me as a consultant, where people will call up and they'll say, can I pick your brain? And it's like that's what I get paid to do. I mean, yes, I'll let you pick my brain to a certain degree, but after that it's like when I'm basically writing your speeches for you and I'm now leading your employees for you, I'm, you know I, that's what I do for a living. I don't do it for free. So you know, show some some consideration for your veterinarian's time as well, and I think in those instances they'll be better prepared to make time to have these conversations. And you know, if I said to my vet hey, I really want to sit down and talk about blah, blah, blah that's going on with my pet I, you know, I'm considering doing this with his diet. Can we have a 30 minute appointment to sit down and talk about that? And that way they've got time to prepare and maybe do a little homework as well. You said it's a good time to look for another veterinarian.

Elizabeth Casas: 42:32

But for the really good veterinarians who are open, who are really looking to learn more about this, you will find that they'll be curious and they'll be interested in knowing what you're doing and they'll support you. I do have one customer that said I had one veterinarian and I couldn't talk to him about it. But then I went to the other one and she read what I was feeding and she was like yeah, I'm okay with this, I'm okay with this, perfect, keep me in the keep me in the loop. That's the difference between the veterinarian you don't want and the veterinarian that you do want, because you want them to know what you're feeding them, because they're the ones who are going to be treating your pet. So, yeah, communicate more often than they will be open to listening to what you're wanting to say.

Amy Castro: 43:13

Yeah, and I think you know for the and I don't know if younger people have this much of an issue, but I know that people, you know that older people sometimes, you know we've we were raised to have this reverence for the person in the white coat, right? So you don't question the doctor. And it's like there's a fine line between questioning them, like I'm questioning your judgment, and asking a question. So, if you know, if your veterinarian were to say, you know, I don't think you should do that just say OK, can you share why? Or can you tell me why? Or can you explain a little more about that? I mean it's OK to ask why and then you can make your fully informed decision that way.

Amy Castro: 43:48

But you know, just saying okay, my vet said no, or my vet said I shouldn't do that Because I've asked people this people that are calling me to surrender their pet because it's got an issue that they can't fix. And I said you know, well, have you talked to your vet about this? Yeah, I asked him about that and they said don't do that. I said did you ask why? Well, right, yeah, like they're afraid to ask, it's like just ask, you're paying them, it's okay.

Elizabeth Casas: 44:11

Exactly, exactly. And if you're seeing your pet doing better with the good food, then there's even more of a reason to ask why should I not give it Like? Why? What is wrong with it? I'm not hurting it, obviously, evidently.

Amy Castro: 44:25

Yeah, so you had mentioned a resource, susan. What was the last name?

Elizabeth Casas: 44:31

again, I can share the link for you.

Amy Castro: 44:35

We'll put the link up for that. Are there other things that we should be? I mean, other than going to her website and looking at her list of pet foods or hiring a nutrition coach like yourself, which will put your contact information up for people who want to talk with you more. What else can we do to be getting this true information? We're reading the back of the labels. We're going to try to identify what those things are and what they actually do. What else do you suggest for us? A couple of things.

Elizabeth Casas: 45:06

You can always Google everything, right, and you're going to find a different answer depending on what you want, right. But you need to know your pet. So know what really works and doesn't work for your pet, and then go a route and try and get the person who knows in that area better, right, don't go with trends and don't go with the last thing that you saw on Instagram, because, even though those things could be true, it might not apply to your specific pet. So make a decision of what you want to do. Are you feeding raw? That's fine. Then look at people that are doing it Canine nutritionists.

Elizabeth Casas: 45:43

They're all over. You can go to Feed Real. In Feed Real, you can do a course to learn how to not to be a nutritionist, but to learn more about nutrition. You can hire a canine nutritionist or a pet health coach. You can go to a website of someone that tells you feed real dr ruth roberts so they do two websites where you're going to find pet health coaches, canine nutritionists that know what they're talking about okay here in houston I run workshops that talk about.

Elizabeth Casas: 46:10

it teaches you how to read pet food labels. And then we talk about different issues. We did one at Bark last Sunday where we talked about sensitivities and allergies, the difference between them and how to help your pet overcome. Both Other times we talk about you know, the superfoods. I do different topics and I've done them online and I'll do them in person as well. So go to worship. Don't just follow the last trends and don't don't give up. Also because, like you were saying earlier, I gave him all that it didn't work, so I just completely went back.

Amy Castro: 46:43

Yeah, that's, that's Amy Castro. It was kind of like when I decided, I'm not going to give. I'm not going to put my child in plastic diapers. I'm going to use cloth diapers. And that literally lasted one poop I was like yeah, no way in heck, am I going to do this. I'm a terrible parent and a parent obviously a bad parent.

Elizabeth Casas: 47:02

Oh my God, no, I would never use. Yeah, I use diapers For my kids. All right, so we'll put all those links and resources up. Yeah, for sure I'll share those with you.

Amy Castro: 47:14

Okay, Any, you know, and one of the things I was thinking about too, and I don't know if you do. You know the folks from Zoomies.

Elizabeth Casas: 47:21

I do, yes, they actually. They hosted one of my online workshops.

Amy Castro: 47:27

I thought so Cause I was like you didn't mention it and I was like I thought I saw, but I didn't want to bring it up and be like, no, that was somebody else, that was me, yeah, yeah. So we did. Yeah, we did an episode with them as well, and I'm definitely looking forward to when they officially open up. They're doing so much in advance. That's really cool.

Elizabeth Casas: 47:46

It is pretty cool and he wants to do this kind of thing education so I'm looking forward to support that mission and present my workshop to his community, definitely Okay.

Amy Castro: 47:57

So I'm going to time out real quick here. Is there anything that you wanted to cover that we did not cover, or any other point?

Elizabeth Casas: 48:03

Not really.

Amy Castro: 48:05

Cover most of it, okay, all right. Yeah, I think I hit all the things. I mean, I think we're giving people some good, good food, all right, so I'll just wrap up then. So well, elizabeth, thank you so much for taking the time to be here today. This was even though I, like I said at the very beginning, we've done several episodes on nutrition. Like I, always learn something new every single time and I love the idea of having a you know, a pet health coach to really help us through this process. And you know the way I always figure it is either you can Google it and spend hours and hours and hours, or you can go to an expert source and get that person to help you, and it's probably a better use of your time. But that's going to be people's choices. But put all your contact information up for people. And, again, just appreciate you being here with us today.

Elizabeth Casas: 48:55

Amy, thank you so much for having me and I'm just hoping I've given some information for people to understand that it's not that hard. Start with one tablespoon and if you have any questions you can reach out to me. I'm very happy to support you.

Amy Castro: 49:08

Awesome and thank you to everybody that listened today. You know I challenge you because I think about the things that we spend our money on, because a lot of times it comes down to finances. This is too expensive, that's too expensive. But you know, if you're willing to give up your one cup of out of the house coffee or that energy drink that you probably shouldn't be drinking anyway, or you know anyway, and you added the cost of that up over the course of a month, I bet you I bet you anything that you could make some of these better improvements to your pet's diet, and wouldn't it be worth it if you could add years, quality years to your pet's life? So please consider that and thank you again for listening to another episode of Starlight Pet Talk. We will see you next time.

Elizabeth Casas: 49:53

Thank you.

Amy Castro: 49:54

All right Awesome.

Elizabeth Casas: 49:56

Of course Felipe has to bark.

Amy Castro: 49:58

That's okay. It's a pet podcast, it's okay. Felipe said I need attention.

Elizabeth Casas: 50:05

I need attention. He's out there barking like crazy. Let me in. I'm not an outside dog, I'm a lap dog I know mine are the same way.

Amy Castro: 50:14

They'll get out and then they turn around and they're at the door. Yeah, he just goes peeing and it's like I'm done, I'm done, I'm done yeah, that's funny, all right, well, awesome, well, I appreciate you being here and, uh, let me stop this recording because I don't need to keep. Thank you.