From the Vault: Dr. Marlene Siegel on Extending Your Pet’s Life

Bonus Episode From the Vault: The #5 Most Downloaded Episode of 2024!
While we’re on a break until Feb 4, we’re bringing back one of your all-time favorite episodes of 2024 from the vault!

In this episode, Dr. Marlene Siegel joins us to explore how integrative veterinary care can transform your pet’s health and longevity. Forget masking symptoms—Dr. Siegel focuses on addressing root causes of disease and shares practical tips to help your pet thrive. From nutrition to detoxing and emotional care, this episode is packed with actionable takeaways you can start using today.

What We Cover:

• The danger of treating symptoms instead of the root problem.
• Why your pet’s diet matters more than you think.
• How inflammation wreaks havoc on pet health.
• The surprising role of water quality in wellness.
• Healing the gut for long-term health.
• Detoxing your pet’s environment for optimal well-being.
• Why emotional well-being is crucial for your pet’s overall health.
• How to educate yourself and advocate for your pet effectively.

Special Resources:

• Learn more about Dr. Siegel: www.drmarlenesiegel.com
• Access her free e-book and courses: www.transformingvetmedicine.com
• Special Offer: The first 10 people to purchase Dr. Siegel's Pet Parent Course and share a photo of their completed purchase on Instagram, tagging @drmarlenesiegel with the hashtag #starlight, will receive a free 15-minute online consult with Dr. Siegel.

Hit play and get ready to take your pet’s health to the next level!

Chapters

• 0:11 Bioregulatory Veterinary Medicine
• 10:24 Turning Pain Into Purpose
• 14:27 Holistic Approach to Pet Health
• 24:16 Empowerment Through Health Conscious Choices
• 37:58 Unseen Impacts of Gut Health

Transcript

Amy Castro: 0:11

Hey, there it's Amy. Welcome back to Muddy Paws and Hairballs. So while we're on a little break before we officially launch in 2025, I thought it was the perfect time to bring back one of our top five episodes of 2024. If you missed it the first time, lucky you, because this one is a game changer and now you've got a second chance. In this episode, I sat down with Dr Marlene Siegel, who is an absolute rock star in integrative veterinary medicine. She's been in the field for over 40 years, but what makes her so fascinating is the way that she blends holistic pet care with cutting-edge science to help pets live longer and healthier lives, and I don't think there's anyone amongst us who's listening right now that wouldn't want to get another few years, especially if those years were quality years with their pets. So we are talking about practical, real-world tips that you can use right away to improve your pet's health, from the best diet choices to detoxifying your pet's environment, healing their gut and even addressing their emotional well-being. Honestly, I couldn't believe how much I learned during this conversation and, based on the response from listeners like you, I wasn't the only one. So grab your coffee or leash up the dog, or just kick back and relax, because this episode is a must-listen, or leash up the dog, or just kick back and relax, because this episode is a must-listen. Let's dive back into my chat with Dr Marlene Siegel.

Amy Castro: 1:30

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, not 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 SPAWS Family Wellness Centers, which are detox centers for pets and their people. So, dr Siegel, thank you so much for joining me here today.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 2:26

Oh, you're so welcome and I'm excited to be able to speak to your audience.

Amy Castro: 2:30

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?

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 2:45

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 dis-ease.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 3:45

So, bioregulatory medicine 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 we hurting it or are we helping it? And that's as simple as it gets.

Amy Castro: 4:50

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 masked.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 5:05

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.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 5:30

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 oh 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 and saying, look, the problem is 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.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 6:25

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. But 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 it 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.

Amy Castro: 7:21

Yeah, that's such a good point. I 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, and 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 going to 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. You know, it's just that one element. So it is so amazing how much the body can heal itself if we just let it.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 8:13

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 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.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 8:49

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, ie 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.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 9:14

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. And I am 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 going to 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.

Amy Castro: 10:10

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 this journey into looking so much more deeply at our pets and their biology?

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 10:24

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, was one of my horses becoming injured and that horse had saved my daughter's life physically saved my daughter's life. 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 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 there is nothing more that can be done that lit something up in me. First of all, I refuse 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, and 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, because if you don't, it's going to come back at you and going to say, oh, you missed the first opportunity. We're going to come back and tell you again. So that's how I started.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 12:13

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. I incorporated those into my small animal practice, into my personal life and 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 want to be here for a long time and I want to feel good and I want to have lots of energy and I want my brain to work and I have so much I want to do and I don't want to 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 nutritional supplements that are all geared towards helping my biology do its job.

Amy Castro: 13:12

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 boohooing 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.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 13:36

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 oh 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's just lean in and do it.

Amy Castro: 14:17

Yeah yeah, I agree with you a hundred percent on that. So we know that you know, 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.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 14:36

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.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 15:02

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.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 15:12

But let me go through them for you because it'll make more sense. So, step number one 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. Oh 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?

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 16:15

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 going to 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, you know. They're really into exercise and all the things that are biohacking human health, and he's a 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.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 17:08

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. 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 you 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. 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. So that's step number one is learning about a sustainable, species appropriate diet.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 17:56

What does that look like? And then water. Oh 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. I live in Florida. We have terrible water.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 18:20

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? So 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.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 19:20

We call it the terrain, 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's 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 have all the pollutants that are in our air, in our home environment. What are we cleaning with, what are we doing laundry with?

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 20:13

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, that's what you're going to 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.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 21:40

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 entraining to that 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 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.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 22:52

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 Wi-Fi, our computers, our cell phones and all of that and 5G. It's devastating to our pet's health. So that's all step number one. Any questions on that one?

Amy Castro: 23:32

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? I mean EMFs and toxins and whatever I mean. It's what's the starting point, because obviously we're not going to do it all. We're not going to 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 foods and avoiding toxins from that perspective, even if you're not going to like make your pet its food, kind of thing.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 24:14

Absolutely.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 24:16

Step number one is awareness, like step number one is recognizing what does my life look like. 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? So awareness is number one. It really is the first step, and then step number two, there has to be a desire to change.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 24:49

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, and 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 I'm 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 day.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 25:46

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. Columna 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 going to write it down. 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. Right, and then just stop doing it 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 going to 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 back.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 27:14

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 in 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 you 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. Oh 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.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 28:32

People are inherently good people, especially in the restaurant industry.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 28:33

They don't want to know that they fed you a meal that's going to 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 are bad for us and our children and our pets, the world is going to 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 going to make change.

Amy Castro: 29:33

Right, and it's obviously when you're referring to that, you're talking about our pet products as well. I mean it's Absolutely referring to that, you're talking about our pet products as well. I mean it's. You know, if we continue to buy the stuff that's full of unhealthy things, then it's going to continue to be made, and until you start making, I mean what it brings to mind, and I'm not. I don't want to 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 so 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 is a testament to the consumer demand and the impact that that can have.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 30:25

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, a 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. So again back to education. Right.

Amy Castro: 31:05

Yeah, and it's the same. I mean anyone that's done any research or seen any of the many, many documentaries and such that have been out about 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? So 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.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 31:56

Yeah, and and that's you know to end that part of the discussion is no pet owner that I have ever met is joyful about harming their pet. Even veterinarians there are. Veterinarians do not want to do harm to their patients. We spend so much time in medical school, we 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, or consider taking my course for veterinarians, or something that helps them to start expanding that toolkit in the mindset.

Amy Castro: 33:00

well, that was all number one that's such a huge piece of it. It's the trick, it's the foundation for everything. There's so much.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 33:07

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 oh, I use ozone in my practice and I don't get results like you do. Why? Well, cause 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 I also test for toxicities, and then I make sure that I supplement the diet with those essential nutrients that the animal needs to have.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 33:48

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. 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, which is why so many of the government laws say that if you're going to 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 going to 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. So, again, it all comes back to education and understanding how to read labels and how to get the right diagnostics.

Amy Castro: 34:53

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?

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 35:03

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 D. 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'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.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 36:01

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 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 you 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.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 36:56

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 oh 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.

Amy Castro: 37:58

And gut health. I mean, I think so many people are so unaware of not only how important it is, but that far reaching impact it's not. You know, I think when people sometimes hear gut health, they think oh, if my dog doesn't have gas, it's not burping, it doesn't have diarrhea. You know that it's got a healthy gut.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 38:17

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, 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? Oh yeah, happens all you know, at least once a month. Do you ever hear a grumbly tummy? Oh 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. But there's certainly the dash light coming on and saying there's a problem here.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 38:49

Or the biggest one, the biggest one of all my animal's a picky eater. Well, have you ever watched a lion or 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, 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, oh, I'll take a bite or two, but my tummy doesn't feel good, so I'll just do a couple of bites and I'll come back later and see if I feel better.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 39:24

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.

Amy Castro: 40:19

What would that entail? What tools are available for pet parents? Obviously, if I live near you, I could come to your practice 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, I'm working with my regular veterinarian. What kind of things would we be doing to detoxify our pets?

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 40:40

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 because, 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 oh, isn't that interesting. Every technology that I have can be purchased by a pet parent and used at home. I thought that is not an accident. How divine is that? That doesn't mean that every pet parent's going to spend a hundred thousand dollars and equip their home as a spa's family wellness center. Some might you know, 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 that, 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.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 42:05

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, so 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 purchase equipment through us, we do all the training for them. It's included, so that if they purchase 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 know there's. You can do that at home now, and it's neat because not only does the pet benefit, but the people in the house benefit as well.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 42:42

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 oh, it's a water bottle and it produces hydrogen. You don't know the quality of that product, and is it really?

Amy Castro: 43:15

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 cetera.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 43:26

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 and going from company to company to company to company to find a company that didn't just want to throw me out a product and say, here, but we're going to put all these additives in there, I go, no, I'm not going to do that. Oh, one company had the audacity to say, well, nobody's going to 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. But when you're looking at something like CBD, you want to know that you've got a quality product in there.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 44:39

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.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 45:29

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, their 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 and 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.

Amy Castro: 46:35

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.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 46:50

Yeah, absolutely. In fact, when I ask people what is your goal and 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. How does that look?

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 47:29

And it's about making decisions, like we talked about in the beginning. So you're, 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 you 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 already into a challenging situation.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 48:20

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 and 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 oh, I'm not doing do-do-do-do-do and I am doing do-do-do-do and I need to stop that. They may not know what to replace it with, but that's where our 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.

Amy Castro: 49:23

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 that.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 49:34

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 wwwholistichealingvetcom it's all one word, all lowercase, holistichealingvetcom. And the second thing and I don't do this very often, but I just 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. So 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.

Amy Castro: 50:46

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. 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.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 51:03

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. He 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.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 52:03

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 in 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 know, we have the ability to show in so many different aspects skin disease. We have the ability to show in so many different aspects skin disease, allergies, gi problems, autoimmune diseases in every aspect.

Amy Castro: 52:53

I have examples of that in the course and 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 we not have to, you know? 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?

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 53:32

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.

Dr. Marlene Siegel: 54:21

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. And every single one of us has that opportunity. The power to heal is truly ours. We just have to own it For sure.

Amy Castro: 54:57

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. But 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. Thanks for listening to Muddy Paws and Hairballs. Be sure to visit our website at muddypawsandhairballscom for more resources and be sure to follow this podcast on your favorite podcast app so you'll never miss a show. And hey, if you like this show text someone right now and say I've got a podcast recommendation. You need to check the show out and tell them to listen and let you know what they think. Don't forget to tune in next week and every week for a brand new episode. And if you don't do anything else this week, give your pets a big hug from us.