At times, I get a little tired of repeating the following adage:<\/p>\n
\u201cHealthy dogs aren\u2019t good hosts for parasites.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Every day, I get questions like these from our readers:<\/p>\n Every day, my answer to all of the above is, you guessed it,<\/p>\n \u201cHealthy dogs aren\u2019t good hosts for parasites.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Before we go into the specifics of why that might be true, I\u2019m going to share a story with you. But first, a little introduction to my dogs might be in order.<\/p>\n \n <\/p>\n I show Labrador Retrievers and right now I have six of them. I\u2019ve been breeding Labradors for about 21 years now. But I don\u2019t breed all that often because my puppies must be raised the way I would raise them here.<\/p>\n That means they eat only fresh, whole foods, they aren\u2019t vaccinated for anything not required by law<\/strong> \u2026 and remember, there are always exemptions.<\/p>\n I also never use chemicals and toxins on them. By that I mean \u2026<\/p>\n And they don\u2019t go to conventional vets \u2013 unless absolutely necessary in an emergency. Homeopathy rules in this house!<\/strong><\/p>\n You may think that by not giving my puppies dewormers in the last 15 years that I\u2019ve got a real mess on my hands.<\/p>\n Well, I don\u2019t. In fact, I\u2019ve never had a puppy with a positive fecal. We are worm free and loving it here at Fallriver! We are also flea free.<\/p>\n In 15 years, I have never had one flea on one of my dogs! And I live in the country where the dogs and I are in the woods, the fields and on the beach every day.<\/p>\n But my friends who raise their dogs the conventional way, meaning \u2026<\/p>\n \u2026 These friends don\u2019t seem to enjoy the same luxury. When they come to visit me, their dogs leave wriggly worm-infested poops behind. I just pick it up and don\u2019t worry about it.<\/p>\n RELATED:<\/strong> Is Apoquel Really A Miracle Drug?<\/p>\n Worms aren\u2019t a problem for my dogs because (say it with me) \u2026<\/p>\n \u201cHealthy dogs aren\u2019t good hosts for parasites.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019ll tell you a little true story that will prove my point. You\u2019ll get a kick out of this.<\/p>\n Two years ago, I traveled to a dog show with a friend who raises her Labradors conventionally. We made the nearly 10 hour drive in my van and stayed at the show for 2 days.<\/p>\n While we were there, we exercised the dogs in a nice sand ring that was used for horses. It was a great way to let them off-leash for some playtime during the show.<\/p>\n We won some ribbons, chatted with friends, and piled back in my van to drive the 10 hours home.<\/p>\n Nothing out of the ordinary for a show trip.<\/p>\n About 3 days later, my friend called me up with a warning. She said that she noticed that the 3 dogs she brought to the show were covered in fleas.<\/strong> The fleas were even crawling up her son\u2019s legs!<\/p>\n She told me she had to put them all on Frontline. And she recommended I do the same. I thanked her and hung up.<\/p>\n So, I decided I should take a look at my own dogs too \u2013 although I didn\u2019t notice anybody scratching. I laid them on their backs to see their tummies and didn\u2019t see anything.<\/p>\n I\u2019d like to say that I was more diligent than that, but I\u2019ve learned that I can be pretty complacent with these things. Because you see, there weren\u2019t any fleas on my dogs.<\/strong><\/p>\n Well, I couldn\u2019t see any fleas anyway. They might have had one or two, but if they did, they didn\u2019t seem to notice.<\/p>\n I\u2019d like to say that I then vacuumed out my van and diligently looked for fleas there. But meh, I took the dogs for a walk instead. That seemed like more fun than cleaning the van.<\/p>\n And it turns out it wasn\u2019t necessary because my dogs remained flea-free in the days and weeks after that.<\/p>\n So let\u2019s summarize these events, for those following along at home.<\/p>\n Come on, I know you\u2019re thinking it too. Isn\u2019t it crazy to \u2026<\/p>\n \u2026 And say \u201cthere, I\u2019ve made my dog healthy!\u201d<\/p>\n \n <\/p>\n What if instead of drugs, we had a little faith in the immune system<\/strong> and worked to create health through \u2026<\/p>\n Isn\u2019t it just common sense that our dogs would be better able to handle a couple of fleas?<\/p>\n Ever see a rotten squirrel carcass at the side of the road? Dead is about as unhealthy as a squirrel could be.<\/p>\n And on that dead little carcass, you\u2019ll see an orgy of pests if you look close enough. <\/strong>Just don\u2019t let your neighbors see you do this though \u2026 I\u2019ve learned they don\u2019t like that.<\/p>\n Now compare that dead squirrel to healthy dogs. No pests. Nothing. Zip, zero, zilch.<\/p>\n So if your dog has enough fleas or ticks or heartworms or intestinal worms that it\u2019s noticeable to him or you \u2026 can you honestly say he\u2019s healthy?<\/p>\n I wouldn\u2019t. I would say he\u2019s somewhere in between a healthy dog and a dead squirrel\u2026and that\u2019s probably not a good place to be.<\/p>\n Maybe we need to adjust our definition of healthy. To me, health is much more than just the absence of disease. Believing this means you provide natural health care that\u2019s as nice to your dogs as it is to mine.<\/p>\n Once you understand what health really is, then the next time you see this tired old adage it\u2019ll make more sense.<\/p>\n And then you can say it along with me:<\/p>\n \u201cHealthy dogs aren\u2019t good hosts for parasites!\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n RELATED: Top 5 Health Benefits Of Colostrum<\/strong><\/p>\n ,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At times, I get a little tired of repeating the following adage: \u201cHealthy dogs aren\u2019t good hosts for parasites.\u201d Every day, I get questions like these from our readers: \u201cWhat<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-natural-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.duuvk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.duuvk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.duuvk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.duuvk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.duuvk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.duuvk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.duuvk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.duuvk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.duuvk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.duuvk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
Raise Them Right<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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Why I Don\u2019t Worry About Fleas And Parasites<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Hitchhiking Fleas, Now What?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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Stop The Insanity!<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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