By: Teleah M Grand, DVM, CVA, CVCH, CVFT, CVTP

So, you’ve got a hot dog….. Now what? You have Excess Heat. First, note that in Traditional Chinese Medicine, Excess Heat can be applied to inflammation of any organ.  In this blog, we are specifically going to discuss Excess Heat regarding inflammation of the skin, specifically the Liver and Gallbladder channels. AKA Allergies.  Pretty much the bane of pet parent’s (and their veterinarian’s) existence…  That itchy, scratchy dog that lick, lick, licks, or chew, chew, chews, or shake, shake, shakes… day and night…night and day….  And let’s face it.  If we were that itchy, we’d be miserable too.

The cause of this excess heat is multifactorial.  Some are your pet’s innate personality.  Are they a Yin (cool personality), or a Yang (hot personality) (see Hot Dogs, Part 1 here).  Some has to do with where you live.  Dogs in cooler climates tend to have fewer allergy issues than those in warmer regions.  Florida?  Allergies there are year around….  The third part is food.  If you have a hot (Yang) dog, in a hot state, eating hot food…This is the trifecta of heat.  Inflammation is one of the ways their bodies must release all that heat.

Hot food? What is that??? Simply put, the more a food is processed, the hotter it becomes metabolically, and the more likely it is to cause inflammation.  Which is why processed (white) sugar, processed wheat, alcohol, etc. are bad for you. Processed foods are inflammatory. All dog kibble is processed food.  Yes, it is nutritionally balanced.  Yes, it is convenient.  But if you have a dog that is already predisposed to being hotter physically due to their personality type and live in a hot state AND feed them kibble.  It’s a trifecta of heat. You will have a hot dog.  Your dog will have allergies.

You have really two choices when you have the trifecta of a hot dog.  You can’t change their innate personality.  So, have two options: move to a cooler environment, OR feed them cooler food and give them herbs that clear heat.  If you aren’t moving anytime soon, that only leaves food and Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Western medicine is very good at short term elimination of inflammation and infection, known as Damp Heat, or Excess Heat in Eastern medicine.  There is no reason you shouldn’t use Western medications and management techniques if your dog has a short-term temporary problem. BUT beware that Western medicine is only treating symptoms and not the root imbalance.  Don’t be surprised if they start working less and less in the future. If you find yourself having to depend on medications more than 2-3 times yearly, or more than 4 weeks at a time, read on….

It’s about treating AND managing allergies to really help allergic dogs long term. Combining Western and Eastern therapies is the best way to accomplish both. Western medications treat the symptoms and clear the infection quickly.  There are TCVM herbs that clear heat, alleviate itch, and will help infections.  However, these therapies take longer to work, and they simply are not short-term fixes.  The Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine (TCVM) works to balance the body so there is not an overreaction of inflammation (that leads to infection) to manage the problem in the future or to treat mild allergy flares.

Let’s think of allergies like fire. Small, medium and large.Campfire – small, mild allergies; House fire – Medium, Allergies with infection; Forest fire – Large, chronic or severe skin disease. Three different levels of fire. Campfires are usually manageable with smaller changes. House fires are larger, cause more damage and need professionals to overcome. Forest Fires are extremely large and take the most effort of professionals in combatting (and like allergies, it is a fight).

Campfires (mild allergies): Management is key.  Campfires can be put out with cups or buckets of water.  You can keep the fuel low so there are no sparks that lead to a bigger, more out of control fire, you can build firebreaks, you can have cups and buckets of water to manage the intensity of the fire and keep it from getting out of control.  You can cool and moisten the environment so that it isn’t prone to sparks….

Allergies always start small, like a campfire.  Just a little inflammation.  Usually in the ears, paws, or inguinal areas of the dog (the liver and gallbladder channels).  This is the time to use small management techniques, like Eastern herbs or even food therapy to prevent the inflammation from getting bigger and turning into infections. This is the point where Eastern medicine really works wonders.  Keeping that campfire from turning into a housefire….

House fires (infection stage) :Cups and buckets of water just won’t work. Treatment is key. The fire (inflammation/Infection) is just too intense. Almost all ear infections and skin infections are secondary to inflammation caused by allergies. Once an infection sets in, that is feeding the inflammatory cycle, you have a house fire. You’ve got to get professionals involved.  Western treatment of symptoms is going to give you the quickest, most effective way to relieve those symptoms.  My goal at this stage is to treat symptoms.  Clear the infection and reduce the inflammation so that it becomes small again (or ideally goes away) and then kick in my management techniques (Eastern medicine and food).

Forest Fires (chronic or severe) : these need diagnosis as well as management and treatment.  These guys need more experienced and better firemen. They absolutely need a quick effective response. Pets who are chronically itching year-round with severe skin changes need secondary testing and, possibly, referral to see a Board-Certified Veterinary Dermatologist to assist in controlling and managing their symptoms.  Eastern medicine can assist at this level.  Because Eastern medicine is all about management.  But eastern medicine does not diagnose and is mild at treating.  Western, in addition to Eastern medicine, is appropriate at this point.

Where does food fit in? Because you are what you eat…  And, frankly, in my opinion, we are feeding dogs the wrong food.  I am not saying eliminate kibble completely.  But we should add fresher more natural foods to our pet’s diet.

So many extoll the virtues of a raw diet.  Most veterinarians I respect – me included – generally do not recommend raw diets except in specific circumstances.  Why?  Raw diets are not safe for your pet.  Simply because we get our products from grocery stores.  When you add middlemen in transporting and handling food, you add a much higher potential for pathogens.  Listeria. E. Coli. Salmonella.  Your pet can not only get sick from these pathogens, and so can you.  So, why risk it?

My rule of thumb is, if I won’t eat it, then I certainly won’t feed it to my dog.  Having said that, raw diets are not processed, so the claims that raw diets helped pet’s allergies are accurate. However, it’s doing the right thing with a higher risk to your pet. Raw foods are “cooler” diets and less inflammatory. But it is still not worth the risk, when you can feed your dog safe foods that will do the same thing.  You just need to know what foods are “cooler”.  Cook them appropriately, and you will still have a “cooler” food, that is safe.

In addition, raw diets are completely inappropriate for puppies or geriatric dogs.  It’s not just the pathogens in those cases; it’s the ability to transform food into energy which is diminished or not yet mature.

So, what should you feed your dog?  Interestingly, foods can both warm us up or cool us down from the inside.  It’s a 110° day in August in Texas, would you rather have — a steaming bowl of oatmeal, with brown sugar cinnamon and a Pumpkin Spice Latte? Or a nice plate of watermelon and beer? The choice is obvious. Oatmeal, nutmeg, cinnamon, coffee are all warming foods.  Watermelon and beer are cooling foods.

If you have a hot dog.  Feed them cool foods.  Give them cool snacks.  Offset the heat in the weather and in the processed kibble and cool them down from the inside!  (Don’t give them a beer though….)

Cooling foods, what are they?   Which proteins are cool? Which carbohydrates are cooling, and which vegetables should you use?

Proteins: Nature has given us the key to cool proteins.  Most cool proteins live in or around water.  The cooler the protein the whiter the meat.  So, which is cooler, venison? Or whitefish?  Yes!  Whitefish (like halibut) is a cooler protein than venison.  Hotter meats tend to come from animals that have thicker fur and run fast.  Hotter proteins tend to be red meat.  Basically, if you can’t catch it by running toward it, it’s probably a hot protein.  Venison, lamb, bison, kangaroo are hot .  Whitefish, scallops, clams are cool.  Some foods are neutral; like salmon, beef, and pork for example.  However, overall pork is cooler than beef as the meat is paler.

There are some exceptions.  For example, poultry, Chicken is a hot protein and Turkey (farm raised) is a cool protein.  And rabbit which is fuzzy fast mammal (again, farm raised) is a cool protein.  Farm raised meats tend to be cooler than wild based meats.

My dog is allergic to chicken!!!! I hear that a lot.  But, are they? Or is the pet just reacting to a hot protein?  Remember, hot dog, hot environment, hot food –something must happen in the body to get rid of all that excess heat – in dogs (and some cats), it’s inflammation. Hmmmm… Something to think about.

Vegetables: Summer vegetables tend to be cooler than winter vegetables.  The greener or more pale the color, the cooler they are.  So, let’s look at squash.  Winter squash, such as butternut, pumpkin and acorn squash tend to be warming.  Summer squash, yellow squash and zucchini tend to be cooling. Green vegetables tend to help cool the liver channel – spinach, mustard greens, kale. Carrots, while a summer vegetable, are orange and tend to be neutral because of that.  Other cooling vegetables that can be cooling are cucumber, daikon radish, celery, watercress.

Carbohydrates: Grains are not bad for your pet. Grain-free marketing often relies on fear rather than science.  They really should state that processed grains are not good for your pets because processed grains are “hot”, meaning pro inflammatory.  But there are plenty of whole grains that are cooling and healthy. Pearl Barley is one of my favorite carbohydrates to cool a dog down, simply because it is cooling and drains damp (damp = infection).  But you can also try quinoa, millet, and/or mung beans.

Let’s put it all together.  It is perfectly ok to use Western meds short term to treat short term conditions.  But if your pet is on long term medication to reduce the inflammation due to allergies and the infections (ear and skin) caused by that inflammation then try taking away some of the things in your pet’s life that are causing that inflammation.  Take away hot foods.  Simply feed them cooler foods.

Fresh cooked foods are best. If you can get your pet on a freshly cooked diet, that would be the best way to feed your pet safely and effectively.  Look for proteins like turkey, fish, rabbit or duck that tend to be more cooling.  Unfortunately, most lightly cooked diets on the market then start adding warmer things like sweet potatoes, or oats.  Because in the Western world we don’t think of foods as having metabolic actions.  We just consider them “healthy” But they are better than kibble.

Interestingly, Royal Canin just came out with a lightly cooked diet that looks pretty cooling.  Here’s the link: https://www.royalcanin.com/us/dogs/products/retail-products/fresh-health-nutrition-adult-8100?srsltid=AfmBOorYuJEDJKUYWRa_8Vg3LnCWV2zctjK_A5-DojJ8eTN3NcN9jxoI

Pork – neutral, Summer Squash – Cooling, Spinach – cooling, Brown Rice –Cooling.  Nutritionally balanced – Yes!  I haven’t tried it for my pets yet, but I will.

Avoid Raw Diets: If you are using raw diets, I encourage you to cook them to food safety standards to kill the pathogens.  And please note that freeze drying food does not kill pathogens.  The most recalled pet foods have been raw and freeze dried due to pathogen contamination.

If you have to feed Kibble: Add a cool topper to help combat some of the “heat” of the food..  Look for a grain inclusive (grain free foods can cause Dilated Cardiomyopathy, not something you want your pet to get) that have cooler proteins to begin with.  Turkey, rabbit, duck, Whitefish.  Alternatively, find a more neutral protein like salmon, pork or beef.  Avoid Chicken, lamb, or venison, bison, kangaroo

What is a topper?A topper is cooked cooling natural foods that you put on top of or mix with your pet’s food in order to help their allergies.  To maintain nutritional balance, your topper should not be more than 20% of their meal.  My favorite allergy topper is Turkey stew.  Ground 99% lean turkey, spinach, and celery.  Add water and boil until the meat is cooked and the vegetables tender.  Use that as a topper to your pet’s food.  How much of each ingredient?  That’s the beauty of food; it doesn’t really matter.  All that matters is giving your pet some natural cooling foods.

Start Simple. Cool food, calm skin, happy dog.  From hot dog to chill pup…

As always avoid toxic foods such as grapes/raisins, macadamia nuts, onions, and chocolate.