Food grade Diatomaceous Earth.

[ScreamNdemon]

I give this to my dogs in their food everyday. I was wondering if anyone else gave it to their dogs.

[magtie]

i don't thnk i've heard of it before, what is it?`

[ScreamNdemon]

It's for parasite control. Here's a link.

http://wolfcreekranch1.tripod.com/defaq.html

[MLR]

Please say that you took you doberman to a competent licensed vet who recommended giving him DE. I routinely use this stuff as a pesticide at my rentals in the walls to kill infestations of hard shelled insects.

I read most of the information on the site you listed and cannot for the life of me figure out how exactly fossilized plant material has the ability to obsorb toxins from the human body. This is a spiney hard abrasive material. There are however worms which can get into the bloodstream of any animal, including humans, which DE alone acting in the digestive track cannot possibly irradicate. This is the same material used in pool filters; no matter how much finer it's ground for human grade use, it would be equivilant to feeding pulverised sand.

If DE has the ability to abraid the body of hard shelled insects and subsequintly kill them by dehydration, one has to wonder how much internal damage this product would do the the soft tissue on the inside of an animal; human or otherwise.

Mary Lou

[ScreamNdemon]

Yes it was a vet that advised me to use DE. The competent part I understand, is there another type of vet other than a licensed one? Do you give yourself the same chemical wormers you give your dog? One has to wonder what all they do as well.

[MLR]

I went a little over the top in my prior post and I do apologize. After using this product as a pesticide which comes with precautions about human comsumption for a number of years I just had truly never heard of it's use for domestic and farm animals, or people. You learn something new every day on the internet.

Mary Lou

[jelly8bean]

I also have never heard of DM as used in animals,but have used it for snail control.. so I'm also surprised. I guess I would use it as the vet recommends, but I would be wary of long term use since it is abrasive and I would worry about the long term affect on the digestive track. I see on the website it is approved, but I would just worry anyway.

[ScreamNdemon]

Apology excepted and I apologize as well. My five month old weighs 61lbs with out an ounce of fat on him and he is a survivor of parvo. I put him on FG DE when he was six weeks old. My local vet said that he as well as my chiwawa were goners.(Bot had parvo @ the same time and both survived) I found the site Wolf Creek Ranch and they along with a vet from Shreveport LA. they recommended really helped us allot. When I started giving my Doberman the FG DE the amount of worms that came from him was astonishing. This was a month or so after my breeder had wormed him and had vaccinated him for parvo.:confused: My wife and I have no kids (Not the two legged kind anyway) so I did a lot of reading and asking questions about the FG DE before I started giving it. I do believe besides my wife and I getting up every hour on the hour for eight days giving them fluids and vitamin C, the FG DE saved their lives. One thing to remember is it has to be Food Grade DE. If you Google it there is a lot about it on the net.

[MLR]

Hey ScreamNdemon,

I can sympathize with you on the parvo ordeal. My last dog, a dobe/sheppard mix, came from a pound as a puppy and she had it and I spent months nursing her back to health after my vet had given her no hope to survive at all. She lived to be 12, though, and sure fooled him. Just goes to show what loving people parents can do for their babies of any species.

I'm curious. What do you do about heartworm and other non-intestinal parasites on or in your dogs?? I went through a round of ringworm last summer which cost me about $300.00 at the vet to clear it up between three cats and the two dobes. One of my cats brought this home to us. I was the only one who didn't get it; no kids at home either. Do they make a holistic remedy for that?

Mary Lou

[ScreamNdemon]

This is an email response to me from Wolf Creek Ranch for a question I asked them about heart worms.

Unfortunately, DE only kills intestinal worms and parasites. Since heartworms live in the heart, DE will not eliminate or prevent them. We would never use or recommend Heartguard or any traditional “poison” heartworm treatment or preventative. Below is a statement from the FDA As of 5/03/2004.
“According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, 65% of adverse
drug reactions and 48% of all reported deaths resulting from drug reactions
are caused by heartworm preventatives. The potential side effects of
Ivermectin (the active ingredient in Heartgard) include liver problems,
vomiting, diarrhea, loss of appetite, depression, lethargy, skin eruptions,
seizures, tremors, paralysis, autoimmune disorders, thyroid problems, fever,
weakness, dizziness, coughing, nose bleeds, difficulty breathing, pneumonia,
irritability, sudden aggressive behavior, nerve damage, fertility problems,
and sudden death. The drug poses a particular risk to Collies and related
breeds. Other chemical heartworm preventatives have many of the same side
effects. In his new book "The Nature of Animal Healing," Dr. Martin
Goldstein states that he believes that much of the cancer and liver disease
we see in dogs today is the result of years of treatment with heartworm
preventatives. 98% of the dogs in his NY practice (including of course his
own dogs) aren't on any heartworm preventative. If you must give a chemical heartworm preventative, keep in mind that both Interceptor and Heartgard are effective when given every 6 weeks instead of monthly. Unless you live in a state where mosquito season literally lasts
all year (e.g. Florida), it is also very important for the health of your
dog to spend at least a few months each year without the drug. Just because you see a mosquito in January does not mean that your dogs are at risk. In order for microfilariae to develop into infective L3s, it needs to be
sufficiently warm (above 57 degrees for a period of time). Always give milk
thistle, Life Cell Support, or an herbal liver detox blend following the heartworm drug.”
Keep in mind this is not something I wrote, as I said previously, I would never recommend traditional heartworm methods and I surely wouldn’t give them to my own animal friends. It’s just to give you an idea of the toxicity of these horrible things. HeartWorm Free (HWF) – http://www.heartwormfree.com has been being test studied on dogs in mosquito infested states for nearly 4 years now for use as a HW preventative. These dogs live outdoors 24/7 and are taking the HWF twice/day for the first 7 days of each month. All the study dogs are tested for heartworm on a monthly basis and thus far not a single dog has tested heartworm positive while using HWF as a preventative. We expect HWF to be officially labeled as a preventative in the near future. For extra protection, if you live in Texas or Florida or similar climate, I’d recommend a good natural flea/tick preventative spray to apply to your dog when going out for walks during heavy mosquito hours to prevent mosquitos from landing on your dog, as well as preventing your furry friend from gathering the neighborhood fleas and bringing them home. Additionally, NO heartworm preventative is needed during months that your the temperature stays below 57 degrees or less as mosquitos cannot reproduce in these temperatures. Once the air temperature goes above 57 degrees, then a heartworm preventative is needed.

MLR I hope this helps. These people have really help me a lot in the past. They are in the business of saving animals lives and I put all my trust in them and what they say. I have never had a problem with ring worms but I'm sure WCR has and have an answer. Sorry about the long post.

[MLR]

Thanks ScreamNdemon,

I'm certainly going to be talking to my vet in the near future about this stuff. I know when I stopped having my cats vaccinated for rabbies they started living longer. There was a big whoopdedo about that a while back here where I live and the city passed an ordinance requiring this for cats unfortunately, but it doesn't really have the teeth to be enforced. I did a lot of research back then and found out that we were being mis-lead by our local shelter about the incidence of rabbies occurance in lower Michigan in cats; it was about nil for the last 100 years , but they were insisting they were seeing around 7,000 cases a year in my county. I exposed them and they lost the city contract to handle animal control brought in dogs and cats.

The source of the ringworm infestation has thankfully moved so I don't think this will be reoccuring. I did check out some other remedies at the time but hadn't heard about Wolf Creek Ranch. The meds the vet had my dogs on could only be given to healthy dogs because of the liver side effects. The cats were surprisingly given diflucan so this wasn't so hard on them.

What really caught my attenion in you post was the sudden onset agression thing to do with Heart Guard. I first came here because I had been having a problem with my female dobe having unexplained outbursts and going after my male; once causeing him to have to have 5 stiches in his ear. Mine are on Intercepter but I do lay off in the winter. My male is the same happy go lucky guy 24/7 no matter the time of year. I'm now wondering, and will be talking to my vet, about the possibility of a reaction happening with my female to the heartworm meds. Thank you so much for this information.

Mary Lou

[ScreamNdemon]

No problem. I'm finding out a lot about meds once trusted by many and even advertised on television to do so many great things for our pets are really shorting their lives. Kinda make one wonder about trusted drugs that we as humans take hummm! I have a numbers table from the FDA that I am going to try and post about heart worm meds. If it doesn't work and if you want you can PM me your email and I can send it to you.

Canine Heartworm Medication Adverse Reaction Comparisons
(Source, FDA, As of 5/03/2004)

Drug
Total Adverse Reactions
Total Deaths
Year Approved
Avg. Reactions
Avg. Deaths
Form

ProHeart 6
(Moxidectin):
4499
415
2001
1500
138
Injection

Revolution
(Selamectin):
8695
181
1999
1737
36
Topical

Interceptor
(Milbemycine oxime):
1922
84
1995
214
9
Oral

Heartguard
(Ivermectin/Pyrantel):
2840
51
1996
355
6
Oral

Sentinel
(Milbemycine oxide/luferon):
892
25
1999
233
6
Oral