Chinese Food Therapy

Background:
So I've posted before that I'm a fairly cynical person. I recently realized that I believe in the chiropractor, but even then I wonder about it!

I know I've posted before that Bentley has some serious gastro-intestinal distress. We're not sure the cause, and it's one of those things that isn't serious enough to be diagnosed. It probably is something like "a touch of IBD". Basically, he is not regular (will go days without pooping), then about once a month will have horrible diarrhea for no reason (no change in diet) for a couple days. It will be bad enough that he is up multiple times in the night and will go in his crate during the day.

We've tried multiple food brands, multiple protein sources, and limited ingredient foods--but has still had this issue.

Our trainer recommended that we take the dogs to have food therapy done. She says she doesn't believe in "that kind of stuff" either, but she took all of her dogs and has had amazing results.

In my area, the lady that does this is also a vet, and is also the chiropractor we see.

The Process
It sounds crazy, but you take a bunch of foods (can be commercial, can be raw, treats, bones, etc.) and she holds the food, then reads the dog's energy in combination with each food.

I had heard of parts of this concept before--it's the idea that some dogs are more "hot" and some are "cold". So "hot" dogs would need/prefer cooling foods, and vice versa. (Here's some information about Chinese Food Therapy for humans).

I totally felt like the whole thing was a little hokey (she basically held her hand over the dog's back to "feel" their energy), but she had some interesting reactions.

The Dogs
For Bentley, she had just gotten started (we had not mentioned any of his issues) and she was appalled at the majority of the foods and what they did to his energy. She stopped fairly quickly and said "You're going to be special!"--well she definitely nailed it! Apparently Bentley is a very, very hot dog that needs seriously cooling-type foods. It was difficult for her to find a "match" for him. We landed on Pure Vita Salmon food for him, along with some rabbit treats that balanced his energy well.

Lexi was also "hot" but not as much so. She matched well with Acana Grasslands (mostly lamb) and the same rabbit treats.

Both the food and treats are high quality, so we were comfortable making the switch based on this "energy reading" of which we were VERY skeptical.

I figured, I was going to be just "picking" another high quality dog food almost at random in the hopes that it would work better. Not much different than having a vet who knows a lot about nutrition pick one for us. I figured it was worth a shot.

The Results
As I said, our trainer had amazing results with her dog--and even she has difficulty explaining it. I posted about it on FB and several other people chimed in to say they saw almost immediate results with their dogs--my thoughts were still like "yeah right"!

It's been about 3 weeks since we've been transitioning the dogs' food. They are now both eating 100% of the new food and treats..and shock...there are some serious improvements.

Bentley is regular for the first time in as long as I can remember. He never cries to go out, but goes twice a day, every day, at almost the same times. Literally this was unheard of before. His poops are always normal/the same. He doesn't seem gassy anymore, and his breath is better.

Lexi seemed fine to begin with, but as I said, her results were less "polarizing".

So of course, it's only been a few weeks, but the results have definitely piqued my curiosity.

Here's some information about the lady we went to see.

 

As I said, it happened to work for me, but I am not sold on the therapy being the sole cause. I just thought it was an interesting concept.