Healing with Food: How Holistic Nutrition Can Transform Pet Health | The Feline Wellness Summit with Elizabeth Casas

 Welcome to the cat dad show. My name is Scott Colby. This is a clip of my interview with Elizabeth Cassis. She's a certified canine nutritionist and integrative pet health coach. She was a guest for the feline wellness summit. And so Elizabeth shared a story of her cat Lumiere who had pancreatitis. and how he was able to recover from pancreatitis with whole food nutrition.

So really interesting story. Want you to, uh, listen carefully. Uh, Elizabeth again, was a guest for our feline wellness summit. If you want to hear the entire interview, uh, and interviews with 20 other feline wellness experts, grab a free ticket to our feline wellness summit. It's at feline wellness summit.

com, but for now enjoy that clip.

Yeah, that was, that was when Lumiere was four. He had He was healthy, he was fine, and I was feeding what most of us feed, right? I was giving him canned and dry food kibble. And I thought I was giving him the best food.

I was doing, uh, the best I could. But then one day, he just got really sick, and he wasn't eating, and he was just feeling bad. And that's when we got the prognosis, right? And they took him in, they gave him the natural, the normal, uh, protocols, hydration. And low fat food. And when none of those things work and he had gone back to be hospitalized a couple of times, they finally said, listen, his body's just not taking up what we're giving him.

So we're going to have to let him go. They virtually just said, we're going to keep him comfortable until he leads. And those were, I mean, it just sounded so weird to me because he was so young. He was four. He'd been great. He had energy right before he got sick, and it just didn't make any sense to me.

And I remember, so I have a Latin American background. And for us, we, the first thing we think about is herbs and food and, you know, the chicken noodle soup and your mom brings you lime and lemons when your throat hurts. And I thought, why don't I talk to someone in Columbia? that is an expert in felines and maybe, maybe they can give me some herbs or something.

And what he said was virtually change his food. Just get some, uh, uh, chicken breast, boil it and give him probiotics. And it was that simple. The only thing he did say, just keep the medicine for anti nausea so that he can keep everything in, which I think is a great approach, a combination of the two. So with the food and the probiotic, he was fine.

And then he never had another, uh, pancreatitis, um, issue after that. We, after that I started thinking about, you know, if pancreatitis can't be fixed with food, what else can you do? Like what, what's happening because the veterinarian in Columbia said it's because of the food you're giving him,

right?

That's what happened. The reason he got pancreatitis is because of that food. So if you start giving him healthy food or proper food, he'll be good. I started doing my own research in nutrition. There wasn't a lot actually that long ago. So I started thinking if it works for me, why wouldn't it work for them?

And I've been doing my own research, doing it on, you know, just looking as much as you can, asking people, but then decided to, when I found, um, the training for the certification, I was Absolutely excited to get some formal training on how to feed my feline babies better.

Yeah. I love that you did your own research.

It's kind of like it's your babies, right? You're going to take matters into your own hands and not, you know, rely necessarily on what somebody else is, um, is telling you.

Scott's Personal Experience with Feline Health

And it kind of reminds me, Elizabeth, so one of my cats, uh, she's not around anymore, but she, um, had a similar issue when she was about 12 and she was sick, like all day, took her to my vet.

At the time I was actually living in Texas at the time. I know you're in Texas as well. And we took her in, or actually, sorry, I was living in Denver at the time and they didn't know what was wrong with her. And we actually were sent to a hospital, a vet hospital or a pet hospital where we, animal hospital, where we thought we were going to have to keep her overnight for observation.

So they did an ultrasound and they weren't sure of the final diagnosis, but what they said it looked like was acute. Pancreatitis kind of like magically she got better. Like by the time we didn't have to leave her overnight at the animal hospital, she just kind of improved how she was feeling as that, that night went on.

I mean, she was sick like all day and then just got a little bit better. But up until that point, I just fed her dry food because I didn't know any better. And every time I went to the vet prior to that, They would say, what food is she on? And I would tell them and they said, okay. They didn't say, they didn't say you needed to switch anything.

Now, once she got pancreatitis, they said. You should start feeding her some wet food. Um, and dry food. So kind of like a combination of the two, but they didn't really say, I mean, they basically said whatever you could find at the local pet store. They didn't say it would have to be any special type of wet food.

Now she did live to 20 so she never had another episode of pancreatitis and she lived to 20. She was, she had that when she was about 12. I remember I thought that was going to be the end. I remember on my way to the animal hospital, I was calling my parents in tears because I was saying, I think this is it.

And then she actually felt better, which was amazing. But towards the end of her last few years, she did get kidney disease. She got, uh, lymphoma, um, and a couple other issues. So I imagine if I knew what I know now and what you're going to teach us, you know, in the next few minutes about nutrition, that maybe she could have.

not had some of these other diseases that kind of cropped up. Um,

the thing about the natural food and healthy food, the way I call it is that yes, some animals can live very long and kibble, but are they actually thriving? Right? Of course, if you eat chips every day, you might Survive for a very long time, but you're going to have issues, right?

You're not going to feel good. You're not going to be at your best. So I do get a lot of people saying, well, my, my cat is 12, 15 and they've been on cable or dry food. There's nothing wrong with it. Are they thriving? Right. Could they live longer? Like you're saying, and it is not only longer, but having a good life, enjoying that life, and I really doubt it.

Like, yes, they live long. Some of them do. But are they feeling comfortable and they don't tell you cats have a very high threshold of pain and they don't let you know until they're really suffering. So they could be written with inflammation and you don't know

what, which is why I'm excited to learn from you because I now have two one year old cats, uh, Nico and Milo.

And so I'm doing my best to, uh, feed them a healthy diet.

Transitioning Cats to Healthier Diets

But I'm excited to dig into this topic because I know a lot of people feel overwhelmed by the idea of transitioning their pets to whole nutrient rich food. And there's a lot of options out there. So where should a cat parent start if they're just thinking about making this shift?