What’s A Healing Crisis?

What’s A Healing Crisis?

Congratulations!!! You’ve started feeding your dog real whole foods. Maybe you’ve transitioned them completely,maybe you’re feeding them whole foods for just part of their meals or possibly you’re converting to a freeze-dried recipe… wherever you’re at, we just want to stop for a second and say:

YOU ROCK. You can feel good that you are doing the absolute BEST thing for your dog because you took the most important step: you decided to feed more real food. 

Whether it’s been 10, 14 or 30 days – depending on your dog (their current state of health, the strength of their immune system, what they were eating before, their age, vaccine history, and a variety of other factors specific to your pet) they may be going through what is known as a Healing Crisis.

What’s A Healing Crisis?

In layman’s terms, it means that they body is getting rid of the junk that has gotten stuck inside Basically, it’s a detoxification process. Depending on your pet’s wellness state, this may take some time and things may get worse before they get better.  

Yikes, is that bad?

Don’t be alarmed, it’s actually a GOOD thing because all those built up toxins are being eliminated from your pet’s body! It just may be a little messy, because the two major organs where our pets secrete out the toxins  are the skin and their butts. In our society, we have become conditioned to believe that if something appears wrong, we need to fix it IMMEDIATELY. We may choose tobecome Google Certified Veterinarians and before we know it, we’ve convinced ourselves that something is terribly wrong and we need to do something quick to cure them. 

Instead of masking this process, we encourage you to be patient – allowing the body to rid itself of the toxins is a GREAT thing (albeit, possibly a bit uncomfortable for your pet)

Symptoms of a healing crisis:

  1. Diarrhea
  2. Itching
  3. Dryskin
  4. Anal sac problems
  5. Lethargy
  6. Mucous on the stool
  7. Vomiting
  8. Icky ears

Just to name a few

When thinking of a Healing Crisis, we should keep in mind Hering’s Law of Cure:

  1. We heal from the head down
  2. We heal from the inside out
  3. We heal in reverse order as the symptoms have appeared or been suppressed

With so much information floating in cyberspace – we want to reassure you that yes, this is normal. No it doesn’t happen to every dog. Yes it can happen to yours!

Breathe. Be patient. Let your pup heal.

Now, on a lighter note, you may be noticing some AMAZING things happening with your dog!

  1. Licking/itching has decreased
  2. Eye gunk has decreased
  3. Tear stains under the eyes are fading
  4. Less/No more scooting
  5. More regular poop, more solid poop, less poop – there are LOTS of poop benefits when you start feeding whole foods ;)
  6. Dandruff and dry skin improving
  7. More energy
  8. More excitement at meal time

Where ever your dog is at in the healing process – just know that it will pass, things will get better, youare doing the right thing for them! If you ever need any help, have any questions or just want to learn more about the healing crisis – send us a message and someone from our P.A.W (pet assessment & wellness) Team will reachout!

Happy eating! 

XO, Your Side by Side Family

Disclaimer: If your dog hasn’t eaten in 24 hours or has a fever lasting more than 24 hours call your vet immediately. You know your dog best.



Marney Prince

Marney Prince is the founder of Side by Side. She utilizes her knowledge in Traditional Chinese Medicine and the Western medicine, she learned as a vet tech, to help pets live a more balanced life through nutrition. On any given day she can be found doing 1-on-1 pet assessments, giving belly scratches to 10 different dogs or happily exploring the mountains around Telluride, CO with her two sons, Porter and Keaton, & new rescue pup Mavis.
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