The Healing Gap: Why Holistic Care Is Facing New Challenges and How We Can Adapt

0:00 Intro: Welcome to Healing Tails.

0:04 Intro: I'm Dr. Ruth Roberts, here to help you become the best pet parent you can be with simple natural care that works for real life, real budgets, and real pets.

0:20 Dr. Ruth Roberts: Hey, I'm Dr. Ruth Roberts. Welcome to this episode of Healing Tails. And I am so thrilled to have today's guest, Dr. Odette Suter, with us. She is a veterinarian who has truly transformed the way we think about pet health. And she is a graduate of the University of Bern, but also a pioneer in holistic and integrative veterinary medicine. And her passion lies in uncovering root causes of illness and empowering pet parents to take an active role in their animals, healing journeys through practice, peak animal health center, and her incredible book, what your vet never told you. And her online signature program, the pet health accelerator, she's been a guiding light for so many pet parents, navigating the complexities of modern pet care. Dr. Souter, your journey into holistic veterinary medicine is incredibly inspiring. And we've talked before about how you got here, why you got into it. But I think the title of this episode is incredibly timely because people are getting frustrated, conventional medicine, holistic medicine, all of that. And so literally the title is The Healing Gap, Why Holistic Care is Facing New Challenges and How We Can Adapt. So welcome and thanks for coming.

1:45 Dr. Odette Suter: Thanks for having me. It's always good to be here and chat with you. And thanks to all the listeners, obviously as well.

1:52 Dr. Ruth Roberts: Right on. So you chose this title and we've, there's been some interesting stuff going on out there in internet landia. But from your perspective, what does this mean? What is this gap and what does it represent?

2:07 Dr. Odette Suter: Well, the way I see it, you know, in conventional medicine, we used to work, I mean, they still do that. You know, there's a symptom. We find a pill for it and hope for the best. And unfortunately, that same approach or that same thinking has bled into holistic medicine, where instead of now using a pill, we need to use an herb or a supplement and try the same thing. We're still trying to address symptoms instead of really getting to the root cause. And I think that's really one of the biggest issues is that there's too much focus on the symptoms and alleviating symptoms and not so much about asking, you know, why, what is going on? Really understanding the physiology, the pathophysiology. So basically what's happening when the animals aren't healthy. That's happening. And that right now is getting us into trouble because the issues have gotten a lot more challenging with the animals. There, you know, we are exposed to so much more toxicity and basically the animals buckets are so over full and overflowing. And so, you know, we really need to ask different questions. We need to go deeper. We really need to look at how we approach medicine in a different way. And we're kind of in that place where, you know, it's still sort of worked what we were doing, but now it's not working anymore because we have a flood going on. You know, the iceberg is just it's just growing. The tip is growing and growing. And we can't keep up with that. And that's what's happening. And, you know, you mentioned, what did you call it? Internet land? Yeah, I think

3:50 Dr. Ruth Roberts: Internet land. Yeah.

3:51 Dr. Odette Suter: Yes. Yeah. So I do hear a lot of frustrated parents because they have tried everything. They have gone to holistic beds. They have, you know, they have tried all kinds of supplements. I mean, they've done everything and their animals are still not feeling well. They're not healing. I mean, it's not just that they're only getting a little bit better. They're just not getting better at all. Or they're even getting worse. And that is incredibly frustrating. And it's obviously very easy to then blame. You know, first, we started blaming conventional medicine because of what not wasn't working there. And now it's like the blame is put on holistic medicine. But we need to understand that things have just changed so much that we need to adapt to it. And we, including, you know, us veterinarians are in the process of adapting to what's happening now and finding new ways of helping the animals. And that's very frustrating for a lot of parents, obviously, and very heartbreaking, because when I talk to them, their quality of life is usually worse than their animals. Because they're constant caregivers, they're burned out. They can't sleep. They constantly worry. They have their own health issues that come about as a result of it. So it's a really, really difficult place to be in right now on this planet, you know, for everyone. And I so feel that, you know, I have so much compassion for people. I totally get it. But it's always easy to point fingers at something. But the thing is, you know, it's really the planet that's changed. And it's what we've done to the planet that has put us into the place that we are now. And so we need to just find other ways and new solutions and new aspects that need to be included in a different way to really make a difference for animals. And that's basically kind of the gap that we're in. And we're, you know, unfortunately, medicine and people, you know, parents tend to still be a little stuck in the, well, if I just change the diet, it will fix it. It's no longer enough. And then, you know, it also became, well, let's fix the gut and that'll be enough. That's also no longer enough because fixing the gut has gotten a lot more difficult because there are other pieces that are missing that need to be included.

6:17 Dr. Ruth Roberts: Right on. And so this is the difficulty, right? It used to be the one thing that we had to change. And now it's the five things or the seven things or the 12 things. And I think you're absolutely right. I mean, whatever you want to call what's happening in the world in terms of extreme weather, you know, we can say global warming, we can say there's just hideous contamination or pollution. But it is something that as we used, sort of chemistry for better living with that. And that literally was the phrase that chemists love to use in the seventies and eighties until things changed. At any rate, so we've done all these things thinking that it's making our lives better, but we're now waking up to the fact that we've actually created a massive pollution problem, a massive shift in how we experience life on this planet. And the planet does its own shifting as well, to be sure. But I think that I mean, the extremes in the weather have just gotten more and more profound. So that's well said. And and I think you're right, too. So, I mean, if you. For so many of my clients, when I was consulting or for the coaches, their clients are coming to them and I'm assuming yours as well. And they're giving you this list of twenty seven things they've tried and things are still not better. Are you finding that, too?

7:56 Dr. Odette Suter: Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're overwhelmed because a lot of these patients' parents are also, you know, have done a lot of research already. They spent hours and hours on the computer trying to figure things out, you know, sleepless nights, researching, trying this, trying that and just not getting anywhere. And, you know, that's kind of a little bit of the other issue is there's so much information out there right now and everybody's, you know, putting their five, ten cents or what a two cents or whatever it is into the mix. And so they end up with like a pile of pieces of knowledge that don't really connect. And so they don't have this foundation of health knowledge. And that is a big piece that is missing because if you don't have that foundation of knowledge, then whatever healing you're doing is going to be very chaotic, you know, like running back and forth between one thing to the next thing and never getting anywhere. And so one of the big pieces is that foundational knowledge that's missing that will organize all of these pieces of knowledge that they're gathering everywhere so that they actually then make sense. And then, you know, the healing process as a result can then be much more organized as well. So that's another big issue, you know, as much as the Internet is great for finding all sorts of information. And I certainly use it quite a lot myself, obviously. But it, you know, for someone who doesn't have a lot of background in how the body works, you know, on a bit more of like a. You know, a little bit deeper level than just the surface, it can be very difficult to make sense of things.

9:39 Dr. Ruth Roberts: Agreed, because unfortunately, much of the information that's available is tied to selling specific products, and that's hard for a lot of pet parents to work through. I mean, so many people will buy products based on testimonials because others found such amazing results for their dog that had X, Y or Z. And this person is looking to solve that same problem. So they buy that thing. And I think that's what's frustrating to me is that, as you said earlier, we're substituting taking the Tylenol for a headache for taking Arnica for a headache instead of asking, why are we having the headache?

10:26 Dr. Odette Suter: Yeah, yeah. And the thing is, too, that, you know, medicine has made it very complicated and pharma is probably contributing significantly to it because. You know, the God in white coat wants to stay the God in white coat, right? And how you do that is by creating confusion, fear. Yeah, basically that because, you know, we have so many diseases that are called all these different fancy names. But what it really comes down to is that if there is a symptom that shows up somewhere, if there's a disease, it basically means that there are cells that are malfunctioning. I mean, that's the point line, you know, so if we can go back any time an animal has anything that shows up, if we say, oh, there are cells that are not functioning properly. That’s really the bottom line. If it's a pancreas, then we call it pancreatitis. If it's the liver, we call it hepatitis, or if it's the brain, we call it dementia or whatever, you know, so that we need to kind of go back to the bottom line. It's just the cells not functioning. And then it makes it much easier to then also figure out, well, what do these cells actually need to be able to function properly? Well, they need nutrition, right? And we also need to remove everything, anything that may be interfering with their function. So then if we focus on that, you know, healing becomes much more logical and we can kind of get away from all that noise that kind of around, you know, but the thing is, too, you know, I know it. Sometimes people also feel like, oh, I have a name to my disease and then they hang on to it for dear life. You know, I mean, I caught myself saying, oh, yeah, I used to have, you know, I had autoimmune disease or I had chronic fatigue, but it was basically I had malfunctioning cells. That's very sexy, right? If I say that, you know, my cells weren't working.

12:22 Dr. Ruth Roberts: That's kind of right. I mean, we're both proponents of functional medicine. And I think that gives us such a better understanding of how to get past the title of the thing and into actually healing. Because, you know, if we say, oh, I have an autoimmune disease, well, clearly you need an immunosuppressant to feel better. And then like you were saying, that ends up creating a raft of side effects because of the drug that is used to do that.

12:58 Dr. Odette Suter: So it also often comes with the label of incurable.

13:01 Dr. Ruth Roberts: Yes, so you'll never get better.

13:02 Dr. Odette Suter: Here's something like autoimmune or IBD, particularly one of my pet peeves. It's like incurable comes attached to it. So there's nothing you can do about it.

13:14 Dr. Ruth Roberts: So, you know. Right. So, you know, it's very interesting, too. So. And this is way off topic, but it's not so Ted Kipuchik, who wrote a book called The Web That Has No Weaver, he's one of the early proponents of acupuncture in the United States, got really interested in the placebo effect. And so he studied at a teaching university and it was for people, for women, especially, that who had IBD or IBS. And the gold standard at that time for pharmaceutical approach to resolving IBD, IBS is about 65 percent. So he created this study where he had somebody. There were two groups. Both of them were given sham acupuncture points, meaning they stuck needles in the person, but not in something that's a known acupuncture point. And so the two groups were the first group was the person the acupuncturist walked in. So I'm Dr. So-and-so. I'm here to start your acupuncture treatment for your IBS. I'm going to put these needles in, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You're going to lay here for 20 minutes and then we'll take the needles out. And the second group, the doctor that walked in and did the typical intake process, which might take an hour to listen to the patient. To understand their life's experiences, how all of this had happened. And then they did the same sham acupuncture points and came back 20 minutes later and took the needles out just like the other group. The thing that's astonishing is the sham group where there was no discussion. The doctor came in, put the needles in. Their improvement was 65 percent. In the group where the doctor listened and talked to the person, their improvement was 85 percent. With basically just hearing and being heard. I mean, that's amazing. Yeah. So. But that's the problem, right? As we give these titles, these diagnoses and then say, oh, your dog's going to be on medication for the rest of its life. And so our tendency is to go and give up. And so what we're both trying to tell you is don't give up yet.

15:40 Dr. Odette Suter: Yeah. Yeah. Plus, I think things have also shifted. I've been thinking about that quite a bit recently because, you know, on this planet and that may be a little far out. So you rail me back. If it's too much, but, you know, we are in a shift in consciousness on this planet where it's much more about finding connection. And that's not necessarily connection with others, although it certainly also includes that, but also connection with who we truly are, with our creator universe, whatever you want to call it. You know, God, I don't have any, you know. Whatever you want to call it, basically. And in the process of getting more of a connection, deepening that connection, there are a lot of things that we have to look at in ourselves. You know, patterns, belief structures that we acquired when we were little that may not be serving us anymore. And in the process of getting more connected, we have to examine these things, these beliefs and patterns so that they can then be transformed and not have this hold on us basically. And I am just kind of wondering if right now the animals are all sick for the purpose that we start or deepen that self-examination because animals, they will bring up everything. There is nothing that they will not show. So if you have a sick animal and you're freaking out, you're angry, you're frustrated, whatever it may be, or you know, you're just suffering. I think it's also really important to do some self-examination and maybe even work with someone who can help you if it's too difficult. Because the only way out, I think, is going to be, you know, obviously supporting the animals, but also looking at our own stuff to deepen that connection. Because right now, obviously we need our animals, you know, right now we depend on them because they're the catalysts for all of this amazing change. But let's just say it's a little painful for a lot of people. And I feel for everyone that way, but it's also an invitation to go much, much deeper into something that we are all asked to do basically because that's where we are in the evolution on this planet. We are stepping from more of the survival into the heart, cooperation, working together, love, you know, all of that. And this is a huge jump. And in order to be able to make that jump, we have to, you know, do some examining of ourselves and a lot of change. And that's kind of what I see is up on this planet is a lot of disruption and it's creating a lot of, yeah, it's bringing up a lot. Let's put it that way.

18:54 Dr. Ruth Roberts: Well said. I mean, and that's precisely it. So change can be extremely painful, especially if you have to reexamine the way that you have your belief structure and those are very hard to change. So if we, if we back up to thinking about root causes, we've shifted from root causes and all of the things on the planet that are out of balance, adding to that litany of woes, so to speak. And then we put this other layer of the need for self-examination. That's a lot for a pet parent to sort of take on. I mean, and that can be really guilt inducing. So what are some of your strategies to help people start working through that guilt, through that like, oh, wow.

19:53 Dr. Odette Suter: Love basically, because, you know, I'm very lucky. I have someone I work with who has always been showering me with love no matter what. And sometimes a little tough love too, but, you know, where I couldn't do anything wrong, basically, or I can't do anything wrong. And so that's a little bit of how I support my parents, you know, who are part of my program and otherwise as well. It's like I help them find more peace with what's happening and also find peace in the sense that it's not their fault. I mean, that doesn't mean that they're not responsible for what they choose and how they live their lives and how they act and all of that. But it's a learning journey. You know, we're all we're all on the journey and there's nothing wrong with that journey. So somebody may be on that part, you know, more with the guilt. Another one may be more in the fear or whatever it is. And some people would maybe at the very, you know, what we might call beginning of the journey as far as, you know, switching from kibble to a raw diet, for example, or they're already further along. Again, there's really no, you know, that are worse or whatever. But, you know, it's just we have to find peace where we are because that's really where the healing can happen is that we just can feel loved and feel like it's OK to be wherever you are. And it's everything is OK and everything also serves a purpose. I think that's important, too, because we humans, we like to have purpose or attach purpose to things, you know, like, for example, you had a bad experience. You know, what was the purpose of it? Because then when you kind of realize what the purpose of it was, it brings a sense of peace. And so I think a lot of it is that love, but also then reinterpreting things at a higher level, you know, at a more empowering level, like, for example, if someone had an animal that passed away and they feel really guilty because they feel they didn't do enough. Well, how can we make this turn this into a more empowering interpretation that actually will then heal rather than perpetuate that wound, you know, and constantly stabbing around in it type of thing. So that's definitely a big part is, you know, how can we reinterpret things in a more loving, more kind, more empowering sort of interpretation?

22:38 Dr. Ruth Roberts: That makes total sense. And I think the other thing, too, is we like to think of things as being linear, but really, it's coping with the multidimensionality of all of this, and it's like, I don't know, I'm seeing ads where they've got these graphs that operate in different dimensions in four quarters. And I think that that's really kind of how we have to start to shift our thinking to understand all of the challenges we're facing and breathe through it, get through the overwhelm and then start to figure out the pieces that will begin to support changing the picture back to something that's more harmonious.

23:18 Dr. Odette Suter: Yeah, I mean, I always look at it as like a spiral, an upward spiral, even though you may look like you're going through the same. Over and over again, it just starts to slowly change because some of the things get weaker, the patterns get weaker, so we're getting less dragged into it. You know, and so then it's kind of an upward motion. And I think just knowing that we are on this upward upward trend, no matter how deep and low it feels, I think that can be helpful, too. You know, just to know that we are moving up, we're not going down, we're moving up.

24:01 Dr. Ruth Roberts: Yeah, it's kind of like. We're being shown the old problem in a different light and because we can see the difference between not being in the problem and being in the problem, it's more painful to be in that problem. Does that make any sense?

24:20 Dr. Odette Suter: Yeah.

24:20 Dr. Ruth Roberts: Yeah. So that's that idea of the spiral. It's another layer of the issue, I guess, is a good way to put it.

24:27 Dr. Odette Suter: Yeah. Yeah. And the thing is, too, you know, the more we resist something, the more painful it is. So if we are feeling pain, the question to ask is always what am I resisting?

24:39 Dr. Ruth Roberts: Yes.

24:39 Dr. Odette Suter: Why? Why am I? What am I resisting? And I know that's a difficult question to ask. And oftentimes you. Well, I feel like you have to have someone to kind of work, help you with it on some level, too. So because we humans are not made to figure things out all by ourselves, we are supposed to figure it out with some support as well, because that's also where the connection comes from. You know, it's that connection. And at first, it's more of an outward connection. It could be a guide. It could be a therapist. It could be a doctor. It could be somebody. But eventually, you know, we deepen and deepen our own connection with all that is. And then the answers come a little bit more from that. But even then, you know, we are humans, we have a brain, we're living in a third dimension, we have a very limited view of what's really possible and what's really happening. You know, I mean, in the law, I mean, in the grand scheme of things, we have no clue about anything we think we do.

25:48 Dr. Ruth Roberts: So it makes us feel better

25:48 Dr. Odette Suter: or not because then you. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I have actually started to feel more comfortable in the not knowing than in the knowing. Which is kind of interesting. I was surprised when I first realized that I'm like, I actually much rather not know than know. In this, I mean, I want to know things too, because it helps me to explain that if I can admit that I don't know, then there's much more room for answers that can then come in from anywhere they come in from, you know, could be Google. It could be, you know, the universe somehow or somebody just saying something or you listen to a song and it says something and you're like. Oh, yeah.

26:31 Dr. Ruth Roberts: Well, and that's a really great point, right? If we empty our cups, then more things, more knowledge can come in, more understanding.

26:40 Dr. Odette Suter: It's just difficult when you're in a lot of pain because you want a solution, you know, and so it's more difficult to basically surrender when you're in pain. But that's kind of the way out. This is rendering to the not knowing.

26:55 Dr. Ruth Roberts: Anyway, that is very true. And it is. It's the hardest thing to do, isn't it?

27:00 Dr. Odette Suter: Yeah, but, you know, it's like a muscle. If you train it, you get better at it, you know, and you sure took me years. I'm getting better at it. But it takes practice. It takes self examination. It takes, you know, recognizing, oh, I'm doing this again. You know, I'm thinking that way again, whatever it is. And then you're like, it just shifts, you know, because you're like, oh, I caught the pattern and then you can choose something else instead of going with that.

27:30 Dr. Ruth Roberts: Yes. Well said.

27:33 Dr. Ruth Roberts: So we started this conversation out talking about the gap and that as holistic practitioners, we're having a more and more difficult time making those shifts in our patient's support or our client's pet support. So how can we start to adjust our methods to meet the evolving need of pets and ultimately, their owners in this landscape of constant change?

28:07 Dr. Odette Suter: Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, for me, evolution as a veterinarian is, you know, I get more challenging patients and then I have to go dig around more to figure out why and why and how to to help them. So it's a really it's a very like ongoing sort of in the moment, almost sort of process as a veterinarian. But certainly. You know, to kind of. Cover the gap between the conventional way of doing things, which includes holistic medicine, including. Which is basically the traditional way of going to the veterinarian, having your pet examined, do something and then leave and then be at home with the same problem that may or may not have be getting better. So it's like this. This old model of just visits that I find is not working anymore, and that is for holistic and otherwise. And the gap part is really the knowledge base that people need. And then also the ongoing support because just because you just were at the vet doesn't mean that the next day you know what you need to do. Or that there may not be something that comes up. And so you have to have someone who can kind of coach you through that and help you through it and kind of fill that gap between the vet visits. And that's a bit of what I'm doing with my program. I know that's what you're kind of working with the coaches as well to help with that. Because we just need more ongoing support because health has just become much more difficult to deal with and reverse disease, to reverse is much more difficult. And, you know, there are very few pet parents who have enough knowledge and understanding of the body to be able to do that. And that's not to put anybody out there. It's just something that I see. I think it's a bit of a reality. You know, things are getting much more difficult. And we see that in the human field as well. You know, we have doctors who work specifically with chronically ill people who are severely chronically ill. And I see that in animals, too. So they react to everything the patients, you know, to to whatever you do, they react to food change when before they weren't. They have problems with detoxification. You know, you give a little bit of a supplement that all hell breaks loose. You know, those are really difficult. And you have to have a bit of a you know, you have to have a bit of experience and a little bit of knowledge on how to deal with these animals to to help them out. And that is something that I think is beyond. Just general pet parent knowledge, to be honest.

31:14 Dr. Ruth Roberts: Agreed. And sometimes the hardest thing to do as a practitioner is to do less.

31:21 Dr. Ruth Roberts: Right. Because we see the symptoms getting worse. We want to throw on more and more things. And as you just said, if that pet is incredibly sensitive, then we just you know, we just throw more wood into the fire and the fire rages stronger. Yeah. One of the other difficulties, too, is both on the holistic side and the conventional side, veterinarians are like, oh, they're idiots. And, you know, both sides were saying this about each other. So do you have ideas about how we can sort of get these two different approaches working together better to help close the healing gap?

32:02 Dr. Odette Suter: Yeah, I think that's also where the pet parents come in. Because they are requesting certain treatments, certain things for their animals. And that changes how especially the conventional, you know, vets will start to practice and they will also reach out. I mean, I've had relatively good experience with those veterinarians who I've been working with, you know, from people from my program, you know, supporting them to have the communications they needed with their veterinarians and such. So I think it's again, it's the pet parents. But I've also seen a huge shift because, you know, as I mean, you can't not feel like you're missing something or you're repeating the same thing over and over again as a conventional vet. And the same is true for holistic vets, too. You know, it's like we do things and it's not working. And then we're like, you know, so definitely I think that working together has significantly changed over the last few years. Where at least I certainly always work with conventional vets as well, because they have a lot of tools that I don't have, you know, like imaging, for example, doing certain specialty tests and all sorts of things. So we just need to work together in the capacity that we each have, you know, and that enhances the team basically, because then we can all contribute something to the. To the healing of the animals.

33:35 Dr. Ruth Roberts: And that makes so much sense, right? Because you and I, we both tend to call ourselves integrated vets, meaning we will integrate all different modalities. But I think the other thing is the word holistic makes people think that it's only the natural stuff. But in reality, holistic means to take a holistic approach, incorporating everything. So in reality, it's really pretty close to the meaning of the words. So I think that's really frustrating because people will say to me, oh, my God, you're recommending prednisone for a short course. That's just evil incarnate. But the holistic approach is that the dog is tearing itself to shreds. And if we don't help support that until some of the other things that we're going to do have chance to take effect, then the dog is miserable. The pet parent is miserable and they won't be able to stick with what we've offered or designed a program for them.

34:38 Dr. Odette Suter: Yeah, I mean, that's what the Chinese call the root and the branch approach. You know, you obviously work on the root, but you also work on the branch, which are the symptoms just to make sure the animal is not too uncomfortable.

34:53 Dr. Ruth Roberts: Right. Because ultimately, that's the, that is the goal of any system of medicine is to relieve suffering. And yeah, and I think we lose sight of that. I mean, I know I'll only do natural things, but my dog is unable to stand up because really it could use some help from some pharmaceuticals for a bit.

35:14 Dr. Odette Suter: Yeah, because I mean, I've had to make a very painful experience myself to get myself off that only natural sort of high horse that I was on. You know, I had Pony Step on my shoulders, had a nerve root issue here that was just sending radiating pain down my arms to the point where I wanted to scream every time I moved like I need some pain meds now. Give me some morphine. So that's when I really learned that I need to integrate the two of them and be more open and more flexible, because I think that's one of the big pieces in this world. We need to be flexible. In order for things to be possible, if we're not flexible, nothing, you know, we're going to miss things basically.

36:05 Dr. Ruth Roberts: Yes. And I think that's I mean, to your earlier point, if you maintain a rigid stance about something, then then no new knowledge can come in. No new ways of approaching a situation can come in.

36:19 Dr. Odette Suter: But sometimes, you know, our beliefs are very much triggered, you know, because we are so invested in these beliefs that we can't even think beyond it. You know, it's like the flat earth kind of situation. We're so invested into that belief. And, you know, it's like our. Yeah, it's who we are type of thing, or at least we think that's who we are. And so then it can become really difficult to admit that. So maybe I was wrong.

36:49 Dr. Ruth Roberts: Yeah. I mean, you talked about, you know, literally a painful situation for yourself with the nerve pain radiating down that made you shift your belief. And it's astonishing how much pain will force you to challenge your beliefs. And when you can let go of whatever it is that's creating the obstruction, then the pain starts to improve. So despite all of these things that we're dealing with today, what gives you hope for the future of holistic pet care?

37:25 Dr. Odette Suter: What gives me hope is that there is so much change happening. You know, I can, I can just see it. And I know that may not make me feel very popular, but I see all the pain and I know the pain is going to change. And so that's what makes me hopeful. Obviously, I'm not enjoying watching people being in pain, animals, being in pain. Not at all. But I know that's unfortunately or fortunately, whatever is happening and what will really make us grow and change this whole situation that we created for ourselves that is so detrimental. Because, you know, if we look at it, we have lost so much topsoil that within just 30 years or something like that, we are going to have no food. Water is being polluted. Air is being polluted. I mean, we have made such a mess on this planet and we're most likely going to get out of it. I'm very optimistic about that. But the way out is unfortunately for humans is through pain. And so because there's a lot of pain, I see that there's also a lot of change that is happening because it's really pushing people's buttons and that you have to examine things, especially, I mean, with the animals. It's a perfect example. I mean, you know, way back when we, you know, we had to kind of go looking for people who are interested in holistic medicine. Now they're just flocking to our doors because everything else doesn't work and they're in so much pain that they're like, please help, you know. And so that's kind of where we are. And that's where so much transformation can happen and is happening already. So, you know, as grateful as I am for the transformation that's that is happening, obviously, I do also pray for all the pain and hope that things will move through a little bit faster so that everybody can have the life that they want with with their animals and so on.

39:28 Dr. Ruth Roberts: Yeah. And that makes sense. Is there and this is the thing, I mean, the times are difficult to hold hope and optimism. So is there one final piece of advice or encouragement that you'd like to leave parents with as they're navigating through their pets' health journey and trying to figure out what to do next?

39:56 Dr. Odette Suter: Start hanging out with your animals, vibrate at their energy level, because that will make a big difference already. And then just, yeah, work with someone, make sure that there are no pieces that you're missing in the puzzle. And, you know, you and I talked a little bit earlier about hormones, I think that is currently the biggest missing piece. Because if animals don't have the hormones and the amounts that are necessary and balanced, the cells just can't heal the body just can't heal because it's basically missing the chemical signals that tell the cells what to do and when to do it. And so the cells are like, well, I didn't get the message.

40:49 Dr. Ruth Roberts: What do you want me to do about it? I mean, come on.

40:49 Dr. Odette Suter: Right. I didn't get the message. So we need to get the messengers back on board. We need to get communication back on board in the body so that it can work. And then we need to start emptying out the bucket that's overflowing. And again, that is a little bit more challenging. And I highly recommend working with someone who knows a bit how to do that, you know, because detoxing again in very sensitive animals has to be done very slowly and in the right timing and the right order, because otherwise you're just going to make it a lot worse for your pets. And we certainly don't want that.

41:28 Dr. Ruth Roberts: Well said, because I think that's one of the things everybody knows they need to detox. But I think we create more pain and suffering by doing it too fast. Yeah, Dr. Suter, it has always been a fun conversation with a lot of incredible insights. And for our listeners there who want to learn more, work with you, learn more about you, where can they reach you get a copy of your book to kind of get an understanding of your approach?

41:59 Dr. Odette Suter: Yeah, so my book is available on Amazon. And yeah, it does talk about the basics. And that's, you know, and it's an easy read. So even though I published it several years ago now, it's still very appropriate, very timely. And then I also have my pet health accelerator program that I work with people very in depth, you know, one on one well in group settings, but very, very intensively and give them that foundation of knowledge. So you can get started just exploring that by watching my masterclass that you can find on my website to see if it resonates.

42:42 Dr. Ruth Roberts: Awesome. Amazing. Yeah. Thanks again for joining. For those of you listening, I hope you're enjoying all of the episodes of Healing Tails. Keep on the lookout for new episodes popping up. Thank you for having me.

42:58Dr. Ruth Roberts: Always a pleasure. Thanks for listening to Healing Tails where pet parents become healers, one tail wag at a time. Want more tools and support? Head to DrRuthRoberts.com. Until next time, trust your gut, question the noise, and keep showing up for your pet.