Frieda Byler

Thanks so much for the helpful replies, folks!

Our dog seemed to be doing better after a 24 hr. fast, followed by a week-long bone broth detox. (Poor dog, the kiddos gave her lots of TLC, but she seemed a bit confused.) We let her have ample amounts of broth, cause that's all she was eating, giving it to her four or five times throughout the day.
We gradually introduced healthy homemade dog food, mixing it w/ bone broth, using Carla's recipe as a guideline. (Thanks, btw!)  

We could immediately tell her poop didn't smell like a sick baby's diaper anymore, and she didn't seem quite so ravenous. (Although she will still dig up beetle grubs any chance she gets, ugh!)
We've done a few more 3 day broth diets since then, about one per month. The holidays were a busy time for us, and we like to be especially attentive to her while she's on a broth diet, so she only got one between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day.
She could still stand to lose a few pounds, but hopefully with warmer weather, she'll get more exercise again. In the meantime, we're following these suggestions and frankly, getting better results than we did taking her to the vet.

That's pretty impressive. I didn't know garlic is safe for dogs. I had always heard it was toxic. Charlie is blessed to have you as his human! I'm sure he is a happy and healthy little dog
So I'm wondering, do you just use a food dehydrator to dry the food, and do you form it into chunks or pieces first?

Thanks y'all, for the helpful replies!
I've seriously considered having her fast and then give probiotics, b/c that's often what we humans do, but I wasn't sure.
Thanks a bunch for the vet references. I was so wishing for something like that, since the two places here locally don't seem to have answers.
We give our dog bagged dog food. We've been getting the grain free varieties for a good while. She hasn't been getting corn or wheat in her food for years, but occasionally we'd get food that had lamb and brown rice, cause she seemed to like it.(Actually, she's rarely ever had corn or wheat in her food, except for a handful of times that it slipped by me when other family members happened to pick up the food, forgetting to read the label.)
I am sure during her lifetime though, it's entirely possible she picked up some toxins.
We never fed our dogs raw meat, (especially  chicken:)),because we had animals, and didn't want them to develop a taste for it.
I'm wondering how I would go about making dog food. I'd love a recipe or formula. It's something that our daughter would probably help out with willingly, since this is primarily dog,  and she's pretty attached to her.
I will definitely look into those references.
Thanks again!

Hello friends,
We have an 11 year old shepherd/lab mix that seems to need a detox or gut reset of some kind.
We spent hundreds of dollars at the vet doing a whole bunch of tests, (including x-ray, ultrasound, a thyroid test, testing for parasites, all results were normal or negative) and all they can tell us is that "she's just overweight, put her on diet dogfood".
We feel like there's something else going on. Her stomach is swelled and she's had a ravenous appetite. She has loose stools and sometimes diarrhea.
We're wondering whether there might be some candida in her stomach, or some other imbalance that needs resetting..
I feel like I know what to do for myself or another human as going on a vegetable juice detox got me amazing results, but I don't think that would be advisable for a dog
Anyone have suggestions or experiences to share?

I'm so happy someone is tackling this challenge!
I absolutely love winter squash, but squash bugs here are so bad, we do well to harvest half of the crop we should have. We love some of the Maxima varieties, but eventually eliminated all but the Moschatas;  b/c of the tough stems they are at least resistant to vine borers.

I can testify to the toughness of Seminole squash. The squash bugs eventually killed the plants, but not before we managed to harvest a large wheelbarrow load of squash. Delicious too!

We are using row cover this year, removing it for just a few hours in the morning for the pollinators, and then covering back up for the rest of the day when squash bugs are most active. I'm hoping this will be effective.

Looking forward to following the progress!

Hello!
I'm also wondering how everyone's project(s) are going particularly in Va.
Our life has recently opened up a little more after several years of being pretty limited to caring for our busy family, elderly parents, kiddos, etc.
Much to our delight, we're feeling our dreams waking up from dormancy, and are looking forward to getting our hands in the mud again.
We'd like to connect with some folks in Va. that have cobbing experience. Since our project has been on hold for awhile and it has been over 6 years since we last attended a workshop, we'd welcome an opportunity to consult with a cob professional.

Feel free to message me, if you live in Va., and fit the description! We're willing to pay for some services, as we prefer to do a large portion of the actual work ourselves with perhaps a small group of people, but are thinking we might end up more pleased with the results if we have someone knowledgeable to guide the project.

Hello again, folks,
Glad to hear that interest is still alive and growing here in Va.!
We are planning to attend a natural building workshop in July.
In the meantime, we've enrolled in an online cob building course that has [so far, for us] contained some useful info. While it's not as great as actually "being there", we feel confident enough to at least get started on a small barn. Hopefully, we can connect with some of you, as the project progresses. We can hardly wait!
Here's the link, if anyone's interested: http://www.members.thiscobhouse.com/online-cob-house-workshop/

Hello again!
We're finally back home and back to a more normal schedule after the holidays.....

That's good to know, Jay. It would be nice to take a class or two at Yestermorrow with our son in the next two years. It would give him a feel for the school, and regardless of outcome, we'd all be learning!

Well, here goes. We plan to watch this month's videos starting this evening. We've already selected a site for a small barn/coop, and expect to wait for warmer temps to actually implement most things, except perhaps gathering materials. We will also need a building permit here. Just for the challenge, we'd like to try building this little barn with as little money as possible. Wish we had a pile of useable rocks! My parents have loads of fieldstone, but to haul them from Pa. seems a bit impractical........

Hi Jay,
Thanks for commenting; I was hoping you would! I believe you would be the perfect candidate to review this course for the rest of us. Better yet, put your own internet course together and we'll all enroll!
My husband and I read your posts with great interest, [as well as our 16 yr. old son.] Our family hopes to build a natural home in the forseeable future, but feel like we need some experience before we tackle something we will be living in.
We have worked with conventional building and are somewhat experienced, but have become seriously disillusioned with it, especially since codes seem to be always changing; precious little in the conventional building field seems very enduring. Even so-called "green" manufactured, off the shelf building materials seem a bit counter productive and expensive. Natural, handcrafted homes possess a beauty that no expensive home in the suburbs even comes close to. [Not to mention, better health for the occupants!] It's great to see so many people returning to traditional, natural methods, but it can seem like a jungle out there trying to sort out the "experts" from the "wannabes". We definitely want to learn natural building the right way! Building something for our animals that doesn't require plumbing, wiring or a lot of expense while we study and work at home seems very appealing right now. If we don't succeed at it, well, even less than perfect attempts usually result in lessons learned, so all is not really lost. At least, we learned that from building our cob oven!
Our sons are very interested in all things "backwoodsy" and our family would like to find a piece of property with enough natural resources to build [and continue to live] mostly "off the land" and debt free. Since we are not "experts", we've got a lot to learn and need to start somewhere.
One of our boys has been interested in Yestermorrow, a natural building school in Vermont. Do you know anything about them?

Just got this info., and thought some other folks might be interested. Our family is definitely going to give this a go and maybe build a chicken coop or small barn while we learn. We've been dying to attend a workshop, but family obligations and time constraints have kept us away.

http://www.members.thiscobhouse.com/online-cob-house-workshop/