Hannah Zulueta A Healing Crisis, Reframed
I don’t actually like calling it a crisis.
What a real healing response looks like when food, herbs, or supplements are working, and how to tell it apart from the wrong plan.
A Healing Response Should Leave the Dog Better
If your dog looks or acts worse once it passes, it wasn’t the right method. Pause it and reevaluate.
Why Don’t I Like the Word Crisis?
Food is medicine. So are herbs and supplements. My job, working with you, is identifying which ones open the pathways that let your dog’s body start repairing itself. You’re the feedback loop, since the actual answer always lives in your dog, not in a protocol on paper.
Food carries real energetic patterns. It can warm or cool the body. It can move blood or Qi toward the center or away from it. It can target a specific organ. Some ingredients are strong enough to resolve stagnation or dissolve phlegm outright. Knowing those qualities in theory still isn’t enough, you need the feedback loop with your dog to confirm the combination is actually right for them.
What Actually Has to Happen First?
Picture a dog whose digestion has slowed to a stall, the way traffic backs up behind one stuck light. Nothing else moves well until that light clears. That’s the step most people skip: getting circulation and bowel movements flowing before anything else.
Food is where I usually start that work, and the shift often shows up within the first month or two on a new recipe. Food’s energetic qualities are real, they’re just not as forceful as herbs, which is exactly why I lead with food and only bring in herbs or supplements once things are already moving. It takes longer. You can’t grow a tree overnight, and you can’t heal a body overnight either.
What Does a Healing Response Actually Look Like?
Toxins
The body releases through stool and urine. If your dog has a rash, this should not include external lesions getting worse.
2 to 4 Days
Timing is the tell. Typically short, two to four days, though rare cases run as long as two weeks.
After
The body is always better off once it passes. If your dog seems worse instead, stop and reevaluate the method.
What If This Isn’t Actually a Healing Response?
A healing response doesn’t always show up. Some dogs just improve, no rough patch in between. When it does show up, it’s usually loose stool, more water intake, or more frequent urination, and if any of it worsens past four days, tell me, your vet, your nutritionist, or the company behind the supplement.
The real marker comes right after: does your dog’s body settle into a better state once the temporary phase ends? If they look worse, act worse, or seem moodier instead, the method was probably wrong for them, and the ingredients, herbs, or supplements need to be paused and reevaluated.
What If a New Condition Surfaces Instead?
Some ingredients and herbs work by moving Qi or Blood outward, toward the surface, which is exactly the mechanism used to help push an allergic reaction out of the body. But weather shifts, and what looked like a simple allergy can turn into hives or hot spots.
Both hives and hot spots point to Wind-Heat in Chinese medicine. Anything that moves things outward will not help here, and can make it worse. The move is to pause the allergy protocol, cool the body down, and hydrate.
Getting this wrong happens often. Walk into any Facebook group built around an herbal protocol and you’ll find someone saying their dog has been on it for three months with nothing to show for it. When that happens, the supplement is the wrong key for that lock. Put it down and try a different approach, because every body responds differently.
What’s Actually Being Treated Here?
In Chinese medicine, we’re not treating the symptom directly, we’re identifying the root cause so the body can repair itself. Food, herbs, and supplements either support that process or slow it down, and sometimes push the body the wrong direction entirely.
As the dog’s person, your observation matters more than any protocol. Staying attuned to the small, early signals beats waiting for a full-blown reaction to tell you something’s off. The body already knows how to heal. Our job is mostly to stop getting in its way.
Quick Answers
How long should a healing response last?
Typically two to four days. In rare cases it can run as long as two weeks. Anything worsening past four days is worth flagging to your practitioner rather than waiting it out.
What’s the difference between a healing response and a bad reaction?
A healing response is temporary and your dog is better once it passes. A bad reaction leaves your dog looking or acting worse afterward, which means the method itself, not just the timing, was wrong.
Why did my dog’s allergy symptoms turn into hot spots?
This can happen when an outward-moving protocol meets a shift toward Wind-Heat. Hot spots and hives both point to that pattern, and the fix is to pause the outward-moving herbs and cool the body instead.
Do I need to start with herbs to see change?
No. Food is usually the better starting point, since it gets circulation and digestion moving with less force than herbs. Many dogs shift meaningfully within the first month or two of a new recipe alone.
Knowing What to Watch For, Together
This is TCM Dietetics: reading your dog’s response as we go, food first, so we can tell a real healing response apart from the wrong plan before it drags on for months.
Hannah Zulueta obtained her Certificate in Canine Nutrition from CASI Institute. She is also studying for her Doctorate in Acupuncture, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and Herbalism from the esteemed Pacific College of Health and Medicine. If you’re as keenly interested in health for yourself, visit her website for human health: Satori Acupuncture and Herbs.
She resides in San Diego with her three dogs, Maggie, Orbit, and Mr. Higgins.
She is available for one on one consultations. She develops evidence-based recipes that meet both NRC and AAFCO nutritional standards while integrating the therapeutic food principles of Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine into her formulations.
Additionally, you can find her sharing free content on Instagram.
