Hannah Zulueta Please read first
This is the protocol I used in 2022. It is not what I do now.
My approach has changed. I work with Chinese herbs and food now rather than commercial yeast kits, and I no longer recommend the Adored Beast or Four Leaf Rover protocols. One of them made my own dog break out, and I have heard the same from a number of readers.
I am leaving this page up because people still write to tell me it helped them. Read it as a record of what I was doing then, not as the plan I would build for your dog today.
Yeast · Archive
Weed, Seed, Feed
The three-step yeast cleanse I ran on my own dog, and the signs that tell you which stage you are in.
Yeast overgrowth shows up in dogs fed kibble, home-cooked, dehydrated, raw and therapeutic diets. That is what makes it so confusing. The diet label is not the answer, and the dog in front of you is.
The one thing
Allergies and yeast are opposite problems.
When your dog has allergies, they have an over-reactive or hyper-reactive immune response. In the case of yeast, it could be that your dog has an underactive immune system.
That distinction changes everything downstream. You are not calming something down. You are rebuilding something that stopped holding the line.
Many skin problems are a manifestation of poor gut health.
Recognition
How do you know if your dog has yeast?
Most yeasty dogs show several of these at once. One on its own means less than four together.
Paws, bellies, the inside of the thigh, and armpits if they can reach.
Rusty brown fur, most obvious on paws, muzzle, groin and belly.
Old socks. Corn chips. A musty rancid smell, or a sweet rancid one.
Belly and armpits feel clammy, more so on a warm synthetic blanket. It can feel like the belly sweats at night. Paws feel moist compared to a dog without yeast.
Tear production runs overactive and the eyes stay wet most of the day.
Visible tracks, obvious on white or light fur. They may carry the yeasty smell, and can dry into a waxy crusted track.
Brown to almost black waxy build-up inside the ear. Watch this closely. See your vet for a flush or medication if it turns into an infection.
Hard pimple-like bumps behind the ears and across the skull around the eyes, once the yeast has spilled past the ear.
Red and inflamed, mostly on the belly and in the armpits.
Soft or unformed logs, sometimes pudding.
That rusty penny or fishy penny smell, on the sofa or just before you arrive somewhere.
Snorty morning and evening, with a wet sound rather than normal breathing.
Slippery, very moist saliva. Hard to notice with only one dog, because a dog without yeast does not feel like this.
The mechanism
What is actually happening
Typically the gut is out of balance. Connected to it are the elimination channels: the skin, the colon, the kidneys, the liver, and sometimes the lungs.
Yeast is always present in our dogs. It grows out of control when the opportunity arises. The stomach’s pH may be off balance as it tries to process food and toxins, and the organs are in overdrive at the same time.
When the gut and the organs cannot do their job, you start to see skin problems. The gut inflames, the good bacteria die off, and the harmful bacteria get room to grow.
The same picture in Chinese medicine
Yeast with soft stools is Spleen Qi Deficiency leading to an accumulation of Damp and Phlegm. The goal is to tonify the Spleen, harmonize the Liver, and drain the Damp.
The protocol
Weed, seed and feed
Also called remove, restore and replenish. It combines dietary change with herbal support to return the gut to a healthy state. This is not a one size fits all approach, and you will have to adjust based on your own dog’s response.
Note: Some links in this article are affiliate links (Amazon Associates or other programs I participate in). At no charge to you, as an affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Weed out the bad bacteria and turn the gut into an environment where it cannot grow.
Raw is not automatically right. If your dog is eating the wrong food for them, removing the trigger is what helps. I have had clients whose dogs were on excellent commercially prepared balanced raw that contained apple cider vinegar, and switching the food alone healed the dog. I have seen dogs go from raw with apple cider vinegar to kibble and watched the yeast disappear.
The whole foods approach is my preferred method because it is the gentlest. It also takes the longest, and it requires you to know what food your dog needs in order to heal.
Repair the intestines, and bring in supportive food and good bacteria.
Not every dog does well on bone broth, even cooked under two hours, because of histamine sensitivity. Monitor at every step. If the condition worsens, stop the bone broth.
Keep feeding and keep healing the gut, so the immune system comes back robust.
The bowl
Food for itchy and yeasty dogs
Fish here means fresh fish. Fresh sardines and anchovies are excellent additions. The canned and tinned versions of the same fish are a different story because of the histamine load, which is why they appear on the caution list instead.
Feed vegetables in small amounts. No more than four toe beans worth.
Ingredients
Do you know your fish?
If you are adding fresh fish for the omega-3, the fish you pick changes what else comes with it. Highest value in each column is marked.
| Fish | Vitamin D IU/100g | Vitamin E IU/kg | Zinc mg/100g | EPA g/100g | DHA g/100g |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Carp | 988 | 9.45 | 1.48 | 0.24 | 0.11 |
| Salmon, sockeye | 441 | 17.85 | 0.42 | 0.35 | 0.68 |
| Mackerel | 360 | 22.8 | 0.63 | 0.90 | 1.40 |
| Tuna | 227 | 15 | 0.60 | 0.28 | 0.89 |
| Sardine | 220 | 0.69 | 3.1 | 0.17 | 0.42 |
| Herring | 163.5 | 16.05 | 0.53 | 0.97 | 0.69 |
| Cod | 36 | 9.60 | 0.45 | 0.06 | 0.12 |
| Anchovy | no data | 8.55 | 1.72 | 0.54 | 0.91 |
Recipe
Fish broth
The short cook time is the point. Broth left going for hours climbs in histamine, which is exactly what you are trying to keep out of a yeasty dog.
Topically
You cannot skip this step
You have to remove the yeast growing on the skin and keep it at bay. Diet alone will not reach it.
The hard part
Yeast die-off
There will be a stretch where your dog’s belly and armpits look angry, red or dark red, and inflamed. This is the body releasing toxins during antifungal treatment, and it can happen several times through a cleanse. It looks like everything is getting worse very fast.
The manufacturers of these protocols say to hold firm while staying extra observant.
My own opinion, from having lived through this with my dog, is that die-off is a feedback loop telling you the protocol is too strong.
Stop whatever you suspect is driving the flare. Let your dog rest. Then start again at a quarter of the suggested dose if you were not already that low.
If you need something stronger for the itch
Douxo S3 calming mousse helps during this window. It is not a natural product, but it is effective at calming the itch. Use it two to three times a week, for two to three weeks only, then stop. By then the die-off should be finished. Douxo shampoo can also help. I do not reach for these first, but they are there when you need relief.
Bodywork
Massage and acupuncture
If you have access to a holistic vet who does acupuncture, treatment can be worth it. You can also learn to massage your dog in the areas related to the Spleen and Intestine. There is a diagram and a walkthrough here.
The real skill
A keen sense of observation
There are approximately 69 million dogs in the United States, and every single one of them is unique. There is no one size fits all approach here, which means you are going to monitor progress at every step and adjust based on your dog’s feedback.
- What changes when you remove something?
- What changes when you add something?
How long will it take?
It depends on how long it took to get here. A dog who has been yeasty for a year can take six months to a year. A dog who has been yeasty for two months can take one to two months.
Work with me
This is the old plan. Let’s build you a current one.
What I do now starts with the pattern rather than a kit: which organ is failing to hold, whether the Damp is being generated or just sitting, and what the tongue and the stool are telling us. Herbs and food, adjusted as your dog responds. If your dog is yeasty and you have already tried the protocols, book a consultation and we will start from the pattern instead.
Related reading: understanding Malassezia, West and TCVM, why I do not feed cold food to a dog with yeast, topical shampoos and sprays, and how to home-cook.
Grapefruit seed extract references: activity against bacterial and fungal strains and activity as an antibacterial agent. Some herbalists no longer recommend GSE because of contamination with other chemicals. It is not required in this protocol. The information on Daily Dog Food Recipes is intended for nutritional, informational and educational purposes only. Nothing here is intended to diagnose, cure, treat or prevent any disease or illness. Please consult your veterinarian about your dog’s medical care.
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.
I’m a little confused. So is Sardine good or bad? In one of the list it says sardine is good for “food for itchy and yeasty dogs” list but caution in the list below that? Could you clarify? Thank you!
Hi Rebecca. GREAT question which prompts me to work on updating that graphic. Fish generally are great for itchy dogs – and (fresh) anchovies and sardines are great additions to their diets but (canned or tinned) fish (mostly anchovies and sardines) cause a reaction due to the histamine level. Hope that makes sense and I shall update those graphics so it’s clear. Thank you for asking and wish you and your dog good health!
Thank you for all your information, it’s so empowering! I have a few questions but really want to try a yeast cleanse for my yeasty beasty buddy. For the whole foods approach, should the same feeding guidelines for feeding raw be followed? – I am trying to calculate how much meat + veggies + broth to give my pup. Also, should we be following the 2:3:5 rule still? One more thing, how much MCT oil should be added to the meal and how frequently?
Hi Valerie. Glad you find the article useful. Happy to get on a call with you if you need one on one help – just click on the booking button at the top of the website. Blessings.
I’ve only ever heard that ACV is effective in killing yeast. In addition to this I’ve heard that tripe is good for dog’s guts. Can you explain why you believe differently?
Hello – great question. My own dog had yeast. I tried. Everything.
When I kept hitting brick walls I turned to human health to see if I could find answers. There’s more information out there for humans and more studies simply because there are more people, more doctors, and more funding.
I then discovered the histamine connection and found that a low histamine (or low fodmap) diet seemed to be successful in humans that had Candida.
And while the Candida in humans is different from the Malassezia in dogs … I thought … let me try. Since at this point many years ago I had tried every food, every supplement, every cleanse that was known at that time.
And it worked.
And then I started to share this with other dog owners. Before I was a nutritionist I would just share this on my dog’s account (they are @maggielovesorbit) and also have a website by the same name. And I found more and more dogs coming back to me saying this approach worked.
When I started my business formulating I guide people to suggest cutting out high histamine foods, and then working on recipes that have bitter vegetables in them (TCVM food therapy principles), combined with some topicals.
If you get stuck and need help you can book a one on one or you can take my allergy reset course.
Malassezia – which your vet can confirm from a skin scraping is a fungal yeast. Since this article I wrote another one here: https://dailydogfoodrecipes.com/understanding-malassezia-in-dogs-a-comprehensive-guide-from-western-and-tcvm-perspectives/ which might help.
At the end of the day these are all just healing concepts which – ultimately only your own dog can prove if it works or not.
If your dog presents with yeast, and you have tried ACV and tripe and it worked. GREAT.
If not. Then possibly time to look at another approach.
My own dog was so bad at one point her neck was wet, weepy and she had postules on her fur around her head. The conventional vet wanted to put her on Apoquel but I was determined not to use that as a drug and it took a long time. She’s doing well now and this approach has helped others. Hope it helps you too.
Blessings.
This may sound like a strange question, but what about floor cleaner, sprays, and perfumes? The amount of alcohol in floor cleaner and perfumes… won’t that affect a dog’s progress? I’m sure it would. Alcohol obviously converts to sugar.
Hello Natalie. Thank you for reading the article and your question. I don’t have any data on how alcohol in cleaners or sugar converts to sugar. I normally go to Pubmed or look at medical case reports when researching information. That said – because I don’t have data on it doesn’t mean this isn’t true. If you already have seen that to be the case then that is the fact for you. I currently am in the dark about that. Thank you.