Eliminating unnecessary dietary, environmental, and medical stressors clears the path for repair. Food matters more than anything else when it comes to healing the gut and a successful GI RESET. Every bite your pet eats is either helping the body recover or adding to the burden. Unfortunately, most commercial pet foods contain additives, preservatives, chemical residues, and altered proteins that the body eventually reacts to. Processing itself changes how food is digested and absorbed, often creating compounds that irritate the gut instead of nourishing it.
If diet isn’t addressed, no amount of supplements or medications will create lasting improvement. I’ve seen it time and again: families spending hundreds of dollars a month on gut-supportive products, only to continue feeding the same bag of food that triggered the problem in the first place. Changing what goes into the bowl is the single most important—and cost-effective—step you can take.
If your pet has allergy symptoms or a delicate GI tract:
If your pet is sensitive, it’s best to begin diversifying the diet with patience and small, intentional steps. Instead of introducing multiple new foods at once, offer just a single bite of something novel and gentle, allowing the gut time to adjust. This could be a tiny cube of apple one day, a single blueberry the next, or a small morsel of steak shared from your dinner.
By gradually exposing your pet’s microbiome to a wider variety of wholesome foods in this bite-sized way, you can encourage microbial diversity without overwhelming the digestive system; slowly building resilience, tolerance, and overall gut health.
Weaning onto a clean, non-reactive diet lays the foundation for all other healing. I call this a GI RESET diet and it’s usually necessary for allergic animals and those with chronic GI problems.
As you approach this next step of improving their food quality and decreasing the allergenicity/reactivity of their diet, remember to go slow. You can blend tiny amounts of new foods into what they’re eating each day to begin the process.
How to change foods
Take out 1-5% of their current food and replace it with 1-5% new food, mixing well. Watch poop for 24 hours. If stools change, add the same amount of new food (1-5%) for meals until stools normalize. When stools look good, take out 1-5% more of their current food and replace it with 1-5% more new food, mixing well. Watch poop for another 24 hours. If stools change, add the same amount of new food (1-5% above what you were doing before) to meals until stools normalize. When stools look good, continue replacing old food with 1-5% more new food, always letting stools be the guide of when to increase the amount of new food.
Healing Foods That Nourish the Sensitive Gut
Slippery Elm and Gluey Herbs
Slippery elm1 and marshmallow root2 form a soothing gel that coats and protects the gut lining. I think of them as Nature’s bandages for the intestines. They give inflamed tissue time to heal while providing polysaccharides that beneficial microbes ferment into short-chain fatty acids. If at any point your animal has excessive mucous poo or loose stools, add in this bowel helper ASAP: 1 capsule (or ¼ tsp) for every 10 pounds of body weight 1-2 times daily at the start of your GI healing journey. You can use one or the other, or both, depending on what products you can find.
If at any time your pet is having acute symptoms of gut issues, or you know you’re stressed just thinking about changing your pet’s diet, you can use these foods as a temporary detox diet to quickly reduce GI inflammation and begin the healing process.
Steamed 100% Pure Pumpkin Puree
Pumpkin is one of my favorite gut healing starting points. It provides soluble fiber that helps modulate gut microbiota3, regulates stool formation and acts as a prebiotic, gently feeding beneficial bacteria. Unlike concentrated inulin or FOS, pumpkin fiber is complex and much less likely to cause gas or bloating. Pumpkin is also rich in beta-carotene and polyphenols, antioxidants that help reduce oxidative stress in the gut. You can find cans of 100% pumpkin in grocery stores or buy fresh squash and steam it.Enrichment for Delicate Dogs: Pumpkin as a Healing Topper
If your animal is doing great on their current diet, you can still get great benefits from adding a dollop of pumpkin to your pet’s food, smearing it on a lick mat, stuffing a KONG toy, or freezing it in a silicone ice cube tray for a cool treat.
Bone Broth
When made by slowly simmering organic bones, connective tissue, and cartilage, broth delivers gelatin, collagen, and amino acids such as glutamine. These compounds support repair of the gut lining and strengthen tight junctions, reducing permeability. Bone broth also provides minerals in highly absorbable forms, replenishing nutrients that are often depleted in pets with chronic gut disease. When you buy or make bone broth, make sure it's onion-free.Rehydrate dry food with bone broth. Freeze for a cool, summertime treat, or pour over any meal, ¼ cup per 10 pounds of body weight daily.
Safe Treats for Sensitive Bellies
Berries are rich in polyphenols, which function as both antioxidants and prebiotics. Because they aren’t fully digested in the small intestine, these compounds travel to the colon, where microbes convert them into metabolites that regulate inflammation and support barrier integrity. Blueberries support a healthy gut by strengthening the intestinal lining, reducing “leaky gut” permeability, calming inflammation, and protecting cells from oxidative stress, all while nourishing and balancing beneficial gut microbes for optimal digestive function4. These are my favorite training treats, replacing starchy, carby “cookies” with little nutrient value.
Aloe Vera (Properly Prepared)
Once stools are firm, adding inner leaf aloe vera juice (processed to remove anthraquinones), is another soothing and healing food for the gut. Its mucilaginous polysaccharides coat the lining, while its antimicrobial properties help rebalance dysbiosis without harming beneficial bacteria. It’s easiest to buy Inner leaf aloe juice from your local health food store or online, 1 teaspoon for every 20 pounds of body weight twice daily.DIY Bland Recovery Meal
If your dog has loose stools right now or you know it will happen if you change their food by even a tiny amount, try prepping the gut for the next healthy food upgrade (a nutritionally complete homemade or commercial, gently cooked diet) by stopping your current food and using this bland diet until stools firm up:Blend 50% steamed pumpkin or squash, with 50% cooked new protein they’ve never eaten before (like ground goat, bison, fat-free turkey, or rabbit meat) to create a bland meal that most dogs love. This is obviously not a nutritionally complete diet, so once stools are firm, begin slowly transitioning to a nutritionally complete, homemade diet. Cats usually accept this meal if the meat portion is at least 80%, and the pumpkin is less than 20%. Mix a tiny amount into current food, replacing ½ teaspoon of current food with ½ teaspoon of new food and slowly increase the amount of new food and decrease old food, making sure your animals are eating daily and still feeling great or work with your vet or health coach to assure yourself your animal is transitioning safely.
While your animal is enjoying this easily digestible, gut-soothing temporary diet, dive into your homework: finding the least reactive, healthiest food you can afford to feed. By very slowly mixing their current diet with the upcoming new food (letting stools be your guide), you can transition even the most finicky or delicate of animals onto better food over time. Adding the healing foods, above, can kickstart the gut recovery journey. You can begin slowly weaning your beloved onto a fresher, less processed novel (new) protein right now, but what foods do you choose?
Eliminating common food triggers is an important step in stopping inflammatory culprits that irritate the gut. A compromised microbiome cannot recover if daily food insults are ongoing. Dietary triggers are the most obvious source of chronic itching and GI problems. If you suspect foods could be a problem but you don’t know, do a Nutriscan saliva test to find out. Make sure to review all supplements at this time, as well.
Why guess at what protein is least reactive to your animal when you can know?
Hopping from protein to protein, rotating through brand after brand, may offer temporary relief (I call it the “honeymoon period”): the 60-90 days of temporary improvement you see after giving the body a break from a food irritant or diversifying foods to nourish a different set of gut microbes. These brief moments of relief can be temporarily MAGICAL for both of you, only to have your pet start up with the same familiar patterns of reactions a couple of months after things were beginning to improve. In these cases, don’t keep chasing the next rare protein, find out what your pet can tolerate best with a Nutriscan test.
How to Choose the Best Fresher Food
I have observed these “honeymoon periods” in thousands of pets (no exaggeration) after adding a new supplement, stopping a supplement, stopping veggies, adding veggies, or switching proteins, and the worst-case results are massive sensitivities to lots of foods and supplements.
This makes your GI RESET program harder to do (often times there are no commercial diets that have the hypoallergenic ingredients your animal needs) and expensive (if your dog can only eat camel meat without having massive reactions foods can expensive quickly).
I recommend you don’t guess about what foods could be triggering your animal, when a simple diagnostic test can tell you. I don’t like to guess, if at all possible. Before switching your animal’s protein or food, find out what direction you should be going, when it comes to choosing the right next food or diet ingredients.
STEP 1: Do an at-home saliva test to determine the best foods/ingredients/proteins to feed and avoid (www.nutriscan.org).
If you are unwilling or unable to find out what the best choice is for your pup’s upcoming GI RESET diet change, stop all refined starches (rice, corn, wheat, tapioca, oatmeal, quinoa, etc), and choose a novel protein your animal has never consumed before:
- Rabbit
- Goat
- Camel
- Alligator
- Emu
- Elk
These fresh, frozen meats can be found through many online raw food suppliers but start at your local independent pet boutique: they may have lots of novel protein meats and diets ready to go. Repair also means avoiding unnecessary extras. Carb-laden, allergenic, mass-produced dog treats and fast-food table scraps can all sabotage your progress if they contain hidden triggers. Review every label, and when in doubt, pull it out of the rotation.
During this phase, simplicity is your friend. Less is more. Store-bought biscuits and colorful “cookie” treats add reactive fillers and more high-heat chemicals that contribute to gut irritation, replace them with single-ingredient meat treats or fresh foods inspirations from the list below.
Homemade, nutritionally balanced diets are the most effective way to control ingredient quality, since you can choose organic proteins and vegetables and know exactly what’s in your pet’s bowl. Research shows many homemade recipes available online are deficient in essential nutrients, so it’s important to follow a complete recipe with full nutrient analysis, www.foreverdoglife.com should inspire you (and all of the recipes are correctly formulated to all feeding preferences: raw, stove top, crock pot, gently cooked (poached) and baked.
If your pet has been eating the same brand and flavor of food for years, their immune system can become sensitized to those ingredients, creating systemic inflammation, and your animal’s “itis” condition. Transitioning to a clean, human-grade, minimally processed, nutritionally complete food is foundational.
STEP 2: Find your first GUT RESET recipe!
This step requires you to categorize your pet into 1 of 2 camps before you choose:
CHOICE 1: My pet has a GUT OF STEEL (my animal has lots of issues, but chronic diarrhea isn’t one of them)
CHOICE 2: My pet is a delicate GI butterfly For my butterfly gutted animals (pets in GI crisis or prone to gut issues when anything in their diet changes): a temporary novel protein (ie cooked rabbit, goat, or fat-free turkey) paired with one soothing vegetable (such as steamed squash, zucchini, or sweet potato) can quickly calm the gut and firm up stools. Beginning with the DIY BLAND RECOVERY MEAL, above, is my recommendation on the first new food.
I love raw foods (and if it’s your goal to get there too, we can once the gut is healthier), but cooked foods are the best choice for super-sensitive animals, and the first diet you wean them onto should be gently cooked.
Once your animal has firm stools, check out your local shops for novel protein, human grade, nutritionally complete commercial cooked pet foods. FreshPet and similar feed-grade cooked pet foods have a lot of synthetic nutrients and don’t come in any flavors that work with sensitive animals. Independent pet boutiques will have much healthier options.
Our Forever Dog Life cookbook has lots of recipe choices, if you want to make your GI RESET diet, or you can also custom formulate a homemade recipe through www.animaldietformulator.com if your pet has other health issues or concerns.
Buy the brand or make a batch of the recipe you’ll be using as your GI RESET diet, and once your animal is having great stools, it’s time to slowly wean them onto a more nutritionally sustainable, complete and balanced fresh food diet, slowwwwwwwwly.
Blend 90% current diet + 10% new, fresher food for several days. Watch the poop. When stools are great, decrease to 80% old food +20% new food for several days. Watch the poop. When stools are great, decrease to 70% old food +30% new food for several days. Watch the poop. Continue slowly weaning onto your healthier, fresher novel protein GI RESET diet slowly, always letting poo quality be your guide. If stools loosen or you see mucus, don’t continue increasing the amount of new food. Go back a step and wait for stools to firm. It’s not a race. Continue using the healing food add-in’s (slippery elm, etc), above, if needed, to keep stools perfect.
I recommend you don’t guess about what foods could be triggering your animal, when a simple diagnostic test can tell you. I don’t like to guess, if at all possible. Before switching your animal’s protein or food, find out what direction you should be going, when it comes to choosing the right next food or diet ingredients.
If your dog has a gut of steel and you can change foods on a dime (which is normal, by the way: just like us, animals are supposed to able to eat a variety of foods and not have GI crisis’), still change proteins when choosing your GI RESET diet for a healthy immunologic break, focusing on choosing low carb, human grade recipes.
For dogs that don’t have a lot of GI issues, a homemade, polyphenol-rich, low carb diet is the best option for healing the gut because you eliminate so many variables that are known contributors to dysbiosis and impossible to avoid in mass-produced, feed grade brands. Or hit up your local pet boutique for fresh, human-grade choices. If you’re a part of my private online community, InsideScoop.pet, you can check out my annual pet food reviews to see what brands I love (or hate); my opinions on brands change often (depending on companies’ selling, changing ingredient quality, etc).
Rotating protein sources (unless allergies are a current concern) as you move down the scale of food processing to healthier, less processed, fresher diets is a great way to continue nourishing different sets of gut microbes and diversifying the microbiome. If food allergies are present, stick with the same protein for 6 months after starting your GI RESET protocols, then gradually introduce new proteins.
If home prepping your pet’s food isn’t possible, look for gently processed, human-grade commercial foods made without fillers, byproducts, or chemical additives. Avoiding artificial colors, preservatives, and rendered “feed-grade” ingredients makes a significant difference in lowering the daily toxic load. There are many choices that can be delivered right to your door, or are available from small, indie pet stores.
Fast n’ Fresh Training TreatsFast n’ Fresh Training Treats:
look for Organic/spray free
Chop ‘em all into pea-sized pieces before treating.
All non-reactive meats (trim off fat), apples, cucumbers, green beans, green bananas, peas (no they aren’t toxic), coconut meat (or dried, unsweetened coconut chips), jicama, carrots, blueberries, broccoli, apples, kiwi, bell peppers, blackberries, raspberries, cantaloupe, peaches, pears, tomatoes, pomegranate, pineapple, sardines (packed in water), celery, fennel, nori (and other seaweeds), jicama, asparagus.
Remember, the food you feed your beloved companion can either heal or harm. When you choose clean, species-appropriate, and non-reactive foods, you create the conditions for the gut to restore itself. Only when this foundation is in place will supplements, therapies, and lifestyle changes be able to work to their full potential.
Building a Resilient Gut With the Right Fresh Foods
As the gut heals, you can begin learning about new recipes or brands and flavors/proteins that will continue to diversify your pet’s microbiota and strengthen their recovering microbiome. The opposite of ultra-processed “fast food” is fresh, minimally processed nutrition. If you moved from kibble to gently cooked and things are going great, you may decide to move to my favorite category of minimally processed food, raw food.
If your pet is doing great and all symptoms have resolved and not returned, you may decide to try introducing some freeze-dried or dehydrated foods as an occasional meal or a tried and true back up plan for busy weekends or camping trips.
Fresh food provides species-appropriate macronutrients: high-quality animal proteins and healthy fats as the anchors, with moderate amounts of low-glycemic vegetables, a few high-antioxidant fruits (for those healing flavonoids), and sprinkles of pet-friendly herbs and spices that add incredible amounts of gut-healing polyphenols. All of these healing components also feed specific microbes, nourishing a symphony of happy microbes.
Quality sources of lean protein supply amino acids for immune signaling, neurotransmitter production, and tissue repair. Healthy fats deliver essential fatty acids that regulate inflammation. Avoid re-introducing conventional kibble, which can be composed of up to 60% starch that can ferment in the gut, fueling dysbiosis and a cascade of other unwanted pro-inflammatory events.
Another overlooked benefit of fresh food is natural moisture. Kibble contains very little water, around 10%. Digesting it forces the body to pull moisture from circulation, perpetuating low-grade dehydration. Fresh food naturally contains 60–80% water, easing digestion and supporting healthy digestion, urinary tract, and kidney health.
Nutrients in whole food form are also “packaged” with cofactors that enhance absorption (the “entourage effect”). Zinc from red meat is bound to amino acids that improve uptake. Vitamin C from produce arrives with flavonoids that act as antioxidants themselves. These synergies cannot be replicated by synthetic premixes that automatically come in feed-grade kibble and canned pet food.
Finally, whole foods deliver prebiotics in their most gentle, natural form. Pumpkin, leafy greens, berries, and root vegetables contain a spectrum of naturally occurring prebiotic fibers that beneficial bacteria thrive on, without the intensity or side effects of prebiotic supplements.
Food is the foundation of health, but it’s only part of the bigger picture. You can feed the most pristine, organic, ethically sourced raw diet, yet if your pet’s environment is saturated with toxins, their microbiome will still struggle to thrive. Healing the gut and restoring resilience means looking beyond the bowl because pesticides, cleaning chemicals, lawn treatments, air fresheners, and contaminated water can silently undo dietary progress. To truly nurture balance from the inside out, begin by assessing your animal’s immediate surroundings. A clean, low-toxin home and yard sets the stage for every cell, organ, and microbe to flourish.
Environment
Environmental triggers are equally important to think about. Go green at home by eliminating plug-ins, scented sprays, candles, and chemical cleaners, replacing them with fragrance-free or simple plant-based alternatives like vinegar, baking soda, or castile soap. Improve indoor air quality with HEPA filtration where your pet spends the most time, and filter drinking water to reduce chlorine, fluoride, and contaminants known to affect microbiota balance.
Outside, use natural lawn care and avoid herbicides or insecticides so toxins don’t end up on your pet’s paws. For fleas and ticks, start with mechanical and environmental strategies; clean bedding, frequent vacuuming, yard upkeep, flea combs, and tick checks, reserving chemical preventives for times of genuine need and tailoring choices to your region and risk, with guidance from your veterinarian.
Vaccines
Finally, reconsider cookie-cutter vaccine protocols. Science now supports the use of antibody titers to confirm immunity rather than giving boosters on a fixed schedule, from birth to death. A simple blood test can measure protection against distemper, parvo, and adenovirus in dogs5, and panleukopenia in cats. This approach reduces unnecessary immune stimulation while ensuring pets remain protected. Rabies vaccine is the only exception; titers are not legally accepted in most places (there are no laws requiring parvo and distemper unless traveling out of country), so follow local regulations, but ask for the 3-year rabies vaccine, which is the same product as the 1-year, to minimize overstimulation, and titer for the rest.
The principle here is simple: before we can build, we must stop breaking. Removing dietary irritants, environmental toxins, and unnecessary medications or vaccines is the foundation of gut healing. Only when daily triggers are eliminated can true recovery begin.
Address Mental and Emotional Stress
Animals are sensitive, by nature, as a part of their internal wiring, and are deeply affected by their environment and handling. Spending too much time confined in a crate, kennel, or small living space without adequate daily exercise and mental enrichment leads to boredom, anxiety, and even depression. Training methods based on fear, intimidation, or harsh punishment undermine trust and can create long-lasting emotional scars. Physical abuse or lack of positive interaction compounds this stress. Even less obvious factors—such as lack of predictability in routines, loneliness, or insufficient outlets for natural behaviors—can create ongoing mental strain. Fear-free handling, positive reinforcement training, and enrichment activities are essential buffers against this type of stress.
Bringing It All Together
Over time, small, intentional changes reshape the gut environment in profound ways: microbial diversity expands, inflammation cools, stools normalize, and the immune system begins to find its rhythm again. Healing the gut isn’t about quick fixes, it’s about consistent nourishment and gentle course correction.
Food is more than calories; it’s vital communication. Every bite sends a message to your pet’s microbiome, guiding immune balance, metabolic health, and inflammatory responses. That’s why fresh, functional nutrition forms the foundation of every gut-healing journey.
For sensitive pets, slow and steady wins, hands down. Begin with a spoonful of pumpkin, a drizzle of bone broth, or a single mashed blueberry. These small additions, introduced thoughtfully, allow the gut to adapt and strengthen. With patience, subtle shifts such as improved digestion, calmer skin, brighter eyes, and steadier moods will emerge as signs of progress.
Slow changes create micro-improvements that compound over time. But while food is foundational, it’s not the only key. To truly accelerate healing and reach our goals, we must also address the environment, support our animal’s mental and emotional well-being, while layering in targeted support based on what your pet’s diagnostics reveal. Your test results guide you and your veterinarian in crafting customized protocols that address the underlying causes of imbalance rather than just symptoms. Correct healing foods + avoidance of common irritants and triggers + a customized supplement protocol = recipe for restoring or maintaining a thriving gut.
Together, these elements create a synergistic path toward restoring balance: nourishing not only the gut, but the entire body from the inside out. Because every gut story is unique, there’s no one-size-fits-all formula. Still, most veterinarians agree on this universal framework for building gut resilience, and most integrative and functional medicine practitioners agree on a few foundational supplements that consistently provide exceptional support when restoring microbiome health.
