I am a HUGE fan of probioitics, not just for me, but for my pets.

I bought this brand of probiotic - Naturvet - over 10 years ago, when my cats were having issues with the cheap brand of dry food I was giving them from Costco. They kept barfing it up. And after I gave this to them, the barfing went WAY down. However, I learned the hard way that their barfing was also an indication that their food wasn't very good quality, and many of my cats ended up passing away early from kidney failure : (. I googled it, and there were a LOT of people who had similar complaints about the food, and their cats were also dying from kidney related issues.

I don't wan to make the same mistake with my dogs, and if I can help anyone to not make the same mistakes, all the better.

I still love probiotics because I discovered that they can get rid of a urinary tract infection just as well as (if not better than) antibiotics! At least that was the case for me, and I was VERY skeptical. I didn't actually think something simple and cheap that you can get from the drugstore, could actually work for a UTI. But a good friend of mine kept insisting one day when I had a really bad UTI and didn't want to spend $500 going to an urgent care clinic. She gave me a handful of her high quality probiotics and I couldn't believe it... the UTI disappeared.

After that, I felt even better about giving probiotics to my pets, and it does seem to help them avoid Urinary Tract Infections. I also make sure to give them FILTERED water from the Kangen Machine I bought from Monica (click here if you want more info about it). You should know, ordinary tap water often contains enough trihalomethanes to cause BLADDER CANCER in HUMANS. Imagine what it could be doing to your dog! So, please make an effort to filter your dog's water if you're in an area with trihalomethanes in your water (pretty much every city and suburban area nowadays). If you're not sure what's in your water, go to THIS PAGE and you can look it up.

But I've always wanted to make my own, because probiotics are EXPENSIVE!!!

My older sister is kind of a fermentation expert, and I asked her if I could get certain "designer" probiotics to multiply (not just the type of bacteria you can make from veggie probiotics). She said the natural veggie probiotic bacteria would quickly kill off the "designer" strains, however, she didn't think that would be a problem, and here's why.

She basically got me to believe that those plain old natural probiotics you can grow super cheap and easy, from veggies like cabbage, are SUPER GOOD FOR YOU. My sister does a LOT of volunteer cooking for Food Not Bombs. She makes tons of food for the homeless, and she also makes Kombucha. She told me a story about how there was some kind of an outbreak with a really nasty bacteria that was making people very sick, and it even killed a guy she knew. She said that simple kombucha helped a bunch of people to totally clear up that bacterial infection. All of a sudden, word got out that my sister's drink was like, the THING to drink, if you came down with this infection.

THIS is the brand of Probiotic I've always bought for my dogs, but it's NOT cheap, so I always wanted to make my own! My friend (and Shepherd guardian) Monica has done this for years (making milk Kefir with kefir grains).

I am trying to get more veggies into my dogs' diets because I know from my own experience that veggies give me better health, more energy, and they can likely help extend your life (if they're free of pesticides and toxins). But the thing about adding probiotic veggies (or any veggies) to my dog's food - even finely sliced sauerkraut - is that they tend to eat around it, and just leave it on the plate. So I decided to blend it up in my vitamix, and add about 1/4 cup to each of my dog's food. Part of the reason I want to do this is because I want to get more cruciferous (cancer-fighting) vegetables into the diet of one of my dogs who has noticeable tumors.

I've realized that cheap, highly beneficial veggies like cabbage can be easily blended into a vitamix, adding more bulk and fiber to a dog's food, without any offending taste. My dogs GOBBLE... IT... UP.

There are some videos on this page, that show how to do it.