In one of the stories in my book, I talk about a boxer named Sora and her owner, Michelle.  (Michelle also happens to be the founder and director of The AHELP Project, a local organization dedicated to providing educational resources and support to the community on the topic of animal hospice.)  Sora was diagnosed with insulinoma, a tumor in her pancreas.  Her blood sugars were unstable and as a result, she started to experience seizures.  Michelle devised Sora’s Goo as a way to keep Sora’s blood sugar levels stable.

Michelle was initially told to use honey — or worse, corn syrup — to increase Sora’s blood sugar levels when having a low sugar episode.  But Michelle found that Sora didn’t know when to stop eating the honey, and kept wanting more and more, which wound up being too much sugar.  Since Sora also liked peanut butter, Michelle added some to the mix (now, she’s switched to using almond butter).  When Sora started to decline and lost her appetite for her normal diet, Michelle decided to add in coconut oil and hemp seed protein, to make the goo more nutritious.  The coconut oil is more nutritious than fish oils and the hemp seed protein has both medicinal properties and naturally occurring fiber.

Since Sora has passed, Michelle uses the goo to give her other dogs their supplements.  She’s revised the recipe to be less sticky and more moldable.  The mixture does not require refrigeration.  Here is the recipe:

1/2 cup honey

1/3 cup almond butter

1 cup coconut oil (e.g., Nutiva brand)

3 cups hemp seed protein with fiber (e.g., Nutiva brand)

Some additional tips for use:

• if you are using this to stabilize a dog’s blood sugar, then omit the honey
• if your dog is chronically or terminally ill and/or immunosuppressed, use organic ingredients
• if your dog is prone to diarrhea, use hemp seed protein without fiber

In my next post, I’d like to talk about animal hospice resources that are available around the country.