dogs are individuals herbal guidelines 101 draft 1
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Rita Hogan: [00:00:00] Hi, this is Rita Hogan and welcome to the Dogs Are Individuals Podcast. I'm a clinical Canine Herbalist, and I've been practicing for over 20 years. This podcast is all about your dog through an herbal lens. So let's get to it and dive right in. Welcome back to the Dogs or Individuals Podcast. It's been a week.
I don't know about you guys, but I am telling. So much to do on this side of the Green path for sure. We are gonna talk about using herbs today. I've been working on my upcoming book and it has been a rollercoaster of writing, writing, writing, and I was working on the using Herbs chapter and. Just thinking about how to kind of go and look at what are the best things to tell you guys about using herbs.
So I'm gonna go over a few of those things today trying to refine, refine, [00:01:00] refine. But first I wanna say thank you to real mushrooms.com for being our sponsor of the podcast along with adored Bees de Papa Carey. I like to. Briefly about products from my sponsors, because I think it's important to understand like what the products are and how they can help your dog, or if they can help your dog, because dogs are individuals and whether I have a sponsor or not, I'm gonna talk about that product.
For your individual dog and help you figure out if that product will help you. So today I'm gonna talk about mushroom immune pets. And these are kind of like a semis, soft, kind of glycerin based, um, you know, it has glycerin when it's soft, they're probably gonna be using glycerin. So one thing you wanna know is your, your dog takes these chews and gets nauseated.
It could be the glycerin and the chew, and that has nothing to do with the company. It just has to do with your individual dog. Just not, it's not working out. And if you get them in my store, I will give you a refund if you haven't used them [00:02:00] all up. And I think that real mushrooms, um, will help you out as well, uh, if you get them off the real mushrooms.
Dot com store, or you can find them across the web, I believe. So the, the real immune shoes have Turkey tail, rei, shiitake maitake, and chaga extract, and that's just a blend of very common immune modulating mushrooms. And they're, they're adding in ashwaganda powder, ast strags blueberry powder. Airola extract and olive leaf extract.
So it's pretty energetically balanced between warm and cool. The reason why I'm talking about this moon shoe is because this is the time to really use something like this. At the end of the season here in the Northern Hemisphere, we are coming out of winter. and moving into spring very, very slowly. But this is a time when you see weird things come up in dogs and where dogs need extra immune support, and this is a [00:03:00] really good way to do that, especially for finicky dogs that don't like powders in their food or don't like the bitterness of like, For say REI mushroom, a chew that has this, has chicken, liver in it, and kind of uh, natural bacon flavor.
It might be a good choice for your dog. You know, I'm not huge on flavorings, but sometimes, you know, those things don't outweigh the benefits of the product and definitely choose, need to be flavored. I. I get it. My dogs, uh, not all my dogs, but two of my big dogs love these shoes. They're the type of dogs that I really can't hardly get near their mouth very much.
They don't like to be touched in, in that way. I can get something in their mouth if I really have to, but I try to minimize it and make it count. So they love these shoes. I like to give them between the seasons. Again, it's pretty energetically balanced, so check it out. Mushroom Immune pet shoes, you can get 'em at canine [00:04:00] herbalist.com or real mushrooms.com, or it crossed the web by Googling or putting it in your search bar.
Real mushrooms. Mushroom immune pet shoes. Okay, so let's talk about some general guidelines for using herbs. I'm not gonna go through all of them cuz you know, I don't wanna give the entire book away, but let's go through a few of them. This is just one, you know, a couple pages out of my book and of course it's going to be edited and all that kind of stuff, so it's not gonna read the same.
But I think there, there's some really important things to know. I love energetics. I think energetics is the key to learning about your dog as an individual. So always consider energetics and your dogs like core pattern, the pattern that they're born with. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, check out canine herbalism.com and join my Energetics course.
It's $75 and it's definitely worth its weight in goal. So energetics, you know, It might be [00:05:00] differing from what's happening. Like if your dog gets a bee sting, you're not gonna worry about energetics. Energetics is really something that you're gonna deal with when you're giving something consistently.
Okay? Not really in an acute issue or a healing crisis, something when you're giving consistently. Another thing is expectations are really important, so, You should see in most cases, a positive result in about six to eight weeks. . Okay. And if you, if your dog isn't moving in the right direction on your herbal protocol or your protocol in general, you wanna reconsider the herbs and supplements that you're giving.
And the biggest way to figure out if something's working is just to stop it and then observe your dog. Don't do anything else, cuz otherwise you won't know if it's this or that. Right? Just observe your dog over the next like two weeks to see. Their health declines or if their health improves, and that will answer some questions for [00:06:00] you.
You can always put 'em back on the herb that you discontinued or the supplement that you discontinued. Another thing is you wanna know your herb's intention. Intention is huge. When it comes to kind of learning about using herbs with your dog or any supplement your dog, what do you want it to do? And that question needs to be.
and this will really help you understand what delivery system you wanna use. For example, powdered marshmallow root in a gelatin capsule, an animal-based gelatin capsule is good for the lower, like lower intestinal dryness and inflammation. But a decoction, which is like a simmer tea on the stove or a really hot.
Water infusion. I like to use a decoction, but if you're in a hurry, you could use like, uh, infusion with dried marshmallow root that's cut up in little pieces. Um, that's gonna give you some sage. That's, it's like gooey texture and thick. It's like really thick water, right? It's [00:07:00] gonna coat the intestinal system, and that's good for the bladder.
It's good for epso stomach, it's good for, uh, acid reflux or the urinary tract. So you wanna know your delivery system. The intention for your herbal protocol will help you figure out that delivery system. And another thing is timing. The timing for each herb or formula can vary and it can get a little complicated.
So as a general rule, you wanna give powdered herbs with food. Give tinctures before meals in the mouth if you can, or in a little warm water. Squirt it into the mouth. Uh, if you have to, you could drip it on a treat. And then if all else fails, put it in the food. It's not gonna work as well. But you can put it in the food infusions or decoction.
A decoction, again, is like a tea made on the stove. You're gonna simmer the root seeds or berries of, so, or an infusion for flowers and leaves. You can learn all about that in my upcoming book, but you can Google that. Go to Mountain Rose herbs. You can learn, uh, they have some [00:08:00] great education on infusion and decoction and how to make those, but infusions and decoction can depend on what condition.
You're using them for. Don't forget about the nervous system in almost anything that you do. You wanna make sure the nervous system is being taken care of. You can use flower essences, you can use Irvine. We'll have a episode here on the podcast about Irvine. People say, oh, herbs don't have side effects.
Um, they do. So herbs can have side effects, especially if you're using the wrong herb. If it's a poor quality herb, again, incorrect herb, an herb that you're not supposed to be using with your dog or that your dog just doesn't do well with, or. You're not giving your dog enough time to get used to that herb, or you could be giving too high of a dosage.
So you wanna look at that. And I know that I talked about this a couple weeks ago when I talked about excess and deficiency, but know that disease rooted in excess. Which is too much. A lot of heat is excess. They're easier to heal than those rooted in [00:09:00] deficiency where you have coldness. Because coldness affects the vital force where excess, you have too much energy.
Okay? If you have an acute condition happen, when you're treating a chronic condition, you wanna treat that acute condition first. Forego the chronic condition, treat the acute condition first in acute situations. , always know your maximum safe dosage for your dog of the herbs in your emergency kit. So say that you had, let's just say turmeric in your emergency kit, you'd wanna know the maximum dosage for the weight of your dog in case you needed to give it a large dose.
You wanna know also how your dog reacts to everything in your emergency kit. So you might wanna try 'em, try it on them when it's not an e. Okay. Um, I write down my maximum dosages in my, on a, like a index card and keep it in my kit with chronic conditions. Start [00:10:00] slowly and work your way up. Don't be in a hurry.
It's very important to let. The herb that you're using, you know, let your dog get used to it. It takes at least three days for that to happen, so don't judge it too much unless you have a light threatening symptom, which I've never really seen with non-toxic herbs, but start at a quarter dose and remember, dosages on packages are generalized.
They're not for your individual dog. So always, always, always start lower. You know, you can always go up, but you can't go. If your dog shows symptoms like diarrhea or loose stool acid reflux, you wanna cut back on the dose, I'd cut. Cut by at least 50%, and if it's still happening, stop for a couple of days.
Well, not merely, I'd probably stop for about four or five days and then start it over at like just minuscule dose and see how that goes. If your dog is still having a problem, then discontinue that remedy. They're probably not gonna do well with it. And you know, Herbal tolerance can vary. Herbed [00:11:00] Herb Formula, formula, and remember, it has it.
It may not have anything to do with the company that gives you the herb. It. A lot of times it's your dog, unless you're using dried herbs and they don't resemble anything, you know, they don't resemble the herb that it came from and they look really poor and old, that could be a problem, but that's not usually the case.
I definitely say that for acute conditions I would use a tincture or an infusion, not a dried herb. You know, for chronic conditions you can use dried herbs, but for acute, you want something that is really highly absorbed, like a tincture. Unfortunately, dogs don't. The short-term benefits from dried herbs or encapsulated herbs because they have a short digestive tract, so they don't.
Well, in acute situations, a lot of herbs aren't meant for long-term use. You wanna, you know, if you have, if you had your dog on herbs for over a year, the same herb, you wanna look at that, discontinue it, see how [00:12:00] your dog does off of it, and see if their he health declines or improves. You can get some guidance from herbalist on how long you should use an.
I definitely will have some information on the herbs I cover in my up and coming book. In the material medic section, the goal really is to help the body heal and slowly go off the herb and kind of watch how your dog reacts. A general rule for healing kind of adheres to the schedule of, you know, one to three months for every year of disease.
So I would definitely go, you know, I, I like to fall in between kind of two months or for every year of disease, but usually I would say it takes three to six months to see really good improvements in dogs on an herbal regimen. If it's not, you know, if it's really well indicated, it could be a lot quicker.
And it depends on what delivery system you're using. You're gonna get quicker results with extracts versus dried herbs. But it just depends on the dog because. Dogs are individuals. So for long-term treatment with non-toxic herbs, I would take one day off a. [00:13:00] and one week off every six weeks and a month off every six months.
That's called like a standard pulsing schedule. It's not individual to the dog. It's just kind of me not knowing anything about your dog, and that is what I would do if you're giving your dog herbs long term. When. Talking about delivery systems, it's really important because whole herbs are usually mixed into the food or given in capsules.
I like to mix 'em in the food, but sometimes dogs don't like 'em in their food. Vegetable capsules really disperse well in the gut. So if you're not trying to target the large intestine, um, I would use. Like a vegetable-based capsule and it will open up and get processed by the stomach. And earlier I mentioned, you know, animal-based gelatin capsules, usually they're beef based or pork based, have a better chance of reaching the intestines.
So let's talk about safety for a minute. So dogs can be sensitive to any type of herb and you have to keep that in mind. [00:14:00] So if you see signs of kind of an allergic response like shaking, destructive, chewing, lethargy, I would stop the herb immediately and it's really important when you start herbs do not or supplements herbs and supplements.
or separate. Don't start them all on the same day. Start them about five to seven days apart. It takes about 72 hours to really know how well your dog's gonna do with a supplement or an herb. Go slow. Don't be in a hurry because you're not gonna know what is working and what's not working. Okay? Very, very important here.
Slow down and how your dog will react to an herb can change Herb to. And formula to formula and batch to batch. Sometimes because herbs, one of the reasons why they don't do really. The way they come in, like clinical trials and standardized, randomized, you know, uh, like clinical [00:15:00] studies, is that they can change batch to batch because they're natural.
And it depends on the soil and the water content and the humidity and even wind can affect, uh, herbs. So like they're potency. So sometimes your dog can do fine on one batch and you get a new bottle and it doesn't do as well. Now this isn. like this doesn't happen a lot, but you wanna keep it in mind cuz it definitely can happen with different proteins that you're feeding your dog.
It depends on, you know, the animals that it came from for that batch of food. That happens quite often. And another thing you wanna do is you wanna get to know that herb. And for those of you that have heard me talk, I, and maybe I've mentioned it on the pod podcast before, you want to like look. The herbs monograph and you Google or put in a search any search that you use, like let's just use marshmallow root or marshmallow monograph.
And then you could even put the word herbalist in there cuz you want [00:16:00] a monograph that an herbalist has written, not like Web MD. Okay. You want traditional knowledge about that herb. You wanna get to know it as a plant. Plants are individuals too, so it's really important to get to know your plants before you start giving them to dog your dogs, because you wanna know if they're well indicated.
You wanna know the energetics of it. I'm gonna have a lot of this in my book, and then I'm also coming out with. Volumes of material medica. That means different herbs we're gonna do. Uh, when it's all said and done, uh, we'll have 50 of the most common herbs and every single which way know how to use that herb with your dog.
But that's gonna be a few years so, Look up monographs. Look up monographs, and that will give you some of the side effects of that herb. It will give you any known interactions for that herb. I do have on canine herbalism.com, I have what's called monthly monographs. It's a new monograph every month. We have quite a [00:17:00] few on there so far.
It's $12 a month to be a member and you can really get to know one. Every month and by the end of the year, you are getting to intimately know 12 plants, and you could in two years know 24 plants knowing 24 plants really, really well gives you a lot of play in the herbal world to. Do work with your dog with confidence, so you can do that as well.
You just wanna know side effects, co-factors. That's like how well indicated is that herb for your dog. That's co-factors. I write those for almost every herb that I put out. I did mention this before, but the first three days can aggravate it can. Your dog needs time to get used to it. I would wait at least 72 hours to see if your dog is okay with a remedy, a formula, or a supple.
You may get loose stool or mucusy stools or, or gagging, or a little vomiting in the first three days. If it's not life-threatening, [00:18:00] just let it go. Continue to give the herb. If that symptom is not gone after 72 hours, you wanna discontinue that herb for a few days. Start at a lower dose, try to for another three.
And if it's still happening, it's not the herb for your dog. Now, when I say vomiting, I don't mean like projectile vomiting all over the place. Can't keep anything down. I'm just talking about spitting up a little yellow bile or just, you know, vomiting their food just like maybe once or twice during those three days.
I'm not talking about life-threatening diarrhea or vomiting. You wanna quit anything when that happens. So non-toxic herbs are really generally safe. You know, like Camile, marshmallow roots, slippery elm, you know, things like that, nettles, those are non-toxic herbs. Then you have herbs that have a little more toxicity because they have a greater effect on the liver.
Things like golden seal. Organ grape, eia, things like that. You, you wanna [00:19:00] know how to use those herbs, how long to use them for, even though serious side effects are pretty rare. Um, research the known side effects, again, monograph of that herb before giving it to your dog. I always taste any formula or tincture before giving it to my dog to let me know how much I need to dilute it.
Uh, because if it tastes like crap to me, it's probably gonna taste like crap to. And know this, most herbs are diuretic and they make your dog pee more. It's not abnormal, okay? It's not abnormal. You don't want your dog to have incontinence with whatever you're doing, but it's not abnormal for them to pee more and drink more.
It's also not abnormal, which this isn't an herb thing, but it, there was a, a small question. I answered it, I didn't answer it on the podcast, but someone wrote in and asked, is it normal for my dog not to drink any water when they're on a traditional raw food diet? And the answer is yes, because the raw food has a lot of [00:20:00] moisture in it, especially if you're using any type of dehydrated where you're giving a lot of water with that food or, uh, freeze-dried food.
Um, it is normal to not drink a lot of water. I like to use infusions if I think my dog isn't getting enough water and I put them over the food to help, uh, hydrate. So for dogs with reactions to tinctures or liquid infusions or decoction on an empty stomach, you'll need to add it to their food If they're having a major problem that or.
Add less of it, let 'em get used to it over a couple of weeks and then you can increase the dosage. Um, you know, I usually try five days. They might need longer dogs or individuals. There's a lot of gray area to herbalism, so, but you could give it to 'em after they eat a meal by like at like maybe an hour or two afterwards too.
And that might help. If your dog is on pharmaceuticals, separate any type of herbs for by about four hours from [00:21:00] when you're giving the pharmaceuticals and to get the maximum benefit from using herbs with dogs. Less is more most of the time. , try to keep yourself from Googling too much and, you know, going down the rabbit hole and use the slow and steady Winsor race, uh, mantra because you want to add, you know, one supplement at a time, one herb at a time.
Find out how your dog does on it, does on it before you start adding a bunch of other stuff. You know, I have a lot of clients that, that, you know, when they first meet me, their dog is on like 22 Supple. We don't need to give our dogs 22 supplements. We have to figure out what supplement is working and why.
And that's really important. You wanna know the intention behind that supplement and you wanna know if that supplement works okay with other supplements. I, you know, I'm, I'm writing this book, um, I'm trying to figure out, you know, what I can put in the book and what I can't. I'm [00:22:00] limited to a hundred thousand words, so trying to figure out.
What's the best thing to do? One of the things that people have requested, and I'm trying to work it into the appendix of the book, is, you know what? Herbs don't work with other herbs. I'm hoping I can fit it in there, but if I can't, I'll get it to you either on the podcast or on my blog or in a course or something.
Alive, we'll get it to you. But knowing that is really important and going slow is a good way to figure that out. And some people wanna double dosages because they feel that if they, if like if they're giving their dog 10 drops and they're doing really well, let's give them 20 drops. No. Don't do that. If they're doing well on 10 drops, then you know, you could go up a by a drop or two and see how that goes, but sometimes it doesn't work out the way you think it's going to, and then your dog is having a reaction.
So you need to find the dose that they can go back to, you know, the one that they were doing well on. Doubling the dose [00:23:00] doesn't double an herb's effectiveness. , that's, that's a very pharmaceutical kind of allopathic way of looking at it. And it may burden your dog's body and cause really unwanted and uncomfortable reactions.
Okay, so be mindful. Another thing is know what kind of herbs you're using. Read the labels if you're using, especially if you're using dried herbs. Standardized her. and the biggest ones, these, like the ones I can think about is curcumin, which is turmeric from turmeric and also smarin, which is from milk thistle.
Milk thistle and turmeric extracts are standardized a lot of the times and sometimes you don't wanna standardize extract cuz you're gonna have more side effects. Standardized herbs, uh, kind of lack that synergistic constituents found in. Non-standardized herbs, and they create more side effects than their whole plant counterparts.
So some signs of toxicity is, you know, excessive chewing, diarrhea, [00:24:00] drooling, loss of appetite, restlessness, shaking, vomiting, and definitely hair loss is too much too soon if an herb causes the hair to start kicking out, stop whatever you're doing and give it a few weeks and start over again with one herb at a quarter of the dose.
And. Start your journey again. I think that's about it for now. I just wanted to go over a few of those things. There's a lot more to cover, especially in the safety department, but that kind of gives you a good idea of how to use herbs. I'm sure you might have to listen to this over again and write some things down.
I think we might have notes with the podcast. I think we're getting fancy like that. I'm not sure. Don't quote me. Take a peeky again, if you have any questions for me on the podcast, it's just me. I don't have any guests right now. I really don't plan to add guests until I would say 2024. I might add a few guests for the year there.
I'm just rambling. So if you like [00:25:00] rambling, share this podcast with your friends. I really appreciate it. Sharing is caring and I wanna thank Adored Beast Apothecary. Adored Beast is awesome and I appreciate them so much for sponsoring my podcast. So I like, again to go through a product and I want to feature their Roots Line.
Aort Beast makes a, a couple different lines of products. They have their ancestral line and they have their, this is their roots line, and they have come out with the wolf tincture. This is a, an ancestral species probiotic, and it's mixed with Turkey tail as a prebiotic. From my experience with it, I've been using it for the last couple months.
It is very potent. Okay. So I suggest to refrigerate it after opening it. Okay. It's got like lupine probiotic strains, and it also has [00:26:00] an enterococcus, uh, fasm in it as well. It's going to be quite strong. and I would take the dosage that rec that's recommended on the bottle, and I would probably cut it by 75% and then start out really slow and work your way up to the generalized dosage, which you may not get to once your dog starts showing any type of negative reaction to it.
Don't start anything new while you're working with this probiotic. You're gonna go back to the dosage where they did well. You wanna shake it really well and put it in your pet's mouth. That's the best way to do it. You can mix it with a little water if you have to. You can put it on the food. It's not gonna work as well in my opinion.
Um, I love this probiotic. It's very unique. It's definitely ancestral line. It comes from Wolf Poopy, and I'm excited about what this probiotic can do for our [00:27:00] domesticated dogs. And, you know, I think, uh, Julianne is brilliant for coming up with this probiotic tincture called The Wolf. And I would definitely give it a try and cycle it in and out.
You know, a door beast has a ton of probiotics and prebiotics and. What one do we do? And I think that's gonna be a different episode of the podcast. I think just going through their probiotics and prebiotics and figuring out what, you know, what does this one do? What does that one do? And I like to rotate, rotate, rotate when it comes to probiotics and prebiotics for variety.
So this is definitely one that you can add to your rotation if your dog does well. All right. I will talk to you on the next episode of The Dogs Are Individuals podcast. Thanks for listening to this episode of Dogs Are Individuals. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review in your podcast app.
And don't forget, [00:28:00] sharing is caring. So. If you love dogs or individuals podcast, share it with your friends and family who love dogs. This will help me so much, and remember, as a listener, I appreciate you much. Thanks to Resident Media, my podcast production team. This podcast is produced by Drake Peterson and edited by Mike Fry.
Any questions, email the show. Go to canine herbalist.com, click podcast, contact in the menu, and then fill out that form and I'll answer any questions here online. Okay, so thank you so much for listening to this episode of Dogs Our Individuals podcast, and I'm gonna talk to you in our next episode, the content of this.
Is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for veterinary care. This podcast doesn't constitute a provider patient relationship. As always, talk to your doctor, veterinarian, or healthcare provider first before starting anything new, and that includes herbs. I'm not a doctor and I don't treat disease or [00:29:00] prescribe anything.
I'm a traditional herbalist providing herbal support, educat. Only regarding any products I may suggest. The statements made regarding these products have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. The efficacy of these products has not been confirmed by FDA-approved research. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure.
Or prevent any disease. All information presented here on the podcast is not meant as a substitute or alternative to information from your vet. Please consult your veterinary professional about potential interactions or other possible complications before using any product.
