RawPetMedics Tuesday Live: GuestCaroline Ingraham

Evening, welcome everybody. We're live and Nick's still trying to work out where to put his headphones.

I'm just prising wax out of my ear.

Oh God, Nick.

There's always one, isn't there?

We'll get Pete to edit that out.

You're working with 3 gross blokes.

I like the very fashionable curl you're sporting down the middle of your forehead, Nick. It's like something Oh yeah, that is not— I saw that. I wish I had hair. If I had hair, I'd do that. Don't apologize. I think it looks cool. Look at all your hair, it's amazing. Okay, anyway, yeah, um, so listen, I rent it out occasionally. Do you?

If you fancy.

Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah, just stick it on top. Um, listen guys, thanks everybody for coming. This is going to be a busy show tonight. You can tell by, uh, the social media feedback. Um, so just before we start, we're just going to get straight into it, but just before we start, you can find us on patreon.com/rawpetmedics. Price of a cup of tea or price of a cup of coffee is all we need. That's why we don't have any ads and we're not sponsored and we're completely independent and that's how we do it. So we appreciate everyone that comes on there, fantastic. If you can, great. If you can't, no sweat, doesn't matter. We're gonna be here anyway because we love doing this and we love being with you. But we particularly love being here tonight because we are here with Caroline Ingram, who everybody probably knows, and we could easily do an intro, but Caroline, would you like to tell us a little bit about about yourself and why you're here tonight?

Um, okay, a little bit about me, um, in a nutshell. I've spent all my adult life, uh, studying how animals self-medicate, bring themselves back into health from all species— dogs, cats, horses, elephants, tigers, lions— and, um, really sort of put all that research into, um, yeah, into finding out a lot of information that can really help us communicate to an animal so they can let us know, uh, pretty much what might be going on in these cases when you don't really know what is going on. So there's idiosyncratic conditions. Um, but yeah, I lecture, write books, I just finished writing an online course. You did. And I'm here tonight because you guys wanted me to talk a little bit about how it all works at some point this evening. Absolutely.

Just before we jump into it, Caroline, I would just say now's a really good time because it's the beginning of the show. What is the course that you're offering and how can people get that just now that it's the beginning. Let's catch them while people are still awake before they've had— have you seen somebody said, I've, I've select— I've self-selected chocolate and wine for watching Caroline, says Alison, which is a great, great thing to say. So just, just give us a little plug for the course, if you don't mind.

So yeah, the course at the moment is a distillation of everything I know really that I've put into to online modules, but there's a lot there from practical to science, um, to giving people confidence in animals that they can self-medicate and going a lot deeper. But I am going to, um, put it in a little bit more bite-sized pieces pretty soon, so, you know, that person that really doesn't need to know all the science can, you know, get what they need from the course. So now it's all been created, I'm going to start doing that. Yeah, and then the main bulk of the course, then the people who've completed that, they will then go on to do a diploma course, which is pretty much all practical because the online course is a mixture of practical science theory. It's a lot of everything really. But I just wanted to say self-selecting with wine and chocolate. Yeah, when it's a food, it's slightly different than a secondary compound. But having said that, wine is a secondary metabolite. Yeah, so providing you're not— yeah, one isn't, um, it's, it's when sugars and when something comes into a food, then it's very difficult, um, to work with the same principles of self-medication. So self-medication is more when it's a medicinal plant that's bitter when it's not needed, and then it changes to sweet when it is needed, and I think we're going to talk about that a little bit more in detail. And when it's a nutrient, which is slightly different from a medicinal plant, that sort of goes from pleasant to unpleasant. So if you're eating spirulina, if you're, if you're working spirulina yourself and it tastes nice, it's because you need it. But if you don't need it, it just will be unpleasant. Same for the animals. If you're working with a medicinal plant, then it will taste sweet. So opposed to pleasant and unpleasant, it's either sweet or bitter, and that's to deter the healthy person from eating or taking a medicine that's not needed.

Ah, taking too much of a good thing.

Yeah, so it's, it's, it's incredibly powerful and incredibly complex but incredibly simple at the same time. Same time. You know, nature has that out there. You know, if it smells bad— feces, bacteria— we stay away. And if it's good, especially with plants that have been in our evolutionary history so we can recognize them, same for the animals, then we're attracted to those we need. And cue Conor, because yeah, I did that with you in Switzerland.

I'm dying to tell people. I don't want to steal the show because I'm known to talk. But, uh, it is Caroline related. So the first time I met Caroline was in Switzerland when I was doing a talk with Alien Wolf, who's listening tonight, and Joe Arbon. And I had dinner with Caroline the night before, and we were talking about this. And I am a skeptic in the best sense of the word. I'm not a cynic about anything. I'm not like, oh, poo-poo to anything. I'm a skeptic that goes, oh, that sounds very interesting, but I want to see, I want to feel it, I want to experience it, I want to see the study, you know, I want a little bit of evidence. So Caroline calls me up the next day, me and maybe 4 or 5 other people from a room of 30 or 40. Who was stressed, I think was the question. Good stress or bad stress? I was like, oh, okay, my hands up. And so Caroline calls me up and the licorice root powder gets produced. And then you tell us that this is the, you know, really important kind of compound, at least in Eastern medicine, really important. And I wasn't quite sure what else it did. But you said, dip your finger into that, everybody, pre-COVID times, into the powder. And so the girl beside me goes first and and you asked her, what's it taste like? And she goes, kind of like licorice. And it comes to me and I taste it and it tastes like licorice and goes up the row of people, tastes like licorice. And as soon as the first girl put her finger in the second time, she went, oh, that's a little bit sour. And you said, you can sit down, came to me and said, still tastes like licorice. And a couple of other people sat down and on the third dip, I put it in, I went, oh, and it got me, felt like it got me in the salivary glands, like one of those sour sweets. I went, oh, that's distasteful. I wouldn't eat any more of it. And you said you can sit down, and one guy went 5 or 6 times dipping at it. And you— yes, yeah, and you had kind of said to him, buddy, you know, you're stressed. I think you might have said something to do—

you might have suggested that there was something, you know, it's licorice root, supports the liver but also the brain. It helps with cognition, right? So, um, but yeah, yeah.

And so that's a perfect, perfect demonstration of how my body just said, not enough for that, buddy. So the there was a mechanism in me that switched that off and said, you don't need to eat any more of that, which is phenomenal. And that's the difference between the medicine you're saying there and say chocolate, where you don't get that feedback mechanism. You just keep eating and eating until you feel sick.

And I think, I think with food, because we can store it as fat, then we eat it when we don't need it. But with medicine, it's— or medicinal plants, secondary compounds, it's treated by the body in a pretty similar way to allopathic medicine. You know, it's, it's broken down immediately when it enters the body and detoxified through phase 1, phase 2 enzymes to get it rid from the body. So an animal's not going to take it as food. Yeah, it's just not going to happen. Just like, you know, if you have essential oil on your finger, um, if it's very, you know, if you need it, say it's lemon and you would rub it in, so it's just tiny little taste to begin with, it'll be, oh my God, that's amazing. But if you don't need it, it'll be like, whoa, you wouldn't even be able to get it near your mouth. It's nothing to do with hunger. It provides no, um, nutritional— yeah, nutritional value. Yeah, no metabolic value at all. So, and then the thing is with nutrients, they sort of help the body heal itself, whereas medicine, the medicinal plants do the work for the body and So that's kind of the main difference, and they're not usually detrimental if they're not needed. So that's why the taste is pleasant or unpleasant, whereas a plant medicine that you don't need could be detrimental if it's not needed, because like any other medicine, it's medicinal. But equally, if you do need it, or that individual does need it, it can be, um, life-saving. Yeah, it can relieve so much pain and suffering and And I just think this mechanism is so clever, and that it's up to the individual to know exactly what they need and at what dose. So our sort of job, or the job is, you know, just very simplistically here as a zoo pharmacognosist, is so say if you, we think, has that dog got gut problems? You know, why is their behavior like it is? You know, should we go for the gut, or, you know, or do we think it's that behavior's anything to do with pain? So, you know, you offer a few gut remedies, and it might be that that dog, for example, they might be very needing ginger, or it might be they're needing peppermint, or it might be they're needing fennel. So they all have different effects on the gut. So peppermint works to stimulate digestion, but it also relaxes the muscles in the esophagus because the menthol in peppermint blocks calcium channels, which relax the muscles. So you've got this wonder— it's great for colic. So you've got this wonderful remedy that relaxes the muscles but stimulates digestion. Or that individual might not be suited to peppermint, just might not work with their physiology, and so they might be fennel. And so they're sort of partners in many ways because they do a similar job. Or it might be that the stomach needs relaxing or warming, and then that would be ginger. But equally, then you're going to look at the antimicrobials as well, because we all know, and you guys are specialists in this, we've got microbiome, that when the microbiome is out of balance, then you might have an overpopulation of E. coli or yeast. And so then that animal might select bitter almond, which helps combat an overpopulation of E. coli, or they may select clove or geranium depending on the individual for an overpopulation in yeast. So it's really understanding, you're looking at the behaviors, a bit of the ethology involved here because every dog is quite different to read. And then you're under— it's understanding the essential oils and profiles and where to go in and when to sort of like draw back and think, actually, no, I'm not really getting much of an interest with the gut remedies here. 'You know, maybe I should go to liver.' Yeah. Or, you know, maybe, you know, maybe, you know. And so you sort of feel out. So to begin with, you're just feeling where are they taking you. Are they taking you to pain? Are they— and usually they do work with the physical oils before the behavioral oils unless they're in a rescue center or a stress situation. So dogs tend to work in the present. So if, so if an animal has passed on or died, or companion, then yeah, it's very likely they're going to be selecting oils for that emotion, which is usually Neroli or Mimosa. But otherwise, most animals, especially if they're at a loving home— not all animals, because I know there's, you know, other problems that could be going on, especially if they've been from a puppy farm and things like that. But most animals generally want to work with oils to support the physical body before they go on to the mind.

Yeah, it's interesting when you said that, like, a patient might react well to, say, peppermint, whereas somebody else might react better to fennel when they do similar things. And there's a, there was a guy that was the head of GlaxoSmithKline there, Alan Rose, 20 years ago, and he's famous for saying a quote that less than a third of our drugs actually work on people. And everyone was up in the arms going, oh my God, what? We thought the prescription medicines were amazing. And this— here was a guy admitting that no, they don't. About 1 in 4 of their cancer drugs working from one patient to another. And they say there's a big difference. He— this guy's a geneticist. He's all up for getting our genetic footprints. And, uh, he— and what he was saying was, you're— there's a huge number of things that can— that will depend on your reaction to a drug. And so one person's going to react the same way. So for you to say that, you know, for something as simple as fennel or peppermint, what's going to completely depend on, I assume, where this dog came from, the breeds that were used, his experience, his ailments, his nutritional status. God only knows. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

And so dogs that are more sensitive to conventional medicine, you know, like greyhounds, shepherds, Collies, they're usually more sensitive to the essential oils as well because it's all about the enzymatic physiology being able to break down the remedies. And it doesn't mean to say they need them less, they just need a— they just don't take such a large dose. So a little terrier may take a lot more. So it's nothing about size, it's all to do with the enzymatic physiology, than perhaps a greyhound who may go a long way with just a few sniffs. So sort of understand the breed, you know, the species you're working with, looking at their diet in the wild, looking at the enzymes, you know, and how they're going to generally work with the remedies. But my, my son, um, what he peer-reviewed papers for Science and Medicine, and he said exactly the same. He said all the guys were really disillusioned by a lot of the papers because he said you know, just nothing, you know, it, the same sort of thing, that it wasn't, um, conclusive, you know. The, the trials were so, uh, erratic.

Yeah, no one-size-fits-all.

And then if they didn't want something to get pushed forward, they would, you know, say if they didn't want St. John's Wort or something to get pushed forward, then they'd find the flaws in St. John's Wort and push that forward. Or, you know, it was, you know, he said in, in pharmacology, there was a lot of disillusionment because it's, it's, um, yeah, it's, it's, it's not, it's not like physics that's sort of concrete. You know, you're working with an organic mechanism which are people and individuals, you know. So we are going to have different responses. And when I was in China, I was doing a talk over there and I was, we had an outing on a day and this guy, this doctor who was, um, in charge of cancer, you know, of the bladder. And he said— we asked me what I did, and I told him. He said, you know, that's the way forward. It has to be individualized medicine because, as you say, you know, we're all, we're all individual, and we have different needs and different dosage depending on our internal state.

I think that's, that's the future, though, isn't it? I mean, they're very much talking these days about individualized medicine. And to a certain extent, I think this probably terrifies the pharmaceutical companies because they think, you know, in Britain, they think we can't produce 67 million different medicines for everybody. And then so they're going, oh my God, because the beauty of aspirin is everybody can take it. You know, it helps some people more than others and it gives other people ulcers and what have you. But everybody can take it more or less. But the individuals— and this is to do with looking at the genome and the epigenetics and also microbiome, because that's very individualized as well. It's like saying, right, we're going to take a little bit of microbiome and then we're going to match the medicine to your microbiome to make sure that it hits the spot, but in a slightly different way to Mrs. Jones down the road. So what's your take on on modern medicine? Is it catching up with this kind of technology which we've had for thousands of years, or do you think this really is new medicine?

I think— do you mean as in working with self-medication?

Well, individualized medication. I mean, the homeopaths have been doing it for 200 years. The Chinese have been, you know, are you a hot or cold person? Are you a damp or a dry person? What, you know, and what have you. It's been individualized. And yet modern medicine is all about this is a really good antibiotic for everybody, or this is a really good anti-inflammatory for everybody. And yet now they're thinking, oh God, maybe we do need to individualize. Do you think that's a good thing for the future?

I—

it sounds like a great idea to me.

Yeah, I do actually. And I think too, you know, a lot of animals don't do well with a lot of pharmaceuticals. I think even less well than a lot of people. Yeah, the more they are closer to their natural state, the more difficult they find it to work with chemical medicines, in my experience. But yeah, so how I work, I guess, is instead of sort of working with, say, hot or cold, it's going taste and smell. So it's really looking at, you know, taste and smell as your guide for what you need and your dose. So it's sort of going into very much innate mechanisms. So there's different theories out there. So you've got Professor Hoffman, who's more into social learning, and that's because he's working with chimps. And so he's seeing mimicking behaviors, but that works for aspilia, which is a, it's a leaf rolling that the chimps do to get rid of parasites. If another chimp copies that, they're not going to be harmed because it's not a medicinal plant. It's just like Velcro. Vanonia amygdalina is like a chemical wormer, which the chimps also work with, and you will never see a chimp copying, um, with a medicinal plant because it will be highly toxic. So there's another theory. The most recent theories are sensory modulation theory, which is one that um, come up with, but also the innate theory, and which is what the sensory modulation theory is. It's innate, and that's really coming to the forefront. So last week I was contacted by a professor, Professor, um, uh, Jap Rhodes, and he's writing a popular book on animal self-medication. So he's very much on in the same camp as me, that we both are very much for the innate theory. It's innate within everyone, this taste and smell. And his theory is backed up, and where his research is, is on caterpillars. And I always say to people in my teachings, you know, if a caterpillar can self-medicate, your dog, your horse, your cat can certainly self-medicate. So caterpillars, for example, if they're infested with fly larvae, they change their foraging from either lupus or, you know, the general non-harmful foraging plants to plants rich in glucoside— iridoid glucosides, sorry. And if they're infested with wasp larvae, they change their foraging to plants rich in alkaloids. and these plants are quite toxic— that they change their foraging for, but with no ill health to the wasp— sorry, with no ill health to the caterpillar. So that is nuts. So that's how refined these signalling mechanisms are, that they will refine their foraging between being infested with fly larvae or wasp larvae.

I mean, how simple must the caterpillar's brain be? I mean, a bundle of cells, and yet they are born with this information because nobody's showing a cat— he's not sitting around munching going, 'Oh, look at that guy, he's got wasps on his back and he's eating a toxic plant.' I read there, the monarch butterfly, that if they— if, if when they're infected they eat these leaves and they're half poisoning themselves to get rid of this, uh, this insect, if they lay an egg on the leaf that is toxic, the larvae don't grow as well or don't even make it. And so that comes back to your previous point where it may be good for you in some instances, but it may harm you in other instances. That is like— that just— what else defines it as a medication? I mean, who would, who would question this when these things are going on? I mean, it's, it's so obvious that that's what the animal is doing. Uh, I just think it's amazing they're all born with this information. How is that information passed on like that? That's amazing.

I know. I mean, if you think of the, um, chimp having the, um, Banonia amygdalina, that's so toxic it's known as goat killer, but it provides no harm to the chimp that needs it. But if the healthy chimp ate it, then it's very likely that they would, you know, they would have a bad reaction to it, you know, or be poisoned with it. Wow. Um, and the same with caterpillars, you know, these are pretty toxic plants. And that's the guy, um, Professor Jap Rhodes, who does all the research on monarch butterflies.

He's right. Oh yeah.

Okay, so he wants to include pets into it. It's going to be user-friendly for, um, you know, general public science, so to speak. Um, and then, which, which would be good for self-medication. And yeah, and then you, you know, then you look at the dog that jumped up on the table and he ate some onion, not the apple or anything else there, but then purged every tapeworm in his body. But he had no ill health afterwards. But if a healthy dog was administered an onion, then yeah, you're going to see some detrimental effects. And depending on their, you know, their health, whether it's compromised or not, will depend on how detrimental that onion would be. But to another individual that needs it, just like medicine, then it's going to do the trick and get rid of something more harmful, which would be the tapeworm.

Wow.

But because the constituents of the onion is focusing on the tapeworm, not on the body, then that's how it's working.

Yeah, there's a famous enough vet, he's very skeptical and he writes very skeptical pieces and he just likes to hate on people, I think. But he was saying, I find it incredible that anybody would look at a cat or a dog who are well known for self-medication. We all see our dog eating grass and purging or carefully selecting a bit of burdock or couch grass. You're like, come on, Dudley. And he's looking for the perfect bit, be it for a vomit or a poo or something. And we know that their brains are 25% olfaction, that they can smell homeopathic mixtures. Professor Anaheim-Borgman in Helsinki was saying incredibly fine sense of smell to suggest, and studies abound showing that they will select protein and fat and carbs depending on their needs. So cats do it, dogs do it. We've got musk deer doing it. Mink, captive mink were found that they have a pronounced ability to balance and regulate intake of protein and lipid when faced with several different, different options. We've got owls, we've got, uh, which ones? This is the domestic cat. But here's a great one on wild carnivores. Do wild carnivores forage for prey or forage for nutrients? Evidence for nutrient-specific foraging in vertebrate predators. And here's the conclusion. It was an analysis of all the information they have. And I'll pop this up on Facebook afterwards, guys. And they conclude, we conclude that it is highly likely that wild predators select prey or selectively feed on body parts according to their macronutrient composition. And if we know they do that, that's just an absolute fact repeated study after study, why wouldn't they select certain compounds? Of course they would. If they— I mean, of course they would. And we know, we can see them doing it. I find it incredible. It's nearly like somebody would have to prove they don't do it, you know. Why would you take the position that they— you know, it's just this ridiculous misunderstanding of how how powerful this big hooter is, you know. It's—

there was a vet who tried to, um, stop my work quite a long time ago, and he spoke to Michael Hoffman, you know, saying, yeah, you know, we understand that wild animals can self-medicate, but, you know, the Ingram Group, you know, they're working with domestic, domestic, uh, species. And he said, I'd like to be challenged by any animal that can't self-medicate. And he actually said, why shouldn't you be a little bit more scientific and actually see what she's doing. You know, when a long time ago I had the RCVS, you know, um, you know, wanting to take my website down. This is a long time ago, this is in the early days when I started off. And I thought, oh great, you know, now we can have some dialogue and I can explain to them. No dialogue. And even the vet, the, the skept vet that has totally slagged me off please can I have some dialogue? You know, it's not very scientific to, to, um, to, to trash something or to, you know, rubbish something without having, um, a debate about it or discussion, you know, and then put your point forward. And I can explain how it works with the signaling pathways and how the immune system is involved with taste and smell. And so, you know, for example, if we take, um, you know, the animal's injured, then there's going to be more prostaglandins. So that's going to register in the body, and that is communicated to the immune system. If there's more— in fact, if there's infection, there's going to be more cytokines. If there's stress, there's going to be even more adrenaline or more Firing of anxiety neurons, excitatory neurons, and then that's going to register to the brain. That information from the immune system tells the brain that, hey, we've got something out of balance, something's wrong. And this is also based on salt and calcium appetites, where there's seeking behaviors when something is either too low or too much. So when something is out of balance, then these messages are sent to the brain. And then that's when the brain influences smell and taste. And it's actually quite complex how it works with the olfactory receptors, but basically it's to do with, you know, which volatiles bind to which receptors. So if you're needing an anti-inflammatory because you've got excessive amount of prostaglandins being produced at the site of injury, that individual will be producing more receptors that bind with the anti-inflammatory volatiles. So, and then as soon as they have their dose, then it goes back to normal and the animal goes back to foraging. You know, there is a science behind it. And it is quite complex, but it is there. Yeah. So it's—

there's a lot of work. Fred Provenza in the book Nourishment, we were talking about it last week, and they've actually— he describes work where they've looked at what cattle and sheep— because they can— what they can do is they can put a hole in the side of a cow or a sheep and they can actually see what that sheep selects in the field. Okay. So you've got a meadow and they've got 27 different types of grass. And what they can do is they can do a blood test each day to say, okay, how's our balance of iodine and copper and cadmium and what have you? And then they look at what the sheep or the cow actually selects. And number one is no two cows, no two sheep are the same. And number two, their requirements will influence what foods, what grasses and herbs they actually take from the pasture. So this is You know, all this information is coming together. And do you find it funny that, that science doesn't recognize that, that other scientists are actually demonstrating that there is self-selection, even with the humble sheep, the humble cow? Given the choice, they will select according to their needs, and two cows grazing together will actually be taking on different nutrient profiles. Does that, does that frustrate you at all that half of science doesn't recognize what, what the other half of science is saying? This is really obvious.

But I think that's happening a lot. There's a whole new science, especially where there's chronic disease, and there's, there's researchers in the forefront bringing out this amazing information. And it's almost like it's becoming into two parts. You know, one part seems quite old-fashioned in many ways and getting left behind. That a whole new science is being— in many modalities, be it the microbiome, you know, in pharma, you know, looking at epigenetics and so on and so forth. I think it's really bringing all of these things together to have a deeper understanding on really how to deal with chronic disease and why we have it in the first place. I just want to say with homeopathy, because Eddie Brendan's in the homeopathy— yeah, I was so excited when I realized that um, they— animals can self-medicate, um, with, um, with, um, homeopathy, you know. And it's exactly in the same way, you know. My dog would just breathe into the bottle, um, with the one she wanted. She had a condition that, yeah, she was selecting oils, but she still had this condition. That's a German Shepherd, you know, lesions around the anal area. I was told to put her on antibiotics and steroids for the rest of her life. And I thought, well, it's something constitutional. I need to go somewhere else. I, and I'm not a homeopath, and I thought, okay, but I did have some remedies. And I thought, oh my God, wow, she's working with these in the same way with the oils. So she would inhale them and she would whistle into the bottle, and when she didn't, when she'd had enough, she turned her head to the side and her eyes would go so deep And then if she didn't want it, she would just turn her head to the side. If she wanted to take it by mouth, she'd mouth the bottles— a German Shepherd. So I put two little, you know, I'd put little pills on a saucer, and sometimes she'd take one and sometimes she'd take another. And then I spoke to my friend Tim, who, uh, Tim Cousins, who Nick, you know, and he's a homeopathic vet, and I was just telling him the story and He said, 'Oh, you've got to try gunpowder.' So he sent me some gunpowder, and I offered it to her, and she jumped away as if it was, you know, a really potent remedy. And I thought, 'Wow, this is really impressive.' So I thought, 'I think she needs it, but obviously not right now.' And in a few days, you know, about 3 days later, 3 or 4 days later, that was her go-to. She's totally cured. This was years ago, about 3 years ago.

Gunpowder.

Yeah, that's— we use gunpowder.

Yeah, I mean, is gunpowder— tell me gunpowder's name for herb, is it? Or do you actually mean exactly?

I don't know. But what was really interesting is that I was then speaking to Chris Day, and yeah, I was telling him that I was blown away with what I was finding, so to speak. And I said, but what's quite interesting, I have sepia with one brand, she won't select it. And I'll have sepia with another brand, and she will. And, and he said, is that brand in a plastic bottle? And I said, yes. She wouldn't select any homeopathic remedies in plastic.

Wow, that's cool.

And then there's two sort of schools of thought with sense of smell. One is the semi-chemistry, which is lock and key, which is one I was just talking about, you know, binding, REMS binding to receptors. And the other one is the swipe card, which is this researcher called Luca Terrin, and his is all on vibrational. And both are very plausible, and both have a place. So, you know, sometimes it's thought that animals smell by vibration, and other times by aromatic chemicals, and other times there might be an interplay with both, because neither can have the full answer. So Researchers think that they're both coming into play, but I find it absolutely fascinating.

Yeah.

Yeah. And sorry, Nick, just came back to your other subject with farm animals. Yeah, I used to work actually for the French government with INRA, and I'd work a lot with biodynamic farmers. And yeah, it was fascinating. You know, I'd put different remedies out in buckets of water and to see which one the worms— so all the goats with possible nematodes were put in one paddock to see what they selected, and they all made a beeline for garlic and wormwood powder, not interested in the barley grass, which you'd think because the paddock had no enrichment really. And then one of the farmers made a noise and all the goats just went to the other side of the field, except for one, and she was really thin, really sickly, and she stayed with the, the bucket of garlic water, which is saying really that her survival is more dependent on the garlic than being with the herd. So I thought it was fascinating, and it was just fascinating doing that research when you've got groups of animals with different problems to see what the key remedies are that they're selecting. So all the mums would select St. John's Wort and barnegrass and sometimes rose. So, um, yeah, it was fascinating.

So, John, could I ask then, with regards to, uh, some of these medicines, you've talked about oils, you've talked about powders, you've talked about, you know, herbs being in the pasture. So what's the sort of different approaches there? You've got 3 different options, you know, people out there are going to be saying, look, I love to give my cats a herb garden that's growing fresh. Some will want to be using aromatherapy oils, so the essential oils, you know, as options, I guess convenience, you know, because they're in a bottle and they're quite pungent. There'll be some people that are actually offering dried herbal powders. Have you got an approach that sort of selects out of those which you would go to in a certain situation?

Yeah, so looking at species, so if we look at the cat, then, um, you know, herbs— well, all species really, you know, herbs are there when the body is just, you know, when something's about to take hold, and then, you know, the herbs hopefully will keep it at bay or, you know, get rid of whatever is there. But when the condition becomes more advanced, that's when the essential oils come in because they're so potent. But the great thing is with them is that you can be dilute by, by working with them at a distance, and then you can go in stronger and stronger and stronger. What is your dose? You know, with a cat, you're looking at the diet. So cats don't eat much vegetation, so they're not going to have the enzymes in the same way a horse does to break down plant chemicals. So it's very likely that a horse will lick an essential oil, if there's an internal problem. Some horses prefer to inhale because, as we said, every individual is different. But equally, it's— a lot of horses will take their remedies by mouth undiluted. If they need it quickly into the, into the body, they lick with the underneath of the tongue. If they want to adjust the speed, they'll do several drops of the underneath, then on top, underneath, then on top. With a cat, they're actually quite easy to work with. Because it's pretty much only inhalation. And, um, it's— you can put the herbs out there to give you a clue, you know, if to see, yeah, are they going for the chamomile flowers, the peppermint, um, and, and that would maybe give you an idea that, oh, I think I'm going to offer some stomach remedies. But I would only do it if you feel they might be a bit poorly or there's a behavioral problem, you know, where's that behavioral problem coming from, um. And, you know, generally healthy animals don't select essential oils like healthy people don't select medicine. And so the herbs are the, you know, that they're not as concentrated. So it's, it's just— and when I work with the homeopathy, it's, it's when I'm thinking, okay, do I need to go somewhere? Because I look at the oils as being a little bit more physical, physical emotion. Physical, even though they can take the mind back to memories depending on what you're working with, or yeah, it's physical toxins. And I know homeopathy can do that too, but I think homeopathy can almost see around corners that, um, in places that can't be seen. And it's a, it's a medicine that can't be seen. And, you know, so if I feel I've gone as far as I can with one, then I'll see how I can go with the other. And sometimes, you know, with my dog, if she seems a little bit poorly— she's— well, I mean, she's— if she's on an off day, I think, 'Oh, okay, do you need something? Do you need some support, some fennel?' 'No, not into her usual favorites.' 'Okay, do you want some homeopathy?' 'Oh yeah, she's working with homeopathy tonight.' So I just sort of get a feel of where she wants to take me. Um, does that answer your question?

Yeah, it does. I mean, it's really interesting what you say with potency there. I mean, for potency within homeopathy, I'll see exactly what you've described, where some animals will absolutely, you know, almost inhale the remedy that they want or desire the remedy. Sometimes the difficulty is that it's the potency we've got slightly wrong, and actually if you give the same remedy but at a different potency, all of a sudden that reaction that you described earlier will change dramatically because it's potency that is as much as I try the different potencies too.

So if I know she's sort of going for one, then I get another potency and say, hey, which one do you want? It's fascinating. I mean, I suppose my subject, you know, people often mistakenly call me an aromatherapist. I'm not an aromatherapist. Yes, I've studied essential oils incredibly deeply. I'm not a herbalist. I'm not a homeopath. I basically specialize in animal self-medication, you know, watching what they select. And, you know, the dogs are the most difficult because they can be very subtle in their responses, and the oils are very strong for a lot of dogs. So, um, you have to kind of ease them into it, and that stimulates their sort of enzymes, and then they seem to want to have a stronger dose if they need it. But, um, yeah, for people that want to—

for people that want to see this, because it's, it's one thing talking about it, but, um, it's another thing kind of, uh, seen it. Go to YouTube and just type in Caroline's name, type in Zoo Pharma Cognosi or just Caroline Ingraham into YouTube and you'll see it working and how subtle it is. Initially you'll think, what am I looking at here? But then you will get the idea of often the dog will present her leg like there's the vagus nerve here, or, you know, it's quite incredible when you see it working. Will you, before we sign off, will you tell us your story about the elephant?

I will, except that might be a very, very long time.

I tell you what, I was gonna— I'm— I think it would be fantastic to hear the elephant story, but we've got 3 minutes till we hit 1945, so I'm going to suggest a couple of things. Number 1 is, Caroline, tell us about how people can get onto your course. And please, because people, I think they like you more than they like us, that please come and see us again when you start your new courses, your new, your new mini courses, yeah, that you were just describing. But, um, uh, so please will you come and see us again is number one. Number two is please tell us again how people can get in touch with you. And then when we go over to Patreon, if you could tell us the elephant story, if it is going to take some time, because we've got more time to actually do it properly. That works.

Okay, do you want me to do the elephant story another time?

We're just gonna— this finishes— we never told you, Carolyn, but this finishes in about 2 or 3 minutes. And then we just do another 10 minutes on Patreon.

It's—

we'll turn off the camera and go somewhere else. You don't have— you just sit there and it'll, it'll happen. So, uh, we'll save the elephant story. Yeah, where do people, where do people find you, Caroline?

Okay, um, just put in my name, Caroline Ingram, or www.carolineingraham.com, and you should— yeah, the courses will come up. Just click on it and you'll find it.

Thank you, Carol.

Can I just say quickly, with a dog Can I just put a message out there that a lot of people get really, um, stuck with? They think that an oil is only needed if a dog smells it. Well, that's a huge dose for a lot of dogs. You're looking at the breathing and you're looking at stillness and you're looking at the eyes much more so than the breathing— so then sniffing it, sorry. So I just want to put that out there because a lot of people say, oh, my dog's not interested in oils, and the dog is really working with it but doesn't need that dose of the sniffing.

Sometimes it's just the fact they're in the room, isn't it? They, they can be in the room and they're still taking the oil on, and it's the, you know, if they've had too much of it, they leave the room.

It's not, uh, yeah, exactly. And you're looking, if they're working with it, you're looking how deep the breathing is, not if they're sniffing it or not. And that's a really misconception that a lot of people think it's about sniffing the oil. And that's a huge—

some of you guys that are watching tonight, Caroline is also on the Give Cats a Voice conference this weekend coming up, I believe, on Sunday afternoon, 4 o'clock. So you can see some more about cats and the self-selection. I believe that's right, isn't it, Caroline?

Yeah, it is. And why cats have got such bad press with essential oils.

So yeah, join, join us. I've put a post up on the Facebook page if you're interested in joining that conference. It's free, you can just click on the link and join through. I think, thank you to everyone. You know, we're sort of on the 45. We're gonna jump over to Patreon if you want to join there in about an hour's time. You'll hear the elephant story from Carolina. We're all looking forward to that. Hopefully there will still be dry eyes in the house afterwards, but we'll see. And from there, we will catch you all next week with Q&A, I believe it is. Indeed, question and answers for us next week. So thank you all for your attention. Thank you for so many wonderful comments and all of the I think everybody has put links to your book, to your website, to your courses. It's just been an amazing response, Caroline. So thank you so much for joining us.

Well, thank you for asking me.

Brilliant. Okay, everybody out there, we're going to see you shortly. If you want to know how to join us, just follow the link for patreon.com/rawpetmedic. We'll post the video after the bit on the side very shortly.

Lovely, great stuff. Thank