Rita Hogan The Canine Herbalist

Hi everybody, here we are, the Raw Pet Medics, we're here. But the most important thing is we've got, uh, the amazing Rita Hogan, who is bringing out a book in, in February, and she has come specially. Uh, she's running around like a mad thing at the moment, and she's given us some time, and we are absolutely stoked. Rita, how are you?

I'm doing great. Yeah, I am super busy, but I'm having a I'm having so much fun and, uh, just, um, you know, being myself out there in the world. It's kind of fun. Yeah, I like it.

It's amazing. Brendan's run for the hills, unfortunately. Brendan, come back.

I'm, I'm here.

I can see Brendan.

I think it's—

yeah, I think it's your cataracts, Nick. I think you just—

yeah, it's your Wi-Fi, mate.

Yeah, it is. Would you please get your Wi-Fi sorted, Nick?

Why?

I mean, do you see what I have to put that with every single week. Literally, I can't see you.

I can see all of you.

Yeah, I can see all of you.

Me and Rita.

The view's better if I can't see you, Brent, so that's okay. Carry on doing what you're doing, mate.

Yeah, you can hear him anyway. I have to say, Rita, that book cover— for those listening on podcast, uh, Rita, the book's called The Herbal Dog: Holistic Canine Herbalism Application and Practice. So it's awesome. But the book is this beautiful, almost white Labrador, uh, with, uh, turning into a kind of a bouquet of flowers. It really is gorgeous. Uh, how did you do that picture? Who do you just—

I hired an artist to do it. Um, I had a picture of, um, a book that— a little tiny wee book that was like an organ. And it had a couple flowers on it. I'm like, you know what, a dog's head with— but it had to have the right, and it couldn't be too high, and it couldn't be— we refined it a whole bunch of times. And, um, and I think she just did an amazing job. She gave me like 3 images that I can use, and that's the one for the book.

Gorgeous.

Yeah, it really is really clean, but it's—

it—

there's a lot going on. So well done, you.

I'm gonna make Nick test— be tested by naming all the herbs on the book.

Pop it up there. Pop it up and let's see if we can do 5 between us. Pop it up. You can't play.

Bad at identifying herbs.

Okay, that's a bit nice.

Too far away, possibly.

Yeah, come on, I got to get one. I'm going to say, um, I'm going to say, uh, yeah, that one on the bottom right with the yellow flowers is going to be chamomile, but I don't think so. I can't do one. I can't. What's that pink one at the bottom? That's— I know what that is.

Come on, can I sit down the bottom?

Is that—

yeah, can I sit down the bottom?

I don't know. I don't know what they are. Are they random flowers? Are we wasting our time, or are they actually—

there's some random flowers. There's some bull thistle and And, uh, there, you know, there's some calendula. Uh, I can't really see. I can't see. There's a little bit of mint in there. You know, there's a few things, but some nice random flowers too.

Wow. And a forward by Isla Fishburne as well. We know.

How do you know Isla Fishburne? She's great. She's a character. That's—

she's, uh, I've known Isla for a really long time. Like, uh, she's my sister from another mister. She, she, uh Her and I did a— we taught an essential oil course for Dogs Naturally magazine eons ago. And I traveled with her a little bit in 2017. And we've just kept in touch and I followed her on her little path and to enlightenment. And I just thought she was— she's been with me for, you know, we just been together a long time. And I thought she was a really great person to write a short forward. Not a long one.

What's she doing? What's she doing now? Very briefly.

She's— I mean, so many things. She's, she's authored a couple of books on shamanism, and, uh, she's definitely doing a lot of things around, uh, metaphysical shamanistic, um, emotional medicine.

Wow.

So, um, which I think is fabulous. She's the perfect person to do it.

Yes, she is.

Amazing.

Please give us— give her our very best I went to a wedding, I went to a wedding actually. Oh my God, that was, that was, that was very, very cool.

That's cool.

Yeah.

So Rita, is this your, is this your first book? Is this your first venture into the literature?

It is my first book. It's the venture into the realm of being, working with a publisher.

Yeah.

Yes indeed. How did you find that? So do you like, I didn't work, I didn't work with a publisher, I self-published. So when you were the publisher, what would they know about herbalism and dogs? I mean, surely when you just hand over the PDF to go, okay, Well, I had a, like, what is it called?

A book agent. I had a book agent in the beginning and I fired her because she wanted me to write, you know, the run-of-the-mill herb book that's already like, not saying those books aren't great. They are, but they're wonderful. And one of my favorites is Herbs for Pets by Greg Tilford, but it's already, I mean, there's no use to rewrite that book. Why would you rewrite that book? It's perfect the way it is. Yeah. And she wanted me to, you know, write something for the big houses in New York and, you know, boom, boom, boom, we can sell, you know, the million, but that's not my, that's not my goals as an herbalist. So my goals as an herbalist is for people to understand how to use plant language and actually be really successful with the plants that they use. And so I got rid of her, but she made me write a book proposal and that took me about 4 months. And That was the key. And so when I— when we parted ways, I sent my book proposal to a couple of publishers that I liked, and I mean that have— that I have a lot of their books on my shelves, um, and I got chosen within 2 weeks.

Nice.

So I got— yeah, I was like, yes! I mean, I fell over and started screaming, but like, um, you know, I Oh my God. I was like, oh my God. But yeah, it was great. And they've been really wonderful. And they don't know much. Like, my editors have been so amazing. I've had 3 editors and, you know, I was so afraid of my editor, like, oh God, they're going to cut so much out of my book. They cut some out of my book. And, but I can put it on the Herbal Dog website. And, but what they did is they really made it cohesive. And I'm a really good teacher. I've been told a million times, oh my God, you're such a great teacher. But one of the things about being a great teacher is being redundant. And I'm redundant. I am not afraid to tell someone I'm redundant. I repeat myself a lot. And, and it helps people remember, but it's not needed in a book because you could go back and read it. So they took all the redundancy out. And which, when I read the the like finished copy of it, it— I was just so happy with it. I'm so happy with it. And, uh, the, you know, it was like 3 different perspectives, and one of them had a lot of, um, uh, bacterial, uh, kind of, um, really, really good world of bacteria. So she knew a ton about the microbiome and different things like that, so that she was fun to work with. And then, um, And the other ones were, you know, one was just her brain. I— we don't share one. It was pretty intense. I'm like, oh my God, I can't believe that she saw that. Oh my God, I can't believe she remembered what was up 4 chapters before without looking at it. Like, yeah, so, you know, so I loved it. And I really love my publisher.

You talked about that wonderful book proposal that got you, you know, you know, in front of a publisher within 2 weeks. So, so what was it that made your The Herbal Dog different from just another herbal book?

So I am speaking about plant language in the beginning. So my book is in two parts. It's, you know, theory and understanding the dog as an ecosystem. And then the second part is about the way that I practice with dogs and giving you protocols and going through the herbs and different applications and things like that. So that anyone can use it, like someone that is more, incline for learning, can learn so much, like a practitioner, a vet, a vet tech, a person that wants to really learn a lot about why their dog is the way they are. And then someone that just wants to know how to get rid of their dog's diarrhea.

Yeah.

Dr. Grete, you mentioned plant language. You've said that a number of times. I think I know what you mean, but can you just explain? Where you're coming from with that interesting choice of, of words.

So, um, eons ago— I mean, eons ago— I read this book called The Secret Life of Plants.

And by who?

Oh God, I don't know. I'd have to get up and go over there.

Oh, hang on, I'll see if I can find it.

Secret Life of Plants. Yeah. Um, and it, it really got me to like start looking at my surroundings and understanding that plants have intelligence and that they are interacting with other plants and their, their ecosystem and with us, even though we may not be able to hear them. And, and they have their own intelligence. And a lot of that is we don't even understand it, right? But they when they work in the body, they have a language of cool, warming, damping, drying, and herbs that relieve tension and herbs that relieve relaxation. You know, when, when something is too relaxed and can't hold in a container. And so, you know, you get that just pouring out of the body where you have a dog with leaky anal glands and leaky eyes and everything's leaky. Runny nose, you know, that dog has too much relaxation and too much dampness. And so they speak according to that type of language. When you give a dog that's already hot, you know, herbs that are warming, like are some of, I would say, the more popular herbs that people have grown comfortable with, like turmeric and ginger and, you know, Calendula and things like that. When you give a dog that is already hot warming herbs, it makes them worse. So, and a lot of people are like, oh, well, just give it turmeric. It'll, it'll help with pain and inflammation. It will in the beginning, but after you keep giving it, it will be at a detriment and the dog will lose its mobility. So, um, It's why, you know, you're not going to get 100% efficacy in any type of trial using turmeric because one, they're using a standardized form of turmeric, which is curcumin. And then they're also not looking at a dog's energetics, and a lot of them don't even look at diet.

Okay, so half the dogs are going to be cold and half the dogs are going to be warm, and the cold dogs are going to do better on the curcumin, on the turmeric, than the hot guys.

Yes. Okay. So I go over plant language and teach people about energetics, which is plant language. And so I do that because plants are individuals. They have their like, and they have, and I don't get into it in the book, but they have their own degrees of dampness, their own degrees of dryness. Some are extremely dry, like sage, and some are slightly dry. So they're, They're individuals. And so, I really talk about that. And then I teach people all about energetics, you know, an introductory kind of understanding. If they can walk away in the book to really just understanding if their dog is warm and cool, it's a complete game changer for them. They will stop having the supplement graveyard. You know, they'll understand that's not gonna work. And, you know, especially cases of like cancer and like the big gun issues, if you are wasting your time if you have a cool dog, right? And this is an in— this is a human story, but it goes to the severity of like herbs that are cold. Like there's a cold herb called gentian. And I had a friend who took a really good product called by a company called Cellcore. It's an anti-parasitic. And it's a really good formula. If you are a warm person or a hot per— usually if you're gonna, have parasites, you're going to be more on the hot side. And it's a really good formula for that. But he was a cold person. And he took that supplement and lost the use of his legs within, I would say, 2 weeks. And, and he had MS. So a little background, but he lost— he couldn't even stand up to cook an egg. Right. And it was aggravating it so much, even though it was a really recommended, well-rounded formula. It was just so cold when I looked at it. I said, well, you know, what have you started? And he's like, well, I started this Cellcore, you know, and, and, and I looked at it and I said, oh my God, like you have to get off that supplement. It is so cold and you're already cold. Like it is just, it's shutting their body down. It's basically, it's bringing down your life force to the point where, and you know, cool dogs and cool people, sorry, I'm having a hot flash. Cool dogs and cool people tend to suffer from low vital force.

Talking of cool or warm people. Yeah, yeah, with hot flushes. Bless you.

I hope you're feeling okay.

Bless you.

No, no, no, no, no.

Um, but yeah, so that's really interesting. You, and you were talking about, um, the way plants talk together, and there's— there is a book called The Secret Life of Trees, which came out maybe 5 years ago by a German researcher. It's really fascinating, talking about the microbiome, the, the, the mycorrhizae under the mycelium under the forest where the trees talk together and what have you. And then you've got, uh, um, um, Merlin Sheldrake with The Entangled Lives. Have you read Entangled Lives? Yes, it's amazing.

And I Do plants do the same thing, do you think? Yes, absolutely. The Secret Life of Trees is so much like The Secret Life of Plants. It's about the same, you know, and like how trees help each other. You know, they'll give nutrients to another tree that doesn't have enough. And, you know, they speak to each other. So yes, definitely. You know, that whole thing about if you talk sweet to your plants, you know, Uh, it's true. Like, you— and, and like, kind of like water can take on energy, plants take on energy. And, um, so they also, in my opinion, they also filter energy. So it's, it's, uh, I don't talk about that in the book, you know, but, um, uh, I definitely think they're individuals with their own intelligence. So I do talk about plant intelligence. And then, and then I Cover like the dog as an ecosystem. So really recognizing that your dog is a balance and you have to keep that ecosystem clean. You gotta keep it moving, you know, because stagnancy just breeds all kinds of wrong and, and you gotta clean it. So we talk about the dog as an ecosystem. And then the front part of the book is I talk about whole plant medicine. Meaning that, you know, the difference between standardized herbs and using them in their natural form. I talk about the principles of holistic herbalism. I talk about integrative veterinary medicine, which I'm a big proponent of. And then a big thing in the beginning of the book is talking about our stress, our dogs, ourselves, like, The impact of our stress on our dogs. Like I know that you guys probably know that so many of the people that we work with, when I am doing an herbal consultation, the dog is suffering from the same issue as its parent, as its human component, and really learning how to check ourselves, how the heart regulates everything, like the late Stephen Buehner who was just a phenomenal herbalist, really talked about when you get the heart in sync, everything else falls into place. And it's kinda like, you know, when you clean the liver and you go to the bathroom when you're supposed to, as many times a day as you should, things start to clear up, right? And stagnancy just in the heart, in the energy, in all of our organs, it doesn't work. And so, I talk about that, which is fun. I really like talking about people's stress and because we, I think as women, and there's a lot of women in the all-natural dog community, women and men, they tend to feed their dog really well. And then they'll be eating at McDonald's. Right. And I'm like, would you feed your dog that? Like at conferences, I'm just amazed at the foods that I see people eat.

Totally.

And like, you wouldn't feed your dog that in a— you would literally knock someone down if they tried to feed your dog that. Like you would, you'd be like, don't give my dog that nasty biscuit. You know? And, but they're eating that nasty biscuit. And so it, I talk about that, you know, the correlation and taking care of ourselves.

Why is there that disconnect, do you think, Rita? What is that about? I see it all the time. I talk to doctors and they've been even kind of naturopathic doctors and they're still feeding kibble and rubbish.

It is a phenomenon. I'm not sure. I think that, you know, people put all their energy and their— I mean, dogs are our healers in that they help us heal the wounds that we have and the diseases that we're carrying. I truly believe that our animal, not just dogs, but our animals in general. And I think that people put all of their energy into their animals and they treat their animals like they want to be treated. But humans get in their way. That's why I only see a few humans every month. I don't do— I don't work with a lot of humans. They get in their way.

Ultra-processed food is addictive though, you know, and it'd be just as addictive for your dog if he could access his own junk food all the time. But he can't.

Absolutely.

And we know what's good for us, and we look at the salad, we go, we should be eating that every day, and I wish I was. Oh, I wish I was, but I'll just have one more biscuit because it's addictive. So the same— the tobacco companies moved into ultra-processed food, and so the same companies are doing the same tricks and getting kids addicted. And that's why 80% of our basket is ultra-processed junk. So I think, yeah, the addiction thing is hard to shake. It's, it's, it's, it's too easy. You can go to a shop and buy any amount of calories for 50p, you know. So it's tricky. I was going to ask a question there. I actually thought I was still live because I just thought my camera disappeared, so I was asking questions and everyone was ignoring Oh, there's a change. People have the recordings from going, what the— why is nobody answering me? But I was going to say, when you're talking about the hot and cold bit, um, is there any likeness in Western literature? Is there any likeness in Western information about the hot and cold and damp business? What would you liken it to? Like, doesn't— like, I, I kind of thought when I first— I've only dipped my toe in this stuff, I know very little about it— but like, you know, if a person was hot, I was thinking maybe they're inflamed. Is that what we— is when we use the word inflammation? Or like is done. How has none of these words made their way into Western—

and can I add to that with regards to, you know, that nuance between how you put it across and the sort of Ayurvedic slash, you know, TCM, um, sort of views on heat, damp, all of those side of things? What, what's your nuance to it, um, with the way that you do herbalism?

Um, so I was taught by Matthew Wood, who is a phenomenal herbalist. I think he's in his 70s now. And I definitely think that there is some overlap between TCM with their energetics. I agree with, I would say, 90% of TCM, but the issue is, is when those energetics were placed on animals and foods, we had a clean system. And so I think that genetically modified foods, factory farm meats make it hotter. We're really having a hard time finding cooling, truly cooling proteins now because of all the stuff that we're doing to our animals to mess up our agricultural systems. But there definitely is overlap. But one of the things that, one of the books that I read that really changed my life as a practitioner when I was first starting out like 20 years ago was Four Paws, Five Directions by Cheryl Swartz. It's such a great book. Everyone should have it on their shelves. She really does a nice job of integrating Western and Chinese medicine. And when I started out, I started out in Ayurveda when I was at the University of Minnesota. I plunged into Eastern medicine. I even studied Hindi. I wasn't good at it, but you know, learning how to write Sanskrit and I, yeah, I failed, but I decided that just wasn't me. And so, but like Kapha, Pitta, Kapha, and Vata, I really, really love this concept. Yeah. This was my favorite. I still have it. This was my favorite book by Maya Tiwari. Like this book really helped me as an individual, but I had a, you know, I had a really difficult time because of culture. I had a difficult time with placing those concepts onto dogs in my worldview because I grew up on a farm. And that's another thing with Traditional Chinese Medicine. I love it. And I love like Josie Bugg is a wonderful practitioner. I love TCM, but for to be really good at something, you have to choose and you can be good. You can be okay at a bunch of stuff, but to be really good at something, you have to choose. And I chose Western medicine when I— Western herbal medicine when I moved to Tennessee, because that's what I grew up in. That's what my dad taught me. And I love plantain and the Western herbs they found there in the UK as well. But like TCM, the one thing about TCM is that you really find meaning in a language, right? And there's so many— there's, there's a lot of translation when it comes to TCM. And I feel that if I wanted to be really good at TCM, that I would need to learn the language because the culture and the concepts and the ideas are in that language for me. And with Western herbal medicine, most of it is in English. And I really just focus on it and try to adapt it. But it does have, I do use traditional Chinese medicine, like BodyTalk, like the BodyClock, traditional medicine, Chinese medicine, like diagnostics, like how the kidney talks and the liver and the emotions that are in the organs and things like that. And I learned that from Cheryl Swartz 20 years ago, and I never stopped using those. But when I went to delve into Chinese medicine in itself, I really got clear that a lot of it is lost in translation. And that I just, I wanted to be great at something. And so I just focused on Western.

Do you think that a lot is lost in 2000 years as well? Because I found a lot of people seem to sort of still be harking back to the ancient scripts for when they talk about energetics. And as you say, you know, things have moved on in the world.

Yeah, things have moved on. We live in a polluted environment and we're— and we are horrible to our animals. So because we're just horrible to them and it affects them. And then dog— and then animals have their own set of energetics. But that's a rabbit hole that I don't want to go down.

How does a— how does an organ have emotions? I mean, a melancholy pancreas? I mean, what's— how does— what does that—

so, so like, for instance, if I get an herbal consultation for a dog with fear, I don't deal with the fear at all. I deal with the kidneys. So, uh, 99% chance that that dog has a kidney weakness. And we're not talking about something that shows up on blood work, because when it shows up on blood work, we have a 5-alarm fire that we need to put out. We have, you know, we have groaning when they lay down. The noise of the kidney is groaning. You know, people that like, people that sigh a lot, right? That's a sound of the liver. And also anger is the sound of liver. When I meet someone that is just super angry all the time, they usually have like a yellow tint to their skin. If you're really observant, not jaundice, but just a yellowing kind of like around here in the cheeks, right near the eyes where the liver opens out to. Like if you have a dog with red bloodshot eyes and conjunctivitis all the time, guaranteed they've got stagnation in that liver. Or if you have a dog that's afraid of noises and reactive and can't behave on a leash at all, you know, trying to kill every dog that they find, things like that. We, I work with the liver and the kidneys. So, and then the lungs, the lungs hold grief. And I tell people, you know, like when your dog dies, you need to deal with your grief. And when you're sad and when you don't deal with your grief, the propensity for your dog to have a lung issue goes way up. So I truly believe in the organ emotional context of TCM.

Interesting. Do you think this, the stress, fear bit on the kidneys is like an adrenal response? And the— and because of adrenals and sits on the kidneys, and that's where that response comes from.

Absolutely. It can deplete. Yeah, fear definitely depletes kidney energy for— I mean, the adrenal energy for sure. It brings down— and the cool thing about herbs is that all of our adrenals, a lot of our adrenals, and a lot of our kidney remedies work with getting the adrenals back online, working with the endocrine system. A lot of our herbs have systemic systemic. Well, most of them have systemic ways to balancing the ecosystem. They just have an affinity like towards, like goldenrod has an affinity towards the kidneys. Nettle seed or nettle bud, different parts of the nettle plant are really good for the kidneys. And nettle is one of the first things I bring on for fear.

Yeah. How did this come about, Rita? How did it come about that herbs and organs are, you know, hand in hand. How did this happen that they— that some particular herbs work better for some particular organs? Like, how did that link? You know what I mean?

I don't know what to tell you, Conor. Um, well, it's definitely a traditional medicine, right? And traditional ways that people hand down information. But like, I'm an avid flower essence user. So flower essences deal with the emotional component of a person. And when you balance those emotions out and get that— all it is is stuck emotion, right? Depending on where it's stuck and when it gets unstuck, then again, you have more flow and more circulation of everything and things work themselves out.

Yeah.

Now, what would you say, Brendan?

Yeah, my take on that, because I've done a little bit of study in herbs and very interestingly, Cheryl Swartz was one of our lecturers back in the '90s, and so that I came across her, she was amazing. And, um, the Four Poles, Five Directions, um, but I never really got it. It was the, the damp and the dry and the blood and the chi and the yin and the yang and the heat and the cold, and it's just like, oh my God, I think my brain is gonna burst. It just, it didn't flow with me. So I've tried and tried and tried and it didn't. However, in the first 10 minutes, everything that you said, Rita, made total sense. Hot dog, cold dog. I can cope with that. That's just a single polarity.

Yeah.

And so I'm really keen to see this book to just say, okay, I can concentrate on hot dogs and cold dogs and hot herbs and cold herbs. That's very cool.

Well, and also, so when I— circling back to Lost in Language, like, you know, in our culture right now, I'm talking about the Northern hemisphere, specifically the United States and parts of Europe and Canada. You know, the terms yin and yang are not really in our like paradigm, right? So, you know, you just say expanding energy and contracting energy, right? Some herbs expand energy and some herbs contract energy. And with cool dogs, you have the core and it's not warm. It needs to be warm. In a cool dog, their core really has a hard time, you know, keeping that warmth. So you got to make sure that you're warming the core. And so you want energy that goes down into the core. Whereas a warm dog where they're just in your face barking all the time, they're ready to go. Let's go. Let's do it. Let's take on the world. Right. You want herbs that bring that energy outward. Okay. Because their core is warm. They just, that, you know, you get your energy from your core. Their core is warm, but you've got to bring that in. You've got to get it out. You got to get that energy out so it doesn't sit, you know? And yeah, so I just try to put it in terms that people can understand.

That is fabulous. I love it. Yeah.

Seriously.

I've been struggling for 30 years with it and you've done more in 10 minutes than a lot of people.

I'll tell Cheryl.

Yeah, do, do, do. I was dreading to ask you whether she's still with us or not.

It sounds like she is. She is. I'm actually— I, you know, full circle. She changed my life. I talk about it in the book. Full circle, uh, I'm actually helping her with her cat right now. Amazing.

Well done. You give her our love, please.

Yeah, she is great.

She is totally fantastic, um, and so humble and so funny. And, uh, yeah, love her to death. So please send our love I will.

She's still in practice.

Amazing.

And I love the fact that you've got the, the canine, you know, herbal dog book out there, but I know you're an avid cat lover and, you know, you've got— so, so come on, what, what's the story? Is this going to be the second book that you're writing, or is this—

no, I'm not going to write a book about cats, but I might, you know, assist someone else that I feel should write a book about cats in helping them, you know, with material. I would love to do that. But I, I've always had a cat. I've always had a cat. But recently I got— I have 2 kittens that are a year and a half, Oscar and Carl, and I have turned into a crazy cat person, lady. I love them so much. They are so wonderful. And yeah, no, I can't. I'm smitten. Smitten.

They're just lovely. Yes, there's a lot of confusion about herbal usage in cats, a lot of, you know, a lot of confusion. With dogs, it seems much more palatable that you, yeah, you give them herbs. Like, I mean, even the fact that you earlier said that, oh, calendula doesn't work on a warm dog, like, but it might work acutely. Okay, okay, not like a long-term, like, put on calendula cream. It's I just thought that is just a typical oil that you would put on nice skin and moisturize.

So skin, I'm talking internally. You can do calendula for a skin issue, but like Brendan can tell you, like homeopathically calendula has its energetics, like homeopathic medicines have energetics. They move you. They have to, because you know, in order for them to balance out the body, they have to, they, they have to deal with a person's energetic system and our bodies are warm and cool, you know? Yeah. And damp and dry and tense and stuff. So yeah. But if you give that herb for a longer term, which people do, like people give their dogs, they over-supplement their dogs. They over, over, over, over their dogs just out of desperation because they want them to feel better. They'll have them on like 15 supplements, and then a new supplement will come out, and they'll just add it, just keep on adding, adding and adding. And that dog's ecosystem is so— it's definitely getting mixed signals, you know.

So especially when it comes to cancer, you know, it's almost like they become desperate and reach for everything that's out there about cancer. And I've had some horrendous stories about Artemisinin, you know, sort of overdoses and the resulting bleeds and stuff like that. Because people reach for these thinking that herbs are perfectly safe, you know, they're just, uh, well, it's a supplement, you know, surely if it was anything more it would have a warning on it and it would be only for veterinary use. But no, the people need to understand that actually these are truly medicines and there are consequences sometimes, especially when you mix them together, to what those side effects can be.

Yeah, yeah, it's true.

Sorry, Evelyn here has a great question on the side. Um, how does hot and cold work for reptiles?

I do not know.

Fair play. That's a good—

but you would say that, I mean, they're supposedly cold-blooded and they need to sit on stones to get warm from the sunshine and what have you. But we, on using that, are warm-blooded, and yet mammals can be cold and warm. So my guess would be that reptiles can be cold and warm depending on their Jing energy in their kidneys.

And, you know, yeah, so I would, you know, that's a question for Josie Book. I, I don't, I don't know anything about reptiles, and I don't— my, I myself, I'm only speaking for myself, I don't believe in keeping them as pets. So It's in a confined environment. I just don't, unless they, you know, they've got like two legs and you're, you know, they can't be anywhere else, right? I'm okay with that, but I just don't believe in keeping snakes and other things in a shoebox in the attic.

Yeah.

You know, maybe the occasional bearded dragon that gets to go everywhere, you know, but that would be fun. But I don't believe in the little terrariums and stuff.

It's just not my thing. Rita, I don't want you to— to— it's like choosing your favorite child, but have you got two herbs with which you resonate more than any others? Perhaps maybe a hot herb and a cold herb that really, really just, uh, do something for you on an energetic, spiritual—

personally, or just for dogs in general?

You know, you, you, you.

Yeah. Oh, for me, um, I—

not therapeutically, just you love the thought, the spirit, the energy of herb A and herb B. Just—

I, I love nettles. Okay, so I love nettles. I love— you can make medicine out of different parts of the nettle, and they have like different understandings of the nettle. Um, So like the bud of the flower and then the flower essence and then, oh my God, and then the seed, which we're actually going to pick this afternoon and the leaf and then the root. And it's just, it's such an— if like, if I had to have one plant on an island, it would be nettles. That's the plant that I would have. And then pine trees. I have a remedy called Mountain Pine. It's a phytoembryonic, which is, it's a plant bud medicine. It has the embryonic, the like undifferentiated cells in them. And it is lovely. It helps reconstruct the cartilage in the body. It helps build cartilage and it has saved my back. So I had a really bad, Great Dane collision, two Great Danes. I collided with them and fell on the cement a long time ago. And well, the back has never been the same. And I, you know, I went to acupuncture. I did all these things. I went to acupuncture for at least a year. Didn't help that much in that department. It's like an L4, L5 and the Mountain Pine remedy, plant bud remedy has been just Like, I, you know, I live a normal lifestyle now, which before everything was, will that hurt my back? Will that hurt my back? Could my back get hurt? You know, what about my back? You know, and, and it helped me not just stop having that conversation about my back, which I feel is not good either.

That's amazing. It sounds really similar to stem cells, except these are a natural—

they're plant stem cells.

It's plant stem cells. Exactly. There's a lot of similarity there because they're all the rage at the moment, for better or for worse, stem cell therapy.

So do they actually— are you doing a herbal extract? Is this all of the— yes, sort of regulators that are within that that you're experiencing in that medicine, or is this an energetic sort of extract?

It is a very, uh, like material resonance for the plant stem cells. Like, they're doing epigenetic testing with them right now that is so phenomenal. Like, I think we're 10 out of 10 of turning off genetic polymorphisms with these remedies at like, you know, 20 drops, 3 times a day for like a month. They're doing— I can't remember the polymorphism for hops stem cell, but it was pretty phenomenal. And they're working at turning off the MTHFR. Polymorphism, which can really harm people that have a double one. You know, they can't detox anything and they don't have access to much glutathione anymore. Their pathways are shut down and then you get chronic disease. It's pretty awful. And, but the, there's a man called Dr. Joseph Cannillo. He's in Italy and he has done all of this research on these plant stem cell remedies. They're about, there's about 50, 60. I have a course on them on my platform, but I'm also working with Jennifer Payer, who was one of the importers of stem cells, plant stem cells into this country. We're doing a course for doctors and practitioners for humans. And it's pretty phenomenal. And that particular stem cell just literally changed my spine. And I used it in conjunction with Mullen Mullenroot, which if you've looked at the mullen, it looks like a spine, you know, and mullenroot is fantastic, just fantastic for spinal injury. And you know, what is it? Spondylosis.

I always mix it with garlic oil for ears. Garlic oil with mullenroot.

Yeah. That's the leaf.

Yeah. Oh, it's a leaf, different part.

Yeah. The leaf for the ear. Yeah.

Rita, people are going to be listening to this and going, wow, my back is terrible, I've tried everything. Can you just repeat just what they need and maybe where they can get it or who they need to talk to? Just because people pick up late often with these things.

Okay, so the two back remedies— so Mountain Pine is cooling. So if you're a warm person like myself, Mountain Pine— and it's an excellent pain reliever. Like it gets rid of pain. It's a good, like, substitute for ibuprofen without the stomach damage. But Mountain Pine is cooling. So it's Pinus montana and it's the bud medicine, the bud medicine.

Where can they get it?

In Europe, you can get it at the Santi Shop. It's S-A-N-T-I dash shop. Which I think comes in English and French.

And can people just, just willy-nilly order it, get it, and start dosing themselves? Or they— okay, it's as safe as that?

Yes. So like an average person, like 150-pound person, I'd probably do 10 drops 3 times a day. But here's a testament to the mountain pine, okay? So my mom, who's 94 years old, The doctors basically told her there's nothing they can do for her feet. And it helps with lymphatic circulation, just by the way. And there's nothing they can do for her feet. She was in a horrible car accident. Her feet were like purplish red, obviously some, you know, vein stagnation. She started taking Mountain Pine at 4 drops in the morning and in the evening. And she took it sometimes at night when her feet hurt her in the beginning. And she could not wiggle her toes at all. She couldn't move her toes. And she would wear open foot, like footings, you know, shoes and open-toed shoes. And it was pretty, you know, she was still walking around, but very, very slow. And she can now wiggle her feet and she has zero pain in her feet where before it was keeping her up all night, zero pain in her feet. The doctor can't believe it. Course he wants nothing. He does not want to know what she's doing. But no, God, no. But she was so— I mean, she's 94 and she's like— I remember her calling me into the bedroom and going, oh my God, Rita. And I thought something terrible was— I thought we were calling 911 because you do that when someone's 94 a lot. And she said, oh my God. And she said, look. And she wiggled her feet. Like, she wiggled them, wiggled them. She's like, I haven't been able to do this in a year. And it's the Mountain Pine. Awesome. But if you're cool, there's another remedy called Virginia creeper and it's Ampelopsis. I can spell it, but you wanna make sure you're getting the right Virginia creeper, but this is the only stem cell out there, but it's A-M-P-E-L-O-P-S-I-S. Something like that. And it's W-E-I-T-C-H-I-I, I believe. And that one is warming and it does almost the same thing. It works on the entire musculoskeletal system. It drains it, it repairs it. It, it, I can't really say, like I would share the constituents of it. I can if you want, but it's a long, it's long, but it's amazing too. And I have found just through my clinical work that the Mountain Pine, if the Mountain Pine doesn't work, the Virginia Creeper does. And so, but the Virginia Creeper doesn't do much for me at all. I'm too warm. So the Mountain Pine does, but you can get both of those remedies at that Santee shop.

Yeah.

You've met me, Rita. You've been in my house having coffee only a while ago. I've got great pictures of us up in the mountain. And you've met me. Am I hot or am I cool? I don't know which one I want to be. What am I?

I don't know what you are.

Hmm.

So is your book too ill at the time?

Yeah, thanks, Conor. Um, yeah, I'm sorry, I was thinking about the 7 days I spent in Denmark completely sick and on flat on my back. Um, uh, oh wait, and then I had a reprieve in Scotland but then got sick as soon as I got back home again. For that next 2 weeks. You were like, yeah, I got sick, and then I, then I had Marlon, and then it, and then it went away, and then it came back. And I'm like, huh, that was interesting. That's what happened to me. But, um, my fault for getting— my fault for catching it. But anyways, um, I, I didn't really observe you. I mean, it's easy to figure out if you're warm.

Do you like, you know, like, for instance, can I say, can I, can I say, can we, uh, stop there? For one second and then go over onto Patreon, and then we can have— we could, we could do this because it's so interesting. We can work out—

I've got a Patreon. I don't know.

Don't worry, you stay where you are. We'll do all of the magic. Do you know what I want to say to the guys out there? Um, you can join us over on Patreon using patreon.com/rawpetmedics down the bottom there. Um, you can also listen to our podcasts, um, yeah, which will have the wonderful Rita because Pete's gonna grab all of this sound together for us. So just any of your podcasting from Apple to Amazon to Audible to pretty much anywhere you can— Spotify— then you'll find us and we're there because we're in everybody's houses and across America. And thank you to Dr. Judy's page as well and everybody's joined us from over there. We are, don't forget, we're looking forward to seeing you over stateside. So we're going to be in San Diego, um, at the beginning of October with Feed Real at the Feed Real Institute. So that's, uh, hopefully join loads of you there. Um, and we've got a little bit of a tour, so we're gonna keep everybody up to date with what we're doing in the States. So that's all great. It does feel like we've come back to school and we've actually given a massive book list like it's that first day back at Hogwarts, okay, and you need like a shedload. And I know the wonderful Fiona has been working really hard to reiterate all the books there, and I might just ask her, because she's so wonderful, to at the end of this list all of the books that we've mentioned today, or at least Rita's mentioned today, but I think we've all mentioned some, because we know how much Nicola will be looking forward to that list of books to fulfill her bookshelf that's Before we, uh, at the bottom, before we leave, guys, uh, if anybody wants to learn more about Rita's teachings, I highly recommend her website here, canineherbalism.com.

Check it out. You do a variety of courses, Rita, and people can, I assume, stop in and get them online. Is it like evergreen? Can they just book in and do them anytime, or do you do them anytime? Anytime. Cool. And they're all on that website, canineherbalism.com. Nice website.

They are so impressive.

So impressive, Rita.

Check that out. Yeah, we'll put that up on the Facebook page too, Rita. Okay, cool, Rita, you can stay where you are and we'll just, we'll knock off this and we'll jump onto a separate platform. Just 10 more minutes.

Wonderful, guys. Good night and we'll see you all next week somehow, somehow from an island somewhere near Helsinki. We'll somehow work that one out.