In this Raw Pet Medics episode, host Dr. Conor Brady interviews master canine herbalist Rita Hogan about her upcoming book Herbal Dog. The conversation covers the book’s structure—introductory sections for newcomers, detailed materia medica, and practical dosing guides—while highlighting the philosophy that herbs must be individualized to each dog’s constitution. Rita explains how modern evidence‑based medicine often overlooks herbalism because of reliance on standardized extracts, which can alter potency and safety (e.g., alcohol vs. water extractions of Chelidonium). She stresses the importance of sourcing high‑quality, organically grown herbs, warning about heavy‑metal accumulation in plants like turmeric, hemp, nettle, and the need to consider harvest season and climate. The discussion delves into energetic concepts of hot and cold dogs, resonance, and how mismatched herbs (e.g., cooling herbs for a “cold” dog) can worsen conditions. Rita shares clinical anecdotes, such as a French Bulldog whose apparent “hot” skin was actually a compensatory false heat from a cold constitution, and a human client whose parasite formula failed because it was energetically cold for a cold individual. Dosing philosophy is explored, referencing mentor Matthew Wood’s “spirit doses” and the idea that well‑indicated herbs require minimal amounts. The episode also touches on practical matters: recommended suppliers (Mountain Rose Herbs, O’Shala Farms, Oregon’s Wild Harvest), the upcoming African Raw Feeding Summit in Johannesburg and Cape Town, and promotional offers for Rita’s courses. Brief mentions of lymphatics, phyto‑embryonic therapy, and the upcoming avian‑flu Q&A round out the conversation. Overall, the episode blends enthusiastic advocacy for canine herbalism with pragmatic guidance on safety, sourcing, energetics, and clinical application.
Chapters
Rita, how are you? Hi everybody else, let's say hi to everybody else first and save Rita for the listeners. So hello everybody, we are Raw Pet Medics. Thanks for joining us on the 21st of January at 1 minute past 7. We are Raw Pet Medics, you'll find us on patreon.com/rawpetmedics where all our very best fans get on there and donate the price of a cup of coffee each month and it keeps us in shoes and jeans and books and keeps me from reading books, to be honest with you. I'm kind of book-lice the last few years, although we have been reading Rita's book and we are on the ball tonight. We have Rita Hogan tonight, master canine herbalist of the universe. Cannot wait to tuck into this conversation. Before we do, guys, is there anything that you need to get off your chest before we start speaking to Rita?
Oh, can we just touch on This whole— is it with or is it from avian influenza?
Oh, blimey!
But guys, let's not do that. Let's not do that this week. Let's do it next week.
That's okay.
I just get so many inquiries.
We're going to go absolutely—
we can't. Rita will never get up.
We won't get it. We won't get it.
It will never happen.
Yeah, no, it won't happen.
Rita won't get a word in. So let's not do avian flu. I think it's a brilliant topic and we need to do it to death.
We do, we do. Because wild dog food is right next week, Robert. Yeah, next week.
But the Q&A is going to be taken over by avian flu.
It's more important.
Feel free to ask any question you like as long as it's about bird flu next week. That's what we're talking about next week. Okay, Nick, anything happened last week that you need to tell us about before we bust out?
No, not really, not really. It's just I'm glad you're taking up my fashion sense though. I'm in a grey polo shirt. Poloneck. Oh yeah, you haven't got to the poloneck yet, but when you go— yes, no, you will, you will, you will, you will take on the poloneck.
Determine whether that gives you more color because your clothing is gray or whether it drains from your color.
Well, I don't know, somebody said I will— I, I, I'll be, I'll be, I, I'll be, I'll be guided by you guys. Rita, what do you think? Gray good or not?
I—
gray? You're allowed to say that.
She doesn't like it. She does not say it.
No, you're a redhead, so all redheads look good in gray.
Okay, wow, I never knew that. I never normally wear gray, but I got it for Christmas and it's really warm, so that's why I wear it.
Yeah, excellent.
Okay, somebody said, somebody said wearing a turtleneck is like being choked by a very, very, very weak small child. That's just constantly being restricted on the neck, and that's not good for me. I can't have that.
There's a homeopathic remedy called Lachesis and one of the key signs for lekkis is that they can't stand anything around their neck. So they don't like having a collar on. They're like, don't put a collar on me. Or they're people who can't wear a polo neck like this.
Interesting, that's me. I can't— so somebody touching my neck is like— I say to the kids, I will end you if you touch my neck like that again. Like, you can't— poking the Adam's apple because she knows I'm real sensitive about it. So if they can get it down, that really bothers me anyway.
Okay, that's good. That's going to be good sport next time we see you. Who can touch Conor's neck 5 times during the evening?
Don't do that. I'm serious, guys. Don't do it. It'll be a bad reaction.
Actually, the next conference we're at, where's that? Oh, South Africa.
Yeah, there's a prize.
South Africa on the 29th and 30th of March. Okay. If you want to come up. And see us there live. And please touch Connor's neck.
Yes, please do come and touch Connor's neck.
Even better, lay a snake around him.
It'll be like— I'd like that bit. That's nice. That's cold, and I like that kind of feel. That's all right.
So it's Johannesburg on the 29th of March. 29th and 30th, is it? Is that right?
29th and 30th.
And then we're going to be down in the Cape, uh, for the 6th— is it the 5th or the 6th of April? Please come along. The African Raw Feeding Summit. Yeah, it's going to be really great.
Yeah, and you'll find it, you'll find it under the African Pet Health Summit.
Yeah, and, and the rand, the rand is so weak that it makes for a very cheap holiday, guys. We've had that from Retha, who's organizing things. She says it's a really cheap holiday. So people are coming over from the States, people are coming over from India. So, uh, it's a cheap holiday whether you see us or not, it doesn't matter. Have a cheap holiday.
Isn't it funny when people in Dubai say— there's a girl there a couple of days ago, she's heading down from Dubai, and she goes, well, it's closer, you know. It's like South Africa is closer to you than— like, how is that possible? South Africa is so far away, 17 hours in a plane, but it's actually closer for so many of the people that we talk to so often. Like, we think that everyone's close to us, but they're not, you know. So, um, anyway, yeah, and also tickets are selling really well. I know it's a cliché, people say that all the time, but tickets are really selling well. So the Johannesburg show is the much bigger one. The smaller numbers will be in Cape Town just by sheer force of size of the rooms. But they're selling really well. So if you're coming, let us know, and Rita can also help you with travel and stay as well. So if you guys are stuck and you need advice, her girl is awesome at that. That's what she does. So yeah, that's going to be—
I think if Rita's watching, I think she is, just pop a link in the comments. People can follow you through.
Yeah, very good.
Last time we spoke to Rita, she said there's 55 vets at least coming along, which is fantastic. So if they're pro-raw Absolutely great. Brothers in arms, sisters in arms. Absolutely great. And if they're not, it's like, please, welcome to the family. You know, let's talk real fantastic, healthy nutrition. Yeah, yeah. Without prejudice. Yeah, yeah. Great.
So, so, Rita, how are you doing? You must be getting up to close to launch time. When is that? Do you know?
I think it's about 13 days.
13 days. You've done great, um, you've done good media on it because I'm hearing it, I'm hearing it a lot, and not just from you. So you hear other people mention it now. Your book's been recommended, uh, in the chats and in the groups. So that is Herbal Dog by Rita Hogan, guys, check it out. So I'm assuming people can order early and get their names in and all that kind of stuff. Clearly a labor of love. I love the layout of the book, Rita. It makes— it's like you've catered to two types of people. For people that are new to the subject like me, I particularly like the fact that you have a very nice section on the health issues, so I can just go straight to and look at, let's say I've got a sore paw or whatever, and get your best tips and tricks for various things. I absolutely love that, but even the chapters leading up to that, very, very leading me into the, the world of this herbal stuff. I've got so many questions, but I just thought it was a fascinating read, so Love, love, love the book. It's opening new— it kind of just makes me think, oh my God, I know nothing. But the tips inside are just so well laid out, very digestible. Loved it. I thought it was a great read.
I thought it was really fantastic as well, Rita. Really, really good. I've been studying herbs for 20 years and there's just every page, there are gems to be gleaned. So thank you very, very much. Really lovely.
Yeah.
And great and laid out so wonderfully for new people to herbs. Not just for experience as well. I think just, you know, giving people access into— well, you've sectioned it up really, haven't you, to, you know, just a general introduction to individual body systems, to looking at some of the different herbs and how to approach giving herbs, you know, all the way through. So, and even as Nick says, for the experienced herbalist, there's lots of great— you know, it's like having another consultant on your shoulder. You can just ask, what do you think? You know, how would you do this?
What do you think, Rita?
Yeah, it's great. Yeah, absolutely. Um, I have— can I, can I start us off on a topic here that, uh, um, I don't have them in any particular order, but, um, how has, um, like, the problem that herbology has is the same problem that homeopathy has, is because the whole of the West has turned to allopathic chemical rapid-fire medicines that have an instant effect on us. And how does modern evidence-based medicine fail herbology, uh, not the other way around?
Um, I think that it fails it in that, um, a lot of people are conditioned— and I talk about this in the book, uh, you know, I'm all up for scientific evidence and all of that stuff. I, I— it has really helped herbal medicine. But the issue is, is I kind of get a chuckle when I hear that, you know, oh, a study has proved, you know, that turmeric has a beneficial effect on the liver. You know, herbal medicine has known that for hundreds of years, you know, like, and now it's true.
Yeah.
Because there's a study. And, and another issue with herbal medicine is that some of the side effects or like one of the worst places you can find information for about herbs is on Google. And the issue there is that some of the methodologies that they're using to, for like, as far as like extraction, go down and blanket the herb, even though most people wouldn't be using that extraction method. And the extraction method really does dictate the strength of the herb and the side effects. For instance, Chelidonium, okay. Greater Celadine. It, you wouldn't want to give it to a dog in alcohol because alkaloids love alcohol and the alkaloids in Chelidonium are, can harm the liver, right? But as a water, extraction. They're very— and Chelidonium is great for the liver. It's just that in dosage, anything, you know, herbs really do fall in, not all of them, but many of them fall into that. What can cure can harm in the right dosage, because it's all about dosage. And so Greater Celandine can be damaging to the liver in large dosages because of the alkaloids in an alcohol extraction. But in a water extraction, you're not getting the force of those alkaloids. It is quite gentle on the liver. And, but if you just Google it, it'll say that chelidonium shouldn't be used or chamomile or peppermint, you know, these are all things that can be used. So I think we have to look at that. And then another thing that science is not doing justice for herbalism is they're using standardized extracts. And because of the fact they have to, because you need something that's reliable. So you're using a conglomerate of plants from all over the world usually to get a specific amount of a constituent, say, you know, curcumin for turmeric, you know, curcumin can cause anemia where turmeric doesn't because it's isolated. It's an isolated standardized extract used for research. And while that's awesome because turmeric is getting some press and some scientific research to back up its kind of force, the generalizations that are being made about curcumin are not those of turmeric.
That's interesting.
I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna repeat that back to you there, Rita, because it's such a, such an important point that I'm just gonna, um, lay it out really, really simply as I understand it. So what you're saying is that scientists don't like studying herbs because there's 600 or 800 different chemicals in there. And that freaks them out because they like to just study one thing at a time if possible. That's the scientific method. You look at one variable.
The issue is, the issue is, is that if you just like, say for instance, I grew some milk thistle, okay? And we had, you know, lots of rain that year or whatever. That milk thistle is not going to have the constituent base that this other milk thistle in a study, replicable, you know, that study. Okay, so it's very hard to patent herbal medicine, and it's very hard to study it unless you get it down to a standardized extract.
Yes, yes. So you've got variability of plants depending on the time of year and depending on rainfall and what have you, but also you've got lots of chemicals. So if you're studying one effect, is it, you know, is it from the first or the 800th chemical within the herb? You don't know. So what you do is you distill out the element, like silymarin with milk thistle or curcumin with turmeric, okay? So that you've got— you're studying just one thing because that's kind of how science likes it. It likes to narrow down the variables. Yeah, but by doing that, you can create quite toxic compounds because within a herb there are balancing elements. There are elements which will balance the, um, the more negative effects of the curcumin, and there are elements which will enhance the positive effects of curcumin. So it's like taking—
you left them in the bin.
Yeah, so it's like taking a whole city and getting, you know, 3 axe-murdering psychopaths and saying these are typical for the entire city's population.
Yeah, you know.
Yes, if you like.
Is that, is that a fair, is that a fair assessment? I'm just trying to make it really obvious because it's such an important point, because people will be led astray. They'll go, oh, turmeric is really dangerous because of this and this and this, but they've actually, they've looked at the curcumin study, not the turmeric study.
Yes. I mean, curcumin is pretty safe except that it can cause anemia in some people and dogs. Whereas turmeric doesn't do that. Where, you know, Silymarin, Milk Thistle, you shouldn't give a standardized extract for a really long time when it comes to Milk Thistle. Whereas you can give the seed for as long as you want. There's, it doesn't have the toxicity or the, I would say, the limits that this standardized extract has. And it's very hard not to find a standardized milk thistle extract. It's kind of a thing. But one thing that— there's a quote that I included in my book that kind of sums it up for me. Let me just read it really quick. It's from one of my mentors, Matthew Wood. It says, by ignoring phenomena outside the scientific realm, a skewed and incomplete view of the world is offered. And when I heard him say that, I was like, yes, that's it. Because, you know, plants have intelligence. It's not the intelligence— don't come, you know, it's like learning Spanish. You know, if you try to translate everything into English, you'll never learn Spanish ever. You know, you need to kind of step into the world of language and plants have their own language. They have their own intelligence. They, you know, they open up Some plants open up to the moon. Some plants open up to the sun. They know how to protect themselves. They give off certain chemicals in protection. And it's not the intelligence that we look at as human intelligence, but they have a life force. And a lot of people will try to kind of rein them in and be like, okay, well, we're going to give this plant, and it's only gonna do this thing. And that just doesn't happen. Plants will go into the body. They seek things out. It's kind of like regenerative medicine, you know, with regenerative medicine, a lot of times you'll give regenerative medicine for a specific, let's just say a spinal, a spinal injury. The medicine will go in, like the stem cells will go into that body and plants have stem cells too. And it's gonna deal with the most pending, like most pertinent issue first. It may not deal with the spine. It may deal with something else where you're like, well, the spine didn't thing, but all of a sudden your dog is doing things they never did before. They're not reacting to things that the little growths on their body is, they're all starting to shrink. You know, plants are like that. Like you can't really control the medicine. And But they do have an affinity towards, you know, being studied. They do have an affinity towards certain organ systems. So I find them fascinating and I like to speak up for them.
Yeah.
So when it comes to— so something I've sort of always focused on, and you've talked about what you see in science, but when you turn to the Materia Medicas, which effectively is the books that are written by the herbalists to say, this is how I extracted the plant, this is where I cropped it from, what environment it was in and how it was growing and the time of year and even the phase of the moon and so many other things energetically to get that then write-up of what they've then used it for and found it successful in. And I've always focused on that and worried that too many people out there are then going, but I can grow a field full of that herb with all of these fertilizers and everything else super quick. And crop it and make a huge amount of money and sell it as if it would do the same thing as they wrote about in that book. And I've always worried, is that going to be the case? So from your experience, your extensive experience, do you find that I'm over-egging that, that actually many of those herbs that are for sale generally are going to fit the picture in the materia medica? Or do you find there is a difference?
I do think that you need to be very aware of your sourcing. You know, like turmeric has a lot of heavy metal kind of adulteration depending on where it's grown. You know, there's lots of— because our soils are depleted, right? And some of them are polluted. There are super accumulators in the herbal world. You know, hemp has to— hemp is one of them. Right? Don't use any hemp that's not organic because it's pulling toxins out of the soil. So you want to be really careful with that. And you know, just our vegetables, our spinaches and our kales are super accumulators. And nettle happens to be a pretty powerful toxin drawer, you know, like it draws heavy metals and different types of constituents out of the soil. So you want, you know, young nettles, you don't want nettles that are older. It doesn't seem to transfer into the bud or the flower or the seed, but it does go to the leaves. And so yeah, I mean, I think sourcing, Brendan, I think sourcing is important. I do think that when you are looking for herbs, you know, some herbs aren't grown in the same country as you are, right? But there are herbs that can be replacements for other herbs as well. You know, there's many, many alternatives to turmeric. Although I do love turmeric, but I like the companies that are testing. I like the companies that, you know, like I mentioned Fido's Bone Broth, right? Fido's Bone Broth is a really cool little company because I'm not talking about herbs here, but they test their bones for metals. You know, bones are full of metals, of heavy metals. And we've just kind of, you know, we've kind of messed up our planet in that, in that department, 'cause it's so polluted. You know, people talk about global warming. I think they should stop talking about global warming and talk about pollution.
Totally agree with you.
You know, like, I think like the global warming conversation could be much more powerful in that what we're talking about is pollution and we need clean water, we need clean air. And with those two things, you know, bye-bye global warming conversation, let's just clean up the planet. I mean, you can't deny pollution no matter where you are.
Even when the herbs are picked is important, like the time of year. Like, um, even the sheer fact of the force of growth in spring and summer dilutes everything in the plant. And so, yeah, if you were wondering about the heavy metal content of any, any heavy metal pullers like, um, nettle or spirulina out in the pond or whatever, it's always lower in the spring and summer because the thing is growing and so it's bigger and so there's less heavy metals in it, and then in winter it stops growing, and so it just keeps on accumulating those metals and nothing's happening. So one of the reasons young plants— okay, they haven't had time to draw the heavy metals in as well, but the sheer fact that they're growing means that you dilute a lot of the baddies that are in it. So the time of year is going to change the amount of sunlight you get. I mean, nobody considers this. I'm a little bit alarmed when you say like it's important for herbal extracts and the alkaloids love alcohol. And it's way better than a water distillation or whatever the other term was. I'm kind of— I trust that the person I buy my herbal tinctures off for liver and kidney disease and whatever have thought of all that, because how am I possibly going to know these things when I'm buying my herbal product for my dog?
Well, yeah, I mean, if someone's selling an herbal product for dog, if they're selling a chelidonium tincture to the public that's coming for animals, that would not be a good thing in my opinion. But there are a lot of herbal remedies out there that in my opinion are not safe. You know, there's different plants that are really hard on the liver. And you know, we all have, we have to process everything. Our dogs have to process everything that goes in them and on them. And so for the most part, you know, for the most part, but it, I think that, you know, the places where we get our herbs is important. Local, you know, local is awesome. People that are growing their things and also, you know, naturalized plants and wildcrafted plants, as long as you're not taking too many. I mean, you know, Ireland and England's climate is much like where I am and you can find, you know, blackberry leaf and nettle and plantain, like, just crazy amounts everywhere. And there's a lot of plants that are right outside people's doors that are excellent for them and for their dogs. They just need to know how to identify them. And then, you know, ask the questions for people growing the herbs. Big companies, you know, getting, storing plants on Amazon. And, you know, I don't recommend Amazon for purchasing herbs because they're stored in warehouses in weird climate conditions.
Yeah, right.
I'm not saying they don't work, you know, tea bags in the store, it's better than nothing. But yeah, I do agree with Brendan in that I do think it's a factor. Will it work? Yes, most likely, but not as good. And we don't want to give our dog something that's at a detriment.
Yeah.
Which companies do you like to use? Yeah, you're not advertising, it's just, just Just basically, if you went into your herb room and you looked on the racks, which companies would we see if we saw?
Well, most of the stuff I grow myself.
Oh, good for you.
Oh, posh.
For my store. However, here in the United States, I love Mountain Rose Herbs, O'Shala Farms, Oregon's Wild Harvest. I love to give people local herbalists. Like, there's a lot of herbs actually herbalists on Etsy where you can ask questions. You can go to their website, you can find their websites because it's hard to find people's websites, but people, and they'll answer the questions. They can answer the pertinent questions. What kind of water do you use? Where do you grow it? You know, how long have you been growing? There are a lot of good herbalists on Etsy. And you know, in, I've got on the, my books website, theherbaldog.com. I, it's going to be a sourcing website. So I will have all of the sources that come in from people that have used it. Then I go check it out and then I will put it on there. So far I'm covering parts of, you know, like the UK, Canada, America, Australia. I'm working into the larger part of Europe. So I'm going to have some sourcing some kind of screen sourcing on there.
Yeah, cool. Yeah, like, like, as a, as a— so somebody can go and check and go, oh, that would suit me there, that'd be good to have it from someone that's already filtered out the crap. And so I can look at it and go, well, if Rita's put this on our website, I'm assuming that I don't need to worry if there's alcohol and alkaloids.
Uh, I would never carry a chelidonium tincture.
Yeah, so there you go. And nor would you recommend. So it's nice to have that as a resource to be able to use you for that. And look, at the start you mentioned Matthew Wood there, and Matthew Wood is obviously very influential on you. It's usually the very first one or two people that you bump into when you're making your journey into it, they're usually quite influential on you. And so Matthew Wood had said something about spirit doses, and dosage does seem— is interesting because with herbs it's like the temptation is, ah, you can take whatever you want. Prescription medicines, we're all very, very careful what we do, but with herbs people are much more lackadaisical because Well, that's just the— and yet Matthew Wood was talking about very, very small doses in some cases being really, really effective. How is that? How— talk to me about dosing.
Well, you know, the reason— the interesting thing about Matt is that he's— I mean, he's one of the best herbalists I've ever met, an intuitive herbalist. He's extremely intuitive because he knows the plant so well. The more well-indicated a plant is, the less medicine you need for sure. Okay. So, you know, if you can, like in my book, in the materia medica part, I have some what I call cofactors, right? If your dog has 15 of the 20 in that herb and the energetics are right, that herb's gonna be very powerful. But when I was starting out with dogs, I would just give a couple of drops. And I would also give some dried herbs, but like a couple of drops in the mouth, rubbed on the gums. And I would just see amazing results. And I was like, this can't be real. This is like, ah, it can't be. Cause I'm, you know, my brain's pharmaceutically trained, you know, more is better and blah, blah, blah. And so when I read Matt Wood's book, I think Seven Plants as Teachers, You know, it's quite homeopathic in nature. The book, the book is, I was blown away. I was like, okay. Cause the internet, the internet wasn't the internet we have now. It was just a website, people's website. That's it. I mean, you could hardly even buy anything on it. And I was just like, wow, you know, someone here, someone that's validating what I'm doing. Okay. I'm going to explore this more. And then, you know, then I got into infusions and dried herbs and there's a, there's a purpose for all of those things, right? You know, when you use a dried herb, you don't wanna use a dried herb when a dog's having problems of assimilating nutrients because they're not, I mean, you can use it, but I also probably would use it in conjunction with a little bit of tincture for the medicinal, not the nutritional, but the medicinal components of that plant. But yeah, I mean, it is hard to get, wrap your head around, but again, the more well-indicated, that herb is, the less medicine you're gonna need to influence the body to heal. Now, am I gonna give 3 drops of something when a dog has cancer? The answer is no. Cancer has— that means you've gotten so far down the rabbit hole that DNA is replicating in the incorrect way and it's getting damaged and cells are mutagenic and all of that stuff, right? You need a hammer. You need a hammer. I mean, you gotta, you gotta push the body to change and you gotta give it all the building blocks it needs to switch around and stop, stop messing with DNA replication. So it, it, you know, it depends on the situation, but if you're just dealing with like an inflamed bowel or IBD or IBS, either one, I don't ever use a lot of medicine. I've never had to, you know, and I know I'm talking to a couple of homeopaths that understand that when the, I hate to use the word frequency, but I'm gonna, so like the frequency of a plant matching the frequency of the disease or the condition. And when you match that frequency with a plant or homeopathic remedy, or, you know, you get the building blocks that the, the body needs to heal, it heals. And it's fabulous and it's miraculous. And it's found somewhere between, um, researched medicine and anecdotal evidence. You know, there is so much gray area in healing where, um, you know, the stuff in my book is things that are, you know, my mentors, the, the information that I've learned from other people mapping human herbalism onto canine physiology and trying it over and over and over again to find out what has worked the most. And so my book is a lot of anecdotal evidence, but it's also, I have a lot of research evidence in there as well, but it's stuff that's been replicated and continues to be replicated over and over and over again. I don't think I don't need a double-blind study to tell me that blackberry works.
There's definitely been, uh, I totally agree, it's just like, uh, um, anecdotal, you know, without data. But it's like, all that means is that one person said it. But if 2 or 3 people said it, it's no longer anecdotal, it's actually data. 3 people have said it, 4 or 5 people, 10 herbalists agree that this thing does this. That is data. And they want to say it's not because they want to keep evidence-based, pharmaceutical-driven, you know, RCTs, randomized controlled trials, enormously expensive and laborious and time-consuming to do, not something we the plebs can do. And that's the way they want us. They want to remove your ability to say, I know this would be good, this is anti-proliferative or anti-tumor, I know it is, I've seen the studies, there's 50 studies on that plant showing it is, and it's already done. So I think they want to remove that and say people like you who have been doing it for decades, I mean, they want to tell you that that is not valuable, but of course it is. If we listen to the anecdotal data for the last few years, we probably would have got a lot more things right than we did. So yeah, the whole anecdotal thing is, is an utter nonsense that came in 80 years ago. The whole medicine was herbology and homeopathy up until whatever it was, the early 19th century. That's what it was. That's what everybody used. To say that all that experience is utterly irrelevant and incorrect, it's just, it's just obviously wrong. I think we're coming around to that now a lot. I think the West is slowly coming around to, to that idea.
I think so too.
I've got another question then, because I would love it when you talk about resonance, because I'm obviously a homeopath as well. Um, but, uh, when it comes to resonance, and you talked about a little bit earlier about how you reflect on people using herbs which grow locally to them. And I guess when we're talking pets, we're talking for those herbs that grow locally to them. How much do you look at the resonance, which is about their locale? For many people who are looking through your book and are novices and maybe haven't had a consultation, and they're trying to look and say, I want to use a herb that's anti-inflammatory for the bowel, I'm going to use this, and, you know, I can— I now have listened to the book and I'm going to use something that's grown locally to me, versus you as a professional herbalist looking at making sure that that herb is resonant with them. It doesn't matter where they've come from, it's more about is the herb right for that individual case. Is there a lot of work going into that? That area, that you've got to look at the pet individually for their resonance rather than just looking at where they come from?
Yeah, absolutely, Brendan. That's my biggest thing. You know, my shtick is dogs are individuals. And when you individualize herbal medicine, which makes it more difficult, right? But the results are better. You know, when I, when I like took on energetics in my practice When I learned about energetics, it blew my mind. It made me go down some crazy dark rabbit holes, but it blew my mind in that, you know, you have a palette and it's, it's those plants are gonna resonate with a dog. Like if you give a dog that is cold, okay. So, you know, they were born nice and cool, but you know, we gave them antibiotics and then we gave them Apoquel and then they're feeding a poor kibble diet. Filled with corn gluten meal and things like that. And they're getting more inflammation and they're heading towards being cold and being cold is a disease state. And so if you give them an herb like gentian, which is a cold herb, they're gonna lose capacity. They're gonna, they're gonna get so puny. And with cold dogs, the vital force is in so much trouble. It just starts to distinguish itself where as a hot dog, is going to burn out, right? The vital force is gonna be too much. It's gonna be like a volcano. Whereas a cold dog just starts to become very puny, lethargic, and just kind of extinguish itself. And gentian is gonna give it a push in that direction. And it, it's gonna be like, yeah, I'm cold. And that herb has no business in a, in a cold dog. And so learning about the energetics of herbs is so important as far as I'm concerned. And the energetics is about consistency. It's not about the one-off, right? There's a little gentian in a treat, right? That the dog got at the bank. It is, it is giving something every single day to an organism, right? And it's not resonating at all. It's far from resonating with that animal. And that just, oh, like my protocols went from pretty good to phenomenal when I started looking at dogs as an individual and looking at resonance of and how well indicated an herb was. And resonance is part of that figuring out if it is indicated. right? You know, this isn't a dog, but this is a really good example of a human. Okay. There's a really great company out here called, I think it's called Cellcore. Cellcore. I think it's called Cellcore in the United States. And they have this, they have this parasite remedy and a client of mine took it, didn't say anything, just took it. And lost the use of their legs. They have multiple sclerosis and they're a cool person. They're cold. And they took this remedy. When I looked at it, I said, well, what have you started? He's like, I can't even stand up to cook an egg. And I was like, what can you, what did you just, what did you do? Is anything new? Like, what is happening? And he's like, well, I went to my functional medicine doctor and I got this great he thinks I have a parasite. And so I had started taking it. I said, well, let me look it up. And I looked it up and it was so, it was such a cold remedy. Everything was cold in it, you know, give or take maybe 1 or 2 herbs. I'm like 23. I'm just paraphrasing here, but I'm like 23 of these herbs are cool or cold. And I said, and it's got good amount of gentian in it. I said, get off that herb. And let's see what happens in the next 5 days. And sure enough, he stopped the herb. He gained control of his legs. He wasn't freezing all the time. And that's what I'm talking about. Like that formula did not resonate with him at all. And it may be for that purpose. And, you know, he may have had a parasite, but those aren't the herbs for him to, to control that parasite or get rid of it.
That's cool. Your book, your book deals with this, Rita. Your book explains this and walks you through this process of trying to identify, even like, because I'm still a little bit, a little bit confused on all that. When you mention hot and cold and like, what if I see an inflamed dog? Surely that's a hot dog.
No, no.
Is that a cold dog?
Here, here's something cool. So I had a, a client last year that had this little, uh, French Bulldog Okay. And from looking at the dog, you would say, oh, that dog is hot, right? The skin was on fire. Just, you know, everything is red. It's super hot. And of course they were giving cooling herbs, cooling herbs, lots of cooling herbs. And I took a look at the dog and I was like, no, this is the body building heat because it's so cold. So stop that. Start giving ginger 3 times a day. Give turmeric, ginger, cinnamon. Let's just calendula. Let's warm this dog up. And within 2 weeks, his skin was starting, or his fur was starting to grow back. It wasn't hot to the touch. All the redness was dissipating because when the body is so cold, it will start producing what's called false heat. And it pushes it out to the periphery. So, you know, it's warming the core and radiating out. And so, it's interesting. You got to be careful with heat on the surface. A lot of times it is dogs that are too hot.
So, what was the giveaway with this little Frenchie that told you it was a cold dog trying to generate heat?
Because the cooling foods and cooling herbs weren't doing anything. And that was it.
That's how you did it. Yeah, there's loads of cooling and it wasn't doing it, so you thought, if it's not— if that's not working, we've got to go the other way.
Yeah, and the herbs will tell you what's working, what's not working. Yeah, the cooling foods weren't working, the cooling herbs weren't working, and the dog was getting worse. Yeah, you know, and, and that's the thing, like, he was getting much worse quickly.
Well, what about the constitution of the dog? That, like, if you said to the owner, okay, before the, the skin took off, would— were they— did they tend to like to be cool, or did they tend to like to be hot? Yeah, because if you like to be hot, you're cold and you like the warmth. If you, if you like the cold, you're hot and you like to be cool.
Yes. And a lot of people have that conversation.
Yeah.
Yes. And a lot of people think that changes And it doesn't, except for I have seen it change with certain pharmaceuticals because they're a hammer. And with splenectomies.
Oh, the Chinese wouldn't be surprised at that, I guess.
Yeah. So like when you remove the spleen, you're allowing a lot of cold to come into the system. And sometimes the splenectomy will balance itself out, you know, after like a year or two, the dog will go go back to being what it was before the splenectomy. But I've seen it just remain cold. I've seen dogs remain cold that were pretty warm before that. But you know, when you start removing organs, you're causing damage to that ecosystem. You know what I'm saying? I mean, that's a whole different ballgame. And steroids, steroids can have an effect because you're shutting down the system, right? If you've grabbed the lever and pulled it down. So some, you know, I've been looking at different, like, energetics of dogs that are on these new drugs for a long period of time.
But that's amazing.
Yeah.
Can gut flora dysbiosis shift your kind of heating and cooling status?
I haven't seen it. You know, they shift personality for sure, uh, reactivity and behavior, uh, immune health. But I haven't seen them switch the energetic of the dog. I— that's not something—
that's sort of interesting because you have mentioned in the past about when you eat fermented foods that that can change.
It definitely can. It adds heat.
Yeah.
So fermented foods really, you know, if a dog is already hot they're going to have a really low tolerance for fermented foods. Now it doesn't mean you can't give them, because a lot of people think you got to give just like this truckload of ferments, right? No, you like literally an eighth of a teaspoon for a pug can be a big, make a big difference a few times a week in the gut without adding too much heat for a hot pug, right? I like pugs, you know that. So like, you do. Yeah, I do. But you know, it, yes. So what you're saying, Brendan, is, or like, I think you're saying it's the same thing. Like if you add gentian to a dog that's cold, you're gonna make him colder. And if you add ferments nonstop to a dog that's hot, you're gonna make them hotter. You know, when you ferment something that's already cool, like pork, then it's just going to be a little warmer version of pork. So, you know, if you're going to give ferments, give something that's a little cooler or the fermented beef or fermented vegetables that are like—
this would be a great lesson, wouldn't it, for all of those food companies out there that are adding herbs or ferments to foods?
Most of them are warm.
What the meat base is.
Yeah, yeah.
That's what I'm thinking. I've been thinking that for the last 10 or 15 minutes.
What if you are—
hang on a second. One second, guys, we're at 19:45, so let me ask this last little bit, that's on the heat and cool, we can talk about different topics inside and we just jump to a different platform just for 15 minutes, Rita. If you have clearly a hot dog and you're using your book, you get some ideas and you think this is a hot dog, would food from the fridge cool them down? And similarly, if you have a cool dog, would nice warm food be preferred by the dog?
So in my opinion, food— I don't feed cold food. I think feeding cool, cooling, energetically cooling vegetables like cucumber is a good idea. But feeding cold food, a dog that's hot is going to be more tolerant to it, but it still does, in my opinion, mess with digestion. You know, it puts out that stomach fire and And I think dogs, healthy dogs have a good level of enzymes and it takes up so much more energy to break down the cold food and especially frozen food. Like I don't give frozen food to any dogs. And I know people don't appreciate that opinion every now and then, but if they really truly understand how the body works as an ecosystem, you wouldn't do it. And dogs in the wild and animals in the wild will eat frozen carcass, but it's not their preference.
Yeah, it's not by choice. I'd imagine they'd like it off a hot plate.
I mean, who doesn't?
Well, at least warm, right?
Yeah, warm, of course. Body temperature is surely a thing that turns them on. Of course it is.
However, my Labrador will steal frozen blocks of food to eat.
It's a Labrador, Glen.
It'll steal frozen chews. It probably eats it all too. But, you know, yeah, I'm not saying they don't enjoy it. I'm just saying that Yeah, I don't think it consistently— everything is for me is about consistency, like consistently feeding frozen or super cold food I don't do. Yeah, but yes, to answer your question, a dog who's pretty hot would be more tolerant to it of the overall net energetic that is going to be left in their body.
That's cool. When we jump over to the next thing, guys, I want to talk to— or if we could lymphatics. What are they? Why should we care? You have designated a lot of time to it, and it's an eye-opener. I can't say I thought much about them. You made me think about them a few years ago when I was chatting to you, and so we'll get stuck into that now in a little bit. What were you going to say, Brent?
Before Nick rounds up, I just want to say to Iro D, who's on YouTube asking the question about how do I learn more, of course there's loads in this wonderful book. But please do, if you are impatient for the release of that, you can't wait 2 weeks, there is a great website by Rita, The Canine Herbalism. There are lots of subjects on there, lots of different courses, so much information. I have been amazed. I love the cancer one. I want to talk more on the other side, not about just lymphatics but about a little bit about cancer. So when we do the bit on the side, if you're interested, we're going to talk about that and The dangers of taking organs out without support. So we can talk a bit about that. But I also like to say to people, just if you want to join a flash sale from Rita, you can follow this website. You will be able to use this code especially in order to get 50% off this course. So I believe that is available now till the end of the month. So if you want to be quick, get in there. Um, some great stuff on phytoembryonics. I found that really exciting, actually.
And I would like to ask you about phytoembryonic therapy because that's, that's a phrase that I've never come across before. So if we can do a little bit about that on Patreon, I'd be really grateful.
I Googled when I saw it and I thought, oh, okay.
So there you go. That's wonderful. I Thank you so much, Rita. It's been an amazing three-quarters of an hour as usual, and we have got yet more over on a bit on the side for patreon.com. Join us over there at Raw Pet Medics. I'll get my words out. And we look forward to seeing you over there. For everyone else, we look forward to seeing you on our Q&A next week, which will be all about avian flu.
Yes, yeah, avian influenza.
If you want to know what your companies are doing and whether they are testing or not, on what the ins and outs are, is it necessary, are they going to see it anyway? So join us next week, we will talk all about that. Wonderful to see you all, thanks for everyone watching on Facebook, both here and across the pond, thank you for everybody on YouTube, it's been a great pleasure seeing you, thank you again Rita, wonderful.
Thank you Rita, we'll jump
