Why Your Dog Is Getting Sicker — And What Nature Can Do About It | Rita Hogan, Canine Herbalist

Welcome to the Wellness Sherpa Podcast, where we engage with passionate leaders, holistic thinkers, and disruptors who courageously share their personal journey, mission, and wisdom with you. Together, we create a safe space to empower you to live your best, most vital life. Thanks for being here. I am so, so excited to have One of my dearest friends, soul sisters, the wonderful Rita Hogan here today. And she is known as the Canine Herbalist, although she works with more than just dogs. She also works with people and occasionally cats, horses, what else? Any kind of animal. She's an animal lover extraordinaire.

Yeah.

And she has a bestselling book called The Herbal Dog.

Oh. There it is. It's always near me. It's always near me.

Well, we have it in PDF. We have it kind— we have it everywhere. And Lou has a copy. I mean, we have Rita Hogan everywhere in our house. So I'm just— thank you for saying yes, for being here amidst your busy schedule. And we're going to have a fun conversation today.

Absolutely. Love it.

So Rita, what the heck's going on with our animals today?

Um, you know, I was answering someone's question yesterday about if I had to leave one message with people, and I was thinking, and you know, our dogs aren't broken. They're responding to the environment that we have put them in. And that, and you know, I was thinking about, okay, what other messages would I like to leave people? And is that a, you know, an 8-year-old dog isn't geriatric. It's responding to the environment that we've put them in. Right. And, um, people, people are frustrated and it's not just, you know, when we talk about dogs, we're not talking about dogs. We're talking about people. We're talking about animals in general. Like the more we try to control our environment, the worse it gets.

And, um, So what does that mean exactly?

Tell me a little bit more. You know, the more we try to run away from nature, you know, run away from nature. You know, I'm a— it really has built up with sensational journalism and just reporting things that, that, you know, the negative, not the positive, is that people are afraid of nature. They're literally afraid that if they go for a walk in the woods, they're going to die. You know, for example, this is a perfect human example. So here in this Pacific, uh, Pacific Northwest, right? We don't have ticks hardly at all. There's hardly any ticks here yet, but there's hardly any ticks. So, uh, was on a board the other day and a woman found a tick on herself, right? She literally went the next day and got doxycycline.

Wow.

Okay. Started taking it. So didn't wait for symptoms. Didn't send that tick out. You can send a tick out to a lab, pay $60, and they can tell you if that tick is a Lyme-infected tick, if it is an Anaplasmosis tick, if it has Babesia, Bartonella, you know, and the thing is, is it can tell you what what infections it's carrying and tell you what you need to, you know, and then they can tell you, well, this is what you need to look at. But instead of fortifying her inner terrain, instead of mainlining mushrooms or phytoembryonic therapy or natural remedies, she immediately, she was so afraid and she was very afraid. And I felt bad for her. I got, I got to the party a little late, cause I would've said, don't do that. You know, but instead of developing symptoms, she just assumed, she basically felt she was gonna, you know, I'm gonna die. I'm gonna get this debilitating Lyme from this one tick bite and it's gonna be over. And all of these things are coming at us and what we have to do, whether you're a human, you're a dog, you're a cat, we have to fortify the inner terrain because We're spending so much time in our houses and dogs are not meant to spend this much time on the couch. They're not moving their lymphatic system. They're not getting rid of congestion and stagnation like they should. And so they need extra help and not— so not only are we keeping them in the house extraordinary, an extraordinary amount of time, a lot of times we're not giving them what they need to help move things while they're living this sedentary life and to fortify their bodies. And, you know, and our first go-to is Western medicine, whereas Western medicine can definitely save your life, right? But it's not your go-to when you're trying to fight off an infection. You know, it, it, it's not going to do that for you. Um, and when it does, it, it comes at a huge cost. And sometimes you need that. Like, you know, if, if a dog has an upper lung infection that's affecting their sinuses and they can't breathe, like they have pneumonia, that's going to be a hard one. In time, the window is going to close. And so you need a steroid to help keep things from happening that you know, a normal dog would die and we don't want that. So we need to know like when to use that bridge. But then we also need to figure out why did the dog get pneumonia in the first place.

Right.

And there's usually, it's usually food, a drug that it has been taken or something in the home like mold or just kind of a high toxin environment, Glade plugins, you know, certain types of things that, my favorite new one is scent extenders. What is that? That's, um, a little cap of white beads that you put in your laundry that makes your clothes smell horrendous for about 12 days.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah, it, they're horrendous. And all of those things are toxins in our body. And so, um, when people, a lot of people, when they have a dog and they say, You know, I don't, I don't know it. You know, she has cancer and I don't understand how we got here, you know. And so I go through and yep, now we understand why we got there. It's nobody's fault. It's just that people don't know what to do. And the biggest thing is organ health. You know, I am on the organ health train right now. It, it just, it is nervous system is number one, you know, and nervous lymphatics, nervous lymphatics, liver, gut, liver, gut. And the cool thing about dealing with those four things with like either PSCs or herbs or homeopathy is that a lot of the remedies that deal with them also deal with the heart, the kidney, you know, musculoskeletal system. They don't just do one thing. They, you know, unlike political conversations, they reach over the aisle and they're like, yeah, I'm not gonna do just this one thing. I am going to go over to the heart and help the heart. I'm gonna go over to the kidneys and help it filter better. And that's what I love about plants. They're intelligent and as you know, and as you and I both know, they carry their own light. Yes. And chlorophyll, you know, the, the, the hertz of chlorophyll, like the frequency of chlorophyll is life.

And so, um, and the PSCs are abundant in that. Many herbs are.

Yes. And, and anytime that you bring light into your body, um, you're going to benefit and your dogs are gonna benefit. So, um, yeah, I mean, those are the things that, those are the things that I deal with every day with people and trying to, get them to understand that yes, we have ear infections and yes, your dog has a skin infection, or your dog has a skin issue or a blocked anal gland or whatever you want to say. But what it— we have to take a step back instead of chasing symptoms. You know, people just want the symptom to go away and they want to get back to their normal everyday life. But the issue is, is when we chase symptoms, we never get better. We have to go back.

Yeah, because we never know where it started.

Yes.

Right.

And it always starts in the nervous system, the lymphatic system, the liver, and the gut. That's where disease starts. So if you go back and start really working with these system, systems, things start to go away and they start to fall into place. And I think that both you and I in our perspective, you know, worlds, our little niches, right? Are trying to help people understand that in a simple way, that it doesn't have to be complicated.

Right.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah. So the impact— animals are dying, what, 7 years earlier than they did 20 years ago or so? I read that.

More than 7.

More than 7. And that's because of the kibble, the food, which is very dehydrating. Right. Yeah.

So 20 years ago, I had never met a dog with cancer. And I remember, I think it was 2005, 2005 or 2006. And I boarded this little wiener dog. It was so cute. And he was a little, you know, he had a little gray on his face, but he was, he was much older. I think he was like 14, 15. And, um, he had, uh, anal carcinoma. And I was like, oh my God. Like I've never met a dog with cancer before. You know, and that was like 2005. And now 20 years ago, it's just two decades. We have went from hardly ever happening to 1 in 4 dogs will die of cancer under the age of 10. And 1 in 2 dogs will die of cancer over the age of 10. And it could be worse than that. And that's, that's what's so crazy. And so, um, One of the— I mean, there are a few factors that are affecting everyone's health. One in particular to dogs specifically is spay and neuter. You know, we have been conditioned, and I remember when I was fully on this bandwagon because I was doing rescue and I was fully on the bandwagon. And I understand in a rescue situation, I understand this. I still don't think we should be spay and neutering our dogs under a year of age. But, um, I didn't know, understand, and I didn't even stop to think. I just was like, well, this is what they recommend. So it must be. It never made sense to me though. Why would we take out the organs that they were born with? Like, that's weird, you know, but spay and neuter is huge in disease implications because, uh, like neuter, let's say a Great Dane, you neuter a Great Dane at 6 months of age, you're basically almost guaranteeing them that they're going to die of osteosarcoma.

Wow.

Because their growth plates don't close. And, um, because the hormones dictate that. Hormones dictate everything in the body. So you're taking, you're ripping out, you know, you're ripping out a quarter of their endocrine system. No one, you know, everyone's worried about the incision. Like, well, I hope the incision doesn't get infected. What we need to worry about besides the incision is What can I do to help the nervous system and the endocrine system? How can I support this with now? Yes. On Wednesday, they, you know, the hormones were stopping luteinizing hormone from, from causing too much disruption. And now there's no shutoff valve. So it's just flooded with luteinizing hormone and it's causing all of these problems. What can I do to help that? And we're not getting any skills in that, in that area. And osteosarcoma, hemangiosarcoma, those are two that are absolutely huge in dogs right now. They're killers. And, um, yes, there's things you can do for sure, but they're killers. And lots of lymphoma in dogs and that's environmental as well as hormonal. So a huge environmental component, uh, glyphosate, Roundup on the, on the yards using pesticides and herbicides to kill nature. In your yard.

Right.

You know, right. Like, not only are you not bringing nature inside your home, you're also killing it around your home and making your home as toxic as it possibly can, you know. And so, um, these are big issues with dogs and they're causing cancer. Uh, so spay and neuter, and then over-vaccination. Our dogs, and now It's coming up on our horses. Our dogs are one of the only species on the planet that get vaccinated yearly for everything.

And that rabies is wicked.

Yeah, the rabies is wicked. It is required by law. So, and you can do things to prepare for the rabies, you know, but there's also all of these other vaccines Bordetella, you know, parvo, distemper, leptospirosis, and even the Lyme vaccine, which is not on the human market, right? Because of the toxicity of it.

Right.

Some dogs are getting that every year. Bordetella multiple times a year for no reason because they have the antibodies for it and you can titer them. But it's a big portion of the veterinary income. And, um, and a lot of veterinarians, they don't know any better. That's what they've been taught, you know?

Right.

And they're busy, right? They don't have time to sit and research this and research that unless they're a research veterinarian. So I'm not going against our veterinarians. It's just that we need to think, we need to do better. And a lot of holistic veterinarians are speaking out right now about over-vaccination. So that's another one with spay/neuter. Um, and then we have, you know, flea and tick meds. Uh, those are very hard on the organ systems. And then food. So if you're feeding like bottom of the barrel kibble all the way up to normal kibble, there's a hierarchy there. So if you are feeding kibble, please be feeding a limited ingredient kibble, uh, what I would call an expensive kibble. Um, and then, um, do some research there. I have some information in my book and then And then, you know, even our dogs that are fed and our animals that are fed raw foods and cooked foods, the food themselves, you know, you need to choose organic as much as possible. And just start reading labels, you know?

Yeah.

Start reading labels. We went to the store the other day and my brother did and I, we said, you know, get some salmon. Wild salmon. He came home with 3 that were not wild. They all had added color. They had preservatives in them, you know, added color, like what, you know, they were all farmed. So I sent him back to the store to get a refund and told him to read labels. He found one fish that was prepackaged Right. I said, well, just get, just get wild salmon. We are in the Pacific Northwest. Get a wild salmon fillet. Yeah. Wild salmon should be abundant. Instead of a smoked one, we'll just, we'll just cook it. It's no problem. Sometimes it's nice to snack on it. And so he found one brand that was wild and nothing in it besides what they used to smoke it. I think brown sugar and a couple other things, but there was nothing that I couldn't read in it. It's like 4 ingredients. We can't take the label. We can't believe the label. You know, you have to turn the label around and actually read the ingredients. And as you and I know, what's sad is sometimes those ingredients don't even need to be on there. Right.

You know, sugars and everything. I remember 12 years ago getting— start when I really started reading every label and I was getting a Uh, some black beans. I'm like, there's sugar in here. Why are there, why is there sugar in black beans?

Yeah. Another, uh, little sucker that is so invasive and so persistent, and it's in everything, human and dog, and I haven't looked at other animals' food, and is citric acid. And so citric acid can come from fruit. But most of it comes from black mold. Yeah. And it's, you know, it's synthesized. It's not black mold, but it's synthesized from mold and it's not good.

Well, it's gonna have the energetic of it too, right?

Yeah. It's, it's not good. And it's in everything. Like it's in all, almost all canned vegetables, canned tomatoes, Rao's, Rao's, which is so good. Rao's does not put citric acid in their products, right? Which I sent them an email and I said, thank you so much. You're the only sauce in a— and they're in glass. You're the only sauce that I use because you, you put— you don't put citric acid in your things. Like, I try to avoid citric acid as much as possible, and it is in everything. And, um, it is. Um, and so what I tell people is email the company and ask them where their citric acid comes from, right? If they don't know, grab an article, send it to them, right? A lot of people don't know, right? You see citric acid— I speak to a lot, I do a lot of formulation, and I speak to a lot of formula people who are formulating products, and they're like, it's all natural, blah, blah, blah, blah, citric acid. And I'm like, well, where does your citric acid come from? Right. They're like, I thought it came from fruit. Uh, no. So you need to find out what is the source of citric acid. And of course the citric acid that comes from fruits, um, is more expensive, right? Of course it is. It's like folic acid. You know, folic acid is another one. Citric acid, folic acid, folic acid messes with your methylation. It messes with your liver processes. It messes with your glutathione production. And it is again, in so much for humans and so much for animals, it binds to your folate receptors in your body. And so natural folate can't be absorbed and it's not good.

Right.

And so like, and I think the information about citric acid and folic acid are coming out, folic acid more than citric acid, but you know, folic acid, folate, methylfolate, those are 3 forms of folic acid that are acceptable and good from the research, from what I know. You know, until I know better, right?

Right.

But it's really interesting when you start looking for those things, for citric acid and folic acid, and then you're just like, then you go, oh my gosh, it's in everything. It's in everything.

So the lesson is read the labels, know what your pets are actually ingesting.

Yes.

Get into nature. Don't be afraid of nature.

Don't be afraid of nature, get out there. And there's lots of things you can do to protect yourself from ticks. I have a tick course right now and I'm having such a blast with, with everyone putting this tick course together, cuz there's so many things you can do that people just don't, don't realize for humans and animals, as well as natural protocols for Lyme and co-infections. But you still, even if you're walking on a gravel path, with trees on both sides. That's good enough. You know, you don't have to go hug a tree, right? You don't have to go sit on mossy ground if you don't want to, right? But out in nature. Yeah. Why wouldn't we? Oh, go ahead.

No, go ahead.

And then I want to ask, I was going to say something, you know, a lot of people that listen to me and I sure you, I'm sure you get this all the time, Jennifer, is that they'll say, well, you have to die of something.

Yeah.

Right.

Oh yeah.

Well, that's just crazy. You know, I can't live like that. Once you start to get a rhythm and understand that whole food doesn't have those things, you know, processed food, there are some processed foods that are fine, but they're few and far between. But the, and you start communicating with companies and a lot, again, a lot of companies don't understand what things are. They're just trying to make products and they think they're doing a good job. But a lot of people will say, you know, you have to die of something. And that's fun to say until you get cancer, right? You know, until you get a horrible autoimmune disease, you know, until— there are things worse than cancer, but like until you get a— until you are diagnosed with MS, um, which is rampant right now for, for many reasons, but like it's really It's really easy to say that when you're, when you're feeling okay, right? But when you're diagnosed with something like cancer, you don't say that anymore, right? It's you right in square in the face, as we all know. And so I think it's important that we little by little, step by step, baby steps for sure, start making choices for a healthy life. And there's nothing better than health.

Yeah, I mean, it gives you life, right? It's your, your energy, your vital force. Embrace it, love it.

And your movement in your body. Do you know what I mean? And there's nothing that— nothing feels better than feeling great. I'm sorry. Yeah, but it really, it really does.

So, well, let's talk about the animal-human connection because you were featured in our documentary And one of the things you talk about is how if a pet has anxiety, most likely its human steward has anxiety. So talk about that connection, how that happens, and how do you work with, with the animal and the person in that case?

So the reason why I always stabilize the nervous system first is from that connection. Um, you know, our dogs are hardly ever more than 10 feet away from us when we're home, right? They're always near us unless we shut the door and, you know, have some alone time. But most of the time they're laying on us, they're near us, they're on the floor right under our feet, they're in the kitchen with us, they're everywhere. And we share our heart space and our— we share electrons with them, we share our microbiomes with them. So they will take on our feelings. The HeartMath Institute has done some work, some research on this. They will take on our emotions. If we're stressed, they're stressed. You can pretty much guarantee it. They smell our stress. You know, people are so stressed right now. We're walking around, we're smelling like cortisol and adrenaline. We're giving off a frequency of being unsafe. And dogs are— that is an innate need in their lives to be safe, right? And if they're constantly going into fight or flight while you are, um, that's a problem because it allows— like, pathogens are opportunistic, and so it allows pathogens to take over their body and wreak havoc because their immune system isn't working, their microbiome is changing, because when you're in fight or flight your liver's not working well, your lymphatics isn't working well, everything goes to the heart and muscles. And it's also very hard on the heart and muscles. I mean, I just, I equate it to a generator, you know, like when the, when the power goes out, you get a generator, right? And it's just a minimal, it keeps certain things on. You got a low light level, you know, everything is just kind of, let's just get through this till the power gets turned back on, right? And that's basically fight or flight. Um, and people are so stressed and I've seen so many dogs just really take on everything. Oh my God. After COVID or during COVID dogs were a mess. They were so stressed out. And then their parents went back to work and even more stress. Uh, we're still working on cleaning that up right now. And, um, I think people don't understand. I think they take for granted that maybe a dog is just, you know, It's a dog. It's, it's fine. It's playing with its bone. It's doing whatever. No, it's totally interacting with your smell and making sure that you're safe and taking on those emotions that you can't seem to handle. Um, and there's a lot of good research on that out there. And so how do we work with that? Our plant allies are some of the best. Um, essential oils, not, um, just self-selection with dogs. Works wonders, you know, offering them certain oils like Copaíba. That one is really great. Helichrysum, another really wonderful oil to offer. They'll let you know, you know, they'll turn away. There's, there's definitely some, some—

they don't like the citruses very well or the mints typically.

Oh, really? Well, I've seen a lot of them. If they're— if, if that's what they need, they'll select it. But also, like, if you don't have the skills for that, PSCs, Linden, Passionflower, Valerian. I love Hawthorn. Hawthorn in general will help so much get dogs out of fight or flight and create more heart rate variability. And, and that's some gobbledygook talk for how fast they can get themselves out of fight or flight where they shake it off. Hawthorn helps a lot with that. But you know, there is the passion flowers and the California poppies and all of those I think do really well in their mature plant form, in their PSC form, at dealing with stress. Rhodiola, I, you know, I have to talk about the Rhodiola PSC. Okay.

Yeah. PSC, plant stem cell.

Yes. I'm sorry. Plant stem cell. Okay. Sorry. The Rhodiola phytoembryonic therapy is such a wonderful remedy for dogs that are more hot. But also for any, any on the scale dogs that are cool to, I would say healthy, cool to very warm. And you can, if you don't know what we're talking about, check out my book, The Herbal Dog, but either way, Doesn't matter. Energetics doesn't matter right now. That Rhodiola remedy is so wonderful because as an herbalist, Rhodiola is endangered. It's critically endangered and making a phytoembryonic therapy of Rhodiola allows Rhodiola to finish its life cycle. So it gives us, it's like homeopathy where it gives us access to that plant medicine where as an herbalist, I am not gonna choose mature Rhodiola anymore. I'm not gonna choose that plant. But I use the PSC all the time, all the time. It is such a great adaptogen. It is a wonderful adaptogen. It works, it works really well when you mix it. I love the mixture of Schisandra berry and the Rhodiola PSC, the phytoembryonic. It's beautiful for so many dogs. Um, the schizandra kind of balances out the energy, uh, when it's more inappropriate for certain dogs. I, I can use it with almost any dog and any person pretty successfully. Um, and you just get this, like, I take it myself, but you get this ability to just handle the stress better and you find yourself over, and it's not, it's not dramatic, the shift, you're like, I can't believe I didn't react to that. You know, I normally get very angry when my son does that, right? Or whomever, when I should say my mother, you know, when my mother does this, but God, I feel so chill. Right. And I really do think it's the frequency of the plant stem cell extract that's really doing that, you know, and it is just phenomenal. And I've been wanting to tell you that for so long, you know, you know, I love maize. I love maize.

Yes. But the maize in, yeah. Oh my gosh.

But I love mace, but there's so many, you know, Mountain Pine is my heart remedy. I love it so much, not for my actual heart, but it is my, it is my, I would say my familiar in the plant stem cell line. And then Rhodiola is really coming up. I would say it's fighting with Oriental Plain for, you know, my attention. But it's just been a game changer for so many dogs and people that I've worked with. And, you know, I'm training other people to really appreciate it as well. And I just love it.

You always use the same remedy for the person and the animal, or do you swap it?

A lot of times, yes.

Okay.

You know, or I love flower essences, and I will always give that person— like, just by talking with someone and doing a Zoom with them, I can tell if they're stressed, you know. And there's a lot of shame around being stressed. You know, especially with women.

And we're all in it.

I deal with a ton of women. And we're all in it. What?

We're all in it.

There's no way not to be stressed right now, right? There's no way. But it's how you react. How much do you react? And the thing is, is that, you know, I had a woman say, well, you know, my dog's not stressed and this dog has terrible acid reflux. And I know I've been doing this for so long. This is stress-related acid reflux. Okay. And so it— there's no shame in it. We just need things to manage our stress, and we all need stress management. I don't care who you are. I don't care if you are a monk meditating 8 hours a day, right? You still need something for the stress because our planet is under stress. There's a frequency of stress. Yeah.

And there are a couple of things. One is, you know, I learned this when I worked with the grandmothers that we aren't wired to know what's going on around the other half of the world, right? We are, we are local by design, like what's the tribe doing, what's going on in our space, but we shouldn't know that there's a war going on, right? And because we know that, it stresses us. So these stressors are coming from places that we're not designed to know about, carry, hold, and yet we're all holding it, right?

Number one, we're all holding it.

And number 2, it's really about the inner state, right? You use the word terrain. There's a physical terrain, but there's also the emotional terrain. And they're like that, and they are right on top of each other, totally interconnected. And how, you know, so one of the things, one of my practices in the morning is, what am I doing to create inner peace today? Right? Because you can feel it. You can feel the rushing to the next meeting, to pick up the kids, to, you know, take care of the mother, all the things.

Yes, all the things. And you're 100%— you are so right on. That is absolutely right on. There's— and I love that the grandmothers, uh, talked about that because, you know, the 24-hour news cycle is just so terrible for, um— we're not meant to do that. And yes, once we know something then we want— or feel responsible for it, and we also feel like we have to fix it, right? You know, um, and we worry about it, right?

So it affects—

we worry about it, right?

It affects all the organs. Going back to how you started, Rita, is organ health is where it's at. And all of those— that's where the organs hold all these emotions, right? If you look at Chinese medicine, yes, you're worrying about what's going on, it's affecting our kidneys.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know if you have ever gotten— so I sign it, I sign— well, my assistant does, but we sign a lot of petitions, right? That's one thing I can do. I can sign petitions, and I love to hear back when my petition, you know, it won its case in court or something like that. But I don't know if you have ever gotten an image on an email of an animal suffering or something horrible happening, right? I'm always thinking Who's taking the photo?

Right.

I always think about that. It immediately goes in there. Number 2, my day used to be ruined. I couldn't shake that off, Jennifer. It just, it would just devastate me and I'd be so stressed out that day thinking about that poor animal and the situation and feeling completely helpless and stuff. And now I just don't. Like, I clean my email on my phone so that I do not have to see the images. I don't clean my email on my desktop anymore. Um, and that is one of the reasons to bring down my stress. I will forward a petition to get signed, but if you send me an image like that, I'm not going to sign anything. I'm deleting it. I, I— it's, it's just not conducive for health, right? Do you know what I mean? It's not conducive for health. And I think that, um, I think that's something to, to— like, when I— when we do stress assessments with people, like, how much are you looking at graphic images? How much are you taking on globally? And what is your balance? Like, if you are— if you're doing something globally, good for you. But how are you balancing out that stress?

Right.

You know, and the grandmothers knew that we are— we are a community-based organism. Without community— and I think a lot of people learned that during COVID— without community, we we shave off years and years of our lives.

Yeah, we suffer and we suffer too.

Yeah. That's why I love going to Italy because I love the lifestyle there. I love the lifestyle in Ireland. You feel when I go to Ireland and small countries like Italy and different places, you feel even if you're traveling, you feel like part of the community when you're there.

You know, that's why they live so long. I mean, you look at the Italians, they don't eat healthy. They drink a lot, a lot of coffee, pastries, pasta, right? A lot of carbs goes against what we talk about with insulin and blood sugar. And yet they live a long time because they have a sense of community and they don't really take on stress. That's what I notice.

They laugh.

Our partner Vito, like, if something goes awry, He's like, ah, damn, let's go have a coffee. You know, it's just like, okay, something bad happened. Let's go. Let's just go have a coffee and change the energy, you know? And they just don't. And we're like, oh my God, look at what happened, right? That reaction, overreaction. And then we get all— we stress ourselves and become big stress balls.

And they also take a lot of hours of the day to chill out. They chill out for like 3 to 4 hours a day. And I mean, well, you don't have to chill out, but I mean, you can't find something to eat in Italy between 3 and 5 o'clock, right? Like everything just shuts down. And I love— when I was there, I was like, God, this sucks. But I'm like, you know what? I'm going to go chill out.

Yeah.

I'm going to do what the Italians are doing. But it's very, very important and it can't be overemphasized, I don't think.

Yeah.

With our animals and with ourselves. And I, you know, I'll close it with this. So a few weeks ago, I was all by myself at my house. My partner was out of town. Everyone was gone. And I didn't— I just— what I did is I didn't do any electronics that weekend. I was reading. I was sitting on the couch with my animals. We went outside. We played with— played in the yard. We came back in. And the interesting thing that I noticed was how my dogs and my cats were interacting with me. And I even— I texted Heather and I said, oh my God, I had the best day. At the end of the day, I said I had the best day with Carl and Oscar. They're my cats. And I said they were all over me like butter, like they were— couldn't get enough of me, which isn't the, the norm because I'm always, you know, doing this and doing that, right? Yeah, and, um, it was amazing. Like, I felt like we had this, like, new relationship. And even my dogs, my dogs were so much more interactive. They weren't just laying around. They were really interested in what I was doing. Uh, we played a lot in the yard, like I said, and it, it was very noticeable that they enjoyed me so much more. I wasn't as stressed. I wasn't on technology. You know, we did watch a show on television together, but they were— I was covered in them and it was, it was fantastic. I was like, oh my God, this is amazing. This is great. And I really knew it was because I wasn't on technology, you know.

So get off your phones, get off your computers.

Yeah.

Take downtime. Take some downtime.

And it's hard to do sometimes. You know, it is hard to do and you just have to let go of productivity. And breathe through it.

Yeah. Amazing. What a great way to end. Thank you so much. Where can people find you? Where's the best place for people to find you?

Instagram, Canine Herbalism, Facebook, Canine Herbalist, almost anywhere. Rita Hogan on LinkedIn. And then I've got a teaching platform, canineherbalism.com, and then I've got a consultancy and store at canineherbalist.com. And then my podcast is Dogs Are Individuals, anywhere you listen. And of course you can find my book in these pages.

Yes, everything. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here. I adore you. I appreciate everything you're doing in the world and who you are as a human.

Thank you so much. And oh, Jennifer, I have to tell your audience that if you do have cats, the Herbal Cat should be out by Christmas. Yes.

Can't wait. All right.

Take care.