Chamomile and Beyond

Hi, this is Rita Hogan and welcome to the Dogs Are Individuals podcast. I'm a clinical canine herbalist and I've been practicing for over 20 years. This podcast is all about your dog.

Through an herbal lens.

So let's get to it and dive right in.

Hey, everyone. Welcome back. For those of you that are listening to this in the morning, good morning. And for those of you that are listening to this in the evening, good evening, good afternoon, and all of the above. We are going to talk about chamomile today as an herb and it's just a really great herb for this time of year. And one of my shorts, I think it will be next week, is about infusions and or the next episode, it's about infusions. And I think this is a really good herb to make an infusion with for yourself and for your dog. First, I want to thank my sponsor, realmushrooms.com Real Mushrooms has just been awesome, especially for dogs in general, like that they are giving their time and energy towards producing supplements for dogs and for learning about mushrooms effects on dogs. So I really commend them for that and I love that they're a sponsor of mine. One of the mushrooms that I would recommend for this time of year, fall going into winter for, for cool dogs, is cordyceps mushroom. It's such a fabulous mushroom to give more energy, to strengthen the lungs, the kidneys, the entire body. It's definitely an adaptogenic mushroom. It's what's called a polycrest, which kind of slow but sure just fortifies the entire body. So I would highly recommend cordyceps mushroom for your dogs that are cool. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, check out my energetics course that you can learn about your dog as an individual and you will understand the whole concept of warm and cool. Okay, so let's get to it and talk about chamomile. So chamomile. If you Google chamomile, you will get these lovely messages on Google that say, hey, chamomile is toxic to dogs and it is not true. Okay? Not true. Use the species of chamomile called Matricaria chamomilia. I'm going to spell it for you. It's known as German chamomile in its common name, Matricaria chamomilia. M A T R I C A R I A C H A M O M I L L A and if you always pay attention to the Latin names of herbs, you will not get the wrong species of herb. The Common name can change according to where you are in the world, but the Latin name doesn't change. And chamomile is a polycrest herb like cordyceps. And it is cooling, it's antispasmodic, it's anti inflammatory, it's a nice gentle relaxant because it relaxes smooth muscles. Okay. It also relaxes the stomach, the gastrointestinal tract, it reduces gas, which if you've ever had a bulldog, which I have two of them, you know, relaxing gas is a very important thing. Also feeding an energy appropriate diet, which has eliminated all of my bulldogs gas, however, before then, whoa, stinky. So it's a wonderful bitter herb which helps it have an affinity towards the liver and liver health and the release of bile from the gallbladder. And it's very aromatic. It has essential oils in it, the essential oils. It has a lovely essential oil called azulene. Let's say it together, azulene. It's beautiful, beautiful oil. And you're only going to get a little bit in each cup, which I personally love. And it really helps with digestion and it also acts through the kidneys, so you may get, your dog may be peeing a little more often, but not much. It's not a strong diuretic. It, like I said, it's a relaxant. It helps relax the body, it's relieves tension and it relieves physical and emotional tension, which is very important in this day and age because everyone is so stressed out. And if you've listened to a lot of the episodes of my podcast, you will remember that we share a vibration with our dogs. We share our emotions with our dogs, both physically and emotionally. Like through their olfactory system. They can smell our cortisol levels, they can smell our adrenaline. They know when we're stressed out. And chamomile is a lovely way to release some of that tension. Especially in the wintertime when you have a hard time getting outside. If it's like, if you really live in a super rainy or super cold environment. I live in a super rainy environment. And when the sun, when it's not raining here in the winter, when we all get outside, but sometimes it'll be pouring like for four days straight. So it's a cooling nervine and it contains, like I said, volatile oils. And it's lovely as those oils work to release tension. And sometimes when you drink a lot of chamomile, you can really feel it, you can refill it, releasing tension. And this is another, like infusion. I use it as an Infusion. And it's another infusion that we can drink alongside our dogs and share that herbal remedy with our dogs. I did chamomile in October for my monthly Materia Medica that's on my canineherbalism.com website. I basically cover intensely one herb every month. And that's one of the best ways to get to know an herb and to understand an herb. One herb every month. So one of the things about chamomile that you need to know is that it's from the daisy family, the asterisa family. And if your dog is allergic to any of those plants that's in that family, then you want to be careful with chamomile and make sure they're not allergic to it, you know, and that could be like, you give it to them, acid reflux, sneezing backwards, sneezing. You could get a hive. But the. I just haven't had a lot of problems with that at all, so. But, you know, that really is just like one of the, in my opinion's only caution of like, using chamomile. I mean, it's a really sustainable herb. You can grow it so easily in a pot. It will bloom all year long in a pot, give it a lot of love, talk to it, whisper to it, speak to it. It's edible, fully edible. You use the flowers. And again, it has that beautiful essential oil as you lean. It also has what's called K chamazulene, two lovely rich volatile oils. And so when you steep it in an infusion, you want to steep it covered. So a lot of those volatile oils stay inside your infusion. But it's full of flavonoids and polysaccharides and hucertin and rutin and tannins. It's just beautiful. And then also you have the. Those vitamins and minerals that are found in plants. A lot of people overlook the amount of vitamin and minerals that are found in plants, but it has a lot of amino acids and chromium and iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, silicon, thiamine, manganese. Did I mention calcium? Yeah. It's just a beautiful, beautiful, nutritional, nourishing plant. And again, it's bitter and it's sweet at the same time. Has a very strange little odd taste to it, but it's perfect without any sweetener. Some people do put a little bit of cream or honey in it, but for my dog, I give it plain. For myself, I usually drink it plain. Chamomile is a bit on the drying side, so, you know, you don't want to drink it like 24, seven, seven days a week. If your dog is more dry, just kind of keep an eye on the dryness. You can definitely it has single effects, so it's very fast acting, especially as a relaxant. And then it has some long term effects. It's definitely again has an affinity towards the liver. It helps bring down heat in the body. Again, we talked about tension, right? We talked about tension. It helps strengthen the entire gastrointestinal tract. It has some affinity towards the lymphatic system as it moves liquids especially it moves the blood. It has some pain relief. So it's an analgesic, it's an anti inflammatory, it's an antispasmodic. Parasites don't like it at all. It has some polysaccharides, so it can be a little bit demulcent, adding moisture before its drying effect. So in the forefront like acutely it will add a little moisture. But long term and used like consecutively you might see a drying effect. And that is what herbs are all about. Herbs are individuals too. Dogs are individuals, you're an individual and so are herbs. Some of the indications that I use chamomile for is one again acid reflux. Allergies, anxiety, restlessness, very good for ear infections, food sensitivities, gastrointestinal upset. It is an antihistamine. It helps increase appetite because it brings down nausea. It definitely helps with overall nervousness and skin conditions. Nice soft effect on that because of its influence on the liver. And you can use it for the nervous system. It's a lovely nervine, it's very calming and it helps dogs switch easily between the sympathetic nervous system and the the parasympathetic. The sympathetic is your fight or flight and the parasympathetic helps with every other function besides basically heart and muscular function, which is totally activated when dogs are in fight or flight and when you're in fight orf flight. So it really helps calm, calm, calm. Very, very nice to just calm things down. And so the digestive system when interacting with chamomile is that it definitely helps again activate that parasympathetic nervous system so dogs can digest their food. It's definitely a digestive, like bringing about good digestion. It helps with upset, it helps with ulcers, pain in the gut, toxins, food allergies, food sensitivities. And it helps dogs recover from antibiotic use. When I do an infusion for dogs, I give them the liquid, but I also give them the plant on top of their food, if they will eat it, it can act as a prebiotic. Chamomile has a good benefit on the mucous membranes from the strong volatile oils, the camulene and the azul oils inside of the plant. It has a very soothing effect with a little bit of mucilage on the membrane of the gut. So I definitely say it would increase digestive enzymes, it increases circulation to digestive organs, which is very, very important for overall good digestion. And when you get the relaxing benefit of chamomile, it is working on that gut brain access. Okay, so it does that too. And like I said before, it does have an affinity towards the liver and you can see it work on the skin. And so it's going to help that itching, biting, licking cycle. It's going to help calm dogs down from licking their paws. It helps take the edge off. And you can use it in a salve, you can use it in an infusion, you can use it as a compress for itchy skin. You can mix it with like green tea and spray it on the skin for itching. It does have some lung affinity for the respiratory system. It helps with the immune system and it, like I said, it's very anti pathogenic. So and it helps with the lung tissue and keeping the lung tissue are kind of like your first responders from airborne pollutants. And chamomile helps with filtering out those unwanted pathogens from the lungs. And it's great for seasonal allergies. Seasonal allergies can be an issue for dogs and that definitely is a liver issue. So it's like I said, like cordyceps. It is a polycrest. It has that full body interaction. You can use the flower essence of chamomile and the flower essence is really good for dogs that don't have good digestion. Dogs that have are kind of like bullies, especially in a group setting. Wonderful for anxiety, wonderful for hyperactivity, and again stress and tension. So you can use the flower essence, especially if your dog doesn't do well with chamomile. You can apply the flower essence to the ears instead of having it go through the gut. You can use an essential oil of chamomile, but I definitely wouldn't use that in lieu of using the fresh plant. It takes I hundreds and hundreds of plants to produce chamomile essential oil, but it is good for a few drops are good in a salve. And you can also use it as a traditional aromatherapy where you buy just a small little tiny half dram Dram of it and open up the cap and offer it to your dog to see how they interact with it and if they want that essential oil. Essential oils are excellent at self selection. So when making an infusion with chamomile, you can definitely take like fresh flowers, add to like 1 to 2 cups of water, almost boiling water and let it steep for 20 minutes. It doesn't have to be anything technical. You can do 2 tablespoons of dried herb to about 8 ounces of water and you give 1 teaspoon per every 15 pounds of weight. And again, you can give more or less. There's not a lot of like craziness around dosing chamomile. You can also use it as a tincture. As a tincture, it's great for nausea and appetite loss. So increasing appetite, just a couple drops. No matter how big your dog is, it mixes really well with things like goldenseal and ginger for like upper respiratory infections and spasm in the lungs. It can be used as a glycerin because it has some mucilage in it and it has a lot of water in it. So you can use a glycerin that's a non alcoholic glycerin extract. You can use it as an infused oil and add a little invitation e to it. It's wonderful for chronic skin issues, different types of arthritic pain. For human fibromyalgia, you can make a large amount of chamomile infusion and then use it as a rinse for your dog's skin to help with skin issues or chronic itching. You can also mix it with other things like calendula or plantain or peppermint, small amounts of peppermint. And then you can, I mean, use your imagination. There's so many things that you can do with it. You can mix it with coconut water and use it as an antifungal rinse. You can use it as an eye compress for conjunctivitis. You can use chamomile tea bags for that for sure. And the salve, a chamomile salve is really good for wounds and burns. I just, I mean, I really love this plant and it bothers me when I see it labeled as toxic for dogs because I've been using this plant for. God, I can't tell you how many years for so many dogs in protocols or just as of advice or with my own dogs using infusions. And the toxicity for this plant is extremely low. Again, if your dog has problems with the Daisy family And that is like dandelion and of course daisy, chrysanthemum, goldenrod, ragweed, marigold, yarrow. These are plants that are related to chamomile. And so you wouldn't use chamomile. Just try a little bit amount. If there's an allergic reaction, just stop it and don't use it again, don't use it in pregnant dogs. And I would avoid it with estrogen based cancers, but that's normally for humans it is very high in phytoestrogens. A lot of herbalists, including myself, are okay with phytoestrogens with estrogen based cancers because we believe that it combats bad estrogen. But to be on the safe side, I would get some advice about that from your veterinarian or doctor. Avoid using chamomile with benzodiazepines that, let's see, Klonopin or Xanax is like an example of that. A lot of dogs don't get these remedies but for us humans, people do use them. And, and also for humans, tricyclic antidepressants and anticoagulants like warfarin. I did say I don't use it for pregnancy. It can, it has been known to cause miscarriage. It can be drying over long term use. It is safe for long term use. And I just, I don't know, I just can't say good enough good things about chamomile. I do, I love it so much. It's very happy. It brings sunshine into the body, it reduces inflammation. It's antifungal. A lot of people don't realize it's antifungal, but it is. It's great for skin fungus. It is a mild pain reliever. It's definitely calming. It can be used for urinary inflammation. I usually mix it with dandelion leaf for that. And oh, and one thing that I mentioned in my monograph this month is that it's good for water vomit. Dogs that vomit water and it helps dry and calm the nervous system or the gastrointestinal system when dogs are in that water water vomiting cycle. If your dog is vomiting too much water, I definitely would bring them into your vet to see what is happening. You know, don't wait too long, especially if they have diarrhea at the same time. That is not a good sign. So please bring them in to the vet. Speaking of vets, I was at a conference recently and I ran into P.J. broadfoot. P.J. broadfoot is just a magnificent human being who has a Wonderful practice of veterinary medicine. She has been practicing, I think, since the 80s. And she's such a wealth of knowledge. I don't think she has like a huge social following. She doesn't do a lot of social media to my knowledge. However, she does have a lovely website. It is drpjb.com drpjb.com and on there I discovered that she does virtual consults. Her office is in Van Buren, Arkansas, but she does virtual consults. And again, you know, PJ is such a wealth of knowledge. She uses so many modalities. She really understands dogs from the inside out. She's a holistic vet. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful person. I would highly recommend her for a virtual consult. And also she does have a Facebook page. It is Broadfoot Veterinary Clinic. Broadfoot B R O A D foot, F O O T Veterinary Clinic. And you could leave a message on there as well. But she is just wonderful. And I was so happy to run into her because being around her is like being kind of bathed in a beautiful white light. She is just wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Could not recommend her more. I had such a great time at the Feed Real Summit in San Diego, California, right after I did the thriving pet expo, which was mind blowing. That conference was so awesome and so well done. So, I mean, a lot, kind of a lot happened in the last, I would say, month or so. That was very inspiring, you know, super inspiring to kind of interact with the dog world. I wasn't a speaker at the Feed Reel Summit, so that was super fun at just kind of like learning. I think I mentioned this in my last podcast. That was fun. I learned so much. And what did I learn, might you ask? Well, there was some highlights of some of the things I learned and I am currently doing a whole food eating plan that is, I would say, 95% plant based. And we're doing that for about 30 days. And then I'm going to a completely energetically appropriate diet. So for wintertime. And you know, there is a kind of mindset out there about building the microbiome with varieties of plants, 30 different plants per week. And when I first heard that, I'm like, God, that makes sense. But 30 different plants, like, how can I fit that all in? And what was cool is at the Feed Reel Summit, I. It was clarified that, you know, we're talking about plant plants, and I was thinking about leafy greens and herbs. I was like, God, you know, 30, whoo. But it includes fruits, veggies, energetically appropriate grains, nuts, seeds and herbs. And herbs. And they can Also be in the form of spices. So getting 30 plants per week is a piece of cake when you open it up to the entire food system. Even if you're just eating seasonal plants, which I eat a lot of seasonal medicines and seasonal foods. Seasonal herbs. Just made a lovely soup yesterday with all organic celery, green onion, multicolored carrots. There was two kinds of mushrooms, a nice veggie stock and a little tiny bit of organic lemon. And it was so good. Oh, and kale. So not the curly kale, the flat kale sauteed beforehand. I saute everything in grass fed butter and then I add some garlic infused olive oil and then I put that all together and then a little bit of organic white navy beans and just I would say probably a half a cup for the entire soup. So not a lot, but just a little. And there's not that many beans that my body tolerates. And navy beans are one of those beans that I can eat. I wouldn't say freely, like tons of them and I don't want to eat tons of them them, but I can tolerate and I find it very beneficial to my microbiome when I eat very small amounts of these plants. And this can apply to your dogs as well. You know, your dogs can eat different fruits, veggies, different types of grains, especially in the wintertime, very small amounts. Like very small, you know, how small. Of course you're probably saying how small, Rita, how small. So a Chihuahua, I would say maybe like literally per day, a quarter of a teaspoon and then a pug, which would be a normal small dog, half a teaspoon, a spaniel, a teaspoon or two. But if you're doing grains, just a teaspoon and then a large dog, you could do a tablespoon, an extra large dog, couple tablespoons. So we're not talking about a lot of food. You know, we're talking, not talking about cups and cups of food. Winter rules the kidney and you know, things like organic brown rice, small amounts of it is very nourishing to the kidney. If it's appropriate for your dog. I definitely would look at my energetics course@canineherbalism.com so that you can find out if that would be energetically appropriate to your dog. Like things like organic quinoa. Quinoa is warming and so not energetically appropriate for a warm dog, but tends to work out nicely for a cool dog. But if you don't want to feed grains, you know, I'm not a huge grain feeder or a huge Advocate for grains, except for in the wintertime, you know, different seasonal fruits, veggies, nuts, berries, seeds, herbs, spices. So I did learn that, and I loved that. I was like, awesome. Okay, so now I know what they're talking about because I, you know, I'm a seasonal feeder, so. But the whole, like, 30 plants per week is what some of the science has said. And I'm like, I can do that. I can do that. Another thing I learned is that the supplement PEA is an endocannabinoid. Did not know that. That was something that I did not know. So it definitely works on the endocannabinoid system, like cannabis. So that was very interesting. I learned that from the lovely Angela Ardellino. She had a lovely talk about mushrooms and cannabis. And let's see, I met and interacted with Amy Renz, who has the company, Goodness gracious that they are a commercial lightly cooked dog food company. Loved that. Used some of her liver treats this week, kind of checking out that line. I actually didn't know about that dog food line until I went to the Feed Real Summit. And then I also learned about testing your dog's vitamin levels at a company called vdilabs.com vdilabs.com I am going to use a couple of those tests on my own dogs to check them out. You can test for vitamin D levels and copper and zinc, and I love to find out what my dog's vitamin levels are so that I know, you know, what I need to work on. And let's see, they talked about synthetic vitamins, which I have covered here on the podcast. Definitely Amy was talking about how you really want to avoid synthetic phosphorus and choline and also synthetic zinc gluconate and propionate. Those were the ones that she finds very detrimental to the body. So I found. I was like, oh, they. That's interesting. And then Dr. Ruth Roberts, she was talking about different types of things you need to do for an emergency. And I found her speech very interesting and kind of very calming. She's a very calming person, you know, very calming person. She was talking about this. This is another thing I didn't know and I need to add to my free flea course is a flea activity map. I didn't know there was such a thing. Did you? A flea activity map. You can look that up. Flea activity map. It tells you kind of the vector for fleas across the country. And then she mentioned the bug zone tags, which I've used before. They work on some dogs, and some dogs, they do not work on at all. And then one of the biggest things I learned at the Feed Reel summit was that I did not know this and I'm going to look into it and really kind of study it because you know how I am, I am very much a study geek is that fat tissue is an endocrine organ. Now I should have realized that it is an end. I know that it has endocrine interaction because it stores estrogen. But to refer to it as an organ I have to figure, you know, I have to look into that. So I definitely want to look into why it would be called an organ and what the more far reaching kind of implications of that, you know, of calling it an organ. So I geeked out on that. And and another thing I learned is another website for testing Omega 3 levels and that's called OmegaQuant.com O M E G A Q U A N T.com OmegaQuant.com you can test your dog to see where their Omega 3 levels are. And then last but not least, another little ditty from Rodney Habibs talk at the Feed Wheel summit was about aspacious plants. That's AP I A C E O U S These are celery, parsnips, carrots, parsley. Those are some examples of these types of vegetables. And what I learned about these types of vegetables is that they have a good track record at getting rid of mold. So did not know that. And like cilantro is another or coriander is another like plant in that, in that family along with dill. And I did not know that they have were being studied for removing mold. They bind to mold and get them out of the body. I mean how awesome is that? I was blown away by that. I love food therapy. I love seasonal therapy. And knowing that they help remove mold was a very like something that a little nugget that I took home and just like you know, brought over to my desk and then typed it in right away into my notes. I keep everything that I learn and, and practically know in a program called Evernote. I love Evernote so I put it in my Evernote under mold and what I use for mold. I use propolis and zeolite for mold a lot because propolis is such a wonderful anti mold substance. Propolis from bees. So combining that with these types of food therapies is just a great idea when you are around mold or are trying to get mold out of your tissues. I really want to thank adoredbeastapothecary.com for all of their links. Love to Canine herbalist and supporting me on this journey of, you know, putting out this podcast. It really wouldn't be possible without companies like Herbal Buddy or Adored Beast or feed real or realmushrooms.com these are the sponsors that have sponsored and are still sponsoring my podcast. Feed Reel took a break for a little while, but loving all of them. Herbs rock all one word all caps 15% off for adoredbeast.com last week or the last episode I shared, I believe I shared, hopefully I shared that I used the Adored Beast go to which is a mix of aconite and arnica to get my dog Figgy Nubbins out of a stress seizure within seconds. And that was phenomenal. And this time of year in the wintertime, I really recommend that you switch up your probiotics. They have a lovely line of multiple probiotics. They have Phytos Flora, they have Love bugs, they have the Wolf. You can mix and match these probiotics. You know, like I like to give one type every other day so I, I switch back and forth. I'll use like three or four different probiotics and you can mix other probiotics in with doord beast probiotics into the like the rotation. I also like Bifido from Four Leaf Rover and there's a lot of different probiotics out there. I like to give a variety so that the gut gets a variety. And feeding those different variety of plants can also really help the microbiome. And giving fermented foods for dogs that aren't too warm can also really help the microbiome. And again, these are really small amounts. Really small amounts. One ferment that is good for dogs that are warm is coconut yogurt unsweetened. You can use that too. Well, I'm really glad that the byline for this podcast is ramblings of an herbalist whose life has gone to the dogs. Because I feel like this podcast was definitely some ramblings. But I hopefully, hopefully you can bring something home with you and get something tangible from this podcast that can contribute positively to to your life and your dog's life.

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