Chickens, Chamomile, and Updates & Google’s Herbal Myths

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, it's Rita Hogan. I hope you had a lovely holiday. Got a lot of rest, I know I did. I take a couple weeks off every year. Tried to take it completely off. Not always possible. But did the best I could and felt wonderful. Had some really great time with family and my puppies and cats. And now I have two chickens, and here it goes. And have you heard of chicken math? It's starting. It's when you get two chickens and they start to multiply. There's a rooster that loves my two chickens. I got my chickens from my neighbor's house. And there's a rooster that loves my two chickens. And then there's another chicken that loves my two chickens. So I don't know, probably in a couple months, I'll probably have four, five chickens, but right now I only have two. Oh, no, that would be four chickens. Yeah, and right now I only have two. So we're not here to talk about chickens, are we? No, we are here to talk about something that is dear to my heart. It's called poor herbal information. So where you get your herbal information, that is a very important thing.

Okay?

The worst place to get herbal information is on Google. Okay? If you just Google chamomile for dogs, you're going to get some things that are incorrect, Right? It's going to say, don't give your dogs chamomile. And it doesn't differentiate between the different types of chamomile. Right. Or, like, the side effects of chamomile. The issue is it's drawing upon information studies that use, like, gargantuan amounts of chamomile or the wrong type of chamomile. You know, Roman chamomile versus German chamomile.

Okay?

So the right chamomile to use for your dog is matriarcharia tita. I can never. I have a hard time with that one. You don't want Roman chamomile. Okay, Roman chamomile. I mean, I use Roman chamomile, but for your dogs, you want to use the matricaria, okay? Because it is more gentle, and chamomile is very gentle. And Roman chamomile is chamomilium nobile. N O B I L, E. And it's just. It's a little harsher and dogs can be a little more sensitive to it. So use the other version.

Okay?

Use the other version. We like that one. The matriacaria rakuteta. The issue that I wanted, I mean, the issue that I'm saying here is that you want to be careful what information you find on Google because it's not written by herbalists. Like, for the most part, you want to get information that's written by herbalists. A lot of companies that like regurgitate these blog posts, which, you know, happy for you, good for you. Any type of herbal lovin I'll take, but they use sources that don't come from an herbalist in many ways. A lot of times they're very, very preoccupied with side effects for legal reasons and all of that good stuff. So you want to be able to find information that you can trust.

Okay?

So what you're going to do is you're going to put in chamomile and if you want, you can put in that Latin name M A T R I C A R I A monograph.

Okay?

Or burdock root monograph. Or it would be burdock, really. Burdock monograph, Plantain monograph. And you want to find information that is written by an herbalist. Now you can take heed of like WebMD side effects, but don't just read the headline. You need to go in to see what studies were used, how much of the chamomile was used in the study on these poor dogs and animals? Like, how much was used. You know, if you go like, for instance, if you type in chamomile for dogs into Google, you're going to see quite a few things. You know, you might see like a company that's popular, write an article, but as you scroll down, you're going to always come across like the ASPCA that does not know much about herbs.

Okay?

Everything is toxic to them. Chamomile, toxic to dogs, toxic to cats, toxic to horses, toxic principles fell to oil, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Okay?

Not true, wag. Chamomile poisoning, dog symptoms, causes. You know, you can look at that. It's good to know like the symptoms that an herb could cause. But chamomile is not toxic to dogs.

Okay?

And use the right for the right species of chamomile and you'll be great. I've been giving my dogs chamomile, different chamomile. I've been recommending chamomile. It's great in a formula. It's good externally and internally. You Know large quantities of chamomile. Right? Large quantities. We're not giving large quantities. And it's extra large quantities.

Okay.

You really should never feed your dog excessive amounts of anything. Right. We want to start low and work our way up. Chamomile is an anti inflammatory. Now, I'm not just talking about chamomile. Okay? Chamomile is an example. Then we have peppermint. Oh, peppermint's bad for dogs. Don't give your dog peppermint. Not true. Peppermint essential oil is bad for dogs in large amounts.

Okay?

But if it's diluted and we're not giving it internally, you know. Yeah, don't give your dog peppermint internally. Even though oral products for teeth are always. They always have peppermint in it or spearmint. It's probably only one to two drops, but yeah, you're getting it. And these big companies know if things are poisonous to dogs, okay. There's a lot of liability there. People read it on the Internet and then they're like, yeah, that's poisonous to dogs. No, it's not.

Okay?

And if you read the monograph for the peppermint, you would know. And you know, I only use essential oils according to zoo pharmacognosi, which is when you let your dog self select the essential oil, unless it's in a. Like a salve or something. So, yeah. And then, you know, we have garlic.

Okay?

Garlic people just freak out. And it is in the alum family. Okay. The allium family where onions are. Yes, it is. But if you put in garlic for dogs in Google, okay, You will find all of these sites going, don't give your dog garlic. It's poisonous. What are you doing? You're killing dogs. Blah, blah, blah. Okay? So you should look up how many dogs died last year of garlic. None.

Okay?

And that's one of the issues there. It's like these little things that are just blown up. And yes, large amounts of garlic can cause a specific type of anemia that can kill your dog. Yes, it's true. But you're not giving large amounts of garlic, okay? And I will tell you right now, there is nothing in the literature of Google that can prove garlic is toxic for dogs.

Okay?

I would definitely label it misleading information.

Okay?

Garlic in its pure form. My favorite choice of garlic is organic garlic.

Okay?

Organic garlic. We really want to use fresh organic garlic. That's my opinion.

Okay.

But garlic extracts can be very potent. You know, we don't use garlic extracts with our dogs. We don't use excessive dosages. We don't use a ton of garlic. It's very small amount. You can search on Google. Rita Hogan, Garlic for Dogs. And I wrote this great article. It gives you dosages and everything. Go ahead and look for that. You can find it. I think I do cover garlic in my book. Oh, and by the way, book comes out in, I think like 28 days. Yeah, 28 days. I think. Oh, my God. If you haven't pre ordered it, pre order it, it helps. You can pre order it wherever you ever. You buy books anywhere. So I think that we want to look at garlic in a way that looks at it like a food. Now, I don't give my dogs onions. They're much more potent than garlic. All right, so the studies that this nonsense is made out of, or sorry, comes from, is a study where a dog basically was given 5 grams of garlic per kilo per day.

Okay?

That is such an excessive amount of garlic. It's unreal. I mean, it's like 50 to 60 cloves of garlic for a. I would say a large dog. I think it was a golden retriever. Don't quote me on that. And that's nuts. Okay. Yeah, you're going to have adverse side effects. Don't ever feed that amount. You'd never feed that amount of anything. Right? I mean, that's just. It's just not safe. So don't believe the hype, okay? Don't believe the hype. We can give our dogs garlic. Now, for me, garlic is more for acute use and dogs that are quite cool. Okay, Dogs that are cool because it's actually very warming. But I do use it acutely. It's an antibacterial. It decreases cholesterol, it dilates blood vessels, it helps with tumor formation, it stimulates the lymphatic system. It's antifungal, it's antimicrobial, it's anti parasitic, it's definitely anti cancer. It lowers blood sugar. I mean, these are all things that our dogs can use if, for me, if they're energetically appropriate. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, check out my energetics course@canineherbalism.com. so, yeah, we want to be aware of these misinformation campaigns on the Internet because they are spreading bad news, in my opinion. It's just not information that is true. Yes, onions, chives. What are there? Shallots? I ate a red onion yesterday. These are all things that contain a lot of what's called C sulfate, and it is Toxic to canines. But toxic doesn't mean deadly. It will make them sick in large amounts. And again, large amounts. And thiosulfate causes oxidative damage in red blood cells. And that creates these little things called hinds bodies.

Okay?

And it makes your dog anemic and. And it could cause death.

Okay?

So if you give them 60 cloves of garlic or 30 cloves of garlic. Listen, don't. That's what I'm saying, okay? Don't do it. And the garlic thing hasn't been around forever. It's been around for about the last 20 years. All right? And it's based on this research paper that was published on the garlic's, like, effects in dogs.

Okay.

And it. I mean, the basic synopsis of the paper was basically, don't feed your dog garlic. We feel that you shouldn't do it. It could cause Heinz anemia. And it was based on lots of garlic.

Okay?

And that's how, you know, misinformation spreads based on one paper. Okay? One paper. One paper does not equal anything. You need to be able to replicate that, and you need to look at the paper. What was the method used? How did they extract the garlic?

Okay.

Like right now we're dealing with avian flu. One cat open bag, poor testing, and so many things that could happen. And we'll talk about avian flu in a couple of weeks, okay? I'm going to give you all the information about that. But, yeah, these are misinformations that really have grave consequences for people, right? People just start spewing stuff out of their mouth. Oh, you're doing your killing, dog.

Rah, rah, rah, rah, rah.

And what we need to do is sit back and look at the research. We need to look at the extraction methods, we need to look at the methodology.

Okay?

We need to look at that. And a great way to, like, look at the history of garlic is, you know, get some older dog books and see, hey, these people are feeding their dogs garlic and have been for a really long time. You know, one of my mentors, Juliet DeBarcli Levy, she. I didn't work with her in person. I read everything I could from her. She's an English herbalist and just awesome. She fed her dogs garlic all the time. You know, and there's an excellent article online from Volhard Dog Nutrition that goes over a lot of the things that I'm talking about. If you need to read about this, okay? Volharddognutrition.com v o l h a r d dognutrition.com you can search garlic and it will come up. It's a great article about it. She talks about Julia Deparcla Levy in her article and we just need to, I think, calm down. But the biggest thing, and I talk about this in my book is how you know, to assess evidence based research. Because again, if it's just one study. And back to the matter at hand, Google is one of the worst places you can get information on herbs. One of the worst places you can get information on herbs. So what you want to do is you want to again, type in whatever you want. So you know, garlic is an herb. You can go garlic monograph, burdock root monograph, and then you can put the word herbalist in there. And be very careful of ChatGPT.

Okay?

Be very careful of ChatGPT. Is it GPT or GCP? It's GPT because it's drawing from information on the Internet.

Okay?

And it can be wrong. It can be very wrong. All right? So I think a bunch of herbalists should get together and make their own chatgpt. The herbalist chatgpt, you know, so that people are getting at least the best information they can from the hundreds of years that these substances have been used mixed with good science, okay? Good methodology, good extraction methods and applicable to everyday life. Because what science wants to do, and no offense against science, but what they want to do in a lot of cases is find the dose that is lethal for animals. And this of course affects other animals that give their life up for this. And that's another conversation. I don't believe in animal testing, but they want to find the lethal dose of something and then they publish this literature and all of a sudden that substance becomes toxic. And another example that I hear all the time and people email me about is Adored Beast Liver Tonic.

Okay?

Chelidonium is bad for dogs. Barberry is bad for dogs. No, it's not.

Okay?

Chelidonium and barbaria are very high in alkaloids and alkaloids. Love alcohol, okay? Adored Beast does not put the chelidonium and the barberry in their formula in alcohol. It is not high in alkaloids. It is not toxic. That formula is extremely non toxic. And it's the methodology, it is the way that the herb was extracted that makes it safe. And it's the methodology and the way that the herb is extracted that can make something toxic. So if an herb is really high in alkaloids and it's an alcoholic tincture, then there could be some it could be, they could make a case for toxicity is what I'm saying. Right. It wouldn't be a toxic in like one to two drops or anything, but you know, it's not something you'd want to put on the market for dogs in the general market. I can get that, I can get to that point for sure. But you want to know the extraction methods in any research paper. All right, Very, very, very important. And different herbs extract in different ways, create different chemicals and have different toxicity levels. And I'm going to repeat this, I've said it before, toxicity does not mean death. Toxicity means, well, it could mean death for sure, but it also could mean vomiting, diarrhea, irritation in the body. It has a certain toxicity to it.

Okay.

Or hard on the liver, hard on some type of other organ could be a toxicity symptom. And yes, toxicity can also mean death, but it doesn't always mean death. You need to find out what is that toxicity. And if there is a toxic kind of component to a normal dose, then that should be put on either the website or the label.

Okay.

Don't be afraid to call companies, write companies. Be nice, be nice, okay? Everyone's just trying to do the best they can. Especially I'm not talking about, you know, Procter and Gamble and all that stuff. I'm talking about small companies making these products. A lot of times if you get your products from an herbalist or an herbalist company, like there's a good one, like Herbalist Alchemist is great. I make my own tinctures. There's Herb Farm, there's Hawaii Farm that makes a lot of alcohol free tinctures or extracts Mountain rose herbs. Those are a few. I'm going to have a lot of references on the Herbal Dog, which is my book's website. So check those out. I'm adding Canada right now. I've got Australia, the uk and then as I as people send me good places to get herbs, I will update that website. So I'm hoping my website for the Herbal Dog will become a good resource section for testing and finding a practitioner and all of that good stuff. So, okay, so the gist of what I'm trying to say is do your homework. Don't believe everything you read immediately on Google, please. Yes, you can read what WebMD says, but don't take it at face value. Make sure that that claim can be replicated and replicated. You know, ASPCA is fine for houseplants, but they don't really do well for herbs. Don't believe them. The first time that you see it.

Okay.

Peppermint's fine. Chamomile's fine. So many of the things that they say that are toxic are fine. And again, in what format? Easter lily is toxic to dogs, but the flower essence isn't. So there's lots of gray areas in herbalism. And what I'm asking is to be mindful and make sure you're getting things from an herbalist. If you're super curious about herbs and safety, you can go to my teaching website, k9herbalism.com and go to the monthly monographs. And that is $12 a month. I think it's $12 a month. It might be a little more. I'm not sure. And I deal with one herb every month. And all of my backlog of her. Not backlog, but all of the herbs that I've covered so far are also there. You can quit at any time. Everything's fully downloadable. I also have the Canine Herbalist Advisory Group. It's a subscription group. It's $15 a month and you can quit at any time. You can join back anytime. But for $15 a month, you can ask unlimited questions about anything. And we also have a live Q and A every month as well, so you can check that out. That's@canineherbalism.com too. Wanna say thank you to Goodness Gracious, our sponsor for this podcast. And real mushrooms. They have some awesome stuff coming up this season. This year, we all need awesome things in our year for 2025. I am making 2025 the year of fun and education. That is my theme for this year, but goodness Gracious. So I worked with them to formulate what's called restorative diets. And it's pretty awesome. They have a reveal, which is a diet that has just really amazing ingredients in there. And I have added organic cilantro, nettle leaf, burdock root, dandelion greens, broccoli sprouts, maitake mushrooms. Okay, so the RVL diet is a metabolic health diet. It's for dogs with obesity, cardiovascular health, and that need liver support.

Okay.

You can do a full meal. You could mix it in. You can use it as a topper. Any amount of goodness in your bowl is going to help. It's human grade, and it has a glycemic index of less than 1. So how fun is that? And then I helped with the diet called Jive.

Okay.

Jive is for brain health, it's for cognition, it's for anxiety, it's for mood, behavior, sleep support. And we Added lion's mane and reishi mushroom along with, I believe Angela Arnolino helped with that. Artichoke, broccoli, sprouts, almonds and cantaloupe. That was Amy, the owner. Dried skullcap and nettles. Ding, ding, that's me. Wild caught mackerel and cage free turkey. So that is the jive and then there's the jing. Jing, jing, jing. All of these have a very Low glycemic index of 1. Jing is for kidney health. It's a kidney diet. It's low phosphorus, it's healthy protein. And I just helped them with a cat diet as well for kidney disease. But this one has asparagus, omega 3, marshmallow root and BlackBerry leaf. I wonder who added that in. Wild caught mackerel, red cabbage and blueberries. Crate free pork kidney cage free egg and then rejuve. Rejuve is gut and total body health. It's an antioxidant and anti inflammatory recipe. And again, you can do a full meal, you can mix it in or you can use it as a topper. My little figgy nubbins, my one eyed pug. She is taking one of these restorative diets. I believe it is the rejuve. I've been mixing some of them, but she's doing really great at this gentle cook diet. She's 12 pounds, but she's really doing well. She had some trauma from getting her eye taken out by another dog and this has really helped her because dogs that have a lot of tension can a lot of times throw up because they get into fight or flight. And this has helped so much for keeping her from puking while we work on her nervous system. The Rejuve has organic shiitake mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, blueberries, broccoli sprouts, mug beans, dandelion greens, plantain and calendula, and wild caught mackerel. So love these diets. Thank you. Thank you, Amy, of Goodness Gracious for formulating these diets and for having me come on the formulation train for Goodness Gracious. And thanks for supporting the podcast because I won't. I wouldn't be here. Right? And then real mushrooms, a lot of these diets have mushrooms in them. Real Mushrooms is a wonderful supporter of this podcast and what's super cool is they have sponsored me to do a book signing and teaching in Berkeley, California on March 4th. So I'm going to be putting out my book tour information for the first month or so this next week. If you're not on my email list, make sure you get there you can go to k9herbalism.com in the upper right hand corner you'll see the mail opt in and you will get my schedule for the book tour. But Real Mushrooms is sponsoring a talk of mine at the Berkeley herbal Center on March 4th and that is a dream come true. That's a free event. So totally excited about that. And they've also decided to be a sponsor along with Goodness Gracious for my entire tour. I feel so blessed. So blessed. Kind of like a little hug so that, I mean they think that the work that I do is important and that is such validation in my opinion. I love it, love it, love it, love it, love it. And I love all of you. So thanks for listening to the podcast for sure thanks for listening to this episode of Dogs Are Individuals. If you enjoy if you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review in your podcast app. And don't forget, sharing is caring. So if you love Dogs Are Individuals podcast, share it with your friends and family who love dogs. This will help me so much. And remember, as a listener, I appreciate you much. Thanks to Resonant Media, my podcast production team. This podcast is produced by Drake Peterson and edited by Mike Fry. Any questions, email the show, go to k9herbalist.com, click podcast contact in the menu and then fill out that form and I'll answer any questions here online. Okay, so thank you so much for listening to this episode of Dogs Are Individuals Podcast and I'm gonna talk to you in our next episode. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for veterinary care. This podcast doesn't constitute a provider patient relationship. As always, talk to your doctor, veterinarian, or healthcare provider first before starting anything new. And that includes herbs. I'm not a doctor and I don't treat disease or prescribe anything. I'm a traditional herbalist providing herbal support education only. Regarding any products I may suggest the statements made regarding these products have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. The efficacy of these products has not been confirmed by FDA approved research. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. All information presented here on the podcast is not meant as a substitute or alternative to information from your vet. Please consult your veterinary professional about potential interactions or other possible complications before using any product.