EP #34 Energetics: The Foundation of Your Dog's Health with Rita Hogan

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Hello and welcome to Mystic Dog Mama, the podcast for soul led dog mamas, where you'll discover how to best nourish your dog and yourself, mind, body and soul. I'm your host, Dr. Alexia Meller. Oh my goodness, are you in for a treat Today I had been like a kid counting down the days until Christmas, just bursting with excitement in anticipation of sharing this week's episode with you. My guest today is canine herbalist Rita Hogan. If you don't already know Rita and her work, you are going to be so glad you do now. And if you do already know her work, I can guarantee there will be more nuggets that you take away because my goodness, is she a wealth of information. Rita and I talk about all things energetics. Now if you tuned into my chat with canine nutritionist and soon to be doctor of acupuncture for humans, Hannah Zuluetta, the subject of Energetics, our dogs and food will be somewhat familiar to you if you haven't checked it out. I definitely recommend that you go back and listen to that episode when you're done listening to this one, because I think these conversations really complement one another. Now Rita takes us on a deep dive into energetics as the foundation of health. She talks about what energetics actually means, how to better observe your dog to gain an understanding of their individual energetic profile, and how the energetics of different foods and herbs can be used to support optimal health. You'll learn some specific tips for how to tell if your dog is a warm dog or a cool dog, which proteins to feed warm dogs versus cool dogs. And Rita also shares how to get started with adding in herbs to support your dog's health and find balance. I suggest that you get a notepad or your phone because you're going to want to take some notes. I'll also include some links to pre order Rita's upcoming book in the show Notes because if you enjoy this chat, I know you'll be really eager to add her book to your collection. This is such a rich conversation, I just know you're going to love it. Let me know what your biggest takeaways are by dming me on Instagram mysticdogmama. Now, before we get started, a quick note that this episode is sponsored by Aspirationary, which in full transparency is another project of mine where we create books, notebooks and stationery to help you become all you aspire to be. You can check out our Shadow Work and Moon Magic journals and workbooks as well as our popular My First Period tracker for young girls and Tweens on Instagram Spirationary. And that is spelled A S, P, I R, a T I, O, N E R Y. Okay, on that note, let's go. Hi, Rita. Thank you so much for joining me on the Mystic Dog Mama podcast today. I am beyond delighted to have you here.

I am super excited to be here. I've been looking forward to this all. All week.

Oh, my God. I know.

Yay.

I am so excited because I just absolutely adore your work. And to give the audience a little bit of context as well as to why I thought your conversation today would just be so helpful, is, I think, so many pet parents who are in this space of wanting to nourish their dogs and themselves, mind, body, and soul, taking this holistic perspective, they come across herbalism, and they're like, that sounds really amazing. What do I do? How do I engage with this? And I think there's also this perspective from more of a Western context where we tend to treat, I feel, anyways, natural remedies in this much the same way as we treat conventional remedies, which is like, let's fix this.

This.

I want this herb to fix this thing kind of approach. And what I love about your work is that you kind of complicate that in a way where you're asking us to take a different lens, where it becomes about how do we develop right relationship, and how do we look at the wisdom of the plants and how do we look at ideas of balance and harmony rather than just fix the thing. And I think that is something that is both really appealing to people, but also they don't know where to start with it. So I thought this would be a really great intro to kind of talk to pet parents about your perspective on all things canine herbalism, as well as diving into this notion of energetics that you propose for us as. As a way of engaging with our dog's health and ultimately with our own as well.

That sounds great. Where do I sign up? Yeah. And, you know, I think it's really important for people to understand that, you know, you're an ecosystem and your. Your pets are as well. And, you know, we are. We are not even a hundred years from that innate knowledge that we all had. I mean, well, our grandparents had, or our great grandparents, depending on how old you are, had about using plants and fungi and different types of medicine and homeopathy. You know, prior to 1930, all of those modalities were in play, and. And. And even. Even through World War II. And then things started going downhill from There when pharmaceutical companies started, like, really getting popular. So I think that it's important to just understand that we all have that knowledge in our blood and in our system, and that's why we feel so drawn to it. But we are currently, most of us, in a pharmaceutical mindset, so there's no blame there. You know, people have so much shame and guilt when it comes to their pets. And I think one of the things is the pharmaceutical mindset in that we constantly are looking for something to cure something very quickly. You know, pharmaceuticals save lives because they work so quickly. You know, they work so quickly because they force the body to react and they cause suppression. Well, we want the body to balance out with herbs and different types of modalities for sure. But one of the things that we want to make sure we don't do unless it's an emergency. Now, an emergency is different. Like your dog can't breathe or you can't breathe, or, you know, you've got sores all over your body that hurt, you know. Yeah. We need to suppress and then deal with that in a different way. But when we're not dealing with an acute emergency, we want to be careful of suppression because it just puts disease further and further, deeper and deeper, whereas then, you know, three, four, six months later, you have something like cancer that comes out. Because we didn't deal with something, we just wanted to. We want it to go away. We want that symptom to go away. But we need to look at the ecosystem of the body. We need to look at what is wrong. Because our bodies, our dogs bodies, our cats bodies, all of our pets bodies mimic nature. So you look at how nature deals with things. You know, nature has a cycle. Our dogs have a cycle, we have a cycle. We have circadian rhythms. You know, a lot of people are off because of technology, but our body is constantly seeking that balance. The body is constantly seeking balance, and it will heal itself. And I like to use herbs, for the most part, as a facilitator in healing the body and giving it the energy it needs. And herbs work on a system of opposites, whereas homeopathy works on a system of similars. We're not talking about homeopathy today, but herbs are opposite, where, you know, if we have too much heat, we cool. If we have too much cool, cold, we warm. So that's how herbs work. And one of my goals is to help people and vets and practitioners take a step out of that pharmaceutical mindset, you know, and start looking at plants according to plant language. Because I think our automatic way of being from desperation, because we are all desperate to find answers to using pharmaceuticals with all of their side effects. Not saying pharmaceuticals don't save lives, because they do. I tend not to use them unless life is in danger. But. And they have saved my life, just putting that out there. They have saved my life probably like three times, maybe four. Emergency medicine is glorious, but. And surgery is amazing. However, for me, that's kind of where it stops. You know, doctors have stopped healing. So, you know, we want to get back to that mindset of looking at the organism and saying, okay, what is the foundation? What is the matter? Why is the body out of balance? What is going on? And people need to embrace patience and they need to use their thinker a little more instead of looking everywhere else for the answers. And that's where that desperation comes from. And so that desperation, which is well intentioned for sure. We all have well intentions, and that's the most important part. And our dogs know that, that we're just trying to help them. And that's why guilt and shame needs to be thrown in the garbage. But we don't want to just say, okay, my dog has arthritis. I need something to make the symptom better. Yes, we do. But we also need to look at the symptom systems of the body and ask ourselves what's going on. And that's where energetics comes into play. You know, energetics for me is the foundation, foundational system of the body and how nature works. Nature works according to energetics. Plants work according to energetics. There are plants out there that are extremely hot, extremely warming, very damp, very dry, you know, very cool. Like gentian is very cold, whereas ginger is very hot, you know, or cayenne or. So it is language that and nature that helps us see what's going on inside the body. And our body has energetics. Our dogs have energetics. The dogs, the animals that our dogs consumed to live have energetics. And all of this needs respect, right? And I think we're understanding that like all animals need respect, even if they're, they're here for, for, like to give food, to give their lives for our dogs living, every one of those beings needs respect. And they have energetics, and they have a system of energetics. And so I'm trying to get people to understand that. And the day that I really got energetics, my mind was blown. Like, I was like. And I kept, you know, I saw in my head all of these protocols that didn't work out, right, that weren't that successful. That's why, you know, I was. I was. Yeah. You know, because when we get. When we start looking at plants, like, okay, there's 10 plants for arthritis. I don't know which one to give. Well, Energetics will tell you where to start. You don't give them all. Never give them all, you know, but people, again, get desperate. Like, well, you know, I get a lot of people when I do consults that are giving their dogs literally 20 items in their food. We don't need to do that. That hyper stimulates the body and. Or there's people that. And again, I mean no disrespect. Everyone's in their own place of. And everyone's in their own place in their healing journey. And everyone has their own idea of what is their truth. I can only speak my truth, right? But when I see people get on the turmeric bandwagon or the CBD bandwagon or the cb, you know, CBD comes from cannabis. Cannabis is a plant. It has its own energetics. It's not a panacea. Turmeric is an excellent plant for the liver, for the gut, for inflammation, for mitochondria. It's not for every dog or every person. It's very warming. It can cause inflammation. Anything that can cause or heal can cause. And that's what people also need to understand. Anything that can heal can cause, given the right circumstances. And Energetics definitely depicts that. Like, where to start? Is it an absolute? No. Everything in herbalism is a guide. There's lots of gray area. And I think a lot of people take. They want to be told what to do, and I don't. And, you know, like, when I call an accountant, I want to be told what to do. You know, my financial advisor. I want to be told what to do. It's not my jam. I'm not good at it. You know, I need help with that, right? I want to be told what to do. I'm going to think about what my advisor says. I'm going to take it in. Does it resonate with me? And it might not. And I might say, eh, I don't want that one, you know, but we all need help in certain areas, and the only thing I can do is speak my truth. And for me, Energetics has come through time after time after time after time and has never failed me. Maybe if I didn't get it right, like if I thought, oh, this dog is warm and it was actually cool, which would be what would be called false heat, where the body, when it's cold can build heat to the point where a dog seems extremely warm on the outside, on the periphery, they're hot everywhere. And you'd say, oh, God, we got to cool this dog down, right? No, we don't. We have to actually feed it really warm, hot things so its body will stop trying to compensate. Because, remember, the body is always trying to balance itself. And that's one of the things it does about with, with heat and cold. So a lot of people would be like, what, what are you doing? You know, that's crazy. The dog is super hot. It's, you know, again, it's not. It's cold. And so it, you know, and I just had an example of this last year and, you know, I saw a dog in a public, like at super zoo, and, and they were like, yeah, we're giving it, you know, cooling foods, white fish and all these cool Chinese herbs and stuff like that. And I was like, you know, I really think that it's. I think you should try warming it up. And within two weeks, everything just started turning around because the dog wasn't so cold. And it's amazing when you have energetics. And like I said, you know, energetics just hasn't. It just hasn't failed me. And so it's really a place where I start. So when you look at energetics, okay, there's a couple of things. Like, it really is like, you know, we're all trying to put that health puzzle together, right? And it really is a missing piece of the puzzle. And I get a lot of raw feeders, raw dog feeders, and home cooked feeders where, you know, they're feeding the best organic, you know, homegrown, local, regional, clean food that they can, and they still can't figure out why their diet isn't working. And when I look at it, it's almost always the opposite of what the dog actually needs energetically. And the thing to, to notice about energetics is it is about consistency. It's not your one off. Like, I have three cool dogs that are different ranges of cool and they have different tolerances as far as the warming proteins that they can consume. But, you know, I have to figure that out and I have to understand, you know, and observe them so that I know what I'm giving them and what they can have. And I feed them very well. It's just that some of them, like my dog Wheezy, she can't tolerate salmon, and it's not her energetic. It is that Wheezy's had some microbiome damage where she's had antibiotics in the past when she wasn't my dog. And she developed some sensitivities due to low stomach acid to salmon. So salmon makes her ears super red and it makes her very uncomfortable, so she really can't eat it at all. But like I have three cool dogs and if I give them, just say, like for instance, I had some leftover cod, right? It's not that one off meal that we need to worry about. It's those meals that are given day in and day out, you know, and we know we're all guilty of giving our dogs the day in and day out the same food, the same meal, because it works. And if you're doing that, it's really important to feed an energetically appropriate diet because otherwise your dog's going to develop a sensitivity to it. And then we all have those supplement graveyards, right? The supplement graveyard. Most of those supplement graveyards are due to energetics. Formulas are tricksy because, you know, when you have a formula, like I have a, like I have a little cough syrup I've been using for my head cold. And you know, when I look at all the ingredients, I have to look at, okay, I'm looking at each herbs energetics in this little bottle and I have to see, well, is it a net cooling or net warming effect? And for this one, it's a net cooling. It has a few warming things in it. Now I'm using this acutely because my cold is an acute situation, right? But if I were to take this syrup every day for the next 60 days, we would have a problem. And I'll discuss that problem in a minute. But so you have to look at your formulas and see, you know, first just how sensitive your dog is. And I'll come back to this. But like, when you look at energetics, you can get, you start at the middle. In the middle is a very neutral place. There's very few dogs in the middle, usually slightly warm or slightly cool. Now, dogs are born with that energetic, okay? So you are either working in a cool range or you're working in a, in a warm range. So our warm. I'm a warm person in that warm range. Right? We're going to go from slightly warm, warm, slightly hot, hot, very hot. Okay? We want to stay out of the slightly hot to very hot. We definitely want to stay out of the hot to very hot. Those are disease states. If your dog has a major condition, they're in the slightly or they're in the slightly hot, hot, very hot to the slightly cold, cold, very cold, they're in that range and we need to, on a foundation, warm their bodies up. And it's going to be those herbs that either warm the body or cool the body. So we want to cool the body in the hot, the warm to hot and we want to warm the body in the cool to cold. Now the natural state of health is either just a nice cool or a nice warm. Okay? Those dogs can have the one off, two off meals that aren't energetically appropriate. The treat at the bank, you know, when the grandparents come over, you know, whatever, they're not going to have that problem. But just take a treat, for example. If you have a nice cool dog and you're feeding them, let's just say a treat that is, is made out of organic oats, gentian, peppermint and hawthorn. Put that out there and you're given just once a day. That's 365 treats in a year. What if they get two a day? Okay, it's almost 1,000 treats a day. I mean a year that does come at a cost. So we kind of have to look at that. And so when we're looking at energetics, again, you're born with it, okay? Your dog is born with it. There are a few things that can change energetics as far as switching spectrums, but that usually involves organ removal and the spleen removal can cause a warm dog to be cold for a very long time. So but we don't do a lot of organ removal in our dogs because of lifespan. We don't do a lot of organ removal, but that's one thing that can happen. There's a few other things, but they're much more complicated and they're very minimal. So mostly you're not going to push a dog over to another spectrum. You're going to make them sicker, you know, and things, there's things that do cause us to move towards. Remember, if you have a cool dog, we're moving towards cold. If we have a warm dog, we're moving towards hot. And there's things that can cause those problems, right? Definitely things that can cause those problems. And one of them, you know, some of them are antibiotics, right? Worming your dog when they don't have worms. Stop that. Okay, do the test or at least only once a year and do a natural wormer. But still, you're still doing things that you shouldn't do if your dog is, doesn't have worms. Feeding poor fats, you know, like pufa oils too much, really high omega 6 diets, which isn't epidemic right now. Heavy pesticides, heavy herbicides, glyphosate can damage the microbiome. And. Okay, so you have energetics at the foundation. You know, the microbiome is a step up. Okay. The microbiome has its energetics, right? So the microbiome, when you, when you damage the microbiome, it pushes that energetic down towards cold or hot. Anesthesia temporarily can affect it. Nsaids, daily nsaids. Surgery. Surgery adds a lot of cold, but in a cool dog and in a warm dog, it adds inflammation, pushing that dog towards hot. Steroids shuts off the entire immune system. Antibiotics, vaccines, flea tickets, these are all things, but diet is number one. So when we have these types of problems, we have to remember, you know, okay, so is my dog warm or is my dog cool? And Rita, how do we figure that out? That's my next question. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know how. Like I don't know what my dog is. Right? What is my dog? Dogs are individuals, okay. So they're going to be somewhere on that spectrum. And sometimes puppies, you know, you get a puppy who was born cool, then they're fed pedigree, okay. Or some really high, really high processed food. They're given a six in one vaccine, they're dewormed, and then they're neutered at a really young age, okay. You may be getting a puppy that's already slightly cold or slightly hot, okay. And that's where you have that one year old dog that is just a mess. You're getting a puppy that's already way far down that spectrum. So. And learning how to tell your dog's energetics is just observation. And you're like, well, I already know my dog. You have to start observing them intentionally. Okay. And because energetics is a little more complicated, we're just going to talk about warm and cool. Okay? If you can do that, you can really start making a difference. Okay. Because there's also damp, dry, like how much moisture your dog has or how dry they are. And that's a whole nother conversation. And we can have that conversation some other time. Happy to come back on. So warm and cool. It's basically how your dog deals with heat. Okay? Now I know you told me that you are in Mexico and it is hot, very warm and humid. Okay? So you know, dogs are going to be even cool. Dogs can get hot. Okay. I can get cold if it's cold enough. Okay. I was recently speaking somewhere and I was freezing, which is not the norm. I mean, it was sub zero temperatures. I had to put a sweater on, and I never, hardly ever wear sweaters. So I was like, oh, my God, I'm freezing. It can happen, but to what degree? So dogs that are warm, they tend to seek out cool places so they'll lay on tile that's nice and cold. Very hot places tend to tile their homes because the tile will store cool energy and it's nice and cool doesn't add to the heat. And then it will also give off heat at night and keep the house warm when it's actually cold. So they love tile. They love tile. It's nice and cool. They love to seek out cool places. They may sit in the sun for a good 10 minutes, but then they're probably going to get up and be in the shade. Cool dogs can pant because they're damp. So dampness can cause panting. So don't let panting fool you. A cool dog can pant, and they're usually cool and damp. So a warm dog can pant just because they're too hot. Okay, but how do they deal with heat? Start paying attention. Do they lay in that little ray of sunshine, you know, do they gravitate toward the air conditioner or do they stay away from it? Do they gravitate toward the sun and the heat or do they stay away from it? Do they like to be covered up and snuggled, or do they, like, you know what, I'll snuggle with you for a few minutes, but then I'm going to go lay down at the other side of the couch and like, pants a little and then calm down and go to sleep. Okay. And if you put a blanket on me, I'm probably going to get up and leave. Or I might stay under there for a few minutes and then I'm done. So start looking at how they function in the heat element. Warm dogs also have more uppity personalities. They're uppity. They're not your chill out dog. They're more of your, hey, it's three o'. Clock. I'm ready to go for a walk. And if we don't have a walk, I'm gonna bug you and I'm gonna get in your face. I'm gonna bark and I'm gonna, you know, and then maybe a mile into the walk, I'm gonna be, I'm gonna tire out and I'm gonna want to go home. Exercise intolerance can be a big thing for dogs that are worn, but it can also be a thing for Dogs that are cool and damp, okay? So you got to put these pieces together. My dog doesn't like to stay in the sun for more than like 15 minutes and he poops out after a mile and a half, maybe 30 minutes. If it's hot out, he's a little restless, He's a little anxious, He's a little in my face. He likes to bark at me. He's always hungry. He won't leave me alone. You know, he's always happy to meet people. He's super happy personality, little restless, you know, jolly, jolly, jolly. Much more on the warm side there, okay? He's got chronic allergies, lots of food sensitivities. That's when things get hot, okay? We're cool dogs. Doesn't mean a cool dog can't have food sensitivities, okay? But it's usually from a different source, okay? There's lots of reasons why dog gets food sensitivities. Again, another conversation. But that's your basic on the cool to cold. I'm sorry, the warm to hot. Now cool to cold. We get those dogs that are chilled out, they're chill, they will lay with you forever. They will sleep under the covers until 12 o' clock in the afternoon. They will. You know, they love to be warm. They love clothes. They put on my sweater. I love it. I love to be bundled up. I suffer from lethargy when I get sick. You know, I tend to cool dogs. Their vital force extinguishes itself when things go really badly. And warm dogs, they burn themselves out, okay? It's too much. Where cool dogs, eventually it's kind of like dying from hypothermia, right? You get in the snow, the cold will put you to sleep and then you just don't wake up. It's actually one of the best ways to die, besides dying in your sleep, right? You just get tired and go to bed or done, right? That's what happens with cool to cold. The body gets so cold, deep, profound cold. And then the vital force just. Your dog just loses all their energy and eventually they die or we put them down. You know, my dog hasn't gotten off the couch for three days. You know, most likely a cool to cold dog, okay? A cold dog, definitely slow digestion, constipation. Where warm dogs get diarrhea, for the most part, cool dogs get constipated. They've got poor circulation, you know, lack of thirst, they don't drink anything. Now, if your dog is eating a really high moisture raw diet, most raw dogs don't drink. But warm dogs will drink more than cool dogs on a raw diet. Cool dogs suffer from yeast and bacterial overgrowth. Okay, so yeast infections are more prominent. Warm dogs can get yeast infections if they're damp. Damp heat. But cool dogs are going to suffer from yeast overgrowth more. They have more stagnant lymphatic systems. They're just more chilled out. You know, things don't get them too riled up all the time. So. And yes, you can have spurts of activity and you know, but they're going to be short bursts verse of like all the time, you know, or that dog that is just not gonna let it go for hours more probably a warm dog. So once you get that heat, that warm and cool, you figure out your dog. And if you can't figure out your dog, we'll talk about that at the end here. If you can't figure out your dog. But once you get that, then you want to start feeding an appropriate diet. And we want to look at cool proteins for warm dogs. You know, what are those? And again, energetics is a range. Okay, so there are some proteins that are really cold and there are some proteins that are really cool. And that fluctuates according to again, all mammals have energetic. So sometimes that round of bison or whitefish or whatever, I mean fish isn't a mammal, but they tend to be more like white fish tend to be more exact in their energetics. It doesn't fluctuate very well at all. Mammals tend to have huge fluctuations. But like pork or chicken, you know, those types of things. Chicken is very warming, but it can also be very hot depending on what it's fed. You know, if it's a factory farm chicken, it's going to be much warmer. So we have to look at our diets that we're giving our dogs and like pork, duck, bison, whitefish, rabbit and some types of beef. You know, corn fed beef tends to be more warming where pastured beef tends to be more cooling. So beef can go, you know, either way. You'll see a lot of lists, TCM lists out on the Internet. And my energetics is based on my practice of over 20 years. So it doesn't always coincide. It's in the range though, but it doesn't always coincide. But those TCM energetics were picked out thousands of years ago when our animals were not factory farmed. They were not stressed like they are now. They had stressful moments, but they weren't stressed like they are now. You know, meat was much more community based where it Needs to go back to, you know, where you have people in your community that raise meat for that community. It's not coming from Argentina, it's not coming from way far away, it's not coming from factory farm lots, you know, so meat was more community based where you didn't have that stress. And the energetics were, I think, much more pure. Now we have different types of meat and we have different types of animals and we have different types of lots of stress in our animals. So I feel that the energetics has changed a bit. But again, it's very fluctuating. But for the most part, the starting cooling proteins for me are pork, duck, bison, whitefish, rabbit and beef. And again, we're not talking about drying or cooling or drying or moist right now, but they're just warm and cool. Pork dust, bison, whitefish, rabbit and beef are my choices there. Pastured beef for sure. And then for proteins that are warming, we have a lot better choice there. I'm speaking like for things in the United States, Canada, not sure how things are, things go in Mexico, you know, you might have more birds to choose from and things like that. But here in the United States, mussel, any type of mollusk is going to be warming. Green lip mussels, any type of clam, mussel, lamb, sheep, venison, chicken, salmon, goat, sardines are pretty neutral. So. But lamb is very warming. Venison is very warming. Corn fed chicken is also very, very warming. Salmon is quite warming. Farm salmon, I would not give, no matter what that is my opinion, it's very toxic. But farm salmon is much hotter than regular salmon and salmon is hot. And so is like venison and lamb, they're hot. Mussels are warming, goats, warming turkey. Turkey, you know, a nice warm dog who doesn't really have any health issues can tolerate turkey a few times a week. So cooling to warming. Whereas, you know, factory farmed corn fed turkey can, I think it can go warming to hot. It just depends. And the more that we as consumers contact meat producers and tell them, you know what, this is why I'm not buying your meat. The more we reach out, you think, well, I'm just one person, I can't make a difference. Yes, you can, because there's a lot of people on this planet and the more people that speak out, the better. And I can say this one thing that I just want to put out there. When you're feeding whitefish, always ask what kind of fish, where the fish is sourced. I don't care if it's in your Dog food in a kibble. Write that company and say, where's your whitefish sourced? If they don't know, don't feed it. Because a lot of times it's shark and shark is endangered. We need to stop feeding shark and shark products to our animals. It's unethical and I have to say it every time I get a chance. So those are our choice. Those are our protein choices. Okay, now let's look at some herbs, herb choices. Because a lot of times people in that graveyard that you have in your home, most of us have. I have one. Mine tends to be more of an herbal addiction, but you know what I'm saying, These are our cooling herbs and our cold herbs. So cooling herbs are dandelion, all of the part of the plant. Chamomile, chickweed, plantain, cleavers, lemon balm, yarrow, yellow dock, hawthorn, marshmallow root. Now our cold herbs. So if you have a cold, if you think your dog's cold, be careful with these herbs. Gentian, skullcap, hawthornberry, rose, wheatgrass, rose hips. You know, those are very cooling to cold. Gentian is just cold. So be very careful. You know, you want to be careful even in, in formulas. If your dog is towards that disease state of that slightly cold to deep cold, they're going to be much more sensitive to the energetics in a formula. Whereas if your dog's just a healthy. Cool, Right? My dog's cool. He's healthy. Maybe a couple issues, you know, just a little bit here and there. Nothing severe, not so sensitive. You can, like, if that, that formula has more warming herbs that it does, cooling herbs, then you should be okay to give acutely or for, you know, a month or two. But then you might want to stop. Do you have any questions so far?

I do. Oh, my God, this is just amazing. You were like just a wealth of information. I just, I. I feel like I want to just be a sponge and like, suck it all because it's just.

I wish I could do the. Let's do the mind melt. Yeah, let's do the Vulcan. Wait, wait, you gotta do this. Let's do the Vulcan mind melt. There it is. I say that to my students all the time. Vulcan and you know what, my mentors. It's like, you know, could we mind meld? Right? But you know what? This stuff just takes time. You know, it just takes time.

It does, it does. But I have a couple of questions and that I made a mental note of when you said something to kind of pull that forward.

Feel free to interrupt Me too. I love being interrupted.

Oh, but this is so great to hear the kind of the flow of it, because this is what people really struggle with and then how do they put it into practice? So the next thing I want to, after I ask you my questions, the next thing I kind of want to like jump into is exactly how you're thinking about using herbs and when that's an appropriate choice for people. But I also know that a lot of my listeners have reactive dogs or dogs with a variety of behavioral issues. You did mention that some medications can contribute to the energetics of the dog. Do behavior medications have any kind of effect on the energy?

Which way do they. Energetics is at your bottom. So if you have a behavioral dog, you need to figure out their energetics and get, and get clear and start feeding mainly an energetically appropriate diet. As much as you can remember, guilt and shame are in the garbage. Okay, do the best that you can. That's all we can do. We can do the best that we can. Okay, you need to figure out their energetics. But another thing is pharmaceuticals. Behavioral pharmaceuticals congest the liver. Okay? So not only you may be feeding an energetically inappropriate diet, and you'll be amazed at the changes you see when you switch over to an energetically appropriate diet. So not only do you have that going on, but you've got another layer of pharmaceuticals that the energetic may be playing into the behavior. Okay, for one thing, number two, you have congestion and one like fear. Fear based fear based aggression. That's liver, kidney, Fear based fear in general reactivity. A lot of that is kidney based. Okay? And then, you know, you want to look at the dog as an ecosystem, as a whole. You know, it's not a lot of people just want to, they want to correct that behavior. But you got to take a step back and look at your dog as an ecosystem. What is out of whack? Where's. What kind of patterns are they showing? You know, if they're showing a lot of like just unfounded fear, I'll guarantee they've got a kidney imbalance going on and not something you show up. When things show up on blood work. When the kidneys show up on blood work, that is a five alarm fire. The body speaks. Like if they do a lot of moaning, groaning when they lay down, you know, if they're afraid of thunderstorms and car rides and people, you know, leash aggression, you know, a lot of those things. Aggression usually comes from the liver and fear usually comes from the kidney. But when the liver is not Doing well, it puts extra pressure on the kidney. So everything is connected. Another thing about, like we talked about, the pharmaceutical mindset, right? Another part of the pharmaceutical mindset is this crazy notion that you have to go see a specialist. Okay? And what should be happening is when you come into the doctor's office, every specialist that you have seen should be at a board meeting table talking to one another. But they don't. They treat everything as an individual system that works separate from the rest. And that is not true. And the. The sooner you get that, the better everything's going to be because everything's connected. And behavior can be depicted by the microbiome, the health of the microbiome. You know, did that behavior start happening after antibiotics? Did it happen after you used, you know, things like different types of wormers? You know, if I could remember the name of that one warmer that people love to use, then they don't realize it's an antibiotic. It'll come to me. But, you know, I see a lot of behavioral changes after that. The rabies vaccine causes major behavioral, especially aggression, behavioral changes. You know, did they have their rabies vaccine three months ago or four months ago? You know, you need to detox the. The. Mainly the adjuvants and things like that out of that rabies vaccine. You know, for me, I never give a rabies vaccine unless I give skullcap. Skullcap is an excellent kind of. It really helps. Even it's acutely. Even if it's not your dog's energetic, you can give it for a week or two and be fine. It's an excellent remedy to give along with that rabies vaccine. But like, you know, we have to look at the pieces of the puzzle. And I go back to shame and guilt because of. I find that, you know, being. Doing consulting is part therapeutic work, you know, because I'm dealing with the owner of the dog, the guardian of the dog and the dog. And a lot of times we share their stress and we are their mirrors and they are ours. And you really can't see it as separate. So I look at the behavior of the person as well, and I can tell you from a personal example, I had a Rottweiler one time when I was in my early 20s. And my Rottweiler was a mess. Behaviorally, she was a disaster. She was on a good diet. I can't remember if it was energetically appropriate, but she was on a. She was on a like sojos. She was eating so jos. When it first came out, it was raw meat. And I think Like, a bag of, like, herbs and oats or something. But she wasn't on kibble, and she was an absolute mess. And I met with this positive trainer, and I warned her about Idgy's behavior when you come in the house or whatever. Itchy completely ignored her. Just sat down, and I was like, oh, God, this is going to go bad. And I knew that I was about to get it, and it was 100% my behavior. It had nothing to do with her. Yeah, she had her quirks, but that Idji was a completely different dog in this woman's presence. And the woman said barely anything for the first 30 minutes. And then she just wrote this, a note on a piece of paper, and she said, please don't react to this, but this is all you. And it's coming from love. But this is all you. She could feel I was anxious. I thought Itji was gonna bite her, you know, And I really realized that I. When I was on the other side of the leash with Itji or when something was coming over, otherwise Itji and I were fine. But whenever someone was coming over or when I would go out of the house with her, I put on the, my dog's a Rottweiler, and she's going to bite everyone helmet. And I just lived that way, and that was my energy. And that's exactly what Itchy tried to do. She would aggress at people. And I was, you know, and we did, like, leash work, and I was stiff on the leash. I was, you know, my hand was, like, white knuckled, you know, like, I was, you know, constantly. And she, you know, like, how tense are you? And I can feel your anxiety. And, you know, and she said, and I mean no disrespect, but, you know, look at your dog around me. She knows that one. I'm definitely in control. Number two, I definitely have her best interest. And number three, we all aren't freaking out right now, are we? Because I calm. I calm down in her presence, right? And I'm like, I want to be that person, you know, And I have made myself. I really got really early on in age that, you know, what we do, our dogs do. And so there's so many different layers of behavior. There's our behavior. There's also, you know, the thing is, is that a lot of times when I have see dogs with kidney and liver issues, my owners have kidney and liver imbalances as well. They have. They're afraid to fly. They're afraid to do this. You know, hey, let's go Drive a Vespa. No, I'm not getting on a Vespa. I might die. Okay. Like, you know, they have unfounded. Have you ever been out? No, but people die on those. I ain't getting on it, okay? So, like, they have fears. You know, they have all these fears in life, too. So we really have to look at things as everything. Everything is connected, and we. And it's just sitting back and observing our behavior and our dog's behavior, but all of our systems in our bodies are connected. And energetics is just that basis, basic foundation, right? And then everything else piles on top of it. Behaviors up here, it's, you know, behaviors up here. And you can see people's behavior change when they go on antibiotics. You know, our microbiome depicts it. You know, our gut brain, our gut, which is our large intestinal, you know, vast microbiome, talks to our brain and our heart. Our heart actually has more neurons than our brain, and that's all connected our liver. There's nothing. There's nothing gastrointestinal that really doesn't involve the liver. So, you know, and the lungs and the kidneys are linked, and the lungs and the large intestine are linked. And it's like all of these things are. Are an intricate part, and energetics just helps you understand. Energetics pushes everything in the body, so it starts at the base, but it works its way up, and it manifests as all these different things, right? Kidney infection, ear infection, liver congestion, skin issues, you know, all of these things, behavioral issues. You just want to get that taken care of so that when you use herbs for behavior, when you try to build up the microbiome, you. You're not using things that are going to work against your organism. And the cool thing is, in science right now, there is a test that people are. Scientists are using for cancer that they're testing, like, all of these different herbs, all these different foods, and see if it matches up with your DNA. Okay. Oh, wow. And I will tell you right now that Energetics is one for one for those tests, because when I look at. I work with some humans, and when I look at some of the testing, it's like they're all energetically appropriate. So, you know, it's fascinating. And I. And I. And I love that testing. I love that testing. And like, bioresonance, if you know about that testing, a lot of it is energetically appropriate. But. But the cool thing about energetics is that it. It can dictate the future. Whereas if you are working in energetic medicine, like healing medicine. Not food energetics or plant energetics, but energetic medicine, where you're healing or you're doing bioresonance or you're doing. You're working with a pendulum or muscle testing. The one thing that can't do, the one thing it can't do is tell you what you need in the future. Self selection, right? Self selection is kind of big right now in. In some little niches, self selection is awesome, but it's. Dogs can only self select for what they need right now. You can only pendulum for things that are needed right now that are in the earth right now, like water. You know, this is where water is on your thing right now. Right. Can't tell you where that water's going to go in the future. Right. You can't do that. And you can't muscle test for what you need tomorrow. You can only muscle test for what you need today. Okay? So you got to remember that now energetics can tell you what your guide should be. And it is a guide and it's a range. Your dog is on a range of warm to cool or warm to hot and cool to cold. And where they are, you just have to start paying attention and just learn more. But, you know, like I said, the day that I learned Energetics, my mind blew up and I was just dumbfounded. I was like, oh, my God, this is so awesome. And I didn't choose to take a TCM route with my practice. I. I use a lot of TCM diagnostics about how the body talks, pulse, tongue, diagnosis, especially with humans, and how the body sounds, you know, different, the ways, how the nails look and things like that. I love TCM for that, but I gravitate towards western herbs that are outside my door. You know, the cleavers, the plantain, you know, and also Western, like. And when I say Western, I don't mean western medical medicine. I mean Western hemisphere. So, like, what's in the western hemisphere? And also, like, not dosing so largely for everything. I'm not really into that. I'm much more what we'd call an energetic doser, drop doser for chronic disease. Unless it's cancer or something that needs a hammer. You know, if you need a hammer and you need to suppress, you got to do that to buy yourself some time to make that window larger in which to work. But like I said, you know, in herbalism, there's so much gray area. So.

Yeah. So if somebody wants to start adding in herbs to support their dog from an energetic perspective, what would that look like? And under what conditions would be an appropriate way to start? What does the beginning of that look like for them?

Well, knowledge is one of the best things, like find out, you know, what are the warm to hot herbs, what are the veggies and fruits and vegetables that are warming and cooling? You know, what do you need to minimize and where your dog is on that spectrum, you might have to guess. And if you can't figure it out at all, just guess. Cool. Okay. I find more cool dogs than warm dogs, so it's a good place to start. And the herbs will let you know. They will let you know if that's true because your dog will start having symptoms if that herb is not good. When you start really paying attention. Like, you know, I did say what, some cooling herbs, some hot herbs and warm herbs. You know, cordyceps, ginger, thyme, cayenne, ashwagandha. Very popular herb is warming, Calendula warming, turmeric warming, reishi mushroom warming, goldenrod warming, spinach, kale, cabbage, yellow squash, warming, warming, warming, warming. So you want to look at that and just see where your dog is on that spectrum. Again, if you have a warm dog, it's going to be a little harder. A lot of commercial foods are warming because of all the stuff they put into the, you know, a lot of commercial formulas don't have a good breadth of herbs. And also I know AAFCO affects this as well. It's a big long thing. So you might have to make your own food for a while while you get your dogs back into those normal ranges. But what you want to do is just figure out the protein first. Then you might want to get familiar with a couple of herbs. You know, I like to work on the lymphatics and the nervous system first. Before I go to any other system, I like to work on the lymphatics and the nervous system in the gut. So, you know, make sure you're giving some type of prebiotic, make sure you're nourishing the microbiome. Very important. Another conversation. But very important. But the lymphatic system, and that is the system that looks like the nervous system and it's all over your dog's body and it has everything to do with everything fat soluble. So vitamin D and are really important fat soluble vitamins. You want to move the lymphatics. So two herbs that nourish those are cleavers and calendula. I'll make it really simple. Cleavers is for warm dogs and calendula is for cool dogs. If you Figure that out. Calendula really needs to be given as a tincture. Okay. And literally you got a chihuahua sized dog, a dog under 10 pounds, one drop twice a day in the mouth. Add some water, we're done. You could even add it on the food if you want. Beginners add it on the food. Pug, that's like a small dog, right? 20 pounds, two drops twice a day. Spaniel, large, you know, larger. A medium dog, three drops twice a day. Golden retriever, four Newfoundland, five. There we have all of our dog sizes twice a day. Good place to start. Cleavers, same dosages as a tincture. At that dosage, don't worry about the alcohol. Unless your dog has diabetes or is in complete liver failure or liver failure or kidney failure, which most dogs aren't. And still you wouldn't have to worry about it. Those dosages are safe for pregnant women, pregnant dogs, whatever. So really those are a cleaver's. You could use a glycerin though. That's a glycerin based tincture. You could use a glycerin with cleavers. Actually it's kind of a little better than a alcoholic tincture for cleavers because cleavers has so much moisture in it. And where calendula is very resinous and it needs, it has to have, it has to be an alcoholic tincture. But you could also do like an infusion where you mix, like make a tea with it. You would steep calendula flowers for I would say a good 45 minutes in hot water. Where cleavers, you can't do that. You have to steep it overnight in cold water. Or you could, if you have fresh cleavers in your yard, which a lot of people do right now, you could take the cleavers and a little handful and put it in a, like a smoothie for your dog and pour it on the food. You don't have to. Those types of herbs are extremely non toxic. And you don't have to get all complicated in. Well, how much, you know, if it's a Chihuahua, you want a chihuahua appropriate size bowl. And I usually do a quarter inch of liquid in an, you know, a Chihuahua appropriate size bowl is about that big, you know, and then like a pug enough to fit their little fat face in there. That big and a medium dog. That big and a big dog, you know, you got the big bowl and an extra big dog, you got the extra big bowl. So like size appropriate. If you're using a lick mat, you're out of luck. In the infusion department, just give them a separate bowl with a little bit of food in the infusion. So, you know, a lot of people get real caught up in. But if you're using non toxic herbs like cleavers and calendula, you're okay, you could start there. Because when you start moving the lymphatics, dogs get less toxic. And I will tell you right now, if your dog is pooping one time a day, they are constipated. Okay, everyone, if your dog is pooping. If your dog is pooping twice a day. But pooping this little turd size appropriate, might be great for a chihuahua. If, if a golden retriever or a bulldog is pooping a turd this big twice a day, they're constipated. Okay, we want a nice poop, size appropriate poop. Okay? And if you don't know what that is, you can Google it. But size appropriate poop, we want two of those a day. And if your dog is not, their lymphatics is slow and their motility is slow. That's how fast things go through the gut and how thing and absorption might be down. And they're constipated. We don't want constipation because constipation. You wouldn't believe the number of dogs that start eating energetically appropriate diets and food and herbs. For the most part, remember, it's about consistency. The everyday stop being constipated. They stop having diarrhea, you know, they stop having loose stool. And this stuff doesn't happen overnight. You got to give it a, give it a good month, you know, or two. And then if your dog is super sensitive and reacts to everything, then change to an energetically appropriate diet. But don't expect miracles with the herbs, everything can irritate them. Just try to find one thing that they don't get irritated with and then maybe one herb that they're okay with and just do that for a little while. You know, extra sensitive dogs are a different conversation.

Yeah, yeah, no, but, no, I agree with you. And that's actually something from a nutrition standpoint I often recommend we want to make that quick switch and add everything in. But that's not necessarily right. For every dog that starting small, trying one little thing for a period of time to see how they're doing and.

Don'T add anything else.

Exactly.

So that you know what is working and what's not working.

Exactly. Because that's such useful information for the particular moment that you're in, but also for further down the Line. So like you were saying, when you're tracking your dog's health and you notice a change happened after this.

Right.

You can point back and start to problem solve, but if you're throwing everything in, you have absolutely no idea both for that moment and for further down the line for your dog's health.

Yes, it's amazing. And another thing, the nervous system. So if you're going to pick one herb, pick cleavers or calendula if you're starting out, and then pick something for the nervous system. You know, the nervous system is so important to support. And again, no matter what your dog, no matter what your dog is suffering from, there is always an emotional component to that condition, 100% without fail. Okay. Except for like a bee sting, you know, I mean, something acute that happened to them. No, but the emotional component is always there. And so working with the lymphatic system, getting circulation moving. Right. And working with the nervous system first can really go a long way at bringing things down, helping that dog calm down. And you know, mushrooms do really well with the nervous system. Like if you have a cool dog, Reishi mushroom is a great place to start. Ashwagandha, I would wait on that one. But it is a nice herb for the nervous system. And if you have a warm dog, like lion's mane is a good mushroom for that, or skullcap. But there's lots of herbs for the nervous system, I mean, just tons of them. And you can look in further and figure out what herbs are cooling, what herbs are warming, what foods are warming and cooling and use them as a guide. Remember your dog's an individual, you know, so if they're. And the interesting thing about that is that individuality is really found in that spectrum. And so say for instance, your dog is leaning towards cold, well, they're going to be more sensitive to those cooling herbs and cooling proteins. But if they're just plain old cool, they can handle those one offs or that acute medicine, the farther they are towards a disease state and hot and cold, the more sensitive they're going to be and the more you should pay attention.

I love that. That's so helpful. And I think this is such a great place for people to kind of start to kind of recap from my understanding, really beginning with observation, really kind of learning how to see your dog in a different way and making a note of all of that kind of stuff. Start with the protein before you start throwing in a bunch of herbs and see how they're doing with that and then move on to simple approaches to herbs. So again, and I guess I'd like you to comment on this, you sort of hinted at it, but those mixes that you see so oftentimes, like with multiple herbs kind of thrown together that people want to go to for convenience, that might not actually be the best place to start from what I'm understanding. And you're trying to figure out what is appropriate for your dog, is that right? Is that fair to say?

If your dog, if you feel that your dog is in a disease state, okay, if they're cold or hot, those formulas, those mixes are going to be. Yes. Harder. That's where you get to supplement graveyard. You know, like they're going to be. There's going to. Might be something in there that's really going to bother. They're not going to be flexible. Okay. And that's where we really want to get our dogs to. To that flexibility. But it's. It's not gonna. You can give it a try. And then when you try something like that, you really want to be observant. That's all. Don't add any more different proteins. Don't add anything else. Give it a good two to three, sometimes four, four weeks to find out if it's. If something weird is starting to happen. You know, eye discharge, you know, if you get heavy eye discharge, that's a lot of. It's detoxification or it's building damp. If a dog starts to get a dry nose, it's drying them out too much. If a dog, you know, if something's like a liver remedy, right, and it's too strong, you can get aggression. Your dog started really getting agitated after you gave them that liver remedy. That's too strong. Their body's not ready for that. But you want to look at your formulas and see if they are a net warm or net cool, you know, and the only way to figure that out is to, you know, find out about those herbs. Now, I have a list on my website that you can download under Shop, under digital downloads. I have a list. I update that list all the time. In fact, I'm about to update it next month. And then I have a canine energetics course that helps immensely. It's a course you can do in a weekend. It goes through all of the, like, a lot of the herbs to start off with for cool and cold and how to use it, how much to use it. But you're right, you really have to go slow. It's not a race. If your dog has a slow, a low window, that means that they have cancer or something like that, then their window might be shorter. That window of opportunity is what I'm talking about. If that window is small, then you just, you know, you do the best you can and you gotta force the body to react. Then you're going to take out the big guns, you know, and. But like, if you're looking, say if you're looking at chlorella versus spirulina, spirulina on a spectrum is more warming than chlorella. I find spirulina much more effective for cool dogs than warm dogs. I find chlorella much more effective for warm dogs than cool dogs. It doesn't mean that they can't take it, but that's my experience of it. I find that dogs who are cool do much more, much better on a spirulina blend than a chlorella blend. But you could use chlorella. Like, say, for instance, you were doing a mercury detox and wanted to use cilantro and chlorella as binders to get mercury out of the body for a couple of weeks. Might be fine for a cool dog. Probably not a cold dog, though. You might want to use, like, zeolite. That really doesn't have an energetic. It's pretty neutral. There are some things that are neutral that don't seem to. Again, it's a range. It could affect your dog, but don't seem to.

Right, right.

You know, and I have that on my list as well. And so, yeah, and my book's coming out.

I was going to ask you about.

That February 4th, and for everyone listening, I have a huge material medica, that means I have a huge list of herbs in there, and they all have energetics in there. And I have also my list of foods. And, you know, that's, that's growing. I don't put something on a list unless I'm, like, very positive about its energetics. And, you know, there are some foods that I have forgotten and people say, what about? What about? And then I, you know, I, I figured it out or I ask a mentor, what do you think about that? You know, and again, it's a range. It's a guide. Remember, it's a guide. This is all a guide. It's not an absolute. It's a guide. But I will tell you right now, it's a guide that, again, has not really failed me. And don't expect yourself to know everything overnight. You know, learning is a process. Start slow. And that's the best way to go, is start slow. And remember that you have the best of intention. And if you mess up, you mess up. I'll tell you, our dogs are 100% forgiving. So much better than humans.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

And they're there as our guides and to help us figure these things out. They are.

And I think, I think as well, it's also interesting to watch, like, how are they engaging with things out in the yard or out in nature? For example, like you mentioned, like, if you've got cleavers in your yard, like, are they drawn to it, for example, like paying attention, observing what they're naturally going to. And I'm always a big proponent of as much as possible look at what you can use in your natural environment versus from a sustainability perspective, for one, shipping stuff from all across the world. But also, like to what you were saying earlier, it will have a different energetic as well from where you are. So if it's possible to work with things that you are procuring locally, I think that's possibly a better route for you to go with your dog as well.

Yeah. And don't be afraid to reach out to herbalists that are in your area. Now, if an herbalist says, I don't know what energetics is, I might go to a different herbalist. You know, there are some herbalists that don't pay attention to energetics. And that's not neither here nor there. And that, you know, that also comes up. You know, my biggest thing is I had to learn, you know, trust where I'm at. Trust. My, my, the moment. Does it resonate with you or not? This conversation may not resonate with you. There's more than one way path to healing, right? There's more. There's so many ways to healing. So many ways. Right. So many ways. And if this doesn't resonate you, it doesn't resonate with you. It doesn't mean that it's true. It doesn't mean that it's false. It's just, this is where I'm at. This is where you are right now, listening to this. Does it resonate? Do you know what I'm saying? But there are more paths to healing. But if you are looking for the energetics of things, don't be afraid to ask locally, someone growing that plant, do you feel that it warms the body or do you think it cools the body? I find it very cooling. You look at Forever Dog, Rodney and Karen, you know, they talk about Bobby the dog in Portugal. If you heard that conversation, you know, Bobby did a lot of foraging and my dog Susie did too. I wish I would have paid attention to what she ate. But Bobby loved cooling herbs. You know, would he nibble on a little rosemary that's quite warming every now and then? Sure. Right. But he predominately loved plantain, from what I remember. And I think he liked cleavers as well. I'd have to go back to our conversation, but his favorite food was fish, whitefish, you know, and corn. Corn's pretty neutral, depending on if it has pesticides in it, herbicides all over it, but it's pretty neutral. And he loved. He loved this corn thing that they. They had locally. And he also. He loved white fish. And white fish is pretty cooling, and it's in. And it's just interesting. What. And, you know, when I looked at him, I thought, he's war. You know, he's a warm dog. So it's just. It's just observation, you know, just start observing your dog. They will let you know really quickly, you know, and try not to have, like a determination in your brain. If you're just starting out, try to just be open and just kind of look, you know, and see how they are. And it's pretty interesting. And that's, you know, so Energetics is just a tip of the iceberg, but it's a really great, great place to start. I love it.

This has been so helpful, Rita. And just to reiterate, you've got your course that people can sign up for. That's a self study course, right? For the. For Energetics.

Yes. It's video and written and also audio. And you can probably do it in a weekend. It's inexpensive. It's@canine herbalism.com. that's my. My teaching platform. I'm. I'm developing a. A canine herbalism school there. And then my consulting website, k9herbalist.com with a T. That's where I have my store and I have my consulting. And I also have a thing called Ask the Herbalist. One thing that a lot of people find very inexpensive and you can ask me any question is I have a community, a subscription community. It's $10 a month. You can get to it on the homepage of k9herbalism.com and it's called Dogs or Individuals. That's the main place to get ahold of me. Now if you send me an email and ask me a question, you have to go through Ask the Herbalist, which is, I think about $25 to $35 a question. And I answer it usually the same day or the day After. Or you can join my subscription group and ask any question you want about any topic. And it's $10 a month. And I have live trainings once a month. You don't have to participate. They get stored so you can watch them when you want. And I also do a live Q and A every month with people and that's the best way to get a hold of me. Otherwise do a consult and I'm booked out a few months. And I also have a network of colleagues that I've trained and that I find that are effective that I can refer you to as well, if I'm booked.

Perfect. And your book is coming out in February of 2025, is that right?

February 4th it will start shipping. You can pre order it right now anywhere. Amazon, Amazon uk, Amazon Canada, you can order at Barnes and Noble, you can do it at Bayam. You can order from my publisher, which is Inner Traditions. It's a traditionally published book, so I don't even know. I haven't got my edits back yet, so who knows. But if they cut everything, anything for my book, it will be on the book's website.

Perfect.

So whatever they cut will be on the website in a separate chapter. Perfect.

I will leave all those notes in the show. Notes. So if you want to click, click on those links directly you can. And find all of Rita's work.

Yeah, and I also have a podcast.

I was going to say go for it. Tell me about it.

I have a podcast, it's called Dogs or Individuals. And you can get it wherever podcasts are, are on. I'm not, you know, I don't listen to a lot of podcasts because I'm busy being a nerd. But wherever you get your podcasts and also@canineherbalism.com you can listen there too.

And I can vouch it's an absolutely fantastic resource. It's such a gift and I love too that the episodes are really focused and kind of within like about 30 minutes generally. So it's a great thing just to kind of like pop on. I love to pop it on while I'm like cooking in the kitchen or something like that and get my little nuggets of food for thought. So I highly recommend it. Definitely check it out.

Thank you so much for having me on and listening to me.

Rita, you are such a gift and I am going to take you up on that little offer you mentioned earlier on that you would come back and talk about other things because I think there's so much to talk about and there is Just, I think it's so helpful for people to hear. So I'm really grateful. Thank you for your time and energy today. But before I let you go, I've got one last question that I asked, I guess.

Oh, great.

And that is, what have your dogs taught you about what it means to be human?

Oh, my God. Oh, God, so much. My dogs have taught me forgiveness and being present. You know, I recently went on a trip and people are asking me, pictures, pictures, post pictures, post pictures. I'm terr. You know, I did take some pictures, but I take very little because I really like to be in the moment. On my vacations, I like to really be down, downtime and not be attached to my phone. And they've taught me to be present. They, you know, the difference between my dog walking while I'm on my phone or even talking to someone else and when I'm really present to them, it's night and day, night and day. And they know. They taught me, you know, be present, forgive. Don't hold people to their darkest moment. They definitely have taught me that. My partner has taught me that, too. You know, we don't hold our dogs to their darkest moments. You know, don't hold people to their darkest moments, Forgive. You can have boundaries, though. Okay. You know, if my dog's darkest moment is eating the entire sofa, right, I don't think I'm going to leave them alone with that sofa anymore. Okay. So you can have boundaries with people. And they've taught me that, you know, the importance of not too, too many choices. Dogs don't like too many choices, you know, and it's like they've really taught me to have healthy boundaries, to be present, not hold people to their darkest moments, and to enjoy my life on a daily basis.

That is beautiful. And I can't think of anything better to end this episode on. Thank you so much.

You are so welcome.

Thank you so much for joining me for this incredible conversation with Rita Hogan. Oh, my goodness. Is your mind blown too? Did you do the Vulcan mind melding along with us? Don't worry. I will definitely have Rita back on to talk even more things, dogs and herbalism. To find out more about Rita's work, Visit her websites canineherbalist with a T.com and canineherbalism with an M dot com. I've left those links in the show notes. And don't forget to check out her podcast, Dogs are Individuals. You can find that wherever you listen to podcasts. And you can also find links to pre order her upcoming book in the show notes. Just to let you know, these are Amazon affiliate links and by using them I receive a commission at no cost to you. If you are interested in purchasing Rita's book, I would be really grateful if you'd consider using these links because it helps to keep the podcast up and running. And I have to say, as a canine nutrition consultant, I have definitely seen energetics play a critical role in a dog's health, including Lucky's health. And like Rita said, start with the protein and monitor how your dog does. If you would like some personal support with finding an energetically aligned fresh food diet for your dog, I do have some openings coming up for nutrition consultations and I'd love to help you. You can reach out to me on Instagram mysticdogmama and I'd be happy to chat and see how I can best support you and your pup. If you would like me to cover any particular topics on future episodes episodes or you'd like me to reach out to a potential guest, just let me know. Again, you can reach me on Instagram mysticdogmama. Okay, until next time.

Sam.