EP #65 Your Herbal Dog: Working with Herbs to Balance Dryness & Dampness in Your Dog, w/ 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. Thank you for joining me today. I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and ending of 2024 and that this new year is off to a wonderful, expansive start. You are in for a treat because in this episode I am speaking with one of my favorite people to chat all things dog with kids, canine herbalist Rita Hogan. This is the second episode that Rita and I have recorded together and if you haven't listened to our first one, I highly recommend you take a listen to it. I'll leave a link in the show notes so that you can check it out, but in that first episode, Rita introduces the concept of energetics and how she approaches energetics using food therapy and Western herbs that you're likely to have access to. She spoke at length about the warm, cool spectrum, which is perhaps the primary concept that's helpful to understanding your dog's energetics and how to support their health by balancing it. Today we build upon that understanding to talk about another spectrum, which is dryness and dampness. So your dog is an ecosystem and health comes from keeping that ecosystem in harmony and balance, knowing that it's constantly changing. In our conversation around dryness and dampness, Rita talks about why moisture is perhaps the most important thing that we need to consider when we're looking at health and and what we can do from a food and herbal therapy perspective to ensure our dogs maintain a moisture balance. Rita shares with us how moisture, which is not just water, impacts everything, including nutrient absorption, toxin elimination, hormones, and even behavior and emotions like anxiety. Like any conversation Rita has, this one is packed with nuggets, wisdom and insights.

You'Ll want to write down.

So grab your pen and paper. Here are just a few things that we cover the symptoms of dryness and symptoms of dampness and how to identify where your dog falls on the spectrum. Helpful tips on handling moisture in your dog's food, whether you're feeding fresh kibble or freeze dried how the nervous system plays a role in every chronic health condition, including how your nervous system impacts your dog why an imbalance in fats can create problems with the nervous system, and why the sourcing of your dog's food is so important for this how to keep fluids circulating in your dog's body, how herbs can add or remove moisture from the body and some of the most common herbs that you can find how to consider things like fermented foods, how herbs can be used to support our dogs who struggle with fear, anxiety, reactivity and aggression. And Rita introduces her brand new book, the Herbal Dog, which comes out in the US on 4 February. But you can pre order it. You are going to take so much away from this episode and I can't wait to hear what your personal takeaways are. So remember to message me with them on Instagram mysticdogmama. Leave a comment or contact me on my website mysticdogmama.com to let me know. Okay, before we dive in, just a quick note that this episode is sponsored by Aspirationary, which in full transparency is another project of mine, but where we create books, notebooks and stationery to support you in becoming all you aspire to be. I'm really excited to announce that we have released a Spanish language version of our popular My First Period tracker for young girls and tweens in order to increase menstrual literacy and empower young people to become advocates for their menstrual health. You can learn more about our books on Instagram Spirationary spelled A S P I R A T I O N E R Y okay, on that note, let's go.

Rita Hogan, one of my favorite people to talk to. Thank you so much for being on the Mystic Dog Mama podcast with me today.

You are so welcome. I'm so excited to be here.

The pleasure is all mine. You have been on the podcast before and I'm going to point people who haven't listened to your episode back to that episode because I think they really would benefit from, from hearing your whole to energetics and to. In that particular episode, we were looking at the, the issue of how do you identify your dog as being a warm dog or a cool dog and how do you support health from that perspective. But today we're going to dive into dryness and dampness when we're looking at energetics for our dogs.

I'm excited to talk about it for sure.

I am too. But I wondered, for those who haven't listened to the previous episode who are not or who may not be familiar with when you're saying energetics, what do you in particular meaning by it? Would you mind giving a slight overview for your take on energetics?

Yeah, so when I'm a, like a, a Western herbalist, so I deal with plants that are kind of right out your front door.

Okay.

So it's not Western medicine, it's more a Western hemisphere or, you know, that kind of thing. So like the western part of the world, these plants are predominantly found in. And for me, I go by a system of warm, cool, damp, dry. And then we have another layer of being too tense or too relaxed in the tissues. So the actual tissues that your dog's body is made up of and their inner terrain, okay, so turn them inside out. And also it expresses on the outside of their bodies as well on their skin. So warm and warm and cool. Like if any. Like if you were to get anything right, just. I can't deal with it. I just want one concept. Warm and cool can change your dog's life. So when your dog is. It's a spectrum, and it's always a spectrum, and it's at 100%, nothing is. But it's a guide. So it's a guide to a spectrum of how warm or how cool your dog is ending up in, you know, very hot and deep cold. And being too hot or too cold are disease states. You really start to see major comorbidities, major problems coming up in your dog when they get to those points. And we really need to either warm them up at their core or cool them down. And when you get that, miracles start happening. You start working with your dog as an ecosystem. You start to be able to balance that because you, you can't keep it in stasis. You can't keep it locked in. Okay, my dog is so healthy on Tuesday, you know, I'm going to keep them here. You know, they're going to start to fluctuate down that spectrum, up and down the spectrum. So you kind of just want to put, like, parameters in place where you can just, you know, if they're getting too warm, you. You cool them down. If they're getting too cool, you warm them up. And most dogs are born either leaning towards cold, cool to cold, or leaning towards getting too warm, too hot. I don't see a lot of them cross over. Sometimes with removing the spleen or on certain, certain pharmaceuticals can. Can force the body into a different, like, kind of paradigm that they normally would be in. But those are very few and far between. So that's where we start. And then, as in today's episode, we're going to look at another layer of moisture.

Oh, that's super helpful because I think that, like you said, if that's the, the first thing or if that's the only thing you start to work with is warm and cool, that will make a huge difference. Huge difference. But then when we add in this other layer, I think it becomes really Helpful when we're looking conditions that are, for example, like a damp heat. And how do you start to address that? And so I think this is going to be a really interesting conversation for people who have kind of already not to say mastered, but they're familiar with the warm, cool kind of thing. And then it's like, well, so how do we, how do we dive in a little bit deeper with our dogs? So could you talk a little bit about what that means dryness and dampness and how that presents in the body?

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, dryness and dampness for me are just as important as warm and cool. But I think that you need to learn one first and then kind of really explore moisture. And moisture, okay, is how the body deals with liquid and not just water. You have fats and oils and blood and plasma and the lymphatic system, which is another episode. And. And moisture rules the environment of your dog. And it's all about balancing that moisture. You know, again, it's a spectrum. So if you have neutral in the middle, all the way to the right is really, really damp, very, very damp. And then all the way to the left is very, very dry, you know, and then everything in between, you know, slightly dry, dry, slightly damp, damp. And again, it's a spectrum. And moisture has to be balanced. And to really like, when you understand dryness, you have to look at the water element. Okay, so we're going to talk about dryness first. Is that okay?

Yeah, go for it.

Okay. So you have to understand the water element. And again, it's not just water, it's fats and oils as well. So our cells are made up of water and fat.

Okay?

Water and fat and moisture permeates every single cell in your dog's body and in your body. But the interesting thing, and I know that we are going to just talk a little bit about anxiety today, but the interesting thing is, is anxiety and behavior are governed by the layer of fat that surrounds nerve cells. And there's a layer of fat and moisture that surrounds, again, every other cell, but especially those nerve cells that communicate with other cells and they absorb nutrients and they speak to the brain. And our behavior and our dog's behavior are actually all chemical. So we are chemical beings, we are electric beings, we are moisture filled beings. And so this is a really important thing to understand because without proper nutrient absorption, which you cannot get when you are too damp or too dry. And we want to look at that water element and how it functions in the body. How does it flow?

Okay.

Does it dissolve substances, which it needs to. When you're looking at water soluble or fat soluble, vitamins and minerals and hormones. And hormones definitely affect all of our chemical processes. We are our hormones.

Okay?

So when the body suffers from dryness, when it has an issue with dryness, it's going to affect the elimination of wastes and the assimilation of nutrients. And right down to the basic function of life is how we assimilate nutrients and how we eliminate toxins. That's going on as I speak. What I do, the amount of water I consume, how much water I have in my body is how I'm going to eliminate and how I'm going to assimilate. And this really affects things like stagnancy, okay. Or overflow. It's something too slow or something too fast. And our organ systems get very weak when we have too much of dry or too much of damp. But with dryness, it can often lead to anxiety, okay? Because of that fat layer that's around our nerve cells and our dog's nerve cells and cells in general. So it, it kind of goes hand in hand. And how we correct it is it begins with diet. So everything. For me, diet is so important. And if you have a dry dog, then you need to add more moisture and you need to make sure they're getting a good level of fat. And if you have a damp dog, which we'll talk about in a minute, then we do other things. We dry up the damp. Okay, but like with dryness, look at hydration, look at moisture. Right off the bat, how much dry foods is your dog consuming? If they're too dry, are they eating kibble, which is extremely dry and soaks up a ton of moisture in the body? Or are they eating freeze dried food, which is very popular, healthy, freeze dried, raw food. But are you feeding it dry? Are you moisturizing and hydrating that food? Because it's had all the moisture sucked out for convenience and for shipping weight. But if we, if we want to go back to the fact that it's a convenient product, okay, it's convenient. At what expense? Moisture. So we have to add that moisture back in. And that could be soaking it for one to two days in the refrigerator, okay. To get that moisture back into that food or make sure that you're feeding it with enough moisture so that it's not going to rob. And here comes the dryness for anxiety. It's not going to rob moisture from the kidneys, and that's where it's going to come from the lungs, which is going to affect how much your dog poops, the elimination of waste, or it's going to rob it from the kidneys.

Okay.

Which is going to affect how well your. The kidneys eliminate waste. Also how well the moisture. Because the kidneys provide moisture to your body, they regulate moisture. They're going to regulate those nerve cells with moisture. And it can lead again to anxiety. Okay, so basic we're dealing with lack of moisture, insufficient water and insufficient fats. And I'm not just talking about, but my dog has access to a water bowl and he drinks. He bring. He drinks a good amount of water. That's good. But is it getting absorbed and where is it going? And we're not dealing with just water, so we're dealing with healthy fats as well. And snacks. Are we feeding dehydrated snacks to a dry dog? Are we feeding just foods that cause dryness? Okay, there's energetics of foods, they. That might be a little more drying. Okay, so like for instance, goat. Goat is a dry, a drying meat, whereas pork is a dampening meat.

Okay.

So there's lots of things to look at. But how, how do you know if your dog is dry? Okay, Dryness is pretty sneaky because it can be caused by dampness. But that's a little more on the. The advanced side. So if you think your dog is dry, I would test that out first. So some of the things that cause anxiety is. I mean, sorry, that caused dry. That is a product or a symptom of dryness is anxiety. And then we have cracking joints, of course, dry skin, dandruff, dry elbows and paw pads, and dry nose. And that can come from pharmaceuticals as well. Okay, so if your dog's on pharmaceuticals, their nose may be dry and has nothing to do with them being too internally dry. It's one of the side effects. But pharmaceuticals can cause dryness. They can also cause dampness. And then, you know, dry nails, do they easily crack? Does your dog poop once a day or maybe every other day? That's dryness. Constipation is a big symptom of dryness. No coating on their tongue. When they stick their tongue out, it looks dry. A lot of endocrine conditions can come from dryness being excessively hot or excessively cold. Usually excessive heat can come with dryness more than any type of cold. Usually you'll have like, excessive cold can also be dampness. But like excessive heat, excessive thirst, drinking way too much water can be dryness. I'm just thinking of other things prone to nervousness, restlessness nutrient deficiency, a rough coat, stiffness in the joints, undigested food in the stool, and I think, you know, being kind of wired and tired or just weakness and exhaustion in general. So I mean, that's like your, your basic dry. Then we have that excessive dryness, which I don't know if you want to cover today since we, you know, I have a limited amount of time. But like, that's just kind of an introduction to like too much dry.

No, that's perfect. And that's really helpful too, to start putting the pieces together because I think that, you know, you, you've mentioned before in, in the previous podcast when, like, how do you start to identify your dog? And I think one of the great takeaways for me was that you start to observe them over a period of time. So all of these symptoms can appear related to other things too. But if you start, see a pattern, and I think that's the thing when you're kind of mapping it out. So I think one of the kind of keys for people is put on a different lens when you're looking at your dog. And like, so they might be excessively drinking one day, but that could be in relation to what is another question. So maybe it's super hot outside and so they're really drinking a lot that day. But if that's a pattern that you start to notice, and that goes into the winter too, those kinds of things, you can start to put the puzzle pieces together. But it was interesting too that you bring up about anxiety. And I'm excited to talk about that after, after we go through this, because in my research into kidney disease, that's a huge interest of mine because Lucky presented with kidney disease, one of the things that I came across is how kidney disease can actually be brought on by chronic low grade dehydration. So not even serious dehydration, but just kind of that constant slightly dehydrated state for a long period of time can bring that on. So paying attention to those kinds of things, like, can be a really helpful indicator of what's going on in your dog's body and how to your point too, when we're talking about kind of chronic illnesses, when we push the body into disease state, if we're keeping the body at a kind of chronically low grade dehydrated state, that's when we push it into something like chronic kidney disease developing or a more severe dryness.

Yeah. And most dogs that have severe or even generalized anxiety or fear, you know, easily jumpy, reactive to noise, things like that have some type of kidney imbalance. Because. And, you know, we can just talk about this right now. I mean, I think, you know, while we're kind of talking about it, you know, like I said before, the nervous system is always, always, always a component of every illness and condition. The emotional aspects of the nervous system, there's an emotional component for everything. And usually with dogs, it's our emotional component. It's actually not theirs, it's us. You know, I would just say let's do an 80, 20. It's 80% US, 20% them. But it's a nervous system component. We're affecting their nervous system. And when you're working with chronic imbalances and chronic disease, there's always a nervous system component. And the myolithin sheath, which is this, like, insulated layer that goes around the nerves, it's composed, I definitely would say primarily of, of fats, of lipids. So without adequate fats, which a lot of dogs are eating, a lot of PUFA oils, which is polysaturated on fat, and unsaturated fat oils that are a little more on the inflammatory side, and they deplete Omega Omega 3s. They're like eating too many, too much Omega 6 and not enough Omega 3s, and that can be a problem. So without adequate fats in general, if there is excessive dryness there, the nervous system can't work correctly and the body, your dog's body can get exhausted. And that's where you start observing your dog, seeing the patterns. Because energetics is all about consistency. It's not about that one off day. It's all about consistent behavior, consistent issues, okay? And these types of dogs are unable to recover from, from exercise. They're unable to recover from stress. And if there's continued stress, usually provided by yours truly. Right, because we are a stressed out bunch right now, if there is a consistent, like, influx of stress, then your dog is going to smell you and you are going to smell like cortisol and adrenaline, okay? And then they're like, what's the matter? What's wrong? What's wrong? Because they're in tune with you. Like, what's happening? You smell weird. What's going on? Can I help? Can I help? Should I worry? Should I worry? Okay, maybe I'll take this on for you. And which dogs are really good at doing. And that leads to adrenal exhaustion again, it leads to their own excessive adrenaline. And then that in turn affects the kidneys and also the immune system. It brings down the immune system and it dries out your dog's mucous membranes. And where are those mucous membranes found? In some key parts of the body, which are the digestive tract, the lungs and the kidneys, especially the urinary tract. So if the, if the gut is dry, like if you go back and look at those organs, if the gut is dry, then you have inflammation in the gut. You don't have enough nutrient absorption, you have decreased organ function because there's a lack of fluids. And then you have insufficient secretions. Like when you think about the inside of your dog's body, it's totally gross. So is ours.

Okay?

It's filled with mucus, but it's all about secretions and the level at which they're secreting.

Okay.

We have all these little things that are like, well, if you've ever walked on a beach and you've seen those little bubbles and those little water things that are shooting up, right? Nature is all about secretion and n. And our bodies mimic nature and, and we need healthy secretions and people don't talk enough about secretions, you know, like, if it's too dry, we're going to have a problem. And when digestion declines, we have again poor elimination and a poor assimilation. And then the body will move through different levels of dryness until we have this thing called atrophy that settles in. And we do not want atrophy. It's what's called extreme dryness.

Okay.

And that's really prevalent in geriatric dogs, right? It as dogs age, as you mentioned, that just low level of dehydration, I know that I have to, I am working on my water intake non stop.

These days.

Because I forget to drink water. I get busy and I forget and so I have to remind myself. And so, you know, when you're 53 like I am, you might get hot flashes. And a lot of times hot flashes are from low circulating fluids and our fluids and your dog's fluids. Those are the things that cool your dog's body down. So if you have a dog that's hot and dry, most likely they have low circulating fluids. And when fluids aren't circulating your dog's inner terrain, their tissues aren't being fed, and then things start to slow down and then that leads to dry atrophy, which is what's called a tissue state. It's poor circulation, it's low mucus. And the mucus, even though here in America, people are trained to not like mucus, you know, they, they know the medicines called like mucanet Mucinex and no mucus and little, little evil cartoons of mucus. But mucus with no mucus will all. We'd all be dead. So we love mucus. We just, it's. Again, mucus is a fluid and we need a balance. Because mucus helps protect your dog against infection and it's critical to digestive health. It governs the release of digestive enzymes, which is critical to the assimilation of nutrients and avoiding the dreaded allergy symptoms.

Okay.

Because we want our dog's proteins to break down into amino acids and not cross that barrier in the gut, in the small intestine that gets things that should not be there unbroken down proteins in the bloodstream. And then we have food sensitivities. So, yeah, moisture is almost just as important as warm and cool.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, in the nutrition space, we say, like, it's the number one nutrient that you need to think of first, beyond thinking before. Before you're thinking about which proteins to feed. It's moisture.

It's moisture. And, and the good thing about plants, like, you know, you can work on feeding more healthy essential fatty acids. One of the best ways to have good essential fatty acid levels in our dogs is to pay attention to the sourcing of your dog's food. Because animals that are eating a appropriate species appropriate diet and only fed a species appropriate diet, which that's very hard to find in birds. If you're feeding birds, that's a hard one to find all bird, like any type of bird, unless it's a wild bird. So like, if it's a pigeon or and it's caught wild, not bred in captivity, okay, if it's caught wild and you're feeding it, you should be fine. But like, birds are really hard because turkeys and chickens are not fed a species appropriate diet. They're fed a lot of grains and things like that that they would not eat in the wild. Wild turkeys are very healthy. But turkeys bred in captivity, it can be really hard for a good level of omega 3s versus omega 6. But like cows and things that graze, like animals that graze on grass, if they're allowed to graze on grass and they're finished that way, that means that they haven't eaten nothing but their species appropriate diet, they have a very good level of omega 6 to omega 3, which needs to be balanced. And that's a really good way to have good omega 6 omega 3 fats in your body. But if you're feeding birds, you might not. Might. You'll have to supplement that. But herbs can add a lot of good moisture to the body along. I love to do herbal infusions for dry dogs. That means that you're making a tea out of the herbs and you're going to put it on the food. But like a few herbs that are right off the bat for dryness. Marshmallow root elm. Slippery elm's a little endangered, but. But there's other elms that can be substituted. But slippery elm is what people know. Burdock root, astralagus, chickweed, cleavers. Lion's mane mushroom. Tremella mushroom is extremely moisturizing.

Milky oats.

That's the oat tops. And it wants to. You want organic milky oats or wild oats? There are wild oats out there. Mullen leaf. Let's see. Solomon's seal violet. These are all things that add mucilage to the body. They, they add. Not all of them add mucilage, but a lot of them do. Like tremella mushroom and like marshmallow root. Slippery elm. They're very like. Plantain has mucilage as well. Licorice root. I would try to use the glyceride licorice root. But yeah, those are some plants that can add moisture, that can help us add moisture. Then there's, you know, there is also our proteins can add moisture or they can add dryness. So, you know, you can do that too.

Perfect.

And just work with your dog. Work with your dog in general. And with my book coming out soon, I have lists of. I have lists in the back of all, like all the main proteins and herbs and if they're cooling or warming or dry or damp. So you'll be able to have a good reference for that.

Oh, it's going to be like an energetics bible.

You know, I have changed the energetics of a few things over the years just because I started to experiencing them a little differently. But remember, it's, it's. If I say something was. If I said something was warming and now I say it's slightly cooling, it still can be warming in comparison to, you know, like, like turmeric is cooling in comparison to ginger.

Okay.

Ginger is cooling in comparison to cayenne, but they're all warming.

Right.

You get what I'm saying? So I have made some adjustments. I, I try to update it like every two years, but they're not going to be drastic adjustments. They're just going to be a little bit adjusted. It's not anything to go. Oh, you know, and there's some things that someone Asked me this week, the energetics of. I have something fish that I have never heard of before in my life. There it was in Singapore. I'm like, I have no idea what that is. I don't know the energetics of that. You know, I could take a guess. But, you know, I don't know. But yeah, I mean, and remember, it's consistence, consistency. So, like, what are we consistently giving our dogs? Is it contributing to. To how dry or damp our dogs and our cats are? So it's an interesting thing.

It is. And would you say as well. So when we were talking in the previous episode of like the Warming and Cooling, we were looking at how you were saying about. If you're looking like at an herbal formula, for example, you want to look at like, is it net warming? Is it net cooling? To kind. Understand, you're going to have a mixture of things in there. How do you advise? And so if somebody's going to. To get your book and they're saying, I've got a dog who's dry, how do I start to work out with both the herbs and the proteins to support that? Would you do a similar kind of approach where you're looking at, is it net?

Okay, so for healthy dogs and for dogs that don't have a lot of issues, I find that the net is fine. Like, for instance, let's just. Let's just put this together. So if you had a warm dog that was dry, okay. And you had a formula with burdock root, ginger cleavers, lion's mane, and reishi, okay, We've got a couple warming substances in there and mostly cooling. You got like three cooling, two warming. It's. It's pretty net cooling. That's fine for a dog that doesn't have a lot going on. But the farther they are down the spectrum, the more sensitive they're going to be to warming. Like, farther they are towards hot, more sensitive, they may not be able to tolerate any type of ginger or any type of reishi. They'd be able to tolerate reishi before ginger. Reishi is not as warming as ginger. So what I would do with that is I would just get those substances, like, just get some reishi and some ginger by themselves. Try them one at a time with your dog and see if they start to irritate your dog. And you'll know, like a warm dog, they'll start panting more, they'll get more restless. You know, they're getting hotter. And if they're. If they don't. And usually the more Sensitive they are, the quicker it'll happen. So I would give it like two weeks. And if nothing goes on, they most likely can be just fine with that formula or you want to cool it down even more. So you would give it with something that's like maybe a little pinch of gentian, which is cold, quite cold, very cold herb. Just, it's a, it's a bitter. It's extremely, like, it's, it's extremely cold. So you might want to put a little more cooling or find something else that's a little more cooling and try to cool it down even more. But yes, but what I would do, like, I always just. If you think your dog's dry, start with what you have. Start with the dog in front of you. Like, what are they eating? Look the stuff up. Oh, oh. All three of my proteins are drying, but that's the only proteins I can get. Okay, then we need to add moisture. We need to add herbs that provide moisture. We need to add maybe some mush. Like tremella mushroom is just fan fantastic. I get that at real mushrooms. They have a great tremella, like a powder. It's fantastic. Marshmallow root infusions that are left overnight in a cold infusion, which I deal with in my book, add a lot of moisture. So we want to add moisture to that food. It doesn't mean they can't eat that food. But we have to make sure that your dog is getting enough essential fats and moisture to make up for the dryness in the food.

Oh, that's super helpful. That's super helpful. So we're balancing it. I love that. I love that. So then if, if we've got a damp dog, what does that look like? What, what might we notice?

So damp is on the other side of the spectrum, but it's still a balance of moisture. It's too much water. And if you think of a, like a pool, like an above ground pool, not in the ground, but above ground pool that's sitting up on like poles and it's got a liner.

Okay.

Picture too much water in that pool and the liner is going to start leaking, right? And if you still keep putting water in that, it's going to overflow. And then picture it going in your yard, but your yard doesn't have very good drainage. Then it can start to stagnate and get gooey and gross. So it has like. And that's what. You're very damp.

Okay.

You got damp to very damp and regular, you know, just a little bit of damp, dry like kind of in between there is healthy, it's fine, but it's when it gets too much, when it starts slowing down the body and overflowing or stagnating too much water, especially slow water, it has a cascading effect. It. It affects the entire dog as an ecosystem. And your dog is an ecosystem. And you just want to make sure that that ecosystem is continually balanced. And it messes. Dampness really messes with the liver and the lymphatics. Those are the biggest things that it messes with. And dryness also messes with the lymphatics as well. And the lymphatics clean the body. They are, you know, if you have a swamp, the lymphatics, or let's say if you have a flood, your lymphatics are the sump pump, okay? So you really want to make sure that you are trying to balance things out. And just like dryness, dampness affects metabolic processing, it affects circulation, it affects digestive function. It affects, well, of course, drainage and swellings, okay? Excessive moisture builds up, you get edema. That's where your, your dog is holding water. And I will tell you right now that if your dog has a fatty lump, a lipoma, your dog is damp. So if your dog has a sebaceous cyst, your dog is too damp, okay? If your dog has any, they're holding water anywhere. Your dog is too damp, but it brings down digestive functioning. And it's, it really is like when you look at dampness, there's, you know, energetics. We could talk all day, okay? If your dog has any. They're holding water anywhere. Your dog is too damp, but it brings down digestive functioning and really is like, when you look at dampness, there's, you know, energetics. We could talk all day, but energetics, like, the advanced part of energetics is you start looking at how either relaxed your dog's tissues are like, relax. Think of a tightrope that has, like, it's falling down in the middle. You're not going to get across that rope, right? And if you poured water down that rope, it's all going to stagnate in the part that's kind of saggy, that would be too relaxed. And then we have two tents so tight that water can't even stay on the rope, okay? So we look at that later on. It's kind of like how slow or sluggish something is or how, how it's overflowing and then overflowing. You get a dilution of minerals and vitamins. Okay. Things start to dilute. And that's not good either. It's just in life, in life, too much excess is no, no bueno. It's not good. So in pretty much all of life, right, One glass of wine. Magnificent. Six glasses of wine, you don't even know what you're drinking anymore. So, yeah, so, I mean, it's all about balance. And, and then, you know, more advanced in dampness, there can be damp heat. So this. And there, it's basically, it's simmering things.

Okay.

So you're going to have an aversion to humidity. You're not going to be able to deal with humid conditions. You have to balance that heat and dryness and, and these types of things can be exacerbated. And there's a few things that can cause damp.

Heat.

Antibiotics, pharmaceuticals, vaccines, Higher fat diets can mess with heat. Dogs that are already hot, whereas dogs that are too cool. Antibiotics causes cold. You know, it causes cold conditions in the body and so can pharmaceuticals and different vaccines. But in heat, you see a little different. You see more dampness when you're too hot. So, like, different types of dampness, how it shows up in the body. One is a big one that a lot of animals suffer from is acid reflux. And for dryness and dampness, you can have allergies and sensitivities. For dryness and dampness, you can have arthritis. So you want to like, how many of these things does your dog have and will tell you more if they're leaning towards dampness or dryness. Cloudy urine, diarrhea or alternating diarrhea with. With constipation. So you can have constipation too, but you usually have alternating diarrhea with constipation, difficulty digesting fats. A lot of dogs have that. These things does your dog have and will tell you more if they're leaning towards dampness or dryness. Cloudy dogs with pancreatitis, ear infections, damp kidneys, excessive urine diarrhea, or alternating diarrhea with mucus eczema. Dogs that have lots and lots of eye drainage, fungal infections are a huge ones. Yeast infections, yeast overgrowth, hot spots, dampness, heat with constipation. So you can have constipation too, but you usually have alternating damp, hypothyroid.

Okay.

Diarrhea with constipation, difficulty digesting fats. A lot of dogs have that. You can also have cool and damp hypothyroid. Dampness is definitely a hypothyroid where dryness is a hyperthyroid. Leaky anal glands, that's an obvious one. Leaky gut can be dryness, but it's mostly dampness. Lipomas, just flat out dampness. Mucus and stool can be. It can be temporary dampness, but usually dogs that are severely damp will have a lot of mucus in the stool. Panting when it just gets slightly warm out or slightly humid. I did say sebaceous cysts. That's about it.

I was gonna say that's the most common things. It sounds like. Yeah, yeah. And so from, from a herbal perspective, then how do you want to think about drying out that? Especially because it's, it's that. Catch 22 when you want, you want to make sure your dog is adequately moisturized. So trying to find that nice sweet.

Spot where you're bringing it back again. Yeah, absolutely. You do want to find the sweet spot. And so like looking again at what you're feeding, what you're doing.

Okay.

So when you're looking to address dampness, you want to figure out if your dog is warm or cool.

Okay.

Don't try to address the dampness until you figure that one out. That one's really important. So like, I just like to, you know, turmeric, drying, warming, rose hips, drying, pooling dogs with pancreatitis, ear infections, damp kidneys, excessive. Okay, so rose hips, organic rose hips are like the, the cooling version of turmeric for me. Then you have like, are you feeding mucus, eczema. Dogs that have lots and lots of raw milks. I love raw milk. I talk about it in my book a lot. Slightly dampening. How much of it are you giving? If your dog's super damp, you might have eye drainage. Fungal infections are a huge one. Yeast infections, yeast overgrowth. They have to stop the milks for a little while and balance out that dampness before you, you give it again. Hot spots, dampness, heat with dam. But like, I always like to look at dairy. How much dairy is your dog consuming? You know, and if your dog is consuming any dairy, make sure that it's raw dairy.

Okay.

Make sure that it's raw dairy. Fermented dairy is good, but it's also warming. So your hot dog may not be able to tolerate it, but ferments in general, like fermented veggies, you don't need a lot. You know, I see a lot of people giving way too much fermented food at one single time. You know, for my pug, the amount of ferment my pug would need, I would say a 16th to an eighth of a teaspoon a day. It's really tiny. Where sometimes I'm seeing this big dollop of ferments. Sauerkraut. I can't imagine the gas. But sauerkraut in a dog's bowl, that is just not size appropriate. So. But herbs and mushrooms that add a nice drying effect to the body. Ashwagandha warming. Ashwagandha is warming along with angelica. Angelica is not really well known in the dog world, but it is nice. I do cover it in my book. I like it. Ashwagandha is lovely. Cayenne. Little tiny, itsy, bitchy pinch, you know, it's very warming. It's hot. It helps with circulation. Chaga mushroom is drying. Chamomile is drying. Hypothyroid.

Okay.

Dandelion root is cooling and drying. It's very drying. It's nice and cool. You can also have cool and damp. Hypothyroid dampness. It's lovely for dampness. For dogs that are hot and damp, it's the perfect little. Is definitely a hypothyroid where dryness is a hyperthyroid beauty out in your yard. I mean, it's free. See, Ella campaign is warming, especially with dampness in the lungs. And this time of year we're in the lung season right now. A ginger. So plentiful. Lovely. Fennel warming. Gotu kola is cooling. It's lovely. It's great. It helps with connective tissues when they're too relaxed. Hawthorn. Hawthorn berry. Leaky anal glands. That's an obvious one. Leaky gut can be dryness, but it's mostly is warming and slightly drying. Hawthorn leaf and flower warming. Sorry. Cooling, slightly drying. Juniper berry warming. Very drying. Nettle slightly drying. Slightly neutral. It goes both ways. It's. It's a lovely, lovely plant. Poria mushroom is drying. Red root is drying. Reishi is drying. Rose, rose and rose hips are drying. So many herbs are drying. Just to put that out there, there's not a ton of. Of dampening herbs, but there's a ton of drying herbs. And I will tell you right now that damp is much, much, much, much more prevalent than dry.

Okay.

It just is because of all the. Our lifestyles. But thyme, turmeric, ousnia, St. John's wort, these are all things that are drying. And so you can definitely look at that and start, you know, just start looking at it and make sure that you know about the cool and the warm first.

Right, Right. Oh, that's super helpful. Thank you for that, Rita. I think, I think you're right. If you can start with the, the warming and the cooling and really understand that then the dry and the damp.

Dampness, lipomas just flat out dampness.

Comes easier to understand as well and easier to understand in relation to. Because I think that's a big thing to, for listeners to take away. I, as we're listening to this conversation that it is in relation to.

Right.

It's in relation to your dog. It's is this herb cooling in relation to another one.

And mucus and stool can be. It can be temporary dampness. But usually dogs that are severely damp.

And it's all about finding that, that kind of balance and what works for your particular dog. Because not everything will have a lot.

Of mucus in the stool. Panting when it just gets slightly warm out or slightly humid is going to.

Work for your dog. So finding, finding their sweet spot.

Yes, absolutely. Yeah, 100% perfect.

I wanted to just circle back really quickly for, for a little bit more clarity for listeners who are looking for some support around the issues around reactivity and how we can. And anxiety, how we can actually support with some herbs. So we, you started off by saying, like, we need to look at these systems and again looking at your dog as an ecosystem. And so how do we look at supporting the kidney and the kidney system and appropriate fats? Are they. So looking at the diet, are we supporting, are we adequately supporting the diet with moisture? What are some other things from an herbal perspective that people might want to think about either adding in or even thinking about avoiding when it comes to dogs that struggle with anxiety and other behavioral issues?

I did say sebaceous cysts. Well, one thing, I mean, where predominantly is the, is the kind of like chink in the armor when you're dealing with the nervous system and how your dog is reacting? Are they reacting from fear or are they showing aggression? What kind, like, are they being like. What kind of emotion is like predominantly there? Because if it's fear, then you need to support your dog's kidneys. Like if a dog comes to me that's fearful, they're working with a trainer, they're having all the problems. But fear is our problem. Fear and reactivity are a problem. I don't do anything except for I support the kidneys. And the good thing about herbs is a lot of our nervous system, herbs support the kidneys. You know, they, they do it already and then after that I will give stuff that, that are, you know, do I need a nerve like a nervine? That's more sedative Do I need. Do I need one that's more supportive of the nervous system in general, the fight or flight response? Because the biggest thing is if you have a dog that has, like, what you would classify as nervous system issues. Restlessness, anxiety. That's about it.

I was gonna say that's the most common things. It sounds like. Yeah, yeah. And so from. From a herbal perspective, then how do you want to think about drying out that especially because it's. It's that catch 22, when you want. You want to make sure your dog is adequately moisturized.

Reactivity, aggression, fear, fear, biting, fear, urination. You know, all those things that come along with that. Separation, anxiety. Right. Ptsd. These all involve the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems, which also govern the. What's called the vagus nerve that runs through the gut. So a lot of times you'll have gut issues as well. Okay, so we want to see how that plays out in the body. And again, it's. What you said. It's the. It's. I think. What did you say? I think you said something about balancing.

Finding the sweet spot for the dog.

Yes. Like. Oh, no, observing. Like, you know, I always tell people, start paying attention to your dog and start collecting the herbs and foods that work best for them even. And that may change at different.

So trying to find that nice sweet spot where you're.

You're bringing it back seasons of the year, different times of the year. But once you get a couple of seasonal rotations under your belt, you will see how things play out. Like, you will start. Well, I saw that last year. Oh, my God, it was almost two days to the. Like to the day of when it showed up the last time. And these are beautiful things because you'll get. You'll get an arsenal of herbs and. And possibly supplements and mushrooms that all work together in helping your dog manage those manifestations and symptoms when they come up. Okay, so is your dog in fight or flight? You know, how many times do they. Are they in fight or flight? And then talk about the sweet spot. How many times are you in fight or flight? Are you holding your breath when you're around your dog? Are you reacting? Are you complaining? Are you freaking out? Are you. You know, because we can change the way that we react to the stress in our lives. You know, for instance, like, we have an election tomorrow in our country. Correct. Okay, I am not again. Yeah, absolutely. You do want to find the sweet spot. And so, like, looking again at what you're feeding, what you're Doing okay. So person that can handle that, I voted. I did my, my civic duty and I am not going to be around the television next tomorrow night.

Okay?

When you're looking to address dampness, you want to figure out if your dog is warm or cool. If you are someone who's stressed but you choose to be around the television and the, the political, whatever you want to call it, system messes with you, you're choosing to react to that stimulus in a negative way because you already know that it bothers you and that you, you're going to be stressed out. Well, there's more than just people in, in houses tomorrow night. There are all the dogs that are watching. All of these people absolutely lose their minds. And that literally, I think probably going to start at 4 o', clock, right? And it's going to go probably past midnight. And there's people that are going to be watching it for the whole time. Their dogs are going to be with them. And you're going to smell like cortisol, you're going to smell like adrenaline. They're going to be wondering what is up, up with you, like what is wrong. Now they're starting to stress out. That's just an example of something. But how many times does that happen? How many times have we entered our homes when we're upset? How many times have we, okay, don't try to address the dampness until you figure that one out, that one's really important. Entered. Like, how many times have we just grabbed hold of our animals when we're crying and upset? Like, these are things that we all need to look at it because it really does, like, contribute to the anxiety that our animals have because they, a lot of them don't have what it takes to shut it off.

Okay?

So you get that chronic barking and whining and dogs that are wired and tired or their eyes are dilated and they're constantly on the job, they're constantly reacting. You know, I have a dog that my, you know, every time we have people over, they just bark and yell for like 20 minutes. I don't know what to do. Okay, That's a dog that can't shut it off. It takes them a really long time to go into what's called parasympathetic activity. And the really interesting things is that a lot of the dogs, that a lot of the dogs. So like, I just like to, you know, turmeric that have, like really big issues, right, Will have gut problems, will have drying, warming rose hips, drying, cooling sensitivities, will have the inability to digest food well. They'll have mucus poops. They'll have alternating constipation with diarrhea, you know. Okay, so rose hips, organic rose hips, are like the. The cooling version of. They might have incontinence or suffer from UTIs or ear infections, and those are all related to the kidneys. Or they might have swellings or be damp because of turmeric. For me, then you have, like, are you feeding the constant sympathetic activity, which is your fight or flight. Had a dog that had fly biting. I don't know if you know what that is, but it's where dogs start to bite the air. They bite the air. And, you know, the owner wanted to get a MRI and they thought the dog had, you know, brain tumors. And, you know, which is fine. I mean, I understand that, but when we got to their lives. Okay, what's happening in your life that you know, what's happening in your life that you have. That your dog has this. Is there anything going on? Turns out there was a major medical diagnosis with her husband, and they were completely stressed out about it. Once their. Their. Their lives calmed down, fly biting went away. They had to use. And of course, that dog that was fly biting used to be a dog that could eat anything. Not anymore. Used to be a dog that slept through the night. Not anymore. Because the fight or flight was there because they were upset all the time. They smelled like cortisol. And you can't pull anything over on a dog, you know, and don't get me started on horses. Like, you just can't. You can't do that. You're not fooling anyone. And so you. When we get our emotional selves together, you see huge, huge, huge results in dog's behavior. And another thing. And. And I'll. I'll stop my rant. Another thing is for women that have a dog on the other side of the leash that are reactive, right? You want to look at the kidneys, but one of the biggest things that you want to look at is how safe do you feel when you are out in the world with your dog? Do you. Are you reactive? Are you. Do you feel safe just in general? Because how. Because women tend to be the people that take care of the dogs the most. And, you know, just being women, we have an underlying foundation of not feeling safe. And how. How much is that effect, how much that does that feeling of not being safe. Like, where are you at with that? Because your dog knows, and your dog may be protecting you and may be reacting for you. You know, and may be barking for you. And so. And then we want them to, you know, quiet, you know, don't do that. Why is my dog always on? You know, And a lot of times I will find out because I used to do behavior when I boarded dogs. Like, a lot of times I find out that, you know, that person is having their own issues internally and didn't even think that it would ever affect their dog. But it does.

It does. Thank you. Thank you for highlighting that, because I think that's a missing piece of the puzzle where we so often want to kind of approach working with our dogs in this kind of, like, fixing mentality. Even if we're using more holistic approaches, there is still this sort of allopathic tendency of, like, I want to get rid of the thing that I'm seeing. But in reality, that thing that you're seeing is telling you something. It's information, whether that's within the body, it's within the psyche, within your dog, or it's within you. And I think if we can. As somebody who has a dog that does react to things, I can 100% vouch for the fact that of what you've just said, that he is worse when I have a. Even when we talk about low level of dehydration, where I have a low level of anxiety going on, I notice that there's a direct correlation. I don't have to be super stressed out or even visibly stressed. He's picking up on, oh, I've got a deadline coming up. Whatever it is, doesn't matter. And he's much more reactive out on the walks when I'm in that state. So thank you for. For reminding us of that.

Yeah. And so, like, some of the herbs, though, you did ask me, and before I went off on my tangent, you know, some of the herbs that can help us with things. So with herbs and the nervous system, there's herbs that relax, there's herbs that sedate, and then there's herbs that repair.

Okay.

Herbs and fungi. So, like, you want to look. Is this a prolonged problem? Has it been happening a long time? Raw milks. I love raw milk. I talk about it in my book a lot. Slightly dampening. How much of it are you giving? If your dog's super damp, you might have to stop the milks for a little while and balance out that dampness before you. You give it again. But, like, I always like to look at dairy. How much dairy is your dog consuming? You know, and if your dog is consuming any dairy, make sure that it's raw dairy.

Okay.

Make sure that it's raw dairy. Fermented dairy is good, but it's also warming time. Then you might need to add something that relax relaxes, but also repairs. And then. Or is it a huge problem? Like, do we need something that's more sedating? And usually these are kind of more acute issues.

Right.

But, like, what do we need? Like, what do we need that herb to do? So, like, some of our more relaxing herbs are things like eggermony, catnip, chamomile, and lemon balm. You know, these are really nice, relaxing herbs. They're gentle. You're going to see a difference. Like if you look at most, like, calming formulas on the market, you're going to see passion flower. So your hot dog may not be able to tolerate it, but ferments in general, like ferment. You're going to see skullcap. You're going to see chamomile. You might see valerian, you might see lemon balm. Those are usually the formulas and, you know, different amounts of each because they are so gentle. More sedative herbs are like skull cap, as an infusion is much more sedating than like a tincture or a glycerin.

Okay.

So when you infuse it, for some reason, it's just much more sedating. And then you have California poppy. Passion flower is more sedating. Lemon balm is relaxing, but more sedating, especially as an infusion. And then valerian. Valerian's paradoxical. It sometimes it can cause anxiety. And so if it does, if your. If your dog gets more anxious on. On something with valerian in it, just don't use that. Valyrian will, like, will either work really well or not, or it'll cause anxiety. But it does work well. It's more sedative.

Okay.

And a lot of those sedative herbs work really well with like a neutralceutical of like a trimagnesium. That's all. That's very nice. Or maybe a little tiny bit, you know, less than 100mg veggies, you don't need a lot. You know, I see a lot of people giving way too much fermented food at one single time. You know, for my pug, the amount of. Of gaba for most dogs, like, you can. You can mix these with certain things. And then like, we got our tonics, and our tonics are lovely because they. They're alternatives. They're. They slowly change the body and the nervous system. And like, one that I really like is lion's mane mushroom. It's very tonic in nature. Nettle is tonic.

Milky oats.

Milky oats is great. It's cooling. Reishi mushroom. Lovely. Especially for a dog. That's cool. Rose ferment. My pug would need, I would say a 16th to an eighth of a teaspoon a day. Mary for a dog, that's cool. Skull cap for a dog. That's warm. Wood bent knee is also, I believe, I think wood bent knee is cooling. That's a nice one. It's really tiny where sometimes I'm seeing this big dollop of ferments. Sauerkraut, our bitters can kind of help things because they help the, like the gut brain, you know, they help the gut brain. So those are some nice nervous system tonics. And then, you know, we also have our adaptogens that help dogs like with stress. So the adaptogens like help dogs deal with stress on a, on a more regular basis. Like linden, which is. Linden is very nice. Like valerian. It can have a paradoxical effect, but it's usually when dogs kind of have a crappy gut the only time I see it. But like holy basil. Which is warming. Got a cola. Which is just a really nice, gentle, like alternative and adaptogen again, the ashwagandha rhodiola. Now rhodiola is nice, but it's endangered, majorly endangered. And it doesn't cultivate well. So when I love using rhodiola, but I use what's called a phytoembryonic therapy of rhodiola, which is a stem cell that allows the rhodiola plant to finish its life cycle and reproduce. So I only use rhodiola in that form because of the fact that it is endangered. I can't imagine the gas. But sauerkraut in a dog's bowl that is just not to. To go extinct. So I like, I don't use size appropriate. So but herbs, that. Herbs and mushrooms. Much frankincense anymore at all? Because frankincense is on its way out. Those trees are. They're. They're completely endangered. There's a few, there's. I think there's a few that are in, I think Hawaii that are not endangered. But they're, it's. It's going on the endangered list. So I don't, I don't tend to use frankincense anymore. But yeah, so our adaptogens, some of our adaptogens are really nice, nice for that. And then we have things called troporestoratives and these are things that can restore the nervous system. And tonics are, are nice with that too. But like things like dandelion and Gotu Cola is a really nice one. Hawthorne hawthorn can help the nervous system and the heart. Everything comes down to heart energy. Anyways, Licorice root, lion's mane milk thistle is a tropa restorative. St. John's wort. Nettle. St. John's wort you don't want to use with any that add a nice drying effect to the body. Ashwagandha. Warming. Ashwagandha is warming along with angelica. Hyperpharmaceutical.

Okay.

But those are like just some, some, you know, a variety of things that can help.

That is so helpful. Thank you. Rita and I wondered. We need to talk about your book. We need to let people know where to get it, when it's coming out and what's included in it.

Yes. So my book, yeah, it is coming out in, in the United States, it's coming out on the 4th and I think like in the UK and Canada, I think it might be the 12th of March, but you can pre order it and it will automatically be sent to your house when it's available. I would definitely pre order it. And it is. So the book is separated in two parts. So the first part is learning. It's. Let's go over to our nice little handy table of contents. But the first part is you. You're learning about holistic canine herbalism.

Okay.

So some of the things that we were talking about today, you definitely learn about using whole plant medicine. How herbal. Angelica is not really well known in the dog world, but it is nice. I do cover it in my book. I like it. Let's view like evidence based medicine and how to kind of find a balance with that. Ashwagandha is lovely. Cayenne, little tiny, itsy bitchy pinch. I talk about sharing our emotions with our dogs in the first part of the book. And then I have a little section called Food as Medicine. So it talks about diets and it doesn't matter what diet you're feeding, I include you. Then we go into chapter three, which is canine energetics, which will teach you exactly what we talked about today. It has some good graphs. And then I go through the main systems that I think people in an introductory level need to learn. And that's the nervous system, the lymphatic system, the liver system, the kidney, the gastrointestinal, the cardiovascular system, the lungs, the respiratory system, and well, the renal system, which I mentioned and the skin. And so that's the learning part of the book. And then the second half of the book, part two is like your herbal practicum. So learning about all the different types of remedies and what they are, how to measure them, you know, it's very warming, it's hot, it helps with circulation. Chaga mushroom is drying, chamomile is drying, how to use them, how to purchase them. And then planning an herbal protocol is the chapter six. And that goes with dosing and creating a healing protocol for animals and like some guidelines to holistic herbalism. And then we go right into our conditions. So I tried, there's so many conditions and I tried to pick conditions that would make a big difference, that weren't too complicated. So let me, I'll tell you what I cover. I cover acid reflux, allergies and sensitivities, anal gland conditions, antibiotic recovery, which is a big thing, like how to recover from antibiotic use, arthritis and chronic, chronic muscular skeletal pain, like pain in general. Black dandelion root is cooling and drying. It's very drying. It's nice and cool. Bladder and urinary conditions, candida overgrowth. So yeast, constipation, diarrhea, coughing, ear infections, grief, which is sometimes overlooked, growths and warts, histamine intolerance, hot spots, itching and scratching, leaky gut, lipomas, nausea, vomiting, poor appetite, paws, stings and bites, preparing for surgery and recovering. It's lovely for dampness. For dogs that are hot and damp, it's the perfect little drum. Surgery, vaccine, preparations and recovery. So I think those are like some big heavy hitters that animal guardians need to really know about. And then, and I give you like the herbs. What's really great about the practicum part is so I give you like what herbs are good for it, right? But also I break it down to warming herbs, cooling herbs, mushrooms, essential oils for self selection. I go over essential oils in this book, but I only use them in self selection. So what essential oils are good for that particular problem from a self selection standpoint? What flower essences might be good beauty out in your yard? I mean you, it's free. The homeopathic remedies that are good for those conditions. Even though this is a not a homeopathic book, I make some good recommendations for good books on homeopathy. And just kind of like while we're talking, see, Ella campaign is warming, especially with dampness in the lungs. And this time of year we're in about it. Here's some homeopathy that you can use and then what supplements are good for that particular condition and if it's applicable, what type of foods might be good for food therapy. So it covers a lot. And then we talk about our plants and fungi monographs. So there's this big section of the book, right here are our monographs. And that's like a, it's kind of like a resume for plants. And I only cover what's I, what I talk about in the book, in the monographs because otherwise I'd have a thousand page book. But I'll be coming out with some more what's called materia medica in the future about plants. But I cover the main herbs that I, that I have in the book and the main fungi that I talk about in the book. And then in the appendix I have three sections. I cover vitamin minerals, I cover supplements. Like, because, you know, like lung season right now. A ginger so plentiful. Lovely. Fennel warming. Got a cola, is cooling. It's lovely. It's great. It helps with. Well, what's the dosage for cranberries? Like, what's the dosage for green tea? D. Mannos. What's the dosage for that? So I cover what. L. Glutamine. What's the dosage for that? Like, I get a lot of those questions. Honey, humic and fulvic acid, MCT oil, monolau and msm. So I deal with like the dosage for pea and sea vegetables and spirulina, so those types of things. And then I have my food energetic section, which is lovely. And I also cover connective tissues when they're too relaxed. Hawthorne, Hawthorne berry. I tried to cover almost the herbs not found in this book. The herbs not found in this book, they're literally 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 columns of herbs that I don't cover in the book. But I do cover their energetics. So if they're in a formula that you will know. And then I have a little glossary and then a bunch of references. So.

Oh my God.

Yeah, it's a great, great book. I'm hoping that it will help so many people and so many practitioners and vets and vet assistants and just so many people. Like, this is the type of information I really want, is warming and slightly drying hawthorne leaf and flower to get out before my time is done on this earth.

Yeah. Well, I personally am so grateful. I can't wait to get my copy. So exciting. And just thank you for, for putting this together because like you said, those are the same questions that we get on the nutrition side of things too. What am I supposed to do with. How do I know how to dose it? All of that kind of stuff to have like, I'm not joking when I say it's like the little bible. Like to have that right there as a really helpful resource will be so helpful for people thinking about their dog's health differently. We started our conversation prior to recording about talking about different frameworks that we're approaching health. And I think what you offer from an herbalist perspective is just such a beautiful gift for people to start to think about their dogs a as as an ecosystem. Think about you and your dog as another ecosystem. How do you become advocates for both of your health? And the book is just a wonderful addition to. I want to point people out as well that you offer courses, you've got your podcast. There's so many other resources that you have that if people are interested in this and they want to dive deeper, get the book. And that can be your kind of your, your general starting point. But there are other ways that people can work with you as well.

Yeah. And you know, people ask me, you know, are you, you cover flea and tick fleas in this book? I don't. I have a flea course that is highly. Because flea information is changing so all the time, right. I have a course that I update on a consistent basis for that and then I have an oral course that deals with teeth and, and all of those good things. So I don't cover, I don't cover oral health in this book. I mention it here and there. Warming, sorry, Cooling. Slightly drying. Juniper berry. Warming. Very drying. Nettle slightly drying, slightly neutral. It goes both ways. It's a lovely, lovely plant. I'm Oreo. But it's because I have these two courses that they're just so thorough that and like each, each subject could be their own book. So the course is a better way for me to deal with that. And then I have a, a tick and tick borne disease course coming out next year. That's that people are going to love too.

Oh, exciting. So where can people find the book and where can people find your courses?

My courses are at canineherbalism.com Mushroom is drying. Redroot is drying. Reishi is drying. Rose, Rose and rose hips are drying. I have a store and consulting@canineherbalist.com and my podcast is at anywhere you get your podcast, but it can be found@k9herbalism.com all my courses are there. My book you can find anywhere you purchase books. But in the uk, I believe you can get it on Amazon, but you might be able to it it's distributed by Simon and Schuster, so you should be able to get it. You have someone order it for you anywhere you buy books and in Canada, anywhere you anywhere you buy books. And especially in America, anywhere you buy books. Like if you want to support your local bookstore, you can go there and have them pre order it. You can pre order it on Amazon, you can go to my publisher, Inner Traditions, you can go to Barnes and Noble and all those different types and purchase the book.

Perfect. I'm so excited for people to have.

It in their growing library of dog books.

So thank you, Rita. This has been just such a gift. Thank you for your time and your wisdom and your energy today. I know this is going to help so many people.

Yes, it is. I'm so many herbs are drying just to put that out there. There's not a ton of super excited about it. So thank you for having me. I really.

Of course. Take care.

Bye bye.

Thank you so much for joining me for my conversation with canine herbalist Rita Hogan on all things dryness and dampness. Like I said, I cannot wait to hear your takeaways and aha moments. So please share them with me on Instagram at Mystic Dog Mama in the comments or get in touch on my website mysticdogmama.com to learn more about Rita's.

Offerings of dampening herbs. But there's a ton of drying herbs and I will tell you right now that damp is much.

Please Visit her websites k9herbalist.com that's with a T&k9herbalism with an M dot com. Don't forget you can pre order her book anywhere you get books, but I'm including an Amazon link in the show notes along with Rita's websites.

Rita's much, much, much more prevalent than dry. Okay, it it just incredible.

Podcast Dogs Are Individuals is also available anywhere that you stream podcasts, so please.

Check that out is because of all the our lifestyles but thyme turmeric, if you haven't already.

If you enjoy these conversations about energetics half as much as I do, you'll want to tune in for next week's episode where I speak with veterinarian Dr. Neil Low and we dive into dampness as a pathogen from a traditional Chinese veterinary perspective. And I think it will really help you to pull some of these concepts together that Rita shares with us. So definitely check that one out too. And if this holistic approach to caring for your dog resonates with you and you're interested in becoming part of part of a new community dedicated to helping you become your dog's health advocate. Stacy Renfrey of Hozo Hounds and I are launching our Fetch membership which is designed to teach you the same holistic framework that we use in our canine nutrition and well being practices so that you too can confidently take control of your dog's health journey. Comment fetch or DM me on Instagram mysticdogmama or send me a message on my website website mysticdogmama.com and I'll send.

You some more information. Finally, if you're enjoying the podcast, I.

Would be so grateful if you would consider liking following subscribing and leaving a comment or review. Not only does it mean the world to me to connect with you and hear what you're enjoying, it also helps the algorithm to put the podcast in front of more people so that we can continue helping other pet parents who are looking for some support and growing this beautiful community. Okay, until next time.

USNIA St. John's Wort. These are all things that are drying and, and so you can definitely look at that and start, you know, just start looking at it and make sure that you know about the cool and the warm first.

Right, Right. Oh, that's super helpful. Thank you for that, Rita. I think, I think you're right. If you can start with the, the warming and the cooling and really understand that then the dry and the damp becomes easier to understand as well and easier to understand in relation to. Because I think that's a big thing to, for listeners to take away. I as we're listening to this conversation that it is in relation to.

Right.

It's in relation to your dog. It's. Is this herb cooling in relation to another one and, and it's all about finding that, that kind of balance and what works for your particular. Not everything is going to work for your dog. So finding, finding their sweet spot.

Yes, absolutely. Yeah, 100% perfect.

I wanted to just circle back really quickly for, for a little bit more clarity for listeners who are looking for some support around the issues around reactivity and how we can. And anxiety, how we can actually support with some herbs. So we, you started off by saying like we need to look at these systems and again looking at your dog as an ecosystem. And so how do we look at supporting the kid and the kidney system and appropriate fats? Are they so looking at the diet, are we supporting the, are we adequately supporting the diet with moisture? What are some other things from an herbal perspective that people Might want to think about either adding in or even thinking about avoiding when it comes to dogs that struggle with anxiety and other behavioral issues.

Well, one thing, I mean, where predominantly is the. Is the kind of like, chink in the armor when you're dealing with the nervous system and how your dog is reacting, Are they reacting from fear or are they showing aggression? What kind? Like, are they being, like. What kind of emotion is, like, predominantly there? Because if it's fear, then you need to support your dog's kidneys. Like, if a dog comes to me that's fearful, they're working with a trainer, they're having all the problems. But fear is our problem. Fear and reactivity are a problem. I don't do anything except for I support the kidneys. And the good thing about herbs is a lot of our nervous system, herbs support the kidneys. You know, they do it already, and then after that, I will give stuff that are, you know, do I need a nerve like a nervine that's more sedative? Do I need one that's more supportive of the nervous system in general, the fight or flight response? Because the biggest thing is if you have a dog that has, like, what you would classify as nervous system issues. Restlessness, anxiety, reactivity, aggression, fear, fear, biting, fear, urination, you know, all those things that come along with that. Separation anxiety. Right. Ptsd, These all involve the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems, which also govern the. What's called the vagus nerve that runs through the gut. So a lot of times you'll have gut issues as well. Okay, so we want to see how that plays out in the body. And again, it's what you said. It's the. It's. I think. What did you say? I think you said something about balancing.

Finding the sweet spot for the dog.

Yes. Like, oh, no, observing, like, you know, I always tell people, start paying attention to your dog and start collecting the herbs and foods that work best for them even. And that may change at different seasons of the year, different times of the year. But once you get a couple of seasonal rotations under your belt, you will see how things play out. Like, you will start, well, I saw that last year. Oh, my God, it was almost two days to the. Like, to the day of when it showed up last time. And these are beautiful things because you'll get. You'll get an arsenal of herbs and. And possibly supplements and mushrooms that all work together in helping your dog manage those manifestations and symptoms when they come up. Okay, so is your dog in fight or Flight. You know, how many times do they. Are they in Fight or Flight? And then talk about the sweet.