Fall Seasonal Care: Enhancing Resilience During Seasonal Transitions

Hi, this is Rita Hogan and welcome to the Dogs are Individuals podcast. I'm a clinical canine herbalist and I've been practicing for over 20 years. This podcast is all about your dog through an herbal lens. So let's get to it and dive right in. Welcome back to the podcast. I am excited to share this episode with you because it is dear to my heart. Dear to my heart. I love seasonal healing. I am here. We are gonna talk about the seasons that are coming up. Well, the season that is coming up, which is fall for most people, if you're in the southern hemisphere, just switch it around. No problem, right? Just switch it around. Before I get into this lovely episode, I want to thank my sponsor, realmushrooms.com realmushrooms.com wonderful place for fruiting body hot water, extracted mushrooms, which I love. Check them out. Realmushrooms.com and for this episode I would like to recommend reishi mushroom. Now for dogs, you wanna put it in a capsule? They sell it in a capsule. I carry that on my website. Also@the realmushrooms.com website, you can get it in capsule form. You make sure that your reishi is hot water extracted. Reishi is excellent for seasonal changes. Lung support. It is slightly warming, which is nice for even warm dogs in this seasonal transition. And going into fall, it really does help support the lungs. And an honorable mention to cordyceps mushroom, which is hot so you wanna avoid giving it to warm to hot dogs. You can use it acutely, you know, but it's really great for those kind of neutral to cool to cold dogs, in my opinion. So. But cordyceps, cordyceps mushroom is another mushroom that is lovely for the seasonal changes to support lung health and get things warmed up for those dogs that have a really hard time with this upcoming season. Okay, so seasonal care, definitely. Again, dear to my heart. I love seasonal healing. I try at my best to treat my dogs like they are not well during the seasons and that meaning that I help them support their systems throughout the year. And this season is for lung health and large intestinal support. So what I do is I switch foods, I add herbs, I add flower essences for lung and large intestinal support. I support the microbiome because it's so important during this like late summer. September 9th to the 22nd, which is the fall equinox is a special section of fall. And then we have September 22nd to like around December 21st when we move into winter. And that late, late fall section is like December 7th to the 21st. And those are like the in between seasonal changes that can have some like special sauce on them. And we'll go over that in the podcast. Probably some of my shorts, those little, tiny little seasons. But we'll cover it all eventually. So we just, we passed September 9th. We are closing in on the 22nd. But one of the things that is about late summer, early fall is that temperatures start to fluctuate. Like I literally am in a long sleeve shirt with like a light kind of, I think probably fake down vest up in my office right now because it's cold up here. And then, you know, by around one o' clock it'll start warming up. So then you have to, you know, go put your shorts on and stop freezing. And there's lots of different temperature changes. It goes up, down, up, down. And that's a lot of energetic shifting for dogs, especially dogs with lung weakness. You see a lot of respiratory issues. Starting right now, I like to use echinacea for the seasonal transition as well as an herb called Ella campaign. These are herbs that you use in small dosages. So a small dog, one drop, like extra small dog, one drop small dog, like a pug, two drops corgi spaniel, three, golden retriever four extra large jug, five. That's where I'd start out. Twice a day in the mouth, mix it with some water, taste it yourself and then just syringe it in before they eat. That's a good time to do that. Otherwise you can get some like, I think animal essentials has some seasonal support. These types of herbs are really good for just these transitions. And another thing I like to add to my dog's food around here because it really helps support the heart, which is in the summer. Right. Shifting into lung energy. And that is wild rice. Now, a lot of people think wild rice is a grain. It's not, it's a seed. And make sure it's real wild rice. Just add, you know, like, okay, again, extra wee dog, maybe a quarter of a teaspoon small dog, a teaspoon medium dog, two teaspoons large dog, a tablespoon extra large dog, two tablespoons twice a day, maybe for about four weeks. It's a really good, it's a really good support. Again, echinacea and Ella campaign, you're going to do that for about three to four weeks for that seasonal transition. Echinacea probably limit it to about 14 days, but it's really good for that late summer, September 9th to the fall equinox, September 22nd time. So, you know, write that down. Keep it in a little journal. Then next year you can be ready. But you can add any of these remedies to your fall planning right now. And the echinacea and the Ella campaign also come in what's called a phytoembryonic therapy. I carry that in my store. I carry regular echinacea. I carry it in a glycerin as well. I carry Ella campaign in a tincture and a phytoembryonic therapy, which is using the stem cells of that plant. Any of those varieties are good. Another thing that I like to use for the seasonal transition is walnut flower essence, because it really helps with the entire energetic shift of the changing of the seasons. And for any type of dog, one to three drops per day. All right, so what do we do after the 22nd of September? This moves in to the fall season. Okay, about a month from 22nd September to December 21st. And we are definitely ruling the large intestine and the lungs. And this is where you're going to see problems come up. If your dog has problems with the large intestine and the lungs, you're going to see weakness there. But it's the best time to treat this weakness or support large intestine and lung health. You can make make the, like the greatest difference during this time. And so during this time, you might see some white discharges from the eyes or anywhere throughout the body. You might see dogs get more sullen or kind of not be as peppy as normal. Noses may drip. It's definitely the season of damp, and you might get a little more discomfort after eating. You might see constipation. Anything that really is with the large intestine, like more diarrhea, you might have grief. Okay. Grief is a lung kind of lung emotion. Okay. So if you have any grief, if your dog has lost anyone, right. If you've lost anyone, if you've had a hard year, this is the best time to deal with grief. And I have a great podcast on grief. Check that out. Use any of those remedies for grief, because they definitely apply to this season. So it's a wonderful time to deal with grief. If you've been putting it off, embrace it. You know, grief is so much a part of love, and we want as much love in our bodies as possible, but we also have to move through difficult things to kind of get to the grief. I think that as humans and, you know, dogs can do this too, for sure. Complaining starts coming as the sun starts waning and we get less Less and less sunlight complaining happens and that leads to negativity. So if you are or if you find yourself complaining about things in your life, right, and you want to realize that it kind of sets out a negative frequency that you're giving out and sharing between you and your dogs. And I know that's woo woo to some people, right? To some people it's woo woo. But it is what it is. And sharing vibration with our dogs and the animals around us and our kids and everyone around us is scientifically proven. Go to the heartmath institute, I believe it's heartmath.com you could really fall down the rabbit hole on that website and their lovely scientific research on everything frequency and vibration and how it affects your heart and it literally you are vibrating it throughout kind of your energy field. And we are electrical beings, remember that? Scientifically proven electrical beings. And we give off a resonance. So you don't want to give off a kind of complaining frequency because you're not going to attract love and you're not going to attract abundance and goodness because you find yourself in a fit of complaining. And we've all done it, right? We've all been and this and that and it happens. But when you find yourself doing it, just sit back, take a deep breath and smile. Smiling is infectious and it helps you reconfigure your vibration. Just start smiling, you know, and then try to get out, get on a good frequency, you know, with what you're doing, what's coming out of your mouth, how you're feeling, and if it's a struggle for you, just keep getting back on the horse. And again, smiling is one of the best things. Smile until your face hurts. Go watch something funny. You know, watching comedy is a lovely way to get your joy back. Call up a good friend, you know, go for a walk with your dog, get off your phone. You know, I could have a four long hour episode on getting off your phone, get off your phone, pay attention to your dog, Be present to nature, be present to the world. Stop multitasking. Do one thing at a time. It really adds a lot of joy to my life as far as doing, you know, I used to be a huge multitasker and I was stressed out all the time. Now I try to do one thing at a time and it really does help. So let's get back to fall. Had a little tangent on grief and negativity. Not that grief is negative for sure, but it is a pathway to love because you can't have, you can't have love without Grief. And you can't have grief without love. Okay, so physical stuff that comes out in fall, dry skin abscesses, mobility issues, especially during the late fall, because the winter rules the bones. So you're going to start seeing more mobility issues. And lots of coughing can happen. Different types, dry coughs, wet coughs, kennel cough, worms. This is definitely a time for worms. Pay attention to the moon cycle, full moons. You can definitely. It's a really great time to treat worms in your dog. And don't worm just because. Do not worm just because. Always get a fecal test done at the vet and worm only if your dog has worms and you want to pay attention, special attention to any dogs that have any type of asthmatic conditions, bronchial conditions, respiratory conditions, conditions. You want to be ready, right? You want to be ready. There's a company out there called Pet well Being. They have a bunch of tinctures, but they have one called Lung Gold. You know, not knowing your dog, not knowing to tell you about a bunch of individual herbs, that's not a bad place to start. I have nothing to do with that company. They don't sponsor me. I just have used a couple of their tinctures. I've used the Urinary Gold and the Lung Gold with pretty good success. I am currently formulating a lung tonic for a special company and I'm excited about that. We're gonna be starting to test here probably within a month. We're gonna be getting testers. If you wanna test my lung tonic, please just send a email to the podcastanineherbalist.com, you can see the podcast email. I think that you need to pay attention to dogs with constipation or diarrhea. And if your dog is only pooping once a day, they. They have stagnancy. They need to poop twice a day. Okay. Unless it's a special circumstance of some reason why they can't poop twice a day, but they should be pooping twice a day. And the lungs in the large intestine are linked in the body according to TCM principles, which I love. I am not a TCM herbalist, but I do follow TCM principles and diagnostics. Diagnostic principles. Not that I diagnose things. I do not. I am not a vet, I am just a wee little herbalist. But constipation, diarrhea, these are things that come up. So be prepared for constipation. Be prepared. Be prepared for diarrhea. Okay? I love BlackBerry tea or BlackBerry phytoembryonic. Therapy or BlackBerry tincture for diarrhea. Constipation. I like marshmallow root, definitely. I would say plantain, slippery elm. Slippery elm is a good one for constipation. You can make a gruel out of it, like a thickened kind of liquid and syringe. It definitely helps with constipation and it can help with diarrhea. I think that I have done a podcast on constipation, but if I haven't, I'll do it the next time so that you guys will have a good thorough episode on constipation. I think I've already done one on diarrhea, but I'll check fall protein. So energetically, if you have, not if you don't know what I'm talking about, check out my energetics course@canineherbalism.com because I can't go into this right now. But if your dog is a warm dog, which is harder to find proteins for, they can, because energetics is a spectrum, right? So if they're not like super hot all the time and they're not super hot dogs, they can tolerate some neutral to warming proteins in late fall, if you live in a cold climate and definitely in wintertime, so you can give them a little more variety. But during the fall, you know, fall proteins, beef, turkey, bison, chicken, chicken, eggs, goat, venison, salmon, especially if your dog is cool, make sure they're getting more warming proteins like venison or lamb, wild salmon, goat, those are, you know, quite warming proteins. A little less warming. Chicken, pastured chicken. Then you can consider turkey. I mean, we can kind of go through some proteins and you want to, if, if you have the information, you want to pay attention to if a protein is drying or damp, especially if your dog is having diarrhea or is constipated, you don't want to give too much of a dry protein if your dog is constipated, okay. Because it's going to add to that dry, dry stool. So let's just go through a few of the more popular proteins and we can, you can use the information how you want to use the information. So let's just go through a few. So anchovies, anchovies are pretty neutral, but they're also dampening. Beef. Beef is neutral to cooling and it's more dry and where like, like bovine colostrum is warming and it's kind of neutral to dampening. And bison is cool but slightly damp. Camel, which we, you know, dogs don't eat a lot of, but it's warm and damp. Catfish is warm and dry. Chicken is definitely drying. It's warm. Chicken eggs are neutral. They're slightly dampening because, you know, it's, it's an egg. Clams, mollusks, mollusks in general are warm and they're dry. Codfish is cool and damp. Duck, cool and damp. Duck eggs are pretty neutral to damp. And let's see, other emu, warm and damp. Goat, warm and slightly damp. Green lip Mussels, warm and dry, so they're drying. Halibut, cool and damp. Let's see, lamb. Lamb is hot and slightly damp. And ostrich, warm and damp. Oysters, warm and damp. Pheasant, cool and dry. Pigeon, cool and dry. Pork, cool to cold and damp. Quail is neutral to dry. Salmon is warm and damp. Sardines are neutral and damp. Squirrel, not that you feed a lot of it. And, you know, I don't even like talking about this, but, you know, a lot of people know me that I, you know, I'm mostly a vegetarian, but squirrel is warm and damp. Shrimp is warm and dry. Turkey is neutral to slightly warming and damp. I find it slightly warming for most dogs, but it depends. It's a scale, right? And venison, hot and dry. And wild boar, cool and damp. Those are your kind of like, popular proteins, right? So I hope that helped a little bit. I'm sure you'll have to take a little notes, but. But that can help with kind of finding different proteins for your dog. And, you know, it's not that you can't give any damp proteins or dry proteins if your dog has constipation, diarrhea, but you wanna be mindful. That's what that's all about, being mindful that you're not giving too much of something. And then when you discontinue, you can see the difference. The only thing is, is when you discontinue an ad, you wanna isolate that action. You don't want to start adding herbs and different vegetables all at the same time. You want to see how your dog reacts to one thing at a time. It's so important to keep from kitchen sinking your dog. And that's giving way too much of everything. And to keep energy flowing and not get stagnant. Speaking of energy, the lungs peak. The energy of lungs will peak usually between 3 and 5am so if your dog gets up between 3 and 5am all the time, then they may have some lung weakness. And the large intestine follows that from 5 to 7. Okay, so 3 to 5 and 5 to 7am so if your dog consistently wakes up during that time, take a look at the lung energy in the large intestine. You know, look to that for answers for sure. Because according to tcm, traditional Chinese medicine, the lungs again and the colon, large intestine are linked because the lungs work with the large intestine and they sweep waste. They keep like they're definitely the first defense against pathogens. The lungs are. And fluids flow downward. And the lungs also help moisturize the skin. So they work with the heart and they circulate and they exchange blood. And it's very important for the moisture of the body, because when you have excessive dryness, you can also have kidney issues, because the kidneys can actually take moisture from the lungs and then you get dryness in the lungs and you also can have kidney issues. So like chronic moisture removal will kind of result in lung dryness. And then you get like dry coughs and like severe conditions like asthma. So the large intestine is really good at ridding the body of wastes and its connection with the lungs, everything is connected. Okay. And so the lungs and the large intestine are very an important part of the immune system. They're can, you know, they're responsible for a nice healthy skin, like healthy shiny coat and skin. And so it's really important to take this time and really help support your dog with respiratory weakness and large intestinal issues if they have that. And you're gonna see things like some signs of respiratory weaknesses, like allergies and exercise intolerance, kind of like grief, gagging, heart disease, heartworm disease. Another thing, chronic constipation, poor microbiome, definitely kennel cough, periodontal disease, and certain types of wheezing and inflammation can indicate there's a lung or large intestinal issue. So there's two types of lung conditions. There's damp conditions and then there's dry conditions. Okay, Dry conditions, you need to add herbs that are demulcent, they add moisture, they're good for dryness. And that helps your dog's large intestine. Cause they probably have constipation. And it also helps the lungs itself. So you're gonna see an improvement in the lungs if you add moisture. If your dog has too much dryness, and that's tightness is really a common sign of dryness. And especially when the lungs are imbalanced, like dried out mucus can also be a concern. You usually want to deal with dry coughs. Most, most people focus on stopping the cough, but that really isn't what you want to do. The goal is to heal and clear the lungs, right? And many herbs will kind of temporarily increase coughing because they have what's called an expectorant quality. But you need to get that stuff out so they can soothe your dog's lungs and throat by reducing inflammation and irritation. And that increases moisture. And that's really an essential. It's essential to dealing with the dryness at a root level because you don't want fluid loss because that's gonna lead to a deeper infection. Then we have wet lung conditions, and that's a different degree of moisture. That's too much moisture. And that really kind of. Because fluids kind of go downward. You're going to see a lot of it in the lower respiratory tract. And it can cause, like labeled labored breathing and discomfort because all of that mucus is kind of stuck. So you get like fluids all over the place that really don't need to be in that type of quantity inside the lung tissues. And this is usually with dogs that are cool to cold because they definitely need warmth and warming herbs like ginger. Ginger is an excellent lung herb for dogs that are cool to cold, that have lung issues and kind of wet breathing. Avoid all types of dairy if there is congestion there because it definitely will make matters worse and cause more dampness. And be very careful about oil consumption as well when you're dealing with wet conditions in the lungs. So some of the things that are good for lungs in general is age appropriate exercise, very gentle exercise for those dogs that have labored breathing, but just get them up moving. Air purification systems for the house. Make sure your home has proper ventilation. You want to make sure your dog's getting enough vitamin A, C, E, and definitely a high antioxidant diet. Essential fatty acids. Hucertin is also good. Massage can be good. Chiropractic care, acupuncture, those are some, like, lifestyle things that you can add. And then for herbs, for dry conditions, the herbs that I find most, I would say beneficial are going to be licorice deglycerides, licorice marshmallow root, mullen, plantain, slippery elm and violet. And plantain can be a demulcent herb. It also can help for damp conditions as well. So it can help with dry and damp. It's very balancing for moist conditions. I like angelica, elecampane, ginger, osha root, which is nasty. So make sure that you're, you know, giving. I like to do a little osha and raw honey and plantain. There's lots of other herbs as well. For lung conditions. These are just a few that you can look at. Remember, when you're looking up herbs, put in the word monograph in Google Herbal monograph, Marshmallow herbal monograph, mullein herbal monograph. And you can use like the Latin name, right? Like plantain, plantago, major herbal monograph. You can also join my monthly monographs@canineherbalism.com where I specialize in a and I talk about in extensive length, one herb per month. You can check that out. It's $12 a month. You'll love it. But you can also look things up on Google. Just make sure it's written by an herbalist. All right. My friends@Herb Rally.com have a good monograph section that's growing. It's free to the public and you can check that out too. Herb rally.com Then we have spasm. So if you have spasm in the lung, skullcap, chamomile are good for that. Herbs for immune support in general that have some lung affinity, Astralagus, echinacea, ginger, goldenseal, Oregon grapefruit, reishi, mushroom, cordyceps mushroom, thyme, turmeric and usnia. So you can check those out. And again, I love the conversation of the lungs. And my book that's coming out, can't tell you when because I'm still working with my publisher to get it out. Haven't gotten my edits back yet. It is September 18th. I turned it in in the middle of April. Don't know. Hopefully it'll be out by spring of next year, I'm hoping. But in my book, I quoted one of my favorite herbalists, Kat Meyer. She has a lovely foundational, I would say foundational, lover of the land herbalist. She says the lungs serve as a mediator between the inner and outer worlds. This organ is the first line of defense, and that is definitely for sure. And then you have its cohort, the large intestine that is giving you 80% of your dog's immune system. So it's a good time to support the microbiome as well. Okay, you can support the microbiome. I do want to add one more herb, and that's calendula. It is lovely for lung dryness. It also helps with inflammation in the intestine. It helps the microbiome grow in a positive way. It's warming to the body. It's a wonderful fall herb. I just want to mention that. And then we have fall vegetables. Some of my favorites, of course, are going to be squashes and pumpkins and parsnip and yam. Lovely, lovely vegetables. For fall. Pumpkin supports large intestine. It helps expel worms, especially the seeds. Parsnip is an immune booster. It clears the digestive system of nasties. Yam supports the lungs. It's nutritive, it's slightly warming, it's drying and it is very cleansing. So that is going to be our middle late summer, middle like early fall and then middle fall and late fall, early winter conversation. Okay, again, September 9th to the 22nd, which is the equinox, and then September 22nd to December 21st, which is Yule. Check that out. Just be mindful and see how your dogs are this season and keep a journal and just kind of write things down. You know, do they have lung weakness? Do they have any issues with the large intestine? This is the best time to deal with those issues. You know, feed prebiotics and probiotics if it is well indicated for your dog or, you know, this is a good time to treat leaky gut, to deal with fungal infections in the gut and because they all affect the large intestine, add digestive enzymes and can be a good way pancreatic enzymes. I've got a lot of good podcasts on things like that, but definitely start to be mindful of the seasons. We will cover winter next. I definitely promise to cover it in November so you can get prepared for winter. I hope you enjoy these weather changes and if you're in a hot climate that you get a little relief from the heat. And in a cool climate like the pnw, which is the Pacific Northwest, may you find nice warmth and get out of the damp. I want to thank my other sponsor, adored beast apothecary adoredbeast.com I sell them in my store. Without my sponsors, this podcast would not be here. So please support my sponsors, realmushrooms.com, earthbuddy pet.com and adoredbeast.com if I had to pick a remedy for fall, I definitely would pick the chaga mushroom liquid extract from Adored Beast. It is wonderful at boosting the immune system and supporting the entire body. I love this chaga mushroom extract because it is ethically harvested in their mushroom forest and we, you know, ethical harvesting in chaga mushroom is just really important because we don't want to deplete the stores of chaga mushroom in the wild for our own benefit. We want to harvest ethically and this is definitely a wonderfully ethically produced chaga mushroom. Highly effective. So it would be the product that I would recommend for fall season. Support. Thanks for listening to this episode of Dogs Are Individuals if you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review in your podcast app. And don't forget, sharing is caring. So if you love Dogs Are Individuals Podcast, share it with your friends and family who love dogs. This will help me so much. And remember, as a listener, I appreciate you much. Thanks to Resonant Media, my podcast production team. This podcast is produced by Drake Peterson and edited by Mike Fry. Any questions? Email the show, go to k9herbalist.com Click podcast contact in the menu and then fill out that form and I'll answer any questions here online. Okay, so thank you so much for listening to this episode of Dogs Are Individuals Podcast and I'm going to turn talk to you in our next episode. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for veterinary care. This podcast doesn't constitute a provider patient relationship. As always, talk to your doctor, veterinarian or healthcare provider first before starting anything new. And that includes herbs. I'm not a doctor and I don't treat disease or prescribe anything. I'm a traditional herbalist providing herbal support education only. Regarding any products I may suggest the statements made regarding these products have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. The efficacy of these products has not been confirmed by FDA approved research. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. All information presented here on the podcast is not meant as a substitute or alternative to information from your vet. Please consult your veterinary professional about potential interactions or other possible complications before using any product.