Holiday Ramblings + Listener Q & A

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. Hello, everyone. Welcome to our Christmas season podcast. So we are just going to cover a whole bunch of stuff on this podcast today. We have some questions from clients, we've got some comments, we've got some angst, we've got some awesomeness. There's lots of stuff going on, so we're just kind of going to go through it. So before we start, I do want to thank my sponsors, Adored Beast Apothecary. They have been so supportive at allowing me to bring you this podcast. Without my sponsors, this would not be possible. And as an added bonus, they have given us a coupon, Herbs rock, all capitals for 15 off their website. I can't. You know, the generosity is awesome. I think a lot of people are just kind of. I don't know, like, they just kind of tune out sponsorships on podcasts. But literally, without sponsorships, this podcast would not be possible. So thank you, thank you, thank you to Adored Beast Apothecary. And then my second sponsor is realmushrooms.com love Joni and Rob over at realmushrooms.com they are just an invaluable, like, resource for me. I love the research that Real Mushrooms is doing with the mushroom community. I'm part of their practitioner kind of support over there, and I'm learning so much. There's so much to learn about fungus. We'll never, ever probably know more than 1% of the information that Fungi gives to us, but I am definitely up for the challenge. So thank you, real mushrooms.com love, love, love them. Okay, so let's get to our Christmas podcast. So it doesn't matter, you know, what you celebrate during the holidays. This is definitely my Christmas podcast. I do celebrate Christmas. My mom loves Christmas. I'm actually more of a Yule girl myself on the 21st, but. But my lovely mom, who I have been living with and taking care of since. Oh, my God. I think, like, I think we're going on 24 years here, not including the time I lived with her when I was 18, you know, from 0 to 18. So my mom, I call her Granny, but Granny and I have been living together for a long time. She just celebrated her 93rd birthday yesterday, and we had a wonderful time. Ate some Italian food. I cooked. I'm actually quite a good cook. I Hate to toot my own Stonehorne, but I do have my specialties in the kitchen. So I made some Italian food. She loves Italian food. And then we had some gluten free strawberry shortcake and she opened up a lot of presents. We had some good conversation and she just had a great time and so did we. Christmas trees were put up as well last year. We had to give up getting a rock. Real Christmas tree. We usually got the live Christmas tree, but last year is also when I got my cat, Oscar. Oscar and Carl. I got two cats last year and I love them so much. They were kittens. And Oscar is allergic to fir and pine trees, so he's allergic to, I believe, the essential oils in them, but I'm not positive. My mom loves Christmas trees and you know, again, she's 93, so every Christmas is really important to spend with her. Since she is in the, you know, last leg of her life, I'm hoping she makes it past 100. Her brother just turned 100. They share the same birthday, so you never know. It could happen. But Christmas is important because, you know, granny again could, you know, it could be her last Christmas. You never know. And then we'd have to break out into Wham. She loves that song. Last Christmas, when we decided to get a fake tree, which I am not excited about, but I looked at a ton of trees. I looked at wooden trees, I looked at driftwood trees. I looked at a lot of, you know, antique trees, fake trees, metal trees. I mean, I looked at so many. I went down the tree rabbit hole and we decided on the Christmas tree at Ikea because other trees are fake. Trees are made with polyvinyl chloride, which off gas. And I do not like that. And so IKEA has one of the only non toxic Christmas trees on the market. And I was like, oh my God, it's a plastic tree. So we're taking very good care of it and I hope I have it. I probably, I hope I have this tree for the rest of my life. Okay. And they do offer recycling of the tree, but we opened it and it's awesome. My dogs love it. It doesn't off gas. They're not licking it or eating it. So that's good. It really does look real. And I was like, wow, like that really looks real. It took a long time, like an hour or so. That's not really a long time, but it's a long time. I guess it's a long time to me of like unbending its little bristles and stuff and making it look full. They were all like, stuck together because they come out of a long box and. But yeah, Grandma loved the tree. So did the cats. So do the dogs. So we are going to decorate the tree tonight. And that, I guess, is enough about my personal life, but I'm trying to share. I'm trying to share, so bear with me on that. Right? If there's anything you'd like to know, just email me at the podcast. Go to k9herbalist.com and hit podcast contact and you can ask me any question you want. So before we start answering some questions from all of you guys, I do want to say that, you know, I have a, like, Facebook page and I have a private group that's dogs or individuals. I have a business page that's Canine Herbalist. And then, you know, of course I have my own. My own private page of friends on Facebook. And then I have an Instagram. I'm dabbling in TikTok. I don't know if my name is available, Canine Herbalist, so I'm not sure what's going on there, but I'll just see what's going on. So I might do some TikTok videos. But I recently posted a giveaway. I was giving away a seat to my new phytoembryonic therapy course. And that is about the plants shoots or the buds shoots, like embryonic barks, germinating seeds and rootlets. These little hairs that come off of roots. Using those for medicine. And a scammer decided they were going to post on my post. It's so sad. They literally tagged everyone in my post and told them that they won and set up like a what it's called a clone of my Facebook page. Like, really? Do you not have joy in your heart? That's my question. Like, do you have to do, like, naughty, mean things? You're on Santa's naughty's list, so don't think that you're not. Cause you are. And so one person fell prey to it. I felt really bad for her. I helped her out on the phone, but I was like, yeah, I mean, they brought her to some page. I wouldn't ask for your credit card on a website that isn't mine. And you would have to go through my registration policy or registration for the actual course, which I did follow the scammer's link. And it looked nothing like anything that. That I would ever put together. It was super complicated and stupid, but I mean, stupid of them. But it did have my picture and everything. And a lot of people will Glance at things on Facebook pages and ads and stuff. If you are going to click a link, make sure you're not glancing. Okay? Because I have gotten scammed. So I'm not saying anyone out there, if you get scanned is that you're stupid because that is not true. I actually got scammed on Venmo like three weeks ago. I wasn't listening to my gut because my gut was like, this is a little off. But I. It was on our free like giveaway site that for our community and I have never gotten scammed on it and I got scammed on it. I got scammed out of 50 bucks. So, you know, I'm not saying that anyone who falls for this is stupid, but I'm saying that the people that are scamming it are stupid. So we are going to take some questions and then we're going to talk more. So let's take a question. So we have a question from our lovely listener, Kate. I have a 12 year old standard poodle. Just a standard. I'm going to go with poodle on that one. He has bad teeth and I do not want to go in for a dental because of how bad he does with anesthesia. My specific question is when I am brushing his teeth, it bleeds. And maybe some plaque could break off with daily brushing. Could this cause an infection or bad consequences? Also, what are the best ingredients to use? So the best ingredients to use again are for your individual dog. So I'm not sure about that, but we can go through a few. And yes, you know, you don't want big pieces of plaque to break off and for them to swallow those big pieces of plaque. If that is the case, I would definitely give hawthorn to help the heart, to strengthen the heart because it can affect the heart. And I might give some echinacea or some Oregon grape during that time just for a couple of days. Just depends. You know, there's a few teeth products that I probably would use if I were you. You know, the bleeding kind of tells me that they've got some periodontal disease. So I would definitely, I might try Dr. Judy's dental drops also. There's a lovely product called One TDC that you rub on the teeth. It's also good for inflammation and mobility. Then there's another product called Teef and you can use the teef and the one TDC together. I'm not sure about Dr. Judy's dental drops, but yes, you could try these things first. And I am actually putting together like a mouth and dental mini course it will be out by the end of next year and you will be able to check that out. But if your dog doesn't do well on anesthesia, you gotta up your game in the mouth department and brushing alone is not going to do that. So you want something that you can spray and leave on the teeth, especially before bed. The ingredients to use are going to be, you know, according to your dog, there's another good product. It's a, it's a seaweed based product. It's called, called Candident. I believe it's from dogs first, Dr. Conan Brady. It's called Canadent and Dr. Judy sells that too. I think she might sell the one TDC and the Canadent and she might sell teeth, I'm not sure. Check out her website, she sells a lot. I don't sell any of those things at this time. I'm going to add some, some mouth things in the future. I'm just tiny and you know, as money allows, I bring more stock into my store. Okay. So Kate, I hope you enjoyed that, that little ditty about the mouth. Okay, so we have another question from Michelle Patton. She has a question. Hi, was wondering if you could look at Bixby Digestion supplement off of Only Natural Pet Website. I love the Only Natural Pet website. It's a good website. It's all mushroom based. My palm has greasy fur and smells like urine around her neck and scratches non stop. Have been fighting allergies for about five years and oh, she's five by the way. So that's for a long time. She's on raw and eats raw broccoli as a treat. Have been listening to a podcast about lacking enzymes. She's a very hot dog in the Chinese realm of things. Thank you for advanced. Well, one of the things that I would look at is probably taking out her raw broccoli as a treat and seeing if any itching subsides. That can definitely be an allergen. And I would probably, I don't know if she got antibiotics early on in life or got antibiotics when she was spayed, if she is spayed. But if you've been dealing with this for five years, I'm going to say her liver needs help her like gastrointestinal membrane, her gut is leaking over into her bloodstream and her immune system needs kind of to get back online. So I would do, I probably would do the, I'd start, I don't know your dog so I can't give specifics. But I probably would start with the adored beast leaky Gut program and you might need to do it like two or three times. You can find that on my website or@adoredbeast.com I have a coupon for 15 off as well. But if you're going to get the leaky gut, get it from Adored Beast. You know, we want to know that our sponsors, our peeps go see our sponsors. Right? So check that out. But if you can't figure that out, I would probably join my subscription group. I have a subscription group and I answer questions there all week long. We do live trainings every month. It's called Dogs or Individuals. You can sign up through K9Herbalism.com and we can help you work that out as a community for sure. But, but let me take a peeksie at this digestion supplement. And definitely your dog could be low in enzymes for sure because that is definitely something that can cause a lot of sensitivities and immune responses with dogs having low digestive enzymes from a myriad of issues including stress. So let's take a look at this supplement. I remember Bixby as a company. I don't know if they went big or stayed small or what they really did, but it's to help. This one's helped support healthy immune system through digestive support, soluble fiber to improve digestion, enhance wellness. A powerful, unique blend of organic mushrooms that contain B vitamins, efficiency while combating gas, loose stool and bad breath because it feeds the microbiome for sure. Pactric natural enzymes, antioxidants and immune modulating compounds that provide soluble fiber for improved digestion. Okay, so that is their, that is how they're bringing it. That's what they're saying. So organic maitake, organic shiitake, organic lion's mane, organic beech, organic turkey tail, organic oyster. So one of the things that I have a problem with with this particular supplement is that it doesn't say what part of the mushroom it is and it's not extracted. Okay. This mushroom is not extracted. So I would definitely ask them what part of those mushrooms this product is made from. And it's just ground mushroom, which is a very good prebiotic. It does provide some B vitamins, but you're not really able to access the medicinal components of this mushroom. So that's why they're saying that it adds a lot of fiber. It does add a lot of fiber. Because your dogs can't digest these mushrooms unless they're hot water extracted. Okay. You have to, you have to break down what's called chitin. Okay. C H I T I N as you Know I massacre pronunciation in general. So I believe it's called chitin, but it's C H I T I N. And you want to hot water extract. This, this combination, if you have purchased it, you would put it in hot water and let it simmer on the stove for about, I would say, 30 minutes. And then take that liquid and you can take the little bit of powder that you're, that you're, you know, you can pour the liquid and the powder on your dog's food. But again, no medicinal action, hardly any if they are not hot water extracted. Okay. And we're not dealing with the tincture, so I'm just talking about what you can do with this powder. But it doesn't say what form of the, like what part of the mushroom they are using. So it's very like, not a lot of information there. Now, if we go over to the bixby.com website, bixbypet.com they're going to show you a picture of their ground mushrooms. And it says with organic mushrooms containing alpha and beta glucans. That's true. Polysaccharides and terpenes that help support healthy GI enzymes. That is true. But unfortunately, this does not say hot water extracted. And their actual website does not say what form of mushroom it is. Is it the mycelium or is it the fruiting body? Because it just says organic maitake, shiitake, white beech, and blah blah, blah, blah, blah. So I like the mushrooms they're putting in their formula, but I pretty sure it's just ground mushrooms and ground mushrooms, unless you extract them, don't offer the body much benefit except for going through the poop chute. So lots of fiber, prebiotic power, and that's about it. In the realm of things, it does have to be extracted. So put this powder on the stove in some water. I would say, you know, a quarter teaspoon to maybe an ounce or two ounces of water. You need enough to make. You need to make enough to kind of get it in the pan and have something in the pan before it. It boils away. But simmer, simmer it for about 30 minutes. So add enough water to have some water evaporate. So that is that on that supplement. And you know, the thing is with a lot of companies that are using these new, like, kind of like OMG ingredients. I love mushrooms, by the way, but I've loved mushrooms for a really long time. But right now they're very like hip and happening. And some of these companies do not know about what to do with mushrooms. Okay. They don't know that they need to be hot water extracted. So don't get down on the Bixby. Bixby is a nice little company. I have to say that my dog, Figgy Nubbins will run my granny over with the car for the hip and joint. They have a Bixby Liberty treatment. Now, it's just a treat that she gets when she goes out of the house and she has to do something really important because she doesn't. Figgy doesn't really like dogs all that much. Other dogs. She gets a little upset about them because she lost her eye to a dog. And so she gets a little crazy when she sees other dogs. And this treat is a treat that she just will not look away. She's like, oh, my God, give me the treat. Give me the treat. And she loves, loves, loves this Liberty hip and joint treat. It's a jerky treat and she just loves it. So, you know, I'm very familiar with the hip and joint treat that she absolutely loves. So Bixby, maybe Bixby doesn't know about mushrooms. That's what I'm really trying to say. But I would not give that supplement and think that you're doing something medicinal for your dog. But it could help with digestion. Yes, it could. So definitely adding more fiber to your dog's diet is a good idea without it being sugary. Okay, we don't want it to be sugary. Okay, let's look at our next question. Okay, our next question is about puppies. Okay. I am wondering, this is from Ryla Banks. I am wondering, what is your best tips for someone getting a new puppy? In your experience, what is the best way to start them out on the right paw? That's a good question. So for puppies, my opinion depends on how comfortable you are with natural health. Okay, so. So for me, I wait to vaccinate and I never let anyone give my puppy antibiotics. That is one of the biggest things to start your dog out. On the right paw. No antibiotics. When you give a puppy antibiotics, you are just annihilating their newfound immune system. And of course, give antibiotics if your puppy is going to die. Sure, Absolutely. I'm not saying that. Don't get yourself in a bunch. Okay? But if nothing is going on, don't give antibiotics. I remember my brand new little pug puppy, Vicky Nubbins. She got bit by something. I'm not sure what, but she got bit by something. Oh, wait, you know what? That wasn't Figgy. That was Ronan Ronan. Ronan got bit by something and we brought him into the vet and they offered me steroids and antibiotics, preventative antibiotics. And also they wanted to give him a shot of histamine. Of histamine? Like antihistamine. I took the antihistamine and everything went down. He was fine. I left the antibiotics and steroids at the vet. We were all good. But if I would have given him those antibiotics, he would not, probably would not be the healthy puppy he is today. Okay. He's. I don't know, he's seven, but he's. Oh, he'll always be a puppy to me. Yeah. So avoid antibiotics as much as you can. Get them started on a. I would say a raw diet is good for puppies. You can do a cooked diet as well and then transition them to raw. If you're gonna give them kibble, make sure it's the best kibble on the planet. And also make sure they're getting digestive enzymes. Rabies in the United States is required by law. And if you're gonna do the rabies vaccine or when you do the rabies vaccine, make sure that you check out my rabies protocol on my website. It's available for download. It's to help your dog deal with the rabies shot and wait. Wait until they are at least almost a year old to get that rabies vaccine. Yeah. Don't bring them to dog parks when they're young. Have individual puppy play dates with people that you know, dogs that you know. Yeah. Leave them out of the. Lead them out of the dog parks. I definitely, you know, would socialize them with dogs that you know, people before bringing them to daycare. Let their immune system develop around good, well behaved dogs and, you know, don't have these expectations that your puppy's going to be perfect before, you know, like right away. They're puppies. You weren't perfect. I know that you guys pooped your pants many times, Right. You peed and pooped your pants many times. I know I did. So give that grace to your puppy as well. You know, do the best job you can. Be positive with them. Leave the prong collars alone. Do not put a prong collar on your puppy. I'm not a fan of prong collars. And those of you who use prong collars can write me all the nasty messages you've ever wanted. I won't answer them, but I do not believe in them. And that's my truth. You can have your own, right? You're. You can have your own. I do not mind disagreeing with people at all. We need to be able to sustain life in the face of disagreement. All we can do is speak our own truth and try to respect other people's wishes and beliefs. But I am not a believer in prong collars. I am not a believer in shock collars. I think that humans can rationalize a lot of behaviors. I am not a believer in cutting your dog's ears. Speaking of that, since anything's a go in this episode, why am I not a believer in cutting dog's ears? Well, first of all, their ears were not born like that. And I don't know if you'd like your ears cut in half, but I certainly wouldn't. And when I was working, well, not working with, but hanging out a lot at this vet office when I ran Music City Pug Rescue, I went in the back to get something and I saw this dog that had just had his ears cropped and he was shaking so violently and there was blood dripping down from his taped ears with the gauze. He had just woken up and it was such a horrific sight for me that I started crying. And I mean, anyone who knows me, I'm definitely a bleeding heart for sure. And I'll never forget that. And I didn't believe in ear cropping then and I don't now, but I really hope they outlaw it, along with taking cat nails and all that crazy stuff that humans can rationalize doing to their dogs. I just, I'm not a fan. So where were we? Oh, yes, Being kind to your puppy. So be kind to your puppy when he goes potty when he's supposed to be potty training. Just show him what to do. You know my biggest thing when I owned Almost Home Pet Farm, which was a like a kennel free boarding facility in the hills of 10 Tennessee. It was about an hour outside of Nashville. And I did a lot of dog training. Was I a dog trainer? No, I was not an officially a dog trainer, but I did a lot of dog training. And one of the things that this lovely dog trainer, whom I think is just one of the most awesome dog trainers on the planet, her name's Nikki Ivy and she owns the website or the business dog speak 101. She is just beyond words. Anyways, she said to me this was, I don't even know, like, I think like in 2004, 2005, somewhere around then she told me, focus on the good and the bad will disappear. Focus on what your puppy is doing right, not what your puppy is doing wrong. And you Know, that could be guidance for like the human race. Right? Focus on what people are doing. Good. That is just so powerful. And, you know, that's. I just tell people now that all the time, you know, just focus on what your dog is doing. Right? Reward that. Don't focus on what they're not. They're just, they're not doing right. And just treat them or give reward for all the wonderful things they're doing. And they will do more of it because dogs do not fight against themselves hardly ever. They don't do anything that doesn't work for very long. And I love that. And another thing is they'll take, they'll take attention, both good and poor, right? So give them good attention. Let's see, is there anything else that I definitely would say? Get them out walking, age appropriate exercise as much as you can. They need outdoor air, age appropriate exercise. And some people are afraid to bring their dogs out right now because of this, what do they call it, the mysterious respiratory virus. Get outside, don't sit inside. Indoor air is much worse than outdoor air. Get outside, walk with your puppy, don't be afraid. You know, if you have an immune compromised dog, that's different. But still, walking outside by yourself with your dog is not going to get you this respiratory virus. We are in the season of respiratory weakness right now, and then we go right into kidney weakness and which starts like around the 22nd of December, but we still see these respiratory things come up for the next few months and into the spring. So just, you know, breathe fresh air with your puppy. That is a good thing. I did make a couple of formulas. They're in my store under tinctures. I made one for warm dogs, one for cool dogs. If you don't know your dog's energetics, take my energetics course@canineherbalism.com or choose the Cool Lung Formula. Okay? If you don't know your dog's energetics, choose the Cool Lung Formula. There's a lung tonic. That's if you want. If you know you're going to go somewhere and you know there's going to be other dogs, you can start that lung tonic right away or a week before if you can plan something. And then there's lung harmony. And that is for when you have an active respiratory issue. Okay, Active respiratory issue. I made the formulas there. If you have a problem, you can always contact me through the podcast. I can answer your question about the formulas, but I did make something for this, you know, for general respiratory weakness and then active respiratory weakness. Okay. So yeah, give your puppy a lot of love. Check your stress at the door. Don't hold them when you're completely stressed out. They can smell it and then they start to worry. Always, always, always support their nervous system and focus on the cleanest, most nutritious diet that you can. I would definitely take my energetics course and figure out your puppy's energetics and start off on a good foot or paw. And again, just treat your, treat your puppy like a dog, but treat them with respect and grace and ease and kindness. I think that's the best thing we can do for our dogs for sure is treat them with kindness and patience. Okay. And breathe before you react if they do something crazy like today. Another personal fact on file about myself is that I am a avid puzzler. I do jigsaw puzzles and I love doing jigsaw puzzles and I've been trying to maneuver, doing my jigsaw puzzles. I actually have a special area in my house and a special table to do my jigsaw puzzles on. That's definitely part of my stress relief, really regimen. And I've been trying to navigate that with, with kittens. The kittens are big now. They're a year old. They, well, they turned a year old in September, so a little over a year. And they have tried to single handedly ruin my puzzling and I've had to like figure out how I, I got a container for the puzzle pieces and they have still knocked things over. And this morning I was in the kitchen making some dandelion root coffee and I hear this crash and it's my container for puzzles. I left it on the puzzle table and then I usually put this thing over my active puzzle that I'm working on that was halfway off the table. And it really brought up the darkness in me for sure. I was like, oh my God, I'm going to, you know. And I sat there and I literally counted. I counted to 10 before I reacted. I got my shit together. I was like, oh my God. Breathe, breathe. My cats were just, what? What are you looking at? Don't leave it on the table. Right that. I was like, you're right, don't leave it on the table. So I put it, I put the container, I picked up all the pieces, I put them up on the shelf where my cats do not go. And then I put something heavy on the little contraption that I made to keep my puzzle safe and on the table. So, you know, user error trying to navigate kitties. And that's, you know, you just gotta have patience. You gotta count. Try not to react. So, you know, like in. You know, just reactionary in general. And I think that if you follow that advice for a puppy, I think you'll definitely have a good, healthy puppy. And then I would with spay and neuter. If you're going to choose to spay a neuter, I would do an ovary sparing spay. There are some cool neutering things they're doing now. And I would wait. I would wait till your female dog goes through two heat cycles, at least. And then I would definitely wait at least a year to get your dog neutered. And then, of course, keep them away from other dogs. Do not let them impregnate anybody or get pregnant. And if you can't, if you're the type of person, like, I just can't do that, then you'll probably have to spay and neuter quick, quicker. But it really does help their hormones. And I will have a podcast on hormone support someday. I've got that on the list. So that's it. That's the answer to the puppy question. So thank you, Ryla, for writing into the podcast again. You can go to k9herbalist.com and click the podcast contact. Okay, so what else are we talking about this week? Yes, I remember. So I started this thing called the 12 days of canine Herbalist, and I just wanted to have fun with the holiday season. It adds a little more work to the plate, but still gonna have fun. And so far, I think today we are on the fourth day, and I'm not sure what we're gonna do today. I think I probably am gonna talk about the podcast today, but the first day I did the lung formula. The second day I did the giveaway for the phytoembryonic therapy course. And it's a free seat. It's a giveaway on my Facebook page. That's where the scammer, the scammer tried to take me down but didn't get the best of us. No way. And then yesterday I did the free seat. So what I decided to do is when I did rescue, I had Music City Pug Rescue. It was one of the first holistic pug dog rescues in the country in Tennessee. I did this along with another trainer friend of mine, and we had a lot of. We had fun for six years. It was very stressful and spent a lot of time at the vet and. And, you know, it was. Saw a lot of horrific things, but it really gave me firsthand knowledge to what these People go through who are trying to rescue dogs in this country and out of the country and all of the amazing things that they do for people kind of behind the scenes, and they don't get a lot of thanks for that. So I was talking to my business partner and partner in life, Heather, and we decided that we were going to do a free seat in all of my courses. For K nineherbalism.com, a free seat in all of my courses and upcoming courses. One free seat goes to any 501-C-3 dog rescue that wants it. So one seat per rescue. And if you're out of the country, you can contact me and I can try to validate that rescue myself. It does take some validation, but once you validate your rescue and the rescue has deemed whomever person to be their kind of delegate for the coursework, the rescue gets one free seat in anything in the 500 and any course. So the phytoembryonic course, my energetics course, my up and coming canine herbalism level 101 course, which I'm going to start advertising at the end of this month, January 1st, I'm going to start advertising that, that starts March 11th. And then I have, like, I have a tick course coming up, a dental course coming up, a mushroom course coming up. So those, they'll have a free seat in all of those courses because rescue people need all the help they can get to not spend so much money at the veterinarian on things that they can work out at home. So I'm doing that. So if you know any rescues, they can email me through the podcast, contact through k9herbalism.com and we can get them started with the paperwork for that. And I just think it's a good thing to do, you know, it's a good thing to do and definitely paying it forward. I did six years of hardcore rescue, and I think rescues need all the help they can get. And definitely getting more herbal knowledge would be wonderful for them because, you know, I don't just cover herbs. I cover a lot of other things, parts of nutrition and a lot of really great things. Really great subjects come up in my classes, and then they can be eligible for the live Q and A's. The only thing that's not included is my monthly monographs where I cover one herb each month intensely, or my subscription community, where it's $10 a month and you can join and quit and rejoin. It doesn't matter to me. I don't have enough time to pay attention to that. So you can do whatever you want with that. But that's where I put my focus on answering questions and supporting people through their health journey with their dogs. And I also answer cat questions. I love my kitties and yeah, so that's the dogs or individuals community that you can sign up for on my canine herbalism website. But that is not included either. But the rest is. So I. For a rescue that, you know, I really hope that that's going to help them so. And I had a very big response to it. I've gotten a lot of emails. Can't wait to set that up. Another thing that happened this week is that I hired my assistant full time. She was part, part part time and I hired her full time. So we're gonna be rocking and rolling over here, getting a lot more done during the week hours. I do not work hardly ever on weekends and I don't work weeknights. So I try to keep normal hours for my Santa tea. And so that's pretty exciting. And another thing that I'm doing, so I'm setting up my speaking schedule for next year. And the beginning of the year is pretty much taken up speaking at the Healthy Dog Expo in Albany, New York. I'm excited about that. Then I'm going over to England and speaking there. You can find out about that on my Facebook page. I'll talk more about it as we get closer. The one in England, doing some travel while I'm over there a little bit. And then in July, I am not speaking, but I am sponsoring the Nautical Dog event which will have, I think, Dr. Katie Woodley, Rodney Habib, Dr. Karen Becker, and there's one other. Oh, Angela Artolino. They're speaking at the Nautical Dog event. There's lots of events next year at the Nautical Dog event. I'm going to sponsor that. That's my first event I've ever sponsored, sponsored. So exciting about that. Very excited to do that. And then I'm sponsoring and having a table, a booth at Dr. Judy Morgan's event that is in Orlando, Florida. I think it's in the like the third week in October or something like that. I'll get dates for that at a later time. And one more thing to announce is I finally heard back from my book publisher. It's been a while. I started to worry, but they were just behind and I got the publishing time frame for the book coming out next year and it will be this time next year. So fall, winter of next year, my book will be coming out. I'm super excited about that. So I wanted to have it like right now, but that's not the way it worked out. So we're just gonna have to have some acceptance and I'm just gonna plug along with my courses until the book comes out for sure. And then I'll be doing a book tour and I will also be doing a podcast tour. So it's going to be a lot of fun and I hope you will join me on that journey for sure. And I'll be doing the podcast and trying to bring you some of the best ramblings that I can from an herbalist whose life has gone to the dogs. I hope you all have an amazing holiday season. I will be here on the other side of it. If you want to follow me on the 12 days of canine Herbalist, check out my business page on Facebook or my instagram page @canineherbalist. Thanks for listening to this episode of Dogs Are Individuals. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review in your pocket 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 K9 orbit, 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 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 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.