Life-Changing Herbs for Your Dog with Expert Canine Herbalist Rita Hogan

As an herbalist myself who has seen the miraculous power of plant medicine for the human body, and as the mother of a Labrador, I knew I had to have a guest on the podcast that could teach us about the benefits of using herbalism for our pets. My dog, Banks, both have some gut issues. We both have some skin stuff. And I recently took to using herbs to support him, especially to support his nervous system. I started doing some herbal infusions, added them to his food, and I saw overnight how much calmer my dog was. And I just had this aha moment of like, why haven't I been using herbs on him for years and years? And I instantly wanted to know everything I could about which herbs were safe, which herbs were like those everyday longevity strengthening tonics that I could add in really easily and not even think about it. And then also more specific things like herbs for antibiotic recovery, herbs for allergies and hot spots, and all of the things that us dog parents deal with and worry so much about when it comes to our families, our pets. So on this episode, I invited Rita Hogan over. She is a canine herbalist, and she wrote this amazing book called the Herbal Dog. I highly recommend getting her book. It's unbelievable. And I'm sure you're going to want to use a lot of the herbs in her book for yourself, too. But it's just so nice to learn from her. And we just kind of go into everything. In this episode, we talk a lot about antibiotic recovery. She actually shares something really interesting about how you have to prepare specifically a dog's gut, because it's so short, to make sure that probiotics work and stick. So she gives us three specific things that you can use before giving probiotics that will boost your dog's IGA secretions and help probiotics to actually stick around and work. She talks about the top five herbs that everyone should know about to add to their dog's food. She talks about the importance of your nervous system when it comes to your animals, the effects of phones on our dogs, not just on our very own brains. And she just such an interesting human. It was just, like, so nice to talk to a person like Rita. She's just such a real human and so herself. And I feel like we had a really fun and funky conversation. So I think you guys will love this one, and I hope you're enjoying the monthly podcasts instead of every week. Like I mentioned last episode, we're doing monthly now because so much is going on in life and so many things are on the docket and changing, and I felt this major call to kind of like slow down and reassess. But the podcast is obviously so important to me, and I know it's important to a lot of you guys. Whenever I meet you in person, I feel like the first thing that someone says is, your podcast changed my life. This one episode is what I really needed. So I never want to put the podcast on the back burner or get rid of it entirely. It's something that I want to still do because sometimes I meet these guests or come across this person and I'm like, their message needs to be heard. But I also don't want to just fill an episode every week just to have a guest on. I don't want to dilute the message. I want it to really be guests like Rita where their stories, their wisdom needs to be shared and passed on. And I have a reason for posting it. So hope you're loving it. Hope it gives you a little bit more time to listen and digest the episode. And in case you missed it, in my last episode intro, I did just release my very first song. Speaking of my death and rebirth episode that I put out at the beginning of this season, I'm having a major rebirth in my life and returning to my first love of music and it's a whole thing. So you can listen to the last episode to get the download on that. I'll share more about it, but I just put out my first song called Another Lover and I have another song coming out on July 29th called angel and if you'd like to listen, you can look me up on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, anything under O Livia. I'll put the links in the show notes. I'm very happy to be able to share music as well alongside the podcast and herbs, and hope that we can all keep learning and sharing our many gifts together. So thanks as always for being part of the podcast community and just part of my community in general. I appreciate you guys and I'll catch you next month. Let's talk real life, right? I think the best way to move through life is to always be the student and to always be curious. Life will show you either way. It's just how you choose to listen. You can always count on you. You will always have your own back. This is not the last thing you'll create. Play is the process. Sometimes it has to be dramatic. That's the funny part. When your back's up against the wall, you will prevail. You're allowed to grow and change. You are allowed to birth something new. I hope you make your art. Breeda Hogan, welcome to the show.

Thank you. This is my first on site podcast, so I've been on more podcasts than I can count this year.

Well, your podcast is amazing and it's very education driven. So it's kind of like you just giving everyone the goods.

Yeah, I prattle on.

Yeah. I think that our audience has been more excited for your episode than I've seen them excited for an episode in a long time. And I think that's because we love our dogs so much and they can't talk and they can't tell us. I like this. This is good for my health. This hurts. And it's just like such a sensitive topic. We really don't get that holistic education on how to build a healthy dog. We just kind of have to. We're at the will of modern vet medicine.

Yeah, we definitely are at the will of modern vet medicine when we don't know what to do. Like, a lot of dogs get this. There's this drug called metronidazole. Right. And it's also called Flagyl. In fact, I had to take it once in my life. And it ruins your dog's gut. And it does it for years. Right? So you'll have a dog, you'll bring them in for diarrhea, and it's the standard of care for diarrhea, which this drug is. Right. And yeah, it'll get rid of diarrhea, but at a huge cost. And so you spend the next three years on and off going to the vet, going, my dog has ibd. My dog's, you know, has inflammation. They've got runny poo, they've got blood in their stool. And, you know, you can trace it back to this drug. And it's a standard of care for diarrhea, when a simple extract of BlackBerry leaf will cure almost any diarrhea out there, unless the diarrhea is being caused by something horrible like a blockage or something like that.

So when you say preparation of BlackBerry leaf. Now, I'm curious, as a mother of a dog with diarrhea, is it like a tea preparation?

I use a tincture.

Okay.

But you can. You can go pick leaves off a BlackBerry bush, make a tea, chop them up, make a tea out of them, or get dried. BlackBerry. I always have. Well, I mean, we have so many blackberries where I'm from, but like. But I used to usually use a tincture.

Yeah.

And you just use a few drops and. Yeah. No, it works so good.

That's incredible. Is that because it's astringent? So it's sort of just astringing the loose bowels?

Yeah.

That's incredible.

And it's antibacterial, antiviral, antimicrobial, like flagyl.

I mean, five minutes in, we have a diarrhea. Horrible.

Hack. BlackBerry. BlackBerry extract or BlackBerry tea. The tea, you have to give quite a bit of the tea, so you end up syringing it in their mouth. But the tincture works fabulous.

Yeah. Yeah. I think if I were to just sit in my shower tub and put BlackBerry tea in my hands and let my dog drink it, he would. Cause he prefers to drink water out of my hands in the shower tub. He's the strangest dog ever. He's like, my water bowl is not good enough. Whenever I'm having a bath or shower, he comes over and is like, will.

He give me some water? Well, I saw your dog, and he'd probably want to get into that tub.

I know he's very wet today because of the rain.

He's a lab. They. Most of them. Not all of them, but they love water.

They do.

So, yeah.

Yeah. They're not afraid of it. Some dogs are like, I'm not going out to walk in the rain. He's like, when are we playing?

When are we going?

Yeah, I need mud.

Game on. Yeah.

So what you just brought up, I'm sure, is a common experience of many owners and really just kind of shined a light for me as well. I have to check back on his records and see if what he took was metronid. How do you say?

It's all metronidazole, Also known as flagyl.

Flagyl. Okay, because. So my dog had a hotspot once. We took him to California. And I think because he's a very allergic guy, and the new pollen, like we were just saying for us humans, his immune system just kind of freaked out, and he got a hot spot that ended up getting infected. And so they gave us some kind of antibiotic. His bowels were completely normal before then. They gave us something strong. It certainly cured the infection of the hot spot. But ever since then, he's had ibd. Basically, he's had on and off diarrhea, watery mucus in his stool ever since that one antibiotic. So I'm sure it happens to so many people.

Yeah, it definitely does. In my book, there's an antibiotic recovery protocol, and I tell people to do that. Protocol. I don't care if your dog had antibiotics five years ago. Because if you don't work diligently and it's more than just, well, I gave probiotics during the antibiotic, or I gave it to him for about a month, it doesn't work that way. And because you really can't get it back, like, the microbiome of your dog before you give them antibiotics is not the microbiome after. And it's never going to be. Although there's this really great vet, her name's Dr. Lily Chen, and she's in Los Angeles. She's in Rolling Hills outside of Los Angeles. And I was doing an event there, and she gave a really good tip. And I was like, why didn't I think of that? You know, like, oh, my God. She said that if your dog is healthy, like, if they've never had antibiotics. So whether they're a young dog, a puppy, take some samples of their poop and put it in the freezer before they have antibiotics. Because what you can do is you can do a fecal transplant. Your vet can do a fecal transplant after they recover from antibiotics. Right. And reestablish their own microbiome, which is very good.

That's genius.

Yeah, it is genius. And I was like, lily, oh, my God, that is so logical. I don't even. For people who know about fecal transplant. But, like, I mean, it's disgusting, but it works. Instead of having one from another dog, a healthy dog, you can have it for your own dog. You just wrap it up.

You just have to worry your friends about going into your freezer, put it.

In a coffee can.

That's a really good.

In the freezer. So when someone tries to rob you, they won't get money, they will get turds.

I didn't know people put money in coffee cans in the freezer.

Yeah, it's stupid, but they do.

It's like a two for one. You get a healthy dog back and you get to fool the robbers.

Yes, it's true. Yeah.

Okay, that's. That's really smart. For those of you who are not familiar with fecal transplants, you can look up the studies for humans and kind of the evidence that we have in different human diseases of the digestive system. And obviously for humans, it's a totally different process. It needs to be done in a very specific, sterile, professional way. But I'm sure, like you said, vets can do it for dogs and a little bit of a. More.

It's actually the same way. Oh, and they actually have fecal trim, transplant pills. For humans as well that are encapsulated in this special capsule that does not open until it gets to the gut. And the studies are numerous for dogs. I don't know about cats, but dogs on fecal transplant, I mean, they have tons of studies now.

That's amazing. So how would you find a vet that knows how to encapsulate that frozen sample?

I think you can work with companies like Animal Biome, but there are tons of, well, vets and holistic vets that do fecal transplant.

Okay.

So yeah, so I guess kind of.

Just type in your area. Holistic vet, fecal transplant.

Yeah.

And then you have.

And I don't think it really does. I don't think it needs to be a holistic vet. I think that many, even allopathic vets are continuing education on fecal transplant for more serious issues.

Well, that's just great to know because to your point, yeah, once you do take a strong antibiotic, human or animal, your gut is never quite the same. There are certain strains that I'm sure don't just, quote, grow back, they're eliminated.

No.

And that diversity is affected forever. And obviously you can feed, at least in humans, different fibers to support the growth of certain diversity of flora. But it certainly is kind of like a forever thing. So great tip. For those of us who have young pups or we can save that. But for those of us who've already given our dogs antibiotics, you mentioned this antibiotic recovery protocol in your book the Herbal Dog. So can you talk a little bit more about what that entails? Of course, I'll link your book below. But what that entails and how long we should be doing that and why it's so important to stick to the duration of it.

Well, it's important because it takes time. So like you can take all of the fancy expensive probiotics or eat every fermented food you can get your hands on, but until the levels of glycocalyx and IGA elevate in the gut, which antibiotics destroy along with stress, does a number on them too. But antibiotics can destroy those levels. And those are the things that create an environment in which probiotics can stick to the gut wall. Cause until they can stick, they just go right out the. So a lot of times people will do like fmt fecal transplant and they're like, it didn't work. Well, it didn't work. Cause you actually need to prepare the gut for it to work.

So tell us more about that. Pretend that someone has no idea what IGA Means like bare bones.

They're secretions in the gut that allow probiotics to stick to the gut wall. That's the easiest way to say it. Right. And they're called glycocalyx and secretions of iga. It's big long story, but, you know, big long word. And what we want to do is we want to up those secretions and the levels of those two substances so that your probiotics work. And things that do that are like beneficial yeast, like Saccharomyces boulardii, that increases glycocalyx, the IgA colostrum increases it. Plantain. Those three things increase it. And so we work with those three things in the antibiotic recovery protocol. You'll do that for a while, work on the lymphatics, work on the liver, and then at a certain point, you'll start giving probiotics and prebiotics, postbiotics.

It's pretty similar, what you're saying, from what some of my friends who are clinicians do with humans, where they sort of have to restore the mucosal lining first before you can really make a difference with diet or probiotics.

Yes, definitely. I mean, the only really difference in canine health and adult, like, I want to say adult human health. Kids are a little different, but, you know, our gastrointestinal tracts are really long. Theirs are short. So, like, when a dog has bloody diarrhea, I don't freak out. I tell you how to deal with it. In my book, like, most of the time, it's not anything to worry about when a human does, unless they have a hemorrhoid, you need to go to the doctor. So that's about. There isn't that many differences. I mean, everything. Everything in the herbal dog really does apply to humans, except for the, you know, the bloody diarrhea stuff.

Yeah.

And I think working with humans in a functional medicine kind of environment is about the same as working, you know, as a holistic vet or giving a adjunct herbal protocol.

Yeah. How did you become a canine herbalist?

I. My dad taught me about herbs when I was young, but he was just a farmer, so he just knew what plants to give our chickens, cows, pigs, things like that, dogs, cats. And I wish I would have paid attention now, knowing what I do now, but when I was 30, I'm 54. And so when I was 30, I decided to start studying western herbal medicine. I did Ayurveda for a while, and it just didn't resonate with me. So I really wanted to work with the Plants on my own continent and, you know, North America. A lot of the plants that I work with are all here. Maybe not turmeric, but a lot of the plants are here. And I wanted to go back to my roots, so I started boarding dogs and studying herbal medicine. And I boarded Dogs Kennel Free in about an hour east of Nashville in, like, the hills there. And we had, like, five fenced acres. And I just noticed, like, how sick the dogs were like, that I boarded. They were on deplorable diets and tons of medicine. You know, they give me a bag of pharmaceuticals and a bag of kibble and just, you know, I'll see you in two weeks. I'll see you in a month. I'll see you in a week. Right. And I just noticed, like, how young the dogs were and how ill they were, and they just weren't thriving. They had poor longevity. Some of the dogs, I boarded them their whole lives, Right. And so I did it for 12 years. And it was sad because my dogs. When I was growing up, my dog Susie lived till she was at least 24. Yeah. And that was not an abnormal thing when I was growing up.

This is the farm dog.

Yes. And I know my mom's dog lived way past 24. You know, my mom's 94, though, like, her dog and all.

What does your mom eat?

Table scraps. What?

What does your mom eat?

My mom eats everything.

She eats everything for myself.

Now she lives. She's 94, and she. What's crazy about my mother is she barely has a wrinkle. And every time I look at her face, I'm like, how is it? I mean, no surgery, nothing. She's never been to anybody. Even an esthetician, she's never been to, but she has hardly a wrinkle on her face. She's got, like, a couple years and she's 94. So she's just, like, anomaly. She's an anomaly.

Do you think she has a secret, like, for her and her dog?

Her secret is moisturizing cream. Like, she will tell. She will tell anyone you need to. She'll say, you need cream. She goes, you need cream. And she uses all these different kinds of fancy creams and some not so fancy creams on her face every day.

She kind of like, lathers them on like they did.

She lathers them on in the morning, lathers them on at night. She used Avon. Not Avon Oil of Olay. It used to be in this little bottle, and it had this little woman on it, and it was Glass. And I remember her using that nonstop when I was young.

Okay.

It had this really, like, subtle, like, rose scent to it. Anyways, time she put cream on.

Clearly. That's a good tip.

She's amazing.

And what was her dog trick? Her dog secret for her?

She just said that dogs lived that old. They lived for a really, really long time. But, you know, when my mom was young, we didn't spay and neuter them. That takes out 25% of their endocrine system and screws their nervous system. I was just talking to a group of people about that last night. And it's normal now, right? And then we just act like it's normal, but we don't do anything to support their endocrine system for the rest of their lives. Like, you know, if you get a hysterectomy, you do hormone replacement therapy. Yeah, you might do hormone replacement therapy, or you might take herbs to help your body develop more hormones because your liver will. Will produce hormones. But, yeah, we don't do anything to support our dogs. We just act like that's the way it is and their bodies will be fine. But they're not fine. One in two dogs are alive. Cancer, you know, and then we also give them tons of antibiotics. We give them flea and tick meds, which are poison, you know, they're absolute poison. And we don't do anything to help their bodies deal with the flea and tick meds, to deal with the level of toxins that we're creating. And some people hate me for this statement, but I don't care. I always tell people, like, if I took that flea and tickmed and I put it in a shot glass, would you drink it? And the answer is always no.

Yeah, of course.

Why is it any different than giving it to our dogs? That's what's insane for me, you know? Heartworm meds. Heartworm meds. If you're using ivermectin for heartworm, it doesn't. I don't have anything to say about it as a preventative. Yeah. I mean, heartworm is pretty tragic. Herbally, you can get rid of heartworm, but a lot of people don't know how to do that. And veterinarians freak out because they use imiticide and sometimes they use Advantage multi for a year. I don't know what the other standards of care for heartworm are because I'm not a vet, but the flea and tick meds are out of control. And that's another thing we do to them. We do all these things and Then we forget we've done them to our dogs, right. And then our dog comes down with cancer, or they come down with autoimmune disease, or they have severe arthritis at age six and we can't figure out why. And it really just comes down to organ health. And that's what my book is all about. The first half of the book is all about how to, to create longevity through good organ health for your dog. And herbs do that very well. They help organs function better. And a lot of people don't even understand holistically how the body actually works. So I teach them in my book.

That's really exciting because it is not necessarily a simple answer. It's not a quick fix. It is nourishing and supporting on a, on a foundational level so that their livers are supported, their lymphatic system, their kidneys are supportive to prevent things later down the line.

Yeah.

And that does take, you know, some like getting creative in the kitchen, having a little mini herbal apothecary, knowing how just like for your own body, knowing when you see signs that something might need a little bit extra support, there might be a little bit of extra stress and being able to, to supplement that accordingly. Yeah.

And knowing signs, that's, that's perfect to say. Like I have lots of lists in my book, you know, kidney lists, lymphatic lists, liver lists. Sit a dog when I see them for fear. You know, Fourth of July is coming up, right. When a dog is reactive, on leash, when they're losing their minds, when they're super anxious, when they're afraid of everything, especially like submissive peers, things like that. I don't even deal with that behavior. Like I just support their kidneys. Right. And when you support their kidneys a lot, 9 times out of 10 those behaviors will go away. And sometimes it's not kidney related, but that's not the norm. And there's signs, you know, these are the signs for if your dog's kidney needs a little loving and a lot of things. Well, I had blood work and he's fine. When things are on blood work, it's a five alarm fire.

Yes. By the time it shows up on the blood work, it's already.

Yeah, you need progress. So when it shows up on the blood work, when liver enzymes are high or they're dumping protein in their urine, we have a major problem and it needs a material dose of something. But if you know early on the signs of kidney weakness, then you can do something about it. Or liver weakness. Most dogs and cats have liver weakness and low lymphatic as humans because of our world. Yeah.

Basically the.

Just like the load and sitting on our tuchus all day. Yeah, I see.

Oh, my dog's certainly not sitting on his tuchus.

No, no. A lot of people are. You know, a lot of people are sitting in front of screens all day long. They go from screens, and then they play video games. And, you know, we're very sedentary now compared to what we used to be. Most people don't even want to step a foot out in nature, and that's. I think it's taking its toll.

Yeah.

So.

Yeah. Okay. I have so many questions. It's interesting. You say the kidney and fear thing. Is that in western herbalism or is that more of, like, a traditional Chinese medicine concept? You sort of blend the two. Because I'm thinking to my. Yeah. With my acupuncturist or my training in herbalism, of course. Yeah. The kidneys are related to fear. The stomach is related to the overthinking and the worry, the rumination. The liver can be anger, aggression, things. And I really do find that when I support my own kidneys or adrenals, I guess, in human health, that my anxiety and my fear is lessened. So why wouldn't it be the same for our dogs?

It is. It's the same. I use a lot of traditional Chinese medicine diagnostics, like, to kind of figure out what's going on with the body and how it's talking. I Learned that from Dr. Cheryl Schwartz. She wrote this book, Four Paws, Five Directions. I think everyone should have that book. And what's crazy about that is I studied her work when the Internet was. I mean, you couldn't look up like a flower on the Internet. So I studied her work really early on. And in the last five years, we've developed a relationship, and I actually helped her with her cat. And, you know, it was like a full circle moment. But she was very influential early on with me just teaching me how the body's an ecosystem, Everything's connected. And I say that over and over and over again, you know, that everything is connected. And you can't do something in the body, remove an organ, you know, spay or neuter, do any of that stuff and not affect the entire ecosystem. And that's, you know, what I really want people to understand.

I am absolutely gonna come back to the spaying, neutering, and tick conversation that we had just now. But before I do that, I'm sure that our audience is, like, chomping at the bit to know, can you give us an example of, like, maybe five signs for each of the organs that you mentioned that they might need some early support? Kidneys, liver. Lymphatics.

Well, lymphatics. You and I were just briefly discussing allergies, right? Itching, scratching, allergies. Allergies are liver and lymphatics, you know, and their influence on the gut. When you have good lymphatic health, when you go to have good liver health, you don't have allergies. Yeah, you know, so like, itching, scratching, biting, skin issues, aggression, being agitated. Those are both lymphatic and liver, you know, with the agitation being liver. You know, that dog that he can deal with other dogs for, like, five minutes, and then, you know, he's just gonna lose it. You know, that's definitely a liver dog. Hot spots come from the liver. Lipomas.

We got a lot of questions about fatty lipomas.

Someone was like, lipomas.

The doctor said, you can't do anything about them.

They're always a lipoma. Yes, you can. I have a whole section in my book of getting rid of lipomas.

Amazing.

Yeah, there's a whole lipoma section. I'm really good at it. Lipomas are just a sign that the liver and lymphatics are not working. You know, the liver, the body. And every time I say the body, I really do mean the liver. Like, the liver will wall up those toxins when it can't deal with them. It's very smart. And then it'll start feeding it, like, okay, well, I dealt with the 100% that I can deal with today, and I'll put that other 20% in that tumor, Right? In that growth. In the growth. And so you got to get the lymphatics going. You got to get the liver going. And then the lipomas will start to shrink. The most important thing is to get them to stop growing while you're doing it. Now, something that I find universally pretty effective is turkey tail mushroom. Turkey tail mushroom is very effective at getting fatty tumors to stop growing, you know, because we don't want them to get any bigger. Yeah, but I have a whole section on lipomas, and I teach vets how to get rid of lipomas.

So you can not only stop them from growing, but you can help the body to dissolve them.

Yes, if it's as big as a football and your dog is older, if it's young. But if your dog is older. No, we can make it get smaller, stop growing.

Okay.

And we can make it stop growing, but getting rid of like a football sized lipoma, that's a lot of toxin burden. Right. So your dog may be too old to deal with that, but the important thing is just to get it stop growing. You know, if it can be surgically removed, then great. A lot of times lipomas will come right back because you haven't dealt with the problem in the first place. And then the surgery makes it worse because it causes more stagnation in the body. And, you know, like, for people that I've worked with in the past that are gonna have lipoma removal, we get on everything beforehand. A couple months before they have the surgery. We stop right before the surgery. And as soon as it's done, we start up again to keep those lipomas from growing back.

Wow.

And usually there's a diet change in there.

Definitely want to talk diet, but when we say supporting liver lymphatics to help with the lipoma, does that mean daily herbs? Like, what are some of the top liver herbs that you're using?

So I use calendula and cleavers. I use turkey tail mushroom. I use self heal. I use milk thistle. There's the whole burdock root, turmeric, ginger. Depends on if your dog is more warm or cool. That's chapter three in my book.

I mean, it's so important in the world of herbalism to understand energetics, because there could be two people in front of us that both clearly need liver support, but one person runs so hot. So more of a heating liver herb is not going to be great for them. No, but someone else is cold all the time, so something that's heating and invigorating is going to be wonderful for that person.

Yes.

So it's. It really is. That's why I love that you wrote a book teaching people herbalism energetics, the basics of, like, how to support the body with herbalism. Because there are so many nuances that you need to know, and you need to get to know your dog and their unique constitution.

Yes, absolutely. And it. It really dictates, like, if your dog is ill, you know, if they're healthy, they have more energetic flexibility, which means that they can have a much more varied diet as well as varied herbs. But the sicker they are, the more sensitive they are going to be to that herbs energetic. So it's really important to figure out where your dog is at. And my book helps you do that again with more lists. But I just found lists to be the best way to help People understand, you know, symptoms and, you know, the interesting thing, and I was telling this group of people last night about it, everything that you can think of that you or your dog suffers from, everything except for something that possibly was handed down from your mom. But I still believe you can shut those things off, however. But if it was genetically given from mom to puppy, you know, we can just. We'll just count that out. But even things like how your dog deals with a tick bite, or how your dog deals with a mosquito bite or a bee sting, everything that you can think of is a symptom. It's a symptom of organ health. That's it. I mean, that is the lowest level. Mitochondria, cellular structures, neurons, blood vessels. It's just all organ health. And I think of organs as the gastrointestinal tract, as an organ. To me, you know, the liver, the kidneys, lymphatics, the heart, the lungs, how our blood vessels sit in our body, our nervous system, our limbic system, you know, like all of that, it's how those systems work together and the strength and resilience of those systems and the terrain in your body. Everything else is just a symptom.

I just love the language that you're speaking right now because one of my close friends, Michelle Shapiro, she's a functional dietitian, and she talks about this day and night. Because even in the functional medicine, holistic world for humans, we get caught up treating symptoms. And, you know, you'll have, for example, a human who's eating certain high fodmap foods, let's say, or high histamine foods, and they are getting symptoms from those foods. And so even in the holistic world, sometimes the solution is go on a low fodmap diet or a low histamine diet to treat the symptoms. But at the end of the day, you have to go a step deeper, treat the foundation. Why is the body reacting to high histamine foods? Usually a nervous system issue, a liver issue, a lymphatic issue, to where you want to make the body strong enough to where it can handle high histamine foods, because its overall bucket isn't overflowing, and the diet change for the human is just a symptom. Band aid, it's not going deep enough.

It's not. It might get them some relief, but it's not. And, you know, there's a huge correlation between the lymphatic system and mast cells and how they function in the body. And, you know, we don't have to go into that, but it is. You know, I teach these cancer intensives for dogs and we just did mast cell. And mast cell's tumor is very prevalent in dogs.

We got questions about that.

Both benign and cancerous tumors. And yeah, you know, I don't want a dog eating leftovers. I don't want a dog eating cook food. When they have mast cell, I don't want them adding histamine because they're not breaking it down. But that is just helping the tumors not get bigger. But we have to figure out, okay, why, what is the basis of the tumor? Is it from the limbic system? Is it from the lymphatic system? It's usually a little bit of both. And how do we get it to stop firing so quickly? And how do we get it to calm down? And the cool thing about herbs is the herbs that are the best at mast cell, you know, they're dealing with the lymph, they're dealing with the lymphatics, they're dealing with the nerve. Nervous system is number one for me above any other system. You have to stabilize the nervous system first. And if you're stressed, your dogs are so, you know, when you're in fight or flight, you don't digest your food, your lymphatic system goes on, you know, emergency status, your liver goes down to, you know, acting like a generator when the power goes out. That's all it does, is just keep a low light on. Your lungs aren't even filtering very many pathogens. They're focusing on giving all your air to your heart and your musculature and nothing else. And think about how many times a day we're in fight or flight. I was in fight or flight the entire way here because it was pouring so hard on the highway. My thighs were like, you know, like this. My feet were, I mean, you know, and I'm like, oh, my God. And I just had to remind myself to take some deep breaths in the car because it was like I was in a video game and I was fighting for my life. And so, you know, but like, think about how many times a day we're in fight or flight. And the scientifically you can look up that the act of just scrolling on your phone puts you in a low level fight or flight. And if you are on social media and you're scrolling and you're sc. You're doing that, you're just going up and down, you are actually in fight or flight. It's insane. If you are in your car and you are on your phone I see so many people looking down, I'm like, oh my God, you're stressing me out, man. And like, it is so hard for your body to know that it has to pay attention because you're going to die if you get hit by a car. Most people are, or hurt really badly, but you're willing to take the chance and look at your phone because something on that phone is so utterly important, which it's not. And you're just in complete overwhelm and fight or flight. And then of course, you know, work and deadlines. And in this country, productivity is king. I just got back from Italy and you know, they shut down between 3 and 6 and I absolutely loved it. Like I'm going home to take a nap, I'm gonna go rest and then, you know, I'll be fresh as a springtime Daisy by 6:30, ready to go until 12. Right. So, you know, I loved it. And productivity is not king there. You know, talking, conversation, being with people, obviously eating food, you know, like I said, gained 10 really good pounds. It was worth every bit of it. It was amazing. I had a really hard, really fun time just calming down. And if you are stressed, your dog is stressed. You know, our dogs are usually never more than 8ft away. Our heart energy goes 6 to 8ft out of the body. You know, we're sharing that with them. And, and the, the interesting thing is that we think that we talk to our dogs and they understand. Yes, they understand tone, right. You can say, oh, you're just the ugliest little dog I've ever. But if you're talking sweet, they're like, I love you. Right. But that's not how they communicate. They are smelling you non stop. And when we're stressed, we smell like, we smell like cortisol. Right. And adrenaline. Right. The acetylcholine is crazy. So it's like we're unsafe. So they sit and they worry about us and they are stressed out about us. And don't think that that movie you're playing that's firing machine guns is not stressing your dog out because it is.

We were just talking about this at our breathwork event that in Ayurveda, which you had mentioned earlier, they say that when you're watching a violent movie and you're seeing death and subconscious does not know. Yeah. Your actual heart body doesn't know the difference. It's seeing that as something that you're actually.

And our animals deal with that all the time. And so our homes are, you know, are very chaotic you know, the. The less chaotic your home can be, the better people say, oh, Rita, what's the best herb for longevity? It's not. It's not an herb. It's you getting your together. Right? You gotta get your together because you need to learn how to breathe again. You need to get out in nature. You need to put your foot on the ground. You know, we need to get back to taking care of ourselves first so that we can take care of our animals. And a lot of people think it's the opposite way around. They'll do anything for their dog. They'll feed your dog an excellent diet, but they will stop in the McDonald's on the way home. Right. And we all know that food doesn't serve us. It doesn't feed our souls. It doesn't feed our good energy. It brings down cellular voltage. It's nasty. But I'm telling you to put yourself first because your animals want to be safe. And if you're not safe, they're not safe. Because at the end of the day, all they really want you to do is be happy and for you to love them. And that's really all you really have to do. And I think that that causes longevity in itself.

Yeah. You know, Well, I mean, looking back to your story about your mom and her dog, that was well over 24, she's living on the farm, hanging out, putting cream on her face. Right. In nature.

Right.

I'm sure it was a stressful, you know, manual physical labor, but in other ways, less stressful because you're connected to reality, the environment your brain isn't in, Taking social media videos at a pace of five a second, you know, it's. We're stressing our actual brains out. And I'm glad that you said limbic system. What is the limbic system for those who don't know? And how could that even be involved in inflammation in the immune system?

I mean, you look at the limbic system as the relationship to the onatomic nervous system, the fight or flight, the relaxation, and a lot. The limbic system also involves our adrenals. It's how we react to stress in our body and how a lot of the people that react to mast cells, their limbic system is shot from whatever trauma that they have developed and are stuck in their fascia. You know, dogs are the same. The trauma gets stuck in the fascia. You know, massage is one of the best things. Like while you're watching Netflix, massage your dog.

Yeah.

You know, and then get your husband or wife to massage you, you can get a little train going on there. But like, it. Massage is really important because it does help release trauma. And there's great flower essences that release trauma, like comfrey and borage yellow pond lily. Those are my top three. They help release trauma. And our nervous systems just get shot because we ain't got time to deal with ourselves. You know, we want to keep productivity high, we want to keep moving, we want to act like everything's fine all the time, you know, oh, my life is great. When really you're like, I hate it. You know?

Right.

And it's exhausting. That's all. The fakeness is exhausting. And so we have to get back to like being real with ourselves and taking care of ourselves. And that nourishes our limbic system for sure. And our adrenals, like our adrenals get depleted. And a lot of regular doctors don't believe in adrenal depletion. I will tell you, it's real. If you've got dark circles under your eyes, your adrenals are depleted. And if you've got like water bags under your eyes, your kidneys are having a real hard time.

I woke up with those this morning. I was like, oh, a little puff there, huh?

Well, you don't have any water bags. They're gone.

Well, I was drinking my dandelion leaf tea.

Oh, good, good. I just think people aren't considering their dogs like Susie, who we know that she lived to at least 24 years old, right? It could have been 27, but the only person that could could verify that would be my father. And he's not here anymore, so we know it's at least 24, so we just say 24. But Susie was not spayed, she was not over vaccinated. I don't even know if she ever got a vaccine. I don't know, maybe one. The vet came to our house, so our vet came to our house at that time, usually for our livestock, for our cows and pigs and stuff like that. She ate table scraps, she ate raw meat, she ate cooked meat, she ate organs, she ate apples, she ate blackberries. She would forage on little creatures and make me cry. Right. She'd eat bunnies and moles and you know, things like that. And we didn't worry, we just. That's how you lived. Right? And she had a litter of puppies once and that was it. I mean, and she was there before I was born, she was there after I went to college. She was like a little staple.

Wow.

Right. And we didn't, like, over emphasize her every activity. I don't think I ever looked at her poop when I was a kid. Like, she pooped. Right. You know, and she slept outside a lot. She would sleep outside. If it was a nice starry night in the summer, she would sleep outside. We'd leave the door open for her in the garage, and then she could come into the house. We just leave the door open because we lived on a farm and sure didn't have to lock your doors.

Yeah.

And she did a lot of sleeping outside, but during the day, she was outside all day long, you know, breathing fresh air, getting her lymphatics going. Whenever I was on my horse, she was behind us. So, like, I look at her and we had other. And dogs and things like that too. We had dogs and cats as well, but she was the one that really stood out.

Yeah. I think humans got to sleep outside more.

Oh, God, I love sleeping outside, man.

I actually, I don't know if I've ever slept outside in my life, really. I don't think I've slept outside for even one night.

I love camping. I love sleeping outside. I. I'm currently trying to figure out how I can sleep out on my back deck because I really love sleeping outside. But, you know, you don't, you know, you don't have to sleep outside, but open your windows and.

Yeah.

And turn your phone off and turn your wifi off at night. Like, a lot of our animals don't even get a break from that. Even when we leave the house now we have all these smart homes. In my opinion, they're dumb. They're dumb homes.

Yeah. The smart homes scare me.

Yeah, they're dumb homes. A people can hack everything, right? Don't be fooled. They can.

Yeah. My mast cell issues were flaring like crazy when I stayed in a smart home. And I was like, never again. It's just too much electricity.

Oh, my God. It is crazy. It's, you know, dirty electricity. And those things do affect us because we're electrical beings. But like, you know, my biggest. We don't want to go into that, but my biggest thing is to turn your cell phone off at night and turn your WI fi off at night.

Yeah.

We do not need to be available 24 hours. And when you walk your dog, get off your phone.

That's what I do. I don't take my phone on my dog walks. Get off your phone free. And it makes such a difference in the bonding too. You're just so much more present with them. And they can feel it. They can talk.

Absolutely.

And medicine for them.

You're unsafe when you're on your phone. You're in fight or flight when you're on your phone and your dogs know it, you know, and so you don't have that bond. They're constantly worried about you. Again, one in two dogs will die of cancer right now. That's insane, because when I started boarding dogs, it was not. I had never met a dog with cancer. I had never met a dog. I remember the first dog I met with cancer. He was a little dachshund, and I bordered him. He was just cute. I don't know what type of cancer he had. I think it was cancer right now. That's insane, because when I started boarding dogs, it was not. I had never met a dog with cancer. I had never met a dog. I remember the first dog I met with cancer. He was a little dachshund and I boarded him. He was just cute. I don't know what type of cancer he had. I think it was something to do with his pancreas, but I'm not positive. But he was just a little cutie and he was old. And I was like, oh, my God. This is my. I remember. I'm like, this is my first dog with cancer. Like, that's crazy. And I didn't even understand cancer. I didn't know about cancer. And now you can. Like, I know everybody in your life knows someone that has cancer. I had cancer in 2017, and I had a story that I would never get cancer. Like, I'm never getting cancer. But I was also a stressed out disaster. And that's a long story. I'm fine. No chemo, no radiation, just surgery.

Wow.

Yeah. But it's like, it was a big wake up call for me to get my stress underhand and my liver and my lymphatics and my vitamin D levels. And you can't have good vitamin D without good lymphatic health.

It's true. I can supplement all I want. And my. My levels never stay high because I need a lot of lymphatic support.

Yes.

And I'm stressed all the time.

You need to get on one of those little vibration plates.

Well, that's the most important or one of the most important things that you're saying is that when you're that stress and in fight or flight, it's. It's not just brain stress. It is your organs then going into this mode where they're doing the bare minimum to keep you alive because they're Ready to respond to a threat. They're not doing the above and beyond detoxification functions that they could be maxing out at.

Yeah. They're not doing what they need to do. And, you know, I always tell people, like, put your phone down for a day and see how anxious you are. If you are anxious about not seeing that phone for a day, not being available or being seen by whomever for a day, you've got a problem.

Yeah.

And it's an easy way to figure out, like, some people will freak out, like, you can't take my phone. Oh, my God. My God. You know, my mom, again, who's 94, she can't believe that people are available like they are. They'd be like. She'd like. That would drive me crazy.

I was just thinking about that. When I was thinking of all the texts I needed to respond to, I was like, why am I chained to my phone?

Yeah. And I think that younger people are starting to see the burden of it. I mean, it's a burden. And again, it goes right back to our animals. Our animals are getting the brunt of this. They're getting. We're not showing up for them. We're not being present to them. And the more present we can to be for our animals, the healthier we are. Right.

And thus they are.

And thus they are.

They're such little mirror, really. I think that having an animal is such a, like, spiritual quote unquote experience, because they are such a mirror. They will reveal to you when you are overly stressed, when you are having digestive issues. They're having digestive issues. It's like this energetic mirror that you cannot look away from, because through your quest of trying to heal them and help them, you keep coming back to yourself.

Yes. And a lot of cancers show up after a very stressful moment. And cancers in your dogs show up after you've had an extremely stressful moment. You know, cancer is prolonged, unmanaged stress, Whether it be stress from toxins, stress from emotions, you know, and you can't get cancer with a healthy liver and lymphatic system. It's not physically possible, especially a liver. You know, your liver keeps you from getting cancer. The lymphatics helps keep you from getting cancer. You know, vitamin D helps keep you from getting cancer. When I had cancer, my vitamin D levels were 16%.

Oh, man. You know, I mean, it's. It makes a lot of sense. We had a cancer intensive in our herbalism program, the one where I studied. And Dr. Jody Noe, if anyone wants to look her up. She's amazing. She practices in Connecticut. She authored a textbook on herbal support for, you know, oncology protocols and chemo. And she really had to, you know, bare bone, explain it to us herbalists who are not doctors, who didn't know all the technical terms. But she's like, here's how it works. You know, your immune system is what is going to identify, hey, this is an abnormal cell and I gotta clear it. But when your immune system is distracted over there, because somewhere over there there's an alarm going off, Whether it's inflammation from, you know, an overburdened liver that has all these toxins, whether it is stress, whatever is distracting your immune system and saying, this is more important. We have to deal with this right now. Especially when it's for a prolonged period. The usual job of the immune system, of clearing those abnormal cells, they just go unchecked. And that is when cancer begins to grow. So it is this immune inflammation kind of thing. And the more that we can attend to the or lower our daily burdens, the better our immune system can do what it needs to do to clear those cancer cells that crop up every day in us.

Yeah. And when we're even in a low hum fighter flight, Our immune system is distracted. Is distracted. Oh, and even better, this is just for humans. I don't see it for dogs all that much, but I think it's five grams of sugar. It's either five or six grams of sugar tanks your immune system for four hours.

Wow.

Wow. Can you imagine?

I mean, it makes sense. I just see such a difference in my cognitive function when I do it.

Yeah. I learned about that during COVID and I was like, oh my God, like, I don't eat a lot of sugar, but yeah, I definitely have, you know, and I was like, oh, my God, like a Coke has like 45 grams of sugar or, you know, almost everything at Starbucks.

Yeah.

Or what is it? The world runs on Duncan.

Yeah.

I'm like, please don't run on Duncan. Please don't run on Duncan. Yeah, I mean, it just tanks your immune system, but stress also tanks your immune system. And then all of the antibiotics and all of the steroids and all of those things, they mess with surveillance.

Surveillance is a good way to put it.

That's the case. And the overreactivity, it's a lot. And so I just think we need to go back to basics.

I mean, you're really speaking my language. I didn't expect this to be a human therapy session. A human. I love It. No, no, no. And our guests are gonna love it. But, but it's important because like you said, people ask you, what's the best herb for longevity? A lot of the questions that I got are best herbs for this. What herb can fix this? And it's not really like, of course they're supportive. We gotta support the liver. This is the world we live in. I take my herbs every day. But what's even more important than that, like you said, is a calmer, present human. And our deepest work is to understand that not everything, every deadline, every text is the end of the world. Just that that in its simplicity is such a hard concept for us to grasp nowadays.

Yeah. And stress, just improving your breathing, improving your stress, you know, improving your diet. Diet is very important. Stress is more important. Improving your diet, stress, breathing, you know, using natural remedies to help support your body and prevent disease versus react and wait till something happens. You know, those are all really important things that we need to get back to and understand that, you know, what we eat affects our immune system. You know, a piece of broccoli can increase microbiome diversity. You know, one piece can increase microbiome diversity.

A tablespoon is all it takes, any fiber.

It's very small.

Yeah.

But we have, it's not going to increase it for a week. We have to start eating things that are green and our dogs love green things.

Yeah.

You know, teas are really awesome for dogs. They're very conducive to water based medicine. And nettle tea is one of, I think one of the really great medicines for people and dogs. You know, I cover, I don't even know like 65 herbs and mushrooms in my book in Depth. I talk about the dosages. You know, I take the guesswork out of it. If I had to look at top five herbs, right? Nettles, turmeric, yarrow, holy basil and. Well, I can't do five calendulas. Cleavers. You know, I love calendula, I love cleavers. Yet. So top seven. Those would be my top seven. Or ginger. Can't live without ginger. I can, but a lot of people who are not warm like myself, can't live without ginger is just such a systemic. It's anti cancer. And then we have all of our mushrooms, you know, turkey tail, maitake. I really love reishi and I love lion's mane. I love some of the, a lot of the oyster varieties. They're really high in ergothionine, which is really up and coming in, in longevity. Medicine. So there's lots of mushrooms out there that you don't hear about in commerce, but as far as, like, medicinal commerce. But they're there and they're amazing.

They're even dietary more so like the.

Oyster varieties, but you can find them. Like tiger's milk mushroom. It's hard to find, but you can find it. It's super awesome for the lungs. Like, really, really beneficial for the lungs. In fact, I should be taking it right now with this cough that I've gotten since I got here on the East Coast.

Well, you know what? I like that you kind of top seven to the herbs.

Yeah.

I think what our audience would really love is if you kind of just went herb by herb and kind of just said a sentence about, here's what this herb is best for, and here's the best way to administer it.

So one of my favorite herbs is nettles. Okay. Nettles is pretty neutral to cooling. It leans a little cool, depending on the dog or person. It's also drying, and a lot of people and dogs are damp. So if you get too dry, you need to add something to counteract the dryness. I like tremella mushroom or marshmallow root, but it can be given as a tea. It's very beneficial as a tea or a tincture. Dogs can have small amounts of alcoholic tinctures. I go over the math in my book. Google's one of the worst places to get any information about herbs for animals. It's a terrible place, so it'll take.

Terrible things in general.

Peppermint's bad for dogs, garlic's bad for dogs. All of this stuff that's based on junk science and like one study that gave a dog more garlic than you can even imagine. Right. I've been at this for 20 years. I've never had a dog get sick from garlic if it's given correctly. So, you know, back to nettles, tea tincture. And great for allergies, great for sensitivities, great for mast cell, just. And it's systemic. You know, one of my mentors, Matthew Wood, told me, you know, nettles makes things work again, right? And it really does. And it's full of trace minerals, and trace minerals are something that a lot of us are lacking, along with essential fatty acids, omega 3s. So I think that that's an important one. Nettles is great. And then we have. Let's do a warming turmeric. Turmeric is fantastic. It works on the lymphatics, it works on the liver it's systemic. It helps phase two detoxification in the liver. Turmeric is good given with a fat. You can. And you don't have to give it with black pepper, but definitely give it with a fat. Olive oil, coconut oil for dogs.

And is this powdered?

Yeah, you can do powdered.

Could you mix it in with the coconut oil?

Yeah, you can make like a golden paste. They'll eat it. I like. There's a company called Green Juju. I love their turmeric for dogs. It's fermented turmeric for dogs. It's great.

And is this for joint pain? So you said nettle for allergies and overall, just like inflammation, turmeric is systemic again.

It's anti cancer. It checks all the boxes for a cancer herb, every single one of them. You know, it creates apoptosis, it stops angiogenesis, it helps with the cancer spread. It's a warming herb. So I don't use it for dogs that are already warm. I use it for dogs that are cool and people that are cool and cold. So it's warming? Not as warming as ginger, but yeah. So you use it oil and fat and then ginger. I like to use ginger as a tea. You know, I like to steep it, put it on a dog's food. It warms other herbs up if the herbs are too cooling. I talk about that in my book. I tell you how to use it. But ginger is very easy. Again, a tea you can use. I don't use an extract of ginger. I'll use it as a powder or a tea. Otherwise it's too hot, in my opinion, for a dog. And then what do we discuss? Cleavers. Cleavers is a lymphatic herb, like calendula. It's cooling, it moves the lymph. It's great for the kidneys. It is a diuretic. So if your dog's on cleavers, they might pee more, right? Oh, my dog's peeing more. That's because most herbs are diuretic. They help the kidneys function better. So cleavers I use as a tincture. It's very heat sensitive, so it doesn't work well as a tea. You can do an overnight infusion. That's just like a tea steeped overnight in cold water for cleavers. If you want to use water based medicine with that. I love cleavers. It's one of my faves.

And this is for a dog who has signs of lymphatic issues.

Like, yeah, kidney lymphatic Issue the fear.

Like the allergies, hot spots, things like that.

Yes, really great. What else did we mention? Oh, well, milk thistle. Hello. Milk thistle is tricky. So most milk thistles that you're going to buy commercially is going to be a standardized extract. So you want to pulse that, use it for six weeks, give yourself a couple week break, then you can use it again. But I don't use standardized milk thistle that much. I use just the seed. And you can give milk thistle seed continuously.

Can you just sprinkle it in food?

You can sprinkle it in food. You can give it as a tincture, you can give it as a glycerin, glycerinous baits extract. It needs to be extracted in alcohol first. If that, if you're using a glycerin based extract, they'll take the alcohol out, but it's better in alcohol. Something to do with his pancreas, but I'm not positive. But he was just a little cutie and he was old and I was like, oh my God. This is my. I remember, I'm like, this is my first dog, cancer. Like, that's crazy. And I didn't even understand cancer. I didn't know about cancer. And now you can. Like, I know everybody in your life knows someone that has. I had cancer in 2017 and I had a story that I would never get cancer. Like, I'm never getting cancer. But I was also a stressed out disaster, you know, and that's a long story. I'm fine. No chemo, no radiation, just surgery. Yeah. But it's like, it was a big wake up call for me to get my stress underhand, you know, and my liver and my lymphatics because I. And my vitamin D levels. And you can't have good vitamin D without good lymphatic health.

It's true. I can supplement all I want. And my, my levels never stay high because I need a lot of lymphatic support.

Yes.

And I'm stressed all the time.

You need to get on one of those little vibration plates.

Well, that's the most important or one of the most important things that you're saying is that when you're that stress and in fight or flight, it's not just brain stress, it is your organs then going into this mode where they're doing the bare minimum to keep you alive because they're ready to respond to a threat. They're not doing the above and beyond detoxification functions that they could be maxing out at.

Yeah, they're not Doing what they need to do. And, you know, I always tell people, like, put your phone down for a day and see how anxious you are. If you are anxious about not seeing that phone for a day, not being available or being seen by whomever for a day, you've got a problem.

Yeah.

And it's an easy way to figure out. Like, some people will freak out, like, you can't take my phone. Oh, my God. My God. You know, my mom, again, who's 94, she can't believe that people are available like they are. They'd be like. She'd like. That would drive me crazy.

I was just thinking about that. When I was thinking of all the texts I needed to respond to, I was like, why am I chained to my phone?

Yeah. And I think that younger people are starting to see the burden of it. I mean, it's a burden. And again, it goes right back to our animals. Our animals are getting the brunt of this. We're not showing up for them. We're not being present to them. And the more present we can to be for our animals, the healthier we are. Yeah, right.

Thus they are.

And thus they are.

Little mirror. I really. I think that having an animal is such a, like, spiritual quote, unquote experience, because they are such a mirror. They will reveal to you when you are overly stressed, when you are having digestive issues. They're having digestive issues. It's like this energetic mirror that you cannot look away from because through your quest of trying to heal them and help them, you keep coming back to yourself.

Yes. And a lot of cancers show up after a very stressful moment. And cancers in your dogs show up after you've had an extremely stressful moment. You know, cancer is prolonged, unmanaged stress, whether it be stress from toxins, stress from emotions, you know, and you can't get cancer with a healthy liver and lymphatic system. It's not physically possible. Especially a liver. You know, your liver keeps you from getting cancer. The lymphatic system helps keep you from getting cancer. You know, vitamin D helps keep you from getting cancer. When I had cancer, my vitamin D levels were 16%.

Oh, man. You know, I mean, it's. It makes a lot of sense. We had a cancer intensive in our herbalism program, the one where I studied. And Dr. Jody Noe, if anyone wants to look her up, she's amazing. She practices in Connecticut. She authored a textbook on herbal support for, you know, oncology protocols and chemo. And she really had to, you know, bare bone, explain it to us herbalists who are not doctors, who didn't know all the technical terms. But she's like, here's how it works. You know, your immune system is what is going to identify, hey, this is an abnormal cell, and I got to clear it. But when your immune system is distracted over there, because somewhere over there, there's an alarm going off, whether it's inflammation from, you know, an overburdened liver that has all these toxins, whether it is stress, whatever is distracting your immune system and saying, this is more important. We have to deal with this right now. Especially when it's for a prolonged period. The usual job of the immune system, of clearing those abnormal cells, they just go unchecked. And that is when cancer begins to grow. So it is this immune inflammation kind of thing. And the more that we can attend to the or lower our daily burdens, the better our immune system can do what it needs to do to clear those cancer cells that crop up every day in us.

Yeah. And when we're even in a low hum fighter flight, our immune system is distracted. Is distracted. Oh, and even better, this is just for humans. I don't see it for dogs all that much, But I think it's five grams of sugar. It's either five or six grams of sugar tanks your immune system for four hours.

Wow.

Wow. Can you imagine?

I mean, it makes sense. I. I just see such a difference in my cognitive function When I. Yeah.

I learned about that during COVID and I was like, oh, my God, Like, I don't eat a lot of sugar, but yeah, I definitely have, you know, And I was like, oh, my God, like a coke has. I'm like, please don't run on Duncan. Please don't run on Duncan. Yeah, I mean, it just tanks your immune system, but stress also, you know, tanks your immune system. And then all of the antibiotics and all of the steroids and all of those things, they mess with surveillance.

Surveillance is a good way to put it.

And the overreactivity, you know, that it's a lot. And so I just think we need to go back to basics.

I mean, you're really speaking my language. I didn't expect this to be a human therapy session. A human. I. I love it. No, no. And our guests are gonna love it. But it's important because like you said, people ask you, what's the best herb for longevity? A lot of the questions that I got are best herbs for this. What herb can fix this? And it's not really like, of course they're supportive we gotta support the liver. This is the world we live in. I take my herbs every day. But what's even more important than that, like you said, is a calmer, present human. And our deepest work is to understand that not everything, every deadline, every text is the end of the world. Just that in its simplicity is such a hard concept for us to grasp nowadays.

Yeah, and stress, just improving your breathing, improving your stress, you know, improving your diet. Diet is very important. Stress is more important. Improving your diet, stress, breathing, you know, using natural remedies to help support your body and prevent disease versus react and wait till something happens. You know, those are all really important things that we need to get back to and understand that, you know, what we eat affects our immune system. A piece of broccoli can increase microbiome diversity. One piece can increase microbiome.

A tablespoon is all it takes, any fiber.

It's very small, but it's not going to increase it for a week. We have to start eating things that are green and our dogs love green things. Teas are really awesome for dogs. They're very conducive to water based medicine. And nettle tea is one of, I think one of the really great medicines for people and dogs. You know, I cover, I don't even know like 65 herbs and mushrooms in my book in Depth. I talk about the dosages, you know, I take the guesswork out of it. If I had to look at top five herbs, right, Nettles, turmeric, yarrow, holy basil and well, I can't do five calendulas. Cleavers, you know, I love calendula, I love cleavers. Yeah. So top seven, those would be my top seven. Or ginger. Can't live without ginger. I can, but a lot of people who are not warm like myself, can't live without ginger is just such a systemic, it's anti cancer. And then we have all of our mushrooms, you know, turkey tail, maitake. I really love reishi and I love lion's mane. I love a lot of the oyster varieties. They're really high in ergothioneine which is really up and coming in longevity medicine. So there's lots of mushrooms out there that you don't hear about in commerce but as far as like medicinal commerce. But they're there and they're amazing.

They're even dietary more so like the oyster varieties.

But you can find them like tiger's milk mushroom. It's hard to find but you can find it. It's super awesome for the lungs, like really really beneficial for the lungs. In fact, I should be taking it right now with this cough that I've gotten since I got here on the East Coast.

Well, you know what? I like that you kind of top seven to the herbs.

Yeah.

I think what our audience would really love is if you kind of just went herb by herb and kind of just said a sentence about, here's what this herb is best for and here's the best way to administer it.

So one of my favorite herbs is nettles. Okay. Nettles is pretty neutral to cooling. It leans a little cool depending on the dog or person. It's also drying, and a lot of people and dogs are damp. So if you get too dry, you need to add something to counteract the dryness. I like tremella mushroom or marshmallow root, but it can be given as a tea. It's very beneficial as a tea or a tincture. Dogs can have small amounts of alcoholic tinctures. I go over the math in my book. Google's one of the worst places to get any information about herbs for animals. It's a terrible place, so it'll take place.

Terrible plants in general.

Peppermint's bad for dogs, garlic's bad for dogs. All of this stuff that's based on junk science. And like one study that gave a dog more garlic than you can even imagine. Right. I've been at this for 20 years. I've never had a dog get sick from garlic if it's given correctly. So, you know, back to nettles, tea tincture. And great for allergies, great for sensitivities, great for mast cell just. And it's systemic. You know, one of my mentors, Matthew Wood, told me, you know, nettles makes things work again. Right. And it really does. And it's full of trace minerals. And trace minerals are something that a lot of us are lacking, along with essential fatty acids, omega 3s. So I think that that's an important one. Nettles is great. And then we have let's. That's. Let's do a warming. Turmeric. Turmeric is fantastic. It works on the lymphatics, it works on the liver. It's systemic. It helps phase two detoxification in the liver. Turmeric is good given with a fat. You can. And you don't have to give it with black pepper, but definitely give it with a fat. Olive oil, coconut oil for dogs.

And is this powdered?

Yeah, you can do powder.

Could you mix it in with the coconut oil?

Yeah, you can make like a golden paste. They'll eat it. I like. There's a company called Green Juju. I love their turmeric for dogs. It's fermented turmeric for dogs. It's great.

And is this for joint pain? So you said nettle for allergies and overall, just like inflammation, turmeric is systemic again.

It's anti cancer. It checks all the boxes for a cancer herb, every single one of them. You know, it creates apoptosis, it stops angiogenesis, it helps with the cancer spread. It's a warming herb. So I don't use it for dogs that are already warm. I use it for dogs that are cool and people that are cool and cold. So it's warming? Not as warming as ginger, but yeah. So you use it oil and fat and then ginger. I like to use ginger as a tea. You know, I like to steep it, put it on a dog's food. It warms other herbs up if the herbs are too cooling. I talk about that in my book. I tell you how to use it. But ginger is very easy. Again, a tea you can use. I don't use an extract of ginger. I'll use it as a powder or a tea. Otherwise it's too hot, in my opinion, for a dog. And then what do we discuss? Cleavers. Cleavers is a lymphatic herb, like calendula. It's cooling, it moves the lymph. It's great for the kidneys. It is a diuretic. So if your dog's on cleavers, they might pee more, right? Oh, my dog's peeing more. That's because most herbs are diuretic. They help the kidneys function better. So cleavers I use as a tincture, it's very heat sensitive, so it doesn't work well as a tea. You can do an overnight infusion that's just like a tea steeped overnight in cold water for cleavers. If you want to use water based medicine with that. I love cleavers. It's one of my faves.

And this is for a dog who has signs of lymphatic issues.

Like, yeah, kidney lymphatic issue, the fear.

The allergies, hot spots, things like that.

Yes, really great. What else did we mention? Oh, well, milk thistle. Hello. Milk thistle is tricky. So most milk thistles that you're going to buy commercially is going to be a standardized extract. So you want to pulse that, use it for six weeks, give yourself a couple week break, then you can use it again. But I don't use standardized milk thistle that much. I use just the seed. And you can give milk thistle seed continuously.

Can you just sprinkle it in food?

You can sprinkle it in food. You can give it as a tincture, you can give it as a glycerin, glycerish based extract. It needs to be extracted in alcohol first. If you're using a glycerin based extract, they'll take the alcohol out. But it's better in alcohol in small amounts. But I like just the dried seed.

And this is for a dog with liver signs.

Liver signs. It also has an affinity towards, you know, it helps the kidneys. Yeah, it's very systemic for the gut, anal glands. So it's far reaching.

Is this also like a dog who's perhaps constipated? And it's liver based.

It can work on constipation, it can also work on diarrhea. Like I said, most systemic things will help balance versus force. But milk thistle is great because it protects the liver against damages of toxins and it helps it detoxify better and turn those fat soluble toxins into water soluble.

Yeah, I just grind up some milk. This will see it and put it in like a salt shaker and have it handy so I can just kind.

Of give it a little salt shake. I like that.

It's the best.

I like that it's such a great.

Like food seed herb, you know, it's, it's so nourishing and wonderful.

Yeah, it's a good one.

And then you mentioned calendula.

I already did calendula, didn't I?

I don't. I think you did cleavers.

Oh, okay. Calendula. Love it. It. I use that tincture. I really don't use it any other way. And like a Great Dane sized dog, just four to five drops twice a day in the mouth mixed with some water for taste. It moves the lymph. The lymph. It helps the liver. It's another systemic. It brings heat into the body, it warms the core. Love it. I use it for cool dogs, cold dogs. It helps with anything that helps as a wound remedy on external will heal wounds internal. So I love that.

So you mean like in terms of gut recovery post antibiotics?

Yes, yes. It's systemic. A lot of my favorite herbs are systemic. You know they just go in there and start doing their, their job and I love that.

And is the calendula good for like an itchy skin kind of dog?

It can be. I would mix it with nettles probably. Or chickweed. You could mix it with chickweed. Chickweed is cooling, but it's great for itching, scratching, biting. Nettles is really good to that. You can do quercetin with nettles. Turmeric is also good because anything that's gonna help gently detoxify the liver is gonna help with the itching, scratching, biting, licking cycle.

So it sounds like for a dog that in general has this picture of issue, all of the things that people sort of submitted question box are what you're saying. Allergies, itching, licking, paw issues, dry skin, hair shedding, hot spots. Like it's just the. The list. It all really goes back to that. Liver, lymphatic, kidney support, basic body support.

Yes.

And inflammation. Right. Immune system.

Absolutely.

So it sounds to me like. And as you'll detail in the book, so we can kind of be more accurate with which ones we're using especially energetically. But it sounds to me like someone would sort of be using a mix of those herbs. Like they'd daily be giving a little bit of nettle, maybe some cleavers, some milk thistle.

Yeah. So PA37 is the best page in the book. It's how to create a healing protocol for your dog. And you can work with any situation in there. And it's five steps and you just do them. And it works with the everything's connected chapters. And yeah, you just work on that. But remember, I mean, we also have to deal with diet. So if you're eating some unmentionables, white bag, yellow bag. Yeah. You need to up your game. You know, if you're feeding kibble, make sure it's. There's a. I talk about a kibble hierarchy in my book. Make sure it's at the top of the hierarchy. Make sure you're giving digestive enzymes. If you're feeding cooked food, make sure you're giving digestive enzymes. They're essential. And low enzyme causes. Low enzymes cause a whole bunch of itching, biting, licking, food sensitivities makes the liver and the pancreas work a lot harder. If you're feeding raw, you don't need enzymes. But there's lots of ways to up your game. You know, you can do toppers like that company, Green Juju. I love their company because the woman, her name is Kelly Marin, she started that company with the hope of just improving her Frenchie's bowl. Right. She had a lab and a Frenchie just to improve their bowls. I think she was feeding kibble at the time. I mean, now they have raw foods and freeze dried foods and things like that. But when it came out, it was just a blend of greens with like lemon juice and they were all organic and it was called green juju. Right. And I remember when it came out and I was like, good for her. But it was just to improve the bowl because all of those greens helped the liver deal with the kibble and it helps the lymphatics deal with the kibble. Because kibble takes 14. Most kibbles take 14 hours to digest. So if you feed twice a day, that's all your dog's body is doing, is working at digesting that kibble and dealing with the toxins in that kibble.

Is that why my dog has so much energy? Because he eats raw food, he's not digesting?

Yeah, well, it digests in about four hours.

Oh, wow. So is every dog a candidate for raw food or do some dogs need cooked food?

I think most dogs are. Sometimes you have to transition them slow. If they're really. If they're eating like a very high sugar kibble with corn and soy and grits and all that stuff in it, it's going to take their palate some time. But most dogs will always pick raw over anything else as dogs age, like my 15 year old basset hound, she eats cooked. She just won't do the raw anymore. Yeah, she eats cooked. Or you can take the raw and warm it up and she'll eat it. But she likes her food quite warm.

Yeah, my dog doesn't like his raw food cold. We'll put some warm water in it.

I don't like to give cold food in general. Yeah, it's hard on digestion.

Yeah, I tell Nick that.

Yeah, could you warm it up first? You know, and just some warm water over the top is fine. I like to do warm herbal infusions.

You know what, that's actually the perfect way to do it. I'll just do my warm nettle herbal infusion on top of his cold food that's almost done defrosting. Because with the raw food it's like we obviously store it in the freezer and sometimes I'm not taking it out the night before. It's hard. So it's kind of time and all the things. So I will have to put some warm water in it in a bowl in the sink and drain that a few times to really get it defrosted. So maybe on that last cycle I'll just put the nettle, let it sit for a bit and then he has nettle Tea with his raw food.

Yeah, absolutely. Water infusions are great and I deal with that. I have a, a small feeding section in there with some tips that I have dealt with over the last 20 years and. But it's not a huge section, but it's, it's a small section.

So no matter what you're feeding, because I don't want anyone who's feeding kibble to feel guilty. As a pet owner, obviously that's a standard. That's what we're given. There's a lot of options and it seems like in your book you're giving some pretty good options with that hierarchy.

Yeah.

So it's not the end of the world if you're feeding kibble. Definitely look into the type of. But like you mentioned, a good sort of like initial goal is let's just improve the bowl every day. What can we improve it for? Some diversity. I really like freeze dried minnows.

Yeah, freeze dried minnows. I mean there's so many things. So there's greens, right? Freeze dried minnows. There is different types of probiotics. There's raw goat milk, there's raw cow's milk. For dogs, there are like freeze dried toppers and then stuff from our refrigerators. You know, like you're cooking broccoli and you throw out the stalk on the bottom. Don't throw that out. Chop it up, put it in a food processor or lightly steam it and add it to your dog's food. Add, you know, a couple tablespoons to it. Cuts of meat that you are not using. Things that are a day old, as long as they don't have mast cell tumor or sensitive to histamine. You know, things that are some leftovers that are whole food or crack an egg or cook an egg. You know, and the big thing is if you're worried about bacteria and things like that, it's fine. You know, sometimes it takes baby steps. But please know that your dogs can eat roadkill and they'd be just fine. Roadkill that's been sitting in the sun for three days. They can eat it. However, you know, some dogs are so highly domesticated that they're stomachs need time to adjust. And that's why like I always give enzymes for dogs that are starting out with raw. I'll give it to them for about three to six months and then I'll discontinue. Digestive enzymes are very important part of, you know, getting your dog to digest that food. And so, you know, I give those tips. But there's so many things that we can do to. To improve the bowl. Yeah, so many things.

I just thought back to the nervous system because we're. We're obviously talking about tangible things to improve the bowl. Herbal infusions, greens, this, that. But going back to your basics, one way to do that is to just take a beat and be present with your dog while he's eating his food.

Yes.

I notice so much how much my dog wants us to be attuned to him while he's eating. Just like a human wants someone to sit next to them and eat with them. And you don't want to eat alone. If I'm kind of like rushing around after I give him the bowl, and I'm, you know, okay, I have to get my morning started. I got to do this. He's sort of looking up at me like, wait, like, you're. You're not. Okay, I'm. I'm trying to take a beat and, like, eat and die.

I'm trying to eat my food, Ma.

Yeah. So, like, I'll now chill with him and just.

Yeah, chill with him and, you know, a couple bits of advice. Vary the times that you feed your dog.

Ooh, I've never heard that.

Yes, it's very good for the digestion. Vary the times you feed your dog. And if you feed kibble, it's really important to only feed one time a day.

So, like a bigger serving, just feed.

Their full meal one time a day. If you have a barrel chest dog, you might have to feed. You know, you have to feed the dog in front of you. So I'm using general statements. But it's healthier to feed your dog once a day. And like my dog Gertie, she's not into feeding once a day. So at night, that's when she gets her little treat and her goat milk. Right. So she knows that something's going down. Like, I'll even just put a little bit, like a little piece of raw chicken just. Or maybe an egg. And then she'll get her goat milk, and then she'll eat that way. Like my pugs eat twice a day. Cause sometimes little dogs need. They metabolize things so quickly that they might need that second meal. Plus, she'll kill me in my sleep. My pug will. But she doesn't get a full meal. She just gets, like a quarter meal. But I tend to feed the most of the calories in the morning so that their bodies have time, their organs have time to do other things besides deal with the food. And especially if there Is, you know, with kibble, there's a lot of toxins and leans a little cool. Depending on the dog or person, it's also drying. And a lot of people kibble. Right. I have never seen an organic kibble on the market, like an absolute 100% organic kibble. And a lot of them have a lot of glyphosate in them. So you want to. I think you want to make sure people and dogs are damp. So if you get too dry, you need to add something to counteract the dryness. I like tremella mushroom or marshmallow root, but it can be given as a tea. It's very beneficial as a tea or a tincture. Dogs can have small amounts of alcohol that that body has time to rest.

Got it. Why is it helpful to feed if you are feeding twice a day, why is it helpful to feed at different.

Times of the day in anticipation of eating? A dog's digestive system will send out enzymes in anticipation. Right. And it's not good for enzyme health because dogs aren't meant like tinctures. I go over the math in my book. Google's one of the worst places to get any information to eat at the same time every day.

Huh. And nature. They wouldn't be.

They would not. No, they would not. And so you see better health outcomes when. And you can look up the science on this one. You can see better health about herbs for animals. It's a terrible place. So it'll take place.

Terrible placements in general.

Peppermint health outcomes when you vary the times and it can be varied by a half hour. It doesn't have to be like, oh, now I can't feed my dog at 9am tomorrow. And if you have to feed your dog, it's the same time every day for work or whatever.

Fine.

Don't stress about it. Totally don't stress about it. You know, you don't have to do anything.

Yeah.

You know a lot of people.

Well, it makes me feel better because I often don't feed them at the same time every day because my schedule is crazy. And now I'm like, oh, maybe that was a little intuitive.

No, it's true. And, you know, like, I had a client who had a little pug who was having digestive issues. It's bad for dogs. Garlic's bad for dogs. All of this stuff that's based on junk science. And like one study that gave a dog more garlic than you can even imagine. And I said, start varying the time and drop down to once a day. Right. Feed her her calories and you can give her a little tiny snack at night and she's freaking out, but start varying the times and feed once a day. And her digestive issues just went away, you know, because she was getting so worked up. That's another thing. Like their nervous system won't get worked up because they can't figure out what time you're eating. Do you know what I mean? I mean, you know, if they're. You dogs eat at 4 o'. Clock. They are there. Yeah, they are there. They're scooting around, they're turning around, they're yelling. Some dogs are yelling at you, they're barking and screaming, give me my food, give me. And they're in fight or flight. And then you drop the bowl and they're eating like they're eating like they're going on style. Right. You know, that's not healthy either, Jen. Right. I've been at this for 20 years. I've never had a dog get sick from garlic if it's given correctly.

Yeah. So you want to just confuse them, keep them, keep them guessing.

Yeah. I mean, a lot of times, you know, our dogs are not wild animals, but in the wild, like street dogs will kill something. They will bring it back to where they live or where they're staying. So, you know, back to nettles, tea tincture and great for allergies, great for sensitivities, great for mast cell just. And it's currently, you know, and they'll kill it, but then they'll bring it back and they'll eat it in a little bit. And I don't know the reason, but definitely they're eating it in a. They're eating it in a calmer state.

Huh. That is so fascinating. The state that you're in, even for humans when you're eating is just so important. That's half of the battle.

Don't eat when you're stressed.

No.

Try not to eat watching tv.

That's never gonna happen.

It's a hard one, you know, It's a hard one. Like some people don't even want to watch TV without eating something.

Yeah.

Or vice versa.

I don't have anything to eat or vice versa. Like I can't.

Systemic, you know, one of my mentors, Matthew Wood, told me, you know, nettles makes things work again.

I need. I don't have my show to watch, so. Yeah, it's a practice. Okay. So the other thing I just wanted to ask is I noticed with my dog, he's very sensitive to chicken like he, I guess he's like quote open, right?

And it really does. And it's full of trace minerals and trace minerals are something allergic to chicken.

Maybe this is a liver lymphatic thing, but I've heard from many other dog owners that I've spoken to when I told them, hey, I removed the chicken from his diet and all of a sudden his mucus around his eyes went away. Try removing chicken, that it does the trick. Why is that?

Well, there's many reasons. One, egg proteins are in a lot of the vaccines and foreign proteins in general that you like. Even if you're a vet, you can't get the ingredients from the pharmaceutical company that a lot of us are lacking along with essential fatty acids, omega 3. But chickens don't eat a natural diet. So most of our chicken that our dogs are eating are completely factory farmed. Never seen the light of day. It's not healthy. Chicken, Chicken is a very big inflammatory for humans as well. I have chickens at home. I don't eat them, but they eat a really good diet and they forage every day. My dog Gertie watches the chickens. It's the cutest thing. But like chickens are treated a whole bit differently.

My dog does. We do raw bistro. Have you heard?

Yeah, Rob Bistro is a good company.

Yeah, I, I, he's reacts really well to it. And we just don't do their turkey because I feel like it's, I'm just worried to give it to him. Because he reacts to chicken doesn't mean.

He'Ll react to turkey chicken.

Okay, so maybe I'll try, I'll give it a try.

Yeah.

Okay. But we try to like rotate their proteins because Rob Bistro has the bison, then they have the rabbit, then they, you know, they have all different types. So is that also a good practice.

To sort of, as long as your dog is healthy. So if your dog has problems, I would stick to his energetic palate. So if he's a warm dog, so I think that that's an important one. Nettles is great. Don't feed warm proteins.

Okay.

That's another reason why chicken doesn't work out for some dogs, you know, you know what if it gravitates towards heat, then give cooling protein. So you've got duck, rabbit, pork, beef, bison, a white fish.

Is chicken warming?

Yes. So chicken's warming turkey's and then we have, let's do a warming turmeric. Turmeric is fantastic. It works on the lymphatics, it works on the liver, it's systemic. It helps phase two detoxification in the liver. Turmeric is good given with a fat you can. And you don't have to give it with. Pretty neutral, but it leans warm. Okay. So depending on your individual dog. Salmon is hot. Lamb is hotter than salmon. Goat is warming and drying. I'm just. Mussels. Green lip mussels are warming. Just trying to think of what other.

No wonder I want to eat salmon all the time. The coldest gal alive.

Sorry. Yeah, when I eat salmon, I get a. A hot flush.

We're opposite. I'm very cold and damp. So I'm like, I always need to do the ginger, the salmon, the lamb. That's my diet. Like the hot white rice. And I have to wash my dampness.

But my black pepper. But definitely give it with a fat. Olive oil. Coconut oil for dogs.

And is this powdered?

Yeah, you can do powder.

Could you mix it in with the coconut oil?

Yeah. You can make like a golden paste. They'll eat it. I like. There's a company called Green Juju. I love their turmeric for dogs. It's fermented turmeric for dogs. It's great.

And is this for joint pain? My dog is also. He's just like, like hot and damp.

I'm. I'm warm and damp.

Yeah.

And you're. You're. You don't seem cold. You just see cool and damp. Cold is. Cold is a. Unless you have autoimmune disease a bit. Okay.

Yeah. Well, I have mcas. I have histamine issues, Mast cell activation syndrome, pain. So you said nettle for allergies and overall just like inflammation.

Turmeric is systemic again. It's anti cancer.

And I. I've had psoriasis flares in the past, but I. It's very much under control with controlling my vitamin D levels. Eating more like paleo ish, not gluten, not too much dairy. So. But I have had autoimmune history. So cold and.

Okay, so you may be like, not super cold, but you may be like slightly cold. Cancer. It checks all the boxes for a cancer herb. Every single one of them. Yeah. So, yeah, warming things are very, very important to you.

I'm at the point where I do like futsa, like the aconite fruit. It's like a very hot Chinese herb.

Oh.

I don't know what they use it for. Like a formula that translates to fruit.

You know, it creates apoptosis. It stops angiogenesis. It helps with the cancer spread. It's a warming herb. So I don't use it for dogs that are already warm. I use it for dogs that are cool and people that are using limbs. Oh, well, there you go.

Yeah, it's like the cold hands and feet get to that level. So my acupuncturist gives me a formula with futsa, and she's like, I don't. You know, she doesn't give it to 99 of her clients. But I get so cold.

But the opposite of cool and cold. So it's warming. Not as warming as ginger, but yeah. So you use it oil and fat and then ginger. I like to use ginger as a tea. You know, that would be gentian.

Literally.

Gentian is really cold.

So cold, so bitter. Yeah, no, it's totally opposite. But no, I'm a futa girl, so it's. And. And my mom is the same way. It's very much like an inherited constitution thing. Like, her hands are ice.

So we gotta just like Raynaud's or something like that.

Yeah, I have Raynaud's. Yeah, I get it. So it's. I have to really compensate for that. And that's why it's so important to know your dog's energetics. If your dog is hot.

No, I like to steep it, put it on a dog's food. It warms other herbs up if the herbs are too cooling. I talk about that in my book. I tell you how to use it. But ginger is very easy. Again, a t hot, and never wants.

To be under the covers, always wants to be with the AC on the cold floor. That's actually really important information to make sure you can match the right herb to them.

It is. And it helps you figure out your dog is an. You can use. I don't use an extract of ginger. I'll use it as a powder or a tea. Otherwise, it's too hot, in my opinion, for a dog. And then what do we discuss? Cleavers. Cleavers is a lymphatic herb, like calendula. It's cooling, it moves the lymph. It's great for the kidneys. It is a diuretic. So if your dog. And it just involves observing your dog, like, just watching what they're doing. You know, it's not that hard. And dogs are born either warm or cool. I don't see them cross the streams. Some warm dogs. Hot dogs can switch over to the other side when their queens are removed.

Oh, when their spleens are going to say when they get older.

No, it adds a lot of cold in there, you know, and the thing that people need to realize is energetics is about consistency. And an old dog that starts to lose weight may get cold more often and need a little warmth, but still going to be really sensitive to it.

Yes.

You know, a blanket goes a long way. You know, not the foods, but, you know, it's important to understand that, like, if it gets cold out, I get cold. Right. But not for very long. Like, you know, I'm not gonna put seven layers on and know that I could handle the seven layers for an hour. That's not gonna happen. Right. And I'm not gonna wear a synthetic blanket anywhere near me because it's too hot, it doesn't breathe. And sun cleavers, they might pee more, right? Oh, my dog's peeing more. That's because most herbs are diuretic. They help the kidneys function better. So cleavers I use as a tincture, it's very heat sensitive, so it doesn't work well as a tea. You can do an overnight infusion. That's just like a tea steeped overnight in cold water for cleavers, if you want to use, you know, water based. But I do get cold, just like you can get if you go to Florida. Oh, yeah.

You know, I'm hot, especially because it's humid and I'm.

You're gonna get hot.

I more so can't tolerate the dampness.

Yeah, I can't either.

My, my body is just like. Now we are going to fill your ankles with water, swell you.

So it gets very medicine with that. I love cleavers. It's one of my faves. And then.

And this is for a dog who has signs of uncomfortable. Okay, so that actually brings me to an important question, because a lot of the questions that we got were, were about joint pain, joint health, because, of course, I mean, you know, dogs in and out, you see a lot of them limping and struggling with joint pain as they get older or just period. And so this is something that I know pet owners are seeing their dogs in pain and looking for an herbal solution. A, can you kind of walk us through root causes and herbs for the joint pain? And B, how important is it when choosing an herb for that joint pain to take into lymphatic issues?

Like, yeah, kidney lymphatic issue, the fear.

Like the allergies, hot spots, things like that.

Yes, really great. What else did we mention? Oh, well, milk thistle. Hello. Milk thistle's tricky.

So most milk count, if your dog.

Runs hot or cold, it's always important.

Okay.

So if they're having joint pain. They're not healthy. Okay. They're not. I wouldn't consider them healthy. Right. So I'm going to take their energetics into consideration. Almost 100% joint pain is lymphatics.

Kidney, liver, in that order of importance.

Kidney, liver, kidney, lymphatic liver, kidney first with joint pain. Yes.

Why?

Kidneys rule the bones. Right. If your dog has terrible teeth and you can never get rid of it, it's usually kidney health.

That was the second top question. All the joint pain people are also talking about the dental health.

Yeah.

So really it's not like a brush, more use herbs in the mouth thing.

Well, you can brush more use shiitake mushroom sprayed on the teeth is excellent for plaque. Just putting that out there. But the, you know, health trickles down. So like I have an oral course on my teaching platform. Oral health is very important. You still want to take care of their teeth, but inherently, if they have poor kidney health, they're going to have a harder time with their teeth. Okay. At their bones, you know, and you're going to have a harder time with the musculoskeletal system. And so you really want to be careful. The thistle that you're going to buy commercially is going to be a standardized extract. So you want to pulse that, use it for six weeks, give yourself a couple week break, then you can use it again. But I don't use standardized milk thistle that much. I use just the seed. And you can give milk thistle seed continuously.

Can you just sprinkle it in food?

You can sprinkle it in food. You can give it as a tincture, you can give it as a glycerin, a glycerous based extract. It needs to be extracted in alcohol first. If that, if you're using a glycerin based extract, they'll take the alcohol out, but it's better in alcohol there and support the kidneys with the joint pain. Joint pain is inflammatory. Right. It's inflammation inside the joint. So you want to look at. So no small amounts, but I like just the dried seed.

And this is for a dog with liver signs.

Liver fluid, you want to look at, you know, movement. The lymphatics are so important for that. You know, the lymphatics clean the interstitial fluid in the body and that's the fluid between the cells. And we have to clean that fluid for joint pain. It's really important. So the herbs that work well for joint pain is one, you gotta figure out what the joint, where the joint Pain is coming from. Right. For me, it's almost always liver and kidney lymphatic. So you want to look at that. And of course before you do that, stabilize their nervous system. Page 137. Stabilize their nervous signs. It also has an affinity towards, you know, it helps the kidneys. Yeah, it's very systemic for the gut system. And then that page is good. You're going to stabilize their nervous system for a couple weeks, then you're going to help move their lymphatics. Then you're going to gently support their liver. Right. And the cool thing about herbs is most liver lymphatic herbs support the kidney.

Yeah. That milk thistle that we mentioned.

So I don't talk too much about the kidney on page 1,037, but there's an entire kidney section that expandal glands. So it's far reaching.

Is this also like a dog who's perhaps constipated? And it's liver based.

It can work on constipation. It can also work on diarrhea. Explains why the kidney does what it does and why it's so important. But you know, joint herbs I like to use. There's a system of herbal medicine called phytoembryonic therapy. It's my favorite. It's using plant stem cells. There's a. Like I said, most systemic things will help balance versus force. So. But milk stem cell called Virginia creeper and papillopsis vecchi basically is the Latin name. But it is really good at tendons and ligaments and synovial fluid building up the moisture in the joint. But also marshmallow root, slippery elm, tremella mushroom. Those are all good for building up lubrication in the system for joint pain, of course, glucosamine, chondroitin, things like that. Also pea. Oh yeah, yeah.

It's like an immune modulating.

That word. Yeah, yeah. It's so, so long. But pea, now that takes a good six weeks to start working. Essential fatty acids are really important with joint health. Diet, of course, a non inflammatory diet. That's where thistle is great because it protects the liver against damages of toxins and it helps it detoxify better and turn those fat soluble toxins into water soluble. Yeah, energetics comes in. So the more you adhere to the energetics of your dog, the less.

Grind up some milk thistle seed and put it in like a salt shaker and have it handy so I can.

Just kind of shake it a little salt shake. I like that inflammation. They're going to have turmeric. Excellent musculoskeletal herb, but not for a warm dog. You know, I had a client that was on this supplement with this really great company. It was turmeric based. Turmeric, coconut and ginger and black pepper. And you know, it was basically a golden paste, but it was like a powder. And the dog had been on it for a year. It was a lab like your puppy and yellow lab. Been on it for a year. And I asked him, you know, of course, how long has your dog been on this supplement? Because his energetics were off from that supplement. He was already a hot dog. So I was like, they're like a year, over a year. I said, well, how did it work? It didn't. Well, why is he still on it? Because we're afraid to take him off of it. Right. Okay. So we took him off of it. We added something energetically appropriate.

It's the best.

I like that.

It's such a great like food seed herb, you know, it's, it's so nourishing and wonderful.

Yeah, it's a good one.

And then you mentioned calendula.

I already did calendula, didn't I?

I don't. I think you did. Cleavers.

Oh, okay. But before we add, we had to take him off slowly because he'd been on it a year. I didn't want to shock it. Calendula, love it. It. I use a tincture. I really don't use it any other way. And like a Great Dane sized dog, just four to five drops twice a day in the mouth. Mixed with some system. And his immune. His mobility immediately improved after removing that supplement. Even after three days.

Just because perhaps as a hot dog, the tumor ginger was creating more heat which can lead to inflammation. That's how in the herbal world, like Will often it's almost like interchangeable at times when there's excess heat, it's like. It means that there's excess inflammation.

Yep. Water for taste. It moves the lymph. The lymph. It helps the liver. It's another systemic. It brings heat into the body, it warms the core. Love it. I use it for cool dogs, cold dogs.

But you actually don't want to push the heat. You want to clear the heat if the heat is causing the inflammation. Not that cold can't also cause inflammation, but it causes it in a different way. By creating stagnation.

Yes.

So it's kind of yucks.

It helps with, you know, anything that helps as a woman. So it was awesome. So then we put him on something that was energetically Appropriate. And his mobility is awesome.

What did you end up putting him on?

I put him on mountain pine. Phytoembryonic therapy. Wound remedy on external will heal wounds internal. So I love that. And pea.

So a stem cell. Plant stem cell to lower, to increase the synovial fluid.

Mountain pine, it decongests the entire musculoskeletal system. It adds, it will. I like to call it an herbal chiropractor, but it will make adjustments in the spine and decongest it at the same time. It helps build synovial fluid and it can even help rebuild cartilage.

How did you determine that that was specific to him? Over, like the Virginia creeper stem cell.

He'd be fine with Virginia creeper, too. But mountain pine is much more cooling and he had some yeast, and mountain pine is very good for yeast. So when I look at an herb, I look at all the things that it does and how many of those cofactors a dog has or has had, like in the last five years to determine which one I'm going to try first.

That's really helpful to know because it can be difficult, especially if you're not trained in herbalism, to understand what. What plant am I choosing? People don't want to buy.

And that's in the back of the book. Like, let's just turn to. This is very. Okay, so this is tremella mushroom.

Yeah.

Okay, so I have what's called co factors.

So you mean like in terms of gut recovery post antibiotics.

Yes, yes. It's systemic. A lot of my favorite herbs are systemic. You know, they just go in there and start doing their, their job. And I love that.

And is the calendula good for like an itchy skin kind of dog?

It can be. I would mix it with nettles probably, or chickweed. And the cofactors for acid reflux, arthritis, asthma, bladder stones, chronic lung conditions, cognitive decline, dementia, dermatitis, dry cough, dry skin, dryness, constipation, kidney dryness, gastrointestinal heat, heat in the lungs, heart weakness, high blood sugar, high cholesterol, high triglycerides, inflammation, leaky gut, low circulation, low white and red blood cells, lung inflammation, musculoskeletal weakness, nervousness, trauma, stress. You could mix it with chickweed. Chickweed is cooling, but it's great for itching, scratching, biting, nettles, stress, stiffness, ulcers, urinary tract infections, X rays. Okay, so what you do, like, I wonder if my dog would be good with Tremella, right? That's what your question. You're asking, you would go to the cofactors in the book and you would see how many of those things apply to your dog. I wonder how it is compared to Reishi. So then you'd go to Reishi and you'd look. But first thing you do is you'd go and you'd look at the energetics and that's like the third question or fourth subheading. Neutral to cool and damp. Right.

So it's sort of like if you're deciding in between two herbs, let's say tremella and reishi that are gonna support the their lymphatic system, that's kind of how you're narrowing it down. You're looking at both charts in the book. You're seeing which energetics first match your dog better and then you're seeing which one kind of ticks more boxes of the co occurring conditions. And that's how you choose. I'm going to start here.

Yes. And I had, I had a woman really good to that. You can do quercetin with nettles. Turmeric is also, you know, good because anything that's going to help gently detoxify the liver is going to help with the itching, scratching, biting, licking cycle. You know.

So it sounds like for a dog that in general has this picture of issue. You know, all of the things that people sort of submitted to my question box are what you're saying.

Allergies that read my book and she sent me an email and she said, I was just reading the back of your book one day and I saw that my dog had like 25.

He's itching, licking, paw issues, dry skin, hair shedding, hot spots. Like it's just the lip of.

I think it was Solomon seal. And she said, oh my God. And so I tried it and it has helped him so much. And like if a herb ticks like 20 to 30 boxes, like your dog has had or has like almost all of the things in the book that that herb takes care of. It's going to rock your. It's going to rock your dog's world. And I didn't forget my kitty friends either.

Oh, they're in there too.

Well, in the dosage section it says kitties, it says how to dose a cat. Either an extra small dog or a small dog. And under all of the herbal monographs which are like resumes for herbs, it'll say safe for cats.

Oh, nice.

Yeah.

Okay, that's good because we got some.

Cat because you can use it for your kitty friends. I Have two beautiful cats. And I love them.

I love that.

Yeah.

That's just so helpful. It's so nice. I mean, I'm. As an herbalist, I'm like a monograph addict. I love to read people's monographs. Like, it's a great way to put it.

A.

It's a resume for an herb. It's a resume on our website, we have like the herb glossary section.

Yeah.

And I do a monograph for each and kind of talk about it. And we say the herbal actions, whether it's in a metagogue or it's antimicrobial. And then we talk about the energetics. And I just think it's. It's so nice to read different herbalists, breakdown of each herb. Because the more times that you can see it listed out and really get to know its full picture, the more that you. You yourself can know the herb and then kind of remember, oh, wait, I remember seeing that this could be used for this. Let me go check it out.

Yeah.

Okay. So that's really helpful to know, especially on the joint pain front, that we can also use these phytotherapy plant stem cells, and that we can look at herbs that help to increase that synovial fluid, because often that can be behind the joint pain. I think that's really helpful information for people other than just going right to a turmeric, which we think can be a band aid, lower inflammation kind of thing.

Yeah. And, you know, that's just allopathic herbalism. You know, like what's good for arthritis? Tell me, tell me. And then you go and you give them all five herbs, you know, but one thing to remember is just be patient. These plants don't work as fast as pharmaceuticals. You know, be patient. And it takes a good six to 12 weeks for a lot of herbs to work. And. And the main goal of any herbal protocol is to move in the right direction.

Yeah.

Even if it's subtle, like, oh, my dog's coat got better. Right. Okay. Well, obviously things are starting to work.

Yeah.

You know, but that's it. So I quit. Okay.

Yeah.

You know, so there's a few things.

That I want to ask you about before we go. Number one is, I just want to touch on this because you said it and it really struck a chord for me, and I know people are going to want to hear a touch more about this. You mentioned that before starting the protocols or like your custom protocol for your dog that you talk about on page 137, that you have to stabilize the nervous system first, what does that mean? How do we do that and why?

Well, we stabilize it because if you don't have a stable nervous system, you can't heal straight up. And it's one of the reasons why I think that people have such a hard time dealing with cancers is because everyone around you gets so crazy. So crazy. And you feel like you're gonna blow up right there. Your dog's gonna blow up like right there that day. And ah. And the goal is to get the nervous system to calm down. Because when you have a stable nervous system, other things start working better. Cause you're not in fight or flight and you're not stressed.

So I mean, it's hard enough to do that for a human. How does one help a dog's nervous system stabilize?

Same same way. So like cool dog, Cool dogs need more adaptogenic herbs. They need the ashwagandhas, the reishi mushrooms. You know, I definitely think they need more adaptogens mixed with other things. But I like to use ashwagandha and reishi a lot for cool dogs. Those two work very, very well. I'll even like, maybe add a little lion's mane, but I'll add ginger to that to warm it up. And then, you know, your warm dogs tend to burn themselves out. So like, cool dogs need stimulants. They need to stimulate and calm worry. They worry so much where our warm dogs tend to just burn themselves out. They're hyperactive. Ah. What are you doing? What are you doing? Let's go for a walk. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. And they're the chamomile, the skull cap, you know, the milky oats, passion flower, California poppy. Valerian. Valerian's pretty. Can be both, but it's paradoxical because sometimes it causes hyperactivity.

It's a tough one. I like stray away from valerian at this point because I just never know how someone's gonna react.

Linden. Linden is nice for both sides. And the mushrooms, again, they're very adaptogenic.

So we're using nervine herbs on our dogs just like we use anti anxiety nervine herbs on humans as our first line of defense before working on their health.

Yes.

I mean, it's a great paradigm because that's what us humans need to do before you take the liver herbs, before you do all the changes. Nervous, simmer down nervous system first. Let's get in there and let's create some calm.

Yes. And. And you know, you said, you know, I know you Mentioned that you had some mast cell issues and a lot of that can be traced back to the limbic system trauma and trapped trauma that overact mast cells. And that's why like no matter what, you just, you have to get the nervous system consistently underhand. So we do that first. And that's why. And that's with what you know, chamomile is an excellent place to start.

I just gave chamomile to a friend whose daughter is having a lot of anxiety and I was like, I know, it just sounds so gentle, chamomile. But chamomile is a super herb.

Yes. And German chamomile is what you use with dogs.

Oh, wow.

The Roman chamomile you can use like an essential oil for self selection, but other than that it doesn't agree with dogs that much. So you use the. The German versus the Roman.

So can you still use it as a tincture or, or does it have to be essential oil?

The. Well, no, the only time I use Roman chamomile is if they self select it as an essential oil. Oh, oh, okay.

German chamomile over. Like the Egyptian chamomile flowers like chamomile matricaria.

Yeah, that's the one you use for dogs.

Oh, okay, I'm getting my speech. I'm thinking of Roman. That's the aromatic one.

Yes. Roman chamomile does not do that well with dogs at all.

Okay. So yes, German chamomile is your regular old chamomile flour.

Yeah.

Okay.

And that's a really good one to start. You can use a tincture, you can use a glycerin extract, you can use just a regular tea consistently. It doesn't tend to build. I like milky oats. Because it really does restore the nervous system over time. A lot of these things just take time. And some dogs on page 137 might need to do step one for a month, not two weeks. I mean they're going to do it a month, they're going to keep on doing it all the way through step five. But they may need to do step one for all by itself for a month before they can move on. And you'll notice your dog's nervous system starting to get better. You'll notice that they're not reactive as much as they used to be.

Yeah, the whole consistency thing, you're just really making me think now of humans too. We also expect our tinctures to work in three days and three days with something like even a chamomile. It is a gentle plant, but it is so powerful that if you really do take your chamomile tincture and your tea every day for a month, you're going to be a different human.

Yeah, it really does help. And you just got to figure out what works again. You can look at the cofactors in the book and figure out what nervine works. And under the everything's connected chapter, you'll go to the nervous system. I talk about the vagal tone, the vagus nerve, all the nervous systems out there, and what herbs are good for what. And you're gonna see it. You'll pick something I even like. I think I suggest certain foods, flower essences, homeopathy, you know, things, choices that you can use. But, you know, I focus. I have more information on herbs.

That's also why I love a monograph, because the kind of storytelling that you'll find in a monograph or, like a resume of an herbal that can help you match the plant's personality to your particular neuroses is so valuable. Like my herb teachers used to say, chamomile is for someone who's crying on the outside, and catnip is for someone who's crying on the inside.

Oh, that's good. I've never heard that. I like it.

And she's like, you know, it's like, it could be a kid or it could be an adult who's, like, a kid of like, my God, my stomach is killing me. Like, I don't want to go tonight. I don't want to do this. That type of personality is the chamomile person. And then the catnip is the person who's, like, feeling that way on the inside but never going to say it and is never.

So it's a libra medicine, literally.

Where did Nick go? Chamomile is the Leo medicine, and catnip is the libra medicine. Because he will never say when he's suffering.

It's just internal suffer in silence. Yeah. Yes, yes. Not affecting me.

So funny. Yeah. And then when you find your herb that matches you and you find something as. Again, as simple as a chamomile, but it's just that perfect fit for your personality. It is amazing, the magic that happens when you take that herb. Like, it just. It changes your life. You've met your friend, your lifelong friend that you didn't know was there.

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, speaking of catnip, Catnip's a great way to stabilize your cat's nervous system, you know? Yeah. They get crazy, but that especially cats that are indoors, they need those bursts of energy and craziness to calm themselves down. Otherwise they get. They start destroying things. Things, you know. So, yeah, I love nervines. And, and it is, it's just. It's one of the most important things to do first before you start trying to heal something.

I can't wait to go home and take chamomile for a month. Like I'm. You're putting me back on my herbal regimen because I've been with my.

I'm going to warm that up a little bit.

I know chamomile and ashwagandha or do.

Chamomile and reishi or something like that.

Yeah, I. I've always wanted to make like a pitta perfectionist tincture with chamomile and some other like, like rose things like that. But should warm it up because I'll never forget when my teacher first or one of them first taught us Ayurveda and they were saying the personality types and the traits and they were talking about pittas being these like perfectionists who are good at everything and academic and. And I was sitting there like, man, I wish I was a pitta. Like, I, I was sitting there so pitta angry about wishing that was my type. And I was sure that I was a kapha and I was lazy and all the things.

You don't look like one.

And she was like, you're exactly a pitta. And the fact that you didn't think you were and got mad about it and wanted to be more pitta is the most pitta thing about you. Please go take some chamomile. So I was like, okay. And then she looked at my tongue and was like, please take chamomile. So, but I'm more like pitta kapha. I have both. But my pitta imbalance is very strong. She's. She's too pitta. But yeah, maybe one day you'll see a perfectionist tincture in my, in my line with. That's chamomile based. Okay. So the last two things I wanted to touch on. It's actually circling all the way back to the beginning of the conversation where we talked about space neuter and tick medicine. Medicine. Just want to touch on them because I want to acknowledge that in our modern world, the reason that we have so many advancements that also tend to have extreme side effects and can be complicated is because in our modern world, we have to create these advancements for our society to function. Right. Like, I understand why they're spaying and neutering because the way that we live now, we really can't have a whole bunch of stray dogs and we can't have all of these litters happening. And I get the reason for them. But like you said, we're then not taught because that's not biologically normal. How do we then support our animals who are spayed and neutered? Spay neuter and tick medicine, late tick medicine. Just want to touch on them because I want to acknowledge that in our our modern world, the reason that we have so many advancements that also tend to have extreme side effects and can be complicated is because in our modern world, we have to create these advancements for our society to function right. Like, I understand why they're spaying and neutering. Just because it's common and it's maybe necessary in modern society doesn't mean that it's good for them. So how do we compensate? And then B, flea and tick, same thing. I get it. In our modern world, we now have killed off all the wolves and we have deers who are giving us ticks all the time because there's no wolves to control the deer and Lyme disease is rampant. So I can understand why vets want to give flea and tick prevention medicine because Lyme disease is very dangerous. And I also have had a dog who's had anaplasmosis from a tick. So I've been on both sides of it. But I've also given my dog a flea and tick medication because the way that we live now, we really can't have a whole bunch of stray dogs and we can't have like all of these litters happening. And I get the reason for them. But like you said, we're then not taught because that's not biologically normal. How do we then support our animals who are spayed and neutered? Just because it's common and it's maybe necessary in modern society doesn't mean that it's good for them. So how do we compensate? Holler. That caused severe side effects to the point where he was in the emergency vet. So what the heck do we do with this conundrum?

Well, the flea and tick conversation is a really long one. Yeah.

Do you touch on that in the book?

No, I don't. I have a flea and tick course on my teaching platform, canineherbalism.com and then.

B, flea and tick, same thing. I get it. In our modern world, we now have killed off all the wolves and we have deers who Are giving us ticks all the time because there's no wolves to control the deer and Lyme disease is rampant. So I can understand why vets want to give flea and tick prevention medicine because Lyme disease is very dangerous. And I also have had a dog who's had an.

I have a fleek course, not a tick course. A tick course is coming up with a tick and co infections course or training. I like to call them training. Not really courses, but training, you know, and fleas and ticks are completely different species.

Yeah.

So we blend them together like cats and dogs. And again, completely different species. And what works for fleas doesn't necessarily work for ticks. Without going like into the craziness of it.

Again, I'm gonna plasmosis from a tick. So I've been on both sides of it, but I've also given my dog a flea and tick medication collar that caused severe side effects to the point where he was in the emergency vet. So what the heck do we do with this conundrum?

Well, the flea and tick conversation is a really long one. Yeah.

Do you touch on that in the book?

No, I don't. I have a flea. Go back to organ function. Like when we build a resilient terrain inside our bodies. Fleas aren't attracted to our dogs. And it's normal to have a couple fleas. They're a dog. Get a flea comb, comb it out. It's normal for them to have a couple fleas. Flea infestation. No, but the me and tick course on my teaching platform, canineherbalism.com I have a fleek course, not a tick course. A tick course is coming up with tick and co infections courses or training. I like to call them training. Not really courses, but training. The more unhealthy your dog is, the more fleas are going to be attracted to them. The more stressed out your dog is, the more fleas are going to be. Some ticks are completely different species.

Yeah.

So we, we blend them together like cats and they are opportunistic ticks. Well, you're on the east coast and so there's lots of ticks here. You know, you can use essential oils for ticks, but again, you are never ever going to win the war on ticks.

He gets one a day and I use the essential oils and I use everything. He gets one a day. We actually have to comb him every day.

Yeah. So, you know, and that is part of us being, you know, part of us having a dog. But the more resilient we can make our dog. The better their immune systems. We can make our. You know, we can support their immune systems. They're not gonna react to those tick bites. Dogs. And again, completely different species. And what works for fleas doesn't necessarily work for ticks. Without going, like, into the craziness of it again, I'm gonna go back to organ function. Like when we build a resilient terrain inside our bodies the way that a lot of dogs with poor immune systems are. I like to use homeopathies. Fleas aren't attracted to our dogs. And it's normal to have a couple fleas. Nosodes. I use tick pathogen nosodes and lime nosodes. And I tell people to take them once a week if they live on the east coast. Take them. Have your dog take them. Nosodes are usually for when you have exposure, but over the last. They're a dog. Get a flea comb, comb it out. It's normal. 15 years. I have really had great success with helping train the immune system to recognize those. For them to have a couple flea. Flea infestation. No, but the most things. Tea Cel root is excellent for flushing the bacteria from ticks into the bloodstream so that the immune system can find it because they start forming biofilm, like, right away. I really like teasel root. I love ledum. More unhealthy your dog is. The more fleas are going to be attracted to them. The more stressed out your dog is, the more fleas are gonna be. They are opportunistic ticks. Well, you're on the east coast. Homeopathic ledum. I make this thing called afterbite. It's a little formula, and it has some stem cells in it. Olive bud, stem cell. And it has tissel root in it. Ledum. Different things in it. And it's for after. After a bite. Could be daily if your dog gets bit daily, right? Yeah, but our dogs. And so there's lots of ticks here. You know, you can use essential oils for ticks, but again, you are never, ever gonna win the war on ticks.

He gets one a day, and I use the essential oils and I use everything. He gets one a day. We have to comb him every day.

Yeah. So, you know, and that is part of us being, you know, part of us having a dog. When we were growing up, our dogs were covered in ticks, the big gray ones.

Oh, he has gray ones all the time.

We never had any problems. Dogs can get Lyme. And you can heal Lyme. That's why I'm doing this. Training. I have a very good success rate in healing, helping balance out lyme and tick borne disease. I can tell you if your dog has ehrlichia, that olive leaf extract. But the more resilient we can make our dog, the better their immune systems. We can make our, you know, we can support their immune systems. They're not going to react to those tick bites. The powder will get rid of it.

Wow.

I had 12 dogs all year. Leaky apocalypse. The way that a lot of dogs with poor immune systems are. I like to use homeopathic nosodes. I use tick pathogen nosodes and lime nosodes. And I positive we had ehrlichia ticks in Tennessee on our property. Every single dog had ehrlichia. Some dogs had no symptoms, you know.

Yeah.

And all negative after probably six to eight months of olive leaf. Yeah, olive leaf is really good. It's a good preventative for a lot of tick borne disease. But you have to feed it in food because it causes nausea and vomiting. You just have to give it with food, not on an empty stomach.

Okay.

And that goes for people. Tell people to take them once a week if they live on the east coast. Take them. Have your dog take them. Nosodes are usually for when you have exposure, but over the last two, it'll make it.

Is it like a preventative kind of thing where you could put a few drops of olive leaf tincture daily in food?

If he gets 15 years. I have really had great success with helping train the immune system to recognize those things. Tea cel root is excellent for flushing the bacteria.

It's been every day.

I would probably use the powder.

The powder okay?

Yeah, the powder's good. You just gotta, if, you know, you have to work with the dosage so that your dog isn't nauseated.

Is it better to do like a nosode preventatively than an olive leaf powder preventatively?

I like the nosods. I like doing the nosodes. If a dog has tick borne disease, I give that particular noso daily until from ticks into the bloodstream so that the immune system can find it because they start forming until they're better. And I've had a lot of luck with that. Yeah, I think biofilm like right away. I really like teasel root. I love ledum.

A lot of us are just looking for that prevention and a lot of us know that. Yeah, he just. They get them all the time. And so having something that we can't, especially a homeopathic, like a noso disorder of the logic.

Homeopathic ledum I make this thing called afterbite. It's a little formula and it has some stem cells in it. Olive leaf, olive bud. Stem cell of it is sort of.

The same as an immunization. Right. Where it's like a very small exposure.

Yeah, it's very small, but there's. And it has teasel root in it, ledum, different things in it. And it's for after a bite. Could be daily if your dog gets bit daily, right? Yeah, but our dogs, when we, when we were growing up, our dogs were covered in ticks, the big gray ones, all the time. We never had any problems. Dogs can get Lyme and you can heal Lyme. That's why I'm doing this training. I have a very good success rate in healing, helping balance out Lyme and tick borne disease. I can tell you if your dog has Ehrlichia, that olive leaf extract, like most of them, it's only the vibration of that, of that disease. And it's made from those diseased tissues or those animals. I don't know if insects, insects, species or mycoplasms, depending on what they are. I've even had luck with Alpha Gal, which is a horrible tick borne disease, just terrible. So, but I think the biggest thing, you know, medicinal mushrooms, you know, rotating them in your dog's diet daily, working with the immune, you know, supporting the immune system. And with ticks, the lymphatic system is so, so important. But again, like teasel root really helped. The powder will get rid of it.

Wow.

I had 12 dogs, all urlachia positive. We had Ehrlichia ticks in Tennessee on our property. Every single dog had Ehrlichia. Helps keep those types of bacteria in the bloodstream. Tick medicine is really, really complicated.

It does sound complicated. I'm excited.

And there's tons of herbs that work well for it, but it just depends on the symptom of the dog and what's going on with the dog. Lichens are very good for tick borne disease like usnia, which grows like crazy where I live. Usnia is a lot like doxycycline, you know, Usnia is a very good one. It's in my tick product. And then fleas, you know. But again, it all comes down to organ health. Literally, you know, how your dog reacts to ticks, how your dog reacts to fleas. The healthier the dog, the more resilient the dog. The less stressed, the more resilient the dog. Dog.

It totally makes sense. And like you said, growing up, your dogs had ticks on them all the time on the farm. It. That's what my teacher, Richard Mandelbaum, I'll link his episode as well, because we did an episode on Lyme disease in humans, and it really was all about the terrain. And he's like, there's two people that can get the same tick bite, the same exposure to Lyme disease. One person might even test, but they both might test positive for Lyme if you were to do an ELISA test or. I think that's what it's called. And only one person might have symptoms because their body is more so reacting to the presence of that thing, whereas the other person has learned how to live with that bacteria.

Yeah, it's more resilient.

Yeah.

So it's keeping it in check.

Okay. So doing all of the other baseline kind of things as well as. We'll definitely link your tick course when it's ready, because I think a lot of dog owners would love to just take that and be informed with herbal knowledge of what to do when there is a bite. Like, to be able to take action right away, as well as preventative homeopathy, perhaps in the warmer months when we know that there's constant exposure.

Yeah, constant exposure.

Well, thank you so much for this very enlightening conversation that has inspired me to actually take better care of my human vessel, too.

Yeah, yeah. People are always surprised when I open my mouth, but it's what I've learned over the last two decades. You know, like, doing this work is such a privilege. Working with people's animals, working with veterinarians, doing research. It's fascinating just to see how so much our dogs are teachers, they're our mirrors, and they've come here. There's a quote in my book from Tismal Crow, who's a American Indian healer, and he said that dogs, basically paraphrasing here, dogs were put here to accept the diseases of humans and help them heal those diseases. And when I saw that quote, I was just like, oh, God. And it. But it's so true. You know, we always look at our dogs and we look at the dogs that we've had in the past and how much they forwarded our lives and brought us forward, you know, and then every dog in my life has taught me so much, and I am completely, you know, changed by their presence in my life. And having. I think having a cat or a dog or a pet in general is a privilege. We're privileged to spend our time with these little creatures that roam around our house and interact with us.

It's A true privilege. They are absolutely teachers mirrors. And it is interesting how they will show you where, like I said, your imbalances, like my dog is my exact spleen QI deficiency mirror. Like, he just. We have the same microbiome, the same symptoms, we have loose stool on the same days. I'm like, how are you this connected to me? Yeah, but they are this like odd little energetic thing. And again, it's like in your quest to help them because maybe we. They're this extension of us that we through loving them, we get to love ourselves more. That's part of the teaching. So maybe we wouldn't be motivated to find our own answers or take care of ourselves immediately if we didn't learn how to do that. But we're so motivated to care for these little guys that we're like, wa. The answer is leading me back to my own health too. It's like a roundabout way. It's very sweet. Okay, I think everybody should be buying your book, the Herbal Dog. Of course we're going to link it below and your podcast is amazing and I would just encourage everyone to go and listen to all the different topics that you cover.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, thanks again for coming.

Thank you. Sam. You just gotta, if you know, you have to work with the dosage so that your dog isn't nauseated.

Is it better to do like a nosoad preventatively than an olive leaf powder preventatively?

I like the nosodes. I like doing the nosodes. If a dog has tick borne disease, I give that particular no. So daily until they're better. And I've had a lot of luck with that.

Yeah, I think a lot of us are just looking for that prevention and a lot of us know that. Yeah, he just. They get them all the time. And so having something that we can't, especially a homeopathic like a noso does sort of the logic of it is sort of the same as an immunization. Right. Where it's like a very small exposure.

Yeah, it's very small. But there's like most of them, it's only the vibration of that, of that disease and it's made from those diseased tissues or those animals. I don't know if insects, insects species or mycoplasms, you know, depending on what they are. I've even had luck with Alpha Gal, which is a horrible tick borne disease, just terrible. So. But I think the biggest thing, you know, medicinal mushrooms, you know, rotating them in your dog's diet daily, working with the immune, you know, supporting the immune system. And with ticks, the lymphatic system is so, so important. But again, like teasel root really helps keep that those types of bacteria in the bloodstream.

Yeah.

Tick medicine is really, really complicated.

It does sound complicated. I'm excited.

There's tons of herbs that work well for it, but it just depends on the symptom of the dog and what's going on with the dog. Lichens are very good for tick borne disease like usnia which grows like crazy where I live. Usnea is a lot like.