Natural Dog Health Book Recommendations

Hi, this is Rita Hogan and welcome to the Dogs Are Individuals podcast. I'm a clinical canine herbalist and I've been practicing for over 20 years. This podcast is all about your dog through an herbal lens. So let's get to it and dive right in. Hi everyone. I hope you guys are doing awesome. Rita. Here we are going to talk about some of my favorite books. Not all of them because that would be eons, but just some good starter books for people looking to learn more about natural dog health and get some of your questions answered. My book is coming out in the fall. Pretty excited about that. I don't have a title for you yet. My publisher hasn't let me know, but as soon as I have a title I'm going to let you guys know. I'm excited about it. However, want to thank my sponsor before we start today and that is adoredbeastapothecary.com you can buy these products on my website and you can also buy them at Adored Beast and throughout the web and at your local holistic store, I'm hoping. Adored Beast Apothecary has a new kind of like subset called roots and they came out with soil and sea and they call it their primordial pre and probiotic. I like it. The reason why I like it is it's a good fulvic acid supplement combined with chlorella, clean sourced chlorella and I also like it cause it's vegan, so giving an option for people who care about that. I like it because it helps reduce our carbon footprint. It also feeds kind of on the lower end of the food chain, soil and plants. And I love how they point that out on their website. Chlorella provides a lot of antioxidants, chlorophyll, vitamin C, B vitamins, amino acids, beta carotene and then you have humic and fulvic acid which gives you trace minerals. And humic and fulvic acid are excellent at helping bind heavy metals, but they are also protecting your dog's microbiome against glyphosate, which is in Roundup and people need to stop using it and you need to encourage your neighbors not to use it because they're not just affecting their health, they're affecting your health and everything around them. Glyco is in our rainwater. Okay? It's marketed as non toxic and that is a lie. So this is a great supplement. It has soil based probiotics, prebiotic chlorella and humic and fulvic acid. So a really great supplement and it's Sibo Friendly, which is small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, which we do need to talk about and I will talk about that soon on the podcast. Thank you, adored beast of Pop Carry, for making this podcast possible and I appreciate that. Okay, let's get to a list of books. So this is just a small list of books and someone made a request. What are some of your favorite books? A lot of my favorite books are herbal books, but I wanted to give you a list on dog or animal pet centered books that I think you should have on your bookshelf. And then there are some other ones. I'll go through my favorite herb books later because Real Mushrooms is one of my sponsors. I want to give you a few mushroom books and then the other books are. Yeah, things that I feel that you need to have on your bookshelf or at least have the choice to have them on your bookshelf. So one of them is it's a book that was written a long time ago, but I think it definitely has a lot of good things in it. It makes you think it is from Jan Elgretti and Katie Sommers, D.V.M. published in 2003. One of the things I like about this book is that they cover some really good topics. They talk about homeopathy, they talk a little bit about herbs, they talk about acupressure and acupuncture and a little bit about the principles of tcm. So you can understand that they deal with bodywork and energy medicine. I think that it's a good book because it's also deals with. I think it's part three, chapter 10, 11 and 12 about what to do when your dog is ill or what to do with your geriatric dog and also what you can do when your dog passes away. They just have a good, well rounded look at a lot of things. They give you some different types of things for different ailments. And they have some good diagrams in here. I love it. My shelf loves it. Take a look. You know, you don't have to agree with everything. That's what I tell people. You know, you don't have to agree with everything in a book. Take what you love and leave the rest. The Complete Holistic Dog Book Home Health Care for Our Canine Companions by Jan Elgretti and Katie Sommers, DVM is a great pick. Another pick that I have is Gemo Therapies for Our Animal Friends by Dr. Stephen Blake. For those of you that know me, know that I love phytoembryonic therapy. This is a book about gemo therapy which is our 1 to 200 remedies. I sell quite a bit on my website but you can get them all across the web by typing in the name, usually the Latin name for the gemotherapies. Type in the Latin name and gemotherapy behind it and you can find the gemotherapies. And there's also another good website by Lauren Huble. I think her website. Let's take a peek at that while I'm sitting here. It is laurenhuble h u b e l e.com and she is a general therapist and homeopath. She's awesome. She's doing a lot of really great things for plants in general and she has a great store and they she carries exclusively the 1 to 200 remedies. Stephen Blake's book GEMO Therapy for Animal Friends is very basic and it has some good protocols in it. Tells you how to use some of the remedies for different things like ear infections and fly strikes, poisonings, hot spots, just a ton of things, liver disorders, ringworm, spondylitis. I really love this book. I've used some of his protocols. I've worked off some of his like used him as a base sometimes for different protocols that I've come up with in the past. Love Stephen's work with Gem Motherapy. This book was published in 2011. Steven is definitely a forerunner in using that for animals. Thank you Stephen. Another book that I think should be on a shelf is Bach Flower Remedies for Animals by Helen Graham and Gregory Valmus. I will be publishing a flower essence book later on, probably a year or two from now. But this is a good starter book for flower essences. It's just the box or as some people call batch Bach flower essences, not other flower essences. But it does cover them and it covers them pretty good. Gives you a lot of information on each remedy, at least enough to get started and gives you an idea what the remedy is for. I think they could be a lot more detailed however, remember this is a starter list of books if you're a book person. Next up is Yin and Yang Nutrition for Dogs. This is by Dr. Judy Morgan. Dr. Judy Morgan has a new book out as well. I have not purchased it yet, but it will be on my shelf. Love Judy. She's awesome. This is Yin and Yang Nutrition for Dogs. As I said, it was published in 2017 so not that old. It's a really good book for ailments and to understand basic TCM feeding. I like it. It Definitely needs to be on your shelf. She has some good tongue diagnostics on there. Tongue diagnostics are hard when it comes to dogs. I don't include them a lot in my work with people because it's really hard to get the tongue out. But if it's hanging out, you can use this great little diagram in here that she has and you can help diagnose what's going on with your dog according to their tongue. Tongue diagnostics for people is awesome and so much easier. Another thing that is very popular in this book is a recipe called Pup Loaf. It's how to make her very popular recipe, Pup Loaf. So check that book out. It definitely needs to be on your shelf. Another book that is awesome that needs to be on your shelf and also can be given to people just starting out in anything natural for dogs is the Forever Dog by Rodney Habib and Dr. Karen Shaw Becker. Great book. I give it to people. I had a friend that got a rescue dog was feeding it kibble that was like yellow in color. I gave her this book because I didn't want to have the conversation with her and she loved it. She was a very informational person and they have really great like a website to help with references and stuff. Goes through the basics of longevity and helping have a healthier dog. Definitely a must have on the shelf. We're going to keep going here. So next Friday I'm going to talk to this handsome man, Dr. Connor Brady. He's in the UK. He wrote a great book called Feeding Dogs. I think the Forever Dog and this dog are really good friends and Connor has a really good book about feeding dogs. The tagline is dry or raw. The science behind the debate. Wonderful, wonderful book. Especially about, you know, give it to people who are having that debate. You know, I don't have that debate and I don't have that debate with other people. I let these guys do the talking. The forever dog and Dr. Connor Brady. Feeding dogs. Love it. While I'm talking about feeding dogs, there is a couple of good, easy to read, easy to follow books by Kimberly Gaultier. She is the blogger of Keep the Tail Wagon. Kimberly's awesome. She has her Raw feeding from A to Z. And then she has the Novice Guide to Raw Feeding for Dogs and Keeping It Raw. A hundred questions Parents Pet Parents Ask about Raw Feeding for Dogs, Volume one. Those are really good places to start for raw feeding. I love that she wrote these books. Check them out. They have digital copies on Amazon. It's a good one. And on those lines of feeding one of my favorite books to kind of supplement all of this natural stuff is Healing with Whole Foods by Paul Pitchford. This book is indispensable. It is wonderful. Asian traditions and modern nutrition. It really just can't be beat. It is so awesome to have on your bookshelf as a reference book. You can look up different foods, different energetics, what different foods do. He just really knocked it out of the park. That book. Healing with Whole Foods was written, came out in 1993, was updated in 1996, and again in 2002. Let's just look at the table of contents just to give you the breadth of this book. He talks about whole foods and integrative nutrition. And then he gives you the principles of traditional Chinese medicine. Really well written and easy to understand. He talks about heat patterns and deficiency in heat, cold patterns. I love it. It's total geek talk. And I can get behind that. Really helps you kind of understand those patterns. And then he talks about immunity and excessive and deficiency. I talked about that a while back. He gets a little more serious about it. Then he gives you the essentials of nutrition. Talks about chlorophyll and foods which counteract toxins and, oh, my God, metals and radiation drugs, parasites, mucus, excessive weight. And then he goes over all about water and protein and vitamin B12 and definitely all the vitamins and minerals, oils and fats, sweeteners, salt. This is a human book, but I have just found it completely indispensable. And then he goes on to talk about the five elements and the organ systems. I love that because it makes it easy to understand. And then he goes into talking about diseases and dietary treatments. And then he has recipes for us humans that need to take care of ourselves. Right. It's a really great book. Don't forget Healing with Whole Foods, Asian Traditions and Modern nutrition. Paul Pitchford. And it is a mammoth book. Okay. Mammoth. It's like 800 pages or so. Like 750, 800 pages. We have covered a little bit of feeding. I know there's some more feeding books. Monica has a feeding book that's just a good tradition. I forgot what it was called, but I'll get back to you on that. Let's talk about a few little herbal books. I know we had the bach Flower Essence, Dr. Kidd's guide to Herbal Dog Care. Randy Kidd. He's a pioneer in herbal vet medicine. Really is an awesome guy. And I love his little book, Herbal Dog Care and Herbal Cat Care. They're a lot alike, but they're small, easy to digest. A really good introductory primer. So. And it belongs on on your bookshelf for sure. And then there's Herbs for Pets with one of my mentors, Gregory Tilford. I followed Gregory's work and his wife Mary for a long time. And Herbs for Pets. It used to be this huge hardcover book that was like a coffee table book. And then it got put in a more condensed version and that condensed version came out I think about 2009. I bought the coffee table book as soon as I saw it and devoured it. I have the little more condensed version as well. I have both copies because I'm a book hoarder for sure. But that is a definite primer for herbal medicine. It can help you get to know herbs. I always tell people just try one on one or two every month. If you do one a month, you got 12 a year, two years, you got 24 herbs that you are pretty good and efficient at. So Herbs for Pets, the natural way to enhance your pet's life. The next one is Essential Oils for Animals by Nayana Morag. This is an essential oils book for someone. Wanted to know what I would recommend for essential oils. This is a great one. Carolyn Ingram has another great one about essential oils. That one is help your dog heal itself. A to Z guide to using essential oils by Carolyn Ingraham. This is a book on applied zoo pharmacognosy, which is my favorite way to use essential oils. I am not a fan of diffusion. One of my favorite, favorite, favorite books on dogs and natural health is Four Paws, five Directions by Cheryl Swartz, dvm A guide to Chinese medicine for cats and dogs. I practice Western herbal medicine, which is not anything like Western allopathic medicine. Don't be. It's not the same. I use Western herbs, but I love to incorporate TCM diagnostics in my practice. And this book is invaluable. It should be on every, every bookshelf. And you should definitely read it with a glass of Merlot, a cold beer, a nice water, you know, whatever your drink is, some fresh squeezed orange juice, whatever you want to do. And dogs love it when you read it to them. So get reading. Four paws, five directions. Cheryl Schwartz, D.V.M. love it. Just as wonderful. But it's definitely hard for a lot of people to swallow because we have been so disconnected to natural rearing of pets. But my ultimate favorite book on herbal medicine for dogs and cats is the Complete Herbal Handbook for the Dog and Cat by Juliet de Barclay Leve. Lovely, wonderful book. I love it, love it, love it she is so awesome and has really paved the way for everyone to practice herbal medicine with your dogs and cats. And she definitely has been an inspiration to me. She has since passed and this book was published in 1955. I got mine in in my twenties. I read it. It inspired me to feed my Rottweiler natural food. And I mean it was when so Jos just first came out and I fed my Rottweiler sojos mixed with meat. She did really well on it. And then I kind of just kind of put the book down and went on my merry way in my 20s and then picked everything back up when I was 29 and here I am now. Really great book. I definitely think it's a definite must read. The Complete Herbal Handbook for the Dog and cat by Julia DeBarkley Levy. Some more introductory books Christopher Hobbes Medicinal Mushrooms the Essential Guide Christabel Hobbes is a wonderful herbalist. This book came out in 2020 so it's a newer book. It has great pictures. It's a really good introduction to mushrooms, even how to extract them. Love it. Thank you Christopher. He covers cancer, infections, different things about mushrooms. It's just Christopher is a wonderful herbalist and awesome authority. Another one that is not. I wouldn't say it's an introductory book, but it's a great herbal medicine book. It's from another herbalist, Robert Rogers. He is a registered herbalist with the American Herbalist Guild and if I ever get enough time to apply to the Herbalist Guild, I am going to. But it's been on my to do list for the last five years and eventually I will get there. The Fungal Pharmacy the Complete Guide to Medicinal Mushrooms and Lichens of North America this is not a beginner book, but it is an awesome book. And if you're a book hoarder like I am, I would definitely say it's worth the purchase. And last but not least is an oldie but a goodie. This is a book that I have had for a long time and this is a book by Barbara Foger. F O U G E R E and she also co writes another book which is called Veterinary Herbal Medicine with Susan Nguyen and Barbara. That is definitely not a starter book. It is an intense book but I got through it. I definitely need to read it another seven times. Don't know if that's going to happen but it's good reference. A very expensive book, but this book is not very expensive. It was written in 2006. It is called the Pet Lover's Guide to Natural Healing for Cats and Dogs by Barbara Foger. It is a really great book. It's very easy to read, well put together. I don't agree with all of it. For instance, she covers shark cartilage in here. And I am a proponent against using shark cartilage. Leave sharks alone. I do not support companies that use shark cartilage. I do not care of the rationale. Sharks are apex predators and need to stay in the oceans. We need to stop finning them. People who fin sharks should go to prison for a very, very long time. If sharks die, our oceans die and we need to leave a lot of things in the ocean. Leave it alone. But this was written a long time ago, so Barbara could have changed her opinion. And it's only a little expert on shark cartilage. But that's the only thing I don't like about this book. That's it. She has some really great formulas in here. She talks about dogs and cats. She makes some formulas very easy. They have great pictures. She discusses how to talk to your veterinarian. I love it. I think everyone should have this book. I love to look back at it and I always, every time I look at it, I find something new. And what's cute is I have little pencil marks in here where I've underlined things. And she goes through flower essences and some dog training stuff. I love her ear section. She's a wonderful vet and it really does hit a lot of the bases. She goes over different systems. It's just a really great book and I think it should be on everyone's shelf. And it's definitely, I would say, a beginner's book. And. Or if you're again, a book hoarder like myself, I mean, you just can't get enough, right? So that's my introductory book list. And just because it's on my desk, I was discussing this book with a client and, you know, as dog owners, we need to take care of ourselves. And there is a wonderful little, like, I would call it at home therapy book. We all could use some introspection, right? There's a little book that this one was written in. I happen to love this book. I worked with this book when. After I had cancer, ovarian cancer. And yes, I'm Doing Fine, 1983. It is called Taming your Gremlin, A Guide to enjoying Yourself by Richard D. Carson. This is another book, I think, that most people should have in their possession. It is lovely. It's so uncomplicated and just, you know, really discusses that little voice in our head that won't shut up sometimes. It has nothing to do with dogs, but it has to do with us being more comfortable and less critical of ourselves, which we could all use, right? And if you have a little voice inside your head that will not shut up when you go to bed, use horse chestnut. You can use the flower essence or the phytoembryonic therapy in drop dosages. And it has this lovely little ability to shut that little voice up so that you can get some sleep. I hope you enjoyed my book list and I hope you enjoyed some of these books and I will go over some more books later. Some like herbal books, some hardcore herbal books. And definitely I'm going to have a good recommendation in my new book coming up. Also I'm going to have a website that goes along with my book that has some great recommendations for everything natural dog that I love. I can't include everyone, but that list will keep on growing because it will be a website that matches my book. Let's thank realmushrooms.com for being my other sponsor. Couldn't have my podcast without them. We are gonna start possibly a coupon program. It's coming up. I carry real mushrooms on my website. I'm starting to carry some of the human powders as well, not just the dog products. And you can get them@realmushrooms.com and throughout the web. So let's just discuss the benefits of lion's mane mushroom. Lion's mane mushroom is a wonderful mushroom that helps the nervous system and helps anxiety and can help our dogs and ourselves switch out of sympathetic excess. Right. And we all need to do that because so many people are in fight or flight. This is a completely water soluble mushroom and I find you kind of don't want to give too much. You want to like work your way up to dosage. I have found that lion's mane mushroom can definitely cause what it heals. As far as like, I've seen it with too much lion's mane because people think more is better always and a lot of times, yes, mushrooms need to be given higher dosages. But I don't find lion's mane to be one of those mushrooms. And maybe because it's completely 100% water soluble, I don't know. But Lion's mane's good for dementia, it's good for older dogs, it's good for dogs with anxiety and any type of nervous system recovery issue, you know, nervous system disorder or injury. It helps with ulcers in the gut. I like to Mix it with tremella mushroom for that and marshmallow root. That trifecta is awesome. It helps with cancer. You know, these medicinal mushrooms are very good for cancer. It helps reduce inflammation, which is really important. That's one of the really important things about lion's mane. I think that it definitely helps stimulate the growth of new brain cells and not a lot of things can do that. Linden Phytoembryonic therapy can help repair and help stimulate new brain cells, new neurons, new nerve cells, and mixed with lion's mane, it really packs a punch. I love that combination, too. Lion's mane supports the heart, so you can mix it with hawthorn, which I just talked about on my next short. It's good for the gut, it's good for the immune system, so check it out. But again, you're not going to use a lot of lion's mane. You're going to work your way up for a very small dosage and then work your way up. Okay, so I would say a quarter of a gram for or maybe even less, maybe an eighth of a gram divided in two dosages for extra small dogs, a quarter of a gram for small dogs divided in two per day, and then a half a gram for medium to large dogs. And then you could see how a half a gram does for an extra large dog. And you can kind of go up from there, but you could start even lower. But yeah. So check out Lion's mane Mushroom. Again, I carried on my website, canine herbalist.com and also@realmushrooms.com if you have a question for the podcast, check out my website@canineherbalist.com and you can go under the podcast email. Thank you so much for joining me today and we will talk soon. Thanks for listening to this episode of Dogs Are Individuals. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review in your podcast app. And don't forget, sharing is caring. So if you love Dogs Are Individuals podcast, share it with your friends and family who love dogs. This will help me so much. And remember, as a listener, I appreciate you much. Thanks to Resonant Media, my podcast production team. This podcast is produced by Drake Peterson and edited by Mike Fry. Any questions, email the show, go to k9herbalist.com Click podcast contact in the menu and then fill out that form and I'll answer any questions here online. Okay, so thank you so much for listening to this episode of Dogs I Our Individuals Podcast and I'm going to talk to you in our next episode. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for veterinary care. This podcast doesn't constitute a provider patient relationship. As always, talk to your doctor, veterinarian, or healthcare provider first before starting anything new, and that includes herbs. I'm not a doctor and I don't treat disease or prescribe anything. I'm a traditional herbalist providing herbal support education only. Regarding any products I may suggest the statements made regarding these products have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. The efficacy of these products has not been confirmed by FDA approved research. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. All information provided presented here on the podcast is not meant as a substitute or alternative to information from your vet. Please consult your veterinary professional about potential interactions or other possible complications before using any production.