Navigating Sensitivity in Canines | Shorts

Hi, this is Rita Hogan, and welcome to the Dogs Are Individuals podcast. I'm a clinical canine herbalist, and I've been practicing for over 20 years. This podcast is all about your dog.

Through an herbal lens.

So let's get to it and dive right in.

Hello, everybody.

Happy holidays.

I want to thank my sponsor, earthbuddy, earthbuddypet.com and remember that great coupon, herbal buddy. 20 all lowercase, 20 off for our listeners. I think that's a really generous coupon, Sean. And everybody over at Earth Buddy, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. One of the things that I like to do is just go over some of the products that they have, and what I want to feature this week is their blueberry hemp hearts for dogs. I really like this. And one of the things that I know is that, that I expressed a concern about oat flour to Sean, the owner at Earth Buddy, about oat flour being really high in glyphosate. And Sean was so awesome that he went and got third party testing to make sure that his oat supplier did not have glyphosate on his oats. Or pesticides. And he didn't. There was negligible amounts of it. None of the glyphosate was on the oats that make up the blueberry hemp hearts. So just. That's really awesome. The blueberry hemp hearts are rich in full spectrum hemp extract, of course, blueberries. They have turmeric, organic apple cider vinegar, organic coconut oil, and there's about 30 of the hemp hearts per bag. So that's something you can check out. It makes a great gift for your pup this Christmas. If you celebrate Christmas or Yule or any other Hanukkah and any other holiday that I have might have overlooked. So let's get to it. I want to talk about the ultra sensitive dog today. So I work with a lot of clients that have really, really sensitive dogs. And what happens is, is usually when I look back at their paperwork or get their paperwork in, I'm looking at vet records with a lot of antibiotic use, lots of prednisone, which is a steroid, and worming at a young age when there wasn't worms, and then worming preventatively, which I don't believe in, and then just a lot. And it might be like some Prilosec out there doing antacids, doing antihistamines. These are all things that destroy the gut or dogs that are stuck in fight or flight all the time so that their gastrointestinal systems are not working very well and that are like, is some of the background on really super sensitive dogs. Also dogs that have had a lot of surgeries that can also make your dog ultra sensitive. And what's going on with ultrasensitivity is organ health is lacking and the organs aren't working the way they should. And dogs aren't detoxifying the way they should. They're not getting rid of wastes like they are naturally set up to do. The liver's congested or stagnant, kidneys aren't concentrating like they should. Lymphatic systems stagnant. So there's toxins circulating. And a lot of times you're going to see like different types of growths and like warts and skin tags, itching, scratching, biting at the coat, flea allergy, stressed out, anxious dogs. But also those dogs that are just like so sensitive that they scratch their skin bloody and they go to town and it looks like a war zone when you leave them alone for like five minutes. And this is really stressful for us. And it's also stressful, so stressful for your dog. So it's just like kind of creates this cycle of sickness. And I mean, sometimes I think that people can even feel depression over this because as caretakers, we really take it to heart that, you know, what can I do? I, you know, I've tried, I've tried the cyto point, I've tried the apicoil, which I'm not a fan of. But, you know, but a lot of these dogs have had these types of remedies for itching and scratching. You know, I've. Some of them have had steroids, some dogs are on steroids. What can we do? How do we work with these dogs? And it's just that, you know, we don't want to get down on ourselves because that's going to give off the feeling or vibration to our dogs that something is wrong. I know that everyone's doing what they can. So there's a couple of things to remember. One, we always want to start with diet. A good diet, an elimination diet, a very like straightforward diet. I like to start out with either organ meat or muscle meat or a blend of each, but something very simple. And you feed that for a couple of weeks and then you add in calcium and then you might add in an oil and see how they do with that. You're adding in one thing at a time and also remembering to breathe while doing so. And you want to make sure that you go super slow with these Dogs, if you can find something that they do not react to as far as their food is concerned, then we would add in a very small amount of digestive enzymes. I prefer Dr. Good pet enzymes because they don't have bromelain in them. Bromelain is fine for cool dogs, but if you don't know your dog's energetics, I would do Dr. Good Pet add a very small amount. Always start at a quarter dose of any type of dosing recommendations and build up very slowly. Like say for instance, that a half a teaspoon your dog started having a reaction, but at a quarter teaspoon they were fine. Then you go down to a quarter teaspoon and stay there for a very long time. So you have that figured out. And then we're going to add, because a lot of times I'll see dogs with lots and lots and lots of supplements when they're having such a hard time and we want to take them off those supplements and start over. And when a dog starts to react to something, we want to stop, let the reaction fade, and then either start at a much lower dosage or discontinue that remedy altogether. One of the best ways to go with these types of dogs is to learn your dog's energetics. And you can go to canineherbalism.com and go into the library and you can pick energetics and learn your dog's energetics. It's really important that you do so to help your dog avoid things that are consistently fed that could upset them in many ways. So then with the ultra sensitive dog, we're going to try one remedy at a time without adding in another remedy for weeks, sometimes even a month, and see how they do on the first remedy. And if it's a remedy, that's really well indicated, which means that a lot of the things that the remedy deals with is perfect for your dog. If you give your dog the remedy, let's just say calendula, okay? Calendula is good for cool dogs. It's great for guts and fungus and things like that. So if you gave your dog three drops of calendula and they started having a reaction, let's just say they start itching a lot more. You want to let your dog's body deal with that over a period of three days. But if they're still itching after three days, we want to discontinue the remedy, let the itching subside. Then we're going to start out with one drop. Now, if you get the same reaction, you can take that one drop and dissolve it in, let's just say 30 milliliters of water, which is about an ounce. And then you're going to give her a dropper, him or her, you're going to give them a dropper of that mixture so they're getting some of that diluted calendula. And see if you have a reaction. The goal is to have about seven days without a reaction and then you can add a little more. If you get a reaction, go back down and continue on with the remedy for another seven days and then try to go back up. And you want to find an active amount of the remedy to give your dog where they're not reacting. And when they do react to something, you give them time to calm down before starting again. Now remember, all dosages on anything that you're buying commercially are recommended dosages. That doesn't mean it's your dog's dosage. It doesn't even mean that that's the dosage that you should strive for. The dosage that you need to strive for is the minimum dosage for the maximum result. And so what you want to do there is say for instance, you get up with no reaction to four drops of calendula. And that's a pretty good dose for let's say a medium dog. For chronic disease, let's just say chronic fungus if you want it to die off slowly. If you, let's say that you got up to five drops and then when you hit six drops, your dog started getting acid reflux. Okay. So that would mean that you want to bring it back down to where your dog was doing fine at five drops. And then you can give that once a day and then try to do it a second time in the evening. Starting off with one more drop, one drop. So you're going to do like five drops in the morning, one drop at night, then try to get five drops in the morning, two drops at night and build up to where you can give two doses of the remedy or some remedies you give in the morning and other remedies you give at night. But don't start adding a bunch of remedies until you know the dosage of the remedies that you're using already. And give those remedies, I would say, for between six and 12 weeks for most non toxic remedies. And if you don't know what you're doing, get some support for it. Okay. But these ultra sensitive dogs don't detoxify well. So we need to make sure that we're focusing initially on their lymphatic system and also their organ system. So like the liver, the kidneys, the gastrointestinal tract so that your dog can release those toxins and and that the liver is one of the main things that needs to be worked on. So you do gentle liver herbs like milk thistle, artichoke, burdock root, certain things like that, or certain herbs like that. And just start out really slowly and have patience. Patience is the number one deterrent to a lot of good, successful protocols. Okay, so that's our short a little advice on the ultra sensitive dog. Thanks again for my sponsor Earth Buddy and their generous coupon of 20% off at herbal buddy 20 all lowercase@earthbuddypet.com thanks for listening to this episode of Dogs Are Individuals.

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave.

A review in your podcast app.

And don't forget, sharing is caring. So if you love Dogs Are Individuals podcast, share it with your friends and family who love dogs. This will help me so much. And remember, as a listener, I appreciate you much. Thanks to Resonant Media, my podcast production team. This podcast is produced by Drake Peterson and edited by Mike Fry. Any questions, email the show, go to k9herbalist.com, click podcast contact in the menu and then fill out that form and I'll answer any questions here online. Okay, so thank you so much for listening to this episode of Dogs Are Individuals Podcast and I'm going to 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 come constitute a provider patient relationship. As always, talk to your doctor, veterinarian or healthcare provider first before starting anything new.

And that includes herbs.

I'm not a doctor and I don't treat disease or prescribe anything. I'm a traditional herbalist providing herbal support education only. Regarding any products I may suggest the statements made regarding these products have not.

Been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.

The efficacy of these products has not been confirmed by FDA approved research. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. All information presented here on the podcast is not meant as a substitute or alternative to information from your vet. Please consult your veterinary professional about potential interactions or other possible complications before using any production.