Overlapping Ingredients | Short

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.

Hey everyone, welcome to another edition of our shorts. So this short is is about reading labels. Very important to know how to read an herbal label. It's not. Well, I can't say it's really about reading labels. It's about, let's just say overlapping. It's about overlapping. And remember, this podcast is about an herbalist life who's gone to the dogs. It's just, you know, random ramblings, teachings, thoughts, all that kind of stuff, changing one's mind, even some tidbits for you, the human. So want to thank my sponsor of this podcast. Remember, kids, ladies, gents, dogs, cats, horses, pigs, we would not have a podcast without sponsors. So goodness gracious, goodness gracious. Treats dot com. So I wanted to tell you about their reveal metabolic health diet. Well, first of all, I helped them on it, so you'll see my little logo on the bag. How fun is that? But they have a metabolic health diet that is gently cooked and I've been working on my metabolic health. I definitely need to work on my metabolic health. Heart disease runs in my family. I'm doing okay, as I said before, but reta renewal is in full swing. So I thought I'd share the metabolic health diet because lots of dogs and cats have poor metabolic health these days because of the ingredients and the quality of food that we have been feeding them for a long time. And over vaccination, definitely over antibiotics, over medicating, things like that. So the ingredients in this food, we've got wild caught pollock, cage free pork kidney, cage free liver, cage free eggs, organic broccoli sprouts, broccoli, wild caught mackerel, organic maitake, mushrooms, okra, organic sprouted dried sunflower seeds, asparagus, blueberries, oysters, organic dandelion greens, ground eggshell, omega 3 fish oil, sardine, herring and mackerel, anchovy, organic dried nettle leaf, organic dried cilantro, organic dried burdock root and organic dried kelp. I'm not sure if you could recognize the ingredients I added to this lovely recipe, but you know, I'll leave it up to you. So this is just a really great gently cooked meal for your dog. And my little Figgy Nubbins, who's 12 pounds, is going to actually start eating goodness gracious in a couple of Weeks. We're going to give her a try and see what happens. So I'll keep you up to date. So let's talk about looking at labels so that you know what you're giving your dog. Okay. I know I mentioned on over supplementation on that podcast, I mentioned, you know, not giving your dogs, like, looking at labels and seeing how many, how many, like, herbs and ingredients you're giving your dog at one time. And this is kind of like that. But I wanted to share a good story with you, a good case study here and just how important it is to look at the ingredients that you're giving your dog in formulas. Because formulas can really, I don't know, boggle the mind in what you're doing. But you need to understand, like, what is in that formula and then look it up, what it does, what is its action. You know, in this case, we're looking at diuretics. Diuretics move fluids through the kidneys. And so a few weeks ago, I was with a lovely client and I had to refer her out to a vet. Her dog has congested heart failure. And basically what happened was, is her dog started peeing in the night and it started having incontinence. And she really wants to help her dog with congested heart failure, but the incontinence is an issue. So I asked her, what are you giving your dog as far as supplementation? And here it was. So she had a liver remedy that had dandelion root in it. She had, she was giving her dog dandelion. And then in another formula, she had dandelion. And dandelion is a diuretic again, it moves fluids through the kidneys. Because her dog has congested heart failure, she also had her dog on a prescription diuretic, a water pill for centamide or for some. I, you know, I hatchet. My hatchet job on complicated words. But prescription water, pill, diuretic, and three forms of dandelion. Okay? That is a recipe for not being able to hold the water in one's body. So she wanted a herbal formula for me to stop the incontinence. Well, we're not going to stop the incontinence because you're giving your dog a 1, 2 water removal punch, basically. So when you look, when you sit down and look at the remedies, the formulas that you're giving your dogs, the supplements, you want to really write them down. Okay, Write them down and see if there is any overlap, first of all. Well, I think you should look and see what each herb does what's the action of the herb? What do you know about that herb? Okay, because one thing. If there's a formula that works really well for your dog, you want to know what those herbs do. It can help you. It can kind of help you see inside your dog as an individual to what types, what actions, what energetics of those herbs for your dog, what are they? And then look for any overlap, like in case in point, the dandelion. And maybe you're giving your dog four supplements with ginger in it. Maybe you're giving your dog four supplements with lion's mane in it. You want to make sure you know the action and what that herb is doing so that you know that you're not causing some of the issues that your dog is having. I hope that makes sense, because it's just so important to know what certain herbs do. And if you. You know the way to look up an herb, if it's a traditional Chinese medicine herb, that's fine. There's a great website out there called White Rabbit. I believe it's the White Rabbit Institute. Yeah, the White Rabbit Institute. It's a traditional Chinese medicine website. And you can look up almost any traditional Chinese medicine herb in the White Rabbit Institute, and it's gonna tell you what that herb does. I think it's run by a woman named Ann Christiansen, and she has been working in this industry for over three decades. She does an awesome job at the White Rabbit Institute. The website is whiterabbitinstituteofhealing.com whiterabbitinstituteofhearing.com and then for western herbs like cleavers, chickweed, things like that, you can Google the name and then the word herbalist monograph. Herbalist monograph. And it will give you. You'll probably have to go down farther because now Google has all of these, like, traditional medicine, not traditional medicine, American medicine, let me just say pharmaceutical medicine websites that come up really quickly. So you'll have to probably go to. I mean, look at page one, but you might have to go to page two and look up the monograph of the herb. And it's gonna tell you all about that herb. You want it written by an herbalist. So I have my herb a month club, basically my monthly monographs that you can look at. I think we have about 28 herbs in there right now. That's@k nineherbalism.com you can join that. It's like $12 a month. Everything's downloadable. And then you can go to herb rally, herb rally.com. they have a monograph section. There's quite a few herbalists, but they have paid monographs like I do. But you should be able to find something. Or you can say to Google, what is the action of such and such herb? If you know the Latin name, put in the Latin name. Make sure you're always looking at Latin names so that you're looking up the right herb. For instance, skullcap, okay, has a Scolateria latifa. And then there's baclodensis, which is Chinese skull cap. So you want to make sure that you're looking up the right herb. So finding out the Latin name is gut. Just make sure that you know the herbs that you're giving your dog and if they overlap, and like I said, I would write them all down and find out their action. And if you have a formula that your dog has really, you know, turned your dog around, find out what those herbs are, what their actions are. Find out what you can about those herbs. What are their energetics, what do they do? What are their constituents? If you can, so that you know what your dog is responding to. And it's going to tell you a lot more about the herb profiles that are better for your dog than others. Okay? Okay. Thanks for listening to this episode of Dogs Are Individuals.

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This will help me so much. And remember, as a listener, I appreciate, 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 gonna talk to.

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The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for veterinary care. This podcast doesn't constitute a provider patient relationship. As always, talk to your doctor, veterinarian, or healthcare provider first before starting anything new. And that includes herbs. I'm not a doctor and I don't treat disease or prescribe anything. I'm a traditional herbalist providing herbal support education only. Regarding any products I may suggest the statements made regarding these products have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. The efficacy of these products has not been confirmed by FDA approved research. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. All information presented here on the podcast is not meant as a substitute or alternative to information from your vet. Please consult your veterinary professional about potential interactions or other possible complications before using any product.