Rosemary for Dogs

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, I'm back. So glad you're back too. Listening to the podcast. We are going to talk about rosemary today. It's very controversial. Some people talk about it like, oh, God, oh God. And then some people don't. And I just want to talk from an herbalist perspective about using rosemary with dogs. So first of all, rosemary is. Its Latin name is rosemarian Annus officinalis. Rosmarianus officinalis. You can also have salvia rosemarianas. Anyways, rosemary is a beautiful plant. It's in western herbalism, it's in traditional Chinese medicine. Don't ask me to pronounce that wording in tcm, but in my language it would be, let's see, mai dai zhong. Not sure how someone else who knows Chinese pronounce zit. Cause I don't. But anyways, rosemary is a very sustainable herb. It's not a toxic herb. It's a very warming herb. And that's what people need to understand about it. It's a very warming herb. It affects circulation. It's one of the reasons why it helps in the brain. And another reason why it helps in the brain is that it has these little compounds called 1, 8 and it abuses, it increases acetylcholine production in the brain. And the way that it does that is through the process of circulation. And that helps reduce dementia and overall cognitive decline. So when you do that, everything improves. And rosemary's anti inflammatory and you see it in products like rosemaric acid. And I would definitely say that it's an anti cancer herb. It's really great. It has gotten a bad rap. Now. I've taught herbalism for the last five years. Well, six years. I've taught herbalism in the last six years. And have I ever said, yes, avoid this herb with dogs with seizures? Yes, I have, but that is under certain circumstances. So I have this thing called monthly monographs where I cover an herb intensely every month. And in my monthly monograph, to quote my caution. Okay, my caution for rosemary reads verbatim. Avoid with cases of strong anxiety. Use as a dried herb with dogs with seizures or as an infusion. Avoid tincture and essential oil. Okay, so let's clarify that. Right? Avoid with tincture and essential oil. Okay, so am I Saying that a couple drops of tincture is going to cause a seizure? No. But I am writing for the general public and I always err on the side of caution. And I know how people give. More is always better in many cases. It's just the way, especially here in the United States, it's the way that people think more is better. And it's not, in my opinion. So I don't want people giving rosemary tincture with dogs with seizures. I don't want them giving any tincture that is highly stimulating to dogs with seizures. I don't want them having their dog with seizures. Sniff rosemary essential oil. Now, if they're using it in a dilution like in a shampoo, which usually there's less than a 1% dilution, if that in a shampoo. One of my favorite shampoos is four Legger and four Legger. Their ingredients, let's just go through them. So they start off with sweet almond oil and then sunflower and then pine leaf oil and then rosemary leaf oil, turpentine, tocopherol, limulin, pinus, pinaster, caprylic acid, linalool. So they've got some terpenes in there and then they have hippofa fruit extract and they have some rosemary leaf extract. And they have a great article on rosemary in their products online@fourlegger.com and they mention in here that their dilution of rosemary is less than 0.1%. 0.1%.

Okay.

And that's the camphor. So rosemary. I taught Essential Oil Use for Dogs Naturally magazine with my colleague Dr. Ila Fishburne a while back, and we covered all this kind of stuff in that course. But a lot of essential oils are chemistry and you need to look at the chemotype. And there's lots of chemo types in rosemary aficinalis. Anyone that's interested in essential oils should pick themselves up a copy of Robert Tisseran's essential oil book, Essential Oil Safety. It's just awesome. And he goes over chemotypes, different chemotypes of rosemary in that book. But basically the chemotype is going to denote for the most part the levels of camphor in a plant in an essential oil from that plant. And so you wanna look at how much camphor a certain chemo type has, right? Because not all essential oils are the same. So again, more camphor, more stimulation, and you need to do what's right for you. And if rosemary freaks you out, then I don't, I don't feel that you need to be Stressed out around your dog, just don't use it. It's very simple. However, we're going to still go, we're still going to go through this, we're still going to go through this rosemary thing. But rosemary is a wonderful plant. So let's talk about some of the constituents in rosemary. We have camphine and camphor. That's what we just talked about. There's diterpenes in it, flavonoids, of course, rosemaric acid, which is one of the constituents of the plant. It's more preservative in kind of nature antibacterial. It has salicycates in it. So not that great for cats. But you can use it as food. If there was just a tiny bit, you're not gonna have a huge problem. But you don't wanna use again the essential oil. You don't want to use a tincture with cats. It's really high in antioxidants. It's high in vitamin A and C and calcium and folic acid as folate. It has magnesium and manganese and potassium. Love that. It's really not for long term use, but you can use it, you can use it for a while in a formula. You can use it a lot longer depending on the concentration. The issue is that it's meant for more, I would say on and off use. But if a dog needed it long term, they could use it. It's not like it's toxic long term. It's just very stimulating. It's ruled by the sun. Its astrological ruler is the sun. And most sun remedies are a little bit on the stimulating side. And most sun remedies are warming like St. John's Wort. So there's gray areas in herbalism and not everything is absolute. And that's one of the reasons why traditional herbs are very hard to study in evidence based medicine because they vary in their constituents. You know, we're talking whole plant medicine here, but rosemary covers the liver, the lungs, the kidney, the spleen, the nervous system, the heart. You know, again, it's warming and it can be hot to a dog that's already warm to hot in energetics. If you don't know what I'm talking about, take my energetics course@k nineherbalism.com it's stimulating and that's the rub with the seizures. And again, we're going to talk more about that. It's moistening in the beginning for most docs, but in the long term it's drying and that's what you need to be aware of. It's really great for those cool and. Cool and damp dogs. You know, if your dog was cool and damp, definitely would be much more receptive of long term use.

Okay.

But if your dog was cool and dry, then we'd want to use it more short term or intermittently. And it's all about how you use the medicine. So let's go back to the seizure conversation. If a dog that has seizures is already hot, okay. Because they're most likely not going to be warm. They're going to be on their way to hot or already hot. And I think it's the dogs that have had that are already hot in their energetics that might cause that overstimulating effect. And this is not going to be a large percentage. Would I myself avoid excess rosemary usage in my dog if he was already hot and having seizures? Most likely, yes. But I would also avoid other stimulating herbs and drying herbs.

Okay.

Because the more dry you get, the more heat you're going to build. So. And this isn't something that you can study scientifically, this is something that you're going to see in field in like in the clinic, working with dogs day in and day out. And have I seen rosemary bring on a seizure? Yes, I have and I'm absolutely positive. But again, it was in a very hot dog and it was being used excessively and it was not being used as a food.

Okay.

It was in a tincture formula. So you want to take it as a case by case basis. But. But you don't want to see it as black and white. You need to look at it as your own individual dog. And if I'm speaking to the general public, am I going to tell everyone to use rosemary who has seizures in dogs? No, I am not. But I am going to clarify, you know, if your dog has a hard time regulating their body temperature, don't use rosemary in a formula. Rosmaric acid, I don't find to have an issue. But again, it's a case by case issue. And again, I'd also look at other stimulating herbs in the diet. Have I seen high amounts of caffeine bring on seizures? Yes. Have I seen. This is for humans. Have I seen people with seizures have more seizures when they're drinking those crazy energy drinks? Yes, I have. Some of the caffeine levels in those energy drinks are insane. They're also being tied to heart attacks.

Okay.

Do I have the scientific research on all of that? No. But speaking of scientific research, you know, you need to look at Scientific studies, just don't look at the title and move on. And yes, they can be overwhelming to read, but if you're going to use them in any type of rationale for your conversation with others or for your concern, you want to look at them. Interesting fact. When I was researching a little bit about public opinion on rosemary essential oil use and also rosemary use when it comes to seizures, I did again come across a great article by Ford Lager, and they had a client or a customer write in about their concerns about rosemary essential oil in their shampoo because she had a seizure dog. One, just don't use that particular shampoo if you're that worried. That is an option. Two, look at the research that you're sending to the company in the first place because their scientist for the company that they consult with looked at the research. And the first case of seizure related to rosemary has nothing to do with dogs or most people. The man had a temporal lobectomy as a treatment for his epilepsy.

Okay.

He was massaged with rosemary essential oil. And it really had no bearing on the 0.1% of rosemary essential oil in their shampoo.

Okay.

There are so many factors that could be, like, considered, you know, the man in the paper, the man was on a cruise ship. He had an herbal massage, and then later that night, he had a breakthrough epileptic seizure after being seizure free for eight years.

Okay.

There's lots of variables there and not sure what's happening.

Okay.

And yes, it could have been the rosemary essential oil. Maybe they were using a cheap version with very high camphor levels. We don't know. There's no way to know. So that study for me really isn't a study. It's more of a kind of a conversation. More comments on that one. You know, not really a scientific study. And I realize I just said that, but, you know, it's basically based on. Based on hypothesis. And if we're going to talk about science, we need hard facts.

Okay.

I can talk about anecdotal evidence, and I love anecdotal evidence. I'm a traditional herbalist and if I see something repeated consistently, I'm going to draw a conclusion. But, you know, if you're going to analyze the data and come to a conclusion, you want a lot of things to support that conclusion.

Okay.

You know, can you repeat that process? No. So anecdotally you could look at that and go, okay, herbal massage, let's look at this oil. Let's try it on other people who have had an epileptic Seizure, probably not going to get a lot of people to do that, but you could. And, and if every single time or even three out of five times you get a breakthrough seizure, then you've got something to go on for sure. Now, the second study was about, you know, the extreme use of essential oils.

Okay.

Which is not normal for the everyday experience or exposure levels.

Okay.

That you gotta look at what is happening in the study. An extreme amount of oil. And that is not what we're talking about. Hardly. Well, never in everyday conversation or everyday use. It's kind of like the garlic studies that have been done about garlic in dogs, which garlic is not bad for dogs in the proper amounts, which is very small. But the studies were done on an inordinate amount of garlic given to a dog, which would never happen in everyday life. You know, I've written articles on garlic. You can read it at Dogs Naturally magazine. It's still out there, I think. I have one on my blog and I explain all that, but, you know, it's crazy. So you wanna look at these studies. Just don't read the, the, the title and move on. Like I said, read how they, you know, the methodology. What methodology are they using? Is it applicable to your dog's life, to your use, to all of the other uses? Now, rosemary is pretty safe as a food and very beneficial. Again, if you are freaked out about it, we don't want you having anxiety around your dog. Remember, you guys share anxiety, you share emotions. So don't use it if you don't want to. And if your dog is hot already, I'm going, you know, seizure or no seizure, rosemary is a big no. It's very warming, it's very stimulating. It's going to make your dog worse. You know, in, say you put a sprig of rosemary in a pup loaf, right? You were doing Dr. Judy Morgan's pup loaf and you put a sprig of rosemary in that loaf, right? And your dog is warm. I'm not sure the ingredients in the pup loaf, I don't have them memorized, but I don't know if it's a warming or cooling recipe. But I'm sure you can switch out ingredients. That's gonna be fine and it will have some benefit. But if you remember, energetics are all about consistency. Consistently, consistently giving your dog a substance that is energetically inappropriate to their constitution, thus pushing them in one direction or the other. Now, one sprig of rosemary is not going to do that. It's going to give you some benefit in the recipe. And your dog may like it and you're going to be fine. Now, if you are giving them rosemary every single day, day in, day out, that's where we have the problem, okay? That's where we have the problem. And I'm only speaking about those dogs that are warm to hot, especially moving towards hot or hot. That's, you know, this is a very warming, stimulating herb. It's going to have most likely a negative impact on the heat value in the dog.

Okay?

So you just want to keep that in mind. Remember, there's gray area. Dogs are individuals. Dogs are individuals. But rosemary in a positive light, which is 99.9% of the plant, of course, is great at increasing circulation. It's great for those cool dogs that have deficiency, that have low circulation, dementia, cognitive issues, that are cold. Warm rosemary warms the core. We want to warm the core in cold dogs, dogs that are nervous, dogs that have anxiety. Okay, it can help with that. Now, too much rosemary and severe anxiety. Probably not. But those dogs with severe anxiety are mostly more warm to hot dogs. Restlessness, it's good for that. It helps calm the nervous system while it's stimulating. It's very. It's a paradoxical effect.

Okay?

It can have a. It can have a net calming effect, but it is initially stimulating because of its circulation effect. All right? It's good at liver congestion, indigestion in general, high cortisol levels. And in low levels, it definitely stimulates the appetite. It stimulates the appetite. Its flower essence is beautiful. Flower essence. You can use it on any dog.

Okay.

I haven't found that the flower essence creates a warming effect at all, especially when blended with other essences. But the flower essence is great for rescue dogs, geriatric dogs, Heart weakness, weakness in general, again, for those cool dogs that are that their life, you know, their life force is much lower than a dog that is more warm to hot. Their chi can get low when they get cold. Rosemary doesn't really have any toxicity and it doesn't interact with other herbs that are known. And it doesn't really have any pharmaceutical interactions either that are dire. Just one thing, you know, don't give it to pregnant or lactating dogs. You can give it as a food, but not as a tincture or an essential oil. Okay, don't do that. Rosemary is an antibacterial. It's been studied for gram positive and gram negative bacteria like staphylococcus albus and aureus, E. Coli. I like to combine it with Oregon grape, which is cooling. It's Great for the heart and circulation in the heart. Again, good for indigestion and a healthy nervous system. And lymph flow. It does warm the body, like calendula, from the core to the periphery, which is the outside of your dog. The skin, it relaxes, it tones, it stimulates. It can be relaxing and stimulating at the same time because it's stimulating circulation.

Okay.

That is one of the reasons why, you know, in high, high amounts, it could trigger a seizure. But again, you need to look at everyday use and breathe, Breathe.

Okay?

So I mentioned it was good for the gastrointestinal system. I mentioned it was good for the liver system, you know, the nervous system. These are all things that rosemary is good for. It stimulates bile through the liver and gallbladder. It can help detoxify your dog's liver. It's definitely one of the remedies in the phytoembryonics, the plant stem cells that I use for liver health. And that is the rosemary stem cell. Just a beautiful remedy. Rosemary is one of our kind of liver energy relaxants, liver qi relaxants in tcm, where there's excess tension. And as I said before, short term, it can have a moistening effect. It has an influence with increasing fluids. But like a lot of herbs, long term, you know, months and months of rosemary use can have an overall drying effect because it's astringent.

Okay.

And it tones. Let's see. Well, from a nervous system standpoint, rosemary can increase parasympathetic activity, and that is giving your dog the access to its vagus nerve.

Okay.

It's very balancing, I would say in cooling herbs, its opposite is yarrow. Or no, it's like is yarrow. So yarrow is a very balancing herb. It can be warming and cooling at the same time. It can be stimulating and relaxing at the same time. But overall, it's much cooler than rosemary. Rosemary is the same, you know, has the same effect, and it's hard to get your head around. But when herbalists have been studying this for so long, you know, rosemary has been studied for anecdotally for, oh, my God, thousands of years. So we have a lot of on the ground information about this plant, and we're getting a lot of scientific information about this plant now in this day and age. So together we can really build a well rounded look at this plant and its constituents. And it is relaxing to the nervous system, but it can also be stimulating to the nervous system, especially through circulation. Depending on how you use it, rosemary helps keep the portal vein open. And that delivers oxygenated blood to the liver, and it avoids excess stagnation in the liver, and that's really important. And then it stimulates the lymphatics and helps the immune system through its influence over basically the liver and fats and oils and how the body deals with fats and oils. It's a pain reliever. It relieves pain through the nervous system and the blood. And it's wonderful for dogs after surgery or confinement, where there's like, muscle stiffness and atrophy because of that circulatory issue or effect, its effect on circulation. It's gonna help with all that. I love rosemary for dogs that are cool, that have hip dysplasia. It works very well for hip dysplasia, getting circulation to the hip, and that makes it very appropriate for arthritis. One of the effects of rosemary on the nervous system is because it's high in volatile oils, it has a good effect on the myelithin sheath, which is the coating of the nervous system. And that myolithin sheath is dependent on oils.

Okay.

And that's a very important component of rosemary's interaction with the nervous system. Remember, it's stimulated in circulation, but also can relax and tone the nerves. So it helps balance sympathetic excess.

Okay.

Sympathetic excess is your fight. Fright or freeze or flight. Fright. Flight or freeze. It's definitely takes that out of the. Like that the kind of always on, you know, a dog that is always on or a person that is always on. You know, people that find themselves holding their breath, you know, that's a freeze. And people don't even realize that, like, if you find yourself holding your breath during the day, then you most likely are in sympathetic excess and you want to practice breathing. Square breathing is excellent for. For that type of, like, flip of the switch. And if you're a nice, cool person or, you know, any person, you could take a whiff of rosemary. I like to infuse rosemary in oil. In lieu of using the essential oil, I like to use just infused oil. Take a whiff of that, make a little tiny bottle and put it on your desk and just kind of smell it throughout the day. It really helps with cognition and brain function and overall sympathetic excess. If you're smooth switching into sympathetic excess from all of the electronic interaction that we have during the day. Rosemary is also good for strengthening the enamel of the teeth and fighting oral infections and remineralizing teeth. You can mix it with clay or dandelion or plantain. It's good in a formula, but excellent. You can Mix it with a little. With coconut oil. Again, I would use the infused oil. You can mix it with coconut oil, like a couple of drops. It's lovely for that. I just came out with my oral health and mouth course for dogs. Check that out. It should be up on my website by now. But it's also the link is on my Facebook page. We'll have a link here in the notes for the course. How's that? If you wanna take my oral health and mouth course, it's awesome. Or your money back. So I give money back on all my courses if you don't love them. I've never had anyone that hasn't loved them, but there's always a first, and I am fine. If you don't like it, here's your money back. You don't have to. It hasn't happened, but it could. It could. I am not counting that out. I think that's all for now. I, you know, again, don't be afraid of it. That's how like. Well, Dr. Karen Becker, she says the urban myth of rosemary. Yeah, like the hype, the craziness, the. Oh, my God. You know, I've been around people where they don't want to give their normal dogs rosemary, and there's just. There's no basis for that. There's absolutely no basis for that. So, you know, just be careful. And if your dog has seizures, you know, just be mindful of different stimulating herbs. You know, some herbs that are stimulating are things like sage and bacopa. Cordyceps can be very stimulating. You know, you want to not give herbs in high amounts or consistent daily amounts that stimulate. It doesn't mean that you can't give them the one off or the treat or. Or something like that. You want to really get to know your dog and what may bring on a seizure. And a lot of times it's not herbs, it's stress.

Okay.

And it's energy shifts, for sure. I will try to put together a seizure episode here on the podcast when I get back from Europe, and we'll put something together and talk about that. But, you know, it's the highly stimulating herbs that can be a problem. Again, in large amounts, but it may vary for your individual dog.

Okay.

But breathe. You know, you having good stress levels is one of the best things for your seizure dog. If you have a seizure dog. Feels good, doesn't it? So, thank you for today. I hope I've cleared a few things up or I may have made you more confused. I'm not positive what I do know is that I love my sponsors for making this podcast awesome, Real Mushrooms and Adored Beast. They are sponsoring this podcast and have been for a while. Thank you, thank you, thank you for all of your hard work for making our animals awesome and better and providing products we can use and love and trust. We need so many different companies making wonderful products and Adored Beast and Real Mushrooms do a wonderful job at that. So thank you, thank you, thank you. Thanks for listening to this episode of Dogs Are Individuals.

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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 pod 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 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, actions or other possible complications before using any product.