Trauma Therapy & Herbalism For Dogs | Rita Hogan | HITW 175

Humans have a really hard time releasing certain things, and when you have anything chronic, you start to know yourself through that chronic filter. Humans, in my opinion, you know, they start to adapt their lives. They start to identify. And I had. There was a woman that wrote a book, she called it Wound Ology. And I was like, huh, you know, kind of revisiting that wound over and over again as a means of associating yourself with it after a while, you know, and dogs don't do that.

Rita Hogan, thanks for joining me on the podcast.

I'm super excited to be here.

Yeah, me too. I thought it'd be, like, nice change of pace because I cover a lot of psychology, you know, human healing stuff, and so. So I thought it'd be great to focus on canine healing and especially like a kind of a Western herbalist approach to that. Very much in line with, you know, what we practice here in our home on ourselves and with our dog. So. I love your book. I mean, it's like the. The encyclopedia for herbal dog care.

Thank you. I've worked really hard on it, and it's just a natural kind of flow from the practice that I've had over the last couple decades and what I've learned. And it's. It's a book basically based on my practice and, you know, what my mentors have taught me and what, you know, everything goes through your own filter and comes the other side. And so, yeah, I'm pretty excited about. Makes me happy. Yeah.

Cool. I gotta ask first. Your book is dedicated to your pug, Francis, and just want to check in. How's Francis doing?

Francis passed away. Francis passed away a while back. She. I talk about her in the book. You know, I believe she died of a broken heart when she lost her bonded pair, Finbar. You know, her tail never came back up. And I was in a very stressful situation in my life then, and, you know, our dogs teach us so much, and I didn't. I wasn't paying attention, you know, I wasn't paying attention like I should have been. But she was my best friend. Like, she was the best, and she was such a great pug and such a great dog, and, you know, everything that a dog is, she was definitely that.

But.

Yeah, now I have five other dogs. But, you know, like, some dogs just really hit us hard, and she was definitely one of those dogs.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been through it. What is it about pugs that you love?

You know, I just love their little personalities. I love. I love making them feel good because a Lot of the things that people believe about pugs, you know, like good nutrition and herbs and. And energy. Medicine can shift those things considerably. And I love the way they interact with you. And they're. You know, a lot of them are compact. Like, a lot of my pugs have been small, and they just bring such joy. They're always happy and fun. And I've always had hearty little pugs, so I've. You know, I rescued so many of them, hundreds of them, with a girl in Nashville and. Or a woman in Nashville, and just. They were all so fun, you know, 99.9 of them were. We had a couple that were challenges, but. But definitely from abuse. But, yeah, I just love the. You know, And I love the. You know, this sounds just weird, but they have a little pug smell to them. They have a little pug smell. I don't know what it is, but it's like puggy perfume. And they all have this little smell to them, and I love that as well, you know, because, you know, I don't know, when you spend your life with dogs and. And everything, I see your little dog on your lap, cutie. You know, you. They just. Pugs have a little smell to them. I have two black pugs right now and Figgy Nubbins and Ronan, and they both have the same little smell, and my other dogs do not. So, I don't know. Just. Just cute. Love them.

Is it. Is it different than the kind of. I call it like the Fritos, when their paws have that kind of yeasty smell?

Yeah, yeah. No, it's different than that smell. Yeah, yeah. And it may be a combination. You don't know. Like, maybe it's a combination. I don't know. But their. Their ears and their little heads smell. Have a little smell to them that, you know, of all the pugs that I've had, they all smell the same.

Well, next time I see a pug, I'm gonna have to get up close and huff on a pug.

Yeah. So you're absolutely adorable.

Yeah. This is little Suki.

Hi, Suki.

She's a little mutt. We think Chihuahua, some blue heeler and rat terrier.

Well, she's a good orb. I had a rat terrier, and I love Chihuahuas. She's cute.

Yeah, I know. She's a beauty. She was a rescue. So she came with some socialization issues. She's got some fear aggression that I've been really trying to work with and learning a lot about over the past couple years that we've had her in her home.

Well, there's a, there's a great plant here, here near us. There's a great plant. It's invasive. It's the scotch broom.

Really? Broom? Yeah, we get tons of it around here.

Okay. So it's, it's going to bloom soon. Right. So take some, you know, ask permission, but take some flowers, don't touch them. Put them in water and preserve that water, you know, make a flower essence out of the scotch broom. It's awesome for moving anger through the liver and especially anger as a trigger. Right. That sounds like what she's got, anger as a trigger. And I would mix that with a. I'd probably get. Start giving her some nettles. You know, even the, even the flower, the flower essence won't be a while for round. For a while. But even like just a tea of the nettle leaf along with that scotch broom flower essence could be very life changing for any dog that has reactive fear aggression.

I was going to ask you about it. So that's fantastic. And I love that it's all the things that grow around here too. Yeah, it's interesting. Like there is this thing about correspondences, right. Like nettles, they've got their stingers, very kind of spiky plants. And so you're saying that that could help calm some, some fear aggression.

Yeah. And nettles work on the kidneys and fear comes from the kidney and anger comes from the liver. So you know, when they come to end, the kidneys and liver and lymphatics and all that stuff are so interconnected, everything's connected. And when you support the kidneys, fear goes away in the most part, depending on where that fear is originating from. But my first bet is always on the kidneys. And then when you have anger as a trigger, reactive aggression, you know, the liver's at play. But I have found that scotch broom, the flower essence of, of the flower is just so powerful for anger as a trigger.

Amazing. Yeah, she was, we don't know a whole lot about her history. We got her from a rescue on the mainland here and you know, somebody picked her up off the street and then she spent like her first year with an elderly lady who never took her out and socialized her. So we got her after that. So, you know, with her, a little small dog imagining her early life on the street. You know, sometimes a good offense is the best defense, you know, and so instead of running away and cowering, she'll go toward whatever she sees as some kind of threat. It's Just unfortunate, because, like I say, she's 99% amazing. She's the funniest, smartest little dog we've ever had. And she's got this issue that limits her life and limits our life.

It sounds like she's got, like, a good imprint of. Of something. You know, one thing that's good for that is comfrey. Flower essence.

Comfrey help kind of clear that imprint.

Yeah, you can. You can. I would use the three. I would use three. I. I'd use nettle. I'd use nettles in the leaf form. But I also pro. I probably. Would. Probably would mix marshmallow, scotch broom, and comfrey together as flower essences. And you can get those in Canada. Just, you know, Google it. It'll come up and someone's selling good flower essences there for sure. And I would mix those three together and give her three drops in the morning and three drops a night. Just remember, though, like, as the body pushes the energy through, right, because she's having a physical manifestation of an emotion, right? An imprint, you know, energy that is most likely trapped in her fascia. And so, like, massage and massage. Or I see that you have some healing bowls. Wait, there it is. Healing bowls there. You know, some sound healing can help, too, but, like, with energy medicine combined with flower essences can really push that through. But don't be surprised if she has a day where she feels extra aggressive or, you know, has some moments where that energy's moving through. There's one book that I would highly recommend. It's called four paws, five Directions. So she's on the back of my book. I read. I read this 20 years ago, and it changed my life. So. But in here, Cheryl has some wonderful diagrams of. Of the meridians, right? So what I would. And you can also rub those flower essences into the kidney and liver meridians. Rub them right on the meridian. Just take, you know, just drop a couple drops of liquid there and rub them on there. You can just make a flower essence, you know, put it in the sun. If there's no sun, just leave it out for about six hours in the water and then cut it 50, 50 with brandy. So 50% brandy, 50% flower water. Just don't touch it. Don't put your energy into it, so don't touch it. Just pour it in there like a little glass container, and then do 50% water, 50% brandy. And you could also use glycerin. I don't like it as much at all, but I like distilled things for flower Essences, but just like three drops, so twice a day. And you can rub them into those meridians. And you can Google those meridians as well. I'm a book person, so you can Google those meridians, but rubbing them into those meridians, it's awesome. I guarantee she'll be a completely different dog in a year. Like, just probably way before that. But, you know, sometimes those emotions are. And coupled with massage, right. A lot of those emotions get trapped in the fascia. And when you move. When you move, when you massage and help the lymphatic start moving, all of that. All of that emotion gets stored, you know, in the fascia. And also, I. I personally believe. It's just a personal belief is that some of those emotions get stuck in the matrix, the interstitial fluid in the body. And once you help the lymphatic and help move the energy. Right. The flower essences will do the work. Yeah, it's really great.

Yeah, she definitely. I always massage my dogs that. I love giving them that. But, you know, with her, she's been the kind of. She's had the most challenges for us of any of the dogs that we've had. And I've often thought, you know, like, if what I. The healing that I experienced through working with plant medicines, if that could somehow be adapted to dogs. You know, like, I often thought, like, if Suki could just have, like, an ayahuasca session with a bunch of other friendly dogs, it might help change her response to dogs. You know, that's so ingrained and kind of imprinted on her.

So, yeah, she doesn't need ayahuasca. She can definitely use. She definitely can use flower essences. Another thing that is nice. I don't know if it's available up in Canada, but there's a company called Feral Fungi, and they make mushroom essences, which are nice. But, you know, dogs are really conducive to plant medicine, and they don't get in their way like humans do. But, you know, if you know anything about which I. I believe you do, energy medicine, you know, things imprint, and they can, again, get in our tissues and get in our, like, ethereal surfaces and just stay there until you're triggered. Like, you know, I've dealt with a lot of dogs that are triggered. I've had one myself. I know how it can affect. Negatively affect your life. You know, like, it just. It can be a big problem when dogs are triggered and you can't bring them places and, you know, they're fine unless they see another dog. And that can be an issue. So working through that is not only beneficial for yourself, but it's also beneficial for the sympathetic nervous system of your pup. You know, look at. She is completely relaxed right now, doing very well. But I'm sure that if someone walked in the room with a dog that she didn't like, she would. She would trigger like that, you know, so. And the beauty of that is you can tell when it's working because she won't trigger like, she was, for instance, my dog gertie. She's. She's 85 pounds, okay? She's. Her head is massive. It's huge. I love it. But she is dog aggressive, and she used to be pretty much every animal aggressive. Our chickens got into our front yard, and the two of them, and we, like, you know, totally went into fight or flight, realized we saw him outside. I'm like, oh, my God, Gertie's out there, right? And she's just sitting there with the chickens, right? Because, you know, you don't really want to try that out. Like, yeah, you know, like, well, it'll happen if it'll happen, but, you know, you work on it and work on it. And I was like. We were all just like. Like, this is crazy. She has made a recovery. Like, she is sitting out in the yard with our chickens on a daily basis, which would never, ever happen. Like, that's not something, you know, like, oh, God. You know, so her prey drive and her. Her need to shake and kill. That's. That's what she used to do. It's not there. It's not. So, you know, a lot of those flower essences and stuff that we've given Gertie, obviously, are doing wonders for her. You know, I'm not gonna try her out with a small dog. It's not happening. But, yeah. Bet you any money that she would be so much better than she used to be. I mean, it's different with a tiny dog, right? But she's huge, and she could kill a tiny dog like that. Like, you know, chicken, they can fly and do stuff, but she didn't even go near them. She just sniffed them and went, I guess it's a chicken, you know, and just. I mean, we were all just like. We had tears in our eye. I mean, it was just because, you know, when.

Moment.

When you're with dogs that are reactive and dangerous. Because she is so big, right? She's dangerous. You have to be careful, and it does affect your life.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It can be really limiting. Yeah. She's got Just around the corner from us, our neighbors who are super kind of chill, wonderful people. Any of the dogs they've had, and they're all kind of like Boston pug mixes. They're little, you know, short nose dogs. But she's from the get go, always been fine with those dogs. They're her little buddies. Even the female, because, you know, with other small male dogs, she can be okay. But. And so seeing them play together just. I know what you mean. It's like, oh, my God, it makes me so happy.

Yeah.

Just that she can have little friends, you know?

Yeah, yeah. Gertie's got some sisters here and. But every now and then she hauls off and cracks them. But it, it hasn't happened in a really long time. So, like, it is limiting and, and you want, you want them to clear that. I mean, and it does negatively affect us as well, and it, it negatively affects them. So, you know, give that a try.

Give it a try. Yeah. Oh, thanks so much. It's a, it's, it's gives me some hope, you know, that things can shift for her.

Oh, yeah.

Because it's not just about the way it limits our life. But I know how much her life is limited and how much she would get out of having more, more canine friends, you know?

Yeah. And, and not going into that kind of reverberating. I gotta protect him. And it just, it's kind of a mess.

Yeah. Because then we end up like, kind of reinforcing that association she has already. It's like, oh, it's right to be scared because papa's like, I can feel his nerves because I'm thinking, oh, she's gonna attack that dog. It's gonna be a nightmare. Right. So I'm already like, bracing myself or. So I've been really trying to pay attention to that is like, what's my state like? If we see a dog coming, try to avoid that kind of the nervousness or tension that I know that she can pick up on and do something to divert or just give a lot of space or whatever it takes. But yeah, I think like the herbal remedies, you know, I've often thought, God, I just need, like, to visit a dog shaman, you know, And I think you're a dog shaman. You probably don't call yourself that, but that's what I'm hearing. It's the same as the listas who work down in Peru, you know, and they help humans deal with these imprints and help to clear them and free up the energy using plant remedies of all kinds.

Yeah. Well. And the biggest thing. I do have a dog shaman friend. The biggest thing is that, again, dogs don't get in their way. Right. Humans have a really hard time releasing certain things, and they. When you have anything chronic, you start to know yourself through that chronic filter. Humans, in my opinion, you know, they start to adapt their lives. They start to identify. And I. I had. There was a woman that wrote a book. I have it downstairs, but I. She called it woundology. And I was like, huh. You know, kind of revisiting that wound over and over again. As a means of. Of kind of associating yourself with it after a while, you know? And dogs don't do that. Dogs don't do that. They don't rationalize their behavior. They have emotions. Yes. But they're. They tend to do what works, you know, and what they can get out something out of. And so they're. They're much easier. So much easier than. It's one of the reasons why I'm a dog herbalist. I work with humans, too. But I have to say, dogs are easy. It's so much easier for them to clear anything than a human.

Right. Because we don't have to kind of unpack the story or let go of the story. It's just. It's. It's more happening on the purely physical and energetic level. Right.

Yep. So you can just.

Yeah.

There's like, this is what happened, and this is what I made it mean, and this is what I'm doing, you know, where humans are. This is what happened. This is what I made it mean. This is what I'm doing, and this is how attached I am to it, you know, Because a lot of times and. And sometimes people don't want to hear this, but, you know, I've looked at it. I've looked it straight in the face and had to deal with it. Right. Illness gives us things, you know, like, I had cancer a long time ago. And a person that was helping me release a lot of energy around it, you know, asked me, like, rita, what did you get from it? And I. I was like, what? What? Stop it. You know? What? No, I mean, I got a lot from it, given the situation in which I acquired it. And I got to rest and I was exhausted, and, you know, I was stressed. And I had gotten myself in a situation where I wasn't taking care of myself. You know, I wasn't. I wasn't honoring anything that I wanted out of life. And. And we're taking care of ourselves and feeling Safe. And so it's a. It's a big, complex thing, but I think dogs just do it with such grace. You know, they. We can learn so much from them. You know, on my. In my book, I picked a. What do you call it? A quote that I love from Tismal Crow, who is a indigenous. You know, he says, we believe that the domestic animals were sent here to accept the diseases of humans and to show them how to heal these diseases. One of the things that I, you know, the things that I definitely learned from Francis is TO is grace, right? She did everything with grace, and she was so forgiving, and she didn't hold people to their darkest moment. You know, she was a puppy mill breeder, and she had some dark moments, right? And for her to trust people again and for her to believe that her life could be good, and she lived a great life once I got her, you know, we had to clear a lot of energy. But I mean, that's the thing that I think our animals can definitely help us is not to have, you know, to let go of that. Those attachments and to trust again and to not use what we happen in the past as a means to not be present in the. In the present and future, you know?

Yeah.

Let go of those things.

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Have reciprocity and to have, like, we want to plant it in good soil, right? We don't want to give it to people that are negative and nasty and spend our time doing those types of things. And we want to honor ourselves and take care of ourselves, because when we take care of ourselves, we take care of our animals because we're not unsafe. You know, we're taking care of ourselves and feeling safe. And so it's a big, complex thing, but I think dogs just do it with such grace. You know, they. We can learn so much from them. You know, on my. In my book, I picked up. What do you call it, a quote that I love from Tismal Crow, who is a indigenous. You know, he says, we believe that the domestic animals were sent here to accept the diseases of humans and to show them how to heal these diseases. One of the things that I, you know, the things that I definitely learned from Frances is TO is grace. Right. She did everything with grace, and she was so forgiving, and she didn't hold people to their darkest moment. You know, she was a puppy mill breeder, and she had some dark moments, right. And for her to trust people again and for her to believe that her life could be good, and she lived a great life once I got her. You know, we had to clear a lot of energy. But, I mean, that's the thing that I think our animals can definitely help us is not to have, you know, to let go of that. Those attachments and to trust again and to not use what we happened in the past as a means to not be present in the. In the present and future, you know?

Yeah.

Let go of those things.

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Yes, yes, yes. I love that.

Right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I gotta write down James Hillman before I forget, though. Hold on.

Yeah. And he also, I mean, a big kind of principle that he followed was to honor the symptom, because the symptom is your body, your soul, trying to tell you something. Like, with your cancer, it's like, pay attention, take care of yourself, Rest, slow down, all those things. Right.

360. That's what I had to do.

And then you listened.

Right?

And then things changed.

Oh, my God. I listened. I listened and I keep listening. And I, you know, you get complacent, and you, you, you. You have to keep listening. Yeah, absolutely. I love that you do have to honor the symptom, because I, I will tell you right now, like, years before I got a diagnosis of ovarian cancer, my body was speaking volumes. I just wasn't listening. I didn't have time to listen. Is my story That I had, you know, I don't have time. I don't have time. I don't have time. I don't have time. My body made time. It said, yeah, so here's the thing. You need to change your life. And, you know, I, I was pushed to that point. Right. And I, I, I knew, like, oh, I have to listen. I have to change my whole life. And I did. And I, I'm so much better for it.

Yeah. You know, I, I wrote down that quote from Tismal Crow. There's a number of things, like, not only, like, can the dogs help us learn how to heal some of these ailments, but I think there is that, that energetic connection that we have with dogs, like when our dogs have gotten sick over the years. I've often felt that somehow we're transmitting some of our kind of energetic ailments to them, like, they're, they're carrying them. And I saw that as such an act of, I don't know, of service. It, it really touches me when I, when I think that, and I do believe that it's true. And, and it's made me more aware of, like, when I make contact with my dog, what kind of state I'm in, and that I'm not just using the dog as a way to, to release some anxiety or fear, whatever.

Absolutely, yes, yes. I mean, I talk about that in my book about the nervous system, and there's a section in there called Our Dogs Ourselves. Right. So many people over the years that I've worked with, their dogs have a form of what they have. And, you know, if you look at Francis, unfortunately, you know, Francis was in a house where, you know, my, this is just like, this is totally anecdotal. Right. But I don't care. Like, anecdotal is our experiences. They're, they're what we're experiencing in real life. Not in a, a sanitary environment, like, just in real life. And, you know, Francis lost Finbar in December, and don't quote me on the timeline, but in late December, Finbar died at, like, he was going to turn 18. And they had been together for at least 14 years or 15, 13 years, and very, very, you know, laying together every day. You know, every moment of the day was spent with Finbar, and he passed away. And Francis started, you know, just put her tail down. And at the same time, my partner of 20 years was, was dying of breast cancer, and it went to the lungs. Her father had died, and she really never got over that. And, you know, grief can settle in our lungs. And she got re diagnosed with, you know, with a reoccurrence in the lungs of breast cancer. So that was happening at the time. And then she got that red diagnosis in March. I I bring my dogs in for an X ray once a year, so I get a full body X ray when they get older. And she was 14 at the time, and I brought her in for her X ray. There was nothing in her lungs like nothing you could see on an X ray. And I think it was that was February. By the By April, she could hardly breathe. And I thought it was pneumonia, and I thought grief had settled into her lungs over Finbar. But when I had to put her down and she couldn't breathe at all, it was just horrendous. And watching your pug suck air is just the worst thing ever. And we brought her in this.