Wonders of Flower Essence

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. Welcome, welcome, welcome. This is Rita Hogan, and we are here to talk about dogs being individuals. First off, I want to thank my sponsor, realmushrooms.com you know, someone wrote into the podcast asking about the Five Defenders for real mushrooms for people and dogs. You'll see, like, these five mushrooms put together a lot in different formulas. I think Four Leaf Rover has the immunity mushroom mix. Real Mushrooms has the Five Defenders mix. And it's basically a mix of reishi mushroom, shiitake mushroom, maitake mushroom, turkey tail mushroom, and chaga mushroom. And they wanted to know, is this energetically balanced? And actually, it is energetically balanced. It's a good balance of warming and cooling mushrooms. The only thing that you wanna do is you want to observe your dog or yourself after, you know, at least for a week on the mushroom to see if you have any, you know, if you feel kind of off or you feel. Or your dog feels a little off. You know, I always check their ears about 30 minutes after they eat anything new to see if it's causing an immune response. This would be a negative immune response causing inflammation in the ears. Sometimes people get inflammation in the face or in other parts of their body. They feel heat when they're eating something, something that's inappropriate for them. The person that wrote in also, I'm sorry, her name's Jamie. Jamie. Jamie wanted to know how long should we give our dogs these mushrooms, this Five Defenders mushrooms? And, you know, these five mushrooms together really form like, you know, immune strength. They help the immune system. A lot of mushrooms are immune modulators. They modulate the immune system. They work with the body to help the immune system work better or work differently in a positive way. I have met people that have had been on this mushroom for like, over a year. I don't necessarily recommend that. I probably would put your dog or yourself on it for maybe like 8 to 12 weeks and then take a break and see how you feel off of it and don't make any other changes when you're taking a break, you know, don't add anything. Just see how you feel off of it. And if you still feel the same off of it, then, you know, neither good nor bad. Then, you know, do 12 weeks a couple times a year and, you know, cycle it in and out. Or do eight weeks, six weeks, a few times a year and cycle it in and out of your diet. I think that's a good way to use this mushroom. And of course, this is just general. So, you know, if you're using it for specific reasons, then that's differently. I do want to say that if you haven't tried the real mushrooms, hot chocolate for yourself, that is gout. They have a hot chocolate mix that has cacao in it and mushrooms, and it is fabulous. Okay, so today's episode is about flower essences. We had a person write into the podcast and asked, what are flower essences? Why do I recommend them? So usually with my shorts, I address the questions that are written into the podcast. But this is a great, great topic to talk about. So I am going to talk about flower essences. The doctor that discovered flower essences or that is known for flower essence history is Dr. Edward Bach. Some people pronounce it as batch. He was about 30 years old and it was in, like 1930, so they're not that old. However, there is evidence of using flower dew in Native American cultures and throughout the world. But specifically, Dr. Bak basically started a system of medicine based on vibrational medicine. He felt that there were spiritual essences of the flowers that were transferred into the dew, the water that came from the flower in the morning and in the afternoon when it was exposed to the sun and that dew, that water had healing properties. Dr. Bak was a homeopath originally, and he basically concluded that the flowers mixed with the water, mixed with the sun had what it basically was the healing properties of the entire plant found in the flower. And these were vibrational essences. So basically, he believed that when we heal the emotional in the body, physical disease goes away. And science is really starting to catch up with this idea and understanding the psychosomatic kind of connection between emotions and physical manifestations of those emotions in the body, resulting in disease. So he kind of basically started a whole system of medicine revolving around flower essences. And now you can find flower essences all over the place with different types of flowers. I love using flower essences with people and dogs. The Bach flower essences. There's basically 38 flower remedies in the Bach flowers, and then there's a ton of other remedies that are not associated with Dr. Bach that I use and that a lot of flower essence practitioners use. But one of the ones that you might be familiar with is rescue remedy, which is a Bach flower essence Rescue remedy is a blend of rock, rose clematis, Impatience, Cherry Plum and Star of Bethlehem. And it's used for fright and fear and terror and like going into Fight or Flight and getting yourself out of it. I had a really interesting experience with Rescue Remedy just about a month ago when I was doing a thing online and something weird happened at the same time and I couldn't really react. And so I got like. I had a lot of fear and I. Well, I basically, I kind of was freaking out and I had some Rescue remedy on my desk and I felt my back starting to go out. I mean, it was just. I was basically cascading into a pit of despair for momentarily. And I sprayed the rescue remedy into my mouth and within, I'm telling you, within 10 seconds, my back started relaxed, my heart rate went down, I totally kicked myself out of Fight or Flight. I could feel my parasympathetic nervous system taking over. It was really awesome. And Rescue Remedy can be used with babies. It can be used with our dogs, our cats. I really love Rescue Remedy. And you don't have to get it from the Bach company. You can get it from other flower essence manufacturers as well as that. It's usually called, you know, five flower essence, but it's a good way to get started with flower essences. So basically, flower essences are the energetic kind of imprint of flowers. When the flowers are put into spring water and put under the sun for. I put them under the sun for four to six hours and then we collect that water. We do not touch the water, but we collect the water and then we preserve the water and that's basically what's called a stock bott. And you can also use moonlight for certain flowers. I use moonlight for a few very delicate flowers that don't really stand up to the heat of the sun. But normally they are produced by sunlight and produced in different ways. There's some really great flower essence companies out there. I make a lot of my own flower essences. They're on my website, canineherbalist.com and then there's Greenholt Farm tree frog farm.com greenhopefarm.com and then there's Alderon Essences out of California. They're a specific dog company that basically only deals in flower essences. A wonderful company. Check these three out. You can check the flower essences out on my website as well. But let's talk a little bit more about these essences. So when you make an essence, you really want to put your intention for that essence in. Into the flower before you make them. You wanna get Centered. You don't wanna make flower essences when you're in a hurry. You wanna be very centered. Set your intention and collect your flowers and put em in the water and put it out in sun. And then a few hours later you're gonna collect those. You're going to drain the water off without touching the water or the flowers. And then you're gonna preserve em. And usually the preservative is brandy, which is made from grapes, which is not toxic to dogs. Sometimes you'll find people that preserve flower essences in colloidal silver. I'm not a huge fan of that. But there are, there is that preservative as well. They can also be preserved in vinegar. And you can also find the rescue remedy in dog like non alcohol stock bottle and that a lot of people freak out when they buy that because it's 0.35 fluid ounces, which is basically 10 milliliters. What you can do is you take and take a few drops of that and make it into a larger bottle in which to use. And I'm gonna explain that in a minute. So what kind of explained, you know, what a flower essence is. And basically I really love them because dogs are individuals, people are individuals and flowers are individuals. And when we match the flower with the emotions of ourselves or our dog, we can really start shifting, shifting our emotions. And when we shift our emotions, when we create negative thoughts, we're creating a negative reality. And when we create positive thoughts, we're creating a positive reality. And we really want to get our emotions kind of like together so that we are manifesting good physical manifestations of health. Flower essences can help our dogs and ourselves deal with certain types of stressors that, that we may not be aware of and we may not know how to deal with them. And their effects are very individual, which is one of the reasons why I love them. They're gonna be different for each dog and each person. But people have figured out what essences are good for what. And like for instance, one of my favorite flower essences is scotch broom. And it's for trauma that results in aggression. So it's for aggression in general. And I love it for aggressive dogs. It helps so much. And sometimes when you take a flower essence, you can get some negative behaviors that are very temporary but then, but come out. And so for that I'd like to decrease the amount of the essence like to one drop or a diluted drop. Usually I don't Recommend More than 3 or 4 drops for dogs a couple times a day. You just want to see how it works out. Oh, and there's another great essence called comfrey. And comfrey flowers are so incredibly beautiful, but they work really well on trauma, genetic trauma, different types of, you know, trauma that we may not realize about our pets, dogs that are in rescue. Another essence that works good for trauma is borage, which borage plants look, you know, borage flowers look like they're from a different planet. They're like this electric blue. They're so beautiful. And they have such a harmonizing effect on the body. I really love those as well. Flower essences basically will help align our spirits and our emotional selves in a positive way and to help kind of rectify those negative behaviors that are underlying some of our not so attractive behaviors and things that, you know, we all have it, right? We all have those parts of us that are kind of like, I would call them our shadow selves. And flower essences really can help harmonize that and make peace with those types of shadows in our lives. And our dogs have these types as well, especially when they're feeding off of our stress or when they're having an emotional situation themselves due to grief or rehoming or conflicts within the house or conflicts within their packages of different types of animals within your house. You know, pretty much like flower essences help with that state of disharmony. And when you have elongated, prolonged disharmony, that's when you're going to get physical illness. And I have found over the last 20 years that protocols that use flower essences work out a lot better than protocols that don't use flower essences. Now, do I use flower essences for every single protocol? No. But I use flower essences for the most of my protocols, and I will mix them in with tinctures or different types of formulas that I make for my clients. When you purchase flower essences, they come in what's called a stock bottle. And you can choose to give your dog or yourself drops right out of the stock bottle, and usually about two to four drops. And I usually recommend giving them to dogs about twice a day. I myself use flower essences about three to four times a day. But you can further dilute those essences in what's called a dosage bottle. And to make a dosage bottle, you just simply add about between 8 and 10 drops of your stock bottle to a separate bottle, and then fill that separate bottle with a mixture of, like, 50% brandy and 50% water. So you can make a stock bottle go a long way, and that's when, you know, when you're purchasing a Bach flower remedy and you're like, oh my God, this is so tiny. That's because you can use the stock bottle. Sure. But you can make a ton of flower essence with that stock bottle. Okay, so if, let's just say the stock bottle contains 250 drops, then, I mean, you could make 50 bottles of a dosage bottle. So like homeopathy, as you dilute the. The effects get stronger. And I do use flower essences from stock bottles, but I also use them from dosage bottles. I use a lot of stock bottles with animals because I'm usually dealing with some type of pain and really like strong anxiety or chronic illness. And I tend to use the stock bottles with those types of things, but I also use dosage bottles. And it just depends on what we're working with and what the chronic illness is or what the situation is. But you really, I mean, you really can't go wrong. They are such a lovely form of medicine. And there's a lot of ways to use flower essences, and so I'm just gonna go through a few of those. So you can basically mix the essence in a glass of water. And this is definitely for yourself. You can add about four drops of the stock bottle to your water and sip it throughout the day. You can spray the flower essence. I use crabapple a lot for any type of diarrhea, constipation, worms, dogs that have fleas and ticks, dogs that are itchy, scratchy. I love to mist crab apple all over their bodies. And I do that with a glass spray bottle. I just put about 10 drops of the stock bottle essence in there into like a 24 ounce sprayer. And I spray away. I missed my entire dog. Down with it. They actually really like it. I find that they. They really love having the essence applied to them that way. You can also use it in a bath. I think that, you know, when you use flower essences consistently, they really help build strength in the body. They help increase the vital force. And it depends on how you know how much you wanna take them. But I can tell you that for people and dogs, when you first start taking certain essences, especially if it's. If there's some type of raw emotion, you need to be prepared when you take essences because they can have a very strong effect on the emotional self. I know I was working with a client, this was a human client a while back, and she had some pretty, you know, raw, definitely raw emotion and emotional trauma that she was dealing with. And I gave her some essences to kind of help her release that. And I did mention, you know, the first few days on this essence, you may have some like uncontrollable crying or like, why am I crying? I have no clue, but I just can't stop. That totally happened to her. She cried for hours. Couldn't put her like finger on why she was crying, but knew that it just had to come out. And the next day she was perfectly fine. She continued with the essence and has really made some great progress. But you, you know, people underestimate these essences. They are, I would, they're very powerful. Especially again with that emotional, mental, emotional self. One thing I love about flower essences is you can use them long term. You know, they can be used short term or long term, acutely or for chronic illness and really deep seated emotion. You know, they can be used safely, they can be used with pharmaceuticals, they can be used with other types of herbal remedies, they can be used with homeopathy. They have, you know, a lot of flexibility. And you don't necessarily have to hurt flowers to make the essences. You can use like string to bring the flower down into the water, put it in the sun, and then that flower gets to live out its life cycle. Sometimes you do take the flowers and I try not to take too many flowers from each plant. So flower essences are very sustainable. You can use the fresh water off the flowers if you want to as well, and create a little tiny bottle. If you have a lot of flowers, you can create a really fun stock bottle just using the dew off the flowers if you want to. I've, I've had a couple mentors that have made some flower essences that way. And I really found those essences to be lovely. So there's a few ways to make those. But they are very sustainable environmentally as well as physically and can be used long term. So if you have an alcohol sensitivity, because they are, a lot of them are preserved with alcohol. One thing, if your dog is sensitive to alcohol, they probably have a histamine intolerance. So you want to look at that and you can get them again in vinegar or a non alcoholic base. You can get them in glycerin as well. But you want to make sure that you're checking the ingredients on the flower essences if in case you are alcohol sensitive. There isn't a lot of alcohol per drop whatsoever. It's hardly noticeable. But if you have a histamine intolerance or a histamine sensitivity, it can cause some aggravations and make you feel uncomfortable. And I have to say that the dogs that I have met that are sensitive to alcohol, which is very few, have a histamine intolerance. So it's a good way to figure out if your dog is having problem with histamine. Like I said, very, very minuscule amount of alcohol. Not to worry about your dog taking flower essences that are preserved with alcohol. You're only taking a few drops. It's. It's just. It's minuscule. If you do have some concerns about alcohol and your dog, just take a very low dose of milk thistle, dried milk thistle in a capsule, and just put it on the food, mix it in. Milk thistle helps protect the liver against alcohol damage. Okay. So I thought that I would go through a few essences that I like and just kind of talk about them for dogs. I know I mentioned comfrey and borage for trauma and scotchbrom for aggression. I love nettle flour for kidney weakness or fear for people. I'm gonna go back to dogs. But one of the remedies I love for people is agrimony, because especially women, you know, we all put on this happy face that everything's great, and people say, oh, you know, how you doing today? And, oh, I'm fine. I'm fine. Agrimony is really great for people who put on, like, a facade on their face. I learned about agrimony, flower essence, the human facets of agrimony, flower essence through Matthew Wood. And it definitely rings true. It's for, you know, when you find yourself holding your breath, when you are very stoic and don't want anyone to know that, you know, you might be grieving or you might be not doing so well, but you're just too embarrassed to say so, or you don't want to inconvenience somebody or make them feel uncomfortable with your discomfort. And agrimony really helps with that. It helps get you out of yourself. It helps you voice your truth, basically. And that's a really powerful flower essence for dogs. It can help with those stoic types of dogs. Or also it helps with being restless and pacing and chewing their feet, sometimes chewing their entire body. I like to spray dogs down with Eger money, especially for, like, skin eruptions and things like that. It's a good one. I mix it with crabapple for itchy scratchy things. Another one that I like, I like to mix nettle flower and aspen, which is a Bach flower remedy. Aspen helps with fear of noises. So it's really Good for fireworks and thunderstorms. Being afraid of things that they can't really figure out, but they can hear it. Those big low boom booms, you know. It's good for dogs that pee on themselves when they get nervous or at pace or have like OCD behaviors. I like to mix Aspen with fig Phytoembryonic therapy for obsessive compulsive dogs or obsessive compulsive people. Another one that is good is cherry plum. Cherry plum is good for those dogs that have a hair trigger, you know, easily provoked. They are unpredictable. You just don't know about them. Or kind of those dogs that they've got about a good 10 minutes and then they're gonna lose it. Cherry plum's good for that. And I might mix that with Scotch broom, you know, or self heal flower essence. Love self heal flower essence. In fact, if you go to my website and you check out flower essences, you can go through the different types of flower essences and it kind of gives you an idea of what they're for. And that's kind of fun. You can find something that might fit your dog. House training. Dogs that are peeing in the house, that are kind of have destructive behaviors, you know, digging up the yard and getting crazy and that are difficult to train. They do well with a flower essence called chestnut bud. That's a really good one for that. I did mention crabapple. That's kind of like a detoxifying, supporting any type of dirty kind of situation or anal gland impaction, mange, fleas. I love to like spray that all over the place. You can really see the difference with it and without it. And it's also good for itching. So another one that I like of the Bach flowers and I love this plant in general. It's called gentian. And that's really good for dogs that just don't want to eat like they used to. You know, they're not eating their food, they're kind of turning things down. Like, nah, I don't want that. Or dogs that are recovering from surgery, recovering from illness, and also congested heart failure dogs. And some of the emotions that revolve around the heart. Gentian is just a lovely plant. Holly. Holly is a bock flower and it's for reactive dogs. I would say my Pisces dogs out there, Pisces dogs are very reactive. They love to make noise, but can't stand noise. A lot of them are reactive on leash. This is a very Pisces remedy. I mix it with Scotch broom and Cellphile flower essence. It's good for aggression, it's good for different types of reactivity based in trauma. And you could add a little bit of comfrey flower essence there like gentian. It's very supportive of the heart and it helps kind of regulate the vibrations of the heart. I really use a lot of holly with different types of rescue situations, so that's a good one to know. And then impatience. Impatience is part of the rescue remedy, but it's also good for things like itchy skin, chewing, biting, licking, anxiety or different types of anxiety ridden behaviors. Another one that I like is oak. So oak is a buck flower and it's good for chronic illness. It's good for dogs that have been abused and traumatized. But the issue there is strength that don't have a lot of strength. Their vital force is kind of low. They might have some pain that we don't know about or we kind of suspect. It's also good for dogs that have incontinence. But I like to mix it into different flower essence formulas for strength. One that I absolutely love and depend on a lot is olive flower essence. This is a really great flower essence for geriatric dogs. For dogs that have lyme disease or any type of tick borne illness. It's good for seizures, kidney support, organ health, dogs that might be in pain. So you can kind of mix it with oak if you wanted to. I really love olive flower essence. Sweet chestnut. Sweet chestnut. Sweet chestnut's good for hyperactive dogs. You know, dogs that are like ah. And I like to mix it with rescue remedy for dogs that are traveling or doing shows or dogs that have exhaustion. Mix it with borage. For dogs that are severely abused. That's sweet chestnut. Another remedy that applies to some dogs, especially when they're newly adopted or they get changed in homes is water violet. And these are dogs that they seem disinterested. They are kind of like wanna be by themselves in the corner. They have an aversion to being touched. And that's a really, it's a really good one there. I like to mix that one with marshmallow flower essence which I adore. That one's a really good one. For those types of dogs it just, you know, just seem like completely disinterested and checked out. Outside of the Bach flower a couple honorable mentions, Blue vervain flower essence. It's really good for those dogs who nose punch all the time, who are pushy and obstinate and be like, you know, me, me, me, me, me. They're really good for those dogs, it's a really great flower essence for dogs that just can't turn things off. They just can't turn it off. They can't pay attention. They're into everyone else's business, and they're a nuisance when they're around other dogs. And you're like, oh, my God, I can't believe this is my dog. I can't believe they're acting like this. Blue vervain flower essence. Really great at that. For gastrointestinal problems, I like to use flower essences from bitter plants like milk thistle. Wonderful flower essence for the entire gastrointestinal tract and all, like the gut brain axis, so how the gut speaks to the brain. You know, a lot of our microbes and our dog's microbes actually will dictate how the emotions express themselves. And science is really starting to figure this out. And it's a fascinating kind of niche of scientific research right now. And I could totally geek out on that for, like, 15 million years. I did mention gentian, which is another bitter burdock root is a good flower essence for the gastrointestinal tract. I love, love, love skullcap flower essence. And that is really good for when dogs get the rabies vaccine. It's good for stress and lots of it. So it's super wonderful for those dogs that are stuck in sympathetic excess. And it's a good remedy to share with with your dog if you feel stressed out, you know, you take the remedy and so and give it to your dog as well. It's a good sharing remedy for stress. And we all know that we're all feeling a lot of stress in the world right now. So this is a good remedy to keep on hand. One flower essence that I mix with crabapple for itchy, bitey dogs is white chestnut flower essence. It's very beneficial for that licking, biting, chewing cycle. It helps calm your dog. It helps calm stress, and definitely that type of stress that's created by constant skin irritations. I did mention milk thistleflower essence, and then I forgot to tell you what it's for. It's good for anger. I like to mix it with scotch broom. It's good for liver heat. It definitely works on the heart chakra. And it's good for insecure dogs and dogs that are trying to please all the time. And, you know, dogs that are insecure and definitely dogs that, you know, if dogs get aggressive on a milk that shall tincture, because it can cause aggression, because it heals aggression. Anything that heals can cause if the Dog is not ready for that type of tincture. If that happens to you, then I would move to the milk thistle flower essence. Another flower essence that I love, love, love is calendula flower essence. Calendula is like a little bit of sunshine. You know, it brings sunshine into the body and the flower essences is lovely. And guess what? It's good for depression. Dogs get depressed, people get depressed. Love, love, love. Calendula. It's good for dogs that are weak and deficient and skinny and kind of lacking. And I did a episode on deficiency Calendula. Flower essence is wonderful for deficiency. It's for dogs that have very, like a weak digestion. They're kind of sickly, you know, stiff, and it loosens them up and helps them find their joy. One of my favorite plants is cleavers. And cleavers has a lovely flower ess, supports, kind of attachment and bonding. It's good for those dogs that are hard to connect the loner dogs and the new rescues to a family or dogs that are having difficulty trying to, like, bond with other dogs. Cleaver's flower essence is good for that. Grief can be a big issue with dogs, and I'll be doing a few episodes on grief right off the bat. Gorse flower essence, which is a bachelor flower, it's really good at extended periods of grief for you and your puppy and, you know, your dog, if that is applicable. I really love gorse flower essence for that. And pine flower essence is also another one that is good for experiencing grief or showing symptoms of grief. It helps dogs work through grief more effectively as well as people. So it's a good one. And one of the rescue remedy flowers is Starve Bethlehem, and that's another trauma remedy for sure. And for grief, it's like trauma leading to grief and like sudden loss of a pet or a violent death or seizure. You know, I recently had a horse pass on and it was pretty traumatic. And one of the flower essences I used was Star of Bethlehem. I took rescue remedy for a while after that experience, and I'm still working through it because it was a violent death and it was sudden and our whole family was grieving. Our horse, Drifter as well as, you know, I think our animals definitely picked up on our grief. And so you can definitely share these essences with your dog and they really help with dealing with issues of grief. And a lot of people don't want to talk about grief, and I'm not going to go into that right now, but these essences can help out a lot with that one more essence that I am going to mention before I end this episode of the Dogs Are Individuals podcast is Hawthorn. Hawthorn is a lovely tonic for the heart and the flower essences can really help with the heart and the lungs and it brings strength and it clears weakness in the cardiac system. I like to mix it with Hawthorn berry tincture and Hawthorne Phyto to make a really good tonic for the heart. You can use it on dogs that have cardiac weakness and require extra support. I just really, really love Hawthorn Flower essence. So check it out. If you have any questions, write into the podcast@canineherbalist.com scroll down to the podcast email and send me a question or a comment and I'm happy to cover it here on the podcast. I want to thank Adored Beast Apothecary for being my sponsor of this Dogs are individuals podcast, realmushrooms.com and Adored Beast. They really help me out and help bring these episodes to you guys every other week and every week if you're listening to my shorts. Adored Beast really excels at probiotics. One of the things that Julianne Lee, who is the owner of Adored Beast, and she's done a lot of formulation with the probiotic blends, one of the things that she emphasizes, and so do I, is rotate, rotate, rotate. Give your dog some variety in the probiotic department. If you don't feel that probiotics work well, then you need to work with someone to prepare the gut for probiotics. But if your dog does show good kind of reactivity to probiotics, I would look at rotating each one of Adored Beasts probiotics, which they have love bugs, they have phytos flora, they have a new probiotic called the Wolf, which is very powerful. And start out with one drop. Okay? See how your dog does with that. And you, you know, you just want to rotate these. You know, start with one. They also have healthy gut, which is a lovely product for digestion and probiotics. But you want to rotate, you don't want to give the same probiotic all the time. You know, do a couple canisters of one and then switch to another and a couple canisters of one, that one and then switch, switch back. What I'm saying is don't, don't, don't be afraid to mix it up. Okay, 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 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. 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