John Gallagher:
What are you drinking today, Tara?
Tara Ruth:
I'm drinking some nettle tea.
John Gallagher:
You may not know this, but dogs really like nettles and it's very good for them as well.
Tara Ruth:
Wow. Wow.
John Gallagher:
Yeah, yeah. In fact, you may not realize this, but a lot of the ways you look at using herbs for yourself, food as medicine, looking at your overall body as an ecosystem versus just looking at symptoms, it's the same way you care for your dog as you do yourself.
Tara Ruth:
I feel like this is just a whole new framework that's rocking my world.
John Gallagher:
Exactly. And we don't have a lot of herbalists on with us who know a lot about pets and dogs especially. So we are excited to have Rita Hogan on today who wrote a brand new book called The Herbal Dog, and she's going to tell us all about it.
Tara Ruth:
All about it. There's going to be so much helpful information about how you can bring more nutritive herbs into your dog's diet, how to administer herbs to dogs. How do you do that? Just so many helpful tips that I'm really excited to dive on in with Rita. Should we get to it, John?
John Gallagher:
Yeah. How to give your dog a nettle infusion. Yeah, let's get to it. You are listening to HerbMentor Radio by LearningHerbs. I'm John Gallagher.
Tara Ruth:
And I'm Tara Ruth. Today, we're chatting with Rita Hogan. Rita is a clinical canine herbalist with more than 20 years of experience specializing in holistic canine herbalism, and she has a brand new book called The Herbal Dog, from Healing Arts Press. She's an educator, speaker, writer, and herbal medicine maker, and she lives and practices in Olympia, Washington. You can learn more at canineherbalism.com.
John Gallagher:
Welcome, Rita.
Rita Hogan:
Hi, I'm super happy to be here.
John Gallagher:
You're just down the road from me. I'm actually just a couple hours up the 101 from Olympia.
Rita Hogan:
Oh, really? Where?
John Gallagher:
Port Townsend.
Rita Hogan:
Oh, love Port Townsend.
John Gallagher:
And then you continue looping around the 101 and go all the way south into California and eventually you'll hit Tara.
Rita Hogan:
I love that.
Tara Ruth:
Oh, well, Rita, we're so happy to have you on the podcast and we get a lot of questions about canine herbalism at LearningHerbs. And when it comes to herbs and animals over and over again, I feel like I either encounter folks who are totally surprised that their pets can take herbs or they're desperate for information and they don't know what resources to rely on. So I'm curious, how did you find yourself on this unique plant and canine path?
Rita Hogan:
I grew up on a farm. My dad was a plant man. He had this gargantuan garden that he used companion planning and manure and the whole thing in it, and would sit by him and just pester him about it. And then he would tell me to go pick the little red plant with the prickly leaves and blah, blah, blah in the right-hand corner of the pasture and bring it to me. And then he would use certain plants on our cows, chickens, and pigs, and I wish I would've paid more attention to him when I was young. I had no idea that I was kind of going to go back to my roots, but that's kind of how the seed was planted. My grandmother, who lived in the Great Depression raised 16 kids with just a midwife, and she used to go into the woods for hours at a time into the forest and come out with a big basket.
And my mom would share these stories with me, which was just fascinating. I really didn't get to know my grandmother until she was quite old. But I feel like it's in my blood. I'm 53, so when I was in my 20s, I studied Ayurveda and Eastern religions at the University of Minnesota and it didn't resonate with me. I really love it as a practice, but I was drawn much more to the Western plants, the plants that are right outside our door. I could go outside my house right now and meet violet and plantain and nettle.
John Gallagher:
Dandelion.
Rita Hogan:
Self-heal and dandelion and purple dead... The whole gamut of these Western herbs that are found in Canada and parts of the UK and the United States, and those are the ones that really drew me to things. And I moved out to Tennessee, bought a farm there about an hour outside of Nashville and just fell in love again with everything. And I started boarding dogs. I did this crazy kennel-free boarding facility. We had 36 acres, we fenced off five, and our house was in the middle, and we just lived with dogs for 12 years. And I just started noticing how sick they were and it just didn't make a lot of sense. I had my own journey with my own dog too, and I was really interested in herbalism, so I started studying herbs again, and there wasn't a lot going on the internet at that time.
And I stumbled across a few books that really changed my life. I read Juliette de Baïracli Levy's book, her Farm and Stable book, which I was fascinated by. And then she did a dog and cat book, which was all I was like, "Oh, someone in the world is doing this." And then Dr. Cheryl Schwartz, I read her Four Paws, Five Directions book, and then Matthew Wood's Five Plants as Teachers, which was so interesting to me because when I started out working with dogs, I would use very little tiny one to three drop dosages and I got great results with it and I thought, "Well, I don't know if I'm doing this right or wrong or what am I doing?" And you know how you start out, you'd start working with the plants and I had this pug dog rescue and I used herbs on all of them.
And then I read, I kept coming across Matt's books in this little bookshop called Rhino Books in Nashville, and I found a couple other good ones. And then I ordered this book called Veterinary Herbalism by Susan Wynn, and the rest is kind of history. I just kind of stepped into it and about four years into it, someone asked me what I was and I was like, "I'm a canine herbalist." And I said, "I'm dedicating my practice to dogs, mapping human physiology and herbalism on dogs physiology and herbalism." And it just went from there. I started writing for a magazine called Dogs Naturally. And then when you put yourself out there, you wonder if anyone's listening.
John Gallagher:
We hope someone's listening.
Rita Hogan:
We hope someone's listening.
John Gallagher:
Something in your book that really struck me was when you talk about the dog as an ecosystem, like the terrain theory, could you talk a bit about that? Because I feel like if we're going to talk about herbs or diet for your dogs, kind of a foundational outlook about how to look at their health is important. And then I was struck at how similarly that is how we talk about herbs for human, then of course, like duh. But it's amazing you're it doing it for dogs. So could you talk about that point of view?
Rita Hogan:
Yeah, sure. Terrain theory versus germ theory is really important in my work because when you're dealing with germs and worrying about all the germs and all the pathogens, you are constantly in fight-or-flight, you're reacting, you're afraid, it's coming from fear. And terrain theory really gives you some power over how to work with your dog or person as an ecosystem. And then we're fortifying that inner terrain, we're building resiliency. And I think that whether you're dealing with a person or a dog, building resiliency is so important, emotional, spiritual, and physical resiliency. And that's really what I talk about in my book, concentrating on building a healthy dog. And it's a way of life. Health is a way of life. It's not something we do for a day. Health can't be held in stasis. We just can't hold it there. It's Whac-A-Mole, where it punches out here and then it's great over here and we just constantly have to keep readjusting.
But when we focus on resiliency and we focus on the inner terrain, I think we can come from love and a non-reactive kind of paradigm, not reacting so much. There's some things we have no control over, but when we focus on the microbiome and we focus on the gut-brain access and how our brains and our dogs' brains are completely related to what we feed them, what kind of stress they have, how we share their stress. And stress, I think stress is one of the biggest factors in how the body deals with all of the pathogens, the germs, the things that are coming at an organism, at our dogs, at ourselves. If we are in fight or flight and we are stressful beings all the time, we're going to have a lot less resiliency.
So when we focus on ourselves and our health of ourselves, we're focusing on the health of our dogs and all of our pets in our house. And dogs work through a system of their olfactory system much more than we do. And when we're stressed out, we smell like cortisol and adrenaline and they're constantly thinking, what's wrong? Can I help? What's going on with you? You just came home and you smell terrible. You smell like I need to start running.
And I think that when we look at ourselves through our dogs, I have a section in the book called Our Dogs, Ourselves, and I really talk about how we affect our dog's well-being and they can affect ours as well. And when we focus on that, we do build resiliency because when we're not accessing our digestive system and our lymphatic system and our nervous system because we're in fight or flight, whether it be from our electronic gadgets or stress at work or just not taking time for our own selves, we don't have access to all the things that keep pathogens at bay because pathogens are opportunistic. They wait for our weak moments. So when we focus on building a resilient dog and being resilient ourselves and coming from a proactive prevention stance versus I'm just going to wait for it to happen and then I'm going to react to it, I think it's a lot better.
Tara Ruth:
This makes me think a lot about when I went to herb school, I felt myself shifting out of this mindset of, "Okay, when I'm sick, I'll work with herbs." or "When I'm sick, I'll do something to support my health and really ground into these daily practices and rituals and remedies to support my vitality, to support my microbiome." And I'm curious, what daily or regular herbal tonics do you like to work with to support dogs?
Rita Hogan:
It depends on the individual dog, but some of my favorites for dogs to build resiliency, I like lion's mane mushroom, I like ashwagandha for more cooler dogs. So I work with a lot of what's called stem cell therapies, plant stem cell therapies and I really love rhodiola and it's an endangered herb, but when you're using the stem cell, when you're using the embryonic constituents of rhodiola, it allows the plant to finish its lifecycle and you're not harming it. And so I work a lot with that particular phytoembryonic therapy of rhodiola. I love that one. And also, gut remedies for healing the gut, our marshmallow root, deglycyrrhized licorice, it works very well in dogs. Passionflower, California poppy, plantain. Plantain is such a powerful remedy right now. It's so good at negating the effects of glyphosate. I have found it a very powerful remedy. So I've been using a lot of plantain lately, and then I use a lot of flower essences as well.
John Gallagher:
Okay. Do you find, Rita, what comes up is for me is if my dog was having some health issues and I talked to you, I would have no problem implementing and going forth with your suggestions, because this is also the way I look at health and how I use herbs and diet and everything, but it's the dog's people, the humans listening to this or reading your book, do you find that it can be challenging for the human to help their dogs in this way when they might not be looking at health that way themselves?
Rita Hogan:
Yes. But what I love is dogs are such a catalyst for humans to embrace natural remedies because a lot of humans won't do it for themselves, but they'll do it for their dogs. So it opens up a door. And the people that I work with in my practice are almost always my dog people. Once we have their dog balanced out, they're like, "Could you do that for me? Could we start working on me?" But I think that we've been over the last hundred years, especially hardcore in the last 70 years, pharmaceuticals, medicine has just been creeping up and getting more powerful. And we've been definitely pharmaceutically trained and conditioned so that things happen right away. 30 minutes and it's going to kick in. And you can have some of those experiences with homeopathy and some flower essences and get... If it's a really well-indicated herb, you can start feeling for relief pretty quickly. But a lot of times the expectations and patience is what... More so expectations. What are the expectations for herbs? Why isn't this working right now? And they've been on it a day for something major.
And that is, I think that's something I work on with people, helping them understand patients, helping them understand what they can expect from certain herbs. And when you up the dose or when do you stop that herb altogether or how do I know if it's working? I think people need confidence. I love using infusions with dogs, I love adding infusions to their foods because the dogs are fine with tinctures and extracts and infusions and decoctions and all of that stuff. But people, when they start using infusions, they start communing with plants and actually realizing, "Hey, I've used plants before. I just didn't see it as using plants." Every time they grab the marjoram or the thyme or the rosemary in the cupboard, you're using plants. And they're eating their arugulas and their kales and their... You're using plants. And it's just a little step to the left or a step to the right to understand I can do this.
So using infusions is just a really powerful method for me to get people to those baby steps that they need to understand that they can do it. It's not going to harm their dog. I don't really recommend any herbs that need a lot more care, are wormwoods. And for dogs, clove needs a little more care, walnut might need a little more care. I use a different form of walnut that has a little more breadth to it. But when they gain confidence, things really open up for them, not just for their dogs, but also for themselves. Because as you know, that's how herbs are.
Tara Ruth:
Wow. This is making me think about, I personally don't have a dog, but I've been friends with many folks who had sweet dogs in their life and they've had various health issues, and one of them had to make very specific food for her dog. And it was interesting to watch over time. She wasn't really into cooking, but as she started cooking more and more for her dog, seeing her start to cook more and more for herself and get excited about that process. So it can totally open us up too. And I'm curious too, you talked about infusions and you mentioned tinctures, and I'd love to hear more about how you go about deciding what type of remedy to use in a given situation. And also, is it hard to get a dog to take various medicines?
Rita Hogan:
Yeah. So most dogs know... I never recommend, and I think I mentioned this in my book, I never recommend coming straight at a dog. It's very threatening for dog body language. You come from behind and just my Basset Hound, my Basset Hound, she gets blackberry leaf tincture every day because she has anal cancer. And she's like between 15 and 16 and she's doing very well. She's alive and she has been for over a year and she's doing great, but she gets really bad diarrhea. And nobody finds that fun in the house. Nobody, not her, not anyone. And so as long as she gets her blackberry leaf, she gets two milliliters a day, she gets one milliliter in the morning, one milliliter at night, so two mills, and as long as she gets her blackberry, her poop is great.
But you can't come at Lola right directly at her. She doesn't like it. I mix it in a little water when I can remember to do so for taste, and I'll get this syringe going. I put it in a shot glass, I suck it up in the syringe, and then I come from behind. I hold her under the chin as much as I can, and I just [inaudible 00:18:12] right there in the side pocket of her mouth and she makes the face and then she goes about her merry way. I try not to make a big deal. I don't do any cooing or "It's okay." or "You're safe." or any of that stuff. I try to be as confident as I possibly can. This is what's happening, we're doing it, here's a treat. Good girl, you did it. It's done for the day. Let's move on and go do something fun or you could go take a nap or do whatever you want, but I'm not going to make it a big deal.
That really helps. Who you're being really helps with the matter. I don't hesitate. But that took practice with Lola because she's hard to give medicine to. And then my other dogs, they don't care. They're just like, "Yeah, whatever." Glycerin based extracts are a lot easier, but they're not always the right medium for the herb, especially if they're not made by a big company that can extract the herb in alcohol first and then get rid of the alcohol and then preserve it in glycerin. If it's a traditionally made glycerate, a lot of times, it doesn't work for that particular herb. I have to use alcohol. And a lot of people freak out about alcohol and their dogs. I really break it down in my book so you understand what the science is for dogs and alcohol there, using a 100% alcohol in trying to find the fatal dose for a dog. We're not doing that.
And then we're mixing our alc between, I would say 80 proof to 100 proof for dogs, a little more with some plants, but then I add water and a little glycerin to make it more easier on the dog. But you're dealing with a lot of water in our plants. I do a lot of mostly fresh plant tinctures and you're dealing with a lot of water in the plant itself. And then sometimes, I add a little water to the mix as a menstruum, and people think that they're getting straight shots of 100 proof alcohol when you talk about it. And my dosages for dogs are not, unless it's an acute situation, they're not going to be super high. They're going to be, my maximum dose is 20 drops for an extra large dog three times a day.
Usually, I don't need to use that. Usually, 10 drops usually will suffice. And then for an extra small dog, like a teacup chihuahua, we might dilute a drop in a little bit of water and then take a dropper of that water to start out with. And then max dose is like one to two single drops. And I get good results with those. Depending on the situation, if they have a cancer, it might be a little higher, depending on the individual dog. But most dogs tolerate alcohol pretty well in small dosages. And again, for every seven drops of a normal tincture, you're getting about one drop of alcohol. And then for the stem cell remedies, the plant-based stem cell remedies that I use, it's about every 10 to 12 drops you're getting one drop of alcohol.
And then I just tell people, "If you have a problem with alcohol, just don't give it, don't use it. Or you can try to burn off some of the alcohol, evaporate it a little bit, or you can give your dog some powdered milk thistle while you're doing an alcohol-based tincture, the entire time it's in the protocol, you can give some milk thistle to help protect the liver against the alcohol. There's lots of choices." So explaining that to people can be a little rough, but I think that if you really break it down and have them understand where the science is. Because they're Googling stuff and Google's one of the worst places you can get information on herbs.
John Gallagher:
Because you can find everything foreign against what you're about to do.
Rita Hogan:
Yeah, absolutely. Chamomile shouldn't be given to dogs. Peppermint is toxic to dogs.
John Gallagher:
[inaudible 00:22:13].
Rita Hogan:
Google is just not a good place. And to find information on herbs, I try to educate people on finding monographs for herbs and understanding how you look up information on herbs. And so just working the alcohol conversation back in until people actually get it. And then my worst-case scenario is just don't use it.
John Gallagher:
So when you're saying this, Rita, what comes up is one of the first chapters in your book is Food is Medicine. And LearningHerbs, that is how we guide people, like when you're starting out and not just looking at if kale has vitamins and minerals, but also instead of taking a whole bunch of turmeric capsules for your joint pain, for example, that you can put that into your diet. Is food as medicine where you start people out in trying to understand how to use herbs for their pets or is it going right into acute care? But anyway, I'd like to talk a bit about that.
Rita Hogan:
Food as medicine is just a really important concept to grasp. There's a big disconnect between what we eat and what we feed our dogs to their health when it comes to, I would say, standard veterinary care. No one ever asks, "What are you eating?" But for me, being a holistic practitioner and clinical herbalist, it's really important to get people to understand that a minimally processed diet is really a great place to start because A, you can feed... I'm a raw feeder, I feed raw food, but I also feed some gently cooked food to my older dog and to my pug. And I also give, I buy commercial freeze-dried food as well. So it depends on the dog and what's going on for them. I also feed my cats that way. But I try to meet people where they are. There's lots of people that feed kibble and we can improve the bowl and we can improve the microbiome and the gut with adding plants, with adding more fresh food.
Any amount of fresh food additions is going to improve the microbiome. And that's really important to me as a holistic healer in that we are looking at that ecosystem and improving it. But just a baseline of where I come from in my practice, food is one of the number one components, especially because we have our dogs on the inside of our homes. Where if a dog spends a lot of time outside, air quality is going to really improve their ecosystem, even if they, in my opinion, didn't eat the best diet. The ability to oxygenate more really packs a healthy punch in creating a vibrant ecosystem. But now, we have our dogs inside our homes, which my pug sleeps in the bed and the whole thing. But it's really important that we work on our air quality inside, but we also bring up the diet and make it the best diet we can afford and that we can provide for sure. And I incorporate a lot of plants and different herbs into that bowl.
Tara Ruth:
What kind of plants do you like to add? I imagine it depends on the dog and...
Rita Hogan:
Yeah, it definitely depends on the dog, but I love adding things like turmeric is a good herb, especially for our dogs that are cool and inflamed. It's quite warming. But I love the mixture of turmeric and ginger for inflammatory conditions. It really helps with dogs with arthritis. And then I like rose hips. Organic rose hips are lovely. Chickweed, parsley, cleavers, dandelion, the dandelion flowers, which a lot of people underestimate the anti-inflammatory power of dandelion flowers. They work on the COX-1 and COX-2 pathways and they are lovely. If your dog starts to sneeze when you eat them, then they're not for your dog, but if they-
John Gallagher:
Well, there you go.
Rita Hogan:
If they have that type of sensitivity, then you know not really for your dog, let's pick something else. But there's not a lot of herbs that can't be added to the diet in the bowl.
John Gallagher:
Probably working with a lot of powders then if you're mixing?
Rita Hogan:
Like I said before, I love infusions. And nettle infusion, just a lovely infusion. Spring nettles, lovely infusion there, dried. But I also give the nettles that I'm using for the infusion in the bowl as well. So I'll do the liquid and the dried nettles that are, I like to call them spent, so they can ingest those. A lot of mushroom powders, sauteed mushrooms, a lot of, I would say, decoctions of roots, Oregon grape root, which is plentiful here in the Pacific Northwest. It's not plentiful in a lot of other places, but I have more than I could ever want or use in a lifetime right behind my house. It's everywhere. I do that for certain ailments. Usnea is real nice as an infusion or a light decoction, depending on how thick it is. But there's just so many, and I really talk a lot about infusions for dogs whenever I can.
John Gallagher:
Google or not to Google?
Tara Ruth:
When it comes to herbs, John, I'm generally not a big Googler. There's just so much information out there, which is amazing, right, to have an abundance of information. But anything you look up about a herb, I guarantee you you're going to find another website or another article that has the opposite information about that herb. Definitely use echinacea for this. Definitely don't use echinacea for this. And it can get so overwhelming and confusing.
John Gallagher:
Or maybe it says this herb will help for a symptom and it will for some people, but depending on that person or that condition or situation they have, it may not be the right herb.
Tara Ruth:
Or it might not be the right dose either. There's so many different factors that go into it.
John Gallagher:
Yeah. And so I feel like getting a good foundation and learning about herbs is really important. It's not that hard to do to get the basics to get started, but I think it's something that you infuse into your life, pun intended, cooking. So you start with the souffle or you could, it might not work, but maybe a stir-fry is better to start with and then eventually you will be making something more complex if you really get into it. But we can all do basic cooking, or at least I can.
Tara Ruth:
Me too.
John Gallagher:
Me too. So then how is this all relating to herbs, Tara? Where are you going?
Tara Ruth:
Well, it is easy to get started learning about herbs if you have the right resource, the right community, and that's why I love HerbMentor. HerbMentor is our online membership site, and we have so many courses on there like you're talking about with food as medicine, also just basic information about here's a really long monograph on Calendula, so you can dive deep into learning about this herb. We also have a forum where you can ask questions and real humans will respond to you.
John Gallagher:
And you build community. So it's like you could take a course and learn some foundational stuff using the cooking analogy like how to make a stir-fry and then maybe read that monograph on a plant, like you've mentioned calendula. But then if you're not sure when this situation, is this calendula helpful for me, well, then you can get help and see. So it's this self-contained learning environment that's-
Tara Ruth:
Ecosystem.
John Gallagher:
Ecosystem. It's an ecosystem just like Rita was talking about. And if you're in other herbal programs, it complements them as well. One of the main things we do is try to connect you with amazing herbalists out there. Just like with Rita, maybe many people here will learn more with Rita, see her live, maybe take some classes from her. Just like we have so many herbalists, from Rosemary Gladstar, Rosalee de la Forêt, Jen McDonald, 7Song, and so many others, where they may be your mentor. So we help you connect you to your herbal mentors as well, and let you know who is out there and what great teaching that they're doing too.
Tara Ruth:
Exactly. And one of the things I also love about HerbMentor is how accessible it is financially. It's a very affordable resource.
John Gallagher:
Oh, gosh.
Tara Ruth:
So if you're already in school and you're spending a lot of money on books, et cetera, this is just such a great addition to have that is not going to take a big hit out of your wallet.
John Gallagher:
No.
Tara Ruth:
And you can get-
John Gallagher:
It's like a cup of coffee.
Tara Ruth:
Exactly. Which is an herb. Yeah. And if you want to get even a discount on this already affordable product-
John Gallagher:
Like half off.
Tara Ruth:
Right? You can go to herbmentorradio.com
John Gallagher:
And that's the name of the podcast, herbmentorradio.com. You'll go right there, and you can also subscribe right there to this podcast you're listening to and find out how to get that discount.
Tara Ruth:
How convenient.
John Gallagher:
How convenient. So thanks, everyone, for taking this little break with us because we love to tell everyone what we're up to and what we're doing.
Tara Ruth:
Give you the gossip.
John Gallagher:
Gossip. And now, I am really curious to get back to Rita and what will she say next?
Tara Ruth:
Who knows?
John Gallagher:
And you talk in your book about when talking about diet, just like in your book, do you have recipes that how people go beyond just giving kibble? Because I'm sure a lot of people might be like, "Oh, okay, I'd like to go this herbal path, but I don't know how to feed my dog recipes where I can mix an infusion with."
Rita Hogan:
You can mix an infusion with kibble, which is great, and also, kibble's very hard on the organs. There's lots of... It's a highly processed food. So anything that's highly processed, it's going to be taxing on the lymphatic, the kidney, it kind of robs moisture. It takes a lot of moisture to process that kibble. So if it can't get it from the body, it's very dehydrating, it's going to take it from somewhere else. And so we want to support those organs. We want to give extra moisture, we want to help the liver process a lot of what's in the kibble. And this is a great opportunity to help your dog process the kibble more and have the body and the ecosystem be able to deal with that eating of kibble. My book deals with anyone who is eating kibble, who is feeding a minimally processed diet, any level of feeding your dog, people can use my book for.
And then I have a website called The Herbal Dog, which is a companion to the book where I suggest, I would say there's a kibble hierarchy, and I suggest I would a little bit better kibble to use, like minimal ingredient kibbles. And then I tell you about baby step foods to go over to more fresh feeding, and you're seeing a lot of more fresh feeding even in mainstream media for dogs, like The Farmer's Dog had an ad at the Super Bowl 10 years ago, that would never happen. And I think people need to realize that all of our dogs grew up historically eating a minimally processed diet, foraging for herbs, eating a bit of fruit, eating raw food and cooked food off the table. That's how it started. The convenience of kibble came out of World War II. I believe it was World War II.
We again have been conditioned that dogs need our help to be whole, and they need food. Yes, they need our help to provide food for them, but the way that we eat, if we're eating minimally processed diet, it's also a very good way to go for animals. But some people need some time, they need to have patience with themselves. And with herbs, what I really tell people is just, and I'm sure you do this too, just pick one herb every month, one herb every month. And you got 12 herbs at the end of a year. And two years, you got 24 herbs.
And as you know, a lot of herbalists, they have their little core herbs that sometimes are between 8 and 20 herbs that they use all the time. And so if you know 24 herbs that you can work with over the seasons with your dog, you're really getting somewhere and how your dog reacts to that herb. I deal with energetics in my book, and that really helps. Even just finding out if your dog's more warm or cool can really help dictate what herbs are going to be more successful to them.
Tara Ruth:
Can you talk a little bit more about that? I remember earlier you saying you might work with ashwagandha if a dog's a little more cool or... Yeah, can you elucidate more about herbal energetics for dogs?
Rita Hogan:
Absolutely. Formulation is an art and there's a lot of formulas on the market, some good, some not so good. But as a formulator, I can help balance out a formula. But what I've noticed over the last 20 years with dogs is that the more chronic disease or comorbidities, the more serious a dog is as far as having a saturation of different types of symptoms that really impede their quality of life, they're more sensitive they are to herbs that are not energetically appropriate for them. And the things that I've noticed that can change an energetic from warm to cool are things like splenectomies and some pretty high profile pharmaceuticals. Other than that, they tend to be born warm or cool and then work their way down that spectrum. Dogs that are cool tend to get colder as they get more ill. And then dogs that are warm tend to get hotter as they get more ill. I would never recommend... If a dog was hot and damp, I wouldn't recommend turmeric to them.
In fact, it would most likely end up making them feel worse. But it would be perfect for a dog that's cold. I'd mix that with ginger and maybe a little Ceylon cinnamon, and that might be a really good tonic for that dog to warm up that core, add a little calendula in there, and warm up that core, and get them feeling better. And then for dogs that are super hot, we want to cool them down. And as you know, herbs work on a system of opposites and we want to cool them down. So we might do a nice blend of cooling herbs. And if people can just understand if their dog is more warm or cool, it really can give them a palette in which to work from. Here are your neutral to warming herbs. Here are your neutral to cooling herbs.
And it depends on how it mixes with the dog, it depends on the herb itself, and they have different levels of warm to cool. Ginger is much hotter than turmeric for the most part. It really helps people to understand and to simplify, okay, here's my palette, this is what's going on with my dog, let me figure this out. Or if they look at a formula and that formula is predominantly cold, really cool to cold formula, if their dog is already dealing with disease and is much having a hard time with their core getting warm... Like gentian, right? We don't want to give that herb to that dog. It usually ends up... It's really horrible actually to give that type of herb. It ends up with that dog having much more symptomatic response.
John Gallagher:
And you go a lot further into energetics in the herbal dog as well?
Rita Hogan:
Yes, I do. And I try to break it down and simplify it as much as I possibly can.
John Gallagher:
Okay. So if you were to take in your book, Herbal Dog, an herb and remedied version of it that you have found in most dogs has been amazing that you're just so excited to share with folks, what would that be? I know there's probably a lot, but choose one.
Rita Hogan:
Wow. If I was stranded on a desert island and I had to pick one plant, I most likely would pick nettles. A lot of dogs have a lack of trace minerals. Their kidneys are lacking minerals. Young nettle is just a really great remedy. The itching, scratching, biting. It's wonderful for sensitivities and allergies, and it has quercetin in it, it's plentiful, it's sustainable. That is an excellent remedy. Nettle is one of my favorite remedies for sure.
John Gallagher:
And making an infusion from it, you could make an infusion for yourself, and then you could take half your infusion and you could mix it in your dog's meal, right?
Rita Hogan:
Yeah, absolutely. You can share these types of infusions with your dog. And I think sharing tea with my dog is awesome.
John Gallagher:
I think sharing tea with your dog should be the next book title.
Rita Hogan:
Yes. Right.
Tara Ruth:
The Canine Tea Party Tea.
Rita Hogan:
Canine Tea Party.
John Gallagher:
But that would be a good blog post title anyway. You got to write that one down.
Rita Hogan:
I will. It's really great. I give out this infusion thing every winter during... I have this thing called the 12 Days of Canine Herbalist, and the winter infusions is this PDF I give away every year, and it's all about sharing infusions and teas with your dog. And people really love it. And that's how you get your paws wet in using herbs with your animals. And in the book, I do mention in the materia medica part of the book, I do mention what herbs are okay for kitties. I have two beautiful cats that I use herbs with and don't want to leave out the little kittens. But yeah, cat people, they've been using herbs all along. Catnip. And one of the things that I always talk to people about with using herbs for their dog and when we do have chronic disease that we're trying to balance out and trying to balance out the body so that it doesn't need that disease anymore, is stabilizing the nervous system first.
You can start detoxing and doing all these things, but you really need to stabilize their nervous system first. That's my first step in any protocol. There's always a nervous system component. A lot of people don't realize that. There's always a nervous system component, and we want to nourish that nervous system first. And cat people have been doing that for so long. Catnip is an excellent way to nourish the nervous system, to calm it down. As an infusion, it's pretty nasty. I tell people, "Don't steep that very long. You'll regret it. Just less than five minutes. Just don't do it very long. It'll hurt." But dogs don't seem to care if you're sharing tea with your dog. I was talking to someone the other day about that, catnip is a great herb to use for dogs and cats.
And a lot of cats react to things very like in a grandiose way. And giving them catnip daily or every couple days is a wonderful way to help their nervous systems relax and be not as reactive, especially for cats, male cats that get blocked, catnip is a wonderful addition to or preventative regimen for those types of cats.
Yeah. And speaking of sharing, John, many dog guardians, owners, however you want to call yourself, share their conditions with their dogs. So we have an anxious dog, we have an anxious owner. We have an owner that suffers from UTIs, now we've got a dog that suffers from UTIs. It's amazing how many sharing conditions there are out there. It's definitely part of my paperwork for my herbal support protocols is tell me a little bit about what you're dealing with as well. And 8 out of 10 times, we're dealing with some of the same things.
Tara Ruth:
Wow, that's so interesting. All interacting and yeah, the same landscape and probably starting to have a similar microbiome.
John Gallagher:
I like this to be a segue into our second part we'll have you back for, yeah.
Tara Ruth:
Oh, well, Rita, thank you so much for joining us today. I'm curious for folks who want to check out your book, where can they find The Herbal Dog?
John Gallagher:
Yeah, how would you like them to look at it?
Rita Hogan:
Anywhere you buy books, your local bookstore, Barnes & Noble, Thriftbooks, Bookshop, Amazon. It's pretty much anywhere. I love when people shop at their local bookstore and support independent business. But you can buy it anywhere. Internationally as well in the UK, Canada, and Australia.
Tara Ruth:
Wonderful.
John Gallagher:
And is there on canineherbalism.com or do you have social media where people can follow where you are on tour? Because you said you're going out on tour.
Rita Hogan:
Yes, theherbaldog.com has all my tour information. I do the regular gamut of social media. I focus on Instagram and Facebook, heavily on Facebook, but also Instagram. And then I have a website called canineherbalist.com, which is my shop and my consulting. And then Canine Herbalism is my platform.
Tara Ruth:
And what is your handle on Instagram?
Rita Hogan:
@canineherbalist.
Tara Ruth:
Okay, perfect.
Rita Hogan:
Yeah. Pretty, what do you call it?
Tara Ruth:
Consistent branding.
Rita Hogan:
Consistent on that one, yeah.
Tara Ruth:
Nice.
John Gallagher:
Wonderful. Rita, thank you so much for joining us on HerbMentor Radio. And Tara, stick around. Should we stick around for an Herb Note?
Tara Ruth:
Let's do it. Welcome to Herb Notes. I'm Tara Ruth, often dismissed as a common weed. Chickweed is a mighty spring green that offers many healing gifts. Let's dive into three key benefits of chickweed. One, chickweed for skin health. Chickweed is cooling and moistening. A topical salve or poultice of chickweed can help soothe mild skin irritation like bug bites, itchy rashes, and eczema. Two, chickweed for immune support. Chickweed is a lymphatic herb that can help gently address lymphatic stagnation, which in turn supports overall immune health. As a demulcent, chickweed can also soothe a dry cough or sore throat. Three, chickweed for nutritional support. Chickweed is a nutrient-dense herb that can support healthy digestion and overall vitality. This wild edible shines as a salad green, pesto, and tasty addition to any meal you fancy.
And just a few notes of caution when working with chickweed. Consumed in very, very large amounts, chickweed can cause digestive upset for some folks. So start slowly when enjoying chickweed as a wild food. Also, when harvesting chickweed, make sure you're harvesting in a spot that's clean and free of pollution. Want to learn more about the benefits of other common herbs? Visit herbnotes.cards to grab a deck of our top 12 herb notes. You'll learn all about herbs like elderberry, chamomile, and more. This has been Herb Notes with me, Tara Ruth. Catch you next time.
John Gallagher:
HerbMentor Radio and Herb Notes are 100% sustainably wildcrafted podcasts, written, performed, and produced by Tara Ruth and me, John Gallagher. Can you do us a quick favor? Look up HerbMentor Radio on your favorite podcast app like Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and rate and review us. We'd really appreciate it. Also, visit herbmentorradio.com to find out how you can be part of HerbMentor, which is a site you must see to believe. HerbMentor Radio is a production of LearningHerbs.com LLC. All rights reserved. Thank you very, very, very much for listening.
