Five of My Go To Nourishing Wild Herbs for My Dogs

The most common wild herbs that you will find literally underneath your house window or just outside the door are often not only rich in medicinal properties but are an incredibly rich sources of micro-nutrients (vitamins, minerals, trace elements, antioxidants and other vital and essential phyto-nutrients). Another words, they are classified as nourishing or nutritive herbs.

Here are 5 of my go to herbs from this category:

I have read a lot of books, attended a lot of courses and educational programs, hosted a lot of workshops and most of all - applied A LOT of different herbal treatments, preparations and supplements in the feeding and health care program for my large pack of dogs, over the years. 

And from all the overwhelming amount of information I kept returning over and over again to the simplicity of locally growing wild herbs, known to many as weeds (a term I do not support or use in my terminology when working with or writing about herbs).

The most common wild herbs that you will find literally underneath your house window or just outside the door are often not only rich in medicinal properties but are an incredibly rich sources of micro-nutrients (vitamins, minerals, trace elements, antioxidants and other vital and essential phyto-nutrients). Another words, they are classified as nourishing or nutritive herbs.

For this post I have selected 5 of my go to wild nutritive herbs that I turn to for:

• supplementing my dogs´ daily diet (regardless of their age group)
  
  
• supporting my dogs during illness, prior surgeries, including recovery
  
  
• supporting and detoxifying during allopathic treatments such as antibiotic and NSAIDs treatments (although we do our best to avoid these if we can) and vaccinations
  
  
• natural, holistic herbal treatments and therapies
  
  
• support of our hard working canine athletes
  
  
• extra nourishment of our senior dogs and dogs with specific nutritional requirements
  
  And more.

As the picture above shows (and please feel free to share it on your social networks to create awareness for other animal care takers), these 5 herbs include:

DANDELIONS (Taraxacum officinale)

RED CLOVER (Trifollium pratense)

RASPBERRY LEAF (Rubus idaueus)

CHICKWEED (Stellaria media)

GREATER PLANTAIN (Plantago major)

You may wonder how come Nettles are not included. Nettle is such an amazing and nourishing herb, but there is a reason I haven´t added her in this list and that is, that Nettle´s safe ingestion is devided by times of year and parts of plant used, so I will cover that in some other post, dedicated to Nettle alone. 
For now, let´s just say that feeding young Nettles is perfectly safe for any age groups and/or dogs with any ailments. 
But putting Nettle on the graphic picture was not not a good option in case people come across just the picture, and not my blog post.

There are many more herbs, wild and cultivated, with nutritional value, but let´s focus on these 5 today.

We usually rotate these herbs based on their availability (vegetation time).
If you can, take advantage of the possibility to feed your dogs fresh herbs, gathered the same day. 
The advantage of these five herbs is also their relatively long vegetation period.

We feed up to four kinds on a given day, two in the morning feeding and two in the evening feeding. 

Here is a little info on the micronutrient content and some of the health benefits of each herb:
(in alphabetical order)

Chickweed

If I were to choose Chickweed for only one value, it would be its Iron content. 
Rich in Iron, vitamin A and C, this herb is packed with antioxidants, cooling properties, ability to improve digestion, protect mucous membranes of the intestines, soothe skin irritation and generally tonify. 

Dandelion

Dandeliion is a wonderful allround herb for your dogs. Make sure to dry and store enough also for the winter time, as this herb aids digestion and metabolism, helps to balance blood sugar levels, supports and tonifies the liver, gallblader and related organs, is rich in protein, cleanses the kidneys and provides a great source of high quality prebiotics (nutrition for the microflora in the digestive tract). 

Dandelion is twice as packed with micronutrients than for example spinach!
Rich in vitamins C, K, D, and the B-komplex (!), Dandelion is also valuable for her high mineral content: potassium, manganese, phosphorus, iron and more. 

Make sure to utlize leaves, although while in bloom, you you can feed also the blossoms, which are delicious and the dogs usually totally love them.

Plantain

I cannot imagine our kennel apothecary without Plantain!
Besides its nutritional value with significant contents of vitamins C, A and K, and minerals such as calcium, iron, magnesium and potassium, I value Plantain mostly for its ability to improve digestion and metabolism and aiding in absorption of other nutrients. 

In any cases of upset stomach, we turn to Plantain for help to soothe the issue. 
The dogs love its cooling soothing properties and it is incredible to watch them in relief after a few doses of a strong tea or infusion. 
We turn to Plantain even with chronical cases.

Raspberry Leaf

Another Iron, vitamin C, A and E rich, nutritive herb, with digestive aiding properties. Raspberry leaf is also my favorite herb to go to during stomach upsets, indigestion and diarrhea as it helps to prevent dehydration.

Raspberry leaf is also a valued ally for our girls in heat, supporting dog mamas to be during the entire pregnancy and also couple weeks after the birth. 

If no other herb is on hand, I often use Raspberry leaf tea as an eye rinse, too. 

Red Clover

Another excellent nutritive/nourishing herb containing the B-complex, vitamin C, calcium, magnesium, potassium in significant levels. 

Red clover is rich in protein, similar as Dandelion.

The immune system and blood tonifying and cleansing properties, along with its antioxidant, anti-cancer and nutritive properties put Red Clover right in my top 5 herbs for our dogs.

We have had some incredible results with Red Clover tea and tincture used in the treatment of several of our girls with cancerous tumors on their milk glands (similar to human breast cancer). Speciffically Snowy and Comet´s tumors stopped growing and Snowy´s encapsulated after 3 months of treatment. (I will write their stories in depth as they are truly remarkable and my experience may help someone else). 

Red clover was one of the main herbs in my very detailed protocol and treatment for my beloved Taz, aiding in her battle against cancer, allowing her to have a great quality life, extended by two years against all odds (and prognosis), when allopathic treatment was not even possible. . 

The success of herbal treatments mostly rely on several factors:

1. The quality of the herbs, including how were they stored before you got them

2. Preparation form or method

3. Dosage

4. Length of treatment

5. Possible interactions with allopathic medication 
(these top 5 herbs are known to have very little to none, as they belong to the category of nutritive herbs (same as vegetables, fruits, berries, etc.)

Are you interested in learning how to harvest, store, process, prepare and integrate herbs to your dog´s diet and apothecary?

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