Pet Corner: Chinese Herbs for Healthy Dogs

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The principles of Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine (TCVM) focus on resolving the root of a problem, or the disharmony within a dog’s body that causes its symptoms. This resolution then naturally relieves symptoms and prevents more serious problems later on from an unresolved disharmony. For example, practitioners of Chinese medicine see canine anxiety—thunder phobia or fear of loud noises, fear, aggression, and separation anxiety—as symptoms reflecting a disturbance in the dog’s heart shen.

Holistic veterinarian Christine Bessent of Herbsmith, Inc., in Hartland, Wisconsin, describes heart shen as the ability to feel relaxed in a new environment and to settle in; animals with poor heart shen have trouble relaxing. Calming your dog’s anxiety with tranquilizers, while giving you some peace, will not resolve the underlying disharmony causing the dog’s symptoms, and left unchecked, this disharmony can lead to more serious problems. The proper Chinese herbal formula goes straight to the dog’s heart shen problem and begins to work immediately from the inside out. The symptoms clear when the root cause resolves.

What About Allergies?

Holistic vet Phil Hightman treats dogs with allergies year-round in Jacksonville, Florida. “The so-called allergy season in Florida depends on the animal, the degree of canine sensitivity to a particular allergen, and the different pollinating periods of our plants,” he explains. Hightman also teaches at the Chi Institute, and he’s sold on Chinese herbs for allergies and other health issues in the animals he treats.

How do these herbs work to clear allergies? According to TCVM, when a dog has a healthy liver, it works as a pump to provide the smooth flow of qi (pronounced “chee” and sometimes spelled “chi”), or life energy, throughout the animal’s body. A hyspersensitive reaction to an allergen—food, contact or inhalant—causes stagnation of the normal flow of qi, which results in an overheating in the dog’s body. Heat or inflammation can move to any number of places, and in the allergic dog, the heat moves to its skin. The dog’s red and hot skin meets with its normally cool body core temperature and creates a “wind” that increases sensitivity to the external environment and manifests as itchy skin.

Further, according to TCVM, a healthy animal has a perfect balance of two forces in its body—yin (fluids) and yang (heat). Liver qi stagnation and allergic reactions turn up the yang, which burns off the yin. This imbalance creates an accumulation of phlegm causing a foul odor and a greasy, gooey feel to a dog’s coat. “First you need to turn down that heat, and then replenish the fluids,” Bessent says, and a proper Chinese herbal formula will do both.

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