Caring People and Healing Herbs

Before I talk about Sol's herbal supplements, I have to say that my family has experienced an outpouring of sympathy and caring from many people. My music students are grieving along with us, as they miss Buddy greeting them with a couple of happy barks at the door and lying at their feet listening to their lessons. He adored them (who will let me know when somebody has arrived now?). Even if he didn't come down to the studio immediately, pretty soon we'd hear thumpity-thump down the stairs, and then thud as he bumped open the studio door and came in. I'd always have to get up and close the door behind him so the family's noises wouldn't disturb the lesson (or vice-versa). I never did figure out how to train him to shut the door behind himself.

Then there is our neighborhood. We have the loveliest folks on our block, so sad when he was struggling to walk, cheering and amazed at his progress, and spreading the word at his loss. We've had cards, facebook messages, e-mails, and phone calls, not to mention three little neighbor children showing up at the door with hand-made cards and very big eyes, windows to their hearts.

Also our friends, supporting, praying, caring, saying sweet things about our Buddy, letting us know it's okay to grieve over a dog. He wasn't "just a dog", but a member of our family.

Thank you, everybody.

Now the herbs. One thing that I've learned about herbs is that there will be a group of them that all do roughly the same thing. One group may soothe the digestive system. So you can pick any of those, it really doesn't matter. This also means that you can use one for a few months, and then switch to another just as good, so that one's system doesn't become desensitized and stop responding to the first herb.

This is also good to know because if you can't find the exact product sold by the same company, you can easily substitute another.

A good practice is to administer an herb for five or six days, then take two days off.

Something else I heard conflicting viewpoints on is that dogs' digestive systems, being shorter and faster, absorb herbs better in tincture form than in leaf form.
I don't know how true it is, but we gave Buddy both forms. Obviously they worked either way, considering his improvement.

Hey, let's go on to the next day to get specific about herbs, okay?