Intro 0:00
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Naturally Healthy Pets podcast. I'm your host, Dr Judy Morgan, and my guest today is Rita Hogan, author of The Herbal Dog Canine Herbal Handbook. She's a canine herbalist. She's amazing. Today we are going to cover detoxing heavy metals with plant stem cell therapy. I guarantee your mind is going to be blown in the next 60 minutes or so. There's so much information packed in here. Stay tuned.
Dr. Judy Morgan 0:38
I'm actually really excited about our conversation today. And you know, when you have a really, really cool book like this with a matching shirt, it means you must know what you're talking about. And actually, Rita Hogan does know what she's talking about, so this should be a fun conversation. Thanks for joining me today.
Rita Hogan
Thank you. I'm excited to be here.
Dr. Judy Morgan
So today we want to talk about detoxing heavy metals with plant stem cell therapy. So there's a lot in that one sentence that we have to unpack. First of all, we need to talk about heavy metals, how they get into our dogs, and you know, how long they stay there, and why it matters. And then we're going to figure out what plant stem cell therapy even is, and how that can fix the problem. So how, what kinds of heavy metals do we see as toxicities in our dogs?
Rita Hogan
There's, well, there's a lot of them there, you know, there's lower amounts like cadmium and things like that that can build up. You know, almost every any metal can build up, you know, like copper, right? It can build up. But some of the main ones that dogs are dealing with are mercury, lead and aluminum, and unfortunately, in the world we're living in right now,
Rita Hogan 1:59
or the world that we're creating right now, right almost everywhere you turn you are exposed to heavy metals. A lot are can be in households, soil, grasses, depending on where you live.
Rita Hogan 2:16
Food, major amounts kibble, lots of kibbles can be really high in heavy metals, different types of pesticides, herbicides, even vaccines, can expose our dogs to heavy metals. And again, you know, meat, you know you look at bioaccumulation, it can accumulate in the animals that our animals are eating so and then, you know, as it moves up, it gets more dense and more dense. And so we're seeing a lot more heavy metals in our dogs. And it affects everything, right? It affects mitochondria. It affects organ health. It affects circulation, brain health, so many things that it I just feel that detoxifying heavy metals should be kind of right now in our world, should be part of our everyday conversation.
Dr. Judy Morgan 3:13
You know, it's really interesting. I mean, we we're seeing now there was just a mandate that thimerosal needs to be taken out of human influenza vaccines. It's still in our vaccines for the animals. So when we start talking about mercury toxicity, well, yes, we know we have mandatory vaccines for our animals that contain mercury. Aluminum is in a lot of the vaccines as well. And for instance, our well at our farm became contaminated. It had a bacterial contamination, a mold contamination, but also a heavy metal problem. And so we ended up having to put on a reverse osmosis system, which is not ideal, because now we've taken everything out of it. We have dead what we call dead water, dead water, but we had so much toxicity there that that was going to be a huge problem for all concerned as well. So I can see how it can accumulate, so where? So I know that we can do like hair tissue mineral analysis, so we send hair samples off, and we can, we can find out. That's actually a really good way to see what's accumulating, because it'll it gives us a broader time stamp, for what's been accumulating. Where else do these metals accumulate in the body?
Rita Hogan
They accumulate in the tissues in the brain. You know, even they like, even in our fascia and in our dog's fascia pretty much all tissues can acquire heavy metals, but right down into the neurons, and that's a big deal for me, the nervous system. It dictates almost every like everything in the body, and the neurons are getting contaminated with heavy metals, which is a big problem because people think about neurons only in the brain, but they're everywhere. They're in our microbiome. They are in our our dog's hearts and their organs. And also, because a lot of these metals are fat soluble, they are having a negative effect on the lymphatic system, which is our our bodies and our dog's bodies fat soluble kind of superhighway where it, you know, it brings toxins to the organs that are going to help eliminate it, right? But it also brings, brings fat soluble nutrition.
Rita Hogan 5:37
And a lot of people don't understand the lymphatic system all that much, and it's so important for detoxifying these metals out of the body. So, you know, and you said that your your well got contaminated, I've, you know, I forgot to say, you know, water is a big, a big issue for heavy metals. So, and a lot of people were, I had my water tested with one of those little strips. I recommend that people test their water probably every one to three years, like every year or every, you know, every other year, if it's, if it's a concern for budget, you know, once every three years. But water can change.
Dr. Judy Morgan
sure, yeah, because we've had, we have two properties side by side, and so when the one well was contaminated, and I knew it was contaminated because I was getting a film on the water, and it smelled funny to me. I have this superpower with my sense of smell due to a brain injury, actually, it eliminated my sense of smell, and then when it came back, it is, like a superpower. My husband's like, What are you talking about? This water is fine. I'm like, this water is not fine. And so they came in and did the system, and I was like, Okay, we're good. Six months later, I'm like, we're not good again. Something is wrong with this water again. And he's like, What are you talking about? I'm like, I'm just telling you, there's something wrong. They came back and tested it after six months, and one of the filtering systems on this whole thing was out of whack, and the water was out of whack again. So interestingly, we have a deep well. The property next door has a shallow well, so we tested that one both times as well, and that one was fine. So it was just the level of where it was hitting. There was just a big difference in it. So I'm a huge fan of testing it. And interestingly, when we lived in New Jersey at our last house, we were on city water, and I've had well water most of my life, so it was a little weird being on City Water, and I thought, Well, okay, well, they test the city wells and they treat them and, you know, blah, blah, you get up all the fluoride and chlorine and whatever else they put in there. I said, Well, let me look up on the state and see when the last time the town wells were checked. And there were, like, three or four water towers, and they hadn't been checked in years. And I thought, okay, can't trust that water either. So it's kind of worth sending water out to be tested, even if you're on city water.
Rita Hogan
And people, I think because water is so readily available, you do need to just go to your tap or or,
Rita Hogan 8:11
I think that people just take it for granted and then, or people will buy bottled water, right? And that's a whole nother conversation. But bottled water does not guarantee you that it's free of of heavy metals, oh no, and it's also chock full of xenoestrogens. We were downtown in Greenville, South Carolina yesterday, and outside of this convenience store, I saw a pallet of bottled water that someone must have dropped there for the store, and it was over 100 degrees out, and I thought, you know, that is a perfect example of why not to use bottled water, because it's just chock full of the xenoestrogens, which mimic estrogen and they bind to the estrogen receptor sites, and not allowing Good estradiol to bind to those sites, and you've got, you know,
Rita Hogan 9:05
people displaying hormonal issues that are coming from our environment, and this, and this definitely affects our dogs. Plastics can also be a source of heavy metals and metals in general. So, and I know that some plastics are a lot of computer parts are being recycled into plastics, and a lot of people don't know those don't know that as well. And there's forever chemicals in those plastics. So, yeah, we just have to. We're just not. We're not, we're not creating a very clean world right now. And I think that the good thing is, is people are starting to recognize this. You know, with the work that you're doing, Judy, and the work that I'm doing, and all these people that care about what's going in and on our dogs and ourselves, I think people are starting to understand that no one is out there taking care of us.
Rita Hogan 10:00
You Know what I mean? We've got to do it ourselves. And back to the water. Water is very undervalued, but it I find water to be just as important as food, the cleanliness of the water.
Dr. Judy Morgan
I would agree. And we do have the big five gallon bottles delivered to our house because of when we had the well problem, yeah. And one day I went out and looked at the bottles as we were replacing them. I'm like, wait a minute, this is water with things added into it, so I'm not gonna name the brand of the water, but I was like, I thought we were getting spring water. And so one bottle that they had delivered had a bunch of additives in it. And I'm like, I don't want these chemicals added into the water. I'm like, first of all, why does my water need preservatives in and I don't get this to begin with, why is it? And then another bottle, it said that it came out of the city well, in a city in South Carolina, and I'm like, wait a minute, I have well water with a very expensive reverse osmosis system, so it's dead water, but I'm paying to buy water from a city tap in a city in South Carolina. And I just looked at my husband and I said, we're putting an end to this right now. Like, this is like the craziest,
Dr. Judy Morgan 11:22
crazy. Wow. Anyway, so yes, we, I think we don't think about the water near enough. Now that's a different whole conversation, because I actually did a video not too long ago where we talked about seven different kinds of water that are available, and everybody has their favorites. Like, you know you need to do this, or you need to or you need to do this. And I'm not getting into that conversation anyway. So all right, so we know that we're we're we, and our animals are bio accumulating all these heavy metals. And I think, you know, the one we hear about all the time is copper toxic. You know, hepatic copper storage disease, liver, yes.
Dr. Judy Morgan 12:02
So you know that one is pretty common, but I don't think that people really think about all the other heavy metals that are really accumulating, unless you do a hair mineral analysis and then all of a sudden you're like, oh, poo, look at all that. Yeah, where's it coming from? Yeah, where's it coming from? So one of the things is trying to figure out where stuff is coming from, and then trying to cut it down as much as you can. But a lot of that we, I mean, they're seeding our skies with heavy metals.
Dr. Judy Morgan 12:28
It's raining down on us. We can't doa lot about it. That's believe aluminum. Yeah, a lot of aluminum. So, you know, so a lot of it we we can't control. So we know what's accumulating. How can we help fix it? So we want to talk about plant stem cell therapy. So first we have to we have to define that. Yeah, what are plant stem cells and what is plant stem cell therapy?
Rita Hogan
So plant stem cell therapy is the embryonic components of plants, and you find these in germinating seeds, the buds of leaves, the buds of fruit, the
Rita Hogan 13:06
rootlets that you are that come off the roots, and it's and the the young tissues. So, you know, like Blackberry, it's, it's the young tissue, and, you know, it's about this tall, it's a little new growth, and these types of and what's interesting is, some of the remedies for plant stem cells, you have a picking time of it could be days or just a couple of weeks that you have to pick them In order to make the remedies. So it's a process. But
Rita Hogan 13:45
the interesting thing is that these types of constituents that are in all of these embryonic parts of plants have undifferentiated cells, and just like human stem cells, right? And they go, they and lots of hormones like gibberellins and auxins and cytokines and and it, it. It offers us a way to detoxify the body and also to support the body, because one of the things that they have is they're super high in antioxidants because they're concerned with the growth of the plant, the protection of the plant, the evolution of the plant, right? All of the things that our stem cells do, they help us elongate, right? They help they help telomeres. They help mitochondria. We want everything. We want our cell replication to be awesome, right? Plant stem cells do all those things. And the interesting thing is that our dogs and ourselves have such an innate relationship genetically with plants, going back since the beginning of time. And what's interesting about these plant stem cells is they have very high amounts of really good chemicals, like resveratrol, right? Grapevine, which is not poisonous to dogs, because it's the vine is, it's one of the highest sources on the planet of that particular chemical, or hyaluronic acid, glutathione, SOD, Superoxide dismutase
Rita Hogan 15:22
you know, these are all things that help clean organs and help the liver work better, and help our hearts work better, and our dog's hearts work better. All of the systems, they're really high in like trace minerals, and some have high amounts of macro minerals, like black currant. The stem cell of black currant, 10 drops of that particular remedy has over 1000 milligrams of vitamin C, which is a lot, yeah, right, bioavailable vitamin C, right? And so the trace minerals that they're offering are are bioavailable, but not in the same way as synthetics, right? That the body knows how to balance them. And so I when I discovered plant stem cells about a decade ago, I was just blown away. And I've been working with them since, and I just got back from Italy on a stem cell research research project. And what's really awesome is that these plant constituents produce their own light. So we went to a lab where they're, you know, they're made this guy named Dr Joseph Canelo works with a lot of plant stem cell research. In fact, there are some of the most researched plants in the world that are not standardized.
Rita Hogan 16:49
So they research them as they are, and they give off their own light, and the light actually stays in the cell for, I think, like 10 to 15 days, after every dose. Yeah. So it's that, like, blew me away because they showed us the light, the photosynthesis and the light that they were giving off under the microscope, right in spectrometer or something. I'm not a I'm not a chemist by any means. I'm a mad scientist, but not a chemist and and that was really interesting in that they are so regenerative, they're a part. I definitely would put them in regenerative medicine, and they are completely detoxifying, and they don't overwhelm the system. I have never experienced them giving like a healing crisis, like a hexamer effect, not saying it couldn't happen with the right dosage, but I've never experienced that. And you can use them in a homeopathic way, or you can use them in a mother tincture, which would be a full plant stem cell, way in which I use most of them that way.
Dr. Judy Morgan
This is so cool. And while my brain keeps screaming, is because I tend to look at everything from a Chinese medicine standpoint. I'm like, this is Jing tonics. Jing is the life essence. And so when I talk about Jing tonics, I'm like, You want baby foods, like the baby part of the plant, which is exactly what the stem cell is. It's these little germinating parts of the plants. So, I mean, it makes, and it's, it's so cool, because when you look at things, you know, you say, Oh, this is Chinese medicine. This is Western herbalism. This is Ayurveda. It's just another way of naming the same thing, like we know that that's the life essence. So, you know, what do stem cells do? They give rise to mature cells, and they can differentiate in a lot of different ways, and that's so so for those of you who are into the TCVM, we're talking Jing Tonics here. We could just give it another name, or we can call it plant stem cell therapy. Really cool. So we're going to take a break to hear from our sponsor, and when we come back, we're going to talk about some of the remedies that Rita likes to use, and how to use them, and where you can find them if you don't feel like going out and making your own remedies. But she might be able to tell you how to do that too. Stay tuned.
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PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT #2 20:45
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Dr. Judy Morgan 21:31
welcome back. You're listening to the Naturally Healthy Pets podcast. I'm your host, Dr Judy Morgan, my guest today, Rita Hogan, who is the canine herbalist. We are discussing heavy metals and plant stem cell therapy, which is really fascinating. So how do the the plant stem cells remedies that that you make or use? How are they detoxifying the heavy metals out of the body? I mean, are they binding them, or are they
Rita Hogan
Yes, so they got the good thing is, is that they go right into the cell and they bind and take it out. Now, you can use a binder if you want. You can use like, you know, I love human confovic acid. You could use modified citrus pectin. You could use, you know, certain types of zeolite if you want to chlorella.
Rita Hogan 22:31
You can use those types of binders if you if like, if you feel that you want to, but not necessarily need to.
Rita Hogan 22:39
I've used them with or without binders. Sometimes things go quicker with a binder, but the science has proven that they don't necessarily need a binder.
Dr. Judy Morgan
Okay? And is this something that you recommend that the animals are test? First of all, how would you test for heavy heavy metals? Would you use hair mineral analysis.
Rita Hogan
I would use hair mineral analysis. Do you have that on your site? Yes, you do okay.
Dr. Judy Morgan
I think we have a VDI. Yeah. VDI Lab Does it, yeah? Parsley Pet, does it, yes. Peter Dobias, I believe he does. Ava Frick. Yeah. So there's a lot of drift places can be done, yeah.
Rita Hogan
So I would, I would look at hair mineral analysis. I would look at, you know, you can also do bloods for that as well, but I would do a combination, because they look at the they look at the body differently. Those tests, and they're, you know, these types of testing, just like, you know, omega three fatty acid testing, and looking at inflammation, they or the or testing the microbiome, these types of testings, I feel are so important to give you the information so that you're just not throwing things and hit at the wall and hoping they'll stick. You know, along with vitamin D testing, I know you have that on your site. I send a lot of people to your site for that, because we we need to know these things. And these are things that I tell people, you know, instead of buying that flea and tick med, right, put your money into these types of testing, because these types of testings are going to build resilience in your dog, right? You're going to know what you what you need to address, versus just kind of, now, does my dog have a vitamin mineral deficiency? I don't know. You know, lots of things are vitamin mineral deficiency. And when you know what you're dealing with, if you know what type of heavy heavy metals you're dealing with, just had a dog do a hair and mineral analysis came back with really high levels of aluminum. You know, trying to figure out where that's coming from. Pretty much figured that out. You know, she's been given the canned topper for eons, right out of the can.
Rita Hogan 24:52
And also, I think that when there's high aluminum you're going to get issues with dementia or cognitive decline, and this dog is going downhill quick, right? But did the hair and mineral analysis skyrocketing levels of aluminum? Okay, and probably water too. Yeah, they weren't. They were just on city water, not filtering anything. Oh, okay, yeah, another issue.
Dr. Judy Morgan 25:25
Okay, so they're gonna bind it, and then they also have that antioxidant effect. So they're just making the cells healthier in general. So once this the they're binding these heavy metals, then, are they? Are they still staying in the body, just bound up? Or is does that enable the cells to then process them and eliminate them?
Rita Hogan
Interesting thing about almost all stem cells is that they activate the lymphatic system. They make it work better. They have a whole bunch of constituents that support the liver the kidneys and they are have an affinity towards the elimination organs. So, you know, science has told us, Hey, we've used these remedies for these types of of heavy metals based on their studied constituents, right?
Rita Hogan 26:21
But that stem cell does a whole bunch of things inside the body, right? And there's reasons why dogs hold on to heavy metals, and usually it's because of slow lymphatic function, slow liver function, stagnancy in the liver congestion, right heat in the wrong places. So it goes about to detoxify and regenerate the tissues, not just detoxify, but regenerate. And we don't want circulating toxins, right? And so one of the things I really love is that almost all of them have some component in improving the lymphatic system.
Dr. Judy Morgan 27:00
Awesome. So what are your kind of your go tos? Do you and and do you have certain ones that you use? So let's say this dog that just had aluminum toxicity. Do you have a specific stem cell that you would go to for aluminum? So does it depend on what metal is? Is high?
Rita Hogan 27:20
So, like I said, there's been a lot of research. It's not here in America. The research comes out of Italy, Romania and mostly Bulgaria, and the ones that are for aluminum. Okay, so bilberry, bilberry stem cells. I believe it's the butt of the fruit and some of the really immature fruits that are just starting to form,
Rita Hogan 27:45
the stem cells of bilberry are excellent, I would say, number one at removing aluminum. And then we have a plant called Virginia Creeper, and a stem cell of Virginia Creeper, and that's, I believe, young tissue, and then propolis. So propolis, they do a stem cell of propolis, they what's called a spagyric We can talk about that in a minute. But propolis, as itself, is an embryonic component, right? It's an embryonic component of the whole B process, and Propolis is amazing. The like I use regular propolis, but I also use a spagyric phyto embryonic therapy of propolis. It tastes
Rita Hogan 28:35
horrible, horrible. It's very, very astringent. So you have to mix it with something. You can't just put it in your dog's mouth. You have to mix it with something water or raw raw milk or bone broth or something, because it's very stringent. If you put one drop on your tongue, you'll be like, you know, unable to talk. I find it just gross, but it is so powerful in heavy metal removal across the board, except for lead. It really hasn't shown very much promise with lead, but mercury and aluminum and mold Propolis is just, you know, superlative.
Dr. Judy Morgan
so what would you use for lead toxicity.
Rita Hogan 29:24
Lead toxicity would be grapevine and black poplar,
Rita Hogan 29:29
grapevine and black poplar and bilberry also does lead, those three are phenomenal, especially black poplar and grapevine
Dr. judy Morgan
interesting. So, and I think people don't think about lead near enough, but if you live in a city, there's a good chance like I think it was Detroit, where they had the problems with the lead pipes and the lead in the water.
Dr. Judy Morgan 29:52
When my children were very little, we lived in a house that was built in the 1840s and we decided to do a major renovation project, not thinking about the fact that there was definitely lead paint on our walls. And my son ended up, he was three, he ended up with lead poisoning and his lead levels were through the roof because we didn't think that, gee, there was lead in the walls, and we needed to do any remediation, and we had all that lead dust just flying through the air. And we found out, kind of accidentally, we were at a museum, and they were in the city, and they were testing, doing lead testing on kids, and we're like, yeah, why not? Got a phone call a few days later going, you have a big problem. I was like, oh, so I think that people don't think about it. About It. You know, if you live in an old house, if you live in a city where the pipes might be old, you might want to do a little mineral analysis and look at lead levels.
Rita Hogan
Yeah, absolutely. And it can be absorbed through the skin. You know, the old painters, oil painters, used to die of lead poisoning. They had no idea, interesting, that there was lead in those paints, right? They didn't have the scientific technology to test for that. And a lot of people that used to use oil paints would get sick and and pass away until they found out that they were high in lead. Interesting, yeah. So, you know, all the paints for the houses. I used to have an old house too, and we had to be very careful when we were messing with any of the paint, you know, scraping off and things like that. Interesting. But yeah, so bilberry and grapevine and black poplar are my three top phytoembryonics for lead in general.
Rita Hogan 31:40
I definitely would, if I had to pick one, I'd pick black Poplar. Black poplar is extremely detoxifying in general. It's one of the remedies that I recommend for herbal protocols for can't for a lot of types of cancer, and it makes the organs work better. You know? It just makes the organs work better. But grapevine is also a phenomenal one, especially if there are issues with the musculoskeletal system at the same time. Then that. That's one I would pick over black poplar, but you can mix them together as well.
Dr. Judy Morgan
Interesting. So, all right. And then you mentioned that propolis was good for mold. And I think that I did a thing for an air indoor air quality for our pets. It was one of the most interesting, like I went down so many rabbit holes researching for this presentation. First of all, I thought it was weird that this guy asked a veterinarian to be on an air quality Summit. But, you know, he had this genius thought like, geez, our animals must suffer from the OC contamination, and, you know, poor air quality. And so I it actually ended up being really fascinating doing the research. My husband was like, Why? Why are you still on your computer at midnight? This is not you like, you know, you shut down dinner time. And I was like, because this is so cool. I was ending up learning so much, so I ended up putting together sort of a mold detox. But what do you have? Are these stem cell therapies good for mold treatment in general?
Rita Hogan
There are a few of them. There are really great one, Propolis is one of the best mold remedies on the planet. So Propolis is always in any type of herbal protocol I make for mold. The other two that I really love are, well, black poplar is another one for mold. And are lemon bark. Lemon bark. You make it from the embryonic barks. You remember when you were a kid, and you would be in the tree, and the tree would shoot off a brand new little like, stem, right? And I don't know about you, but I used to, like, I don't know, I used to chew on the bark and and take the bark off, and it would be like, green and slimy underneath. Okay, that's an embryonic bark. And little did I know, yeah, like, that's an embryonic bark. And so the lemon tree, embryonic bark is completely anti mold. Interesting, yes. And then this one was a surprise for me. I didn't know about this remedy until I was introduced to phytoembryonics.
Rita Hogan 34:28
Was ZMA, so corn, organic corn, the germinating seeds of organic corn. And the interesting thing about looking at corn as a constituent profile. It's almost like any it's unlike any other remedy I've ever seen like as far as its chemical constituents, I couldn't pronounce almost any of them, right? It's phenomenal. But, you know, corn suffers from mold issues. Yeah, right. But. But within the seeds are the answers to the mold. And when you look at in herbalism, there's things called the doctrine of signatures, right? And you look at plants that suffer from certain conditions, usually hold the answers to those conditions. Interesting, yes. And so ZMAs, the phyto embryonic of the germinating seeds is just a superlative remedy for mold. Interesting. So I usually will mix the propolis, the maize and the lemon bark together. Like, recently, I had a client. It was a human client that had been suffering from mold issues forever. Like, have I've tried this. I've tried that, you know, I can't get well, I can't be out in the damp the humidity is, you know, tries to kill me the whole thing. She recently sent me a text that said she was sitting in 95% humidity somewhere in the in the Mediterranean,
Rita Hogan 35:58
and being completely fine. And I had given her two bottles, two ounce bottles, of this mold remedy. And I said, you know, take it slow.
Rita Hogan 36:07
At first. She said she was only able to take one drop without having, you know, major symptoms. And when mold comes out of the body, it's not always pretty. And by the end of the second bottle she had, you know, increased it slowly. Increased it slowly. She feels that she's completely healed, and she sent out for testing.
Rita Hogan 36:31
and she didn't use any binders. She just used the phyto embryonic.
Dr. Judy Morgan
I think there's a lot more people suffering and animals suffering with mold toxicity than what we know about. Yes, absolutely, you know. So would that help? So we know, like one of the biggest recalls in pet food history was aflatoxin, oh, yes, mold toxicity. Well, the toxins from the molds, because when they cook the kibble and cook the grains, it kills the mold, but it releases the mold toxins, and that's like, so damaging to the liver. So if we just had the mold toxins and not the actual mold toxicity, would this? Do you think this would do this?
Rita Hogan
Yes, absolutely. And there's another stem cell that there's about, I work with about 63 so there's, there's quite a few of them. I'm not, like, intimately connected with,
Rita Hogan 37:28
like, I'm not super connected with all of them, but there is one that's very good with aflatoxin and different types of mold toxins, like in peanut butter, right? Yeah. So if a dog eats a lot of peanut butter, which we don't recommend, which we don't recommend, however, if they do, you know, people will do what they do. I always recommend that they do one week per month of elecampane. And it's the embryonic roots. Elecampane is a, it's a like, it's highly well indicated, is kind of what I say. It's well indicated for aflatoxin. Interesting, yeah, so I would probably add a little elecampane into that formula, and probably, from a formulation standpoint, probably dilute it more like for dogs and I am coming out with a mold remedy next year so and I will be diluting it because dogs, dogs have such an innate relationship to plant medicine in general.
Rita Hogan 38:33
They take a lot less remedy than we do, and they don't get in their way either.
Dr. judy Morgan
Yeah, we do, yeah, exactly. We're our own worst enemies. Yeah, this is, this is fascinating. I'm learning so much, so when we come back, I want to get a lot more information on, like, where do you like I I'm, you know, in my head, I'm seeing Rita out on her farm with all these plants growing, and she's out there harvesting all this stuff and making all these things. I'm not sure if that's really how it works. I want to find out more about how that works and where she gets this, and how she does this, and how she makes them and how she uses them. Oh my gosh, so much. Stay tuned. We'll be right back.
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Dr. Judy Morgan
Welcome back. You're listening to the Naturally Healthy Pets podcast. I am your host. Dr Judy Morgan, my guest today, Rita Hogan, could talk about plants from now until next week, without stopping, we're pretty sure she is the author of the Herbal Dog. It is amazing. If you don't have it, you should definitely get it. And she's brilliant. And I think the plants talk to her, they definitely do. Yeah, they do. I thought so. So we've been talking about stem cell therapy from plants, and
Dr. Judy Morgan 42:22
which in my world is Jing tonics and how they can be used to detoxify heavy metals from our pets. And so as we were finishing our last segment, I was picturing in my mind Rita out in the fields picking all the little parts of the plants. And you know the fact that as a child, she would peel off the little pieces that should have told her, right then, what she was going to end up doing later in life. That wasn't what I was doing anyway.
Dr. Judy Morgan 42:51
So you recently took a trip to Italy to to see the research on this, and you were saying during the break that you went up in the mountains to see how they do this. So I'm imagining you don't have all these remedies growing in your yard.
Rita Hogan
No, there's some, there's some. You know, the Blackberry, the fig I have. We have a fig tree, uh, nettle bud, which comes from, like, a little, tiny bud this big, yeah. I mean, some of them I can make myself.
Rita Hogan 43:25
But what I really love about the remedies that are made in Italy is that there are spajerics. And what that means is that you make, you know, you macerate the plant material... When to making a spajeric you use glycerin and alcohol, and sometimes glycerin alcohol and water, depending on the plant and how much water that plant has in it already, they measure the water content, and
Rita Hogan 43:54
then it macerates for four to six to eight weeks. And then what they do is they take all the plant material, and you you burn it down into the salts of the plant. The salts don't burn right? And so you have the ash and the salts. And then those salts of that particular plant are added back into the tincture. And so you have a full spectrum, definitely a full spectrum phytoembryonic, and I absolutely love that we watched the whole process. I'm familiar with spajeric Because I'm an herbalist, but we watched the whole process in Italy, up in the Alps, and we also went and picked Alder and mountain pine buds with a husband and wife that have been picking plant buds for over 30 years. Wow. And just meeting those two people was just phenomenal.
Dr. Judy Morgan
And talk about a niche profession, yes, the only two people in the world who have been picking plant buds for 30 years
Rita Hogan 45:00
And they were wonderful. You could tell there. They had a very intimate relationship to these trees and these hills and, you know the Alps. I mean, we were like, 25 miles from the French Alps, right when you're up in the Alps, it was absolutely gorgeous. And we got to see the whole process from start to finish. And as an herbalist, I was like, just amazed, just like this, the whole big eyes, big eyes the whole time. But then when we went back to the lab, portion of the of the process, that was phenomenal, looking at things in a spectrometer, looking under the microscope, looking at how things are absorbed into the cell, and looking at the artificial, not artificial, but the the light that they produce themselves versus artificial light, it was spectacular. I mean, spectacular, but no these remedies. Again, you can make them. You can make them if you have access to the process and access to those particular plant buds, germinating seeds, young tissues, rootlets. Rootlets are amazing. You know? They take the little, fine, tiny, little hairs that come off the roots. You know, those are the those become bigger roots, right, right? And you have to know exactly when to pick them you know? So it's fun. I It's fascinating, and it's just another field in herbal medicine.
Dr Judy Morgan
Very, very cool. So how, how are we delivering these? I mean, clearly we're not all out picking little buds and knowing what we're doing. How are we delivering these to our pets? And we keep saying dogs, because you are the canine herbalist, but a lot of this also pertains to people and cats, and really, any animals and horses.
Rita Hogan
Yeah, you know, I'm currently learning chicken medicine right now. Oh, how cool, yes, because I have chickens, but I'm learning homeopathy for chickens and different types of remedies for chickens, but yeah, horses, cats, dogs, a lot of the remedies are high in salicylic acid, and so I only do like one drop for cats, or two single drops. If I need more, I use a diluted form of the stem cell remedies, and that's a d1 dilution, which is homeopathic, sort of homeopathic in nature, which you can find commercially. A lot of these remedies that you have to buy them commercially. I carry them on my website. You can also get them at a website called Nature Provides. I think it's nature-provides.com, and there's
Rita Hogan 47:40
other companies Boiron makes a homeopathic dilution of it that I just spoke of. There's also a company called Herbal Gem. They're most, I believe they're mostly in Europe. So there's, there's people that are making a lot of these remedies, and it's phenomenal. And they're doing a ton of research, which, which I love, because most research that's that's done on plants, the plants are standardized, which means, and it's pretty much the only way to to kind of do those clinical studies on plants. So when you see a clinical study on plants, mostly, most of them are standardized medicine, because you have to have a standardized amount in which to replicate that information. But they're doing
Rita Hogan 48:30
research on the plant that is unchanged from the medicine itself, so they're not standardizing it. And that's what I absolutely love about the research. Love about, you know, the it lots of constituent research. And what you know, we all know, like scientifically, that certain constituents help with cancer, certain constituents create apoptosis, certain like mushrooms, have those constituents. Certain constituents do this. Allergies, like many of these remedies are really high in quercetin, right different types of quercetin, like and,
Rita Hogan 49:06
and, so a lot of them are very good for dogs with allergies, which is liver, lymph and gut issues. So not only are they're detoxifying, they're regenerative. So
Dr. Judy Morgan
so cool. So how long would you use so let's say we have a dog that we've tested. We know we've got mercury toxicity. I'm saying dog anybody. So we have this being with lead toxicity, and we want to use one of your sort of black poplar or the grapevine. How long does it usually take? How long do you need to use that remedy?
Rita Hogan
Six to eight weeks. Usually. That's giving it just once a day, twice a day, sometimes three times a day, okay, depending on the severity of the case.
Dr. Judy Morgan
And they're usually a tincture.
Rita Hogan
They're a tincture. What I usually do, like, let's just say, a Cavalier.
Rita Hogan 50:00
Okay, so a small dog, a Cavalier, would be, in my opinion, a small dog, not an extra small, but a small so like 10 to 25 pounds, am I right? Yeah. Okay, so 10 to 20 kind of like a pug, you know, which is my fave, 10 to 25 pounds, and I would probably give three drops, three times a day or twice a day, depending on the sensitivity of of the dog and how they're how it's kind of inter mixing with their system.
Rita Hogan 50:35
And I would most likely test in six to eight weeks to see if the levels are going down.
Dr. Judy Morgan
And so you would test the same way hair like if you did a hair Mineral analysis, you would do that again, and you would see that in change in six weeks?
Rita Hogan
Yes. And if you cannot find the source of the toxicity, then what I recommend is giving that protocol seven days a month, every month.
Dr. Judy Morgan
Oh, so if we can't figure out where they're getting their lead toxicity or their aluminum toxicity,
Rita Hogan
yeah, or three days a week every week, so that you the it can help remove that while you figure out where is this coming from. Because my biggest thing, like, in my book The Herbal Dog, which I do cover some phytoembryonics, I explain it in there. I think I have maybe six of my favorite remedies. But everything is about organ toxicity. You know, like, you can't get cancer with the healthy liver, like a liver that's working top notch. You can't, you know, you you're gonna have a harder time getting cancer with a really well functioning lymphatic system. You know, everything is about organ function, and when you have high levels of heavy metal, organ function is being depleted, and that that you know, vitality in the body is the Jing is being depleted, right? And that's when you are starting to see rough coats, you know, hair falling out, you know, you're like, Oh, my God, what is happening with my dog? A lot of these things can be traced back to the pesticides, herbicides, heavy metals and things in our environment that are bringing down organ function because it's just clogging everything up.
Dr. Judy Morgan
Sure, and you know, we're, we're getting exposed, even when we think we're, we're doing the right thing. So an article came in my inbox this morning, and seven organic human cereals, seven organic cereals were tested for glyphosate. Two of them had levels through the roof, and four of them had pretty decent levels. Only one came back negative for glyphosate. So I mean, these toxins are in our like we think we're doing the best, we're spending more money. We're buying organic we we're we're putting the best thing that we know how into their bodies, and the toxins are still accumulating because they're there and we don't know it, and we can't see them, like we can't see these heavy metals.
Rita Hogan
No, we can't see them. And you know, I'm sure that you experienced this too when you work with someone, or when you're talking to people on a webinar, or they're giving you feedback, I get a lot of, well, you know, I put my dog on adored beast liver tonic, right for the time that it said,
Rita Hogan 53:34
Okay, that's just one month in 12. Yeah, right.
Rita Hogan 53:40
The the world that we're creating right now, it's throwing things at you every day, all day, of things that we can't see and we think we're fine, right? Right? So the issue is, is we have to find a way to support the organs that detoxify and assimilate, right?
Rita Hogan 54:04
On a regular basis, a healthy dog is a way of life. It is now, right? It's not we can't just do things once in the spring when you know the liver is waking up and it governs the liver, right? We can't just do it in the spring anymore. We need to do it throughout the year, and you don't, you need to obsess. I think that finding a good liver regimen that and you want to mix that regimen up. You don't want to give the same herbs all the time,
Rita Hogan 54:33
but I think that a few days a month, a few days a week, depending on your dog's severity and and how healthy they are, I think is a good idea. I like to do one week a month with these remedies of some sort of a yes, detoxifying, one week a month of some type of detoxing. And also I like to mix that with, and this is a different conversation, what with hormone support for spay and neutered dogs?
Rita Hogan 55:00
And unsprayed and neutered dogs supporting the prostate the reproductive organs.
Dr. Judy Morgan
Are you doing that? It is a different conversation, but now that we brought it up, are you doing that with glandulars or with plants
Rita Hogan
both? Okay, there's lovely. There's some great stem cells that highly support testosterone, healthy testosterone levels and healthy estrogen and progesterone levels. So
Dr. Judy Morgan
interesting, yeah, because I think that that's something that is so overlooked. Because for at least as long as I've been a veterinarian, we've been saying, oh, spay and neuter them. Take everything out by the time they're six months old. And now we're finding out he probably wasn't the best thing we ever could have recommended. And so we have a lot of animals that need a lot of support,
Rita Hogan
yeah, and we have a lot of, you know, sarcomas that are, you know, a result of early spay neuter. And we're realizing now that we need our hormones. You know, our hormones dictate everything. And the cool thing about the plant stem cell therapy is they're full of hormones, right? And they're balancing,
Dr. Judy Morgan
right? And again, it's a natural source. So the body can say, oh, I need that, and I need that. Oop. Don't need that. And the body can pick and choose which it will do when we give it a natural product versus a synthetic,
Rita Hogan
yeah, and just tying that into our conversation right now, we need a healthy liver to have a good level of hormones. And so detoxifying gently, detoxifying the body, is a good kind of pathway to getting a healthy level of hormones.
Dr. Judy Morgan 56:44
Absolutely, absolutely. Well, this has been fascinating, so now I know what plant stem cell therapy is and how important it is. I think if everybody isn't running to their computer right now to go find Rita's website and, you know, get some herbal support and detox. I think we're a little nuts, but I think, you know, I think it's kind of critical with the environment that we live in. Our world is toxic,
Rita Hogan
yeah, and one thing that we didn't mention is mercury. You know, Mercury is everywhere, and it's in a lot of our dogs' foods, in their treats. It can be in the water
Rita Hogan 57:25
and you can't see it. I used to play with it in in science class. I mean, we were young, no one said anything, right, right? I don't know if you remember, if you had that science class where you used to make up the little balls become smaller, but, you know, like, oh my god, I can't believe I used to do that. But I did. And you know, Mercury is everywhere, and the remedies that work for mercury are pretty phenomenal,
Rita Hogan 57:50
one of them wheatgrass, right? The germinating seeds of wheatgrass so utterly detoxifying. It also wheatgrass also supports healthy estrogen levels. And the when you look at its toxicity detoxification profile, you'll see that wheatgrass detoxes xenoestrogens as well, although it supports healthy estrogen but it gets rid of mercury. And Propolis is another one, and then
Rita Hogan 58:21
beech which Beech beech tree, lots of tree medicine. Beech trees are anti yeast, yeah. And it does a lot of things, but like, if you have a dog that has yeast, the interesting thing about yeast, Judy, which maybe you already know, I'm sure you already do, is yeast is bound to Mercury, interesting. So if you have a dog that is super yeasty and has been yeasty for a while, the chances of them have high mercury levels is, is is high. Oh, that's interesting, yeah. So I use beech for those dogs that have yeast infections, and then I use the a couple other Mercury binding components there, like mountain pine and the propolis to bind the mercury, I might add some chlorella as a binder, or humic and fulvic acid are usually always involved for me to get that out of the body. And the yeast infection goes away a lot quicker when you when you work to bind Mercury at the same time.
Dr. Judy Morgan
That's very interesting, because we get so many people that their their dogs are yeasty, and they have tried 27,000 different things, diet changes, remedies, this, that, and the other thing, and they just can't get them across the finish line. So maybe we have a lot of animals dealing with some mercury toxicity, yes, and we know that that's in vaccines and a lot of other things in the environment. This has been fascinating. Thank you so much for coming all the way to North Carolina to sit here in my studio and talk to me today. It's it's been eye opening and educational, and we really appreciate you. Thank you very much.
Rita Hogan 1:00:00
Thanks, Judy. I appreciate it.
Dr. Judy Morgan
Where can people find more information about your book and your remedies and everything that you do?
Rita Hogan 1:00:07
My book is anywhere you buy books, but you also sell it on your lovely website. Correct we do. Thank you, Judy and I have a school. It's called the Ethos School of Canine Herbalism, and that's at Canineherbalism.com
Rita Hogan 1:00:23
I have a store that's at Canineherbalist.com and then you I have a podcast called Dogs are Individuals. I just, it's, I don't have guests. I just ramble on and anything I want, most people write in, and I'll answer a question and ramble on, and I'm good at that and
Rita Hogan 1:00:43
the social stuff, Instagram and Facebook @herbalist,
Dr. Judy Morgan
awesome. Thank you.
Rita Hogan
Thank you.
OUTRO/DISCLAIMER 1:00:00
The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. It is no substitute for professional care by a veterinarian, licensed nutritionist or other qualified professional. You're encouraged to do your own research, and should not rely on this information as professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Dr Judy and her guests express their own views, experience and conclusions. Dr Judy Morgan's Naturally Healthy Pets neither endorses or opposes any particular view discussed here.
