It doesn’t matter where you are on this planet you have seasons, whether their distinct or not so clear. In climates that tend to stay the same year-round, there are still slight changes. You just have to pay attention and know what to look for.
Nature is circular and it is in constant energetic flux forming patterns and rhythms. If you can tap into these energies and use the repetitive of the seasons, you’ll start to see the same patterns and rhythms in your dog.
One of the reasons why natural care is so effective for our dogs is that they have an innate connection with the natural world.
Seasonal healing provides on-going support and maintenance for your dog. Maintenance insofar as you can use the earth’s cyclical energy to have a vital dog, as everything is energy.
Seasonal healing isn’t about acute disease as so much as it is about living within the seasons to harness the natural healing power of them and using their energetic rhythms as a method of healing and prevention for your dog.
By following the seasons and strengthening the organs associated with that season you can help prevent further issues. This action creates vitality in our animals and vital dogs can correct and prevent disease with the proper diet and nutritional support.
Natural substances like herbs have their own identity patterns and when they are delivered energetically they can move the body towards balance.
Start to move your dog care regimen to one of seasonal guidance for optimum health.
Here are a few points to keep in mind while working with the seasons.
1. For those of you that live in a different region of the world, you’ll want to note that hot climates that lack four individual seasons tend to have more acute issues involving the liver. The chronic expansion of blood vessels in hot climates can congest the liver over time. In cold and damp regions of the world, chronic disease is more prevalent.
2. When choosing herbs you need to look at your dog’s individual health to help you choose. For example, if your dog is arthritic, you may want to limit your night-shade vegetables or any other herb or food that negatively affect your dog’s condition.
3. You can use tinctures for seasonal healing but be aware of the alcohol content so dosages need to be right. For example, start off with 1-2 drops of nettles for a small dog verses 15 to 20 drops. The idea is that the plants work energetically to stimulate the body to heal itself.
If you have any concerns about using alcohol based tinctures with your dog, then don’t use them. Use glycerine based extract but make sure that you’re using twice the amount you would for an alcoholic tincture.
4. When using proteins for seasonal use, find 1-3 neutral proteins that don’t necessarily warm or cool the body and rotate in other protein sources for the seasonal period. Try to avoid using too much organ meat. Be mindful that organ meat should not consist of more than 10-15% of your dog’s daily diet unless you’re trying to treat a specific imbalance.
5. Keep a record of your dog or dog’s health starting in a specific season and working your way through the year. If you can, use a separate journal for each season and look for any patterns. Make a note of any symptoms like the condition of their skin, ears, eyes, temperature of their head and paws, how their gate is, the strength of their back-end things like that.
This process isn’t hard it just takes practice, patience and most of all awareness. To get started, take a step to move your care regimen into one of seasonal guidance by seeing what part of what you already do fits a seasonal schedule then tweak from there.
The most important thing to keep in mind with any maintenance or healing regimen is that your dog is an individual.
What works for your dog may not work for the next. Foods and herbs treat a broad spectrum of issues in the body and everything that enters your dog’s mouth either heals or causes imbalance.
Food therapies work best when you match the energetics (hot, dry, cool, damp) of your dog to the energetics of the herb and disease you are trying to prevent.
Using herbs effectively goes beyond this. For example, using turmeric for your dog’s arthritis in lieu of a prescription anti-inflammatory is a great way to naturally help your dog but you also need to consider if your dog is warm or cool as this will impact the effectiveness and healing ability of the herb.
Turmeric is very warming to the body and will make a hot dog’s arthritis worse. The individual energetics of your dog AND the individual energetics of the herb must be addressed. You also want to avoid giving too many herbs at one time to your dog.
Dogs have their own level of energy, heat tolerance, digestion, and organ health. They also have individual emotions on how they approach the world. Energetics are the key to using food correctly in order to prevent disease and build your dog’s own individual healing cycle.
The basics of energetics deal with the concepts of hot, cold, damp and dry. All dogs are made up of different degrees of each quality.
Energetics can also change over time and sometimes depend on the season. All of these are balancing out each other.
For example if you have a cold dog, you would give them warm herbs and food mixed with neutral choices to help warm their bodies.
Some ways to figure out your dog’s energetics is by paying attention to how they navigate their environment. Do they seek warmth, do they always like to be covered up? Are they always looking for ways to cool themselves down? You can also look at how they are physically. Do they have dandruff? Are they overweight? Are they thin? Are their paws and head warm?
When you’re paying attention to your dog in the rhythm of the seasons, you’ll start to notice the cold hot dry damp patterns that your dog has.
Proteins, herbs and vegetables are mostly aligned to a system of opposites that help balance the body.
Dogs that are too warm get cooling to neutral foods and dogs that are too cold get warming substances. This is just a basic understanding and yes, energetics is much more complicated than this but these concepts should give you the basics you need to start to work with the seasons effectively.
Awareness is a huge benefit to seasonal care. Seasonal living gets you into a preventative state of mind.
Each season has a specific influence over a part of the body and organ system. This gives you the perfect cyclical movement to prevent and support the body against disease. If you consistently support these systems and organs you’ll start to see how the body balances itself.
Seasonal care teaches you how to prevent disease instead of reacting to it.
Another benefit of seasonal care is that it gets you out of the rut of feeding the same foods over and over again. The seasons give you a rhythm, a variety that works for your dog as an individual. Variety is the key to broad spectrum nutrition, optimum health and avoiding food sensitivities.
The fantastic thing about seasonal healing is that it is a systematic way of looking at the energetic patterns of the seasons taking preventive actions by feeding proteins, herbs and vegetables that support the energetics of the season and the energetics of your dog as well as the conditions found in that season.
The take away here is to take things slow, learn this method from season to season. In time, this process of preventative healing gets easier and easier as you let nature be your guide.
