Animals First and Foremost

Holistic Animal Healing

Zoopharmacognosy

Problems in dogs, horses, cats, and other animals? Issues you can’t quite figure out, often emotional in origin - behavioural in reality. Distressing to witness – difficult to deal with.

Zoopharmacognosy – What it is

Zoopharmacognosy recognises the innate ability of animals both domesticated and wild to know what they need to restore them to health.

Ever noticed how a dog will choose to eat certain grasses to purge itself when it feels sick – but not eat the grass when it is hungry?

Since animals first roamed the planet they have had to develop their enzymatic physiology to cope with potential life threatening disease and injuries. In order to evolve into the animals we know today their ancestors developed a life sustaining solution for self medication and dosage by using the materials they found in the natural habitat. These medicinal compounds are found in plants, roots, seeds, fruits, flowers, algae, clays etc. They are not food, these secondary compounds offer no obvious metabolic food value, no carbohydrates, starches, proteins. Secondary metabolites taste bitter and are unpalatable to a healthy animal and given the choice a healthy animal will choose not to eat them. For a sick animal they provide natural medicinal properties that can help them with their disease, stress or injuries, once the animal has recovered - the use of secondary compounds stops and they return to primary compounds (foods) once again.

Today, zoologists monitor wild animals in Africa and in the jungles observing when an animal is sick – (from chimps to birds to woolly caterpillars!) not only which plants they choose but, importantly, which part of the plant is used and how much is taken.  Animals are very meticulous in their self medicating and only choose exactly what they need.

Now these organic medicinal secondary compounds are available for you to offer your animal.

© Gill schweizer 2009. All rights reserved.