For most of us pet owners, our pets are like our family. Their health, wellbeing and happiness play an important part when we adopt them and spend the entirety of our lives with them. Ensuring that we give them the best care every day and look after them is a responsibility, every household should practice. This includes everything from their activities to the food they eat and their overall lifestyle.
When you first bring a dog home, it may be an overwhelming experience that not everyone knows how to handle. The initial few weeks are exciting, and your kids will play for them and nurture them, but there is a possibility they could get bored of them or neglect them in some way or the other, not intentionally but our so her habit.
If you and your family ever reaches this stage, the RSPCA has a few tips for you on how to look after your pet from learning how to understand their needs to communicating with them and picking up on certain signals, here.
One of the main concerns on every owner’s mind should be their health and wellbeing. If you want your dog to grow strong and happy, there are a few things you can do to keep him this way. Besides engaging them in daily activities such as taking them to the park, playing with them at home and visiting your vet for regular check-ups, there is one natural way that you can introduce to them into their lifestyle, that will ensure they stay well and do not get any health conditions.
Enter – CBD Oil
Introducing CBD Oil To Your Pets Lifestyle
According to an online report of pet owners in the USA, spend over 99 billion U.S. dollars on pet products annually: https://www.statista.com/topics/1258/pets/ and over 60% of Americans reported they own at least one pet, be it a dog or a cat. Although dogs are the most favoured in most households, and for good reason.
They provide companionship, entertainment, comfort, and exercise and are overall one of the best four-legged friends to have around children as they teach them responsibility and caring.
Just as we would usually know about what we put into our mouths, the same goes with our pets. CBD Oil (also known as cannabidiol) has over 100 different compounds inside of it. The hemp plant extract has resins from the plant’s oils and comes in a concentrated form when processed at the manufacturing plants.
This comes directly from the flowers or buds of the plant and looks like small mushrooms called trichomes. These contain oily components that contain CBD, and THC and terpenes (aromatic flavours). These have an important purpose for the plant, as they help against ultraviolet radiation as well as guard against heat. The properties included in the raw extract help in a variety of ways such as being antifungal, insecticidal, and antibacterial.
The same properties above that protect the plant and components that have beneficial properties, also safeguard the health of both humans and animals. There are many extraction processes used in creating what you may purchase from any health store in a bottle. We touch on this briefly below.
2 Popular Extraction Processes of CBD Oil
CO2 Extraction Method
This is possibly the most popular, albeit the most expensive of them all. Although if you are looking for a premium product for your animals, this would most probably be it. It involves the use of CO2 or Carbon Dioxide. This method is also used in various other industries to extract products such as nicotine extraction from the tobacco plant and coffee beans.
Solvent CBD Extraction
This is cheaper than the CO2 methods and is easily available at pet stores and health food stores. You can also do this at home. The solvent used could be either ethanol or butane and strips the cannabinoids from the plant into a liquid which is evaporated, and the result is an oily concentrate with over 100 different types of compounds of hemp in it.
Is it Safe For Your Dog?
A common question for many pet owners. The simplest answer to this question is – yes, but it depends on how you introduce it to them. Like anything new you introduce them to, you should always start with the smallest dose, for a few weeks and then work your way up to increase it, if there is no change in their behaviour for the better.
There have been many studies conducted on this exact thing to find that it is safe for your pet. In the worst-case scenario, if you give CBD oil for dogs in higher doses it may make them feel sleepy or slightly dizzy. However, it is important to avoid any product with THC in it. With THC it may get your dog high and make him feel sick to his stomach where he may not eat or drink anything, which will not be the best thing for them. Also, it is good to know that as of 2018, after the Farm Bill was passed, hemp was made legal in most of the states in the US and other countries around the world.
This is not to say you should but the first thing you see when you walk into a store. Do your research, read the ingredients list on the packaging, and speak to your vet before you decide to give them anything related to CBD or from the hemp plant family. If he is already undergoing a strict regime with your vet, then it most likely will not do any harm to introduce this to it, however with caution.
