A Path With Paws

An herbal ointment for warts and topical viral infections – St. John’s wort, licorice root, cat’s claw bark and echinacea purpurea root.

Wart ointment and hot spot ointment herbs ready to go, with coconut oil from mountain rose herbs

Both herbals with coconut and sunflower oil in a water bath. They sit at low heat for 3-5 hours.

Grated beeswax to add to the strained oils

Back in the water bath to melt the beeswax

Final ointments cooling in their tins. The brown is the anti-viral and the bright yellow is for hotspots.

The final product!

So far these are just for my clients and family but will sell them at the new store, Kingdom of Basil when it opens and hopefully also on my etsy.com herbal store .

Good nutrition is very important in any animal fighting cancer. You are what you eat and with cancer we need a diet that feeds and supports the body but starves the cancer. In fighting cancer with herbs and holistic medicine, we are relying on the body to do the fighting. This takes a strong immune system and a lot of energy. You need good food for this.

Cancer cannot utilize fats but loves to use carbohydrates, especially processed ones. Protein is somewhere in between.

A diet high in protein, moderate in fat and with no grain or very low grain is ideal. Home-made cooked, or raw diets are best. If that is not possible then a good quality high protein, canned commercial diet or a hydrated freeze dried raw diet can be substituted.

If your animal is undergoing chemotherapy or radiation you should not use a raw diet (freeze dried is fine). However for these animals a great option is a cooked diet. After they are done with these treatments the food can slowly be transitioned to raw if desired.

If your dog or cat is very debilitated from cancer and has not been on a raw diet before stick with a cooked or freeze dried food.

Commercial raw diets can be cooked as a more simple way to make home cooked food for your animal.

Below are a couple diets I have been using for years for my clients who have time to home cook. It is not an exact science so feel free to play around with them. Scroll down to see some of the commercial diets I recommend (canned, freeze dried and raw).

Sample cancer diets

Dog (approximately for a 40 lb dog per day)

• 1 1/2 cups cooked or raw meat including liver and organ meat (if you use fish or pork make sure it is cooked)
• 1 cup cooked vegetables
• 1/4 cup yam, sweet potato or pumpkin, cooked or canned
• 1/8 cup nuts such as almonds, walnuts, or cashews
• 2 T yogurt with live cultures
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon Nordic Naturals Pet Cod Liver Oil
• a calcium supplement (see below)

Cat Cancer Diet See Making Crazy Awesome Homemade Cat Food

• 6 pounds of meat or fish ground or chopped(about 1-1/2 cup)
• 1/4-1/2 cup liver and organ meat
• 8 eggs
• one 15 ounce can of pumpkin, sweet potato, or yam
• six teaspoons Nordic Naturals Pet Cod Liver Oil
• 6 teaspoons almond butter
• 3 grams Taurine Powder
  (if the meat is cooked or if using fish)
• Animal Essentials Natural Seaweed Calcium or see below

An alternative cat food recipe is Making Crazy Awesome Cat Food Part Two.

For homemade dog food (cats are hard to add extras to their food)

• If possible I also recommend adding reishi, shitake, and/or maitake mushrooms to the diet. Mushrooms are strong immune stimulates and have anti-cancer properties. Add them in as some of the veggies. Mushrooms should always be cooked as the cooking releases their helpful properties and when they are not cooked they are mildly toxic.
• When picking vegetables, broccoli and other leafy dark green vegetables should be considered. Many studies have been done on broccoli’s effects against cancer. See the article Broccoli Fights Cancer.
• The pumpkin, sweet potato, yam, and cod liver oil are high in Vitamin A. Vitamin A promotes mechanisms in the body that kill cancer cells and cause cell differentiation. Consider adding other sources of vitamin A such as liver and carrots.
• A calcium supplement needs to be added to any diet made for cats and dogs. There are many ways to do this.
  • There are many commercial products such as Animal Essentials Natural Seaweed Calcium.
  • Bone Meal Powder can also be used. Use one teaspoon for an average sized dog.
  • Many people prefer to add a Centrum Silver a day for average to large sized dogs.

  

  • If you are feeding a raw diet you can feed raw chicken necks for calcium.
  • If you are using eggs in your diet consider smashing up the egg shell and adding it to the diet. One egg shell provides enough calcium for an average sized dog. 1/8-1/4 of an eggshell provides enough for a cat.
• If you are making raw food make sure the meat is frozen for at least 48 hours to kill off any dangerous parasites.
• Nuts such as walnuts, almonds and cashews are high in trace nutrients, minerals, vitamins and good fats. If possible include these in your diet. Cats sometimes do better with a little almond butter. Avoid macadamia nuts which are toxic to dogs.

If you are using a commercial canned food I recommend the following

• Weruva is a great food that seems home made. They have many varieties so make sure you find a grain free one. I have found this food much cheaper on Amazon.com



• Instinct is completely grain free and very high in protein.
• Taste of the Wild is another quality food I use in a lot of the dogs I work with.
• There are other good ones out there but make sure they mostly contain meat and are grain free.

If you are using a commercial raw diet ideally pick one local to your area. I really like Darwin’s for raw dog and cat food and Rad Cat for cats.

If you are looked for a good freeze dried raw Stella & Chewy’s is my favorite and even picky animals including cats seem to like it. With any of the freeze dried foods I recommend hydrating them.

I hate to see dogs and cats with cancer on dry food but if that is the only option then a no grain high quality diet such as Orijen can be used.

Remember that any food in the belly is more important then the best food sitting uneaten. Sometimes animals with cancer are so sick that they have very little appetite. In that case give them anything they will eat. When they are feeling better, focus on trying to get them to eat what is best for them.

Return to Integrative and Holistic Methods for Treating Cancer in Cats and Dogs.

In 2012, because of all the requests that Dr. McCullough received for a place to buy good quality herbal formulas for animals, she opened her online shop Kingdom of Basil on Etsy (named after her beloved black cat Basil).

There you’ll find all of the herbal formulas described on this website—the very same herbs Dr. McCullough uses to treat all of the animal patients in her Seattle clinic—personally sourced, blended and ground by her.

Not sure which formula(s) to choose?

View a list of symptoms, diseases or illnesses to find the formulas we recommend >

View a list of herbal formulas organized by name >

One of the older dogs I work with recently developed severe separation anxiety, involving doing injury not just to the house she lived in but also to herself. Her western vet had put her on Xanax and Prozac but the Prozac didn’t seem to do anything and the Xanax sedated her so much she acted like a zombie dog on it.

On a recent visit in, her human mom brought in a tooth she had pulled out on her crate while she was away at work. We were very concerned that she would contain to injury herself if nothing was done. In addition not only did she have separation anxiety while her person was working but she also had quite a bit of anxiety at night making it so no one was sleeping well.

We started her on a calming formula to try to settle her nerves and anxiety yet let her still be herself and not always sedated. So far she has been much calmer throughout both the day and the evening and can now stay by herself when her mom is working.

Her formula included the following ingredients

• Hops – I’m sure most of you are familiar with this important ingredient of beer. Hops is known to help with anxiety and insomnia
• Passionflower – helps to calm the nervous system and has anti-anxiety actions as well as being a mild sedative. This plant is also used in some epilepsy treatments.
• Valerian Root – This herb is often paired with passionflower for treatment of anxiety and insomnia. It also is mildly sedative.
• Skullcap Root (Huang Qin) – Skullcap helps to calm the nervous system and also supports the liver.
• Chamomile – Calming and so much more. We all know about taking a cup of chamomile tea.
• Ginkgo Leaf – Did you know that Ginkgo trees are 270 million years old and one of the oldest species on earth? They were around when the dinosaurs where. Did you know that they were the only plant to survive the hiroshima atomic bomb, staying alive and thriving to this day? Pretty cool trees! They also help with memory and dementia by supporting blood flow to the brain. Makes seen that something that old would help with memory! If there is a blood flow issue causing anxiety in your dog friend, this is the herb to help.
• Catnip – Calming and a great anti-anxiety herb for humans and dogs. Not so much with cats.

I’ve added this Calm and Peaceful Formula to my etsy shop, Kingdom of Basil.

As it can cause sedation it should not be used with other sedating herbs or drugs without veterinary direction. It also should not be used long term in young dogs as a replacement for training. It can be used at a low dose long term in older dogs.