Our dogs are our best friends and family members, for them, many of us would do anything to make sure that they stay healthy and happy.
Unfortunately, our furry friends can sometimes rack up the bills when it comes to health-related issues. While some breeds are more susceptible to health problems than others, anything can happen at any time.
Bottom line, it’s really in our best interest to be pro-active with our dog’s health to give us peace of mind and to save ourselves hundreds of dollars in medical bills.
And this is where hemp and CBD oil come in. Quickly rising as a top option for health-oriented people around the country, the cannabis plant-derived oils are now getting used on dogs and cats.
Because of their serious health benefits, hemp and CBD oils can be a fantastic addition to not only your diet but to your pets too!
Below, we’ll explore the differences between Hemp Oil and CBD, what they can do to help your dog, other extraneous advantages, some of the best brands and the best way to apply the oils to your dogs’ diet. But before we dive in, we need to make the distinction between the two oils and what benefits each can have.
Hemp Oil
Up first is hemp oil, or more specifically hempseed oil. This oil is derived from the seeds of industrial hemp plants, through a variety of methods, but cold-pressing is generally the most popular method. When cold-pressing hemp seeds, the seeds are chilled, de-shelled and then squeezed via an industrial-seed press machine.
Hemp seeds contain up to 50% of their weight in oil, and when pressed and unrefined are green and pungent oil. This does not include any psychoactive derivatives such as THC and it does not have CBD. Hempseed oil is simply comprised of all the really good fats that are contained within the seeds.
Hempseed oil’s health benefits are derived from its complex mixture of fats. Most importantly, hemp seed oil contains gamma-linolenic acid, a variety of fatty acids, antioxidants, and phospholipids.
With all of this, hemp oil is particularly helpful in anti-inflammation, brain & heart health and can promote good skin health.
CBD Oil
CBD oil is derived from mostly from the stalks and flowers, but it can be extracted from the entire plant. Extracting CBD oil is a bit more complicated than simply pressing hemp seed oil from the hemp seeds.
For CBD, there is a process called C02 extraction that separates cannabidiol and other compounds from the plant’s organic matter. The process usually requires the grounding up of the various parts of the cannabis plant, then is extracted via a solvent, most commonly C02.
The final product is an oil substance that is highly potent in CBD and other compounds such as terpenes. For CBD oil, the better the extraction method, the more potent the product. New methods for CBD extraction are constantly being invented and CBD oils will only get better as our technology increases.
The human body can produce cannabinoids on its own. Our endocannabinoid system, which is responsible for our regulatory system, uses these cannabinoids to keep our body balanced. This can affect our mood, appetite, memory, immune systems and inflammation control.
While the body can produce cannabinoids, ingesting CBD amplifies and dramatically improves the performance of our endocannabinoid system. CBD, as more research is being completed, is quickly becoming an essential medicine for athletes and people who are highly susceptible to seizures.
While hemp seed oil is mostly used as an additive health product in terms of someone’s nutrition and diet, CBD is essential to our holistic health.
Benefits to your Dog
So, what can CBD and hemp oil do for our dogs?
Hemp oil, as I mentioned earlier, contains gamma-linolenic acid (GLA) which is highly important for many health benefits. The reason GLA is so important is that it’s an important building block for prostaglandins, which are hormone-like substances that do help control inflammation and many other things.
Dogs that are GLA deficient can develop allergies, arthritis, digestive issues, diabetes, cancer and skin problems. Hemp oil, if properly incorporated into your dogs’ diet, can help prevent all of these health problems.
Perhaps the main advantage of hemp oil is its perfect balance of Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids. Working synergistically, these fatty acids help regulate your dogs’ inflammatory systems. If applied correctly, they can help increase recovery as the fatty acids can increase inflammation, and they can also lower inflammation as well.
This will help alleviate the downsides of long-term chronic inflammation such as inflammatory bowel disease, arthritis, cancer, diabetes, and even liver or kidney disease.
CBD oil can help our furry friends in exactly the same way they help us. This is because dogs also have endocannabinoid systems with receptors that accept CBD.
Like hemp oil, CBD has anti-inflammatory properties that help prevent swelling in joints which could lead to arthritis. There are many breeds that can experience joint and muscle pains due to their size and shapes, so CBD oil can help them alleviate some of their pains.
Just like it does to humans, the cannabinoids help create a calming effect to our furry friends. It can also help prevent seizures, cancer, and anxiety! All in all, CBD is an awesome health product for our puppies.
Check out this study that researches the effects of CBD on dogs.
How to incorporate
While hemp and CBD are fairly easy to incorporate to our daily lives, it’s not so simple when we’re trying to administer them to our dogs.
When using hemp oil, you’ll probably be administering it with your dogs’ food. It’s important to note hemp oil can be unstable at high temperatures and can become toxic to your dog if heated up improperly. Administering hemp oil with chicken is also a bad idea as chicken is high in polyunsaturated fats, and the combination of the two can cause a fat imbalance within your dog.
Use hemp oil when you feed your dog meats such as beef, bison, lamb or goat. For smaller dogs under 20 pounds, 1 teaspoon a day should do the trick. Above 20 pounds, 2 teaspoons to 1 tablespoon should be enough.
As for CBD, there are a couple of options when choosing how to administer it to your pet. You can use the various selections of topicals and balms that are enriched in CBD, or you can choose to orally administer the CBD yourself. This is usually the easiest and most common method.
All in all, hemp oil and CBD can be very helpful in keeping our very important pets happy & healthy. If administered correctly, they can prevent inflammation, liver disease, provide important omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids and many more benefits.
Be wary of brands reputations as there are no strict regulatory practices that are enforced yet, due to the incomplete nature of the cannabis plant in terms of policy.
But, generally just do a little bit of light research, and you can be well on your way to helping your dog with hemp and CBD oil!