It all started about two weeks before Christmas. I know this because I vividly remember wrapping Spetna’s Christmas presents while crying, trying not to dwell on the fact that he might not make it home to open them.
Earlier that morning Spetsna came up to me and I noticed he was moving a little differently than normal. I discovered he was shaking. It immediately became bad enough that he couldn’t stand up on his own. We called our vet and got him into the car as quickly as possible. Our vet is 30min away but I can assure you it didn’t take 30min to get there that day. My husband drove him in while I stayed back with our kids. And prayed.
Side note: Thinking back on it now, I feel so honored that Spetsna came to me because he felt something was off. He basically asked for help because he didn’t know what was going on. I hope I always remember this so I can be in tuned to whatever my dog is feeling, and not brush them aside if I am busy. How horrible would it have been if I hadn’t stopped to pet him and just kept on with my busy morning. Slowing down to take a moment is always a good idea.
CJ keep me in the loop by text updates. Our vet couldn’t figure out what was causing this, even after running every test imaginable. The worst part was they couldn’t get the seizure to stop. Spetsna was knocked out but still violently shaking. They said if they couldn’t get it under control he wouldn’t make it much longer.
It was at this point I decided to wrap his Christmas presents. Something told me it was a step of faith I needed to take. I prayed and cried until I got the text that they had got the seizure under control.
Late that night we brought him home. He was highly drugged, had no strength to lift his head, and had no idea where he was. When you see your huge strong dog completely broken, it breaks your heart in a million pieces. I hope you never have to see this in your own dog. If you already have been there, I sympathize.
Thankfully he improved over night but our vet requested frequent check ups to try to figure out what had caused this. One of his visits showed a kidney infection, a pretty bad one at that. So after more drugs and weeks later he seemed to slowly return to his old self.
Fast forward a couple months, while on our road trip to Florida, he gets a horrible digestive problem. I’ll spare you the details but I spent a lot of that week cleaning.
On our way back home from Florida he got sick again. I thought it was some sort of flu so I tried to take care of him the best I could. It was the startling realization that all his hair was falling out that brought us back to the vet once again. Turns out he had a staff infection. Que more drugs and more vet visits.
The staff infection was the final straw, especially since the meds didn’t seem stop his hair from falling out. I needed to be proactive about my dogs health. Spetsna had never been sick before so I never really thought about his health. He was the dog with the iron stomach. The dog who could run forever and jump 6 foot fences. I guess he was invincible in my eyes. Then comes the winter of 2017/2018 and it changes everything.
Being proactive about health and natural health remedies is not new to me in the human world. Myself along with my family members have battled many severe health issues and natural cures have always proved the most effective. But this was really the first time I shifted that thinking to my dog. I had heard a lot of good things on the internet about CBD oil treating tons of different issues so I set off on a web wide search to find the best CBD oil out there. I scoured facebook, instagram, and blogs.
First thing I learned in my search was do not buy from a big box retailer (usually). Most of the time those hemp oils are a lower grade and not helpful for treating serious medical conditions. Not to say you wont find a good brand at a big retailer, but its not common.
Second thing I learned was I needed to find a CBD oil that is:
whole plant sourced
organic
US grown
filler free
Uses the CO2 extraction
Since all those things were random words that didn’t exactly mean anything when I started researching I’ll assume you are just as confused as I was. Here are some facts that helped convince me these things are important.
Whole plant sourced – If you aren’t getting the whole plant oils, you aren’t getting the medicinal qualities of the cannabinoids. You might want to look for CBD in the name instead of just hemp oil. Hemp oil is great for your dogs but you’ll be missing the critical healing element without the cannabinoids. Be aware that some CBD oils are not full plant sourced so you’ll want to check the fine print as well.
Organic – This one is pretty obvious. No one wants to be filling their dog with junk when trying to help their health. It’d be a little counter intuitive.
US grown – Besides the fact that we should support USA made businesses, US soil regulations are pretty strict so you can be sure the least amount of chemical leaking is present.
Filler free – Ever read the labels of your food and see, red dye 6, plyblablabla, etc? Yea, we don’t want fillers. A carrier oil like coconut oil is good but try to find ones with the least amount of added ingredients.
Uses the CO2 extraction – I’m no scientist. Shocker right? Sorry to disappoint but truthfully I don’t comprehend all the details on this one. But the bits that I gathered, heat destroys things and you need to be very careful how to go about extracting the oil. The more careful you are, the more healing properties are retained. Even over heating vegetables can kill off the nutrients so I can only imagine how important it is for something like CBD oil.
After looking into all these factors I settled on Pet Releaf CBD oil. We’ve been using it for about a month now and Spetsna’s fur is looking a lot better. We can’t take him off his phenobarbital because we don’t fully understand why or how his seizures work but I’m hoping it helps control them. My main goal was to improve his over all health and well being and I can say the oil has done that. His skin looks better, he has more energy, seems happier, and absolutely no other illnesses have popped up. Just a lot of overall improvement!
Heads up, you’ll pay more for a high quality CBD oil. No more than it would be for a prescription medicine but if you go from looking at regular hemp oil to looking at medical CBD oil you might be in for a bit of sticker shock. I’m saying this now so you can prepare yourself and not immediately click away after you see the price, like I almost did. Like grandma says, you get what you pay for.
My sick and broken dog is now back to his invincible super hero self. I love it when true stories have happy endings, don’t you?
BTW, This is not a sponsored post or an ad. I did my research and bought the best oil I could find. I wanted to share our story in case CBD oil can help your dog.
p.s. Quick note of thanks to our amazing vet! They have had entire teams solely working on helping Spetsna and they never “gave up”. We never heard the hearth breaking, “We can’t do anything else.” No matter what illness he was dealing with, they continually tested and consulted to learn more about the situation. All while keeping the bills at bay – what vet does that!? They have called us at home to check up on him and asked to see him for follow ups just to get a better picture of whats going on. Never to make more money off of us but instead, because they care. I wanted to clarify that this post is not saying we are leaving our vet, we are nothing but satisfied with their care for our dog. But sometimes as an owner you need to take some research and action into your own hands. You know your dog best and can be his/her advocate. We love our vet and owe Spetsna’s life to them (and God, of course). It’s my goal to help my vet by keeping my dog as healthy as possible. Natural supplements and remedies are doing just that.
