Essential oils and animals

Before I had any formal training in aromatherapy, I did a ton of research on essential oils.  One of the things I began to look into was using essential oils with pets.  There was a reason behind this -- one of our dogs, Lady, has had chronic ear infections her whole life.  She would go back and forth from bacterial to yeast infections, and finally had both bacterial and yeast infections that would never clear up.  We tried changing her diet, we washed her ears, we gave her medicines - everything the vet recommended, we did.  Nothing helped.  As I researched, I found very controversial information on using EOs with animals - some said that the oils were toxic for pets, others said that there are safe oils to use with them. 

I was able to find information written by veterinarians that discussed oils that are (verifiably) safe to use with dogs.  I made a very low dilution blend for Lady and sprayed it in her ears 1 - 2 times a day.  It worked - her ears cleared up for about a year.  Several months after I stopped using my blend on her, the ear infections returned and hot spots cropped up - not as bad as before, but still there.  

During that year, I had started my formal training in aromatherapy and came to realize that I am not a veterinarian and I don't have the proper veterinary training to make products for animals.  The good news is that there are holistic veterinarians who integrate the use of current veterinary medicine and essential oils to help heal our pets.  

One of these veterinarians is Dr. Melissa Shelton.  Her website is called Animal EO and the url is  http://www.animaleo.info/  .   Her website is easy to navigate, but most importantly, it's informative.  She explains how diet plays a crucial role in animal health and how to use her products with your pets.  Her website has links to past newsletters she's written with all kinds of great information.  Best of all, she has created essential oil blends for many issues for different species of animals.  She is able to prove the benefits of her blends with irrefutable scientific data by performing tests (like blood work) both before and after using her blends on animals.  On her Facebook page (which I follow) she helps people by answering questions they have about issues their pets are encountering.  

Dr. Shelton has also written the book The Animal Desk Reference  Second Edition which is a great resource for understanding how to use essential oils with animals.  I keep this book right next to my Essential Oil Safety and Power of the Seed books for quick reference in my research.

If you are interested in using essential oils with your pets, I highly recommend going to Dr. Shelton's website and Facebook page.