Compiled by members of the

Veterinary Botanical Medicine Association

 
Medicating animals with herbs can often be a struggle, since many plants taste bad. Sometimes the effect of the herb depends on the patient actually being able to taste it, but in most cases, we have the option of trying to trick our pets into taking herbs by disguising the taste in an herb delivery system.

 
Dogs and cats can be given powdered herbs, powdered herb extracts and liquid herbal extracts in their meals. If the patient's appetite is poor due to illness or learned preferences, you may need to disguise the taste further by using especially strong-smelling foods, like tuna or braunschweiger.

For some pets, baby food or canned cat food is such a novelty that they will take the herbs mixed Into these foods. Other tasty treats to hide the herbs include cream cheese, peanut or other nut butters, round meat or liver, or fruit. Apple sauce is particularly recommended by some herbalists.

It may be easier in some cases to administer the powdered or liquid herbs mixed in a liquid, to be gently and slowly administered by syringe. Vehicles that have been recommended include meat or poultry broth, clam juice, flavored syrups or vitamin/mineral supplements (such as VAL syrup1M or Lixotinic1M), and fruit juice.

You can take advantage of your cats fastidiousness by mixing the herb in a hairball gel (such as VetBasis (petroleum free) or LaxatoneTM) or anchovy paste, and smearing it on his or her paws - only very sick cats will let that insult go unchallenged!

Some herbalists use traditional teas -these can be made using meat broth instead of plain water, and frozen in ice cube trays to preserve until the day of use.

Liquid herbal extracts are often not accepted in any form by some animals. In this case, you can use a dropper to put the extract in a capsule, close it, and administer to the animal in that form within a few minutes.

If herb capsules must be administered, they often 'go down' easier if one end is covered in butter. Be sure to administer water or broth afterwards to ensure that the capsule passes from the esophagus to the stomach quickly.