Keeping Your Dog Calm During the Holidays
Sarah Hale
If for some reason you were keeping tabs on the top ten ways to be greeted after a long, stressful day, please go ahead and jot down when dogs greet their owners. If you don’t own a dog or have not seen this in action, then do yourself a favor and search it on YouTube. It will absolutely melt your heart into a giant puddle. Dogs are incredibly welcoming, loving, and warm-hearted. They have an incredible sense of reading emotions and know exactly how to comfort their owners in time of need. In our opinion, dogs have a lot of human traits because of their incredible sense of reading and analyzing the emotions that humans exude. Just like us, they feel emotions of happiness, sadness, stress, excitement, and much more. When dogs experience emotions such as stress, they exhibit symptoms such as digestion problems, loss of appetite, avoidance, hyperactivity, weakened immune system, trembling, and more. Life happens to dogs, just like it happens to us. They experience difficult and stressful situations like losing an animal or human companion, having to go to the vet, staying in an unfamiliar home or with an unfamiliar person while their owners are out of town, and new teeth coming in! Today, with 4th of July fireworks right around the corner, we want to talk to you about how essential oils can be an amazing resource to help your dog cope with stress.
Before we get into what oils are calming for your dog, we want to bring a little bit of awareness and tips for properly using oils for your furry pal. If you did a google search about pets and essential oils, it would be pretty similar across the board. You need to use oils caution and be careful with them around your pets.
Always dilute essential oils for your dog with a carrier oil or water. Dilute at least 75%. Or apply them to yourself first, and then pet your dog afterward.
Be careful not to use oils near sensitive areas of pets – mouth, eyes, nose
With that being said, only use topically or in the diffuser.
Now that we’ve talked about some steps to being careful with your oils, we want to share a list of oils to use for you dog and what they can help with.
Peace & Calming and Peace & Calming II- Both of these scents exude a relaxing and pleasant aroma that brings tranquility and rest to you and your dog. Dogs are such intelligent creatures and they know when something that should seem scary or stressful is about to happen, like getting a shot at the vet. This would be a great time to rub this oil on your dog’s paws and calm them down. This helps them to not freak out because it will all be over within a quick few minutes. This oil can help with any hyperactivity that your dog seems to be displaying, possibly from stress.
Lavender- This pleasant-smelling oil helps promote peaceful feelings, fights nervous tension, is soothing for minor skin irritations, and overall balances the mind and soul. This can be helpful for when your dog is experiencing any stress or fear. This oil also helps with any itching from stress or from playing outdoors.
Stress Away — One of our favorite calming oil blends and one your dog will most likely love as well. This blend includes Copaiba, Lime, Lavender, Cedarwood, among a few others.
Joy/ Orange/ Citrus Oils – The name speaks for itself, but Joy essential oil invites feelings of warmth, love, and bliss. When a dog is experiencing loss of a human or animal companion, joy or any of the citrus oils can be used to uplift their spirits.
This list is not all of the oils that you could use, but some of our favorites to use when it comes to bringing uplifting and calming vibes to your pup. We advise you to look into oils that you love and make sure the ingredients are safe for your dog.
Being intentional and taking the time to properly care for your dog is so important, because they are capable of feeling emotions of stress and fear like we are. We want to be mindful of the symptoms they start to exhibit that tell us they are going through a difficult circumstance. As we discussed above, essential oils don’t just bring healing benefits to humans, but pets as well. Oils are a wonderful tool to have on hand to help your pet through pain and loss in a natural way. As we strive to use organic and all natural ways to improve our own health and home, we want to do the same for our pets. We’d love to hear what your favorite oils are to use for your dogs.