I, like many of you I’m sure, am a pet lover. In the words of George Carlin, “life is a series of dogs,” and I’ve had my fair share. Currently, I have two dogs – a miniature poodle and a Weimaraner. And I give my dogs drops of CBD tinctures on their food every morning. You, I give my dog CBD. And in my humble opinion, you should too. But why do I do it? And why do I think you should be pumping your pooch full of CBD? Well read on my friends, read on.
My Personal CBD Experiences
There are plenty of pet CBD tinctures on the market and tons of anecdotal evidence and stories of pet owners praising the benefits of CBD. However, anecdotal evidence only goes so far. And while even personal experiences can be misleading at times, I think I have a pretty solid grasp on the wonders that CBD has done for me and how it has improved my life. I’d like to share that with you so you’ll have a better idea of why I decided I wanted to give my dog CBD oil as well.
The Trampoline Accident
At the age of 18, on the afternoon of my Highschool Senior Grad Party, we were having a little graduation party for me. Some close family and friends before I ventured off to spend the night with my class playing games and staying sober and all that. Well, I just so happened to start bouncing on my giant trampoline with two of my very tall friends, and at one point, they landed at the exact same time and catapulted me up extremely high in the air. So high in fact that when I came down, I came straight through the mesh and all the way to the ground.
I heard a loud CRACK!! I screamed and couldn’t move. At that moment, nobody including myself knew what had happened. My friends didn’t think too much of it. Maybe I had just strained my back or who knows what. All I remember is trying to rest on the trampoline for a while and then finally spending the next 10-15 minutes crawling into the house.
Later That Night
I don’t remember much after that, probably because the pain was so intense, but having no insurance and not really thinking too much of it, I went to my Senior Grad Party later that night… with what I would later find out was a broken spine. However, I wouldn’t find that out for three more years because, hey… no insurance. So for the next three years, I never saw a doctor and waited for this injury to heal. It did not. And it was at that time I finally decided to go check it out.
By then, it had been constantly hurting, every day, for three years and I was really looking to get some relief. Once I found out about the diagnosis, I tried the usual physical therapy route, exercising, and all that. However that only went so far, and after a while, I decided I should join a pain management clinic in order to get some long-term relief.
The Candy Factory
Ah, the mid-2000s. A better time… a simpler time… a time when every doctor around the United States was helping fuel the soon-to-be-acknowledged opioid epidemic. Handing out Percocet and Oxycodone, and Oxycontin like it was going to rot. Every damn doctor around was just passing piles of this stuff out and nobody told us what it really was. We just thought it helped with the pain, and whenever anyone legitimately needed it, there were few checks & balances and virtually NO EDUCATION about the dangers of opioid abuse. They were too focused on weed to educate anyone about the fact that all these pain pills were essentially just controlled doses of heroin.
As a result, it seemed normal to me as a young adult that people would regularly be taking these pain pills to help them with surgeries, aftercare, pain management, sports injuries, and hey just for fun as well because why not right? Well, I definitely regret not knowing more about them during that time, much like I regret not being educated about depression and suicide back in the day. It was one of those things just brushed aside or looked down upon. However, nobody ever bothered to dig deeper and talk real with kids and young adults. And as a result, opioid abuse silently became a normal activity for many of the people I knew.
There Has to Be a Better Way
I’ve known so many people who got addicted to opioid pain meds. They began taking them for legitimate reasons, then recreationally, then a little bit too much, and soon they needed them. And then, they found out that parachuting them worked really well. Then they found out about cold water extractions to get all the Acetomenophen out so they could “safely” take more than was recommended. Soon they started smoking pure Oxycontin. And later, they found out how cheap heroin was in comparison and began using that. It all happened so fast.
Now, we have the fentanyl epidemic. And sadly, it’s about to take another victim. No joke, as I write this, another one of my friends, just 3 days ago, overdosed on fentanyl. He is currently in the hospital. In a coma. On life support. Nearly braindead. There’s got to be a better way. And there is.
A Time for Change
While I was luckily never addicted to the pills I was prescribed, I saw the negative side effects around me. I saw the mental and physical damage they were doing to family and friends. I saw the potential for abuse. And I felt the hit in my wallet every month having to pay for insurance, doctor visits, copays, and pills… all for something that was losing its effectiveness at the doses I was taking. After all, that’s what happens over time. Tolerance goes up. Well, after a while, I had enough and I wanted to explore other options. However, that was easier said than done.
I began by downgrading from 30mg of Percocet a day to taking 800mg of Ibuprofen twice a day. I knew this was not healthy. Ibuprofen can be very bad for your liver. However, I was on a budget and it was much less expensive and would avoid any possibility of forming a habit. I had no interest in ending up like so many friends and family I now saw homeless, sick, or dead. I’d rather take my chances with the Ibuprofen. But it was not ideal and I knew that from the start. It was about two or three years into that when I began to hear whispers about CBD and one day, I went to one of the recently opened medical cannabis doctor facilities in Reno to see if I could try some out.
To my surprise, they did have it and you didn’t need a prescription, but HOLY CRAP was it EXPENSIVE! My Ibuprophen prescription was $8/month and the CBD was $80/gram at that time. And worst of all, it never worked for me. I tried it 4 or 5 times and nothing. It never did a damn thing. So I gave up and just went back to my Ibuprofphen for another year or two. I flirted with the idea of trying to obtain CBD again after more and more people came out praising its benefits, but it wasn’t until a couple of years later that I was able to finally begin taking it consistently and was able to truly see the benefits it offered.
Shifting Exclusively to CBD Tinctures for Pain Management
I’m not going to lie. The first 3 days were REALLY ROUGH. My body was very used to relying on Ibuprophen for pain relief at that point, and when I begin using CBD exclusively to treat my back pain, my body didn’t know what the hell to do. I know that those first 3 days were basically just me laying around in pain the whole time waiting for my body to get used to the transition from Ibuprophen to CBD. It was harsh. But by the 4th day, the CBD began to show me what it was capable of. From that point on, I was able to completely transition away from using Ibuprofen and began relying on CBD to treat my broken spine.
Fast forward many years later and I happily preach the good word about CBD to my friends, family, and strangers. It was amazing just how well it actually worked. The opiates dulled my brain’s reception of the pain but it really didn’t do that much to STOP the pain. The Ibuprofen was actually more effective at stopping the pain but I knew it was bad for me. Then, I was able to begin using CBD daily and that ended up being the best of all the options I’d ever tried. Healthy, non-habit-forming, and extremely effective.
The Idea to Give My Dog CBD
At that point, I never wanted to go back. I never wanted to take RX pain meds again. I was a CBD evangelist. And I wanted to share my experiences with the world. So is it any wonder I started to give my dog CBD as well?
Like most dog lovers, my pups are my family. I don’t have kids. Maybe someday… possibly sooner than later. But my dogs have been with me through thick and thin. My cat too for that matter. And after 11-13 years of being with them, age begins to catch up with them, just like it does with an aging person. That’s why I do everything I can to be proactive about managing any potential pain associated with aging.
I give my cat and dog CBD on their breakfast each morning because I want them to be as happy and healthy as possible. And I know that with my own personal experiences seeing how much of a life-changer CBD has been for managing my pain, I’m confident that giving it to my pets is a great way to ensure they remain in good physical shape for as long as possible.
How I Decided on the Perfect Amount of CBD for my Dogs and Cat
First Things First
Let’s get this straight. THC is not for your pets! It is considered toxic for them, and at best, you don’t want your pet to get high. There is no telling how one animal will react to such a sensation as there is no context for them to understand their change in perception. With that said, it’s important that you only give your pets a pure CBD tincture that has no THC included. Unless you have done a serious amount of research about specific terpenes or specific ratio doses like a 20:1 tincture and you are sure you can give your dog CBD mixtures of this nature, don’t!
Making the Call
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, of course, I only give my dogs the pure CBD from Experience Premium Cannabis. If they had specific illnesses I was trying to help them with, I might turn my attention and research to another more specific query, but for simple health and proactive muscular-skeletal maintenance, the straight CBD is what they get on their food. But how did I decide how much CBD to give to my dogs and how much to my cat?
For me, there wasn’t much mathematics involved. After all, EPC tinctures come in dropper and I’m able to dose out as much or as little as I like. I personally take 1/2-1 full dropper a day. Sometimes I skip a day if I don’t need it. But I’d say that’s my average. And I’m a big guy with a broken spine. On average, I’d say my current weight rests around 220lbs. At max, I’d take a full dropper. So how much to give my little dogs, my little cat, and our recent addition to the family, a Weimaraner?
I decided that my little dogs would be good with 1 drop in the morning on their food (with no liquid). I wanted to make sure they ate the piece of kibble or veggies with that drop. That it didn’t get lost against the side of the bowl. The same goes for my cat. She’s about the same size as my little dogs and so she got one drop as well. The Weimaraner gets 3 drops, as he is much larger but still only about 1/3 my size. And again, you might be saying that seems to be a bit small for him compared to my weight. But remember, I have a broken spine and he is just getting it to keep him in tip-top shape and not to treat any illness.
The Final Thoughts on Giving a Dog CBD
As I’ve mentioned before, giving my dogs CBD was a choice I made because of how much it had helped me personally. And of course, anecdotal evidence is only so good. However, there are studies that back me up on my decision, and even without studies, as long as it was actually safe to give pets CBD, I would have made the call anyways. That might not be good enough for some people to make that decision though, so researching on your own is always a great way to see if CBD is right for your dogs, cats, or other pets.
A randomized, double-blind study from 2020 found that CBD possesses potent anti-inflammatory properties and significantly improved the mobility of large domestic canines afflicted with osteoarthritis. Finding this out was great to read, especially now that we’ve got a big monstrous pooch in the house. He’s crazy but we love him and we don’t want him to suffer as he ages. Using CBD on his food will hopefully help prevent or reduce any issues with aging that he might have. Furthermore, this study was directly related to another study specifically researching the effect of CBD on large breeds.
For those reasons and more, that’s why I give my dog CBD. I hope that this information has been helpful for you and that you’ll consider giving your pets CBD as well. After all, better to be safe than sorry. I know how much CBD has helped me and I can only hope they experience even more benefits by taking it long before they’ve sustained any injuries. And when they do get to that point, hopefully, my proactive approach to medicating them helps ease their pains. Only time will tell but I’m happy to put in the effort for them since they’ve done so much for me. They’ve kept me going in the darkest of times and I’m here to return the favor – to keep them going as long as they can as well.
About Experience Premium Cannabis
Experience Premium Cannabis (aka EPC) is a homegrown cannabis product producer in Las Vegas, Nevada. We make solventless products that are good for people and good for the planet. Additionally, we embrace niches in the medical and recreational cannabis market that others ignore or reject. Temple ball hash fan? Concentrate connoisseur? Looking for a specific concentration of CBD and/or cannabis ratio tinctures? You got it! We’ve got you covered!
Experience Premium Cannabis products intended for use by and available to adults 21+ and over. Keep our products out of reach of children and pets. Furthermore, be smart about handling, use, and dosage. In other words, be vigilant. Keep yourself in check. Finally, enjoy our products responsibly and keep everyone safe.
