March is Pet Anxiety Month so to start this off did you know that every emotion your pet experiences can be linked to a physical response in their body?
š¤Æ Mind-blowing, I know.
The reasoning is found in the limbic system within the brain. š§
The limbic system is the part of the brain that involves their behaviors and emotions that they need for survival, like feeding, sex, caring for their young, and of course fight or flight responses.
š When they feel an emotion-based from fear, happiness, sadness, anger, love, peace/ calm, and stress, the limbic systems sends hormones through the body and there is a physical response.
This month we will be exploring this further and how we can use essential oils to assist in helping our pets feel less anxious
Every pet will respond differently to different emotionsā¦but there are underlying themes that each type of emotion exhibits. In order to get to the heart of the matter and understand what underlying emotion is happening when a dog growls through being scared for example, we want to tune in and recognise what their body is doing and in response to what.
We can do this for each emotion they experience as emotions manifest into physical indicators.
Think about your pets body language or behaviour when certain things occur - such as walks, food, thunderstorms, the TV on, a knock at the door, treat time what happens - what do they look like, what do they do?
They all have the same base or root emotions:
š¤ Anger
š± Fear
š Stress
š¤ Happiness
š„ Sadness
š Love
š Peace
Each of these root emotions shares associated emotions and donāt forget when they feel unwell they can display different emotions, any change in behaviour should be checked out by your vet as our pets canāt tell us how they feel, so our job is to understand them from the visual and verbal cues they give us. Pain is often a cause for different behaviour and too often not recognised as being the reason.
Just as with us associated emotions and root emotions can all drive physical indicators. We can not only emotionally feel sad, for example, but we can physically feel it too and our pets are the same too. That is how strong the mind-body connection can be.
Using oils to help with these emotions that we donāt want them to feel is a great way to get on the path to changing those negative patterns and move from one state to another.
One of the easiest ways to lift their mood is simply to inhale an essential oil - always offer with the lid on and stay away from oils that are not safe with your pet - not sure which ones they are? Check out my YouTube video with more info.
Let your nose be your quide. Have you experienced smelling a rose, or zesting a lemon? Those little aromatic notes are the essential oils playing with your olfactory system. Your olfactory receptors have a direct link to your limbic system, which is the part of your brain that stores emotions and memories. Think how these make you feel and animals olfactory system is so much greater than ours - hence keeping the lid on so as not to overwhelm.
There are quite a few ways you can experience oils aromatically. Personally, I love having a diffuser in my home, just fill it with water and 3-6 drops of essential oils that I know my dogs enjoy you can visibly see the mood is changed, and the overall vibe is set. Or you can pop a diluted drop in your palm and gently apply along their spine.
This is the most gentle way to start to use essential oils for your pets and help them with their emotions.
Drop me a comment and let me know what you need help with and it doesn't need to be limited to dogs! Need help with your horse, bunny or cat? Let me know and I will do some specific blogs.