The other night my dog, a 7-year old, crazy, puppy-like labrador retreiver named Bret, came into the house after spending most of the day in her kennel. For the first hour, she continuously licked her legs and often tried to cough up...something. My mother, Bret's handler (she's a drug dog for Customs), concluded that while out in her kennel, Bret had been eating the straw put in there to serve as additional insulation. It was obvious that the straw wasn't agreeing with her.
At the same time that the dog was feeling icky, I had prepared myself a pot full of lemongrass, peppermint and ginger for a lovely after dinner and before bed cup of tea. I knew that both peppermint and ginger are good for soothing the stomach, and that lemongrass is a wonderful refresher, so I thought that maybe I'd try giving some to the dog to see if it would help out with her grumpy tummy. It also didn't hurt that the tea was made of all-natural products and that none of them are toxic to dogs.
I poured about 3/4 cup of tea into a little bowl and placed it down on the floor for the dog. Bret took one lick, and then looked up at me. Now normally this dog will eat anything in a flash, but apparently ginger, peppermint and lemongrass just didn't do it for her. So that's when I dropped a plain cracker into the tea.
Bret's eagerness for the cracker conquered her distaste for the tea and she licked the bowl clean. Within 15 minutes the dog had given up the licking and the drooling and the general miserable-ness. It seemed as though my herbal concoction had helped my dog's stomach troubles, and helped both my mom and I watch our movie without getting drooled on by a mopey dog.
I fixed a dog with tea.
I've noted a number of threads that talk about natural tea remedies for people, but has anyone ever tried tea on their pets? Do you have any stories of your own? How about suggestions for different types of remedies that might work for your pets?
You probably could give it to other criters.
