How CBD Can Help Your Best Friend
Giving aging dogs their daily medicine to help them manage their pain can be a major, um, pain. (Even if you wrap it in turkey or stick it in peanut butter.) But what if that remedy came in a great-tasting treat? A treat that not only eases pain but also has no side effects, helps calm anxiety, and helps nourish their brain? Enter: Miraflora’s organic CBD Dog Chews.
Though the FDA has not yet approved CBD for people or pets, anecdotal evidence overwhelmingly supports that the cannabinoid helps pets feel better. Brent Facchinello, chief operations officer and cofounder of Miraflora Naturals, started giving his 15-year-old dog CBD to help her sleep. “She was dealing with sleepless nights due to dementia, and the vet gave her some pretty intense prescriptions,” he said. “I gave her CBD instead, and not only did it help her sleep, but it also increased her mobility and she seemed like a puppy again.” Then, this past November, she became partially paralyzed and lost movement in her back legs. “With daily CBD, she’s now walking—albeit a little like a drunken sailor sometimes,” he said, laughing.
Another believer, Ryan Bass in Boulder, Colo., gives her 9-year-old Maltese poodle CBD chews to help alleviate his anxiety at night. His advanced age and the addition of a new puppy in the house caused him to scratch at the doors and pace from room to room, his toenails clicking on the hardwoods. “I started giving him CBD every day, and a week or so later I noticed it really working. It totally mellows him out,” she said.
Research is still scarce, but one study in 2018 done by Cornell University tested the pharmacokinetics, safety, and clinical efficacy of cannabidiol in osteoarthritic dogs. The results were overwhelmingly positive, showing zero observable side effects and a significant decrease in pain and increase in activity. Another study done in 2019 showed that CBD can be a meaningful treatment for dogs who suffer from seizures.
And unlike traditional pain pills or sedatives, which can wreak havoc on the liver and kidneys over time, CBD seems to be good for your organs, helping bring the whole body back into balance. CBD has also been shown to increase blood flow in human brains in key regions for memory processing, suggesting the compound could protect against or possibly treat dementia.
CBD is a compound found in the cannabis plant that contains less than .03 of THC, the psychoactive compound in marijuana responsible for the “high.” (In other words, dog owners can feel safe that their furry friends won’t get stoned.) In humans, CBD has been shown to nourish the endocannabinoid system (ECS), which is responsible for regulating body processes like inflammation, mood, immune response, and sleep. Dogs not only have an ECS, but they actually have far more cannabinoid receptors in their brains than humans. So it stands to reason they may actually receive greater benefits from CBD.
If you’re trying CBD for the first time on your pet, it’s important to try a small dose first and see how Fido responds. Also, be sure to use a pet-specific product like Miraflora’s EvenPets Dog Chews, which have the proper concentration for your dog’s body weight (see guidelines here) and none of the potentially toxic ingredients (like xylitol) sometimes found in human CBD products like gummies and flavored tinctures.
Miraflora’s pet products are 100 percent organic, made from organic full-spectrum hemp-flower oil from their USDA-certified organic farm in Boulder County, Colo. It’s the same high-quality stuff they use in their people products, and it’s all lab-tested and dose-guaranteed. Miraflora makes a CBD tincture for dogs, too.
