Lipomas in Dogs: Herbs to Get Rid of Fatty Tumors

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Lipomas in Dogs: Herbs to Get Rid of Fatty Tumors

Rita Hogan is a Canine Herbalist and healer with over 19 years of experience specializing in Holistic Canine Herbalism.  She’s an educator, speaker, writer, formulator and herbal medicine maker and uses a combination of diet, flower essences, herbs and phytoembryonic therapies.  Rita’s practice is world-wide and located in Olympia, Washington where she lives with her partner, one pug, two bulldogs and a basset hound.

Rita will answer questions like:

How can I shrink my dogs lipoma?

What shrinks fatty tumors in dogs?

Hi there dog lovers! Aren't we lucky to have canine herbalist Rita Hogan here for a second time to chat about the fascinating topic of lipomas in dogs and herbs to get rid of these fatty tumors? Rita, why don't you introduce yourself and tell us why are you so passionate about the use of herbs with dogs?

Hello, everyone. Again, my name is Rita Hogan. I'm a canine herbalist. I've been practicing for close to 20 years. I can't get enough of herbs and dogs. Dogs and plants have an innate relationship that I don't think anyone understands. But it is so strong. And I've seen herbs work wonders with dogs, balancing out their bodies and healing and preventing disease. So can't get enough. And I'm super passionate about it. I want people to understand how to use herbs. I want people to understand that, you know, plants are here for them to balance out their dog's body and possibly help themselves as well.

I totally agree. Well, today we're going to go over lipomas. So Rita, what is a lipoma? And how does it different from other lumps and bumps that we find on our dogs?

WHAT IS A LIPOMA?

Well, a lipoma is a fatty tumor. So it is highly movable. Like when you grab it, it's either on top of the skin or under the skin. But you can kind of grab it with your hand and move it around. And it's gonna be kind of squishy.

So what is it? Is it just fat cells that accumulate?

It's a mixture of fat cells, toxins, hormones that are not being processed by the liver.

Okay. And these are more common in older dogs just like other lumps and bumps or can any can puppies have lipomas?

Any dog can have it. I think that that I think that it you know, saying that it's common in older dogs is a fallacy. I've seen it in all types of dogs, especially now when a dog’s toxic load is getting, you know, our world is not clean. We live in a very highly polluted world. And until we come together as a group and combat that and bring that toxicity down. We're going to, we're going to all be dealing with that. And so one of the places in the body that the body loves to store toxins is in the fat cells. And it loves to store hormones in the fat cells. There's lots of estrogen stored in fat cells. So one of my mentors, he made just an amazing kind of analogy about lipomas. He taught me that lipomas are like little satellite livers in the body, that the liver creates and stores toxins in it, because it just can't keep up. And so a lot of people will say, Oh, well, lipomas are benign, they're not really something to worry about. Actually, I think that's also a fallacy. I think lipomas are definitely a red flag saying, hello, your dog is not processing toxins correctly, or they have too many.

So, if our dog's immune system is compromised, is that more likely to have a dog that you actually find lipomas on?

Um, well, in holistic Western Herbalism which is what I practice, you know, we believe that everything's connected in the body. So when your immune system is taxed, the organs are going to suffer. And when the organs suffer, the liver suffers. And it just dominoes from there. So and then you know, we get dryness or we get dampness or we get heat, or the body starts to cool down tremendously. So it's the reason for them, you know, are plentiful, but immune system definitely can be one of them.

Okay, and if we find one of these squishy bumps on our dogs, do you recommend that we still go to the veterinarian to see if it is benign or malignant? And I know liposarcomas are a malignant form of this fatty tissue tumor, so we really can't diagnose our own dog right?

Most of us can take a look at a lipoma and know it's a lipoma without aspirating it or anything. They just yeah, that's a lipoma. We always want to keep an eye on it. Lipomas tend to grow, and they grow very rounded. It's when you know, tumors or have a more irregular shape, that there definitely is some concern. I'm not a huge fan of aspiration, because it tends to spread things that aren't good, if you're going to have it removed, have it removed. But the issue is if you're dealing with a liver, I believe that lipomas are a liver problem and not something that's showing up on blood work. This is very subclinical, but the liver is not processing toxins, well or the body is storing too many of them. Surgery is going to exacerbate that issue. And so lipomas love to spread, so a lot of times when you remove a lipoma, you're going to get quite a few more, because we haven't dealt with the issue of toxicity. But if you feel that you are just worried about is this cancerous then go have it checked. Absolutely.

Okay. And they're not painful, right? These fatty tumors?

No. hardly any of them are painful. The only ones that do get painful are called intramuscular lipomas. they're in the muscle tissue and those can can definitely be a problem. but they're not the norm of the lipomas.

Okay, that's good to know. So we talked about toxic load, where are these toxic chemicals or toxins coming from? How are the dogs getting these?

Well, the main categories of toxins are one are what I call the unknown. things that you have no clue that they're even there. Number two, diet, huge water. Even if dogs are drinking well, water, you want to filter it. I love filters, like Berkey makes a great filter, even if it's like something like a water pitcher filter is better than nothing. But filtering out chlorine and filtering out fluoride is really important. cleaners around your house grooming supplies, whatever you put on and in your dog is processed by the liver. So you want to check your grooming supplies. And if they have things that you cannot read, and do not understand, do not use them. In my opinion. Your dog does not need to live in a bubble. You know, we don't need to live in a bubble, but we need to make informed decisions. And Veterinary Medicine, heartworm medicine, flea and tick medicines, flea and tick are huge. And another thing is heavy metals. Heavy metals are very, very prominent right now in our environment. So I think collectively that makes up the bulk of toxins. And again, vaccines, right? Yes, yeah, definitely. And that falls into veterinary medicines and also heavy metals. Okay, good to know. Yeah. unnecessary. Vaccines are huge. You know, the only vaccine that's required in in the United States by law is rabies. And a lot of people don't realize that at all.

Well, they listen to their vet who says it's time to revaccinate, and a lot of people still don't know about titers, which Yeah, you have to ask your vet and that is just a blood test that shows that your dog does have the appropriate amount of antibodies in their body already and I know I use titers, even when I board Winston, they will take a titers all day long instead of, you know, a certificate saying that he was vaccinated again.

Yeah, absolutely, we digress. And the more we request titers, the more we you know, request and not use places that require unnecessary vaccines for boarding, the more the boarding world will, will take that on, and there's an awesome remedy for kennel cough called KC defense, which is made by a company called Native Remedies. That's an awesome kennel cough when you are boarding in a larger facility. homeopathic remedy that works wonderful. I've been using it for over 20 years. That's great. That's a nice little tip. Thank you. Lawn chemicals also. Lawn chemicals are huge. Yeah. In lawns and in food. Laundry detergent. we could go on for a really long time. Yeah.

Well, and we're exposing ourselves to all of these toxins as well, that we have to remember which isn't good.

Yeah. No, but lipomas are definitely more of a warning signal.

Yes. And you're going to tell us how to treat these herbaly when we come back. We're just gonna take a quick commercial break.

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MANAGING LIPOMAS HOLISTICALLY

And we are back with canine herbalist Rita Hogan. Rita, we just talked about what lipomas are, what causes them. And now we're going to get into why you're actually here. How can we manage lipomas holistically?

It is an excellent question. One thing we want to do, here's some like easy things. We talked about toxic environments. You want to clean up your dog's toxic environment as much as you can. bring down their toxic load by looking at what you're putting on and putting in your dog. Another thing we want to do is we want to give them exercise. So the average American dog gets 15 minutes of exercise daily. I always say this when I talk, they need more than 15 minutes of exercise. Yes, we want to help detoxify their systems and getting a system called the lymphatics moving, we want to fight stagnation is when things start to slow down in the body. We can do chiropractic, we can do acupuncture, acupressure, massage, exercise, those are all ways to get the lymphatic system moving. And we can also use herbs. So we want to look at your dog as an individual number one. Okay, so the best thing you can do is figure out if your dog is warm, or if it's cool. Warm dogs will have a warm head or paws. They'll seek out cool places. They don't like to be covered up. Sometimes they pant excessively in the summer, they overheat easily. They don't like to exercise very much. They tend to be more anxious or restless. They can have chronic loose stool. In the summer, they may get a hot spot, they're kind of hungry. They might have chronic allergies and food sensitivities. Those are types of things not all those things but if they have a lot of those things, they may tend to be more warm. but definitely seeking out cool places laying in the shade. They don't want blankets on them. They might not even want to lay on a dog bed because it's too warm. That will give you a good hint. Cool dogs can have a cool head and paws they can seek out warm places they love to be snuggled up in blankets they love to be under the covers. They're more slow, they lack vitality. They might have a slower digestion they might have sometimes be a little constipated, only pooping once a day. They might not drink as much as other dogs or they might have yeast overgrowth, and kind of a poor appetite. Those are just some things that can denote but definitely seeking out warm places is likely to be covered up that is tends to be more cool dogs. And the reason why we want to do this is because we want to pick herbs that match your individual dog. Okay, but before I go into herbs that help get rid of lipomas there's a couple of things. So I think it's more important to keep your dog from getting more lipomas than to necessarily shrink them. Yes, we want them to get smaller for sure. But we don't want any more of them. A great way to keep your dog from getting more lipomas is all that I said the exercise the cleaning up their environment, but there's a remedy called turkey tail mushroom. And I get mine from a company called realmushrooms.com or fourleafrover.com or AdoredBeast.com. Those three, make good mushroom products. You want to give turkey tail mushroom to your dog, you can give it to them on their food. I like to do it just before they eat. Some people do it on their food. That's going to help keep your dog from getting more lipomas. I've found that that remedy works. What I would say for both cool and warm dogs. It's quite a neutral product and it really works well. So that's number one. Let’s not get any more of them. Yeah, let's not get any more lipomas. Okay, and it sometimes keeps dogs from their lipomas getting bigger. So it definitely has an affinity towards the liver. AdoredBeast.com makes a wonderful liver tonic. I really like that one. I sell a couple liver tonics in my store CanineHerbalist.com. We want to support the liver whenever we're doing something like this. Let's go through some of the herbs that are good for first dogs that are cool. Okay, number one, calendula, which is going to help get that lymphatic system working. The lymphatic system kind of looks like the nervous system. But it's it transports and it transports nutrition but it also transports toxins throughout the body to get eliminated. We want to make sure that's moving and not slow. So it's also going to assist nutrition which is very important and it has that liver skin connection and we're always looking for the liver skin connection because that's what's happening with lipomas. the liver is pushing those toxins to the skin. Okay. And I'm going to give Krista a lovely dosage handout so that you guys know how much to give your dog so I won't go over dosages right now. Because of time. Another remedy and this is for cool and warm dogs is burdock root. burdock root is slightly warming, it helps digest fats and oils. So it's going to help the liver it's going to help the gallbladder going to help the digestive system. It's bitter. It's like I said between warming and cooling so you can give it to both dogs. I like to give it a lot to cool dogs. It detoxifies the liver. Wonderful, wonderful remedy. You can give it in the food as the root, or you can give it as a glycerite extract or a tincture. There's another remedy called Self Heal, which is Prunella Vulgaris and self heal is warming. So it's for a cool dog. It's a drawing, it helps draw the toxins out of that fatty lipoma. We want to do all we want to always do any of this slowly. Okay, lipomas will shrink over a period of many, many months. And that's what we want, because all those toxins got to go somewhere. Okay, so the liver has to reprocess those toxins. So we want to do all this slowly. So don't expect things to just happen overnight. It's going to happen, like between four to six months to a year. We want to slowly draw things out and Self Heal will help do that. Self Heal helps with elimination. So it's going to help that liver and it helps shrink tumors in general. then we have Echinacea. Echinacea is very good. It's warming we're gonna give it in very small amounts. It helps the lymphatic system, it's nourishing to the body. And it also helps clear tumors. And last but not least, for cool dogs we have Ashwagandha. Ashwagandha is an adaptogen. So it helps the body deal with stress. And stress can be a big reason while why dogs get lipomas because it taxes all of the organs. Ashwagandha is anti inflammatory, it slows tumors. It deals with stress. And that's going to be a powder and we're going to give it in the food and I'm going to have that dosage there for you on the handout.

Okay, so now what do we do with dogs that are warm, they're hot. They're panting. we want to clear those lymphatics and so we're going to use a remedy called Cleavers and Cleavers. It works with elimination. It nourishes the body and it has that liver skin connection. Then we're going to give Chickweed. now Chickweed helps dissolve fat in the body, it helps break up fat. You can give chickweed externally you can put it on the lipoma and you can also give it internally and it's going to help with the kidneys, it's going to clear heat and it's got that liver skin connection. Then we're going to use Violet. Violet, viola odorata is its Latin name. There's lots of violets out there, so you'll know which one to use. That's going to help dissolve tumors. It helps clear heat from a body which we want to do when dogs are too warm. We want to stimulate the elimination and we want to nourish the body. You can use a glycerite tincture for that a glycerite extract. You can use an alcoholic tincture and you can also use dried violet and make a tea and give it to your dog over their food. That's called an infusion. And I have the directions to do so in the handout. Dandelion is wonderful for warm dog.s It's cooling. It has a an effect on the liver and the kidneys. You're going to use a tincture. It breaks up fat. It has that liver skin connection and it clears heat. And then last but not least Chamomile, which there's two forms of Chamomile and you want to use the Matriarca recutita version of Chamomile. it's cooling, it's bitter, and you're going to make a tea out of it and put it over your dog's food and you can use that every day. And you can use it long term and it also helps calm a warm dog down because usually their energy's a little bit much. And then on the handout, I have some recipes for using it on the outside. So we have like what I call reducers. It's really important for lipomas that you treat it from the inside and the outside. On my website CanineHerbalist.com, you can find a lot of those tinctures. But I also sell an oil called Lipomal oil that you put on the outside. It can be used for warm and cool dogs. But you want to definitely do the outside and the inside so I'm giving Krista some recipes that she's going to share with you to help manage these lipomas and you want to have the right expectations. Again, this is going to be a slow process. You don't want it to be a fast process. You want to go slow. Again, you want to see some shrinkage over a period of a couple months. And if you don't see any type of shrinkage, you want to adjust your dosages or find different herbal mixtures that might help if that herb isn't working. One company that I recommend is a company called PawHealer.com. They make some lipoma they have four formulas for lipomas. They tell you exactly what that formula is for, like what is the difference in the lipomas like for instance, the intermuscular lipoma and the regular lipoma. So if some of these herbs that I'm recommending don't work, I would definitely try lipoma formulas from Paw Healer and then there's also a product called Stasis Breaker that you have to get from a traditional Chinese medicine vet. But that also I've had some good luck with that one as well. And you can also use any type of homeopathic formula. There's a wonderful homeopathic that his name is Todd Cooney. And there's another great vet called Dee Blanco. those two vets. and then in in Europe, there's Sue Armstrong, Dr. Sue Armstrong, those are three homeopathic vets that, that I've had good luck with helping shrink these lipomas. So there's different types and not everything is going to work for every dog. But helping the liver supporting the liver supporting the kidneys, the gastrointestinal tract, which all of these herbs do is the best way to keep them from growing to get them to shrink and have a healthier dog.

Right. And that just gives us more reason to you know, pet your dog and feel around their body for these lumps and bumps so that you know that they exist and you detect them early and obviously we can treat them naturally which is so exciting. This was a lot of information Rita and people might be just overwhelmed.

OFFER FROM RITA HOGAN: So the good news is that Rita is offering a 15% discount and that is off of anything on her online store or if you want to have Rita do a consult with you 15% off of that, and then she has a new energetics course that you can use the code WAGOUTLOUD for 15% off. So all you have to do is go to her website CanineHerbalist.com and use the code WOL to get your 15% off of products and working with Rita, which is amazing. Rita, where can everybody find more information about you and your practice?

on CanineHerbalist.com You can find all that you need to know about my practice. I also have a newsletter that is fabulous that you can sign up on my website. And I have a private Facebook group that you can find me at which is just search canine herbalist. And you'll see a little dog on a log. And that is me.

Wonderful. And again, as Rita mentioned, we're going to include a link to while her original article in Dogs Naturally Magazine, but she's added information to what's there. So we will give you all of the links to the companies that she mentioned. And of course that PDF with the dosages and the recipes for the salve, so much great information. Rita, we are out of time but want to thank you so much for sharing with us today that there is hope and we will definitely have you on again because you are a wealth of information.

Thank you so much. I'm happy to be here.

Thanks again to our friends at Adored Beast for sponsoring this episode. Remember, they offer a 100% no risk money back guarantee on all of their high quality products. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by supporting the needs of your adored beast by going to AdoredBeast.com and use the code WOL15 for 15% off.

Thanks for listening. You'll find some helpful links in the show notes and if you enjoy the show, please be sure to follow and listen for free on your favorite podcast app. And please, please share your feedback. Visit WagOutLoud.com for great product recommendations with discounts, amazing online events and fantastic resources. That's also where to visit our Bark About It page where you can suggest topics, guests or products. Be advised that this show offers health and nutritional information and is designed for educational purposes only. You're encouraged to do your own research and should not rely on this information as a substitute for nor does it replace professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. If you have any concerns or questions about your dog's health, you should always consult a veterinarian or a nutrition expert. Have a tail wagging day and we'll catch you next time.

Hey Winston was that another tail wagging episode?