Aromatherapy for dogs and cats

There are numerous natural therapies from which our pets can benefit in order to restore their health in a more gentle and respectful way with your body, fortunately, more and more owners are opting for these less aggressive and equally effective methods.

On other occasions we have talked about therapy with medicinal plants, homeopathy or reiki, but the truth is that both dogs and cats can benefit from other equally recommended practices.Do you want to know what they are? In this Animals and Pets Online article we talk about aromatherapy for dogs and cats.

What is aromatherapy?

The term aromatherapy means "therapy with aromas", and although it is a gentle therapy, the truth is that its mechanisms of action are perfectly defined: we can know what effects cause and why they cause them.It is considered a branch of phytotherapy (therapy with medicinal plants) and consists of the application (usually topical) of one or more essential oils.

An essential oil is a vegetable product highly concentrated that is extracted from an aromatic plant, also concentrating the medicinal properties of it, therefore, very little essential oil is required to achieve a good therapeutic effect.

The therapeutic effect of an essential oil can be mental or physical, although an improvement is generally experienced throughout the body as a whole, it happens in both people and animals.

How does aromatherapy work?

Generally it is not recommended that an essential oil be ingested orally , since it has a very narrow therapeutic margin, on the contrary, the most commonly used route of application is the topica.In this way the essential oil can act on the organism of our pets through two mechanisms of action:

• Transdermal route: The essential oil penetrates through the skin and in this way it reaches the bloodstream, from there it is distributed to all the tissues of the organism and acts on those with which it has affinity (for example, chamomile essential oil would act on the digestive tissue causing an antispasmodic effect ).
• Olfactory route: Although the essential oil is applied topically, the strong smell that characterizes it carries its components to the central nervous system, that is when the principles assets can act at the neurological level favoring u n state of mental serenity.

As you can see, thanks to aromatherapy we can act in an integrated way on the organism of our pet, in addition, in a pleasant and simple way that will hardly stress the animal.

How to apply aromatherapy in dogs and cats?

Essential oils always should be diluted for application , as they are so concentrated that they could otherwise be irritating.They are usually diluted in other vegetable oils that act as vehicles (oil Rosehip, sweet almond oil or wheat germ oil, for example).

The most important thing to keep in mind is that the sense of smell of our pets is much more developed than ours, therefore, the same proportions should not be used, but the essential oil should be diluted much more.

What kind of proportion should then be used? This question must be answered according to each animal as well as the symptoms it presents, therefore, before applying aromatherapy it is important that you have the advice of a holistic veterinarian .

This article is purely informative, at Animals and Pets Online we have no power to prescribe veterinary treatments or perform any type of diagnosis.We invite you to take your pet to the veterinarian in case you present any type of condition or discomfort.

If you want to read more articles similar to Aromatherapy for dogs and cats , we recommend you go to our Other health problems section.