CBD For Pets: The Inside Scoop

From dosage recommendations to suggestions for managing certain ailments, we field a ton of questions about CBD in relation to pets. In order to provide you and your pet with the best CBD products available we believe it’s important to discuss what makes Farmhouse Pet Drops different and how they should be utilized. 

The Endocannabinoid System

Before we hop into our pet drops, we wanted to discuss why CBD could be beneficial for any animal.

All animals have something called an endocannabinoid system (Silver, 2019). This includes all humans and it surely includes household pets. The endocannabinoid system has been described as, “One of the most important physiologic systems involved in establishing and maintaining human health...by understanding this system, we begin to see a mechanism that could connect brain activity and states of physical health and disease.” (Alger, 2013)

This may come as a surprise that such an important system in the body exists and yet is seldom discussed. So, what does the endocannabinoid system do? We’ll let the experts explain that. This excerpt from a 2006 study, “The Endocannabinoid System as an Emerging Target of Pharmacotherapy,” explains: 

“In the past decade, the endocannabinoid system has been implicated in a growing number of physiological functions, both in the central and peripheral nervous systems and in peripheral organs. More importantly, modulating the activity of the endocannabinoid system turned out to hold therapeutic promise in a wide range of disparate diseases and pathological conditions, ranging from mood and anxiety disorders, movement disorders such as Parkinson’s and Huntington’s disease, neuropathic pain, multiple sclerosis and spinal cord injury, to cancer, atherosclerosis, myocardial infarction, stroke, hypertension, glaucoma, obesity/metabolic syndrome, and osteoporosis, to name just a few.”

CBD is known to activate the endocannabinoid system. Your body naturally knows what to do with CBD once it is introduced. The same is true with all animals. This is why folks have reported success in regards to their pets taking CBD to help with some of the conditions above. 

How are Farmhouse Pet Drops different? It always comes back to simple, honest, and pure.

Our extraction process for pet drops is a little different than our typical rosin extraction method. (If you are not familiar with our rosin extraction method, check out this blog post about it). We actually created our own method for our pet drops known as pressure distilled CBD. Basically, we blend our hemp into a fine, shake-like material. Then we mix it with organic MCT oil and pour this mixture into a container where it is heated and pressurized. The CBD in the hemp ends up binding to the fat in the organic MCT oil. From here, we filter out the organic matter. We’re left with a completely chemical-free full spectrum CBD solution. 

This process is entirely solventless which means our byproduct is sustainable; ground hemp and organic MCT oil are compostable. Keeping chemicals out of our products ensures they are safe, simple, and pure. Once we have this organic MCT oil and solventless CBD mixture tested; there’s one step left, adding natural flavors. That’s it - our pet drops consist of organic MCT oil, pressure distilled CBD, and natural flavoring.

For years, we exclusively made beef-flavored pet drops because pet owners loved them and we heard nothing but success stories. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? There was one piece of feedback we were receiving: certain pets, specifically cats, weren’t taking to the beef flavor. Being that a core belief of our organization is to provide everyone with simple, honest, and pure CBD products, we felt it was necessary to include a secondary flavor option for pets. This is why we started producing a new chicken-flavored pet drop.

How do I administer pet drops and which size is right for your pet?

If your pet is under 25 pounds, we recommend our 300 mg, 1oz bottle. If your pet is over 25 pounds, we recommend our 600mg, 2oz bottle. When administering pet drops, especially if your pet is new to taking CBD, we always recommend starting with small doses and building from there. We also recommend splitting your pet’s dose twice a day; one dose in the morning with breakfast and one at night with dinner. Usually, the easiest way to administer pet drops is simply to apply the drops directly onto their food. If you are comfortable administering pet drops orally, make sure the dropper does not come in contact with your pet's mouth. This is to avoid bacteria building up on the dropper. If the dropper does come in contact with your pet’s mouth, make sure to clean it before placing it back in the bottle.

If you’ve been curious about trying pet drops for your pet, this is a fantastic time! Click the link below and see for yourself why so many folks trust our pet drops.

Sources

Silver, Robert J. “The Endocannabinoid System of Animals.” Animals : an Open Access Journal from MDPI, MDPI, 16 Sept. 2019, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6770351/#:~:text=All%20animals%2C%20including%20vertebrates%20(mammals,found%20to%20have%20endocannabinoid%20systems. 

Alger, Bradley E. “Getting High on the Endocannabinoid System.” Cerebrum : the Dana Forum on Brain Science, The Dana Foundation, 1 Nov. 2013, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3997295/. 

Bátkai, Sándor, and George Kunos. “The Endocannabinoid System as an Emerging Target of Pharmacotherapy.” Pharmacological Reviews, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Sept. 2006, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2241751/.