Benefits of Turmeric for Dogs with recipe for treats

Everyone loves a good natural remedy, especially if it can improve overall health, vitality, and well-being. Turmeric is being touted for its anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, brain-boosting, heart disease risk-lowering, anti-cancer, and depression-fighting properties in people, but did you know it also has positive medicinal qualities for dogs?

It turns out it’s great for pups for a lot for the same reasons it’s helping humans. It’s perfectly safe for them to consume in correct dosages on their food, applied topically, or baked into homemade treats. Here’s why it might be a good addition to your dog’s daily routine, and how to make sure they’re getting the right amounts.

How Turmeric Helps Pups

Some people use turmeric as a preventative measure, others alongside medications and health regimens to improve overall wellness. The same is true for dogs. In a lot of cases, people and dogs have both seen better symptom relief from turmeric than from their medications!

It is currently being used as:

• An anti-arthritic — It helps reduce the symptoms and mitigate the underlying inflammatory causes of arthritis, improving mobility and removing related pain.
• An antibacterial, antiviral, and antifungal — The active properties in Turmeric help boost pups’ immune systems and functions, helping to improve its ability to fight bacterial infections, viruses, fungal infections, and more.
• An anti-cancer — Turmeric is a natural cancer treatment and pre-cancer reducer because it disrupts “development, growth, and spread,” according to the American Cancer Society. It has also been shown to “reduce tumor size and kill cancer cells.”
• An anti-inflammatory — Acute inflammation protects and heals the body from viruses or infections. Chronic inflammation leads to allergies, arthritis, cancer, dental issues, digestive problems, kidney disease, and more. Turmeric alleviates the latter.
• A gastrointestinal treatment — Studies have shown that turmeric helps relieve inflammation in the gut and also improve permeability, aiding in proper digestion and making for a great natural detox agent.
• A pain reliever — Turmeric has proven to be a great alternative treatment for pain resulting from inflammation, like arthritis or cancer-related discomfort. It relieves the cause of the pain — the inflammation — thereby removing the need for the pain response and helping the body to begin healing itself.

Turmeric has also seen success as an antiseptic and in promoting liver function, reducing liver disease, preventing cataracts, treating epilepsy, shrinking sebaceous cysts, cleaning up and alleviating pain related to wounds, preventing against blood clots, relieving irritable bowel disease, curing urinary tract infections, preventing and treating dementia, and improving cardiovascular and respiratory health, among many other functions.

How to Give Your Dog Turmeric

Turmeric is most commonly administered as a powder sprinkled on food, as a paste rubbed topically on your pup’s skin, or in oil or gravy-type mixtures. If using on the skin, be aware that you will need to cover with a dressing as this product can stain objects it come in contact with - your hands included!

Dosage is important, though, and taking too much can cause nausea, dizziness, iron deficiency, and other side effects. That’s true for people as well as dogs.

It is always consult with your veterinarian before beginning a new treatment or supplementation for your pets.

Common guidelines for giving turmeric in powder form include the following:

• Small dogs: start with ¼ tsp per day
• Medium dogs: start with ½ tsp per day
• Large dogs: start with ¾ tsp per day
• Extra-large dogs: start with 1 tsp, moving up to as much as 1 tbsp per day

It’s important to keep in mind that each dog is different. A best practice is to give yours smaller doses to start and work up to more as your pup adjusts.

Looking for a Great Turmeric Product?

We’re proud to say we know all about our turmeric powder’s source. Biolley Farms, a Costa Rican farm that cultivates its turmeric using organic processes, creates potent, fresh, small-scale boutique crops for select distributors like Healers PetCare. We know where we get our crop and how it’s sourced, and have had it third-party tested to ensure the highest quality. 

Healers Golden Turmeric Paste comes in powder form to be added to food, or pet owners can create a paste by simply adding water or adding it to coconut oil to create a gravy-type mixture. It contains higher-than-average curcumin, the active component in turmeric, making it a great replacement for steroids for allergy and pain relief.

Questions about turmeric? Ask your veterinarian! It might be the perfect supplement to help boost your pup’s livelihood and well-being.

Be sure to try out this yummy & healthy treat recipe: