Non-Toxic Pets

Exploring the world of essential oils can be a transformative experience not only for us but also for our beloved pets. Understanding how essential oils work with pets is crucial for a multitude of reasons, ensuring their safety, health, and wellbeing.

1. Safety First:  Not all essential oils are created equally, nor are they all safe for use around pets. Their smaller bodies and heightened senses make them more susceptible to substances that humans can handle with ease. By understanding which essential oils are pet-friendly, you can avoid unintentionally causing harm to your furry friends.

That said, there is one essential oil that is detrimental for cats and dogs that should not be used around them or diffused in small spaces without giving the animal a way out of that room:  Tea Tree Oil (Melaleuca alternifolia).  While Tea Tree oil is a powerhouse oil that helps with acne and cleaning among other things, it is detrimental to dogs and cats in large portions.  This is precisely why, when I clean my bathroom, that I close the door, turn on the exhaust fan, add 4 capfulls of Thieves Household Cleaner and 10 drops of Tea Tree Oil to my toilet.  I swish it around with some Baking Soda, and let it sit while I clean everything else with Thieves Household Cleaner.  

How do you know if they absolutely LOVE an oil?   Well, my friend Kim Y. bought her Premium Starter Kit and simply started diffusing Peace and Calming.  Her 2 cats who were mortal enemies and fought like "cats and dogs" drew nearer to the diffuser and laid down within a foot of eachother.  This was unheard of according to Kim!  I'd say that's a good indication!  

Here is the picture Kim sent me within minutes of her turning her diffuser on!  

2. Tailored Benefits:  Just as essential oils can address specific needs and concerns in humans, they can also offer targeted support for pets. From promoting calmness and relaxation to supporting healthy skin and coat, the right essential oils can enhance your pet's quality of life significantly. However, the key is knowing which oils are suitable and how to use them effectively.  The Animal Scents line from Young Living is a good place to start with your pet's needs.  I use the Animal Scents Shampoo on all of our animals, as well as the Animal Scents Ointment, InfectAway Essential Oil Blend, and Paragize Essential Oil Blend.  There are other essential oil blends in the Animal Scents line, but I personally purchase items on an "as needed" basis.  Since I've actually used the above products in the Animal Scents line, I can speak to their effectiveness.  So if you have any questions, please feel free to ask! 

3. Proper Usage and Dilution:   The application methods and dilution rates for pets differ vastly from those for humans. Due to their sensitive nature, essential oils must be diluted appropriately before use on or around pets. Understanding these nuances ensures that the oils provide their intended benefits without causing irritation or discomfort.  The Animals and Essential Oils Desk Reference is an invaluable tool to help with animals of many species.  You can see the link below. 

4. Strengthening Bonds:   Integrating essential oils into your pet care routine can also serve as an opportunity to strengthen the bond between you and your pet. Whether it's through gentle massage or diffusing a calming blend in their environment, these shared moments foster a sense of trust and security.

5. Whole-Home Harmony:   Pets are integral members of the family and their wellbeing contributes to the overall harmony of the home. Employing essential oils safely can support not only their health but also create a more peaceful, balanced living environment for everyone.

In essence, understanding how essential oils work with pets is fundamental to utilizing these powerful tools responsibly and effectively. It allows pet owners to harness the benefits of essential oils, creating a nurturing and supportive atmosphere for their four-legged family members.  If you have any questions or concerns about using essential oils with your pets, contact a wholistic veterinarian knowledgeable in the proper use of essential oils.  Traditional veterinarians are not taught about wholistic practices in veterinarian school.  Much like medical doctors, veterinarians are trained in medications and how to administer those, but are taught all essential oils are dangerous to animals, which simply isn't true.  (Think "BIG Pharma")

For further study,  The Essential Oils Animal Desk Reference is invaluable and filled with information in proper dilution ratios for each domestic animal.  I realize it is very high priced, but if you would like information directly from this book on a specific species, let me know and I'll send you pictures from my book.   

Another great book is Essential Oils: The Young Living Book/Guide for Beginners for Pets by Lela Gibson.

This blog post represents only a small fraction of the information available on the topic of Pets and Essential Oils.  If you would like a full class about this or any other topic, let me know!  I have a FREE group on Facebook with many videos of these classes that I've done in the past.  Let me know you're interested, send me a Facebook friend request, and I'll get you into the group.  If you'd like an in person class, I'd be happy to do that too.  I have the option of a Zoom class for those who are further away as well.  

We're only limited by our imagination!

Have a Wonderful Day!

Love & God Bless,

Craig & Regina Graham

Every year I get the itch to start Spring cleaning around the first of Februay.  I love a clean house, dust being tamed, and puppy dog kisses off the doors and windows. 

This year has been a little different.  Our daughter moved out in mid February, so we decided to overhaul her old room making it light, bright and airy feeling, and dare I say add "sea turtles" to it too, but that will come.  (I love sea turtles).  It's a very light seafoam green now with the shalves and doors to the cupboards below coordinating nicely.  It is very peaceful now!  

So once this was finished, I moved on to the shelves in our living room.  At this point in time I'm still not able to lift or carry anything over a gallon of milk, I needed help.  My oldest son came along to help me and we were able to finsih 2 of the shelves.  The other shelves are higher, but we'll get to those soon.  Every day we work on deep cleaning a different area, so it's all good.  

What do I use to clean with?   

All I ever use anymore is Thieves Household Cleaner.  When I do sinks, tubs, and toilets, I add baking soda and a citrus oil or Purification Essential Oil blend.  When I'm done things smell absolutely divine!   Like Christmas all year long! 

You can find these items here:

*Thieves Household Cleaner--This replaces every single cleaner in my home.  I use one cap full to 20 ounces of water or 2 cap fulls to 30 ounces of water.  I clean windows, counter tops, tables, floors, sinks, tubs, toilets, 

EVERYTHING with this cleaner!  It is $1.29 per bottle when you do the math.  You can get 20 bottles of spray out of one bottle of Thieves Household Cleaner.  It's the toxin free stuff I've used for 4 years and it is safe for people and pets!  Disclaimer!  If you're allergic to cinnamon, let me know and I"ll give you another recipe that you can use with Purification Essential Oil! 

In case you were wondering what you could clean with this natural, nontoxic plant based cleaner, take a look! 

I love this cleaner so much that I can honestly say without a shadow of a doubt that I will never use any other cleaner again, EVER!!!  

In fact, if you'd like to learn more, let me know and I can send you a super informative textable class!  You can listen to this while you're driving to work, waiting in the carpool lane, after the kids are in bed, before the kids get up, while you go for your daily walk, or walking on the treadmill.  If you need pockets of time, that works too!  The important thing is that you're not only learning about this product, but you're learning about all the things that are currently under your roof and how toxic they are!  

Now, what other oils do I clean with and how do I use them?

I'm glad you asked!  

This is one of the many ways I add oils to my Thieves Household Cleaner bottle.  Give it a shake before you use to make sure all the oils are incorporated.  

Why not just use oils in water?

Oils will lay across the top of the water, so you need something in your mixture for the oils to grab ahold of and mix together in to the liquid.  So, with 1 capful of Thieves Household Cleaner as the base cleaner, you can add oils like:

Citrus Fresh: Orange, Grapefruit, Mandarin, Tangerine, Lemon and Spearmint--This is the only blend that contains Mandarin oil as of the writing of this post.  Mandarin OIl is not avalable at this time as a single oil at this time.  If you would like a sample of this oil, let me know and I'll send it to you.  It smells absolutely wonderful!  I love diffusing this oil as well as cleaning with it!  There are so many benefits from this oil, just look up "Benefits of...." any of these oils and do the research!  You'll be blown away!  

Orange:  This is a single oil that is so very uplifting and fresh!  I love diffusing this oil, using it in my hair, or adding it to a roll-on with Lavender to use as my perfume.  Adding this to my Thieves bottle makes a wonderful addition to this cleaner!  I love it!  Once again, google "Benefits of..." and you'll be surprised! 

Lavender:  According to the Young Living website, "Lavender essential oil is the most universal oil and has a tranquil aroma that is soothing to the senses, as well as to the skin when applied topically. Taken internally, it contains antioxidants, may provide immune support, and can be used to add a floral flavor to your evening tea." 

Pine:  Many people liken this scent with a popular cleaner, but that cleaner is filled with cancer causing toxic chemicals.  This essential oil is all there is in this oil...just pine.  Nothing else!  Once again, ya'all just google "Benefits of..." to see for yourself the benefits of these essential oils and make the switch today!  

How do I use this in my cleaning?  I use 10 drops in my Thieves Household Cleaner bottle or with 4 cap fulls of Thieves Household Cleaner in a bucket of mop water.  I have 4 big dogs and a cat, so that means BIG messes.  Four cap fulls in a mop bucket takes care of those big messes really quick and I know without a shadow of a doubt that I"m not introducing cancer causing chemicals in to their bodies through their noses or their paw pads.  (More on this later)

Eucalyptus Globulus (One of 3 that Young Living has to offer):  This oil has a special place in my heart.  This oil began my Young Living journey in 2010.  I was so tired of not being able to breathe.  I wanted relief and this worked so well for me that I bought Lavender, then fell in love with it.  Then when my son needed some help paying attention to his school work, I bought Vetiver.  With every single oil I've purchased or received for FREE, it holds a special place in my heart and mind.  This one helped me with this _____, that one helped me with that _____.  This is such a beautiful journey!   I love that the Lord gave us these wonderful plant oils to use to help our bodies!  My appreciation of Him and His goodness has grown more and more with the use of each "new to my home" oil that comes in the door!  

Read the link above about this gloriously wonderful oil.  You'll see some words like 

Lime:  I found out about how lovely this particular oil was from a friend of mine who suggested 6 drops of it and 2 drops of Peppermint in her diffuser.  OH MY WORD!!!  This combination smells absolutely divine!  Just imagine the riches you'll find when you see the key constituents of this little ditty!  It will bless your socks off!  Yes, putting it in to my Thieves Household Cleaner bottle or my mop water works fantastically with all sorts of pet odors and cleans like crazy!  I love it! 

Peppermint:  This oil was purely left in my Starter Kit when I bought it back in 2015.  I figured, "I don't like Peppermint Ice Cream, tea, or mint jelly, so this will just stay there until I learn more about it."  And that's perfectly ok!  Each of us are on a different journey with these oils.  Like I tell everyone, if I had 7 lifetimes to learn all there is to know about essential oils, that still wouldn't be enough time to know all there is to know!  Take a look at this one!  It's awesome!   It helps with muscle aches, breathing issues, and tummy troubles, so just read sbout it and do the research about this oil like I did!  You'll never regret the time you invest in researching things for your health!  

OH MY Word!!!!  There are so many more that you could use as well!  These are just a few to clean your home! 

 Just a reminder, though, these oils are so much more than just scents.  They are health giving, life supporting, plant juices given to us by God Himself for the "healing of the nations!" (Revelation 22:2b; Ezekiel 47:12)

How do you get your hands on this wonderful cleaner and all the oils above?  Easy!  You can click on any of the links to those products above.  If you want to save 24%, click the "add to subscription" button.  Create your account, add your address as your default, and make sure you go to your "Account Details" and set up your PIN number.  Remember to write down all of your information--email, member number, password, and PIN number--so that you can use it when you need it in the future.  Then check out.  Easy Peasy!  If you need help, I'm available to help you maneuver the process.  

Let me know! 

Love and God Bless,

Regina Graham

These two Golden Retrievers are answers to my selfish, frivolous prayers.  I had prayed for Ginger, even had her name picked out, for 15 years!  I absolutely feel so very blessed by these guys, and so unworthy of such a beautiful gift by God.  Yes, we've had children and I felt even more blessed, but our children are adults now and on their way in each of their own life pursuits, so now is the time the Lord decided to bless us with these two goofballs.

We have 5 furry family members--Pickles the cat is 16, Biscuit is 13, Gus is 6, Ginger is 4, and Sully is 3.  It makes for a very comical, sometimes loud, but very snuggly day--every day. :)

When I knew we would be getting Ginger in 2016, I started researching even more about the breed, care, and training.  Now, we've had dogs all of our lives, so we knew how to train them, but Golden Retrievers are different.  They're super smart, extremely loyal, and hate to be left alone by their humans.  They also, as a breed, have a very high rate of getting cancer at a young age.  

This scared me to the point where I knew I needed to do something about it, but I didn't know the answer at the time.  

Fast Forward 2 months and I started with my first round of bronchial pneumonia due to sitting and recovering from surgery, not moving, not doing a lot, but just what was necessary while my sweet Ginger snuggled me at every moment, even at 8-10 weeks.  

After recovering from that bout of bronchial pneumonia, a few months later, I came down with it again, then a few months later, again.

NOT FUN! 

So we started looking at our environment, cleaned all our duct work, continued using diffusers and the best oils on the planet, but...

What about our cleaners?  

As time went on, I started prayerfully considering the cleaning supplies in our house.  A dear friend of mine suggested looking up every ingredient and googling, "Dangers of __ingredient name__" and boy was THAT eye-opening!  

I started remembering about the cancer risks for my dogs at that point and thought, "If I switch to this cleaner, then the toxic ingredients in those other cleaners will not affect them adversely since they're not walking around on that yuck!" 

Win-Win!!!

So, since that time, I've been changing out their shampoo, the cleaners in our home, their treats, and just being ultra vigilant about what we feed them.  

The shampoo that I use, I can buy one bottle and split it in to 3 bottles, then dilute with water, making it last 3x longer.  It smells fantastic, makes their coat super soft, and there has not been any skin issues using it with any of my dogs.  It contains the following essential oils:

*Lavandin

*Lemon

*Geranium

*Citronella

*Northern Lights Black Spruce

*Vetiver

The cleaner that I use, I've switched completely over to it--replacing my window cleaner, multipurpose cleaner, toilet cleaner, bath-tub cleaner, sink cleaner, counter, degreaser, vehicle, floors, carpeting, upholstery, as well as cleaning their kennels and their bedding.  It's phenomenal!  It smells really good too--like Christmas in a bottle!  It contains the following essential oils:

*Clove

*Lemon

*Cinnamon

*Rosemary

*Eucalyptus Radiata

I am so very passionate about using these products, especially for our family as well as our pets because they are made from the BEST essential oils on the planet, they're hyper-organic (meaning they're farmed without chemicals for 50+ years), and they're made for a purpose--not a profit.  I love the Integrity of this company and I know you will too.

Want to learn more?  

You can join my education group on Facebook--no pressure, ever.  Just come and learn.  

God Bless,

Regina Graham