I asked the dog doctor if it would be okay to make Petunia some hawthorn medicine and give it to her myself, and he said “Yes, dogs can take all those herbal medicines people can take.” Hawthorn, Crataegus spp., is a traditional heart medicine for people. The spring twigs and autumn berries can be made into an alcohol or glycerin tincture that, if taken regularly over time, will strengthen the heart, steady the heartbeat and lower blood pressure.

To get further information on adjusting dosages for animals, I ordered the book Herbs for Pets by Gregory Tilford and Mary Wulff-Tilford, which multiple people had recommended to me on Facebook. The Tilfords say that you don’t have to make an extract — you can just feed the berries to your dog straight.

Coincidentally, there happens to be a nice big hawthorn tree at Petunia’s favorite dog park, where we go almost every day. Even better, this tree still has plenty of berries on it, which it seems to shed slowly all the time. At first, Petunia ignored the berries covering the ground, as do most of the dogs. She was initially wary when I picked them and fed them to her, but now she gobbles hawthorn berries like a vacuum cleaner.

It has been a little over a month now that she’s become a berry-eater, and already her heartbeat is steadier. The spasm is much more subtle; nearly undetectable. It worked that fast. Hawthorn is healing Petunia’s heart safely, naturally, and entirely for free.

It does have one side effect: dog gas. Actually, audible dog gas. Which in people would be gross, but in a dog is pretty hilarious. I laughed and laughed the day Petunia turned around to look at her butt in shock! (It’s not all that common — mostly happens when Petunia eats a ton of berries at once. She thinks these are the best treats in the world).

For info on how to identify hawthorn, and a tincture recipe, click here.

Please be careful where you harvest hawthorn. Only choose full-grown trees or shrubs in places you are familiar with, because Portland Metro and Portland Parks and Recreation actually spray chemical herbicides on small hawthorn bushes in our parks to try and kill them. They consider hawthorn a harmful invasive species in need of eradication — but I would beg to differ!

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Rose

Here are seven plants at the top of my list:

Rose – Apply the petals as a bandage to inhibit bacterial growth on cuts.

Yarrow & critter (Photographer unknown)

Plantain (Plantago major or minor) – Chop up the leaf and add spit or water to make a paste, then apply it topically to draw out splinters or soothe stings from insects or jellyfish (I do know someone who used it this way!).

Chickweed

Usnea lichen – Antimicrobial properties mean it works as gauze for a wound. You can also dry it and then brew a tea of it to tackle pneumonia or a similar respiratory infection.

Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) – Eat the leaves or dry and brew as a tea to kill parasites hitching a ride as intestinal worms. This plant could cause an miscarriage, so don’t take it if you’re pregnant and want to stay that way.

Blackberry (Rubus discolor) – Dig up the root or pick and dry the leaf from this thorny vine and then drink as a tea to cure diarrhea. Might sound like a minor issue, but if left untreated, it could cause fatal dehydration.

Blackberry/ Image by Oregon State University

It is in your interest to achieve mastery at identifying these plants ahead of time. You really wouldn’t want to be trying to match sketches in a field guide to plants you aren’t familiar with in a high-stress situation.

The links to the plants listed above will take you to my posts on identification and further use info.

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Kinnickinnick is a diuretic and urinary antiseptic, which makes it an effective cure for acute urinary tract infections. To make the medicine, just strip the leaves off the stem, put ‘em in a jar and douse in extremely strong alcohol with a little water mixed in. As per the late herbalist Michael R.S. Moore, the recipe is one part herb to five parts liquid, and the liquid should be 50% alcohol. To achieve this you could take 195 proof Everclear and dilute it with water.

Sten Porse/Wikipedia

Kinnickinnick contains tannins, so it has an astringent action that can also be useful as a tea to treat diarrhea. However, you would need to dry the leaves first and apply some hard alcohol to them to make the medicinal compounds extractable in hot water, according to herb author Gregory Tilford.

Some people smoke the leaves. I have tried this and did not like the flavor.

The red berries of kinnickinnick are edible, though not particularly worthwhile. They are very mealy.

Another use is for kinnickinnick is to soak in a bath of the leaves for, um, shrinking hemorrhoids. I hope you don’t need to, but if you do, maybe this will come in handy.

To identify this plant, look for smooth, spoon-shaped leaves that are darker in color on the top than on the bottom, and that are attached to the twigs in an alternate pattern. This means pairs of leaves alternate rather than appear directly across from each other.

There is a closely related upright version of this plant, a pretty shrub/tree with distinctive red bark, Arctostaphylos manzanita, known as Manzanita, which can be used similarly for medicinal purposes. It is common in California. Photo here.

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