A number of different people have been singing the praises of CBD oil for their dogs lately, so Mom decided that we should try it out on Cricket. Cricket is eleven and a half years old and has struggled with a reactive nervous system her whole life, and a tendency to back injuries over the past few years. The hope was that the CBD oil could help ease her pain and calm her down, maybe even make her less reactive to loud (or almost imperceptible) noises, and less likely to bark at random neighbors trying to enter or leave their apartments. We’ve tried Prozac and Neurontin and doggy Xanax in the past, without great results, so, I agreed that it was worth a shot. And they sell CBD oil at the local pet store, in bottles and baked into doggy cookies. I assumed that CBD oil, being made of hemp, would be the equivalent of marijuana, and require a prescription, but I did some research online and, supposedly, CBD oil has no THC, which is what gives Marijuana its psychoactive properties. That means you can even buy CBD oil on Amazon!
“I’m not grumpy!”
We bought a packet of CBD cookies at the pet store, because Mom got a recommendation for a specific brand from a friend. I was a little nervous about giving Cricket her first dose, because I’d been hearing stories about humans vomiting prolifically after a single unregulated dose of CBD oil, so I broke the cookie in half, and Ellie volunteered to eat the second half. I watched both dogs for the next few hours, more for signs of distress than expecting any great miracles right away, but there was no vomiting, and no seizures, and Cricket even smiled at me, though it’s really dry in the apartment with the heat up, and it’s possible that her lip just got stuck on her teeth. I refilled her water bowl, just in case. Both girls ate a lot of chicken after their CBD snacks, but it’s chicken, and they don’t need to have the munchies to make them overeat chicken. Ellie did go ahead and eat through the parchment paper the chicken had been baked on, but that’s also something she’s prone to do, without the excuse of drugs making her do it.
“Mmm. Chicken.”
The second day’s dose went similarly, without event, nothing negative and nothing specifically positive either. So for day three we decided to give Cricket half a dose in the morning and half in the afternoon (slathered with plenty of peanut butter, because once her sister was not sharing the treat anymore all of Cricket’s motivation to eat it disappeared). We finally gave her a whole treat on the fourth day, but the only noticeable result was a tiny bit more napping, which is hard to prove, since Cricket naps quite a lot as it is. We wondered if maybe the treats were the wrong form for her and we should try the oil tincture instead, but we put off a second trip to the pet food store, because, laziness.
The thing is, when I went to a new Rheumatologist this past fall, to see if there was some good alternative to the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) I’ve been taking for ten years, which have been known to cause kidney damage, the doctor suggested CBD oil. At the time I said a polite no, because I assumed she meant medical marijuana, and that I’d need a prescription, and then I’d have to find one of the few dispensaries on Long Island, and then I’d end up hallucinating, and then eating the whole contents of the pantry in one sitting.
But a couple of days after Cricket’s CBD experiment, my own pain ratcheted up, and I saw the little bag of CBD dog treats sitting on top of the bookcase, abandoned, and decided to give it a try. I don’t generally feel tempted to eat dog food, and the first taste reminded me why: it did not taste good. Supposedly it was pumpkin flavored, but it didn’t taste like much of anything, except bitterness. I couldn’t force myself to finish it, so I shared the last few bites with the dogs, who looked up at me like, see what we have to put up with?
“We suffer so much.”
I took a nap soon after, and woke up feeling better; I was even able to get some exercise done. I didn’t want to make a habit of eating dog treats, but when the pain kicked in again the next day I shared the last treat with the girls, took another nap, and woke up feeling like the world might not be ending, at least not right away. Mom, because she’s a reasonable and responsible adult, said that I should call and make an appointment with the Rheumatologist to get a prescription for CBD oil or the equivalent. But I hate going to doctors, and I have no patience, so I went on Amazon and ordered the nonprescription form of CBD oil for humans. I studiously avoided the edibles (gummy bears! brownies!). I have a hard enough time eating a single cookie as it is, if you hand me a bag of gummy bears and tell me to eat only one you’re basically sending me to the hospital. I also ordered a separate bottle of CBD oil for dogs, in case there’s a difference.
“We like Gummy Bears.”
We’ll see how it goes!
If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my Amazon page and consider ordering the Kindle or Paperback version (or both!) of Yeshiva Girl.
Yeshiva Girl is about a Jewish girl on Long Island named Izzy (short for Isabel). Her father has been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with one of his students, which he denies, but Izzy implicitly believes that it’s true. Izzy’s father decides to send her to an Orthodox yeshiva for tenth grade, out of the blue, as if she’s the one who needs to be fixed. Izzy, in pain, smart, funny, and looking for people she can trust, finds that religious people are much more complicated than she had expected. Some, like her father, may use religion as a place to hide, but others search for and find comfort, and community, and even enlightenment.
rachelmankowitz 