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 Okay, I’m not a veterinarian. Nor do I play one on TV. I’m just a very concerned dog foster mother who has a few hundred dogs passing through my house every year. Many of them are sick. Most with very light illnesses that could turn heavy. And my job as foster parent is to make sure the light illnesses stay light and go away. I use and recommend grapefruit-seed extract as a helper and preventer of heavy illness.
Best part—it’s easy and not expensive!
It seems silly—why would the extract from a bulbous citrus fruit help a mammal? Would dogs in the wild be eating the seeds of grapefruits—stingy and unhappy-tasting as they are?
Who knows?
Today’s wild dogs are so dietetically removed from their feral ancestors and domesticated contemporaries that it’s hard to know what a modern scavenger dog would eat. My guess… anything.
My ultra-years-infused, experimentally untested guess: anything they need instinctively.
I’ve seen, as you likely have, sick dogs go for chlorophyll—in tallish, thickish green grass—vitamins they need to combat illness. (Also fiber to clear out their aching tummies—Please never punish a dog for vomiting—they feel nauseated and need to ‘get it out’ just like you. They have no toilet to evacuate into. They are simply trying to rid themselves of poison… If they are vomiting it is not to dirty your house! They are probably terrified of your reaction. Imagine you were sick with the flu and punished for vomiting or worse…)
What dogs needs instinctively if they are sick is nursing care. Plenty of warm, but not hot fluids—taken forcefully if necessary with an eyedropper down the throat—every hour. Also, wild unfiltered honey (or a high-calorie, prepared vitamin-mix paste—ask your vet) combined with warm water every hour or two—again in an eyedropper if they aren’t cooperative. I sometimes add a soupçon of unfiltered molasses. And always garlic (more on garlic in my next post).
I always mix a few drops of grapefruit-seed extract into the dropper, as well. I believe it helps. I believe it helps a lot. But that’s just me. I’m not a veterinarian, not shilling or selling (or being financially aided) by any company. Just a bit o’ advice from one dog lover to another…
Updated 2/12/11; originally posted 10/30/09.
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Joy Nicholson lives in New Mexico with her husband where they have a special-needs dog rescue. She has published two novels, The Tribes of Palos Verdes: A Novel and The Road to Esmeralda: A Novel, but is mainly interested in non-fiction animal-welfare issues now.
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