When animals are roaming outdoors, they are exposed to essential oils as they brush against flowers and leaves, dig amidst roots and leaf matter, and chew on plants. For some animals like koalas, their primary food source is aromatic plants (ie. eucalyptus leaves).
Even though most animals would have this exposure in the wild, it’s important to remember that essential oils are highly concentrated, so a good rule of thumb is to always start with small amounts and observe your animal. If they respond well, you can build up the amount used.
Always use the Young Living brand of oils. There have been many reported cases of animals being poisoned from the synthetic constituents in regular brands of essential oil, so don’t take the risk.
Wherever possible, use essential oils initially in a calm and loving environment, to assist your animal to create positive associations with the smell. Help them to associate the smell with good feelings and relaxation. Here are some ideas:
With this introduction, many animals – especially dogs and horses – end up adoring oils, and will even “self select their preferred essential oils” (ie. Use their nose to point to the oils they want). And as with humans, they will have their own individual likes and dislikes for the different smells. Eg. You can have two animals of the same breed, and their attitude and preferences towards different essential oils can be markedly different.
If an oil works in a certain way on a person, it will work in that same way on an animal. This makes it easy to choose the oils to use on your animal. Then look at how many drops you’d use on a human, and adjust the drops according to the body weight of your animal. The one main exception is cats, who are extremely sensitive to essential oils, and need this amount reduced even further.
Birds are exposed to leaves, blossoms and fruit in the wild, so they like both the earthier smelling oils and the more florally and citrus oils.
There are 3 easy ways to use essential oils on your birds:
1. Diffuse oils near your bird. This is a great way for them to get the benefits of essential oil through inhalation. Some great oils to diffuse include:
2. Make up an essential oil spritzer, and mist the essential oil onto your bird, holding the spritzer about 20 to 30cm away from (or above) your bird. Two of my favourite recipes are as follows – make these up in a mist spray bottle:
3. Place a drop of Valor and/or a drop of Frankincense onto your fingertips, and apply to the feet of your bird. Working in a similar vibrational way to the Bach flower “Rescue remedy”, this can be very emotionally grounding after any type of traumatic experience, such as when a bird flies into a window and is temporarily stunned.
A cat’s liver is deficient in a critical enzyme (glucuronyl transferase), which helps them metabolise terpenes and other chemicals. This means that cats take a long time to process and excrete chemicals (and especially phenols) from their body. If they are given too much at once, it can build up to toxic levels in their body, and it can indeed poison them. Because many essential oils have terpenes as one of their constituents, this means that essential oils need to be used very carefully on cats.
Only ever use Young Living brand of oils (because of its purity), and either dilute, or use minimal quantities (eg. 1 drop only), unless under guidance of a Vet.
There are 5 simple and safe ways to use Young Living oils for cats:
Click here for more information on how to safely use essential oils on your cat.
Dogs
Dogs respond especially well to essential oils. Choose the same oils that you would use on a human for any particular situation, but adjust the quantity according to body weight. If they show any signs of discomfort or irritation from the essential oil, liberally apply Young Living’s V6 or other good quality carrier oil over the top.
There are a few preferred areas where you would apply the essential oils:
If you are using a photosensitive oil on a light-coloured dog, applying it to the underside of the body would be preferable, where it won’t be exposed to sunlight or UV light for 24 hours. [link to photosensitive oil section under getting started section]
Introducing your dog to essential oils
Place a drop of Valor, Lavender, Peace and Calming, Cedarwood or Stress-away into your palm, rub your palms together, and offer your palms to your dog to smell. It’s not unusual for a dog to want to lick these oils out of your hands. This is safe to do, providing you are using the Young Living oils.
Perform a Doggy Valor Balance:
This is a wonderful and relaxing treat for any dog (or person) who has been through (or is about to go through) a difficult experience. Valor is our “rescue remedy” of essential oils, and it also has the same frequency as the skeleton, so it creates a beautiful sense of physical and emotional balance.
Apply 2-4 drops of Valor essential oil to your right palm, and rub under your dog’s right back paw. Then apply 2-4 drops of Valor oil to your left palm, and rub under your dog’s left back paw. If your dog will lie down or stand still, hold your right palm under your dog’s right paw, and your left palm under their left paw for 5 to 10 minutes. Many dogs (and people) are asleep by this time!
This technique can be further enhanced with a drop of 3 Wise Men oil blend placed on your dog’s crown. This beautiful oil blend amplifies the connection and bond between you and your dog. You can even add a drop of Joy, Harmony or Inner Child to your dog’s chest area, to create an emotionally uplifting experience.
Thunderstorms and other Scary Events:
Apply a drop of Valor, Stress-away, Peace and Calming, Lavender or Sacred Mountain oil blend to the inside of each ear flap. If additional calming is needed, add the same oil into your diffuser, and/or apply a few drops to the underneath of the paws or dripped up the spine.
Skin Rashes
Skin rashes in dogs are very often the result of what your dog is being fed, or an external allergen like pollen. Fortunately, they can also be very easy to clear up:
Enjoying the Great Outdoors!
Dogs love the great outdoors, but do the great outdoors love dogs? The answer is, “not always”. So make sure you sprinkle a few drops of Purification oil on the nape of the neck and down the spine before your dog heads out to play, and if they bring unwanted visitors with them on their return, give them a cleansing wash with Thieves Household Cleaner before they re-enter the home.
Doggy Raindrop
Raindrop Technique is a wonderful way to balance and pamper your pooch. If you’ve not learned this technique before, you can perform a simplified version called “Doggy Raindrop”. This is so gentle on your dog that it can be performed every 1 to 2 days if desired, or once a week for a general “tune up”.
In a tablespoon of Young Living’s V6 oil, add 2 to 4 drops of each of the Raindrop Technique oils. These are Valor, Oregano, Thyme, Basil, Cypress, Wintergreen, Marjoram, AromaSiez and Peppermint. Put 1 to 2 teaspoons of this mix into your palms, and massage up your dog’s spine.
Learn more about Raindrop Technique.
Horses
As with dogs, horses and other hoofed animals respond especially well to essential oils. Choose the same oils that you would use on a human for any particular situation, and use the same number of drops that you’d use on an adult human. If your horse shows any sign of discomfort or irritation from the essential oil, liberally apply Young Living’s V6 or other good quality carrier oil over the top.
There are a few preferred areas where you would apply the essential oils:
If you are using a photosensitive oil on a light-coloured horse, applying it to the underside of the body would be preferable, where it won’t be exposed to sunlight or UV light for 24 hours.
Introducing your horse to essential oils
A very popular combination with horses is Geranium and Sacred (or regular) Frankincense oil. Place a drop of each into your palm, rub your palms together, and offer your palms to your horse to smell. It’s not unusual for a horse to want to lick these oils out of your hands. This is safe to do, providing you are using the Young Living oils.
Perform a Valor Balance on a horse:
If you ever want to watch a horse bliss out, this is the way to achieve it! This is the perfect trick for relaxing a stressed horse, or as a treat after a heavy workout. Valor is our “rescue remedy” of essential oils, and it also has the same frequency as the skeleton, so it creates a beautiful sense of physical and emotional balance. Your safety is paramount, so here are two alternative ways to perform this technique:
Performing on a calm horse: Apply 3-6 drops of Valor essential oil to your right palm, and rub onto the top of the rear right hoof. Then apply 3-6 drops of Valor oil to your left palm, and rub onto the top of the rear left hoof. Then from a crouched position to the side of the horse (ie. ensuring your safety first), hold your left palm on your horse’s left hoof, and your right palm on their right hoof, for 5 to 10 minutes.
Performing on a stressed horse: Apply 3-6 drops of Valor along the spine. Hold one palm on the horse’s sacrum, and another on their withers, for 5 to 10 minutes if possible. If a second person is present, hold the opened bottle of Valor a few centimetres under the horse’s nose, switching from left to right nostril.
As with dogs, this technique can be further enhanced with a drop of 3 Wise Men oil blend placed on your horse’s crown. This beautiful oil blend amplifies the connection and bond between you. You can even add a drop of Joy, Harmony or Inner Child to your horse’s chest area, to create an emotionally uplifting experience.
Floating, Transport and other Scary Events:
If your horse is a performance horse, drip some Lavender oil into the float or horse transport before your horse boards, but avoid putting essential oils onto your horse within a couple of days of the event, as oils can potentially test positive in a swab test.
For all other situations, apply a drop of Valor, Stress-away, Peace and Calming, Lavender or Sacred Mountain oil blend to the upper lip of your horse, or the inner side of each ear. If additional calming is needed, the same oil can be dripped up the spine.
Traumatic Experiences
Both animals and humans will at times encounter an experience that leaves them upset or temporarily traumatized. In these situations, horses respond particularly well to Geranium oil. Put a few drops in your palm and allow the horse to breathe in deeply, or simply apply a drop or two to their lower lip or heart area.
Skin Rashes
Skin rashes in horses are often the result of environmental triggers.
Keep those hoofs healthy!
Apply 2 to 3 drops of Panaway oil and 2 to 3 drops of Lemongrass oil to the underside of each hoof around the frog area twice a week.
Enjoying the Great Outdoors!
If you are going for a ride and want to enjoy the great outdoors, use your horse like an equine diffuser. Drip 5 to 10 drops of Purification oil over your horse’s back, legs and neck, avoiding areas that will be covered with a saddle or bridle.
Horsey Raindrop
Equine Raindrop Technique is a wonderful way to balance and pamper your horse. If you’ve not learned this technique before, you can perform a simplified version called “Horsey Raindrop”. This is so gentle on your horse that it can be performed every 1 to 2 days if desired, or once a week for a general “tune up”.
In a tablespoon of Young Living’s V6 oil, add 6 to 8 drops of each of the Raindrop Technique oils. These are Valor, Oregano, Thyme, Basil, Cypress, Wintergreen, Marjoram, AromaSiez and Peppermint. Take half of this mix, and massage up your horse’s spine.
Learn more about Raindrop Technique.
Anyone who has owned an animal would know that animals experience emotions in a similar way to humans – they can be playful, fearful, angry/aggressive, resentful, joyful, jealous and/or grief-stricken. And whilst they will often move in and out of different emotions with ease, they will at times get stuck in an unhappy emotional state and need some assistance moving through it.
Essential oils are a wonderful tool for doing this. When we or our animal breathes in an essential oil, it triggers receptors in our nose. These receptors directly stimulate the limbic region of the brain, where memories and emotions are stored, allowing emotions to come to the surface to be resolved and released.
Working on an animal with essential oils is a wonderful validation of the power of oils on emotions. Animals have no agenda or attachment to an outcome – so when you see how effectively essential oils can help to transform the emotions of an animals, you know that this was not mind over matter! Animals simply enjoy or dislike the smells offered to them, and transform very quickly in response to these smells. The oil will go where it needs to go, and work how it needs to work, even if you or your animal are not a fan of its particular aroma.
Young Living has a wide range of essential oil blends specifically designed to support emotions, and in most instances the name of the oil blend tells you what that oil blend does. Click here to learn more about the emotional oil blends and what they do.
Simply choose one of those blends, and either diffuse or apply to your animal. If it’s a photosensitive oil, make sure it goes under the belly of your animal, where it won’t be exposed to extended sunlight or UV light for 24 hours.
For dogs, horses and other hoofed animals, the oils can be dripped directly onto the fur. For birds, make up a spritzer with 20 drops of the essential oil in 60ml of water, or apply one drop of essential oil to its feet. For cats and smaller mammals such as guinea pigs, rats and mice, apply the drop of oil to your hands, rub your hands together so that you absorb most of the oil, then stroke your cat’s fur.
Alternatively, you can perform a full Emotional Clearing Technique on your dog, horse or hoofed animal. This technique takes up to an hour to perform, and uses 14 different essential oil blends from Young Living.
We all want our animals and our children to live a long, healthy life, so it makes good sense to reduce their exposure to toxic chemicals around the home.
According to the EPA, 50% of all illness can be linked back to indoor pollution, as a direct result of the use of household cleaners. These cleaners not only contain a number of proven and suspected cancer-causing chemicals, they also contain “gender-benders”, which are chemicals like phthalates which disrupt hormone balance in both humans and animals.
Cleaning your home with products that contain bleach, ammonia, chlorine, propylene glycol, glycol ethers, phthalates and/or formaldehyde puts yourself, your children and your animals at risk of diseases such as cancer, anemia, liver and kidney damage.
Young Living has some great natural alternatives:
Click here to learn more.
If you want your animal to radiate health and energy, start from the inside out. Here are 3 essential Young Living products to put a spring in their step, and bring a shine to their coat.