Review: How to Reduce Anxiety in Your Dog with The Anxious Pet™ Full-Spectrum CBD Products

Anxiety is such a difficult thing to deal with in our own lives, but what about our pets? They struggle with anxiety too, but in different ways - lip licking, 'whale eyes', cowering in fear, accidents in the house, going through the garbage, and much much more. There are lots of different anxiety relief supplements out there and many people swear by CBD products. CBD is great for many different ailments, but not all of them are created equal. Introducing The Anxious Pet™, a company with veterinarian-formulated and laboratory-tested full-spectrum CBD products for pets made right here in the USA.

The Anxious Pet™ was founded by Brock Weatherup and his dog Boulder. Despite being a dog with a great personality, Boulder has a lot of anxiety that was getting in the way of enjoying certain things in his life. Some of his anxiety-fueled quirks include being fearful of water (all of it, from rivers to the water bowl), car rides were not fun, and having trouble getting to sleep. So Brock founded The Anxious Pet to help reduce those anxious moments and bring Boulder more relaxation and happiness in his life.

The Anxious Pet provides Organic Hemp Oil, Calming Soft Chews, Supplement Bars, and Wellness Kits which includes the hemp oil and chews. I was given the Wellness Kit to try out with my girls for a month as a kind of daily anxiety preventative. Let's take a look at each product...

The Anxious Pet Soft Chews with CBD

The jar of Calming Chews I received was 40 chews of 200mg CBD, this specific formulation isn't available anymore, but it is comparable to the 450 mg 90 count that is available. Let's look closer at the ingredients...

Acetyl L-Carnitine is the supplement form of L-Carnitine which is an amino acid that is involved with many different processes in the body such as producing energy, muscle movement, and heart and brain functions. Supplementation with ALC has been shown to reduce depression and anxiety in humans.

Magnolia is commonly used in traditional Chinese medicine and uses the extract from the bark and sometimes flower buds or leaves of Magnolia officinalis and has been used to help with anxiety, weight loss, inflammation, and even dental plaque in humans. The chemical compounds found in the bark have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties that help protect nerve cells from injury. So this is great for healing and protecting the brain when it comes to neurological conditions such as anxiety, stress, and depression.

St. John's Wart, also called Goatweed, is a common herbal supplement that is used for a variety of reasons including menopause, healing up wounds, insomnia, and depression in people. Chemicals in the plant work on the nervous system which improves mood and reduces tiredness while relieving pain. This herb interacts with a lot of prescription drugs, so ask your vet first especially if your pet takes any kind of daily medicine or is planning to go into surgery.

Barberry is a herbal supplement made from Berberis vulgaris that also has anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. It is commonly used to help with gastrointestinal upset, diabetes, and many other conditions.

Cannabidiol is what we know as CBD and is found in cannabis plants. CBD has become increasingly popular to help with seizures, pain, anxiety, and many other conditions in both humans and animals. In a nutshell, it intercepts those pain signals to the brain and provides relief to the consumer.

There are two main strains of cannabis: Cannabis sativa and Cannabis indica. Both of these include CBD and THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol. THC gives that "high" feeling and is stereotypically what you think of when you picture drug use of marijuana. The difference is that indica, the strain used commonly for drug production, is higher in THC while sativa, the strain commonly used for hemp fiber and medicine, is higher in CBD. Hemp is a variety of sativa with little to no THC that is grown specifically for industrial use such as clothing, food, paper, and supplements.

So looking at all the ingredients, there is a great combination of natural products to provide anxiety and pain relief. Lots of pain relief, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant properties in this to provide a sense of comfort for our companion animals.

I will go into more about how the chews and oils worked for my dogs, but since we are getting all technical, let's go ahead and look at the Hemp Oil.

The Anxious Pet Organic Hemp Oil

Our first ingredient is Full Spectrum Hemp Oil. We see this a lot in CBD products, but what does it mean exactly? Full-spectrum means that ALL of the compounds extracted from the hemp including CBD, the small amount of THC, flavonoids, and terpenes are included in the oil. Flavonoids and terpenes are actually naturally found in plants besides cannabis. Flavonoids are natural antioxidants and terpenes are fragrant substances that provide a wide variety of health benefits such as being anti-inflammatory.

Having this combination provides "the entourage effect" which means that these compounds prove to be more potent when combined compared to being on their own. Broad Spectrum Hemp Oil would be an oil that has many of these compounds removed, does not include THC, and would not provide that synergistic entourage effect.

Organic Fractionated Coconut Oil is coconut oil that has been processed to have a longer shelf life and is commonly used as a carrier oil to help with better absorption. 

What makes The Anxious Pet different from other brands?

The Anxious Pet's products are all veterinarian formulated and tested by third parties. You can find the most recent batch results on the product pages so you can feel confident about what you are giving your pet. (Here are the results from the Organic Hemp Oil above) Also, this brand only uses full-spectrum hemp oil so that you get the best results.

So how did your dogs do on The Anxious Pet Products?

I decided to let Jada try out the chews since Bailey is very picky and I thought she would do a lot better with the oil. So since Jada is 15 pounds, I started to give her one chew with her breakfast for a couple of days and then upped it to 2 chews, one with breakfast and one with dinner. The peanut butter flavor was a big hit with Jada. She always looked forward to it when I was putting together her breakfast.

What I like about the soft chews is that each one contains 5mg of CBD which is a great amount to give before anxious events or outings. I like to give calming treats at least 30 minutes to kick in and then reassess if I need to give more. What's great about CBD products is that you can increase slowly until you get the desired effect without any issues. So if you see that a certain amount of CBD isn't working, it is totally safe to increase it a bit. I also like to note that calming treats or oils work really well in combination with other stress-relieving methods such as compression jackets and regular training. 

We haven't been going out much because of the pandemic, so the girls get more anxious than usual when they go out. Every couple of weeks we go to our local pet store to give them baths so this was a great anxiety-inducing event to test the soft chews out. Jada usually whines constantly on the car ride and I saw a decrease in that as well as less barking when we got to our destination. 

For Bailey the picky eater, I tried her on the hemp oil since I can easily add it to her food without fuss. For the first three days, I gave her 2 drops with her breakfast and then upped it up to 2 drops in the morning and evening. At the moment, I have gone up to 4 drops in the morning and 4 drops at night. Once Jada depleted the soft chews I put her on the hemp oil as well. 

I think using hemp oil daily is a great long term anxiety preventative. Sometimes you never know when a high anxiety event is going to happen. I was actually quite surprised the other day when we had someone come over to fix the fence in our backyard. I didn't know they were coming over and didn't have time to prepare the dogs. Jada did bark, but it took a lot longer than usual for her to get into a more anxious state, and even then she was barking just to bark at the guy - not threatening like how she would typically act. And then there was Bailey. She flat out didn't care! I was so happy that she wasn't freaked out and I was quite surprised!

The Anxious Pet told me that a drop of the oil is 0.125 ml, so doing the math, a drop of the 800mg Hemp Oil contains a little over 3mg of CBD. What is great about the oil is that it is super easy to adjust as every dog is different. Seeing how both Jada and Bailey react to CBD leads me to believe that Bailey is more sensitive and doesn't need much while Jada could deal with more if needed.

In a Nutshell,

• The Anxious Pet™ is a U.S.-based company that provides veterinarian-formulated and laboratory-tested full-spectrum CBD products for pets.
• The Calming Soft Chews with CBD contains ingredients that work together to provide a calming effect for your pet
• The 800mg Organic Hemp Oil uses full-spectrum hemp oil which contains many compounds that work together to form the entourage effect making it more potent than broad-spectrum oil.

I was able to get decent results using The Anxious Pet products with my own dogs, but every dog is different and may require more or less CBD. Breaking down the ingredients and seeing why each of them was included is something I really enjoy. I can respect a company that includes an ingredient with a purpose and not just because. If you are curious about using a CBD supplement for your dog or cat The Anxious Pet is a great company to look into.

Learn more about The Anxious Pet

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