Worming Dogs with Wormwood
Answered by: Kerry Hackett
Question from: Tamara Seiko
Posted on: August 01, 2007

I have a very healthy stand of a fine cut wormwood and would like to use it to worm my 3 dogs and 2 cats but am afraid to because I don’t know the appropriate dosage. My dogs weigh about 80 pounds.

My wormwood is about 8 inches at maturity and its thriving in zone 2, so can I assume that I have Artemisia absinthium and is it suitable for my purposes?

Artemesia absinthium (Wormwood) has indeed been used by humans in the past for worming purposes, it’s very strong volatile oil component makes it very unpleasant for internal use and can be toxic in large or ongoing doses. It is also REALLY bitter, so it is unlikely that you will be able to get either of your dogs to ingest it. There are lots of other great remedies for worming, depending on the type of worm infestation: please see the postings on this website (www.richters.com) entitled, "Cats and Tapeworm", "Cats and Worms" and "Heartworm and Tapeworm Prevention". Although these postings are directed towards cats, the information would apply to dogs as well.

Several things are most important here: first, figure out the type of worms you are dealing with, two, look for other treatment methods that involve much less toxic materials and three, if you decide to use any plant internally or externally, positively identify it employing a botanical key found in most good plant identification books. Many plants look the same but work much differently so it is always best to do a positive identification first, but as I mentioned, please look for other herbs or remedies if possible.

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