Our Story

I remember the angry text messages. A new puppy buyer would text me from the vet’s office, “The puppy you sold me has a parasite.” Despite all the care and attention I gave the puppies, all the hard work I put into breeding high-quality parents, and the work I spent helping buyers align with the perfect puppy for their family, it didn’t matter. They would question my integrity and my care for my puppies when puppies would test positive for a parasite at the vet’s office.

It’s always frustrating as a breeder. You really care about your puppies and your buyers and so, when the transition doesn’t go over well, you feel bad. I always felt like I was failing my buyers and my pups.

As much as you try to be there and be supportive of your puppy buyers, an incident like a fecal that shows worms at your puppies’ first vet visits never goes over well. It also leaves a bad taste in your buyers’ mouths: maybe you really weren’t a great breeder. 

It’s hard to explain how common parasites are in dogs. 49% of the adult dog population carries coccidia, and could transfer that to puppies, yet will never show any symptoms. The breeder may never even know their adult dogs carry it until they have a puppy who is sick with it. It’s further frustrating because puppies’ immune systems are often dealing with a parasite they’ve been exposed to—like mom carrying coccidia—but their immune system is managing it just fine, with no symptoms until … the puppy goes home and the stress of the move causes a dip in the immune system, and now the puppy has actual symptoms and will need treatment. This is so common. 

In my own experience, I was in my first year of breeding and second round of litters. I actually had three litters on the ground, and all of a sudden my puppies started to get lethargic. They didn’t want to eat. They didn’t want to drink. And, worse, they were starting to have soft stool that turned into diarrhea. Every day or so another one got sick. 

Developing MOOM

That’s when I found out about oregano oil. I got hit with the essential oil bug a few years prior and I was fascinated by what oils could do. I learned about oregano oil and how many people used it anecdotally in their treatment of giardia. Yet, oregano is considered a “hot” oil. I remember once putting it on my cheek to defeat a sinus infection and, while the infection was gone in four hours, my skin was chemically burned and red. The next day it was peeling like a scab. It was WAY too strong to give to a puppy straight. 

I thought if I could just dilute it with something, enough to not burn, but not so much that it wasn’t strong, then it would work. I tried a few oils, and found extra virgin olive oil worked well. In mixing them, MOOM was born. MOOM stands for Magic Oregano Oil Mix. I do feel it is magic. 🪄

In treating a puppy or adult dog with MOOM, you’d start to see the symptoms of giardia subside within 48 hours. Most dogs will make a full recovery with MOOM if you start it early against giardia. I recommend treating seven days beyond symptoms because it appears that there’s a war going on between giardia and MOOM. The MOOM squashes it, getting it to retreat; but then if you stop it as soon as the stool is normal, then the giardia isn’t fully gone and it’ll come back again easily. The extra seven days seems to be the best way to get lasting results. 

The great news is that you really can’t overdose the MOOM. Sure you’ll have diminishing returns if you’re dosing more than 3x a day, but it won’t harm your dog, which is great. 

 I remember my son was nursing and crawling on the floor all the time. He played with the dogs, of course, and loved to stick his fingers in my face and occasionally my mouth. I remember I had to go to the bathroom one night 5x in an hour. I felt this low-grade nausea that wasn’t debilitating, but was definitely affecting my appetite. I noticed my son’s diapers were also full of looser stool. Something was up with us both.  

Going back with the dogs, I had tried an herbal dewormer that was originally branded for goats. I was hoping to manage the stress of weaning with a little herbal dewormer, and I noticed that the dogs that I used this dewormer on didn’t get giardia. It was an interesting find. It turns out that wormwood, one of the main ingredients in this goat dewormer, was helpful against giardia. 

It got me thinking: maybe there was a way to treat all the pups preventatively, without using chemicals? 

I worked with a few different dewormers and ultimately found that they were helpful and mitigated most of the issues, but some had laxatives, making it hard to know if they were working or if the pups were still having issues, while others had some ingredients I didn’t feel comfortable giving the dogs.

Then I had a bout of coccidia. 

I knew the sulfa drug, Albon, worked, but I didn’t have any (it’s prescription where I live). I tried to order some online and I got the last three bottles, followed by an email an hour later that they were out of stock and were refunding my card. I didn’t know what to do. My vet was out, online was out, and my puppies were struggling. 

I tried the dewormer. I mixed it in a water-solution so I could ensure each puppy was getting their own dose, and I gave it to them orally in a syringe. It took about 5 days, dosing twice a day, but all of the puppies recovered. I had no idea that herbal dewormer could be so powerful. 5 weeks later my subscription Albon arrived, three weeks after the puppies went home. 

I knew there was merit here. I got the idea that I could play with the goat formula and make one that worked well for the puppies, one that was stronger against giardia and didn’t have any laxatives. That recipe turned into Perfect Log Herbal Dewormer: an herbal dewormer made specifically for dogs and puppies, designed to help breeders treat these parasites that are so common in our pups. 

My Goals with this Dewormer

Here are three main goals I have and why I created Perfect Log Herbal Dewormer: