Our Story

Learn the story of our herbal dewormer

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. 

I had a call from a veterinarian in Alaska where I had just sent a puppy. He told me it had to be Parvo. “It was always Parvovirus with dogs that are imported there.” I was doing the numbers, watching the incubation periods, the symptoms, but while it had similarities with Parvo, the incubation period was all wrong. 

After working with my vet to try and figure it out, we used metronidazole. Metrnidazole is a very powerful drug. It works well against many infections, including giardia—which happened to be what we had. The problem with the metronidazole was that it was too good at what it did; in addition to wiping out all the bad stuff, it wiped out all the good stuff, too! The dogs were blank slates, ready to be infected by the next thing they encountered, which was often giardia … again. 

After watching this cycle, being frustrated by the $300 vet bills every time a puppy got sick, and realizing that subjecting the puppies to losing all their gut flora in an effort to get them normal before going home wasn’t going to work, I decided there had to be a better way. There had to be a natural solution to all this mess. There had to be a way to prevent a dog from needing metronidazole even when they’re exposed—for me, it’s ubiquitous in the Arizona environment, it’s in the soil everywhere. 

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.  

I was talking with my mom and she was like, “Julie, that sounds like giardia.” That’s when the lightbulb 💡 came on. It made sense. I probably had giardia from my son crawling around with the dogs and then putting those gross hands in my mouth. 🤢 

I decided to mix up some MOOM and I gave it to my son and myself. I began feeling better within about 36 hours. I stopped having to urgently go to the bathroom and I wasn’t nauseous anymore. While it’s gross, I’m glad to have experienced it. I now know what it’s like. 

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 hope and belief is that, through using the herbal dewormers, we are helping our dogs and puppies by supporting their gastrointestinal tracts, preventing them from suffering these common issues without harming their gut flora. 

I can now say I’ve been doing it for years and it works. I send my puppies home with it after using it here while rearing, and they’re healthy, the buyers are happy, and the fecals come back clear. No longer do my buyers worry they’ve been taken advantage of, no more vet visits wasted treating loose stool, and best of all, no more puppies suffering unnecessarily from things like giardia, coccidia, and worms. 🪱 

My Goals with this Dewormer

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

Help Breeders with Parasites

Obviously, as a breeder myself, I don’t want like breeders to struggle with parasites. They’re awful and so disheartening. My hope is that breeders can say goodbye to worms and protozoan infections with your puppies for good!

This way breeders can send their puppies home with confidence that the owners won’t have to worry about any subclinical infections that are so common in puppies and become difficult for owners. 

I also want it to be cost effective. If it works and it’s easy, then it’ll be easy for breeders to try and enjoy the benefits themselves, not stressing over whether or not to use it. 

Take the Load Off Veterinarians

The veterinary world is stressed and overworked. There aren’t enough vet schools in America to produce the number of vets that are needed. 

Many of the reasons puppies are going to the vet is because of these parasites that rear their ugly heads with the stress of leaving their littermates and going to a new home. My hope is that we can reduce the load on veterinarians by using this dewormer and providing your buyers with it during transition. 

Not to mention, it spares our puppies from potential exposure to things like parvovirus at vet clinics when their immune system is already on alert. 

Help Owners Naturally Deworm

There are so many things to manage as a dog owner. You have to find a good dog food, make sure your dog has enough exercise, make sure he has his manners … the last thing you want to worry about is deworming your dog and the complications from dewormer. That’s where our Perfect Log Herbal Dewormer comes in!

It’s safe and effective and will work with your dog’s immune system to get rid of a handful of parasites! By request, we’ve created a subscription based on your deworming needs.

Take our simple quiz and find out which frequency of deworming is right for you!