Courses

Practical Herbalism- Common Canine Conditions
by Cat Lane
61 Lessonsin Herbalism
- Practical Herbalism Part One - Common Canine Conditions - Modules 1 - 8 - CAD $425.00
- BCN Full + CDF Full + Practical Herbalism Part One - CAD $950.00
Have you ever felt confused trying to figure out which is the best herbal remedy for your dog, or how much to give?

Disappointed when something you tried didn’t seem to help?

Frustrated when the herbs you added just turned your dog off the food ? Uncertain about which “herbal expert” you find online an really be trusted with your precious dog’s health?

I completely understand how frustrating that can be, and how challenging it is to sort through the incredible amount of herbal information online, and find a resource you can trust. With over thirty years experience, training and practical clinical work under my belt , I’ve seen a need lately for dog lovers to advance their knowledge with a very hands-on, practical program of learning, and so this course was born. You will find an absolute wealth of information here, including recipes, practical exercises you can do long after the course is finished, as well as detailed information about addressing common ailments at home with commercial or better yet, your own home made tinctures, electuaries, poultices and salves. I’ve structured this course to cover everything a home herbalist working with dogs will need on an everyday basis, but presented it system-by system, so those who wish to use this course as a foundation for deeper study will have a very solid grounding in not only herbal preparation and selection but the canine body systems and multiple common health issues and conditions.

Here are some of the things you’ll be able to do after this course.

1) Build a home apothecary geared to the unique needs of your own dogs, filled with herbs you use most frequently, herbs that grow close by or that you grow yourself, and preparations you have made on your own
2) Select, prepare and dose herbs to address a wide range of canine health concerns, from hot spots and split pads to colitis, urinary tract infections and anxiety
3) Select and use herbs on a daily basis for their tonic benefits, health-supportive properties – and best suited to your individual dog’s unique needs and constitution
4) Make your own tinctures, glycerites, salves, infusions, decoctions, electuaries and “goo balls”, herbal honeys and vinegars, for use with your dogs (and yes, you can have some too)
5) Identify and harvest a number of wild plants that are safe and effective herbal helpers for use both internally and externally
6) Understand the basic “filing system” of herbalism – “chunk it down”, so to speak. Understand that herbalism moves beyond using a specific herb for a condition, like a replacement for a drug, but is grounded in really knowing the plants (actions, energetics, constituents, methods of preparation, safety) and the anatomy and physiology of the species you are working with. We will touch on the more academic aspects here, to make sure you are “thinking like a herbalist” and you will feel much less overwhelmed by the vastness of this area of study. In other words, this course will make future leaning much easier for you.
7) Develop your own Materia Medica of useful plants, based on everything listed above (#6)
8) Move forward towards deeper knowledge and study, as this course can form a solid foundation in herbal studies

The course is done entirely online.
Canine Diet Formulation- Audit
by Cat Lane
34 Lessonsin Canine Nutrition
- Canine Diet Formulation - course B - CAD $100.00
Canine Diet Formulation course – Mentored
This is a course intended for people who want to learn how to formulate a balanced canine diet, whether raw, cooked or a mixture, based on sound, scientific principles of canine nutrition.
It includes a solid foundation in digestion, as well as review of all required nutrients and components of the canine diet. It encourages critical thinking, so you can evaluate various diets and methods of feeding, and choose what works best, to suit an individual dog. You will learn to formulate balanced diets, containing all the essential macronutrients and micronutrients (vitamins and minerals). My emphasis here, as always, is a foundation of scientific knowledge, combined with skillful use of foods and ingredients, so that the end product is a series of recipes that support your dog’s health in every level.
The course is done entirely online, and is available as mentored (with assignments) or non-mentored – tuition fees vary.
For this mentored version I provide all course materials, plus marking of assignments with comments and feedback, and course grades. Discussion and support is also provided via our private Facebook group and as needed.
There are 12 units. The course includes reading, study and research, plus written assignments for the mentored version. You can complete the course in your own time, and at your own pace, but I highly recommend sticking to a regular schedule of study.
Canine Dietary Formulation – Course Overview
Unit One: Introduction to dietary formulation – principles, tools and reliable resources, plus an overview of current, popular dietary approaches, and where they may go awry
Unit Two: Energy and Macronutrients – How much food your dog really need? What should a diet consist of, in terms of carbs, fat and protein? Are all carbs really so bad? Formulation starts with macronutrients and energy, and food sources of all.
Unit Three: Protein and Amino Acids – how much does a dog really need? Food Sources, requirement ranges and how to calculate, nitrogen balance, signs of deficiency and excess
Unit Four: Fats and fatty acids – much confusion on this one floating around! here we will get the skinny on fats and why we need to understand fatty acids, not just the total amount a dog takes in from all sources.
Unit Five: Micronutrients; an overview, and requirements – vitamins and minerals are required in much more precise amounts than fat, carb and fiber. This is where many home made diets fall down – and yours never will again.
Unit Six: Vitamins – what do they do in the body? We’ll look at food sources, requirements, interactions, how to supply in the diet and supplement as needed. Unit Seven: Minerals- what do they do in the body? As with vitamins, we’ll examine food sources, requirements, interactions, how to supply in the diet and supplement as needed
Unit Eight: Interactions and Anti Nutrients – all foods contain more than essential nutrients, and we need to understand some of these to get started. You may have heard of phytates and oxalates – there are others! In addition, nutrients can affect the absorption of one another if fed in excess, so here is here we learn about balance and ratios ,and why they’re important.
Unit Nine: Supplementation and food storage/preparation
Unit Ten: Putting it all together; forming the recipes. We’ll use nutritiondata, your own dog(s) as examples, and start figuring out how to actually put a completely balanced recipe together. We’ll look at raw and cooked diets, and get the foundation set up.
Units Eleven and Twelve: Practicuum in recipe development – vitamins and minerals, calculating fatty acid content, what to do if it doesn’t seem to work, substitutions. This course may be taken as a monthly class, or you can take your own time, send me questions as required and complete in a more leisurely fashion (A ceiling of 8 months is recommended, so you keep some momentum). The cost of the course is $400.00. For more information, or to enroll, contact me at catlane@thepossiblecanine.com
We will use all classnotes and Internet resources, so no additional texts are required. I will provide a Recommended Reading list, but you don’t need to purchase anything extra to get started.
Canine Diet Formulation- Full Certificate Course
by Cat Lane
34 Lessonsin Canine Nutrition
- Canine Diet Formulation - Full Course - CAD $400.00
- BCN Full + CDF Full + Practical Herbalism Part One - CAD $950.00
- Canine Diet Formulation Full + Basics of Canine Nutrition Audit Bundle - CAD $425.00
- Full Certification Bundle - CAD $700.00
Canine Diet Formulation course – Mentored
This is a course intended for people who want to learn how to formulate a balanced canine diet, whether raw, cooked or a mixture, based on sound, scientific principles of canine nutrition.
It includes a solid foundation in digestion, as well as review of all required nutrients and components of the canine diet. It encourages critical thinking, so you can evaluate various diets and methods of feeding, and choose what works best, to suit an individual dog. You will learn to formulate balanced diets, containing all the essential macronutrients and micronutrients (vitamins and minerals). My emphasis here, as always, is a foundation of scientific knowledge, combined with skillful use of foods and ingredients, so that the end product is a series of recipes that support your dog’s health in every level.
The course is done entirely online, and is available as mentored (with assignments) or non-mentored – tuition fees vary.
For this mentored version I provide all course materials, plus marking of assignments with comments and feedback, and course grades. Discussion and support is also provided via our private Facebook group and as needed.
There are 12 units. The course includes reading, study and research, plus written assignments for the mentored version. You can complete the course in your own time, and at your own pace, but I highly recommend sticking to a regular schedule of study.
Upon completion, you receive a Certificate of Completion. I look forward to hearing from you! Canine Dietary Formulation – Course Overview
Unit One: Introduction to dietary formulation – principles, tools and reliable resources, plus an overview of current, popular dietary approaches, and where they may go awry
Unit Two: Energy and Macronutrients – How much food your dog really need? What should a diet consist of, in terms of carbs, fat and protein? Are all carbs really so bad? Formulation starts with macronutrients and energy, and food sources of all.
Unit Three: Protein and Amino Acids – how much does a dog really need? Food Sources, requirement ranges and how to calculate, nitrogen balance, signs of deficiency and excess
Unit Four: Fats and fatty acids – much confusion on this one floating around! here we will get the skinny on fats and why we need to understand fatty acids, not just the total amount a dog takes in from all sources.
Unit Five: Micronutrients; an overview, and requirements – vitamins and minerals are required in much more precise amounts than fat, carb and fiber. This is where many home made diets fall down – and yours never will again.
Unit Six: Vitamins – what do they do in the body? We’ll look at food sources, requirements, interactions, how to supply in the diet and supplement as needed. Unit Seven: Minerals- what do they do in the body? As with vitamins, we’ll examine food sources, requirements, interactions, how to supply in the diet and supplement as needed
Unit Eight: Interactions and Anti Nutrients – all foods contain more than essential nutrients, and we need to understand some of these to get started. You may have heard of phytates and oxalates – there are others! In addition, nutrients can affect the absorption of one another if fed in excess, so here is here we learn about balance and ratios ,and why they’re important.
Unit Nine: Supplementation and food storage/preparation
Unit Ten: Putting it all together; forming the recipes. We’ll use nutritiondata, your own dog(s) as examples, and start figuring out how to actually put a completely balanced recipe together. We’ll look at raw and cooked diets, and get the foundation set up.
Units Eleven and Twelve: Practicuum in recipe development – vitamins and minerals, calculating fatty acid content, what to do if it doesn’t seem to work, substitutions. This course may be taken as a monthly class, or you can take your own time, send me questions as required and complete in a more leisurely fashion (A ceiling of 8 months is recommended, so you keep some momentum). The cost of the course is $400.00. For more information, or to enroll, contact me at catlane@thepossiblecanine.com
We will use all classnotes and Internet resources, so no additional texts are required. I will provide a Recommended Reading list, but you don’t need to purchase anything extra to get started.
Basics of Canine Nutrition- Audit
by Cat Lane
45 Lessonsin Canine Nutrition
- Basics of Canine Nutrition - Audit - CAD $75.00
- Canine Diet Formulation Full + Basics of Canine Nutrition Audit Bundle - CAD $425.00
This course is the foundation for all the others. Here we learn about canine nutrition from the ground up, starting with digestion, nutrients and food sources, basic nutrient requirements of dogs, as well as an evaluation of feeding types (commercial diet, raw diets and home cooked recipes).

Part One is an examination of the essential nutritional needs of the domestic dog. We take a close look at canine digestion, and then go straight into nutrients – what they are, which foods provide them, how much of each an individual dog requires (using the National Research Council’s Nutrient Requirements of Dogs, 2006) and how nutrients interact, affect the bioavailabity of other nutrients. This information forms the very “basics of canine nutrition” and any study of the topic needs to start here. It is tremendously empowering to know what an individual animal will need dietarily and how to provide it. If you don’t study the nutrients, you can’t go forward in nutrition. ?

Part Two builds on the knowledge you gained in Part One; here we evaluate various methods of providing nutrients with an eye to what might work best for an individual dog. Commercial diet, home made cooked diets, and various forms of raw feeding are evaluated without bias, but a clear presentation of both pro and con of each. We also look at feeding for life stages, and basics of supplementation, although individual needs and supplements for health issues are explored more fully in other courses.

This course provides a solid foundation for the subject, and teaches critical thinking, so graduates can dispassionately evaluate various methods of feeding, and decide on which will suit an individual dog. It does not promote the superiority of any one type of diet over others, but is based on the premise that dogs require nutrients from appropriate food sources, and there are many good methods of delivering them. Coverage is given to each group of nutrients and the foods that provide them, so graduates emerge with a broad and sophisticated understanding of the topic.

The Basics of Canine Nutrition Course is suited to those who have an interest in knowing more about canine nutrient requirements and digestion, reading dogfood labels, identifying food sources of various nutrients, deciding between raw, cooked or commercial diets,and generally making sound nutritional choices for their dogs . It will be of great value to those in the retail field, to veterinary assistants, breeders, behaviourists and trainers, TellingtonTouch practitioners, those involved in various sports and competitive work, and of course, anyone who simply loves and lives with dogs. It lays the groundwork for the Advanced Nutrition/ Dietary Formulation programme and is an extremely important companion course to the Applied Herbalism course.

When & Where
This is the non-mentored version (for the mentored version, go here). There are sixteen modules, consisting of reading, research and assignments, but in the unmentored version, there is no submission of assignments, no marking and no individual feedback, though you have full participation in our FaceBook private group. The course is done entirely online.

Materials
Course materials are provided; two text books are also required. These are Dog Food Logic by Linda Case, and Canine and Feline Nutrition: A Resource for Companion Animal Professionals, 3rd Edition.

There are sixteen modules, consisting of reading, research and written assignments. For this mentored version, I mark the assignments, and am available for commentary, classroom discussion and support as needed in in our FaceBook private group.

The course is open-ended, meaning you can take as long as you need to complete it. I highly recommend sticking to a regular schedule of study if possible!

A full Course Overview is available by request.
Basics of Canine Nutrition- Full Certificate Course
by Cat Lane
45 Lessonsin Canine Nutrition
- Basics of Canine Nutrition- Full Certificate Course - CAD $300.00
- BCN Full + CDF Full + Practical Herbalism Part One - CAD $950.00
- Full Certification Bundle - CAD $700.00
This course is the foundation for all the others. Here we learn about canine nutrition from the ground up, starting with digestion, nutrients and food sources, basic nutrient requirements of dogs, as well as an evaluation of feeding types (commercial diet, raw diets and home cooked recipes).

Part One is an examination of the essential nutritional needs of the domestic dog. We take a close look at canine digestion, and then go straight into nutrients – what they are, which foods provide them, how much of each an individual dog requires (using the National Research Council’s Nutrient Requirements of Dogs, 2006) and how nutrients interact, affect the bioavailabity of other nutrients. This information forms the very “basics of canine nutrition” and any study of the topic needs to start here. It is tremendously empowering to know what an individual animal will need dietarily and how to provide it. If you don’t study the nutrients, you can’t go forward in nutrition. ?

Part Two builds on the knowledge you gained in Part One; here we evaluate various methods of providing nutrients with an eye to what might work best for an individual dog. Commercial diet, home made cooked diets, and various forms of raw feeding are evaluated without bias, but a clear presentation of both pro and con of each. We also look at feeding for life stages, and basics of supplementation, although individual needs and supplements for health issues are explored more fully in other courses.

This course provides a solid foundation for the subject, and teaches critical thinking, so graduates can dispassionately evaluate various methods of feeding, and decide on which will suit an individual dog. It does not promote the superiority of any one type of diet over others, but is based on the premise that dogs require nutrients from appropriate food sources, and there are many good methods of delivering them. Coverage is given to each group of nutrients and the foods that provide them, so graduates emerge with a broad and sophisticated understanding of the topic.

The Basics of Canine Nutrition Course is suited to those who have an interest in knowing more about canine nutrient requirements and digestion, reading dogfood labels, identifying food sources of various nutrients, deciding between raw, cooked or commercial diets,and generally making sound nutritional choices for their dogs . It will be of great value to those in the retail field, to veterinary assistants, breeders, behaviourists and trainers, TellingtonTouch practitioners, those involved in various sports and competitive work, and of course, anyone who simply loves and lives with dogs. It lays the groundwork for the Advanced Nutrition/ Dietary Formulation programme and is an extremely important companion course to the Applied Herbalism course.

When & Where
This is the mentored version (for the unmentored version, see Audit Option). The course is done entirely online and is open ended. For this version your assignments are automatically marked, and am personally available for commentary, classroom discussion and support as needed in in our FaceBook private group. You can also always email me with questions about the material.

Materials
Course materials are provided; two text books are also required. These are Dog Food Logic by Linda Case, and Canine and Feline Nutrition: A Resource for Companion Animal Professionals, 3rd Edition.

There are sixteen modules, which cover a wide range of foundational topics: for more detail, check here: https://thepossiblecanine.com/canine-nutrition-courses-updated-information

Upon completion, you receive a Certificate of Completion. The course is open-ended, meaning you can start anytime, and take as long as you need to complete it. I highly recommend sticking to a regular schedule of study if possible

A full Course Overview is available by request.