How to Use Essential Oils Safely Around Pets

Essential Oil Solutions with dōTERRA

doTERRA International LLC

Self-improvement, Alternative Health, Education, Health & Fitness

4.4 • 748 Ratings

🗓️ 26 November 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Can you use essential oils safely in a home with pets? In this episode, Dr. Janet Roarke — The Essential Oil Vet — joins us to break down clear, practical guidelines for using oils around dogs, cats, birds, and more.

You'll learn why pets respond differently to aromatics, how to diffuse safely, what "start low and go slow" really means, and which oils you should use cautiously. Dr. Roarke also shares simple ways to observe your animal's behavior, how to introduce oils properly, and why CPTG® purity matters more than ever for our furry (and feathered) family members.

In this episode, you'll learn:

Why dogs and cats have much more sensitive noses than humans
Safe diffusion guidelines for multi-pet homes
How to dilute and apply oils topically to pets
Which oils require extra caution (and why)
Special considerations for birds and small animals
How to read your pet's body language around oils
When to consult a vet trained in essential oils

💬 What questions do you have about using essential oils with pets? Drop them below!

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Love your oils and your pets?
0:02.0	Dr. Janet Rourke and I share the do's and don'ts of safe oil use at home,
0:07.0	so your furry friends stay happy and healthy.
0:10.0	You know, many of our listeners use essential oils in their home,
0:14.0	and then they wonder, oh, is it safe for my pets?
0:17.0	But today I have with me, Dr. Janet Rourke, also known as the essential oil vet.
0:23.6	And it's amazing. We love the information she shares with us. She's here to tell us about some
0:28.9	practical guidelines for use with pets and their oils and if they're safe. As you know, Janet,
0:34.9	we have lots of pets at our home. We have a fish tank. We have a lizard.
0:38.9	We have a snake. We have three dogs, chickens, all sorts of things running around our home. Yeah, we have an
0:44.1	aviary, right? And so when using essential oils in a home that has pets, what's the number one
0:50.5	thing that you really want them to know? I think the one, number one thing
0:54.6	that families need to know when it comes to using essential oils with animals, with pets,
0:59.8	is that you absolutely can use them with animals with pets as long as you follow a few guidelines,
1:08.1	use them correctly, and use some common sense.
1:19.2	Are there some things that are particular about pets physiology versus human physiology that make a little bit of a difference in how we would use them?
1:22.5	Yeah. So if you think about the majority of animals that we see in people's homes are dogs and cats.
1:28.7	Right.
1:29.7	And dogs and cats have a very sensitive olfactory system.
1:36.3	If you think about it, they are, we use dogs for, you know, nose work.
1:42.5	They have jobs that they use their noses to really detect things that we
1:47.5	cannot detect, right? And so when it comes to their olfactory system, dogs and cats have
	...

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