Dogs eat grass, and so do cats. Every pet owner must have noticed the grass-eating behavior of their pets. Since wild dogs and cats eat grass too, most experts believe it to be an example of evolved traits of dogs and cats to relieve their upset gastro-intestines. Based on the observation, experts go on to suggest pet owners grow in their gardens medicinal herbs, other than botanicals that could be toxic to their pets. The herbal recipes, with doses, introduced in the book are intended for the most prevalent health problems of dogs and cats; the herbs that make up the recipes are: 1) available, as dietary supplements in the U.S., in the market by cGMP-certified manufacturers; and 2) in a dosage form of granules that is easy for pets to ingest. The book therefore not only meets experts’ recommendations but also fulfils veterinarians’ demand of an herbal pharmacopoeia for the widest conditions of their patients. Unlike other similar titles, the book is data-driven, quantitative, collective, comprehensive and practical: Although the herbs in the book have been used in traditional Chinese herbal medicine, owing to the data-driven approach of the book, no prior knowledge of Chinese or western herbal medicines is required to comprehend the book. The second feature of the book is that every indicated health condition of an herb comes with a score. The higher the score, the more frequently herbal clinicians have prescribed the herb (or herb pair) for the diagnosed condition in humans and thus the more likely that the herb (herb pair) is effective in mitigating the condition. The book is therefore quantitative, in contrast to other books which are qualitative. The third feature of the book is that the mapping from herbs and herb pairs to health conditions results from the collective experiences and expertise of the five thousand herbal clinicians in Taiwan, rather than the experience or expertise of a single doctor as in most other books. Without the deep learning/artificial intelligence techniques employed by the author on millions of (human) health insurance data, the aforementioned features are impossible. The final unique feature of the book is that recipes for the 94 most common conditions in dogs and 81 most common conditions in cats are given in later parts of the book, serving as reinforcing examples after going through the first part. The book is therefore both comprehensive and practical for not only holistic but also conventional veterinary professionals.
