Question: "During a recent podcast with Dr Rob, he mentioned the administration chart for pets and Real Mushrooms. Would you kindly share it with me?” - Joy B

Answer: I am asked, commonly and frequently:

“How much of a (given) mushroom should I give my pet?” 

These questions typically come on our monthly Q&A Live Events. For that reason, I’ve developed this “Administration Guidelines” chart to spare our customers the math and make their use of our potent mushroom extracts more likely to work for their four-legged family members.

It's important to note that mushrooms can have an immediate effect due to some of their components, like their terpenes and nucleosides, and like cordycepin in cordyceps. However, they also have a stronger, more prolonged effect after they have been used consistently for weeks or months at a time. The longer they are used, the more effective they are. 

Mushrooms are considered functional foods or “super” foods because they both nutritionally support your animal friend, as well as “functionally” support systems like the immune system, nervous system, metabolic system, and endocrine systems, as well as specific organs. 

Mushrooms can be liver, kidney, lung, and adrenal protective and supportive, all at the same time. This is not a “drug-like” effect that works on so many systems all at once.

It's not a drug-like effect, because mushrooms are not drugs. This is why we don’t use the word “dosing” with mushrooms. Dosing implies a specific amount of the mushroom that would be given for a specific weight to achieve a specific result. 

Mushrooms are considered “Biological Response Modifiers” (BRM) which means that they have a wide range of effects that are not directly caused by the amount you give but by the longer-term interaction of the mushroom with the bodily systems and organs referred to above.

This is why there is a range of weights for a given amount of mushroom on this chart, which will help you administer any of our three formats of pet products, the soft chews, the capsules, and the powder-filled pouches.

Pet Product Administration Chart

The amounts recommended on this chart are for wellness purposes and minor issues that could benefit from the long-term use of mushroom extracts. It has been found that for conditions that are more complex, larger amounts of mushroom extracts administered can be more supportive of a healthy response. 

You can double the amounts recommended in chart if you are giving mushroom extract powder to your pets for the following reasons:

• Immune modulation benefits for most health conditions
• Mast cell membrane stabilizing (antihistaminic) effects
• Mental and cognitive effects

For those pets with problems that are less responsive to this double amount of mushrooms, then doubling that amount again from the chart would be more appropriate to support their immune system issues.

I’ve been teaching veterinarians about these Administration Guidelines quite a bit this past year and will be offering veterinarians an online 6-hour course on mushrooms where I will again teach them how to be more successful with the use of mushrooms by following these guidelines.

For this reason, I suggest you reach out to your veterinarian for help in establishing effective and supportive amounts of specific mushrooms and mushroom products for your pets.

-Dr. Rob Silver, DVM