The color of his dog’s tongue

The dog’s caregiver was sitting on a sofa watching me give his elderly dog a PetMassage. He asked me how I could tell his dog was responding to the bodywork. I instructed him to watch the color of his dog’s tongue. The tongue, I told him, is an accurate gauge of his dog’s immediate level of stress and comfort. He was amazed at how quickly the tongue color can shift from dark plum to pink, and pause (to process the bodywork) at various shades in between. Think of a color range on a scale of one to seven; one being plum, seven being pinkish white. Five and a half would be perfect pink! 

The dark plum, indicates that the dog is in stress. Not enough oxygen is being circulated throughout the body as demonstrated by the color of the tissues in the tongue extremity. Pale pinkish white indicates mild to severe shock. Bright pink signifies that the body is fully oxygenated and is therefore comfortable and within the margins of the healthy zone. 

For those of you who are seeking ele

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and The Natural Health and Holistic World According to Dr Akilah El

pathogeImages of human tongues.

How Chinese medicine uses the tongue to interpret your health
The tongue is one of the most important diagnostic areas in ancient medical traditions. What makes the tongue such a great diagnostic tool? Your tongue, containing water, electrolytes, mucus, and enzymes, is a very sensitive organ and its appearance changes with many physical changes in the body. In Chinese medicine, the tongue is a “map” of the internal body. Like the face, the tongue is divided into five-element zones that correspond to your internal organ networks.

Signs and symptoms
Here is what you want to see: A normal tongue should be pink, muscular without tooth marking or discoloration, and have a very thin clear coating that exhibits proper salivary secretions. Monitor your dog’s evolving health level by noticing color, shape, and coating changes in specific zones.

Tongue Color: When the color becomes deeper — going from pale to scarlet to purple — it means that there is increasing heat in the body. Heat may mean inflammation, infection, or hyperactivity of the organ network. When the tongue’s color becomes lighter — from pink to pale to paper white — it indicates cold, which can mean anemia, nic cold factor, or low energy and function of the corresponding organ network. I treat patients with low immune system function, sometimes due to chemotherapy or chronic fatigue syndrome, and many of them exhibit a pale tongue indicating low energy.

An excellent chart that shows various aspects of dog tongue colors is “The Tongue Diagnostic Chart,” chart development consultant: Michelle L. Tilthman, DVM, CVA, CCRP. Available from Wapiti Labs, Inc. www.wapitilabsinc.com

ments to measure in your research, this is data that is both scalable and documentable. For those of you who would like an easy way to check the life and times of your dogs, just observe their tongues.