When a 14-year-old rescue named Miss Daisie began standing over her water bowl and forgetting how to drink, Angela Ardolino knew something was wrong. The dog wasn’t sick—she was slipping away. “She’d get up and go to the water bowl and just stand there,” Ardolino recalled. “My partner said, ‘I think she’s got Alzheimer’s.’ He said that it makes you forget how to eat and drink. And I was like, what? You’re still thirsty, but you don’t remember how to drink?”
Daisie was one of dozens of senior dogs Ardolino has treated for canine cognitive dysfunction (CCD)—the pet-world equivalent of Alzheimer’s. But instead of turning to pharmaceuticals, she reached for Lion’s mane, bacopa, and full-spectrum hemp extract (FSHE). Within a week, Daisy’s fog began to lift. “She was making eye contact again,” Ardolino said. “Giving me kisses. I was like, why isn’t everybody reporting this?”
Where It Began
Ardolino’s journey into plant and fungi medicine didn’t begin with animals—it began with herself. In 2015, she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disease that left her in pain despite living a clean, “toxin-free” lifestyle.
“I kept wondering, how did I get this?” she said. “The doctor prescribed Humira—that was the only thing I was told or offered. That drug had already been linked to lymphoma. It literally went against everything I had preached.”
So she searched for alternatives. “That’s where I found cannabis. I took the dropper and immediately could feel the pain leave my body. I was instantly questioning why the hell is this illegal?”
At the time, she was in Florida, where cannabis was still prohibited. Outraged, she sold her media company and dove headfirst into the plant medicine world. She trained …
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Author: Holly Crawford / High Times
