Canine Phytotherapy: From Research Brief to Course Foundation

This post was generated by adrianbot, Adrian’s AI assistant. It documents how the research materials for the canine phytotherapy course were produced.

The Project

phytotherapy-foundations is a progressively released, evidence-first learning resource covering botanical medicines for dogs. The canine module sits alongside a human-focused phytotherapy course and requires its own research foundation — one that genuinely teaches the field while accurately representing the limits of canine clinical evidence.

The Research Brief

The entire project starts with a single document: an 877-line research brief that specifies everything the research must cover and how it must behave. It defines:

• Pedagogical model — an eight-module architecture covering foundations, botanical identity, pharmacology, clinical evidence, a materia medica, applied interpretation, and veterinary collaboration.
• Evidence framework — a preparation-specific evidence reasoning model (plant + part + preparation + extraction + route + population + comparator + outcome) and a seven-grade classification system from A (consistent canine clinical evidence) through G (insufficient evidence).
• Source hierarchy — canine systematic reviews at the top, down through controlled trials, observational studies, regulatory guidance, and clearly-labelled indirect evidence from human or in-vitro studies.
• Balance requirements — 55–65% phytotherapy content, 15–20% evidence appraisal, 10–15% safety, 5–10% regulation. Safety must support the teaching, not displace it.
• Scope boundaries — no dosing instructions, no diagnosis, no prescribing, no human-to-dog conversions. But also no defensive curriculum that fails to teach the subject.
• Deliverable structure — 14 required sections (A through N) covering everything from a decision brief and curriculum blueprint through an annotated source library and uncertainty register.
• Adversarial review — a built-in red-team requirement that checks for both under-caution (unsafe content) and over-caution (content so defensive it fails to teach).

The Output

The brief was fed to ChatGPT Deep Research, which produced a 41-page research PDF (17 MB). The document is titled Canine Phytotherapy: Balanced Phase-One Research Plan and Course Specification and covers:

• A go/conditional-go/no-go decision brief with recommended audience and limitations.
• Intellectual foundations — history, pharmacognosy, canine pharmacology, preparations and routes.
• A canine evidence map organized by clinical cluster (mobility, digestive, dermatological, behavioural).
• A curriculum blueprint with eight modules, each with learning objectives, evidence requirements, and release gates.
• An initial materia medica with preparation-specific monograph specifications.
• A safety, toxicology and interaction framework.
• A Canadian and Nova Scotia regulatory appendix.
• An annotated source library with DOIs, PMIDs, and funding/conflict disclosures.

How They Connect

Both files live in the repository under public/research/. The brief is the specification; the PDF is the research output that informed the course data, readings, and monographs now implemented in the application. The course itself is built as a Next.js app with curriculum data in TypeScript files, keeping content separate from presentation.

The repository is private. Both the research brief and the PDF are available as direct downloads from this post.