The use of medicinal plants for specific viral and bacterial diseases in pets in British Columbia is addressed in this paper. In 2003 we conducted semi-structured interviews with 60 participants obtained using a purposive sample. Medicinal plants are used to treat a range of conditions. A draft manual prepared from the data was then evaluated by participants at a participatory workshop. The following plants are used instead of an antibiotic:Arctostaphylos uva-ursi (L.) Spreng, Actaea racemosa L. var. racemosa, Astragalus membranaceus (Fisch.), Hydrastis canadensis L., Ulmus fulva Michx. and Usnea longissima Ach. The following plants are used for infectious tracheobronchitis: Allium sativum L., Althaea officinalis L., Berberis aquifolium Pursh./ Mahonia aquifolium, Tussilago farfara L. and Verbascum thapsus L.,Calendula officinalis L.,Plantago major L., Stellaria media (L.) Cyrill., and Trifolium pratense . An unidentifed virus was treated with Crataegus oxycantha (Rosaceae) and Echinacea purpurea (L.) Moench (Asteraceae). Campylobacter jejuni (dog show crud) is treated with Echinacea purpurea (L.) Moench, Glycyrrhiza glabra L., Mahonia nervosa (Pursh) Nutt and Hydrastis canadensis L. Parvovirus was treated with Hydrastis canadensis L, Astragalus membranaceus (Fisch.), Mentha piperita L., Origanum vulgare L., Symphytum officinale L., Tanacetum parthenium (L.) Schultz-Bip. and Ulmus fulva Michx. The majority of the plants had antiviral and bacteriocidal activity against common pathogens, immunostimulation ability, antioxidant activity, and anti-inflammatory effects. Keywords: British Columbia, pets, infectious tracheobronchitis, parvovirus, medicinal plants 1. Introduction All over the world, people who keep livestock have developed their own ideas and techniques of treating and managing their animals in a sustainable way. Development project staff and organisations began to pay serious attention to community-based approaches to livestock healthcare and related management practices in the 1980s (Mathias, 2004). This interest was spurred partly by critics of intervention projects based in the social sciences. It also came from the realisation of field-based animal scientists and other project-based specialists that conventional, formal-sector resources and high-cost "high-tech" interventions had proven inadequate for meeting the basic animal healthcare needs of a great many of the world's low resource stockraisers (Alawa, 2002). This paper deals with some of the bacterial and viral conditions in pets that were treated with medicinal plants in British Columbia. Previous ethnoveterinary research has looked at anti-viral activity. For example six of the 17 plant extracts used by the Hausa and other tribes of Northern Nigeria for symptoms probably indicative of viral illness had antiviral activity (Kudi and Myint, 1999). Infectious tracheobronchitis (ITB) or kennel cough is one of the conditions discussed in this paper. It is an acute, highly contagious, global, respiratory disease in dogs affecting the larynx, trachea, bronchi, and occasionally the nasal mucosa and the lower respiratory tract. Dogs with the condition cough and show respiratory distress. Many agents play a role in ITB, such as canine parainfluenza virus, canine adenovirus, Bordetella bronchiseptica, mycoplasmas and Streptococcus equi subsp. zooepidemicus (Buonavoglia and Martella, 2007). Outbreaks of influenza A virus, initially misdiagnosed as ITB, were reported in the USA. New canine coronaviruses have been found in the respiratory tract of either symptomatic or asymptomatic dogs (Buonavoglia and Martella, 2007). Mammalian orthoreoviruses were found in dogs with pneumonia or enteritis, in association with either canine distemper virus or canine parvovirus type 2 (Buonavoglia and Martella, 2007). Zarnke et al., 2004 conducted a serological suvey in 1,122 wolves in Alaska and the Yukon from 1984–2000. Antibody prevalence for canine hepatitis virus (ICH) was .84% for all areas. Area-specific prevalences of antibodies ranged from 12% to 70% for canine parvovirus (CPV), from 0% to 41% for canine distemper virus (CDV), and from 4% to 21% for Francisella tularensis. The research participants claimed that ‘dog show crud’ mimics parvovirus but it gets worse if antibiotics are given. The signs are vomiting and diarrhoea. It is caused by an intestinal bacterium Campylobacter jejuni that is found in the soil on Vancouver Island. Campylobacter upsaliensis is a microorganism that is widespread on all continents and that is primarily isolated from the intestinal environment of dogs (Lentzsch et al., 2004). Its relevance as a pathogen that causes enteric diseases in animals is not clear, but it is recognized as a human pathogen. McMyne et al., (1982) conduted serotyping of Campylobacter jejuni isolated from sporadic cases and outbreaks in the human population in British Columbia and found geographical differences. Ninety-six Campylobacter upsaliensis strains that originated from Australia, Canada, and Europe (Germany) and that were isolated from humans, dogs, and cats were serotyped (Lentzsch et al., 2004). Very few of the strains were isolated from cats and only Campylobacter jejuni from humans.