Dr. Conor Brady and Dr. Brendan Clark recommend single-ingredient dried meat treats for dogs over commercial jerky with preservatives. They warn that brittle treats cause dental fractures and plastic toys pose risks, suggesting rope toys and frozen raggar instead. Rawhide, antlers, and pig ears each have different dental and digestive hazards to consider.
Chapters
Good evening.
Greetings everybody.
How do you—
are we Great Britain? And, uh, we, we don't take ourselves too seriously, uh, but we do talk about some serious topics. And, um, it's great to be on. Uh, I am with Dr. Conor Brady and Dr. Brendan Clark. My name's Nick Thompson, and we are going out on YouTube, and we have, um, podcasts galore from whichever, uh, place you go. And we are supported by the wonderful people at Patreon. You can find us on patreon.com/rawpetmedics, or just follow your nose when you get to Patreon. Thank you very much to everybody who just puts in a little bit every month and helps us keep the lights on. Really, really, really fantastic. Guys, how are you this fine day?
Very good. Yeah, I'm fighting fit and feeling good. Um, I don't know why, but I'm just, uh, I don't know what it is.
This—
normally December is very busy, just really busy trying to get stuff and planning for the 2 weeks off, you know, 10 days off, and that seems to get me very busy in December. But this December feels different, and I feel like I'm not as busy. I had a very busy few months, and now I'm hopefully winding down a little bit. Doesn't that sound nice? So winding down for Christmas, I suppose.
Uh, so yeah, is that why you've just told us when we're having a hard time being super busy over Christmas, you're taking Christmas off.
Yeah, think of me, think of me at home in my slippers and dressing gown at 10 o'clock in the morning.
No, no, please.
Can in my hand. Yeah, yeah.
I hope you wear pyjamas.
I've had a very, I've had a very healthy November as well. Very healthy November. I've abstained from most things and I am so, I kind of feel like I'm off the hook now. So I feel like I can not abstain. So yeah, I'm looking forward to a naughty Christmas. Good for you. What about you, Ben?
How about you, Ben?
It's been great. Well, I've got a few things I've been doing CPD-wise, which has been great to update on. Just, yeah, looking around at some of the research that's going on. It's been interesting, some of the conversations coming up on that Dog Risk WhatsApp group. Yeah, we're doing a lot of prep work, aren't we guys, for going forward to South Africa? Yeah, so that's going to be great. Just have a look out for the release of that. So yeah, doing bits of work in the background for that.
So just to flesh that one out a little bit, we're going to be in Johannesburg and in the— is it the Winelands of—
just north of Cape Town, isn't it?
Just north of Cape Town. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And can you remember the dates?
End of March, the first weekend, and the first weekend in April.
Yeah, yeah, last weekend in March, the first weekend in April. So if anybody's in South Africa, come and see us.
Yeah, what an honor that is going to be. And we're going to pack so much into it, and we're going to stop as many places as we can. And if you feel that one of those places should be near you, let us know. We've got maybe 2 stops in our repertoire, or maybe 3. So if there's a third one, let us know. But do get in touch. I cannot wait to see the place. So my wife says it's the best place on earth. So I really want to see some animals.
It would be great to do a presentation at Onderspoort, the vet school, would be really— just even an hour, just to blast the vet students there.
Yeah, reach across the divide. Yeah, it would be good.
Yeah.
What about you, Nick? Anything exciting the last week?
No, not really. Just more of the same, really. Just keeping at it. It's really, really, really busy. It was really quite surprising, just as a segue into talking about treats. I was talking to a client today and she was, she was kind of slightly mystified as to how to get good quality treats. You know, she's a bright woman, absolutely on the ball, very, very, very focused and very knowledgeable and what have you, but didn't know that treats can be very, very, very simple where you just get dried meat essentially. Yeah, any meat that suits the dog. You know, if your dog's chicken sensitive, don't get chicken treats. And I like always to go for single protein. Yeah, single protein, because then you know where you are and you can rotate those. You know, you get a bag of lamb treats, just single protein, one ingredient. That's for me is the most important thing, is one ingredient.
Which meat, which meat, Nick, would you use of— let's say if you're trying to make a beef treat, which sort of meat are you going for? Are you Are you rolling up beef mince? Are you finding best before and not bad after? Are you getting a hunk of beef and chopping it into slices? What are you doing?
You just buy the stuff. You get it from JR Products, or you get it from— I'm sure most of the decent food companies do dried products. Yeah, because, you know, it's just a little extra that they can put in the box when they send it to you. Or always worth supporting your local food store, that's for sure. But you're looking for one ingredient, okay? Yeah. And obviously we don't want preservatives, we don't want colorants, we don't want additives of any sort. If it can be organic or regeneratively grown or sympathetically free-range grown, so much the better. Do your best, really. But the single ingredient for me is the key thing. How about you guys? When you're having that conversation, where do you go?
I mean, this is, this is a classic, isn't it? I mean, the, the liver, you know, the easy thing to dehydrate, but some people do it, so you'll find these ready done, as Nick was saying.
Yeah, or you can dehydrate, you can get a dehydrator for about £40-50 from Amazon and then you're good to go. That's the cheapest way to do it.
Yeah, yeah, totally. So those are definitely options that I would consider for the drive, but there's loads of jerky options out there as well now. But just watch, because there's a caveat to that, isn't there? There's some companies that will coat those in all sorts of stuff to make them look slightly more glistening, to, you know, sometimes plump them up. Yeah, add preservatives. They'll have all sorts of other things on them. So watch out for some of those that are coming from abroad quite a long distance. We've had that in the past with some of the products that have come from the Far East.
Well, there's an Irish company here saying— I can't remember the exact name of the company, but I'm only taking a stab in the dark. So if this is the name of the company, I don't mean to name you, but Irish pet treats and like shamrocks and everything all over. Everything about this was Irish and I just simply asked them, where'd you get your dried tripe? And no answer, no answer, keep on pushing them, keep on pushing them, they bring it in from India. And listen, I actually work with a lot of people from India and there's great food and great meat and great quality stuff in India, but there's also got its share of stuff that you don't want. And the point is, you never would have thought that by looking at the website. So at least they told me eventually, but that stuff is out there. So when you're buying treats on Amazon or in pound shops and you're buying the dried meat treats, you know, you have to wonder how that pig's ear in a Prospex box did not go off for 6 months in the heat in the summer. So, you know, yeah, and there's no laws on those preservatives. It's the FDA is constantly putting out warnings that cats and dogs are being laid out, and treats are at the top of the list above dry food.
I mean, look, guys, I'm just going to get some props. I won't be 2 seconds.
Oh, let's hide him, shall we? If he's getting props, we can just do that. It's our show now. So did you see that? So last night there was an Investigatory Panorama on exactly this with tomato. Okay. And actually, the number of people that will assume these Italian cans of tomatoes are coming from obviously Italy.
Yeah.
And actually, so much of that tomato produce is actually coming from forced slave labor over in the Far East. And that was an investigation or following through. And so it happens in all foods which are hidden behind a wrapper.
There's a can of tomatoes that I like purely because the label is nice in Tesco's. And so I don't often shop in Tesco's, I go to Super Value, but when I go into Tesco's, it's an Italian kind of label and it feels really Italian and I just fall for it. And it's about 50p more expensive. And I go, yeah, I'm like, if they don't have the organic tomatoes in a tin, which actually do taste better, red kidney, organic red kidney beans actually taste nice, but the non-organic versions don't for some reason. Maybe it's just, you know, you know, but, uh, so this tomato stuff, yeah, it's got a really Italian label. And now, of course, the chances of that coming from Italy and not some very poor region, uh, is, uh, yeah, bloody hell, that's obvious. Never thought to check. That's interesting.
Yeah, so it follows through. So, uh, just be careful. As somebody has said, you know, always consider buying local. There's some great products locally. I'm sure there's some great stores locally to you that have already done the due diligence.
Yeah, there is the natural pet shops, lads. The local pet shops, they know what they're talking about when they get those natural treats in. Then they are— they know those. They'll at least tell you where they're sourcing them from, and you can contact the company. I want to give one warning, see what you thought about this, guys. I spoke to a pet owner recently whose dog died when they were eating a dried meat treat, and it was the first time I've ever heard of it, okay? And we've been doing it years, and dried meat treats are very popular, but when you think about it it made sense. It was, I can't remember what piece it was, okay, but let's assume it was quite a large dry, but with the moisture removed, it is quite a shardy brittle piece of meat and the dog will eat it. And as much as you try to chew it and add moisture to it, the dog is swallowing what would be far sharper pieces than it would be if it was fleshy. And so she wasn't saying it in any way to kind of say, hey, Dr. Conor, remove all treats from dogs. She just said in passing, do you know what, I can't feed that cut anymore because and the dried— did you ever hear that in practice, guys?
No. Well, I think the same goes with some of these dried bones with, yeah, you know, sinews on, is that, you know, just be careful. Yeah, we're going to talk about a few things. In fact, actually, let's get on to a little bit of aversion. I'm not going to say kiss, marry, avoid. Let's do try, love, avoid. Okay, for our treats, I'm going to flash through some things. I say flash, You know us, we're going to carry on talking about it.
Choose your words carefully, my friend. This is Raw Thermetics after all.
All right, Greg. So from a point of view of, for you outside of the UK, I'm not going to share the joke. It'll come out in the wash. Okay, so for, let's see. So let's go for, it's Christmas Day, Would you give your dog or cat Christmas dinner? You know, it's a special Christmas treat. Would you?
Yes.
Scraps?
Absolutely.
You make them a special Christmas dinner?
No, you get absolutely everything. I guess, honest to God, that the bar— if there was some polluted amount of onion in the stuffing, yes, he wouldn't get any of the stuffing. But my dog gets I am no purist, as people will find out, but everything. And he might get the squids, but he's had a great Christmas dinner. He'll get a couple of Brussels sprouts, he'll get spuds, he'll get the meats, he'll get the ham as much as the— how did the ham have nitrites in it? Yeah, it did have nitrites in it and was delicious. So that goes in. And so honestly, I can't think of what I wouldn't— spiced beef. Yeah. See what happens. Turkish delight. Yeah. A quick Google of Turkish delight. Because I know you're a sweet tooth. Yeah, I am. Yeah.
But not during dinner.
But dinner-wise, no, absolutely. I would, I would. He gets a lot of trimmings and we've got a couple of different families around the place. I get all the spare bits of meat and the leftover roasties and veg. So Duggee eats like a king for 2, 3, 4 days. I'm not picky. I'm a leftovers user. What about you, Nick? You seemed hesitant there.
No, I wouldn't. I just wouldn't bother. I just— because you may upset the gut. I would— they get fantastic food every single day. And so I would just continue with that. I might just for a laugh, give them turkey.
On Christmas Day.
But apart from that, I absolutely wouldn't go there. Call me Scrooge, call me a stick in the mud, but I just wouldn't.
I was going to add to this list of treats for a moment after Conor just displayed that unbrazen, let's give them everything, and add maybe green edible clay.
Yeah, for a few days, some newspapers on the floor. Yeah, the only thing that turns my dog's gut— my dog is an absolute pig, he's a cocker spaniel, and he'll eat absolutely anything, though he always has since he was a kid. But the only thing that turns his gut is raw pork meat. Cooked pork meat is fine, but if I give him— so somebody sends me free raw dog food, you get it now and again, uh, if any suppliers are listening, guys, I take free samples, please send them my way.
Um, but if you're not careful, they might end up with a label.
Yeah, yeah. I'm very cheap, so whatever you have. But if you just lay off the pork, because when I get the pork, I give it to Dudley, and then he gets very black sticky poos from pork. Does that happen to your dogs? Is there any meats that turn your dog's guts?
That's interesting. That's interesting.
Yeah, Jet, not so good on pork, I think.
So the same on wild boar?
I can't say I've tried a whole heap of wild boar on them.
What about you, Nick?
Yeah, we use wild boar, same. Yeah, we only use wild boar. We don't use pig per se. Yeah, we use wild boar. And the girls will take it great, no problem, but Jet not so good. So it's just an idiosyncratic thing.
What about you, Bren, at a Christmas dinner? Is there anything you refuse the lab?
I am a sucker. My mother taught me so well to give. Look, you've got to look at my Labrador, Pippa. Her eyes literally are dangling on the end of her nose when she's eating. I have never seen— I mean, I called her a pug the other day because she had such exophthalmos, which is basically when their eyes are poking out of their skull, because she was desperately willing my wonderful wife into giving her some food. And that's how bad she can get. Um, Artie's pretty restrained, and actually Clem has learned really quickly that we very rarely give a treat, so she curls up in a ball. Yeah. She has no idea of personal space, however, so she will sit curled up on a chair right next to you. So, but she won't generally stick her nose in your plate.
Yeah, that's interesting. I don't actually give my dog treats either. I never have packets of treats. He does get bits though. He gets like, you know, for finished eating, and he's the— I'm the weak link actually. So, but it's not like I'm constantly putting stuff down for him, but I don't use treats. I don't buy treats. I don't have treats. I don't prepare treats. So as much as we said which treats at the start, Nick was saying you can make your own. I thought you were talking about like chopping up meat and drying it, dehydrator, or even an oven, low and slow in an oven, it'll do. I mean, that's how most treats are produced. Even a sprinkle of salt, naughty, but we don't put a lot of salt. Raw-fed dogs barely get any salt in their diet, and salt is a nutritious little addition. So a little bit of salt on a treat, who cares? Life's too short. But I don't actually even do that for Dudley, and I don't feel mean because he gets so much stuff, you know what I mean? He might get a handful of blueberries, he might get a handful of sardines, he gets his food. Sometimes just spread out all over the ground if he's, you know, people over and I need to—
dried sardines scattered into an area for them to find. Yeah, really useful way of keeping them occupied.
Yeah, so that's Christina.
Okay, we've got a poll on, so I want you to all comment in the comments as to which of these you think it should be. So, and I'm not going to say who thinks it should be what because we should find out.
We'll do a declaration independent of personality.
Yes, could it be tidbits, that's with a D. Should it be tip bits, as in I give somebody a tip, or should it be tit bits, as in what, Bren?
I think you're—
I'll leave Conor to explain that.
You're leading them along. You've left tidbits on the bottom too long for people. I think that should have changed 3 times. You're influencing them mentally. I believe this poll has been ruined.
Oh, okay.
Or tit bits? Have a poll, whatever you believe. Please don't Google, just what you actually use when you're talking to your mother.
Is that okay for you, Conor? Is this like the BBC where you say other brands apply and I've got to leave it up for exactly the amount of time?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
During elections and things like that.
What's next in your questions?
Well, no, I think whilst we're talking about this, what is your favorite tip bits.
Can I jump in there, boys? So my mate Wayne Holzhausen— and this is a blatant plug, but he's making a fabulous product, so I am gonna push him a wee bit here. So he, my mate Wayne, makes this for humans and we eat it. The kids love it and what have you. He does lots of different flavors, la la la. That's the human stuff. But he absolutely loves dogs. God bless him. Um, he's been over here, he loves our lot, and he's, he's just started a company called Budleys. This is just a trial pack that he sent over for me. So it's called Budleys.
Yeah.
And they've got really, really nice—
but have a, have a look. You just Google Budleys. These are, these are the dog steak slices. Okay. And they are I'll just take a small one because I don't want to be chewing forever. They are good enough to eat yourself. Yeah, absolutely brilliant, right? So obviously you can eat those. Yeah, really good. Hot protein, bit of fat, what have you.
I love bacon.
And he does these ones as well. Now, the reason that these— I really, really like these, and I really respect Wayne, is because he asked me, what should we do? And I said if you can get rid of all the nitrites and all the— any, any preserving element and just get the moisture down low enough such that it gives you a decent shelf life, then Bob's your uncle. And he actually did it. He actually managed to do it and he got it through the testing process or what have you. So these are— they've got a nice posh picture on them when you, when you look on the website, but zero additives.
Okay, cool.
And they taste— it actually tastes really good.
Oh, we were eating them over the US, myself and Brad, in the back of the car. Oh yeah, pounds and pounds of it. It was delicious. Probably in hindsight it's going to kill you if you eat too much of it, but, uh, really delicious treat compared to eating a pack of sweets. There's nothing better. It's really, really tasty. Tiny bit of sugar in there from you.
I'm shocked. I was like, all right, just health-wise But you'd still eat a packet of sweets.
Well, yeah. Oh, yeah. Listen, I do not deny myself a sweetie or two. Absolutely.
I can't see a downside to eating well-made kind of dried steak slices, biltong.
There's a tiny bit of glycerin on the outside of them, and there's nothing like a tiny bit of that is no harm. It's like a tiny bit of salt on the outside of a peanut. You're talking 1%. It's nothing. It doesn't matter, particularly if it's in with slow to digest protein. Those tiny additions of sugar aren't the end of the world. It's when it's just pure sugar that it goes rapidly to the blood. So there was a few studies there I saw recently of how many chips you can eat with a steak. They did a study on French kids, and you can eat quite a large portion of chips with a steak without driving your blood sugars mad in most kids. Now, that depends for different people.
Maybe this is what we should be doing in South Africa. We should be truly chewing on different types of biltong. Yeah, with wild game without catching something. Yeah.
So here's the next thing, Brian, you've got up here is toys. So your treats are moving into—
Well, I did have some props, but unfortunately they were so good and so inexpensive being in Yorkshire. I called into several supermarkets and found what were the best cuddly toys that I felt were indestructible. The dogs have already taken them all out. We're not even 20 minutes in and they've come and picked them all up and disappeared with them again downstairs. So there were some great ones. You know, I like the corded ones.
Yes, me too.
Just so that they don't chew them into pieces and destuff them totally.
I like them too, not on toys.
But I think, yeah, just I was interested from you guys, you know, is there any toys that you avoid?
There's really light squeaky toys that you could pull apart yourself with your teeth. I mean, the useless ones I do not give to like any— I hate when they say for moderate chewers. Plastic bones that are— they're like, you know, the Nylabones at a push. The Nylabones were used in guide dogs, but they used to be cheap Nylabones that the dogs could chew. Chicken flavored plastic, beef flavored plastic. That stuff is—
microplastics galore.
It's just MSG and chicken flavor and plastic. And for a dog that wants to chew and it now tastes like chicken, I mean, why? I mean, it— that just shows the idiocy of the pet treat market. So the toys, yeah, no, those plastic toys I really hate. Those rope toys are like, you know, in summertime you can wet them and put them in the freezer. We used to call them travel— we call them raggars over here, raggars with the knots on the end. And so we call the small ones, we call travel raggars because you can keep them in your pocket and guide dogs, if the dog's annoying, you can give them a little travel raggar. But you can wet them and put them in the freezer and then you can have a frozen raggar in the summertime and you can stay—
I've now got this picture of you with a frozen raggar stuffed in your front pocket.
Yeah, yeah, it's just a frozen raggar.
Very deep.
So I love, I love a rope toy, and Duddy is a serious chewer, so whatever you give him, it's coming apart. And so I just, I went, anytime I see some of the plastic and stuff, like, no, he doesn't get that stuff really at all. A knotted tea towel will do Duddy, as long as you're beating them over the head with it and getting them all fun. And then he gets the toy, and then he just pulls the tea towel apart, and that's it done, you know. So, uh, I like a knotted toy, is kind of my go-to for sure. What about you, Nick? Do you have any dog toys around, or is it just—
Yeah, I'm gonna be a complete killjoy here as well. I, I, we I wouldn't. I mean, the puppy is a big 1-year-old lurcher, but he likes a toy to kind of rag with a bit here and there. The girls, they're totally above such things, so don't really bother with those. But what we do do is we give them, you know, Anco, for example, is the company that we get them from. I'm sure there are many companies that you can get them from. Most food suppliers will do dried kind of chewy things. We get these things that are as broad as your arm, as my arm, right? They're about 18 inches long, maybe even up to 2 foot, and they're as broad as your wrist. And they're just— it's basically dried hide. Now, it's not a rawhide chew, which is a completely different thing, and they are, you know, really toxic. As Karen and Rodney once famously described.
How to make a rawhide?
Yeah, how to make a rawhide chew on YouTube.
Very good.
Yeah, yeah, definitely worth looking at that. Rodney Habib and Karen Becker, how to make a rawhide chew, definitely worth looking at. But these are the real deal. Basically, they just get pieces of skin from pig or cow or sheep and roll it, dry it, and they are absolutely indestructible.
Yeah, they're great.
Yeah, you know, Jet has got jaws on him like you would like, like Jaws, and, um, he takes probably 10 days to get through one of these things, if not longer, if not longer.
Yeah, that's cool. What about, um, guys, what's your opinion on, um, yeah, we're in the rawhide category here, but I was just going to stray. Have you seen the coffee root A wooden root of a coffee plant.
Oh yeah, it's like a smooth type of stick, effectively, but a root instead.
But a root. So like, I'll tell you, I'll be honest with you, uh, when Dudley was a kid, one of his favorite things was a rolling pin. He was a serious chewer, and so he had this rolling pin. Now, a rolling pin these days is sawdust and glue, and it's made into a rolling pin shape. Gone are the days it's carved out of one piece of wood. But you can get those rolling pins. So one piece of wood, I'm not against a piece of wood. I'd rather he's chewing bits of wood than chewing lumps of plastic. But ideally, I don't want any of the wood going in at all. And so these coffee roots are unbelievably hard and they're a nice, weird, bumpy shape. And Dudley's had his coffee root for ages. And when he's like, when he's gone bananas, it's like, you know, there's, get your root out. And he gets the root and all, thanks. And he starts chewing on that for 10 minutes and he chills out and he walks off. And you haven't got your raw meaty bone in the house. If you give that dog a bone, he hides it straight away, and then as soon as the door's open, he gets the bone, he brings it into the house. He just loves bringing the bone into the house. I don't want a raw meaty bone around the house, so the coffee root solves that for me. Have you ever used any of those sorts of things, or do you stay away from that sort of non-edibles?
Well, for me, I mean, we're going to come on to antlers because that's one of my biggest issues, is some of these super hard things.
Super hard antlers, are they?
You know, that's where I've seen slab fractures of back teeth, especially for dogs who haven't learned how to chew. Believe it or not, you need to teach your dog from fairly young age how to chew, you know, how to get the right pressure through their teeth so they're not just, you know, suddenly coming across, you know, we'll talk a bit later about bones, you know, something and thinking, do you know what, if I bite really hard, I can chew off chunks. And swallow them, and that's when they bite too hard and actually, you know, do slab fractures. And I would say for antlers, I even went through a period of saying soak them for at least 24 hours before you give them, just to try and soften them up. But I still think they're too hard.
I think they're too hard. I just, I don't even go there at all, you know.
So hard, lads. It's just pure calcium. There's just nothing else in that. I can't imagine as much collagen in it. It's just a hard lump. Yeah, I'm worried about those antlers. Huge bite force from dogs. I mean, enormous. And either the teeth— yeah, and, uh, oh yeah, they're also—
they're always sawn, okay? And therefore you have this 90-degree angle, right, which can get up into that premolar and exert a really, really, you know, an enormous force. Yeah, and if there's a twisting force there as well, ping, there goes half your tooth.
Which one is the slab fracture? Which one is the slab fracture?
So that's basically goes up the angle of the teeth, so it usually breaks off the outer part of the tooth. Okay, but it goes up into the gum, and believe you me, I fractured my tooth vertically the other day. Unbelievably painful. Yeah, you know, the only way to stop that pain was to pull it out. It's not one of those things that you can root canal and fill. You know, you're literally in a situation when you break them that angle, you know, that's the worst way to break them. My dentist said there is no saving that once you've broken it down through the root vertically, you've done it.
Yeah. And because the crack really exposes the pulp where the live and the roots and the nerves are. And so I suppose the thoughts are that then once you have a crack there and you expose it, bacteria can get in. And if you get a bacteria in there, can antibiotics get into the root of a tooth?
Yeah, because it comes through the blood supply into the root. But it doesn't matter about that. That still will not fix the tooth.
Yeah.
As soon as the antibiotics are done, you know, with not only are you wrecking your microbiome, the pain just carries on. On.
So yeah, even a hairline fracture, the bacteria will find their way in. Yeah, through that. I've had that. I'm missing this one because exactly that.
Yeah, you're chewing an antler way back here.
No, you're chewing antlers.
Yeah, I'm not surprised.
Ellie's latest, um, taekwondo, whatever it is that she's—
ninjutsu.
Yeah, which one did you lose? Let's have a look.
It's right back here.
Right at the back?
Yeah.
A molar?
Yeah, a molar. Second from the back.
Second from the back. What were you using? Were you using a lemon sherbet? Nothing.
No, literally, I woke up one morning, thought, oh, that's painful.
Oh no.
Wondered what it was.
Have you been grinding your teeth?
Yeah, I grind.
Stress, yeah.
Stress. Yes, it was just after the American tour with you two. Yes, we were a little bit stressed about that.
You went through a lot. Yeah. I was very relaxed.
Do you grind your teeth, Bren?
No, not generally.
Oh right, but you're asleep too, how do you know?
I've got a fairly high bite. My wife hates that slight, you know, any of those little noises, especially when you're eating or grinding or any slight reverberation. Wow, it's one of those, turns over.
Yeah, I get that for any noise. And the answer is always the same. I wasn't snoring. It's like, how can you possibly know?
She says, she says, I know you weren't snoring. It was the other end I was worried about.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Grinding is— my dentist asked me if I grind my teeth, and she already knew. And I said, I said, no, I don't. She goes, I think you do. I said, I really don't think I do. No one's ever told me if I did. She goes, you're very— those muscles there, they're quite large on your face. And I just thought that was just you laughing. My chiseled— I thought that was my chiseled cheekbones. And she goes, no, you're just a stress head and you grind your teeth and so you've got these muscly jaw and I thought, well, I use it a lot as well, so maybe that's part of it. But I don't think of a teeth grinder, but it's an awful sound. You know, sometimes when your kids do it, oh my God, there's nothing worse.
But anyway, it was really— can you remember when we went to see Will Harris? Yeah, so we had Will Harris gave us a little shack to stay overnight in, which is which was great, next to the lake with the alligators. Okay, this is just setting the scene and what have you. And there was only two bedrooms. So Bren, being the adult in the room, took one room and Connor and I took the other. And in the morning, right, Bren complained that even through the wall, it was just a wooden shack, even through the wall, he could hardly sleep because of us both snoring like—
In the timber wood.
So this was like a log cabin with—
I had a great night's sleep.
Was it shaking?
Yeah.
Sucking the blinds in.
I should have recorded that night. I got some of the crickets outside because I got up really early for some reason. Morning, and I can't think why.
The beer, the beer makes me snore awful. Do you know, the antlers, um, antlers are amazing when you think about what deer have to do. Male deer, uh, although some species of, uh, I think reindeer, the females keep their, their antlers as well, but, um, but most deer drop their antlers every year. Can you imagine being a 5, 6, 7, 8-point stag? Red deer are called stags, and the males of most other deer are called bucks. But the males cast off these enormous antlers every year. I think it's April time. Oh no, when do they cast them off? Cast them in— they grow them in a few months, so they cast them in January and then they grow them again in April. Whatever it is, they knock them off in the middle of winter, these enormous lumps of bone, and then grow them again. Why don't they just keep them on their head? And then just like, how could it be? Could you imagine the amount of effort it would cost to build all that bone in 3 months? I mean, it's staggering achievement that they do. So they're starved for calcium. So they eat very high calcium foods, very low-grade grass and that kind of stuff to top it back up again.
And they produce the deer velvet on the surface. Yeah. When they're growing these things.
Yeah.
That's been used for what, the last 2,000 to 4,000 years by the Chinese. Very good immunomodulator. And all sorts of things.
Of growth factors in it.
Yeah, very rich, very, very— if anybody's interested, have a look at the website, the— we on Holistic Vet Shop, we do sell a really nice deer velvet, but I've got some information if anybody would like to email me for information on the clinical use of deer velvet, or the New Zealanders have produced a whacking great book with hundreds and hundreds of references on the use of deer velvet as well. So anybody wants that, just email me, nickthompson@holisticvet.co.uk, and we will ping that at you, a digital copy for free, because we love you so much.
That's nice. It's like the colostrum of the meat world, isn't it? It's like, yeah, its role is to grow stuff very quickly and it's full of growth factors and whatnot. So it's fantastic. Actually, speaking of colostrum, do you guys ever use colostrum for anything in dogs? Or cats or animals outside of, you know, when would you use it, Nicky? You're talking IBD, IBS type issues or?
Okay, so yes, in that kind of situation, also in this kind of situation.
What it is, first of all, actually, in case.
Oh yeah, because I didn't show. So this is a colostrum. This is a sample that the guys at Prodog Raw, you can get colostrum from other places, but these guys, they just sent me this as a trial because I've seen some papers whereby, you know, there's a thing in humans called runner's gut, yeah, where any extreme athletic activity can cause you to be loose, okay. Famously, who is that blonde runner, the British runner? She had an explosion at the end of one of her marathons, okay, bless her.
Not Daniela Radcliffe, what's that? What's her name?
Radcliffe. Yeah, it's her mother.
Yeah, it's Daniela's mother.
Oh, okay.
I thought that was stopping for a wee. Let's not misconstrue things.
Oh no, I thought she just— anyway, anyway, it's a thing, it's a thing. And there are, I know, about 4 or 5 papers suggesting that bovine colostrum might be the answer to that. Where you will see this quite a lot is you'll see a dog usually excitable, so it'll be the springers, maybe a golden retriever, something, something like that. They will have a, a 9 or a 10 quality poo in the morning and then have, you know, a day, you know, running around getting excited, and they'll have a 6 or a 7 in the afternoon because of the excitement. And then the next morning they're back up to a 10. That's really common, and that's what I'm going to try the colostrum on. That kind of—
just had a client today, just had a client with a Weimaraner. If she's listening, I hope she is. Same thing, dog gets squeaky in the afternoon, he's really a little bit reactive on his walks, he gets that IBS. And as everyone knows, IBS squishes the gut, no time for digesting fatty, you've got fight and flight to think about. So that's what's— yeah, that's interesting, right?
Okay, yeah, give him a ring. Conor, if you give Alison Frost @prodograw, Abuzz, she'll send you some samples, I'm sure. Yeah, because you're a clinician.
This is just marketing for— will people send us free samples for Christmas? We feel like we use Christmas presents.
Free samples are always great things.
We'll hold up our addresses at the end. So lots of interesting comments coming through. It was Paula Radcliffe was the other thing people want to know is about deer legs. Okay, let's talk about that in a moment because we're going to talk about bones. So, but before we get there, turkey carcass has been up on screen for a while.
Yeah.
So, uh, what do you think?
I love them. You have a shot. What do you think? You try, love, or avoid?
I would definitely say if it's raw, no problem whatsoever. So I'm, I'm quite into deboning meat, so that it's one of those Yorkshire things again, you know, you can take the breast and legs off, eat them yourself, and then the carcass is effectively with wings a free meal for the dog. Great, great for them. And I would just say, you know, turkey carcass can be the same. Again, depends if you've got a nice organic, you know, well-cared-for turkey, there's no reason why— there's plenty of meat on there. You can actually cleave it into 4 and have 4 treats, or you can leave them if you want to keep them occupied out in the snow-ridden field for a while, you can leave it out there for them to chew through. I've got no problem. Most of these turkey carcasses, they are quite quick-growing birds. So to be fair, most of them will be anywhere from 12 to 16 weeks all the way up to, depending on what environment they're reared in, some of them, some of them can be 6 months. So it just depends on how, where they're grown, how they're grown, what they're fed on, how they're super fed or not. Okay, so they can be quite soft cartilaginous, you know, you'll see the squish in the carcass once you've taken the meat off and you'll realize that actually it's not loads of calcified bone in there.
Most of our turkey, we've got maybe one turkey farm in the UK. I don't think we've got one in Ireland. I think we've got one, maybe two in the UK. What's the name of the company? I can't remember. You used to deal with them.
Bernard Matthews.
Oh, Bernard. Yeah, I think they're suppliers. I'm not sure if they're the actual dudes that have the sheds, but whatever. The vast majority of our turkeys come from Italy and Poland. So the most of the turkey that we eat. Really? Yeah, absolutely. You've got one or two companies in the UK, but it's not what you're going to find in Iceland and Aldi.
And yeah, this is not the turkeys that you're going to find free roaming across America that you go out and shoot ready for Thanksgiving.
Yeah, no, no, no. But yeah, so like this, the turkey carcass, I love when you're making like— there's so much food on a turkey carcass, but the problem is keeping it raw because most people are cooking their turkeys on the bone. And you know, once it's on the bone, what you can do to salvage that turkey is everybody knows is, you know, pull it apart, get as much as you can off for yourself and the family, and you're left with this enormous carcass with bits and bobs and wings and stuff that people might have eaten. All that goes into an enormous pot and just simmer that, simmer that sucker. So much stuff.
Bone broth and a half, isn't it?
Yeah, I've got a really fabulous story for Patreon when we, when we nip over at 7:45 involving turkey carcasses. And Boeing 747s.
Interesting, interesting. It must be engine related. So yeah, it's— and turkeys, they rarely come with giblets, the smaller turkeys, but the bigger, the organic birds and stuff, and the birds have been running around outside, they do come with the bits and pieces. Before we leave the turkey bones, that you mentioned deer bones, and I think that's quite a festive thing. Let's mention that. Could I just mention about— I think about deer leg bones. I am not a fan of deer leg bones, and here's the reason. I sometimes— and I love my independent pet shops, local pet shops, they're awesome and they have the best pet treats— but in our need for dry meat, they're now selling like small deer, so like roe deer kind of size leg bones. And you know, that is a dried piece of meat on the bone, and I pray that it's dehydrated, but the problem is dehydrating the chunky anything is very difficult. It's very hard and time-consuming, and the worry is lots of these treats have been imported from, no offense, but to some countries, you know, that might not have the same legislation even though they're inside the EU. And when you— I tried contacting two of those companies. One of the biggest suppliers is in Poland, and I tried contacting the company saying, where do you get your stuff? And they say, oh, we get it in from and then as soon as you hear that, you've lost all hope of trying to find out where the stuff comes in from. So, uh, it's tricky because if it's dried with heat, you now have a cooked bone wrapped in a little bit. Exactly. And so how do you know by looking at it? Because a deer leg that's dried with heat or dehydrated looks the exact same. They all look dried with heat to me because I haven't a clue what. So it's very hard to dry a leg bone, uh, in a sustainable way and sell it cheap in Ireland. So I, I worry. But then you've got reputable suppliers and you've got— Nick's mentioned them already— JR. We should have got them to sponsor the show. They totally would have. Yeah, let's make an effort to try and make some money in 2024.
We've got a business plan.
If anybody can ring in with a business plan, it'd be great. So, 2024, the best business plan at Christmas time for the lads. But yeah, so that's what I think about deer leg bones. I'm not sure if it was a fresh deer leg bone off a deer, I am all for that. But leg bones are hard, guys. They're there to hold up a heavy animal. Leg bones are the hardest part of the animal. So when it's been dried with heat, you're asking for it.
I totally agree. I totally agree. I would go— if it was fresh, then I would go for it. If it's been dried, especially dried with heat, yeah, I think it's a no-no. And I just think dried bones generally, because you can't tell whether—
how—
you can't tell, you know, because it's the reason that they use heat, yeah, when they when ideally they shouldn't, it should be below about 40 degrees, it takes a lot longer to dry. Therefore it's more expensive to do. If you just whack the temperature up to 80 degrees, you can get it, you can get, you know, this batch done dried in 20 minutes, just a few hours.
A little conveyor belt and there's heat on it. I've seen the machines for drying out meat with heat and they're just like, the things are dropping at the end as they've been dried like a mega heat.
But, uh, but then actually fresh with with flesh and with hide on and, you know, the hooves on, I think that's fine. You know, I let my dogs— that's for goat, lamb, venison. Yeah, you know, they do those. As soon as I see it dried, I do have little nightmares about—
yeah, I think avoid dried, dried.
Your dogs eat goat, Bren. So that's an age-old question. And if I feed raw meat to my sheepdog, will he start eating the sheep? 'But your dogs eat goat and yet they run around with the goats.' How many farmers—
you do not realize how many farmers feed all of the waste lamb and carcass bits that they wouldn't otherwise eat to their dogs. They don't go out there and kill all of the live animals. It's a total different energetics that they perceive from that. It's, it's, yeah, absolutely not the same. Okay, so This sort of led on to your whole thing of coming in from abroad. There's the whole thing about pig's ears. Okay, I guess this is the same thing about dried versus fresh.
1945, gents. Should we jump over to—
we forgot, we forgot.
Oh, how many have we got left?
Let's finish pig's ears.
Okay, let's do pig's ears and then we'll jump over.
Yeah, pig's ears from— made in your hometown is a good idea. You know, if they're dried, dehydrated instead of dried with heat, probably even better. If they're sure they're not been using preservatives and stuff, because the pet treat world is very poorly regulated, guys. And so most of the cheap pig's ears, when you're paying 50p for a pig's ear, most of them are coming in from lands far away, and that's where some of the chemical issues have been. So pig's ears are questionable, but then there's companies that sell UK pig's ears, there's hairy pig's ears out there, and if they're hairy, it means the pig had a bit of a runaround outside outside, most likely. You don't see too many hairy indoor pigs, do you guys? No, I don't think— I think it's an outdoor hairy pig thing. Yeah, they suddenly grow hair. Did I tell you how wild pigs go in just one, like, 2 or 3 seasons being let off the leash in, in the wild? They turn into like wild-looking pigs in like— not generations, in, in years. Yeah, I've heard some pig dudes over in the US He says, you want to see these things when you're—
epigenetics at play. 3 years later, I could only imagine what 3 years out in the Alaskan wilderness would do to you.
Yeah, you'd grow a big hairy face as well, you know.
But anyway, make him look like Wolverine. Anyway, so pig's ears. What about you, Nick?
Yeah, I totally agree. If you can't tell where the source is, then give them a miss. If they come from Mr. Jones down the road, then I think they're absolutely fantastic. They can be a bit fatty though. Some dogs, if they've got a bit of a fat thing, they— you've got to be a little bit careful. But that's easy to regulate by just saying, right, you can have the pigs ear for 20 minutes today and then 20 minutes tomorrow, etc., etc. So you regulate consumption that way.
Yeah, great stuff. Okay, so we're gonna carry on with a few more bits bits from tonight, um, uh, we'll also reveal the tid, tip, or tit bits. Oh yes. Okay, over on Raw Pet Medics, um, forward slash—
I haven't checked the votes.
I have patreon.com/rawpetmedics if you want to come over to the other side.
And Nick's going to tell his, uh, 747 and turkey carcass story.
If you haven't voted yet, you've just got about 20 seconds to put in what you think it should be. Tip, tit, or tid. And also, it'd be really great if you also want to put your top tips for Christmas treats to share with everybody in the comments below. Okay, let's share them with everybody. Yeah, that's what the community is about. So join us, share those treats.
Brilliant.
Take care, guys. I'll see you all next week. Oh, next week we have Penny.
We do have Penny.
We will need Dr.
Zoo Little. We'll say Penny is coming. And, uh, yeah, so her voice is recovered. Yeah, yeah, she's, uh, she's got a bit of a voice thing going on, a bit of a virus. So hopefully she gets better. And we want to talk a little bit about feeding animals in the zoo. We had some questions, didn't we? And we said, is there any zoos out there feeding kibble? Is what got us started. And then there's a whole heap of studies on zoo animals, from dentition to meat feeding meat eaters and behavioural enrichment. She does all the behavioural enrichment stuff, that's what she did with the zoo. So power of the bite.
Yeah, and the power of the bite, which is how we got there in the first place. So that's going to be really fascinating, I'm really looking forward to that one.
Yeah, okay, look forward to seeing you all over a bit on the side. Take care, guys.
