Dental Health. We dont need to reinvent the bone!

It's lovely, absolutely lovely over here. It's just sunny, sunny, sunny. So, what a treat.

I was actually sitting out the back today and I was talking to a guy for about maybe 15-20 minutes and then I realized my face is really hot and, you know, you run back in and you kind of take your shades off and you go, oh no, so you can see, I can't point to my face, but see the white line?

Oh no, not the sunglasses. Hi Pam, hi Heather, hi guys, hi dude.

My teeth look whiter than normal because my face is burnt, so that's a good thing considering what we're talking about tonight.

So yeah, well, that's it, you know, we're all sort of like—

yeah, yeah, scrubbing your teeth. Did you scrub your teeth a lot now before we came on tonight? Do you know what we should do? We should start giving out awards to people. The first person on gets something. I can't remember what, but, uh, I mean, Heather Stevens was out of the traps there and beat everybody by about 10 seconds. Yeah, extra fresh, come on!

Oh, I've got to do this, by the way, guys. Sorry, uh, let me just see if, uh, you might, you might have noticed.

They probably didn't notice because he's, he's the, he's the least relevant of the three for sure. But here we go. Yeah, well, we're down to, we're down to two tonight, guys. Nick's Wi-Fi he's at home using his Wi-Fi at home, and his Wi-Fi is just absolutely brutal, and it would be far too frustrating. He was up and down and doing that, um, and so yeah, it's too unreliable. So it's a half an hour drive back out to his clinic, so there's just no point he's doing that. So it's, uh, me and Bren tonight, guys, but don't worry, we've, um, we've got Nick's comments out, everything.

Yeah, I was going to put the, the picture of the old goat up, but I think you should.

That would have been good. Yeah, well, Ginger Gold. So how'd you get on, Ben? How was your week? Did you get up to anything exciting?

Uh, nope, just been enjoying the weather. We're preparing the ground, we've got building works going to start soon, and we've just got so much going on. It's, uh, but clinic's so busy, uh, really, really busy, uh, managing, just, uh, getting through the COVID stuff. And, you know, hopefully we'll be through that soon and we'll have people start coming back in and Are you doing Zoom consults? Yeah, yeah.

Are your staff doing them as well? Does Tara Wood do— tarawoodvets.co.uk, do they do— is Zoom a big part of business?

Yeah, absolutely massive, especially for the complementary side. So, you know, that gets us out and about and that side. So it's great. Yeah, we do that. We've done that for a long time anyway. But with COVID it's certainly kicked off. But we're just really getting people back used to how we can do consults. And we've been doing where animals will come in but owners are staying outside, so obviously by phone and that side of things, and we get to examine the animals. And you know, that's been the best part of a year now, so we're just sort of like really getting to the point where we want to get back to seeing people face to face. And hopefully some one day soon it'll be no masks But you know, until that time, hey ho.

I wonder when that's going to happen, really.

Yeah, well, there we go. So, um, few bits, uh, and how are you? How's your week been?

Yeah, uh, busy, same as yourself, just flat out. Um, I like just reviewing a couple of the posts I put up during the week, um, and I just want to highlight two that I put up because they're great talking points. One of them, I just, without thinking really, I just lashed up, threw up a picture of a big tin of sardines that was a particularly good price in Tesco's. And I said, check it, check this out, pilchards in tomato sauce. And I said, you know, on the, on the back of the seniors podcast that we did, or chat that we did, where, you know, a little bit of lycopene goes a long way. And so why not? And cooked tomatoes, more lycopene. So why not use the odd tin in tomato? I always recommend in fresh water, brine, pour off the brine, whatever. But I didn't probably take enough care to highlight to people like occasional because people say, you know, they go bananas and they can't live on sardines. It's like, I'm not talking about living on sardines, but just a little bit. And people worry about, you know, the salt and stuff. And, you know, so it is interesting to get that feedback though, because you have to— it is a nice little addition to people. And that was definitely the conclusion. But more to the point, I just wanted to highlight a little rant I had that most people have seen at this stage, um, during the week. Because I had this, I had this consult with somebody, it was a food allergy consult. The dog was clearly a roaring case of, you know, leaky gut type issue, just a NASA-like reading of proteins he can't have. And you look at it with a bit of dread going, oh my God, how am I going to even start here? And the dog was consuming, was eating ZD, and that's— I wouldn't normally name the brands except that it's important in this particular issue. And one of the things that came up in the food allergy test, blood test that she did, was an IgE response, so your proper allergy response to beet pulp. And I thought, well, that's kind of rare. You don't see that too often. All the other meats weren't IGE, so that wags your tail a bit. You think, oh, that's good. And anyway, I go to Hill's ZD on the UK website, on the main website hills.co.uk/zd. I go to the ingredients panel of ZD and listen to the ingredients. Listen to how short this is now. It reads: cereals, meat and animal derivatives, derivatives of vegetable origin, oils and fats, minerals. That's the ingredients panel of a product with hundreds of ingredients in it. So I have no idea what cereals, what meats, what plant proteins— is beet pulp in there? Probably, yeah. But they all— I would have thought most dry foods use it. It's not unreasonable to assume it might be in there. But more to the point, how does a vet recommend us if the panel isn't there? I was since told that on the American website and Australian website, the fuller ingredient panel is there, but the that they could even put that up there on the.co.uk website, their main thing. It's kind of— I thought it was indicative.

Really interesting, actually. This, this is something that occurs in a number of items, including vaccines. So in Europe, they have to put all of the excipients, including some of the really, you know, down to nanograms worth. Yeah, the things like thiomersal. Okay. But in the UK, they don't have to declare it if they've washed it through and it's, you they don't see it as a major constituent, they just ignore it. It's amazing the stuff that we let them get away with.

Yeah, yeah, it just drifts into it. And that's it. Well, that's really the whole point of the piece, right? It's a drift. It's like when we permit them to say meat meal instead of meat and bone meal, which in the industry is bone meal. It's bone meal to farmers. It's meat and bone meal because it contains a tiny bit of meat on the bones. And it's meat meal to pet food producers. There's no bone in it. It's just pure meat. And now instead of calling it meat meal, they call it dried meat. It's like, that is preposterous. It's such a leap from meat meal, which is the lowest of the low animal protein you could possibly source, to dried meat and dehydrated meat. They're the two terms they use for it, which is so misleading. And I think it's because we keep letting them away with it. So I got really angry. I got really angry and I had a big rant online.

But anyway, the people come with you because So we can see that on dogsfirst.ie.

Yeah, check that out. It was on the Facebook page. I'm putting my stuff on Facebook again. But anyway, that was my week, Brendan. Little rants like that and then getting over those rants, and that's it. Oh wow. Yeah, so today, Brendan, we are talking about teeth. Have you got your model handy of what a beautiful dog mouth looks like? Which probably is—

I do just happen to have Okay, look at that.

Beautiful.

There we go. Okay, so that's what we want, guys. Okay, we should do a little poll at some point, I think, on Facebook. I want to know, all of you people that have started off raw food feeding, if your dog's mouths look like that, okay, or do they look like that? And I can guess which they're going to be. Okay, but there we go. That's, that's, that's the model. We'll talk about teeth, which This is what it's all about today.

We want that flex.

Yeah, we're gonna go through all sorts of bits like that, but first I would just like to thank all of the 105+ people who are on Patreon. Thank you so much for your support, it's helping us. We are so close, except for the occasional twitchy eyes in front of the bright lights, we are so close to getting that first seminar ready, so keep an eye out for that, guys. And I think for the other bits—

yeah, also, also, patrons, um, Paleo Ridge, thank you, um, are a fantastic sponsorship. So thanks to Paleo Ridge, who are in their fourth, possibly fifth week of sponsorship now. Uh, it's greatly appreciated. Paleo Ridge are fantastic. And so, like, you know, UK's favorite raw dog food two years in a row, that is saying something. You don't get that too easily. And also the most accredited raw dog food company in the UK. One of those accreditations involves an audit, which is scary. Auditing of any company, to put yourself forward for an audit is a very, very scary thing. And that is kind of what you're doing with RawSafe, Brendan. It's the same idea to bring in more of this because it's not being done in, certainly in dry food. We bring it into raw dog food, it's such an accolade. So any company that puts some steps forward like that and takes a few shots, maximum respect. I just wanted to highlight that Paleo Ridge do these hampers, like a kind of to lure you in hampers. Fantastic little mix, free delivery, and you get 20% off on your first order. So check out paleridge.co.uk, and thanks very much guys for the sponsorship tonight. It really helps us get the plan in action. So thanks for that. So, uh, so yeah, so on with the show, Brendan. Um, why, why is it like— so just tell me a little bit about, uh, why tartar is going to be so bad for their health.

Right, okay. I mean, this is a really important point, and it's a really common question. We see so many animals come in, and actually it's not just about what's happening with the teeth. You know, most people will be thinking of their own mouths, and they'll be thinking about dental pain and abscesses and, you know, the agony that that can cause. But actually, you know, when you come in and you've got teeth like that, okay, The issue that you've got with that is every time they eat, okay, even actually just if it's just the redness here, every time they eat, they are actually injecting bacteria. So they've done studies to take blood samples when they're at rest, and then as soon as they start eating, they take a blood sample and they can see the bacteria that start to get circulated as soon as they're eating. So It's really easy to understand then the consequences that that can have, and we understand that there's diseases like endocarditis. That's an infection of the valves of the heart, and the, you know, in the interior of the heart can get infection on those areas, and that's seeded by bacteria that have gone in. Bacteremia, as we call that. Kidney disease is another one, actually getting pyelonephritis, so infection of the kidneys can happen with that, even down to just remember the amount of inflammation that causes getting things like TIAs, transient ischemic attacks, where the blood vessels of the brain spasm. They go, they almost have vestibular symptoms or, you know, the dizziness or almost like strokes, but they're temporary. And that can be all down to those bacteria circulating. So, you know, think about it's not just about the teeth. This is about across the board. And if you go back to our pancreatitis video, you'll realize again, that's all about looking at infection and inflammation causing that level of disease.

I saw that people with dirty mouths and animals with dirty mouths have a lower immunity, they're more prone to infection. And if you think about this whole kind of you've got so much immunity to go around, so much force field to go around. That tartar and invading bacteria at the gum line constantly. It's a constant draw on resources, so the body sends the troops into the gums to stop this onslaught. So you get that red line and pain and swollen, and the problem is that that immunodebris that's constantly being formed, the battleground of the mouth, has to be cleared away by the kidneys. You're clogging up kidneys. I often think about it like a busy motorway. Would that be— is that true, Bren? Is it like Can you overload the kidneys with too much kind of this? Is that not where a lot of the kind of chronic kidney disease can come with teeth, or is it only because of a bacterial infection?

Well, it's inflammation. I mean, you know, anything that leads to inflammation and, you know, all of the other consequences of having any bacterial disease or any illness and the pressure that that can cause, you know, and the damage to the filtration beds of the kidneys. Yeah, that's all going to put a pressure on those for the renal disease. But yeah, we often look at pyelonephritis infections of the kidneys as being partly down to those circulating bacteria.

Okay, cool. Yeah, I saw somebody put up a cool image of something that they were selling related to teeth, and they put up a picture of an iceberg, and it's only the tip of the iceberg is the dirty tooth, and then underneath that is all the issues that come with it. It's not just a rotten smile and smelly breath. Halitosis, smelly breath, is not just bacteria farts that are living in your mouth.

Not just that, you know, we've got to remember, okay, it's not just the teeth that can cause halitosis. So, you know, there'll be other things that we're going to talk about in the future, other podcasts that will talk about what's happening in the gut and my favorite subject of microbiome. But I think from a point of view of the obvious one is teeth, you know, and but we do have some dogs that will, you know, have halitosis but seem to have relatively good teeth. So that's down to all sorts of other factors. But absolutely, you know, the classic Yorkshire Terrier that comes in at age 16 and, you know, you can smell it walk into the waiting room, let alone walk into your consult room. It's just like, yeah.

So you're presented with this. I can go about how I would kind of do it as a non-vet, but how if you're presented with a dog with a very mucky mouth, tartar, you know, in a bad way, just tell us a very quick bit about the process where if the dental is unavoidable, can you tell us just very quickly what What's premium dentition? What's premium dental dentistry look like in the veterinary world? How do you do it? What's it look like for the dog, and what's the recovery like?

Yeah, okay, so look, you get what you pay for in some respects, and you've got to understand that, you know, dentistry has come a long way from, you know, just knock them out, clean them up, and send them home, okay? And certainly, or even just pulling teeth, you know, leaving it till they're bad enough that you can pull teeth. And it's very much followed the human. You know, you wouldn't go into a dentist and expect them to knock you out, clean your teeth, take out, you know, any horrible ones and totally extract them and then send you home having had a full general anaesthetic. You know, that's just not what happens these days. So we do very much what your dentist would be doing for you, which is, you know, go in, scale them, look at taking some X-rays so we can see what's happening below the gum line.

Surely the dog won't take a scaling. Sorry, surely a dog won't take a scaling so easily.

No, no, so you literally, you will have to give them a sedative, okay, just so that you can get that ultrasonic scaler in, okay, clean them up and do the x-rays. So they can do that under sedation. I mean, the initial bit is going to be looking, practically looking at them. We're not going to book them in unless they need something, but I would say, you know, you've got to be cautious with those scalars. Okay, that the metal being on tooth and how it's used and, you know, making sure that it's not used too frequently. You certainly don't want to be booking your dog in on a monthly basis or even a 3-monthly basis to have that done because it will damage the enamel ultimately if you're doing it that frequently. And we know that there are other preventative ways which we'll touch on later tonight that we can keep that at bay if they've started to build up plaque. But I would definitely say they're in, cleaned. We then take photographs, we then take X-rays, we then have a conversation. If there's emergency extracts because there's fractures or they're really loose, then we'll talk to the owner about those. And then we then reflect on, okay, this is the work that needs to be done. These are what we need to schedule. If we just need to do a quadrant of teeth that we need to concentrate on work, We'll do that so they're not painful all over with extractions because you don't want your dog out for 2 or 3 hours, you know, having dental work and reconstruction and stuff done. You know, you want literally them to be in, in a controlled manner, do the few teeth that are really essential, and then let's schedule the other parts. So that's really what gold standard sort of dentistry is these days. And you should be then talking to your, your vet about relevant pain relief. You know what's happening as far as how we're going to manage those bacteria. There are a few great things with the microbiome that we can talk about. You know, Luka, we've mentioned in the past, they do a dental spray which will reduce probiotic guys.

So it's like using, I suppose, using anti-life to kill the nasties. They use probiotics, positive. Life in the mouth, which kind of, uh, competitive exclusion for one of us. That's Luca, that product's called.

But guys, yeah, and it's really important with some things like that. There are some bacteria that have been found, okay, Porphyromonas bacteria, that are actually related to some things like pancreatic cancer.

So I'm saying from, um, um, I'll get the name out, Belenjuk.

Yeah, yeah. So, you know, just remember that you know, some of those infections that they're finding and the relevance to other disease, as we've been saying.

Because people wonder sometimes, you're presented with quite a healthy dog sometimes, and they're raw fed and they're ticking a lot of the boxes that would usually exclude them from the pancreatitis kind of argument. And so this, Rowan was saying, was this is something that he's absolutely convinced that this bacteria, after what he's reading, is linked. This is one possible kickoff of it. So that's interesting. I haven't read that, Bren. So if you have that study, send it on to me afterwards. Want to know more about?

There's a few actually, yeah. It's actually well documented, actually around the turn of the millennium.

No way!

There's quite a lot on.

Dr. Conor Brady, I'm way behind, 20 years behind. Yes, absolutely. Sorry about that, I'm embarrassed.

A lot of that is in humans.

Oh cool, yeah.

I think a lot of people mistook the link between pancreatic cancer and pancreatitis.

Yeah.

And that's something that's also—

Oh cool, that's interesting. Somebody just asked a little while back there, and she made sure that I was going to ask tonight, was that Let's say your dog has a root canal. Just very briefly, what is root canal? And also, is there long-term implications of root canal in your dogs? What are you worried about there with that root canal?

Okay, so root canal is really denervating the nerve root of that tooth to stop the pain. Now, just as with us, the— let's just see if I've got a part on here, but just as with us, let's show you here, inside the tooth there is a pulp cavity, and that contains the blood vessel and the nerve.

Because it's alive.

No, so yeah, absolutely, it's alive. That tooth is constantly, just like bone, okay, is a living thing, and it's got a blood supply. The cells that are in there receive nutrients Okay, constantly within the dentine. Now, unlike our teeth, if you break the very tip of the enamel or get wear and tear on the very surface, the dentine can harden up pretty quickly. So we don't panic if they've chipped a part of their teeth. Often we will just say, look, just keep going, keep it clean, they'll be fine. Okay, don't panic about that. Sometimes they'll even bruise the tooth and you'll get a discoloration, so it'll go a dark blue-gray color and you'll panic that the tooth has died and something horrible is happening to it. But that's just like if they've taken a knock, it's just that the blood has bled into the dentin and it's discolored it. And actually, if you leave them long enough, they will very slowly just go through that whole bruising process, just like your skin.

My brother's front tooth did that.

Yeah, it does take time to go through that bruising process. So a lot of people panic at that point and think the tooth's dead, we've got to do something major about it. But I would definitely say that it's only really if they get an opening of that pulp cavity and they manage to get infection in, which then can be seen on x-ray to be causing root damage and ultimately infection that they may— you know, there are dental surgeons out there that will drill the tooth, take out all of that infected material, debride it, and then pack that back with a filling material and rebuild the crown. So it's quite intense.

Is that one sitting? That sounds like a horrible amount of work.

Well, it's— there's a little bit of the clean-out stuff. They'll put a temporary cap in, and then they'll, you know, re-go in and then fill the tooth tooth and they'll, you know, they're putting a crown on for those people that really are, you know, want to be doing that special sparkly tooth, you know, they do those lovely shiny coverings and things like that. Yeah, make them look like Goldie.

Like I was just gonna say, nice little dollar sign on their fangs. Cool. If you're gonna be bitten by a dog, it might as well have a bit of class. So that's the kind of, that's the cleaning of the teeth side of things. And I can't believe we're already kind of halfway through here, but And so, uh, if with all these, the concern that most people have is by the time your teeth are really bad in some dogs, you've been living on, let's say, uh, and they say hassle factor. That was a word that was coined by a guy called Koehler in the '30s, 1930s. Koehler was a guy that the zoos employed to find out why all their animals were dying so young, and, um, particularly the carnivores. And he very quickly made the leap between the rotten teeth that they were having and the teeth that were being pulled and the lack of hassle factor, they were being fed mushed meat as opposed to meat on the bone. So he was the first guy to bring in— and that you need hassle factor, needs meat on the bone. And he brought out a couple of very simple studies and a couple of other things, Fagan in the '50s, and they started finding out that vet— that animals, zoo animals that have loose teeth and wobbly teeth could be very much saved by giving them meat on the bone because they'd work them and it can actually cement the tooth back in the bone. Because I just saw somebody comment there about wobbly teeth and the vet wanted to take it. And I want your opinion on this. If this is me as a non-vet, so I'm freer to say kind of weirder stuff, but if I saw a dog with wobbly teeth that wasn't in pain, and you might, you know, there's lots of things you can do for a dog that has mucky teeth that doesn't involve a dental first. So for example, if I could just call out two studies here on dogs with— listen to this— Brown and Park in 1968 periodically replaced the moist kibble ration in 30 dogs that were displaying tooth loss with dental calculus with beef oxtail. Two-thirds of the dog's calculus was removed within 24 hours. This increased by 95% in week 2. The 200 dogs were fed oxtail for more than 6 years, and inverted commas here, no harmful effects were observed. I think that's really good. 200 dogs, oxtail. That was, that was produced in, I can't remember which journal. But more recently, 2016, they evaluated beef bones, which isn't the bone we're going to recommend down the line, and it reduced dental calculus by 57% after 3 days, 82% after 12 days. So like, the point is, if you've got a dog, a really old dog, and we don't want to put the old dogs out because it must be a little bit riskier for you to do it, it can't be something you're looking forward to. Well, surely the first thing would be, with vets like yourself, I'm sure it might be where like, it's like, okay, can we try the dog on some raw meaty bones and a few other little bits and pieces that we can talk about later? To try and set those teeth to clear off the worst of the tartar? At what point do you say, I'm going to have to just get in there and help the dog? Is it purely based on how uncomfortable the dog is?

Absolutely. Pain is paramount. Okay, so if the welfare issues for the dog, you know, they're juddering mouths, they're really uncomfortable, we often have to make that decision of going in because we can't—

What's that, Fran? What's a juddering mouth?

So that's the nerve endings, okay, within the tooth. So as they're trying to pick up anything, they might suddenly end up with a jarring nerve. It's that electric sort of like, yeah, that you get. Okay. And so those are the things, you know, that there are certain things like Hypericum can be really useful in those cases and they can dull that pain. That's a homeopathic medicine. You know, St. John's Wort, it's really useful for nerve pain, for stabbing pains. Things like that. So that can be really useful. Even arnica, calendula can be really useful to help reduce the infection around the teeth. Yeah, there's things like fragraria we might use, wild strawberry, which again helps to remove tartar and plaque.

How do you use the wild strawberry?

So literally as a remedy, 6X to 6C, that sort of potency, and you're just spraying it onto the gum and let that absorb and the body starts to react.

Sounds like homeopathic.

Okay, so these are options there.

Can you buy these online, Brendan? I'm sorry for cutting across you.

Yeah, yeah, they can. Absolutely, you can get those, you know, most homeopathic pharmacies will give you a 30C and below. Okay, so you can access those. Look, there's loads of other products out there as well for teeth. I mean, you've got Canadent out there.

Yeah, Canadent keeps my lights on, to be honest. That's a very popular product. It's a kind of seaweed-based product. But like, there was, um, there's, there's kind of a lot of different, uh, um, the natural solutions is, is a lot. There's a lot on the market. There's seaweed-based ones all over the place, uh, but they also use, and they make— you can make your own toothpaste from usually algal-based things. But I'm so interested in the strawberry thing. That's the second time someone said it to me today. They also said in my post that that was in their toothpaste, and I could not— I've never heard of such a thing, you know. And it sounds like a very pleasant way to clean your teeth. So yeah, absolutely.

Wild strawberry. It's not just strawberries.

Okay. Okay.

Strawberry flavoring. This is okay.

Okay. You're not like a smoothie or a milkshake then. No, Mr. Freeze.

I can't take you anywhere.

It's very nice. So yeah, PlaqueOff is kind of one of the more popular kind of seaweed-based kind of products, but a lot of people are doing versions of that. So yeah, absolutely. So that works. That takes time, 5 to 8 weeks to remove the tartar on the dog's teeth. It's a slow removal of it, and it also works because it's anti-inflammatory seaweed, so it has that benefit as well. But it helps to remove the tartar. Tartar is that hard yellow stuff on teeth, guys. Humans don't really have the tartar issue that we see on dogs. Dogs have that stuff that you saw on Bren's skull, the tartar, the hard yellowy brown stuff that comes comes down over the teeth. That's from generally a lack of abrasion in the diet. It's from a lack of hassle factor that this stuff starts to accumulate on the teeth. Plaque is the invisible layer where the bacteria just live in your teeth all the time. No big deal. You've got it on your teeth. That's all that's plaque there. It's fine. But it's when you leave that alone and let it set and feed it that you're going to start getting tartar issues. Someone said, what's the difference between that and discoloration? Discoloration will be from us drinking too much wine, smoking fags, that starts to stain the teeth, and that's a little bit of an issue. But generally, dogs' issues aren't really a staining issue. Generally. Now, there is colorants used in dry foods, God knows, and all sorts of things that waters will do it, different types of water will do it. Yes. Okay. But in general, the issue that we're seeing with dogs' teeth, I assume, Brendan, is tartar more than that staining.

Yeah, we do see some staining, actually. You know, it is seen, and people do concern themselves thinking it's plaque and, you know, and then into the tartar, the calcification of that plaque. So the matrices between the bacteria, you know, how they communicate, and then that becomes calcified with, you know, the stuff from the saliva and various other bits that are going into the mouth. And those areas then almost protect— they create a shell over the bacteria. And going back to what we were saying about what else would we look at rather than just pain, it's the level of infection. So if you've got a dog with a heart murmur and he's already struggling with the heart and you've got to make a decision on teeth which not only have pain but maybe have infection on, then actually sometimes you have to make that sooner rather than later. You don't have that 6 to 8 weeks to try and clear their teeth to try and get that because you've got circulating bacteria all the time.

Yeah.

If you've got a cat with renal disease you're not, you know, and they've got really bad teeth, you're not necessarily going to leave them that 6 to 8 weeks to make a recovery. Yeah, to clean their teeth up.

So that is a shame to hear that, but you're absolutely spot on. That will be your concern. Whereas, yeah, I can totally see that. Kind of better they're gone than worse they sit with it for a month and endanger themselves and put their condition into a place where you can't help them. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. So regarding eating bones, just starting it off there, Holly Violet said, would whole prey help with dental health? Absolutely. So it's all of a hassle factor that we brush our teeth because we want to brush away that plaque and stuff that builds up at nighttime and morning. But dogs aren't chewing enough. Okay, there's a beautiful cattle dog eating that bone. Look at that, that's a spine, I think. So look, you're going to get teeth like that if you eat bones like that. It makes perfect sense. Can you see the tooth, everybody, that the dog is using? And the tooth very closest to the bone, that triple triangular, it's a triple kind of tipped tooth. It's called a carnasal tooth. Check that out. Okay, it's an absolute monster of a tooth, that one there. Yeah. And it's really interesting, you know, that this animal— well, you know, he's a meat eater, first of all, because the jaw— the brain's jaw— I can't get my camera right— just opens and closes. Okay, so that's, you know, it's a meat eater. Well, the teeth at the side of the jaw, the carnasal tooth, actually come across each other like that. Okay, they side pass, so the top tooth sides past the one on the bottom. Okay, that is for chopping chunks off, okay? That's why your dog will grab onto a large bit of zebra and shake his head because he's got no chewing ability. We will chew, chew, chew to get through something. He doesn't have a chewy ability. He's got open and close. So all he's got is close and then he shakes vigorously. So a lot of that is that death shake that he does with his teddy. That's one way of removing meat. That is how he's cleaning his teeth. He's holding on and he's pulling that stuff and the sinews and stuff he's pulling through his teeth are cleaning the front teeth and stuff. So If you want his back teeth cleaned, which are the trickier ones to get cleaned, he's got to have more hassle factor than just a chicken wing occasionally. So with the feeding of bones, Brendan, I suppose, like, you know, there's lots of tips you can give, but the number one thing is feed right for the type.

So tell me about that because you do a lot on that. And a lot of people have been asking what's the right size? You know, they can't get them from the butcher.

And yeah, it's interesting. So like there's lots of infographics that are going around and we will post one of the more popular ones up on our Facebook page after this, Bren. We'll do it tonight so people can see it. Patricia Gatton shared on our page today. It's just really easy. I can't remember one of the raw companies put it up. Done lovely, very simple infographic. But in short, it'd be feed right for the type. So smaller bones for smaller dogs, medium bones for medium dogs, and bigger bones for bigger dogs. So for example, you might have a little Yorkie and he might have a chicken wing, okay? You can have big 3-joint chicken wings, which is quite a large wing when you think about it, or you can have a small little one-piece chicken wing depending if you have a mini Yorkie or a slightly bigger toy breed. Moving up to like your chicken necks which are about the size of an index finger, fantastic, covered in meat and sinew and little bits of bones, little neck bones in there which aren't going to cause an issue in your dog. That's a fantastic bone. It's great for a small dog but I've seen Labradors eating a pile of chicken necks and it's utterly terrifying because they don't chew them, they just put them up in the air and they swallow them like a seagull with a mackerel and it's like, oh, So I don't tend to give too many small meaty bones to bigger dogs. I give them to the smaller dogs. And if you move up to the medium knee-high dogs and collies and that kind of size, I'm going up for the duck necks now. I love a duck neck and they're readily available, they're cheap to buy, they're the perfect size. There's no fat on the outside, it's just a bit of meat and sinew and the round little bones in the middle of it. And then when you get to the large dogs, you know, your duck necks, your turkey necks, your carcass, your lamb ribs— lamb ribs for a collie either, venison ribs, neck, you know, you see lamb necks are being sold. Oxtail is just phenomenal for your bigger dogs, is brilliant. But what we don't tend to use in dogs is large— we try to avoid the weight-bearing bones, okay? So in a chicken, a chicken drumstick is the hardest bone in the body because that's the bit holding up the animal. It's reinforced, heavy, much more zinc and iron and calcium than any other bones, and drier. So it's hard bone for holding it up. A pork leg bone will be the strongest bone in a pig, and that's to hold up a mega heavy animal. So those bones, desiccated bones you see in the pet shop wrapped in plastic, that's a pork femur cooked because it's Serrano ham leftover from the kind of the spray tan. Yeah, with spray tan on it and spray meat on it, and then it's cooked again to preserve it and wrapped in plastic and it's sitting in a sweaty Perspex box in it. Like, guys, that is pure dynamite. If you're going to be a vet pulling bits of bones out of a dog's bum that's going to be the stuff. The reason— cook, you don't— I'll come back to the cooked bones last. I just want to finish the marrow bone point. You use marrow bones for making broth, guys. Don't give them to your dogs because what you get is you get— there's a couple of different large bones. There's the triangular-shaped one, which is your marrow bone, that your beef bone, okay? And it's hollow in the middle with all that delicious nutritious marrow butter, which is fantastic. But that's all it's good for because the problem is you get your German Shepherd and he's going to put his chops around that and he's going to put down massive bite pressure. To try and break down that bone after he's taken all the meat and fat off it. And one of two things is going to happen. It's shaped that way. First one is that the teeth are going to skid off the bone and clash, smash, and you're going to fracture that carnasal tooth we were talking about, that monster tooth. And then Bren's going to have to come in and not just remove that tooth, but the teeth beside it, because the bloody thing is huge when it comes out of the jaw. Have you ever seen— well, you have, Brendan. They're so big.

I mean, you have to cut them into 3 pieces to take the roots out separately. If you're going to do that properly, that's why it's not just an extract and pull out. And they've often done the slab fracture. So longevity, you know, lengthwise, what they've done, rather than just broken off across, they actually break off an outside piece and they end up slicing almost halfway through that. Okay. And then you— so you take out that bit which usually is stuck in the gum, and you're left still with all of the roots to remove. So yeah, absolutely. It's a bit of a nightmare to do that. But there are some heavy bite breeds that will do that on all sorts of bone material. So just be careful with that.

Yeah. So it's— and the other thing is really that they have put down this immense bite pressure on a piece of bone, like you said, to do it on any bone, they can do it on a lump of oxtail because there's a nice round bone in there. But they put such immense pressure down that when the bone finally gives way, there's only one teeth one way those teeth are going, and that's slamming closed, you know. So mega pressure. I would say that dogs are smaller hunters than a wolf. They're scavenging carnivores. They're not these, uh, pursue, uh, hunting pack animals that wolves were eating these ginormous prey. They're much smaller bodies than that. They— I don't think beef, it really is on the menu for dogs. Beef bones, pork bones, these sort of livestock is not something dogs normally eat, and their bones are really, really hard. Unfortunately, as someone says, there's bugger-all bones available to people. So when you go to the butcher, the only bones that come into them are usually a bit of marrow bone, and they chop up the marrow bone. Now you've got a nice sharp edge, and it's just like, oh geez. So it's hard for people. So what you're left with bone option-wise of the bones we just talked about is to avoid the beef bones in the, in the big piggies that are just going to— now my dogs were reared on these sort of bones. The back garden used to look like a graveyard, but that was back in the day, and her teeth weren't great, so so I have to admit. So I would say, you know, you can buy all sorts of poultry meat bones and people are worried about bones and raw chicken bones. I'd say, guys, the difference between a raw bone and a cooked bone, a raw chicken wing is bendy and it goes snap when it breaks. Whereas if you overcook a chicken wing on the barbecue, you get this brittle shard and it goes tshh, you know, and you see those jagged bits. What you see there is called a Maillard reaction. Loads of temperature bonds protein to sugar, and it makes for this very difficult to digest, ultra-hard bone material. Think overcooking the piece of steak and it's gone very tough to digest, or the white, the white of the egg going from clear to white. That's a Maillard reaction. So when you cook a bone, you make a very dangerously brittle mass. Please don't give cooked bones. They're the bits that vets are pulling out of dogs. And also, it's generally a dry-fed dog, in my opinion. I know nothing about this, this is a complete out on a limb, but I would say raw-fed dogs surely have a better processing ability and raw-fed dog owners are less likely to feed cooked bones. So you have a bit of a vicious circle. They have a dry-fed dog eating plant food, and then he's given a cooked chicken bone on a Sunday or a cooked lamb bone. That's just—

and remember, you know, that lamb necks and stuff like that are readily available, but they'll often— you know, there's good butchers rather than meat resellers will often have, you know, ribs and stuff like that from lambs and piglets and things like that that are really good for them to chew through. Other little treat for the summertime especially, I sometimes leave these a little bit frozen. So, you know, remember, even if they've got to grips with that and they can chew on it, and if they do do that thing that they gulp down— and remember, unlike us and herbivores, we like to chew and chew and chew and masticate and create this little bolus so that we can comfortably swallow a small little lump dogs are built to chomp and swallow big chunks. Yes, they are designed to do that more. So it's only really if things are sharp and, you know, aren't cushioned with surrounding meat that it becomes more of a problem. So I generally find that those Labradors that stuff themselves with necks, they're absolutely fine.

We are— I've yet to see, I've yet to hear of an issue. I think it's extra wide keratinized neck, so it's even tougher neck than we are. It's waiting for all that lovely kibble, you know what I mean?

And so carcasses is another one. You can get chicken carcasses and leave those frozen and let them chew through them, you know, and be really good for them without having to think about, oh, it's just one bone. It's loads of bones tied together with lots of sinews and material that's really good for brushing those teeth.

Raw meaty bones. That was Tom Lonsdale, was the first man to really blast those three words together. Raw meaty bones. So meat on the outside of the bone Yeah, the lubrication just goes down the neck, which is a dry bone.

Yeah, you've got another favorite way of cleaning teeth though, haven't you? You like these?

Yeah, I like this. See how you feel about this, Ben. I don't know, I see what the people think. But my— but Dudley, I was getting groomed there a few months ago, and considering, you know, I'm supposed to be the food guy and, you know, now the teeth guy, and it's like, okay, you know, Conor, when I picked up the dog, your dog's teeth were great. 'And when you think about it, so I haven't really been giving them that many bones because, you know, there's only one butcher that does it, he's a bit of a distance, and everyone's a meat reseller in Ireland because the Irish Department of Agriculture shut them all down during and after BSE. So yeah, I kind of dropped the ball and it's embarrassing. I go, bloody hell, the poor little man.' So she says, 'No, brother, I sorted that. Ultrasonic toothbrush.' I love groomers. Groomers have all the answers. They're just so good. Grooms are so good for business. When I was in the raw dog food business, they're just behind you and they push the right messages. So ultrasonic toothbrush is like a little rubber toothbrush. I don't need to tell you what it is. You've probably seen them, Ben, with little very light rubber spikes. And she— Doodies are very good patients as long as you're—

Right, can I just interrupt you there? For all of those guys that are now looking at your husband's toothbrush, please don't go and use it, okay?

Yeah, everyone's talking about the same, but your husband won't forgive you. It's pain-free. It's like, it's just a light little, you know, I mean, he doesn't even know it's moving. It lasts forever, this toothbrush. And they do these dental cleans for really, really cheap if your dog doesn't mind it. And it worked, I'm telling you. She sent me a before and after picture. Now he gets kind of, he gets all sorts of stuff in his diet to help. But so it came off very simply, but she said one, maybe two visits, and she can really clean up a mucky mouth. So have you ever used that, Brendan? Is that not something you could bring into the—

Yeah, so we've got clients that use them. Absolutely, we talk about them. You do need to do a bit of training. Some of them, you know, it's not like you can just get one and stick it in. Okay. I think, you know, you've got to get the dogs used to the noise as well. Remember, these are ultrasonic. Some of them, they do make quite a loud noise to some dogs that we won't necessarily hear. So just think about the training procedure. I'm sure Conor's got lots of stuff on his site about how to habituate dogs to noises. And stuff like that. So have a little look at that. And that's— but yeah, I think especially for dogs where it's preventative, it's really good, I think. And where the plaque is minor, so that it's actually plaque and some gingivitis, not full-on cake.

Yeah, not like some bad shape.

So I would definitely say it's useful.

What else do you think, Brandon? Someone's saying here, okay, my dog doesn't like chewing on a bone. One little tip for chewing on a bone: some dogs have there was a rescue there on my page today, he'd never had a bone in his life, so when he was presented with a bone, they kind of look at it and go, I don't want meat on the bone. So that is because the dog wasn't reared on that material at all. Sometimes they look at it like Dudley looks at a tomato going, I'm going to eat you, but I'm not going to enjoy it. So I would say, but I wouldn't be feeding too many tomatoes to dogs, by the way, guys. I'm sorry, I keep talking, but this came up second time. Stop feeding tomatoes to your dogs, ignore me. But you know that face they get when they try to eat a mushroom? Jesus. Meat, Conor, go with something else that he doesn't like. I'm trying to pick a food that he doesn't really enjoy. I don't know. Anyway, I imagine I've been eating an orange. So he gets that face. So this dog wouldn't eat the bone. So I thought a little cheat. We do want him eating bones. It is really nice for him to do it. He's going to lie down, his heart rate will decrease, it's hassle factor, it's surely going to release dopamine in the dog. And the nutrition in bones, guys, it's not just about teeth cleaning. Like, your bones, all the cartilage dogs work like Lego, so muscle meat feeds their muscle, cartilage feeds their cartilage. All your dogs with colostomy and chondroitin, anything he needs is coming from the cartilage of that joint. And bone feeds bone, so you've got nice fresh calcium, that's where they get it from. But there's other things in bones that people don't talk about. There's glucagon, glutathione, uh, it's a mineral sink for rare minerals and copper and selenium and stuff. So the nutrition in bones is brilliant. We want this collie that doesn't like bones eating bones, I thought, what about— and I'm always saying this— a little bit of good quality salt sprinkled on the bone, top and bottom, and there, dog, would you like to eat a slightly bit of salty meat? And he is going to lick that for sure, at least, and start playing with it. And you decrease the salt over time in the dream that with his favorite meat on the bone, okay, find his favorite meat on the bone. That would be one way to get the dog on, someone was asking me. But here's the other question, Brendan, any other alternatives? Okay, we've talked about brushing, we've talked about bones, we've only a couple of minutes left, we've only got 1 minute left. And what else is there, Brendan-wise? Is there anything else people can chew, that dogs can chew? Is there— what else can you do?

Well, look, what I would say is, please, we do not need to reinvent the bone. Do not go near some of those reconstituted, highly calorific, full of grain, horrible treats that are out there. It's just not necessary. Avoid those. So there are a lot of, you know, dried treats, certainly I've seen. I would definitely say for me, definitely stick to things like necks if you were introducing them. Something that's really interesting, there's a product out there now for arthritis and what they've done, they've reinvented the bone again in that they've now saying that if they expose the Peyer's patches in the gut to raw— sorry, chondroitin and the cartilage, okay, within that, the type 2s, type 2 cartilages, what happens is that it actually prepares the immune system and makes it so they don't react to the damaged cartilage that's in their own joints. And so actually, if you're feeding raw bones, you're doing that without buying these special expensive treats. And so actually it's another use for those dogs with arthritis to think, actually, do you know what, feed them this, they'll get their Peyer's patches in their gut exposed to this raw cartilage. Okay, this type 2 cartilage, and that will reduce the inflammation in their joints. And they've got the evidence behind that.

Bloody hell. So that's fab.

Look at, look at those, you know, there's things like that. Bones are brilliant, you know, and look at some of the stuff raw meaty stuff with meat on it. And I would definitely say, look, there are ways to fool your dogs and cats indeed. You know, my cat will take the duck necks. I just chop them up. Okay. She's a bit of a thief for stealing the dog's stuff out of the dog's bowl when I'm preparing the food anyway. But, you know, remember, mouse-sized meals, chicks, mice, you know, for cats, they're great. You know, they're available. Readily used for reptiles. So they're available in those circumstances. So you can use those. Some young small dogs, so chihuahuas and things like that, again, great for them. You can get those really easily.

Yeah.

And you can get like a food shop near us that does them for pet foods. A lot of raw suppliers. You're mentioning here.

Yeah. A lot of raw suppliers sell the bones as well. If you can't get it from your local butcher, you should try them first. And the bits of poultry down in the, down in your local supermarket. There's the raw suppliers, you've got like Dog's Butcher, Paleo Ridge, you've got any of the— they're all selling something to go with it. There's some necks or, you know, so they're all aware that you need this stuff and they do supply it. Generally it sucks to have to buy bones because they're bulky to ship, so not a lot goes in the box, so they're quite expensive for raw suppliers. You think, oh, they're ripping me off, why would it be €3 or €4 for a marrow bone? Because bones don't pack well in the box, you know, they like to fill the box up when they send it to you, so they have to charge for these bones because someone has to bag it and chop it and put it in and, you know, so, but those suppliers do have them, so look around online, you type in the name of bone you want, you'll find it, someone's going to give it to you, you know, so chicken necks, duck necks, turkey necks, that's a great cheat, that's the easiest way to do it and you can get your raw dog food from them at the same time, you can, you can keep it British or Irish or whoever's doing it. What about chicken feet and duck feet? They're absolutely fine, yeah, I can't believe they've got that big claw, and I can't believe that's not a problem to dogs. I just can't believe it.

I had a lovely client just yesterday asking if they could trim the nails off the chicken's feet before they fed them to the dogs. They're giving them to the husband to use the nails with. Get the nails off and then feed them to the dogs.

Yeah, except I don't like when chicken feet have bumblefoot. You know, that bit of black kind of—

well, it's a bit of infected tissue. You know, it's poor welfare chickens will get that.

Walking around in his own poo for 11 weeks. My God, not for me. Um, okay, yeah, okay guys, listen, it's a 1948. See, we didn't even nick it and we're still talking crap.

And I, I resisted posting the, uh, the old Billy Goat, but I think what I might do is post that on the Facebook.

There you go.

Yeah, choose what you want. If he doesn't turn up next week, you can choose which picture you want.

Vote your favorite, Nick. Yeah, so listen, thanks to the sponsors tonight again. Pay Your Rage, uh, fantastic supporters for the last few weeks. So really appreciate that. You can check them out at paleoridge.co.uk. And as always, on patreon.com, guys, you'll find us at Raw Pet Medics on patreon.com. Price of a cup of coffee each month would be more than enough, and it keeps us going. The more the merrier of that. But don't worry if you can't afford it, it's free to view as always. And for those of you that have done it, we really, really appreciate it. And we're going to be moving our questions after the show for people that have seen it and didn't get it live. We're going to be moving the questions and answers to Patreon, uh, just as a home for people to find out. We'll do that in the future, um, because we're getting a furious amount. You can see the speed of the likes are going up on the page, which is really nice. Thanks very much. Tell all your friends, um, but you— and we will get your questions in a more formal way, and we're doing our best. And thanks to Brendan and, um, his lovely wife Chris for sorting out a lot of the questions and answers that you're getting. Uh, so, um, keep them coming, guys. We really appreciate that.

Yeah, and keep following, you know, keep following, sharing the page. You know, it's great to see you guys out there, uh, gets us spread around. I mean, after the— I think probably the overwhelming success of last week, uh, about neutering is probably what's absolutely— yeah, for Nick, he's feeling a bit off it as well, I think.

Yeah, he's depleted. Yeah, he'll be back, he'll be turbocharged and extra large next week. So, um, listen guys, thanks very much, and we will see you all next week. We'll announce what we're thinking about, um, during the week, but if you've got requests, please keep them coming in. We do take them all seriously, and things get bumped up to the top of the list based on what people are telling us. So absolutely keep it coming. Thanks very much, guys. Thanks for joining us.

Cheers, guys. Thank you so much. It's been great to see you all, and thanks, thanks