Interview with Dr Conor Brady — Paws and Listen Podcast

G'day folks. Welcome to Pause and Listen, a podcast series brought to you by Big Dog Pet Foods, the leading pet nutrition provider in Australia with over 20 years of experience in the pet industry. We provide educational resources for pet parents and are proud of being transparent in everything we do. The podcast series is hosted by me, Johnny Manning, and we bring you interviews and deep dives into pet nutrition, pet care, training, and and regular Ask a Vet segments. So thanks for tuning in. Now get your tails wagging and we'll get yapping. G'day, raw feeding legends. Johnny Manning here, host of the Big Dog Pet Foods podcast. Pause and listen. Now this is a warning. The following podcast may contain a few words your grandma won't approve of. Now we'll busily go away and wash our mouths out with soap to rectify our potty mouth. But please do stick around because it's a great chat and a great listen. Thanks heaps, guys. This is Johnny Manning, uh, coming to you for a pretty special Christmas episode of Pause and Listen. Pause spelled P-A-W-S.

Very clever.

Did that very— it's pause and take a moment and listen as well.

That's incredible, John.

Jesus. But, uh, finally got my man Dr. Connor Brady to have a chat with us. But this time it's in person. We're in the heart of Dublin. Temple Bar's across the road, but this got our own side streets right here.

This is—

we're in the heart of Ireland, the homeland of Dr. Conor O'Brady. And Conor, mate, firstly, we'll get into another conversation in a minute. We've been talking for a while, but, uh, I just want to thank you, mate, for taking the time to come and have a chat.

Thanks for organizing.

Real treat, mate.

Thanks for organizing. Sorry for the delay. You're very, very patient there. So I appreciate that.

It's fine, mate. But, um, But I just wanted to sort of go through you for a minute first, mate, if that's all right. So, honours degree in zoology, doctorate in the effects of nutrition on behaviour and gut morphology in mammals.

Yeah.

Oh man, we're going to go into that.

Yeah.

Put a pin in that. We need to talk about that.

Yeah.

But you're an author, the Feeding Dogs, I think it's Amazon's highest rated book on canine nutrition.

Yeah, I'm delighted with that one. Yep.

Mate, you're an international speaker, you're a consultant to top pet food companies, you've got your own company called Dogs First, which which I want to get into that as well.

Yeah.

Uh, what else, mate? What am I missing here?

Oh, that's it, surely.

That sounds good, doesn't it?

It sounds good. If I— um, it's great hearing that, really. It's great hearing it back like 10 years ago. Yeah, none of that was in place, and you're just battling against it as a pet food manufacturer.

For a pet food—

yeah, there's one.

And Raw Pet Medics as well.

Raw Pet Medics. Yeah, Raw Pet Medics is going well. That's our, our podcast.

That's going well. That's with Dr.

Nick Thompson, Brendan Thompson, Brendan Clark, and Nick Thompson.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They're two of the top vets.

So they're the vets and you've got the doctor.

Yeah, they're the brains. The other side of it. They're the brains and I'm the enthusiastic puppy that seems to bring a bit of entertainment to the world.

Mate, a doctor's a doctor in my book.

Yeah, yeah, they're honorary doctors, don't forget that. Oh, you're in mine. I have a badge, they don't. They don't like hearing that, but yeah. No, I love that show. But like, I put up a post there, someone shared with me recently, uh, you know, trying to get to a— it was like 2011 or '12. I just sunk 100 grand into this little factory, this little— on the side of a hill. It was called Slaughter Hill. It's in Newtown, Mount Kennedy, which is where they used to slaughter all the animals for Wicklow.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And now— but I was miserable in there, and I remember how cold and wet it was, and I was trying to get likes, and I put all this money in, and I realized quickly, oops, I might have made a mistake here, and I sunk 50 grand of the government's money 50 grand on my own, big loan. And, uh, I just thought, oh, this isn't going to take off like it was taking off in Australia. Yeah, back from Australia with all these ideas. And, uh, yeah, and I remember anyway, someone shared the post saying, look at you trying to get to 1,000 likes, and here I am, I've got a decent—

I saw that post the other day.

And I thought, if I could just tell myself 10 years ago, you know, things are going much better. You're not going to get rich doing this sort of stuff, but you're— it's such a better place. So when you recap the few bits and pieces that are working now I'm proud to hear that. My dad would have been delighted to hear all that. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, yeah. Small business type idea.

Are you a Dub?

You grew up in Dublin? No, but this is a Dublin accent. Yeah, I grew up in Wicklow in Greystones, which is the end of the Dart Line. But I spent all my life in here and college was in here. I was in college for 8 years. So, you know, lads lived in Dublin. So that's— I end up with a Dublin accent. And that's—

Now, you said before you've done your knee playing footy. Are we talking soccer? Are we talking gaelic?

Soccer? Yeah. Played Gaelic till I was about maybe you know, 14, 15, dropped it and then found football really about a year or two later. And then, yeah, Jesus, you played rugby for 8 years, bro.

Yeah, mate. Yeah, it was great fun. Yeah, body just gave way.

Oh, you bet. Terrible toll. You're suffering it now, are you? Okay. Oh, look, your right knee went.

Are you left? 4 ACLs.

Okay. Yeah, I've had 2.

Have you?

Yeah, usually it's your left knee if you're right foot. Oh, you don't— sure it's not a different sport completely?

Yeah, it's not.

That's not— how come that knee goes? How come your right knee?

So it just went in a tackle and then it just went again when I propped on it to change direction.

Yeah.

And then it went 2 more times.

Fuck me. 4 operations.

Yeah. So I've had 6 operations on it. I ruptured it 4 times. The last time I ruptured it, there was too many screws for him to reconstruct it, right? With the, the bony tunnels. So he said, the surgeon said, I'll pull those screws out, scar up the tunnels so the bone grows back.

Cool.

Come back in 6 months and I'll reconstruct it.

Sounds good.

That was in 2006.

Whoa, you never—

I didn't get back. I just say it's at the moment, no ACL in there.

Yeah, that's what the basketball players do when they start snapping them all the time. They just don't go back and get it.

Yeah, you just rehab the hell out of it.

Dogs can grow them again.

Sorry?

Dogs can grow them again. Well, I don't know about the ACL, but they grow— there's 4 of them, isn't there? 4 ligaments there. And I'm not sure about the ACL, but dogs can regrow their ligaments if you leave them alone.

Well, they, um, my dog's had his right ACL done, right?

Yeah.

But what they did is, I can't remember the name of the procedure. It's named after a surgeon, like a Sutcheon-Smith's procedure. It's where they shave an angle on the tibia, so to speak, and they put a brace in there that forms the new angle on the bone. Yeah, I can't remember the name of the actual surgery. So Frank had that. Yeah, then he did his left one. He did that when he was like 5, and they say his left one will go. Yeah, left one went 5 years later. He's 10 years old.

Was he neutered early? Sorry, was he neutered? Yeah, 6 months. That's why he's—

is that right?

Yeah, that's where the ligaments are gone.

Are you kidding me?

Yeah, no, 100%. That's, uh, that's like the whole veterinary profession is on the flip-flop. Like, we've been talking about for 10 years, but in the last 3 months they said, fuck, no more neutering. So it's like, uh, you're kidding. Yeah, growth, because testosterone closes the growth plates. And so if you don't have— look at the difference between a 12-year-old and a 14-year-old boy, that height. You lop off his balls at the wrong time, you've got uncontrolled growth, and so you get slightly longer limbs. And it—

you are kidding.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. A hip dysplasia, uh, cruciate ligament rupture, 3 Golden Retriever study on the cruciate ligament rupture. So it's a, it's 100% growth deformities for— not 100%, but a huge portion of growth issues in dogs is that. But particularly ACL, because it happened to my old dog as well. I was like, fuck, what happened there?

That's unreal.

And she had chronic hip dysplasia. She couldn't walk.

A lot of that in German Shepherds, right? That hip dysplasia.

Yeah, like they're prone to it. So any sort of kind of— you put them on dry food and you chop out all the glucosamine chondroitin collagen That's what it was. I was sitting there nursing whatever, the two ACL jobs, but a couple of little bits and pieces. And on the last time, this guy Ray Burke, he does all the footballers' knees. And I thought, I'm going to go to the very best guy this time and hopefully get me back in the pitch. And he was looking, he goes, you're not doing your— he goes, you look at your scrawny little legs. He goes, you're not doing anything to help yourself here. And I said, I am, I'm in the gym. I'm just not a guy that puts muscle down really anywhere. But maybe I was being a bit lazy. Yeah, but I said, I'm just— I'm just— that's just not my build. I don't know what it is. And he goes, uh, just tell me what you're eating. And I said, look, I fancy myself a nutritionist. And he goes, just Cut it out. Just tell me what you're eating. And he goes, you're not vegetarian. What do you know about nutrition? And he's just like, this is a guy that doesn't eat the shit, just does knees. And he goes, go fucking read a book. And I'm like, like, he was really direct. Go, you've just ruined your— that's the end of football. Back to 5-a-side fucking around now. And I'm like, oh no. So anyway, I go off and I start really looking at my own diet. And he goes, you never gave yourself any glucosamine, chondroitin, collagen. Where'd you get it all from? And I'm like, fuck, I never thought about that. Like, all this shit I talk about, you've got dogs, you feed them dry food, they're getting all glucosamine, chondroitin, collagen, hyaluronic acid, glucagon, glutathione, all Carnosine, all this shit we know. Creatine, vital for getting down muscle growth and rehabbing joints. They're the building blocks. And I'm always slagging vets off for selling them in capsules. If you cut that out of a dog's life, he's going to be walking like a coffee table at 6, 7 years old, and you're going to have to supplement them. And I said, that's the ruse. Just be feeding them the building blocks in 3 weeks old, as soon as he comes off mum. And I never did it for myself.

Well, mate, you know, big shock, I'm a raw feeder, mate. Yeah, of course, right? I used to work for Big Dog Pet Foods, right? I now obviously now do the podcast.

Yeah.

So with the dogs, I've been all, you know, all raw.

Yeah.

You know, there's no kibble.

Yeah.

Because it's just, I mean, if you have to feed it once in a while because you're in a bind.

Yeah.

My dogs are raw fed.

Yeah.

I've never known about the chopping their nuts off.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's unreal.

Yeah. It's the, it's the biggest health of any non-product. It's the biggest health impact on them. So it's like now it's a huge flip-flop, particularly for Ireland, UK, but Australia as well.

The council supports chopping the nuts off. For certain breeds of dogs, yeah, they'll actually contribute or give you a discount code, so you get it done for like $90 instead of $300.

Yeah, it's crazy because they believe it decreases population. But then you say, you look at Scandinavia, it's illegal. It's illegal to neuter your dog unless you've got a reason. So it has to be a medical reason to neuter him or her. And they've got zero pounds, zero shelters. The Swedes send vans down to Ireland to pick up our unwanted fucking dogs.

Why do the Swedes do everything wrong?

Everything, right? They're mutants, they're so annoying.

They didn't lock down.

Yeah, no, look, they're healthy, yeah, going around having a laugh, fucking pubs open. But yeah, so they come down, they pick up our unwanted dogs. Compared to this, to the Irish government approach, which in 2009 we did a massive crash and the government in all their sense, they started incentivizing farmers and said, look, breed pups and we'll tax— because as a tax dodge, you can— you want to pay VAT, you can sell pups to farmers that were struggling in 2009. If you could— so Ireland's the puppy farming capital of Europe, more than Poland we produce pups. And so we have a huge amount of pups that we don't need, and so we just post them off to places. We sell them all to Britain. Britain's plagued with our stuff going across the borders. And now Scandinavia sends vans down to pick up pups because they don't have any sighthounds, you know what I mean? Lurchers, greyhounds. We've got them all over the streets. They're running around. Yeah.

Do you know if you come across your man, uh, Niall Harbison?

No.

On Instagram?

No.

He's an Irish fella. He was a, um, high-profile chef.

Okay.

Moved to Thailand.

Yeah.

Oh, changed his whole life. And he, he— that's what brings in all the street dogs.

Yeah.

In Thailand, you know, brings them back to health and sends them off. He just sent one to Liam Gallagher.

Oh, right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tough, uh, tough old dogs because you get an awful lot of dogs that are juiced up to the eyeballs then and they've got a big journey and heavily stressed.

And so I took my two. Yeah, um, I had a Bulldog Pug and a Neo Mastiff crossed with something he wouldn't tell me. Yeah, people saying, what is your DNA test done? I'm like, what do I care?

He looks cool.

Yeah, um, And so I took them to LA when I moved to LA.

Yeah.

And the mastiff was a young one, big and goofy. Got out of the crate. No worries.

Yeah.

Bulldog pug, who was a little bit more refined, a little bit, you know, better, better read than the other guy. He gets out, he just looked at me and goes, what the fuck is that all about?

Oh yeah.

He didn't talk to me for a good sort of 20 minutes or so.

Pure stress.

Yeah.

Pure fucking stress.

But I did that for a living in LA as I transported did the animal transport around the world, right?

No way, because we get the— we get Romanian street dogs here and, uh, and, uh, what's the other place? Cyprus, maybe. Maybe Cyprus. I can't remember some other place, but, uh, a lot of them come in with really bad IBS, IBD, like, you know, stress, right? Stress, like, you know, and they're fed shit and, you know, they've had a load of vaccinations before they get in, a lot of flea treatments, wormers, boosters. By the time they come off that boat or plane or whatever, you know what I mean, or van or whatever, It's a tough— it's a big change. And it's like, right, you're living in this house in Sandyford now, and they're like, who the fuck are you?

Yeah, it does take them a while to adjust. I will say this, like those long-haul flights, so you think Australia, LA, like they're in the crate for probably touching 20 hours. Yeah, it's a long time.

A long time.

The cargo hold is temperature controlled. Yeah, they got water in there and everything like that. But it's—

oh nice.

And there are regulations, right? They have to be able to turn around there. You know, you can't put a big dog in a small crate just to save money. It's expensive. Like, my mastiff was in a wooden crate that was almost as tall as me. Yeah, this thing was as big as my apartment.

Yeah, movies on the wall. Yeah, yeah.

But, um, yeah, but it— we'd always hear the horror stories, and it's always the horror stories— or what's the breed the horror stories were always about?

Oh, I don't even know.

Frenchies.

The Frenchies. Okay, yeah, listen, always that the horror stories— most expensive dogs, which are £3,000 a year to insure a Frenchie in the UK. £3,000. Because they know But then, you know, it's not the dog's fault. Yeah. Or if you raw feed them, you can dodge a lot of it. Yeah. Dry food increases skin and gut and ear conditions, and they're the three things that Frenchies go to the vets for, you know.

What sort of— were you a good student at school?

Um, yeah, I don't know. Like, I think, I think I was able for school, you know. I was able, but I wasn't able to, um— I'm sure everyone would say I was a messer in school, you know. In, in school, in, in secondary school over here, it's brutal because As soon as you go in, you're in 1A, 1B, or 1C. 1A is the smart kids, 1B is the medium kids, and 1C is the thick kids. I'm not messing. And almost all my friends go to 1C and I'm in 1A. But I mean, what a setup for a kid. You're 12, 13 years old. It's like, that's your aspirations there now. You like that? That's— yeah, well, now maybe they call it numbers or smiley faces or bloody— oh, I was going to go into a subject I shouldn't be saying, but it's something that's much more kind of neutral now. But like At the time it was like, you're in the smart class, and then my friends weren't. I was like, why would a kid try to be anything better than, okay, I'm not a smart kid. I just think that is the worst thing to tell a 13-year-old. Yeah, that's not right. So I'm in this class, and I think probably I would have been, I'm definitely a messer. It turns out though, and Churchill was saying this, as in the World War II dude, he was not able to focus in school because he couldn't take in nonsense. He couldn't listen to stuff that he didn't agree with, so I couldn't do languages. I wasn't mad on history and geography. All I cared about was biology. So I got an A1 in honors biology and I got Cs in everything else.

Yeah.

So that, I don't feel that represented how, you know, it had to be stuff I was interested in. It had to be like, if I should have done business because I love business, I grew up in a small business, my dad and my family's small. So I should have stayed that way, but I followed stuff that I thought, oh, mum thinks that's a good idea, and somebody else says— if someone just honed me into pure biology and animals, I would have been I would have been.

But schools aren't set up—

they're not set up because every kid learns differently. Yeah, yeah, that's it.

Some kids who, uh, can be really intelligent.

Yeah.

And have a real aptitude for a particular subject like biology or whatever it is.

Yeah.

Mightn't be great at something else and they get sort of spat out the back door.

Yeah, yeah, that's a massive, massive thing, you know. It's a— it's to create the average person, average black, average factory worker. Great way they've come up with the school policy in the '40s and '50s to fill up the kind of middling jobs and get the middle class going, but it doesn't cater to someone that thinks something slightly different, like artistic people. Yeah, stop drawing pictures when you're 12, grow up. It's just like, what? You know, yeah, it's like, you know, people— it's not— it used to be, how smart are you? And now it's, how are you smart? And I love that line because everyone's got a cool little thing, uh, but it's unfortunately— so school didn't work out for me very well, and then I came into college and the same thing happened. I go to do a science degree to get to zoology, to get to animal behavior particularly, but any animal stuff. And I had to do chemistry, maths, geology, drawing rocks. And so I did that for a year, and I was like, you know, skipping along the middle, and I'm like, oh, this is brutal, I hate science. And, uh, then, uh, a few bits and pieces happened. A friend of mine died, and I just said, I've got a dumb college, I've gone, I'm getting out of college. And a guy— I'm only saying this after telling the stories a couple of days ago— a mentor, you have a mentor in college who you run things past, and he was this older guy who studied. He's the head mushroom guy of Ireland. Today I'm obsessed with mushrooms. And, uh, he was the head mushroom guy, Hubert Fuller, his name was. I doubt he'll ever listen to this, but hopefully someday I'll get to talk to him again. But Hubert Fuller kept me in college and he said, look, just finish off the year, finish off the year and just see how it goes. I want to drop out. All my friends are home, they're all in bands. I had a lifestyle that was not conducive with, uh, college stuff, and I just, I just couldn't. And, uh, so anyway, you, he kept me in there. And then I was over and, uh, living in Holland out in the country for a few months and I said, how did I get on in my exams? They said, you failed a good few of them. And I'm like, what? I never fail exams. I was like, failed a few exams? You need to come home, repeat them. I repeated them and I still failed 1 or 2 by about 1 or 2 percentage points. But that's you out of college. And I got past and somebody pushed— I went through the third year. I was like, how am I in here? How come the courses are on again? I was thinking, how am I going to tell my parents? And so I went through, did third year, fourth year, started improving, then started focusing, got to do subjects I liked and eventually get in to do the doctorate. But, uh, Hubert Fuller had passed me and he said, give the guy a chance, he's just had a bit of a shock and he'll be, he'll be back on track. And I thought, how lucky am I? Do you know what I mean?

I— that's awesome.

Everything is like— I put a bit of pressure on myself then because like, I feel like I am— what a privileged little shithead, you know what I mean? You get a free degree, I got a free doctorate. You're paid to do that, you know, you're paid— what's that, 700, 800 quid a month to do it? And you know, you're just— every little opportunity has been given you to do something useful, you know what I mean? So I, I don't forget that. When you hear other places like the US, you want to get a doctorate, you're going to be down 250, 300 grand. You want to be a, an art student, could spend 100 grand coming out with an arts degree and it's worth nothing to you, you know. So the— when you see what we get over here, it, it does make you, uh, see that fairly privilegedness. Like, I was helped there, and if I didn't have that, I wouldn't have had the rest of this, you know.

But that's all— that's amazing that you still remember that and credit that.

Yes.

Yeah, you know, they say No one makes it on their own.

No, definitely not. He came into our shop in Greystones. He came into our shop there a few years ago and said, how's Conor Brady getting on? And they said, who are you? And he goes, oh, I was his mentor in college. And they gave him a few bits and pieces. That's good to hear. And he went off and that was it. So I only heard he did that because he came in 20 years later. And, you know, and I'm like, what a legend, you know? So what a legend. So, yeah, so that's what got me into that. That doctorate, and I got in and out of that pretty quickly. And that stood to me as well, you know, because there was too many smart— you're sitting in a room, 15, 20 people doing doctorates, and you've no idea how smart people can be. It's like these guys were moving shit with their minds. Like, I know I wasn't— I was just, you know, what are you— what is he— how did he get in here, you know? And so as soon as I got into it, I realized I'm not going to be doing this for life. This is just— there's some people in there that are just like college for life, they can do it, but I didn't have that you know, I just wanted to be hands-on doing the practical work and stuff. Loved all that. So nobody wanted this project. I did deer, used deer as my test subject. And, uh, so nobody wanted to be handling loads of dead deer, pulling the guts out of them, measuring them, weighing them, checking the diet, checking the poo, comparing to what males and females do. Nobody wants that because it was disgusting, horrible, relentless. In the middle of summer, a big bloated deer at the side of a road, go out there, gut them, you You know, hard work, hard graft, but I could put myself through hard stuff. I know I have that thing where it's like, it'll be over soon and I'll do it. And I was living in Greystones and the M50 was being built, which meant I had like a 2-hour trip to get out there to that, often before dawn because it's the rutting, so it's when the two of them are fighting and that kind of stuff. So I could be traveling in the dark to get out there, work all day in a field, all day. It could be lashing rain, you can get wet, you're eating soggy sandwiches. And then you got a 2-hour trip home, get into bed, come back out and do it again. You know, that's hard graft. So, uh, yeah, but look what it taught you. Yeah, it does, it does. It's, it's just, yeah, well, it definitely gave me that kind of, uh, staying power. Okay, you need to go through a little bit of that too, you know.

I don't know, you need a few calluses on you.

You do, you do. Yeah, at least mental calluses. I was traumatized after. Well, you do need a bit of that, otherwise you gets soft, you know. Yeah, you know, good times make soft men.

Why animals?

Ah, um, just always had a kind of very profound attachment to the dogs in the house. Dad was a big dog person, and Mum— we got our first kind of dog when I was born, and he was mad attached to me. And very strange things happened when that dog died. His name was Prince. He used to follow me everywhere, wait outside school. This is the '80s, so, you know, this thing— this was cool back then. He'd wait outside shops and lose him for a day, and he's still standing outside the shop looking at the door. The next day. I was like, oh God, we forgot we went into that shop. But the day before he died, this dog, and I tell this story a few times, I think I put it at the start of the book, but this dog came in, he wasn't allowed into the rooms, he was more of a kind of a guard dog, he'd protect, it was like our shop, we had a kind of a builder's suppliers, big yard, a lot of stuff that could easily be robbed, granddad's house, our house, uncle's house, all on this big road, and the dogs would wander those 4 houses and you'd kind of learn that, nah, He wouldn't let people jump over the fence too easy, but he was a lovely little pet. But that was his job. So he— that was his domain. And he'd also live around the kitchen and the living area, but he'd never get out of the bedrooms. Old school, dad, because dogs don't go in the bedroom.

Okay.

And so this one, the night before he dies— and this dog just totally followed me absolutely everywhere— night before he died, the dog came down and sat at the end of my bed and just started looking at me. And first time he'd been in my room. We'd never would have brought him down there before. And I'm looking, I'm going, what's the crack, Pini? What are you doing? I'm talking away to him. He's there looking at me, big ginger kind of dog. And he's looking, and then, uh, and then I call him, 'Mum, the dog's in my room, come get him.' His first year in school, I was 13. And, uh, bring the dog, walks back down to the kitchen, and the next day the dog was, uh, gone. He wasn't at his usual space for his breakfast. So where's, where's Pretty? I don't know. Go looking for him, find his usual haunts, and there he is under a tree shivering. And I thought, what's wrong with this enormous dog? So I picked him up, bring him back to the family. What's the crack with Prince? I don't know, you go on to school and come back. And I came back, they put him down. And I'm like, what the fuck? Why didn't you tell me? And Dad would be like, oh well, you know. And I just thought, you're callous, you know. But he was apparently destroyed. But I remember that was kind of one of the first inklings, like, oh Jesus, I'm, uh, like, I was devastated about that dog. And then within about weeks and months of that mistake that I feel my parents made, they had me working in an animal shelter, and I saw more and more dogs being put down. And I thought, it just switched me on to, uh, bit of unfairness to it. And I thought, oh, look at this, dogs being chained to the gate. You come in in the morning, there's 2 or 3 dogs chained there. She could be pregnant. I'm like, old dogs, that was the real bad one. People got their dog get too old and you started increasing veterinary bills, so they chained the old dogs. Who is going to take an old dog from an animal shelter? And so that was just— that was a— I did that for maybe a year or so. And I'm allergic to cats, so it was not easy because I would just have constant snot and my eyes would be inflamed. And like, I'm wondering, am I allergic to dogs? But it was just the cats in the cattery and they'd have to clean them out as well. So I did that at 12 or 13. That's what switched me on to dogs.

So you said your parents had you working in an animal shelter?

Yeah.

So they saw that you were devastated by what happened?

Yeah, something like that.

So the dog and say, oh, we better get—

that's— yeah, it was— I'm telling you, that's it. My— particularly my mum, just an absolute Trojan. I mean, Dad got sick around that time. Dad got sick, he had to have a liver transplant. So he was one of the first people in Ireland, maybe number 25 or 30, to have this particular type of liver transplant. And then a week later, take it out and turn it around. It's like, did you put it in backwards, lads? Nobody asked questions back then, you know? And I'm like, turn it around. But it's the most complicated organ transplant because they made the tubes off it and it's just an enormous job. So he had that and he lived for 13, 15 years with it. So it was a pure success story. That's the good part of medicine. I know I bitch a lot about pharma and medicine, but like, that was the good side of it. So I'm like, that was amazing. But Mum had to run. I've got 4 older brothers. All of us are in school, most of us would be just taking the piss, you know, your teenage boys. And, uh, she'd— so 5 sons, a builder suppliers with staff, and a mother who was going mad and moved into the house. She took on all that. Any one of those jobs would have people going on social media and putting up pictures of their hardship and all that shit. She did all that. I'm like, so at the same time, she would drive me in on Saturday morning. She thought I, Connor, was— I'm starting to act up, maybe at 13. It'd be good for Carla to go to an animal shelter. So she would drive for 3/4 of an hour and drop me off and sit there and wait for 2 hours until I finished my work, 2 and a half, 3 hours, and drive home again. That's what she would do to kind of get this going. Like, woman was just— is amazing. Like, so, uh, she has that World War II mentality. She's real—

that Irish stoicism.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. And, uh, that's it. She's just— so that's where that came from. And the work ethic and stuff, all that would have come from those early days of that, and then working in the shop and that kind of stuff. So I feel like this is actually a business podcast now because I feel like I'm talking about that, but that's what set me up for getting into small business and particularly with dogs. You know, once I, once I came out of, um, kind of the degree, I kind of, uh, the doctorate then, I went off to South America for 6 or 8 months. I was thinking, what am I going to do with myself? I came back and there was a job advertising Irish guide dogs, and I thought, lovely, this is perfect for me. So they trained me up to be guide dog training here in Ireland. Yeah, here in Ireland. Yeah.

And then so then, and then Australia.

Yeah, I was a pup supervisor here in Ireland and, uh, then I flew over to Perth, nice and sunny, and my, my future wife was heading over that way and I followed her over. I've been chasing her for about 13 years at this stage, and eventually she gave in. Yeah, that's it. Good things come to those who wait, and she bloody waited. 14,000 kilometers away from home. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, I'm wearing an orange jersey. A total convert. But, uh, yeah, so, uh, that's why I went over to Perth and started helping with the PUP program over there. And that's when I met Brisbane Guide Dogs and what they were doing for nutrition, which was just unbelievable. Did you hear about this? Yeah, yeah.

But I want you to— I want you to tell me a story because I think it sounds like it's going to be some kind of, um, cathartic moment for you, or cathartic experience for you, where you, you saw what they were doing, you just went, oh my Yeah, this is like game-changing.

Can't wait to tell everybody. So you hit Perth and—

what year is this? When are we talking?

Uh, 2006. Yeah, for a couple of years. 2006. Yeah, so 2007 maybe. And, uh, so yeah, the two top vets for all this were Lonsdale and Billinghamhurst, two Aussie vets. Um, I think they're both from Melbourne, but, uh, Aussie vets. And they had written, um, Give a Dog a Bone was Billinghamhurst's book, still extremely popular. And raw meaty bones. And these vets were absolutely castrated for this opinion they had, which was fresh food might be good for dogs. And I think these guys eat a lot of meat— real novel idea in the '90s. And they were hauled through the coals, and it made very hard life for the two of them. But now you look back at them and go, Jesus, legends, you know. They've just changed, you know, it's a multi-billion industry. People forget that this is bigger than the music industry, pet food alone. So people kind of look at it as a twee kind of, oh well, you know, 1 in 4 people have a pet, and another 1 in 4 want a pet. So 50% of the, of the world, of the Western world, want dogs and cats in their lives, and they are being ripped off left, right, and center. And these guys were highlighting and saying, look, this is a multi-billion machine candy company selling you crap through the vets. I said, it's a dupe, it's a rip-off. So these guys were the first to put their head above the parapet, and you get the first arrow. So, uh, so I, I got a couple of phone calls with them, and somewhere along the line somebody mentioned to me, and look what Brisbane Guide Dogs are doing. So I was reading their books, and I was doing a few experiments with my own little dogs in Australia, and I've seen the difference. You just jump these dogs to raw and skin issues or evaporating gut issues, real simple stuff. But I'm a scientist, so if I do the experiment and I see the changes, I go, that's what I need. I don't need to see studies, I need to do the experiment in front of myself and go, oh yeah, that's what— basically everyone's a scientist, you know, everyone can do this. They tell you, doc, forget about anecdotal examples. It's like, no, if I change 10 dogs that are all on steroids to this stuff and 7 or something wrong or something good, I'm not sure. But anyway, um, Brisbane Guide Dogs, Chris Lane was the CEO, and I got chatting with her, and Brisbane Guide Dogs changed— she did a small experiment to see what the crack was with raw feeding, and then she changed 200, 220 dogs in training from dry to raw food, and their veterinary bills fell by 82%.

Was that leading raw?

Leading raw.

Big dog, big dog. Yeah. And she— they—

so Initially, I'm not even sure if they're using lead initially. I think what she did was she changed the colony over. She experienced— and the 82% is in relation to specific issues, which was orthopedic surgery and consult. Massive thing for guide dogs because they're all neutered early, and so you have to think of spending a fortune on fixing orthopedics, as we were discussing before we got live. Um, so orthopedic surgery and consult to keep these dogs on the road because they're so— like, you know, a dog at the time was €40,000-50,000 by the time it hits the streets. Like, they're expensive, and it's a charity. So it's really important these dogs work for as long as possible, and healthy limbs is important. So that was— and then skin, recurring skin, ear, and gut conditions type thing. And so 82% savings in vet bills. That's in the Courier Times, which is a local Brizzy paper. And so it's up there, people can have a look at that paper. And I'm thinking, this is unbelievable, I can't wait to tell my superiors about this. And I was already doing a few little kind of lectures in it and stuff. And I get a bit of the data. They didn't want to publish the data because it's a little bit hairy, a little bit kind of, you know, At the time it would have been a bit woo-woo, you know. Yeah, exactly. And they don't want to end up like the other vets are getting. But at the same time, a savings in like an 82% savings in vet bills for a colony, that could be— you could have vet bills of 100, 150 grand a year to look after 200 dogs. So when you're saving 82% on a chunk of those vet bills, as well as then this, this lady, Chris Lane, what a woman, she's— she then says, you know what, we could stick the lead— we can stick Brisbane Guide Dogs badge on a product And people would buy that product more than anything else. And we believe in this. So they got onto Big Dog. I believe this is the way it happened, or maybe they did it with Big Dog, but either way, they got in with Big Dog and said, right, let's get a product together, Leading Raw, and we'll stick it on Leading Raw because it's leading guide dogs. And that product, like, within a year or two was just like up the top. It was just instantly— it was such a brilliant marketing move. A product they believed in, and then all the revenue meant that they were— she was now feeding 220 dogs for nothing. And the veterinary bills had plummeted. So those two things, from a small business background, I'm looking at that going, holy shit, I work for a charity. You could put 5 times the number of dogs on the road if that's the case. I go to my superiors and I say, look at all this. I gathered the data that I could, showed them the studies, did a 2.5-hour presentation, and at the end of it he went, yeah, nah. And I'm like, what do you mean no?

So sorry, your superior where?

In Perth Guide Dogs. Yeah. And they're just like, yeah, no. And the other trainers were listening and going, that's really interesting. And like, you know, and he's like, that's just not— it's not going to— you know, we— in— to cut a long story short, and I can say this now because in Irish Guide Dogs we'd be approached by dry food companies all the time, you know, uh, will you— we'll give you free food if you say this helps your dogs think better. That was a particular brand that I'd love to mention. The same brand— and this has nothing to do with that person— but the same brand, uh, were caught by the Federal Trade Commission over in the US saying that Oh, it was actually Mars Eukanuba over Mars— over in the US said that their pet food helps dogs live 30% longer. And Federal Trade Commission had to haul them through the courts and go, that's just bullshit. And they went, oh yeah, okay, fair enough. A couple of years later they had a study that where they changed the food, but they also changed all the lifestyle, the amount of vet stuff they were getting, everything. So you can't just say that. But that poster was up on the wall for years and years. So they would just say this stuff and they'd pay a $50 grand fine at the end of it. You know how the usual stuff— it's how business works with these guys. Anyway, uh, Mars had all the contracts for the guide dog schools in Australia, and every single guide dog school was feeding Mars products. Uh, the stuff over there was called, um, uh, Advance is what you call it. Yeah, Royal Canin over here. And really high salt at the time in Perth. These dogs are living in the desert and they're feeding like 1%, 1.1%, like 1% salt is enormous. That's, you know, salted peanuts. And it's huge. If you don't have the salt content, the dogs won't eat the food. But could you imagine the thirst on the dog in a desert? And it's a working dog. He's got to focus. He's going around drinking. And if your dog's drinking gallons of water, he's going to wee everywhere. So he's stopping to wee, which in guide dogs world is, no, you can't be stopping for a squirt. You do wee before we go. That's what you're trained to do. And it's hard to train the puppy that's weeing everywhere. And the pup owner's gone, the dog won't stop weeing. Well, this is because he's drinking so much water because A, he's eating salt, and B, he's living in a desert. So like these little things, I'm spelling all this out going, look at the advantages. We've nothing to lose. But the problem was Mars had all the guide dog schools by the testicles. And so that was the contract. And that's the darkness. And I can say all that because Chris Lane said it to me and it's in my book. And I've got— I've ran it past her, obviously, can I publish this? She goes, absolutely, that's the truth. So, Chris, pressure starts going on Brisbane Guide Dogs. Stop with this dangerous program you're on and you need to start feeding dry food. And Chris Lane's going, feeding dry food? Have you seen the difference I'm making in this organization? Like, they were killing us. Outstanding example of a charity. And, uh, so they sacked her. So there was a last post from, from their pet food kind of front was in December, at the end of December, saying, hey guys, can't wait to show you our new treats that we're coming out with, natural treats for dogs. And 2 weeks later, any mention of Leading Raw was just scrubbed, gone. No mention of it anywhere on any of the website. You struggle to find a Leading Raw article, anything talking about it. They were on the point of exporting the food, I believe. If they weren't doing that already. I heard a couple of countries were looking for it, uh, and then on January 1st she was sacked. And what is this? This was 2015, January 1st, 2015, I believe. She was sacked, a new CEO came in, and the dogs were shifted to dry food. So I just thought, oh, that is dark. I then contacted that Brisbane Guide Dogs and say, hey guys, any chance I can see your veterinary bills from 2014 and 2015? Because in Ireland, Guide Dogs is funded by taxpayer money. So if it's funded by taxpayer, then FOIA requests should work. So they've been really effective. So we found out some proper dirt with veterinary departments and what they're willing to do for these dry food companies. They take 50 grand, 100 grand, and they've— like in the Royal Dick School in Edinburgh, they just move a Mars rep in to do the clinical nutrition lectures. All the shit you think is happening, FOIA requests show is happening. So I tried the same approach with Brisbane Guide Dogs, and your man just goes, yeah, no, No, you're not getting them. It's just like, okay, because if the, if the retinal bills plummeted when you change to raw, then it goes— it would— it just stands to reason that it would have to go up. It would have to do it. And if you had the up bit, that's a perfect study, because going down is one thing, but if you can have— it's called case control. Yeah, yet they're both fed, you know, same thing, and you switch them and switch them back and you watch the blood parameters follow, that's a real classic example of like, that is 100% that no longer correlation but causation. So, uh, I said, give us a look at— so I couldn't get that data. And I'm thinking, if there's any taxpayer money being used in guide dogs in Australia, that's a— that is a scandal. It's a tragedy that those dogs were put back on dry food when we showed they were healthy.

I think I was— I started working at Big Dog like 2015, and I think we would— we definitely had some police dog squads that we were feeding, um, either Leading Role or Big Dog to, and just my memories. It's a while ago now, my memory's failing me, but I feel like there were some guide dogs being fed Leading Raw somewhere, but I can't remember exactly where it was. But that story pretty much rings true to what I was told when I first came through to Big Dog. Yeah, as far as, yeah, the development of Leading Raw and then into the— yep, the switch out. But I mean, we at Big Dog, we still feed with— there's an organization called Smart Pups.

Yeah, right.

So that's on the— in Sunshine Coast hinterland, and they train assistant dogs for kids with epilepsy and autism.

Okay.

I did a podcast with those guys and I cried the entire time.

Yeah.

Because it's just the most beautiful thing you can possibly—

the difference is unbelievable.

But Big Dog supports them massively and they feed their entire squad, you know, raw food.

Yeah.

And I was actually I was stalking you on social media the last sort of week or so, and I was just going through a few posts.

Yeah.

And I read one that was about a specific dry food, and there were some comments on there, and there was a comment on there from someone that was just saying, hey, this particular dry food product is the only thing my dog will eat, and it saved my dog's life, blah, blah, blah. There's a bit of backward and forwards with the comments and, you know, a little bit of a narky argument.

Yeah.

But there was one comment there that just rung true to me. and it said, hey, I understand where you are when you switch to raw, you're just doing it wrong.

Yeah, yeah, you're just not doing it right. Yeah.

And I, and I think to myself, that is 100% accurate.

Yeah.

Because the, the biggest thing with raw feeding for me is common bloody sense. Yeah, it is so ridiculously obvious.

Yeah.

That that's what a dog should eat.

Yeah, totally. But the more obvious it is, it's more— it's harder for someone to believe it. It's like, you know, what's that saying? Uh, it's easier to, um, con a man than to convince him he's being conned. Yeah. And the greater the con, the harder it is to explain it to you and, and show it to you, you know. And that's it, that's a fact. Like, vets cannot believe that just feed food and it's going to help with kidney disease, pancreatitis, bloat.

Yeah, your Raw Pet Medics podcast that you do.

Yeah.

Which has got some pretty funky music in it.

Oh yeah, that's changing, it's changing.

I like it.

Yeah, no, no, come on, it's twee.

I kind of feel like, um, Larry's gonna start there first. When I, when I hear it, I, I see the Beastie Boys Sabotage film clip.

Oh yeah, yeah, listen, Sabotage would be a great lead-in. That's what I want.

Yeah, if you get the rights to that.

Yeah, the way that bass comes in is great. That's what I want. We're tweaking that at the moment. Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, look, look. It changes all the time. I think we, we didn't want anything polished, you know. I don't want anything polished. I think as time goes on, people are just looking for more and more real stuff. So this is just 3 people sitting around chatting about it.

But it's great. Yeah, it's conversational, and you're all, you know, you've all got big brains. Yeah. So yeah, it's digestible information that comes through. Yeah, it's a really good manner.

It's a real simple idea. Like, you just pick it, you pick a health subject and start talking about it. What do you know about this?

You did the diabetes one recently, and, and you got a little bit, um passionate about the carbohydrate level in a particular product.

Yeah.

That was, you know, released to be the diabetic.

Oh yeah.

And it, you know, had this— it still had— I think you said it still had 28% carbohydrates. And you spoke about a high-carb diet for a dog. And you said, I can't remember your exact words, but you said something like it's hidden from the public. They hide the effect from the public. And then you said it's just like vitamin D in a recent health crisis we had.

Oh yes, indeed.

And I, I just sat there, I'm like, my God, that is so spot on.

Yeah, yeah, I loved hearing— don't talk about the easy course, you're not allowed to talk about that. No. Yeah, so I just put up a post today about that. That's a topic that is foreboding, you know, you can't— very dangerous to talk about things when you start to get a little bit of a following. The, the sick and weak little thing about you or me is that you start to guard us and you start to guard your following and you go, whoo, and that tweaks you automatically, uh, censor yourself. Yeah. So you have to be careful because when you're up and coming, you'll say whatever you want and you say the truth and that's grand and that's what people start to follow you for and listen to you and buy your stuff and trust you and your brand is based on that. But then as you get up to a certain size, um, like, and I'm not even at a size, but there's people that I know, obviously now you get in with these people that are like more followers than bloody Beyoncé. Like, this could be— they could have 3, 4, 5 million followers and they would never dare mention anything like that on their social media. And they'd tell you why. They just say it's just— that would just be curtains. Yeah, that's it. And it's like, it'd be bad for business. I'm like, yeah, do you not have an onus to, to say it now that you have this following? Do you know? So I'm— I had to do a talk there recently for the Raw Feed and Vet Nurses— oh no, it was for the Raw Pet Medicine. We just had a Christmas kind of a show thing there. And that's what my talk is about. I was saying, you know, I wonder what I'm going to be doing next, you know, so how much longer I can keep doing the pet things when I feel like there's other topics that I want to chat about. Yeah. So I'm a researcher at heart and my favorite thing, the thing that wags my tail the most, is to sit down and just dig into a subject. And I have the one thing I seem to be okay at, good at, is I have an ability to understand the science because I've been trained in that. I can dig around a subject. And I can present that topic to people in a way that they can understand it. And everyone can understand science. It's been taken away from us. Trust the science. Don't read it. Don't, don't, don't try and understand it. Just trust it. You know what I mean? Same in pet food. You can't feed a dog yourself. You know, you couldn't— yeah, you can feed the kids. Of course you can feed the kids. Jesus, I mean, it's only a kid. But a dog? Jesus, no. He'll be missing some mineral and his butt will fall off. Yeah, you know, it's like the idiocy of that. But it's so obvious that of course you can feed a dog yourself. We've been doing it for millions of years. They've been living on scraps. You know, this is the most, most kind of adaptable animal on the planet. These are— and are you saying your dog is more precious or complicated than your kid? You know, I come home from the hospital with this bundle and it comes off mum eventually. It's like, what does it eat? You know, I'm looking at pear with potato, pear with carrot, pear with a green thing, and eventually it's just not vegetables. And you're having to stand about with your kids every day because they won't eat various bits and pieces. And that's life. And we're all deficient in certain things. That's just the way it is. But we're doing okay. That's going to be the same for your dog if you feed them yourself, you know. So this idea of perfect nutritional balance and all that kind of stuff— completely, yeah. It's just, uh, like that— it's just all fear. It's fear to keep you doing that. Fear of parasites, you know. Fear has you going back for annual vaccinations when your dog's already adequately vaccinated for viruses. And studies show they last 7 to 9 years. Challenge studies— they try to give the disease to the dog and they don't get it because they were vaccinated adequately. So most of the jabs are for viruses. And they last. That's the whole point of an immune system. And yet you're getting them every year. Flea treatments for dogs and no fleas, wormers for dogs and no worms. But like kennel cough, when the— was Sava saying the kennel cough jab is just not working, the squirt up. Like, there's so many issues. All that stuff you're paying for, and if you looked into any one of them nutrients you just found out there today, all those things have major health consequences for the pet. And it's like, I thought it was the right thing to do. It's like, well, the right thing for who? So I have a big problem with that. I have a big problem with people trusting I see a rip-off. It's a ruse. People are being ripped off, and, uh, that's what animates me at the moment.

There's a rip-off, but there's a general— like, dogs are part of our family, so there's a genuine, genuine, um, insidious, uh, I guess, um, you know, lack of truth.

Yeah.

So, so rip-off's one thing.

Yeah.

But then this horrific effect of that rip-off, which could be seeing, you know, your animal actually suffering and dying early.

And you were doing what you thought was best. That's what everyone always says. That's the clincher, is that I just thought that was the best thing. I'm buying the best food. I'm buying the best food that the vet can give me. And I'm like, you're buying the most expensive food, you know. You're buying Weetabix with a cow's toe in it. It's just been well marketed, you know. It's just— it's dirt.

Well, isn't that where this whole dry food scenario came from, was basically from you know, a meal or something being left out and hardening into— yeah, I mean, a dog eating.

Yes, Brat was the first guy in the late 1800s, and he saw biscuit coming off a ship, which is like Joy. Yes. Yeah. And he thought, give the dogs, we'll eat that. But really, kibble came 1850, 18— or 1950, around 1949, '50, just after the war. And they'd run out of tin and meat.

Yeah.

And so they said, okay, we don't have a lot of this, so what can we— well, and then industry had exploded after World War II. They came up with all these inventions, and so ultra-processing and, uh, you know, pelleting machines, all this stuff was invented in during the '40s. We came up with so many inventions that we rely on today were forced through the war because every industry turned to how can we maximize. And, uh, so kibble production was there, and I said, oh my God, what, maybe we can make pet food with this. And we don't have tin and we don't have, uh, meat, so we'll just use grain and put it in a bag. And the recipe has changed not at all since 1950. All the advances. Yeah. This is like the exact same George Jackson. Sprinkle of vitamin, mineral pill and that's it.

I got like the founder of Big Dog. Chris Essex gave me that of Big Dog. The big shout out to Esky. Yeah, he gave that same story. I still find it fascinating. Yeah, that's where we are now, based on that act of convenience.

Yeah, That's it. And now we know. I mean, studies published in Nature, you know, how much more evidence does an evidence-based scientist need? I say, look, they have left the veterinary industry. And I'm not slagging off individual vets. They mean well.

We love vets.

Absolutely. Look, it's the same with GPs. Look, I'm not slagging off the GPs for not recommending to my mother to take vitamin D. We live in Ireland. We're all terribly vitamin deficient. And as soon as you get vitamin deficient enough, you get colds and respiratory diseases. It's bog-standard science. And yet still my mother is not being recommended to take vitamin D. I have a big, big problem with that, but I don't blame the average doctor. They are trained in a certain way. I blame the industry producing these kids. Yeah, vets are like the smartest kids we can produce. Yeah, they're like 100% scores and everything to get into college to do this, but they come out parroting the nonsense they hear in college. That's where the problem is.

But I mean, the amount of vets that I've spoken to as well that are now raw feeding advocates, they go through a process. Yeah, yeah, you know, they, they go through their own sort of journey of discovery, which is kind of in some ways the best way to learn something.

Yeah, yeah, true. Yeah, it's definitely changing. You can feel that the change comes from the ground up. Change doesn't come from the top down, it comes from the bottom up. What's Morrison say? They've got the guns, but we got the numbers. Yeah, that's how all revolutions— I hate all that kind of drama, but that's the way it happens. The market just goes, this is bullshit, isn't it? And then they go, yeah, it was. Okay, we'll start making real food. We can see some of the bigger companies now are starting to buy out the more natural brands. But it's the public moves away from the idea, like the breast versus bottle milk debate, which was in the '70s. And Nestlé, which is the most boycotted company in the world, makes a lot of pet food. And they were pushing the idea that this bottle milk was better. And they can say that. Of course it is. Of course it is. And only their one. And look, listen, there's a place for bottle milk. God knows. Fucking great. Okay, great. But it's just not better than breast milk. Let's just not say that. And it took like 10, 20 years, millions and millions of pounds, public money now, and lots of science to prove that breast milk was better. But they can say that shit willingly until eventually you prove them wrong. And there they go. Of course you're going to follow. It's the same with pet food.

You know, why do we have to prove that? Yeah, something natural is better than something that's exactly synthetic.

That's good. Yeah, that's it. That's it. So the vets have leapt to this dry food without a single study. I was offering a £10,000 reward on the front of my Facebook page for a year saying, show me a single study where dry food is better than real food for pets. A single study. Nobody ever tried to claim that price because the study doesn't exist. And yet the vets will say, oh, we're evidence-based, we're going by science. What science? What study? And yet, so they leap in dogma. And the problem is when a scientist, somebody like a doctor or a vet who believes they're evidence-based and believes in science but doesn't actually read it or understand it, when they leap in dogma, it's really hard to move a person off that. If you leap for science reasons, it's easy for me to shift. If you come up and tell me that this is actually good for dogs, I'll go, oh cool, shit, I was wrong about that. It turns out it's not animal fat they need, it's plant fat. Okay, great. Jeez, really? Bill Gates burgers are the answers? I didn't know cows are bad for the environment. And it's like, okay, I get it now. And I would flip-flop in an instant. It's of no benefit to me to poison the atmosphere or whatever. But if you leap in dogma, then that person is very hard to shift. And I believe if they've been charging for their advice, like a doctor or a vet, there's a huge ego thing attached to it. I've been doing this for 20 years. I can't turn around and suddenly say, 'Oh, that was utter nonsense. I've just been hurting people doing that.' So that's really hard to shift that person. So I think the vets will change slowly, but the market's changing quick. 20% of the UK now feeding real food. 20%, that's crazy. Yeah, 20 to 25%, because those figures are based on the figures they have from companies. But there's a lot of mom-and-pop businesses, people buying stuff off supermarket shelves, going straight to factories, you know.

So people making it themselves.

Yeah, yeah, all that. DIY. That's exactly it. So, and so easy. So it's like You know, the 20% is a minimum, but like I would say 1 in 4 dogs are getting raw fed now. And that's about the support of a tiny handful of UK vets.

So what country is leading the way? Is that— is that— that's the gold standard internationally?

If you talk about percentages of pet populations, it used to be Australia for years and years, and recently now it's the UK. 200 raw dog food companies, you know, massive population of dogs, 12 million dogs I think they have. And, uh, 25% of them are feeding raw. So as a percentage, that's huge numbers. Australia was kind of— is— I'm sure it is just as good, but the figures don't seem as staggering as the UK. The UK is just like very, very— they've just talked me into it hook, line, and sinker. Most of the influencers are there. Now, the US still has Khabib and Becker, and they've got 4 million, 5 million followers each. And, uh, but the US has way more, um, there's even more fear over that way. Yeah, like it's all fear, fear of contamination. They've also got a meat, a meat chain that has a few issues, you know.

So, well, yeah, but they— you also have, if we're going to look at populations or countries in the world that have the biggest human dietary issues, you're probably looking at the USA as well.

Yeah, that's a problem.

You've got that, the sugar epidemic through those, those, um, countries that states through like Kentucky and that sort of area, which is the same sort of area that had that opioid epidemic as well.

Totally. Yeah, totally.

Those sort of issues and then a massive obesity issue.

And then we copy that, you know, although Australia's— yeah, listen, we're only a couple of percentage points behind the US. We laugh at them, you know, because really they dominate our TVs. And we want— but listen, if you looked at an Irish beach and you looked at an American beach, it'd be hard to tell the difference between the two of them. Uh, so we just copy what they're doing. The whole food pyramid was invented in the US by Seventh-day Evangelists. You hear about this? This is like—

yes, I actually have heard about this.

Oh my God, they're vegetarian, like their religion, you know, and they're staunch vegetarians and they were tasked with creating a food pyramid. And so they put, obviously, veg on the bottom.

We need a food pyramid.

Yeah.

Who should we turn to?

Yeah. Somebody deeply religious. I mean, that's a start. You're thinking, can we not go to a scientist? And then Kellogg's got on board and Kellogg's were, did you know about the fact?

I'm so glad you mentioned Kellogg's. I was going to ask you this question.

He's a crazy man. Did you hear his background?

I'm going to tell you what my understanding is. And I've only heard this anecdotally. And I— hey man, I love cornflakes.

Yeah, yeah.

I've heard he was a deeply religious fella, very deeply. And I heard he promoted a high— you know, correct me if I'm wrong. Yeah, I heard he promoted a high carbohydrate diet to reduce sex drive.

That's right, masturbation in, in mental asylums. That was what the invention that he was— you know, doesn't like masturbation apparently. And apparently had sex with his wife twice in 40 years. There's these kind of stats out there to make the guy an absolute freak. I mean, you probably believe half of it, but yeah, exactly. Healthy, healthy dose of oats. But that, the cornflakes, like, I can't remember the name of the hospital, but that was the invention, a really bland diet that would turn off sexual urges in the, in the lads that were living there. And it's like, okay, maybe it works, maybe it doesn't, but it doesn't sound like a good start to the kids' breakfast. But then the wheat and grain belt, the wheat and corn belt in the US came online, and so they needed to shift a lot of wheat and corn, particularly, uh, you know, um, before and during and after the war. They just had this enormous investment in huge amounts of grain And so having a 7-day advance, invent a food pyramid with loads of grain on the bottom, suited them. So next thing you know, yeah, flour, sugar, that's all great stuff. As much as you can get into you. And then whoop, you get this big, huge, enormous population.

Big storm.

Yeah, it is. Yeah. And then pharma get in with the regulators and make sure you don't talk about sugar, don't talk about carbs. Everything's fine because we love diabetes.

It's unreal.

Yeah.

And to, you know, I'll reference back to the And this, I'll reference a dramatic representation of the, you know, the opioid epidemic when they started talking about, oh, we made up this term called breakthrough pain. Oh yeah, made up by the marketing company of a pharmaceutical company. And I've actually had family members be prescribed medication and I've heard them use the term breakthrough pain.

Yeah.

When I watched that show, I fell off my chair.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was staggering.

That's, that's how that, that whole machine works.

It's just And, you know, and at the end of that, there's, you know, 5,000, 10,000 doctors that were just led by the nose. Okay. Oh yeah, we recommend opiates now. We recommend heroin now. It's like, what? There's lads coming off the pitch, your knee, my knee, we would have been on opiates immediately, and I would have struggled to come off them because they're supposed to be absolutely awesome. Actually, I had them. I had morphine after my second knee operation. I mean, you get it anyway, but the second time, it's a tiny little brown pill. It's just heroin in a pill form. And the guys that are getting knee replacements, they actually cut your limb off. Yeah, they're walking. Straight away they're walking, whereas the guys get the ACL injuries. Yeah, you're lying there and you're on morphine and you come to and you have your operation, you're trying to wait in the committee and the nurse comes along and the lads in the ward are saying, make sure you tell her your pain's really bad or you won't get the morphine pill and you want at least one more shot. And I'm like, how's your— how bad's your pain? It's like, oh yeah, it's really bad. I wanted to try it. It's like 6, 7, 8. She goes, there's paracetamol. I was like, oh. And I instantly, just from being on morphine once, I was like, I just wanted to try it once more. I might as well be sitting here on morphine than anything else. Could you imagine? It's like, yeah, there's it for 2 weeks, go on home. It's like after 2 weeks on not.

I, I ruptured my bicep tendon 2 years ago, so I had my whole shoulder reconstructed, right? I hadn't had surgery in a while, and they sent me home with, um, the short-acting— not, not Oxy, which is the long-acting— the— what's it called?

The Vicodin's the American version.

Um, oh, for God's sakes, I can't remember the name. Yeah, it's probably good I can't remember the name of it. Anyway, it's, it's a, it's a common, common one. And I remember after about a week, I actually pulled myself up and I'm like, dude, you gotta stop taking this.

Yeah, yeah.

Because actually, yeah, I was looking forward to taking it.

Yeah, you're looking forward to taking it. And I was like, yeah, that's it.

Okay, mate. And I said, right, I'm not in any pain. Yeah, just roll on.

Yeah.

And I stopped it, but it just, it popped into my head.

They say that in that, they say in dog training, if you're still on the treats 2 weeks later, treats are like painkillers.

If you're still on them 2 weeks later, you're doing something wrong when you're training your dog.

When you're training your dog, yeah, treats as a, as a as a bribe is the worst way to train a dog. So you start off initially with using treats because every dog likes a few treats and why not? It helps things. But if you're still using the treat to do that trick 2 weeks later, you haven't practiced enough and you haven't tried to come off the treats and now the dog is only doing it as a bribe and not a reward. So the idea is you come off the treats quickly and now the value in a treat is not given. Think of a fruit machine. You're sitting there, Aussies love their fruit machines, oh my God, very dangerous, thank God I didn't play them anymore. Did play them for a few years as a kid. Oh, you and the parachute? The one-armed bandits, yeah, yeah. You guys have them everywhere.

Yeah, so there—

East Coast is riddled with it.

So 75% of the world's poker machines are located in Australia.

What?

That's it. That's true.

Oh my God, I did hear it was bad. I just can't believe it.

And I'll give you another stat. So we're a country that's, you know, we're essentially born out of convicts, right? So gambling's a big part of our culture. There's more racehorses in Australia than the rest of the world combined.

No way. That's mad.

Now I'm saying this on a podcast. If I'm wrong, tell me I'm wrong.

Yeah, that's what I've heard. Yeah, yeah, that's crazy.

Yeah, so there's Royal Commissions into this stuff, there's, there's legislation.

Oh, they're being moved into like, you know, ex-soldier places. What's the place where the, the lads go to drink, um, with the RSL? Yeah, and they're moving them into— it's like, this is not the place you want to be. Anyway, uh, so yeah, the reason those pokies work so well, they're, you know, they're, they're designed by scientists to hook you, right? And everything about the pokies, so they don't pay out all the time, so you're waiting for that, how it pays out. And when your money comes out, it doesn't just go, there's your money, it goes, yeah, one coin, one coin, spit, boom, boom, in your heart. Yeah, so that's how you give it.

Yeah, yeah.

So that's how you give treats to a dog. If you're initially, you start off loads of treats, okay, there you go, this is what I want you to do. Ideally with a clicker, you train the dog to do it. But with really quickly, within 3 or 4 days The dog understands what the trick is, and so the treat doesn't come out every single time, and that makes them want it the more. So if you want to teach a dog how to play fetch, don't leave the fetch ball on the ground. Put it up on a shelf, because the idea of you saying, do you want to play fetch, buddy? Do you want to play? And you take the ball off the shelf, he's going, oh yeah, he's taking the ball off the shelf. If it's on the ground, it loses its value. It's just an everyday item. But it needs to come down and it needs to be put back up again. It needs to be removed. It's a thing that we will give you now and again. So the treat comes out now and again, and if you don't know when it comes, you work for it all the harder, and eventually it's just Okay, so this is a great topic.

So 2 weeks of a treat every time?

Yeah.

Is that right?

No, after 2 weeks you'd be looking at your treat pouch going, am I still using treats to teach you to lie down?

Right. So it's just— so you start off with intermittent treats?

You start off with treats pretty regularly. Pretty— I like this. You do that and I'll give you a treat. Do that, I'll give you a treat. Do that. But dogs condition really quickly. Eventually, let's do that, I'll give you a treat. Good boy. Do it again. Good boy. There's another treat. Now I'm getting 2 lie downs and you get a treat and you start to space out the amount of time. Like, like take recall, for example. Getting a dog to come back is the easiest trick to get a dog to come back and put his knee on your— put his chin on your knee. Like excellent recall. Everybody wants it. Very few people have it. Calling the dog back in a park, it's just, you know, come back and you're chasing your dog around and he's not coming back to you. But excellent recall starts at home and like it's so simple to teach a dog to come back to you. All you got to do is have a pocketful of sausages and like he's nosing around the garden and you go, and you make a noise, you might, you know, you just be Graspy, you know, and you look at it and you go, the clickers, clickers are great. Yeah. And you want a sausage? He's like, oh Jesus, yeah, I want a sausage. And he runs up, you go, good boy, and you give him the sausage. And initially he gets a sausage every time he comes back to you, but eventually it just takes you a little bit longer to get the sausage out. So now he's learning to wait. So sit and wait. Oh sorry, it's in the other pocket, buddy. Wait, good boy, there you go. So he's learning to wait. So then you develop that wait, sit and wait. Now he could be sitting there 2 or 3 minutes before he gets the sausage out, and the sausage gets smaller and smaller, then it's a disc And it's every now and again I go, oh, sorry, I don't have any, go on off. But at that point, as you've been working on recall for 3, 4, 5 days, eventually call them back a second time and you go, oh, good boy, call it, bring out the fruit machine noises. Good boy, look at you. And you give him a wrestle, get him in a headlock. Good boy, pull his face. You're a good lad. I got a sausage this time. And he's like, God, I love coming back to you. So you bring out the fruit machine. It's great. You've got to be better than the deer and the rainbows in the park. He gets out once a day to this poxy park and you're trying to call him back when his mates turn up. I mean, come on. So you've got to be better than that. So you've got— so, but you condition that in this dog. Pavlov's conditioning. But the dream is you get off the treats because you can't be taking sausages out of your pocket every time the dog's not doing what he's asked to do. He should do it because he loves you, not because you're, you're telling him to do it, you know. That's the trick, is to get off the treats and just have a good boy, tap him on the head.

Time and effort, man.

Yeah, that's it. People don't want to put that time in.

Put that time in.

If you're still on painkillers, you haven't been doing it enough.

Yeah, yeah.

You haven't been, you haven't been doing the exercise or the stuff or whatever, but Yeah, so the, the, uh, yeah, the painkiller thing is, is a nice analogy for, for each dog trainer as well. But then you meet proper dog trainers, and I'm not a proper dog trainer. I realized quickly when you meet good, really good dog trainers, you go, oh, bloody hell, I'm not that good at all. Yeah, dogs are geared to say yes. Guide dogs are bred to say yes, and they've been through a year training with their family. So by the time you get your hands on them, okay, okay, and they'll do whatever you tell them. But if you get— I got a cocker spaniel at the moment, and he's just an absolute headcase. I mean, I've had him 10 years on a, you know, a weekly basis. My wife's saying like, we need a dog trainer. It's like, I have a dog trainer, I have a dog trainer. But it's just, he's just, he's too smart is what he is. And I spent too many years thinking this dog is thick as, you know, that cup, but it's not. It's me. And he is like me, and he's flighty, and he won't do what he's told. And it's like, a trainer eventually said to me, you know, he's like that, don't you? Why? Because that's the way you are. And I'm like, oh yeah, I'm the most chill person you've ever met. He goes, no, you're not, you're not, you're just all the time, your brain. No, no, no, you're flighty like him. And I said, you're the same kind of doofy kind of personality. I'm like, my dog's annoying half the time. So yeah, and so that, and that was a learning curve again, you know. I took this dog from Mum. Mum said, this dog is just— I'm gonna have a heart attack. So when I came back from Australia, I'll take him, Mum, I'll be all over him. But he's just, uh, he's still just a headcase. He just doesn't— yeah, look, he'll look outside and it's wet and he doesn't want to get his paws wet, so yeah, just go have a poo in the corner of the house. That happens not too often, but now and again I go, buddy, what are you doing? You can't be walking around mid-age having to poo in the kitchen. It's just— this is not on.

We live in Ireland, it rains all the time.

I trained him to poo on command. I train— he knows he poos out there. But, uh, oh look, this— anyway, I love that spirit in him, you know. You wouldn't change it, but it's like having a difficult kid. Yeah, I love the spirit in him, but at the same time, bloody hell.

It's funny, you just spoke about conditioning the dogs, you know, for that, with that, to come put his chin on your knee. They condition us as well.

Yeah.

But they— my dog is the most manipulative.

Oh yeah, he is a horrific manipulator. He knows exactly what he's doing.

Oh yeah, every time he does it to me. Oh yeah, you know, and he thrives on it.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, they train us. That's everybody says.

And he— and, you know, they— you know, I, I say he's like a, you know, in Jurassic Park when they The Velociraptor is a problem for weakness. Yeah, my dog does that. There's a house full of people, he'll probe for weakness and he'll find his mark.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The granny walks in, it's like, oh, I love you, Granny. Yeah, right you do. Yeah, she's covered in jam and crumbs. That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then all of a sudden there's a hand coming down. Yeah, yeah. So my, my, my two boys— I lost one unfortunately last year— but they stayed with my parents when I first moved over to LA. And they would never hassle me for food, my food.

Yeah.

They'd eat theirs and they'd be generally pretty cool.

Yeah.

Like Frank's, he was really food driven, the bulldog pug. Mastiff was cool. I come back after 3 and a half months with my, my parents, with their grandparents.

Oh yeah.

He is just at me every time. Like, dude, you're not getting anything off me.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Cause my dad would just sit there.

Yeah, of course. Of course. Yeah. He's a good boy though, isn't he? Yeah. He was a good boy. Yeah. No, he's a bad boy. Yeah, yeah, terrorist. Yeah, that's it.

But he does, he does. He— and he's so— I don't know if it's the breed, but he is the most opinionated, stubborn bastard.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no doubt.

But I'm never changing.

Yeah, that's it. People don't talk about the harder sides of all them dogs sometimes, you know, because it's got to always be this fairy tale kind of situation. It's like, it's not, it's not easy sometimes. You got, got a few issues. But like, when you're dealing with the health things all the time, you get that all the time. It's like, people are so surprised when they're feeding raw and something can go wrong. And then it's tempting to throw the baby out with the bathwater. You know, like you said, people can jump to raw hoping it's going to fix everything. It's like, no, your dog probably has major issues. There's a lot of things we have to do to get the dog back up to full health. Food is one chunk of it that we need to deal with, but it's a hell of a good start. Oh, it's most important. It's a foundation. It's the same with behavior. If you want a kid— if you want to go work with your kid and train a dog, like, you know, you got a kid's birthday party and you bring out the shit food, 15, 20 minutes later the kids are hopping off the walls and it's the worst place in the world to be. And it's like you put them all outside and you lock the door and that's it. That's what you get for serving shit food to kids. But if you serve kibble to a dog every day, how are you expecting him to concentrate 15-20 minutes later? High carb, low protein, crap fats, chemical preservatives, colors, like terrible for the gut flora, inflammatory. And you— and studies show when you feed raw food, they have more butyrate, they have more GABA, which are neurotransmitters for getting the dog to calm down. I mean, everything about feeding raw is the opposite of that. So that is going to make a dog easier to train. It's just a fact. It just has to be the case that if you don't feed your kid Cheerios, they're going to be better. Studies show if you start a kid on a high glycemic breakfast like a high sugary cereal— the same companies that sell you this shit food for pets are selling this shit food for kids. They are willing to push breakfast cereal on you now has vitamin B and some zinc in it. Sound familiar? That's how they sell you the dry pet food. It's the same crap. It even looks the same, you know what I mean? Nesquik cereal bars and dry pet food, what's the difference. Yeah, 4% bone meal, that's the only difference between those two products. So like, you know, and studies show that that's an awful start for a kid in the morning. It destroys concentration, you're going to be hungry in 20 minutes later, and you're going to be obese, and you're going to be lazy, and you're going to be everything else. So, you know, why would that be a good start for your pets? They're meat eaters, a whole other level of protein and fat need than we have, and you're starting pets off on that, and then you're going to try to train them. So the foundation, you're right, like, to get that right, same with if If studies show dry food causes recurring skin, ear, and gut conditions, most of those studies produced in the top journals we have, then surely if you want to remedy that condition, number one is stop feeding the issue, get off the issue and get off the crappy treats and all the other stuff. Just give the dog a day off from all the junk that you're being sold and just put them onto a decent single protein raw dog. How are you on turkey dog? How are you on lamb? How are you on kangaroo? That's it, there you go. He's good on that, he's bad on that. Great, job done. Most of the time he'll be good on them all, you know. It's so simple.

Time and effort before. Yeah, said common sense before. Let's have those three together: time, effort, common sense. Yeah, you're gonna have a dog. Yeah, you need to possess and display all of that.

Yeah, I think you've got to take a little bit of ownership for the fact that I need to know a few little bits, you know what I mean? Same with your own health. We have given off all decisions to the doctor. You're going, okay, I have to buy what? And okay, oh God, you're taking whatever. You got to own a little bit of it. How do I get over a cold? How do I get over a flu?

It's like a generational thing though. My dad would never question a doctor.

Yeah, no, my mom's exact same.

And I'd sit in there and I'm like, well, hang on, actually explain that to me, you know, why are we doing this?

You can't even talk to them about it.

They're like, oh, you know, I don't know anything, but I'm going to ask questions because I'm paying that doctor. I'm entitled to ask the questions.

I had this— look, I've got this good story. Look, my, uh, my, um, wife on our wedding day got Lyme disease. Okay, yeah, Lyme disease. And, uh, we didn't know that at the time. So we got married in this cool old ruin over in Rome and out in the country, organic farm. You're playing with the pigs beforehand and there's no parasite control used and all that sort of stuff. One of the advantages of parasite control. And anyway, so the day of the wedding, she's waving off and talking to people, and then the next day she goes, my feet are tingling and numb. And oh my God, don't worry about stupid shoes, cobbly ground, you know, whatever. And then 2 days later, waving a few people off, some of the guests are going early, you know, she goes, my hands and feet are tingling. I'm thinking, that's a bit weird. And within about a week or 2, we're in a couple of different GPs and face a bit numb. And I was like, I'm tasting pennies, I'm tasting like battery. I'm like, this is weird shit. And then we do big long tour of the US and we just go A&E to A&E. It's like, okay, this— she wakes up, I can't feel my legs, I can't feel my legs. I'm thinking, it's fucking MS, it's MS. And one of my friends got aggressive, the aggressive form of MS. 1 in 10 people get this, where in 2 or 3 months she was in a wheelchair, completely annihilated with it. In 2 or 3 months, she went from being a healthy dog trainer to boomf into it. So I was aware that this can happen to people our age. And the most common age of onset is a 35-year-old female. And Elaine was 34 at the time. So I was like, so we start going anyway, we get back from the thing and, you know, it was all this drama and we're thinking this is going to be really bad. And, you know, you're trying not to freak out and you go from one brain surgeon to another brain surgeon, very scans, and we'll take a lumbar puncture. If we find this protein in it, you got to end up going— all that shit awful. If we find inflammation in your brain— yes, yes to the protein. The protein just checks for an autoimmune disease. It doesn't tell you anything. MS is a hard thing to pin down. They don't even know why it kicks in in people. And eventually end up in front of the brain surgeon who specializes in MS, and he goes, why do you think you're here? Because they won't tell you. I hate this bullshit talk that they do. And I'm sitting there with Lane, and I said, We're here because you're the MS doctor. And he goes, yes, yeah. And I said, so you think it's MS? And he goes, well, you know, it does look like that way. And I said, but is it MS? And he's like, well, it's not. It's the prelim to MS, whatever that disease is called. I said, what's that? And he goes, well, some things don't check out. And I said, correct. This, this, this doesn't— this bit here, this bit here doesn't happen in MS. And he goes, oh, but it's a neurological thing and things like that can happen. I said, but it's not MS at the moment. And I said, but it might be soon. And I said, what makes it from not MS to MS? So I'm asking all the normal questions that he wouldn't be prepared for because most people aren't prepared for the science of it. So I'm saying, and then I'd say, give us a look at the studies. Give me what are you basing that on? So I'd say, just show me 2 or 3 of the studies that backed it up because I can't find anything because I can research the shit out of something. So I'm sitting there and he doesn't want to hear any of that. And then I said, you haven't asked her about her stress. You haven't asked her, does she smoke? You haven't asked her about her diet. I said, there could be something, there could be a missing factor here. Maybe, you know, B1, if you're low on B1, you get these neurological symptoms. And she wasn't, we checked all that. And he goes, you can try all those things. So he just poo-pooed it straight away, which removes your hope that you might be able to dodge this disease. And I was fucking angry. So I could sense that anyway, I'm asked to kind of leave the room. I'm standing outside and I'm furious that he said that, that he just pulled out the carpet from underneath her. And so I'm sitting there and within 24 hours I had bumped into 1, 2, 3 people with Lyme disease. If you start sending out those signals and looking, you will find the answer. And I thought, you know what, you know, my mate was a captain in the English Army, and, uh, he said, oh, my lads are getting, uh, they're on doxy, which is an antibiotic that you're supposed to take if you have Lyme disease. Uh, we take that preemptively because they train in Exmouth and all these fields of long grass, and they're constantly getting Lyme disease and knocks them out of practice. We can't have that. You're trying to train them up in 6 months to send them off. He said, it's just— so you put them— excuse me, language— puts— you put them all in. I'm thinking, that's interesting, Lyme disease, what's 'And he goes, well, it just sounds like what your, what your wife is suffering.' It's like, yeah, but that can't be it. And then I talked to somebody else, and then I talked to my photographer who was doing things for my website, and she had it terrible. It laid her out. Her organs start shutting down because it hides away, and the immune system doesn't know where it's— I know it's in your liver, I know. And if this little virus— viruses, all different types of different things— will hide out, and so the body starts to attack itself. Autoimmune disease, hence the protein. It hid in Elaine's brain, hence the inflammation. You start thinking you're going mad because you're And, uh, so I said, oh, this is ringing true. And then one more comment, and the next thing I know I'm talking to somebody. They said, get on to German Armin Labs. I go back into the brain, dude. It might be Lyme disease. It's not. It might be Lyme disease. It's not. Take blood, let's send it to Armin Labs. It's the head people in Germany. No. And it's just like, what? Go to local GP. We'll do this test. Don't do that test, that's a 50% failure rate in that test. Get the bloods out and send it to Armin. I don't want your opinion. Eventually I get the nurse. You have to battle it out of them. Take the blood out of her arm. 48 hours later, text your phone. You've mega problems. You've got Lyme disease and co-infections and you need to get on antibiotics and all sorts of shit. We went the natural way, we went the antibiotic way, we went everything for 12 months and then she's grand now. Total success story. But that went from being a complete convert and believing in what medicine do to like, oh, that was a failure. And then I had another failure recently with my best mate where, you know, during COVID there was a— he had a bit of a wobble, bit of a, bit of a wobble. And like within, within days the GP had him on antidepressants, anti-anxiety tablets. And sleeping tablets. And I'm like, why is he on all that shit, you know? And, and I said, are you depressed? He actually goes, well, yeah, I'm struggling to sleep. So you're struggling to sleep? It's a big, big problem. Like, it can totally ruin you. And to cut a very long story short, because I don't want to, to, to voice everything, but in essence, that's a mental— there's a, there's a behavioral issue. So you need to talk to somebody that understands brains. That's not— you don't talk to a GP about behavioral issues if you're feeling anxious and depressed. Don't talk to a GP, or do talk to a GP. I shouldn't tell people not to talk to their GP.

But then move, but move me through there.

Move me. Talk to the local nurse. Go to a specialist. Sits down and goes, okay, let's chat about it. Because everything was fine, great wife and life and everything's fine. Couldn't pinpoint the issue. I said, well, there's a kink there or something up, but taking that is not the way to fix it.

Hammer approach with the, with medicine.

It's, it's just crazy. And so, so grab him and go swimming every morning at dawn at March in Ireland, the worst possible pain you could go through. And we'd go for a run, he couldn't run. And, uh, you get there, used to be really fit, but that all went away. And, uh, eventually start throwing ourselves in the sea, and we wouldn't, you know, we would just have a— it's hard to talk to your best friend, you know, lads talk shoulder to shoulder, not face to face. So that's why high stools and pubs work very, very well for most lads, and sporting occasions, and anything where you just don't have to look at each other. And, uh, but Yeah. So, and then within about 2 or 3 weeks he goes, this is like the most normal I felt now in half a year. And then boom, it comes out the other side. I'm not saying that was the absolute cure, but it helps. It doesn't hurt. It's just like that just needs— So I had a couple of 2 or 3, I had a couple of other stories, but couldn't be bothered getting into it. But a few other bits and pieces where I thought, you know, if I— most people are not geared up to think this way. They just go, I'll just do whatever the doctor tells me. And it's like, you don't understand. You don't understand. The doctors aren't reading papers. Of course they are. They're scientists. They don't read the studies. Studies show they're not reading any studies.

You've just got to be your own advocate.

Yeah, you do. Yeah. Yes.

Whether it's with your vet or with your doctor.

Yeah.

They do great jobs. All doctors, vets, they all do great jobs.

Yeah.

But you've just got to be your own advocate because you know your own body better than anyone.

Yeah.

And you probably know your own dog better than anyone.

Yeah.

Yeah. So you've actually just got to ask the question, say, actually, and it's not about being a dick in the system and saying, you don't know what you're talking about.

Yeah.

Hey, can we investigate this? Can we try that? Yeah.

That's it. You're just, you're just talking. You're just asking questions, and which you're allowed to.

Yeah, you can question things, conversations with them, you know.

And you're recommending this drug, it's like, well, what do you know about this drug? Yeah, how effective is it compared to the other drug?

Are there any side effects?

Yeah, that's it.

You know, he's got a bad thing here, will it affect that? Oh, I see it might, you know.

What was the most convincing study that told— and show to me, and let me have a quick read of, because everyone can understand abstract of a study. So show to me, because if that person— if you ask me the study for anything supporting— well, if you ask me anything, I will rattle off not only who did the study, I'll tell you every single fact of it. I know of the 100, 200 most convincing studies for raw v dry and that kind of stuff. I know them verbatim because I do this thing every day. So that's what a researcher does. But I'm not practicing medicine. If I was practicing medicine, I wouldn't have time to do what I do, which is digest all this stuff and write about it. So it's two different disciplines. So you can't expect the GP or vet to know this sort of stuff. They're at the coalface. Like, a vet comes out of school and they don't just have, like, you know, a GP just has a human person to look after. But we've also got physiotherapists and we've got anesthesiologists and we've got surgeons. A vet is all those things. Every ologist of every animal on the planet.

Yeah.

Dr. Doolittle. So you can do cats, dogs, sheep, cows, kangaroos, tortoises, fish. You're the master of all those animals. Yeah. Every bit of it.

Oh man.

And you've got to be— go into a veterinary clinic and now you're a small business owner. So you've got bills to pay, you've got staffing issues. It's like, what do you think they're doing? Do they come home? Oh yes. Took into 6 hours of research every day.

In Australia, no Medicare for dogs. Well, you get private health covered, but there's no public health. So you're going in there, oh, why am I paying $100 for a prescription when my prescription is $15? Yeah, because there's no Medicare, mate.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, the vet can't just foot the bill for you.

You understand that 10-15% of their bills don't get paid because people come in, get the dog fixed, and the vet— and just go. So they have a really high, uh, burden of— so all this, they make a mega stress. There's one of the most likely, uh, suicide rates.

They're just behind dentists. Yeah, in the medical profession as well. A vet. And you think of what someone has got to be like to become a vet. Yeah, they're animal lovers. Yeah, yeah, great people.

Yeah. And then the emotional trauma of just putting down dogs all the time and seeing a lot of sickness, recurring sickness. And now people coming in better educated than they are in nutrition and saying, you're saying— what you're saying is wrong and it's harming dogs. That is serious stress for a young kid who's like, I'm trying to help, but unfortunately they've been schooled at the wrong way. And that is That is the— isn't that so? It's so fucking tragic.

But the message is, for, you know, a dog owner out there, is to just be kind. Ask the questions. Yeah, just be kind.

Yeah, yeah.

As you said, they're just trying to do their, their job.

Yeah, yeah.

The best thing for your pet.

That's it. So it's like— and vets are coming on side, and slowly but surely, you know, but it's, it's kind of up to the public to kind of bring them along. But it's the same with GPs as well. It's the same with everything. It's like, you've, you've got to own a little bit of it. You've got to say, okay, I've got this pet, I'll take it into my house, Well, listen, what's it eat? You know what I mean? Go read, go do a little course for 2 hours, go read a book, go to my site dogsfirst.ie, read a couple little articles, and you know, just get set up a little bit going, I can do this myself. But you need to be prepared. I mean, what do you do if your dog gets a scratch? What do you do if he gets a sore ear? They don't need a vet for absolutely everything. Any more than your kid does. If he gets a cough, what do I do? Straight down to the vet. He's got a cough, it's not the end of the world. Stop bringing him down the dog park, take his collar off, rest them. Here's a couple of natural solutions.

He dries up.

Yeah, that's exactly it. If he gets diarrhea, what do I do? It's like, it's just diarrhea. How many times do we get diarrhea every year? Yeah, what do we do? But you go straight down the vets, antibiotics and steroids. Yeah, you know what I mean? It's like, no, hang on there. Let's just fast the dog. Okay, let's skip a meal, move them onto a nice simple digestible meal for a couple of days, and then we'll slowly move them back onto his real food. Problem solved. But they go down to the vets for that and they've just spent £100. Like It's just people aren't kind of taking ownership. It's just like, I don't know what, trust. It's just like, it's not enough.

You just mentioned dogs first.

Yeah.

So, you know, we've been through your CV, mate, with you. We didn't mention Dragon Den winner. Yeah, we should have mentioned that one.

Dog didn't eat the food live on TV. Oh my God, can you imagine? And eat me alive ground. Oh, it was horrible. I was gonna fake a faint and just be dragged off the stage. Yeah, the dogs had left the stage. There were stunt dogs. The dog I wanted to bring on was this enormous Great Dane, black and white, beautiful fella. And but he was feeling a bit under the weather, he wasn't right. So she goes, look, I'll just take on his sister and his brother. Gorgeous as well. I mean, if you don't know dogs, any Great Dane's impressive. And so these two Great Danes walk in and then Carolyn brings the dogs out and then one of the dragons goes, let's see him eat it then. And I'm like, no, no, that's been under the lights, just warm food, it's been out there for 3 or 4 hours. The dog's not— who wants to eat in front of all these people? It's like, yeah, there's a big steak, enjoy, John. You're like, I'm a bit nervous. Yeah, yeah, it's like you're going to the toilet and so you're going to the toilet, it's like, I want was until you started talking to me. Um, but, uh, yeah, so I brought the dog out and of course the dog walked up, sniffs it, looks at me, and then just walks off. I'm like, I'm gonna kill you, dog. But, uh, yeah, so they love that because that's pure TV.

Yeah.

And it's like they couldn't wait to show that. So that was— it was kind of fun, but it was good and it worked. It was successful and business was good then after that. Yeah. And I— and, and still I suffered, you know. It's easy, you get staff, you get machinery, and sales were good, and my cash started bottoming out and I'm like, what is going wrong? On top of the fact I'm dealing with vets, a hostile Department of Agriculture, uh, vermin, the lowest of the low. And, uh, so you're dealing with these civil servants and they're like, yeah, but it's not a kibble factory. Say, no, no, it's fresh dog food. But fresh dog food is dangerous. And so you're just dealing with this on a monthly basis. It's so trying. And with your cash bottoming out and you're working, you know, 16, 18-hour days, you're up at 4 o'clock in the morning to make some food to bring it to a football pitch and carry and go, do you want some ground-up duck in a tube? And they're like, no, this is a hot summer's day, you know, I'm not giving that to my dog. And it was just the trauma of it. But that was the raw dog food.

But how did that then— I guess, what did you learn from that, taking it to dogs first?

Yeah, well, you've got to see how the sausage is made, you know. If you're going to start talking about pet food, you need to see behind the scenes. And when you see behind the scenes with the meat industry particularly— and we'd have a pretty good meat industry in Ireland, you'd be spoilt rotten, it's all grass-fed and that kind of stuff. We have a few— which is here, yeah, everything's great, everything is good for quality. And unfortunately, we got rid of all our small abattoirs and removed them all. To central slaughtering. And now we have mega farms coming from the US. China invented mega farming, the US perfected it with CAFOs, concentrated animal feed operations. So we slag the Chinese off for this, but actually the Americans are doing it way better. And now there's 1,000 mega farms in the UK. So these are massively dense, concentrated animals. And when you do that and you just feed them wheat and corn, what happens is you get lots of salmonella, E. coli, because that's not what any animal— no animal's supposed to live on wheat and corn. And so the salmonella, E. coli rises in the population, so they need antibiotics. And so you control with a small dose of antibiotics, which is the perfect way to evolve antibiotic resistance. And so you've got all these issues that is destroying antibiotics for us, which are the best drugs we ever had. And these farms now exist in the UK and they're going to come into Ireland because Ireland will do whatever. We're not supposed to have unstunned meat getting killed, but we've got a massive halal sector and that kind of stuff. So this stuff percolates in even though the Veterinary Council goes, oh no, we don't agree with that. You know, forget that, this is profitable. So we have problems, but the American meat sector would be kind of worse. Anyway, so we have— you need to understand how all that works before you start spouting about it. And so I— that's what it taught me. It taught me hard work. It taught me how pet food manufacturing— taught me how hard it is to keep clean meat. If you get in and you're producing 10 tons of something in a day and your chicken wings have an issue, carcasses and necks will have the issue because when the bird is eviscerated, like, you know, it's a hoover up its butt and just sucks everything out. The tube, the gut tube breaks at the throat and the ass, and so gut contents splash, and that's what you call an salmonella. So things like necks, which the raw dog food industry is based on, and carcass are more likely to have higher amounts of this stuff in it. So if you have a contaminated batch in and you try contact that massive company, this huge and massive meat processor, multi-billion, and you're saying, hey guys, I'm this little tiny pet food producer down here and I believe your chicken necks, they're like You know, you're gone. I'll tell you what, son, don't buy our chicken next. Yeah. And that's the, that's the, that's the ruse. And so now you're left with all this raw dog food, and it's like, I can't blow zero on, you know, your enterobacterioides or whatever because it's too high in this. So what do I do? It's like, so these, these are the issues that small business have, but big business don't have those issues because they're like, we own the Department of Agriculture, you know what I mean? They just pay them off. Well, I don't say— I say that willy-nilly. Yeah, they don't pay them off, but they definitely do work together, of course, to produce a product. The US permits salmonella in the food chain. At least we don't permit it, but it's there. If you've got mega farms, you're gonna have salmonella. You call it grass-fed, outdoor-reared animals don't suffer those issues. But it's very hard to make a good quality raw dog food product on outdoor-reared, grass-fed, organic. Like, that's a premium people can't afford. Yeah, just they look at it and go, why is it 3 times the price? They don't have a clue, you know. It's just like, well, you don't understand how hard it is to produce that animal. And, you know, even the legalities of trying to kill those animals on site, which is the best way to kill an animal. Don't cart them off to a slaughterhouse where he can hear and smell everything. He can see it coming, she can see it coming, um, you know what I mean? Way better do it on, do it on site. These people kill animals just like that, you know. So that would be great. But anyway, so that's what that taught me, a bit of hard work and an appreciation for how that business works and that kind of stuff, uh, and what is wrong with the business, you know. So get to see a few dry pet food companies, unbelievable. They're like hospitals. It's like a beautiful setup. They don't show you the ingredients, you know, that they'll show you the setup is beautiful. Like, it's just unbelievable. So, um, yeah, so that was the start of it then. But now I don't want to manufacture anything, so I have a few little bits and pieces of a range of stuff.

A couple of supplements.

I got my supplements. Yeah, that's put— hopefully put my kids through college. But a few like natural kind of supplements that's developing now of a new yeast kind of supplement coming out and called Propitium. And a few other things that I've gotten a couple of patents on and working with. You get to meet cool people that are doing stuff, but their product's not getting off the ground. And I go, oh cool, listen, that's going to work for me. I can definitely help there. So you can jump in. So that's much better for me. So I'm learning that now that I have this following, I've got good traffic on the site. So I'm now kind of not manufacturing is definitely— I'm good up the front. You don't want me running your business. I'm just too— I'm like a puppy chasing a crisp packet. I'm a 90% guy, as mum or Elaine, my wife, will always say. Elaine's an accountant, she's financial, right? Financial kind of— she does all the stuff for ancestry.com, so she's up the top of that and she can run a business. But don't come to her with an idea or something. She's like, no, no, no, this is the way we run a business, you know? And that's what you want. You want someone like Elaine running your business and you want me up the front going, oh, I've got another idea as I'm chewing an apple.

Sarah's my wife's got a finance—

she's the smart one. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. Yeah, totally. That's it, you know. So it's, uh, but you know, there's a place for everyone, and, uh, and, and the idea is people need to stay at the front.

I noticed a couple of probiotic, yeah, supplements and products on there as well. Now I did, yeah, Chris Essex from Big Dog, he's a massive probiotic.

Yeah.

And I, I spoke to Dr. Nicole Rouse as well. She's a founder of Shy Tiger and from Mont Albert Vet Surgery in Melbourne as well. We speak about probiotics a lot and I have this theory that the subject and the world of probiotics is like the next kind of area of science that is just going to take off and blow people's minds.

Oh yeah.

It's like the quantum realm in Ant-Man, right?

Yeah. Totally.

You've got these billions of bacteria. Yeah. You know, you've got to shrink yourself to that quantum realm level.

Yeah.

Some microscopic, and there's this entire universe going on with these. Yeah, within these probiotics.

Yeah, it's awesome.

And what they're doing is, is phenomenal, and what they can do is—

yeah, that's all I've been doing this year, and next year I'm doing a few bigger talks in the US now. So, um, but it's all going to be on probiotics. So it's like advancements in probiotics. Like, listen to this one on Alzheimer's. Alzheimer's is a huge big issue, obviously. It's striking down loads of people. It's an inflammatory disease. Like most of the other things that hit us, it's inflammatory disease. So if you suffer a lot of inflammation, you're more likely to get Alzheimer's. So there's an inflammation link and your gut flora and your gut produce the most inflammation. 80% of your immune system is around your gut. So if you antagonize that, if you have a recurring GI issue, recurring gut issue, IBS, IBD, you get chronically inflamed. So a lot of inflammation can come from the gut as a point. Anyway, these people started thinking, is there a gut link between Alzheimer's and gut inflammation and Alzheimer's? So they said, let's have a look and see if there's a gut flora link. And so they got these mice and they— you can genetically engineer these mice that they are going to get Alzheimer's at a certain time in their life. They have it right down to a T. So they grow up and they're going to get Alzheimer's in the latter stage of their life. That's just genetically hardwired into them. And they rear them in a little glass box where they can't have any gut flora. So they've no gut flora, but they're designed to get Alzheimer's. So if you leave the gut flora in the mouse, they get Alzheimer's. If you take the gut flora out of the mouse, they don't get Alzheimer's. So they're thinking, holy shit, mice with no gut flora don't get Alzheimer's. So they're thinking, okay, is this a particular species of bacteria? And they let— they track the inflammatory compound and they say, okay, it's 3 or 4 different species of bacteria. So they've narrowed it down to 3 or 4 species of bacteria. They're going to get the Nobel Prize for this. Narrowed down to 3 or 4 species of bacteria. And to prove that it was bacteria-related, they had these mice, they let them have these bacteria. Grow up with these bacteria and they snip the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve is how the gut flora communicates with the brain. 90% of it goes up to your brain, 10% of it comes back down again. So it's just pure signaling from the gut, what's going on. That's how you interact with your environment, and your gut flora control all that. And when you snip the vagus nerve, they don't get Alzheimer's. Even more so, listen to this: rear the mice genetically predisposed to have Alzheimer's, but have to have no gut flora, okay? Rear them, take gut flora from a human that has Alzheimer's, put it in the mouse, they develop Alzheimer's.

Ah, for God's sake.

Yeah, and it's like, what? Like, this is, this is one of my major talking points for next year. I'm going to say that, but like, I had to do a talk there on probiotics for Raphy in Veterinary Society, and this sort of stuff, like, you just look at that one thing alone, you could be, you could tumble down that rabbit hole for like— and I'm thinking, why is that not the front page of the Irish Times? How is that not on the front page of like Google.

I feel like Neil deGrasse Tyson should be talking about probiotics.

Yeah, yeah, totally, mate.

It's been an unbelievably rich and robust chat with you, and, you know, I think we've crammed in a lot. I've learned a hell of a lot, and I appreciate that. I appreciate you taking the time Christmas week.

Yeah, love it.

To come and have a chat to me. Where do people find you, Connor?

How—

like, what's your— tell me your social handle.

Dogs First on Facebook. Yeah, you see me there. Dogs First Ireland, I think it is, because somebody in Australia just took this name Dogs First, used my logo and everything, and just starts a Facebook page. I'm like, can you do that? And it's like, yeah, you don't own it in Australia. And I'm like, oh my God. But yeah, so look, Dogs First on Facebook, and there's nobody else that's anywhere close. And same on Instagram. But I have the website dogsfirst.ie where you get free information. I've also got a new website here, drconnorbrady.com. I'm moving I do all these online courses and I've got this new AI which we didn't get a chance to talk about, but I'm starting to get a bit obsessed about it. I'm an obsessive person, I think. But this AI, I kind of fought it initially and thought, oh, this is something, but you need to be aware of it.

Yeah, yeah.

So you start having—

Genie's out of the bottle, man.

Yeah, yeah. So might as well just try and have one working for me. But yeah, so you can actually train them up. You can give them all the information on your website, all your Facebook posts, all the YouTube videos, all the courses you've done. Any of your books you've written and you dump it all into this and you can train up your own AI and people can come along and just ask them a question. DrConnorBrady.com/askbrady. And you can just go there and there's an AI and it is incredibly intuitive. And as it gets better, I can gear them up and I can start putting other things into them and it's just brilliant. So now people say, how much do I feed my dog? Or what would I give a dog with kidney disease? Or what's the nutrient content of this meal? Boom, boom, here's these ingredients, do this. And you can just, how do I make treats out of, I've got these 3 ingredients, how would you turn that into an appropriate Anything. You can ask it anything. Tell me about DCM, the scandal with grain-free pet food. Tell me about Aflac. Tell me about DROIP. Show me the studies in raw. It's all ready to go and it'll just come out to you. As opposed to Google, which is— the problem you have, people have with looking for things online is that you don't know what you're reading. It's heavily tweaked.

Of course it is.

Of course it is. And then you've got all these government websites at the top and you're like, I don't think anybody listening to them anymore. And like, where's the good stuff? So you don't know which one to click, and then when you're reading it, you don't know how true it is. But if people do come to trust what I've been saying and then they're picking up what I'm putting down, it's like, now you can actually ask me, and I've already filtered out the information saying, look, this is the contents of Feeding Dogs. You can just ask anything. You don't have to buy the book. The book's 50 bucks or 30, 35 euros. It's enormous. It took 10 years to write it. But now you don't even have to buy that. You can just go look at the contents page and go, you know, that's interesting. Like, so where's the evidence for low protein diets in dogs? And just ask me Brady, and out comes in this really well-written— better than I could say it, you know— and they get their answer. So I kind of think that's— yeah, I think that's— ChatGPT is the way forward. Yeah, I think so. Trusted sources online, whoever you trust to give you information, and then you can pick their brains. The advantage for me is that I've written down absolutely everything. I've just been writing these articles that very few people are reading. You know, you talk to kind of Khabib and a few, they, they do a lot of social media. It's just online, real simple, 2-minute video, boom, millions of people watch this. I'm writing this article for 2 or 3 days, loads of studies, nobody reads it, you know. Edutainment, I don't do that. I'm just like, no, here's the science and the facts, but few people want it like that. And so, but so that's drconnorbrady.com, that's the new baby. Yeah,.com. Yeah.

And then you've got dogsfirst.ie, that's where they're all your supplements and your training courses are on there as well.

Yeah, yeah.

You're on socials?

Yeah, so Facebook and Instagram. Yeah, that's it. Not going to Twitter. And then not the place for me.

No, fair enough.

Let myself go in there. There it is. Yeah.

And then it's Raw Pet Medics on all the, uh, YouTube and all the platforms.

Yeah, Raw Pet Medics on Tuesday nights, 7 o'clock GMT. We do that. And, uh, yeah, that's kind of— most of the time it's Facebook. I'd pop up a post 3, 4 times a week, just various things that come into my head. And good engagement on that. The people that, you know, the group that most follows are like 30 to 50 to 60-year-old people. So I'm not— I don't seem to be, you know, if you want to, you need to go on TikTok, you need to go on all that kind of stuff to get the younger people. I'm not there. And it's like I'm not allowing myself. I have someone that's starting to do TikTok videos for me. She just takes some of the content and produces them. Yeah, yeah. I just, I can't do it anymore. You know, I've got kids. I need to be present at some stage, you know. So yeah.

Well, mate, I'm glad we got to have this chat.

Loved it.

If you're listening, that was Dr. Connor Brady. If you're listening as well, make sure you subscribe to this podcast, pause and listen, and give us a 5-star rating because I reckon we deserve it for this one. Yeah, you most definitely do. I was just a passenger here, but you definitely deserve it. If you've got any questions, you can email Big Dog Pet Foods, customercare@bigdogpetfoods.com. You can get on their website, you can give them a call. Just simple Google check will get you the phone number for Big Dog Pet Foods and just listen to the voice of the fellow who answers the phone. You might recognize it. And please, for myself and Connor, give your dogs a scratch and a cuddle from us.

And feed them real food.

And feed them the real food, mate. Connor, thank you, mate.

Pleasure. Absolute pleasure. John, thanks very much. See you next year. You bet.

Hey, thanks for listening to our podcast. For more information and content, visit the Big Dog Pet Foods website. Please note that the information discussed in these podcasts is is general in nature and has been provided in good faith for educational and informational purposes only. The information provided is not, nor is it intended to be, a substitute for professional advice or care. If any of the topics discussed raise questions or concerns for you regarding the health of your pet, we recommend that you consult your veterinarian or trusted pet health provider for an individual assessment. Investment and advice. Thanks again. We'll see you next time.