MAY'24 Q&A

Yes, gentlemen, gentlemen, how are you?

Feeling good, feeling strong again.

What's going on?

Dr. Brendan Clarke, Dr. Conor Brady, Dr. Nick Thompson— that'll be me— and we are the Raw Pet Medics, and we discuss, uh, serious subjects, but we don't take ourselves too seriously. Would that be a good summary, gents?

Absolutely. Sometimes we talk about other things.

Yeah, occasionally.

Yeah, I'll take examples that aren't rude, but, uh, yeah, it's different Do you like my t-shirt? Have I showed you this t-shirt before?

Oh, go on then.

Oh, nice. Do you like that? Nice.

Oh yeah, let's hide this so that we can maybe see a bit.

No, no. Dog fisty fist bumping a human. Yeah, I think that's kind of cool for podcast listeners. It's my cheap and cheerful dog t-shirt for today. But yeah, how you doing, fellas? Nice and warm today. Did you get good weather?

No, not today.

It's raining really hard.

Oh, we are cracking here today. It's not like Ireland to have to win any weather competition, but today was— it started badly, but then it was nice and sunny. I love walking the dog in the sunshine, absolutely love it. I love being in shorts and a t-shirt, it's my favorite stuff to wear. Um, so, uh, yeah, that's it. There's been plenty of that. Anything going on during the week, lads, that you need to report before we get into our questions?

Oh, there's a few bits going on in the media. I saw the Financial Times did a whole strip down of ultra-processed food foods.

Oh, that's positive.

And relating to our diets and our pets' diets. So it was interesting, and actually the resistance of big corporate companies that are behind those to allowing the opening up of markets to low-processed foods.

So amazing. Oh, well, that's really good. Yeah, if you want a really good overview of ultra-processed foods, Uh, everybody watching, uh, I've said it before but I'll say it again: Ultra-Processed People by Chris van Tuliken. Get it on, get it from your local bookstore. It's very, very good indeed, really readable. I did it on, on audiobooks. That's good. Would you be able to scan that and pop it on Patreon, do you think?

Yeah, I can share it, no problem.

Are you allowed with that, guys? Are you allowed to do that?

No, I can send a link to Patreon and you can go on and you can create your little account with Financial Times and it gives you, gives you the articles, gives you up to 8 articles for free. So if you want to log on, create a small, um, account, you don't need to actually pay anything. You can create a free account and it'll allow you to read the article.

They can create free accounts?

What?

Don't tell them that. Please, I insist you delete that out of the podcast later on.

It's free on the Financial Times, not with us.

Oh yeah, okay, sorry. Oh my God, I thought that was just a terrible gaffe. All right, free shit. Um, I actually, I put up, speaking of free shit, I put up my jog notes from last week, but I never, I never go into Patreon to see if there's any questions. Like, guys, do you, did you answer the questions? Do you answer questions in Patreon? I haven't been in there like in a week, so no, I just check in before the podcast.

But, uh, I just put stuff in that I see.

Yeah, mind dump. Yeah, I listened. I've got two positive things to remind people to do. Um, what was the second one? Uh, I can't remember the first one.

A very, very sunscreen.

So yeah, uh, actually there was no negative rebuke from that. I remember we touched on it a few years ago and it was a little bit kind of, uh, you know, you're doing— anyway, uh, this year nothing, nothing negative. Um, those people probably left and just accepted that we're not gonna stop. Um, but I've read a great book, guys. Uh, Michael Schellenberger, um, Apocalypse Never. And he's a 30-year environmentalist and just a brilliant— he's a US journalist and he's involved in all sorts of cool books, wrote San Francisco and a few others. And he said it's really my sort of journalist, very interesting. But he wrote this Apocalypse Never and he just goes through the top 10, 12, 15 things that we are all pretty concerned about— plastic in the sea and, you know, just, you know, he'd hit on 10 or 15 of the big topics from meat and carbon, but also, you know, temperatures and hurricanes and And by the end of it, you feel a little bit better. So it's one of those books that kind of says, look, by the name, the title alone kind of gives you ideas which way the book is going to go, but just pure facts. Nothing has been disputed online of any value whatsoever. So I highly recommend people read that if you want to get a lighter step to your day. And the second thing I did, although this won't be good for followers, is I got AppBlocker and I put AppBlocker on my phone. And what I found myself doing was that now and again, TV's boring, you flick on your phone, you go to YouTube, go to Facebook, you go to Instagram, and you get into what's called a scroll hole. And these, these 20-second videos, guys, they are very effective at keeping you in place. And so everyone does this, you know, the whole reason that the whole system works like that. But it takes up a lot of your time. And when you put in something like AppBlocker on your phone, costs nothing, it just says, what apps do you want to remove from your life? And you pick the 2 or 3 apps. And It says, here's how many hours you spent on these in the last month, and this is how many hours you're going to spend on this in your lifetime at this rate. This is how many years of your life you're going to be doing this. And it's like, what do you want to block? And it's like, okay, I blocked YouTube on my phone, still have it on my laptop. I'm on my laptop bloody 10 hours a day. And my social media, so it's not like I'm off that, but just for my downtime when I go downstairs at 6 o'clock, you know, I'm with the kids, I've got my few hours of the kids, and I've got my few hours of my wife now. It's like, oh my God, I haven't spoken to you in years. You're actually quite funny.

No, she's saying Could you put YouTube back on your phone?

I reckon. Yeah, I've been doing it for about 3 or 4 weeks, lads, and I'm not messing, total game changer. Now you're just like normally you can.

So I apologize now to Dr. Judy for Conor saying switch YouTube off and never watch us ever again.

Yeah, I know, not watching us on everything but Facebook. If there's a way just to leave Raw Pet Medics on, well, you'll get us on podcast, but Yeah. So anyway, it's a game changer if just for YouTube, because YouTube of all them is easy for me the most.

I don't do that. No, I only search for specific stuff and then watch that and then switch off. Yeah.

So it just recommends little half hours. Would you like this podcast?

Are you addictive?

I was a gambler for a few years of my life. It wasn't a good time. 2 or 3 years of my life as a kid, actually. But then that stopped. And then now I'm actually horrified by it. So I'm repulsed by one-armed bandits and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, no, maybe that is my personality.

There is an addictive personality disorder, isn't there?

Seriously, I need to look at that. Turn on YouTube, check out the documentaries.

Yeah, that's another rabbit hole.

Yeah.

Um, I'll tell you what, um, we went up to Morecambe, as in Morecambe Bay, with the children Cockling. On Saturday, okay, to see Fiona Murray and her lovely husband Dave and lovely son Joseph and lovely dog Alfie. And we had the most spectacular couple of days. I was as relaxed leaving Morecambe Bay and these lovely people after 2 days— now we stayed 2 nights with them.

Oh, there we go, going off for some reason.

And as, as relaxed there as I was after 2 weeks on holiday with the family. Okay, it was absolutely remarkable. It's a very, very, very special place. If any, any, anybody's never been, it's a very special place. The vibe, which was a combination of the family, their, their family, Fiona's family, and the Morecambe Bay— there's something very special about Morecambe Bay. So if you ever— and it's very, very, very dog friendly. And so friendly, people just walking around saying hello, hello, hello, hello. I was thinking, wow, down south in the south of England, you wouldn't just be up north, mate.

It's half the battle.

That is the last battle. But I lived in Yorkshire. I've lived in Yorkshire for 3 years. I kind of know what the vibe is over here. And it may not even be a Lancastrian if it's in Lancashire. Is it Lancashire? Morecambe Bay. Okay, it may not be a Lancastrian thing, it may just be— for me, it was just the vibe in Morecambe Bay was amazing. So thank you, Fiona and family. It was really, really spectacular.

She says you had a ball all night.

Yeah, so that says it's an all-nighter. Yeah, um, yeah, no, I can see Fiona being an excellent host, but oh gosh, the hostess with the mostest.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, nothing was too much trouble. She was—

they were— you didn't get an invite, Brad, did you not? Yeah.

Rach Mac has said, you know, if you think that was good, you should come out to the Highlands and Islands.

Listen, I was in Edinburgh for 6 years. I have got a massive soft spot for Edinburgh, for Scotland. Never been to the Highlands. Highlands and Islands, guys, we need to do a little tour of the Highlands.

Shelties, because I like the accent. I heard people from the Shelties talking and I thought, yeah, I'd like to go there. That's quite remote, that place. Is that the— the Shelties are more at the very, very top. You might as well be in the Baltic Sea.

Yeah. Well, they wanted to be affiliated with Norway, didn't they? Did they?

Yeah. Yeah. How rude. Yeah.

Or even further north, you can go to the Faroe Islands. Now that is an interesting island. Okay. It's even more remote, even, you know, 10 times more remote than the Shetlands.

I was always, I've always been slightly biased against, and this is a terrible thing to say, against the Faroe Islands because of the whale culls that they used to do. Yeah. Yeah. Don't YouTube it. You'll see horrible videos, a lot of blood, yeah, uh, with, you know, them clubbing whales to death. It's horrible.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a lot to discuss there. There's a lot of issues.

Do you guys have the Faroe Islands? Is that one of your tax havens, or is that, is that, uh, is that, uh, nothing to do with us?

Is it not?

Is it not?

Is it not Iceland? Yeah, but they speak English.

They do speak English. Kingdom of Denmark. Kingdom of Denmark. That's the middle of nowhere. Wow.

It's miles from anywhere, but they do remarkable things when— with— by drying, because there's so much salt in the air, they have these drafty stone sheds, and all that what they do is they'll hang a haunch of sheep leg in this thing and they'll basically leave it to rot. It will self-ferment, and it's a real— so 6 months worth of bacterial change, and then it's considered an absolute delicacy. I think most of us couldn't cope.

That's like that fermented fish that the Norwegians eat.

So I dread to think what they find in the swamps of Orlando and across the New Orleans that we might be able to make you eat in October. Thanks, Joey. We're looking forward coming across to see you guys and Dr. Judy's page.

Um, oh yeah, yes, yeah, I'm looking forward to meeting Joey. Joey's, uh, Judy's right-hand man on the sound.

And, and he's great. And actually, uh, Krista has sent through, uh, if anybody still wants either a, um, an online access or if you want to go to Orlando in October All you need to do is put in SPECIAL20 and you get 20% off. So SPECIAL20 is the code that you can use to get full 20% off. That's a good idea.

12th of October, that is. That's going to be great. Yeah.

Oh yeah. And also on the 19th and 20th of July, if you bring your vet along, you'll get a free ticket to come along to the RFVS conference.

Oh, that's a good idea.

So if you can persuade your vet, then you get to come free. So you've got to work out whether you're going to buy the ticket and therefore give one to your vet to get them along, or you're going to get your vet to pay and then you come along for free.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Now there's a challenge. Yes, very good.

I put up a post a few weeks ago and said, look guys, where are all the young up-and-coming natural vets out there? Put your hands up. Yeah, a lot of people. Most of them actually said they're in the Raw Feeding Veterinary Society. I just haven't I wasn't aware of them, but they've all got websites, they're doing Zoom. And I was like, what, have you got availability? Yeah, just— it's like, great, guys. So I'm building the page here and there's like 10, 11, 12 people I haven't heard of. One, two in Mexico, Lithuania, two in Spain, one in Turkey that we just met, a lot of English, a couple of girls in Scotland. They're a herbal vet in Scotland. It's like Regan with her twin sister, two vets just working away. And yeah, it's like somebody on the Isle of Man, she just— that's just great. So I'm going to build that list. So there are some vets. So vets, bring somebody along to the RFES. We'll see you all there. It's going to be awesome. Guys, we are Raw Pet Medics. You'll find us on patreon.com/rawpetmedics. And we do this every Tuesday night. And we are here regardless. But if you can afford the price of a cup of tea or coffee, we greatly appreciate it. And if you can't, we're going to be here anyway because we like to do. So there's no stopping us. We do this shit for free.

Yeah, because we're 15 minutes in and we still haven't answered a question.

OK, let's hit some questions here, lads.

First question, gentlemen, is, uh, and these questions from our lovely Patreon supporters. First one is Heather Kieswetter, and she says, is there any type of supplement, herbal or homeopathic, to help support a female dog who's been spayed? Thanks guys for all that you do! Exclamation mark. So supplements, herbs, homeopathic for a bitch who's been spayed. That's all the information we've got. So just if you— if we each have a little riff on that, that would be good.

I can be very brief here because I know nothing. I went looking for something and I had a look at the supplements that are out there and they felt like real kitchen sink products. There will be maybe 20, 30, 40 different products in there and I'm like 'How could this possibly do the job?' So I looked at a few big-selling products for aftershave, and I didn't really learn much, although some of the products you'd Google the herb and go, 'Yeah, maybe something.' But I was a bit disillusioned at the end of it, but that's out of pure ignorance. So I know nothing. What can you do, guys? Tell us.

Okay, what would be one thing that comes to mind, Bren? And then I'll give you one thing that I can think of.

Okay, I'm gonna pull the conventional very quickly. Okay, because discuss with your vet. There is a product available which is called Super Loren, which is used for canine castration. Okay, it blocks the release of LH, luteinizing hormone, luteinizing hormone from the pituitary. And basically the feedback mechanism is that when you put that back in. So when you castrate or spay the female, so castrate the male, you remove the gonads. There is no feedback of the hormones back to the pituitary and you get an increasing loop of LH being released trying to effectively force the gonads to produce more. They're not there, so it carries on producing. The majority of side effects seem to be associated with that LH rise.

Like what side effects?

So things like weakness in joints, so predisposition to having cruciate ruptures, to poor joint health, increased inflammation, increased skin itchiness, dryness. You've got issues with anxiety. All of these have LH receptors in the various centers which seem to be responsible for those drivers. So if you use supralaurin off-label for neutered cases, you can reduce some of those. So the first thing you usually see is the behavior returning to some degree of normality, so the excessive fears or anxieties reducing. But then you start to notice some of the others. I've got a great case where a dog who had skin problems actually had an implant. So you can have a lack of some of these androgens being produced by the gonads anyway, naturally. And we saw that when he had the superlaryngeal implant, all of his skin issues disappeared. And what they noticed was 2 years, 2 and a bit years in as he reduced his Superlaurin implant, his skin issues started to come back. They reimplanted and away they went. But we see that also with some of these other cases. So Superlaurin is off-label for this particular use. You'd have to discuss it with your vet. The vet can contact the company and actually discuss it with them and then to utilize that, because there is no other product on the cascade that's available for those. I have seen people talking about hormone replacement therapies for both these males and females. However, it's a bit like going back 20 or 30 years to hormone replacement therapy for, um, the menopause, where they're just slapping in hormone and hoping, not actually testing to see, um, the response. So there are now tests available to consider, you know, getting a more focused response and levels appropriate for your dog.

Is that the only option then for females, something equivalent to hormone replacement therapy? I mean, how is a conventional vet going to manage that? I mean, is that something you're trained in?

Not at all, not at all. And that's— so we'll come on to the complementary medicines. So, you know, there are— whether you use a hormone combination from homeopathy alongside maybe some things like pulsatillas sepia, those sort of things added into a remedy mix. Definitely giving a substitute of some of the organotherapy. So looking at feeding back some material, you know, I'm not expecting it to replace all of the amounts, but some of the bioregulators that they get may reduce— oh, you're in mirror, mate.

You're backwards. I'm in mirror. I'm holding up dry testicles for people on podcast.

Elam. What's elam? Anyway, so From a point of view of replacing that, those bioregulators can be as useful as the hormones and reducing the stress on the adrenals, which try and take up the method of replacing those androgens that the, the gonads would normally produce. So that could be a big stress, a big stress.

Anyway, yeah, I completely agree there.

Uh, super low Oh, just at that wrong moment.

Yeah.

Oh, Nick, you're gonna have to come back in.

All right, Nick, you're frozen. Nick?

Yeah.

Um, I'm going to highlight something that a guy on my page— I'm missing his first name, sorry, I forgot. Um, Tom, is it? Um, but Tom was highlighting the dead ring around trees at this time of year. Is, um, so you see it in the estates, the council comes along. In this case, the guy was saying on the page— I'm sorry, I can't remember your name— but he, um, but he said he has a tank on his back with no no mask, no anything, with the reputation that, you know, glyphosate now has. And he's just spraying around all the trees and lampposts. And you can see it outside. We're living in a group of houses here, and you can see it, a dead ring around the bottom of all the trees. That's usually long grass that grows up there. And so when you see that dead ring, that's because they're spraying very toxic weed killer. So this guy stopped your man and said, you know what that is? And he goes, no, but, you know, kills grass and weeds and everything else, and possibly humans. But, um, yeah, so that— it's, it's, it's a thing because you're walking with your dog and they stop to sniff at the bottom of a tree. I can't say that Dudley avoids those nasty toxic little chemical rings, but it is one to consider that if you're in an estate. But then again, that stuff dries, it blows into the corners of the roads. I mean, it's not like your dog can avoid all that. But when Habib shares that study showing some dogs are higher in some of the nastier chemicals, you can totally see where that comes from. I mean, you're going around sniffing trees.

It's not just dogs, it's the American population. I mean, I couldn't believe that study. I think, Nick, you highlighted last year, you know, it's something like 90+% of Americans were positive in their urine for glyphosate.

81%, yeah.

Oh, what about UK, Irish, any of that, any data for that?

Not sure, not sure we've got any data there. Okay. So we've moved from the—

Sorry, go back, we were waiting for you. Yeah, we're waiting for you to—

Bless you. So I have put many patients and even my mother using either estrogen or progesterone or oophorinum, which comes from an ovary, or folliculinum, comes from an ovary, which has follicles with it in order to do, if you like, a homeopathic HRT. Okay. I use the word HRT very lightly, the phrase HRT, because it got— it was just— it was guesswork. Yeah. Oh, look, they're menopausal. Let's bump up their estrogen. Oh, look, they're getting loads of problems with breast cancer and ovarian fibroids and God knows what. But with the homeopathics, it's a much more gentle way of doing something similar. The way to approach that would be to talk to a homeopathic vet, or if you, if you're looking at it for yourself, you need to talk to a homeopath to think about that. And you can also add in non-hormone, as Brent says, the Sepias, the Pulsatillas, these types of remedies, very, very useful. My mum benefited. She was menopausal towards the end of her life, and she had— we were able to reduce her hot flushes. Hot flashes in the USA, hot flushes and what have you. So I think it's definitely worth—

how do they— how does Sepia and Pulsatilla work? What is the thinking behind those? Is that too much?

It's to do with equilibrating. Yeah, it's to do with basically your body is trying to move towards homeostasis. Bad word, stasis, because that means things are static and nothing in nature is static, but it's moving towards a point of equilibrium. And the homeopathy is basically signposts saying, that's not equilibrium, this is equilibrium. Move more towards that, that kind of normal physiological functioning would be my great advice. Interpretation there, just, um, talking about glyphosate, by the way, um, I did an experiment because, uh, when we first moved to this house, we were getting loads and loads of dandelions. Nowadays, these days, by the way, I just leave the dandelions and let the bees, you know, pollinate and what have you. I'm totally at one with my inner dandelion and thistles I might get rid of, but even those have got a place. I'll leave the thistles everywhere in the garden except where I'm going to tread on them. And I did an experiment using malt vinegar, and then I tried 50% malt vinegar, and it stripped the grass absolutely in, in the stripes that I did. I said I did 100% malt vinegar, I did 50%, and I think I took it down to about 20%. Because I was trying to kill the weeds, but actually killed the whole ship.

Wow, did 50% vinegar and water do it?

Even 50% of just regular fish and chips dressing.

I tried it, I tried it on the astroturf out the back. Yeah, which, yeah, it doesn't— it didn't do anything for me.

The astroturf stayed green.

Yeah, it is. Yeah, I've got a patch that the sun never lands on, and, uh, and as soon as I put the astroturf, like, Dudley just walked around this muck and that was his spot. So I thought, okay, if I put astroturf down there and that at least that patch and as soon as I put it down, he doesn't use it anymore. He didn't like that. He liked the muck. And, uh, but there the weeds are coming through because I put it down myself and I didn't obviously put it down the right way. And there, there's no killing these things. Well, at least not with vinegar and salt.

Just use straight vinegar. Yeah, it's about 60p for a pint of this stuff.

So yeah, wrong stuff. I'm not using— I'm probably using the, uh, yeah, I'm probably using the Aldi 20p for 5 gallons of it.

It's already pre-diluted.

Yeah, it was, it was soggy chips. Here's a very quick easy question here, guys. Imagine nutritional questions we don't do these days. Is it okay to feed small amounts of cheese and yogurt? If so, should it be goat's milk only?

Oh, so who wants that? I'll jump in first. Yes, if your dog gets on with it. So if every time you give cheese, your dog goes from a 10 on the scale down to a 6, say, then it's obviously exactly that, that they don't agree with that type of cheese from that species.

But talking poo score, you're talking Brady's poo score.

Ah, nice.

He's paused, he can't even reply.

Yeah, he's had a stroke. It's the Thompson's poo score. In fairness, I thought Thompson's was like at a 7 or something ridiculous. Who would do a score?

Oh, here he is, he's back. My lawyers will be in touch in the morning.

Anyway, oh, he's gone. Bloody hell, up and down like a jockey's bottom here. Listen, whatever Nick was talking about, we'll just move on. Oh no, he was talking about the dairy stuff. So that was a pretty logical point.

Yeah, I think, look, remember, there's a degree of intolerance to lactose, but when you've got a yogurt or a cheese, the fermenting process has taken the lactose out anyway. So that's why you can generally get away with it for those products. The issue comes if they've put a load of artificial sweeteners in the yogurts, you've got to be a wee bit careful about all of those artificial stuff that goes in and thickening agents. So guar gum, the number of yogurts, even if they're coconut yogurts, that have things like guar gum and all of those bacterial slimes to make them smooth and creamy, they're disruptors to the like a calyx of the gut lining.

So yeah, just don't keep it, keep it natural, keep it full fat, natural, the fizzier the better type yogurts. They're cracking yogurt, that's great food for a dog. Like honestly, even a bit of milk, Duddy is absolutely fine with us if we've got a bit of milk and something and, you know, the dog has it, he's bulletproof. There's nothing that can upset that dog's guts, but I know that about him. But if it upsets your dog's guts, well, goat milk probably won't. If you feel like you have to give them milk for some reason and they do like it, you know, lovely drink. But like, like Bren is saying, yogurt and cheese generally is not problem as long as you stay away from all the, the crap that can be in it. But, uh, yeah, that's it.

That's a good thing to watch out for. Uh, they are currently in the UK, and I know across certain other countries, having a little bit of resurgence of some bacteria coming back into the country that were previously kept out, things like Brucella. Um, and so they can be found in raw milk products, so just be aware, you know, are they testing, are they Brucella and TB free in those milking mammals? So they don't routinely test goats, so you've got to be aware, are the farms being diligent about their production?

Yeah, that's good. I've another question here which is interesting because, Brian, you shared something in our WhatsApp group there recently that they are increasing increasing the legislation, increasing the pressure on vets to not recommend and not use human medicines on our little furry friends. And listen, you could talk all night about that and say, hmm, why not? You know, this is a vet, they can surely, they know what to use and what not to use. I mean, the vast majority of drugs are not used for their initial purposes, isn't that right? There's some huge percentage where it's like, oh, we use that over there. You just discussed one earlier, so, but you're not allowed to use human ones such as, you know, paracetamol. Oh Jesus, no, you might kill the dog even though you can give it to the kids. So, and the studies behind that in dogs is phenomenal for pain relief, but that's a whole other thing. The question is, are you guys allowed to talk about it? Because there's a question here that says, I don't mean to put you on the spot, I don't know if you can mention these things. I can as a non-vet, I can talk about it all day. You've mentioned using analgesic for pain, instead of a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory. So did you guys say that? Is that a human drug? Is that used?

Yeah, I said that. Celergesic is a herbal preparation from white willow. It sounds druggy, but actually it is a white willow preparation.

Original aspirin, is it?

It's where the original aspirin— aspirin came from Aspira filipendula. So they called it aspirin. Yeah, but initially came from, from willow, which, because it has a salicylate component. And they're not— so Salagesic is from MediHerb. It's an Australian formulation by a guy called Kerry Bone, and he works with a guy called Simon Mills. So together they're Mills and Bone. Which is quite funny. And, and it is generally considered very safe, even though it does have a salicylate, salicin component, because there are other elements within the white willow which, which complement and negate the ulcerogenic effects of the salagesic. Yeah, when you take salicylic acid aspirin, out of the, the aspirin, it becomes very potent and very kind of— it's a single molecule that the body can— you can get negative effects from that. But if you give it as white willow, you can give this over extended periods. Obviously, talk to your herbal vet about what is appropriate, but it's a much, much, much, much safer and it can be used for inflammation in the gut, unlike non-steroidals which can cause inflammation of the gut. Metacam, yeah, and these other non-steroidal products.

The second part of that was probably what you're going to say now, but are there any contraindications with other supplements and drugs?

Contraindication would just be if there's a bleeding problem because it can thin the blood a wee bit. It's probably not, but one would just have to just keep an eye that.

And you've got to be aware of other herbs that act in the same pathway. So, you know, if you've got Devil's Claw, you know, Salerges, then you add in, you know, some of the other products you might even come across. Oh, I'm treating for cancer as well, so I'm using CV247.

Yeah.

And then before you know it, you've actually lined up a load of non-steroidals together, and that therefore could lead to side effects. So you need to be talking to a veterinary herbalist who knows about the different herbs and their actions so that they're looking at the addition together. Don't just go piling in saying, I need all of the pain relief herbs that are available and I'm going to give them all together. Good point.

Yeah, good point.

Okay, next one is from, uh, Patreon supporter Chantal Eagles, and she starts it very, uh, impactfully and says, horse poo, full stop. Why do dogs love it so much?

Yum.

How damaging can it be to a dog if a horse has just been wormed? Kind of a silly question. As for a start, I don't worm my dogs. And do dogs know when they've been— when the horses have been wormed and know not to touch it? Short answer, no. My dogs have a sniff and decide if they're going to eat it or not. So some interesting little bits and pieces there. Who wants to— I start.

I have a bit, I have a bit in that I had a horsey person who told me her dogs only eat the poo of the horses she doesn't worm. So she said that they could smell it. Now sometimes you can kind of want to see what you want to see, and I think we need a sample size more than one, but she said her dogs, plural, and she's loads of horses, so they wouldn't eat the poo of a recently wormed horse. So I thought that was interesting and there might be something to it. I mean, I can't imagine it's a nice taste, um, it wouldn't be something they're going after. And because it alters the biome of the poo, I'd imagine it's probably— yeah, we're not quite sure why they're eating that poo. So hindgut fermenters will have a different poo profile than your other regular kind of foregut dudes. And so is it that they're after the byproducts of the gut flora in that enormous colon and stuff, is it higher in vitamin D?

Hold on, am I getting this right? Is Conor about to say that some dogs actually will take fermented vegetation, poop, intestines, and other animals?

Oh yeah, actually no, that's a very good point. Okay, the very latter end, not the gloop up the top, I refuse to believe it. Although I have seen a video that's contradicted that, but I just told her never say that to me again.

But, uh, yeah, no, so yeah, I think like maybe somebody else said that the postbiotics, yeah, postbiotics, I think, are a valid thing that dogs will seek out. Yeah, they're not eating all the vitamins, B vitamins, etc., that are part of those postbiotics. I can totally understand why dogs would be attracted to some of that in in various forms. It's interesting, isn't it? There's some wormers that definitively we know is antibiotics and will change the biome as well. And I'm guessing to some degree all wormers will do that, but I think some will be detected more than others. And it'll be interesting in some of the avermectins, so ivermectin and things like that, would they be detected in the same way as some of the Panacur and Strongid Ps and those sort of things.

So that's interesting.

I think it's just on a practical note though, if unless you own the horse or you know the person who is and you know when they are worming, it would be very difficult to tell whether your dog is going off the poo because of whatever the horse had eaten that the day before or whatever, or whether it was because of the worming. I think you'd have to do, you know, do observe the horses and the dogs and what have you over an extended period and say, right, everybody's getting wormed, all the horses are getting wormed this week. Oh look, the dogs have universally stopped eating the poo. Yeah, okay. Generally speaking though, I think horse poo, rabbit poo, sheep poo, and all of those kind of things are absolutely great, and I do encourage them. And, uh, but eating dog Dog poo, cat poo, that's to be avoided. Yeah, if at all possible. It probably won't kill them, it might set them up for getting parasites and what have you, but yeah, it's just not very pleasant if they come and lick your face.

It's funny watching them lick somebody else's face, but then not when he comes over to you. All the—

make sure they lick somebody else's face first. Yeah, when they're tanning effect stops, you know, they're safe to come and lick you.

There's a short, small non-published study here, 168 UK residents, 84% with contained glyphosate, their urine with glyphosate, and they said 84, and they said that's very much in keeping with previous studies of the UK population. So I thought that's quite a high figure. I thought it might be lower. And here's something with ivermectin, Brian, you just mentioned, does that impact gut flora? Because like it's clearly the world's greatest.

Yes, it must. Well, I think it must do. I think it must do.

The attention chills. The cutest animals on the planet. They injected them full of ivermectin and they found no significant alteration in the abundance and diversity of the fecal bacteria microbiota 14 days after ivermectin injection.

That was an injection as opposed to taking it orally.

Oh yeah.

And if you, if you think that the micro, microfilaria, microprotein, micro you know, tiny, tiny, tiny little worms are a part of the normal microflora, as well as the archaea and the bacteria and the viruses and everything else.

Yeah, possibly. Yeah.

If you're knocking out some of that, those micro parasite, micro worms, they are part of the ecosystem. Therefore, I think by definition, you're going to be having even as subtle.

But I, I just found, I just found exactly that study. They gave the ivermectin by mouth to tigers in the zoo, and, uh, they said our results indicate for the first time that not only fenbendazole, yeah, and ivermectin tablets not only disturb the gut microbiota at the abundance level but also the metabolic homeostasis of the Amur tiger.

So there you go, I rest my case, Your Honor.

Well, that's, uh, One, one in the foot forever makes him flush. Besides that, it's amazing. It's coming back on.

Do you still get it by the tablet? Are you still taking it orally?

Oh, no, I did buy it though. I did buy it recently, just in case. Well, a few years ago when you could— when you thought there was a reason. Yeah, when there's a reason. Guys, what is stud tail? I had to Google, to be honest. Now I know what it is, but I'm—

There is a small glandular region about third of the way down a dog's tail, which is driven usually again by especially male dogs, sort of the testes and the release of testosterone, etc. That glandular region, especially in older dogs, can become hyperactive, so they almost get blocked glands in that swelling a third of the way down the tail. They usually lose hair in that area. And so we refer to it as stud tail because it's all dogs that have that area of baldness. Often can get infected, so it becomes a bit of an issue. And the classic treatment conventionally for it was to castrate them, and that stopped the hormonal drive that was causing the problem with the hyperplasia of the glands in that area of the tail.

Okay, okay. What about cats?

Cats don't tend to get stub tail, strangely enough.

Hormones in the tail area, do they?

No, well, it's where the glands are. It's about the scent glands and that side of things, isn't it? They tend to be on their cheeks, chins, flanks, that side of things, because that's where they release all of their pheromones, isn't it?

Interesting, interesting.

Um, uh, Nick off at that point, he's gone.

Yeah, one more question from Facebook. Um, do you think dogs with Cushing's are more prone to lipomas?

Ah, so that's interesting, isn't that? There, um, there is some commentary about dogs with lipomas and their predispositions. So if I get this right, and Rita, I apologize now if I don't recall the exact word words you used in your, um, your talk, but that's where he talked about the excess of damp and cold. So damp being a predisposition to dogs getting lipomas, and that would then come in to your ex— your issues with Cushing's, your excess of thirst and water. Retention. So I think that from a complementary point of view, yes, I could see the link. I could understand it's a hormonal stressor. There is a lot of discussion about the microtumors, the relationship with the pituitary, and what may be going on with that. So are they more likely to have both? There are certain breeds which are predisposed to both. So I think that's possibly where that confusion comes in. Whether there truly is a link, I haven't seen that paper. I think there's a link to the breed types and predispositions.

Yeah, there's a link here with them. Well, it doesn't matter, it's going into fatty tumors, which is not what we're talking about.

That's lipomas.

Yeah, is it a tumor? I mean, it's a, it's a, because Dudley's got them, Dudley's got these A benign type of tumor.

You can get liposarcomas, which are a more aggressive form, but the majority are lipomata.

So yes, I kind of stopped looking at them because the first time I saw them, I went, oh no, a little bit of panic comes in when you don't know, because I don't— as a non-vet, you're kind of feeling that going, oh shit, that's a tumor. And then the vet goes, no, it's not one. And then I went down a second time, she goes, no, that's not one either. And I'm like, okay, so Oh yeah, and they get big enough, you know, it's a little, little—

Yeah, so people get worried. So this is where you have to differentiate tumors, a swelling, okay, of tissue, versus cancer, okay, versus a metastatic cancer. And it all gets very confusing for many people. And I think realistically, they're all types of tumor, it's just how aggressive they Ah, okay, so you wanted to stay in place and not move around.

And, uh, yeah, do you want it to wobble or not wobble? Wobble.

You want to be able to maneuver it, okay, so it's not attached to underlying tissues.

Oh, I'm gonna have to— it's not painful, this tumor. Okay, yeah, I haven't given them a wobble. I just don't look anymore.

Just start doing this to you.

Yeah, any excuse, he'll lie there. He's a good patient. But, um, but yeah, I haven't done it in a while. Just— I just don't want to know. It's such an Irish thing. It's like It's grand. If I just don't look, it's not there. It's not bad advice.

But it's a whole sand head.

Yeah, yeah.

Happy, happy, happy that way. So look, we've got one more from Patreon here. Actually, it's 1946. Let's take it to Patreon. Let's do a couple more in Patreon, Brian. What do you reckon? It's quarter to 8 here.

Yes, let's do that. I think so. We'll see if we can get Nick back for Patreon. He seems to— he's having some problems with the heavy rainstorms and his satellite dish. Which is the only way he can get Wi-Fi out in the sticks.

Is he getting Elon Musk Wi-Fi? Yeah. Oh, is he? Starlink? Cool.

Starlink. He's got Starlink. Only doesn't work in the heavy rain. Yeah.

Doesn't work in the back of the arms apparently. The whole point of it. They can get it in the Ukraine.

They can't get it from Nick's house. As soon as the cloud is thick. So you can get it in the middle of Namibia because there's not a cloud to be seen.

You really can. Yeah. You really can. You can get it in the jungle. The lads were watching. I heard they were watching Netflix in the jungle in some country in the middle of Peru in the back of Beyonds, and they were in the jungle watching Netflix. And I thought, that is so wrong. But I imagine they were delighted with it. But anyway, right, so let's, let's boogie on. That was cool. Thanks for fielding those questions.

Great. Thank you, everyone. We will be over on Patreon later tonight and you'll be able to view the rest of the Q&As. What we're doing next week, can you remember?

I don't know. I'm sure there's a million different things.

Okay, so do look out. We've got Feline Fridays this week with Amaya and our new colleague Colleen, who is joining us from France. And we're going to— we're talking about cats into spring. Okay, a little bit about weather, how they can cope with the warm weather, going out, all of that side of things. We'll talk a little bit more. Amaya is going to bring you a little bit more about the offers for the RFVS conference in July. That's the 19th and 20th.

Nutrition and behavior. So lure in a few tricks.

Wonderful, wonderful.

About that, actually, I need to do a few posts.

I've heard you, you are so frustrated that you can't be there. You might record something for it.

Yeah, but like, that's my time to shine. It's like, it's a subject I'd feel stronger in. But even then, I mean, you can get a behaviorist to come in there that'll just walk all over you when it comes to, you know, so it's such a tricky subject, behavior. A lot of particularly the studies are difficult to talk about, but are, well, not difficult, but yeah, it's a cool subject. It's just, and there's so much, and there's great studies, particularly with food. There's interesting stuff that will come out, but I'll record something. I'll be away for those 2 weeks, so I'm going to miss it. But yeah, good one for the trainers. You know, I often think, I often, I make this point all the time, that sometimes when we see a dog showing poor behavior and we want it to improve, the temptation is that you're going to layer on a load of training to make this dog better. But there's a whole cascade of things that could be going on. The very first thing you got to rule out is pain. You know, is this dog in pain? And as our previous guest had said, listen, you can give the dog pain relief and that'll tell you very quickly. And so learning some very simple ways to do that, as we talked about in a previous RPM, her name is Gemma Dodson, Dynamic Dog, phenomenal guest. And so she'll talk about that. But so making sure a dog's not in pain because you have poor behavior or sick or ill or terrible hip dysplasia, as my old shepherd did have that. She was such a gem of a dog, but she turned a little bit snappy at the last year of her life. But the other bit of it is if you have a terrible nutritional deficiency, any type of deficiency of any vitamin or mineral, the behavioral issues, you know, having a gut dysbiosis, so none of your happy head compounds. And now we know the gut flora, not only your serotonin, but they produce all your tryptophan. They produce a lot of your tryptophan, which we thought just came came from food, you know, all your butyrate, all your GABA. So when you shift to a shitty gut flora, they're not thinking about producing nice beneficial compounds, they're just pooing all over the place and causing inflammation. And the good guys don't produce the good compounds, so you get a little bit snarky. And so IBS and the humor and the moods that can come off that are very real, and they're self-perpetuating because the bad humor brings out more cortisol, which upsets the gut flora more, and you're up, you're up, you're up, you're onto this horrible wheel. So the point is, you know, you don't do homework with kids 20 minutes after the shit food is brought out at a birthday party. You know, you, you push them out and you lock the door and then you leave them there until they burn it off for 2 hours. Or don't give them crap food, I suppose might be a better solution. But so this is—

I love your view of parenting. Yeah, you feed them shit food and then you lock them out the house until they've burnt it all off.

Everyone likes my peanut Coca-Cola.

I really hope Elaine is not watching this program right now.

That's the one thing we've done right is there's no crap drinks. We don't, we don't do drinks. In fact, we don't really do sweets much at all. Nick would be delighted to hear. But anyway, the point is, guys, a real diet is the very first thing you got to do. As Turid Rugaas said, what the changes in these dogs in 24 hours, get real food into them, fill them up, satiate them on every single level, and then come back in 48 hours or a week or two or three, however long you think it takes this gut flora to get back back on track, which you can monitor and measure. And then when they're back on track, then the happy head compounds are coming, and then maybe you can start thinking about homework. But you don't try and train your way out of— you've got to find out why that dog's in that mood in the first place anyway. There you go. That's a good lecture idea. Yeah.

Anyway, there you go. Yeah, there you go. Maybe that's the one you need to release. Anyway, guys, wonderful to see you all. We're going to leave you there. If you want to join us over on Raw Pet medics, um, forward— sorry, patreon.com/rawpetmedics. Uh, we'll see you there later tonight.

Take care. Cheerio.