New Start

Good evening, guys. How are you doing? Happy New Year!

Happy 2025, guys.

Oh, here we are.

Yes, here we are, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

So, Conor, you, you— we are Raw Pet Medics, and you'll find us on Patreon, you'll find us on, uh, all sorts of podcasts. So go for those, and we really appreciate your support. And on YouTube, so if you can click and subscribe and all that stuff. Yeah, there we go, that's the housekeeping out the way. Now Conor, you're not feeling so well, mate, is that correct? Tell us without going into too much detail. Oh, I thought it was just your nose. I just held up some 2 rolls of bog roll.

Piling again, that's the Irish piling. Very end bits of roll.

I made a very cunning joke.

You did. Indeed. Can you hear me? I just swapped my mic over. Can you hear me? Yeah. I'm doing okay.

You have pressed record this time.

Yes.

New thing. Yeah.

We're all recording. Let's start off on a good year for Pete. I actually bumped into Pete a week or two ago. I just had to apologize to him. I was like, I'm so sorry for that year, Pete, you've had the audio that was missing. And he goes, it's It's grand, it's grand. I said I knew by the pain on his face he looked about 10 years older. So, uh, thanks to Pete, you are the best audio man on the planet. He never complains. Um, so, uh, how would— yeah, I, I've, I've got a malady, I've got an allergy of some fashion, and I battled it all through Christmas. And I'm sure everybody listening is nodding because everybody's house was polluted with, uh, whatever type of cold went through. But it's just a cold, it's no problem. The kids start off with the kids because they get everything back from crèche and Then Elaine had it for a few days over Christmas, then my poor old mum was knocked for six with it, and a good few people. I was just batting it off, kind of laughing at people, to be honest with you, and I really shouldn't do that until well after the season. But yeah, I was laughing at my brothers and then boom, it hit me. But so yeah, what about you, Nick?

You had it as well? We had Ellie's brother and his wife came over. Johnny. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He sends his best regards to you two. Why, I don't know, but he does.

Got great taste in men.

And so he's here. So I call it the New Jersey lurgy.

Yeah, that's good.

They brought it over.

Or this is, get this, this is amazing. And I won't give you too much detail, but I was calling it oyster flu. Can you think why I was calling it oyster flu?

Was it the type of snot coming out of your nose?

Yeah, no, it was. It was this kind of the type of sputum.

Oh, sputum.

For the first time in my life, it actually tasted. Literally like oysters.

Oh no, turn this off.

I'm just sorry. I'm just going to hide him for a moment. That deserves a little bit of—

I just can't stand the thought. That's too much. Don't zoom up on me. I'm in bits. Zoom up on yourself.

It's a cheap way to have that sensation of oysters for Christmas.

Oh, jeez. I can't stand oysters. And the thought of that will be in my head forever.

Oyster flu, guys. If anybody else has had the same sensation, then please let me know. Yeah, because I've never had it. I don't get ill very often, but never had that before. And I'd be really— literally, the first glob of sputum was like, oh, oysters.

Okay, interesting. Yeah, that's nice. It's kind of like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, there's different flavors, and here's starters and main course. So no, applesauce for tea. Listen, tell me, guys, my kids got really bad cough, and it wasn't too bad for a few days. I just did nothing with it, ignore it, it'll go away. And then bad in both the kids on the same day, and they were kept up. It was okay during the day but really bad at night. I actually have a homeopathy kit here for pets, and I don't recommend people do this at home, but I am assuming that homeopathy for pets, 30cc, is the same homeopathy you do as in children. I didn't ask anybody, did a quick Google and put my mind at ease, and then did my first ever treatment of a homeo— of a— with homeopathy of two kids. And, uh, I swear to God, these kids were sick for 24 hours. I swear to God. Now, I had been giving them vitamin D, I was giving them a bit of grapefruit seed extract, I was giving them some basic stuff that I have around that I thought might be useful for a virus. And just, you know, you cross your fingers half the time. But when they got proper sick, they were up all night and they were crying, they couldn't get any sleep. The second night I got them through the night. That's pretty unheard of, particularly for one of the kids who, when the cough goes down, it kind of stays down, and the other one bats it off. But you know, some things get your kids. And 24 hours later, that kid was back up. Christmas time saved. God only knows what actually did it. You know, kids are resilient, they're quick off on their feet again. But, um, is it okay to use pet homeopathy? I probably should have asked this. Actually, you can't. It's hard for you guys to say yes, but, um, okay, you don't. I won't ask you.

Did the kit not come with a little booklet in it?

Came with a booklet and everything, just what to do for your— and I got to influenza and it was like all these 10, 15 different types of coughs and I was thinking bullshit. And then I got to the cough that my kids had and it nailed it. It said not too bad during the day, kept up at night with some, uh, spume and whatever, but during the day, like, nailed the type off the hat, and I said, uh, oh, that's the one for me. I can't remember if it was something sulfur or geranium, something, I don't know what it was. And I said, oh, that's the one for me, kids. And I popped it in, and 24 hours later, along with you.

Yeah.

So listen, I mean, did they tell you you're not allowed to look at anecdotal stuff to push you over the line? But bloody hell, sometimes I think—

yeah, I know, I know, I know several homeopaths who anecdotally— yeah, Jeff Johnson had hay fever. He thought homeopathy, because he's an arch— was an arch-rationalist. He went to, uh, Glastonbury, had hay fever, couldn't, you know, couldn't smell, couldn't, couldn't do anything. Had one dose of Euphrasia and he was cured.

Never had—

no, I kid you not. Okay, so that's number one. The other one is a guy called Peter Adams, who is a homeopath in— back in the day, a human homeopath, very, very gifted. And, um, he was converted by some guy coming along, possibly George MacLeod or Chris Day in his early days and gave, gave the, the, the, a cow some remedy and, but then cured. I think it was milk fever or something like this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think you're absolutely right because it's so many people get into homeopathy either because their parents used it for them when they were kids to get them through, or they themselves have gone, I'm just I need something and I don't want to take the drugs.

Yeah.

And they look and they use it and bang, just as your experience, you know, within 24 hours. I've even had a great vet that works with us at the moment who used one, had horrendous travel sickness, um, for flights, you know, could not take off without loads of drugs and would always be sick. And she literally took a homeopathic combination, um, on the flight after speaking to me and just went to sleep, didn't have any problems whatsoever, wasn't sick at all. She's taken it ever since. She's just said it's just been the turnaround. She uses now homeopathy for her kids, for herself, for other things. But you know, so that there's loads of those, yeah, anecdotes of people using remedies for the first time. Yeah. And, and you've got to remember, as soon as you realize that more and more people try that, it becomes data. It's no longer just a single point.

Yeah, anecdotal data is just really good.

That's where good science starts.

Yeah, for sure.

Brad, what about you? Did you get up to anything exciting over Christmas?

No, no, not really. I was saying that, you know, my house has been duly slow because of bad weather. There's the— I had to go to a memorial weekend. I got my wallet stolen. At a services, somebody decided to try and use the cards. Stupidly, they've traveled all the way to my home city in order to find their way.

How did they get the wallet? Where were you?

So it was on one of those magnetic things on the back of my phone.

Okay, yeah.

So, and I'd realized when I got home that the magnetic thing was no longer on the back of my phone. So I duly thought, You know, benefit of the doubt, you know, trust in humanity. I'll freeze the cards. I'll see what goes on. And nothing happened for a couple of days. But then on New Year's Eve, somebody started trying to use all the cards. And it starts pinging up when you've frozen the cards. It starts giving you a lot of alerts. You can't use this card. You've frozen it, you know. And then duly a day later, they dumped it in Harrogate. So, you know.

I've got one more story, boys, before we push on with the Newstart stuff. So in my very early days of homeopathy, I was working in Helmsley, a beautiful market town in the North York Moors. And so I was just green as grass with homeopathy, and somebody put together this combination— borax, cocoon, Cocculus and Petroleum and said it's really, really good for travel sickness. Bren will be going, oh yes, that's a nice one. And so I gave it to this lady for her dog, new puppy, and I saw her in town a couple of weeks later and I said, how's the puppy? And she said, oh, don't know about the puppy, but the children have stopped with their car sickness. How cool is that?

Yeah, that's awesome. What about, what about this, guys? I have somebody very close to me and she's 83 years old. She struggles to sleep at nighttime. And, you know, if you don't get into a deep sleep, you know, you stop producing wee when you go into a deep sleep. So a lot of older people that don't go to a deep sleep, they hover around these shitty 20-minute cycles. And as a result, you're up and down to the toilet and stuff. And it's a plague if you want to get some good deep sleep. What has homeopathy got up its sleeve in terms of sedation?

So just at least what you're trying to say is this is for a good friend of yours, not your problem.

No, no. Yeah, no, it's not. It's not me. It's for an elderly person.

So it's really interesting, isn't it, that you say that? And people want to think, oh, I want to sedate to get through that. But no, it's about normalizing your normal bodily rhythms. And actually, when you're taking a case, so this is why it's important that they see a homeopath and have their case taken, because they'll individually need to be assessed for what will normalize them back to an acceptable rhythm that will give them sufficient sleep. And there's all sorts of other nutritional things which I hope you've been advising them on, okay, that should also augment that, making sure that their magnesium levels are right, making sure that what's going on with their melatonin release and what's going on with their normal cycle. How good, because the thing is that as we get older, and especially if you end up being alone, your daily cycle of doing stuff can totally be messed with. And you end up, you know, watching box sets of stuff till ridiculous times at night. And then, you know, the next day you're really tired and you end up going to sleep through the middle of the day. And then you're sort of like, you're not eating on a regular pattern, you know, all of these things that will impact your normal circadian rhythm.

Yeah, yeah.

That in homeopathy is important. It's not just about the little white tablets. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, all of that nutrition, all of that epigenetic, all of that other life stresses that should be dealt with by a good homeopath.

Yeah, that's a fact. I mean, it— I mean, definitely when it comes to sleep, it's a multifaceted thing, but it's such— it's so important. It drains you of energy, of positivity, and you can see the toll it's taking not getting enough sleep. And I kind of feel like the other things that are wrong will be rectified with a few good nights' sleep. But you can't get that solid few hours in. So yeah, it's not sedation. I was kind of half joking when I said that. It is everything. The problem is trying to tell people that are very allopathic-minded and like, I'll just do what the GP says. It's very difficult to say, you know, let's get on to a functional nutritionist and let's just explore a few bits and pieces. Let's check out— just let's just check out a few different routes. It's very hard to say, did you like bloody hell, did you take your vitamin D and zinc and magnesium? We left that with you. And they're like, yeah, yeah, and it's still sitting there a few months later, you know. So they— I tried the CBD one night, it didn't work. And it's like, no, that's not how CBD works. And it's impossible to explain it to this, you know. So it's tricky. Uh, so I was kind of hoping I could actually drop in a few pills of homeopathy in her tea and just see. Well, no, it puts me in a mental issue.

Okay, I tell you what, um, Ellie sometimes uses Nitol.

NYT. Oh yeah, that's right. So Lainey was the one who said it was unbelievable.

Yeah. So grab some of that because it's kind of halfway between. I'm not sure if it's homeopathic or it's kind of valerian-based or something like that, but it's, it's not a pharmaceutical. So that was kind of— and it comes in a little fancy box. So for people who are allopathically minded, i.e., pharmaceutical-minded, they'll go, aha, it must be good because it comes in a fancy box.

Yeah. Okay.

So you can— so you get that kind of placebo effect as well.

Yeah.

So, a bit of Nytol.

Please don't get addicted to sleeping medicines, thanks.

No, that's it. Like, I've got somebody very close to me, guys, I don't need to get into it, but somebody very close to me actually told this story in possibly over in Seattle, but somebody very close to me had fell into insomnia and I swear to God, he looked completely gone. He looked like he'd shrunk a foot. He was same size as me, but he was white face, black eyes. And I said, man, you look like you are suffering. And he was saying, I don't know how much longer I can go on like this. You know, he was completely devoid of sleep. 'What's wrong?' 'Great life, great, great wife, lovely, happy, healthy kids, everything's going great, great job, nothing's wrong. I don't know what it is, I'm just not sleeping.' And I saw him and it was very, very serious. But the problem is there's very little mental health services over here. I mean, there's one or two mental health nurses for the whole of Wicklow and you can't get near them. The mental health hospital, you don't get in there unless you're actively trying to kill yourself. I swear to God, I wouldn't say this publicly if that wasn't the fact. And I'm not talking about self-harming, I'm talking about are you trying to kill yourself, you're not going to get into this mental mental health hospital. People don't understand at all. And so what happens, you go to a GP and GP says, are you anxious? Are you depressed? Well, here's some antidepressant medication, here's anti-anxiety tablets. He was on two different types, and he was on two different types of sleep medication. And the problem with the sleeping tablets is once you go on those, you'll never come off them because you think the shitty hour of sleep you had was because of the sleeping tablet you took. And then, well, I better bloody take the sleeping— they're highly addictive sleeping tablets. So I'm acutely aware of— anyway, let's not get too negative quite yet. Let's do maybe a show on sleep because I reckon, Brandon, sleep is good. You two probably I have a lot of information on that that I want to hear. The last thing before we begin, one more thing, the thing I was working on for 4 or 5 days, guys, I want people to check it out. It's over on my website, drconorbrady.com, and there's a thing on bird flu there. And so check that out. It's on my Facebook page, there's a link to that. I did an hour and a half on the bird flu thing that's running through raw dog food, and we're not going to talk about it today, but I do want to urge our followers, if you haven't seen it yet, do check it out. It's free to view. And it's 90 minutes. As Brent said, he loved it. He said it was the best 90 minutes of his life. You're going to need a cup of tea in your hand before you start off.

Guys, can I just say there is a process. You can press pause. And if I were you, I would split it into 3 wonderful episodes where you can just divide it appropriately.

Yeah, they can take it.

Other than that, it was great, informative, entertaining. A great review of some things. I was worried for a moment that we were getting a few viruses mixed up, but I think it all came out in the wash. He pulled it back. But yeah, I would probably implore you to get the maximum information out of it, split it into 3 30-minute sections.

Unless you're an insomniac, in which case sit down and it will be— Pharmacological free cure for any sleep disorder.

I've got a book and I've got a video. I mean, how much more do you need?

Nicola Cresswell said she fell asleep, it worked. So I think, I think from the point of view of, you know, just play it for 3 nights, you'll get 3 episodes.

There you go.

A couple of books, a couple of books for you. I've just bought this, okay, from our friend Rob Silver.

Silver, that's right, yeah.

Dr.

Rob Silver, and the book I'm holding up for our podcast says, "There's a Mushroom for That!" exclamation mark. Your Healthy Pet Guide by Dr. Robert Silver, DVM. So I'm really looking forward to getting into that. And just a quick— therefore, because it's in the same place in my head, just a quick plug for Rita because she's coming on the 21st. Yeah. Put your name down for this book. I think it's a really, really important, fabulous book.

So should we all be holding out?

We should all but hold so that we get a triple whammy.

There you go, there you go.

1, 2, 3. Wow, look at that, it's like, um, like the Three Degrees, Charlie's Angels.

I have gone through it. I like the way it's all in different, uh, sections, so it's easy to read. There's bits and a bit and a bit and a bit, as opposed to a block of information. So whoever advised her on all that, it's fabulous. Some diagrams, lots of lists.

It's a shame some people can't do that with their videos.

I don't like making it easy. I want you to have to burrow for the information like I did. So guys, this show today, what are we talking about? What was the plan?

Oh, look, I thought, you know, we've done one of these in the past. And I thought, you know what, we've learned so much together over the years that actually, you know, we're always learning and there's always little nuggets of stuff. And I thought maybe it's a bit of a great time to share if, you know, there's something that you would now do if you got a young kitten or a young puppy. You know, what would you do differently having learned the stuff you've learned in the last couple of years? Okay. Since we last did a, you know, New Year, new start, have you thought about what you would do for your puppy? What would you add? So let's say you've got a baseline of a minced carcass, okay, no heads because we're not allowed to do that in most countries. You know, they've got to go off for incineration, okay, in most species. So therefore, what would you— let's start with dietary-wise, you're getting this puppy. Let's say the breeder wants to give you this puppy or kitten at 6 weeks. What would be your first thing you do? And what would be, you know, what your advice on food?

Let's do one each because otherwise Bren is going to go on a run for 15 minutes. Yeah, I'll go on a run. I've got a big long list here.

Yeah.

Okay, so let's just do one each for each of the things. I think it's a great question. Question, and it's a nicely phrased question, Brent. So thank you for that. So do you want to kick off? What would you do? You're given a 6-week-old kitten or puppy nutritionally.

Do you mean me or do you mean Brent? Shall I go? I'm reminded of a story that Billy Hulkmann told me, and we were chatting about something, and Billy was telling the crowd that he goes, the one thing I did right before my baby was born was that I made sure mum was eating plenty of omega-3 before the baby was born, and I remember feeling intensely jealous that he did that because I didn't think of it. And he said that there's lots, oodles and oodles of research to show that that would be a very, very good thing for your IQ, at least coming out the other side. And there's also those studies in puppies, so plenty of DHA, which is, you know, 20% of your brain weight. So if you get plenty of that into mum, it's going to be good for the pups that come out. So you would expect better behavior, and studies of German Shepherds and a few others show that's the truth. So I always remember feeling quite jealous about that, and I think if I had a pup, as Damien said, don't forget that he goes, what about the actual mum when she's pregnant? So when you give me that pup at 6 weeks, I'm really hoping that if mum wasn't getting that fish oil, I would— what, that would be one of the first things going into my pup. And just as you said yourself, you're not allowed to give heads. I would be giving the fish oil in the— the more I study the fish oil industry, in sardine form, because you get the heads in then. So I wish from the very start I would have had my pup on a little sardine each day or a couple or 2 or 3 a week, getting the best fish oils in there and a little bit of everything else. So that would be my addition, that'd be something I'd like in there. I don't like hearing 6 weeks, I want to hear the pup in with the breeder for as long as possible because some of the issues you get from that is bad and very hard to rectify. So that'd be my tuppence worth.

So glad you heard that. So give us a date, What would you try and push them to?

Look, 8 weeks used to be the thing, but honestly, if the pup was 9 weeks, 10 weeks, that wouldn't bother me. Um, but, uh, you know, 8 weeks minimum, uh, 9 weeks, 10 weeks, fine, you know.

Great, great.

My question is, who's Damien?

Damien is a guy that— oh, there's a whole other story. I'd love to tell you Damien's story. Oh no, do you know what? Sorry, no, I'm gonna tell you.

The Ironman's coming.

Oh, it's a whole other show. It's another show, as a journalist actually. But, um, the— I saw this, who said it to me on the Facebook page? Somebody else, so forget it. I saw this cool dude that has dog-oped Argentinos, um, and so he's under a bit of pressure now because you have this Dangerous Breed Act and all that kind of stuff coming down the line. And he's got these gorgeous dogs, and he's just the best dog owner on the planet Earth. You want to see what he's done with these two dogs that had good issues that nobody else could handle. Uh, so yeah, anyway, that's, uh, that's my story. What about you, uh, Nick?

What would I do? I mean, there's lots and lots of things that I would suggest, but the one that strikes me is I'd be feeding a wee bit of fermented food from day one. And when we're talking, we're talking kombucha, we're talking well-fermented yogurt, we are talking sauerkraut. And the thing that I've heard a very interesting podcast recently saying don't get your sauerkraut from the center of the supermarket.

Yeah.

Where it's been on a shelf because in order to keep it on the shelf in ambient temperature, that is room temperature, 18 degrees, whatever, they have to kill it because otherwise it's going to, it's going to blow the top off the lid. So what you have to do ideally is you get it from the fridge. Okay.

Ah, cool.

So you'd get your, you'd get your your sauerkraut from the fridge and you just add, you know, start with a wee tiny pinch and you increase that. And I think that that's a very good idea because that would emulate to a certain extent mum's mum regurgitating material that she will have eaten and that will have come from often a ruminant or a rabbit or what have you. And so it's that fermented food thing going in there. So that would be my thought. It's dead easy, really cheap, quite fun, and very good for you. So you can, you know, give some to the dog, give some to the husband, give some to you, give some to the kids. You're good, good to go.

Yeah, there's so much there, isn't there, on microbiome and how to sort of like, you know, how to improve the health of the whole household. And I had this sudden fearful thought rush through my head as you were talking about regurgitation of owners having to regurgitate premasticated raw food. You've really got to love your puppy for that. Okay, so try this at home first. Don't try this at home indeed. So the, um, and it's— I think it goes back to what Conor said there, you know, actually that's a process that you'd hope the breeder would start. You know, one of the great things about the breeders that are feeding raw and feeding— you're already on this journey of more holistic foods, more you know, low processed foods is to embrace what's going on to improve the parents microbiome and the amount of that microbiome that then is passed on to those puppies just in the sense of when they're born, not just from what they're feeding, you know, through. So I think great to hear that you talked about that, Nick, and great that Connor, you sort of brought in, you know, preparing the parents more than necessarily just the puppy. Absolutely agree that, you know, 10 weeks would be a wonderful dream. There's so many breeders out there that can only just about cope with 8 weeks before they must pass on the puppies. I think that's just, it's just one of those things in life, isn't it, we have to cope with. Doesn't mean, and the devastating thing is in the UK this thing called a puppy contract has become the thing for passing puppies from breeders to new owners with. And unfortunately, the BVA, so one of the veterinary associations, and the Kennel Club got together to design this puppy contract, which is all about getting them vaccinated, getting them ID chipped, getting them wormed.

I wonder who was behind that. That's pro—

anyway. So it was something that, you know, unfortunately has left a little bit of a scar for those people that follow that puppy contract. So try and discuss eking it out, you're making sure they're socialized, you know, all of the behavioral stuff I know Conor loves to talk about. He's got so much experience. If you want to know more about, I'm sure you've got umpteen videos on socialization, habituation, and you know, getting puppies started in, in that from all of your days in guide dogs, that side of stuff.

No videos, and times move on as well, you know.

So I'm going to ask a question, the next question therefore, Brent. Sorry, I'm just going to jump in because that's what kind of what we do. Um, on that line, let's just talk about worms because that is, as the contract suggests, you know, people are obsessed with, with worms. And therefore, what would your approach? Conor, what would your approach to worms be? So little mite comes along, we are 9 weeks, 10 weeks, good to go. What would you— what conversation would you have with the owner when pup was born, for example?

When pup was born, I'm not sure about the pup being born bit.

Like, no, no, but just what I'm getting at is, would you say please try to minimize worming, or please don't. Oh yeah, please do worm count.

Or yeah, that's exactly it. I'm never going to be a guy that's going to use worming tablets unless I see there's worms there. It's just never going to be me. And I— now I have gone to— I have gone to the very— I'm not in the middle anymore about that. I'm now over here where it's like I'm not— I'm as bothered by worms in my dogs as I am worms in my kids. And my kids can pick up worms. But you guys are vets, and so you would see more of the ramifications of people that miss the worming thing. But I just think a pampered pooch. Do people miss work, like, you know, put worms to the point that the dog dies? And I'd say that must be a very rare occurrence indeed. So I would say if I got a pup at 9 or 10 weeks, I would just do a worm count, fecal lab or worm count, and you can send a poo sample off. That would be the maximum I would do, and I would hope I would do it, and I have the kits there, so I should do it. And it's so easy to do, it's 20 quid and some poor unfortunate veterinary nurse is going through hundreds of poo samples a day for £15 an hour.

And you're so glad Elaine is not watching this. Worm counts? What we should be doing, worm counts.

But so that's the maximum I would do for a pup at 9 or 10 weeks. I'm reminded of that study from Africa— there's lots of these studies— but where worming people resulted in poorer health, where the worm burden actually offered some protective of— I'm butchering this because I can't remember how, but there was some sort of point to this process. So if mum was ever to pass on a few worms, I'm— so I'm really torn at that puppy being born bit because I'm thinking if mum was passing them on, is that so unusual? Is that like— is— so I wonder about that bit. I always meant to look into that more, so I'll stop there because that's as much as I know.

Yeah, I think that there's two ends. What we were taught at college and has reverberated ever since whether it's true or not, I'm not sure, is if the pup has got worms, then you could induce worms in children and you can get all sorts of dreadful eye manifestations. But in fact, those manifestations are incredibly, incredibly, incredibly rare. But they're very good for business for the worming manufacturer.

Yeah, it is really hard because just as with our story on homeopathy and how many people get Talking about that, we do hear, and I personally have friends with kids that they never thought there was a problem, slightly slower at school, didn't necessarily understand why that was. And when they've had their eye exams checked, you know, to make sure, did they need glasses, something like that, they found granulomas from the Toxocara in their their eyes. So it is, it is one of those difficult things that we have to say. Look, one of the reasons that we talk about Toxocara in dogs and cats is because the eggs are really sticky. They don't have to be messing about with feces, you know. But when, if those eggs embryonate and the gut of that child is not sufficiently healthy to withstand that passage of that embryonated worm embryo going through into the system, that embryo will get lost because it's not— shouldn't be in a human, should be in another dog. And so it doesn't recognize the markers as to where to migrate, and it can migrate to aberrant places. And on that basis, that becomes a whole fear thing that so many people are worried about. And as Nick said, it is extremely rare It's not unheard of. It is extremely rare. So the thing that I always say, look, wormers aren't 100%. Even chemical wormers aren't 100%. You know, doing them at 2, 5, and 8 weeks, you know, as a course of chemical wormer does not mean that you have zero risk of your puppy having Toxocara in its system from mum. Okay. And it's the same with the herbs. You know, the herbs are great. Some of them are brilliant. I know, Nick, you've worked with a company that's done a lot of work with that.

Good product.

And, you know, some of that is about improving gut health, not just about trying to, you know, dispel worms.

Vermex, shout out.

And, you know, that's great. But I would always say, I go and I say this with the Health Sensei as well, test, then treat.

Yeah.

And, you know, with some of our health plans that we do, you know, for the puppies, we are looking at testing them, and so many of those puppies are negative, you know, and that's the—

pick a figure out of the sky there, Bren.

Oh, I would say over, well over 80% are absolutely negative. You will find, um, the fact is that some of the positives that do come through are down in the low, so over 20 eggs per gram we would consider is a positive. Okay. So what we— but when we do these tests, so many of the clinicians will see a count of 5 eggs per gram and go, oh my God, that's a positive, it's terrible. And actually, no, that is an indicator. If you get a measure like that, retest, retest, because there is a possibility one it's got, you know, slight count wrong because they've not been recognized correctly, or two, that actually these eggs are passing all the way through. These puppies are eating all sorts of stuff out there. They're consuming them. If their gut health is good, they're on raw food, maybe something like that, they could be passing those eggs all the way through without them embryonating, without them causing any problems whatsoever in such low counts. I've seen Giardia levels. You know, if you've got a bird table outside and you're feeding the birds, puppies that go out and they're stuffing their faces, they've got absolutely normal poops. And then what happens? They come back with a Giardia count of 5, and the owners are in absolute panic that this— they've been told that puppies are going to be infectious to them, that they've got to start nuking their microbiome with, you know, metronidazole. All of these things. So retest.

Yeah, 5% of us are walking around with giardia with no ill effects.

Yeah, totally.

It's in there. Nick, if you take worming tablets, is there any evidence to say that it affects your gut flora? How could your gut flora get away with that napalm?

Yeah, no, totally. Anything that goes in your mouth is going to affect your microbiome, and you've got, you know, microfilaria as part of your normal These are tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny little worms like this which are meant to be in your gut. And the Africa study was, they found that they went to these villages, what have you, to give wormer, and they found that the increase in asthma and eczema was spectacular.

Yeah, so they particularly on tapeworm, wasn't tapeworm, you know, a particular benefit to reduce those asthma levels.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. But yeah, so in effect it gives the immune system something to work on so it's not wandering around the body going, oh look, there's some lungs, let's attack those lungs and give us asthma.

Yeah.

Or, oh look, there's an elbow crease, let's attack that and give us eczema.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I think that's what that comes down to. And it's— and this reflects the principle of living in equilibrium with the microbiome within you is anathema to the modern, you know, in the '60s and the '70s and the '80s, like, let's just cleanse everything.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, the hygiene hypothesis, the cleaner your environment, the more likely you are to get autoimmune disease, asthma, eczema, and all these kinds of things in humans. And I think the same is true for for our dogs. I mean, look at it, look at autoimmune disease within our dogs today, you know, the modern dog in 2024.

And kids, there was this— it wasn't 40, 50 years ago, there wasn't a mention of it. There was, it was, I mean, there was in, it was a very small percentage. Now it's like this 50% of the population, this huge part of everybody's budget is treating this autoimmune. Where is it coming from? Christy Clarkson is asking, I think this is regarding the worms, on YouTube, loving this, thanks for the info. Is it similar for horses too? I'm assuming about worms in foals?

Yeah, it's just that the baseline is about 400 eggs per gram, 300, 400 eggs per gram. Yeah, so they tolerate a much higher level of worms within their system because they tend not to be zoonotic to humans, whereas the puppy ones can be zoonotic, i.e., infectious to kids.

Okay, and will the natural products like Vermex, will that—

is there a— yeah, yeah, no, use them. Yeah, totally use them, even on tapes I do. Yeah, that's for sure. What I was going to say is you can nuke your puppy as much as you like, but if your children go out and play in the sandpit where puppies and kittens, which use it as a toilet overnight, then you're— they're going to get an infection anyway. Okay, all you're doing is controlling what you can control, but you know, 90% of the environment you can't control in the slightest. So I think One has to put it in that kind of context. That is, risking changing their microbiome, gonna have a significant effect on a population. And I don't think these studies have really been done.

Yeah, no, there's lots of, there's lots of talk of, you know, the levels of Toxocara found in children's playgrounds. And I looked at this and I was like, Firstly, no longer are we in the days when me and Nick were around where children's playground was like a seesaw and a set of swings in the middle of a bit of green field. These are all now segregated off with, you know, self-closing gates that probably lock as well at the same time with a mag lock, you know, when there's no way that a normal dog is getting inside those things, but yet they're still finding Toxocara inside these kids' playgrounds.

Yeah.

Um, and they're still using that as the thing. And I'm thinking, the amount of wildlife, from hedgehogs to, um, foxes to birds, to, you know, any number of things that could be, you know, vectors for some of these parasites. I think, you know, we just got to be a wee bit careful. We're not— yeah, what actually improves our kids' chance of getting some aberrant worm is improving their gut health.

Yeah, that's it.

Get them off processed food.

Totally.

That's it. Terrain, terrain, terrain. I have one more. I have another one here. Another thing that I would do differently if we had a pup, if I was to get another pup, the next dog, if I was to add on another dog here, and I would like a second dog, I'd like a third dog. Dog. I just don't have any space here. But I would like a second dog for Duds. Now I'm ready to go. I'm not sure Elaine's ready for the conversation because Duds has been quite a handful. And in that, my point would be, in the last 40, 50 years— not, no, in the last 20, 30 years, 30 years— I grew up with dogs that roamed around outside. There was like my— our shop, which was a builder suppliers, then my granddad's, then our house, and my uncle. And the 2 or 3 dogs we had free access across the back gardens protect around granddad's vegetable fruit patch and the birds fly back around and would never stray off the property and they were just guard dogs, they just barked, they wouldn't be like attack dogs, they weren't Dobermann, it wasn't like a movie but these dogs slept outside, sometimes days they slept inside and that was it, all incredibly well socialised. I remember dogs when I was growing up as being very well socialised animals, there wasn't these lots of small dogs barking and you know, not to say big dogs don't bark but it's often a smaller So my point is that in the last 30 years we've bred up all these different types of dogs and different types of doodles and crossbred them and inbred them to bits, and we've got Frenchies and all sorts of amazing things. And then we keep them in the home, and I think it's gone from being a need of having dogs to need to defend your property and do whatever else you need, to it being an item that you just want and it to look cool. And that's the dog I like the look of, and so I'm going to put them in an apartment. And I think there's some collies and huskies and gundogs and cocker spaniels and all sorts of dogs in the wrong places today. And, you know, whatever that survey I read was, 1 in 5 people think they have the wrong dog, you know. So there's like, you know, a great number of people are thinking this dog's a bit of a pain in the ass. And, you know, it's like that dog was perfectly fine, he's just in the wrong environment. And so we have a lot of breed effect that is not being considered by people because they want a husky and they live in Manhattan Manhattan. And it's like, well, maybe a husky doesn't want to be in roasting hot Manhattan in the middle of summertime. What about that? So what about what the husky wants? So I think next time if I was going to do it, I would think a little bit more about the breed I was getting and make sure I was getting the right one. I grew up in shelters, working in shelters. I'm always going to be— I want to know most. Dad had an incredible habit of just picking up great mutts. That's what we had. So that's what I would urge people. I would say, opposed to the way the dog looks, can we just go back to the way, like, what you can offer the dog? Is it going to be a nice normal home? If you're not going to be doing much, if you're not are not good runners or good mountain climbers, don't get a dog that needs to be outside doing that stuff, you know. So give that a bit of consideration. I know most people do. I'm speaking to the converted here. It'd be nice for me to say this to the people that aren't listening. Not sure how to get that message across, but yeah.

And, you know, that's just what you said, you know, spending— those dogs that spent some time outside. Rodney, I know he's coming across into the UK in April to do a bit of a talk. He's done lots of talks with Karen Becker, and, you know, one of those big things for those longevities is those dogs spent time outside in contact with the ground, getting, getting dirty, getting microbiome from the earth, you know, all of that stuff. It's just one aspect, but it is one aspect that was common through all of those.

Totally agree. I've got it on my point, I would say I'd be feeding that puppy from clean soil. Yeah, you know, if you've got cats, then keep the cats away. Or if you haven't got, you know, a clean garden environment, maybe even get some soil, put it in the freezer for a week, and then just a little sprinkle of soil on top is not a bad idea.

I love that. That's almost a— is it an anathema when you've got— you're talking about clean and soil?

Isn't it glorious?

Is that the right word? Anyway, just from the point of, you know, I would just say I never ever bothered with that. I was so pleased that actually just throwing food out for dogs to eat was perfectly fine to do. I'm perfectly happy to go back.

What's the major concern with cats being around and throwing the food out? Is it, is it, is it possum?

Yeah, I think that's catist.

Yeah, you think so?

What about that? I'm perfectly fine with my cats.

Toxicara and things like that.

I'm perfectly fine with my cat wandering around.

Yeah, so am I, but our conventional colleagues would say, well, you know, you could have a toxicara contamination of the soil.

So if you mix up toxoplasma—

well, toxicara is a worm, toxoplasma is a little protozoan, and they're both not going to do your your kitten or your puppy any good. And therefore, if you just freeze it— I'm not sure about Toxoplasma, but Toxocara, you will definitely kill the eggs by freezing for a week.

Freezing's the same for both.

Yeah, you know, wasn't there something of, uh, mums giving of, uh, of, uh, wasn't there something on, uh, pregnant bitches birthing pups on soil? Wasn't there, was there some move to people putting soil in the den? What you call it, where the mum's having the babies?

That's when we were talking back in June.

Yeah, with a lovely lady with the streak in her hair.

Yeah, actually, who's that again?

Oh, that was your guess.

Oh, natural dog breeding. Oh God, forget it. No, I'm gonna put— I can't think straight.

If anybody wants to know, go look at the video from the beginning of June.

Karen will know that, actually.

Yeah.

Um, so yeah, guys, it is now 1945. Should we just do a little bit more? A bit side. Yeah, let's do that.

Yeah, let's do that. Oh, it's so wonderful to be back.

So is it, isn't it?

Actually, I'm loving this.

Everybody who stuck with us through the 45 minutes, whether you could stand twice as long as that to watch Conor's wonderful video on bird flu, but give it a go and let us know next week how you get on. If there's loads of Zs come up in the comments, I'm going to be laughing.

Let's go, vote a compliment Maybe we could talk about that, but to be honest, the video does the justice, so we don't really need it.

We've got Mark Roberts next week. Mark Roberts, friend of the show. He's the PhD who mushes his dogs. He knows all about nutrition, sports nutrition, biochemistry. He is the guy to talk to. And so he's going to be on with us, which I'm really looking forward to. He's a Brit. Nothing wrong with our American friends, but he's a Brit living in the States and, uh, he's going to come and talk to us. So that's something to really look forward to.

Brilliant.

All right, then, folks.

Okay, see you.

Happy New Year, you guys.

Happy New Year. Bit on the Side is coming soon.