Dr. Conor Brady and Dr. Brendan answer listener questions about chronic gut inflammation in dogs, the best water sources, and propolis for wound healing. They discuss fecal microbial transplants, probiotics, and water mineralization, plus why colonics for dogs are hard to find in the UK.
Chapters
Bill seeped into your keyboard and your microphone and you gradually faded from the screen.
Curse words, you'll fade away.
Thanks, guys.
Sorry. I love you. Yeah, that would be very funny. Guys, we are the Raw Pet Medics.
Well, I am.
I don't know about these two. And we are here every Tuesday at 7 o'clock because we do it because we like it and We are on Patreon, and thank you very much for everybody who contributes every month to this thing. We really appreciate it, and in return, we try and give you some really fabulous information, and we put it out on podcast. Thank you, Pete, for organizing the podcast. He does an amazing job. We serve him up with, you know, old tripe, and he turns it into something actually worth listening to. So Pete, you are a magician of the highest order. And we're also on YouTube. And we are— what else are we on, boys?
Everything. And if you see us there, guys, you got to give us a ranking. There's a person out there called Clayton Payne. What a name. Clayton Payne. And Clayton Payne is a legend. He's got a podcast called Pet Business Disruptors. And it's a really good podcast. It's so good that he's beating us in some of the ratings in the podcast. He says. Now, I don't know because I can't even— I don't even know where to check those facts, but I'm assuming in a very limited sphere.
Like, your book is the number one bestseller in—
yeah, in raw canine nutrition from Ireland. Um, so, uh, doing very well in that, in that pool. So yeah, Clayton is, uh, is kicking ass with that podcast, Pet Business Disruptors. If you got— if you're a small pet business owner, that is a fabulous podcast to listen to. He is 30 years in the game of pet products and whatnot, and he interviews legends, legends, top quality guests.
I think he's interviewed you, hasn't he?
Oh, he did, actually.
He did.
So he's got excellent taste and he's a very popular podcast. So please check out Clayton. The reason we're talking about Clayton as well is because I see you with something in your hand, Bren, for people that are listening and not watching, what is that that you have?
So this, this from the lovely Clayton. So he rings us up and we're having a practice, um, do last Saturday and, uh, he says, oh, I'm just working with a company that— so these— this company sells drink but only to dog owners. So very specifically, I'll hold it up to the camera.
What's it called?
Bully Dogs.
Okay.
And there's a few different options. Okay, obviously I'm arch into the alcohol-free. Of course, I haven't been open yet. They do a couple of things like wheat beer, not my cup of tea, but it's there. There is premium lager that I did try just for the sake of— so the Big Bark Theory.
Bark Theory, very clever.
There is an IPA which I can't wait to open. That's because that's lovely. I've already tasted Jurassic Wolf IPA.
Nice.
Now, the interesting one, and I've tried this out on my practice manager, so they also have made this. So they make this out in Moldova, the Bully Grail, okay? And they call it a vino beer. Now, Apparently, the interesting thing of this is that my practice manager says, so it's supposed to be a hybrid between Prosecco and beer.
Believe it or not, I didn't believe it when he first said it.
And I thought, oh, Clayton, Clayton, what are you trying to do to me? What are you giving me this? Now, what's interesting is my practice manager said, to her, Tastes of Prosecco. To her husband, tastes of lager. So I'm about to see which side of the fence I fall.
Yeah, exactly.
Because now you're in that scenario of—
It's like a gender reveal. It's like, how feminine is Bren? How Prosecco-y does it taste?
And if I turn green—
You're lucky, man.
I wish that was me. It's got cold, it's got that cold frost, you know?
Oh yeah. Can you see the condensation just on the bottle?
Just don't do it to us. Don't do it to the viewers. Put it to your lips. Let's get this tasted. Get it done.
He's not going to say Prosecco, is he? Even if he thinks it's the finest Prosecco I've ever tasted.
Feminine edge.
I'm in touch with my female side. However, it just tastes like I'm sorry to say, a slightly sour lager. A lager? Yeah, but it does taste like a sour lager. So I could understand why there's that slight vino tint to it.
Is it just a mix of wine and beer in a bottle?
Too much.
It's made with both grapes and grains.
I'm looking forward to tasting that. I want to taste that.
Yeah. What, just to see whether you're masculine or not? I love So sorry, that's maybe not for me. But as I say, my practice manager said that it was really lovely. But I'm now going to go into the IPA because that really is my cup of tea.
IPA, can't go wrong with an IPA. Do you know what IPA— this is way off topic, but it's kind of interesting— IPA stands for India Pale Ale. And what happened back in the day, I can't remember where I read this.
Session beer.
IPA, no, Indian Pale Ale. And so what they had to do is they were shipping, yeah, because we used to have the Raj where we were administering in India, okay. And so they had to get ales out to India because they weren't, they didn't have any breweries back in the 18-somethings. And in order to make it last and not perish in the heat and the turbulence of the sea and what have you, they had to make it extra hoppy, which is why you get— which is why an IPA is more bitter. So back in the day, I would always ask for the bitterest thing they had, and inevitably it would be an IPA. And I used to love IPAs. Very good.
Yeah, interesting. That's why you— that's where the Indian Pale Ale came from.
So look out for Bully Gods, um, And that's the Jurassic Wolf, because it actually quite nice.
Is that the IPA?
Yeah, that's the IPA. That is really— it's only a very light 6.1%. If I'm falling under the table, this is not a session beer.
Yeah, it'll be a short session. Definitely last session.
About 45 minutes.
Yeah. So tonight's show is sponsored by Bully Gods. Thanks very much. Yeah, the free beers and the £2,500 for the, uh, that's Bully Gods and, uh, Clayton Payne. Thanks very much. And no, it's not Clayton's company. Clayton just sent them on to us. It's his friend's company. But, uh, thanks very much, Clayton. And, uh, yeah, very good, guys. Uh, Q&A, let's, let's try and get a few Q&A done. We always—
I've got some Q&As here from our friends at Patreon. Patreon. The reason I say that, guys, is because if I read that word, I would say Patreon, I think, or maybe I say Patreon. I'm not sure. Patreon. But whatever it is, Conor says the opposite. And so in order to be inclusive, I say Patreon, Patreon now, which is—
But is it not a French word? Should we not be saying patron?
I know that patron is somebody who runs a hotel or something like that, isn't it? Le patron mange ici. It's the manager of a restaurant. This is Patreon with an E. Patreon.
Because P-A-T-R-O-N is patron. That's the only thing I know from there.
I love how we've not even got past Patreon and we're already arguing.
I remember somebody who's been very pernickety with me and I said, as he was being annoying to me, I just said, oh yeah, you don't mean to be pedantic. And he goes, don't you mean pedantic? And I was like, I thought that was very clever. Made me stop anyway. So go on.
Okay, I'm happy to sing out the question. First one here from Patreon patron Amy Jones says, hello guys, which is very nice. Nice for her to greet us indeed. How best to support gut inflammation to an incredibly picky dog that doesn't seem to want to eat anything and refuses bone broth? 3 years in and having a nightmare, especially with him having a recent hip replacement, so on pain meds, which are probably upsetting his gut even more. Oh, that's quite a biggie. Who wants to go first on that one?
I'll let Conor go first. He loves to talk about food.
Do you want the question again?
I got the gist of it. There is interesting cases where like dogs outside of the bit at the end there where he's on pain meds, which will definitely result in a little bit of confusion in the gut floor. Most of them have that kind of side effect. So you're definitely poking the beehive with those, but they're necessary for short term, I'm sure. But aside from that, there is those cases of dogs that seem to suffer ongoing, a little bit of chronic gut inflammation, and it can be tricky. You've tried the diets, but like, have you tried the diets enough? Have you tried different manufacturers? Have you tried a lightly cooked diet? Have you tried single protein diets? Really explore that diet bit. But I think that what can happen with people that suffer low-lying kind of chronic gut inflammation, I wonder what those symptoms are when she says that. What she means. But the temptation is to kitchen sink it with supplements, hoping that you can kind of squish the symptoms away. And I'm not sure there's an actual solution in there. It'd be nice to know why the chronic gut inflammation. So starting off with will diet change, will help things. That's the number one thing to check. The single protein diet, slightly cooked diets, give it a good change and see what happens. Second thing I'd have a quick look at is, you know, will probiotics help a little bit of S. boulardii, maybe even FMT if this has been going on for ages. Great one for resetting the gut flora, far more than looking at the gut flora. €450, I'd buy the solution for €450 and pop it in.
Or maybe just define FMT just for those not in the know.
Fecal microbial transplantation, a.k.a. crapseals, which you can find online. There's now a British supplier getting up and running. Carol's getting that off the ground, hopefully. And the third thing I would try then would be yeast can be a little thing. So these are simple little things to try in the background. But sometimes it can be a little bit tricky, like, what's wrong with you, bud, that this keeps on going on? And now you're on the pain meds, which is going to exacerbate the issue. So there are my thoughts. Over to Bren. What are you thinking?
I'd agree with what you've said there. I think the only thing I'd just isolate as well, FMT is not just capsules. There are colonic options which have proven to be more effective both in humans and dogs than taking capsules. But obviously requires an animal rather than just taking an oral capsule.
There was tests comparing crap seals and animals and they did as well. But you never know. That could have been from a crap seal manufacturer that wants to get that result. A colonic seems to be so much of— but like, Bren, how many vets are performing these colonics? I mean, aside from Towerwood Vets, your place up in Leeds, who else is performing this in the UK? Honestly, nobody lives near a vet that does this.
There are the universities. So I know some of the referral universities Definitely doing it. Not to an ideal standard because they're using quite a lot of antibiotics and anesthetics and instilling them, you know, with much ado about nothing.
I was under the impression that Royal Veterinary College had tried it and then given up because they couldn't make it work.
No, they could make it work. They did a whole presentation at London Vet Show about doing it.
Okay, so they did get it to work in the end.
Okay. Yeah, they just ended up finding that they needed to reduce bacterial numbers before they instilled it. And I don't know whether they've modified them using an endoscope to implant the fine sifted. So they were doing a lot of sifting of the material before implanting it, and they were just doing 2 a week apart, but they were requiring full anesthetic. So I just don't think it's as popular because people are going, I anesthetize my dog to have it implanted, and then as soon as they wake up, what's the first thing a dog in recovery tends to do is want to pass feces, especially if they've got a load of liquid feces being placed into their bowel. So whereas if you do them conscious, they tend to keep their sphincter closed whilst the liquid is being absorbed.
And do they flush out the colon first before the good poo goes in? Is that a necessary step? I bet that would to help? That seems to make sense.
No, they just do the typical things of giving them a meal that effectively helps them to reduce the amount of feces they're coming across. So they tend to go through a pattern of antibiotics and then starving them for 24 hours before they have the implant so that they've being walked regularly, and before they go under the anesthetic, they walk them and get them to pass the feces.
Yeah, hard to find out. There's not a lot of vets doing— I mean, I know you say the hospital—
I wish there were more. I wish there were more because look, there's still a lot of vets doing full neuters and there's still a lot of vets doing full vaccinations every year. There's still a lot of vets doing antibiotics to every diarrhea case. There's still a lot of vets Basically just piling anti-inflammatories and steroids. And, you know, that's the way of it. Not every vet. I'm not saying that at all. I'm just saying there's still a lot that are just doing that, you know, and it's like, it's like assuming stuff works, you know, rather than actually testing and seeing.
Yeah, it's like putting a newspaper over a pile of shit in your kitchen. There you go. Look, it's gone. All fixed. What about you, Nick? Chronic gut conditions. Where does your mind go?
No, I'm not even going to go there. It's— I'm going to go right back to the second sentence. Well, the second line. So, because what Amy says is, I have an incredibly picky dog that doesn't seem to want to eat anything. Okay, now that is a pretty interesting statement because most dogs would last, what, a month without eating anything, and then they would wither to nothing and die. So I would be asking questions, Amy, about what you mean doesn't eat anything. I once had a Labrador. This woman rang me and said, my dog won't eat any food. He gets the very best raw food and just refuses. And I was thinking, oh my God. I was thinking, this emaciated skin and bone dog is going to walk through the door. Actually saw the dog a couple of weeks later. And lo and behold, this dog who could only just fit, he's a Labrador, could only just fit through the door because he was so fat. And I said, okay, so tell me about the treats. And she gave a list of 14 treats that the dog actually had. And so what that inappetence, supposed food inappetence problem was. The dog was being stuffed with treats all day long, and when it came to the food, which relative to the treats is slightly less attractive perhaps, he went, "Nah, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not hungry." So I'd be saying, Amy, what treats are you giving? And is that— does that have any bearing on the whole thing? You know, what shape is the dog in? What breed is the dog in? You know, toy dogs can be very fussy and what have you. So I think we need a bit more information there. The other thing is, if you've got a dog who doesn't want to eat, we had Bluebell and She was quite picky to start with. We then got Mouse, who's her half-sister, and lo and behold, Bluebell got very keen on food very quickly because of that competition thing. It's healthy competition. They don't fight over it or anything like that. And then we got Jet, and they both eat really pretty well because if they don't eat it, Jet's going to come in and he's going to jump in. Okay. If you think in the broader picture, how do we get a dog to eat? So number one is what are the treats? What's the ratio of the, just the weight of treats versus the weight of food? And it should be 100 to 1. I'm just picking that, you know, 50 to 1, whatever. You shouldn't be giving that many treats. And if you are having to give lots and lots of treats because you're training, you can make them absolutely minute. And so you can get around it that way. I use JR products. Unfortunately, they don't sponsor the show. They should. That's somebody we need to talk to. Actually, JR Products. They do, because they do 100%, um, meat, dried meat treats, and they're very good. They're only in the UK as far as I know, but, um, and yes, please sponsor us. And then, and then she says refuses bone broth, and there are— I reckon there are very few dogs who actually refuse bone broth. So my thought there would be bone broth isn't bone broth. Is it beef bone broth? Is it lamb? Is it venison? Is it turkey, is it chicken, is it what have you. So if the dog is refusing bone broth, I'd be thinking and change the temperature and change the sourcing of the meat that that comes from. However, if your dog's not eating anything, I think bone broth is the least of your problems, you know. So I wouldn't even get into what seems to be the problem. I would be looking at just backing the truck up a wee bit. If the dog's had a hip replacement, yes, it needs pain meds because otherwise it'd be in excruciating pain. But this problem has been 3 years before the hip replacement. So I think there's quite a lot to look at there, Amy, and I hope those 3 thoughts are useful to you.
Great. Okay, let's come on, let's crack on. We're 20 minutes in.
That's pretty good. That's pretty good. We're usually about 41 minutes in. Okay, next one is from Christina Possiel. Uh, P-O-S-S-I-E-L. I don't know how you pronounce that, Christina, but I'm doing my best here. Hi there, Drs. Brendan, Conor, and Nick. Again, another very friendly intro. Thank you, Christina. How delightful. Yeah, wonderful. Thank you for inviting questions from our community. I'm not quite sure which what community she's referring to, but that's great. I have a topic I'd love your professional insight on. Here we go. You ready, guys? Are you sitting down? What types of water do you recommend for dogs? Tap, brackets, filtered or unfiltered, close brackets, comma, reverse osmosis, comma, spring or bottled water, comma, or even rainwater? Harvesting? And then she gives lots of, lots of specifics. But I think if we go to the specifics, we'll be here all day. So let's just look at the broad picture. So we've got, do you recommend tap? If so, filtered or unfiltered? Reverse osmosis? Spring or bottled? Or even rainwater harvesting? Bren, where would you go with that?
Yeah, so look, I get where the question's coming from because there's so much said about additions to tap water, fluoride to, you know, just the treatment plants to the risk of disease and contamination in some. We've had some Cryptosporidium outbreaks and things like that in various areas around the UK. So I think, you know, there's, there's reasons why people worry about the stuff from the tap, but generally our tap water is potable. It is you know, good. And you can research your region as to what the water's like and, you know, consider if tap is appropriate for you. Certainly I have filters installed now for our water, although Yorkshire Water is supposed to be pretty darn good and has always tasted good to me. But, you know, I was conscious of some of the discussions about levels of fluoride and chlorination and stuff like that that was going on. We have tasted differences and they're just redoing loads of pipework and things like that. So I tend to say I filter now and we're even filtering water at the practice for drinking water too. We've moved away from just carbon filters, which is like the Brita filter type stuff, into some of the reverse osmosis. But then there is a really interesting discussion back in Orlando, which was about if you take out all of the components to the water, you filter it to death, that you actually are taking away then a lot of the benefits of hydration because you're just delivering H2O into the system with nothing else. And that then leads into there are now systems which then you can add back purified minerals and reactivate the water. So even some of these will add an energy back into the water so that you are actively giving benefits to them.
So there's a bit of— sorry, Ben.
No, no, go for it.
There's a bit of science behind it because the remineralization of water, I thought it was a gimmick. I heard people talking about reverse osmosis filters. Stripping the water of minerals. And I thought, come on, I get enough minerals in my food. I don't need minerals in my water too. But it turns out that the water, they think, they hope is better absorbed when it has a few electrolytes in there. 'Cause that's how you, it's all conducted. But there's some good studies here that I found on this a while ago. And I saw that study and I called these up. Listen to these 3 studies. A sensory profiling study in Indonesia compared mineralized, demineralized, oxygenated, and alkaline bottled waters, all different types of waters that are available. It found that mineral water scored higher on attributes like coolness, sweet taste, and smoothness, which correlated strongly with customer liking too, whereas demineralized water was perceived less favorably. Another analysis of 15 bottles of domestic mineral waters in Europe had the same result. 4 had a measurable impact on taste perception. The remineralized waters were the most nice. People describe demineralized water as unrefreshing. In that study. Talk about Zoo Pharma. So there's definitely a taste on that, that people are picking up when the water— and you would think that there's such minute amounts. Well, the bottled water can have quite higher, much higher levels, you'll see. But you wouldn't think that this is a thing, but definitely they've looked at this in humans. Another French study involved tap and bottled waters, found that waters with medium mineralization, whatever that might be, 300 to 350 milligrams per liter, I don't know of what, were most preferred, being described as tasteless and cool. Tap and bottled waters performed similarly, but low mineral versions were less liked overall. 3 studies have looked at this and found that humans actually do prefer it when there's a little bit of mineralization in the water. It must be a zoopharm thing. It must be a better way for the water to come in, and the body can just say, "No, it's not great water." So that's an interesting one. I was surprised. I thought the mineral stripping was just another, thing for me to worry about. But it turns out that my filter is doing that. And I have two different types of filters. I've got a filter on my fridge which doesn't strip everything out as well as it should. And I have reverse osmosis under the sink and I always go to the fridge purely because that water's cold. And so, you know, I just favor that. But am I going to it now because I actually don't like the reverse osmosis water, which I just spent a fortune on? So I don't know. What about you, Nick? Where are you on your water habits?
Excuse my ignorance, but what actually does reverse osmosis? Does it just demineralize and take out the glycophosphate and everything?
Everything except fluoride. So it'll take chlorine out, it'll take bugs out, it'll take anything. But the one that's very hard to get out is fluoride. So if it's in your— yeah, strangely, which is one of the ones which you want to get out, one of the ones you're hoping is gone. Yeah, but it's but no, it strips everything out though. I mean, even stopping minerals, stopping bugs, and it doesn't— and fluoride can get through. So chlorine is easy enough. Chlorine comes out of water in about 10 to 12 hours. It's a gas. So if you leave a bowl of water sitting out on the counter, the chlorine just evaporates off and then it won't taste of chlorine anymore. So boiled, then cooled water, a.k.a. distilled water, that boils off the chlorine gas too. So water from your kettle, no matter what country you're in, if you boil the kettle and let it cool, you can, you can drink that water after. Afterwards, it'll taste okay. Even in New York, it'll taste better. So yeah, that's the chlorine bit.
But be a wee bit careful. So they're classic in hot countries and places like New York in the summer. And you may be tempted to use bottled water thinking it's going to be better than your tap water. But actually, the plastics that the majority of bottled water's in will actually leach in, especially under hot conditions. Phthalates and the BPAs, which can in their own right have problems. And what's even worse is the majority of those bottled waters are just tap water put into a bottle.
So I don't doubt that.
So, you know, unless it specifically says it's spring water from a specific spring, then it's possibly just going to be a tap water.
Interesting.
Okay, my thoughts would be that in the States they tend to— they fluoridate water more than they do in the UK. I think there aren't many counties who do fluoridate water. However, there are some areas that are higher in fluoride naturally than others. Okay, so if— and yeah, so in the States that they are right to be a little bit more paranoid. And they also get a lot more contamination of water and what have you. I'll tell you a little story. We went to San Diego last October to give some presentations and what have you. And I have been a 35, 40-year tea drinker. I took me tea bags, Earl Grey tea. You probably remember me faffing about with Earl Grey tea. And the water was so terrible. It has cured me of a 35-year tea addiction. Okay, so thank you very much, San Diego. That's great. So I don't drink tea anymore. I used to drink 2 pots at least before midday every single day. Okay, so now moved on to coffee, and there are benefits and disbenefits to that. But just an interesting story about the quality of the water in the USA. So in the UK, we are not above having slightly terrible water. In London, it's— they say in London, every glass of water that you drink has been through at least 6 pairs of kidneys.
I love that one. Very quick, guys, I've got to ask you So how do you take your coffee? Black, milk, cream, or butter?
Cream at the moment because of the complicated carangus.
I would go black, but I have tried coconut oil just to add to that. Butter is a good call, actually.
Yeah, butter looks too slick on the top. At least with cream, you get that— I like the coloration. And I have to say, I like the thickness of the coffee with a bit of cream and just a glug. So now I'm going through a 500ml tub of cream. I get that delivered on Mondays with my milk.
Good on you.
Yeah, it's tasty. Changed instantly as soon as Katie said— whatever Katie, Dr. Katie Kanga says, guys, integrativevetcare.com, whatever she says, I'm just going to do. And so actually, which somebody says there in the comments, they're talking about, and I can see that Bren is dealing with the comments from YouTube. Most people are on Facebook, a few are on YouTube, and they're saying, do I have to use antibiotics after a dental clean? Non-vet here, guys, but I would say I haven't heard of someone having to take antibiotics after a dental clean. The lads can highlight that. Maybe really bad cases would demand something, something. But don't forget, I'm helping Katie out here. This show is sponsored by Katie Kangas, guys. Thanks, Katie, for the money. This is Katie's product. Remember, it's an oil pull and you put that in the teeth so that can really help, as would Joe from Ingenious Probiotics. Thanks for the money, Joe. It's $1,000 for this promotion. Joe's probiotic product for the mouth is fabulous. When I broke my tooth over in the US, I was spraying that into my mouth and that will keep the baddies away. You can spray it right onto the affected areas. So if you wanted some after dental treatments, there's two great products. This and Joe's products, Ingenious Probiotics. So I don't— I would— that surely would negate the need for antibiotics. Nick, have you ever used antibiotics after a dental clean? Is that something that has been something that you have to do?
Yeah, there were whispers a while ago because of the risk of when you remove a, you know, fairly manky tooth, that you will release a wash of endotoxin and bacterial badness into the immune system, into the bloodstream. And therefore, there was an idea to give a hit, a pretty big hit of antibiotics, only, you know, kind of 24 hours before or even just a few hours before the extraction so that you can clobber anything floating around in the blood. And I'm not sure whether that has been taken forward because having, having a manky tooth which is depositing bad stuff into your bloodstream is, is pretty bad. But then you disrupt it and you've got open, open tissue absorbing all that stuff. I think there's a bit of a six and half a dozen one there. I'm just going to go back to So I think it depends, as Bren rightly said on YouTube, he said it depends on how bad the teeth are. I think if it's just a routine and the gum health, as Katie talked about last week, if your gum health is good, then it's— this is relative. The tartar can be just a relatively superficial thing. So I think if you've got significant periodontal disease, you need to talk with your vet about whether you have an antibiotic or not just before and maybe for a few days after Pros and cons, pros and cons. Going back to the water thing before we miss that. We talk about bottled water and we talk about reverse osmosis and what have you. I used to, in talks before the COVID thing happened, I had this talk, this slide, and it was this woman and her dog was pulling behind her. Okay, she was talking to another lady in the park and she's saying, oh yes, Rex. Only gets feng shui'd wasabi— wasabi? What's the beef? Kobe— Kobe beef, which is flown in from Japan, and it is lightly fried in 100-year-old sesame oil, etc., etc., etc. Okay, so she really, really goes to town, which we which happens with some people. And behind her, this dog is pulling her away like this and is gagging to get biting into a great big pile of shit. Okay, so I think we need to bear in mind these dogs we're talking about. Okay, so I'm just going to make that into, into reality. So you can absolutely go to town on water. I think do the best you can with water. Personally, I would be just putting it through a carbon filter to remove any, you know, bad bugs and what have you, like a Brita filter, something like that. If that can reduce the fluoride a bit, great. If that can reduce the chlorine, great. But do your best with whatever you've got. If you've got a fridge that does it for you, absolutely brilliant. But what I am saying is that whatever you do to the water, you've got to remember that in the States, your dog is going to be walking on people's lawns, which are glyphosated to within an inch of their lives. Dog is going to come home with that glyphosate on their feet and it's going to lick it. So bear that in mind. And the other thing is they're going to go out and they're going to puddle in bacteria and terrible, you know, cadmium from cars and exhausts and what have you. And they're going to come home, lick their feet, and that's going to go into the dog. So we, we, we always— and I say this quite a lot— We always have to keep all this stuff in proportion. You can spend, you know, £100 a week on getting the greatest water for your dog, but if they're going to the park in the middle of London, they are going to be getting significant contamination through plastics, microplastics, glyphosate, all the other stuff. So I think the whole holistic approach has to be within, up pretty contaminated world that we live in. Okay. And that would be my— I'm being very philosophical in my old age. But that would be— that was kind of a big, a big picture take on the whole thing.
Makes sense. Yeah.
Shall we try for another? Go on.
Another.
Just— we've got about 7 minutes to go. 8 minutes, maybe. Okay. So Sharon Cowie from Australia. Hello from Australia. Very friendly buds, these Patreon people, aren't they? I would appreciate your thoughts on the, on the bee glue called propolis. Aha, I have— I've never heard it's called bee glue, but yeah, this is good. I have heard it has many uses and is particularly beneficial as a natural antiseptic for animals as well as people. Thank you, Sharon.
You're very polite.
That's really kind. Okay, Conor, your turn.
I don't know a whole lot about propolis. I've heard of it, but I just typed in bee glue just to see what people are calling the bee glue. And, you know, when you look at what propolis— what they use propolis for, they use it as a glue. Propolis is a resin-like substance made by bees from plant resins, beeswax, and enzymes. Bees use it to seal cracks in the hive, reinforce structural stability, and sterilize the hive against bacteria, fungi, and viruses. So that's where the, the kind of pleasant antiseptic side effects that you're after come from. But I'm not one that uses propolis. I'm not one that recommends it. I know nothing about it. I just know that there probably is some cool stuff in there that I want. But that's— I've got nothing on propolis, I'm afraid. What about you, Ben?
No, I'm not a user of propolis. I've seen it in various products.
I've—
it's that whole anti thing, you know, there's so many things which are there to support the immune system. And I'm sometimes a little bit worrisome when I see a lot of antiseptic type stuff that goes on out there. I'm fine if a wash is there to help heal a wound and actually actively, you know, like calendula and using some of the even witch hazels to some degree, you know, have some promotional stuff as well as being antibiotics. So, you know, botanicas, there's a lot in there. They talk about the plant materials in there that help promote healing. So I prefer that than I do necessarily antiseptics per se. So it's not something that's gone and grabbed me and said, oh, this is the best thing since sliced bread. Yeah, me neither. And so I've I've not gone down that route.
I do love honey, absolutely, you know, so I agree with both of you guys. As usual, we're on the same page. My thought would be this bee glue is in fairly small quantities in a hive, and I don't think that dogs will have had exposure. This is not the greatest argument in the world because there are loads of things that dogs don't get exposed to which we actually can use and do them amazing you know, can be very, very beneficial. So, uh, I don't use it, never have, and, and I've always thought of it as being a bit of a, um, a bit of a— how do they harvest it?
Because that's then the thing is those poor— well, this is the whole thing, you know. So they, they have that whole thing of that some hives actually harvest the pollen from the bees. They actually have a comb that they go through, um, they go in and it literally pulls off the pollen sacs and they collect it in a trough and sell that. And you're thinking, all of that hard work that those poor bees have gone through, yeah, yeah, and some sucker is taking it off them as they go into the hives. And I always think that's just a little bit cruel. It's hard enough that we're taking the honey and going, this gorgeous. But, you know, there's another bit when it's—
Yeah, I know.
Question, gents. Is there any science behind propolis?
I was just going to say, tons of awesome studies using propolis. Go on then. A randomized controlled trial in patients with Wagner grade 1 to 2 diabetic foot ulcers found that a topical 5% propolis ointment used twice daily in addition to standard care reduced ulcer size over 4 weeks versus the control, which is standard care without diabetic foot wounds. Very successful. Leprosy-related lower limb ulcers. Bloody hell. 79% versus 24% wound closure. Meta-analysis of 43 studies out there of bee propolis as of 2016 found that propolis significantly promotes healing of various skin ulcers. Whoa, that's just skin ulcer studies. Respiratory and viral infections, 99% effective against COVID. Just didn't get that information out in time during the drama. And so like this, guys, there's just so many studies.
But the other thing that I would go for there, you've pretty much done what some of these food companies are doing out there where you compare it to the absolute opposite rather than comparing it to a competitor product. And in fact, actually, if you compared that to, say, Manuka honey or just honey as a dressing.
Yeah. Or calendula oil.
Let's see how it would have done against some of those because doing it against just nothing or washing it with dirty water is, you know, not—
I do like one of those. One of those studies said that they use propolis with standard care versus standard care. So that's it. That's it. That's okay. That's showing us that used with and it's awesome. So, okay, you have to take— it's like, you know, taking Provox or antibiotics. Okay. Is there benefit to doing this with it? So many. I mean, when you're on chemotherapy, there's— God, geez, there's so many things you can do to help your body recover from this onslaught, you know? So it's with standard care is about the best you can do. But I'm the same. I always want to see it pitted head to head against the competitor. Let me see how good you are. And there's one question that before we get— Nick's just dipped off, he'll be back. We've got 2 minutes. There was a question on Facebook there that was interesting and I just wanted to highlight it, that a lady was asking about my propythium product and she was asking on the Royal Vet Medics Facebook page. So I'm just going to answer her there. And so this, this lady had bought, you know, here's the thing about treating topical skin conditions and hoping that it's yeast. Okay, you need to test, you need to test those skin conditions before you start buying the products and putting on products and waiting. Because if your dog has, let's say, a sore ear and you don't know it's yeast, okay, you're going to wait 2 or 3 days for this product to arrive, and that bacterial infection, if it was a bacterial infection, will cook and get worse. And then you'll start having a major problem. And by the time you put the yeasty, the yeasty solution in, be it my product, Propetium, or somebody else's, it's too late, that product's not going in there. And then that product is blamed for the roaring infection in the ear when actually that was the infection cooking. It's the same with the topical skin products. There's now a tendency just to go for this propythium products and just pop it all over. But as I asked the lady, I said, did you test the skin for a yeast condition? And the answer was no. So it's like it's not the product that was causing this. It's so relatively inert. There's hardly anything in those fizzy tablets that would cause any sort of issue. But like, the fact is, you know, when you think, when you don't know what that skin condition is, you never replace going to, you never replace the advice of a good vet. Get a vet to check it out and see what it is. They can just swab that skin. It's a sticky tape test. They look at it under the microscope and then you'll know. And if it's yeast, we have the products for it. But if it's not yeast, you don't wanna waste your time using a topical yeast product. So I just wanna reiterate to people, before you start treating things with yeast, 'cause it's a hot topic, 'cause myself and a few others are talking about it now, suddenly everyone starts seeing yeast all the time. But actually, there's simple home tests that you can buy and use, and they tell you very quickly if that's the problem before you use the product, because then you can let things go 5, 6, 7 days down the road, and then the vet is further behind the 8-ball by the time you bring the pet in.
I am really impressed with WormCount. They have started to expand a lot of their tests that are available, and I think one of those is yeast. Okay, within those, they send a little kit out that you can do that. They'll look under the microscope. They've got guys sitting there constantly, I think, like little elves with little test scopes. Probably AI by now.
Constant poo samples, 15 minutes an hour. Pooey.
With nose plugs. Just anyway, but you know, they're doing so much more now. But I did have a lady came in and was saying, I'm not sure I can afford these fecal tests. You know, it's like £176 for each dog to, to do these tests. And I was like, I'm sure it's not that much. You know, let me have a look. You know, it's normally about £27 to £35, depends on what you want for the basic, you know, worm egg count, you know, which is what most people do. Maybe a lungworm count as well adds a fiver to that. And actually it took me to— and I was right. That's roughly what it is, about £32 to £33 for that test. And I was also, for people that are really stuck, if you want a little cost-saving trick, then you can mix, if you've got more than one dog, you can mix two dogs together, test them both. If it comes back negative, just do your next test 3 months on. If it comes back positive, by all means then individually test. But 9 times out of 10, they're coming back negative. So you're saving yourself the stress and hassle, etc. So actually consider mixed poo sample tests like we do for herds of sheep, etc.
I can add to that. If you test 2 dogs, if you mix the poo of 2 dogs and it comes back positive, you don't need to test both dogs then. You only need to test one of them. So, you know what I mean? Because if that dog has the worms— Yeah, well, hang on, no, actually, no, no, because if I find that the first dog has worms, I'm looking at the other one going, I bet you've got them too. You know, I always see them kissing.
But test and treat. But no, little trick there. Look, guys, we're going to find out whether Nick's been struck by lightning. And we're going to go over to a bit on the side. You will catch the rest of our episode either on the podcast or on a bit on the side on patreon.com/rawpetmedics. We look forward to seeing you over there. It'll be ready in about an hour. It'll be uploaded. It's been really great seeing the questions. Thank you so much. We might have to take some of those and answer them individually.
We'll do a couple more on Patreon. We'll do a couple find the patrons on Patreon.
Yeah, perfect. Okay, so guys, thank you very much. We've been Raw Pet Medics. It's been great to see you all and look forward to seeing you next week. Hopefully. I think we've got a guest coming on to talk about hormone replacement.
Can't wait.
So let's have a look at that. Take care, everyone. Bye-bye.
Toodle-oo.
