QnA Sept '24

Good evening everybody, we are the Pet Medics, the Raw Pet Medics, and we are very excited to do Q&As today. We really want to say a big thank you to our Patreon supporters, you are unbelievably good. If you want to contribute to our Patreon, then please go to Patreon and plug in Raw Pet Medics, follow your nose, and for the, for the cost of a fiver a month, then you can be, you can be part of keeping the lights on, keeping us moving and getting that message right out. We really want to say a big thank you to all our YouTube supporters. Please smash that, that like button and all that stuff and follow us and what have you. The more support we have there, the more people are drawn to the, the, um, to the site, to the, the channel, and the more we can, we can help people on their raw food journey. And And finally, podcasts. We are podcasting on every podcast you can possibly think of, and it's really exciting. We've got some very good ratings all around the world, believe it or not. And so the podcast is there. So thanks to Pete for organizing the podcast. I don't know how he copes with listening to us every week for hours and hours, having to edit our bullshit ramblings. But there you go. Someone's got to do it. All good, guys. Are you well?

I am well, but we're all acting normal. Like, well, Nick is wearing very red glasses. Do you want to tell us about why you're wearing these glasses from the early '70s? What's going on?

Do you think they look like early '70s?

They're not bad, actually. I'm getting used to them. You kind of look like, you know, the way like a Formula One driver might walk around with them on, and you kind of go, yeah, that's cool. So it's like, I bet you there's a health reason you have them on.

Okay, so very, very briefly, I'm gonna be talking about this. We need to do a big plug for Ruby and we need to do a big plug for Judy as well. I've got all the stats.

Come on, Conor.

Let me at this for a second. Okay, look. Go on then, go on then. We are in San Diego on October the 5th and Ruby has very kindly giving us a free ticket for the show. Okay, now that was sold out almost instantly. I would like to think because we're going to be there, but also they've got some other big speakers that are coming along such as Karen and Roddy. You might have heard of them. I don't know, they're over in the US, but they might be big, they might not be. I'm not quite sure, but they couldn't be as big as us. That's what I'm assuming. So anyway, so she has a spare ticket there for us and we tried to give it out the last time, but we made it far too difficult and people didn't reach the minimum threshold. And so, um, as this gig is in California, in San Diego, um, you know, we do need to hit— this is kindly shared by Judy Morgan's team, uh, over in the US. So we need to think of a question, and this question will be coming out at some stage over the next 45 minutes. And when you hear the question, I'm going to be asking you to email in the question. But as this is being shared, uh, we need the US contingent to be in on this as well, because realistically there's less of a need of somebody in Birmingham winning the, winning the Birmingham UK, winning the ticket as opposed to Birmingham US. So leave it with me, I am going to come up with this amazing question and the first person to email in the email address that I give will win that free ticket and it'll be as simple as that. But that will come up during the show. I just need to furiously think what that question is going to be. This is how prepared we are. But we do thank you, Ruby, for offering out that amazing prize. I'm sorry we fudged it up a bit it. But so that is what's going to be going on in my mind for the first 20 minutes. So don't ask me anything. Absolutely.

I want to watch your mind work as you're trying to do two things at once.

It has to be something you can't just Google instantly. ChatGPT just makes everything far too easy. So I have to think of something diabolical.

I think we just do email in your address, the closest to the conference wins.

That's a great idea. That's a wish. Why didn't you just message me that on WhatsApp? We normally do when we've got ideas. Don't say that stuff out publicly. Okay. That's not a bad idea. Okay. Leave something.

The FeedReal Summit in San Diego. And is it going to be online? Is it going to be a virtual thing as well?

It seems so. Everything FeedReal does is online. I've seen their website, FeedReal's website, the FeedReal Institute website. Check it out. It's gorgeous.

It's so simple to navigate.

It's very good. So yeah, we will—

I will get on with that. That's really, really good. I'm going to do a little plug for, um, Dr. Judy Morgan's Naturally Healthy Pets Experience, which is on October 12th and 13th in Orlando, and that is in Florida in the US of A. And, uh, just some details, there are a few tickets available. It's going to be, uh, at the DoubleTree by Hilton in the middle of Orlando somewhere, or maybe slightly outside. It is in Orlando. Okay, so absolutely go for it. There are, there are virtual tickets for this, so if you can't make it, or if you live in Outer Mongolia and you want to attend, you can attend. And I'm just trying to find the business about— let's just see the red. Okay, there is general admission tickets, that is you arrive and you come in and you take part and you come and see us and that'll be fabulous, amazing. There are virtual attendee tickets with recordings, yeah, so you can record them, take them home and what have you. And there's also virtual attendance where you are just there as if you were there but you are virtual. So that's for the Judy Morgan which is, as I say, uh, on the 12th and 13th of October. Still a few tickets left. Please come on, say hi.

It's a huge, huge venue. Um, I just see Ethan saying hello from— I'm assuming that's YouTube. Our Facebook comments used to fly in the side like a newsreel. It was cool. But, uh, with YouTube, I see Ethan's from Michigan. Michigan is where, um, the Great Lakes are, if I'm not mistaken. And I do remember it being called the Wolverine State. Okay, I just Googled and I am correct. It says nickname of Michigan here is the Wolverine stage. Have either of you guys ever seen a wolverine?

No. Yeah, so everybody thinks of wolves, don't they, when they think wolves?

They do.

Okay, it's almost like the stumpiest creature ever, isn't it?

It's crazy.

It's like some— it's almost like a Tasmanian devil, honey badger style.

Honey badger look to him. He looks tough as nails. But you kind of do see where the Wolverine character with the claws came from. All right, obviously after wolverine because these claws, these, uh, these, these animals, very, very elusive creatures, very, very rare to see apparently in the wild. But, uh, when you see them in the snow, they are pretty cool looking. It's kind of hard to believe there's an animal called the wolverine, but, uh, I did know it wasn't the wolf. Anyway, there you go, some facts about Michigan that wasn't in our FAQ for tonight.

But, um, and we need to find out, come on, you were going to tell us the health implications of wearing your specs. You know, that's okay.

So, yeah, okay, good, good, good, good. So when we go to San Diego, I'm going to talk to the guys there a little bit about metabolic health and near-infrared light. And then in Orlando, I'm going to do a deeper dive on that as well. But basically, I've been doing a lot of research and I actually had tea with an astrophysicist last Monday, went to see Bob Fosbury, no less. Who is, is, is, is an astrophysicist who is not a flop fame of—

not a flop fame.

No, no, that was, that was a, uh, a very athletic gentleman who is probably of the generation before, which is the Fosbury Flop, which is, uh, what Brendan is referring to, which is, which is where they go over backwards over the, over the high jump. Okay, something completely different. He's distracting me and I do find that slightly irritating. Thank you, Brendan. I've got no doubt why he did it in the first place. So what the idea is that we are now learning that there is such a thing as quantum biology. There is such a thing as the body during the day drinks near-infrared photons and uses them for the— for mitochondrial health, when the production of ATP— oh, we can go into all sorts of detail on this, but actually it's a thing. It's measurable. There are all sorts of people looking at this. There's a guy, Glenn Jeffrey, at UCL, University College London, who is doing this, and he's done an experiment where he exposes people to infrared light and actually drops their blood glucose, which is stunning. Seriously, it's as big as that. It really is as big as that. So that's one side. It's like, get outside and get plenty of infrared. Don't get burnt and don't get, you know, hyperthermia for you or the dog, but get out into that natural light. Sitting under a tree is one of the most healthy things that you can do to get that near-infrared without getting burnt. So, and the other thing is we are living in a massively toxic environment. The blue lights from our computers from, from just regular LEDs. Okay, so in 1938, fluorescent bulbs were invented. They took over from these incandescent lamps, which did pump out a bit of near-infrared, which is quite healthy. Yeah, which is similar to firelight. Yeah, so if you've got a wood-burning stove or something like that, it's pumping out plenty of near-infrared in the evenings. Very good, quite healthy. Then we went to fluorescent lights, and that's why you can get this office sickness, if you like. Because you're having this, this, this almost zero input of infrared during the day, which is what we have evolved to, to take in. And, and, and not— and then 1996, the LED was invented, which has a really narrow light band, and it's just really efficient, and it pumps out light and no near-infrared. And that is not good for you at all. So If you can protect yourself from the blue light, it improves your melatonin, helps with your sleep, it reduces that sympathetic tone within the evening, and so you can sleep again. So that's why I'm wearing these 1970s glasses. My little daughter saw them and went, oh, Dad, they're really cool.

There you go.

That's probably the first time she's ever said, Dad, you look really cool. That's a little bit of background. It's a really, really big, big, big, big area. If you go online and look up Bob Fosbury, there's another guy called Zimmerman, and they have a conversation. It's really big. It's like discovering vitamin C. Seriously, it is as big as that.

So, guys, I think just as Conor said right at the beginning, never knew you can actually make sure your computer and your phone go into night shift. You do that as soon as it passes 6 o'clock in the evening, stick them into night shift. It will automatically shift away from blue light into red light emissions. So it will turn it down. But of course, far better, at least an hour, hour and a half before you go to bed.

Don't turn it on.

Get rid of the machine.

If I have my laptop on, if I do anything laptop-wise, even if it's not work, even if it's just messing around laptop-wise, I think the TV is different, isn't it?

The TV doesn't pump out a lot of blue.

Yeah, you've got an option on your TV to also turn it into redshift.

I heard from a sleep person that a TV was better. I don't know why I heard that.

It's probably less bad.

But I can't sleep once it's on. And also, like, you wake up in the middle of the night and it's 3 o'clock in the morning, you need a wee, and you go in there and you turn on the light.

Yeah.

And it's like your heart's pumping and you're lying in bed. Yeah, it's so intrusive. It kills your melatonin.

Yeah, so your melatonin goes like this through the night. And if you go into the bathroom, switch the light on, say goodbye to your melatonin. You've lost that benefit for the entire night.

Interesting. I'm just going to have blood red lighting all around my house. Cool.

We've got these little red lights that, you know, are sensory activated. So as soon as you walk past the melatonin, if you want to go to the loo, there's a red light and that's it.

My brother has them on the stairs and they're red, they're orange.

The new lights in the ceiling, you know, you get the little spotlights. So we've got the ones that you can actually just change the color. So nighttime, it automatically goes into red light.

Very cool, Brent.

Very cool.

Saves me walking around in sunglasses.

I mean, sorry, we can get some really cool 1970s glasses like this. These are— and because this is cheaper than changing all your light bulbs in your house, actually, that's the reason I'm so tight. 20 quid from Amazon. You can pay 70 for some really fancy ones. But these, £20 from Amazon, I thought I'd try it out. And so far—

Yeah, but for some of us who wear glasses, actually, it's no longer £20 from Amazon because you've got to—

Yeah, you've got to get them prescription. But if you think, if you were sitting in a, in a high radiation area, you would do everything you could to protect yourself. You are sitting in, you know, the blue light radiation is toxic. It really is toxic, so to be avoided. And so if you can mitigate that in some way, then that's got to be a good thing.

Yeah. Anal glands. Let's get to FAQ.

Apropos of nothing.

Let me get your pausing right, will you?

I've been waiting to say that phrase. I don't know why I think that's so funny. So listen, let's get to the FAQ here, right? We have a number on different sources. So we've got our Patreon followers, and we have two Facebook pages here. So we have three questions on anal gland issues in dogs, and just to stick them all together, if I could let you loose on this one, but the vet said that the dog's anal gland issues were a result of not enough plant fiber in the diet. Does anybody want to just get cracking on that?

I'll let Nick go first.

Okay, yeah, I agree with the vet that there's not enough fiber because if you're producing soft poos, then you're not having that, that fecal bolus to squeeze the glands. Okay, it's as simple as that. Okay. And so there are various ways of improving the size of that fecal bolus so that you're getting that that nice squeeze effect. Conor, you do Stoolrite, and I think that that's quite a nice way to approach it. However, for me, the best way is to make sure that the dog is not taking any proteins which don't quite work, and so that drifts them down from a perfect 10 poo to a permanently having an 8-ish poo. Okay, so that's one, is that perhaps the diet isn't quite giving you the perfect poo. And number 2 is— there's 2 things. Casey from San Francisco Raw talks about this. She says bones bind, liver loosens. So if the dog's a little bit constipated, you can put in a bit of liver, and that just brings down the score to about 10, and you're producing great poos. The bones bind is that if you can include cartilaginous material, collagen, you know, gritty, crunchy soft tissue and bony material within the food, then that's going to come through. You and I will have All-Bran or we'll have our veggies and what have you, and that produces fiber and it's prebiotic and it's all very, very nice and what have you and gives you great poos. Dogs historically have used animal-based products in order to fulfill that fiber. You've got hair and you've got teeth and you've got all these kind of indigestible things going through as well. So I think that the vet is partially right in that there is a fiber issue and partially wrong in that if we can do that fiber by using animal-based products, then that makes me a lot happier.

How about you?

Yeah, I think attacking the source of that soft poos is definitely up to number one. Irrelevant to fiber, it's why the poo's soft. What's wrong gastrointestinally with that dog that he's producing soft, smelly poos? And you fix that, you fix that kind of little, that little fire in the gut, and you'll sort out the anal glands. Bren, to extend this a little bit, two questions in a row about an anal gland having an abscess out of the blue. Raw-fed cocker spaniel, 5 years old, burst an abscess. Burst an abscess on her anal gland. What can I do to prevent this happening? And another question, the same thing, diagnosed with an infected anal gland. It's been going on for 7 months or so. Vet says it's all clear, but I can still see a thin discharge. What can you do for an infected anal gland?

Okay, first things first, I agree with you about the soft stools, but don't, you know, remember, I see this a lot with, not a lot, but I see this a lot with dogs which go all the way to the other side as well with constipation. And, you know, that's just as important. And so if your dog is on raw and they've got really hard, small feces like little rocks or it's really crumbly, that's just as much a problem. And I say to people, you know, think about this rabbit's ears all the way through to skins, you know, just complete, you know, prey can be really useful. But if you, you know, for some people that can't get complete prey, you know, looking at the options these days, loads of people are selling rabbit ears and skins and hides and things like that. And I'm not talking rawhide here, I'm talking, you know, proper— you can recognize it's come off an animal for them to chew up and take hair and everything. That's really good, absolutely cartilaginous collagen, just adding collagen in You know, I'm going to mention bone broths, you know, adding collagen to your bone broth to get that in. Of course, for some people, convenience, I would say it does still fall if they're in a city and they're not in touch with getting some of this stuff that I've just talked about. They will reach for pumpkin this time of year, especially, you know, we're going to be so many pumpkins falling out of supermarkets that they can't sell. Really great just to cook those up, freeze them down, use those. So fiber, fiber, fiber of one sort or another is an option, but definitely agree if you can make it animal fiber, brilliant. So keeping them emptying properly is great. Remember, there are 3 big rules. One, fecal consistency. We've just talked about. Two, confirmation. So what I mean by that is not just where they are on the clock face. Normally an anal gland is at 8 o'clock and 4 o'clock, okay, on a clock face. And as the faeces passes over, they squeeze out. But also the confirmation of whether they're inside the anal ring, so the actual muscle that controls the faeces passing. And if it's inside the anal ring, then it's much more likely to be emptied as the faeces passes over it. If they're outside of that anal ring, and this can be felt when you're doing an anal gland check, then they don't squeeze out so readily, and often that neck pinches before the actual main bulb of the, the anal gland. So conformation is important. Breeding comes into that, and that's why some breeds can be predisposed to this. And then the last one is about fatness. So if you've got a fat dog and they're not able, you know, there's a lot of fat around the rectum and into the pelvis, then again, they're not necessarily going to empty the glands properly as they come there. So those three things, think about those. Once the gland is emptying, that's going to reduce likelihood of infection. But coming back to your question, therefore, If they get an infection, what should we be doing? Definitely, I would not go for antibiotics. I think there are so many things that you can use now.

Poultice.

Okay, so Epsom salts, make up a concentrated solution, dip in the cotton wool, pad it on the back end and allow that to draw out the pus. So drawing out as much pus as possible means that the body doesn't have to do so much from the inside of kicking out more cells to produce that pus.

The dog doesn't mind that going on when he's got abscesses?

Look, don't make it boiling hot, don't make it freezing cold. Okay. You know, it's a gentle compress. We do this for abscesses. You know, it's what you put over a boil. And actually, once it's burst, it's less likely to cause irritation and an issue. Pain relief is so important. If your vet has offered pain relief, you know, I have no problem with that whatsoever, because if it's that uncomfortable. Of course, there are lots of natural options, hepa-sulf, all the way through to Arnica, all the way through to using some of the natural anti-inflammatories like Boswellia and turmeric and those sort of things can help. But right there and then, compress, draw it out, get the pressure off that abscess, that will reduce the pain.

I always say to go in kind of with a moderate heat and take it up until it's the hottest that the dog can comfortably tolerate it, because I think the heat is really important. My dad, he was a GP back in the days, and I used to get— I still got a scar right there, actually.

Not that hot then. Say again? Not that hot. Your dad learned on you. From now on, I'm going to start at a lower heat.

So I used to get abscesses when I was a kid, you know, kind of 9, 10, 11-ish, you know, hormones and all that stuff, I guess. I guess so. I used to get abscesses here and there, and, and he was a big one for a hot— just even just saline. I think, I think Epsom salts is one step further. So that's brilliant, Bren. But just getting some heat into that area because you'll improve the blood supply to the area, which means the body can get anti-immunoglobulins in there and get anti-inflammatory factors in there. So trying to get that area warm 2-3 times a day is a brilliant idea. Costs nothing. Don't scald the dog, but get some warmth into that area, and it's good. It can be very soothing as well.

It'd be a tough place to have a scalding. In relation to that fiber bit, you know, the obsession is with plant fiber because people believe plant fiber is the absolute godsend when it comes to fiber. But it's like, you know, there's an interesting vet out there, an Aussie vet. I'll find the link and I'll pop it up on the Facebook page. Paul Mason, I think his name is, and he does lots of talks on fiber and he says, here is all the nonsense about fiber. And in 2 or 3 talks he will say, here's the evidence on fiber use and IBD, fiber use for humans. For humans. Yeah, absolutely. For humans. Yeah.

And he's a brilliant lecturer.

So interesting. And he just keeps on hammering these studies. He goes, here's a study, 4 different diets for people with IBD. And when they jumped to carnivore diet, their symptoms just fell to zero. So he says it's not a matter of the fiber. There's a number of other different issues. But the point is we're talking about dogs and plant fiber would probably be down the list for a dog or a cat. These eat animal fiber. I like reminding people that when a dog or a cat eats beef, which is like they're the meat-eating machines compared to us, they can only digest 75-80% of that beef. And the other 20% is waste. But actually a large portion of the meat that they actually digested was done with the bacteria, and some of the other stuff is bacteria food too. So fiber is a different thing for, for animals. For cats, it comes from collagen. Big studies, lots of big studies on big cats in the zoo being fed hair and hide, lots of extra collagen, and how much better it is for colitis and all sorts of things. So the fiber bit is a convoluted bit, and to say that that would be the solution to your dog's anal glands, I think it's probably not the issue. It's like, it might help, and I know adding soluble fiber can shore up the poo and can can help, but is that really what the issue was? Was it a lack of soluble fiber? I would say if adding something like, like Nick said, any plant fiber or psyllium husk, if that works, great, but it's plaster on gangrene. There's something going on, and you shouldn't have to add in loads of soluble fiber to shore up the poo. The question is why your poo is soft. So anyway, that was just a bit on carnivore.

Well, if they're soft, if they're super hard, then adding something that that changes that consistency so that it passes in a bulk that's going to empty the glands. And actually that makes a difference. And that's really— it's not looking at the inflammatory effects of— or the anti-inflammatory effects of giving an appropriate fiber. It's more looking at what is that stool looking like? Has it gone to little pellets that are super crumbly and hard, or is it actually something that's of a size of a bulk that as they pass you can see the glandular secretions emptying onto it. Yeah, often you'll see those few drops occur.

Yeah, I think, I think that, that, um, the, uh, dogs should not be producing like sheep poos, tiny little hard pellets. It should be more like, but equally it shouldn't be like kind of brown chalk or even white chalk, come to that. You're looking for that happy medium between the two. I always say to people The perfect poo is a bit like a sausage that's just come off the barbecue. It's got a little bit of give, but you can, you can pick it up. This is what I do. You can pick it up with two fingers. Yeah, you might not be able to twiddle it around. I'd suggest don't do that in the park because you might get arrested, especially on a barbecue. But if you can pick it up with two fingers, it makes your life easier, and it just shows that things are working much better. You've got that balance not too soft, not too hard, you're going to be squeezing the glands. It means that it probably reflects that the microbiome is much happier than it could otherwise be.

We're at 19:27 here, we've got one question done. Here is, uh, here's three. Yeah, three years of all three, the same people, three people are happy there. Look, here's a question, question from Bog Larka on, uh, Patreon. Um, she's got a 6-year-old Frenchie here and she is concerned that the dog needs some major dental work and the vet is saying this needs to be done under 2 anesthetics, 2 GAs, general anesthetics. And she's hoping, can this not all be done under 1? Is it dangerous to do 2 or is it better? Or what is your opinion on general anesthetics, repeated general anesthetics in a 6-year-old Frenchie?

Okay, so I'm going to jump in here because I'm still doing dentals. I don't think, Nick, you're doing that many.

I'm not doing any dentals. I haven't done a dental for 20 years or so.

There's a lot of work being done on this, and it is very much around welfare, just because of discomfort. But there's also about what is right for a pet, you know, at what point is an anesthetic too long, what amount of bacteria are you circulating into the system, you know, what trauma are you creating. And then ultimately, you know, is it safer to give anesthesia in blocks that you can focus and do the job quickly and appropriately and then do it again later? Because some people would say induction and recovery are the most critical times in anesthesia. I think what's most important is that when you're doing it, that they are giving as much pain relief and local anesthesia to keep the actual anesthetics light. Because if the actual, you know, keeping the dog still, sedation and anesthesia is light and the analgesia, the pain relief is maximized, then it is safe to do multiple procedures. And actually it's far kinder to the dog and to your veterinary surgeon and nurse that they go in, they focus on the tooth or teeth that need specifically dealing with, and that that dog— so say it's in one area of the mouth, those teeth are removed, the dog is allowed to recover, and then deal with the other area. Now, if your dog's going in and the teeth are rattling like piano keys and they're, you know, virtually falling out with pus, then of course pulling those out with analgesia, they're going to do that in one go. Okay. What I'm talking about here is quite often we have distinct singular dental abscesses, maybe some periodontal disease, and there's a few teeth here and a few teeth there and a few teeth on the bottom, you know, a canine that may be having a problem. And actually subjecting a dog to an anesthetic that lasts a long time generally means that that vet is putting them deeper, especially if they're not giving appropriate analgesia. And also when the dog recovers, if there's the whole mouth has been dealt with, they're going to be sore. Recovery isn't great. You need nutrition to be going in. You want that to be the maximum. They may clean everything up. They should be taking X-rays to see what's going on below the gum line. Okay, and they should be ultimately making sure that you are aware of all the procedures that need to happen. I generally say to my vets, please try and keep it, you know, if they're in for just a scale and cleanup and there's 3 teeth that need to be removed, then, and they're simple, that's fine. But if it's more than 5, you definitely should be discussing staging. That is, create a plan where one area is dealt with, the clients have talked through everything, and then you schedule at what point you're doing the others so they are focused. You know, if they're doing a dental that lasts 45 minutes, pretty much when you go in for a filling, you know, that's the sort of concentration time that's going to be their peak activity. If you go in and you give them a schedule where they've got a take out 30 teeth and it's going to take them 3 hours, you know, that concentration is really hard to keep concentrating on that and what's going on with the dog. And the dog has to be on much more fluids. That has its own consequences because, you know, the length of anesthesia depends on how much intravenous fluids you should then put in. So there's all sorts of complications there. Okay. Is it the number of anesthesias? For me, no, because it's light and it should be analgesia that is given.

All right, cool.

That's really nice. I've got a question here for you, Conor. I have two Australian Labradoodles, 6 and 7, weaned on raw puppy vacs only, regular worming check with Vet Lab. The 6-year-old male has recently started eating dog poo. It is left all over Northumberland. Should I be worried? They both eat sheep, horse, cow, rabbit poo, and occasional human.

Ew, that's not a nice one.

Don't go to Northumberland, guys.

Nobody likes the human bit.

Yeah, but apparently in Spain it's really— it's absolutely all over the place.

But why? What's happening on the ground in Spain?

Is coming up second.

I've not heard of trowels.

The chemical other owners put in their dog worries me most. Okay, so basically it's dog on raw, generally very well raised, started eating poo. What should I be worried? What can I do?

Essentially, cut the Well, you know, poo eating is a very normal thing for a dog to do, okay? So dogs are poo eaters, okay? So coprophagia. There's two types of different poo eating actually. One is what rabbits do, which is where they actually eat their own poo, a darker color poo, and then they put a lighter color poo to get the nutrients out because they eat such a poor quality diet, they'll eat anything, like zebras. And so actually, so there's a word for that, and I'm hoping I'm not confusing it because I think we use the word coprophagia quite liberally, but Nick, I feel like you have the word on the tip of your tongue. There's another type of copro— Google that for me if you could. But so look, coprophagia is very normal, okay? And let's—

Bren, what have you got there? The rabbit?

I was thinking coprophagia.

It's basically there's, there's, there's poos that rabbits get rid of, and there are poos that they produce in order that they can eat them again to re-digest them.

You know how—

which is basically where they— that is they eat this, the contents of the cecum are secreted out. Okay. And then they re-eat that because that's where all of the postbiotics they'll get the benefit of. That actually leads into a question for you, Conor, because you are an ad, you know, real advocate of dogs do not eat gut contents. Yet you've just said there that dogs normally eat gut contents.

No, well, it's just gotten to have been passed out of the anus. What do you mean? So I would say my opinion on this is, first of all, when I talk about the gut contents, like there's a stomach contents and there's intestinal contents, I think they're two very different things. And I think a stomach content, a tripe, a belly of a cow, you know, full of half-digested grass and whatnot, not very attractive to any meat eaters I've ever seen. Now, I said that last time and someone from Scandinavia sent me a picture of a Labrador eating the belly of a deer. But let me tell you, that is rare. There is zero, zero evidence of wolves doing it, for example. Okay, so Mech is the biggest guy, he's got thousands, thousands of days' worth of wolves eating on videotape. Never saw them eating the stomach contents. It's a thing put out there. The wolves go straight for the stomach contents, it's the first thing they eat. Nonsense. It's the last thing they eat. They don't eat it all. They might eat the fat in the belly on the outside, the tripe, but not the contents. So you guys have talked me into eating the intestines. I said, okay, I can buy that because it's poo-like stuff and the intestines are covered in fat. I mean, it's where all the immune system is, lovely adipose tissue, great. So maybe, and so I could go for that maybe of a rabbit, nothing, no animal much bigger, but the poo thing is interesting. So studies show that proper feral dogs in food-poor areas like the free-roaming dogs in Zimbabwe, about 30% of their diet is poo, 30% of their diet are largely human poo too because it's very nutritious, full of protein. So, and they're after the protein, so that is a pretty horrific diet. They feed on dumps and they eat poo. So, but this is not to be suggested that that is a really great diet. If they had meat instead, I'm sure they'd choose it, but they are very more than happy to eat poo and eat different types of poo. And the jury's completely out why they do it. We don't know why they do it. Do they eat cat poo because cats are fed more indigestible protein in their dry food, so their poos have more protein in them? So the dogs, dry-fed dogs, we would have thought would eat those poos. Or is it postbiotics, as Bren was saying, and hindgut fermenters have more vitamin E and vitamin K in their poo apparently, and so would that be attractive to dogs? Why not? And the bacteria themselves and yeasts and God knows what the dog can smell from that poo. And we hear stories of dogs only eating poo from the unwormed horses. So this lady was worried about what those animals have been fed, but on a farm where they don't worm the horses, some get chemical worms and some don't, the dogs only eat the unwormed horses, so they avoid the chemicals, chemically de-wormed horses. I thought that was interesting. So the poo thing's very interesting. The fact that both your dogs are doing it though, if they're doing a lot of poo eating, I'm thinking, you know, what's going on, buddy? My dog is a pooist of the highest order. He really is. He just loves eating it. He'll roll in it. He just obviously does it. I have been triple pooed by Dudley before where he rolled in it, ate it, and then pooed, and I had to carry it home in a hot car. So, you know, he is a pooist of the highest order. And I think, is it because he's got some sort of deficiency, you know, mentally and as well as now physically?

But so, you know, they reflect their owners.

Yeah, yeah, but I'm not eating poo, Bren. They're rolling in it for some reason. So look, I think that maybe what I would do is I would explore it. I'd say, okay, because both dogs are doing it, I'd say, you know, they learn from each other. There's a big behavioral thing. If you lock a dog in a Perspex box in a pet shop window, they'll start eating their own poo. And eating their own poo is just plain weird. And that's when you know you've got a bit of a behavioral thing. That's not normal at all. So it's like your pups have been raised in a box in a barn at the end of someone's garden, and these dogs will come out eating their own poo. That's when you know this hasn't been a pup that's been running around in someone's kitchen. But so I would say I would change the food. I would cycle through the foods and go, okay, let's just pretend this might be something going on in the guts and they're trying to rectify it by eating poo like a probiotic. And so change your supplier. Don't just be wedded to one company. Change the supplier, change your flavor, go from lamb to turkey. Do you do this on venison? Do you do this on whitefish? You know, and cycle it up, because as you cycle it up, you also expand the species richness of the gut flora. So if the gut flora thing— so I'm kind of hoping that. And then you can also add in groovy things to the dog's diet, little bits of kelp and little bits of spirulina. Do you want some spirulina paste, dog? You know, is there something missing from this diet? But cycling through the flavors would be my thing. Because I would like it to reduce. The human poo thing is gross, but it can happen. But you would like all that poo eating to decrease. I see it as a little bit of a thermometer. It's not all— is not totally well here, I think. What about you guys?

I'd love to say that, you know, one thing to consider adding in is a little bit of fermented veg. Have a look at what happens with the postbiotic effects and that side of things.

Yeah, let us know.

Do that and then see if that reduces their desire to take up other animal species including human, then that would also be an interesting thing. So just have a look at that, just add those bits in there, may make a difference, a bit like microbiome change and that side of things. And then if that works, we can have a little experiment of whether feeding contents of rumen actually is an option.

Oh, that's a good product, moving contents in a pill.

There's several things that come to mind there. So number one is that anybody listening to this tonight, Tuesday 24th, or beyond, if you've got a poo eater, please just try and get some fermented veggies into them. All you have to do is go down to the supermarket, pick up some sauerkraut without too much salt, and add that to the diet for maybe a Okay, cheap, easy, and let us know whether that makes a difference. The second thing is, I've been thinking about this, the, the whole whether we can add rumen contents or upper small intestinal contents to the canine diet, because back in the old days, Bren, you might remember this, remember LeoCud?

Yes, LEO code. Yes.

Okay, so basically, guys, they, they used to have— this is— so they used to have packs like this. This is, this is Vermet, with whom I work, so I'll give them a little plug. But they used to have little packs of this dried kind of green powdery material. And what they did, the people at LEO, they were a kind of pharmaceutical brand back in the old days, and they would take intestinal contents, rumen contents from cows, and they would heat it, dry it, heat it very gently because they don't want to kill the bugs, and put it in little bags and then resell that. It's probably the best selling opportunity in the world because they take this stuff that abattoirs just pay to get rid of and they resell it back to vets. I mean, the profit margin is probably bigger than cocaine, for goodness sake.

Yeah, it didn't work.

It was, you know, what profit margins on cocaine are.

This was in the really early days, possibly within the veterinary world, one of the earliest examples of probiotics. So you've got a cow and she has had loads of antibiotics because she's had mastitis or whatever, and her rumen was a bit wrong. And so what we used to do is we used to drench them with the Leo curd to see if we can get the bacterial fermentation going again. And my fantasy is that— and I've even looked into it— is to get this pack, to get some Leo curd, and you just sprinkle it on the dog's dinner as a probiotic. But nobody's doing it. It's my idea, so if anybody does it, I would like an at least a little 5% of every sale for the idea.

I have to, I have to do this question or I'm dead. Oh, I have thought of something. I've thought of something. Go ahead and listen tonight. Okay, it's gonna— I'm trying to think of a question that you can't just Google straight away. Here, here it is. I'm not sure if everybody is aware, but they don't vary the sizes of vaccines given to dogs. And I would say most of us have heard that before. I had heard before until someone said to me, they don't actually vary the dose between adults and puppies. And I'm thinking, whoa, hang on there a second. They don't vary the dose between an adult Great Dane and a Chihuahua puppy? So yes is the answer. They do not. They give the same dose to a Chihuahua puppy and a Great Dane. So my question for you, which won't take you long to figure out, but the first person to email us Let me use my email, info@dogsfirst.ie. Use Karen's email. Sorry, Karen. So info@dogsfirst.ie. So info@dogsfirst.ie, if you can pop that up in the bottom of the screen, Bren. First person to email the answer to this question. Can you believe, first of all, that they will give the same dose to a Great Dane as they would a Chihuahua puppy? They are that utterly in dis— like, just, oh, it's perfectly fine, totally safe, when the side effect studies dominate for toy dogs, by the way. I mean, it's no secret, you all the same amount of adjuvant going into each animal. I mean, to this, the same response. So here's the question, um, in terms of ratio of a Chihuahua puppy, okay, when it's born, in weight, in ounces, because we're talking to America really here mainly, Chihuahua puppy in ounces, to an adult Great Dane. How many more times is that animal, Great Dane, bigger than a Chihuahua pup? And then take your answer and tell me in relation to me and how many African elephants. That dose of a Chihuahua puppy to a Great Dane adult, give me the same as me to how many African elephants. I have the number written down, I can show you, but you won't go too far wrong because you can argue about the way— how many African elephants and me is the same amount of vaccination? For me to listen to the same response from 5 African elephants. Do you understand?

You're on the end of a camera, so nobody knows truly how big you are in volume because you could be a really little man. Yeah, on a very big camera.

Okay, I'll bet you approximately— I am a 90-kilo male, so I'm 180-200 pounds.

90 kilos?

92, 93 kilos. I'm trying to think of the maths here. 200 pounds, let's say, let's say 200 pounds, uh, a 200-pound, uh, mammal I am compared to an African elephant. How many African elephants if I was the Chihuahua puppy? Okay, do you understand? If you don't understand, tough luck, you're out of the game.

Just say it again, just, just very—

same amount of vaccine is given to an adult Great Dane as it is a Chihuahua puppy, okay, when it's born, if you can, okay. So how many more times is a Chihuahua puppy when it's born, although I know it's 8 weeks by the time it gets the vaccination, who cares.

How heavy is that? How heavy is that?

I'm not telling you. So you can just Google all that. So the average weight of a brand new Chihuahua puppy and an adult Great Dane.

Let's say 8 weeks, 8 weeks.

No, it's too late for that. I'm saying brand new puppy because I've got the figure already written down and done. So it's a brand new, brand new, brand new puppy and an overzealous breeder vaccinating him as soon as he comes out of the womb. And a Great Dane adult is how many more times bigger? Okay, they're roughly that much. And in comparison to me, a 200-pound human, how many African— that makes sense— how many African elephants? It's not a million, you know what I mean? So I've got the odd number in my head. Whoever hits that number, if they— we will— if a lot of people hit that answer, we're in big trouble.

So please be within reach of California.

Yeah, it's just a whole number of elephants. It's not like, you know, 17.2. You know, it's like, just give me the whole number of elephants and I'll let you know how many.

Yeah, yeah. But please also be able to get to California on—

Oh yeah, yeah. If you're in it, you want to win it.

Like a smart ass, if you can't get to San Diego for— when is it? The 5th?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

So guys, we have a number of questions. It's now 1946. So we're going to jump to Patreon. Does Love Is Love here has Lovely name, there you go. I wonder, is that her first and second name, Love McLovin? She has a question about weight control, 21-pound dog not losing weight and stubbornly holding on to her weight. It's not a thyroid issue. I'm not surprised the vets would go there first with blood work and thyroid and stuff, and I just want to— we'll nail down the diet for that. And there was another question here, that with this lady, Susie Ball, talking about acidity and its relation to kind of kidney disease, this drug rantidine And one more question about kidney cysts. I have to— I don't even know what a kidney cyst is. So if we can get those 3 questions done in 5 minutes each over on Patreon, it will be a major success. And weight control, kidney cysts, pH question about diet.

And lastly, just for Elizabeth, could you repeat what the prize is? Is it a single ticket? Is it a pair of tickets? One ticket.

One ticket.

They have to be a lonely person.

They have to be a person and their husband can wait outside in the car, or a partner or a wife or whoever gets— whoever wins. But just because our following tends to be 90-95% females, uh, who knows. So, uh, if you get driven or you're going to be traveling on your own, but it's one ticket, it's one ticket, and there'll be plenty of us around to make friends with. You'll see millions of us. Absolutely. It's always a good crowd.

So, uh, yeah, uh, and sorry for those people that said, um, Yeah, I've managed to confuse the confused Conor about his question, so I do apologize.

There's no point posting your answers up here, guys. The answer has to be emailed to info@dogsforastudy. All questions anywhere else, anywhere else you post that answer, it'll be ignored. Info@dogsforastudy.

Barbara Henderson, I think she's being a smartass. She says, is that male or female African elephant?

I don't know.

Here we go.

I think she's very astute.

I think there'll be a jury out as to whether his answers are true.

Oh, here we go again.

Are males— who's bigger? A lot bigger. And yet the females lead the charge. The matriarchs rule the roost.

It's the same in humans, Conor, have you not noticed?

Not in my house, mate. Only messing with 3 of them, of course they do.

Okay, listen, let's go to Patreon.

Right, cheers.

Wonderful.

Thanks everybody.

Bye everyone, take care.

Thank you.