QnA with RawPetMedics

again. It is warm. I mean, we're 4 minutes late here, boys, and if I had another 2 minutes, I'd run to the next room, grab the fan, because that would be very pleasant.

Oh, I love a fan.

And it would be very nice, like, having your hair blown to one side as you go, you know. Oh, sorry guys, didn't want to upset you.

Yeah, that's quite a difficult start to the show. I remember my hair blowing.

Guys, we are Raw Pet Medics and we are delighted to be here. We really want to thank everybody on Patreon for supporting us. They give us the price of a cup of tea or a pint, whatever your, whatever your thing is, and we really, really, really thank them. And we're also on podcasts wherever you fancy, and we're also on YouTube, and you can find us easily, Raw Pet Medics, when you go to YouTube. Please, you know, follow, fancy Click the button, do everything that you need to do and what have you. And this evening, I am pleased to say that my wife's very own company called DermaDog, who do amazing essential oils, essential oil-based liquid soaps and anti-flea and tick products like that. Yes, yes, yes, there they are. And Um, what happens is we test products on the children before we send them out to you. So it's that— it's a nice twist on the whole vivisection thing. Check them out, dermadog.com. Really nice handmade product. I know they're handmade because she makes them on the kitchen table right below where I'm sitting on a regular basis. So all good, and thank you very much to Ellie. Um, There we go. Gents, what's up? What's up?

What's popping, as they say? Yeah, very little. I've been out for the weekend. I was in a lovely hotel just south of my house here by about 50 clicks for my mum's birthday. And we're there for a couple of days. And I was up in a friend's house sitting beside two vets at a wedding. And so three nights in a row. Yes. I was like, oh, you don't know who I am. That's great. Definitely going. Anyway, they're all pals, so it's good fun. So that was my 3 days of the weekend. I have to say it's hard to do 3 days in a row, so I've been trying to be good, but it's a very quick, slippery slope. And then so hence I'm probably still on the beer. But yeah. What about you, Brent? What have you been up to?

I'm doing a bit of prep work. Do you know why?

Why?

Your lovely— I'm not going to say nemesis. Your lovely person who loves to try and bait you into a bit of a challenge.

Just a name beginning with C?

No, no, it's— well, anyway, he is doing a BVA podcast, and I've been asked by Bella and Duke to appear to discuss about the pros and cons of raw And so, and we've been issued with questions. They are a little loaded, I will say. However, you know, we have been given final approval of what goes out eventually. And we are, so it's himself and the good lady nurse from Liverpool University.

Gemma. Gemma?

Yeah. So is it Mike himself and, or is it Kev Fett? From over in the US. Kepler?

No, no, it's Mike.

Oh, very good. Oh, well, good on him.

We will see.

We can do part 2 of the pros and cons of dry food afterwards. That'd be interesting to see if he turns up for that one. So that would be good on you. Good on you, Ben.

So we're looking forward to that. So I don't know when it'll go out, probably middle of the summer in the holidays when nobody's watching.

I'll be watching.

That's very cool. And this weekend, guys, on Saturday, I will be doing a presentation live. Haven't done one for a long time, possibly, well, almost since the beginning of COVID because we used to do them all the time then. It's going to be, I think, in Basildon, but don't hold me to that. They are called Embark on Raw, and the two fabulous owners of Embark on Raw is Dave and Andrea Fletcher. So if you're interested, check out Embark on Raw and go to to the Facebook page and all the details are there and come along. Yeah, there's a few seats left in Basildon. I think it's Basildon. I should have that information at my fingertips. Oh, Basildon in Essex.

In Essex. Oh, very good.

Yeah. So just on east, east of London. So come along. It's going to be a hoot. It's going to be a hoot.

Lovely. Sounds nice. While we're plugging events, if you check out my Instagram page yesterday, I will be over in San Diego at the Feed Real conference. And there is €15 off with my early bird tickets that only last 48 hours or something. So they do that at the very start to get a flurry of tickets in. And that is on in October, on the 10th, on the 11th of October for a couple of days. So check it out on my Instagram page. There's a little code there. There's a link. And that is awesome. It's going to be in this gorgeous new venue. And if it's anything like the last venue, it's going to be a savage.

And just before we go any further, if we suddenly go dead, guys, I'm really sorry, but Spider has decided that this is the most interesting thing to come and watch right now. So she is currently rubbing along all of the keys on the Mac to see which one does what. So if we suddenly go dead, do apologize. I will be back shortly.

You be cat related. Can I, guys, before we jump into— it's Q&A tonight. And before we jump into this, can I just share this video by Tina, by Purple Vet on Instagram? I thought it was wonderful. It's only 30 seconds long.

We like Tina. She's great. Yeah. Well done, Tina.

Yeah, let's see if you can see my screen.

Um, yeah, I'll do solo in a moment. There you go, you can see it. Yeah, we can hear you.

If everybody can hear it, I'll turn up the volume. Let's press play. I asked ChatGPT a question and I want you to hear their answer. So my question was, hypothetically, if you were to build a society where pets are as chronically ill as humans are, that would keep them coming back to the vets for more expensive drugs, but never truly heal, how would you do it?

1. Foundational beliefs and culture. Normalization of pet ailments. Begin with widespread messaging that chronic illness in pets—diabetes, arthritis, allergies, anxiety—is normal, part of domestication and aging. Start 2. Industrial pet food and medication. Nutritionally inadequate diets. Mass-produced pet food high in fillers, preservatives and allergens that slowly damage health while appearing wholesome. Overmedication culture: introduce preventative treatments that cause side effects, leading to secondary prescriptions, creating a feedback loop. Proprietary drugs: develop veterinary-only medications that are expensive, patented, and require lifetime use. Corporate vet chains: centralized clinics under a few corporations to streamline profits, standardize treatment packages, ages and suppress independent vets. Regulatory capture: place pharmaceutical reps and agribusiness insiders in animal health boards to influence standards and suppress holistic alternatives. 4. Suppression of alternatives: marginalization of holistic and raw feeding practices. Label holistic vets and alternative pet diets as pseudoscientific or dangerous.

I asked that— that is I knew you'd like that, Nick. Oh my goodness.

I'm going to go and find her and I'm going to ping that out to the world.

Yeah, it's fab. Now listen, the ChatGPT, just like YouTube and like everything else, it will start to learn how you want answers. Like sometimes it will source Wikipedia to me or reference something and I'll say, hey, do me a favor, don't ever use that again. And so it learns, you know, So, but still, I would say a hefty chunk of that is right on the money, no matter which one of us was to type that in. But please, guys, go out there, ask ChatGPT yourself. Let's see your answers. Post it up on social media and see how close to that answer it is. That will be a wonderful thing to do. And let's saturate the airwaves a little bit. And mention us.

I've just been asked by Walkable Medics. We were on Facebook Live at 7:00 PM UK time every week. To do the following. That'd be really nice.

Who wants to kick us off? Who's got a question?

Okay, I've got a question. Next Q&A master. I really, really like—

okay, here you go. I've got some great questions here. Thank you to Karen, who is the question maestress, and she has sent over some really good questions here. So first one is from Jackie. I feed a commercial raw 80/10/10. That means 80% meat, 10% bone, 10% organ meat and nothing else, says Jackie. Will my dogs be lacking much? If I add everything in that has been suggested to me, I would be feeding 10 kilograms of additives. Completely correct, Jackie. So boys, I think we can take a big old slice of that each and even answer exactly the same things and still cover different stuff. So, Bren, where are you with that?

Well, No, I'll let Conor go. But did we not sort of talk about this a bit last week? We did, yeah. I'm going to be brief. Yeah, sorry.

Yeah, I'll be brief. Let's just recap.

Yeah, okay. I'm going to stay very repeating.

Yeah, indeed, Nick, indeed. I would say a post went out last week by a company, by a respected pet food company, and they were saying that 80/10/10s are not complete, that they can often lack crucial nutrients, and that the dogs will suffer as a result. So that went out and then a lot of gets the conversation flowing. So that's why we're probably talking about this again and why raw feeders are a bit rattled. And I would say watch last week where we talked about the fact that the vitamins and minerals listed by the company as being deficient are far from it. And this is the whole point of this formula that I'm working on. When you look at the fact that vitamin D is many times too high because of a number of different reasons, why the zinc oxide, the zinc levels are twice as high than they should be We all think we're deficient in manganese, but there's very little manganese in meat and hair and hide and prey animals compared to what AFGO-FEDIAF want. This is a hangover from the fact that they make this George Jetson mix of poorly absorbed minerals, and then they know that methionine and vitamin E and whatnot are annihilated by processing. So they have to include a certain amount so that they hope that the bit at the end, those figures are pre-processing with hard to digest synthetic minerals. They bear no relevance to fresh food. So if you're feeding an 80/10/10 and you're varying it up and adding in bits and pieces, I would worry about that as much as I worry about it in the kids. We at the moment are using incorrect figures that don't bear relevance to what we're doing. And so I hope that puts your mind at some ease. And that's me done. Cool.

Bren? So, look, you know, I absolutely have gone through the ups and downs of this as to initially just doing— well, look, vary the diet, consider some 8:10:10s, just keep thinking about protein mixes and moving through. Don't just give one thing over and over again. And for years, absolutely had no problems with that. And then, you know, talking to a lot of the guys in America and the people that do ADF, obviously they have to go to a standard. And there's a lot of vets out there wanting to know that you know, are you over these bare minimums? And so went through the whole process of designing a diet. And sure enough, it gets quite difficult to achieve all of those without going through some degree of fortification.

Even though those standards, as Conor was saying, are bogus. Yeah, absolutely. But those are still— those are the standards.

Yeah. But that's still seen, unfortunately, by a lot of the profession and therefore the Department of Agriculture. Yeah, and therefore people in government, as this is what is required. I would say on reflection that over the years, have I seen deficiency having fed dogs, you know, my own dogs, you know, with the varied diets for the best part of 20 years over the whole, but for the ones that are going 14 for one and, you know, 11 for another. And then yes, the young pup who's, you know, not quite 2 yet. Have I seen them in dire straits because of dietary deficiency? Absolutely not.

Or even minor problems, minor problems like a little bit of eczema or whatever.

So I do reflect and go, I understand why there's a standard and I understand that there is a lot of work that needs to go in to relook at that. But I would say for the majority, the key bits are try and give some variety. Don't get tied down with umpteen different supplements at this point. I think the only thing that is a real bugbear of mine, and you've heard me say it 1,000 times, and I'm sure you'll hear me say it 1,000 times more, we've done away with brain material from our farming animals, and therefore you have to replace some omega-3s somewhere within their diet. And that's probably the one thing that I say, you know, I wish we had access to more brain material because I think that would make a massive difference.

I totally agree with that. I was going to say, I think these things— I think every diet can benefit from omega-3, that is kind of fish oils. That's the most easily available wild salmon or herring or krill or, you know, whatever, whatever you can get hold of. I think that's a really good idea. Algal is interesting. That's coming up. It's quite a new kid on the block, but so far it's looking good. They used to be low in DHA, high in EPA, but maybe not so good. But I think they're managing to balance that.

It's interesting, isn't it? Because there is a lot of algal oil companies out there that actually do just say they've refined out the DHA and they just declare DHA on the—

they didn't have the species, they couldn't, they didn't have a species that produced enough EPA. Now they found a way to do it as of about 4 or 5 years ago.

But it's only a few that are doing it. So do watch if you're going for an algal oil.

Does it declare both on the label? You need both guys. EPA, EPA and DHA. You need both of those. Remember the, the— what's the— remember the things I can't remember? No, no, no. What's— what do you call it when you do DNA? Yeah. Deoxyribonucleic acid. DNA is a short—

yeah, it's a short— it's short for something. It's like, what's E.T. short for? Acronym. Acronym. Yeah.

ET is short for what?

An acronym. It's a joke. What is ET short for? And everyone tries to say extraterrestrial, and you go, no, he's got little legs. You know the way he's got tiny legs? Oh well, it works. I don't get it.

You'll have to explain that later.

Oh no.

Going back to where you could join in conversations, Nick, you got to stop watching TV.

Yeah. Okay. I'd rather eat my toes.

Okay.

So, okay. So it's so for me, I think some fish oil is a great idea. And the next thing would be, I think, NHSS, nuts blitzed, ideally soaked overnight, nuts, herbs, anything you fancy. Go easy on the rosemary for epileptic dogs. Seeds, anything you fancy, put them in the blender, blitz them up because dogs will just take them in and they'll just go straight out the back end. And spices, nothing too spicy, but there's a whole range from turmeric to fenugreek to anything, anything that— cloves, beautiful. Oh, amazing. And I've just seen a study today where they say that dandelion root can reduce colon cancer cells in the gut within 48 hours. Yeah. So highly cleansing, highly clean. I don't think it will cure you in 48 hours, but I think it will begin to mop things up even in 48 hours, which is very good. However, no, you can make coffee. I've just ordered some coffee because I drink my coffee really early to get it out of the way. So I'm not, you know, pacing the floor at 9 o'clock in the afternoon, in the evening. And I'm thinking it'd be really nice to have something big, thick, and, and, and, and delicious that's coffee-esque. So I've got some dandelion coffee. And of course it's a great liver cleanse, isn't it?

Totally.

Yeah, yeah, liver and kidney. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, very much so, very much so.

Caroline Crosby, I've heard fish oils go off very quickly. Yeah, they did a study of UK, Irish, EU fish oils and they found 50% of them were at their point of oxidization. So, they were gonna take more from your body than they're gonna give you. And 10% of them are outright dangerous. So, the fish oil industry has some major problems. Don't buy the one in the pump squirt bottle that goes, and then goes, sucks the oxygen in. Don't buy big, huge bottles. Avoid plastic because plastic is breathable. So, get little brown jars with enough for 30, 40, 50 days in, keep them in the fridge, get through them. Don't just leave them at ambient temperature. Fats hate being outside the body. So, you're right, Caroline, to buy small amounts, go through them quickly, Small little capsules, keep them in a brown jar in the fridge. That's what they like. Light, heat, air. Those three things are going to make your fat bad for you. So yeah, good, good.

Now if they're capsulated, there are some companies that will foil seal the individual capsules.

Oh yeah. NutriVet. Yeah, we use a thing called NutriCoat, which is a sardine oil, and therefore it's low mercury and it's high potency. So if you need some of that, you can have a look on the Holistic Vet shop, Holistic Vet shop. It's quite sponsorship rich.

It is, yeah. Does DermaDog link to you? I think we just got money for Nick for the DermaDog bit.

We'll edit out. All right, okay, I'll hide that again then.

Yeah, but that was on podcast, guys.

We're looking for sponsors. If you know a company who would like to sponsor us, we will, if we like what they do and we like that they're very rigorous we are happy to share the joy with them. Yeah, absolutely.

Love promoting a good company. What's next, Nick? I've got one. It's the same question that keeps coming up again and again and again. It's bilious vomiting. It's vomiting, a little bit of vomit early in the morning. We've done this 2 or 3 times, but it's so common. Do you want to just give us 30 seconds each on what you would do? Why is it happening? This particular lady had tried, has tried everything, and invariably they have. And they still get these little hunger pukes. This lady's now feeding at nighttime to try and reduce it in the morning time. Yeah. Has tried shifting diets. Why is this happening?

Okay, I'm going to jump in there because I had a case today where dog's never had hunger pukes, more or less. No, bilious vomiting syndrome, which is bringing up usually on an empty stomach first thing in the morning, kind of yellow, biley, maybe a bit of frothy, and then dog feels better after that and what have you. So What happened with the dog that I was talking about was never really had it consistently, and then on the 10th of January, he started consistently with bilious vomiting syndrome. And that suddenly made me think, and I've been talking about BVD since college. I remember people describing bilious— I just love the name and the concept— bilious vomiting syndrome at college. I was sitting there in third year maybe, and that was it. So I've been I've been thinking about it ever since, but suddenly struck me today that what can make a gut, because it's a whole gut thing, go from no bilious vomiting to bilious vomiting? And because the treatment is usually just feeds, feeds significant food late at night, and that keeps the stomach happy and you don't get bilious vomiting. Easy peasy. But what about the cause of it? And this was the spark that I needed because I'm not very quick, obviously. Don't say anything, you two. And I think that this dog got hold of something absolutely disgusting. In fact, he did. Yeah, the owners, we had a discussion over what I'm not even going to say because it's so disgusting. He got hold of something really disgusting the week before, and then on the 10th of January started with this thing, and his gut has been a disaster ever since. And so it made me think, if you increase the inflammation from the stomach to the rectum, just a tiny bit, 1, 2, 3% because of an infection or change of biome or whatever it might be, that might be enough to just disrupt it overnight such that you go, blah. That's my thought. Bren, what do you reckon?

Yeah, well, it sort of ties in, doesn't it, to that whole thing about sealing, sealing, healing the gut. You know, we all talk about sealing the gut. And actually, you know, this is why for those people that have this problem, I am an advocate of just, you know, if you want to give them some supper, just give them some bone broth. Don't sort of like give them a whole meal. You know, guys, I'm also into intermittent fasting and varying times. I never stick to a rigid sort of, they must be fed at 9 AM and 5 PM. I just can't do that. That's not who I am. And therefore my dogs do tend to adapt really well to having a varied time to eat. And therefore I've not been unfortunate to have that problem. However, I've just got my ancient Labrador who's decided to—

I can hear her.

We can hear her. She's just decided to come in the room and go, "Is it tea time?

Did somebody say food?" She sounds like me walking up the stairs. Just stop hating yourself that you're panting.

Has she got a bit of laryngeal paralysis, Brent? She has, yeah. She's paresis.

Fortunately, she's not too bad, but yeah, she has that dreaded Labrador affliction.

You can hear it, guys. If you heard that, especially the guys on the podcast, because they'd be concentrating on the sound. That's what they— Sorry, Pete. Yeah, sorry, Pete.

He doesn't need to be in the background having a heavy breathing session.

Yeah, it doesn't sound like we've gotten to the bottom of it really, why this pops up.

There is a solution, i.e., filling the belly before bed, but yeah, you're right, it's still very strange.

I'm not sure, I'm not convinced that that ever is a solution. I think that either pushes it down the road or I still have some that will have a degree of this, you know, despite—

it's not a fix. It's not a fix. It's like a plaster. It's like, yeah, but why is it happening? I feel like there's something up there that we're missing. So look, what would an obstruction cause? Am I right in thinking that an obstruction kind of results in a smellier, worse vomit? Like, what's the difference between that sort of vomiting that you'd see in somebody with an obstruction?

Oh my goodness. Well, I mean, there's a whole pile of things. Firstly, if there's nothing coming out the back end or indeed watery diarrhea coming out the back end, then obviously I'd consider about obstruction, especially if they're vomiting. But they're usually vomiting all the time, whereas the sort of hunger pukes is only when they've had a lack of food. So obstruction usually—

Hunger pukes or bilious vomiting?

Yeah, or bilious vomiting.

Well, why is that? What's the difference?

Maybe they are related. That's really interesting. Yeah, I think so. Such simple questions. But they are, they are so simple. Everybody overlooks them. I think we should go there, actually.

Changing, changing the diet in my experience, because I don't know what it is. I never know. It's always, always annoys me when the question comes up. But messing around with the diet and making all those sort of changes often can put it to bed. And it starts with late night feeding, but then it's like, okay, let's just move things around. Let's just try something completely different and see what happens. Maybe they've been stuck on the same brand, the same flavor for for too long, you know, and you suspect, okay, it's just not a very happy gut. And so let's just move things around and make the gut happy again. And then sometimes it goes away and I'm just crossing my fingers, you know, you go, oh, that was a close one. And then other times it hangs around and that really bothers me because I have no idea where that one comes from.

So it's a strange one. Maybe it's persistent inflammation. I would just put that out there as a hypothesis that you're not getting on top of it. I'm equally guilty. And I do think feeding late at night will help. About 60% would be my thought. But you've got those 40% that you need to go further. Maybe it's just there's something— could be yeast, for example. Maybe it's just holding that inflammation. And, you know, whatever causes inflammation in the gut, I think, is my new thought. Could be behind the whole thing in that you can't really find it. You do a scope, nothing really, because you're not going to see 3, 4, 5% inflammation. It's only going to be visible when you're at 20+ percent, you know, oh, a little bit inflamed maybe, you know. And until you do histology, even then you might not hit the right bit.

So yeah, you know, I feel like it'll be an inflammatory a little gut issue, like the way H. pylori for gastric ulcers. It'll be some sort of little thing like that where some little critter is in the wrong place at the wrong time, growing in the wrong numbers.

Totally agree. But it's not going to be just one critter causes bilious vomiting syndrome. It's going to be these are the infectious causes, these are the nutritional causes, these are the toxic causes, these are the psychological causes, you know, IBS type scenario, those kind of things. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Let's move on. Let's move on. We've just passed the half past, half past the hour. So, 2 questions. Not bad. We're doing good. Right. Lelia or Lelia. Not quite sure how to say that. Forgive me. Lelia? Nope. Lelia.

Lelia. Got me on my knees, Lelia.

Okay, Lelia says, my Cavalier gets extremely itchy from fleas, and the vet claims the sprays simply do nothing. Okay, there's two fantastic extreme perspectives. Starting to believe this myself, as fleas always come back in the summer. That's interesting. I'd love to comment on that, as does her scratching. Vet gave her Cytapoint and allergy itching stopped. Surprise, surprise. Diet contained all the foods that I've read to deter fleas. There's another point. Sprays are sprayed correctly and constantly. What are we supposed to do? Right, I think that is a rich smorgasbord of things to target, on which to aim. Let's— so if— how about I'm just going to be a little bossy today. My Cavalier gets extremely itchy and fleas, and the vet claims the sprays simply do nothing. I'm, I'm not sure which sprays you're talking about. Are we talking about Frontline, which is a pharmaceutical spray which is pretty much— has it, has its dates? There are many fleas who do not respond to that. Or are they sprays like these kind of things? And the beauty of these kind of things is it's impossible for those to get resistant problem. You can't get fleas resistant to this because it's got so many chemicals that they're never going to do it.

But what do you reckon, boys? And it won't— and your products won't poison rivers and streams, take life, and it won't poison your children or your children or your husband or whatever. Pleasant side effect of using natural products. Yeah. Yeah. So sometimes you can get these breakthrough infections. There's a lady out there, Barbara, and she's the most natural-minded, you know, dog owner. Just all doing it all our life, way before we even thought of it. And, uh, and she, she was plagued with fleas for a couple of seasons in a row, and she said she nearly went mad. And so tearing the house up, you know, like hoovering and everything she could do to try and stop the fleas, but the fleas came into the house. And she said with 4 dogs, it was to the point that she was considering digging up her garden because there was various bits of advice saying that there's a— so, uh, I learned from her that even when you do everything right, for some inexplicable reason in the healthiest dogs in England that this set in. So I was quite surprised by that because I was sure if you kept that dog nice and healthy that the fleas would be more of a symptom of something than anything else because Dudley doesn't get fleas and when he does get fleas I'll probably go, why have you got fleas, bud? I kind of look at fleas in my inexperience because I haven't had them in the house. I would look at fleas like I do mange on a dog in kennels. You know, you see this dog that's been rescued off the streets and fed crap, no sleep, abused, and you know, she's sitting against the wall and she's shut down and mange is coming down her head, you know, demodex. So I'm thinking, is fleas a symptom, a biological indicator that all is not well? This is one last bit here. Michelle on YouTube says, have you heard about CatOnDog? It's an antiparasitic medlet, uses electromagnetic technology to keep fleas and ticks away. My dog's been wearing it for 3 months and yay, so far no fleas. So that's interesting. I think there's a range of natural products you can try from Nix Fleas stuff to the electromagnetic stuff, to amber, to wunderscheid to siederscheid, charged beads. Nick is holding up beads. EM beads. EM beads, there you go. Did they do some witchcraft on them? And so I think they're all worth a shot, but am I right in thinking that they are more a symptom or are some dogs more prone or why is her dogs experiencing this?

I'd also say that just, you know, I've got a wonderful case which, sort of almost proves this point. We've talked about the midge and mosquito issue in humans where some people are absolutely bait for them. Okay. And some of us just might get a red dot, but very little else there and often won't get the bites at all. And this case that I think of is every time she comes into season, then she attracts fleas. Wow. So if she goes in the local park, she'll pick up fleas, and as soon as she comes out of season, the fleas just go. Fabulous. No surprises there. Just to say what you were saying there, Conor, now what classically you'd say in those circumstances, you know, for them to get pregnant, they suppress their immune system so that they're not going to reject the fetuses, etc. So it just makes you wonder if those hormones are suppressing her immune system, making it so it's not quite as good as it should be. And therefore, on top of that, blood flow, scent, pheromones, all of those things that may attract those fleas into the situation in the home. Yeah. And, you know, as you pointed out, the environmental controls are really important. There's the, these larvae that you can put into the nematodes that will actually attack the larvae and things like that in your soil, in your soil, not in your carpet. Well, I don't know, I wonder whether you could spray those in your carpet.

That would be interesting. C. elegans, is it C. elegans? What's the name of that nematode?

Yeah, so there's things like that. Obviously there are a variety of silicone sprays to try and stop those eggs and larvae hatching out, and so the pupae hatching out of the fleas, which some people would consider is a lesser chemical option. There are different repellents, and I would say, look, if you have tried, say, just rosemary and lavender, and, you know, consider a different option if it's not working for your dog. There may be a different combination. DermaDog's great with rose geranium, cedar side, I think there is in there, lemongrass, you know, those sort of things in there. Some people mix them up themselves. Sometimes it is a case of, look, don't just put it on once a week. You know, if you're in peak season and there's a big issue going on, then you can apply it daily. You know, you can give it a good rub in to get it on there. Yeah, those are, those are options. I use combinations for ticks in certain areas because I don't trust just one thing. So I will use the DermaDog's tick stuff, but often if I'm going from here and moving to the Lake District where I know it's hooching with deer ticks, I will put on one of the EM bead collars and I will use the DermaDog and I may use one of the tags as well and I'm still taking my little tick hook to remove the ticks, you know, because you never know. It's, it's down to what is going on. As Conor says, with the attractiveness of your dog at that point in time.

Remember, we were in South Africa there recently. We googled a hell of a lot of reasons why I might be more— why I react more to mozzie bites. So it's not that I get bitten more than you. It could be that you get bitten the same amount as me, but my reaction is so bad that I get the welts and then I get at them. And we came across 3 or 4 gems that I wanted to write a post on, but I can't remember What were the reasons that some people have been found to be significantly more prone to the reaction to the mozzie bites? Well, it was interesting, wasn't it?

Because in that article search, there was some articles which said, look, if you're a type O, then you are going to attract more mosquito bites than somebody who's an A positive. Yeah, that was one. Yeah. And then we started to discuss, but actually it's not just the bites. It's not just the attractiveness, it's also the reaction. And then there's that genetic component of are you likely to form a histamine, your mast cell reaction to those bites more likely, which is far more irritating. And then it's a case of, well, if you're an O type blood, is that your genetic typing is also going to be more predisposed to mast cell activation and that side of thing against those bites. So is that true? Is it a merging across or misunderstanding of why O type blood groups are more likely to be bitten?

Is that true? Do O types react more?

Do they produce more histamine? That was where we'd got to. We hadn't gone to finish it off. So you can look that up right now live and share it with our audience. What about you, Nick?

What are you thinking for a dog that just keeps on getting fleas? What goes through your mind?

Okay, the first thing is I find it remarkable that every summer she is getting fleas. Okay, because what normally happens with my patients is that, you know, they're raw fed, they're doing everything correct, and they haven't had fleas for 5 years, and then all of a sudden they get hit. So the fact it's coming back every summer, makes me kind of suspicious as to what might be happening. I'm not sure which country, uh, Lilia might be in. It might be that it's in the States and therefore it's guaranteed to be really hot for 2, 3 months of the summer. That— so that would be a factor.

All year round if you're in Florida.

All year round if you're in Florida. Apparently fleas are just absolutely ferocious in Florida. You can— estate agents have this thing where if the apartment that they've just been into had a dog and the apartment's been empty for maybe 3 months. Estate agent walks in, maybe wearing like pale chinos, and then suddenly below the knee, their legs become black with fleas.

These starving fleas go, ah, body to eat, blood.

And apparently that is a phenomenon. I heard that many years ago. Also, I mean, we could talk about this. For 45 minutes with, with great ease. What I will do, it's another plug, but it's one of those shows. This is a thing called Fleet and Tick. It's by my friends at Vermex, and it contains lots of things: mint and ginger and fenugreek and neem and lemon balm and garlic. And it's really pokey, and it's really fantastic. Um, what Lelia says is that, um, she's feeding foods that deter fleas. I'm not sure I know many foods. Oh, I do.

There are a few that will add that product or those that are in there into their foods. Okay, but that's not food per se.

It's not like saying if we feed venison, dog's not going to get—

no, but remember, they add apple cider vinegar and they add the herbs.

Here's the thing, here's the thing about the food, okay? So There's— it's interesting that people get things seasonally. So you are more prone to issues, you're more prone to pollen sensitivity if you're immunologically smashed coming into summer. So if you're obese or suffering metabolic disease or lack of sleep or stress or whatever, you are more likely to suffer your sensitivities. And Bren would call it threshold. Your threshold is reducing. And so you're more prone to react. And Nick's thing might be bed bugs, mine might be dust mites, and somebody else might be fleas. And so if as the pollen increases, as the challenges increase, as the heat comes out, and for whatever reason, your dog is now more susceptible to fleas. So that would explain a little bit of the seasonality. Oh, what was the last thing you just said there, Nick? That wasn't what I wanted to say. I just wanted to get that out of the way.

That food's in food.

So yeah, food attracts fleas. But so what's interesting is that the chicken, farmed chicken, is unbelievably high in omega-6. Like I'm putting in on this formulator that I have here, God, lots of plugs tonight. Why not? But on the— but like when you put— when you make like chicken with a little bit of beef, Irish beef, like a decent chicken thigh with a bit of beef, that's a very staple diet for dudes now and again. And that 6:3 ratio can be 12, 13, 14, 15:1. That is a really high 6:3 ratio. It's not good. You want to get that down below to 5:1 omega-6 to omega-3. Maybe 3:1 would be more natural. The lower that ratio, the less inflamed you are. So if your dog is eating lots of, say, intensively reared chicken, you're going to drive up the omega-6 in the dog, which makes them more inflamed, which will have less spare for dealing with things. So coming into the summer, you have to focus on all of that. So food can have an effect in ways we don't even think. I remember going over to Taiwan, guys, what do you want me to talk about? And nice one, the brands after this show sponsored by—

Next week it will be properly monetarily Sponsored by DCB.

Don't forget when I was going up to Taiwan, I said, guys, is there any other reason? Is there anything you want me to talk about? And they said, yeah, like, are certain meats good for certain health conditions? I was like, oh, okay, like what? And she goes like, is crocodile meat good for coughs? And I was like, is crocodile meat good for coughs? Oh no. And I started thinking, this is going to get to stuff that I know nothing about. But rather than poo poo, I had a little think and I had a little Google. And it turns out that crocodile meat is very high in alkaloids. And alkaloids is something that we use to suppress coughs. And so I thought, ooh, isn't that interesting that actually wild meats could be the source of something that you need? And so food plays a factor in all sorts of things that we poorly understand. But if I had that dog and she was more inflamed coming into summer, I'd be doing my level best to make sure she's lean as a whip, that she's not eating intensively reared chicken, you know, jack up that omega-3, you know, there is some basic level stuff that you can prepare the dog to get that threshold up, as Brent says, and then you might be more resistant to the bodies, to whatever your thing is. Yeah. Anyway, very interesting stuff.

I think it's a great question.

You guys done? Oh, oh, I found this thing on O positive. You were right, whoever said it. There's not a whole lot of evidence for people saying that type O people react more But here's some stats on type O individuals. They have lower levels of von Willebrand factor, which results in potentially less clotting-related inflammation. And studies suggest type O individuals have a stronger IgE response, which is associated with more allergic reactions and histamine release. That's a study in 2010. So there's a little bit of evidence and lots of anecdotal evidence.

I love it when that algorithm picks up what you say and then finds that stuff to prove your point.

Yeah, totally. And then you click on the study and it doesn't exist. It's like, oh no, I'm anthropocentric.

Okay, boys, I'm going to be rigorous from now on with time because time is life and that's what we need to be really careful to respect everybody's time there and our time as well. So It's 1948. Did I ever tell you the joke about 1948? No, don't. Oh, I won't, I won't, I won't. Yeah, if anybody wants to email me privately, it's very funny. Okay, and, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask, I'm gonna run through this question now. I'm gonna do it on Patreon for Patreon, Patreon for 10 minutes after this. It's by Julie who said, I would love to know how you guys feel about feeding raw diets to immunocompromised immunocompromised cats and dogs. So we're going to do that on Patreon. Patreon in about 3 minutes' time. It'll be on the internet in about an hour or so because the cogs need to digest the beauty and the wisdom that we share in Patreon. So there we go.

And of course, you know, I think what we might be doing is also lighting up blue touch paper paper behind Royal Canin's new Fresh Food.

Let's do that next week. Let's do it next week. Yeah, next week. Yeah, we would be able to.

I think we'll be in a field next week.

Oh yeah, it's a good thing to chat about though. We can have a— we could be sitting in a different beer.

Yeah. Oh yeah, let's, let's do that.

We'll talk into that.

Yeah, somebody bring, uh, the, the ingredients on a, on a piece of paper.

There's a few little doozies out there. I have a couple of videos out there that's, uh, are well worth a watch. We should do a video, guys. I was always thinking to see what everyone thinks of this, where they play something, where we play a video, like, you know, annoying video of the week, and we have to watch it. And then you guys have to comment on it after we've watched it, you know. So it's like, there's so many. I'll just play some. I think it's a good idea. And we can just get your reaction live to a video. There's been 3 or 4 in the last couple of weeks, but that Royal Cannon Fresh one, It's a doozy. That's a great one.

We've got to do that. Okay, so we're going to be at Groundswell. This is the regenerative agriculture get-together. It's one of the biggest in, in Europe, that's for sure. Maybe in the world, I don't know. And we're— because we're all very keen on regen agriculture because we want good food for the generations to come. So we're going to be there and we will, we'll record something one way or another, even if we prerecord it and just put it out for you guys at 7 PM. That would be very cool. Um, uh, yeah, we need to talk about details when people are arriving and stuff, but we'll do that offline, guys.

That was really good.

Should we just tell everybody our movements?

Yeah, I know, that's not too much. Literally, right, guys? Uh, many thanks to dermadog.com for sponsoring today's show. That's really fabulous. Thank you, Ellie. She's not even watching. She's she never does. And, um, but thank you, thank you, thank you. And, uh, guys, thank you. Please join us with Patreon, Patreon, and we are going to jump over to there in a few minutes' time. Indeed.

Cool. Take care, everyone.