RawPetMedics FB Live: Create or Formulate

N. No photos in this time though, I don't think, Nick.

Oh no, I forgot. I, to be honest, I only remembered that he was away about 9 minutes ago because he hadn't— because he normally comes on and abuses us madly at about quarter to 7, and that didn't happen. And then I thought, oh yeah, a couple of days ago he said he wasn't going to make it. So we'll have to— I'm so gutted I haven't got a Oh, so, uh, I don't even know where he is. Where is he? Is he— what's he up to?

I don't know. I think it might be a drinking weekend again. I don't know, he's recovering.

Oh, well, well, yeah, he's— I think he's— yeah, he's got a new baby, so I think life is, uh, is fairly full-on for him. So good for him to get away. It's lovely to see everybody. Rach Mack is there. And Janet and Karen and Gemma.

Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.

Maudie. Hey, Maudie. And Heidi Dixon. Hi, Heidi. Uh, brilliant, everybody's there. Fantastic. Good, good, good. I wonder whether Michelle will make it all the way from Chicago. I always wanted to sort of sing and dance whenever I say Chicago.

Please, I don't want to see you in fishnets. That's fine. Brilliant.

She's not even on. She missed it. I have to tell her about that. Anyway, brilliant. What have you been up to? What have I been up to? I haven't been up to a whole lot. It's been really, really busy. Oh, we went to— oh, I can show you some photos, actually. Okay, I'm going to show you a photo and you're going to have to guess what we did this weekend. Let's have a look. Hang on, um, uh, right, there's one, there's one photo. Makes great radio, this, where there's absolute silence. So that's Arthur and someone. Okay, that's one clue as to what we did at the weekend. Hang on, and I've got another one. Uh, uh, what shall I show you?

Hang on, hang on. I think, guys, he's been to Comic-Con. That's what it is. It's like— no, here we go.

Uh, here you go. Madame Tussauds. We went to Madame Tussauds and it was great. It was really good. Saw Michael Jackson and all the Bond guys standing there, Roger Moore and Christopher Tim— no, what's his name? Christopher— no, no, Timothy Dalton. And, you know, all those guys, absolutely fantastic. But also, I didn't recognize half of them, all the new stars. It's like, who's that? Who is that? It's really, really funny.

You're Roger Moore and a Sean Connery, is that it?

Oh yeah, yeah, that's it. That's the only ones I recognized in the entire place. Who else was notable? Arnie was there as the Terminator with half a face. And I stood next to, what's his name? I Have a Dream. Oh, anyway, yes, lots of famous people. Good next to them. And we had a final—

You know that cognitive dysfunction video? Video that we did.

Cognitive dysfunction. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's working with you lot as well, and definitely with the Irishman. That's definitely sending me in the wrong direction in a big way. How about you, mate? What did you— what have you been up to?

I've been moving. I've been moving house temporarily, of course. And so, uh, yeah, so everything's in a bit of disarray. I'll just do a quick little, um, let's see if it'll let me do a— so I've got pictures everywhere, um, because we're sort of you know, just stuffing things into wherever we can, wherever they fit. Yeah. Oh, I'm praying that the road noise isn't too bad because I'm sort of right next to what seems to be a really busy road compared to where we were, which was out in the middle of the sticks. Yes, every car I hear now through the night, it's like, it's like being in the center of London after being sort of elsewhere and you're just sort of like, how do people cope with that traffic noise?

I know. Yeah. And you will give it, give it 2 weeks and you won't hear them.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's been a bit full on this week, moving lots of stuff out, emptying the other house and getting it ready for the builders to go in. Finally. Finally. Yeah.

Yeah.

Been rushing up and down to North Yorkshire to see my brother. It's his birthday. So taking some bits up there. So he's really proud that he's joined the tractor club, so he's now got a tractor too.

So it's like, all right, okay, boys will be boys.

Yeah, just a few toys, that's all.

Yes, no, that's, that is exactly right. Finn Madden has rightly said Martin Luther King. In the spur of the moment, I couldn't remember. Uh, yeah, he's one of my favorite people, and, um, there he was. He's actually quite short, but Most of the statues at Madame Tussauds are kind of 2 inches taller so that they have more presence, but somehow they've made— yeah, Martin Luther King, he was— he must, in Madame Tussauds, he must be 5 foot 6. But amazing to see him.

I would have thought they did them all 3/4 scale so that they were like, you know, they could get more in.

No, they're quite imposing. They're quite imposing. Madonna's quite short, but I think she really is quite short. They didn't have Prince there, actually. They did have David Bowie. I stood next to him. Yeah.

They didn't happen to have Boris Johnson at Peppa Pig World, did they?

Boris Johnson? They did have Boris Johnson, but not— what, at Peppa Pig World?

What, did he not hear the interview yesterday? He was eulogizing how much he enjoyed Peppa Pig World. Because he thought it was the safest place ever. That's how Britain should be. Oh my goodness, George has come to revisit us.

Exactly. Here's a shovel, Boris. Let's see how much you can dig yourself a hole. Blimey, O'Reilly. Anyway, listen, we are going to be talking about whether to create or to formulate And, um, so do you want to kick off with, with what's the difference?

Yeah, okay, look guys, first of all, thanks for all those guys on, um, the Patreon page. Um, we'll just, um, thanks so much for supporting us still. Um, please continue to— if you want to go to www.patreon.com and yes, find us on Raw Pet Medics, um, help us out there. It will not fund Conor's holiday, honestly. It is actually for us. There's a bit of stuff, research that we're going in. We've got these podcasts, we're paying for a guy to sort those out now. So lots of things coming through, which is great because we can achieve those because of your help. Right, the Create or Formulate. I thought this would be really good and we sort of got together because the Raw Feeding Veterinary Society, and we're going to put a link up later on to them, did a great conference about, um, what, 2 weeks ago now, um, where 6th of November. Yeah, brought a couple of people in, um, on either side of the, the debate, um, had a great get-together, um, and we sort of wanted to reflect upon how, uh, what came out of that and, you know, how different people, not just us, uh, sort of viewed that, uh, that thing. So creation was very much about Do we just go for basic principles, sort of proportional feeding a little bit and just choosing proteins, probably quite a lot of what we've talked about in the past, to be fair, and just vary through. And then the other side of the argument where many people are really sort of just worried to death about getting absolute balance to AFCO and FEDIAF and the NRC guidelines, the guidance out there for pet foods. And we want to sort of really try and go through today as to why that might not be the right way to approach things, you know, what the weaknesses are in some of those guidelines, but also what might be useful about looking at those and what situations where sometimes looking at that formulation sheet, and I think you've got an example of that and we'll go through that later, of what might be useful situations to review that formulation, and we'll go through that so that people are sort of, you know, aware of the reasoning, okay, for those, for us even looking at that tonight, okay. So I mean, Nick, where are you at? What's your basic principles let's say for your own dogs first, because I think that's always crucial. For your own dogs, what do you do?

Okay, so I create— I say I create, but actually Ellie creates. So however, I do every now and again, I do feed them. Okay. And so I think, and this reflects the first lecture from the, from the Raw Feeding Veterinary Society conference which was by the amazing Ian Billingham, and he gave about 50 minutes or so of the most eloquent historical perspective on why we should be feeding dogs, why we should be creating diets and not worrying about, you know, the, the, the minute quantities of selenium or molybdenum or calcium or whatever it might And so he was saying throughout history, animals have relied on variety in order to get exposure to all the nutrients. And then the body specifically absorbs depending on the requirement for, for the body, depending on the growth stage, depending on health, depending on pregnancy, whatever it might be. There is a differential absorption. And I totally agree with him that that is the way to go. And so what we do is we will get minces. We buy good quality minces that have organ meat and bone in them. Sometimes we'll add a little bit extra organ meat. Ellie loves to just sauté some greens. I never do. I would just chop them up and put them on. She will put some oils in there, some fish oils. We'll put some seaweed in there. The guys at Rocchetto have just sent me some samples of— you need to talk to them— the beautiful herb mixes, and it's all organic and really finely divided and just beautiful combinations of herbs and spices for really good access to nutrients. And so basically you just chuck it all together put it under the dog's nose and off they go. I do formulate, and I work with several companies for whom I do formulate, but that's the reason that I formulate for them, because that sounds a bit too kind of two-faced, is because some people, even though you tell them to feed variety, will actually feed the same thing. You know, little dog likes a certain food, like he only likes the chicken, and so they feed chicken. For life. And so therefore I feel obliged to, to, to, to, to get to, to, to get somewhere near the AFCO or the FEDIAF guidelines. And so therefore I formulate. But when I talk to these, these companies, I will say I want you to put feed variety on every website, on every pack, on every everything. But people never do what you tell them. How about you for your dogs?

For my dogs, definitely I'm the creator. Strangely enough, well, Christina's away most of the week anyway, so I'm feeding all the animals, whether it's the goats, cats, or the dogs. So I very much will create for my dogs. I'm quite happy mixing through 3 or 4 different proteins and then just adding some extras here and there. I think my difference to you— let's highlight the differences because I think there's a lot of things that we do the same, and that is that I will vary things. So I'll put eggs on quite regularly, intermittently, and try and change the types of eggs that I use. Always try and get pasteurised if you can, so that's the stuff that's usually at the roadside, you know, that side of things, because those people that are rearing chickens in their own backyards or woodland or whatever and then selling them at the roadside are probably the closest to proper pasteurized that you're going to get, rather than the commercial sort of free range. We've had a discussion about that in our sustainable farming stuff. I think the, you know, if you can get duck, if you can get quail, those sort of things. I've got some great friends who will deliver game now and again as well. So they're getting intermittently that, which is great sort of outdoor reared stuff. I do occasionally add some of the things like PetPlus or the Rocchetto. Rocchetto, I loved seeing their stuff at London Vet Show. They really have gone for low-carb foods, definitely across the range. I've got no affiliation to them whatsoever. Okay. And I haven't even received freebies, unlike Nick. I will actually say how great they are from a point of view. If you're going away and you really desire something that you can pack easily, then, you know, it's something that's air dried at less than 40 degrees. They've got a variety of organic beef and organic chicken within their range, and they've really thought about formulation in there for you. But, and these useful additions, they actually do some of the oils they have in the bag. To stop the fats going rancid, they actually put something to absorb the oxygen within the bags. So there's something in there just to try and reduce oxidation of their foods even more. So have a little look at those. As I say, got no affiliation whatsoever, so I feel free to recommend those in those side of things. I think from going back to my own, adding apple cider vinegar, intermittently adding some of the fermented foods that we've talked about, if not fermented, blended veg. Okay. I feel dogs don't have the ability to masticate and chew that vegetable matter up small enough to actually release any of the nutrients. So I think if you're just chucking it in, I'd be surprised how much of that is actually absorbed by the dog or even broken up and utilized by the bacteria in the intestine. I think a lot of it just sort of goes through in a fiber format out the back end. And so I think if you're going to release these nutrient bombs, then a bit of blending, you know, add in some apple cider vinegar to stop it going off and, you know, causing some issues with the yeasts and things like that within that process or going off rotting. Per se, rather than fermenting, and freeze it. Just freeze it in ice cube trays and pop them out as useful additions, that side of things. So that's probably the slight changes. I think broadly though, I'm doing exactly what you're doing, just maybe on a slightly bigger scale because I've got slightly larger dogs. Yeah. And like your fine-boned, wonderful physique, whippity scrawny things.

Yes, exactly.

I'm sure they're not built to whip it. Type, those, they're like Italian Greyhounds compared to Yorkshire Whippets. I like—

they are, yeah, they are Whippet Italian Greyhound crosses. So, so Mouse is really— she, I mean, she looks, she looks like you'd be able to blow her over, but she's actually really quite a toughie. Bluebell is the princess, yeah, that's for sure. Just, um, eggs— we do actually feed, feed eggs because outside here, I'm in the shed, the shed of Dermadognus, and, um we have free-range chickens wandering around the garden and, and what have you. And so the— our dogs do get— what Ellie will do frequently, like 3, 4 times a week, will just drop an egg into a bowl and they have those, um, on their own just as a, as a little, as a little treat. So I'm with you on that, and I think it's a brilliant idea. The not just the yolks, not just the whites, the combination. I think Mother Nature's got that one absolutely right. And they will get— Rocchetto do, and there are other dried food companies. It's just I'm really quite impressed with the Rocchetto. They do, they do do some really nice treats, and that's basically what we've got in the kitchen at the moment. But for treats, we always use dried. We've got an amazing guy called Martin up in Chipping Sodbury, and he, he gets in lots of, you know, dried everything— kangaroo, ostrich, you name it, he's got it dried and on his shelves. So we are feeding a really broad range of foods there. But in addition to that, in autumn, they'll go picking berries themselves off the bushes. But also just thinking, horse poo. They eat a lot of horse poo when they're out. And so I think that's a very, very healthy side of things. And also just picking up, just picking your brains there, you know, you say so the veggies that go in, they are kind of sautéed spring greens or a bit of kale or a bit of whatever we've got left. And they will definitely go in as strips. I don't know about centimeter and a half wide. That's how Ellie does it. Does it— that's how she does it for us, and she does the same thing for them. I never see, because I'm slightly obsessed with the dog's poo, and every time they have a really great poo, I get a flush of pride because they're producing these really nice little cigars. And, and I just think, good girl, well done, that's really Fantastic. And I don't— I can't remember.

Do you do that? What?

No. Ah, yes. No, never done that. Um, I, I have never seen bits of green, which is interesting because I agree with you that if they don't chew it here, they're not going to break— well, in theory, they're not going to break it down. And yet you don't see things coming out the other side. Whereas in the old days, there used to be some manufacturers who would put peas in. Remember the whole pea question that we, we talked to various people about? You'd see a pea out the back, guaranteed. And also I use, you know, Jolly Green Giant, the corn. I'll use those to measure gut transit time. So basically you feed dog at whatever, 6 PM, with half a tin of Jolly Green Giant, and then you see how many hours it is until you see those coming out. And it should be about 16, 18 hours with with most dogs. So very interesting stuff. I don't see green coming out the back, and so maybe there is some degree of digestion there. What were the other things that you were saying?

We definitely see coming through— yeah, you do. Yeah, so peas, definitely. Um, yeah, yeah, I, I see. I don't really feed enough chunked veg anymore. To, to work out whether I'm going to see that. I mean, beans, peas, sweetcorn, as you say, I always see them coming through. So I think there'll be a degree of bleaching and breaking down. I think it's just a case of how much do you actually, you know, break the cells open to release those nutrients versus you're just making what's there into a fiber mesh. You know, that's a little bit like the seaweed fiber becomes, you know, something that's within the stool.

Yeah.

You know, there's certainly no areas within the gut to, to properly digest. I think something I want to go back to, guys, a lot of people— and Penny, thanks for putting this up about the salmonella scares in eggs as well. So In the UK, and I know this is not fair for all of those wonderful people around the world that are watching us tonight, but there are in the UK, the majority of chickens are vaccinated. And actually there's a lot of people that are rearing chickens in their backyards now which are actually rescued from battery situations, so they will have been vaccinated against salmonella. And that is something that persists, it's not something that you suddenly lose. Now remember, there are going to be Salmonella in certain situations around you in the environment, full stop. Your dog, every time it walks out down the garden, is going to be paddling on the grass and there'll probably be Salmonella all over the place. Your child rolling on the grass in the summertime is going to be surrounded by natural Salmonellas. It's what's pathogenic and what's just within that species. So I think ultimately we've got to be coming away from this, oh my God, the S word. And I think we need to be thinking quite carefully about if eggs are really often covered in feces and everything else, is that necessarily going to be the best situation for our dogs. I think there's also an element if we're feeding it to our dogs, we've talked about this in the past, of getting their stomach acid is protective. You know, it's one of the reasons that some probiotics don't work if you feed them with the main meal. So, you know, we've got to think about how effective that stomach acid is at taking out those levels. And for all of the salmonella cases I've seen, and we've fed this over 25 years, we've had clients feeding raw foods. The salmonella cases I see are actually from those dogs fed kibble foods. And I've always said to anybody who said, oh, it must be Campylobacter and salmonella. And I always say, come and look at our clinical records because I tell you what, all of those cases that have actually got pathogenic problems with Campylobacter or salmonella are not raw fed. So how do you compute this is real risk versus the proposed risk that's going on out there? So I think let's just be a wee bit careful about that. Somebody has just posted up about Finn, just with regards to adding the shells or not. Again, I tend not to. I don't know why. I think generally there's enough calcium going through in the bone material in the food, and I don't think that therefore adding the shell as a calcium carbonate effectively not bound in a protein matrix of the bone is necessarily the thing that you need to do.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. And the shell or not, the absorption— the absorb— well, uh, we just drop the egg into a bowl and the dogs can help themselves if they want it. However, I don't rely on that as a source of calcium because, you know, calcium carbonate is remarkably poor as a source of the bioavailability. What I'm trying to say is the bioavailability from chalky material is really, really, really poor because carnivores are designed to eat herbivores. Herbivores are designed to eat plants. Plants are designed to eat rock via soil. Okay, so no way should, I think, should carnivores really be exposed to to rocky chalky material. They get their calcium from bone, which they have got the capability to break down in stomach acid and then, you know, proteases and lipases and what have you to break down the matrix of the bone to the extent that they need, and then they absorb it. So, you know, happy days. So as far as calcium is concerned, that's very much there. Somebody was just asking about whether you give probiotics away from food, and I tend to do that because when you put, when you put protein into the stomach, the pH drops. It is the prime motivator for giving really, really strong acid. We call that a low pH, and that will zap more of the probiotic bugs when they go through the stomach than if you give your probiotic on an empty stomach. So I tend to do that.

And the only thing that's an exception to that is the sporulated forms of the probiotics, which actually are almost activated by going through the acid into the alkali of the small intestine as the bile acids hit them, and they almost that's a handshake to say, you know, start coming out of your spores and reproducing in those circumstances. And that's why with those bacteria, they tend to be pharma bacteria. So they tend to be bacteria that will encourage good bacteria around them rather than necessarily doing the hard work themselves. So that's where we start to look at with regards to those probiotics that you might add around food time. But I would agree with Nick, you know, probably you'll get a better response, a better result if you give them just before bedtime or around a small liquid meal, liquid like bone broth or something like that that is taken through the stomach very quickly. You know, in those circumstances.

Cool. Helen Elliott says, have you got an example of a spore-related probiotic, Brendan?

So that was Phytospore. I think we've talked about in the past. Okay.

PhytoSpore, terrible name, great product. Yeah, yeah. Really good. Really good.

So what's your thought on— I mean, we've talked about the benefits of the egg membrane, you know, but obviously the difficulty of peeling eggs and trying to get the membranes out, you know, what's your thoughts on the importance of that egg membrane?

I think life is too short to be peeling the membrane from the inside of eggshells. However, if you, if you drop, if you put a whole egg into the bowl, my dogs won't touch it because they can't work out how to, how to break the egg. But if you drop it in, they do, it does crack, and they have a fine old time trying to get in. And I think they probably do pick off some of the membrane. And if they want to do that, because let's face it, they've got bugger all else to do for the rest of the day, then they're very welcome to, but I am not going to go and start peeling it. Well, it's very good, you know, it's for— it's— I think it's type 2 collagen, is it? So it's remarkably good stuff. But, you know, and I ask—

so this is realistic. This is found in a particular supplement that's now produced for dogs to enable the downregulation through the Peyer's patch of, you know, attack on damaged type 2 collagen within their own bodies. However, I discovered off that company, it isn't just raw, okay? They have actually processed it to protect it going through the stomach acid. Because my question was, for us raw feeders, when we're feeding all of this joint material, which will have type 2 collagen in it, Why is that different from their special supplement? And apparently there is some process that they have protected it from the digestive processes so that when it reaches the small intestine, it stays as this clear type 2 collagen. They would not give away this special process. So how accurate that is, I don't know. Really interesting thought. But, you know, we wait and see whether that comes out in the wash as to is that just a bit of marketing so that you must buy their supplement, or is this something else? We have mentioned this back in the arthritis podcast, so if you want to go back to that and have a little listen or review, you'll be able to see all of that information. I just needed to redefine. So Banjo Banjo, thank you. Yeah, you're not clear on what sporulation is. Sporulation is where certain bacteria create a barrier around themselves, and this preserves them for the long term so they can last for a much longer period. So it's almost like a hibernation state where they can last instead of sort of being out on a surface and being susceptible to disinfection, to fungal attack. Because there's been this millennial battle between the fungi and the bacteria of who can kill what. This is why antibiotic resistance has been around for millennia. It's not a recent thing. This is a way of them protecting themselves from all of that attack and being able to sit there in soil, in all sorts of environments, and just stay there hibernating, waiting for the perfect environment to sort of hatch out and start reproducing again. So they have a special thick coating around them that only breaks in certain key situations. I hope that's clearer. Is that clearer, Nick?

Yeah, no, that's good. It's kind of like seeds. They become— you know how a seed will last for years and years and years, and then you put it in the ground and you get a plant? Same thing. The spores are like the seed of a bacterium. They last forever. You know, really, really tough, last forever. And then once they reach the right environment, they grow into bacteria. Simple as that. So that's good. Right, I'm going to bring us back because we've got the last 10 minutes of the show.

Because I thought this was quite relevant to the situations when formulation might be useful.

Yeah, okay, I'm going to preamble that and say when I went into the conference, I was thinking, oh no, we've got another kind of another splitting of the raw food world, because people are very good about that. You know, you get kind of fundamentalism after you've had your initial honeymoon period with any movement. And this, I thought this was going to be— I thought that the formulators and the creators, those who just throw it together as opposed to those who measure every last milligram of everything, I thought that they were going to be divergent. But actually, what came out of the conference, which is why it's such a valuable conference to see the whole thing, and it really is very, very useful and entertaining to see the whole thing, was that there was consensus that most, even the formulator vets who were talking on at the conference and people who were watching, said most of the time we can totally, totally, totally, and we shouldn't be encouraged to, to create to just put together, to know a vague formula in our heads and to put together something approximate and give lots of variety. The formulators agreed that variety was important and the creators agreed that variety is really important. But what everybody agreed, the creators and the formulators, was that there is a place for formulation and that is when you have sick dogs where the nutrients are going to have an influence on the progression of disease. That's where you need to get a little bit clever and a little bit more picky about your nutrients. Is that a kind of— is that a vague summary of the conference?

Yeah, and I think, you know, So Caroline talked about CKD, and for those guys that don't know what that is, chronic kidney disease, okay, out there. And this is a prime sort of example of if there are blood parameters for that case, for that kidney case, which are stipulating that your diet, your raw food, whatever you're feeding, is actually still causing your cat or dog to have raised phosphorus then absolutely there are some things that need to be adjusted within that diet to bind out the phosphorus. But we know from the science and the papers that have been written on this that actually phosphorus in the diet in an organic form, okay, is totally different to those people that are adding phosphorus artificially in kibble foods or formulated foods where they're using inorganic phosphates, and that has a much more deleterious effect to the body's phosphate levels. So the absorption levels are totally different. So to answer your question personally, for those dogs that I have on with kidney disease and I'm giving bone broth to help support the gut flora, the healing of the gut, because that can be become ulcerated in certain kidney issues. Actually, I don't see these super skyrocketing high phosphate levels where I do see some phosphate levels high from those dogs that will insist on eating different meats at different levels. Some of the high red meats sometimes, I know there's a debate as to whether this is truly an issue, whether red meats versus white meats is the issue. But I have seen some phosphate levels quite high and that can be down to the hormone levels and things like that that are going on within the vitamin D levels, the relative calcium absorption. And so I do use calcium— sorry, I do use phosphate binders in those circumstances. There are some great ones on the market, some veterinary ones available. I don't tend to use the calcium carbonate as a phosphate binder. There are lots of other options out there, some of the chitins that can do that. So have a look, ask your vet. There's some great products out there as phosphate binders. Some of them include rubinol, which is an anti-fibrotic agent which can help with the kidneys too. So lots of options out there to help support the kidneys. We've talked about remedies I'm not going to eulogize at length about kidney support in these circumstances. I think the, the fact that you're giving a great protein that's readily digestible and utilizable by the body, you're going to give great omega-3s and 6s, which we've proven is brilliant for kidney disease, actually in the cells of those meats as well, not just in the added oils, is great in those circumstances. But yeah, there were some great bits there. I mean, Charlie Gray, I'm going to give a shout out to her. You know, there was the stuff about for those people out there that are giving lots of supplements with omega-3s and 6s and actually you've still got skin issues or you've got other problems. Yeah, checking out the vitamin E levels, you know, just making sure has that vitamin E level is that correct for that relationship with those omega-3s and 6s? And actually sometimes just supplementing that in can make a big difference. But I would also agree there was some stuff there about, well, actually even now they say that the blood test to look at these levels within our dogs is actually quite poor. And what they are doing is looking at the diets looking at the symptoms and then adjusting accordingly, which I think was really enlightening. But for some of those guys, rather than them truly formulating every last bit, it's almost like they see how you're doing, take a look, and then maybe adjust some of the things within the formulation to try and bolster that.

Yeah, absolutely. So if people are interested in formulating at home, there is— I just had it on my phone just now— there is— I'm sure there are various formulators, but I— the one that I use, the professional version I use, is called the Animal Diet Formulator. But they've just come out with It's called My Pet Recipes. Can you see that? My Pet Recipes by ADF. Okay, basically go to the App Store and they've got a handheld, and the idea is that you could take this to the supermarket and you can do approximate— if you fancy, approximately, you could, you can look at, you know, okay, I'm just about to buy some meat for my dog. I wonder what the phosphorus levels are. I wonder what the calories are in a pound of this type of lamb, or the— what are the omega-3s in this particular vegetable or something like that? And so it's, it's one of those handy things that you can keep with you. So I think if you're into— if you're studying nutrition, it'll probably be a really good one because it will give you a kind of an X-ray vision into what makes up foods. And I think that's pretty useful. But it could be just out of, out of interest. Or if you've got a dog who doesn't do well on too much fat, you can look through and say, right, let's go for the lower fat meat, for example. So I think that there is value with it. I don't even know how much it costs, but most apps are not very expensive. And so I definitely— and they don't pay me to advertise in the slightest. And they're also definitely worth a look.

I think they're also backing the Forever Dog app as well, aren't they? So for you guys out there that you're supporting Forever Dog, our friends Rodney and Karen over in Canada, we've reviewed their book and the Forever Dog actually also have promoted their own app which uses that to help people formulate. There's a lot of controversy, I think a lot of people have approached me about Chapter 9. It's gonna— so it's almost like the manifesto thing, isn't it, where you start to, to talk about Chapter 9? Um, and I think they're all things to all people. So let's not, you know, be— yeah, we want to encourage everybody, uh, to embrace, you know, other people's feelings about how they want to feed their animals, and we're not going to dish them for trying to be inclusive in that. So I think from that side of things, I would definitely say, look, have a read. If you're really concerned about things not quite being right, there is a formulator within there to help you out. And I'm sorry if it's confusing for lots of you guys. We're trying to keep it really simple in saying, you know, you would not have a nutritionist following you down the aisle, let alone one for your children. Okay, so is it really that hard to truly formulate, okay, for your dog if you think about basic principles which we've talked about over the last, over months now? Okay, so do have a little look at those principles in those previous videos, and hopefully that will give you some guidance. I think a very specific question here. Do you know much about your vitamin Bs?

Me? Not as much as I should, but basically I will always give, where possible, the whole range of vitamin Bs in brewer's yeast. I find brewer's yeast is a wonderful thing. There are very, very few negative sides to brewer's yeast. I've only ever had one dog who couldn't take it. And so as far as B vitamins are concerned, I think brewer's yeast is fantastic. It's a yeast, so the absorption is very, very good. Some of the supplements, you know, the synthetic versions of B vitamins, the absorption is, is not quite clear. So B vitamins, brewer's yeast, fantastic. Somebody was saying, what's the thing, what's it called? And it's called My Pet Recipes, and it's in— can you see that? My Pet Recipes in the App Store. My— NPR— My Pet Recipes in the store. So that's really, really good there.

Conor's book, you know, Feeding Dogs, is also really good. Thanks, Rach.

I just thought we'd better say something whilst we were Yeah, it's all right, it's all right. Yeah, it's quite, quite, uh, comprehensive.

Yeah, yeah. Um, so, oh, somebody's asked about brewer's yeast, um, because I've had a few issues with some dogs don't necessarily tolerate the yeast that much. Um, you come across that at all?

No, like I say, uh, I've seen it once where I I knew somebody who couldn't tolerate yeast, and I've seen one dog who couldn't tolerate brewer's yeast, but it's very, very rare. What people will do is that some people will have a dog who's got yeasty feet or yeasty ears, and they will be scared to use a yeast to give to their dog. But brewer's yeast is killed, and it bears no resemblance to the Malassezia yeast that you get in your ears or in your feet. So I haven't got a problem at all with using brewer's yeast. It's a very good source of all the B vitamins and really happy with that.

Great. I think that sort of rounds us up. I think next week we should really be touching on Christmas issues. I think we've got to— it'd be the beginning of December. I think We really should just bring people's thoughts around to what to avoid over Christmas and what to do if you have some accidents with food being dropped that your dogs may consume, those sort of things, maybe.

Yeah, I think it's good to have a Christmas special. I think it's really a good idea. Somebody was saying, what's the dose of brewer's yeast, I would give, I don't know, half teaspoon per 10 kilos body weight-ish. It's very, very safe stuff because the beauty of B vitamins is if you give too much, you just pee it out. So you can't really go wrong. Half teaspoon per 10 kilos would be, would be okay. Yeah. So there you go, Sue Murphy. Brilliant.

Other useful additions. Yeah. Before, before Conor really does us in. Yeah. He does also do a great line in seaweed.

Okay, he does do. He is, he is the seaweed king. He really is. Okay, so cool. So next time, uh, Bren, we'll have the Irishman back and we will do a Christmas issues thing for next, for next week. Yeah, fantastic.

Oh yeah, and thank you guys for your attention. Um, Conor will be back, I believe, next week, you know, if he deigns to, uh, to join us again. Maybe he's not got too much of a hangover. Let's just see what's happening.

Hey there, guys.

Wonderful to see you all following us. We will leave you on that note and, you know, carry on. If you want to support us, just go through to the Patreon page and, you know, just see, do support us there. And thanks again for your attention. See you next week.

See you guys.