Dr. Conor Brady, Nick Thompson, and Brendan answer viewer questions on raw pet diets and health. For toxin ingestion, use apomorphine (Emidog) to induce vomiting. Acute diarrhea improves with bone broth, slippery elm, electrolytes like Dioralyte, and soluble fibers such as psyllium or seaweed.
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disappeared for some unknown reason. I think he's gone to get a gin and tonic, actually. You're through to Raw Pet Medics, and we're really, really pleased to be here. We're doing question and answer, so it means we're free, we can do what we like. We're playing with new audio, so if we're more clear, please tell us, and if we're less clear, please tell us. Bren, how are you?
Oh, okay, fixing my shoulder slowly. This has been a long-standing thing. I keep doing stupid stuff like waking up in the morning and then trying to turn off the alarm at the side of the bed and reaching out with my—
like going like that to switch the alarm. That's a really good idea if you've got a bad shoulder.
Yeah, yeah, and then re-ripping it.
If you stick it the other side of the room, you could launch yourself across the room over this end of the bed and then damage your thing as you hit the floor as you crawl to the alarm clock. How about that? I think that's a great idea.
I really should have. I mean, it was one of those— I was in a hotel room and literally thought I'd best make sure I'm up for the lectures, and I set the alarm and stupidly reached across, slapped the alarm, and ended up running around the room holding my shoulder. Screaming. I managed to wake up the whole hotel just by the fact that I needed to turn off the alarm.
Were you screaming in pain, or were you screaming at your own stupidity at having done it?
Thanks.
No, no, no, no, but that's what I would do. I go, oh no, I'm so stupid, I've just damaged it, and it was going so well. Ah, Brady's back. Right, don't— we weren't talking about you. Brady. We were. How are you, Conor? How are you? How are you?
I'll tell you, I'll tell you how I am. Uh, I don't feel great at the moment. I, I think last week I was telling you that my kids had, uh, all this respiratory diseases, and, uh, what, the baby descended into bronchitis and all sorts of stuff. But 2 days after recovering from that, and we've got a vomiting bug in the house. Now, I thought I'd seen my children vomit before, but oh my God, just short of expecting your baby's head to start spinning around. Oh, it's just relentless, and it's every hour or two, the poor thing, you know. So it's just covered in puke. And anyway, so my two kids have been through it, and now my stomach feels like it's in a knot. And it happened last night, so I was lying there going, I think I'm gonna puke. And I started waiting, but nothing really happened. And this morning I started eating some chamomile from my chamomile collection because it's in BioFunginate. And, uh, so I haven't actually puked yet, but I have a I feel like somebody has a tight grip of my stomach.
I was just wondering what you were going to come up with.
I had a potato for tea, very Irish, a single potato with a bit of butter and salt. It was actually very tasty, but nothing else. Anyway, that's how I am, lads, a little bit under the weather, but still fighting fit.
Fantastic. I'm very well. Thanks for asking, lads. Don't you worry about me.
I'm in the shed, it's a little bit chilly, but I'm doing all right.
I'm actually doing my Steve McQueen look. I got myself a polo neck. What do you think, guys? Um, yeah, I think, yeah, good enough for Steve McQueen, good enough for me. Yeah, if you haven't seen Bullet, if you haven't seen Bullet, see, watch it. Yeah, I have no doubt there'll be lots, lots of comments about, uh, roll necks being either absolutely great or absolutely terrible.
Yeah, there we go. Listen, you like them, Nick, anyway. That's the main thing, isn't it?
I think so. I think I do. I think so. Yeah, I think so.
Yeah, yeah. I just let my wife do everything. It's just like, uh, I literally can't dress myself anymore. I mean, once you relinquish your passport going into the airport and she minds the stuff, that's when you know you have just stepped away from all responsibility. And like, now I just follow her through the airport, like, days. I can barely travel on my own. When I went over to see you guys recently, I was scared. It's like, scared of an airport. I've been on millions of planes. But, uh, so Now it's the dressing. I come out, can I wear this with this? No, you can't wear that with that. And they come out and go, yeah, that looks all right. Thanks, but I can't dress myself now. Like, she's not here, I don't know what to wear. What are we talking about, lads? Jesus.
Um, yeah, thank you, Karen Reed. Yeah, Karen actually said I look very suave, so that's good. Very good. Can you remember that one where he dives off the cliff into the boat and he strips off the wetsuit into his tuxedo and he puts a box of milk tray? For goodness sake, if you were going to do that, are you saying, would you leave a box of milk tray?
Yeah, yeah, probably not. I probably wouldn't even want to talk about it.
And then somebody wants to know, Have you got the bike to go with it?
Oh, oh, I think you're confusing the Great Escape, and I don't think he wears a— I don't think he wears one of these. I think you need— I think I need to do my homework, but I don't think he wears a polo neck. I don't think there are a lot of polo necks in the Second World War in German concentration camps.
Maybe, maybe not, Nick.
But I haven't done a lot of research, so I will look into that one for you. I think he wears a shirt when he goes over when he goes over the lines going into Switzerland. Very sad, very sad. Anyway, we're digressing, we're digressing.
Yes, we are.
We're doing an answer this evening, aren't we? We do Q&A.
We've got lots of Q&As set up. So thanks for your Q&As, guys. I got some from my Facebook page, some are sent into Patreon, rawpetmedics on patreon.com. So thanks very much, guys, for all your support there. It's been really good and consistent, so it's reliable for us. And thanks very much. And Pete is on the third podcast now. So once we've got 3 or 4 together, we'll let them all go at once. That's why we're wearing these earphones, if you're wondering. It keeps the audio pure, no ping back from the speakers.
Nick, just a thought, just a thought. Several people have said they don't understand what the whole Patreon thing is, so I'm just going to say in words of one syllable, as I understand it. Basically, what happens is people are able— because we— and people were asking, we want to contribute, we want to contribute. So what we did is we got a Patreon, Patreon account where you can put in £2, £3, £5, £10, whatever you fancy. Just once a month, you just, you just say, right, you guys are doing this week after week after week, and we are going to contribute to you £2, £3, £5, £2, £3, $5 every month, every month, because we want to support you. And what we're going to do with that money is we are going to We're going to do some analysis on some kibble, and we are going to turn these things into podcasts so that you can take us on your walks with you, and you can hear Conor saying inappropriately rude things. There you go. That's what Patreon— so it's patronizing. It's like you give us a few quid so that we can do our thing, and we're not spending it on lollipops, I promise you. Okay, Brad, we're all, we're all done.
We're all done. Conor's gone.
Oh, you're joking.
Oh, here he is. I think, I think he got bored of you speaking for a moment.
I got bored of me speaking, I can tell you.
We just thought we'd leave Nick to it for a moment.
Going off to get a gin and tonic.
Can you see me and hear me?
We can, yes, yes.
Okay, I can't, as it says error occurred on the bottom of my screen, so I don't know what's going on. But anyway, guys, we're on the Q&A, so is that where we are? Does anybody want to start off? I've got a cracking one that I just want to burst out there.
Conor, you need a microphone, it's really tinny. Yeah, just try.
Oh, he's off again. There we go, he's got an error on his screen.
So just, just, does everybody like my, my cup? This is— I'm drinking tea this evening. These guys usually drink old and ancient reds and chardonnays and all sorts, so, so I'm on the tea. So cheers.
What he's not telling you is there's actually gin in that cup.
Look, I, I'm not going to pull the wool over your eyes. Not that I could, guys. Not that I could. Here's the tea.
Is the man back again? Um, does my sound sound better now?
Yes, perfect. Brilliant.
Well done. I can hear you perfectly. I don't know what happened there. Sorry about that, guys. Um, anyway, listen, we're 10 minutes in already and we haven't even started answering their questions. This is why our questions pile up. We've got questions back from half a year ago from our first Q&A. Yeah, but Barbara's asked this question a few So let's, let's start off with this one. Yeah, let's pretend my dog is after eating some pretty savage poison and I feel like he needs to get sick very quickly. What are the veterinary tricks for making your dog get sick should you need to? Do you recommend it at all?
Brendan, 1 minute, go.
So there is a veterinary drug called apomorphine. Okay, it's now a licensed drug, something that's available from TVM, which we use and is a licensed alternative, and it's predictable. So it's in the right dosage for dogs. We're no longer using a human drug, you know, and it is something that means that when you get to your vet's, within minutes, as in literally a minute of giving this drug, it will make your dog sick predictably. And it also means that your vet is able to make a decision about whether it's appropriate to make your dog sick for that particular item. Now, obviously, if it's acid or very alkali, it's not a good idea to be making them bring that back up and burn the oesophagus again. If it's a toxin, which, however, is one of the foods, for instance, like chocolate or something like that, or some of the medicines like ibuprofen and things along those lines, then making them sick is appropriate. Making them predictably sick is appropriate. Now in the days, in the bad old days, let's say, we used to use things like washing soda and we used to use things like mustard and milk as ways of making dogs sick. But honestly, this is one of the reasons why it's quite important to have a vet who's relatively local to you to consider the conventional treatments for if you've got those things. You don't want to be driving hundreds of miles to be trying to get that drug administered because the stomach empties depending on what it's eaten. The stomach could empty of those contents within the hour if it's a liquid feed that it's taken. So we need to give something that's before that hour's up is going to make them sick. So I think that's probably my 5 minutes up. But I would say predictably apomorphine is there are some tricks I used to use before apomorphine was available, and that's mustard and milk and the option with washing soda.
Yeah, I completely agree with that. It's just I had a very interesting conversation with my brother-in-law about 3 weeks ago. I was on my way to work and he rang me and said, the dog has just eaten you. Yeah, not as in you. Yeah, but Yew, Y-E-W, which is extremely toxic, okay, especially the berries. Okay, just a word to the wise, they do find— apparently they find cattle with yew still in their mouths dead on the, you know, keeled over. So with cattle, it's very, very toxic. With dogs, it's toxic. So he wanted to get that out, and I wanted to get that out, and he didn't have a car, and so he was stuck. So I went for the soda crystals. And the way to use soda crystals, there is a caustic element to it so it's not ideal. However, it's better than yew, Y-E-W, and therefore he got a small kind of marble, or bit smaller than a marble-sized crystal, and just stuck it down the dog's throat. And within 2-3 minutes, the dog was sick and sprayed the kitchen with yew, little leaflets of yew. So it was very successful. And so if you're pushed, or if you— there's not a vet for miles around, then I think soda crystals. It's washing soda crystals, not something like Domestos or something. It's washing soda crystals. So keep them in and just keep them to one side, uh, in case you are caught short and you can't get to the vet, or I don't know, the, the car breaks down or what, whatever it might be. Washing soda crystals, not bicarbonate of soda. Washing soda crystals.
So they don't sound nice. They sound like they do the job. Tell me, how do you get milk and mustard down a dog's neck with stuff you have in the kitchen? How could you possibly do that? My dog would not have a single bit of it.
Literally, you dissolve as much English mustard into milk as you can, and you basically, yeah, you get a syringe and you feed them like a goose. Yeah, or, you know, the basting syringe that you've got from Christmas.
Wow. But there would be one of the risks there would be with inhalation pneumonia. Yeah, if you're stuck in that stuff down his throat, it's like, oh yeah, it's not a nice thing.
I do have some dogs that would drink it because it's milk, and then before they know it, they suddenly go, oh, that's not the milk that I thought it was. But look, this is— these are old remedies that we used to use. Honestly, if you want predictability —get to the best.
Absolutely.
Now, I've seen a few people say, yeah, what is for some minor toxin? Look, that's all very well. Yes, of course you could use activated charcoal. We do use those things in certain circumstances, especially when it's gone beyond the hour or it's likely that that stomach is emptied. But the— and those activated charcoals can be really, really useful. They do them in various liquid forms rather than just being dried pellets. and you feed them that until the feces goes black. So you just keep topping them up every half hour to an hour. And that's great at absorbing some of those toxins, but it's not the be-all and end-all. And if it's a really bad thing, it's often better to get those toxins out than try and keep them in all the way through the gut. And then you've got to make that decision. Is this a mild toxin, or as Nick just pointed out with something like ewe, is it a fairly severe toxin? And I think that's unfair of us to put that onto you guys watching, that you can make that decision about the, you know, the level of toxicity in some of those things.
I like that tip actually, Brandon, where you're saying about the compound that you guys use, which I can't remember the name of it already, so if I've forgotten, maybe these guys have as well. But to ring your local vet and ask them, do they have that in stock? Because you'll need to know which vet to drive to. There's usually a options around the place. So if the vet doesn't have it in and you're a client, they'll probably get it in to have it on the shelf, wouldn't they? It's not the sort of thing that's going to go off very quickly, I imagine.
I would say it's standard issue. I'd say every, every vet in the country will have some.
Okay, now that it's licensed, apomorphine, okay, should be, um, so Emidog it's licensed as, and Emidog is, you know, pretty much I don't think there's a vet that doesn't have that. Yeah, yeah. In a pack of 5 vials. So if they've used 1 vial for a dog, you know, they're going to have 4 more. It's very unlikely they're going to have 5 dogs in a row that are going to need it on the same day.
Let's do it. Sorry, Nick.
Yeah, sorry, I'm just, just looking at the side here. People are talking about hydrogen peroxide. That really is pretty caustic. Yeah, good for your hair if you want to go for super, super blonde. Oh yeah, I'd say not, not for down the hatch. Yeah, not for down the hatch.
The follow-on question really from that is what about the other end? So a dog with diarrhea, guys, give us your best minute on dogs with diarrhea, your favorite tips. A bit of diarrhea, nothing dramatic. What's your favorite tips for a dog with diarrhea?
Nick, you're first.
All right, I'll go first with this one. So there's two types of acute diarrhea. Acute just means it suddenly appeared as opposed to chronic, which means the dog's been squitty for 6 months. Okay, that's it. Yeah, that's the only difference between those two things. So there's two types of dog with acute sudden onset diarrhea. There's the healthy, happy, I'm still waggly and healthy dog with acute diarrhea, and there's the, uh, I'm not right and I'm dehydrated and I'm really feeling terrible type dog. Okay, so those two dogs— the sick dog you need to take to your vets, I would say. I'm just going to keep this really, really simple. The bright and healthy dog, I would say you've got just as if it was you who had the squits, you wouldn't be down at the doctor's. Okay, so let's talk about the healthy dog who's got the squits. I would suggest that you put them onto very light food. You continue to feed them. In the old days, we used to starve. I would put them onto light food. I'd be thinking about bone broths. I would be thinking about marshmallow or sustainably sourced Slippery elm, yeah, and I would ride it out and I would put them onto the food, which you know to be just absolute mildest thing you possibly do, and you just run with that and they should, if it's just a simple, they've got a ham sandwich in the woods or something like that, they should be better within 2-3 days. Sounds good. Brenda, Brenda, you got any any wisdom to add to that?
Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. There's certain levels of diarrhea. I think if there's any blood, okay, if it's seriously watery, if there's vomiting at the same time, I think Nick's absolutely right. They're likely to be dehydrated and likely you should be going to your vet so that can be assessed as they need fluids. I think for the mild diarrhea that's sort of like pasty, maybe a bit of mucus, you know, it's coming and going, maybe they've it for just, you know, they've eaten something a wee bit off color. Yeah, I think green clays can be really useful, you know, the montarilla mite clays and things like that as well. And you often find these in that paste, you know, that probiotic paste that you see from Protexin Paste do them. You know, there's loads out there, isn't there? And I think, you know, they can be really useful for sort of 24-48 hours. Slippery elm. A lot of people have talked about slippery elm in here and absolutely can be really useful as well, especially for the sort of colitis, that jelly mucus types, diarrheas with straining. And I would definitely say fluids, fluids, fluids, you know, mix them with bone broth. Okay. That's a really good— you know, guys, I like bone broth and I would just say that's a really good way of ensuring that they're going to take that fluid on board. Some people will use Dioralyte, you know, for the kids, the non-flavored versions, mix that up in the right proportions. That can help. But honestly, if you can just get the fluids in with bone broth, that does just as well for me.
Nick said, almost better, almost better with the bone broth because you've got glutamates, which will help with the lining of the gut. It's very, very hydrating. It's very delicious. So I'd go with with the bone broth rather than the hydration fluids, you know, if you've got some. So there's a good reason to keep them in the freezer.
Yeah, Nick said to fast, not to— or to keep feeding. Brian, where are you on that? Then I'll say where I am.
Well, I actually think that the gut health needs to be supported, and there's a lot of people that's talked about starving for some time, and I think there's a lot of giving them 24 hours fast just to allow their gut to settle. But I actually think that giving bone broths and feeding, you know, the gut flora, the good gut flora, and feeding the, the enterocytes is actually a good thing to be doing. So gentle. Absolutely. You don't want to be giving them, you know, the hottest curry you can find or anything else that's suitably irritant. I think you just need to be gentle with that gut and think about what you can give that's easily digestible. And I can't think of anything that's more easily digestible than a good quality raw food. So why would you be starving them?
You know, in those circumstances, I would have typically said to people that to skip a meal for sure, dry them out a little bit and leave out a couple of types of water. So you've got your standard water, you know, your filtered water. Keep away from the chlorinated waters for sick tummies because he's got a bit of digestive upset, hasn't he? So and of second type of water. I like the tip of a teaspoon of local honey in a mug and a little pinch of good quality salt. Any of the salts, you know, the rock salts, sea salt, pink salt, Himalayan salt, not the refined stuff. And you dissolve that in the mug and you pour that into a second bowl of water. And that's his electrolytes. Because once you've got the squits, your electrolytes control the osmotic potential of your gut, so they go haywire. So you need a little bit of that. And I like the broth idea then. So that's a nutritious way of getting some nutrients in for that little fast that he'll do. I don't mind fast. I don't like I don't like the word starve. I think starve gives people the wrong impression and the dog's gonna be— but to fast because you've got a dicky tummy. So yeah, broth is a real cool tip. I like that. But for the next day or two, considering that he might have a bit of a ropey tummy, I think a highly digestible diet would be something really simple. Someone just touched on it earlier. There's so many different types of this. Chicken and rice is not what you recommend. Chicken is one of the most top, most likely food antigens in dogs. If certainly, if he's got gut issues, consistently, but also a whole lot of other reasons. So, you know, but that we don't need to get into. But like, you know, there's other meats. So you can do tins. You can always have this ready because diarrhea comes all of a sudden and you need to have this ready. So having— it's hard to have lots of options and have to run around looking for them. So tins of Pacific salmon are fantastic. And I cut that 50/50 with a bit of porridge or a bit of quinoa, just a bit of stodginess because the stodginess of that stuff actually soaks up a little bit of the wet. So it's an easy meal. It's slightly cooked. So that's not a bad thing. It's more— it's slightly easier to digest on the gut for a day and it's there and it's ready to go. I would move away from raw dog food for a day or two because it's got a few different types of ingredients in it. And I kind of see that kind of little salty Pacific salmon meal. So fish and potato. Yeah. Even like any bit of meat with a little bit of carb, I would lean on for just a day, 24 hours, 48 hours, and then move back onto my raw as quick as possible. And then, yeah, yeah.
I think it's really important here that we just also inform people what happens in the gut to understand why they've got diarrhea. It's not about how liquid the stuff going in the front end is, is how liquid is coming out the back end. Okay. This is all about— you do realize that 90% plus of the fluid that goes in the front end is absorbed in the small intestine. And then ultimately what the body does is that it will rehydrate the feces going out the back end. And therefore, if it feels there's a toxin in there, an irritant, that's at the point where it will flush the chain and actually pump fluid into the gut, back into the gut to make the diarrhea. And it's really hard. You're more likely to help the gut by one, giving a probiotic. So if you're talking about porridge or something like that, then sorry, prebiotic, you're talking about porridge or something like that, is feeding the gut-friendly bacteria and helping them to survive and outstrip those that are dying off. Or you're giving something like the slippery elm that's going to line the intestine and stop those toxins irritating it, stop the body from flushing the chain. So there isn't really a way of bunging them up, I don't think, with a stodge of any description. And I think for acute sort of like one-off diarrheas. Now, if they've got chronic diarrhea and they've had it for like a week plus and you're going to continue to feed them the same thing over and over again, obviously, yes, I'm worried about that antigen getting through to irritate the body and possible allergens build up. I think if it's a one-off, I'd be quite happy with a chicken bone broth support or, or just plain chicken or just plain fish. As you said, with a tin for that period of time, you can do within 24-48 hours. The diarrhea is resolved.
Yeah, you can soak up water though. Chia seeds, psyllium husks, still ripe seaweed fiber, all those things suck up water and produce a slightly firmer poo in diarrhea dogs though, do they not?
Yeah, well, that's the biofashion—
lining the gut and a probiotic, prebiotic. Uh, that's what—
that's how psyllium husk works, is it? I thought it was the fact that it's soluble fiber, just like chia seeds, and like it's chia seeds in a glass, it just soaks up the water. And it slows the passage of digestives as a result, as opposed to indigestible fiber which bulks the stool with water and shoots it through. Has the same effects in dogs as it does in humans, isn't it?
I think Nick's gonna have to pull this one.
Yeah, right, we're done, we're done, guys. I'm gonna say Fiona on Patreon, who we now all understand very, very clearly, says— and I'm going to just summarize it, Fiona, thank you for your question— She says she's feeding a DIY diet and she's doing a good job, but she's concerned that are there any supplements, nutrients that are absolutely essential that she might not be getting in a DIY approach? I think it's a great question. It's kind of an exam question, actually. So, exam question. Dr. Brady, what would your answer to this particular exam question? Are there any essentials that you would always want in every diet? Not necessarily every meal, but every diet.
I think essential is probably a strong word. I would say I would struggle to come up with an essential supplement that the dog absolutely has to have, because if I thought there was an essential supplement, Dudley would be getting it every day, and I don't put supplements in the dog's food every day. I pick really good quality ingredients as much as I can, not always. And, you know, he has a good diet and I mix it around and he gets bits and pieces. And I look after the window dressing now and again. And instead of just leaning on an omega-3 supplement, he gets whole sardines now and again and I get these fresh ones. So he has a wonderful diet. He is a lucky, lucky man. So on a day-to-day in a healthy dog, I would say that it's possibly overkill. I don't do it, but I am not the perfect example of it. While I preach an awful lot of stuff, I'm no purist. But if I was to lean on supplements, like, you know, any nutritional supplement, my favorite is always going to be seaweed. I'm always going to say that seaweed is just as an all-rounder, highly digestible source of really readily available vitamins and minerals, iodine, which you don't get in very many other places, but also just these compounds that don't exist above the waves, fucoxanthins, fucoxanthin, all these alginates. It's just so, so beneficial for the dog. So he does get these seaweed supplements that I have here all the time. But I wouldn't say they're absolutely essential. I would kind of say that his, his meat, bone and organ mixes of high quality are essential and the rest of it is fancy window dressing that I lean on. Like I would throw a handful of mussels or an egg or some probiotic yogurts and blueberries out in the grass. I do, but I wouldn't— I'm not sure about essential. What do you think, Nick? You've got a question.
So, so, so no, I'm just thinking. Yeah, you can see that. I think. Okay. So, so what you're saying is that you do think that the omega-3s are essential, but you give them in, in waves of different foods. So exactly. So you're not supplementing, but you are saying they need to be there somewhere in the background. So as part of the scenery, they need to be there. So great. Okay, so that's really good. So omega-3s, I completely agree. Omega-3s.
So, Bren, what do you think? I was going to call him out on making sure that that whatever foods you give have those fatty acids in and giving some way of giving that. I think there's some essential amino acids and I think again, that should come in good quality raw foods. So trying to go, oh my God, I must give this. I think if you've got— I'm not one for giving a fully balanced, absolute everything is in everything every day. I love to give the variety as you guys do, you know, and I think, you know, varying the amount of organs, varying the types of organs that they're getting, you know, whether they get tripe sometime and not tripe others, that's, you know, really a variability. My dogs aren't as lucky as yours, Conor, and I don't give them seaweed every week and they don't get muscles every day. It's like, you know, Yeah, if I could have mussels every day, I might give them some, but I'm not allowed.
So, um, but this, I think this, this goes to the fact of don't feel guilty. I think there's a lot of kind of, uh, raw guilt. There's a lot of, oh my God, I'm not putting 9 different types of protein in the, in the bowl, and I'm not giving 6 different types of seaweed, and 10 types of berries in the bowl. And therefore, if you look on Instagram, the bowls that people make are just ridiculously amazing. And I don't think we should be feeling guilty because we're not doing that, as long as you're getting the variety. So both of these guys have said variety is the key, just as we feed ourselves. So you give seaweed for one week. So Brendan might do seaweed for a week and then he might not for 2 weeks. And I think there's value in that because we and our dogs have evolved in an environment of paucity, in an environment of not much around. And when there's not much around, your body absolutely turbocharges and goes, I'm going to suck every last gram, milligram of iodine out of that diet because I'm feeling a little bit starved. What do you think about that as a concept? A little bit of porosity— that's probably a better word for it— but, you know, a little bit of lack of certain nutrients. I think giving all the nutrients all the time is like driving along with your foot on the accelerator in your car the whole time. It's like, we're going to put the best possible fuel through the engine all the time. You're going to burn through that engine much more quickly than if you're just going a little bit of gas, a little bit less, a little bit gas, a little bit less. What do you think?
Just as a concept, I would, I would also say in that, you know, we know that some of these nutrients compete with each other to be absorbed. So if you've got everything in, in full quantities all the time, then actually you're starting to go back to diffusion. You know, there's sort of like it's just got to be in the gut. And this is the big problem with highly processed diets where they're reconstituting with lots of these additions. Is that actually things start to compete with each other, so they've got to up the levels. And then before you know it, you've got excess amounts going into the diet purely and simply to try and keep up with what the body needs. When actually, if you can give a bit of variety and, you know, some of the levels of zinc might absorb better, and then you've got manganese may absorb better on another day, and then you've got, you know, some of the iron salts, and then you've got And so it goes on. And you've just got to— that's the beauty of variety, is it's giving different levels and the body can actively transport. It's one of the ways that it takes stuff out of the gut, actively transport those ions into the body when it needs them and stores them. It has the ability to sort of sequester these in the body tissues for when it needs them.
It's smart, really. And those that are even more precious to it that it can't do that, it makes for themselves. So they make these, like, it's phenomenal that people think that it has to be in there every day. That's not how we eat. It's not how the dogs eat. I think there's a lot of pressure on people to, like, you know, get it absolutely perfectly right or the dog's arse will fall off for the want of some mineral you can't pronounce, you know, like, you're going to be fine. And so I don't kind of tend to say that, like Brendan says, look, if I see a cheap bag of mussels in Tesco's and they're all coming from Scotland at the moment, so it's it's just unbelievable value, you know. This— so like, you'd have a bag, but when it runs out, I don't rush down to buy more. It's like, yeah, when I think of it. And so I think good quality meat, good quality ingredients, that's going to be your saving grace, and variety and that kind of stuff. I wouldn't say this— so I think we're all kind of agreed there on that. There isn't probably— I think so, absolutely.
We've absolutely got— I'm gonna drop in Tesco's.
Huh? Oh, well, yes, we are. We have a choice, but I mean, it's either Germans or the English. I mean, so we have to pick one. I've also got Super Value, but, uh, Yeah, Tascos doesn't have muscles. There we go.
Okay guys, I'm going to put in another Patreon, uh, question, and this is from Heidi, and she says her cats— this is, this is a cat question— her cats have had really pretty ferocious, uh, harvest mites, and, uh, one of the cats who wouldn't take, uh, a herbal preparation had so was so bad he had to have a shot of steroid, Depomedrone, which is like a 3, 4, 5 week shot of steroid, and that did the trick. Any, any thoughts, um, uh, Conor? Have you come across harvest mites at all? You either have or you haven't.
Absolutely, absolutely haven't. People have asked me on my page a few times, but as I said to them only a few months ago, I said, look, I'm only going to be Googling for you, so I hate that. If I don't know, I'm not going to offer an opinion, so I really don't know anything about harvest mites, but I have seen very knowledgeable raw feeders, and I know one of them's here tonight, struck with harvest mites. So I believe in them. It's not like they're, they're some sort of ghoul that I— sometimes I'm a bit weedy about fleas and worms and the stuff that I seem to be able to handle, but harvest mites, no, I don't know. So I'm eager to learn.
Yeah, come on, man, you've got a preparation probably on one of the shelves behind you, haven't you?
I should have, mate, I should have, because I'm not going to get dinner tonight. But my, my darling wife produces these amazing things called, uh, DermaDog. DermaDog.com. She's got the.com nowadays. And this is, this is not it. This is— thank you for that plug, by the way, Bren. This is not it. This is for where you want to calm the skin down. But in a bottle like this, she does uh, DermaDog Insect Defense Spray, which contains lemongrass and rose geranium and cedar. And basically you spray it on the dog and the dog is then less attractive to, uh, to harvest mites or ticks or fleas. Less attractive— it won't nuke them like Bravecto or advocate or something like that, but it will definitely push you in the right direction. Now what I was going to say was you can also use internal. So there are things like, uh, Vermex do flea and tick. They do a herb preparation which makes your dog or your cat less attractive to flea or ticks. Or there's another one called Billy Nomates, or there's another one, there are a few around. So From a natural perspective, that's it. So just one last thought would be some dogs get loads of harvest mites and some dogs are not really very attractive to harvest mites, a bit like people and midges. And also some dogs get harvest mites and they're not very itchy. My two, thankfully, Bluebell and Mouse, bless them, they are naughty, naughty girls, but they get harvest mites. But they don't really itch very much, and so we kind of leave them as much as we can because the more you mess, the more you can get problems. Whereas there are some dogs who you just find one harvest mite and they're scratching themselves like crazy. So that's kind of the context, and if they're not too bad, you can get away with natural products, and if they are bad, you're going to have to chip in with the pharmaceuticals.
What are your thoughts, Bren? Yeah, so I think one element I'd just say, so harvest mites are something that's found usually in the autumn, okay, they're usually in the long grasses, they aren't something that I would say parasitise and live on the animal, they tend to crawl up, they bite, they give a nasty bite, and then they tend to fall away, and they can cause problems in horses, you know, and all the way through to our dogs and cats. In this case, for this, I would say if you're going to use any of the aromatherapy oils, please make sure that you offer them to the animal first. Put a little cloth with some drops of it on in their favorite bed. And if all of a sudden they don't ever sleep there again, then don't use that by wiping it on their legs as a repellent. It's not a good idea. But if they do take it, that's great. I think There's some products, as Nick said, that can be given orally. If you want to make one yourself, there is one where you can mix a sort of half and half solution. So the herbal solutions that you get of echinacea and the apple cider vinegar, mix those two together and then steep into that about 3 of the cloves, not bulbs, cloves of garlic. Okay. Chop it up fine and just steep it in there for about a week or so. And then after that, you can just give 5ml to a 10kg dog, okay, on a daily basis in that sort of season. Can be a really useful deterrent. Now, I find that there is a product available online, I think it's called Ticked Off, that uses probably more accurate additions to that. I may use garlic oil instead of the steeped garlic, but if you wanted a homemade option, give that a try. I've seen people use it and it's gone down from them being infested with like 20 ticks down to like 1 or 2. Doesn't totally obliterate them, but it at least keeps the numbers down. I think if you can't necessarily do that yourself or you want something to kill those harvest mites. Conventionally, people have used topical fipronil on those areas because the mite doesn't live long enough on the animal, then you need something that's going to kill it pretty quickly when it jumps on the lower limbs. But I wouldn't be an advocate of fipronil myself. I think there's many other ways, and I think you've got to assess if it's an issue for your your pet as to whether that's a problem or not. So have a look at some of these other options that are out there.
Fipronil is the ingredient in Frontline, but you'll also find it in kind of Johnson's this, that, and the other that you'll get at the pet shop. It's been out for 30 years or so. Yeah, so you can get some cheap products as well with fipronil, with an F.
Is that the one they're asking us not to use?
Like, that's right, yeah, killing bees and everything else. Yeah, yeah.
And so like, I assume we've harvest mites here in Ireland. Is there, is there any sort of— I actually come back to the ticks thing because I wanted to ask you about Lyme disease, so just remind me about that. But I put up a post on Facebook with a good few American kind of followers, and they've got a big tick problem. They've got— they know their tick stuff. So I said, guys, who's in a very ticky area and has had success with natural products? Tell me what those natural products are. And the two that came up was exactly what Nick's after saying there. Rose geranium oil, which you can actually drop on the neck in some form, don't quote me, and it actually can permeate, it can kind of live in the dermal layers of the dog, so it actually works in the same way as some of the drops, which is fantastic. And the other one that came up was cedar side, the original cedar side, the actual gum from the cedar tree, because there's loads of synthetic versions of it that are cheaper, but true cedar side is very pricey and all, you know, you see it mentioned on the Appalachian Trail when the guys are doing all the hiking and they swear by the cedar side. So they said there are two very potent anti-tick things, but as regards the actual, was it sand flies, harvest mites? Harvest mites are still new to me. Is there any argument for dogs being more prone to these because they aren't healthy? Would they be more prone to these bugs if they're not healthy? Cedar side. Cedar side.
I thought he was trying to show us the bill there.
It's high technology, guys.
Yeah, yeah, it is. Yeah, yeah.
Um, what about, lads, what about ticks? Have you ever seen Lyme disease in a dog? Lyme disease? Yeah, I have.
I had a Labrador with Lyme disease. Uh, we, we think he had ascending, uh, antibodies to the Lyme disease test, and he was ill with kind of diffuse bit of hepatitis, a bit His joints were a little bit of, uh, polyarthropathy and what have you, but he was pretty good in himself. And so we used, uh, he went on an antibiotic— sorry guys, um, whose name I can't remember— begins with C. Brendan, for Lyme disease, begins with C.
Doxy is the one, is it not?
Doxycycline. Doxycycline. Doxycycline. Doxy. Doxycycline. Begins with D, not C.
Close, but no cigar.
That's what the British Army take before they go training in Exmouth because you're crawling through long grass all day and so many of the lads are getting sick that they said you're going on doxy for the 3 months of this training out here in these fields because this is just prone tick area and they're crawling through the grass. Isn't that interesting? They take it as a preventative because they know just to lose 10% of them would just be too too ruinous to the kind of training. Isn't that mad?
So it's a real big problem. Wow. That's going to really screw their microbiome. Yeah, exactly.
Devastates microbiome. But also we've got antibiotic resistance. You've got all sorts of other issues. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. And let's face it, one of the reasons we're looking at some of these natural remedies for, you know, these repellents and stuff is because we're now officially being let down. We should not be for two reasons. We should not be using these insecticides and antiparasitic drugs, you know, just constantly. And the two reasons are resistance, you know, they're just as with antibiotic resistance, we're starting to see resistance with some of the flea and worm treatments. And we're also looking at the devastation to our environment, what it's doing to the natural nematodes within the soil layers and also the insect life and the knock-on effect that has to all of the wildlife that's around. So yeah, you know, we do need to be really careful about how we use those antiparasitic drugs and not just think that actually I'm going to save my dog from itching from a couple of fleas and therefore I'm going to give them a whole year's worth of product. And I think somebody said, well, my pet doesn't ever have fleas or ticks. Well, absolutely, don't use these drugs if your dogs don't have that. Keep combing through, keep checking them. You know, I'd much prefer you to be checking your dogs, much prefer you to be doing worm egg counts, you know, and that side of things. And, you know, not even using a herbal wormer or flea treatment unless you need it.
Yeah, exactly, totally agree with that. Yeah, why wouldn't you?
Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. I think we've got a conclusion there, guys. Thank you very much for that. Book of the week? Oh, oh, oh, I've got some books. I was, I wasn't gonna—
everybody, everybody, I wasn't gonna get mine out.
Ah, thank you very much. Yes, yes, yes, yes, very good.
But it sort of reflects that one, which there's been some really interesting reviews lately. Thanks for those guys.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, I think, I think it says it all when it's still, uh, number— I think it's in the top 10 of the, um, New York Times, um, bestseller list.
Yeah, yeah.
But yeah, that's a little, little bit of a— yeah, somebody refreshed my memory to say, oh yeah, you should really reread that.
And it's good, even good.
I love that tagline, how to die young at a ripe old age. That's quality. That is quality. Love it. It's really good.
Yeah, guys, what are we going to do next week? What are we going to do next week? Can I make a suggestion? No, we're not. No, uh, you didn't get the memo. Sorry, about 3 hours ago she emailed to say that Nikki Kamek, wonderful North Point Pets, she can't make it. So she's transmuted that to the 14th of December, if that's okay with with you. So great, that's good. And, uh, can I suggest for next week, how about we have a look at creating ratio feeding versus formulation? So it's just, it's, it's putting diets together by eye versus formulation using some kind of software or some kind of balance, you know, measuring everything out. But how, what do you, what do you think?
Are you cool with Yeah, I mean, I'd love to show people what it's like to formulate for a company and kind of say like, this is, this is the kind of stuff that you have to do and talk a little bit about what you're formulating to. And I think there's days and days of material in that for sure. What about you, Brian?
You happy with that? Yeah, I'll just show them how I chuck stuff together. I agree. Totally.
I totally agree.
I'm taking the mic.
Yeah, no, but we are all on the same page and it seems a bit kind of like flippant, doesn't it?
But it's like, that is— that should give people solace that like, you know, we do this for a living. We study this stuff every single day, think about it all the time. And our advice to you is don't be worrying about it. You know, get an idea of what a roughly rounded diet the dog's on, vary it around, he'll be absolutely fine. That you'll get to 98% and then you're just wasting your time thinking about that tiny little bit, you know. But anyway, look, we'll talk about that next. That's a good one. Formation, balance, all that sort of stuff. Cool, that sounds great.
Okay, okay, let's go. Fabulous.
Okay, very, very good. We're 6 minutes over. Uh, Conor, you need to go and see your young children. Yeah.
