RawPetMedics Tuesday Night Live: November Q&A

Good evening, good evening.

We're, we're all talking about the World Cup. We are going to be doing question and answer, and we are going to say thank you very much to our Patreon people. But we were just having a little chat about the World Cup, and I just said I am so old and so out of touch and so never ever listen to the BBC that I didn't even know the World Cup was on. So England, forgive me. How, how are they all doing? What's, what's happening, guys? Not that anybody watching this is interested in World Cup. I bet you 1% are interested in the World Cup.

You reckon? I reckon Sasha won't be here tonight because she'll be watching the World Cup.

Ah yeah, England are playing tonight, they're playing Wales.

Okay.

Oh yeah, that will be a grudge match.

Are we going to keep— are we going to keep the live scores up? I think we should keep a little post-up going.

No, I don't— I don't want anybody to— I want to see the match. I've got it recorded afterwards, so, um, I want to— I want to watch it afterwards. But you, you guys, you failed to— you failed to beat USA. I'm criticizing from afar, by the way. Ireland didn't even make it into the World Cup. Okay, again, but, um, but yeah, you didn't beat the USA. The USA were pretty good. But you got Wales tonight. You're expected to, to give them a bit of a pummeling. So, um, if you don't, you're in big trouble.

So I'm not saying anything. I'm not saying anything.

The viewers, come on.

Okay, see, there's only one person. Only Rach Mack says she's interested.

Go on, Rachel. Yeah, you have to be interested in— this is the greatest show on earth. It's amazing. So much fun. You're watching teams losing to, to smaller teams. It's so exciting, you know. Um, but yeah, you do find yourself cheering for teams and countries that you normally wouldn't probably cheer for. Uh, but anyway, we should have a little—

I think we should have a little goal counter in the corner. It would be like the seconds going by.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nobody mention in the comments. I'm going to be watching the comments tonight, guys, so please don't mention the results. Come on, Wales! Oh, not the Wales supporters. They won't be able to keep quiet. Gold. Jill Henry, very useful. Oh no, I should have said— I'm gonna put Post-its on my screen. That's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna sell the tape. Oh, look, Chinese money, absolutely useless. If anybody wants some, let me know.

Uh, guys, on my screen there was a big thing about trying to keep these— all these guys, uh, cool, because it's in Oman or somewhere, isn't it? Somewhere hot. Qatar. Okay, so how are they keeping them cool?

Because that was a big thing, they built it in winter, they built 7 football stadiums, they built— okay, it only cost— conditioned— yeah, it only killed 6,500 migrant workers, don't worry. Uh, but in the process they built 6 or 7 amazing football stadiums and they're fully air-conditioned, they've got roofs on and they play. So this is the first World Cup that's been in the middle of winter, Nick, just in case you didn't know. And, uh, normally they're played in the summer, so like the likes of the Premiership and whatnot had to, um like, you know, change everything because it's normally during the summer when the, the lads and lassies are off.

Yeah, yeah.

So it's just an incredible change around and came with a bit of controversy, but here we are. It's a good cup, it's interesting, and that's that.

Um, and Fiona says enough football. Okay, so I'm with her.

So let's just— come on, it's only been 2 minutes. 2 minutes? No, more.

3.

3.

Okay, boring, boring.

Okay, uh, listen, thanks to everybody on patreon.com. We're doing, uh, we're doing questions tonight. This is the end of the month. I love these questions. And it's always good stuff, always comes out. And a lot of the questions come into Patreon now. We do have quite a few supporters there, and we do absolutely appreciate you guys. Uh, most of them, the price of a cup of tea is what they're at each month. We deeply, deeply appreciate it. It helps things, plans this side, and we are making plans all the time. Uh, and if you can, great. If you can't, not to worry, we're going to be here anyway. But we will be taking most of the questions from Patreon as some form of a reward. Um, so absolutely, before we start, have you anything else to say, guys?

Any other drama happening in I think don't forget to listen to us on all available podcast platforms, everything from Amazon through to, I think even Spotify.

So Spotify and Apple. Yes, we are there indeed.

You'll get an edited down version, which is far more concise and less blubbery, waffly, and less football.

That's football. Boo. So I can't see the comments. That's unusual. I don't get any feedback tonight. So who wants to start off, Guy? Who's got the first question?

I've got one. Yeah, I've got one here from Heidi. She says that she's a very new Patreon member. So Heidi, welcome. You're very, very welcome. Don't think we're gonna be able to answer all your questions, but it just happens you're at the top of the list here. Here we go. My 3-year-old Maltese Yorkie has recurrent seasonal allergic conjunctivitis. Last year I washed her eyes every day, sometimes up to 3 times a day, with calendula tea, but she still ended up on steroid drops every 1 to 2 months. Recently I started using eye drops containing colloidal silver. We're almost through her first spring with no eye infections. Then I saw your post regarding colloidal silver. Do you guys have any other natural recommendations specifically for eyes that I could try instead, or tips for reducing, managing seasonal allergies? For her, it's only her eyes that seem to be affected. Lucky. Good, good, good. I'm in Australia, so won't be able to— won't be awake for the live. Ah, Heidi, you missed your moment in the sun. But thanks, guys. Whenever you have time for me or not, I love listening to your podcast and appreciate what you're doing. Ah, it's a bit like Steve Wright, isn't it? You know, saying how much people appreciate us, which is quite surprising. You guys especially.

Yeah, yeah, that's to be appreciated and not, I was going to say hated. I don't think I've been hated. But anyway, go on, Bren, help us out there. What do you do?

Right, okay, let's first things first. Conjunctivitis, inflammation of the conjunctiva. So usually the white part of the eye is covered by a further membrane, and if that becomes inflamed, it looks like the whites of your eye go red, to be differentiated from scleral blood vessels, which usually are quite thick and usually go out in a radial pattern in the eye, and that can be an indicator of inflammation inside the eye. So that's something different, and definitely you should go to see the vet if you see that sort of pattern. Going back to conjunctivitis, so it's great to hear that you seem to have controlled things with colloidal silver to some degree. Flushing the eye full stop to get rid of allergy, so as in allergens irritating the eye, can always be useful. And there's plenty of safe lubricants that you can use to do that. And definitely flushing them as soon as you've been out for a walk can be really beneficial. So hypromellose, which is a sort of compound, a sterile liquid that you can get from your chemist that are eye drops, even flushing with normal saline if you don't have anything, you know, in the your first aid kits, you can get normal saline sort of things to flush out horrible stuff from the eyes. You can use that if you've made it yourself, a teaspoon of salt to a pint of boiled water, okay, in a sterile form. So don't leave that too long, just let it cool down and you can use that sponge with a sterile clean sponge into the eye. Just dribble it in, okay, and that can flush the eye. So those are ways to flush the eye. But ultimately, if they're at risk of getting a secondary infection, that's where things like colloidal silver can be really useful. So this is where bacteria take advantage of the inflammation, usually a lack of tear flow, all of those aspects that are going on. That means that those bacteria can take advantage. So we discussed this when we were discussing Lucilin, and the reason that we were talking about Lucilin is that it's really super safe to give into the eyes. It will kill all of those bacteria and horrible beasties that can cause irritation, but as soon as it changes the pH, it will turn back into normal saline. Okay, so that's why I mentioned saline. So super safe in the eye, um, and that's an alternate without the risk of the colloidal silver draining down the tear ducts, getting into the system, a few other things. Now, a bit of a debate there. I think loads of people have used colloidal silver for a long, long time and talked about it being supernatural, um, but I think there is this thing— well, it's silver, it's a silver salt, it's usually put in, um, to make it colloidal, to suspend it, um, it's, it's not pure silver on its own. And I think you know, there is that risk that it does upset gut flora. It does have some residual effects all the way through into the, the fecal matter in some cases. I don't know how much of an issue that is, how much it's been overplayed. Can you remember, Nick?

I can't. That was from Joe Flanagan, I think, the week after they lose Cillian.

He—

because he— great, to my great shock, because I've been using colloidal silver for conjunctivitis for years, and he said it's a bit of an environmental nightmare. Yeah, once it gets into the environment, it is a nightmare.

Yeah, um, you shared a study there, Nick, of the, of the kind of hang around status of colloidal silver in the environment, and it wasn't good. It didn't read well. There was a good few authors involved in that, and I can't see people making money from slagging off colloidal silver too easy, unless it was the makers of Lysillin perhaps. And but, uh, you know, so there was something to that. But Joe's point on, uh, conjunctivitis was interesting and he would always go probiotics, obviously being a probiotic man. So he's got a probiotic eye wash there. Comes in a gentle kind of thing. Usually he's got sprays, but your Maltese is not going to take that in the eye. So yeah, probiotic eye wash. There are drops.

There's a dropper version.

There's a dropper version of it. Okay, it didn't look like a dropper when I saw the bottle. Okay, cool. So a dropper, that makes sense. That sounds like a cool enough product.

I've got a couple of thoughts there as well. Totally agree with what you guys are saying, but also don't forget cold tea has been used for centuries, you know, cold black breakfast tea, PG Tips, whatever your thing is. That's the tannins in there, they're mildly antibacterial and they just tighten up and help with the inflammation in the eyes. Okay, really cheap in the cupboard anyway.

I think she also mentioned calendula tea in her question.

She does.

I tend to use chamomile tea, strangely enough. I just use that as a chamomile bag in about a liter. You just make it up once you've made it at the beginning of the week. You just can leave it in the fridge and just bathe that through the eyes. For those, because that's more about the allergy, the irritation, rather than bacterial infection.

Green tea too. You've always got that in the cupboard. Green tea would do it, and you can just use the tea bag, warm water, you know, and just wipe the eye. You don't go to the other eye with the same tea bag. They're cheap as chips, and you wipe the eye and throw it away. There's a few qualities to that, and the green might stain the fur like the brown. But yeah, many just hear— what, tell me this—

you can tell Yorkshireman in the room. So I'm using green tea. In a liter, and I'm using it all week and the week after. Hang it out, reuse it like Mr. Bean. And then, and you're using a tea bag per eye twice a day.

They cost about £1.50 for 80, Brian. Come on, let's go.

Your, your books obviously do really well.

Absolutely. I'm just loaded now. It's fantastic. Hence I'm still in my closet. It's, uh, it's great. Why, why is it— why do Maltese— okay, Maltese are very prone to weepy eyes, let's say. And I would say, uh, you know, when I talk about weepy eyes, I kind of think there's something like a smoke alarm and you often see dogs with weepy eyes just suffering inflammation. So when you put in anti-inflammatory, natural anti-inflammatories into a dog with weepy eyes, they tend to reduce. Okay, so there's many products out there you can try from golden turmeric paste to eye products, you know, I'm not going to name any, but anyway, so they work a little bit to cool off the inflammation and the eyes stop weeping. So in my little head, I kind of see it as a bioindicator and often if you have a Maltese and you feed them dry food and you're heavy with the flea treatments and wormers boosters and you're lashing in all this stuff, you can expect the dog to have weepy eyes because often with these Maltese, if you just pick off the low-hanging fruit, get them off the dry food, the horrible chemically preserved pet store treats and the nasty compounds when you— and make sure the teeth are clean, which is another driving source of inflammation. If when you pick off all that low-hanging fruit, you'll often find that you suddenly have a Maltese that doesn't have weepy eyes. So my question is, why do some dogs get the infection? I think I understand why they weep, but why are some dogs more prone to getting infections? What is that as opposed to the weepiness? Or is it the weepiness first and then that comes in after it?

I would say so. Yeah, because you get, you get kind of a spill effect in that you get— if this entire area is really wet and muggy, then you can get the bacteria going back up the stream like salmon going upstream, you know, that kind of thing. So you can do that. One thing that we haven't mentioned, guys, is Euphrasia. It's a homeopathic— Euphrasia drops. Oh yeah, and, uh, and we're going to talk about Oculus Prime, of course, uh, Dr. Brady. But, uh, diphrasia is— has been used. Even Culpepper about 300 years ago was talking about Eyebright. It's a, it's a plant, it's a tincture, and it is used for just kind of, um, making your eyes brighter and cleaner and what have you. And I would say if you're looking for something just to rinse, you can't go far wrong with the homeopathic tincture of Eye Bright. Marvelous stuff. Euphrasia.

In most, uh, chemists actually, not even a homeopathic or herbalist. You can get it in most chemists. Very good.

And the other one, uh, sorry, goldenseal, I bet you're gonna say.

No, I'm not. I'm gonna say Optrex. Optrex is regular original Optrex. It looks like it's a druggy thing, but actually it's witch hazel, and you can use that in the eyes. It's cheap as chips because you buy, I don't know, 100ml for £3 or something and really, really, really useful. And that's what Optrex is, a drop of witch hazel.

No way. Yeah, witch hazel was always a common thing to wash out hotspots with, trim off all the hair, wash in witch hazel, and now a little Lashaprobiotics on top. Guys, that was 13 minutes on one question and we've got a bucketload of questions. But like, you know, you can't do that. You can't do the question justice. In 2 or 3 minutes because a lot of stuff you have to say is, is really interesting. I want to hear it. You know, I'm taking notes here.

Oculus Prime, just give us, give us 30 seconds on Oculus Prime.

Look, Oculus Prime is— all of our supplements are very different. Okay. But two that are quite similar is Oculus Prime and AC4 because the basis behind them is similar, anti-inflammatory. And there's three seaweeds that don't exist in Ireland that are in that. One in particular is a red moss, which is a real difficult one to pick. The water goes out, you have to run out, pick this little moss that's curled up and holding onto stones. And whatnot. You have to pick it all apart, dry it out. And it's a potent anti-inflammatory that loves mucosal membranes. And we were just talking to the seaweed specialist that helps us with all these supplements and he just said, oh yeah, that one. And, you know, for example, if you had like, you know, really sore eyes, dry eyes, he starts naming these eye conditions, I would take that seaweed. And we're like, why? He lists these 2 or 3 compounds. We pop it in a product with 2 or 3 others and it works. So when you take these anti-inflammatory products, but you can use any natural anti-inflammatory. And as we say with this point, do all these other things first and you might not need this product, you know, but it does work. And if it doesn't work, you get your money back. And that's the whole, the whole point of my supplements. If it doesn't work, you lose nothing, but it does work. But I always say it's a real bandage to plaster on gangrene. I know I'm not selling my products very well, but it's just the truth. It's like, still, I might need something for my dog's anal glands. It's like, well, you do need to address that so it doesn't keep happening, and products will help.

Before he goes through his whole shop, and you can find that on dogsfirst.ie/shop, as Karen Reid has quite happily Moving on, next question. Tricia says, uh, my 10-year-old raw-fed dog has suddenly started vomiting early in the morning. Hunger pukes, acid reflux. How to manage naturally, please? Uh, I've raw-fed for 35 years, never had this problem before. Vet is likely to say switch to kibble, which I won't do.

Thanks.

That's Tricia. So go for it, Nick.

I'm gonna—

I've got it, I've got it. I think that the first thing that comes to my mind is Billious vomiting syndrome. Somebody's just driven past there and I was distracted. Billious vomiting syndrome is a symptom where you get this kind of orangey yellow bile in the morning, always first thing in the morning. That's how you know that it could be the billious vomiting syndrome. And essentially what happens is that the stomach is kind of busy all night And if you feed the last meal, a substantial meal, at say 10, 11, 12 o'clock at night, it gives the stomach something to do overnight, and it can be curative if what you're seeing is bilious vomiting syndrome. You see it every now and again, 1 in 100, 1 in 200 dogs or so, they just do it. You give them some food last thing at night and off you go. Really, really good. I mean, it could be regurgitation, there could be other things happening, but bilious vomiting syndrome costs nothing to treat. And if it improves, it'll put a smile on your face.

Yeah, I like that.

Dr. Conor Brady, your little things?

Fiddling around with the diet. Pam Thornton has already nailed one of them there. One meal a day fixed it for her dog. I think there's lots of different things you can try. This sort of perhaps some form of acid reflux and stuff perhaps going on first thing in the morning. He's getting excited. All that gurgling and squirting before dinner time is the acids and enzymes being released into his stomach in anticipation of his breakfast and perhaps that's going on, who knows. In regards to something you can put in to help acid reflux, German chamomile, it's called mother of the gut and there's lots of evidence on it and for acid reflux, I assure you it works because we recommend this product that has chamomile in and it works for acid reflux. But I would say if the dog's having this acid reflux, you got to fiddle around with lots of different things. You need to change up your foods, change up your feed times, try this, try that, a meaty bone at nighttime and vary things around. I would say one meal a day in the middle of the day to get away from that anticipation, like Pavlov's dogs getting excited about the meal and give it to them in the middle of the day. So if there's any sort of funniness going around with the gut, I would have thought it passed through the stomach after an hour and a half, an hour, hour and a half is out and it's into the intestines. And I would have thought the stomach is kind of finished after that time. So but if there's any messing around with digestion, it takes 8 hours to assimilate a meal. So, well, I'm sure shorter in dogs, probably. So I'm hoping if you feed them at 12 or 1, like Pam said, all the nonsense will dissipate. And that— so there's a few solutions. Messing around is my solution. They usually work. Adding things in, oh, try some carbs or try some sweet potato, you know, try anything to change things around, your suppliers, everything. Bren?

Yeah, I tend to just do that variation. So don't feed them at a set time each day. So I'm quite happy to, you know, mix it up from them being fed in the morning all the way through to being fed late in the evening. And just, you know, when it turns time to feed because I've got a moment, that's when they get fed. I don't go, ah, it's 4 o'clock, it's time for food. I also believe that using something just to settle them, if you want to give them when you have your cup of cocoa on an evening and you want to give them something, think about a little bit of bone broth. Okay, I can't go through a single episode without mentioning bone broth.

You love us. New fermented veg. Make theirs.

Yeah, new fermented veg. Absolutely.

Veg and broth. Guys, I've got to do a question here that came from last month and Anyway, here's a good one. Uh, hi Conor, I'm a budding nutritionist just wrapping up my IPEC course. Plug for IPEC. I know a couple of people doing that, seems to be very well, very good if you're looking for one. I've been in the field for years similar to you. I'm a trainer with a science background, dot dot dot, a few other bits. She puts dot dot dot between every few words. And I'm hoping to do something similar to you and others in that, to make at least some of my living from helping others doing consults, I guess. Okay, the bit I'm struggling with is the leap to charging, charging for my advice, uh, when to do it, how much. I see some online folk criticizing people in my position for doing so, but I have bills to pay. I do believe I can be of help to people, but I do need to get paid for that help, paying for my experience, not my time, etc. Any insight there? Welcome, lads.

Oh, the money, the filthy lucre.

Yeah, did you see the article in the, um, uh, was it the Express? Express or the Daily Mail today. Um, might be today.

You read the Express, Brendan?

Daily Mail.

It got plastered all in front of me because the BVA protested, made a comment about the fact that they didn't get asked about charging. And I just relate this because it's about vets charges. Um, people say, you know, our vets just, um, taking the mick, uh, making money off the people, off people's dogs and cats suffering, which I starts to become a little bit difficult, doesn't it? Because, yeah, which way around does that come? We're not, we're not actually making them suffer, we're trying to help them out. But at the same time, those people need to get paid. Exactly the same scenario. So, um, it is difficult, and I know it's hard times for everybody, um, and it's, it's one of those things that I suppose we're in a privileged position of giving you guys out there all of the information that you get from these lives, um, without, you know, paying through the nose for them, um, But at the end of the day, that's because we're in a position where some of you guys are helping us sponsor through Patreon. We actually are advising and charging for consults elsewhere so that we've got that time to spend our spare time on a Tuesday night, um, when the match is on, uh, to, to spend with you guys. Um, and it is difficult. It's a balance between getting the message out there wanting, getting ourselves out there so people know about us. But at the same time, yes, having to charge appropriately for consults, for stuff. And it is going to be down to what sort of backup you've got. So what I charge is going to be slightly different to what Nick charges, to different to what Conor charges, because I've got a team of 30 people that we're effectively running in the practice. Nick, you've got yourself and I think a couple of people helping to manage your admin and everything else. You know, Conor, he's just on his own, you know, doing— oh no, no, Karen.

Karen's a very hungry, hungry mouth to feed.

So there is, there is, there is Karen running a business and paying Conor just enough to keep him going.

That's it. Karen's the boss. What about, what about you, Nick? Where do you lie on that transition from not charging to charging. I mean, how does she manage?

Yeah, I think it's really difficult. And I was in practice for 7 years in Yorkshire and various places, and then I struck out on my own. And to then actually have to charge for your own worth is really difficult because everybody, generally speaking, will undervalue their own abilities. Okay, and especially when you're a young vet, that is a, that's a classic for doing it. But at the same time, you've got this experience. You were at vet college. I was at vet college for 6 years. And, you know, and all that has to be catered for somewhere along the line. So the practical way of trying to find the right charges is you've got to think of a number that you think reflects your ability and your worth. But it has to be tempered by what the market will sustain. Yeah, if you think you're worth a million dollars an hour, great, good for you. But when you go out, nobody's going to pay that.

Nobody agrees.

Nobody else agrees. Yeah, apart from your mother perhaps. But so therefore it's these two opposing forces. Yeah, there's one driving it up thinking I'm really worth quite a lot and I'm very good and I'm I'm good at what I do and what have you. But then you've got, no, we just can't afford that. We can't afford that. And so how about you, Conor? How did you—

yeah, like, I actually sympathize. I only talked purely about canine nutritionists there, but I thought I sympathize with the vets. And I— when Bren said that, I felt very sorry for vets in that respect. There's a big problem where corporations are buying out veterinary clinics. That this is not in relation to all clinics, this is some instances. And we know that prices can go north. We've got these stories from Bloomberg, and we have these stories, these negative stories, which can be a problem because they drive up sales. And we hear these stories coming in and it can happen. But I, I don't really know any vets in my— that I've ever bumped into that have ever been charging cynically for their work. It's like, these guys are working so hard. It's such a tough gig, uh, so hard to get into college, so hard. In fact, I don't really think they're all driving around in Porsches. I don't see it as a really luxurious career, uh, you know, and it can be hard work and it can be quite repetitive for some. And it's like, this is difficult. I think you guys in position now, but a lot of young vets are very stressed as they spend a very short time in the profession for a reason. Guys, if they were paid lots of money, they would stay. Money keeps you in bad professions. That's why they pay you lots of money. So vets don't hang around for long these days, and so I sympathize with them, and I don't like the cynicism that comes with making money from your sick pets. It's like, well, yes, they're doctors, that's— they work with sickness, that's where they make their money, and the more sick pets, the busier they are. But to say that they're driving that, it would be not the vet chats at the coalface I'd be giving out about it all. Okay, in relation to the canine nutrition bit, I took particular attention to the bit where she says, I see people criticizing online. In relation to that, I see that as well. I see some people criticizing online because, you know, now and again, like 1 in 20 posts, I might promote a supplement, one of my supplements, or promote my consults. And people perhaps don't take that well. Look at Conor trying to make money out of this or that. And I see some, some of my peers, some people that do what I do also criticizing and saying, well, of course I don't take money, I don't make money from consults, I don't make money from supplements, I don't make money from anything. And I'm like, you know, I'm not quite sure me and you are in the same position. Like, I've got a wife and kids, I've got a mortgage, I've got like stuff to pay for here. I don't. And I know some people, when I've seen the criticisms, perhaps aren't in the same position as me. Perhaps they're more advanced in years, and perhaps they didn't have to worry about their mortgage, and perhaps they don't need the money like I do. But on top of that, exactly what Nick said, I have worked I've been in poverty for the last 25 years. I'm the one who did the doctorates. Not many people are doing them. It's a pain in the arse. It's hard work. You don't get paid bugger all. I came out into guide dogs in my first wage of my life. And then I quit that job in a huff to become a dog food manufacturer. No money in that for 2 years and then 8 years on my own making bugger all. And so all that is experience. And eventually now I come up with a few solutions that when somebody comes to me with a current skin or gut condition, I can help them really quickly. And my advice now is really painfully simple after listening to these people and studying people. Like Nick and Bren and Lynn McKee for fixing guts. And so you're now paying for my advice and I can help you with these issues. You're not paying for my time. It doesn't matter if I spend 15 minutes talking to you or half an hour. I think people that are making the transition from my pet, they're well geared up to helping an enormous amount of pet owners because the information is so confused out there. And so don't feel bad about charging for your time. Don't explain yourself to anybody. All that matters is that some people are paying you for your time and you're going to help them.

Them.

So don't be worried about these kind of cynics. I think there's other people that get annoyed when people charge because they can't charge themselves or they aren't charging. That's their way of doing business. That's not normal. You pay plumbers for their time, you pay accountants for their time. You are learned, you can help people. Charge a smaller amount initially, even though somebody beside is charging double, because eventually you'll be so busy you'll up your prices to get rid of some of the attention. And that's the way it's going to happen for you. Stop feeling bad for charging for your time. It's a real Irish-English thing. I think Americans are just like, good for you, look at you driving a Porsche. And Irish and maybe English people are kind of like, oh, look at him, who's he, he's in his Porsche, you know. There's no— but it really annoys me that bit. It's hard to get on the ladder and people just want to pick away at you when you do. And it's like, that's the down bad side of social media. But anyway, that was a long bit of a one, but I sympathize with her.

Okay, I've got one just here. I've got a real goodie here, um, uh, and I haven't done any homework for it, so I'm going to be relying on you two for this, guys. This is from Brett Lisa, and it says, good day, please can you guys chat about the latest study on the effects of adding water to kibble, which I kind of saw out the corner of my eye about a week ago. Yeah, I'm curious about your thoughts on this. There is no mention in the M&M— what's in the M&M? M&M, I don't know— as to how long the food was soaked for before feeding. I think everybody's very surprised by the results and the supposed stress and bad bacteria from adding water. So gentlemen, did you have a look at this paper at all?

I didn't look at the paper personally. I saw what he said and I said, that's interesting. I saw the headline of the paper and I thought, yeah, that makes sense. I didn't look at it. I came at it from a point of view of adding water to dry food is going to dilute your stomach acids and make a crappy meal even harder to digest. And I wonder, was there something in that hence some people do add water to food, and I don't think you should be adding water to your dog's food. I think you should be adding, feeding fresh food with water in it, and the dog can drink water if he needs it. You don't need to con the dog into drinking water. But I don't know about the bacterial bit, and I was surprised at that. But yeah, no, I didn't actually read the full study. I just, I saw the headline and thought, oh, there's another punch in the guts for dry food. What about you, Bren? Did you see it?

So what was the surprise about bacteria then, Conor?

I'll read it out for you now. Hang on there, I'll just read the headline for you. Okay.

I mean, the main thing is it is something that had been done for years. I mean, I remember when I first qualified, you know, if you wanted to slow a dog down from shoveling kibble biscuits down its gob, you used to float it in water. You used to literally stick what, you know, the food into water because it slowed the dog down. Or, you know, and then it's about how long you soak it for because surely if it's a porridge Is that going to be slightly better than bobbing biscuits in water? All sorts of scenarios that start to go through your head. So I can only think that, you know, if you're going to suspend a food which has been in a bag and had a hand mixed around it for some time, that's going to have other bacteria growing in it, that as you suspend that into water, you're sort of bringing bacteria into a solution that's fermenting? Is that sort of stuff that's going on?

Here's the headline: new study shows feeding dogs watered-down kibble caused higher cortisol levels and did not provide benefits but caused some stress and posed a threat to the intestinal health of dogs.

As Pennywood is saying, they added water to dry kibble and it can also make the mycotoxins bloom. That's logical. And also, if you've got a dehydrated product, the bacteria are not going to be particularly happy with that because they like a bit of moisture. If you then add water, they're going to go yippee, and they can reproduce in 20 minutes. So, you know, if you're a bit tardy with feeding the dog, then that could be a problem. Apparently also Janet Nixon was saying about Holly Gantz gave a response on Rodney's post. So have a look on Rodney's post for the Holly Gantz response.

Normally he links the study, but he didn't at this time. So, yeah, really interesting.

Have you noticed the number of kibble foods which are now adding rosemary and citric acid as mold suppressants to their food. So the majority of mycotoxins we talk about are actually preexisting in the grains and they don't get changed by the processing. Actually, if you do that, because I've got a time-lapse going at the moment for a piece of bread versus bowls of kibble. Various ones, and you notice that the bread goes moldier far quicker than any of those kibbles. Yet we do see that over a month, or even if people are using those bins and not storing the, the kibble properly, that they will get mold blooms in the bottom. But that's really if something's gone terribly wrong with moisture content in If you're just putting kibble into a bowl and feeding it, that's not really going to give time, especially if those oils are on the surface of the biscuit, to stop the mold blooms.

Yeah. Here's the study: Effects of softening dry food with water on stress response, intestinal microbiome, and metabolic profile in whatever. They reached out to the author, Holly Gantz, Dr. Holly Gantz, and she said, hi Rodney, the results are surprising. Quick thoughts: I wouldn't have done the study with 5-month-old dogs because their microbiomes are still developing, so you can't extrapolate to adults. The puppies who were fed the SDF experienced, which is the, uh, probably the supplemented dry food, experienced a diet change, and, uh, this was associated with some GI distress and a flare-up of proteobacteria including E. coli. I wouldn't have predicted that adding water to the diet would trigger They don't tell us how long they let the food plus water mix sit before feeding. Well done, lads. They suggest there may be microbes in the food, but they didn't measure this. Mycotoxins there, that's a big one. Uh, question: would this response dampen over time if they continue to be fed this way? Who knows? There you go.

Yeah, because there's all sorts of other things, like there's the inflammatory response of just giving carbs, you know, it's going to increase your cortisol drive.

So yeah, but it would have been compared to standard dry-fed dogs that also get the same amount of carbohydrate. Carbohydrates. So they would have compared that. That's where they saw the rise in cortisol. So they would have had the standard dogs and the dogs fed watered-down kibble, you know.

So I guess it depends on how quickly that carb load is delivered to the liver. But there we go.

Yeah.

And the other Penny, who's a regular here, Penny, I think she's a vet in South Africa actually. She's called Penny Vander something that I can't pronounce, and I'm not even going to try Yeah, Mervyn. Ah, okay, good. I'm wondering how the cortisol levels are affected when freeze-dried raw is— when water is added there. That's an interesting—

if this was mycotoxin-related, freeze-dried raw won't suffer because mycotoxins are generally a plague of grain-type substances. Yeah, so you're looking at wheat and corn and other such stuff, barley, rye, anything grainy, you know, some peanuts, you'll see it on your bird feed at the back, that purpley-green kind of hue. That's aflatoxin in particular is a highly cancerous, one of the most cancerous natural substance on earth, and vomitoxin, they're the top two. But I don't see raw dog food suffering that because that's not the sort of baddies that raw get when they're rehydrated at room temperature. You're looking at—

One of the reasons I stopped feeding peanuts to garden birds.

I was told to do it and I haven't stopped. I don't know why. Sometimes I look at them and go, I hope you're okay. Because what is the alternative? Disgusting fatballs.

It's the bird flu. That's why they're falling off the birds, not the mycotoxins from getting penis.

There's signs all around now about wild birds. If you see them, don't pick them up. Don't let your dogs at them. They're all over signs everywhere. It's getting very, very serious, very scary. Is there any more, guys? I've got another one if you're— if you're— I don't have it open right in front of me because I've just changed my Facebook page. Well, I've got Claire Jones then.

So I've got Claire Jones. Um, so just due to Patreon, um, wanted to ask. She's got a 7-month-old Labrador puppy, has lost her baby teeth except for the upper canines. Uh, the adult canines have come down fully in front of the baby canines, and there seems to be enough room, uh, for not causing her immediate issues. Um, at what point should I deal with the baby canines? Um, I've been trying to wobble them Is this the right thing to do? Using Calc carb, which is a homeopathic remedy, as a 30C. I haven't seen any change so far. She's raw fed, plenty of meaty bones, chews, etc. Is there anything apart from surgical removal? And that's many thanks from Claire.

What's the breed and what's the age again?

Labrador, 7 months old.

Okay, I would say do nothing because at 7 months old you still got a lot of growing left in you. You know, you're not going to be skeletally mature until you're 18 to 24 months of age. So I would say don't panic at all. But a carb, great idea. Plenty of exercise. So I'd say you're doing exactly the right thing. I wouldn't, I really wouldn't do anything there, even with retained incisors, some especially kind of smaller dogs will have their baby canine will not fall out. Even with those, I'll tend to leave those if possible, because often they will ping them out with the bone. Bren?

Yeah, I mean, for me, there are the very occasional ones where it's not a simple root, okay? And it's actually a hooked root. And that's why, yeah, deformed, you know, congenitally, and therefore it will stay in regardless of what you do. And so if somebody is going to surgically remove them, I've learned over the years, just double-check with a dental x-ray. Take an x-ray, usually readily available now in most vets, that they'll do that before they go about it. So don't just go, oh, they're in for something else, could you just take out the temporaries and let somebody at it with a an elevator and just hope you can take them out. That can cause all sorts of root issues if they don't double-check quickly just what's going on at the root of that. The other things are, yes, it's about what position those adult canines are in. If they're not deformed, as you've said, and everything looks normal, just keep cleaning incidentally between the junior, the baby canine and the adult one so that there's no infection gets up beside the adult tooth. But other than that, I would just give time, as Nick said, and just allow that to grow out as much as possible. Give it time. If it persists and they are in for something else, get it X-rayed, get it removed appropriately. Okay. But I think that most of those usually will fall out by the time they're 12 months.

Sounds good.

Conor, anything else?

No thoughts on that, guys. That's just— I'm just listening and taking mental notes.

All right, great. Have you found your other question?

I have, and I also found a cool one from Caitlin Jensen. She's very clued in from the few comments I've seen of her. Check this out. This is more of an observation, and it's in relation to the acid reflux we were talking about earlier. How to increase stomach acid in dogs with acid reflux. I thought, oh, okay, I'm already on a back foot here, and I wish I had Googled before I came on. When B12 is low, the dog often doesn't produce enough intrinsic factor protein to absorb cobalamin. In these patients, it's seen that the stomach acid also doesn't produce enough acid, causing the dog to have acid reflux. And I thought, when B12 is low, cobalamin, I thought, how interesting, because when you've got bad guts, IBD-like issues, you can be low in B12, can't you? And I just thought that's a very common one to be low in, and I think I think it might be the cannibalizing. It's like the bad bacterial growth in the upper intestine gets to munching on the B12 before it gets absorbed. Is that what I believe it is? I see it as a leaky bucket issue anyway. When a dog's got IBD, it's one of those nutrients that if you looked under the hood in these dogs, they'd be low in B12. And the temptation is to give them an injection or whatever way you put in more B12. And it's like, well, he gets a lot of B12 in his diet. He shouldn't be deficient in this. But how interesting that Caitlin has just picked out that this can be linked to acid reflux. Thoughts on that, guys? Sorry to put you on the spot with it.

The, the whole thing about B12 is really interesting because you and me, we take in B12 and it then is linked to a molecule which takes it through the stomach. Yeah, it's like somebody who's chaperoning you with your girlfriend. Yeah. And then that is then broken off and another molecule is taken, it links to it, which takes it all the way down through the gut and you absorb it at the end of your small intestine. And that kind of passing from the stomach molecule to the intestinal molecule, one of which is intrinsic factor, I think the first one is intrinsic factor, that has to happen in the presence of good pancreatic function. You have to have good pancreatic enzymes in order to make that switchover. And if your pancreas is not producing lots of very good enzymes, then you don't get the switchover, then you don't get the B12 going down to the end where it's absorbed, and thus you get low B12. It is a fascinating process, and I looked at it deeply about a year ago, and that's all that I can remember at this stage.

Oh, I don't know anything about that.

Oh, jump into it. It's very, very, very fascinating. Intrinsic factor, B12, uh, what's the other one?

I can't remember.

Brent, can you remember the other one that takes it through the stomach?

No, but I do know that there is, uh, all of those things that we measure, not just, um, so cobalamin, B12, uh, is the, uh, one that we look at if there's bacterial overgrowth for excess but actually if it's also deficient, it can indicate whereabouts in the intestine there is a thickening or inflammatory process. So when we look at folate and B12, so cobalamin, those two together give us an idea of what level of inflammation there may be in the gut lining preventing absorption along there. So that's another reason that if you've got an IBD with a gut thickening that's causing you know, a vomiting reflux disease— we've talked about that in the past with IBD— then yes, B12 and cobalamin may be affected too. Whether that's necessarily the same as hunger pukes, um, it could be two different conditions that we're talking about there. So I don't want to get too dragged into assuming that it's all absolutely the the same at this point in time.

It's a doozy of a point though, Caitlin, fair play.

Caitlin has been doing her reading.

Isn't it great? Like, you know, people are so switched on today. Like, canine nutrition is just speeding along now and it's like, it's nearly intimidating, these, the level of knowledge of people these courses are putting out. Just people that are spot on on the subject. How good for the subject is this? It is now quarter to 8, guys. I don't want to be a party pooper. There is time just to nip over to our bit on the side for our Patreon viewers. I've got a— I've got one here that I wanted to have a little bit of a whinge about because it's a good question here on, you know, anti-nutrients in some stuff, and does it block the absorption of X and Y? And, uh, you know, to people—

I guess let's do it on Patreon.

Let's do it. I really want to do it.

And Heather, if you want your question answering, join us on Patreon. We'll answer it over there. Okay, yeah, uh, so that's great, guys. We've rushed through another week. It's been great to see you all. Um, if none of you know where to get us, just join us over on patreon.com/rawpetmedics, uh, and you'll find us there. Um, I will try and try again not to show the lawnmower guys that persist on wanting to join us. You're missing out. It's like as soon as I put a link on on. About 20 minutes later, Patreon comes along and puts the lawnmower guys on just for a laugh.

Why?

I don't know. It's hilarious.

I mean, there's a group for everybody, isn't there? There's people that's obsessed about lawnmowers and they just love these three lunatics. They probably look like us as well in '70s brown suits.

We actually had a comment from a lovely Patreon, uh, uh, person who said, oh damn, I've missed out on seeing the lawnmower guys, because she watches late enough for me to have changed the link back.

Yeah, yeah, I wonder what that is. That's weird. Um, I love it, love it. Anyway, guys, love that. See you next week, guys. That was cool. Take it easy.

See you later.