In this live YouTube session hosted by Dr. Conor Brady with co‑hosts (Speaker B and Speaker C), the panel discusses a wide range of canine health and nutrition topics while promoting upcoming events. They announce a special live appearance by Rodney Habib and Karen Becker on August 31, encourage Patreon support, and outline the schedule for future Q&A sessions. The conversation then moves into audience‑driven questions covering raw feeding for giant‑breed puppies (growth rates, calcium supplementation, and weaning practices), the impact of synthetic mineral supplements versus natural bone, the role of calcium/phosphorus balance, and the importance of protein variety. They address kennel cough (causative agents, vaccination options, isolation periods, and natural remedies like echinacea), histamine intolerance and fermented foods, incontinence treatments (homeopathy, acupuncture, and surgical options for ectopic ureters), and broader topics such as leaky gut, pancreatitis, and the relevance of maternal antibodies for vaccination timing. Throughout, the hosts blend informal banter with instructional tone, sharing personal anecdotes, scientific references, and practical recommendations for raw‑fed dog owners. The session concludes with reminders about Patreon, merchandise, and a brief wrap‑up.
Chapters
Hi, I missed you. It must have been pure torture for everybody not having me for the last couple of weeks. I feel very sorry.
Well, torture.
We missed something, Conor. We missed something. I just, I can't quite put my finger on what it was.
Yeah, did you have a friendly picture of me to take my place?
Uh, yeah, I've taken it. No, he's not in a lot of the bum again.
I'll take that any day. That's great.
You put a few pounds on over holiday.
Have you got it handled?
I definitely did. I just ate like a pig on that holiday. My God, all nutritional principles go out the window and it's just, uh, yeah, lovely. Mobile home living, you can't beat it, lads. I love it. It's so simple. I love it.
Brilliant.
Yeah, it's great. Anyway, you got on great. So what's this about? What's this image I see above me?
Ah, well, we're just reminding everybody, uh, on the 31st of August, uh, we've got a couple of friends coming to say hello. Rodney and Karen are going to be appearing live, uh, with us.
Uh, you may have heard of them, a little bit of it being Karen Becker. Yeah.
Um, and, uh, yeah, we're going to be, uh, going through, uh, their book. We're going to be talking about a bit of background so that those people that don't know them so well maybe just just understand them a bit more as to where they're coming from. Some great information on all sorts of stuff from epigenetics to just general health stuff that's in this book. So yeah, hope you can all join us on the 31st of August.
We've been sent a sneak preview of the book, so I started it there while I was away. It's not easy because kids go to bed later on holidays and whatnot, but the book is extremely digestible. Uh, so hats off to them.
Not literally.
No, yeah, yeah, not if you had beef flavored. Uh, but like, honest to God, it's, it's a cracking, cracking meat. Anyway, look, we will just want to announce that this week, that yeah, 31st of August, guys, be here or be square. It's going to be, uh, Rodney Habib and Karen Becker. Uh, they'll be in, uh, one of our little slots here. We're going to be talking for the hour. So that's going to be great crack, guys. So, uh, tune in. You'll be hearing more about that as time goes on.
Come and join us. Guys, it's not next week. Next week we're just going to talk about a few little bits and pieces because— and we're going to just pre-record that so that you will have a little bit of RPM next, next Tuesday at 7 PM. Yeah, it's the week after that, the last Tuesday of August. That's something to look forward to. It's— is it, is it the Tuesday after the bank holiday? There you go, that's how you remember it.
The Tuesday after the bank holiday, we have got Which means nothing to all of those in the States, Canada, or Ireland.
New Zealand. We don't have a bank holiday at the end of August.
They're not bank holidays anyway.
Yeah, we've got loads of bank holidays.
It's great.
7 or 8 or something. It's great. It's always bank holiday, but none at the end of August. So that's going to be great. So guys, what is it this week?
Q&A. Q&A.
Excellent.
Q&A. We've got Q&A. We've got lots and lots of questions. And the first one I'd like to raise was from a Patreon. Really, really want to thank all our supporters on Patreon. We will be doing lots more work with Patreon and getting you lots of information there. So really excited about that. But somebody was saying, please, can we do one of these days, maybe in September or October, ears? Otitis and, and, and atopy and the products that we might use for itchy ears and, and things like this. What do you think? I think we could do a whole— yeah, a whole program on ears.
Yeah, for sure, for sure.
Absolutely.
Very common.
Yeah.
Okay, that's wonderful.
Okay, good. That was just, um, uh, there you go, Leslie, that was for you.
Yeah, absolutely. We could do a whole day on that, really. I mean, ears are, I imagine, extremely interesting, same as every other organ. So you guys can give us the lowdown on that. But there's so many natural cures for ear issues, and they go, they crop up all the time, whether it's an itchy dog or yeast issue or whatever. Ears are a real common, common symptom. That's a really good one, we should do that. So I have one, guys, that came into my site that comes up all the time. Well, let's start with this one. It is, will raw grow my pup too quick? Is it too rich? Is it not advisable to grow a giant breed on raw and questions of that sort? Herself, and particularly her breeder who grows these giant dogs, who rears these giant dogs, advises not to feed raw in the early few months because it might grow them at a maximal rate. Do you want to comment on that?
Do you think she has had experience that these dogs have grown at a fast rate, or do you think she's just working from a place of fear? And I suspect she's working from a place of fear because when, when back, back in the day, people used to complain that their dogs didn't grow as fast as they did when they were on kibble. And that was the complaint that I heard universally. And I would describe it that that the, uh, if you imagine you start at a point here— this is quite difficult here— start the point here, start the point here.
I'm doing it backwards, but you can see it changes aspects that you can see the full width.
So you're starting at a point here and you're going to end up, up, up here. And what happens is the, the— I find the kibble dog will go fast, fast, fast, fast, slow down and get to there. And that the raw dog will go slow and then speed up, and they'll both probably reach more or less the same point. You know, a Saint Bernard raised on raw is going to pretty much, you know, reach the same. It's just they're going to do it just a little more gracefully, a little more gently. I would be very interested to hear your experience with growth profiles on raw and on kibble.
Yeah, what do you think, Brad?
I mean, certainly from my point of view, I think they probably are going to reach their optimal size with raw. You know, we've got a lot less inflammatory stuff going into the mix when you're using this. I think the key factors here are people are really worried about that whole growth plate closure stuff, whether you're going to have valgus varus, the twisting of the legs with the growth plates closing at the wrong times. And how quickly they're growing. And this emanated from the times in the late '80s, early '90s when there was a big mix across to kibble foods and people were still adding chemical, so calcium supplements and things like that. And I would certainly say the thing that I would be wary of is over-supplementing those foods in early life. So those are the things— hi spider, spider's just come to say hello to make sure I'm make sure that all you guys are behaving yourselves. So from a point of view of making sure that you are giving them the optimum nutrition, it's just about giving them a diet which isn't over-supplemented. So don't go out there and get calcium supplements, don't go grinding loads of extra calcium into their foods.
I think that's definitely the key. I think I always come back to the example of, you know, 'How much calcium does a bitch that's lactating need?' And I'd say, well, if you skip that bit and look at pups, if you put a raw meaty bone, a large raw meaty bone down on the ground and the pups get to play with it and gnaw it and pull at it and take bits off it and eat the marrow and the cartilage, brilliant nutrition. They can eat as much of that bits and pieces as they want. But if you leave down a packet of calcium supplements, you might have very different pups in a while because the body does not treat synthetic supplements the same way as it does natural minerals. Okay? It doesn't like minerals full stop. They don't like minerals. They don't come from the land of the living, unlike vitamins. Through, but minerals the body does not tolerate too well, the gut membrane. So it wants them in a certain way and they particularly don't like them coming from a conical flask. So we've all the studies, particularly of calcium, now that we're talking about it, that even when humans eat huge amounts of calcium from supplements, their bone states are far worse after months when it's measured, hip scores and stuff, than natural calcium. I think there's a misunderstanding from people that that you can, that the body, if you keep giving us the natural form of the mineral, the body just keeps taking it in blindly like it doesn't have any control over it. But there is just a, it's just, there's a very, like, through millions of years, the body knows how much it needs. It takes in that amount and then the rest of it doesn't come through. So it's a very natural process. It'll, when it needs stuff and it can store it and it needs extra zinc, I'll take that extra zinc, thanks very much. We're going to come to a point where I can't take in anymore. That's fine, out you go. And keep going and straight out the back passage. And that's what happens naturally. Conical flask minerals aren't treated the same way. We've big problems with excess copper sulfate in pet food causing liver disease, zinc oxide, iron oxide, which is rust. These things can cause problems. It's just not the same thing. So I think the misunderstanding is from that. And on the last point would be carbohydrates and protein. Guys, no kids should be growing on huge carbohydrate diets because that is— if you've got a giant breed, obesity is something you want to be watching more than anything else. Obesity is going to rot your joints. And so having this big fat dog that used to be so cute, a big fat Saint Bernard on these little legs, is a terrible way to start off those joints with no joint material coming from dry food. No glucosamine, chondroitin, hyaluronic acid, vitamin C, glucosamine, glucagon, all the stuff in bones that make— so guys, fresh bones and stuff is going to grow your dog at a normal rate. Mother Nature has designed it this way. Don't worry too much about it. Your dog will grow at the maximum rate with good quality protein, which is vital. That's how you're growing them lean all the time, and good quality protein and cartilage and fat and bone. And don't be overthinking that, because I'm personally not seeing it, I'm not hearing of it, I don't see the studies, any studies backing that statement up, that you can overeat bone and it causes issues. But supplements, up the yin-yang when you see those issues with calcium supplements. So I'm sure you're right, Bren, on that. It's all about the supplements.
I think that there's a psychological thing here in that since the '80s when, when, when Hills really started to come into the, into the UK, they gave the impression that they knew what they were doing. They had the science. It was like, trust us, we will sort the calcium phosphorus. You know, whenever you talk to vets, first thing they'll say is, what's the calcium phosphorus ratio? And, and yet for 3 to 45 million years before then, dogs have been growing puppies perfectly well in most reasonable situations by regulating how much they absorb. They eat loads of bone because there's loads of bone with every carcass, and they regulate it. And that's, that's the difference, you know. Hill's want to work out how much to put in because they think they know, and, and yet we're— we are putting nutrients into a self-regulating —system. It's not self-regulating.
That's good.
It sucks up petrol, whether it's good petrol or bad petrol. The body is very, very discriminating about how much. Yeah, exactly. That's a good point.
So here's an extra one for you then. So that's, you know, let's put the cat amongst the pigeons or the puppies amongst the— well, pigeons amongst the kibble. Yeah. What about this weaning? Because actually, you know, what we're not necessarily getting here is that actually puppies would naturally feed from mum way into 16 to 20 weeks even, okay? Even if they were being supplemented and weaned across with other foods, okay? And we see this with all species. They will vary the time that they stay on the mum's teat depending on, you know, what the circumstances outside, the food availability, etc. And if we're taking that away, because artificially as breeders we'll tend to wean them off at, you know, as little as 6 weeks and get them onto a food so they can go to the new owners, what's your impression of the impact that that amount of fat production, that amount of nutrition that's coming from mum would have on their diet?
Mum, she would be giving them milk. And she would also be regurgitating goodness for them, which would be carcasses, bits of carcasses, bits of whatever, lung and goodness knows what. So that's the archetypal puppy food, is milk and those slightly pre-digested visceral bits and a bit of vegetable material here. You know, if it's those vegetables in the offing, they will get a bit of that here and there. So there you go. I think let Mother Nature do it. Concentrate on the macros, get a variety of proteins.
I'd be surprised that the pups are feeding on mum after 8-9 weeks with those puppy teeth coming in. Does that go on?
I mean, I didn't know it went past 10 weeks. I had an 11-week-old set of pups from a breeder, and she has not just mum but grandmom. And this is a beautiful thing about dogs. And they, you know, grandmom actually came in to milk at the same time as her daughter, even though she wasn't pregnant. Just, this is the whole false pregnancy thing. This is what's so beautiful about dogs, you know. And so what happens now is that the pups that are still with, because they're a holistic client, is actually they're starting to spread out and suckle off grandmom. For their extra nutrition.
Absolutely crazy. I didn't know that happened either.
I used to go, I saw practice in Tel Aviv one summer, and the vet there, her bitch was unspayed, and whenever she had a litter of rescue kittens, yeah, like 4 weeks, 6 weeks old, brought them into her practice, this is what she did. The bitch would come into milk and would feed the kittens until they were able to go. That's amazing.
That's a serious hormonal— I mean, that's just— that's nuts. That's great. I love that. I love that. I'm going to ask something stupid, but I don't care. So a wet nurse in humans, is that just purely because that that woman had just had a baby so she could continue on feeding somebody else's baby. Have you ever heard of this thing, what you're saying there, happening in humans? Could such a thing happen in humans, or are we just too far removed from the—
Well, you've got to remember, in, um, the, the bitch, the cycle that's— and this is why false pregnancies are so common— is that the cycle of the ovary is pretty much standard whether they get pregnant or not. The other bits that actually happen around that are the prostaglandins that the pups release whilst they're in utero to lead towards parturition and actually labor and giving birth. So the, the really— and this is why so many people will suffer, or their bitches if they're entire, will suffer from the false pregnancy issues. And because it's very easy for them to slip into, you know, creating milk at the end of their cycle. So nice, that's interesting. So obviously it's all— it also means that I know some people have commented that they think in the wild that canids will wean much sooner, but I think actually I've seen some of those programs where they talk about them sharing pups. They'll have other bitches that aren't alpha that will actually come into season, and they'll be actually suckling those pups and that side of things. So it is actually quite a natural thing for pack animals to do. All right, cool.
I've got a story for you boys. This is a human story, and it's maybe too much information, but I'm going to share it anyway. Back in the day Okay, I would have been about 10 years old. My mum was babysitting for her sister, slightly younger sister, and the baby was about a year old. The sister was late back and my mother would have been suckling my younger brothers and sisters. And so she just popped her sister's child on the boob. Yeah.
Job done. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I mean, that's something that's— it's— we are so far removed now that we think it's okay to have from porn to like the skimpiest stuff to like everything on beaches and all this, the way we sell clothes, and that's okay. But Jesus, breastfeeding is still a little bit embarrassing for people, a little bit. We don't talk about it, certainly over in Ireland, because we have the church just destroying all that for us. But like, it's not— isn't it just crazy that they're just— they're just these amazing— anyway, look, they are amazing.
Start talking about breastfeeding.
If you give somebody a glass of breast milk from a cow, they think that's totally okay in the West. Yeah. But if you give them human milk— Yeah, that's true. I actually did it to Ellie. She'd expressed some milk and I made her some tea one morning with That is cannibalistic.
That is— kill me for that. Yeah, I always wonder if you haven't told her until tonight.
That's it, you wanted to watch where you're going for tea.
I always wonder about the first caveman that was caught kind of, uh, sucking from a cow, you know, tiptoeing out in the middle of the night and doing it. What are you doing, Barney? Get away from that cow! Anyway, guys, let's, uh, let's get to some actual questions that we've been asked here. So look, I've actually got a list of, uh, 28 questions that Aston has kindly put together for us. You're all You're all going to meet her and we are getting to number 1 and we're already 20 minutes in. Here's a very liked question. Kennel cough, so much conflicting advice. How much should you keep them in? What if only 2 out of 5 dogs have symptoms? When are they clear to mingle again? Should I vaccinate? If so, which type, nasal, oral, or injection? So a quick spiel on kennel cough. I imagine that's a whole nice— do you want to skip it and put it as a nice one?
What I'm going to do is I'm going to put up a little bit of spiel about that, okay, separately. We can do that on Patreon okay, I think my brief take on this is one, remember there's some— it's been quite prevalent this year for various reasons, and I would just say, look, remember kennel cough as a syndrome is about 20 different infection types, okay? You've got anything that can give a cough to a dog, from bacteria through to viruses, you know, that's just— there's loads of different options. The one thing that we're really concentrating on is if we give the intranasal vaccine is Bordetella, okay, and this is the one which is effectively whooping cough for kids, okay, Bordetella bronchiseptica, but it's quite species-specific. So in the canine one, what we tend to do is use the pig version of the bacterium, and that actually then only will go through a certain number of passages before before it dies away naturally because it's the wrong species.
Oh, and it won't leave you kennel cough.
That's the important thing.
Yeah, so it won't give you porcine kennel cough or human kennel cough or human—
So you're not actually going to get dog whooping cough. Now, whooping cough really lasts about— it can last 3 to 6 months in some extreme cases, but it certainly will go well over the 2-week span. Now, the majority of other coughs that you will see, if they resolve within 3 to 7 days, it's probably a virus. And it's got over it very quickly with its own immune system, and that's unlikely to be whooping cough. And this is why so many kennels out there said, oh, that vaccine never works, it's useless. It's because they were catching other coughs, etc.
So how do vets diagnose whether it's whooping cough or not? Kennel cough, not whooping cough. Sorry, sorry, I meant to say kennel cough. I was typing in something there.
There's a thing called the tracheal pinch test. I mean, if you grab anybody's trachea, which is just here, yeah, your windpipe. It's— yeah, and you give it a little pinch. In a dog who's got kennel cough, you will get a— okay, reaction. Okay, it's a classic, and they'll get white fluff and stuff. They'll be pretty bright in themselves, but they will— every time they see the kennel, the postman or something like that, they'll just cough, cough, cough. You know, any stimulation will make them cough, and it usually lasts about 3 weeks. How long does it persist? What's the official line on persistence, Bren?
So yeah, I think it can persist up to 4 weeks. No, no, it can persist for— it depends on the immune status of the dog, but these— the residual issue with the cough can be left with them for months afterwards.
No, but viral shedding, that was the key to the question, was how much—
how long do you need to keep them in? So yeah, the key to that for viral shedding. So we sat down as a practice and said, look, the easiest way to say is if it's just one of the viruses, then realistically you should mean that at least 3 to 5 days post you hearing a cough, you should keep them separate from other dogs, purely and simply because the number of times you're going to be out and not hear them cough. So we gave a sort of a guideline on that. I think it's really difficult because as soon as the cough stops, they're pretty much going to stop shedding anyway. So that's the thing, is we were giving extra leeway purely and simply as a cushion, if you like, so that they weren't at risk of passing them on.
I think we should pause it, lads. We should pause kennel cough and do a night on it because I've already thought of one or two branches I wanted to go down. We used to use kennel cough vaccinations in guide dogs all the time, and every couple of years the cough would just sweep through the kennels and they'd rush down with their steroids and antibiotics, which must be given together. And, you know, we'd say, well, what's the story? We've been vaccinating these dogs up the yin-yang and they go, oh well, they're not guaranteed. I said, well, that's fantastic. And also there's a great study, there's a great study there.
Actually, do you know what? Bordetella is guaranteed if you can prove it's Bordetella. You know, the actual vaccine against Bordetella is guaranteed. It's just the issue that they've got is there's so many other causes of cough.
Okay, Grant, there's a great study there as well on echinacea, very effective for kennel cough if you're looking for a natural. So let's just do a note for kennel cough, ask if you're listening. That's a definite one. Here's another one that was very well liked as well, so this is important to get to. Question 8. Okay, we've actually already touched on this, but let's do it again. How do you know you're getting it right with respect to nutrition? Is the absence of any issues in a young dog enough? The vitality of youth is enough to carry many dogs through even when they are fed kibble, with issues sometimes not manifesting until years later. So are there any proactive steps you would recommend to keep all this on track? Wow.
So, yeah, I mean, look, there are studies now starting to come out. DogRisk are doing various studies on inflammatory markers and things like that when you're feeding raw, showing that actually it is beneficial to give raw whole foods. If we look at the human market, we're seeing all of this guidance on Cutting down processed foods, increasing the amount of raw fresh that you can have. You know, there is a certain book coming out in a few months' time that we're going to be doing a review on that also talks about this, you know, and the relative issues that you can get. But actually, as little as 10% of your food can be changed to see a difference. Okay, now that doesn't mean that only 10% of the food needs to be changed. It's just saying you can see a difference when you tiny tweak.
Yeah, so the thing is, if you're feeding a really good raw diet and you're getting your macros right and you're getting a variety right and you've got some nice omega-3s going in there, do you need to measure anything? It's, it's— for example, if you feed your children really well, are you going to take them for a medical every year until they're 18? You're not. You're just going to take— you're going to, you're going to eye it, aren't you? Yeah. Say, are they growing about right?
Are they skin about right? They eat anything green this week, you know, about right? Yeah.
You know, I'm not sure whether you would need to do any analysis beyond just, you know, just feeling them, watching them, seeing them, smelling them. Just, is this dog in the right place? And if in doubt, you go and see somebody who knows the breed very well, or go and see your local raw vet, or, you know, or something like that. I would suggest go and see Conor Brady. He's a nutritionist. He'll give you some thoughts.
I think that's exactly right. I think it's like, you know, I think there's a lot of fear. Fear is a great motivator, and the fear of doing something wrong is what encourages you and conventional vets to grab that bag because it's a great stress reliever. It's like, well, it's already been done, and if it hasn't been done correctly, well, it's not our fault. So I think it's a stress reliever. Just remember the simple fact in humans is that we have kids and we get no nutritional advice. We get this thing to look after, and I haven't a clue what our RDA of calcium or zinc is. I bloody know she's not eating enough vegetables, and it's just, it kills me every day that she just is not as a big eater as I thought she would be. So like, look, we do our best. We're all overeating in some things and under-eating desperately in others because we're not eating enough healthy raw food anymore. And so yes, we like, we're still okay, we're still perpendicular. So that is about as much as you need to worry and not worry about us, uh, in your dogs. You can do it. It's a meaty food pyramid. It's like our food period, meaty. And that's enough to be worried about, you know. You're not going to— the dog is not going to wander around looking for something and drop dead for it. That we're aware of yet. As soon as we identify something, we'll let you know. So I don't think there's anything you need to supplement with or worry about. Vary up your raw dog foods, feed the completes but add your own bits, take all those tips, mix it around, and that's as good as, you know, you're in the top 98% there really of the content.
It would be lovely that when we get to a point that we're doing the longevity studies and we're looking at the diets the certainly on the human side, they're seeing this. And that's the great thing is we're taking a lot of that information through their producer.
Yeah, Pajo and WHO and all the huge, huge groups that have these like dozens and dozens of scientists. I mean, the top guy, Miguel, what's his name in Brazil, massive, massive collation of studies. And they're just saying stop with ultra-processed food, eat whole ingredients. They can sum up every single analysis. They're called meta-analysis where they get all these studies and they put them together and look at what they mean together, which is extremely powerful studies. Every meta-analysis is eat whole food and you'll be fine. And so we're going to go—
I've got number 21 here. I'd love to hear about histamine. Here we go. I'd love to hear about histamine intolerance and meal ideas as well as leaky gut that presents as food intolerances and ear infections. Okay, so it's two different things. Two different questions about histamine intolerance, and then we'll do food intolerances.
And we did a day on gut issues, Nick, and food intolerances was done in that and exclusion diet and that kind of stuff. Stuff. So they can go back to a previous RVM on gut issues. And if we haven't covered leaky gut enough, well, then we'll come back to that because that is a monster of a subject and not something we can do justice in 4 or 5 minutes. But let's do the first part of that subject.
Yeah.
So you'll make him cover it in his book, Toxic. He does. Just give us a little, just a 30 seconds because I'm not clear on this. I have what some nutritionists say histamine is such and such a big thing and you have to avoid fermented foods and then everybody else is saying fermented foods are fantastic.
So I'm also confused.
Okay, so there's a couple of enzymes which basically destroy the histamine and the effect. Okay. And if the body is perfectly adequate in those, it will actually get rid of that histamine quite readily. And it's actually really useful. I mean, some of the things for, you know, apple cider vinegar and the products that were in that all the way through to some of the other fermented foods Um, histamine actually improves gut digestion just in how it acts to increase stomach acidity, you know, so you're getting better digestion that way. Um, the likelihood of you actually having histamine that then persists in the rest of the body will only be really impacted if— because it's usually destroyed on the way through the gut wall because of these enzymes. Okay, now if you've got intolerances Now this is the thing about toxic, there may be an underlying health issue that you've got and you can have one thing is mast cell activation, okay, which is where all of your mast cells are just waiting to degranulate for the slightest thing. You can have a hot shower and your mast cells will degranulate and you'll effectively, you know, collapse in the shower with a histamine release, okay. So it is, that's the severity end of what you can get to. Where the membranes on those cells just waiting to degranulate those histamine granules, all the way through to just intolerances where you could have impediment of those enzymes working efficiently to reduce the histamine that's in there. So I think there's a lot that can be said. I think feeding generally fermented foods is a good thing for the microbiome, for the health. I think there are going to be very minor cases which are going to have problems, and they've probably got other health issues that you need to start addressing with other treatments.
Okay, great, that's useful, very, very good.
Okay, you also said we were going to do something on fermented foods, which is another nice— let's face it, because I'm still— I mean, I've swung my legs over the other side of the fence because you've convinced me, Bren, but it would be good to that live and go through it all again because I still in my head mentally separate the whole fermented food stuff for humans and doggos. And I kind of think, is that really the same thing? You know, so I can't help but think every book you're going to hold up, Ben, is about humans and not about dogs.
That's just about fermentation. That's about producing fermented foods. Oh, cool. That was that book.
Yeah. So I would love to learn more about that. And histamine thing definitely comes into that. But I think you adequately dispelled my concern the last time we talked about it. Do you want me to do another question here, guys? Are there natural treatments for incontinence? Yes, yes, there are.
I jumped a bit too quick and a bit too enthusiastically on that one, but drip me not. So if I'm thinking about incontinence, it's because Because homeopathics are very useful and acupuncture is very useful if you've got an incontinent. Now obviously a male or female dog can be dribbly with urine. I'm just going to talk about urine because otherwise that opens a major can of worms. Can be for many different reasons and you know if it's not resolving fairly quickly with simple treatments then you've got to start thinking about ectopic ureters and you know, bladder dysfunction and all sorts of things.
Which— what's an ectopic ureter?
That's the tube that goes from your kidney down to your bladder, okay? It's called the ureter. That carries urine from there. What about urethra? Now normally— no, the urethra is from the bladder to the end of your, um, bits and pieces. Yeah, well, I was going to say penis and I was thinking there's so many women watching, they'll be going You can say penis, no worries.
I'm a big fan, actually, guys, of urethra Franklin.
Oh, urethra Franklin, yes, excellent. So anyway, the ureter, if it's not implanted, the bladder normally sits with what we call a trigone, the area closest to the neck of the bladder, and the body of the bladder expands and contracts depending on, you know, how much urine is in there. The ureter should sit in a little triangular trigone just almost at the base of the neck of the bladder. Now sometimes what happens is that ureter isn't placed correctly, as Nick was saying, and it's called ectopic, so it's not in the right place and it just effectively dribbles urine through constantly. So it bypasses the normal musculature at the neck of the bladder. Brutal.
So what are the natural solutions, did you say?
Did you give us a— There's only surgical solution to that, but it works pretty well. It's a pretty clever surgery, very, very delicate sewing, very, very nice. So the other two things, very, very quickly, one would be homeopathic Causticum. Now there's a thousand remedies that you can use, but Causticum jumps way up at the top. Caustic with an -um at the end, and you can use a 30C or a 200C. I find it's very useful. And the other is acupuncturist. Find yourself an acupuncturist. Yeah, somebody tighten things up.
How does acupuncture help with that? How does— what is the process?
Two instances here. There's the hormonal aspect, okay, to incontinence. And it's sort of focused on that. And somebody's put up about pulsatilla, and that could be really useful in the hormonal aspect, and that's about the strength. So it's almost like an anabolic strength to the muscular. There's also a nerve input into that area as well. So you've also got direct nerves from the spine feeding into— so the lower spine around the lumbosacral region that will feed into that neck of the bladder. If you've got any weakness in that area, that can also lead to weakness in that muscle. So stimulating that can also help. So acupuncture will help both those levels as well, because we've got to think that acupuncture, very westernized, would be just the neurological stuff. But actually, you know, we talked about this a couple of weeks ago about the benefits of acupuncture for arthritis, and it's looking at The more TCM, traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture and herbs would deal with more of the round. So all of the lack of hormones where it's been in a post-neuter bitch through to the actual neurological stuff that's going on. That's crazy.
How does a dog like— tell me where the needles go when you're treating incontinence in, let's say, it doesn't really— let's say a male dog, where do the needles go and how the hell do you get the dog to stay still?
Conor, you've got a problem.
But honestly, like, how— look, Dudley is never still, never, never still. How could you possibly do acupuncture?
8 out of 10 dogs will just tolerate it if you just— you're just gentle, you talk to them, make sure the owner is happy and content and what have you, and they will just— they'll just accept it. They will just—
a couple of calming points as well. So, you know, you can use, you know, a point just between the eyes.
I had it there last time actually for my knees, and then she just put one in there first and it went— it was quite tough going in and she blamed, oh, you're very stressed. It's like, no, you're just bad at your needles. That's what's going on. But it worked. I was relaxed. I was snoring. You know the way you kind of wake yourself up with a snore 10 minutes later? It's like, oh my God, I'm falling asleep here.
I don't know what she did to you in the meantime.
How long does it take to learn acupuncture? Just as a side note, how long? Like, you know, what do you spend a year learning acupuncture?
So if you've got the veterinary knowledge, I think adding on, there are a couple of courses now which are available. Qi Institute do a great one, which is— was currently based in Madrid, but it's just been brought to the UK. So if you've got a vet who's interested in acupuncture in the UK, it's also international, so, you know, it's in the States, and there's— but they actually expand it beyond just acupuncture. So this is traditional Chinese medicine. They also do some nutrition stuff, interestingly. So that really is a good mix.
Yeah, that sounds good.
Debbie Williams says, uh, if it's no— if there's nerve damage, can Hypericum help? And I would say yeah, very much so, uh, if there's nerve damage. Also with nerve damage, you'd be thinking of Nux vomica for spinal nerve damage and Silica.
I've had some Opium use as well. That's really good for, um, for those situations where there's a lack of sensitivity Yeah, that can be really useful. I've had that working at Holt's as well, actually.
Karen Reid wants to know, is this a Q&A for Conor's issues? Bloody hell, we'd be here a lot longer than 45 minutes, Karen. Let me tell you. Do you know what? There's actually in these questions, there's a lot of very, very specific questions that I have to skip over, guys, of some issues that are rare enough, certainly to me, and I struggle to pronounce canine paroxysmal dyskinesia. I mean, bloody hell. So I reckon 2 or 3 of them could be addressed in Patreon, guys. And so if you ask your questions, would you address maybe some of the finer questions there? Like, I'd like to keep it a little bit broader for, for people that are listening. Here's another one. If maternal antibodies— and we've already done the vaccination thing, and there's a lot of vaccine questions here— but if maternal antibodies are absent or low, do you need to adjust vaccine protocols, i.e., start earlier at 6 weeks rather than 8? So that suggests that someone's testing for maternal antibodies.
Yeah, well, it's always about— well, they're making assumptions, I guess, that because the mum's antibodies are low, that actually what's coming through in the milk is going to be low. So, you know, that'll be what that's based on. But look, biosecurity is probably the biggest thing for your puppy in those circumstances. You know, the virus is viruses don't just materialise out of nowhere. They are going to be caught from other contact animals, so you've got to be thinking, how do I keep the risk of those viruses down to a minimum? And then from there, yes, you can effectively give them— that's a risk assessment. So finding some woodlands in the middle of nowhere is my classic, that you go where there's no dog loo bins, there's no, you know, lots of walkers and things like that, because the viral load is going to be relatively small. If you went down your local park in the middle of Birmingham, let's say, then literally because of the numbers of dogs, the number of risk of viruses in inner cities is notably higher. They would generally say, look, you're more at risk of putting your pup down on the ground in those circumstances. Stances. So that's the biosecurity aspect. So rather than trying to bring the vaccines forwards, I would actually say what you just need to be is more cautious when you've got the new pup.
Yeah, that sounds good. Here we go, let's bust on. How important is it to give varied proteins when feeding raw? One of our boys is allergic or sensitive to a lot of things and I struggle to vary his protein intake. So somebody worried that their their diet is a little bit narrow on the protein front. Where would you go with that, Conor? You can kick off with this one. I think like a lot of people are concerned about this, and unfortunately you do get some dogs with, you know, terrible case of something akin to leaky gut, and you've got this NASA-like region of proteins they don't get on with, and then you try them and they bloody don't get on with them, and it's like, oh my god, this dog has been on scrambled egg for a week or two, where am I going after this? So yeah, I can totally sympathize, it is a little bit stressful, and I think let's hopefully it does sound in this case that the dog has 1 or 2 proteins he can eat, so I say that's a good start and different parts of the body provide different proteins and that's great and you can do okay for perfectly dogs can live for a very, very long time. The only animal that you wouldn't be keeping a dog or cat on for a very long time would probably be rabbits because we know that's one of the lower, it's one of the more taurine deficient and lamb as it turns out. But if your dog is eating 1 or 2 proteins and you can mix it up that way and you'll be able to use maybe say raw milk and say eggs because eggs are the same as chicken. And if you can sneak in little bits and pieces that way, I would say you don't really need to worry about those things. If you are terribly stressed, you would be able to check these things. But those blood tests are extremely expensive. Once you get past the macronutrients, getting down to your amino acids and stuff is very technical and quite expensive thing to do and probably overkill. I would say don't worry too much, but don't neglect the cool little ingredients you can get in. Go through your single proteins as carefully as you can. Go through the organic and non-organic versions of them, the cooked and non-cooked. Cooked. Sometimes you can be sensitive to the cooked version and not the raw version. It's quite technical, but you have lots of options there. That's double the amount that you've probably already tried now. So go through all your proteins, really find those strange proteins, even go to a pet shop and find like tins of zebra and tins of horse and tins of— we have in Ireland Maxi Zoo do it. So there's lots of novel proteins out there. The Dog's Butcher does a good range of novel proteins. And check out everything you can, and you'll find very quickly if you do it that way, suddenly 4 or 5 proteins are okay, now you're really covering your bases. And with the other cool little additions now and again, I would say I wouldn't be overthinking it much more than that. What about you guys?
I would be— before you even get into the food trials, and I think doing food trials a couple of weeks on each protein is a brilliant idea, and, you know, obviously if the dog gets really sick or really itchy or really squitty within 2 days, that is the wrong protein. You have to go back to something that you know to be good and then start again. Yeah, but before you even get to those, the trial stage, I'd be thinking about bone broth. If you— if there's one, uh, a beast that you can stick in a pot to make some broth, I think that's really good to heal the gut, to heal the leaky gut. I'd be thinking BioFunction 8. Dr. Conor Brady's BioFunction 8 is a great—
seems to be going well.
Yeah, it's, it's, it's a great kind of, uh, to transition, an envoy product and also a good probiotic using either Phytospore or using Bio-Kult if they're on kibble and you can't get them off just yet because Bio-Kult is for an omnivore gut and so maybe that's going to be more useful. Bryan, you got any thoughts?
Yeah, so there's a couple of things there, you know, some of the guys, watch out for the allergy tests. At best they're a guide, at worst they're misleading.
Okay, so falling out of love with them rapidly here.
Yeah, so yeah, just work out that. Absolutely agree with Nick. Oh, it sounds like a party political broadcast. I agree with Nick that it should be a right honorable friend. I think you've got that, that actually healing the gut is so much to do with this process and not that actually a lot of people which will say, I'm, my dog's sensitive to this and there's so many other things that are going on at that time that can lead them to that. A couple of books that I've read on, on that subject as well, where actually if you resolve some of those other issues with their health, that actually all of those dietary sensitivities that they previously have been marked by, they dissipate.
Yeah, yeah. It's kind of the analogy is that people come to say me and they're looking for a new diet. I'd say that's like I'm selling cars and you come to me and and your car is clearly ruined and you want a new car from me and I can see that your car, the wheels are burst and the chassis is broken. I say, bloody hell, what have you been driving your car on? Because the road must be awful. The underside of the car is ruined. And they say, oh, just give me a new car. And I say, well, I really think you need to fix the road first. Just give me a new car. I sell them a car, a car works for about a week, then the car is broken and doesn't work anymore and they come back looking for a new car. That's the analogy with leaky gut or IBS and all the rest. You've got a really bad road full of potholes and you must fix the road before the new car is going to work on so just jumping to raw doesn't fix— so leaky gut is quite a long conversation, but you're dead right, you'd be thinking about fixing those issues. I'm assuming that raw feeder is going through the wars with that, but yeah, don't overthink it and definitely try to get to the bottom of it. Any kind of nutritionist worth their salt will fix that because that's the most common thing you get approached with. So we've got millions more questions here, guys.
We're out of time, guys, but Timo just said She's a, she's a, a client of mine. She was a physics teacher and I gave her some homeopathics and it blew her mind in a very pleasant way, I'm pleased to say. And, uh, but she says, um, I have a gut feeling that chicken intolerance is often due to the what was the chicken was fed or the drugs that the chicken was given, and that if you're giving organic, proper organic, uh, chicken, you may have lower intolerance. I think that's absolutely right.
Well, maybe Just thoughts.
Yeah, it's not what you feed, it's what's been done to the thing that you're feeding.
Yeah, there was a study in 2016 there that found that the side— the byproduct of one of the antibiotics they use in the poultry industry is called octotetracycline. Is this OTC? Anyway, and we know it collects in the bones of the animal, and the meat industry are saying, oh, we don't use the bones. It's like, well, but we make broth, we cook meat on the bone. And they said, don't be worried, it's fine. So humans don't eat so much of it, but the raw dog food industry uses quite a lot of carcass and necks and all sorts of stuff. So they, uh, they found that it made dogs itchy. I think that was Bethlehem in 2016. So that was a great study. And so the intensively reared meat, yeah, that has issues, and it mightn't be a true food intolerance to the protein as such as the stuff that was in the bone. So yeah, absolutely, you're on to something there. And it might happen with organic meat for sure. Uh, there can be lots of causes of this. I mean, you know, it's not just leaky gut. There can be chicken serum used in your over-vaccinated puppies and you really don't know what's the cause of it. But like you're saying, that you need to get the solution. Somebody popped up there that my dog's got pancreatitis, so I have to feed a narrow range of meats. I don't really agree with that. I'm not quite sure who said that. I think, I think you can feed a varied diet. The science on pancreatitis has moved on a lot. I've got a pancreatitis article on my website, and in there I've put in 1 or 2 pages from my book, and it just gives the key studies for any vet that might have be talking about in a different way that, you know, that it's really not about fat and it's really more of a carbohydrate thing. But please just have a read of that article and then come back to that assumption that you can't vary your proteins. I think you can. In the throes of a pancreatic bout, awful pain, well then yeah, you might be thinking of a very, just very lean protein cottage cheese or anything that gets you out of a hole. But, you know, for chronic pancreatitis and every other type of dog, I don't think you need to narrow your meat ranges down. Guys, did you have any thoughts on that, or is that about right?
Yeah, no, that's about right. And I think this is another— no relative, honest— just this is a comment by somebody about how raw can help with EPI. I mean, we've talked a little bit in the past about, you know, this end of pancreatitis where they can have an insufficiency of the enzymes of the pancreas being produced actively with the damage that can happen. And actually you can add raw pancreas into the diet because it helps with the digestive process. So these are a couple of things to add in. But again, you can talk forever on these. Yeah, we did pancreatitis.
I think we brought that up. Look, guys, it's 8:10. I just want to highlight that scrolling across the bottom of the screen just a few seconds ago was the Patreon page. We really appreciate your donations to that, guys. At the price of a cup of coffee once a month, if you can afford it, it really helps when it's done by, by numbers. It really helps because we do have to take a little bit of time off for this, you know, and we do prepare. And so we do appreciate any sort of little donations you can make to that. It keeps the, keeps the show on the road and makes it, makes it much easier for us. Our side, you'll find us on patreon.com/rawpetmedics, and we deeply appreciate any of the donations that you make to that. It really helps. But yeah, any concluding remarks there, guys, before we toddle on?
I have got one. Keisha Campbell says, where do you get Ditch the Dry t-shirts? If you talk to Pro Dog Raw guys, this company Pro Dog Raw, they will organize a t-shirt one way or another.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, very successful campaign. She's doing a great job, Heidi, fair play.
And lastly, just another plug for the 31st of August. If you're just joining us, you know, 31st of August, we're going to be seeing Rodney and Karen, who are going to be coming on to talk about their new book which is coming in October. Lots of information in there. We'll be plucking out a few keynotes and also talking a bit about the background as to why they're doing what they're doing. So look forward to you guys joining us on that date. Got a bit of a prerecord for next week, so please bear with us. And yeah, we hope you can make some comments. I'll still be dipping in and answering some of the comments on that, that prerecord. But yeah, please enjoy yourselves for the next couple of weeks and we'll catch you on the 31st of August. Great stuff.
