Nick Thompson, Dr. Conor Brady, and Dr. Brendan Clarke moved to a new recording platform and are building a searchable archive of 200 past videos. They're looking for a website developer and will be at the Natural Dog Expo in Solihull, Birmingham.
Chapters
Here we are, gentlemen, gentlemen, the new improved, well, different. Let's face it, these two need improving, that's for sure.
I do. I do.
They need improving, but we are the new improved Raw Pet Medics. My name's Nick Thompson and we have got Dr. Brendan Clarke. Oh, have I got a wet forehead?
No, no, no, no. We're talking about new and improved.
And we've got, we have got the one and the only Dr. Conor Brady over there on the side. We're coming to you from Riverside now. We were using Be.Live, but now we're trying out Riverside. So if there's any cock-ups, A, we can blame Bren, and B, we can blame Riverside. But we're all recording, so at least the podcast people will get some backup there. This is 2026 and we are Raw Pet Medics and we are going to be having our monthly catch-up. And at the very least, That is a guaranteed thing for at least the next 12 months. We're keen to get everything out. It's just everybody's stunningly busy. I'm writing books. Brady's just moved house and had a baby. And those two things are usually not compatible because it's quite difficult to have babies when you're moving house. I find it's kind of slightly contraceptive, but that's another thing. And Brent is juggling at least 20 projects as he normally is. That is his want, and that's what he does. Gentlemen, are you well? Haven't seen you for a long time.
Very well.
Yeah.
I'm envious of Conor's new home. He gave us a little bit of a video tour the other day. It sounds like it's going to turn into a little countryside mansion at this rate.
Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
I'll be there next weekend, mate. Yeah.
Oh dear.
Yeah.
Okay, thanks, thanks for letting me know. I'll let Elaine know, she'll be delighted.
She'll be delighted.
That's all right, you'll get put up in the fridge.
Yeah, totally. Yeah, I'm in the fridge at the moment. Heaters just don't touch the side of it, but, uh, yeah, this, this room, this room is cold, so we turn the rads off because I mean— so I'm like, keep the door closed to the fridge, because it's, it's like a, it's like a conservatory type room idea, you know, and I'm just not there yet with the central heating. I don't quite know how to work it yet, so, uh, just put your gym equipment in there. There you go. That's what I did. I put the kids, the kids' stuff. They can play in here with some jumpers on. Good enough for them.
I've been banned, gents. I've been banned from the garden room downstairs, which is where I've been for the last couple of months.
Yeah.
I have been banished back to the studio here. All right. And so I'm doing all my work from the, from this studio and it's freezing compared with down there because they've got, we've got a wood burner down there.
Yeah. Nice.
And, and it's, it's fabulous down there, but I was sitting there totally glued to the, yeah, the computer for 16 hours a day doing the writing the book and all this kind of stuff. And Ellie was, no, you are, you are a, an atmosphere vacuum because you're so focused on this thing. So I've been banished up here where I can vacuum atmosphere as much as I like, but it's really cold. Therefore I'm wearing long johns and I've got about 6 layers, many of them fleece layers. That's how you survive the fridge.
That's how you survive. Yeah, I'm not allowed to have my laptop in the kitchen/living area, and I do. I sneak it down at nighttime. I think they've gone to bed. There's a nice little log burner here, and I sit beside that, and Elaine's like, get it. Just, I stress her out just by— and I'm really quiet, nobody sees me, but she goes, no, it's the fact that I can't talk to you without me looking up going, this better be important, you know. She does not tolerate it downstairs. Laptop has to stay upstairs or in the fridge.
She's a wise woman.
Wow.
I think there is something in that. She has something in that. Yeah, when you get focused, the rest of the world disappears. Brent, are you like that? I think you watch The Box when you're on your laptop in the evenings, is that right? Or you guys just kind of do loads of other things as well as being— as long as work in the evenings, is that right? Yeah, I'll—
I just, um, much to my wife's chagrin, and there's probably a lot of people out there that associate with this when they try and talk to their husbands and then suddenly realize they've headphones in.
Or yeah, just one headphone. Yeah.
Yeah.
Always on the side that's not facing me.
Yeah.
She can't see it.
Yeah.
But I'm listening.
My 13-year-old son does that and thinks it works.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's it. It's like when you're driving in the car with your family and you've just got one earphone in with a podcast for some audio relief. And so they can chat away, but I'm actually listening to my podcast for 2 hours. Yeah.
But the point is an hour in, they're trying to work out why you still haven't responded to their questions.
Yeah, I've just got a big smile on my face.
Yeah. Or, Daddy, I need a wee-wee. I need to stop immediately.
What do you mean you wee in the car? Surely you could have told me to pull over. Yeah, yeah. Anyway.
Yeah. So that's focus and gentlemen. So let's focus. And we need to talk about something that the guys are going to be interested out there.
For a change, we've done 5 years and we've managed to do 5 years of not talking about anything very interesting. And yet people want to listen to this. Drivel.
Well, I would say that there are lots of people have been questioning because Facebook took down all of our historic long-form videos. So we are currently accumulating all of that material that fortunately we've saved most of and getting it. So it's all on our Google Drive ready to get uploaded and be sifted through. I'm having a chat to some useful helpers that may help us out. If you're interested, do get in touch. It would be great. Great to have people in the team that are interested, but, uh, we are working away on our new website for Raw Pet Medics as well, so we can host that information up there. And also, don't forget, you will find more material available to you on that great Raw Pet Medics part of— can you remember? Patreon is still out there.
Yes, please, please keep up there, guys. We've, we've let you down over the winter, but we know that you're, you're strong with this and, um, we really appreciate your support. So thank you for that. I'm just going to put another shout out, guys, to say that I have spoken to about 5 website developers and given them the brief, which is really pretty simple. We just want a website, a simple website that where we have all our videos, there's about 200-odd videos. We want that to be a searchable resource so that you guys can have lots of information. If anybody knows of a website developer who would be able to help us with that, please, you know, put it in the notes or however you do it with Riverside or Facebook or wherever this goes. You can email me specifically because I'm kind of in charge of this, nickthompson@holisticbet.co.uk. Please, if you know somebody who does websites and can work with us to produce a searchable archive, shall we say, of this stuff. I think it would be really, really valuable. Journalists can use it if they're wanting information. You guys can use it as a resource, breeders, vets, vet nurses, and what have you. I think it's really important. And all we need to do is get the website developer and push the button. We've been receiving cash to make it happen, and we're really, really grateful for that. So everything is ready. We are poised to do it. We just need the website developer, he or she, if they're a Raw Feeder, so much the better, but even if they're not, we will possibly deign to bring them into the fold, but just, we want to get it done and it's just poised there. We want to get it done. So there you go. Little plea, please come and help us. Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
Great.
Let's talk about some stuff.
Okay.
I was going to say something else then. Let's talk about some stuff. Um, and so, Conor, you've been sitting back a little bit. Oh God, what's he, he's got to come in with something now.
I've got an announcement. I've got it. And actually it's, this is from Caroline Griffith, who is, she's just sent it to me just now. I said, please send it in the morning and she's just sent it. Okay. So I'm going to be doing a talk at the Natural Dog Expo. You guys are going to be there. You're going to be talking.
I'm not talking, but I think I'll be there. I'm not sure. I think I will be, but I'm not talking. Yeah. Brands.
Okay, well, I'm there with RFES. We're doing the RFES stand. We're going to be there. I'll probably be helping out just organize the speakers so that, um, uh, there's somebody on the technical desk that actually knows the people that are coming on live. Okay, so, uh, I'll be around, guys, if you want to come and chat.
Absolutely brilliant. So the three of us are going to be around, and, uh, please come and say hello if you're, if you're a big supporter. Please come say hello if you're a fan. Then then that would be great to see you. So this is the Natural Dog Expo. You'll be able to find it online. It's in Solihull in Birmingham in the UK. It's from the, it's on the 25th and 26th, and it was just a one-day thing. Now it's a full weekend due to popular demand because it is very, very popular. It's a great, it's a great weekend. At the moment, there are only Sunday tickets available because all the other tickets have gone. So if you want to come along, jump in there right now and It is, this is the only UK conference for your fans packed with great content and it's bleep good fun. Okay, that is from Caroline. She might even be watching. Oh no, she's not watching this because it's not live. But it's, it's guys, it's a laugh. You will, you will network with, with hundreds of other like-minded, holistically minded, raw feeding minded. Individuals, you can talk to the guys at the Raw Feeding Veterinary Series, you can talk to us. It's going to be a hoot. Come along, come along.
I love this. So just like 3 months ago, we've hit the ground just as we left, which is 11 minutes in and we've just managed to get onto the front deck, man.
I was reflecting over Christmas. I watched, you know, you listen to podcasts and you watch what people are doing and saying. And so there's lots going on at the moment. And obviously a topic of interest at the moment for me is, is plant fiber. It was a talk that I did all of last year and I put it out for free. It's up on drconorbrady.com and you can check it out. It's 3 hours long, but it strikes me that, you know, there's so many, there is many different ways of looking at a topic and addressing it. And the great thing about science is it never settles. You know, the last 5 years did science a disservice. You know, the science is done. Don't question the science. All these things that. That's not what science is. It's like you put your ideas out there and they're to be challenged. And to be challenged by other people, preferably scientifically. And you'll see if your hypothesis holds. If it does, it gets a bit more concrete, and if it doesn't, you know. I love the whole scientific approach, and it really bothered me over the last 5 years that it was done away with and that it became a thing that you couldn't debate or talk about. So, you know, that's not a thing in science. Science is all about good-natured debate in good faith. And, um, that's how you get stronger. But when I did the talk, um, I kind of came out with this plant fiber talk and people hadn't been speaking about it. And then the natural conclusion for the first couple of times you do it is, oh my God, Conor's saying I don't feed plants to the dog. And it's like, no, that's not what I'm saying at all. You know, I have a very big detailed book there. And my problem is I have a lot of detailed information going out in a 3-hour course on plant fiber. Who sits down for 3 hours to watch? You know, a very select few nerds, not even you guys. There you go. Thanks a million, lads, for saying that live on there. And so, but somebody does, I'm sure. But here's the thing, then there's a very famous gastroenterologist. He was on Diary of a CEO and Karen and Rodney have on, and Karen and Rodney are like, I don't need to say it, I'm as close to them as I am to you, and I love it. But we need to be able to debate like the way us three will debate. We disagree on some points and that is absolutely vital. It's going to be the case that Karen and Rodney will say something that I don't totally agree with, and in good faith, we talk to each other and say, look, well, this would be my viewpoint on it. And that's how we move forward. Morgan says something, it could be this canine nutritionist I found in Poland, oh my God, which comes at everything from a, from a like a physiology kind of point, point of view. And like everybody has something to add in and then we all get stronger together standing on the shoulders of giants. Okay, caveat said, so the thing is the, the whole carnivore fiber thing and plant fiber versus carnivore fiber thing that I was trying to tell people was that, you know, it depends on your frame of reference from the start. So if you believe the dog is an omnivore, Okay. Plant fiber is going to be a natural part of that diet, and therefore it's going to be very easy for you to think that plant fiber is absolutely where it's at. I mean, we are omnivores and plant fiber is a part of our diet, and we would assume extremely, uh, well, at least up until these days, we've been told very beneficial for us, very beneficial on many levels. And my, my whole course goes into that, goes, well, what do we know about plant fiber? You know, how, how beneficial in what, in what respect? And this gastroenterologist would say it's vital for many different things. But if you thought the dog was a carnivore, and the first section of my book absolutely does kind of stipulate that, this is what the diet studies say, this is what the biology of the dog, the gastroenterology of the dog is all about meat. And so that means he's more set up for digesting food himself. You know, he's got his stomach and distend, lower acidity, larger pancreas as the size of the body mass of the dog, bigger gallbladder. Or taurine-conjugated bile, it's just there for digesting this meal down because it's protein and protein in fact can be digested by enzymes. You don't need microbes in that process. Yes, there is some material in meat, collagen and elastin and keratin and hide and feathers that don't digest properly, which add roughage to the poo and feed the microbes in the dog. They're just different microbes. They're meat fermenting, protein fermenting microbes as opposed to carbohydrate based So that's how the dog works. And so it very much depends if you think the animal is an omnivore or a meat eater. And my point is, this is the thing about when you, when people are debating and talking about things, you have to be nearly have the groundwork done first. It's like, are we on the same page? Or do you think that this dog, this animal eats meat and veg? Whereas I'm thinking, well, no, I think he's fairly along the carnivore line. I really don't think that plant matter is a, is a thing for the dog. From that point. It's very hard for those two people to come if you're not clear what the other person's coming from. And that stands with any debate. It stands with anything. If you want to talk about vaccinations, if you want to talk about bloody viruses, if you want to talk about anything, it's the person's frame of reference, their life experience up to that point, what they've been reading. Now it's your bloody YouTube feed. And you know, if you never question, now it's your bloody ChatGPT feed, which learns this is the way he thinks and this is the articles I'll present to you. If you never know to push push the tool or to push yourself to look at it from a different point of view, you're never going to get outside your little box of an idea. So that's like quite a wishy-washy way of saying that if, you know, the plant fiber debate is not finished, there's a huge amount to it. And the problem is that people define plant fiber by origin, and that's— they define fiber, sorry, by origin. So it comes from plants, and that's not really the way to define fiber. It should be defined by function. You know, it's— that's the key difference. I had a talk there where I was talking about pathogens last I'm saying, look, what's the definition of a pathogen? And a pathogen is any organism in too high numbers in the wrong place at the wrong time. You know, anything can be a pathogen. Humans are pathogens on the planet. Deer can be pathogens if they're not pursued by wolves. Anything can pathogenically annihilate an environment if the disease is in there. And so the same with yeast, same with bacteria. So it's the very same with fiber. Like if fiber's function is to add bulk and stimulate motility in a dog and shape stool, then fur, feathers, cartilage, connective tissue, bone, all that, they They do that absolutely fine. So they suit the fiber definition. Or if the definition was to feed microbes, absolutely meat does that. Studies show you can add, like, you know, they just get a different profile. And they've got lots of studies of cats to show if you add in plant fiber, you shift the profile towards plant fiber digesting, 'cause now there's food there for a bacterial source. Is it suitable for the animal is the question. So we know that the dog produces lots of short-chain, actually branched-chain fatty acids. Carnivores are more focused on that. So this gastroenterologist said the fiber is essential for short-chain fatty acids. And it's like, yeah, you're applying human knowledge to a meat eater. A meat eater wants branched-chain fatty acids, and that comes from fermenting meat matter, protein-based stuff. So my point is, again, that it's great to have many different views and to have this gastroenterologist who is human-based and human-centric to apply their knowledge on this meat eater. But if you know that this animal's a meat eater and biologically set up to digest meat, and in fact, plant fiber gets very much in the way of that process. They have a rapid throughput system, a carnivore, for a reason. They digest enzymatically all their food and it goes through quickly. Plant fiber will slow that process down and we will go, that's great for humans to slow down the process because we need to give the microbes that we have shed a lot of our work off to, we need to give them time to ferment and digest the matter. That's not how a carnivore is set up. And so their microbes and their life are different and they're set up slightly differently. And so So this is a really hot topic for debate. I'm welcoming everybody's opinion in on it. And I feel that this year is going to be a lot more about this, as nerdy as it sounds, because this is the sort of stuff that I love. And also we're going to tiptoe in towards the antioxidant argument as well, because when you start looking at the dog as a meat eater, I've got some people lined up that we need to talk to where we can bring in the girl that just did the PhD on this very subject. What is her name? Uh, de who? Over in Ghent University in Netherlands. She's got a whole PhD where she did a study on domestic cats and feeding them animal fiber, different types of animal fiber, measuring the ferment products off it and the benefits, the potential benefits to the media. So to conclude, I hope that we can open up a nice good debate on this and say, look, what are your thoughts on this? How do you get on? Have you found any cool studies? Everybody go off into ChatGPT and dig up some information. And looking forward to a good-natured debate on that and for people to bring debate back and not see it as an antagonistic thing, but actually as a way of us all learning and moving forward. And that's my little spiel for today. What do you think?
