Dr. Conor Brady and co-hosts Bryn and Nick review 2023 episodes and discuss raw-feeding science, including high-quality salt and letting dogs self-select nutrients through separate bowls. They cover hidden pain affecting behavior and practical puppy care, with personal stories woven throughout.
Chapters
Hey, Christmas! Happy— do you know Facebook doesn't like you saying happy Christmas? Do you know you can't say happy Christmas? It punishes you for saying— yeah, we did a thing last year, we did a thing, uh, the Christmas Expo, and, uh, we got warnings saying that's not fair to say Christmas. I'm like, bloody hell, you know, what do I care if somebody said happy Hanukkah to me? I'll go happy Hanukkah. I don't— I poorly understand what that is, but I'm sure it's like a Jewish Christmas or, you know, or some 'Chinese New Year,' you know, as if I'm going to read that and go, 'Oh, bloody Chinese New Year, that's not my Christmas holiday.' Yeah, it's not my thing. It reminds me of that Ricky Gervais joke, you know, where somebody's walking through the town center and they see someone's put up an ad for guitar lessons and he's like, 'I don't want guitar lessons.' It's like, then don't have guitar lessons, you know. Anyway, sorry for bursting into that, but, uh, yes, happy Christmas. 6 days away. We're very, very close.
I know. Are the kids excited?
Kids are very excited. I am trying to get there, but kids are very, very excited.
Have you ever tried to get there?
Did you get your present yet for Ellie, Nick?
Oh, oh, I muted him.
Oh, he's muted.
There we go. I'm muted. He was messing about with his batteries.
Cheers to you. Cheers to everybody.
Cheers to you, lads. Lovely. What are you drinking, Nick?
It's a '22 Trentino. That's a 2022, not a 1922.
I was just going to say 1922, really valuable.
It's about £8,000 a glass, but you know, you guys are worth it, what can I say?
Listen, we have to spend this RPM money somehow, so you might as well. Wine, £2,000 a glass, I think that's fair.
I think they love it when you say that. So, so boys, are you very well in the last show of 2023? Uh, I would suggest I think we need a holiday for a couple of weeks and we start on the 2nd of January. What do you say to that?
Perfect. Yeah, we'd only miss one show.
Yeah, we've got a little video treat. For everyone out there for next week. Okay, for Boxing Day. So we'll give you a Boxing Day present. So there will be a little show, but it won't be us live live.
Okay, it was the RPM live live, but it won't be live live.
Yeah, was live live.
Yeah, is it live live or live live live live live live unlive?
Yes. Diane is joining us. Diane, where are you from? Yeah, sorry we're late, Diane.
Diane, there's loads of people on Facebook, they're all saying hello. Oh yeah, I've got— of course, Michelle, she's here.
Yeah, you don't get the Facebook comments anymore, which is a pity because I used to like watching them all come in the same place.
Happy birthday to Caroline. Caroline Chipsy.
Oh, very good, Chipsy.
Well done, Caroline.
Happy Christmas, or happy birthday, I meant to say. Very good.
She did us a very good turn back in the day, so, uh, greetings, Caroline. And yeah, happy birthday. Um, no, us, all three of us, back in the day, without putting too fine a point on it.
Lovely. That's good.
Oh, Oh, you can't do it without the sound. He's like, yeah, no, no, I'm doing this. You need to plug something into it, Nick, to pretend it's playing for your headphones.
Turn it off.
Yeah, I've just—
I think it's much better. Not that you're asking. Nobody's asked me. The problem with having a hidden illness is that— or hidden pain— is that nobody can see it, so nobody gives a poop. Oh man, I am decaying.
So which rough lad down Dublin did he get to knock that out for you?
Extremely expensive periodontist.
How you've risen in the world, my friend.
Yeah, we may be coming over to Canada later next year, so I think it'd be mad not to.
Yes, yes, yes. Are we going to give that away at this stage? Should we make some plans?
You already have.
We don't know what's happening yet. We haven't a clue.
We don't know what's happening yet.
Let's not talk about the plans we haven't made.
Okay, listen, I'm getting a bit hot and bothered here with you two here, so I'm going to just take my jumper off.
Okay.
Oh, see, this is the present, guys.
This is the present you get. Nick stripping. Just careful he doesn't show anything. You're going to get his band showing your chest like that.
I would say there's a good 24 inches between those nipples, Brad. Impressive. Impressive.
What? Taking a jumper off. I'll teach you how to do it one day, Brady.
That would be nice. Yeah. I love watching my kids take off their jumper. They're just so bad at it. They always just like take one arm off and they get trapped. I love watching them struggle. It never helped. He's still on my face. It's like, why do you keep doing that?
Dad, my head's grown.
Yeah, yeah. That's great. I love watching them struggle.
We zip them up like that so that they can—
Ben is wearing a zip-up top and a large red robe that comes from Star Wars, but it's an enviable red robe. I like that. It's got a hood on top.
Oh, it's Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Yeah, it's my Santa robe.
Very good.
Very nice.
So we are the Raw Pet Medics and we are on podcasts, on every podcast you can possibly imagine, Spotify and Apple and you name it. That's about all I know, to be honest. Um, whatever you use— he says, adjusting his camera— whatever you use, you can usually find us on podcast. We are on Patreon. We thank all our Patreon people on rawpetmedics— uh, no, patreon.com/rawpetmedics. Logical.
And I've—
listen, I've only had one— I've only had one sip of wine so far as well. So it can only go down from here. Um, so everybody's well?
Um, what—
how's the last 7 days been, guys?
I had a lovely podcast there. Sorry, sorry, Ben, I'm gonna—
it's been endless Christmas. We've had the Christmas dues, we've had, um, all of the stuff from at work. We've just had a fuddle today, so I'm eating the leftovers of a healthy Christmas fuddle.
Oh, that is very healthy.
What's a fuddle mean? That sounds— who had a fuddle?
So everybody gets together and brings lots of food in, so we just have—
you chuck it all in one big bowl. Is that right? Well, including the pudding.
Save your bowl.
Healthy stuff.
Yeah. Everybody brings salad.
Save on your calories.
No, some of us brought the sensible food and then the rest of them complained and had loads of sweets.
So yeah, you don't make friends with salad. You don't make friends with salad. Happy Christmas, here's a salad. No, no, out you go into the cold.
You're not getting any of my pies and everything else. We should touch on, we should touch on a few things of how to prepare yourself for Christmas as we go through today. But no, so it's been wonderful. Yeah, as in mentally and physically. But I think it was, yeah, it's been great getting into the Christmas spirit. I'm going to mention Christmas enough times to get us banned for something this year. And so, yeah, it's a bit hectic always coming up to that bit where you're going to have a break because everybody's trying to cram in their consults and it gets all a bit stressful. But it's so great seeing everybody and they're all wishing you a happy Christmas and giving you various bottles of wine and things like that, which I'm looking at loads of stuff around my feet at the moment and I'm thinking, what do I do with those? Those, but I'm sure by Christmas they'll be drunk.
So as will you.
Yeah, as well. So what were you doing other than having your tooth extracted by force?
I had— I went in for a lovely— I did a podcast today with a guy from Australia, John Manning, if you're listening. And he comes from a big pet food company over in Australia, big, big dog pet food. And I've been talking to him on and off for a while, and he said he was in in Ireland for a bit and would do a podcast. But it was so nice to go into Dublin at Christmas time, which I wouldn't normally do. I suppose you don't need to go to the city really anymore. But I went in, and you don't drive in anymore, you park at a little stop and you get the little tram. And it's very nice, nice sunny morning, and you meet the sound engineer who does all the big bands and stuff. A lovely guy, lovely setup, gorgeous studio. And I thought, this is so nice. Met John, lovely guy, lovely podcast for a couple hours. And I have to say, I walked around feeling great. And toddled off, went to a cafe, had a bit of lunch. I thought, sort of like a day off, which is probably the first time I just moseyed around, did nothing for the day, came back, walked the dog. So I've had a great day today, so I'm fired up and ready to go. So yeah, it was good. That's been the highlight of my last 7 days, getting the kids ready for Christmas and all the other bits and pieces. I'm panicking because I don't have any presents for anyone because I'm a selfish man. I just don't know what to do. I don't know, I mean, what do you get Elaine? What, what did you get Ellie, Nick?
Nothing.
You can't say that loud.
You know, because so I've got rid of my iWatch. I've got an analog watch because I don't want, you know, I went to a talk recently and they were talking about the way it has to fire in green light in order to measure your, your, your, your, your blood and your pulse and, you know, all that stuff. Also, it's with you all the time. Even if you leave your phone elsewhere in the house, it's there and it can, you know, potentially record you and monitor what you're doing and what have you. And so I just thought I'd take a little step away from digital.
Yeah.
Observation. Okay, so I got myself a watch, Ellie's got herself a few things, and so we, we just said, right, listen, we're doing great, we'll get the kids some bits and pieces.
Yeah.
And, and we'll, we'll, we'll get stockings, you know, so little stocking fillers and, and what have you for she and I, but no big prezzies for she and I.
Yes, that's—
we'll be present neutral between us.
Yes. Did you really get suckered into that?
It doesn't—
yeah. You know, she might get— she might not get you anything, but you'll turn up on the day. Yeah, I should be standing over there. Really not get me anything? Yeah, I got you.
I didn't mean it.
No, doesn't always mean no.
Yeah, yeah. So much pressure. I just— and I think about it so much now, I don't do anything, which is just strange. I bet you've got loads of things for Chris, Ben. You don't have to tell us in case Chris is listening.
Yeah, quickly, quickly go around the back garden, dig up some bulbs, stick them on a pot. There you go.
There you go. I haven't grown yet.
Yeah, wrap a bow around a little kid's neck, bring it in.
Uh, we said we'd, uh, we said we'd go for a couple of days somewhere and, uh, dump the kids somewhere. So we said we'd treat ourselves to that.
I just love the way you say that.
We don't have access to babysitters, that's the problem. We don't have a preponderance of family around to, to, uh, to, um, yeah, that's, that's the problem.
So, but anyway, yeah, hopefully with 4 brothers You don't have anybody to look after the kids.
Don't take kids.
Brothers, brothers useless. Sisters and mother-in-laws, that's what you need.
They're all next door, they're all now, they're all within spitting distance of my house. And there's just no— you can't go to a sister-in-law here, take my kids. That's not, that's not cool. All my friends, I'm there, it's just useless. Males are absolutely useless. Thank God I've had two daughters, I've got to look after me at all days. But, um, anyway, guys, what was that? What was the topic for? I can't even remember what I was supposed to be doing tonight.
I'll review.
It's enormous words on the screen today, 2023 review. So aside from last week, let's go a little bit further back. Um, we— do you guys have a little list of the shows that we have done?
Yeah, I've got a show. So, uh, I was, I was going to ask— no, so, so my thought, I was going to ask you what was your favorite show, who was your favorite guest, what have you learned, just, you know, one little snippet that you've learned in '23 And what's your favorite book or podcast or episode of this, that, and the other that you've seen in '23? And then, and then, uh, I think Conor said, why don't we just go through each episode and see what we can remember?
I think that's far fairer, which is, which is, no, well, it's easier.
It's a bit more idiot-proof, which is probably appropriate for this evening, but Um, yeah, okay, so I've got, I've got the list here in front of me. Um, can you see it? Have you guys both got it? And then we can go through together.
Yep. Um, I have got it. I'm just trying to make sure my phone is off as I browse the, uh, yeah, I've got a big list there. I actually picked out a couple of bits. Um, like, there was a number— I mean, we had Straight Outta the Traps this year in '23. We had Judy Morgan. That was the very first thing we did with New Year's resolutions and wellness tips. That was the very first one, which is a good way to start the new year. We should probably do the same next year. That's a good introductory show. What is the plan for this year? What are your plans for 2024? So that'd be a good one for the start of January because I'm going to be on a health buzz. Everyone's thinking of a health buzz at that stage. So that'll be cool. Get a few tips from Bren, half of the Health Sensei, about how we're going to scrub ourselves out and detox for the, for the month. So that's a cool start to the year. Straight after that was Judy Morgan, Dr. Judy Morgan. We had all the big guests this year. When you think about all the guests we had, we did Judy Morgan, we had Becker and Habib, you know, um, uh, we have Matthew Murray, Maudie Lambert.
We had Maudie Lambert. Yeah, she's big. She's a big—
yeah, yeah. So like, we had, uh, we had good guests. So Judy Morgan was great. She is an easy one to chat to, and, uh, we'll be seeing her next year as well. So that's a— it was a good thing to have on. So I love that.
I love chatting to Julie.
Oh yes, Caroline Ingram. Yeah, the ZooPharmacology thing, that's been a big part of my year, ZooPharmacology, because I'm now in every— all I get is the recurring skin and gut conditions. It's really all I'm, you know, I'm not equipped to deal with most of the other stuff. So it's like, but that I'm good at, and I get that. And there's a key bit of it where I'm now convinced that so many conditions— a lot of these raw-fed owners don't add salt to the diet, although we have been correcting that and saying good quality salt, very nutritious, very deeply nutritious and to offer it to the dog. And before ZooPharmacose came into my life, before Karen started really telling me to look at ZooPharmacose, then Carolyn Ingram, you guys might be familiar with it, but I wasn't. But Carolyn got into it very— or Karen did very quick. And I started thinking, instead of just putting the salt on the food, you just offer the dog some salty water. And so the dog can choose its own little bit of salt. And so ZooPharmacose, you started thinking about it for a lot of different— spirulina, you see lots of videos online of dogs eating spirulina a lot because it's a detox. Sick dogs eat a lot of spirulina. And if you put you put chlorella and spirulina beside each other, they always go for spirulina. It's like, it's, it's, there's something, yeah, it's just really interesting. And somebody gave me a tip saying some dogs like it dry and some like it in a paste. That's like a classic ZooPharmacose thing. So I learned from Carolyn Ingram, I need to do her course, I need to learn more about this because offering the dog bits on the side, it's such a wonderfully simple intuitive idea that I find myself talking about all the time. Last little bit on this, Magnesium. One of you two said, and we were talking about magnesium and its role in tremors, and these dogs were getting tremors, and I thought, okay, salt clearly is a fantastic source of really absorbable magnesium. So I thought, okay, so I had this collie with these terrible front leg tremors and she couldn't get it right. She was ticking all the other boxes. I said, just offer the dog some salty water, let's see. Within a week I get an email, I just can't believe this, 2 days of drinking salty water, this dog's tremors have stopped. And I'm like, oh my God, it could have been anything now, who knows what it was. But so I'm just, I'm really bowled over the ZOO Pharma cozy thing. And it's like homeopathy, it's like, it's right there. And I feel like I need to do this now because I've got kids now, they're getting colds and I don't know how to treat them, you know? And I know that homeopathy would be handy with toothache and all the other stuff that's happened. And I haven't got the ability to actually treat some of these bits. So ZOO Pharma, that really has been a big part of my life. So I thought that was a big thing this year. I need to get my arse in gear about that.
Really useful because I'm treating a little Jack Russell bitch who has had kind of fasciculations, tremors for quite a long time. And the owner, Sally, we've been doing a lot of work with homeopathy. We've reduced them by about 80% or so. So Sally's probably here listening to us right now. I can't see Facebook because I'm using it to record. But Sally, remind me, let's have a look at the salt thing as per Dr. Brady. That would be a really, really good idea. So thank you for that. That's a really good idea because I see kind of shaky dogs periodically. And yeah, that's really useful.
Yeah, you see it in collies a lot for some reason. You see that tremors. And I always thought it's just because they're ready to go. But she said, oh, this is something else. It's just the legs are just in constant tremor. And, you know, and couldn't explain it. I thought, you know, it'd be cool to have I have like 10, the top 10 things that dogs will select in like on a little tool though ready to go. So when your dogs have gut conditions, you put down 4 or 5 things in front of the dog and say, what do you want? Chamomile or marshmallow or, you know, and you let— the ZooPharmacose people would say stop putting the herbs in the food altogether. I can't, I'm not there yet. I'm still putting the stuff in going, no, this has to help your gut. They're like, no, no, the dog will take what he needs. And I'm thinking, yeah, children don't, but dogs probably would, I suppose.
So yeah, study in the '20s, wasn't there, about in the 1920s where they let kids just go at the foods that they wanted? You know that one, Nick?
Oh yeah, what was that? Say it again.
Yeah, so this is a study that I presented in Helsinki. I'm glad you remember it, Bryn, and you weren't having a snooze. That's good.
Some of us remember this stuff.
Yeah, yeah, no, it's very, very attentive. So I can't remember Doctor— it was something like Dr. Judy.
He gave the talk and he can't even remember. This is Clara.
Dr. Clara. Clara's Kids. Okay, if you guys— so everybody watching, Clara's Kids. It's Clara's Kids. If you, if you Google Clara's Kids, basically she did some studies with a, a small group of, of, of kids as a, as a, a pilot study, and she had these kids they were orphans and they were completely malnourished. One of the kids had rickets and another had scurvy and goodness knows what. And in this day and age, you wouldn't be able to do these kind of studies. But actually, she was, you know, taking them into a better nutritional place. And she gave them the full range of 40 foods, including, you know, there was buttermilk and there was cod liver oil and there was meat, and there were vegetables, and there were this, that, and the other. Okay, so a lot of really great unprocessed food, and she just left them to it. She didn't just put them in a room with loads of food and walk away for 2 years. She— her nurses were meticulously watching and noting what the children ate, and— but they weren't guiding them whatsoever, to see if the children had an innate sense of what they needed to eat. Every single one of those children— she did the experiment on about 16 kids in all over a 10-ish year period. You know, she did it, staggered it, and the children were substantially more healthy than their peers when they finished the study. I'll tell you who put me on to Clara's Kids was our friend Jane Buxton. Who wrote The Great Plant-Based Con, who we had on mid-June of this year. So that's a lovely tie-in. So if you're interested in that, she, she describes that halfway through the book.
Not also in What Your Food Ate? Is that not also one of the sources that that little story comes from?
It's been mentioned in, in a few sources, but that's where I first came across Clara's Kids.
Yeah, I just shared my Facebook page for people that are listening. I just shared the review of what the Clara's Kids, the review of that work, and somebody wrote a study in 2006, and so I just shared it on the Facebook page for people to look at. That's really interesting, bloody hell. There's lots of things on dogs as well, self-selection studies and ad-lib feeding and free feeding. People are doing it today where they let dogs eat whatever you want. I'm like, oh, I'm not sure about that. Because I just don't know, I don't think it— I can't trust myself to eat whatever I want, you know.
Yeah, chocolate is not one of the 40 options though.
Yeah, chocolate and beers, you know, help yourself, Conor. I mean, but I tried to tell you, someone told me that all dogs, all deep-chested dogs, and I assume cocker spaniels, all deep-chested dogs can eat 10% of their body weight. And so I was pushing this message quite a lot, saying so Labrador wants, you know, 3 kilos, you know, 6.5 pounds of meat and bone when it eats. It's like, that's a huge portion of food. So I did one test on Dudley, and I gave him as much food as he wanted, and he kept eating, and he got over like 1.1, 1.2 kilos into him, to the point that he kept on trying to eat, and I thought he was going to injure himself. He was like, you know, he wasn't like, I've had enough now, I'm going to lie down. It was just this whimpering and you know, he was uncomfortable and I thought, uh-oh, this is not— don't try this at home, kids. But yeah, so add the improved feeding for dogs, I'm not quite sure, but it's really interesting what they do select. So I bet all animals do that. They very quickly learn what foods over time— you need that initial kind of street food.
Yeah, they might go crazy initially as most of us would, but they may settle into some kind of pattern. Now I'm gonna just challenge you on that, Conor. We've got deep-chested dogs, we've Whippet Italian Greyhounds, and now we've got an absolute lunatic Lurcher puppy. If anybody wants that Lurcher puppy, it's gone. He's just a lunatic. He's got a very good heart, but that, you know, when he's peeing on the floor all day long and shitting on the floor all day long—
I know a behaviorist not to go to.
We take him out. We take him out for an hour and a half, bring him home, he pees and poos on the floor.
Oh, training to come out.
How old is he now?
He's about 18 weeks, 19 weeks.
He was trained to go on command by that point.
He just doesn't get it. It's like someone that's been wearing nappies for the first 5 years of their life and it's like, okay, take your nappy off. And it's like, what? 5, like, it's the— forget about a baby spending a few months. Like, if you are 5 months old, you are 5 years old in your head. The first year of a dog's life is 16, 18 years. They say like every year 7 years, but actually in the first year of a dog's life, don't forget, he matures very quickly. And then it's like, you know, so you forget that, you know, by the time he's 6 months old, he's 10 or 11 or 12. So if he has spent 5 of those 6 months confined or wherever he is and he's been weaned on the floor out of very normal thing, you know, to do. And so that's a tricky one. It'll go, it'll pass. All these things will pass, but it's a very frustrating—
after all, with a bit of work, with a bit of work, come on.
With a bit of work.
So this is the stuff that I used to do in puppy parties 20 years ago, you know, teaching people how to train their puppies into going outside when they first get them, because they usually get them bundled into their arms at 8 weeks.
Yeah, that's easy.
That's one of the pains of their lives.
Yeah, we got him, we got him at 16 weeks, so he had a fairly good go at peeing on the— pooing on the floor.
Yeah, listen, so I've got a tip for you about weeing on the floor. You absolutely need biological cleaning fluid. You have to get the smell of ammonia off your floor because it smells like a latrine and he'll want to wee in that same room again. So you have to use biological cleaner, which is probiotic. Use the probiotic.
Like Ingenious.
Use Ingenious probiotics and use the biological floor cleaner from him, and it'll eat the nitrogen, it'll eat the ammonia, and then it'll hopefully be less keen to do it. But you have to wall off the toilet areas. If it keeps going in the same spot, you have to wall off that area, scrub it down, because if you've got floorboards, it goes down the floorboards and Yeah. Oh, it's tricky. Dudley still does it occasionally. He'll still do it when he's hairy. He's got long hair.
Taking advice from off the man who still complains about his dog still peeing in the house.
Arguing with him. Like, I stand there at nighttime, you know, you're going to bed and you're just tired and it's like half 12, it's 1 o'clock, you open the door and Dudley's looking out at the rain going, yeah, no, I don't think I'll go out. And I'm going, if you need a wee, Dudley, you better go out. And he's looking at me going, I don't need a wee. It's like, okay. And Yeah, and you come down in the morning, there's a wee on the floor, you look at it and go, yeah, I did actually need a wee. I bet he had that wee straight away. He doesn't like having wet socks, so I just give him a hair trim there so he's nice and cold for winter. But anyway, that's, that's totally— so what else, what did you like off that list, Brian? Have you got the list or do you want me to call you out?
No, no, I've got the list. I mean, just going back to that was an eye-opener, what we were saying about the kids and the pets eating those certain amounts that they needed, because it's brought me to a realization in a lot of consultations where you get dogs and cats that will eat something for so long and then suddenly stop. And there is a story in both, I think, the Plant-Based Con and also in What Your Food Ate about, you know, if you've got— and ultra-processed foods— about if you've got a child that eats something over and over again you know, for weeks, like they might eat cherry tomatoes and all of a sudden they'll stop and they'll go on to something else. And it was a bit of a, do you know what, actually this may explain why we've got some dogs and cats that will just eat one thing, you know, they'll eat a certain protein or a certain, you know, organ or over and over again they'll go for that supplement and all of a sudden it's like, I don't need that anymore. And they'll stop eating the stuff. And I say to, you know, everybody's been putting it down to, I've got a really fussy dog. Yeah, actually, sometimes it isn't that they're really fussy, it's just that you're not offering the thing that they need. Yeah, and they need a little bit more selection, or you're mixing stuff into their food with all of these umpteen supplements and they're just going, I don't need that, you know.
Yeah.
Don't put it in the food.
Okay, how about this is a project for 2024 then, guys, that we ask our incredibly diligent people who follow to consider— and this is a major pain in the ass, and I realize that— that they consider putting, say, they're separating out the bowl. You know, you see these beautiful Instagram pictures, you've got, you've got 9 different elements to the bowl. Well, why don't we do the opposite of that? And for those people who can be asked with this, because, because most people could not do this, you put down 9 different bowls and you have, you have the duck neck in that bowl, and then you have some, I don't know, pureed spinach in the next, and you have some spirulina in the next, and you have some, uh, some, some, some marine oil in the next, and what have you. And maybe some, I know, minced lamb in the next, or whatever you would put in this big cacophony smorgasbord in one bowl. You just try and separate it out, even if you just put all the meat over there and all the veg over there. That I think is going to be very interesting.
There is feed trials out of meat-veg dry food, and they even did it in quantity where they put up a lot of dry food and a tiny bit of meat. And almost 100% of the time in these trials, often done by pet food companies, the dogs go for the meat. They take a meat-soaked tissue before they eat dry food in one study, which is a great one, I must share that again, that was funny. So it's like meat flavor is really important to them. So yeah, I bet they'd go for the meat, but I wonder like what types of meat are right for your dog and does it matter where your dog comes from? Like if your dog is a, you know, comes from northern areas or comes from, you know, agricultural areas or nomadic, you know, you've got this Akita you know, is he into grain as much as the other fella? You know, dry-fed, ex-dry-fed dogs, do they still eat carbohydrates? It's interesting that, and even with the herbs and stuff, like what do dogs actually select and when? And there's a wealth of information you could get from that, and people wouldn't do it.
Fascinating. So I used to work, you know, she died about 10 years ago or so, and this old, old lady, she's, I don't know, 75 or so, and she'd been feeding dogs all her life. And her theory that, you know, if you've got a Pekingese, then you've got to think, okay, maybe rice might be beneficial as part of the diet. Pekingese, Peking, China, etc. If you've got a Japanese Spitz, then maybe you should look at the classic Japanese diet, maybe more fish than otherwise. If you've got a dingo, then you'd be going more for, you know, lizards, pretty difficult to get at Pets at Home, methinks, and what have you. So I think, you know, if you've got a specific breed, or even if you've got a cross which is demonstrating the phenotype is very strongly, you know, one side of that cross, you know, you've got a shepherd cross who looks really shepherdy, say, right, What do they eat in Alsace back in the day? Answer: probably quite a lot of goats, quite a lot of sheep, quite a lot of dairy maybe. You know, how fascinating is that as a project for 24?
That's it. You need huge numbers to participate to get a spread because there'll be like pups will eat what they were trained to eat as pups in the imprinting period, that first 5 months of life. So the Chinese scientists called 6700 Chow Chow pups, if you rear them on veg, they'll select veg for the rest of their life. If you rear them meat, they'll select meat, and if you mix it, they'll eat whatever. So it's like, that's a real crucial first period. So most of the studies, ad-lib kind of feed trials done on dogs, are done on dry-fed laboratory animals. And it's like, is that representative of a real animal, you know? And even when you're dry-fed, they still don't include dry food in their diet. It's like, yeah, they'll eat anything with carbohydrates. They always go for fat initially, and that decreases then over time. There was another good guest that— do you remember? This was midway through the year. This is the end of April, early May. Gemma Hodgson. Yeah, she had a company, Pain to Pain Behaviours. Her simple teaching—
Dynamic Dog.
Dynamic Dog. Thank you, Gemma, if you're watching. Sorry. But Gemma was lovely and nice, simple message, but she is absolutely what's the word, she's so, she sees it all the time, it's to do with pain. So she goes, if I see bad behavior, I'm instantly thinking there may be pain at play. And I just thought, yeah, maybe. And she goes, a very simple solution to that to find out is to give a little bit of pain relief. And if the pain relief works and the behavior improves anyway, then it has to be pain related. And I thought, what a wonderful, and you can apply that to a lot of things where you actually give the solution. Let's say like an internal yeast issue, in a dog and you're not externally— issues you can see it, you can smell it, it's easy and it's treatable and we can do it great. But an internal, a dysbiosis where there's a terrible yeast bloom and the dog's chronically itchy, that's harder because you need someone to actually go through the poo and tell you there's a yeast issue. So actually you can just spend a week or two giving a yeast treatment to those dogs, a bit of cellulase, a bit of raw garlic, a couple more things, MCT oil, and if the dog improves and they're the only things you added in, well then it's most likely if you're trying to kill the yeast and it killed them. So I thought giving the solution from Gemma Hodgson's idea, give the solution. And then she also explained that there's 4 or 5 different types of pain relief. There's paracetamol, which you can get, you know, easy peasy, careful how you do it and dosage and all that, but you can do it. But she goes, that's just one type of pain relief. She goes, vets are experts at pain relief. And there's like 4 or 5, you've got neurological pain, bone pain, and all sorts of things. Bren, you look, as I said, experts at pain relief.
Not every vet is excellent at pain relief, and I would say there is a lot of work done to encourage more appropriate pain clinics and pain control. Okay, multimodal options. So if your pain, if your pain relief from your vet just consists of a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory, do question whether there's other options alongside that to investigate the pain.
How can we ask that? We can't ask the vet that. Is there a better way? Like, I mean, if they've just had—
they give you one thing, if they give you one thing and say that is the pain trial, that is it, okay, and don't say, look, there's many options, we'll try this first, we might move on to other things. Yeah, okay, then, then that would be a question that I'd say, okay, Is there an option to add some things together? You know, where are we going if this particular drug doesn't work? You know, don't just get suckered into a one-drug pain trial.
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Okay.
And that's what I'm saying to ask for. Don't— I'm not expecting you to know all the drugs. I'm not expecting you to know all of the things from acupuncture and chiropractics and homeopathy and herbal medicine and, you know, all of the other things with laser therapies that you could go into, let alone all of the opioids and other analgesics. I'm just saying, if they give you one drug, yeah, that's a pain trial.
Okay. Yeah, no, I want more. I want different.
Yeah, it is a good place to start though, because if you think of it, we've been doing it, we've been doing it in equine medicine, that we've been doing pain trials for as long as I can remember. Okay. And I've I was treating horses. I don't treat a lot of horses now, unfortunately, because I love the things. We've been doing pain trials since, I don't know, phenylbutazone was invented, really, since like the '60s or so. Yeah, you've got a stroppy gelding, you've got a mare who will reject a saddle, and the rider is saying, no, no, no, it's just, she's just really really badly behaved, you say, well, why don't we do a pain trial to see if it is a behavioral thing or whether it's actually a pain thing? So, but pain relief in horses was very simple. It's much more advanced now, but you put them on Bute for a week or two, and if the behavior improves, then you have pretty categorically demonstrated that Pain is a large part of the disease process. Okay, so we've been doing it for how long? 60 years in horses, and we're only just getting on, on the thing. I've been doing it for probably the last 10, 15 years in dogs because my old mate John Bowen said 40% of behavior cases that he sees, and he sees range of everything, 40% have a basis in pain. It could be musculoskeletal pain, can be gut pain, can be chronic pancreatic pain, can be, you know, probably even headaches that we don't recognize very well. Yeah, yeah, you know, headaches. So, but, and how do you find out pain in a dog? Or how do you find occult pain? Yeah, because if the dog is lame, you know it's in pain. If the dog can't climb stairs when it used to 2 weeks ago, then you know there must be pain. But if you've got a dog who just changes behavior, you think, crikey, is there pain or is there not? You can't just say, Mr. Jones, are you in pain? As the GP would. You have to do something else. So I think that kind of pain intervention— I'm not a fan of drugs, but this is one of many interventions where you can make a stunning difference. Yeah, you put them on for a week, 10 days, 2 weeks or so, long enough to really tell what's what. If there's no change, you can reassure the owner with it, with an appropriate combination. If you're not quite sure, you move on to a second, you change the, you know, you go from Galiprant to gabapentin to amantadine to whatever it might be, just to make sure that you can just truly rule it out. And I've seen so many cases where, oh my God, I didn't realize the dog was actually in that pain. So it's a way of having a conversation.
So really interesting. I've got two cases, um, of that presented as pruritus, so really bad itching skin.
Yeah.
Okay. And actually what it's come down to, you know, they've been on all of the things from steroids to, um, uh, giving Apoquel and all of those other drugs for itching, but that's what it's come down to, is that this has been down to impingement of nerves, and it's actually pins and needles itching. Wow. And as soon as we've given the appropriate pain controls and anti-inflammatories, that's what's got on top of it. And so you can have these dogs that are itching like crazy and driving the owner's nuts, and they're looking for parasites, they're doing everything that you could possibly think of, and actually, you know, it's come down to, you know, control of inflammation and pain.
Okay, I'm going to give a big shout out to osteopaths and chiropractors. I think they're underused. Get somebody who you know to be experienced and very, very good. You're going to say, what's the difference between an osteopath and a chiropractor? Doesn't matter if they're good and they're not whackers and crackers, but they're actually, you know, really manipulating and feeling what's happening with the case. They're worth their weight in gold. You know, I was saying— sorry, sorry. No, I said, I just say to clients, if you had a bad back, would you go to your GP or would you go to the chiropractor or the osteopath?
You know, specialist. I want someone that sees backs every single day. There's a guy that keeps popping up in my, in my various feeds, and, uh, he's obviously a bone setter of some fashion. I'm not sure what, but, uh, he does cats and dogs and, uh, you know, he can have some big dogs and he has to— the dog's in a little bit of pain and you can see his neck is sore and he comes over and he's just petting him, he's petting him and just all he does— out of nowhere the dog gets a shock and then he's like, oh daddy, that's soft and straight away and it's like, oh nice one. It's written all over the dog's face that there was instant relief. The problem with the back bit is that if it's been there a long time, the bone's constantly trying to get back into that awkward position it was in And it's like, you have to, with humans anyway, you have to sign up. There's a guy down the road who was helping me after a bike crash, and he was saying, no, it's not a one-time thing, he said, or a two-time thing. You need to come at me, you need to come to me and take out a 3-month thing with this guy. And you don't have to book in to see me, even if I'm with somebody else. You just walk in, hop up in the bed, I'll know what your issue is, and out you go. And he goes, you got to keep doing it until the back eventually gives in and says, right, bloody hell, I'll stay this way then. Because you've got muscles that are pulling it. The muscles have been trying to do you a favor, trying to keep your back straight, but the muscles have been compensating for an out-of-shape spine. So when you click that spine back in, this muscle's still trying to pull it back again. So he says it's a long old process, and I'm sure it could be combined with acupuncture and everything else that could work on the muscles and stuff that the bone guy doesn't know about. But it was interesting that I had to go to him relentlessly— not relentlessly, but a number of times before I felt I didn't need to go to him anymore. It wasn't just once. I wonder if it's the same with dogs. I'm sure it is. You know, all that pressure on the dog's back, all that weight, big belly hanging down, you know, head goes a little back last, little dashing.
Completely agree. And I think the best therapist is therapist who will give you some kind of timeline. It's not, but you know, because there are some therapists who will say, right, come in in 2 months for your next adjustment. Yeah, constantly for the rest of your life. And I'm not sure that's That's— no, that's in many cases that's not the case. You know, if you've got— if you're permanently out, then possibly. But I think that, you know, we're seeking to cure. Cure is returning somebody to a state of equilibrium where they don't need anything. They don't need a vet, they don't need a doctor, they don't need an osteopath, they don't need anything. It's just called very boring thing called life. And I think that that's really important. We try and put ourselves out of business. That really is.
What's the science behind my cheeks going red on gin? Why does gin make my cheeks go red? Tell me now.
It's dilution— dilation of vasculature, is it not?
Yeah, it doesn't happen with all alcohol though. Only gin. Yeah, I would say that's a zoopharmacognosy thing.
So it may be in the tonic that's going rather rather than necessarily the—
yeah, interesting.
Maybe the tonic is giving you a bit of a—
I'm going to have to experiment with a number of gins. Yeah, a number of tonics.
Every spirit I can lay my hands on.
Does it happen with whiskey for you?
I see, I only drink one type of whiskey. Unfortunately, I don't drink whiskey and I miss it and I've never had it. Ah, but maybe whiskey is because Nick— yeah, put me on.
Yeah, you've got to try at least a dozen whiskies in order to make sure that it's not just particular soil. You know, Islay might be different from, from, from a Glenmorangie, different from a Glenfiddich.
You know, we got him onto Laphroaig, didn't we?
I'm on the Laphroaig, um, I do like that. Yeah, I love it. I'll get the— I'll get a decent bottle. I'll go up to the north of Ireland, cross the border, dodge the tax, and, uh, you get a much cheaper bottle of Laphroaig too. Uh, so everyone goes to Newry. We all go to— in the Republic of Ireland, if you want to— if there's some sort of tax loophole, Newry does well. And, uh, but your beers are so much cheaper than Ireland's beers. We've got, we've got, like, I mean, half price. Laphroaig will be double the price in Ireland for whatever. Yeah, so £30, £40 sterling in Northern Ireland will get you a bottle of Laphroaig that will cost you, like, the Select, which is, you know, it's whatever it is. It's only about 10 years. It's good, it's about 10 years, but it's like It's about maybe €60, €70 here, but it's only about £30 in the supermarkets up in Northern Ireland. So it's tempting to pick up a bottle now.
And will it give you the flush effect?
Oh, it doesn't. It's only— it's— well, I don't drink vodka, but if I did, when I do, whenever I did as a kid, I would get that very flushed red face as well. I remember I was in New York one time and I saw a thing and it was like long and it was a lot of vodka and, uh, I had like this huge red blotches on my neck and my cheeks, and it was like vodka warned me, don't drink me, because I have a bit of a gluten issue. Yeah, so like if I, if I go out on a night and beers, I'll be snoring like a pig, and they won't let me sleep beside her. So beers really stuff me up. So it's a gluten thing, it surely is. I remember someone told me a while ago I was sensitive to gluten, and you know, yeah, if you— yes, you've got to get off it. And that was the start of me thinking, if I'm sensitive to gluten and 30% of Europeans are, and, you know, 40-50% of Africans are because they weren't raised on gluten-containing crops. They grew up with sorghum and millet and non-glutinous crops. Aboriginals, 60-70% of them are gluten intolerant because there's no gluten in Australia until whites bring it over and introduce them to beer and whatnot. So, um, so it goes with how long you've been exposed to this protein. And because we, you know, so about 30% of Europeans And when I was over in Australia, I was thinking, okay, this is why I'm snoring all of a sudden. There's something in the Australian wheat that's really bothering me. Maybe it was the type of glyphosate they use, who knows? But definitely Aussie wheat did it to me badly. And then I thought, how come dogs are being fed 60% wheat and they're okay? They haven't been eating wheat for 50 years, 60 years. And that was my number one question. I thought, how do dogs process gluten safely? And that was the one of the very first things I started using with my guide dogs in Australia. And there was just nothing. There was no studies, one or two studies by day.
They don't process it safely. It's the point.
Yeah, that's the answer. Yeah, yeah.
Itchy IBD, bad ears, bad feet, bad bums. Guys, I'm going to pull the plug. It's 1949. I'm going to say, oh, shall we go to Patreon?
Go to Patreon and we're going to go one by one, very quickfire through the whole shebang. Okay, here on Patreon, one comment. We're gonna say the one thing, the one thing that we remember from that show, and that's gonna be a challenge for Conor, who wasn't there.
Anyway, that's gonna be tricky for me. All right, cool.
All right, let's do it. I see that. Oh look, it's been great, guys, to review, and we so look forward to seeing you all in 2024. We've got some treats coming for you. Please, you know, if you do want to support what we do and you love to come see us, please do follow us on the patreon.com/rawpetmedics. For the price of a pint, okay, which you've just seen me drink— thank you very much for that one person— and for a price of a pint a month, it's pretty good.
A pint a month. In fact, a pint is probably 7 or 8 quid these these days, for goodness' sake.
So come join us, see what we've got to show you over there, and hopefully we've got loads of exciting stuff that will be coming out to you guys next year. We've got so many projects we want to do and we want to share it all with you, so come support us. And for those who want to see what we're going do in an hour or so, everything should be uploaded to Patreon so you can see what we talked about.
So going to Patreon now, it won't be on Patreon for about an hour because it takes, takes that long for the cogs to, to work. So it's 8-ish now, it'll be 9-ish before you can see it.
Yeah, the mainframe, power it up. Like a computer from the 1960s.
I think that's more Yeah, let's do that, guys.
Let's do that.
Take it easy, guys. Happy Christmas.
Happy Christmas, everybody. Happy New Year. We'll see you on the 2nd of Jan, and, uh, look forward to that.
Enjoy. Okay.
