RPM TUESDAY NIGHT LIVE: Dietary Destress!

with a pig list, like a pet pig or anything and say, I need help. What's the most unusual pet? Let's start with that one.

I did have, when I worked in Mansfield a long time ago. Hi, Rachel. A number of people that had Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs.

Love them. Love those guys.

And as house pets, literally as house pets, because they could be trained. We're going to talk about training later. But yeah, this is pigs. And they would train them in the house. And then you get these people that start to say, oh, I've got a miniature pig. And actually, no, it's just a baby pig. 3 years later, it's like the size of a house. Yeah. What do I do with it?

Do you let a little papa pig, do you put little booties on him? Little rubber booties? He's churning up your floors. He's got pointy feet. Don't they? They make bits of your carpet, don't they?

To stop them slipping on the slippery floor. Yeah, yeah, the laminate's terrible for them. It's like stilettos, they leave little dints.

Yeah, yeah, I love pigs. Oh God, I love them. Yeah, I have heard, I have seen that before. I've seen stories of people going, I thought it was a baby pig or a tiny pig, and there's like a picture of a guy in an apartment with like a 300-kilo sow on his couch. It's obviously a joke, but actually I heard there was a guy in New York that got arrested because he had a 400-pound tiger and an alligator in his apartment in Manhattan.

Can you believe it?

And he started calling for help because the two of them started fighting. It's like, can you imagine the guy going up the stairs with just sacks of meat every day? It's like, where is he going? I mean, what a lunatic. Anyway, bloody hell. So how's your week been, Brad? Hopefully it hasn't been too stressful because I can imagine tonight is all about the stress.

Yeah, well, I wouldn't say too stressful. I mean, there's been a few things that have irked us both. And I think we've had that in our chat, haven't we? And I think we should deal with that. Let's, you know, I think it's, you know, thanks Karen for last week, uh, brilliant of you. Loads of people said thank you, and she's just, uh, posted about the £600 pig, uh, in somebody's house. I, I can't imagine that's just always going on about Esther the Wonder Pig.

Is that what she's still talking about? Okay, look that up. But before, actually, before we get into it, patreon.com/rawpetmedics, guys. If you're on there, you can afford the price of a cup of tea, coffee. It helps us prepare for a nice this, where it took us a couple of hours of prep to get this sorted out and back up what we're trying to say. So that really helps. patreon.com/rawpetmeds, price of a cup of coffee a month is all we ask. If you can, great. If you can't, no sweat. We're going to be here anyway every week because we love it secretly. So yeah, so listen, we were just saying at the start there, Bren, let's deal with the big thing that came up that really bothered us both, this latest study on vegan pet food. Do you want to start us off?

Yeah. Yeah, there is a post going up, so anybody who wants to read this, in about 5 minutes' time, there will be a post going up showing the paper that we're talking about. Really interesting to go through that paper, that although there was only 1 year difference, they still made a big thing about 1 year difference in the average age. Meat, raw meat diets still came out top in that paper. All we heard about was vegan foods are better. Yeah, yeah. I was just like, how is that just even, you know? But anyway, putting that to one side, um, and putting aside that actually the prof that was there, um, hasn't really contemplated the biological significance of what he's feeding. And it was really interesting hearing so many people respond on media outlets that were pushing this, oh, isn't this great about vegan diets and they're going to be so much greener and we can feed our dogs them and it's going to be so much healthier. And actually, so many people, and it's probably some of our viewers, and I think even Nick might have got himself in there because I heard one text from Nick, don't know which Nick, might have been ours, saying it's just like feeding rabbits raw steak, you know, it just isn't right. Don't do it. So, you know, it was just ridiculous. It wound me up so much. But I went into all of the little areas. Some of the paper is written so badly. They've made assumptions about health issues with raw food without any references to those issues that they're saying are just there. That's just such bad science. I just hate it when people do that. 'Oh well, it's been proven before, I'm not going to go there and show you any references.' It's like, no, what reference is you making that decision on? Yeah, yeah, let's pretend it's just known because it isn't.

That leapt off the page for me. In fact, just what you're referring to there, Ben, listen to the conclusion. This is a really, really strong conclusion to this study. Ignore— we'll come back to the fact that it's just a survey on 2,500 pets. But listen to the conclusion. Significant evidence indicates that raw meat diets are often associated with dietary hazards, including nutritional deficiencies and imbalances and pathogens. Accordingly, the pooled evidence to date indicates that the healthiest and least hazardous dietary choice for dogs are nutritionally sound vegan diets. So that's what Bren's talking about, guys. That is a very strong statement from a professor. And when people hear the name professor, they think, 'Well, Jesus, you don't get there by being stupid,' you know, and that is a very, very strong statement, and really big statements need really big evidence. And when you go to the paper, there is zero— when I say zero, there might be one or two kind of implications that this may happen, you know, they don't show studies of it happening, and they certainly don't report on the actual much more, much stronger surveys than their own. Think about this survey that they did, okay, that this study was based on, that Professor Noyes engineered. 2,600 people is a survey. So there's a thing called the pyramid of evidence, okay? And quite ironically, Pete the Vet was in the BSAVA conference— that's the British Small Animal Veterinary Association conference— talking about raw meat diets there 2 weeks ago. I mean, who else would you ask but the owner of a rice-based dry food brand? And he came in and he was extolling the importance of the pyramid of evidence. And when you look at the studies that we have for raw— when previously he said there wasn't any studies for raw— there is a few. And when you look at them on the pyramid, they're not brilliant. It's not like it's not like we've got this huge double-blind where neither nobody knows what's going on over years, thousands of pets, because the raw food industry doesn't yet have that sort of funds or oomph, but it's getting there and the studies are coming out and they populate the ladder in places. The point is at the bottom of that ladder, okay, just above case studies done by an individual vet, but it has to be of quality, so it would have to be a brand or somebody's expert opinion. That's the bottom rung, and just above that is surveys, because surveys are so poor. I mean, of the 2,600 people they asked, they just sent out a questionnaire, fill in what you want, only 336 were vegan. So he's basing this whole study and the benefits of vegan pet food on the responses from 300 vegans feeding their pets very incorrectly vegan pet food. And if you ask them, is that a good idea? What do you think they're gonna say? They are feeding this product to their dogs. Do you think it's a stupid idea? Do you think they're gonna go, actually, it's a terrible idea, my pet is healthy?

Or you might get something called confirmation bias. Okay, you know, absolutely. So, you know, it's really important that you point that out. Um, there is a huge amount of confirmation bias. And what got me is some of the commentaries out there that actually there are professors— so he is not a professor in a veterinary department, okay, that's one thing to make sure of, people understand here. Um, but actually there is, um, there are professors in veterinary departments discussing nutrition in various veterinary schools across America that were pointing out that actually this is dangerous in the fact that actually there are so many vegan diets which will be poorly balanced over time. And actually a year is not long enough, which also makes me laugh because a lot of them back up AAFCO, which relies on 6 months. But that's another matter. They're saying a year is not long enough to see the damage that some of these diets can do.

Okay.

And actually, with the confirmation bias, the number of visits to the vet is going to be down.

Yeah.

The opportunity for that vet to make an adverse comment within their 10-minute scheduled consult is going to be down.

Yeah.

How are they going to possibly get in the survey, my vet said there was a problem? They're not even probably going to go in more than once in that year.

Yeah. They're not going to diagnose nutritional deficiency or, you know, like, and listen, and crucially they didn't involve any vets in the health of these pets. This was based on guardian opinion and predicted veterinary opinion. So what do you think the vet would say about your dog? And on the back of this survey of 2,600 pets, 300, just over 300 of them vegan, Professor Lloyd, not a vet, is not in the veterinary department, I'm not sure if he's a vet by background, but actually his background is possibly what's slanting this a little bit. Now I can't comment on the way he those studies. I'm sure he means the best, but the problem is if you're going to bring out a survey, coming back to what Pete the Vet was saying, you've got this pyramid of evidence and down the bottom is surveys because they're just completely lopsided. You can't trust what you're seeing. It might be a handy indicator, but you know, you can— a pet food company can produce a survey of their own clients and the clients will respond more positively than a random sample of the population. If you want to see, did a drug— what was the population is the only way to do it. So down the bottom of the survey, but isn't it very interesting that in his conclusions Professor Knight says that raw dog food is significantly related to risk. He didn't mention the very biggest survey yet published that I've seen, 16,500 dog owners by Helsinki University on the safety of raw dog food, not mentioned in his piece at all. So for a guy that puts such value on such a poor survey, he didn't mention a colossal survey that didn't just look at one dog over a year, It looked at every dog you've ever owned in your entire life, raw feeders, okay? Have you ever seen any pathogens cross between the food and the human? So that is many dogs, thousands of dog years, millions of meals, 16,500 owners, a tiny, tiny little bit was found safer than probably fresh food. And that's not mentioned in these studies. So what you have is a terrible, almost useless survey that has then been branded out by the, and pushed heavily into media. Now listen to some of these headlines from media, okay? Check this out. This was okay. The Guardian loves a bit of it, so I'm not going to read out the Guardian. I told you I'm giving a complete embargo. Listen to the Metro, okay? Vegan diets may be healthier than those munching on meat. Okay, so straight away, that's the headline, than those munching on meat. The study actually concluded munching on meat possibly could be healthier than vegan diets. What they meant to say was in the paper was meat-based diets. And clearly, when you're talking about meat-based diets, vegan pet food, Professor Knight has done this before. In the other survey that they bandy around, which is vegan pet foods compared to meat-based pet foods. And the meat-based pet foods are pet foods with chicken or with beef, which is actually with chicken bone meal or with beef bone meal, which is 4% bone meal in their products. So they're comparing their possibly well-made vegan diets with possibly better minerals, maybe chelated minerals and all sorts of cool things in there, okay, and they compare them to the worst pet food you can imagine, cereal-based pet food with 4% bone meal. And that's their comparison. And what they put out to the media is, we compared our vegan foods to meat-based dry food. No, you didn't. That is 4% bone meal. There's more meat in a butcher's knife. So straight away, the Metro's title, vegan dogs may be healthier than those munching on meat, completely incorrect. Well done, Metro. And the very next line, dogs may actually be better off eating vegan food than meat, a new study has suggested. That study didn't show anything of the sort. It was a survey, a completely useless survey, Professor Noyes. If I could say one more thing on this, Prem. Professor Noyes, um, you get to be a professor by producing papers, okay? So you can be a professor of anything, and if you put out a lot of papers— a university's job is to produce papers, a department— and if you don't produce enough papers, you're in the wrong place. And if you produce lots of papers, you can get your stamp as a professor. That's how you— that's how professorships are earned. They're hard-earned. With a lot of academic publications, okay? And academia and science are two very, very different things. So Professor Knight has a lot of publications. The problem is Professor Knight is a professor of animal welfare and ethics, okay? And which is quite ironic considering we're talking about health here, long-term health. And founding director of the Center for Animal Welfare and the School of Environment and Science. And I think the environment thing is the problem because most of Professor Knight's studies have been in the environment. And Professor Knight has made comments many times that the reduction of meat consumption by dogs would benefit the planet. And here lies the problem, because the only reason I have very slowly started going back towards meat after 10 years being a vegetarian— I'm not slagging off the vegans because I was a vegetarian for a long time— is because, yeah, so either Professor Knight is not reading these books that have just put that to bed, okay? We know from The Omnivore's Dilemma to Defending Beef to everything else We know the problem is the science is filthy and it's associated with what's going on in CAFOs, which is a terrible way to raise beef and it's terrible for the planet, produces huge amounts of CO2, all the horrible shitty grain, all that, the cows belch and fart more and stuff. Okay, but we know that organic farming needs a certain amount of manure and sustainable farming is a really good thing to do. In fact, it takes more carbon from the atmosphere. Grass grows so fast compared to a tree that they dump out 50 pounds of manure every day and create soil as opposed to deplete it. We now know that ruminants play a crucial part. So what I suspect is going on here is a massive bit of cognitive dissonance on Professor Knight's part. And I'm sorry to say it live, but it's a fact. I think you've got— he's built a career, 30 years producing papers on the dangers of eating too much meat and beef and that. And you look back over your career and at that stage, after producing all those papers, you have to eventually say, shit, it turns out that ruminants might be a really important part of it. And perhaps I took the wrong slant. And that is a very, very difficult thing to do. Very few people can look back and shit on their career and go, I was totally wrong. Really good scientists can, but people that have just about to retire and I'm a professor and this is hard work— I'm not saying this is what Professor Knight is doing, I'm just saying that this possibly could explain the inability to see that meat unfortunately is going to be a very important part of how we're going to get out of the situation, whether the vegans want to hear it or not. Vegans don't have to eat it, but ruminants will. And so I think when he starts saying that dogs will be healthier on this without any sort of evidence, I can see where that comment is coming from. That's what I'm trying to say. I'm not trying to rubbish any of his career, I'm sure his academic academic work is unbelievable. But that's where these two ridiculous surveys are coming from. And then people like Pete the Vet, who on one hand two weeks ago say extolling the benefits of this pyramid of evidence, surveys useless. So forget the surveys are raw dog food. These huge surveys showing it's safe, ignore them. But on the same hand, Pete the Vet was on our primetime kind of news shows and no doubt has been talking about vegan pet food numerous times. And he's saying that vegan pet food is healthy for pets on the basis of two surveys by Professor Nice with a tiny amount of people in it. You can't have it both ways. And this is the problem. It's like, here's some shitty science to support us. Ignore all the really good science over there. We're not talking about that. I hate it as an approach. And so I agree, Bren. What are we going to do about this, Bren?

Well, I mean, the other thing is there is a study showing the benefits of raw. There's that whole inflammatory mediator, the homocysteine stuff that actually shows the improvements in dogs which are on raw meat diets. And actually, that's what they should have been doing, is they should have been running concurrently those tests which are out there in the science to show that, you know, and by all means, you know, if they then show that those inflammatory mediators and all of the epigenetic stressors go down, that's when you can say that diet is good for dogs.

Yeah.

Okay, albeit that it's processed and we've got to work out, are we allowing ourselves dogs which will eat a processed diet for the rest of their genetic line, then that's an option if it's possible. Is that going to be a good thing for the environment? Well, with all the monoculture and the chemicals that are used to produce those crops, I doubt it. But, you know, let's be good scientists and say until it's proven, you know, we'll, we'll go with them. But at the end of the day, I think there's so much bad science within that paper. Yeah, for all of you guys who are getting asked the questions when they come into you in the stores, in the groups, in the you know, all of that side of things, you can say, watch this little bit. I think we've taken that apart well and truly and just read the paper. We've posted that up now. That's on our page. So if you're watching us live, great. If you're not watching us live, you'll have seen the post go up.

Yeah, I like that point, Brent, because you just, you just nailed on something. They've ignored a few of the studies. We've got this, you know, increase in homocysteine gene expression of histamine. And so in 2018, we've got the gut flora stuff. And many little things that we would expect to come from ultra-processed pet food because they just can't chemically preserve dry food and expect to have normal gut flora. So that's a good thing when you know these things exist out there in the science, how you read it. Well, then why don't you just put your vegan pet foods to the test and compare that to raw dog food? Get vets to analyze those pets at the end of the year and tell us, tell us that those dogs— and not even a year, 5 years. Smoking doesn't happen, you know, if you want to see the effects of smoking, 11 smokers against 11 non-smokers will do perfectly good against each other after 45 minutes of football. It's the second half that you want to see it in. So long-term studies, we dare to dream. But even the homocysteine stuff, you're totally right, start with that. Prove to us that your stuff isn't inflammatory to pets, as all ultra-processed food and ultra-processed protein and stale fats and chemical preservatives and all this shit that goes into it. Like, prove that that's not having a negative. But instead they compare— it's an unfalsifiable comparison— a well-made vegan dry food with well, good intentions compared to crap cereal-based pet food that they call meat-based mistakenly. And, and that's the comparison. It's an unfalsifiable comparison. They're never going to look bad beside that. They're only going to look equal or slightly better depending on what measures they go after. But don't go after the measures they know they will fail on. It's classic. It's just, it's wrong, wrong, wrong.

And a couple of people mentioning some sort of historic dietary stuff. I know that there are some people in the States that rate stuff 20 years ago, 25 years ago, maybe even 30 years ago, actually, looking back. And I know a lot of that was based on human health advice about cycling through certain vegan diets at certain stages to feed. Do not get mixed up with what current science is saying about some of those foods in our canine friends. Okay. There was a lot of stuff said. I mean, I even said some stuff back in those days which was based on human advice, and I would now go back and just say that's not where I am currently. You know, it's definitely not where we should be when we look at the current science.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, we're going to talk about something, you know, the reason for calling Dietary De-Stress tonight is actually we wanted to talk a little bit about behavioral stuff, um, so, and we've already taken up half of our time, yeah, ranting about, about different dietary, uh, stuff. So hopefully we're gonna just open this up over the next 20, 30 minutes or so.

Can I say one more thing, Graham, before we lose the point? Just what you're saying there, the problem is, and that is hard, that's hard for people, I'm talking to my wife about it, she goes, oh Jesus, you say one thing one year and then the next year, oh, we're not vegetarians anymore. No, no, we are, we are 98% vegetarians, but I need to get some stock into my diet at a minimum, you know. So this was the change for me to go back, it was Catherine Shanahan that did it to me, Deep Nutrition. For any nerds out there that want to listen to a very unbelievable book on nutrition, that's the best one I've heard. Phenomenal information, breaks it down to 4 little groups and kind of explains why vegetarians with shitty knees like me don't heal so quick. If I'm not going to give it good calcium and chondroitin and collagen and all the stuff I promote for dogs with arthritis, where was I getting it? You make tiny bits when you're healthy. But anyway, look, I would say the problem is with diet is that it's a new— it's exploding in information. So what we thought about saturated fat was sullied by the company that wanted to sell shitty fats that they made themselves, the margarine sector. So they invented this product and wanted to sell it. So they bring out a couple of bad studies and they get it to the front of the newspapers because that's what they do. And then we all go around thinking saturated fat is bad. We thought the same thing, like we thought carbs played a massive role in the causation of, or fat caused pancreatitis. Now we know it's carbohydrates, but it's hard to correct all that science. And every year The science has moved away on the salt debate. Now, that's an unbelievable book. I can't remember that salt book, but it's like that's done a flip-flop. It's like good salt is good. Actually, bad salt has been soiled with bad fats and the ultra-processed diet. It's hard to tease it out. So every year you can turn around and go, oh, we're not thinking that about it. And every time the answer is the normal way of doing things was right. I swear to God, every time, like ruminants walking across grass and like, you know, butter and like cream and like anything else they tried to take away, eggs. You know, eggs was a breakfast cereal effort. One little ridiculous study from dehydrated egg and they said this might spike your cholesterol. No, it didn't. Never did. But we all still believe that. How many eggs can I have? Is a little bit of seaweed okay? And so we're left with these headaches that it's hard to scrub it clean because the media is way better at pushing the message through than the science. So that's the trouble we have when the science does a flip-flop on you and you, particularly when your whole career has been based around saying saturated fat is bad, you will hang on and you won't see the light because, you know, your pay packet and your mortgage and your kids going to college depend on that. I'm not saying that is happening to anybody, but there's books written on cognitive dissonance, and that's the driver. Like, I have already staked my claim that this is the case. If raw dog food is ever bad, I'm in deep shit, you know. But like, you will hope that you will turn around and go, oh, vegan pet food's better, great, I'm delighted, less animals killed, you know. I would care about that, but Unfortunately.

And to talk, right, so somebody's just asked what's the book recommendation. Look, yeah, we're going to go back to that one first and foremost. You can have a look at that. The other thing is, last but not least, there is another YouTube video from another surgeon, an ophthalmic surgeon this time, extolling the issues around the fats and seed fats particularly and grain fats that are out there. So I'll post that up on Facebook for you guys to have a little chuckle that because we've been talking about that. But definitely Deep Nutrition, you know, by Catherine Shanahan is a favorite of ours, I think, from last year. I think it reached one of our top 3 books of the year, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Last year. So great. Look, yeah, they're asking us to move on. They'll be getting all of the gems. I've scheduled posts of the various meds and things that we were going to talk about to go through this They're already up there.

Okay, okay, Brad, listen, I am depressed and stressed after all that, and there is a difference between depression, anxiety, and everything else I'm learning. So listen, tell us, you know, I'm alarmed at the rise of diazepam in pets. It's exploded in the US, it's coming to the US, it's been legal in Ireland for vets to recommend it as of last year, December last year. It's Valium, guys, diazepam is Valium, and it works great. Okay, so if you want to switch off your dog, lash a load of Valium into them. Can you tell us a little bit about these drugs? What is on offer that you can use and can't use? What's the difference between the couple of different drugs that are used? Can you give us a bit on that?

Yeah, yeah. So look, the reason for talking about this is that there are lots of supplements out there, and we're going to touch on those as we come through this evening and talk about why they may not be as effective for our raw-fed friends, or some of them may still be effective and you need to look at those. But the What we thought we'd touch on first is the drugs that are available and why I get a little bit itchy about recommending them. They have a use where you've got dogs which are in, you know, almost apoplectic fear scenarios. You know, I've seen some where they, you know, they can't step out of the threshold of the back door because the slightest traffic noise or the slightest, you know, dog at the far fence sets them off and they, they retreat and they're barely going out to the toilet, let alone, you know. And those are circumstances where you've got to press the button to release their anxiety, to allow them to, to come forth. And it is so important whenever you give anything to help with the behavior of your pet that you literally look at all of the almost CBT, the cognitive behavioral therapy, that should go alongside that. Okay, and I, I'm going to reiterate that through tonight, but it is so important. These drugs are not a quick fix where you can just give this and done. Okay, and too many people are addicted, and I'm afraid that there's too many vets out there that are not necessarily behaviourally minded to, to talk about retraining. And it will be, your dog's got anxiety, this is an anti-anxiety medication, off you go. And we are back to where human— well, actually, probably still is to some degree in some places. And it depends on your individual doctor as to how much into therapies and talking and all of that they are into. But there's still a lot that will give out Valium. And that's the same, you know, diazepam in a firework phobia sensation is something that's been given to try and just give them a quick fix, help them forget. It's an amnesiac. It forgets the stress at that point. It's an anaesthetic. You know, you're effectively giving them something that's going to wipe their short-term memory. So it's usually effective. If you give it, it will usually wipe their short-term memory for up to 40 minutes before they've had the medication. So you can just blitz them in that. And there are some licensed products for that now in Europe, okay? Certainly in the UK, TVM do a diazepam. It's— but it is used generally for reducing seizure activity, okay? It's not thought of as something for an anti-anxiolytic, as is Xanax, is a human medication, is often used in that circumstances as well. And those are circumstances where Yeah, again, please, this is not a therapy. This is just to get the dogs over an abject fear in that moment. The downside is because it wipes their memory, they will not learn a jot from that episode. So you cannot retrain them whilst on Valium equivalents. Okay, the benzodiazepines do not help them. Okay, so do not think that you're giving them a long-term help up for their phobia against fireworks or thunderstorms or whatever. If you're using those products, you are getting them through, you are using it as a crutch, and that's it alone. Okay, certainly I will take this opportunity— do not use acepromazine at all in any circumstances for trying to resolve an anxiety issue. All that you're going to be doing is sedating the dog allowing them to receive all of the alarming signals and yet not being able to do anything about it. Okay, and you end up with an even more stressed dog that comes around from the sedation. So please do not use acepromazine. Okay, I'm going to take a breath for a moment.

So yeah, go ahead.

So I think the other two things that we really want to talk about, because these are two licensed behavior drugs now, one is the Prozac of the dog world, which has now got a license in the UK, something called Reconcile, which is fluoxetine. Okay, fluoxetine. I think sometimes— get me if I'm saying it wrong. Okay. And that was used in microdosing as a liquid form before this license came about because it could just take the edge off and you could still retrain the dogs. But it was so important. All behaviorists have always talked about retraining, and I posted just before we came live tonight, if you're going to seek somebody to help you with training your dog, please, in the UK, and I'm sure around the world there are equivalent organizations, look to those that are standing up against the Charter, and effectively you have the reassurance that they're being overseen by a governing body. They are not just going off and doing their own thing. And if you at all get punishment involved, or there is a trainer who's losing their temper with your dog, walk away. Okay, do not, you know, just— that's the end of the session, walk away, do not use them. And please make sure that you are considering a different trainer. It is so important. And Reconcile at least has on its website about retraining. So I've given you the link on the website for Reconcile to actually talk, you know, go through, um, just about dealing with separation anxiety is, is the one that they use. Um, so look at that, uh, behavioral, that CBT I'm going to call it, the cognitive behavioral therapy. So important. Alongside those meds and look at the minimal effective dose. Do not look at the now licensed alternative. So the vets will have to use the licensed alternative first. They don't get a choice under European law and UK law. And so do look at that. Some dogs will become sleepier if you get to the high doses, okay? And you don't want a zombie dog. You want a dog quality of life. Yeah, so, and that's effectively what we call an SSRI, so a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor. So what happens is serotonin is released into the nerves, which effectively calm the dog down, and what normally happens is that it's taken back up by the endings and therefore reduces the amount of serotonin that's floating around in that process. Okay. And calming down the anxiety. What tends to happen is if you inhibit that being taken back up and out of that axon, that junction, okay, then you build up serotonin, you reduce the anxiety transmission going across that axon. So that's what an SSRI is. Okay. The other thing that's far older, so came out 2006, is something called Clomicalm, which is clopyramine. And that is a tricyclic antidepressant. Okay, so not Prozac. It was called Prozac for dogs back in the day, but it's not Prozac. Prozac is fluoxetine. And that works really in a different mechanism to suppress that anxiety. It is thought of alongside Selgin that came out around the same time, which is a dopamine drug, and that is meant to reduce that anxiety transmission. But again, they both say you should retrain your dog whilst on The downsides to them, as you said, for humans, they're addictive. For dogs, you have to wean them off it. You cannot just stop it. So effectively, it is addictive for dogs too. Okay. And it is also— you watch out for those side effects. They are reported on the data sheets. Okay. I think I've put up for those the links for the data sheets for those drugs as well, either on the websites or through the European Medicines Agency. And on there you will be able to see the side effects. So you must monitor liver enzymes if you're giving cloperamine. Okay, so just please do not just give these drugs and think, oh, they'll be fine, I'm going to stick them on them, they'll be on them for 3 years, they'll be all right.

No, please, you should be monitoring liver enzymes at least on a monthly basis if you've started The, I'm just concerned about the growth of these, okay, so they are being taken up very quickly, so it's the growth in this sector is huge. I can't help but think that it's a bit of a big pharma kind of wet dream to get high anxiety dogs, COVID pups, you know, we bought so many of them at the wrong way and Ireland pumping out these puppy farms if you can believe it. We made it a tax incentive for farmers to turn into puppy farmers in 2010 in the crash and we haven't revoked that yet so we're just exporting all these pups out to Ireland and England and every other country and causing a lot of problems, as a lot of other countries have their problems too. But so we see these pups reared in a box beside their, you know, a stressed mother, fed crap, you know, in a dark shed at the end of a field, no human interaction, and poorly bred and everything else that goes with that, shot good for, and you get this dog and you're trying to maintain a little poo. And so this is an issue that people are having. I can't help but think that we love a quick quick fix. We love our meds, you know, there's a reason we've got 15 pharmacies in Greystones and only one health center, one health shop. So like, I think, I worry that people will ask for these and I'm worried that vets will give them because we are being told on the radio, you know, stop taking antidepressants. It's like, I'm not buying them in the newsagents, I'm getting them from the doctor. And they say, well, stop asking your doctor for them. It's like, stop asking the doctor. If I see an ad for a drug, I'm gonna— that's why they advertise in America and New Zealand, the only two countries in the world have advertisements for drugs, because people will go in and ask for them. Get it from their doctor. They've only got 10 minutes in front of the doctor. The doctor believes this drug is safe and, and effective. Okay, so check out the effectiveness of antidepressants in humans. Okay, this is taken from a fabulous book I read there a while ago called Feeding Dogs. A 2011 report by the National Center for Health Statistics found that 11% of Americans over the age of 12 years are on antidepressants. To support this sudden and growing need for mood stabilizers is a litany of bad science that makes for depressing reading. Irvine Kirsch, a lecturer in medicine at Harvard's Medicine School, conducted a major review of all the published data, but also the unpublished data on antidepressants which were hidden by drug companies. It found that most, if not all, of the benefits were due to a placebo effect. Now, I'm not— please, this is— I'm just reading out what was found in another study. This is my opinion here because I know people need these, and I'm certain people around me have seen the benefits of them in some people and the harm of them in others. In fact, a third of meta-analysis— a meta-analysis is an analysis of all the data that we have and a third of meta-analysis completed on antidepressant studies were written directly by pharma employees, with a difficult-to-decipher amount of the rest being industry-sponsored. More worryingly, a study published in the British Medical Journal looked at documents from 70 different double-blind placebo-controlled trials for antidepressants. That's the top of the top study. They found the pharmaceutical companies were not disclosing the full extent of the side effects and serious harm revealed in their first trials. This was the conclusion of that study, Sharma et al., 2016. We found that a lot of the appendices were often only available upon request to the authorities, and the authorities had never requested them. I'm actually kind of scared about how bad the actual situation would be if we had the complete data. That's from the author of that huge meta-analysis on antidepressants. And I thought, Jesus, that is terrifying. 1 in 10 Americans on them with no monopoly on the blues. Why are 1 in 10 on them? And I just see that, I see that as terribly worrying. And as a trainer back in the day and having dogs that you can't train, you go, Jesus, what's wrong with this dog? You know, I can see how pet owners could only quickly press for that situation. Do you see that as a possibility, Ben?

Yeah, well, I also see it as there, with this globalization that we see now, the veterinary profession across the world looks to other countries, and, you know, America has a lot of influence over other countries, and I think it's sort of an indictment of of veterinary sector looking to what's happening in the medicine world. And I know that there are enlightened doctors out there that are sending patients for, you know, therapy, for talking therapies, for CBT. But there are so many that don't have time in the consult room and are just putting, you know, children on Ritalin, putting, you know, adults on other antidepressants, and just almost that's dealt with and walking on to the next patient. And I'm afraid that I see vets seeing that and going, well, we can do that with these patients. You know, it must be safe because they're doing it for humans. Nobody's kicking off. And, you know, they're just doing that. And it's a quick fix. It's that, it's that '80s mentality of I want it and I want it now that got us into the whole food business that we're in at the moment. Of trying to battle convenience foods. And that's the parallel you're in, is that you're effectively into a big business that's working on people wanting a quick fix. And what we're going to try and say is, look, there are other ways to fix that through diet, through behavioral therapies that will help your pet through that. And you need to bear in mind it will not be fixed tomorrow.

Yeah, certainly behavioral stuff. There is, you know, I think people are also sucked in by the science. You know, the science says it works. The science says it's safe. And it's prescribed by scientists. And I think it's very hard for us to kind of come over the top of that. It's tricky. But there's so much you can do. Look, people are posting up really cool things. There's going to be behaviorists on here tonight. So myself and Ben are being appropriately aware of our lack of knowledge in the sector. Well, people are posting up some really cool things. And like, you'll notice that a lot of the natural kind of treatments they will start to repeat and you've got like, you know, valerian root and elderflower and a few others and a number of companies make these really cool calming products but before we even kind of touch on them and if somebody's using them having a great effect you can write it up there as long as you're not from the company but Frank, could I share that one slide with you that I wanted to show people on why I suggest raw diet really benefits behavior? And let me just get that ready and you tell me when that's ready and then you can pop it over. Okay, so this slide is going to give people a headache and anybody that has heard my behavioral webinar at this stage probably would have seen this. So it's an absolute mess, but just check it out for a second. So there's something missing there, but it'll pop up in a second. Okay, Brian, can you share that? Yeah. Can people see that? I can't hear anything. What has happened?

It's on there, I can hear you, don't worry.

Let me just—

you can still hear me. I'll hide you too, Conor, but they can hear you.

Okay, perfect.

Okay, so you need to add this to your slide. There you go.

Okay, yeah, okay, perfect. So listen, this slide kind of encompasses all the reasons why raw works, and the danger is that people people look when the dog has an issue, they say, what can I put into my dog to sort this out? And even just starting off on the very top left, okay, we're not going to do all these, but just to start off on the top left, you'll see people talking about tryptophan. Maybe tryptophan will work if we put tryptophan in and the dog will benefit. But the studies of tryptophan show it's atrocious. It doesn't work in normal studies, in the well-structured clinical blind studies. Where it has been found to work is in dogs with low protein, on low protein diets. Diets. So in one study, it was found to work on dogs on very low protein diets, but that's a study of deficiency. If your dog is on a low protein dry food, let's say cereal-based pet food with a bit of bone meal in it, that would be to me very low protein dry food. It is the minimum amount of protein you're allowed to feed the dog. So yes, I would say if tryptophan is a precursor of serotonin, you can give it a go. Why wouldn't you? But a raw-fed dog gets loads of tryptophan. There's no putting more tryptophan into the diet because you can't kid the brain or the gut brain barrier to take in more of what it doesn't need. Okay, so it's not like an opiate. You can't give these powerful synthetic drugs and expect the same thing from an amino acid. But we know amino acids do help, and we just know that if you— if they don't have them, they suffer behaviorally. But who's talking about that end of the spectrum? Your dog is on raw food with this in high abundance in every respect. There is still some cool little amino acids that are out there. Brandon's going to mention one after this. That you can find in very strange like green tea and black tea, okay, that's not something your dog is going to accrue from a raw diet. But most of the amino acids they try to sell you isn't raw food in high dose. And then there's like the vitamin and mineral debate. B-complex might help. Well, yeah, B-complex will help in a dry-fed dog because B-complex suffers terribly in dry food production and over storage time.

But raw dog food Oh dear, and he's cut himself. Sorry about that. He was in mid-flow and what's happened is he's cut himself off. So let's hopefully he'll come back with the rest of his slide. He's just— somebody did mention earlier with regards to the CBD, so there are CBD clinics. There are— we do have CBD supplies, there are them around the country, so do have a look at those. Certainly it's worth looking at in the UK, and I know across the world different people will have different views on using CBD in their pets. It will usually have the psychoactive elements, the THC, taken out of the product. So be aware of that, and that's really important for us. So we'll come back to Conor in a moment when he rejoins. Oh, he's coming on, and we'll take it from there, and hopefully we'll get on to some other important supplements that we want to talk about if he comes back. Conor, are you back with us?

I am, Ken. I am.

Did your battery— did your battery cut out again?

No. So I'm having serious Wi-Fi issues last couple of weeks. So that was annoying. Look, I don't need to show the slide anymore. But yeah, what it is, is we have a big problem with— especially nutritional studies— is that there's a difference in deficiency. And so if you compare, you know, the benefits of omega-3 to Mediterraneans to, you know, the benefits of omega-3 to English people, you're going to expect that the benefits of omega-3 will be stronger in the English people because they're deficient in omega-3. Whereas Mediterraneans have more in their diet. So is that the benefits of omega-3 or is that the dangers of a deficiency? It's the same with a lack of fresh fats. We talked about DHA and puppy brains there last week and all these cool omega-3s that dogs need. If you take them out, they suffer behaviorally. Well, you know, if you add in omega-3 to dry food, they benefit behaviorally. And is that a reason to buy a behavioral supplement based on omega-3? No, because raw dog food always already has enough omega-3. Your raw-fed dogs are unlikely to be deficient in omega-3, especially putting in the odd seafood addition and that kind of stuff. So like vitamins and minerals, mineral deficiency, raw-fed dogs, again, you get the best source of minerals, easy-to-absorb forms of magnesium and zinc and all the stuff that play critical roles in our behavior. Dogs that are on zinc oxide diets suffer behavioral issues. Dogs on high-salt diets, dry food, suffer behavioral issues. When you take it out, they benefit. So there's all these things, but it's all saying the same thing. It's not one individual thing that solves you in a capsule. So when we talk about natural remedies, I would definitely lean towards the herbs and the cool stuff that Ben's got a couple coming up as well that are not food related because in your food you have got everything you need. And so that's why it's so easy to shift over dry owners that are mad into behavior. It's like there isn't a single— and then we haven't even started talking about gut flora. It's a massive amount of behavioral stuff involved in gut flora. 90% of your serotonin comes from your gut. Your gut telling your brain to release it. But a huge amount of cool compounds come from the gut flora itself, butyrate and GABA, that tell you to relax and deal with the situation. So we— and like, even that is barely understood, but we know dogs have the same disturbed gut flora when they're rescued from dog fights, from separation anxiety. And so we know raw dog food can get that back on track because there's no chemicals in it. So it's a multifaceted approach that saves you having to think about your nutritional supplements supplements, I would be definitely leaning towards— somebody posted up, and you know, something by Jo Arbon there because she's a veterinary herbalist, so Calming Canine. All those products are kind of similar, but Jo's is fantastic. And so like any one of those kind of herbal products would be where I'd be leaning. What other kind of— in that kind of realm, Bren, where are you with this? Is there any other kind of supplements that you like in regards to calming canines?

Yes, so there's a number. There's some in this book as well. Okay, and if you look at the Amarylla supplement from Mushrooms for Pets. There's, alongside some of the lion's mane, there is effectively a really nice sort of discussion about how they can help with behavioral issues. And I think looking at those, one of the things that is commercially available from your local vet is actually Anxetane. And rather than just the standard L-tryptophans and things like that, it has L-theanine in, which I think again is a derivative from certain mushrooms. And it's certainly worth looking at. And I have seen very effective in patients, especially raw-fed patients. And the explanation that you gave earlier, which was about the, the fact that if your dog is deficient in some of these amino acids because it's not on raw, then you might find these products work well, and hence the papers written about them. But if they're fed raw, you may find a very limited efficacy within them because they've already, you know, had all of those amino acid boosted. And if it's not going to be effective, then you need to look at something as another option.

Yeah, the L-theanine amino acid you just mentioned there isn't something you find commonly in the food chain. It's in a couple of the mushrooms in that book I'm I'm sure, and it's also found in black and green teas and how much of that is your dog going to eat? So this is quite a rare amino acid. And so if you find something, you know, as I said, in a parrot's toenail in Guatemala and it has some crazy effect on your brain and you take it, it's going to have a crazy effect on you because it's not something you get a lot in your food chain. So yeah, that might work and L-theanine, why not? It's not an amino acid that's going to accrue in prey too easy. Added in and might have an effect. And anything else like that, I would say, oh, why not? Absolutely, I would give it a go. There's another one, there's alpha casopine, which is a thing that comes from casein, comes from milk essentially, and it has an effect, has a soothing effect in cats, but the top studies of it in dogs show utterly, absolutely not. It doesn't stop them promoting it for dogs because it does work in cats a little bit, but that in there is the danger that we have There's another one that we used in guide dogs. I'm not sure if there's any behaviorists listening that can help us, is dog appeasing pheromone, particularly when we were transporting the pups, particularly long distances, and the pups aren't into it. They don't— you don't want them puking all over the van. You have to keep stopping. So we'd use a tiny 1 or 2 sprays of dog appeasing pheromone. We'd use them with a new intake of dogs into the kennels and dog appeasing pheromone. And it's a pheromone extract, the synthetic version of the pheromone the mother emits to get the pups to relax in the nest. So I thought there might be some sense to that, and I showed you a study there earlier on today, Brendon, that it does seem to work. I'm very aware of who those studies are produced by, but still, it gives me some encouragement. Is there anything else in your box of tricks? What about like in herbs, or what about homeopathy? Is that useful?

Oh, look, absolutely. When you start to look at mental symptoms, there are many, many different ones. I can't go into the individuals because there are so many that are looked at. You've got to individualize to those particular cases, especially around anxiety. And again, even then, I would say it's so important that you look at the CVT once you're giving any treatment, whatever the treatment is, whatever you use, whether it's dog appeasing pheromone, whether it's, you know, Anxetane. And you can get it online without a prescription. You don't need to go to your vet for it, okay? And that'll probably keep your costs down for those that are anxious about costs. As I say, Mushrooms for Pets is available online. You can look at those, but always with any of those, make sure you are on board with a good trainer to effectively desensitize your dog. And you want to look at desensitization with those. Valerian, I mean, look, There is the Pet Remedy solutions, which are sort of a herbal aromatherapy combination which you can use for your pets instead of dog-repelling pheromone. Many people love that. A lot of the, you know, essential oils, they will go through those again, offering those up. So there are many options in there without going down these drugs with side effects.

Yeah, we can, you can kind of put them off. You can say, well, the conventional, it's not like it doesn't work. It's not like any of us are against conventional of anything, you know, Jesus, I'm not. But you're just trying to, you know, there is milder cases, there's things we can try, and we're trying to get the dog over the issue. And we certainly don't want anybody that's even thinking about using conventional drugs long term to control the behavioral issues on the wrong track. I conclude that kind of behavioral webinar with setting it all up and then talking about benefits of raw dog food, and then the last part about gut flora, and then I finish on what I would do if I had a stressed dog. And I'd say there's no teaching the dog anything if the foundation isn't right. He needs to be pulled out of whatever stressful situation it is. If he's got negative dog distraction on the street, just stop walking the dog for a little while and let's rehabilitate the dog a little bit, get the gut back, get him back happy, get everything back normalized. Things won't normalize if you keep getting your stressor every day. You're always going to have that dysbiotic gut. So you can't expect, oh, I'll give some probiotics and walk him past the black shepherd every day that he hates. It's not going to work, guys. Or if, you know, Hoover's terrifying and you Hoover every single day, obviously he's not going to get over that too quick. So having a little break, certainly dogs coming out of pounds that are, you know, aggressive in inverted commas, that are just unhappy, it's about good food, probiotics, rehabilitate them with a few of the supplements we've talked about. The last one we haven't mentioned is CBD. The amount of studies in CBD is incredible, just pouring out.

I mentioned it whilst you're off.

Oh, did you? Oh, damn.

Yeah, when you went to the loo.

Yeah, fair play, perfect. There's a great vet brand. Did you ever meet, what's her name, Vicky somebody, or I'm confusing her name, she's over in Switzerland.

Is it Dr. Simon?

Oh no, no, it's, oh, what's her name? I can't remember, but she studies CBD in dogs in Switzerland and really, really interesting. But like the studies of the effect, and so where do we get it from? Okay, people think it's just from cannabis plants. It's not, comes from hemp and all sorts of other plants out there as well. And it accumulates in the prey, so dogs don't have to eat, you know, cannabis. It actually accumulates in prey and dogs will get it from prey, so they don't get huge doses of it, and that's why dogs have double the amount of receptors for it in their body. We all have an endocannabinoid endocannabinoid system all along our arms and organs and bodies and brains, huge amounts of it in our lungs, everywhere. So it's everywhere. So that tells us we're supposed to be eating CBD all the time, broad spectrum CBD from the plant itself ideally. Dogs get it from eating prey, but they only get tiny amounts of it. So you only need to give your dog, if you've got the human type, fine, tiny amounts of CBD for really good benefits. But it's not like he's just smoked a joint and he's passed out on the couch. People are expecting these sort of benefits from this, but it's not the same. It just increases your ability to cope it increases your ability to do public speaking, it decreases your fear of going to the dentist, all these kind of studies. It slightly increases healing time and all this other stuff. It's not a quick fix, but it might be those little— that's where I would go for those supplements rather than nutritional supplements, if that will be my concluding comment on this.

And if you want another understanding of actually— and I've seen a few cases of this recently— how important understanding these stressors to the pet's health generally is. You know, this is another good book, The Polyvagal Theory, okay, by Stephen Porges. Okay, so that's talking about just how one being in the same household as people expressing certain ways can actually influence the health and welfare and the the relative vagal drives there is. Basically, the parasympathetics has three parts of the brain it comes from, from the reptilian parts all the way through to the mammalian parts, and you effectively will affect the system in different ways. Actually, you can get heart-stopping moments from the vagus, but actually the vagus is so important in normal function so normal gut function. So all of those IBSs out there that can be affected by excess sympathetic drive. So the sympathetic drive is the stress, the desire to, the fear, flight, and fight modes. That's the sympathetic drive. Well, that's constantly, if you drive that up, the balance of driving up those sympathetic stressors, reducing the parasympathetics ability to function. Comes into that. So understanding how it's beyond just behavioral therapy we're talking about. This is general whole life issues that it can develop into. And so many people don't recognize those behavioral distress moments. So they end up with their dog, you know, barking, you know, constantly as a little tiny terrier dog and they just put it down to, oh, it's a little tiny terrier and he does that. Okay, yeah, yeah, not actually perceiving the stresses that that dog's in. And the reason that he's got pancreatitis signs may well be because he's constantly in distress.

Yeah, okay, constantly driving that cortisol and adrenaline response and squishing the gut, giving them bad malnutrition through malabsorption. And it's a rotten wheel because it just self-perpetuates then. It one creates the other and up onto the wheel he goes. And it's not normal for a dog to be acting like that. Dogs can be calm, except my dog Dudley. Most dogs can be calm all the time. And like Dudley, Dudley is a very calm kind of dog, but it's— you also, you do have a breed effect. He's a cocker spaniel here, and like he is on his toes, he's flighty. Okay, so that's just the way it is. So if you get a cocker or something, you need to understand that your walk is going to be different. It's not going to be like walking with a greyhound where it's just a nice lovely normal walk or Labrador retriever, retriever less so than Labrador perhaps. But like, this is like, it has to be taken into account as well, the individual of what's in front of you. But no dog should be going through this repetitive stress, stress or exhibiting these unfair behaviors. A trainer is the very first place to go to, guys. They're cheap as chips to come out to your house, a cup of tea, they chat to you, they listen to you, you know, for half an hour, and they'll give you a little bit of advice and they might just fix one thing. He won't explode and the doorbell goes off. That alone can be all you need just to get them over the hump, you know. There's some really simple solutions to it that don't— you just don't need to go for the meds, the head meds straight away, which, you know, while they work, can have their own issues. So yeah, listen, Ben, I need to go. It's 8 o'clock. My wife's gonna kill me.

There is so much more we could talk about tonight. Thank you, Conor, for raising this. I think it's been really useful for everybody watching. We've enjoyed it. If you want to hear more and you want to see more, you know, join us on Patreon. You know, look at some of the articles we can put up there. There'll be little bits dotted around Facebook, but a lot more on Patreon. And yeah, we hope you've enjoyed tonight and look forward to next week, Q&A. So, you know, have a look at— so that's just your general questions. We'll be asking you to pop up up on Facebook and on Patreon, and we'll go through some of those, particularly our Patreon followers. If you want to know how to get to us for the price of a cup of tea or coffee, patreon.com/DeepThinkMedics. That's brilliant.

Okay, so, all right guys, thanks guys, take care, it was brilliant.

Cheers Conor, thank you.

Yeah, cheers Brent.