Dr. Conor Brady and Ben answer audience questions on canine health, covering probiotics after antibiotics, gut bacteria's effect on behavior, why chicken and beef trigger allergies, raw feeding safety, and yeast overgrowth treatment. They discuss spore-based probiotics, fecal transplants, and bone size in raw diets.
Chapters
Yeah, how about even talk? Yeah, well, you want to talk about—
can you believe, can you believe, guys, Nick actually uses his phone for internet? Can you believe that? That's embarrassing. As I say that now, I actually don't know how to work a phone properly. I'm trying to turn it down. Here we go. But yeah, yeah, he actually uses the internet off his phone. What is going on? I don't understand that. But, uh, so it's not happening for Nick. His phone is kaput. So it's just down to the two most important, let's face it.
We'll rib him about it next week.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, Ben, what's the story? You look like you're in a different spot. Where are you? I am in a hotel or something.
It might be a little bit echoey. No, I'm in an Airbnb because I've got my dogs with me. So I'm a week away. I'm up in Scotland.
Yeah.
So it's doing a little bit of work up here. So in a place called Burnt Island, which is apparently quite sought after by some people to visit and even live in. But it's North of Edinburgh. It's lovely stone buildings on a crescent with park and a beach and everything else. But the train line runs between the park and the beach, so that's interesting. Okay, train way across the sea. And then it's a typical town. There's some deprivation in some areas and I've had a really good walk around with the dogs, but apparently it's quite a nice place in the summertime. Bit cold at the moment. I have not dipped my toe in the North Sea yet.
Why would you?
Although the dogs have gone rushing in because they, of course, just love it.
Myself and Nick were up in Finland with Anna Heimborgman in Helsinki that time, and they all go swimming in the Baltic Sea. But I mean, we use that word Baltic to describe perishing cold. So it's like when we say you want to go for a swim in the Baltic Sea, it's like, no, No, I don't, but everybody else was. I felt like I had to do it. It was just agonizing, but that was nice after a while, I suppose. Yeah, not my sort of torture. So yeah, listen guys, thanks for joining us tonight. This is going to be Q&A. We've got a clatter of questions built up from last Q&As, which hopefully we'll fly through. Some of them are repeating, so we'll use the most common ones for tonight. But thanks for sending them in to Patreon, on our Facebook pages. We appreciate all that. You'll find us on patreon.com/rawpetmedics. Your little contributions there are doing wonders for us here, because I'm delighted to announce that we actually have our podcast up and running. So, uh, forgot to share it yesterday, but it's up on our Facebook page now, so you'll find it on Spotify and Acast. And so we're just doing the, the shows from 2022 for the moment, and Pete has already done 5 or 6 of the old shows from the very start where the sound wasn't as good, so he used to do a lot more work on them. So, uh, so all the new ones are going to be going up on Spotify and Acast on Friday nights, and that is thanks to you guys. So thanks very much for those contributions, love you being here. If you can afford the price of a cup of coffee on Patreon, that really helps us do interesting stuff. If you can't, don't worry about it. It's always going to be free to air anyway. So we just love having you here. So, so yeah, Bren, nothing else exciting. We would just get straight into it because we have a savage amount of questions to go through here. Do you want to start off? What was the one that leaped off the page for you?
Yeah, so we've got the first one that we talk about quite a bit is probiotics. Somebody's got a little 16-month-old lab, and Helen, thank you for this question. You've had your little Labrador in for some major surgery and antibiotics, and you'd asked the question how long to give probiotics for after this problem. That's a good one. So, yeah, that sort of leaped out to me. You've got some advice on probiotics that you've given in the past. What probiotics would you like particularly?
I like, I don't really mind to be honest with you. I think they're all pretty good and pretty bad. The studies of probiotics are a bit hit and miss. It's kind of like you're throwing troops at the guns and particularly if you're not fixing the environment, you're just, you're wasting your time it seems with a lot of the times. But when you are making changes and trying to help the dog, probiotics are fab. So I like the ones in time-release capsules which seem to be a little bit harder to find because I do believe the dog's stomach acids are like lava. I mean, the whole pH point of gastric juice is lower than ours, which is 10-fold more acidic. So I kind of believe that if you can get them in these time-release capsules and open in the intestines, you get this much bigger release of life. I guess that helps if you believe the literature on the products. The people that make those products, you swear, oh my God, there's no other probiotics. So I like them. And I think it's interesting that a lot of probiotic manufacturers, all of them in fact, I haven't found them without, use some sort of animal protein. So I I use probiotics a lot when you're trying to rehab these guts from food intolerances. So it annoys me a bit when there's beef or pork, but my two go-to ones are Hyperbiotics from the US, cheap as chips, they arrive in your house. Brexit seems to have scuppered that a little bit for Britons. And also Fido Spore in the UK. Hear nothing but good things about them. They've got a bit of science behind them. Vets, good vets like yourself and Nick are behind that, so that's good enough for me. So I do believe any probiotics is better than none. What's the time thing? How long, Brian? What's— what's—
Yeah. So there's a couple of things for, you know, giving them first. And as you say, there's some natural probiotics that we've all talked about with fermented foods and kefirs and things like that that you've got to think about late at night, just, you know, away from food to give just so it gets through the stomach without there being a big acid release. Just again, you've talked about time release options in capsules. Some of them are actually microencapsulated. So they'll actually have a coating placed on the individual grains to allow them to get through the stomach. And then you've got the other ones which are sporulated. So things like the, the phytospore are actually in spore form. So they wait for the handshake of the small intestine environment to actually start to reproduce. So that side of things. But the interesting thing about how long to give these for, well, there's various reports And certainly on the human side, where there's been long-term antibiotic use or, or some major gut upset, it can be a year of giving support to the gut to actually reestablish. And I know that there was some science about, well, how effective are probiotics? And they were literally giving probiotics for a week and then sort of retesting what was going on. And they sort of came back with, oh, it doesn't really do very much. But that could well be down to not really being able to give it long enough to see those changes.
That's interesting. Yeah, the timing thing was very interesting there, Bren. So dogs, you want to avoid those gut acids. It was a great study using a kefir study where there was an effect on the biome only if kefir was given before the meal. So I don't know if there's a problem with the feed at the moment, Bren. I can see your lips moving, but I can't hear you talking.
Yeah, don't worry about that. I think I'm using a remote camera and what's happened is that for some reason there is a delay between the camera and what I'm saying. That's interesting. I'm looking back at myself, I'm lip-reading the long explanation. Yeah, that's me looking at you.
Okay, interesting. I'll be guided by your voice, you're like haunting the thing. So yeah, so the kefir was only really useful when it was given before meals, so in other words, outside of those stomach acids. So like you said, between meals, you know, if you have a morning and evening feed, at lunchtime sneak in your probiotic. And the given with juice was better than giving them dry. So it's sneaking them in fluid because it's going to open up the chain, isn't it? Just rush it into the intestine. So that seems to be the way to do it. So that's the timing thing is interesting. Yeah.
And that's me explaining.
Yeah. Oh man, that camera is awful. Pete will edit all that out. But yeah, so you— but how do we know how long to give them, Brad? Like, what do you advise after you've given the dose of antibiotics?
Yeah, so I would at least give it for 7 days after a short course. So if they've just had— even if they've just had gut upset, actually, and no antibiotics, it's sometimes worth giving for at least a week after they've had that stomach upset. So have a little think about that for least a regular dosing. There's other reasons to give it, especially if they've had skin disease or other inflammatory problems. So just think about where you go with the types of probiotics as well. You may need to change those. I know a lot of people that buy them off the shelf as the human ones, and then before you know it, you've got than using something that's not necessarily fully effective for dogs.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I used to— I know a lot of people are measuring stool samples and whatnot and trying to see where the dog's gut flora is, but some of the top companies don't actually give the client a remedy after that. It's kind of like, this is the state of their gut flora, it's totally out of whack, as you'd expect if you've got some sort of gut issue. But it's the kind of, you know, What's the solution? I now find myself recommending— there's a company in Ireland called Irish Equine Research who do a lot of probiotics for racehorses, started doing them for dogs. And somebody just messaged me 2 days ago saying they put 2 very chronically itchy dogs— a vet— 2 very chronically itchy dogs they couldn't get right with all the usual approaches through that autogenous probiotics where you send a poo sample into Irish Equine Research and they look at the poo, they see they're all over the place, and then they culture a probiotic from the dog's own stool and then send that back to you. So it's autogenous, it's made from the body, and then they cryogenically store them in little pillules there. So every time you need a probiotic, you just get onto them and they post one out to you for £20. And I thought, oh, that is neat. But the results are very, very good. So I sent maybe 5 or 6, 7 of our worst dogs out there that you just couldn't get right no matter what we were doing. And like half of them had a really blinding kind of improvement. So I think that's money well spent. It's about £140 for the course. The first, the initial dose is like a liquid. Sounds like I'm promoting them here. I've got nothing to do with them, by the way. Should have got bloody sponsorship from them. But yeah, so it's— I find that more than just the analysis, because you can get kind of analysis paralysis when your dog gets really sick. But actually, you know, these autogenous probiotics, if you wanted to go to the next level, if you're wondering what the next level is for probiotics, that is definitely— that could be money well spent. If your dog was a terrible case and you feel like you've tried everything else, that's something I find myself recommending before looking and seeing what's wrong with that. Do you ever use those, those good flora, those stool flora kind of analysis and see where they are? Do you ever use that?
Yeah. So there was a lot of work done back in the 1920s actually on using, looking at gut flora problems and actually feeding them back as cures. And actually in those days, not only did they look at the cultures, but they actually looked at the making homeopathic versions of that, which is really interesting and seeing similar effects. So it was one of those before they really knew about antibiotics and giving the long courses and things like that, just what was happening with illness generally and how gut flora could change those fairly markedly, even with mental illness. And there's a medical conference back in 1911 that was talking about the effects of gut flora change on mental health. So, you know, it's just amazing how long, you know, microbiome has been part of medicine. It's always almost got forgotten when we started treating things with antibiotics.
Yeah, yeah.
It's just sort of like craziness, I think, from other areas. Fecal transplants is another area that we do to sort of like try and give back good gut-friendly. So we look for donor dogs which are disease-free and then effectively transplant a whole group of flora back into the large intestine and try and get that up if we can towards the caecum as that pocket of jump-starting the gut flora change. And I've seen some amazing results of that, you know, itchy dogs, behavioral issues, and literally within 3 days resolved. That's interesting. And that's, you know, rather than giving weeks of probiotics and prebiotics. So a lot of the microbiome stuff that you send off, what they'll do is they'll give you a list of prebiotics that come back to add to the diets to try and establish a good gut flora.
Yeah, they're usually plant-based prebiotics. I do wonder how much science there is on prebiotics for dogs because I'm inclined to believe it's all more meat protein-based. Like, we know that the meat protein in breast milk can affect the gut flora of babies, and I kind of think that the prebiotics for dogs are probably slightly different to what we think they are. But we do know dogs with diarrhea get on well with chicory and stuff that works for humans. And so I don't know, anyway, I don't know where I am with that, but the behavior stuff with it is very interesting. They're using Lactobacillus and bifido in mental health patients at the moment, and that seems to be having success. And they're taking dogs out of fights, out of stressful situations, dogs rescued from a dog ring, 25 dogs from a dog ring, and they're all the same shift in gut flora. So, you know, it becomes this kind of question of, oh, I'm on my own, oh my God.
No, no, I'm sorry, I'm just changing the camera whilst you're—
for anybody that hasn't seen Wayne's World, you remember when Garth was suddenly on his own on the camera and he goes, I'm having a good time. Anyway, yeah, so they found these dogs that were rescued from the dog ring all had the same shift in gut gut flora to this horrible gut flora. And so what happens is you don't get— they say all the happiness comes from your gut, 90% of your serotonin comes from your gut, that's your gut flora. Tell them the immune system around your gut saying release serotonin, he's being a good boy. But the gut flora produce loads of things themselves, butyrate and GABA. GABA tells you to calm down and reduces your anxiety and phobias and stuff. So a happy gut flora produces loads of its own compounds. So now they just take those bacteria and put them into these dogs that they've rescued to bring back some sort of mental stability before they start working on them training-wise, which I very interesting. So people trying to train a stressy dog and it's like, well, you've got a whole rickety foundation there that you need to improve first before you even think about him doing his homework, you know. But listen, that's probiotics. I have a question here from Patricia Gethin. I like when Patricia asked me a question because she used to ask me loads of questions back in the day, but now she has become all-powerful and so rarely asks me questions. I'm asking her questions all the time now. But Patricia Getlin from Raw and Holistic Cat and Dog Support Group, a fabulous natural dog group in the UK, if not the biggest one. So she asked me, why are dogs more prone to— why are they prone to chicken and beef allergies, in inverted commas? Why is that? Like, that should be as weird as a cow being allergic to grass. So do you want to start off with one, Brennan? What one comes to your mind?
I think that there's two things that I would look at. One is what they're going to be exposed to naturally. And let's face it, the majority of dog and cat foods out there are going to contain either chicken or beef. And so it's really common sources of protein in the diet. If you've got any weakness within the gut, you're going to get increased exposure. And that's why sensitization can occur. The other is the sort of artificial exposure, if you like, that will come about through injection. So there are certainly some injections which will be related in, let's say, vaccines. The leptospirosis vaccine, the bacteria are grown and presented within beef serum, so beef albumin is within the vaccine. So, you know, you've got to understand if you put any adjuvants in there, and some of them still do have adjuvants, you've got a risk that the adjuvant will excite the immune system, not just to the leptospires which are within the vaccine, but also to the protein which is around that. And therefore, that could also be a reason for sensitization. And then you've got some of the other sides, now not strictly chicken, but certainly with beef Okay, sorry, with eggs, they do grow some of the viruses on egg, and in order to do that, you're obviously, when you're harvesting the virus, you are at risk of effectively contaminating the vaccine with egg protein as well. Now, there's some similarities with chicken in that sense because it's chicken eggs they use, but whether it's strictly the same as the meat chicken protein is up for debate.
Yeah, that's interesting. That camera's working perfectly there now, Brent. There was a very interesting few studies out there if people want to really— if you really want to stir the pot. There's some very interesting studies on the AIDS virus where they were using— wasn't it chimpanzee DNA in with the poliovirus initially? And they believe, well, 3 or 4 or 5 big, big studies in the early '90s pointed the finger at this now, the studies that refuted too, but you know, it's a better explanation than somebody was, you know, having sex with a monkey somewhere and then we got the AIDS virus. So, you know, it did pop up out of nowhere and these things sometimes have funny, funny explanations. Anyway, good science, there was good science on that, but good refutes too. So I do just like to stir the pot. You can search for those studies on Google Scholar. I was going to talk tonight about good info and doing that, but as soon as I mentioned to you, to Bren and Nick, that we should do this. The lads, you know, this is such a big show, we would do it. Well, I mean, it's such a big idea to talk about sourcing good info that we're all going to talk about this next week. So we're moving that segment that we're going to do. It's just too big to talk about how you research, who you trust, and the problems of peer review and stuff. I mean, it's a juicy, juicy 45 minutes, so it's best we move that to the back. There's a few other things with the chicken and beef thing. I think what you had said at the start, if you're eating chicken and beef-flavored dry food, ultra-processed, very denatured, strange proteins, which we know are more antigenic to the body. There's good studies there that the raw proteins are 3 to 5 times less antigenic to the body than ultra-processed proteins of the same type. So we know they're more antigenic to the body. So there's that. But also if you eat like, you know, a food that doesn't agree with you and you get these IBD-like diseases and you get this inflammation and sick gut and dysbiotic gut and you start to get this leaky gut, which most people have heard about on here, this gut starts to break down leaky gut. So the tight cell junctions suddenly go from being tight— your gut wall is only one cell thick— and so these little gaps appear. And so half-digested proteins can sneak in and they haven't been digested properly, and then the body freaks out. Who is this little weird invader that I've never seen? It's chicken-like. Well, if I see any more chicken-like protein, I'm going to freak out. So that is a very simplistic way of saying how some intolerances can develop. But there's other issues that can happen with chicken that vets can maybe perhaps miss diagnosed, mislabeled as an allergy. I mean, not all food sensitivities are allergies. I mean, they're mechanical issues. Yeah. So like one chemical issue with chicken is that particularly in the US, they use a lot of oxytetracycline, oxy whatever, it's oxytetracycline, I think, an antibiotic that we know collects in the bones of the animal. And so in 2016, an award-winning study by Beth Lem and a few others wanted to say to the US Department of Agriculture, these bones are not healthy for us because it's full of oxy residue. And so what they did was they got a load of dogs and they got a load of chicken carcass, and they fed chicken carcass to the dogs, and the dogs got way more inflamed from eating the chicken carcass. And they pointed the finger at oxy and said, that's the difference between chicken without oxy and chicken with oxy. But now we know that, well, we're feeding these, these, uh, you know, intensively reared— now I don't believe— I don't know, Bren, you'd know more about this— I don't believe there's a huge amount of antibiotics used anymore in Department of Agriculture stuff in Britain, but I imagine there is— well, there isn't, is there not? They've got moved.
So they, um, they have massively reduced. So about 6 or 7 years ago, there was a bit of a study on the use of antibiotics and overuse and abuse of antibiotics as growth promoters, and it used to be thought of as a bad practice anyway before that. And I think Britain has massively reduced its antibiotic use as a growth promoter within farm animals before this, but massive drop-off. I think they found that within 2 to 3 years of starting that project of reducing antibiotic use in animal feed within the UK as a routine, they managed to decrease the antibiotic uses in farm animals by nearly 60%.
No way.
Good news. And that's a huge amount considering how short a time frame that was. But we do know that it's certainly used in some places on the continent still, and certainly renowned in certain states in the US for using in especially these large farms almost, yeah, they're almost effectively manufacturing plants for meat.
Yeah, you know, there's a problem with that now with the— I see with talks to bring in Australian meat, and Australia has its share of intensively reared poultry, and they do like to use the stuff that Europe and Britain don't use in the chicken. So it becomes very difficult. It's one of the reasons why we don't bring in Brazilian meat in Ireland, and whether it gets into Britain or not. And the last thing that was interesting about the intolerance thing was there was a study from Israel that showed if you delay feeding peanuts to kids beyond the first year, it multiplies their chance of a peanut allergy by 10. And so they said early exposure of proteins charges the immune system. The immune system is surveying things all the time, so it could begin in mother's womb or infant. I'm not telling you, by the way, everyone just start force-feeding peanuts to your babies. I don't want any disinformation. I'm just telling you that there's a great—
send the bill to him.
But also it was very interesting though. So that is very— so I said that there is a huge amount of education that goes on in the immune system via the gut. So yeah, I just thought that was very interesting that you were—
also interesting, peanuts are not true nuts. They are— well, they're roots, aren't they?
They're little—
yeah, they're grown. They're not the typical tree nut. Different from a hazelnut as— yeah, they're more leguminous, you know. So you've got that. Yeah. Yeah. So that's the— so if you've got allergies to those, you've got to look out about some of the other legumes and soya and things like that rather than necessarily just—
Monkey nuts not grow on trees and people pick them. Is that not the roots? What? God, it's so spongy and soft.
Yeah, that's, that's what's encasing it underneath the ground.
No way. No way. I didn't know that. That's interesting.
You're gonna go look it up, aren't you? Yeah, yeah, it's not April 1st.
No, I'll tell you, Ronan already told me that for Bell and Duke because he absolutely hates, uh, cooked peanuts, roasted peanuts. He says they're the absolute worst things. And he was trying to convince me, I said they can't be, they're perfectly good. And he said no, they're really, really nasty. And he was telling me they were kind of legume-like. And then now they are like—
I'm pretty sure they are. Yeah, they're, um, not typical peas, but they are found.
Interesting. Would have lost money on that. So what's next, Bren? What have you got next?
So what have I got in this? I've got— so we've had a couple of questions. We've got some questions around the puppy vaccines, and I would say that we've done quite a few. So if you look last year, we look at towards the end of last year in December and also back to January time. We did sort of answer a few of those, so if you're wondering about when to give puppy vaccines, then please, you know, do have a look at that on that post. I've got one question which was about— and you might have a view on this, Conor— and that's about, I've got a really elderly dog Okay, he's 16 or 17, and they're trying to initiate giving some bones. And it's a little dog of about Westie size. And what they've ended up doing is that the dog has just literally is grabbing and gobbling it, and they want to know Is it a case that they needed to educate the dog from an earlier stage in order to cope with the bone material, or is there another way that you would educate this dog so that it's not trying to choke on these wings?
Oh, that's a tough one. Yeah, I would say you do hear of that. That actually popped up a week or two ago as well with somebody who was new to raw and was just shocked at her dog's gluttony. And you know, it might have come up on Patricia's group, but it's somebody's group anyway. And all the raw feeders said, well, you know, most of them would have said, listen, most dogs do actually eat with great gusto. You know, that is one of the traits of them being the, you know, giant wide keratinized gullet. These are animals that chomp they don't, they can't chew very quickly. They just shake off a lump and they swallow big lumps very, very quickly. So, you know, it's almost like an eating competition every time they get in front of a carcass. For some dogs, they're more slow to go. So initially it might seem like shocking behavior, but I think that, you know, that the dog's trying to choke itself, that probably needs a bit of defining. I would say if your dog did do something silly and was choking himself on, let's say you tried to give him something small that you thought he could have, like a chicken wing or chicken necks, I'd say, okay, well, the dog is a little bit new and very greedy for what is the best food on the planet. Well, then I would probably up the size of the bone for the small dog, and I'd say have at it, buddy. Like, you know, while you don't often recommend big large bones that often, I'd have a big meaty bone of any type, and I'd say go for it, bud, you knock yourself out. It's only— he's only so much damage he can do to a very big bone, and then he's just annoying himself and pulling at it and cleaning his insides as fangs, but he's not swallowing. There's no danger of choking. He can't get his teeth around such a bone. So, you know, that might be one way to let him have his fun. It'll— he'll cool off after a while, you know, but he'll clean the whole bone in the process and get a lot of good stuff off it. And so I would up the size of the bones, and maybe I wouldn't trust a small dog. I've never had that issue, but it does sound a little bit alarming. But education-wise, I can't imagine that dog is ever going to be a very dull side eater of chicken necks for his last few years on the planet. I can't imagine there's going to be an education program you can walk them through. What about you, Bren? What do you do with a small greedy one?
Yeah, so, well, I always say to people, look, you know, that the whole concern over big bones— are they too hard for these smaller dogs? And, you know, is there a risk of dental fracture and that side of things? I actually say, well, actually, if you're looking at size and still chewing through things, there's always— you can move to carcasses.
Carcasses.
So you can actually go up the size but still with chewable cartilaginous skeletal stuff. And actually, it's hard to stuff a whole chicken down your throat. It might be easier to try and swallow a whole wing, but actually giving them something that's automatically going to grab on. So there's various companies around the country, around the UK certainly, will sell carcasses, which is Effectively the breast and leg taken off and what's left. Some will take the wings off separately as well. So it's the other bit. But you know, you've got a good rib cage and backbone and stuff like that for them to chew through. And that's quite large for them to be able to go at and actually gives a lot of good action all the way through it on all of the teeth.
Yeah, lamb ribs, lamb necks, you know, even a duck neck would be— that's the size of a large chunky carrot. Now that's probably as small as I'd go with a greenie pig that I thought was trying to kill himself, but a duck neck can be quite a serious chunk of meat and there's no way he's going to swallow it. I mean, there's just no way he wouldn't try, you know. So while I think it can be quite shocking initially, I think it's quite remarkable that so few dogs seem to be harmed by bones. I'm sure it happens, and when you post this up on Facebook saying, is there any negative instances out there, you will hear of one or two where particularly a Labrador given half a pound of chicken neck and it's like, yeah, he is going to try eat that like a seagull with a fish, you know, we'll get it down as quick as he can. But I think for greedy piggies, I think up the size of the bone a little bit and only decrease on smaller bones when you're around, bit of supervision. But if you're not going to be around, the bigger bones out the back. And for a 16-year-old dog, any bone really on the big side is going to be great for him because we know studies show captive tigers, captive cheetahs and stuff in the zoo that when their teeth are wonky and old, giving them meat on the bone is what makes those teeth last and firm up in the gums. It just increases the strength of the teeth and the gums, so it's a really good idea. And there may be a little bit of blood for the first day or two as well, which is what one of those capital tiger studies said, but that is all part of the process. The dog's not going to absolutely destroy his mouth trying to eat a bone, but again, every dog is different. I suppose you need to be careful, but I've seen lots of dogs get dental fractures from big bones Yeah, you do hear this. Do you see much of that, Brandon?
Well, Leila, I would say with regards to dental fractures, big bones. Now, are we talking raw? We've got to confirm that for a start. I've seen a lot of people reporting dental fractures on large bones, and then they talk about those spray tan bones that you get in the pet shops with stuff, with loads of stuff. And I just don't see those as bones. They're just really badly designed toys and treats. Foods. I think I've seen a lot of people that have left large bones out for a long period of time and they've taken all the cartilage and everything else off. Well, as soon as that's happened, you should be depositing those in the outside bins to get rid of. Do not leave them in the back garden for dogs to go back to because there's no cushion. They dry out. Yeah, absolutely. The protein and everything else sets and you just don't have the same effects. So of course there is a few comments there about don't ever give a bone bigger than the dog's head. Well, you know, you could— I would say that's still even— that's a bit— I would say half the size of the dog's head I think is too much. But remember, so much of the neck and backbone stuff is really, you know, the bone material is encased in lots of flesh and sinews and so still get a lot of dental action without there being large amounts of bone in there. So yeah, don't worry. I've not— I, as a practice who's fed raw for over 30 years, you know, all, but I would certainly say in the last, you know, 20 years that I've been strongly advocating raw within the practice, you know, those are my predecessors there beforehand. Yeah, the only fractures we've seen have generally been on hard bone materials, and we've seen those which have— if they've got stuck, they've been cooked bones, which is really interesting. I think I've had one which— the big ones actually that I see fractures on is antlers. Oh yeah. And that's something I'm a bit anxious about is that antlers have become very popular as a dog chew. Yeah, actually, realistically, I would soak them, and if they're still having issues, just be careful. I've seen a lot of fractured teeth with antlers.
And I can add to that one, because the move now is to small dried meat-on-the-bone pieces like just small roe deer you know, small limb bones of deer with meat on the outside, and they've been air-dried in inverted commas. And I use those sarky inverted commas because we have tried to track one company in Poland that was producing a huge amount of these. Air drying is quite a long, slow, and therefore expensive process. So the temptation is to use a bit of heat to dry them out, and you can usually see the difference in these. They look a bit more cooked when they've got heat on them. So when you try to track that company and ask them where that product's— oh, it's all EU meat, you know, the Okay, can you tell me where those, those deer bones come from? And, you know, it's very hard to track them. But so the point is, if they are cooked, if they are cooked, and we have seen on a couple of supplier websites, on Facebook, a couple of the— I didn't want to name the actual group, but someone saying we sell these pieces and we are getting the second client to complain about like a tooth kind of breakage or whatever. So I would say those cooked dry meat and the bones, I just don't trust them. So if they are possibly cooked, you're in for trouble. There was a video going around Ireland saying dogs shouldn't eat meat on the bone, and it looked like the dog had been in a bin outside KFC. It was just clearly a pile of cooked meat bones, and a boxer had just eaten 2 kilos of cooked meat bones. So yeah, somebody else said the bones from your broth, yeah, throw them in the bin, they're diamond hard. Your bones from your Sunday roast in the bin, even though I grew up giving that bone to my dog. I do think about her— her teeth were ruined by the time she was 12 over 13, and we just thought, that's normal, but it's not. She's just eating the wrong material. But we know, we know better now. But yeah, sorry, Bren, I've got 2 people asking the same question on my Facebook page here, so I better keep them happy. Internal yeast issues. Okay, so I'm not sure if we've done a yeast show yet, but if we haven't, we definitely should. But a few solutions for yeast which we can chat about, and what she says specifically, so this is somebody that's gone through the process, I was thinking of adding Acidophilus to his diet since that probiotic specifically targets yeast production. Have you any experience with that brand? I don't.
Acidophilus.
Yeah.
I mean, basically the, the idea around yeasts is that they don't like acidic environments. Okay. So, you know, we use apple cider vinegar very effectively externally, you know, on yeasty patches. And very similarly, well, actually, do you know what, even over grazes and things like that, I think you can just dilute it 1 in 3 and still be effective.
Okay.
But I think certainly for internal use, I've also found it very useful. Now people worry about the histamine release and all of that side of things. Are they going to be super sensitive? And, you know, if you get a die-off of yeast Are they also going to have issues? When you look at these yeast colonies in the gut where they establish, you know, the candidiasis, and you've got little filaments effectively growing in between that tight junction of cells, you know, it's literally feeding in and actually also telling the body that it needs more sugar. So it's trying to direct those people and animals to taking more sugars to feed the colony. That's not— isn't it nuts? Absolutely. So this is why that gut instinct is not always necessarily the right way to go. But there, you know, so of course, yeah, there are certain probiotics which, you know, if those bacteria are acidifying the environment within the gut and changing the gut flora enough, they will help reduce those yeast that yeast overgrowth internally, but also we see that externally. So the results as to what happens on the skin too can also be reflected in that same way. Yeah, so yeah, certainly I have seen that, that used, and I would say, yeah, go for it. Give it a go.
Yeah. And so how much apple cider vinegar for what size dog?
So for a 10-kilo dog, I would be giving at least a teaspoon twice a day in their food. So that's 5ml. Okay. So you can multiply that up for a 20kg dog. That sort of therefore becomes a dessert spoon because I can't be bothered measuring out 2 teaspoons, just even a tablespoon. But it's really hard to overdose it. Okay. And this is what I say to people. If you accidentally give it a tablespoon, it might have a sourpuss face for a you know, a couple of hours, but it's not going to kill your dog. So don't alarm yourself.
There's no inappetence off it. The dog will eat apple cider vinegar.
Yeah, I mean, certainly, you know, some people it will be added into bone broth and therefore they'll be sort of like overcoming the taste aspect through the fact that there's bone broth around it and therefore they'll still take that same quantity. Yeah, for me, I'm actually quite happy with, you know, the healthy apple cider vinegars you can get now with added herbs, good for your gut and things like that. I can tolerate those really well. I would certainly say Christina, my wife, absolutely. You know, she has to hold her nose and, you know, really screws the face up when she takes her dose. And, and I think there's quite a lot of people out there like like that. So I think, you know, there is going to be a taste element to some dogs.
Start them slow, start them slow and build them up to the dose Bren just recommended there. And, you know, not every dog's going to get on with everything. But yeah, so ACV is a new— and you want the one with the mother in it, the little bits and pieces in the bottom. So go to your local health shop and buy the good stuff.
That's all the pectins, that's all of the prebiotics effectively. And some probiotics from that ferment when they've made the apple cider vinegar.
Cool. So there's loads of other solutions for the yeast, like getting them off the sugar diets, guys, getting them off the carbs. And carbs is, you know, yeast needs fuel to survive. But just because you remove the fuel, just because you take away the wheat and corn, sweet potato, rice, potatoes, dental sticks, you know, all the berries, fruit, just because you take them all away, yeast doesn't just die off. It encapsulates in this bloody cellulose, this fiber, this plant fiber. And so it doesn't go anywhere, it just sits there and waits for the next pea that your dog eats. So it can be particularly stubborn to shift. It can be right devil when your dog is chronically itchy or yeasty, and you'll smell it from his ears, dark brown wax, scaldy skin, hair falling off, chronically itchy. So you'll get that cheesy smell, the house is very doggy, the car is very doggy. So I would say cutting out the carbs is one thing, but then you do need to hit it with a few things and one good tip is to give them digestive enzymes with cellulase. So cellulase is the enzyme that herbivores produce, but omnivores like me and Bren and dogs and meat eaters don't. So you've got to feed them the enzymes with the cellulase in it, and the cellulase digests the outside of the yeast, which is cellulose, and you just sprinkle that on the foods and like a bit of salt. So that helps to expose the yeast to what you're going to give them to kill it. Which is changing your acidity in the gut if you can on a short term, and then a little bit of garlic can help, a little bit of green olive leaf can help, MCT oil can help. And there's many articles, everyone has written an article on it, and everyone's always got a decent idea. It seems with yeast, no one thing works. I've tried to use the same advice for 2 or 3 yeast sufferers and it doesn't seem to work, but you can hit it multiple times. Is there anything after that, Bren? So let's say you've tried the natural approach, you've tried the 2, 3 herbal additions the bloody yeast is not going away. Is there anything else a vet can do?
Well, there are some antifungals that are used, you know, that will treat Candida within the gut, nice oral things like that that can be given. I'm very strongly against those sort of things that will totally blast— you've got to really support the gut flora if you're going to give any of those, because actually there's now natural skin yeasts. And if you take those away, although you don't want excess amounts, if you take away all of them with long courses, you'll get aberrant bacterial growth as well. So it's about a balance. So wherever you can, it may be change your probiotic options if one isn't working. And certainly don't give up after 3 or 4 days. That's far too short a period of time. You could be looking at months to change that candidiasis and diet. Diet, diet, diet is so important. It's not just making the environment uncomfortable for them, but starving them out, literally making sure that any root veg or any carb veg of any description that's been added to your raw. Yeah, just take those out. Okay. Really stop the yeast from having any food source whatsoever.
Yeah.
And watch the treats, you know, for all of those people that are feeding wonderful raw and then they succumb to giving, you know, a biscuit on the side or a gravy bone or, or heaven forbid, you know, one of those dental treats that are out there that are reconstituted sugar, basically. Yeah, avoid those.
Yeah, and what was the other thing with yeast that just came to my mind there? A dysbiotic gut. So like, I think a healthy gut flora, you're totally right there to focus on that, because a healthy gut flora keeps yeast in the box, keeps its foot on its neck. There's loads of different yeasts and protozoans and viruses and all things swirling around your gut there. It's not just bacteria. And a healthy gut flora keeps it in check because it wants a nice healthy host. Yeast. But when you have an unhappy dog living on chemically preserved dry food or a nasty infection or a bit of sickness or a bit of stressor, his best mate dies, anything, your gut can shift and then this pathogenic bacteria doesn't give a damn about what's going on in the surroundings, it just wants to eat and exist. And so yeast, if you feed it, it'll explode. Tell me, last question, Bren, the yeast, how come yeasty dogs get all these symptoms, particularly like the ears? Like what is the crack with yeast in the ears and is it related to yeast in the gut? Obviously that's an air environment and that's an in non-aerobic environments, so anaerobic environments. So are they the same? What's going on? What's the link?
They tend to be different yeasts. Okay, so the yeasts in the gut tend to be Candida. Okay, so a different type of yeast. Yeasts on the skin are Malassezia. So very occasionally in very moist environments, especially around the urogenital tract and around the anus, you may get candidiasis. And that's thrush. Okay. But when you— and that's sort of almost like a whitish tint to that. And you can get oral thrush as well. So around the mouth and it will look like a white fur plaques and things like that within the mouth. But yet the one on the skin is usually Malassezia pachydermatitis. Now that's because the pachydermis is effectively rhino skin, is what they're talking about. So it's the thickening of the gray skin that you get. That's why. And when they looked at that, they found loads of these Malassezia within that, and they're like a little cola bottle-shaped yeast that's often seen under the microscope. Now, those yeasts also enjoy a lovely warm, moist environment, so the ears particularly if they get any inflammation and then you get an excess of discharge, then the yeasts love that. Absolutely. It's like hot, sweaty. So if they've been swimming, it's like the tropical haven. You'll get fungal growth and that effectively is what yeasts are.
That's interesting. We've already talked about how you clean out those ears. Nick and Brendan did a demonstration of how to— apple cider vinegar in the ears and a few other remedies for back in September. Yeah, we did a whole show on ear, so check that out if you need to clear them. Is there any other questions we need to get to, Ben, in the couple of minutes that we have left?
I think, well, Coco, should that answer her question? Was all about yeast, so I hope she's watching this video at some point this week. There's somebody who's got a dog with a spleen removed and they were asked to not feed raw. Okay, now I can understand where the vet might have been coming from, but I would absolutely not agree with the end result of not feeding it. Have you come across any of these cases that you've had experience of? Splenectomy dogs that have come to you about feeding raw?
That's totally new to me. It's not the first organ I've heard it about. Bloody hell, if there's anything wrong with doggy cancer, it's eating raw, apparently. So pick your organ, pick your gut issue, raw, Jesus, no. So apparently only healthy dogs can eat raw. But so no, I don't have any experience. I'm still staggered. You can take the spleen away, such an important part of the immune system, and you guys can keep the dog alive for quite long lives. How is that possible?
Well, you know, because there's so many other resources for the immune system. It's not just the spleen. Okay. The spleen is, yes, it's an amazing organ that has lots of capabilities from not just squeezing itself down and producing red cells in a hurry, okay, like an onboard blood bag if you have an accident, but actually it has little centers of stem cells which can produce new blood cells like the bone marrow can, okay, in its own right. But so can the liver. So the liver can take over some of those roles if are really short. Then we're talking about the actual white cells and where they're produced and how they're taken out so that you're making sure that it's just the ones which will fight foreign material, not the ones that could fight your own tissues. So there's a sort of filtration that happens through the thymus, and we often look at that as the main organ but it can happen elsewhere. But if you remove the spleen, look, there are Peyer's patches, which are lymph nodes within the gut lining. There are whole lymph nodes within the mesentery around the gut all the way through to all over the body that act as those effectively watchtowers for infection. And I would actually say that whether you feed raw or not, having a splenectomy will not affect that. And there are so many tumor cases with spleens removed that I'm seeing for hemangiosarcoma treatment that we're moving on to raw and quite happy. And I have not seen any of the alarmist concerns that some vets are suggesting.
Yeah, I mean, look at the position they're taking. They're saying that raw can have infections. I said, are you suggesting that there is no contamination in dry food? I mean, the amount of salmonella is the number one reason for recall. 70 times more by weight dry food is recalled for salmonella than raw food in the US, and their meat sector has problems microbiologically speaking than meat. So like, it's just ridiculous. They've got many different types of bacteria when their foods are tested. They do have their problems. Humans are picking up salmonella from dry food, and it seems to happen more often than it has happened from raw. And on and on and on. But also like you've got aflatoxin, you've got vomitoxin, you've got storage mites, you've got all sorts of things that can really sicken you, you know. And then we know ultra-processed food is more antigenic to the body, which increases inflammatory response. It's chemically preserved, which is going to destroy your gut flora, which is going to destroy your immune response. So if you're talking about a sickened animal and what you need to feed it, it's not just we need to avoid the dangerous bacteria. It's like all the other things, fresh fats, you're going to take them away, you know, the benefits of fresh protein and fresh nutrients, life and everything else that comes with bioactive compounds that we add in just by sprinkling with a couple of blueberries. Give me a break. You can't cut that out because of bacteria. You're going to do more harm by cutting out the good stuff, by living in fear like an idiot. So it's like, don't listen to this nonsense. This— I mean, do listen, always listen to your vet, but I mean, it's this, the bacteria thing, surely to God they're going to move on from it at some stage. It's the figures are just not adding up. We're not seeing these dogs dropping down dead. Can they just move on, you know? It's a little bit annoying, but it's now actually 10 to 8, Brian.
So yeah, absolutely, that's great. One very last health alert out there, okay, just for you guys. There's a vomiting and diarrhea bug that's been going around the north of England. Now initially there was concerns that there is a lot seen on the coast and there was a lot of dead wildlife seen, and there seems to be a separate toxin release that they're still investigating off the northeast coast. But certainly throughout Yorkshire, and I think it's actually going countrywide, we've seen a lot of vomiting and diarrhea. Now, much of it is controlled without antibiotics and without anything else other than using the various pastes. So I'm holding up a box on, you know, That is basically just an example of some of the clay and probiotic paste that you can use. Sometimes using a little bit of Nux vomica just to reduce the nausea, but just get them hydrated. Lots of interesting things come from that. Bone broths have worked really well for these cases. We're seeing the vomiting usually subside within 48 hours. If you just use paste and don't use anything else, we can usually stop the vomiting within hours. If you use some of the other things to suppress the vomiting, both with complementary medicine and conventional, but sometimes the diarrhea is continuing on for 2 weeks if left untreated. So I definitely say it's worth looking at some of the probiotics, some of the pastes, using those, as I was saying earlier. Bone broth, and an interesting one for those people that were struggling making their own, and you know, there are a couple of options out there now. I would say Boil and Broth is a good bone broth that's out there made specifically for dogs. They do a frozen range. I don't have anything to do with that company, but they are at least available.
Keep an eye on them. Yeah, they're a good company and they do dry bone broth. So for people that, you know, Oh, you have it. There you go.
I was just going to say, yeah. So this is a really good alternative. It's a scoop for 100ml of hot water. So literally it comes as a little granulated stuff. Okay. And literally you can mix that into your water. So it's a good alternative to have on the shelf if you need to.
So there you go, free plug for them. They are fantastic, and they've been around for a few years, very popular. But to take all the water out, I mean, brilliant, because now you can ship it anywhere. So it's a brilliant idea. And it's interesting you mentioned bentonite clay, guys. My Pet Nutritionist, it's a good website, she writes great articles, and she did a good one on bentonite clay. Check it out. And but she linked to a great study that I wanted to chat about. But the bentonite clay is unreal. It's just so much evidence behind it. I always knew there was something to it, and everyone that I, that I that I respect recommends it. But when you see the evidence, then that really takes me over the edge. And like this huge review study of hundreds of studies on bentonite clay for so many conditions internally and externally. So yeah, giving it with the probiotic paste is a really good idea. It just absorbs— I hate the word detox for some reason, I really don't like it. But when you see what bentonite clay can do in studies of animals with these things, it really does just what you hoped it would do, just sucks all the badness out of animals that were given infections afterwards, before, during, and after. Bentonite clay has unreal responses. So we'll definitely have to come back to bentonite clay. That's a really, that's a really good one. Leptospirosis, we didn't get to. I have to, because I said to Rebecca, I said I'd ask you, so just give us one minute on this. Rebecca has a 6-year-old one-kidney cavachon. Is there anything she needs to worry about with a one-kidney cavachon at 6 years of age diet-wise?
So remember, you only need a quarter of your kidneys to function normally. Okay, so the rest is spare. So having had one taken out, you've still got 50%. So you got 25% effectively to go. So I'm not too concerned with that. Okay. Now there's some people that would do the sort of like, I'm risk averse so that I'm going to do something to try and avoid overprotein loading. But I just remind you, give them protein that they can use and assimilate and you're going to have very little waste product. If you start to try and feed, you know, some of the kidney diets which are biscuited and are changed, those proteins can only be used for making energy. If they're damaged, they can't assimilate them. So all you're going to end up with is extra ammonia being cut off for the body to cope with and being made into urea. So I would say, look, there are of course supports, you know, make sure that their dental health is really good throughout their life because that's so important to stop further kidney damage. Make sure that if there's any risk of, you know, coming across grapes or currants or any of those that could damage the kidneys, that you are visiting your vet to make sure that they're sick and bringing those back. Back because they're kidney toxic in some dogs. And, you know, you want to protect those kidneys as much as possible. And I know there are people out there that would say, well, look, my dog's been fine with a grape a week for all of its life. And then you see those dogs come in, you know, because it's a cumulative toxin. We see those dogs come in when they're 12 with kidney failure, and people don't associate it with the previous history constantly having those little treats.
There's always a concern of excess minerals. People keep talking about minerals and I say that science is grossly confused with chemical flask minerals, supplementary minerals, calcium diphosphate. Like we know it's the phosphates in dry food that's aggravating kidneys in kidney disease cats, not natural phosphorus. It doesn't have the same effect. So now we're really questioning, going, wow, it's like zinc oxide, iron oxide, rust. We know that's having a negative effect on livers, whatnot. But it's not actually— is that the same as natural iron? No, it's not. So it's very interesting. We're totally unsure now, and it's like suddenly the whole, do you have to drop the phosphorus content in a kidney-healthy animal? And it's like, well, natural phosphorus hasn't been shown to be the kick in the kidneys as that we thought it was. But if you were worried about, like, think about calcium, a bitch that has pups or a bitch that's about to whelp, you know, she can eat meaty bones as much as she likes. She's not going to have these calcified pups, and she's not going to be turned into a statue herself. But you let her nibble on calcium supplements and you'll see the difference in natural calcium and otherwise. But so, but if you are worried about those things, total plug for my own product. If you can't feed her bones, raw meaty bones, and you need to get her teeth clean, in dogs that you're worried about with kidney disease, you can give them something like CaniDent, which does clean their teeth, and then you don't have to go for those dental scrapes because also you don't want animals with, with shot kidneys be put out, GA and stuff. So really old dogs and that kind of stuff. So that is the one time I plug that product and I say, if there is a problem why you can't give meaty bones, it's so important you clean the teeth because it's like a traffic jam and you want to have— it's a 6-lane motorway to the kidneys and you want as little cars on that road as possible. So when you've got too much shit on the roads, you're going to get a traffic jam and that's when you start getting kidney issues. So you start taking off all the things that Bren was mentioning, unnecessary flea compounds, unnecessary worms, unnecessary stuff and goes clean as you like. And I know Rebecca's probably one of the most natural feeders out there, so I can't imagine you're doing anything wrong, Rebecca.
And a quick, you know, just if you want to look back for other kidney support items, you know, look back to our one— I know it was based around cats back in April last year, but you know, go on to Patreon and you should be able to find that shortly as a back catalog of videos. There's one on renal disease. We do more in-depth stuff stuff there.
Yeah, yeah, cool, guys. That was brilliant.
Wow, the time is nearly 8 o'clock. You've got an hour of Conor.
There you go. See that? We've got that. We actually did longer without Nick. See, we enjoyed ourselves. And next week we're going to do this info, info wars one, aren't we? We're going to talk about where do we get good info, how do we separate the wheat from the chaff. Interesting to hear the vet's opinion on that and my opinion after, after doing the book and, and just where we are today. We all seem to talking about who to trust and who not to trust, and it's a bit dark. We're trying to keep the light side of it with some recommendations and things to do and how we do it. So we thought that might be interesting, 45 minutes. I'm probably going to be the scandal in there as well at the same time. So, so that's what's going to be—
he loves his gossip. Don't, don't you worry, guys, there will be a Conor rant, I am sure of it.
Next week's a hot topic for me, which I'm already itching to get at. And leptospirosis, guys, we didn't even get to it. We do have to do leptospirosis good and proper. I don't believe we've done a full show on it, but there's plenty about leptospirosis that I want to understand about it. So I really do think we need to do a week on that, so that'll probably be the week after. All right guys, got to dash here. So Royal Vet Medics up on patreon.com, guys. Thanks very much. Check out our new podcast. I just put up a link on Facebook. Thanks to everybody for your donations on patreon.com/royalvetmedics. Really helps. Price of a cup of tea if you can, great. If you can't, no sweat. Enjoy the podcast when you're walking the doggies, and we'll see you all next week.
Brilliant. Thanks, guys. Take care.
