RPM Tuesday Night Live: The big C!

Whose was that?

Wasn't mine. Yeah, that's mine because I said hello. As soon as I say hello, look, do it again, shall I?

Hello!

Oh no, Rach Mac is saying hello as well. Yeah, Michelle is here from Chicago.

Oh, Chicago, Chicago. Karen's there.

Karen's going to say in a minute you're late. Gentleman, you wait.

Oh, actually, while we have, while we have you, Karen, we haven't asked you yet, but we're going to ask you live on air. Um, we were thinking about doing, uh, some form of a little Christmas party next week, everybody. Uh, and we were thinking that wouldn't it be cool to do some form of quiz? But we didn't have a quiz master, and then we all thought Karen will do it. Sure. So Karen, would you just organize maybe 10 rounds of 10 questions, you know, different kind of things, geography, history, Because of course we're going to get whole Trivial Pursuits done in 10 questions.

10 lots of 10 in 45 minutes.

I'm just trying to spook her. So Karen, think, think whatever it is and then make sure it's really good. Okay, that's cool. Thanks, Karen, appreciate that.

Listen, guys, we've got Marianne from Philadelphia. We've got Marianne from Philadelphia, we've got Petra from Minneapolis, so we're building up a US contingent. Fantastic.

Yeah, it's great.

Yeah, great.

It's great.

I'd like to think Rodney had a bit of a hand in that because he pushed us hard. He pushed us hard.

Oh, he's very good.

Thank you, Rodney.

Ben is there from the beautiful mountains of North Carolina. How fantastic. Well, guys, you're very welcome. All our European base is very welcome as well, of course.

Of course they are. Yeah. What sort of— you guys, any—

do you want to just explain? We said to the guys about Nikki Kamak coming on, and we were unfortunate enough to hear that she wasn't able to make it. Do you want to explain just to the guys just why we've switched for now and where we're going to slot her in?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. North Point Pets. Nikki Kamak is a wonderful owner and proprietor of North Point Pets, which is a really great raw store in Philadelphia. Philadelphia, is it? Pennsylvania, somewhere in Pennsylvania. Sorry, Nikki, I should know that. I used to know the town, but I don't. I can't say it off the top of my head. But she was going to come to talk to us about dilated cardiomyopathy and grain-free foods because she works a lot with the wonderful Ryan Yamka, who can't come and talk to us because he's rushed off his feet. So, but she was going to give us the inside story on his take on DCM and no grain-free diets. But she's also done a study where she's asked about 5,000 households about getting infections from raw food, and the results were unsurprisingly vanishingly small numbers of people who had any, anything, anything like a risk. Anyway, her husband had an accident a week ago. He's going in for surgery today, so she's with him, and our three My thoughts are with them both, and I hope everything's going well. He's probably going under the knife right now, so, uh, hope everything's okay with that, Nikki. So we're going to rebook her in, even if we have to drag her all the way from North Point Pets to here, uh, in January sometime. So that's the story of Nikki Kamek. She's great, she's great value, she'll be really, really good. She's been on, uh, Georgia a couple of times, and she's really great value. So she's going to come and see us in January, as long as— along with the Sustainability Food Trust's boss who's going to come along and talk about sustainable food, which is really exciting. So we've got those two biggies, big hitters lined up for January. Yes, yes, very exciting.

So we've swapped in with a surprise subject, but we think it's very relevant in the current environment, and many puppy owners will be joining us, I'm sure, over the coming months and We probably want to know a little bit more about immunity. So Nick came up with this great idea for us to do a bit of a delve to try and help you understand the immune system, immunity, what we can do from a nutritional point of view. Conor's hot on this, I'm sure. And what we can do from a holistic point of view of trying to support that, but also to get you guys up to speed with what the immune system is, how it works, particularly in respect to viruses. As you know, we're in the winter depths and, you know, viruses are going around like crazy, as Conor will tell you. So that's what we've got tonight. Surprise, Presi, is the immune system. So, but before we get to there, Conor, how's your week been?

Yeah, busy, just flat out. You know, I have my new website coming up. I'm absolutely mobbed getting everything ready for that. It's like moving house and it's stressful, but Yeah, no, it's been very productive. You know, getting up coming up to Christmas is busy, so you get a few posts out, you start to tidy up your articles, and you're looking after a couple of kids who can't seem to shake their bugs. So tonight is very, very relevant, you know, so I'm looking forward to talking about it. I do believe I have another little cold, which is quite embarrassing when I'm here talking about all the things you can do to boost your immunity and not get cold, and I am here not taking any of those things and suffering with a cold. So I'm going to talk about the few reasons why I think I've got a cold, and they're all very relevant to dogs as well, I'm sure. So that's been my week, just working. What about you guys?

Go for it.

Okay, well, I was planning to join you guys here tonight from sunny Egypt, but we had to cancel because of Omicron. Thank you very much, Omicron. We had to cancel it because we didn't want to be in Egypt and for them to turn Egypt into a red zone because then we'd have to be in a hotel of dubious quality at Heathrow Airport for the entire Christmas period. So it's lovely to be here in the DermaDog shed and the kids are really excited because the Christmas tree is up and everything else, but it would have been nice to have been just relaxing in 26 degrees. It would be about 9 or 10 o'clock at night.

Sand between your toes.

Sand between my toes, yes. And raising a beer to you all, but it can't be, and it's a first world problem, so I'm not going to whinge about it too much. That's a shame. So basically, so I just, I just said, right, I've cancelled the holiday, and we went— the entire week filled immediately. So I'm wading my way through, through a week of work that didn't exist about 10 days ago. So that's what, that's what I'm doing. Bren, what have you been up to? How's the house going?

Popular, Nick. That's brilliant. So I've certainly been avoiding all of the coughs and colds that are going around. So thankfully this is remote and there's no computer viruses involved. I don't know, poor Conor, we were hoping so much to see you in the new year. I'm thinking at this point in time we want to keep a cattle prod and you the wrong side of the Irish Sea. But no, it's been Great getting ready for Christmas, Christmas decorations going up, bit of, you know, running around just checking everything's sorted out, ready for, you know, the festive season in what, 10 days?

It's not long, is it?

Yeah, 10 sleeps and we'll be there. Getting ready, guys. Yeah, so no, it's that I've just, you know, there's a little bit of running backwards and forwards looking after the goats. That are out like half an hour away now. So it's sort of like that's a little bit more to add to the woes. But you've got first world problems, isn't it?

Your land is half an hour away. You've got land from your house to half an hour away. How much?

That's on the estate, you know, walking past the peasant houses. I really should have moved them closer to the house.

Yeah.

You know, The mansion didn't look so good in the winter decorations with the goats that near.

I'm joking, guys.

Guys, it's just we've obviously temporarily moved out whilst there's a bit of a build and building site going on over at the other place.

So, yeah, your weird basement or dungeon that you're building that you don't want to talk about.

Yeah.

Anyway, yeah. So listen, guys, listen, you'll see this scrolling across the bottom. There's patreon.com/rawpetmedics. You'll find us there. Helps us prepare for shows, particularly these impromptu shows, because we then, we have to reorganize what we're doing mentally. So tonight we're going to be talking about immunity. And so does somebody want to start us off? One of the vets, start us off with, you know, a basic introduction of when someone says immunity or immune system, can somebody give us an elevator pitch on what we're talking about?

Well, do you want to go with that? The immune system, yeah. So the immune system is the body's defense mechanisms against foreign invaders. Let's put it that way. That's a very simple 5-second pitch. Now, it is then split up into different areas from the innate immune system, which is pretty much the very ancient ways that cells defended themselves against other materials invading them. So there's chemical cascades which can develop which will actually knock out viruses in this case from invading them. And then we've got the more complex humoral responses, so the learned responses that actually are to do with antibodies which most people start to look at. And in between all of that we then actually have the cells that create immunity. So, we've got certain cells which will go out there and gobble up invaders and actually interact directly with surface membrane receptors to latch on and destroy those invaders. So, we've sort of got those are the three sort of areas that I would consider. Anything you'd like to add, Nick, on that elevator pitch?

Yeah, I mean, yeah, just— I always look at these things very, very simply. And if you think the innate— your innate immunity is the stuff that you're born with, and your acquired immunity is everything that you learned, you learn from then on. So things like mucus in your throat is part of your innate immunity. Decent skin to stop all the bugs coming in. Your gut lining, your— that one cell thickness is what stops you from collapsing within 5 seconds because of all the bacteria. We are absolutely surrounded by bacteria and viruses and fungi and all these things, and they are within us. They're called part of our superorganism. You've got a trillion mammalian cells, but you've got 10 trillion bacteria, fungi, parasites, and all these other things around. So you have to live in synchrony with those. And so those are the elements of the immune system. The immune system is very, very clever because it has to tell what's you and not to attack, and what's the outside world and to attack. So it's a symphony and it happens every microsecond of every day, and it really is a wonderful thing.

Isn't it amazing that this adaptive or acquired immunity, like, the body remembers every single baddie that ever challenged us, and it stores that information away in memory cells, which I'm sure have other names, and it's ready for a rapid response. So the next time I see that baddie, well, I know exactly how to get rid of you, buddy. And you call up the appropriate antibodies and whoosh, they rush to the spot and they kill them nice and quick. So that's why you might suffer a bug the first time as your body learns how to deal with this, and you go through a couple of days of your runny noses or a sweaty stain on the bed in case of some bad, bad flus. But ultimately, if it happens again, you'll be— or even if it was to change ever so slightly, such as the flu, you are better able to deal with these things in the future. But the fact that it remembers— think of the amount of bacteria and stuff pouring into you, and it's just tagging every single one, right? Remember that, remember that. How did we develop this adaptive response? That's not really a question, it's rhetorical. Or like, it's amazing. It's amazing.

And what's more amazing is that actually at the very beginning of all of that, the body also has to filter through all of its own cells, all of its own materials, and learn how to avoid creating an immune response to those items. So that's the great thing about, you know, the amazing thing of how this has evolved over time and, you know, created the learned humoral response that we've got. Yeah, it's brilliant.

That's what an autoimmune disease is. So this tolerance that the body builds up and learns, autoimmune disease really is where the immune system has kind of turned on you a bit. And, and that, that it's like it misunderstands who's a goodie and who's a baddie, and it can start attacking the very tissues it was trying to protect. This can happen with Lyme.

Yeah, in the new year we're going to really go into that in a bit more depth. But yeah, the very basics are that the immune system can make these mistakes if you glue on to a normal cell something that's a foreign material.

Okay, cool.

It then starts to mistake the normal cell as foreign, and therefore it starts to attack it. And then it gets into a vicious cycle where it then goes beyond needing that foreign part to actually still attack its own cells. And there's various reasons why that can happen. From, you know, the inflammatory response and damage to those cells all the way through to drugs getting on and gluing to your own tissues and causing that immune response. But we'll talk more in the new year about autoimmune disease and that side of things. I think tonight we have so much to concentrate on with viral defence that maybe we should crack on with that.

Yeah, absolutely. Nick, do you want to do a few bits?

Okay, um, I, I do, uh, when I'm back in the days when I did, uh, talks, I would often do raw food in the morning, and then in the afternoon we talk about thyroid disease. And a cracking way to finish the day was to do an hour or two on vaccination and some of the things, because it really wakes everybody up, starts having me falling asleep. And, and, and so the things that I find people are very interested in, want to know about, is titer testing and how long do the vaccines last and questions like that. So let me just tell you about the, it's called DOI, duration of immunity. So the World Small Veterinary Association, if anybody hasn't got access to it, have a look at the WSAVA vaccine guidelines and they are written very simply so that we can all breed them even if you're not medically trained. And in that they say that if you get a puppy and at 14 to 16 weeks and you give them a single parvo hepatitis or distemper, PHD, these are the live viral vaccines, they can last, quote, and it's in black and white, up to a lifetime. So single shot of those viruses at 14 to 16 weeks can last a lifetime. So then the question is, well, how do you tell whether you're a whole lifetime kind of puppy or whether you're a half lifetime duration of immunity? And the answer is, again from the World Small Animal Veterinary Association, titer testing. Titer or tighter testing, doesn't matter, it depends where you come from. And basically what it is, that is, you take a blood— he says, pointing at his jugular vein— you take a blood and you, you put it into a, into, into a special machine, and it's a bit like a pregnancy test or a lateral flow or something, and you get a response, a 1 to 6 response, and that will tell you whether you've got antibodies from the last time you were either infected or from the last time you were vaccinated. Because vaccines, as we all know, because we all get vaccinated as kids and then never again, vaccines are designed to last and last and last. Most vaccines—

most of them.

It's a slippery slope, I'm sliding.

So yeah, so when you've got a pretty static virus, then vaccines will last a very long time. If you have a virus that changes its stripes every now and then, every twice a year or whatever it is, then you've got to match those changes because vaccines are static things, yeah, they are designed to help you with one bug. There can be cross-reactivity, but if you've got— it's like malaria, for example. Why isn't there a vaccine for malaria? It's because it's able to change how it looks almost all the time, and therefore a single vaccine is not going to get every single— you know, there's a hundreds of different types of malaria. So that's, that's kind of, kind of, kind of why malaria— Brady, very, very interesting. It can actually change its overcoat so you can't recognize it and blends into the ground. Yeah, it is. It's crazy.

We sort of see that with these feline friends of ours with the flu vaccines that we have in the feline world, because they have changed since the vaccines were brought in in the '80s for those particular calicci and the herpes viruses, we've actually seen some change, particularly in the calicci strains, which means that over time they've not been as effective. Now, even then, even though they've recognized that they're not as effective on certain strains, we do still see a longer duration of immunity than necessarily one year. So, Nick, do you want to just talk about why the 1-year gap was initiated in the veterinary industry for vaccination periods for distemper, hepatitis, and parvo vaccines.

Yeah, because it's easy, it's easy to remember. It means every April you can get Tiddles or Fido, you go and have a shot. That's why it is. But what the, what the WSAVA said, and I'm quoting, this is the official, this is not me being the funny guy who does holistic medicine, the WSAVA says that we shouldn't be giving them every year, and the most frequent we should give the PHD vaccines is— the most frequent is every 3 years. That's what they're not saying is thou shalt give them every 3 years. They're saying the most you should give is every 3 years. It might be every 4 years, every 5 years, every 6 years, every 9 years, okay. But what is understood by the vaccine manufacturers, as soon as they heard 3 years, they went, right, we're going to give you PhD every 3 years, whether you like it or not. And what I think is a much, much better idea is when you get to the 3-year mark, you can do a titer test and, and see. My rule of thumb for all my clients is if In doubt, do a titer test so that you can find out about your PHD, and then you know there's no guessing. And I reckon 95% of the adult dogs that I test have got adequate antibodies from either a vaccine or from wild virus exposure.

Did I hear that even if the antibody— they have a certain level and you can't be below this, but like, even if the antibodies are below that, do you not have this whole other system waiting kicking should that happen? Is it all about antibodies?

Yeah, yeah, so, um, T cells.

Yeah, so we've got— so there's T cells which actually attack the viruses direct as cells in themselves. They don't need the necessarily glued-on antibodies grouping on those viruses to attack them. They will just zone in. They'll have their own receptors which are like antibodies but they'll clue on to those viruses and attack them. Now, for some of you guys, you may have heard, because one of the viruses that they do look at the test for CD4 and CD8 counts is HIV. It's a very expensive test, but it looks at those attack cells which can focus on those sort of viruses, which is far more effective for certain viruses. Than the antibody system is. Now, there is recognized, especially for things like hepatitis and distemper particularly, that actually the cellular immunity is particularly strong. And you can find that some dogs that have an initial peak of antibodies to those viruses but aren't necessarily repeatedly exposed may start to wane in the antibody levels, but actually not only will they have memory cells to produce more antibodies, but actually sometimes even if they're wild type exposed, they may actually start to gather pace. And even if they get revaccinated, you won't necessarily see another rise of antibodies, and that can be because they've actually transferred that they recognize that their cellular immune is is stronger against those viruses. And so recognizing how your dog's immune system is working is also, you know, a bit of an art to understanding repeat vaccine checks. So we've been, as a practice, doing titer testing to an external lab up in Glasgow and then on to Edinburgh, and we've been looking at those, and then we transferred across to VaxiCheck for various reasons I'll go through in a moment, but we could see those dogs that were vaccinated initially, what was happening with their titers, what happened as they started to go over the rise, and also it gives you the added advantage of seeing when those dogs suddenly get exposed to wild-type virus and suddenly peak and sometimes will shoot up way beyond where a vaccine would take them. And, you know, instead of being up in a 1:2,000 range, it suddenly shoots to 24,000 plus, you know, with their antibodies on the titers. And you can tell that's a wild-type exposure. Now, it means that you can gauge what's happening in your area, what sort of exposures, what the likelihood of the hemorrhagic gastroenteritis being actually parvo is versus it just being one of the many other causes. Of that horrible diarrhea that's causing problems amongst dogs, you know, where you're at as far as the real levels of things like distemper, which has changed over the recent years with a lot of imports coming in. And there is also changes, you know, looking at what the hepatitis risk is. It's not always there, but it is certainly a risk. And so seeing that, and this is where I say to people, well, surely if I've done one vaccine check and they've been positive that's it for life, I don't need to worry about it. Well, there's all sorts of other things that can happen to suppress your dog's immunity, let alone medications, but just other disease, concurrent disease, that actually also what's happening with their exposure. So if they're low levels, do you want to risk pumping them into a high-risk area without them adapting and getting their immunity up? So just having a little understanding of year to year what your dog's immune system is doing can be really useful. Yeah, I think with the vaccine check, we are repeating those and seeing some of these very low vaccine checks now. The beauty of it was that the BSAVA and WSAVA just turned around and said, well, look, if you can detect antibody, you don't need to know how strong the bond of those antibodies to the viruses are. You just need to know, are they there? If you can detect them, be satisfied the immune system's reacted, it should be sufficient. Okay, and that's really where the VaxiCheck differs from the true antibody neutralizing antibody tests are. And I think, you know, if you've got a gold standard, absolutely, you know, sending away to the lab lab for a true titer is brilliant, but realistically, cost-effectively, vaccine checks are here to stay. They are probably the new thing that makes it as cost-effective as people going for their booster to have it done and monitored regularly.

Can I come back to that question you asked, Nick? Why did they say to give them every year? And we've had challenge studies by Dodds and Schultz since the late '90s, early 2000s. We've known that the core viruses last 7 to 9 years by challenge, so they try and reinfect the dogs, it doesn't work. So why was it annually? And if I could give the non-vet answer, which is what we hear on social media, would be that it was a brilliant manufacturing move. The manufacturers wrote in the back of the packet, good for a year, and the vets are under the kibosh now because if it says on the back of this drug once a year, well then I need to give it once a year. Was it as easy as that to swing the veterinary professional giving it once a year when there isn't a single study that I can find that shows these antibodies wear off and the dogs are at risk after a year. So if there's no science to support the move, is that little bit of drama real? Is that true? Do you want to comment?

Yeah, we're in it. Well, look, we're— well, I'm more than happy to wade in with this. I've waded in many times in the past, and I think, you know, we are in a fear-averse society. And actually, you know, we see this many times with what's written on data sheets. We've seen it many times when we're talking about raw food and how some of the profession are reacting to that, that they are risk-averse. They do not want to even have an iota of potential risk before they're going to be shouting from the rooftops, until you can prove it's safe, we're not going to use it. And it just gets to a point where these are sales data sheets, and I'm always talking to the profession about there's a difference between sales data sheets and studies which show the efficacy of certain treatments and how you should go about, you know, using those. And I much prefer the WSABA and BSABA guidelines because at least they've got some immunologists who've sort of looked at how these reactions happen and gives some advice, sometimes not consistent with the data sheets, which is fine, you know, it's looking at the science. But they— you then now have to officially say what I'm advising you is off-label. It is off the data sheet that has been paid for and marketed by those drug companies through the Veterinary Medicines Directory.

Yeah.

Okay, so there are some people who are very averse doing that.

Partly correct.

A couple of things. Well, when I talk to clients, I always say that I'm, I'm not, uh, I'm not against vaccination, but I am for rational vaccination. And if you've got a vaccine that can last up to a lifetime, why would you be doing it every 3 years? Yeah, when you can just do a Titer every year, every second year, every third year, something like that, and just, just, yeah, keep on like that. That's it, you know. And also, if you vaccinate a dog or a cat who's already got antibodies, that vaccine is going to be gobbled up by the antibodies and will have zero boost. So it's called a booster, but it will have no boost effect on that one. And we've known that for 30 years. I spoke to Hal Thompson at Glasgow when he was there a long time ago about it. Gents, just to ask you, how did you vaccinate your dogs and why? Conor, we didn't even practice this as a question. It just strikes me, people, what we do, and it might be useful.

I had to have quite a heated conversation with the breeder to tell them not to put a— my dog's 8 years old, 7 years old, but even then I said don't put a vaccination in the dog. I don't want to do them at 8 weeks. So even back then when I wasn't writing about vaccinations much, and it's not what I do, but a little bit. And so he was a little bit against that, but anyway, I got the dog. And then I was with a fairly natural vet here from the start, fairly holistic, and so it was a core vaccine, but I did put in two of them because I didn't know enough at the time. The first one went in quite young, and the second, like I say, 11 weeks, and the second went in at 16, 17 weeks. If I had my way again, I would follow exactly what you two guys are going to say, which is I would see— I'm coming from guide dogs, and we're in guide dogs, we would just like, just give us as many chemicals as we can to keep these dogs safe, when actually often, you know, if there's no benefit, there could only be a bit of a kick in the arse from it. So we would, we would use a lot of vaccinations in guide dogs and from a young age and hit them 2 or 3 times when they're young. So I came with that kind of mentality, and, you know, leptospirosis and kennel cough as much as possible and all this kind of stuff. Now I'd be a little bit averse, but what people will say, and particularly vets, I find if they're trying to push the earlier vaccination, it's the fact, well, this pup is virtually immunocompromised at 8 weeks and he's just a waiting target for these diseases. And I would say, well, there's a reason they say to keep this vaccination out longer because maternal antibodies seem to last. So there is a little bit of a mental gauntlet you have to play with the fact that the dog has a key socialization period from 8 to 16 weeks it's called the imprinting period. He does need to go out and see what's going on, but you as a parent need to have a little bit of common sense. He can't lick that strange dog in the park, he can't be digging at the bottom of a lamppost. I mean, you're asking for that at a very young age, but most of us kind of have that bit of cop-on. So I kind of think that if there was a bit of education and hand-holding and controlled socialization and stuff, that putting out that vaccination is now a very safe thing to do. And I'm getting to the point where I'm thinking it's a very important thing to do with them. That's where I am on it.

Cool. Yeah, I think, yeah, early socialization is really, really important, but to only socialize not in doggy areas. So don't take them down to the local park, don't, don't go, you know, don't go to socialize with dogs that you don't know their health status. But if you're going to your friends for a coffee, take the puppy, allow them to socialize if their dogs are really, really well. They can go out in the back garden, they can go in your friend's back garden, you can go to the beach if there's not too many dogs there because it's cleaned twice a day, you can go to non-doggy areas, so go to ploughed fields, go to, you know, up on the moors, off the beaten track, and I would say that would be fairly safe. You don't want to go to the local park until you've got some kind of COVID or they've got some degree of immunity. Sorry, Brandon, you were just going to jump.

Can I ask you some questions, guys? We only have about 10 minutes left. I've got a couple of questions here, virus-related, that I don't know the answers to, and I did want to give them a couple of tips of how you will prevent viruses in the wintertime. So, um, but here's some questions for you. No stones, do they work for viruses?

Should we do— that's worth an entire program. Nosodes and isopathy and all that stuff. What do you think?

I think it's just—

it's a big one. It's a bit— and we've got to talk about the, the Cuban, uh, the Cuban, uh, experiment and all that stuff. Yeah, it's really, really big. So we're going to talk about leptosis some other time. We're going to talk about nosodes and homeopathy and the joys of, of that stuff some other time as well. Yeah, I think that'll be really—

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatories, okay, or steroids, they reduce your immune system response. If we're talking about immunity here, is there anything you can take while taking these things to have some sort of counter effect? Like with antibodies, you might take probiotics, but steroid— with non-steroidal anti-inflammatories, is there anything you could be taking to keep you stronger?

Bren, go for it.

I think you want to just do things to actually improve the surface contact. So, you know, improve your gut. So looking at bone broths, I'm going to mention bone broth because of course I'm going to mention bone broth, um, you know, to improve your gut hygiene. I just think, you know, especially if you're taking non-steroidals, it's going to absolutely try and batter through that lovely defense membrane that you've got in there. You will not be giving non-steroidals if you've got parvo gastroenteritis or anything like that. The the vet should not be giving you a non-steroidal in those circumstances, contraindicated anyway. Look, they're just trying to mask a fever. If you're taking a non-steroidal, it's not got any antiviral properties, it's an anti-inflammatory. Ultimately, it's trying to bring the temperature down so that your dog feels more like it wants to eat.

And why was the temperature going up, Brent, just to explain to people?

Exactly. Well, you know, viruses don't replicate well at high temperatures, That's why it's one of the innate immune system's responses that actually helps you combat viruses. So actually supporting that fever to a degree, you don't want an excess fever, of course, you know, you start to get to 42, you'll start to seizure, you'll start to have other issues, you know, and that's something that we want to be avoiding. But at the same time, you don't want to just obliterate it and let them get back down to 30 you know, 8 degrees for dogs and cats, 37 for humans. And you know, you don't want to be getting down to that sort of level and effectively just allowing the viruses to do what they like because they're in a nice ambient environment for them to replicate. So yeah, I would say you've got to use them prudently. So not only give something to counter them, you know, to think about some of the natural drinks you can give with echinacea, with garlic, with, you know, things like that. But actually to be thinking about how you prudently use any conventional drugs that you can look at.

Okay, last question here, and then I've got one question for the audience. Last question for you guys: can dogs suffer a winter lack of vitamin D? Hint for the next question, guys. Can dogs suffer a winter lack of vitamin D? Can dogs metabolize their own vitamin D from the sun with their big hairy backs? and can they suffer a low of it in winter that can make them ill?

I'm going to jump in. Humans lost their glossy coats many millions of years ago when they started to stand up and they lost their coat, and they, and they, uh, have always been able to manufacture vitamin D. Vitamin D is not actually a vitamin because you can manufacture it yourself, but you do it from, from the sun. However, dogs, because they've always been carnivores eating lots of liver— and this is the, the trick with this one— is that if they're having good access to organ meat, liver in particular, then they're going to be getting all their vitamin D categorically from where nature intended it, which is from the organs, especially liver. Bren, you got any other vitamin D?

Yeah, absolutely. Well, they're ingesting as much as they need. They've got the ability to convert, you know, the precursor for vitamin D through D3, D4, isn't it? That's that way. So it's just, um, they've got the ability to convert, but I don't think, you know, we always learn that it's about what happens with the sunshine and stuff, but that's, that's really a human thing, um, and it's not really going to be found in your big hairy animals because they're, you know, the level of exposure to the sun. A little interesting factoid is that, did you realise that if you have a snake at home, you know, for those people that keep snakes, and you take your snake out for an hour in the summertime, that is the equivalent of, you know, them having those daylight lights that are in their vivariums for a month.

No way! That's nuts.

Yeah, I was gobsmacked to find out that little factoid. Yeah, yeah, it's amazing how much difference there is.

So all animals without hairy backs can probably do the same trick that we're doing here with vitamin D. Snakes can do it too.

Oh yeah, for reptiles it's their big thing. For, you know, this is why we see a lack of calcification in a lot of our reptiles that are kept indoors in vivariums. They have massive issues with their calcium balance.

Cool. I've got a question here for the audience before I just give a couple of tips to how to kind of boost their immunity in wintertime. Question for the audience: there's a few different thoughts as to why we get sicker, we get more respiratory viruses specifically where we are in about around October, at the end of October viruses spike in the population. We all start to get viruses. Does anybody know why that is? Yeah, feel free to write your answers in there or just have a think on it, and I will give my top 2 or 3 based on what I've been hearing from the last while, because I've been acutely looking into this.

So while they're all learning about that, I'm going to just come in with very briefly what I did with my dogs both 10 years ago and 5 years ago, just as to boostering them because there's been a few questions about I'm getting a puppy, what time do I use for those? And you know, there is a whole thing that we've done way back when on vaccinating and vaxxed back in June. But very briefly, I looked for my eldest, who's Pippa, the Labrador. She was done at 12 weeks with a single shot for everything, the DHP. And then she had a non-adjuvanted version of which has no thiomersal and no aluminium hydroxide or other irritant to the immune system and a lower protein level by a company that makes a certain leptospirosis vaccine. And she had those 4 weeks apart. My youngest, 5 years ago, I actually did what I really thoroughly believe should be people should do now, which is I just took her to woodlands that are remote. I think woodland, you know, the fungal spores and everything within the leaf litter is just great for stimulating their immune systems innately anyway and getting them prepped for recognizing things that aren't their own. And actually just took her out to those sort of areas until she was 24 weeks before she even had her first distemper hepatitis parvovirus, just letting her have even longer because classically 12 weeks, as you said earlier, is the sort of maternal immunity. You need to then allow their own immunity to build and start to recognise things. Now there are some people out there that don't want to even give that initial vaccine, and I would say for them, you know, vaccine checking at that point is an option. Titer testing is also an option, but you are still only looking at the antibody levels. You're not necessarily looking at you know, the whole immune system when you're doing that. And you need to be prepared that if they're at zero levels, that you are not going to be then just going, oh, that's it. There are other things that you need to be increasing challenge and then re-vaccine checking and continuing that process, because you've got to be quite careful about exposure. You know, it's about, are you going to be okay to visit the centre of Leeds or the center of Birmingham, or, you know, even the center of posh Bath when you've got a dog that you know nothing about whether their immune system is going to react to the level of virus that's out there. So it is really trying to, you know, give yourself an understanding of what your dog's immune system is doing if you do those vaccine checks. And I've got people that will come back month after month and just be monitoring and slowly tempting their dogs into more dog-rich environments and looking at what's going on there, because that's what they want to do and they don't want to use the vaccines. And that's a choice, but we'll support them through that.

We've—

there was a show there on vaccinations back in June there that people can check out. We did well over an hour on that, so people can get the best advice. You're going to say something there, Nick, before I give the answer?

I was just going to say, with my two girls, Mouse and Bluebell, I gave Mouse Mouse got a shot of single, just parvo, at about 22 weeks, and Bluebell got a single parvo at about 24 weeks. And for my clients, because some people are not able to keep their dogs away from foreign dogs, dogs they don't really know where they're, where they're from and their disease status, I offer it at about 16 weeks, a single parvo, which is dead easy. I order it from the wholesaler. It's you know, very, very easy. And I do offer that just single parvo shot because distemper is not that common, although more common, and hepatitis is not that common. So I think parvo is the one that you need to cover.

What are healthy 5-month-old dogs at risk from parvo?

Yes, if they're—

the older they get, the less likely they are to totally succumb. They'll still get the virus, they'll still get stomach upsets quite often. Some, we have had 2-year-olds that have passed away with parvo, but they tend to be otherwise immune compromised. But generally the spiel is that the more mature they are, the more they can tolerate dehydration, the more they can therefore survive the depths of the viral attack.

It's a shocking thing to watch. I've seen it. It's just a rotten, rotten end. People keep asking about leptospirosis. Guys, we are going to talk about leptospirosis. It's a whole show. We'll do another show on it because there's plenty of dirt there to be talked about. And there's Facebook groups all over. So it's just a whole other show, guys. No time tonight. But the 3 common, the 3 theories, most of you have nailed one of them. One is the sunshine effect that they think, okay, these are all hypotheses. They're not scientific theory. The difference between a theory and a hypothesis is that a hypothesis has been challenged many times and eventually becomes theory. So these are all hypotheses because we're not quite sure. But one of the reasons was sunshine. Your vitamin D levels start to drop as you don't get enough sunshine. Where we are. And also, you know, viruses don't like a whole lot of direct sunlight. And so there's a, there's always a whole effect. And there was graphs you can see as your, as your vitamin D gets below a critical level, a daily critical level, that viruses start to go up. So they love that. That's the first thing. But everyone has a graph to kind of explain. The second one is that the heating goes on everywhere we are— heating in houses, heating in buses, heating in trains, heating in offices— and you get hot, dry air which dries out your mucosal linings. And that with everything else that goes on at wintertime is going to decrease your— that's your innate immunity, guys, isn't it? That's your most basic—

mucillary elevation.

Yeah, so it just has a free ride in. So that was— I thought that was kind of interesting about the hot air. The solution, guys, for people that are living in those environments is a little bit of marshmallow. So a bit of marshmallow in wintertime is a fabulous thing to be adding into your winter booster for your dogs because it's going to increase the mucilage in those— in those— in that innate immunity layers of your nasal passage. And the third reason just came up there recently, which was that there's a senescence of all the plants. Plants take in a huge amount of carbon dioxide when they're green and eating everything. So they're out and they're blooming all through summer and they're sucking in carbon dioxide and particulates and whatnot, keeping the air nice and clean. And then of course in middle of October or at the end of September, certainly the leaves start to drop and they stop photosynthesizing, and then carbon dioxide levels build in the air and it's the fact that the particulates in the air that the virus loves, because there's something particularly when there's cyanide in the air. So the closer you are to cities, there's something to do with cyanide particles. But I'm lost on that bit. But it's the particulates the virus can hitch a ride on, and those compounds are way easier to get into you than what we had, because cyanide opens up your airways. So I just thought that was a fascinating one, but it just shows nobody really knows yet. And, but here, could I just give one quick thing about the bone broth? There's some simple tips you can do to bone broth to make it really fancy. All right. So you know, a lot of nutritional stuff, they call them the 4 Aces. So the vitamin A, C, E, and selenium. Okay. So a lot of immunologists talk about those 4. And vitamin A is the liver, as Nick was talking about, and vitamin D. Vitamin A and D, liver is a great source. Your vitamin C from good fat or rose hips, I like. So rose hips are a cool little autumn thing to be putting in and they can go into your broth at the end after you've done a bit of cooking. You can sprinkle in your organic rose hips to get the vitamin C in there. Vitamin E. I would find any seed— it would be nuts, seeds will do that. So Nick's always going on about nuts and seeds, so it turns out he's right.

Um, surprise!

So if you're going to use any nuts or seeds, in my opinion, you might as well go straight for Styrian pumpkin seeds, organic pumpkin seeds. Grind them up and add them to your broth because they contain cucurbitacin as well, which is an anti-helminthic. Good news while you're low. But also seeds and nuts are all full of the thing, zinc and vitamin E. So that is one of the cheap ways that when you're formulating raw dog food, it's like, oh, AFGO want to see more vitamin E because it's just a long conversation. So you lean on those and you put in an extra 1.5% or whatever to, to top it up. And selenium. Selenium is a really important one for your immune function, and the glorious news is that literally any meat has more selenium in it than you could possibly need. So the 7 cool additions to broth brands, already mentioned a couple of them there. Garlic is a fantastic immune booster. Echinacea is a fantastic immune booster. Rose hips for your vitamin C. A little dollop of golden turmeric paste if you like, although I don't really fight inflammation unless the dog is suffering. Then things like beta-carotene, fabulous antioxidant. You get that from carrots and tomato, and you might actually use tomato in a tin of juice because in that water is a lot of vitamin C as well. But whatever. A little bit of echinacea, I said that already. Reishi mushrooms, So dude, there is a reason everyone's talking about mushrooms because they are incredibly effective. I know little about that end of things, but I know that the lion's mane and all sorts of mushrooms, turkey tail for cancer, reishi for general immune boost. You buy them organic online as Bren was talking about, there's places that are manufacturing these in very clean environments. And then a glug of your seed oil or fish oil. So you can really make your broth, that broth is just the best thing as the lads are saying. You make a broth on a good organic carcass and then you add these things in at the end, and then you pour this stuff out into your ice cube trays. I would boil off the water to make a nice thick broth and simmer off the water for a while, and then you pour that in your ice cube trays. One of them every day, and for yourself, guys, that's the best thing you can do. And a couple of other things that can plummet your immune system is a bad gut. Everyone should be having a good gut. Hot Air has already said that about stress. Reduces your white blood cells in the body by a certain percentage. So stress over wintertime, Christmas time, the parties that you might be having in your house, that's not going to be good for your dogs. Just to bear that in mind, Brenda did a bit on that a week ago. Being overweight is seriously inflammatory and lowers your immune system response, so get your dogs nice and lean. Never a time for a fat dog or pup, never a good time. And not enough time outdoors, Bren just nailed that one. And there's a cool thing here, where was it? There was actually, they've nailed two of the compounds that are in the, here they are. And something, being outside brings other benefits too. Many plants in the woods make phytonocides. Have you heard of them, guys? And other substances you breathe in that bolster your immune function. 3 top studies all in 2015 on that. And that's what the University of Helsinki study was saying— more, the dogs that had more access to the outdoors and the woods seem to have this, this stronger immune response.

Okay, just before you come into that last one, there was a comment earlier about if the woodland environment helps your dog's immune system, does that compete against the vaccine that you give in later life? And I would say no. What we're talking about, two different things here. One is improving your body's ability to produce antibodies, to produce an immune response to things that it's exposed to. The vaccine doesn't suppress that. The vaccine is that thing that sticks there like a sore thumb saying, look at me, react to me. That's what the vaccine is doing. So, you know, actually what you get is an improved response to the part of the vaccine which is the viral picture, if you like. What you've got to be aware of in some vaccines is there are other chemicals added which can cause side effects, which can cause irritation to the system. Which, you know, such as aluminium hydroxide, it is neurotoxic, it can cause intense irritation locally to try and provoke the immune system, but has all sorts of side effects. And there are other chemicals added in some of the vaccine processes, and those are the bits you want to stop.

They're designed to kind of antagonise the immune system into responding to this tiny dose that it got. So it does, and it is a little kick to the beehive because that's what they need. That's what the aluminium was in for, if you can believe it. Nanoparticles of aluminium that, you know, crossed rat brain barriers. It's just incredible that that stuff still goes on. And the last thing I wanted to add in here, just, I just always had to bring it down a tone, but lack of sleep reduces your ability to produce antibodies. And so sleep is really, really important. There's whole books written on that. Nick is going to tell us the name of it in a second. But then if they went into a second sex raises the levels of germ-fighting substance called IgA, your antibodies, IgA. A bit more—

So guys, what Conor's trying to say here, I hope Elaine's not listening, is that he's not getting enough sleep and he's not getting enough sex.

But more may not always be better. Couples who have sex more than twice a week had lower levels of IgA than those who had no sex at all. So, so too much is also a bad thing. So all you braggers out there, you're gonna die before me, just to let you know. Nick, what was the name of that sleep book that rocked your world?

The sleep book, uh, let me just— you guys keep on talking, I'll just grab it here.

Here, Bren, you can answer this question. You're like, there's loads of organs that function in the immune system. I took note of a good few of them here. There's your adenoids, your bone marrow, your lymph nodes and vessels, your Peyer's patches on your small intestines, your thymus, your tonsils. These all produce different parts of the immune system and cells and your spleen. How do you live without your spleen if it functions in the immune system? What's a spleen? What's it do quickly and how do you live without it?

Okay, so spleens are great in that they host all sorts of stem cells people have heard of that help form new blood cells of various types, including white cells. But you've got to remember There are other organs within the body, including the bone marrow, which you, I don't think, mentioned yet, which also have really important roles to play in hosting those stem cells for the immune system. You've got to think of the Peyer's patches and the lymph nodes are very much the little sentries for those cells to sit in, awaiting for the viruses and materials to pass. So all of your memory cells tend to go to those organs to actually sit there in wait for re-exposure and to suddenly, you know, become active. And that's why your glands can often become swollen when you get ill, because all of a sudden they're replicating cells to then produce even more antibodies and even more response. To the illnesses you've got. So think of all of the little lymph nodes as sentry points which hold on to those white cells which have been programmed. The thymus is one of those glands which actually is all about the programming. The spleen and bone marrow is very much about sourcing what's going on, but the liver has the capability to take over some of the splenic issues of producing new cells. If the stem— if the spleen is taken away, stem cells can host in the liver to do a similar job. That's not so— all sorts of, you know, reasons why. But you know what's, what's the spleen best for is being your onboard blood bag, okay? It is your bag of blood that's ready that if you have an accident, you know, it can shrink down massively, okay? And squeeze out every last bit of cells, even immature cells, to try and take over those cells which have been lost in the blood in bleeding. So, you know, the biggest issues I would have with splenectomised dogs is if they have a serious accident, they are more at risk, I guess, of succumbing to a lack of blood.

That is just nuts because I've seen spleens, I've held them, particularly in the deer when you used to have to handle all the deer that we were processing in UCD, taking samples. And the spleen was this spongy but very heavy with water, with blood, spongy kind of pancake, and it would bleed. My God, if there was any sort of touch of the scalpel to it, it was like, what, what? It's kind of like liver, but at least liver doesn't leave blood all over the place, whereas the spleen always left a huge amount of blood if you did it wrong. So that's interesting. It's like a—

but that can go down to almost as thin as a leaf.

No way.

You know, if it's compressed in those accident situations, if you've got an animal in shock or, you know, that's had that bleed and you're going in to sort out an injury and you've gone into the abdomen, you can find that shrunk down into really thin, you know, small organ that you wouldn't believe is the spleen.

Isn't it nuts? Like, we are so amazing. Like, every tiny cell of us is amazing. You mentioned stem cells there, just while we're talking about viruses. We wouldn't have stem cells, these amazing cells that can just say, I think I'll be a liver today. And so we wouldn't have those cells if it wasn't for viral DNA.

That is the image that they talk to each other, you know, it's like, yeah, you're going to be a bone.

But like, we wouldn't have them if it wasn't for viral DNA insert. So we pick up a lot of new DNA all the time. And also also placenta, that was a borrowed DNA insert as well. And the other thing is, talking about funny organs that do funny things, this is going on, guys, but who cares, I'm having a great time. And the appendix, everyone thought the appendix was just this useless little thing, and in rats it's huge because it might function in some part of their digestive system because they eat such, you know, poor quality forage, whatever. But in humans, it's a vestigial, is that the word? It's starting to shrink to kind of nothing, like our little fingers. That's why Matt Groening gave The Simpsons 4 fingers, by the way, because our little fingers are getting smaller and smaller because they're useless. So, but the appendix does have a function. And some guys— I was watching some guy give a YouTube equivalent of a TED Talk. And he said, did you know what the appendix is? We now know what it probably is for. It contains the seeds of your gut flora and everything that's in your gut. It's a snapshot of of your gut flora, your gut biome in time. And so if something decimates your gut flora and you drink a lot of poison or you get desperately sick from infection or whatever, or you eat a lot of chemically preserved dry food every day of your life, and then suddenly you eat a good food diet, the appendix comes in and goes, this is what your gut flora looks like, and it reseeds it straight away. And that's what the appendix does. So you can remove the appendix from people and it's not like you're going to die on the spot from the need of it, but it's bloody useful should you need to recover from illness or get it. Isn't that just so interesting? I just thought I can't remember the word he used, but it's just, it's there to repopulate your garden when things go wrong. Just thought, well, if that's true, I don't know, I couldn't find anything in the, in the online forums.

Amazing. Sonia says, can we have a recipe for bone broth? And says, please, could you repeat that, Conor? But to Sonia, I'll say Brendan went through a recipe for for bone broth, what, about a month ago? 3 weeks?

4 weeks ago?

So that's that. And, and as regards, as regards, uh, Conor and his list, all you need to do is just have a re— uh, have a look. It's been recorded on Facebook and then it's going to be put into Patreon and you'll be able to get it there forever in Patreon. So, uh, it's all recorded and it's all there for you.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So guys, next week I do think we should just have a couple of beers and let's have a drink.

I think we're all going to have a Christmas party. You're all invited.

So whatever drinks you need, Nick and Bren will just send it to your house.

The round's on you, Conor. I've heard of the generosity of the Irish.

So I think, guys, we should do the details for his Amazon account. That's actually the password. Ah, A-A-A-A-A. Is that the castle? So I think next week we'll do something, we'll do some sort of a game. I think some sort of a quiz would be funny. I have to prepare you guys, my general knowledge is truly atrocious, atrocious. If it's not a sciencey type question, even then I just panic and I can't. So I think a quiz or something like that will be great fun. We'll rope Karen in and we'll see if she's had a couple of gins yet, and then I'll talk to her later on and, but something like that next week, but definitely booze related and just have a bit of fun, I think.

So just have a chat with the guys as well and just see what they're up to, what they're thinking and what, you know, maybe some plans for next year because I think we're going to take the middle Tuesday between Christmas and New Year. I think we'll take, we'll take that off. Yeah. And then start again in January.

You think we haven't?

We don't throw this stuff together, you know.

Very organized.

We'll get on to Debian accounts and ask her what she did. And Carol Higgs said, oh, my birthday. So you mean birthday next week, Carol? I thought you said your birthday is Christmas Day. No. Oh, a music round. Oh my God, yeah, we all have to sing it and you guess what song we're singing. Oh, bloody hell. We— the last time we were together, guys, just to let you in on an inside scoop, which we didn't actually ever do, but last time me and Bren and Nick were together and we were having a couple of beers, we started thinking of ideas, and next week was supposed to be when we were all supposed to—

Oh yeah, we've got it practiced. I've got the shiny floor sorted, we've got the dancing shoes on.

The plan was who can do the best moonwalk. So we had to practice the moonwalk and then you'd all vote, guys, who can do the best moonwalk and the worst moonwalk had to, I don't know, sing A Christmas Carol or something horrific like that. So can you imagine how funny that would be if we were doing moonwalks next week? I wish I practiced.

I think what we've got to do, you've got to get your better halves to record your moonwalk and we'll show the videos on screen. Yeah, next year, next week, next year. Come on.

So guys, listen, thanks again. If you enjoy the show, it's patreon.com forward/raw. Pet medics, your little donations there absolutely add up because there's a good few of you watching over the course of the week by the time it gets through a week or two. So it really helps the price of a cup of coffee if you can afford a price of pint, even. Even more welcome if you can, it's much welcome. That adds up for us and it helps us prepare and do this because it is nighttime here and for all of you. But, uh, if you can, great. If you can't, no stress at all. We're going to be here every week anyway. We love doing this. By the new year, we're going to be moving our old shows onto Patreon, but they'll be up there for the week, and our podcast will be available to all as well because we have the 3 of them ready to go. So 2022 is already shaping up thanks to the stuff that we're getting from Patreon. So that really helps us kind of to bring that stuff alive a little bit. So thanks very much, guys, for everything. And guys, we will see you next week. That was a great show. I loved it. I loved every minute of that. And we'll see you, see you all next week, guys. So make sure you have your bubbles ready.

Yeah, thanks, guys. It's great to see you