Summer Madness

Howdy doody, everybody!

Hello, everybody! You see, here we are again. You think you're all set, you know there's a problem when you look at the title and realize I've not edited that bit yet.

Yeah, you edit that, we'll do the intros. We are the Raw Pet Medics, and well, we were the last time we looked. Did you know, gentlemen, that there is a Holistic Vet Sisters, uh, Lisa Hansen and and Tina Hanson, I think, and somebody else are doing a, a, a purple vest, gloriously female version of the Royal Paramedics. I was absolutely delighted to hear that.

I think we should be flattered. I think we should be flattered that somebody's done the, the threesome, uh, from the other side.

So indeed, I bet you— yeah, don't go down that hole, um, as it were.

Anyway, it's Tina, it's purple, it's Tina is Purple Vet and Caroline Griffiths is in there. And I think Lisa Hansen. Lisa Hansen is the— yeah.

Yeah.

So I heard they're awesome. So check them out. What do they call themselves?

Holistic Vet Sisters.

When do they go out? Not on Tuesday nights as well.

Thursdays. Thursdays.

Thursdays.

Oh, Nick, I can't believe you didn't—

hang on, hang on. Let's go for the intros. And so my name is Nick Thompson. I'm I'm a vet, and this is Dr. Brendan Clark. He's a vet, and we have Dr. Conor Brady, and he is a behaviorist and nutritionist. He knows all things about all things. And, uh, together with the Raw Pet Medics, we've been going longer than we care to remember. In fact, I can't even remember when we started, but, uh, there we go. And we do this every week, whether you like it or not. We do get a lot of support from a lot of people on Patreon, Patreon, and we're really, really grateful for that. It helps us keep the lights on. Really grateful. You can, you can pay as little as a coffee a month, and that is, is absolutely great, and we really, really appreciate that. We're on, uh, we are on, um, what's called YouTube, and you're welcome to join us there. It's a freebie on YouTube. Please sign, follow, do all the things that you need to do on YouTube because that helps spread the, spread the word for us, and we are here for you. We don't take ourselves too seriously, but we do we do talk about some serious stuff here and there. And that's about a summary of where we're at. Guys, I hope you're well. Bren, how are you? What have you been up to for the last week?

Uh, yeah, what have I been doing? I seem to have not been— I've been chasing my tail for a while. I had some great cases in. Obviously, it's been stiflingly hot, and we're going to talk about that today. But we've also, we're now in the throes of an absolute deluge, but nothing, I understand it, compared to Conor. So Conor, what's been happening to you?

You've been swimming through Virginia by the sounds of it.

Yeah, well, sorry, when I think about it, when I think of it, that's the third time I've been caught. You, like, you guys were caught by two of them. So last year, the hurricane in Florida stopped us doing the Florida show, which brought us back to 3 months ago where I landed in Orlando and there was a red rain warning, which meant the taxis couldn't roll. So I couldn't get out of Orlando Airport on my return because of bad weather. And then this is my third trip to the south. This is in Virginia. I was in Williamsburg with Nautical Dog. Shout out to Amanda, perfect host, loveliest people ever down there. And the rain was biblical. I mean, It was hilarious. We were standing in the pet shop on Sunday morning having some Buck's fizz and a few treats and having a chat. And the rain was so heavy that even getting out to the car honestly was just a— you might as well strip down to your pants because you're going to get soaked. It was just sheets and it didn't let up and it flooded all the areas, which meant it started causing problems for the planes in the nearby airports. So I went to the airport early, 1:00 in the afternoon, and I'm working away. I lift my head at 6:00 because the plane's at 7:00 and it says canceled on my plane. And it was 2 days of The next day, so you go to a hotel after you learn there's no other way out of the airport to any— all the nearby airports had been rained closed. And then it took about a day and a half to try to find a flight out of Newark. Eventually the person said, you know, your best bet, because everyone's accumulating, the longer the planes are canceled, the more people try to get onto the next one. So you're in a fight then. And he said, you're best off just getting an Uber to Washington, which is what I did. And I got an Uber to Washington from Williamsburg, a 2-hour or so. A guy, a real nice driver, brought me out and you beg on the planes there. And there was one, I was standby with no space on the seat and the plane was delayed and delayed until it was 12:00 at night in Washington. And I was thinking, I don't know where I'm going to sleep tonight because I need to get home. But this is 2 days messing around the planes and they said it gets worse now. So for the next day or 2, it's hard to get on the planes and then a seat pops up because as people get bumped around, they have to cancel that flight to do something else. So a seat popped up. So the second time I went up to the desk, they said, sir, you have a space there on that plane. I was so happy to go home. So yeah, just landed a few hours ago. So that was a great trip, I have to say. Heard some fabulous speakers, Katie Kangas and a number of people, Amy and K9 Creations, and just, yeah, just fabulous. Susan Dixon did a talk as well. It was just a great, great day. Loved it. Was very, very successful, I have to say. Oh, we got a gift, guys, by the way. I'm minding it. You guys don't get one. My camera's backwards. Which way do I move? Oh, here we go. See that thing hanging up over my shoulder? Oh my God, that shoulder there. Yeah, so this is great. The mirror's not right, the mirror's backwards. Nick makes me do it this way. Um, well, that thing— this card was given to us by Marina SCH, who's a great fan.

Marina, she made a lovely card, and that was a handmade, uh, bird.

And the bird is, uh, the, the local state bird, and her friend makes them out of old stained glass windows.

Oh, God bless her.

Stained glass by Lynette. There we go. Lynette, Church Road, Virginia. If you're looking for stained glass dudes, she does all that kind of stuff. So isn't that lovely for Martina to give us that at the start?

Martina, thank you so much. Yeah, we remember you very fondly, and Conor's just seen you, so we'll see you again soon, no doubt.

That was awesome. Yeah, so what about you, Nick? What have you been up to last week?

Uh, just keeping my head above water, really. Uh, just Yeah, yeah. Just a way of saying just not nothing, nothing spectacular.

I joined you on a little bit of a training session with some vets last Thursday, was it? You were talking about holistic medicine. Oh, he's dropped off. You see? So yeah, keeping his head above water. I thought it was his internet that was always dodgy.

What was he doing? He was training young vets?

No, no, it was for independent vets. There's a little thing on just bringing them up to speed with holistic practices and how they can include those in health plans and things like that. And we dropped in and he does that. So I just joined him. It was great. So very nice. He's back. He's just going to blame— he's going to blame Elon Musk again.

I'm going to blame Elon Musk. I'm going to blame the rain. That's what I'm going to blame. But Brent played an absolute blinder. So mate and I, Alan Dr. Conor Brady Robinson, who's a kind of a management consultant guru in the veterinary world. And he teaches people how to, you know, work more smoothly, work more productively, run their business more efficiently, have a happier team. That's one of the main things that he does is just how to engage the team and really make everybody feel that they have a place, they have contribution. And, and to work for maximum kind of self-fulfillment as well as productivity. The bottom line, you know, very, very clever guy. I like him a lot. And he asked me to come along to talk about alternative medicine. We talked primarily about titer testing within the conventional medicine context. We talked about fleas and ticks. We talked about using we talked a bit about neutering, and we talked about nutrition as well. And, and so these were a group of about 15 or so. And they were all— they'd been around the block or two. They were kind of my friends' kind of age. They were, they were— they owned practices. They were well settled within the profession, put it this way. But they had come to the stage in their Understanding of Veterinary Medicine, where they were looking at more holistic approaches. And so I talked to them a little bit about the nuts and bolts of, of, of teeter testing. And then Bren, so what's her name from CVC, came along and gave us 20 minutes, fabulous presentation. And then Bren came along to give us the how teeter testing can be integrated effectively into modern veterinary practice, you know, so that, so that the figures work, so that it works for the nurses, it works for the vets, it works for the practice, works for the clients. And he played an absolute blinder. We booked him for 20 minutes, but he was there 40 minutes later, which is not unusual because once he gets on a, once he gets on a roll, he really— but he was in his sweet spot and he just delivered some really great stuff. Do you want to give us just a kind of a a little flavor of that? Well, because you were on fire and it was— I think you changed— I may have changed one or two in the room, you probably changed five in the room.

Yeah.

So you did good.

If we changed one, it's a win for many, many patients. And I think the point that we were really getting across is that many, many vets will really treat those consults of I know what I'm doing. You're coming in. I'm going to deliver this service that you've booked in for regardless of what happens. And it was really to try and change that mindset and say, look, listen to your clients. There is a growing number of clients, you guys out there who are listening to people like us, but also doing your own research and really well researched. And that actually vets need to start having conversations, to start listening to the needs of those clients and understand what's their ethos, if you like, their ethics behind what they're doing with their pets. You know, are they, you know, wanting to be drug-free? Are they wanting to avoid wormers and the impact environmentally they have? Are they wanting to avoid insecticides and the environmental impact that they have? Are they wanting to avoid unnecessarily overreaching vaccination protocols, things like that. So to have a conversation, but actually to also realize there is a tool out there that conventional vets can use, and also to learn not to hide behind a sales data sheet, you know, and be trapped by effectively what a company is selling to the profession. And actually to start feeling that actually the Veterinary Defence Society, the law, all backs the science. And there is plenty of science out there that talks about immunology and memory, you know, through antibodies, build-up and lymphocytes and what's going on. So for them to be able to confidently say, okay, well, if I can see a picture that your pet has reacted and has an immunity, to this disease, we don't need to keep piling in more vaccine. And in fact, actually, as with a company very recently that has turned around and gone, oops, our early finish vaccine isn't quite as good as it should be, we now advise that you also vaccinate at 6 months on top because it probably won't work if you finish early. Okay, but actually, if you read very carefully the WSAVA guidelines from a decade ago, nearly now, that actually you should be assessing their immunity, deferring that, you know, with biosecurity, being able to defer their initial vaccines and give a single shot at 6 months. And, you know, if you desire to vaccinate at all. And otherwise monitor those patients, have conversations about how they can manage that patient through adolescence so that they're safe in those lights. And it really struck home when there was an article this week, and I'm not going to mention any more than this, and guys, I'd advise you not to before you get canceled, but that suddenly changed the parameters for herd immunity, because when I left university, we were told as long as you've got approximately 65% of the herd immunised, then generally there won't be an outbreak of disease because there's enough immunity within the herd that it can't spread like wildfire. And then there was an article on the news this week, devastating, of a child dying with a disease. But the statement said that unless 95% of the population are vaccinated, there will not be sufficient herd immunity. Devastating to hear that sudden shift, you know, that people would go down that route. So, so It was about, look, going back to the root of what we were talking about. This is why it took me 40 minutes to get the message across, was basically that we should be listening to clients, adapting healthcare to those individuals in front of us and listening to what we might need to do. And that there are alternatives that are valid and used and easy to integrate into modern veterinary practice and actually not going to tie that vet up into oodles of time, but that there is a great clinical team behind them that can help them and the clients achieve that healthcare.

That works. That works both ways. That gels beautifully with Dr. Katie Kangas's talk. Dr. Katie Kangas is a phenomenal natural vet from San Diego. She is definitely going to be one of the gang. And so she, she was saying that there's a little bit of a risk of clients throwing the baby out with the bathwater as well on the flip side. So clients insisting everything must be natural to the point that there's groups going around, I know her by name, saying they don't give pain relief because pain relief is unnatural. And it's like, you know, this— but we've bumped into this person before. And like, she goes like, you know, here she gave us some case studies because, listen, I use— she's a natural, she's a natural holistic vet, you know, and I tend to lean that way, she said. But here are 3 or 4 or 5 really impressive case studies that combine the two approaches. This is why we needed allopathic medicine in this, in this instance. This is where it was strong. And this is cases where it's a little bit weaker and I would have gone the more natural route. But had it not been for the— and whatever the case studies were, the point she was making was that, you know, the two can work absolutely beautifully together and it's having a vet that understands both and then is trusted to use both at their discretion. So it's like the vet has to increase their portfolio of tools that they can deploy and then the client needs to acknowledge. Yeah, yeah. And then the client needs to come back a little bit and trust the vet a So there's a little partitioning, there's a divide in trust at the moment. And with the natural groups insisting on all natural stuff, when actually I don't want to leave allopathic medicine completely behind, I want to— I just want a vet that manages that decision for me, you know. So it was a great talk and it really pushed it out to people to say, you know, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

That's fantastic. Who else was there? Which— who had— which other—

Rita Hogan. Rita Hogan knocked it out of the park. And Susan Thixton did a little bit of her talk. That she gave to the Raw Feeding Veterinary Society 5 years ago. Remember that one? 6 years ago, uh, she gave a bit of that, but with some just fantastic, like, um, images. She's got loads of images. She's got people approaching all the time saying, check this out, from his own driveway, pictures into the factory across the road from his own driveway. All this horror, the horror of what goes in to feed in, in the US. Like, just the horror. Even, even someone I've looked into this quite, quite a bit, you know, but even still, when she presented it, it was just horror. And then she goes, and here is the ramifications out here. Here are the— not just pets, but people getting sick, you know. And so it's a very— she's a very brave woman. That's what she is, because it's not a small industry. And another point she highlighted was that it's not just that condemned meat is cheap to use. It is critical to the meat sector. If you want hamburgers for a dollar, you have to be able to dump the meat into pet food, because if you don't, you have to pay to dispose of it. So at the moment, they're almost giving the waste meat free because they need to get rid of it, because they don't— meat here in Ireland, it's €40 a wheelie bin kind of thing, you know. It's, it's a lot to condemn meat. You have to condemn meat, truck comes, and for things that you need to get rid of. Now, can you imagine if you're a CAFO slaughtering hundreds of thousands of cattle every week or a month? That's a huge bill. And if they have to pay to dump it, that will be put on the consumer. So it's one of the prices we pay for cheap meat is that the meat, the waste meat in the US we're talking about, is dumped into the pet food. And so you get this 4D dead disease dinosaur. She talks about restaurant grease, the huge big wheelie bin type ideas of restaurant grease. Like that is the most toxic fat. You have to change it after 1,000 fries or whatever because it's so toxic. And then the pet food company picks it up and dumps it into pet food and then ultra-processes it 5 times. It's like you just— it's those little facts where it's like, I forgot about that.

Because they're not allowed to do it in the UK. What they do is they flush it down the sink and then cause fatbergs in the sewers. Gross.

Have you seen those things? They are absolutely gross. Just tons and tons of weight with all stuff stuck in there and oh, it's gross.

Float down the sewers. Yes, including in the other round.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gross. Just stuck to a heavenly big fat ball. Speaking of fat, an interesting one from Katie Kangas, uh, uh, she said she does a lot of fasting, so she does loads of intermittent fasting. So I said, oh, talk to me about intermittent fasting. And she had all these facts and stuff that I knew nothing about. And but one thing she said was, did you know you can put cream in your coffee during a fast. I didn't know that. She said, no, fat doesn't knock you out of a fast. And I said, surely any switch on of— oh, Brian is distrustful. I would be slow to go up against Dr. Katie Kangas, but I'd love to hear you having a go, Brian. But she says no, fat doesn't. There's actually a whole movement as to what you can wear your glucose monitoring alarm and you can see that you can have a little bit of avocado or you can have fat or you can have peanut butter because you can have these little tiny bits of things. Now, I thought to get autophagy, you had to be completely free of any nutrients. But she says that's not the case. You can get autophagy after 16 hours if you just have a bit of cream in your coffee.

And I think it depends what you're looking to achieve. If you're looking to have zero calories by mouth, then if you put cream or the other one is coconut oil, Okay. You know, this is, this is the, the, the Bulletproof coffee which came out maybe 5, 7 years ago. Yeah. And it's amazing. I really want to get some coconut fat for my— or cream for my coffee because we're drinking a lot more coffee and a lot less tea these days. And, and so I think as far as if you want to reduce your calorie intake for whatever reason, whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, that's another program. But that would be that side of things. If, however, you just want to maintain a very, uh, not spike insulin at all, I think you could probably get away with it with fat, because of all the fat, of all the nutrients, fat bumps insulin up the least, if at all. Protein does a bit, but not much, and carbs is a fireworks show. Yeah. And the, you know, and things like sugar, sucrose, glucose, all those things just go, whoom, and fructose, fructose. Now, fructose, does fructose bump your insulin or does it just go straight to, straight to the liver?

No, no, it's still broken down, isn't it? Fructose is broken down into glucose and—

No, no, sucrose is broken down into glucose and fructose, and the fructose goes to the liver and causes chaos.

God, you're right. You're right. I lost a lot of money. Of course you're right. I shouldn't doubt fructose.

And the problem is that the Americans, God bless them, have got this stuff called high fructose corn syrup, 55, which means 55% fructose. And fructose is one of the most dangerous of the sugars. All the sugars, all the sugars have their place, you know, fructose in berries and things. But, but of all the sugars, If you overconsume any of them, if you, if you overconsume fructose in particular, that is really going to cause fatty liver. They're seeing non-alcoholic fatty liver syndrome in 12-year-old children in the States because they're drinking, because fructose goes into drinks really, really well because it's extremely sweet.

Yeah.

And so you're getting these 12-year-olds with livers like 70-year-old alcoholics. Yeah, and they've never touched a drop in their life, and it's because of the fructose. You heard it here first, folks.

And isn't that one of the other issues that they've got, especially in the States, that you've got to look at your honey really carefully? Because if you get runny honey, yeah, they actually mix it with the fructose syrup rather than it being pure honey. And so you've then got that whole thing of looking at where they're sourcing the honey from. And if they are then blending honeys from multiple countries, then there's sometimes that they will mix that with the fructose syrup in order to make it runny.

Well, it's very cheap. The American farmers are subsidized to overproduce corn. And so Michael Pollan in his book says there are something like 257 uses of corn and fructose and all of those things, including paper and ink and you name it. And, and high fructose corn syrup is a gift to these farmers. Yeah, because the demand is astronomical for all these ultra-processed foods because you'll find high fructose corn syrup in most ultra-processed foods, even burgers, even savory foods, they will adulterate them with sugar because the incentives is that it's very sugar-oriented.

It's crazy the incentives are that way. I mean, it's— imagine if the incentives were towards better reared cattle or better reared crops or veggies. Yeah, yeah. And you would just— and you would, you would take the— on the— as well as the cost of health points would, you know, it's like I've explained that poorly, but you're going to be less sick the better your food is. And so there's a double payoff. And yet they're not the subsidies we get. We get the massive companies get subsidies to produce food that probably isn't really in our interests, you know?

Yeah, it's crazy. I would go back to what Nick was saying. I think that's the confusion that reigns right now is in fasting and evening out your glucose spikes because there's the things like the Zoe app with the little disc on your shoulder that monitors your glucose levels and everybody's looking at versus truly what's going on when you're fasting isn't just about evening out that glucose. There's a load of other things that your body starts to do. Yeah, if it's needing calories or effectively it needs to break down your own tissues in order to feed the other mechanisms that are going on in the body, that's what you're truly looking to do. If you're giving any sort of calories, even in a fat source, it's does that disrupt that pathway? And if Katie's got the papers that actually evidences that, as far as I was aware, and I think I said to you guys, oh yeah, I love the way you're all fasting, but did you realize, Conor, your lattes in the morning don't count.

Yeah, yeah.

It's no wonder you can get through 3 days.

So yeah, I think that's it.

But yeah, you know, and I think there is that element of the research that I'd seen was it doesn't count as fasting if you're taking any sort of calories intake.

I'm sure there's markers they can measure, you know, for this autophagy is what you're after. So when the body is not distracted with processing nutrients and packing them away and doing stuff after 15, 16 hours, the body goes, right, what will I do now? Zap there some cancer cells and oh, look at your skin over here. That's not right. And inflammation is your ability to process bits and pieces. Your threshold boosts up and it's a fantastic thing for you. And so everybody reports great benefits from the inflammation side of things after, you know, a day of not eating and also your cognitive abilities. Your brain starts to run on ketones and whatnot. I bet you that wouldn't change because you're just supplementing with a little bit of fat. So your brain will just happen to move it.

But that's again, back to what Nick was saying. You know, one of those inflammatory pathways, you know, the inflammatory action of insulin, you know, having insulin spiking is inflammatory in its own right. And that's why you get what we call inflammatory fat laydown and that side of things where your insulin is working doubly hard as you take in chocolate bars and everything else. But that's separate to some of the anti-cancer properties of mopping up damaged cells that, you know, are effectively going wrong. And you want the body to effectively scavenge any source of proteins and fats and lipids and, you know, all of those things from itself because it's no longer getting them through intake through your mouth. So that's what you really want to get, you know, that apoptosis, that the breakdown of those damaged cells, the body searching out 'Oh, you're okay, you're okay, you're damaged.' I'm going to do the house cleaning.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

This— did you know, gentlemen, I'm sure you do, but insulin is actually a growth promoter, which is why having an excess of it over any length of time, i.e., you're diabetic or you're pre-diabetic, and 94% of Americans, including children, do have some evidence of metabolic disease, i.e., they've got more insulin than they want. It is, it is pro-inflammatory, as Bren says, but it's pro-cancer as well because that is, it's a growth process. So if you've got these, the insulin going, go on, grow, grow, grow, grow in the background the whole time, anything that is a cancer cell that would otherwise be taken out and nuked immediately they'll go, oh, okay, there's that nice insulin molecule telling me to grow a wee bit more quickly.

So the tumors are covered in receptors for insulin. Totally. And it's, yeah, so they're just waiting for it to help it grow.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And if that doesn't make you think about your insulin, it's not as easy for some people as others, then that in itself, you know, do you want to bathe in cancer juice the whole time? Insulin is, you know, it does have a lot of great uses, obviously, but it does have a dark side.

You've just scared half the diabetics in the country off from using their drug of choice because you've now called it cancer juice.

That's why I qualified my statement. But I think you do have to lay it down because the people who are selling humans— I'm not going to talk about dogs here because pets, there's, there's complexities. But let's just talk about humans. You've got a disease of too much insulin, and what's the treatment? Insulin. You're being given insulin. I can see that they're not wrong to do that. But, um, type 2 diabetes, that's the common diabetes, is often very amenable to weight loss and to dietary, uh, modification. Very, very, very, very, very—

not everybody can do No, and type 3 diabetes. Alzheimer's. Alzheimer's only popped up in 1972, 1971. First time they came up with the word. And Alzheimer's was not in the elderly population before that. And these amyloid plaques that we're seeing in the brain are now much like the way we blamed cholesterol. They're just first responders on the scene. It's like giving out to the firemen because their fire trucks are blocking the street. It's like, well, yeah, you know, but they are trying to put out a fire. So, you know, what do you want? So the Alzheimer's type 3 responds really well to diet too. But, you know, you just don't often hear that information. There's a friend of mine who's not well, and I'm sitting there in some of the wards and I'm looking at the nutritional leaflets and it's like, how can you say that in a cancer ward? How could you possibly say that? You know, so eat as much fruit as you like. And it's like, that's a big question because fruit is surely nutritious. But then some fruits that we're eating today are just really high in sugar. You know, the apples that we really like, you know, the the Pink Ladies, they are really high in sugar compared to the apples my granddad grew, which we loved when we were kids because they were the only apples we could get our hands on. But they would be very bitter compared to the apples I'm eating and giving the kids today. They are sweet. Oranges, same thing. Whatever nutrients we got from oranges back in the day, everyone is saying it takes now 7 of those oranges compared to to get the nutrients we got 20, 30 years ago. So yeah, the fruit thing even because that comes with a lot of sugar. So it's you would think you're being healthy. But if somebody doesn't give you a little bit of direction by highlighting these things, you would think, oh, I am actually eating 2 oranges a day. It's like, well, that's a, that's a feast.

The same with bananas, don't they? Bananas, how ripe they are and how much sugar there is versus how much fiber and, you know, less digestible plant fibers there are within the unripe bananas. There is a difference to what you'll get from what age of banana you eat.

They should— they say you should be eating them green, but I don't like green. I like them when they're just before the turn, when they're maximum banana flavor. Yeah, fabulous. That is the wrong time to eat them nutritionally, guys. Yeah, those crunchy green things, it's like chewing a stick.

That's not— that's not for me. Have you, um, did you have any dogs with heat issues over the last week or two in clinic?

And we've had one or two. The major issue that we've had is this confusion over heat stroke and people thinking my dog's vomiting and diarrhea because of heat stroke versus actually there's a, this huge bug of unknown origin still going through the region, vomiting and diarrhea, and, you know, getting gastroenteritis, you know, especially for the little ones. Okay, is really important to keep their hydration up. And it's hard because, you know, the first port of call is hydration, hydration, hydration. So however you can get that fluid in, not just water, you know, we're looking at electrolytes, we're looking at bone broth, soften, you know, anything that's going to help seal and heal the gut whilst also dragging fluids into the patient is so important. You know, things like slippery elm, etc., to be given But some people get really distressed because they see their little one suffering, sometimes even with hemorrhagic gastroenteritis, with blood pouring out of both ends. And when it gets really severe, of course, we can put them on an intravenous drip. But when they're at the stage where they're still wagging their tail, but they are going 20 times a day, passing small amounts of diarrhea and vomiting, then the key bits are how can we settle their tums? Get hydration in and stop them from feeling nauseous, you know, whether that's Nux vomica.

Yeah, I often get people saying to me, yes, I give, you know, I give Freddy the golden retriever religiously a 5ml syringe of water every hour. Is that okay? And it's like, well, if you multiply that by about, you know, 50, you're more on in the right ballpark. So, so yeah, 5ml, you know, they're making an effort and it's in a syringe, therefore it must be more impactful than just a couple of teaspoons or something. But I'm not decrying anybody that the fact that you're thinking dehydration and that you're trying to address it with, with some kind of rehydration, blood, bone broth or whatever it might be. You're in the right ballpark, but you just have to multiply what you're giving. So quantity-wise, so if you've got a 30-kilo golden retriever, and I didn't even prepare the maths for this, I'm going to have to do it on the fly. Yes. So you've got a dog, a dog that size has got to normally be drinking between 50 and 100 milliliters of fluid per day. Per kilo. Okay. So if we say so, could somebody do the maths on that?

You're about right. It's 1.5 to 3 liters of water per day for a 30-kilo golden retriever.

Okay. So for a 30-kilo golden retriever, that's, let's call it 3 liters. That's on a normal day. Now, for the last week, you can probably take that up to 4, 4.5 liters. Okay. That's a lot. And if you divide that into 16 hours that you're awake, 8 hours in bed, then whatever the maths is, 4.5 litres divided by 16 dosing opportunities, that's how much you've got to give every time. What is the maths on that?

Oh, I'll find out.

4.5 litres divided by—

I mean, there is a way of actually working out the fluid loss that you're trying to replace, not just the maintenance.

If they're eating a tiny bit and then drinking a tiny bit.

280 grams an hour.

280ml.

I would say that's probably about that much in an IKEA glass every hour.

Yeah, it's half a pint, isn't it?

Half a pint.

Yeah, half a pint. Half a pint.

Half a pint for a 30kg. And if you've got a 15kg dog, that'll be about a quarter of a pint. There you go.

I can't believe it's that much water.

A ready reckoner. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it's often easier, I find, putting bone broth in with that because they're more readily going to take it.

Or a spoon of yogurt for greedy dogs like Dudley. You put a spoon of yogurt into a bowl of water, he'll drink the whole— oh yeah, a dash of goat milk. He's a pig. He'll drink every single bit of it just to get every last bit of cream that went into it. So yeah, anything that flavors it, they're going to go for it.

So yeah, so there's been a lot of that. And look, there's some key things out there, and that's if you're keeping, you know, avoid the heat stroke, walk them early, walk them late. The rest of the day, find the coolest part of the house, settle down with them, let them just sort of like chill out, literally, and not stress them on walks. Don't suddenly go, oh, do you know what? I can, oh, are you my biggest fan? Just from a point of view of giving them a bit of respite in the middle. Great to have those fans, obviously.

Fans. This is for those listening. Nick has just grabbed a fan right next to him. You notice Ellie put this together and the doodah is upside down. I just pointed that out. You can get them for tuppence apenny on Amazon or other Providers, and they are worth their weight in gold.

Yeah, yeah.

And even if you come across the cool mats that you can—

cool mats are brilliant. Yeah, somebody said that they're toxic if they chew them. They're toxic, and that might be the case, but you know, just don't let them chew them. They are worth their weight in gold. And what I'll tell you, the other thing that I do is with dogs, I will clip them them underneath. Yeah, even if they're a Golden Retriever and it's against the breed, I don't know, coat preparation guidelines, I don't care. You know, especially if they're, you know, one of the, you know, Inuit breeds, you know, where they get really hot very, very easily. You just clip them absolutely so they've got nothing on their belly so that they can get that belly onto cold grass in the morning or a cold mat doors or something like that. That is worth its weight in gold.

Just, and yeah, remember, having a long coat isn't a problem because the insulation works both ways. So if it's a really sunny hot day, you know, out there in the sun, the sun will heat up the very outer tips of that coat, but it will keep them cool at the base. Okay, so You know, we're talking about clipping up underneath. Do not shave your entire dog and take away that protection from the tops. You should just, as Nick says, clip underneath and let them cool on stuff.

Or if you've got horses, they used to call it a trace clip. Yeah, you clip the belly to keep the horse cool.

Ah, cool. Very interesting. What are the signs of heat stroke in dogs? I mean, you just talked about You talked about kind of digestive issues there. Would that be the first sign of heatstroke in your dog?

Often nausea, weakness, collapse, you know, just tiring themselves out with panting. Okay. It's sort of like where you get, you can get to the extremis if the electrolyte imbalance goes too far wrong. You'll have seizures and that side of things too. But, you know, just as with kids, if they run a spike of temperature over 42 because of a disease, that can lead to seizures. And our kids are very prone to just spiking massive temperatures as one of their primary defenses against viruses. So that's why we don't always worry when a child has a seizure if they've got a really high temperature. Obviously, you want to take that temperature down, but it's the same young pups, kittens, you know, if their temperature spikes massively, can lead to seizures. And that's where you've got— if you've got dogs overheating, that's a similar risk.

It's not the advice parents are given though. The parents, like human parents, are given if there's any temperature rises, yeah, start giving the Calpol and get that temperature down. It's like everyone's terrified of a bit of temperature now, as opposed to working with them a couple of degrees and watching the sweats as we did back in the day.

Yeah, there's one thing, there's one thing working with the temperature, letting them sort of burn it off at 40 degrees, but you know, if they're getting to 42 and, you know, really, you know, having seizures, you probably want to cool them down a bit. There's a limit.

Okay, I completely agree in the last couple of minutes. I completely agree with what Bren was saying there, but if you can catch these things early, so much the better. Yeah, when you've got extreme heat stroke, anything can happen. You know, they collapse, they're just, you know, dribbling from every orifice, and they're just an absolute mess. If you can collect it early. So what are the early signs of heat stroke? It's really obvious stuff. Dog doesn't want to get out of bed because they just can't get out of bed. They're going to be panting a lot. They're going to be uncomfortable. They're going to be looking at you going, oh my God, it's too hot. There's just going to be obvious signs of distress. They're going to be seeking cooler areas in the house. So they might be hiding in the little loo under the stairs because it's It's the coolest place in the house, those kind of things. So look for the early signs. Don't just wait for the drama would be my advice. Okay. And, and, and, and also just final thought is, if there are two types of people, broadly speaking, there are those people who wander around in winter in a t-shirt. Yeah, these are the very hot-blooded people. And there are those people who wander around like me in summer with three jumpers on. And these are the cold-blooded people. Okay, so if you're a very hot— if you're a very— thank you, Bren— if you're a very, if you're a very cold-blooded person, okay, and you like to be warm all the time, your dog may be the opposite, and they really, really suffer in the heat. Yeah, you love it, your dog hates it. Just bear in— just get a fix on where, what your relationship is with the heat. And remember that your dog may have a very different relationship with the heat, whether they are a, you know, a Siberian breed or not. You know, Labradors, some Labradors love the cold, some Labradors love to sit in front of the fire and be warm. Just bear in mind that is an innate property that homeopaths have recognized for 200 years, and it's just the way you are, and you just have to recognize that.

And just, just for the people out there, just because I do know this, uh, guys, if you're ever on an episode of QI, reptiles aren't cold-blooded. They actually keep their blood at a temperature very similar to mammals, but they use an outside source to tend to control.

They are exothermic.

Yes.

Yeah.

So, you know, it's commonly misconstrued that had cold blood and I was just very interested.

Interesting little fact there. And also, I don't think you need to sneak water into the food, guys. I think if you've got fresh food, making a, making a big cold soup out of your dog's food is probably not a great idea. I think keep the water separate to his actual meal. And myself, I think kind of diluting down those stomach acids probably wouldn't be my favorite thing to do. I think this, unless that was your needed way to do it, or you can, there's a whole lot of different types of ice pops ideas you can give but I keep the water away from mealtime so that the stomach acids digest the food properly. So that's my own thing. Maybe other people like to wet their food a lot, but, you know, keep those big watery treats and tricks separate to the meal. Let the food go through. It takes about 45 minutes.

Yeah, I think, I think a healthy dog faced with, with some heat will, will find it difficult to dehydrate themselves if they've got good access to water.

Do you remember a few years ago there was that little outbreak of people going don't give your dogs ice because it will cause them to vasoconstrict and overheat. There was this very homeopathic thing of if you take hot tea, then you'll vasodilate and cool off. Okay, it's one of those things that they talk about. But they did this reverse thing of, well, if you give them ice cubes in their water and they drink freezing cold water, they're suddenly going to go and overheat. And it was like, yeah, that's actually not where we're at here. Please don't go down that route. They won't overheat if you give them ice cubes.

Years of ice pops and ice creams. Like, I mean, we know. Yeah, I know. Yeah. Those things creep in, you know.

They do.

Yeah. I've got a cool little factoid to tell you about mushrooms.

Mushroom products. Save it to Patreon.

Do it for a bit on the side. I've learned some very interesting you need to know. So get on Patreon, folks. That was great.

Next week, guys, only just to let you know, those broadcasts are over there for paid members. So you just have to at least give us a price of a cup of tea, price of a coffee, or an ice pop. Okay. So listen in and get the full benefits of Patreon. So please, we look forward to seeing you on the other side.

We've got some good guests coming up. I'd say we'll have our first one next week, but we have a line of them. And so time, time before we— before we won't, we won't announce them yet, but as we line them up, let's just start bringing in a few, a few of the guestsoids we have that we want to bring in. So now's the time. So, uh, was hopefully— maybe you'll see— hopefully, hopefully next week we'll bring in the first one. Yeah, that'd be good. Sounds good, gentlemen.

Yeah, sounds good.

Great, great.

Take care, everyone.

We will see you.

Yeah, cheap mints that I, that I relieved the hotel of. Nick, you'd be proud of me. I took about 20 of them and ate them in bed. TV, beer. It was great. Socks on with the fan on. It was so disgusting.

I don't know how you survived. Listen, let's go to Patreon. Patreon.

Yes, we can work out how he survived. Yeah, I can tell you what this is.

It's Articler. Anyway, right. From there, it's good to see you all again. Thank you, guys.

Take care, guys. Yeah, stay cool.