Hello, it's Anthony Chadwick from the Webinar et. On another episode of Vet Chat this week, the Webinar vet meets the holistic vet. It's always good to have a title, isn't it?
So, it's Nick Thompson who's on the line today. Nick, thank you so much for agreeing to come on the podcast. How are you, Antony, it's great to be here.
Thank you. Yeah, well, perhaps first of all, just give us a little bit of a history, obviously a vet like myself, of a, as we discussed earlier, a similar vintage, I think I'm a few years older than you. Qualified from, from Edinburgh, fantastic school.
And then tell us a little bit about the, the history going forward. OK, OK, . So I did I did intercalated honours at Edinburgh.
I did pathological sciences, virology, microbiology, biochemistry, parasitology, blah blah, the whole, the whole works really, because I thought I wanted to go into science, or at the very least, I had an inkling that I might be going into. What they called alternative medicine in those days, and I thought I wanted to have a, you know, a background, I wanted to know my way around a laboratory, a way, my way around references and, and, and, and papers, so I found that very, very useful. I qualified from Royal Dick School of Veterinary Studies in '92, went into practise.
I did seven years in practise because you'll laugh at this. I, I, I initially wanted to be James Herriot, so I went to, I went to Yorkshire. And .
And, and really, really enjoyed. I started in a mainly a pig practise, but they had a small animal branch and so doing a bit of everything and then went into up into the dales working from just near Ampleforth in Helmsley, up into the dales and thoroughly enjoyed that, learned a thing or two up there I can tell you. And then came down to, no, and then kind of had a revelation really.
I was I. I went to my boss while I was there and I said, you know, can I, can I study some homoeopathy, and he said, well, if you, you know, if, if you're gonna do it, you might as well do it properly and go and do a course. So, strangely enough, a very conventional vet started me off on my journey and so I started studying homoeopathy and then I, I came to the revelation, I just thought.
Am I gonna be a conventional vet who dabbles in some alternative things, or am I gonna nail my colours to the mast and being the extremist that I am, I thought, right, I'm gonna absolutely go for it. So then I moved down to the south coast just near Chichester, and I did 4 years down there with a guy called Mark Elliott, and we were, we were in practise together doing homoeopathy and herbs and. I began to get interested in nutrition at that point, but we were using kibble then, so I've cut my, I've cut my teeth on in the kibble industry back in the day.
And then in 1999 they just thought, right, I'd like to set up my own practise, so I did so, I set up my practise holistic vet.co.uk.
Starting then and really the, the, the, the main drive, I've been, you know, I was doing horses and cats and dogs and a bit of everything. But gradually, as the raw movement has become more and more prominent and more and more popular, that's really where it's led me. So I find myself today to be one of the grand old men.
Of raw food in the UK and I'm very, very happy with that as a, as a state of affairs, I, I do a lot of telephone medicine these days. I see people as well every month. I'm based in, in Wiltshire just near Bath, and I'm doing a lot of consultations when nutrition is key.
So I see I see a lot of itchy dogs and I see a lot of dogs with gut problems. I see like see a few. Healthy dogs, where people are saying, right, I'm on kibble, I really look after my own diet and and with my kids I'm very careful about what I feed them.
I'd like to get my dog off ultra processed food, which is essentially what it is, you know, kibble and tins, it's ultra processed food and. I'm finding surprise surprise that we can have incredible health benefits to these, you know, they don't need to be itchy or squitty, but. They can be just an average dog, you know, averagely healthy, but we changed their diet and they become supremely above average.
They, you know, the, the, you know, slightly smelly ears disappear and, and, and, and really resolve beautifully. Teeth improve, gut function improves, poos improve, anal glands improve, coat quality improves, hotspots. Improve, even with, with, you know, pollen sensitivities, we can, you know, just take the, take take the the the the the inflammatory base of that down a bit.
They're always gonna be pollen sensitive, but if you can, you know, take down whole body inflammation, that can really, really help also with indoor allergens and all that. We used to talk a lot about the prutic threshold when I was doing a lot of dermatology and and actually if you've got a dog that's got. Some malacizia, it's got a bit of a flea allergy, maybe a dust mite allergy.
If you can sort out it's malacizia, you know, by washing a topical treatment, obviously you treat for the fleas if you, you know, I think. You know, flea treatment potentially, and I, I feel I'm partly responsible for it. I set up the first pet health club in '99, but as a dermatologist, obviously I was, you know, obsessed with it, a couple of fleas on a flea allergic dog or cat can cause a lot of problems.
Yeah. But actually, . You know, if you treat that dog for fleas, treat his malaysia, the fact that it's still got a dust mite allergy is still there, subclinically, but you've taken it below its scratch threshold, it's itch threshold by removing a couple of the elements.
So, and, and of course diet is, is a big part of that as well with allergy and so on. It is very much so. I think you know what people, I think there's a bit of an us and them within the vetting profession, they say, OK, oh you're a holistic vet, oh yeah, yeah, well I'm a conventional vet, but you know what, we all went through the same training, and actually the most important thing for me is we all want the same thing, we want happy healthy pets, happy healthy owners, and to, to.
To, to, to get to that stage of resolution and to educate our clients so that they can manage their pets. From a position of knowledge, I think it's, it's, it's really, really, really important. No, I think you're, I think you're absolutely right, and I think it's interesting, you know, use it holistic.
I, I talk about being holistic a lot because I think as a profession we're much more holistic than, say, for example, the doctors who are often, you know, holistic for me, I think it's a Greek word, isn't it? It comes from the whole idea of. Treating the whole animal, I mean, by all means give me a different definition of but I've always seen it as treating the whole rather than the part, so even with skin diseases I would always go in and give a.
Well, first of all, a thorough history, but then of course a thorough clinical examination because if that dog has a heart murmur, you need to know it before you start looking at the skin, and I think sometimes, with the 10 minute consults it's very difficult to do all those things and one of the. Reasons I think I was reasonably successful with dermatology wasn't that I knew more than other people, although, you know. Probably I did because that was my particular area of interest, but it was actually just spending the time with people, having that consistency of they saw me every time I came in, they, you know, I, I got them back in.
Often when I was taking the history, which, how many, you know, which vet do you see at Mr. Smith's practise? Well, I've seen all seven of them, you immediately realise that unless communication is absolutely tip top and all the vets agree with each other, there's gonna be a bit of treatment changing and flip flopping going on.
So, so that consistency of. Having one vet looking after a, a, a patient, at least for that part of it, you know, for that for that series of consults I think is so important, isn't it? I do, and we were talking about this before we came on.
I think we don't do ourselves any favours by . By, having a, having a, a system whereby you, you treat and then you say come back and see us, i.e., come back and see the practise in 2 weeks.
What I love to do, and I'm the only vet in the practise, so I do get this consistently, but in a, in a multi-vet practise what I personally would be doing would be to say, come back and see me in 10 days or 12 days whenever you're next on. Because then you can pick up the story. When I, when I'm consulting, my first consultation is 45 to 60 minutes, and I will spend half an hour or longer looking at a questionnaire that I sent out to the clients and looking at the, the vet.
History, looking at the lab work and bringing that all together. It's like cramming before before an exam, so that when I lift the phone to talk to the client, I have crammed all that information and I, I know when. Buster had his first vaccine and when Buster first started itching and when Buster first had, you know, the hotspot and, and when they changed the diet and what was the effect of the the the change in diet, because I've got the vet's impression and I've got the client's impression as well, and I find that's really, really valuable, and that plays into the, the this holistic medicine because what we were what we again what we were speaking about before we came on was, The attrition rate, the number of people who leave the profession and.
I'm trying to make my consultation consultations as interesting as educational as possible for the clients, but also it's very selfish. I'm making them as interesting as possible for me, for example, I'll ask the people what do they do for a living, because if you're, if you're a watercolour painter, I'm gonna speak to you in a slightly different. Language to if you're an engineer, to if you're a physicist, or to if you're a doctor or a nurse, and I find that's that's a it's very interesting because you can, you can kind of say right, you're a lawyer, therefore we're gonna get look at this incredibly logically and we're gonna go through the factual presentation.
If you're an artist, you'll say, well, let's look at the big picture, let's see if we can fill in some colour and what have you. I'm not trying to, Pull any wool over any eyes. I'm just trying to do the, the old thing of, you know, when in Rome speak Latin.
You know, it's speaking in a way such that you get the message across. It's all very well being clear in your mind what you're trying to say, but unless the client hears. What you're trying to impart, unless it it it's, it's in their hearing, not in your telling, really, that, that, that the communication really happens, and that adds to the interest of the whole thing, I think.
Yeah, I mean how many times . And I don't know how often it's happened to me, but certainly I think with most vets when, you know, I used to always write stuff down after the client, you know, to, to give to the client. But if you rely on that oral, you know, communication, how many times do people go outside and the nurse or the receptionist goes, oh, you know, are you all OK, when do you need the next appointment?
Oh I don't know, I don't really know what they said because, you know, as you said, if you speak to somebody. Very, very technically with somebody who hasn't got that scientific, language, then of course you're excluding them from the, the, the, well I call it a square now, you know, that relationship, I always talk about the three people in the room, the dog, you know, the, the owner and the vet, and, and, you know, I also had that kind of environmental impact and element to it, but. You know, unless you have that triangle really working effectively, then this is where treatment breakdowns happen and you have a lack of success with your diagnosis and then obviously with your treatment.
Yeah, during my first consultation, this is the 45 to 60 minute consultation, which is a luxury, and I think after over 30 years in the business. I'm entitled to a little bit of luxury. I, I, I, I will write up key points from the, from the, from the consultation, and I will email those to the vet, but I will also email CC the client in exactly the same notes, and I will write them such the vet can understand them, but I'll write them such that the, the client can understand them as well.
So that we have complete transparency, complete communication. I say to clients. Good, good medicine is 90% good communication.
And I think that that's that's I think that's really vital. I think you see that with the Royal College, you know, the number of complaints that the Royal College have, if you break them down, the majority are down to. A failure in, as we call it soft skills, which is broadly communication and, and, you know, just again going to your point around history, I often would take sort of 20 minutes, 2025 minutes taking the history at least.
And during that time, you know, when you're taking history, you're not only listening but you're looking as well and you're getting a feel for the client, what the client's about. It, it's so helpful as you've said, if, if you understand the client more to have a better result, but actually just sometimes looking, you know, at the animal in that 20 minutes rather than just immediately dive on top of it, you know, and, and want to get a stethoscope or a thermometer out. Allows the dog or the cat to settle down, but also you begin to see the, the proper, the behaviour that it's, that it's showing when it's at home as well.
Yeah, very much so. I will often say at the beginning of the consul consultation, I'm gonna deliberately ignore the dog. Take a seat, make yourself at home, you know, if, if, if I'm seeing them face to face.
tea cup of tea, cup of coffee, because I think you'll get the best information when they are, when they are relaxed, and when they're relaxed, the dog is gonna be relaxed and you're gonna see the true nature of the, of the dog. Obviously this is, you know, we're talking specialist consultations and if you've just got a 10 minute consultation, you haven't got this luxury, but. What's to stop the profession saying right, that's it, we, we're all gonna go to 2025 minute consultations.
It means that you'd have to charge more for the consultation, but I would wager that you would maybe, your, your, your drug bill would go down because you'd be able to focus in on the problem. And rather than taking 3 consultations to to achieve a result, you might be able to say, you might be able to get there a little more quickly and be much more specific with your, with your prescription, or maybe not make a prescription at all because you've educated the client, you've examined the dog, and you've you've explained what might be happening with the dog. Just do this, Mrs.
Jones, or try this or read this book and then come back to me in a couple of weeks. Something like that. I think we're very pharmaceutically orientated, and, and, and, and we have got more so over the last, over the last 30, 40 years.
Yeah, I You know, my ethos was always used as little as possible. Obviously, you know, you do, or, you know, I, I, you did, I, I used antibiotics as a dermatologist, etc. But it's interesting even that now, you know, I've been out of dermatology practise for the last 6 years and again we've started to think, well, actually.
You know, giving that 3 week of antibiotics, is that the right thing to do? Can we use topicals more, etc. Etc.
One of my favourite lectures is, is a guy called Mike Willard, who's, a Texas A&M professor, retired now in gastroenterology. A great man, and he, he would often say on a webinar, you know, what I taught you 10 years ago was a lie. I just didn't realise.
So things do change and I, I think it's. It's interesting, you know, often you get a, a dog in that is massively overweight and has hip dysplasia. Is the treatment non-steroidals or is it, you know, re reducing weight?
You know, I would have tended to have used, you know, a Hills RD or a obesity diet from Royal Cannon. I mean, as a student, I, I used to go to a practise and their sales of Leo obesity diet, which was just starting then sort of 30, 35 years ago, would go through the roof because in my view, the obesity was more important than the arthritis because if we reduced the obesity, probably the arthritis would go a lot better. I mean, how would you treat a case.
Like that coming through the door to you. Did you know the webinar that Virtual Veterinary Congress is back for 2024. Starting on the 5th of February, we have 10 hours of continuing education with speakers such as Sarah Heath, John Chisy, and Samantha Kyler, and many, many more.
We'd love to see you there. If you'd like to get involved again this year, or if you'd like to join us for the day next time, please click the link in the description below to find out more. Well, just following up from your, your idea of, of, of, 10 years down the line, half of what I told you, there's, there was a guy called David Sackett.
Do you know David Sackett? He's the the father of evidence-based medicine. And, and he had a, he had a paper in the BMJ in '76, which kicked off really the evidence-based thing and I'd love to talk to you about that, but he said half of what you learn in medical medical school will be shown to be either dead wrong or out of date within five years of graduation.
The trouble is, nobody can tell which half. The most important thing, this is the important thing, Anthony, the most important thing is to learn how to learn on your own, and that kind of keys into this idea of, Stimulate your brain in practise, you can't just do the same thing every single day. If you learn a new skill, you learn a new toolbox like I did with my with with homoeopathy and acupuncture and now very much so looking at the raw food thing.
That's what keeps me going, and, and, and that's, that's so important. Now going back to your case, to your point, you were saying about, so what you've got an obese dog, and he's being fed some standard . Big food kibble from Purina or Royal Cannon or Hills.
What would I do in that sit and is he lame as well? He's lame, he's got osteoarthritis, you know, the, the point was it's very easy to send that dog home with non-steroidal. You need to spend more time with the client to say actually this dog needs to lose weight, and if it loses weight, it may not need the non-steroidals long term.
Yeah, totally. OK, so let's look at that as a case example. So, Alex German in 2017 did a study and he found that 74% of dogs were overweight or obese.
OK, so, so and that was in 8 days, that was, six years ago now, I would say that, that, you know, and just walking down the high street, you know, I would say 8 out of 10 dogs. Are either overweight or obese. So that's the, your number one thing.
I would be looking at a raw food diet because I find most dogs who go on a, on a well constructed, varied raw food diet will usually lose weight because what we know is that that kibble, Has a very high carb content and now you know with the advent of of of low carb diets within human medicine for heart disease, for predisposition to stroke and to metabolic disease and diabetes, yeah, it's a big, it's big news. There's a guy called Doctor Aseem Malhotra. If you hadn't seen any of his videos on YouTube, definitely worth having a look at him.
And and so what we would do is we put go over onto a onto a raw food diet which would be by definition grain zero grain, grain free, that's got connotations we and we can go there if you like, but let's just say it's gonna be based on. Meat and bone and organ meat, i.e., we're feeding a carnivore like a carnivore, there's gonna be some green veggie material in there, maybe some nuts, herbs and seeds, maybe an omega 3 sauce that'll make you happy as a dermatologist.
And what we find is that we're feeding 2 to 3% of body weight typically and we will see those dogs will just slim down to where they need to be. Now, if they're on 2% of body weight, which is kind of. The bottom end of where I'd have most adult dogs, and they're not losing weight and maybe they're, they've got maybe a little bit of bilateral alopecia or maybe they are a bit on the chilly side or even aggressive or maybe suddenly they're noise phobic.
There's a fantastic book by a US clinician, Doctor Jean Dodds, who wrote this book called The Canine Thyroid Epidemic. And basically she's saying. There's a whole lot more hypothyroidism out there guys, than we were taught at college.
Not every hypothyroid is fat and chilly and sluggish. Yeah, she says 40% of aggressive dogs in the states are hypothyroid, for, for example. So if anything doesn't make much sense with the case, or if we're feeding the dog the bare bare minimum, they're still not losing weight, I think that's a fair idea to take some blood.
I send it off to Jean Dodds in the states because she's got a lot of, she's been doing it for 30, 40 years and therefore she can compare any given age, breed and sex with hundreds if not thousands of others of the same age, breed and sex. So it's a very powerful database that she's got. And so I'd be looking at that in terms of losing weight, we'd also talk about exercise.
Exercise is a minor part, you can't outrun a bad diet. So, we'd be talking about, you know, routine exercise treats, we'd be talking about treats. I would try and get the treats a single protein without any, any carb, or, you know, preservatives, additives and what have you, which can disrupt the microbiome, and we would be doing that and that will often be very effective and as you say.
If you can lose the weight on that dog, then the arthritis can improve immensely. However, what I would be doing just from my holistic perspective, in order to try and avoid non-steroidals, I haven't got a problem with non-steroids, I've even got some in the, in the, the cupboard over here behind me, but if I have to use non-steroidals, I think that I, I, I, I may, I, I failed the case, OK, I will use them for the welfare of the dog, but I just don't feel right in myself. And so what we'll do is we, so we'll lose weight, but also I'm gonna use a chiropractor or an osteopath.
I find these people immensely useful, you know, if your back is bad, Anthony, what will you do? Will you go to the vet, to the doctor, you won't because he'll just give you ibuprofen and say take a week off work. OK, but you'll you'll go to the osteopathic chiropractor and maybe you're walking a bit crooked or your bag is too heavy, or your car seat needs adjusting or something, and you do some simple intervention, some simple adjustments, and you're a new person, and we know that this is the case, look at, you know, in the Olympics, there are, there are.
Physios, osteopaths, chiropractors, you know, left, right and centre. So these guys are very, very important, especially if lameness comes along after surgery, things like this, even if it wasn't surgery for the musculoskeletal system, it was like, I don't know, stomach surgery or a pyometer or something like that. You can, you can get jarred during surgery and these guys can help you with symmetry, left and right symmetry and also front and back symmetry so that you're just, you've got good weight distribution.
As a, as a pretty tall person, my, my back is quite good, but I do go to a chiropractor. I do have a bit of subluxation of one of my hips, so he shoves that back in and er stops me running round in circles then. This is it, and I use these, these guys often, often in practise, you know, they're not here, I haven't, you know, in my practise I've got a very simple practise.
I just say, right, this is Tony's number, go and see him. Lovely guy, Tony Nevin, based in Cheltenham, but he travels all over, he goes to Lamborne and does the horses there. In fact, at the moment he's in Thailand doing elephants of all things.
He's a clever guy, really lovely guy, he does my back as well, so. We're really good job, Nick. You need a ladder for for elephants, for elephants I would presume unless he's extremely tall.
He's not. He's shorter than me and he's just very clever. He'll he'll do what he can from the ground.
Will he, I don't know, I don't know what he does actually. I've only ever seen him working from the ground, but I would imagine that he's not, not averse if he can to get on on top and maybe do a bit of a bit of work there. And it's effective.
He goes out there every year, you know, they're not fools, they wouldn't be getting, getting him back just because they, you know, like, like what he does. OK, so we, we would do that, so we, we, we'd look at the weight, we'd look at symmetry and optimising the the musculoskeletal efficiency of that animal, depending on whatever it did, whether it sat by the fire all day or whether it was an athlete. We would be then looking at supplements perhaps to support joint health, that's not complicated these days, you can get chondroitin glucosamine products left, right and centre, you know about those.
But also we use one that has Bosia in it. Bosulia is frankincense, it's an anti-inflammatory, in order to try and just. To delay the day that we have to use analgesics, non-steroidals, the gabapentins, the, the, the, the, even the the steroids of this world.
If we can if we can delay that thing, I have no problem using them, but if we can, if we can delay the use, why wouldn't we? So we'd be thinking also about acupuncture. We would be thinking.
About making sure that the animal was hydrate hydrated and you know, having the, the very best of, of, you know, bone broths and things like this again to support the joints, . So there's a whole raft of things and what, what I say to people is, you know please bring the dog as, you know, in the early stages so that we can, we can put on a treatment. And then if we have to layer on another a bit further down the line, then we will if we have to layer something on a little bit further down the line, and when those layers are insufficient, then we're in non-steroidal territory and we'll support the dog, the liver.
The, the kidneys so as to maximise the efficacy of that non-steroidal, but also we will be supporting the home side, the dog itself, and not just saying, here's your, here's your metacam, good to go, yeah, take a bag of hills while you're on your way out, you know. You don't eat ultra processed food, I don't eat ultra processed food, and I think it would be fantastic to to to educate the profession into the place where they thought outside the, the box, the, the, the kibble, the cans box. I mean this is obviously a really.
Controversial area, you know, we talked about a webinar best and it's, it, it raises hackles from both sides, I think, because there are evangelists on both sides. Talk to me a little bit about raw feeding because, you know, obviously we, we talk about evidence based medicine, you know, you, you were talking about that. You know, high levels of salmonella in in some raw feeds, and are there better feeds than others, you know, I think to me it seems like we have to make sure we're picking the right one because I absolutely agree, you know, the dog is a carnivore, that's what it was doing.
You know, 10,000 years ago, but it was also eating very fresh meat. My worry is always that how old is this meat when the dog's eating it, you know, can it cause problems as well? I think it's, we're probably somewhere in the middle, you know, I, I tend to be more of a moderate in that sense.
So come on, tell me a little bit about what . You know, what are the reasons that people should be thinking much more seriously, and obviously I know it, you know, it is out there and there are a lot of people who are using it, but I think the profession, . It's probably there's not as many people talking about raw feeding.
I think most people do, you know, we've always fed with kibble and with tins or pouches. So, you know, why should we change? OK, so you said you said about salmonella.
So the first thing is, all the, all the. DA registered producers, they, they have a zero tolerance of salmonella, yeah, they're testing for it and they, they they, they have a very high vigilance for salmonella. So the likelihood of getting salmonella in any good quality product in the UK is pretty low, if not zero.
But did you see there was a couple, a couple of weeks ago, there was a paper and they, they did a study in the States and they took, I think, 34 different. Kibbled feeds and they, they analysed them for pathogens, they found pathogens in every single one. OK, and there are other papers from about 2006 to 2010 and they looked at the incidence of salmonella in dried food, kibble, and they found that that that there were, there were hundreds of incidents, especially in toddlers, because toddlers are down at the level with the dog.
And they can stick their hands in the bowl because often people will kind of graze, feed kibble because it's easier. And they were finding that there were there were just swathes of, of people being injured from their dried kibble. If you look for those papers from raw feed, I think you'd be hard pressed to find them.
So the science doesn't back up this this. Intuitive feel that oh my God, it's got loads of salmonella and all sorts of horrendous pathogens, E. Coli, and this kind of thing.
We just don't see it in on, on the coal face. We don't see it. I'm in touch with with raw feeders all around the world, we, we've got the raw feeding Veterinary Society and so we're in close communication with each other, we just don't see it.
And the other thing is, Anthony, is that I can guarantee because there are certain interests that would make it happen if a a a a dog or a child or somebody went down with salmonella from raw food, it would be on the front of the Daily Mail. In 3 seconds flat, yeah, OK, and we just don't see those kind of reports, OK, so I think dogs are very good that we transition them onto a raw food and they do very well. The, the trick is to communicate with one of the reputable raw feeding companies in the UK.
There are plenty, if you go to Google, look at the top 10, the top 20, they're probably gonna be pretty good if, if they're. Colleagues watching this who want to be put in touch or they're thinking I I'd love to do it, but I just don't know where to start. Please give me a shout.
Nick Thompson at holisticbet.co.uk.
I'm sure that Charlie will put it in the show notes as they say. I feel like Russell Brand here, yeah. It's in the show notes, tell us, tell us what you think and all that stuff.
Visit the website if you want to look, visit the raw Feeding Veterinary Society if you don't want to talk to me, email me. I'm, I speak to conventional colleagues all the time and I'm really, really happy to do so because I think raw feeding is, is, is a, is a fantastic opportunity for dermatologists, for orthopaedic, for gastroenterologists, internal medicine, guys. This is just a massive opportunity.
And I'm really happy to talk to you about it or put you in touch with somebody closer to you who can help you along that journey. What about, what about home prepared diets, I, I used to feed a lot of, fish and potato to my dogs that were going to be, going on to food trials. What what is the big thing about it needs to be cooked if you like, or, you know, with raw feed, it doesn't need to be cooked.
So, so raw feed by definition hasn't been cooked, but there are, you can, you can. Fresh within the, within the raw feeding world, we, we talk about raw food and fresh food, fresh food is lightly cooked fresh material. Yeah, it hasn't been through a an extruder, it hasn't been canned for a year before it gets into your dog, OK?
So this is moving away from ultra processed food, this is what the kind of food that you and I eat, it's just lightly cooked, very healthy, freshly sourced. And and you know, you're you're buying and eating, cooking lightly and consuming on a regular basis. It's a great way to feed and I haven't got a problem with that.
So for me, raw and fresh, both really useful because they keep you away from the ultra processed foods, which we're all told by our doctors not to eat. So. The the way that I summarise this, this, this conversation, Antony, and I have it quite a lot, as you can imagine, is benefits, bugs, balance and bones.
These are the, these are in 2012, the World Small Animal Veterinary Association came out with these criticisms, benefits, there's no benefits, well, I can give you 2030 papers demonstrating benefits. I bet you can't give me one where, Where kibbled food is demonstrated to be superior to raw food, and I can give you several which show exactly that, where raw is superior in terms of microbiome in terms of stool quality, in in terms of reducing homocysteine levels in the blood, in terms of reducing ATP in in in pups, born to raw fed raw fed mothers. I can give you all the studies here guys, just email me and I'll send them, .
So benefits, yes, there are benefits. World Small Animal Veterinary World Small Animal Veterinary Association says there on. Bugs, yes, there are low levels of bugs.
Salmonella, very unlikely in the UK, but there are 2000 different types of salmonella. There's only about 12 which are actually pathogenic. And even if they are at a very low level that aren't really detectable, I think that the raw fed dog, because they have this continual, Exposure to low levels of these bugs, which is a bit like going for a walk in the park, coming home and licking your feet, which is what dogs do, it's a low level of exposure to bugs which humans don't do very much these days.
I think it's very healthy, and the proof of the pudding is that the raw, the average raw fed dog goes to the vet a lot less than the average kibble fed dog. We're just about to do a study where we're looking at at. The, the figures within a large raw and kibble feeding practise and we're gonna compare vet bills and visits and what have you.
So that's an ongoing study that's coming out soon, but I can almost guarantee what the results would be. Back to the WSAVA benefits, bugs. Now balance, which was your original question.
Balance When was the last time you, Antony, ate a balanced meal? Well, I'd like to think, you know, if you're eating, well, either meat, vegetable or whatever, . I suppose the proof of the pudding is in the eating, isn't it?
If, if you suddenly start having lots of problems, you're going to the doctors a lot, you've got blood work that's all over the place, then presumably you're not doing it, you know, my wife always says everything in moderation, you know, so if you do moderation, you're probably. There or thereabouts. But, but I can't, I don't know that I've ever had a balanced meal in my entire life, and if I did, I didn't know about it, and yet we are sold.
Every meal has got to be balanced, that's the only way you do it. You are, you are a bad owner unless you are feeding every meal a balanced meal. That's, that's the, that's the subtext, yeah.
And yet, humans have existed for 3 million years on. A variety of foods, so I think dogs and dogs have as well, so I think that. If the diet is balanced, now the diet is a thing that you have over 3 or 4 weeks.
If the diet is balanced, you're in great shape. Whether that's fresh or whether that's raw, that's how it's been done. You know, dogs can't read, they've been feeding themselves for millions of years, ditto humans.
Etc. So Benefit bugs balance, so the whole balance thing, yes, if you take any individual meal, it may not be balanced, but that meal is not the diet. Yes.
And so we're looking, we're we're taking a much more physiological, much more evolutionary approach to, to eating, a much more practical approach to food, essentially, we feed a variety, variety is the, the ingredient that doesn't go in the bowl, it is the. Element that is absolutely essential, you know, Mrs. Jones might say, oh my dog likes chicken and a bit of cabbage, and so I'll feed chicken and cabbage for the rest of the dog's life.
Wrong, even though that's raw, that's not a raw diet, Mrs. Jones, that is chicken and cabbage, yeah, where are your organs, where are your bones, where are your nuts, herbs, seeds, where's your omega threes? OK, so, so it, it doesn't take much to.
To create a a balanced raw food and the, the, the key to the whole thing, and I shouldn't say this cos cos this is my livelihood is if you feed variety, if you get your macronutrients, like your wife was saying, bit of everything, and you know, moderation in all things, you get your macronutrients right and you have variety, seasonal variety, fresh and what have you. Your body will look after itself because that's what it's been doing for millions of years and so that's what we do, so benefits bugs, balance and bones. The last thing that the WFAVO and many vets will get really terrified about is bones.
And I'm gonna say here, officially, I think that if you feed cooked bones to dogs, you're gonna get problems. You may, you may get a a problem tomorrow or you may be a year down the line, but I can almost guarantee sooner or later you are gonna get problems. However, Dogs, do very well on raw bones.
Will you never, ever, ever, ever, ever have a problem with a raw bone? I can't say that, but I think it's a bit like driving a car or getting in an aeroplane. The benefits substantially outweigh the risks, and if you're a careful driver, then you're probably gonna get through your entire driving career with nothing but a scrape or two.
And that's, that's the feeding of bones. I've done a video. It's called bones and How to Feed them.
On my website, he says, plugging away relentlessly, but it basically says, we look at it, it's a bit like kindergarten, primary school, secondary school, and college. You'd start a dog with with very simple soft. Chicken carcasses down at the bottom end and this would be for for for pups from even from 3 weeks, but these would be for adult dogs if they've just gone come over from kibble and you're thinking, right, well let's get them onto some bones.
You've got to do it gradually, we all learn these things. So you kindergarten would be soft chicken carcasses, then you'd move up to chicken wings, turkey necks, duck necks, things like that, and then you'd move on to maybe some lamb ribs, maybe a bit of beef rib, maybe a bit of beef brisket, yeah, non. Weight bearing bones and only then for the this is at the college level for bones, only at the top end, this is the veteran bone eater bone eater when their their their their their gastric juice is is good and strong, their enzymes and their microbiome is in great shape because they've been eating raw food for, for a good long time.
I'm talking a year down the line or more. You could maybe think about the marrow bone. The problem is Mrs.
Jones will often go straight for the marrow bone and then wonder why the dog gets sick because of all the marrow all in one go, or the dog doesn't know how to eat a marrow bone and it crunches this, this brittle, fresh bone, it's got to always be fresher and then doesn't know what to do with the chunks, you know, so. There are ways of doing these things very safely, very simply. And it's very successful.
It's, dogs were not meant to have dentals every year, every 2 years, every 3 years. It's, it, it, it stands to reason, and you can keep a dog generally off the dental table, off the operating table by using raw food. It's not absolute, I'd say, but I'd say that raw fed dogs have a lot less necessity for dentals.
No, it's really fascinating, Nick. . And, you know, I think at Webinar that we want to be able to see both sides of the story because that's how you make the judgement.
I think before you were talking about. You know, you leave college and I talk about this as well, you set your own curriculum, and we all set different curriculums, mine was dermatology, mine was online learning, and . I think that whole idea that we should always be open to stuff and and to lifelong learning is so important because as you say, we're all clever boys and girls and if we actually stop learning when we're, you know, 25, 30 shortly after university.
That's when the job becomes quite tiresome, but it, you know, in my view, I'm, I'm not practising, but I did 25 years. It's one of if not the best jobs in the world, and we probably don't have time to talk a lot about attrition and and so on, but maybe that's for that's for another podcast. I'd love to.
Yeah, let's do it. I mean there's a lot to, there's a lot to talk about. I I I think vets go into it for the right reason.
Nobody, you know, goes into veterinary medicine to be a millionaire cos you're in the wrong job essentially. And we do it because we want happy patients, happy owners, and we want to make a difference, you know, it sounds trite, but actually. We want to spend our time doing something that means something, and if we can get something back in in interest, in great positive feedback, in learning about about the world, our we didn't even talk about the environment, Anthony, learning about the environment, looking, learning about regenerative agriculture, there's another topic that we didn't cover.
All, because it's all related, and when I, when I, when I treat patients, I, I will also be looking at the owner, is the understanding is, is, you know, often the owner will say, oh my God, you've just described what's wrong with me in terms of eczema in terms of pancreatitis in in terms of. Food sensitivities in terms of, you know, necessity for a remedy or for a herb or something like this, and there's, there's a lot of tie up, and I love that, that holistic approach to let, let me teach you what I know about this condition, and let's bring the whole family in, let's work hand in hand with your vets, and let's get the osteopath in. And we're all gonna work in the in in in the same direction, we're all on the same page, and we're all moving in the same direction for the sake of the client, it's enjoyable.
The client is delighted, we're much more likely to get a favourable outcome, and it's a win-win situation in these days where the profession is struggling a wee bit, I feel. I think it's holistic medicine can offer an awful lot, and it's not woo woo, la la. It's a lot of hard hitting, there's a lot of great science out there, and we're just looking at things from a slightly different perspective.
We're broadening our view to to have to, to, to try and achieve the very best of outcomes. Yeah, and I agree, I think one of the big things. You know, as vets, it, it is a fantastic profession to be in, it's a friendly profession to be in I think that's because the majority of the people are purpose centred, you know, they create purpose centred businesses that are there to do good in the world.
They're not there necessarily, as you say, to make the maximum amount of money by, you know, ripping people off or whatever. There is a, there's very much a, a, you know, a good heart and a purpose to what we do, so. Yeah, we're we're very very results, we're results driven, yeah, and we're exactly the same, the raw feeding brigade, the, the holistic brigade, the acupuncture brigade, we want results.
We're just, we're just coming at it from a different direction. We don't ignore the drugs, you know, I think drugs are great, but I wouldn't. I want them on their cornflakes, you know.
Yeah, exactly, no, well, they probably don't taste very good, Nick. Well, if you, if, if we're gonna go there, you shouldn't really be eating cornflakes. Well, this is true, yes.
Porridge in the morning, much better. You should know that you spent 5 years in Edinburgh. That's a, that's another conversation we can have, Anthony.
Breakfast and, and, you know, intermittent fasting and, and these kind of things, that's a, that's an interesting conversation. Yeah, definitely, let's do it again sometime, Nick. Love to, Antony.
Thank you so much, Nick. Thank you so much for listening everybody, this has been Anthony Chadwick at Vet Chat, the number one UK veterinary podcast. Looking forward to seeing you on a podcast or a webinar very soon.
Take care, bye bye.
