News & Views
- © 2023 Graham Hines MRCVS - 07903286439 Contact Me 0
Dogs Diner, Warren Way, Moreton, Wirral
Cost £40.00
Give them a ring to make an appointment 0151 678 2588
https://www.dogsdiner.co.uk/vaccicheck
We visit about every 3 months to do a vaccicheck clinic on the Wirral her in Moreton. I am also able to see clients there for holistic consultions – contact me for those by email first
The staff at the Dogs Diner are very knowledgeable about raw and real food diet, natural methods of parasite control call in and see their amazing stock of raw foods, supplements including their own kefir & bone broth and much more.
We can do these for 1 or 2 folk Late October early November ring and speak to Claire or pop in to buy food or browse the other stock.
If you would like to have a titre test done in Chester then contact Claire we can arrange to meet there and get your pet sampled and examined. This is my nearest raw and natural feeding store and is worth a visit for advice and selection of foods.
When we get enough to hold a clinic we shall arrange one but I can meet you there for the odd couple of pets as well
Cost £45.00 for < 3 pets >3 is £40
For further information, please call us 01244 880470 or Claire on 07930 051368 or book on line at
https://www.imperial-pets.com/
You can read more about what vaccicheck is on the blog here or in the old website here but basically we take a drop of blood from your pet, and test is for levels of antibody to Distemper Parvovirus and Adenovirus so you can be reassured your companion does not need vaccinating again
I have a little old dog who has CCD (Canine Cognitive Dysfunction) as I am sure do many of you. (see below) This gradual onset disease is seen commonly in older dogs and shows in a number of ways. It described in between 14 and 35% of dogs over 8 years old with various factors increasing its prevalence for example Neutered dog more than bitches and yes can and does come on gradually from quite an early age.
This is Lexi, a Patterdale x Poodle we adopted 4 years ago she suffered from mild cognitive dysfunction when we adopted her but it improved with a better diet, MCT oil (Medium Chain Triglycerides such as coconut oil) good food and exercise. Later I did add some herbs
Here she is enjoying a dip in the Afon Seiont near Caernarfon, loving life we think.
Degenerative signs can be seen on a MRI scan
Analogous to Alzheimer's in humans
• Neurodegenerative changes
• Vascular damage in the brain
• Free radical accumulation ->oxidative brain injury
• B-amyloid accumulation - extracellular
• Tau protein - intracellular and extracellular
• Neuroinflammation
• Mitochondrial dysfunction
• Neurotransmitter imbalance
• Brain atrophy
JAVMA 261, 11; 10.460/javma.23.02.0095
The Gut Brain Axis - recent research into the Microbiome
Recent studies have demonstrated the link between the Gut microbiome and indeed the mouth's microbiome. In simple terms if the gut is healthy and the also the mouth the individual whether human, dog or rodent (on which many of these studies are based) is less likely to develop.
there is a study in which the micro-organisms in the gut of a human with alzheimers where transfers to healthy rats. They developed cognitive disease. Dogs with severe periodontal disease have worse cognition score.
So we aim to 1. keep our gut as healthy as possible with diet. 2. Keep the mouth healthy All with diet of course
Sodium oligomannate therapeutically remodels gut microbiota and suppresses gut bacterial amino acids-shaped neuroinflammation to inhibit Alzheimer’s disease progression.Wang, X., Sun, G., Feng, T. et al. 2019. Cell Res
Periodontal disease is associated with cognitive dysfunction in aging dogs: A blinded prospective comparison of visualperiodontal and cognitive questionnairescores)”. Dewey and Rishniw, 2021. (Open Veterinary Journal
The Oral-Gut-Brain AXIS: The Influence of Microbes in Alzheimer’s Disease”
Narengaowa et al, 2021. Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience
What do we see in our pets?
Signs can be very variable from one individual to the next but basically we see a gradual reduction in cognitive ability.
“PET DOG MINDS” a nemonic for the main signs below Amy Watson MA VetMB MRCVS GDVCHM ACVCHM CVA CCRT (personal comm. 2024)
• Pacing
• Engagement with others have changed
• Toileting in the house/changes in toileting
• Disorientation
• Owner/others recognition problems
• Grumpy/Irritable
• Memory Loss learned bahaviours such as toileting
• Insomnia/Changes in sleep patterns
• Navigation issues
• Disregarded Training
• Staring into Space
My Suggestions to Help
You can add to this
3. Omega 3 fatty acids - fish and flax oils
3. Omega 3 fatty acids - fish and flax oils. These supplements are great for brain health, they have neuro-protective properties and reduce inflammation. Omegas 3s also help skin, heart and kidney function. Give oily fish or fish oils such as in nutramega and nutramind but many other places
4. B vitamins - hese also are very important in brain and nerve function as well as anti-oxidant support. No need for expensive supplements you can give yeasts such as in Marmite, other product include include Nutramind from Nutravet with omega 3s and B vitamins
5. Medicinal Mushrooms such as Lions mane, Cordyceps and Reshi All the medicinal mushrooms and indeed normal button mushrooms have good levels of B vitamins, are neuroprotective. Lions mane increases Nerve Growth factor. Now this may contraindicate is use if your pet is having Librella - ask your vet.
https://myconutri.com/ is where I recommend clients look for these
6. Herbs There are two branches of herbal medicine Traditional Chinese and Western. The Western herbs include Ginko biloba as in Nutramind, also Ashwaganda, Panax Ginseng and Valerian. HThe prescription we give may vary depending on the patient for example if he is very nervous adding Valerian as a Chamomile porridge at bed time. Ideally speak to your herbal vet. We look for herbs called nervines which affect nerve function are Antioxidants, Anti-inflammatory, Anti-apoptotic and Increase Nerve Growth Factor and more
The more Traditional Chinese Medicine I have found useful is a Rehmannia and Panax combination modified by our colleague Dr Steve Marsden HALSCION Read more about it in its page here Halscion Again iff you can find someone then a vet trained in TVCM can add or alter this to suit the individual but I do recommend this as a great place to start.
7. Acupuncture Not something you can DIY in most cases! but this is a great help, improving blood flow to the brain look out for an experience vet.
8. CBD cannabinols may help. It is great at reducing anxiety, inflammation and pain, there are some mouse studies showing improved memory when on CBD/CBDA full spectrum products but not really much evidence in dogs or humans yet. We cannot sell this to you without a prescription any longer and you would have to book an appointment apologies.
Other Things
Now as is shown in studies with and recommend to humans there are also so many other factors without drugs, or expense
Exercise
Mental Stimulation & Interest use the brain or lose the brain
I know Lexi cannot get far nowadays as she is older but I should take her out, let her paddle in that river, hear the birds - no she’s deaf I forget! Going the same way- See the birds; sniff and sniff again.
Perhaps another dog in the house or take her to see one, doggy day care or exercise classes play ball. Over to you. Lets hear your ideas and stories
Read more in the book Forever Dog by Rodney Habib & Dr Karen Becker
This is a great book full of wise advice for these Canadian / American based veterinary authors they also provde may tasty recipes for your dogs
•.
I read a fascinating article today in the Guardian Newspaper which has set me thinking about the pet food industry, how it operates and most interesting of all perhaps the preferences our pets have for foods.
You should read the article ideally when you have time The Guardian is a premium newspaper in the UK and this is today's Long read. The journalist Vivian Ho has visited both Mars facility in the Midlands (Waltham) and also Honeys raw feeding facility and manufacturing plant, also in England, where she spoke to Jonathon Self.
If you want to read more of Jonathon's feeding recommendations you can buy his Natural Feeding Handbook on our site.
The things I find particularly interesting about the article and I thought I would comment on:
Some aspects of the pet food industry I am very concerned about are touched on in the article. The 'research' carried out at Mars Petfood's facility been going on for years, they are very used to visitors and selling them the wonderful processes. I remember well my visit as a veterinary student in about 1980 there and we were all wined and dined- a first start in the indoctrination process, perhaps or valuable nutrition training?? All through my career we have been 'educated' in nutrition by one Pet Food Company after another. Mars own Pedigree, Wiskas Royal Canin vet specific range of pet foods but also own Banfield Hospitals in the USA and Linnaeus vet groups in the UK and elsewhere and more see Mars Veterinary Site. Ms Ho touches on this and got the response from Linnaeus "In addition to producing food, companies such as Mars fund a number of veterinary schools and clinics, which, raw food advocates claim, push the companies’ products on trainee vets and pet owners, regardless of pet health. (“When any of our veterinary professionals provide nutrition advice, they have the freedom to recommend the best product for that pet, regardless of brand,” said a spokesperson for Linnaeus, a veterinary group that’s part of Mars Veterinary Health."
Today I also got an email from "The Purina Institute"
Who owns Purina? The second largest pet food Co here in the UK. Another sweetie corporation based in the US although of Swiss origin: Nestle see wikipedia, they want to invite me to learn about nutrition - Purina Institute Microbiome Forum Round Table 2024 - Changing Paradigms in DIARRHEA (sic) Management Have a read of the Institute website perhaps you will see what I mean I hope. Unbiased education in pet nutrition is rare in the veterinary industry if there is a vacuum someone fills it.
So that is two of the major Pet Food Companies, there is a third the third largest in the UK is not a Confectionary company no Colgate Palmolive "Colgate-Palmolive Company is an yet another American multinational consumer products company headquartered in New York City. The company specialises in the production, distribution, and provision of household, health care, personal care, and vet products" Wikipedia . They own HILLS Pet Nutrition. So many of our nursing staff have qualified in Nutrition through Hills Pet Nutrition and have medals and certificates to prove it. This company more than any other trained many vets and pet owners about nutrition in pet, brought out "prescription diet" as a term. You do not of course need a prescription but we can charge more.
I remember visiting veterinary educational conferences in the UK, USA and Europe. The massive marketing budgets, advertising displays and gifts to veterinarians of these three corporations never failed to impress - larger than big Pharma at times but its is the way they educate my profession that disturbs me the most with these institutions.
Of course you need a research department to stop the rickets, and vitamin deficiencies which as is in the article were common in 60's puppies fed unbalanced commercial dog foods. After all to get adequate nutrition from ultra heat processed, dried foods made from by meat industry by-products and cheap cereals is a skilled process. To avoid to many scandals such as these on Hills wiki page:
One Prescription Diet line and five products of the Science Diet line were involved in the 2007 pet food recalls for their inclusion of melamine tainted wheat gluten received from China.
On January 31, 2019, Hill's recalled 25 varieties of its canned dog food, because of elevated levels of vitamin D, due to a supplier error. Vitamin D overdose in animals can cause irreversible kidney damage and eventually death.[17] On February 12, 2019, San Francisco law firm Schubert Jonckheer & Kolbe LLP filed a class action lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California against Hill's on behalf of affected owners for distributing dog food which contained potentially toxic levels of vitamin D.
To be fair these problems are very rare I must say and can occur with all food companies from large corporations to the take away cafe up your road. If you use cheap ingredients from all over the world these things happen. In particular trying to feed a carnivore on a diet containing a large proportion of vegetable derived diet is a challenging enterprise which is IMO why these companies spend so much on R&D. It is so much easier to feed real meaty foods that are not ultra heat treated and get a healthy pet.
If one wants to feed humans or our pet carnivores on a diet rich in vegetables the it must be cooked for us to be able to digest it. Raw squash, cereals or potatoes will be very poorly converted into energy.
Now cooking gets you more calories in a shorter time from starchy foods greatly benefiting humankind's ability to survive in the world but it does reduce some micronutrients, enzymes and vitamins in the food in particular in the Ultra high temperatures needed to produce a kibble. Raw food is comparatively easy to get a balanced healthy diet from because of this. Not what the 'educators' above would have you believe who tell pet parents and veterinarians how hard it is to balance a home produced diet, how likely it to get imbalances in vitamins, proteins, minerals. Of course is possible but so much less likely than in a mucked about with commercial pet food IMO.
Excessive heat treatment is needed if a dry kibble is going to keep without freezing.
Ms Ho has also briefly touched something so important in how we feed our pets. Our perception of what they desire ..
A person can let you know directly what food they like, and why; not so a cat. Florence (her cat) cannot tell me that she prefers to graze rather than eat big meals – something I only realised somewhere between the second and third wet food brands we tried. Nor can she tell me that she actually enjoys the feel of the kibble on her gums – a theory I’ve been running with for the past few months. So we’ve gone back to kibble, though in the morning I give her a bowl of hand-shredded boiled chicken as well. She’d be happy with just kibble – I know this now. Even so, every morning I carefully shred another chicken breast – just in case.
She felt Florence actually preferred kibble "enjoys the feel of the kibble on her gums " and did not feed raw or even home prepared foods even after talking to Jonathon Self at Honeys Real Pet food. Actually it does seem very difficult to persuade a cat, in particular, that raw is preferable to kibble if they have been fed kibble a long time.
I found this article interesting
The other thing I worry about and is touched on here. Because of environmental issues, food animal welfare and the climate crisis we should be eating and rearing less meat we are told and it makes sense. If land is limited we can produce perhaps 10 times the calories growing grains such as wheat or rice per hectare of land we are told.
Now Mars are claiming that the "meaty" protein parts of their foods are produced from the human meat industries' by products or waste. Do I believe them are they telling some truth!! Of course they are correct to an extent nutritious meats like lungs, hearts and even livers would otherwise be wasted so all good. (It the excessive processing holistic vets do not like) but does this argument really wash.
or keeping only herbivores as pets. Now there is something to ponder? lets hear your comments
A new study has found that more than half of dog owners express some level of canine vaccine hesitation and are skeptical about the safety and efficacy of administering routine vaccinations to their dogs. A nationally representative survey of 2200 adults in the USA was undertaken in early 2023. It documents a pervasive canine vaccination hesitation amongst dog owners. The research demonstrates a large minority of dog owners consider vaccines administered to dogs to be unsafe (37%), ineffective (22%), and/or unnecessary (30%). A slight majority of dog owners (53%) endorse at least one of these three positions.
Public confidence in human vaccination declined during the pandemic, largely caused by a lack of trust and misperceptions in the efficacy and safety of the COVID-19 vaccine. This hesitancy appears to also extend to pet vaccinations. Troublingly, vaccine hesitation was found to be associated with rabies non-vaccination, as well as opposition to evidence-based vaccine policies, potentially leading to serious human and animal health consequences.
Titer (or this side of the pond titre) testing offers a more tailored approach to vaccination in place of routine annual vaccination, and could be a way to increase vaccination confidence. WSAVA guidelinesover the last decade have changed – current best practice vaccination guidelines are to safely and minimally vaccinate and effectively immunise all pets. It may be time to start questioning traditional vaccine protocols.
Serology testing helps ensure core vaccine boosters are only given when there’s an evidence base to do so. It seems to me and is shown by this research in the US at least that this is what many pet guardians want and more veterinarians should offer them.
Without incorporating serology testing into veterinary practice recommendations, practices are administering core vaccine boosters without an evidence base to do so. It is time to start questioning antiquated vaccine booster protocols. Are they necessary? Can they cause harm? Are they in the patient’s best interest? Are they in the clinic’s best interests? What are the alternatives?
Best practice vaccination guidelines are to safely and minimally vaccinate and effectively immunise all pets. This can be achieved with a minimal vaccine protocol that incorporates titer tests and a tailored health plan for every pet.
You can read about what we do, the test we use and a lot more on the Natural medicine / vaccicheck page on the advice site. and if you are really interested what Prof Hall explain about testing on the video below.
We run a clinic in our area most months – you can see the dates pinned to the top of this blog/news pages We get a dozen to 20 dogs in at one session and so can charge just £40.00 to do the testing as we can then do 12-20 tests simultaneously. Your LVP (local Vet Practice) would most likely have to send tests to an external lab and pay for premises so can charge 2-3 times as much understandably.
`If you watch the video below you will see Richard Hall advocates titre testing at
You can read more on the following documents
Biogal Labs pages for even more stuff
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