Latest / Back In The Closet - Two Crazy Cat Ladies / C.A.T.S. Series: Complete Nutrition for Cats with Dr. Randy Aronson

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C.A.T.S. Series: Complete Nutrition for Cats with Dr. Randy Aronson · Back In The Closet - Two Crazy Cat Ladies

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OK, so now let's get to the podcast.
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With wine, Always with wine. I'm Jay.
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I'm Adrian, and together we are. There's two crazy cat ladies.
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I'm going to. Cut you, I think I just peed.
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Buckle up. We're back in the closet.
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Welcome to another episode of a Back in the Closet with the 2
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Crazy Cat ladies. Guys, we are, so I know we
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always say the words excited. So much.
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Really super excited. I know we say that a lot, but
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for real, many of you guys who like follow us and you've been
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you know, this week and last week on our lives.
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We have been talking about this man that is with us right now,
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Doctor Randy, the pet vet that we got to meet last month in
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Seattle for the first time. And we literally stayed up until
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midnight drinking wine and talking about health.
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It was so much fun. We were like, OK, this our new
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favorite vet. We cannot wait to introduce you
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to our audience and and get to talk to you more.
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So Doctor Randy is or at the what event, what CMIA?
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I was like, what event was it? At the CMIA event, he gave a
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presentation called cats, Cats and believe it or not, and it
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was absolutely informative and riveting.
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We were like so excited. So we asked Doctor Randy to come
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back on this podcast and we'll do a four part series of the
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cats with you guys so you guys can also get the the amazing
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information that Doctor Randy has to offer because he has a
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special place in his heart for cats.
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So, Doctor Randy, thank you so much for joining us.
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Absolutely. I'm so glad to see you and it's
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great to be in the closet. We love having you here.
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So before we get started, before we jump into all this amazing
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information that we have for everyone that is, I know we've
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got a few here. Aaron is here, Laura Lee is
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here. They got to meet you in Seattle
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as well, and they're very happy to see you again, as are we for
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everyone else that may not know who you are, what you do, how
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you got to be so intelligent about our feel and friends.
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A little intro of your own, please.
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Thanks. Well, I tell people that I got
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so intelligent because I made every mistake in the book over
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the 43 years of being an integrated veterinarian.
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So it's really exciting to be able to share this with your
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audience because they're they're so right in my wheelhouse.
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You know, my goal has been through Doctor Randy Petvet that
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I educate cat owners with everything, every piece of
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knowledge that I have. But what I will tell people is
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I've been practicing for 43 years.
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It came to me in first few years of practice that I was as a
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Western veterinarian, very well trained, putting out fires, but
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I was never getting to Wellness and health span.
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And you know, I'm not talking about longevity, just longevity
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because if they're not healthy during that time.
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So that's why I call it health span.
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So I started that pathway so many years ago, got certified in
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Chinese medicine, acupuncture, then I got certified in
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rehabilitation medicine, then had been working with
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nutritionalist supplement people.
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Had a couple supplement lines of my own over the years.
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But it came to me that I had a national radio show for 10 years
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and it was so exciting, but the radio station really lost its
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touch and they didn't have the technical people.
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So people said, well you got to start doing podcasts and
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speaking and that's how we met. So I go out there when I can and
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try to spread the word. And I'm so thankful for you 2
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guys because it really makes it. It gives me a great place to
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have an audience to share this information.
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And we are all so hungry for it. It is.
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Yeah. You know, your presentation in
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Seattle was just we just kept looking at each other, and
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Laura, Lee and Aaron were there. We were like we.
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Were all we were like standing shoulder to shoulder and it was
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like the only presentation that we were like, we can't leave.
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We have to watch this whole thing.
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It was absolutely amazing. So thank you for bringing this.
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So as I said, it's a it's going to be a four part series CATS
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and C is today and we're going to be talking about complete
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nutrition and microbiome, which I know you just when we sat down
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and had that wine and talked, I know that you just have so much,
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so much knowledge to offer the audience.
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So. So take it away.
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Yeah. Where?
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Do you start with that when you think, yeah.
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So let's, let's get into it. So, you know, the thing I want
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the audience to understand is when you hear, oh, there's
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nothing else we can do, Don't believe it.
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There are so many options out there.
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And that's what US talking will really bring to our people, our
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our cat parents, our pet cat guardians.
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So I do this mnemonic cat CATSC stands for complete nutrition
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and microbiome. A stands for activity.
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TT stands for teeth, S stands for stress reduction.
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We're going to break every one of those down, but let's talk
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about complete nutrition and microbiome.
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So what we find is that so many of our cats suffer from
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inflammation. OK, Inflammation is the keyword
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for all of us. You know, so many diseases, even
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Alzheimer's now is breaking down into an inflammatory disease,
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not just the plaques that we develop.
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So when we look at inflammation in a cat's body, where does this
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come from? Because people say, well, you
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know, my cat's not, you know, there's, I don't know what could
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be causing inflammation. Well, the first number one piece
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is their food. So I talk about get them off
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kibble. Please get them off kibble.
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Kibble is a doubly processed product feel it's heated at very
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high levels causing something called advanced glycolation end
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products or AG ES Mallard reaction and then it's then it's
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extruded in another processing. So I, I, I used a little slide
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in my talk that we eat about about 59% of our diet is
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processed. Our cats are at 84% and the
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reason is just that that kibble is so processed that they're,
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you know, they're like eating a McDonald's hamburger every day.
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We all know where that could get us.
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So I, I asked my cat owners immediately get them off the
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kibble, OK? Also avoid, avoid the
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inflammatory things that I, I, I dictate which are rice, white
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potato, soy, corn or wheat. We really want to watch those
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things in their diet. OK, well, when people say, well,
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if I get them off the kipple, what do I do?
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Well, the food art hierarchy, and we've talked about this.
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Karen Becker's book is wonderful for this.
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Even though it's written for dogs, it's very applicable.
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And the fact that threshold food is #1 the problem with threshold
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food for our cat people is as a veterinarian of 43 years, I
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would have a very hard time balancing my cat's diet because
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every day you pick a different protein, there's different
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amounts of calcium, there's different amounts of vitamin D.
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It's just not feasible to do that really very well, quite
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honestly. Then down from that are lightly
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cooked foods. There really aren't a lot of
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lightly cooked foods for cats. I mean, they're coming, but, you
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know, so it's also very expensive, you know, so for
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people who have multiple cats like you and me, it can get
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really pricey. So my next step down is whole
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raw food. OK, Now in Tucson and in Vegas,
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we have a problem because, you know, it gets to 105 here.
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So you send me a frozen product. It ain't going to be frozen.
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I don't care how many ice packs you use, by the time I get to
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it, it's going to be mush. OK, And this is a problem
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because it breaks down. We worry about things like
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salmonella and that in raw food. I'm a huge fan of freeze dried
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products. I love freeze dried products
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because for our cats it's and veggies.
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It's none of the simple carbs that we talked about.
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They get their carbs from the veggies and you add a copious
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amounts of warm water to hydrate it.
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Well, that's so great for our cats because you all know, as I
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do, the more we can get our cats drinking, the better off we are.
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And here's a place where we can add tons of water.
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My pets love their food. You know, I put a thin liner of
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freeze dried on the bottom. I add twice the amount of hot
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water or warm water to it. I let it sit for a while.
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They go nuts. So my cats, Batman and Flash,
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are both Devin Rexes and Batman is showing his age a little bit.
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He's got a little punch, but he's doing great.
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But that freeze dried product is a great way to go.
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There are also now air dried products that are coming that
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look impressive. We just have to be careful.
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And I tell people, you know, the most important thing is be a
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label reader. You know, look at the label on
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the back because so many of our cat people come to me and they
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go and I've had, you know, these are all professionals and some
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of them were with Doctor Weil here at the Integrative Medical
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Center. And you know, they're looking at
9:57
their food everyday of themselves and they're not
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looking at their cat's food. And that's an easy, easy fix.
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Does that make sense? Yeah, totally, totally.
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Yeah, so so you know, you know the freeze dried products great.
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The air dried products are great.
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Obviously I am really big on supplements.
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You guys are great on supplements.
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I love my cats to take some omega-3 every day.
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I try to avoid pure fish oil because fish oil is 3/6 and 9
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omegas and nines can be inflammatory for our cats.
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So we've got be careful with that.
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Yeah, the ratio of when it comes to Omega threezer is, is very
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important. But also when it comes to fish
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oil, what we find is that, you know, the majority of the fish
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oils are hopefully in, you know, a glass container because you
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want it to be in a glass container.
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But the exposure to oxygen, as soon as it's exposed to oxygen,
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it just starts to breakdown, degrade, right, even go rancid
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and over time. And so you really have to keep
10:58
it in the fridge and you have to use it within a 30 day period in
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order to get the value of what you're trying to give your cat.
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So that can often be hard, especially if you only have one
11:08
cat and people are selling it, you know, selling the fish oils
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in, in large containers. We made that mistake actually.
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That's. How we, we've all done that.
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And sometimes I even try to point people to caplets, you
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know, because they're individual packets of fish oil.
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You know, anytime you open the bottle, just like you, you said
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every time you open the bottle or you pump it, you suck oxygen.
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And even though it doesn't go rancid to you and I, the body
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recognizes that and it has to form what's called free radicals
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to scavenger that oil. We don't have cats to work any
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harder than they need to. We want them to get the product.
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So that's, it's a great point. Great point.
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Of our favorites, yeah, that's that's our favorites.
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Oh my gosh, we can go on forever.
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So, but I just want to, I just want to say going back to your
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freeze dried, I think that is, that's awesome because
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especially for, for cat parents, I know it can be kind of, you
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know, expensive to get to get freeze dried, But as far as
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convenience and quality, we're, you know, we're really hitting
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the, the mark there. And I think that's a great
12:14
place. We try to lead a lot of cat
12:16
parents to freeze dried when they're not ready to go raw,
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they're not ready to go, you know, fresh or they're having
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trouble getting their cats to eat any other type of food,
12:26
right. Freeze dried is a is a great
12:28
alternative. I love that you started with the
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enormous amount of options that we now have for our cats, the
12:33
different types of food, right? And I think that we can all kind
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of evaluate which one will work best for our particular
12:40
situation and budget, all of that.
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Can you speak a little bit to just why this is so important
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specifically for cats? And also, you know, we talked
12:50
about being label readers. I'm doing a shotgun question
12:52
here. Should never do so you're good.
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Can you talk a little bit too about?
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Drinking wine like we are. I just.
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I'm, I'm still on coffee even though I'm it's you know what?
13:02
6 o'clock 630 here so. I would not be sleeping tonight
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if I was still on coffee. I haven't even left.
13:08
Work yet guys, I'm still I'm still in my work outfit here so.
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Wow, you were. Thank you so much for doing
13:15
this. You.
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Know this is such a joy honestly I I love doing this so yeah so I
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I didn't understand so we speak to tell me what you want me to
13:25
speak to because I didn't quite. I never quite got the question
13:28
now. I thought sorry.
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I was just rambling. I so all the different types of
13:32
food that are available, but why is that so specifically
13:34
important for our cats? You know, even like differences
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between yeah, yeah. For their the differences
13:41
between a cat's diet, even between like dogs and humans,
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why it's so important and talking about being a label
13:48
reader, understanding the difference between meeting AFCO
13:51
standards versus what is actually bioavailable.
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For our cats, yes. Well, God, that's a great
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question. That's a great question.
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Finally got it. It is really important because,
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you know, cats are obligate carnivores.
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You know, they need protein. And, you know, we know in a lot
14:09
of diseases, especially as we start seeing our cats and dogs
14:13
age, they're not getting enough protein.
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They're just not. And also it becomes harder to
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absorb that protein. So many times in my older cats,
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I'll use a little bit of Prozyme, A digestive enzyme to
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help break that down prior to them eating their main meal.
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But the freeze dried just, you know, as we mentioned, is, is so
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convenient and you know, you're traveling, you got your cats
14:36
with you, you got freeze dried in a bag, You just add hot
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water. I mean, so and I find that if
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you slowly add it to their kibble, you can easily
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transition them over. And you want to do that slowly,
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honestly, because we don't want to give our cat system upset.
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You know, one of the things we're going to talk about next
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is microbiome. And many of our animals are not
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balanced. And so you start and, and people
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say, oh, you know, I tried a different food, my cat, and
15:03
immediately she got sick. Well, the reason is it's really
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not the food. It's really the cat's body and
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how it's able to process that food.
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This is critically important for all of our cat parents to
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understand. Well.
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And then when you mention AFCO standards, they are so minimal.
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You know, if you went by AFCO standards, you're just never
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getting enough, but that's all there is to it.
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We know we can do so much better with that.
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And so, and then I think we, I mentioned that it's balanced.
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You know, one of the things that I see when I do a lot of cat
15:36
allergy testing with I use a company called VDI Labs, which
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is really cool because they do at IGE both environmental and
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food allergy. I find that and they do vitamin
15:47
D levels. Many, many, many of our cats are
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low vitamin D and it's a very simple supplement to add back.
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I use RX vitamins, they're D3. There's also D3.
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I don't know if you guys have AD product, but you know, it's,
16:02
it's an easy add back and but when we but we got to know and
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that test shows it. So for all those reasons, I
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never, I don't even go by AFCO anymore because that's just
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worthless, you know, but I do look at what the cat is doing.
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You know, my big thing is where's the weight going?
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How are they performing, you know, up in their mobility?
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You know, what are we seeing with all this?
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And, and obviously that speaks, you know, a fortune about, you
16:28
know, how they're doing on their food, if that makes sense.
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Yeah. Absolutely.
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And I think it's too from a veterinarian's perspective, you
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know, like I weigh our cats every month just to keep an eye
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on their weight, mainly because I don't want them getting too
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chunky, you know what I'm saying?
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But for, for people that are noticing weight loss, I mean,
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just speak to the importance of, you know, when a cat starts
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losing weight, What do you see as the main reasons for that?
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And what, what do you consider? You know, I often feel that if
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people say, well, my cat's losing a lot of weight, then
16:59
it's more than just a few oz. What what are some of the main
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causes of that and how can you know good food help that but
17:09
that kind of situation? But again, another great
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question. I'm going to keep on saying that
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because I know that that's what's going to be from you
17:15
guys. But you know, weight loss in
17:17
cats is very subtle. You know, we talked about how
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even in osteoarthritis in cats, 60% of our cats could have
17:26
osteoarthritis by the time they're sick and we may not even
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know it. You know, it's subtle.
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You know, they're not jumping quite as high, they're not
17:33
getting up on the bed like they used, They're not whatever.
17:36
But the weight loss thing is can be very subtle.
17:39
And there are three major, well, there, there are a number of
17:41
rage reasons, but the three big ones I see in my practice is
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hyperthyroidism. So the thyroid gland has a
17:49
functional tumor in it. It's producing too much thyroid
17:52
for our cats and it'll cause their metabolism to be really
17:55
souped up and everything they eat, they burn up, you know, so
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they're eating tons of food, but they're still losing weight.
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OK, so we test for that. That's a simple test.
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The second is kidney disease, You know, chronic kidney disease
18:07
comes on slowly and I love the fact that we now have what's
18:11
called SDMA, which is an early enzyme to tell us about this
18:15
weight loss, you know, so it is something that we can, we can
18:20
start to diagnose early. And I've got fixes for that, you
18:24
know, it's and it's not medicine, you know.
18:26
And then the third really big 'cause that I'm seeing is small
18:31
bowel lymphoma. This is the most disconcerting
18:34
disease for me because we never used to see this and now all of
18:38
a sudden we're seeing tons of cats with it.
18:41
What small bowel lymphoma is is they get the cells that are
18:45
lining the small intestine become cancerous.
18:49
They get swollen, they don't absorb their food normally.
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So a cat could still be eating a lot and sometimes they don't
18:55
with this, but they're losing weight.
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Also, you know, you could easily see vomiting, you could easily
19:01
see diarrhea. That's persistent.
19:03
And you know, people try things like metronidazole, which is a
19:06
word I never mentioned on my show is because I hate that
19:08
drug. But you know, these are things
19:11
that we see. But those are the three biggies.
19:13
You know, obviously we see heart disease, we see dental disease.
19:17
There are other things that can cause caused some of that, but
19:19
the big three were those three actually.
19:21
Let me ask you this real quick about small about lymphoma
19:24
because we're seeing more and more of this lately too.
19:27
And it always seems to be hand in hand with IBD or IBS or
19:31
there's they come to us and they say my cat has IBD and the small
19:35
bowel lymphoma SBL. What, what, what tests are there
19:40
tests that you run to, to confirm that diagnosis?
19:44
Because we also see a lot of, you know, we, we've
19:47
unfortunately we get a lot of people that come to us, you
19:49
know, after they're just discouraged by their
19:51
veterinarians and they, they tell us that, you know, well,
19:54
they didn't do, they didn't run any tests.
19:56
They just said my cat has cancer, right?
19:57
Like, and we all the time in different ways.
19:59
And so they're. Yeah, So what?
20:01
Can we ask for? Ask cat parents, what can we ask
20:05
for if that isn't? If they're just suggesting that
20:08
it's it's small bowel lymphoma and not testing for it.
20:12
So there's definitely a continuum with this disease.
20:16
And cats, you mentioned small IBD or IBS, when they have
20:21
inflammatory bowel disease, that's obviously a tremendous
20:24
amount of inflammation in the bowel.
20:27
I do my best to find out where that's coming from.
20:30
So, you know, often we, I talked about that VDI allergy test that
20:34
I'll do sometimes if people can't afford it, I'll do Gene
20:38
Dodges Nutri scan test, which is a food sensitivity test.
20:42
Now that doesn't give me the environmental allergens and it
20:44
doesn't give me all the foods, but it's a help, OK.
20:47
The other piece with that is animal Biome, which we're going
20:51
to talk about by checking the Biome, the good and bad
20:54
bacteria. So those are things.
20:56
But you know, it's interesting what happened with this.
20:59
So you constantly, constantly have inflammation.
21:01
Inflammation. Well, at some point the body is
21:03
going to say, OK, I've had it and now we get this cancer
21:07
forming and that's what ends up happening.
21:09
Your question about testing is really important because I was
21:14
trained to do endoscopy. So endoscopy is using a fiber
21:18
optic tool going down a sedated cat's throat into their bowel,
21:23
getting some pieces and you can diagnose IBS, IBD or small bowel
21:28
lymphoma with that. Also you can do sometimes you
21:31
can do X-rays or radiographs and see the bowel swollen.
21:35
But things have really gone further than that.
21:37
Now we have ultrasound, which many, many times can also
21:41
indicate the bowel wall thickness is too thick.
21:44
It's not a diagnostic, but even better.
21:47
And I can't tell you I haven't done an endoscopy or an X-ray on
21:50
a cat for this in years. And why is that?
21:54
Again, VDI Labs has developed a blood test or small bowel
21:59
lymphoma and it is spot on. I mean it comes back guys and it
22:04
tells us okay, you have IBS, IBD, small bowel lymphoma and it
22:11
can talk about the pancreas and the role of that.
22:13
Is there pancreatitis involved where the vitamin D levels are
22:17
like we talked about? But it is so wonderful because a
22:20
little bit of blood and in like basically no time and the time
22:25
it takes to get to the lab and back to me, we know we have a
22:27
diagnosis. Wow, and there and that's so non
22:30
invasive for the cat too and probably a lot less expensive
22:33
than an endoscopy for sure, right.
22:36
So that's. Is that something that you think
22:39
most vets are fluent in, or is this something that a cat parent
22:41
would need to ask their vet to run this test through this lab?
22:46
Yeah, I think they would have to ask honestly and.
22:50
VDI. Write that down if you're.
22:53
La-bs.com. Oh, perfect.
22:56
And the test that they would ask for is in a.
22:59
Specific to that diagnosis, yeah.
23:02
Or just ask they would ask their vet for it, yeah.
23:04
It's, it's no, that's a perfect good question.
23:06
It's it's called advanced. I believe it's the advanced
23:08
cancer diagnostic test. But you know, it also like the
23:13
nice thing is, is that it'll come back and say, no, you don't
23:16
have small battle lymphoma, but you have IBS and you have
23:19
pancreatitis or no, you don't have this.
23:22
You have small intestinal bacterial overgrowth and you
23:25
have low vitamin D levels. So we really have a lot of
23:28
information from that test in one blood test that is very
23:32
simple to do it as you said, totally non invasive, you know,
23:35
other than drawing a little bit of blood and our cats do great
23:37
for that. Yeah, they do much better than
23:40
an endoscopy. Kind of a piggyback question on
23:43
this small, small bowl lymphoma because it is and we're talking
23:47
about cat nutrition. Do you, do you have a hypothesis
23:51
on why there's such growth in this unfortunate area and do you
23:57
see? It doesn't pertain to nutrition.
23:59
Yeah. Or do you think it might be, you
24:01
know, we live in a toxic world and and maybe it's, you know,
24:04
things that we're bringing into our home.
24:06
What? Do you have an idea?
24:09
Well, I do, you know, I have a couple ideas.
24:12
You know, I try to think about what has changed in our cat
24:15
world when I since I started, you know, that was before the
24:18
light bulb, you know, and what, you know where we at now.
24:21
And one of my thoughts initially was the tin cans that our cat
24:27
food came in. We don't know how much of that
24:31
10 I mean, obviously it's toxic, OK, We don't know how much of
24:34
that leached into the food. OK, So I often thought and I've
24:38
never seen this written anywhere or studied for that matter.
24:41
So I don't know. I'm just telling you it's my I
24:44
look for things that what that what could change.
24:46
Do you know? I also think our kibbles, you
24:50
know, our kibbles are huge in this because not only did we
24:54
talk about the, you know, the, the ultra processing, but
24:58
there's a huge amount of glyphosphate, a roundup in our
25:01
kibble. You know, they're doing biopsies
25:04
on cats in, in veterinary schools looking at their livers
25:09
and you know, just in case they're doing a biopsy.
25:11
I mean, I'm sorry, a post mortem on a cat.
25:14
Just try to figure out what happened and they're taking some
25:17
of the liver and they're testing it.
25:18
They're finding 30 times the amount of glyphosphate or
25:22
roundup in our cats and dogs liver.
25:25
So you know, where's that coming from?
25:28
Well, the dog often, you know, they go out and walk on the
25:30
grass, they lift their paws. But in cats we think it's coming
25:34
from their food. You know these are all grain
25:36
based diets. And.
25:38
That's what we use insecticides like.
25:40
It's going to town anymore in the United States.
25:43
Yes, and even even the grain free diets, right, like they're
25:47
replacing it still with products that are still treated with
25:51
glyphosate, like still with these.
25:54
Yeah, it's I, I, I truly believe not, not to mention, even if
25:58
even say it wasn't the, the amount of, you know, the amount
26:02
of carbohydrates that cats actually need in their diet
26:06
versus how much they're getting in these kibbles.
26:09
And then you think about what carbohydrate like exactly what
26:12
you said inflammation, right? What carbohydrates do, even our
26:15
doctors will tell us that you need to cut back on your
26:17
carbohydrates If you know, if, if we're super inflamed and you
26:21
know, or in dealing with inflammatory issues, the diet
26:26
helps us and the diet will help our cats too, when it comes to
26:29
that. But I do want to say this and
26:31
I'll have to find the study 'cause I had it printed out for
26:33
a while. But there is a study on the tin
26:37
cans and the lids. It's not with, it's not with
26:42
inflammatory bowel or cancer or anything like that, but it is
26:45
with hyperthyroidism. So I'll have to find that
26:49
because we, we did, we spoke about that a few years ago.
26:51
There was a, the study that was on the 10 cans, even if it was
26:55
BPA free, we were, they were showing it's that the, the, the
26:59
adhesive on the lid was directly, directly related to an
27:05
increase in hyperthyroidism in cats.
27:07
Isn't that interesting? OK.
27:10
There's one, there's one other thing I want to mention about
27:13
the theory is over vaccination. I really, really believe that,
27:19
you know, because we've been doing titers on vaccines here
27:24
since they were available. We send our blood to Kansas
27:28
State University. They do an amazing rabies titer.
27:32
They do an amazing upper respiratory three-way titer.
27:35
And we, you know, honest to God, I can tell you that since I've
27:39
been doing that and it's been so long that I've been doing it,
27:42
that we've actually seen cats that get their first kitten
27:45
shots. And at one year we start doing
27:48
titers. And by the time they're 16,
27:51
they're still protected. It's I'm not talking about 3-4,
27:56
five years, they're still protected.
27:59
So it, it's to me, if that's amazing, you know, and if that's
28:03
the case, we're putting vaccine on top of vaccine on top of
28:07
vaccine. The body only has so much immune
28:10
system to where it's going to overreact.
28:13
And what does overreaction look like?
28:15
Cancer a lot of times. So.
28:17
Yeah. I'm glad you, I'm glad you said
28:19
that because we, you know, we say that all the time.
28:21
Like often times a vaccine 1 vaccine can ask last your cat
28:25
for a lifetime, but they but you know, hearing it from a a
28:28
veterinarian, a practicing veterinarian at that is just
28:31
like absolutely thank you. And they really?
28:33
Didn't make tigers far more mainstream since we're talking
28:36
about vaccines for just one second.
28:37
And you said you see a lot of cats that will get their kitten
28:40
vaccines. There was a question here, I
28:42
think from Kim, that said what vaccines do you recommend for
28:45
kittens? That are in there.
28:47
Indoor only. Yeah, that's a great question.
28:51
And I struggle with this all the time.
28:53
So I'm going to tell him that not only is it uncertain for a
28:56
lot of our pet parents, it's uncertain for some of the
28:58
veterinarians. You know, so I do, I do do a
29:03
couple of the upper respiratory vaccines separated, you know,
29:07
3-3 weeks apart. I do recommend FELV and the
29:13
reason why I recommend FELV is because we have so many, our
29:17
cats can't go outside in Tucson because there are so many
29:21
predators. They're going to get eaten no
29:22
matter what. I mean, we have Hawks, eagles,
29:25
coyotes, Bobcats, mountain lions, dogs, you know, so
29:29
they're, it's just not safe. But people keep their windows
29:33
open and, you know, if you have an outdoor cat that's basically
29:37
feral, that cat could be an FELV positive cat very easily if it
29:42
sneezes or, you know, kind of spreads saliva through that
29:46
screen, which is not very unpour.
29:49
I mean, it's pretty porous. Your cat's going to be exposed.
29:52
So I do do early FELV vaccines, but I and, and in Arizona, we
29:59
also have a big problem with rabies.
30:01
So, you know, I do do usually one rabies shot when they're
30:06
really young. It's got to be after 16 weeks
30:11
and then they tighter out from there just fine.
30:13
Now people can argue with that. I mean, there's a lot of people
30:16
would say that's overkill or that's too much.
30:19
I don't think so. Honestly.
30:20
I think it's enough to get them protection, but not too much to
30:23
cause them huge problems. And I separate them out.
30:26
I never, ever give a, you know, upper respiratory vaccine and
30:31
rabies at the same time ever, because that is really asking
30:35
for problems. Yeah, I love that you said that
30:38
because I mean just spreading them out.
30:39
It's it's just such advice. And if they're that, you know,
30:42
we can just. And I would encourage, you know,
30:45
for, for, for us as humans too, I would, I would encourage that,
30:48
you know, like if you're gonna get your, you know, I, we don't
30:51
get any vaccines. But if, you know, if you're
30:54
somebody that likes to get their yearly flu vaccine and their,
30:58
that now their yearly COVID vaccine or whatever that is, you
31:00
know, maybe spread that out. I know that many people are
31:03
saying give it all to you at once.
31:05
And you're I'm like, no, why would you do?
31:07
That. But especially for our cats that
31:10
are this small, right? Like they're tiny little beings
31:13
and their bodies can't handle it even as much as as we can as as
31:18
humans. I have one more question before
31:20
we move on to the the next. And I think I have a segue into
31:23
that just because we have a comment here that is asking
31:26
about kidney disease. So, yeah.
31:29
So Diane, Diane has a cat that was diagnosed, was just
31:33
diagnosed with stage 2 kidney disease.
31:36
And and so since we're talking about nutrition, she's asking
31:39
about the prescription food, which she says she doesn't want
31:42
to give. Could you speak to the
31:44
prescription diets for many of these?
31:46
There's like a prescription diet for almost everything these days
31:48
with our cat and. She's also giving IV fluids
31:51
under the skin every three days as well, so.
31:53
Yeah. Sub Q fluids.
31:54
Yeah, yeah. So, so that's a great question.
31:57
Tell her that that's a great question.
31:59
So you know, The thing is, is that I I don't use any of those
32:04
prescription diets. The reason why I don't use the
32:07
prescription diets is read the label, the first ingredient on
32:11
most of them is corn, OK? There isn't a cat that's going
32:14
to go out into a cornfield and eat corn, OK?
32:17
It's inflammatory. Some of them are wheat based,
32:21
some you know. So I don't use them because I
32:24
find that they're very inflammatory and I think kidney
32:27
disease has tremendous amounts to do with inflammation in their
32:30
body, OK. So what I do is quite the
32:33
opposite. I actually feed them the same
32:37
thing. We're talking about these high
32:39
protein diets which everybody says, oh, you can't use protein
32:42
in a chronic renal failure cat. Well, towards the end stages,
32:45
maybe not, but I use a product called porous one or Azidil,
32:51
which is a probiotic that binds nitrogen.
32:55
So creatinine B when SDMA are all nitrogen breakdown products.
33:03
So you can, you can give them protein, but buying the nitrogen
33:08
and safely use a higher protein diet because it's not going to
33:12
affect them if they weren't getting Azidil or porous 1.
33:16
Porous 1 is really easy. You know, open a little packet
33:18
and put it in there. Azidil is a capsule.
33:20
You have to put it in there too. I also use a product called
33:24
Amino Vast and amino baths is a natural product that actually
33:29
increases blood flow to the kidney that it's called GFR
33:32
glomerulo filter filtrate. Well, I could say that
33:34
filtration rate and it does it naturally.
33:38
So I open the capsule, put that in, and then the third thing I
33:41
do is I because those diets you're talking about are really
33:46
low in phosphorus because phosphorus is a real problem as
33:49
the disease gets going. Phosphorus causes the stomach to
33:53
have hyper acidity for them not to eat for, you know, a lot of
33:56
different problems with hyperphosphatemia.
33:59
I use a product called Naraquin, which finds the phosphorus
34:03
naturally. So I know it sounds like a lot,
34:06
but my kidney cats do great. I just did this talk for 1000
34:12
Japanese veterinarians on this very topic.
34:15
And you know, they were kind of blown away because, you know,
34:18
honestly, we're taught, you know, you use the prescription
34:22
diets, that's the way you go. And then eventually you're going
34:24
to need to do, you know, enalapril, a medicine and ACE,
34:28
ACE inhibitor or whatever, you know, so I've had tremendous
34:32
success doing that program and you know, and my cats have done
34:37
extremely well. Now I will tell you that I
34:40
monitor them every six months. I will do lab work and that
34:43
includes A urinalysis. I see so many profiles I'm
34:48
getting from other veterinarians.
34:50
They never got any urine from the cat.
34:52
And, you know, you got to look at the urine because the urine
34:54
shows how much protein they're exuding and where their specific
34:58
gravity or their concentration is.
35:00
And some of these cats, you know, obviously get urinary
35:03
tract infections and stuff like that, which can really hurt
35:05
their kidney. So every six months I'll do that
35:09
senior profile it's called, which really looks at these
35:12
things and we monitor them because what we're looking for
35:15
is not so much just the increase, but the trend.
35:19
You know, people don't understand this about lab work
35:21
and cats. You know, your cat can come to
35:24
me. And every year I do lab work,
35:26
which I really like to do because I really check, I also
35:29
check a heart enzyme called Pro BNP, which is really the
35:33
beginning diagnosis of cardiomyopathy or hypertrophic
35:37
cardiomyopathy in our cats. And if you're, let's say your,
35:41
your kidney numbers are like your creatinines, one and one.
35:45
And then the next year it's 1.5 and then the next year it's 1.8.
35:49
I'm going to start to worry about that because it's creeping
35:52
up. It's not what you're, they have
35:54
been normally. Why is that happening?
35:56
And I look for a reason, obviously.
35:58
Yeah, yeah, I love that. You know, we, we recently had
36:02
doctor Katie Kangas on the podcast and talking about
36:04
specifically just talking about kidney disease.
36:06
And she was telling us about a a more recent study that was out
36:11
talking about reducing the protein in our first of all,
36:16
there's, there's senior cat diets now that you can just get
36:19
on the shelf, you don't have to get from your veterinarian that
36:21
are already reducing the protein and they're being recommended at
36:25
7 years of age. And that just, it just makes me
36:28
want to yeah, it blows my mind. But right.
36:33
But there's but she was saying that the specific study showed
36:36
that stage 1 and stage 2 does not need reduced protein.
36:39
That that, that even stage 3, the only reason that they would
36:43
on in stage 3 kidney disease reduce the protein is so that
36:46
the cat will will enjoy the food a little bit better as they're
36:50
progressing to stage 4 where we do want to reduce the protein.
36:55
So so I'll have to find that study too.
36:57
I think she sent it to me right afterwards.
36:58
So I'll have to find that study. We can geek out about that
37:01
stuff. But but let's let's also talk
37:04
about see, we were talking about the amount of different types of
37:08
food that we that now is available to cats and so many of
37:12
them, you know, are good, good for our cats.
37:16
What you know, what do you think about diversifying diet?
37:19
How important do you think that the diversification of diet is
37:24
for our cats, which will probably lead us into
37:26
microbiome? And what does that
37:27
diversification look like to you?
37:29
Yeah. Well, I think most people like
37:31
to think about rotating the protein that they're feeding
37:34
their cats. That's often where they go.
37:37
And you know, the biggest thing about cats that have kidney
37:42
disease especially, or some of these other things is I find
37:46
that they like something for two or three days and then they
37:48
don't like it at all. And I, this is something I hear
37:51
from my, my cat parents all the time.
37:53
So I do tell them, you know, if they're eating rabbit, which is
37:57
a cooling meat, go to Turkey or go to beef again, you know, I
38:04
kind of rule out that they don't have any sensitivity or allergy
38:06
to it, you know, by doing the other things we talked about.
38:09
But I think it's a really important thing.
38:12
I think rotating that, you know, they get tired.
38:14
You know, if you ate the same thing every single night, you
38:17
might you probably get tired too.
38:19
Now, some cats are great that way, but I do find that once
38:22
they start getting sick, they definitely are picky about
38:25
stuff, you know, so they'll like I said, they'll like something
38:28
for two or three days and then they won't like it.
38:30
It can drive cat parents nuts. It drives veterinarians nuts
38:33
because then they asked like, well, what do I do?
38:35
And I go, well, try a different protein, but I mentioned
38:39
cooling, you know, rabbit. So one of the principles I also
38:42
want to teach our people is that in Chinese medicine, there are
38:46
three meats that I avoid in cats early on in these diseases,
38:50
especially in allergy, GI disease, kidney disease, is they
38:55
have indicated the Chinese have looked at food and nuts for
38:57
thousands of years. They, they really didn't look at
38:59
cats, obviously, but we've extrapolated this over and the
39:04
three meats are stay away from if they have any inflammatory
39:07
type disease is lamb, venison and chicken.
39:11
And chicken's a big one because a lot of cats love chicken.
39:14
So I tell them use Turkey and they like it just as well and
39:18
it's just as cheap, you know, But stay away from those meats
39:22
in that situation with the inflammatory disease because
39:25
they're called hot meats, so they create heat in their body.
39:29
Oh wow, what about fish? Fish is great, Fish is great.
39:33
I mean, you know, people worry about.
39:35
I had a lady that, you know, obviously we never want to do
39:38
just tuna because tuna doesn't have enough taurine in it and
39:41
can give our cats eye disease, ocular disease, you know, they
39:46
can get real bad, retinal degeneration and whatnot.
39:49
So you got to be careful. But I'm the lady that was
39:51
intermittently, I love this, the cat tail on your face, buddy.
39:56
I was, I had a lady that was feeding a lot of tuna, not all
39:58
the time, but definitely her cat loved it and she was so worried
40:02
about mercury. So we actually did a VDI mercury
40:05
test on that cat, not even a trace.
40:09
So I was so thrilled. That was one of the first ones I
40:11
had done. And with all of this tuna that
40:14
she was feeding and now don't get me wrong, she's looking for
40:16
ethically sourced tuna, you know, basically the best she can
40:19
get, but it still has mercury in it, nothing.
40:23
So I was thrilled with that, quite honestly.
40:26
That is, I mean, that is the first thing I've heard and and I
40:29
do think thank you for mentioning the sourcing of it
40:31
because they have found in different fish just incredible
40:35
differences in in how tuna is sourced.
40:38
But I that is. That is, yeah, because we're
40:41
always like, well, tuna, you know, we, we always say tuna,
40:44
use tuna as like a high value treat, right?
40:46
Like the tuna water to get your cat to eat a new food or take a
40:51
supplement or something like that, you know, a little bit,
40:53
you know, like we always say, use sardine.
40:55
Smaller fish are better because the, the small fish are going to
40:58
have less heavy metals in them than the larger fit.
41:02
The same with salmon, right. We say, you know, just in
41:04
moderation, whatever, whatever we're feeding in moderation.
41:07
So that's really that's, that's very interesting to, to learn to
41:10
know. Awesome.
41:13
OK, So going back to diverse diversification of diet.
41:16
So we saw, I don't, I'm sure it was a study 'cause I think it
41:19
was Rodney that, that we learned this from a few years back.
41:24
But they were talking about diversifying diets in, in all
41:29
pets, but, but not just like diversifying proteins, but also
41:33
diversifying brands diverse, you know, like feeding different
41:37
types and different, you know, so it's not all being sourced
41:40
from the same place. And that, yeah, it was a study
41:43
and how the study, I think it was an animal Biome study.
41:46
Actually, I think it was an animal Biome study that was
41:48
showing that the microbiome of of dogs and cats that are eating
41:53
a more diverse diet was much stronger.
41:57
Could you explain a little bit about like for, for, you know,
42:00
the one O 1 are here that doesn't even know what
42:01
microbiome is because many of us don't and it's kind of a new
42:04
word in, in the, you know, general population.
42:08
Between nutrition and microbiome, yeah.
42:11
Right. Yeah, No, that's a that's a
42:13
great question. So, you know, part of that C is
42:15
microbiome and the reason why I make it part of the complete
42:19
nutrition is that we've, we've, I've learned and we've learned
42:24
that those of us that have been working with animal Biome, the
42:27
company that I really love looking at cat poop, that you
42:32
know, it, it can be so messed up.
42:35
It can be so out of whack. And so guys, microbiome is all
42:40
of the good and bad bacteria and yeast that are in your body that
42:44
create all kinds of issues. I tell people that years ago
42:48
there may have been like 100 papers a year written in the
42:50
human literature on microbiome. Last year there were 70,000
42:54
papers written. I even saw a commercial the
42:57
other day on TV that was talking about a vitamin that helped your
43:00
microbiome, which which is BS by the way.
43:02
But no, you know, I've looked at this for a long time because if
43:08
we want to balance our cat's body, that is so important.
43:13
And getting a little poop and sending it to Adam Biome.
43:15
And they do a DNA test on the whole thing and they tell us
43:19
what's in there, what's out of whack.
43:21
You know, I have for a great example, I had a cat with
43:24
chronic, chronic skin disease. No one could figure it out.
43:28
We did the VDI test. We found out what it was
43:30
sensitive to, what it was allergic to.
43:33
They even had mold in their house.
43:35
And the reason I knew that was the test came back sensitive to
43:37
mold, you know, and I said, get somebody out and look at your
43:40
house because there's mold there.
43:41
You got to find it, you know, and we're talking about Tucson.
43:44
You know, it's like Vegas, It's the driest place in the world,
43:46
you know, but by doing that microbiome test, you know,
43:51
basically after we do the sensitivity test, I find out
43:57
what's going on. That pad had huge amount of
43:59
Streptococcus in its stool. Streptococcus causes tremendous
44:03
amount of hotspots, lick sores, allergy, skin allergies and
44:07
whatnot. And how we do how we balance
44:10
that is just give them good poop.
44:12
It's called fecal microbiome transfer, and that solves the
44:15
problem of what's called dysbiosis or leaky gut syndrome
44:20
by balancing that cat's body. Now the animal Biome has
44:24
capsules, which not always the easiest to do in a cat because
44:27
you're not going to be able to open them up and give them to
44:29
the cat. So we do direct FMT transfer.
44:33
We actually use a freeze dried product to give it to them
44:36
through a red rubber catheter as an enema.
44:39
They don't even get sedate. I don't have to sedate them to
44:41
do this. It's really a non.
44:44
It's just not a problem. People like, oh, you know, I
44:46
don't want my cat to have that. It's actually really simple, you
44:49
know? But we then repeat the Biome in
44:53
three months to see what we've done, maybe adding their
44:56
espilarity, which is their beneficial yeast or the
44:59
digestive enzymes we talked about.
45:01
Or a lot of times that test will come back and says your cat
45:04
needs more protein or your cat needs more fiber.
45:07
And we do those things, balance the vitamin D level, and boom,
45:11
all of a sudden we get Wellness. I mean, these cats are so much
45:14
better because now we balance their body.
45:17
They're not absorbing all this stuff into their system they
45:19
shouldn't get. And it works beautifully.
45:22
So I'm a huge proponent of microbiome.
45:26
I wish my my goal before I retire, which I hope it's not
45:29
too soon because I'm ready. I've been going hard here at 71.
45:33
I'm ready and I'm going to keep on going, you know?
45:35
But my goal is someday that that Biome test becomes part of a
45:39
Wellness panel for all of our cats.
45:42
Yes. Honestly, it is one of the
45:44
easiest. I know it can be a little bit
45:47
costly, but the amount of disease and and money, it will
45:51
save you in the long run. Oh my God.
45:53
I mean, I couldn't even tell you, you know?
45:56
And if we could find that out early on, we won't get a lot of
45:59
these other problems down the road.
46:01
Yes. Preach.
46:02
I love that. Yeah.
46:04
Do you do ozone therapy as well? I do, I do so on those
46:08
microbiome cats that we get that are in dysbiosis or out of, out
46:13
of whack. We basically do 2 ozone enema,
46:17
saline enemas an hour apart. And then we because that, that,
46:21
that eliminates the biofilm, which is what's blocking a lot
46:25
of this stuff and taking up in the bowel.
46:27
It eliminates the biofilm and allows the FMT product to work
46:31
so much better. So yes, absolutely.
46:34
I use ozone all the time, you know, and people freak out.
46:37
You mentioned ozone. Have you ever talked about ozone
46:39
on the show before? Yeah, we've had Doctor Margo
46:42
Roman on before, and she was the first one to introduce us to
46:46
ozone there. But if you want to like give a
46:48
little nutshell for anyone who who's never heard of ozone.
46:51
Sure, sure. So ozone is O3, oxygen is O2.
46:56
So what we're doing is we're providing a super oxygenated
46:59
product to our cats that basically does a lot of
47:04
different things. I mean, ozone in general, like
47:06
the, the scary thing is if you look on the, the on the Internet
47:10
and you, you put in ozone, it'll FDA warning will come right up
47:14
and say this is a toxic gas. Well, it's only toxic if we
47:19
breathe it. OK, it's, and it can be bubbled
47:21
in, in olive oil or glycerin and we can give it to our cats and
47:26
it's not going to be toxic. But we use it either as a saline
47:31
enema or, or, or even just ozone enema gas wise.
47:35
We use it under the skin. We use it under tumors because
47:39
cancer hates oxygen and the reason why cancers keep on
47:43
getting bigger and bigger is they wall off the ability for
47:46
oxygen to get in there. It's it's their self-defense
47:48
mechanism to stop. You know, they want to continue
47:52
growing, obviously, but ozone being O3 is, is wonderful.
47:56
I compare it to a lot of times in people.
47:58
They'll use what's called hyperbaric oxygen chambers to
48:01
treat a lot of diseases. Well, that's just super oxygen.
48:05
We can give oxygen that we can give ozone that way.
48:09
And right in your backyard is the father.
48:11
Doctor Frank Schallenberger is in Las Vegas and he is the
48:14
father of ozone therapy in MD's. Amazing man.
48:19
I didn't know to. Take it many of the MD's that
48:21
use Ozon have learned from him. Wow, that's awesome.
48:26
Such a false addition. Yeah.
48:29
So getting back to the FM TS, because I remember the first
48:32
time that I heard about FM TS, I was like, you're kidding me,
48:35
right? Right.
48:37
Kidding me. But there is so much.
48:39
There is so much written now researched.
48:42
Yeah. Because you're taking like when
48:44
you say you basically give the cat poop, right?
48:46
Like that's just kind of like a blanket way of saying that.
48:49
But the we're the FMTS are taken.
48:54
It is the donors. Basically the the poop is coming
48:57
from other cats that have that are super healthy, not over
49:01
vaccinated, not over medicated. You know that they have no
49:06
problem. And obviously they're they're
49:08
pooping. Well, they have a healthy poop.
49:10
And so taking that poop and you're putting it into a cat
49:13
that's not healthy. And as, as I mean, we've
49:17
interviewed a few people about this, but Doctor Margo Roman
49:19
said that she's it's, it's especially doing it the way that
49:22
you do it versus the pills. It's like a one in.
49:25
And she has seen like the reverse soul, like the like IBD
49:29
be reversed completely. And she's also seeing so many
49:33
cats that have their behavioral issues that are that are also
49:39
because of that gut brain access, right?
49:41
Like she's, she's seen like, like cats that they could barely
49:44
touch. They were basically feral that
49:46
you know, you couldn't pet become these like lap cats that
49:50
are super sweet and after they, you know, had to after they went
49:54
through an FMT procedure. So, you know, and shout out
49:58
tomorrow though, because really she's the I don't know if she
50:02
wants me to call her the grandmother, but she is the
50:04
godmother of of all of this for us in veterinary medicine.
50:08
You know, she raises her own animals that are, like you said,
50:11
vaccination free, been fed raw diets.
50:14
I mean, these are really healthy animals and they test, all of
50:17
the companies test their FMT products to make sure they have
50:21
in there what they get. You know, people say, well, how
50:23
do I know it's what it is? Well, we know because these
50:25
companies are really, really strongly, they're ethical and
50:30
they're really wanting to give, you know, if we're going to do
50:32
this and we're, you know, we're going to, you know, count on
50:35
this, really reversing the situation, which like you said,
50:37
it can, it's amazing. But you know, like you said, the
50:40
gut brain connection is amazing. Here at the University of
50:43
Arizona, they're doing a study in humans and I'll just give you
50:47
1 little piece of that. A little girl came in who was
50:50
five years old, who is seizuring every single day on 4 medicines,
50:54
5 years old, four medicines, seizuring every day.
50:58
They did her a microbiome, they did two or three FMTS and some
51:03
animals take more than one, but they did two or three FMTS for
51:06
her. She's seizuring once a month and
51:09
the medicines are all being reduced.
51:11
So that just shows you, you know, the biggest nerve comes
51:14
from our bowel. It goes to our brain and that's
51:17
where that behavioral thing just like you mentioned.
51:19
It's so great. You glad you brought that up
51:21
because it's really huge. Yeah, wow, man, you were like
51:27
you were just you were, you were absolutely amazing.
51:29
And we could seriously talk for forever.
51:32
But I know we're like already like getting getting past time.
51:36
So So is there anything else that we want to that you would
51:40
like to add in that we have missed or that you want to like
51:45
leave with this podcast that, you know, leave cat parents
51:48
thinking, Oh, wait, she has one more question, one more.
51:50
Question. Sure, yeah.
51:52
And then you can do some final thoughts like her.
51:53
Hold on, being with the microbiome is so important in so
51:58
many ways, right? And that nutrition certainly can
52:00
impact it. Do you have like for those of us
52:04
that may feel that, you know, FMTS are out or not an option in
52:09
our area and certainly can't do the capsules because those are
52:12
huge and they have to be capsules that your cat swallows
52:15
that it actually gets into the so you can't just sprinkle poop
52:19
on their food. Do you have one or two tips for
52:24
those of us that really want to help improve the microbiome and
52:27
we're trying to feed good foods? Or are there any other things
52:30
other than, you know, like FMT, just good principles for the
52:34
microbiome? To live well, one of my favorite
52:36
little little tricks is using goat Kiefer.
52:40
People know about Kiefer and you know, they know about cow
52:44
Kiefer. Cow milk is very high in
52:46
lactose. Our cats don't need that, you
52:48
know, but goat milk is not. And goat Kiefer, if it's a good
52:52
product and it's hard to find sometimes that they're not
52:55
really highly processed, they'll give them a lot of probiotics.
52:58
And cats love the way that tastes.
53:00
I even. And the other thing that really
53:02
works well is fermented food. I even have cats that'll eat
53:05
sauerkraut, you know, or kimchi, you know, as long as it's not
53:09
real spicy. Yeah, I know.
53:11
So I mean, and that will give them a lot of probiotics.
53:14
So that's one thing. Second thing, please avoid
53:17
antibiotics unless they're absolutely necessary, because
53:22
every time you do an antibiotic, remember it's killing the bad
53:26
bacteria in the area that you want it to work, but it's also
53:29
killing a lot of the good bacteria in the cat's bowel.
53:33
And I mentioned metronidazole. I shudder, my hair turns Gray
53:38
thinking about metronidazole because every cat that gets
53:41
inflammatory bowel disease, the first thing that they do is get
53:43
put on metronidazole. Metronidazole was created by
53:47
bowel surgeons in human medicine so that if they got into your
53:51
bowel and they leaked, you wouldn't get a sepsis or
53:54
infection in your abdomen because it kills all the
53:56
bacteria. There's some really good papers
53:59
that have come out recently really warning veterinarians
54:02
against the use of this product. Sometimes you do have to do it,
54:06
but I avoid it like the plague. So that's another tip for our
54:10
clients. Try to avoid antibiotics when
54:13
necessary. Yeah.
54:15
And I think the other things we talked about, you know, the good
54:17
food and, and all that, I mean, obviously it all goes hand in
54:20
hand. Yeah, I'll give it a tip, a
54:24
shout out to a company that makes a product called Dia Gel
54:29
DIAGEL and it's called like 1 and done.
54:33
And it, it's a, it's a, a good alternative to metronidazole as
54:37
far as, because the reason they're giving is to stop that
54:39
diarrhea. So we don't want to like
54:40
dehydrate the cat too much, right?
54:42
So we give a metronidazole and it does that.
54:45
But like you said, it does so much more damage.
54:47
And some of the stuff you're showing that like cat, like it's
54:49
irreversible damage under one round of metronidazole, it could
54:53
be irreversible damage that they can be longer, you know that
54:56
they're they're no longer possessed the bacteria to
55:00
process certain things, yes. So even certain proteins.
55:04
So Diagel is another is, is another tip that that I think is
55:10
actually available on Amazon. We tell a lot of people.
55:12
About yes, Aaron was given some recommendations and yes, those
55:16
are some really good brands that she was recommending for foods.
55:19
Also she says I'm sending this link this the episode, this the
55:24
link to this episode to all my local vets.
55:26
Yes, I am so glad and I you're. Gonna, you're gonna.
55:30
Get me in trouble. No, this is so informative.
55:33
It's so empowering too. I think there's something
55:36
certainly about your experience and obviously you just being
55:40
able to articulate in such a way that really helps us better
55:44
digest it, yes. Like.
55:48
No, no, any, any closing thoughts on on the, on the
55:53
nutrition and the microbiome And then can you give us a little
55:56
bit of a teaser on the a the next the.
56:01
Next month. Yeah, so I think I'm so glad
56:04
that we cut. I mean, the questions you asked
56:06
and the questions came from your listeners were so helpful in
56:09
directing us on this conversation about complete
56:12
nutrition. And obviously threshold food is
56:15
really a a great way to go feeding, you know, feeding real
56:18
food is really important. You know, we I had them on my
56:21
podcast once and you know, I love, I love the things that are
56:25
being looked at. You know, it's so nice to see in
56:27
the pet world that the fastest growing nutritional area is all
56:32
of what we're talking about. You know, these, these, these
56:35
freeze dried products, these fresh Whole Foods, these air dry
56:37
products that we now know are so much less toxic for our cats.
56:42
And then, you know, like I said, if you have any question at all,
56:45
get your vet to do an animal Biome test.
56:47
If you if your vet won't do it, you can get online and buy it
56:50
yourself and send in the poop. It's just helpful to have
56:54
somebody directing you because I go over those tests with my
56:57
clients. We talk about all the little
56:59
things that we can do, whether it's FMT or something else.
57:02
So I, I just really encourage our people to do that kind of
57:06
stuff. And the teaser for the next one.
57:09
Which when? When are we doing the next one,
57:10
by the way? In January.
57:12
The next. One, so the next one is going to
57:14
be a for activity and people don't understand how much, how
57:19
important this is in our cats. You know, they're happy to come
57:22
home and be with their cats and sitting on the sofa and petting
57:26
them. But you know, things like
57:28
getting them to move with a laser pointer, mind challenging
57:32
games. These are so important for our
57:35
animals. You know, they get bored, You
57:37
know, your cats get bored. And we don't want that to
57:41
happen. We want them to be moving.
57:42
We want them to get, I mean, I love to encourage fresh air and
57:47
sunshine. So I encourage my cat.
57:49
People get a harness and slowly acclimate them to, you know,
57:53
pulling a little ribbon behind it and then put a leash on it
57:55
and let no tug, you know, just let them, you know, get them
57:58
used to it so you can take them for a walk because they love it.
58:01
You know, we can't, like I said, we can't put our cats outside
58:03
here because they're gone. You know, it's just not going to
58:06
happen. Yeah, I love that you're
58:09
starting the series with with diet and exercise because it's
58:12
just, it really is like two of the most in the two, in my
58:16
opinion, most important aspects of overall health, health span
58:21
for our cats, right. So thank you so much, Doctor
58:24
Randy, thank you so much. For coming.
58:26
And being a part of this and, and agreeing to this whole
58:29
series, even though you're like still in the office, not even,
58:34
not even, yeah, you're working late and doing your thing.
58:38
You're you're just. Your passion is really doing so
58:42
empowering for all of us well. And I and I thank you because
58:45
you guys have reach, you know, and, and the more we can get
58:48
this out there, the better we are.
58:50
And, you know, people can get more information at, you know,
58:52
at Doctor Randy Petvet on Internet, YouTube, my podcasts,
58:58
subscribe, follow me. It helps me get you, you know,
59:01
get involved and get some of your pet parents to come.
59:04
But, you know, thank you for doing what you guys do because,
59:07
you know, without this stuff, a lot of our people don't get this
59:10
information. They just don't.
59:12
And, you know, I laugh because there's a survey done that 90%
59:16
of cat owners want to talk about diet.
59:18
And 5% of the time does that happen in the veterinary office.
59:21
And often it's directed at site at at one of these prescription
59:25
diets. Yep.
59:27
Yeah. That's true, yeah.
59:30
That's I mean, that's our whole goal.
59:31
You know, there a recent the Susan Thixton just released a
59:36
recent study that was over the past year.
59:38
And you and just as you said, you know, the, the, the fresh
59:41
food market is the fastest growing market in the pet food
59:44
industry. But what, what, what is that?
59:47
When she when you looked at it, it was amazing because the
59:50
kibble world and, and the, the dog food, the OR the kibble dry
59:56
food for dogs has gone down and, and it and it is going down as
1:00:00
far as sales is concerned. And the refrigerated foods have
1:00:04
gone up by like 18% over the past year.
1:00:07
That's amazing. That's absolutely amazing.
1:00:08
However, when it comes to cats, the kibble.
1:00:12
Went up by 3%. We're selling more so it there
1:00:15
is there is so much room in this space in the cat world
1:00:18
specifically. We need more voices.
1:00:20
We need more people out here telling the new, especially
1:00:23
people like you, you know, people like veterinarians, like
1:00:26
you saying to the world, to the cat world specifically, like
1:00:29
we've got to do better by our cats so that they're not ending,
1:00:33
you know, in the. But not just the why, but that
1:00:37
it's important also the why it's important as well.
1:00:39
And I, I, we're just so grateful for your brain, for your passion
1:00:46
and for your willingness to, you know, stay up late nights while
1:00:49
you're still. I love talking to you guys.
1:00:52
You know, I'm, I'm sorry, it can't be later and we can't be
1:00:55
together doing this, but we'll, we'll see each other again.
1:00:58
Of course. Thank you for what you do and
1:01:00
I'm happy to to continue the conversation.
1:01:02
And next time we'll talk about activity and all importance of
1:01:06
that and really expand on that whole area, which you know is so
1:01:09
important for our cat people. Thank you, thank you, Doctor
1:01:12
Randy, Thank you for everyone who showed up here live.
1:01:15
And we will see you back next month with Doctor Randy again.
1:01:19
Thank you, Sir. See.
1:01:19
You guys soon.