Dr. Krista Halling

In this engaging conversation, Dr. Cliff Redford reconnects with Dr. Krista Halling, a board-certified surgeon and human-animal bond expert. They discuss Krista's career journey, the importance of outdoor activities for dogs, and how to enhance the human-animal bond through shared experiences. The conversation also covers practical advice on running with dogs, including safety, conditioning, and nutrition, emphasizing the need for awareness of a dog's physical limits and dietary needs. Krista shares insights from her website, dogpacking.com, which aims to provide resources for dog owners looking to engage in outdoor adventures with their pets.

First, if you haven't watched my film and live in Canada (or have one of those VPN things), you can watch it here:

https://youtu.be/oMUx3yuyznc?si=oagpg7bGnpbuyXlJ

Be sure to follow me on Instagram @drcliffworldwidevet.com and on Twitter at @drcliff_vet
Listener questions, episode suggestions, or if you have a good idea for a guest, email me at dr.redford@vet905.com
Additional information can be found at drcliff.ca

Transcript

Dr. Cliff Redford (13:02)

All right, everyone, welcome back to VetLag with Dr. Cliff. We've been messing around, playing around with audio, et cetera, et cetera. I got my good friend, Dr. Krista Holling here. Krista, how you doing?

Krista Halling (13:14)

Great, for having me, Cliff. So good to be in touch again. This is...

Dr. Cliff Redford (13:16)

Woo, I can still hear you. I'm waiting.

I'm like, is there gonna be a weird lag? ⁓ Yeah, let's jump right into this. So I'm gonna give you guys a quick history. Chris is a classmate of mine. We ⁓ jogged together and trained for various races while we were in vet school. And ⁓ I guess we haven't really talked much since 1998. I mean, there's been social media and we might see each other at a conference, but it's probably, it's been at least.

15 years since we've seen each other face to face, which this is still by Zoom, but you're a board certified surgeon and a human animal bond expert and you got this cool dogpacking.com website that I wanna check out. What's been going on the last 27 years?

Krista Halling (14:05)

in 30 seconds or less. The elevator version. Yeah, yeah. Well, so I took the traditional route of specializing after vet school. We kind of parted ways, our own ways. I did a year of internship, three years of a residency program in small animal surgery. That's what I wanted to do. And yeah, I had the luck of being successful through that and going into...

Dr. Cliff Redford (14:07)

That's right.

Krista Halling (14:32)

First, teaching at the University of Guelph surgery for a few years, and then I went into a private referral practice in the Toronto area, doing various types of surgeries there, and some help with the National Wildlife Centre in Caledon. And so that was lovely, like in addition to the dogs and cats that came my way through our referral clinic, ⁓ heading out and helping Sherry Cox at the Wildlife Centre has been.

so fabulous and super rewarding. Yeah, but after let's call it 25 years of doing surgery, I was looking for something a little bit different and was trying to blend vet medicine with doing outdoorsy things and kind of hard to do. It's just not a natural blend. ⁓ But what I ended up stumbling across is the fact that ⁓ there's not much in the way of resources

science-based resources for getting outdoors with your dog. So that's what I leaned into a couple of years ago and expanded that and that's sort of, that's my lane, if you want to call it that now.

Dr. Cliff Redford (15:41)

Yeah, so you're not in clinical practice much anymore.

Krista Halling (15:45)

No, I stepped away from that. I was looking for a change and I wanted to put my time into this and we'll see whether I head back. But yeah, for now I've hung up my stethoscope and put my scalpel down, so to speak. I do still help the, that's right, I step away from the scalpel. Yeah, I still help the National Wildlife Center with cases there as needed and that's super rewarding. And I do a little bit of one-on-one, but yeah, largely what I'm doing now is instead of one-on-one in the exam room or one-on-one in the

Dr. Cliff Redford (15:47)

Could she, yeah.

Yeah, put the scalpel down.

Mm-mm.

Krista Halling (16:15)

in the O.R. ⁓ It's one on many through a website, through social media, through being guests on podcasts like this, distributing information to dog owners who want to get outdoors a bit more with their dog and have a healthier lifestyle that way and just sort of how to do it, how to do it safely, the benefits behind it. Like there are so many, numerous, like countless benefits when you and your dog are active.

outdoors together. And this is stuff that you maybe you can can support me on but it wasn't part of the vet school curriculum like the the benefits of a strong human animal bond and how to enhance that and the benefits of being physically active outdoors like now to be fair, this is going back what 2027 years or you know, and and so I think a lot of information has

Dr. Cliff Redford (16:56)

Mm-hmm.

Krista Halling (17:13)

become more apparent since then, other than the knowledge of the benefits for people and to dogs of getting out in nature, for instance, like all of that sort of since unfolded. So I think a lot of it just wasn't known back then. And it is a pretty packed curriculum with all the animals that we need to fit in there. We don't have speciation ⁓ just ⁓ for the purpose of your audience.

Dr. Cliff Redford (17:32)

Mm-hmm.

Krista Halling (17:39)

Currently, when you emerge as a veterinarian, you're trained and specialized, or you're not specialized in anything, you're trained in all. ⁓ while you can sort of emphasize a species that is of primary interest, really to pass the exam and be certified as a veterinarian, you need to keep on top of everything. So it is a pretty swollen ⁓ DVM curriculum. I kind of, don't, can't blame them even if there was.

Dr. Cliff Redford (17:47)

Hmm.

Krista Halling (18:06)

information back then. But anyway, yeah, I'm discovering all sorts of things that as a veterinarian, I didn't even know like even how much can you run your dog, for instance, and you know, how to condition it. And anyway, so I'm having a lot of fun learning and playing in that area that otherwise doesn't really seem to be covered very much.

Dr. Cliff Redford (18:25)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I I started following and reading dogpacking.com I guess it got recommended to me on Instagram or something like somehow or maybe there was an article that was attached to vet practice news So I started reading it and I was interested and I bought I bought some little goggles for my my rescue Jack Russell cross corgi cross Lana

because I was going to start riding my bike more to work. We ended up getting another rescue. So now I got two rescue dogs and the second one's like 45 pounds and only nine months old. So he's not on my, he's not going on my bike. But like I got these, these goggles from an article that I read in dogpacking.com without even knowing that you were associated. And then I started.

Krista Halling (19:11)

that's so funny.

I had no idea. ⁓

Dr. Cliff Redford (19:12)

I had no idea, like I had no idea and

then I'm like, holy shit, I know Krista, like that's awesome. Which made me feel even better because I know you and yes, you could see that it is veterinarian approved, but look, there's vets and then there's capital V-E-T vets and you're in the latter. ⁓ And.

you're into exercise and you're into going outdoors. ⁓ And you're right, there's a lot of people that still don't recognize, I think going outside is like a vitamin. I think it's like getting a vitamin that you didn't even realize you needed. And I feel that way when I spend a lot of time outdoors, that you just, everything just gets quiet and all the voices in my head just get quiet. ⁓ And as far as spending time, like that human animal bond, it seems simple, but.

One of the things you just gotta do is make that dog, we're talking mostly about dogs, make that dog a part of your daily life, you know, instead of just seeing it when you come home from work and take it for a walk and then, you know, a little bit in the morning, but actually.

going to a restaurant that has a patio so you can bring your dog with you and going on these long hikes and finding an Airbnb when you go on vacation that's gonna accept dogs and having them, or cats, and having them as part of your life can really, really ⁓ just strengthen that bond and make that animal so much healthier mentally and physically. So yeah, your website and your, I call it a magazine, but you don't have any print, right?

Krista Halling (20:48)

Well, if you have a printer, you can turn it into a print version. But yeah, no, everything's digital. Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (20:52)

⁓ Right, right, right. Yeah, yeah, which is

preferred. How long have you been doing this?

Krista Halling (20:59)

Two years, yeah, started it. So it launched, well, the concept started two years ago and then it was launched in March of 2024. So a little over a year, the website's been live. But yeah, thanks for the recommendation. I love the fact and I didn't even know this. This is the fun part about this conversation unpacking. Like for those who are listening, this was not ⁓ rehearsed at all. Like it's just totally authentic. ⁓ So I'm super.

Dr. Cliff Redford (21:01)

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Krista Halling (21:26)

I'd be pleasantly surprised that you stumbled across it, thought, this sounds good, turned the page and saw that it was me, as opposed to, ⁓ I know Krista, turned the page and read the article. So I'm glad that the article itself somehow came your way. At least one person out there is forwarding it. So I'm glad to hear.

Dr. Cliff Redford (21:37)

Yeah. ⁓

There you go. Yeah, yeah,

I can't remember how I stumbled upon it, but I think, yeah, I don't know. I think I saw something that was probably in, I'm gonna assume some of your articles are in other things like that practice news or something like that, but yeah, I mean, we all get connected and we all network and.

Krista Halling (22:02)

Yeah, thanks.

Dr. Cliff Redford (22:04)

And that's how it goes. Do you have like a subscriber list or how does this, like do you know how many people receive it?

Krista Halling (22:14)

I should probably be a bit more on top of the metrics I'm doing it because I to put in information that I am hoping is helping at least one person. ⁓ so it's less about, well, let me see what the numbers are. And I know I need to be a little bit more strategic about that, but I think so we have, there's a website and then a sort of attached or an extension of the website is a newsletter and an ⁓ Instagram channel. And so.

Dr. Cliff Redford (22:23)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Krista Halling (22:41)

⁓ I do articles about once a week, some new one lands and then I try to put that out onto Instagram, just a heads up, like here's what's landed. And for those who receive the newsletter, they'll get, here's the latest article. And then usually there's some tips and tricks in there that are kind of exclusive to the newsletter. And yeah, so there's the website, Instagram, and then the newsletter. And yeah, that's what I try to keep up. And what you said, going back to the human animal bond,

you nailed it in that ⁓ there is so much more we can lean into. if you picture a dial, like for those who know spinal tap, like going up to 11, if you live with a dog, everyone loves their dog and the dog loves you, but there are ways that by default that dial is not turned up to 11. Just having the dog in your house and living with a dog, it's not at 11. Maybe it's a, I don't even know, maybe it's an eight or something like that, but you can.

Dr. Cliff Redford (23:39)

Mm-hmm.

Krista Halling (23:40)

you can absolutely reach forward and turn that up in the way that you just suggested. And it doesn't even have to be big outdoor adventures, but sort of showing up in partner mindset with your dog. Like if you and your dog are hanging out on the couch watching Netflix, for instance, yeah, it counts as together time. It doesn't do a whole lot to turn up that bond. But when you're like, hey, let's do something together. If it's more of a physical shared activity that you're doing as partners, like let's go to the bistro.

Let's go on a walk together. I'm not gonna be on my phone the whole time. I'm gonna be kind of interacting with the dog or noticing the dog's experience and noticing nature, right? That's where you get those benefits. ⁓ So maybe it's less about ⁓ that you spend time with your dog, but more how you spend time with your dog.

Dr. Cliff Redford (24:25)

Mm-hmm, and you could

you could change out dog for partner or spouse or child And it would be exactly the same thing right put your phone down when you're at the table Yeah, Sunday dinners without electronics on you know any of those things and and and not spending the entire evening every evening watching Netflix or watching some TV show with with your kids But playing a board game or again going for a walk

Krista Halling (24:32)

Yes, yes, you got it for sure. Yeah, how you show up. Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (24:52)

We should be parenting experts almost as much as ⁓ animal bond experts. It's pretty much the same. ⁓ Don't hit your dog, don't hit your kid. Positive reward, not negative punishment or positive punishment, any of those things. So same sort of situation.

Krista Halling (25:08)

Yeah. But you're absolutely right.

When your attention is on something other than who you are with, your attention is on some something other than who you are with and don't think they don't notice it. So the dog, maybe the dog's not on its phone because maybe you haven't. mean, some people have bought a phone for their dog, probably because I'm sure the dogs are all saying like fluffy down the street has has a phone. But they notice when you're not.

Dr. Cliff Redford (25:17)

That's right.

you

Krista Halling (25:33)

present for them. They can tell that you're not paying attention to the fact they wanted to sniff the tree and you just walked by and tugged on the leash and didn't let them because you didn't notice you weren't tuned in. ⁓ Yeah, there was. I just stumbled across, I think it was yesterday on Instagram. I can't recall who to give credit to, but there's a photographer who just finished ⁓ a piece called Removed, I think. And it's all these photos of people.

Dr. Cliff Redford (25:39)

Yeah.

Krista Halling (26:01)

doing stuff like with their phone except they, he removed the phone. And so you're looking at people to your point, like sitting around together or on a walk and they're all kind of looking at their phone instead of each other. And then he just took the phone out. So you can't see the phone, but what you're seeing are these people not engaged with each other at all, at all. And yeah, it's pretty powerful. Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (26:16)

Not engaged. Yeah, yeah, not engaged.

Yeah, it's, wow, that, ⁓ you probably look at it and go, wow, they look so strange. They look so weird and disconnected and almost inhumane. And then you realize, they've just taken away that piece of technology. Definitely. I think one of my guys just walked in. Maybe he's hiding from me behind my treadmill. there he is. So this latest guy, so we have three. We started,

Krista Halling (26:34)

Yes. Yeah.

What kind do you have now?

Dr. Cliff Redford (26:50)

with a Labradoodle. ⁓ My wife Vaso at the time was my girlfriend eight years ago. Got a Labradoodle named Thalia. ⁓ And then Thalia joined my family as well. We kind of knew that this was gonna end up being our dog. ⁓ And over the years, my little fluffy, I call them little fluffy fake dogs, my Havonees, my Shih Tzu, my last app, so it passed away.

And then a year and a half ago, I was volunteering up in Aqaluit ⁓ up in the Arctic North. And we had this five week old little Jack Russell Corgi cross come to the shelter there with a prolapsed anus. So I... ⁓

pushed it back in and did the little purse string suture. And I kinda had an idea that this was gonna take a lot more work and the family that had her didn't really want her. They were just looking for breeding dogs and it's a tricky situation up there. And so I took her back. She ended up prolapsing a couple of times again.

pretty much a couple of days after we removed the purse string sutures, it would happen. Carl over at TVH ended up doing a colopexy and basically anchored it down and she did great. We named her Lana, which for those fans of this podcast will know why we named her Lana. And it's basically because she had a prolapsed rectum, which is like a reverse, I call it reverse anal and Lana is spelled backwards.

Krista Halling (28:05)

you

Dr. Cliff Redford (28:22)

There's the anal, there you go, you figured it out. But my wife's like, I can't call her that. Knowing what that means, I can't call her that. So her name's Poppy, and she's a little goofball, a year and a half old bundle of energy. And then we went back in January of this past year again. We're the only ones crazy enough to go up when it's minus 40.

And we brought back an entire litter of shepherd corgi crosses. And we found homes for all of them and then one got returned due to some other family dynamics. And we fell in love with them. So we've got this guy named Beau, as in French handsome, B-E-A-U. And he basically looks like a blonde body with a black face, shepherd with short little fat legs and a big butt.

Krista Halling (29:05)

Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (29:14)

⁓ yeah, he's really, really cool. He's his father was a wild, like we call him a rez dog, north of a Calowit, like literally north of the Arctic circle is where Bo was born. ⁓

Krista Halling (29:14)

How adorable!

Wow.

Dr. Cliff Redford (29:29)

And so he's definitely got some of that wild spirit in him. He's killed a few baby bunnies that I didn't know existed in our backyard and chewed them all up and swallowed them and things like that. But we're finally able to get that out of his system. But he's a goofball. He's a lot of fun. But you may see him, he may tear around here. Like he likes to find these, he does circles, right? The zoomies.

Krista Halling (29:48)

What a great story!

You

Dr. Cliff Redford (29:56)

And even though I've got my back to a wall and there's hardly any space between the treadmill and the wall beside me, he may whip around and he already on a couple of podcasts have like pulled out all the cords accidentally. And ⁓ he's one of those ones that if you're not interacting with him, he realizes it. And he says, hey, you're not gonna pay attention to me. I'm gonna make my own fun. And that fun is usually destructive. Do you wanna come up?

Little Poppy's asking for a pick up. Come here. Isn't she cute? Isn't she cute? Yeah, she's a good little girl.

Krista Halling (30:27)

What great stories, you know, I'm sure in that... my gosh, hi Poppy. She's adorable.

I love the, your Lana anal story. It's probably just as well it wasn't an interception that you fixed. That would be a harder name.

Dr. Cliff Redford (30:40)

Ha ha ha.

That would be a much harder,

yeah, a reverse intestine. Yeah, I wouldn't try and figure that one out. It was actually my kids that came up. So my son, Brandon, and my daughter, Emily, came up with me. Emily's done a lot of rescue work with me, and Brandon has worked at the clinic.

Krista Halling (30:49)

Yeah, okay.

Dr. Cliff Redford (31:03)

He was really just going up to hang out with his sister. They'd become much, much closer, almost besties now that they live near each other, downtown Toronto. And he, it was them, you know, we were trying to think of a name and we're like, Annie? Anna? And then someone said, why not Lana? And it's backwards, it works out perfectly. So, but she's good. It's interesting, half of the dogs up in the Calowet are corgi crosses that they all call them a Calowet specials.

Krista Halling (31:22)

Yeah.

Isn't that funny? I would have guessed like, you know, just the Northern breeds, right? The Husky breeds, but yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (31:37)

Yeah, no,

the joke is that Queen Elizabeth must have gone up there with her corgis and she can't control her boys. Why do we think she can ⁓ control her dogs? Either that or some like, you know, a hundred years ago, some guy was going from community to community in his dog sled with his male prize corgi in the seat and he would...

disappear for the weekend and party and impregnate all the females and then come back and sleep on the sled as they go up to the next one. Who knows? But yeah, they're fun dogs. They're fun dogs. They're different than...

Krista Halling (32:06)

You

Like the joke

of people in the military, right?

Dr. Cliff Redford (32:14)

That's right, that's right. Just, yeah, who knows? I've been

here, here, and here. There might be little cliffs everywhere, we don't know. ⁓ But practice safe sex, everyone. That's what you come to this podcast to learn about. ⁓ So that's cool that you're doing this. mean, the dog packing... ⁓

Krista Halling (32:21)

Right. ⁓

Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (32:32)

resources is really helpful. I mean, just the fact of how far can you run with your dog? And that's a great question. So my Labradoodle, when she was younger, she used to run quite a distance with me. I was training at the time for an ultra marathon for a 50-miler. I don't run those distances anymore, but... ⁓

So she would jog a very, very much shorter distance. What would you say? Like, is there a size? Do you kind of say, it depends on the size and the breed? How can someone know how far they can eventually get their dog to run?

Krista Halling (33:10)

Yeah, I mean, that's the million dollar question. I even had ⁓ to look into that. ⁓ So generally, it's actually not that different from people in terms of conditioning. There are going to be some nuances that are sort of breed dependent. But by and large, ⁓ to get a dog from wherever it currently is to, to more, we do it the same way we do with us. So you start with where the dog is now, whatever it's whatever you're currently doing with your dog is it's

Dr. Cliff Redford (33:34)

Mm-hmm.

Krista Halling (33:35)

you know, aerobic and strength, know, and stamina capacity. And then ⁓ from generally from week to week, you can up that a little bit. And by a little bit, you pick one of three things. And there are three ways to sort of decide like how hard something is. One is the duration, like how long are you going for? The other is how fast are you going? And the third is how difficult it is, meaning like running up a hill is a lot harder than running on something flat or, you know, a little bit of downhill.

So from week to week, you can say, okay, you know what? This week we'll make it a little bit faster or a little bit longer or a little bit harder, but you don't add all three at once.

Dr. Cliff Redford (34:18)

Yeah, yeah. And then, yeah, and then what signals do you look for for over training?

Krista Halling (34:18)

And then the body won't be surprised.

That can happen more easily than you think if you're just sort of not paying attention to stuff. ⁓ always show up with that ⁓ partner mode mindset of what the dog's experiences and it's gonna be different than ours. So the big thing is like, let's look at what will likely get your dog into trouble if we start with that, because then you've got a better idea of from what standpoint should I be watching the dog? And generally if you're following the rule of, okay, let's make this...

let's keep the distance the same, but we're go a little bit faster today, right? That's usually fine from one week to the next. So if you're doing a little faster or a little longer, or maybe something a little bit harder, you probably are okay, but then what things can come up where you may not be okay. So ⁓ heat stress would be a big one, huge. ⁓ So for a person, we may be fine in the existing temperature because we have, honestly, we're way more efficient at cooling off than a dog is.

So using the, I okay in this temperature is not a good metric. You look at the dog. And ⁓ generally if you look at just the outdoor temperature, that's one guidance of, you know, does it look like a hot day or not? But I think it's really important to keep in mind that ⁓ a dog will massively heat up and have trouble dissipating the temp, the, its body temperature.

If they're exercising, so suddenly that's gonna rack things up. They generate way more heat than we do when they exercise and they have trouble dissipating it. So a dog that's exercising in a given temperature, a dog that's overweight or a dog that is in humidity are gonna vastly increase the chance of the dog struggling with temperature. So keep an eye on how your dog's doing from that perspective. If it starts lagging at all,

⁓ you know, it should be beside you or ahead of you and not with a tongue that's like hanging out to the ground. And when in doubt, stop, stop and give your dog breaks. ⁓ so you don't want to do repetitive damage. If you, if you've gone a lot further or suddenly a lot faster or suddenly a lot harder, you're going to surprise the dog's body. And when the body's surprised, just like us, that's where injuries happen because the tissue it's, it's as strong as whatever you've been doing with it. Right? So if you're doing a

Dr. Cliff Redford (36:20)

You

Krista Halling (36:44)

I don't know, running three kilometers, it's fit for three kilometers. A little bit more than that will make it be fit for three and a quarter kilometers, but suddenly doing five kilometers, you're now asking ⁓ body structures like soft tissues, know, muscles, tendons, ligaments, to do five kilometers when it has the strength and the capacity for three. And that's where things can get torn, torn damage, injured and such, right? So don't do too much too soon.

Dr. Cliff Redford (36:53)

Mm-hmm.

Krista Halling (37:11)

and then keep a really good eye on your dog for how it seems to be enjoying the experience. ⁓ Heat's the big one and fatigue's the big one if it's lagging. And then the other thing would be foot care, paws. ⁓ The feet, we usually have shoes, even minimalistic shoes, we have something on. And bare feet are great for dogs because of proprioceptive feedback, right? They're feeling natural terrain and proprioception is your...

Dr. Cliff Redford (37:23)

Mm-hmm.

Krista Halling (37:39)

⁓ your sense of where your body parts are in space. And so you get feedback when it's not cushioned up by a whole lot of layers of stuff. And so when your dog's foot is on natural terrain, it's getting really good feedback, like natural unfiltered feedback to its body. That keeps up its neuro system, that keeps up its proprioceptive system. That's going to have a dog that over the years is more likely to not misstep.

more likely to not get injured and more likely to be ⁓ strong and have a solid neuro system as a senior dog. You know, it's not gonna be a clumsy senior dog. It's not likely to misstep if you keep that up. So bare feet are great unless you're setting the foot pads up for injury. And that can happen because the feet are what's impacting and what has the most contact of any body part, you know, to the ground, it's the feet. So let's pay attention to them.

Dr. Cliff Redford (38:16)

Hmm.

Krista Halling (38:37)

general rule with that is they're fine with bare feet or I like to have them just go with bare feet without booties unless the ground is too hot, too cold, too sharp or too novel. And by too novel, ⁓ feet aren't conditioned. So if you've got a dog that let's say is usually on grass, you're running around on the grass and suddenly you're like, you know what, let's do the pavement today. That's a pretty big change to the feet and to the joints.

Dr. Cliff Redford (39:06)

Mm-hmm.

Krista Halling (39:06)

of the concussive,

right? How hard ⁓ the pavement is. And so maybe go shorter and keep an eye on how hot that pavement is and ⁓ just watch the feet for foot pad injury. And boots can be helpful if you need to just give a little bit of conditioning or at least protection of those foot pads for whatever you're doing, right? If you're going over something like

Dr. Cliff Redford (39:21)

Mm-hmm.

Krista Halling (39:31)

Even drainage stones are pretty tricky for a dog to navigate on. We don't think anything of it because we're wearing running shoes and it looks okay. A lot of ouch ouch ouch for dogs running over like drainage stones, which sometimes you'll see on trails.

Dr. Cliff Redford (39:35)

.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, good point. I see a lot of, especially with being summertime now, this is important, I see a lot of ⁓ patients coming in after spending a week at the cottage and they have abrasions to their pads and I think it's from the sand. ⁓ Like it's incredibly coarse and we think it feels so nice and it's soft but you're not running in it, you're not gripping at it with your toes. ⁓

and wet sand will, it's sandpaper, it'll slowly start to wear on these pads and it's novel ⁓ material or substance. So yeah, that's a big, big issue, big, big issue that I see at my clinic for sure.

What's your, what is the science, I'm wondering if it's still the same from back in 98 when we graduated, what's the science regarding ⁓ running with dogs when they're puppies and especially large breed dogs, which for those listening is a dog that's gonna be 55 pounds or more ⁓ at full growth. Like, I weighted,

to start running Thalia, even though she was only gonna be about 45, 47 pounds, I waited to stop running, to start running her until her first birthday. ⁓ Is that still the knowledge out there?

Krista Halling (41:08)

It is. Yeah. Great question. ⁓ that's pretty similar. Like one way people think of it is five minutes per month of, of age of dog. So, you know, I've two month old dog maybe can do a 10 minute activity, but if we step back and that's, that's more duration, if we look at the type of activity, you're exactly right. And the reason is as puppies that are still developing and we think puppies are like super small and cute, but their systems, their

Dr. Cliff Redford (41:29)

Mm-hmm.

Krista Halling (41:38)

their bone system, their joint system, their musculoskeletal system is still developing their neuro system until about, depending on the breed, as you pointed out, till about a year, year and a half. So they can look full grown or they can kind of look not puppyish anymore. And we think, they're probably fine to do stuff. But the reason we want to be careful till about a year, year and a half, depending on the dog. So smaller breeds that mature a little bit faster by the time they're about a year, they're probably fine. When in doubt, maybe wait.

a year and a half to condition them, a year and a half to start building up on exercise. So as a puppy, the things we need to be careful of is ⁓ concussive, like high impact activity because of the growth plates that can be injured. So that's anything that's going to be like whacking and banging. ⁓ So heavy running would be a problem if a dog just starts running on its own. You don't have to like worry you're going to break the puppy and not let it.

do bit of running on its own, but I wouldn't take the puppy and say, let's go running. But if they have playtime and sort of self-regulated in the backyard, that's okay. Jumping down from things, can injure joints and can injure growth plates. yeah, anything that's high impact. So a little bit of gentle jogging, fast walking is fine, but strength training. let's, as we talked about that to like carrot in front of the tissues, as we start building it, let's,

Dr. Cliff Redford (42:41)

you

Krista Halling (43:05)

let's go faster, let's go longer, let's go harder, that we want to condition and make the body learn and develop. It can't respond if it's not fully developed. So if the body is still growing, if the neuro system is still developing, if the joints are still developing, if the muscles are still developing, that's not the time to say, we want you to go even harder and faster and longer, because it can't, you'll break something, you'll damage something, you'll injure them, and that's where repetitive damage comes up.

very quickly with puppies. So before saying, hey, let's make this even stronger and more robust, let it get to like cruising altitude. If that's, you know, I like metaphors. If you picture that, it's still kind of, it's not at cruising altitude. It's still like finished the takeoff and now it's just trying to settle in and get to baseline. So let that develop. And then when the systems say, okay, we're finished developing, we've got a good neural system. And by that, like if you picture, we think of puppies as

Kind of clumsy, like when they walk, they have that sort of funny clumsy gait. And that's because their neuro system, their proprioceptive system is still developing. So if you picture, it's still trying to figure stuff out. It's still trying to get to cruising altitude. Like, hey, we're now gonna run you on a trail where you need a lot of really good proprioceptive feedback to avoid ⁓ misstepping on the rocks and the branches and that sort of thing. Do that once the system's up to par and says, okay, all the ducks are in a row. Now we can do something a bit more.

They're just trying to figure out like, just getting around on grass and not stumbling, if that makes sense.

Dr. Cliff Redford (44:40)

Mm-hmm. So let's say you have a you know, a healthy dog. Okay, you know, I got Thalia up to running her max was 19 kilometers Which was close to two hours. We were going at a real slow pace because again I'm pretty slow. Um At least at that point in my my my running career and this was wintertime and you know the I had taught her to drink when I asked her to drink and that sort of thing

Should I, should people who are running with their dogs, assuming they've done it all properly and the distance is reasonable and ⁓ the animal's loving it, should they be on a, should you change their diet? Should they be on a supplement to protect those joints? Or if they're just getting a high quality vet approved diet, is that enough?

Krista Halling (45:34)

Yeah, great question. ⁓ And I'll start by a little asterisk where the nutrition side of things, I'm still trying to bring myself up to speed, like that's not inherently my expertise. But what I do know about that is generally for the average person that's doing 20 minutes to two hours with their dog. And I'm gonna say that probably speaks for maybe 95 % of people that are getting out there with their dog, right? ⁓ You're fine with its current diet, you don't need to change that.

And honestly, during the run, probably don't even need to supplement them. They're gonna do fine. You don't need to stop and give them, we can circle back to Gatorade for instance, right? Right, yeah. They should be okay for that duration. Now having said that, if you're stopping and having a snack and the dog's looking at you like, excuse me, I'm here too, then something maybe that is like maybe a little bit of.

Dr. Cliff Redford (46:10)

You

No gel packs or anything like that. No beef flavored gel packs to keep their carbs up.

Krista Halling (46:33)

peanut butter, if no one has allergies, something like that would be fine and a little bit to drink would be okay. ⁓ They don't need, they generally need fats. They're going to be burning fats more so than sugars, especially in a slightly longer duration. So they don't need sugar-packed gummy worms, for instance, right? That's kind of how, that's how we operate, but it's not how they operate. So generally speaking, what you can do though is in the course of the day, you may say, you know what, we actually

Dr. Cliff Redford (46:37)

Yeah, yeah.

Right, right.

Krista Halling (47:01)

We're exercising a fair bit every day. So I'm going to take what ⁓ my dog would normally eat from a volume standpoint, like a quantity calorie standpoint. And I'm going to up that maybe by 1.3. Or you probably don't need to go up to twice as much unless you're training heavily, but you can up the amount they're getting per day. But otherwise you probably don't need to do a whole lot. Now there might be some supplements that are helpful. I just can't speak to that right now. ⁓ Other than omega-3 fatty acids are...

Dr. Cliff Redford (47:27)

Mm-hmm.

Krista Halling (47:30)

always terrific from an anti-inflammatory. Yeah, really good. Really good for us and for them. Other than the fact it adds calories. So that's the only thing to keep in mind if you're like, guess there's a point where too much of a good thing. And so if you get some omega-3 fatty acids, fish oil, for instance, I think it's sort of a, don't quote me on this. Although I'm saying it in a sound bite that can be easily quoted, but something like a teaspoon per.

Dr. Cliff Redford (47:31)

So good, ⁓ So many benefits. So many benefits. Yeah.

Krista Halling (48:00)

10 pounds or 20 pounds, something like that. Like it's not a lot that you need to add per day for the dog to get Omega-3 fatty acids. So I wouldn't get one of those pump things and start pumping a whole lot on like adding gravy. Don't make a poutine for your dog because it'll probably hit a maximum of benefit from the Omega-3 fatty acids. But now you've got a whack of calories from fat. And then if your dog gets fat from doing that.

Now you've just added, now you've got an overweight dog and that's going to have negative health benefits. So you're going to have a net negative by giving too many calories through two omega threes. Yeah.

Dr. Cliff Redford (48:35)

Too many, yep.

Yeah, some is good, a lot is not good. ⁓ With many things in life, with many things in life. Yeah, this is fascinating. We could go on and on and on. ⁓ I am gonna wrap this up, but I do wanna get you on again, and maybe even semi-regularly. ⁓ One, because you and I need to catch up. There's so much to talk about. And I joke that that life with Dr. Cliff isn't always about.

Krista Halling (48:41)

That's right.

Dr. Cliff Redford (49:05)

the life of being a veterinarian, sometimes it's just the life of a vet. So we talk about things that are outside of the scope, but there's so much to talk about when it comes to sports and athletics and outdoor adventure ⁓ with pets, ⁓ you know, the importance of life jackets and you even have to sometimes teach your dog how to swim. They don't necessarily know how to swim and you know, how do you camp?

with your dog and have a good time. Do you many articles about cats or is it mostly dogs?

Krista Halling (49:37)

funny you ask because cats are now starting to be like there's this thing of adventure cats and when I started them just to wrap up when I ⁓ when that website was created dog packing refers to like you grab a pack you grab your dog and you head out past your front door with an intended adventure even if it's just to the to local park and I intentionally didn't also grab pack cat packing because most cats probably by default dogs are always happy to go along

Not every cat is select cats are so there's one article on the website called if your adventure dog is a cat, read, this and it ⁓ so it's so that people that have cats and maybe a cat that wants to get outdoors, I don't want them to take everything on the dogpacking.com website and just and apply it to a cat because there are differences in what cats need and how they show up and that sort of thing, right? They're a bit less partner mode. So if you start by, you're, if your, if your dog is a cat,

Dr. Cliff Redford (50:07)

Yeah.

Hahaha!

Very different. Yeah, yeah.

Krista Halling (50:35)

read this article because it reframes what cats need versus dogs. And then you can sift through the rest of the articles if you've, you know, just start there.

Dr. Cliff Redford (50:43)

I am

definitely gonna check that out. So everyone can find you where.

Krista Halling (50:49)

On the website, dogpacking.com, D-O-G-P-A-C-K-I-N-G. And then Instagram is dogpacking.com. If they want me to reach out to them with information regularly so they don't have to lift a finger, I'd love them to sign up for the newsletter. And that's the banner on our website right at the top. says, subscribe here. If you're interested, they can unsubscribe anytime. It's free.

Dr. Cliff Redford (51:14)

Yeah, and I subscribed before I knew that it was from my good friend Krista. And that's how I get it all now. And I check it out and I probably read half the stuff. Even a veterinarian learns a lot. I learn a lot from these conversations and we're constantly learning, which is one of the great things you had said yesterday.

when we tried this interview and it didn't work out, you talked about what a great field we have and there's so many directions we can go and there's so many things we can learn about. it's, we are so blessed to be in this industry and it's so fun talking to like-minded, passionate people like you.

Krista Halling (51:57)

It is,

and it's so collaborative, isn't it? It's just, a very collegial profession and one that I'm, yeah, I'm super honored to be part of.

Dr. Cliff Redford (52:06)

There's

so many of these, know, one degrees of separation of Kevin Bacon kind of thing. Like you work with the National Wildlife Center run by Sherry Cox, her sister is a classmate of ours. Sherry Cox was volunteering at Shades of Hope where I now volunteer.

Krista Halling (52:22)

Yes.

Dr. Cliff Redford (52:28)

And I went there the very first day she was there and she was like, hey, you're in my, you're in my sister's graduating class and you're a good surgeon, right? Yeah, I'm a good surgeon. Okay, great. Do this, do this, do this. I'm out of here. which was definitely in her, right? Because she had been, ⁓ it was a long day for her. ⁓

So I commonly refer to her. mean, she's one of the best, I don't even think arguably, probably one of the best wildlife veterinarians in the world. ⁓ And we're so lucky that she's right down the street from us. So ⁓ it is a very, very small world, ⁓ definitely. ⁓

Krista Halling (52:59)

100%.

Dr. Cliff Redford (53:09)

especially the veterinarian world, and especially the cool veterinarians like you and me. We seem to hang out. You know what, this has been great, Krista, I wish we could talk and talk and talk, but you got work to do and I got cases to go deal with, but we're definitely gonna have you on. And everyone check out dogpacking.com and sign up ⁓ for the newsletter and I'll have some links in my little summary. ⁓ So I always end this with talking about being kind to animals and being kind to each other.

Krista Halling (53:15)

hahahahah ⁓

Dr. Cliff Redford (53:39)

yourself and ⁓ also be kind to your animals joints if you're going to take them out running, take things slow.

Krista Halling (53:47)

I love that. Thank you so much for having me on. This has been such a privilege and great to connect again.

Dr. Cliff Redford (53:53)

My pleasure, my pleasure.