Dog Vaccination Protocols & The Grain Free Diet: With Dr. Jean Dodds

This is a  podcast for diligent, dedicated dog and cat parents on topics that have been in the news lately.
Recently, the FDA issued a report citing 16 dog food brands linked to cases of dilated cardiomyopathy ( DCM), essentially a form of heart failure. Specifically, the FDA linked grain-free products and "exotic" foods to DCM. The proposed mechanism of action is that grain-free diets lead to a depletion of taurine, a non-essential amino acid made from cysteine and methionine in the liver, which then leads to cardiomyopathy. As one can imagine, the FDA's report caused massive panic amongst dog parents who worried that their dogs, if on a grain-free or exotic diet, may be at risk for DCM. In the second half of this podcast, Dr. Dodds discusses the FDA report, the data for and against the notion that grain-free diets cause DCM, benefits vs risks of a grain-free diet for dogs, and what dog parents can do if they are worried about their dog having DCM.
Vaccines are always in the news. In the first half of this podcast, Dr. Eeks and Dr. Dodds discuss Dr. Dodds' recommended vaccination protocol for dogs and cats, the concept of vaccinosis, dogs at the highest risk for vaccinosis, lifestyle vaccines ( Leptospirosis, Lyme Disease, Bordetella and Canine Flu) vs core vaccines, and why she recommends getting titer tests vs getting boosters.
Dr. Jean Dodds received her doctorate of veterinary medicine in 1964 and has been a clinical research veterinarian and hematologist for over 5 decades. She was a grantee of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and has authored over 150 peer-reviewed publications in top journals. She started HemoPet, the first national nonprofit blood bank for animals, in 1986. Some of the services HemoPet provides include: Providing canine blood components, adopting retired Greyhound blood donors as companions and the Hemolife diagnostic division which focuses on hematology ( the study of blood cells), blood banking, immunology, endocrinology, nutrition and holistic medicine. She invented NutriScan, a food sensitivity and intolerance diagnostic test for dogs, cats and horses and is also a Co-Trustee of the Rabies Challenge Fund, a nonprofit project for assessing the duration of immunity and safety of current rabies vaccines in animals. She's an active member of the American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association and the American Holistic Veterinary Medical Foundation.
*Please keep in mind that this podcast is not medical/veterinary advice. It's a conversation. If you have questions or concerns about your pet, ask your veterinarian!
You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com.
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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello everyone, it's Erin, and it's another episode of Causes or Cures. And I know we usually talk about humans and human health, but today we're going to talk about the health of dogs and cats, specifically focusing on vaccines, vaccine protocols, and something that has been in the news lately, which is the link between the grain-free diet and dilated cardiomyopathy, or DCM. Right? The FDA came out with that report that there was a potential link. I know the pet parents panicked. I panicked. I went for my dog's Barnaby's food. I called my dad, who's a veterinarian. I'm like, what's going on with this? Is this link real? So to discuss all of these things, I'm super excited to have on the line Dr. Jean Dodd. She became a veterinarian in 1964 after graduating from the Ontario Veterinary College. She spent more than five decades as a clinical research veterinarian. She was a grantee of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, NIH, and has over 150 research publications. She started something called HEPET in 1986, which is the first nonprofit National Animal Blood Bank. Some of the services they provide include providing canine blood components, adopting retired Greyhound blood donors as companions, and the HEMOLIFE Diagnostic Division, which focuses on hematology and blood banking, immunology, endocrinology, nutrition, and holistic medicine. So blood, immune cells, hormones, all of that. In 2011, she released Nutrascan, which is a food sensitivity and intolerance diagnostic test for dogs, cats, and horses. She's the co-trustee of the Rabies Challenge Fund, which is a nonprofit project to assess the duration of immunity and safety of current rabies vaccines for animals. She actively participates in the American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association and the American Holistic Veterinary Medical Foundation. She's also written a lot of books. And also, I have to add this on a personal note. Dr. Dodds has played a part in my life since I was a little girl. My dad, a veterinarian, and my mom got a dog. And uh we didn't know it at the time when they got him, but he had hemophilia. And when he had his first big bleed, no one really knew what was going on, no one knew how to manage it. It was all new. Um, and once they figured out that they had him diagnosed it, he had hemophilia. And whenever he was in trouble or we had any kind of management questions, and let me tell you, sometimes he got in real trouble. There'd be blood all over our house when Curly his name was Curly, but we nicknamed him Hemo. I guess the family likes to name things after their diseases. Um, but when he got a bleed, there would be blood absolutely everywhere, all over our house. Um and Curly would just go downhill really fast. My dad would have to transfuse him sometimes on our dining room table because he was too weak to get to the animal hospital. Um we would have blood drives, and the neighbors would bring in their dogs to donate blood to Hemor. Um this is all documented, it's written in the newspapers. So he was a really special dog, but he would not have lived as long as he did. And he lived a long, happy life, often cantankerous at times, but he was a great dog. Um, and a lot of that was due to Dr. Gene Dodds because my dad would call her at any time, and she was always available, and gave us advice and answers, and she told us what to do. Um, so she was considered an absolute guru in our household. And I just have to add that. So I'm very excited to have her on the line. Take a listen. Um so uh I I know that we've taught thank you so much for doing this, by the way. I um so appreciate it. And you're like a legend, as you know, you're I told you, you're like a legend in our family for us to take serious. It's not even I'm not even exaggerating for taking care of Curly, um, who we called Hemor. And it was always everyone was like Dr. Dodds, we're gonna call Dr. Dodds, and uh you you know, your advice always brought him back. So thank you for that. And well, thank God, right? Yeah, yeah. So it's just it's it's it's awesome to talk to you. Um and I know that over email we've gone back and forth over um vaccines and also I read your piece on the um the grain-free grain-free diet and uh uh dilated cardiomyopathy. So if you don't mind, um I I have questions for both if you want if if that's okay with you. Um you couldn't ask me anything.

unknown 4:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:41

Um so I guess uh well I'll start with vaccines um because you have a a very interesting, um very methodical and and thoughtful approach to vaccines. Um so in terms, I guess, of recommendations for vaccines, um maybe talk about your approach, you know, you know, what you say about the core vaccines um and also how this how I found what what I found really interesting was when you said that um if there's a good chance that um if your daughter if your puppy or kitten gets the core vaccines that they can maintain immunity for life. Um so maybe if you if you could just start there.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

Right, sure. Well, the first thing I wanted to assure everybody listening, Aaron, is that vaccines are important, they're needed, and anybody that decides to bring a puppy or kitten up into the world without vaccinations because they're afraid of it, um, based on the hype that they may have read from the anti-vaccine community, that is absolutely dangerous. So, excuse me, puppies and kittens need to have an appropriate series. Excuse me. The most important thing about that is not to start too young and not to give them vaccines that they don't need to have for the area they live in and the lifestyle that that animal is going to have. For example, I just got a uh response from someone who got a very valuable puppy from a breeder, and the puppy was given the combination vaccine by the breeder because remember, breeders can buy vaccines for everything except rabies. And this breeder mistakenly gave the puppy a combination vaccine at four weeks, did it again at six weeks, did it again at eight weeks, and we got to see the puppy at 12 weeks of age, and the people didn't know what to do. Well, the fact of the matter is this puppy has been way over vaccinated already and it's not protected. So we have to give more vaccines now when the puppies already received too many. So I have to explain to this uh astonished uh new pet owner that the puppy's gonna need another uh two-way vaccine for distemper and parvo only at 13 weeks because she had diarrhea at 12 weeks from eating something she shouldn't have in the yard. So she wasn't 100% well. So we have to wait another week, and then she's gonna have to have at least one more parvo vaccine uh around 18 weeks and then hold off on her rabies until 24 weeks. And so we have this situation, Erin, where people are giving vaccines that are not necessary because there's no disease known in the community, in the area, or even in the country, like hepatitis for the dog. There have been no hepatitis documented cases in the dog since in the last 15 years. So, why are you giving a vaccine in the combination products when there's no disease to protect against currently in the United States or Canada? Well, the problem is people think that the vaccine, let's use hepatitis as an example, only contains that antigen, that viral antigen. It contains tissue culture remnants, fetal calf serum, all the activators that are put into the tissue culture system. And so this puppy is not getting just hepatitis antigen, it's getting everything else as well. And so the biggest problem we have, Erin, is convincing people that they only need to vaccinate for the core vaccines that are important in the community they live in. Now, hepatitis is in the core, so the problem is convincing people and their veterinarians that really for the dog you only need distemper and parvovirus, no, and of course, rabies by law, and for the kitten, you only need panlucopenia vaccine. Now, kittens are much better off than dogs are, or puppies are, because in kittens we have non-aduvented vaccines that are available for the cat. So they can get uh recombinant vaccines, for example, vaccines without adjuvants put into them, including rabies. In the dog, we don't have that luxury. There are no non-adjuvented modified live virus vaccines for the dog, for the for the puppy or an adult dog, and there are no vaccines today that are killed or inactivated for distemper or parvavirus because they weren't safe. So that's why we're uh a little bit um behind the eight ball, I guess I would say, in terms of what the safe vaccines are for puppies and what age they should be given.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

And um, for people who don't know, adjuvants are just um they speed up the immune response. Correct.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

Adjuvants are uh materials many times proprietary, so we don't know what they are, and they enhance the immunity, make the vaccine more potent. Now, for example, all but two canine rabies vaccines contain thiomerosol salts, which is mercury. And obviously, we don't want to put mercury into the bodies of puppies or even adult dogs, because we're taking mercury out of fillings for teeth, for example, these days. Why do you want heavy metals in vaccines? And you may be horrified to know that infants with the new vaccines that came out just recently still get 17 times more heavy metals in those vaccines than are acceptable for their body weight. And in 2002, there was a moratorium on putting heavy vacc heavy metal vaccines into infant vaccines, but the two new ones have the heavy metals back in them.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Oh, I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

Yep, terrible.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

Um can you talk a little bit about um vaccinosis and and what that is, and maybe what you you know, any uh things you've seen along those lines?

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Yes. Vaccinosis is is the name we give for an adverse reaction to a vaccine. And it can go anywhere from acute anaphylaxis, god forbid, and death, to anaphylactoid, which is like anaphylaxis, but can start about day two to day five or seven, where the animal that's vaccinated is ADR, ain't doing right. Sometimes all they do is have gastrointestinal problems. Maybe they have pain, and so when you try to touch them, they shy away. Um they can even become acutely aggressive. Uh they can have bowel problems with pain in the abdomen, like pancreatitis. Uh, what we normally see, because that's how I started into this area as a hematologist immunologist, is we can have destruction of red blood cells with anemia. We can have destruction of white blood cells with infections and high fevers, we can have destruction of the platelets, those little cells in the blood that help clotting occur. You can have little tiny pinpoint hemorrhages on the mucosal surfaces, uh, uh of the even in the skin, on the bowel, um, in the uh in the gums, uh, on the lips, um, we can have blood in the urine, blood in the stool, and you can have big bruises on the body, and it's especially evident if the animal is light-skinned and light-coated. So heavy, heavily coated animals may only show these bruises and pinpoint hemorrhages on their bellies, for example. Uh, whereas if it's a light-skinned animal with a thinner coat, you can see it on the body's surface as well. Seizures. Seizures are another common problem that occurs, especially seizures and behavioral issues with rabies vaccine, that's the most common. And the second most common one is leptosporosis. And so leptosporosis bacterins, their killed products, um, are really not helping today because the clinical forms of leptospirosis, primarily in the northeast, the northwest, and around the Great Lakes, do are not to the strains of leptospirosis that are in the vaccines. So leptospirosis vaccines contain four strains of the organism. The ones that cause most disease today are Leptospira autumnalis and leptospira bratislava. They are not in the vaccines. So if you have leptosporosis documented reportable cases in your area, it's through a reportable disease, so it would have to be documented by the public health agencies or the veterinary community where you live. If it's not one of the four strains that are in the vaccine, giving the leptospira back turn won't help at all, and it's the second most late likely to cause acute reactions.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

I didn't know that. And is that the one where um dogs can get from drinking from puddles?

SPEAKER_01 13:42

Yes, you have to be slow-moving streams, uh, puddles, wildlife going through the puddles, or um farming communities where cattle and sheep, for example, could go through the slow-moving streams. Or if you're in certain parts of the country where pigs um can transmit leptospira pomona, but that is in the four-way vaccines. So the common ones that we used to use years ago was a two-way vaccine to Leptospira Canicola and Leptospira icturohemorrhagia. We rarely see clinical cases from those two strains today.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

Um did not know that. Um, it's scary because the combo vaccines have the leptospira bacterum in them, and that only lasts for a year, and you have to have two doses, and then they have to get an annual booster. So uh the combo doesn't help. If you have high-risk leptosporosis in your area, then you get the four-way vaccine in two doses three to four weeks apart, and then an annual booster every year. But Aaron, that's just like the Bordatella vaccine, and that's the biggest problem we're having these days that boarding and grooming and daycare facilities often require that a puppy get borderella vaccines or they won't let them in the facility. You ask the facility if they'll accept the waiver to hold the people harmless, and some of them say no. So, what do we do about that? Injectable borderella is not the one to give because it only protects against bordatella. The intranasal and the oral borditella vaccines cross-protect against the other upper respiratory viruses of the dog, like kennel cough and even hepatitis, okay, which we talked about earlier. However, the intranasal vaccine can spray vaccine around the face and get into the eyes of the puppy being vaccinated and anybody standing too close to that puppy. So now we much prefer to use the oral vaccine because it goes in the mouth, and you can gently close the mouth after you give the vaccine in the dog in the puppy or adult dog, and it's not going to spread anywhere else. And so, what that vaccine does is it stimulates the animal's own interferon. An interferon is an immune responsive component of the body that will cross-protect against the other upper respiratory viruses. So if you want to give Bordatella or you need to give Bordatella, please get the oral vaccine only.

SPEAKER_00 16:23

Good to know. I mean my dog has that's uh one of the mandatory vaccines for uh doggy daycare. So that's good to know.

SPEAKER_01 16:30

I did not and you need to give two doses, three to four weeks apart, and then a booster every year. Now, some boarding and grooming facilities, Aaron, say, oh well, it doesn't last very long. You have to give the booster every four months to every six months. That is not true. Okay. The vaccine label says that the booster is given annually. So we have to educate these facilities, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:56

Yeah, yeah. Uh I know I think um, you know, when there was the canine influenza vaccine, that was required for a bit of time when there was a lot of news reports. Um, I don't think they still require it.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

No, some places want it again, depending on the facility, they need to be educated. Canine flu for healthy animals that are not heavily parasitized and malnourished is a very mild condition, just like it is in our cells, unless you're immunocompromised and you're elderly, or you've got, God forbid, some other disease going on, right? Canine influenza has two types now that the vaccines um contain, uh N1 and N3, and that's given um three to four weeks apart, again, and then annually. We do not give Borditella or influenza vaccines in our holistic clinic in Southern California. And we we're only looking at healthy animals, we're not giving them vaccines that they don't need. Better they should be exposed to a low dose of something and develop their own natural immunity than giving vaccines that could have adverse effects.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Is that true, um, Dr. Dodds, for puppies as well?

SPEAKER_01 18:07

Yes, for puppies as well. Now, some people are nervous about that. I say, get rid get through your essential core puppy vaccines, in our case, distemper and parvo only, get your rabies done, figure out if you need to do the oral borderella, and then if you want to give influenza, say a year later, you could give it because they're going to be stronger, right? We we don't give it, we really don't.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

Um can you uh since we're talking about boosters, um you talk about the titer test for preventing over-vaccination? Correct. Yeah, could you talk a little bit about that? I know you you offer a kit from your website too.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

Sure. Titer tests are measurements in the serum of the immunity present in that particular individual animal, be it a puppy or an adult. Now, part of the problem is some veterinarians don't want to do that, they don't believe in it, they don't they tell owners that, oh, well, you could do a titer test today and a week later it's gone. Well, that's ridiculous. Immune memory is for life. And as you know, some people believe that proper vaccination in early life can last for the entire lifespan, and it and it can. So, what you do is a year after you've completed your puppy series, okay, you can do a titer for distemper and parvo. If that titer is adequate, you can do it a year later. If it's still adequate, you do it every three years. If the titer is not adequate, and we're not there's no guarantee that it has to be a certain level, any measurable titer means that your animal has immune memory cells that will respond immediately if that uh animal is exposed to the infectious agent that we're talking about. So if it's adequate, you can do it every three years after that. If it's not adequate, you can give one more booster and then check the titer again, uh, six months later, for example, and then you do it every three years. Now, when you get to be 10 or 11 or 12, we don't titer anymore because as long as you've had titers measured in the past and they were adequate, that animal's protected for life. Don't if people insist that they pay us to do a titer when the animal's 16, we'll do it. But the problem is that they panic if it's not where they want it to be at a level they want it to be, and they're gonna vaccinate a 17-year-old young dog, the old dog that lives in the 14th floor of a skyscraper and never goes anywhere. Well, it doesn't need a vaccination. Of course, it has to have rabies, depending on whether it's well or whatever. So we do titers a year after the completion of the series. So that animal's gonna be uh uh 12, 16 weeks, 16 months old, for example, you do the first titre. And then you do it every three years after that until they're geriatric, and then we don't do it anymore. So the critical thing is any measurable immunity means that immune memory cells are present to immediately respond within 24 to 48 hours and protect the animal long before the incubation period of any disease, which is typically five to seven to nine days. So titers are important. Now, the next problem, Marin, is some veterinarians will tell clients, oh, a vaccine in our clinic only costs$25. If you want to do a titer for distemper and parvo, it's gonna cost$200. Somebody in Manhattan told a client that recently, and they went online and realized for places like ours, a titer costs$55, and you can titer for both distemper and parvo for that price. Well, that's twice the cost of the vaccine, Dr. Dodds. Isn't it easier to give the vaccine? Yes, we give a toxic tissue culture soup. When we vaccinate. Why would you do that? It doesn't make any sense. So vaccine titers, depending on where you measure them, are going to cost anywhere from$50 to$75. And that's certainly affordable to know that your pet is protected and doesn't need the toxic tissue culture soup.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

And to get the the titer test, can uh this has to be like they have to get it from their veterinarian.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

Well, they have to, yes, they have to get a sample drawn from their veterinarian. And all the major vaccine uh veterinary laboratory diagnostic places these days do titers. The problem is some of the labs just tell you positive or negative. That is not sufficient. Because if they tell you positive, you're okay. If they tell you negative, it could be that they started the titer level so high that you missed the lower level titer. As I've told you, any measurable titer affords protection. So you need to have a quantitative titer, not just a positive or negative. Okay, so if the lab your veterinarian uses only does positive or negative, that's not what you want. You need to send it to a laboratory that will give you a number.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

Number. Um, yeah, and that was actually one of my questions for you. What was adequate immune memory? How do you, you know, how do you know?

SPEAKER_01 23:23

Um so anything measurable means you've got immune memory cells. You can't get a serum titer unless you've got immune memory cells that created the serum titer. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:39

Um is it okay if we shift gears? And I know you have um on your website, which is all posts, you have a bunch of your blog is great, by the way. It's easy to read and digest. Oh, thank you. Thank you. It's user-friendly. Um uh to shifting gears to and I wanted to talk to you about this topic because I read your piece on it in um the grain-free diet, the link to DCM or dilated cardiomyopathy. Um and uh there's so much on this, and I think too, um because the guilt it can cause some people, um, which I experienced with a friend recently. My friend was devastated because his veterinarian said uh your dog has developed DCM and it was due to this grain-free diet that um you were feeding your dog, um, which is awful for any pet parent to hear. Um so I was I wanted to just ask you a little bit about I guess um well I'll start here. Um taurine. Can you explain the link the link for people who don't understand this? Um I don't understand it super well either, but taurine and DCM.

SPEAKER_01 24:48

Okay, well, first of all, taurine is not an essential amino acid for the dog. The dog makes its own taurine from cysteine and methionine, the amino acids in the liver. The question is with today's stresses that everybody's under and the environmental pollution and depletion of the ozone layer that we encounter in the air above us, whether animals don't need more taurine than they can make themselves. Now, ever since this taurine fiasco arose, by the way, the entire dog fancy, pet fancy worldwide was hysterical and panicked over this totally unwarranted, premature, um, unfounded accusation that occurred in the early part of 2018. So, what happens is that all the pet food companies now, regardless whether they make a grain-free diet, uh a grain-included diet, a homemade diet, a commercial kibble diet, a raw diet, commercial or homemade or whatever, they all have added taurine in them now. So you don't have to worry anybody about a taurine-depleted diet. Now, if you make your own homemade diet and it's not balanced, that's a different situation, obviously. But part of the problem with taurine is the availability of it, even when you're giving it in the diet, you know, a supplemented taurine. And so things like a beet pulp that have been put in the diet for fillers, okay, can bind taurine. So you have to be careful of those diets that are less expensive that have been made to produce beet pulp fillers. You also have to be careful about meats like chicken that can alter the availability of taurine, okay? And many, many diets have chicken and chicken meal and chicken fat and blah blah blah. Why? Because it's cheap, it's a cheap source of meat, okay? Now, being a vegetarian, you have to take some of the things I say with a grain of salt bias, okay? But chicken and venison are pro-inflammatory hot foods in Chinese medicine. So you if you have an animal that isn't 100% healthy and isn't performing at the top of their ability, they've got some kind of illness going on, you don't want to feed them pro-inflammatory foods. So we avoid chicken, we avoid chicken meal, we avoid chicken fat, we avoid venison, we avoid related deer and elk antler chews because you don't want to inflame the body of those pets, okay? So that's important to remember. So the whole um business with dilated cardiomyopathy started with an assertion by nutrition at a vet school, veterinary college on the East Coast. Everybody probably knows who it was, and that the studies at that vet school are funded by Nestle Pirina. So I don't care how, as a scientist, you want to be objective and not influenced by the people that are funding what you do, but it's impossible. Let's face it, we are all need the funding to do our research, and we have to take into account the potential biases that that produces. So this went on. The FDA was notified. Um, the FDA from April of January of 2014 through the end of April 2019 said that they received 524 reports. Now, these are not proof, okay? This is just reports to the FDA about individuals concerned about the diet that their dogs ate and cats, and that the potential that it was related to cardiac function issues, including dilated cardiomyopathy. Now, this is what uh five and a five and a quarter years of reports, and all they had was 515 dog reports and nine cat reports. Now, in that five and a quarter period, there were millions and millions of pets fed foods. Okay, so you have to look at how common were these reports in the overall use of pet foods, okay, and then unfortunately, in June of 2019, June 27th specifically, my sister's birthday, the FDA mistakenly named 16 foods that they saw that came up more frequently in the 524 total foods that they had seen in five and a quarter years. Well, everybody assumed that those pet foods were unsafe. And it had a major impact on the people whose pets were eating those foods, or on whether those foods would be purchased. And because of that, there have been litigation uh lodged by that, they didn't mean that those foods caused dilated cardiomyopathy or even cardiac dysfunction. They just said these were the pet foods by name that were more often in the reports, which is just not scientifically defensible. And so what's happened after all of this, including my own study of golden retrievers that was published last fall, 523 golden retrievers, all of uh 98% of whom are adults, they had no cardiomyopathy, they had no health issues other than maybe some scratching and an occasional bowel issue. And we looked at the foods and there was no difference whether the animals ate commercial kibble, um, grain-free or non-grain-free, whether they ate homemade raw diets, whether they ate homemade cooked diets, whether they ate um commercial raw diets. So it made absolutely no difference. And when we looked at the 523 dogs, which foods were the most, oh, and by the way, we did taurine levels on 22 of them, and they were either normal or elevated, not low. And when we looked at the results of these 24 foods we checked with our nutriascan salviva-based tests on these 523 gold ones, the most reactive foods were turkey or white-colored fish. Medium reactive foods were venison, corn, or cornstarch, and the lowest reactive food was lamb or animals that had no reactions whatsoever to the 24 foods and the 112 related foods from these 24. So, I mean, turkey and whitefish, where was chicken? Huh? Lamb was the least reactive. And of course, when we had this allegation about um dilated cardiomyopathy and what foods were more um involved, the media said it was boutique diets and exotic meats.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

Right.

SPEAKER_01 31:56

Well, gosh, you know. So we've had all these allegations. Now, there was another very interesting study done by a board-certified veterinary nutritionist, Susan Kavanaugh, and she took 37 dogs and she fed them for 90 days. They switched their food to a hundred percent plant-based diet. Now, remember, dogs are supposed to be obligate omnivores. In other words, they should have some meat and fish, um, not just plants. Cats are obligate carnivores, they have to have some meats in their diet. Dogs don't have to. So she fed these 37 dogs for 90 days on a totally plant-based diet. She looked at the amino acid composition in their blood before and after these plant-based diets, and there was some change in the amino acid profile, as you'd expect, because they're eating different proteins, right? All 90 dogs had no evidence of cardiac disease, and none of them had changes in their heart on echocardiography, which is the gold standard. So these animals could eat plant-based diets entirely for 90 days and have no change in their cardiac parameters. So obviously, and this is published, um, many of us now realize uh that the FDA unfortunately was premature in what they stated, and they've admitted it now. They've admitted now that um uh in June of 2019 that cardiomyopathy and cardiac disease in the dog has multiple factors. Some families are genetically predisposed, we know that. It's a complex disease, we need more studies, and all their earlier assertions were refuted, and they're undertaking now a series of properly controlled scientific studies to try to determine what, if anything, was going on with this increased frequency of reports of cardiac dysfunction. And I've told you again that's 520 cases in four and a quarter years based on millions and millions of animals that have eaten pet foods in that period.

SPEAKER_00 34:13

And there was some selection bias too, right? In terms of yes. Yeah. Um, can you because I thought that was really interesting because to me that that stood out. Yep. Um so it was really people, only people who were feeding their dogs grain-free that then.

SPEAKER_01 34:31

Yeah, there was a selection bias after the veterinary school in the northeast reported it. Later that year, the veterinary school in the northwest reported it. And it happened to be that their emphasis in study was in golden retrievers because the cardiologist that was leading the study breeds golden retrievers. So there's a selection bias again. And you know what, Aaron, which is most disheartening, in our community in Southern California, where we're very visible and very active, even today, veterinary cardiologists are telling the people to get off grain-free diets.

SPEAKER_00 35:08

Yeah. Well, I I I checked my dog's food when I first saw the uh the FDA report. I was like, oh geez, like what is he eating that's grain-free? Um is there any reason uh reason that a dog should go grain-free if if everything else is fine?

SPEAKER_01 35:29

Yes. I'll tell you why. Most of the grain-free diets are devoid of wheat, corn, and soy. Now, what does that mean? Well, the corn in our country is GMO corn, field corn. It's it's got genetically modified issues associated with it. Wheat is a very strong gluten, and you know how many people these days are eating gluten-free diets. Look at all the change in our world about the availability of gluten-free foods. I became gluten intolerant myself 15 years ago as a vegetarian. We don't eat any glutens in our house anymore. We all be I can't. I can't I blow up, my ankles blow up, my tummy blows up, I look like I'm seven months pregnant. Um, but more importantly, it affects my memory and my cognition, my ability to understand and recognize what's going on with myself and people around me. That's a horrible feeling. You like you feel like you're fuzzy, you know. And of course, for me, I mean, I can't do that, right? So, and then soy for soy is a phytoestrogen, a plant estrogen. So there are many, many pet diets now. The first ingredient is soy. So we worry about and the plants. Now, the latest and most alarming factor about the wheat corn and soy and other cereal grains, okay, is that they're all sprayed with glyphosate, which is Roundup. All of the pet food diets contain glyphosate Roundup residues. Do you want to be feeding your animal a food that has a pesticide herbicide residue associated with it? No. Absolutely not. And so that's why how do you avoid glyphosate in the foods that we eat every day? You buy organic foods. I hate to say it, folks, but the organic industry has won on this round. Organic foods have a minimum amount of glyphosate or dicambria or chloropyrophos, which has been outlawed, by the way, but it's still being used illegally. So these are pesticides, herbicides that are used, they're banned in the European Union. They're still being used illegally in some places in North America. Um, the USDA can't possibly keep up with regulating all of that, nor can the Environmental Protection Agency. So it's almost impossible for us to be sure that the foods we're feeding don't contain these pesticide herbicide residues.

SPEAKER_00 38:12

Right. Yeah, that's that's unfortunate. Um such as 2020. Um and I just wanted to clarify, you you said that now all of the um dog food companies, even the grain-free ones, are adding taurine.

SPEAKER_01 38:29

Yes, they add taurine. Because they've been so um, what should we say? Uh um well, harmed is not the right word, but they've been so concerned about this hysteria and panic that occurred. They not they didn't add it necessarily because their foods were depleted in it. They added it as an additional source, not too much, however, okay. As I told you, all of the taurine um studies that have been done recently have shown that all these foods have more than enough taurine, and some of them were even too high.

SPEAKER_00 39:02

Oh, okay. Um, and I also thought it was interesting when they said the boutique foods, because after I read the report, I took Barnaby, my dog, to the pet store with me, and I was I was looking at the foods like the contained kangaroo, but then I read your report, and chicken showed up more than the exotic type foods.

SPEAKER_01 39:20

Right, exactly. And most of the the kangaroo, alligator, um, and other unusual diets that that people have been feeding, just same you know, lizards or whatever, um, they have chicken. They have chicken fat, chicken meal, whatever. And they also often have fish oils that are pro-inflammatory. And remember, if you have a reaction to fish oils, uh like whitefish oils or salmon oil, which tends to be fatty, they should be wild salmon. Remember, you don't want any uh mercury in your salmon oil. Um, you have sardines, herrings, and tuna, and their oils are all pro-inflammatory for certain individuals. So you have to be careful. So, what are we doing these days? We're looking to get our omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids in the dog. Um, we're looking at krill oil, we're looking at anchovy oil, we're looking at plant oils like borridge oil, even olive oil, okay? So we're trying to be more healthy and feed organic sources of fruits and vegetables and meats and fish if you're making your homemade diet. And raw diets are perfect, they're fine as long as they're balanced properly. I have no problem with feeding an animal a raw diet. It's going to be healthier for them if their animals tolerate a raw diet, and some animals don't, uh, a few don't, but there's an equal hysteria about feeding a raw diet because many veterinarians don't believe that raw diets are safe. Um, true.

SPEAKER_00 40:51

I wanted to ask you, um, you know, if your dog does get diagnosed with DCM, I'm sure there's a range of you know severity. Um, but there are cases where they switch the foods and the dog gets better.

SPEAKER_01 41:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 41:07

What are they switching to?

SPEAKER_01 41:09

Is there any studies on that? Yes, there are studies, but the point is some animals are switching from a grain-free diet back to grain or vice versa. Some animals are changing their meat or their fish sources, some animals are going on an entirely vegetarian diet, uh, like the V diet one that Dr. Kavanaugh used, okay? Um the problem is when you switch diets, you've got to do it slowly. So many people are told to immediately switch their pet's diet. They do that, the animal gets sick. You have to switch it gradually over 10 to 14 days. So you're doing 75%, 25%, 50-50%, 25%, 75%, and then whatever. Now, let's say that you're convinced that your animal should be on a raw diet because you believe that those uh foods are ingredients are less processed. That's true. What if you're one of the animals that can't tolerate a raw diet? Okay, so even within a household, you can have several animals, three could be eating raw, one can't tolerate it. So that animal has to have a cook diet, okay, or a different kind of diet, or a limited ingredient diet, for example. You know what we're doing with more and more uh problems with our worldwide uh food shortages and issues, and especially in the third world, we're feeding more insects and more seaweeds as source of proteins. So more insect-based diets, you know, powdered diets or um uh f frozen uh whole insects. Uh I've just written a review about that, actually, which will come out um in April, uh about crickets, locusts, grasshoppers. Um flies. Do you know that flies are a source of very good food protein sources? And then we have all of the seaweeds. There's dozens and dozens of very good sources of seaweed. We use seaweed calcium as a source of a calcium supplement, along with eggshell calcium. So there's many, many different sources of protein now that the world will have to do to feed all of us, including the pets that we care for.

SPEAKER_00 43:22

Um I thank you so much, Dr. Dudd. I I don't want to take up too much of your time, and this was a super informative. Um and I can't wait to share it. Uh so thank you so much. I also have to say, my my of course, my dad and my mom wanted me to say hello to you. Um I didn't do it at the beginning, but I want to make sure I do it here right now.

SPEAKER_01 43:42

So Hello and much love.

SPEAKER_00 43:46

Um and I will share this and I'm will refer people to your website because it's just a wealth of information. Thank you. Yeah, and you bridge uh you know, sometimes people like, you know, the word holistic uh gets a bad rap, but you You just you bridged together like you know, you the science and the holistic just beautifully. So um I definitely plan on sending people to your website. Thank you. Thank you, Erin, very much. Thank you. Enjoy the rest of your your day in uh Southern California. Shall do. Bye-bye. Bye. All right, guys. Thank you so much for listening. That was wonderful. I learned so much. I hope you did too. As always, if you have any questions, you can email me or reach me through my website. That's probably the best way. Bloomingwellness.com. Um, and on my blog, when I post about this podcast, of course, I will include Dr. Dodd's website so you can get in touch with her and read her blog if you want to. Her blog is really easy to read, too. So even if you have if you don't know anything about medicine or science, it's very user friendly. So I highly recommend reading it. Um, all right, that's it, guys. Till next time. Have a good one.