Silent Pain - The Problem 53% of Pet Parents Miss!

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Wag Out Loud

Krista Karpowich

100 episodes

9 months ago

Hello This is Krista with Episode #189, the final episode of the Wag Out Loud pawdcast. And I just want to thank you for tuning in over the years and for wanting to be the best advocate for your dog's health and wellness. I have learned so much from all of my expert guests over the last five years and I hope that you have too many of you know that for the past year I've been working alongside Dr. Judy Morgan, as the Education and Development Team Lead for her Naturally Healthy Pets team. And Dr. Judy is America's best known natural pet advocate, and holistic veterinarian for over 38 years, and I help produce her podcast and manage her events and also manage her speaking engagements. Dr. Judy's experience includes holistic veterinarian, acupuncturist, chiropractor, food therapist, author and speaker. So if you don't currently follow her, you should! Follow Dr. Judy Morgan's Naturally Healthy Pets and continue your journey to learning more about how to keep your dog healthy and happy, naturally. And in the meantime, my Wag Out Loud website will remain up. So you can always listen to any of the podcast episodes. Check out my most trusted brands, most of them with discount codes. And check out the great information on the resources page. Again, thanks everybody for listening to the Wag Out Loud pawdcast. And I hope that you enjoy this final episode. Take care dog lovers! Welcome to the Wag Out Loud pawdcast, where we are obsessed with bringing you helpful tips on canine health care, nutrition, and overall wellbeing. If you'd like to support the show, check out the amazing online events, products and resources that I personally recommend on the Wag Out Loud website. I'm your host, Krista and I'm super excited to be bringing you yet another tail wagging episode. Well, hello dog lovers and welcome to yet another Wag Out Loud episode. And this is actually going to be the last and final episode, where we have a chance to learn something new when it comes to Canine health. And I'm so excited for today's guest. We have Bill Booko ut here. And he's going to be covering the topic of will your dog benefit from supplements and the critical questions to ask when selecting products. Bill, thank you so much for being with us today. Krista, Thank you very much for the opportunity. I've been looking forward to this since we scheduled it. I’m sad that this is last podcast but I'm honored to be the final episode. So I really appreciate it. This is so fitting. Bill, I'm going to ask you to introduce yourself and share why did you start the NASC, the National Animal Supplement Council? THE START OF THE NASC Kind of an interesting story. I'll make it brief. I'm a business executive. So I was COO for a $500 million dollar medical device and drug company but I was raised in Wyoming and I had dogs my whole life. So I've been an animal lover. I had two black labs, Lancelot and Cinder and they both had health issues. Cinder had hip dysplasia. Lancelot had cancer. So in the mid 1990s, I had them both successfully treated, I made a career change. I got out of human medicine and I took a slot as CEO for the third largest specialty animal referral center in the US. When cancer came back the second time around on my own dog, Lancelot. He was an 11 and a half year old Labrador Retriever. And he was given a very poor prognosis. So I'm connected with all these high powered board certified oncologists. And you know, he's given three months with chemotherapy. And I'm just not going to do that on an 11 and a half year old dog, so I'm looking for help. So I find a veterinarian, formulated a product and changed his diet completely. And he lived two and a half years good quality of life, which wasn't long enough. But out of that experience, I decided, well, I'm going to start my own company selling supplements for animals. Well, I didn't realize that the regulatory environment for animal supplements was different than it is for human dietary supplements. I made a bad assumption. And in 2001, the industry was threatened with products being removed from the marketplace. So we started NASC with 18 companies with the intention of engaging the regulatory officials, meaning the Food and Drug Administration, Center for Veterinary medicine as well as state regulators to try to define, develop and implement a responsible path forward that would allow these beneficial products to remain on the market, provided companies act responsibly. So that's the foundation and the driving force behind founding NASC. Well, and we appreciate that. Because, you know, I have to let my listeners know, I don't know it all. I'm just a dog, mom. And I thought that the supplement industry, especially for animals is unregulated. And the wild wild west? And I am so glad to know that there is an organization looking out for our pets. And I was just astounded, yet happy to hear what your members of the NASC have to go through to get that accreditation. So why don't we start there with how did you come up with having supplement companies get the seal of approval? What do they have to do? WHAT DOES NASC MEMBERSHIP ENTAIL? It's really a two step process. First, you just can't pay your money and join NASC, you have to qualify for membership. So whether you go through the audit process or not, there's a code of conduct document that every single company and then we have 300 members now, 300 brands, every single company that joins NASC, has to have a direct interview, either with myself or Ryan Cargo, our Chief Operating Officer, to be sure that the company is willing to commit to our quality standards. they sign a written document, and they have to qualify for membership. To use the NASC seal, that's about a 120 day process. a lot of companies want to join NASC and use the seal right away. Well, if we just handed out the seal, the quality seal when companies you know join and you write us a check and it would have no meaning or value. So with the NASC audit program, companies have to pass a quality audit, similar to an FDA audit, that they demonstrate their labels are in compliance, their claims are in compliance with our guidelines. They have a written quality manual that ensures quality processes, whether they have products contract manufactured for them by someone else, or they they have those processes themselves. They enter products to our adverse event reporting database, which is the most advanced system of post market surveillance in the world, for these types of products, much more advanced than even the human dietary supplement industry. So those companies have to meet our requirements to be a member, but we verify those through an actual audit process. And once a company does that, then they can use the NASC seal, that’s good for two years. But again, you can't just join and use the seal. If there wasn't a pretty high hurdle to clear, then that seal would have no value. And, you know, a lot of people ask me why we've been successful at NASC. And, you know, I say, one word credibility, we walk our talk. And I don't mean to say that our members are perfect. Anybody can make a mistake. But, you know, we do have specific standards that we require members to follow. Well, and the in depth ingredient search and report that is involved, that alone is worth its weight in gold. Yeah, we've expanded our programs as this is our 22nd year. And we're the largest trade association in the world representing companies that sell products for dogs, cats and horses, you know, similar to human dietary supplements, but our programs have expanded where we now have quality, quality and qualification programs for raw materials, contract manufacturers, testing laboratories, because it seems intuitive, but people you know, kind of forget, one of the things they you know, you see a product on the shelf and quality is assumed and it shouldn't be. So I always say Trust, but verify. And we'll talk more about that in this podcast, I'm sure. If you don't start with quality raw materials, combined and manufactured with quality, repeatable processes, you're not going to have quality products at the end of that production cycle. So we cover all the way from raw material supplier qualification through our preferred supplier program, contract manufacturing companies all the way through finished products. we do independent product testing also, we'll go out as an organization couple times a year, and we'll buy products from the marketplace. And we'll test to make sure that companies meet label claim. If they don't, then we require written corrective action and investigation, if they’re outside of allowable limits or analytical laboratory variation. And what if a company changes their formulation in any way? Do they have to start over again? CHANGE IN FORMULATION Yeah, good question. Products are entered in our database. And every ingredient in the product is entered in and that product is finalized and locked, the company has to sign it off and lock the product. So that product in our database cannot be changed. Now, if a formulation does change, they can enter a new product, or we won’t modify that product because that would compromise the integrity and the traceability of the products that were manufactured previous to the formulation change. But that can be updated by like a red one SKU in our database. So every individual product and individual formulation can be tracked by lot number, and that really protects the company, you know, if they ever did have a problem, or an issue that was unforeseen? You know, we could recognize that act upon that quickly, you know, if needed, and again, in the interest of ensuring that we have quality products in the marketplace. And do you guys put any emphasis on companies that have done clinical trials or studies? STUDIES AND TRIALS Certainly, clinical trials and studies are important. And we encourage people to contact a company look for research? A couple issues with research. So Krista, let me give you a direct short answer to your question. We don't evaluate the efficacy of products, right? There would be legal liability associated with that. And if we did, if we evaluated safety and efficacy, then we'd be the FDA. And that's what the Food and Drug Administration does. So we don't evaluate whether or not the product works, or does the company have clinical research? However, in commenting on clinical research, a lot of people especially veterinarians say, You know what, I'm not going to buy a product until I see research. There's a couple of issues with research, I think the right question is, why isn't there more research for natural products? Two answers to that, number one, natural substances cannot be protected via intellectual property or patents. So if a company introduces, you know, conducts research, and I'll give you an example, we just conducted as an organization, a safety study for CCD, three different types of CBD in dogs, the cost of that study was $475,000, for just safety. So there's no way to recoup the investment, because you can't patent protect the formulations in most cases. So some other company can go out, copy of formulation, sell it cheaper, and no way for the company to recoup the investment. That's answer number one, or part one of the answer. Part Two, the answer is, if you have a product that shows that the product would be beneficial for a chronic disease process, companies are limited on the claims that they can make if they don't go through the drug approval process with FDA. And that's a very expensive and lengthy process, meaning millions of dollars and years, at least five years to get through the new animal drug approval process. So that's why drug companies have formulations or substances that they can protect with patents, and recoup the very costly investment that it takes to go through the new animal drug approval process. So that's kind of a long winded answer to a short question, which is, how do we view research? And do we encourage research? The answer is yes, we encourage research. But there are limitations in this particular area, just because the cost to reach it. That all makes sense. Thank you for breaking that down. Appreciate it. Well, before we go on our break, I guess I wanted to ask, since it's called the National Animal Supplement Council, are you only taking companies that are manufacturing here in the US? ONLY US COMPANIES? Yeah, the answer is the answer is no. When we started NASC, that's where we started because that's where the issue was burning. The hottest and brightest was products were being limited, in fact being removed from the marketplace in the United States. So we started as in the National Animal Supplement Council, but we really have evolved into you know, we're more of a global organization, we participated in the veterinary natural health products program and helped define the path forward in Canada. And we're recognized in in some other countries, countries internationally with the NASC seal and our quality program. So we've become more globally focused over time. But we started out focused in the US. got it. Okay. Well, we are going to take a quick break, but when we come back, Bill is going to unpack his motto trust but verify, and how we can know that we're getting a good product when we are looking for products for our dogs. So everybody sit tight, and we'll be right back. SPONSOR AD Thanks to Dog Love essential oils for sponsoring this episode. They say it comes in many forms. And in this case, love comes in a bottle. Our canine companions are more than just pets. They're cherished family members. So whether you have a sprightly pup, a wise old sage or a beloved friend of any age, Dog Love Oils help to enhance your pups wellbeing, and happiness. Are you tired of using chemical laden products on your precious pup? Well, Dog Love Oils has you covered. Whether it's soothing your dogs hotspots, protecting them from pesky fleas and ticks, aiding digestion, relieving sore joints, or simply promoting overall wellness, Dog Love Oils has crafted top quality natural solutions for you. What makes these elixirs stand out? Well, it's all about quality and Dog Love Oils uses only the finest pure therapeutic grade essential oils, ensuring safety and effectiveness for both dogs and their human companions. And rest assured that all Dog Love Oils are blended with natural ingredients and expertly diluted and tested to be dog safe. Show your love by going to https://www.dogloveoils.com/ today and explore their wide range of products designed to boost your best friend's well being. And here's a special treat during the entire month of December, enjoy a generous 15% off every order of $25 or more by using the code WAGOUTLOUD . Dog Love Oils… love in a bottle. And we are back and I'm having a fascinating conversation with Bill Bookout from the National Animal Supplement Council. And Bill you mentioned in the first half that your motto is trust but verify. Can you unpack that a little bit? TRUST, BUT VERIFY Yes, I think, again, as we talked about in, you know, before the break, people see a product on the shelf and quality is assumed and I don't think it should be. trust but verify. You know, people should not be afraid to pick up the phone and call the company and ask some questions. Ask how long has the company been in business? Ask who formulated the product? And what's their background? You know, do they have expertise in these areas? Who can I call if I have a question? You know, are they credible? You know, Can I can I get help? There's a couple red flags that I always tell people to look for. And you can take these to the bank. Companies that make claims that sound too good to be true, probably are. And cheap products are cheap for a reason. So if you see two different products, and they look the same formulation wise and one of them cost significantly less than the other stop and ask yourself why. quality costs money. Now, why is that important? Because this is a consumable product. And there are no magic bullets out there. Right? So even if you have a supplement that you hope that your dog or cat will benefit from. It's not a magic bullet. Right. It's a component of a comprehensive health and wellness program. But the important point for supplements are, quality means consistency. And if your dog or cat is going to respond positively to that product. It needs to be produced consistently. So you have the same product this week, next week, next month, next year, so that you maximize the probability that you're going to get a positive response for the animal And that centers around quality and process control. So that's why trust but verify quality is always important. Now, we all lead busy lives, right? And I will also suggest that people, you know, access to information on the internet, we live in the information age, right? We get information from all kinds of different places. And it's easy to get right. So be careful what you read, be careful who you believe, trust but verify. And, you know, we hope that companies or consumers, pet owners will look for NASC audited member products, because again, as I mentioned earlier, that doesn't mean they're perfect, but it does mean somebody's been there and checked them out. Right. So I think you want to maximize the probability that your dog or cat who is really your extended family member is going to benefit from the products and you want to buy a quality product, because if they're going to respond, it really centers around quality and consistency. I'm glad you mentioned that it all does make a lot of sense that cheaper does not mean better. And that we do have to ask questions and not be afraid to dig a little deeper into the companies and the ingredients and the sourcing and where do they manufacture? How do they manufacture? So I know when we originally met, which was a long time ago, you said that there was an instance when you had to cancel a member? Can you share what happened there? MEMBERS NOT BEING COMPLIANT We did. Yeah, without mentioning any names. We had a longtime audited member company, that we you know, we pick up products and we test for label claims. And we had a company come in at 78% of label claim for one of the ingredients in their product. Well, when that happens, that's you know, there's obviously an issue. So we require written investigation and corrective action so that the company can determine what made that happen. Well, we sent a note to the company and said, Hey, we bought this product, here's where we bought it from, here's the test results. We tested this particular laboratory, we're completely transparent in that. And we said you're 78% of label claim, you need to find out why this happened and respond to us on what your findings are and what you're going to do. What are you going to do so this doesn't happen again. And the company responded back to us and said, We're not going to do that. We think you're getting too deep in our business, and we're not going to respond to you. We canceled their membership that day. Good for you. So, I mean, if we don't walk our talk, then again, as I mentioned earlier, if you ask me, What's the one single word that best describes the success of NASC credibility, right? If we don't have credibility with the regulatory agencies, and ultimately with the consumers in the marketplace, retailers, consumers, then we don't have a good foundation to stand on. So quality is very important to us. That's what happened. And we're very serious about what we do. Well, I appreciate that, that shows integrity and transparency. And I mean, you are regulating, which is what we need. And speaking of which, you should be very proud of 300 members. But when we look at the entire landscape of animal supplements, there are I can't even imagine hundreds of 1000s of brands, why aren't more wanting to be a part of the NASC? So by consumer spending, we estimate that we represent about 80 to 85% of the industry. The industry, rightly or wrongly, is a fairly low barriers to entry industry. Meaning that, you know, Krista and Bill can decide they want to start an animal supplement company, and if we can get it up off the ground, then we can certainly do that. But we estimate that we represent about 80 and 85% of the industry by consumer spending or products that consumers purchase. So we represent the majority of the industry. But that's why I say Trust, but verify, you know, look at the company, see how long they've been in business, check out their background, don't hesitate to do a little due diligence before making the selection. Now, if you see a company with the NASC quality seal again, that means they're not only a member agree to abide by our guidelines in terms of the Code of Conduct, we bought it at them and we verified that. So we hope the consumer because we all lead busy lives, you know, would look for the NASC quality seal and and give that weight. Our ultimate goal is we want to NASC quality seal to be in the top three factors of why someone selects a product that they would use for their furry family member. And do you ever seek out members? Or do they come to you? HOW NASC FINDS MEMBERS most of the time members come to us. At some of the major trade shows like Global Pet Expo or Super Zoo, there's a couple of major veterinary shows, you know, we attend those shows, we usually have a booth and, you know, I'll cruise around if I if I see a company, or what its really turned into Krista is more of a self policing industry. So when you have the majority of the industry, following requirements and quality standards, if somebody is outside of those boundaries, and you know, really, you know, making claims they shouldn't make, for example, they're out there purveying products, and they say they're going to cure everything from parvo to cancer. A lot of times people don't realize they're making a mistake. I didn't when I first got in the business. So I'll call companies up if they're brought to my attention, or if I see them somewhere. And I'll try to help them. we operate with with the philosophy here that a rising tide floats all boats. So, you know, sometimes companies just don't know that they're making a mistake. And I'll try to give them the information because it doesn't do the industry any good for us to sit back and let a company make a mistake. Because bad news sells. And we all get painted with a broad brush wrongly a lot of times. But nevertheless, that's what happens. And so we do both, most of the times companies come to us, one of the buyers on the retail side. Now we've been around long enough and we have credibility, you know that the buyers will require companies to belong to NASC. Because again, they want to maximize, this is a consumable sale, they want to maximize the probability that a pet owner is going to return to their location, wherever that purchase location is, they're going to buy that product again, they're going to leverage that visit, they’ll buy other things because it increases trust with the retailer that recommends or offers a product for sale. And they'll tell their friends and create a new stream of business. So there's a lot of business benefits. And so we get a lot of a lot of companies through retail channels as well, because we you know, again, we help the retailers maximize, maximize their revenue which at the end of the day. You know, that's what that's what keeps them in business. Well, I have to say, in the almost five years that I've been doing this show, you know, I've learned how to ask the questions and what to look for. But I think a lot of these companies, unfortunately, they're playing on our emotions, because we're talking about, as you mentioned, extended family. These dogs are part of our family, and cats. So when we're buying these supplements, and we don't see a difference, in whatever we're trying to address, I know that I've had supplement graveyards, I've spent so much money, it seems like I'm throwing stuff at the wall, there has to be something that works for my dog. So for the NASC seal for you guys to do the steps and go above and beyond what research and homework I could do on a brand or product. I think that just speaks so highly of what you're doing. We try to make it easier, right? Because again, we all lead busy lives. So we try to make it easier. And again, I don't claim that all of our members are perfect. They're not. But we want people to have a higher degree of confidence that if they select an audited NASC member company’s product, that that company is a solid company and they're going to maximize the probability of success, which how does that translate? We really want our dogs and cats. We want the same things for our dogs and cats we want for ourselves. If you stop and think about that, we want to live a long, happy, healthy life to the maximum degree possible, right? Well, here's the irony. This might be a total rabbit hole. I do believe if we feed our pets, a species appropriate diet. And I am one and everybody knows that for fresh and or raw feeding versus a highly processed food with synthetic vitamins and minerals. They can't be getting the nutrition that they need. So therefore you do need to supplement and that's where I just I don't understand why many of us don't want to give the proper nutrition to our animals and give them less supplementation. What are your thoughts on that? WHY NOT BETTER NUTRITION FOR LESS SUPPLEMENTATION? Very insightful and you're dead on I mean, you hit the nail on the head. If people think about it this way, this thing that we call health and wellness, whether it's for ourselves or our animals, it's a three dimensional sphere. A spherical object, three dimensional, good diet, exercise, home environment, fresh water, routine veterinary care, and checkups, just like routine, you know, you know, physicals and checkups every year. That's right. Supplements are a component of that. But you're right. A lot of people don't know, your gastrointestinal tract is the largest immune supporting organ in your body, person or animal. And quality food quality diet, strong and healthy immune system, those are really you know, so probiotics can can play a role in that. So probiotics are the good bacteria, you know, that fight off the bad bacteria in the GI tract that helps metabolize nutrients and maintain strong and healthy immune system. But probiotics are subject to. The two enemies of probiotics are heat and moisture. And so you don't see probiotics in pet food because they're heated to kill off salmonella in a kill step. So probiotics is one example of a supplement that can be very beneficial for long term health and wellness. Now, you might not see an immediate effect from probiotics, like you would on maybe a joint product if your dog's limping from old age or something like that. But you really hit a very key point, good nutrition, clean water, exercise, loving home environment. Supplements as a component are really, really important. So it's three dimensional. Oh, thank you for clarifying that. That's, that's so powerful that we give them all around whole body wellness physically and mentally. Well, Bill, we are running out of time. But before we go, I want to ask you two things. First of all, what is the difference between a health versus a nutritional supplement? HEALTH VS NUTRITIONAL SUPPLEMENTS Very good question. So a health supplement would be for a non nutritional benefit. ingredients that would not provide nutrients that are required in a complete and balanced diet. What are some examples? Glucosamine, Chondroitin, MSM, tumeric, curcumin, coenzyme Q 10. lutein, there's no scientifically substantiated daily nutritional requirements for those ingredients yet, products with some of those can be targeted for specific health benefits, right? Joint Health, eye health, cardiovascular health, liver and kidney health, gastrointestinal health, immune health, things like that. It could be when times of stress, right? older, older animals just like older people, you know, they don't get around as well so great products or B category. Those would be on the health supplement side. nutritional supplements would provide nutrients as a component of a complete and balanced diet, maybe probiotics, vitamins, minerals, things that, you know, you may as you said earlier, dog food companies are required to provide nutritionally complete diets. But typically, the more you spend the better quality for pet food you're going to get. And if people are willing to you know, go for, you know, raw diet, frozen diet, home prepared diet, you know, look at that, but, you know, some nutritional supplements would be provide components of a complete and balanced diet. There's some up and coming products that are completers, right, you take a protein source, and then you have a supplement that would have the other nutrients that you add to your own protein source. That would make a complete balanced diet. So does that help clarify that? Thank you. That's That's great. Well, they'll as we are wrapping up, what would you like to leave us with today? Well, Bill, I really appreciate the opportunity Krista, I'm very sorry that this is your last episode, but again, I'm honored to be selected to contribute. I guess I'd leave you with my contact information. If people have a question and they hear this podcast don't hesitate to reach out to me because you can get a hold of me. You know, www.animalsupplements.org is our website. My email address is b.bookout@NASC.cc Shoot me a note, don't hesitate to pick up the phone, give me a call, check out our website and look for the NASC seal. And, you know, long, happy, healthy life to everybody on the podcast. I really appreciate you listening. Thank you, Bill. And I will have all of these links in the show notes. OFFER: And Bill is giving a great offer. He is offering up a free copy of the NASC Pocket Guide to dog and cat health. And there's a form on their website, and I have the link again, it's going to be in the show notes. All you have to do is click on it and you'll have access to that NASC Pocket Guide to dog and cat health. Bill, I can't thank you enough. And I'm so glad that you reached out to me those months and months ago and set me straight that there is regulation. And we need more of that in the entire industry, not just in the supplement division. So I want to thank you for starting this amazing organization, and for being on here today. And I want to thank all of the listeners for wanting to do better and to advocate for their dog's health. So Bill, thank you so much. I appreciate you. Thank you very much. It's an honor. Thanks again to Dog Love Oils for sponsoring this episode and for their unwavering dedication to our beloved canine companions. Save 15% off any of their exceptional products during the month of December 2023. By using code WAGOUTLOUD on your purchase of $25 or more. Thanks for listening. You'll find some helpful links in the show notes and if you enjoy the show, please be sure to follow and listen for free on your favorite podcast app. And please, please share your feedback. Visit WagOutLoud.com for great product recommendations with discounts, amazing online events and fantastic resources. That's also where to visit our Bark About It page where you can suggest topics, guests or products. Be advised that this show offers health and nutritional information and is designed for educational purposes only. You're encouraged to do your own research and should not rely on this information as a substitute for nor does it replace professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. If you have any concerns or questions about your dog's health, you should always consult a veterinarian or a nutrition expert. Have a tail wagging day and we'll catch you next time. Don’t forget to Subscribe for FREE and please leave a review: Apple Podcasts | Android | Spotify I Stitcher I iHeartRADIO The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. It is no substitute for professional care by a veterinarian, licensed nutritionist or other qualified professional. The host as well as guests who speak on this podcast express their own opinions, experience and conclusions, and Wag Out Loud LLC neither endorses or opposes any particular views discussed here.

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Silent Pain - The Problem 53% of Pet Parents Miss!

Wag Out Loud

31 minutes 12 seconds

2 years ago

Silent Pain - The Problem 53% of Pet Parents Miss!

Hello there this is Krista with Episode #178 on the Wag Out Loud pawdcast. Think about this. The sound frequencies that are produced during storms can actually be painful to your dog's ears. And the static electricity that accumulates in their fur due to any change of pressure can also be really unpleasant for them. So if your dog freaks out during storms, they're not just unsure of what's happening, but they may be experiencing a painful physical reaction as well. Welcome to the Wag Out Loud pawdcast, where we are obsessed with bringing you helpful tips on canine health care, nutrition, and overall wellbeing. If you'd like to support the show, check out the amazing online events, products and resources that I personally recommend on the Wag Out Loud website. I'm your host, Krista and I'm super excited to be bringing you yet another tail wagging episode. Dr. Edward Bassingthwaighte is known globally as The Healing Vet. Through his own recovery from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Lyme, he explored holistic medicine and energy healing. He is the founder of a profoundly healing bodywork modality for pets, people and horses - the Whole Energy Body Balance™ Method. Hello, dog lovers, thank you so much for being here today. I am so honored to have Dr. Edward Bassingthwaighte on the show. And he's going to talk about Silent Pain, which is a problem that 53% of pet parents actually miss. And I learned about Dr. Edward, probably three or four months ago, I think he was a guest on the Dog Gone Calm Club with Lisa Spector. And I was just so fascinated about his work and just had to have him on the Show. So Dr. Edward, thank you so much for being with us today. You're welcome. It's a pleasure to be here. And it's really exciting to be able to share this information about Silent Pain because it's something that's really not known in the veterinary industry. And then of course, the general public have little or no idea about it too. Well, I'm happy to share it with all of our listeners today. So why don't we start with you introducing yourself and why are you known as the healing vet? Well, probably because I thought it was pretty cool brand name. It is a cool brand name. Because that brand name really is the essence of of what I'm about which is not only working one on one with people to help them give their animals the best possible life when it comes to holistic health care and vitality and, and longevity but also empowering pet parents to take their pets’ wellbeing into their own two hands. So I'm I'm deeply involved in online education in teaching people how to understand what holistic healthcare is how to implement it. And also I'm the creator of the Whole Energy Body Balance method, which is a profoundly healing, neuro fascial body work and energy work modality for pets, people and horses that are available for everyday people who want to be home practitioners and for for pet wellness professionals who want to be certified. Well, you've got so many great courses, you're helping so many people and animals. Why don't we talk about I know, especially with dogs, that if they have pain, they most of the time like to hide it. So when they actually show signs of pain, isn't it that it's pretty advanced when we can see that they're in pain? How to Notice That Your Dog is in Silent Pain Well, yes and no, I think probably a good place to start is to talk about the difference between acute pain and chronic pain. Acute Pain is usually an injury to one part of the body, there's usually an abrupt increase in pain. And acute pain is super easy to see. There's a rapid change in the animal. There's obvious symptoms like a lameness or a sudden change in behavior becoming withdrawn, obviously unhappy, that sort of thing. So then that gives a lot of people a false sense of security that they are always going to be able to see any kind of pain in their animals, but unfortunately, chronic pain often develops slowly so that any changes if they happen are outside the ability of the human to see them. And another thing about chronic pain, soft tissue pain in particular, which is the most common cause of silent pain that I see is that it's often throughout the whole body. So therefore, there's no one part of the body like with a sore foot, you'll get a lameness. It's easy to see if you've got a dog with gastroenteritis, you'll get vomiting or diarrhea. And these symptoms are very specific to the problem so they're easy to see and pick up whereas chronic pain, chronic soft tissue pain in particular, what happens is that you get animals that might have a gradual change over months or even years. Maybe they get a little slower and stiffer and people just think oh, wow, you know, they're just old. That's normal. Shouldn't we don't need to worry about it? Whereas in reality, you can have animals with incredible levels of pain, chronic pain that they're existing with, but it's sucking a lot of the joy and, and life and connection out of their experience of, of living in relationship with their humans. Yeah. Well, how did you come to realize that the statistic is 53% of our dogs are living in pain? So some years ago, I missed really awful neck pain in my own little dog. That triggered me into getting curious about how many other people might be missing silent pain in their pets. And what I did was I did a small informal clinical study where I had 63 People come in the door with new dogs that I’d never seen before. And before I looked at their dogs and examined their dogs, I asked them, you know, do you think your dog has got any pain? And 53% of them said no, but when I got my hands on the dogs, the dogs had significant, really significant pain going on in their, in their body, soft tissue, chronic pain. And how long ago was this realization for you? Well, I realized a long time ago that there was a lot of undiagnosed neck and back pain. It's probably about 26 years ago, when I, I ran into another vet who worked with horses necks. He would take horses that had a falling lameness that they could not find a reason for, with no blocks, X rays, or that sort of thing. He'd released the vertebrae in the neck and the lameness would go away. So that was from nerve root compression. Now, that was all news to me, because I've never been taught a thing about that at university. So my next thought was, well, what about dogs and cats? They have necks and backs. So I started, you know, feeling with deeper into the body and with with more curiosity about what might be going on through the neck and spine. And pretty quickly, I started finding a whole lot of pain, tension, dysfunction, that before I started exploring more deeply into the body, I was missing. Now that's developed over the years, then I realized that there's the soft tissue, the neuro fascial tissues, throughout the body, store and hold pain and trauma. And they're also involved in anxiety and stuff like that. So it's been a kind of an evolution, but it's only about six or seven years ago, maybe eight years ago that I missed really awful neck pain in my own dog. And that's when I realized that, you know, I thought like a lot of people probably listening to this show right now probably think that they can that their pets will tell them when they have pain. And you know, I had probably a bit of veterinary arrogance running. I know veterinarians are a little bit prior to that kind of thing. But I thought I could look at my dog and tell when he had pain. Turns out, he had a very, very painful neck. He had a fall on the steps, which my wife actually saw, but he got up, shook himself off and seemed okay, so she didn't think to tell me, then a small change in behavior three weeks later, made me get my hands on him. And I found that he was in agony, but he was still not showing any signs to even my highly trained eyes. Wow. So this soft tissue pain that you're talking about? What is the average age that in your mind, dogs start to suffer the silent pain? When Do Most Dogs Start Feeling Pain? Look, it can vary. Most dogs by the time they get somewhere to between five to eight years of age, you're going to have built up a significant amount of soft tissue pain. But at the moment, I'm working with an 18 week old when I first saw it, it's an 18 week old puppy. Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy who's already got incredible amounts of pain in his body. Now, whether that's from some kind of birth injury or some kind of puppy accident or whatever. So you just don't know even younger dogs can if they've had a bad crash when they're little puppies and crying, like playing like a mad thing can have a legacy of silent pain. I've seen a lot of dogs that after you know the routine, normal desexing operations are left with a legacy of soft tissue pain. You know, male dogs in the groin area, female dogs through the abdominal cavity. So there's a lot of different things that can can leave that kind of history or legacy and that gets locked up in the soft tissue in the neuro fascial network in the animal's body. Well, why don't we break this down more? Because you say that silent pain is made up of three different areas. So there's physical, there's anxiety, and there's trauma? Can you unpack each of those? Three Areas of Silent Pain Well, physical pain is soft tissue pain that is in the soft tissues of the body now, particularly in what I call the neuro fascial network, which is the connective tissues of the body. And the connective tissues of the body have very high concentrations of nervous tissue in them. Especially a lot of sensory awareness. So the fascia is everywhere in the body. It is the scaffolding or structure of every other organ in the body on every scale of dimension. If you look at an x ray, you'll never see soft tissue pain on an x ray, it doesn't show up on imaging, which is another reason why I believe vets miss it. I mean, vet's have a knowledge and skills gap when it comes to feeling into the body to find this kind of pain. It's a particular skill that anyone can learn in a matter of weeks. But if it's like riding a bicycle, if you've never learned how to do it, you can't do it. So soft tissue pain, and neck and back pain there's quite a lot of neck and back pain is is actually soft tissue pain with muscle spasm, or nerve root compression, that sort of thing. So that's a big part, then trauma. So any animal that's got a traumatic history, a lot of that mental, emotional, and physical patterns of tension from the trauma are locked up in the physical structures and, and the emotions and, and the energetics of the body. So then when you do the neuro fascial bodywork and you release the physical patterns that are tied up with trauma out of the body, you can also have significant healing of the mental emotional side of things. And then trauma and anxiety are kind of similar in a way that in both trauma and anxiety, the nervous system is sensitized into a chronic state of unhealthy arousal. So there's this the animals are switched on to a low grade, or sometimes a high grade fight flight response, and they usually sensitized to trigger in a much higher levels of arousal very, very easily. So they then you know, begin to trigger a stimulus. And they go into a high orange or red zone very, very easily compared to a resilient, healthy dog that doesn't have trauma, or anxiety. Now, that has a double whammy, in that any kind of trauma and anxiety accelerates soft tissue pain development over time. And anxiety is bad for the nervous system, the immune system and a whole lot of other things. There's some of the Therapeutic Touch skills that we use the Whole Energy Body Balance method which are very powerful at causing a body level relaxation response, parasympathetic activation. So what happens then is that if you use these kinds of touch over time, you can move these anxious animals from this kind of chronic arousal, unhealthy arousal state into relaxation. If you work with these animals regularly, you know, day by day by day, over weeks and months, you can get very significant improvements in anxiety, sometimes quite rapid. For instance, I saw a dog called Clyde a few years ago who was a Staffy who had really severe separation anxiety. He was eating the house, when he was left alone. Two weeks of the whole family doing this body work with Clyde and I think he probably got 10 times as much body work as your average person would give their dog because the mother and both daughters just went to town on him. But two weeks later he was the destructive behavior was totally gone. He was fine to be left at home alone. And some days he was so chilled out about being home. He didn't get off his bed when his mom came home. So I think two things with anxiety. There's kind of four phases of anxiety. Two of them are easy to see people don't miss that's the fight one you get dogs that are reactive, lunging, barking, biting the flea, they're the dogs that running away hiding under things or bolting in the case of thunderstorms. But then you get the freeze, which a lot of people don't understand is actually anxiety when the animal goes still or become suppressed. And the fourth phase that a lot of people miss is the Fidget they're the ones that go nutso. Nutso, crazy jump all over. You don't listen to commands, that sort of thing. Wow, a lot of people are probably saying yeah, I recognize these symptoms. Dr. Edward we are at a spot where it's perfect for us to take a quick break. So we are going to get into this therapeutic touch and how it works when we get right back. So hold on tight, everybody. Thanks so much to the team at System Saver for being this month's feature sponsor. Dr. Baker's canine System Saver is an outstanding all natural supplement that promotes healthy aging. Originally created by a veterinarian to help restore health and soundness to dogs suffering from chronic inflammatory and degenerative conditions. This is one product that does so much. It's perfect for arthritis, hip dysplasia, and joint support, chronic dermatitis, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, and geriatric support for successful aging and quality of life extension. Now with the start of allergy season, System Saver works wonders on canine allergies as well. Learn more by going to Caninesystemsaver.com To relieve your dog's discomfort naturally. And as a bonus, wag out loud listeners can take advantage of a 10% discount by using the code WOL10 At checkout. Well, I don't know about you guys, but this is just fascinating to me. So we are going to continue our conversation with Dr. Edward and we are talking about Silent Pain. And yes, 53% of us are missing this you guys. So you're probably thinking, okay, so how do I advocate for my dog and make them feel better? So as we left in the first half, Dr. Edwards was talking about therapeutic touch and how it helped Clyde in just two weeks. So why don't we uncover this a little bit more? You mentioned that a lot of the silent pain is in the neck and the back? Where exactly are we talking, the entire spine? Or is it the base of the neck? Where Does Most of Our Dogs’ Pain Reside? It depends on the animal, you'll get one one dog or cat that I get my hands on that, you know might have an incredibly painful neck, then another one might be more painful in the thoracic. And you might get a third animal that's more painful in the lumbar or you might get some that are painful everywhere in the back and spine. And I think the spine really is the core of good health in the animals. So any any compromise to the spine is going to affect vitality, energetic integrity and a whole lot of other stuff. So I always focus in on the spine, but there's also the whole body, the neuro fascial network is everywhere in the body. So you need to have a kind of really whole body approach to get the best results. And when we talk about therapeutic touch, we're not talking about canine massage, are we? This is different. What is Therapeutic Touch? Yeah, the Whole Energy Body Balance is different. It's a neuro fascial bodywork. So we're focused on the fascia on the connective tissues and the nervous system. That's that's what we're interacting with with touch. I've never actually trained in any hands on modality because 26 years ago, when I started finding neck and back pain, and then wanting to do something to help the animals, I started playing around with movement and pressure and various qualities of touch pretty quickly found that animals responded to that. And we got some nice changes and happier, more playful, more active pets. So what what I share with the world in the whole energy body balance method is a really comprehensive toolkit of different therapeutic touch skills, neuro fascial bodywork skills, that I've developed over 26 years of working hands on with with 10s of 1000s of animals. So it comes from direct experience, it comes from the animals teaching me what works for them. And we teach a really broad range of skills ranging from very gentle, subtle work like cranial sacral type connections, through to really powerful, but gentle release and mobilization of core structures of the body core structures and tissues, mainly around the spine. And these courses are amazing for so many different reasons, not only are you healing your dog, you're healing yourself and the bond that you have with your dog. You know, some people might think it's woowoo thinking, Oh, I don't know if I have that energy healing in my body to be able to do this for my dog. But we do. And we just have to unlock it right? Anyone Can Do It Yeah, I think in our society, a lot of that this kind of stuff is actively denigrated, and a lot of us shut down a lot of ourselves in terms of our empathic and natural healing abilities at a pretty early age so that we we fit in to society, and we get what we need emotionally. But anyone can learn how to do this, if you've got two hands and a loving heart and a willingness to put in some time and learn. Most of our students see really beautiful changes in their pets within within weeks of starting the training. Yep. And knowing all this. I know a lot of people that let their dogs sleep in the bed, jump off of the bed, jump off of the couch. What are your thoughts on that impact day in day out? Well, I think you've got to let your dog live their life too. I think you take all care that you can and as they get older, perhaps you put in a ramp or steps or whatever for them to get on and off things. But I'm not a I'm not a wrap your dog in cotton wool kind of person. I think dogs need to have fun and live their life and you minimize high impact activities and you take care too, if you learn how to do this kind of body work, then you learn how to feel in the body and you won't miss things. Now, some animals can develop silent pain quite quickly, if they have an accident, or if they, you know, I think we've all had the experience of waking up after sleeping in a funny position. And our whole body’s all spasmed up and painful. And the same kind of thing can happen for our for our pets. So if you do regular hands on work with your animals, not only do you strengthen your bond and relationship with your pets, beyond what you probably think is possible, and I've had a lot of people come into trainings, and at the beginning, I'll often say this now look at me, I see them thinking, you silly vet, I've got the best relationship in the world with my pet. what are you thinking? It can't get any better. But nearly always, at the end of the training, those people come up to me and say, You know what? I didn't believe you when you said things could get better in terms of my relationship with my pets, but it absolutely has and very quickly. So there's there's a whole lot of benefits to this kind of touch based communication therapy connection work with your animals. Absolutely. Well, I would think that not only your average dog, your average family dog, but also the canine athletes would really benefit from this body work, right? Canine Athletes Oh, absolutely. Because if you have an assistance dog, then they have a lot more wear and tear and impact on their body than your average household pet, or most household pets, unless you got someone who's got a ball addiction and the owner doesn't realize that throwing the ball all day is bad for the dog, they can get a lot of a impact injury too . So the earlier you learn how to do this, and the more often you do this kind of work with competition dogs, then the better not only do you prevent the development of silent pain and problems and make the animal stronger and better balanced, but they can they can compete better, because they've got more, they're more imbalanced, they're more aligned, their bodies are healthier. And the other really good thing about this kind of work for your competition dogs is that it helps them learn how to anchor into that state of healthy relaxation. So then you can engage drive, while you still have 100% of cognitive capacity online. Now I see a lot of agility dogs, when they get out to the start line there they are definitely in a state of arousal where they're not 100% able to connect with understand and respond to the communication coming from the handler. You know, if you can, you can get a dog that that can engage all of their drive and be in that healthy orange zone where all their cognitive capacity’s still online, then you're gonna get a dog that will do cleaner, faster runs, because they're listening. They're responsive, they're 100% connected to you and your directions. Yes. And your method of this Therapeutic Touch. It doesn't exist anywhere else, you are the pioneer and thankful for you to be teaching this to not only pet parents, but other professionals that want to become practitioners Correct? Well, I would say that I am one of the pioneers, there's certainly other therapeutic touch modalities out there. There's the pet massage guys in the US that are probably the true pioneers of of massage in pets and and you know, I can't remember his name but he was an inspiration to me and his book, I read and got some lovely information out of that. You've got T Touch you've got Bowen you've got a lot of other modalities but what I've noticed about what we have to offer is that it's there's there's a more comprehensive, broader, deeper range of skills compared to anything else that I've come across. And another thing that we do a lot in whole energy body balance is communicating with the animals understanding their nonverbal communication, expressing nonverbal communication, teaching animals how to yield to pressure in a healthy way so that they can be soft on the lead, not pull on the lead so that you can reposition them while you're working with them. Ask them to move over and they'll go yep, I can move over for you. And another thing that I teach a lot of is, is boundaries, healthy boundaries, how to have a healthy conversation with your dog about okay, I got personal space. Let's have a bit of a talk about how and when I'm going to invite you into my personal space and when I might like to ask you to stay out of my personal space for a little while which humans are diabolically awful at doing in a healthy way probably 90% of the time. Yep. Well, you were talking about what your course offers and you have an amazing offer for our listeners. So do you want to tell them about your Masterclass? FREE OFFER Yeah, we offer a FREE masterclass, which is a two part masterclass. The first part is an information session where we, we spend a good hour going into depth talking about Silent Pain, what it is why it's easy to miss, red flags, subtle signs to look out for what you need to do to make sure that you never miss all that pain, how to treat it and prevent it. Then we have a second hands on session where you you will come along and learn some skills out of the whole energy body balance method, you'll learn the beginnings of how to feel in the body to find some silent pain and a beautiful skill called Webb Loving Touch, which is a gentle connecting relaxing, therapeutic touch interaction with your animals. And I did both of these free master classes and you learn so much just there. And I unfortunately was not able to finish the entire course. Because as many of you know, we lost Winston back in January. But we are picking up our new puppy Dutton this week. And of course, he will know everything about WEBB method once we get him home and situated. So I know that the WEBB method is a healing somatic bodywork modality. Can you explain what is somatic mean? What Does Somatic Mean? Well, some somatic really means the body Soma in Latin is the body. So one of the key things and one of the points of difference for the whole energy body balance is that the first thing that we teach you is nothing to do with your animals, but everything to do with you. So there's an internal practice for the human for you, which is the WEBB somatic embodiment and energy connection practice. Now an interesting thing happens when you start to come into bring your awareness into your physical body and be present here in this, this this earth suit. I like to call it that we inhabit on this planet. The more you do that, in my experience, the happier you get. And if you've got trauma and other anxiety and other problems, if you can have the will and courage to come into your body and be present with healthy discomfort over time, then you'll get improvements and anxiety and you'll slowly unwind and resolve trauma we've we've had a number of clients of our students say that well, you know, I think this training has actually been more for me than my dogs. It’s been incredible for my dogs. But we've had a lot of people with anxiety and other issues, see big improvements in themselves with this work too. Incredible. Well, I am going to have the link in the show notes for everybody that you should check out again, it's a FREE silent pain masterclass that I think everybody needs to sign up for. And this is healing, chronic pain, anxiety and trauma, not only in our pets, and ourselves, but you can also do work on horses as well. So Dr. Edward, where can everybody find out more information about you, your work as the Healing Vet, and your modality, this whole program, the Whole Energy Body Balance method? Well just come along to www.wholeenergybodybalance.com You drop in there, you can search for the Healing Vet on Facebook, we've got a pretty active page on there as well. But that www.wholeenergybodybalance.com is really the heart of where we live online. Social Media URLs or Tags Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_healing_vet/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheHealingVet Great. Well, again, everybody, all of these links will be in the show notes. And I encourage you to sign up for the masterclass for sure. And as we sign off today, Dr. Edward, do you have any parting words for us? Get your hands on your pets. Now, you know, just one thing you can start doing is getting your hands on your pets and just slowing down the speed of your movement of your hands on your pets. Most humans use quite a fast hand speed which is stimulating. So just slow down you just you know you're the pets that your pet loves the most slower down to a quarter or an eighth or a 16th of your normal hand speed. And you'll notice that your animals will start relaxing much more strongly if you do that. And if you do that every day for five or 10 minutes, even that will make a big difference. Beautiful. That's easy enough. Well thank you, Dr. Edward for all of your amazing work. And I'm excited for our listeners to check out everything that you have to offer. Thanks for having me. It's been a blast. Thanks again to our friends at System Saver for sponsoring this month's episodes. Check out this fantastic all natural formula by going to Caninesystemssaver.com And be sure to use the code wol10 For 10% off. Thanks for listening. You'll find some helpful links in the show notes and if you enjoy the show, please be sure to follow and listen for free on your favorite podcast app. And please, please share your feedback. Visit WagOutLoud.com for great product recommendations with discounts, amazing online events and fantastic resources. That's also where to visit our Bark About It page where you can suggest topics, guests or products. Be advised that this show offers health and nutritional information and is designed for educational purposes only. You're encouraged to do your own research and should not rely on this information as a substitute for nor does it replace professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. If you have any concerns or questions about your dog's health, you should always consult a veterinarian or a nutrition expert. Have a tail wagging day and we'll catch you next time. Don’t forget to Subscribe for FREE and please leave a review: Apple Podcasts | Android | Spotify I Stitcher I iHeartRADIO The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. It is no substitute for professional care by a veterinarian, licensed nutritionist or other qualified professional. The host as well as guests who speak on this podcast express their own opinions, experience and conclusions, and Wag Out Loud LLC neither endorses or opposes any particular views discussed here.

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