How probiotics are revolutionising dog health – from skin & ears to teeth with Ingenious Probiotics - The Yappy Hour

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome to the Yappy Hour powered byYappily, the podcast for dog lovers
who want to better understand andcare for their furry companions.
I'm your host Nathan Dunleavy and todaywe're talking about a fascinating and fast
growing topic in pet care, probiotics.

(00:21):
My guest is Jo Flanagan, fromIngenious Probiotics, a company that's
revolutionizing pet care with probioticbased grooming and cleaning products.
We'll explore how probiotics work,why they're a game changer for dogs
with allergies or skin issues, andhow switching to probiotic care

(00:43):
can benefit your dog's well being.
Whether you're curious about microbiomehealth or looking for natural
alternatives to pet care, this episodeis packed with useful insights.
So grab a cup of tea, settlein, and let's get started.

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: Welcome back to the yappy hour. (01:06):
undefined
your host Nathan Dunleavy and I'm soexcited to bring you our next episode
of the yappy hour Powered by Yappily.
really excited because we've gotsomeone on today that's going to be
talking about probiotics, which is agrowing topic in the pet care We've

(01:26):
got Joe from Ingenious Probiotics.
Hi, Joe

Joe Flanagan (01:31):
Hiya, Nathan.

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: Hello, welcome to the Yappy Hour. (01:32):
undefined
So their focus is on natural probioticbased pet care products that help
maintain a healthy microbiome, ecofriendly, plant based approach, and how
it benefits both pets and the environment.
So is something that we've not spokenabout before on the Yappy Hour, so
I'm really excited to sort of digin a little bit deeper and Find out

(01:56):
lots of information about it all.
And I've heard Joe's name brandedaround on a few podcasts myself that
I've been listening to recently.
So it's great to have him with us.
Joe, welcome to the Yappy Hour.
It's great to have you here.
How are you?
How are you today?

Yeah, great.
Nathan, thanks.
Thanks for having me on.
Today, today's been a really good dayactually, and my mum's in hospital,
but she's doing really well, likelyto come out tomorrow and we're all up.
So yeah, you got me in a particularlygood particularly good good day.
So you go from talking about, you know,questions about dogs, ears, and skins to,

(02:32):
you know, quick, who's going to see mom?
Yay.
We're going, it's, it's, yeah,it's, we're having a lot of fun.
It's good.

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: bit of a rota going on. (02:39):
undefined

Yes.

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour (02:40):
home in Ireland at the moment, aren't you?

Yeah, yeah,

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: you're with us all the way from Ireland. (02:43):
undefined
That's great.

yeah, yeah, it's, it's it's great to be, ah, you know, it's
like when you go home and you kind of,with your homies, as they say, and just
surrounded by all your familiar thingsfrom your childhood, ah, it's just,
just great, yeah, I love it, yeah.
Good soul food.

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: Well, I appreciate you taking the (03:00):
undefined
time out then, you know, if you'reback home and your mum's been poor.
I do really appreciate you having some

delighted.

this

This is great, yeah.

Jo, for those who might, who might not be familiar
with Ingenious Probiotics, can youshare a little bit about how it started?
What inspired you to focus onprobiotic pet care, please?

Yeah.
I mean, like, like everybody'sstory, it can have a kind of higgledy
piggledy beginning, and then yourealize you're on a, you're on
a particular path kind of thing.
But the, the thing that got myinterest a bad 20 years ago, we
got involved with air quality.
We come from a a background of, oftemperature control and ventilation,

(03:42):
which, which led into CO2 controland, and being aware of, of.
The air we breathe in and, and,and that moved into being then more
involved in what we call health andwellness in the built environment.
Now, the built environment is just beinginside something that somebody has built.
It's that simple.

(04:02):
It could be, it could be a car.
It could be a pub.
It could be your home, whateverit's inside a building.
So there's various people who are.
responsible for what's going on in there.
You know that the plumber is is doingyour heating and the ventilation guy
is doing this and the electrician makesure you got light and, and things like
natural light, ventilation, all thesekinds of became quite interesting to us

(04:27):
because at that stage I was realizing andagain, it's 20 years ago, realizing just
the impact this was having in health.
Overall, my area at thetime was to do with air.
So we became very aware of just howmuch air people breathe and, and the
kilograms of air that people wouldbreathe way exceeds the kilograms

(04:49):
that they would eat in any given day.
So we all know the, the, the, the hugeimportance of what you eat and you,
you, you are what you eat and whatever.
But if you're eating I don't know.
You know, I never measure whatI eat, but over here in Ireland,
it just seems to be cake.
But I know

Hmm.

you know, you're, you're breathing 10, 11, 12 kilograms.
Of air every day.
So you can, yeah.
So you think what,

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: thought of it like that. (05:18):
undefined

so everything you breathe in, it's, it's going into
those nice little lungy poos thatwe try to take care of, right?
You know, this, then take what's in theair oxygen and put it into a bloodstream.
And, you know, there's a wholescience about what passes through
the barriers inside you and whatdoesn't, we end up breathing in a

(05:40):
hell of a lot of not so very nice.
Stuff and we were involved in airpurification using catalytic converters
in in Ventilation systems and reallyreally interesting quite close to my heart
because I felt we were doing somethingSo doing something to help by taking out
chemicals taking out kind of particulatesand some biohazards and so on.

(06:02):
And then we started looking at what wasputting those chemicals into the air
we were breathing in the first place.
And this came about from some of therules and regulations around ventilation.
And you had to bring in so muchoutside air into an office.
And then you think, well, hang on,the outside air isn't that great.

(06:24):
And now we've got to,it's my job to pump it in.
To your office in the middle of whatevertown you're living in, and it doesn't
have to be London, it can be, you know,think of a, I don't know, Leamington
Spa, just pick, pick a town, you know,pick a small town, it's, it doesn't
have to be some massive, massive, Youknow, Glasgow or something, right?

(06:45):
So, that led us into looking at wherethese chemicals and that we were breathing
in, where they're coming from and oneof the things that was, that made our
monitor spike was cleaning products.

Yes.

And at this time, we were looking to reduce
people's use of air fresheners

Okay.

full of chemicals, formaldehydes, all kinds of stuff, you
know, where people would use a scent, anartificial scent to mask something else.
And we wanted people to stopdoing that because we knew it
was adding to the chemical load.
The chemical exposure.
So we found probiotics and initially Ourentry into this was using the probiotics
to, to remove the organic matter thatthe bad bacteria were feeding on.

(07:29):
So the bad bacteriawere giving off smells.
The organic waste matterwas giving off smells.
And we could use probioticsto get rid of both of those.
So instead of putting a chemical into make it give you that nine, that
nice I dunno, pine fresh or whateveryou want to call it, smell, right?

Awful.

Awful, you know what we're talking about.
We could actually stop the smellhappening in the first place.

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: Interesting. (07:55):
undefined

in a very natural way with no chemicals and so on.
And at the same time, bearingin mind, I'm looking at the air
quality where people breathe in.
So stopping those odors, that's good.
That makes people feel better.
Stopping the use of the chemicalspeople are using to mask those.
Hey, that, that was the goal.
But also the way the probioticswork is that the organic

(08:17):
matter that they're eating.
For some people that represents bioallergens, you know, allergen triggers.
So people with hay fever and so on,we're removing some of the bio allergens,
the, the the organic waste matter.
So it was just a win, win, win.
And then we found out that thesame technology was available
for cleaning products.

(08:37):
So now we could stop the harshchemicals in the cleaning products.
Going in to the environment andthat led us down one one road and
then we found I'm still answeringquestion number one, by the way

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: It's so interesting. (08:50):
undefined

oh man talk to talk about you know, the next
shiny thing and you okay.
So now we can put theseprobiotics On an animal.
What?
Get out of town.
What are you talking about?
Let's look at this now.
Whoa, stop the, stop the lights.
And we're finding now that,

door.

shut, shut your front door.
So stop the lights, bunny, aswe used to say back over here.
So there's Irish people of a certainage who just got that reference, but so
we could do the same process, which wasremove the organic matter, out compete
the bad bacteria that we're causing.
The problem and stick a pinon, on that, the problem.

(09:30):
Let's talk about what the problem wasin early days that we were talking
about malodor, bad smell creation.
So that was a problem we were fixing.
So outcompeting the bad bacteria tocause the problem in the first place,
we're placing them with a bacteriathat doesn't cause the problem.
And this is what we endedup putting probiotics down.
That's how we ended up putting it ontodog's skin for atopic dermatitis and

(09:52):
into dog's ears and into dog's teeth.
Cat's teeth in particular andhorses, cuts on horses hooves
and past in care and, and so on.
So, I think that answers thefirst question, but that's how
we ended up Nathan, in, in doing.
Doing what we're doingand, and we've taken that,

yeah.
Yeah.

The next line.
But chemical reduction, pharmaceutical,pharmaceutical use reduction and I say
chemical reduction, I mean exposure toharsh chemicals reduction antimicrobial
resistance and improving of healthwhilst we're reducing all those things.

Mm.

know, that's what gets us out of bed in the morning.

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: Very interesting. (10:34):
undefined
Brilliant.
Thank you.
So probiotics are oftenassociated with gut health.
But your, your productsfocus on external care too.
Can you just explain the science behindhow probiotics work in pet care, please?

The word probiotic is coined by the World Health Organization.
And it just means a microorganism hasa, has a benefit to the host, right?
And that could be anything.
So people have become aware of theimportance of the gut microbiome.
They're becoming aware of the brainmicrobiome and so on, but the gut

(11:13):
microbiome and the necessity of bacteriaand the role they play and how they.
how they feed us, how they break,help break food down and feed us, how
to create certain vitamins, even therole of certain bacteria in combating
or competing against other bacteria.
Within the digestive system and has somebacteria are necessary maybe in one part

(11:35):
of the digestive system, but can cause aproblem if they get into some other part.
Okay, and how some bacteria,for example the one I love
in particular has had a gut.
The gut lining is very thin and it'sgot a mucus membrane there that's
protecting it and it will recognize.
Some friendly bacteria that, that it knowsthat their very presence helps keep away

(11:58):
some of the bad bacteria that it, it wantsto be there because of doing another job,
but doesn't want them too close to the, tothe lining where it can cause a problem.
And all of this is going on ina finely balanced environment.
Now, if you cut to the outside, it's,it's similar, but different in that the.
The good bacteria, unlike the gut,they're not necessarily performing

(12:22):
functions, you know, they're notproducing vitamins and so on quite,
quite so much as a bit more researchgoing on to that, but what they are
doing is outcompeting the bad bacteria.
And this is, this is the, thisis the theme that runs through
everything using good, the goodthe good bacteria to outcompete
the bad bacteria, just that simple.

(12:44):
And.
If I can explain this, I think whenwe talk about ears, ears are a great
way of, of, of just explaining it, but

Okay.

one of my, one of my vet friends was at a talk at the vet show
last year, and he was saying how the,the laboratory that were given to talk
was saying, Hey, look, here's the listof the bad, the bad, sorry, here's
the list of the bad, here's the listof the bacteria, leave out the word
bad, here's the list of the bacteriathat we're finding in the swabs.

(13:15):
Of infected ears that you send to us.
You vets send to us the lab.
Right?

Yeah,

here's a list of B bacteria we find in uninfected ears, healthy ears
that you, the vet send the swabs to us.
The laboratory and thelist was nearly identical.

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: well, I, okay, that's interesting. (13:34):
undefined

Yeah.
And of course this was,this was great for us.
'cause the, the vet was saying this andI'm, and I'm saying, yeah, of course
this is what we talk about all the time.
It's the balance.

Mmm.

Now you can have a little bit of staphylococcus
and most of us do on our skin.
But we don't have a staph infection.
What's that all about?
Because we've grown up being thoughtthat if you've got, you know, bacteria,
you've got to kill bacteria, thatperson's got a bacterial infection.
He's got a bacteria.
Oh my God.
How did he get bacteria?
Well, you know, every single life form onthe planet has its origins in bacteria.

(14:13):
That's where life started, right?
So, and you're going backthree and a half billion years.
So, you and me, we're grown male adults.
We've got maybe, depending on whatreports you read, let's say 30 trillion.
microorganisms on us and in us andkind of like a little halo around us.
Okay.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.
And, and, you know, so for germaphobesswitch off now, this is the, this is the
light, this is the, this is the thing.
And there's, you know, your gut is a goodexample where you need those bacteria.
How long would you lastwithout any bacteria?

Mm

And, and it's a really good question and there's animals and
insects and all kinds of life forms in theworld that can't exist, certain insects
can't get past the larvae stage if theydon't get fed the feces from the mother

Right.

of the microbiome that they need then to, you know, it has to
be passed on and passed on and so on.
So on the skin, back to the originalquestion, on the skin, here we are
covered in, in the, in this microbiome.
But the same is true for everythingyou can see, your windowsill, the
microphone you're using, the laptop,you name it, if your eyes can land

(15:22):
upon it, it is covered in a microbiome.
Yeah, and, and that's just, that's justit, but what's important is the balance.

Mm.

Little bit of Salmonella, nobody's going to know.
Your immune system isgoing to take care of that.
Thank you very much.
A lot of Salmonella, now you're sick.
So, it's the balance.
So, what we do is,

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: life's about balance. (15:45):
undefined

well, you're absolutely right.
For life balance, the brandbranding is, is a French word.
It doesn't mean anything in English, butin French it stands for, for life balance.
Pro Vilan.
For life balance.
So.
Yeah, and it's a nice environment.
It's a nice way to approach it as well.
Instead of trying to kill off bacteria,you're using a pro, pro approach.

(16:08):
So here we go.
We're taught to get rid of bacteria.
We thought that bacteria kills.
And then we find out, oh, hang on.
We're very, very dependent on bacteria.
And certain bacteria doingcertain jobs and so on.
And on the skin, we'recovered with the stuff.
So what happens when we kill it off?
What happens when we clean thefloor of the toilet with some

(16:31):
heavily antibacterial thing?
You know?
So we say to people, askyourself the question.
What happens next?
You're going to use anantibacterial shampoo.
You're going to put somethingantibacterial in your dogs.
Ear.
Maybe the vet has told you to do it.
Maybe you're following advice.
We're not saying here and now, we don'tknow your dog, don't know the situation.

(16:52):
We're not saying don't do that.
But people will use an antibacterialand manufacturers will proudly

Silence.

Great, let me swallow a tube of that a year into my gut, which
is heavily dependent upon bacteria.
Okay, what about this cleaningproduct we're going to spray around?
Yeah, let me breathe some ofthat in, into my body, which is
heavily dependent upon bacteria.
And let's just see what happens.
So you, you, let's take the, thethe cat or the dog and you're
exposing it to antibacteria.

(17:26):
You're wiping out the microbiome.
The question is what happens next?
So Mother Nature.
We learned in school, mother natureabhors a vacuum, if there's nothing
there, she's gonna put stuff there.
That's just it, right?
So, don't like vacuums, ain't having it.
So, good old mother nature, and withthis, with, with, With out competing good

(17:48):
bacteria, out competing bad bacteria.
Again, she's got three and a halfbillion years experience with this,
so she knows what she's doing.

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: she knows her stuff and (17:54):
undefined

just lean our shoulder into her wheel, rather than go completely
against her, which is the easier sell.
Right?
Let's be honest.
Do you pick things up from theshelf in the supermarket because
it says the word antibacterial?
I'm going to use this antibacterial spray,let's say, to clean my kitchen worktop.

then it

What happened?

99.
9 percent or something,

Yeah, because, it says 99 because they're legally not
allowed to say 100 percent right?
Because of

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: I didn't know (18:29):
undefined

yeah, yeah, they used to say it used to say,
kills all known germs, dead.
And this leads us into germs.
People think bacteria are germs.
Okay.
Well how about We say a pathogenicbacteria is a germ, bad bacteria,
bad bacteria to cause a problem.
Yeah, they're germs.
Okay.
So what percentage of thebacteria then are germs in,

(18:53):
in that way of looking at it?
What percentage would you, wouldyou, would you categorize as germs?
And the figure is significantly below 1%,
significantly.
So, okay.
So 0.
01 percent of bacteria is bad.
Well, let's kill all the others.
And proudly.

(19:15):
Use it as a marketing slogan.
Let's kill all the rest.
And again, the questionis, what happens next?
So, well, Mother Nature is goingto cover that surface in bacteria.
So you clean your kitchen table oryour kitchen floor or your dog's
skin with something antibacterial.
How long is it going tostay free from bacteria?
And that's going to varydepending on a number of things.

(19:36):
But we're counting in minutes.
We're not counting in hours.
So, when, when you're talking to cleaningcrews and you say, look, you've, you've
cleaned, let's say the kitchen inthis house that you've been cleaning
with antibacterial cleaner products.
By the time you're lifting your bootlid to put your stuff back in your

(19:58):
van, it's covered in bacteria again.
Except this time you don't knowwhat bacteria it's covered in.
So that's the question we say, you'regoing to wipe out the microbiome.
What is going to happen next?
And for most people to say,look, we never thought of that.
What, what does happen next?
At which point I jump in and tellthem, you know, obviously, so cause,
cause we love talking about it.
So there's a couple, I don't know, we, we,we got some things to go through Nathan

(20:22):
and I'm, I'm, and I'm wondering, butthis, this is all, this is all connected.
So you're going to wipeout that microbiome.
What is going to replace itmight be something fairly benign.

Mm

That's super.
So it's replaced with something benign.
Do you think it's going tobe any different than the.

Mm.

and bits of food, you've got to clean them away.
Of course, you've got toclean, remove physical dirt.
But how about we do it instead ofkilling all the bacteria, how about we
do it, but we leave good bacteria there.
to act as a shield.

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: Yeah, I like that. (21:02):
undefined

Okay.
So now when Mr.
Salmonella or Mrs.
E.
coli parachutes into your kitchentable, they don't have a free run.

No,

so now you've got this, this, this armed guard of, of all
these army of probiotics, they'reoffering, offering a resistance.
And it's a little bit like

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: picturing, I'm picturing it now. (21:24):
undefined

Yeah.
Yeah.
So it's a lovely.
So I use a sports analogy, you knowand I have to be really careful
because I start using, using asports analogy and go, where am I?
So I talk about Arsenal and Spurs.
Hmm.
Better not.
What about them darker?
No.
What about Ireland andEngland in the rugby?
No, let's, let's see if it defines it.
Let's say there's team aand team B and let's say.

(21:47):
Yeah, it's safe.
All right.
Let's say team A have got 15 of thebest rugby players in the world.

Yeah.

have a thousand rugby players.
Who's going to win?
Well, the 15 other guysare just going to give up.
They can't move.
They haven't got the room.
They've got no sustenance.
They can't do any of the joband they just kind of fade away.
So that's how the probiotics workfrom our point of view, that they
just offer a competition so that thebad bacteria don't have a chance.

(22:21):
The room and the foodthat they need to thrive.
So if you imagine that level andI'm holding my we're not on video.
I'll be Nathan, but I'm holding mymy hands up level and one hand goes
way up and one hand goes way down.
So we're going to affect that balance,but lots of good bacteria on, and
remember what I said about the, theear results, you may have the same
list of bacteria in the good year andthe bad year, but in the bad year,

(22:45):
you've got a lot of, let's call it.
Drop the caucus or something, right?
There's the number of past it.
So we put lots of the good ones in andthey just outcompete the bad ones But at
the same time if you take the dog skinanalogy or the kitchen table analogy the
probiotics How are they outcompeting?

(23:06):
Well, we know that even dead probioticswill will do this They'll outcompete
that fit they physically offerdifficulties for the pathogens to operate.
But what about the live ones?
Well the live ones will, will open upout of their shell because they're in
spore form and that's really important.
So inside the bottle they're, they'rehibernated, for want of a better word.

(23:28):
You spray them out onto, ontoyour dog's skin or, or the mirror
in your bathroom or whatever.
Now they've got organic matter,which is food, so they wake up,
they've got oxygen and so on, andthey start eating organic matter.
So On your dog's skin, on your kitchentable, they're getting into the nooks
and crannies and they're eating thosedead skin cells and those molecules

(23:50):
of fecal matter or dust mite poopor whatever, or whatever your dog
rolled in and badger poo or whatever.
And on the kitchen table,

one.

fox poo for the kitchen table, badger poo for the dog's skin.
Yeah, but you know what I mean, thosemolecules of, of, of nasty stuff.
And they'll keep doing that for acouple of days, maybe three days.
So now they're removing those, thoseorganic Bio allergens taking rid of food
for the pathogens and offering a whole.
Now you go back to your microbiome.

(24:20):
So now your microbiome looks different.

Yeah.

when we're doing a presentation, I show
a slide from a dentistry.
We have a pre COVID slideand a during COVID slide.
Now the big difference betweenpre COVID and during COVID
was the frequency of cleaning.
Because at that stage, peoplestill believe you could get COVID
from the surface, which you can't.

(24:46):
You can find COVID on thesurface, but you couldn't actually
contract COVID from the surface.

Silence.

represented in a bar graph, you've got quite a diverse
microbiome, lots of different colorsin this bar graph, as you can imagine.
In the during COVID one, whereyou have the increased cleaning,
you have a shorter bar graph, sothere's less bacteria overall.
But within that bar graph, you have, Imeasured it out at something like two and

(25:17):
a half to three times more streptococcus.
So you have two and a half to three timesmore of one of the pathogens that's going
to cause you a problem in your, if you'vegot your jaw open and you're, you're,
you're, Tooth extract and now you'reexposed to something going in there.
This is one of the ones you don't want.
So you have this counterintuitivesituation where the more you clean with

(25:38):
antibacterial chemicals not only are youexposing yourself to chemicals we'll come
onto that in a bit but you're actuallyfinding yourself in a less hygienic
Some of these clever little badbacteria can become resistant
to what you're cleaning.
Especially those are what we call quats.
They will become resistantto the cleaning chemical.

(26:02):
So they're getting stronger.
And you're killing off their competition.
So you have this thingwhere you're creating it.
That's called Antimicrobial Resistance.
And I know the word you wereusing was Antibiotic Resilience.
But being resistant to antibiotics.
Well, there's two things causeAntimicrobial Resistance.

(26:25):
Or you might see it written as AMR.
One is the overuse or misuse.
And sometimes.
Maybe a clinician doesn't have any otheroption, but the overuse and misuse of
antibiotics people know about that, butcleaning products It's the same thing
We're using antibacterial cleaningproducts and the pathogens become a bit

(26:45):
resistant to it and it's the resistantpathogens that survive so basically
the stronger versions of those thosepathogens they're the ones that survive
and Replicate and you imagine this overgeneration of pathogen generation of
generation you get you you're trainingand if you like breeding stronger bugs

Yeah.

To the point where, in certain situations,
this is, this is an issue.
You know, you read stories of C.
difficile, which was only ever associatedwith hospitals, is now seen in the home.

Yeah.

In London, and it was back in 2005.
And this professor was saying,look, we can see a correlation
between those parts of the hospital.
that are cleaned more andthe rise of superbugs.
So what we should be washing ourhands with is soap and yoghurt.
So this is before probiotic handsoap was thought about, if you like.

Yeah.

it's the same premise.
If you're going to wipeout the microbiome, quick.
Before something elsereplaces it, we take control.
We have microbiome in the bottle.
And that's what we put on the surfaces,whether it's the washing of the hands,
washing of the, the, the pet teeth,ears, kitchen floor, it's the same.
So we leave that microbiomeintact in a healthy state.

Right.

So that's I don't know if we've answered the
question at all, Nathan, have we?
Does that work?

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: That's absolutely fine, a roundabout (28:14):
undefined
way we sort of got there and usedsome analogies and so brilliant.
So thank you so much.
So we're going to move on to ournext section now, which is the
power of probiotics in pet care.
so how do the probiotics in petcare differ from traditional

(28:35):
products on the market?

So again, the big thing is how do probiotics work?
And, you know, what we've beentalking there about is how
probiotics work in a general way.
And now what we're talkingabout is a bit more specific.
How we apply that, that samemethodology, that same technology and
how we make it work in dental health,how we make it work on hotspots and.

(29:01):
In ears, and we know the condition of theear, temperature and moisture, is going
to be different in the skin, is going tobe different in the teeth, and even with
the skin, we know that most people, whenyou say to them, do you think that the
microbiome underneath your armpit is thesame as the microbiome on your wrist?
For example, they're going to go, no, it'skind of smells a bit different, right?

(29:25):
So,

Yeah.

so we have my, we have probiotics that are good
for skin and, and, and differentones that work better in the ear.
And so, and that's a lot of researchand development right there, getting
the right combination of probiotics.
So when we put them on the teeth,
most people are looking at teethas an issue when the problem

(29:48):
starts, when you're a human.
you start brushing your teethbefore the problem starts, right?
Okay,

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: Yes, yeah. (29:55):
undefined
Yeah.

got to go and take a look, you know, then may not miss.
And I don't like that.
Yeah.
So my, my cat, I have to tell him I haveto sit down and, and because he's an Essex
cat, I have to have to say to him, youknow, Mate, you know this is good for you.
You don't want 11 more teethout like last time, do you?
So and he kind of looks at me withthe dagger eyes, but yeah, that's

(30:37):
spraying his mouth And he kind oflike, you know, you know He's fine.
He doesn't like me

That

it, but it's so yeah We we couple of couple of sprays
either side of the mouth twice a day.
We start as a rule of thumb twice a daySo what what's happening there again?
It's the same thing.
It's replacing the the microbiomeWith one that just that isn't great
with one that is much better nowplaque is Coming from bad bacteria.

Yeah.

You might say well, what are we feeding a dog
that the plaque can feed on?
That's a whole other question.
Okay, but even well fed dogs and good rawmeaty bones and so on can get get plaque
So the plaque is coming from bacteria.
So rather than trying to Removethe plaque just do something that's
going to take the plaque away.
Hey look, okay.
Well, let's just reset the clock.

(31:30):
Shall we?
Because if it took a certain amount oftime for that plaque to get to that stage,
well by the time the clock rolls aroundthe same amount of time again, surely
you're going to be in the same position.
Which is what the probiotics do, isthey out compete the bacteria that are
causing the plaque in the first place.
So we turn the tap off, okay?
So that's how the difference, so insteadof, and we can use that application in,

(31:51):
I'll talk about ears in a second, becausethat's even more dramatic with ears.
But with the plaque We I tend to likenthe plaque as the light on the dashboard
in your car, and we're not just fixingthe light, we're actually lifting the
bonnet, fixing what's causing the light,

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: Yeah, having a look, yeah. (32:06):
undefined

Stopping it happening.

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: like, doing a diagnosis or something. (32:08):
undefined

That's right.

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: the body. (32:12):
undefined

That's right.
You, you got it.
And, and so we go, we, we, we ace the fireextinguisher at the base of the flame.
We, we tackle the issue atsource, stop it happening.
So we turned that top offfor the production of plaque.
No plaque means you'regoing to not get tartar.
You're going to be less likely toget gingivitis, but not unlikely.

(32:34):
But of course, gingivitisis coming from bad bacteria.
So guess what we're doing there.
We're just competing those bad bacteria.
And the gingivitis is really interestingbecause now you're into low level
infection that's connected to the restof the body through the tiny little
blood capillaries into the main bloodsystem into the rest of the body.

(32:56):
Okay.
That's before you even get intoperiodontal disease and so on.
Now, I'm not saying if you, ifyou have a dog that's got raging
periodontal disease and major problem,go to the vet, don't be spraying
probiotics, go to the, do not pass go.
Okay.
Okay.
Just.

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: Don't collect your 200 quid, get to (33:10):
undefined
the vet, you're going to need it there.

Yeah, it won't do you, it won't go very far, but you're going
to, yeah, so go, so go to the vet.
But but we're, we're, we're, we're, we'rechanging that microbiome in the mouth.
Okay.
So plaque and tartar are justthe lights in the dashboard.
Gingivitis is the big deal.
So look out for that red line.
So that's a really good example inanswering your question, how do probiotic

(33:35):
based products work compared to a moretraditional based products, like I say,
instead of just cleaning off the plaque.
We're stopping what causesthe plaque in the first place.

getting

Yes,

You're pre empting it almost, aren't you?

you are, you are, and look, no two cats are the same, no two dogs
are the same, no two humans are the same.
You could be doing the same, youcould have, you know, two dogs
from the same, the same litter,and fed the same food, and one of
them's more plaque than the other.
And it's the same with usingprobiotics, so you might find you
need to use a little bit more on one,but still, you gotta keep an eye.
When you're spraying it on there,keep an eye, and you only need to

(34:08):
lift the lips, you don't need tomake the dog go, say, ah, you know,
stick your tongue out and stuff.

just,

Get it in,

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: to, just got (34:14):
undefined

yes,

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: go on there. (34:15):
undefined

get it inside your lips and the saliva will move it around.

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: and then, right. (34:19):
undefined
So with ears then, you mentionedabout coming, talking about ears, but
obviously a lot of dogs get all theseyeasty ear infections, don't they?
So that must be somethingsimilar, like, you

Yeah, I mean, the ears differ from teeth in
our experience in one big area.
Teeth, it's a, it's abacterial issue, right?
That's it.
And, and bearing in mind, like I say, mostof our clients would be very aware of what
they feed the dog and, and, and so on.
And still dental is one ofour biggest selling products.

(34:49):
So with the ears, you've got tolook at it and say, Is it yeast?
Is it bacterial?
Is it both?
Is one causing the other?
Is it inflammation?
Is inflammation causing an infection?
Or is an infectioncausing an inflammation?
So,

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: sufficient (35:06):
undefined

to the root cause, yeah, there's a few
more things going on with ears.
So what, with ears, so what we do, ifsomeone says, can you help my dog's ear?
So, okay, is it both ears or one ear?
This is very much a ruleof thumb, Nathan, right?
So don't take this one to the bank.
If it's one year, chances are if it'sone year, it's going to be bacterial,
chances are if it's two years, itcould be bacterial, it could be yeast.

(35:28):
And if it's yeast, so again, themicrobiome has mites, viruses,
yeast, naturally occurring,all in a balance, no problem.
Loads of bacteria, all in abalance, everything's fine.
Maybe, maybe throughout your whole life.
But if something then knocks thatmicrobiome out of whack, and you can

(35:51):
get the naturally occurring yeast.
is kind of taken over.
It's not yeast.
This yeast isn't coming from the moon.
It's there already.
And something is affecting the microbiome.
So we'd say, okay, let's have a look.
What could be affecting themicrobiome of your dogs here?
Food possibly vaccines.

(36:11):
We'll talk about the environmental issues.

Yeah.

in mind your dog doesn't shower every day and change
clothes every day and he's lyingnaked on the kitchen floor You know
and sweating, sweating there andre wetting the chemicals and so on.
Anyway, more about that in a minute.
So in the year number one
If it's yeast, sometimes theyeast needs to be removed first.
Now putting the probiotics in there isnot going to hurt But it may not help

(36:45):
the yeast if the yeast is established.
So we, we kind of take a backseat thereand say, look, when it comes to yeast,
we would say that we are a very importantsecond part of a two stage protocol.
Number one is finding is findinga way to get rid of the yeast.
You may need to use something thatsome people just changed diet and
it goes away and it rebalancesthat brilliant, wonderful.

(37:07):
But if it's a situation where you'reneeding to remove it, then you're
using something to remove the yeast.
And there's products out there.
One that always comes to mindis Conobrady's propythium,
something like that.
It's natural, it's goingto remove the yeast.
Some people use other things to removethe yeast that are a bit harsher.
But all of these things are going to,they've got antibacterial properties.
So you're kind of in a situation whereyou do a protocol in good faith to

(37:31):
remove yeast, you leave the microbiomedepleted in the ear, and remember
what he said about what happens next.
Then, what can happen is that you get adifferent pathogen taking up residence
and colonizing the ear microbiomeand gaining ascendancy and cause, and
all of a sudden you've got a problem.
You think, hang on a minute.
I sorted the yeast and now it'sgot, and all of a sudden you've

(37:53):
forgotten about the yeast andnow you've got a bacterial issue.
Maybe then you're wiping that outwith something and then a month
or two later, you've got anotherissue, completely different bug.
And you're going, Hey, whatthe hell, you know, oversteer,
understeer, and we got a problem.
And this is very expensive.

Yeah.

with the probiotics, we're going to do

Yeah,

probiotics, exactly what we've done on the
skin, on the kitchen floor.
Like we said, we're going tooutcompete the bad bacteria.
We're going to put adefending army in there.
And what we noticed from, from studiesis that as the, the ear, let's say it's
a bacterial infection, as the evidenceof the bad bacteria decreases, so does
the evidence of the good bacteria.
Bacteria, because the job, the job isbeing done, we're eating organic matter.

(38:40):
We're out competing the bad bacteria,there's less organic matter, less
of the good bacteria are goingto come out of their spore form
and start doing, doing things.
So they can fade, they can fade away.
So with ears, you'd start puttingprobiotics in a couple of times a
day and eventually you're getting tothe point where maybe you're doing
it a couple of times a week, maybeeven you're stopping it altogether.
Okay, and then the, the natural orderof things are going to slowly come back

(39:04):
into play in a nicely balanced way ratherthan, and again, this is answering your
question about how they differ, right?
So rather than just wiping thewhole microbiome out, keep your
fingers crossed and let's go.
Now, when you wipe the microbiome outwith an antibacterial, it does the job.

(39:25):
Job's done.
It does what it says on the tin.
You can't say it doesn't.
But the question is, what happens next?
And, I've had a couple of times where I'vegone to somebody, or met somebody either
socially down here, or through, throughbusiness, and they've said, Oh, we, we
know your product, we had a dog that wasabout to have it's inner ear removed.

(39:49):
So, total ablation, removedin ear because repeat ear
infection, repeat ear infection.

this.

But we sent him to, and they've named a vet,
who knows about the probiotics.
And not only does a dog not have to havethe surgery that's going to make a death
in one ear for the rest of its life.
But the repeat cycle ofear infections is halted.

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: That's amazing. (40:12):
undefined

It's very, it's very gratifying to get, you know, to have that

done

fed back to you, you know.
And then when, when we went back tothat particular vet and he told us
stories of where a dog would presentwith an ear infection, they'd use
antibiotics, infection would go away.
Brilliant.
Two weeks of antibiotics, two weeksafter the antibiotics finished, dog would
represent with an ear infection again.

(40:38):
They'd swab.
Send it off to the lab, you know,try and get better antibiotics and
so on, and the dog would be okay.
And then a month later, the dog wouldpresent with an ear infection, and
they'd swab again, and this timethey're finding that it's showing up.
It's a different infection.
It's not that the antibiotics didn't work.
It's that the antibiotics workedreally well, killed everything, and

(40:59):
the ears left open to recolonization.
So that's how traditionalproducts would work.
Whereas the probiotics work in theother way I've just mentioned, which
is literally just leaning theirshoulder into the wheel of, of the
way mother nature does it and just

Yeah.

put lots of good bacteria in, in there.

Perfect.
Thank you, Joe.
So many pet parents are focusingon diets, but how important is
it maintaining a pet's externalmicrobiome for their overall health?

Look, I'm going to say it's really important and you, you
know, some, and somebody's going tosay, I used bleach all my life and
it never caused my dog a problem.

Yeah.

Great.
You know, my grandfathersmoked till he was 90.
Great.
That's great.
Does that make smoking a good idea?
No, of course not.
So there's studies out there already.
You can find them that show thatdogs and cats are shown to have more
chemicals in their little bodies.

Yeah.

So not just higher proportions but more.
So they test their blood, theytest their urine, of the pet and
the owner, this is what they find.
And these are household chemicals.
Now, there's some household chemicalsthat are quite difficult to get rid of.
You know, the thing that stops your sofabursting into flames, that chemical,
you know, bursting into flames, if youhappen to drop a cigarette, hopefully you

(42:22):
don't smoke, but you know what I mean.

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: As a doctor. (42:24):
undefined

yeah, me neither.
They're difficult to get rid of.

Hmm.

can very easily take that chemical based antibacterial
cleaning product out of your hands.
Put something else into your handsand all of a sudden now you're going
for that lower hanging fruit andit's easy to change the microbiome.
Now, if you can stop sprayingantibacterials around that

(42:49):
your dog is going to breathein and is there proof of this?
Yes, look, there's proof when itcomes to children, you know, child
obesity linked with householdchemicals affecting the gut microbiome.
And in some cases, it might onlybe a small, a small element, but
let's give the dog every chance.
Let's remove the chemicals.
Okay, now you're going to haveless chemical exposure, less

(43:11):
chemicals, toxins inside it's bloodand urine, right, in it's body.
It's going to be breathing in lessantibacterial stuff going into it's gut.
Okay, when it licks, whenit licks something off the
floor, what's it licking off?
Now, we get people sometimes say, I usea pet friendly cleaner, and we say, okay.

(43:32):
Does it say, keep the, keepyour pet out of the house for
half an hour after you clean?
Or does it say let your petin when the floor is dry.
Yes, okay.
So, what happens when your petsweats through their paws and re
wets whatever this substance is?
Or licks the floor?
Or just goes out for a wee at theback on a wet day and comes back in?

(43:54):
We get sent sometimes not every day, thankGod, but we get sent sometimes pictures
of dog genitalia where, what looks like achemical burn, a very mild chemical burn.
So, when, when you lookat atopic dermatitis,
And there isn't a study to make thisconnection, but when you look at
atopic dermatitis, you're usuallylooking at the underarms, the belly,

Yeah.
Yeah.

that microbiome of the skin, then you're open
to certain, certain issues.
And there's already studies froma university over in South Korea
that was really interesting.
Direct link between indoor pollution.
and canine atopic dermatitis, wherethe pollution, indoor pollution was

(44:51):
affecting the skin at, at cellularlevel and causing, causing irritation.
So how important is it that yourdog is in a healthy microbiome?
It's very important, you know, when,when you look at dogs out in the country
there's certain studies out thereThey would say dogs in the country
have a have a a slightly better timeof it You know, they have different

(45:14):
microbiome as long as that the farmerhasn't been spraying something nasty
Then they're they're exposed that theyhave a just a healthier microbiome when
they go out for a walk and and so so wesay It's really important For the gut in
terms of a support thing, if your dog'sgot a really bad gut issue, switching

(45:37):
your products to clean clean productsto probiotics or your, your shampoo
to probiotics isn't going to help him.
It's a supporting thing.
Okay.
But what will help is skin.
Also think about ears.
The ears are just anextension of, of of the skin.
The microbiome is important.
It's there whether you like it or not.

(46:00):
Stop trying to kill it because it'sbigger than we are, you know, literally,

I think you should with regards to the
next question, you, you've spokenabout the, the dog with the ear, but
if you could share an example of apet that has benefited significantly
from switching to probiotic care.
So would that be thedog that managed to keep

Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I mean those dogs multiplesI mean, they're, they're striking,
you know and we talk about those.
We, we don't say, you know, we'revery careful to try and under
promise and over deliver, but, butthose examples are, are out there.
Skin is probably more of an obvious one.
Where we, we, we've got casestudies where just spraying the
probiotics directly onto the skin.

(46:44):
Has, has really helped with a, a, youknow, dermatitis kind of situation.
This whole, itchy dog.
And I'm kind of doing air quotes here.
Because, it's, it's, it's crazy.
You know, the amount of dogsout there with itchy skin.

Yeah,

It might be food, it might be stress, it could be anxiety.
It could be that they've got a,I don't know, a flea infestation.
It could be lots of things.

sure.

it can be the chemicals in the house.
So

Good.

their chemical exposure and reduce their exposure to things
that are designed specifically tokill bacteria on skin, which is.
Reliant upon a good bacterial balance.
So, that's been great.
With the teeth as well, we seea lot of good results on teeth.
And that's a different areabecause with teeth you've got

(47:37):
to look after them all the time.
Don't wait until there's a problem.
It's a bit like we brush.
So we don't get problems.
We floss for the benefit of our heart,so we don't get gingivitis and so on.
We did have one very striking issuewith a dog with a nasty, nasty anti

Can

the gums were attacking it itself basically,
and any, any bad bacteria at all

me?

kind of all lesions and inflamed, nasty, and the only
way of treating that is to takeall the teeth out and then let the,
he, they let the gums heal over.
And although the, the dog recentlyhad had, did have to have after
10 months, so it was due to go into have all the teeth out on the
Tuesday, started using the probiotics.

(48:27):
The Saturday, what's that, threedays before, and got a stay of
execution, that was last February.
A year later, he did have to, hedid have a really bad flare up and
had to have a couple of teeth out.
But otherwise, he's still got all histeeth and he's happy and he's not in pain.
You know, which is and he's got his teeth.
So yeah, we, we do have some strikingalso for postoperative wound care.

(48:54):
If typically we get the vets sayingto the pet owners that the wound
has healed twice as quickly as theywould expect when they're using
the skin based probiotic spray.

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: That's amazing. (49:06):
undefined

That's kind of nice.
Number one, that you're not allowing,you know, infections to get in there
to cause their kind of problem.
But number two, that thedog is happier, quicker.

Yeah.
Yeah.
Sure.
Brilliant.
So moving on to probiotics incommon pet health issues, we've
sort of touched on a few things, butmany dogs obviously struggle with
allergies and skin sensitivities.
So how do probiotics sort of help and helpsoothe and prevent prevent those issues?

Well, I think with, with skin there's
almost two questions going on.
Why is any irritation gettingthrough the protective skin barrier?
You know, we have the skin, biggest organ,keeps the rain out, glad we have it.
And, and how do some dogsget inflamed and itchy skin?
You know, why isn't the skin?

(49:57):
So that's the whole thing.

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: Yeah, sure. (49:59):
undefined
Okay.

The problem causing the irritation.
And they might be a secondary thing.
Something else has caused them to beable to get into the skin where they
shouldn't be, you know, and we all,like I said, we have staphylococcus,
which is fine on our, on our, on ourskin, but we don't want it if we get
a deep cut, we don't want any, that'stoo much of that stuff going in there.
So you need to, you need to look at that.

(50:26):
But what we do is we out compete thebad bacteria causing the problems.
And then in most cases, theskin is able then just to.
repair itself, you know, producethe sebum and, and, and just, just
repairs hotspots and things like that.
But so that's where we really, reallyhave to, we put that protective coating,
if you like, onto, onto the skin and,and keep the bad the bad bacteria bay.

(50:49):
And also onto the bedding, the same

Silence.

of, of good bacteria that I could beat the bad and
also to reduce those bio allergensback to the dead skin and the dust
mite poop and and, and, and so on.
Okay, so we, we get, that's how wework really well with with skin at the
same time, if you're using somethingharsh antibacterial or a very different

(51:22):
pH than the dog's skin, you'reexposing the skin to something that's.
That's going to cause it a problem.
So again, we say, look, let's not do that.
Let's take that bottle ofwhatever you're using and replace
it with a probiotic cleaner.
So that's a dual, a dual approach.
What goes directly onto the pet andwhat goes into the pet environment.

Yeah.
So we know that antibioticoveruses are growing concern.
So how do probiotic products reducethe need for antibiotics in pet care?

So this is a really sensitive

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: Oh, okay. (51:58):
undefined

subject, right?
Not for, not for us, because we'relike, we know, we know the answer.
But you know,

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: tread carefully. (52:05):
undefined

say to people, look, if you're listening to this, if you're
at all worried, go to your vet.
Right, go to your vet because there'stimes where we can really, really help,
but we don't want anybody taking a risk.
Go to the vet if you're at all worried,but the vets know through their own
industry, not because of what we'resaying, although Nathan, I'd love
it if it was because of what we'resaying, but you know, it's not, but

(52:29):
let's let's be real, but their ownindustry is saying you have to use.
Less antibiotics, less autoimmune,less immune suppressing drugs.
That's a whole area,immune suppressing drugs.
Okay, let's, let's step ontothat landmine, shall we?
If you can go back to that earscenario where my vet is telling me

(52:52):
that this is what he was finding.
He was using the antibiotics, theywere wiping out the the microbiome
and he's having this repeated issue.
And at the same time exposing thatdog to antibiotic after antibiotic.
What you want to do is useantibiotics when you really need them.
Because when you really need them,they're a godsend, aren't they?

(53:12):
I mean, God, where would we be?
How scary is it to think we couldbecome resistant to antibiotics?
That's a scary world, you know?

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: very scary. (53:22):
undefined

The antimicrobial resistance predates the invention of antibiotics.

Yeah.

Remember, this comes from chemicals being used, as far back as
the Victorian era, they can trace this.
So, if we can treat at least aminor, and again, playing it safe in
answering your question, let's justtalk about minor issues, where the
animal then doesn't need an antibiotic.

Hmm.

Let's treat the environment, where the environment is
much more healthy, because we're notcreating stronger bugs, so that when
the dog has a, or the cat has a cut,

Yeah.

stuff, let's say, or so the less chance of them getting root.
So again, let's aim the fireextinguisher at the base of the flame
and try and reduce the amount oftimes that they get a bad infection.
Let's see where we can use probioticsinstead of antibiotics, skin, ear
issues teeth, preventing those.
You know, let's not getup to periodontal disease.

(54:29):
Let's use probiotics waybefore we get to that point.

Well,

So

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: prevention is better than (54:33):
undefined
the cure, don't they?

stitching time saves nine.
Absolutely.
So if we can, if we can reduce theamount of times that antibiotics is
needed, then there's less antibiotics,antibiotics going to get used.
And remember you're at thelevel here where investigators
can go into the sewers.
Of a city, and they can talkabout the antimicrobial resistance

(54:57):
level of that city based onwhat they find in the sewers.
You know, this stuff is in theenvironment, the level of other
drugs that gets given to animals andhumans that ends up in our waterways.

Yeah.

And antibiotics are part of that, okay?
So, there was a report in the IrishTimes, it was actually about two years
ago, describing the rivers being,and the word they used was awash.
The rivers are awash with antibiotics.
Now you might say, well my dog'snot peeing directly into the toilet.
Like I am, and it's my anti bacterial,sure, but you get what I mean, there's
a build up, build up, and MotherNature is just going to climb over

(55:39):
that wall and just make stronger bugs.
It's no problem to Mother Nature,we're just a blip on the landscape
as far as she's concerned.
So, that's how we help antimicrobialresistance, because we out compete
the bad bacteria instead of tryingto kill them with something that
they can become resistant to.
When we

Yeah.

out compete them, they cannot get resist to starvation.
We out compete them, we consumetheir food sources, and bugs
can't get resistant to that.

Good.

worth knowing, when a bug becomes resistant, when it
develops that resistance ability,it can pass it to its mates.
It's a bit like sharing a agame on a, on a memory stick.
I'm not a gamer, but I canimagine, and then all your mates
have it on their laptop, right?
So

God.

they share, once the bugs get this resistant genes, they
want their mates to have it as well.
So all of a sudden resistancecan happen really quickly.
So yeah, just stop usingantibacterial stuff.
Use probiotics.
Where you can, if you're really,really worried, if you're worried
at all, go, go to your vet.
Your vet is likely to use an antibioticunless you're a holistic vet, in which

(56:51):
case they'll be more inclined to try andavoid using antibiotics for good reason.

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: Brilliant. (56:56):
undefined
So we're going to move on to the linkbetween microbiome health and behaviour.
How can using probiotic cleaningproducts help create a calmer, less
stressful home environment for pets?

Sure.
And again, this is, this is wherewe are in a supportive role.
You know, it's not going to be, youtake, you take the maddest Tyrannosaurus
Rex pup and spray some cleaner on it.
And all of a sudden it's, you know.
It's calm and tiptoeing, you know.
Think of Blue Smarties.
You know, if you, if you have abunch of Blue Smarties and Coca

(57:30):
Cola not long before you go tobed, you, you, you know, yeah.
It's, yeah, it's just,okay, you want to train me?
Go ahead and try.
I'm full of Blue Smarties and Coca Cola.
So if we can just reduce chemicalexposure and the microbiome is connected
with all kinds of things in humans.

(57:51):
Depression, Alzheimer's.
Okay.
And if it's, if it works inone mammal, it's going to be
very similar in another mammal.
So let's not mess up that delicatemicrobiome of the gut that's, that's
connecting all these things, you know,it's messed up enough with, with,
with the kind of the food we eat.

(58:13):
You know, over here in Ireland, Ithink, I think we, we, we subsist,
we subsist on potatoes and cake.
It's just been mad, mad amount of cake.
So death,

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: Death by cake. (58:24):
undefined

death by cake.

you, no,

Thanks.
There you go.
Thanks.
So, that's I'm, I'm very lucky.
Sorry about the interruption there.
I'm very lucky to be home.
And my dad's got my dad has dementia.
And he's the most sweetest, wonderfulhuman that you could ever wish to meet.
He's wonderful.
So he's

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: oh, that's, (58:45):
undefined

just come into the room checking on me and aren't I lucky?
Aren't I a lucky man, huh?

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: that's really lovely. (58:51):
undefined

So where were we?
Did I answer the question?
I have no idea.

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: That's okay. (58:56):
undefined
So we'll just we'll go on to the nextone in terms of behaviour So we know
that healthy gut can influence behaviour.
How do your products contributeto this microbiome balance?

so the main thing we do is we don't mess it up.
We're not an antibacterial.
Remember antibacterial productsconnected with very asthmas, COPDs
fertility issues in, in humans.
Child obesity I mentioned earlier.
So we're none of that.

(59:30):
Okay.
So that's the number one thing.
We're not adding to the microbiomeof the gut, we're simply not
doing anything negative to it, andthere's enough of that around, okay?

right

just not having those chemicals.
Remember, the dog is absorbing,dogs and cats, dogs especially,
they're sweating through their paws.
I'm walking across the floor withwhatever you've cleaned that with
has been re wetted and re absorbed.
And if they're, if they'relicking their paws, then they're
just ingesting it straight away.
If when it dries, stuffevaporates, stop breathing that in.

(01:00:05):
Cats, you know, whatever you cleanyour house with will end up at some
point inside your cat because theygroom like nobody's business, you know.
So, I'm doing this on my laptopand if I leave my laptop open,
there's a certain black cat at home.
And she should know better, she's 10 yearsold and she's been told often enough.
Not the set on my keyboard, right?
Dirty cat backside on my keyboardAnd how do you clean underneath

(01:00:28):
the keys and everything, you know?
So I'm just spraying it with probioticsThere's no point in telling her otherwise
So I'll just let her I'll just spray itwith some probiotics And they'll get in
there and they'll eat the And they'll dothe thing Because they release enzymes
And the different probiotics Each, ifthere's multiple probiotics in, in a
product and each probiotic can producemultiple different enzymes depending

(01:00:51):
on what organic waste matter they meet.
So if they meet something that's beenadjacent to the bottom of my black
cat, they'll reduce one kind of enzyme.
If they reduce, if they meet somedried blood, they'll produce a
whole different enzyme and they'llkeep doing this repeatedly over
about a three day life cycle.
So that's how we workinstead of using chemicals.

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour (01:01:13):
Perfect.
So some practical use and safetyfor our pet parents, a couple
of quick points here to ask you.
So how often should pet parents useprobiotic shampoos, ear sprays and allergy
relief sprays to see the best results?

Joe Flanagan (01:01:30):
Okay.
So with shampooing, we say, as younormally would, you know, and some
people say I never shampoo my dog.
We go, yeah, fine.
That's a dog.

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: thinking. (01:01:38):
undefined
Before I ask this question, that groomerscould probably use these products, right?

Oh yeah.

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: going to the groomers. (01:01:43):
undefined

Oh yeah.

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: just thinking that when (01:01:45):
undefined
you were talking earlier.

Well, let's, let's segue into groomers and come
back to answer your question.
So groomers are fantasticbecause they are seeing things.
In ears, in teeth, on skin, sometimesbefore the pet owner see them.
Because they're right in there, you know.
So, we have a lot of petgroomers that we talk to.

(01:02:07):
Also, the pet groomers, if they'reusing slightly harsher, Shampoos
might be fine for your dog for once orhowever many weeks, but the groomers
are doing this day in, day out.
So the probiotic shampoos arebetter for their hands and also

it

sustainability and, you know, some people switch off when we talk
about sustainability, but when you're abusiness, that's important to be able to
say to your clients, look, what's goingdown the plug hole here in my groomers
is continuing to work in the wastewater.
management system toconsume organic matter.
Not only is it not not nasty chemicals,most of which will have the words

(01:02:48):
harmful to aquatic life with longlasting results on the bottle.

yeah,

only is it not that, but it's actually
helping a little bit as well.
So become environmentally.
Not environmentally friendly,but environmentally positive.
So that the environment is slightlybetter for you using the product.
Now, tiny amount, but stillover the zero line, you know.
So that, that's really, but the mainthing is for their hands as well
as for the dog's, dog's benefit.
Some groomers will, will, willyou, will use a certain kind
of teeth cleaning protocol.

Mm.

And again, we say to them, look, that's great.
You're just resetting the clock.
Follow up a probiotics and we havepeople who are groomers who sell
our products, sell our productsonto the client and say, here we go,

Wow.

wiped the slate clean.
We spray the stuff, here's thebottle, cost you this, off you go.
And, and,

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: over, yeah. (01:03:32):
undefined

and in those cases we say, and answering your question, because
I do answer the question eventuallyNathan twice a day, shampoo whenever you
need to, whenever you normally would.
And if you never do,you never do, it's okay.
With, with something like starting withthe teeth, the ears, the skin, start
with, as a rule of thumb, twice a day,

yeah,

and then you'll know when you can reduce down.
So, for example, for ahot spot, go twice a day.
What happens if you do four times a day?
Well, you're not going to causeany problems because there's no,

yeah,

issue because it's not a chemical, it's not a drug.
It's just, you might waste abit of money, but that's it.
But when the hot spot is gone,you stop using the product.
You put it in your shelfin the emergency cabinet.
Unlike the teeth, we'd say look, justlike your own teeth, keep that up.
Keep it up.
With some dogs, you mightget down to once a day.

(01:04:24):
Go from twice a day to once a day.
Some dogs you mightget to every other day.

Yeah.

it's really, really good, you might po push it to twice a week

Yeah.

the ears, again, twice a day.
Starting.
And then if you think, okay, things areimproving, maybe give it another day
or two before you reduce down no harm.

Okay.

and then once a day, and then if, if it needs a maintenance, and
hopefully it doesn't, but if it does.
Then you're into like,just twice a week, okay.
And one of the things that gets me whenwe talk about ears, we see people in
various forums that we get involvedin saying, I use X product every time

(01:05:04):
my girl has a flare up, or every timemy boy has a flare up, I use this.
And we're thinking, theyshouldn't be in every time.
So again, you're into the wiping out themicrobiome, and then things, so let's,
let's, let's not wipe out the microbiome.
And let's see what happens, huh?
You know, let's just lend a, lenda shoulder to to the mother nature.

Yep.
Cool.
how can pet parents integrate probioticcleaning products into their daily
home routine to benefit their pets?

Well, put the, the chemical based ones in the cupboard.
Lock them up.

Okay.
Yeah.
Throw away the key.

Throw away the key, because I don't know And,

Mm.
Mm.

had joined the gym, and they gave her a goody bag.
And she said, and she knows mequite well, and she picked this
bottle of stuff, cleaning stuff,that was in this goody bag.
And she's like, what arewe going to do with this?
And I got, and I, I was seeingred and I'm reading the back.
It's flammable.
Right?
And, and I'm, I'm an air guy so I don'twanna burn stuff from cause pollution.

(01:06:12):
Right?
It says, don't put it, itsays don't discard the drain.
'cause you're gonna kill the fishes.
Right.
And, and the, the food, the fishes eat.
Okay, that's, you know what,that's leading 'cause your toilet,
sorry, the toilet or your sink.
That's the beginning of the ocean.

Mm.

I have no way, I'm certainly not gonna use it around my cats.
This is mild poison.
So you can imagine, you know, wewere here last night and we were.
I'm getting quite informal here, wewere watching videos from 1982 of my
great, my grandparents stinging at aparty and I'm thinking, can I imagine
going to their, to their parents andsaying, Hey, back in 1920s, whatever,

(01:06:53):
Hey, tell you what we're going to do.
We've got this great idea.
Instead of using soap and water to cleanthe inside of the house, we're going
to use harsh chemical, mild poison,
going to be great.
We're going to make a fortune, right?
Because somebody is.
Because why else would you, why else wouldyou use mild poison inside your home?

(01:07:16):
Right?
So yes, let's, let's not do that.
Anyway.
So, the positive half of the, answeringthe question is just use the pro,
just go to ingenious proproducts.
com.
There's my blog.
And, and read, read the news articlesabout itchy dog skin and, and
cleaner products and go on and, andit's, we do them in concentrates.
You can get really cheap.

(01:07:36):
You can buy the ready to use productor you can buy it concentrate and
the concentrate is like, Way cheaperthan what you're going to buy in
the cheapest, cheapest supermarket.

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: yeah, perfect. (01:07:45):
undefined
Joe we've literally sailed throughthis hour on the Yappy Hour, so
we're going to start bringingit to a close for these last

Oh,

Oh, I know, I could go on even longer with you.
It's so interesting.

my dad's going to come in again.
So I'd

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: blown, literally. (01:08:06):
undefined
So you had your little plug, but we'll becoming back to that in a minute anyway.
But just to sort of wrap up, Joe,if you could leave pet parents with
one key message about the benefitsof probiotics, what would it be?

say this, look, your dog, when you bring them into the
vet, the vet is looking at him orher thinking there's 20 trillion
microorganisms in on and around our dog.
Before you go wiping him out, askyourself the question, what happens next?

(01:08:40):
And what happens if I just improvethe microbiome balance rather
than wiping it out completely?
Just ask yourself that question.
That's, that's the thought.
And the same goes with every surfaceinside your home and car and anywhere
else where you use, or work, whatever,where you use a cleaning product.

Perfect.
And what's one small switchthat pet parents could make
today to microbiome health?

Well, of course, I would say, you know, everything we
do, but if it could only just be onething and you put a gun to my head,
I'd say that, which you are going to.
The dental care, the dentalcare, the amount of times.
We, we have conversations about dental andyou're looking at it and you can't say,
Oh, we should start at this last year.
You know, you wouldn'thave this problem now.

(01:09:28):
You can't say that becausethe horse is bolted.
It's not helpful.
And the last thing you want to do ismake anybody feel guilty or anything
like that because the people wetalk to and the people that listen
to you, Nathan, they're infested.
These are proper pet guardians, okay?
Their pets are very lucky.
So the last thing you do, you know,we've had people in tears and so on.
But that's the thing I'd say.

(01:09:49):
Start, start today, look afteryour pet's oral microbiome and
just like you look after your own.

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: perfect, Joe. (01:09:59):
undefined
Thank you so much.
How can our listeners learn moreabout your products and to get
started with probiotic pet care?
So how can they find out moreabout you and probiotics?

Oh, second plug, right?
Yeah, look, we, we, we work really hardto put lots of information out there.
We think that's, that's really important.
The website I mentioned,ingenious probiotics.
com, we will in about a month or so,let's say three months because these

(01:10:34):
things always take three times longerthan you think, but we're working
on a new one where we're puttingeven more information out there.
So we're taking the questions verbatimthat we've been asked by concerned
pet guardians to do with teeth, skin,ears, particularly those three areas.

Yeah.

cleaning is a fourth area as well, but those, they relate to
skin really, the way we talk about it.
We're putting them outthere for you to read.
Somebody else just like you, witha similar question just like you,
is asking this question just likeyou, and here's how we answer it.

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: Brilliant. (01:11:06):
undefined

You can also just contact us, send us in questions, we love them.
We're getting more and more of them,so sometimes it takes us a little
while, so be patient if you don't hearfrom us for a day or two, you know.

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: Understandable. (01:11:15):
undefined

But we love those every day is a learning day for us.
You know,

Yeah.

resource section has all the case studies and reviews and so on.
You can just peruseand have a little look.
There's also a growing numberof natural type pet supply.
outlets out there who are very wellversed in pet nutrition and and our
products in places where if you knowthem you can go in and you can ask

(01:11:46):
and it reminds me Nathan of whenyou used to go to the pharmacy.
Sometimes for certain things you might goto the pharmacy rather than the GP, right?
So you know

Silence.

website.
And you'll be able to see,if there's one in your area,
go and have a chat with them.
There's some wonderfullydedicated people in those shops.
It's an amazing industrywhen you scratch the surface.

Yeah.
And if people just want to get holdof like your, you or your, your
company, is it just by the website?
Yeah.
Your email address

Yeah, yeah, the inquiries, that lands with all of
us pick that up and then whoever'sbest place to answer will answer.
So you might get an answer from theteam or you might get an answer.
Directly from me depending onon on what the question is and
yeah, but keep them coming.
We absolutely love it and We look everytime we sell a we sell a cleaner product.

(01:12:51):
For example, it's like well That'sone liter of harsh chemicals that
isn't going out into the worldevery time we sell it near care.
We think about that's That's a dog who'spotentially not going to need antibiotics,
you know, it's, it's so gratifying.
So questions, we love them.

Joe, I'm going to put you on the spot, but if
there was one person within our canineindustry that we should invite on to
the yappy hour, who, who would that be?

Oh, one person.
Oh, what a nasty question to throw at me.
Cause I go, oh man,

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: have given, some people have (01:13:20):
undefined
given me a couple, but you know.

oh no,

if

man.

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: that comes to mind (01:13:24):
undefined

I, I do, I, I'm, I'm thinking like half
dozen, really half dozen.
And there's some wonderful,wonderful people out there.
Anna Webb, Conor Brady.
I've.

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: got we've got connor coming on. (01:13:37):
undefined
So

No way.
Oh,

here's

fantastic.

know

What a dude.

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: of yours, (01:13:43):
undefined

Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: a little reveal for our listeners. (01:13:46):
undefined
Dr.
Connor brady will be joining

Yeah.

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: very soon (01:13:50):
undefined

Payne.
Caroline Griffith.
I'm thinking of Amanda.

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: Yeah, i'm i'm speaking to caroline (01:13:54):
undefined
at the moment on email yeah,so some brilliant names there

And, and I just wonder throwing that you won't
know, but I did a presentationwith, with, with my vet friend.
Who's a.
A buddy of Conor as well.
He's a friend of Conor and Vicky Adams.
If you know Vicky Dr.
Vicky Adams works for Conor andpart of the Animal Cancer Trust.
If you don't know what the Animal CancerTrust is, your listeners need to know.
If ever anybody gets the unfortunatediagnosis of their pet having cancer,

(01:14:22):
there is A charity there to help give theminformation, help with explaining what
the vet means by this report and so on.
And Vicki Adams and the team, theydo amazing work and it's worth
speaking to Vicki just for that.
And, and the other one wouldbe Richard Doyle vet Dr.
Richard Doyle did a presentationwith us for Carla Pearson's

(01:14:44):
group should be another onethat, that, that have on Carla.
Crikey.
So yeah, the name is justgonna keep coming, Nathan, so
I'll be emailing you it more.

back in.
Yeah, I'll be coming backin writing all these stuff.
Joe, thank you so much for joiningme this evening on the yappy hour.
by Yappily.
We could have gone on a lotlonger, but it's, I was so
looking forward to this episode.
So thank you so much for joining me, thisevening and we will chat to you soon.

Total pleasure, Nathan.
Thanks so much for having me.
I loved it.

Nathan Dunleavy - The Yappy Hour: Thanks, Joe. (01:15:14):
undefined
What an eye opening conversationwith Joe from Ingenious Probiotics.
Here are some key takeawaysfrom today's episode.
Number 1.
Probiotics aren't just fordigestion, they're vital for

(01:15:34):
skin, ear and dental health too.
Supporting a dog's externalmicrobiome can help prevent skin
allergies, infections and irritation.
Number 2.
Probiotic pet care isn'treduces reliance on antibiotics.
By balancing bacteria naturally, theseproducts help strengthen immunity

(01:15:58):
and prevent reoccurring infections.
Number three, a healthymicrobiome can improve behaviour.
When dogs feel physicallycomfortable, they're less likely to
exhibit stress related behaviours.
Number four.
Probiotic cleaning productscreate a safer home environment.
Reducing harmful bacteria and allergensmake a happier and fulfilled pet.

(01:16:24):
Gio, thank you so much for sharingyour knowledge and for helping
us understand how probiotics areshaping the future of pet care.
And to all our listeners, If youwant to learn more, be sure to check
out Ingenious Probiotics and see howtheir products can benefit your dog.
If you enjoyed this episode, pleaseconsider leaving a review, sharing

(01:16:48):
it with a fellow dog parent, andsubscribing so you never miss
an episode of the Yuppie Hour.
Thanks for listening andI'll see you next time.

All Episodes

How probiotics are revolutionising dog health – from skin & ears to teeth with Ingenious Probiotics

Resources & Links:

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Dateline NBC

Stuff You Should Know

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}How probiotics are revolutionising dog health – from skin & ears to teeth with Ingenious Probiotics