Ep 9. How probiotics are revolutionising dog health – from skin & ears to teeth with Ingenious Probiotics

  📍 Welcome to the Yappy Hour powered by Yappily, the podcast for dog lovers who want to better understand and care for their furry companions. I’m your host Nathan Dunleavy and today we’re talking about a fascinating and fast growing topic in pet care, probiotics. My guest is Jo Flanagan, from Ingenious Probiotics, a company that’s revolutionizing pet care with probiotic based grooming and cleaning products.

We’ll explore how probiotics work, why they’re a game changer for dogs with allergies or skin issues, and how switching to probiotic care can benefit your dog’s well being. Whether you’re curious about microbiome health or looking for natural alternatives to pet care, this episode is packed with useful insights.

So grab a cup of tea, settle in, and let’s get started.

 ​

Welcome back to the yappy hour. your host Nathan Dunleavy and I’m so excited to bring you our next episode of the yappy hour Powered by Yappily. really excited because we’ve got someone on today that’s going to be talking about probiotics, which is a growing topic in the pet care We’ve got Joe from Ingenious Probiotics. Hi, Joe

Hiya, Nathan.

Hello, welcome to the Yappy Hour. So their focus is on natural probiotic based pet care products that help maintain a healthy microbiome, eco friendly, plant based approach, and how it benefits both pets and the environment. So is something that we’ve not spoken about before on the Yappy Hour, so I’m really excited to sort of dig in a little bit deeper and Find out lots of information about it all.

And I’ve heard Joe’s name branded around 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 day actually, and my mum’s in hospital, but she’s doing really well, likely to come out tomorrow and we’re all up. So yeah, you got me in a particularly good particularly good good day. So you go from talking about, you know, questions about dogs, ears, and skins to, 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.

bit of a rota going on.

Yes.

home in Ireland at the moment, aren’t you?

Yeah, yeah,

you’re with us all the way from Ireland. 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 things from your childhood, ah, it’s just, just great, yeah, I love it, yeah.

Good soul food.

Well, I appreciate you taking the time out then, you know, if you’re back 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 you share a little bit about how it started? What inspired you to focus on probiotic pet care, please?

Yeah. I mean, like, like everybody’s story, it can have a kind of higgledy piggledy beginning, and then you realize you’re on a, you’re on a particular path kind of thing. But the, the thing that got my interest a bad 20 years ago, we got involved with air quality. We come from a a background of, of temperature control and ventilation, which, which led into CO2 control and, 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 and wellness in the built environment. Now, the built environment is just being inside something that somebody has built. It’s that simple. It could be, it could be a car. It could be a pub. It could be your home, whatever it’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 doing your heating and the ventilation guy is doing this and the electrician make sure you got light and, and things like natural light, ventilation, all these kinds of became quite interesting to us because at that stage I was realizing and again, it’s 20 years ago, realizing just the impact this was having in health.

Overall, my area at the time was to do with air. So we became very aware of just how much air people breathe and, and the kilograms of air that people would breathe way exceeds the kilograms that they would eat in any given day. So we all know the, the, the, the huge importance 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 what I 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,

thought of it like that.

so everything you breathe in, it’s, it’s going into those nice little lungy poos that we try to take care of, right?

You know, this, then take what’s in the air oxygen and put it into a bloodstream. And, you know, there’s a whole science about what passes through the barriers inside you and what doesn’t, we end up breathing in a hell of a lot of not so very nice. Stuff and we were involved in air purification using catalytic converters in in Ventilation systems and really really interesting quite close to my heart because I felt we were doing something So doing something to help by taking out chemicals taking out kind of particulates and some biohazards and so on.

And then we started looking at what was putting those chemicals into the air we were breathing in the first place. And this came about from some of the rules and regulations around ventilation. And you had to bring in so much outside air into an office. And then you think, well, hang on, the outside air isn’t that great.

And now we’ve got to, it’s my job to pump it in. To your office in the middle of whatever town 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, You know, Glasgow or something, right?

So, that led us into looking at where these chemicals and that we were breathing in, where they’re coming from and one of 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, an artificial scent to mask something else.

And we wanted people to stop doing that because we knew it was adding to the chemical load. The chemical exposure. So we found probiotics and initially Our entry into this was using the probiotics to, to remove the organic matter that the bad bacteria were feeding on. So the bad bacteria were giving off smells.

The organic waste matter was giving off smells. And we could use probiotics to get rid of both of those. So instead of putting a chemical in to make it give you that nine, that nice I dunno, pine fresh or whatever you want to call it, smell, right?

Awful.

Awful, you know what we’re talking about. We could actually stop the smell happening in the first place.

Interesting.

in a very natural way with no chemicals and so on. And at the same time, bearing in 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 chemicals people are using to mask those. Hey, that, that was the goal.

But also the way the probiotics work is that the organic matter that they’re eating. For some people that represents bio allergens, 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 the same technology was available for cleaning products. So now we could stop the harsh chemicals in the cleaning products. Going in to the environment and that led us down one one road and then we found I’m still answering question number one, by the way

It’s so interesting.

oh man talk to talk about you know, the next shiny thing and you okay.

So now we can put these probiotics 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, as we used to say back over here. So there’s Irish people of a certain age who just got that reference, but so we could do the same process, which was remove the organic matter, out compete the bad bacteria that we’re causing.

The problem and stick a pin on, on that, the problem. Let’s talk about what the problem was in early days that we were talking about malodor, bad smell creation. So that was a problem we were fixing. So outcompeting the bad bacteria to cause the problem in the first place, we’re placing them with a bacteria that doesn’t cause the problem.

And this is what we ended up putting probiotics down. That’s how we ended up putting it onto dog’s skin for atopic dermatitis and into dog’s ears and into dog’s teeth. Cat’s teeth in particular and horses, cuts on horses hooves and past in care and, and so on. So, I think that answers the first question, but that’s how we ended up Nathan, in, in doing.

Doing what we’re doing and, 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 to harsh chemicals reduction antimicrobial resistance and improving of health whilst we’re reducing all those things.

Mm.

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

Very interesting. Brilliant. Thank you. So probiotics are often associated with gut health. But your, your products focus on external care too. Can you just explain the science behind how probiotics work in pet care, please?

The word probiotic is coined by the World Health Organization. And it just means a microorganism has a, has a benefit to the host, right? And that could be anything. So people have become aware of the importance of the gut microbiome. They’re becoming aware of the brain microbiome and so on, but the gut microbiome and the necessity of bacteria and 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 the role of certain bacteria in combating or competing against other bacteria. Within the digestive system and has some bacteria are necessary maybe in one part of the digestive system, but can cause a problem 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’s got a mucus membrane there that’s protecting it and it will recognize. Some friendly bacteria that, that it knows that their very presence helps keep away some of the bad bacteria that it, it wants to be there because of doing another job, but doesn’t want them too close to the, to the lining where it can cause a problem.

And all of this is going on in a 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 functions, you know, they’re not producing vitamins and so on quite, quite so much as a bit more research going on to that, but what they are doing is outcompeting the bad bacteria.

And this is, this is the, this is the theme that runs through everything using good, the good the good bacteria to outcompete the bad bacteria, just that simple. And. If I can explain this, I think when we 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 list of the bad, the bad, sorry, here’s the list of the bad, here’s the list of the bacteria, leave out the word bad, here’s the list of the bacteria that we’re finding in the swabs.

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 the list was nearly identical.

well, I, okay, that’s interesting.

Yeah. And of course this was, this was great for us. ’cause the, the vet was saying this and I’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 thought that if you’ve got, you know, bacteria, you’ve got to kill bacteria, that person’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 on the planet has its origins in bacteria. That’s where life started, right?

So, and you’re going back three and a half billion years. So, you and me, we’re grown male adults. We’ve got maybe, depending on what reports you read, let’s say 30 trillion. microorganisms on us and in us and kind of like a little halo around us. Okay.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. And, and, you know, so for germaphobes switch 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 good example where you need those bacteria. How long would you last without any bacteria?

Mm

And, and it’s a really good question and there’s animals and insects and all kinds of life forms in the world that can’t exist, certain insects can’t get past the larvae stage if they don’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 original question, on the skin, here we are covered in, in the, in this microbiome. But the same is true for everything you can see, your windowsill, the microphone you’re using, the laptop, you name it, if your eyes can land upon it, it is covered in a microbiome. Yeah, and, and that’s just, that’s just it, but what’s important is the balance.

Mm.

Little bit of Salmonella, nobody’s going to know. Your immune system is going 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,

life’s about balance.

well, you’re absolutely right. For life balance, the brand branding is, is a French word. It doesn’t mean anything in English, but in 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. 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 doing certain jobs and so on. And on the skin, we’re covered with the stuff. So what happens when we kill it off? What happens when we clean the floor of the toilet with some heavily antibacterial thing? You know? So we say to people, ask yourself the question. What happens next? You’re going to use an antibacterial shampoo.

You’re going to put something antibacterial 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’t know your dog, don’t know the situation. We’re not saying don’t do that. But people will use an antibacterial and 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 cleaning product we’re going to spray around? Yeah, let me breathe some of that in, into my body, which is heavily dependent upon bacteria. And let’s just see what happens. So you, you, let’s take the, the the cat or the dog and you’re exposing it to antibacteria.

You’re wiping out the microbiome. The question is what happens next? So Mother Nature. We learned in school, mother nature abhors 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 with this, with, with, With out competing good bacteria, out competing bad bacteria.

Again, she’s got three and a half billion years experience with this, so she knows what she’s doing.

she knows her stuff and

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 the shelf 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

I didn’t know

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 pathogenic bacteria is a germ, bad bacteria, bad bacteria to cause a problem.

Yeah, they’re germs. Okay. So what percentage of the bacteria then are germs in, in that way of looking at it? What percentage would you, would you, 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. Use it as a marketing slogan. Let’s kill all the rest. And again, the question is, what happens next? So, well, Mother Nature is going to cover that surface in bacteria. So you clean your kitchen table or your kitchen floor or your dog’s skin with something antibacterial. How long is it going to stay free from bacteria?

And that’s going to vary depending on a number of things. But we’re counting in minutes. We’re not counting in hours. So, when, when you’re talking to cleaning crews and you say, look, you’ve, you’ve cleaned, let’s say the kitchen in this house that you’ve been cleaning with antibacterial cleaner products.

By the time you’re lifting your boot lid to put your stuff back in your van, it’s covered in bacteria again. Except this time you don’t know what bacteria it’s covered in. So that’s the question we say, you’re going 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 tell them, 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 and I’m, I’m, and I’m wondering, but this, this is all, this is all connected. So you’re going to wipe out that microbiome.

What is going to replace it might be something fairly benign.

Mm

That’s super. So it’s replaced with something benign. Do you think it’s going to be any different than the.

Mm.

and bits of food, you’ve got to clean them away.

Of course, you’ve got to clean, remove physical dirt. But how about we do it instead of killing all the bacteria, how about we do it, but we leave good bacteria there. to act as a shield.

Yeah, I like that.

Okay. So now when Mr. Salmonella or Mrs. E. coli parachutes into your kitchen table, 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’re offering, offering a resistance.

And it’s a little bit like

picturing, I’m picturing it now.

Yeah. Yeah. So it’s a lovely. So I use a sports analogy, you know and I have to be really careful because I start using, using a sports analogy and go, where am I? So I talk about Arsenal and Spurs. Hmm. Better not. What about them darker? No. What about Ireland and England in the rugby?

No, let’s, let’s see if it defines it. Let’s say there’s team a and team B and let’s say. Yeah, it’s safe. All right. Let’s say team A have got 15 of the best rugby players in the world.

Yeah.

have a thousand rugby players. Who’s going to win? Well, the 15 other guys are 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 job and they just kind of fade away. So that’s how the probiotics work from our point of view, that they just offer a competition so that the bad bacteria don’t have a chance. The room and the food that they need to thrive. So if you imagine that level and I’m holding my we’re not on video.

I’ll be Nathan, but I’m holding my my 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, the ear results, you may have the same list of bacteria in the good year and the bad year, but in the bad year, 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 and they just outcompete the bad ones But at the same time if you take the dog skin analogy or the kitchen table analogy the probiotics How are they outcompeting? Well, we know that even dead probiotics will will do this They’ll outcompete that fit they physically offer difficulties for the pathogens to operate.

But what about the live ones? Well the live ones will, will open up out of their shell because they’re in spore form and that’s really important. So inside the bottle they’re, they’re hibernated, for want of a better word. You spray them out onto, onto your 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, and they start eating organic matter. So On your dog’s skin, on your kitchen table, they’re getting into the nooks and crannies and they’re eating those dead skin cells and those molecules of fecal matter or dust mite poop or 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, those molecules of, of, of nasty stuff. And they’ll keep doing that for a couple of days, maybe three days. So now they’re removing those, those organic Bio allergens taking rid of food for the pathogens and offering a whole.

Now you go back to your microbiome. 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 slide and a during COVID slide. Now the big difference between pre COVID and during COVID was the frequency of cleaning. Because at that stage, people still believe you could get COVID from the surface, which you can’t.

You can find COVID on the surface, 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 colors in this bar graph, as you can imagine. In the during COVID one, where you have the increased cleaning, you have a shorter bar graph, so there’s less bacteria overall.

But within that bar graph, you have, I measured it out at something like two and a half to three times more streptococcus. So you have two and a half to three times more of one of the pathogens that’s going to cause you a problem in your, if you’ve got your jaw open and you’re, you’re, you’re, Tooth extract and now you’re exposed to something going in there.

This is one of the ones you don’t want. So you have this counterintuitive situation where the more you clean with antibacterial chemicals not only are you exposing yourself to chemicals we’ll come onto that in a bit but you’re actually finding yourself in a less hygienic

Some of these clever little bad bacteria can become resistant to what you’re cleaning. Especially those are what we call quats. They will become resistant to the cleaning chemical. So they’re getting stronger.

And you’re killing off their competition. So you have this thing where you’re creating it. That’s called Antimicrobial Resistance. And I know the word you were using was Antibiotic Resilience. But being resistant to antibiotics. Well, there’s two things cause Antimicrobial Resistance. Or you might see it written as AMR.

One is the overuse or misuse. And sometimes. Maybe a clinician doesn’t have any other option, but the overuse and misuse of antibiotics people know about that, but cleaning products It’s the same thing We’re using antibacterial cleaning products and the pathogens become a bit resistant to it and it’s the resistant pathogens that survive so basically the stronger versions of those those pathogens they’re the ones that survive and Replicate and you imagine this over generation of pathogen generation of generation you get you you’re training and 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 associated with 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 and the rise of superbugs. So what we should be washing our hands with is soap and yoghurt. So this is before probiotic hand soap was thought about, if you like.

Yeah.

it’s the same premise. If you’re going to wipe out the microbiome, quick. Before something else replaces 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 microbiome intact 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?

That’s absolutely fine, a roundabout way we sort of got there and used some analogies and so brilliant. So thank you so much. So we’re going to move on to our next section now, which is the power of probiotics in pet care. so how do the probiotics in pet care differ from traditional products on the market?

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

In ears, and we know the condition of the ear, temperature and moisture, is going to be different in the skin, is going to be different in the teeth, and even with the skin, we know that most people, when you say to them, do you think that the microbiome underneath your armpit is the same as the microbiome on your wrist?

For example, they’re going to go, no, it’s kind of smells a bit different, right? So,

Yeah.

so we have my, we have probiotics that are good for skin and, and, and different ones that work better in the ear. And so, and that’s a lot of research and development right there, getting the right combination of probiotics.

So when we put them on the teeth,

most people are looking at teeth as an issue when the problem starts, when you’re a human. you start brushing your teeth before the problem starts, right? Okay,

Yes, yeah. 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 have to sit down and, and because he’s an Essex cat, I have to have to say to him, you know, Mate, you know this is good for you. You don’t want 11 more teeth out like last time, do you?

So and he kind of looks at me with the dagger eyes, but yeah, that’s spraying his mouth And he kind of like, 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 day So what what’s happening there again?

It’s the same thing. It’s replacing the the microbiome With one that just that isn’t great with one that is much better now plaque 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 raw meaty bones and so on can get get plaque So the plaque is coming from bacteria.

So rather than trying to Remove the plaque just do something that’s going to take the plaque away. Hey look, okay. Well, let’s just reset the clock. Shall we? Because if it took a certain amount of time for that plaque to get to that stage, well by the time the clock rolls around the same amount of time again, surely you’re going to be in the same position.

Which is what the probiotics do, is they 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 instead of, and we can use that application in, I’ll talk about ears in a second, because that’s even more dramatic with ears. But with the plaque We I tend to liken the plaque as the light on the dashboard in your car, and we’re not just fixing the light, we’re actually lifting the bonnet, fixing what’s causing the light,

Yeah, having a look, yeah.

Stopping it happening.

like, doing a diagnosis or something.

That’s right.

the body.

That’s right. You, you got it. And, and so we go, we, we, we ace the fire extinguisher at the base of the flame. We, we tackle the issue at source, stop it happening. So we turned that top off for the production of plaque. No plaque means you’re going to not get tartar.

You’re going to be less likely to get gingivitis, but not unlikely. But of course, gingivitis is coming from bad bacteria. So guess what we’re doing there. We’re just competing those bad bacteria. And the gingivitis is really interesting because now you’re into low level infection that’s connected to the rest of the body through the tiny little blood capillaries into the main blood system into the rest of the body.

Okay. That’s before you even get into periodontal disease and so on. Now, I’m not saying if you, if you 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.

Don’t collect your 200 quid, get to 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’re changing that microbiome in the mouth. Okay. So plaque and tartar are just the lights in the dashboard. Gingivitis is the big deal. So look out for that red line. So that’s a really good example in answering your question, how do probiotic based products work compared to a more traditional based products, like I say, instead of just cleaning off the plaque.

We’re stopping what causes the 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, you could 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 using probiotics, 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 lift the lips, you don’t need to make the dog go, say, ah, you know, stick your tongue out and stuff.

just,

Get it in,

to, just got

yes,

go on there.

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

and then, right. So with ears then, you mentioned about coming, talking about ears, but obviously a lot of dogs get all these yeasty ear infections, don’t they? So that must be something similar, like, you

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

So with the ears, you’ve got to look 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 infection causing an inflammation? So,

sufficient

to the root cause, yeah, there’s a few more things going on with ears. So what, with ears, so what we do, if someone says, can you help my dog’s ear?

So, okay, is it both ears or one ear? This is very much a rule of thumb, Nathan, right? So don’t take this one to the bank. If it’s one year, chances are if it’s one year, it’s going to be bacterial, chances are if it’s two years, it could be bacterial, it could be yeast. And if it’s yeast, so again, the microbiome has mites, viruses, yeast, naturally occurring, all in a balance, no problem.

Loads of bacteria, all in a balance, everything’s fine. Maybe, maybe throughout your whole life. But if something then knocks that microbiome out of whack, and you can 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 the microbiome of your dogs here? Food possibly vaccines. 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 lying naked on the kitchen floor You know and sweating, sweating there and re wetting the chemicals and so on.

Anyway, more about that in a minute. So in the year number one If it’s yeast, sometimes the yeast needs to be removed first. Now putting the probiotics in there is not going to hurt But it may not help the yeast if the yeast is established. So we, we kind of take a backseat there and say, look, when it comes to yeast, we would say that we are a very important second part of a two stage protocol.

Number one is finding is finding a way to get rid of the yeast. You may need to use something that some people just changed diet and it goes away and it rebalances that brilliant, wonderful. But if it’s a situation where you’re needing to remove it, then you’re using something to remove the yeast.

And there’s products out there. One that always comes to mind is Conobrady’s propythium, something like that. It’s natural, it’s going to remove the yeast. Some people use other things to remove the 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 where you do a protocol in good faith to remove yeast, you leave the microbiome depleted in the ear, and remember what he said about what happens next. Then, what can happen is that you get a different pathogen taking up residence and colonizing the ear microbiome and 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’s got, and all of a sudden you’ve forgotten about the yeast and now you’ve got a bacterial issue. Maybe then you’re wiping that out with something and then a month or two later, you’ve got another issue, completely different bug. And you’re going, Hey, what the 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 to outcompete the bad bacteria. We’re going to put a defending army in there. And what we noticed from, from studies is that as the, the ear, let’s say it’s a bacterial infection, as the evidence of the bad bacteria decreases, so does the evidence of the good bacteria.

Bacteria, because the job, the job is being done, we’re eating organic matter. We’re out competing the bad bacteria, there’s less organic matter, less of the good bacteria are going to 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 putting probiotics in a couple of times a day and eventually you’re getting to the point where maybe you’re doing it a couple of times a week, maybe even you’re stopping it altogether.

Okay, and then the, the natural order of things are going to slowly come back into play in a nicely balanced way rather than, and again, this is answering your question about how they differ, right? So rather than just wiping the whole microbiome out, keep your fingers crossed and let’s go. Now, when you wipe the microbiome out with an antibacterial, it does the job.

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’ve gone to somebody, or met somebody either socially down here, or through, through business, and they’ve said, Oh, we, we know your product, we had a dog that was about to have it’s inner ear removed.

So, total ablation, removed in 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 have the surgery that’s going to make a death in one ear for the rest of its life. But the repeat cycle of ear infections is halted.

That’s amazing.

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 to that particular vet and he told us stories of where a dog would present with an ear infection, they’d use antibiotics, infection would go away. Brilliant. Two weeks of antibiotics, two weeks after the antibiotics finished, dog would represent with an ear infection again.

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 would present with an ear infection, and they’d swab again, and this time they’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 worked really well, killed everything, and the ears left open to recolonization. So that’s how traditional products would work. Whereas the probiotics work in the other way I’ve just mentioned, which is literally just leaning their shoulder 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 focusing on diets, but how important is it maintaining a pet’s external microbiome for their overall health?

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

Yeah.

Great. You know, my grandfather smoked 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 that dogs 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, they test their urine, of the pet and the owner, this is what they find. And these are household chemicals. Now, there’s some household chemicals that are quite difficult to get rid of.

You know, the thing that stops your sofa bursting into flames, that chemical, you know, bursting into flames, if you happen to drop a cigarette, hopefully you don’t smoke, but you know what I mean.

As a doctor.

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 hands and all of a sudden now you’re going for that lower hanging fruit and it’s easy to change the microbiome. Now, if you can stop spraying antibacterials around that your dog is going to breathe in and is there proof of this? Yes, look, there’s proof when it comes to children, you know, child obesity linked with household chemicals affecting the gut microbiome.

And in some cases, it might only be a small, a small element, but let’s give the dog every chance. Let’s remove the chemicals. Okay, now you’re going to have less chemical exposure, less chemicals, toxins inside it’s blood and urine, right, in it’s body. It’s going to be breathing in less antibacterial stuff going into it’s gut.

Okay, when it licks, when it licks something off the floor, what’s it licking off? Now, we get people sometimes say, I use a pet friendly cleaner, and we say, okay. Does it say, keep the, keep your pet out of the house for half an hour after you clean? Or does it say let your pet in when the floor is dry.

Yes, okay. So, what happens when your pet sweats through their paws and re wets whatever this substance is? Or licks the floor? Or just goes out for a wee at the back on a wet day and comes back in? We get sent sometimes not every day, thank God, but we get sent sometimes pictures of dog genitalia where, what looks like a chemical burn, a very mild chemical burn.

So, when, when you look at atopic dermatitis, And there isn’t a study to make this connection, but when you look at atopic dermatitis, you’re usually looking 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 from a university over in South Korea that was really interesting. Direct link between indoor pollution. and canine atopic dermatitis, where the pollution, indoor pollution was affecting the skin at, at cellular level and causing, causing irritation.

So how important is it that your dog 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 there They would say dogs in the country have a have a a slightly better time of it You know, they have different microbiome as long as that the farmer hasn’t been spraying something nasty Then they’re they’re exposed that they have a just a healthier microbiome when they go out for a walk and and so so we say It’s really important For the gut in terms of a support thing, if your dog’s got a really bad gut issue, switching your products to clean clean products to 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 an extension of, of of the skin. The microbiome is important. It’s there whether you like it or not. Stop trying to kill it because it’s bigger than we are, you know, literally,

I think you should with regards to the next question, you, you’ve spoken about the, the dog with the ear, but if you could share an example of a pet that has benefited significantly from switching to probiotic care. So would that be the dog that managed to keep

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

Has, has really helped with a, a, you know, 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 dogs out 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 to kill bacteria on skin, which is. Reliant upon a good bacterial balance. So, that’s been great.

With the teeth as well, we see a lot of good results on teeth. And that’s a different area because with teeth you’ve got 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 issue with 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 take all the teeth out and then let the, he, they let the gums heal over.

And although the, the dog recently had had, did have to have after 10 months, so it was due to go in to have all the teeth out on the Tuesday, started using the probiotics. The Saturday, what’s that, three days before, and got a stay of execution, that was last February. A year later, he did have to, he did have a really bad flare up and had to have a couple of teeth out.

But otherwise, he’s still got all his teeth 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 striking also for postoperative wound care.

If typically we get the vets saying to the pet owners that the wound has healed twice as quickly as they would expect when they’re using the skin based probiotic spray.

That’s amazing.

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 the dog is happier, quicker.

Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Brilliant. So moving on to probiotics in common pet health issues, we’ve sort of touched on a few things, but many dogs obviously struggle with allergies and skin sensitivities. So how do probiotics sort of help and help soothe and prevent prevent those issues?

Well, I think with, with skin there’s almost two questions going on. Why is any irritation getting through 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 dogs get inflamed and itchy skin? You know, why isn’t the skin? So that’s the whole thing.

Yeah, sure. Okay.

The problem causing the irritation. And they might be a secondary thing. Something else has caused them to be able 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 our skin, but we don’t want it if we get a deep cut, we don’t want any, that’s too much of that stuff going in there.

So you need to, you need to look at that. But what we do is we out compete the bad bacteria causing the problems. And then in most cases, the skin is able then just to. repair itself, you know, produce the sebum and, and, and just, just repairs hotspots and things like that. But so that’s where we really, really have to, we put that protective coating, if you like, onto, onto the skin and, and keep the bad the bad bacteria bay.

And also onto the bedding, the same

Silence.

of, of good bacteria that I could beat the bad and also to reduce those bio allergens back to the dead skin and the dust mite poop and and, and, and so on. Okay, so we, we get, that’s how we work really well with with skin at the same time, if you’re using something harsh antibacterial or a very different pH than the dog’s skin, you’re exposing 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 of whatever you’re using and replace it with a probiotic cleaner. So that’s a dual, a dual approach. What goes directly onto the pet and what goes into the pet environment.

Yeah. So we know that antibiotic overuses are growing concern. So how do probiotic products reduce the need for antibiotics in pet care?

So this is a really sensitive

Oh, okay.

subject, right? Not for, not for us, because we’re like, we know, we know the answer. But you know,

tread carefully.

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’s times 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’re saying, although Nathan, I’d love it if it was because of what we’re saying, but you know, it’s not, but let’s let’s be real, but their own industry 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 onto that landmine, shall we? If you can go back to that ear scenario where my vet is telling me that this is what he was finding. He was using the antibiotics, they were wiping out the the microbiome and he’s having this repeated issue.

And at the same time exposing that dog to antibiotic after antibiotic. What you want to do is use antibiotics when you really need them. Because when you really need them, they’re a godsend, aren’t they? I mean, God, where would we be? How scary is it to think we could become resistant to antibiotics?

That’s a scary world, you know?

very scary.

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 a minor, and again, playing it safe in answering your question, let’s just talk 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 not creating 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 fire extinguisher at the base of the flame and try and reduce the amount of times that they get a bad infection.

Let’s see where we can use probiotics instead of antibiotics, skin, ear issues teeth, preventing those. You know, let’s not get up to periodontal disease. Let’s use probiotics way before we get to that point.

Well,

So

prevention is better than the cure, don’t they?

stitching time saves nine. Absolutely. So if we can, if we can reduce the amount of times that antibiotics is needed, then there’s less antibiotics, antibiotics going to get used.

And remember you’re at the level here where investigators can go into the sewers. Of a city, and they can talk about the antimicrobial resistance level of that city based on what they find in the sewers. You know, this stuff is in the environment, the level of other drugs that gets given to animals and humans that ends up in our waterways.

Yeah.

And antibiotics are part of that, okay? So, there was a report in the Irish Times, 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’s not 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 Mother Nature is just going to climb over 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 antimicrobial resistance, because we out compete the bad bacteria instead of trying to 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 consume their 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 a game on a, on a memory stick. I’m not a gamer, but I can imagine, 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 resistance can happen really quickly. So yeah, just stop using antibacterial 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 antibiotic unless you’re a holistic vet, in which case they’ll be more inclined to try and avoid using antibiotics for good reason.

Brilliant. So we’re going to move on to the link between microbiome health and behaviour. How can using probiotic cleaning products help create a calmer, less stressful home environment for pets?

Sure. And again, this is, this is where we are in a supportive role. You know, it’s not going to be, you take, 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 a bunch of Blue Smarties and Coca Cola not long before you go to bed, 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 chemical exposure and the microbiome is connected with all kinds of things in humans.

Depression, Alzheimer’s. Okay. And if it’s, if it works in one mammal, it’s going to be very similar in another mammal. So let’s not mess up that delicate microbiome 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. You know, over here in Ireland, I think, I think we, we, we subsist, we subsist on potatoes and cake.

It’s just been mad, mad amount of cake. So death,

Death by cake.

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, wonderful human that you could ever wish to meet.

He’s wonderful. So he’s

oh, that’s,

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

that’s really lovely.

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

That’s okay. So we’ll just we’ll go on to the next one in terms of behaviour So we know that healthy gut can influence behaviour. How do your products contribute to this microbiome balance?

so the main thing we do is we don’t mess it up. We’re not an antibacterial. Remember antibacterial products connected with very asthmas, COPDs fertility issues in, in humans. Child obesity I mentioned earlier. So we’re none of that. Okay. So that’s the number one thing. We’re not adding to the microbiome of the gut, we’re simply not doing anything negative to it, and there’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 with whatever you’ve cleaned that with has been re wetted and re absorbed.

And if they’re, if they’re licking their paws, then they’re just ingesting it straight away. If when it dries, stuff evaporates, stop breathing that in. Cats, you know, whatever you clean your house with will end up at some point inside your cat because they groom like nobody’s business, you know. So, I’m doing this on my laptop and if I leave my laptop open, there’s a certain black cat at home.

And she should know better, she’s 10 years old and she’s been told often enough. Not the set on my keyboard, right? Dirty cat backside on my keyboard And how do you clean underneath the keys and everything, you know? So I’m just spraying it with probiotics There’s no point in telling her otherwise So I’ll just let her I’ll just spray it with some probiotics And they’ll get in there and they’ll eat the And they’ll do the thing Because they release enzymes And the different probiotics Each, if there’s multiple probiotics in, in a product and each probiotic can produce multiple different enzymes depending on what organic waste matter they meet.

So if they meet something that’s been adjacent to the bottom of my black cat, they’ll reduce one kind of enzyme. If they reduce, if they meet some dried blood, they’ll produce a whole different enzyme and they’ll keep doing this repeatedly over about a three day life cycle. So that’s how we work instead of using chemicals.

Perfect. So some practical use and safety for our pet parents, a couple of quick points here to ask you. So how often should pet parents use probiotic shampoos, ear sprays and allergy relief sprays to see the best results?

Okay. So with shampooing, we say, as you normally would, you know, and some people say I never shampoo my dog. We go, yeah, fine. That’s a dog.

thinking. Before I ask this question, that groomers could probably use these products, right?

Oh yeah.

going to the groomers.

Oh yeah.

just thinking that when you were talking earlier.

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

Also, the pet groomers, if they’re using slightly harsher, Shampoos might be fine for your dog for once or however many weeks, but the groomers are doing this day in, day out. So the probiotic shampoos are better for their hands and also

it

sustainability and, you know, some people switch off when we talk about sustainability, but when you’re a business, that’s important to be able to say to your clients, look, what’s going down the plug hole here in my groomers is continuing to work in the wastewater.

management system to consume organic matter. Not only is it not not nasty chemicals, most of which will have the words harmful to aquatic life with long lasting 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 slightly better for you using the product. Now, tiny amount, but still over the zero line, you know. So that, that’s really, but the main thing is for their hands as well as for the dog’s, dog’s benefit. Some groomers will, will, will you, 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 have people who are groomers who sell our products, sell our products onto the client and say, here we go,

Wow.

wiped the slate clean. We spray the stuff, here’s the bottle, cost you this, off you go.

And, and,

over, yeah.

and in those cases we say, and answering your question, because I do answer the question eventually Nathan 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 with the 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 a hot spot, go twice a day. What happens if you do four times a day? Well, you’re not going to cause any problems because there’s no,

yeah,

issue because it’s not a chemical, it’s not a drug. It’s just, you might waste a bit of money, but that’s it. But when the hot spot is gone, you stop using the product.

You put it in your shelf in the emergency cabinet. Unlike the teeth, we’d say look, just like your own teeth, keep that up. Keep it up. With some dogs, you might get down to once a day. Go from twice a day to once a day. Some dogs you might get 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 are improving, 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 when we talk about ears, we see people in various forums that we get involved in saying, I use X product every time my girl has a flare up, or every time my boy has a flare up, I use this.

And we’re thinking, they shouldn’t be in every time.

So again, you’re into the wiping out the microbiome, 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, lend a shoulder to to the mother nature.

Yep. Cool. how can pet parents integrate probiotic cleaning 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 me quite well, and she picked this bottle of stuff, cleaning stuff, that was in this goody bag. And she’s like, what are we going to do with this?

And I got, and I, I was seeing red and I’m reading the back. It’s flammable. Right? And, and I’m, I’m an air guy so I don’t wanna burn stuff from cause pollution. Right? It says, don’t put it, it says 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, we were here last night and we were. I’m getting quite informal here, we were watching videos from 1982 of my great, my grandparents stinging at a party and I’m thinking, can I imagine going to their, to their parents and saying, Hey, back in 1920s, whatever, Hey, tell you what we’re going to do.

We’ve got this great idea. Instead of using soap and water to clean the 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 would you use mild poison inside your home? Right? So yes, let’s, let’s not do that.

Anyway. So, the positive half of the, answering the question is just use the pro, just go to ingenious proproducts. com. There’s my blog. And, and read, read the news articles about itchy dog skin and, and cleaner products and go on and, and it’s, we do them in concentrates. You can get really cheap. You can buy the ready to use product or you can buy it concentrate and the concentrate is like, Way cheaper than what you’re going to buy in the cheapest, cheapest supermarket.

yeah, perfect. Joe we’ve literally sailed through this hour on the Yappy Hour, so we’re going to start bringing it 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

blown, literally. So you had your little plug, but we’ll be coming 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 benefits of probiotics, what would it be?

say this, look, your dog, when you bring them into the vet, the vet is looking at him or her thinking there’s 20 trillion microorganisms in on and around our dog. Before you go wiping him out, ask yourself the question, what happens next? And what happens if I just improve the 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 surface inside 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 switch that 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 one thing and you put a gun to my head, I’d say that, which you are going to. The dental care, the dental care, the amount of times. We, we have conversations about dental and you’re looking at it and you can’t say, Oh, we should start at this last year.

You know, you wouldn’t have this problem now. You can’t say that because the horse is bolted. It’s not helpful. And the last thing you want to do is make anybody feel guilty or anything like that because the people we talk 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. Start, start today, look after your pet’s oral microbiome and just like you look after your own.

perfect, Joe. Thank you so much. How can our listeners learn more about your products and to get started with probiotic pet care? So how can they find out more about you and probiotics?

Oh, second plug, right? Yeah, look, we, we, we work really hard to 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 things always take three times longer than you think, but we’re working on a new one where we’re putting even more information out there.

So we’re taking the questions verbatim that 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 out there for you to read.

Somebody else just like you, with a similar question just like you, is asking this question just like you, and here’s how we answer it.

Brilliant.

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 hear from us for a day or two, you know.

Understandable.

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 peruse and have a little look. There’s also a growing number of natural type pet supply.

outlets out there who are very well versed in pet nutrition and and our products in places where if you know them you can go in and you can ask and it reminds me Nathan of when you used to go to the pharmacy. Sometimes for certain things you might go to 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 wonderfully dedicated people in those shops.

It’s an amazing industry when you scratch the surface.

Yeah. And if people just want to get hold of 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’s best place to answer will answer. So you might get an answer from the team or you might get an answer. Directly from me depending on on on what the question is and yeah, but keep them coming. We absolutely love it and We look every time we sell a we sell a cleaner product.

For example, it’s like well That’s one liter of harsh chemicals that isn’t going out into the world every time we sell it near care. We think about that’s That’s a dog who’s potentially 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 canine industry 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,

have given, some people have given me a couple, but you know.

oh no,

if

man.

that comes to mind

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.

got we’ve got connor coming on. So

No way. Oh,

here’s

fantastic.

know

What a dude.

of yours,

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

a little reveal for our listeners. Dr. Connor brady will be joining

Yeah.

very soon

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

Yeah, i’m i’m speaking to caroline 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 presentation with, 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 and part of the Animal Cancer Trust. If you don’t know what the Animal Cancer Trust is, your listeners need to know.

If ever anybody gets the unfortunate diagnosis of their pet having cancer, there is A charity there to help give them information, help with explaining what the vet means by this report and so on. And Vicki Adams and the team, they do amazing work and it’s worth speaking to Vicki just for that. And, and the other one would be Richard Doyle vet Dr.

Richard Doyle did a presentation with us for Carla Pearson’s group should be another one that, that, that have on Carla. Crikey. So yeah, the name is just gonna keep coming, Nathan, so I’ll be emailing you it more.

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

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

Thanks, Joe.

 What an eye opening conversation with Joe from Ingenious Probiotics. Here are some key takeaways from today’s episode. Number 1. Probiotics aren’t just for digestion, they’re vital for skin, ear and dental health too. Supporting a dog’s external microbiome can help prevent skin allergies, infections and irritation.

Number 2. Probiotic pet care isn’t reduces reliance on antibiotics. By balancing bacteria naturally, these products help strengthen immunity and prevent reoccurring infections. Number three, a healthy microbiome can improve behaviour. When dogs feel physically comfortable, they’re less likely to exhibit stress related behaviours.

Number four. Probiotic cleaning products create a safer home environment. Reducing harmful bacteria and allergens make a happier and fulfilled pet. Gio, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and for helping us understand how probiotics are shaping the future of pet care. And to all our listeners, If you want to learn more, be sure to check out Ingenious Probiotics and see how their products can benefit your dog.

If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review, sharing it with a fellow dog parent, and subscribing so you never miss an episode of the Yuppie Hour. Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next time.