Anna's Blog

This week Anna is joined by Trainer and Behaviour consultant, Hannah Molloy. With a BSc in Animal Behaviour, she has written “What’s Your Dog Thinking?’, starred on Channel 4’s Puppy School and most recently organised sessions at APDAWG on ‘Dog Bites’.

We discuss how Hannah decided make dogs her main focus rather than working with horses or cats. She started her career working in the Birmingham area and over seven years trained over 10,000 dogs in group sessions and one to ones.
We chat about why dog bite incidents are on the rise and whether it's directly related to the the pandemic, and the sudden surge in dog ownership, or whether it's a problem that’s been brewing for sometime.

Since qualifying as a Canine Nutritionist over a decade ago, it astounds me that pet parents are still drawn into glossy brand packaging, rather than reading the labelled ingredients in dog’s food and making informed choices.

With mixed messages about what dogs need to eat to thrive, yet science concurs that dogs are physiologically and biologically designed as carnivores - needing to eat meat.

More and more processed dog foods are containing potatoes and sweet potatoes as cheap fillers, and low-grade protein sources. It allows pet food manufacturers to claim their food is grain free.  Billed as healthier, but ‘grain free kibble could be packing in even more carbs!

Vet and Environmental campaigner, Andrew Prentis is also  a ‘fellow’ at Imperial College. He is amongst the team of scientists that have advised pet owners to be more sparing in their use of toxic flea and tick treatments, warning that they are entering watercourses and damage aquatic ecosystems.

Reviewing 160 scientific papers on the impact on aquatic ecosystems of imidacloprid, a pesticide used in 138 pet treatments sold in the UK. They found that “one monthly flea treatment for a large dog contains enough imidacloprid to kill 25 million bees".  

This week Anna is joined by Esther Logue from Paleoridge. As the  leading raw food firms’ Content & Communications’ Manager, we chat about the success of this year’s Crufts, and how the company brought feeding raw to life at the biggest dog show in the world. We talk about why Crufts is such an educational platform and so needed in an age where dog ownership has boomed almost making it unrecognisable compared to back in circa 2002.

When I was invited onto BBC Radio 4’s ‘You and Yours’ programme recently to discuss Dog Dental Month. Presenter, Winifred Robison, spoke to Dr Karolina Enlund, who led a Swedish study into dog dental health, sent out to over 200,000 dog owners. The research found that the vast majority of pet owners do not brush their dog's teeth at all, and Dog Dental Month is about providing easy and cost-effective methods to clean your dog's teeth at home.

This week Anna is joined by CEO of Ingenious Probiotics about what represents an explosion in the science of healthy bacteria.  We discuss probiotics in an external environment rather than an internal one. Based on our knowledge, albeit recent and expanding, we understand the vital role of probiotics as balancing bacteria in our microbiome. Joe discusses how we can use probiotics as a cleaning product to kill pathogens indoors with out adding chemicals. Too many chemicals in the home environment can make your indoor environment 100 times more toxic than outdoors.

This week we’re joined by the legend that is Dr Jean Dodds talking about vaccines. As one of the pioneers to research the duration of immunity (DOI) of modern vaccines, Dr Jean has led the way for the WSAVA (The World Small Animal Veterinary Association) to recommend Titre Testing over annual boosters. Having studied how the DOI of initial puppy shots can last a minimum of three years, if not a life time, Dr Jean believes in #TestBeforeYouTreat and that’s for annual vaccines as well as wormers.

This week we’re joined by Andrew Hale. As a certified dog behaviourist, one of the founders of the UK Dog Charter and much more, he runs his practice in south Devon called Dog Certified Care.

We chat about how his human psychology degree and work in practice for people inspired helping owners and their dogs. Without ‘humanisation’ Andrew talks about why we must factor the emotional experience into training and behaviour, indeed life itself.

This week Anna is joined by Rachel Bean RVN - qualified veterinary nurse. Apart from being an amazing ‘dog person', Rachel is the creator of the iPET Network's canine first aid qualification.

We chat about this and about common accidents, like how to offer the first line of care for cut paws, insect stings, and with more serious situations like possible bloat or for  dogs that might be choking.

This week Anna is joined by Vet Nurse and Behaviourist, Morag Sutherland. Apart from boasting a long career as an in-practice vet nurse, Morag is one of the founders of the Raw Feeding Vet Society (RFVS). Not only passionate about feeding animals as nature intended, Morag as clinical experience highlighting how dogs thrive on a balanced, complete species appropriate diet comprising a lot meat as natural born carnivores.