Animal Behavior and Gut Health

Bill Bookout: Give me 30 second answer to life stage products. Dr. Morgan, do you look for life stage supplements? And how do nutritional needs or health needs change with the life stages of an animal from puppy adult seniors.

Dr. Judy Morgan: I do a little bit. I don't think that we have a ton of products that are specifically labeled for seniors or puppies. We have a few and it kind of depends what we're looking for. But certainly a lot of the joint supplements are going to lean more toward a senior. Anything that has to do with cognitive function is going to lean more toward our senior animals. I mean, the supplements that we're using…they're for supplemental use. So we don't have to worry about nutritionally balanced for a puppy versus a senior like we would with a food. I'm trying to think if I have anything in our arsenal that specifically says for puppies, there's a lot of things that lean more towards senior. And that's just because in the seniors we have so many chronic disease issues that haven't been addressed.

Bill Bookout: Well, you got more health challenges with pets, just as we do for ourselves, as we age. Dr. Pachel, life, stage comments.

Dr. Chris Pachel (he/him): Yeah, I agree with everything Dr. Morgan said. As I was sort of pondering the question, I was thinking, now, how would I answer that because I'm sort of racking my brain in the same way. I'm like, I use different supplements at different life stages. But is it the supplement branded for life stages? And no, not really. So yeah, I look at more of a life stage indication of when I'm reaching for, based on the patterns that are going to be evident, more so than would the way I might think about that with a baseline nutritional product. So yeah, ditto.

Episode 9

Bill Bookout: [Dr. Pachel] as a veterinary behaviorist can you talk about the connection between animal health and behavior? In humans there's a great deal of talk about the concept of the gut brain axis, and how that impacts mood or other behavioral traits. Is there something similar in pets.

Dr. Chris Pachel (he/him): Yeah. Yes. Resounding yes.

Bill Bookout: And do you think animals are more prone to stress than people are.

Dr. Chris Pachel (he/him): More or less, but differently susceptible is probably the way I see it manifesting at a baseline level. I think everything that we see with gut brain axis and health and inflammation, and all of those processes that we see in the body absolutely manifesting in behavioral changes, I mean at the beginning and the end of the day when clients are presenting concerns about animal behavior, what they're describing is something that's relative to vomiting or stool production or energy, change or appetite, or irritability, or all of these things that that are directly related to how that animal is feeling, and how their body is functioning. So at a basic level, I'd say, yes, fundamentally exactly the same.

I think, where it gets a little bit tricky is then we start looking down the species lines, or we start looking at individual breeds within species. And they're going to be susceptible to different stressors. For example, and this is just a basic example, if I'm talking about susceptibility to stress, if I'm working with a working breed dog, let's just use a Malinois, an adolescent Malinois that is not being given any sort of direction whatsoever in their life, and they're just sort of free to live their best life, that that dog is likely to experience a significant amount of stress, because that's not how they're wired to function.

If you take an adolescent Basset Hound, and you give it not a lot of direction that dog's living its best life. Now, obviously, I'm sort of drawing sort of gross oversimplifications of those breed types. But the same environment, the same input is going to have a very different impact, generally speaking, for those individual animals or breeds. And so, when I look at that at sort of the gut-brain versus behavioral standpoint, all of those elements are looking at health.

So I'm always starting out with that n of one at that individual assessment, trying to understand what are the behaviors that we are seeing positive or negative, normal or abnormal, and what are the antecedents that are relating to those particular behaviors. Where are the correlations that we need to really put our attention? Is that environment? Is it social? Is it health-wise? All of those things so broad question that gets very, very granular, depending on the individual.

Bill Bookout: What about cats? I don't want to forget the cat people. I learned recently I'm a cat bro, because I got cats. So, do you do much work with behavior, and cats.

Dr. Chris Pachel (he/him): Absolutely. Yeah. We see very much the same patterns. I was mentioning some of the species lines, not to say that there aren't individual breeds and breed differences in cats, of course there are, and yet the majority of my clinical population in general practice as well as in specialty practice, is your domestic short hair, domestic medium hair, domestic, long hair, kind of your mutt, if you will, and so I think you know, in my practice, probably 85% are kind of your “generic cat.” There's nothing generic about any cat I've ever met in my entire lifetime. But, also there's a lot more similarity within that, you know, homogeneity within that population compared to the breeds, specific things that we see across other species.

Bill Bookout: Sarah did a great presentation. Our annual meeting on cats. Cats are often the neglected segment, although there's actually more cats out there than dogs. So, I appreciate your comments.