EP. 26: Biohacking for Dogs
It’s no surprise that while we all love to treat our furry friends like family, in many cases they need and deserve the same healthy practices as humans in order to live their own good-better-best life!
Today, I got to interview Dr. Daniel Beatty, founder of Biohacking for Dogs. Biohacking for dogs is the same as biohacking for humans.
The foundation of biohacking is removing unnecessary chemicals and toxins from the environment: medications, vaccines, household air fresheners and cleaners - so that you thrive and not just survive.
Just as with humans, diet matters. Dogs thrive on the carnivore diet. Imagine feeding yourself kibble: essentially highly processed cereal sprinkled with protein powder. We wouldn’t do it. Dogs also can benefit from supplements like fish oil, collagen, and mushrooms. Our companions who help us through mental health disorders and bouts of loneliness deserve to live the life they were made for.
Dr. Dan has more than 25 years as an integrative veterinarian. We talk a bit about his professional pathway and what led him to establish Balanced Motion Veterinary Services which is located in Northwest Indiana, just a short drive from Chicago.
Show Notes
2
0:00:00
Well, welcome Dr. Dan to the podcast. And you are in Northwest Indiana, is that correct?
1
0:00:10
That is correct, Crown Point, Indiana.
2
0:00:12
Okay. And you started biohacking for dogs and the motto is thrive, not survive, which I love. And you've been in practice for over 25 years. Share with our listeners a little bit about how you evolved to this holistic approach and why you're doing what you're doing.
1
0:00:32
Okay, well, that's interesting because if I wasn't going to become a veterinarian, now I always wanted to be a veterinarian. Everybody, every kid wanted to be a veterinarian. So eight years old, I wanted to become a veterinarian. But my junior year of college, I tried to get into vet school and I didn't get in and I was like, uh-oh, I've been planning my whole life to become a veterinarian.
1
0:00:55
What's going to happen if I'm not going to be a veterinarian? So I was actually going to go to chiropractic school. So that's and I actually, the next year I did get into veterinary school so that was great and during that time I had also, I've been in martial arts my whole life and I had broken my jaw. And I had broken my jaw in the martial arts studio, and the owner of the martial arts studio was a doctor of acupuncture.
1
0:01:23
So he actually treated me with acupuncture and some Chinese herbs and such, and I was like, that was my first introduction to that aspect of it. So when I graduated from vet school, I was going to become a food animal veterinarian. So that was everything. I was doing pigs and goats and cows, dairy cows and beef cows and horses and such. My boss did not like horses very much, so guess who got to do all the horses.
1
0:01:57
I got to do the horses. What was interesting is that I had gotten a flyer in the mail saying, hey, what about this chiropractic for animals? I was like, chiropractic for animals? And it happened to be one hour. The only place in the entire United States was one hour away from the practice that I
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0:02:16
was practicing at. So I was like, I can do that. I can do that. I don't even have to pay for a hotel, airfare, or anything else like that. I could just drive back and forth and that's what I did.
1
0:02:28
So, I went to Options for Animals. This was in 1996, right after I graduated from vet school. I became certified in animal chiropractic in 1997. In 2000, I had gone out, visited a friend at the Indio Horse Show in California and met a doctor of acupuncture that was doing acupuncture on horses.
1
0:02:53
And so I was like, of course, I need to add that to my practice. And that's how I started acupuncture there. In 2011, I ended up going to the Qi Institute, which is now the Qi University in Florida, and Reddick, Florida, which is just south of Gainesville, yeah, just north of Ocala. I became certified in animal veterinary acupuncture at that time. So that's what I did. The majority of my practice after leaving food animal for two and a half years, I started my own equine practice, horse practice. The majority of that started just
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0:03:32
doing some chiropractic. Then about 2010 or so, for the last 14 years, alls I've been doing is holistics, chiropractic and acupuncture on horses and dogs.
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0:03:45
I love that.
1
0:03:47
Yeah, so fast forward now for the last few years, I opened up a clinic in Crown Point called Balance Motion and started my online presence, much more online presence with biohacking, biohacking for dogs, so that's where I'm at.
2
0:04:06
And did you get much training in vet school with holistic modalities, or is that just something like you said, you had to kind of keep on your own?
1
0:04:15
Well, that was, you know, you have to think about it, that was about 25 years ago, so it was about 0%. So there wasn't even a club, there wasn't even a holistic club. It kind of started inklings about a holistic club my junior and senior year of veterinary school.
1
0:04:36
So now I went to University of Illinois. That's where I graduated from. And now there is a holistic club there. And I've actually presented there before. It's been many, many years now. But yes, there is more openness to it in certain areas.
1
0:04:53
Like they've had some surgeons there that were also acupuncturists or anesthesiologists that were also acupuncturists. So it's kind of cool. And they also started a rehab program in certain schools. So like Purdue University in Indiana has a rehab program.
1
0:05:09
So it's kind of cool.
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0:05:11
It's growing, there's more of a need.
1
0:05:14
It's definitely, definitely growing.
2
0:05:17
Yeah, that's fantastic. Now talk to the listeners about biohacking for dogs.
1
0:05:23
Okay, so, you know, biohacking for dogs is very similar to biohacking for people. How I got into it was, again, through my martial arts, through jiu-Jitsu at my age group. The only way to do that is through biohacking modalities for myself, making sure I eat correctly, making sure – for me, it's like doing cold showers, drinking hydrogen-rich water,
1
0:05:57
breath exercises, stuff like that. Some of those things, like the PEMF I've used, some of those things can be incorporated into the dog world. And it's basically just trying to, you know, the good foundation of biohacking is, you know, good fresh food, quality water, proper exercise, including core exercises and rest.
1
0:06:21
So as long as we have those foundations, then we can add on top of that some of the things like some supplementation and such. So it is the art and science of, the art and science of optimizing your health in order to have more longevity and a better life,
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0:06:40
to bring out the best in you, to bring out the best in your dog.
2
0:06:45
Of course, that makes so much sense to me. What kind of a diet do you recommend for animals in general, but for dogs, for example? We know that Purina is not the best and some of the processed foods aren't natural, right?
1
0:07:06
Correct. So, the thing is that I am a big promoter of fresh diets. that is cooking for the dog yourself with a balanced diet, feeding raw or feeding partially cooked those are my top three choices. I don't have a specific brand that I recommend.
1
0:07:22
There are better brands than others, but honestly when you look at the kibble, which is the majority of the dogs being fed kibble, if you as a human were eating that, it would be eating like total cereal with a protein powder added on top of it.
1
0:07:35
Now, we know we could survive on that, okay, but are we going to thrive on that? Certainly not. So when you actually, just the same thing for people, ultra-processed food is not good for your body. It's not good to help you manage and thrive your whole life. So fresh foods are better to go for humans. The same thing for dogs. So when you look at a kibble, it is the ultimate ultra-processed food. So we do not want to be doing that. The other thing, component with that is that when you make a kibble, a kibble is full of carbohydrates. It has to be in order to get a binding solution
1
0:08:15
to make it a kibble. Dogs, unlike humans, like humans even have a little, we have a need for carbohydrates. Dogs do not. Dogs are protein-centric. They're a carnivore. And so their whole diet is based off of protein. In fact, when we look at it, their society, like their satiation, like in order to reduce their appetite, they need to meet a certain protein requirement.
1
0:08:43
And some of these lower quality kibbles don't even meet that protein requirement. So they just are hungry all the time. And this is how they get obese. Interesting, I never knew that. Yeah, yep, yep. So you'd have to go with a higher quality kibble, it just even as a start, just to even meet their protein requirements. So to actually
1
0:09:06
satiate the body so they're not so hungry all the time. So fiber is another big, big deal in them. So a lot of times, like even when we have my fresh food diet dogs, a lot of times they're not getting that good quality fiber in order to help with the microbiome in order again help with society, you know, satiation and such. So it's it it gets in to be a big huge thing when we talk about biohacking for dogs as far as like what should we be feeding these dogs? So and a fresh food diet is the way to go.
2
0:09:40
Right. Now, I know, of course, for us humans, you know, there's a calculation based on our body weight for optimal protein for the day. Is there like a calculation like that for dogs? Or how do you know?
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0:09:51
There is.
1
0:09:52
Yes, there is definitely a calculation for dogs that's based off their metabolic body weight. And of course, the calculation's off the top of my head. I can't. But it can be very similar to people as far as how much they weigh.
2
0:10:07
Yeah, I figured there's something, just to kind of give you a ballpark estimate, rotating the protein sources, so like beef, chicken, lamb, seafood, or just?
1
0:10:17
Yes, and when you look at it from the same thing with people, if you have sensitivities, it is based on that as well. So if you have a dog that has a sensitivity to beef, you kind of want to avoid that versus chicken versus fish. But a wide variety is always best.
1
0:10:37
And if you can rotate your protein sources, that would be best for your dog. But it's based on the individual. Just the same thing with people. It's like some people can't handle certain protein sources, certain grains, certain types of food, they can't handle that. So you have to individualize each diet for the dog based on their sensitivities and such.
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0:11:00
Portia?
2
0:11:01
Yeah, makes sense. Yeah, I know from some of my patients, if they have a symptom, the dog keeps licking its paws or it has hot spots or something like that, so few actually look at the gut or look at the diet, look at, let's figure out why it's doing it and not just give steroids for the issue, correct?
1
0:11:22
Absolutely. That is, that is actually very critical as far as like, everything starts just with the, like in humans, with the gut. So when you look at the Peyer's patches, which are in the intestinal tract, which house the immune system, if you have an inflammatory response going on in your gut, it's going to affect those pyrus patches, which is going to affect the T-lymphocytes and the B-lymphocytes, which is what activates
1
0:11:45
your immune system in your body. And same thing is where you're going to have that hypersensitivity, and you end up with allergy-type symptoms. You end up with digestive-type symptoms. So absolutely, same for people.
1
0:11:59
It's just a little bit different as far as what we can eat versus they can eat.
2
0:12:04
You know similar to humans there's common supplements that are kind of standard of care. What about for pets? Any certain supplements that jump out that you
1
0:12:12
recommend for your clients? Yes, I have six that I usually recommend. I even wrote an e-book about it. So but a big one for pretty happy, healthy dogs. Fish oil is your big one to help with your omega-3s, with your EPA and your DHA. Collagen, that's kind of interesting. It's actually more important than, say,
1
0:12:35
your glucosamine, chondroitin, and sulfates. Collagen is a much more important aspect for helping with joints and helping with the tendons and ligaments, and your joint support collagen is the way to go. It's also gonna help with the hair coat
1
0:12:48
and help with your nails. That is the one caveat. If you've got a dog that has a problem with clipping the nails, collagen is going to increase the growth of the nails. We have had clients that have complained about that in the past. I prescribed for them some collagen for their dog to help them with their joints. They're like, my dog needs his nails trimmed more often now. It's like, oh hey, the collagen is working.
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0:13:14
It's a good sign.
1
0:13:15
I'm a big proponent of mushrooms as well, so we could go on a three-day talk about mushrooms as far as using those in your dog's diet. Anything from lion's mane to help with my older dogs with cognitive disorder. You can use some cordyceps mushrooms a lot for my dogs that are athletic. You know, if they need a little bit boost and such, we're adding that.
1
0:13:42
And of course, the immune system ones, you know, your reishi mushrooms, your shiitake, your mataki mushrooms. Those are gonna be beneficial for your immune system. So again, it becomes individualized, but it would be good to even rotate those.
1
0:13:55
They're a good fiber source too, to help with gut. So we use those a lot.
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0:14:01
So those are-
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0:14:02
That's awesome.
2
0:14:03
Like mushrooms are very underutilized.
1
0:14:05
Very much so, even in people. And then the other thing is that then you got to go look at the quality. So even some of the most popular brands of mushrooms, they harvest them a little bit too early and so you don't get the full bang for your buck off of them. The other thing is that a lot of times they're just not growing them on the right substrate. And so that becomes important when you actually are looking at mushrooms and using them for
1
0:14:29
your body for biohacking methods to make sure you get, or even for medicinal purposes, making sure that you're getting a good quality one, good quality brand.
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0:14:39
For sure.
2
0:14:40
Do you recommend, do you find that pets do better with like a powder or a liquid format?
1
0:14:46
Well, there's two companies that I use and one is more powder or capsule and the other one is liquid and they both are, it depends on the dog. So we have some dogs that can just sprinkle powder on their food and it's great. They're like, that's my own dogs. You know, I can sprinkle it on their food, they just eat it up. I have other dogs that will not touch, they don't like mushrooms, just like people.
1
0:15:11
There are people that don't like mushrooms, they don't like the taste of them. And so there's dogs the same way. They don't like the mushroom taste. So you can either give them a capsule form or there's another company that does have it as a liquid form. So and it's much easier to just squirt a liquid, have them give that nasty look in their face
1
0:15:27
and give them a treat right afterwards and they're happy.
2
0:15:29
Yeah, I've done that with my, I have two Weimaraners and I give them a liver, a homeopathic liver support, just to kind of help detox anything that they're around. And I squirt it in his mouth and then give him a liver treat
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0:15:44
and he's good to go, so.
1
0:15:46
Right.
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0:15:47
Yep.
1
0:15:48
Very good.
2
0:15:49
Now, for what kind of conditions do you typically do acupuncture for?
1
0:15:55
Mostly my painful conditions is the number one. The way that my practice is, I see a lot of sporting dogs and a lot of older dogs so I use a ton of acupuncture for that and I use a lot of acupuncture for my neurologic cases which is you know when you look at it when you take it away from the holistic aspect take away from traditional Chinese medicine and look at it more as evidence-based when you're looking at acupuncture it is actually
1
0:16:20
treating directly the nervous system each acupuncture point is a nerve ending well this is where sometimes these cases when you're dealing with a dog that has a Significant issue in the central nervous system the spinal cord region where it's not functioning I need a functional nervous system in order to have the most benefit of acupuncture, but So it's interesting you use the active using acupuncture to stimulate that nervous system to get the nervous system to function again. Those are some of the more troubling,
1
0:16:51
harder cases to do sometimes, is these cases where the dog is paralyzed, but then again, it's also a miracle when you have these dogs come in, they can't walk or they're having very difficult time, they're swaying in the back end,
1
0:17:04
you do some acupuncture along with some PEMF and boom, they're starting to walk again, and it's great. That is so rewarding, but it can be very difficult. So that's what I treat. I usually treat pain, so arthritis and with injuries and then neurologic issues. And then of course, then we can always do things with the gut,
1
0:17:26
the immune system. I treat allergies, helping with itching, almost anything that is an imbalance in the body. Acupuncture can help. A lot of times, though, we need to add things such as Chinese herbs or some other supplementation to enhance the effect of it. Just like humans. Just like humans, yeah.
2
0:17:45
Now I know in my practice sometimes I'll hook up electrodes to the needles. Do you do that as well with the pets?
1
0:17:52
Yeah, especially with neurologic. There's actually been some research studies done on electrical stimulation of the acupuncture just as well if not better in some cases for intervertebral disc disease, a disc rupture for dogs. It works very, very well using electric. Well, that's good to know. So I use that, but because I have a MagnaWave or a PEMF machine, I tend to use that a lot more. Dogs are a little bit more comfortable with it. And what I mean by that is that hooking up the electrodes is
1
0:18:27
Into the acupuncture points a lot of dogs will shake It's like you're gonna hook them back up again, and it's because you know like a human they'll lay there and stay there You'll stay there. You know dogs not necessarily that doesn't happen all the time So it's much easier to just put in dry needles and stick over Electromagnetic device that stimulates them so is it as effective if I have a pretty painful dog, I will go ahead and stick the electrodes on or if I have a paralyzed dog, I will stick the electrodes because I
1
0:18:57
need more oomph out of my acupuncture.
2
0:19:02
What are your thoughts on CBD? I have a lot of patients that always ask me about CBD for their pets for arthritis and health and longevity. What are your thoughts on that?
1
0:19:15
CBD is... How can I... It's kind of... It's one of those things. I do recommend it. Alright, but again, you have to use a quality product. You have to use a full spectrum. One that does have a little bit of THC in it. A small amount. Just enough to activate the receptors in there. But it's similar
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0:19:39
for people in that it all depends on how many endocannabinoid receptors they
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have
1
0:19:44
and how responsive those endocannabinoid receptors are. And you don't know without trial and error. So you give a guess, here's a little bit of CBD, how does your dog respond? Does it help or not? You're going to have to wait a couple weeks and then try adds more. Or you might give some CBD and your dog is comatose and
1
0:20:04
it's like okay you got to get a little bit less so it's extremely variable so it's not really an open arms policy for veterinary medicine just because of that variability and it's not it's not one of those things where it's like okay this is the dosage that you use for this size dog and it's gonna work every time because it doesn't so there's a lot of variability in using CBD,
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0:20:28
but it does help.
1
0:20:29
It helps a lot with some pain. I've been finding to use PEA, palominoethanolamide, more as a fatty acid, which has some endocannabinoid response versus CBD for pain. But I still use CBD for pain,
1
0:20:46
especially if I have a dog that has some anxiety as well. So it really helps very well with anxiety and with pain. And then my seizure dogs that are not responsive to medication, you could use some pretty high dosages of CBD in order to help them with their seizure activity. Problem is that you're gonna have a dog
1
0:21:07
that is pretty sleepy using the CBD until they get acclimated to it if you're using the high dosages of it.
8
0:21:15
Sure, that makes sense.
1
0:21:17
But yes, I use CBD in my practice, but let's say just for my painful patients, I typically will use PEA more than I will use CBD. And a lot of clients are coming in on CBD already because they've already been told, hey, you should try CBD. So I just work with it.
2
0:21:36
Yeah, just like with humans, yes, but there's probably better stuff.
1
0:21:40
Right, well, and that's the other thing. And that's the one thing I do want to caution people. A lot of people will use isolates, and there has been some research done on CBD isolates actually raising liver values in dogs. So I highly recommend avoiding any of the CBD isolates. You need to go with a broad spectrum or a full spectrum CBD.
1
0:22:02
In my preference, using the full spectrum is better.
2
0:22:05
Right, right. Any thoughts on vaccines for dogs? That is a very hot topic.
1
0:22:13
No, just like with humans. Yeah, it's one of those things that is quite interesting. When you look at your Distemper and Parvo vaccines, let's take specifically out distemper. Distemper is very similar to measles, same family as measles vaccine.
1
0:22:33
So if you are a person that has been vaccinated themselves for measles, as a child, you get your measles vaccine. As an adult, you get a measles vaccine. No. Why? Because you're protected.
1
0:22:48
It's a lifelong protection. Same thing with distemper. It's the exact same family. So if you give your dog a distemper vaccine, the majority of dogs, you were talking like 90% of the dogs are,
1
0:23:02
they have lifelong protection after giving them appropriate vaccines when they're puppies. So I have holistic clients that do not vaccinate their dogs, have not vaccinated their dogs. It gets to be a little bit scary in the beginning with Parvo because Parvo is very prevalent. It's ubiquitous throughout the environment and you can have puppies end up with Parvo. So this is where my integrative side comes
1
0:23:32
in. I'm not one of those that's like, don't vaccinate anything. It's just more appropriate vaccination and especially when I'm combating veterinarians are giving vaccines every single year It's like you are you are destroying their immune system. Stop doing that. Stop stop giving them especially like a lot of times I'll have Aluminum hydroxide or other immune stimulants in there to make the vaccines work better So, you know these these immune stimulants help the vaccines work better. Well, they also are Yelling at the immune system and if you're yelling at the immune system over and over,
1
0:24:04
so let's look at aluminum hydroxide. Aluminum stays in the body for a couple of years. So now it's like you're giving aluminum hydroxide every single year, just ramping up that immune system. No wonder they have autoimmune disorders, they have allergies, they have cancers,
1
0:24:18
all associated with having the immune system yelled at. So I am really much a proponent of proper vaccination, not over vaccination. And when we are over, when we are giving these dogs these vaccines every single year, you're over vaccinating your dog and yelling at the immune system a little too much.
1
0:24:37
So then you can talk about Lepto and Lyme and those.
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0:24:42
I don't give those to my own dog.
1
0:24:43
The Lyme vaccine is extremely questionable as far as like how effective it actually is. And lepto is one of those. The problem is that if you have somebody with an immune system disorder in your household, lepto can be transmitted from your dog to a human.
1
0:24:59
So I end up having my clients case-by-case basis as far as that goes. Interesting. Well, that's good to know.
2
0:25:08
Yeah, I know we do vaccines when they're puppies, but we don't do vaccines after that. We use essential oils for ticks and mosquitoes.
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0:25:21
Perfect.
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0:25:22
Perfect.
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0:25:23
Absolutely.
2
0:25:24
They're part of the family, so you treat them like a kid.
1
0:25:28
Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. You want to try and remove, that's the only, again, some of the foundations of biohacking is to actually remove the toxins in the environment and some of that is vaccines, heartworm medication, tick and flea medication, and then all the same things that you do for your own household, you know, like some of the worst things for the dogs are those plug-in scents for the house. It's like they're more sensitive to it than we are as people and it's bad for people.
1
0:25:58
So why the heck would you have it in there for your dogs? So for sure, removing those toxins in the environment as best as you possibly can is going to help the dog thrive versus just survive.
2
0:26:09
Yeah, makes sense. Now, if our listeners want to find your e-book and find you, what's the best way they can find you? Biohackingfordogs.com is obviously the
1
0:26:21
best choice. It's a direct access to my website where the e-books on there is going to be taught you know events will pop up on their individual consultations shows up there and of course my blog where where I have information all the time but of course you can always look Instagram Facebook I mean I'm social media all over the place so for sure dr. Dan Beatty just if you if you look up Daniel Beatty you'll get the comedian. So I'm not the comedian. So you have to add Dr. Dan BD or Daniel BD, the veterinarian. So I'm trying to get biohacking vet as you know, if everybody
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0:27:00
knows me as the biohacking vet, that'd be perfect.
2
0:27:03
That'd be great. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for taking the time.
1
0:27:07
It was wonderful talking to you and congratulations on your new baby. It's awesome.
2
0:27:12
Thank you. We'll be sure to share all of our social media of yours and then tag the e-book on our shop page as well
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0:27:20
for all of our listeners.
1
0:27:21
Fantastic, thank you very much. That is wonderful.
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0:27:24
Enjoy your day.
2
0:27:25
Thank you again, Dr. Dan. I appreciate it.
3
0:27:26
You're very, very welcome. You're very, very welcome.
1
0:27:28
Thank you.
Transcribed with Cockatoo