Hi there. This is Krista with episode #125 on the Wag Out Loud pawdcast. Feeding fruits and veggies to your dog provides them with great antioxidants and phytonutrients. But remember, the ratio of fruit to vegetables should always be three vegetables to one fruit. And the same goes for us humans too! Welcome to the Wag Out Loud pawdcast, where we are obsessed with bringing you helpful tips on canine health care, nutrition, and overall wellbeing. If you'd like to support the show, check out the amazing online events, products and resources that I personally recommend on the Wag Out Loud website. I'm your host, Krista and I'm super excited to be bringing you yet another tail wagging episode. Hi there dog lovers! Thank you so much for listening. And for wanting to be the best advocate for your dog's health and wellness. We are in for a real treat, as Carrie Hyde is going to be covering the topic of is Your Dog Boarding, Daycare, or Grooming Facility Making Your Dog Sick? Carrie, I am so thrilled to have you here with us today. Could you please introduce yourself and share why are you so passionate about educating other animal lovers about the dangers that they may not know actually exist? Hi Krista. Yeah, thank you for having me here. It's a tough subject to talk about. You know, it makes me sound like I'm just after all these boarding facilities and groomers and daycare facilities. And that's not really what I'm here to do. I'm here to actually educate and hope I can change the industry that I've been a part of in love and have been so passionate about for 36 years now. I was a vet tech for 12 years prior to opening up my own boarding, daycare, grooming and Nutrition Center. And it wasn't too soon after I opened that I realized there were some huge, huge problems in the industry. And they stem from so many different things. And so I started to just change the way that I ran my facility. I started looking into different things. And then as you know, I started my own podcast, as well to try to help educate people, because the health of our animals is declining rapidly. And it's not just from one thing, you know, a lot of times we focus on nutrition, or we focus on vaccines, or we focus on we focus and we get hyper focused on that one thing. And in order to have our animals healthy, there's so many aspects, including their lifestyle and where they're boarding and where they're getting groomed, and, and all of that. And so that's why I became very passionate in in trying to help pet parents understand that they need to think a little bit further outside of just what goes in their bowl. Although I do think of course, as a pet nutritionist that is very important. But there is so much more. Well, I just want to emphasize that you have your own holistic boarding, daycare and grooming facility, and it's called the Spaw. So you're actually doing it. You're out there in the field. So why don't we jump right in? Let's unpack the title of the topic. So how are boarding, daycare and grooming facilities actually making our dogs sick? So it's not like I said, it's not one thing that that makes them sick. It's numerous things. All the way from how many dogs are boarded. You know, a lot of people don't realize that there are no now I'm going to talk pretty deeply about this, but also want people to understand that each state and each county has different laws. So when I'm talking about this, your state or your county or your city may have a little variation to these laws. But in general, and my experience has been over the years and the people that I have spoken to across the country is that boarding facilities don't require a certain they don't have like a limit on how many dogs can stay in their facility. They'll put limits on them like my like, for example. I can ask, you know for a boarding license, so boarding facilities are supposed to have kennel licenses. And my kennel, for example, I can say I want to board 20 dogs, and they'll either approve it or not approve it but the sad part is is how they approve it isn't how you would think they would approve it. Like come out check and see how big the facility is, how many people are working there. If someone's spending the night. They don't that's not how it gets approved. It's actually to be honest, I'm not even really sure how they stamp the approval because I've upped mine every year until I finally decided to kind of do a little test run and see if I just put 100 dogs would they give me my boarding license? My kennel license is what it's called. And so I just went from 25 dogs to 100 overnight, and had no problem getting that kennel license. Now, keep in mind, I'm not going to board 100 dogs, I was just trying to see if I could get approved for it. And I was never asked, will I have more staff? Is my facility actually getting bigger? Will we have a night shift? Are we doing large dogs or, you know, small dogs, there was no real understanding of the care and the level of care that would be taken care of, of the animals there. So that's one big problem is? Yeah, like, I mean, if I could, what if I put 800, 1000, 10,000? Like, where's the limit? And there's no limit in the writing. So when you look at your licenses, it won't say like, you know, per square footage, or how many people so I spoke with animal control in my area one time and asked them, How many people per dogs are required, like how many like, you know, like a child daycare will say, you need to have one person for every five children. If they're infants, we need something like that in our boarding facilities. If they're large dogs, we should have more than you do with small dogs for obvious reasons. Is it free run? Are they caged. There isn't any questions of that that comes across? So that's one of the huge problems is the number of animals. And so when we talk about whether your animal’s getting sick, does that matter? How many dogs are there? Will that matter? Yes, of course, it matters, because that's more pee and poop that's getting picked up. And if you have one person for 100 dogs, your dog has a high chance and probability of laying and pee and poop or… And those are, you know, your dog laying in pee and poop is horrible, and nobody wants that. But that's second to your dog forgetting to get fed. Right? Sure. Not noticing if he's breathing, heavy coughing, sneezing, eyes wandering, having a seizure. You know, I've had dogs in my facility have seizures at one o'clock in the morning. And we've had to rush them to the animal hospital. And if there's not a night shift, which is another problem, there's no laws that say that boarding facilities need to have a night shift. And some people think that that's okay, you know, well, my dog’s just going to be sleeping all night. But it's it's a different environment. And that's where people don't understand is that at home, your pet may be sleeping all night long. But in a boarding facility with 100-150 dogs, the chances of them sleeping all night long, are much lower, because there's going to be some anxiety. Dogs have anxiety when they go into boarding facilities. And so you have a different environment. And so that fact alone, just going into a boarding facility can cause stress on an animal. And it's interesting, because people are like, Why do you talk about this, and still own a boarding facility? And I do because I think that boarding facilities have a place and they need to be there, but they just… It's like child daycare would be like saying, well just keep your dog at home with the babysitter. You can’t always do that. But we need to regulate boarding facilities. I was gonna say that I am not surprised. Can you name one thing in the entire pet industry that is regulated? I mean, it's so frustrating, from food, to supplements to CBD, to the actual plastics used in toys, and it goes on and on. So what you're saying to me is not surprising, but it just gets me even more pissed off. Yeah, it's something to get pissed off about. I you know, like I said, as a boarding facility, I regulate myself, I know how many employees I have. I, I know what my limits are and where it's comfortable. And sometimes that can be really tough, because, and this is where I put the blame on the pet parent is because parents in general people in general, we wait till the last second to do things. And so if you build a relationship with a boarding facility, and you have this really great relationship with them, and they love your dog, and that's what you really want, you do want to train your dogs so that they're less stressed to go into a boarding facility that they're used to going to. That they do daycare, these are solutions we can talk about. But one of the problems is is that pet parents will wait until let's use Fourth of July, for example, they'll wait till July 3, and say oh my gosh, I need to board my dog tonight. And then the boarding facility is most likely booked, if it's Fourth of July, they should be booked. And then if they don't take your dog, you start to get threats. And well I've been coming here forever and they kind of put the pressure on the boarding facility to take that dog. And the reality is that also is a problem that pet parents need to realize is that if your boarding facility has limits, please honor them because and don't make them feel like they're horrible people for not doing it because when you put that pressure on your boarding facilities, just take them, just take them, just take them… You're putting your dog at risk and you're putting other dogs at risk by doing that. So it's kind of a two, it's a two part thing, right? You can't be forcing this down, you know, you're boarding facilities that are trying to cause to have limits, because there are some great boarding facilities out there, don't get me wrong, but they really, really try to have limits. But some of them don't. Some of them, you know, will actually have cages in the back, and they're stacking their dogs in cages. And they're doing, you know, all sorts of crazy things with them. So, it requires both parties to take it seriously. And to not, you know, for us, we have like I board, for example, I board 20 small dogs a night period. And really no more than that. But I have, I could comfortably myself could comfortably board 25 dogs a night. But I leave those five spots open for emergencies. For my plane got delayed, and I can't get back and pick up my dog and then another dog is here, do you know because that happens all the time. And people don't realize that. So when they set their limit really, really high. And then you have those happen all the time. I can't tell you how many times somebody didn't come pick up their dog, when they were supposed to pick up their dog because of number of reasons, or a really great client has a family member who passes away and they're desperate, and they have to drop their dog off. So you have these and so there has to be boarding facilities that are being responsible with the idea that that could happen on any given chance. So numbers are a big reason. The lack of regulations like we talked about, and there never is going to be regulations. So I I just kind of say, we are not going to get to the point where organizations are going to require these really great regulations that I wish we had. And the reason for that is because how are we going to do that? We're barely regulating our child daycare facilities, right? Like how many children like they don't come out and check them every day. Right? So they're not going to be able to do that it comes down to the pet parent and asking questions and knowing how to pick a boarding facility. So one of the reasons why our dogs are getting sick in boarding facilities is the number of dogs that we’re boarding in these facilities and the sheer numbers of them. Put your dog at risk for for all sorts of stuff because the anxiety goes up, the more dogs are in the facility, but it's not the only. Okay, well this is a good spot to take a short commercial break so we will be right back. Thanks so much to our friends at Primalhealth for sponsoring this episode.  They are the makers of TEEF Protektin42: Drinkable Dental Health for our dogs. Now this is a product that I can get behind! With over 80% of dogs over the age of three having active dental disease, it’s crucial that we get ahead of this condition. TEEF is a patented 100% nontoxic prebiotic formula that promotes protective bacteria to neutralize dangerous bacteria, even below the gum line. It’s a human-grade, safe and clinically-proven powder that is easily added to your dog’s drinking water. It promotes clean teeth, healthy gums and fresh breath!” What are you waiting for?  Order yours today by going to TEEFhealth.com and use the code WOLP to receive 20% off of your order! And we are back with Carrie Hyde. And this is a very passionate discussion about is your dog boarding, daycare or grooming facility making your dog sick? So Carrie, you've just told us about the non regulations as far as number of dogs in a facility? How many people? I just can't believe that the kennel license is the way it is. But yeah, why don't we talk about the elephant in the room? vaccinations? The required vaccinations for dogs in most states. Tell me about that. Yeah, so vaccines are definitely another another reason why pets are getting sick in boarding facilities. And you know, I like I said in the beginning I've been working with animals for 36 years. As a vet tech for 12 of those years. And back when I was a vet tech, we hardly ever saw dogs with kennel cough, for example, like it just wasn't something that we really ever saw. We also didn't really vaccinate for it. It wasn't like a huge thing that we gave vaccines. But kennels back then which was God 26 years ago, 27 years ago, kennels didn't really exist. Like they do today. People boarded them at their best hospitals and you didn't have doggy daycares and you didn't have this kind of stuff. And so, but then as those grew, then the want or need or desire, however you want to look at it to start getting more of the kennel cough vaccine became something that people just did. And vets realized, hey, these guys are boarding here and they're doing daycare and so I became… In my county, the bordetella vaccine, which is the kennel cough vaccine also is not required. So I have my kennel license, but I'm not required to give the kennel bordetella vaccine. But most kennel license people, people who own or have their kennel license don't even know that they just continue to force this down your dog's throat. And the problem is, is it's an ineffective vaccine. It's absolutely ineffective. Secondly, it's a non core vaccine. And thirdly, the dogs who get the kennel cough vaccine. I've done the research at my own facility because I don't force people not to get it or to get it. I recommend that they don't. And I require a two week waiting period before they bring their pet into my facility. And the reason why and most kennels don't do this and which is why your dog is getting sick in these kennels is because they're forcing you to get this vaccine. It’s a shedding vaccine. According to Dr. Jean Dodds, it's one of the worst shedding vaccines second to Parvo. And when you bring a pet into a facility who's just been vaccinated yesterday, he brings it into the facility and creates an unhealthy environment. So any other dog in that environment, say for example, a dog with diabetes or an elderly dog or a puppy who's still building his immune system, even a vaccinated puppy for kennel cough can still get another strain because there's lots of strains of kennel cough. So these facilities aren't even reading their own licenses. So I've had kennels in my area Tell me Well, I have to require the bordetella vaccine and I tell them if I were you, I would read your your paperwork because you don't have to. Now some licenses require certain vaccines like rabies. There's nothing we're going to be able to do about rabies. So we're hoping that the laws will change like Delaware did and now allows for titer tests for rabies. But you have to check with your you really need to ask your kennel where you're where you're boarding your dogs to give you a copy of what they require. Now there's difference between policy and what's the law states. So your kennel may have a policy and they want your dog to have a bordetella vaccine. But the license may not require them to have bordetella, for example, and if the license doesn't require them to have bordetella, I would ask your boarding facility if you can give them a release that says hey, if my dog gets kennel cough, I won't sue you or do any harm and you know to your business in case that happens? Sure. That's how you can avoid it. So you can ask if they'll take a titer. Now titers aren't run on bordetella. Bordetella is a non core vaccine. So which is part of the problem is that the non core vaccine that the AVMA doesn't even recommend or require. But we have these sporting facilities that are dictating their own policies based on misinformation or not having information at all. I know of a boarding facility in my area that is having huge outbreaks of kennel cough huge. It was so bad. I mean, I had clients coming in to me and saying oh my gosh, what's going on over there? And then I found out that the owner’s response to it was to increase the frequency of which the bordetella vaccine is given. So he's required every Yeah, used to require every year and now he requires it every six months. And all that's doing I mean, you think about it, like I said, in the beginning, we're busy, we have busy lives. And so you go and you get the bordetella vaccine the day before you go into the boarding facility, and then you bring it in and and that's not good for your pet, or the pets in that environment. So one of the things we're learning about Coronavirus, that we've all gone through this pandemic is that it takes time for your body to build antibodies to protect you. So if you go get your dog a vaccine, like a Parvo vaccine for you know, which is can be a very deadly disease and you give it to him and then put him in a stressful environment I can almost guarantee you if your dog’s under the age of two he's going to come home with kennel cough. The reason why is you just compromised his immune system temporarily. His immune system is trying to deal with the vaccines you just gave him and then you put him in a stressful environment. No matter how much your boarding facility loves your dog and, and does the best they can. It's still not home and it's still not the regular routine. And once you take a dog out of the routine, their immune system is going to be a little compromised. This all makes so much sense. Yeah, vaccines are probably one of my big like, we need to come up with a better plan and we need to educate our pet parents because it really does come down to the pet parent is knowing how to protect their animal. It's not just the vaccines but when you're putting flea and tick medications… I very, very rarely have a bordetella virus, kennel cough outbreak in my facility. Literally years will go by before and but every once in a while we'll get one and we had one, probably about eight years ago and I knew it was going to happen but I couldn't go back and it was a puppy. Under six months old. The owner had just put flea and tick medication on the dog a day before she came into the facility. And the dog was a very nervous dog. It was fully vaccinated for every single thing under the sun and it ate a poor diet. I knew I'm like if there's kennel cough in here this weekend, this dog’s gonna have it and sure enough, this dog ended up with kennel cough. But that was all stuff that the pet parent could have avoided by feeding healthier, not over vaccinating, not putting that flea and tick medication on the pet. Now the anxiety is something we dealt with, but I think the dog would have had a better chance of not picking up a cold, which bordetella is just a cold so I don't want to make it sound like it's this deadly thing. But it can make your dog sick. And it could cost lots of money. Right. And I know I just had Rita on. She's the canine herbalist Rita Hogan and she mentioned a kennel cough remedy for dogs. It's all natural by Pet Alive, the KC Defense and she said that works wonders. The people that listen to this show, they know that over vaccination is causing disease and illness and that the combo shots are even worse. So right. To your point, there are easier, more natural ways of tackling this, you know of boarding dogs and making sure that everybody's healthy. And it's a great point that you keep pointing out that in stressful situations, dogs can get all sorts of things. Yeah. Wow, there's a fine line and a balance that you have to work with every single day. No, it doesn't. You know, people think, Oh my gosh, my dog went to a boarding facility and he got sick and now it’s the worst boarding facility on the planet. And they're dirty and they're gross and they don't take care of the dogs. That's not true. Kennel cough is the most common thing that an animal will pick up in a boarding facility, they can pick up other things like Giardia and Parvo. And I have never seen a dog pick up Parvo in a kennel, in a boarding facility. So I think the chances of your dog getting a Parvo in a in a boarding facility not it's not like a you know, there's puppy mills, and there's those kinds of things but a good boarding facility, the likelihood of your dog getting Parvo is very slim. So kennel cough is the thing you're most likely going to get. Giardia is the second most likely thing you're gonna get. Fortunately for us, those two things aren't deadly. But they can set your dog down a road that you don't want to go down, for example, your dog gets kennel cough, or Giardia, both of those are most likely going to be treated with antibiotics. Even though bordetella has a couple of different strains. And most of those strains are viral, they're not even bacterial. So your vet, you'll go to your vet, your vet will give you an antibiotic, and then that's going to destroy your pet gut. Yeah, and so now you're now you're going down this path that really all could have been avoided, if you started with a good diet, you know, waited, if you're going to do the vaccines that your boarding facility is going to require. you know, those certain vaccines, you know, at least waiting two weeks before you put your pet into those environments. But you know, boarding facilities can be so great also. right there, they socialize your animals, they, you know, I have animals that thank god, they're able to bring them into our facility and they they get socialized and they run around and they get exercise and so there's a lot of really great things that can come from a boarding facility. We just need to as pet parents and owners of boarding facilities. We just need to think about the long term effect that a boarding facility… just a simple little thing like saying hey, I want to be given the Giardia test I don't actually require a Giardia test for dogs to come in to me because I've always thought it was kind of silly because how easy Giardia can be picked up just from one simple walk. So yeah, so you get these boarding facilities who are like okay, you can't come in here unless you get a Giardia test. Well the owner goes and gets the Giardia test, you know two weeks before coming in, get the negative, but for two weeks, she's been walking her dog in the neighborhood. Well, now the dog has Giardia comes in, which goes back to the numbers of dogs that are boarding in these facilities. Because if one of them has Giardia and you've got one person trying to pick up pee and poop for you know, 150 dogs and I'm not when I say 150 dogs, that is probably the average number of dogs that are boarded in these facilities. I know places that board 300 dogs a night. So you're talking about how on earth are they going to keep the facility clean, so other dogs aren't walking through poop that has Giardia or eating it, because they'll eat poop from dogs that are doing it. So it goes back to the numbers, and those kind of things. But yeah, vaccines are a huge problem. They're a huge, huge problem and boarding facilities need to start understanding what the laws are. Because like, it drives me crazy. When I hear a boarding facility Tell me in my area, I know for a fact we are not required to force bordetella. And yet I have boarding facilities that tell their clients that they have to have it and like they know they don't. If that's my area, other areas might be different. Well, Carrie, as we are wrapping up, what advice can you give to pet parents on how to spot a great grooming, boarding or daycare facility? What should we be looking for? So I think first and foremost, you have to be able to have a communication, you have to have open lines of communication with your boarding facility. you need to know and they should know i think one easy thing I tell people, don't ask customers. ask one of the girls that work there one of the guys that works there, how many dogs do you board a night? They should know that answer. And it should match. So if you were to ask I have 28 people who work for me. if you were to ask any one of those people, how many dogs do we board a night, they will know the answer. But if you ask receptionist #1 how many dogs do you board a night? She goes well, we have a capacity of 200. ask the next person because if those two things don't match, then they don't have a limit. They don't have a hard and fast limit, it means that it's constantly fluctuating and changing. And that's when your dog is going to be in danger. So you want to know how many dogs are boarding and you want to know how many people work there. And think about it this way. If you have five people that work in the entire facility, and they're boarding 100 dogs. Five people don't work 24/7, right, true. So somebody's got a day off here and there. So are you telling me at 150 dogs that possibly any given day, there might be three people here? What if someone gets sick? So you want to match those up and see what sounds pretty right for you. For me, I think one person for every 10 small dogs, and one person for every five large dogs is depending now, are they caged? Or are they free run? So there's a lot of variations there. But you really need to know. is there a night shift? is someone there all night long? you need to know that And believe me, please don't leave your dogs in a boarding facility or a cat facility that doesn't have a night shift. Please don't. It is horrifying for these animals to have all the lights turned off. And then nobody comes back until the morning. So you really want to make sure there's a night shift. You want to know what their vaccine protocol is, of course, and why they have it. also their cleaning protocol. I have in my facilities, HEPA filters that run 24/7. I would not board my dog in a place that doesn't have HEPA filters. So you just you got to ask these questions. They may feel like you're, you know, it's uncomfortable, like you're questioning them. But a good facility would want you to ask those questions. Sure. Those are important questions. You have to advocate. Yeah, you have to. That's what we're here about. Well, Carrie, this has been amazing, a lot to think about. And where can everybody find more information about you, and your facility, The Spaw and the Spawdcast? So this podcast is on Spotify. We also do YouTube videos. My Facebook page is called The Spaw. And then you can always reach me through our website, which is https://www.ahhthespaw.com. You can reach me through there. We do lots of videos to try to help people you know with just about anything you can reach out to me. You can always call me to I'm at the I'm at the Spaw all the time. And I can help you. I've even called people I've called facilities for people. And if you're really concerned, I'll totally do it for you and ask the questions. Finding Carrie and The Spaw: 1.     Website: https://www.ahhthespaw.com 2.     Social Media: @petlifecoach 3.     Social Media: @thespawdcast 4.     YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheSpawdcastwithCarrieHyde/ 5.     Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-spawdcast/id1469284868 6.     Schedule a Pet Nutritional Consult: https://www.ahhthespaw.com/scheduleconsult/ 7.     LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carrie-hyde/ So cool. Well, I will put all of your links in the show notes. And I want to thank you, Carrie for hopefully opening up our eyes a little bit more, you know, because we don't ask the right questions. We don't know what goes on behind the scenes. So it's time for us as we have discussed many times to advocate for our dog's health and wellness. So thank you so much for sharing this very valuable info. Of course, thank you so much, Krista for having me. I hope it helps people just real quick. It's important to me to let people know that there are some great boarding facilities and there's some really, really great things that can happen for dogs that are being socialized and getting that pack because dogs are pack mentality. And so they do build friendships at these boarding facilities. So I don't want people to think you should never board your dog. I just want you to be smart about it. Absolutely. I agree. Thanks again to our friends at PrimalHealth makers of TEEF for sponsoring this episode. Again that’s spelled T-E-E-F as in Frank. check them out at TEEFhealth.com. And don't forget that the code WOLP as in Paul gets you 20% off of your order. Thanks for listening. You'll find some helpful links in the show notes and if you enjoy the show, please be sure to follow and listen for free on your favorite podcast app. And please, please share your feedback. Visit WagOutLoud.com for great product recommendations with discounts, amazing online events and fantastic resources. That's also where to visit our Bark About It page where you can suggest topics, guests or products. Be advised that this show offers health and nutritional information and is designed for educational purposes only. You're encouraged to do your own research and should not rely on this information as a substitute for nor does it replace professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. If you have any concerns or questions about your dog's health, you should always consult a veterinarian or a nutrition expert. Have a tail wagging day and we'll catch you next time. Hey Winston was that another tail wagging episode?