In the form of a brand new study that has just come out, and you are actually going to meet the people who did the study, the two veterinarians, as well as the head of V-Dog, which was the dog food used in the study. So this question, can dogs thrive on a plant-based diet? Unchained TV is streaming the hit new movie, By That Name, where you will find the answer, you’ve got to check it out. Now, here’s why it’s important.

 

If all dogs and cats in the U.S. populated their own country, they’d be the fifth largest meat-eating country in the world. And now our pets are suffering some of the same diet-related ailments their human companions experience. Well, now we’re going to get the lowdown from Darren Middlesworth, the head of V-Dog, which is the vegan dog food that was used in the study, featured in this short film.

 

Plus, you’re going to meet two veterinarians who actually ran the study, Dr. Tona Melgarejo and Dr. Anika Linda. Produced in conjunction with the Oceananic Preservation Society, this movie is directed by Luis Sai Hoyos, who is famous for bringing us The Cove, Racing Extinction, The Game Changers, You Are What You Eat, A Twin Experiment, and other blockbuster films. So I am so excited to talk to the veterinarians who ran the study.

 

This is information every single dog parent needs to learn and understand and process. So without further ado, I would like to go out to Dr. Tona Melgarejo of Western University, who led this study. You’re looking at video from the actual mini-doc about this study.

 

Tell us, why is this study so very important to our world, Dr. Tona? Thank you so much for the invitation, Jane. When we decided to pursue this study, looked at the big picture, not just the health of your friends, your furry friends. That is very, very important.

 

But also, we looked at the planetary health. And when we’re looking into that also, the guardians, and I don’t like to say owners, because we don’t own these beautiful souls. We just guard them.

 

We just help them to strive. So we looked at this three-piece equation, and we decided to actually test something that it has been going on for decades of our education. Dogs are carnivores.

 

Dogs are carnivores. And we knew, and I, as an internal medicine person, I prescribe food as medicine, and I have seen amazing results. So this was just to start.

 

Can dog leaves, clinically healthy dogs live on a plant-based diet? And we got our answer. And the answer is yes. And that is so important because the truth is that, as we have mentioned, if U.S. dogs and cats were their own country, they would be the fifth largest meat-eating country in the world.

 

There’s China, there’s the United States, there’s Russia. And let’s listen to a clip from the movie that breaks this down. Absolutely fascinating movie.

 

And again, you can watch it on Unchained Television. It is streaming. That’s Unchained TV right there behind me.

 

And it’s fascinating. We have about 91 million dogs living in the United States. Most of these dogs are eating a meat-based diet.

 

The amount of meat that we use for dogs and cats, it’s equivalent to the meat consumption in the country of Italy. And if all dogs and cats in the U.S. had their own country, they would be the fifth largest meat-eating country in the world. Oh, wow.

 

Well, let me say this. I was just joined. Come here, come here, come here.

 

Guess who decided that she wanted to come up and be part of this show? My little dog Wednesday, who is thriving on a plant-based diet. And the diet that she is thriving on is very similar to the diet featured in the film, V-Dog. And we are so delighted today to have the founder and the president of V-Dog on, Darren Middlesworth, who is seen there with his mother, Linda, who is really a force of nature in the vegan movement.

 

So, Darren, welcome. Why was it so important to have V-Dog featured in this study and in this film? Thank you so much, Jane, for having me on. And also, thank you to Dr. Mel Guarao and Dr. Linda for allowing V-Dog to participate in this study in the beginning.

 

It was something that came about many, many years ago, and to see it come to fruition is just really amazing. It’s important for us as a company, as a brand, to have the science backing up some of the anecdotal evidence that we’ve seen over the years and witnessed over the years with dogs improving various health conditions and hypoallergenic conditions. So, it’s a terrific opportunity for us, and it’s really validating and helping us really explain, from a scientific perspective, things that we have known and have witnessed and watched happen, but not really to see these biomarkers coming in favourably and presented in such an organised, well-done study.

 

So, again, when we started this 20 years ago, in 2005, it was more on hunch and intuition that this might be a viable option for dogs, a plant-based option for canine health. And so, it’s really exciting for us to see it come full circle and be here today. Well, I could tell you that this little girl, Wednesday, loves her V-Dog.

 

I’m not doing a commercial for V-Dog. They just happen to love V-Dog and eat all the treats and the kibble. But I’m wondering, in terms of nationally, let’s not even do global, nationally, is the vegan dog food space growing, or is it something that is just really extraordinarily rare? I’ll go ahead and step in on that.

 

What we find happening is awareness is growing. It’s also a trickle-down effect from the greater plant-based movement on the human product side and the shift towards plant-based thinking in terms of the environmental impacts of our dietary choices. And that can be extended to your dogs and canine companions.

 

So, we’re excited to have, again, as an option. Some dogs may do better on different formulas and different types of diets, but we are finding terrific success with the dogs that are on our plant-based formulas. And so, let me ask you a follow-up.

 

Is it growing? Is your company growing? We are growing. We’re excited to still be here. COVID was a challenging time period from a supply chain perspective.

 

And I know some of the other plant-based pet food companies globally and in the U.S. have taken a difficult turn during those times. And so, it’s made it challenging in the big scheme of things. And I won’t get too political here.

 

There are, you know, most of the dog food companies are owned by very large corporations, conglomerate-type products that are, you know, largely or entirely meat-based. And some of them do have plant-based spin-offs, which are competitors with us. So, because of their large volumes and their supply chain connections and manufacturing connections in the big food of pet world, pet production, pet manufacturing, it makes it very challenging for smaller players to be able to realise margins that are sustainable in the market.

 

But we have, over the 20 years, we have developed some very interesting and important pet food industry connections, which are allowing us to open doors and allowing us to access supply chain and manufacturing opportunities that we otherwise had not access to in the past. And so, we’re excited about 2025 and some of our new product pipeline products coming out. Well, I will say that while it’s very easy to get V-Dog products, which I order on Amazon, to be honest, it’s very hard to find some of the other products of like wet dog food.

 

When I ran out, literally, I was like, where in Southern California can I get this vegan wet dog food? And so, it’s a real challenge distribution. I think V-Dog is doing a great job getting out there and making it very accessible, not just your kibble, but also all of your treats. So, I want to give you a shout out for that.

 

Just as a dog parent, dog guardian of two vegan dogs, it’s pretty easy to get your products. So, check it out. Now, what I thought was really interesting about this entire subject is that at its core was kind of an observation that Dr. Tona made and it was just something like, isn’t this interesting? And it turned out to spawn this entire study and the possibility of a new industry that is a heck of a lot more sustainable and more compassionate.

 

I have travelled to some developing countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and I was surprised that in some of these countries, dogs don’t even eat meat or dairy because they don’t have the money and the dogs are perfectly fine. They’re healthy. So, we wanted to answer the very basic question.

 

What happens when you take a clinically healthy dog and you feed that dog a vegan diet? All right. Well, we found out Dr. Anika Linde is also a veterinarian who was involved in this study. Thank you so much for joining us.

 

First of all, let’s talk about the myth and the constant drumbeat that we all get that dogs need meat. I mean, it seems like every time a commercial about dog food comes up, that’s what they’re hammering home, but is it true? So, again, thank you. It’s a great question, Jane.

 

So, I think it shows the power that marketing has, right? And we all know that you’re being told a lot when it comes to the commercial space and we need this, we need that, and you saw it with people as well, with the whole campaigns with milk as well, and we know that couldn’t be further from the truth. So, dogs need specific nutrients. They don’t need specific ingredients, and I think that’s the best way of really putting it.

 

So, as long as you have, as we have already indicated with the study, as we have said several times in this conversation and prior conversations, it’s really about having nutritionally complete type of nutritional framework. So, it is not about having the specific ingredients in it. So, dogs can most certainly thrive without consuming animal-derived products.

 

That’s a very long story short. So, and that’s what we showed with this study and further studies to come as well as we’re moving forward. Well, Dr. Linda, tell us a little bit more about how the study was conducted.

 

How many dogs? We know that it was V-dog. Was it just kibble? You know, just give us the details on this study. Sure.

 

The very, very brief version that we had here is that dogs, they served effectively as their own control. So, you had, again, clinically healthy domestic companion dogs, as we’re seeing in this short film, and we’re seeing the scenes right now. So, these dogs living in typical average households and being fed from the prior diet, which had been meat-based and then being switched onto a plant-based, complete, nutritionally complete kibble, the plant-based formula that we already discussed.

 

And we have in the study, of course, indicated the nutritional profile as well, making sure that it was nutritionally complete. We had that conducted by a third-party laboratory to make sure that what you see on the bag is actually what is in the food. So, for this particular study that we have referenced, we have a kibble.

 

We have other studies ongoing that have been both in the past and in parallel as well moving forward. Of course, the interest is what about if we’re moving towards the wet food type of plant-based nutrition. So, there’s a lot of work that still needs to be done.

 

And again, as we very well know, all of this clinical research, it requires a significant type of research support. So, that is ultimately the, you could say, limitation as we’re moving forward. Well, there’s a Western University where the study was conducted.

 

Very fascinating. I want to get into the nitty-gritty because it really, to me, boils down what types of vegetables can dogs eat. I recently found out, for example, my Wednesday, who you just saw, is allergic to apples.

 

She was scratching like crazy. I had a test done, and then I found that, oh, some of the stuff I was feeding her had apples in it. I removed that, and she stopped scratching.

 

So, Dr. Malgorejo, can you break down the actual products that were fed, the actual ingredients, and weigh in on what types of vegetables are good for dogs? Well, that’s a very interesting question and a very broad question. What I can tell you is what is not good for dogs. Because every time I travel, and I have been very fortunate to travel in more than 40 different countries, the legumes are different, the fruits are different, the grains, et cetera, the cereal is different, and all dogs tend to live a healthy life.

 

So, when you’re talking about dogs, I think one thing that you need to avoid is, for example, grapes, raisins, anything in that family is toxic for dogs. And onion, garlic is borderline. These things are to be avoided.

 

And then you are going, after that, to an area that is huge, and it’s very dog-dependent that is called idiosyncrasy. Your dog was allergic to apples. I have seen dogs in Italy, in Uruguay, that they eat apples like there’s no tomorrow, and they’re perfectly fine.

 

So, I think you need to be very observant with what you give to your dog. But that is going to be variable as humans. I may be allergic to peanuts, or some people may not.

 

So, I think it’s avoiding the foods that we know that they are toxic, rather than recommending something. I’m going to give you an anecdote. When I was in Indonesia, I was working with Komodo Dragons, and I stopped by in one of the cities in Indonesia, and then I talked to a breeder, and he had beautiful, beautiful dogs, and showed dogs.

 

And he told me, the only thing I feed my dog is dried alfalfa that is pretty much chopped to little tiny pieces, and boiled lentils and potatoes. That’s it. From pregnant dogs, to puppies, to elderly dogs.

 

That was an anecdote, but I’m just going to tell you how variable is the diets around the world. So, I think in the time that we have, this is as much as I can tell you, Jane. One thing that is important is that people say, yes, but vegan diets, they don’t have L-carnitine.

 

They don’t have taurine, and they don’t have the meat. And that is really misinformation. All meat-based diets that are commercially available in the Western world, they are supplemented with L-carnitine and taurine, because the amount of carnitine and taurine, it’s very variable.

 

It’s impossible to know. So, other companies that use meat-based diets, they supplement L-carnitine and taurine. Well, the vegan industry, they supplement L-carnitine and taurine, and they are synthetic molecules that are actually added to that.

 

So, when people think about meat-based, they think about a big steak. And the truth is that it’s meat meals. And meat meals is everything that humans don’t consume.

 

Tendons and viscera and all these things, they actually process that, and they make it a meal. They put some colourants, flavour enhancers, and that’s the meat. So, of course not.

 

We need to make sure that it’s a well-balanced diet. The carnitine and the taurine is important, but the other vitamins and minerals that they need to be present too. And I’d like to introduce you to another vegan dog.

 

This is Sunday. And guess what? Not only does she like the vegan kibble, but she has gotten halfway through. You can recognise this, right, Darren? Yeah.

 

These are the V-dog. What are the official names of these? Breastbones. They’re a dental housing dog.

 

And these are the chewies that she just absolutely loves. But you raise a very important question, Dr. Tona, with people constantly going on and on about dogs needing meat. They’re carnivores.

 

A, that’s not true, as your study proved. But B, they do not talk about the health problems created by eating meat. So let’s play a clip from the film and discuss that on the other side.

 

We are seeing dogs with similar health problems as people have on a diet that is heavy on animal products, like obesity and certain cancers. There are many toxins that can affect the meat that’s used to make dog food. So if we were to look at substances like lead, from decades of automotive exhaust that have polluted the ground near highways and roads, most of that partitions into organs like the liver.

 

And for pet food in particular, we often use those organ meats as part of the food that we’re putting together for them. And once again, what you’re watching is a clip from the film, Can Dogs Thrive on a Plant-Based Diet? It is streaming on Unchained TV, which is right behind me, or you can also watch it on your phone. In fact, you can download Unchained TV for free.

 

Just go to your app store and download it, and you can have access to that film immediately, as well as the video that we’re conducting right now. So break it down, Dr. Linda, a little bit more in terms of the health problems that can be caused by dogs eating a meat-centric diet. Yeah, I think that’s another great and important question, Jane.

 

So I think what you, in a short period of time, probably benefit the most from is really thinking about the pattern and the distribution of diseases and what we’re seeing of diseases in the clinical space compared to what was known years ago. And I think if you are thinking about companion dogs, and you’re thinking about how much of parallels you can see between the disease burden in people and what you’re seeing in dogs, of course, there are some important differences with regard to cardiovascular health. But nevertheless, if you’re looking at major burdens of diseases, and you’re thinking about what we saw in the short film as well.

 

So the obesity epidemic, for sure, we’re seeing with our domestic dogs. We see some of the same endocrinopathy. So we’re seeing some of the same similar types of cancers as well.

 

So we are seeing burdens of diseases that, for sure, is reflected in the fact that you have a nutritional framework or dietary frameworks that just look very different than in the past. You’re seeing dogs that are not kept at healthy weight. You’re seeing dogs that, as Dr. Maldonado was pointing out, and maybe he wants to comment on further, but that they are consuming these meat-based ingredients, animal-derived ingredients that are very far from being healthy and certainly not promoting a situation where dogs can thrive.

 

And once you subtract those, and you are focussing on types of diets that are plant-based, and they are nutritionally complete for dogs, then you just have a much better situation. And you can have a number of different benefits, both with regard to physical health and realistically forthcoming studies as we’re moving forward. Again, we need to have all of this being evidence-based.

 

So in, you can say, sort of a larger framework, you really want to also study these types of diets in comparison for various types of diseases to really get more specific data. But that’s a summary. Now having two vegan dogs, and sometimes they do have to go to the vet for whatever reason, even if it’s to have their nails clipped, the veterinarians are often very hostile or eye-rolling when it comes to my explanation of my dogs are vegan.

 

Not always, but it happens. Where are we in the veterinarian community with this issue? Are you getting pushback? Because first of all, I want to point out, and this is really important, is this just wasn’t some study that they did off the top of their heads. And it has been published in a respected journal, and you can go and read it.

 

PLOS One. I Googled it. The report came right up, and I didn’t include it because it’s a very long link, but you can just Google PLOS One, plus one, vegan dog food study.

 

It comes right up, and it says right in the headline, domestic dogs maintain clinical, nutritional, and haematological health outcomes when fed a commercial plant-based diet for a year. And you can see Dr. Tona Malgarejo and Dr. Annika Linda’s names in there. So that gives it credibility.

 

It’s not just two veterinarians saying that this was a study, an official study done and published in a respected journal. That means a lot. Are you taking this message to other veterinarians, Dr. Tona? Of course we are, but it’s very important what you said, Jane, and I am known to be very clear and transparent, and I can tell you this study was pretty much a miracle to finish it.

 

It was right in the middle of COVID, and what was very concerning but expected is that the former administration from my university told me to stop the study. One of the administrators told me, you’re putting me in a bad spot. We get funding from these meat-based companies, and what you’re doing is not good.

 

Dogs are carnivores, and he wants me to stop. Of course, I am a tenured professor, and I said, this is science, and you’re not going to dictate what to tell, what to do. So I continue, and we were punished in different ways, but we continue, and we finish the study.

 

The situation is that probably the majority, 90 plus percent of veterinarians are not aware that the dog is one of the greatest omnivore species on earth, and they are just repeating things that they have heard. But there are papers published by universities as reputable as Harvard, MIT, Stanford, where they actually show that the dog is an omnivore, and they present cellular and molecular evidence that actually the dogs pleaded almost 30,000 years ago from the wolf, and dogs are incredible digesters of carbohydrates, and the wolves are not. So it is really a big push, and it’s a big push when we go to conferences, when we talk to people, but as I told my students, the way that you need to deal with that is evidence.

 

We have the paper, read the paper, and present the evidence that what I did is wrong. This kind of science is difficult, Jane, because it’s extremely expensive. One of the comments from people that are not very well versed in clinical research is, it’s a small study.

 

You know, every time we take a sample and we analyse absolutely everything that we need to analyse to make sure that the dog is healthy, it costs us about $1,500 a sample. So just multiply the number of samples, the number of dogs. This very small study was in the round of $250,000, $300,000.

 

So it is easy to move forward to that. So we are asking the community to keep helping us. We didn’t take a penny from the company that we used the food for, because that’s a conflict of interest.

 

And when we got the results as an academician, you need to have the freedom to say this is the way it is. We present bad data, wrong data, good data. Fortunately, it was good data, but we are here to make science, not to please corporates to say, okay, you can sponsor us.

 

So even to the company that we use, we paid every single pound of food because we didn’t want to receive a penny because, oh, you’re working for this, you’re working for that. So right now there are studies in puppies. We are doing studies in the blue zones with different dogs and longevity, and these studies are very expensive.

 

So we are asking you through your amazing community to please help us because the federal government is not going to give us money. The big companies that are billion dollar companies, they will never give us money. State money is never going to come to us.

 

So this study was done thanks to people like you that I remember you donated some money and amazing people in Los Angeles, people overseas, they came together and they in crowd funding, they were able to actually do that. But the studies that are coming are more expensive, half a million, a million dollars. So if we want to advance this, it is imperative that the community gets involved.

 

We don’t take a penny from any company and we are not going to be told what to do at the university because this is where knowledge is born. If we don’t create this knowledge, no one in the world is going to do it. So we need your help.

 

Well, Dr. Tona, and that’s I call you, Dr. Tona Malgarejo, Dr. Malgarejo. I know that this took a long time and I was there at the beginning when you were just having Zoom meetings with people saying, hey, we want to fund this study. And of course, given that American dogs and cats would be the fifth largest meat eating country in the world if they were their own country, of course I said, yes, I would like to help my own little way and introduce you to people who could help in a bigger way because we need this information.

 

We are countering a basically global, but particularly American misinformation campaign, both in human food and in dog food about the necessity of meat. Now, I’ve been vegan 29 years. Prior to that, I was vegetarian.

 

People are always telling me, you’ve got too much energy. Bring it down, bring it down. Madam, the clients at the next table at the restaurant are complaining, too much energy.

 

So I know that humans could thrive on a vegan diet. My dogs are also some of the most energetic dogs in the neighbourhood. They’re on a vegan diet.

 

But yet when I run into people, not just the veterinarians, but sometimes I’m walking on the street and some other neighbour, well-meaning with a dog says, oh, can they have a treat? No, they’re vegan dogs. And they kind of look at me like, hmm, huh. They give me this sideways look.

 

How do we counteract that? Because they’re brainwashed and they’re brainwashed by people who are making a lot of money off of a system that is killing the planet, not helping animals. And let’s not forget the animals who are killed to be fed to the dogs. They’re cows, they’re pigs, they’re lambs.

 

They’re just like our dogs and cats. Let’s not leave them out of the equation, Dr. Linda. Yeah, it’s an important conversation.

 

And I think education and leading by example are two things. But as you’re saying, money is driving much of this. And you mentioned earlier, the marketing efforts, the campaign.

 

So again, more research for sure to show that this is evidence-based. That’s one aspect. As we all do, advocating, working in this space, leading by example, and education being a very big part of the equation as well.

 

So we work, we’re fortunate to be in a space at a health science university. And we work also in interprofessional settings. And having conversations with future healthcare providers from the different health professions is a very important part of that equation.

 

And of course, moving outside of the usual comfort zone of where you have most clinician scientists. So in addition to the peer reviewed papers, but also having conversations through media as we’re doing today, the short documentary is incredibly important. And we’re very, very grateful to the Oceanic Preservation Society and all the team members, as you also mentioned previously.

 

So really the outreach, the education, and also what you might label as edutainment. So you keep spreading that very, very important message. A lot of people just simply don’t know how much is sort of going on, if you will, behind closed doors in the industrialised food animal production system.

 

So really having conversations. And I think that’s why we need to be sort of investing energy and time. And a lot of the drumbeat of your dogs have to eat meat is that, oh, they have to get this vitamin that’s only available in meat supposedly, or that vitamin that’s only available in meat supposedly.

 

The film, which is streaming on Unchained TV, Can Dogs Thrive on a Plant-Based Diet, really breaks that down and shows that that is just a complete myth, that plant-based ingredients have all the vitamins necessary. Listen. We collected more than 3,000 parameters in one year from these dogs.

 

For example, vitamin D, it’s very important for bone metabolism and also for immunity. The vitamin D in seven out of these 15 dogs was insufficient. At the end of the year, all of them, they were within normal limits.

 

The vitamin D concentration that they were able to measure in dogs normalised after more time on a plant-based diet. That really is contradictory to common thought. Because the general consensus is that we get vitamin D almost exclusively from animal products.

 

So we saw that dogs that were clinically healthy maintained health, but looking deeper into these biomarkers, they were healthier. Wow. So that is exciting.

 

As the parent guardian of two vegan dogs, it’s great to hear that. But again, I’m so glad you had your study and that I can point to that study because there is this myth and fear of, oh no, you can’t do that. In fact, some people will accuse you of abusing your dogs if you had them on a vegan diet.

 

What are the best arguments, Dr. Mel Garejo, for counteracting this irrational, just myth-based fear? Because the more I think about it and think about the history of dogs, dogs were one of the first signs of civilisation amongst humans. The pack would be around the humans gathered and they would eat whatever scraps. Those scraps could be anything.

 

They ate to survive. So it wasn’t like they were being fed meat dog food from the beginning. They clearly were eating opportunistically what would fall to the ground or what they could get.

 

Before I try to answer that, Jane, I like to just make a quick comment about your question is how can we actually promote and educate people? I can tell you the PLOS ONE paper was published last year in April and I got good comments, congratulations from some people. Some companies called me, they wanted to interview, etc. But I mean, we have about 5,000 views on the PLOS ONE paper in the first few months.

 

So that’s the way you make science. As long as we have only the paper, everything was just as expected. As soon as the short documentary came, it was booming because suddenly it was not just Dr. Lina and Dr. Mugarejo and the PLOS paper, it’s like they are in Netflix.

 

That means like a streaming platform gave us the credibility and the reputation. So for the general public, I think it’s important to create these documentaries. And we are actually working really hard to combine those because now we have seen the power of filming.

 

So we are trying to do excellent science. We would like to publish our results, but also every time we go, we just went to Sardinia last summer to look into the longevity in these blue zones, what happens with dogs that live with these centenarians. And we are looking into that.

 

And there’s beautiful opportunities to actually do a documentary. So can you imagine if we can publish a paper about the blue zones, dogs living longer, healthier? We have the papers, but also, and more importantly, we have the documentary so the general public can understand that. We have discovered the power of that and we would like to do it.

 

Of course, doing a film is expensive and that’s why we need your support. The question that you’re asking me when I’m in an aeroplane or when I’m talking to people, that they said, yeah, but dogs need meat because the protein and everything. The question is, so can you tell me what protein is? They don’t know.

 

They’re just like parrots saying, oh, protein, protein, protein. Oh, but the amino acid, the L-carnitine. Okay.

 

Can you tell me, explain to me please what is the L-carnitine? They don’t really know. So they just take it back. But that I have seen that with a very short documentary of less than 10 minutes, it gives you the credibility and also open a door so they can listen.

 

We have former students that are part of the paper and they have very busy clinics. And just as soon as they were featured in the paper and in the documentary, all the clients is like, okay, I like to go a vegan doctor. And it was not the paper.

 

It was not that. It was the power of social media. So we need to do a combination nowadays between people like you, really great, entertained, scientifically based documentaries and publishing.

 

So we inform our new generations that dogs are omnivores, not carnivores. And your film is so powerful. It’s only seven minutes, guys.

 

You can watch it like this. It’s so entertaining. You’ve seen some clips.

 

Let’s play another clip that really shows, of course, meat is connected with muscle in the mind, but we all know the vegan bodybuilders. I know several, they’re ripped beyond belief on plants. Kale, for example, has more protein calorie per calorie than steak.

 

Let’s take another look at a clip from this incredible mini doc that is streaming on about that. The athletic performance that a lot of these animals can end up with is super high. And you would not expect that out of a vegan diet.

 

We often think of vegan diets as like these kind of lean, not muscle building kind of diets. And these dogs get beefy. They’re strong.

 

They’re healthy, but they’re not overweight. The data is so clear when it comes to diet and dogs and you need to present solid cold data. That’s the only way to move this forward.

 

We are happy to say that the results of our one year clinical study on plant-based nutrition in dogs have been published with open access for everyone. Yes. Don’t take their word for it.

 

Go and Google the study plus one and vegan dog food, and it will pop right up. Now, this is my vegan dog Sunday. I have two vegan dogs and she is super, super, I would say muscular.

 

She’s muscular and she runs like crazy and fetches. That’s her whole thing. She’s not a couch potato.

 

So it’s really important to point out that if the proof’s in the pudding, okay, the proof’s in the pudding. And Sunday here is a very athletic dog on a 100% plant-based diet. But I’ve got to ask you a question.

 

Okay. There have been occasions where due to a babysitter or whatever, she’s gotten access to meat. Like somebody giving her a treat before I could stop them that has meat.

 

And I noticed that once they taste that, it takes a couple of days for them to, or for her specifically to want to get back into the vegan food. Can you discuss that Dr. Linda? Like, I think that it’s kind of, there’s a bit of an addictive component there. We’ve got to address that.

 

Yeah. I think it’s, you said the word right already. You say there’s individual variations.

 

So for some dogs, that’s going to be not really much. They blink and they happily eat the usual food the day after. Some dogs might actually have a really bad episode, maybe some GI upset after getting very, for them, unusual, atypical type of ingredients, like someone giving them something meat-based.

 

And then as you described with Sunday, that there might be those dogs that have more maybe of addiction to certain tastes from whatever those ingredients are in those products. So you will have a variation. I think we do know that if it is products that contain some of these more addictive properties, and I think what comes to mind immediately on sort of the human side is what we know about cheese and anything that has these casomorphins, these addictive properties.

 

So I would say probably if you ask me to guess sort of across most domestic dogs, they probably will be happy to go back to the food that they are used to eating. And then yes, you will have those cases like with what you described, and she is a little bit hesitant perhaps the following day. So that’s what I would attribute to some individual variations, some preferences.

 

But again, as you also described, she’s very, very happy on a daily basis eating the type of nutrition that you’re feeding to her. And I am guessing that there’s some variation in that. So we had the conversation earlier about what type of foods to avoid with dogs.

 

And again, the individual variation of what different dogs enjoy eating. Oh, thank you so much for that, Dr. Linda. I feel like I’m getting a consultation with a vet today for myself.

 

Yeah, I do everything I can to make sure they get no exposure to meat at all. And if somebody tries to give them a treat, I just say, no, thank you. My dogs are vegan.

 

And hopefully that will also register in there. They see that my dogs are healthy. And again, we’re not talking about the massive numbers of animals who are just like our dogs and cats who are killed to be put in dog food cans to be fed to dogs when it doesn’t even help them.

 

There’s a parallel to what’s happening with humans. We see, you know, horrible health crisis that has developed in our country with two thirds of Americans overweight or obese, 43% of Americans are obese. And it’s a primarily meat and dairy laden fast food diet that’s responsible.

 

So let me try to go out to Darren. Darren, why are you doing this? Why is this important for you to do? Well, it’s an extension again, to your point, Jane, of our lifestyle. And I think our team, our family, our community choosing a plant-based diet for the various reasons of adopting plant based for the environment, for animals, for human health, our own health, and connecting those pillars of veganism and extending that to our canine companions, which we now have even further evidence with the study to demonstrate the efficacy of plant-based nutrition for canine health.

 

And so it’s really a coming full circle for us. And our goal and our mission as a company, as a team and as a family is to continue to innovate and work with folks, both on the pet food nutrition side of things, as well as Dr. Medarato and Dr. Linde on the academic side and connecting those two different science groups together to bring novel plant-based ingredients to the pet food industry and continue to innovate and develop nutritious, nutritiously balanced products for dogs. Uh, what I would like to see is a topper, a topper with, has gravy.

 

That would be something I would really like to see because sometimes, uh, it’s, it’s just, they’re just like people, you know, I don’t want to just eat a slab of tofu. I’d like to have a little spices and hot sauce or whatever it is that I, as a human being want, well, the dogs are the same way. So I think we can make, we could make vegan dog food more attractive.

 

And I know you’re working on that, uh, V-Dog and very excited to see what comes down the pike, uh, in terms of, uh, vegan dog food products. We know we have a lot of treats, uh, during this show, I was tempted to jump to my kitchen and grab some of those treats to show everybody. But, uh, I will do that actually, because I think it’s important to, for, for, uh, people to see.

 

So Dr. Mel Garejo, will you, for a minute, take us through how this study was conducted? Because when people think of studies involving animals, they think of animals in cages, animals being tortured in laboratories, which of course we are all against. All we do is work on freeing animals from laboratories. Um, can you describe how these dogs were treated during this study and how long the study went on? Of course, um, as you pointed, these are client owned dogs.

 

Um, so they were dogs, uh, from students, staff, and faculty here at Western University. And there’s a big challenge, uh, working with client owned dogs, because, um, pretty much the only thing that, the only thing that we did, uh, the study was the sign that they needed to be between one year and 10 years of age. And they needed to be on a meat based diet, kibble, uh, most of them, um, uh, for at least one year.

 

And then we transition, uh, these 15, uh, dogs, females and males in one week to a big, uh, uh, a vegan diet. And then we follow them for a year. So right there when people say, oh, it’s a, it’s a small study.

 

It’s a short study. Let me just tell you something. Uh, one year of a dog, it’s very difficult.

 

There’s not a number, but it’s equal to six to eight years on humans. So if it’s like, uh, in this group, I said, okay, Darren, Anika, uh, Jane and other people, we are going to put you on a diet for seven years. You tell me if that is a short study, seven years of a human with the same diet, follow you and then measure more than 3000 parameters.

 

That is the significance of this study is not just a study. Yeah. The number of dogs, there were 15 dogs, but none of them actually show a clinical science.

 

And a lot of the dogs and the, the guardians call me and said, Dr. Mel Garejo, my dog is smiling. I didn’t know that my dog smiled. Dr. Mel Garejo, my dog is really full of energy.

 

My dog is happy. My dog is less aggressive. And you know why? Because there’s now a area that we didn’t know a 10 years ago that is called the God brain axis.

 

What you eat is not just what you are, but it’s the way, how you think. So, and we saw, and we didn’t comment on, on this documentary that actually, or dogs on a plant-based diet, the tryptophan, one of the amino acids that are key for happiness. They just went all the way up, even above normal levels.

 

And the tryptophan is probably the molecule of the serotonin. And the serotonin is the molecule that promotes calmness and happiness. So this was a very interesting study because it was 50, 15 dogs, but the time it was a year and every three months, we checked the dogs every three months.

 

And every month we called the guardians and how is the dog doing? How are the faeces urinating? And we check absolutely everything. We have still data, mega data on the microbiome, faecal microbiome, urine microbiome, the things that are going to come later, we hope in, in publications. But this was a very interesting study.

 

I give credit to Dr. Lina because she designed the study together with a biostatistician from UC Berkeley. They were extremely meticulous and strict about what are we going to do, how we’re going to publish and what statistics techniques are going to use to prove that even with 15 dogs, this is highly significant. And I’ve been doing my own study here with my little Wednesday.

 

Okay. So I want to show you some of the V-Dog products. This they go crazy for.

 

This is like, well, it’s equivalent to me having a chocolate eclair maybe, but a lot healthier. So you see this little face. She loves this.

 

This is her treat. Yes, yes, yes. There’s a little Wednesday.

 

And then this one I just give to Sunday. I believe this is when it has a little apple in it. And I give this one to Sunday.

 

She goes crazy for it. And then we have the breath bone that they both love. And those are the dog shoes that I showed you that they, they love, and they love that chewy sensation.

 

And then I keep the kibble. Hold on a little girl. I keep the kibble in this, and this is the kibble.

 

And I have a little scooper and I scoop it out. And that’s, that’s like a lot of their diet. They also have wet food and I also make them carrots, corn, and potatoes in a little mix, sometimes with seitan.

 

So let me try to go back to Darren and see Darren, what other products are, can we expect from you in the, in the future? Well, thank you, Jane. Yeah. We’re excited about our current products as well as some new products in the product pipeline and with Dr. Gregg on our nutrition side of things and product development side.

 

And toppers is on our radar, different versions of toppers, as well as prebiotic and probiotic treats and other functional ingredient-based treats. And on the food side, we are looking at a couple of different opportunities moving into a fresh concept that could also double as a topper. So again, these are all in the pipeline and we’re working on them currently.

 

We are, we’re a small, you know, family-owned and operated entity. So we have to manage our budget carefully and move cautiously, but we’re excited because we have some great potential opportunities and partnerships in 2025 to launch some new products. Well, I, again, I want to give you compliments on making your products very easy to get.

 

I order them, they’re here the next day and they love them. They just absolutely love all the different products. I think for this little one, she just goes so crazy over the wiggle biscuits.

 

The wiggle biscuits are really what, what rocks her boat. But let’s just have final thoughts, 30 seconds each. We’re out of time.

 

Dr. Linda, what’s your message? I think the very short message here is that we have shown with the study that this is definitely an option for dogs. It allows dogs to thrive. There’s no need to be worried about it.

 

This is nutritionally complete. So thumbs up and think about us as we talked about all the important social implications, ethical implications. Dr. Tona.

 

Well, science is built by bricks and we just put the first brick of a beautiful castle and we cannot stop now. One paper doesn’t mean very much in the scientific community. We need to keep promoting through different documentaries and we need to produce a lot of bricks and we need to do it in a scientifically manner and we need funding to do that.

 

As I said, there is no one supporting us but amazing philanthropists that actually believe in a better world, planetary health, human health, and the health of our amazing, beautiful friends. Well, for us, for Wednesday, Sunday and myself, I could say that we look forward to having you come back when you have your next GoFundMe for your next study. Nothing would make me happier than to be a part of that, to donate, to promote anything we can do.

 

I want to do because, wow, the clock’s ticking. We haven’t even gotten to the environmental damage that meat causes. You’re my heroes.

 

All three of you are my heroes. I want to thank you so much for watching Unshained TV. For those of you who are watching or listening, go to Unshained TV and watch the documentary.

 

It’s right there in the featured section. And as always, what I would suggest is support Unshained TV. You can download it.