Episode Transcript

Trevor:  Kirk, we're back.

Kirk: Hey Trevor how's it going?

Trevor:  Good and like you were saying off camera appropriately our pets are annoying half of us during this pet interview your dog River just demanded we go outside my dog Rosie was annoyed that I was in a room without her so you can't see her but she curled up here beside me. Hopefully she will keep uh quiet during this but I guess if she doesn't it's sort of appropriate background noise.

Kirk: Well, we're both pet owners. And, you know, I've often said, Michelle and I have always had, not always, in most of our relationship, we've had a dog in our relationship. And when we had children, they were pets. And then when the children, you know, flew away from the nest, we got companions. And I don't really call River a pet anymore. He's more of a companion. And like most companions and friends, they can bring you a lot of joy, but they can also be an irritant.

Trevor:  A scooch annoying. A scooch. A Scooch Annoying and Demanding. Yes.

Kirk: So this is very relevant because we have a pet wellness expert that we have met, again we met her through our friend Kala, the cannabis nurse in Edmonton, and she brought us Sandi.

Trevor: Yeah, so Sandi Krucik-Van Bommel, she is a Vet Tech and she talks about this with you, but I just because it's worthwhile because it was sort of I've heard of and talked to Vet Techs before, but I thought she had a very nice concise what the heck is a Vet Tech. What's a Vet Tech, Kirk?

Kirk:  Yeah, she equated it to what is a nurse. I mean, nurses work on wellness and care for clients using a wellness model. We're not typically prescribers unless we have gone off and got additional education. So she equates it to being a nurse within the veterinarian world. And she has her own... Her own clinic, I guess is the word or business, small business. She calls herself Inspired Pet Wellness. She's credentialed, she's a member of the Alberta Veterinary and Technologist Association, she's member of Veterinary Cannabinoid Academy, she is a member of the Canadian Association of Veterinarian and Cannabinoid Medicine, and she's also registered with the Alberta Veterans Medical Association, which I believe is her licensing body. So she belongs to the right organizations, and she is credentialed to do what she does.

Trevor: Yeah, no, and she's very interesting and very knowledgeable. I really enjoyed this conversation. Should we let Sandy talk about herself now? Yeah, let her introduce herself.

Sandi Krucik-Van Bommel: So my name is Sandi and I have a consulting business called Inspired Pet Wellness. So I am a registered veterinary technician in Alberta for 34 years. I've also been certified as a canine rehabilitation therapist for 17 years and specifically in the niche of the cannabis space as a certified veterinary cannabis consultant for the last six years. So primarily I've always been in Alberta. And so specifically in small animal practice. So although I come from a farm background and I love large animals, my practices have been specifically in a small animal and predominantly then what I did was I diversified into a niche of rehabilitation. So again, like back 17 years ago, I became certified through the Canine Rehabilitation Institute in the US. At the time, this was very new. So Canada is always, as you know, like slow on the uptake compared to like the European world or some might be even the US where they are doing rehabilitation in animals for several years prior. But I came into it in the years where it was pretty much in its infancy in Canada. So I practiced that for quite some time. So I will be, you know the first to say and fully transparent that before this all came into my world. I was very cannabis naive, I'll call it. So I was never one of those people in high school that was doing drugs or THC or anything like that. So my knowledge was very limited. But as the story would evolve, what ended up happening was I had this grow out of my own experience with my own dog. So I was caring for my 16 year young dog at the time and my entire family. And when I say family, that includes our dogs. We had three at the times. We're in a high speed collision. So this was a very pivotal turning point in my life and for our entire family and so I was the driver. It was not our fault, but sustained a lot of significant injuries and so did my one dog. My 16 year young. And so evidently you know where we had these injuries that she had sustained there were not viable options for typical conventional vet medicine if you will. So my holistic vet at the time I still remember her exact words were saying why don't you try CBD. I knew nothing about it at this time again, Kirk. So, you know, at this point, I was willing to try anything and everything because she went into this accident perfectly healthy. And for this to now be our path and our journey, I was not willing to just succumb to that. I just went down the proverbial rabbit hole and started researching, researching, researching, and so she gave me a bit of a start to the path on giving a couple of product suggestions and dosing parameters, but that was where it started. And then so fast forward to me working through my own injuries and doing all this research. I started CBD for myself and I started it for her. And so here we were on this journey together of healing that changed my life. And you know, where it wasn't just my own life, it was hers as well. So we were able to extend our timeline with these injuries for several months where my vet inherently said we never would have got that otherwise. And she was also suffering in her maladies. So, you know, that's obviously not what I was able to accept either. I was not going to allow her to suffer. So having us both use CBD was incredible. And I always say, you know, she she gave me this gift. I never would have went down this path, Kirk. I know that for fact. So she gave me this give to be able to now help pet parents go down the journey. Feeling supported, feeling empowered, having that line of someone who can guide them through this because it's very overwhelming. Like how I think about it back then was, here I am in the industry at the time for 25 plus years and feeling so overwhelmed. I mean, here I'm using Dr. Google, right? To try to get good valuable information. And I kept thinking, oh my gosh, what are pet parents doing? Like if I'm feeling this overwhelmed, I can't imagine how they are feeling. And let's be honest, like people are doing it on their own every day, all the time. And so, you know, that's not always giving the best result. We know that. So as a veterinary professional, I could advise, guide, basically discuss, educate. All of those are within my of practice. But I'm not prescribing. But at the same time, right now, cannabis doesn't really fall into the prescribing realm either. So it's in this gray zone of where it is because there is no Health Canada pet approved products at this time. But again, I'm going to be followed. I'm following the scope of practice of ethical responsibility within my profession. If I'm guiding, educating, discussing, and advising, then that is not prescribing. I look at conditions a little differently than a traditional veterinary diagnosis, if you will. So I look it more mechanistically, so I think more root cause and what exactly is happening in the body's mechanisms. When we're looking at any of these, whether it be like a disease process, any kind of medical condition, even behavior, what is exactly happening in the body? So I was basically treating generalized inflammation as a whole, that's how I see it. Again, going back to that timeframe where I was trying to navigate through this space on my own independently, I started researching and searching for any way that I could become, quote unquote, certified or basically like the resource for parents in a way that is responsible scientifically, educationally, and of course like under the scope of what would be prudent to being recognized. So that's where I found an organization called the Veterinary Cannabis Consulting Organization. And so they do education where it is guided by a veterinarian and so it is definitely recognized and it's in the US and so essentially that is where I obtained my certification. And to my knowledge it's the only really I would say credible and reliable resource to become certified because it is veterinarian led and they do it in a very responsible way. Collectively, I believe that we're making a difference as practitioners. So under that scope, it is including both veterinarians and veterinary technicians. So we are working collectively to bring cannabis into this space in a responsible way that inherently I believe is so valuable that we are we're working together. Also, you know, where, for example, with the CAVCM, the Canadian Association, we have monthly meetings where we can discuss different clients, case studies, ideas, new things that are coming about because this space is, as you know, always evolving. So in that realm, I feel that we're allowing us to become the leaders in the industry and doing it in a way collectively that we can make a difference.

Kirk:  Pets have endocannabinoid systems.

Sandi Krucik-Van Bommel: Yes, all mammals do. So when we think of the ECS system, I call it for short, so the endogenous cannabinoid system, it is a regulatory system. It really regulates the internal environment of the body. So it inherently is working all the time behind the scenes. So although we can't see mechanistically again, how that's happening. So, you know, when we think about the ECS system, we're thinking about it modulating the things that we do see externally. So examples I could use would be mood, mobility, the immune system, pain, memory, digestion. Those are all observable things that we can see with our pets. That are being manifested in different ways. So often what I'll say is when the body is out of ease, I'm calling it dis-ease, not a disease process, although diseases fall under that category. But coming back to how is it actually working is that the body has different receptors and it is kind of like a lock and key mechanism. So when we think about the ECS system having its own endogenous cannabinoids, so the ones that the body makes naturally, if we have a healthy body Kirk, we don't need any supplementation, right? Cause the body is doing everything it should and we're maintaining homeostasis or balance. However, when we start to see some of those influences now be out of balance, that's when we see symptomology, that's where CBD comes in because CBD or cannabis as a whole is a phyto-cannabinoid, meaning a cannabinoids that is from plant derivatives. And so what ends up happening is like CBD or cannabis is mimicking the body's natural endogenous cannabinoids. And that's how supplementation with cannabis can be imperative to influencing all of those things that I just mentioned. So that's without getting into the deeper dive of the mechanism, but that's the simplest way to see how it's influencing and working in the body. Almost like it's supplementing what the body would naturally be doing when the body isn't working as it should.

Kirk:  Okay, so are all cannabinoids created equal?

Sandi Krucik-Van Bommel: Absolutely not.

Kirk:  Okay.

Sandi Krucik-Van Bommel: So, you know, when we start to look at research, of course, in this niche, it's always evolving. So there's been discovered over 180 cannabinoids in the cannabis plant, which I think is absolutely fascinating. Like, Mother Earth is this, you now, remarkable way to support us with this plant. And so when we look at the various cannabinoids, they work differently in the body. For example, like when we think about THC and those psychotropic effects that we have, that doesn't happen with CBD and there's ways of and reasons of why that is. But when I look at specifically, like taking a little dive into how I'm supporting clients, when I'm looking at specifically what we're looking to use cannabis for, what the pet parent's goals are, not all products are created equal. Because I'm looking primarily for what I'll call the recipe of that product. To have the ingredients that are going to be working for that pet's condition or reason or whatever our goals are. So when we're looking at supporting the pet specifically, product selection is very important because it's going to need specific things in that product that are going to help specific things that are happening with each different pet.

Kirk:  Are you recommending and advising for a blend of cannabinoids or are you primarily focusing on dosing CBD?

Sandi Krucik-Van Bommel: No, absolutely doing blends. And in fact, I always take into consideration the entourage effects. So where we're looking at a product selection that has not just an isolate like CBD or THC, we're Looking for broad spectrum. In some cases, we're doing full spectrum and we're including the consideration for terpenes to come and have their own therapeutic potential. So the way I describe it to my clients that really I think has been a good analogy for them is, for example, if you're making chicken soup, you can do a very simple recipe where it's chicken meat and chicken broth and that would be considered an isolate type approach. So meaning that when we go ourselves to ingest this chicken soup recipe, it's okay and it tastes okay and it still has some nutritional value. However, if we now took that same recipe and we added herbs and spices, vegetables, noodles, let it simmer over time, not only is it now more nutritionally viable, but it actually has more potential to be nutrition as nutritional. So what I do is I say to my parents, we have this approach where in most cases when we're looking at their goals or the specific reason that they're using cannabis or wanting to use cannabis for their pet, if we take that approach of doing a deluxe chicken soup recipe, we're going to have more potential for the therapeutics to be even more beneficial than going with that basic recipe. Woof, woof, Woof!

Rene: What a great conversation with Sandi Kruchik von Bommel and Kirk, and unfortunately we are running out of time for this episode, but we'll carry on with that conversation next time on Reefer Medness. The podcast, it's Rene here back in the studio, thanking you for listening and hoping that you'll tell some friends about this and pass the word along. There's a lot of resources and here's all the information on how to access those.