Speaker 1: You're listening to Petlifradio dot com.
Speaker 2: And good morning or good afternoon to all, depending on
where you are, and welcome to Ask the Vats with
Doctor Jeff here on pet Life Radio, your myheart pet
radio station.
Speaker 3: And actually the only live show right here on pet
Life Radio is Ask the Vets with Doctor Jeff.
Speaker 2: So we're here for you. We're here to answer your questions.
We're here to help you through all the bugs, all
the tough parts of sharing the house with a pet,
and also celebrating the amazing bond we have with our pets.
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eight two. I definitely want to hear from you. You
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Speaker 3: Being part of our show. You know we have.
Speaker 2: I was in as many of you know that the
following us here at pet Life Radio. I was in
New York last week doing the segment of the Morning
on Fox and Friends. It was a great segment, a
lot of fun, high tech methods of preventing your pets
from becoming lost. Whether it was obviously micro chipping is
a must. We talked about a facial recognition app called
Finding Rover. That's really cool and for those of you
that missed it, very simple. You can download this app
for free. It's called Findingrover dot com. And what it
does is you take a picture of your dog. In
my case, one of my dogs is interestingly Grover with
the G So I would take a picture of Grover
and I would register that picture with the folks.
Speaker 3: Over at finding rover dot com.
Speaker 2: And then so what happens is if someone else finds
the dog, and they'll send you a little tag that says,
you know, take my picture kind of thing. And when
someone else finds the dog, they will take a picture
of the dog, send it in and their computer program
over at finding Rover will match the pictures to the
closest match, find out if your dog isn't fact lost,
and it will contact you.
Speaker 3: I think it's amazing.
Speaker 2: There's nothing called a pet hub that has a QR
code and on the back of the tag, all you
do is take a phone and.
Speaker 3: You, you know, click on your little app to.
Speaker 2: Read QR codes and everything will pop up all the
information on the dog, the owner of medication, you name it.
And every time the little tag is scanned, you, the
parent owner of the dog, will get a call from
pet Hub and that's really cool. Of course, we talked
about the Whistle activity monitor and it's one of my
fave and my dogs are my big dogs are all
wearing the whistle. What's cool about that is you can
first of all check out on your dog during the
day via phone believe you know, Wi Fi or Bluetooth.
It's really cool and it's also nice and this is great.
I think I mentioned this last week that a dog
walker got busted because the owner knew that they hired
this dog walker and they're supposed to have of course
they can go on their phone and check and say,
I wonder how, I wonder how Rover's doing it at
the park today with the dog walker, and you could
see all the activity spikes, you could see the movement
right and all of a sudden instead she saw it
was just sitting there, nothing going on, and she called
a pencer. Wait a second, the dog walker, I'm paying
you to walk my dog and you're sitting there seeing
any movement in the last twenty minutes, So that's good.
And of course there's also the tag collar which is GPS.
Oh by the way, Whistle is adding GPS to their
little medallions that fit right onto a collar. So there's
so many fantastic, fantastic methods to keep tabs on your
pets and also to keep them safe. Another one is
they're two good companies out there, but they are basically
the invisible fences, and so dog wears.
Speaker 3: A little receiver on the collar. The transmitter is placed.
Speaker 2: In the center of a you know, up to like
one hundred and five or one hundred and twenty feet.
I mean, it's really cool. And if the dog leaves
or as it's approaching the borders, they'll get.
Speaker 3: Here like a little sound beat.
Speaker 2: Now they may not know what that sound beap is yet,
but as they continue to get closer to the border,
then that sound beap turns into a little it's not
like a shock collar, it's a little impulse collar. It
gives a little bit of of a feeling of a
vibration over to the neck, and the dogs know opes
not going there, and they turn around and move back
into the perimeter. So there are really a lot of fun,
interesting and not very expensive ways to keep tabs on.
Speaker 3: Your pets and to keep them safe.
Speaker 2: Anyway, that was a great segment, But by the point,
I was in New York last week and really getting
a feel for the East.
Speaker 3: Coast weather, the mugginess.
Speaker 2: I know, you know, Mark Winter, our show producer is
based in Florida. There it's really hot and muggy, and
I come back to California and you know, sorry guys,
but it's gorgeous. I mean, yes, it was like yesterday
was really hot. This whole week is supposed to be hot.
I mean, we're in the nineties, but it's a nice,
dry heat. You know, we're not too far from the ocean,
so we get the breeze. It's really nice. But we
still have to realize that for our pets, our dogs,
it is tough out there. So again I don't have
to reiterate, make sure there's shade, make sure that they
have access to water, make sure that never leave them
in a car unattended and without air conditioning going not
even for two or three or four minutes. That's how
fast a car can heat up between the dogs panting
and the anxiety and the heat, and the car acts
like a steam room. I mean, it's crazy. So you
got to be care with that. If you have a
pool and your dog's like to swim by, all means
let them. My dogs love it, they can't stay out.
So we have to sort of continue to remember that
it's still hot out there. Yes, we're approaching fall, two
weeks away, whatever, but many parts of the country ilseter
really really heating up in September. So a number of
weeks ago we started like a series of things of
common problems and the challenge of knowing understanding appreciating when
we need to worry. In other words, when do we
see this problem, do we have to pack the dog
or the cat into the car and rush them to
the veterinarian or if it's in the middle of the night,
rush to the emergency center. And we went through well, well,
first of all, allergy and skin issues. We went through vomiting.
That's a big one. Intestinal problems. And I kept teasing
you over the last couple of weeks, but then I
was away. Then I was at the trade show in
Kansas City. We had guests on the show. We talked
about some other things, but one of the things we
talked about, or I promised we were going to talk about.
Speaker 3: Is limping.
Speaker 2: The limping dog, the limping cat, and when do we panic?
And I seem to find from other as I like
to call them Elshore animal hospitals. I think even plenty
of veterinarians could use a little refresher course on this one,
because I have people coming in with I'll give you
a perfect example, perfect example. A very common disease in
large breed dogs is hip displasia. Many dogs have it.
So I get a call, actually not even a call,
this is this funny story. I bump into a guy
at the market who I knew from elementary school. He
was actually in my older sister's class. He's two years
older than I am, but of course I knew who
he was, and I seen him around town over the years.
And he approached me in the market, doesn't bring his
pet to me, and he knows I'm a veterinarian.
Speaker 3: He says, Jeff, gonna ask you a question.
Speaker 2: I said, sure, absolutely, So he says, my daughter has
this dog that came up lane fairly suddenly, and took
him the dog to her veterinarian. And the veterinarian took
some X rays and said, there's a problem in the hip.
It's some arthritis and the hip. So I said to him,
I said, how was the dog like a week of it?
Did this come out unfairly? Suddenly he goes yes. I said,
I don't need to see the dog, and I don't
need to see the X rays, but I can tell
you right now it's not the hip. And it's like
he looks at me like it's like, how do you know,
I said, because when you have diseases that are chronically
progressive like arthritis, rarely do you all of a sudden
get an instant pain. In other words, had I taken
these same x rays a month ago, they would have
looked exactly the same as they do now, And yet
your dog wasn't limping. So something else happened here there
is you have to start evaluating. You have to put
the chronic progressive diseases much lower on your list. Of course,
I never say it's impossible. Let's say a joint mouse
because of the severe arthritis, freed up and got into
the joint. Could that cause acute sudden pain? Absolutely, So
it's not like I'm saying it's impossible. But you have
to sound of way the possibilities and say to yourself what.
Speaker 3: Is likely, what is a more likely cause?
Speaker 2: And when you have an acute onset, a sudden onset
of a limping problem, you have to think some kind
of injury. It could be blowing out your knee, the
cruciate ligament, a moniscus. It could be something called caught
aquina syndrome. Even though you can have a chronic look
on the X ray, sometimes the onset of pain could
be acute because it's a function of a nerve being
pinched within the spinal cord as it exits the spinal
cord at this lumbo sacral area. So you can see
signs of chronic instability. But pain could be acute. It
could be a fractured toe, it could be a beasting,
it could be something happened, an event happened, which is
why the dog is limping today and wasn't limping two
days ago. And usually so, when I heard that the
answer from this other veterinarian was hyptosplasia, I wasn't buying it.
Speaker 3: I just wasn't buying it. So I told him he
needs to come in.
Speaker 2: Sure enough, in this case, it turned out to be
caught aquina, classic caught aquina. It's a very frequently missed diagnosis,
lumbo sacral instability. It's where a seventh lumbar vertebrate called
L seven teams up with the first sacral first of
three ac or vertebrae called S one. We call it
LS or lumbo sacral disease L seven S one. And
even though the condition can be chronic, the onset of
pain can be acute. And sure enough, this was classic.
I mean I showed them the X rays. I showed
him you take X rays. In a few different views
in stages of flexion and extension of the back legs,
and you can just see the movement within these two
adjacent vertebrae and where the pinching of a nerve takes place.
I mean, it's fascinating, but ps, the dog is doing
great and it wasn't the hips. So what you want
to realize is that when there's an acute, sudden onset
of pain, think an episode. Think of an event, Think
of an injury. Think of that insect bite, think of
stepping on something, a soft tissue injury from a dog fighter,
getting dog is loose and comes back. Could it have
been hit by car, could have been kicked. These are
all the things you think of when we have sudden
onset of injury, and with sudden onset of injury many
of our injuries.
Speaker 3: When we have an injury to a leg.
Speaker 2: I mean, if I play ball twoday nights, I'm running
on the court, right, I know if I get a
banged up knee, I know whether it's just like a
Charlie horse. I know if I'm just muscle sore, So
I'm not going to run to the doctor. I mean,
if you hit the ground and you hear it that snap,
you can't even walk and your ankle is swollen. Right,
then you know you have some pretty bad strain, maybe
even a fracture. When your dog is injured and can't walk,
won't even put weight on it, or you see a
limb deformed, Yes, time to go to your vet, get
some X rays. That could be a fracture. But when
everything else is okay, you wake up in the morning,
the dog is limping, but is weight bearing. That's important
to note. He will put weight on it, he's just
favoring it. Don't think you have to panic and rush
to the veterinarian. And just so you know, even if
it was a broken leg, there's no such thing as
an emergency broken limb. In other words, when that pet
is hit by car or in a very bad injury,
the last thing we worry about are the limbs.
Speaker 3: First.
Speaker 2: You have to make sure the internal damage. Is there,
internal bleeding, what's going on with shock?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: Was there blood loss somewhere? The last things we worry
about are the skin contusions and librasions and a limb.
Those could be fixed, but we have to make sure
we have a stable animal first. So and that's if
the limb is broken, so you can only imagine if
the limb isn't even broken. The dog is bearing weight,
the pet cat is bearing weight, but just favoring it.
Right then, we sometimes tincture of time is just a
fine way to go. So I'm gonna least brew on
that for a second. It is time for our halfway
through the show break, and we'll be back in just
a minute. Here on Pet Life Radio, asseevats with doctor Jeff.
I'm your host, Doctor Jeff Werber, and we'll be right back.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back right after these messages. Stay tuned.
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Speaker 3: And welcome back to cut Live Bradio Asthibets with Doctor Jeff.
I am your host, Doctor Jeff Webber, and I want
to hear from you.
Speaker 2: Pick up the phone easy eight seven seven three eight
five eight eight eight two, or just join us online.
Go on to the Ask the Vets with Doctor Jeff
tap and you can join in on the conversation.
Speaker 3: It's as easy as that. And we are talking about
limping now.
Speaker 2: I'm sure I know for a fact that there's not
a single person listening out there right now that hasn't
had at some point in their lives with sharing their
homes with pets, a limping dog or cat. It may
not be this one, but i know what's happened. So
I'm sure you have some questions. I'm sure you want
to know more, So give us a call, send me
a text right here to Ask the Bets Radio show.
Speaker 3: You can, actually you can send me an email.
Speaker 2: To Dr Jeff Doctor Jeff at Petlife Radio dot com.
It will be photed to me immediately on air live
or easier go in the conversation. Joining the conversation here
on the Ask the Vats with Doctor Jeff Tap. So
before the break, we were talking about the limping and
you know, the acute sudden onset of limping, but I
mean still bearing weight, just just minimized use and as
we call favoring the leg. They're still putting weight on it,
just favoring what a dog pretty much, pretty much there's
no more absolutes anymore, we know that. But pretty much
if a dog or cat can bear weight and walk
at all on a limb, it's not broken, all right.
Sometimes it can be a broken digit and they can
you know, that means just one of the toes, but
if it's one of the major bones, they're not putting
weight on it. So there are a number of And
first of all, another thing I want to add to
this is that when you do go to the doc
and the doctor wants to take an X ray, the
dog is bearing weight, just not well favoring it, maybe
can or candalyicit some pain, and still want to take
an X ray.
Speaker 3: Some might say, wait a.
Speaker 2: Second, how much soft tissue can you see on an
X ray? And the answer is not much. So is
it worth taking the X ray if you're not going
to stand any bone? If you know the bone is fine,
why take the X ray? Well, first of all, there
are some changes that we could see. We can see inflammation.
For example, if a dog tears a cruciate ligament, very
very common injury. Typically we call it a cranial cruciate
ligament tear, could be a partial tear, could be a
full tear, and humans say call it an acl anterior
cruciate ligament.
Speaker 3: And what we'll see is you can't see the.
Speaker 2: Ligament itself no way, but we can see are some
changes in the alignment of the bone. And that is
the tibia and the femur, and we can also see
what we call joint effusion. Joint effusion effusion is usually
when these fibers tear, they bleed into the joint space
and you could see the change inside the knee of
the injured leg versus not anje leg. And we always
recommend taking X rays of the normal limb as well,
and you can look for the comparison, so that, amongst
other things, even though you're not actually seeing the torn ligament,
there are certain things we can put together. We're looking
for what we call a tibial thrust, We're looking for
a drawer sign. So these are things why that physical
exam is so important. And I will just say of
many of the soft tissue injuries that pets have to
deal with, one that is pretty much one hundred percent
surgical is going to be the crucia tear. Obviously, well
achilles big ligaments that tear the Achilles tendonent when that tears,
that's going to be definitely one hundred percent surgical. But
the key is that even with a partial tear, the
problem is that there is a blood supply, but it's
a very poor one, and the ligament itself is under tension,
so when the fiber starts splitting, they sort of snap
back in opposite directions. There's no way they're going to
come together again. And therefore, with each fiber that tears,
and they're usually not just one, they're using many, sometimes
hundreds of the time, that ligament is getting weaker, and
of course, the more strain put on a weaker lig
it's ultimately going to go. And I used to work
actually with a ports certified Veterini surgeon in my practice,
and he was probably one of the more conservative surgeons
I know. You know, typically you say, ah, they became
a surgeon, they like to cut. Of course they're going
to say in need surgery.
Speaker 3: He wasn't like this. He would always try anything medically.
Speaker 2: First before he would resort to surgery if it was
if there were options. But under his breath he would
laugh when a client would say, they want to wait
and they want to see what happens with a cruciate ligament,
because he knows it's one hundred percent it will need
to be fixed. You know, it's really hard to get
into on a radio show. And even though this is
going to be this is set simulcast and you could
pick up the video online. But it's a very important
reason why with a dog you have to repair accruciate ligament.
And with a person, unless they're an athlete or you know,
even a weekend warrior, you can put the brace on
and they can get along just fine. And you kind
of have to picture it. But if you look at
a person at rest, there's only.
Speaker 3: One bend in their entire limb hind, limb leg, limb. Okay,
what is the bend?
Speaker 2: The hip that's straight, the knee that's straight, the hawk,
the heel. Well, there's your bend, a ninety degree bend,
and then the digits, the metatarsals. Right, that's all flat again.
So now I want you to picture a dog, even
at rest, just standing, and you can see it in
a picture.
Speaker 3: You can see pictures of dog skeletons.
Speaker 2: The hip bent, the knee bent, the hawk bend, the
tarsal metatarsal joint bent. Every single joint is bent. There's
not a single straight joint when a dog is at rest. Therefore,
the attention on this injured ligament is always creating a problem,
and therefore they will need to have it surgically repaired.
Speaker 3: One way or the other.
Speaker 2: So I want to take a brief minute because there
seem to be a lot of confusion amongst usually puppy
owners about some limping problems and what are some of
the growth related diseases that we see, especially in large
breed dogs and even one or two young It may
not be growth related, but certainly young dog disease in
small breeds as well, and wend you have to worry.
So the most common large breed rapidly growing dog young
dog is called panostiitis pano. It is an inflammation within
the growing bone, usually the long bones. We see it
most probably in the humorous We'll see it also in
the radius I'll know again, we'll see it a lot
in the femur, sometimes in the tibby as well, and
the condition is very identifiablon X ray.
Speaker 3: You could see discrete changes.
Speaker 2: You also have a very painful bone, so if you
squeeze the bone, it is going to be it's gonna hurt.
So that is something that needs to be radiographically diagnosed. Fortunately,
it's the most common, and fortunately, the reason I say
fortunately is because it does not need surgery. It's purely
a medical disease. We often recommend dropping down. It happens
to these big dogs. I think they're getting too much protein,
they're growing too fast, exercising too much, and therefore we
have to curb the exercise a little bit, and we
have to get them on adult food sooner than we
used to. One of the taglines from one of the
puppy foods and as a kid, was, you know, for
a full year until they're full grown.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 2: We are backing away from quote unquote puppy food food
way earlier than a year, probably six to nine months,
is it. By nine months, they should already be converting
to either a young adult formula or to adult food.
Young adult formulas, by the way, are great. The other
two that we see commonly enlarged reeddogs are one thing
called elbow displasia. We called FCP fragmented coronoid process. This
is a surgical disease. It is again something that can
be picked up on radiographs. However, you need to have
somebody who's familiar with the disease because oftentimes you can't
see the actual fragmented piece of bone, but you can
see secondary changes within the joint that indicate that there
is somewhere in there a floating piece of bone that
chipped away. That's FCP fragmented coronoid and elbow displaysia. We
call it, of course, as opposed to hip displasia. We
also have something called OCD and not obsessive compulsive disorder.
It's osteochondritis desiccans. It is a cartilage flap defect and
a joint. We see it in many joints, probably the
shoulder joint would be the most commonplace. This is a
surgical disease. We have to get rid of that surgical flap,
that condro. It's a cartilage flap, and these dogs do
amazingly well after surgery. And of course it's hyptosplasia. And
if you have a dog that's prone hiptoslasa. One thing
you have to remember about hyptoysplasia. It is only fifty
percent genetic five ozho.
Speaker 3: That means. The other fifty percent is what it's environmental.
That means. It's how we take these dogs, it's how
we feed them. We want to keep the plane of nutrition.
Speaker 2: We don't want the biggest, baddest dog in the block
when they're six or eight months old.
Speaker 3: What we want to do is keep them on the
lean side.
Speaker 2: We don't want to over exercise them either. No running
along for five miles along your bicycle, no taking that
long jog. These dogs need playtime, of course, fifteen to
twenty minutes at a park, throwing a frisbee, throwing a
tennis ball, but no continuous pounding on the pavement for
miles and miles until they're at least eighteen, preferably twenty
four months of age. So it's what we do to
these dogs that predisposes them to phyptysplasia. And I recommend,
because there are some treatments that we can employ to
help prevent some of the onset of really serious arthritis,
we want to get some X rays early, and believe
it or not, our time is up. I knew this
subject is going to take longer than one day, so
we're going to come back next week. I'm going to
leave you in suspense about what to do with your
large breed dogs that you're worried about displays that I
recommend any large breed dog should have a hip scan,
probably when they're about nine to ten months of aage.
And next week, when you stay tuned, I'm going to
explain why so, I want to thank you for joining
me here on pet Life Radios. Ask the beats with
doctor Jeff. I'm doctor Jeff.
Speaker 3: Where were your host?
Speaker 2: I once again want to thank our sponsors, Calm Pet Products,
pro Sens Pet Products.
Speaker 3: I mean lucky for them, I'm lucky for you.
Speaker 2: We're not giving anything away this week because nobody called in,
nobody sent me a text, nobody wrote in. But hopefully
next week you'll get the courage to do so. If
you have any questions about joints, about limping, when to worry,
how to worry, what to do save them, send them
to me. Email me doctor Jeff at pet Life Radio
or log on tune in next week. Once again, our
number here is eighty seven seven three eight five eight
eight eight two, and we'll see you next week