Speaker 1: You were listening to Petlifradio dot com.
Speaker 2: Well, good afternoon to everybody. You are here on pet
Life Radio with Doctor Jeff Worber hosting Avest with Doctor
Jeff R. Live radio call in show. And that means
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And as an extra added bonus, when you get the
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Life Radio. I also want to thank our big retail
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line of pro Sense pet products, which are veterinary quality
products that you can buy over the counter at a
price at probably half the cost. So anyway, we did
get an email this week and I'm going to lug
in as we speak and we're going to answer this
email question. This is coming. It's a question about Dandriff.
It's from Jewel and dear doctor Jeff. My guide dog
has Doggie Dandriff. The constant scratching effects her ability to
guide me safely. We have tried oatmeal shampoo as well
as a mixture of bath oil and water, noticeable results.
I give her allergy three fish oil supplement as well.
Unfortunately she still crashes pretty constantly. What can they do
help relieve her of this annoying itching? Thank you, Jewel, Well, Jewel,
first of all, thank you for sending us. And if
you can let us know which breed you have of
dog and how big, we will send you out a
Kong toy because that when they're sitting around in that
relaxing phase, there's nothing better for them to work on
and get that oral satisfaction then munching on a Kong toy.
So a couple things come to mind. I mean, certainly
the Omega three fatty acids are very important, and you're
doing that with the allergy three fish oil. I think
that it might be whove you to try one of
the other brands. Some of them work differently. As far
as the shampoo, I would use an anti sebarreic shampoo,
something with salicylates and salasilic acid. One brand name that
you can ask your veterinarran about is called several ux
is also seble Lighte. I find those work very well,
as does the Dukeso shampoos for that are very dry.
That's Douxo, very very effective. I'm also on top of
the supplement which is great, the Mega three, a Mega
six fatty acids. On top of a anti seboreic shampoo.
I would also consider an anti seboreic spray, a moisturizing spray.
For example, when we have dry skin, we'll put on
hand cream every day. It's no different with our pets.
They need daily supplementation, not just orally but also topically.
That will help as well. And lastly, once the itch starts,
we have to control the itch as well, so when
it continues to happen, we need to consider something to
relieve the itch. We could start with little antihistamine. Obviously,
you need to see your veterinarian because of their other
skin problems or if all that scratching and dry flaking
has caused a secondary bacterial infection, then we need to
treat the infection as well, because infections are very itchy.
So all too often I'll see a chronic case where
the animal has been on steroids, cortico steroids, pregnana zone
to relieve the it's in the inflammation and they're still
scratching even on steroids, and it's because they have secondary
bacterial infection. So that is very important. And there is
a new drug and I've been a huge, huge fan
of it. I've been using it. I've been using it
so much that I and unfortunately many veterinarians, if not most,
can't keep it on the shelf. It is already back ordered,
which is a shame. It's called apoquil. It's a new
drug from Zoetis. Zoetis is formally Phiser Animal Health and
it is an amazing anti itch, anti inflammation drug and
it works specifically at the cellular level of the canine
itch cycle. It's not a mask product, it's not a
cyclosporine that depresses the entire immune system. It's not a
pregno zone that is also anti inflammatory. More generalized, and
obviously in higher doses it too can be iminosuppressive. This
is it actually blo two of the enzymes that are
clearly needed to complete the allergy and H cycle in
the Knine allergic response. So it is a very specific
medication and it's fascinating. So we love it. It's been
working very well, so I would try Jewel, I would
try those things. You're on the right track. Hang in there,
and again, I thank you for sending me the email
and for all of you out there. That's how easy
it is. You can send us an email to Dr
Jeff at petlife radio dot com, or you can get
the courage to give us a call live eight seven
seven three eight five eight eight eight two, or you
can log on and type in your question. If you
go up Ask the Bats with Doctor Jeff tab on
pet Life Radio and you'll see a long like a
chat box, and just go on in and start typing
away and we will answer your questions. Now, I want
to talk about something today. It's a little serious and
the reason why it's so serious, and I would really
like your personal opinions on this, and I think everybody
it would be really great to start up a little
bit dialogue about this, because this is a very sad,
serious incident. But let me give you a little background.
A very established, long term, maybe twenty five thirty year
practice veterinarian had a solo practice on her own in
New York. Someone brought her. She found some cats that
were running loose in the park. I don't know where
there was Central Park, but in the park, and she
took it in and one of them needed a lot
of help, and she nursed this cat back to health.
And you know, there was a lot of stuff going
on as far as was on the internet. I guess
about this veterinian who found these cats and all the
good things she did nursing them back to health. Well,
some lady who claims to be a cat rescuer claims
that this was one of her cats, which she would do,
and again exact details are a bit sketchy, but she
would go to the shelters and as a good Samaritan,
she would adopt these cats out from the shelter. But
she couldn't care for all these cats. If they needed
to be spain and neuter, she would take care of
that and then she would let them loose in this
park to fend for themselves. Whether she would come and
feed them or not, who knows, but it was not
right away. But a week or two weeks later she
shows up on this veterinarian's door step and says, that's
my cat. And at this point the veterinarian heard what
this woman's mo is and yes the woman did. She
was able to prove that she did at least pull
this cat out of the shelter and had her spade,
but that was it. The cat was running loose in
the park, no idea, no microchip, and by this point
the veterinarian was very attached to the kitty and spent
hundreds of her own dollars fixing up this cat. And
she said, well, this is my cat. This is where
the details become a bit cloudy, but all I can
say is the woman who claimed this cat was hers
actually went online and began a smear campaign, and all,
as I like to call them, all the humaniacs out
there rallied behind her and bad mouth is veterinarian who,
again from the other side of the coin, from my perspective,
takes care of animal, does a wonderful job healing it,
fixing it, and then decides to keep it. Now. I
don't know what, if any attempted negotiations took place between
these two women, But all I know is the veterinarian
because as a result of the horrendous smear campaign took
her own life. She actually committed suicide. And this led me.
I had a long chat with a veteran publication. I
sit on their board. I'm on the board of Vett Economics,
and this is an online journal called DVM three sixty
and we were talking yesterday. We had a very long interview,
about an hour long interview just about the Internet and
the freedom of speech that many people out there tend
to abuse say things that are unfounded, and unfortunately there
is no governing or ruling body that dictates what one
can say. If one is going to create a smear
campaign like that, that they have to have a lot
of proof before things like this are printed. And it
doesn't happen. Anybody can say or print anything they want,
regardless of the facts, regardless of how true the comments are.
And as I like to say, if somebody has a
bug up there behind about something, they can go right
online sure or not, don't have to give details and
say anything they want and when it hits home a
it happened. In this case, it was about a pet
and a veterinarian. Obviously, that's going to sort of get
my feathers a bit ruffled, pardon the pun. And even
more so, it was such an aggressive, nasty campaign that
this woman. And again one can argue that obviously there
were some other factors here that we don't know about.
Obviously there were other things going on in this doctor's
life that we don't know about. But either way, it
ended up in a suicide. That's really bad. And I
realized because I don't think any business, especially a small business,
has not been affected in one way or other by
the Internet and how one handles it, it's a big
difference in what we had in this discussion was when
these things happened, how should a veterinarian handle it? How
should any professional handle it? You realize that there is
a type of slander called knockdown slander, and that what
it used to mean that if let's say you've got
in a big fight with your physician, oh, your dentist,
and you thought that they did something really badly, you
want to complain to your friends. That's fine, but if you,
for example, walked into a public restaurant and you saw
that physician, that doctor, that dentist, whatever, that veterinarian sitting
and having dinner with his family, and you stood up
and screamed out loud he killed my mother or whatever
it is, or he destroyed my tooth, you name it.
That he could sue you for a professional or they
call a knockdown slander. Yet today's world of Internet, you
can know anything you want. So it's a big problem.
And unfortunately, I mean again, if this had happened to me,
if the tables were turned, I probably would have responded
a whole lot differently than she did. I wouldn't certainly
turn this argument around. I found out and I don't
know about it. I'm going to go on and check
it out, but there is a website that started by somebody,
and it's called vet Abuse Network. I think it's dot com,
it might meet tot net. I'm going to look into it,
and basically what it is, it's this group of people
and all they're doing is printing all these horror stories
about veterinarians. And interestingly, since this doctor took her own life,
a lot of her colleagues and friends started an opposing
website called Veterinary Abuse Network. Why the first group didn't
use the word veterinary and just used vet I don't know.
But anyway, and you know, sort of telling the other
side of the story. I could, you know, share a story.
And this is the kind of thing that happens. A
colleague of mine here in town performed a surgery on
a dog. The owner left the dog for the surgery signed.
Let me say this one more time, signed the estimate. Also,
all over our hospitals, many of us, most of us
now have signed somewhere in the reception area that state
that services are to be paid for at the time
they're rendered or upon pickup. So clearly, just as nobody
would walk into a supermarket, load up a cart, and
then when you get to the checkout counter say, oh,
I have to pay for this now. No different when
you walk into a hospital or any service provider or
a Nordstroms. Yes, when you leave with the goods, when
you walked in and had that service rendered, unless you
have a charge account that's already been established, yes, you
have to pay for it today. Well, this guy comes
in and pick up his dog. No, money and says, well,
I'll just pay you, or really you will. So this
doctor did what any of us would do, especially nowadays. No,
we don't work that way. You sign the estimate. It
clearly states here that payment is due upon pickup. So
we will keep your pet here overnight, no charge, no charge,
but and you come tomorrow with the payment. So what
did this guy do? He went called one of the
news stations and said that his dog was being held
hostage by this veterinarian. So the news media shows up
on this veterinarian storstep. Unfortunately, he was not equipped to
know how to handle this, and it turned out to
be for him a disaster. It's time for a break.
When we come back, we're gonna finish this. I want
to hear from you. I want to know what do
you think about these smear campaigns? How do you handle nowadays?
How do you handle any kind of conflict with a
business provider or service provider? I want to hear eight
seven seventh three eight five eight eight A two. We'll
be right back.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back right after these messages. Stay tuned.
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Speaker 2: To your ears. Hi.
Speaker 4: I'm doctor Robin Gansert, President and CEO of American Humane Association,
the country's first national humane organization. Here to tell you
about our new show, be Humane on pet Life Radio.
Each week, will be bringing you the latest news and
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you interviews with Hollywood's biggest animal advocates, here to share
tales about their pets and what they're doing to promote
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I hope you'll stop by until then. Let's always remember
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Speaker 1: On demand only on Petlifradio dot com.
Speaker 2: Let's talk past.
Speaker 4: It, Let's go pet at Life Radio, HETLFE Radio.
Speaker 1: Pet Life Radio dot.
Speaker 2: Com, And welcome back to ask about the doctor. Jeff,
you're a pel Live radio and we still would love
to hear from me. I wanted to say, I want
some opinions. I want to know what you would do
in a situation like this. I want to know what
you do when you're mad at somebody. Give me a
call eight seven seven three eight five eight eight A two.
And this is bigger than just patch. This is bigger
than just veterini medicine. This is something that when my
grandmother used to have a saying, and it was a
simple one. It says, if it's not nice, if it's
not necessary, or if it's not true, don't say it.
And the truth matter is when you blast somebody, whether
there was they did right or wrong? What other ramifications?
What might they be? What have you done to resolve
this situation before you open your big mouth on the
internet from hundreds of thousands millions to see did you ever?
I mean, it's like this my perfect scenario. Let's break
it down to something really simple, really simple. You have
a dry cleaner you've been using for years, okay, and
you pick up your dry cleaning, you pick up your
shirt and one of the buttons is missing, maybe from
the ironing and cleaning. Who knows? All right, what are
you gonna do? Are you gonna go find another dry cleaner?
Or are you gonna call up or take the shirt
back and say, guys, look what happened when within the
cleaning and wait for the response. Any decent businessman or
woman is gonna say, oh, no problem, that happens sometimes,
well sow new button on, No problem if they didn't,
or if they said, uh, tough, that's what happens. Sorry,
you know, go buy something new shirt. Then if you
want to blast somebody, go ahead and blast them. Now,
let's look at a different scenario. The very first time
you use this dry cleaner, all right, brand new, the
very first time you use it, you pick up your
shirt and turn off. There's a button gone, might too
then say, you know what, I tried this new guy,
but not happy and you just won't use him again.
But are you gonna go really you're gonna go on
the internet and start complaining about it? I mean, how
much satisfaction do you get? What do you everybody out there,
Robin Hood's that they're going to help all these other
people out there from making a mistake. Did you ever
think that maybe there were ninety nine percent of the
shirts leave that brand new cleaner fine, and you just
unfortunately had a bad day. This was not your lucky day,
and you happen to be the one that lost the button.
But it's amazing to me how everybody you know, I
lecture marketing all the time, and we just a we
used to say that the sad news is that you
have to work three times as hard to please a customer,
because when you upset a customer, they're going to go
home and tell ten people. This is old fashioned before internet.
They're going to pick up the phone, in conversation at
the social coffee table, they're going to be telling people.
Whereas if someone's happy, which of course, any business or
anything we do, we expect satisfaction. We expect to be happy.
So when we are, we don't go and tell everybody
about it. And unless it's outstanding, you tell three people.
So we would say you had to work over three times.
It's hard to please somebody because for everyone that you upset,
all right, you tick off, they're gonna go home and
tell ten Well, now that ten is ten thousand, is
one hundred thousand, is a million, and now it's not
just your friends. You're just saying it for the sake
of saying it. If you really cared well about your
friends and that they shouldn't make a mistake that you made,
you pick up your phone and call the friends. What
do you care about someone who lives in Oshkosh, Wisconsin
And meanwhile you're blasting somebody to everyone else. So it
is so frustrating to hear. And before the break, we
had a quick story about this colleague of mine and
the dog and he, quote unquote, according to the owner
who went to the news media, kept his dog hostage
overnight and the news shows up on his door. And unfortunately,
this doctor was not really equipped in know how to
handle the situation, had to do a lot of backpedaling,
ended up having to give the dog back to the guy. Man,
if that was me, I would have turned that around
where the clients would be lining up around the corner
to come in. First of all, this guy has a
magnificent hospital, and instead of I would have invited the
news and say, let me show you what we do here.
Let me show you the facility. See are my technicians,
See how we care for the animals, and yes, and
show them the sign clearly say so. I would show
the signed estimate where this guy signed exactly what was
to be done, and the notes, the billboards that displays
all over the hospital saying that services are to be
paid when the animal is picked up. Very simple, It's
a no brainer. I would not have given up that dog,
all right. And really what it boils down to is
that we need to know first of all, we need
to really decide when you're gonna complain. I had a
listen to this. I had on Yelp. One of my
someone told me there was a complaint about my associate,
not my associate. Happens to well, she's now an ex associate.
She actually moved to Barbados to get married. But she
was a phenomenal veterinarian, and the complaint was nothing about
her veterinarian skills, nothing about the way she handled the case.
The pet it was that she is a boyfriend stealer.
And this woman goes on yell to say stay away
from this doctor by name, mentioning her by name, saying
that she will steal your boyfriend. Well, it turns out
the guy she was dating at the time, not the
guy she's with. Now. This is several years ago used
to date this woman, but like six years before that,
and this had nothing to do with my associate. But
obviously this woman was a bit unstable, and so you know,
I called you up. I said, guys, if you want
to review the hospital, review of the hospital, but you
can't publish a personal vendetta. That's not even true, it's
not even accurate. And sure enough they took it down.
But I got to the point now where I will
answer these because you know, as the expression goes, there
are actually three sides to every story. There's their side,
there's your side, and then there's something in the middle
that's probably the reality. And if someone can have the
right to complain, then I think any of us that
are in a service business or a product's business have
a right to respond to that complaint and give the
other side. Do it professionally, you take the higher road,
and I think that if you do that, you will
actually make yourself look better than the complainer. I had
a complaint. This is really funny. I talked about these
in my lectures because it's comical. A lawyer actually complained
about something that happened here with one of my technicians,
and the scenario was she had a dog boarding, and
our policies are very clear that vaccines need to be
current if you're going to board, because I can't afford
the risk of having a sick dog give something to
my other patients, or worse yet, a dog coming in
not vaccinated. It picks something up here, like a little
kennel cough, and then they blame me. So we want
to make sure that everything is up to date, all vaccines.
So she brings her dog in and there is the
vaccine records, no vaccine records, and that which we had
on file was like three years overdue. We tried calling her,
couldn't get a hold of her, left message number. Scene. Meanwhile,
we're gonna have the dog here, so we caught it
up on the vaccines. So turns out when she picks
up and she sees that the charts for the goes
what's this all about? And she explained to us that
she had been someplace else when she was wherever traveling
and she got the vaccine. That's fine and dandy, we said,
but you didn't write it. It wasn't written anywhere and
we didn't know. So no problem, it's not going to
hurt to get the vaccine at this point, and we
won't charge you. And that was it. Case clo ended discussion.
I mean, what more can you do? It's done. We
didn't charge her for the vaccine. She didn't tell us.
It was like an honest mistake, but we really felt
that we needed to because it would have been worse
had had something happened to the dog. So all of
a sudden, I read this complaint on yell written by
this Nancy A. I knew exactly who it was because
it was a little picture and I read it and
I said, wait a second, that's let me look into
I look into it, and I pulled up my computer
the record about what to happen. This happened six years ago,
six years ago, and she's writing about now. And what's
funnier is during this time she continued to come in
and when I called her, I said, man, what is
this all about? Six years ago? Well, I just thought
that people should know that this is unbelievable. So can
you imagine if I did not have the confidence that
I have, And I was like this other doctor and
thismear campaign saying that she's ripping clients off when she's not,
when she actually did the right thing, and she goes
ahead and takes her life anyway. I'd love to hear
from you, guys. I can't believe that now I did
not strike one nerve in somebody to come and say,
wait a second, or here's another viewpoint, or I agree
or I disagree. So if you're that embarrassed to get
on the phone and send me an email to doctor
Jeff Dr Jeff at petlife radio dot com. I want
to thank you again our wonderful sponsors, pro Sends, Pet Products, Calm,
pet Health Network. Go onto pet Health Network. You can
read my blogs and blogs of many of my colleagues
that are fantastic and also Walmart. And we will be
here next week here on pet Live Radio.
Speaker 1: Let's talk pets every week on demand only on petlife
radio dot com.