Speaker 1: You're listening to Petlifradio dot Com.
Speaker 2: Hello there, and welcome, Welcome here. You're listening live pet
Life Radio. You're on with doctor Jeff Werber, hosts of
Astaveets with Doctor Jeff, and I'll be your host here
for the next half hour of hopefully some call ins.
We want to hear from you, a lot to talk about,
and of course we're here. We want to thank our sponsors,
pro Sens Pet Products and the retailers that we work with,
such as our Walmarts and Targets and Walgreens, Kroger, et cetera,
where you can get vet quality products and you can
get them for your pets at basically mass market, much
more sensible pricing. So anyway, you know, I guess the
big news around town and around all of your towns.
What's going on now? And I've gotten a number of
interviews in the last oh I'd say several days, and
that is the cold weather. It is freezing and so
cold that I heard that in Minnesota. Anyone living in Minnesota,
you must give us a call here live at area
code eight seven seven three eight five eight eight eight
two once again that number to reach us to join
us and talk about how cold it is is eight
seven seven three eight five eight eight a two fifty
below zero. Do you realize that you can't be outside
more than three or four minutes in weather at fifty
below zero? I heard Chicago with windchill is at nineteen
or twenty below zero. New York is five below zero.
I mean it is insane, and which makes it more
insane those of us in other parts of the country,
like sunny southern California where it's seventy five degrees. It's
hard to even imagine what's going on. And not only
in your minds as pet parents, but in your pets.
Can you imagine your dog who you go to work
and you put him outside in the backyard and he's
chilling all day, having some fun, running around chasing his ball,
maybe up two or three dogs or more like I do,
and they're just having a blast. And now they're cooped
up inside because they go outside in weather like that,
and there is no way. I don't care what precautions
you can take unless you build for them a covered,
completely heated, spacious doghouse. It's going to be a tough one.
Can you imagine how fast if you put a bowl
of water outside for your pet, and of course they
need their water. How long does it neat to stay
outside before that bowl of water becomes a block of ice.
So these are things that you have to be concerned about.
And I just I mean, god, I was on with
the APD Associated Press yesterday doing a whole interview on
what do we do, how do we change our lifestyle?
What happens to the all of a sudden sedentary lifestyle
that we enforce on our dogs because they cannot be
outside in this kind of weather. I mean, I don't
even know if sled dogs can handle this. I mean,
yeah they can. They got their natural coat, They are
moving and they're working. You know, you're right outside and
you're working. It's certainly not as cold, and even in
regular freezing weather, you can pass a jogger and you
know they're wearing their their leggings and stuff and their sweatshirt.
But what's keeping them going is the fact that their
body temperature is remaining elevated because of the work that
they're doing. But if you can't sit out in a
lounge chair and do nothing and expect to stay warm,
and that's kind of the biggest problem, The biggest issue
that these pets are having and these pet owners are having.
So go ahead and you can either drop me an
email live here at doctor Jeff Dr Jeff at petlifradio
dot com, or don't be shy, don't be bashful. You
can join us right here on the show and just
go on to website pet Life Radio and you can
just click to join the conversation. Right now. I'm the
only speaker here. I don't like that. I want to
see more of you, and of course give us a
call live at eight seven seven three eight five eight
eight eight two, and let's talk about a where you're
calling from, how cold it is, what's changing in your
pets' lifestyle, and even how willing are they to want
to go outside. You know, it's interesting. I've had one
of my clients who now lives in one of the
cold to climates, believe it or not, in Tennessee. And
Tennessee is not typically known to have these sub freezing temperatures.
But it's nine degrees outside of Tennessee now, I mean,
and I think it was. They live in Knoxville. So
when you think about places like Knoxville, places like Nashville
where you would not expect to see snow and it's
nine degrees. So that dog that typically loved to couldn't
wait to go outside in the morning, is now looking
at the door, open door, going hello, I'm not going
out there. You go out there. I'm staying inside the
warmhouse and just see what's going on. And let's I
do want to talk about for a second, because it
it's important that we need to think about as these
cold winters are upon us, and obviously exercise time is
going to be decreased. What happens with the dogs over
the course of the winter season now that they are
getting I don't know, thirty forty fifty percent less exercise,
less movement, less calorie burning than during the spring and summer.
How do you make up for that lost time? What
are some of the suggestions? And I think that I
want to hear what you're doing, and I will give
you some of my suggestions to help cope and end
up not having some obese dog. Come March or April,
when the sun starts coming out, the weather's warming up,
and you want to get out there springtime, and you
have a dog that just can't exercise the way they
used to because they have those extra pounds they put
on during the winter. So first of all comes some precautions.
I know we've talked about this before, and I have
to mention it because you know, when we talked about
it earlier, it was sort of and for many of
you it was yeah, yeah, but it doesn't get that cold.
Well guess what it just did. It is that cold.
So small dogs, small dogs who have relatively larger body
surface areas per pound of body weight, they need to
wear sweaters. They need to wear booties. They need to
keep their feet protected and protected from the environment, the ice,
the salt on the roads, etc. They need some sort
of shelter from the wind, even on those quick little walks.
So get that little dog sweater going. Larger dogs they
probably don't need the sweater as much, unless they have
really really short coats, unless they have poor skin condition. Remember,
in order for skin to work the way it's supposed
to work and the way it does work, it's like
a thermos. It keeps you cool and protects you from
the eat, and it keeps you warm and protects you
from the cold. Just like if you put ice coffee
in the thermost, it's gonna stay cold. If you put
hot coffee in thermist, it's gonna stay hot. So it's
that same insulation type behavior that our skin and coat
provide for our dogs. But it's got to be a
healthy skin and it's got to be a healthy coat.
It's it's not gonna work up to par. So they
can certainly handle some of the harsh cold weather, but
as far as the feet, they still have. Unless they've
been used to running around on hot pavement and their
pads are well calloused, then you're gonna have to do
something to help protect those feet. And the booties work
great and also protect from the ice and that which
whatever municipalities are putting down on the ground on the
sidewalks to help melt the snow that can also serve
as an irritant for the feet. But how do you
keep your pets safe if they have to be outside?
What are the precautions? What do you need to do?
So let's start with an average dog, large dog that
typically needs to be outside. You live in an apartment,
you can't keep inside. My recommendation is to, especially in
temperatures like this, keep them indoors, take them to a
doggy daycare, a facility where they're going to be indoors,
they're going to be safe. They get to play with
other dogs, they get to exercise, they get to do
their agility core, they get to run and do their
jumping and ball playing and whatever happens at these facilities,
they usually love them. It's kind of like being a
day camp. Do you remember those days back when you
were little and your parents want to get rid of you, You
know the feeling. So what you do is you send
your kids to day camp during the summer. Well, it's
the same thing. Let your dogs stay in day camp.
If that's not going to work, and you just absolutely
cannot leave them in a warm home setting. They must
have shelter from the cold. That means, if it's windy,
you have to provide them a true doghouse, something actually
with walls, or you need to set up a barricade
somewhere where they can go behind, you know, large sheets
of plywood propped up some two by fours, covered with
some blankets and give them the nice warm bed. They
have to be able to escape from the wind, chill,
and preferably something that is warm. You know, you can
get a space heater if you have one of those
overhead like you know, you go into a restaurant and
you choose to sit outside. Now obviously not in Minneapolis
at this time of year, but you've been there. And
you can get those space heaters. You can either mount
them on the ceiling or you get the ones that
are on a large stand. You can find them even
in Costco. So you want to have an area where
they are protected from the cold. They have a space heater,
and you can also get water dishes for your dogs
that have a heating element within, or you can get
these water bowls that are kind of like a hollow
water bowl with anti freeze that is impregnated within the
actual water bowl. So when you fill the empty bowl portion,
it is surrounded not just by metal or stainless steel,
but inside is liquid anti freeze and it's totally protected
the dogs handking hold of it because it's within the steel,
the stainless steel, and that too will help and help
prevent the water from freezing over. And that's really really
important because of course our pets need water when they're
outdoor during the day, so blankets, space heater, shelter from
the wind, something to keep the water from freezing over.
And then you have a prayer, a chance of keeping
your dogs protected and still be outside if that is
absolutely essential. One of the things I like. I really
like the idea of either keeping them indoors, you know,
it's a treat for them sometimes, or I think it's great.
The doggy daycare facilities. I took my dogs. It was
a place that opened up here in LA and it
is not just for doggy daycare. It's actually it's a
whole exercise area and have like an agility course. And
one of my dogs, one of my friend's bulldogs, certainly
not the breed that one would expect to thrive and
love running around doing all these obstacles in the agility
obstacle course. And this dog had the best time. He
was such a champ and he needed very little prodding
and very little help. We just got him started. And
he was going up these thin planks and walking across
like a little thin platform about four or five inches wide,
going down, jumping through hoops. I mean, he was having
the time of his life. I mean everybody said, oh
my god, how often do you coming? And I said, he's
never been here before. This was it. So your dogs
didn't have a really, really terrific time doing that as well. Anyway,
once again, it's that time. It's our midway point in
our show. I would love to hear from you. What
are you doing to help protect your pets from this
icy cold weather reaches here at eight seven seven three
eight five eight eight eight two. Send me a quick
email to doctor Jeff at Petlife Radio dot com and
will be back in just a few minutes.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back right after these messages. Stay tuned.
Speaker 3: Swipe It's revolutionary new product that literally so wipes away
cat hair from virtually any surface. You know, most of
us struggle with a roller or vacuum cleaner to clean
up cat hair.
Speaker 2: But anyone who.
Speaker 3: Has tried either of these nose they just don't work
very well. But Swipe It's Patton Pending glove has a
magnetic like quality that removes cat hair from all almost everything.
And best of all, Swipe it is machine washable, so
you can use it over and over again. To order,
just visit swipe its dot com. That's s w i
p e t s a simple solution for sheddingstan That's
how I.
Speaker 4: Love My I Love My Pets.
Speaker 5: It's the nis single by Mark Winter, available on iTunes.
Speaker 4: This year, Americans are expected to spend a jaw dropping
thirty six billion on their pets. From lighted leashes to
high end spot products. The discriminating pet owner can find
just about any thanks pamper kids or her pet. Hi,
this is Michelle Fern. Join me every week for Best
Bets for Pets, where we'll talk about the latest pet
products and talk to the companies that make them. Best
Bets for Pets every week only on Petlifradio dot com.
Speaker 2: Let's talk past.
Speaker 5: Let's don Petcobo Radio, Headline.
Speaker 1: Radio, pet Live Radio dot.
Speaker 5: Com And welcome back.
Speaker 2: You are here live with doctor Jeff Werber. That's me,
host of Asked Doctor Jeff here on pet Life Radio.
And we are a call in show, and I think
one of the only live call in shows here on
pet Life Radio. And guess what we need callers. I
want to hear from you eight seven seven three eight
five eight eight eight two. If you're really bashful, which
I doubt it. I know you're not that bashful, and
you want to send us an email or just join
the conversation by typing in your questions, your comments, go
ahead and do so here on pet Life Radio. You
can also send me a quick email too, Doctor Jeff.
That's Dr Jeff at petlife radio dot com. So before
the break, we were talking about this insanely unseasonably freezing
weather in many parts of the country, places like you know,
along the entire Northeast and the Midwest. It's insane Minnesota
with wind till down to fifty below zero, Chicago, twenty
below zero Tennessee. Who would think that Tennessee is going
to be nine degrees I mean, that is crazy and
unfortunately for you in those places, Fortunately for me here
in La in southern California, we're still getting unseasably warm weather.
Go figure. But we were talking about the real dangers.
This is not just textbook danger. This is real dangers
of keeping our pets outside in these ice cold, these
freezing conditions. And it is really bad. When we are
told that a person, if in for example, Minneapolis, cannot
walk outside for more than three or four minutes because
of frostbite, you can imagine what it's like for our pets.
And they really don't know they're thrown outside. They have
to make the best of it if they can. So
if you really really must keep your dogs outside, take
the precautions we talked about shelter from the wind, warmth,
overhead heaters, floor heaters, some way to keep the water
from freezing, either heated bowls or bulls that have an
a freeze in their shells. There are certainly things to do.
Of course, in my opinion, the best bet keep them inside.
You can keep them inside either in the house, especially
if somebody's going to be home with them, or you
could take them to these doggy daycare facilities that have
lots of things that they can do to keep them occupied.
But one of the things that we know that dogs
especially are not going to get as much of during
this time of year than compared to warmer seasons, and
that is exercise. So what happens, what happens to any
of us, and the same thing happens to our dogs.
If we are accustomed to eating a certain amount of
calories each day and we're maintaining our weight because we
are doing a certain amount of exercise each day or
each every other day, or every week, whatever the case
may be, and all of a sudden we stop doing
the exercise, right we hurt ourselves on the tennis court,
the basketball court, whatever it may be, and all of
a sudden, we just can't play with the same schedule
that we were. What happens if we are now getting
less exercise that we cannot make up and we don't
make adjustments in our diet. I think the answer is
very clear, and that is we are going to pack
on those extra pounds. Well, it's no different for our pets.
When we have dogs, especially, they have a certain exercise
routine and they are not able to manage that routine
this time of year, and we don't make adjustments in
their diet, it is going to spell trouble, weight gain trouble,
and with that comes all the essentials, all the issues
that come along with the added pounds, most of which
are along many things, but much of which is going
to be the joint and locomotive issues. So now picture this.
You're fast forward a second. So they're putting on the weight.
They're older dog, middle aged dog. The stress on their
joints now is heightened because of the weight gain, and
all of a sudden, you are anxiously awaiting for April
springtime and it comes and what now? What you want
to get your dog out there exercising And he's saying,
oh God, I'm not going out there. First of all,
I can't run that much anymore. My joints are hurting
because I put on the weight. My body's hurting because
I put on the weight. I can't do what I
used to do last spring. And whose fault is that?
So what's going to happen is you are going to
be working harder for yourselves, to work your pets harder
so they can just do their basic exercise routines to
get back in shape. So it's very very important to
plan ahead for this inevitable complication of winter and start
cutting back on their food very very Simply work it
out with your veterinarian how much exercise is being done.
And you know, there's a new device you might want
to talk to your vet about it. You can go
online and check it out. It's called the Whistle and
it is a device that is attached to a collar
that can not only measure movement and activity, but it
can sense signals. You can actually link it to your
phone and you can check your phone during the day
to see what is Rover doing right now? Is he
sitting in that corner or is he actually running around
moving having fun? So you know it's so funny when
clients come into me and I say, now, what about
during the day, just you're dog getting Oh god, during
the day, he's outside, he's running around, he's playing, And
then we look at the whistle and we find out
he was sitting in a corner for four or five
straight hours, hardly moving around. Just because they're outside doesn't
mean they're playing and running and taking advantage of the
fact that they're outside. It's like having the dog runs
at a hospital or a boarding facility and you start thinking, oh, well,
he's in a big run. It's got to be one
pretty big run for the dog to actually run. That's
like doing you know, laps in a lap pool that's
only ten feet long. It's not going to happen. It's
certainly not going to happen effectively. So what you really
need to do is know how much exercise your dogs
are getting, and there we know getting much less exercise
in this weather. So start cutting back on the food.
You might cut back fifteen percent, twenty percent. Work it
out with your veterinarian. Obviously, if you're going to start
cutting back, you want to do it slowly. You don't
want to do it all at once. You don't want
them to look at you and say, Dad, what are
you joking? Mom? Come on, that was appetizer, where's my dinner?
So you have to do it in such a way
that they can't tell. You can also look into maybe
getting a low calorie food so they get to eat
this volume of food that they've been eating, but they
are getting less calories in that volume. So that's you know,
of course, very very important. And I don't know if
you guys had a chance to listen to Doctor Bernadine
Cruz and the show just before this, but one of
the guests, the veterinarian, was talking about rehab centers and
again these are phenomenal centers where you can take advantage
of and they do obviously medical rehab, but you know,
things indoor type exercising. A lot of them. The rehab
centers here actually have water treadmills, so you can, because
again space is somewhat limited, they can be inside the water.
They're getting the resistance, they're getting exercise, they're getting work,
they're working on their joints, and they're doing it with
the buoyancy of being in the water and also the
water resistance. And you know, fifteen minutes spent in that
is much more effective than say fifteen minutes on just
a regular treadmill, or maybe even fifteen minutes at the
dog park. So that's another option for you. But you
really need to plan ahead to make any type of
adjustments in what you're going to do to keep those
unwanted pounds off your pets during this crazy weather where
you cannot get out and exercise with the same schedule
that you've been exercising. So once again we're here. You're
here with doctor Jeff Werber, your host of Askabets with
Doctor Jeff here on Pet Life Radio eight seven seven
three eight five eight eight eight two. And remember, if
we get you to the point of not being so
bashful and call a question in, or if you want,
you can go ahead and send me an email or
just type your question in here live online. I'm sitting here,
I'm watching the screen. We will send out a free
pro sense product for your pet, be it a multivitamin beat,
a dog toothpaste, toothbrush kit, or one of our glucosamine
conjoint joint formulas, hairball remedy for your cat, a calming
formula calming remedy. There are lots of things that we
can send you, lots of things you may need for
your pet. It will give you a great chance to
try some of our wonderful products that we make for
the Pro Sense line of pet products available at your
local Walmart, Walgreens target our mass market stores. Once again,
our goal was simply to bring you veterinary quality products
at a mass market pricing level so everybody can enjoy
helping their pets look and feel the best they can
possibly be. So you know what you can. Even as
we're getting towards the end of our hour or half hour,
I would like to you to send me just an
email to doctor Jeffykpetlife Radio dot com. They all get
voted to me and let me know how your pets
have been holding up during this unseasonably ice cold weather.
So I am off next Friday morning. I'm here doing
the show of course on Thursday. That's one o'clock pm
Pacific time, four o'clock pm Eastern time. But we are
heading off to the North American Veterinary Conference. This is
the time of year, the beginning of the year where
we get all of our conferences, so we have NAVC
that's Orlando. Every January and that is quite a show,
and it always boasts to be the largest of all
the veterinary shows every year. And then in February we
get to the Western Veterinary Conference that's in Las Vegas,
and interestingly, they boast to be the largest veterinari conference
of the year. So it's sort of like, you know,
I know when the college rankings come out every year
and there are apparently twenty five or thirty schools in
the top ten, the whole idea being that everybody is
claiming that they are the best. Anyway, arguably, they are
both extremely popular, huge conferences. The question is do you
want to escape the insanely cold and get down to
Orlando during January or have fun in the city that
never sleeps in Las Vegas every February. But they're great conferences.
And what I'll do is when I come back, we
will have lots of new gadgets, new things, new treatments
to talk about. And that's why I love going to
these trade shows. And then we get to go to
the Global Pet Expo and pet Life Radio will be
there as well, and that is marched back in Orlando,
and this is the big trade show where all of
the pet products. The manufacturers come to to show what's new,
what's exciting, what new services that people can look into,
the products you can buy to help take the best
care possible of your wonderful pets at home. So our
time is up. It is just pushing one point thirty.
I will be back next Thursday to chat with you.
Hopefully you will be much less shy, much less bashful,
but we'll have some things to talk about. I want
your questions. Give us a call once again here at
pet Life Radio at eight seven seven three eight five
eight eight eight two. I'm doctor Jeff Werber, and we'll
see you next week.
Speaker 1: Let's talk pets every week on demand only on petlight
radio dot com