Speaker 1: You're listening to Petlifradio dot com.
Speaker 2: Well, Hello, Hello, good afternoon, and welcome to another show,
Ask the Beats with Doctor Jeff. I'm your host, Doctor
Jeff Werber here on pet Life Radio. We are the
only live show here on pet Life Radio, and we
want to hear from you. We want you to ask
questions if we want you to bug us, that's what
we're here for. Just think it's free advice. Pick up
the phone, give us a call at eight seven seven
three eight five eight eight A two, or you can
go ahead and send me an email to Dr Jeff.
That's doctor Jeff at pet Life Radio. Or just join
in the conversation. Join us online petlife radio dot com.
Click on Ask the Vats with Doctor Jeff and you
will be right there waiting to speak with us, asking
a question anything you want. We want to also, of course,
thank our sponsors helping us be here for you, and
that's Pro Sense Pet Products, Kong Toys, and our big
retail partner Walmart, who has a great array of Pro
Sense products for you. Veterinary quality at the consumer mass pricing.
Everybody loves that, don't they. So anyway, we have a
special guest here, kind of in studio. I guess you
can call it in studio even though we are in
She is in New Jersey and I'm here in Los Angeles,
but she's in her little private studio at home, and
I'm in my private studio here at my hospital. And
that is doctor Heather Lenser, and Heather comes to us. Well,
first of all, I met well, I've never actually met
Heather personally, but I know of her because we both
have worked on the same show. Heather is general and
emergency practitioner, and she's works as an emergency medicine doc
working closely with the experts those are emergency medicine Critical
Care Board certified veterinarians. And she is a monthly contributor
to the same indicated Fox and Friends that's on Fox
News Channel in the on the weekends. And that's how
I kind of know her because I've also done some
Fox and Friends and also she's appeared on Today Show
with Kathy Lee and Hoda And recently she was elected
to be the board of directors of AHA, which is
the American Animal Hospital Association, as a communications consultant and
basically teaching veterinarians something that veterinarians need so badly, and
that is how to communicate. So anyway, without further ado, Heather,
how are you hi, Jeff.
Speaker 3: I'm great. I'm absolutely great. I can't wait to meet
you in real life, but we'll just have to do
our virtual studio.
Speaker 2: Thing exactly exactly. So what are the things that you're
involved in? I see that you you know obviously some
local TV and I know you're based in New Jersey,
also in Philly. And what kind of pharmaceutical consulting do
you do.
Speaker 3: I work for Zoetis, which is used to be Heiser
Animal Health, and I know you do some you are
friends with them as well. Absolutely, yeah, and I've enjoyed
learning a lot about how different medications can really improve
the quality of life of our animals.
Speaker 2: Right. And I see also from your bio that you
did something crazy and you married a fellow.
Speaker 3: Veterinarian that's like a cardinal sin.
Speaker 2: I know absolutely.
Speaker 3: I know. He's such a good egg though, and it's
been totally worth it. We've been together over seven years
now and we have two little kids, and, like so
many other veterinarians, way too many animals, and I accumulated
most of mine in veterinary school, so I have an
aging population right now.
Speaker 2: How many do you have? How many animals?
Speaker 3: I have two dogs, I have one sweet seventeen year
old cat. I have about eight fish, four chickens, and
his chickens are two years old, Jeff, which means they
are older than ninety percent of the chickens now North America.
And I have three rescued box turtles.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that came from a rescue organization in New York City.
Speaker 2: So for everyone out there, Heather does emergency work. So
if you have any questions about emergencies, now is the
time to contact us at eight seven seven three eight
five eight eight A two. And also, Heather consulting with
another company that's got a new product out I wanted
to tell us about it.
Speaker 3: I'm so excited about this. It's called Tooth to Tail
antioxidant oral gel and it's by a company called Tooth
to Tail. And the reason I'm so passionate about this
is because dental disease and bad breath are a giant
problem in our pet population, as you know, and this
is I'm sure something that bothers you as well. We
have far too many animals walking around with dental problems.
It's seven out of ten dogs and eight out of
ten cats by the before their age of three have
some kind of dental disease. Absolutely, And I actually did
a little bit of research to see, you know, what
is it like on the human side, how much dental
diseases they're on the human side, And it's about that bad.
About fifty percent of people have serious dental disease that
they may or may not be doing anything about. So
I am fascinated with the parallels between animal health and
human health, and I really honed in on dental disease
recently because of learning about this product and how tooth
to tail antioco accident. In gel works is it is
loaded with antioxidants, fantastic ones that come from apples, wheat,
and oat grasses, and even have some natural antibiotic properties
like mensol and cymol, which are from the mixed plant
and the time plant. All a dog or cat needs
to do is lick a little bit of this gel
off of your finger and it goes into their mouths
coats the lining of their mouth, and the antioxidants in
that in a gel will help neutralize bad breath and
it works. We have I don't know if you knew
this or not, Jeff, but we actually got a we're
scheduled to be published in the American Journal of Veterinary
Research AJVR, which is a toss journal to get into.
This is a pure science journal and we're very proud
of that. And this study that we did to prove
how well it works against combating bad breaths will be
coming out soon and we just can't wait to share
even more about it.
Speaker 2: That's great, you know. And for those that are with
us today, one of the components of what causes bad
breath any accidents work amazingly well, so that's very exciting.
How can we possibly encourage some of our listeners to
maybe try some Tooth to Tail.
Speaker 3: I have a great situation today because my friends at
tooth to Tail have said that any callers that we
get today doesn't even need to be about detal disease, anything,
emergency medicine, general practice, surgery, anything we want to talk about.
Our friends at tooth to Tail will send them a
free vial of tooth to Tail antioxidant oral gel for
them to try on their own pets, and they're going
to love it. In our clinical trial, eight out of
ten pet owners saw significant improvement in their dogs and
cat's breath in only a few days, and one hundred
percent of the veterinarians in the study notice the breath changes,
So it really really works. So if any of our
callers like me, I have a little poodle who likes
to sleep on my pillow at night, and he's right
there by my face. And even though I do a
great job take care of his teeth with brushing and
special diets to help crunch some of the plaque off
of their teeth, even though I do that on a
regular basis, he's still right by my face at night.
And now that I'm using tooth to tail, he can
snuggle up and he doesn't get kicked off the bed
on his dog bed. He gets to be right beside me.
So it really works. And you can also get it
at their website too, which is www. Dot tooth two tail.
That's tooth and then the word t o tooth tootail
dot com.
Speaker 2: You know it's funny. I have become so immune to
that smell because I see I always joke that I
get more tongue than anybody I know, So I am
getting licked on the face, right in the mouth all
the time and people say, oh my god, how can
you do that? His breath is so bad. I think
I have a lousy nose. I'm lucky, yeah, very well,
maybe so. But anyway, I think that's great. And we
want to say tooth to tail. So anyone listening now
is the time to call. I mean, just think for me.
You're going to get a free Kong product or pro
sense product from Heather. You're going to get a tooth
to tail antioxidant gel. You have nothing to lose. But
I didn't want to talk about Heather since we have
you on in you are emergency room doc. One of
the things that I am a dinosaur and I know it.
I know and I know, and I hear it all
the time because I am one of these old fashioned guys,
kind of like if we had it in bittering medicine,
I would be one. I just don't get the premium
dollars to be one. And that is a concierge doctor.
And believe it or not, I give out my cell
phone to my clients and I actually encourage them to
call me if they have any questions because from from
an emergency room doc, and I want the honest of
God truth, and I want to affect your guys business
at all, But how many what percent of the emergencies
that you see presented to you say, you know, in
the middle of the night, are actually true emergencies that
it wasn't just the owner not knowing what to do
and kind of panicking versus like a bloat or a
you know, a terrible car wreck or something like that.
Speaker 3: I'd say about twenty percent, and that's I think that's
about fair. A significant portion of what I see is,
you know, people are they are at work all day,
they come home, their vet is closed, and now they've
noticed their dog has diarrhea or is squinting or is
limping or something that had, you know, had they been
there during the day, they could have taken them into
their family veterinarian to be taken care of.
Speaker 2: Right. And that's exactly, by the way, your number is
about what I tell people about you think, So okay,
I say about twenty percent of quota unquote emergencies are
true emergencies, things that that you really have to get
them in today to see a.
Speaker 3: Doctor, exactly. And I am after midnight or so I
think that percentage goes up because people are really they're
not going to get out of bed just for ends.
Speaker 2: Exactly so, and which is interesting to you why I
end up giving my phone number out because the way
I look at is this I have never and again
I have lectured about this. And when I lectured to
veterinarians about you know, marketing and ways to enhance their businesses,
I say, at least have somebody doesn't have to be
you have somebody man your phones, or have a number
that your client could call in Isaiah, just like you said,
at least to midnight, you will say probably fifty percent
of your clients that have gone. And this is the
typical scenario. Typically, we know that emergency facility is more
expensive as they should be. They need to be better equipped,
they have full staff throughout the night. Someone has to
pay for that. So this scenario I have is a
client who panics about something that probably didn't have to
panic about, runs to the emergency. And I rarely meet
emergency clinics that look at the case and say, oh,
missus Smith, I know this looks really bad, but it's not.
You can easily wait till tomorrow and see your vet.
What they're gonna do is they're gonna do something. They're
going to treat it whatever it is, and if it's sometimes,
depending on the emergency clinician and how they're being paid,
you know, they might do maybe more than needs to
be done at that time, more than just triage. So
then about two weeks later, three weeks later, Missus Smith
comes to me for something on time that's not a
terrible emergency, and I say, here's our game plan. He goes, doc,
I'd love to, but you know what, I'm just tapped
out because I spend four hundred dollars at the emergency
clinic too weeks ago and so, and I tell these
veterinarians that, in essence, if you don't make yourself available
to your clients to help them through these emergencies, then
you're hurting yourself in a way because the client only
has so many limited funds and they may need you
but can't afford you later on down the road. And honestly,
what I do is if it is really an emergency,
and I only keep a technician here at night at
my hospital, so if it's something that I know I
can handle with one tech, I'll come in. If it's
something like a bloat, or something major that I know
is going to need a team of veterinarians and a
whole surgical crew. I will send them in, but I
will call the hospital myself first to alert them that
this patient is coming in. So in that way, from
the client's perspective, I'm still staying part of that treatment.
Speaker 3: Team and you are. That situation, from my perspective as
an emergency doctor, is ideal because what part of the
reason that we as emergency doctors will do a lot
more testing at two o'clock in the morning is we
don't have that pet's medical history. And a lot of
times I wish owners would keep a copy of their
medical record on a regular basis, updated on a regular basis,
so they can bring it to me at two o'clock
in the morning, so I don't have to repeat blood
work that was just done or X rays that were
just done. Because as much as I want to be
able to break into your veterinary hospital and access your
medical records at two in the morning, I can't.
Speaker 2: Well, you can break it in mine, It's okay, that's.
Speaker 3: Cool, okay. So when what owners will do instead is
they'll bring and this is so frustrating for everyone they'll
bring the invoice, so you will have printed out you know,
what you did, your blood work, your exam, and they
bring that to me and all I get out of
that is that it was done and how much it costs,
and they just would have the results. And it teems
me to say, we have to spend this money. But
Fluffy is you know you say, Fluffy doesn't normally act
like this. I see a dog who is definitely showing
signs of illness, and I'm kind of flying blind here,
So I love that you call ahead of time. I
bet you're also the kind of doctor that lets the
er that call you back. So I'm sure you shore
them your cell phone number. And that provides continuity of
care for everybody, and you are now incorporated into the
treatment team for that pet, because, as you're aware, sometimes
these animals need to stay at a facility like mine,
which is twenty four to seven fully staffed all the time.
They have to stay for a couple of days, right,
And we love being able to have the veterinarian involved,
and a lot of hospitals will call that's on every
morning to give them an update. But proactively having someone
like yourself who seeks out giving that feedback is just invaluable.
Speaker 2: And I think also from the client perspective, and I
would love to hear from anyone listening is I think
there's a certain comfort level that people have with their
own veterinarian. And they'll get a little nervous where they're
going someplace and they see all this high techi stuff
and they see the price tags and they get a
little nervous, and it's nice to be able to at
least chat with their regular vet and there's a certain
comfort involved with that. I just want to we have
to break for our quick little two minute break, and
then when we come back, I want you to finish
what you're saying. Then I want to add something to
that as well. So stay tune, everybody. We want to
hear from you. Eight seven seven three eight five eight
eight eight two. Just think of all the freebers you're
gonna get today. If you give us a call, we'll
be right back.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back right after these messages. Stay tuned.
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Speaker 2: And I want to well give you all back to
ask the bets with doctor Jeff here on pet Life Radio.
I'm here with my very special guest, doctor Heather Lencer,
who is an emergency room doc and also a TV
doc and has done a zillion things, which is great,
And we were in the middle of talking about just
some of the issues about emergency medical care and some
of the differences and some of the things that you
can do as a pet parent when it comes to
having that emergency that might help keep those costs down
and help your emergency room docks out quite a bit.
And before the break, Heather, you're just about to make
a point, sorry to interup with go Ahead.
Speaker 3: You were making a great point about how because you're
so accessible to your clients, they can call you from
the emergency room and you and the veterinarian they can
all speak together. Because when we're making difficult decisions, like
doing an emergency surgery on a fourteen year old dog,
for example, that has already has a lot of issues,
it's very helpful to have your general practitioner who's known
that dog for years and years and years on that
team along with the emergency doctors to make that important decision.
Because as our pets are aging, we all have different
ways that we want their last years to be and
that sometimes includes fighting for every last moment by doing
very aggressive surgeries and treatments and chemotherapies and that type
of thing. But for some other people, and it's not
that they don't love the animals any less, but philosophically,
they want the last amounts of time months, years with
their older animal to be a little bit less invasive.
And having that relationship with a family practitioner is so
critically important.
Speaker 2: And another difference is and people should know that, is
that when you know, we always talk about a game plan,
we don't like typically, in a general practice situation, we
like to create a plan. You know, I always kind
of feel like Gregory House MD, where we have to
get our history, we do our physical and we sort
of rank what the possible problems might be and what
tests are needed to really in or rule out those
particular issues, starting with the most obvious and ultimately going
to something that's more esoteric. And we have the luxury
of time in a general practice situation, we don't have
to do all on one day. In an emergency situation, however,
it's different, and a lot of times those emergency docs
are faced with the true emergency and they don't have
the luxury of time, so they have to run all
those tests at one time because if not having some
important information may make the difference between life and death.
Speaker 3: It is not hard for me in a critical situation
to spend one thousand dollars in an hour trying to
find out what's wrong. And again, having a more in
depth relationship with everyone would clearly a lot of times
cut down on that cost. But sometimes you brought up
a bloat when the stomachs twist, and our great dan
and owners out there I'm sure are very aware of that,
I think it's a forty percent of great day crazy.
Absolutely so in a situation like that, I need to
go to surgery now, I really do. And with time
on our side, a lot of times we can save
these guys.
Speaker 2: You know, it's interesting one thing you mentioned about bloat,
and I think I've made this point before to our listeners,
but I'll do it again. When you have those large breed,
deep chested dogs that are prone to bloat, and you
are being a responsible pet parent and having them spade
when they're young, please talk to your veterinarian about doing
what's called a PEXI. It's a GASTROPEXI. What it does
is it tacks the stomach to the body wall so
it can't twist later in life. And we are now
recommending that for all of our large breeds that are
getting their bellies opened up anyway they're getting spade. It's
not that much more expensive once you're already in there.
The anecees is paid for, most of the surgery is
paid for. To add that gastro petsy to the procedure,
and that could save your dog's life later on.
Speaker 3: Absolute lyka, I think that is the best advice i've
heard in a long time. I think it's a fantastic idea.
There are a few things we can prevent in life,
but that would be one of them, and I think
that's a fantastic idea.
Speaker 2: And what's interesting is the cost of a bloat is,
oh go, oh my god, it's going to be ridiculously expensive,
and it's not always a hundred percent because you have
some post operative complications that are very common. So we
recommend that to all of our large breed, deep tested dogs.
So one of the things that we often get on
the show, we get some emails, and since we have
two heads of better than one, I'm going to read
an email that came up to me. We don't have
a lot of time to talk about it, but we're
going to. Basically, Tara is writing about two cats, a
male and a female. They've been living together. They hang
out it together, they look at the outside world together,
and one day they were sort of looking through a
window and fussing like crazy, and she walked over to
see what was going on and the male cat they
were looking at something outside, maybe another cat, maybe a squirrel,
and they were like literally hissing like crazy, and then
all of a sudden, the male cat started to hiss
and go after the female. That's Tucks went after Taffy,
And believe it or not, they are still having problems
where Tucks is chasing Taffy around as if she's some
strange cat like. Tucks has gotten very aggressive and hostile
towards them.
Speaker 3: Did Tarah mention how old these guys were?
Speaker 2: These guys are both middle aged cats, and they've been
together for a long time. It does not say here
specifically how old they are, but they've been living together
for a while and they've always got along. Well, so
she's tried to, you know, do the squirting right now,
she's separating them, but she's obviously very saddened over this
because they used to be. But so, uh, from a
doctor's perspective, well, you have any idea what you think
is going on? Any concepts? I thought I had an idea,
But let's hear from uh what you?
Speaker 6: I guess?
Speaker 3: I guess I because the whole emergency doctor saying puts
you in a place where you're always looking for the
worst possible situation. You'd rather go to a paranoid emergency
veterinarian than someone who's like oh, everything's going to be okay.
So the first thing, you know, So the first thing
I go to is is there something medically going on
with this boy kitty? So is there something going on
maybe in his brain? And that's why I asked how
old he was, because sometimes things like brain tumors can
start growing as in a small area in the brain,
and as they get larger and larger and larger, they
can start pressing on certain parts of the brain that
can affect vision judgment. That type of thing.
Speaker 2: One of the things that I was saying about, and
again it's sort of neurorelated, but we used to joke
in vet school that give me a cat's toughest medical
or surgical problem over a cat behavior problem any day,
because cat behavior problems. So I see this, and again
I'm going to assume that they're younger, because she doesn't
say anything about it. Up to now, they were totally normal.
Is what we call redirected aggression. Unfortunately, Taffy was in
the wrong place at the wrong time. So now Tucks
is looking out the window and he is mad at
this other whatever it was out there that he saw,
and he looks to his right, sees nothing. He looks
to his left, and who does he see? Poor old Taffy.
So now he associates Taffy with what was going on
outside that got him really pissed off. So now every
time he sees Taffy, what does he think about? He
thinks about what made him so mad in the first place,
out that window. So he's going nuts over this poor cat.
And she didn't do anything, you know, it's sort of
like this, you ever, And this happens a lot. One
cat and the two cat household is brought to the vet. Okay,
and on pickup, they've always traveled together. They share the
same box together. And then when mom picks up, of
course I don't want to leave her second cat alone,
so she brings the cat along with her, the one
that didn't need to come in, righting, this just for
the ride, Come for the right, sweetheart. Right. So what
happens as soon as the cat that was in the
hospital goes near that box, he starts attacking the poor
honest cat that was just innocent little thing, didn't do anything.
So again that cat is associating it's like you made
me to this place, oh man, you now, uh huh?
Speaker 3: So yeah, and there's not even a cone of shame
involved in that scenario. It's yeah, oh god.
Speaker 2: So what I would recommend doing, Tara, is I hope
you're listening, is we need to re establish that relationship.
First of all, maybe getting one of those pheromone sprays,
something that would calming formula, something would just chill Tucks
out a little bit. And then slowly, if Tucks has
a treat that he really really likes, start withholding it
from him and then start giving it to him every time.
And you know, when you bring Taffy within ten feet,
give Tucks a treat, and then make it eight feet
and then six feet, and keep getting closer and closer.
We have to re establish the relationship they once had.
And of course, don't do this near an outside window.
Don't do it near anywhere where he might look outside again.
And whatever it was that freaked him out is going
to freak him out again, because then Taffy's toast. So
if all these things don't work, then I have to
go with Heather and say, you know what, maybe we
have to have Tucks. Maybe it was just total coincidental,
and that maybe something is going on with Tucks that
needs to be explored. And if Tucks is older, by
the way, then absolutely we have to rule out some
medical issues as well.
Speaker 3: And no pun intended, but he might need a cat
scan exactly right.
Speaker 2: Do you guys have a cat scan facility at your place?
Speaker 3: We don't not at this one, but I love having
them around. I have had them in my previous hospitals
and I love.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's really not I mean, it's amazing where medicine
is going technologically and unfortunately where the costs are going.
And just asked any emergency room doc and they'll tell you,
and which is why. And I made this point before,
and in fact I made it a couple of weeks ago.
When we think about pet insurance and how sixty percent
of pets in Sweden are insured, close to forty percent
in the United Kingdom are insured, and here in good
old fashioned USFA less than one percent. We are doing
something wrong. And you need to prepare for those catastrophic
events where you're going to need a heather. You're going
to need one of these emergency facilities, and it gets
sometimes prohibitively expensive, and now's the time to prepare accordingly,
I think it's.
Speaker 3: More devastating to the owner and a whole veterinary team
to have to do something like economic euthanasia exactly where
the owners can't afford things.
Speaker 2: Right, we just talked about that a couple of weeks ago,
economic and it's a scary, scary, sad term. So anyway,
believe it or not, our half hour goes very quickly. Heather.
We'd love to have you back at some point.
Speaker 3: I'd like to.
Speaker 2: And if here I'm going to hopefully I'll offer anyone
who sends us an email and just put in your
email tooth to Tail antioxidant gel and I will talk
to Heather, and I'm sure we can arrange something to
have a tooth to Tail sample or tooth Totail product
sent out to you as well, even though you didn't
have the courage to give us a call live here
on the show. Is that okay?
Speaker 3: And we'll reward them anyway. It's a great product to
get you snuggling back up close with your pets again,
and it really works. I will absolutely be able to
do that.
Speaker 2: Excellent all right, So we want to thank you all
for tuning in that Life Radio Ask the Bets with
Doctor Jeff. I want to thank our guest doctor Heather
let's sir, and we'll see you all right here next
week Thursday, one o'clock Pacific time, four o'clock Eastern time
here on pet Life Radio. Have a good week.
Speaker 1: Let's talk pets every week on demand only on petlfradio
dot com