Speaker 1: You're listening to Petlifradio dot com.
Speaker 2: Well, hello everybody, and thanks for joining us again once
again here at Ask the Vets with doctor Jeff here
on Let's Talk Pets on pet Life Radio, where.
Speaker 3: I am here for you.
Speaker 2: I am here to answer your questions about your pets.
Head You can reach us one of two ways. Either
send me a quick email to doctor Jeff at petlifradio
dot com or easier eight seven seven three eight five
eight eight A two And we're here to answer your.
Speaker 3: Questions about your pets.
Speaker 2: Dogs and cats are my favorites. However, if you have
a question about anything, ask it. We'll go ahead, I
will get to an answer and we'll talk about it
next week on our show. We're here every Thursday one
pm Pacific time, four pm Eastern time. And I want
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And Protens is a line of pet products geared to
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to the phones and questions, we get emails to the
show once again. You can drop me an email at
doctor Jeff at Petlifradio dot com. And this is spring.
We're getting ready for summer in June. And this is
the time that everybody seems to get reinterested in their homes,
their lawns. They want to beautify their they're fertilizing, and
you know, I love to share stories while you guys
are getting the courage to call in at eight seven
seven three eight five eight eight A two or send
me an email at doctor Jeff at Petlife Radio dot com.
Dr Jeff Life Radio dot com. And so we had
this really cute little dog come in and was it
looked like he had injured his eye. His eye was
literally just blotchy red. Whether he fell or accidentally one
of the kids was playing and he got kicked in
the face, who knows, but that's kind of what it
looked like.
Speaker 3: So we started treating the eye.
Speaker 2: Fortunately, we did an eye stain that was negative, which
means there was no corneal damage and it didn't look
that bad, and that the dog was acting really fine otherwise,
so we figured it was a simple eye problem. One
thing the owner noticed and mentioned is that she thought
that her dog, as a squeaky little female, was having
trouble urinating and when he urinate, she urinated it seemed
a little bloody. Well, we had squeaking in the hospital
overnight and treating the eye, checking her out, everything seemed fine,
and when she urinated for us, sure enough she had
some blood in the urine. Well, of course we want
to do an ultrasound and get some urine collection. We're
hopefully heed to catch a urine sample to send it
off to your analysis. Does she have bladderstone? Does she
have a really bad bladder infection? And what we noticed
on the belly was what we call bruising echamosis. And
then we took a better another look at her eye
and the other eye started to have this red appearance,
and looking at her gums, which not only started to
look a little pale, but started to show what we
call petitiation, kind of like little red polka dots. So
now we're thinking something else is going on here. We
did a quick blood test and her PCV packed cell
volume was getting a little low. Still in it it
was okay, but it was a little low, and her
platelets were normal. And I'm looking at this poor dog
and I'm thinking, hmm, we have bleeding going on, we
have bruising, we have partitiation and a dropping pack cell volume,
and I'm thinking, well, we have oh with normal platelets.
And I'm thinking, you know what, we have a rat
poisoned dog. And I said to my associate, you need
to call the owner right now and ask her is
there any way, shape or form that we ended up
having rat poison put down on the lawn by the gardener.
And sure enough, as was the case, we had a
problem and they had put down rat poison. And this
is a real problem. So we obviously started treating from
a injury to a severe, potentially life threatening toxin, given
the fact that this is a small dog. Now, one
point thing I need to point out that when we
have a dog who ingests rat poison, it's not only
them ingesting the rat poison directly, but if you have
a dog, a little terrier or a dog who's a ratter,
who is known to want to chase and go after
possums and rats and mice and other rodents, if they
would happen to catch a rodent, that itself was killed
because of the rat poison. Then they have enough rat
poison in their system that if a dog eats or
munches on such a mouse or rat or rodent, then
they too can become toxic from the rat poison. So
it's really really dangerous. So sure enough. In fact, right now,
this little Squeaky is doing great. We did a blood
transfusion and getting the blood right now. The pack cell volume, oh,
just so you know how fast it can drop. The
normal for what we call a PCV a packed cell volume,
that's the percent of cells when you draw blood. The
percent of the blood is cells versus the percent that
is fluid or serum should be around thirty seven to
fifty five percent, So a little less than half on
average is going to be cells and the rest is
going to be serum. Twenty five is where Squeaky was
yesterday and today Squeaky was thirteen. That's like incompatible with life.
It's getting so low, which means we have to transfuse
and we're doing now we're treating with vitamin K. But
the point is here, you need to be very careful
everybody that your gardeners know that you have pets, and
before they put down snail bait, rat poison, any chemicals
on your lawn, or any type of rodenticide or insecticide
around your premises. Then you need to know that it's
so important to let them tell you that they're going
to do it so you can keep your pets safely indoors.
So we have a caller callers on Now Hi, you're
with Live with Doctor jeff On ask the vats with
Doctor Jeffer.
Speaker 3: And who's this?
Speaker 1: Hi?
Speaker 4: Hi, doctor Jeff, how are you?
Speaker 3: Who is hi? Shelly? And what can I do for you?
Speaker 4: Well, this is my question. I can't figure this out.
I have a small dog and he's grown up with
this rather large cat. And I know that cats have certain,
you know, things that they do. Like if you pickle
them by their tail, they raise their butt up. I
don't know why they do that, but they do that.
I thought does the same thing. Why is that all right?
Speaker 3: So it's a boy dog, yes, right, because he's a male.
Speaker 2: So, first of all, cats do it, and usually more
so if you think you're I would imagine your spade.
Speaker 3: Is it a spade female or a male? Your cat?
You're both males.
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, they enjoy it, and when you
start rubbing their back ends. In fact, one way when
you have a female cat, and this is before she's spade,
and you rub their butt end during that special time
of season, oh my god, they're going to be throwing
up their butt in the air. They're going to be
moving the tail to the side and basically saying to
the male, come and get me. Female dogs that are
in season will do the same thing when other dogs
do it, or cats do it, especially males. They love
the feeling. They love to get scratched in the butt
end and they will just it's almost like an endearing behavior.
So they're in essence telling you rub me more, rub
me more.
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 2: And when they are doing that, that's one thing you
should do is keep it up now. Just sometimes animals
that have skin problems will sort of they'll twist and
turn and they'll arch their back when you hit that spot.
Sometimes they'll take one of their back legs and start
lifting their legs scraw. Then you know you have a
dog or a cat that might be having some sign
of allergy, some skin problem, and that might need to
be addressed by your veterinarian. But if they are everything
else is fine. They're not scratching. Otherwise you're not seeing
dry skin, you're not seeing any scams or irritation or sores.
And just when you hit that spot they throw their
butt up in the air. That's just making them feel good.
So congratulations, you are doing what it is to make
them feel good. And that's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 1: Now I know that.
Speaker 4: Why does the dog do that? Or is the same
thing the cat and learned it.
Speaker 2: It's a possibility. But a lot of times if my
dog's too they'll leave you more so than not. When
my dogs will do when you hit the spot, they
will arch their back and just almost get this expression
of oh my god, that feels so good.
Speaker 3: They like it.
Speaker 2: And again I would just the only rule out is
a skin issue. But if there's no skin issue, and
then and especially it's a male. If it was a
female and she would often exhibit other side of being
in heat, especially twice a year every seven months, then
I would say that when she was spade, there may
have been some ovarian tissue left behind, and a certain
times of the season she will exhibit that behavior.
Speaker 3: Scratch your butt. She throws that butt up in the air.
Speaker 2: But in a mail obviously that's extremely unlikely, so therefore,
or I would say insofar as impossible, so I would say,
he just likes it. He thinks it feels good and
as long as it's no sweat off your back. If
you know what he feels good and he loves it,
then keep doing it.
Speaker 4: Great. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: You're very welcome. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2: And tell your friends that if they have any pets
and they want to get some free advice here on
pet Life Radio, to give us a call, just like
you did. Eight seven seven three eight five eight eight
A two and you said you're from Los Angeles. I
hope you are as I am enjoying our gorgeous weather.
Speaker 4: Oh certainly am.
Speaker 2: Thank you good, Thank you, Shelly, nice talking, Thanks for
calling it so so. You see, Shelley just called everybody.
That mean, that's how easy it is. Pick up the
phone or send me an email to doctor Jeffdrjeff at
petlife radio dot com. So, having talked about this story
with Squeaky and the rat poison, I brought along with
me a list of common household poisons that everybody really
should know about. We touched on the pesticides. So when
you have any kind of exterminator company that comes to
your house on a regular basis, make sure that they
know that you have pets. And a lot of times,
be really very careful when you buy things like you
buy the ant spray, or you buy the roach spray,
or whatever it is that you're gonna buy the flea spray.
Understand even the garden pesticides and weed killers, make sure
they are kept out of your pet's reach because they
could be deadly. Other things anti freeze. Now, any older
anti freeze, believe it or not, has appropylee gly called
which have a very sweet taste. Actually, the rules have
been changed more recently and interestingly by a young girl
I think at the time she was eleven, when her
dog was poisoned by licking the antifreeze dripping from underneath
a car radiator, and I think the dog passed away.
And she was so shocked that anybody could make a
manufacture a deadly chemical that had a sweet taste and
it does. It did, so she started petitions and lobby
that ultimately ultimately became law that the manufacturers of antifreeze
had to add bitters into their formulation so it would
be objectionable to dogs and cats, but anything that's old
on the market it is very deadly, so you want
to be careful. Certain household and garden plants can be dangerous. Aconite,
azalea's belladonna, buckeye, foxgloves, hyacinth ivy, many lilies, night shade,
tulips are all potentially toxic and the symptoms can range
anywhere from vomiting and diary rhea. Oral irritation meaning irritation
around the mouth or swelling around the mouth and throat,
increased drooling, excessive thirst, increased heart rate. Many of our drugs,
as you know, come from chemicals, so and many of
our poisons come from natural chemicals. A lot of our
flea products, the pyriethns, actually come from carysanthemum. Some of
our heart medications come from plants as well, so you
have to be very careful because some of these not
only sometimes harmless sometimes even helpful plants when they are
in large quantity, can be very very toxic, so keep
that in mind. Point steady is I think are overblown.
Points set A dog would have to eat a bushel
full to suffer any negative side effects.
Speaker 3: But many of the plants.
Speaker 2: Check with your veterinarian go online to make sure that
these things are safe. We're going to get to a
few others in a minute. I want to take a
quick break. I want to thank our sponsors. Notably are
pro Sense Pet Products. Pro Sense products that are veterinary endorsed,
veterinary formulated but available to you over the counter, and
you can find them at some of your local retailers
and look for specials online at Walmart dot com. For example,
you can find them at Walgreens, at Target, but pro
Sense Pet Products look for them and also Walmart. So
we're going to take a quick break and we'll be
back in a few minutes.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back right after these messages. Stay tuned.
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Speaker 6: Hi, this is Timlink, animal communicator and pet expert and
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Speaker 8: Welcome to Sassy Seniors, a show about our fabulous.
Speaker 3: Older dogs and cats.
Speaker 8: I'm your host, Kelly Jackson. You know, I wanted to
create a show to really showcase our senior pets. And
you know, as a human population ages and lives longer.
Of course, so are one pets, but many of us
with Asian pets, it's so interesting we have a tough
time realizing or really admitting that they are seniors. So
in a way, I'd kind of like to think of
our senior pets as as wise puppies.
Speaker 3: What do you think about that?
Speaker 8: Be sure to join us for another edition of Sassy Seniors,
and remember, celebrate your senior Pets every week.
Speaker 1: On demand only on Petlife radio dot com.
Speaker 2: Well, welcome back to Ask the Bets with doctor Jeff
here on Petlife Radio dot com. And we are talking pets,
and we're talking about some toxins and household poisons that
we need to be aware of as I'm treating a
little squeaky for rat poison. But we have a caller,
So Hello, who's on the line.
Speaker 6: Hi?
Speaker 3: Hi? Who's this?
Speaker 8: Oh?
Speaker 3: Hello there? How are you?
Speaker 4: I think? How are you?
Speaker 3: I'm doing well? What can I do for you? I's
a question, sure for John?
Speaker 4: Is it great to give them vegetables like carrots and
like procylate?
Speaker 2: Great question? And the answer is yes, But it all
depends on the vegetable. We're gonna remember one thing. First
of all, carrots are great. Fruit like apples are great,
but no skin broccoli is great as you get to
really leafy vegetables. However, things like beans, things like lettuce,
celery dogs don't have the same type of cellulase that
we have that is used in the digestive process to
break down these leafy vegetables, so they're not harmless at all.
But they also are not digestible, so if they're chopped
up into very small pieces, they're fine. But you might
notice that you're going to see these small piece is
coming out in the dog's stool. Whereas if they eat
like large pieces of lettuce or celery, they might throw
them up, not because they're poisonous, not because they're dangerous,
but they have no way of really breaking them down.
But other vegetables like potato, like green peas, like carrots
you mentioned, broccoli, cauliflower, things that don't need that type
of salaes to break them down, are actually really good.
Speaker 3: In fact, I recommend using.
Speaker 2: Carrots as little dog treats or little pieces of cut
up apple as little dog treats, because they do very well.
Now as far as fruits are concerned, whereas we all
used to use grapes and feed grapes indiscriminately, we have
now learned that there are some dogs that have a
very bizarre, idiosyncratic reaction to the grape skins and some
of the prosontietins in the grape skins, and therefore causing
severe kidney damage. And therefore we wreck command to eliminate grapes,
even as treats, or even if you knew your dog
has been fine in the past. Let's not take chances
because we just don't know enough about it, so to
be safe, we're now recommending no raisins, no grapes for
our dogs. Now, I'm glad you call because and talked
about vegetables, because one of the vegetables on my list
of potential dangers are onions and garlic. And it seems
that raw onions and raw garlic can be toxic to
dogs because they have something in their cells it's called
thiosulfate that actually can cause a rupture, a breakdown of
red blood cells, ultimately causing anemia. And for example, a
lot of baby foods. You know, veterinary hospitals love to
feed dogs and mostly puppies and kittens that are recuperating
from disease that aren't really eating much hard food and
sometimes don't even like their puppy or kitten food. We
love to feed them baby food. In fact, I should
have brought stock in some of the baby food company.
But one of the baby food companies, though not anymore,
had onion powder in their food and it was potentially
causing problems. They really, it's so funny they took it out,
not because of the potential danger.
Speaker 3: To the babies.
Speaker 2: They took it out because they found that veteran hospitals
were using their food galore to feed puppies and kittens
and it was dangerous. So they now have removed onion
powder from their food. So we felt pretty good about
that actually, because I can't imagine that we want our
little babies to be eating onion powder anyway. So onion
and garlic is a no no. As of course I
did mention the raisin and grapes. And let me give
you one more, one more vegetable that is interesting because
it's definitely a volume related problem, and that's avocado. And
you know, it's funny when we started talking about avocados,
you know, being a poisonous It's actually a fruit, not
a vegetable because it does grow on trees. But everybody
considers it off at a vegetable.
Speaker 3: But it's a fruit.
Speaker 2: But if you have high amounts of avocado, it actually
can cause some heart muscle issues, It could damage the lungs,
it can cause some difficulty breathing. Also, there's a high
fat content around avocados and therefore, in too high a
dose can cause pancretitis. Now what's interesting is there is
a food on the market I'm sure, you've all heard
it called aviderm and people say, wait a second, doc,
you're telling us that avocados potentially you're toxic, and there's
a food on the market that's got avocados in it.
And it's because it's all you know, the small amount
could be good, a normal amount is okay. You get
to an excessive amount, it could be poisonous. Take two
aspen you could be fine. Take ten aspen you can
kill yourself. So, you know, we just understand that a
lot of these things have an upper level. We call
it an LD fifty, and sadly it's not something you
really want to promote, but for FDA approval and a
lot of these medications have to know what the LD
fifty is, and that is the dose at which fifty
percent of the animals tested are going to die or
get very sick. So that's the dose. Obviously, we don't
want to ever approach that dose that's called the LD fifty,
so we need to be careful. Avocado's low amount, small
amount actually can have a beneficial effect because of the fats,
because of the omega threes, because it's great for skin
and coat, But be very very careful. My recommendation would
be to not feed your pets avocado.
Speaker 3: Anyway. I hope that helped. Any other food questions you
want to ask. While I have you on the line,
I do, I do.
Speaker 4: Have another food question.
Speaker 5: Go ahead, I make green salad with roman.
Speaker 4: Let us my dogs go crazy. I have I do
pet rescue, so I've rescued a few dogs. I have
labradors and I have a pit bull mixed which mix
with and they go crazy when I'm cutting up romain lettuce?
Is that safe for them to eat?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 2: So I'll give you this question. I'll ask you a question.
I'm going to answer your question with a question. First
of all, do they like it? You answered yes? Does
that ever make them vomit? Obviously no, or else you
wouldn't be doing it anymore.
Speaker 3: Correct.
Speaker 2: So there's your answer. And I say this to people,
you know all the time. People often ask me because
they go to a pet store and they want to
buy a particular food, or they're talking to these you know.
I think I made this point on the show before.
And some young kid comes over to you and asks
you what are you feeding? You tell them they go,
oh my god, you don't want to feed that oh
they make that with all these fillers and all these
additives and unique to switch to this and I say this,
I say, first of all, ask yourself, does your dog
like what you're feeding them? And then the answer is
yes it does. He have a lot of energy?
Speaker 3: Yes? Is his coat nice and shiny? Yes?
Speaker 2: Does he have normal stools? And you say yes? So
why change?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: You answered yes to all the right question. Yeah, when
you have something nice that they like, they're doing fine
on it. They have a nice coat, they have energy.
Don't change because some young high schooler at a pet
shop told you that what you're feeding isn't good, because
obviously for your dog it's just fine. And I think
you run in to more questions. All right, So thanks
for calling. Good, thank you for calling. And if you
have any other questions, you know how to reach me.
Speaker 3: Every Thursday. We're here.
Speaker 7: Thank you.
Speaker 4: I have a great guy.
Speaker 3: Thanks you too.
Speaker 2: So real quick, I want to, I guess, get back
because we are running out of time soon. So other lists,
other items household items on my list, alcohol, believe it
or not. Even though I used to have a labrador
that used to come when I was in Berkeley, I
had a lab with me. That was Thor And when
I used to go to parties, of course he was
my sidekick. He'd follow me around everywhere, and I would
watch this dog drink beer, and once he actually he
liked it, he liked beer, and once he actually seemed
like he got tipsy from drinking beer. I know better
now because even a small amount of beer can cause intoxication.
But the alcohol poisoning is not just from alcoholic beverages,
but also things that can ferment. For example, rawb red
dough fermented yeast. All right, So if you have some
fermented yeast of dough, it can cause alcohol poisoning. But
also it can inside the belly, can cause bloat because
what happens is as the yeast ferments decide the end
product is gas, really of gas, and that could cause
intestinal rupture. So dogs can vomit, diarrhea, become disoriented. I mean,
of course they'd have to drink or eat a substantial amount,
but I'd be really careful if if you're a breadmaker
and you got you know, you want to sit and
let the dough rise, you put a towel over it
or something, and it's in a bowl. Make sure you
keep your dog away from it because if they ingest it,
that could be very dangerous. And lastly on the list,
you know we covered grape, raisin, grapes, the pesticides, the
household and weed killers, avocado, and our last call, but
another very very dangerous ingredient that's in many sugarless products
like sugarless gum is xylotol and you can find it
in many products that you can take, and dogs like
it because it is sweet. It's an artificial sweetener and
it's in sugarless candy, it's in sugarless gum, and it
definitely is a potential deadly toxin to dogs, and it
does because it causes their own blood sugar to drop rapidly,
and symptoms include fatigue, staggering, a regular heart breathing issues, seizures, coma,
and even death. And dogs are again it's sweet. So
if you have that pack of sugarless gum, make sure
you keep it away from your dogs. And if you
find if you get home and you see the gum
wrappers around and you suspect even possibly that your dog
got a hold of sugar list candy or sugarless gum,
you want to get him in the car and immediately
immediately head for your veterinarian.
Speaker 3: That could be a lifesaver.
Speaker 2: So anyway, I want to thank our callers, those two
that had the courage to give us a call ask
the questions online. I'll be here next week on Thursday
at one o'clock Pacific time four o'clock Eastern time. You
can send me questions during the week to doctor Jeff
at petlife radio dot com. That's Dr Jeff petlife Radio
dot com, or reach us at eight seven seven three
eighty five eight eight eight two. Thanks again to pro
Sense Walmart, and we'll see you next week.
Speaker 3: I'm doctor Jeff Win.
Speaker 1: Let's talk bets every week on demand only on petlit
radio dot com.