Speaker 1: You're listening to Petlifradio dot Com.
Speaker 2: Well, good morning or good afternoon, as the case may be,
depending on where you're living this morning. Here in southern California,
it's still morning, but I know back East it is
now noon officially starting within a minute afternoon. So anyway,
I'm happy to be here with you on this lovely Sunday.
Speaker 3: I am your host for the next half hour.
Speaker 2: This is doctor Jeff Werber here on Askdabat to the
Doctor Jeff on pet Life Radio. I think the only
live show here on pet Life Radio where you actually
get to call it in and interact with us, and
we want you to. We want to go over your questions,
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Speaker 3: Can't be that.
Speaker 2: Nothing better than free advice, free product and a great
way to spend a half hour on this wonderful Sunday.
And you can also send us an email. As a
matter of fact, we're going to start the show with
an email and I'm going to put my little readers
on here and this is coming now seeing this. Dave
from Duluth actually, oh God, sends his question in back,
oh many moons ago show nineteen and we were able
to hopefully we did help him out, and he writes us,
unfortunately his dog did have some severe liver cancer and
passed on. And we're sorry to hear that, Dave. But
here's Dave's email, and I have to tell you I
love reading things like this, doctor Jeff, love your show
and can listen only through podcasts. Should be longer, yes, Dave,
I agree, but there is so much great programming here
on Pet Life Radio. I don't think any of us
get more than that wonderful thirty minutes. But Dave goes
on to ask if some of the more common overlook
problems dogs may have, what are some of the symptoms
the owners should look for, and.
Speaker 3: Perhaps what we should do.
Speaker 2: He talks about his two year old Australian cattle dog
terrier mix rescue named is Zeta, who tested positive for
lime disease. That's policies not to treat unless symptoms show,
than antibiotics for thirty days as necessary. Then has given
me things to watch for it like your advice, etc. Now,
one of the things that we have to talk about, well,
first of all, let's handle this twofold, and that is,
let's first talk about how do you know? How can
sometimes you tell whether or not your pet is having
a problem. And this is really challenging, and the reason
for that is that many of our pets, when you
think about the evolution, if you will, and I think
we've covered this before in some of our programs, but
it's very important to note is that by nature, animals
aren't complainers. And I think this goes back to a
time that if they did complain, if they were to
show signs of weakness, outward signs of weakness, then they
would in essence be a sitting duck for predator. So
they have almost learned through development that since no one's
going to come and coddle them anyway, what's the point,
Let's just move on. And sometimes we call it being stoic.
I mean I had one of my labradors. In fact,
my first labrador was a garbage can hound and on
a number of times he presented with severe pancreatitis. And
dogs with pancreatitis have some pretty typical symptoms that we
look for, and at one point, good Old four was
presenting with what I considered to be the typical signs
of pancreatitis. He was vomiting, he didn't want to eat,
I know, he'd gotten into the garbage, and I was
palpitating his abdomen and I got nothing.
Speaker 3: No pain now either. It was because it was me.
Speaker 2: And of course he's not going to complain or bite
his master. But I mean, it just goes to show
that from a classic standpoint of the condition, the pain
that these dogs have, he wasn't showing me any how
many times if any of you were out there that
our listeners have been pet lovers for a long time,
fake back twenty five years, how many dogs or cats
went home from a spay or neuter procedure with pain mets.
We were able to test pain receptors and measure their firing.
We find out, oh my gosh, these dogs actually do
sense and feel pain, and as we know, the sensation
of pain sends up a cascade of events that ultimately
is not good for their body. For the immune system,
stress is really not good. So what happens is that
dogs going home from any kind of procedure are going
home with plenty of pain mets, anti inflammatories, things like that.
Speaker 3: So we are learning more and more and more.
Speaker 2: So I think what it boils down to is because
our pets are often not going to help us come
to diagnosis or at least understand or recognize that there's
a problem, we need to really pay close attention to
our pets practically on a daily basis, so we know
what and how they act and respond that same way,
even though not exhibiting any signs of a real problem.
But something is off. Maybe can't pinpoint it, but you
know that something is different. It's time to explore now
if you want to give it a couple of days
because there's nothing major and they're still eating fine, But
don't wait too long if things don't resolve, because there's
a good possibility that something is going on and they're
just not letting us in on it. So let's now
go specifically to Dave's case with zeta and lime disease. Now,
lime disease, as many of you know, is a tick
transmitted infection.
Speaker 3: Borellia borg or ferry.
Speaker 2: And Barrellia is transmitted through the bite of an infected tick.
It used to be just the ig studies tick the
ixodes tick. Now we find out that it can be
carried by number of different ticks, and though it is
still more prevalent in the Northeast, Thus lime coming because
the first case is diagnosed in Lime, Connecticut, but it
is now anywhere where there is a large tick population,
lime disease can follow. And what specifically in a case
like this answered Dave's question when a dog is exposed
to lime disease and if you're even if you are
measuring antigen but typically we measure antibody that the body
is responding. So if the dog is not showing any
clinical signs, not every dog who's bitten by a tick
that's carrying lime disease is actually going to ultimately present
with clinical lime disease. Because our bodies, the dog's body
may be able to depend on the strength of the infection,
can probably or possibly take care of it. Same thing
with parvo. You know, the old argument is a puppy
acting totally fine, test positive for parvo, are you going
to treat it well? Probably not, because it could be
that the parvo is just passing through the system, if
you will, But the body's own immune system is doing
a bang up job taking care of the infection. However,
if that dog starts to present with clinical disease, of
course we're going to treat it. Likewise, we're going to
treat them for if a dog is presenting with clinical disease,
and even if his test is negative.
Speaker 3: We're still going to treat it because we're not.
Speaker 2: Treating tests necessarily, we're treating clinical disease. Now, if we're
in an area where lime disease is very aggressive and
we see a lot and a dog test positive, would
it hurt to put them on a prophylactic antibody antibiotic,
say doxy cycling for a twenty day course, a three
week course, And the answer is no, as long as
you follow through. So what my recommendation is, Again, I'm
not as familiar in the line problem into luth Minnesota. However,
if it's something where the veterinarian there, who probably has
a lot more experience because we don't see a whole
lot of lime disease in southern California, feels that they
wanted to wait and watch the dog monitor for a
bit and just see if the dog is continuing to
behave totally normally. What I would then do and maybe
in about a week or two, take another lime test.
If it's then negative, then possibly we're fine. It all
depends on how long the antibody load specific to a
lime disease is going to stay in the system. But
if you want it to get a little more aggressive,
Dave and do the prophilactic course of antibotics for three
weeks or four weeks.
Speaker 3: Not a bad idea either.
Speaker 2: And so the key here in answer to the first
part of Dave's question is how do we know. Let's
talk about some very common diseases, common problems. Let's say
the number two, three, four that we see on a
regular basis.
Speaker 3: I'd say, this.
Speaker 2: Time of year, number one problem, we're going to see
a skin disease. We see a lot of skin allergies,
and so typical presentation is you're going to see a
dog that's scratching. When we inhale pollens and we have
pollen allergies, we typically exhibit symptoms of respiratory problems, running, nose, sneezing, coughing,
et cetera. Dogs and cats, however, typically scratch. So the
manifestation of atopic meaning inhaled diseases in dogs and cats
is via scratching and skin problems also contact irritants lying
down on a grass. So if you see a dog
that typically is starting to scratch more aggressively looking at
the skin, the hair is falling out very dry. Even
if they're not scratching, when petting them, you feel little
scams or sores. These are indications that your dog is
having some degree of skin problems, skin allergy potentially with
secondary skin infection. And even if they're not acting that miserably,
you should still have them checked out by your veterinarian. Normally,
probably number one, not spring, summer, but always is going
to be GI gas to intestinal issues. And that's because
our pets love to eat what they want to eat,
not necessarily what we want them to eat, and they
often get a hold of things that we don't want
them to get a hold of. They pick things up
off the ground, they get a hold of some issues,
some concerns. If you have kids, small kids that are
eating and leaving droppings around of food, they're getting a
hold of those. Some of the foods that we are
now known to be somewhat toxic, somewhat dangerous, notably raisins
and grapes, maybe a little too much chocolate.
Speaker 3: How about xylotol. Xylotol is the ingredient in a lot.
Speaker 2: Of sugarless gums, mince, and candies. That is clearly fine
with us because we eat all the time, but can
be deadly to a dog and a cat, especially dogs,
they will get xylodog poisoning, which causes severe kidney disease.
So when a dog is off of food, and I
don't mean just for a meal, I mean if they're
acting okay, but they're just not eating what they typically
want to eat, and this goes on for more than
two or three days, then you need to start exploring.
It could be a mild case of pancretitis. It could
be just a gastro enteritis. It could be believed or
not an oral problem. How often have I seen a
dog that is just adr ain't doing right off food,
just not as animated about eating as it usually is,
and we find a terrible gum infection or a cut
inside the mouth, or something lodged in between two teeth,
so we need to get it out. So inspecting the
mouth is also very important, And not only that.
Speaker 3: How about ears?
Speaker 2: You've heard of TMJA temperament diberal joint. So when you
have a mandibular joint problem, you know that every time
you too, you feel it up in your ears. So
I've had animals with severe ear infections that are seemingly
not that eager to eat. Now, it could be just
because they feel like hell because of the infection of
the ear infection, but likewise, it could be also by
the mere fact that they're having a TMG condition because
of some pain in that area because of a severe
ear infection as well. So GI gastrointestinal is another thing
we commonly see that you need to be observant about,
and you need to really know how much your dog's
typical or cats typically eat, how fast, how readily they eat,
and understand and recognize when they are not eating with
that same vigor. So it does our quickly, Boy does
it come fast.
Speaker 3: Dave, I agree, not enough time.
Speaker 2: We are here a halfway point, so I'm going to
break for a quick word from our sponsors for pet
Life Radio, and we'll be right back here with doctor
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Speaker 1: Let's Talk Past.
Speaker 7: Let's Talk past a Life Radio, Hetline.
Speaker 1: Radio, petlife Radio dot.
Speaker 8: Com and welcome back.
Speaker 2: You are here with doctor Jeff Werber of the host
ask the best up here in Pet Life Radio, and
we were just talking about some subtle things that you
need to learn to recognize within your pets, because they
are not always going to tell us when they are
feeling rotten, when things are just not right. And of course,
the earlier we can make a diagnosis, the earlier we
can get to the root of a problem, the better
chances we're going to have of treating that problem. So
we already talked about skin issues, very very prevalent this
time of year. We talked about the gastrointestinal issues, some
of the concerns we have, and now I want to
talk about another organ system where actually it's a couple
linked together, and that is the neuromuscular skeletal system, and
that is the involving joints, bones, muscles, obviously the nerves
that feed these muscles, and another area where a lot
of animals present with problems. My dog went out to
the park yesterday, ran around like crazy and now he's limping.
Speaker 3: What is it? Well, boy, it could be a lot
of things.
Speaker 2: So we have to obviously evaluate some of the clues
that we have. And when I have a dog coming
in with limping, history is very important. The physical exam
is very important because what we're going to do really
is determined by how this all happened and what is
going on right now, say for example, with a dog
standing in front of me in my examination room. So
when we have acute onsets, I mean sudden onsets of
a lameness, limping, weakness problem, that typically is going to
mean an injury. You don't wake up one morning with
bone cancer. You don't wake up one morning right with
a severe muscular disease, neuromuscular disease. Most of those conditions
are coming on as we call an insidious onset, a
slow progressive onset. It could be a rapid progression as well,
but it's an onset. It's a progressive disease. Things that
your dog was perfect yesterday or this morning and that
was limp by evening, something happened. And it could be
as simple as stepping on something. Check the pads, check
in between the feet. Could be a foxtail that was migrating.
It could be a soft tissue injury, a soft tissue strain.
It could be a minor one to a major one
that's gonna need surgery, like a cruciate ligament. Okay, So
these are all things that we have to look at,
and therefore that history is so important. But what I
typically recommend if you have a dog that all of
a sudden or a cat, even cats less so to
present with musclear skeleton problems to choose you the dog
is to first of all, can they bear weight on
the limit?
Speaker 3: Question?
Speaker 2: Are they completely down? I mean, here's a serious one
that can happen. Suddenly you have a docs and do
you have a frenchy a French bulldog and they jump
off the bed. You might hear a scream, and now
they are literally practically paralyzed in their back legs. They
don't seem to be able to stand up. Now you're
talking about an emergency situation, one that you don't want
to wait a day or two. Try the nonstroidl antine flammer,
Try little aspirin, Try a little as script in. Okay,
and see how we do. Because when we have an
acute onset of paresis or paralysis like that, now we're
talking about a possibility of a surgical disease. And the
faster you get in the better. So these are all
clues that are important. So if it's just a matter
of dogs hop in gimping on three legs, and you
check the feet, you check them between the toes. Nothing obvious,
and you want to give it a day or so, okay,
you want to call your doc and maybe try a
little anti inflammatory. The only ones that I recommend over
the counter really is going to be an aspirin or
an a scriptin, and a script in is aspirin with
an ant acid. The tylenols, the ibuprofens, you know, the advils,
things like that. I don't necessarily recommend them for dogs.
I think that you probably could use one in a pinch.
Speaker 8: You.
Speaker 2: Never, while we're on the subject of the acetamenafen, it
will kill a ca Never never, never give a cedumnifen
to a cat. If you drop one on the floor
and you have cats around the house, find it. Because
the one case, interestingly I've had in the last few
years was a friend who calls me in the morning
and his cat is really just having a tough time.
And this cat's tongue is blue. And we're not talking
about a chow chow dog, We're talking about a cat.
And the cat's lungs were totally clear, breathing totally normally
and yet blue tongue and really just gasping. And my
first thought, Wow, it wasn't my first, but obviously I
was thinking about some sort of pulmonary problem. Was we
got into the possibility of a tile and all toxicity.
I asked him, is there any possibility? He goes, oh
my god, I go what He got home the night before.
It was late and he had a headache. So he
gets his tile and all. It's a ceed of minifin
and he puts a couple in his hand ready to
take them. One drops, He looks under the bed a
little bit, he looks under his nightstand, can't find it.
He figures, no big deal. He pops another one and
takes his two. Well, guess who found the one that
fell on the floor.
Speaker 3: His cat, And we are.
Speaker 2: Talking a very very serious emergency. Fortunately we were able
to pull this cat through, but I would not recommend
it because it's very, very deadly and only when you're
awfully lucky can you pull one through. So anyway, be
careful about things like that when you're dealing with limping.
But so back to the limping. If this continues, if
they can't put their weight down and others if they
will walk. Maybe they're favoring it, but they will walk.
Chances are, and again I learned long time ago never
to say never, but chances are there's no broken bone, well,
a broken major bone. I've seen dogs with a broken
metatarsal or metacarpal bone, which are there's little skinny bones
at the top part of the feet that if you
have one broken, they still can be bare weight because
the other three are working just totally fine. So that's
a possibility that Usually if they can bear weight, we're
dealing more with a soft tissue strain or an injury
a pull, a ligament, a tendon, a muscle, things like that.
If they are totally non weight bearing and very painful
to the touch, then it could be a fracture. And
typically also the higher this is really cool, the higher
a pad, especially going to be a dog holds his
leg up if he is not putting it down, the
more likely the problem is lower in the leg, meaning
the hok or the foot, The knee, and the hip
are usually fine. Conversely, if they seem to be kind
of like not wanting to bear weight, but the leg
they don't lift it very high, it's kind of like
I almost like dragging down, then more likely the injury is
going to be the hip or the stifle the knee,
because when they can lift it really high up and
hold it up, that kind of tells you the hip
is good and the knee is good. When they can't
it drags, it often means that that is where the
problem is. Sometimes when there is a foot foot foot problem,
if you touch the pads, touch to to the bottom
of the foot, you will.
Speaker 3: Get a reaction, and this is.
Speaker 2: Where you're gonna look for the splinter, the stinger from
the bee, the glass.
Speaker 3: Especially if there's bleeding.
Speaker 2: And always check in between the toes, because one thing
we see this time of year are the plant ons
the foxtails as we call them, that will migrate, and
one of the places like they love to migrate is
in the feet, in between the toes, so they are
also we have a clue. When any of these problems
last more than like two days, you really should make
an appointment to see your vet, even though everything else
is perfect, and it might just be a soft tissue
and the treatment might be some veterinary non story of
al antin inflammatories, some rest, some icing, et cetera. But
don't wait too long because if it is something worse,
or it is a soft tissue tear like the accruciate ligament,
these are something that we want to be a bit
more aggressive. And you know, there are a lot of
really effective modalities treatment modalities now that we can use
that can provide some relief in addition to the nonstroidals
and the anti inflammatories such as lasers, such as acupuncture.
That you don't want to wait too long because you
might be able to make your pedal a lot more
comfortable if you jump on it more readily. Now, real quick,
I just wanted to mention one more thing. We talked
about the allergies. We are seeing a ton this time
of year, and the manifestations are usually skin related, usually itching.
And what's so interesting, especially with a dog, are the
key allergens that we see this time of year are going.
Speaker 3: To be fleas.
Speaker 2: We call that FAD flea allergic dermatitis pollens which are inhaled.
It can also inhale molds. Dogs are allergic to molds
and then things that they can ingest. Interestingly, you can
have a dog that's allergic to food and you think, well,
when you eat something and you're allergic to it, right,
it's a gas to intestinal signs. You sometimes do get
swollen around the face. Same thing with dogs, and a
lot of times we can tell from the location of
where the dog is scratching or the cat is, and
then we'll get to that when we talk more about cats,
that it often can give us a clue as to
what the allergon is and what I wanted to do
next week. So stay tuned because it's a huge problem
this time of year. Is we are going to talk
about canine and feline allergies, allergic skin disease, secondary infection.
We're going to talk about how to diagnose and how
to treat, and some of the great things we have
on the market right now to help with these pets
that are miserable, especially this time of year. And it's
going to last through typically because of the pollens, it's
going to be with us through probably September, maybe even
in some places early October. So we want to take
care of that right earlier the better by helping our
pets stay a lot more comfortable this time of year,
and especially when it comes to treating those just those
nuisance fleas. So anyway, Thanks for joining me here on
Ask the Best with Doctor Jeff here in pet Life Radio.
If you have any want to send me an email,
I will also send you out a product and then
we'll reach your e live on air next week. You
can reach me at Dr Jeff at petlfradio dot com.
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