Speaker 1: Baby, you were listening to Petlifradio dot com.
Speaker 2: Well, good afternoon to everyone out there.
Speaker 3: This is doctor Jeff Warber just joining you live with
another ndition of Astaveets with doctor Jeff here on that's
Talk Pets pet Life Radio. So you know, you know,
first of all, I had a fun time. I'm gonna
we're gonna put something up on the website for you.
I was actually in New York this past weekend. I
got a call on Thursday, so this was not easy planning,
but they wanted to me in New York to do
a live segment on the weekend edition of Fox and
Friends with the new host Tucker Carlson, who is great
and who, by the way, is a major, major pet lover.
He has an English Springer Spaniel and an English Cocker
Spaniel pure English Cocker, and those are just beautiful dogs.
And we did a segment on the number one nutritional
disease affecting pets, and for those of you that don't know,
that is obesity. Over fifty percent of dogs and cats
in the United States are overweight.
Speaker 2: That equates to.
Speaker 3: About ninety three million overweight dogs and cats. That's a
lot of overweight pets and what's funny is about seventy
five percent of them belong to owners who themselves could
lose a few, which really it lends an interesting question.
And I always you know, we talked to veterinarians and
you know, why is it such a problem and why
do veterinarians have such a difficult time educating their clients
about obesity? And the reason is simple. They're afraid to
talk to someone who is clearly overweight about the pets
that are overweight, for fear, and this is self made
fear that the client is going to know that as
you're talking of the pet, you're actually talking about them.
Speaker 2: So to avoid the uncomfortable.
Speaker 3: Situation, they choose not to talk about it at all,
which of course is really not healthy for the pet. Oh,
we had a great segment, so we're gonna go ahead
and put up the link. It was on the weekend
edition of Fox and Friends on May fifth, on Sinco
Demayo about fat pooches, So hopefully you'll have a chance
to log on, give us, you know, a little time
to put that thing up and view the segment and went.
Speaker 2: It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 3: So as we get started, as you know, we're live
where the only live show, the only call in show
on pet Life Radio. So we need to hear from you,
So give me a call at eight seven seven three
eight five eight eight eight two once again eight seven
seven three eight five.
Speaker 2: Eight eight eight two. We'd love to get your questions.
Speaker 3: And if you're a little shy and you don't want
to talk to me on the phone, go ahead and
send me a quick email to doctor Jeff at Petlife
Radio dot com. That's Drjff at Petlife Radio dot com.
I will see the email and of course I will
answer your questions. So also, I could not be here
without our sponsor, and that is Pro Sense Pet Products.
These are veterinary approved pet products that are basically from me,
and they are available at your local mass retailers, a
lot of specials at Walmart Target. If you want to
find some really good products, you can head up to Walmart.
You go online and they actually have some really good
coupons for the Pro Sense pet products. So I wanted
to share a cute little story while you guys are
getting the courage to give me a call, and it's
about a patient of mine that we sent home yesterday
and I have to tell you and I took some
pictures and I think I'm going to write a little
blog on this on Pet Health Network, which is a
network that I write for, and it's about this little dog,
a Jack Russell Terrier mail fourteen years old, actually pushing
fifteen years of age. That was literally and I mean
literally run over by his owner. And no, not purposely.
I know you knew that one. He was actually taking
a little nap and to avoid the sun, and we
had a hot couple of days in La last week.
He decided to run for some cover and find some
shade under the car sitting right behind a tire, and
the owner went to her closed driveway, opened up the gate,
got in the car, not seeing good old Rollo sleeping
comfortably resting peacefully under the car, and decided to back up.
And she actually thought that one of her kids left
like a toy or part of the tricycle under the car.
I mean she actually felt the car go up and
over something. She got out of the car to look
and there was Rollo clearly sandwich to the ground. Well,
she runs to an emergency. They did some emergency treatment.
This happened early in the evening and brings Rollo to
us the very next day, and I'm telling you, Rollo
was one unhappy dog. He could not get up. We
were fearing the worst. I mean the amount problems that
could have happened, you can fill a book and ranging
from very serious problems like a ruptured bladder, like a
broken spine, broken pelvis, broken back, legs. I mean, the
car ran over the hind end, Rollo's hind end, and miraculously,
and I mean miraculously, there appeared to be none of
those X rays were clean. The body wall was totally
torn open, creating a huge hernia. We really had no
idea how large the hernia was, but we prepared for
the worst. And once we got Rollo stable, probably about
five six days later, where his color was coming back,
we treated him for the shock. He was on antibiotics,
he was on supportive care, started doing better each day,
started to eat, was in tremendous discomfort. He was on
pain meds. We had our surgeon go in and could
not repair the body wall. It was just so badly destroyed.
But he was able to place an intestinal abdominal mesh.
It's like a mesh material that acts as the body wall.
The body wall starts to heal around them and in
time basically creates a new fake body. Wall Well, I
gotta tell you, yesterday we sent Rollo home and this
dog was running and jumping. You'd never know that Rollo
was pushed in fifteen. It was going to be fifteen
next month. And it was truly a miracle that this
dog had such a will to beat these odds, and
how this dog was so lucky that of all the serious,
potentially fatal complications he pulled through with flying colors. And
I think the second biggest pain I think was poor
Mom's purse. But other than that, Rollo is just doing
great and so happy. We know these are the cases,
you know, I often say, regardless of how good we
are as veterinarians, now, regardless of how great you think
your veterinarian is, the truth of the matter is that
most of our cases are going to get well in
spite of us, not because of us. And I got
to tell you this is one where we really felt
that we had a very very important hand and saving
Rollo's life.
Speaker 2: And when you send a case like that home, you
just feel great.
Speaker 3: And anyway, I got some great after pictures of Rollo,
and uh, he's just one remarkable dog anyway, so still
want to hear from you.
Speaker 2: Eight seven seven three eight five eight eight eight two.
Speaker 3: We had a bunch of questions on the website and
people that send me questions to doctor Jeff that petlife
radio dot com. And one of them I had to
chuckle and you'll hear why in a minute. But it's
because it really it's message for me so close to home.
And that is that a woman writes and she asks
about her Labrador retriever who's been having some and again
this is you know, this is doctor talk.
Speaker 2: We have to talk about this.
Speaker 3: I'm sure it's happened to all of you at some point,
and if not, depending on the breed, and it's especially
if you have a puppy, it's going to happen. And
that is that he has been experiencing some very mushy stool.
I know, I don't know why. In the veinary world
we tend to actually trying to draw a mental picture
for our clients as to what things look like. And
one of the descriptive terms we use for stool, is.
Speaker 2: It like firm? All right?
Speaker 3: Is it kind of holds shape kind of like a
cow patty?
Speaker 2: Is it kind of mush.
Speaker 3: She doesn't really hold the shape after a while, like
soft served ice cream too ultimately watery, no.
Speaker 2: Shape at all.
Speaker 3: And this was described by the owner as being mucus
see cowpatty like, so sort of I was able to
draw a mental image, a picture in my mind of
just what this stool look like. And with mucus and
sometimes little blood, I knew right away that this is
a colitis. It's a large bowel inflammation, and typically with
large bowel inflammations, it's not a serious problem. And I
usually tell people that I know oftentimes these things look
worse than they are and they're really not that bad.
And there's a kind of a long list of things
I go through to try to determine if I'm on
the right track, if this really is just a colitis,
And those are the following nerves excitement, diet, diet change,
eating something that he or she shouldn't have, like, you know,
getting a hold of something outside a true poison or
of course we can't forget parasites, though often this happens
in older adult dogs, and we don't think of parasites
as much as we would say if it was a puppy. Well,
the dog in the questions question happens to be a labrador?
Now I am the proud pop too us. I like
to say two and a half labradors, because I have
two labradors and one labradoodle. And the hallmark of a
labrador is that they will eat anything that's not bolted
down or does eat them first. And a lot of
times when animals come in or you're talking to somebody
on the phone and they're complaining about they're pet is
sick or as they say, adr ain't doing right, and
I often one of the first quests I ask is
how's his appetite? And typically a dog who's still eating
is usually not as sick as a dog who no
longer wants to eat.
Speaker 2: Well, that's one question you.
Speaker 3: Really can't ask about a labrador, because I've seen labradors
that are quite literally on a deathbed, and yet when
it comes to food, they'll somehow manage to eat. And
sure enough, this lab we call it garbage can enteritis.
The owner actually has to tape up the garbage can
and put like those you know, those bicycles stretchy things
over the garbage can lid to keep it closed. Because
the learned how to get the garbage can lit off,
so they're very resourceful. Anyway, sure enough, it was a
lab dietary indiscretion. Garbage can't enterritis. Call it what you will,
and we were able to treat it. And I recommend
for a lot of these cases. If you have a
pet that has kind of mushy, ugly mucacy, even sometimes
bloody stool that is otherwise perfect, happy, eating, playful, all
of the above, then what I recommend instead of panicking
and rushing to go to the doctor and spending a
small fortune, sometimes a big fortune, depending on where you go,
try this. Try putting them on a little bland food
for a couple of days and added fiber. Now, one
thing I want to specify. When we talk about bland
food for a small intestinal upset, we think about a
using some rice, white rice, which is very binding and
it's and so that's really good for small intestinal diarrhea
that's very very watery. When it comes to large vowel diarrhea,
you want to think about the opposite. You want to
think about fiber, brand brand flakes, cooked oatmeal, cilium, metamucil, powder.
Can't things that are actually less binding. You want to
almost encase the ingestu in something that's sort of soft,
and it's going to help it move through the colon
more easily, giving the chance the coal and the chance
to heal. And when it does, it'll start doing what
it does best, and that is the last bit of absorption,
reabsorption of the fluid coming in. It'll firm up the stool,
it'll stop the mucus, and it kind of that's the tricks.
So before you panic and run to the dock, as
long as everything else is fine, try that first. Add
a little fiber, a couple of tablespoon spending on the
size of the dog with every meal and that that
should help tremendously. So other than that, that's good way
to go. But it's a really common problem and we
see it so much in puppies. And the only thing,
as I said, i'd like to ask that list of
possibilities and puppies would be parasites. So anyway, we'll be
right back here at pet Life Radio, and you're here
online with doctor Jeff.
Speaker 4: We'll be right back right after these messages.
Speaker 2: Stay tuned.
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Speaker 8: Let's talk past Let's Pet about Life Radio Headline Radio,
Petlight Radio dot com.
Speaker 3: Well, welcome back to Let's Talk pet Book Doctor Jeff.
Speaker 2: I'm doctor Jeff.
Speaker 3: Werber here after a little extended break. The computers are great,
aren't they, But with their occasional technical difficulties doing a
show long distance, I think things like this just sometimes happen.
Speaker 2: Anyway, we're back. That's the good news. Once again.
Speaker 3: I want to thank our sponsors pro Sense Pet Products
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Save yourselves a little money, get some really great stuff
with process pet products available at your local retailers and
always Walmart has some great specialists. Go online to Walmart
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pro Sense products. Anyway, for our break, we were talking
about Rick's dog in Riverside, California, who has the Great
Tane two year old Great Tane that when he would
wag his tail so hard that the tail, the tip
of the tail would start bleeding. And first of all,
we see this in a lot of dogs. We see
this in the These are dogs that have that long tail.
Dalmatians are notorious. Certainly great Danes are notorious dogs that
have these, even like docsins, any dog that has a long, skinny,
skinny tail and very very short coat where they have
very thin skin at the base of the tail and
I mean the tip of the tail and it's unfortunately
there's very little padding there. And the bummer is for
this is that it is so difficult to get this
to stop. Why because first of all, it's very hard
to wrap a tail because the tail. Think of an
eating an ice cream cone, right, and you know the cone,
and the farther down you go towards the bottom, the
narrow it gets. And even though they sometimes when you
buy an ice cream cone, they put them into those
little cone shaped sleeves, but you know how easily they
just falls right out of the sleeve because because there's
nothing to hold it on, it's not whiter at the
bottom and actually continues to get narrow. That's the same
as a tail. Secondly, so when you have a wrap
on the tail. If they wag your tail a lot
of times, the rap is going to fall off. Something
we'll do is we'll take the plastic casing of a syringe.
You know those little disposable syringes we often use in practice.
I'm sure you've seen them when you've taken your pets
to the doctor. And so we'll take one of those
plastic sleeves, slide it over the tip of the tail,
and then take a ton of tape and tape the
sleeve to the tail. So at least now when they
wag their tail, they're hitting the hard plastic. I'm not
hitting the tail, but I'm telling you I have had
many cases over the years where this has become such
a nuisance or a continuing recurring problem that we've actually
been forced to amputate the tip of the tail, cut
the tail back, make it shorter by about four or
five vertebrae, just to help prevent this and to let
this thing heal once and for all, because they are
such a bear to heal. So what I would recommend
doing for Rick is trying to wrap it. Can try
the syringe case plastic to put over the tip of
the tail. Somehow keeping your dog away from hard walls
when he is wagging his tail.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: You want to almost like you want to put him
into like cushioned lined walls, almost like the dog is
in a looney bin or something. You know, we call
it a padded cell. If you can come out somehow
come up with a padded room, then hopefully he'll do better.
But sorry to here, Rick, It's not a serious problem.
It's more of a nuisance problem than anything else. So
once again we're here waiting to hear from you. I'm
doctor Jeff Werber, asked the vets with doctor Jeff here
on pet life Radio dot com. Let's talk pets. The
number here to reach me eight seven seven three eight
five eight eight eight two. I do want to see
that those phones lighting up. You can also send me
a quick email to doctor Jeff at petlife Radio dot
com and I will be happy to answer your calls online.
I am, let's see. I'm just looking at some of
the emails that we do get. Fortunately, some people aren't
as shy as some others, and they do send us emails.
Speaker 2: Ah, here's one.
Speaker 3: This came from Ray in Madison, Wisconsin, who is calling
about his twelve year old cheetsu who has a bad teeth,
and Ray is afraid to have him anesthetized for teeth
cleaning because he's concerned about the danger. At this age,
you want to know if there's a spray for the teeth.
And here's some of the realities. First of all, once
plaque turns into tartar. Now plaque is more or less
of a film that is left on teeth, say after
a meal, and it's a mixture of food particles, some bacteria,
some uncalcified minerals to breathe us left in the mouth.
And this is why we recommend so frequently that no
matter what you're going to do for oral care, far
and away, the best thing to do is brush your
pet's teeth. Get him used to it. It's really not
that difficult. You can start with a finger brush. You
can start with a finger put a little of the
really cool poultry flavored or for a cat fish flavored.
The dentifersh toothpaste, non sudging. They can swallow it, put
it on your finger, rub it inside the mouth, Do
it just before a meal, just before walk, just before playtime.
So they get used to it and make it fun,
make the process fun, and by doing so, they won't
object so much to the act of having their teeth brushed.
But something that's critical because we need to get rid
of that plaque. The problem is that once the plaque
mineralizes to become what we call tartar or calculus, now
we have a problem, Houston. We have a problem because
brushing at this point is worthless. If you don't get
this plaque off, this film off before it hardens it mineralizes.
Then the only way to get it off really is
through professional dental cleaning, which of course so many people
are afraid of. So obviously, as with many many conditions
that we deal with in Verney medicine, the best treatment
actually is prevention. So now, Ray in Madison, Wisconsin, we
have an issue here because now your twelve year old
cheetsu has some heavy duty tartar on the teeth and
they do need to be professionally cleaned. What do you do, Well,
there are a lot of places, mostly well groomors for sure,
and some services out there that claim, and I'm going
to put that in capital letters, claim they can do
a thorough teeth cleaning without any anesthesia first of all,
and according to many state veterinary practice codes, that might
be against the law. Check with your states. But in
certain states and it should be most states, if a
non veterinarian takes a metallic instrument and scrapes away tartar
from the teeth under the teeth meaning under the gums, right,
they are by law, by definition practicing veterinary medis without
a license, which of course is against the law.
Speaker 2: Some will allow it.
Speaker 3: Most states will allow brushing out of groom where they
can brush the teeth, but they can't actually take a
tartar scraper and scrape the plaque the tartar away from
the surface of the tooth.
Speaker 2: That odds. I know many of you are afraid of anesthesia.
And according to the veterinary.
Speaker 3: Dental community and there are specialists in veterinaright dentistry. These
are veterinarians dvms or from University of Pennsylvania vmds that
even after four years of veterinary school, chose to do
an internship and a residency in veterinary dentistry, sit for
their exams and to be actually become board certified by
the American Veterinary Dental College or the American Academy of
Veteran Dentistry, and they went through training and their opinion,
and I think it's a legit. In order to do
the job that often should be done needs to be
done cleaning appropriately, animal needs to be put to sleep
under anesthesia, completely under anesthesia. Now what I've done in
my practice, and it's kind of a compromise. It does
lean towards you definitely need a healthy pet, and we
always check the pets out first.
Speaker 2: And that is a product.
Speaker 3: It's an injectable kind of a sedative tranquilizer I call
a twilight sleep, using a medication called dex domator that
really renders an animal pretty amenable to working with. They're
a kind of awake, kind of awake. I say that
kind of half in jest, because they are are sleeping,
but they are aware. And I add some pain medication
to that because there's not a lot of pain medication
in dex domontor. And sometimes their respiratory rate and heart
rate is slow, so I always keep them on little
oxygen and we are able to clean the teeth very
well using all the equipment that we'd like to use,
the ultrasonic scaler, the tartar scrapers. We really can get
deep into the pockets, obviously not deep enough to do extractions,
especially molar or major what.
Speaker 2: We call elevated extractions.
Speaker 3: And we can polish the teeth with a polishing cup
and that cutett rubber thing, with that tasty paste that
you all have when you go to the dentist, and
the beauty is that we're finished. We can actually reverse
the dex domator with another injection called antecedent, and these
animals get up within minutes five, six, seven minutes, eight minutes,
depending on the dog. And it is absolutely amazing, and
it is the closest thing to anesesia without full anesesia.
And I have many many clients will offer that because
we can.
Speaker 2: Really do a pretty good job.
Speaker 3: But just don't think that you're a veterinarian who is
insisting on general anesesia, therefore insisting on some blood work
is trying to rip you off, because they are following
the actual recommendations by the board. Shortified veterine identists others
like myself who feel that the patient is right, the
teeth aren't that bad, that using a twilight type sleep
can do a good job and save the need for
full general anesesia. We are probably breaking some rules, but
we are doing a thorough job and if we can't,
I will tell my client that no we can't. This
needs full anesesia. Or I know we're gonna have to
do some distractions. I know we're gonna have to do
some gum work. We might have to do some gum surgery,
for example, in the case of a boxer that has
gingivile hyperplasia and we need to take my electrictor reunit
and remove that excess gingal tissue. For these procedures, full
anas is going to be required, and therefore that's what
we should do.
Speaker 2: But look around.
Speaker 3: I guess to really take a message here, and you
know this is foray. The best therapy is preventive care.
If you're going to do it, you want to make
sure you do it right. Do not go to a
non veterinarian to have it done. You will be disappointed.
There was a great study out that I will share
it with you next week about dogs that were followed.
Study was done by one of the prominent veterinan dentists
in the US and he followed these dogs that had
continually gone to a groomer for dentistry and the results
were shocking. So anyway, I think that's about it for today.
I want to thank you for being with me, and guys,
I want you to tell your friends. I want to
hear from you next week. No excuse, no reason. Eight
seven seven three eight five eighty eight eight two. This
is a call and show. I know you guys aren't
used to calling shows. You guys are used to listening
to one of our great hosts on the other shows
here on pet Life Radio do their thing talk for
a half hour an hour. But I'm here for you.
I want to talk to you. I want to hear
from you, and you can call me, you can send
me an email. I don't like talking for a whole
half hour. I do it, I can do it, obviously,
but I'd much rather hear from you. Get some great questions.
Let's get some conversations going, and let's kind of let's
take it from there. So once again, thanking pro Sense,
pet Products, thanking Walmart, and without them, I wouldn't be here.
And I'm here for you, here to answer your questions.
We'll see you next week next Thursday, the same time
eight one pm Pacific time zone, four pm Eastern time
zone and I want you to put it on your mark calendars.
So get that alert to your phone that you know
that you're going to.
Speaker 2: Call me.
Speaker 3: At eight seven seven three eight five eight A eight two.
Thanks for joining me, and we'll talk to you next week.
Speaker 1: Let's Talk pets every week on demand only on petlike
radio dot com