Speaker 1: You were listening to Petlifradio dot com.
Speaker 2: Well, good morning, good morning, or good afternoon, depending on
what part of the country you are joining us here today.
I am doctor Jeff Werber, your host for the next
half hour here on pet Life Radio and ask the
bets with doctor Jeff. And hopefully you're all so far
enjoying this magnificence Sunday, at least magnificent here in la
I don't want to make the rest of you jealous,
so I did just talk to somebody in Charleston, South Carolina,
and I understand it's very hot but muggy there. You see,
we're lucky out here in la is We get the heat,
but we don't get the muggy, so it's much more comfortable.
And yeah, it's not a cloud in the sky. It's
a gorgeous day. I hope you're do alling okay on
this Sunday. Hope your pets are doing okay. We talked
last week. I was mentioning about this really cool event
and it happened last night. It was sponsored by the
Kong veter Night Products, the Division of Kong, and I'm
sure you're all familiar with Kong. In fact, my good
friend Joe Markham, who is the CEO of Kong, was
there and also benefiting Best Friends Animal Society, which is
amazing and they have a tremendous presence in many cities
and they sponsor a very very large group of animal shelters.
They call it NKLA No Kill La, trying to slowly
get all animal shelters and rescues. Well, of course the
rescuers are no kill, but to get the animal shelters
to be no killed. So this was a really cool
It was an art auction, but it wasn't just any art.
They did have some graffiti art that's some really cool stuff.
But the event was called more than a Cone because
what they did. They took those Elizabethan collars, you know,
the cones, the Cones of Shame if you will, and
Kong veter Night Products does manufacture and make some fantastic
home So instead of just having this bland, plastic whatever cone,
they commissioned some world famous artists and to sort of
reimagine the Cone of Shame and they actually painted with
amazing In other words, the cone became their canvas and
these tremendous very very hopefully someday because I did buy
one works of art will be worth something, but I
think it's really cool, so I wanted to. It was
a great event, you know. It was one of those
events they didn't really have an RSVP, if you will.
It went out there. They had great marketing, great media
marketing online and so the social networking was great. They
were expecting maybe maybe four hundred, five hundred people. They
had well over one thousand people. It was just amazing,
high energy people dressed up nicely on a Saturday night
here in Los Angeles. Was really really a fun evant.
I have no idea how much they they raised, but
I know that the folks over at best Friends were very,
very happy, and I know it's interesting to watch that organization.
I started working with best Friends, oh my god, twenty
years ago. In fact, I had the pleasure of ms
seeing their first few events that were here in Malibu, California,
and it was just a small organization at the time,
and now I've just watched them grow. They have a
humongous facility in Canab, Utah. They have local shelters all
over the country. So anyway, it was really just a
nice event. And wherever cities you are, keep your eyes
out because this was the test. They want to see
if this could fly, if the concept would fly, They
are going to start taking some of the designs and
incorporating them into the manufacturing of cones. So therefore no
longer will be that drab, plastic, sort of opekish cone.
It is going to be a work of art. So
your dog no longer needs to feel shameful when wearing
one such cone. Case they'll be walking around with just
them a masterpiece, which is really cool. So before we
get to one of the topics I wanted to introduce,
I didn't want to reiterate and again discus with the
heat and I'm getting I still get questions all the time,
and then I drive around town and I see it
just gets me our people driving around a with their pets. Well,
first of all, with the head hanging out the window.
We talked about that last week or a few weeks ago. Now,
if you're going to take a pet in your car,
that's great. I'm all for it your pet. If you
can't take it to work with you, I'd love it.
But you have to keep your pets safe. They need
to be either in a carrier or they need to
be in a harness that will click into a seat belt,
So hanging the head out the window, of course, we
run the risk of the what we call exposure carotitis,
which is the wind and the dust particles hitting the
eyes at you know, a zillion miles an hour will
or can have an effect on the cornea and it
can cause what we call a carotitis or worse yet,
a corneal ulcer or an erosion, and it is very irritating.
And what's interesting about dog's corneas is that when intact,
they don't seem to care so much about something in
their eye. When you think about the how we feel
when we get an eyelash in an eye, or that
little dust particle, or if you wear contacts and the
contact slips off and goes either way up or way down,
you know, you feel it, You feel the irritation. Dogs
don't seem to be bothered by that. However, once that superficial,
that outermost layer of cornea becomes compromised, the nerve endings
are in those outermost layers and it's very painful. So interestingly,
a superficial corneal ulcer is often more painful than the
deep ulcer and of course the deepulture is more serious,
and we worry about something called a des meticial when
we get actually a rupture of the cornea and contents
of the anterior chamber start leaking out of the eye,
very dangerous. But they can walk around with the deep
ulster and not really be as in much pain as
when they have a very very non serious superficial ulcer.
So it's just kind of good because that usually sort
of helps that owner realize there's an eye problem and
brings the pet in before that superficial, non serious also
becomes a more serious one. So if you see your
dog squinting, when does this happen? Well, for certainly driving
around with a head out the window. If you have
a as I do. I have many dogs, two of
what which are French bulldogs. French bulldogs are what we
call a breaky cephalic breed. The breakycephalics are the short
nose breeds. Your Losses, your Sheets's, your Pugs, your Boston's,
your French Sees, your Peaks, your Griffins, you know, the Brussels,
and these dogs. You know. So much of a dog's
sense is tactile. So, for example, if a dog is
going through some thick brush or some bushes their nose,
their face, their longer normal muzzle will give them a clue,
a hint as to what is ahead of them. And
when they know that there might be some danger or
these stick bushes, they have time to react and blink
their eyes. The problem is with a break piece of
phalax is that by the time whatever it is that's
going to hit their nose they're snout their face, it's
already hit the eye. So it's very, very common for
these dogs to end up with what we call a
corneal erosion or a corneal ulcer. Additionally, another time that
you know, people seem to freak. And it's just so
interesting because there is a little controversy here too. But
when dogs get or cats get bathed, often if the
eyes aren't rinsed very well, also we can get an ulcer.
Now here's what I find interesting. A little soap in
an eye is not the end of the world as
long as it's rinsed off. If you wait too long
and don't rinse it, it causes irritation. So what does
the dog do and the eyes irritated and they're not
wearing a cone of shame. So what happens is they
take their paw and they start rubbing at the eye.
So even though the initial insult wasn't bad enough to
cause an ulcer or an erosion, the rubbing of the
eye is plenty to do that, so they start to rub.
So the controversy is, should we, or whether it's a
veterinary house or whether it's a groomer, put some eye
lube in the eye. And here's I think it's still
good to protect. It doesn't hurt. However, what happens is
when our eye lube and eye protecting is put in
the eye, whoever is doing the bath giving the bath,
knowing they put something in the eye, they don't panic.
They don't worry when that soap hits the eye, so
they don't rinse it off right away. They figured, oh
it's okay because we have the loop. So instead, this soap,
depending on how it interacts with the lube, might actually
stay there. So my recommendation, my caution is that even
though your groomer or you or your veterinarian is gonna
have your dog baite and maybe put some eye protecting in,
you still need to respect the eye. You still need
to rinse as soon as you think you got soap
in the eyes, or at the end, rinse the face,
rinse the eyes really well. Anyway, I want to know
what you guys think about this here for you. We're
here every Sunday for those new listeners. We used to
be on Thursdays and we move the show to what
we think and hope is a better time slot for
you to get listeners. But we want to hear from you.
I am here. The advice is free. You can call
me at eight seven seven three eight five eight eight
eight two. You can send me a quick note to
Dr Jeff Doctor Jeff at petlife radio dot com, or
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so you can't lose other than hopefully giving you an
opportunity to get your questions answered, anything about your pet.
And if I don't have an answer after doing this
for as many years as I have, and this is
I'm in my thirty first right now, we will get
an answer for you because I have enough of a
slew of experts that I can talk to and get
an answer if you have a real difficult, challenging question.
In fact, we love difficult, challenging questions and I like
to be controversial. So yeah, if there's something that you
want to talk about that might be a little bit
on edge. Then certainly we want to hear from you
as well, so just give us a call. And as
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line of pro Sense products. When we come back from
the break, I want to discuss something and I know
we've discussed it on the Thursday show, but I'm hoping
we have a new group of listeners and that is
what is the story with these non anesthetic dentistries done
by a groomer. I think we need to get into
that as well. So anyway, we are going to take
a quick break here. It's the midway point in our show,
so don't go away, and remember when we come back,
I want you to give us a call at eight
seven seven three eight five eight eight A two. The
call is free and the advice is free. Or just
come on and log in right now. What else are
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Life Radio. Ask the that's with doctor Jeff and sort
of join in the conversation. Ask us a question but
happy to answer. We'll be right back in a minute.
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Speaker 2: Com, and welcome back and thank you for joining us
here on this glorious Sunday morning or early afternoon here
on pet Life Radio. You're with doctor Jeff Werber, the
host of Asked the Best with Doctor Jeff here on
pet Life and we want you to call us in
and get your questions answered at eight seven seven three
eight five eight eight eight. If you don't have the
courage to do it today, then next Sunday. As a
matter of fact, next Sunday, I'll be coming to you
live from Cancun, Mexico. Just getting a little R and R.
So yeah, we're doing the show live from can Kun.
And you can also send me emails to doctor Jeff.
That's Dr Jeff at petlifradio dot com. And lastly, come
on in join us right now. We got another fifteen
minutes of our show live here on pet Life Radio.
Just log onto pet Life Radio, click on Ask Thebats
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to your questions. Of course, any of your questions when
you call in, when you write in, when you email me,
we will send you out a pro sense product and
a free contoy just for getting the courage to get
to questions answered. So, you know, one of the things
that before we took the break I mentioned and I
am still getting a lot of questions about this, and sadly,
I see a lot of dogs. We had a dog
coming in on Friday, and this was a little maltise.
Now I have to preface this by saying that it
is extremely common for small breeds to have pretty lousy teeth.
So you know, I get it, I get it. But
what was more shocking to me is that this client
had been looks at me when I show her how
terrible her dog's teeth were. And actually during the process
what I do now with iPhones, because you know, it's
great to have an Android iPhone, because when I want
to show a client how terrible a teeth is during
the procedure, all I have to do is videotape how
loose the tooth is, and it's I mean, and it's
you know, the expression of pictures worth a thousand words. Well,
oh my god, they see this and they, oh my god, Doc,
thank you so much you had to pull that tooth.
But what was interesting about this poor dog is that
mom had been taking the dog for grooming to have
a teeth done on a fairly regular basis. Of course
it's the groomer, so it's non anesthesia. And really the
problem becomes, are we doing these dogs a service or not.
So we also have a version at my hospital of
a non anecesi it's not non anthesia, it's not full
general anesesia, but it is using an agent that is
phenomenal that puts them into sort of a pretty deep
twilight sleep. We add to that a pain medication. Let's
put this way, they are down enough that they could
still be intubated, which, by the way, in certain states
now including California, it's become practice act that any dog
or cat that is having a dentistry or a dental
procedure done needs to be intubated. Now, I think that
this rule has come into effect because they want to
make sure that the rumors are not doing it, and
I'll explain why in a minute. And also I think
there's a certain safety feature because when or if you're
using certain equipment that for example, an ultrasonic scaler called
the cavatron for example, or the attachment as a cabatron,
the debris in the mouth, the plaque, which is comprised
of minerals. Of course, saliva bacteria starts to become aris
and if there's no protection blocking that aerosolized bacteria from
the throat the trachea as these dogs are breathing, they'll
potentially breathe it right down into their lungs. So I
think there's a really smart safety feature there as well
when it comes to needing to intubate, keep a pet intubated,
but I think it does prevent the true non anesthetic dentistry.
So anyway, this poor dog had horrendous teeth despite the
fact that it had been going fairly regularly. And the
owner would say that when she would pick the dog up,
oh my god, she goes doc the teeth look great,
they look so well. So anyway, here's a study that
I wanted to share with you, and I want you
to think twice next time you're even thinking or considering
having anybody but your veterinarian or a veterinary dentist doing
the dental procedures on your pets. So a good friend
of mine, he's a veterinary dentist. He's pretty much based
in Colorado, but yeah, he travels. He lectures all over
the world. He did a study. It was a study
that took place. It was they're over three or four
years where he identified clients on a regular basis that
would take their pets to a groomer for quote unquote
a dental cleaning. He contacted them, told them he was
doing a study. I think he led them to believe
that he wanted to show how well these gloomers are doing,
which was very funny. And he had the clients, on
his dime, for free go to his office for pre
groomer cleaning pictures and they were to come back to
him afterwards for post pictures. So what he didn't tell them,
I'm sure they maybe knew as part of the program,
but he was also taking post cleaning X rays. Well
after three or four years of following these patients. The
post cleaning pictures in other words, lifting up the gum,
looking at the surface of the tooth. The tooth were
nice and white, they were shiny, they were polished. They
looked pretty darn good. But following these dogs for these
few years on post cleaning X rays, as compared to
a group of dogs that were getting full anesesia dental cleanings,
the bone destruction in the group that was not getting
or having full anesesia i e. They were not able.
These groomers, if you will, these dental hygienis, if you will,
were not able without any kind of sedation to really
dig under those gums to clean, to do deep root cleaning,
and the destruction was dramatic. Even anyone who ever thought
for a second that it was okay to do this
without any anesthesia because my dog is the mask and
you can sit there. No way, Absolutely not dogs and
cats to do the job that we need to do,
need to have some sort of sedation, some relaxation, pain medication,
and in certain states now enough that you can even
intubate the dog, I know. And again this is it
goes to state by state, but again here in California,
if a non veterinarian cleans the surface of a tooth
with a metallic object like a tartar scraper or a
cavetron right, or the rotor pro, whatever technique you want
to use, and not doing it under the direct supervision
of a veterinarian is considered practicing veterinary medicine without a
license and actually can be fined as a misdemeanor. So
that's a huge thing. So I think it's very important
for any of you who have been going to a
groomer if you want to let's say, for example, for example,
your dog is an older dog and really needs to
go in twice a year. If you said to me,
you know what, once here, I want to come to
my vet and get full cleaning, deep root cleaning, et cetera.
And once here, I want to go to the groom
or just to you know, get the plaque adds it's
accumulating before it has the opportunity to start traveling up
below the gums. All right, I not bad, not a
bad compromise. But I think it's important that when you
have your pets teeth cleaned at least once a year,
they also get dental X rays because there's a lot
that we can't see that's going on under the gums.
Just like you know, we go in for cleaning's routinely,
and you know what it's like, at least once here
you're gonna have X rays taken. So I think certainly
after dogs, a middle aged dog or older, they're already sedated,
a dental series should definitely be taken. We use the
same digital equipment that your dentist uses. We can get
the films instantly right on a computer screen and really
know the status. I had a case recently where there
was a little bit of a gummer session and it
was one of the molars, and you could see actually
premoler and you could see just the little space between
the two roots brewing because of the little gummer session,
and the tooth appeared to be solid as a rock.
So I said to you on you know what, like
I'm not a magician, I can't see. Let me take
an X ray and see what's going on. Certainly took
an X ray that bone was gorgeous. The teeth were
deeply rooted. So we're going to have we did some
work to try. Just like people when you have a
little gingivitis and what we call gingebl or gum recession,
the dentists has you do some exercises with that rubber
tip of a toothbrush or strengthen the gums. Well, we
can do the same thing. We can help the process
and see if we can't keep these teeth healthy. Trust me,
veterinarians are not in the business just to pull teeth
for the sake of pulling teeth. If we're gonna pull
a tooth, it's going to be because we need to.
If it's something where there might be a cosmetic issue
and you want to have a root canal done. Of course,
some veterinarians, some private practitioners do it, but now there
are many many cities, all the universities, the vet schools
have veterinary dentists that can do the root canals, that
can do orthodontria if needed, that can cut teeth down
if have to. They can do what's called polpotomies. All
these advanced procedures, gingeble, gum flaps, whatever it takes to
keep your pets teeth and gums healthy can be done.
So don't think that the answer to everything now is
teeth either, because it's not so anyway, One last thing
before we go, I want you to be all very careful.
It is summer, it's here officially, and we do not
want dogs or cats being left in cars, even in
the shade at all, even with the windows cracked. There
is never a good time that car is like a sweatbox.
And when these dogs are in there panting, nervous, even
if it's in the shade, the temperatures in a car
during the summer can reach well over one hundred degrees
in no time, so it is never okay, so keep
that in mind. I hate to see that. I've been
in parking structures inside and I see the window cracking.
His dogs in the back seat during the middle of
the day. Not a good idea. So don't be silly,
don't be careless. You know, you say it was only
for five minutes, and then you'll bump into somebody if
something happens in the store, and five minutes becomes fifteen minutes,
becomes twenty minutes, and you come back to either a
dog who's in the midst of a major heat stroke
or a dead dog. Nobody wants to see that, So anyway,
thanks for being here on Let's Talk Pets pet Life
Radio Asterbats with Doctor Jeff. We will be here next Sunday,
nine am in the West and twelve noon. He's still
looking forward to it.
Speaker 1: Let's Talk Pets every week on demand only on Petlifradio
dot com.