Speaker 1: You were listening to Petlifradio dot com.
Speaker 2: Well, good afternoon everybody, and welcome to another show of
Ask the Bets with Doctor Jeff. I'm doctor Jeff Weerber
here on pet Life Radio and we want to hear
from you.
Speaker 3: We want your questions.
Speaker 2: We know you're burning your desire to ask some questions
about your pets. You can reach us a number of ways.
You can either call us toll free at eight seven
seven three eight five eight eight eight two. You can
go ahead and chime in right now. If you're online,
just start clicking away. I'll be able to see what
you're asking and also send me a quick email to
doctor Jeff Dr Jeff at petlife radio dot com. And also,
you know, to entice you to call in and to
get through those nerves, that anxiety that you obviously have
about calling in live. We are the only live show
here on pet Life Radio, and I think the only
call it show actually where you get to call in
and hear yourselves and me and live back and forth
and fire away their questions. We are going to be giving,
thanks to our sponsor, pro Sense.
Speaker 3: Pet Products, some freebies.
Speaker 2: So if you call in, if you just get up
the nerve depending on whether you have a dog or cat.
You let us know and we will send you some
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and choices, and you after you're on live, we'll have
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Speaker 3: That'd be great.
Speaker 2: So at least now you have reason to call in
because not only are you saving money by listening to
me and asking questions, you'll actually in a sense make
money because you're gonna get something for free, and that's
always a good thing. So while you're getting the courage,
I want to kind of first of all, let's talk
about the heat. I am here in Los Angeles and
I've actually spoken a friend of mine in Chicago, and
I know it is starting to get really hot around here.
And I'm telling you this morning, by the time I
left home, like at eight thirty, it was already probably
close to eighty degrees. It's in right now, it's I
think it's close to one hundred out there, probably ninety five.
So people ask all the time, what is the longest
you can keep your dog, for example, outside, And the
answer is, I mean feasibly as long as you take
certain precautions.
Speaker 3: You can leave that all day.
Speaker 2: What are the precautions they need plenty of access to
fresh water all day. You do not want to fill
up a water bowl and stick it in the hot
sun and within a few hours they're drinking hot water.
So if they're going to be outside, you have to
come up with a way to either start the day
with like a big block of ice in the bowl.
You can get one of those licks it these little
attachments to a faucet where they're getting fresh water. You
can come up with, Oh, one thing, I saw a
great great idea once.
Speaker 3: You know, a lot of times.
Speaker 2: One of my dogs, my puppy I still call my
puppies about a year and four months old, my crazy
insane yellow lap named Tommy. Well, he wants to play
for him. A water bowl or a food bowl is
a toy so quickly it's upside down. Obviously, when it
turns upside down, there goes the water. So you need
to come up with a way that if you need
to to anchor the bowl into or onto the ground.
Speaker 3: I saw a great, great idea.
Speaker 2: Basically, you got a picture this you take like a
bunt cake pan, so you know, it's that pan that's
got the the circular you know, buncake part in the
middle and in the center.
Speaker 4: Hello, Hello, how are you good?
Speaker 3: Could you hear me?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 3: I can? Okay? And who's this?
Speaker 4: My name is Sean.
Speaker 3: Hello Sean? What can I do for you?
Speaker 4: Well? I have a question about my cat. I have
a cat. It's about my cat is about two years old,
and she's an indoor cat, and she's in heat a
couple of times. How important is it to have my
cat spade even though she's not an outdoor cat?
Speaker 3: Okay, great question. First of all, it spends where you live.
Speaker 2: Interestingly, Sean, there are some municipalities, including here in Los Angeles,
that it is no longer our choice. It's become like
a rule. I mean, if you wanted to not spay
your neuter your dog or cat, you have to apply
for a license of breeding license which is extremely expensive,
and they do that purposely. I meaning to register a
license and animal that is fixed neutered. I think it's
like fifteen dollars, But if you want to register them
not spade or neutered, it's like four hundred dollars.
Speaker 3: It's it's insane.
Speaker 4: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: So cats are what we call seasonally polyestrous, which means
that they only cycle during the spring and summer. It happens,
it has a lot to do with day length, and okay,
but during spring and summer, during the spring and summer cycle,
they can come into heat every twenty one days. So truly,
if they're not bread that's why, you know, answer true questions. Boy,
it seems like she's coming into heat like crazy.
Speaker 3: She is.
Speaker 2: If she's not bred within that season, it'll go through
a quick cycle and then sure enough, a week two
weeks later, she's back on track again. So that explains
why so many cycles. Now, if you have an indoor
cat and she is not you're not taking her to
cat shows, you're not a member of the Cat Fanciers Association,
you're not making any money by having her as a pet,
all right, then you want to do it's best for her,
And truly what's best for her is to have her fixed.
You eliminate a lot of female problems in dogs and
cats when they're fixed. And as they said, the only benefit,
the only benefit to not doing it is if you,
in fact do have a prized breeding female where her
kittens are going to be worth a lot of money,
and you want to put her through that stress of
having the litters once, you know, once a year, whatever
it is. But short of that, if you really want
to do what's best for her, I would recommend getting
her fixed. And plus for you, it'd be easy because
you won't have to deal with that strange behavior. You know,
you touch her on the rump during season or butt's
going up in the air.
Speaker 4: She's come really love you back, and she's absolutely turning
crying and I'm like.
Speaker 2: She's getting all lovey dovey with you, and uh, and
that's that's kind of what we're seeing. So my vote,
and I have six cats, so I do practice what
I preach. I have six cats. They're all fixed, and
they're all indoors, and it's wonderful not to have to
worry about that kind of stuff.
Speaker 4: So hey, well, thank you very much.
Speaker 2: Thank you, and leave information with the studio here and
we'll get a little little kiddy gift out to you
from Proceeds Products. Okay, great, thank you, thank you, Thanks
for calling in Sean, thank you.
Speaker 3: So you see how easy that was. Everybody pick up
the phone.
Speaker 2: Doll eight seven seven three eight five eight eight a
two and we can put you in touch with us
and also get a little a free gift out of it.
So anyway, so we were talking about away a clever
way to lock down a water doll. So you take
that bunt pan, you know the bunt pans they have
that hole coming up the center. So you can buy
like a one inch to one and a half inch
diameter like a wooden pull little dowel, and you can
bang it into the ground, leaving about maybe a foot
to a foot and a half above the ground. You
fill the bunt pan with some ice cubes and water,
and then you set it over this wooden dowel that's
coming up out of the ground, and now it is
basically anchored.
Speaker 3: It is tip proof.
Speaker 2: There's no way the dog can tip this thing over
unless they're clever enough to figure out how to raise
it back up that foot foot and a half above
the ground to take it off that dowel that you have,
you know, sort of anchored into the ground. So that's
a great suggestion. Another thing that these dogs need if
they're going to be outside is shade. Shade is just
of utmost importance. So when one asks how long can
a dog be outside in the heat. The answer is
all day, as long as they have relief from the
hot sun, and that means they have to be well hydrated,
so fresh water all day, and they need to be
able to hide from the sun perfectly, a nice shaded spot,
whether it's under a tree or depending on the direction
of the sun. In my yard, we have the way
the sun kind of rises and sets. Our garage acts
as a great shade over the backyard, so the dogs
can stay out there. And of course if you are
home with them and you want to bring them in
the house, that's great. If you have air condition that's
even better. If you have a pool, that's even mo
better because then if you have dogs like mine and
I have three of my five dogs, I have the
two labradors and the labordoodle, and they go nuts in
a pool. So you know, if you have something like
that and you can get them to a pool or water,
then that's great. But again, some other basic precautions in
the heat in addition to making sure they have fresh water.
If you're going to go hiking, and you know, again
we've talked about this before, it's a fantastic time of
year to get out there.
Speaker 3: With your pets.
Speaker 2: You do not want to hike or take them for
a run or go to the park in the middle
of the day. This is something you want to reserve
for nice and early in the morning or much later
in the afternoon. I have seen far too many cases
of heat stroke, which is often deadly because people were
not cautious, They weren't careful, and they took their pets
outside and did some running, went to the park, started
tossing that frisbee at the tennis ball during the heat
of the day. And just remember also that those poor
pads need to call us up and firm up a
little bit before you start doing heavy duty running anyway,
even early in the morning or late in the evening,
so you know you want to if it's something you
haven't done in a while, make sure you start slowly.
And one last precaution, which I'm going to say until
it tries me nuts, and it doesn't really ever drive
me nuts, because I know how serious it is, do
not ever leave your pets alone in a car, even
in the shade, even with the windows up, because you
be amazed how hot and how fast it can get
hot in the sunshin it is unbelievable. So that's just
a major precaution. I want you to be very, very
very careful. So while more of you, like Sean are
getting the mustering up the Kurts and not only call
but get to get a free gift from pro Sense,
I want to get through some questions that we got
during the week, and one of them is a question
about food and the importance of Oh God, as she put.
Speaker 3: It, how good is raw food?
Speaker 2: So she switched because she's hearing a lot about raw
food diets, and admittedly there are a lot of raw
food diets on the market. I would not change. I
am not a huge fan. I think we talked about
this a couple of weeks ago. There was a caller
that came in, but something that if your dog is
eating something and enjoying it and doing well with it,
then I think there's no need to switch. So don't
change just for the sake of changing. If you're gonna switch,
you're gonna switch because of good reason, because there's a
problem with the food, because there might be an allergy,
a stool problem, the coach dull and dry, etc. But
if everything is good, don't change. And if you're going
to feed a raw food, make sure it's a check
that something has been done in the processing that has
killed off the bacteria. Remember, our domesticated pets do not
have the same gut flora that our non domesticated ancestors
had from.
Speaker 3: Hundreds of years earlier, or probably even thousands of years.
Speaker 2: So people have this misconception that if you're feeding organic food,
then the organic portion of the food is that which
mitigates the scientifology. That's not true. When a dog is
allergic to a food, they're allergic to the protein. That protein.
Regardless of the worst thing on earth that you get
from a fast food restaurant that's been deep fried, or
whether it is a store bought or from the fancy
health food store that is organic, it's still antigenically the same.
So don't kid yourself into thinking that because you spent
all this extra money on organic poultry or organic chicken,
it's not going to cause allergies in your pet.
Speaker 3: If your dog's allergic.
Speaker 2: Your chicken, it's going to be allergic no matter how
it comes, so keep that in mind. Anyway, we are
going to break for a quick commercial break again, want
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Speaker 1: We'll be right back right after these messages. Stay tuned.
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Speaker 4: Hi.
Speaker 8: I'm Lisa Smith Putnam, the hosts of the new and
exciting show Your Pets My Dogs Here on Pet Life Radio.
Speaker 7: Your Pets My Dogs.
Speaker 8: Will feature celebrity interviews, we'll talk to everyday pet owners
and more. Listen, I am here to entertain you each
and every week right here on pet Life Radio again
that's your pets, my Dogs. I'm your host, Lisa Smith Putnam.
Speaker 9: Line, let's talk past, Let's done, PETO Headline.
Speaker 10: Radio, wet live Radio dot com.
Speaker 3: So welcome back to Ask the Bets with Doctor Jeff.
Speaker 2: I'm your host, Doctor Jeff Werber, here with you till
the end of this very quick moving half hour. And
once again we are offering free to our callers. One
of our pro sends pet products. So don't be bashful.
If you have a dog, if you have a cat,
you want some free products, give us a call here
at petlife Radio dot com eight seven seven three eight
five eight eight eight two, or you can go ahead
and email me Dr Jeff, Doctor Jeff at petlife Radio
dot com. Or just if you're online and you're on
the website right now at pet Life Radio, just start
typing away your question and we will see it, we
will answer, and you will get a free pro sense
pet product. So I had a caller wrote in a
question wants to know what can she start thinking about.
She has an elderly dog and the dog spends much
of the day lying around and wants to know, could
this lack of energy be a problem, And you know
there are some many, many things that could be causing
this lying around Number one, we just finished talking about heat.
In a very hot day, dogs are going to take
it easy. Let's face it.
Speaker 3: Some of them are.
Speaker 2: Smarter than we are, and they know in the heat
they need to conserve their energy, and they're going to
kind of chill out a little bit. There are some
disease conditions we have to worry about. Heartworm disease definitely
can cause some exercise intolerance. Heart disease can cause some
exercise intolerance. Any kind of liver disease, diabetes, and also
any kind of neuro muscular disease. Dogs with lumbo sacred
instability we called cauta aquina syndrome, Dogs with hip dysplasia,
dogs with spondylosis which is a bridging of adjacent vertebrae
down the back. Anything that causes a muscle soreness, muscle
weakness can sort of cause some of this lying around, lethargy,
chilling out. If your dog is older, this certainly could
be just age related. Then I would recommend any way
seeing your veterinarian for a senior physical exam, if hasn't
been done yet, and if your dog is younger and
started to exhibit signs like this, even more so because
it's very atypical of young, healthy dogs to bathe this way.
So I would highly recommend taking your pets into your
veterinarian and have them chet to out. So we have
a caller on the line. Caller, go ahead, you're on
with doctor Jeff.
Speaker 11: Hi, doctor Jeff.
Speaker 3: Hi there, and who's this?
Speaker 2: Hi?
Speaker 3: This is Laura, Hi, Laura, And what can I do
for you?
Speaker 11: I have a question about teeth dogs. Okay, other than
bringing a dog in to the vet for you know,
one hundreds of dollars for teeth cleaning, do you recommend
any type of product or any way we can keep
the dog's teeth clean. I know you can brush them,
but I mean there's a lot of products on the
market and they all say they do you.
Speaker 2: Know, right, Well, I'll tell you what. Yeah, So here's
what we got. First of all, the answer is yes,
there's a lot to do. And even if you do
take your pets in for their dental exams and the
official cleanings, I want to give you a few precautions.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: Number one, there are some municipalities that are now banning
these groomers from doing these dentistries if they're going to
use any type of real metallic equipment, because in essence,
what they're doing is they're practicing veterinary medicine without a license,
So you need to make sure that what they're doing
is legal. Number two, A study was done by a
very prominent veterinarian dentist where he followed a number of
dogs for three or four years that have been going
to these groomers for their dental cleanings. And though at
the end of each cleaning their teeth actually looked very good,
he also was taking X rays dental x rays, and
then the end of the study three or four years later,
the bone destruction in those dogs was dramatic. Why because
you can't do a really thorough job getting underneath the pockets,
inside the pockets of those gums, doing a thorough cleaning
without some form of tranquilization, sedation, etc. So when the
veterinari i dentists and the veterinarian do advise doing the
procedure under anesthesia, they really are doing it for the
health of the pet, not because they want to make
some more money, and there are some alternatives. You know,
We in my practice do use a sort of a
twilight type of sleep, a medication that we can reverse
and as long as the dog is very healthy and
as long as we don't have to do any extractions
or gum work, we have been very successful being able
to use the ultrasonic scaling equipment, the cavetron, they call
it a rotor pro cleaning burr, polishing the teeth with
a polishing device, all under this form of sedation. So
that's an option. Now what you can do at home
brushing teeth first and foremost, If you can get your
dog in the habit of having his teeth or her
teeth brushed, you will be miles ahead. And it's really
not that hard as long as you start slow. As
a matter of fact, Laura, what we're gonna do as
if you hang on after this call and give your
information to Mark in the studio, we will send you
out a dental starter kit from pro Sense and you
can start learning how to brush a pet's teeth. But
you want to start slowly. You start with it. It's
a flavored toothpaste. You rub a little bit into their
teeth and gums, give a big hug and.
Speaker 3: Say, oh my god, you're so good.
Speaker 2: Hugs hugs, kiss, kiss, give a little treat, and each
day you just spend a little more time just with
your finger, and then after maybe a week or two,
you graduate to a little finger brush, and then ultimately
you can.
Speaker 3: Graduate to a toothbrush.
Speaker 2: The process might take a month, but that's okay because
it's better than what you're doing now, which is probably nothing.
Speaker 11: Just my one do she only has about like two.
Speaker 3: Teeth, right, that's been tough.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 11: And then my full dog, the mail has both of these.
I think four three of his canines.
Speaker 7: Are broke off, right.
Speaker 11: I don't know how.
Speaker 2: He's probably chewing on fences, on metal, who knows he's
he's probably a very active chewer. Hopefully it's not because
of chewing on the mailman, but but uh so anyway, right,
so I would just it's a good habit. And for
those of you listening, if you have a puppy or
you have a young dog, start now. Even though little
puppies under six months they're gonna lose all their teeth
they have right now, but it's a good idea to
get them in the habit.
Speaker 3: But other things you can do at home.
Speaker 2: There's water bowl additives that are helpful. There are some
antiseptic oral gels that you could find, biotine, oxy fresh stain,
things that you can find around that you have at
a pet store at your VETS office that you can
start using to just help condition control the bacteria population
in the mouth that will help cut down on a
tartar build up. So there are plenty of things of
you know in home care that you can do that
are going to help your bets teeth. So anyway, that's
what i'd recommend, all right, So hang tight, give your
information to Mark and we will send you out a
dental starter kit from pro Sens. All right, great, now
we have I have a note here that Stacy joined
the conversation. Stacy, if you're on and you want to
type in a question, go ahead, or if you're on live,
you can go talk to me.
Speaker 3: So let's see.
Speaker 2: Oh, so we were talking about some of the things
that might cause some lethargy in a dog, and so
that would be my big ones, right there is liver disease, diabetes,
bone or joint problems, old age or major major spring
or summer heat. But do you know when your dogs
all of a sudden are acting differently, that is their
way of telling you something, something that may not be right.
So it's very, very important to listen to your dogs.
What they're telling you is I don't feel well, Please
take me in, have me checked out. And sometimes it's
interesting that often is the case that dogs don't show
early signs of disease. They have been conditioned through the
course of survival that if a dog or a cat
would actually exhibit outward signs of disease, they in essence
now became a sitting duck for a predator. So they
have developed, if you will, over their course as they develop,
is to not show outward signs of disease. So it's
part of the master plan. And you know this is
it's important. It's what's helped them survive, So don't be
always expecting to see an issue. And also physiologically again,
I'll use the kidney as a perfect example that a
dog can actually be running on twenty five percent of
his or her kidneys before you might see any sign
of kidney disease. That means the ability for the kidneys
to hide their disease and to sort of work overtime.
That portion that is left again for survival, it might
be i say, one quarter one third of kidney mass
left before you might start seeing a sign of disease,
so you know, keep that in mind as well. So anyway,
the hour went really fast the half hour. That's why
it went so fast. It was only half hour. Once again, callers,
we had Laura, we had Sean. We want to thank
you for calling in. We have some free pro sense
gifts coming your way, and next week I'm going to
talk about some dangers with the Quintessential Fun And as
we are approaching fourth of July, I think we're going
to have the show on fourth of July, so we'll
get you to listen before you have that fourth of
July barbecue. There are some things that you need to know,
so I want you to stay tuned. Next week, you'll
have no excuse because you're not going to be at work,
so I want you listening to us here at pet
Life Radio and you'll be able to get a hold
of me at eight seven seven three eight five eight
eight eighty two.
Speaker 3: If you want to send me a question beforehand, please.
Speaker 2: Do so at doctor Jeff at Petlife radio dot com
see you next week.
Speaker 3: Once again, thanks to Process
Speaker 1: Let's Talk pets every week on demand only on petlit
radio dot com.