Speaker 1: Wait, you're listening to Petlifradio dot com.
Speaker 2: And welcome, Welcome everybody on this great Sunday morning.
Speaker 3: You're here live with doctor Jeff.
Speaker 2: Werber hosts for the next thirty minutes on Askibet with
Doctor Jeff, the I think only live calling show here
on pet Life Radio, and we're here for you. We're
here for your pets. We're here to have a good time,
answer your questions, whatever they may be. Just give me
a call. You number ways to get a hold of me.
You can either reach me toll free eight seven seven
three eight five eight eight eight two, or you can
join in the conversation. Log onto petlife Radio dot com.
On that left, you'll see all the different shows we
have here. You go ask the Ve's with Doctor Jeff,
and there's a box here that says join in the
conversation and it's a live chat, or you can go
ahead and send us a live email on right now
as we speak to doctor Jeff at Petlife Radio dot com.
Speaker 3: So all those different ways you can get a hold
of me, which is.
Speaker 2: Great and it's that easy. And as I said, we're
I always have an alternative plan as far as what
we're going to do but I really want to hear
from you. We've had some great questions lately. You can
send me emails. If you're an embarrassed or shy, just
send me an email to doctor Jeff at Petlife Radio
dot com. They'll be forwarded to me and we can
read them live next week on the air, and that'd
be great. So, speaking of next week, I'm going to
be live I think next week, but I'm leaving for Lima, Peru.
I have been invited to speak at the Latin American
Veterinari Conference and also given the opportunity to speak at
two veterinary schools in Lima, and we're going to do
a spae neoter clinic, teaching the students some tricks of
the trade when it comes to Spain Hooter. So looking
forward to that, and then get to speak at the conference,
have six hours of lecture, so it'll be pretty cool.
I will definitely report back to upon my return, letting
you know what it's like in Lima, what the state
of Verney medicine is in Lima. But I'm really looking
forward to Last time, actually I was in Peru. I
had a great experience. I went over there with a
group called Amazon Cares and it is started by a
women out of New York and it is a charity
that spends a lot of time and money bringing veterinarians
into the Amazon Jungle, a town out just on the Amazon.
They call it the Western Gateway to the Amazon, So
it's that small part of the Amazon River in Jungle
that is actually in Peru as opposed to Brazil. And
the town is called Akitos and Bilen, and they have
a huge problem with pet overpopulation. There are literally literally
dogs are running the town. They're all over the place.
They are in the worst conditions imaginable. And I'd seen
pictures of the state of these dogs and cats and
I was so concerned. So I signed up and went
over there about three years ago, and it was the
most amazing experience. We literally trapped and caught these dogs.
We vaccinated, we spade or neutered, We removed tumors, We
just whatever we can do to fix them up, started
heartworm treatment, whatever it was we can do, we did,
and then we just had to let them go. But
they were all now fixed, spade neutered, so everybody knew.
We trimmed the ears on the dog, so it was
just an amazing, amazing experience. The veterinarian, the local vet there.
It's a husband wife team. She does small animal, he
does large animal, and it's really the only veterinany hospital
in Akitos, and she is overwhelmed and she can't do
it all. In Ord Doeres, she have the ability to
do this without pay or else she can't keep her
doors open. So it was just an amazing experience. The
money comes in from Amazon Cares. It's a great organization,
and you know, there are organizations like this around the world.
One is called World Vets that sends veterinarians to other
parts of the world.
Speaker 3: And anyway, it was great.
Speaker 2: One of the talks I'm actually giving at the show
is all about that experience and the goal being which
you know, this was so interesting as well, is that
when we have when you look at the veterinarians the world,
you look at the quality and the state of veterinary
medicine around the world, arguably, arguably United States is at
the top of the game. And what's so interesting when
talking to this Molly Mendicau over at Amazon Cares and asked.
Speaker 3: Her how many how many US vets do you get?
Speaker 4: There?
Speaker 2: I mean, are we underrepresented? Are we overrepresented? And she said, sadly,
we are underrepresented.
Speaker 3: So here we are that.
Speaker 2: You know, the most advanced veterinary medicine in the in
the world is coming out of the US North America, certainly,
and we are the most underrepresented. A few of the
other vets that I worked with there during my trip
were from Australia, New Zealand and one from Italy. And
I asked, I asked the end. They're all younger, and
I asked, I said, how often? I mean, how many
students do you do this? It was amazing.
Speaker 3: She said that.
Speaker 2: Probably in their graduating class, seventy or eighty percent of
their classmates will at some point in their first five
years of practice make a trip like this, take off
two weeks and go somewhere in the world to help animals. Indeed,
and I thought that was so amazing because until I
heard about this, we had never gotten this. I mean,
I know very few. I reported back to a number
of my classmates when I came back and told them
just about the amazing experience, and they all said the
same thing, said, Jeff, sign me up.
Speaker 3: Whenever you're gonna do it again. Just let me know.
Speaker 2: That sounds like a great trip. I mean here, you know, look,
I just got back from a ski snowboarding trip with veterinarians.
We do stuff like that, right, Yeah, we need our break.
It's great to get away and have a vacation for
three or four days, but to do something like that
where there's so much good involved, that is great. Anyway,
So I'm heading back to Peru. Unfortunately not going to
Akitos this time, but I'm hoping that being able to
interact with many other veterinarians from around South America and
also react and interact with students, that I will be
able to do some good things. So anyway, again, I
want to welcome you to stay with me for the
next well now less than thirty minutes. And I want
to take our sponsors pro Sens pet products, veterinary quality
products available to you at over the counter mass market prices,
and also Kong. And everybody knows Kong, and so we
are also thank Kang for being one of our sponsors.
As a matter of fact, those of you who call in,
those of you who write in, send me an email.
If I read your email live on air, we will
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Speaker 3: So we have been over the last.
Speaker 2: Few weeks talking about I like to go through different
organ systems. I'm finding that many of you out there
aren't as well informed as we would like you to be,
and I think you should be that if you're going
to go into your veterinarian and conversations will be had
as far as what should be done, what are the
possibilities of what's going on. I truly believe that you
should be better informed so you can actually actively participate.
So when it comes to making decisions about what tests
to do or not to do, you'll have a better idea.
And of course if you have any questions, guess what,
Listen in on Sunday and give me a call and say, hey,
this is what's going on, this is what the doctor recommended.
What do you think? Where do you go from here,
and I will certainly help you sift through. I can
only give you suggestions obviously without having your dog in
front of me or your cat in front of me,
and then being able to feel and see for myself.
But based on what you're telling me, I can give
you some ideas, some suggestions that you can then at
least take back to your veterinarian. So we've been talking
about some respiratory issues of late and the different respiratory diseases.
We're talking about some of the infectious diseases as a puppy.
For example, the most common is going to be what
we call kennel cough. And once again I like to
not call it kennel cough because depending on where you
live and how prevalent I like to call it.
Speaker 3: For me, it's live in.
Speaker 2: La cough, take your dog to the beach cough, take
a walk on Melrose cough. I mean, it's everywhere. You
go to the vet, go to the groom, We're going
to the doggy daycare. With our active lifestyles, dogs are
going to doggy parks. It's everywhere. So I just don't
like used term kennel cough anymore. But infectious tracheo bronchitis.
It is contagious. It is infectious. Fortunately it's not that serious.
As puppies, we also have to worry about pneumonia, and
not just pneumonia, but also canine distemper virus, which early
in the stages.
Speaker 3: If you have canine.
Speaker 2: Distemper virus, which is a virus as we discussed, that
likes epithelial surfaces, it seems to attack epithelial surfaces. It
often starts in the lungs and the early signs are cough,
and then it goes into possible pneumonia, and you have
no idea what you're treating, and it's very difficult to diagnose.
It's expensive something called the PCR tests. But my feeling
is this, you're going to treat it no matter what.
There are dogs that beat distemper if it's in the
respiratory phase. There are dogs that have beaten distemper in
the gastrointestinal phase, dogs that have beaten distemper in the
skin phase. The only time that I would say, you
know what, it might be time to say, you know,
let's call it quits because this virus is taking over
is if it hits the central nervous system. If it
actually starts causing neurologic deficits we call chomping fits, then
it's a tough one to be dead. Those are the
ones that usually end up needing to be put to sleep.
Of course, if the respiratory issue, if it turns into
such a full blown pneumonia where they can't breathe, if
it turns into severe vomiting and diarrhea, then of course
that needs to be considered as well. But you have
to understand one saying we cannot treat distemper, we can't
cure it, I should say that differently. We can control it,
we can keep the animal built up, we can give
the animal its nutrients, we can help stop some of
the clinical disease, but.
Speaker 3: We can't cure it.
Speaker 2: The only being that can cure a virus is that
being itself. That means, whether it's parvo, whether it's just temper,
we require the dog's body, the dog's own immune system,
to beat the virus. All we can do is try
to give it as many tools as we can to
do that. There are no really acceptable, great anti viral drugs,
even drugs that a lot of us use. And admittedly,
when it comes to some of these viruses like a
tamilflu A lot of the experts saying no, no, no,
that's not doing it. You know, it might make you
feel good, but still to this day and age, until
we have a specific anti distemper drug, we need to
do what we do and that support of care. So
now let's go back to our So you have a
dog and you know it's distemper. You know it's distemper,
but as of right now, it's only intestinal or it's
only respiratory. It has not hit the CNS, the central
nervous system yet.
Speaker 3: Are you gonna give up? No, you're not going to
give up. But the dog is.
Speaker 2: Hanging in there and doing well. Continue to treat, continue
to support, provide antibiotics, to provide against secondary infection, to
provide fluids which are essential, and vitamins which are essential.
Do it you can to keep that immune system as
healthy as possible, hopefully to beat this virus before it transmits,
before it goes to the central nervous system. Once the
central nervous system is affected, then you have a tough
battle on your hands. Most probably will give up at
that point. We've had some that have gotten through it,
but they're all there's going to be some deficiency most
of the time. As a matter of fact, even if
you have a dog that has quote unquote beaten distemper
and it is not yet gone to the central nervous system,
and even these dogs can suffer from something later on
in life called ode old dog encephalitis. So again we
have to be very careful because it's a matter of
understanding the process, understanding that even though your dog survived,
then it might have another problem later on. And also
speaking of dogs that survive, you go adopt a dog
from a shelter. The dog looks great, okay, and you
look at his teeth and its teeth are like the
enamel is sort of eaten away. It's it's brown as discolored.
Speaker 3: Your dog.
Speaker 2: This puppy might have had distemper as a puppy. The
two things that I'll do that it's called the enamel hypoplasia.
One is just temper virus. The other one is having
been on tetracycling as a puppy. Or mom could have
been on tetracycline which she's nursing her puppies, and that
also can cause enamel hypoplasia.
Speaker 3: Not good for the teeth.
Speaker 2: Now, the teeth look bad as far as as long
as the dentin is still intact, your teeth are still
gonna function fine, but they're not gonna look as pretty
because they lost all their nice shiny white enamel. But
that tells you that that dog they had this temper.
So now you know that, yes, your dog is doing great,
it's happy, it's healthy, and everything is perfect.
Speaker 3: It beat it.
Speaker 2: But understand that down the road that may be an
issue with old dog andcephalitis and maybe some seizures, some
neurologic problems. Just so you know what I tell you
not to adopt that dog. Absolutely not definitely adopted. Definitely
adopted if it's the right dog. Don't worry about the teeth.
As I said, the teeth are gonna still be strong,
they're just not gonna look as pretty. Maybe you should
have smiled so big for the camera. But it's gonna
be fine. But just know in the back of your
mind you're gonna remember, oh yeah, Doctor Jeff said that
we have to potentially worry about something called ode old
dog encephalitis. So we've gone through. Now there are some
other congenital defects. There are some ciliary defects. These are
the little tiny hairs whose job along the respiratory tree
is to sort of capture and eliminate some bad things,
some debris, dirt, et cetera. And when we have a
ciliary defect, which can be a congenital problem, then these
dogs are going to be more prone to coughing, more
prone to problem. It's more prone to getting sick or
I'm sort of restory disease because these cilia play a
very important role. So that's another thing to consider. Other
conteneral problems we have would be the stenatic and areas.
We've talked many a time. As you know, I have
my French bulldogs. One of them had these little, very
narrow nose the nostrils. That's something that requires surgical repair.
And also often with these short faced dogs with the
stenotical areas, comes what we call an elongated soft palate.
And these are the little dogs, those little pushed in
break yoursephalic breeds that are so loud, especially when they're sleeping,
you hear and all the time. These dogs often have
elongating soft pallets. One of the things I recommend if
you have a small dog and it's going in for
a surgery typically early on a spey or a neuter.
Make sure to mention to your veterinarian. They should do
it anyway, but just that extra little reminder. Doc, please
check the soft palate. My dog snores a lot. If
it does need repair, we'd like to get that repaired
as well. And if you are going to do so,
I recommend laser. Cautery is another way to do it.
Search of the old fashions. Cutting and sewing is a
way to do it, but I love laser because there
is zero bleeding. Laser is amazing when it comes to
fixing both the naries and the elongated soft palate.
Speaker 3: So time for our quick break. Don't go away.
Speaker 2: You're here with doctor Jeff pet Life Radio and we'll
be back in just a few minutes.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back right after these messages. Stay tuned.
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Speaker 2: Let's talk past, Let's don pets, Talfe.
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Speaker 1: Pet Life Radio dot.
Speaker 4: Com And welcome back.
Speaker 3: You're here live with doctor Jeff.
Speaker 2: Wherever your host of askedabats from doctor Jeff, and we've
been talking respiratory problems and we went through some of
the congenital issues. There's another problem we see that it
is probably more hereditary, not necessarily congenital. Just to you
understand the difference congenital merely means present at birth. Many
congenital diseases have a hereditary predisposition, which means it was
transferred genetically from parent to offspring. And there are many
congenital diseases that have no hereditary component. It just could
have been a defect, a genetic defect.
Speaker 3: It just happened.
Speaker 2: Mom never had a dad, never had it, grandmaor grandpa
never had no one else had it. Just pet's born
with it. It's not in the gene pool per se.
But so those are called congenital. Hereditary means that it
is a disease that's transferable from parent. It's in the
gene pool, but it doesn't necessarily show up when they're born.
So you can have a hereditary predeposition to something, for example, hyptsplasia.
They're not born necessarily hyptosplasi. You can do dogs that
it's six months look fine, but then things start changing.
So just understand the difference. So there's another condition that
we see that probably has a high hereditary predisposition. And
the reason we say that is because when you have
diseases that seem to show up often in certain breeds,
the thought is that there must be it must have.
Speaker 3: Entered the gene pool.
Speaker 2: Even if neither parent had the problem, it could have
been what we call recessive and it shows up now
at some point later on, but it's in the genes.
And one such disease is something called trachial collapse or
collapsing trachea. I am sure that there are many of
you out there, especially with small dogs, whether it's a Yorky,
a Palm, a Maltese, whatever, that they go and they
literally you can hear them breathing, and when you take
a picture, you take X rays of these dogs, their
trachea literally will just collapse into nothing. Basically, it's a
defect of the cartilaginous rings that are supposed to keep
the trachea sort of let it maintain its shape and
its rigidity so it doesn't collapse. And oftentimes these dogs
have defects with those rings and they will get a
tracheo collapse. Another problem we see that sounds very similar
is called air redundant dorsal tracheal membrane. And again we'll
see this in more than just small breeds and dogs
that present with that weird cough that it's like a
honk almost. These dogs have a tracheo collapse. Trachia collapses
are they sound terribly. They usually can be controlled with
anti cough medicine, sometimes medicine to calm the dog down,
whether they be things like valume or xenax or things
even like Benaedel. Just keep your dogs pretty chill. It
seems to get worse when they drink water fast where
they get very excite in the heat. Make sure these
dogs don't overheat. But it is really a tough condition
to fix. I know most surgeons do not like playing
with trachya surgery. There are some that have new techniques
that are there out there. But interestingly, one of my
former technicians went on to veterinary school then became a
board certified veterinary surgeon. She was telling me some new
technique that she was using and it was great, and
I actually recently sent her a case. And interestingly, and
this is where I guess experience comes in, she said,
you know what, we want to try some more medical
things first. And that just goes to show you when
a surgeon elects not to do surgery but rather to
treat something medically, you know, that is a very challenging surgery,
a very challenging condition. And one such condition is a
trachyo collapse. Another condition that you might see that sounds
often the same, but you're not going to see it
in any particular breed.
Speaker 3: It's a reverse sneeze.
Speaker 2: I'm very good at reverse sneezes, So if you're listening only,
you may not get it. But if you're watching me
and this is the typical dog with a reverse knees,
it's they're sucking the air in very like I like,
with much resistance, but it comes out easily, kind of
the opposite of ours.
Speaker 3: Because we were we sneeze.
Speaker 2: We go in easily and it and it's the out
that sounds like it's, you know, abnormal, these dogs are.
Speaker 3: It's the opposite.
Speaker 2: It's the inn that's causing the problem, and they have
no trouble sucking it out. Dogs do this. A lot
of dogs do this. No one really knows why. Maybe
it's because those silly in their nose or just getting
too full, who knows, but it's reverse knees. One thing
that I've tried to do at works sometimes is if
you have a little touchy a little dog, if they're
doing reverse knees, just go up to them. Take it
by the snout and blow as hard as you can
right into the nostrils, and that sometimes will reverse the
reverse knees and it kind of puts them back to normal.
Sometimes they get themselves into a panic sometimes, so just
taking your dog and just petting them and letting them
know it's okay, and just trying to chill them out
a little calm down a little bit, that too might
take care or the averse neees.
Speaker 3: But reverse sniezes is one of.
Speaker 2: Those things like like a cherry eye, and I tell
people at Cherry Eye, we talked about this several weeks ago.
Looks way worse than it actually is, and a reverse
sneeze sounds way worse than it actually is.
Speaker 3: Don't panic.
Speaker 2: I personally have never had a patient drop dead from
reverse neezing. Now collapsing trachia. I've had like two in
my thirty plus years, so it's something that most dogs
with medical therapy will do well. Now, in addition, there's
another condition that we see, and this is you know,
again in medical ease, when you say it double negative
for example, really not uncommon would mean common, But when
you're dealing with medical when you have a condition that
we see I don't see it every day, but it's
not oh my god, I can't believe it, So that
would be uncommon something it hardly ever happens. So that
means when we say not uncommon, it's just not that
it doesn't mean it's common. It just means it's not like,
oh my gosh. And that is something that we call
LP luryngrial paralysis. We see this often in retrievers, both
Labradors and Golden's older dogs, and they start sounding when
they breathe like this, almost like the elongated soft palette.
But you know that these dogs went through their whole
life without it, and it happens usually way later in life,
so it's not that big dogs like that. You don't
usually have elongated soft palettes. But they can get that
noisy breathing from what we call laryngeal paralysis, and there
is no medical therapy for that. If it gets really bad,
you gotta be careful because if these dogs start to
overheat and chart to try to breathe more, the more
they suffer from that paralysis in there, the tissue starts
swelling up, and once that happens, they can actually just
not breathe.
Speaker 3: I mean, it can actually suffocate them.
Speaker 2: Very dangerous to get these dogs to overheat, so be
very careful if you have one of these dogs likes
to hike, usually if it's a labor or golden they
love to hike.
Speaker 3: They love to be outdoors.
Speaker 2: But if they start having that breathing issue, you should
not take them outside during.
Speaker 3: The heat of the day. They overheat very easily.
Speaker 2: It's almost sound almost ans like the bulldog. The bulldog
is like this normally, and we have the same precautions
with the bulldog that we would with a bigger dog.
Speaker 3: That has LP.
Speaker 2: Now LP is repairable. It really is the doctor of
entinary surgeon usually, but I don't know.
Speaker 3: Maybe some gps do it. General practitioners I do not.
Speaker 2: Will you can go in and it's called a tie
back and they can tie one of these paralyzed cords
back all right in the larynx and allow them to
breathe again. But here's one warning, one precaution. What do
many of these dogs like to do? Pastime Labradors, Golden Retrievers,
they love to swim. You got to be very careful
if you have a swimming retriever that got a tie back,
because it needed it because of a largeal prolysis. Be
very very careful because they can't close their throat now
because it's tie back, which means they will take in
a lot of water. They can actually asprek, so you
got to be very careful. You may have to take
on Fortunately they're swimming privileges away, so that's all you
have time for today. We will come back with some
more problems with respiratory next week, so make sure to
tune in to US at nine on the Pacific Coast
at noon back east. Once again, thank to our sponsors,
pro Sens and cong and please, if you have any
questions during the week you think of something, send me
an email to Dr Jeff Doctor Jeff at petlife Radio
dot com.
Speaker 3: Thanks for joining me. We'll be here next week.
Speaker 1: Let's talk pets every week on demand only on Petlife
Radio dot com.