Speaker 1: This is pet Life Radio. Let's talk pets and we're ready.
We're here. We are live from where now, Mexico. You're
here with doctor Jeff hosts the next thirty minutes here
in pet Life Radios, asse bets of Doctor Jeff and
of course Instagram live here for you, here for your
pets and just anything you want to talk about is now,
it's the time to do it. Having a wonderful time
this time we're at a family resort because you brought
two of my kids and five of our grandkids and
so they're having a blast there. They're down in a
pool at the beach. I'm up here in my room
studio and uh here just I could not let another
week go by without talking to you guys. So here
we are live, so and you know the drill. Any
questions you have, anything you want to talk about, now
is the time to do it. And you know, we've
had some interesting conversations, you know, over the last several weeks.
I know we talked about insurance last week. We'd love
to know how you feel. We had one of our
followers our callers was definitely four pet insurance and that's great,
you know, anytime, and I hear that, I'm thinking myself,
you know what, that's the person if they go to
Las Vegas, they are going to win. It's fantastic. But
you know, unfortunately the way it is, most people aren't
going to do so well. But you know, as I
said about and we started this last week, is that
whatever you do, you're going to need it the most
when you don't have it. So the key really is
is that you want to make sure that you have
prepared in some way for that rainy day. Hi, staff,
I'm Maris, says hello. And we saw some people playing
cribbage yesterday, so we definitely thought about you guys. So
that another couple that we met at one of our
other vacation spots on the A Vacation Club. And anyway,
so George and Walter I are doing fine, and so
let's get some great questions. Anything you guys want to
talk about, anything that's happening with their own pets. You know,
one of the things that that unfortunately I see and
I'm dealing with it now with a couple of cases
that I wish every case were easy. You know, sometimes
I can I can hear a history and already make
a diagnosis even without exactly I'm in the animal. I mean,
that's not a bed and not a good thing to
say I'm going to make a diagnosis with without examining
the animal. But we know there are certain things that
just pop up so regularly that when I hear the history,
I kind of and I can see, especially if I
do on video, I can actually I know what's going on.
Then you have cases that we've gone through all the
basic tests. We know what's going on. We know the
treatments that are the typical classic treatments, but I often
joke that unfortunately the animal didn't read the book. That
pet didn't read the book, so they don't know how
they are supposed to respond to a particular treatment. We
know textbook wise what's supposed to work, but it doesn't
always work. What happens then till we get to a
point where if we are treating a patient and we
are throwing everything at them, and I'm talking a patient
not just from my humble diagnosis, but also sending them
to a specialist, having that specialist come in and do
some specialized testing, and we have a legitimate diagnosis now
that matches what we suspect it. And yet all the
basic treatments aren't working. So now everyone's scratching their heads, going, well,
what do we do now? So this gets to the
point it's more a matter of being realistic as opposed
to be idealistic. Idealistic wise, we would love to help
them all in do everything, but realistically, and this is
what I say. If we get to the point that
in order to make a diagnosis, we need very specialized
testing for example like a ct CAN, computerized tomography or
an MRI, or we know that the problem is in
the liver or the spleen and we need Now we
need biopsies, and so now we're either talking about laparoscopically
biopsy or surgical biopsy, or we actually open up the
abdomen and take whatever we need. So sometimes we are
forced to do that to get to add to our diagnosis,
to make it more of a specific diagnosis, to then
modify our treatment. But one thing I say, and again
this is where I first of all, I, as you know,
if you know me, I always say, age is not
a diagnosis. Now I'm not gonna make a choice just
based on age, but I will say this, and this
is where the practical hat over the academic hat comes in,
and I'm very proud to say I wear more than not,
often than not, I wear a practical hat. We get
to a point where we have a much older dog
and the only way to get the answer is going
to be through some of these major, very expensive, several
one thousand dollars tests. I often say that if it
takes that much to get that I I can only
tell you one thing, whatever it is, it's not going
to be easy. A slamgung oh to days, let's get
this bill, We're good. No, if we get to the
point where the only way we're going to get a
diagnosis is through very specialized, very expensive testing, then the
reality is the practical part of it is that more
likely than not, it's not going to be an easy
treatment either. So this is where it's important to have
a framework getting into a case that you have in
your mind a button, a stop button that's oh, time
out a second. Let's see what's it going to take
to treat How sure are we that the treatment is
going to help, how much is this treatment going to cost?
And at what odds? What percent of animals getting this treatment?
Now that we finally after all these very very expensive
tests have an answer how likely is it that treatment
is going to fix the problem a period, but even
not period? But what cost that I don't mean just
money cost, I mean emotional cost. I mean time cost.
Are we gonna have to put this or pet through
several months of some kind of treatment when he's already
fifteen years old? And again, this is the most difficult
part of what I do as a veterinarian and what
we do and we have to deal with as pet
parents because most people don't think about this until it happens,
and then it becomes a very very difficult concept you
have to deal with. And I wish, as I said,
I wish I had an easy answer. There is no
easy answer. This is where we have to sort of
prepare for sometimes the worst, sometimes to almost like having
that we have to sign that document about DNR do
not resuscitate. At what point do we do that DNR?
And we have to say, Wow, I'm going to spend
ten thousand dollars to get a diagnosis maybe maybe made
him give you full diagnosis, and then it is some
sort of weird problem that's going to require major surgery,
major chemo that's going to last several months with only
thirty percent chance of success. You know, these are dilemmas,
and fortunately these dilemmas don't happen all the time. It's
National Puppy Day. I'm just alerted. That's great. So I'm
really curious to know many of you out there today listening,
how do you feel about this? What would you do?
Have you even thought about it? Have you even spoken
to a veterinarian and say, you know, how can we proceed?
What should we do? Doc? What would you do if
it were your dog? And some of those times I
have to answer, I don't know until I'm faced with it.
It's really hard to in your mind, you know, come
up with this scenario that you have all the answers.
We don't have all the answers. I wish I had
all the answers. I don't think there's any veterinarian on
the planet that is all the answers. Yes, tarn and
I am based in La. I'm in West La. My
practice is in Westwood, just near on Western Boulevard near Wilshire.
Come on, don't be a maress. Let's chime in see
if you at first of all, have any of you
been faced with this kind of dilemma where you've all
the basic easy tests, the out to sound, the needle biopsy,
all those have come back inconclusive, non diagnostic, and now
you've got to go in too much more extensive, and
of course, sadly with extensive comes expensive. So you just
gotta change how one letter and it could be disastrous
because you know, I don't want people sort of you know,
going up that wrong tree. It's it's something that we
really really need to understand. So come on, some people
here have to have an opinion, have to actually have
been through this at one point or another and maybe
can help us, because I will tell you one thing
I have had many Okay, I do a lot of chemotherapy,
and of course I don't do radiations there, but I
have to send that to radiation, you know, veterinarian who
does radiation oncology. But I've done it many times, and
you know, things change over the years. By the way,
I'll get that back to that in a second. But
how many times have I heard someone who had a
pet that has gone through extensive chemotherapy and then a
future pet is faced with a cancer and the discussion
pops up about chemotherapy and they go, no, No, been there,
done that. It's not pretty. We wouldn't do it again.
We already decided we wouldn't do it again. I'm just
curious how many of you have been through anything like that,
or been through a situation where the basic testing that
your veterinarian has done has basically ruled out a lot
of things, but it still hasn't ruled in what the
problem is. And the doc says, you know, next step
is going to do we have to do a CT
of the brain or the abdomen or the bone, or
an MRI of the brain, you know, whatever it is.
We need to go sort of dig deeper into the problem.
And at what success did that entail? In other words,
did it work? Were you able to make their diagnosis
officially accurately and then and then treat successfully? And I'm
just curious while we think about that, And then, as
I'm sitting here in Mexico, beautiful weather, I'm waiting for
somebody to join in and tell me of their experience,
and so far none of you have. How is that possible? Okay,
X ray USC for a certainly number of pups. Oh God,
good question. So here's a question, do I recommend X
ray or ultrasound to ascertain the number of pups? Okay,
here's how I feel about this, and that's a wonderful question.
X rays do a better job at counting the either
the skulls or the backbones. So as far as counting
the number of pups and what side they're on, you
have the lateral and you take two views. You always
do a lateral view and you do what's called the
VD ventro dorsal view that will split right and left.
They have an idea of what's right and left, and
then the lateral view can also help discount counting all
the heads, but it gives us no information about movement,
about heart rate, about even heartbeat. So there you need
the ultra sound. So the ultrasound will tell us viability.
But it's very difficult to do account because sometimes they're
overlapped and they're sending yourself, but did we count this
one or this one? Maybe from the other side we
did already. It is more of a challenge to count
when you're on ultrasound. I actually do both if I'm
worried about positioning in the uterus and the body of
uterus as far as to determine how easy it will
be or what size of the birth canal versus and
I do a lot of French bulldogs the size of
the skull to be able to say, sorry, this one's
going to need a C section, or you see the
positioning is right right, so there's no breach, they're going
to come out. Everything seems to be moving smoothly. I
can see I counted six pups or eight pups. I'm
seeing six r eight heart beats. Everyone I robe has
a nice heart rate going. So I'm one of those
guys that like to do both. One is for positioning
and number and side left side, right side, and the
other one is for viability. So I hope you answer
the question. Also, an X ray is better at telling
us the potential age of the pups because you'll be
able to see skeletons. If you can't see skeletons, then
they're too young. They usually kip skinning around five six
weeks of age. Just start seeing some skeleton. Remember that
normal pregnancy goes for it called gestation goes for sixty
three plush and minus five. That means from fifty eight
to sixty eight days, so it gives you an idea
based on the skeletons about how far along we are,
because sometimes people don't know whether they say, well, gotta,
I didn't know she's pregnant, Well, then you're really out
of luck now, or it was an arranged pregnancy, but
they've read three times, you don't know which one took.
So sometimes I think it's good to do both. Now,
having said that had to make it in to stop
chemo with their bernice and hopes of a better parbat
of life, even for a shorter time, and we get
this a lot as well, so I would I would
say here that that is it's also typically I should
say this, typically when it comes to chemotherapy and dogs,
we don't hit them as hard as people. Oh, we
have some people waiting in the room, maybe want to
join us. Hey on one second, So you know, it's
a great comment, and some people op they say, you know,
I always say, let's try chemo at least for the
first time, at least for the first go round. When
we come out of remission and it's now you're faced
with a time to maybe have to go back in
and do a different type called a rescue remedy something else.
That's going to rescue. It's oftentimes more aggressive. It's a
different action. People will saying they're kind of weakening. I'd
rather have a good quality of life now. Usually we
don't use doses high enough to leave them like people
you know sitting in hospital beds severe nausea. Fortunately we
don't do that. Again, I always would recommend it. Well,
also depends on what type of cancer. At least let's
try the first go round. Let's see how we do.
And that's how I feel. All right, Mark, we have
people in the waiting room. All right, let's do this.
Why did you take the break on pet Life Radio
and we'll come back. We'll answer some of those called.
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Let's done petal have a Life.
Speaker 3: Radio headline radio atlight radio dot com.
Speaker 1: We're back, We're back. They did wonder of Kema. They
just felt it wasn't right to do it again when
he goes recommended it so tough. Yeah, and by the way,
certainly Brittie's Mountain Dog, you don't have a shorter light.
Now let me say, okay, let's go, we have hold.
I would rather discuss this. It's so much cancer in
our past now with the vaccines were never gigsman. You know,
that's a really interesting comment. And again that's why I am.
I am a fan interestingly of what we call core vaccines.
Maybe we'll get to that. Let's get to some of
these calls. Go ahead, and you want to put it
through Tyresee what's up? My dog keeps popping anal glands everywhere.
I was wondering what I can do to help with that. Ah, Okay, yeah,
you guys should probably hear that too, because it's coming
through my speaker. A dog who has persistent anal gland problems. Well,
first of all, make sure if when they're being expressed,
make sure of a good groom or or a veterinarian
or veteran nurse is doing it. Because there are two techniques.
One is easier technique most groomers do, and that's you
just squeeze one gland against the other. You don't actually
put a glove on. Well you should put a glove
on anyway, but I mean, you're not going to go
inside the rectum. And do you know one gland at
a time using your index finger and your thumb and
actually expressing them really well, if that has been done
and the dog is still going through frequent anal gland
need for anal gland expression, then I would consider removing
the anal glands. How old is your dog and two
and a half? Now, who has been expressing the analglands?
And do you know which technique they've been using? I'll
do not you know, Okay, I would check who's been
expressing them. Is it a groomer or is it the knockers?
The vets are doing it well, if they're doing the
digital technique, they know what I mean. And we're still
having such persistent problems and you have a dog who's
only two, which means you got a long year's head hopefully,
then you may think about having the ineglange mooved if
it's become that much of a nuisance, because you know
dogs that are getting these innox problems, they're not comfortable,
they're scooting, they're turning around, they're licking their behinds. So
if it stinks and it's still that goes without saying,
and they always have that fishy smell, that that metallic smell, no, no,
one hundred percent. So if it's an older dog and
it's easy for you to express and you don't mind
doing it, that's your choice. But a young dog who's
already having such problems and you can only hopefully think
of the many good years ahead, you might talk to
your veterinarian about having the ineglange. At least it's worth
the conversation. Thank you, all right, you're welcome. Thanks for
joining us. Mark, anybody else? Oh Steve m is waiting,
Steve em are you there?
Speaker 4: Can you hear me?
Speaker 1: I can hear you?
Speaker 4: Oh, yes, So I have a German shepherd. Okay, it's
about I think it's six years old. But that's really
bad skin problems and any lot shampoos or anything off
trot to use to help it just nothing the same.
Speaker 1: A six year old German shepherd with a lot of
skin problems. So yeah, first of all, a couple of things.
Many dogs have skin allergy. And when dogs manifest their allergy,
it's not even inhaled allergens we call atopy. It's not
seizing and rupper respiratory and whatever. It's scratching. Then once
dogs start to scratch, then they break their skin and
they get secondary skin infection called secondary pioderma, that in
of itself is really itchy as well. So now you
have a dog it may started have a started to
scratch because of allergy, but then when they get infected,
it continues because the secondary infection hasn't been treated. So
if it's persistent, depending on where on the body, you
have to make sure we don't have fleas, you have
to think about maybe if it's persistent, getting allergy tested.
You want to talk to your veterinarian about getting allergy testing,
treating the allergy testing with allergy shots, and of course
treating the secondary infection at the same time. If you
only treat one and not the other, then you're still
be at a loss. Now, Secondly, the body doesn't lie,
especially in dogs. Many different parts of the body can
indicate what the culprit is. If it is face, ears,
and feet, you gotta think food food allergy. That's the
classic presentation. Now dogs if they're on their abdomens, inside
their thighs. Also ears ears are overlap, then we think
atopede that is inhaled allergens, grass as, weeds, trees, things
that they inhale pollens. Then we have the lower back
up above the base of the tail. If we see
that that's fleas screaming. I have flea allergy called FAD
flea allergy dermatitis. So it always helps when deciding on
a treatment plan to know what the culprits are or
if it's a single culprit. Oftentimes dogs that are allergic
are allergic, so it may be more than one thing.
So you have to see where on the body are
the tell tales and then what treatments have been done.
And a lot of times I will say I'm a
big fan of cider point, which is the injection that's
an anti allergy injection. It attacks ile thirty one inter
luken thirty one, which is one of the It's released
from t helper cells in response to allergens, and the
cider point shot attacks it. There's also an oral medication
called apple quil and appicle works a little bit differently
and that attacks and blocks janis kinase one, janus kyase
three Jack one Jack three which work with interluken thirty
one to create the havoc in the skin. So without
Jack one and Jack three, Il thirty one is neutralized.
So either you can neutralize the aisle thirty one directly
that's the sided point shot, or you block Jack one
and Jack three, which is the ocliscinative, which is the
apple quill and pill. So talk to veterinarian, but make
sure that if they have scabs on there on their body,
if they have little sores, if the tissue is red
and inflame, make sure you also talk about antibiotics protecting
against secondary skin infection.
Speaker 4: And but luck thank you very much.
Speaker 1: They're very welcome and also feed in the ears and face.
Think about diet. Okay, annual vaccination helps send me for
indoor cats. Ah, it's a good question. So now it
looks like we are an order older cat. We sees
brain and brain and grease. He's peed in the home
wild now and started peeing and put me on our furniture. Okay,
living that goes with anal van canceled. Last year he
had surgery, moved Carsonoman, later had some rounds of radiation.
He bounces back to doing great. Yes, that is great.
I'm you know, removing anal glands and then following them
up if needed with radiation is the way to go.
And I'm very happy older cats seizus brain injury. So
I would treat if there's brain injury causing seizures, I
would treat it as an epilepsy because in essence, an
epileptic focus is the same thing. So you can either
try seizure disorder medication which is kepra, which is a
nisamide which is phenobarbitol, or talk to your veterinarian if
they think it's swelling in the brain from the brain injury,
then maybe steroids could be helpful. Also it could be too.
By the way, there are a lot of cats a
pee in areas and home and furniture that don't ever
have it, have never had history of brain injury. It's
just a behavioral thing. Don't forget that's a possibility, and
also think about putting them on amatypicole and the prozac
or abuse barone. Again, talk to veteran Aaron and talk
to veteran behaviorists. Feel a way is great, that's a
very natural solution, and so I would wouldn't hesitate to
try some of those. Also, Okay, there's another one here,
annual vaccinations. Well, I am as you know, I'm a
fan of core vaccines, and those are vaccines that are
necessary based on lifestyle up and unfortunately, in some states
rabies is required for cats. In California it's not. So
my recommendation is if you have an indoor cat that
is not going to be subjected or exposed to rabies
unless you're inviting rabbit animals into your home or apartment,
or leukemia, which requires prolonged direct contact with leukemia positive cat. Again,
I have four cats at home. I do not vaccinate
for any of those. All I do is give the
upper respiratory cat fever called the f VRCP and with
P and E which is numinitis, once every three years.
And when I vaccinate my cat, all cats, whether they're indoor,
outdoor or indoor and only getting one vaccine or unfortunately
all three. We only vaccinate cats in the thigh. Why,
as we've discussed before, if they should get this very
sad feline vaccine induced sarcoma, you can save their lives
by amputating that leg. So, knowing that that feline vaccine
is induced sarcoma is a risk of getting a vaccine.
Why would you want to vaccinate a cat that is
indoors and is at no risk for getting two of
those diseases. So my recommendation is not to do it. Now,
if you're comings mistake it's required, or you're traveling with
the cat into a state where it's required, then I
mean you feature veterinarian and you pretty much have to
do it. But I am not a fan, and therefore
I don't. And now the same with even dogs and
other vaccines. For example, living in Los Angeles, am I
worried about lime disease? The answer is no, So do
I vaccinate against lime disease?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: How about Rattle State vaccine? How about Coronac? You know
Corona vaccines. Corona the infection when you get from Corona,
it's like a twenty four hour stomach flu. Do I
want to risk a vaccine and a vaccine reaction to
protect my dog against the twenty four hour stomach flu.
The answer is no. So I don't give corona. I
don't recommend it. I don't recommend rattle steak unless you
do a lot of hiking in the mountains. I don't
recommend lepto again unless you're if your animals are at risk,
then I think, yes, you might need to do the vaccine. Bordtella,
influenza lepto are once a year, the rabies and distemper
parvo are every three years. So again the first one
I do. Now, there are some out there that are
the you know, the vaccine Maven's university level, that say you,
after you finish the puppy series at sixteen weeks, you're
done for three years. The woman that I follow actually
is a fan of let's boost those because it was
still new, relatively new, we can't predict one hundred percent
we're going to get that really long term protection, so
I like to boost them a year later. So now
they're looking at a year and four months, but after
that it's every three years. So that is sort of
the way I've been practicing and how I've been doing it,
but I think that annual vaccines for indoor only cats,
they say that. Now I look at the three year rabis.
I know the juries out about leukemia vaccine. Do you
really need three every year? Or you can that also
be a three year vaccine. I just have to follow
your doc. If I have to give leukemia, I also
I do every three years. Well, first of I don't
give it at all for indoor only cats. And I
would tell you gladly, most of my feeline patients living
in a city like Los Angeles, where they're just the
odds of staying alive are much greater when you're hav
an indoor only cat. Why would you subject them to
the rigors of the outdoors if you live in a city, cars, dogs, coyotes,
felad dukemia, feline age. Why so sometimes people say, well, look,
it's a cat. He wants to you know, one of
my cats. He's the best cat ever. He's my black Ninja,
a black cat. He was an outdoor cat. We figured
we adopted hm. He's about a year of age, maybe
eleven eleven months, ten months, whatever, and he really wanted
out of each chance you can get. But we kept
him indoors. Now our front door can be wide open
and he will look outside one or the other. Eh,
he says, got it made in his house. I'm staying
right here. You can make I think you can convert
that outdoor cat to being indoor cat. A lot of love,
a lot of good food on a good schedule, no
hunting for their food, good litter boxes appropriate for the
number of cats you have in the household. And I
think almost any cat could ultimately made an indoor cat.
But I know many of you have tried and failed.
So it is what it is. So I want to
thank all of you for joining me today. I will
be back in town as of tonight, actually heading back
to LA so I'll be back. We get the injection
that works so well far dog? Yes good. I give
my cats CBD that he gets older. That's good. Yes,
I'm a big fan of CBD. All right, Evan, how
you doing Max? I've never asked you about the vaccine
you mentioned my persian just sol cates are worth discussing it? Yes,
we should definitely discuss it. Boy, I love this pet
lab as for t do you know? Yes, I do
know about the product. Thanks Steph. You know. I think
that I know pet Lab. I give my dogs some
pet Lab products. Do I think that it's going to
replace brushing at least ideally every day but every other day. No,
it's not. Now might it be better than nothing? It
might be, so I would still use it, But there's
nothing that's going to replace brushing your pets teeth to
prevent having to come in every year or even sooner
than every year with small breeds when they get older
for a professional dental profile access. I think we're good.
I think I've answered all my questions. I'm getting dirty
looks from Mark as it's five four minutes past the hour,
so all right for all of you. You can always
get a home during the week. You can reach me
here on pet Life Radio doctor Jeff at Cetlife Radio
dot com. You can reach me here on Instagram. You
obviously you're here, so you know erb's underscore dBm. Just
look me for Jeff Werber and I will be happy
to call you back. I can also reach me doctor
Jeff and doctor Jef dot com. If you need to
talk to somebody immediately before you ruk to wordency, go
to AIRBT and you'll talk qute either me or a
doctor on airbat so many ways to get a hold
of us and have a wonderful week and we'll see
you next Sunday. Have a great week.
Speaker 3: Come by Let's Talk Pets every week on demand only
on Petlife Radio dot com.