Speaker 1: You were listening to Petlifradio dot Com.
Speaker 2: Well, hello everybody here here, I am doctor Jeff Warber
here on this wonderful fourth of July, and from any
of you, hopefully you'll be able to listen in because
you're not going to be at work.
Speaker 3: I'm not at work.
Speaker 2: I actually am here in my office just to do
the show and also of course to check on my patients.
But it's a great to hear in southern California. It's
been really actually pretty cool. Anyway, I wanted to first
of all let you know that you can get a
hold of me here at eight seven seven three eight
five eight eight eight two on the pet Life Radio
the Vets with doctor Jeff and we're talking pets.
Speaker 3: That's why we're here.
Speaker 2: We know one of things before we Oh, of course
I have to think of our sponsors, pro Sense Pet Products.
And again if you call in all right, and if
you get to nerve the courage to give us a
call here at pet Life Radio. And you can also
join us and see if you get into Google Hangout.
We're trying something new because we want you to see us.
We want to see you, and I'm here with Mark
Winter from pet Life radio also taking time on this
life fourth to spend the half hour with us, and
you can join us. We'd like to hear from you.
So if you have Google Plus, you know see if
you can click on and find us. Anyway, one of
the things we started talking about last week and I
realized that just a half hour goes so fast, is
the dangers of the fourth of July. And of course,
you know, we love it and we want to hang
with our pets. But some of the things that concern us.
Let's talk first the foods. So we're going to be barbecuing,
and we got this stuff grilling, and we got the
hot dogs and the hamburgers and whatever it is, and
all the accouterments and the condiment and the desserts and
the apple pie and the chocolate. And there's a lot
there that could be dangerous and post threats to our pets,
So be careful. Too much fatty food is not good. Chocolate,
of course is not good. But one thing that we
see a lot of that I'm trying to really prevent
and guard against, and that is corn cobs. And of
all the things we think about, as bad as some
of these things, our dog gets a hold of too
much fat in the food. They get pancretitis. Yes, we
can treat it. Chocolate toxicity. It's got to be really bad.
They got to eat a lot of it to be
that toxic, and yes we can treat it. But these
are medical diseases, whereas the corn cob is a surgical disease.
Speaker 3: What happens is.
Speaker 2: The diameter of that corn cob is just a little
bit larger than the diameter of the small intestine in
certain places, and the intestine can only stretch so much,
so the dog will swallow that corn cub and it'll
make it into the stomach, and then it can leave
the stomach into the duadena, which is the first part
of the small intestine, and somewhere as it's going through
the dijunum, which is sort of the middle major part
of the intestine, and finally into the ilium. And as
it's approaching, the ilium gets narrow and all of a sudden,
you have a blockage. Now not only is it a
block but what happens is the corn cob puts so
much pressure on the wall of that intestine it starts
to block off the blood supply to the actual intestine,
and so what happens is we have a necrotic, dying
piece of intestine that will often rupture and we will
have oozing leaking and the intestine setting up a major
problem called peritonitis. So we have to make sure that
animals stay away from these corn cobs to avoid that
blockage and ultimate intestinal perforation.
Speaker 3: Where the problem is they do like those.
Speaker 2: Corn cobs, and like many dogs as we know, including
my own, they will swallow faster than chew, so they
don't successfully break up the corn cop. Now, interestingly, we
had won this week. We had a French bulldog, really
had an adorable dog, and she did get hold of
the corn cop and she chewed it, but one of
the pieces lodged in the pylorus, which is the part
of the stomach that leads into the small intestine, so
she couldn't pass anything. So everything she would each you
would vomit and it wouldn't go one way or the other.
It was lodged, and therefore we ended up having to
do surgery to go in and pull out that piece
of corn cop. And man, this carn cop was black.
It already started to get into krotic. The tissue was
looking ugly. So really, I can't stress enough the importance
of when you're throwing stuff away and that great barbecue.
Don't ruin your fun and your good time by having
a dog get really sick. So throw that stuff away
definitely important. So let's talk about fireworks. You know, we'd
mentioned last week. I think we're not giving enough time
to learn how to desensitize your We talked about the
sound effects tape. So for now, make sure your dog
is wearing identification, keep them indoors, try and make sure
they don't bolt out they may try, and maybe put
them in a room with their favorite toys, and then
maybe a little treat and put on some music, put
on the TV, something that might just kind of block
out some of the sounds of the fireworks.
Speaker 3: And don't over coddle your dogs.
Speaker 2: Because what you do is when you do that, is
they end up being reinforced for that fearful behavior. So
they're gonna do it even more, you know, Don't be
mean to them, but just kind of let them be
in the room, let them do their own thing, give
them some food, putting on the music, put on the TV,
and leave them alone. Don't pay too much attention sometimes
with dogs will act out and do what we call
attention getting behavior because they see that they're getting attention,
even though the behavior is a bad behavior. So you
want to be careful. Let's see, cats they're tough, you know.
If you have an outdoor cat, they're smart enough they'll
find a place to hide. But typically my cat's all
six of them are indoors. They don't seem to be
too bothered by it. They chill with each other, but
it's nice to go up and enjoy the fireworks. Just
make sure your pets are safe. Oh and the reason
for the IDA and even identification for an indoor cat, say,
is that is that if they do freak out and
someone leaves the door open, people are coming here, going
they can break through a window. I mean, my dogs
just the other day broke through a screen door. Not
because they were worried about fireworks. They could care less,
but they saw the pool. And I have the five dogs,
but three of them are major swimmers. And even my
friend he's going the pool not willingly. They usually fall in,
but they know how to find the steps. So anyway,
I would like to hear from you. Plus, if you
give us a call, we're going to send you out
a pro sense product of your liking. So and it's free,
so give us a call it eight seven seven three
eight five eight eight eight two because I want to
know any problems you've been having with fourth or July,
or it's just any other question you want to give
us a question, I mean give us a call.
Speaker 3: We'll answer your question.
Speaker 2: Online live, because we are here at pet Life Radio,
the only live broadcast where you get to ask me
questions and I hopefully get to answer them. Come on,
I am spending my fourth of July inside on Skype
on Google Plus talking to you on pet Life Radio.
So make it worth my while and at least answer
some questions.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 2: So, anyway, while you're getting the courage, I wanted to
talk about, we had some things going on skin wise
with this time of year, and it's probably the number
one problem I see this time of year are going
to be allergies and dogs that manifest allergic disease. Usually
inhaled allergies or flea allergies or sometimes even food allergies
are all skin related. In other words, when a person
has a food hypersensitivity, what do they do? They have
gastrointestinal signs. When a person inhales an allergy in like
a pollen hey fever, they have respiratory signs. But when
it comes to animals, our dogs, especially whether it's flea,
whether it's pollen, whether it's going to be from the
two foods, it's going to be all skin. Typically, though
dogs haven't read the book. The skin problems in the
lower back, that means the base of the tail, the
rump area, those are flea related. If the problems are
inside the groin, on the abdomen, the backs of the thighs,
you got to think inhaled allergies. And if the dogs
are going nuts over their feet, sometimes rubbing their faces
sometimes even ears, think food allergy. Now, of course, any
dog is allergic to one thing may allergic to other things,
and they are boundaries, and these boundaries are crossed.
Speaker 3: But typically well, at least we have an idea.
Speaker 2: Now, cats, on the other hand, they suffer from something
called miliary dermatitis, and regardless of the source of the allergy,
whether it's flea, whether it's pollen's, whether it's environmental, whether
it's food, whatever it is, they're going to get these
lesions almost anywhere in the body.
Speaker 3: So there's no rhyme or reason.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, they don't give us any help to determine what
the source of the allergy might be based on the
location of the clinical science, So cats kind of make
it more of a diagnostic challenge. Now forst treatment, one
of the complicators of allergy are going to be bacterial
allergic or so you said, bacterial skin disease, and we
call this pioderma, and pioderma in dogs is usually not
primary I mean it could be, but excuse me not.
So when we see pioderma in a dog that skin infection, pustules,
erythema scams its sores, we're always looked for primary cause,
and typically this time of year, that primary cause is
going to be allergic skin disease.
Speaker 3: But if we.
Speaker 2: Don't treat the pioderma, we're going to be unsuccessful in
treating the skin disease. And because there are no specific
anti allergy drugs for skin just yet, we have to
work with the immune system either. We're trying to suppress
the symptoms, the signs, the scratching, the irritation, the actual reaction.
We do that with using corticosteroids, which a lot of
us don't like to use or we actually suppress the
entire immune system with medication for example, called cyclosporine. But again,
we don't have a specific anti allergy drug, though there
is one on the horizon and we're hoping to see
it maybe in January. It's about all I can tell you,
but it is, let's put it this way, the histamine
of human allergy, which is the cellular mediator which is
mediating the allergic response in people, thus allowing us to
use anti histamines to comback the allergic reaction. We are
a drug will be introduced soon enough that is going
to actually attack the canine allergic response at the cellular level,
so we won't need steroids, we won't need to suppress
the entire immune system. We can actually block the mediator
responsible for the allergic skin disease. I think that's really
cool because and that's as I said, we're hoping to
hear something about this come January now. So it's important
as we treat these animals to try to minimize or
remove the offending allergen. If that infending allergen is a flea,
then we want to take care of the fleas. If
the offending allergen is pollens. Ah, now we're in trouble.
We can't put your dog in a plastic bubble, so
we need to maybe consider trying to desensitize. But in
order to desensitize, we first have to identify what those
offending allergens are. How when it comes to foods, Oh
my god, however difficult it is to identify the pollens
when it comes to foods, it's even worse. And to
try to do it this time of year when you're
not sure whether the problem is food or pollen, because
sometimes as overlap, you might be going through a lot
of hard work and unsuccessfully if we don't try to
identify or minimize this seasonal allergens first. In fact, what
I recommend doing, and we'll get back to it when
we come back from our break. We're going to take
a quick break and a commercial break work from our sponsor,
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of Life, So we'll be right back on Ask the
Bets with doctor Jeff here on pet Life Radio, and
just a minute, we'll.
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Speaker 8: Pt live radio dot com.
Speaker 2: Well, welcome back to ask the Bets with doctor Jeff.
I'm your host, doctor Jeff Werber, here with you for
like another oh maybe thirteen or fourteen minutes on this
wonderful fourth of July, and we are talking pet allergies.
It's something that we see this time of year very frequently,
and we are still waiting to hear from you at
eight seven seven three eight five eight eight eight two,
or you can actually send me a little note to
doctor Jeff at Drjeff at petlifradio dot com, or if
you go online, if you're watching us or listening to
us right now, just start typing away and we'll get
to you. So, we were talking about skin allergies and
the overlap especially in dogs, and that when it comes
to food allergies, which are very difficult to diagnose, this
time of year makes it more difficult because of the
common allergens we see creating problems in dogs.
Speaker 3: So if you start what's called.
Speaker 2: The dietary elimination now, it might be unsuccessful because of
the pollen and environmental allergens that we're seeing. So I
think that what I recommend to my clients for my
patients is if we're going to suspect food allergy, I
want to wait before doing an elimination till like maybe
September October, all right, because by that point a lot
of the season allergies will be over. And if the
pet is still exhibiting signs as they say, chewing at
the feet real badly, rubbing at the ears, ear, infections
in the mouth. So now I think, you know what,
Maybe food allergies are possible. But to really identify allergens,
you need to see a veterinarian or see ave internety
dermatologists and they will either do a blood test or
skin scratch testing. Some of the newer blood tests are
very effective, very specific and successful and identifying allergens. So
we do is we can do a blood test, and
they can do is like what we call seasonal screens.
They can do regionalized screens. So if you live, for example,
in southern California, as I do, they have all the
pollens and the weeds and the molds that are typical
of southern California, and they start testing and to identify
which dogs seem to be exhibiting more of a response
to these diseases. And then are these conditions these allergens,
I should say, and therefore would have a lot of allergies.
Once the determination's made as to what the allergens are,
whether it's household allergens like wool, cotton, kpex, tobacco, smoke,
dog dander. Interestingly, yes, your dog, give me allergic to
got molds, house dust, house dust mites. So all these
things would be potential allergens in the house, feathers and pillow,
I mean, just like people are. It's insane. And then
certainly all the trees, weeds and pollens, insects, bees and wasps,
and of course the foods. So once the determination is made,
when it comes to the inhaled allergens or the insect
allergens or the molds, your veterinarian can have a solution
made up of specific antigens delivered in very small amounts
at first, either by injection or actually sublingually. Now there
are kits that will have sublingual antigen that you give
it home every day and gradually increasing the concentration to
slowly build up the body's own resistance to these allergens.
So it's fascinating. It's just like you know, you're a kid.
I'm sure many of you had allergie shots. I used
to get allergy shots, used to go into the doctor,
and you know, first it was frequent and then became
a little less frequent. And it's the same thing if
you're going to do the injections. You start out with
injections every other day typically, and then you start going
to quite a couple of times a week, and then
once a week, and then every other week, and then
finally when you get to maintenance, you're using a much
stronger solution, but you're only getting the shots every four
to six weeks. And in this way we actually can
enhance and build up the body's own immunity to these allergens.
And I would say, all in all, I've seen probably
close to eighty percent maybe seventy five percent success in
either completely eradicating the allergies, more likely minimizing them to
the point where the dog needs less antibiotics, is scratching less,
is irritating themselves much less than they have in the past.
When it comes to food, once a food determination is made,
and this is as I said, this is done through
what we call a food elimination and either starting with
what we call a novel protein diet. This is a
diet that has a protein source and a carbohydrate source
that your pet has probably never seen. And the importance
of that is that even if in time they might
be allergic to this protein or this hydrate, it takes
a while to build up the allergy. So if you
start something, for example, bison or rabbit or venison, the
more common allergens nowadays are beef, lamb and poultry because
almost every single food has those. So we need to
find something that the dog is probably never seen then,
I know, like fish, salmon and potato, or venison and
green pea, or rabbit and green pea. So once you
have these novel proteins or there are also some hydrolyzed
protein diets, diets that don't even have whole proteins in them,
so the body can't treat it as an allergen because
it has no protein at all, and it's bits and pieces,
it's parts of the protein, so the nutritional value is there,
but nothing that the body is going to react to.
Those are called very strictly non allergenic diets. And if
you are very strict in a six to eight week
course of feeding either this non allergenic diet or at
least a novel protein diet, assuming your pet's not allergic
to the one protein you chose for the non allergenic
or the hydrolyzed protein or the novel protein diet, then
your dog will improve. And if it does, then you
know that it was food. Alogy if it doesn't, either
you cheated either by the dog got a hold of
it has been getting hold of something that he or
she is allergic to and you just didn't know they
were eating it a treat that you were giving, or
a chew toy that you thought was safe but wasn't
all right, or the novel protein that you chose. Interestingly,
and sadly, the dog is allergic to that too. But
if you were really strict, and I mean really strict,
and during the course of the six eight week trial
you fed nothing else other than that, and the pet
was not allergic to whatever that protein and carbohydrate are,
then you will see an improvement. At this point, what
you want to start doing is gradually, one protein at
a time, start introducing some new proteins. Try if it
was venison that worked successfully, try adding some lamb.
Speaker 3: All right, so.
Speaker 2: Try maybe a poultry, maybe fish ideal. Great to try
a few things that will give your dog a little
bit of selection, a little bit of a variety. But
when you feed, or if you try something and within
a day or two the dog is going out its
feed or rubbing in his ears or facing in stop
it immediately. You don't have to do another six weeks.
Just know that cross that off your list. That's not
a good protein or carb to feed your dog. When
you're doing the test. Try to add one of the
time as well, because I think that will help identify.
Speaker 3: So then you can make your own list of.
Speaker 2: Carbs, proteins, ingredients that your dog seems to do well on.
It seems like proteins are the most allergenic, so that's
where we seem to have the most what we call
antigenicity when it comes to proteins. So be careful when
you are going to a pet store and looking for
that novel food or that allergy or antiology because if
you look at those ingredients, they are typically more than
one potential protein source that could be causing problems in
your pet.
Speaker 3: So when you're getting to the.
Speaker 2: Point of finally giving in and saying, you know, you
know what, I gotta do this for my poor guy
because he's scratching or she's scratching like crazy, I recommend
you work with your veterinarian because I don't know if
of many over the counter foods and I mean non
prescription diets that are truly truly hypoallergenic or truly hydrolyzed
protein other than that available from your veterinarian. If you
find when, that's great, But even still, I would just
check with your veterinarian or veterinary dermatologists to make sure
that's okay.
Speaker 3: But anyway, once we.
Speaker 2: Have all this stuff done, now we can successfully start
to ease the symptoms of allergy. And as I said,
come to January, keep in touch with the veterinarian. There's
a really good chance that we're going to have something
new out there that's going to help. So I would
like to hear from you. Send me an email to
doctor Jeff at petlife radio dot com. That's Drgef at
petlife radio dot com or Drgef at drgef dot com,
or come here. Don't be bashful, and you can even
ask us a question here online. But we want to
hear from you. I want to hear if you've had
any problems with allergies pet allergies, and of course fourth
of July, in fact next week, next Thursday, no excuses.
If you want some free pro sense product, give us
a call here at eight seven seven three eight five
eight eight A two. We'll send something out to you.
But I want to hear how fourth of July went
for you, and whether your pets survived or whether your
pets didn't do didn't fare as well as I would like,
any other questions you want to hear any and again
for those of you that might be a little shy,
I don't know why you're shy, because there's nothing to
be shy about. It's just me and you. We don't
have a zillion million people watching it. They don't know
who you are anyway, give me a fake name, but
at least we can hear from you and answer some
of your questions. So anyway, as I look outside, I'm
sitting here in my office and there's a great window,
and I'm seeing some blue skies and a nice breeze
and just under eighty degrees. I want to thank you
for tuning in and joining me on this Fourth of
July weekend, and I want to hear from you next week.
So I'll be here next Thursday at one o'clock Western
or just say Pacific time, four o'clock Eastern. And you're
gonna want to thank Pro Sense Pet Products and more, Target, Walgreens,
all those fun places, good places where you can find process.
Speaker 3: Have a great fourth We'll see you next week.
Speaker 1: Let's Talk Pets every week on demand only on Petlight
Radio dot com