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Speaker 2: Well, hello, and welcome to another another segment of I
Ask the A's with Doctor Jeff here on pet Life Radio.
I am your host, Doctor Jeff Werber, here every Thursday live.
Let me say that again, every Thursday live here at
pet Life Radio four o'clock eastern one o'clock specific time,
and whatever the time happens to be other parts of the.
Speaker 3: Country, and here for you.
Speaker 2: We're here to answer your questions about your dogs, about
your cats, about whatever. If I don't know the answer,
I will get you the answer. Sometimes on purposely not
going to answer because I want you to come back
next week with some more.
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eight eight eight two talk to me and I will
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of your time to hopefully help you through some issues
with your pets.
Speaker 3: Speaking of issues with pets, this.
Speaker 2: Issue is from one of my employees who was asking
having problems with her fairly recently adopted pitbull. We do
work with a number of pitbull rescues, many rescues in general,
but two in particular are specialized in pitbulls. And the
good reason because we all know those of us that
work with them, those of us that may own them,
that they really are amazing dogs. They are fantastic. They
are friendly, they are warm, they are loving, they are protective.
But they get a bad rap because their mouths are
so powerful that when they buy there are actually listen
to this. There are more bites recorded from chihuahuas and
cocker spaniels then there are from pitbulls. The problem is
when you get bitten by chihuahua, it hurts. When you
get bitten potentially by a pit bull, you have to
see a surgeon. So, I mean, we know that there
are some major issues involved, but nonetheless they really are innately,
inherently they're really, really really sweet dogs. So what don't
we know about pit bulls and why they were initially
bred was the breat to fight. They do like to fight,
and this is what they're bred to do, and they're
tenacious and when they do bite in, they will bite in.
They don't mess around. So you know, we need to
keep these things in mind when working with our pit
bulls and our pitbull crosses, you know, to set the
record straight. Depending on the municipality, they don't care whether
you call it an American pit bull terrier, a staffordsure terrier,
an American Stafford terrier, a Staffordsure Bull terrier. The bottom
line is, in their minds they are pit bulls and
the breed. Over the years, though there used to be
such a line of demarcation between the different sub breeds,
now they're all lumped together as the pit bull. So
you write these letters now from your vet saying, don't know,
it's not a pit bull, it's actually an American Stafford
Sure Terrier. The municipalities really just don't care, So don't
kid yourself. Just so you know, we lump them all
into the one breed and that's the pitbull. So her
problem was that her dog is great, but when she
walks her dog, this dog sees another dog and wants
to attack, wants to kill, and again, this is what
the pit bulls do. This is a lot of them,
not all of them, of course, but some of them
are potentially very aggressive when it comes to other dogs.
So one of the recommendations we had is that when
we're dealing with training, when we're dealing with what we
call behavior modification, first of all, you have to expect
the modification of the behavior to go fairly slowly. It's
baby steps. It's not going to happen in one session.
So you know when there's a failure of treatment, whether
it's a medical treatment, whether it's a behavior treatment. The
biggest issue that creates the disappointment with the client is expectation.
If they think that running this test, doing this procedure
is going to fix the problem tomorrow and it doesn't,
that they're really bummed. You do that TPLO surgery on
a cruciate and a big dog. Know, this dog is
not going to be walking by next week if you think,
and if the office led the owner to believe that
it would, of course they're going to be disappointed when
the dog isn't. But if they were told this is
a long haul recovery, it's physical therapy. You're looking at
six weeks minimum to start weight bearing. Even then when
it takes four weeks or five weeks, they're thrilled, all right,
because it's happened even faster than they anticipated. So I'm
letting you know now that this is a procedure of
baby steps. So the key now is we want to
take a dog's natural inclination for positive reinforcement and turn
this association between this dog, the nasty dog, and other
dogs from something negative to something positive and I like
to create a game and it's called Let's Find a Friend.
And you're going to start taking your aggressive dog out
in public. And the first thing you need to do
is identify how far or really how close the offending
other dog needs to be before your aggressive dog starts
exhibiting that stance that behavior pattern that is associated with aggression.
Could be three blocks away, could be two blocks away,
could be half a mile away. Whatever it is, you
need to learn what it is in order to change
the behavior. You need to start asking your dog to
sit when you go out for your let's find a
Friend exercises. And if let's for argument's sake, I'm going
to throw this three blocks away at three and a
half blocks away, where you see another dog way up there,
but your dog hasn't started that stance yet, ask him
to sit and go good boy, Look at that.
Speaker 3: Oh good, there's a friend.
Speaker 2: Look at the friend and go ahead, pat him on
the head, give him a hug, and give him a treat.
Now turn around, walk a different direction, or if you're
near an intersection, go right or left. Don't challenge any
more than that. And you're going to do this every day,
if you can every other day, how frequently you can
feasibly walk your dog.
Speaker 3: But each time that you're.
Speaker 2: Looking for that friend is I like to call it
find a friend, you are going to go nuts with
that positive, high pitched voiced food treat a little bit closer,
a little bit closer.
Speaker 3: Another thing you might notice that if your dog is
okay with little dogs.
Speaker 2: But doesn't like big dogs, then if you see a
big dog down in the horizon, turn around and don't
even test it. Start testing with little dogs, and you
slowly as you desensitize the little dogs, then you go
to the medium sized dog, and that from the medium
sized dog, then you go to the little small, large breed,
until you get to the large large breed. Each time
look at that a friend and you make them sit. Member,
dogs always have to earn their reward. They don't get
rewards for the heck of it. They got to earn it,
and you give that reward. You pat them on the.
Speaker 3: Head, good boy, good boy. In the perfect world.
Speaker 2: What's going to ultimately happen is what you want to
happen is not only have you desensitized your dog, you're
a nasty dog to the presence of another dog, but
you actually have counter conditioned him to want to find
and see other dogs. Why because now the association is,
oh my god, we're gonna go find a friend. And
every time I see this dog in the horizon, I'm
getting a pat on the head, I'm getting hugs, and
I'm getting a food treat. Life is grand. I want
more of those dogs, and that's the goal. The goal
is that you need to be. Of course, you have
to stay in control of your dog. This is not
something that this is going to happen overnight. It's not
something that you it's easy. It's not going to be easy.
But you need to be consistent and persistent. And I
like to use those words often when dealing with behavior modification.
It's persistence and consistency. You have to give the same
messages all the time. Dogs have enough time with the
mixed messages we give them every single day. I mean,
you know, the biggest mistake we make, and I've talked
to this before on our show, is the how frequently
we misuse the word no. Now frequently we use no
and mensure the dog's name with it. It should never
be Bowser no. Because what's going to happen is if
Bowser here's his name again. He said, I'm not going
to tad because I must have done something wrong. So
remember that to evaluate the behaviors and if the behaviors
are normal, natural behaviors that are just a little bit misdirected,
don't use the word no.
Speaker 3: No means the behavior.
Speaker 2: Itself is inappropriate, not what it's directed towards, not where
it's directed, okay, but the actual behavior is a no.
And then use that word no. Quit off down again.
We always try to use that quick, one syllable commands
when it comes to the as I call the negative commands.
So this is something again that you need to keep
in mind as you're working with your pets. So anyway,
we have another email to reach you. We had Adams
last week. We have another one from Deborah coming up.
But it's time for that break. So I wanted you
to stay tuned, get that courage up to call me
at eight seven seven three eight five eight eight eight two,
or to send me a little text or a mail
at doctor Jeffipetlife Radio dot com and we'll be back
in a minute.
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Speaker 2: Welcome back to Ask the Best with doctor Jeff Here
on pet Life Radio. You are listening to doctor Jeff Werper,
your host. This half hour sometimes goes way too fast show,
and we want to hear from you so give us
a call eight seven seven three eight five eight eight
eighty two.
Speaker 3: We'd love to field your.
Speaker 2: Question, share your concerns, your problems with our other listeners.
Speaking of which, as we just finished with talking about
how to slowly desensitize and countercondition those nasty dogs of
yours to actually look forward to their walks and look
forward to mingling with other dogs. How cool is that
going to be? When my technician can start taking her
dog out, then she can start going hiking, she can
start going to the dog park, she can start going
to what we call run in canyon. There are so
many cool places to go and things to do, so
it's one of those things you want to do is
start socializing your dog. Anyway, as I mentioned, we got
a couple of emails this past week. One was last
week and that was Adam. Read to Adam's email live online.
We answered him and then he actually called in, which
was fantastic.
Speaker 3: So here is one. I like this one too.
Speaker 2: This comes from Debbie, and Debbie is someone in Orange
County because I can recognize from the seven to one
to four area code. And dear doctor Jeff, I listen
to your show on podcast and really enjoy it. I'm
a volunteer foster kitten mom for my local shelter. I've
often had situations where my kittens have diarrhea, sometimes with
upparrest but dray infection, sometimes not. The shelter veterinarian provides
medication for the up arrest but joy infection, but I
would appreciate your device. I have best to help kittens
get over diarrhea. I believe the kittens sometimes get diarrhea
from the change of diet from shelter food to my
kitten food.
Speaker 3: She uses a very good cat food.
Speaker 2: Science die roll Canaan both excellent and sometimes from the
upperrest door infection. When kittens do have diarrhea, I take
them in for dewarming and vetchecks. Whatever you can suggest
would be appreciated. She's also attached some kittens that I
have to share with you. These kittens are so adorable. God,
I wish you could see them. They are really, really,
really cute. I'm going to send them along. I'm going
to forward this and we want to get these pictures
of these kittens posted because they are way too cute. Anyway,
Diarrhea in kittens. First of all, so far, everything is
nothing surprises me, and that is it's very common. I
do think that one of the possibilities that is going
to be the change in diet anytime you change from
food day to food bee. If it's an abrupt quick
chain to not a gradual slow process over several days, yes,
diarrhea could ensue. So I think that's very possible. Secondly,
the parasites. These cats often have parasites. Some of the parasites,
especially around worms, especially Coxidia giardia, all.
Speaker 3: Can cause diarrhea.
Speaker 2: And since some of them are hard to find, including
especially the giardia, what I sometimes recommend is that if
you have even if you have a negative fecal I
think putting these kiddies for five to seven days, maybe
ten days on metronitisol on flagile would be a good idea.
Another thing I like, and I've been having a lot
of success with it, and that is some probiotics, and
I think that they are gaining a lot of popularity
within the profession. And when I first, you know, there
are a lot of veterinarians out there that are you know,
look at this stuff is okay on another supplement. You know,
I'm not holistic, I'm not naturopathic, why would I go
ahead and start using more supplements. And the truth of
the matter is that when it comes to the probiotics,
I've heard some major major speakers at some of the
major veterinary schools in the country not only promote but
love probiotics. I think probiotics definitely have a place. We've
had a lot of success using probiotics in practice, and
I definitely think that you should be doing that as
well and adding some probiotics to their food. You can
get them from your veterinarian. There's some that are specifically
for cats or small dogs, and I think that you
will see some advantage. But I think so diet if
you're going to switch food, totally okay to switch food,
but do it.
Speaker 3: Gradually over several days.
Speaker 2: Make sure that even if the fecal is negative, I
think putting them on a short core of metronito isol
flagile would be wise because the already is very tough
to find. Of course, treating any other problems and consider
adding in some probiotic I think that.
Speaker 3: Would help as well.
Speaker 2: And for calling in deb I'd like you to either
send me a note directly to I'm going to call you,
but I want some information and address, and we'll send
you out something for your kittens from pro Sense.
Speaker 3: Tech Products to help you out.
Speaker 2: You know, we are getting awfully close to one of
the first of the many holidays we talk about and
we talk about our holiday hazards, and one of those
holidays is Halloween, and I think that we should just
mention some safety practice tips when it comes to Halloween.
First of all, dogs that freak out when the doorbell
is ringing every you know, three minutes to maybe three seconds,
depending on your neighborhood and how many kids you have parading,
you might want to keep your dogs in a different
room away from the front door, especially if you have
dogs that like to bolt. Another thing is remember there's
a difference between someone coming to your door that looks like, oh, someone,
and someone coming to your door that looks like something
your dog has ever seen before because of the costumes.
So you can even have a very sweet dog that
typically is going to be fine, and all of a
sudden they see a ghoule or something that looks like
another animal coming to your door, and your dog that
typically is good may not be so good. So also
I would highly recommend for desensitizing, keeping your pets away
those some of you like to dress up your pets.
I think that if you have the pet that is
appropriate for that, then go for it. It's cute, it's
a good idea, But understand that if you don't, then
you don't want to do that because it may not
be the smartest thing. But most importantly, most importantly, pets,
dogs especially love a lot of the candies that you
and I love, but they're not as good for them.
Well they're not good for us either, but they're not
going to cause toxicity. But if your dog gets into
that huge bag of chocolate, whether it's chocolate, any kind
of chocolate, if it's enough, even milk chocolate, which is
relatively on the benign side when it comes to volume
and eating a lot of it, even the benign chocolates
may not be so benign, and dark chocolates are even
more potentially dangerous. And it takes a lot less of
the active ingredient, which is the toxin in chocolate called
theobromine to create a problem. Plus, you know dogs that
vomit a bunch of chocolate, it's not pretty and it's
going to leave one heck of a stain on your
white berber carpeting. So I would also just keep them
away because even if it doesn't make them sick toxic wise,
they're probably gonna throw up. Speaking of things that they
might eat them well, make them throw up during Halloween.
Dogs aren't that adept at removing wrappers. They don't have
to open that shrink wrap, so instead they eat the
whole thing. And I mean, I had a dog that
got into Hershey's kisses and the foil wrapped around those
kisses makes a very interesting X ray actually. Speaking of
which things that you can clearly see on an X ray,
that's one of them. So another reason to keep them
away from things. It's not just the candy, the chocolate,
whatever it is they're eating, but it is going to
be the wrappers as well. And one of the other
reasons that we like, well, those of us that care,
seem to want to avoid things like chocolate. There are
a lot of fat in a lot of the candies
that we are giving out to kids that we are
buying for ourselves hoping the kids don't come buy so
we get to eat them. So we want to keep
our pets away from those things as well, because dogs
that get a hold of too much fat in their
diet are prone to a condition called pancreatitis. Pancreatitis is really,
really serious and requires most of the time hospitalization IVY
fluid blood tests. So you know, those dollars ninety nine
cent bags on special at Costco or your local market
of candy can turn into hundreds of dollars if your
pet gets into them, So you want to make sure
that you have spent that money wisely. And the only
people to get those candies are the kids whose dental
bills you don't have to take care of. So anyway,
keep those things in mind as you're preparing for Halloween
and as you're buying, and start now desensitizing your pets
if you can to a doorbell ringing. You know, there's
we talked about this fourth of July, but there are
some sound effects tapes you can download, and one of
them is the doorbell, And you can start desensitizing your
pet to a doorbell and not going crazy and not
getting all hyper and not getting hyped up. And if
you start now, you might be just in time for Halloween.
So anyway, I want to thank you for joining me
here on another edition of Ask Thebets with Doctor Jeff
here on pet Life Radio and we will be back
next week hopefully to talk to you. We'd like you
to get us a call and send me an email
to doctor Jeff, Drjeff at doctor Jeff dot com. That's
Drjeff at drjef dot com or Drjef at petlfradio dot com.
Speaker 3: As did Debbie, as did.
Speaker 2: Adam, will answer your questions live on air and for
setting us here your question you will get some free
pro Sense products and again want to thank our sponsors
pro Sens Pet Products and of course the great retailers
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Speaker 3: And we will see you back next week here on
pet Life Radio. Thanks for joining me. I'm doctor Jeff Warber.
Speaker 1: Let's talk pets every week on demand only on Petlife
Radio dot com.