November 19, 2024 • 13 mins
The holidays are here and if you want to keep your pets healthy now, in the near future and beyond, you need to check out this episode of The Dog Professor Pawdcast!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, let's welcome in the dog professor Rob Lust from
the Edgefield Animal Care Center, And by golly, we're going
to talk about Thanksgiving. Yes, we are at Thanksgiving, and
that means we're all gonna eat more than we probably should.
And you probably have a pet in your household that's
eating more than it probably should.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
I guess, huh, Yeah, that's that's pretty common. That's what
I always like to talk about this this this time
of year, you know, because I worry about it with myself.
With the winter coming in there, I act like a bear,
like I'm getting ready to hibernate for the winter. And yeah,
start and dogs are the same way. So it's important
to kind of pay attention weight wise and what your
(00:37):
dog eats. You know, most most dogs are on a
pretty routine diet, which is good. But then outside of
that routine diet is where most dogs get in trouble with.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Yeah, the overfeed from the table, things like.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
That, exactly, especially during the holiday time of year. So
we'll talk a little bit a bit about you know,
since Thanksgiving is coming up here, about foods. You got
to be a careful of that your dog don't doesn't
get and basically why it's important to have a healthy
weight in your dog. The issues that your dog can
deal with when they're carrying extra weight or basically about
(01:11):
the same issues as humans deal with. It puts extra
stress on the bones and joints. It can lead to diabetes. Diabetes.
Your your dog can get diabetes just like you can,
and then you deal with treating of that for the
rest of their life. Due to over eating of certain
types of foods or carrying that extra weight. Different breeds
(01:34):
deal negatively with extra weight. Okay, think about a doxin
all right. I mean as a as a human, if
you're carrying extra weight in the front, your back's going
to start hurting. It's the same way with a doxin
or those smaller breeds. And smaller breeds have that tendency
to get overweight because people feed, you know, people just
(01:57):
feed them whatever. Okay, the full feed is what a
lot of people do instead of giving portioned meals. A
lot of people just fill the food bowl and then
the dog goes and eats when they want to, very
little exercise during the day, so then they end up
being overweight. So it's important to know right away when
your dog is starting to gain a few extra pounds
(02:19):
that they should lose, and that's not measured by the scale. Okay,
very few people weigh their dogs, obviously, about about most.
Most dogs get weighed once or twice a year, and
that's usually when they go to the veterinarian's office. So it's
important for you to judge by eye, and we use
a little bit of a grading scale. It's pretty easy
to do. You basically take your hands. I call it
(02:40):
the rib test. You take your hands, you run them
down the side of your dog, and you should be
able to feel the individual ribs a little bit with
your hands, not necessarily see them sticking out the side,
but you should be at least able to feel them.
If you're not feeling any ribs, then your dog is
carrying too much extra weight and needs to lose about
two to three pounds at the minimum. Okay, if you
(03:03):
feel those ribs but not see them, that's about your
ideal weight so for your dog. So what you need
to do is stick with whatever program it is you're doing. Okay. Obviously,
older dogs exercise less because just like people, you know,
they get achy and grumpy and cranky and they just
going to exercise less. So it's important to maybe you
(03:23):
add that into your schedule and force that exercise a
little bit. As dogs get older and you know they
they do have that extra weight. It doesn't just mean okay,
we're going to go out and run down the road
or we're going to walk a little farther. Walking is
always good, okay, but obviously some people, some owners are
(03:43):
unable to go out and walk as much as their
dog needs to walk. So next year at the Edgefield,
we're going to start a new service where we have
a dog treadmill. Okay, we obviously from what you've heard
from us, we do daycare where people come and drop
their dogs off each day and pick them up on
their way home from work, and we get them to
play and we walk them and keep them busy throughout
(04:05):
the day. Well, now we're going to add a treadmill
into that situation so your dog can get some extra
treadmill time. If you have a treadmill at home, you
can do that with your dog as long as the
speed is low enough. But you do have to teach
your dog how to be comfortable on that treadmill. Easiest
way to do it, as we would do it, is
you have the treadmill turned off, you walk your dog
(04:27):
up on the treadmill and you walk them off the end,
and then you walk them up with it. Maybe if
you have to use a cheerio treat or something healthy
as a healthy treat, you can do that and they
get used to walking on it. Then once they're used
to walking on it's not a big deal, then you
can start to turn it on very very slow. But
you have to have them on a leash and collar
and make sure not getting feet caught on the side
(04:48):
and everything. Not every treadmill is designed to have a
dog walk on it because you don't want them getting
their feet caught on the edges or anything like that.
So our treadmill that we will have is built specifically
for dogs up to one hundred and seventy nine pounds.
So that's something that we're going to offer. But that's
a way to get your dog some extra exercise if
(05:10):
you do feel like walking your dog and your dog's
kind of heavy in the beginning or older. When we
go out and walk, I know everybody wants to walk
on the sidewalk, but your dog needs to walk on
the grass. The grass is a lot more forgiving on
the joints than concrete or asphalt or anything like that.
So keep that in mind as you go out as
(05:32):
winners coming. You know, if you still want to go
out and go for those walks, that's great because when
it's cold and your body's starting to try to keep warm,
you're gonna burn extra calories and so is your dog.
But just pay attention to the pause when we're out
there walking on salted sidewalks. Ice all of that stuff
as we go. But obviously exercise is key if you
have an older dog that the joints are not really
(05:58):
good enough to go walk and exercise. There are rehab
facilities for pets that offer underwater treadmills. Okay, so they'll
it looks like a big fish tank. There's a treadmill
in the bottom of it. You can go and your
dog will go in there. They'll fill it up to
(06:18):
water enough to basically support your pets body and then
they'll be walking on the treadmill, so there's really no
weight on the joints, but they're getting that type of exercise. Also,
swimming is excellent exercise if your dog likes to swim,
but not necessarily the greatest exercise if your dog is
dealing with joint problems or issues because of the way
(06:40):
they kick in the water. Sometimes you can throw something
out of whack, but those are ideas. As far as
what you can do to slim down your pet your
the biggest responsibility you have besides exercise to keep your
pet slim and healthy is to pay attention to what
they are eating. Talk to your veterinari about a good diet. Obviously,
(07:03):
as people, as we go through the stages of our life,
our diet changes, and your pets diet should change. Also,
we're not feeding the same food we fed as a
puppy to an eight year old dog. That dog needs
less fat, less protein, So it's important to judge that
for stages of life. So your first start with that
(07:27):
on what you should be feeding your dog. As you
talk to your veterinarian, they'll usually recommend something. Obviously, there's
choices between dried food, all types of foods. Whole natural
foods are a big, big thing right now, and there's
nothing against that at all. But the key is once
you find a good diet is to make sure you're
(07:48):
in charge of portion control. Remember, your dog is an animal,
and animals instinctively eat to survive, not eat for love,
but eat to survive. Okay, So when they have food available,
their instinct is to eat it and keep eating it
because they're not sure if they're going to have a
meal tomorrow or not. So your portion control is key.
(08:11):
On that full feed where you just fill up the
bowl every time it goes empty is a recipe for disaster.
How much should you feed, Well, you'll talk to your
veterinarian first because most dog food bags will always have
instructions on them, but those instructions are usually on the
high end of what you should feed your dog. Why
(08:33):
because they want you to run out of food and
go out and buy another bag as fast as as
you possibly can. So your veterinarian is always a good
place to start on what diets are best and what
portions of what diets are best for your pet. This
time of year, I always like to draw attention to look,
we're gonna be eating all kinds of food next week,
(08:54):
you know, and the month after this. So it's important
to understand what you can and cannot give your dog
because there are things that will have on the table
in the coming months that are very, very poisonous and
dangerous to your dog. There's fruits that are a problem. Cherries, grapes, raisins, Okay,
those are all apple seeds. Any of those things are
(09:16):
all very very dangerous. They carry toxins within the seeds,
very dangerous for your dog. When we're cooking macadamia nut cookies,
put the macadamia nuts away. They are extremely toxic for
your dog and it only takes a few of those
to cause real problems. Onions. Onions are bad. Onions will
cause anemia in your dog. So it's important to keep
(09:39):
onions away if you just want to give your dog
a healthy treat and something that you have on hand.
Carrots and green beans are about your best bet if
you want to do something like that, but it's important
to pay attention to those things when you're cooking, or
if you have a lot of sugar free things around
(09:59):
the house, or you have sugar free sweeteners. Xylotol, the
chemical and a lot of sugar free sweeteners is extremely
poisonous to your dog. So whether you have a pack
of sugar free gum laying around, or sugar free candy
or even peanut butter that is sugar free, you need
(10:20):
to make sure that xylotol is not the chemical in there,
that is the sweetener, and make sure that your pet
is not getting that because it's extremely important to you.
Shark cutery trays. Who doesn't love a good good sharkuterie
trabsolutely Okay, cured meats are are very dangerous a lot
of times because of the chemicals that are used to
cure the meats. I can't tell you how many times
(10:42):
we've dealt with dogs that are in a state of
a seizure and the owner so say, well, the last
thing I gave him was a piece of pepperoni or
something like. There's some type of cured meat, whether it's
the sodium or the cure that they use, whatever it is,
you have to be aware of that. And during the
holiday season there's always a shark uterity tray out somewhere,
(11:03):
So those are the biggies that you'll probably be seeing
a lot of in the next few weeks. So you
want to make sure and pay attention to that with
your pet. But proper portion control, stick with a good
solid diet recommended by your veterinarian, and try to get
in a little bit of exercise for yourself and your
dog every day and by the end of winter, we
(11:25):
won't all look like bears just coming out of hibernation.
I love it.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
That's some great advice. So what about the meats for
the holidays? The turkeys Hamsee, obviously you talked about cured meats,
but what about you know, a turkey that you know
is a fresh turkey or a frozen turkey that hasn't
really been cured up in all that.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Well, most most fresh turkeys have some type of salt
solution in them, right, that's yeah, yeah, unless you raised
it yourself in the yard, butchered at yourself, then you
know there's there's no no preservative anything like it in
it like that, then you're probably fine. Small amounts of
(12:04):
turkey are not a big deal, okay, But once you
start seasoning and everything else, then we get in trouble.
Ham Ham is obviously a cured meat, so it is
probably not the greatest thing to give your dog or
or let them get into. Bones are another big thing.
I mean with turkeys, there's always turkey bones laying around.
(12:25):
So you'll talk to people and you'll see people all
the time when they talk about raw diets. You'll see
people feed raw chicken wings and stuff like that to
their dog because raw meat with bones is digestible. Okay,
the bones are soft, your dog can chew them up.
(12:45):
It's not a big deal. Once that meat and that
bone gets cooked, that's when the bone becomes hard and
brittle and becomes dangerous for your dog to try to
chew up and digest.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
So some good stuff, some good stuff, and you guys
are aiming to make the pets a little bit healthier
come January one, and I love that. So tell everybody
how they can reach out to you at Edgefield Animal
Care Center about all that stuff we talk.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Yeah, Edgefield Animal Care Center. We're a family business in
central Ohio here and Marion. We've been here for about
fifty years. We're a full service veterinary hospital, boarding, grooming, training, daycare,
just about everything you need to make your pet a
healthy and happy member of your household. Easiest way to
(13:31):
find out all our information, find out all about our
services schedule, listen to past episodes of The Dog Professor Podcast.
All of that stuff is on our website at Edgefieldanimalcare
dot com.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Great stuff, and if you're just finding The Dog Professor Podcast,
hit follow wherever you're getting this podcast. So you get
a notification when we do a new one.
Hey, let's welcome in the dog professor Rob Lust from
the Edgefield Animal Care Center, And by golly, we're going
to talk about Thanksgiving. Yes, we are at Thanksgiving, and
that means we're all gonna eat more than we probably should.
And you probably have a pet in your household that's
eating more than it probably should.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
I guess, huh, Yeah, that's that's pretty common. That's what
I always like to talk about this this this time
of year, you know, because I worry about it with myself.
With the winter coming in there, I act like a bear,
like I'm getting ready to hibernate for the winter. And yeah,
start and dogs are the same way. So it's important
to kind of pay attention weight wise and what your
(00:37):
dog eats. You know, most most dogs are on a
pretty routine diet, which is good. But then outside of
that routine diet is where most dogs get in trouble with.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Yeah, the overfeed from the table, things like.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
That, exactly, especially during the holiday time of year. So
we'll talk a little bit a bit about you know,
since Thanksgiving is coming up here, about foods. You got
to be a careful of that your dog don't doesn't
get and basically why it's important to have a healthy
weight in your dog. The issues that your dog can
deal with when they're carrying extra weight or basically about
(01:11):
the same issues as humans deal with. It puts extra
stress on the bones and joints. It can lead to diabetes. Diabetes.
Your your dog can get diabetes just like you can,
and then you deal with treating of that for the
rest of their life. Due to over eating of certain
types of foods or carrying that extra weight. Different breeds
(01:34):
deal negatively with extra weight. Okay, think about a doxin
all right. I mean as a as a human, if
you're carrying extra weight in the front, your back's going
to start hurting. It's the same way with a doxin
or those smaller breeds. And smaller breeds have that tendency
to get overweight because people feed, you know, people just
(01:57):
feed them whatever. Okay, the full feed is what a
lot of people do instead of giving portioned meals. A
lot of people just fill the food bowl and then
the dog goes and eats when they want to, very
little exercise during the day, so then they end up
being overweight. So it's important to know right away when
your dog is starting to gain a few extra pounds
(02:19):
that they should lose, and that's not measured by the scale. Okay,
very few people weigh their dogs, obviously, about about most.
Most dogs get weighed once or twice a year, and
that's usually when they go to the veterinarian's office. So it's
important for you to judge by eye, and we use
a little bit of a grading scale. It's pretty easy
to do. You basically take your hands. I call it
(02:40):
the rib test. You take your hands, you run them
down the side of your dog, and you should be
able to feel the individual ribs a little bit with
your hands, not necessarily see them sticking out the side,
but you should be at least able to feel them.
If you're not feeling any ribs, then your dog is
carrying too much extra weight and needs to lose about
two to three pounds at the minimum. Okay, if you
(03:03):
feel those ribs but not see them, that's about your
ideal weight so for your dog. So what you need
to do is stick with whatever program it is you're doing. Okay. Obviously,
older dogs exercise less because just like people, you know,
they get achy and grumpy and cranky and they just
going to exercise less. So it's important to maybe you
(03:23):
add that into your schedule and force that exercise a
little bit. As dogs get older and you know they
they do have that extra weight. It doesn't just mean okay,
we're going to go out and run down the road
or we're going to walk a little farther. Walking is
always good, okay, but obviously some people, some owners are
(03:43):
unable to go out and walk as much as their
dog needs to walk. So next year at the Edgefield,
we're going to start a new service where we have
a dog treadmill. Okay, we obviously from what you've heard
from us, we do daycare where people come and drop
their dogs off each day and pick them up on
their way home from work, and we get them to
play and we walk them and keep them busy throughout
(04:05):
the day. Well, now we're going to add a treadmill
into that situation so your dog can get some extra
treadmill time. If you have a treadmill at home, you
can do that with your dog as long as the
speed is low enough. But you do have to teach
your dog how to be comfortable on that treadmill. Easiest
way to do it, as we would do it, is
you have the treadmill turned off, you walk your dog
(04:27):
up on the treadmill and you walk them off the end,
and then you walk them up with it. Maybe if
you have to use a cheerio treat or something healthy
as a healthy treat, you can do that and they
get used to walking on it. Then once they're used
to walking on it's not a big deal, then you
can start to turn it on very very slow. But
you have to have them on a leash and collar
and make sure not getting feet caught on the side
(04:48):
and everything. Not every treadmill is designed to have a
dog walk on it because you don't want them getting
their feet caught on the edges or anything like that.
So our treadmill that we will have is built specifically
for dogs up to one hundred and seventy nine pounds.
So that's something that we're going to offer. But that's
a way to get your dog some extra exercise if
(05:10):
you do feel like walking your dog and your dog's
kind of heavy in the beginning or older. When we
go out and walk, I know everybody wants to walk
on the sidewalk, but your dog needs to walk on
the grass. The grass is a lot more forgiving on
the joints than concrete or asphalt or anything like that.
So keep that in mind as you go out as
(05:32):
winners coming. You know, if you still want to go
out and go for those walks, that's great because when
it's cold and your body's starting to try to keep warm,
you're gonna burn extra calories and so is your dog.
But just pay attention to the pause when we're out
there walking on salted sidewalks. Ice all of that stuff
as we go. But obviously exercise is key if you
have an older dog that the joints are not really
(05:58):
good enough to go walk and exercise. There are rehab
facilities for pets that offer underwater treadmills. Okay, so they'll
it looks like a big fish tank. There's a treadmill
in the bottom of it. You can go and your
dog will go in there. They'll fill it up to
(06:18):
water enough to basically support your pets body and then
they'll be walking on the treadmill, so there's really no
weight on the joints, but they're getting that type of exercise. Also,
swimming is excellent exercise if your dog likes to swim,
but not necessarily the greatest exercise if your dog is
dealing with joint problems or issues because of the way
(06:40):
they kick in the water. Sometimes you can throw something
out of whack, but those are ideas. As far as
what you can do to slim down your pet your
the biggest responsibility you have besides exercise to keep your
pet slim and healthy is to pay attention to what
they are eating. Talk to your veterinari about a good diet. Obviously,
(07:03):
as people, as we go through the stages of our life,
our diet changes, and your pets diet should change. Also,
we're not feeding the same food we fed as a
puppy to an eight year old dog. That dog needs
less fat, less protein, So it's important to judge that
for stages of life. So your first start with that
(07:27):
on what you should be feeding your dog. As you
talk to your veterinarian, they'll usually recommend something. Obviously, there's
choices between dried food, all types of foods. Whole natural
foods are a big, big thing right now, and there's
nothing against that at all. But the key is once
you find a good diet is to make sure you're
(07:48):
in charge of portion control. Remember, your dog is an animal,
and animals instinctively eat to survive, not eat for love,
but eat to survive. Okay, So when they have food available,
their instinct is to eat it and keep eating it
because they're not sure if they're going to have a
meal tomorrow or not. So your portion control is key.
(08:11):
On that full feed where you just fill up the
bowl every time it goes empty is a recipe for disaster.
How much should you feed, Well, you'll talk to your
veterinarian first because most dog food bags will always have
instructions on them, but those instructions are usually on the
high end of what you should feed your dog. Why
(08:33):
because they want you to run out of food and
go out and buy another bag as fast as as
you possibly can. So your veterinarian is always a good
place to start on what diets are best and what
portions of what diets are best for your pet. This
time of year, I always like to draw attention to look,
we're gonna be eating all kinds of food next week,
(08:54):
you know, and the month after this. So it's important
to understand what you can and cannot give your dog
because there are things that will have on the table
in the coming months that are very, very poisonous and
dangerous to your dog. There's fruits that are a problem. Cherries, grapes, raisins, Okay,
those are all apple seeds. Any of those things are
(09:16):
all very very dangerous. They carry toxins within the seeds,
very dangerous for your dog. When we're cooking macadamia nut cookies,
put the macadamia nuts away. They are extremely toxic for
your dog and it only takes a few of those
to cause real problems. Onions. Onions are bad. Onions will
cause anemia in your dog. So it's important to keep
(09:39):
onions away if you just want to give your dog
a healthy treat and something that you have on hand.
Carrots and green beans are about your best bet if
you want to do something like that, but it's important
to pay attention to those things when you're cooking, or
if you have a lot of sugar free things around
(09:59):
the house, or you have sugar free sweeteners. Xylotol, the
chemical and a lot of sugar free sweeteners is extremely
poisonous to your dog. So whether you have a pack
of sugar free gum laying around, or sugar free candy
or even peanut butter that is sugar free, you need
(10:20):
to make sure that xylotol is not the chemical in there,
that is the sweetener, and make sure that your pet
is not getting that because it's extremely important to you.
Shark cutery trays. Who doesn't love a good good sharkuterie
trabsolutely Okay, cured meats are are very dangerous a lot
of times because of the chemicals that are used to
cure the meats. I can't tell you how many times
(10:42):
we've dealt with dogs that are in a state of
a seizure and the owner so say, well, the last
thing I gave him was a piece of pepperoni or
something like. There's some type of cured meat, whether it's
the sodium or the cure that they use, whatever it is,
you have to be aware of that. And during the
holiday season there's always a shark uterity tray out somewhere,
(11:03):
So those are the biggies that you'll probably be seeing
a lot of in the next few weeks. So you
want to make sure and pay attention to that with
your pet. But proper portion control, stick with a good
solid diet recommended by your veterinarian, and try to get
in a little bit of exercise for yourself and your
dog every day and by the end of winter, we
(11:25):
won't all look like bears just coming out of hibernation.
I love it.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
That's some great advice. So what about the meats for
the holidays? The turkeys Hamsee, obviously you talked about cured meats,
but what about you know, a turkey that you know
is a fresh turkey or a frozen turkey that hasn't
really been cured up in all that.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Well, most most fresh turkeys have some type of salt
solution in them, right, that's yeah, yeah, unless you raised
it yourself in the yard, butchered at yourself, then you
know there's there's no no preservative anything like it in
it like that, then you're probably fine. Small amounts of
(12:04):
turkey are not a big deal, okay, But once you
start seasoning and everything else, then we get in trouble.
Ham Ham is obviously a cured meat, so it is
probably not the greatest thing to give your dog or
or let them get into. Bones are another big thing.
I mean with turkeys, there's always turkey bones laying around.
(12:25):
So you'll talk to people and you'll see people all
the time when they talk about raw diets. You'll see
people feed raw chicken wings and stuff like that to
their dog because raw meat with bones is digestible. Okay,
the bones are soft, your dog can chew them up.
(12:45):
It's not a big deal. Once that meat and that
bone gets cooked, that's when the bone becomes hard and
brittle and becomes dangerous for your dog to try to
chew up and digest.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
So some good stuff, some good stuff, and you guys
are aiming to make the pets a little bit healthier
come January one, and I love that. So tell everybody
how they can reach out to you at Edgefield Animal
Care Center about all that stuff we talk.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Yeah, Edgefield Animal Care Center. We're a family business in
central Ohio here and Marion. We've been here for about
fifty years. We're a full service veterinary hospital, boarding, grooming, training, daycare,
just about everything you need to make your pet a
healthy and happy member of your household. Easiest way to
(13:31):
find out all our information, find out all about our
services schedule, listen to past episodes of The Dog Professor Podcast.
All of that stuff is on our website at Edgefieldanimalcare
dot com.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Great stuff, and if you're just finding The Dog Professor Podcast,
hit follow wherever you're getting this podcast. So you get
a notification when we do a new one.
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