June 6, 2012 • 30 mins
No, it's not what you think! Dr. Marty Becker, known as America's Veterinarian, shares his latest book with listeners. Your Cat: The Owner's Manual, is Dr. Becker's 20th book, and it's awesome! As the veterinary contributor to top rated shows like, The Dr. Oz Show, and Good Morning America, Dr. Becker covers everything about your cat from paw to paw. Are cats really that mysterious? What's really in a hair ball? Cat myths, health, wellness and one of Kelly's favorites...when your cat ages. That's on page 275 of his book! Sit back, relax and listen to how Dr. Becker provides humor and realy great solutions to raising your feline.
Questions or Comments? Send them to: kelly@petliferadio.com.
More details on this episode MP3 Podcast - Dr. Marty Becker Gets Catty on Pet Life Radio
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Questions or Comments? Send them to: kelly@petliferadio.com.
More details on this episode MP3 Podcast - Dr. Marty Becker Gets Catty on Pet Life Radio
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
You're listening to Petlifradio dot Com.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hello everyone, I'm back. I know it's been a while
and I apologize, but I'm back and welcome to another
edition of Sassy Seniors. I'm Kelly Jackson, your host. Great
to be back. It's been a few actually a couple
of months, but I have a fabulous guest this week.
But before I introduce him, you know, I usually do
(00:40):
a shout out, and usually I give props to a
dog or a cat, a senior daughter cat who's made
the news. But this week I want to recognize the
people of Joplin, Missouri, which is located not too far
from where I live in Saint Louis. It was a
year ago this month when an e F five tornado
(01:03):
ripped through that town, killing one hundred and sixty people
and leaving hundreds of dogs and cats homeless. What I
want to give crops to and recognize would be the ASPCA,
the Joplin Humane Society, and dozens upon dozens of other
shelters and veterinarians who really made it possible to find
(01:27):
loving homes for all of those scared dogs and cats
who were left without homes. So props to the city
of Joplin, Missouri, as well as everyone who made it possible,
all of those that's to have loving homes. Well, you're
going to be right back. We're going to have a
short break with America's veterinarian.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
When we come back, we'll be right back right after
these messages.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
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Speaker 4 (03:35):
Let's talk pets on Petlifradio dot com.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Welcome back everyone. It's Kelly Jackson, your host up Sappy Seniors,
and I am so happy this get today. He is
America's He is also the resident veterinarian for Good Morning
America as well as the Doctor Oz Show, Doctor Marty Becker. Welcome.
Speaker 9 (04:10):
Oh. By the way you talk about sexy seniors, I
can tell you Kelly is a sexy senior. She is beautiful,
and she's got a smile so wide you can eat
a banana sideways. I'll tell you. You know I was
in Joplin yesterday doing a satellite media tour for pet
Co and the American Red Cross, and it was really
neat to see the progress that the city has made
(04:32):
and the good news category. The day before, the twenty
second was the one year anniversary, and on the twenty first,
they matched up the last pet that hadn't been returned
to its owners. So it took them one day less
than a year, but every pet that was lost was
reunited with their owners. So kudos to those groups out
there and those individuals that worked so hard to put
(04:53):
these families back together.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
That is such great news, and I'm so glad that
you were able to be down there for an such
an event that has made the news and the fact
of so many lives in the past year. It's been
a years ince I've seeing you. Also became to Saint
Louis last year and you were on the television show
that I post on the weekends for NBC and you
were doing a tour, which was really cool because you
(05:17):
had like your own little caravan, didn't you.
Speaker 9 (05:20):
Well, lastly, that was interesting. I don't know, I'll let
it be repeated. That was we had Lady Gaga's tour bus.
There's these companies that went these buses and after she
got off for tour, it was all wrapped up with
this Healthy Tests visit that's logo, and we traveled all
around the country and after the tour is over, actually
Justin Bieber took the bus and went on tour. So
it was a nice bus vet an area. I'm more
(05:42):
used to a pickup truck, you know, that's ten years
old than that fancy bus. But it's really a chance issue.
We're doing another tour for Healthy Cats visit that and
we traveled around the country, this time by airplane, which
is a little easier, but we're visiting twenty five cities
over the course of five weeks. In Saint Louis's is
a fun stop to come to. I like, come in
(06:02):
here once. I get a hug from Kelly when I
come here, so that's nice. So I get to see
I get to hugger. And I've been married for thirty
three years and my wife will tell you I'm a
serial hugger. So my mother was from the South and
so if that's the worst thing that I guess you
could get accused, then it's not too bad. But like today,
I had a chance to go on TV with a
bunch of little kittens and hearing the Pitco Brett. You know,
(06:25):
I hope people drop buy with their pets. You know,
I just love seeing animal so everywhere I go I've
drawn to animals like a moth to a light.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Well, we are in Petco right now and we're in
the adoption area for cats and kittens. So it's really
quite fitting because your new book is Your Cat the
Owner's Manual. I loved it. I don't even own a cat.
I've never owned a cat. I've had many friends who
have cats. But I love Doctor Becker because it reads
(06:53):
very easily. It's not too What's I'm trying to think of? Yeah, exactly,
and you cover everything everything, and the first question I
have to ask you. A lot of my friends who
have cats, they always say, well, my cat is so cool,
it's so much like a dog. What does that mean?
If it's so much like a dog, then why don't
(07:14):
you have a dog? You know, we.
Speaker 9 (07:16):
Wrote Your Dog the Owner's Manual last year. It was
in hardcover, that just came out in paperback. But Your
Cat the Owner's Mangle it is my twentieth buck and
I didn't teased by some people that I might the
American's veterinarian, but I'm a lousy person coming up with
book titles your cat the Owner's Manual? Could you possibly
have an owner's mango for a cat? When you know
(07:37):
it's definitely like bringing the wild inside and you're never
going to completely tame a cat to bring it to
every human women desire. And I have four dogs and
fore cats at home, and those of us love cats
wouldn't have it any other way. We like that independence
who like the fact that they're this unique species that
isn't a small dog. Typically people say that it's like
a dog. If a cat will be will come when
(07:58):
it's called, and it's more and even the ones that
will retrieve a little toy that's thrown. But you know,
we have four cats and they have four different personalities.
One of them is just that big old lover lung
that you can twist into a print bowl and carry
around by you know, one armor that hanging down and
it always comes to you. And then we have another
one that might not see it for a week and
(08:20):
then the next two days it's just up there. It's
throw permoter going and don't know what's going on through
his head. But I like the fact that they're both
preying predator, which is a unique ecological niche to have.
So when cats like to get up high, they get
up high because if they're in the predator mode, they're
looking for supper, and if they're in the prey mode,
they're in a place that's safe. So whether they're on
(08:41):
a lego, blocks of green hay and a bar up high,
or up on the top of your cadenza or at
the top of the cat tower, they love to get
up high.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
You cover a lot of things in a book, including
some cat myths like are they stand offish, that they're
not affectionate and they require access to the outdoors to
be happy and can't get along with dogs.
Speaker 9 (09:01):
Well, you know, one of the things that I lobby
strongly for is indoor only cats. There's a study out
of Purdue University that you're indoor cats with three point
five times longer than outdoor cats, and indoor cats live
twice as long as in outdoor cats. So there's a
lot of hazards that a way a cat outside ringing
from a you know, nasty neighborhood dog to angry tomcats.
(09:23):
That's going to give them an abscess to car fan
belts and hit by cars and poisons and viruses and everything.
So it's perfectly fine to have a cat inside as
long as you do in Richmond activities, and you know
here in the PECO it's just still the things that
are enrichment activities for cats, ranging from food puzzles that
you use rather than feeding out of a bowl, climbing towers,
(09:45):
different kinds of climbing surfaces, toys, and in phaeromoonts. One
of the things that I'm a huge fan of, especially
when you're mixing up a cat. We have several cats
in a house, or cats and dogs, or cats and
dogs and kids. Whi's real stressful is to use sphaeromoonts pheromones.
When a cat rubs against you with its cheek or
against the furniture, it's marking you with a feline cheap
(10:06):
pheromount And basically that's the good housekeeping seal of approval.
When they rub that, it's like cat tested and approved,
and that comes in a in a diffuser bottle you
plug in like a glade plug in or a bath
and bodyworks plug in. It also comes in a spray
bottle like cologne. But the best way I could describe it, Kelly,
it's like it's like every cat gets three glasses of
(10:26):
wine and a balion and they just, you know, they're
not bogged out like catnip, whether they're falling over and
you know, salivating or going crazy, but it just reduces
that innercint aggression. It tremendously reduces the tendency cats to
go outside the letter box to do inappropriate scratching. And
so you know, that's another tool you can use those
kinds of tools, or you know, provide more spaces. One
(10:50):
of things we talk about in the book is to
expand a cat's vertical space. You know, we're not going
to remodel our home to give them more space, but
you can just go to a local home improvement store
and buy bookshelves big of it for one cat and
just stare step them up a wall and you literally
will have furry art all over that wall to have
their own little contented place up high off the floor
for a few dollars.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Wow. Interesting, I love that. Now here's the thing I
hear that, at least in your book, you say that
a lot of cat owners don't take their cast to
the vet as often as they should because they say
it's so hard to try to get them to the vet.
So what should you do? What are some of the
tricks of the trade.
Speaker 9 (11:28):
Let me pretend I'm not a veterinary for a minute,
and I'm a cat. I don't think i'd take my
cat to the vet because it is so stressful for
the cat and so stressful for the cat owner. But
we really worked really hard to create fear free visits
where if it's not the best thing that happens to
a cat this year, it's certainly not the worst thing
that even happened this week. And the way you do
that we just filmed a short video on this is,
(11:51):
first of all, leave the carrier down as part of
fun furniture. Don't drag the carrier out the night before
that visit or the day of the that visit. And
don't think cat's going to freak out. Have to carry
out there all the time in someplace in your house.
And you know what, leave the door open, have the
can or drop little trees through the through the top
of it. You go down and you go to peck Corn,
(12:11):
a grocery store, and you buy some incredibly savory canned
food that you're just gonna go wild over. Guess what
you put it in that carrier to feet in that
you get a new toy. You put it inside the
carrier so they think, you know what, this is the nicest,
most comfortable, reliable, spoiled place that I have is inside
this carrier too. As you go back to using the
(12:32):
pheromone again the feel away I spoke of earlier, where
you just switched the carrier with it, and again it's
just going to be like kumbay A. You take a
towel that is from home that has the sense of home,
not one especially long, but has the sense of the cats,
and drape it over the top of the carrier and
then hopefully you're going to go to a venitary hospital
that might have a feline only exam room, so they'll
(12:55):
get you right in there. It doesn't have the same
harsh disinfectants that we use for dogs. It also has
pheromones in the air and there, and your dogs can't
smell the pheromones. You can't smell the pheromones. It's only
the cats to smell the pheromones. And another thing you
can use is there's a product called Anxetain. It's a
n x i an e. You can get it from
your veterinarian and it's a delithiany, a natural amino acid.
(13:19):
But whether it's for dogs or cats, it's a chewable tablet.
I prescribe it to give twelve hours before a visit,
in two hours before a visit, and that again just
makes it like again, it's another way to do kumbaya.
You use the ankstain, use the feel away. Have a
carrier that can open from the top end of the front,
which Petnate makes a great one now designed just more
cats because a lot of cats like to go in
(13:41):
the front and out the top. Or if the cat
wants to go in the top and out the front,
they can do it. They want to go in the
front and out the front. But the door opens both ways,
so it gives you a lot of options. And actually
it unsnaps, so it just comes and have like a clamshell.
And what I do is just take the top half
off and leave the cat in the bottom half to
examine itself. I want a cat. And oh I forgot
one thing too. I have Belli turkey smoke Delli turkey
(14:04):
in my pocket in a little bit bluck bag, so
it's body temperature. So with all those other things, before
we prod or do anything else, unless we need to
get a blood sample, I'm giving that cat a little
bit of one turkey out of my pocket. So you
can see. It's a pretty good ride to come to
the runor hospital where I work.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Sneaky but ingenius. I love that. Well. I didn't realize
how hard it was a good a cat in a
carrier to go anywhere. So I love those tricks out
the trade. Okay, here's something that I've always wondered, and
you address it in your book. Also, hairballs. I say,
welcome to the hairball. But what is a hairball? And
you know how can you prevent them or treat them?
Speaker 9 (14:43):
I would hold a little kitten today and he was
licking me, and I don't know if you've ever felt
a cat's tone, but it is like a caterpillar wearing
golf shoes. It is this rasty little thing that feels
so incredible on your skin that those little barber's point
one way and that's down. So when they're grooming themselves,
they literally augur in this hair and they swallow it.
(15:04):
So those next time you can guess what it has
one of two ways to go out, and it goes
out the back end. But few people get down really
close and take a look in that cat box to
see it in the seces. What will happen, specially for
longer haircats, is they'll grim themselves and all of a sudden,
about two am in the morning, it sounds like somebody
returning to the sorority or the fraternity. It's just smashed
(15:27):
and they're making this incredible moaning sound. And then and
all of a sudden they grab a fold of the
carpet and get traction with their claws. And you always
want to do someplace you're going to step on. It's
not actually a hair ball. It's more like a hair
cigar that they throw up the papered at either end.
That doesn't hurt a cat to do it. It is messy.
It isn't knowing for a lot of people, and so
(15:49):
there's things that you can do to reduce it. The
number one thing is to use a ferminator. The ferminator
is the world's greatest invention with the greatest name. Instead
of the terminate, the ferminator and that gets rid of
a lot of that loose hair, so it ends up
in the garden beach and not down the cat stommy
can back out on your carpet. The other thing you
can do is add a little can pumpkin, the unspiced version,
(16:11):
just a peaspoon once a week. That really helps things
pass through. Or if it's really serious, you can get
special hair hot hair ball diet, or just have more fiber.
But again, it's not no cat's going to die of
a hairball, but it is ways to really minimize it,
which a lot of people and they don't want to
be woken up in the middle of the night or
else step in something that's unpleaster.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Oh it is pretty gross, isn't it. Okay, Well, I
want to also address since my show is all about
senior pets, and page two seventy five you address special
need cats and older cats. And the thing is the
best thing that I'd love is that you always dress
fat cats, not a cute cat, and a fat cat
(16:53):
as far as their lifespan will not be as you know,
they will not live as long because they have so
many health issues. What advice would you give our listeners
for those who do have senior cats.
Speaker 9 (17:05):
I wish everybody gave as good interview as you do.
I love being on your show, you know, I mean
that sincerely. The thing with cats is, first of all,
you know, I love puppies and kittens. I love the
smell of puppy glass. I don't know, I think it
smells like sweet Carol syrup. I love the smell of kittens,
like today, I have these kittens and it smells like
(17:25):
buttered popcorn or something.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
To me.
Speaker 9 (17:26):
I just love that earthy smell that kittens have. And
I like their little kinetic acts and those little like
cirt base lay performers. But I'm more drawn to make
a recommendation of people is to get a sheltered cat
and an older cat, because then the behavior has already proven.
The first year of a cat's life is equivalent to
about eighteen human years, and that's the terrible twos in
(17:48):
the teenage yers for any of us that have had kids,
so that's a tough time. But adult cats, you know,
if they like other cats, if they like men and women,
if they like okay with children, to get along one
of the dogs. So there's many any senior cats out there,
Adult cats are the best choice for somebody that's adopting
a first time cat or another cat. But for these
(18:08):
senior cats. You know, what we want to do is
if you keep a cat at its ideal body weight,
which is about what they weigh at a year of age,
they're going to live fifteen percent longer, which is an
average of two years. If you also do daily oral care,
which maybe we can talk about in a minute. And
I'm not talking brushing their teeth. I'm not talking going
on a YouTube video with you know the cat has
(18:29):
done hieroglyphics on your face or paid tictack toe of
your arm with its claws. If you do that, you're
going to add fifteen percent to their life. So you
want to keep them thinner. And if they get overweight,
they have almost the miriams of what humans get. They
get an increase in type two diabetes, joint problems, heart problems,
respiratory problems, skin issues. They don't grim themselves as well.
(18:52):
Fat cats tend to have a bad attitude. They're just
not as happy, and there's also an increased risk of cancer.
So there's a compel a reason both for the help
of the cat and how expensive it is to keep
them patter near their ideal body weight. And fifty percent
of America's cats are overweight or obese, so we know
we're not doing a very good job of keeping them
out their ideal body weight. And the key is to
(19:14):
feed them a set amount of food. Don't feed free choice.
They'll happily dig their grave with their food ball. They
don't self regulate. Measure your food out, ask your venoran
for a recommendation of what food to feed. And I'm
not talking about just going, you know, buying the stuff
from the veninaria, and say, listen, I shop at Petcot,
what food should I feed my pet there? Or I
shop at whatever grocery stores in your community Safely or
(19:37):
Alberson's or Kroger's or wind Ditch or whatever it is.
I'm going to buy my food at the grocery store.
What kind of food should I peed this cat? And
then measured out? And then don't feed out of bowls.
We have forecats of almost having ranch. They all eat
out of food puzzles. And the way to describe a
food puzzle, it's the way you put kibble inside in
a chamber that's like a slot machine. So it's like
(19:57):
going to Vegas, Atlantic City or the Indian Casino and
playing a slot machine. Sometimes it pays off a little,
A lot of times it doesn't pay off any Sometimes
it pays out a tremendous amount of jackpot. But it
takes memory, skill and manipulation for those cats to eat,
and so it's a boredom buster. Boredom equals obesity as well.
Majored amount of food in a food puzzle, fed multiple
(20:19):
times a day. With the right amount of exercising, you
can keep a cat at their idub body weight. And
I've got cats that range from twenty to five years old,
and all four cats are after I doubt body.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Weight will be right back after the break.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
We'll be right back right after these messages. Stay tuned.
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Speaker 1 (23:24):
Let's talk past, let's petal headline radio.
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Pet live Radio dot Com.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
And we are back here with the Doctor Marty Becker,
America's veterinarian featured on Good Morning America and Doctor Oz
and Vet Streets and so many other things. You're everywhere,
Doctor Becker.
Speaker 5 (23:55):
Seems like there's more than one of me.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Does that?
Speaker 5 (23:57):
You know what's funny?
Speaker 8 (23:58):
They call me America's veteranor, and Dotter Oz actually is
the guy that started that. Oprah started calling him America's doctor.
Then doctor Oz start calling me America's veterinarian. So I
figure that sounds pretty good. I actually just got an
award as the Global Veterinarian of the Year, which I
just received an award, and that's the second biggest honor
in my life.
Speaker 5 (24:14):
The biggest honor ever.
Speaker 8 (24:15):
Was becoming the Companion Animal Veterinar in the Year for
the United States. That's voted on by my colleagues and
is named in honor of Leo Abustad, who is my dean.
Speaker 5 (24:23):
And Leo is one of the founders co founders of the.
Speaker 8 (24:25):
Delta Society, you know, these people that do the therapy
work with pets. And also he really is the first
person to show the human animal health connection that having
a relationship with a pet actually improved human health and
well being. But you know, besides playing a veterinor and
on TV, I'm a practicing veterinarian. I was practicing for
I started this tour and I love I love pets,
I love people. I'm not the world's best veterinarian behind
(24:48):
that exam room door, you know, I don't want to
pretend like I'm, you know, this genius back there. But
people have such incredible support teams anymore, and we tend
to work in teams to where you don't have to
be good at surgery, for example, you don't have to
be the world's best internal medicine specialist. There's enough of
us there to kind of pass the teamwork along. But
I love dogs, love cats, love horses.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Well, it's such an honor that your colleagues have, you know,
given you the thumbs up. I guess I should say.
I mean, that's such an honor, you know, it really is.
Your daughter's also in the field. Yeah, she seen her articles.
Speaker 5 (25:23):
She had a gift.
Speaker 8 (25:24):
She's when we were she was very young, she took
an ordinary wirehired fox terrier and won all these competitions
with it, you know, just her dog. So she'd go
to these competitions, and then she's really good at horses.
So there's a thing called Western pleasure. This way you
show horses, and Michel and my wife, Teresa, my wife
with thirty three years. They showed horses together, and at
this competition, it's like NASCAR, you got to have a
(25:45):
certain level of car to be a NASCAR. In this thing,
there's horses from one hundred thousand dollars to twenty thousand
dollars to compete nashly, so she had a horse's under
twenty thousand dollars, so she's at the lower end of it.
She was the four time Canadian National tie amp on
that horse. So we live so close to Canada, it's
actually easier to compete in Canada than traveling the US.
(26:06):
My wife is riding the same horse and she's worried,
sick and throwing up, and you know, my daughter's over
there telling my wife, you know, do your best. It's
okay kind of thing. They're total reversal. But she just
has a knack and so she can get She does
it in a positive way, so it's not flooding a
dog like some trainers do.
Speaker 5 (26:23):
It's nothing negative.
Speaker 8 (26:24):
It's just a positive way of showing him what to
do to teaching him how to do it, and then
rewarding them for doing it. And so you know, Michael's
on vetstreet dot Com with me are online home and
offers a lot of good advice.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Runs in the family. Yeah, okay, So what final message
would you like to give our listeners. The thing that
I love that you said in your book. People so
often go on the Internet looking for information for their pets,
and you said, no them an out of inprol on
the internet or even books. The best thing is to
go to your vet.
Speaker 8 (26:57):
We call it paging doctor Google. You know this so
many people, And you know what, I go to the
internet too. I'm not telling you not to go to
the innet because you're going to go to the internet.
But most of the time, I can tell you five
times in the last four or five months where somebody
went to the Internet to diagnose their pet and to
come up with a treatment plan, and in five cases
the pet died. Sometimes it's not a week too late,
(27:19):
it's not even an hour too late. It can be
actually minutes too late. But you really run a risk
when you do that that you're going to have the
wrong diagnosis and the wrong treatment plan. And always I
want you to you know, it's been so tough in
the past to take cats to the veterinarian, but now
there's a lot of We talk a lot in there
how to get your pet to the veterinarian and make
it not even horrible a pleasant experience. So using pheromones,
using distraction techniques, using things like anks attain, you know,
(27:42):
these little chewable tablets, you can get them to where
they're not drugged out. You know, they're not a nesthetized,
just in a natural way. One is with amino acid
the anks attain. The other is feel away as a pheromone.
And you know what, you can just mimic what mom
would have done and make them like a little happy
little kit and going in there. So I think healthy
casts visit vets, keep them near their idea of body weight,
do daily oral care, and brush them, you know, with
(28:06):
the product so you don't end up with shedding, which
is a number one pet own a complaint.
Speaker 5 (28:10):
And also a lot of cats are.
Speaker 8 (28:11):
Euthanized for litter box problems because they're not using the
litter box, they're going outside or making the house the toilet.
So so many of those are solvable, almost all of
them I can solve. One is to find out the
right kind of litter which casts, like casts tend to
like clumping, non scented litter, and even better is clumping
nonsense and litter has a little bit of activated.
Speaker 5 (28:30):
Charcoal in it. That's the one they prefer the most.
Once or twice a day.
Speaker 8 (28:33):
Scoop the box out, keep it clean every week, dump
all the litter out, and clean it out with soap
and water. Every six months, throw the litter pan out
and buy a brand new it because they get impregnated
with a certain smell. If you're having trouble with your
cat using it, make sure it doesn't have a medical problem,
and then start using pheromones is the first thing.
Speaker 5 (28:49):
And finally, if I have a cat that we've tried
litter box.
Speaker 8 (28:52):
Changes, adding more litter boxes, we've tried you know, attractants
and everything to the cat and can't get it to work.
Many of these cats I put on prozac. Now this
sounds crazy, but a lot of it is just stress.
And if you put them on there's a kind of
called Reconcile, which is an edible prozac designed for pets,
so it's not bitter like prozac is.
Speaker 5 (29:12):
And it's just remarkable.
Speaker 8 (29:14):
How many of those cats that weren't using the letterbox
with about the stress will go right back.
Speaker 5 (29:18):
To using that.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Who knew prozac for pets?
Speaker 5 (29:21):
Does? That sounds crazy?
Speaker 8 (29:22):
It almost sounds like there's not enough for pretty sure
to have a wrecked out dysfunction in pets. But you
know what, your veterinarian has seen, has so much experience
in training that there's no substitute, not just for when
a cat is sick, but that once a year tip
of the nose to the tip of the tail exam
because our trained senses, our sense of smell. Even as
we sniff their ears, we flip their lips, we listen
(29:43):
to their chest, we palpate lymferens.
Speaker 5 (29:45):
We catch things early on.
Speaker 8 (29:46):
In that period of grace before it causes unnecessary pain, expense,
or worse. So if you can learn how to have
a happier visit to the VAT, that's the greatest investment
you're ever going to have with that cat.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
And you heard it here from America's veterinarian doctor Marty
Becker thinks so much for joining us on Petlight Radio,
Thank you by friend, and be sure to tune in
for another additional pet Life Radio and the upcoming weeks.
Thanks so much everyone for joining us.
Speaker 5 (30:10):
Let's talk pets every week.
Speaker 4 (30:12):
On demand only on petlifradio dot com
You're listening to Petlifradio dot Com.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hello everyone, I'm back. I know it's been a while
and I apologize, but I'm back and welcome to another
edition of Sassy Seniors. I'm Kelly Jackson, your host. Great
to be back. It's been a few actually a couple
of months, but I have a fabulous guest this week.
But before I introduce him, you know, I usually do
(00:40):
a shout out, and usually I give props to a
dog or a cat, a senior daughter cat who's made
the news. But this week I want to recognize the
people of Joplin, Missouri, which is located not too far
from where I live in Saint Louis. It was a
year ago this month when an e F five tornado
(01:03):
ripped through that town, killing one hundred and sixty people
and leaving hundreds of dogs and cats homeless. What I
want to give crops to and recognize would be the ASPCA,
the Joplin Humane Society, and dozens upon dozens of other
shelters and veterinarians who really made it possible to find
(01:27):
loving homes for all of those scared dogs and cats
who were left without homes. So props to the city
of Joplin, Missouri, as well as everyone who made it possible,
all of those that's to have loving homes. Well, you're
going to be right back. We're going to have a
short break with America's veterinarian.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
When we come back, we'll be right back right after
these messages.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
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Speaker 2 (02:45):
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Speaker 5 (02:49):
There are so many great books coming out. I wish
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Speaker 4 (03:35):
Let's talk pets on Petlifradio dot com.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Welcome back everyone. It's Kelly Jackson, your host up Sappy Seniors,
and I am so happy this get today. He is
America's He is also the resident veterinarian for Good Morning
America as well as the Doctor Oz Show, Doctor Marty Becker. Welcome.
Speaker 9 (04:10):
Oh. By the way you talk about sexy seniors, I
can tell you Kelly is a sexy senior. She is beautiful,
and she's got a smile so wide you can eat
a banana sideways. I'll tell you. You know I was
in Joplin yesterday doing a satellite media tour for pet
Co and the American Red Cross, and it was really
neat to see the progress that the city has made
(04:32):
and the good news category. The day before, the twenty
second was the one year anniversary, and on the twenty first,
they matched up the last pet that hadn't been returned
to its owners. So it took them one day less
than a year, but every pet that was lost was
reunited with their owners. So kudos to those groups out
there and those individuals that worked so hard to put
(04:53):
these families back together.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
That is such great news, and I'm so glad that
you were able to be down there for an such
an event that has made the news and the fact
of so many lives in the past year. It's been
a years ince I've seeing you. Also became to Saint
Louis last year and you were on the television show
that I post on the weekends for NBC and you
were doing a tour, which was really cool because you
(05:17):
had like your own little caravan, didn't you.
Speaker 9 (05:20):
Well, lastly, that was interesting. I don't know, I'll let
it be repeated. That was we had Lady Gaga's tour bus.
There's these companies that went these buses and after she
got off for tour, it was all wrapped up with
this Healthy Tests visit that's logo, and we traveled all
around the country and after the tour is over, actually
Justin Bieber took the bus and went on tour. So
it was a nice bus vet an area. I'm more
(05:42):
used to a pickup truck, you know, that's ten years
old than that fancy bus. But it's really a chance issue.
We're doing another tour for Healthy Cats visit that and
we traveled around the country, this time by airplane, which
is a little easier, but we're visiting twenty five cities
over the course of five weeks. In Saint Louis's is
a fun stop to come to. I like, come in
(06:02):
here once. I get a hug from Kelly when I
come here, so that's nice. So I get to see
I get to hugger. And I've been married for thirty
three years and my wife will tell you I'm a
serial hugger. So my mother was from the South and
so if that's the worst thing that I guess you
could get accused, then it's not too bad. But like today,
I had a chance to go on TV with a
bunch of little kittens and hearing the Pitco Brett. You know,
(06:25):
I hope people drop buy with their pets. You know,
I just love seeing animal so everywhere I go I've
drawn to animals like a moth to a light.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Well, we are in Petco right now and we're in
the adoption area for cats and kittens. So it's really
quite fitting because your new book is Your Cat the
Owner's Manual. I loved it. I don't even own a cat.
I've never owned a cat. I've had many friends who
have cats. But I love Doctor Becker because it reads
(06:53):
very easily. It's not too What's I'm trying to think of? Yeah, exactly,
and you cover everything everything, and the first question I
have to ask you. A lot of my friends who
have cats, they always say, well, my cat is so cool,
it's so much like a dog. What does that mean?
If it's so much like a dog, then why don't
(07:14):
you have a dog? You know, we.
Speaker 9 (07:16):
Wrote Your Dog the Owner's Manual last year. It was
in hardcover, that just came out in paperback. But Your
Cat the Owner's Mangle it is my twentieth buck and
I didn't teased by some people that I might the
American's veterinarian, but I'm a lousy person coming up with
book titles your cat the Owner's Manual? Could you possibly
have an owner's mango for a cat? When you know
(07:37):
it's definitely like bringing the wild inside and you're never
going to completely tame a cat to bring it to
every human women desire. And I have four dogs and
fore cats at home, and those of us love cats
wouldn't have it any other way. We like that independence
who like the fact that they're this unique species that
isn't a small dog. Typically people say that it's like
a dog. If a cat will be will come when
(07:58):
it's called, and it's more and even the ones that
will retrieve a little toy that's thrown. But you know,
we have four cats and they have four different personalities.
One of them is just that big old lover lung
that you can twist into a print bowl and carry
around by you know, one armor that hanging down and
it always comes to you. And then we have another
one that might not see it for a week and
(08:20):
then the next two days it's just up there. It's
throw permoter going and don't know what's going on through
his head. But I like the fact that they're both
preying predator, which is a unique ecological niche to have.
So when cats like to get up high, they get
up high because if they're in the predator mode, they're
looking for supper, and if they're in the prey mode,
they're in a place that's safe. So whether they're on
(08:41):
a lego, blocks of green hay and a bar up high,
or up on the top of your cadenza or at
the top of the cat tower, they love to get
up high.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
You cover a lot of things in a book, including
some cat myths like are they stand offish, that they're
not affectionate and they require access to the outdoors to
be happy and can't get along with dogs.
Speaker 9 (09:01):
Well, you know, one of the things that I lobby
strongly for is indoor only cats. There's a study out
of Purdue University that you're indoor cats with three point
five times longer than outdoor cats, and indoor cats live
twice as long as in outdoor cats. So there's a
lot of hazards that a way a cat outside ringing
from a you know, nasty neighborhood dog to angry tomcats.
(09:23):
That's going to give them an abscess to car fan
belts and hit by cars and poisons and viruses and everything.
So it's perfectly fine to have a cat inside as
long as you do in Richmond activities, and you know
here in the PECO it's just still the things that
are enrichment activities for cats, ranging from food puzzles that
you use rather than feeding out of a bowl, climbing towers,
(09:45):
different kinds of climbing surfaces, toys, and in phaeromoonts. One
of the things that I'm a huge fan of, especially
when you're mixing up a cat. We have several cats
in a house, or cats and dogs, or cats and
dogs and kids. Whi's real stressful is to use sphaeromoonts pheromones.
When a cat rubs against you with its cheek or
against the furniture, it's marking you with a feline cheap
(10:06):
pheromount And basically that's the good housekeeping seal of approval.
When they rub that, it's like cat tested and approved,
and that comes in a in a diffuser bottle you
plug in like a glade plug in or a bath
and bodyworks plug in. It also comes in a spray
bottle like cologne. But the best way I could describe it, Kelly,
it's like it's like every cat gets three glasses of
(10:26):
wine and a balion and they just, you know, they're
not bogged out like catnip, whether they're falling over and
you know, salivating or going crazy, but it just reduces
that innercint aggression. It tremendously reduces the tendency cats to
go outside the letter box to do inappropriate scratching. And
so you know, that's another tool you can use those
kinds of tools, or you know, provide more spaces. One
(10:50):
of things we talk about in the book is to
expand a cat's vertical space. You know, we're not going
to remodel our home to give them more space, but
you can just go to a local home improvement store
and buy bookshelves big of it for one cat and
just stare step them up a wall and you literally
will have furry art all over that wall to have
their own little contented place up high off the floor
for a few dollars.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Wow. Interesting, I love that. Now here's the thing I
hear that, at least in your book, you say that
a lot of cat owners don't take their cast to
the vet as often as they should because they say
it's so hard to try to get them to the vet.
So what should you do? What are some of the
tricks of the trade.
Speaker 9 (11:28):
Let me pretend I'm not a veterinary for a minute,
and I'm a cat. I don't think i'd take my
cat to the vet because it is so stressful for
the cat and so stressful for the cat owner. But
we really worked really hard to create fear free visits
where if it's not the best thing that happens to
a cat this year, it's certainly not the worst thing
that even happened this week. And the way you do
that we just filmed a short video on this is,
(11:51):
first of all, leave the carrier down as part of
fun furniture. Don't drag the carrier out the night before
that visit or the day of the that visit. And
don't think cat's going to freak out. Have to carry
out there all the time in someplace in your house.
And you know what, leave the door open, have the
can or drop little trees through the through the top
of it. You go down and you go to peck Corn,
(12:11):
a grocery store, and you buy some incredibly savory canned
food that you're just gonna go wild over. Guess what
you put it in that carrier to feet in that
you get a new toy. You put it inside the
carrier so they think, you know what, this is the nicest,
most comfortable, reliable, spoiled place that I have is inside
this carrier too. As you go back to using the
(12:32):
pheromone again the feel away I spoke of earlier, where
you just switched the carrier with it, and again it's
just going to be like kumbay A. You take a
towel that is from home that has the sense of home,
not one especially long, but has the sense of the cats,
and drape it over the top of the carrier and
then hopefully you're going to go to a venitary hospital
that might have a feline only exam room, so they'll
(12:55):
get you right in there. It doesn't have the same
harsh disinfectants that we use for dogs. It also has
pheromones in the air and there, and your dogs can't
smell the pheromones. You can't smell the pheromones. It's only
the cats to smell the pheromones. And another thing you
can use is there's a product called Anxetain. It's a
n x i an e. You can get it from
your veterinarian and it's a delithiany, a natural amino acid.
(13:19):
But whether it's for dogs or cats, it's a chewable tablet.
I prescribe it to give twelve hours before a visit,
in two hours before a visit, and that again just
makes it like again, it's another way to do kumbaya.
You use the ankstain, use the feel away. Have a
carrier that can open from the top end of the front,
which Petnate makes a great one now designed just more
cats because a lot of cats like to go in
(13:41):
the front and out the top. Or if the cat
wants to go in the top and out the front,
they can do it. They want to go in the
front and out the front. But the door opens both ways,
so it gives you a lot of options. And actually
it unsnaps, so it just comes and have like a clamshell.
And what I do is just take the top half
off and leave the cat in the bottom half to
examine itself. I want a cat. And oh I forgot
one thing too. I have Belli turkey smoke Delli turkey
(14:04):
in my pocket in a little bit bluck bag, so
it's body temperature. So with all those other things, before
we prod or do anything else, unless we need to
get a blood sample, I'm giving that cat a little
bit of one turkey out of my pocket. So you
can see. It's a pretty good ride to come to
the runor hospital where I work.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Sneaky but ingenius. I love that. Well. I didn't realize
how hard it was a good a cat in a
carrier to go anywhere. So I love those tricks out
the trade. Okay, here's something that I've always wondered, and
you address it in your book. Also, hairballs. I say,
welcome to the hairball. But what is a hairball? And
you know how can you prevent them or treat them?
Speaker 9 (14:43):
I would hold a little kitten today and he was
licking me, and I don't know if you've ever felt
a cat's tone, but it is like a caterpillar wearing
golf shoes. It is this rasty little thing that feels
so incredible on your skin that those little barber's point
one way and that's down. So when they're grooming themselves,
they literally augur in this hair and they swallow it.
(15:04):
So those next time you can guess what it has
one of two ways to go out, and it goes
out the back end. But few people get down really
close and take a look in that cat box to
see it in the seces. What will happen, specially for
longer haircats, is they'll grim themselves and all of a sudden,
about two am in the morning, it sounds like somebody
returning to the sorority or the fraternity. It's just smashed
(15:27):
and they're making this incredible moaning sound. And then and
all of a sudden they grab a fold of the
carpet and get traction with their claws. And you always
want to do someplace you're going to step on. It's
not actually a hair ball. It's more like a hair
cigar that they throw up the papered at either end.
That doesn't hurt a cat to do it. It is messy.
It isn't knowing for a lot of people, and so
(15:49):
there's things that you can do to reduce it. The
number one thing is to use a ferminator. The ferminator
is the world's greatest invention with the greatest name. Instead
of the terminate, the ferminator and that gets rid of
a lot of that loose hair, so it ends up
in the garden beach and not down the cat stommy
can back out on your carpet. The other thing you
can do is add a little can pumpkin, the unspiced version,
(16:11):
just a peaspoon once a week. That really helps things
pass through. Or if it's really serious, you can get
special hair hot hair ball diet, or just have more fiber.
But again, it's not no cat's going to die of
a hairball, but it is ways to really minimize it,
which a lot of people and they don't want to
be woken up in the middle of the night or
else step in something that's unpleaster.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Oh it is pretty gross, isn't it. Okay, Well, I
want to also address since my show is all about
senior pets, and page two seventy five you address special
need cats and older cats. And the thing is the
best thing that I'd love is that you always dress
fat cats, not a cute cat, and a fat cat
(16:53):
as far as their lifespan will not be as you know,
they will not live as long because they have so
many health issues. What advice would you give our listeners
for those who do have senior cats.
Speaker 9 (17:05):
I wish everybody gave as good interview as you do.
I love being on your show, you know, I mean
that sincerely. The thing with cats is, first of all,
you know, I love puppies and kittens. I love the
smell of puppy glass. I don't know, I think it
smells like sweet Carol syrup. I love the smell of kittens,
like today, I have these kittens and it smells like
(17:25):
buttered popcorn or something.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
To me.
Speaker 9 (17:26):
I just love that earthy smell that kittens have. And
I like their little kinetic acts and those little like
cirt base lay performers. But I'm more drawn to make
a recommendation of people is to get a sheltered cat
and an older cat, because then the behavior has already proven.
The first year of a cat's life is equivalent to
about eighteen human years, and that's the terrible twos in
(17:48):
the teenage yers for any of us that have had kids,
so that's a tough time. But adult cats, you know,
if they like other cats, if they like men and women,
if they like okay with children, to get along one
of the dogs. So there's many any senior cats out there,
Adult cats are the best choice for somebody that's adopting
a first time cat or another cat. But for these
(18:08):
senior cats. You know, what we want to do is
if you keep a cat at its ideal body weight,
which is about what they weigh at a year of age,
they're going to live fifteen percent longer, which is an
average of two years. If you also do daily oral care,
which maybe we can talk about in a minute. And
I'm not talking brushing their teeth. I'm not talking going
on a YouTube video with you know the cat has
(18:29):
done hieroglyphics on your face or paid tictack toe of
your arm with its claws. If you do that, you're
going to add fifteen percent to their life. So you
want to keep them thinner. And if they get overweight,
they have almost the miriams of what humans get. They
get an increase in type two diabetes, joint problems, heart problems,
respiratory problems, skin issues. They don't grim themselves as well.
(18:52):
Fat cats tend to have a bad attitude. They're just
not as happy, and there's also an increased risk of cancer.
So there's a compel a reason both for the help
of the cat and how expensive it is to keep
them patter near their ideal body weight. And fifty percent
of America's cats are overweight or obese, so we know
we're not doing a very good job of keeping them
out their ideal body weight. And the key is to
(19:14):
feed them a set amount of food. Don't feed free choice.
They'll happily dig their grave with their food ball. They
don't self regulate. Measure your food out, ask your venoran
for a recommendation of what food to feed. And I'm
not talking about just going, you know, buying the stuff
from the veninaria, and say, listen, I shop at Petcot,
what food should I feed my pet there? Or I
shop at whatever grocery stores in your community Safely or
(19:37):
Alberson's or Kroger's or wind Ditch or whatever it is.
I'm going to buy my food at the grocery store.
What kind of food should I peed this cat? And
then measured out? And then don't feed out of bowls.
We have forecats of almost having ranch. They all eat
out of food puzzles. And the way to describe a
food puzzle, it's the way you put kibble inside in
a chamber that's like a slot machine. So it's like
(19:57):
going to Vegas, Atlantic City or the Indian Casino and
playing a slot machine. Sometimes it pays off a little,
A lot of times it doesn't pay off any Sometimes
it pays out a tremendous amount of jackpot. But it
takes memory, skill and manipulation for those cats to eat,
and so it's a boredom buster. Boredom equals obesity as well.
Majored amount of food in a food puzzle, fed multiple
(20:19):
times a day. With the right amount of exercising, you
can keep a cat at their idub body weight. And
I've got cats that range from twenty to five years old,
and all four cats are after I doubt body.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Weight will be right back after the break.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
We'll be right back right after these messages. Stay tuned.
Speaker 6 (20:45):
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Atny why What's Done? Number one pet radio network in
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Radio network has over five million monthly listeners and over
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A pet business, pet Fike Radio.
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Carlo Sales Department today Old Free at eight seven seven
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us at sales at petlife Radio dot com. Steve Wasea.
(22:39):
If Apple was a pet business, where would you advertise your.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Iyleash On pet Life Radio coast to coast and around
the world.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
It's all behaved with Arden Moore.
Speaker 12 (22:51):
Find out why cats and dogs do the things they
do and get the latest buzz from Wagging Tongues and
tails and rin ten tinsel Town, from famous pet experts
and best selling authors, good television and movie stars. You'll
get great tail whacking pet tips and have a fur
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(23:14):
a special Puffer Rozi treat only on pet live Radio
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Speaker 1 (23:24):
Let's talk past, let's petal headline radio.
Speaker 12 (23:28):
Pet live Radio dot Com.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
And we are back here with the Doctor Marty Becker,
America's veterinarian featured on Good Morning America and Doctor Oz
and Vet Streets and so many other things. You're everywhere,
Doctor Becker.
Speaker 5 (23:55):
Seems like there's more than one of me.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Does that?
Speaker 5 (23:57):
You know what's funny?
Speaker 8 (23:58):
They call me America's veteranor, and Dotter Oz actually is
the guy that started that. Oprah started calling him America's doctor.
Then doctor Oz start calling me America's veterinarian. So I
figure that sounds pretty good. I actually just got an
award as the Global Veterinarian of the Year, which I
just received an award, and that's the second biggest honor
in my life.
Speaker 5 (24:14):
The biggest honor ever.
Speaker 8 (24:15):
Was becoming the Companion Animal Veterinar in the Year for
the United States. That's voted on by my colleagues and
is named in honor of Leo Abustad, who is my dean.
Speaker 5 (24:23):
And Leo is one of the founders co founders of the.
Speaker 8 (24:25):
Delta Society, you know, these people that do the therapy
work with pets. And also he really is the first
person to show the human animal health connection that having
a relationship with a pet actually improved human health and
well being. But you know, besides playing a veterinor and
on TV, I'm a practicing veterinarian. I was practicing for
I started this tour and I love I love pets,
I love people. I'm not the world's best veterinarian behind
(24:48):
that exam room door, you know, I don't want to
pretend like I'm, you know, this genius back there. But
people have such incredible support teams anymore, and we tend
to work in teams to where you don't have to
be good at surgery, for example, you don't have to
be the world's best internal medicine specialist. There's enough of
us there to kind of pass the teamwork along. But
I love dogs, love cats, love horses.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Well, it's such an honor that your colleagues have, you know,
given you the thumbs up. I guess I should say.
I mean, that's such an honor, you know, it really is.
Your daughter's also in the field. Yeah, she seen her articles.
Speaker 5 (25:23):
She had a gift.
Speaker 8 (25:24):
She's when we were she was very young, she took
an ordinary wirehired fox terrier and won all these competitions
with it, you know, just her dog. So she'd go
to these competitions, and then she's really good at horses.
So there's a thing called Western pleasure. This way you
show horses, and Michel and my wife, Teresa, my wife
with thirty three years. They showed horses together, and at
this competition, it's like NASCAR, you got to have a
(25:45):
certain level of car to be a NASCAR. In this thing,
there's horses from one hundred thousand dollars to twenty thousand
dollars to compete nashly, so she had a horse's under
twenty thousand dollars, so she's at the lower end of it.
She was the four time Canadian National tie amp on
that horse. So we live so close to Canada, it's
actually easier to compete in Canada than traveling the US.
(26:06):
My wife is riding the same horse and she's worried,
sick and throwing up, and you know, my daughter's over
there telling my wife, you know, do your best. It's
okay kind of thing. They're total reversal. But she just
has a knack and so she can get She does
it in a positive way, so it's not flooding a
dog like some trainers do.
Speaker 5 (26:23):
It's nothing negative.
Speaker 8 (26:24):
It's just a positive way of showing him what to
do to teaching him how to do it, and then
rewarding them for doing it. And so you know, Michael's
on vetstreet dot Com with me are online home and
offers a lot of good advice.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Runs in the family. Yeah, okay, So what final message
would you like to give our listeners. The thing that
I love that you said in your book. People so
often go on the Internet looking for information for their pets,
and you said, no them an out of inprol on
the internet or even books. The best thing is to
go to your vet.
Speaker 8 (26:57):
We call it paging doctor Google. You know this so
many people, And you know what, I go to the
internet too. I'm not telling you not to go to
the innet because you're going to go to the internet.
But most of the time, I can tell you five
times in the last four or five months where somebody
went to the Internet to diagnose their pet and to
come up with a treatment plan, and in five cases
the pet died. Sometimes it's not a week too late,
(27:19):
it's not even an hour too late. It can be
actually minutes too late. But you really run a risk
when you do that that you're going to have the
wrong diagnosis and the wrong treatment plan. And always I
want you to you know, it's been so tough in
the past to take cats to the veterinarian, but now
there's a lot of We talk a lot in there
how to get your pet to the veterinarian and make
it not even horrible a pleasant experience. So using pheromones,
using distraction techniques, using things like anks attain, you know,
(27:42):
these little chewable tablets, you can get them to where
they're not drugged out. You know, they're not a nesthetized,
just in a natural way. One is with amino acid
the anks attain. The other is feel away as a pheromone.
And you know what, you can just mimic what mom
would have done and make them like a little happy
little kit and going in there. So I think healthy
casts visit vets, keep them near their idea of body weight,
do daily oral care, and brush them, you know, with
(28:06):
the product so you don't end up with shedding, which
is a number one pet own a complaint.
Speaker 5 (28:10):
And also a lot of cats are.
Speaker 8 (28:11):
Euthanized for litter box problems because they're not using the
litter box, they're going outside or making the house the toilet.
So so many of those are solvable, almost all of
them I can solve. One is to find out the
right kind of litter which casts, like casts tend to
like clumping, non scented litter, and even better is clumping
nonsense and litter has a little bit of activated.
Speaker 5 (28:30):
Charcoal in it. That's the one they prefer the most.
Once or twice a day.
Speaker 8 (28:33):
Scoop the box out, keep it clean every week, dump
all the litter out, and clean it out with soap
and water. Every six months, throw the litter pan out
and buy a brand new it because they get impregnated
with a certain smell. If you're having trouble with your
cat using it, make sure it doesn't have a medical problem,
and then start using pheromones is the first thing.
Speaker 5 (28:49):
And finally, if I have a cat that we've tried
litter box.
Speaker 8 (28:52):
Changes, adding more litter boxes, we've tried you know, attractants
and everything to the cat and can't get it to work.
Many of these cats I put on prozac. Now this
sounds crazy, but a lot of it is just stress.
And if you put them on there's a kind of
called Reconcile, which is an edible prozac designed for pets,
so it's not bitter like prozac is.
Speaker 5 (29:12):
And it's just remarkable.
Speaker 8 (29:14):
How many of those cats that weren't using the letterbox
with about the stress will go right back.
Speaker 5 (29:18):
To using that.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Who knew prozac for pets?
Speaker 5 (29:21):
Does? That sounds crazy?
Speaker 8 (29:22):
It almost sounds like there's not enough for pretty sure
to have a wrecked out dysfunction in pets. But you
know what, your veterinarian has seen, has so much experience
in training that there's no substitute, not just for when
a cat is sick, but that once a year tip
of the nose to the tip of the tail exam
because our trained senses, our sense of smell. Even as
we sniff their ears, we flip their lips, we listen
(29:43):
to their chest, we palpate lymferens.
Speaker 5 (29:45):
We catch things early on.
Speaker 8 (29:46):
In that period of grace before it causes unnecessary pain, expense,
or worse. So if you can learn how to have
a happier visit to the VAT, that's the greatest investment
you're ever going to have with that cat.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
And you heard it here from America's veterinarian doctor Marty
Becker thinks so much for joining us on Petlight Radio,
Thank you by friend, and be sure to tune in
for another additional pet Life Radio and the upcoming weeks.
Thanks so much everyone for joining us.
Speaker 5 (30:10):
Let's talk pets every week.
Speaker 4 (30:12):
On demand only on petlifradio dot com
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