April 28, 2025 • 25 mins
This week's topics include lost pet scams, telemedicine, emergencies, and more! Tune in every SUNDAY at 12 Noon Eastern, 9am Pacific and call in with your questions at 877-385-8882 or join us on Zoom.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is pet Life Radio. Let's talk pets man.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
We are live here both on Instagram and on cat
Life Radio. Here for the next thirty minutes with a
doctor Jeff for We're your host here on pet Life
Radio's as Sid's a doctor Jeff here for you, here
for your pets.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
And just anything you want to talk about. We are
here and ready to talk. So I'm just hello, Danielle.
How are you? I'm waving waving so as you know,
anything you want to talk about, we have some things, hello, Steph.
And if you can hear my voice, maybe a little
bit groggy, a little froggy. You know. I never get sick,
and whatever was going around, I think I got it.
(00:57):
And it's been like about a week almost first I
thought it was just basic larynxitis, and no it's been
lingering on. I feel totally fine, never have a fever,
never stop working, eating, Everything's normal except except the chest.
So anyway, I'm doing fine, doing much much better. Hope
all you were well. It is a gorgeous day here
(01:17):
in socol And ooh, let's see hearing new vaccines will
be Mr Na can you comment if you can talk
about the Yes, A couple things I wanted to talk about.
One is I saw something a post on one of
the news sites that I get that beware of scammers.
So a lot of times if you find a pet,
what do you do? You post you found a pet,
(01:38):
so then you're getting calls from either supposedly a shelter
or vet clinic saying, oh, we know that pet and
he needs to be on medication. If you can send
us some money, we can get to the medication until
you can find the owner. Will help you find the owner.
It's bs. Don't fall for it. They'll give you a
Venmo paypye get paid by Venmo. Don't do it. They're scammers.
(02:03):
They are combing these sites and anytime they see you know,
look who posts about a pet like this, right, it's
usually going to be a pet lover who really cares.
If you lost a pet, you post a pet and
then you're going to give them shelter. We have your
pet and it's sick or something. We found a pet
and it's sick. We know who belongs to, but it
(02:23):
needs some medication. So either way, don't fall for it.
If someone says we have your pet, then let me
see the pet and send me pictures. Let's do a video.
Let me see your clinic, let me see the pet there,
and now I'll tell you if it's my pet. Don't
just say oh, we got the ID tag it sounds
like it's yours. Don't fall for it. How is everybody's week?
I hope it was a good week. Mine was busy
(02:44):
as always, which is good. And Savili I wanted to
talk about and we get scart the how to treat
direna in a nursing cat. Well, first of all, diarrhea
can happen for many reasons, and one of them is stress.
So you know nursing cats, who's you're eating more? They
should be anyway, A pregnant animal use each should to
eat about one and a half times they're normal. A
(03:07):
nursing mom should eat twice as much, like literally double
the caloric load. So that and of itself used to
eating more that could also cause diarrheic. Just the stress
half of the kittens that can also cause the diarrhea.
So I wouldn't want to use drugs at this point
because you don't want to get that stuff into the kittens.
But just add a little fiber to the diet is
(03:29):
pretty much all you need to do a little sillier powder,
a little cooked oatmeal, a little brand just add a
little bit of fiber. It will approve as the stress
level comes down, or even just the excitement of having kittens.
But I'd be really careful you don't want to use
any kind of medication because of course that's going to
get into the milk and that's not a good thing. Okay.
(03:51):
So what I wanted to mention is that having done
my telemedicine for a number of years now and really
seeing a lot a lot of cases back of the day,
if you even it's his industry. If you to ask
an emergency room vet who works in an emergency clinic,
what percent of emergencies are actually emergencies, even they would
tell you, which I found fascinating, about twenty percent. That's
(04:13):
coming from an emergency room doc. So twenty percent of
the cases they see as an emergency are actually an emergency. Now,
having done telemedicine through air veat for a long time,
it's not sasars. I talk to other telemedicine doctors and
basically we're getting the same thing I've done, probably close
(04:35):
to four thousand tell themedicine visits, and some of them
are obviously we're not meant to be an emergency. But
I would say of the one set where someone contacted
us for an emergency, I'd say that number is actually
more like five percent. That means most of these emergencies aren't.
And unfortunately what happens is as any of you know,
(04:57):
and I'd love to hear that when you've had a case,
and of course you're veterinariing at two in the morning,
wasn't available or on Sunday or whatever. So they have
an emergency, you have a message automatic message at the
office say hi, thanks for calling, but we're closed. If
you have an emergency, you recommend you either call or
go to this clinic or call this clinic. So what
(05:19):
are most normal people gonna do? They are going, of course,
to go. So they're gonna go to the emergency room.
Now emergency rooms, you know, I gotta tell you. Can
you talk about this temper Foster a dog who had
kennel cough and vomiting now asked Ray, Oh my god,
vet ted he's checking for distemper. He says, nasal discharge.
What's the like to it? Well, I mean, look, distemper
(05:41):
is a fairly common problem that we're gonna see, especially
in shelter animals or you know, anytimes that animals are
coming from a rescue or foster. Often you know foster's
you know fosters do. They do wonderful work. They often
go to these shelters, They look at these dogs and
they say to themselves, look, we know many of these,
Oh can we put to sleep? Who can we save?
(06:01):
How many can we save? And which ones are the
most likely to be saved or be able to be
adopted once we get to pull up. So sometimes you know,
dogs with kennel cough, it's very common, you see them
all the time. So what we need to do is
what they'll often do is they will find dogs that
seem to be the most adoptable and that's who they pull. Now,
(06:25):
could a dog with a simple kennel cough end up
with a much more aggressive respiratory infection? Are maybe dead
vomits and then maybe it aspirates, So yes, these are possibilities.
Does it mean it's a temper not necessarily, but is
to be tested for distemper and there are some tests
that can be done. But meanwhile, treatment is the key.
(06:48):
And this temper is very interesting because distemper is an
epitheliotrophic disease. That means it attacks all epithelial surfaces. So
what are some of the symptoms as well? The eyes
are our epithilial tissue, the respiratory tree. Okay, the respiratory
tract is covered lined with epithelium. How about the intestinal trap? Oh,
(07:09):
my god, line with that pithilion. So you have these
multi systemic diseases all because of one virus that attacks
epithelial tissue. So that's the problem. Now what else is
line with that pathilion? The brain, neural tissue. So there
are different phases of de Steparate virus. The most common,
(07:31):
the one that's usually comes first is the respiratory. Then
it can go to the DII, gastro intestinal and ultimately
the prey. Now it is it's a tough one. It
is treatable. There are some things we can do, but
remember it's a virus, so all we can do is
support the body as best we can to let the
(07:52):
body that take care of its own virus. So now
use it. My feeling is if it's just respiratory, one
hundred percent treat as you were to any respiratory infection
and keep them more, keep them well fed, Let keep
the body as strong as possible. If you go to
the gi trap save thing. My feeling is that just
hit from historically, if it hits the brain, the neuro track,
(08:17):
then it's gonna be a more of a challenge. Even
dogs that recover, and there are many they can, they
may get something called ode old dog encephalitis down the road,
could be a year, it could be several years. They
can start getting like disorders, neurologic disorders, which is probably
related to that distemper virus they had. Also, if you
(08:40):
look at dog's teeth, one way you can really tell
if the dog was subjected or is exposed to distemper
as a little puppy is they will have a problem
with their enamel, enamel hypoplasia, and their teeth will come
in their adult teeth. But the adult teeth have a
lot of like cracked enamel. They'll have dibbits, it'll be browner.
(09:04):
The teeth don't look pre Now, the denton, the next layer,
deeper layer, which is a straight flayer, that's gonna be fine,
but just the teeth are not pre Now. What I
recommend not taking a dog that is doing fine and
has the stemper teeth. I'm saying, no, go for it.
It's aesthetics. They beat it, and this is just it's
a sign that says, yes, when I was a puppy,
(09:28):
I was subjected to this stemper virus. But I'm good now.
Don't let that stop you. But anyway, so at this
point with aspiration ammonia, I'm concerned. I would a one
hundred percent treat. I would not put this dog to sleep,
all right. I would definitely want to treat it and
see what's going on. But that is my recommendation, all right,
(09:48):
So I would not treat. I did definitely treat, just
know that because of the possibility of it being a
more aggressive disease, and because the aspiration emonia is sometimes
it wouldn't be the distepport about. Yet it would worries
me as much as the aspiration ammonia. So how's the
dog doing? All right? We have to know that. So
estimate for fourths would be say you should okay, I
(10:10):
got an estimate for fourth al well, hey, y you
know this. This is what I'm getting at with these
emergencies or not emergencies. And first of all, a lot
of these corporate practices. I don't know what to tell you.
They try to make this nice. I can't make it nice.
They are business. They are funded by venture capital groups,
(10:31):
by equity, private equity. They really, I can't say they
don't care about the animal, but they care about making money.
And because they make big investments. Is these practices, and
anyone who has gone to one of these corporate practices,
who also goes or has gone to a non corporate practice,
you know exactly what I'm talking about. Could I sugarcoate this?
I cannot sugarcoat it. It is what it is. I
(10:53):
look at some of these invoices coming in and I'm
saying to myself, why do they do that? They didn't
need to do that test. That's not getting take care
of this problem. So what's happening is back in the day,
emergency clinics basically were triage. They said this is what
we need to do to get you through the night
so you can go back to your regular veterinarian in
(11:14):
the morning. It's not like that anymore. These are clinics
that literally will take over a case, often managed at
night by younger and experienced veterinarians, and they are so
afraid to miss something because they don't know, they don't
have the wisdom. Wisdom comes from experience, so they want
to test for everything that they could possibly test for
(11:37):
to rule things out. And before you know, you spend
thousands of dollars and because they do every test in
the book. And here's the case I'm seeing here from
cat snippers and guess what, the cat was fine within
a few days. It is frustrating to me, it's frustrating
to my clients. And that was my point about the
(11:59):
number of she said are truly emergencies is much less.
And if there was anyone where you can log on
find out of any kind of telemedicine platform, you know,
they use it human medicine all the time. And now interestingly,
in many states, including California, you can establish what's called
a VCPR veterinary client patient relationship online through virtual visit
(12:24):
and then that doctor, if their license in that state,
can actually prescribe medications directly without seeing the patient. Now
I mean seeing it. You are seeing it video? Now
are you touching it? No, But any experienced doctor can
tell a lot by a thorough history and a visual
(12:48):
and asking the owner online on the virtual visit. Lift
up the lips. I want to see what the gums
look like. How's the activity does the cat or dog
look find? Does it acting? Did it eat? Did it
not eat? Is it did not? Bobby? You can get
a lot and sometimes just by knowing how that pet
is doing, literally how animated, how active, that speaks, volumes? Now,
(13:12):
is it going to solve a problem necessarily? Not necessarily?
But might it get you through the night where you
could see a regular vet the next day, I'll probably
a vet that you much more comfortable seeing than some
strange young veterinarian. So this is where I have my issues,
and I get this all the time, and I'm getting
so many frustrated clients from these places, and I see,
(13:34):
I feel your frustration because when I look at what
they did and what tests they ran, and why they
did it, and that wasn't part of the emergency. Might
it be down the road a test that needs to
be done, Yes, it might be, But did it have
to be done last night? No? No, There's so many
other things you could have done first to stabilize the animal.
And this is the concern I have. Well, okay, get
(13:56):
me off that soapbox. All right now, two year old
eating on Cloudmock's patril and serenia. I hope it's not
a temperate sounds awful, the no no. So look, if
he's eating and he's already two and he's on two
really good broadspeck to antibiotics, I love them both all
right at certic vobiting, then just keep him strong. The
fact that he's eating is a good sign. If he's
(14:17):
going to the bath field, I don't know what as
level of animation is. Is he active, is he alert?
He If he's acting fine, that's a really good sign.
And just keep doing what you're doing. You're covering your
bases as far as any infection, bacterial infection. Of course,
you have a serendia which is controlling the vomiting. So
at this point, keep him well fed, well hydrated. Hydration
(14:39):
is key. And Katy post it aerylin tested diagnosed. You say, Kim, wow,
that's the problem, and look, I get it. It's nuts.
But I'll tell you this. We were taught differently. I
can't even explain it. When we were in school, we're
gonna have all these fancy things at our disposal, So
we were taught to do a thorough physical and furrough history.
(15:01):
You make your diagnosis, or at least you rule outs
based on those two things, history and a thorough physical.
Then when you have thought all the things out, looked
at all the other possibilities, you can rule out a
lot of the differentials just based on every one of
these diseases have multiple, multiple right symptoms. So all of
(15:24):
a sudden, you're thinking of one of the diseases you
put on your list. But the only symptom that this
particularly thea was I say, demomiting. I wouldn't say it's
some weird disease yet, because those dogs that have that
disease are also not eating. They're also this the stool
is yet this color. We're not happing any of that.
So I'm not saying you cross it off your list.
(15:44):
That's not tonight. You don't have to worry about that now.
And then once you do that, you're when you do
a test, you're not testing to determine your differentials. You're
testing to confirm what you already have hunters about. And
that's when you do a test they're trying to come
up with through diagnosing. Only through testing. You should already
(16:08):
have a pretty good idea of a good diagnostician of
what the diagnoses are could be. And that's where the
test comes in to confirm it or knock it off
your list. But you don't test for everything right away
because I use this expression a lot, and I know
you've heard it by ambothergizing I'm gonna I'm gonna share
(16:29):
it again. And that is if you're running along the
beach in Alibu, California, and you hear hook beats chasing
you from behind, what are you thinking? Horses or zevers?
You don't think of zebra but that young ducker that
test you just ran. You're looking for a disease that
you gotta see maybe twice in your entire career. Why
(16:49):
are you testing for now? But again, trust me, veterinarians,
we are dealing with this all the time. It's disheartening
for us, there really is. And whose fault is it?
Most fault it is is the corporate America who are
buying up all these practice. I think the latest statistic
was like forty percent of small and OMAL practices are
corporate owned. I hope I'm wrong, but I know it's
(17:12):
getting up there. And so it's a lot more difficult
to find those smaller practices that are still privately run.
That the practice philosophy. The first thing with that list
is the pet care and then the other things follow.
But of course I vote practice. I have practice for
many many years. I notice light you have to pay everybody,
(17:32):
You have to pay your suppliers. You want to make
a nice profit, but at what expense? I mean you
can't have clients pay for all of that. And what
if these doctors want to do They want to have
their work like DALX, so they want to work a
little less. Oh, but they want to make the same
amount of money. Oh so how does that work? If
you want to work less but make the same amount
(17:53):
of money. There's only one way to do that, right
What does that either increase your fees, which is probably
with you're doing, or decrease the actual quality of care
by not having some of the best medications and the
best equipment. So they buy cheaper stuff and that way
they're making more money. Is that the answer? I don't
think so it wasn't for me. But this is the reality.
(18:17):
And that's why there is so much stuff out there
that really is ragging a veteran medicine and it is
still In my opinion, it's the best profession on the planet.
I wouldn't do anything differently, I honestly feel it sounds corning.
I was put on this earth to do what I'm doing,
and that's what makes it so much fun. So let's
go back to the you know what is in emergency?
(18:38):
How do you know? And a lot of times you're
not going to know, So you should ask your veterinarian.
Are there online sources that you could trust? Not Google,
doctor Google, because for doctor Google, everything's in emergency. Their
answer for everything, Oh my dog broke his toe, nail
easy bleeding, Oh my god, Oh my god, go to
(18:58):
the emergency. No, there are a lot of things that
you could do if you are able to talk to
somebody virtually on camera who can see you, see the pet,
see what it looks like, and walk you through some
very simple solutions to get you to tomorrow and then
tomorrow you get to see a regular veterinarian. And also,
I've had some stories recently, one that concerned me a lot,
(19:21):
and I think that veterinarians, of many of them, because
of the changes in the dynamic of the veteran practice,
are I guess maybe a little bit overworked, or they're
not scheduling the same. I don't know the answer, I
really don't. But one of my clients, it's a new
client for me, and now it's going to be a
permanent client. She'd be going to a doctor. And in fact,
(19:43):
about a month earlier, she spent about three thousand dollars.
It wasn't plaining about it. It was apparently a dog
is pretty sick and three thousand dollars bill and she
paid it no problem. A month later, she calls her
dogs at the dog park and gets bitten by another dog.
So what does she do? Of course, he calls her
vet says, my dog was just attacking the park. He's bleeding.
He's got a big gash and I need to come in.
(20:05):
Receptionist puts it on a hold and comes back and says, well,
we could see you next Wednesday. Next Wednesday. I just said,
my dog is biting, bleeding. I'm sorry, I might give
just squeeze you on a Monday. Is that not crazy?
That to me? I was shocked. She calls me, I
just know me. She got my name for somebody called
told me. If this guy said no, come on in,
we'll get you in. We'll squeeze you in somewhere. I
(20:27):
have technicians that can dress the wound and look at it.
It just doesn't make sense to me. Where are these
veninarians being taught what is ruling right the priorities out
of pet hospital? And some people say, well, then I
taking emergencies because the people that are waiting, And I say, yeah,
but wait a second. If it was an emergency, that's
(20:48):
what we're here for. The people that were waiting and
see an emergency come in, see this dog being carried in,
struggling to breathe or bleeding at whenever? Right, What does
it show them that I have the correct priority and
that they know that who was ever them bringing in
their animal and an emergency? I would drop everything to
see in their animal. And I think most pet parents
(21:11):
appreciate the fact that they see that if something needs
to be seen, that's more important than them and their
case or their time. And I always offer to someone
who's really pressed on time. And I get it. Most
of my clients are working people. I said, tell you what,
missus Smith leapouser here with us. I don't charge for
(21:31):
the day, and you go to work and we'll take
care of things and you could pick up after work,
I would you make it happen. And if it was
not an emergency, and lata very very very fair clients,
and if there wasn't they were coming in for something
more routine, They'll say no, no, no, profit do I'll reschedule,
and they reschedule. So these are the things that when
it's an emergency. It was really good to know that
(21:53):
it's an emergency. And if you can talk to somebody
that might well, first of all, it's going to save
you a bundle because once you take that animal, regardless
of what the cause is, to an emergency clinic, they
will treat it as an emergency. And then I'll give
you another one that this is another reason why if
it's really not an emergency, don't go in. And I'll
(22:15):
tell you why, because I had another case where this
client did have an emergency. She took it in. The
dog at one hundred and five point one fever, could
barely breathe and sat in that emergency waiting room for
three hours before they even got to her. And other
cases that were like dog was sitting there with a
(22:36):
little cut were being taken before because the old science
a triage and I look, I taken my kids to
emergency room before, and someone comes in with a greater emergency,
even though I've been waiting there for an hour, they
go first. And guess what they should go first when
it comes to emergency. The amount of time you're waiting,
that shouldn't play into it. Unless you're up two cases
(22:57):
that are about the same level of emergency, then yes,
the one that's been there logger should go first. But
if somebody comes in that is dire, of course they
have to go right. Yeah, So these are the things
that are affecting the care of your pet. So if
you have a pet that is really not that terrible,
but you're gonna takes from these places and they're going
(23:18):
to treat them. Your pet that didn't have such a
bad thing in the first place before another animal that
needs to me see, like right away. So I mean
that does that set you a little bit that you
had time you could have waited. Animals bleing out? That
animal can breathe, so ps. That dog I just told
you about it died. Now, could I say for sure
(23:38):
they had they gotten to it right away, that it
would have lived. No, I can't, but I can tell
you it probably would have had a better chance. So anyway,
I hate to add not such a bad note, but
these are things that I'm hoping that will help you
a little bit. Look for some sort of telemedicine, something
that would get you through, even if it saves half
of you, forget the night, even at fifty to fifty
(24:02):
half of you that would not have to go to
Verden City and could wait to see your doc. And
all it took was a little bit of a phone
call with the veteran airan. Then that was worth it.
It was worth everybody, all right. So I am not
going to be online for the next two weeks, So
next Sunday and the Sunday after that. I'll be back
after that for sure. So and I'll find the way
(24:22):
those of you who celebrate Happy Passover coming up Saturday
night and I will be back, as I said, in
three weeks. I'm missing the next Sunday and the following Sunday,
and then back online as usual the following so you
will get the alert, So stay tuned now. Of course
I'm gonna be in the office all week, and if
(24:43):
you need to get a hold of me, if you
get hold of me here on Instagram. I can get
hold of me here on pet Life for Radio, and
I'd be happy to help you, but I would as
I said, I'm sorry, i'll be missing you. I can't
remember having missed two weeks in a row a long
long time, so I feel te but it is what
it is, So we'll see you in three weeks. But
(25:04):
you know I've always availble to during the week, So
reach out to me if you can, or I get
into and we'll see you in three weeks. Let's talk
Pats every week on demand only on Petlife Radio dot com.
This is pet Life Radio. Let's talk pets man.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
We are live here both on Instagram and on cat
Life Radio. Here for the next thirty minutes with a
doctor Jeff for We're your host here on pet Life
Radio's as Sid's a doctor Jeff here for you, here
for your pets.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
And just anything you want to talk about. We are
here and ready to talk. So I'm just hello, Danielle.
How are you? I'm waving waving so as you know,
anything you want to talk about, we have some things, hello, Steph.
And if you can hear my voice, maybe a little
bit groggy, a little froggy. You know. I never get sick,
and whatever was going around, I think I got it.
(00:57):
And it's been like about a week almost first I
thought it was just basic larynxitis, and no it's been
lingering on. I feel totally fine, never have a fever,
never stop working, eating, Everything's normal except except the chest.
So anyway, I'm doing fine, doing much much better. Hope
all you were well. It is a gorgeous day here
(01:17):
in socol And ooh, let's see hearing new vaccines will
be Mr Na can you comment if you can talk
about the Yes, A couple things I wanted to talk about.
One is I saw something a post on one of
the news sites that I get that beware of scammers.
So a lot of times if you find a pet,
what do you do? You post you found a pet,
(01:38):
so then you're getting calls from either supposedly a shelter
or vet clinic saying, oh, we know that pet and
he needs to be on medication. If you can send
us some money, we can get to the medication until
you can find the owner. Will help you find the owner.
It's bs. Don't fall for it. They'll give you a
Venmo paypye get paid by Venmo. Don't do it. They're scammers.
(02:03):
They are combing these sites and anytime they see you know,
look who posts about a pet like this, right, it's
usually going to be a pet lover who really cares.
If you lost a pet, you post a pet and
then you're going to give them shelter. We have your
pet and it's sick or something. We found a pet
and it's sick. We know who belongs to, but it
(02:23):
needs some medication. So either way, don't fall for it.
If someone says we have your pet, then let me
see the pet and send me pictures. Let's do a video.
Let me see your clinic, let me see the pet there,
and now I'll tell you if it's my pet. Don't
just say oh, we got the ID tag it sounds
like it's yours. Don't fall for it. How is everybody's week?
I hope it was a good week. Mine was busy
(02:44):
as always, which is good. And Savili I wanted to
talk about and we get scart the how to treat
direna in a nursing cat. Well, first of all, diarrhea
can happen for many reasons, and one of them is stress.
So you know nursing cats, who's you're eating more? They
should be anyway, A pregnant animal use each should to
eat about one and a half times they're normal. A
(03:07):
nursing mom should eat twice as much, like literally double
the caloric load. So that and of itself used to
eating more that could also cause diarrheic. Just the stress
half of the kittens that can also cause the diarrhea.
So I wouldn't want to use drugs at this point
because you don't want to get that stuff into the kittens.
But just add a little fiber to the diet is
(03:29):
pretty much all you need to do a little sillier powder,
a little cooked oatmeal, a little brand just add a
little bit of fiber. It will approve as the stress
level comes down, or even just the excitement of having kittens.
But I'd be really careful you don't want to use
any kind of medication because of course that's going to
get into the milk and that's not a good thing. Okay.
(03:51):
So what I wanted to mention is that having done
my telemedicine for a number of years now and really
seeing a lot a lot of cases back of the day,
if you even it's his industry. If you to ask
an emergency room vet who works in an emergency clinic,
what percent of emergencies are actually emergencies, even they would
tell you, which I found fascinating, about twenty percent. That's
(04:13):
coming from an emergency room doc. So twenty percent of
the cases they see as an emergency are actually an emergency. Now,
having done telemedicine through air veat for a long time,
it's not sasars. I talk to other telemedicine doctors and
basically we're getting the same thing I've done, probably close
(04:35):
to four thousand tell themedicine visits, and some of them
are obviously we're not meant to be an emergency. But
I would say of the one set where someone contacted
us for an emergency, I'd say that number is actually
more like five percent. That means most of these emergencies aren't.
And unfortunately what happens is as any of you know,
(04:57):
and I'd love to hear that when you've had a case,
and of course you're veterinariing at two in the morning,
wasn't available or on Sunday or whatever. So they have
an emergency, you have a message automatic message at the
office say hi, thanks for calling, but we're closed. If
you have an emergency, you recommend you either call or
go to this clinic or call this clinic. So what
(05:19):
are most normal people gonna do? They are going, of course,
to go. So they're gonna go to the emergency room.
Now emergency rooms, you know, I gotta tell you. Can
you talk about this temper Foster a dog who had
kennel cough and vomiting now asked Ray, Oh my god,
vet ted he's checking for distemper. He says, nasal discharge.
What's the like to it? Well, I mean, look, distemper
(05:41):
is a fairly common problem that we're gonna see, especially
in shelter animals or you know, anytimes that animals are
coming from a rescue or foster. Often you know foster's
you know fosters do. They do wonderful work. They often
go to these shelters, They look at these dogs and
they say to themselves, look, we know many of these,
Oh can we put to sleep? Who can we save?
(06:01):
How many can we save? And which ones are the
most likely to be saved or be able to be
adopted once we get to pull up. So sometimes you know,
dogs with kennel cough, it's very common, you see them
all the time. So what we need to do is
what they'll often do is they will find dogs that
seem to be the most adoptable and that's who they pull. Now,
(06:25):
could a dog with a simple kennel cough end up
with a much more aggressive respiratory infection? Are maybe dead
vomits and then maybe it aspirates, So yes, these are possibilities.
Does it mean it's a temper not necessarily, but is
to be tested for distemper and there are some tests
that can be done. But meanwhile, treatment is the key.
(06:48):
And this temper is very interesting because distemper is an
epitheliotrophic disease. That means it attacks all epithelial surfaces. So
what are some of the symptoms as well? The eyes
are our epithilial tissue, the respiratory tree. Okay, the respiratory
tract is covered lined with epithelium. How about the intestinal trap? Oh,
(07:09):
my god, line with that pithilion. So you have these
multi systemic diseases all because of one virus that attacks
epithelial tissue. So that's the problem. Now what else is
line with that pathilion? The brain, neural tissue. So there
are different phases of de Steparate virus. The most common,
(07:31):
the one that's usually comes first is the respiratory. Then
it can go to the DII, gastro intestinal and ultimately
the prey. Now it is it's a tough one. It
is treatable. There are some things we can do, but
remember it's a virus, so all we can do is
support the body as best we can to let the
(07:52):
body that take care of its own virus. So now
use it. My feeling is if it's just respiratory, one
hundred percent treat as you were to any respiratory infection
and keep them more, keep them well fed, Let keep
the body as strong as possible. If you go to
the gi trap save thing. My feeling is that just
hit from historically, if it hits the brain, the neuro track,
(08:17):
then it's gonna be a more of a challenge. Even
dogs that recover, and there are many they can, they
may get something called ode old dog encephalitis down the road,
could be a year, it could be several years. They
can start getting like disorders, neurologic disorders, which is probably
related to that distemper virus they had. Also, if you
(08:40):
look at dog's teeth, one way you can really tell
if the dog was subjected or is exposed to distemper
as a little puppy is they will have a problem
with their enamel, enamel hypoplasia, and their teeth will come
in their adult teeth. But the adult teeth have a
lot of like cracked enamel. They'll have dibbits, it'll be browner.
(09:04):
The teeth don't look pre Now, the denton, the next layer,
deeper layer, which is a straight flayer, that's gonna be fine,
but just the teeth are not pre Now. What I
recommend not taking a dog that is doing fine and
has the stemper teeth. I'm saying, no, go for it.
It's aesthetics. They beat it, and this is just it's
a sign that says, yes, when I was a puppy,
(09:28):
I was subjected to this stemper virus. But I'm good now.
Don't let that stop you. But anyway, so at this
point with aspiration ammonia, I'm concerned. I would a one
hundred percent treat. I would not put this dog to sleep,
all right. I would definitely want to treat it and
see what's going on. But that is my recommendation, all right,
(09:48):
So I would not treat. I did definitely treat, just
know that because of the possibility of it being a
more aggressive disease, and because the aspiration emonia is sometimes
it wouldn't be the distepport about. Yet it would worries
me as much as the aspiration ammonia. So how's the
dog doing? All right? We have to know that. So
estimate for fourths would be say you should okay, I
(10:10):
got an estimate for fourth al well, hey, y you
know this. This is what I'm getting at with these
emergencies or not emergencies. And first of all, a lot
of these corporate practices. I don't know what to tell you.
They try to make this nice. I can't make it nice.
They are business. They are funded by venture capital groups,
(10:31):
by equity, private equity. They really, I can't say they
don't care about the animal, but they care about making money.
And because they make big investments. Is these practices, and
anyone who has gone to one of these corporate practices,
who also goes or has gone to a non corporate practice,
you know exactly what I'm talking about. Could I sugarcoate this?
I cannot sugarcoat it. It is what it is. I
(10:53):
look at some of these invoices coming in and I'm
saying to myself, why do they do that? They didn't
need to do that test. That's not getting take care
of this problem. So what's happening is back in the day,
emergency clinics basically were triage. They said this is what
we need to do to get you through the night
so you can go back to your regular veterinarian in
(11:14):
the morning. It's not like that anymore. These are clinics
that literally will take over a case, often managed at
night by younger and experienced veterinarians, and they are so
afraid to miss something because they don't know, they don't
have the wisdom. Wisdom comes from experience, so they want
to test for everything that they could possibly test for
(11:37):
to rule things out. And before you know, you spend
thousands of dollars and because they do every test in
the book. And here's the case I'm seeing here from
cat snippers and guess what, the cat was fine within
a few days. It is frustrating to me, it's frustrating
to my clients. And that was my point about the
(11:59):
number of she said are truly emergencies is much less.
And if there was anyone where you can log on
find out of any kind of telemedicine platform, you know,
they use it human medicine all the time. And now interestingly,
in many states, including California, you can establish what's called
a VCPR veterinary client patient relationship online through virtual visit
(12:24):
and then that doctor, if their license in that state,
can actually prescribe medications directly without seeing the patient. Now
I mean seeing it. You are seeing it video? Now
are you touching it? No, But any experienced doctor can
tell a lot by a thorough history and a visual
(12:48):
and asking the owner online on the virtual visit. Lift
up the lips. I want to see what the gums
look like. How's the activity does the cat or dog
look find? Does it acting? Did it eat? Did it
not eat? Is it did not? Bobby? You can get
a lot and sometimes just by knowing how that pet
is doing, literally how animated, how active, that speaks, volumes? Now,
(13:12):
is it going to solve a problem necessarily? Not necessarily?
But might it get you through the night where you
could see a regular vet the next day, I'll probably
a vet that you much more comfortable seeing than some
strange young veterinarian. So this is where I have my issues,
and I get this all the time, and I'm getting
so many frustrated clients from these places, and I see,
(13:34):
I feel your frustration because when I look at what
they did and what tests they ran, and why they
did it, and that wasn't part of the emergency. Might
it be down the road a test that needs to
be done, Yes, it might be, But did it have
to be done last night? No? No, There's so many
other things you could have done first to stabilize the animal.
And this is the concern I have. Well, okay, get
(13:56):
me off that soapbox. All right now, two year old
eating on Cloudmock's patril and serenia. I hope it's not
a temperate sounds awful, the no no. So look, if
he's eating and he's already two and he's on two
really good broadspeck to antibiotics, I love them both all
right at certic vobiting, then just keep him strong. The
fact that he's eating is a good sign. If he's
(14:17):
going to the bath field, I don't know what as
level of animation is. Is he active, is he alert?
He If he's acting fine, that's a really good sign.
And just keep doing what you're doing. You're covering your
bases as far as any infection, bacterial infection. Of course,
you have a serendia which is controlling the vomiting. So
at this point, keep him well fed, well hydrated. Hydration
(14:39):
is key. And Katy post it aerylin tested diagnosed. You say, Kim, wow,
that's the problem, and look, I get it. It's nuts.
But I'll tell you this. We were taught differently. I
can't even explain it. When we were in school, we're
gonna have all these fancy things at our disposal, So
we were taught to do a thorough physical and furrough history.
(15:01):
You make your diagnosis, or at least you rule outs
based on those two things, history and a thorough physical.
Then when you have thought all the things out, looked
at all the other possibilities, you can rule out a
lot of the differentials just based on every one of
these diseases have multiple, multiple right symptoms. So all of
(15:24):
a sudden, you're thinking of one of the diseases you
put on your list. But the only symptom that this
particularly thea was I say, demomiting. I wouldn't say it's
some weird disease yet, because those dogs that have that
disease are also not eating. They're also this the stool
is yet this color. We're not happing any of that.
So I'm not saying you cross it off your list.
(15:44):
That's not tonight. You don't have to worry about that now.
And then once you do that, you're when you do
a test, you're not testing to determine your differentials. You're
testing to confirm what you already have hunters about. And
that's when you do a test they're trying to come
up with through diagnosing. Only through testing. You should already
(16:08):
have a pretty good idea of a good diagnostician of
what the diagnoses are could be. And that's where the
test comes in to confirm it or knock it off
your list. But you don't test for everything right away
because I use this expression a lot, and I know
you've heard it by ambothergizing I'm gonna I'm gonna share
(16:29):
it again. And that is if you're running along the
beach in Alibu, California, and you hear hook beats chasing
you from behind, what are you thinking? Horses or zevers?
You don't think of zebra but that young ducker that
test you just ran. You're looking for a disease that
you gotta see maybe twice in your entire career. Why
(16:49):
are you testing for now? But again, trust me, veterinarians,
we are dealing with this all the time. It's disheartening
for us, there really is. And whose fault is it?
Most fault it is is the corporate America who are
buying up all these practice. I think the latest statistic
was like forty percent of small and OMAL practices are
corporate owned. I hope I'm wrong, but I know it's
(17:12):
getting up there. And so it's a lot more difficult
to find those smaller practices that are still privately run.
That the practice philosophy. The first thing with that list
is the pet care and then the other things follow.
But of course I vote practice. I have practice for
many many years. I notice light you have to pay everybody,
(17:32):
You have to pay your suppliers. You want to make
a nice profit, but at what expense? I mean you
can't have clients pay for all of that. And what
if these doctors want to do They want to have
their work like DALX, so they want to work a
little less. Oh, but they want to make the same
amount of money. Oh so how does that work? If
you want to work less but make the same amount
(17:53):
of money. There's only one way to do that, right
What does that either increase your fees, which is probably
with you're doing, or decrease the actual quality of care
by not having some of the best medications and the
best equipment. So they buy cheaper stuff and that way
they're making more money. Is that the answer? I don't
think so it wasn't for me. But this is the reality.
(18:17):
And that's why there is so much stuff out there
that really is ragging a veteran medicine and it is
still In my opinion, it's the best profession on the planet.
I wouldn't do anything differently, I honestly feel it sounds corning.
I was put on this earth to do what I'm doing,
and that's what makes it so much fun. So let's
go back to the you know what is in emergency?
(18:38):
How do you know? And a lot of times you're
not going to know, So you should ask your veterinarian.
Are there online sources that you could trust? Not Google,
doctor Google, because for doctor Google, everything's in emergency. Their
answer for everything, Oh my dog broke his toe, nail
easy bleeding, Oh my god, Oh my god, go to
(18:58):
the emergency. No, there are a lot of things that
you could do if you are able to talk to
somebody virtually on camera who can see you, see the pet,
see what it looks like, and walk you through some
very simple solutions to get you to tomorrow and then
tomorrow you get to see a regular veterinarian. And also,
I've had some stories recently, one that concerned me a lot,
(19:21):
and I think that veterinarians, of many of them, because
of the changes in the dynamic of the veteran practice,
are I guess maybe a little bit overworked, or they're
not scheduling the same. I don't know the answer, I
really don't. But one of my clients, it's a new
client for me, and now it's going to be a
permanent client. She'd be going to a doctor. And in fact,
(19:43):
about a month earlier, she spent about three thousand dollars.
It wasn't plaining about it. It was apparently a dog
is pretty sick and three thousand dollars bill and she
paid it no problem. A month later, she calls her
dogs at the dog park and gets bitten by another dog.
So what does she do? Of course, he calls her
vet says, my dog was just attacking the park. He's bleeding.
He's got a big gash and I need to come in.
(20:05):
Receptionist puts it on a hold and comes back and says, well,
we could see you next Wednesday. Next Wednesday. I just said,
my dog is biting, bleeding. I'm sorry, I might give
just squeeze you on a Monday. Is that not crazy?
That to me? I was shocked. She calls me, I
just know me. She got my name for somebody called
told me. If this guy said no, come on in,
we'll get you in. We'll squeeze you in somewhere. I
(20:27):
have technicians that can dress the wound and look at it.
It just doesn't make sense to me. Where are these
veninarians being taught what is ruling right the priorities out
of pet hospital? And some people say, well, then I
taking emergencies because the people that are waiting, And I say, yeah,
but wait a second. If it was an emergency, that's
(20:48):
what we're here for. The people that were waiting and
see an emergency come in, see this dog being carried in,
struggling to breathe or bleeding at whenever? Right, What does
it show them that I have the correct priority and
that they know that who was ever them bringing in
their animal and an emergency? I would drop everything to
see in their animal. And I think most pet parents
(21:11):
appreciate the fact that they see that if something needs
to be seen, that's more important than them and their
case or their time. And I always offer to someone
who's really pressed on time. And I get it. Most
of my clients are working people. I said, tell you what,
missus Smith leapouser here with us. I don't charge for
(21:31):
the day, and you go to work and we'll take
care of things and you could pick up after work,
I would you make it happen. And if it was
not an emergency, and lata very very very fair clients,
and if there wasn't they were coming in for something
more routine, They'll say no, no, no, profit do I'll reschedule,
and they reschedule. So these are the things that when
it's an emergency. It was really good to know that
(21:53):
it's an emergency. And if you can talk to somebody
that might well, first of all, it's going to save
you a bundle because once you take that animal, regardless
of what the cause is, to an emergency clinic, they
will treat it as an emergency. And then I'll give
you another one that this is another reason why if
it's really not an emergency, don't go in. And I'll
(22:15):
tell you why, because I had another case where this
client did have an emergency. She took it in. The
dog at one hundred and five point one fever, could
barely breathe and sat in that emergency waiting room for
three hours before they even got to her. And other
cases that were like dog was sitting there with a
(22:36):
little cut were being taken before because the old science
a triage and I look, I taken my kids to
emergency room before, and someone comes in with a greater emergency,
even though I've been waiting there for an hour, they
go first. And guess what they should go first when
it comes to emergency. The amount of time you're waiting,
that shouldn't play into it. Unless you're up two cases
(22:57):
that are about the same level of emergency, then yes,
the one that's been there logger should go first. But
if somebody comes in that is dire, of course they
have to go right. Yeah, So these are the things
that are affecting the care of your pet. So if
you have a pet that is really not that terrible,
but you're gonna takes from these places and they're going
(23:18):
to treat them. Your pet that didn't have such a
bad thing in the first place before another animal that
needs to me see, like right away. So I mean
that does that set you a little bit that you
had time you could have waited. Animals bleing out? That
animal can breathe, so ps. That dog I just told
you about it died. Now, could I say for sure
(23:38):
they had they gotten to it right away, that it
would have lived. No, I can't, but I can tell
you it probably would have had a better chance. So anyway,
I hate to add not such a bad note, but
these are things that I'm hoping that will help you
a little bit. Look for some sort of telemedicine, something
that would get you through, even if it saves half
of you, forget the night, even at fifty to fifty
(24:02):
half of you that would not have to go to
Verden City and could wait to see your doc. And
all it took was a little bit of a phone
call with the veteran airan. Then that was worth it.
It was worth everybody, all right. So I am not
going to be online for the next two weeks, So
next Sunday and the Sunday after that. I'll be back
after that for sure. So and I'll find the way
(24:22):
those of you who celebrate Happy Passover coming up Saturday
night and I will be back, as I said, in
three weeks. I'm missing the next Sunday and the following Sunday,
and then back online as usual the following so you
will get the alert, So stay tuned now. Of course
I'm gonna be in the office all week, and if
(24:43):
you need to get a hold of me, if you
get hold of me here on Instagram. I can get
hold of me here on pet Life for Radio, and
I'd be happy to help you, but I would as
I said, I'm sorry, i'll be missing you. I can't
remember having missed two weeks in a row a long
long time, so I feel te but it is what
it is, So we'll see you in three weeks. But
(25:04):
you know I've always availble to during the week, So
reach out to me if you can, or I get
into and we'll see you in three weeks. Let's talk
Pats every week on demand only on Petlife Radio dot com.
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