June 23, 2025 • 22 mins
This week's topics include are cats allergic to fish? Holistic heartworm prevention, July 4th noise tips, 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.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
And we are here live and I'm trying to get
my Instagram so ready as well, let me tell you
how to get ahold of me eight seven seven three
eight five eight eight eighty two once again eighty seven
seven three eight five eight eight eighty two. Anyway, you know,
something came up. I wanted to talk to you guys
about it. There are two things. There was an article
and I posted this already, so we're going to share
it with you. Someone sent it to me and it
(00:44):
was an article basically stating that forty two percent of
cats are allergic to fish. How's that possible, right? Forty
two percent allergic to fish? No way? So I asked
them to send me the article. So they sent me
the article and I'm reading this article and it was
so interesting. First of all, food allergy is something in
(01:04):
cats as well. We know about it in dogs. But
there's something called milliary dermatitis, which is a you get
these lesions all right around the mostly neck back thighe,
the linear granuloma, the center of granuloma complex. It's all
allergic and it may be in fact related to food allergy.
I mean other allergens as well, and then of course
it's basic cat dermatology, dermologic problems, itching, scabs, et cetera.
(01:29):
So what I found interesting is I read the article,
and so the funny part is is that what's interesting
is that which is more typical of dogs, that there
are only eleven to fourteen percent of cats period have
food allergies. Ah, now that makes sense. Of those eleven
(01:51):
to fourteen percent, then the twoth that's where the number
came into forty two percent. Well, let's take a high number.
Let's take forty two percent of fourteen is five point
nine five point eight eight. So what is that telling
you that if you look at the grand picture of
cats that have allergies to fish, it's only six percent.
(02:11):
It's forty two percent of the fourteen percent. Anyway, that
was interesting to hear. We have a listener on chat,
so let's hear what we got, all right, Chat, hold
on wondering what your thoughts of by all the holistic
remedy for heartwormvention. Few of my friends have been using
it for a while. Altis and negative had my itillion
for three years, no problem. So it's a good question. Again,
I don't do holistic. I'm not against holistic at all.
(02:31):
Of that. One of my very good friends and colleagues
is a holistic ah who does both. And so I
can't answer your question to say whether it's good or bad.
I can tell you one thing I've learned over the
years about holistic remedies. They're not dangerous. So if you
have something, and I also something years ago, I've always
said I don't argue with success. So if in fact
(02:52):
you're using something that is working continuing the heartwarm negative,
and you're okay with it, and you can afford it,
et cetera, etc. Then by all means keep using it.
I'm not the one to say it's not going to
work because I don't know enough about it, but I
will tell you that. You know, again, I don't argue
with success. You've been using something that's great. Now when
(03:12):
it talks about it's gotten so expensive. Plus the ingredients
an not a list to have each your opinion. If
the ingredients aren't realistic and now you're going back to
a regular heartworm prevention, then I know those are safe.
I know those are effective, so that I can say
that's fine. Put it this way, let's go backwards even
more so for years and years and years, we never
really have mosquito problems here in southern California, so I
(03:33):
never really always recommended it as an option because we
didn't need it, so I would do flee and tick. Now,
years and years ago, I had interesting They said it
was the first case of heartworm disease in a native
California dog, and it lived interestingly right near a very
large cemetery. I know it sounds pretty gross, and I'll
(03:56):
worry about the dead arising. However, I will tell you
that the lawns of these cemeteries are so vastly green
and lush, and they're watering them all the time, et cetera.
But when the Heartworm Prevention Society wanted to visit the location,
which they did, they realized where it was. They said, oh,
that makes sense. What makes sense that there's gonna be
(04:16):
a lot of heartworm mosquitos? Why because the love moisture,
they love heat. So they went and they raised up,
lifted up some headstones, thousands, thousands of mosquito larvae. I mean,
that's crazy. So that's really kind of you know, what happened,
what was going on?
Speaker 3 (04:33):
There?
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Just so many mosquito larvae. They predicted that that in
the next twenty years, which is now, we are going
to see heartroom disease in southern California. So I see
mosquitoes around my home and a lot of my clients have.
So we have started about two years ago, three years
ago recommending heartworm prevention as a routine and I'm you know,
good old fashioned interceptor or heart guard or now three
(04:56):
of the isoqs Azolene anti fleaentic medications, Cridelio next Guard
in Simperica have options that also prevent heartworm. That we're
only giving one chewable pill once a month. It makes
it so easy. I have yet to see a bad reaction,
so I sucks. Azelines can have bad reactions. So if
you are worried about that, and it's by the way,
(05:17):
very rare, but if you are worried about that, then
think about saying with part guard or interceptor, they're both
very effective. I don't have that same feeling about holistic
because I'm not. But I will tell you that if
you have that sensitivity, Cheryl, then stick with what you
have if it's working. But also I wouldn't be so
worried about adding one of the more western medicine heartworm preventives,
(05:38):
because the medication is something is commonly used in many
other products. So I have not seen a problem. I
hope that answers your question, and thanks for asking. So
back to the fish thing. So, yes, food allergy is
an issue and cats, but only a very small percent
of catsuff food allergy. And yes, of the small percentage
there were forty two percent have fish alergies. However, this
(06:02):
article did not specify the fish. And just like an
animals and dogs that we know, there are so many
different antigyms you look at let's say the bovine, the bovines,
and you have buffalo, and you have bison, and you
have cows, et cetera. You have beef. So are they
the same antigen? No, you can have beef allergy coming
(06:23):
from cows like angus whatever, and not allergic to bison
or buffalo. They're all cousins. So again, to say fish
as a broad category without identifying witch fish, I don't
know if they've gone so far. Is to identify with
fish in dogs this is better known because it's what
we call protein novel protein diets and elimination diets is
(06:45):
so commonplace, so therefore we need to know. So that's
why I am not that concern when you hear about
these allergies, these fish allergies whatever, because it's a small percent.
And b when you think about any particular fish protein anigen,
because usually when there's allergies, that's what the issue is.
(07:06):
The issue is the antigen, the engine. It's usually the protein.
So we're looking for what we call limited protein. And
that's why it's so important. When you're changing food from one,
don't say, oh my god, it has fish in it. No,
you want to find out with fish. So you can
start with home cooked meals and trying different fish one
at a time. Try salmon, try tilapia, try cod, trycarp
(07:28):
try shrimp, whatever it is that you want to feed
your animal and see is it improving. One very difficult
thing to do, however, is when it comes to this issue,
when it comes to the elimination, you have to be
really strict. That means, during this course of the six
to eight weeks that you're going to eliminate, whatever protein
(07:49):
you fear is the culprit, there have to be nothing else.
In fact, we look for that's what we call single anigen. Diets.
We want a diet that has one source of protein
and either one grain or one vegetable cats that's less
important to cats are obligate carnivores, they still like other
things and dogs we want to get. We want to
stay away from the more common ones because of no
(08:10):
wonder that there are some cats that have fish allergies. Why,
because fish allergies are developed over time. For example, you
take a person who is allergic to bees, that first
beasting probably didn't affect them at all other than the
ouch factor, But as far as a reaction, it takes
a while to develop that reaction to the point where
either second or third, or fourth or fifth beasting you
(08:32):
can get anaphylactic reaction. So the first exposure is not
a big deal. But over time, the more and more animals,
the more and more cats that are eating a fish diet,
we're going to of course identify more and more. And
that's why the dogs the most common allergens in proteins
are beef and chicken. Well, guess what, most dog foods
(08:53):
for millennia had beef and chicken, So no wonder why
we're seeing more and more allergies to those things. But
if if you've fed a bison or alligator or kangaroo
right or fish for example, because dog foods don't usually
have those ingredients, chances are is not going to be
an allergic reaction. So it's something that we have to
sort of over time develop that knowledge and the experience
(09:17):
to know is this protein going to be a problem
or not. So I hope that answers that question. Okay,
here's another thing I wanted to talk about. I teased you,
I have teased you for the last couple of weeks
about fourth of July, and we know, we know it's
not far behind. We're about five weeks away now. So
I get so many calls, and I'm sure many of
you have had experience with your pets that totally freak
(09:39):
out on fourth of July. Other than drugs and perfect
having this question about holistic I know a lot of
you don't like drugs. I'm okay with that, and there
are some more mild. I'm a big fan of CBD.
I'm a big fan of even benadrill, but that's not
it's a drug, but it's not really a downer, but
it does calm the bewn a little bit. And you know,
I have my children medication. It's not even medication. I
(10:02):
have a supplement called chill. You can get it online.
It's on my line, doctor Jeff Werber, and it is
Valerian passion, flower, camameal, melatonin, trip to fan. So all
these things that are known to have a natural calming
effect on pets. But if you need to go to drugs,
a lot of you don't like the idea. So here's
a solution that is more permanent. I'm hoping you can
(10:25):
accomplish it. In five weeks. You should be able to.
And here's what we do right now. For some reason,
these loud noises, whether it's thunder lightning, whether it's fireworks,
have a really negative effect on our pets. They freak out,
why why the loud noise. There's obviously some sort of
association that they've had over time with these loud noises
(10:46):
and it's a negative association. Ah, So what can we do?
The whole goal of treatment, permanent treatment is to change
that reaction, change that relationship between loud noise and a
far full of response. How do we do it? So
what I recommend is you want to Now it's so
(11:06):
great having internet, I mean the Internet is great for
some things, not so great for other things. Sometimes doctor
Google can scare the you know what's out of you.
Everything is an emergency, everything is oh my gosh, now
your dog's gonna die. No. So my recommendation is what
you can do is start with downloading or going on
to a site where it's a sound effects. You can
(11:29):
download almost any sound effect you can think of. Construction workers,
you go, thunder lightning, fireworks, asonic bombs, planes, taken off,
I mean, whatever it is. You can download those sounds.
And what you do is you're going to start using
those sounds to your advantage. And as we have to
break for a halfway through the show, we're going to
take a quick break and that way you're going to
(11:50):
stay online because you want to hear the solution to
how to train your dogs to not be afraid of
loud sounds and take away mark with back these short.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Messages begging to hear more of your favorite show. Full
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(12:21):
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Speaker 3 (12:25):
Let's talk Pat.
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Let's done pet on radio, Hetline.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Radio, petlight radio dot com.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
And we are back here live on Cutlife Radio cast.
So that's the doctor Jen. And so, by the way,
if you want any other questions like Cheryl did eight
seven seven three eight five eight eight eight two once
again eight seven seven three eight five eight eight eight two,
or just go ahead and you can basically find me
right here on your here live So why not? So
back to the fourth of July. So what do you do?
(13:02):
Is this? We want to make that same sound something
that is positive. How do we do that? First of all,
what do dogs respond mostly to positive reinforcement, positive reward? They
love positive reward. So hear what you do. You're gonna
be in a room with the dog and you're gonna
play this sound that you've downloaded so low that you
(13:23):
probably can't even hear it, okay, but they can. And
when it's playing, you call your dog over and say, look,
oh good boy, good girl, and give a little treat.
Pat them really great. And then that's it. That's lesson
number one. Next day or two days later, do it again.
By the third day, now you've increase the sound just
a little and you're going to go every day or
(13:44):
every other day for the next two three weeks, and
you're going to increase the sound a little bit, and
every time the dog is going to become running to
you for its treat, because that sound now equates to
a reward. And that's exactly you know how it works.
So slowly, but surely you're taking that sound which before
(14:06):
was a negative, a negative behavior elicited fear. If you listen,
it's something to run away and hide and then also
just see and no, many of us inadvertently reward our
dogs for the reaction. Why because what we do is
this what happens when your dog is fearful and responds
negatively to loud sounds? Right, what do we do? Actually,
(14:29):
we're parents. We love them. Oh you poor baby, come here,
You still with mom, You sit with daddy. Okay, So
what happens is what are you doing? They're showing fearful
behavior and you're calling over and rewarding them for it.
That's the thing. It's got to be the opposite. You're
gonna reward them for the behavior, the non reaction where
they come to you when they hear it, and they
(14:49):
know they're gonna get a reward, and they're no longer afraid.
They're not gonna run, God of the furniture, they're not
gonna shiver and shape if anything, they're gonna come to
you and they're tail wagging. Oh my god, I hear
that sound's got I'm getting by tree. So it's something
that is a slow, methodical process. Be patient, don't try
to do it all on one day. It takes two
(15:11):
three weeks to do it because you're increasing the sound
a little bit each period each time you do it.
But the ultimate goal is to teach them to not
only be afraid of the sound, but to actually desire
to want to hear it, because the association is going
to be a positive association. And it's so interesting because
(15:31):
that kind of behavior, it's a reconditioning. You're desensitizing them
to that sound, and you're actually counter conditioning them to
not be fearful but to actually like it. And there's
so much of this is really good. And also through
what was called operant conditioning. Every time you give a
talk a treat, you should accompany it with what pots
(15:52):
on the head. You do a good boid and we'll kiss, kiss,
hugd right. Pretty soon, that behavior is going to in
essence place the actual treat. They're gonna get that same thrill,
that same rush, that same endorphin release, that feel good
just by getting too good. Boys, you know that is
gonna suffice not to say you shouldn't still give a treat,
(16:13):
but you don't have to give it every time and again.
Another training tactic that when you give a treat every
single time, then when they get full, they don't care.
I don't want to treat. I'm stuffed. I can only
have somebody treats. But if you only do it, you
keep them guessing. It might be next time, it might
be three more times afterwards, it might be five back
to one. They never know when it's gonna stop, so
(16:35):
they keep coming, and they've sown experiments with mice and
hitting a tab. The many experiments show that animals are
more responsive for longer when they don't know. They can't
predict when if it's coming. If it never comes, they
give up. They stop. If it comes all the time,
they stop when they're full, But if it's intermittent and
it's unpredictable, they're going to keep coming, so you know,
(16:58):
that's another thing that we've learned over the years. So anyway,
what else I like to report on some of my
really really cool cases. We did take a we have
a very large mass on a much older dog's arm
that the fear was by feeling by pal painting. It
was in the elbow to the distal humorous area, and
(17:18):
it was really really aggressive and it was very well
deeply attached, and we thought, God, it's gonna be a
tough one to get because it's so high up, it's
going up and it's sort of like attached on the
top to an area called the brachial plexus on the
proximal end of the humorous going into the armpit. It's
going to be a really tough dissection. But we figured,
(17:39):
all right, our original plan was to amputate. So it's
a tough thing to do on an older dog. But
they do fine. I mean, the one who feels worse
about and three legged dog is the owner. Dogs really
could care less. They get along just fine anyway. Feeling
it again, we'd say, you know, well, if we're planning
and the owner's planning to okay with amputation, then why
(18:01):
not try it first? Let's see if we can resect
it first, so we went in open slow dissection. It
turned out to be a huge but it was mostly
a very firm what appeared to be fat. I called
it l like poma, but not soft and mushy. It
was rock hard, but some could be like that, probably
because it was in such a compressed area that there
was no place for it to continue to expand. So instead,
(18:24):
as the fat sales were multiplying and multiplying and multiplying,
which is what a tumor cells do, because they couldn't
push out, it just started compressing and making the mass
more and more and more dense, so it was very thick.
So we were able to with some pretty tricky dissection
is actually remove this tumor. You can imagine the phone
(18:44):
call the owners when we told them that the good
news were out of surgery. The better news we didn't
have to implicate, and we were able to remove this mass.
It looks like an even the dog is already thirteen
years old. Big dog. Even if it comes back, we
couldn't get every single less fat cell that might be
over multiplying. It's going to take months and months, probably
(19:05):
at more than a year, but we felt good about it.
We think we got it all anyway, even if we didn't.
So the truth is this dog, unlikely, a large breed
like this, is not going to live much past fourteen
or fifteen. So chances are we save this dog's lay.
And that's where it boils down to. I have to
tell you, and I've mentioned this before that when we
get to do something like this and we actually can
(19:26):
not only save a life, but in this case save
a limb, and the effect that it had on the
owners was and the dog most importantly obviously was amazing.
So we got so so lucky that we were able
to do this for the dog. And now this dog
is I mean great, So it's it's perfect, all right.
Any other questions we have and also, as I said,
(19:48):
as if you weren't here last week, as we're planning
your summer vacations and you're planning on taking your pets
with you, make sure the whole the keyword there was planning.
Whether you're taking them or not planning to take them,
you need to make alternative plans for the pet. Is
it if somebody coming in a pet center, are you
taking the dog out to a pet center? What is
(20:08):
going to be your plan. If you're going to a hotel,
is it pet friendly? If it is pet friendly, is
there a size limitation of the pet? All too often
i've heard this story where you show up with your
eighty to ninety pound dog and they have a thirty
five pound weight limit. So now you're up. You know
what's creek. So these are the things you really have
to bring. Are you prepared to bring enough food and meds?
(20:30):
Let's say you get delayed, don't just count the number
of dates you're going to be weigh and a week
just in case. Better to have and not need than
need and not have. So you just have a picture,
make sure your pet has ID. As you're traveling, you're
traveling by car, then make sure you bring a big
jug of your local water. And then at every stop
just continue to topic. So that way you're slowly introducing
(20:52):
the different water supplies from the different regions in different
areas into your home water. All these little tidbits of
information it should be very very help. So most importantly,
have fun. And again, if you're going into an area
we talked about a heart room disease. If you're going
into an area, for example, that has a bigger tick
problem or a mosquito problem, or a lime disease problem
(21:12):
that you don't have where you are. Make sure you
call ahead to your relatives or friends or the hotel
wherever you're staying. Find out from a local veterinarian what injections,
what vaccines might you need for where you're traveling to
that you may not need at your point of origin.
So you got to be prepared to make the differences,
make the changes. So that's also pretty important. So anyway,
(21:35):
I think that's all we have time for today. I
will be here next week, same time, same channel here
on pet Life Radio, and then again during the week.
If you need to get a hold of me, you
can just doctor jeffipetlifradio dot com. You can also reach
me on Instagram, Verbs, Underscore, DVM and all these things.
We can have a fun time. Glad you can join
(21:56):
me here on pet Life Radio and again we'll see
you next week, same time, same channel, And if you
have any questions good in the week, please reach out
to me. And by the way, if it's really important,
you don't have to wait till Sunday. I'll be happy
the emails quote come to me. I will answer you
right away if you want me to. If it's a
check question, you can also join me here on air
vet if you haven't downloaded air vet. You have a
(22:17):
live conversation with a veterinarian, So there are so many
options and opportunities you have, so keep me posted and
we'll see you next week.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Ab Let's Talk Pets every week on demand only on
petlife Radio dot com.
This is Pet Life Radio. Let's talk pets.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
And we are here live and I'm trying to get
my Instagram so ready as well, let me tell you
how to get ahold of me eight seven seven three
eight five eight eight eighty two once again eighty seven
seven three eight five eight eight eighty two. Anyway, you know,
something came up. I wanted to talk to you guys
about it. There are two things. There was an article
and I posted this already, so we're going to share
it with you. Someone sent it to me and it
(00:44):
was an article basically stating that forty two percent of
cats are allergic to fish. How's that possible, right? Forty
two percent allergic to fish? No way? So I asked
them to send me the article. So they sent me
the article and I'm reading this article and it was
so interesting. First of all, food allergy is something in
(01:04):
cats as well. We know about it in dogs. But
there's something called milliary dermatitis, which is a you get
these lesions all right around the mostly neck back thighe,
the linear granuloma, the center of granuloma complex. It's all
allergic and it may be in fact related to food allergy.
I mean other allergens as well, and then of course
it's basic cat dermatology, dermologic problems, itching, scabs, et cetera.
(01:29):
So what I found interesting is I read the article,
and so the funny part is is that what's interesting
is that which is more typical of dogs, that there
are only eleven to fourteen percent of cats period have
food allergies. Ah, now that makes sense. Of those eleven
(01:51):
to fourteen percent, then the twoth that's where the number
came into forty two percent. Well, let's take a high number.
Let's take forty two percent of fourteen is five point
nine five point eight eight. So what is that telling
you that if you look at the grand picture of
cats that have allergies to fish, it's only six percent.
(02:11):
It's forty two percent of the fourteen percent. Anyway, that
was interesting to hear. We have a listener on chat,
so let's hear what we got, all right, Chat, hold
on wondering what your thoughts of by all the holistic
remedy for heartwormvention. Few of my friends have been using
it for a while. Altis and negative had my itillion
for three years, no problem. So it's a good question. Again,
I don't do holistic. I'm not against holistic at all.
(02:31):
Of that. One of my very good friends and colleagues
is a holistic ah who does both. And so I
can't answer your question to say whether it's good or bad.
I can tell you one thing I've learned over the
years about holistic remedies. They're not dangerous. So if you
have something, and I also something years ago, I've always
said I don't argue with success. So if in fact
(02:52):
you're using something that is working continuing the heartwarm negative,
and you're okay with it, and you can afford it,
et cetera, etc. Then by all means keep using it.
I'm not the one to say it's not going to
work because I don't know enough about it, but I
will tell you that. You know, again, I don't argue
with success. You've been using something that's great. Now when
(03:12):
it talks about it's gotten so expensive. Plus the ingredients
an not a list to have each your opinion. If
the ingredients aren't realistic and now you're going back to
a regular heartworm prevention, then I know those are safe.
I know those are effective, so that I can say
that's fine. Put it this way, let's go backwards even
more so for years and years and years, we never
really have mosquito problems here in southern California, so I
(03:33):
never really always recommended it as an option because we
didn't need it, so I would do flee and tick. Now,
years and years ago, I had interesting They said it
was the first case of heartworm disease in a native
California dog, and it lived interestingly right near a very
large cemetery. I know it sounds pretty gross, and I'll
(03:56):
worry about the dead arising. However, I will tell you
that the lawns of these cemeteries are so vastly green
and lush, and they're watering them all the time, et cetera.
But when the Heartworm Prevention Society wanted to visit the location,
which they did, they realized where it was. They said, oh,
that makes sense. What makes sense that there's gonna be
(04:16):
a lot of heartworm mosquitos? Why because the love moisture,
they love heat. So they went and they raised up,
lifted up some headstones, thousands, thousands of mosquito larvae. I mean,
that's crazy. So that's really kind of you know, what happened,
what was going on?
Speaker 3 (04:33):
There?
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Just so many mosquito larvae. They predicted that that in
the next twenty years, which is now, we are going
to see heartroom disease in southern California. So I see
mosquitoes around my home and a lot of my clients have.
So we have started about two years ago, three years
ago recommending heartworm prevention as a routine and I'm you know,
good old fashioned interceptor or heart guard or now three
(04:56):
of the isoqs Azolene anti fleaentic medications, Cridelio next Guard
in Simperica have options that also prevent heartworm. That we're
only giving one chewable pill once a month. It makes
it so easy. I have yet to see a bad reaction,
so I sucks. Azelines can have bad reactions. So if
you are worried about that, and it's by the way,
(05:17):
very rare, but if you are worried about that, then
think about saying with part guard or interceptor, they're both
very effective. I don't have that same feeling about holistic
because I'm not. But I will tell you that if
you have that sensitivity, Cheryl, then stick with what you
have if it's working. But also I wouldn't be so
worried about adding one of the more western medicine heartworm preventives,
(05:38):
because the medication is something is commonly used in many
other products. So I have not seen a problem. I
hope that answers your question, and thanks for asking. So
back to the fish thing. So, yes, food allergy is
an issue and cats, but only a very small percent
of catsuff food allergy. And yes, of the small percentage
there were forty two percent have fish alergies. However, this
(06:02):
article did not specify the fish. And just like an
animals and dogs that we know, there are so many
different antigyms you look at let's say the bovine, the bovines,
and you have buffalo, and you have bison, and you
have cows, et cetera. You have beef. So are they
the same antigen? No, you can have beef allergy coming
(06:23):
from cows like angus whatever, and not allergic to bison
or buffalo. They're all cousins. So again, to say fish
as a broad category without identifying witch fish, I don't
know if they've gone so far. Is to identify with
fish in dogs this is better known because it's what
we call protein novel protein diets and elimination diets is
(06:45):
so commonplace, so therefore we need to know. So that's
why I am not that concern when you hear about
these allergies, these fish allergies whatever, because it's a small percent.
And b when you think about any particular fish protein anigen,
because usually when there's allergies, that's what the issue is.
(07:06):
The issue is the antigen, the engine. It's usually the protein.
So we're looking for what we call limited protein. And
that's why it's so important. When you're changing food from one,
don't say, oh my god, it has fish in it. No,
you want to find out with fish. So you can
start with home cooked meals and trying different fish one
at a time. Try salmon, try tilapia, try cod, trycarp
(07:28):
try shrimp, whatever it is that you want to feed
your animal and see is it improving. One very difficult
thing to do, however, is when it comes to this issue,
when it comes to the elimination, you have to be
really strict. That means, during this course of the six
to eight weeks that you're going to eliminate, whatever protein
(07:49):
you fear is the culprit, there have to be nothing else.
In fact, we look for that's what we call single anigen. Diets.
We want a diet that has one source of protein
and either one grain or one vegetable cats that's less
important to cats are obligate carnivores, they still like other
things and dogs we want to get. We want to
stay away from the more common ones because of no
(08:10):
wonder that there are some cats that have fish allergies. Why,
because fish allergies are developed over time. For example, you
take a person who is allergic to bees, that first
beasting probably didn't affect them at all other than the
ouch factor, But as far as a reaction, it takes
a while to develop that reaction to the point where
either second or third, or fourth or fifth beasting you
(08:32):
can get anaphylactic reaction. So the first exposure is not
a big deal. But over time, the more and more animals,
the more and more cats that are eating a fish diet,
we're going to of course identify more and more. And
that's why the dogs the most common allergens in proteins
are beef and chicken. Well, guess what, most dog foods
(08:53):
for millennia had beef and chicken, So no wonder why
we're seeing more and more allergies to those things. But
if if you've fed a bison or alligator or kangaroo
right or fish for example, because dog foods don't usually
have those ingredients, chances are is not going to be
an allergic reaction. So it's something that we have to
sort of over time develop that knowledge and the experience
(09:17):
to know is this protein going to be a problem
or not. So I hope that answers that question. Okay,
here's another thing I wanted to talk about. I teased you,
I have teased you for the last couple of weeks
about fourth of July, and we know, we know it's
not far behind. We're about five weeks away now. So
I get so many calls, and I'm sure many of
you have had experience with your pets that totally freak
(09:39):
out on fourth of July. Other than drugs and perfect
having this question about holistic I know a lot of
you don't like drugs. I'm okay with that, and there
are some more mild. I'm a big fan of CBD.
I'm a big fan of even benadrill, but that's not
it's a drug, but it's not really a downer, but
it does calm the bewn a little bit. And you know,
I have my children medication. It's not even medication. I
(10:02):
have a supplement called chill. You can get it online.
It's on my line, doctor Jeff Werber, and it is
Valerian passion, flower, camameal, melatonin, trip to fan. So all
these things that are known to have a natural calming
effect on pets. But if you need to go to drugs,
a lot of you don't like the idea. So here's
a solution that is more permanent. I'm hoping you can
(10:25):
accomplish it. In five weeks. You should be able to.
And here's what we do right now. For some reason,
these loud noises, whether it's thunder lightning, whether it's fireworks,
have a really negative effect on our pets. They freak out,
why why the loud noise. There's obviously some sort of
association that they've had over time with these loud noises
(10:46):
and it's a negative association. Ah, So what can we do?
The whole goal of treatment, permanent treatment is to change
that reaction, change that relationship between loud noise and a
far full of response. How do we do it? So
what I recommend is you want to Now it's so
(11:06):
great having internet, I mean the Internet is great for
some things, not so great for other things. Sometimes doctor
Google can scare the you know what's out of you.
Everything is an emergency, everything is oh my gosh, now
your dog's gonna die. No. So my recommendation is what
you can do is start with downloading or going on
to a site where it's a sound effects. You can
(11:29):
download almost any sound effect you can think of. Construction workers,
you go, thunder lightning, fireworks, asonic bombs, planes, taken off,
I mean, whatever it is. You can download those sounds.
And what you do is you're going to start using
those sounds to your advantage. And as we have to
break for a halfway through the show, we're going to
take a quick break and that way you're going to
(11:50):
stay online because you want to hear the solution to
how to train your dogs to not be afraid of
loud sounds and take away mark with back these short.
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And we are back here live on Cutlife Radio cast.
So that's the doctor Jen. And so, by the way,
if you want any other questions like Cheryl did eight
seven seven three eight five eight eight eight two once
again eight seven seven three eight five eight eight eight two,
or just go ahead and you can basically find me
right here on your here live So why not? So
back to the fourth of July. So what do you do?
(13:02):
Is this? We want to make that same sound something
that is positive. How do we do that? First of all,
what do dogs respond mostly to positive reinforcement, positive reward? They
love positive reward. So hear what you do. You're gonna
be in a room with the dog and you're gonna
play this sound that you've downloaded so low that you
(13:23):
probably can't even hear it, okay, but they can. And
when it's playing, you call your dog over and say, look,
oh good boy, good girl, and give a little treat.
Pat them really great. And then that's it. That's lesson
number one. Next day or two days later, do it again.
By the third day, now you've increase the sound just
a little and you're going to go every day or
(13:44):
every other day for the next two three weeks, and
you're going to increase the sound a little bit, and
every time the dog is going to become running to
you for its treat, because that sound now equates to
a reward. And that's exactly you know how it works.
So slowly, but surely you're taking that sound which before
(14:06):
was a negative, a negative behavior elicited fear. If you listen,
it's something to run away and hide and then also
just see and no, many of us inadvertently reward our
dogs for the reaction. Why because what we do is
this what happens when your dog is fearful and responds
negatively to loud sounds? Right, what do we do? Actually,
(14:29):
we're parents. We love them. Oh you poor baby, come here,
You still with mom, You sit with daddy. Okay, So
what happens is what are you doing? They're showing fearful
behavior and you're calling over and rewarding them for it.
That's the thing. It's got to be the opposite. You're
gonna reward them for the behavior, the non reaction where
they come to you when they hear it, and they
(14:49):
know they're gonna get a reward, and they're no longer afraid.
They're not gonna run, God of the furniture, they're not
gonna shiver and shape if anything, they're gonna come to
you and they're tail wagging. Oh my god, I hear
that sound's got I'm getting by tree. So it's something
that is a slow, methodical process. Be patient, don't try
to do it all on one day. It takes two
(15:11):
three weeks to do it because you're increasing the sound
a little bit each period each time you do it.
But the ultimate goal is to teach them to not
only be afraid of the sound, but to actually desire
to want to hear it, because the association is going
to be a positive association. And it's so interesting because
(15:31):
that kind of behavior, it's a reconditioning. You're desensitizing them
to that sound, and you're actually counter conditioning them to
not be fearful but to actually like it. And there's
so much of this is really good. And also through
what was called operant conditioning. Every time you give a
talk a treat, you should accompany it with what pots
(15:52):
on the head. You do a good boid and we'll kiss, kiss,
hugd right. Pretty soon, that behavior is going to in
essence place the actual treat. They're gonna get that same thrill,
that same rush, that same endorphin release, that feel good
just by getting too good. Boys, you know that is
gonna suffice not to say you shouldn't still give a treat,
(16:13):
but you don't have to give it every time and again.
Another training tactic that when you give a treat every
single time, then when they get full, they don't care.
I don't want to treat. I'm stuffed. I can only
have somebody treats. But if you only do it, you
keep them guessing. It might be next time, it might
be three more times afterwards, it might be five back
to one. They never know when it's gonna stop, so
(16:35):
they keep coming, and they've sown experiments with mice and
hitting a tab. The many experiments show that animals are
more responsive for longer when they don't know. They can't
predict when if it's coming. If it never comes, they
give up. They stop. If it comes all the time,
they stop when they're full, But if it's intermittent and
it's unpredictable, they're going to keep coming, so you know,
(16:58):
that's another thing that we've learned over the years. So anyway,
what else I like to report on some of my
really really cool cases. We did take a we have
a very large mass on a much older dog's arm
that the fear was by feeling by pal painting. It
was in the elbow to the distal humorous area, and
(17:18):
it was really really aggressive and it was very well
deeply attached, and we thought, God, it's gonna be a
tough one to get because it's so high up, it's
going up and it's sort of like attached on the
top to an area called the brachial plexus on the
proximal end of the humorous going into the armpit. It's
going to be a really tough dissection. But we figured,
(17:39):
all right, our original plan was to amputate. So it's
a tough thing to do on an older dog. But
they do fine. I mean, the one who feels worse
about and three legged dog is the owner. Dogs really
could care less. They get along just fine anyway. Feeling
it again, we'd say, you know, well, if we're planning
and the owner's planning to okay with amputation, then why
(18:01):
not try it first? Let's see if we can resect
it first, so we went in open slow dissection. It
turned out to be a huge but it was mostly
a very firm what appeared to be fat. I called
it l like poma, but not soft and mushy. It
was rock hard, but some could be like that, probably
because it was in such a compressed area that there
was no place for it to continue to expand. So instead,
(18:24):
as the fat sales were multiplying and multiplying and multiplying,
which is what a tumor cells do, because they couldn't
push out, it just started compressing and making the mass
more and more and more dense, so it was very thick.
So we were able to with some pretty tricky dissection
is actually remove this tumor. You can imagine the phone
(18:44):
call the owners when we told them that the good
news were out of surgery. The better news we didn't
have to implicate, and we were able to remove this mass.
It looks like an even the dog is already thirteen
years old. Big dog. Even if it comes back, we
couldn't get every single less fat cell that might be
over multiplying. It's going to take months and months, probably
(19:05):
at more than a year, but we felt good about it.
We think we got it all anyway, even if we didn't.
So the truth is this dog, unlikely, a large breed
like this, is not going to live much past fourteen
or fifteen. So chances are we save this dog's lay.
And that's where it boils down to. I have to
tell you, and I've mentioned this before that when we
get to do something like this and we actually can
(19:26):
not only save a life, but in this case save
a limb, and the effect that it had on the
owners was and the dog most importantly obviously was amazing.
So we got so so lucky that we were able
to do this for the dog. And now this dog
is I mean great, So it's it's perfect, all right.
Any other questions we have and also, as I said,
(19:48):
as if you weren't here last week, as we're planning
your summer vacations and you're planning on taking your pets
with you, make sure the whole the keyword there was planning.
Whether you're taking them or not planning to take them,
you need to make alternative plans for the pet. Is
it if somebody coming in a pet center, are you
taking the dog out to a pet center? What is
(20:08):
going to be your plan. If you're going to a hotel,
is it pet friendly? If it is pet friendly, is
there a size limitation of the pet? All too often
i've heard this story where you show up with your
eighty to ninety pound dog and they have a thirty
five pound weight limit. So now you're up. You know
what's creek. So these are the things you really have
to bring. Are you prepared to bring enough food and meds?
(20:30):
Let's say you get delayed, don't just count the number
of dates you're going to be weigh and a week
just in case. Better to have and not need than
need and not have. So you just have a picture,
make sure your pet has ID. As you're traveling, you're
traveling by car, then make sure you bring a big
jug of your local water. And then at every stop
just continue to topic. So that way you're slowly introducing
(20:52):
the different water supplies from the different regions in different
areas into your home water. All these little tidbits of
information it should be very very help. So most importantly,
have fun. And again, if you're going into an area
we talked about a heart room disease. If you're going
into an area, for example, that has a bigger tick
problem or a mosquito problem, or a lime disease problem
(21:12):
that you don't have where you are. Make sure you
call ahead to your relatives or friends or the hotel
wherever you're staying. Find out from a local veterinarian what injections,
what vaccines might you need for where you're traveling to
that you may not need at your point of origin.
So you got to be prepared to make the differences,
make the changes. So that's also pretty important. So anyway,
(21:35):
I think that's all we have time for today. I
will be here next week, same time, same channel here
on pet Life Radio, and then again during the week.
If you need to get a hold of me, you
can just doctor jeffipetlifradio dot com. You can also reach
me on Instagram, Verbs, Underscore, DVM and all these things.
We can have a fun time. Glad you can join
(21:56):
me here on pet Life Radio and again we'll see
you next week, same time, same channel, And if you
have any questions good in the week, please reach out
to me. And by the way, if it's really important,
you don't have to wait till Sunday. I'll be happy
the emails quote come to me. I will answer you
right away if you want me to. If it's a
check question, you can also join me here on air
vet if you haven't downloaded air vet. You have a
(22:17):
live conversation with a veterinarian, So there are so many
options and opportunities you have, so keep me posted and
we'll see you next week.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Ab Let's Talk Pets every week on demand only on
petlife Radio dot com.
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