August 22, 2025 • 27 mins
This week's topics include do dogs have psychological problems, eyelid conditions in dogs, Simparica, English Bulldogs, 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 here we
(00:23):
are live. I got both audiences here. Wonderful to see you, hey, Steve,
so you know the drill, here live for you, here
for your pets. Any questions you want to ask now
is it time to ask? And there are some things
that we had left over from last week I want
to tell you about. I had a great conversation with
my good friend doctor Rick Lacuter, who is one of
the top board certified dinnery neurologists in the country. So anyway,
(00:45):
we will definitely definitely go for that. So get a
hold of me first if you're here live, and I
already see I'm waving to a lot of you, so
you can ask away here on pet Life Radio. You
can type in a question, or you can call eight
seven seven three eight five. I'm eight eight a two
once again eight seven seven three eight five eight eight
eight two. We'd love to have you join us. And
(01:06):
I'm sat in probably a little or I forgot last week.
Maybe I was a little horse too, huh. Anyway, now
voice is better, but my chest I don't know about that.
So usually I rarely get sick. When I get sick,
it's literally for two days. I get that the cold
two days later, I'm fine. This time it went I
was fine, but now it's in the chest. I'm still
coughing and I feel friady. I did a chatchipt and
(01:29):
I have a gal I converse with right and I said, look,
I want to know what would be a really good antibotic.
Then she wouldn't give me an answer. She goes, many
of these infections are viruses, and she's right, in which
case antibotics is not going to help, and it can
even hurt. Is it helps build up resistance of user.
You don't need it. I mean, I just wanted to
give me in one or two ANTALYXS said, I have
(01:50):
access to all medications. I'm veterinarian. Tell me it's the
toxic attacking. Is a moxistm is the clapboun Just tell
me what it is. You refuse to give me an answer.
So then I did my own research. I went online
and I put in the question, you know what is
a good antibotic? And it gave me the answer, But
it says the same thing. Most of these infections are viral.
Antibotics are not going to help. It's like, boy, you
(02:11):
can't give me a break. And you know me, I'm
not gonna doctors. Hate going to the doctor. I'm not
going to go to a doctor. So I'll give it
a few more days. I feel fine. Everything about it
is good, but I'm just you know, I get this
cough and it sounds like I'm dying like a smoker.
And I have never smoked a cigarette day in my life.
As far as other things, well not in a long time. Anyway,
(02:32):
now we're talking back in college days. I don't want to.
I don't want to go there. So anyway, let's see
some questions. You know, I was just saying, how preseason started.
I have season tickets to the Rams, but I can
never go to the Saturday games. So the guy that's
sitting next to me reached out to me. I said,
I'm just gonna give my tickets unless say, if any
of you what preseason Rams tickets, kid, let me know
(02:54):
I got them, all right, So now I'm waiting. All right,
so let me let me we'll take over. We have
a a number of you here. So the question came
up last week about do dogs have like these psychological
issues like schizophrenia and bipolar And my answer was that
you can't tell, you really can't tell because much of
(03:15):
that And so I asked this question to doctor Rick
Rick Lacuter. He's such a great guy. I mean, here's
a guy that I met him over forty five years
ago in VET school and he was doing his residency.
He became bored certified. He's super super guy and he
was a professor. I've been in touch with him and
(03:36):
friends with him ever since, and he now writes kids books.
He still does. He's emeritus at UC Davis. What a guy.
So and he started laughing, and I asked him the
question because he had just written a piece on what
we call a narrative medicine, and this is a lost
art because I am of the philosophy and always have
been that part of being a good doctor is listening
(03:59):
and listening to what many things, of course, but history,
and that's called narrative medicine. You have to discuss with
the patient what's going on. You can't just go to
the tests. You don't even know which test to take
really until you get a better history. And that's one
of the things I find different in Verne medicine right
now with the young doctors who are so quick to
(04:22):
running tests, and we'll say, wait a second, what are
you testing for that for? Is the dog doing X
Y Z? Well, I don't know, but he's coughing, well,
so what There could be a lot of things. So
you're not going to start testing for these weird esoteric
diseases until you get a good history and then a
good physical and then you rule out all many as
things as you can and you test for what's left.
(04:44):
So and he was saying, so, with these psychological diseases
that we have, much of those diagnoses are made through
narrative medicine, through talking to the patient. Well, we can't
do that, so we always joke, you know. And I
always say to a client when they start telling about
the dog having a psychological issue a behavioral issue, and
I always say, I'm joking. I told Sir Rick and
(05:06):
he started laughing, and that is that. You know, one
thing I can't do. It's sort a person I'd sit
him down on the couch and have, you know, maybe
a little warm chat, and then we could talk and say,
you know, tell me what's going on, how long has
this been going on? How do you feel just something
predisposed at or is there a preceding behavior that you
feel what is it, and you talk about it, and
(05:26):
that's how you make a diagnosis. We can't do that
with dogs. So anyway, that is a real issue. So
the answer is, as he said, might have some psychological absolutely,
but how do we know, how do we diagnose? Almost impossible.
There's no testing yet for it. Now. One thing that
I've seen as far as being bipolar, I've had a
(05:47):
few cases over the years, and I'm dealing with one
right now. A little dog was adopted from a shelter,
and for years the dog was great, was great with
the family, of course, maybe a little cautious with with strangers,
but was fantastic with a family. Now, the dog, as
it's getting older, is so nasty. The owner can't even
(06:09):
pick the dog up. When the dog gets in bed
and the husband gets a bit and just in sleep
rolls over, the dog will attack him. I mean, this
is weird. I mean, first of all, I don't know
I handle it. I would drug this dog up and
put them in a separate room. I mean they have
to tiptoe, literally tiptoe around this dog for fear of
being bitten. But the dog was never like this, so
(06:30):
now this would be a great one for narrative medicine
to sit down and say what happened, When did it happen,
how did it happen? We're stuck, can't do it so
anyway and answer your to a question that's the issue.
All right? Can you talk about conditioning dogs where their
eyelids are flipped outward? Kind of course they're recently conditioned.
The sisters is always effective. Okay, So there are two
(06:51):
types of eye lid condition Well, there's more. First of all,
distichaisis trickisis where there are a barren lashes, multiple lashes
going out of one last follicle, and those can sometimes
irritate if they're directed at the eyeball instead of outward,
they will cause a problem. But as far as growth,
there is n tropyon, which is much much more common,
(07:13):
and then ec tropyon. Entropyon is where the eyelids are
rolling inward, so the hair from the lower lid or
the lashes are rubbing on the eyeball, causing a lot
of discomfort, a lot of tearing, red eyes, et cetera.
Then there's ec tropyon where there's such a widened fornix
there's little protection so a lot of dirt and debris
and stuff get extend into the actual eyeball in the
(07:36):
fornix in the pocket there, and that causes problems. So
is entropyon way more common yes? Is it easier to fix? Yes?
But there are techniques to repair x tropyon. I do them,
fortunately enough to do them a lot because we don't
see it that much. But basically the goal is you're
going to make a it's usually a lower lid, so
(07:59):
you take a cut along the lower lid and then
you cut a second cut that you wedge it almost
like a V, not mimicking the same arc. When you
want an entropyon, you want to pull that rid out,
so you make like a smile incision and when you
sew it together you can see what happening. It's pulling
the lid down. When it's xtropion, you want to give
(08:22):
it more tissue, so you make a typeric V. So
you go basically a V to a Y. So you're
gonna take it make a much deeper. You're gonna sew
the bottom of first. That's the way it's going to
become the base of the wide, and then you sew
the rest of it up so you basically you're adding
tissue and it's taking some pressure away tension excuse me,
(08:46):
away from that lower lid, and it's adding it to
the lid, and that way the lid will start rolling
up a little bit more. Normally there's no surgery that's
always effective, but it is a surgical procedure for it.
And if you want to refer them my way, I've
done them and they've done just fine. Okay, so the
(09:07):
young lad's gonno diagnose. They run every testing. Yes, it
is Sharon, That is very true. It is a tremendous
frustration for me as an old geezer that I see
records all the time from we just say nice the
elsewhere animal hospital, and I'm thinking to myself, what were
they thinking? So it is really trust me as frustrating
(09:28):
it is for you guys as pet parents. I am
frustrated as a veterinarian who is seeing what's coming out
of school and it is disheartening for me, and I
wish I had an easy answer. I do lecture about it.
I plan to continue to lecture about it because it's
sad and you know who really is hurt the most
by it? And I'll tell you. We're getting into philosophy here,
(09:50):
and I hate to be in the soapbox. Maybe not
really hate it, but anyway, and that is that because
of this, what's happening to the Venoma bills, they are skyrocketing.
So and then what else is causing these bills to skyrocket?
Corporate America. So what's happening is these big companies like
Mars are buying these hospitals under the VCA title. And
(10:11):
right away, what do you want to do? They're business.
They're the sixth largest privately held company in the world.
So do they care really about that little dog? No, no, no, no,
But they care about making money, so they have you know,
they have their investors, whatever it is. So they basically
are the prices have gone up literally skyrot skyrocket is
(10:32):
as expense as some of these corporate health hospitals were.
They're double right now and people are complaining all the time.
So what's happening is they don't know that they have options.
They just don't bring the dog to the dead. So
the animals suffer. Because the animal suffer is the pet
parents are suffering. You're suffering. The animals aren't getting care
now because less business is coming into the hospital, all right,
(10:54):
what do they do? They raise their prices even more.
So it's hitting that point now we're seeing basically a
much larger percent of animals going without care and it's
all because of that, and it's a domino effect. So
it's ridiculous. You know that only a few ways to
increase revenue as from a business perspective. One you can
(11:16):
increase services. And that means for these young doctors stop
referring that systotomy, that bladder surgery, or that intestinal surgery
to the specialist. That specialists can do those blindfolded. They
didn't want surgeries like that, but they're getting them because
the young doctors aren't doing them. So increase your services,
start learning how to do these. Go to CE right.
(11:38):
Or you can increase your visits, client visits. How do
you do that? Well, one way you're going to do
it is to lower prices, make it more convenient for them.
But third way is to raise your prices. And that
is okay for a while, but it's going to bite
in the behind and it's happening now. So I am
with the number of statistics out they're showing that the
(12:01):
animal visits are dropping despite the fact that they're more veterinarians,
because they're more VET schools. I graduated VET school. They
are twenty four vets schools the country now the thirty
nine more and more graduates. And yet this is shortage
because veterinarians aren't working full time anymore. I mean when
you say, somebody, what's full time? What's full time? Right?
Forty hours a week. Veterinarians work fifty sixty hours a week,
(12:22):
but forty hours a week full time? You know, full
time is now in the dat night world. Yeah, it's
three to four days, thirty hours. That's full time. Well,
how you gonna make that work? And and the veterinarians
want to make of course, they want to keep up
with the Joneses. It's really destroying the profession. I know,
I'm getting very excited about it in a negative way.
(12:43):
Sorry about that, but it is what it is, all right?
Can all dogs take some peric I just gave it
to my English bulldog that you threw up watch idea? Okay? Well,
you know, any medication can cause vomiting anytime. If you
gave it with food, maybe try it without food. If
you gave it without food, try it with food. It's
not like they're certain antibiotics for example, for dogs that
I can say, I'm no longer surprised if they vomit.
(13:07):
And because I hear a lot about it symperica. The
only thing with the symperica, which is the ISOs azelenes
that we hear about, is the potential. The potential, not
the cause to initiate a seizure. But in dogs that
have already have history of seizures, the evidence isn't there
indicating that it will cause out of the blue a seizure.
(13:30):
But even if it does, even if they the dog
gives the dog a seizure. But the experts are saying,
is try a different isoxazolene. So it's not like all
of them do it. One of them may do it.
Try one or the other. You got four of them,
you got four choices. You got Brebecto, you got Simperica,
you have Cordelio, and you have next Guard. And what
I would do is try one of those. I would
(13:51):
try I try the Symperica again, and as I said,
just swap it up a little bit, maybe give half
and then everything keeps everything down. Have hour later give
the other half or an hour later give the other half.
That's something good, Joe. If that doesn't work, then it's
time to go from and again I love Simperica. Then
I would go to one of the other's Next Guard,
Cordelio or Provecto. The only thing. Look, Provecto is again
(14:14):
very good, but they claim twelve weeks, but on ticks
they claim eight weeks. So my only thing that I'm
concerned about is people are getting it because you're paying Basically,
it's almost three times them out because you're getting three
times a mileage out of it. So but then if
it only works for for eight weeks, then you just
paid for three months, but you only gotten two months.
I don't know. It's such a good deal, so check
(14:36):
it out see if it works for you. But as
far as the product is concerned, it's fine. So yes,
Lulu's next you know, I didn't even know. Again, we
have next Guard only because the owners of the practice,
remember I joined an existing practice, they like Next Guard.
I have since heard the next Guard is one of
the Now I'm not going to say best, but it's
(14:56):
one of the highest marketed and purchased product. So obviously
a lot of veterinarians like myself do like it. But
if you told me that you're on crdelio and it's working,
I would I did not, I would not change. In fact,
I tell people all the time when they come in.
I have my own product line and I carry this
a lot of the stuff from my hospital. For example,
(15:18):
I'm a ear cleaner. My ear cleaner is great called
here you now. But if someone says they're on an
ear cleaner and there are a lot of good brands
out there, should they get mine? I said no, no, no,
wait no, wait till you're done with yours, and if
you want to get it, then we can try mine.
And I'm that way with my body boost small devitamin,
with my flex which is a glucosamine, Kodroy and MSM supplement,
with obviously my shampoos. There are a lot of good
(15:40):
ones out there, so I don't switch just because it's mine.
Mine's not better. I couldn't say that it's good, but
I will never make the claim that it is the best.
All right, anyway, don't go away. We have another wave here,
another joiner. We're gonna go for a break here at
pet Life Radio. I will stay on here with you.
On Instagram do me a favor though, come up with question
because I can't tell you how everybody benefits from these questions.
(16:04):
Trust me, I know. So we'll be back after these
short words from our sponsors here on Petlife Radio. Take
it away, Mark.
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Let's talk, Let's done radio, headline radio atlight Radio dot com.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
And we're back here live at pet Life Radio as well. Anyway, Now,
it's a litteral that can read pH and we shn
learn a lot from urinary pH. That's the acid based
level of urine. So it is something that can basically
with a making product that not only are they good
for behavior and good for keeping your eye on your
pets for safety, but also from a medical aspect, to
(17:31):
predict is there a trend going on with your pet
that needs to be addressed. Is this pet losing weight?
Is it pet gaming weight? Is it urinary pH high
or low? Pretty soon they're going to be able to
check for a white cell count. They're working on it now.
So if you have a high white cell count in
the urine BAH, that means it inflammation or infection. So
it tells you in advance. These are things that you
(17:53):
and otherwise, by the way, you might not have any idea,
especially if they're using a litter box. It'll also be
able to tell you if the litter box frequency is increased.
So these are all things that can help a pet
parent better understand and better evaluate their pets health. All right,
so let's see what we got. I set up a
bird feeder for my indoor cat to do some bird watching.
(18:14):
She watches all day, interprets in charges. See seems love it,
but it also frustrated for her. No, no, you know,
it's interesting. There is a This was years ago. It
was a video and it was I had a really
cute name and it crossed my mind. I'll have to
think about it. But oh video catnip, that's what it
was video catnip. So what it was. You put it
(18:35):
in your phone in your player. Now we don't have
that anymore, but you probably can download it or probably
get off the internet. It wouldn't surprise me. And it's
just a picture of birds flying around the house feeders
watching hummingbirds. It was. And you see cats going up
to the TV screen and tapping it. You see fish
and a beautiful fish in a fish tank, all these
(18:56):
things that cats seem to like. So I have a
hammock that connects to a window and we have a
nice big kitchen window and we put a hammock in
there for the cat just outside the bird feeders. And
they're watching the birds, and they're watching the birds, and
they're watching the squirrels who figured out a way to
catch the bird food. So it is so funny. They
(19:18):
don't I don't think it's frustrated to them. It's entertainment.
They like it, you know. Yes, they're hunters, yes, if
they had an opportunity where they try to catch the bird, yes,
but right now they are having so much fun. And
you hear sometimes that make a vocalization the cats. It's
kind of a weird thing. I think they enjoy it,
so I don't think it's frustrating. So David go first
time having an English bulldog? Dropped there for any advice
(19:40):
I should know about the breed, Well, English bulldogs are great.
First of all. The funny thing is I always say
about English bulldogs for those of you it's going to
be a while. But remember back in cartoon days, okay,
and they had the old doghouse in the back and
with they say, no the name of the dog on
the dog house, and it was supposed to be the
protective dog, right, what was the dog? It was a bulldog? Well,
(20:04):
guess what. They're not that way at all. They are
usually so sweet. They are you know, personality plus. Now
do they have breathing issues yes, do they get ear
problems yes? Do they have skin issues with all the
facial folds and the head folds, yes, so is but
there is no perfect breed. If you're okay with that,
(20:24):
I would say they are really really good dogs. You
have to watch obviously, they have a tendency to gain weight,
so you got to be careful. You want to keep
them lean because of their joints, you know, the way
their legs are shaped. There are sometimes a sitting duck
for developing arthridities. So you want to keep them as
lean as you can, you want to keep them clean.
(20:45):
But as far as a pet, I think they're great.
My son had one for a long he adopted. He
adopted a nine year old bulldog from a shelter that
was on death row. And he was figuring, you know what, look,
it's a poor dog. What has it got a ear left?
Pretty old for a bulldog, so you figured months a
year or whatever. The sucker there four more years. So anyway,
(21:06):
but he was really a great dog. And so we
had that, the English bull and his French bull. It
was really really cute. So copper storage, So, copper storage
is a condition. We see it. It affects liver. It's
not common. And as far as treatment, I have to
tell you I have to look up and see what's
new and exciting. I've not seen a case in twenty years.
(21:28):
And usually these are the things that end up being
diagnosed by the specialists because the liver values might be high,
and you know, sometimes you'll see we don't test for copper,
you know, as far as a routine lab work, so
sometimes he goes unnoticed. So what I'll do. I will
check with my intern as friends, and I will give
you a better, more accurate answer as far as I'm sure.
(21:50):
The things you want to know about are going to
be first of all, symptoms, how does it look? How
do you know? Secondly what abnormalities one might find on
a blood test, and most importantly, how to treat it.
It may even take just just biopsy, so we need
to find out first of all more specifics about it
and what one can do about it. So that's my
(22:11):
that'd be my homework for next week, and I'll be
here next week as well. If I hear anything civica
during the week. You know, was it diagnosed? Are you
with This question is a weird one, so it's coming
up for what reason? Was your bet diagnosed with it?
So let me know and we'll talk more about it.
And you know, it's something that if you saw it,
I would think would be wise because it's not something
(22:31):
to GPS. I mean, actually I'm pretty good and I
don't know enough about it. Oh so ALT is high? Well, look,
alt can be high for a lot of reasons. And
how high AST is very high? Maybe because AST we
don't normally put a lot of weight in, but if
it's very high, that might be significant. ALT high is it?
Is it above three or four hundred or is it
(22:52):
you know, one seventy five eighty two hundred low two hundreds.
Again that makes a difference because alt, depending on the
age of the dog, could be a lot of things.
Alt alanine transferates. That is the OAST is fourteen forty
that that's pretty high. Yes, yes, yes, I think hegh normal.
Is is it one hundred or less than one hundred?
So yeah, that is a high and yes, over three
hundred for the ALT. So that is it. Now. Symptomology,
(23:15):
what's going on is the is the dog acting weird?
Was this a reason the reason you brought the dog in?
Was it acting strange? Was it not eating? Was it
having irea, et cetera. So you want to know what
is the clinical presentation? How what is the clinical effect
of whatever this is is causing a problem. I believe
this may be something that they have to biopsy. I'm
(23:37):
not sure, but I don't think there's a test. Unless
there may be there may be a test. You'd have
to ask for it specialty, especially from the lab. But
it's not part of Yeah, negative for masses, no symptoms. Yeah,
that's a good one. So I think that if I'm
pretty sure, and I'll double check this, that the evaluation,
(23:58):
the diagnostic of choice, maybe to get some sample from
the liver. All right, now, also simple things, you know,
change the diet, put the dog on denimaron or denisil.
It's adnosil, it's a liver supplement. It's good for liver
enzyme elevations. Again, alt is the most significant, and three
hundred is high, but it's not fourteen hundred. I've had
(24:21):
alts that are, you know, way way above a thousand,
So those are the ones that really worry me. Ast
we don't see that elevated that often. So because it
is fourteen hundred, I would definitely pay attention to it.
But more research needs to be done, more evaluation, more testing,
et cetera. And I'll try to find out for you
what would be the next best step. All right, anything else,
(24:45):
any other questions. I want to make sure I wave
to everybody and once again, as they say, always if
you have friends, anybody who could benefit from hearing this
wacko doctor every Sunday morning giving advice answering questions about
their pets, you know, one thing that I'm seeing, as
I mentioned earlier in the show, that because of the
(25:05):
high price of veterinary care, many are not electing to
go to the VET. So this is where you know,
I'm defining telemedicine. We are so busy on air vet
or telemedicine platform because people are looking for alternative ways
to get information, get advice, have the pet seen virtually
(25:26):
of course seen by a doctor, and helping them sift
through the many possibilities. And that is kind of my
job on a Sunday morning. If I can equip you
with knowledge, knowledge is king. If you have to make
a decision, how are you going to make the decision
without knowledge? So are you faced with a quandary and
you can either I know, to go this way or
(25:48):
this way. At least I can help you decide which
would be the better course of action at this time.
So take advantage of me. My clients do it all
the time. They have my cell phone. They called me
whatever they need to I know. But you know what,
that's where my joy comes from is from helping pets,
helping their people, and that makes me a happy camper.
(26:08):
All right. So we have gone through I think everybody
who I wanted to wave to, thank you so much
for joining me here today. I know it's probably better
things for some of you to do on a Sunday morning,
But anytime you want to look, you don't have to
wait till Sunday. You get a hold of me, doctor
Jeff at Petlife Radio dot com, doctor Jeff at doctor
(26:29):
Jeff dot com, Jeff at airbat dot com. There are
so many ways I'm trying to avail myself so you
can get to me. I can answer your questions. And
if you do have my cell phone, you're gonna call me.
Do not leave a voice message. I tell people I
rarely listen to them. Send me a text. All right. Anyway,
I have a great week, everybody. I will let you know.
I will do some some live stuff from super Zoo.
(26:51):
From the floor. At super Zoo, I always have so
much fun seeing what's new, seeing what's exciting, seeing oh
my god, the grooming competition. You've seen that those poodles
it's on believable. But hopefully we'll have a chance to
visit during the show if I have time. I don't know,
they're gonna be working like crazy in the booth, but
we will be here next week, same time on Sunday
(27:13):
nine in the West, noon in the East, and anywhere
in between, and we'll see then.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
O a go week, Give me money.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Let's talk pets every week on demand only on petlife
Radio dot com.
This is pet Life Radio. Let's talk pets here we
(00:23):
are live. I got both audiences here. Wonderful to see you, hey, Steve,
so you know the drill, here live for you, here
for your pets. Any questions you want to ask now
is it time to ask? And there are some things
that we had left over from last week I want
to tell you about. I had a great conversation with
my good friend doctor Rick Lacuter, who is one of
the top board certified dinnery neurologists in the country. So anyway,
(00:45):
we will definitely definitely go for that. So get a
hold of me first if you're here live, and I
already see I'm waving to a lot of you, so
you can ask away here on pet Life Radio. You
can type in a question, or you can call eight
seven seven three eight five. I'm eight eight a two
once again eight seven seven three eight five eight eight
eight two. We'd love to have you join us. And
(01:06):
I'm sat in probably a little or I forgot last week.
Maybe I was a little horse too, huh. Anyway, now
voice is better, but my chest I don't know about that.
So usually I rarely get sick. When I get sick,
it's literally for two days. I get that the cold
two days later, I'm fine. This time it went I
was fine, but now it's in the chest. I'm still
coughing and I feel friady. I did a chatchipt and
(01:29):
I have a gal I converse with right and I said, look,
I want to know what would be a really good antibotic.
Then she wouldn't give me an answer. She goes, many
of these infections are viruses, and she's right, in which
case antibotics is not going to help, and it can
even hurt. Is it helps build up resistance of user.
You don't need it. I mean, I just wanted to
give me in one or two ANTALYXS said, I have
(01:50):
access to all medications. I'm veterinarian. Tell me it's the
toxic attacking. Is a moxistm is the clapboun Just tell
me what it is. You refuse to give me an answer.
So then I did my own research. I went online
and I put in the question, you know what is
a good antibotic? And it gave me the answer, But
it says the same thing. Most of these infections are viral.
Antibotics are not going to help. It's like, boy, you
(02:11):
can't give me a break. And you know me, I'm
not gonna doctors. Hate going to the doctor. I'm not
going to go to a doctor. So I'll give it
a few more days. I feel fine. Everything about it
is good, but I'm just you know, I get this
cough and it sounds like I'm dying like a smoker.
And I have never smoked a cigarette day in my life.
As far as other things, well not in a long time. Anyway,
(02:32):
now we're talking back in college days. I don't want to.
I don't want to go there. So anyway, let's see
some questions. You know, I was just saying, how preseason started.
I have season tickets to the Rams, but I can
never go to the Saturday games. So the guy that's
sitting next to me reached out to me. I said,
I'm just gonna give my tickets unless say, if any
of you what preseason Rams tickets, kid, let me know
(02:54):
I got them, all right, So now I'm waiting. All right,
so let me let me we'll take over. We have
a a number of you here. So the question came
up last week about do dogs have like these psychological
issues like schizophrenia and bipolar And my answer was that
you can't tell, you really can't tell because much of
(03:15):
that And so I asked this question to doctor Rick
Rick Lacuter. He's such a great guy. I mean, here's
a guy that I met him over forty five years
ago in VET school and he was doing his residency.
He became bored certified. He's super super guy and he
was a professor. I've been in touch with him and
(03:36):
friends with him ever since, and he now writes kids books.
He still does. He's emeritus at UC Davis. What a guy.
So and he started laughing, and I asked him the
question because he had just written a piece on what
we call a narrative medicine, and this is a lost
art because I am of the philosophy and always have
been that part of being a good doctor is listening
(03:59):
and listening to what many things, of course, but history,
and that's called narrative medicine. You have to discuss with
the patient what's going on. You can't just go to
the tests. You don't even know which test to take
really until you get a better history. And that's one
of the things I find different in Verne medicine right
now with the young doctors who are so quick to
(04:22):
running tests, and we'll say, wait a second, what are
you testing for that for? Is the dog doing X
Y Z? Well, I don't know, but he's coughing, well,
so what There could be a lot of things. So
you're not going to start testing for these weird esoteric
diseases until you get a good history and then a
good physical and then you rule out all many as
things as you can and you test for what's left.
(04:44):
So and he was saying, so, with these psychological diseases
that we have, much of those diagnoses are made through
narrative medicine, through talking to the patient. Well, we can't
do that, so we always joke, you know. And I
always say to a client when they start telling about
the dog having a psychological issue a behavioral issue, and
I always say, I'm joking. I told Sir Rick and
(05:06):
he started laughing, and that is that. You know, one
thing I can't do. It's sort a person I'd sit
him down on the couch and have, you know, maybe
a little warm chat, and then we could talk and say,
you know, tell me what's going on, how long has
this been going on? How do you feel just something
predisposed at or is there a preceding behavior that you
feel what is it, and you talk about it, and
(05:26):
that's how you make a diagnosis. We can't do that
with dogs. So anyway, that is a real issue. So
the answer is, as he said, might have some psychological absolutely,
but how do we know, how do we diagnose? Almost impossible.
There's no testing yet for it. Now. One thing that
I've seen as far as being bipolar, I've had a
(05:47):
few cases over the years, and I'm dealing with one
right now. A little dog was adopted from a shelter,
and for years the dog was great, was great with
the family, of course, maybe a little cautious with with strangers,
but was fantastic with a family. Now, the dog, as
it's getting older, is so nasty. The owner can't even
(06:09):
pick the dog up. When the dog gets in bed
and the husband gets a bit and just in sleep
rolls over, the dog will attack him. I mean, this
is weird. I mean, first of all, I don't know
I handle it. I would drug this dog up and
put them in a separate room. I mean they have
to tiptoe, literally tiptoe around this dog for fear of
being bitten. But the dog was never like this, so
(06:30):
now this would be a great one for narrative medicine
to sit down and say what happened, When did it happen,
how did it happen? We're stuck, can't do it so
anyway and answer your to a question that's the issue.
All right? Can you talk about conditioning dogs where their
eyelids are flipped outward? Kind of course they're recently conditioned.
The sisters is always effective. Okay, So there are two
(06:51):
types of eye lid condition Well, there's more. First of all,
distichaisis trickisis where there are a barren lashes, multiple lashes
going out of one last follicle, and those can sometimes
irritate if they're directed at the eyeball instead of outward,
they will cause a problem. But as far as growth,
there is n tropyon, which is much much more common,
(07:13):
and then ec tropyon. Entropyon is where the eyelids are
rolling inward, so the hair from the lower lid or
the lashes are rubbing on the eyeball, causing a lot
of discomfort, a lot of tearing, red eyes, et cetera.
Then there's ec tropyon where there's such a widened fornix
there's little protection so a lot of dirt and debris
and stuff get extend into the actual eyeball in the
(07:36):
fornix in the pocket there, and that causes problems. So
is entropyon way more common yes? Is it easier to fix? Yes?
But there are techniques to repair x tropyon. I do them,
fortunately enough to do them a lot because we don't
see it that much. But basically the goal is you're
going to make a it's usually a lower lid, so
(07:59):
you take a cut along the lower lid and then
you cut a second cut that you wedge it almost
like a V, not mimicking the same arc. When you
want an entropyon, you want to pull that rid out,
so you make like a smile incision and when you
sew it together you can see what happening. It's pulling
the lid down. When it's xtropion, you want to give
(08:22):
it more tissue, so you make a typeric V. So
you go basically a V to a Y. So you're
gonna take it make a much deeper. You're gonna sew
the bottom of first. That's the way it's going to
become the base of the wide, and then you sew
the rest of it up so you basically you're adding
tissue and it's taking some pressure away tension excuse me,
(08:46):
away from that lower lid, and it's adding it to
the lid, and that way the lid will start rolling
up a little bit more. Normally there's no surgery that's
always effective, but it is a surgical procedure for it.
And if you want to refer them my way, I've
done them and they've done just fine. Okay, so the
(09:07):
young lad's gonno diagnose. They run every testing. Yes, it
is Sharon, That is very true. It is a tremendous
frustration for me as an old geezer that I see
records all the time from we just say nice the
elsewhere animal hospital, and I'm thinking to myself, what were
they thinking? So it is really trust me as frustrating
(09:28):
it is for you guys as pet parents. I am
frustrated as a veterinarian who is seeing what's coming out
of school and it is disheartening for me, and I
wish I had an easy answer. I do lecture about it.
I plan to continue to lecture about it because it's
sad and you know who really is hurt the most
by it? And I'll tell you. We're getting into philosophy here,
(09:50):
and I hate to be in the soapbox. Maybe not
really hate it, but anyway, and that is that because
of this, what's happening to the Venoma bills, they are skyrocketing.
So and then what else is causing these bills to skyrocket?
Corporate America. So what's happening is these big companies like
Mars are buying these hospitals under the VCA title. And
(10:11):
right away, what do you want to do? They're business.
They're the sixth largest privately held company in the world.
So do they care really about that little dog? No, no, no, no,
But they care about making money, so they have you know,
they have their investors, whatever it is. So they basically
are the prices have gone up literally skyrot skyrocket is
(10:32):
as expense as some of these corporate health hospitals were.
They're double right now and people are complaining all the time.
So what's happening is they don't know that they have options.
They just don't bring the dog to the dead. So
the animals suffer. Because the animal suffer is the pet
parents are suffering. You're suffering. The animals aren't getting care
now because less business is coming into the hospital, all right,
(10:54):
what do they do? They raise their prices even more.
So it's hitting that point now we're seeing basically a
much larger percent of animals going without care and it's
all because of that, and it's a domino effect. So
it's ridiculous. You know that only a few ways to
increase revenue as from a business perspective. One you can
(11:16):
increase services. And that means for these young doctors stop
referring that systotomy, that bladder surgery, or that intestinal surgery
to the specialist. That specialists can do those blindfolded. They
didn't want surgeries like that, but they're getting them because
the young doctors aren't doing them. So increase your services,
start learning how to do these. Go to CE right.
(11:38):
Or you can increase your visits, client visits. How do
you do that? Well, one way you're going to do
it is to lower prices, make it more convenient for them.
But third way is to raise your prices. And that
is okay for a while, but it's going to bite
in the behind and it's happening now. So I am
with the number of statistics out they're showing that the
(12:01):
animal visits are dropping despite the fact that they're more veterinarians,
because they're more VET schools. I graduated VET school. They
are twenty four vets schools the country now the thirty
nine more and more graduates. And yet this is shortage
because veterinarians aren't working full time anymore. I mean when
you say, somebody, what's full time? What's full time? Right?
Forty hours a week. Veterinarians work fifty sixty hours a week,
(12:22):
but forty hours a week full time? You know, full
time is now in the dat night world. Yeah, it's
three to four days, thirty hours. That's full time. Well,
how you gonna make that work? And and the veterinarians
want to make of course, they want to keep up
with the Joneses. It's really destroying the profession. I know,
I'm getting very excited about it in a negative way.
(12:43):
Sorry about that, but it is what it is, all right?
Can all dogs take some peric I just gave it
to my English bulldog that you threw up watch idea? Okay? Well,
you know, any medication can cause vomiting anytime. If you
gave it with food, maybe try it without food. If
you gave it without food, try it with food. It's
not like they're certain antibiotics for example, for dogs that
I can say, I'm no longer surprised if they vomit.
(13:07):
And because I hear a lot about it symperica. The
only thing with the symperica, which is the ISOs azelenes
that we hear about, is the potential. The potential, not
the cause to initiate a seizure. But in dogs that
have already have history of seizures, the evidence isn't there
indicating that it will cause out of the blue a seizure.
(13:30):
But even if it does, even if they the dog
gives the dog a seizure. But the experts are saying,
is try a different isoxazolene. So it's not like all
of them do it. One of them may do it.
Try one or the other. You got four of them,
you got four choices. You got Brebecto, you got Simperica,
you have Cordelio, and you have next Guard. And what
I would do is try one of those. I would
(13:51):
try I try the Symperica again, and as I said,
just swap it up a little bit, maybe give half
and then everything keeps everything down. Have hour later give
the other half or an hour later give the other half.
That's something good, Joe. If that doesn't work, then it's
time to go from and again I love Simperica. Then
I would go to one of the other's Next Guard,
Cordelio or Provecto. The only thing. Look, Provecto is again
(14:14):
very good, but they claim twelve weeks, but on ticks
they claim eight weeks. So my only thing that I'm
concerned about is people are getting it because you're paying Basically,
it's almost three times them out because you're getting three
times a mileage out of it. So but then if
it only works for for eight weeks, then you just
paid for three months, but you only gotten two months.
I don't know. It's such a good deal, so check
(14:36):
it out see if it works for you. But as
far as the product is concerned, it's fine. So yes,
Lulu's next you know, I didn't even know. Again, we
have next Guard only because the owners of the practice,
remember I joined an existing practice, they like Next Guard.
I have since heard the next Guard is one of
the Now I'm not going to say best, but it's
(14:56):
one of the highest marketed and purchased product. So obviously
a lot of veterinarians like myself do like it. But
if you told me that you're on crdelio and it's working,
I would I did not, I would not change. In fact,
I tell people all the time when they come in.
I have my own product line and I carry this
a lot of the stuff from my hospital. For example,
(15:18):
I'm a ear cleaner. My ear cleaner is great called
here you now. But if someone says they're on an
ear cleaner and there are a lot of good brands
out there, should they get mine? I said no, no, no,
wait no, wait till you're done with yours, and if
you want to get it, then we can try mine.
And I'm that way with my body boost small devitamin,
with my flex which is a glucosamine, Kodroy and MSM supplement,
with obviously my shampoos. There are a lot of good
(15:40):
ones out there, so I don't switch just because it's mine.
Mine's not better. I couldn't say that it's good, but
I will never make the claim that it is the best.
All right, anyway, don't go away. We have another wave here,
another joiner. We're gonna go for a break here at
pet Life Radio. I will stay on here with you.
On Instagram do me a favor though, come up with question
because I can't tell you how everybody benefits from these questions.
(16:04):
Trust me, I know. So we'll be back after these
short words from our sponsors here on Petlife Radio. Take
it away, Mark.
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Let's talk, Let's done radio, headline radio atlight Radio dot com.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
And we're back here live at pet Life Radio as well. Anyway, Now,
it's a litteral that can read pH and we shn
learn a lot from urinary pH. That's the acid based
level of urine. So it is something that can basically
with a making product that not only are they good
for behavior and good for keeping your eye on your
pets for safety, but also from a medical aspect, to
(17:31):
predict is there a trend going on with your pet
that needs to be addressed. Is this pet losing weight?
Is it pet gaming weight? Is it urinary pH high
or low? Pretty soon they're going to be able to
check for a white cell count. They're working on it now.
So if you have a high white cell count in
the urine BAH, that means it inflammation or infection. So
it tells you in advance. These are things that you
(17:53):
and otherwise, by the way, you might not have any idea,
especially if they're using a litter box. It'll also be
able to tell you if the litter box frequency is increased.
So these are all things that can help a pet
parent better understand and better evaluate their pets health. All right,
so let's see what we got. I set up a
bird feeder for my indoor cat to do some bird watching.
(18:14):
She watches all day, interprets in charges. See seems love it,
but it also frustrated for her. No, no, you know,
it's interesting. There is a This was years ago. It
was a video and it was I had a really
cute name and it crossed my mind. I'll have to
think about it. But oh video catnip, that's what it
was video catnip. So what it was. You put it
(18:35):
in your phone in your player. Now we don't have
that anymore, but you probably can download it or probably
get off the internet. It wouldn't surprise me. And it's
just a picture of birds flying around the house feeders
watching hummingbirds. It was. And you see cats going up
to the TV screen and tapping it. You see fish
and a beautiful fish in a fish tank, all these
(18:56):
things that cats seem to like. So I have a
hammock that connects to a window and we have a
nice big kitchen window and we put a hammock in
there for the cat just outside the bird feeders. And
they're watching the birds, and they're watching the birds, and
they're watching the squirrels who figured out a way to
catch the bird food. So it is so funny. They
(19:18):
don't I don't think it's frustrated to them. It's entertainment.
They like it, you know. Yes, they're hunters, yes, if
they had an opportunity where they try to catch the bird, yes,
but right now they are having so much fun. And
you hear sometimes that make a vocalization the cats. It's
kind of a weird thing. I think they enjoy it,
so I don't think it's frustrating. So David go first
time having an English bulldog? Dropped there for any advice
(19:40):
I should know about the breed, Well, English bulldogs are great.
First of all. The funny thing is I always say
about English bulldogs for those of you it's going to
be a while. But remember back in cartoon days, okay,
and they had the old doghouse in the back and
with they say, no the name of the dog on
the dog house, and it was supposed to be the
protective dog, right, what was the dog? It was a bulldog? Well,
(20:04):
guess what. They're not that way at all. They are
usually so sweet. They are you know, personality plus. Now
do they have breathing issues yes, do they get ear
problems yes? Do they have skin issues with all the
facial folds and the head folds, yes, so is but
there is no perfect breed. If you're okay with that,
(20:24):
I would say they are really really good dogs. You
have to watch obviously, they have a tendency to gain weight,
so you got to be careful. You want to keep
them lean because of their joints, you know, the way
their legs are shaped. There are sometimes a sitting duck
for developing arthridities. So you want to keep them as
lean as you can, you want to keep them clean.
(20:45):
But as far as a pet, I think they're great.
My son had one for a long he adopted. He
adopted a nine year old bulldog from a shelter that
was on death row. And he was figuring, you know what, look,
it's a poor dog. What has it got a ear left?
Pretty old for a bulldog, so you figured months a
year or whatever. The sucker there four more years. So anyway,
(21:06):
but he was really a great dog. And so we
had that, the English bull and his French bull. It
was really really cute. So copper storage, So, copper storage
is a condition. We see it. It affects liver. It's
not common. And as far as treatment, I have to
tell you I have to look up and see what's
new and exciting. I've not seen a case in twenty years.
(21:28):
And usually these are the things that end up being
diagnosed by the specialists because the liver values might be high,
and you know, sometimes you'll see we don't test for copper,
you know, as far as a routine lab work, so
sometimes he goes unnoticed. So what I'll do. I will
check with my intern as friends, and I will give
you a better, more accurate answer as far as I'm sure.
(21:50):
The things you want to know about are going to
be first of all, symptoms, how does it look? How
do you know? Secondly what abnormalities one might find on
a blood test, and most importantly, how to treat it.
It may even take just just biopsy, so we need
to find out first of all more specifics about it
and what one can do about it. So that's my
(22:11):
that'd be my homework for next week, and I'll be
here next week as well. If I hear anything civica
during the week. You know, was it diagnosed? Are you
with This question is a weird one, so it's coming
up for what reason? Was your bet diagnosed with it?
So let me know and we'll talk more about it.
And you know, it's something that if you saw it,
I would think would be wise because it's not something
(22:31):
to GPS. I mean, actually I'm pretty good and I
don't know enough about it. Oh so ALT is high? Well, look,
alt can be high for a lot of reasons. And
how high AST is very high? Maybe because AST we
don't normally put a lot of weight in, but if
it's very high, that might be significant. ALT high is it?
Is it above three or four hundred or is it
(22:52):
you know, one seventy five eighty two hundred low two hundreds.
Again that makes a difference because alt, depending on the
age of the dog, could be a lot of things.
Alt alanine transferates. That is the OAST is fourteen forty
that that's pretty high. Yes, yes, yes, I think hegh normal.
Is is it one hundred or less than one hundred?
So yeah, that is a high and yes, over three
hundred for the ALT. So that is it. Now. Symptomology,
(23:15):
what's going on is the is the dog acting weird?
Was this a reason the reason you brought the dog in?
Was it acting strange? Was it not eating? Was it
having irea, et cetera. So you want to know what
is the clinical presentation? How what is the clinical effect
of whatever this is is causing a problem. I believe
this may be something that they have to biopsy. I'm
(23:37):
not sure, but I don't think there's a test. Unless
there may be there may be a test. You'd have
to ask for it specialty, especially from the lab. But
it's not part of Yeah, negative for masses, no symptoms. Yeah,
that's a good one. So I think that if I'm
pretty sure, and I'll double check this, that the evaluation,
(23:58):
the diagnostic of choice, maybe to get some sample from
the liver. All right, now, also simple things, you know,
change the diet, put the dog on denimaron or denisil.
It's adnosil, it's a liver supplement. It's good for liver
enzyme elevations. Again, alt is the most significant, and three
hundred is high, but it's not fourteen hundred. I've had
(24:21):
alts that are, you know, way way above a thousand,
So those are the ones that really worry me. Ast
we don't see that elevated that often. So because it
is fourteen hundred, I would definitely pay attention to it.
But more research needs to be done, more evaluation, more testing,
et cetera. And I'll try to find out for you
what would be the next best step. All right, anything else,
(24:45):
any other questions. I want to make sure I wave
to everybody and once again, as they say, always if
you have friends, anybody who could benefit from hearing this
wacko doctor every Sunday morning giving advice answering questions about
their pets, you know, one thing that I'm seeing, as
I mentioned earlier in the show, that because of the
(25:05):
high price of veterinary care, many are not electing to
go to the VET. So this is where you know,
I'm defining telemedicine. We are so busy on air vet
or telemedicine platform because people are looking for alternative ways
to get information, get advice, have the pet seen virtually
(25:26):
of course seen by a doctor, and helping them sift
through the many possibilities. And that is kind of my
job on a Sunday morning. If I can equip you
with knowledge, knowledge is king. If you have to make
a decision, how are you going to make the decision
without knowledge? So are you faced with a quandary and
you can either I know, to go this way or
(25:48):
this way. At least I can help you decide which
would be the better course of action at this time.
So take advantage of me. My clients do it all
the time. They have my cell phone. They called me
whatever they need to I know. But you know what,
that's where my joy comes from is from helping pets,
helping their people, and that makes me a happy camper.
(26:08):
All right. So we have gone through I think everybody
who I wanted to wave to, thank you so much
for joining me here today. I know it's probably better
things for some of you to do on a Sunday morning,
But anytime you want to look, you don't have to
wait till Sunday. You get a hold of me, doctor
Jeff at Petlife Radio dot com, doctor Jeff at doctor
(26:29):
Jeff dot com, Jeff at airbat dot com. There are
so many ways I'm trying to avail myself so you
can get to me. I can answer your questions. And
if you do have my cell phone, you're gonna call me.
Do not leave a voice message. I tell people I
rarely listen to them. Send me a text. All right. Anyway,
I have a great week, everybody. I will let you know.
I will do some some live stuff from super Zoo.
(26:51):
From the floor. At super Zoo, I always have so
much fun seeing what's new, seeing what's exciting, seeing oh
my god, the grooming competition. You've seen that those poodles
it's on believable. But hopefully we'll have a chance to
visit during the show if I have time. I don't know,
they're gonna be working like crazy in the booth, but
we will be here next week, same time on Sunday
(27:13):
nine in the West, noon in the East, and anywhere
in between, and we'll see then.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
O a go week, Give me money.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Let's talk pets every week on demand only on petlife
Radio dot com.
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