Loving Our Feline Friends with CheckOut Veterinary

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Three one eight sixty seven hundred that first visit at
checkout Vet. That exam it is free to your pet. Again,
you can learn more and of course make an appointment
right online checkout vet dot com. Super convenience to use
checkout Vet. Also super convenient to get into checkout Vet
there right at twenty seven to ten Prairie Lakes Drive
in sun Prairie Rite off one fifty one Eastwash. Super convenient.

(00:20):
If you can hear our voices this morning, you are
near checkout Vet. Speaking of our voices. Joined in studio
this morning by doctor Marty Greer, recognized by the Westminster
Kennel Club as a Veterinarian of the Year.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Doctor. How you doing this morning.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
I'm doing great.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
It's great to see you. Great to have you in
studio this week. And we're going to talk about adopting
kittens and cats, which is so much fun. Also talking
I think we may we'll start off with this one
headlines in the news, Tom Brady quarterback had his dog cloned.
And we're gonna and ask questions about this stuff, and
I figure who better to go to than doctor Marty Greer.

(00:56):
Speaking of questions for doctor Greer, great opportunity right now,
the phone lines open. We'd love to get you on
the air. Six SOH eight three two one thirteen ten.
That's six SOH eight three two one thirteen ten left.
You have you join us this morning if you've got
a question for doctor Marty Greer of check Out Veterinari,
we'll get your right on the air.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
All right.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
So I saw this story, and I remember a number
of years ago. It didn't last, but there was even
a pet cloning uh operation here in Dane County and
I had to go back and look, and they had
shut it up in two thousand and six. But this
is real stuff. They do actually clone pets. Am I
right on, Like, what's.

Speaker 3 (01:33):
Well, you know, I've never seen one. Okay, I hear
about them, and you know, you hear things in the news,
and I've talked to people that said they have, Oh
I've had four German shepherds cloned. Er, you know some
story about that. I've never actually seen one, oka, And
I'm a little hesitant to completely buy into the fact
that this is I think it's a real thing. I

(01:54):
don't think it's a real common thing. Okay, We're still
a long way away from having this be something say
you said tomorrow you wanted Homer cloned, that you would
just go down to the corner veterinary clinic and have
that happen. So we're a long way from that.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
I don't think Homer would be particularly cool. And that
is and again I'm not I don't. I don't want
to be judgmental. And I get it if you know
Tom Brady's got certainly got the resources and got those
type of things. I always feel like part of the
special bond with a pet is the fact that they
are very unique. And some of it is you know,
you grow together, right, you get this cat or dog

(02:31):
and that first day you don't know what to expect,
but they don't know. They're like where the heck am
I what's going on? But you kind of develop things.
And then trying to recreate that with a biologically same
pet but not the same pet just to me seems
like it's like why are you I don't Again, this
is my personal opinion, like like why do you bother

(02:51):
with that kind.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
Of Yeah, And there are some people who are very
attached to a certain pet, and it may be because
it's emotional, it may be that it's a you know,
physical traits that they want to reproduce, but it hasn't
become a normal thing at this point. One of the
biggest problems has been that we don't have a good
ability in veterinary medicine to synchronize dogs heat cycles. So
if we have embryos that we want to take from

(03:15):
another dog or we've frozen and fertilized in a cloning situation,
we're not good at timing how the females come into
heat and then being able to put them in to
a recipient dog. In cattle, they've got it.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Down, of course they do. Yeah, one in.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
Three attempts to clone a cow turns into a live calf,
so I mean that's thirty three percent. That's huge, that's
very successful. Of course, Dolly was the sheep. She was
the first one, first thing that we know of in
the news that was cloned, and that was twenty plus
years ago. But we're not really good with the dogs
at this point. And it's really difficult because you have
to have like, just because you have an embryo that

(03:53):
you clone doesn't mean that you have someplace to put it.
It has to grow into a puppy. So that's been
one of the greatest challenges that we have and veterinary medicine.
And there's many, many people working on this. This is
not unique to this particular laboratory. There's a lot of
places working on it. I have a client that's actually
working on it. She's in the Milwaukee area, so she's
got a PhD. It's not like she's doing the sitter bathtubs.

(04:16):
It's a real thing, right, but it's still a really
far off and kind of big deal. And if you
go to the website that this particular dog states that
they did the clone at, it's Colossal Biosciences. I was
just on it a few minutes ago. Their primary focus
is saving wildlife, saving animals that are becoming extinct or

(04:36):
bringing back animals that have become extinct. I couldn't even
find on their website any information about cloning a dog.
So if you right now pulled over to the side
of the road and typed in Colossal Biosciences and looked
at their website, you would not find something at least
easily that says, oh, sure, just send us a blood
sample and we'll be able to take care of that. Now,
there are other places working on a Texas, A and M. Cornell.

(04:57):
There's places around the globe that are working on this. Korea,
South Korea was actually potentially one of the leaders in
what we've been hearing in the veterinary buzz, but we
just don't have this available, so you can't take a
little piece of skin or a little bit of a
blood sample. His point was it was non invasive. It
used a blood sample. There are other techniques where you
take a skin biopsy and send it to the lab

(05:18):
and then they save it. And if you have the
propensity to say that you really want to do that,
then this is a good time to save DNA. But
it is not a time that you're going to expect
that it's going to be easily done or that it's
going to be replicated. The other part of the problem
is exactly what you've said, and that's that every pet
is different. Even if you have them genetically the exact same,

(05:39):
the circumstances under which you raise them are going to
be different. Even if it's you and your family and
it seems the same, it's not. You're ten years older,
you're twenty years older. Your kids are at different life stages,
Your life is different, Your home is different. Everything is different,
and so a lot of our pets traits really come
from that environment, not just from their genetics. So I
think that we've kind of gotten ahead of ourselves in

(06:01):
thinking that we're going to have the exact same dog
or cat.

Speaker 1 (06:04):
I think of my nephew's identical twins, and they are
now in their early twenties, and when they were younger,
I had a hard time telling a part. Now that
they're in their twenties, very even though they share the
same DNA, entirely different people. When you mentioned the like
like live stock and everything there there's like a like
an incentive as far as financial is you know good

(06:24):
you know, whether it's whether it's a cow that can
produce large amounts of milk or like a steer that's
good for beav. I don't know that there's that same
same investment. What about like the physic or need for
that stuff? What about like the physical traits is I
know for people that are like show dogs or I
think of racehorses as well, we're like like lineage and

(06:45):
they're and kind of not so much the personality as
the as those physical traits. Is that somewhere we might
see maybe cloning as far as pets maybe becoming more prevalent.

Speaker 3 (06:56):
Oh yeah, and that's been discussed even at AKC when
they start talking about, well, what do you do if
there's two dogs in the ring, the the identical DNA,
the exact same dog, how does the judge pick between them?
And the answer is they're still not going to be
exactly the same. They'll be at a different body condition,
fed different food, groom differently handled differently, So it's it's
always going to have that variability. Now, there's some kind

(07:17):
of fun things that go with cloning. The cat that
they cloned, the first cat that they cloned, do you
know what they called her as a calico?

Speaker 2 (07:24):
No? I don't.

Speaker 3 (07:25):
Her name was Copycat, that's true, it's very good. And
her spots weren't the same as her cloned source, so
she was still a calico cat, but she didn't have
the same markings, the same pattern. And there was a
very famous Bronco bull also that was used in rodeos
and they cloned him and his name was Second Chance.

(07:46):
So they come up with some really fun names because
they have the entire pregnancy to think about what are
we going to call this? So there's you know, there's
interesting things that happen out there, but like I said,
right now, it's just not something that you're going to
have happening as a practical matter. If you have gobs
of money and you really want to find somebody that
can help you with it, there are places, and like

(08:06):
I said, the Colossal website just doesn't seem like they're
quite geared up for that. I think Tom Brady's an
investor and he probably got some preferential treatment. But they
brought back some of the are they said, they brought
back some of the wolves. They're looking at wooly mammoths,
they're looking at MOA's, they're looking at, you know, some
very unusual species, things that have become extinct or that
they want to prevent extinction from occurring. In So I

(08:28):
think it's interesting, but it's not. It's not ready for
prime time in any stretch of the imagination.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
I knew when I saw this story, I thought, who
better to ask?

Speaker 1 (08:37):
Let's give us some really, really common sense and really
useful information about it.

Speaker 2 (08:41):
It is absolutely to me.

Speaker 1 (08:43):
I find it fascinating and I do love I think
one of the great things as we've been doing the
show over the past several months is kind of learning
more about what's out there. It's always like you don't
know what you don't know, and the advances made in
pet care and things you are able to do at
the clinic and those type of things is always is

(09:04):
just to me just amazing what goes on.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
You mentioned copycat the kittie.

Speaker 1 (09:09):
One of the things I do know about cats is
if you've got a couple of them, you're going to
have a couple. More in general is that they're not
really hard to come by. And unfortunately we see stories
and I don't know if there's ever been a research
on this, but particularly cats, but you'll see other pets,
but cats seem to be like the most common pet
that people end up either I don't know if it's

(09:29):
a hoarding thing or what, but we'll ever so often
get a news story about a large number of cats
coming into and do a humane society and looking for
folks to take those kiddies in.

Speaker 2 (09:40):
What's some of the guidance on that.

Speaker 1 (09:42):
Obviously a lot of times these are adult cats that
have grown up in kind of a unique environment. Do
you see folks that are bringing their new cats into
you at checkout? Veterinary that they had gotten from from
these type of situations.

Speaker 3 (09:55):
Yeah, sometimes they're hoarding situations. Sometimes it's someone who is
just elderly and ended up in a nursing home or
passed away or whatever. But they're definitely homes needed for
these cats, and a lot of them are really great
cats because they have been in the house, they have
been handled. They may not have had the best hygiene
in their homes, like litterbox care and feeding patterns and

(10:17):
things like that may not have been the best, but
a lot of these cats are pretty friendly. They're happy
to be handled, and it's pretty great. I saw one
yesterday at the clinic that was seventeen years old. He
had come from a home where he was not from
a large hoarding situation, but he was seventeen when the
owner adopted him because it was someone that was elderly
and he was at the shelter and nobody wanted a

(10:39):
seventeen year old cat. And so those things are really heartbreaking,
because these cats in these hoarding situations may be all ages,
they may be kittens, they may be older cats. So
this really illustrates the importance of spain and neutering our cats.
We don't have a big dog population problem. Some people
may argue that, but the population problem we have at
shelters is absolutely cats. Absolutely cats like to reproduce. They

(11:02):
can have three litters a year. They're very efficient at reproduction.
They don't need a lot of help. And if we
don't do a good job of keeping them spadea neutered,
it does become a problem. If you have outdoor cats
in your area and you're feeding them, get them spader neutered,
because once you do that, that tends to be sort
of a close population of cats. Other cats won't move

(11:22):
into that little colony of cats. And so if you
have you know, two boys and three girls and you've
taken them to the shelter, to the spamy clinic or
wherever that you've taken them, and you've gotten them spada neutered,
now you have that little group of five cats, and
more cats won't want to move in even if you're
putting out food. So it's kind of an interesting phenomenon
if you do have cats in the house, just you know,

(11:42):
kind of cap it at some point if you feel
the need to go to the shelters and help with
the population, because easily seventy five percent of the pets
that are at a shelter are cats, not dogs. Then
cats are great. And when you do that, and we've
talked about this before, two cats at the same time
are always better than one, especially they're either bonded pairs
already or if they're kittens and they grow up together.

(12:05):
They're social, they're fun, they're so entertaining. You know, if
you have two kittens and you sit on the couch
in the evening, you don't need to turn on the
television or the computer. You can just sit there with
your glass of wine and watch the show. Because kittens
are absolutely hysterical.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
Their maniacs they are.

Speaker 3 (12:20):
They're bouncing off the walls, they're you know, they're climbing
the curtains. They're really quite fun.

Speaker 1 (12:24):
They're also I'm always jealous of. And I watched a
special MPBS about squirrels and they're athleticism and then I'm like,
watching these squirrels, I'm like, cats have that same. It's
just like a like I'm so jealous of like the
like they're they're just they're very athletic, but they're also
very graceful and self and when they're wrestling sometimes it

(12:46):
gets a little.

Speaker 3 (12:46):
Yeah, it gets a little Harry, Yes it does.

Speaker 1 (12:48):
I'm talking this morning with doctor Marty Greer of Checkout Veterinary.

Speaker 2 (12:51):
You can learn more online about Checkout Veterinary checkout vet
dot com. That's check out vet dot com. Don't forget.

Speaker 1 (12:57):
They've got a great opportunity for you right now. They
are accepting new patients at checkout Vet. That's a great
opportunity for you and your pet to start that relationship.
Open seven days a week, nine am until five pm.
Also that first visit, that exam, it is free to
your pet. You can learn more online as well as
make an appointment at checkout vet dot com or pick
up phone. Give a call six oh eight three one
eight sixty seven hundred. That's six oh eight three one

(13:19):
eight sixty seven hundred. Speaking of phone numbers, we've got
a line open for you if you've got a question
for doctor Marty Greer. Love to have you join us
this morning six oh eight three two one thirteen ten.
That's six soh eight three two one thirteen ten. We'll
continue our conversation with doctor. Take your call next, as
well as ask the experts with Checkout Veterinary. Continues right
here on thirteen ten. Double u IB eight eight fifty

(13:40):
three thirteen ten, Double uiba and ask the experts brought
you by Checkout Veterinary. Hanging out in studio this morning
with doctor Marty Greer. Still got some time, You got
a question, Get you right on the air. Six soh
eight three two one thirteen ten. That's six soh eight
three two one thirteen ten. What a fantastic day to
start a relationship. At checkout Veterinary, they are accepting new
patients right now now that first visit that exam. It

(14:01):
is free, open seven days week, nine am until five
pm at checkout Vet. You can learn more online.

Speaker 2 (14:07):
Checkout vet dot com. That's checkout vet dot com.

Speaker 1 (14:10):
They're telephe number six eight three one eight sixty seven hundred.
That's six eight three one eight sixty seven hundred. Talking
with doctor Greer this morning about about getting some rescue.
Cats and cats are kittens are fun. Cats are great too,
And I always feel like cats sometimes they don't get
the full appreciation that they deserve. Is kittens are so
adorable as our puppies and you know, a little things,

(14:33):
but cats are just as far as just like companion animals.
You talk about in these kind of generalizing but like
they are just it's love on their own terms. Like
when Madson our son was a little part of why
we got got a couple of kittens was cats don't
let you like for little kids, like a dog will
let you kind of man handle them a little bit.

(14:55):
A cat on their hands like I'm out, and they'll
and if that doesn't work, they'll remind you that they're out.
They'll give you a little a little swat and to
be like, get out of my stuff. Cats make really
fantastic adult cats make really fantastic pets. Are there any
type of considerations folks? Obviously anytime you're bringing a new
pet in the house getting them into the bat But

(15:16):
are are there for some of these rescue cats and
other pets that you really want to be observant of
when you're bringing them into your home.

Speaker 3 (15:24):
Yeah, I think probably litterbox habits are the number one
concern that we have. It is certainly the number one
reason pets are relinquished to a shelter, with biting and
scratching being the second. Dogs are typically biting and scratching
issue first, so it does make a big difference. And
if you are taking a cat into your home, especially
if you've had cats before that may have not been

(15:45):
good with their litter box habits, You've got to be
very very on top of litter boxes. So the rule
of thumb is one litter box per cat plus a spare.
So if you have two cats, that's three boxes. If
you have six cats, that's seven plus boxes. Make sure
that you have them in goods of the house, that
they're convenient for the cat to use. And the problem
is the American house is not set up for good
litter boxes. Where do you put one the laundry room,

(16:08):
the basement. You know, if the cat has to go,
and especially if it's an elderly cat, it has to
get about the couch, walk across the floor, go down
the stairs to the basement, use the litter box, come
back up. It can be really stressful for those elderly
cats that just don't have good mobility and good movement.
So we should make those litter boxes as convenient as possible.
So it may be a bathroom, a closet, a laundry room.

(16:29):
Some cats like covered litter boxes, some cats like open
litter boxes, some like it deep, some like a shallow
there's a thousand different kinds of litter on the market now,
so you kind of have to ask the cat what
they like. By putting different kinds of litter in boxes
side by side and seeing which one let their feet
do the walking, and which litter box they use the
most frequently, is the one that you want to continue

(16:50):
that type of litter. Typically, unscented litter is more popular
with the cats. Scented litter is more popular with humans.
But you know you've walked into the bathroom where that
spray is really terrible. Cats don't like the fragrances, so
you know, really be careful with the litter box because
that can get you off to the right start or
a bad start. From the very beginning. Kittens they may
not even know how to use a litter box when

(17:11):
you first get them, they learn pretty quickly if you
give them access, and if the box isn't so tall
that they can't get over the side. Because sometimes we'll
have these little bitty kittens and these great tall litter
boxes and the cats like nothing. So you know, you
have to be thinking about all those different things. Where
you put them, Is it a quiet place that the
cat will appreciate? Being because cats don't want an audience

(17:33):
when they're using their litter box. They want to have
some privacy. So there's a lot of details to litter
boxes and there's some really good information out there. The
Ohio State University, their Veterinary School Indoor Cat Initiative has
wonderful resources and there's some good ones out there. So
just because it came up on Google or AI doesn't
necessarily mean that's your best resource. So you know, do
a little bit of reading.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
I was going to ask you too about the litter box.

Speaker 1 (17:55):
Is it okay to move a litter box once if
you've kind of established it as you're talking about that
about in our house, our one litter box is in
the basement, and like as our kiddies age, is it
okay to bring that stuff upstairs or should you probably
try and establish it on that main level from the
get go.

Speaker 3 (18:12):
I'd start with the main level, and then just if
you do have to move a box, use to just
move it a few inches at a time. If you're
adding a litter box, it's a lot better than if
you're taking one away. Removing a litter box to where
the cat was used to going and now you've just
put them all in the basement. The cat may not
take kindly to that, so be really careful with that.
And as long as we're talking about cat mobility, there

(18:32):
is an injectable product now that's given every four weeks
called Cilentsia, and it does a tremendous job of improving
mobility in cats. Now, the dog equivalent is Librella, but
the cat one is a monoclonal a antibody, and it
is unbelievable how much better these cats mobility is on
that product. So if you have a cat that you're like, oh,
I think she's just old, No, if she's not going

(18:53):
up the stairs freely, if she's not jumping on and
off the bed, if some of those things have changed
over the course of time, it's not just that she older.
Take a look at the possibility that she's got arthritis.
And cats don't complain, no, they just don't move. And
then you end up with a cat that gets heavier
and they don't go to the litter box efficiently. And
there's just a lot of things that happen as they age.
So don't assume it's aging. Assume that it's probably pain.

(19:17):
Go into the vet, get some X rays, get some silensia,
go back once a month. It is an incredible improvement
in these pets that on. Silencia and Librella.

Speaker 2 (19:27):
Talk about the don't know what you don't know?

Speaker 1 (19:29):
You talk about having that great conversation with your vet,
and I know, obviously there's some great opportunities for folks
start that new relationship at checkout Vet.

Speaker 2 (19:35):
I did want to ask you real quick too.

Speaker 1 (19:37):
We're talking during the break about AI and some of
the some of the fun stuff, And I know obviously
you very much like technology and science and seeing progress.
There is kind of a downside to it is sometimes
folks are relying on it. Used to be doctor Google
and now it's kind of doctor AI. Relying on that
stuff is no substitute for good veterinary care.

Speaker 3 (19:57):
Is it. No. It's a nice place to start. It
may give you some suggestionuestions, it may give you some
things to talk about when you get to the veterinary clinic,
but don't rely on it. It's not always accurate, and
you can feed anything into AI you want, Yeah, and
it can really skew the data, So be sure that
you're getting accurate information and that your pet is seeing
a veterinarian, because there's nothing that beats the hands on
physical exam and the relationship that you have with your

(20:19):
veterinary and your veterinary staff that allows you to really
trust them and they know you, they know your pet.
It's a great relationship.

Speaker 1 (20:26):
It is a great relationship and great opportunity as well,
as we talked about starting relationships. Great opportunity at checkout vet.
They are accepting new patients right now. They are open
seven days a week. Yes, they are available to you
and your pet on weekends. Also, of course, got check
in vet and checkout vet. You can learn more about
checkout vet and check invet right online at checkout vet
dot com. That's checkout vet dot com. Of course, that

(20:48):
first visit, that exam. It is free to you and
your pet. There telephone number six oh eight three one
eight sixty seven hundred. That's six h eight three one
eight sixty seven hundred, Doctor Greer. It's always great seeing it.
You have a fantastic day.

Speaker 3 (20:59):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (20:59):
Vicky McCay has your chance to win one thousand dollars
next right here on thirteen ten, wuib