Pet Separation Anxiety with CheckOut Vet

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Eight forty three thirteen ten WIBA and ask the experts
with check Out Veterinary. Join this morning by doctor Marty Greer.
Of course, doctor Greer is recognized as Veterinarian of the
Year from the Westminster Kennel Club. You can learn more
about doctor Greer, all the doctors at the fantastic Checkout
Veterinary Clinic, as well as learn about what makes the
clinic so special and so unique online. Checkout vet dot com.

(00:24):
That's checkout vet dot com. Open Monday through Wednesday and
Friday through Sunday nine am until five pm. Yes, that
includes weekends. If you're wondering, well, what about Thursdays? What
about today? Well, check in Vet, the sister clinic of
Checkout Veterinary, open Monday through Friday, so they've got you
covered and your pet covered at checkout Vet seven days
a week. Again, you can learn more online. Checkout vet

(00:44):
dot com. That's checkout vet dot com. Great data, Start
a relationship, Start that conversation, big phone. Gim McCall six
oh eight three one eight sixty seven hundred. That's six
oh eight three one eight sixty seven hundred. Don't forget
as well, that first visit that exam that is free
for your pet at Checkout Veterinary. Really nice way to
get to know the doctors and the team. And a

(01:04):
little bit more about Checkout Vet with that great great
free first visit. Of course, testing and other things there
are fees. Another cool thing about checkout Vet is it's
all transparency. You can see the pricing right online. And
joining us this morning with Checkout Veterinary is doctor Marty Greer.
Doctor Greer, how you doing today.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
I'm doing great.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
Thank you, It's good to talk with you. And technology
is absolutely amazing stuff. And I know we've talked on
previous shows about about some really really cool things in
the world of vet care and pet care and some
of the stuff that's on the horizon as well, really
really cool stuff, and folks can listen back to those
podcasts at w i BA dot com and doctor One

(01:46):
of the things so I did want to talk about
is one of the things that technology has allowed us
to do, which has become more mobile, which means sometimes
we may be spending a little more time away from
our pets where it used to be you know, a
couple hours here, a couple hours. Sometimes we may be
maybe traveling for eight hours, six hours, those type of
things away from the pet, and pets deal with anxiety.

(02:09):
They love most of them, love having us around and
love seeing our face and do we see I mean
with overall kind of just overall separation anxiety. It is
a legitimate thing for pets, isn't a doctor?

Speaker 2 (02:23):
Oh yeah, for sure, more for dogs than cats. Cats
tend to do a little bit better when they're alone,
but dogs are very dependent on us, not just to
go out in and out the door, but for our
social interactions. So they become very dependent and really can
get very stressed out by being left alone, especially if

(02:45):
they're off the schedule. They kind of get used to
a certain schedule, and if you usually are gone Monday
through Friday, but then your schedule is different on weekends,
that can really upset them. So there's a lot of
things we can do to help reduce those bits of
anxiety and to help monitor sure what's going on with that?

Speaker 1 (03:02):
Then is is is with those anxiety and that kind
of that that's distressed from separation. What are some of
the like I feel like some pets it's it's very
obvious that they're dealing with it. Some not so obvious
are there things pet owners caretakers we should be looking
for that say, you know what my pet is. My
pet is getting anxious or having issues when I'm away.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
Right, So some of the things that people don't always
associate with separation anxieties. They say, well, she doesn't eat
when I'm gone, or she doesn't drink when I'm gone,
So I think she knows she can't get outside and
so therefore she won't drink. Well, I don't think there's
really a correlation with that, So I think we need
to be aware that that isn't really the situation. That
they are oftentimes so anxious about being alone that they're

(03:48):
stressed to the point of not eating or drinking. So
I think it's really important that we identify that and
that we can help them with those those things. So
there's there's things you can do for getting I'm used
to a routine so that they know when you pick
up your keys or put on that special pair of
shoes that you wear when you leave the house, that
they start to identify that that's what's going to happen.

(04:09):
But we can give them some training. There's a lot
of things that we can do training wise to reduce
that sometimes we go to the point of having to
use medications for their stress levels, and there's nothing wrong
with that. If it takes it's a learning curve for
them to associate being alone with more comfortable by using medication.

(04:31):
There's really no reason not to do that. There's some
very good ones on the market that your veterinary can
help you with, So we have those things that we
can do. One of the technologies that's kind of cool
is that we have all these cameras now, so we
can watch from our personal cameras in our homes, or
we can set up a Ferbough camera which is meant
for pets, or other devices. There are wearables now that

(04:52):
our pets can wear so we can see what their
activity levels are. So I think by intervening with technology,
we can better assess what's happening when we're not out
there and therefore speak to your veterinarian or your behavior,
your behavior as there trainers that can help you with
behaviors that can really help that.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
It's ach you mentioned using technology of this this little
robot at home. Amazon makes it called Astro and you
can set like points around the house, like you know,
check your front door to see if it's locked, or
you know, go around the house and things. One of
my settings is Homer spot on the couch is you know,
I just want to see what he's up to during
the day. But having that, you know, having that, you know,

(05:32):
a way to kind of monitor and just kind of
check in on them if nothing else gives gives pet
owners a peace of mind. What about tools to keep
your pet occupied while you're away. I know you've talked
about some really neat techniques for maybe pets that overeat
or other things, but are there some similar type activities
you can do to keep pets kind of occupied and

(05:53):
their brain off of missing you while you're gone.

Speaker 2 (05:56):
Sure. So a lot of people use the stuffed toys.
They started off being made only by the company Kong.
It was basically a hollow rubber snowman shaped toy, and
because it was hollow, you could stuff it with peanut
butter or scrambled eggs or cheese or whatever you could
put in it, and then something to block the easy
exit for that food, so that instead of chewing on

(06:18):
the tree and having all the good he's gone in
thirty seconds as soon as you walk out the door.
They would have something to keep them busy for a
longer period of time, and the smarter the pet got
about getting things dislodged from it, the more creative you
would become putting things in the freezer so that it
was harder to get the peanut butter out and had
to soften before they could lick it. There's a lot
of techniques like that that you can use. And now

(06:40):
there are many companies that make these hollow stuffed toys.
There's one made by wolf wof that basically you freeze
a little cube and it goes into this device that
they spend a lot of time licking to melt it,
and as they're licking it at melts and it keeps
them busy for a longer period of time. So those
are kind of cool. The easiest thing to do is
just go to the dollar store and buy two muffin tins,

(07:01):
the metal ones, not the silicon ones, and mix your
pets food with chicken broth, beef broth, yogurt, something measure
the same amount of food, because we don't want to
get more food than they're accustomed to getting and put
weight on them. But you can put those in the
freezer with the yogurt and then pop it out and
when you leave the house or go to work or

(07:21):
go to do your zoom meeting or whatever it happens
to be, that you're not going to be supervising the pet.
You can give that to them as their breakfast or
their dinner and they're going to spend instead of thirty
seconds slurping down their food. I mean, let's face it,
labradors are pretty efficient at eating fast. Then it takes
them a longer period of time, and then it keeps
them busy, occupied, something to do, something to look forward to.

(07:43):
My favorite trick is and there's nothing wrong with using
a crate if your dog is going to have the
tendency to be destructive to themselves or destructive to your
home while you're not there. Crates are an absolutely acceptable
device to use if it's used correctly to keep the
pets safe and to keep your house safe. So you
can pop those into the crate half an hour before
you leave in the morning, and then lock the crate

(08:04):
so that the dog can't get into it, and so
they're sitting outside the crate looking at the goodies that
you put in there, expecting that if you could hurry
up and leave the house. I could get in there
and I could get started on my breakfast. So you
can kind of flip this in their head and make
it a little bit more of something that they look
forward to rather than something that they dread when you leave.

(08:25):
And then of course the other things are things like
when you come back into the house or when you
leave at the time that you're going to leave. Don't
make it a big production. Pat them on the head,
pop them in the crate, tell them we'll see you.
If you go kind of gaga over them, you're going
to just elevate their stress levels and elevate their emotional state.
And it's not good for them socially and psychologically to

(08:48):
have that happen to be very matter of fact. When
you walk in the door, get them outside to go potty,
but don't gaga over them. And I don't want to
overstep here, but oftentimes first pet owners are a little
bit more likely to have those reactions because they don't
understand that that's going to create that issue. And there's
certain types of dogs, breeds of dogs, histories of dogs

(09:09):
that can make them at greater risk. For instance, the
rescue dogs we do tend to see more separation anxiety
because they started off life in a pretty difficult place.
You came into their life, they came into your life.
You're the best thing that's ever happened to them. They've
had a hard life, and therefore they become even more
socially attached to you than a normal dog that came through,

(09:30):
for instance, breeder channels or purpose bread dog channels. So
it's a little bit different when you're dealing with some
of these dogs that come with emotional baggage to recognize
that you can help them not to be so anxious,
and that you can use meds if you need the
Please don't use over the counter stuff. It doesn't tend

(09:50):
to work very well. We don't really know what's in
some of those products. But your veterinary can prescribe one
of several medications that we have. We have short term
medications and long term medical cations that can really help
with their anxiety. So we can use fluoxetine, we can
use olproslam, we can use gabapentin and trasidone. There's a
lot of good drugs on the market, and I know

(10:10):
there are people who are like, well, I don't want
to drug about something natural, Well, natural doesn't mean safer.
Natural just means we don't really have the science behind it.
So please use an FDA approved drug that your veterinarian
prescribes and help your pet get through this period of
learning faster so that you have a more enjoyable experience
when you leave the house and when you come home.

Speaker 1 (10:30):
And so do they talk this morning with doctor Marty
Greer of Checkout Veterinaria. You can learn more online the
website check out vet dot com. That's checkout vet dot com.
Not only is the convenient, the clinic convenient, an amazing
setup at Checkout Veterinary. To get to check out Vet,
it's very convenient as well. They are right off the
highway near the Interstate in sun Prairie, right on Prairie

(10:52):
Lakes Drive. Again. You can learn more online the website
checkout vets dot com. That's checkout vet dot com. Speaking
of you know, people talking about well, you know, maybe
techniques or things to kind of help with the pet.
What about regular exercise and making sure or just getting
them you know, if you're going to be going to
be heading into the office, making sure that you take

(11:12):
your dog for a good walk and kind of tucker
them out a bit, maybe play some catch out back
for a while, get them tired before you leave. Does
that help?

Speaker 2 (11:21):
Absolutely? They look forward to those things, and if they're
a little bit tired, more tired. It's like us on
the morning after a Super Bowl game. You know, you're
not quite as energetic as you were before because you
may have stayed up a little too late or had
a little bit too much fun. So, yes, if you
can exercise them, it's good for them, it's good for
you too. I mean. One of the reasons that we

(11:42):
own pets is so that we can get out there
and move a little bit. And when the pet is
the dog in particular, because cats don't usually go for walks.
When the dog is staring at you like where's my
leash and let's go, it's pretty motivating for us to
get the exercise and for us to get them out there.
And you know, you can sit on the top of
your flight of stairs and roll a ball down it.
If the weather isn't good and you can't get them outside,

(12:04):
you can still exercise them in the house. They can
run up and down the stairs picking up the ball.
You sit at the top of the stairs, you drop
the ball, it rolls down the stairs, they run down,
they run back up. They get a lot of exercise
doing that. And so if they're young and vibrant enough
that they can make those stairs happen multiple times, it's great.
You can teach them frisbee, you can teach them ball.
You know, there's ball launchers. Now. If your arm isn't

(12:25):
good enough to throw it as far as your dog
wants to run, you can get ball launchers. There's a
lot of cool things that are on the market that
we are really going to benefit from. So do a
little googling, you know, see what's out there for exercising
your dog and get those things built into them into
their lifestyle. If they have physical problems, you may want

(12:46):
to look into a place that you can take them
swimming a couple times a week. There are therapy pools,
underwater treadmills, and swimming pools that are specifically made for pets.
So if they have orthopedic needs, or they're older, or
they oh exercise well, you know, there are lots of
options for things that we can do from people even
use s treadmills. They make a dog jog treadmill for

(13:08):
dogs too.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
I do they have video of that. I'd love to see.
It's got to be very very cool all that. Yeah,
that is fantastic talking this morning with doctor Marty Greer.
Of course, Doctor Greer comes to us from check Out Veterinary.
The website check out vet dot com. That's check out
vet dot com. Great day to start that relationship. Pick
up phone, Gamma call six oh eight three one eight
sixty seven hundred. That's six oh eight three one eight

(13:32):
sixty seven hundred. The website. It does a great job
of showing you how check Out Veterinary works, what makes
the clinics so unique, and those drive up bays and
drive right in and pet gets examined. Everybody's comfortable, everybody's happy.
It's also a great day if you've if you've wanted
to see the clinic first hand, stop on end. They'd
love to see you. They're right at twenty seven to
ten Prairie Lakes Drive. They'd love to see your pet

(13:52):
as well. Again, that's twenty seven to ten Prairie Lakes
Drive in Sun Prairie. Doctor Greer, you mentioned crate and
create usage for for when you're at work. Of course,
we're talking this week about separation anxiety for your pets.
I know, like we have a chihuahua. Previously I had
an English setter and very high energy and from a

(14:13):
puppy on, we used a crate for when we would leave.
And one of the things I remember being told might
have been by our vet at the time, saying things like,
make sure you don't use this as like a never
enforce that. It's a punishment that like if they're doing
something wrong to put them in there, always reinforced. And
I don't know if that was great, it's certainly worked.
What is some of the advice then for using a

(14:33):
crate for keeping your pets safe?

Speaker 2 (14:37):
Well, you don't want to keep them in there for
more hours than would be appropriated, especially for young dogs,
maybe two to four hours is the best that you
can expect from them to stay in a crate. There
is a site care dot Com that a lot of
people used a whole sit for the human side if
you're looking for somebody to help with babysitting or senior
care or whatever, but there's also a pet side. So

(14:58):
you go to care dot com. You can look up
the information that you're looking for for pet sitting, and
you can find people that can come in and walk
your dog in the middle of the day if you
get hung up at work or if you know you
have a long work day. Sometimes you'll have next door
neighbors that are older and they would love to have
a pet, but don't want the long term responsibility. So
they would love their home during the day. They would

(15:18):
love to have something to do in the middle of
the day, so they could come over, let your dog out,
go for a little walk around the neighborhood. High school
kids or junior high kids after school might come home
and be home before you would be home from work.
So again, you know, look around your neighborhood, look around
care dot com, look at some of the sources of
places that you can find somebody to help you with

(15:39):
that pet care. Because you know kids, sometimes the parents
are like, no, we're not going to own a dog.
But if you have a neighbor kid that they can't
own one, but they love the dogs, what a great
opportunity for you to develop an alliance with them or
a senior to get the exercise for your pet, and
to get your pet out and about and meet some
new people and have some social experiences. It's really important

(16:02):
when they're young that we socialize them well, that they
get out get to see a lot of things they
have Typically, we'd like to have a hundred experiences in
one hundred days, so that means all kinds of new opportunities.
I love fresh fruits and vegetables for our pets to
keep them occupied during the day as well. So other
than grapes, raisins, and macadamia nuts, your pet can eat
almost any kind of snack that you would want your

(16:24):
kids to eat, so apples, peaches of course without the pit, broccoli, lettuce, carrots,
bell peppers. There's lots of really fun things that you
can do to give them a food treat and to
get something kind of switched up for them. So every
day is a little bit something for them to look
forward to and said, oh it's another bull dog food.

(16:46):
They have something kind of fun to look forward to, like, okay,
what's today, Like today's peanut butter, and tomorrow is bell
peppers and you know, Friddys cauliflower. You can really be
pretty creative in how you can keep your pets mind
and send is occupied.

Speaker 1 (17:01):
I think we've got a future topic and a future
show there. One hundred days hundred thinks experiences. We'll talk
with the doctor about that and so much more. Doctor Greer,
so great chatting with you this morning. You have a
fantastic day and enjoy your enjoy your time. Thank you,
and again the website check out vet dot com. That's
checkout vet dot com. Vicky mckinna comes to you way
next year on thirteen ten WYBA