Radio 2SM Breakfast Segment #22 with Kaye Browne

*** RADIO 2SM PET SEGMENT #22 WITH KAYE BROWNE ***
This week:
Some medications for our pets can be very helpful, but how long should we keep them on them and is it safe to stop their meds?

And Spiders!... Is there an easy and safe way to keep them out of the house?
Also this week...

Cats might seem to be able to look after themselves, but sometimes 'stuff happens'...
How can we make sure they stay safe, especially during winter?

PLUS:
Irresistible training treats – what really works for dogs, cats even birds!

00'00" - Welcome Tim Webster and Kaye Browne
00'09" - Pet Medications... Should We or Not?!
03'52" - How Can We Safely Keep Spiders Out Of The House?
06'39" - Cat-astrophic Dangers For Cats! Tips To Keep Them Safe
08'38" - Bones... Should We Give Them To Our Dogs?

FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Seg-22-Edit.mp3 Transcript TIM: Ok let's talk pets. Everybody loves talking about their pets, don't they? And here's Kaye Browne. Hello, Kaye.

KAYE: Hello Tim how are you?

TIM:  I'm good. You know, it was bring your pet to work day or maybe just Jesse decided it was. She brought. She brought moon the Rottweiler in just the sweetest dog in the world. So we we love talking about our pets, don't we? Because we love them to death, don't we? Yeah.

KAYE: We do indeed. And we've talked about Moon in the past because Moon had a rough start too, with wanting to escape. So yeah, Jesse has definitely talked about Moon and gotten help for Moon. So how's your dog doing?

TIM: Yeah well, I'm just gonna add to that with our rescue, Ellie, because she was very anxious when we first got her. She's a rescue. And ohh look, I won't go into her circumstances at such a long story, but she was very anxious when she came home, but over a couple of weeks she has calmed down quite a lot. But if I could jump to that story about whether or not to medicate them, and there's a bit of controversy about that and where the reason they might be anxious in the 1st. But she was on medication Ellie, when we first got her, and then we decided we'd gradually wean her off. Now we've done the right thing or not?

KAYE: Weaning her off any medication slowly is definitely the right thing. Was it Fluoxetine commonly known as Prozac? or, you know, another common name.

TIM:  Yeah, yeah. OK, so do we get a bit selective with the use of the drugs or can they be I mean ongoing, if you continue to have the problem with your pet?

KAYE: Yeah, look, it's unfortunate that in some ways our dealings with pets mirror what's happening in the human world and medication use is up in both humans and in dogs. In fact, it's definitely one of the third most highest selling prescription medications, but with good reason, because without it, our pets can be so anxious that it actually shortens their life, they get so worried about everything about their owners going away about other animals, their quality of life is hampered, so if your little Ellie is doing well around you and you're obviously very calm and gentle with her and it's just building that trust bit by bit, seeing how you go and if need be, you can go back on it, but you know, if she's doing well, eating well exercising and appears to be sleeping well, I think you're doing the right things.

TIM: Ohh, she's doing all of those things, I mean because she loves her ball and you can just see almost the look on her face to say, well, this is a different environment, but these people are  pretty cool and we've gradually taken off and yes, she yeah, she's doing all those things he eats well, loves her exercise, and then he's quite happy now to settle and relax when she first arrived, not so much, so yeah, work in progress, work in progress. And look, we should say too and it's, you know, it's a horrible thing to say a lot of pets are surrendered, dogs in particular surrendered and euthanized, because they are ultimately untrainable, or people think they are aggressive or that.

KAYE: Yeah, absolutely. Professor Paul McGreevy, who you might have heard of. He's the head behaviourist at the University of Sydney vet school, and he's done a lot of work on behaviour, and I've been lucky enough to talk to him many times. And he says a lot of the time it's the owner that needs fixing. So if you are going to have a pet on medication, the other thing you need to do is actually get some advice from a fear free trainer or a professional dog trainer so that you can actually do that at the same time as the medication, otherwise it's no point just giving a pill and you know if they've got separation anxiety, just leaving them home alone, so it's about changing the environment, changing the behaviour and that way we'll have less dogs being surrendered, and more happy, healthy, long-lived dogs.

TIM: Yeah, and t