December 4, 2024 • 37 mins
On this week's episode of In The Vet's Office, Dr. Josie sits down with fellow veterinarian, Dr. Amy Attas. They discuss Dr. Amy's book, 'Pets and The City,' which details her career as a house call veterinarian in New York City. From taking care of the pet's of the super famous such as Billy Joel, Cher, and Joan Rivers to treating the pets of a hoarder and a cat belonging to an entire HOA, Dr. Amy has seen it all. Dr. Josie and Dr. Amy dive into the resilience of pets with "disabilities", things to consider before getting a pet, and the unbreakable nature of the human animal bond.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
You're listening to in the Vets Office with doctor Josie Horschak.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
All right, today we have doctor Amy Addis in the
Vets office. She is the og house call veterinarian from
New York City and she recently released the book Pets
in the City. This book details her thirty four year
career from its inception throughout all the peaks and valleys
that followed. We hear about your journey to becoming a veterinarian.
How you met your husband, Steve. I love that story,
(00:37):
by the way, how you built your own house call practice,
and the many behind the scenes tales of working with
some pretty high profile clients in their homes. From an
anal Gland expression, hitting one of your owners in its
own two pe to sprinting down Second Avenue with a
cat Carrie in hand. The storytelling in this book is amazing.
I loved it. So welcome, doctor Amy.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Thank you. I'm so happy to be here with you.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
We are really and by me and Sia. Sia is
here with me today. We are so excited to have you.
I really want to dive into the book, but before
we do, we always start with a case of the week,
and I was thinking, since you were here, I would
let you take over and share one of my favorite
cases from the book this week.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
I love the way you frame that, because one of
my favorite cases was on a Saturday night when I
was at home getting dressed to go to the opera
with my husband, and the house phone rang and I
picked it up, and I couldn't quite hear what the
person was saying. There was so much static on the line,
and she kept calling back and calling back until finally
(01:40):
we had a clear line. And what I heard on
the other end was Amy, this is Share. I'm landing
at midnight. Can you see my dog? And I'm like share?
And my husband said, who's on the phone chair? And
I'm like no.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Share.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
So she had been filming a movie in Italy called
Tea with Mussolini, and there was a little stray dog
on the set and she decided to take him home.
Sounds familiar.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
That sounds very familiar.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
He had a terrible ration itch. So from the plane
she decided that she wanted a house call when she
landed at midnight. And even though I was going out
that night, the opera was over at a quarter of twelve,
it was perfect. I would go out with my husband
and then I would go meet Art and take care
of her puppy.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
That works out nicely, so it.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Worked out nicely. I examined the dog. Unfortunately, she wasn't there.
It was her staff that was there. I examined the
dog and I diagnosed the dog with a condition called
sarcoptic mange. Major little bugs that live in the skin.
They cause enormous itching and they're contagious to people, one
of the few things that are contagious to people. And
(02:43):
I gave strict instructions that he shouldn't be held, and
if he was sleeping someplace, we should clean the sheets,
et cetera. And he needed a follow up injection in
two weeks. The injection that I gave is a drug
called ivermectin, and it stings like the dickens, and I
warned everyone that was there, this is going to really burn,
he might cry whatever, and he was just as calm
(03:05):
as can be. What was his name, His name was Pepo.
People people there the p so two weeks later it
was time for his follow up injection. She was now
staying in a hotel, so I went to make a
hotel visit and I do that often for people who
are traveling through New York and they need travel papers whatever,
and also really fun for a lot of celebrities. And
(03:27):
again I thought, this is my chance to meet Cher.
And I get to the hotel and she's not there.
So it's like the most beautiful hotel suite I've ever seen.
They bring people in to see me. People looks much
much better. But I'm a little alarmed because they're holding
him in their arms and they're not wearing any protective clothing.
But he did look a lot better. So when I
(03:49):
went to give him his second injection, I expected him
to behave like he did for the first injection, but
this time he screamed like I was murdering him, and
the door flew open, and Income Share yelling what did
you do to my dog? And Share had her hair
and rollers white face cream on and she was wearing
(04:11):
a bathroom Did you almost die? I almost thought, so.
I explained what was wrong with her dog, and that
it was giving the second injection, and you know, at
this point, you shouldn't be contagious any longer, and she
said contagious. Nobody told me contagious, and then she lipped
open her bathroom and she was there in her total
body nakedness to ask me if the rash that she
(04:35):
had on her belly was the same thing that the
dog had, and then she thought about it for a
second and she said, no, I think I had this
before I got the dog closed up and left. So
that was my meat and great from Share.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
You got a full frontal nude show.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
I got there full share show.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
I love that in the book you said your veterinary
nurse on the way out was like, damn, I really
got to get back to Pilate's.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
She's in good shame.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
She looks amazing for her age. That is hilarious. So
I'm assuming people did great. Sharon did not have.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Maids exactly and exactly tell but just to let you
know that when you do house calls, I do experience
things that are different from what you do in a
animal hospital. That is not the only time that I
saw a client in their full nakedness. I mean there
are times when we were in the doorbell and a
client answers the door with insufficient clothing on, and we'll say, like,
(05:30):
you know what, we have time, please go put something
on and we'll wait out here.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
We don't need to see that we don't. That is
so funny. Yeah, I can't. I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
I mean I got a little glimpse from the book,
but I can't imagine the things that you've seen.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
So I come home every day from work and say
to my husband, you will not believe what happened today.
And that, of course was the genesis of the book,
because I went in the other room and thought, I'll
remember this forever, and then I think, let me just
write a little something down so truly I remember the
stories forever. Need a one word clue, and that's what
I did, and eventually I realized I have a lot
(06:06):
of great material here.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Yeah, and here it is.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
One of the things I loved that you talked about
in your book was your journey to veterinary school. That
really resonated with me. And one of the quotes that
you said was I needed a stellar GPA, stratospheric test scores,
unreserved recommendations, and wide ranging extra curricular experience. And what
I found in my journey to BET school is the
extra curricular experience. They really put a huge emphasis on that,
(06:32):
I think more so than human doctors, because we get
small and will experience most people pre vet, but then
you have to go out and work at a zoo
or large animal I mean you're doing things that you
would never even be dreaming about just in order to
even get considered at a bet school.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
So one of the things that a lot of people
don't realize is how competitive it is to get into
veterinary school. And I think most students in veterinary school
really have an idea of what it's going to be
like to be in this field. Others go on for
secondary education professional school, but they don't know what it's
like to be a lawyer, they don't know what it's
like to be a doctor. We actually have to get
(07:10):
practical experience beforehand. I think a lot of that is
to weed out people who might think being a veterinarian
is all about playing with puppies and kittens. It's my
favorite part of the job, but it's a small part
of the job. I mean a lot of that is
dealing with, you know, medical problems, and dealing with the
emotions and sort of helping families deal with how to
(07:32):
care for their pets who were really sick. And you
should know that before you devote that all those years
and all that money into becoming a veterinarian.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
One of the stories you told was about working on
a dairy farm and doing manual labor, and I had
a very similar experience where I worked at a zoo
and the zookeepers are like, well, we don't know what
to do with this girl, so I shoveled bison poop
for a whole summer.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
I've had a similar experience.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
I never had bigger biceps in my whole life. Came
home for a weekend and my mom was like, oh
my god, and I was like, yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Well, as I say in the book, I had to
cut the seams of my shirt sleeved shirts because my
arms had gotten so big. But there's another possibility. I
was working upstate New York on a very very large
dairy farm, and about two miles from the farm there
was an ice cream parlor where they made fresh ice cream,
so there was a daily hot fodge Sunday that might
(08:26):
have had something gg you know, the change in my
size keeping up.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
You were working hard and I trained you well.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
I mean I used to eat a dan and yogurt
for breakfast back then I started eating three peanut butter
and jelly sandwiches. I could not keep up with how
much energy I needed to work on a floor.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
I remember being starving.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Great deal of respect for people who farm.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
People do always ask like, why didn't you go into
farm animal medicine or horses, And I'm like, I don't
think people realize the the labor involved in it and
what a taxing job it is, and so I respect
them so much.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
So from what I know about you from listening to
your show, I feel like you had the same thing
that I had, which was a calling that we had
to do this, and for me it was clear. I
love all animals, but my calling was to be a
veterinarian for dogs and cats likewise.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
And I think a really special part about that, and
what you talked about in your book and especially making
house calls, is that in caring for these pets by extension,
we also care for their owners, and I think that
we really get to know them very well, and that
as one of my favorite parts of my job.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
It sounds like it's one of yours as well.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
It is, you know, one of the things that I
wish I had even more training in, because most of
my training has been from my years of doing it.
Was like a little bit more about human psychology, because
I really we deal with people in some of the
most difficult times of their lives, and you know, of
course we have empathy for them because we've all been there.
(09:58):
Having an aging pet or having a really sick pet.
We're having to say goodbye to a pet is truly
one of the most traumatic days of someone's life, maybe
the most. And yeah, and people say that, I hate
to I don't like the way this comes out, but
people will say to me, I didn't cry this much
when my parent died.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Yes, I hear that all the time, and.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
I feel like, you know, obviously we all love our parents,
but we don't get into bed every night with our parents,
and we often get into bed with our pets, and
when they're not there, that loss is really really palpable.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Yeah, I totally agree with that.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
And I just to touch on what you said, I
think part time, we are part time therapists and part
time veterinarians. And it's funny because you hear all of
us say we went to med school because we love
animals and working with animals, but the reality is that
the majority of our days are spent working with people
and Luckily we enjoy doing that, so.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
You're one hundred percent right. And when I counsel people
who want to become veterinarians, and by the way, like
Orders of Magnets, more since the book has come out,
where younger people are calling me and saying, I read
your book, I really want to be a veterinarian. But
if the point is I only want to I want
to be a vet because I only want to work
with animals, this isn't the right job for you, you know,
(11:14):
because they don't come in by themselves. They come in
with people, and your communication is with the people.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
And it's been so nice for me, Like I don't
think I was expecting this, but a lot of my
lifelong friends now have are my clients that I've met
through taking care of their animals. So it's been such
a pleasant surprise for me for.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Me too, But you have to be careful. They don't
get discounts just because they've become.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
You're right, you hear that, friends. I guess one of
the questions I had for you is in working with
it sounds like a lot of people you got close
to you were pretty high profile. And what I have
(11:58):
noticed on this podcast especially as we'll have stars, country
music stars or like Bobby Bones come on and you
talk to them about their career and their goals, and
they're kind of one person, and then when you talk
to them about their animals, you can just see like
a completely different side of them. I think just from
watching her on TV that Joan Rivers is pretty intimidating.
(12:19):
I'm assuming that you probably saw a lot more of
a softer side to her with her animals.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
I saw all sides of Joan Rivers. She was an
enormous personality. She was driven in a way that very
few people are. When I would go into her home
to work with the dogs, there would be posted on
the refrigerator her daily schedule, and it said things like
up at five, exercise, makeup, leave for studio, and then
(12:46):
her entire day was calculated down to the moment and
it ended at midnight. I mean, she was very regiment,
old enough to be more than my mother, and she
had a schedule that would have run me into the ground.
So she was an enormously busy person and she was
extremely demanding, and her dogs were so important to her.
(13:09):
So I was used to getting yelled at on occasion
or emails that I wish she had never sent to me.
But when she was finished with that, she turned out
to be, of course a very dear friend. So we
would go through the cycles of Joan's love and her wrath.
She was an enormous supporter of mine when I started
(13:29):
my house call practice, she told everyone she knew. The
relationship over those years turned into a lovely, lovely friendship
where we went out to dinner together. I mean she
called one day. We had homes close to each other,
about one hundred miles north of New York City, and
she called and said, take me to the movies on
Saturday night.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
So it was like she didn't ask.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Of course, she didn't.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Ask a question.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
She would have the most beautiful dinner parties where the
group of people around the table were just from all
different types of parts of her life, and every person
felt like they were the guest of honor. She was
an enormously gracious, warm, loving person with a little bit
(14:16):
of a biting part of her person.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
You don't want to be on her bad side. Oh no,
I love the story about her Yorky. I think it
was a Yorky that you had encouraged her to get
a surgery that she did not really want to do,
and then she ended up doing it and was like,
I was right to do it.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Well, she was never wrong, of course, but you know,
like even with her first Yorkee Spike, Spike went to
work with her wherever she was. He traveled around, he
was part of the show, and I recommended that because
he wasn't feeling well, that maybe she would leave him
out of the show that week and he should stay home.
And like all of a sudden, you know, she had
just looked at me and she said, don't tell me
(14:54):
what to do, just make my dog well enough to go,
Like you didn't, I was mess with them exactly.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Yeah, it's funny we do, even if they're not famous.
You have everybody that's a ugineer and has owners that
can be a little bit more demanding, and I think
our job is to kind of look past that and see, like, Okay,
where's this coming from. They just really, at the core
of it, love their pet and want their pet to
be okay.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
I had a client who moved to New York after
he retired. He had been a movie producer, so he
moved from California to New York and he lived in
his apartment with his two cats, and he paged me
on a Saturday night for an emergency, and I called
him back immediately. I said, what's the problem. He said,
my cat just scratched me with his nails. His nails
(15:39):
are too long. Come and cut them. I said, it's
ten o'clock and a Saturday night, don't. I don't make
house calls. If you truly had an emergency, it would
help you. But I'm not coming to cut your cat's nails.
And he kind of hesitated and said, you know, in La,
nobody would ever say no to me. So he was
like being brought back into the real world.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
Yeah, you're like New York. No means no, and you're retired. Yeah,
exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Another thing that you talked about in the book that
I really loved and I have seen with my own
experience as a veterinarian, is that no, there is no
such thing as a disabled pet, and so we have
a lot of patients that require amputations, or they lose
an eye, or they go deaf, and so I really
loved how you put an emphasis on that. I think
(16:27):
I tell my owners all the time. We can learn
so much from our animals. I have had dogs going
through chemo that are bouncing around and rolling in the grass.
Dogs on three legs or cats on three legs that
would never know the difference. And if someone cut my
leg off, I probably would be in bed crying about
it for six months.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
You're the rest of my life. Who knows. But they
are just so resilient in that way.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
They're amazing. I learned that very much so from personal experience.
I found a dog one day tied to a tree.
I had a pug when I was a little girl,
so I'm drawn to pugs. I love them. And I
walked up to pet this pug tie to a tree,
and I saw a note that said I am blind,
Please take good care of me. So I untied him.
(17:09):
I was in veticol at the time I brought him
into the hospital. I had him checked out by the
clinicians and everybody said, he's a healthy little dog. He
probably came from a puppy mill. Puppy mill sounds too nice.
Let's just call it factory farming of dogs, right, or
they're just exploited and abused and they're not cared for.
And he probably developed his temper which ultimately left him blind.
(17:32):
So I didn't I couldn't have a dog. I was single,
I was in veticool. I just I couldn't have the responsibility.
So I looked at him and said, look, I'll get
you everything you need. I'll take you home tonight for
a home cooked meal, and tomorrow i'll work on finding
you a home. So I took him home with me.
He kind of bumped around my entire apartment. He went
to the front door, he lifted his leg and did
(17:52):
his business, as if to say, this is my territory,
I'm home. I'm staying here. At that point, I gave
him dinner and I locked him in the kitchen. I said, okay,
tomorrow morning, I'm finding you a new home. And I
woke up in the middle of the night and he
had gotten out of the kitchen. He came into the bedroom.
He had jumped on the bed and he was sleeping
on the pillow next to me, and he declared, this
is my home. And he and I were soulmates ever since.
(18:16):
But I learned a lot from Bumper. Sorry I named
him Bumper because yes, he bumped into everything.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
I love that name.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
But I realized like he was a little bit more
difficult than a regular dog. Like when we went out
on a leash, I was responsible for making sure that
he had a signal for where to go.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
You were in seeing.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
I was a seeing eye human. He knew up, down, left,
right over under. I mean we would go hiking together.
He came to work with me, and he knew when
we got to the curb to step down, and he
knew how many steps to go back up again. Maybe
I was giving him some cues, but I do believe
he memorized everything. And he was such an inspiration because,
(18:53):
like you said, if we went through something like this,
we would be like, oh, I feel so sorry for myself.
Bumper never felt sorry for himself a day in his life.
And I used him at work as a teaching tool
for people to see that you could have the most
wonderful dog. They're not perfect, but none of us are perfect,
and it doesn't matter if you can't see or you
(19:14):
can't hear, you can get along just fine on three legs.
There were all these things that would be considered disabilities,
and they deal with them fine. I learned so much
from Bumper. Years later, after he had passed, I got
a phone call from a pet store, and the manager
of the pet store knew that I loved pugs, and
(19:35):
he knew that I had had experience with a blind dogs.
And they had a blind pug puppy that the owner
of the store had ordered to be euthanized at the
end of the day. And he called me and said, Amy,
I knew you know what to do with this dog.
And of course I knew what to do with the dog.
I brought him home. I don't want people to think
(19:56):
there's an epidemic of blind pugs out there, but both
these dogs had the same problem. They were puppy mill dogs,
and they didn't get vaccinated and they developed a problem
that could have been prevented with just some vaccine.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
Terrible.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
We did a whole episode walking through vaccines with listeners,
just because listeners and owners come into vac clinics all
the time, and I don't think they understand the importance
or what exactly is distember what does that mean? And
so just like you said, it's a problem that could
be completely prevented with a vaccine, and unfortunately, puppy mills
(20:30):
or puppy factories like you called it are just they're
not doing their due diligence, and they're not taking the
appropriate care of these animals.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
And it's interesting because so many of the diseases that
we routinely vaccinate against, they're very diminished. Right now, we
don't see a lot of distemper but if people stop vaccinating,
we're going to see this devastating disease again. Same with parvo.
In New York City, we didn't have a problem with
leptosporosis for years, and now leptosprosis is a problem. It's
(21:00):
a disease that's transmitted through urine and often through the
urine of rats, and any big city that has a
rat population we're seeing more and more leftis bersis. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
We talked about that a lot in Season one as well,
and we have it here in Nashville, So I mean,
it's not just limited to cities. It is important and
can be, like you said, preventive with vaccines, so super important.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
One of the I wrote down this quote from your
book because I loved it so much. I think it
might have made me cheer up, But I'm like, why
am I so hormonal right now?
Speaker 3 (21:32):
But I just thought it was.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Really beautiful, and I think about the human animal bond
a lot.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
And I think this like.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Really puts it, really articulates it beautifully. So you said,
our relationship with a pet is like no other. By
bringing animals into our homes and making them part of
our families, sharing our lives with them, and caring for them,
we are at our most compassionate, empathetic, and selfless. I
believe that our love for animals defines our humanity. Simply,
our animals make us better people. I believe that I
(21:59):
do too. I believe that fully. I think the hardest
of heart softens around animals. They're just simply the best.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
So I lived on the corner of fifty seventh Street
for many years, and I would walk a bumper down
that street, and the doorman at the building next door
would come out every single day and he'd give me
a big smile and a creeting, and he'd bend down
and pet bumper. And this was our every day ritual.
Bumper passed away. I walk that street every day. He
(22:28):
never set foot out of the building. A few years later,
I got another dog, and I walked down the street
and he came running out and he said, where have
you been? I was invisible to him without my dog.
He like the whole connection to a human was through
a dog love.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
That It's funny. I don't know if you feel the
same way.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
But I'll see my patients out and about, and I
remember every patient.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
I know their name.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
I can place them if they have something wrong with them,
I know, And I can't ever remember the owner's name.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
One hundred percent the same.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
It's like you're Fluffy's mom.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
I don't remember the owner sadly, but the dogs and
cats I don't forget. All right, you were dogless at
the end of the book. Are you still dogless? Just
waiting for the next one to come?
Speaker 1 (23:11):
So I never wanted to be dogless. Like I went
to vet school. I know that there's a life cycle,
and I know that they're going to pass at a
certain age. And my Cleopatra was elderly, and when she
was about thirteen, I put the word out that I
wanted to rescue another dog. Every single pet I've ever
had has been a rescue, and I worked with the
(23:33):
local pug rescue group because I do have a thing
for pugs, and I love pugs. They're just ridiculous they are.
And I have when I was a little girl, so
in the best way, except if you were black, which
case you're just you have fur all over you. But
I'm willing to deal with that. And I rescued a dog.
(23:54):
She had been a dog on the show circuit at
one point. She had been abused. She had been returned
to the breeder, and the breeder heard that I needed
and she was willing to let the dog come to
my home. So she was much much younger. So I'm smart,
like eventually, when something happened to Cleo, then Meatball would
be she was a Meatball. She would be, you know,
(24:15):
still a dog in our home. And this is the
saddest thing because Cleo passed January one, and then three
months to the day, Meatball passed on April one. She
got a devastating disease. And I mean I was treating
her friends who were specialists, everybody had a hand in it,
(24:36):
and she just didn't respond. And we were and are devastated.
So you know, I know that I'm going to get
a phone call one day from a pug rescue group
and They're going to say, Amy, we have this dog.
It has such and such a problem. Can you fix it?
And I'll fix it and I'll keep it the way
that every one of them have come to me. But
(24:57):
we're just just really really sad right now, just going
through the healing process.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
My heart breaks for you.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Thank you, and you know again wishing that we had
more of training in human psychology. For some people, that
healing process means the next day bringing another pet into
your life, right and for some people it really is
a very very long process, so.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
Can take a lifetime. I feel like sometimes and we
all know.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
That the only thing that makes you feel better is
another pet exactly.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Just got to do it, got to rip the band
aid off. But it's true, every pet I've ever had
that pass, I've said, I don't know if I can
do this again.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
It's the worst heartbreak.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
And then and then here we are, I know, and
they just reopen your heart and remind you of why
you did it in.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
The first place.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
So I hope your next rescue pug comes to you sooner, Appreciator,
I'll keep my eyes in ears. Peel send you a
picture please do. By the way, we had Doug the
pug on Oh my.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Goodness, he is pretty cute.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
He is.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
I would love to share with you the story of Squeaker.
Squeaker was an unusual patient because he didn't belong to
any family. He actually was a building cat. So I
would go to this apartment house for a number of
different clients, and one day the superintendent of the building
asked me to come down to the basement to meet
the building cat.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
So this cat belongs to the whole. HOA.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
He did the whole and he, you know, he had
a job to do. It was to make sure that
no mice came into the building, and he did a
fantastic job of that. And one day I did my
physical exam, I had a baseline on him, and probably
a year or two later, they asked me to come
down and see him again, and he had lost a
tremendous amount of weight. And when I took his blood,
the results came back that the cat had something called hyperthyroidism,
(26:40):
too much thyroid hormone in the bloodstream, which beats up
your metabolic rate. So he was eating ravenously, but he
was burning the calories faster than he was eating them.
So he had to go on medication.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Which for all the listeners is a pretty common I
would say disease in our cats as they get a
little bit older. Exactly important to run routine blood work
because we can detect it and treat it and they
usually go on to lead nice, long, normal lives.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
And I agree with everything that doctor jay Z said,
And that's the importance of the annual physical examination. People
think it's for vaccines. We really want to touch your pets.
We really want to take blood from them. So many
diseases and pets are silent, we can find them earlier
from blood tests. So a really important point. Squeaker's disease
was no longer silent. He was already having the symptoms
(27:26):
of hyperthyroidism and his blood work indicated that. So I
started him on medication. But it's a medication that has
to be given twice a day. And as I said,
he was nobody's actual cat. So the superintendent of the
building wasn't there at the right hours every single day,
wasn't there on the weekends. So the people who lived
in the building volunteered to give him his medication and
(27:48):
it just wasn't working. They would go downstairs. He would
not imagine it was beautiful. This is a lot of
cooks in the kitchen and it's like this is a park.
Avenue building. It was so heartwarming that everybody cared so much.
It just wasn't working medically. He wasn't getting his regular medicine.
So explained that the next way that we treat this
disease is the way they treated in humans with a
single injection of radioactive eye do on. The problem is,
(28:11):
you can't come home, you can't come out of the
facility until you're no longer radioactive. And it has a
multi thousand dollars price tag on it, and the super said, oh,
I don't know. They're just never going to go for that.
It's so much money. And they had a board meeting
and they said, yes, we'll pay for it. So Squeaker
had his radioactive eye don He went on to do
(28:32):
great for years and years and years. And then I
went to examine Squeaker because he was limping and as
I was feeling his leg, I felt a very bad
bony lump and I was sure that Squeaker had bone cancer.
The X ray showed that he did have bone cancer.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
There's nothing worse as a veterinarian doing your examine. You
know you feel that leave him or your life, and
you know the pit in your stomach and you know.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
And you know, and I explained to him that what
we needed to do, and I know this sounds drastic,
but we needed to amputate the cat's leg because the
cat was in so much pain that immediately upon healing
from the amputation, the cat would have no more pain. Unfortunately,
cats have four legs and they do just fine on
(29:19):
three of them. And he just said, no, it's absolutely
not possible. They're never going to go for the surgery.
They won't want a three legged cat. He'll never be
a mouser for them. Again. They called another emergency board meeting.
The board came back and said, yes, do the amputation.
Squeaker did great after the amputation. And on the day
I went to the basement to remove the stitches from
(29:40):
his surgery, he was nowhere to be found, and he
came into the super's office while I was sitting there
with a mouse in his mouth. He was not slowed
down for a second. He had a job to do,
and he did it. He lived the rest of his
life as the building cat, and they took them up.
Wonderful care of him.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
That really restores my faith in humanity.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Great.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
I love that story. It is true, though I mean cats,
especially if there's many dogs. Most dogs do great on
three legs. But if I had to say cats versus dogs,
cats are do great on three legs. I mean they
get around beautifully. They're so nimble and agile.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
And they and even with our dogs, they really learned
to do it. Even as a veterinarian, I'll be watching
a dog walk on the street and my brain will
register something's not right, and then when I look closely,
I'm like, oh, it's a three legged dog. They really
they hide their disability from us so amazingly.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
They do. They really do. That is an amazing story.
Thank you for sharing.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Thank you for making me think of that as one
of my favorite stories.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
Well, I loved this book so much.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
I and obviously I'm a veterinarian, so it really resonates
with me. But I think any animal lover out there,
and whether you're an owner or not, if you just
are interested in animals, will love this book. The storytelling
is amazing and it was a really nice little peak
to what goes on in your daily life being a
house called veterinarian.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
So thank you for writing it.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
I really appreciate your comments.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
We end our episodes with Paw and Order.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
So for today's episode on Paw and Order, we are
going to take a few tips from doctor Amy's book
Pets in the City. Number one, I would not give
my pets any human foods or medications without checking with
my vets Doctor Amy, and I know I've talked about
this a lot on this podcast, but doctor Amy mentions
a couple instances where owners gave their pets tile and
(31:50):
all and grapes and all other sorts of things that
aren't good for animals that were humans, they're perfectly fine.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
So I always tell people that are not people and
cats are not little dogs, So don't share your dog's
medicine with your cats. Don't share your medicine with your dog.
And you know, if you're not sure, pick up the phone.
You should be able to feel comfortable enough with your
veterinarian that you can call and ask a.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Question yes, anytime. And that brings up a good point too.
If you have multiple dogs. That doesn't mean giving one
dog's medication to another dog is always the right thing
to do either, because doses can be very different.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Of course, yes, I agree, And by the way, there
are certain breeds that can't take certain medications. So just
be educated, make sure you do no harm.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
Yes, I agree with that, all right.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Number two, somewhat in the similar realm of advice is
we recommend not leaving out your prescription medications where your
pets can get a hold of them. There are dogs
out there that will counter surf and jump up and
grab anything that's on the counter, including your medication. Doctor
Amy had one instance in the book that I found
to be entertaining. I'm glad the dog's okay, though.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
So in this instance, the dog jumped on his father's
night table. Dad was in his eighties, so he took
a lot of medication, and the dog chewed up all
of the vials and a lot of the medication, and
we had to figure out what each one contained. One
was his heart medicine, one was his blood pressure medicine,
one was his arthritis medicine. And then he was a
little hesitating before he said what the last one was
(33:25):
that special medicine that he uses at night. The dog
ate all of his father's viacra, and ironically, viacra has
uses in veterinary medicine. We use it for certain types
of heart disease, but not all the pills at once,
so that poor guy had to spend some time in
the hospital being monitored and watching his blood pressure. And
we all laughed because he had been newter two weeks before,
(33:47):
so like it didn't have any positive effects.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
On as we say in Nashville, bless his heart exactly.
That did bring up a good point for me that
I don't think I've talked about on this podcast. Or
pet does eat something and you're not able to get
a hold of your veterinarian, and even if you are,
we recommend calling the Animal Poison Control phone number.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
It's very easy. You just google Animal Poison Control.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
The number pops right up, and if they have eaten
something like a medication or anything that may be toxic,
they are going to kind of walk you through exactly
what you need to do. And it's very helpful for
us as veterinarians too. We aren't always understanding the toxicology
behind every single ingredient.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Right and things you should know. You should know approximately
how much your dog weighs. When you call, like, they'll
ask you some questions about that. I always laugh when
animals eat medication. I think the number one thing that
people tell me is the hardest with their pets is
they can never get them to take a pill. And
how come, as soon as I drop one of my
pills on the floor, the dogs will like, oh, got it,
(34:48):
thank you. I think when we want to give them
a pillbish to throw it on the floor and see
if they'll go after exactly like.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
Don't touch this, haha, They'll go right for it.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
And by the way, not only don't leave your pills
out on the night table, but a lot of the
pills we give our pets are flavored to make it
easier to give them to them, and you don't want
to leave those on the counter where they'll go and
eat them all at one time.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Yes, I have had many a patient that love their
flavored remadill or their flavored heart guard, yeah, heart Guard,
and then they eat a whole pack of it, and
that is not great for them either. So that is
a great point. Our last and final point for and
order is I would not get a pet unless I
completely understood the level of commitment financially, time wise, all
(35:29):
the responsibility involved that it means to be a pet owner.
Doctor Amy wrote in the book, if someone accumulates animals
to fill their home and heart. That person has a
moral obligation and unbreakable contract to care for those innocent
creatures for their entire lives. And I think that's so
well put.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
They're for babies, you know, once you choose to open
up your home, that is your responsibility to care for
them forever.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
I think people see like, oh, this dog's so cute,
or this puppy is so cute, and you don't realize
that puppy is going to grow into an adult, maybe
a very rambunctious one, maybe not, but they're going to
be around for ten, twelve, fourteen, hopefully fifteen sixteen years,
and your life is going to change and evolve, and
you just need to remember that.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
It's a it's a big commitment.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
So when I told you this story of Bumper, one
of the reasons I didn't say I'll take you immediately
was I was scared of that commitment. I remember, like
you know, waking up a week later, we're thinking what
have I done right? And I decided I was willing
to put all the time and effort into having him
in my life, and it was so worth it.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
It is the best commitment anyone can make. I agree,
well that concludes our paw and order for the week
and really our episode. Thank you so much for coming,
doctor Amy. I've loved chatting with you and if you
guys haven't read it yet, please get online. You can
get on Amazon. Pets in the City is out and
ready to be read.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
You are so welcome, and to all of our listeners.
As always, you can contact me on Instagram at doctor
jose Vetts. You can click the link in my bio
to record questions for the podcast, and as always, please rate, review,
and subscribe anywhere that you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
We'll see you next week.
You're listening to in the Vets Office with doctor Josie Horschak.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
All right, today we have doctor Amy Addis in the
Vets office. She is the og house call veterinarian from
New York City and she recently released the book Pets
in the City. This book details her thirty four year
career from its inception throughout all the peaks and valleys
that followed. We hear about your journey to becoming a veterinarian.
How you met your husband, Steve. I love that story,
(00:37):
by the way, how you built your own house call practice,
and the many behind the scenes tales of working with
some pretty high profile clients in their homes. From an
anal Gland expression, hitting one of your owners in its
own two pe to sprinting down Second Avenue with a
cat Carrie in hand. The storytelling in this book is amazing.
I loved it. So welcome, doctor Amy.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Thank you. I'm so happy to be here with you.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
We are really and by me and Sia. Sia is
here with me today. We are so excited to have you.
I really want to dive into the book, but before
we do, we always start with a case of the week,
and I was thinking, since you were here, I would
let you take over and share one of my favorite
cases from the book this week.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
I love the way you frame that, because one of
my favorite cases was on a Saturday night when I
was at home getting dressed to go to the opera
with my husband, and the house phone rang and I
picked it up, and I couldn't quite hear what the
person was saying. There was so much static on the line,
and she kept calling back and calling back until finally
(01:40):
we had a clear line. And what I heard on
the other end was Amy, this is Share. I'm landing
at midnight. Can you see my dog? And I'm like share?
And my husband said, who's on the phone chair? And
I'm like no.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Share.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
So she had been filming a movie in Italy called
Tea with Mussolini, and there was a little stray dog
on the set and she decided to take him home.
Sounds familiar.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
That sounds very familiar.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
He had a terrible ration itch. So from the plane
she decided that she wanted a house call when she
landed at midnight. And even though I was going out
that night, the opera was over at a quarter of twelve,
it was perfect. I would go out with my husband
and then I would go meet Art and take care
of her puppy.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
That works out nicely, so it.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Worked out nicely. I examined the dog. Unfortunately, she wasn't there.
It was her staff that was there. I examined the
dog and I diagnosed the dog with a condition called
sarcoptic mange. Major little bugs that live in the skin.
They cause enormous itching and they're contagious to people, one
of the few things that are contagious to people. And
(02:43):
I gave strict instructions that he shouldn't be held, and
if he was sleeping someplace, we should clean the sheets,
et cetera. And he needed a follow up injection in
two weeks. The injection that I gave is a drug
called ivermectin, and it stings like the dickens, and I
warned everyone that was there, this is going to really burn,
he might cry whatever, and he was just as calm
(03:05):
as can be. What was his name, His name was Pepo.
People people there the p so two weeks later it
was time for his follow up injection. She was now
staying in a hotel, so I went to make a
hotel visit and I do that often for people who
are traveling through New York and they need travel papers whatever,
and also really fun for a lot of celebrities. And
(03:27):
again I thought, this is my chance to meet Cher.
And I get to the hotel and she's not there.
So it's like the most beautiful hotel suite I've ever seen.
They bring people in to see me. People looks much
much better. But I'm a little alarmed because they're holding
him in their arms and they're not wearing any protective clothing.
But he did look a lot better. So when I
(03:49):
went to give him his second injection, I expected him
to behave like he did for the first injection, but
this time he screamed like I was murdering him, and
the door flew open, and Income Share yelling what did
you do to my dog? And Share had her hair
and rollers white face cream on and she was wearing
(04:11):
a bathroom Did you almost die? I almost thought, so.
I explained what was wrong with her dog, and that
it was giving the second injection, and you know, at
this point, you shouldn't be contagious any longer, and she
said contagious. Nobody told me contagious, and then she lipped
open her bathroom and she was there in her total
body nakedness to ask me if the rash that she
(04:35):
had on her belly was the same thing that the
dog had, and then she thought about it for a
second and she said, no, I think I had this
before I got the dog closed up and left. So
that was my meat and great from Share.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
You got a full frontal nude show.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
I got there full share show.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
I love that in the book you said your veterinary
nurse on the way out was like, damn, I really
got to get back to Pilate's.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
She's in good shame.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
She looks amazing for her age. That is hilarious. So
I'm assuming people did great. Sharon did not have.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Maids exactly and exactly tell but just to let you
know that when you do house calls, I do experience
things that are different from what you do in a
animal hospital. That is not the only time that I
saw a client in their full nakedness. I mean there
are times when we were in the doorbell and a
client answers the door with insufficient clothing on, and we'll say, like,
(05:30):
you know what, we have time, please go put something
on and we'll wait out here.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
We don't need to see that we don't. That is
so funny. Yeah, I can't. I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
I mean I got a little glimpse from the book,
but I can't imagine the things that you've seen.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
So I come home every day from work and say
to my husband, you will not believe what happened today.
And that, of course was the genesis of the book,
because I went in the other room and thought, I'll
remember this forever, and then I think, let me just
write a little something down so truly I remember the
stories forever. Need a one word clue, and that's what
I did, and eventually I realized I have a lot
(06:06):
of great material here.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Yeah, and here it is.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
One of the things I loved that you talked about
in your book was your journey to veterinary school. That
really resonated with me. And one of the quotes that
you said was I needed a stellar GPA, stratospheric test scores,
unreserved recommendations, and wide ranging extra curricular experience. And what
I found in my journey to BET school is the
extra curricular experience. They really put a huge emphasis on that,
(06:32):
I think more so than human doctors, because we get
small and will experience most people pre vet, but then
you have to go out and work at a zoo
or large animal I mean you're doing things that you
would never even be dreaming about just in order to
even get considered at a bet school.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
So one of the things that a lot of people
don't realize is how competitive it is to get into
veterinary school. And I think most students in veterinary school
really have an idea of what it's going to be
like to be in this field. Others go on for
secondary education professional school, but they don't know what it's
like to be a lawyer, they don't know what it's
like to be a doctor. We actually have to get
(07:10):
practical experience beforehand. I think a lot of that is
to weed out people who might think being a veterinarian
is all about playing with puppies and kittens. It's my
favorite part of the job, but it's a small part
of the job. I mean a lot of that is
dealing with, you know, medical problems, and dealing with the
emotions and sort of helping families deal with how to
(07:32):
care for their pets who were really sick. And you
should know that before you devote that all those years
and all that money into becoming a veterinarian.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
One of the stories you told was about working on
a dairy farm and doing manual labor, and I had
a very similar experience where I worked at a zoo
and the zookeepers are like, well, we don't know what
to do with this girl, so I shoveled bison poop
for a whole summer.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
I've had a similar experience.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
I never had bigger biceps in my whole life. Came
home for a weekend and my mom was like, oh
my god, and I was like, yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Well, as I say in the book, I had to
cut the seams of my shirt sleeved shirts because my
arms had gotten so big. But there's another possibility. I
was working upstate New York on a very very large
dairy farm, and about two miles from the farm there
was an ice cream parlor where they made fresh ice cream,
so there was a daily hot fodge Sunday that might
(08:26):
have had something gg you know, the change in my
size keeping up.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
You were working hard and I trained you well.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
I mean I used to eat a dan and yogurt
for breakfast back then I started eating three peanut butter
and jelly sandwiches. I could not keep up with how
much energy I needed to work on a floor.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
I remember being starving.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Great deal of respect for people who farm.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
People do always ask like, why didn't you go into
farm animal medicine or horses, And I'm like, I don't
think people realize the the labor involved in it and
what a taxing job it is, and so I respect
them so much.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
So from what I know about you from listening to
your show, I feel like you had the same thing
that I had, which was a calling that we had
to do this, and for me it was clear. I
love all animals, but my calling was to be a
veterinarian for dogs and cats likewise.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
And I think a really special part about that, and
what you talked about in your book and especially making
house calls, is that in caring for these pets by extension,
we also care for their owners, and I think that
we really get to know them very well, and that
as one of my favorite parts of my job.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
It sounds like it's one of yours as well.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
It is, you know, one of the things that I
wish I had even more training in, because most of
my training has been from my years of doing it.
Was like a little bit more about human psychology, because
I really we deal with people in some of the
most difficult times of their lives, and you know, of
course we have empathy for them because we've all been there.
(09:58):
Having an aging pet or having a really sick pet.
We're having to say goodbye to a pet is truly
one of the most traumatic days of someone's life, maybe
the most. And yeah, and people say that, I hate
to I don't like the way this comes out, but
people will say to me, I didn't cry this much
when my parent died.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Yes, I hear that all the time, and.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
I feel like, you know, obviously we all love our parents,
but we don't get into bed every night with our parents,
and we often get into bed with our pets, and
when they're not there, that loss is really really palpable.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Yeah, I totally agree with that.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
And I just to touch on what you said, I
think part time, we are part time therapists and part
time veterinarians. And it's funny because you hear all of
us say we went to med school because we love
animals and working with animals, but the reality is that
the majority of our days are spent working with people
and Luckily we enjoy doing that, so.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
You're one hundred percent right. And when I counsel people
who want to become veterinarians, and by the way, like
Orders of Magnets, more since the book has come out,
where younger people are calling me and saying, I read
your book, I really want to be a veterinarian. But
if the point is I only want to I want
to be a vet because I only want to work
with animals, this isn't the right job for you, you know,
(11:14):
because they don't come in by themselves. They come in
with people, and your communication is with the people.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
And it's been so nice for me, Like I don't
think I was expecting this, but a lot of my
lifelong friends now have are my clients that I've met
through taking care of their animals. So it's been such
a pleasant surprise for me for.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Me too, But you have to be careful. They don't
get discounts just because they've become.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
You're right, you hear that, friends. I guess one of
the questions I had for you is in working with
it sounds like a lot of people you got close
to you were pretty high profile. And what I have
(11:58):
noticed on this podcast especially as we'll have stars, country
music stars or like Bobby Bones come on and you
talk to them about their career and their goals, and
they're kind of one person, and then when you talk
to them about their animals, you can just see like
a completely different side of them. I think just from
watching her on TV that Joan Rivers is pretty intimidating.
(12:19):
I'm assuming that you probably saw a lot more of
a softer side to her with her animals.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
I saw all sides of Joan Rivers. She was an
enormous personality. She was driven in a way that very
few people are. When I would go into her home
to work with the dogs, there would be posted on
the refrigerator her daily schedule, and it said things like
up at five, exercise, makeup, leave for studio, and then
(12:46):
her entire day was calculated down to the moment and
it ended at midnight. I mean, she was very regiment,
old enough to be more than my mother, and she
had a schedule that would have run me into the ground.
So she was an enormously busy person and she was
extremely demanding, and her dogs were so important to her.
(13:09):
So I was used to getting yelled at on occasion
or emails that I wish she had never sent to me.
But when she was finished with that, she turned out
to be, of course a very dear friend. So we
would go through the cycles of Joan's love and her wrath.
She was an enormous supporter of mine when I started
(13:29):
my house call practice, she told everyone she knew. The
relationship over those years turned into a lovely, lovely friendship
where we went out to dinner together. I mean she
called one day. We had homes close to each other,
about one hundred miles north of New York City, and
she called and said, take me to the movies on
Saturday night.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
So it was like she didn't ask.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Of course, she didn't.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Ask a question.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
She would have the most beautiful dinner parties where the
group of people around the table were just from all
different types of parts of her life, and every person
felt like they were the guest of honor. She was
an enormously gracious, warm, loving person with a little bit
(14:16):
of a biting part of her person.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
You don't want to be on her bad side. Oh no,
I love the story about her Yorky. I think it
was a Yorky that you had encouraged her to get
a surgery that she did not really want to do,
and then she ended up doing it and was like,
I was right to do it.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Well, she was never wrong, of course, but you know,
like even with her first Yorkee Spike, Spike went to
work with her wherever she was. He traveled around, he
was part of the show, and I recommended that because
he wasn't feeling well, that maybe she would leave him
out of the show that week and he should stay home.
And like all of a sudden, you know, she had
just looked at me and she said, don't tell me
(14:54):
what to do, just make my dog well enough to go,
Like you didn't, I was mess with them exactly.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Yeah, it's funny we do, even if they're not famous.
You have everybody that's a ugineer and has owners that
can be a little bit more demanding, and I think
our job is to kind of look past that and see, like, Okay,
where's this coming from. They just really, at the core
of it, love their pet and want their pet to
be okay.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
I had a client who moved to New York after
he retired. He had been a movie producer, so he
moved from California to New York and he lived in
his apartment with his two cats, and he paged me
on a Saturday night for an emergency, and I called
him back immediately. I said, what's the problem. He said,
my cat just scratched me with his nails. His nails
(15:39):
are too long. Come and cut them. I said, it's
ten o'clock and a Saturday night, don't. I don't make
house calls. If you truly had an emergency, it would
help you. But I'm not coming to cut your cat's nails.
And he kind of hesitated and said, you know, in La,
nobody would ever say no to me. So he was
like being brought back into the real world.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
Yeah, you're like New York. No means no, and you're retired. Yeah,
exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Another thing that you talked about in the book that
I really loved and I have seen with my own
experience as a veterinarian, is that no, there is no
such thing as a disabled pet, and so we have
a lot of patients that require amputations, or they lose
an eye, or they go deaf, and so I really
loved how you put an emphasis on that. I think
(16:27):
I tell my owners all the time. We can learn
so much from our animals. I have had dogs going
through chemo that are bouncing around and rolling in the grass.
Dogs on three legs or cats on three legs that
would never know the difference. And if someone cut my
leg off, I probably would be in bed crying about
it for six months.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
You're the rest of my life. Who knows. But they
are just so resilient in that way.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
They're amazing. I learned that very much so from personal experience.
I found a dog one day tied to a tree.
I had a pug when I was a little girl,
so I'm drawn to pugs. I love them. And I
walked up to pet this pug tie to a tree,
and I saw a note that said I am blind,
Please take good care of me. So I untied him.
(17:09):
I was in veticol at the time I brought him
into the hospital. I had him checked out by the
clinicians and everybody said, he's a healthy little dog. He
probably came from a puppy mill. Puppy mill sounds too nice.
Let's just call it factory farming of dogs, right, or
they're just exploited and abused and they're not cared for.
And he probably developed his temper which ultimately left him blind.
(17:32):
So I didn't I couldn't have a dog. I was single,
I was in veticool. I just I couldn't have the responsibility.
So I looked at him and said, look, I'll get
you everything you need. I'll take you home tonight for
a home cooked meal, and tomorrow i'll work on finding
you a home. So I took him home with me.
He kind of bumped around my entire apartment. He went
to the front door, he lifted his leg and did
(17:52):
his business, as if to say, this is my territory,
I'm home. I'm staying here. At that point, I gave
him dinner and I locked him in the kitchen. I said, okay,
tomorrow morning, I'm finding you a new home. And I
woke up in the middle of the night and he
had gotten out of the kitchen. He came into the bedroom.
He had jumped on the bed and he was sleeping
on the pillow next to me, and he declared, this
is my home. And he and I were soulmates ever since.
(18:16):
But I learned a lot from Bumper. Sorry I named
him Bumper because yes, he bumped into everything.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
I love that name.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
But I realized like he was a little bit more
difficult than a regular dog. Like when we went out
on a leash, I was responsible for making sure that
he had a signal for where to go.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
You were in seeing.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
I was a seeing eye human. He knew up, down, left,
right over under. I mean we would go hiking together.
He came to work with me, and he knew when
we got to the curb to step down, and he
knew how many steps to go back up again. Maybe
I was giving him some cues, but I do believe
he memorized everything. And he was such an inspiration because,
(18:53):
like you said, if we went through something like this,
we would be like, oh, I feel so sorry for myself.
Bumper never felt sorry for himself a day in his life.
And I used him at work as a teaching tool
for people to see that you could have the most
wonderful dog. They're not perfect, but none of us are perfect,
and it doesn't matter if you can't see or you
(19:14):
can't hear, you can get along just fine on three legs.
There were all these things that would be considered disabilities,
and they deal with them fine. I learned so much
from Bumper. Years later, after he had passed, I got
a phone call from a pet store, and the manager
of the pet store knew that I loved pugs, and
(19:35):
he knew that I had had experience with a blind dogs.
And they had a blind pug puppy that the owner
of the store had ordered to be euthanized at the
end of the day. And he called me and said, Amy,
I knew you know what to do with this dog.
And of course I knew what to do with the dog.
I brought him home. I don't want people to think
(19:56):
there's an epidemic of blind pugs out there, but both
these dogs had the same problem. They were puppy mill dogs,
and they didn't get vaccinated and they developed a problem
that could have been prevented with just some vaccine.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
Terrible.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
We did a whole episode walking through vaccines with listeners,
just because listeners and owners come into vac clinics all
the time, and I don't think they understand the importance
or what exactly is distember what does that mean? And
so just like you said, it's a problem that could
be completely prevented with a vaccine, and unfortunately, puppy mills
(20:30):
or puppy factories like you called it are just they're
not doing their due diligence, and they're not taking the
appropriate care of these animals.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
And it's interesting because so many of the diseases that
we routinely vaccinate against, they're very diminished. Right now, we
don't see a lot of distemper but if people stop vaccinating,
we're going to see this devastating disease again. Same with parvo.
In New York City, we didn't have a problem with
leptosporosis for years, and now leptosprosis is a problem. It's
(21:00):
a disease that's transmitted through urine and often through the
urine of rats, and any big city that has a
rat population we're seeing more and more leftis bersis. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
We talked about that a lot in Season one as well,
and we have it here in Nashville, So I mean,
it's not just limited to cities. It is important and
can be, like you said, preventive with vaccines, so super important.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
One of the I wrote down this quote from your
book because I loved it so much. I think it
might have made me cheer up, But I'm like, why
am I so hormonal right now?
Speaker 3 (21:32):
But I just thought it was.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Really beautiful, and I think about the human animal bond
a lot.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
And I think this like.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Really puts it, really articulates it beautifully. So you said,
our relationship with a pet is like no other. By
bringing animals into our homes and making them part of
our families, sharing our lives with them, and caring for them,
we are at our most compassionate, empathetic, and selfless. I
believe that our love for animals defines our humanity. Simply,
our animals make us better people. I believe that I
(21:59):
do too. I believe that fully. I think the hardest
of heart softens around animals. They're just simply the best.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
So I lived on the corner of fifty seventh Street
for many years, and I would walk a bumper down
that street, and the doorman at the building next door
would come out every single day and he'd give me
a big smile and a creeting, and he'd bend down
and pet bumper. And this was our every day ritual.
Bumper passed away. I walk that street every day. He
(22:28):
never set foot out of the building. A few years later,
I got another dog, and I walked down the street
and he came running out and he said, where have
you been? I was invisible to him without my dog.
He like the whole connection to a human was through
a dog love.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
That It's funny. I don't know if you feel the
same way.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
But I'll see my patients out and about, and I
remember every patient.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
I know their name.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
I can place them if they have something wrong with them,
I know, And I can't ever remember the owner's name.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
One hundred percent the same.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
It's like you're Fluffy's mom.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
I don't remember the owner sadly, but the dogs and
cats I don't forget. All right, you were dogless at
the end of the book. Are you still dogless? Just
waiting for the next one to come?
Speaker 1 (23:11):
So I never wanted to be dogless. Like I went
to vet school. I know that there's a life cycle,
and I know that they're going to pass at a
certain age. And my Cleopatra was elderly, and when she
was about thirteen, I put the word out that I
wanted to rescue another dog. Every single pet I've ever
had has been a rescue, and I worked with the
(23:33):
local pug rescue group because I do have a thing
for pugs, and I love pugs. They're just ridiculous they are.
And I have when I was a little girl, so
in the best way, except if you were black, which
case you're just you have fur all over you. But
I'm willing to deal with that. And I rescued a dog.
(23:54):
She had been a dog on the show circuit at
one point. She had been abused. She had been returned
to the breeder, and the breeder heard that I needed
and she was willing to let the dog come to
my home. So she was much much younger. So I'm smart,
like eventually, when something happened to Cleo, then Meatball would
be she was a Meatball. She would be, you know,
(24:15):
still a dog in our home. And this is the
saddest thing because Cleo passed January one, and then three
months to the day, Meatball passed on April one. She
got a devastating disease. And I mean I was treating
her friends who were specialists, everybody had a hand in it,
(24:36):
and she just didn't respond. And we were and are devastated.
So you know, I know that I'm going to get
a phone call one day from a pug rescue group
and They're going to say, Amy, we have this dog.
It has such and such a problem. Can you fix it?
And I'll fix it and I'll keep it the way
that every one of them have come to me. But
(24:57):
we're just just really really sad right now, just going
through the healing process.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
My heart breaks for you.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Thank you, and you know again wishing that we had
more of training in human psychology. For some people, that
healing process means the next day bringing another pet into
your life, right and for some people it really is
a very very long process, so.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
Can take a lifetime. I feel like sometimes and we
all know.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
That the only thing that makes you feel better is
another pet exactly.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Just got to do it, got to rip the band
aid off. But it's true, every pet I've ever had
that pass, I've said, I don't know if I can
do this again.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
It's the worst heartbreak.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
And then and then here we are, I know, and
they just reopen your heart and remind you of why
you did it in.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
The first place.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
So I hope your next rescue pug comes to you sooner, Appreciator,
I'll keep my eyes in ears. Peel send you a
picture please do. By the way, we had Doug the
pug on Oh my.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Goodness, he is pretty cute.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
He is.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
I would love to share with you the story of Squeaker.
Squeaker was an unusual patient because he didn't belong to
any family. He actually was a building cat. So I
would go to this apartment house for a number of
different clients, and one day the superintendent of the building
asked me to come down to the basement to meet
the building cat.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
So this cat belongs to the whole. HOA.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
He did the whole and he, you know, he had
a job to do. It was to make sure that
no mice came into the building, and he did a
fantastic job of that. And one day I did my
physical exam, I had a baseline on him, and probably
a year or two later, they asked me to come
down and see him again, and he had lost a
tremendous amount of weight. And when I took his blood,
the results came back that the cat had something called hyperthyroidism,
(26:40):
too much thyroid hormone in the bloodstream, which beats up
your metabolic rate. So he was eating ravenously, but he
was burning the calories faster than he was eating them.
So he had to go on medication.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Which for all the listeners is a pretty common I
would say disease in our cats as they get a
little bit older. Exactly important to run routine blood work
because we can detect it and treat it and they
usually go on to lead nice, long, normal lives.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
And I agree with everything that doctor jay Z said,
And that's the importance of the annual physical examination. People
think it's for vaccines. We really want to touch your pets.
We really want to take blood from them. So many
diseases and pets are silent, we can find them earlier
from blood tests. So a really important point. Squeaker's disease
was no longer silent. He was already having the symptoms
(27:26):
of hyperthyroidism and his blood work indicated that. So I
started him on medication. But it's a medication that has
to be given twice a day. And as I said,
he was nobody's actual cat. So the superintendent of the
building wasn't there at the right hours every single day,
wasn't there on the weekends. So the people who lived
in the building volunteered to give him his medication and
(27:48):
it just wasn't working. They would go downstairs. He would
not imagine it was beautiful. This is a lot of
cooks in the kitchen and it's like this is a park.
Avenue building. It was so heartwarming that everybody cared so much.
It just wasn't working medically. He wasn't getting his regular medicine.
So explained that the next way that we treat this
disease is the way they treated in humans with a
single injection of radioactive eye do on. The problem is,
(28:11):
you can't come home, you can't come out of the
facility until you're no longer radioactive. And it has a
multi thousand dollars price tag on it, and the super said, oh,
I don't know. They're just never going to go for that.
It's so much money. And they had a board meeting
and they said, yes, we'll pay for it. So Squeaker
had his radioactive eye don He went on to do
(28:32):
great for years and years and years. And then I
went to examine Squeaker because he was limping and as
I was feeling his leg, I felt a very bad
bony lump and I was sure that Squeaker had bone cancer.
The X ray showed that he did have bone cancer.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
There's nothing worse as a veterinarian doing your examine. You
know you feel that leave him or your life, and
you know the pit in your stomach and you know.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
And you know, and I explained to him that what
we needed to do, and I know this sounds drastic,
but we needed to amputate the cat's leg because the
cat was in so much pain that immediately upon healing
from the amputation, the cat would have no more pain. Unfortunately,
cats have four legs and they do just fine on
(29:19):
three of them. And he just said, no, it's absolutely
not possible. They're never going to go for the surgery.
They won't want a three legged cat. He'll never be
a mouser for them. Again. They called another emergency board meeting.
The board came back and said, yes, do the amputation.
Squeaker did great after the amputation. And on the day
I went to the basement to remove the stitches from
(29:40):
his surgery, he was nowhere to be found, and he
came into the super's office while I was sitting there
with a mouse in his mouth. He was not slowed
down for a second. He had a job to do,
and he did it. He lived the rest of his
life as the building cat, and they took them up.
Wonderful care of him.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
That really restores my faith in humanity.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Great.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
I love that story. It is true, though I mean cats,
especially if there's many dogs. Most dogs do great on
three legs. But if I had to say cats versus dogs,
cats are do great on three legs. I mean they
get around beautifully. They're so nimble and agile.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
And they and even with our dogs, they really learned
to do it. Even as a veterinarian, I'll be watching
a dog walk on the street and my brain will
register something's not right, and then when I look closely,
I'm like, oh, it's a three legged dog. They really
they hide their disability from us so amazingly.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
They do. They really do. That is an amazing story.
Thank you for sharing.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Thank you for making me think of that as one
of my favorite stories.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
Well, I loved this book so much.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
I and obviously I'm a veterinarian, so it really resonates
with me. But I think any animal lover out there,
and whether you're an owner or not, if you just
are interested in animals, will love this book. The storytelling
is amazing and it was a really nice little peak
to what goes on in your daily life being a
house called veterinarian.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
So thank you for writing it.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
I really appreciate your comments.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
We end our episodes with Paw and Order.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
So for today's episode on Paw and Order, we are
going to take a few tips from doctor Amy's book
Pets in the City. Number one, I would not give
my pets any human foods or medications without checking with
my vets Doctor Amy, and I know I've talked about
this a lot on this podcast, but doctor Amy mentions
a couple instances where owners gave their pets tile and
(31:50):
all and grapes and all other sorts of things that
aren't good for animals that were humans, they're perfectly fine.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
So I always tell people that are not people and
cats are not little dogs, So don't share your dog's
medicine with your cats. Don't share your medicine with your dog.
And you know, if you're not sure, pick up the phone.
You should be able to feel comfortable enough with your
veterinarian that you can call and ask a.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Question yes, anytime. And that brings up a good point too.
If you have multiple dogs. That doesn't mean giving one
dog's medication to another dog is always the right thing
to do either, because doses can be very different.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Of course, yes, I agree, And by the way, there
are certain breeds that can't take certain medications. So just
be educated, make sure you do no harm.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
Yes, I agree with that, all right.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Number two, somewhat in the similar realm of advice is
we recommend not leaving out your prescription medications where your
pets can get a hold of them. There are dogs
out there that will counter surf and jump up and
grab anything that's on the counter, including your medication. Doctor
Amy had one instance in the book that I found
to be entertaining. I'm glad the dog's okay, though.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
So in this instance, the dog jumped on his father's
night table. Dad was in his eighties, so he took
a lot of medication, and the dog chewed up all
of the vials and a lot of the medication, and
we had to figure out what each one contained. One
was his heart medicine, one was his blood pressure medicine,
one was his arthritis medicine. And then he was a
little hesitating before he said what the last one was
(33:25):
that special medicine that he uses at night. The dog
ate all of his father's viacra, and ironically, viacra has
uses in veterinary medicine. We use it for certain types
of heart disease, but not all the pills at once,
so that poor guy had to spend some time in
the hospital being monitored and watching his blood pressure. And
we all laughed because he had been newter two weeks before,
(33:47):
so like it didn't have any positive effects.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
On as we say in Nashville, bless his heart exactly.
That did bring up a good point for me that
I don't think I've talked about on this podcast. Or
pet does eat something and you're not able to get
a hold of your veterinarian, and even if you are,
we recommend calling the Animal Poison Control phone number.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
It's very easy. You just google Animal Poison Control.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
The number pops right up, and if they have eaten
something like a medication or anything that may be toxic,
they are going to kind of walk you through exactly
what you need to do. And it's very helpful for
us as veterinarians too. We aren't always understanding the toxicology
behind every single ingredient.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Right and things you should know. You should know approximately
how much your dog weighs. When you call, like, they'll
ask you some questions about that. I always laugh when
animals eat medication. I think the number one thing that
people tell me is the hardest with their pets is
they can never get them to take a pill. And
how come, as soon as I drop one of my
pills on the floor, the dogs will like, oh, got it,
(34:48):
thank you. I think when we want to give them
a pillbish to throw it on the floor and see
if they'll go after exactly like.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
Don't touch this, haha, They'll go right for it.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
And by the way, not only don't leave your pills
out on the night table, but a lot of the
pills we give our pets are flavored to make it
easier to give them to them, and you don't want
to leave those on the counter where they'll go and
eat them all at one time.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Yes, I have had many a patient that love their
flavored remadill or their flavored heart guard, yeah, heart Guard,
and then they eat a whole pack of it, and
that is not great for them either. So that is
a great point. Our last and final point for and
order is I would not get a pet unless I
completely understood the level of commitment financially, time wise, all
(35:29):
the responsibility involved that it means to be a pet owner.
Doctor Amy wrote in the book, if someone accumulates animals
to fill their home and heart. That person has a
moral obligation and unbreakable contract to care for those innocent
creatures for their entire lives. And I think that's so
well put.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
They're for babies, you know, once you choose to open
up your home, that is your responsibility to care for
them forever.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
I think people see like, oh, this dog's so cute,
or this puppy is so cute, and you don't realize
that puppy is going to grow into an adult, maybe
a very rambunctious one, maybe not, but they're going to
be around for ten, twelve, fourteen, hopefully fifteen sixteen years,
and your life is going to change and evolve, and
you just need to remember that.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
It's a it's a big commitment.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
So when I told you this story of Bumper, one
of the reasons I didn't say I'll take you immediately
was I was scared of that commitment. I remember, like
you know, waking up a week later, we're thinking what
have I done right? And I decided I was willing
to put all the time and effort into having him
in my life, and it was so worth it.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
It is the best commitment anyone can make. I agree,
well that concludes our paw and order for the week
and really our episode. Thank you so much for coming,
doctor Amy. I've loved chatting with you and if you
guys haven't read it yet, please get online. You can
get on Amazon. Pets in the City is out and
ready to be read.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
You are so welcome, and to all of our listeners.
As always, you can contact me on Instagram at doctor
jose Vetts. You can click the link in my bio
to record questions for the podcast, and as always, please rate, review,
and subscribe anywhere that you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
We'll see you next week.
Host
Bobby Bones
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Monster: BTK
'Monster: BTK', the newest installment in the 'Monster' franchise, reveals the true story of the Wichita, Kansas serial killer who murdered at least 10 people between 1974 and 1991. Known by the moniker, BTK – Bind Torture Kill, his notoriety was bolstered by the taunting letters he sent to police, and the chilling phone calls he made to media outlets. BTK's identity was finally revealed in 2005 to the shock of his family, his community, and the world. He was the serial killer next door. From Tenderfoot TV & iHeartPodcasts, this is 'Monster: BTK'.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.