Keeping Your Pets Safe on Thanksgiving Plus Info On the Canine Mystery Disease

Maria chats with frequent guest veterinarian Dr. Amber Karwacki from Heart+Paw.
They discuss potential hazards for your dogs and cats with Thanksgiving approaching, plus info on the new mystery disease that's affecting dogs across the country. You'll learn what to look for!
Listen and Learn!

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
It's Maria's MutS and Stuff. Whata great idea on iHeartRadio. Welcome to
Maria's Mutts and Stuff and with meis one of my favorite guests because she
is the most often guessed Maria's Muttsand Stuff, and she's the best and
she's always filled with information that wecan all use. It's doctor Amber car

(00:25):
Wacky from Heart and pauw mis knowledgeableabout everything animals. So thank you for
chatting today. It's been a while, and of course we have a lot
to talk about with Thanksgiving coming andkeeping our pets safe. So what is
as Yeah, like, what doyou think is the worst part about Thanksgiving?

(00:49):
Like the worst thing for a dogor a cat or for a pet.
So the worst thing for them isgetting stuff from the table food wise,
because there's so many things that arepotentially fatty like the turkey skin and
some of the turkey meat, tothings that might have a toxic food in
there for them, like the potatoesmight have garlic. There's could be onions

(01:10):
in the greenings, and you knowthere could be raisins or grapes in the
dessert. So not only could itgive them really bad upset stomach or pincery's
headed. We can also give thema toxin that's gonna make them rather sick,
right, And that's the same becauseI know for dog it's definitely with
dogs. Is that the same forcats too? Do they have the same
like not not good for them?Like it like it would do for dog.

(01:34):
Yeah, some of the toxins aresimilar, and definitely the outset stomach
is absolutely the same. Right,So, I mean, of course you
shouldn't be feeding your pets food offthe table anyway, because that's a bad
habit. But besides that, it'salso not very healthy. Okay, So
obviously it's the whole food part,which is probably the number one thing.
And I'm sure you you know,being a vet, hear about it constantly

(01:57):
on Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving weekend. True, because people do feed their animals from
the table and stuff that they're enjoyingas well. So yeah, and so
I guess, I mean, obviouslythe point is don't do that. But
if you do do that, Iguess call your vet right away. You
get your dog or cat to thevet as soon as you can. If

(02:20):
the dog starts vomiting, if itgets diarrhea, I guess all of the
above. Correct. Yeah, ifyou know he ate something toxic, then
definitely want to get to a vetas soon as you can, and most
likely on Thanksgiving or talking about emergencyhospital, so that way we can hopefully
make them vomit, potentially give themcharcoal to get everything out of their system
so they don't actually start having thereaction to the toxin. If I ate

(02:45):
something I shouldn't have, but we'renot toxic, you can try monitoring at
home first, because you're starting tosee like the lethargy, not wanting to
eat, diarrhea, vomiting, thenyou got to get yourself to the vet,
right, Okay, all right,so food is the number one thing,
And I would assume because if you'rehosting and your pets are around,
and you know, family friends mightbe bringing you flowers and plants, so

(03:08):
those are just as toxic and badfor cats and dogs too, correct,
like some of them? Yes,okay, especially moms, the crocus,
and more cats than dogs will beeating the plants. But the dogs too.
Someone drops in the floor. Youknow, I have a new puppy
in my house. He's a devourof everything that hits the floor. So

(03:29):
you know you can have that situationright right, So, and with most
with like the moms and the crocus, is it the whole plant? Is
it the flower, the petals orit's it's kind of like the whole plant.
We don't really want them eating anyof it. So they happen to
eat any part of it, wewant to get them seen really quick.
Okay, and again that's the thing. You should definitely call your vet if

(03:50):
you see your cat or your dog, you know, eating the flowers from
the point set something, because Iknow those are really bad too. Yeah.
Yeah, point will definitely hit themas well. Yeah, okay,
so foods, be careful plants.What other advice could we give to our
listeners about how to protect their petsThanksgiving and with the holidays coming. Yeah,

(04:14):
so keep in mind, especially ifyou have one of those like anxious
dogs who might not like a tonof people are a lot of loud noise.
If you have a lot of guestsover, that is going to be
very stressful for your dog. Soif you know you're having guests over,
one make a quiet space for yourdog. Let your guests know they're not
to go in that area and disturbthem. So we don't get a scared
dog that's maybe potentially going to bite. Sure, if you know your dog

(04:36):
needs medication, call your vet inadvance, like the day before. We
might be out of medication and wedon't have a shipment coming in. Sure,
you know, don't wait for thelast minute because you might get the
well we're out, you're out ofluck. Get those an event, have
them on hand. Sure. Somean, like call today as you're hearing
this right now, like get offthe phone with us and call over your

(04:57):
fat the right exactly, like,oh, I gotta go do that.
So but that's a really good point, especially, I mean especially if you
know, because sometimes kids don't knowbetter if they're young kids like toddlers,
and they are so intrigued and sointerested in dogs and cats, and sometimes
the dog or cat is like no, I don't want to, you know,

(05:18):
please don't bother me. So Ithink that's a really good piece of
advice. And I mean, Iguess that's not just on the holidays,
but for all the time, becauseall the yeah yeah, and I think
I've mentioned it before, like doglanguage is a little bit different from what
we see. So for a kid, they see a dog bearing teeth,

(05:39):
they think gets smiling because in theirmind, as a kid, someone with
their teeth as a smile. So, oh, the dog's smiling at me.
Let me keep going where the dogis going back up, or I'll
I'll elevate this to something past me, like bearing my teeth. Right,
you know, we got to makesure to keep those little kids safe because
they just don't know dog language.Sure we do, right. And it's

(06:00):
so funny because I recently had onthe author of The Hidden Language of Cats,
and I was learning about you know, because obviously it's different than a
dog, but I know more aboutdogs and cats, and she was telling
me all the different things to lookat, like body language on a cat,
and I was like, wow,I didn't know that, you know,
because it means different things. Butbasically, the upshot is if you're
a pet parent, it's your responsibilityto make sure your pet is cool and

(06:26):
safe and you know, chilled outand not going to be taunted by guests
and children and you know, andnot that it's anybody's fault, they just
don't know better. Yeah, Andit's always something that keeps them safe and
keep everyone safe. So you know, mark a seign, do not enter,
you know, leave the dog alone. Put them up or put even
the cat up too, because somecats aren't happy about people being around and

(06:47):
they won't go hiding. They'll justget angry as they're coming and sitting in
there. But right, so,yeah, just make sure the people over
your house me I'm assuming their friendsand family and they know that you have
these pets and whatnot. Just makesure they know, just you know,
believe and be let's enjoy each other'scompany. Don't mind the dog exactly.
Yeah, that's good. That's verygood. So it's very timely, which

(07:10):
we were just talking about a littlebit. But there's a thing going around.
I heard, I heard when Iwalked into work today, And please
explain to me. Is it avirus or something that is going around like
in daycare places or for dogs?Is it a dog and cat things?
So please explain the thing that's goingaround now that seems like everybody's like,
oh my goodness. Yep, Sothis is right now. We're calling it

(07:33):
the mystery disease for dogs. It'snot in cats that we've seen, it's
just justin dogs. So the problemright now is we don't know what it
is. We don't know for aviral We don't know for bacteria. There
is the since it started in theWest, the Oregon State Lab their venarians
have probably about a one hundred samplesright now. They are working through them.

(07:55):
They're trying to figure out what thisdisease is so we know better how
to treat it. You know,venarians across country. We're on our little
forums and our chat groups and Facebookand whatnot. So we've been we're talking
like we're we're finding out what's workingfor some versus others. But what we're
seeing is dogs are getting respiratory infections. So some are simple like bronchitis and

(08:20):
coughing, and it just is lastinga good like two months. Wow.
Some dogs are getting some chronic pneumonia, which isn't too bad, and some
dogs are getting what we're calling anacute pneumonia, and those are the ones
that are dying within about twenty fourto forty eight hours because it just it
hits them so hard and fast thateven though they're in the eers an the
oxygen cages, getting ivy drugs likethey nothing's working. Yes, yeah,

(08:45):
it is, and it's it's sincewe don't know exactly what it is,
it's hard to be like, wecan fix this, it's fine. But
what we're telling people right now,we're trying not to have them panic.
We're saying, you know, nopanic, but use caution. So you
know, we haven't seen it asmuch on the East coast. I'm hearing
from other veterinarians that it is inFlorida. They've seen a couple of cases.

(09:05):
We're seeing some in the Midwest.It's hit the West coast, like
Colorado, Oregon, California. Ithink I've had some colleagues in Oklahoma and
Texas that have seen it as well. So we're telling owners it looks like
it's spread. We don't know ifit's directly dog to dog or like if
a dog like sneezes on you andthen your dog's fish you, is that
a concern as well, So we'renot sure about that yet. We're saying

(09:28):
be cautious. We're not saying don'tgo to the dog park, but definitely
like let's try not to share toys, bring your own water bottle for your
dog, not to use the communalbowls, things like that. Sure,
and yeah, yeah, I'm sorry, go ahead, it's crazy. No,
you're good. We're also saying youknow, definitely make sure your dog
vaccinated. Not only for like thecommon rabies, we want to make sure
distempers on board border Tella's vaccinated,influenza, so the other respiratory diseases,

(09:54):
so like we can be like,we know you're vaccinated. It's probably this.
Wow. And is there a nameyet for this or no? Not
yet? Like everyone's basically causing it, calling it the mystery virus. Mystery
virus. Wow. Right, sendthem to watch for so it causes a
cough like kennel cough does that seemsto be more wet than dry. Okay.

(10:16):
We're also looking for nose and eyedischarge and lethargie, not willing to
eat. Wow. Cause I wasjust going to ask you what you know,
what people should be looking for.Okay, So those are, you
know, very obvious signs you knowthat you'll see. It's just it's kind
of it's scary. It's almost Imean, as you're describing it to me
and how it's a mystery, I'mlike, oh my goodness, it's almost

(10:37):
like we're back three years ago andit was the beginning of COVID with humans,
right, and we're definitely not seeingit. We aren't seeing that this
is COVID. I'm just going tothrow that out there, right. There
has been veterans that they're running PTRpanels and COVID's not popping up on any
of those. So I don't wantpeople to panel right Yeah, yeah,
No, I didn't mean it likethat. Sorry. Sorry, I just

(10:58):
meant that it was just like thismystery thing and it's spreading and it's like,
oh my goodness, so and it'sit's just yeah, it's I feel
like it's the time of year.I mean, because I'm sure people who
are heading out for the holiday weekendand maybe boarding their dogs, Like now,
it's the big question what do youdo? Right, And so we're

(11:18):
not saying not to do it.You know, all the I would imagine
all the chimels are like getting upto date with us as well. You're
going to make sure all the dogscoming in are vaccinated. And the biggest
thing is, you know, ifyou're seeing any of these symptoms in your
dog, like get them to yourvetinarian and then don't let them, you
know, be around other dogs,like the responsive head owner, keep them

(11:39):
away in case it is that disease. You know, we don't want to
keep spreading it if possible. Sure, okay, so you know what,
tell me again, tell me thesymptoms that people should be looking for,
because it's really important. Yep,yeah, it's real. Looking for coughing.
Some have occasionally seen some sneezing,any discharge from the nose or the
eyes, and then a loss ofappetite and a loss of energy. Right,

(12:01):
okay, okay, no, thosethat's very good. This is very
very very good. I'm so happythat you know, you remembered about this
to talk about it other than justlike foods and everything else and plants and
Thanksgiving weekend. So wow, thisis like, this is really really good
information, and I'm very I'm sohappy to talk to you as always my
most my most freak frequent and favoriteguests. So but I'm very happy that

(12:26):
we're sharing this information like kind ofhot off the presses because you know,
holiday weekend is almost seek at thenews. Like this past week, it's
like and alsome. We're getting allkinds of calls, that's way. We're
all jumping and talking with each otherover the internet trying to figure out who's
seen it and who's not, andyou know, what's going on because we
haven't heard it that much in theEast coast, where the West coast has
been seeing it right right, they'reable, you know, to give us

(12:50):
a little bit of a heads upof what's been working for them and what's
not so we can hopefully, youknow, get us under control. Okay,
Well, thank you so much.Thank you for all your information and
you're not knowledge as always, Andcongratulations on your new puppy by the way,
Thank you. I'm so excited.I'm sure we'll talk again. But
doctor Amber Karwacky, thank you somuch. Thank you for all of your

(13:13):
information and especially with this new mysteryvirus. So you really have done such
a great service by talking about ittoday and you know informing our listeners about
it as well, So thank you. Thank you. Probably are saving a
lot of animal lives, not realizinghow much you know by sharing your knowledge,
and I always appreciate that and Iappreciate you so have a wonderful thanksgiving

(13:35):
you too. My pleasure is alwaysto be on here and share my knowledge.
I hope this does help some people, I'm sure get the things that
may or may not happen, Butdefinitely have a good Thanksgiving as well,
and enjoy the holidays, yes,thank you you as well.