It's time now to ask the expert here to answer your questions. Live on the air.
Is Bret the vet? Ok. We're inundated Brett as always.
Our first question is from Linda in Scottsdale.
How often should we have our dog's teeth cleaned? Good question. Hi, Linda.
Great question. I say, start early and do it yourself
work on brushing those teeth. If you do that,
you can keep the hygiene
good
and avoid that
advance clinical disease, which requires my care,
which also requires anesthesia.
So we have programs that I like to talk to my clients about of brushing,
using products to soften the tartar in your mouth.
And most importantly, finding something good and safe to chew on.
I think I've told you folks in the past, Josie loves raw high
and she gets entertained by it for an hour or two and that mechanical action of
chewing
scrapes the teeth.
So if you have good hygiene,
you can avoid the dental chair sometimes for the life of your pet
saving you thousands.
Thousands. Ok. Oh, I'm glad. Oh, and by the way, how often you think once a week?
Like what do you think? Three times a day or
three times a week, three times a week. Ok. Ok. I'm gonna get my kids on it. All right.
Our next view on a question.
I have an American Staffordshire
terrier pit bull. His no, has gotten really dry over the last couple of weeks.
I bought nose balm from the store and it doesn't seem to be doing much good.
What could I do to make it better for him?
He doesn't seem to be in pain, but it's flaking and peeling.
That is a fine looking beast there.
Look at him, I'll tell you what this is interesting because you,
you brought it up earlier with ginger about the barometric pressure.
Also with that are what we call the vernal
transition or the equinox where the weather is changing
and um,
the nose is somewhat tied to that.
Ok.
These, uh, these are circadian rhythms
really affect the nose. So you're seeing that nose as a result of the weather.
Now keep rubbing the bomb on it because there's nothing you can really do about it.
But it is seasonal. We like to think it's seasonal. Get better with time.
So just keep rubbing the nose balm or something else on there.
Your dog just licks it off anyway. I
know. I know. Interesting. Interesting. It affects not only human
but our pets too.
All right, Brady from
CLO, he says I have a seven year old Schnauzer and Chihuahua mix.
I put about one tablespoon of cottage cheese
with his dry food each morning. Is that ok? I've never heard of
dogs eating cottage cheese. Poor Brady. You only get one tablespoon? Oh,
wow. I guess it's not bad, huh? One is fine. As long as he tolerates it. Yeah.
Stay with the low fat though.
Really? Cottage cheese is ok.
I think so.
Moderate.
No, just the calcium and the dairy and the proteins are good and he loves it.
And if he tolerates it and it's low fat, I'd say you're good to go Brady. All right.
You go with that cottage lucky dog. I know. Really? Ok.
Next one,
I have a golden dod with a very sensitive stomach
and came home today to soupy piles of poop.
Is there a probiotic or something? I could give him for better gut health.
We stick solely to dog food and no table stuff.
Tis the season for
blood and
vomiting and diarrhea. With this weather, rain wind comes g I problems and it's
the good news is I'm gonna guess it's not your dog,
but it's the environment causing this.
If he goes out and just sniffs around and eat something,
your backyard is kind of like going to Mexico
and brushing your teeth with the tap water,
you get the blood
and the blood.
So
very
vomiting and diarrhea.
So like the pepto commercial. So really uh probiotics can help.
Sometimes they aggravate the diarrhea because a probiotic
is bacteria and when you're eating that bacteria,
sometimes you're just adding insult to injury.
So I say,
keep it simple.
Uh, if the diarrhea gets too nasty with blood,
you might go get some antibiotics to clear that up.
We use a, a
medication called
metroNIDAZOLE that really firms up the stool pretty quick.
Find probiotics can be overused a bit.
So, maybe, maybe, don't jump to that one too quick. Ok. Interesting.
It's not your dog. It's the environment. Ok. All right.
Rashid and Chandler says, should I get pet insurance for my Arizona Desert Tortoise
this whole time? We kept talking about dogs and cats. Rashid,
man. I don't know the answer to that. I'd have to check and see if it's available. But
Desert Tortoise
premiums for 100 years.
Wow, you may want to rethink that. Yeah, that's uh,
I don't know, outweigh, you know,
great question
or pet insurance,
you know, I'll have to think about that,
but I'd say look at the premiums if it's a low cost
and how
long they
live.
There are some excellent tortoise vets here in town and I know some of
them they can do pretty amazing things and those bills can also be big.
So
it's actually a very interesting question that I've never thought about receipts.
So thanks for bringing it to our attention. Our
next segment. Stump. Breath
of that.
We did. All
right.
Well, I