Announcer
Welcome to the senior pet podcast, A show dedicated to giving our senior four legged family members. They’re happiest and healthiest lives. Now join our senior pet experts. Veterinarian Dr Stacy Bone, an animal health insider, Rond de Vries as they discuss why old age is not a disease.
Stacey
Welcome, everybody to the senior pet podcast. I am Dr Stacy Bone. And with me is Ron de Vries. Ron, how are you?
Ron
I’m doing great, Stacey. Glad to be here in 2020. Getting difficult, Thio say, But I guess getting easier every day.
Stacey
Did you see that article that you’re supposed to fully right out the date? 2020?
Ron
No, I didn’t, because I think I signed to check the other day and I wrote 20 down and nobody corrected me.
Stacey
Yes. Somebody was saying, I guess that they can change in front of the 20. So you’re supposed to write 2020? I don’t know the legalities or issues with that, but it just thought was really interesting.
Ron
That so it doesn’t say 1920. Like I wrote the check 100
Stacey
years. Exactly. Um so if we sound a little bit different, hopefully we sound a little bit better. We’re coming to you live from the new pot ology studio, which is actually just 1/3 room in my house that I have converted with a table and a couple of microphones. It’s a studio to us. Yeah, way. Want to say thank you to the ST Louis Public Library, who has a phenomenal maker space with a podcast studio and all kinds of really good stuff. So it was a great start, but hopefully, as time goes on, we can get a little bit more professional as we move forward into the podcast.
Ron
I think when we walked in there, Stacy, they were probably thinking, Here are a couple of guys that are new to the rap game. Yeah, I’ve got
Stacey
Yeah, I’ve got rap written all over me. There’s no question of that. Also, Ron, today’s topic of conversation, I think, actually just kind of extends nicely from our last episode, where we kind of covered what happens at the veterinarian. And I thought, You know what? It’s probably worth us diving into the mind of a veterinarian and get an idea of what happens. Actually, during the physical examination itself, I think pet owners and you can correct me if I’m wrong. Sometimes look at us like touching their animals, and they have no idea what we’re actually doing in order to get to a diagnosis or get to the next step.
Ron
It’s a lot like when I go to get a checkup or some of the doctor starts feeling under my John, and then I go what’s at all about. But, you know, he makes conversation, so I don’t ask questions and he doesn’t say anything’s wrong. So we just keep going,
Stacey
right? And I think that’s an excellent parallel to make, because I’ll be I don’t go to the doctor a ton. But I’ve been to the doctor you know, relatively regularly for the last 3 to 4 years ends one of the things that I really always impresses upon me. Whenever I go, there’s how rarely they do a physical exam. You know, most of what’s done in the human medicine is talking, and then they can kind of laser focus in on the the problem area, and I don’t know when the last time it was you went to the doctor will keep it above the belt, if possible. But I mean what was the exam that you got when you were at the doctor. Like, what did they do to you?
Ron
Ah, yeah, Typically, based on maybe something like a bronchitis or something like that. So yeah, and as you said, everything above the belt. Right. So no, nobody was concerned about anything outside of the chest and the head regarding. You know why I walked in the door that day?
Stacey
Yeah. And I think that, you know, I remember him. Kind of pushing around on my belly and three spots is like, Is a tender Noah’s a tender knows that tender No. And then listening Thio a couple of quadrants on my back. And that was the end of it, you know? And we do a whole lot mawr in veterinary medicine. And I think it’s a direct result of our patients not being able. Thio, tell us what’s wrong, right? Yeah. I mean, unfortunately, we live in a world where our pets have yet figured out how to talk. Unless you’re that amazing dog on Instagram that it’s the buttons now, which is if anybody is listening and they want to go see that you should really look for that dog. It’s absolutely amazing. But I still argue that it’s it’s really the single most important thing we do in an examination with our pets. And so diving into to what it is that I’m doing is a veterinarian. When I really examine the pets, I think is is important. So broad. I’ve said this before and let’s hope you were listening, eh? So when I ask you this question, when does the physical examination start?
Ron
Probably the minute that that dog walks into the examination room and you start looking at him.
Stacey
Yeah, and and then that’s really, really, really important because there’s there’s a really valuable reason for us to just sit there for a minute and observe that pet. So if you had to take a guess, what do you think I’m looking for? So I’m sitting there. You and I are talking in the examination room, you know, we’re talking about your child’s last baseball game, and you know, I’m really not focusing in on you. I’m looking at that pet as they walk around the room, so we’ll start with dogs. What do you think I’m looking at?
Ron
I’m guessing a little bit of their gate, see if they’re, um, putting more pressure on any certain digit. So are others may be looking for a response if we’re talking and they’re listening to us, or if they’re here in your voice when you’re calling them, um, and just hoping they don’t make a mess in the room.
Stacey
Yeah, So if I had Thio, I guess some that all up, I would say Absolutely. I’m looking at demeanor, and when we look at senior pet specifically, it’s senior dogs. A lot of times, senior dogs who have cognitive issues because they’re in a new place, they’ll wander around the room. And sometimes, you know, if you’re at a clinic that has chairs, the dog won’t be able to navigate their way between the chairs or they’ll get caught in the corners of the room. Things of that nature. We oftentimes look at what we call sit to stand, which is what you were talking about, which is kind of rising off the floor and then walking around the room. And I can get a really good idea of Does your dog have arthritis back problem? Other things that are going on there and and even beyond that we’re looking at, um, you know, kind of just the general overall appearance. How do they look? How’s their hair coats? And it sounds really dumb. But once you get to know a pet for a long time, you can actually tell Whenever they don’t feel good, you can see it in their eyes. You can see it in kind of their mannerisms. So it’s an interesting thing. And I think one of the reasons why we often times you recommend that, you know, if you don’t hate your veterinarian, stick with them for a long period of time and stick with them. You know, often like we talked about 234 times a year, kind of pending What’s going on? So let’s change the script here real quick and talk about cats because they think cats are a little bit different, right? Because technically cats are in the carrier or the the owner has already got them on the table and they’re sitting there. So what do you think? I’m looking forthe cats protecting yourself first, right? Yeah. I mean, that’s a that’s a big part is Well, I mean, demeanor is a huge one. If that cat’s already growling or hissing. I’m already looking for back up as we go through. What else, boy?
Ron
Ah, lot of the same things I would think. Especially with cats. Ah, maybe respiratory respiratory issues. Um, if they’re sitting there, you’re not gonna be able to tell a lot about their their gate in their legs. Other than that, boy cats are still a mystery to me.
Stacey
Yeah, and we’ve mentioned that a couple of times, so I think that’s a really good change it real quick. Um, So Ron explained to me what you mean by you say the cats are hiders of disease,
Ron
you know, just like when I think of watching those shows on National Geographic or Net Geo as they call it today, um, you know, we know that that predators are always trying to hide any weaknesses they might have. So other predators don’t take advantage of them on dhe. Pray as well. So I expect a cat to hide if it has a sore paw or, um, you know, if it’s got some underlying issue that’s bothering it, it’s not going to show that to your least not right away.
Stacey
Yeah, they’re territorial animals. And so if they show a weakness, another cat could come by, pluck him off and take over their territory. And unfortunately, and we’ve said this before, we’ve yet to be able to domesticate cats. Cats have just turned away at all chances that we’ve had to make them true. 100% pets. So dogs we’ve been wonderful at, right. We’ve domesticated them, change their eating habits. All this kind of good stuff. Katz. Unfortunately, we’re still trying to figure out in their mystery on four legs that I think, unfortunately, we’re not getting any better at understanding in the grand scheme of things. But I agree with you 100%. I mean, the first thing I’m looking at us. How is that cab breathing? And we’ve mentioned this before as well, which is that respiratory rate, Whether it’s fast and it’s shallow, labored things of that, nature can be a really big indication that there’s something semi serious going on. And so I think I told you this story where I’ve had to stop appointments, grab the cat, say we’re gonna be right back. There’s something serious going on, and we’ve instituted emergency procedures in order to stabilize that cat when neither myself nor the owner knew a minute ago that there was a problem with that cat. So that’s the 1st 1 The 2nd 1 is is that Wildcats are hiders of disease. One of the biggest indicators that something go is going wrong is a massive hair coat change. And so if I see an older cat specifically that has matted hair coats or a greasy hair quote or a lot of changes going on externally, I’m gonna be more apt to think that there’s some sort of chronic process going on underneath the surface that we need to investigate and figure out. Does that make sense?
Ron
I kind of like hair loss
Stacey
in humans. Yeah, help not, maybe, Really? Yeah, I really hope not. Because if that’s the case, I wanna wanna wanna track to some sort of disease that’s yet to be identified. And so, yeah, we’re already doing the physically physical examination, so I know that time is constrained, and I know that our days and lives air really busy, but give it a couple of minutes for the veterinarian to sit down and just kind of talk and monitor your pet is, it walks around the room and we tend to want to take multiple animals to the vet at any given time. If you have a senior, I would encourage that. You do them one at a time, and I know that’s a pain. And I know nobody wants to go to the veterinarian more than once, but I think that it’s truly important. So, Ron, I think that’s what we’ll do now is take a quick break and then when we come back, we’re actually gonna walk or away through a physical examination.
Ron
I’ve got a lot of questions
Stacey
Perfect. We’ll be right back
Ron
And we’re back. Dr. Stacy, we were just talking a minute ago about bringing your your cat in your dogs specially senior dogs and cats into the vet for a physical exam and kind of walking through that entire process. And we talked about. Now, what is the process actually look like once we get past where you’re sort of physically observing that pet for the first few minutes?
Stacey
Yeah, so we’re actually go into the physical part of the physical exam, and so we kind of split this into two categories, you know, very easy categories. The 1st 1 of course, being dogs and the 2nd 1 being cats, but will kind of lump cats and small dogs together and large dogs. And the reason being the cats and small dogs are typically done on the exam room table. I, I personally, was not a huge fan of doing large dogs dog exams on the table. I typically crawled on the floor with them, which is good and bad all at the same time. It’s a little bit bad because I am not a fit individual, and sometimes it’s a little hard Thio. Move quickly when you’re in the prone position on the floor. Which brings us to 21 quick little tangents. And this is for all my veterinarian friends out there. And I guess veterinary technician friends as well, which is, if your animal is slightly aggressive, please mention it, please, and we don’t hold it against you. We really, truly don’t. I think there’s not a one of us who wouldn’t say thank you so much for telling that to us, because now we can take the appropriate measures to protect everybody involved and where we don’t even fault the animal for that. I mean, they’re in a weird place. There were doing really weird things to him and were really strange people. And so you put those three things together, and that’s the perfect storm of taking an animal and getting them completely out of their comfort zone. And Rana, I mean, imagine what that would be like with a senior pet.
Ron
Yeah. Angry and everything that goes along with being a senior and then also being more aggressive. On top of that, you never see a M. You never see a small dog room at a vet clinic. Right? But you do see the large dog room, and that’s sort of what you’re talking about helps explain why you have. That s I don’t see veterinarians crone on their knees all day long.
Stacey
Yeah, and I think ultimately, you know, at the end of the day, everybody is a little bit happier if we know what to expect. One of the things that was always ah, tough thing with senior pets, and I do just want to kind of prepare everybody for this. They tend to be screamers, and it’s not a concept of were doing anything differently to them than we’ve ever done before. It’s that cognitively they don’t understand. And I am somewhat blessed that I didn’t have to go through that with my parents where or my grandparents, for that matter, where they had dementia and things of that nature and had to go to the hospital of the doctor. But I hear it’s very similar in humans. You know, they have Alzheimer’s, they have dementia. They just don’t quite understand what is going on in our senior pets or that same play. And so we’ve got him on the table or we got him on the floor and they’re typically being restrained. And that’s another quick little side tangent, which is we know you all love toe. Hold your own pets. But it’s not the best thing for everybody involved for a couple of reasons or on any ideas of those are.
Ron
We’re probably not going toe restrain them to the degree that a professional well,
Stacey
that’s absolutely number one. If that dog is cognitively impaired or even just a little bit and aggressive, the veterinary technicians or even the veterinarian can sense that feel that and know how to take the appropriate measures, Thio stop the action before somebody gets bit. That’s the 1st 1 What else?
Ron
A guest, simply the I don’t know liability involved.
Stacey
And that’s the absolute number two than that of the two issues. So liability and veterinary practices do not cover the owners. And while we think that the animal might be a little bit better with you holding them if you got bits or if somebody got bit, unfortunately, that liability falls on the practice. So there’s a huge insurance component to this as well. And as we all know in this world, insurance is an important thing we have to be concerned about. So really, it’s for the safety of all people involved. So it was the rare owner that I truly would let hold their pat. And it was only because that animal was just so much better with the owner holding them that I felt comfortable saying, You know what? The technician is gonna be right here, and they would actually typically lay a hand. And it’s usually cats lay a hand on the cat, and they would know the second that cat was to start to move. And so we had ways around that but it still was not a perfect system.
Ron
I never even thought about the owner getting bit.
Stacey
Yes, yeah, and that’s happened a couple times I’ve had to put in the hospital in my career because of cat bites, no less. Which we’ve already talked about are just nasty little things, you know, really bad with infection. And they spread very rapidly. So the first part of the physical part of the physical exam is something we called the T P R. And you’ll hear us to use that in in human and veterinary medicine, and that stands for a temperature, pulse and respiration, so I’ll be 100% honest with you. I was really not great at taking temperatures when I was in practice, and I should have been better in my Vette. My vet professors are probably gonna, you know, send me 50 e mails now, but it was just one of these things that it unsettles everybody. It unsettles the pet owner in and settles the pets. And so if we did do temperatures, there was typically on quote unquote sick patients that came in. It wasn’t typically done on well patients
Ron
that because it’s not done temporally. Is that the correct?
Stacey
Yeah, there’s, I mean, we have to, unfortunately go rectally. And there’s been a lot of studies that have shown non rectal temperatures are not super accurate and pets, and so typically will do it on the inside of the year if we do have, like an ear thermometer. But there’s just makes everybody feel better. There’s really not a good accuracy between rectal and your temperature. Someday somebody will come up with something better, but it remains to be seen, so the temp temperature pulls and respiration are typically things that are done. Next. We’re gonna come and start at the front and work our way to the back. And I’m gonna caveat this by saying, This is how I did examinations. Every veterinarian is just a little bit different. Everybody has their own style. Everybody has their own way of doing things. Preferring says a lot of times when we do, cats will actually go from the back towards the front. Interestingly enough, there is, um, Dr Becker, Marty Becker, who we’ve talked about before when he did his fear free look into it, actually discovered the cats did better with an exam when you went to the head last. So it is what it is. But we would adapt this and change it kind of depending on the pet. So we’ll go ears to rears. Does that sound all right? It works for me. So the first place we’re always gonna hit is the teeth and the gum. So, Ron, what do you think we’re looking for?
Ron
Ah, boy, we’re looking for, um, rotten teeth, rotten gums. And both are probably equally dangerous.
Stacey
So we’re gonna assess gum color we’re gonna look to see Well, I want those guns to be nice and pink. And a lot of times we do something called the capital ery refill time, which is where I take my thumb and I press it on the gum line real quick. And I see how quickly that color bounces back to normal. The other thing? Absolutely. We’re gonna look for his is dental issues. So readiness, inflammation, gum, recession, tartar and most importantly, bad breath. I mean, that could be an indication of an issue. And when I say bad breath, I’m not just talking about a rotten teeth. Um, sometimes we can catch diabetics because they’ll have, like a sweet odor to their their breath. Sometimes we can actually catch kidney disease that, particularly in cats and dogs, because they’ll have, like what we call your remick odor to to the mouth. And that’s just stuff that you kind of garner as you’ve been in the industry for a while. So, believe it or not, there’s a lot you can tell from the mouth. Now we’re gonna move to the eyes so the eyes were looking at clarity. A lot of times with senior pets specifically will do what are called retinal exams, and that’s that serves a couple of purchase of the retinas, the back of the eye, and we’ll take a light on or device that allows us to actually look into the back of the eye. And there’s a few things we’re looking at. Their blood pressure can manifest as changes to the retina. Other issues going on. Also, if we’re looking for cataracts, cataracts block our ability to see through the lens into the back of the eye. So in short terms and Dr Donnelly, the University of Missouri, for listening, I apologize. He would be mad, but there’s a whole lot you’re looking at with the eye. But for general practitioners, that’s a lot of times the first step makes sense. Um, secondly, we’re gonna go towards the years. So we’re looking at discharge red nous paying anything along those lines that we’re going to see in the ears, smell, odors, things of that nature. And I didn’t do a lot of ODA scoping exams in practice unless there was a reason to do it. Because I hated that one when I went to the doctor one time with an ear infection and they grab that sucker and it was so painful. So unless there’s a reason for me to look, I’m not just going to do that, you know, willy nilly for no reason. I don’t know. Anger a lot of pain.
Ron
Well, I’ve seen it done and not in on this side of the table. It’s a very interesting and could be equally disgusting.
Stacey
Yeah, Oh, yeah, You’ll see a lot of really cool stuff. Ear mites, A lot of times, discharge ordered. A lot of times we’re looking at the ear drum itself to make sure that there’s no issues with that. So from the ears I tended to kind of just look at the years, and I would take my hands on either side of the patient and just kind of pet them from the ears down to the base of the tail. And we’re doing a couple of things. There were feeling the texture of the hair coat, but most importantly, what am I looking for?
Ron
Probably lumps, bumps and otherwise
Stacey
lumps and bumps? Absolutely. And so those air on the Skinner under the skin and Comptel really quickly. But the other thing that I’m assessing a lot of times is muscle mass, and so unhealthy animals typically lose muscle mass along the spine first. And so when you see these older cats, particularly that air walking around that you can see their backbone all the way down, I mean 99 times out of 100. There’s probably some underlying issue going on with that animal. Same with dogs. I mean, we’ll see it a lot with dogs as well. So we’ve got the that. Now we’re going to do what we call a skull Tae shin, which is a fancy term for listening to the heart and the lungs, and we’re doing a ton with that. We’re looking at again the heart rate. We’re looking at the rhythm of the heart. We’re listening for murmurs. We’re listening to the lungs for crackles or we’s is or anything along those lines. I think it’s really important to mention that the lungs are really big and we’re using a stethoscope that can on li listen to the noise is so unfortunately, Oscar taste of the lungs won’t reveal all the problems that we can see, particularly things like tumors. Right? So I can’t hear a tumor unless that tumor is changing the way that the air moves through the lungs. And even at that, I’ll be honest with you. It takes a really impressive veterinarian to be able to hear. That changes, right, And then we go on to the abdomen. And you know, a lot of times people look at me really weird because we spend a lot of time on the abdomen, right. We’re squeezing, and we’re kind of sliding her hands all over. And what we’re doing is assessing organs so you can actually feel the liver, the spleen, the kidneys, the intestines, the bladder, a lot of stuff going on in that belly and you’re feeling if it’s out of place or if there’s possibly an enlargement. I remember I had this vet school professor named Dr Cohn, who she would always walk in a room and she’d palpate the cat. And she would say, These intestines air thickened and every one of the students on the rotation be like, What? How is that even possible? But took me about eight years before I got to that level where you can tell. But once you got to that point and you have felt intestine so many times, you could tell if they were second.
Ron
And that sounds like that’s an issue.
Stacey
It ISS yeah. So a lot of times, inflammatory diseases in the intestines will cause a palpable thickening or tumors or growths or irregularities for things like that. And then, you know, once we get through the abdomen were typically gonna goto orthopedics. And that depends on the animal Big dogs. Um, it’s small dogs, cats. We all have different range of motion that we’re going to do, and the best way I can describe that is, if you were to take your arm and kind of do a windmill, you know and spin it in a circle. That’s the range of motion of your arm everywhere you can move it and do that and a lot of times in arthritic diseases or lower back diseases, when we take that leg backwards and put it through its range of motion. If the dog stops us or hollers because it hurts or something along those lines, there’s an indication that there’s pain, arthritis, something going on there. But beyond that, we’re even gonna look at the muscle mass of those legs so we can tell the difference between whether or not an animal has been using it appropriately.
Ron
When I’ve seen my veterinarian do that, Ah, especially to Rudy in the past, you would normally start to cringe because the degree that they would try to take that leg and I’m thinking out that looks like it hurts. But he would never put up a fuss or fight. But I was always surprised that he had less arthritis than he actually did.
Stacey
Yeah, and I think that, you know, kind of rough. Rule of thumb is about 180 degree range of motion of the back legs, so that’s in kind of a semi circle forwards to backwards, and you can take that back leg into full extension. And so again, if that dog resist me at, say, 100 and 10 degrees, that’s not normal. There’s pain there. We need to investigate. Why that ISS And so the kind of final two places that will go to one is the genital system. So in female dogs, we’re gonna look at the vulva in male dogs. We’re going to look at the previews, the Penis, that area. And then, finally, is something again that I, as a veterinarian, should have been better at which is the rectal exam. And so a lot of time to rectal pal patient on the dogs we’re gonna feel particularly for lymph node enlargement, prostate if the dog’s intact Or more importantly, we’re gonna feel those anal glands. And those anal glands get tumors very often, and they go undiagnosed because we we don’t do rectal exam. So we have veterinarians need to get better doing rectal exams. So, Ron, that’s that’s in a in a very tight shell. I think I need to say that that’s kind of a well exam. If there’s problems, then we focus in and we have a ton of other exams and tests and things like that that we can do just with our ends that will help us to pinpoint a problem.
Ron
There’s a lot going on there that I had never realized.
Stacey
There’s a ton and like I said, I think that you know, a lot of people you know sometimes say, Well, you only did a five or 10 minute examination. Why are you charging me $50? And this is one of these old sayings that I love, Which is you’re not paying for the 10 minutes you’re paying for the 10 years. Then it took me to be able to do this in 10 minutes. And so, you know, again, I’m not here to advocate one over the other butts. But don’t skip the physical exams. They’re very, very, very important again. And they tell us so. So, so much information. So, Ron, any questions about that before we head to a break?
Ron
You know, I’m just completely onboard with preventive medicine, right? And I think if you’re not getting your dog and cat a physical exam every year, the amount of things that you just covered. Ah, the variety of things that can go wrong with everything that you just covered are immense. And to catch them in their infancy, if you will again, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,
Stacey
No doubt. No doubt it off. So we’re gonna take a quick break and come back with the hot spots. And we are backs Iran before we dive into the hot spot. You brought up a really good thing over the break that I think it’s worth mentioning real quick, which is what happens when the pet gets angry. I just wanted to say that certainly the examination, if we can get the full examining is awesome. But a lot of times, you know, well, we’re professionals. We know when your animal is getting fed up with us. So I have called off exams. I’ve said you know what this is? Um this is something we need to look at. But maybe you’d be best if I do it in the back. You know, when we have a little bit more restraint or muzzles or things on those lines. So we’re always watching the animal to kind of see where we hit that def Con five. Is that the worst? I can’t remember Def Con wanted Def Con five. Where we know that we’re about to push that animal over the edge. So Inter interesting comment and question by Ron that I thought the rest of you might benefit from. So now what we’re gonna do is hand it over to Ron and he is going Thio bring up his hot spot for this episode.
Ron
Stacy, you touched on to just a few minutes ago in regards to, um teeth mouths, things like that. And my hot spot is bad breath and cats have it. Dogs have it. Humans have it sometimes on a long coffee morning. I certainly have it. But when it comes to our dogs and cats, especially the senior dogs and cats, sometimes we have people that just chalk it up to, you know, that’s just dog breath or my cat just has bad breath and that kind of thing in and quite frankly, our dog, Fay, right now who is a senior, doesn’t have a breath issue or bad breath. Um, and we do some preventive things with Fay. But boy, my other dog, Rudy he had some foul breath, and I don’t know if that just went hand in hand with bad ears, but But he required a bit of maintenance. So when it comes to the breath issue, I think that a lot of us tend to like they said, Just put it off his dog, Bad dog or bad cat breath. But I think one of the things we need to recognize is, you know,
Stacey
what is that
Ron
dog or cat been doing, you know, is your cat. Ah, I come part time outside cats right where they go outside to get a little chance toe, hopefully not get into too much trouble. But get into birds and get into rodents and things like that, and they’re probably bound to bring something into the house or to the door. And at that point you’ll know some of the things you can look for, and that probably doesn’t help with their breath concerns. And on the dog’s side. Well, if your dog spends a little too much time looking at his own feces and they might have is a cope if Asia good word usage. Yeah, professional word. So if your dog eats pu uh, you probably have other issues besides just their normal bad breath. But, um, you know, when it comes to this physical exam we’re talking about, uh, you know, I guess part of the exam, I would think Stacy is asking that person. Do they brush their dog’s or cat’s teeth? And, boy, I would imagine that’s where people start lying. So when they stopped looking at you and they answer, I think you can probably tell the truth.
Stacey
Well, I think it goes kind of goes one of two different ways. I tend to believe the people who say they don’t and don’t believe the people that say that they dio and and I just you know, and maybe that’s jaded of me to some extent. But I know how frustratingly tough that is for pet owners to brush their pets teeth. And you know, I hate to say it, but going to the groomer once a month and buying the toothbrush package for 20 bucks more doesn’t nothing have nothing. The dentist will tell you that you need to mechanically abrade those teeth at least every 24 to 48 hours.
Ron
You know, you mentioned that the abrasive action on the teeth right, and that comes with a toothbrush or a finger brush or whatever. You can possibly get into your dogs or cats. Mouth and and I don’t have a cat, but I can’t imagine that that’s any easier than a dog. I would imagine it’s even more difficult because those little razors inside that mouth or a challenge
Stacey
much more difficult, smaller mouths and there tend to be less okay with us.
Ron
Well, none of my dogs have ever been great with letting me brush their teeth, but I’ll usually try to get at it every couple of weeks. Something like that. And I’ll tell you with Fay, that’s probably even being a little liberal. But But when you can accomplish that, the amount of preventive maintenance you’re doing it is probably considerable. So I say to anybody, please give it a shot, even if you don’t get a lot accomplished on maybe on the inside of the mouth. Maybe, at least on the outside, you’re doing some good because when when we start talking about some of the things that will ultimately lead to our pets death, some of it can start in the mouth, and I won’t put Stacey through the answering. You know what can go wrong when your dog’s teeth start rot rotting out and they get thes ulcers in their mouths and things like that because it’s not a pretty conversation, But I do know that it can be the beginning lead to lead to the end of our pets. But the preventive side of it, you know, when you can get the opportunity to brush your dog’s your dogs or cats teeth, but also getting them in for, ah, prophylaxis getting them in for that trophy. You know, I think it’s was a care credit had that the average pro fi Costas was for a dog between 70 and $400. I don’t know where 70 comes from because I’ve searched clear. Yeah,
Stacey
And so Ron defined pro phy.
Ron
Ah, when when they actually put your dog or cat under anesthesia and get in there with what they use on us humans. The the prophylaxis. Um, with that with the water, I don’t know what you call that machine that scaler scaler. Thank you. Yeah, and they’re getting around those teeth and gums and getting all the plaque and the Ginger Vitus that they can offer there. And probably there’s a certain amount of scraping that may also have to go on to get some of the some of the harder buildup.
Stacey
Yeah, and so I always define it with people, is that’s what we throw around The term dental dental is is falling out of favor a little bit. The new kind of more accepted terminology is something called a co hat C o H a T, which is comprehensive aural health assessment in treatment because really gone are the days where we just put them under anesthesia and clean the teeth. Like Ron said, we’re doing a whole lot more in that mouth were doing probing. A lot of times were doing X rays. We’re doing full oral exams because, especially in our senior pets cats, you know, probably more so than dogs. They can get aural tumors that can cause a lot of halitosis or bad breath. But a lot of times those tumors air under the tongue, and I will tell you that that is almost impossible to snag on an oral examination in an awake animal.
Ron
But when they’re under for a profile, I would imagine you can see all that
Stacey
absolutely, and we make sure that we spend the time to look for it.
Ron
And that’s how critical these eggs air these practices are. And again, whether it’s $70 or $400 you’re going to get your money’s worth out of that, probably in just the longevity of your pet. By taking good care of their their oral cavity. It’s, ah, something that I don’t talk to too much about. But I was thinking the first time I got my pug Rudy Hey, had a tooth growing kind of outward. Now, anybody that knows pugs, they don’t usually have a great set of teeth to begin with, right?
Stacey
It’s because they’ve been all the teeth into amount about the third of the size. That is supposed to be right.
Ron
So So, uh, our veterinarian, who first started seeing Rudy was a very qualified dentist here in the ST Louis region, And, uh, I told him, Hey, you know what’s what’s wrong with Rudy’s, too. There is Well, you know, it’s sometimes they just grow crooked, and I thought what that could lead to more problems because the rest of teeth probably won’t come in straight. So we go. Do you think that we could get that one extracted and hopefully that will be again sort of the ounce of prevention for upon a cure? And he I don’t know if he looked at me funny at the time, but he said, I mean, we can So we had him do that. And then little did I know that was never going to help anything with the rest of his teeth coming in because they came in forwards backwards, sideways and and everything else, but but really just getting back to the bad breath. The getting the pro fi done at the veterinarian is certainly gonna help with that. It’s not the cure all. There’s a lot of great products out there by a lot of different companies, and none of them are going to do what putting a toothbrush or finger brush into your pets mouth is gonna help on a regular basis. I’m not saying don’t buy the products, don’t use the products. They’re great. There’s even dental foods, and they simply work off the abrasive action of the food as well, right? So they’re nothing is going to replace getting that finger that tooth president, your pets mouth on a regular basis if you can. And again, I’m not saying that I do it on a daily or even a weekly basis. But if you can get it in there once in a while, you’re doing yourself and your pet a lot of good and helping not only those teeth but that breath as well.
Stacey
Yeah, and I think that that’s ah, you know, really good kind of Segway into probably a future conversation on dentistry is a hole, but I think it’s important to even say in Iran you kind of kind of said, This is well, which is, you know, unfortunately, all of us brush our teeth twice a day. We flaws. We water pik. We do mouth watch, and it still doesn’t keep us away from the dentist. It’s the same with our pets, right? I mean, even if you did a dental once every year, that’s still the basis behind four years and cats or seven years in a dog, roughly so you’re looking. It’s basically going to the dentist once every seven years, and some people can get away with that. Some people can’t. The old rule of thumb is basically anything smaller than a breadbox. Really should probably have a dental cleaning or at least a dental examination yearly. Some of them I’ve had twice a year.
Ron
You know, Last tip for dummies like me is if your dog or cat stops eating, feeding kibble and they stop eating hard food and on Lee wanna eat soft food, you might have a problem, and it’s certainly worth looking in that dung cat’s mouth.
Stacey
Yeah, and I’ll tell you. And this is a kind of a pet peeve of mine. And we’ll hit this again, probably in the future, which is There are very few reasons why in the mouth that a dog or a cat will stop eating. And I’ve had so many clients come in and say, You know, my dog’s not eating in. My cat’s not eating in the safe. There’s probably something wrong with the teeth, and unfortunately, that’s generally not the case. Unless there’s a tumor. Usually they’re not eating for another reason. Outside of the mouth will always look at the mouth, but I’ve had dogs that have come in with bilateral to through abscesses, which will rupture through the nose. They’ll come out with with, you know, discharge coming down the nose from teeth and ruptured. And those dogs will be eating totally fine. They eat through the pain. That’s kind of what they’re meant to do, right? The drive to eat is the strongest thing on the planet. So while it can be the teeth, I think unfortunately, it it’s not often the teeth. But we’ll always look at that to make sure, But we’ll dive into other reasons for that
Ron
good place to start.
Stacey
Perfect. All right, Ron, Thanks for that. That’s a great topic. And, you know, I think again something that will will probably dive into in the future, that world diseases of dogs and cats specifically, but a little bit of a longer episode. But I think everything that we talked about is semi important again. We’re kind of laying the runway as it is for future conversations on diseases. So we wanted to make sure we covered the examination and what we’re looking for when we examine Pat. So next time I think we’re actually going to dive into diagnostics a little bit. You know why we recommend what we recommend and what the heck it does again. You can always email us at the senior pet podcast at gmail dot com. We’re get ahold of us on any of our social media platforms. Ron, have a great rest your day.
Ron
Thanks, Stacey. You do the same.
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