Stacey
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, Ron de Vries as they discuss why old age is not a disease. Welcome to the senior pet podcast. I am veterinarian and senior pet expert Dr Stacy Bone. And with me is animal health insider Ron de Vries. Ron, how’s it going?
Ron
I am doing great Stacey. Thank you.
Stacey
Excellent. Excellent. So last time we covered what’s a senior pet healthcare look like and kind of what happens as we age. And we thought a logical next step would be to discuss what a senior veterinary visit looks like.
Ron
A great topic. Stacy and very topical,
Stacey
And I think that, you know, people are gonna be like, Well, is there really a difference? And hopefully at the end of this episode, you understand. I think that there’s a drastic difference, but short answer is, yeah, there’s a huge difference between the senior pet visit in the middle aged pet visit. So to me, I think Ron, that’s probably a great way to start. So I’m interested to hear from your perspective as a pet owner what you’ve noticed between taking your dog to the vet whenever they were younger or whenever they were older.
Ron
I guess that that question starts at home Stacy, and that, meaning that getting them to the vet becomes an even greater challenge now when they’re a puppy. It’s also great Jones, because they’re a little bit quicker, so they’re a little bit harder to get together,
Stacey
and I don’t know how they know, but they know. I mean, you could play in a week in advance, and for whatever reason, they know the second that day you wake up, they’re going to the vet.
Ron
It’s intuitive. I believe it. ISS and I would imagine, for cats even more so.
Stacey
And I’ll be honest with you. I think that we do that to ourselves to some degree, because how do we get the cat to the vet?
Ron
Well, we don’t put him on a leash. I’m sure that or at least a 99.9% of the cases we don’t but somehow and I don’t I’ve never been a don’t know if the word cat owners ever appropriate because I think the cat kind of owns the the owner, if you well, but I see these cats get there in their carriers. And I love to ask the question, How did you get them in that, Carrie?
Stacey
Yeah, and so I I can speak from this because we were cat, um, owners or subservience as it is ends. That’s the thing. We keep our carriers in the basement or even worse, in the garage. They’re brought out once a year to go to the vet. They smell horrible. You’re dusting out the cobwebs and one or two brown recluse if you live in in a Missouri and sometimes a little bit of dust and dirt and you get that out the morning that you’re going to go to the veterinarian and you plop it down and you open the door and you just expect the cat toe walk right in. But the problem is, is that cats? If there’s one thing that they hate in this world, cats hate change and all things change. And I love that this statistic. So Ron, they actually looked into this. Do you know what the top three stressors of a cat are?
Ron
public speaking. It’s one, uh, crossing the street. That’s too and, uh, public speaking again.
Stacey
So you know what’s crazy is is that while being facetious, you’re really close. So number one is sounds, so we’ll classify that is public speaking. Number two is people and number three is other pets. And so we always joke in Vet Med that, like what stresses at a cat? The answers, everything. I mean, it’s literally physically everything. And so this carrier that smells funny and looks weird and they’ve associate it with visits to the veterinarian gets plopped down in the middle of the carpet, and they instantly know that something is up. So my recommendation to you is actually to get that carrier out a week ahead of time and just throw it in the kitchen or throat in a bathroom that you don’t use and let it sit there. Let the CAG e used to it, and your odds of getting them in that carrier goes up exponentially, and I’ll be honest with you. Do not hesitate whatsoever.
Talk to your veterinarian about better living through pharmaceutical intervention because we love to give cats anti anxiety medications, and they work really well. It makes everybody’s life a little bit better. Yours, the veterinarians, the receptionists even better than that text. I mean, everybody’s life just gets a little bit better with pharmaceutical intervention
Ron
and especially that cat,
Stacey
And so that’s a big one about, um, you know, even senior cats, right? Because by 16 years of age, they’ve caught on to this, and they’re not gonna put up with your crap. I mean, they’re gonna fight you tooth and nail. T not go to the veterinarian. So we get it. We know that’s tough, but there’s a couple of really good tips for you and then dogs. You know, the number one issue is what mobility. Right. So prepare for that. You’re gonna be getting them up in a car. It’s probably not the greatest tohave the weakest person in the house. Get the Great Dane into the car and bring them to the veterinarian. If they have mobility issues, slings or grates, ramps are really good. I’ve had tons of clients who bought Gramps specifically for getting that large dog in and out of the suburban because they couldn’t. They couldn’t lift him.
Ron
and you don’t want to ask your Children to do it, either, quite frankly, especially if you have small Children, because that experience never goes well. Never. And you’re only going to add to the stress for that pet,
Stacey
so just prepare ahead of time. And that’s really important to other really, really, really important things. The first is fast your pets, and if you don’t know that concept, it’s actually just don’t feed them the morning of the appointment. And that’s really important for a couple of reasons. The first is that, believe it or not, eating can drastically affect both blood samples and urine samples. And that’s important for cats and dogs, both because Weah’s veterinarians absolutely hate to tell you we’re gonna need you to come back another day and draw blood sample because your pet ate
Ron
the great thing about a senior petting. Bringing him to the vet is getting a stool sample because we’ve been around him long enough. We know all their habits, and it’s a little bit easier to collect that still say,
Stacey
because, you know, you know that they’re gonna poop that morning because, like eso won believe it’s kind of creepy how well we know our pets by the end of it. The other thing that I’ll mention to you is that if you have concerns or you have complaints about your senior pet, try Thio. Video it. If it’s something that is video video, a bull, if that’s a word I got is out, up. And because you guys really have no idea how valuable that is to the veterinarian for you to say, you know, my dog gets up a little bit funny or coughs in the morning, your coughs in the evening, or my cat does this weird thing with its head where you try to, like, pantomime it out in the middle of the room, and none of us know what the what you’re trying to get to. So a video is worth 1000 words.
Ron
It’s like arguing with my wife. She wants to tell me that I’ve done something. I asked her for an example, and she doesn’t have a good example. Then I don’t think she has a good case,
Stacey
right? And so we talked about getting them there. Ron, how often we’ve covered this briefly in one of the other episodes But how often should let’s let’s start with dogs. How often should the senior dog get to the veterinarian?
Ron
I feel like I’m walking into a trap. You are. I’m gonna go twice a year every six months,
Stacey
and I think that’s a great starting point. I think that the real caveat to it is is it depends on what is wrong with your dog, you know, and I think at a minimum two times a year is phenomenal. But if you have a dog who has ongoing issues or problems that that need to be addressed or monitored relatively regularly, cancer is always a good one, right? Even in remission, we go to the doctor. A lot in our pets are no different. And so, keeping those regular appointments, I mean, I had one that was monthly. I mean, I saw that pet every month. Four blood work for liver enzymes and and we were able to really adapt our therapies very quickly, depending on what had changed in that blood work from, you know, a month before. And it was it was really great. So we had a standing appointment every month and honestly became some of my absolutely most favorite clients that I ever had. So what about the cats?
Ron
But we know that from our previous episode, Cats Agent about a 4 to 1 human ratio, right? So as they get a little bit closer to 15 we know that there are on the upside of 60. So, man, I don’t have a cat. I know that, uh, the ability to get that cat in that carrier’s gonna play a role in that but that you still got to get that cat there at least every year.
Stacey
Yeah, and I would say once a year is is great. There’s probably not a veterinarian that would be upset if you brought your cat in at least once a year. I do think twice a year, especially if you’re monitoring things like kidney values or thyroid values, or things like that is probably a little bit more important. A lot of digestive issues and intestinal problems in cat as they age and unexplained weight loss will make it so You probably need to be there a little bit more frequently, but it’s really on a case by case basis with again the concept being that we’re gonna focus on quality of life. And if everybody needs a drink after that cat has came and gone, whether that’s the owner, the cat or the veterinary team, probably nobody is gonna benefit from those appointments. You know, again, we go back to better living through pharmaceutical intervention. Really talk to your veterinarian if it’s if it’s a drastic,
Ron
stronger, great products out there. Yeah,
Stacey
wonderful products and getting better all the time. And we will give a quick, shout out Thio concept of something called Fear Free Medicine within. If anybody’s familiar with a veterinarian by the name of Dr Marty Becker, he has come up with basically some wonderful guidelines, not just for the veterinary clinics before pet owners as well, of making the veterinary visit way less stressful. And this really starts what probably is their puppies and kittens but can help your senior pets as well, especially if you’ve had a lot of issues with getting them to the vets. So what we’re gonna do now is we’re going to take a quick break and then we’re gonna come back, and we’re going to dive a little bit more into what happens as you get to the veterinarian. What did that? What does that veterinary visit itself look like? So we will be right back.
Ron
And we are back with senior pet podcast Ron de Vries, alone with Dr Stacy Bone. Stacy, you know where we’re going Here is what happens when we get the senior pet to the vet practice and assuming that we’ve gotten there safely, assuming that we don’t have that cat or dog running loose in the front seat of the car, which I see way too often still, there are a lot of good products out there that you can, you know, essentially tie your dog wandering back to restrain them. Because, you know, I’ve seen a number of times where that dog somehow gets in the owner’s lap and in between the wheel, nothing good can come of that.
Stacey
Not at all. And so, yeah, you walk into the clinic, you get checked in, you get into your, um you know, you get into the room and hopefully if everything is moving on time, which it rarely is and cut your vet team a little bit of a slack because we run behind very easily, You know, the next step is gonna be the history. And so the history for senior pets specifically is very, very, very important. It’s always important, but it’s really important for senior pets. And if you think about it, it’s really a numbers game, right? So we talk about the number of appointments that you really should have a year. So we talk about dogs or cats and we’re saying, Well, for a cat, it’s once a year for a dog. It’s twice a year, maybe more frequently, depending on what’s going on. I am seeing you for 30 to 45 minutes per six months or a year. That is a very short period of time. And Ron, I mean, I guess the question is, is who knows pets the best.
Ron
besides the pet. It’s got to be the pet owner or whoever cleans the litter.
Stacey
Yeah, and that’s the thing. And so I’ve had so many owners tell me, you know Dr Bone, do you think you’re gonna think I’m crazy, but blank and I will tell you 99% of the time we find something wrong with that Pets. You know, your pets better than anybody on the planet, and I can speak from experience. Ron could speak from experience. It’s no different than our kids, right? We hear stories all the time of mothers or fathers that go into the doctor and say, There’s something wrong with my child They’re not acting normally. It’s no different than pets. We know their routines. We know what they do, We know how they eat. And so that’s really important. And I would tell you did not hesitate to bring up anything that you think is valuable. And I guess that’s almost even a loaded statement there, Ron, because how do we know what’s valuable? I mean, it’s almost worthwhile to bring up anything that’s out of the ordinary,
Ron
at least what’s out of the ordinary. Besides the the typical questions that you’re gonna have
Stacey
really don’t hesitate to talk to the health care team about that and let them decide what they think is is important or what isn’t. But the caveat to that is, is that just make sure that, um, you know, if we have followed questions, things that that be directs and and really be concise and the problems because the more things that you could bring up and get into that visit. The more important, and that’s why senior pet care visits tend to be a little bit longer because there’s typically a laundry list of problems. And so from the history and I’ll, I guess I’ll throw one thing there because the history is actually where the physical exam begins and often times, And I think that probably a lot of my clients probably thought that I maybe had issues because I very rarely look them in the eye. I was actually always watching the cat or the dog while we were taking the history, and I’m sure they thought like I was just a jerk or socially inept or something like that. But I did not reality. I’m already started the physical exam. I am watching how that dog moves around the room. I am watching how they interact with objects. I’m watching how the cat is breathing. I’ve had numerous times where I’ve actually stopped an appointment, and I said is, Have you had your captain breathing like this at home? Oh, yeah, for like, the last three or four days and I said, Okay, we’re gonna stop. There’s something serious going on here. I need to intervene at this minute. So you’d be amazed at how often that physical exam starts before you ever realize.
Ron
The physical exam starts in the parking lot,
Stacey
and I really, truly does. And so that takes us to the next point, which is the physical exam itself. I think that senior physical exams are probably as involved, if not more involved or on a I guess that’s kind of a nebulous term. But what we end up doing is I think we end up focusing in on Maur of the history and letting that guide our physical exam. And so then you could realize probably how valuable ah physical like a good history would be.
Ron
until that dog or cat can tell us what’s wrong or what’s ailing them. It’s gonna it’s gonna require a lot of good questions from the veterinarian and hopefully a lot of good free information from the pet owner
Stacey
and try Thio, you know, and I know that sometimes it’s it’s not possible to leave. I’m going to use the word distractions at home during a senior visit, but it but it is important to really make sure that you get a lot of one on one time. So if you have kids and you can’t leave him at home, you know, see if you can get one of the receptionists to baby sit for a little while so you can have those open and honest conversation stirring that physical exam. And so the physical exam, I’m gonna argue is the single most valuable thing that a veterinarian does. And so if you go into a veterinary clinic and they give you a free first exam, realize that that first examines were tens of thousands of dollars. Because it’s it’s really a combination of the veterinary education, years of experience, honing those skills and in the knowing the difference between dogs and cats. And so you’re paying a lot of money. Thio learn those skills as a veterinarian and when you get this free, really important. But I know that the physical exam is really, really, really important to all of us because that guides our next step, which Ron is diagnostics
Ron
and how critical our diagnostics. And when we’re talking about diagnostics, there’s, ah, a few different specific areas that you’re gonna touch on for senior pets specific,
Stacey
and I think that There’s two types of diagnostics, right? I mean, you look a diagnostics as what we consider to be like a yearly diagnostic, right? Almost a preventative diagnostic, if you will. It’s the things that we do on a yearly basis. So yearly bloodwork yearly your analysis. And then there’s the part of it that is a diagnostic that’s done to solve a problem. And that’s if you tell me that your dog is vomiting or limping or your cat has been breathing funny. I mean those air diagnostics that I’m not gonna probably do yearly, but I will do them as a problem arises. And I think that what’s really important about that is is that those diagnostics are really valuable. But I would argue the yearly diagnostics are probably even more valuable.
Ron
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, that’s it’s amazing the amount of things that we can learn from sometimes watching your cat pee right? Or and then getting the your analysis.
Stacey
And I mean and we could make a wonderful parallel here into human medicine, right? Because Ron, you project your blood work drawn every year I do to my doctor tells me that, you know, listen, you need to do this, but they’re able to chart what we call our trends and trends air really important. You know, if your cholesterol has always been and I’m making up the number in humans Ah 100. And all of a sudden you go to the doctor and it’s 230 like that’s a concern. And that’s the same thing that we see in dogs. You know, if your liver enzymes have been normal for the last 13 years, but all of a sudden they all spike. That’s an indication of a larger problem. And so that’s why yearly diagnostic. Clearly cortical preventative diagnostics are really important.
Ron
And when your Pets a level goes from 1 to 5, there’s an issue. Yeah, that’s more than preventive at that point.
Stacey
Yeah, but you know what’s crazy is is we still have these conversations where you know you bring in your pet and the veterinarian says, you know, it’s probably time for our yearly blood work, and the question always is, Is that necessary? And I will tell you that while blood work is not the end all be all of a healthy person or animal, it sure as heck and help us catch things before they’re so far of a problem. Cats are a great example of this. And Ron, you’ve mentioned this before. The cats love to hide diseases in the grain predator. Yeah, And so a lot of times, especially things that are like, really insidious, like kidney disease will catch on blood work way before they ever have symptoms. And so that’s why yeah, I mean, I’m gonna always say to you I would rather you spend your money on that diagnostic, then go out and buy a toy retreats because that diagnostic is really going to tell me a lot. And if it’s normal, awesome. Don’t be upset about that because those are some of the best phone calls we get to make. I will call people and say your 15 year old cat’s blood work is perfect. I mean, and that’s amazing, right? I mean, and that’s something that should be celebrated, not something where people should say, Well, crap, I just spent 100 and $50 on something that wasn’t valuable,
Ron
and Stacy having a lot of a lot of friends and associates that work in diagnostics or in the field I am amazed at the amount of information and the tests that have developed over just the last five years.
Stacey
Yeah, I mean, there’s a new one that just launched recently, which is a renal algorithm. And so they’re teaching a I to go back and comb blood work. This is for cats. And they can tell you that based on previous blood work, you are X amount likely develop kidney insufficiency within the next two years. And so these are things that are being done in the value of that is is that that computer program that a I has to have multiple years of blood work in order to figure that out. So I think you’re going to see quote unquote yearly blood word becoming a much more drastic parts of long term medical care and veterinary medicine. If it’s not already, I mean, I can tell you that. You know, 10 years ago we didn’t do yearly bloodwork as often as we do now,
Ron
and the speed at which you can get results is amazing These days. I know there’s even tissues samples that you can get a response on that day. Yeah, it’s not within out
Stacey
Yeah, well, yeah. I mean, I 10 to 15 minutes. I mean, we got to the point where we could draw a CBC on a dog or a cat, and we could get the results in two minutes. And I mean, that was amazing because it was literally. By the time I gave that the technician the blood sample to run literally, they were handing me a sheet of paper. And so it’s amazing. Technology is doing some phenomenal things. Then we think about ultrasounds and X rays. I mean, gone are the days, really, in most practices where you had taken X ray, you would I have to go to the developer, you would develop it. I mean, it was Ah, it was a 20 minute process to get X rays, one X ray, let alone now where we have digital and we can shoot 15 in a matter of 15 seconds.
Ron
What would a resource tohave at your practice? And you know, if especially for cats again, if you can keep that cat at the practice and avoid coming back again, that’s that’s one less stressful day and visit for that cat, let alone you as a clinician. of the pet owner.
Stacey
And I think what we’ll do is Ron will probably cover diagnostics maybe a little bit later, because I think that that’s something that a lot of people you know and I’m guilty of this we’ll toss around values or we’ll toss around terms and nobody really quite understands what those means. So I think that would be like a really good topic of conversation for for a future podcast. But that pretty much does it. I mean, that is the bare bones of what’s a senior pet visit is how you get them there, what we do and why we make the recommendations that we do. So we’ll take a quick break. And they were gonna come back with a hot spot. We are back. Um, so, Ron, what’s, uh, what’s on your mind today? Well, hot spot you got for Stacy.
Ron
Great question. I got a little combo hot spots today, and hopefully you’ll bear with me on it. Um, you know a czar, pets become seniors. I see a lot of people that and you know this in practice, they tend to want to ask, Do I still need to use, you know, flea, tick and heartworm preventive. Very common question. Very common question. And I don’t know what your response is in most cases, but my response would be Well, does your pet effort go outside? Or do you ever open your doors? You know, when it comes to heartworm, um, and flea and tick. You know, these are things that are all brought about by, you know, mosquitoes or just the fleas and ticks themselves, right? And and their ability to be mobile.
Stacey
I wish I could tell you the older you get, the less likely you are to be bit by a mosquito.
Ron
Yeah. So, um, you know, I don’t need thio. I don’t need thio Drone on about it anymore. But yes, people, you do need to continue your your heartworm and your flea and tick. It’s important for older dogs because they’re still getting outside and maybe even Maur important, because their immune system may not be a strong as it used to be,
Stacey
right, And the treatments for that stuff I mean, we can we can still treat heartworms in dogs, But I’ll be honest with you. The treatments are snake, and it’s our stick that’s injected into the animal, and the older and animal is, I can tell you the harder it is for those animals to handle those injections. So any of our therapies become a little bit tougher. There’s a lot of tick borne diseases that are out there. So Rocky Mountain spotted fever is a really good one. Um, you know, when you’re two or three years of age is a dog and you get Rocky Mountain spotted fever. You tend to have a pretty good prognosis with that. When you’re 13 or 14 it’s gonna wallop you.
Ron
Well, I know our snake is something that they’ve also treated lumber with, so I can’t imagine that it’s good for a pat, let alone a senior.
Stacey
No, and he goes back to a quality of life issue. It goes back to those conversations that we have tohave of risks versus benefits
Ron
and, in the case of, you know, flee ticking heartworm as we have senior seniors and they have special needs. And let’s say they don’t have as many teeth as they used to have, right, so they don’t have to crunch anything anymore. You’ve got so many different options you’ve got, you know, ta pickles you’ve got. Choose, you’ve got injectables. What else is there, Stacy?
Stacey
Yeah, Topical, dejected. Bols and Orel are probably your three big ones right now.
Ron
And I don’t know about your I don’t know about how Bailey Waas but when it came to taking something that was in the form of a chewable and these companies are really good at making them tasty these days, Rudy specifically, it was It was like a holiday for him. If he gave him his his heartworm medicine are or flea and tick in a chewable because he loved that tree
Stacey
and we gave. I mean, we gave Bailey heartworm medication we gave you know, we could still give Bella heartworm medication. We give the new dog heartworm medication. I think all this stuff is is exceedingly important. And a lot of times were asked, You know, not only do I need to keep doing this, but is there a cheaper option and I get it, You know, expensive are one of these things that were all cognizant of and flee and hard work. Take medication is not cheap. I will tell you that there’s plenty of online resource is to buy this stuff, and you can always have those conversations. But it’s really worthwhile to speak to your veterinarian about which one they recommends, because there are some that are out there. I mean, most are gonna be exceedingly safe, right? I mean, these have been around for a long period of time. And I understand, too, that if you search this stuff on the Internet that you’re gonna find some probably really angry sounding articles. But when you look at those from a medical side, oftentimes they’re using this beautiful thing called correlation, not causation, which is I gave my dog ex medication, and they developed a £4 splenic tumor when in reality that splenic tumor was already there. The medication did not cause that. And so we do know that there are certain flea and tick medications you don’t want to give to animals with certain medical conditions. So it’s a really important conversation to have with your veterinarian.
Ron
I’m glad that people continue to go down that street with their pets because the last thing you want to do is leave your senior pet out there for another disease that they don’t need that’s easily prevented
Stacey
and I mean, another good preventative topic is vaccines. And I think, Ron, you’re probably gonna stem us into that. If I if I can feel you.
Ron
Yeah, absolutely. And, uh, you know Stacy going back to our friend Dr Marty Becker. You know, he did a nice article on vaccines and the necessity for vaccines and maybe for senior pence in particular. How important is it to continue your vaccine protocol? And I think what happens is you need to have what we talked about earlier, before the break is history. And if you’ve properly vaccinated your dogs and cats when they were younger than they probably don’t need to the same level as they become seniors. The great side of that is you can also get their tigers tested every three years if you want to check out their antibody levels, so you’ll know that they’re still protected.
Stacey
And I always did this from again, going to a risks versus benefits thing. And so, you know, this is a topic of conversation that we could dive into for a long period of time. But at the end of the day, I’ll put it down to, like, brass tacks, which is basically that I would look at every individual case, every single senior pat, whether that was a dog or cat, and I would look at their vaccine history like Ron mentioned, I would look at co existing problems, and then I would look at the risk of that dog or cat getting that disease. And so let’s talk about, um, parvo. That’s always a good one, right? And so if I have a 13 year old dog that stays in the house but to go outside on, Lee goes on, walks around the neighborhood and has received the parvo virus vaccine its entire life. That I am way more likely to say You probably need don’t need that vaccine any longer than I am gonna be if I have a 13 year old dog that walks in the door that I know got one vaccine when they were one year of age and they’ve never been back to the clinic or they’ve never had another vaccine, and then the other side of that is co existing diseases, Right, Ron? I mean, if I have a dog who has lymphoma, I’m probably not gonna be giving that dog vaccines or if I have a cat that has IBD and is on pretty powerful amino suppressive doses of steroids and things like that, we’re probably gonna limit ah, lot of the vaccines we give that
Ron
cat risk versus what is it? Reward?
Stacey
Yeah, Risk versus benefit is what I say. Yeah, I mean, I really think that that’s important. And I think that that’s why protocols are never one size fits all from vaccines to anesthesia. We do spend time looking at every single animal individually and saying this is what’s best for this particular animal.
Ron
And when it comes to bacterial diseases like border tele or left Oh, leptospirosis. You know, again, if your dog doesn’t have a lot of access to a raccoon or something else some other smaller wild animals you may not have as much a concern, certainly for leaped. Oh, board to tell. On the other hand again, is your is your dog boarding anywhere? Do you have somebody come over and watch him, or do you bring him to a friend’s Now you know, again, I look at the veterinarian and I go, What do you think? And somebody like you, Dr Stacy’s typically going to give you the risk benefit.
Stacey
Answer right and you don’t build lasting immunity against bacterial diseases. And so that’s Ah, that’s a big part of that as well. And if I have a dog that’s gonna be boarding and it’s a 13 or 14 year old cat or a dog and dogs just because we see a lot more communicable diseases across the board like keno coffin, influenza kennel cough in a 13 or 14 year old dog could be a whole lot more dangerous again than a dog who’s three or four. I mean, we know pneumonia is one of the most common causes of death in senior hospitalized humans. And pneumonia in older animals is just a cz dangerous. So you really again have to look at this from an individual basis. And I have even in many cases written letters for people who wanted to board their their senior pets and said, This dog no longer needs X vaccine because of co existing disease or what have you.
Ron
That’s the kind of advice me as a pet owner I’m really looking for from my veterinarian. I like to call that common sense medicine.
Stacey
Yeah, and and to be honest with you, I I think that that is something that you really need to feel out with. Your own veterinarian. Um, you know, if your veterinarian doesn’t have those conversations with you, then you know, unfortunately, maybe it’s time to find somebody who does. Because medicine again is not cookie cutter. It does not fit everybody. It does not fit every lifestyle, every financial situation. So you really need to make sure you have those conversations every time you go in.
Ron
And let’s not forget our cats as well, because we can get them tighter tested for pain. Look Kapini as well.
Stacey
And we do oftentimes think that’s because our cats don’t go outside, that they’re not at risk for diseases. And I always tell people the story from locally, which is a lady had three cats had not been vaccinated for Rabies in a number of years, and a rabid bats got in her attic and then into her house. Um, and unfortunately, they ended up recommending that all three cats be euthanized because they were, ah, high risk of exposure because they killed the bat. So it does happen. It’s certainly it’s a rarity, but it is important. T probably keep up with the vaccines on senior cats as well. There we go. Surround anything else you got for us.
Ron
That was all I had in regards to my hot spots on flea, tick and heartworm prevention. I think that the feedback from Dr Stacy is Yes, yes. And on the vaccine side, you know, talk to make sure you talk to your veterinarian about it and continue good protocols depending on the situation.
Stacey
And so with that, we’re gonna wrap up another episode of the senior pet podcast. You can always email us at the senior pet podcast at gmail dot com, and we will be back in a couple of weeks. Thanks, Ron. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the senior pet podcast. Be sure to subscribe to catch our next episode and follow us at the senior pet podcast on your social media of choice. The information in this podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional veterinary advice, diagnosis or treatment. Please consult your veterinarian with many concerns about your individual pet