Episode 92 – Pica and GI Disease in Dogs and Cats

What a fascinating topic and one I've been thinking a lot about in recent weeks.

We have seen a spike in foreign body surgeries at my clinic in Abu Dhabi in recent weeks – as we all know, these things tend to come in 3s – and this, together with the publication of the below paper in JAVMA, has really had myself and my team thinking about best protocols when it comes to pica – the ingestion of non-food items – and resulting foreign body retrieval.

In this episode I chat about when it might be "normal" for pets to ingest non-food items, what pica means from a behavioural perspective and what physical health diseases aside from GI disease may lead to pica.

And, I dive into the below paper and why we have now made it an SOP to get GI biopsies during all foreign body retrieval procedures unless contra-indicated.

Here's the paper I talk about in the episode:

Perez, J., Ford, S. and Lynch, H., 2025. Pica as a clinical sign of a chronic enteropathy in dogs and cats. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, 1(aop), pp.1-6.

Here is the link to my FREE Masterclass, which is happening on July 23rd, 2025:

https://katrin-jahn.mykajabi.com/free-masterclass-VB-Treatment-Plan

And here is the link to my 2-day Weekend Workshop – "Everyday Veterinary Behaviour Medicine" happening on 2nd and 3rd August, 2025:

https://katrin-jahn.mykajabi.com/weekend-workshop

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