The Marty & Laura Show

Blastomycosis and Other Fungal Infections

Marty and Laura discuss the dangers of blastomycosis and other fungal infections for our pets as well as their humans. "Blasto tends to be the upper Midwest," Marty said. "It's frequently found in areas where wood chipping has taken place, so places that trees have been cut down or chipped or garden centers and you know, things along those lines. "There are other parts of the country that have other kinds of fungal infections. So it's not like if you don't live in Wisconsin that you're safe from it.

So Wisconsin, Minnesota, those areas, we see a lot of it. If you go to the Southwest like Arizona, then you see coccidiomycosis (Valley Fever), which is also fungal. "And then if you go to the Mississippi Valley. Find histoplasmosis. So there's definitely regional differences. They're all nasty, wicked bad diseases, and people think of fungus and yeast as being the same thing and they're not. It is systemic. It is a bad, bad, bad disease. The commonality between histo and blasto and coccidiomycosis is that it causes fungal pneumonia and then there's other organs that are involved differently in different of those diseases."

Marty walks through symptoms, diagnosis and treatment of fungal infections in our pets, both dogs and cats. She also warns these diseases can affect humans. "I had a client that had two sons that both had blasto. Human sons. So you can see that kind of a typical pattern is it's from the exposure of the spore," Marty said. "You inhale the spore, it ends up in your lungs, you get pneumonia and that spreads to other organs. So it's not spread dog to dog, it's not spread dog to human. It's spread through the common source of the soil being disrupted with that kind of pH and that kind of environment that the sports can live in."

Osteoarthritis Diagnosis and Treatment

Marty and Laura tackle the topic of osteoarthritis in our pets, diagnosis, treatment and the differences between cats and dogs with this disease.

"The only time we'll see a pet cry in pain is if they have either serious trauma or they slipped a disc in their neck and those dogs vocalize," Marty said. "But they won't vocalize because they've torn a cruciate. They won't vocalize because they have hip dysplasia or back problem or elbow dysplasia or 1 of 1000 other causes of osteoarthritis. And so our perception, especially in cats, but in dogs as well, is that they're not in any pain because they're not crying."

"We know the dogs are in pain, even if they're not crying. If they're not walking normally, they're in pain. That's just the bottom line and something you need to just know and understand and accept." Marty walks through the various treatment options. There are multiple options for dogs, although only one for cats. Various commercial diets are formulated to provide support for pets with osteoarthritis. "(These diets are) based on increasing the fatty acids, increasing the glucosamine, trying to improve joint lubrication and just generally making the pet feel better.

Dogs and cats, first and foremost, if they're overweight, get weight off of them because that is going to be the best thing that you can do for them non drug wise or drug wise. That is the one single thing that you can do to really improve their quality of life is for them to not have to carry that much weight on those sore, achy, tired joints. Every part of their body hurts, so get their weight down." Dip in to hear the rest of Marty's recommendations. Don't forget to like and follow the show and share with your friends.

Oral Hygiene from Teeth to Gums to Beards

Marty and Laura discuss oral hygiene including teeth, gums and beards. Keeping your pet's teeth clean means brushing them. There are no magic cures. Oral health impacts the pet's overall physical health directly, Marty said. She recommends visiting the Veterinary Oral Health Council's website to learn about approved and accepted products that can help reduce the severity of periodontal disease in our pets.

"It's not just about how they smell," Marty said, "because (tartar buildup) does have a bad odor to it. It's about their overall health. Every time they swallow, they set up a bacterial shower and they lodge in the heart valves, which can cause heart murmurs or accelerate heart murmurs, that can cause kidney problems, can cause all the same health problems that people have associated with dental health." Laura covers beard maintenance on wire coated and long haired dogs to help prevent the unsightly orange stains around the mouth.

Geriatric Cats and Why They Lose Weight

Marty and Laura tackle the topic of skinny old cats, why they lose weight and how to prevent these geriatric diseases. Cats are NOT, as Laura theorized, “fluffy house plants.” “Lots of people know when they have a kitten that they need veterinary care,” Marty said. “They need vaccinations, they need deworming, they to be spayed or neutered, all the stuff. And then a lot of cats never see their veterinarian until they're 14, 15, 16 years old in some cases.

“Suddenly look at your cat one day or your friend or your family comes over and looks at the cat and says, ohh, what happened to your cat? Because they kind of shriveled up. You need to take your cat to the veterinarian at least once a year for routine veterinary care. They need an exam as they become older. They need blood work. They may need booster vaccinations.”

Early detection of these diseases is critical Marty noted. “Three of the diseases that we see in old cats that make them old and skinny have very good treatments,” Marty said. “One diabetes, two kidney failure, three hyperthyroidism and four cancer. But we have to know that they have a diagnosis and they need a treatment plan.” Check out the YouTube version of the show to critique the hosts' matchy matchy outfits. Meanwhile please like, follow and share! The Marty & Laura Show is produced by Pure Dog Talk Inc., with sound design and editing by Premium Audio Services.

Summer Vacation with Dog as Co-Pilot

Marty and Laura drop useful tips and share hilarious stories about summer vacation with dogs.

Top tips from the Pros: RV, hotel, campground or visiting friends and family, and on the road along the way, pick up after your dog! Abandoned dog droppings can spread "germs and worms," are smelly and disrespectful to other travelers.

Marty's Pro Tip: Keep your used grocery bags in an empty Kleenex box for easy access and a "reuse, recycle" mindset.

• Xpens are your friend! Find the height and style you like to make an instant mini yard wherever you are, inside or out.
• Get a BuddyBadge collar tag for your dog. The QR code scans to show all pertinent info about your pet.
• Make sure you post "ICE" (In Case of Emergency) information on your dog's crate. More from a previous Pure Dog Talk episode HERE.

Spring Tune Up for Your Dog

Marty and Laura get you and your buddy off the couch and ready for the spring weather. "The most important thing is to not overdo it because the tendency is it's finally spring, it's finally nice out. I'm going to go garden all day, I'm going to go on a long hike, I'm going to cut the grass, I'm going to clean the garage, I'm going to do all this stuff that turns out to not really be conducive to not being physically conditioned for it. And it could be you, it could be your dogs," Marty advises. Laura observes that many of us, and our pets, have to ease into that spring training.

"When you Netflix through the winter, you can't just marathon into the spring," Laura notes.

"We talked back a month or two ago about pests and bugs and critters and all that, but there's different ones in the spring and different things that we need to do for our pets in the spring than during the rest of the time," Marty says. "We really can't just go out and get the deep woods OFF with the deet and it and spray it on our dogs because that's not safe for them," Marty says. "So if we're looking at what we want to do for preventives for protection, there's some pretty nice sprays out there. Sprays and the topical flea and tick medications often do offer repellency effect. The Vectra 3D has a wonderful effect of repellency. It has three different chemicals in it that protect your pet. "One of them creates this hot foot effect so that if the pests land on your pet, they are not going to stay on because it's uncomfortable for them.

Like they start dancing around and they're off. So there's some really good products out there. So the pills, like Bravecto, Simperica and Nexgard do a good job of killing fleas and ticks once they're attached or bite you. They don't do anything for repellency."

Encephalitis, Meningitis and More

Marty and Laura tackle a really tough topic today, talking about encephalitis and meningitis and other assorted brain and spinal cord inflammation. “These are scary because the dogs get very sick and it's a very difficult diagnosis to make,” Marty said. “It usually requires some advanced imaging, some advanced testing.

It's not an easy diagnosis to nail down and it's not an easy treatment to develop. This category of illness is complicated due to the variety of causes, from bacterial infection to autoimmune mediated, and the vagueness of the symptoms, Marty added. “Sometimes you have to just say, okay, we're going to use a pretty hefty antibiotic and we're going to do a pretty hefty anti-inflammatory dose,” Marty said. “And you're going to like pray like mad and hope like hell that you're making the right decisions.

And sometimes you don't simply because you don't have the ability to get the information you need at all or quickly enough to make those decisions because you don't have 10 days. I mean, you literally may not have 10 days to get this figured out.”

Do Stuff with Your Dog, Safely!

Marty and Laura are talking puppercise today with a great run down of the fun stuff to do with your dog and how to do it safely. They even throw in a little philosophy. Like, what is “hiking?” Are we climbing cliffs or strolling on a volksmarch. Hosts discuss. Back on track, our intrepid hosts cover communicating with our dogs. How to hear what they’re trying to tell us, whether it’s that their feet are hot or they’re tired and need a rest period.

A discussion of dog boots for tender feet segued rapidly into the fake paralysis dogs can exhibit when they’re dressed in their first outfit. Then there’s Marty’s tip for dogs who forget themselves while playing and tear up their pads: “New skin, the stuff that you can buy at the store, it's in the human pharmacy with the Band -Aids. That works pretty well to serve as a surface, kind of it coats the surface so it'll help to protect that so the dog isn't sore with a raw open wound.

If there's an actual laceration, like a cut or the pad is flapping, then you may need to go to the vet and have that stapled closed.” The team talks blue green algae, hot cars and other summer time topics so make sure you drop by to catch the whole show, share it with your friends and don’t forget to follow us and leave a review!

Managing Grief Over Pet Passing

Marty and Laura are joined by Lindsay Stanton, grief coach and author to discuss managing grief after losing a pet. "At the end of the day, grief and trauma run down very parallel paths," Stanton noted. "And depending on the type of grief that you're experiencing, it can be extremely traumatic.

And depending on the way the person or pet passed, it can be extremely traumatic." "If you're really a dog person or really a cat person, you understand the gravity of that loss," Marty said. "And society oftentimes minimizes it by saying, well, it's just a dog, it's just a cat, and it's really insensitive.

And it's really inappropriate because we need to help people and for children especially, not that this is easy as an adult either, but for children especially, this may be the first loss that they experience before a grandparent or before a parent is lost, it may be a pet. "And so unfortunately, this can be a learning experience for younger people to learn to navigate through, how grief happens, the stages of grief and how to be kind to yourself. Sometimes you expect more of yourself than you should be able to provide.

So I think it's permission for people to learn how to grieve." Stanton walks our hosts and listeners through various coping skills for managing grief, including yoga, meditation and reiki.

Types, Causes and Treatment of Seizures

Marty and Laura take on the tough topic of seizures in our pets. They break down the types of seizures, what may cause them and treatment options based on the cause. Sparked by a listener request to cover the topic when a client dog had a hypoglycemic seizure in a groom shop, this episode is for everyone who owns a dog.

All dogs and cats can experience a seizure whether from low blood sugar, ingestion of toxin, various diseases and what is known as “idiopathic epilepsy” which literally means seizures of unknown origins. “There's a lot of different reasons that pets can seize,” Marty noted. “First of all, it's really upsetting when it happens because it's scary. So it happens fast and they go from looking normal to not normal, and it can be pretty startling.

“The first thing to do if your pet is seizing is give glucose in some form and then seek veterinary care. Glucose can be ice cream, it can be honey, it can be Maple syrup, it can be Cairo syrup, it can be caramels. But the second thing you need to do is go to the veterinary clinic. “(Glucose) can be absorbed through their gums, so you don't have to get them to swallow it. If you just have a liquid Karo syrup, honey, Maple syrup, dark Karo syrup, light cover syrup, I don't care.

Any of those are fine. And they can absorb it right through their gums. Do not pry their mouth open and try and pull out their tongue. I can guarantee you'll get bitten and it is not worth it because they're not going to choke on their tongue.