VETtalk Online Podcasts

If you have pets and love travelling as much as we do, there's NO WAY we're going to leave them behind is there?... A very helpful chat with experienced traveller, dog lover and Veterinry Nurse Kylie Kavanagh

Put a young kid and a cat together and it makes a pretty cute photo right? Maybe… unless you’re the cat! Young kids, especially toddlers and especially boys can be a cat’s worst nightmare. This story is very close to home...

Not too long ago our daughter needed help to solve a problem with her much loved 9 yr old cat Smokey and her then almost 3 yr old son Tyler.

Smokey would disappear for the best part of the day then come out after young Tyler had gone to bed only to be all over mum and wanting 100% attention.

So we thought we'd check in with Dr Kim Kendall – the Cat Vet from the Chatswood Cat Palace to help put some perspective on the problem.

Have you ever noticed how animals are VERY good at hiding pain or showing they are unwell. This is a highly evolved 'protective mechanism' of course - no single animal wants to be the sick one in the pack/herd/flock etc...

But how can we as pet lovers tell? Are they hot, cold, off their food? Are their gums red, yellow, white or pink? How are they standing? Is there a cough? How do you know if they have a heart problem? What is their fur like?

Leading industry body 'Pets Australia' spokesperson Dr Jo Sillince explains some specific symptoms to look for in cats. For instance do you know what 'kidney coat' is?

As always please see your vet for ANY signs of poor health in your pets.

For many reasons some people only have one dog or one cat...
And we hear a lot of animal behaviourists say that dogs in particular crave company - the old 'pack mentality'

But is this true?... we thought we'd ask Dr Jo Sillince what she thought about 'solo dogs'!

These days with a lot of people living in apartments or townhouses the idea of a dog or cat is often out of the question for many of them – so we thought we’d take a look at something a bit smaller – like a mouse! We chat with Cindy Cairns - originally from the aptly named ‘Rodent Ranch’ (now closed)

*** RADIO 2SM PET SEGMENT #27 WITH KAYE BROWNE ***
Full transcript below... 

THIS WEEK...
With all the wet weather lately, it's been a bit 'tricky' for dogs to just go outside to relieve themselves right?

Accidents happen right? So is there a way to help fix 'the smell' and stop future 'accidents'?
And with the rising cost of living, research has shown people are starting to prefer cats to dogs.
But there is a surprising breed preference which differs across the country!

PLUS:
Do You Sleep With Your Dog? Ok many of us do, but what's their favourite position?
And finally this week... another talking Parrot, but this one - Mango - got the owner into trouble with the Police just for saying "2 For 25?... 2 For 25? - Wanna Buy Some?" but was the owner actually selling anything?

CHAPTERS:
00'00" - Welcome Tim Webster and Kaye Browne
00'11" - Oh Noo!.. My Dog Just Weed Inside!!
03'16" - People Now Preferring Cats... Why??
05'03" - Do You Sleep With Your Dog?
07'09" - 2 For 25?... 2 For 25? - Wanna Buy Some?

TRANSCRIPT:

TIM:
Yes, time to talk about our pets with our renowned pet expert Kay Brown. Hi. Good morning.   I don't know about renowned. Oh, you're renowned. Well, look, I haven't experienced this of late, but I did have it with a dog I had some years ago, and there's been a lot of wet weather and there's going to be for the next little while, and the hazards of your dogs, I suppose, especially your dogs, because you'd have a of weeing inside yeah?   KAYE: Yes, it's a real problem. And, you know, we can joke about it, call it a ‘pee-dickerment’ if you like. It really can affect a lot of us really, really badly.   And in fact, sometimes animals get surrendered because of that. In fact, I heard from long time friends actually who have two beautiful King Charles Spaniels who normally love to go walkies. But when it's wet outside, they suddenly forget how to go to the toilet outside and they pee on a particular spot on the rug.   And they've tried sprays, didn't know what to do. So they put their hand up and said, help! And I'm sure they're not alone.   So some of the latest things as to what can be used. And I've got a couple of ideas, but they're all based around enzymes. But there are a couple of other things that we can look at as well.   But first of all, to help with the actual urine smell or the poo smell, if they've done another accident. Years ago, it used to be, they'd say, put some bleach on it, well, that's the wrong thing to do because the ammonia attracts dogs back to that spot.   So definitely don't use that. You can make a homemade mix of peroxides and baking soda and a little bit of dish detergent. But really, why do that when a lot of scientists have actually looked into making products that actually work to provide natural substances to eliminate the uric acid crystals that dogs deposit.   And basically they digest those smells and gets rid of them altogether. And there's one called Pet Lab that I can certainly tell you about. Very, very good.   TIM: Yeah. I wonder if that's an issue with smaller dogs in particular. My son's got a little Pomeranian and she's got some health issues and he puts out those little pee pads, which she uses and they can be trained to do that, can't they?

KAYE: Absolutely. And in fact, any dog can be trained to go on anything. And you can get those sort of artificial toilets, which came out a couple of years ago, where they actually are inside a plastic tray and then the artificial turf can be washed. Mind you, you do have to make sure you're using some kind of enzymatic to wash it out.   But the pee pads do it and they're often used as temporary toilet training. But it's really handy if you can actually persuade your animal to toilet on command. And mine, we came up with the phrase, ‘empty the dog’, which we do whenever we were about to go in the car so that they would rush out, empty on the grass, ready to go in the car or whatever or overnight.   And that was really handy because when they got older and we needed to get a urine sample at the vets, I remember this vet being absolutely amazed when I simply said, empty the dog, and quickly put the little container underneath and voila, we had a perfect fresh specimen.

TIM: There you go. That's fascinating.   Now, this is very interesting. New data suggests we're gravitating more towards having a pussycat rather than a puppy dog, and it could be for an economic reason. And I get that, yeah?

KAYE: Yeah, definitely. This information has come out in the study by one of the big insurance companies, Petsy, where they actually looked at the type of cats that are being insured and the numbers that are being insured around the country. And they found that, yeah, the numbers are growing. Now, more Australians are choosing pets that suit compact living, tighter budgets, flexible working arrangements.   And so, of the 5.3 million pet cats, basically a third of all households now actually have a cat, and that started during the pandemic.

TIM: Ah, yes, of course. Of course, yeah.   KAYE: A lot of rescues were there. But what's absolutely fascinating is the actual breed of cat. Now, we've seen all the designer dogs, what about designer cats? Well, they're increasing in popularity. But right around the country, all the states and territories, bar one, it's the domestic short-haired cat that's the most popular. And it's the most hardy, to be perfectly honest, except in the Northern Territory.   And this is amazing to me because it's really hot up there, but in the Territory, they really love their ragdolls.

TIM: Are they the ones that just pretty much sleep all the time? They sit on your lap?

KAYE: Well they have a habit of wanting to sit on your lap. They're very affectionate.   They don't talk a lot, which is handy for some people who don't like meowing. But they have this habit of going, oh, I'm so relaxed. And that's why they're called ragdolls.   TIM: Yeah, never had a ragdoll cat. We had Freddy the Burmese, and he was a chocolate Burmese. He was a beautiful cat.   Now, speaking of Freddy the Burmese, he used to sleep at the end of the bed. I had a chihuahua, little ‘Peppy’, who used to sleep down at my feet. You wouldn't even know he was there.   But sleeping with the dog and the big dogs I've had might get up on the bed to say hello, then they get too hot and get off. But there's surprising stats about how many people actually do have the dog on or in the bed.

KAYE: It is quite amazing. I was surprised because I've seen a couple of studies over the years. I saw one that was way back in 2018. And then I thought, oh, I wonder if the same people have done more studies.   And indeed, they have. Canisius College, which is in Buffalo in the US, did a study based on stuff they'd done earlier just to see what the impact is of sleeping with a dog, or more than one. And they actually got more than 1,000 Australian dog owners between 18 to 78 and asked them, does your dog sleep in the bed? And if so, where does it sleep and what impact? So 49% of those 1,000 dog owners said, yep.   20% said it sleeps in the same bedroom. But the 49% said it sleeps in their bed. Wow. It thought that was pretty interesting.

TIM: That's more than interesting. That's staggering to me. Half. Goodness me. Wow.   KAYE: Exactly. And it's quite interesting. The author of the study, Christy Hoffman, said it's one of the few studies that really looks into the overnight habits, I guess, of our cohabiting with our dogs.   And they used previously just a record where they asked people to remember or they tracked their activity. But this time around, they used heat map images. So they determined that in most cases, when there were two people in the bed, if it was a double, a queen or a king-size bed, the dog tended to sleep at their feet or in the middle of the bed.   Whereas one person, one dog sharing a bed, the dog mostly slept at human chest level where a human partner might sleep. Goodness me.

TIM: Yeah, that's surprising research. It really is. Wow. More than half. That's a bit staggering to me. Yeah. All right.   Now this one, just about everybody who watched television last night saw those hilarious pictures of the dancing parrots doing a very good impression of Elaine on Seinfeld. But this little story you've got is not so cute and cuddly, hey?

KAYE: Well, in some ways, but not for the owner of this particular little bird, Mango. Mango was videotaped by his proud owner doing a little dance as well, where he was saying, two for 25, two for 25.   And I'm not quite sure what Mango was referring to, but cops that actually saw the video certainly knew what it was and they staged a raid. And they found that Mango's owner was a drug dealer.

TIM: There you go. Two for 25. So that's what, 12.50 - I wonder what he's trying to flog?

KAYE:  I don't know. But now he'll be selling the bird. No, I'm not going to tell you.

TIM: Now the bird will be for sale for sure yeah.

KAYE: I think so. Hopefully he has a new owner that actually stays within the law.   TIM: That's the one. Naughty Mango. Lovely to talk to you, Kaye. Talk to you next week.

KAYE: Absolutely. Kaye Browne and your pets.

Question: Do vets ever diagnose their own pet's ailments? You'd think with all their training - especially specialists & surgeons - that they'd know 'everything' - but it seems that's not always the case...

And for good reason when you think about it - Of course they know all the basics all GP vets are required to know as part of being a registered vet but what if you're a specialist veterinary surgeon like Dr Sarah Goldsmid who spends her days literally 'opening animals up to fix them' but has her own cat at home who has a slight cough... What should she do?

Ask an internal medicine specialist like Dr Narelle Brown for some advice of course!

So many 'old wives tales' get muddled up with 21st century science. Maybe you've been told this? "Are you pregnant? Then you MUST get rid of the cat as soon as possible!"

It still seems to be a common thought among pregnant women around the world - one which sadly means cats being 'dumped' for no reason whatsoever. So who better to find out more about this controversial topic than the very colourful Dr Jo Sillince from Pets Australia "true or false - having a cat is dangerous for pregnant women?

Many listeners will know we have a couple of chooks that we like to let free range in the backyard from time to time... but recently we heard a lot of commotion and raced outside to see of all things ... a BLACK cat! ... We don't know anyone in our street who has one but we do live by a small suburban forest and we immediately suspected a feral cat.

And while this was just one recent incident we have had similar things happen before... So Brian popped over to the Chatswood Cat Palace to see what Dr Kim Kendall had to say about feral cats.....

Holistic Veterinarians who look at a pet’s tongue can tell a great deal more about their patient’s state of health/disease than say a GP asking a human patient to say ‘ahh’.

A rapidly rising number of vets are choosing to learn Eastern techniques to use alongside their existing western scientific training to provide combined treatments for their patients.

These might include Acupuncture, TCM (Chinese herbal medicine) and nutritional regimes.

Internationally renown Complementary Veterinarian, author and lecturer Dr Barbara Fougere from All Natural Vet believes this trend in bringing the best of East and West together expanding as more pets enjoy its benefits.