support for conversations live comes from the gertrude j saunt endowment the james h olav family endowment and the sydney and helen s friedman endowment and from viewers like you thank you hello and welcome to conversations live i'm carolyn donaldson during this pandemic animals have played a bigger role in our lives than perhaps ever before i'm sure many of you have paid more attention to the behavior of your pet you might be around him or her more often or you've even adopted one recently to keep you company while you stay at home tonight we're talking all things pets and giving you the opportunity to ask a veterinarian about the questions you have perhaps you're concerned about your own pet getting coveted 19 or how to train that new puppy you just adopted or you might have questions on exercise and diet we'll help you find the answers you're looking for tonight two expert veterinarians are here to answer your questions and share tips on having a happy healthy pet or animal let's meet them dr fred metzger is medical director of the metzger animal hospital a general referral and 24-hour emergency hospital headquartered in state college a 1986 graduate of the purdue college of veterinary medicine dr metzger received the distinguished alumni award from penn state where he serves as an adjunct professor dr deb smart is the co-owner and director of center animal hospital also in state college originally from lancaster she graduated from princeton university and then earned her dvm at colorado state university dr smart's family includes a pbgv we'll explain and show you later a white fluffy mixed breed dog two cats and three morgan horses and whether you're watching us on tv streaming us online or right now listening on the radio we want to hear from you this is one of our most popular call-in programs so call us get your pencil and paper ready call us with your questions at 1-800-543-8242 or you can email connect at wpsu.org welcome welcome dr smart and welcome back fred well it certainly is a winter wonderland for most of our audience tuning in tonight or listening tonight and we're going to get to taking care of your pet during these winter seasons in just a moment but we're going to begin with taking a look at how you your staff your patients and their owners are doing in this pandemic so how have your individual practices your veterinary hospitals been affected by this challenging time and we're going to start with you dr smart what have you seen out there in this world of veterinary medicine well veterinary medicine changed dramatically in at the end of march we moved from having our clients come into the building with our patients to curbside service where we bring our patients into the hospital and communicate either through the car window or on the telephone or via email with our pa with the owners of our patients with our clients and it's been a difficult transition we've been really lucky that we can keep working and we can keep taking care of our patients through this difficult time but it it's hard to not have our clients in the hospital and and see them and have a chance to talk with them in person it's been a really busy busy busy time lots of people are home with their pets and lots of people are worried about their pets lots of people are getting new pets and it's been a very busy time and and our staff is working super hard to take care of animals but it's but it's been a it's been an interesting seven months or so since since kovitz started all right dr smart thank you and fred you operate 24 7 emergency hospital what has life been like for you and your staff it's been crazy and um our our group like veterinarians and veterinary technicians and everyone that works in a veterinary hospital really worldwide is reporting the same thing that deb and i are seeing we're busier than ever in fact we're swamped there's barely any appointments that are open to do general anything even a dental anymore is a difficult thing to schedule and it's created a lot of stress on our staff this is a picture that you're seeing from our parking lot so imagine you know used to come in for your appointment and of course you need to speak for your pet because they can't talk and now we have to have this conversation out in your car it really is disjointed and i think it makes it a lot more difficult some people like it i personally don't i think it's so important that we're communicating about what you're seeing with your pet and it's lost a little bit in my opinion with the way things are now so you know fortunately i do believe this will be temporary you know everyone's wearing masks gloves clients aren't in the hospital and i just our staff one thing i would ask pet owners to realize in veterinary medicine we're essential employees obviously pets to if you're watching the program you feel the same way i mean they're our family members but our staff is risking their own health by coming to work and that's why we are an essential a group of employees in veterinary medicine and there's a lot of stress on them just to remain healthy because we have we have a staff of 70 people so that creates its own nightmare trying to keep socially distance yet work on people's pets so i would just ask all the pet owners to you know give the people in veterinary medicine uh and certainly other professions a little bit of a break right now because it's not perfect circumstances but i think everybody's doing the best they can and hopefully this will be over in the near future and we get back to bringing people in the hospital i'm hoping that's what happens pretty soon that sounds like good advice thank you fred and deb and we're already getting calls and we want to hear from you so let's get right to those calls we'll have some more uh questions for the doctors too on uh kovid and 19 and their pets but right now we have beth from hollidaysburg on the phone beth can you hear us and what is your question tonight yes i have a question about dog food i've heard stuff about feeding dogs raw meat vegetables and that kind of thing i always wonder if um i don't have a pet right now but i'm thinking about it very seriously and i didn't know what veterinarians would recommend compared to like kibble or what would what would they feed their own dogs in this kind of a situation do you want to start or you want me to start i can start i think so so i think that there's a difference between what science tells us and what we believe and so i think there's a lot of good evidence-based science-based diets that are out there and what we've actually seen in veterinary veterinary medicine is some problems in the hearts of dogs who are eating some of these grain-free diets that are out there and and even with the best sort of theoretical combination of ingredients i think it really matters that you look at how dogs do on the diets that they're fed um i think you know we'd like to feed our dogs the best things that we can and sometimes you look at a list of ingredients and that list of ingredients looks like it should be great but actually when you feed it to the dog as the exclusive diet it may not be a balanced thing for that giant dog to eat long term i have some concerns about raw foods particularly if there are any immunocompromised people in the house some of these raw diets can contain bacteria that can be dangerous to family members so i tend to not necessarily recommend them there are some people who really believe that those things are better for their pets and i'm not going to argue with your belief but if you ask me for my recommendation i recommend diets that have been tested as fed in pets and that tends to be royal canaan diets uh science diet purina pro plan maybe i'm eukanuba diet so i tend to kind of stick with those diets because those are the ones that really have in my opinion the science behind them um that doesn't doesn't mean you can't give them something else to eat as a snack i think people have made it very complicated and you look at the marketing on television right now i'm absolutely shocked with how much money is spent on marketing to convince you that your dog needs this and your dog's thinking about that and they need i mean there's incredible dollars spent on marketing i i ask people how much time do you have in your day do you have time to collect a raw diet make sure it's safe or cook food there's so many great balanced diets and i say keep it simple stick to the main players in in that are in the diet i feed my dog a purina pro plan that's what i feed both my dogs um my one dog the boxer does have gi issues so she gets a special diet but whenever people ask me i think say try to keep it simple i think it's been overthought and over marketed and i do think it's a great idea i would ask your veterinarian because everybody has an opinion the problem with the raw diets i mean i just personally don't like a diet where you could get something like salmonella or campylobacter a pretty serious disease that you can get yourself by preparing these diets so i say keep it simple and make sure you're sticking to a leading diet that's tested and it's a balanced diet good points all right let's move on another question this one from christine from state college christine are you there what is your question uh yes as i am i i have a mutt uh uh kane in an indiscriminate uh um [Music] she's looking at me but she's got an ear infection i've taken her to the vet multiple times and he's uh squirted the same thing in her ear and i was just wondering is there anything else that i could do all right fred can you start with us i mean one thing certainly we see ear infections very commonly mainly in dogs and certain breeds of dogs you know labradors and dogs that have the floppy ears when i'm hearing reoccurring ear infections that's a bit different i mean if it's one time and you've gone to your veterinarian and it's a yeast infection or a bacterial infection which are not too difficult to diagnose and we treat appropriately they usually go away no problem if you're having reoccurring problems i would want to go a little bit deeper i mean is there something in the ear or is there a foreign body or plant material in the air do we need to culture the ear is it perhaps an allergy maybe maybe it's actually an allergic disease that's showing up in the ear because the ear is lined by skin so whenever you're having a reoccurring problem in fact any disease in my opinion you want to go a little bit further diagnostically so my question would be to have a good deep ear cleaning and an exam and maybe do a culture just make sure you don't have allergies i would i would look a little bit further though if you're having reoccurring ear infections that's not just a simple ear infection which is what we typically see okay thank you and and let me ask you real quickly because we have another caller so we'll brief on this um can you outline any symptoms for covid19 and pets is there any simple or or real descriptors where you're looking for symptoms if if pet is showing signs of any discomfort i think what we've seen um has been coughing and sneezing just like it is in people i think those have been the most common symptoms that have been described in cats and dogs okay okay fred put it this way we know in very rare cases that there there is a possibility of infection it's certainly not to the degree that which we see in people and the question is and and we we can test for coven 19 we can do a real-time pcr test like they do in people through some of the laboratories and whenever you look at the number of animals that have been tested mainly dogs seem to be very resistant cats ferrets and some of the other animals might be a little bit susceptible but i just don't think people know yet is what i would say um i mean i'm not saying if your dog is coughing or sneezing you need to get a cobia test for your dog i think that would be overkill or your cat but if you're having if you live in a home and you're coping positive and your animal is having respiratory disease then it might make more sense but the current evidence which can change is showing that animals are pretty resistant cats probably are more a little bit more susceptible than dogs but the take-home point is this as we sit here right now we do not think that cats and dogs are a source of covet for people and that's very important and that's good news all right thank you another caller we have dale from dubois dale your question tonight question is it's easy to exercise a dog by putting a leash on it and taking it on a walk not so easy with cats question is do cats need as much exercise and if so what's rec what is recommended for exercise for cats who would like to start that discussion so so you can create spaces indoors that are really cat friendly you can create lots of spaces with high places for cats to be so they can sit up high and look down on you climb up on cat trees um lots of uh window seats plants for them to to be in and out of if you look at cats that go outside there have been some interesting studies where they've attached video monitors to cats that travel outside they travel a relatively long way even though people think that their cats are hanging out around their house on average i think it's more than a half a mile sort of in a circumference around the house so when we take those cats that are really busy and active when they're indoor outdoor and keep them indoors to keep them safe and keep the birds safe these cats may not do as much so creating lots of high spaces window seats and then what we call proactive play where they play with a laser play with a string you sort of have to get out there and play with your cat and sometimes it helps to have another cat because if they'll play with the other cat then maybe you don't have to play with them as much but i think lots of environments that are enriching for cats and there are some great website resources like pinterest for cats where you can where you can find great pictures of creating indoor environments that are fun for your cats dale i would like to be a cat i would be a perfect cat i would do nothing around well and you know so cats do need exercise that's hard i think it also almost becomes more important to control calories in a cat certain cats because they're a lot of them just are not going to exercise very much but um they're no different than we are but you know if you can lay around why wouldn't you that's why good point i want to ask about exercise during the winter months let's look at that because again we got what 18 inches of snow for some folks just outside that are watching and listening tonight what is safe what isn't safe what about the salt buildup and those kind of things any any parameters that you like to uh impart to uh pet owners now that we're hit winter yeah i might start with that one because i already know what's going to happen with that snow we had yesterday i mean one thing we do a lot of orthopedic surgeries not me dr ryder who's really good um you know we will see a rash of anterior cruciate ruptures i promise you in about two to three weeks because what typically happens on icy conditions dogs will slip they can cause damage to the cruciate ligament the ligament in the knee like the one the football players can damage it's a very common disease especially in large breed dogs and it can happen very frequently on conditions just like yesterday and usually the dogs will slip they might be lame for a day and then it gets better but then it takes a week or two until they get worse and they really start to limp and that's when we start thinking of a cruciate ligament rupture so my my point on that is just try to make sure your dog's on good footing they're on icy spots i mean i just shoveled before the show my daughters and i really made them do most of it shovel the area the dog area where the dogs go to the bathrooms you know you don't want to stick them in deep snow um the one good thing about snow and deb i'm sure we'll say this evening this is when we start seeing the urinary tract infections in dogs or people realize because the snow's bloody and maybe it's been there for a couple days or a week and now people can see it so my my point there is really watch the footing in your dogs watch ice build up between the pads my dog sophie has very hairy feet and she'll get these you know accumulations of ice that can cause limping but my biggest thing i'm concerned about is slipping and especially like i said hips and knees and dogs right now are a real problem all right thank you fred um anything to add to that deb no i think that covered it that was great okay we do have another caller from irvona it's berlair berlair good evening and what is your question tonight uh my boy recall he's gonna be ken here in on 22nd december and he has a like a sort of pretty bad diarrhea and i don't know what to do about it okay and have you sought medical help already for for his i haven't okay uh okay okay anybody have some any other you might have to need to ask some more questions i guess uh doctors yeah i would start by taking your border collie to your veterinarian yeah whatever when you go bring out bring a school sample with you because i mean nothing what did you say i don't know if i if i found something wrong or with a 10 year old dog there can be a whole bunch of different things that can cause this and i'd i'd start by doing a good physical exam and and checking him over you know from from the color of his gums and feeling his abdomen and feeling his intestines to make sure that they're the proper thickness to um the feeling is colon to see if it feels like it's painful and checking that stool sample to see if there are any intestinal parasites or abnormal bacteria sometimes there's simple diet changes or medications that can be short-term things but other times especially in a ten-year-old dog there can be more significant problems and if we jump on them quickly and identify what they are then sometimes we can help these dogs to feel better for longer so i wouldn't i wouldn't wait around with a 10 year old dog i totally agree it really depends you know the first thing that i'm going to start with too and i'm with deb on a 10 year old if it's a 2 year old lab you know that's two-year-old left a ten-year-old dog can have a lot of different problems certainly one common thing we want to know is what's the dog's normal diet is it if this you know as a dog is is on a diet that's not easy on the gastrointestinal tract and high in fat well that might explain some of your problems so a bland diet is usually the first thing we go to but i would totally concur a doctor smart on a 10 year old man i get that one do your veterinarian so they can have a look make sure nothing else is going on all right thank you doctors speaking of foods we're entering the holiday season and i'd like to ask the veterinarians a question about what to feed or not feed during the holidays importance for your cats and dogs that they don't eat certain things right there's a do not eat list and almost a toxin list fred do you want to start us off on that yeah i mean when you look at this time of the year the biggest the biggest problem and i'm guilty in my own animals okay just so you know it's like you know i have dogs i have one dog my older dog sophie is a professional beggar she works me over anybody that knows sophie knows she's gonna work me over but um the key is to find a diet your dog's normal diet and not stray from it too far it's like people some people can eat anything they can eat any types of foods spicy no problem other people like if they stray from what they normally eat a bland diet they have all kinds of problems animals are no different so if you want to do a few treats that's fine but make sure the big culprits are the higher fatty foods so you know we always joke pancreatitis is a disease that we really worry about in dogs and cats mainly dogs but now more of a cat disease we do believe that it was previously but make sure you're not irritating that gastrointestinal tract and that's mainly through high fat foods so if you're feeding pieces of meat that have fat on them or gravy or things like that you don't want to do that you want to do easily digestible treats or take their dog food make your own treats with the dog food take canned food i have people that will bake their own canned food in the oven so the dog thinks it's a different treat the point is don't do large diet chains right now anytime especially now because that's when you're really prone to getting gastrointestinal disturbances vomiting and diarrhea pancreatitis and other problems good point and deb let's put back up those winter holiday pet toxins because um beyond actual foods pets are getting into other things too right absolutely yeah i was looking at that list and and one of the things that i i think about a lot is there's a sweetener that's in gums and in some peanut butters called xylitol that can cause low blood sugar in dogs i didn't see that one on this list but but a lot of times people think oh peanut butter will be fine for my dog but if it's sweetened with xylitol that that can be an issue um yeah and and you get things in your house so you don't think about it somebody brings they come to visit and they bring a bouquet of flowers and that can be fatal for your cat and so just being aware of those things i think is is really important and i i think when we talk about gastrointestinal upset the whole stress of the holiday season is is sometimes hard on our pets and we have people coming in and out of our house we're home we're out we're we're there we're gone we're busy and and sometimes it's stressful for our pets and and just like people when the environment is stressful our pets can have gastrointestinal problems too it'll be interesting to see if we see less problems with cobalt because people are bringing a lot of different people into the house and deb said on xylitol which is an excellent point because that's a that is a real toxin that's a big one in sugarless gums and diabetic like cookies and and things like that that can be a real problem and lilly's that she mentioned especially in cats so the key is just stick to your routines animals love routines and i think the more especially when you stick to the dietary routines like my dog sophie can eat anything our dog charlie if she eats anything other than her special hydrolyzed protein diet she's going to have you know regurgitation and diarrhea that's just the way she is so keep it simple make your life easy and let's put up that animal poison control hotline number and to say that your offices and your hospitals are ready to help i guess if in fact a owner uh pet owner comes across something that they're just not sure of right always err on the side of caution i would assume yeah and the big one you know the other big ones this time of year you always worry about is chocolate of course chocolate is something we want to keep away some dogs can eat chocolate no problem you know that can also kill dogs so why would you take the chance keep chocolate away antifreeze is probably the most deadly toxin that we worry about right now that's it's usually very sweet it can be very toxic so that's when you really have to watch you have to make sure your radiator is not leaking or if you're changing antifreeze please be careful because that's a really toxic substance that animals will drink all right great we do have an email that came in on our connect wpsu.org and let's get to that email if we would marianne from huntington writes when is it time for concern if a cat is throwing up often we suspected she was eating too much too fast so we gave her just a very small portion of canned wet cat food we noticed she seemed more prone to vomit with the salmon or fish flavors so we eliminated those and no matter what we do she vomits every two or three days deb fred who'd like to start in on this one and offer any advice i mean i like vomiting cats you know this kind of goes back to the question that we had earlier on the 10 year old dog with diarrhea so for me it's going to depend on like what's the age if this is a younger cat you know that has problems with hair balls that's pretty common that might be an easy fix but certainly vomiting is something that we never like to see going on for long periods of time or even intermittently because that can create a lot of electrolyte problems and it can be a sign of serious disease there's many many causes of vomiting in animals to simple things in a cat like a hairball two other things we see like lymphoma not an uncommon disease or inflammatory bowel disease in the cat so a case like this one where it's not just one or two episodes of vomiting we hate to cop out but we're going to do it again you really need to go to your veterinarian because that could be a lot of things and diagnostics can be very important certainly like deb said a good physical exam really to palpate the abdomen and feel the thickness of the intestines and then depending on the age certainly blood work is going to be very important we see cats with a lot of metabolic problems with vomiting hyperthyroidism or high thyroid is a huge disease and old cats that can cause vomiting and then inflammatory bowel disease or small intestine lymphoma can cause problems as well so there's a large variety of diseases some that are mild some that are severe that it can all be associated with vomiting but that's one that really needs you really need to check with your veterinarian do some diagnostics to see if you can get to the cause and then you can talk about doing diet changes and other things but um certainly you got to start with a visit to your veterinarian okay we're going to rejoin our veterinarians in just a second if you're just joining us i'm carolyn donaldson this is conversations live ask a veterinarian on wpsu and joining us tonight again we have fred dr fred metzger the medical director of the metzger animal hospital in state college and dr deb smart the co-owner and director of center animal hospital toll-free number 1-800-543-8242 the lines are busy keep calling we're ready to take your calls you can also send those questions by email at connect wpsu.org and this is one of our most popular shows so we've got lots of questions in the queue let's get right to jerry from state college jury thanks for joining us and what's your question tonight oh thanks my question is i have a 10 year old german shepherd female lately she's become lethargic and is consuming large quantities of water more so than normal what what type of testing will my vet recommend deb i'd like to start that off with you at this point well i again you know start with start with that good physical exam but but don't let her pee on the way into the clinic we would probably like to get a urine sample on that dog i mean if you can bring one in in a clean dry container don't bring it in an old food container that's got other stuff in it but a nice clean dry container bring us a urine sample could be something like a urinary tract infection there are some metabolic things that we can see in our older dogs there's a disease called cushing's disease where dogs make too many corticosteroids or have too high a cortisol level those are things we can find you know get a feel if it looks like it might be that through that physical exam run some good baseline blood work and then maybe do some special testing a lot of the things that might cause this are actually really treatable um and if they're not treatable and curable they're treatable and manageable so we can help to make your dog feel better maybe help her to drink a little bit less and i don't know if she's having accidents in the house um does she jerry does she wet when she sleeps like would she be wetting the bed or anything like that i'm not sure that they're still on they may have they may have hung up to be able to listen to your answer no i'm still here oh jerry excuse me go ahead um actually i they're answering the question right now thank you okay okay we have a little bit of feedback sometimes with our uh with our technical devices but thank you dr smart thank you jerry for that call um again if you do aren't calling us if you can turn down the television set while you're placing that call that helps in kind of the feedback we're working of course virtually with our wonderful veterinarians in the safety and social distancing in their own homes this evening so let's get right next to our next caller here suzanne from state college good evening suzanne thanks for holding on and your question please well i have a couple questions uh i have two cats ages about 10 and 16. blood work is fine urine seems to be okay why do they want to lake lick the grout around the fireplace or the brick walls in the basement and then if they can find uh plastic plants they'll chomp on them of course throw them up later but why would they do that yeah you want to take i was sure so sometimes we call this pica it's like licking or chewing abnormal objects and nausea might be a reason to do that so even with normal blood work we can have inflammatory intestinal problems in our older cats that might cause them to feel a little nauseous and then they might be interested in in licking or chewing things that aren't normal um it might be a straight up behavioral problem but it could also have a medical base all right great thank you we have a person kate from facebook has gone on facebook and writes to us here i have two ten-month-old cats both domestic short hairs how much should they weigh and if their average size for their age how much should i feed them dry or canned or a mix and thanks i mean that's a pretty loaded question the um you know the biggest thing on especially on cats it's a little bit different than dogs because obesity is one of the biggest problems just like in in our species you know we see it in dogs and cats as well and in cats it can be hard to externally look at a cat and one thing we'll always do there's a fat we call the inguinal fat pad which is right down by the belly on a cat and on a young cat you know you want to you want to have a cat that's not having obesity early on obviously and that's one area that we can check so it's going to depend on the diet the genetics of the cat the age of the cat so it's going to be hard for us to tell you exactly how much your cat should weigh right now it's more of a looking at the body score index just like they do on you and i when we go to the doctor but i think weighing i think it's really good to chart the weight of your cats if you can do that at home we're always looking at weight in the veterinary hospital and following it pretty closely but um it's going to depend on the diet and also like i said the species or the the breed of the cat um those are all going to be things that are determined the optimal body weight so we're not going to be able to tell you unless deb has some magical formula exactly how much your cat should weigh right now now i do like it when they eat both both canned food and dry food i think that as they get older it's really useful if they know how to eat different kinds of foods cats get real picky about what they eat at times and they can have a strong preference just for dry food or just for canned food and there are a lot of therapeutic diets that are available to us with various illnesses that our cats can develop as they age and so i think when they're young offering you don't have to offer a large variety of food but offering a couple different textures some can and some dry i think it is a good idea certainly in the mail cats we do like water consumption is going to be very important in the male cats because we do let feline lower urinary tract disorder is a real problem especially in the male cats and it's some it's a common emergency that we see and it can be deadly so anything we can do to keep water consumption increasing and you know urination occurring especially occurring in the male cats will help okay thank you another caller we have ed from indiana tonight ed your question tonight for our veterinarians yeah i got a 15-0 year old heinz 57 she doesn't seem like she's anything a matter with her but when she urinates it's bloody yeah and i don't know what what would be the matter or whatever yeah i mean the thing and so that's i i like heinz 57 dogs that's what i have they're they're pretty hardy so certainly in a 15 year old dog if we talk about discolored urine that can be a lot of different things from blood in the urine to other problems pigment in the urine but big thing we're going to think of as a urinary tract infection would be number one but in an older dog there's going to be other things that we can think of too from bladder stones or kidney stones and also there is a type of cancer that we see called transitional cell carcinoma the urinary bladder which would certainly be a concern in an older dog so clearly you know your dog is one that needs to see a veterinarian and typically what we will do is if they have the possibility to do an ultrasound or at least an x-ray if you do an ultrasound it's a little bit more diagnostic to look at the bladder and the kidneys make sure there's nothing going on and get a urine sample and hope it's a urinary tract infection something simple that's that's easy to fix but in a 15 year old dog that's something you want to make sure you don't want to have one of those other conditions like a bladder stone or even a bladder tumor because we do see them and other things can cause it as well but certainly a trip to your veterinarian would be warranted and like dr smart said boy we need that urine so [Music] don't let them pee before you come in okay we move right on frida from tyrone is calling in a question tonight free to your questions i can't hear you oh frida we're you're on with our veterinarians do you have a question for them yes um i have a chihuahua now he's like 12 pounds he's not he's not a tiny chihuahua and i walk him generally your mouth is moving i don't hear you we we can hear you frida you can go ahead and keep asking your question okay i'm sorry uh well anyhow i walked him today and and just even half a block and he stepped into this snow bank and he he pulled out and this seems to be an ongoing problem with his left rear leg i've had the vets different times and they they don't find anything wrong with his joints and stuff so now today he he pulled his leg out for the snow bank and he's lumping and i'm i'm just so upset you know he's he can't go up the steps very well and he won't open the couch and um i don't know what to do for him tonight okay frida thank you for calling in um dr smart can you help or fred yeah dr metzger said a lot of these things when he talked about some of the troubles that can happen with our when our when our pets are out in the ice and snow they can there's some ligaments in their knees that they can sprain or they could sprain a hip um there's a muscle in front of the hip called the psoas that they might injure when they're when they when they pull out like that like you're describing but probably the most common thing that we'll see in a little teeny dog who's had a history of of some off and on lameness might be a patella that slides out so a kneecap that slides out of the right position and that patella usually slides to the inside but sometimes it slides to the outside and it can get stuck there and make it hard for your dog to walk um so that that's something that your veterinarian might find or you know maybe a few in a few hours it'll it'll go back in a normal position your veterinarian might not be able to see it when they get to the vet clinic um so it can be a little tricky to diagnose sometimes but if it's been a recurrent problem i i would be concerned that there might be a patella that's what we call luxating or sliding out of the normal position that's that kneecap that's sliding out and i think i think it might be something like that they can also sprain and strain things just like we do and and and they can be really sore it's not that it doesn't hurt but sometimes those things will heal with a little anti-inflammatory and rest as well but i think if he's that painful he should be checked out okay i agree with i would agree with deb i mean that luxating patella is so common and it can be intermittent as it comes in and out of the groove and so that's something your veterinarian should check and if that's what it is sometimes we don't treat them it depends on the dog but a lot of times we do surgery to fix it which which goes usually very very well good point thank you freda from tyrone we know we're getting so many calls from our pet owners that are so careful and wanting to know what to do with their own loved ones rick from shingletown joins us now live on the phone rick can you hear us and what is your question tonight rick we're having a little trouble hearing you can you hear us now my dog is 18 years old we can hear you now she's blind go go ahead and hear you go ahead rick i'm sorry i keep interrupting you but yes just talk slowly and clearly we can hear you now sir my dog is 18 years old and she's blind in death what can i do to help her last days of living well you've loved her it sounds like from this point forward and calling in tonight are you able to hear that doctor dr frederick i mean that's incredible 18 is incredible and you know certainly we do see just like in elderly people decreased hearing and sight i guess it would depend on what's the cause but um you know is it cataracts is it glaucoma um the key is if you have an 18 year old dog a lot of times they've already learned and memorized your whole house situation you know as long as they're not going up steps or you're not moving things usually they do quite well so i mean it almost becomes as long as she's not in pain and and she's eating okay i would keep doing what you're doing now i mean the key is not to change things if she's in pain that's a different deal and that that becomes more of a quality of life and you know in our profession that's a double-edged sword it's very difficult for us dr smart and i and anyone in veterinary medicine euthanasia is a part of things that we have to do and it's very sad but it also if we can't help an animal we can stop so i always it really is decision on the owner what's the quality of life and if her quality of life's not good anymore you can stop it sounds like it's still not too bad i mean if she's eating and drinking and not in pain i wouldn't change a whole lot i would make her as happy as you can oh beautiful uh we'll get to the next caller in just a second i want to take a quick timeout because we've got less than a half hour left and we want to show off your pets uh to our two veterinarians so if you don't mind uh putting up those pictures and just running through the pets that you have and why you chose the ones you did and then we'll get right back to the phone lines i think we've got dr smart's pets up first deb so this is my horse he's leo he's he's one of my very just best friends we have we have some great times he's a fabulous trail horse he's a morgan and he's he's he's been he's been a great boy and that's a little um little french basset hound they're called pbgs um and they're stubborn and funny and happy little dogs and she joined us during covet you can see my husband's arm he's been working from home and she loves to sit next to him on the couch and keeps him company while i'm off at work all day long she's great and then now fred these are the four pets that own me on the left that's sophie so sophie's 13 year 14 i got her as a rescue a long time ago um daughter brewery on the left she's in fifth grade daughter ava on the right she's in six that made them smile in the picture and then boxer charlie on the right so um that's huge that's my family and they all make me happy they drive me crazy but i love them and uh we're getting ready for christmas like everybody else that's wonderful all right let's get right back to the phone lines we're getting the phones ringing off the hooks here we've got hope from st mary's tonight calling in hope your questions to our veterinarians uh yes i had a question for veterinarians i wanted to know what i can do to protect horses who's in the wintertime yep that's all you so so i am a small animal veterinarian i'm a horse owner and a horse lover but i actually have a horse vet so i have i have colleagues who specialize in horses the horse that you saw in my picture is is a morgan he has really solid hooves and does not wear shoes or need special protection so i think having a professional farrier trim your horse's hooves and trim them correctly is probably a great place to start our horses are evolved to walk in the snow and as long as their hooves are not cut too short then they usually do pretty well if if your horse is having pain if your horse is excuse me lame then i think um having your horse vet come out and look and that would not be dr fred or myself that would be the horse all right thank you if you're just joining us i'm carolyn donaldson this is conversations live ask a veterinarian on wpsu we're still taking calls right now there you see the number on your bottom of your screen 1-800-543-8242 or connect at wpsu.org we have dr fred metzger and dr deb smart joining us and you can um still call we've got a few more minutes left and we did want to get back to some of those questions that we kind of had between the calls and that is we live in pennsylvania it's now the middle of winter our tick's still an issue doctors do we need to still be concerned for our pets about the ticks and we always hear about that among pet owners who live in these beautiful woods you really need to worry this is a year-round disease in our part of the country and most people are familiar with lyme disease so we don't have to get in too much of a discussion lyme disease is trans it's a bacteria transmitted by text and we have a vaccine and we have a pretty good test board so most people are familiar with that or they've talked to their veterinarian about it the more common one that we're seeing now which can cause severe illness is called anaplasmosis or anaplasma it's another tick-borne disease it's usually transmitted by the same kick that transmits lyme disease thick sodium pick the black legged tick that's certainly around here and anaplasmosis is a disease that causes really pretty severe sickness fever uh problems with lameness it can be just an ain't doing right dog that's just not feeling good it usually occurs and hits them very suddenly but that's the one that we are seeing in our emergency service more commonly than lyme anymore and the problem with that disease is we don't have a vaccine and even though we have a blood test for that disease it's called a 4dx test we run it with lyme that test since it's an antibody test can say take several weeks to turn positive and if we have a dog that's infected with anaplasma less than two weeks it can show negative on the test so we have to do a special examination of the blood to diagnose it and it's in our area so my my point if you put the next slide up that's a slide of blood but if you look at the next slide there's a little see that blue thing that's called a neutrophil it has two little pale dots in it there in the bottom those are called morula and that's how we diagnose anaplasma we diagnose it very frequently in central pennsylvania a lot of the dogs can have low platelets they can have blood clotting issues but they're usually very sick if we diagnose it rapidly we can put them on docks of cycling an antibiotic and they usually do really well but i always tell people you know we're living in a lime and an anaplasma area and other tick-borne disease areas that can affect your pets can affect you they don't care whether they're biting dogs they'll bite you and you can get the same diseases so certainly we see lyme disease in people we they're seeing anaplasma moses in central pennsylvania as well fairly commonly so you must do tick control year-round and and dr smart i don't know what are you recommending for tick control what do you guys like to use at center animal oh um we we use a lot of different tick controls for most of our pet dogs i i do like the oral flea and tick medications i think i think they're really effective i think in most animals they're really really safe and and i like them because our pets are family members and they're not a pesticide that's on their fur or on their coat that that's that's in their house and with as much cancer as we see in dogs and cats as they get older i i like those products i like the oral ones i think that they are probably um the safest thing anaplasma is so frustrating because it's transmitted so quickly when the ticks attach that even with the best preventatives it can be difficult to completely prevent anaplasmosis and and it can be tricky to diagnose very tricky and you know the one thing i would tell all the dog owners out there and the cat owners as well i mean these are diseases we don't you know we think cats can get infected but these are mainly dog diseases however kicks certainly will bite cats as well but really stringently in tick control through your veterinarian there's so many great products right now i really recommend you talk to your veterinarian see what they they recommend in their area i agree with dr smart i like the oral ones they work very well um and if you have a dog i highly recommend depending on what your veterinarian says but boy get the lyme vaccine the lime vaccine in central pennsylvania at least to me is a core vaccine and you should get it that's the disease that we see if you're outside at all all right thank you we're going back to the phones they're lining up again we have marlene from johnstown now on the phone marlene your question tonight hi i have a two and a half year old male shih tzu and his one eye i believe he is not seeing out of it i have taken him to two different vets and nobody really wants to they think everything's fine but with shizu eyes i know because they're bulgy it looks as though maybe who had had him before maybe a cat scratched it but he's not seeing at least out of one eye and at his age is there anything that i can do to give him some sight back you know my thing is if people are having reoccurring eye problems i don't have depth deals my number one suggestion would be go to a veterinary ophthalmologist if you're not getting answers the a lot of people it depends on the vet some people like to look at a high some don't but you know if someone's willing to visit a veterinary ophthalmologist there's some you know in the larger cities especially pittsburgh i don't know who deb uses but we certainly use them at pittsburgh vet specialist certainly when i hear reoccurring eye problems in that breed you would want to make sure you don't have dry eye or a lack of tear production or there's another thing called an indolent ulcer which can be kind of a tricky situation as well so i always tell people hey if you're not getting an answer you're not sure visit one of our other colleagues maybe someone else has an idea or certainly a veterinary ophthalmologist they are board-certified specialists and eye diseases and that's always a good situation if someone's willing to travel deb i don't know what you think about that we use the veterinary group in pittsburgh probably most commonly i think they have they have several veterinary ophthalmologists out there and they're going to work with your normal veterinarian so sometimes you just take one trip out there and you get a diagnosis and you have a plan and then your veterinarian can call them and follow up and and make sure that your pet gets gets good ongoing care with shih tzus too sometimes their eyes look different so their eyes don't always look exactly the same so having the fact that the eyes look different from each other doesn't necessarily mean that your dog has an eye problem because there can be different colors or spots in the eyes that are just breed characteristics and it it may be that the eyes are okay but i think if you're worried about it and you think your pet can't see it's it's worth finding a veterinarian who's going to do a complete eye exam and perhaps in this case if you've already had that done going to see a specialist they usually like a referral so i'd reach back to the veterinarian that saw your pet the last time and say you know are you willing to refer me to a specialist and and i think we almost are we almost always do i i love the information i get when my patients go and see somebody who has that special knowledge and they come back and and i almost always learn something don't mess around with eye problems if you're something's not right that's not an organ you want to wait on so uh you know have someone look at it and what's nice is if you visit the ophthalmologist a lot of times even though it might be three hours away which is not convenient we get that but a lot of times on the rechecks you can do a telemedicine recheck with them just like people we're all going that way that's a good point thank you very much thank you for your call we've got patricia from huntington we've got about five minutes left so we'll try to squeeze in as many calls as we can but patricia from huntington your question tonight hello yes hello if you can turn on your television set and you can hear us we have patricia we're ready for your question okay um i have a two-year-old cat and he's a rescue somebody else just gave him away um he seems to be having problems with sores on his skin and on his back um i think my veterinarian thinks that he's allergic to food to whatever food i'm giving him but uh i'm giving him uh the blue um that's kind of expensive but it's it's a chicken indoor um recipe um i'm only giving him one can a day he weighs 12 pounds i'm trying to get him down i'm not getting much more than that um and he's on medicine right now but i'm just hoping that this goes away all right everyone doctors comment on that certainly if you're seeing you know one thing you need to be careful if you're seeing sores on the back i mean fleas are always going to be top of my list even if it's an indoor cat i would want to make sure you know the veterinarians had had done an examination but certainly make sure location of skin lesions or location of where the sores are can be helpful and to try to determine certainly we do see food allergies as well but i would want to make sure absolutely you don't have something that would be reasonably simple to treat like flea allergic dermatitis which we still do see and there's certainly other allergies as well but that would be one thing i'd want to start with okay thank you very much and i do want oh dr smart did you have anything to add excuse me i'm good okay super we've only got about three minutes left and so with that short amount of time we thank you so much for your calls we want to ask um our veterinarians while we still have them with us tonight with the few minutes we have remaining um just the quick do's and don'ts for the pets over the holidays with covid and the in introduction of maybe new pets in our household this very challenging time during the holidays what should we be doing and what perhaps shouldn't we be doing uh a general question but one that we can look forward to uh living out in the next coming days ahead with the holiday fred i think the big thing is you know animals like routines so if you're bringing a new animal into the house make sure you're not altering the routines on your other animals i mean that's like saying hey we have a family of four humans but now we're gonna bring another person and then we don't know so you know you gotta watch upsetting the behaviors that are already going on so i think the holidays are a terrible time to get a new pad um a lot of people want to do that you know get a puppy for christmas i can't think of a worse idea in my opinion um you know that needs to be a well thought out situation people need to make sure that they're ready for that and i think with kobe there's so many things going on right now maybe that's not the best time to do something new i always say you know think about the rescue pet think about a pet that's not a puppy or kitten one that's been around for a while i think you get a lot better history on them if i think about our local paws here in state college i mean they got some great older cats that need homes so i think the rescues are a great place to look at normally there's we have better history and you're going to know something about that pet so i say stick to routines try not to change the routines too much try not to change the diet and also think get your pets ready for when you have to go back to work right now you're creating separation anxiety big time because you're with your pets all day long what happens when you're not able to stay home all day long you kind of want to start getting them ready to be gone for a bit longer good point thank you fred we want to give the last minute to uh dr smart we just have about a minute left dr smart yeah i think i think making sure that these new pets if we do get them that they're well socialized and they're they have some experiences don't if you have a dog make sure you take it out if dogs don't live in bubbles get them out and walk them we have some beautiful countryside around us or you know put on it grab a pair of snowshoes if it's like today and get outside but but make sure that our that our dogs are not stuck in the house um let them have some opportunities for training and socialization i think those things are really important and i okay i certainly second dr metzger's encouragement that people look at our local shelters that's great pauses pause is wonderful but they're great great places to get that's where you go thank you so much we've been talking with dr fred metzger the medical director of metzger animal hospital and dr deb smart the co-owner and director of center animal hospital and the best takeaway is be kind to those veterinarians and their staff out there today they're working hard i'm carolyn donaldson and from all of us at wpsu thanks so much for joining us and best wishes for a happy healthy holiday season with your pets you