It is Pet Chat time, and I'm joined by Dr. Kimberley Earle today. Hello. Hello. Nice to have you. No, Cheryl today. She's still under the weather, unfortunately, but we'll push through. Get well, Cheryl. That's what we can say. Now, what are we going to talk about today? We might talk about ear issues, and in particular, the difference between ear cleaners and medicated eardrops.
Oh, OK. So we're not using cotton buds, things like that. Well, we'll talk about it. Yeah. So we've had a few patients coming in over the last week or so where the owners have noticed that the dog's ears are sore or the dog's head shaking or they're rubbing it or they've lifted the flap on the ear and it's really red and dirty in there. And so people want to reach for an ear cleaner. What can I do at home? I totally understand that. And so they reach for an ear cleaner. And that's, in most cases, perfectly fine to do.
Ear cleaners are not the same as medicated drops. And we just need to be, I guess, mindful of what the limitations of ear cleaners are. So ear cleaners are going to be appropriate if you have a dog that has an ear that's dirty. Lots of dogs like to sort of rub their heads on the ground or they stick their heads into things and they will actually physically get dirt into them. And wax is a normal sort of thing that we can have building up in ears. And a lot of the ear cleaners are quite good at breaking down that wax, shifting it up and help lifting it up out of the ear canal, particularly if you've got a dog that's got a really deep ear canal. You know, they've got a nice big wide open ear canal. What sort of ear cleaners are you talking about? So, I mean, these are going to be things usually you're going to be able to buy at a pet shop or you're going to buy at your vet hospital.
There's lots of different brands around. Usually they'll say things like Gentle Ear Cleaner, Leo Ear Cleaner. There's lots of different ones, Epiotic and all sorts of things. Some of them are really good at breaking up wax and cleaning the ear out. Some of them are designed to be a little bit more drying. So if you have a dog who loves to go into the water, an ear cleaner that's got a drying action is going to be helpful. It seems a little counterintuitive. You put a liquid down and it dries it out. But usually those things have a little bit of a mild acetic acid or boric acid or something like that that's going to dry out the ear canal so that we don't have that wet, squishy ear sort of sitting there, which is going to promote bacterial and yeast growth down in the ear. So we have some dogs who we know that they're prone to eating.
ear infections and they tend to get into the water or swimming pools or they whatever need baths a lot and they get water down in the ears and those drying ear cleaners can be really helpful and we will use those in a just sort of a preventative way you know you might sort of say okay once a week we're going to put this drying ear cleaner down you still have to stick a tissue or a cotton swab or something you know to try to suck up some of the moisture up out of it after you've used it but then it's sort of going to give it's going to dry out the skin on the inside of the ear a little bit the trouble with some of those ear cleaners is that if your dog has an infection and the ear is really red and inflamed because of the fact that they have a bit of acid in them, they're going to sting. And so we get a lot of people who will go, oh, I'll stick this ear cleaner down my dog's red ear. And then the dog, you know, yelps and shakes his head and carries on a bit. They can become really head shy because that ear cleaner, which is actually designed for a healthy but wet ear to help dry it out. Now you're putting it down an inflamed ear and it stings. And so we don't really like that. Some of the ones that are just designed for cleaning the ears that are a little bit more gentle and are good at breaking up wax, similar sort of thing.
They don't usually sting as much, which is good. But I think we need to keep in mind that we can't clean away an infection. You know, a proper ear infection, we're not going to be able to clean it away. And in fact, putting, you know, repeated doses of an ear cleaner down where we do have liquid going down into the ear, that's actually going to promote bacterial and yeast growth down inside the ear canal. So we want to just be mindful of that. And my general rule is if your dog's ear looks a little bit red, you know, that's fine. Put an ear cleaner down, hopefully a gentle ear cleaner rather than, you know, one that's a bit more drying. Try it, you know, see if it makes a difference. Watch it over the next couple of days. But if you've put two or more doses down and the ear's not better, then you probably...
probably not on the right track. We need to go into a vet. We need to get the ear cytology done. So that's where we do stick a little cotton tip down into the ear as far down as we can get. And we'll have a look at it under the microscope. And we're trying to determine, have we got an infection there that's active? Have we got a yeast infection? Have we got a bacterial infection? And if we have a bacterial infection, is it made up of rod form bacteria or cocky, which are little round form bacteria? Because the treatments vary quite a bit depending on what we find down that ear. And some of them have the potential to become really, really serious and really resistant to antibiotics and things like that. So, you know, I think a lot of times the dog needs more than a cleaner and they need a vet consult. They need to have somebody, you know, have a look down, make sure.
the eardrum is still intact, we'll always try to have a look down the ear to see if the eardrum is still intact because there are certain products that we can't put down the ear if the eardrum has been ruptured. It'll cause deafness and potentially permanent harm. How safe is it to use a cotton bud on a dog's ear? You don't want to push it too far down. You don't want to push it too far down. So, I mean, I think if we're doing it gently and we're paying attention to the fact that dog's ear canals, as a general rule, are L-shaped. So if you lift up the flap, the pinna we call it, you lift up the flap and you only ever put the cotton bud sort of in a downward direction, not poking in towards the brain, okay? So I say lift up the ear canal, pop the cotton bud in, just sort of in a downwards towards the floor, you're usually only going to use it.
get to the bottom of the long part of the L, right? If you start tipping it on its side and poking in towards the brain, that's when you're going to have a real risk of getting down there and damaging the ear canal, sorry, the tympanic membrane, which is the eardrum. But we also just need to be a little bit careful because sometimes when dogs have had chronic ear infections or just certain breeds, they'll have what we call a stenotic canal, which is an inflamed... thickened, swollen canal. And it's not uncommon for people to try to put a cotton bud down there and then the cotton bud pops through. But when they go to pull it back, the cotton stays behind inside the ear. So you get the little stick coming back out, but now you've got a cotton foreign body down in the ear. So if you've got a really tight ear canal, it's not awesome either. I usually recommend, unless you've been shown by a vet or a vet nurse how to do it, I usually sort of say just stick with using the cotton bud on the outside of the ear canal where they have all those little folds and the little nooks and crannies. Usually you can use it to get in there. But in terms of going right down the ear, wait until you've been shown by a medical professional, veterinary professional.
know how to do it safely. And it's also getting your dog to sit still. Well, that's true. I mean, so quite often they like to have their ears rubbed when they've got a, you know, a sore ear. So lots of people will say, oh, I've been sticking my knuckle in and he leans right in and he gives a little groan. And my dog's the same, loves to do that as well. So, you know, I think if you need to, you know, put a tissue or a paper towel onto your finger and you can stick your finger sort of down there and give a little swizzle because, you know, that's not going to, not going to cause any damage. It's too thick to cause much, much trauma. And you're not going to get far, far enough down to cause any drama to the eardrum. So as far as dogs go, is it similar with cats as well?
Yeah, cats are a bit less compliant about having things put down their ears. They don't love it as much. So when we do have to put things down, it's a little bit more of a fight. They're also a bit more sensitive in terms of autotoxicity. So there's a lot fewer safe things that we can put down cat ears. And so one of the things I often see is people will go into the pet shop and they'll say, oh, I got some ear canker drops and I've put this down. And they're literally just sitting on the shelf and they say ear canker. When we talk about ear canker, we're actually talking about ear mites. And ear mites can be quite common in cats, particularly cats that roam outside, but they're actually very, very rare in dogs. And so it's almost...
never appropriate to put an ear canker drop down a dog because we hardly ever see ear mites in them. It's not impossible, but we just hardly ever see it. Whereas it might be proper to put them into cats. But there are better things that you can use in cats. There are a lot of top spot products that are more well-rounded sort of anti-parasiticides that will actually just kill those ear mites a lot faster and the cats won't hate you for putting the drops down the ears. You won't end up with scratches all up your arms. That's right. And that's the real classic with cats is that if they have ear mites, you're going to see black flaky discharge and they'll be pretty frantic about scratching. Cats often will scratch themselves with their nails. They'll end up with little scabs around the base of the ear and just in front of the ear.
ears and things like that so they'll be pretty frantic they're not going to want you to go anywhere near those ears they're sore yeah We've got a special guest in the studio. Special guest. Greg from our sales team. Now, you've got a pet-related problem. I have. Would you like to tell Kimberly? Absolutely. So we've got a three-year-old toy cavoodle male who's a very affectionate dog to people he knows. You take him out, and he's a cute dog, so a lot of people want to pet him, pat him, but he really shies away and really is nervous around other people and will bark at other dogs. Yeah, okay. What can I do to help? Well, I mean, it does sound like he's got a little bit of an underlying sort of anxiety-laden personality. He does look nice, but it's quite possible. And that's not uncommon, you know, I think sometimes for little dogs too. It's a big, scary world out there, and new people sort of approach.
And a lot of times people say, oh, you know, he hasn't had any traumatizing experiences. Nothing bad has happened. But unfortunately, we don't really know what's happened in the mind of a dog when they were a puppy and growing up. And it can literally be something along the lines of a new person walked by. They showed a bit of interest. He was going to go. And then a loud noise happened in the background. And it might have been a block away. But, you know, somebody something fell off a big truck and it made a loud noise. And what the puppy remembers is that something scary happened to me when I went to investigate that new person. So it can be as simple as that. Sometimes it's just that they're unsure of how, you know, that person is sort of meeting them. People often tend to sort of reach up and over the head of the dog. And that can be quite scary and intimidating for the puppy, you know, as you or the dog as you're reaching.
up over top of them. They're like, oh, what's happening? We have to remember that dogs will see people in profiles. And so people with different profiles, so people with hats on, or maybe they have different head coverings or they have a different beard. If he's not used to that, you're a clean-saving person. So it might be that somebody with a beard, it looks a little bit funny. I can't read his features quite as well. So that's a little bit nerve-wracking for me.
And then some dogs are just, you know, everything's a little bit scary. So I'm just going to like tell you off, show you how big I am, you know, so that hopefully you leave me alone. Right. A little bit of small dogs. And it's a real thing because, you know, they sort of feel like I'm just going to show you how big and tough I am. And then hopefully that's going to be enough to protect myself. So, you know, we want to try to build positive associations wherever possible. And setting the puppy up for success or setting the dog up for success. You said yours is three years old, so it's not like an old dog. And we can still teach old dogs new tricks, even if it is an old dog. But setting them up for success by, you know, sort of saying, OK, today we're going to take our dog to Bunnings and we're going to orchestrate some positive influences. And that might mean that.
Somebody is carrying the dog and somebody in front walks around and says, could you please gently walk by and hand my dog? Here's some treats. Can you, you know, as my wife walks by, could you please, you know, hand the dog these treats? We're just going to stop. We're going to have a quiet moment. And we just want to start to build a positive association between a stranger and the dog. Now we have to gauge the dog's level of interaction, you know, with this, right? Like if your dog is already like, oh my God, this whole big place is scary. The car ride was scary and I'm in Bunnings and there's people everywhere and they're trembling and they're not taking treats. That's not going to work. We're going to have to, you know.
do it further, something that's closer to what the dog is comfortable with. So it might be literally standing at the end of your yard and saying, you know, here, as you go by, some kid on the, you know, going by, can we do it here where the dog is in a comfortable space in the home and now it's going to take some treats. So we need to sort of build that up sort of slowly. The barking at other dogs is a little bit trickier sometimes too, right? Because sometimes there's a combination of anxiety, but also excitement. Like, I'd really like to be your friend, but I'm a little bit scared of you. And so they get themselves worked up into a real frenzy. But again, trying to set something up with a dog that's a similar temperament or at least a similar size and, you know, who's not going to play.
really rough. Like putting your little cavoodle in with a great big bull Arab who's going to rough and tumble them. That's not going to be a successful sort of thing. But another little cavoodle or an older little dog trying to get them to interact a little bit on neutral territory. So that nobody's feeling possessive about where they're at. And again, trying to make it a really positive experience. And it might literally be, let's put a picnic blanket down and I'll sit on one side with my dog and you sit on the other side with your dog. And we're just going to feed our dog some treats until that dog starts to sort of go, OK, hey, I can actually meet this other dog and this can be fun. And I'm building a positive association between meeting new dogs, meeting new people and this really yummy food that I have. So you can help by doing it, you know, doing those little sessions when the dog is hungry. So you might only feed a half breakfast so that we've got a little bit of extra incentive. Like, oh, that's my favorite treat. And they do talk about we need to find a treat that's going to be a high value treat. Right. So for puppies, we can often get away with just using puppies.
kibble. But for older dogs, particularly if they're a little bit more nervous, we often have to find something that's like, this is the best treat ever for me. So I like to use things like little tiny bits of chopped up Devon, but it might be a little bit of barbecue chicken. Obviously, if your dog's got any issues with pancreatitis and things like that, Devon might not be the way to go. So you might need to stick with chicken, but you'll find something that will work for your dog. But a high value treat is what we're going to probably need to have something that you're going to be able to entice the dog to sort of overcome their fear for the value of that treat. And then it's just time. And there's other things that you can do. I mean, I think if your dog is really...
pathologically anxious, then helping them with sometimes some anxiety medications, helping them to sort of bring that level of anxiety down so that we can facilitate learning. Because if you're in a massive fight or flight mode, if you're worried that your life is at risk, you're not going to be able to learn how to tie your shoe, right? Like you're standing on the edge of a cliff, you're about to fall in and nobody's going to be like, let's learn how to tie your shoe now and let's do that calmly. This doesn't happen. And the same is true with our pets. So if the dog is really in a frantic state, they're not going to be able to learn that new people and new dogs are safe and are fun. They're just going to be like, oh my God, I'm dying. This is the end of the road for me. So those are the dogs that really need some help.
of pharmacology like drugs you know we use anti-anxiety medications all the time to really really good effect and it really helps with improved learning and then there's other things you can do some of the pheromone collars pheromone sprays you can spray dog pheromone spray on bandanas and that can just help to give them a little bit of a sense of peace something they'd get from their mom you know just as they're sort of learning to explore the world and that can just be sort of calming and there's a few other calming supplements that are around things that have tryptophan in them or alphacosazepine which is a milk protein which can help to you know influence calming and things like that so that's anything we can do that's going to facilitate the dog to be calm is going to help them learn Fantastic. That's great advice. Thank you so much. The trouble with it is it's never a quick process. I haven't got a, here, take this toy, shake it three times and turn around and hold your tongue to the side and it'll be fixed. So it's a work in progress, but it certainly can be done. Positive associations. Thank you so much. Have a go and let us know how you go. Absolutely. All right. Thanks, Greg. We've got Leanne from Mayfield on the line. Hi, Leanne. You've got a dog with anxiety. I have. He's a little dash ant, a miniature dash ant. Oh, yes. Okay. And so how is that manifesting? What is it that you're seeing and what are you worried about? It's when I leave him. He doesn't like to be left alone.
And I am retired, so I'm with him a lot, but occasionally I have to leave him. And he will howl. And so are you hearing this from your neighbours that he's doing it, or it's when you go out the door that you can hear it? Sometimes I'll be at the dog park, which I go every day with him. So he's with a group of familiar people, and I might have to take off down the street.
but he just sits at the fence and likes to walk me in the house. Yeah, okay. Poor thing. I mean, that in itself would not be entirely inappropriate, you know. He's a little bit worried that, like, hey, we're at the dog park and my mum's just left and, like, has she left me here and he's sort of calling you back. So I don't know that that's entirely inappropriate. But we absolutely will see dogs that have separation anxiety from their people where they do worry, you know, when they're on their own about, you know, how they're going to cope. So we'll see dogs that will fret, they can destroy things, they will howl or carry on or bark. So I guess some of the things that we would say would be...
Starting off with if you can get them out for a walk and things before you have to go away and leave the house. That's always really helpful because they often can, you know, get out a bit of nervous energy and do a bit of exercise. And hopefully that means that we'll be a little bit more restful once we come home. That can be really good. Again, trying to where we can not have a lot of build up towards sort of going out. So some, you know, some people like as soon as you start to get your coat together and you gather up your purse and your keys and your wallet, you know, they start to know. And so some dogs that build up can be really intense and they can sort of go, oh, my goodness, I'm about to be left behind. So doing things, you know, maybe.
be like um offering food at that time it's maybe breakfast time so again we always want to try to build a positive association oh mom's going out that means i'm going to get food or i'm going to get something yummy in my bowl um you know that can be you know beneficial playing a little bit of a, you know, you might get yourself together and then play a little bit of a game or have a little cuddle or something like that. And again, leave a little treat or chew toy, something like that, that they like. So again, we're trying to sort of hopefully make it less painful for the dog when you go and then give them something to do to keep themselves entertained. But a lot of times, I think if you've got a dog who's really worried about it, we will sometimes need to have, again, help with short-term anti-anxiety sort of medication so that the dog is not getting worked up and becoming more and more frantic, right? Because panic, panic begets panic. Like they, you know, if they sort of go, oh my gosh, I'm, you know, mom's.
never coming back I'm all alone and there's scary noises and there's cars going by and other dogs are barking they can really get into a fairly significant state of distress and so for some dogs particularly if they're at risk of injuring themselves sometimes the advice that we give is actually you need to find a way to not leave this dog unsupervised for you know a period of time some dogs will do okay in a crate if your little dog has been crate trained and feels comfortable lying in a crate for some dogs seven months but then he decided my bed was a better option yeah so you might find that you know for those times when you're not home that if he's calm in the crate you might again find that you can build a bit of resilience and find that he's feels comfortable in a crate because they often do like to have that sort of enclosed space around them. So that sort of feeling of being in a bit of a den. And so for some dogs, even though he might want to sleep with you at night, if you're not home, for some dogs being in a crate is going to be beneficial. But you need to make sure we don't want that to be a traumatizing experience either. So we have to get them used to the crate. Again, make it a positive experience. Only treats, food or treats or toys that we only get in the crate can be really helpful. So you go, oh, the best treats happen when I'm in the crate. Let's go in the crate and see if we can earn some of those good treats. So that can be helpful. But if you're worried that your dog is getting to a point where the anxiety is becoming clinically...
deleterious to them, then speak to your vet about it and see if we can get some help for them as well. Okay. Thanks for your help. Good luck, Leanne. Bye, Leanne. Good luck. Thank you. This is Pet Chat on 2NURFM and we have Mel from Arcadia Vale on the line. Hi, Mel. How can we help you today?
Yeah, I have a 14-year-old male cavoodle, and he's got lots of little growth on him. The vet said they're quite normal with age, and he has had some taken off previously when he's had operations for other things, but the vet said you can't keep taking them off. They keep coming back, and because of his age, he doesn't want to operate on him. I'm just wondering, because there's two in particular that he just bites on, and he's got a lot of allergies as well, and then he's got one he scratches on the top of his head, and he makes it bleed, and he bites the one until it gets quite raw. I have had him in the past. He's got really bad. He's gone on.
like steroids or something. But I just wanted to say something, because I can't cover it because he's furry. Yeah, I just wondered whether there's some way, or should I try an antihistamine? I don't know what it is annoying him. So I guess the thing, a lot of times when they're biting and chewing at them, the moisture from the saliva, bacteria from the mouth can cause or contribute to little superficial infections in the skin. And so that can become more itchy and it becomes a bit of a vicious circle. I'm a little bit itchy, so I'm going to chew at it, which is going to actually make it more itchy.
My thoughts would always be, you know, have another chat with your vet because I think there'd be a lot of cases where if it's causing the dog, even if it's not a cancerous lump, if it's causing the dog grief, then I would still probably recommend taking it up. Now, I don't know your dog and there may be other comorbidities that make it not a very good anesthetic candidate, but there's often things that we can do for them. The other thing is not so much for the one on the top of its head, but if they're on the body, you could look at getting like little dog jumpsuits, like little pajamas that will sort of cover it generally so that we're not, we've at least got a barrier layer between the skin and that. And then doing things like medicated bathing, you know, to help reduce the bacterial load and microbial load. on the skin can be really helpful. So using some of the...
just run-of-the-mill, you know, medicated washes that have an antifungal and an antiseptic in them can be really beneficial. Specific ones for dogs? Yeah, yeah, specific ones for dogs. Now you'd want to go into your vet and get one or there's some of them you can buy at some of the better pet shops. And yeah, usually just read the instructions because they have, usually you have to sort of lather the shampoo up and then let it sit on the skin for a five to ten minute time frame depending on what brand it is and then rinse it off. And then anything you can do to prevent him from biting at it, again, to sort of break that cycle. So again, sometimes putting a little cone on them for a few days to break the cycle or a little donut collar or like I said, a little pet jumpsuit can be really beneficial to try to help.
reduce the trauma that's going to keep the whole thing going. Top of the head's a little bit harder because they're obviously not licking up there, but if he's rubbing on it, that could be a little bit harder. But again, that's maybe where it's still worthwhile having a discussion with a vet about this is bothering him, it's happening on a regular basis, and I think it's worthwhile taking it off. And maybe not taking all of them off. Dogs who get these little lumps do tend to get lots of them, but if they're bothering him in particular, then it still might be worthwhile. Yeah, there's only one or two that are particularly bothering him. Okay.
Thank you so much for that. Good luck with it, Mel. Great. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Next, we're going to check on our Pets of the Week. So if you head to our website, 2nurfm.com.au, and click on our Lifestyle Program, you'll find our Pets of the Week. We've got Mimi and Delilah today. We're going to start with Mimi the cat. Very cute. Yeah, she's super cute. She's a lovely little grey cat. So Mimi is a two-and-a-half-year-old female, this ex, I believe. Lovely young cat. She's quirky and playful. She comes across as a little bit timid, takes a little while to warm up to new environments, but she loves attention. She's not a particularly needy cat, so she's probably one of these cats who would love to have some human...
interaction, but also is fairly independent. It says that she would be suitable mostly as an only pet. She will interact with older children, but she's not probably going to be great with young kids and does not get on well with other cats. So we're going to want to have an only cat here, but she's a lovely looking thing. Yeah, and she's in Belmont at the moment. So if you're around that area, check on our website and it'll give you the details as to where you can meet Mimi. And next we've got Delilah. Yeah, so Delilah is a female Staffy Cross. She'll be desexed if she hasn't already. She came into care with a litter of puppies and the puppies are all also being rehomed, but now they're looking for a home for her. So she's a love...
friendly dog. She loves to cuddle, eager to please. She's toilet trained. She's got basic training. She's still working on staying calm and they feel like she would be better with older children rather than young ones because she's a moderately large dog and has the old whip of a tail. So when she gets excited, she sort of whips her tail around. So little toddlers might be in the line of fire for that. She'd be best suited to mature age or teenage kids and would be happiest as an only dog. So if you're looking for a lovely little Delilah, then...
She might be good for you. Yeah. She's a middle-aged or middle-sized dog. It doesn't actually say how old she is, does it? Oh, hang on a minute. She might be able to check that out. Let me click on the link and we might be able to find out how old she is. So she's a year old. A year old. Oh, yeah. So that's what I thought. A young adult. Yeah. Medium to large breed size. So, yeah.
Yeah, so you can check out Delilah and there's more information on that Pet Chat page as well. So you can click on some links to other websites and you'll get that and you can apply to meet Delilah. And just quickly, before we go, Mark was talking about pet insurance this morning. He said some people are paying up to $1,200 for pet insurance. What are your thoughts on that? Listen, my dog is insured. My current dog is the first dog I've ever insured, but man, I'm thankful for it. I insured her because I wanted to be able to do hip replacements if she needed it because she's a golden retriever and the hip dysplasia issue is still real. She's got good hips, but she's got terrible skin. Everybody would have heard me talk about my lemon of a dog.
Which is sweet, but yeah, terrible skin. Listen, pet insurance is fantastic. I use it all the time and I've just done the calculations. It's still cheaper for me to pay for pet insurance and get them to reimburse, you know, some of the stuff that we're doing, you know, more than it is for me to foot the bill myself. It's absolutely a lifesaver when you get into a situation where your pet has an accident or an illness, you know, that's really unpredictable or uncontrolled. And you're never going to know. So we always suggest get in, get early before there's any pre-existing conditions and insure your pets 100%. All right. You heard it first here. Thank you, Dr. Kimberly Earl. This is 2NURFM.