Well, look at this tribe of warriors we have for Pet Chat today. Firstly, the ever-smiling Daniel Carrington. Haven't seen you for a while, mate. I know. We haven't done a show together, so I'm very excited. Looking forward to working with you today, Mark. And you've also got a guest we'll be talking to in a couple of moments as well. I know. Samantha Kaye from Labradoodles. And we're going to talk about the oodles and loads and loads of oodles. They are very, very popular today. And as always, Kimberly, great to see you here as well, getting ready to get down and answer those pet questions today. Absolutely. And if we have some time, we will talk about Are You OK? Day tomorrow, as well as some new rabbit vaccination information. And even you've actually roped a guest in to join us later as well. Yes. So hopefully later on in the show, we'll be introducing Dr. Fiona, who is a colleague of mine.
The ever-smiling Daniel Carrington is here. And, Daniel, you've brought your guest on the phone this afternoon. Yes. Samantha Kay. Hi, Samantha. Samantha's from Lovedale Labrador Oodles and Kayserdale Farm. And she breeds oodles. And I wanted to talk to her about Australia's number one pet dog, a Cavoodle. Sam.
Hello, Sam. Have we lost you there? No, I'm here. Sorry. Look, I'm just looking through the different breeds and I feel like I'm at a fine Italian restaurant where there's all these noodles. Noodles. I need a glass of wine here next to me. Cavoodle, Labradoodle, Groodle, Spoodle, Moodle, Poodle Cross, Toy Poodle, Schnoodle. Have I left any out? No, none of them would be there without the poodle. So you have to mention the poodle. Yes. So why are they such a fantastic pet? Why are they number one?
I think they're number one because they have primarily been bred as companion family pets. They are tactile, they are fluffy, so that teddy bear effect brings out all the happy endorphins. They're low allergenic, they're low shedding. You can't say that they are completely hypoallergenic because they're not, because you can be allergic to not only the dander and fur, but also the saliva. But they are very low hypoallergenic, they're low shedding. They are primarily bred to be inside companion dogs with you, not outside working style dogs.
And because of all the low shedding, they have very little doggy odour. So that's very attractive to everybody. They are easy to train, very trainable. I find that even though they're not necessarily bred for sport, they're now very well represented in a lot of other fields such as obedience, agility, nose works, rally-o, lots and lots of reasons. So people start to train them. They realise how great they are and easy they are. So then they go and join local clubs and have a lot of fun with their dog too. Samantha, they're way up above most people I know at this point. I mean, you're doing a pretty good job on selling the burrito.
I love them. I've got cows full of oodles. Sam, I guess with them being so popular and all those advantages and positives that you have mentioned, when people are wanting to buy a noodle, is there ones that are better with children in the family as opposed to people who are single? Can you tell us about that? Yes, there is.
It's really about finding the lines as well. As a breeder, you can have a line that you know is more high energy. You can have a line that you know, even though we never advertise that they're bred for therapy, you might have a male or a female that have produced really good dogs that have gone on to be therapy dogs, for example. If you are in an apartment, you don't necessarily want a massive sheep-a-doodle. If you're an older couple, you need a quieter dog. You might need a smaller dog that isn't going to drag you down the street. So you would go more for your moodle or cavoodle.
So it's really about finding the dog that suits your lifestyle. That's what you need. So it's really, really important to do your homework about which breed you... I use the word breed lightly because they're not registered as a breed, but, yeah, to find out which oodle suits your family and your lifestyle. And is there some medical issues that people might want to be aware of or that they need to ask the breeder? Yes, definitely. First and foremost, you would want them to be able to give you the full medical history, which would be hip and elbow scores of both parents, the DNA of both parents.
That's really, really important because both the poodle has in its history hip dysplasia. The labradoodle is prone to, you know, that's in their history as well. So it's really important to get that done, especially for the big dogs. But it should be done for all of them, hip and elbow scores. DNA to make sure that they're clear, that the parents are clear of any diseases, that they may be genetic.
Now, that's really good feedback and good information. And just a personal question, because Sam has a dog, Hercules, who is in TV. He's a model. Oh, wow. He has an agent. He has an agent, even. And of course, because these dogs look like teddies and you have your little tiny teddies and small teddies and your big teddies. Like Hercules, he's a big teddy. Has he done any new? He's on the Toyota Yarisats. Anyone that's seen Toyota Yarisats, he's the dog in that. Has he done any recent work?
What was that, sorry? Has he done any recent work? Yes, he did an ad for the Australian government. He wasn't exactly an agent, but it was all about children's vaccinations, and it was promoting it. So he had to, there was a little girl, a five-year-old girl, picking her nose while laying on Hercules, using him as a pillow. So that was his latest one. It was very easy, very quick, but yeah, he's very tolerant, extremely tolerant. Fantastic. So Sam's also one of those mums that takes the dog to events. To work, to work.
Sam, thank you for your time. That's wonderful to talk to you, okay? You're welcome. You're welcome. If anyone wants any help...
you know, choosing an oodle. It doesn't have to be one of our oodles, but if they want any help, they're welcome to contact me. Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you very much, Steve. Danny, I must say, though, that you would think having an agent sounds pretty cool, but if the best that your agent can get you is having a five-year-old laying all over you picking their nose, I think we'll stick here and do that one. What do you reckon? Time to sack the agent. He gets a new representation. And they're taking 15% as well, probably. Yeah, but it was a well-paying job because it was a government ad. Oh, yeah, absolutely. It comes with lots of benefits. A lot more than the private sector. Anyway, Danny, thank you so much. You're welcome. We appreciate it. That's Daniel Carrington and, of course, Samantha Kaye as well. It's Dr. Kimberly Earl.
here. And Kimberley, you're bringing in a, sort of slowly introducing a brand new member who's... We are trying to add to the team. So David and I have a backup member. I've got no idea, so I can't help you, I'm afraid. But slowly introducing some new team members. Yeah, so we've got Dr Fiona with us today. Dr Fiona and I graduated from vet school at the same time. And then I went to Canada for a little while and have come back. She's always been here in Australia. And I think, how long have you been in Newcastle for? Five?
Five years? Five years in December. Five years in December. So she's been around the area, up in Musselbrook and things like that. But, yeah, we're just trying to, you know, add to the team so that we can share it around. All right. So we'd love some questions. There's something for Fiona for you to sink your teeth in. In the meanwhile, though, you've obviously got all the gossip and all the stories, the backstory on Kimberley. Have you got something from those earlier days that she would be semi-uncomfortable with hearing? Probably things that paint her in a better light than me, actually. Oh, well, then Kimberley would probably be happy to hear that story. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, so Kimberley and I went to uni together in Sydney. And I have...
multiple memories of Kimberley doing exactly what she should be in the lecture theatre, listening intently, and I may be, yes, sitting in the front. I'm a front of the room sitter. And I may have been in the back row, and I may or may not have been paying attention to what was going on at the front, but I graduated, and I think I do my job really well. All right, so you're only a step back from swinging off a chandelier while they're teaching you how to, you know, slice and dice our heads, basically. The reality is that if I don't sit in the front of the room, I fall asleep. And so, like, maybe I should have tried that.
It's really all about practicalities here. Absolutely. All right. Well, look, the ladies are right here. They have the bit of paper to prove that they can actually give this quantified advice. Good afternoon, Sharon at Shoal Bay. Your 17-year-old poodle has got some lumps. What's happening there, Sharon? Yeah, she's been getting these for a couple of years now, but she's wearing a jumper at the moment, which keeps her from chewing them. But the one on her bottom is getting bigger. And I read the vet sort of said she's 17. There's not a lot you can do with the virus.
So I was reading up about it the other day and they were recommending selenium to bring up her immunity and vitamin E oil on the lumps themselves. So we started doing the vitamin E, but I wasn't certain about, you know, she's only tiny. She's too old to start on selenium because her diet's been up and down since we lost our other little puppy. She's been really funny with the diet. Yeah, which is not uncommon in older dogs. They often do start to have a bit of an appetite decrease, particularly little poodly things, which are often on the lean side anyway. Listen, selenium's not something we give. It's talked about a lot in production animal medicine because it's really important for reproduction and things like that. We don't talk about it specifically a lot in companion animal medicine. It is important for the immune system. I can only imagine your vet was thinking that the little lumps are like a little papilloma virus. We do certainly see lots of little toy poodles.
As they age, they start to come up with lots of little, you know, sort of warty sort of things. And I guess originally those are probably maybe a viral origin. I guess the thing I would say, you mentioned that the one on the back end is getting bigger. And so I guess... Well, it's about the size of the 26 feet. Yeah. So the thing is that that probably is different to what we would consider typically as a papillomatous warty sort of lesion. And so just because she's had lots of little lumps over the years doesn't necessarily mean that they're all the same. They all look the same. Do they? Yeah. She's got quite a lot on her now. Yeah.
Yeah, the little tiny ones. Those are the ones that I would typically expect to see in a little toy poodle. But something that's a little bit bigger could still be something else. It may be worthwhile getting your vet to have a look at it. Oh, antivirus.
Yeah, I mean, there may be some antivirals. We use antivirals a lot in cats these days. Have you ever used them in dogs? No, I haven't actually. I know people were talking about it, you know, remdesivir and things like that early on for some viral things in cats and stuff too, but I'm not sure about dogs. You know, I think a tiny little dog, you'd want to be careful because any supplement, any nutrient can become toxic at high levels. I've just done a quick Google search and they do talk about some dosage levels, but I'm not sure if those sources are entirely reputable. Reputable? That's the word. So I would just be a bit cautious with that.
I'm sure there would... The vitamin E... Totally fine. Yeah, I think that would be fine, yeah. But if that particular one that's causing us some grief hasn't been looked at, it's probably worth having that one looked at because it could be something else. Or sometimes they get a bit irritated and then they develop a secondary infection. So sometimes they require actually a different kind of treatment to try to get them back under control for you. Yeah, well, I might take it back and see about that one. Anyway, thank you, girls. You're very welcome. Thank you. Thank you. All right, all the best and best of luck with all of that, Sharon. Dr. Kimberley Earl is here. Dr. Fiona is here, as is Tony. Good afternoon, Tony. What's happening with your dog there, Tony? Every time I walk out the gate, he...
Does everybody want a rescue dog? Presumably a de-sexed rescue dog. I beg your pardon? Presumably a de-sexed rescue dog. Yeah. So, I mean, he's obviously, we see this in dogs almost as a, I don't like to use the term dominance behavior, but he's sort of trying to exert a little bit of control over you. And my golden retriever will do this to my daughter. She doesn't do it to anybody else, but to my daughter, she'll jump up on her occasionally and try to hump her, or twerk is what my daughter calls it. Listen, it's mostly a training issue, you know, and I guess I would try to, we need to try to redirect his attention away from what he's doing. Well, I do. I try and give her a treat or a bone or something like that, but it makes no difference. No difference, yeah. Like, I would even work on...
I would even work on getting, is it a female dog, is it? It's a female. Female, yeah. I would get her to work on, like, sitting before you come into the fence and trying to work on encouraging her just to sit while you're coming in and stay calm and then giving her a treat before she does anything and then maybe having a toy or something that you can throw once you've, you know, sort of released her from the sit. Good dog, here's your treat, great. Here's a toy and go and throw it in the other direction. Yep.
And she's still giving you some brief. She's still doing it, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's probably something, I mean, it's obviously going on a while. It's probably something you need to have a chat with a veterinary behaviourist or at least a positive reinforcement dog trainer about. There will be ways to do it, but these sorts of behaviours are often habitual and they often take a good amount of time to stop and someone probably needs to really assess the environment and the situation in which she's experiencing or exhibiting that. So that would be my best bet. She used to go absolutely berserk running around the backyard a hundred mile an hour without stopping, you know.
the time yeah and it was just so so excited yeah yeah with my with me being around yeah okay She's probably showing her excitement just in a way that we don't find very acceptable. All right, Tony, best of luck with that. And I know Dr Fiona, you're sitting here going, isn't it good that we threw to him with that one? But you don't get out of this, so you don't get out of this cheaply, all right? Fair enough. You do not get out of this cheaply. Good afternoon, Peter, at Raymond Terrace. Your nine-year-old female, Bitsa, is giving you some trouble. And Dr Fiona is going to look after you, Peter, so let us know what's happening there. Hi, Peter. It's actually nine months old. Yes. She's across between...
She looks like a miniature wolf hair. Yeah, yeah. She was one of six. The other five were males. They were all smooth coats. She's the only one with the long hair. But anyway, whenever people turn up, she gets excited and wants to wee everywhere. Yeah. We've kind of calmed her down, patting her straight away so she doesn't, but she still gets excited and does that. What can we do to get her out of it? Sure. Is she getting better or worse? Does she get older, Peter?
A little bit better. I mean, I would have thought at night, so she shouldn't be doing it. Sure, sure. Look, it's pretty common in puppies to do what we call excitement wheeze. They just can't control themselves. They're so happy to see you. So a lot of the solution around it involves avoiding the situation in which they do it. So if you've got, you know, you know that you come in, you say hello to her, she gets so excited to see you and she wheezes because she's just so excited.
To decide not to get her to that level of excitement. So you can come in, you can say hi, and then kind of walk away and ignore her, and she's not getting to that level of excitement where she does that wee. That's correct. Is that something that you've tried, Peter, or you think might be worth a go? I try to pat her straight away and kind of calm her. Yeah. But sometimes she will still do it. Yeah. Look, it's something that's going to take time, and it's going to take repetition and practice, but I think you're on the right track. You've just got to keep going.
All right, best of luck with that, Peter. See, you didn't get out of it, Fiona? You wanted to. And Kimberly's taking notes. How good is Fiona going so far? Is she still pretty good? This is not under examination. This is, like, totally voluntary. You bet it's under examination. There's no test here. It's always a test. Good afternoon, Steve, from Newcastle. Steve, you think you may have a proven method for Tony with his dog issue a couple of minutes back there? Yeah, mate, I grew up with a German Shepherd when I was a kid, a big male German Shepherd, and he was exactly the same for his whole entire life. He jumped up on you when you went out the back.
out the back of the scene. Whenever people come over, he just wanted to jump up. He was just super friendly, wanted to lick your face, you know, all the rest of it to get close to you. Anyway, he did that for his whole life. And when I got older, my whole little kids, I got a German Shepherd. And when I researched how to fix this, and it really worked. So I've got them to do it with their dogs, and it takes about five minutes, ten minutes, and it works every time. So when my dog was about six months old, he started jumping. All you do is catch their paws, like catch them, their paws, because their paws are very sensitive.
you let them jump up, you catch their paws with your arms if you're strong enough, I guess, and you just give their paws a tiny squeeze, not enough to hurt them, of course, and just hold them there for, like, literally a second, a couple of seconds, until they sort of, you'll see their head drop down to look at the ground if they want to get down, and just hold them for a second more and drop them, let them go. They'll probably do it again, and you do that again. Tell you what, by the third time, you can be patting your chest and the dog will not jump up on you. And if he does, or she does, the next day or whenever, just catch their paws. And they hate their paws being restricted like that. And it works like charm.
Yeah, Tony's issue was his dog was humping his leg when he walks into the gate. So a little bit different to that probably. And I guess I'd just be a bit cautious of that, Steve, because that would be an example of a negatively reinforced training method, which is not actually recommended these days. Not to say it's not effective, but it's probably it's got the potential to lead to other problems like your dog becoming, you know, fussy about having its feet touched for nail trimmings or if we need to look at it for something else going on there. So we just want it. We always try to work wherever possible in positive reinforcement methods. So we're adding praise for something that they've done well and we're ignoring the things that they're not they're not doing. But I appreciate that that there are cases where that.
probably worked for lots of people as well. All right, thank you very much, Steve. 49216216, a couple of minutes left if you have a question for the ladies who are doing quite well today, Dr Kimberley Earl, Dr Fiona. We'll see if we can get something else that's on the fringes for you. We'll do our best. All right, sounds good. If not, you get to deal with the dog of the week, so you can end up with the cute stuff, all right? All right, that's good. Dr Kimberley Earl and Dr Fiona, day number one. You've done the dog that wheeze everywhere. Let's just ease up with our dog of the week now. If you're looking to add a new dog to your family, why not consider...
Rolex, and it looks like a whole lot of fun. A two-year-old poodle cross, rather, I should say. He's so cute. I know. Loves walking, which is good. Game of chases with your socks, apparently. He came into dog rescue because he was in an apartment by himself most work days, and obviously the owner surrendered here because it gave the chance for Rolex to have a little bit more company and stimulation. So apparently he loves dogs, people, and cats as well. So Fiona, that's a huge bonus. That makes him just about tick all the boxes, I think. Anything that we would... I know we've done a lot of oodle-type dogs today, but since we're talking about Rolex and he is a poodle cross in particular, some things that we should be aware of if we're looking to adopt...
The likes of Rolex? Sure. Well, I think first up, you have to make sure you've got the time to invest in a dog. Potentially with a rescue dog, they may come with some... Unfavourable habits. Habits. Bad habits. That may need a bit of attention. But that's, you know, that's something that any good owner, I think, would be prepared to take on. But he's adorable. He is. I mean, apparently, speaking of bad habits, he likes to lay on the lounge, but not necessarily on your lap or right up against you. So, in other words, I'll sit on my lounge over here and do my thing, and you sit over there and watch the TV. He wants his own space. Might like his own lounge. All right. Oh, good news. Toilet trade. He can sit. He can stop. He can stop at the curb when walking as well. So, it seems like some of that good reinforcement stuff, Fiona, is already in there, in the bank. Oh, he's, yeah, you've got great bones to work with. I think it sounds like his previous owners acknowledged that they couldn't give him...
the time and effort that he needed and he's looking for a new home, I think he'd be perfect. All right, absolutely. If you'd like to look at Rolex and some of our other dogs of the week, you can hit the pet chat page at 2nurfm.com.au. About a couple of minutes left, Dr. Kimley, and you wanted to wrap up with some rabbit vaccination news as well. Yeah, so a little bit of a public service announcement. There is, for those people who have rabbits as pets, we have a new vaccine available in Australia. It's not a fully registered product. It's on what we call an emergency permit at the moment, but it's a vaccine that's been used really successfully in New Zealand and Europe for a number of years. And the nice thing about the new vaccine is it covers our rabbits. So we vaccinate rabbits against Khaleesi virus in Australia and it's covering our RA.
HGV1 strain, as well as our RHD, so RHD is rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus, strain V1 and V2, which is a major improvement because our rabbits have only ever been vaccinated against V1s with the old SILAP vaccine for about the last 25 years. So it's like a real advance in terms of protecting rabbits against Khaleesi virus. Still doesn't cover myxomatosis. The powers that be tell us we're never going to have a myxomatosis vaccine in Australia. They're not going to allow it. But now we can at least prevent our rabbits from developing the more virulent sort of newer strain of rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus that has naturally made its way into Australia. It's not been released by CSIRO. So the benefits of the...
new vaccine is that they only have to be given it once a year it is more expensive than the old one but it's not prohibitively so it comes in individual dosing vials and they're only half a mil instead of a whole mil it's pretty new we've only started using it in my clinic probably in the last two weeks so not every vet hospital will have it but for those people who are looking for it it's out there it's available ask your vet to get in any vet can get access to it and it's yeah we're really excited that it's like a whole new level of protection for our pet bunnies all right thank you so much dr kimley all on that and you'll help us always we'll talk to you next time yes next week and dr fiana you can't come back I'd love to. If you have me. We've locked her in, Kimberly. I know, I'm going to get the schedule out now. Absolutely. All right, that's Pet Chat for another Wednesday. Thanks for listening to this podcast from 2NURFM at the University of Newcastle. You'll find them all at 2NURFM.com.