All right, let's get into it. We're firing up another pet chat. And Dr. Kimberley, you're here first. Good morning and good afternoon. Good afternoon. All right, Rita, take some questions. And Cheryl Shaw, I know we always have to start by checking out the brooch that you wear, and they're always amazing. Today, this looks like a picture you've cut out of a children's book, pasted onto a name tag. Yes, it is, because I did not have the brooch for this one, so I've been defeated. That's the first ever. How long have you been doing this brooch? About 10 years? Yeah, yep. So we were here. Kimberley, this is a historic day. It's still a brooch. It's just a handcrafted brooch. But it's a historic day. The day the brooch went away, almost.
It's here. We just need to get you a genuine mozzy brooch. A mozzy. I'm after a mozzy brooch. All right. We'll talk about mosquitoes. Dr. Kimberley Earle is here, as are you, Cheryl Shaw, with your very makeshift mosquito badge. It is very innovative.
But why are mozzies on your mind today? Look, the mosquitoes at the moment are really affecting not just us but our pets as well. And it's extremely important to make sure that we're looking out for our pets. Now, mosquitoes don't just bite us. They bite our dogs. They bite our cats. They bite all mammals, birds, lizards, you name it. They're out there. But it's a female who is biting because she needs the blood to produce her eggs. So for her life cycle to continue or the life cycle of the mosquitoes to continue, she needs to have a feed of the blood so she gets the protein. Now, mosquitoes, the female will live about two to four weeks and the male only lives for about 10 days. But they lay their eggs in even the smallest amount of water. So if you're a gardener and you've got pots with, you know, saucers.
underneath, it's time to start emptying them out because they can lay about 300 eggs each time. So that's, you know, populating the mosquitoes very quickly. But our problem is with our pets. Some of our pets get extremely unwell if they are bitten by mosquitoes. So if a mosquito is infected and it bites your cat or your dog or your horse or your rabbit, some serious things can happen. Now, Kimberly, with that, what are the things that we look for with diseases and pathogens with our pets? Yeah, so the most common ones that we would see in companion animal practice, heartworm disease. Heartworm is carried by mosquitoes. It's very common up in the northern parts of Australia, but we certainly have it here.
And we have cases of it, you know, a few every year in the local area, even amongst dogs who haven't traveled. So heartworm disease is basically a small microfilarial worm that the mosquito carries. It injects that little microfilaria into the dog. And over the course of six to 10 months, that little worm will travel through the dog's bloodstream as it's growing. And then once it gets too big, it has to sort of find a home that's big enough for it, which is the heart. So it sits in the chamber of the heart. And then over time, they can multiply and they can cause heart failure through obstruction. So that's the big one that we would, you know, we would want to be talking to all dog.
about making sure their pet is on year-round heartworm prevention and 100% if they're going anywhere north of the New South Wales-Queensland border. The further north you go, the higher the numbers are. The other one that we see really, really commonly is Khaleesi virus or myxomatosis, two separate diseases. Both can be carried by mosquitoes that affect our pet rabbits. And that is a fatal disease. Both of them are fatal diseases almost 100% of the time. And it's not just that the rabbits need to get bitten by the mosquitoes. They can actually come and contact it through other means, other insect transfers and things like that. But mosquitoes is a big one.
we definitely see an increase in those diseases when we have mosquitoes around, mosquito activity. Yeah, and the thing is too, some people think having my pets outside is fine, but... But in the beginning of the morning and the late afternoons, it's really worth making sure that your pet is inside and not being exposed to these high volumes. And some of these diseases that are transmitted from mosquitoes can actually cross over into humans. So this is why it's really important to make sure that you are treating your pets and things are happening right. And don't go using products unless you've checked with your vet that if you've got a human product, like I was mentioning the deep before, that's really toxic to dogs and cats. And we need to make sure that you're using a product that's suitable to help eliminate these contact and bites. Some of the products that are out on the market do help to...
like your next garden things, they stop sometimes the mosquito being able to bite or they deter them. They can, yeah. There's nothing that's registered in Australia for prevention of mosquitoes, but we do believe that some of our sort of external parasiticides will give some good protection against them. I think in dogs, Advantix might actually have a label claim against mosquitoes, but Advantix you can't use on cats. You need to keep it away from cats because it's quite toxic to cats. And the other thing to keep in mind is that even when we're not talking about disease transmission, we would routinely see dogs and cats who have allergic skin disease that is sometimes triggered by mosquitoes. So on my dog's allergies,
screen when she's had her allergy testing done. She's a three out of four allergy to mosquito bites. So, you know, that just means that, you know, like, you know, you or I, you get a bite and you're going to get itchy in that local area. But for my dog and for lots of other dogs and cats, that's going to cause a more systemic response where they're itchy all the time, more like an allergic reaction. So that's not a disease. You know, that's not the fault of the mosquito. That's a reaction from the dog or cat. But it's still something. It's a sensitivity. It's definitely something we need to be aware of because it can cause. I've definitely seen cats where their whole nose becomes swollen and scabby. Eartips get really crusty. And that can be hypersensitivity to mosquitoes and mosquito bites. So really important that we're keeping this thing in our mind.
Yeah, so make sure you empty those water containers and look out for your pets. Certainly a good place to start there. Good afternoon, Alan at CM. You have a dog question for our team today. What's happening, Alan? Yes, good afternoon. Yes, I have a four-year-old Labrador, and she's our first Labrador, and we love her dearly. Yellow Lab. I've noticed that she gets a lot of hair growing between her pads on the other side of her feet, and I'm just wondering if I should be trimming that or leaving it as it grows for protection or keep stuff out between the pads, or what should I be doing there?
Sure. Well, I'll answer from a vet standpoint, and then I'll pass it over to Cheryl, and she can give you from a groomer's standpoint. So my standpoint is that in lots of dogs, the hair that grows between their feet isn't problematic. However, in some dogs, we certainly can get things like burrs, we can get knots, it can be a source of additional moisture, it can cause some irritation. So in particular, you can get bindies and stuff that stick into those little tufts of hair, and that can then push into the soft skin of the feet, which can cause irritation. And the dogs then start to lick at the feet, and then they can get what we call secondary bacterial pododermatitis, or inflammation of the skin of the feet.
So it's a little bit dependent on the individual dog. My dog desperately needs to have that hair cut out in between her toes on a regular basis because, again, she's a bit of a dud. She's a bit of a skinned dog. And as soon as she gets any moisture in there, her feet flare up really badly. And for some dogs, when the hair gets really long, it actually means that they start to slip and slide around. So I would always say for old dogs, senior pets, geriatric dogs, it's almost always worth trimming that hair because it can actually make them more slippery or less stable on uneven surfaces or on slippery surfaces, tiles and things like that. So that's my thoughts about that. Gerald, what are your thoughts? Yeah, I agree on totally everything you said there because that slip and slide is one of the things that...
can make a dog not wanting to go up and down stairs and they become really sort of very frightened of certain situations because they think they're going to slip. We need those foot pads to be able to work properly without that hair sliding across. So, yep, I'm all for trimming those pads and keeping them. Nice and short. Sometimes, too, if the hair is starting to rub on itself, it can get those little hard, almost like stones, they feel like. So that's quite a lot of pressure between the toes. So, yeah, keep it up, keep it trimmed, Alan, and your puppy will be very happy with you. Pet Chat continues with Cheryl Shaw, mosquito and all, and also Dr Kimberley Earl. And you, Peter, at Fern Bay, you have another dog question for us. What's going on, Peter? Yeah, hi. So, look, just a bit of background. I come from a farm background where I've always had cattle dogs and kelpies.
We've moved now into the suburbs. We've got a house with a very expensive timber floor throughout. When we bought the house and got the floor put down, the guy who laid the floor recommended that we avoid having a dog that comes inside because they can scratch the floor. I've since spoken to a few people who also have timber floors and they have dogs inside. They say there's no problem. And I was wondering if there's any particular breed of dog that would be suitable and wouldn't cause damage to our very expensive timber floor.
I mean, it's really about, you know, making sure that the dog's nails are trimmed so that they're not long and sort of scraping on the floor. In order to facilitate that, you're going to want to have a dog who is amenable to having their feet touched. And so breeds that are, you know, highly anxious are not maybe going to be ideal. If I had to pick, you know, dog breeds who are terrible at getting their nails trimmed as a very bad generalization, because we shouldn't generalize these things. But pugs are terrible. They hate having their feet touched. Staffies don't love having their feet touched. I don't know. Border collies aren't big fans of having their feet touched in lots of cases.
going to come down to you know training and making sure that particularly on early on that we're making that a really positive experience for the dog and that it doesn't develop any kind of a fear no dogs like having their nails trimmed but we want to avoid a fear you know a fearful event or a painful event and so we want to do it sort of carefully some dogs will adjust to having like a little pet dremel or a little dremel tool used on their nails so that they can have a nice sort of short rounded nail and that can be taught for you know for lots of dogs but I'd say you want to have a dog that's you know relatively amenable to training and calm. The other thing I guess is, you know, if you are looking at, let's say a dog that's going to be really, really highly strong and highly energetic, that's going to be, you know, it's like a terrier. Some terriers will have such a strong sort of fight response or chase response that the doorbell rings and they're going to come, they're going to leap off of your lounge and come tearing across your nice hardwood floor. And that scrambling action that they do is more likely to, you know, to scuff the floor. Whereas a dog who's a little bit more settled, who might, you know, hop up and plod down to the door to sort of check out what's happening is probably going to be a little bit less, less traumatizing for the, for the floor. So I don't know, Cheryl, any other thoughts? Yeah, it just depends, Peter, what size dog you want.
as well. Obviously, a dog with a lot more weight is going to scratch a lot more as it's running or playing in the house. We're actually considering a smaller dog than we're used to having. For me, something like a Bichon or a Cavalier. They're lovely. They're really calm dogs. Less likely to do any damage to the floor than most breeds, I would imagine. It's going to really come down to keeping the nails nice and trimmed and short. In order to do that, you're going to want to have a dog who doesn't develop an issue about it. Keeping it really, really positive is going to be the important thing. I heard three words in unison there that are the ones you need to pay attention to. Cavalier, calm,
dogs. Yes. I heard them and I'm making a note of it. They're lovely, sweet little family dogs as well. Very companionable and just make sure you get one that's had its heart checked out or at least the parents have had its heart checked out. Best of luck with everything, Peter, there with that new floor. I reckon, ladies, no matter what dog they end up with, they'll be very nervous for a very long time. They'll be checking that floor, making sure it's still...
100%. Yeah, I mean, listen, I think any dog has the potential to cause damage to flooring, but lots of dogs don't, so I don't think it has to be a major drama. But my dog, who can't have her nails trimmed without being fully sedated, she would not be a good candidate in that household, or I'd have to learn to just get over it, or put down yoga mats and things like that, because the dogs will often preferentially walk on things that have good grip, so there's another solution there too. Everybody that we do get the chance to chat to today is a chance at scoring $50 to spend at Dozerinko. That's right. So far we've had two people. One person has a dog, one person may get a dog. Well, he can always keep the food.
and store it for when the dog goes. Well, the voucher won't go off. Oh, it's a voucher. That's right. So the voucher won't go off sitting in the cupboard. You just have to make sure that, you know, don't forget it's there.
In the meanwhile, we have a dog and cat of the week to get to. So let's start with our cat today. Can we let you have a while? So we get Patch here. So today's cat of the week is Patch. And Patch is a nine-year-old girl who has come into care because her elderly owner has had to go into assisted living. And so Patch is a lovely black and white cat with beautiful yellow eyes. She's fairly laid back, likes to enjoy lounging around in a quiet household. It says that they believe she would be okay with other cats but would want some time on her own and she definitely needs to be an indoor-only cat. She's fine with children as long as they're respectful of her and they don't try to carry her around. Now, to me, looking at Patch, she's maybe a little tubby. So, you know...
Maybe too heavy for the kid to carry around anyway. But the benefits we have here, this is an older cat, so she is likely to be fairly, not necessarily sedentary at nine. She's not old, but she's sort of middle-aged. She's likely to be fairly well adjusted. She will have good litter training habits in almost all cases. We don't know what her health status is, but I'm sure they've had her checked out. She's not going to be the feisty kitten who is running around the house tearing things up and that sort of stuff. So she would make a great pet for a quiet household or somebody who wants to just have a companion to sit on the lounge and watch some television with. I think that's a great option for you. And as you mentioned, Kimberly, I dare say that a lot of that jittery kitten-ness is probably welcome.
on by the time we get to Patches. Patch looks amazing. All right, Cheryl, we're going to give you a swing at Milo. A 14-month-old little dog here. Oh, Milo looks a bit cute. I can't see that from here.
Oh, you can't see it. Milo's a 14-month-old. He's a terrier cross. They say spits cross Maltese. He's a little white pocket rocket, they describe him. That means he's going to have lots of energy. He needs a patient and loving family who are understanding and dog savvy. So maybe not quite the right dog for a first-time dog owner. Needs his family to continue with his training and making some new experiences positive. He'd love to have a big backyard to play ball in, but he's a little dog, so he'll probably want to be in the house. He'll want to have a house dog as well. It just says that he has had a bit of a sheltered puppyhood, so we're going to need to actively work with him. Socialisation is going to be really key and some additional training.
meaning he's a small dog, but he'll probably require a little bit of grooming based on his breed. But, you know, he's a young dog. He's likely to develop into a lovely pet with a bit of work. He's little. There's a big secure fencing, so he might be a little bit of an escape artist or a jumper. So, anyway, he looks really good. He's nice and young. You know, young dogs often are very menable to training, and they're very malleable. You can put them into a new situation, and hopefully he'll adjust to that fairly well. All right, if you'd like to check out Milo and Patch, all you do is you head up to our Pet Chat page.
at our website, toanywarfm.com.au. Good afternoon, Jean at Waratah West. Your dog has got a pee problem. What's going on, Jean? He just leaves brown spots on my lawn, kills patches on my lawn where he does a pee. Just wondering if there's anything. I have tried the rocks, but they weren't very successful. I was just wondering if there's anything else I can put in his water to maybe not get brown spots on my lawn.
Well, unfortunately, Jean, brown spots on the lawn with male dogs is pretty normal. It tells us that his kidneys are working well and his urine is nice and concentrated. We actually start to get worried when we don't see those brown spots because probably the dog's kidneys aren't functioning very well. The best thing you can do really would be to give your dog some training in where you want him to go and toilet and start to build a habit of him toileting in a particular area. So it's not spreading the brown marks all through the grass, but maybe you can teach him to sort of go into a particular section. If he's a dog who will lift his leg, you can try to teach him to lift his leg on a couple particular areas that maybe are not so visible.
But in terms of modifying the characteristics of the urine, it's not actually something we recommend doing because you're going to make the dog prone to bladder and kidney stones, things like that. And it is, you know, the other thing you can do is try to water it out. So, you know, follow him around after he pees, take a garden hose, you know, dilute it out so there's less burning of the grass there. Just getting there on time, that's all. Yeah, yeah, it's tricky, yeah. But yeah, I would suggest if it's bothersome, try to get him to, you know, you can teach dogs to toilet in a particular area of the backyard or of the garden and then hopefully, you know, it's not sort of widespread, yeah. All right, best of luck with everything, Jean.
There was some good news in that, though. I mean, it seems like he's very healthy in that regard, at least. Yeah, that's right. He's 11, so I don't know if retraining will be a part of the package. But anyway, if it means that he's healthy and all that's fine, that's not a problem. I can put up with the dead spots on the lawn. You'd be surprised. You certainly can still teach all dogs new tricks. So give it a try. All right, best of luck with everything, Jean. Never fear, Jodie from Singleton. We have you. Plenty of time for you, though, Jodie. You've got a couple of dogs, and things are changing, Jodie. Yeah, so we had our bull terrier, Alice, first. So she's obviously female. And then when she was a couple of years old, we got...
our miniature fox terrier, which is Jimmy, always going great. He was only a baby baby when we got him. She treated him basically like her baby, mothered him to death. And then all of a sudden, probably in the last 12 months or so, he started getting very aggressive. Like if anyone comes, probably he's always been a bit aggressive. If anyone comes to the door, he goes off his head, all that type of thing. But now he's getting aggressive towards her, towards the bull terrier. So if he's sitting with me and she comes over, he will growl at her and try to go for her. If I'm in the kitchen, he growls at her.
Even to the point where if my husband comes to say, give me a kiss goodbye, he'll go for my husband. Okay. And how old is he now? He would be between three and four. Okay. And is he de-sexed or is he still entire? No, we got him de-sexed quite young because only one testicle dropped. So they got him done quite young. Okay, good. Okay. So the first thing we need to be aware of is that fox terriers are, you know, pretty confident, little, bold, little dogs. And them being a bit aggressive is not uncommon. It's not necessarily desirable, but it's not uncommon because no shrinking violets are going to chase a fox down a hole, right? So we, you know, that's what they've been bred for.
But we obviously have a situation in the house where, you know, his behaviour is changing towards the other dog and towards the people in the house. You mentioned visitors, things like that as well. Yeah, he goes for any, well, apart from Meg, he goes for anyone. And it's been where twice now there's actually ended up a scuffle between him and the bull cherrier because he's got into such a frenzy. He's gone for the bull cherrier and I don't think he even realises what a frenzy he's in. And twice the bull cherrier has decided, well, bugger this, I'm going to give it back to you. I mean, obviously she didn't want to really hurt him or he'd be dead. It only ended up once with a little tiny nick on his ear that did bleed like crazy, but it was only a tiny nick.
But yeah, be concerning. Yeah. So, I mean, the things we first of all need to do is we need to try to work out in conjunction with your local vet, whether or not we've got a dog that's got a behavioral problem that's related to an anxiety issue, an underlying anxiety issue, or we've just got somebody who's really bold and confident and he's a little bit out of control. But some of the things that we, you know, talk about doing are making sure that we are firmly, you know, we know in the house what the... I guess what the pecking order is sort of like, right? So if she was there first, obviously the humans in the house should be, you know, should be the most, I don't want to say top dogs. We don't talk about dominance hierarchies the way we used to, but we want you guys to be the pack leaders. And then we want her, we need to be firmly set in who comes next. And that's going to mean we're probably going to want to put her next because the female dogs usually do a better job of that than the boys. And then he's the most recent addition. So we want to deal with him sort of last. And that means that we want to be reinforcing that in everyday life, which means, you know, going through doorways. It's the humans and then her and then him. Getting fed, it's the humans and then her and then him.
It means that he doesn't get privileges to come up onto the couch and sit beside the humans, unless the humans have invited him. And it might be that actually you say, well, no, actually, she's going to sit by my feet today. She's probably not jumping up on the couch with you, but maybe she is. But she's going to sit by my feet today, and you're going to stay on the floor. And we need to do some of those things to reinforce what that sort of pecking order is a little bit in the house, because sometimes these dogs will...
He may be trying to lead the pack. He may be feeling anxious about trying to lead the pack because he's not up to the task. And that sometimes leads them to become a little bit more, they're sort of overshooting the mark of where they need to do. But I definitely think it's worthwhile having a discussion with a vet or even a veterinary behaviourist because it doesn't necessarily sound like he's a super simple case about whether or not there's an underlying anxiety issue going on here as well or if we've just got a dog who's sort of trying to push the boundaries. Yeah, and it's only at the house. If I take him out for a walk, he doesn't even look at other dogs. His eyes don't leave me. If we stop somewhere, he'll sit there with her. People can walk over near him. He doesn't ground nothing. It's only at our home that he's like it.
And then so just remember the things that, you know, practically that we want to do. If you've got people coming over, you know that they're coming over, he shouldn't have free reign of the house. We want him locked into a crate or locked into a bedroom because he, you know, the postman syndrome, right? Like the postman comes to the door, comes to the yard, puts the thing in the mailbox, the dog goes, and the postman goes away and the dog thinks, yes, I win. And that's the kind of thing we need to, you know, it's an inadvertent sort of win that the dog gets. But that's what he thinks in his eyes. He's like, yes, I've done exactly what I need to do. So it's positively reinforcing him. So other night, because the bullseye is so heavy, she doesn't sleep on the bed. She sleeps on her dog bed right next to the bed.
But Jimmy just jumps up. He can sleep in between our pillows. He's so tiny. Should we maybe not let him put him in the crate of a night, like she's on the bed near the bed, put him in the crate of a night so he's not on the bed without feet up? Yeah, that's probably not a bad idea. And certainly what you would want to do is to make sure that you guys get into bed first, that she's comfy in bed, and then he's not invited up until everybody else is comfy. If you decide that he gets to still be in the bed, he doesn't get to make himself comfy until everybody else is settled.
All right, best of luck with everything there, Jodie. A bit of work to go, but I'm sure she's up for the task. Yeah, absolutely. And he's a nice young dog, so again, you still can teach older dogs new tricks. All right, we did have you point at the dartboard a moment ago, and we came up with the winner for the $50 to spend at Dozer & Co., and that winner is? It was Alan. Congratulations, Alan. That was the dog with the... Hair between his toes, yeah. All right, congratulations. Alan will be in contact with you very, very shortly. Pet Chat has been done for today. Cheryl Shaw, thank you as always. My pleasure. And Dr. Kimberley, you're off to a conference as well. Yes, a bird conference down in Canberra next week. All right, I'm sure you'll be able to tell us some of the outcome of that. When I'm back in a few weeks, sure.
All right, sounds pretty good. That's Pet Chat for today here at 2NURFM. Thanks for listening to this podcast from 2NURFM at the University of Newcastle. You'll find them all at 2NURFM.com.