Welcome to Pet Chat on 2NURFM. Greg Richards joined today by Dr. Kimberley Earle and Cheryl Shaw. Nearly forgot your name, Cheryl. Just because I wasn't here for two weeks, Greg. Come on. After all these years, who would have thought? Interesting badge items today. It is, isn't it? What do you think it is? What do you think it is? Well, are we looking after dinosaurs today? We're a bit late. No, we're not doing the dinosaurs, even though this does have a dinosaur being walked on a leash. But we're going to be talking about the essential items, a dog's leash and walking your dog. Okay, excellent. So nothing dinosaur-based. Nothing dinosaur. And what have you got for us today, Kimberley?
Hopefully we're going to have lots and lots of phone calls and we might have a bit more chat about summer and coming into tick season and things like that. We're going to get dogs on leashes today. We are. Well, often people don't realise just the importance of training their dog, and particularly when you've got a puppy, starting out training on a leash is so important. There's a few things you've got to really take care of. When you're getting your puppy, we'll start with a puppy and we'll go through the adult dog with different things that we can do. But with a puppy, that first lead has to be something that's really lightweight. There's no use getting a heavy dog lead that you think, oh, I'll take it through and I'll just have one purchase and be done. That puppy's not going to know what the leash is all about. You put the leash onto the collar and sometimes the dog just refuses to walk. We think, oh, we know, we're going to take it for a walk, but the dog just goes, what is this? And you've got to remember that the leash is your control measure. It's going to be the answer to being able to take your dog out and have control over your dog. So a nice lightweight leash, particularly around the hardware on the leash, so that little clasp that goes onto the leash.
the collar make sure that that's lightweight because if it's heavy it's going to pull down the dog's head and its posture is going to be altered. Now when you're first taking your dog out on the leash it's a good idea to practice in the home or in the yard not going straight out to the footpath or to the park or somewhere because the dog isn't going to understand at all what the intention that you have for going somewhere. So starting off just walking in the yard it might be that you're taking your dog to go to the toilet or it might be that you're just walking your dog around just making sure that the dog understands. Now one of the most important things about early leash training is often people say oh the dog you know it's pulling on the leash. Well we never see show dogs pulling on the leash.
And the reason we don't see that is because show dogs are trained from the very beginning to walk proper on leash. So when you're getting your dog to walk on leash, set them up correctly. So on your left-hand side is the correct side to walk your dog. And having the leash held in two hands. So on your right hand, you have the loop of the leash. Don't wrap the lead around your hand. Don't get into that habit because if the dog gets bigger and pulls, it's going to actually hurt your hand. And then having the dog sitting on your left-hand side and holding the leash.
up a little bit from your dog, depending on its size, and just holding it loosely so that there's no tension on the lead. Because if there's tension, it sends different messages to the dog. So when you step off on your left foot, the dog will learn to step off with you. So in the beginning, you might want to, say, come or tap your leg or gently move forward and the puppy should follow. If they don't, you need to be upbeat and happy by using your voice or a squeaky toy, come, come, let's go, and then getting your puppy to move forward with you. Don't go dragging the dog or pulling the dog along if it doesn't want. You could injure your dog by doing that. So if it's not sure about it, get back to that basics of encouraging the dog forward, maybe with a treat.
well but using your voice usually is a good way you know if you're nice and upbeat the puppy will want to follow you. The other thing that you want to do is be careful about what message you'll be sending through that lead to the dog. Now, if the dog starts to pull, you need to stop immediately and either get the puppy to sit or to just stand next to you. If you start pulling the dog as it pulls forward, the dog will learn to pull and it will increase that pulling. And as the dog gets bigger, you won't want to go walking because the dog will be a physical thing of the dog pulling you. The other thing is keeping your dog on your left, not allowing it to walk out in front of you and not allowing it to walk across in front of you, like crisscrossing backward and forward. So the leash is your real control measure about being able to take the puppy out or the dog out and having control.
control over the dog. And it's one of those things that often people don't realise that if they pull on that leash, they're going to put tension and that's going to create another problem. Another thing with the lead is making sure that if you're going to meet another dog, that if your dog is on leash, it's best not to allow two dogs to meet when they're on leash. I have a saying that comes from Pam Withers from Delta long, long ago. She said, Nose to nose leads to blows, but nose to bums leads to chums. And if you've got two dogs on a leash and they start to meet, dogs naturally start, as they see another dog, to curve their body because they want to go and sniff around the back. And if the leashes get caught on each other, it actually pulls tension. And that's how some dogs end up in a fight because the leads get tangled. There's tension on the lead as each owner tries to separate the dogs. Sometimes that arcs the dogs up and then they have a fight and people can get bitten trying to separate their dogs. So, you know, trying not to make dogs meet on leash is a really good idea. Kimberly, do you have that ever happen in the clinic when people come in and their dogs are, you know, sort of trying to see each other?
Yeah, because I think it's, I mean, particularly in our situation, a lot of times the dog's already worked up. They're either anxious or they're excited, they've had a car ride, whatever. And then they come in and they're often pulling on the leash. And as one dog comes in the door, the other dog's trying to leave the door and they end up right in each other's faces. And you can end up with barking and things like that. And I think too, a lot of that problem comes because the owners pull back on their dog and then their dog wants to go back forward to the other dog. So that tension is really on that leash. So we need to make sure that we're not pulling on leashes, that we're getting our dog under control, keeping them right near us. It's so important to keep them close by. Yeah, for sure.
It's Pet Chat on 2NURFM. We've got Gail first up, and she's got a dog who has eaten half a bag of honey-roasted cashews. Gail. Hi, Gail. Have we got you? Yes. Yeah, so you've got a little dog, or a dog, who's eaten... Yeah, I've got a cavalier, and he is susceptible to pancreatitis. And how long ago did he eat these cashews? About probably 16 minutes. Okay. And so is it a big bag or a little bag? Like, are we talking... Probably a quarter of a bag of, say...
A quarter of 500 grand. Oh, that's quite a decent amount, yeah. Listen, it may not cause any problems, but with dogs with pancreatitis, any high-fat meal can trigger it. And cashews, I'm not actually that worried about the honey, the sugar in that, but I potentially would be worried about the oils in the cashews. And if it's only just happened, I would try, if you can, to get your dog into a vet somewhere and just get them to make him vomit. That's going to prevent any problems. He's not going to feel awesome. And like I said, cashews aren't toxic. They're not like macadamia or anything like that, but it will potentially save you a lot of pain and expense down the track if your dog's pancreatitis is likely to.
to flare up from it. So I would, if you've got a vet close by, I would just give them a ring and tell them you're on your way and your dog's eating stuff you shouldn't and can you please make him vomit for me. Okay. Generally, he's just a cannon load fat. Yeah. Yeah. So it's pretty rich for him. Yeah. All right. Good luck. Thanks, Gail. Bye. Frank from Bluehaven. And he wants to know if it's okay to feed bread to chickens. How are we, Frank? So, yep. Yeah, I remember the episode where you were talking about not feeding ducks and those sort of things made of animals. Yep.
And I started to think, well, maybe it's not best for me chickens either. Yeah, yeah, correct. So, I mean, mostly the issue with chickens. So firstly, you would never want to feed it to growing chickens because they really need to have a very well-balanced food. You're going to cause problems. But even adult chickens, they like it. Birds, let me tell you, birds are like humans. They love carbohydrates. Anything that's a carbohydrate, you know, they're going to go for it. They're really going to enjoy it. But it's a little bit like us. It's also not very good for them the way it isn't really great for us. And the big issue is that they're going to eat that preferentially over the healthier foods, which means that we are then throwing out the balance of their nutrition that they're getting. We can see some.
problems particularly some people will try to feed moldy bread and things like that and you can end up with some yeast overgrowth and those sorts of things but mostly what it is is that it's just their nutrition will fall because there's not much to bread other than taste you know there's nothing there that's going to actually benefit them we can see some some birds some chickens if they're getting lots of it they will get overweight and that absolutely can affect their mobility and and their quality of life as well forage around the yard. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So we would always recommend, you know, for laying hens, we would always recommend a layer pellet. I don't have a problem with vegetable-based kitchen scraps. I think there's no problem with that and letting them out and about in the yard to forage and they're going to get to the, you know, the plants and the shoots and the roots and the bugs and that's, you know, what they need. So I do try to avoid feeding bread, feeding, you know, high-carbohydrate, starchy things to these guys. Oh, okay. Thank you for that. You're very welcome. Thank you.
What about multigrain bread? Yeah, no. Like on a scale of one to a hundred, it's probably a couple of points above the regular old white bread, but it's not what they need. Grains, remember that grains and seeds are not actually good bird food either. It's what they like, but that's not what we want them to be eating. So multigrain bread doesn't really help. Okay, right. Wrong again. So we've got Diane from Cooksill. Now she's got too many schnauzers who both have a discharge from their eyes and she's trying to work out what could be causing it. Diane.
Yes, I am trying to work out what's causing it. I don't know if it's just sleep in their eyes, but it seems a little more than that. How long has it been going on for, Diane? Only a couple of weeks, really. Okay. And they've both come up together. Prior to that, did either of them have a discharge or sleep in their eyes in the mornings? Occasionally. This is pretty regular. It's nearly every day now. Yeah, sure. And so is anybody squinting or rubbing their eyes or rubbing their faces on the ground, things like that?
No, they're not. Okay. And the discharge that you're getting, is it sort of a grey, sort of mucousy colour or sort of dark, you know, sort of black, like as if it is sort of a dry, crusty sleep? Or what does it look like to you? It looks like snot. Yep. Sort of mucousy, green and yellow or just sort of grey? Just grey. I don't think it's an infection. I think it, I don't, that's why am I, is it just sleep in their eyes? Yeah. Or is it like the hair around their eyes are getting a little bit...
So it can be either of those things. The important things are that the whites of their eyes are nice and white and that they're not painful and uncomfortable. And when you've got two dogs affected like that, then we do start to look for environmental changes. So it can be a bit seasonal. It can be related to how much dust is in the air or pollen or those sorts of things. But also it can be related to the hair around their eyes. And obviously mini schnauzers, their hair grows quite long. And so it's possible that they're just getting a little bit of additional irritation in the eyes as they're sleeping. And then it's sort of accumulating on the fur or accumulating in the...
what we call the conjunctival sulcus. So it's basically the space between the eyeball and the outside of the lower eyelid. So you can get some pooling there. Provided that they look comfortable and it's both dogs and their eyes aren't red and they're not rubbing at them, I would start with cleaning them up and trimming the hair or getting a groomer to trim the hair around the eyes initially and maybe have a look around the environment in your local area and see, you know, have you got a lot of, I mean, it's August, so there's a lot of wattles flowering and things like that. There'll be a lot of flowering plants around. So that's a possibility. I'm quite near National Park. We've all had lots of trees and dust.
and that sort of thing. And it has been windy. I did think of that. And I do wipe them down in just a warm... Face washer or something. Yeah, yeah. And they don't mind. I've had a look around in their lower lids and there's no irritation. So I'm probably thinking that it is the environment. But I just wanted to...
check yeah yeah so certainly i mean if you do see any change in it if anybody becomes uncomfortable um if the character of the um discharge you know if it becomes really like green and yellow or sticky um that those sorts of things for us would be a bit more of a warning sign but it's not uncommon some dogs my dog you know most mornings in the morning i'll give her a little eyes a wipe in the morning and she's got a little bit of um just sort of mucousy crusty discharge there and then it's gone for most of the day um so yeah but definitely with eyes you know if you're worried if it's if it's new or persistent or changing um then you know take them into a vet and have them have them checked out Okay. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Okay. Bye. Bye. Dan from Arcadia Vale, and he's got a seven to eight-week-old puppy he thinks possibly might be blind. Dan. Hi, how are you going? Hi, good, thanks. So tell me about this little puppy. Did you breed this puppy, or you've adopted it? No, no, we've bred the puppies. We've had a few caboodles, and actually, once these three puppies are gone, the mum gets to retire. We've had three litters each, so that was the rule when we went into this game. Anyway, there's just three puppies in this litter, and alternatively, for playtime, every night. And just one of them, when it comes in, whether it's just really scared, just sit there.
spot. I'm waving my hands, calling it over, whereas the other two like to come over and play and play with the toys. And it doesn't stick with a litter mate. We get some blind dogs that will sort of find a litter mate and they just sort of tend to stay really close and use them almost like a guide. They sort of lean up against them and walk around. So this puppy is just sitting and not... Oh no, when it's out with the other ones, they'll bring them in individually for playtime. When it's out with the others, it's sort of fine. It knows where everything is. It follows them around and jumps up into the kennel and that's just, when it comes inside, very stagnant. And I've looked online, I've done a test, the clapping and the hand in front of the face.
No noise and things like that. It doesn't seem to be much happening. Sure. Okay. So, I mean, there's anatomical problems. So a veterinarian who does an ocular exam may be able to pick up some anatomical abnormalities. But there can also be issues with the transmission of signals from the eye, the apparatus of the eye to the brain. And that's an optic nerve problem. We're not going to be able to identify all of those. The other thing is in young puppies, sometimes puppies that have a lack of hearing will also behave differently. And so it could be both. Do you see the puppy running into things and stuff like that? Or it's more cautious than that? It's not actually letting itself do those sorts of things?
of things too cautious yeah especially when it's by itself like they went and got microchiped last week in the vet mentioned it might be too early to tell but at that age you know with the other two they are yeah and this one's just really different yeah and um with the um i had a thought i was just gonna ask you and it's just totally flown out of my head um i'll have to think about that um yeah it's an interesting sort of situation oh that's right what color is the puppy is it a white The chocolate-y color. The chocolate, okay, yeah. We certainly see more issues with, you know, hearing loss and sometimes blindness in sort of dilute colors. There's, you know, some abnormalities that can come along with it. So, yeah, I mean, I think it's going to probably be a little bit of a wait-and-see, you know, sort of situation. If the vets had a specific look and didn't find anything anatomical, absolutely, we sometimes will just get very, you know, timid puppies who don't behave normally. But, you know, things like a menace response or, you know, if you're waving a flag off to the side, does the puppy have peripheral vision, those sorts of things, you know, does it give any kind of a startle response? Some of those things can help to see. And if you are watching the puppy playing,
even just watching it from a distance, maybe try to set up just a little obstacle course, put a few sort of heavier objects down around and call the puppies through and see if that puppy navigates successfully around them or has a tendency to run into them, or is it using another puppy as a guide? Because I've certainly seen that where they'll come up to the back end of another puppy and keep a shoulder in contact with them and use them as a bit of a guide. So that might be more of an indication as well. I mean, dogs can absolutely learn to have a totally normal and happy life as blind dogs. Being blind doesn't necessarily mean that it can't have a good quality of life. But there's also dogs who are...
you know, super anxious, and regardless of whether they're missing a sense, you know, sight or sound, some dogs who are highly anxious aren't very suitable for normal human life as well, or life amongst human families as well. So it probably requires some careful monitoring and consideration, for sure. coming on the lap and very social in that way, but just, yeah, when he's away from the other two and he's inside by himself. Yeah. Might not just be coping with the fact that he's away from the other two and things like that as well. There may be some mental health issues there with little puppies too, but yeah. Anyway, I think you're probably, you're right, you know, from that, in that, the age group that it is, they're challenging, you know, because some puppies are going to be really boisterous and bold and other puppies are going to be a lot more timid and quiet. So as he develops, you'll watch and see and hopefully it'll become clearer. This one. They're going to be forever home next week, so feel well. Yeah, excellent.
All right, thank you. Thanks. Okay, bye. Do you reckon he might just be nervous being on his own? It's possible, yeah. I mean, we see some dogs that, you know, have really, really high levels of anxiety when they are unsupported, right? So if they spend most of the time with the mum dog or just their litter mate and then you take them away and put them in an environment on their own, some dogs won't cope with that. That'll be overwhelming for them. And some dogs will get over it and other dogs that, you know, will be a really big hurdle for them to try to adjust to. So, you know, there's things you can do, putting adaptal collars and things like that on them that are those pheromone collars to try to help relax them and teach them that the world is okay. And certainly dogs with disabilities like vision impairment and things like that.
can learn to function really, really well. But a lot of those dogs don't necessarily have an anxiety disorder as well. So, you know, there could be multiple different things happening with this little pup. So, yeah, it could be complicated, but hopefully he goes well. Right, well, before we go for another week, we've got our dog and cat of the week. The first one is Sunny, a 14-month-old Labradoodle.
who seems to like a lot of things, chasing balls, frisbees, tug-of-wall, apparently whatever he's dished up, he'll eat. So he looks to be a bit of a hoover in that regards. Yeah, Labradors, you know, they have an endless stomach. So he's a nice young-looking dog. It sounds like he's got a lot of positive things going for him. He's well-mannered. He's house-trained. He's active and cuddly. They do say that they'd prefer him to go to a house that doesn't have children under 10 because he's probably pretty boisterous and excited as a 14-month-old dog. And he's a quick learner. He's mastered a lot of the basic sort of things. He is a dog who likes to be inside. They didn't say that he has to be inside, but he likes to be inside.
And he is in foster care in Singleton, but there's some great details to contact his carer if you're interested in Sunny. I kind of think most dogs would prefer to be inside if they had the choice. No, definitely not. Some dogs really like to be outside. So, I mean, we've got lots of house pets, but there's lots of dogs that people tell me, oh, he doesn't want to sleep inside. He wants to be outside all the time. And like my dog, she's an inside dog. But I tell you, if it's raining, I can tell you she wants to be outside. And last time, we've got Jersey, the cat of the week.
Yeah, so Jersey looks like a sort of a tan ginger cat. It says he is an old street cat, but he's really confident and loves attention. So he's come into care now. They feel that the ideal house for him would be a house where he gets to be inside, but also has an outdoor enclosure, because I guess he's pretty used to being outside. That can be a big transition for cats to become inside cats, but they can all do it. Cats can almost always become inside cats, and it's much safer for them. So he is confident around dogs and often gets on well with other cats, but looks like a nice cat. And if you've got any questions about those cats, you can head to the website, 20yarfm.com.au, Dog of the Week.
We'll run out of time for another week. Thank you very much. Nice to see you. Thank you. We'll catch you again next Wednesday. Sounds good. Thanks for listening to this podcast from 2NURFM at the University of Newcastle. You'll find them all at 2NURFM.com.