Pet Chat, here we go, Wednesday afternoon. And firstly, Dr. Kimberley, good to see you again. Thanks, it's good to be back. I've been on holidays for a couple of weeks. You've been down to the snow, haven't you? You've been down to the snow, yes. She'll be there this week. It's like really fluffy there this week. Just a little bit. All right, so Kimberley, ready to answer those calls. And as always, Cheryl Shaw, always good to see you, Cheryl. Now, as always, we kick off around Roach Watch today. Yes. I can see almost a penny-farthing bicycle with a, looks like the character Top Cat sitting on top there, I reckon. That's it, Mark. But today we're going to be talking about training your kitten. Ladies, it's almost that time of year again, isn't it? It is. Magpie season. Good afternoon, Jo at Cardiff Heights. There's a magpie floating around your backyard at the moment.
What's going on? Yes, good morning, Kimberly. We live on some property, so we have lots of magpies. A few years ago, there was a big incident, and we'd made friends with some. And the other day, one came walking across the patio, and I said to my husband, what happened?
to his leg oh he said he's been like that for about a year he said um so he actually walks on his stump yes okay so he's lost the toes no they're up the back oh okay so he's sort of knuckled over and he's walking on the top surface of the foot yes yes beautifully you know and my husband said a year ago he was hobbling but now he's really good and my question to you is do i catch him and take him to the vet or just leave him be Listen, given that you think it's gone on for a whole year and your husband's monitoring of him was that he was sore but he's not now, I probably wouldn't realistically. You know, wild animals are pretty good at adjusting to disability. They're much better at it than humans are. And if this guy is getting around, if he's managed to live for a year and catch food and do all the things he needs to do with that foot not being normal, there's not really a lot that a vet is going to be able to do. Even an avian vet, we wouldn't do a lot with it. If it's a chronic injury or a chronic change and that bird is getting around and he's in good body condition, there's not a lot we're going to do with it because anything else we do is going to cause him more...
arm if we were to amputate the foot he then has to go through a painful surgery and a rehabilitation then he's got to learn to walk on a different stump and it's not you know causing him any any improved quality of life to do that so you know I think it's a different story if it's a recent injury and the bird's not faring well and you know often it's a pretty good indication whether they're easy to catch or not although if it's a friendly magpie he might you know they'll often let you get quite close to them but if it's a recent thing and the bird's not faring well then absolutely I would catch it and take it to the vet but if you know that this has gone on for a whole year there's not really a lot of points I think he's probably going to do well it's not like he's going to be a pet bird who can come in for you know regular arthritis treatments or things like that anyway so I think I would just Let him be. It sounds like he's getting on just fine. Yes, I was quite surprised. That was the first time I'd seen him. I'm one of these people. He's got to go to bed. He's got to go to bed. But my husband said a year ago he was struggling and he was hobbling. But he's learned to adapt. And it's absolutely magnificent in a way because he doesn't even limp. Yeah, that's right. He just goes boom, boom. Just adjust to it totally. Yeah, yeah. Thank you very much for that. No worries. Hey, Jo, how long did it take to become friends with the magpies? And how did you do it? Well, the incident was a few years ago because of property. I came home from work and when I was driving up the driveway, there were all these little black and white birds.
dead, magpies, on the property. So my husband said there was three, five it was, and so my husband said there was three that looked all right. So I rang the RSPCA straight away, and they actually sent a guy out, and one had died. So they rang me afterwards and said, out of the three, one had died, two were all right, and I just left it at that. And then about six weeks later, I got a knock at the door, and it was a lady from Wires, and she said to me, Achille, your birds have got to go back. And she asked me to name them, and my grandchildren were quite young then, and I called one prince and one princess. And they bring their kids down to show us every year, you know, to hit our babies along the patio. It's just a beautiful relationship. And all this fanfare about culling them and all that, if you're kind to them, they'll be kind to you. Yes, yes.
All right, thank you very much, Jo. And there you go. Who would have thought, Kimberly? Absolutely, yeah. Birds are really good at living with disabilities. So it's not uncommon to go to the beach and you see the seagull with one leg or they often have toes missing, things like that. And if they're doing well on their own, they're still wild animals. Bringing them into a captive situation and then performing procedures on them that are essentially unnecessary is not really to their benefit. Yeah, that's a fair point. And since you mentioned seagulls, this just dropped into my head. Why do their eyes, they always look like they're those craft stick-on eyes, don't they? They have big googly eyes, yeah. And seagull eyes are pretty dramatic. And did you know that birds have conscious control of their pupils? So like us, our pupils...
pupils will dilate in a dark room and they'll go down to little pinpoints in a bright space but with birds they actually have muscular control and so they can use that if they're showing off or if they're angry or if they're threatening they will they will do what we call pinning of their eyes to make their eyes sort of change and look and they can actually use that to really change the expression of their face that they have Just on the magpie thing, it's really important that people don't feed magpies mints. And a lot of time when you're trying to be friends with your local magpies, people tend to give them things that they shouldn't. And this is so important, not to give them things that aren't in their diet. There's enough little creatures out there that they can find and eat. Yeah, well, we're coming into breeding season and swooping season and things like that. And what we tend to find in practice is that in the next few, probably six to eight weeks, we'll start to see some baby birds that will come in that are either damaged or injured or have had mishaps. They've come out of the nest. People often will bring them in to us when they're actually quite fine. They're just on the ground. They haven't gotten the hang of flying.
yet and if those birds go into a captive situation where they're in care and people are feeding them inappropriate diets particularly mint they develop all sorts of horrible metabolic bone disease and growth deformities things like that so it's really really important that first of all our recommendation would always be if you see a bird a baby bird on the ground and they don't look like they're badly injured just to try to get them back up into a tree whether you lift them up and put them on a branch or you can you know put a little plastic container like an old ice cream tub you can zap strap it into the tree and stick them in that the parents will feed them magpies the parents will feed them on the ground for weeks so if they're not injured please don't pick them up just try to get them back up into a safe spot and leave them be. But if you are picking them up, then it's really important that we try to mimic their diet as much as possible. And mints just causes all sorts of terrible, horrible things in them. Yeah. And those ice cream containers, make sure you put some holes in the base just in case it rains. We want that water to drown. Yeah, we don't want them to drown. Absolutely. Can we have the ice cream first here? Yes. Absolutely. Look, in the next couple of minutes, Cheryl, you'll take us out of the aviary but into some cat training. So looking forward to all of that. We've done a lot with birds so far, but Cheryl, today, my favourite animal, cats. So we're going to learn how to train our cats a little bit better.
Absolutely. Look, when you get a kitten, don't be fooled because they're soft and cuddly and, you know, tiny. You need to start training straight away because cats can really have it over their owners if you don't start that training. I think that comes over, doesn't it, with the look. Like, I mean, we look at them and go, oh, you know what? Soft, as you said, soft and cuddly. And as you said, they have one over us pretty quickly. Yeah, but we need to arm ourselves with plenty of cat treats. Now, go off. There's lots of different ones out there so that you've got things to start giving your kitten as soon as you bring it home. So day one, pop the kitten down somewhere and it won't know its name, but use the name that you're going to call it by.
Start calling it from a space that it's sitting in over to you and then reward the treat. Get the kitten to sit by lifting the food up above its nose, its bottom will go down and you can give that treat. Because what you're aiming to do is get the cat to do a few things. One of the things you'd want it to do is to come when you call it. You want it to sit while you're preparing its food or doing anything that you're wanting to do with it and you want it to walk with you when you're going from space to space. So by having the treats and using rewards with the treat reward, your voice, the tone of your voice and lots of pats is going to make that kitten want to do things with you. One of the ways that you can go about it is if you've got the kitten in one room and you call it, as soon as it comes through, you give that reward. Oh, good kitten, good kitten. And the reward is...
what's going to change that behaviour. Sometimes we find that people We tend to yell a lot at cats, and they yell at their children, they yell at the dogs, maybe at their husband. But what we want to do is not yell, because yelling can really be disturbing to most animals. We need to make sure that our voices are soft and kind, and that will help the animal to relate to you. Because if a cat gets frightened by loud noises, it's going to get a little bit spooked. Now, that can then lead to things like being anxious around lots of noises. And so when you are training, making sure that you've got the kitten in a quiet location, somewhere away from distractions. You don't want the wind to be blowing a leaf by, because the kitten is going to want to run off and play with that leaf. And kittens just...
They have amazing lives. I mean, they sleep the majority of the time, then they wake up and play and do a little bit of hunting, and then it's eating and grooming. So their lives are pretty good. So when you're doing a training, make sure it's after the kitten has had a nap so it's going to be more receptive to that learning. I think we work with a few people here that resemble lives like that, Cheryl. Oh, dear. Also, making sure that everything is positive. No smacking. Please don't use a water spray to squirt the cat. That's so negative. That'll make a really bad association with training. We want to make sure that we ignore inappropriate behaviour and only reward the behaviour that it's really good. So when the kitten is doing something good, give a treat. Acknowledge that. And that way the kitten's going to be a lot more...
content in its training. The other thing is if you, sometimes you'll have a kitten that's a little bit naughty in ways that it might jump out at you when you're walking past a doorway and grab your legs, or it may even be biting your hands. So with biting the hands, we want to make sure that they understand that these hands are the hands that feed. So a little trick is putting a bit of wet food on the back of your hand and letting the kitten lick it. It'll make the association with that's a really positive thing.
So it just depends on the kitten. Some kittens are a lot more relaxed. Other kittens are pretty hard work, but you've just got to be consistent. You've got to make sure that you're giving lots of praise and that any inappropriate behaviour, you're discouraged by walking away from it and then calling the cat to another area, giving it a treat so that's not getting punished for a behaviour because sometimes they can't differentiate what you're yelling at them or saying to them in a behaviour that's being wrong. Is there any way to do that soft food licking thing without doing the soft food licking thing with the hand, Cheryl? Oh, well, you could hold a little bit of kibble, I suppose, Mark, but we want to try and make sure that they're not biting us on the fingers. That's quite a problem.
I think lots of people underestimate how trainable cats are. But there's plenty of, you know, examples of where cats can really learn. And if you engage with them and if you're actively, you know, working on them with it. You know, I've lived in homes and seen places where people go, oh, well, the cat just roams on the counter. That's what, you know, that's what the cat just does. And I would be like, yeah, no, I don't think I need the cat to be on the kitchen bench. It's not very safe because if a kitten jumps up onto a hot stove, you know, then they're at risk of injuring themselves. My sister's cat did that, jumped up onto a hot stove and burnt his little feet. So, yeah, so, you know, don't assume that just because it's a cat that it's not trainable. There's lots of things that we can do with them to make sure that they're doing the things that we can do.
we want them to do to help them fit into our lives, but also doing the things that are good for them and safe for them. And it'll make them a more enjoyable, or they'll have a more enjoyable life if they're, you know, given some work to do. Particularly if they don't jump on the stove as well. Particularly if they don't jump on the stove, yes. Cheryl Shaw is here. I want to talk to Kimberly Earl, ready to answer your questions. 49216216. Ladies, we have a dog of the week for those who are looking to add an extra pet or a pet to their family. What do you reckon? I think Yogi, the little Kelpie, doesn't look too bad.
Looks pretty nice. Says Yogi is just over 12 months of age. Seems happy and ready to learn and to please people. Looks like he's a pretty easygoing little dog. Says he gets on with older children because he's liable to knock some younger ones over but also gets on well with other dogs. Yeah, so keep in mind if you've got little tiny kitties, maybe pass on Yogi. But older kids are looking to add a pet to the family, not too bad. Now, I'm also reading that Yogi hasn't chewed or destroyed everything apart from his dog toys since being in foster care. So that's got to be a good thing on the report card. That's pretty good because, you know, 12-month-old dogs, puppies, they're liable to destroy lots of different things just because that's what puppies do. So that's a pretty good sign for him. Oh, and look, it just gets...
about an A-plus for Yogi here. I always go to the loo outside and don't feel the need to mark everything in sight like other canines do. Keep in mind, they probably need to have a nice high fence. Yeah, Yogi looks pretty energetic and it says he's built for running. So somebody who's got a really nice active lifestyle who's going to be able to take Yogi out a couple times a day for some good exercise. Sounds like he likes to chase a ball. And it looks like he's a little bit bigger than your average sort of Kelpie. He's nice and lean, but he's a pretty looking dog. He is pretty. Now, Cheryl, this kind of ties in a little bit to what you were talking about last week because if you head up onto our website and you can have a look for Yogi, look what he's wearing, Cheryl. No, he's wearing quite a bright bandana and that actually draws your attention to him.
So that's what they do in pounds, like we were saying last week. They often, in the shelters, dress their dogs in a bandana or a pretty collar to make you look at the black dog. All right. Now, I know, Cheryl, that you're the real dog lover here, so will you be racing out to adopt Yogi, adding him to your stable of pets? He doesn't have enough hair for me. No, he's beautiful. Yogi is a beautiful dog, and he no doubt will make a great companion for somebody looking for an active new family member. Dr. Kimberley Earle, along with Cheryl Shaw. And good afternoon, Chris at Katara, your cat, off his food at the moment. G'day, Chris. Yeah, I have a 12-year-old at least.
She's a 12-year-old, a female, little female, and she has been on thyroid medication, and just lately she's been losing weight and tight. But then if she sits for a while, and or overnight, her loose and very smelly, we'll put her on to this last diet, because she's auspicious, but she wants some moist food. So that's what we put her on. She's holding that down, but for very small amounts. Sure. So like Chris, I mean, the issue with a lot of these cats that are on thyroid medication is they're all typically older cats. And so the thyroid condition may not be the only thing going on with them. And so particularly if your cat hasn't been looked at by her vet recently, sometimes the dosage of the medication needs to be adjusted. Sometimes it needs to go up. Sometimes it needs to go down. But we also need to start having to think about what else could be going on. And if she's not holding her food down, you know, she's wanting to eat, she's eating and then she's bringing it back up and she's consequently having some weight loss. Then we really want to have a look at what's her kidney function doing? Has she got any signs of abdominal conditions? A lot of these older cats will develop IBD or lymphoma of the intestines.
and they start to vomit from that. And the weight loss might be related to the fact that she's just not holding the meals down, but it also might be that she's losing weight because she's losing protein through her kidneys, things like that. And there's lots of different... but a lot of them would have potential treatments that can, you know, help to improve her so that she's not losing weight and things like that. So it's definitely worthwhile reviewing her medications and reviewing the cat generally with your local vet and, you know, sort of see what else we can do. And I usually tell people if they're, you know, if they skip a single meal and then go back to it, it's probably okay. But particularly with these older cats, if they start to get a little bit dehydrated, rather than eating and drink to bring themselves back to normal hydration, they actually tend to sort of like turn away and go off of it. And so it just becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of, you know, they get more and more sick and more and more dehydrated. She does drink lots of water. That's good.
the vet and had her prescription monitored. If she should get sick, well, just take her off it. And yeah, we did. And then we went back to a lesser dose and to see how that would go. And no, it's sort of got worse. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, like I said, it might, they can be fiddly. Some of these cats, you know, sometimes we have to swap medications, but we also sometimes have to think outside the box and go, oh, it actually might not be the thyroid medication at all. Maybe we have to look for something else that's going on because many, many thyroid cats will have more than one sort of condition happening there. So good luck with that. Appreciate your show.
No worries. Thank you. All right. All the best with that, Chris. Look, you probably have... I'm going to give you another 60 seconds. 49216. Oh, we've got the time. We've got some time. Yeah, 49216. 216 if you have a question for our team today. Look, ladies, I know that the temperatures haven't been all that high, but with the sunshine out today, we're not that far off spring. So are there some things, Kimberly, we should be starting to think about in terms of the change of season, which really ain't that far off? Yeah, absolutely. So we have started to see some ticks showing back up. It's early in the season, but it's been a very, very wet season. And we know that ticks like wet, damp conditions. So, yeah, we've definitely been seeing some ticks out and about. And in fact, one of our staff...
members has had an unfortunate experience with one of their pets catching a tick recently. I think it was brand new to the family. So anyhow, we want to make sure that all of our cats and dogs are on flea and tick prevention. There's some really, really great products, some nice systemic products on the market these days that if they're given routinely, if you're not forgetting doses, there's not really any good reason we should be seeing a lot of ticks this year. Hopefully we won't see a lot of tick paralysis, I should say, this year. So have a chat with your local vet. Make sure that all of your pets are covered. And even sometimes people say, oh, my cat never leaves the backyard or my cat's predominantly an inside cat. But you might have a dog that's outside. Remember that ticks can hitch a ride on another animal.
So we will see ticks coming in on lizards, on possums, things like that. So even if your animals aren't venturing very far, the ticks can come to them and they can still become affected. Cheryl, for those who live in dog grooming world, i.e. folks like yourself, coming to this time of year, do you kind of catch a lot in terms of when you're grooming the dogs? We do, actually, Mark. We often find when we're bathing or drying the dog, we're using the high-velocity dryer. As the hair parts, you'll actually see the tick there, so we remove them. We put that tick aside to give to the owner to make sure that they go off to the vet because sometimes they're going to need assistance after that tick is removed. And often people aren't even aware that there's been a tick on.
their dog so it is important that you know we make sure that people are not ever missing their monthly tick and flea products because you know preventative is is the answer it's really the way to go making sure that you are looking out for them and like you said Kimberly sometimes you know cats don't go far my son actually built a cat enclosure which was just off the house in screen in mesh and then about three weeks later the cat had tick paralysis because he didn't think about the cat actually It wasn't going out, but it was outside, and it was quite bad. So, yeah, it's very easy. Super quick before we go. Anything behaviourally we should be looking at, Kimberly, that may alert us to the fact that the tick could be a problem? Yeah, so in dogs, quite frequently, we'll often see them starting to become weak and wobbly on the back legs. But sometimes the thing that owners will notice is just breathing. And particularly with cats, sometimes it's just that their breathing is a bit funny, that they're a little bit more laboured than usual, or they're panting when they haven't been out doing any exercise. So, yeah, have a look at if they're breathing funny, but also if they're acting like they're drunk or a little bit wobbly. Or cats, yeah, voice change. Cats, if they can't make it up onto the bed.
or the chair that they'd normally be able to jump onto really easily, that's often a good indication. All right. So by the sound of things, there could be a tick problem there, or your pet may in fact actually be drunk. Give that in mind as well. Hopefully not drunk. Hopefully not a tick either, but hey, it is what it is. Ladies, we've run out of time. Dr. Kimberley Earle, thank you for coming in as always. Thank you. And Cheryl Shaw, yourself and with your lovely brooch today also. Thank you. Thanks for listening to this podcast from 2NURFM at the University of Newcastle. You'll find them all at 2NURFM.com.