All right, another Wednesday afternoon rolls around, and it's Pet Chat time. Dr. Kimberley Earl, good afternoon. Hello, how are you? Oh, look, I'm ready to go. I missed you all last week, so we'll see how we go. You're ready to answer those questions, the weird, the wonderful, and the... Absolutely. There's no silly question, is there? There's no such thing as a silly question. Only the one you forget to ask. At least not on air. No, shh. All right, and Cheryl Shaw, as always, we kick off with Broach Watch with you. Now, I've got yours picked today. Yeah, what do you think it is? Well, it looks like the discount store Mickey Mouse, so I'm pretty close. Yep, absolutely there. We're going to be talking about vermin.
Oh, we don't like vermin. Not for us or our pets. And good afternoon, Yvonne, at Morpeth. You have a four-month-old kitty cat. What's happening, Yvonne? My kitty cat bites. Your kitty cat bites. Yeah, okay. And I don't know. When she's naughty, I have a water spray. I will either spray her or threaten her, and she stops. She's not a cat that will sit on your lap and enjoy that. So remember that she's four months old, which makes her a kitten.
And the way that kittens play and that they learn about their environment is through play fighting, play hunting, things like that. So although we don't want her biting you, you know, biting and scratching and climbing up things, you know, that's perfectly normal behavior for a kitten. And so, yeah, in the way that you wouldn't punish a baby for crying, we don't want to be punishing the kitten for doing normal things. OK, now we do want to give her toys that she can play with, that she can bite on. She's got heaps of toys. Great. And we don't want to encourage her biting you. And that might mean that you have to walk away or she might need to have a little time out if she's really amped up and she's trying.
to bite you. And we don't really encourage people to, you know, make their hand into like a fun, skittery little thing that the kitten is pouncing on because it becomes less fun as they get older. But that's a really normal behavior for your kitten and she will outgrow it. But that's really going to be how she explores her world, how she learns about, you know, the textures of things and the tastes of things and that sort of thing. Because she likes to chew cloth as well. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I mean, a lot of cats, was she raised by a mother cat and, you know, separated at a normal time or was she a hand-reared? She was given to me when she was six weeks old. Yeah. But prior to that, she was with a mother cat or was she a bottle-fed baby?
I don't know that. Okay. Hopefully she was with a mother cat and the mother cat will have been helping her to socialise, things like that. We do like to keep kittens, ideally with their mums, a bit longer than six weeks. We like them to stay until they're sort of 10 to 11 weeks, even 12 weeks, but that's fine. So just lots of toys, you know, try to keep the play focused on an inanimate object so it's not focused on your hands and things like that. We don't want to encourage her, you know, chasing toes and that kind of thing. And just like any child, they do have sometimes a tendency to get a bit overstimulated and overworked up. And in that case, you might need to give her a little time out just quietly in a quiet space or if she's really focused on...
you might need to give yourself a bit of a time out until she calms down and can refocus her attention. But we really don't want to punish her if we can, because that might actually teach her to become, you know, defensive and it can cause more problems down the track. Well, I don't. Like I said, I just held it up and I say, Darcy, no. And I hold it up and it's all stopped. Yeah, great. So I don't know if that's good or bad. But she'll outgrow that. You know, she's, like you said, you've got another, probably another three or four months of pretty intense kitten behavior. But, you know, make sure she's got lots of, cats live in a very three-dimensional world. So lots of, you know, areas that she can go up. So cat scratching posts are really important because cats like to get up high in their environment too. And that can really help. Yeah, she does like to get up high, but she does a little scratching in that garden and she likes all that.
Right. Okay. Yeah. All right. Thank you very much. No worry. Good luck. Right across Newcastle and the Hunter. 280U RFM 103.7 Pet Chat is where we're at. I'll tell you, that rhymed. That was pretty good, ladies. Pretty wicked. Very good. Newcastle's newest rapper, maybe. Just give a baseball cap on sideways. Oh, that's the look. No one's buying that CD, I can tell. We'll do a dog and a cat of the week for you a bit later as well. In the meanwhile, Cheryl, we're getting down and getting dirty with the rodents today. Yeah, but before I bring that up, Mark, I just thought I'd touch on something that happened. The last time we were all together, we talked about snakes. Do you remember that? You brought up those. Yes. And I was mortified.
Well, during Easter I went away, but when I came home, my dog was very, very sick, Avalon. He was so really sick. And the vets weren't quite sure what was wrong, but actually he was bitten by a snake in our yard. Oh, wowzers. Yeah, so he's been a very sick boy and he's now recovering. But, you know, that awareness that we sometimes try to bring into the airways, we really do need to be mindful that snakes are still around and our pets do go after them. I'll tell you what, you've gone above and beyond to prove a point, haven't you? Well, at first I didn't know what was wrong with him. Were we able to identify, not you personally, but able to identify what sort of snake it was? Yeah, so the test came back that it was positive to black snakes. So I've got red-bellied blacks. I've probably got lots of others at home as well.
I have rats and I have frogs and I have birds. So snakes really love my habitat. And unfortunately, Avalon is a bit of a hunter, so he would have been there doing a bit of hunting while I wasn't around. Fair enough. And I guess the key is, as Kimberly mentioned a hundred times, as soon as you know something's wrong, you get the dog off or the pet off to get examined. And obviously that was where the conclusion was. That's right. Yeah. The sooner that they're treated, the better. You know, snake bite can still be a long road to recovery, but it usually has, not always. If it's red-bellied black, it's often got a good prognosis. But it can be a lengthy road to get there. The only other upside is those are the ones that eat the brown snakes. So they're the worst as well. That's one way of looking at it. All right. Still sticking with the rodents? Yeah. So having said that I have snakes, I also do have rats. And my environment is pretty, you know, it's out there for everything to enjoy.
But I do try to keep the rats under control because obviously they have a potential to make us sick, but also our pets sick. So at the moment, we've got another problem existing with leptospirosis, and that's spread by the urine of rats. So we need to make sure that our dogs and our cats are making sure that we're keeping them up to date with all of their immunisation, but particularly for the lepto. And just how does that work? Yeah, so in terms of vaccinations, yeah, so we're really fortunate. We've got lepto vaccinations back in stock in Australia generally, but certainly New South Wales, because they've been out of stock for months and months and months and months. So dogs who have never been vaccinated before or who are well outside of their booster, when their booster, their 12-monthly booster will have been due, they're going to require two vaccinations a month apart. So we do the first vaccination, a month later we do the second vaccination, and then annual boosters from there. We've taken the view that if the dog is within about three months of when their booster was due,
been out of stock for months and months, that probably a single booster is going to be sufficient, just that 12-monthly sort of booster, and get them back on the program. But if they're outside of that, and depending on the risk and what your veterinarian, you know, the official recommendation is that if they're more than sort of 12, 13 months from their last vaccination, they should have two. But I think probably, you know, vaccine protection doesn't just sort of disappear 12 months exactly to the date from, you know, when. So we've sort of taken the view that if they're within sort of three months of when that last vaccination should have been due, if they're not more than that, over. that a single booster is probably going to be sufficient. So the dogs that are going to be the highest at risk are going to be the dogs that particularly like going into water. So like my golden retriever who wants every muddy puddle that she can find is a swimming hole or a drinking, you know, a drinking bowl. So if you've got a dog who's drinking from puddles, if you've got standing water nearby in drainage ditches, things like that, if you see lots of rats around, because rats will, you know, they'll go wherever, they'll go in, explore where the dog food and things like that is. And it doesn't have to be wet urine. Like these organisms can live for a while in dry urine. So, you know, you leave a bowl of bird seed out or leave a bowl of cat food or dog food, the rat comes down, takes a...
A kibble or two has a bit of a wee in the bowl, and it might draw between when your dog goes and has another lick at it, but I hate to say it, that doesn't necessarily... mean that it's dead, that the lepto organisms are dead. So if your dog has been previously vaccinated and you think that they're due, check in with your veterinarian. We've only literally in the last few weeks gotten those vaccines back in stock. Unfortunately, we don't have lepto vaccines for cats available in Australia, just for dogs. But the regular cat vaccines, which is something that we've also had out of stock for a number of months, have also come back into stock. So it's like April is the year for vaccines. So if you've got a cat or dog who's overdue for vaccinations, get them into your vet ASAP. Yeah. And a little bit of housekeeping as well, just to make sure that, you know, if you do have chalk pens and things, you're keeping them as clean as possible. And, you know, rats love fruit trees. If you're growing tomatoes, you're often, you know, they'll come in and...
steal them at night time when you think they're just about ready to pick. I've got a macadamia nut tree and those things can actually eat through the macadamia nuts. You know how hard they are? They can just gnaw their way through the macadamia nuts and they're quite persistent. But just making sure that you're trying to minimise the amount of rats that are coming. Now rats breed really quickly. Their gestation period is only 21 days and then they can have about 15 babies. So you've got to keep on baiting or catching or trapping, whatever it is that you do, just to keep...
The number's lower. I think that's really an important message to get out there. But lepto's around, snakes are still around, so we just need to make sure that we're minimising as many risks as we can, but getting your dogs up to date. But other than that, everything's perfect, right? Then we've got to watch out for the rat baits as well. And this is it too. If you do suspect that your pet has got into the rat bait, straight to the vet. And remember what brand it is because the way it's treated is a bit different too, isn't it? Yeah, there's a lot of different, we call them generations of rat baits. And so if you've got the packet, bring it along if you think your pet's been into it. Because if they have a significant exposure, they may need treatment for as short as three to four weeks, but as long as six to eight weeks. And it really depends on what the active ingredient is. So bring the packet along if at all possible. Or I tell people, take a picture of it. If you've used the whole thing up and you don't want to keep the box around, take a picture of it, put it on your phone.
So that should an accident happen at some point in the next six months, you've got it on your phone. You can go, oh, I remember what the one was that we bought it. Yeah. And the thing is, too, with rats, sometimes they'll take that bait packet with them. They'll drag it away. And, you know, you think it's in a safe space that your pet's not going to get to it. So, you know, if your pet's unwell, straight off to the vet.
Dr. Kimberly Earl and Cheryl Shaw. We're just dying to impart those years of wisdom, knowledge and other stuff. Hit me with your toughest questions. The challenge. Dogs, cats, birds, snakes, pet hubby. They don't mind. Pet hubby. I don't do pet hubbies. Rabbits, skinny pigs, rodents, whatever. Horses? I haven't done horses in decades. That's a part of my life I don't want to ever go back to. Thanks. All right. So if you're at the racetrack, sorry. Yeah, no. Can't be there. Let's see if we can.
Well, let's see if we can add a family member to you with our dog and cat of the week if you're looking to add an extra family member. What about this one, Cheryl? Sam the cat. Very cute. Yeah, gorgeous black and white cat. The one thing that I was interested immediately on the little blurb here was that he loves to sort of snuggle up and have a little nap with you while you're watching TV.
Gorgeous. Sounds like lovely. Nice little companion. A little playful, energetic, loves to play and explore the home and find secret knocks so he can hide and then pounce on you as you walk past. Like a one-year-old, still in that kitty cat kind of phase. Yeah, that's fun. So he's a nice young cat, probably really healthy, really energetic, but past the sort of little tiny kitten stage where he's hopefully not crawling up the curtains and things like that. He's gorgeous, lovely black and white cat with a little black chin. He's really cute. So kind of Sam is where Yvonne's cat will be in about six or seven months. Totally, yes. Yeah, yeah.
We move on from there to a dog of the week and your chance to adopt the two-year-old Labrador cross known as Frank. Ladies, you're having a bit of a look at him. You reckon the cross might be Roddy? Maybe a bit of Roddy. He's got a little bit of brown on his nose. Yeah, but he's a lovely-looking dog. He's got a big boy buff head. It says he's a two-year-old dog, so he's young, energetic, friendly, loves to provide cuddles and kisses in the morning, but he's got sort of basic training, and so he's going to need a fair bit of work still with ongoing training. It says he's got a fairly high exercise requirement, needs some mental stimulation, loves his daily walk, but he is strong, so probably not the kind of dog that you want to give.
your granny to you know for protection because you might get pulled over accidentally because of his enthusiasm says he's got a low shedding coat Maybe, maybe. He's a nice, short, silky-looking dog, but he'll probably need some regular brushing. Labradors have pretty thick coats that require a good bit of brushing. So secure high fencing is required with no gaps underneath or wire or mesh. Looks like a nice dog. Yeah, for sure. Bit to unpack there. And Cheryl, just on the grooming side for a pet such as Frank, two-year-old Labrador cross. I'm with Dr. Kimberly on this. Frank's going to shed quite a bit. Because his hair is short, short-haired dogs shed a lot more because their life cycle of that hair is it grows to a certain length, dies out. So he is going to need a rubber curry comb on him pretty regularly.
So his hair's kind of like a bad workplace. High turnover of staff. But in this case, it's hair, yeah? Yeah, that's it. But he's gorgeous. He's lovely. Oh, yeah, both our dog and the cat of the week look amazing this week. So Frank the dog and Sam the cat, if you'd like some more information, head to our website. You'll find the pet chat page at 2NURFM.com.au. All the information's there. Right across Newcastle, Leather Hunter, 2NURFM.
It is Pet Chat. Dr. Kimberley Earless here, as is Cheryl Shore. And usually, ladies around about this time, we kind of ask our vet of the week some of the things that have been running through the practice that you've been seeing. We'll give you a bit of a warning before we go into this one, if you want to turn off for about the next 60 seconds, because this one involves dog bringing stuff up. So the floor is yours, Kimberley? Well, I was just saying, we've had a little bit of a case of we're having multiple dogs that have intestinal foreign bodies. So dogs who have eaten things that they shouldn't have eaten that have then become lodged in their intestinal tract. So we had about a fortnight ago, we had a dog who had eaten a stuffed bed, had chewed up the bed many months ago, actually.
for that was probably swirling around in the stomach for many weeks. The owners on questioning them said, oh yeah, he's become a bit of a chronic vomiter. He vomits one to three times a week. And then that particular day or that week, the stuffing decided to move, unfortunately, from the stomach into the intestine and it created a full blockage. And that dog required emergency surgery to go in and clear that out. And then last Friday's... So just before we move on from that. So obviously for the last three months, the dog was...
in inverted commas, coping because it was just in the stomach. Coping, yeah. Causing a lot of irritation and so the dog was vomiting, didn't actually bring it up. So sometimes, you know, you get something that's light like that and sort of malleable, the actual vomiting doesn't necessarily bring it up out of the stomach. Once it had gone down to the intestinal area, I mean, how long would you have given, I mean, how serious were we at that point? Well, the dog presented to us on a Thursday, pretty unwell, but not like...
not looking like it was dying, but by Friday it looked like it was potentially headed in that direction. So we took it to emergency surgery and absolutely found the offending foreign bodies and it had to be pulled out in multiple little sections. And I'm happy to say that that dog's doing really well. And then last Friday's Friday afternoon special was another dog, a smaller dog who'd eaten some pantyhose and the pantyhose were stuck in the intestines as well. It's usually a sock eater apparently, that dog. Talk about edible underwear.
Not sure that's how it's supposed to work. It's not supposed to work that way, yeah. So it's a warning to people who have dogs that we always question, particularly young dogs. It's not always young dogs, but it's often young dogs. And we will always question owners if they present a dog for vomiting. Does your dog eat things that it shouldn't? Does it chew up its toys? Does it rip up its beds? Does it steal clothes off the drying line? That kind of thing. And I think that dog was well known to be a sock eater. They've seen that it's eaten socks before. But in this case, their pantyhose caused what we call a linear foreign body. If you can imagine the long, stretchy parts of the legs went in there and they caused all the intestines to bunch up and things like that.
Yeah, so just be really mindful of that because, you know, some dogs will be able to pass that stuff through, you know, 100 times. And on 101st time, it gets bunched up and it can really cause a problem. do we believe is the attraction for dogs in particular with these foreign bodies? Because I mean, none of these things taste good. It's not like, oh, there's a bowl of food. You know, it's... Yeah. I mean, some dogs certainly get some satisfaction and some enjoyment out of soft, squishy things. You know, we see dogs who love to have a stuffy toy and some dogs will shred them immediately. Other dogs will sit there and they'll sort of gum them and suck on them. And so there must be something about that. I think when it's things like socks and undies, sometimes they like the fact that it smells like their owners, who they love. And then sometimes it just smells like, you know, dogs love to eat smelly things. I took my dog for a walk, not last night, the night before, and one of the homes down the back neighbourhood of where this new...
in new homes, somebody's done some landscaping, and they top-dressed their lawn with, you know, obviously some chook poo, and it took all of, like, two and a half seconds for my dog to be flopped on her side, rolling herself. I was, like, in my own la-la land listening to my audiobook as I'm walking. The next thing I'm yanked back with the leash, the dog is fully rolling in this chook poo on the ground. So, you know, just because you and I don't think something smells good, the dogs have a totally different sense of what's yummy and what's good, and, you know, so they're going to go, oh, this is... quite tasty or quite smelly. I suppose that's a fair point because even between us human people, like, I mean, just because you like the smell of something doesn't mean I do and food and taste and all of that. Yeah, that's right. So, you know, they're much more undiscerning when it comes to, you know, that sort of stuff. And they also have a much stronger sense of smell. So, you know, if my husband throws his smelly socks in my direction, I'm going to go, ooh. But to my dog, she's probably like, oh, that's quite nice. Thank you. And with poodles, they often will take owner's things back into their bed with them. So mine haven't done that, but a lot of people I know, their dogs will collect items, take them into their bed just to be there for that comfort of the smells of things. And then, as you say, suck on them. Suck on them, things like that, yeah.
And it's not only soft things, you know. So if you've got a dog who, you know, chews up tennis balls, things like that, we'll occasionally get a dog who, you know, swallows. Like, it's not such a big deal if they chew a tiny little bit of tennis ball. If they swallow half a tennis ball, I can tell you that's not coming out the other end. Yeah, it's a bit of a different game, isn't it? Yeah. Right across Newcastle, Land the Hunter, 2NU RFM, 103.7. Just a couple of minutes left of Pet Chat, 49216216. We may have time for one more. Of course, Dr. Kimberly Earley, as is Cheryl Shaw. And Lynn at Chisholm, your Maltese has got some eye problems. What's the story, Lynn?
Okay, he's a Maltese Croft. He's about 12 years old. He's got a lot of muck around his eyes, but he won't let us touch his eyes at all. We can stroke his face, around his neck, all of that. But when it comes to trying to clean his eyes, it's an absolute no-go. And the vet is talking about sedation. Yeah, absolutely.
So the thing that we'd be worried about, I guess, in a dog of that age is that potentially he's developed dry eye and he doesn't have normal tear production. That's an autoimmune disease where the tear glands become non-functional. And it basically means that his eyes are really sore. And so instead of having a normal sort of watery tear that sort of drains through his sinuses and into his nose, he's got this thick, really mucky sort of discharge. But it's really kind of important because that's a painful condition. And the reason he's not letting you near his eyes is because it's hurting him and he's anticipating what's going to happen. So the vet will want to sedate him and then they're going to flush the eye.
They're going to have a really good look. They'll potentially measure the tear production. They'll measure the pressures in it probably. And just so we can work out, you know, in a 12-year-old dog, there's lots of potential things that can be causing painful eyes. And most of them are treatable. And I suspect that once we get some appropriate treatment, once we can diagnose whether it's dry eye or it's glaucoma, that sort of thing, that we can treat them and make your dog a lot more comfortable.
So it's definitely worthwhile doing. And even though people get worried about sedating an old dog, things like that, it's certainly the lesser of two evils if you consider you might have another two years yet. Some dogs will go to 14. But we don't want those years to be full of pain in his eyes. And if you've ever had something in your eye or even just a really dry, scratchy eye, it can be really quite uncomfortable. Absolutely, yes. All right, well, I feel...
Better about that. I think we should go with the vet's solution. I definitely think so, yeah. Let them work out what's going on and then some treatment will be around the corner. Okay, lovely. Thanks very much. You're welcome, Lynne. All the best with everything, Lynne. Fingers crossed everything goes all right. And ladies, I guess just sort of in wrapping up with Lynne there, she kind of sort of, even when she was introducing the concept of all the vet wants to sedate him and all that, she could be second guessing, but it seemed like she was a little bit apprehensive of that.
Yeah, people worry about the idea of sedation and anesthetic, and rightly so. It's a big thing for a pet owner or a pet. The reality is that the drugs that we use these days are really good. We have good monitoring equipment, things like that. We can't ever guarantee that we won't have a problem, but it doesn't happen very often these days. And the other side of the coin is that that dog's going to be in pain, and it's going to be stressed, and it's actually much less safe for us to try to fight with that dog, to wrap it in a towel, to put a muzzle on it, to fight with the dog. Not only is that traumatizing for the dog, but that's going to get its heart rate racing, its blood pressure up. Lots of things can happen, whereas if we can give it a little injection.
Let it sit with mom and dad until it gets a bit sleepy. And then in a non-stressful way, in a non-painful way, the dog will just wake up and go, oh, actually, my eyes feel a lot better. It doesn't know why they feel better. It just knows that they feel better. And we haven't had to do war with the dog and traumatize the dog. So much safer. Sounds a great solution. Ladies, we're done. We'll catch you for another pet chat next time. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks for listening to this podcast from 2NURFM at the University of Newcastle. You'll find them all at 2NURFM.com.