A Day in the Life: Answers to Your WTF Questions at the Vet

Marty and I talk a lot. Like we talk pretty much, maybe not daily, but we talk every week. And I interact with people on a daily basis who work in veterinary clinics. I think it’s really hard, sometimes, for us as clients to appreciate what’s going on in the veterinary clinic. ‘The receptionist just snarked at me. I’ve been sitting here for 45 minutes, like, what the F?’

So I thought it would be really great if Marty would talk to us about what the F? Like what’s going on? What’s a day in your life like and your staff? And if perhaps we as clients can then come with that extra grain of compassion that knowledge should bring. I think that that benefits everybody.

“Clients pull in, they may see one or two cars in the parking lot, but they may not know that that means it’s a C-section with 14 puppies, which is what we just did on Friday. Or they may not be aware that there’s a hit by car or a bloat or, you know, some really terrific trauma that’s happening or something really awful that’s happening.

“And if we only have one doctor working, there’s only one place the doctor can be in at a time. And so it may not look to you as a client that it’s very busy. It may look like they’re just sitting around having coffee and gabbing in the back. But in reality, there’s probably something pretty significant going down if you’re having to wait, and that’s the important thing.

“We don’t have HIPAA on the veterinary side. But from a confidentiality perspective, I’m not going to walk into the exam room and say what just happened. It may have been a euthanasia. It may have been a critical diagnosis of something that’s really terminal, and we had to do some counseling for the client, it may be a litter of puppies that are being born. And quite literally, we’ll have sometimes 16 or 17 puppies in a litter, which means all hands on deck. It means everything else gets dropped. And in our practice, because we do a lot of reproduction, C sections are a priority, but so are major traumas. So are bloats.

“It may not look to you like as a client’s perspective that there’s that much going on, but if you’re waiting, either they forgot about you, which doesn’t happen very often, but I’m not going to tell you it’s never happened at any veterinary clinic or something bad is going down. And you probably should just like sort of sort of chill a little bit.”

The Marty & Laura Show is produced by Pure Dog Talk Inc., with sound design and editing by Premium Audio Services.

Oral Hygiene from Teeth to Gums to Beards

Marty and Laura discuss oral hygiene including teeth, gums and beards. Keeping your pet’s teeth clean means brushing them. There are no magic cures.

Oral health impacts the pet’s overall physical health directly, Marty said. She recommends visiting the Veterinary Oral Health Council’s website to learn about approved and accepted products that can help reduce the severity of periodontal disease in our pets.

“It’s not just about how they smell,” Marty said, “because (tartar buildup) does have a bad odor to it. It’s about their overall health. Every time they swallow, they set up a bacterial shower and they lodge in the heart valves, which can cause heart murmurs or accelerate heart murmurs, that can cause kidney problems, can cause all the same health problems that people have associated with dental health.”

Laura covers beard maintenance on wire coated and long haired dogs to help prevent the unsightly orange stains around the mouth.

The Marty & Laura Show is produced by Pure Dog Talk Inc., with sound design and editing by Premium Audio Services.

Geriatric Cats and Why They Lose Weight

Marty and Laura tackle the topic of skinny old cats, why they lose weight and how to prevent these geriatric diseases.

Cats are NOT, as Laura theorized, “fluffy house plants.”

“Lots of people know when they have a kitten that they need veterinary care,” Marty said. “They need vaccinations, they need deworming, they to be spayed or neutered, all the stuff. And then a lot of cats never see their veterinarian until they’re 14, 15, 16 years old in some cases.

“Suddenly look at your cat one day or your friend or your family comes over and looks at the cat and says, ohh, what happened to your cat? Because they kind of shriveled up. You need to take your cat to the veterinarian at least once a year for routine veterinary care. They need an exam as they become older. They need blood work. They may need booster vaccinations.”

Early detection of these diseases is critical Marty noted.

“Three of the diseases that we see in old cats that make them old and skinny have very good treatments,” Marty said. “One diabetes, two kidney failure, three hyperthyroidism and four cancer. But we have to know that they have a diagnosis and they need a treatment plan.”

Check out the YouTube version of the show to critique the hosts’ matchy matchy outfits. Meanwhile please like, follow and share!

The Marty & Laura Show is produced by Pure Dog Talk Inc., with sound design and editing by Premium Audio Services.

Spring Tune Up for Your Dog

Marty and Laura get you and your buddy off the couch and ready for the spring weather.

“The most important thing is to not overdo it because the tendency is it’s finally spring, it’s finally nice out. I’m going to go garden all day, I’m going to go on a long hike, I’m going to cut the grass, I’m going to clean the garage, I’m going to do all this stuff that turns out to not really be conducive to not being physically conditioned for it. And it could be you, it could be your dogs,” Marty advises.

Laura observes that many of us, and our pets, have to ease into that spring training.

“When you Netflix through the winter, you can’t just marathon into the spring,” Laura notes.

“We talked back a month or two ago about pests and bugs and critters and all that, but there’s different ones in the spring and different things that we need to do for our pets in the spring than during the rest of the time,” Marty says.

“We really can’t just go out and get the deep woods OFF with the deet and it and spray it on our dogs because that’s not safe for them,” Marty says. “So if we’re looking at what we want to do for preventives for protection, there’s some pretty nice sprays out there. Sprays and the topical flea and tick medications often do offer repellency effect. The Vectra 3D has a wonderful effect of repellency. It has three different chemicals in it that protect your pet.

“One of them creates this hot foot effect so that if the pests land on your pet, they are not going to stay on because it’s uncomfortable for them. Like they start dancing around and they’re off. So there’s some really good products out there. So the pills, like Bravecto, Simperica and Nexgard do a good job of killing fleas and ticks once they’re attached or bite you. They don’t do anything for repellency.”

The Marty & Laura Show is produced by Pure Dog Talk Inc., with sound design and editing by Premium Audio Services.

Aquarium authority (and audio engineer extraordinaire) Lance Woodruff joins Laura while Marty is on a globe-trotting tour of meetings.

Lance walks us through Laura’s “box of fish” and everything above and beyond in the colorful and spectacular world of home aquariums.

Filtration, salt or freshwater, fish friends (and frenemies!), tank size, and decorations—we cover the basics of Aquarium 101.

The Eclipse filter – everything in one top for the aquarium:

https://www.marineland.com/products/aquariums/bio-wheel-aquarium-kit.aspx

More beginner information on Marineland filters:

https://www.marineland.com/information.aspx

Species database:

https://aquainfo.org/

Legendary plant tank guy (his stuff is stunning):

https://www.aquariumarchitecture.com/archive/legendary-aquarist-takashi-amano/

Reef Tank Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHxbMa2RVTQ

The Marty & Laura Show is produced by Pure Dog Talk Inc., with sound design and editing by Premium Audio Services.