Radio 2SM Breakfast Segment #16 With Kaye Browne VET Talk Radio Podcasts podcast

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Radio 2SM Breakfast Segment #16 with Kaye Browne

1d ago 8:37

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THIS WEEK: (Full transcript below)
Recently Ron's Producer Jessie's dog Moon, recently developed an abscess and required surgery. Kaye explains why abscesses are so common and that pets can get sepsis poisoning if not treated sooner rather than later.
Kaye also talks about the benefits of having a 1st Aid Kit always handy plus some easy ways to keep your pet's toenails trimmed!
And... Remember Valerie the Dachshund who survived 529 days alone on Kangaroo Island? They say she's put on weight!.. but why? And how did she survive?
00'00" - Welcome Ron Wilson
00'06" - Why Abscesses Need To Be Checked
01'18" - Benefits Of A 1st Aid Kit
04'00" - Easy Ways To Trim Toenails
05'41" - Valerie the Dachshund - How She Survived
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
RON: And now it's time for our weekly pet segment with our VETtalk On-Hold expert Kaye Browne - Kaye good morning! - (good morning to you) - Look we're going to talk today about some of the common, I was going to call it illnesses but they're things that can go wrong with your pets particularly dogs and one of the most common is it's a nasty sort of thing, it's the abscesses they get.
How how do we deal with those? and are there particular symptoms that can tell you you're it's going to happen and why do they get them so often?
KAYE: Well it's a very common illness and it's caused by bacteria often dogs will be just play fighting but they have bacteria on their teeth because we don't clean their teeth enough and so should they puncture the skin and that often happens around the neck or on a leg, the body tries to heal itself and it closes over the top of the wound and that causes a little pocket of puss! - sorry for anyone having breakfast right now that's right yeah um and unless that is treated and allowed to escape drained or you know punctured by the Vet and allowed to drain out that infection can travel through the body and cause a lot of serious illnesses actually so it's something to keep an eye out for and cats also get that as well cuz they have very very sharp teeth and lots of bacteria.
RON: Now when you have your own family of course the first thing you do is stick a a first aid kit under the bathroom sink so that if anything goes wrong you can rush to that and sort the kids out but should we also maybe have some sort of first aid kit for our pets and if so what do we put in it?
KAYE: Definitely a very very good idea and in fact you can sort of share your human one as well I dropped a heavy cast iron grill plate on my toe on the weekend oh my goodness I needed I needed the the styptic powder now the styptic powder is a common thing that people keep in case they accidentally nip the part of the claw that causes it to bleed so you can actually have a quick toenail and you can use that styptic powder or even just good old fashioned corn flour.
So if you don't have that styptic just grab some corn flour from the kitchen and you can actually dab the claw in that and it'll temporarily stop the bleeding so it gets a chance to coagulate so a good idea is to have that to stop bleeding one thing, another thing a bottle of saline solution I don't know how many of our listeners have contact lenses but usually we have a bottle of saline solution or some of the those separate capsules of it in the in the bathroom cupboard keep a couple of those in your first aid kit for your pet.
A very good idea, gauze pads very handy gauze rolls some scissors blunt tip scissors to cut those and my favourite thing given we're in Australia with some of the deadliest snakes in the world is to have not one but two snake bite bandages because you want to immobilize the part of the dog or cat or animal that's been bitten by a snake and get them to a vet ASAP.
Have you ever had to put a snake bandage on Ron?
RON: No I haven't but I think over the years the way of treating snake bite has certainly changed.
KAYE: Definitely has. Years ago it used to be a joke that you know a very bad joke that you know Joe Blow out in the outback gets a snake bite but um his mate says "Mate you're gonna die because I'm not going to suck the poison out."
It was the old fashioned joke about doing that but now what they've found is the important thing is to immobilize the patient, get them to a vet or a doctor if it's human so that the poison doesn't travel through the lymphatic system and slow everything down stop your breathing so don't worry about the type of snake or the antivenene that they use nowadays works on all snake poisonings and definitely don't try and kill any snake you come across because that's when most people get bitten.
RON: Yeah just leave the darn thing alone. Alright now talking about our pets and the little things that they can get like abscesses it seems that sharp claws have a lot to do with that so let's talk a little bit about that sort of maintenance when should we look at cutting the pet's claws and how do we do it?
KAYE: Okay, well first things first and we tend not to think about it but dogs actually have tickly feet and cats because both cats and dogs toenails need trimming and you should start very very early when they're kittens and puppies just gently playing with their feet while they're sitting on your lap make sure it's a nice comfortable thing and then once you have them comfortable with that when you see that they're starting to make a sound and you can hear them go tippity tap and going running across the floor that's when they need to have their toenail tips just the very tips trimmed and if you're a bit nervous about doing that get your vet or your vet nurse or your groomer to show you how to do it use your phone and record it so that you can play it back later and just see the angle at which you should trim the claw.
It's actually quite easy to do once you get used to it and you should also do the dew claw if your pet still has their due claws sometimes they're taken off there's sort of like a an unnecessary thumb if you like on a dog or a cat's paw around the ankle area but definitely get some good trimmers and a nice nail file or you can even get an electric one nowadays Dremels that are very very quiet you can actually gently grind the nails and that's another way of keeping them short so that they don't get overly long because if they get too long it actually is very uncomfortable and painful for the animal.
RON: Now a lot of people have been following the adventures of Valerie the Dashhound or 'Dachshund' who went missing for 500 days and then suddenly turned up, what lessons can we actually learn from her adventure?
KAYE: This is absolutely fascinating and you know there were so many well-intentioned people trying to capture Valerie she was spotted on CCTV cameras by would be rescuers many many times and every time they saw her and tried to catch her she'd run away. Now the thing is that animals when they're frightened go into survival mode and it means they're not thinking straight if you think about you know when you get a fright, you go "Oh no what will I do?" And that's what happened to Valerie, so every time people tried to get close she would run away.
Now luckily there's lots of wildlife and roadkill sadly on the roads in Kangaroo Island so Valerie actually was you know doing quite well and getting plenty to eat and drink and she managed to avoid getting picked up by an eagle or bitten by a snake we were just talking about that because Dachshunds are really very feisty little creatures they were bred to actually hunt small animals under the ground so they're a very very go-get him kind of animal, so the biggest thing I guess that they've determined is that they had to gradually win over Valerie's trust. They got her mother - her human mother - to wear a t-shirt for several days and then post it down to them and they put parts of that t-shirt very smelly t-shirt by then in a nice safe area they got Valerie's old bed they made a little area where Valerie would feel comfortable and then they were able to remotely trigger the trap.
Now what they then did is, they obviously notified Valerie's owners and they started doing crate training with Valerie because it turns out that Valerie who was only about one year old when she went awol had very bad separation anxiety and when she was left in a crate she escaped and went looking for her owners. Unfortunately that didn't go well however she is now doing very very well and the biggest lesson I guess out of it all is the very first thing you should teach your pet is a solid recall.
You call their name and you go 'C'MON! and you do a nice happy voice and you practice that but you practice it with a long lead on you practice it in your backyard or in your lounge room before you ever let them go off the lead anywhere.
RON: So they get to know the call to come home... I totally get it. I have that trouble myself! Kaye thank you so much as always for the advice and your insight Kaye Browne from VetTalk On-Hold

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