An American Bullfrog in London...no Toronto!

In this episode, Dr. Cliff answers viewer questions and shares a story about an American bullfrog. Dr. Cliff discusses topics such as supplements for thyroid health, calming solutions for anxious pets, and removing hair from a dog's ears. He also addresses motion sickness in dogs and the importance of keeping ears clean after swimming.

First, if you haven't watched my film and live in Canada (or have one of those VPN things), you can watch it here:

https://youtu.be/oMUx3yuyznc?si=oagpg7bGnpbuyXlJ

Be sure to follow me on Instagram @drcliffworldwidevet.com and on Twitter at @drcliff_vet
Listener questions, episode suggestions, or if you have a good idea for a guest, email me at dr.redford@vet905.com
Additional information can be found at drcliff.ca

Transcript

Dr. Cliff Redford (00:06)

Good day everyone. Welcome to episode two of that life with Dr. Cliff. I am Dr. Cliff. I promise you, I wouldn't say that again, but it just feels right to kind of introduce myself. And today's going to be mostly about viewers questions or listeners questions. So please send in your questions. Dr .redford at vet nine zero five .com and emails on the bottom of the info section at the summary of the podcast.

If you're listening to it on Spotify or Apple or wherever else, whoever else you're getting this podcast, send me your questions, animal health questions, relationship questions, business questions, astrophysics questions. I'll send those off to my brother who has a master's degree in aerospace engineering. But send me your questions and I'll do what I can. So as always, the opinions that I talk about are my opinions.

this is not meant to replace the advice or the care you're receiving from your veterinarian or the animal health care team. It is there to replace the advice that you're receiving possibly from Dr. Google, unless your veterinarian's last name is actually Google, which would be frigging hilarious. but, yeah, please don't get me in trouble with my licensing body.

So today, other than the viewers questions, which we'll get to in a bit, I want to talk to you guys about the American bullfrog story that I teased about in the trailer. Who's listened to the trailer? If you haven't listened to the trailer, go check it out. this story is one about teamwork, about how veterinarians don't know everything. I certainly don't know everything, a fraction even of everything, obviously.

And I had to rely on the team at Shades of Hope, the wildlife place that I volunteer at. And it's also a cool story about challenging yourselves, getting out of your comfort zone, and just how amazing and awesome this career of being a veterinarian is, or being an animal rescuer is.

I'm going to say it over and over again, well, until I die and maybe a little bit afterwards about how awesome this career is. So this American bullfrog came to us one day was dropped off. he was hanging out in Canada. we do share American bullfrogs with us. Once I'll later, I'll tell you about the bald eagle story. And I had to have people, we had a bald eagle that once came into shades of hope and people online.

On Instagram, et cetera, et cetera, would comment that they didn't know we had bald eagles in Canada as if bald eagles pay attention to borders when they're flying. Of course they don't. They were there before there were borders, when it was just a mass of land. so there's this American bullfrog came in weighing a little over a kilogram or for most people that's two and a half pounds. So a big frog and he had a broken tib fib.

broken shin bone basically and my job was going to take this one millimeter diameter pin bone pin and slide it up the heel into the fracture and kind of line up we obviously cut into the into the shin line up the two bones and have it slide further up there's a cool photo on my Instagram

Maybe I'll try and find a way to share it with you guys here. There's a cool photo or photos on my Instagram of pre and post op x -rays and and this frog so The interesting thing about this story was the anesthesia I had done enough orthopedic surgeries on birds and the occasional mammals and I guess this might have been my first reptile Pardon me amphibian Who knows the difference who knows the difference between reptiles and amphibians?

McFly anyone Bueller Bueller Bueller. No. All right. We'll talk about it another time.

So this frog came in, he had a broken tib fib as I said. The issue we had with anesthesia was with anesthesia. So we hit him up with a little bit of pre -mix. We gave him a shot of meditomidine, which is both a sedative and has some painkiller properties. And normally we would intubate. We would stick a tube down their throat and then give them anesthetic gas that way. But we couldn't intubate. Just the anatomy was too tricky.

and it was too difficult, so we thought we would hold a mask over his face basically and mask sedate him as the saying goes. But frogs being amphibians and spending all that time underwater, they can hold their breath for a long time. I'm sure he was a little bit stressed even though he was groggy and seeing some pink elephants floating around the room for being high from the drugs. He was still too stressed that he was holding his breath.

And I'm sure if you did the research, it would be 15 or 20 minutes that they could do that. So how else do you get a frog to breathe? or the better question is, is how else do frogs breathe? Anyone think about it for a second. You probably, if you got your hand up, I can't see it. So just, just, just shout it out loud for us all to hear it. that's right. They breathe through their skin. So they don't have diaphragms like we do that cause.

you know, inhales and exhales and inhales and exhales that expand the lungs. They actually use that that big fatty thing on the on the bottom of their chin that, you know, makes that croaking noise. They use that to force air in and out in and out like a piston into their lungs. But they can absorb oxygen through their through their skin when they're underwater, which is why they can be down there.

for that long so they don't actually hold their breath per se. Now the nice thing is even if their skin is moist and they're up in the air, they're not in the water, they can actually absorb air that's diffusing into their skin through their slimy skin, which means it's very important to keep their skin slimy, keep them moist. On that note, you can't use special tape and you can't do certain chemicals on their skin because they'll absorb it.

you know, if you want to bandage up a bullfrog, you can't use normal medical tape because the glue will get absorbed and, and they'll get, they'll get sick of some sort. So we called and I say, we, it wasn't me. It was Kate. Kate runs, she's sort of like the head, the head medical person, the, the, the rescue director or let's call it a hospital director, care director at shades of hope. and she, she's from Australia.

from the land down under and kite called their friends in Australia. Sorry for the friends down under. That's the best I can do. I find the accents, the Australian accent, it's kind of wavy. They sort of go up and down with their tones, right? nice to see you, mate. You know, they, they wave and I think, I think it's cause they live by the ocean and it's one giant Island. And that's why they're all good surfers. Cause they're used to that with those waves.

Anyway, so Kate called a frog hospital in Australia, which first of all, what is a frog hospital in Australia? How crazy is that? I'll have to visit them one day. and, and, and learn more about more about frogs. So they reminded her, yes, frogs breathe through their skin and they gave her a recipe for a anesthetic bath. So we essentially took saline, you know, sort of,

Neutral water that's that's got the right amount of salt in it to kind of go in your blood and we added isoflurane gas now gas the isoflurane gas starts out as a liquid and you pour it into the anesthetic machine and then the anesthetic machine is a vaporizer it actually turns it into a vapor and then you can control how much the patient breathes in as a percentage of you know, sort of the the Air air quotes air that they're breathing in

So we made this, let's call it a narcotic bath, cause it sounds funny. And we ended up having this frog lying on his back in a Tupperware container, half submerged in this narcotic bath. And my daughter, Emily was there and she was holding the head up so that his head wouldn't drop down and he wouldn't aspirate or breathe in, take in this, this liquid into his lungs. Cause it could drown them. And then.

Another technician was essentially giving this frog a narcotic sponge bath. She was using a syringe to pull up the fluid and to pour it over his glistening bare chest. And so he's got one nurse giving him a sponge bath with narcotics in it. Another one caressing his head and supporting his head so he could relax. He's lying in this warm bath.

And then he's got his one leg hanging out of this Tupperware container that I'm working on. He looked like he was at a spa and loving every minute of it. And so as I did surgery, and if we noticed that he seemed to have a little bit of tension in his legs, so his muscles were starting to tense up and therefore we could tell that he might be feeling it a little bit. They would just increase the frequency of the sponging that he was getting. It was the most amazing thing in the world. And.

Definitely the strangest surgery as far as anesthesia is concerned, you know, maybe tied for the top five strangest surgeries, which I'll talk about others another time. And it was a success. He survived the surgery. He did not croak.

Eh, okay. He did not croak and, and we were able to keep him comfortable. So he did not feel anything afterwards. So, I learned a lot and it, it taught me yet again, there's a coolest job in the world. I had some fun stories, which I got to share one of them with you and, I got to rely on the technician team. I could not do anything without the animal rescue team that I work with and the technicians at my clinic and everyone at my clinic.

and, and also we needed the help of a frog hospital in Australia. So there you go. The frog did not croak and it was a, it was a good, happy ending for our American bullfrog.

All right, let's get to some viewer questions. And that's pretty much all we're gonna talk about because some listener questions, I gotta get used to that. Listener questions. Because the reality is, is I think I got like four or five of them here. So good job guys. Those listening who listened to the bonus episode about when I went to Shades of Hope last week, and then also the first episode. So keep sending in those questions, please.

Alright, so the first one. I did not put the names here. I apologize. I did not put the names. Next time. Alright. The owner is wondering, this actually came from a client of mine and then she said, share this with the podcast. The owner is wondering if there are any supplements or foods, etc. to help with the thyroid to help it stay out of medical hypothyroid level.

So this is a dog that is not hypothyroid. So the thyroid is still functioning while the thyroid is a gland, a gland basically by the throat. And if you have a big thyroid, you'd say that you have a goiter. But dogs sometimes get a low thyroid. And this dog's thyroid is normal, but barely. And the owners, you know, we're worried that he is gonna become hypothyroid down the road.

which I'll go into it another podcast episode. And back in the day, we used to think that if we supplemented dogs with iodine, they would have lower rates of hypothyroidism. And the reason that is, is the thyroid gland, the functional thyroid gland, we call T4 and it's T as in tetra iodo. So T4 or thyroid for tetra iodo means for iodine.

Tetra iodo thyroxine is used to make functional thyroid gland.

in our farmlands across North America because of monoclonal, what is it? Monocrops, not monoclonal, monocrops, so single crops and just such fast growing of crops that we've pulled the nutrients out, unfortunately. And if you don't get enough iodine, you will develop a low thyroid because you need that iodine to create tetraioda. So the thought was maybe you supplement with iodine.

And there was like all these treats that are like seaweed based because seaweed has a lot of iodine in it. But the studies were very, very clear that there was no, no effect. So hypothyroidism, unless it's an autoimmune condition is basically a degenerative condition associated with aging. it's very, very easy to treat, high success rate, a hundred percent success rate, no side effects. Cause you're basically supplementing them with a hormone that they, that they normally should have.

But unfortunately, there's no way to reduce the onset of hypothyroidism if it's going to happen. There you go. Listener question number one. All right. We got another one here. And again, this is Shelly from Alberta. Shelly says, hello. Hello. I've watched you on the morning show and I sent you a question on Instagram, but you didn't get it. Yeah, sorry. I don't always pick up on those, but I'm getting better. So you can also Instagram me questions, Instagram me like it's a verb.

You can Instagram me questions at Dr. Cliff worldwide that, and I do, I do regular, segments on the morning show called Cliff's notes with Dr. Cliff, which I think is hilarious. They did a great job, but naming that one, for people who don't know, if you're not in the U S Cliff's notes is like, no, maybe Cliff's notes is from the U S and Cole's notes is from Canada, but it's basically these, these books with the Cliff's notes, which are like the summary points of Shakespeare and.

Charles Dickens novels and whatnot. So if you're in high school and you're doing these, these book reports or you're, you're, you're, you're learning about Shakespeare and you're doing Romeo and Juliet, let's say the Cliffs notes are the important facts that are going to help you at least maybe get a B plus. I got higher than B plus in most of my, most of my classes or else I would not have gotten into vet school. So Cliffs notes.

Doesn't give you all the information, but it's a summary. So Cliff's notes with Dr. Cliff on the morning show. All right. Shelley asks, I'm wondering if you can offer suggestions for food to help our cat when we go away. She gets so anxious, especially me. Last time we went away for a weekend and a week or so. And later she developed urinary problems over 700 bucks and a vet bill is pretty steep. Yep. Depending on the urinary issue though, it can, it can.

That sounds reasonable, but it's still expensive. Absolutely. It's expensive just to go away and leave her with friends so we can visit family. So it's calming and urinary issues we need help with. Can you offer suggestions for food or calming treats or how to handle this? Thank you, Shelly from Alberta. Yeah, this is a tough one. So there's a couple of issues. I would first...

If this was my patient, and again, I'm not looking to override your veterinarian's advice, I would see if your cat has a condition called interstitial cystitis. Interstitial cystitis is a non -bacterial inflammatory condition of the bladder wall. Think of it like a stomach ulcer, but of the bladder and like how stomach ulcers can occur due to stress. Interstitial cystitis, we call it IC, also can happen, can be brought on due to stress.

so I typically feed these cats a calming diet. there are prescription foods through your veterinarian that are quite affordable and reasonable priced that basically constantly reduce, anxiety and, and, and make the cat feel better. And then it also has some urinary health properties to it. on top of that, there's a great anti -anxiety natural product called

feel away, F -E -L -I -W -A -Y. Feel away are these little, you can get sprays and you can get collars, but I like the ones that are like glade plug -in fresheners that you plug into your, into an outlet on the wall. And it emits this, this synthetic pheromone that naturally reduces anxiety in cats. The last but not least situation, but this is something more for sort of longer term is we'll actually prescribe.

amitriptyline or it's also known as Elaville, which is a human antidepressant and also helps with anxiety and cats. And there's this weird link that occurs both in people. I had a client that is a urogynecological surgeon, a human urogynecological surgeon. So he basically does surgeries on mostly women, but men and women. And it's on bladder surgeries for men and women.

Vaginal floor surgeries for women and he said there is some sort of link between Anxiety and the bladder wall and also that amitriptyline and this Elaville this anti -anxiety pill It also comes in an ointment that you can just rub on your cat's ear and it absorbs in so you don't have to stress them out by sticking a pill down their throat And it there is some sort of links specifically with Elaville

in that it reduces inflammation in the bladder wall. So those are the two things I would sort of look into is this calming food, which sounds like you're already doing, and then maybe this feel -away and on a last ditch effort. If your veterinarian feels like this is going to happen again, you could even do a short course of Elaville. But try those things out. And Shelly, thank you for the question. And let me know how it goes.

All right, so we've got another question here. Let's see. Yes, and I apologize. I did not. I did not leave the name again. All right. We have a little six and a half year old Morky, which is a Maltese Yorkie cross, a Morky that doesn't travel well. As soon as we go above 40 kilometers an hour, which is about 25 miles an hour. As soon as we go above 40 kilometers an hour, he starts to pant and drool. Thankfully, he does not get sick.

We've tried doctor prescribed medications with a little relief. Trazodone, we got two hours before he gets a pill. Anxetane chewable. I don't know what that is. I'm going to have to take a look. We've also tried paw for paws, liquid CBD. We've tried restricting vision of passing landscape by settling him in his bed below the windows, then tried putting them in his kennel below the windows. Another thing we do is snug them into a thunder coat.

That is supposed to help with anxiety. We travel a lot. He wants to come with us wherever we go regardless of the anxiety Is there any other tricks or tips you can recommend? This is a great one. So first of all, let's just go at this one at a time because there's a lot going on here He's not he's he's to me. He's showing signs of nausea of Motion sickness even though he's not vomiting. He's panting he's drooling

And so for anyone out there who has a dog that pants, even a cat, but we see a lot more dogs that pants a lot gets kind of hyperactive or anxious in the car. Plus or minus drooling, even if they're not vomiting, they, they might have motion sickness. It's very, very common that that is the sign they don't always vomit. So there's this fantastic drug called Meropitent or Serenia. so ask your veterinarian about a motion sickness drug. Do not use.

Grav -all it sedates them. It doesn't work very well. It's not intended for dogs. So Serenia is intended for dogs. It can be used as an anti -vomiting and as a just motion sickness in general. Ideally they receive it two to three hours before the trip and there's something like a 92 93 percent success rate with that drug.

Now if that doesn't work the timing maybe you're getting up at 6 a And you're driving pretty much right away. So you got a long day You can give it the night before because it is a 24 -hour drug But it's if you give it the night before then I think the success rate is something like mid 80s That's still not bad right gets you into vet school potentially depending on what your volunteer work is

So that's a great drug. It can help. I would recommend you try that with this Morky just to see if it's motion sickness. Now, if it's not motion sickness and we are dealing with true anxiety, the CBD Bravo that you tried that we are doing some studies, we being the industry, I have nothing to do with it. The industry is doing some studies on the effects of CBD in dogs. And we have a lot of it is theory based because they have some of the similar.

receptors in their brains that we do so we do suspect cvd can help but it's not gonna be enough there's no way cvd might be something for long -term use for just general anxiety now let me do a little bit of research let's find out what this angstain is angstain angstain by verbac L -theanine alright so L -theanine is

Is an amino acid. So it's just basically a building block of protein and it does promote relaxation in dogs. And it can reduce nervousness, anxiety, environmentally induced stress, that sort of thing. All these things, similar to CBD, we think it works. And anecdotally, it seems to work, but no one's really going to put the money into doing the studies. Unfortunately, the pharmaceutical companies probably won't spend the money to do the studies.

because there's no patent for it. You can just pick it up over the counter, but you can give it a try. And actually, while we talk about over the counter, I don't have the dosaging off the top of my head, but for nausea, you can also try ginger. Ginger is great in people for reducing nausea and it has shown to be effective in dogs. So you could probably get ginger, talk to your veterinarian, find out what the dosage is.

or maybe send me a, a listener question and I'll actually check it out. I'll do some research next time, but ginger can help too with, with nausea. now as far as the trazodone, trazodone is a fantastic anti -anxiety. the dosage that you gave here was correct. However, you said you give it two hours before travel. Typically, trazodone is given the night before and then the next morning before travel. we use it for.

car ride long car rides we use it for like a little bit of anxiety sedation when a fractious animals going to the groomer even coming to the veterinarian clinic. Now this is for dogs we generally don't use trazodone and cats we use a instead of drug called gabapentin but trazodone if it is anxiety induced those are sort of the situations you want to do it the night before and the morning of and you can safely do trazodone and Serenia.

Last but not least is try and it probably isn't going to work because this is a little tiny Morky, but you'll sometimes see like those those vehicles driving down the highway and they've got this like leather strap hanging from the bottom of the vehicle and it's just bouncing off the road. And it's like half the width of a seatbelt. And but it's not coming from anyone's door because it's literally underneath the car.

And what that is and you can pick it up at any sort of major kind of pet supply store is is literally a Strap it. I don't know if it's nylon or leather and it's bolted to the the frame of the car and And I'm not a car guy. So I don't know how this gets installed, but it can't be that difficult and it and it goes up and then it's sort of like bolted there's somehow a bolt that goes up to the the

the carpeted, let's say the carpeted floor, the floor mat under the floor mat of the car. And then you attach another strap to that bolt that's on the inside of the car to your dog's leash or your dog's collar. And there's something about when dogs travel and they're going at these faster speeds and they're getting motion sickness, their brain can't register that they're moving, right? That's how sort of motion sickness often works.

depending on the situation. But because this call, their collar is attached to the strap, the strap is attached to the long bolt that is going through sort of the chassis or the frame of the car. And then it is bouncing. It's picking up these vibrations as it hits the ground. The brain goes, we're moving quickly. There's just some sort of connection. I don't understand it. But there's a lot of dogs that have used that and they've done great. Now I mentioned.

you know, it being less effective, maybe with a little more key, just because I generally see this on the bigger dogs that are just sitting stretched out in the back of the minivan or stretched out in the, in the, in the back seat. Whereas you got a more key and you want, you want, this is a key. You want him to be sitting on your lap, that sort of thing. but that's another option. Thunder coats are great. Thunder coats. So we're basically by this like.

Hug receptors, we all like a hug, right? So nice. Why don't you guys give yourself a hug right now. Give yourself a good hug. It's gotta be over six seconds. I think it's better if you get a hug from somebody else, preferably with consent, of course. Definitely with consent, preferably with someone you like. And, you know, like a nice, a one second hug is nice. But if you, the studies have proven 100%, if you give a hug, I think it's six seconds long, six or seven seconds.

long or longer, your body basically has these touch receptors and it releases calming hormones, calming neurotransmitters. It's probably hormones, not neurotransmitters, but it makes you feel good. And I'm sure there's different evolutionary biologists' theories on why that is, but who cares? It works. It's free. Hopefully you don't have to pay for it.

please don't pay for it. would that be considered illegal? If you paid someone to give you a hug? I, I guess not. Right. anyways, who knows? We, we, we went into a dark zone there for a second. but these, these thunder shirts, originally designed for thunderstorm phobias and stress that, that, that they cause are shown to help with, with car rides and things like that. I do not recommend you use thunder shirts.

when you are traveling by a plane, if your dog is going to be underneath in the cargo. Because, you know, in the very, very rare chance that something happens, your dog, you know, gets its mouth stuck in it because he's trying to get it off. He or she's trying to get it off or their arm gets trapped. Like, it's just, it's just weird. I don't like anything sort of semi restraining like that or tight like that. But if you're there with them, by all means, try Thunder Shirts. It can help.

So a lot of these ideas help with not only motion sickness and car anxieties, but also with separation anxieties and things of that nature. So give those all a try. Thank you very, very much. I apologize I didn't write down your name. I am new to this. All right, our last question. How are we doing on time here? Let's take a look, 30 minutes. Look at that, nice. Our last question comes from Jeremy up in Huntsville. Up, I say up because it's north of me.

I get in this argument sometimes with my dad and he's right. But is it really up if the, the elevation, the, the elevation is lower? Like what, let's say I'm in the mountains of Utah and then I'm going up to New York. Well, New York is closer to the ground than Utah is. I guess not necessarily Utah, Colorado. Let's say Colorado.

you're in the, you're in the high up. You're up in the, sky city and, in, in Colorado. Boulder, Colorado, I think is really high, right? and, and like, could you not say you're going down to New York? I mean, I know up is, I guess that's the language. Language just changes. Language evolves. It's there to describe things. but you know, I used to get in this argument with my dad.

jokingly, sometimes I'd be pushing his buttons cause I'm a bit of an SD, a shite to disturb her. and I get it from him for sure. my mom was right when she says I get that from my father. but he w it would always bug me. I'd be like, well, if you're, if you're, you know, it's only up because that's the way the map is drawn, but technically, you know, you could turn the map over or,

you know, I don't know. It was just, to me, it was just weird. It was like, well, we're not going up or potentially going down. So I'm going to say Jeremy, who lives over in Huntsville or just in Huntsville, asks my dog. Gilly, Gilly, Gilly, my dog Gilly gets ear infections from hair in the ears after swimming in the lake. How can one get hair out of the ears? Okay. Great question. Two part question.

Here actually, I don't know if he meant it to be that one, but let's talk about hair in the ears. First of all, you do not get hair out of the ears. Do not let your groomer pluck hair out of your dog's ears. There might be a few old school groomers that are listening to this that are freaking out right now. I'm sorry. You're wrong. You do not pluck hair. It hurts. It hurt. I would say for anyone who doesn't believe me, grab three or four hairs from the side of your head and yank it out. Let's go. Let's hear it. Let's do it.

No? Yeah, you're afraid because you know it's going to hurt, right? So imagine you do that to 20 or 30 fur follicles, hair follicles in your dog and your poodle. And it's coming from a very sensitive spot like the ear canal. It's going to cause swelling. It's going to cause redness and pain. It's going to cause a tiny bit of bleeding. All those things can lead to infections. Even if they don't, they're uncomfortable. They're really painful. So don't do that. What you want to do is you want to use clippers, not scissors.

So just regular clippers that you would do for your own ear hair or clippers that you would do for the back of your neck, or if you have a beard and you clip the hair short. Now the only time there is one time where hair has to be removed from the ear and that's when it is twisted and matted. Now, when that happens, you must go see your veterinarian because your dog or cat, I've never really seen it in the cat. Your dog is going to need to be sedated because it hurts a lot.

I've been a veterinarian 26 years, 1998. How many of these listeners, you listeners out there weren't even born by then. Most of the wannabe vet students or the wannabe vets, keep trying. It's worth it. I know I'm becoming an old dinosaur, but I have had in 26 years, companion animal hospital ownership. I have had maybe three dogs where we've had to sedate and pull matted clumps of, of hair out. And it's like pulling hair out of your.

shower your shower drain is like this giant it's it's unbelievable and it's often quite smelly and gross and then we can clean it and then we can apply proper medication and treat the infection that's probably already there so first of all gilly you got to make sure gillies hair is nice and short it's okay if it's thick as long as it's short and flush because if it's thick and straight that allows it to act like a candle wick and it'll wick out wax it'll wick out water.

Okay. Now the other thing is make sure the lake is clean. Now I know Jeremy lives up in Huntsville and Muskoka, which is like cottage country to us. And there are thousands of lakes and they're all pristine and beautiful and very, very clean. So that's not an issue. Here in Toronto, we have a river called the Dawn River, which a lot of sewer systems exit into as it goes out to Lake Ontario. And...

When I used to work downtown Toronto back in 1999, people would bring in their dogs. There's one or two guys. It was always guys and they would let their dogs swim in the Don river. If you're from Toronto, you know, you're already going, what? That's gross. Yeah, it's gross. Lake Ontario is great, but the Don river is not. And these dogs would always come in with skin infections and eye infections and ear infections. Like, what are you doing? Why would you let your dog, you keep having to come in and do this.

And get treatment like well he likes it so much he's so happy yeah but so what like he's probably happy if you let him eat and roll in dead animals you don't let him do that right like have you ever imagine dogs are so happy when they're rolling in dead stuff or stuff that stinks I don't know why but they look so happy it's amazing but then they stink or they eat it and they get sick so. So that's not an issue so the issue here is.

If it's coming from, if it's associated with swim time, which Jeremy it may not be, but if it's associated with swim time or it's directly causative, it's causative by the swim, then the issue is, is there's probably a lot of wax build up, maybe matted fur, but not likely. And it's just that the ear is not getting dried out. So pick up an over the counter ear cleaner through any pet supply store.

Will have it. I don't care if it has tea tree oil. That's fine. I don't care if it has, you know, this and that, as long as it's a pet approved from a pet supply store, please for the love of God, do not be making this stuff up at home. I don't want any granola hippie types who are making their own ear cleaner. You can do that for your kids and yourself. I don't think that's a good idea, but definitely this is where I put my foot down with dogs. Do not do this for your pet.

This apple cider vinegar mix up that you guys sometimes want to stick in your dog's ear is disgusting. It probably hurts. It definitely does not work. Dogs for the most part, yes, are furry people and a lot of treatments for us can work for dogs and vice versa. I'm going to have a topic one day about how we prescribe Viagra for dogs. Stay tuned. It will give you a standing ovation.

and, and, but, but they are furry people. So the fur, the one skin is like the one main thing that dogs are different and cats compared to people. They don't have sweat glands. They got fur everywhere. Their fur follicles are different than our hair follicles. So even if you got a really hairy back, you know, it's not the same thing. so do not treat.

dog's ears with apple cider vinegar or eye of newt or wing of bats or whatever witches brew you're going to make up. Just get a $10 over the counter ear cleaner. It's simple. and do it before and after the, the jump in the lake. Now, if your dogs, if you're up in Muskoka and Gilly is going in and out and in and out and in and out, do it in the morning and then do it in the evening and everything should be fine. Now, if there's still signs of an infection or if this is not happening,

then Gilly has an actual ear infection and needs to see, go and see a veterinarian. You need to get a swab done where they're going to look under the microscope to see if it's a yeast infection or a bacterial infection or possibly both. Now, if the ear infection does not go away from treatment or continually returns, and that doesn't sound like the situation with Gilly, then you actually want to look at food allergies. About 75 % of dogs with chronic recurring ear infections have food allergies.

which we'll have to talk about in another podcast. So, I hope I answered your question, Jeremy. Thank you very, very much. I promised I would talk about Mirko's question, some more information I found about his diabetic cat, but I didn't really have a chance. and other than that life's too good right now to have a random rant. nothing really bugged me this week. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna wait, and see, I mean, other than Florida beating Edmonton Oilers in the first game.

That you know, what can you do? So that's it for the podcast. That was easy. I didn't have to do a lot of research. I love the questions. Please send in more dr .redford at vet905 .com or Instagram at DrCliffWorldwideVet. Follow me on the various social medias. Leave me a review if you like it. If you don't like it, don't leave a review. You can send me a message. If you don't like it, you can be like, you're, you're friggin' idiot. You don't know how you're talking about tea tree oil and apple cider vinegar works.

whatever, leave it, I'll probably respond and I may even, mention it, mention you on air, on the podcast. So thank you very, very much. as always be kind to animals yourself and others. And, this is, the end of the episode that life with Dr. Cliff. Cheers.