Client Complaints and is Lyme Disease a Military Bioweapon?

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Transcript

Dr. Cliff Redford (00:10)

Spring is in the air. Do do do do do. Hey everyone, Dr. Cliff here and spring is in the air. It's not actually springtime. Uh, unless you're listening to this a couple of weeks after it posts, is March 9th, Sunday. seem to be recording these episodes, uh, right at the last minute, two, two days before I would say that's the last minute, two days before, uh, they launch.

But it's working out. I am in a, spring is in the air singing mood because it is gorgeous outside. It's, it actually says it feels like minus two, but it's sunny. It's six degrees. Monday tomorrow is going to be 12 and Tuesday when this launches 11 degrees Celsius. not sure what that is. Fahrenheit. think you minus 30 something divide by a couple.

So it's like minus five Fahrenheit. but that's actually really nice for winter time. Cause it's not yet spring. that is I think the 20th of March, 21st of March, which is the Ides of March. Ides of March. no, that's like the 16th of March, something like that. I did take Shakespeare. but that was a long time ago. but I should remember cause my mom's birthday is Ides of March, I believe. Happy birthday, mom.

very soon. I will see you soon. I will come and visit you. so yeah, it is gorgeous outside and that's going to be my segue into ticks. you know what? We're to talk about ticks later. it is, I was supposed to have a guest today. and unfortunately for you guys listening, please don't turn off the podcast now. but unfortunately the guests couldn't make it. we didn't sort of really realize when we were scheduling it that.

Daylight savings time was happening and they don't have it in the U S anymore, or they do it later. I can't remember. or they were just giving me an excuse and they didn't want to come. Who knows? But, why do we do, why do we still do daylight savings time? I know why we used to, I think I know why we used to many, many years ago. you know, when it was so much more of a farming, world.

I believe it was to like basically make it easier on the farmers so that, you know, they weren't early in the morning or late at night, depending upon the time of year, doing a lot of work in the dark and having to burn a lot of lantern oil or something like that. and so they ended up doing daylight savings time, which then makes sense. but it is such a global world now and you know, tech heavy.

Office space heavy. That's a good movie office space heavy where you're inside not as many farmers that It's not really needed. It'd be nice if kind of like everybody did a half an hour to do a half an hour and then leave it So that you're kind of making a compromise. That's a good Canadian way, right? Just compromise but so that everybody is on the same Daylight savings time or whatever you want to call it. So because it creates havoc

for example, for me, this is not all about me, but, I do Greek lessons as I've talked about many times and this time of year and six months from now, the nasty and I often get confused and our, our appointment gets messed up. to rendezvous must, the yeenie a symbol. It becomes crappy. That's not right.

But we have to easily have to cancel it sometimes because they don't have daylight savings time. So sometimes he's six hours ahead of me and other times he's seven hours ahead of me or something like that. So kind of always throws things off. But it's, it's gotta be difficult for people that are doing time sensitive international business. So I don't know, let's, let's, let's, let's maybe change that.

anyways, I have a lot of, even though we don't have a guest and, he will be coming on shortly. We're going to do it in a couple of days and then we'll get them on in a week. most likely. and you've talked to him before or you've listened to him talk before and he's hilarious and he's, super interesting, a brilliant, emergency veterinarian technician, saves way more lives than, than myself or most general practitioners would, and, can do a lot of things that I can't do, for sure.

so I always love talking to him and that's all the secrets I'm going to give out regarding that. so here in my stretch of the woods, is liberal party, federal party leadership race day. or basically, Mark Carney is going to win day. so our prime minister, which is like your president, not your governor, our prime minister Trudeau, resigned, you know, he had a good run.

I think it was like 11 years or something like that. but he had a good run and it just wasn't working out. it's not us. It's you. or I don't know, but it was, you know, it was time for him to, it was time for him to go. I'm sure his father, looking down from heaven is still proud of him and patting them on the back. or will when he sees them, I don't know how, how Trudeau senior, not that they're junior senior. I wonder how Pierre Elliott Trudeau did he just quit?

Did he, like, did he just not get elected? Like, how did that work? My dad will tell me and we can talk about it on Dad Knows Best. I hope you guys checked out that segment last week. It was a lot of fun. And that's going to be a regular thing because dad does know best and he's always reminding me of the things I do not know, not in a rude sort of way. The rally is there's things I don't know, like how did Pierre Elliott Trudeau end his career? Is it similar to how his son is ending his career?

Anyway, so today's the liberal leadership race. Mark Carney is by far most likely going to win. And he will, when he wins, then he becomes the leader of the liberal party and he becomes our prime minister. Because in Canada, prime minister is non-elect. You don't elect the prime minister. You don't vote for the prime minister. You vote for the party in your riding and then the party with the most seats, their leader.

Hopefully they win their own seat or else it becomes awkward. Their leader becomes the prime minister. So Mark Carney is going to become the prime minister. I think, and, you know, Christopher Fieland, think is number two, but very far behind and polls can always change and et cetera, et cetera. But I wouldn't be surprised if this is like a first ballot win for Mr. Carney, but it'll, it'll mean he becomes, if I understand correctly, the first prime minister ever.

to have never held an elected seat. Like he's not a politician. He's a finance guy. and it was, he's, he's probably the liberal party's best chance of maintaining some sort of respectable status. their, their numbers were so, so low when Trudeau in these last few months with Trudeau run in the place. and

Pierre Poliev with the conservatives was cleaning up and I'm quite sure he's going to be the prime minister. But I bet you this is like, he was poking the bear Poliev and trying to get Trudeau out. And this is probably his least, like he poked the bear. He would have been much more successful if Trudeau had stuck around or probably anyone but Carney had taken over. I think there's a lot of people that respect Carney's fiscal wisdom, let's say.

I don't know enough about him to know if he is fiscally wise. I'm sure he's a smarty pants and that's important. yeah, Pauliev is going to win. I'm guessing he's probably going to have a, he's going to have a majority, but I'm also guessing that it's not going to be as strong of a win as it would have been if anyone else had of won. So.

And he's already his party's already doing ads against Mark Carney. Calling them carbon tax. Carney. He's just like Trudeau. Yeah. So they're calling them names and whatnot. And it's kind of ridiculous. But the reality is he he knows Carney is going to win. So he's already picking on him before before before he even actually gets the legitimate, legitimate win. Now, I.

So they're talking about this, and this, this political talk is going to end soon, but, that life isn't always about, taking care of animals. I just want to tell a funny sort of memory of mine, I guess they had, they had that I am Canadian commercial, which was like 25 years ago and it was, it was done by, Wilson Canadian, I think. And it was this handsome guy and he was doing this, really emotional rant about how great it is to be a Canadian.

and how hockey is the greatest sport and this and that. And with all the stuff going on about Canada becoming the 51st state, which obviously is BS isn't going to happen. How do you even get that to happen? Like give me a break. And then with the tariffs, there's a lot of Canada versus US tension going on right now as far as the economy and whatnot. And so they created a remake of this commercial and it's the same actor.

And it's a similar sort of tone where he starts off sort of enthusiastic and slowly gets more and more ramped up and starts sort of like politely yelling at the screen. And he talks about the Schoenigen handshake. And it was one of the few times I see sort of a commercial like that where I laughed out loud. The Schoenigen handshake occurred years ago when Jean Chrétien was our prime minister.

Because security is so different. Like, I think the Canadian Secret Service is called CSIS, Canadian Secret Intelligence Service. Maybe that's the CIA for Canada. I don't know. But basically, the security for prime ministers in Canada are not what it is for the US, because we don't really have guns here. you know, it's a much safer place. But this protester got into Kretchen's face, blocked him or

something and I think it was after Kretschian had been been pied in the face or something like there's all this crazy stuff that like there was a guy that went with a with a knife and was got in got into the prime minister's house and was knocking on on the door of their bedroom and the wife basically just just like opened the door and shut it quickly and locked it or something like that like all these crazy things happen anyways the Schwenningen handshake

is Kretchen is walking through this crowd. This guy gets in his face and Kretchen grabs him by the throat and basically shoves and torques his neck to the side and moves the guy out of the way and keeps going. And so they call it the Schwinnigan handshake. Dad, please remind me why it's Schwinnigan. Is that where it happens or is that where Kretchen is from? Or maybe both. But that's

That's pretty ballsy. I would say good for him. I mean, it should never come down to that though, because that could have gotten really, really bad really, really quickly. Imagine if that happened to a US president that someone got that close to them and had, let's just say, impolite intent. Anyway, so it just made me laugh and it made me proud about being a Canadian.

So I guess as of tonight, Trudeau is going to be gone. don't know how the sort of process happens, but it's going to be really, really quick. And then maybe, maybe I can finally box him. He, he has boxed and he's boxed some amateur matches. Some of the ones I saw were for charity. This was quite a while ago. Probably in his mid thirties when he was a, an MP. But obviously not prime minister yet.

And he did well and he has a bit of judo training when he was young. Um, he and I are, I'm going to say within 12 months of each other for age, I'm, I'm going to be 52 in a couple of months. He's probably about the same. Um, he's taller than I am, but we, we weigh the same. In fact, I might outweigh him by about five pounds, but I would love to, uh, do a charity, um, not so friendly. Uh, it'd be, it'd be nice if it was sanctioned. Um, it can go on my amateur record. Uh, I could use another win. That would be great.

and, I don't have the anywhere near the animosity. don't really have any animosity for Trudeau. even though, you know, I haven't voted for him. but, I, I, I would enjoy boxing them, but my brother, boy, my brother's got animosity, for, prime minister Trudeau. And if I was doing some boxing against him, it would be the, probably the first time that my brother would be super.

super duper proud of his young brother. As long as I win, he would say, you better win, which I think I would. who knows? Everyone stay tuned. Let's see if that happens. I'm just gonna put this on a pause for a second. The puppies are staring at me.

Dr. Cliff Redford (14:19)

And I'm back. I had left them outside and they were staring out the window at me. I'm in my walkout basement with this nice backyard behind me or beside me. So what else is going on in this week? so last week I talked about a movie with Kiernan Kolkin. I can't remember his name, as well as Eisenberg, Jesse Eisenberg, who had written it and I think directed it. But he starred in it.

and I couldn't remember the name and it is called a real pain. it is brilliant. It is, it is sad. is funny. It's very intelligent, really, really great. brother or cousin, cousin story, basically relationships in, in, the family. excellent, excellent movie, but possibly outdone by the movie. Nora, my wife and I watched last night.

And then Nora, I think won four or five Oscars, including Mickey Madison, the, the, the star she won for best actor. and I think the movie also won. I'm quite sure the movie won best, best movie of the year. And it was some low budget. was like $7 million, something like that. It is brilliant. Now for those who are going to watch it.

There's a lot of nudity and a lot of sex scenes because it's about the sex trade. Annie, the main character, and her name is Nora. but they, she asked people call her Annie. Annie is a exotic dancer, a escort. She's in the sex trade and she ends up falling in love with, and marrying. I'm not giving anything away. This is in the description.

marrying one of her clients who's this young, rich, Russian, son of a Russian oligarch. And then when the parents find out, they rush into New York to get the marriage annulled. And it's basically her reaction to all of this. And, you know, she just plays this character that is, you know, damaged in some way, but, but

It doesn't really go into it. She is tough as nails. physically, intellectually, emotionally, she, her, her character, Annie owns her career. you know, she, there's a, there's a scene where she comes across. Yeah. She basically, and again, I'm not, this is, this is in the trailer. the, bunk, bunk, yeah. Ivan, her lover,

offers her a large sum of money to be his girlfriend for a week. It's kind of like Pretty Woman. We're joking that is the remake of Pretty Woman and way darker, way more sexy and way more in your face isn't the right word. Graphic, that's not necessarily the right word, but real, way more real. And she gets offered this money, she accepts it, and then she goes to work at this strip club.

for one more shift because she just has work ethic and this is her job. You know, she could, looks at it like a trade. and, it's, it's fantastic. And when she won the Oscar, she gave a great speech and sort of thank the friends in the, in the sex trade that she made and sort of cried, cried out for better treatment of sex workers and, and to end human trafficking and et cetera, et cetera.

So anyway, so I so if you have the maturity, maybe to see it, see it, it's, it's so funny, they did call it a comedy romance, which is different than a rom com, I think I would call it more of a comedy drama. a dramedy, but fantastic, incredibly believable, incredibly real, incredibly real.

And you fall in love with these characters, even the ones you hate. You really, really like the, the, mother, the Russian mother who you don't see until near the end. Wow. Did they do a good job picking her and she acted the heck out of it. So it was pretty amazing. So I recommend everybody check that out. or in that I've had to, I've been cocking my bath, my bathtub, the sealant had come off.

and I had redone it a week ago and it fell just right off again. And I thought I had done a good job. Clearly I had not. And I realized I wasn't precise enough. Maybe I rushed. I just thought, hey, how hard can this be? I did it a couple of years ago and it worked out great, but obviously not well enough because it had peeled off after a couple of years and it had gotten some mold underneath so it hadn't created a proper seal.

So I did what any good person did and I researched it on YouTube and watched a bunch of videos during my lunch break yesterday at work on how to do it. And I was like, yeah, I probably should have done that step. I probably should have done that step. So I've been working on that and I'm going to give it extra time to dry and squirt some alcohol, some rubbing alcohol in amongst the corners to dry the moisture out as well. All these different things, but.

Yeah. So I don't know why I bring that up, but, uh, it's part of my life. So there you go. Part of a vet's life. That's what I do on my, uh, my one day a week off as a chores around the house and try and impress my wife by being a handyman. Um, and impress myself. Uh, I like kind of, I like doing this, doing this sort of stuff. So a couple of interesting cases. Um, I saw one of them was this, uh, this dog, um, kind of a new client. They'd seen me years and years ago.

but they had a regular clinic. They're just seeing me for an emergency years ago. And they reached out to me again because their dog was at the referral hospital with advanced glaucoma in one of its eyes. And the referral hospital is recommending that the IV removed. And this was a shock to them. And the dog's doing great on medication, but I had to remind them, you know, the ice, the eye is non-visual, completely non-visual. the lens has been damaged. the lens has cataracts.

There's inflammation within the eye called uveitis and they suspect a complete retinal detachment. All these things on top of the glaucoma are painful. And the reason the dog's doing really well right now is not only is it on medication, eye drops for the glaucoma, but it's on two different pain medications. And since the eye's not functioning anymore, it's kind of unsightly to look at, which is only important because they're worried about the dog looking funny, missing an eye.

It's gonna look a lot better than it is currently and it's gonna feel better. It's gonna feel a lot better. It's gonna go home the day of the surgery already feeling better than it did the day before the surgery. And the fur grows back and it just looks like they're winking at you. So they do very, well. But the reason I bring this up is this was a case that the dog was kind of showing signs of glaucoma like six months ago.

and it took a bit of time to diagnose which can happen, but partially I'd been told that the other clinic didn't have a good tonal pen. tonal pen is what tests the IOP, the intraocular pressure, or it uses a thing called tonometry. so back in the day, we used to use what was called a schiott's tonometer, that we were even told in vet school.

that they call it a shitty t-ometer because it's crappy the way it tests. And then these fancy things called tonal pens came out and now they have an even fancier stuff where you just point this little laser thing towards the eye and it fires this little, it looks like a minuscule Nerf Nerf bullet Nerf dart. And it reads it like instantly. It's amazing. We have a similar one at shades of hope.

So we can check the pressures on these eyes, on these raptors and various birds and whatnot. And it's spectacular. Anyways, this clinic didn't really have that. So they were having trouble diagnosing or confirming. And so they ended up saying, we need to refer you, which is the right thing to do in this situation. And, but unfortunately referral, they were three months backed up. Now, had they had gone and been referred to right away, I don't think it would have stopped e-nucleation.

eye removal. may have delayed it and it would have definitely reduced some of the pain that the dog was on previously or in previously before it was properly prescribed meds. But this was like I never realized that that it would take that long to get a referral for eye cases. There are other eye doctors I use, ophthalmologists, veterinarian ophthalmologists.

And they're, much faster. So for whatever reason, they, recommended this hospital, which is also quite a lot farther than these other options. But, the owner was understandably upset that they could have been air quotes referred to another clinic down the street, including us. you know, if, if, well, we had a dog, another dog come in recently with a cherry eye.

what we call a cherry eye, which is a prolapsed third eyelid. and, I won't get into it, basically it's a surgery. It's not a difficult surgery, but ideally it's something where someone has done it regularly. I've actually never done the cherry eye surgery and I probably could. but it'd be, you know, if I did it, it might have an 80 % success rate. Whereas if someone who's done it, you know, 10 times even in the last 20 years might have a 90 % success rate. So I was calling around.

finding other clinics who could do this cherry eye surgery. and was I worried I was going to lose this client? No, not really. Because the reality is, first of all, I want to do what's right for the animal. know that may sound hard to believe, but veterinarians do actually want what's best for their patients. or at least the really good ones and 99 % of us are really good ones. so, so you call around and, the reality is, is the owner was super.

impressed and happy and appreciative that we were calling around for them. Because if they had gone to the specialist for this, not too difficult, but not routine surgery, it would have cost, I don't know, four grand versus two grand at a regular clinic. So that dog's doing great that dogs I cherry I got repaired. And then same situation with this other dog that came in saw me with glaucoma is is

It would have been better if they had to just, if the vet had had just said, Hey, there are other clinics that can probably handle this. Let's, let's work together. And the thing is, as far as stealing clients, first of all, you want to do what's best for the pet. Second of all, if a veterinarian, if I just see a client from another clinic because they can't see them, they're booked, they say, call around, we can't see you as an emergency. And someone comes and sees me and I squeeze them in.

And then they say, Hey, are you taking new clients? I'm going to say yes. And I'm going to, I'm going to guilt, guilt free without guilt. I'm going to, I'm going to take them on as patients, but it's different if they're referred to me. So if that same clinic were to call me up and say, Hey, fluffy here has an eye condition. I understand you've got one those fancy tonal pens. Can you check the pressures help control it? Et cetera, et cetera. I would say yes.

And I would refuse to take those, those patients on, because they're referred to me. That's, I don't have to do that. I mean, there might be some, some, some argument with, with CVO rules about professional misconduct that maybe you could argue I'm not allowed to, I don't know. Either way, I wouldn't, professional courtesy is you asked me to help. I helped and there you go. so, you know,

So I guess the takeaway out there is if your veterinarian is referring you and there's going to be an unreasonable wait, ask if there's other options, ask if there's other clinics, and if you're not sure, make the call yourself. Call around and say, hey, we need to see someone who has this tona pen or we need to this knee surgery or we need to have this cherry eye surgery done. Does your clinic do it?

you know, that's sort of the situation. But I bet you if you ask your veterinarian, they're going to help you out. And again, this other clinic is a corporate clinic. So maybe there's some pressures to keep it in house. I don't know, but there you go. There's a news all day. I've got the news on in front of me, muted mostly because I like to look at the time. For the last couple of weeks, all anyone's been talking about are these tariffs.

so there's my awkward segment to talking about tariffs for a brief second. everyone knows that the U S now has 25 % tariffs on most things coming from Canada, maybe higher on other things. I think it's like a hundred percent on dairy on various dairy products. don't know, but, and so Canada is doing the same thing. Well, if you're going to tax us, we're going to tax you, et cetera, et cetera. and I get a lot of questions about how this is affecting the veterinary business.

And the reality is the answer is very little. Most of our medications are created by pharmacies that are in Canada. Now they may be owned by American companies or I mean, let's be honest, probably global companies, but because they are sort of Canadian made, don't have those tariffs because they're not crossing the border. Now there are some food issues. So talk to your veterinarian about

If you're food, if you're in Canada, or if you're in the U S because now there's, know, the, people in the U S the pet owners in the U S are going to pay more money if they're buying a food that's made in Canada. I don't know how likely that is that they're buying a food that's made in Canada. It's much more likely the other way around. and you know, now that we're doing a, which is reasonable, we're doing a tariff on the, American products. it's going to cause.

the cost to go up. so ask your veterinarian, ask your veterinarian if, is this food going to be affected by these tariffs, whether regardless of what side of the border you're on. And for those that are listening to me outside of North America, skip about three more minutes. if you don't want to hear this, but I don't, I don't understand. maybe I kind of understand what, Trump is. I mean, Trump is he's, he's trying to push. what's that word?

protectionism, something like that. But it's basically the whole, mega make America great again. and there's nothing wrong with encouraging people to buy local and local meaning your entire country. that is the one good thing that this has caused is created a, a, awareness or a pride in one zone country. And if possible, if you can buy local, buy local, there's so many benefits.

But this is going to cause the cost of living to go up in the U S especially with the Northern States. and now premier Ford, for those who don't know, he runs this, the province of Ontario. so kind of like your guy's governor, if you're American, he is also refusing to send electricity and there was something else, maybe gas, to the U S, because, know, we get, we have

electricity made, um, through various power plants. And I'm obviously showing some of my ignorance here. Um, and during, during moments of the day where we have more electricity than we need, we store it and we ship it in tiny little nine volt batteries, course, to the U S and I think we kind of give it to them at a, a, a discount or a reasonable price. Um, or at least that was originally the situation. Well now.

Ford has basically said no more. You guys are gonna have to like Detroit, New York, you're gonna have to get your electricity somewhere else. And so they're gonna have to be paying top dollar. And you know, that's gonna cause people's prices to go up. Immediately gas prices are gonna go up. The stock market, I wouldn't say crash, but it definitely dropped significantly. like, don't know. It's almost like Trump.

is doing this for other reasons. You know, maybe he's going to benefit. Hmm, does that actually happen? Do politicians actually do that? Okay, I'm already I'm already doing too much of this political talk. But that is that has been on the news. And it was just right there in front of me. And how is it affecting veterinarian clinics? Right now, I'm going to say directly not not significantly, but people like the economy is going to suffer on both sides of the border.

And that's going to affect veterinary clinics because the average person, some people are going to be losing their jobs or some people are going to be losing some of their business, some of their revenue. Therefore they can't spend the money on their pets. I mean, that's a reality. And again, the most important thing is then therefore the pets are going to suffer, I guess. You know, they're not going to get the care. Some of the pets out there aren't going to get the care that they normally would.

because people have to pay their bills and that's a reasonable, reasonable thing.

Sorry, little drink break. So the last week's episode, and again, I hope you guys all checked it out, showcasing my father, Dad Knows Best, his favorite segment. He did that and I posted the video. I hope you don't mind, Dad. You may not even have known until I'm saying it now, but I did post the video of how you're crooked for the entire thing, but I only posted the first minute and a half on Instagram, but you don't have an Instagram account.

you initially called it time with dad. I thought that would be a good podcast. Like just have have two people in time with dad. I mean, it would be better if it was like somebody who's like popular and their father, you know, Ryan Reynolds, something like that. But like that would be a fun podcast, sort of seeing the dynamics and multiple generations talking about various things and, and and

If you have two people who are willing to discuss their disagreements, like their opinions, their differing opinions, it'd be really fascinating. my father and I don't agree on everything. agree on most things. and even the things we don't agree on, we agree on 90 % of that situation, that sort of topic, let's say it's politics. but yeah, you'd have to find somebody that, that, you know, two people that would be willing to.

to have these conversations and be quite, probably quite interesting how, you know, the elder in the group could learn from the younger and the younger could learn from the elder as they normally do. But if anyone does that podcast, I want executive producer credits, please. I guess actually would go to my father because he thought of the title and he's the inspiration, but maybe we'll do that, dad. What do you think if this podcast ever becomes huge, becomes huge?

that's the closest thing I can do to sound like Trump. if this podcast becomes huge and we want to do a second, a spin-off, we could do, Dr. Cliff and Ross time with dad or Ross and Dr. Cliff. I don't know. What do you think? we figured out, could be like once a month too. It could be infrequent. so it was our 50th episode. That's what I wanted to bring up. So thank you very much for the people that are listening.

There's not a lot of you, I get it. But that means I appreciate those who are listening even more. So one of things I wanted to do is I wanted to check out.

Dr. Cliff Redford (35:47)

Hey everyone, I am back. So this is, Embarrassing, I guess. Not really. it ended up cutting out my recording, cutting cut out in the middle of that sentence. That's why it sort of stopped awkwardly. and I only found out after I kept talking for like another 20 minutes. So here goes, here goes their second attempt. we're talking about the, that segment, life with dad. and, it started,

I was talking about the 50th episode. So I wanted to go to, my buzz sprouts, which is the service online that, that posts all the, all the episodes for me. And it does stats and it was buzz sprout that remind me of like, this is your 50th episode. and I didn't even realize it when I was talking to my father, I would have said something. so I wanted to thank everyone obviously for listening. I recognize there's not a lot of you guys, and that's okay, but we are global.

Um, I mean, most of the people 80%, 70%, I think, uh, who listen, um, listen from, uh, North America. Uh, and there's none in South America and not in Africa. Now where would central America be in there? Cause I have some friends in Panama that might listen to this. Um, but, uh, there's 12 % in Europe and 3 % in Asia and, 2 % in Oceania, which is like Australia and Madagascar and maybe the Indonesian.

countries, I don't know. Like the ocean there. But like we got people in Ukraine. Hello to my friends in Ukraine. I hope you guys are safe. United Kingdom, Austria, Sweden, Germany, Jamaica, Mexico, Philippines, Spain, Hungary, El Salvador, and the lowest on the list is Bangladesh. And then all kinds of different cities. My dogs are coming in. That's okay, you can.

The, the barking ads on Omnions, the barking ads Omnions cause vet life isn't just about being a vet. It's about owning pets. they're going outside again, cause it's so nice. go, Italian, no, she wants a, a, on the couch. wants hugs on the couch. Now they're both jumping up on the couch. anyway, so I got people listening from all over the place. it breaks it down into cities and it's got one that says Paris, Paris, which I think is supposed to be Paris, France.

because it also has Salzburg Salzburg, which is Salzburg Austria. What an amazing castle in Salzburg Austria. I recommend everyone check it out on my trip to Munich eight years ago, almost to this day. I guess I'm going to start getting reminders on Facebook about it. But I went and visited my friends, Marco and Barbara in Munich. Hey guys, if you're listening, I just helped them for the third time.

Get their cat into remission from diabetes I'm gonna have to talk about that on a podcast too. It's a common common condition Anyway, Salzburg Salzburg. I did a day trip and there's a beautiful Salzburg Castle And it's it's gorgeous. It's spectacular Anyways, wonderful trip. So there's yeah, there's all kinds of Stockholm Where else Columbia, Maryland

Charlotte, North Carolina. Maccady City, Metro Manila. There you go. Valo, Valado lead Valado lead. I'm gonna have to check out. You know what? I'm gonna Google where all these places if I don't know where they are, I'm gonna check them out. La Libertad Santa Ana Department. Sounds like it's a prison. Puerto Rarez, Quintana Roo.

Glasgow City. I love it. This is amazing. Rexdale, Ontario. That's where I learned how to play hockey.

Catch it is catch it is it seems like Yeah, a lot of the places if they're outside North America not all of them, but if they're outside North America Mexico City Mexico City If they're outside Some of them they just double it up, but I'm gonna do some research. That'd be fun Maybe one day I'll go and I'll do a live event there. Yeah, it's not gonna happen because there's like two listeners Anyway, so I started to think about reviews so my podcast

on Spotify has a four point something. And on Apple, only has a three out of five. Now there's only six reviews on Apple and I'm assuming three of them are fives and three of them are ones. And I'm trying to open up the reviews such that I can read them out. I wanna read the one stars. think they might be funny, but I couldn't figure it out. I even Googled it and it told me to click on this.

button and click on this icon and those icons or buttons didn't exist. And I tried it on Spotify and I tried it on Apple and I tried it up both on my laptop and my iPhone. So I have an idiot phone and I couldn't figure it out. So if any of you guys can figure it out, please let me know or better yet, me the, send me the, the like copy and paste them and send them to me.

dr.redford at vet905.com or you can find me on Instagram at drcliffworldwidevet. All this information is at the little info section of this podcast that you're listening to. But I did want to read one and I apologize. It is a five star review. So this is gonna sound, this is gonna seem egotistical. that right? Let's see how I find this. I can't.

Shoot, All right, bear with me one second. I think I accidentally deleted it when I was trying to fix my recording issue. Apple Podcast Vet Life. So I know what this says, because I've already read this once, but I'm going to pretend to laugh anyways. There you go, three stars. Okay.

let's see. I scrolled down trailer reviews. Again, there's nothing else I can click on, but I am going to click on this one. So this is a five star review from a Mr. G J or his initials, is a Sri Lankan name. Vonakam. Hello. I think that's how you say it. okay. I have never been more invested with a podcast than I am with this show. The hosts aren't afraid to invest in their nonsense.

making their nonsense a fully explored reality. So I mean, I'm to take that as a compliment because he gave me five stars, but I am invested in my nonsense. It's my nonsense and I'm proudly owning it. There you go. Whatever decision you make, own it with investment, with an invested personality. But he talks about hosts. So did this guy actually listen to this podcast?

Every episode is a delight with Dr. Cliff as the ending segments always tie the idea together in an impressively produced improv scene presenting the idea at its most logical conclusion. His knowledge about animals makes this podcast a very highly underrated show that should get more attention and exposure. I highly recommend listening to him as you will learn a thing or two from Dr. Cliff exclamation mark. I think this might've been created by chat GPT or Dr. Chat who we talked to last time.

who helped us out with some health questions. I don't know if this guy listens to it, but I am invested in my nonsense. so there you go. would love to hear some other reviews. And I had these great reviews that I've deleted now. I'm not gonna search for them. And again, they're off into the cloud. No one understands the cloud, but they're not even in the cloud because it didn't get recorded.

But I'll talk about, I'll talk about clinic reviews another time and why I don't read my own reviews as far as my clinic, positive or negative. I don't read them. don't respond to them. do exactly opposite what the experts say I'm supposed to do. but we will talk about that at another podcast because I've already said it once and it's going to lose its, it's going to lose its, its, je ne sais quoi. It's going to lose its,

Improving at the end and I can't get invested in my own nonsense if I've said it over and over again. So we're going to do that again, another time. now I did promise at the beginning, we're going to talk about ticks. my dogs went outside, they came back in for the second time. And although everyone thinks ticks are a problem, and we're talking about Canada here, everyone thinks ticks are a problem in the summertime and they are, but they're much more of a problem now in this spring, sort of almost spring weather.

Um, when you get a couple of days that are above five degrees and right now it's at seven Celsius and tomorrow's 11. I think the day after is 12. The ticks come out and boy, our boy, are they hungry. Like a hibernating bear coming out. Um, Brown bear. don't know if we have black bears here. Uh, Brown bears or sorry, we do have black bears. I don't know if we have Brown bears. Um, maybe there's the same thing. Um, but we don't have only polar bears polar bears. I really see much in Canada, obviously.

so it's just like a hungry black bear coming out of hibernating these ticks sort of air quotes hibernate under the snow. It's probably not, it's not exactly hibernation, but they basically come out once it gets a little bit warm and they are hungry. We call it a tick storm. So we're going to see for sure a bunch of dogs coming in in the next week with ticks on them. And then we wait six weeks, we help remove them. We wait six weeks and then we, then we test them for Lyme disease. Cause it takes six weeks to show up.

but Lyme disease is a nasty, bacterial infection that are carried by ticks that come from the, what kind of deer, they come from the tick deer. can't remember. but I wanted to read a little bit about, so I had, I had heard that Lyme disease was a manufactured bio weapon.

And I'm embarrassed. I'm not embarrassed to say I invest in my own nonsense. heard Joe Rogan talk about it. Now, Joe Rogan wasn't saying he thinks it's a conspiracy. He was saying there's a rumor out there. And he basically says, this is what I, here's what I read. Let's talk about it. It's funny. And then he goes on and he doesn't really make a decision, but this, the Yale school of medicine can't get much better as basically says the Lyme disease, bacteria, bacterium has long been endemic.

And basically way, way, way, way before, this possible bio weapon created it. It's an ancient is titled ancient history of Lyme disease in North America, revealed with bacterial genomes. they found that the Lyme disease bacterium is ancient in North America circulating silently in forests for at least 60,000 years.

Long before the disease was first described in the lime Connecticut in 1976 and long before the arrival of humans. And they're basically saying as climate is changing, as the bacterium is evolving a tiny bit and as forests are being fragmented and the population explosion of deer in the last century has created optimal conditions for the spread of ticks and triggered this ongoing epidemic. So.

But I, then I went, fell down a bit of a, a bit of a rabbit hole, and read up on this specific conspiracy theory and lo and behold, I'm just going to make sure we're still recording here. Yes, we are. Lo and behold, it's from RFK junior, this guy, man. all right. So it says here in recent weeks, Robert F. Kennedy junior has been on a whirlwind tour, attempting to convince the public and the Senate that he is right for the job of.

Secretary of Health and Human Services. think he already got it. This is January 24th. This article is written. However, Kennedy's embrace of nutty medical misinformation and conspiracy theories combined with his empty resume, ouch, makes it clear that he is utterly unqualified to run HHS and would be an unmitigated disaster for American health care. The American health care is already a disaster. So I don't know if him adding to it is necessarily a

going to make a huge difference. I mean, I do like the fact that he's trying to get people off of processed food and those crazy colored dyes that are in kids' cereals and whatnot. So there are some things, some conspiracy theories are right. know, some conspiracy theorists can be right about other things. so it says here, one of his lesser known conspiracy theories involves a wildly, wildly outlandish set of beliefs surrounding Lyme disease.

He's claimed that the tick-borne illness is a military bio weapon and blamed vaccine research for creating the disease. There is still no vaccine for Lyme disease. There isn't dogs in part due to the same misinformation pushed by Kennedy about vaccines supposedly causing the illness. And that goes on to talk about how serious the disease is, how often, how many people in North America get, I think it's just the U.S. get it. 500,000 people.

every year, most of them in New England, et cetera, et cetera. then so Kennedy spread a conspiracy theory claiming that it was highly likely air quotes that Lyme disease was a military bio weapon. He has a podcast apparently, and during an episode of his podcast, he launched into a tirade about the disease supposedly being a bio weapon. Should politicians be allowed to have podcasts?

or, or can they maybe if they do, they can only talk about like their job and things that are happening in their community. I don't know. Like I don't want my, I don't want, I mean, it's not mine. No, I'm a Canadian, but I don't want a Canadian politician having a podcast and talking about stuff that's not proven. because you know, now he's the health czar, whatever the heck the, the position is. I don't want to flip to the other page. It's too much work.

But whatever that, know, he's now got a sort of stamp of approval or some legitimacy because of his title. And if he starts launching into a tirade about this unconfirmed theory, for lack of a better word, people are gonna naturally, some people are gonna naturally listen to him. So I think there comes a point where you just need to shut up. Close your mouth, do your job.

Uh, when it comes to, uh, elected officials, things like that. Um, and don't tweet president Trump, premier Trump, as I called him on one of my Instagram, uh, videos recently, um, premier Trump stop, uh, you're to be Canada's whatever province, uh, province and territory. Shoot. I should know that I'm not going to list them off. Uh, dad will help me. man, that's bad. I don't, I don't know that. Um, but anyways, uh, 12, the 12th.

I think it's 12. That's, that's my guess. See, see 12 final answer. it's probably not 12. Anyways, yeah, they should just, yeah, it's going to be a problem anyway. So it's not a bio weapon. it's been around for much, much longer. and I won't go into whole game of function and gain of function. And, you know, did it make it worse? I don't know. Probably not. who knows? Anyways, I'm way out of my, way out of my league here. And mind you that rarely.

rarely stops me. we, we, have these, I have these Google reviews from other clinics in the US. I had, had a couple that I wanted to read because they're hilarious and how ridiculous they are. like one, one star and the things that people are complaining about are so stupid. the tooth and I'm not going to talk about them, but the two things I didn't want to talk about were some, some complaints that I've had at my clinic. and to that, that sort of stick.

stick in mind. And one of them is a recent case. And this is why I get bad Google reviews because I speak my mind, which I'll get into another time. this was we I've been talking a lot about bladder stones lately, right and how we've seen a lot of cases of animals with bladder stones. And we these guys, I don't they haven't done a Google review that I'm aware of again, I don't I don't even look anymore. Apparently, we're getting a lot of five stars recently. But

they're definitely a little annoyed with me and I'll let you guys decide if they should be or not. I hope the answer is no. but please let me know. so this was, this was a case. It was a non-client and they'd come to me, I don't know, six weeks ago. and their dog, their dog had signs of severe UTI, blood in the urine, discomfort, et cetera, et cetera. Lo and behold, we did X-rays a ton of stones.

Not the one that had a thousand two hundred stones had a lot of stones and so we had squeezed these these people in like we were booked solid They weren't happy with their clinic Previously and their clinic couldn't see them so they're happy that we were able to squeeze them in and And that's part of the story later on so I'm gonna get back to that So we ended up doing surgery the dog did great took out all the stones, etc, etc, etc And about a month later they come in with their other animal and their other dog is feeling sick

and though not really showing signs of UTI, there's some things on the physical exam that worry me. And, it had a history of stones where it had bladder surgery years ago. So I said, you know what, just to be safe, this could be causing the problem. It's not your standard sort of, presentation, but let me do an X-ray. It was again, near the end of the night, we rushed it through, got the X-ray done. Dogs got stones. And then.

The problem happened. Now the problem wasn't related to the direct care. Basically there was a miscommunication with them and my staff and we ended up administering an antibiotic to the wrong patient. Big mistake, right? Now this is a mistake that no harm, no foul. The animal ended up needing that injection anyways, but at the time my team didn't know that.

And they had mistaken which dog they were dealing with. And the problem is, so the, the, family got upset, understandably, totally reasonable that they got upset. So we talked about it and, know, I assured them that everything's going to be okay. The animals did great and talked to my team. was a simple misunderstanding. I won't get into the boring details, but it was a mistake that anyone could have made. and it was a mistake.

misunderstanding on both parties. And that's where sort of, I, maybe I annoyed them a little bit because as we were talking and, and, and I explained what happened and they accepted our apology and they're happy that their pet's going to be fine. And that's the most important thing. They kept taking shots at my team. Like they kept making comments that started to become just, just too repetitive.

And you know what, say, hey, yeah, they screwed up. it once. Don't say you accept the apology and then go back and do it. Say that thing again. And I don't mean to be cagey, but whatever I'm going to be. And it got to the point where I said to them, and I'm pretty much verbatim here. said, look, with all due respect, Mr. Mrs. Smith, that's not their name. With all due respect,

We've accepted and you've accepted that this was a miscommunication. Well, miscommunication takes two parties. We misspoke, you misheard us, you misspoke and we misheard you. All those things happened. Everybody's involved in this miscommunication. So can we just like move on? And then they said, okay, we accept that. We accept your apology. Not that I really gave it that time, but we accept your apology.

What we expect from now on though is we don't want to hear from your staff anymore over the phone. We only want to deal with you directly. Well, that's not going to happen. And I said, well, I appreciate that. But first of all, there's no, there's nothing saying that miscommunications don't happen when I'm the one making the call. First of all, it probably happened more often. to be honest with you, I said, you know, I can, I can miss.

I can misunderstand clients. They can misunderstand me. So it has nothing to do with this being veterinarian or technician or front desk staff. Mistakes happen, miscommunications happen. I said, and the reality is I don't have time to be making all these phone calls. I rely on my team. I trust my team. They're highly trained. They kind of kept going on and on about maybe they need more training. Maybe they're not trained enough. Maybe they're not good enough at their job. That's sort of when I had spoken up. I said, they're highly trained.

you can be as trained as you can be. Things can happen because these miscommunications take two people. I said, the reality is, if you remember six weeks ago, we squeezed you in. We saw you when we were booked. We saw you when your clinic wasn't able to see you and a lot of other clinics weren't able to see you. And the only reason we're able to do that and I'm able to do the surgeries and a lot of the appointments that I do is because I have this amazing team and because they take so much work off my backs.

work that they are totally capable of doing. So if I do what you're asking and I can't do it just for you, I got to do it for everybody. I'm not going to be able to see as many patients and that's just wrong. You know, again, think back to six weeks ago. Well, so they kind of accepted it and, and okay, yeah, we get where you're coming from and et cetera, et cetera. But I think they've left.

I think they've asked that the records be transferred to a third clinic. Now. I haven't really followed up. I know they're due for a, like a followup exam and some tests soon. So then I'll know. But again, I don't have the minutia of time to, to go and, and, and, Hey, whatever happened with so-and-so, are they still mad at me? Cause their adly is, is although I was a little assertive, you know, I, I,

feel good about what I said. And if I follow up on everybody, pardon me, and find out that they have left, is it gonna change my personality or the way I communicate? Probably not because as my son once said, Brandon, the reason you get these slightly higher, more frequent bad reviews than other clinics is because.

you're old enough, you've been at this business long enough and you just don't care so you speak your mind. I don't know if I'm old. I've definitely been at my business long enough. But the reality is I do speak my mind and I've always been like that. And I don't think I was inappropriate. Maybe the way I said it was inappropriate, but I don't think so. I'd like to hear from you guys. So there's that. And then the other one was a funny case. And this was tied into one of the Google reviews, but I'm just gonna say it.

So this was years ago, was two or three years ago. And might've been just after the pandemic and some clinics still weren't seeing people in the clinic, like there was drop off your pet. But that's not the situation here it was. So again, a non-client, they were in-laws, I think of a client of ours, really good client. And their puppy, their Leenberger puppy, which is like this.

big fluffy kind of St. Bernard kind of dog. This Arctic breed, guess you can call them, winter breed dog, had come in. They called us, hey, our sister-in-law, whoever recommended they go see you, they love you. Our vet can't see us. Our puppy has eaten. It was either raisins or chocolate. I can't remember. One of those two. And they gave us the amount where like, that's, this was probably chocolate because raisins is not a dosage issue.

Um, I was like, yeah, that's a big problem. need to bring your dog right in here. It's been a couple hours. Okay. Get in here right now. We need to induce vomiting. So the husband brings in the dog. We have them sign the estimate. That's not where the problem is. Uh, say, look, this is what we're going to do. We're going to put in a catheter. We're going to do vomiting. He's going to puke up everything. Hopefully as long as it's within the right amount of time. And if everything looks good, then he'll be home in a few hours and you know, not worse for wear and everything went great.

and the dog did throw up a crap ton of chocolate as well as probably some other things as always is the case. And we, you know, as I was reviewing things with the husband and we're half of it was just chit chatting. I was like, look, there's no real medicine to go home. Maybe some probiotics or something to stop some possible diarrhea that's going to happen. but he does have a bandage over his arm, where we put the catheter. So.

where we shaved the arm, if you could take off the bandage, in five minutes, cause he's probably a little bruised up. And the guy went, wait, what would you do to the arm? I was like, well, we put in a catheter. it's not, not her. It's just a bandage. Did you shave the arm? was like, yeah. no. My mom, my wife's going to be so angry. She's going to kill me. And I'm like, what are you talking about? It's like, you can't, you can't shave these, this type of dog.

there else the fur doesn't grow back for like a year and the dog has a, he's going to be in shows in a couple of months. I was like, I didn't know that. Like they, can't grow their fur back. And he's like, yeah, something about the, the breed and double coated and this and that. I was like, I mean, I didn't know it would have made a difference. The reality is, is we needed to put in a catheter. This was an urgent situation. And, and so he was really, he was really frightened. He was really frightened of his wife.

that she was going to be so mad. I said, look, let me talk to her. I'm sure. I'm sure we'll be able to sort this all out. and that's generally the case. you know, I go into these possible conflicts. I have learned over the years that 99 % of the time, people are very reasonable and things work out. just, you just explained it in the situation and, well, she, she, this did not go well. She was very angry. she was furious and,

Could you do that? And you should have known and you should have gotten permission. I was like, well, you know, we told your husband what we were doing that we were putting a catheter and full honesty, I didn't tell him we were shaving. I kind of assumed I would assumed he would have known. I certainly had no idea. Well, he doesn't know. He doesn't know what he's talking about. And if this was me, I would have told you to put in a catheter without shaving. And I said, well, if that was you.

We wouldn't have been able to save your dog because I would not have done that. puppies can be difficult to put catheters in. It's not clean to do it that way. It's hard to keep the tape on if they've got fur. she's like, well, I just, you know, I just can't believe this. He's not going to be able to go into the show. And then, and then my sort of asserted, no nonsense, assertive, no nonsense attitude came out. And I basically said along the lines of it was many years ago. can't remember. said, I'm sorry. I don't.

See what the problem is here. If we hadn't saved your dog, you wouldn't have to worry about a shaving the arm and a show ring because he wouldn't be alive. He swallowed so much chocolate. We had to get a catheter in and we weren't going to do it without shaving. And this is, this is ridiculous. Like I honestly thought you would have been just appreciative that we helped you guys out. and she didn't really like my, my.

my attitude, um, and the dog had already gone home and the dog did great. called him a little hamburger, um, because of his breed name, Leon burgers. So a little hamburger did great. And, uh, and then we got a call from the, clients and they were so embarrassed and they were so appalled and apologetic. And I said, you know what? We really appreciate you sending them our way and you putting your trust in us.

And the important thing is hamburger's doing well. And I get it. She, you know, was very emotional. She was worried about her dog. So, you know, she probably wasn't a hundred percent thinking straight. But I said, if it's okay with you, I think we're going to close the file. And if something like this happens again, they need to find another emergency hospital that can squeeze them in because, I can't, I can't deal with this situation. She's like, yeah, I totally get it. And are we still allowed to come?

course she's still allowed to come. love you guys. just, you know, maybe not her. now I probably would have ended up seeing her again and there would have been some communications and I would have said, Hey, we got to shave the arm. take it or leave it kind of thing. But, they never, they never called again and, and, and they probably don't need to, they, go to the regular clinic, but, I don't know. I don't, I don't think I was inappropriate. we did a good job. We saved that dog's life.

it was pretty, was pretty strange. and that if you guys are listening, hamburger's owners, I hope hamburger is doing great. And, I hope I know the fur eventually will have grown back. I'm sorry. I did not realize it would take, take a year. I still would have proceeded the way I would have proceeded. I just would have communicated a little bit differently. So this miscommunication, which takes more than one person to do, wouldn't have happened, but either way, hamburger is doing great. So in the end, I'm going to wrap this up.

Be nice your veterinarian. Don't post post Google review, one-star Google reviews. at least reach out to your clinic, try and get, if you have a concern, bring it up and have a conversation. And if you're not happy with, with the answer, if they treat you rudely, when you, when you bring up your, your complaints and that's okay that you have complaints, not okay if they treat you rudely, then go ahead and post the one-star Google review. but, try not to make a habit of it.

These are people's businesses and unless they're corporate owned, which it's still not okay, but you know, it's less not okay in my opinion. Tell me how you really feel about corporate clinics, Dr. Cliff. Actually, I think they're fine. I understand why veterinarians sell to them. But like any business, you know, if there's a lot of problems with customer or patient service for our industry, it needs to be fixed. Anyways.

Be kind to your vet, be kind to each other, be kind to yourself, be kind to animals. Thank you for listening. This is our 51st episode and everyone way down in Oceania in Malaysia or Yogyakarta, Indonesia or wherever else some other name I can think of. I got to go check out my globe. Thank you guys for listening and sorry for the mix ups with the audio, but hopefully it all worked out. All right. Cheers guys.