Updates, listener emails, Robots helping you adopt a pet, and a cat with how many legs???

In this episode of VET Life with Dr. Cliff, the host shares personal updates, including the release of his film and experiences with wildlife rescue. He addresses listener emails, providing veterinary advice on pet health, nutrition, and behavior. The conversation also covers the importance of addressing pet obesity and the role of owner awareness. Additionally, Dr. Cliff discusses innovative tools for pet adoption and shares unique animal stories, concluding with a reminder to be kind to animals and each other.

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 (00:11)

Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of Dr. Cliff's. No, that's not right. Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of VET life with Dr. Cliff. I'm going to leave this in. I'm not going to edit it out. We got a fun, I think it's going to be a fun episode today. I do have to warn you, we do not have a guest today. I've had some amazing guests the last few weeks. I decided to take a break. And to be honest with you, this week has been, this weekend has been too crazy.

for me to book anything and be able to commit time. Why has it been crazy? You did not ask. Well, I'm going to tell you anyways. For those who don't know my film, our film, Diego's and Mine, Surf Dog Productions, our film dropped. It landed on TV in Ontario on the TVO documentary channel, Channel 2. This was Friday, nope, Saturday evening at 8 p.m.

A bunch of us got together at the Rouge River Brewery and had a little watch party. bunch of us, it was 12 of us, but it was actually a really good group. Some clients, Diego, my lovely wife, of course, ⁓ a few friends. And we were able to, a lot of them had seen it. Some of them hadn't, but it was kind of like we were able to, ⁓ Diego and I were able to tell stories, you know, while it was on ⁓ and afterwards as well.

It was nice. hadn't seen it on in a while and Diego hadn't seen it in a while. And, and to be honest, we forgot how good it was. Now, if you didn't see it, ⁓ and I don't know how many people saw it. I certainly did some major media, ⁓ prior to I was on the good stuff with Mary Berg. And we talked about it. I was on the social with Melissa and miss Bain, were the hosts. so we talked about that as well. So thank you very much Bell media for helping me push that.

As well as Bell Media, we were on a couple of days before on your morning with Anne Marie. Marie Anne, I got to check. ⁓ Anyways, and then obviously the morning show, we were on the morning show talking about that. And then probably what got me the most sort of comments or people reaching out to me was ⁓ I had a one hour interview with Amanda on CBC Ontario Today. ⁓

couple of days ago. So it was from 12 until one o'clock in the afternoon. And people called in and talked about their wildlife rescue stories. This one woman called in she she talked about how she rescued a bullfrog that was out on the frozen lake up by blue blue mountain. So I don't know if it was Georgian Bay or, or whatnot, or just some smaller lake. But she talked about how she kind of crawled out and

Obviously was worried that the ice was going to break, which it did not cause she was able to call in. So she was fine. ⁓ but the, ⁓ the, the frog was near frozen. So she took it home and realizing she's going to need to keep it for the winter time until things warm up. She, ⁓ left the frog at the house to warm up and went and picked up some supplies and aquarium stuff like that. And she came back and she came back to finding her cat licking its lips, licking its chompers.

Yeah, the cat had eaten the frog popsicle. So, uh, the moral of the story, we are talking about the moral of the story. And I decided to do my best dad joke and said, uh, moral of the story is, if you put a cat and a frozen frog together, then the frog is likely going to croak. Ribbit, ribbit, uh, crickets anyways. Uh, and then what else? Oh, I was on the Toronto miked podcast, um, as well.

And, so was great. So we had a lot of, a lot of press and then now for those of you who have not seen it, ⁓ it is still available and it will be available for quite some time on the TVO documentary YouTube channel. You can either just Google on YouTube. should say this is just for my Canadian listeners. ⁓ it is, what's it called? Geocache. Geo it's it's blocked basically if you're outside of Canada. So unless you have one of those VPN thingamajigs.

You're stuck. can't watch it yet. we are, we are talking to other broadcasters, ⁓ in other countries in the U S and in Europe, ⁓ that are looking to buy it. ⁓ and hello to my friends from Thailand. ⁓ Thailand has bought the film as well. So, that's exciting. anyway, so you can, you can Google that, TVO docs, YouTube, and just look for Dr. Cliff worldwide bet or easier. Just find the link on.

the little summary page of this episode and probably all the episodes coming up from now until eternity. ⁓ or at least the three years until the exclusivity exclusivity runs out. So I've basically been spending the weekend, ⁓ pushing this, pushing this channel and doing a bunch of marketing and whatnot. ⁓ but what else did we do? ⁓ we got to, so an episode of two or go, I had my friend Sarah on for her first ever.

highs and lows with Sarah Lowe segment. And we talked about facing your fears. And if something makes you uncomfortable and you're a little bit nervous about it, maybe, maybe that's a sign that you should actually do it. Well, we were able to, uh, encourage my stepson, Dimitri, um, who is 19 now. He just turned 19 a week ago. Happy birthday. A little late there, Dimitri, but we celebrated. Uh, he turned 19.

And, ⁓ he, we, we, we just dropped him off at the airport a couple hours ago. He is on his way to the beautiful country of Greece. ⁓ now Dimitri is fluent in Greek, least conversational fluent. ⁓ but he spoke Greek before he spoke English. He went to kindergarten, not speaking English, ⁓ because his parents spoke Greek and now he's obviously fluent in English. ⁓ but with 19 and a tall handsome.

young man and speaking both languages and having the summer off and no ties here. Plus having a server and ⁓ like banquet hall type experience. He's getting a job at a beach bar ⁓ in Athens. In fact, there's a couple of places that are wanting to hire him. So, but he was nervous about it. You know, even though he's going to be staying with his grandmother, he's got a place to stay there. He's obviously nervous and,

He was getting cold feet there for a while, but we were able to get him to face his fears. I literally talked to him about what Sarah had mentioned and the nervousness turned to extreme excitement. So he should be taking off on their flight any minute now. Of course, it's Sunday. Pardon me, it's Monday. It's holiday Monday while I record this. You guys won't be listening to this for a few days.

⁓ now one other thing that happened this weekend is, it's a sad story. I discovered that Bo, the little German shepherd corgi, ⁓ Arctic rez dog cross that we have now rescued. ⁓ and he is a part of a family. So Bo Redford Choochoo Blee is his last name Redford Choochoo Blee. ⁓ cause both of his parents, both of us own him or take care of him. We don't own him. We parent him.

⁓ anyways, I was reminded today that he is, ⁓ in a, in a, ⁓ gross zoas. is a, ⁓ Agrizoa, a gross zoa. He's a wild animal, ⁓ or at least half wild animal. And I know this because I was mowing the lawn and I saw him chewing on something and I thought, okay, it's probably one those pine cones that, that we have in our backyard that he would like to, he always likes to chew on.

But as I got closer, I noticed it had a tail. And as I got closer and got him to spit it out briefly, I noticed it was a no longer alive baby bunny. Um, so, uh, I was, I was for a brief second grossed out and then mortified and just accepting the fact that these things happen. And so I shoot them out of the backyard and now I've got it. I'm to go through the backyard yard and see if I can find the nest.

⁓ and then protect it, but, ⁓ I'm sorry to say that he is a wild animal and I was not able to save the little buddy rabbit, ⁓ because it is inside my dog. yes, he ate the whole thing. So there you go. That's, that's how, the weekend, the long weekend has been going here. So today we are going to go over some, ⁓ cool, ⁓ listener emails. We've got a few of them and I encourage all of you guys.

To reach out to me dr.redford at vet905.com or you can find me on Instagram at drcliff, drcliff, worldwide vet. Again, just check your little summary thing of this episode and it'll get you to reach out to me and you can ask me for free veterinarian advice. You can ⁓ simply ⁓ correct me or tell me if you think I suck or ⁓ whatever.

But I don't really know how to read the podcast reviews, which we're getting more and more. I thank you for those. ⁓ I prefer to thank the people who are giving me good reviews. The people that giving me bad reviews. I don't know. Just, ⁓ I don't know why you would do it. Like, why do you do that? Why do you just go out of your way to say this guy sucks? But anyways, reach out to me about anything. Maybe you need a relationship advice. I'm probably not the best, but I'm happy to give it a try. And then we'll go over some interesting stuff in the veterinarian world.

And then drum roll the, ⁓ stay tuned for the end because, ⁓ we got a pretty amazing story, presented to me from the host of the segment. Dad knows best. is right. My father, Ross Redford, ⁓ definitely wins the award this week for the most interesting news article that he sent me. And, it is not about me. Don't worry. ⁓ all right. So we're just going to do this casually. Let's see what's going on.

⁓ I'm going to see if this works. If we exit this and go into my email. Yeah. I've got a little podcast section set up. anytime people send me stuff, interesting stuff, I, I go from there. ⁓ the first one we're going to do is we're going to do this, ⁓ this message that was brought to us. this person had reached out to me. Not directly to the podcast to be, to be honest with you.

⁓ they reached out to me regarding, or they reached out to me to the drcliff.ca website. I guess they just Googled me, but this person's name is Axel. ⁓ phone number, area code 604. Where is that? Where is that? no. I'm sure my dad will tell me. ⁓ and it was basically, ⁓ the subject line is allergies and stay calm behavior. And,

He was like, we have a Yorkie cross and she seems to be scratching quite a lot, far more than in the past. We saw the social today and mentioned, you mentioned something to put on the food. What was it? ⁓ yes. So Axel, I was on the social, ⁓ and I apologize for taking so long to get back to you. I've emailed you the answer, but,

We, ⁓ we talked about omega fatty acids. we're, was on the social and we were talking about the TV show, but we're also talking about like spring health tips for your pets. And we talked about all kinds of different things, but in this situation, we were talking about allergies. And the big thing with allergies is, ⁓ like the really severe cases need prescription medication. And there's a handful of things that can be given. you could talk to your veterinarian about an injection called Cytopoint, which is a monoclonal antibody against itchy.

chemicals that your body creates. Um, and then there's also a pill form, which is more like an antihistamine, except it actually works. Human antihistamines work 25 % of the times in dogs with allergies. And of those 25 % of the time, it is a 90 % very, uh, uh, not enjoyable, not enjoyable is the right word. Uh, very, uh, uh, underwhelming, let's say. So 90 % of 25 % is 22.5%.

Therefore only 2.5 % of the time they do my math rate dad only 2.5 % of the time are people actually, uh, excited by the change. So basically it's, not worth it, but this is kind of an antihistamine called APA quell, um, that works very, very well as well. It doesn't have the side effects that corticosteroids has. Um, and then you can do like actual allergy injections for the really severe cases. But the thing with the mega fatty acids is, and I, I have my clients. Start at.

year round. ⁓ It takes a bit of time to kick in, weeks to kick in, and it basically returns some of the healthy oils and maintains healthy oils in your pet's fur. ⁓ It also has some anti-itch properties. And probably one of the most biggest benefits is it reduces, it doesn't stop it, but it reduces the risk of

secondary bacterial and fungal infections of the skin. And that's what we really worry about when it comes to allergies, to seasonal or airborne allergies, we should call it. So they breathe in these pollens and dusts and ragweed and birch barks and all these different things, molds. That's a big problem right now as the leaves, if you didn't rake up your lawn properly, the leaves are all moldy from the wintertime.

And, ⁓ so basically instead of getting itchy eyes and sneezing and itchy sinuses, like we get the inflammatory chemicals that are produced result in itchy skin, primarily the sort of lower half of the body. the, the lower half of the chest under the arms, the thighs, like the inner groin area, and then the feet, especially it can be elsewhere, but those are the big, the big components or the big areas that get affected.

And omega fatty acids do reduce those secondary infections that can occur from all the scratching and all the inflammation that happens. But omega fatty acids should be given, I recommend, especially in senior animals year round. ⁓ And unless they're on like a high salmon based food, there's not going to be enough omega fatty acids to really benefit the way we can see that they can benefit. ⁓ And they, one of things they'll do is they reduce cancer risk.

They reduce symptoms of arthritis. They reduce, uh, kidney dysfunction disorders. They improve the kidney function. They're good for the heart. So they're good for a lot of different reasons. So do not get a human, uh, like a human based or a human, human based, uh, squeezing people with, you know, their oily skin and squeezing the oil out of their skin and using that. Don't use products designed for people.

⁓ the omega three to omega six ratio, which I don't remember what that ratio is supposed to be, but the ratio is a little bit different in dogs as far as the maximum benefit as it is in people. So just go to your pet supply store. ⁓ and they'll have various omega fatty acids or speak to your veterinarian, but generally it's not a prescription product. And if you see your vet regularly, they'll usually dispense it over the counter. I hope so. hope I'm not getting myself in trouble. If I am who cares? ⁓

vets generally don't listen to this podcast anyways. ⁓ so that was it. Now they also asked, Axel also asked about, ⁓ they're having a hard time getting his, his or her, the Yorkie crosses is reluctant to come when called as if she has other ideas. is there anything that can help? ⁓ and unfortunately I had to say, you know, training issues are difficult to.

to solve or to give advice to the email like this. any dog trainers, behaviors out there will know that every single dog is a little bit different. The scenario is a little bit different. So you really need to speak to someone who can talk to you about the specific, uh, uh, components of the issue that you're having. Um, and then help you. It's more of a human training than dog training. Help you train you to train your dog. Um, but mega fatty asses, they won't help with the training issue, but they'll definitely help with the skin.

So I recommend that for everybody. Alrighty. So some other stuff we got straight out of the Veterinary Practice News Magazine. ⁓ Using microbiome friendly treatments to stop diarrhea in its tracks. A puppy's digestive system is still developing and has to adapt and go through many changes.

to be able to digest solid food. ⁓ Yeah, that's true. So I'm just going to kind of read out about this here. The person who wrote this works for the Lions Foundation of Canada dog guides. And in those situations, they breed dogs specifically for ⁓ various assistants with various disabilities for Canadians with disabilities. And they start these puppies off when they're quite young. In fact, a lot of them are bred specifically for this.

Now, if they fail the test, they end up going and being adopted by a family and they're a wonderful regular dog and that's fine. ⁓ but, ⁓ they talk about, you know, all the things they look into, they can help. these, these, these service dogs can help. They're trained for different disabilities, including vision, hearing, seizure response, service animal, autism assistance, diabetic alert, or facility support.

⁓ and then it goes on to talk about diarrhea and how common it is, especially for young puppies. about 40 % of them at the dog guides experience diarrhea. That's about, that's about accurate for, think any sort of, ⁓ any sort of group of puppy populations. So there's nothing wrong with that. ⁓ and part of the issue is yes, there's parasites, et cetera, et cetera. But the big issue is these puppies don't have a healthy gut bacteria built up yet.

They might be full of poop, but the poop isn't healthy enough yet. ⁓ And so they can easily get diarrhea from the slightest change in bacteria, something that they grab, even stress. Stress can cause what we call a stress colitis. ⁓ So yes, it's very frustrating. It could cause sleep deprivation for the pet owners, dehydration, et cetera, et cetera. ⁓ And in the past, we used to prescribe an antibiotic called metronidazone.

And metronidazole would kind of, I'm simplifying things here. So for the vet nerds out there, don't correct me or do send me an email and I'll read it online. I'll read it on the podcast. but it essentially kills the bad bugs, but lets the good bugs regrow and it has an anti-inflammatory property. And that's what diarrhea often is. It's the inflammation and the body is saying there's some evil in here. I got to get it out fast and I'm going to poop it out the backend.

to damn with your fancy, fancy carpets ⁓ or porous, porous marble floors. Is marble porous? I don't think so. Just the, just the stuff in between the grout can be porous if they don't, they don't treat it or do it properly. ⁓ Anyways, so we have learned we meaning me and my clinic and a lot of other older vets have learned that the problem with metronidazole, if you over prescribe it, which most of us did, and some of us still do.

⁓ you can increase the risk of diarrhea issues in the future. So it almost makes their digestive system sensitive. So what we've been doing now is instead of doing what we used to call a three, five, 10 protocol, which is, three days special food, five days metronaut is all 10 days probiotics. go, unless it's severe cases, there's certain cases when there's blood, there's certain cases when there's extreme mucus, et cetera, et cetera. ⁓

We don't do that three, five, 10 protocol anymore. We basically put them on a food called biome and there's different versions. These are veterinarian prescription foods, but you only need it for like five days and something like 80 % of them improve within the first day and a half. ⁓ And that's what we've been seeing. So we've been able to stop using prescription medication and just use a special diet for a few days. Now.

You know, full circle. Let's talk about Bo again. The Bo, the bunny killer. ⁓ poor Bo, poor bunny, bad Bo, ⁓ not bad, but he didn't know. ⁓ but, he has a, he has a sensitive GI system and he's been on a puppy biome food. ⁓ since we adopted him a couple of months ago and anytime we try and take them off it and slowly wean him, ⁓ it becomes a projectile diarrhea. It's pretty disgusting.

⁓ obviously, ⁓ hope no one is bothered by this talk. ⁓ too bad. ⁓ anyway, so while there is a place for metronidazole and it's sort of sister drug Tylazen, it should be used a lot less than it was in the past. And hopefully veterinarians learned like we did. We were basically told by a student. ⁓ she was coming from a university of Edinburgh, out of Scotland. ⁓ and she was,

She was, she was saying, still prescribe metronidazole like this? And I was like, yeah, well why? And she's like, oh, let me show you the studies. And I'm humble enough. I'm not humble in most things. People will say I'm pigheaded and, and a bit of an egomaniac, which I don't know, maybe. Um, but I am humble enough to, to learn, uh, from non-veterinarians. It's something I've said before. So, um, if she is listening, thank you very much for giving us that advice.

We and our patients especially thank you. So basically this, ⁓ it's not really a study, but this report just was kind of reminding people not necessarily to prescribe metronidazole. So if your veterinarian does, you know, bring it up to say, Hey, is this something that can be treated just with a, with a special diet? And the special diet is basically digestible proteins and carbs. It's got a high fiber as well as some probiotics in it. ⁓ And it allows the dog to.

resolve quite quickly on its own. And if your veterinarian gets mad for you asking, then he or she is not a professional, in my opinion. Like you should be able to ask. Now, if you argue with them, that's a different story. If they say, no, that's a good point, except here's why we want in this scenario, then you need to hopefully you trust them and then obviously believe them and follow their recommendations. So that was

That was that. Let me turn this off. So yeah. you know, the moralist that story is, listen to your veterinarian students, sometimes veterinarians out there. ⁓ now let's talk about another article also from veterinary practice news. If I can get this to the role of this for information, misinformation, fake news in growing pet obesity rates.

Um, this is basically just people not realizing how fat their cat or dog is. And I'll be honest veterinarians, we, there comes a time where we start to get tired of talking about it and tired of the people arguing with us. And, and look guys, if I tell you that your dog is overweight, I'll never use the word fat. Uh, I generally won't even use obese unless they're, you people say, how, how heavy is he? Yeah, he's obese. Um, and obese means 50 % more than their.

their preferred body weight. That's significant. You know, if we assume I'm at my preferred body weight, which I'm probably not, but I'm 170 pounds, that is adding another 85 pounds to my frame. Let's say I'm supposed to be 160. So add another 70 to the 10 that I'm already over. Did I do the math right, dad? I'm 80 pounds over, so I'm 240 pounds. Like that's obese. I need someone to tell me if that's the case. So people take it personally and maybe it's our delivery.

⁓ I was going to say deliverance. Maybe it's our deliverance. was such a good movie. Maybe it's our delivery. but the, the reality is, is people, if you, if you tell them, even if you tell them politely, ⁓ and you're giving advice and you're there to help them take care of their pet, sometimes people take it personally as if you're telling them they're a bad pet parent. and that's not the case. I've had, I've had issues with.

sort of overfeeding my own pets, ⁓ and then had to cut back. So, and I'll tell them that. So maybe that, maybe that helps. But what I want to talk about this, like forget about the whole fake news, forget about the whole mystery information situation. ⁓ animals that are overweight are at risk for the same diseases that we are diabetes, osteoarthritis, cardiovascular disease, not really heart attacks, but just heart dysfunction. ⁓

They can have heart attacks, but it's pretty rare. ⁓ and diabetes, like people forget about diabetes. Cats and dogs can get diabetes. is so, so common. So, ⁓ too many so's therefore, ⁓ try and try and listen to your vet. What I do, I don't look at the weight. ⁓ I mean, I'll look at the weight as a, like a history, a trend, but I do what I call a hug test.

And basically I should be able to feel easily the last three ribs on my cat and my dog patients. ⁓ and also feel the tops of the spine without feeling the side of the spine. ⁓ if you say, yeah, I can feel the ribs. There's three of them only. Well, no, that's probably three rolls of fat. that was something my brother said once with his cat menu, which means little kitty in French.

⁓ menu was obese. Well, I don't know if menu was obese, but menu was definitely a chunky kitten. ⁓ but anyways, so give it the hug test and when in doubt, ask, ⁓ ask your veterinarian. but generally most dogs and cats are of a perfect body weight at about a year and a half. That's equal to when they're approximately 25 years old. We don't do the seven year per year thing anymore.

⁓ and wouldn't most of us want to weigh what we did when we were 25. Generally speaking. Yes. ⁓ maybe we were too thin, maybe we were too heavy at 25. Maybe we're in better shape now. Maybe you're not even 25 yet. The people listening to this who are younger, but generally 25 years old is a pretty good weight, pretty good metabolism. And so if you can see your dog has put on weight, your cat has put on weight, they should not be growing past a year and a half old, regardless of the breed.

⁓ so that's generally a good, a good indicator. ⁓ so that's the important thing about that is, ⁓ pet obesity is a real concern and can make a real difference with the animals, ⁓ animals health. what else we got here? So I wanted to talk to you about this little thing. I got an email from IAMS. It was like a wrap.

She doesn't know I'm talking about it. got to reach out to her and maybe we'll talk. Well, we will talk about it more at another podcast. ⁓ because I got to do some research, but it just intrigued me. So let's see what it says here. The title is create the perfect pet adoption pitch with this AI tool in quotes. I want to pop your kitten studios and quote. ⁓ so this is from Brittany.

And Brittany works, I guess she's for a marketing firm with Iams. ⁓ so I'm just going to read this email. Hi, Dr. Cliff. Hope you're well. Sharing below some fun pet related news with you in case it's a fit for your podcast. Have you ever dreamed of convincing a loved one to adopt a pet? Thanks to the Iams brand you're in for a treat. Well, I've never dreamed of convincing a loved one to adopt a pet. I just adopt it.

I'm an adult. I'm an adult now. I got my head on my shoulders. I got my feet on the ground. I am an adult now. who knows that song? ⁓ anyways, so we'll go on from elaborate slideshow presentations to songs and grand gestures. It's clear that prospective pet parents are willing to put in work to bring a new pet home. And today I am as makes this furry task easier through the magic of film. Ooh.

Today, the Iams brand is launching a new AI video tool that helps hopeful pet parents create high quality short films to convince loved ones it's time for a puppy or kitten. I think this is teenagers are gonna be using this. Can we have a dog, dad? Can we have a dog, dad? Can we have a dog, dad? Now they can just show this video. As one of the first companies to use Google's VO2 technology, the AI tool dubbed Iwantek Puppy Kitten Studios.

Make slideshows a thing of the past and helps Canadians create high quality personalized short films to convince someone in their life. is time to welcome a new puppy or kitten into their home. More details on I want a puppy kitten studios. Piloting in Canada before rolling out globally, the state of the art tool uses Google's VO2 technology to create stunning high quality films that look and feel real.

Users ⁓

trailer on my phone. Bear with me one second, everyone.

All right here we're going to try this out and with the power of riverside.fm the greatest podcast tool ever the power of editing doesn't sound like I was sitting around playing on my phone for two minutes because I was able to cut it out. All right let's see if you guys can ⁓ I'm going to make sure that you guys can hear this but here we go.

Wow. Like that guy's voice. Create your movie today. Very cool. ⁓ yeah, we're going to check this out. ⁓ and another podcast coming up and maybe Brittany, I'll get Brittany, I'll get you on the, ⁓ on the podcast and you can help push this thing. Sorry. It's taken me so long to get back to you guys, but, Hey, you know what? If, if someone, if a kid, if, if a kid's really wants a pet and they're willing to go through all this trouble.

of getting AI to do the work for them. ⁓ Then maybe they'll be able to talk to their parents into getting them a puppy or kitten. ⁓ I guess that's real possibility. But yeah, there you go. So thanks, Brittany, for sharing that. What do you guys think about that? Like, what do you guys think about sort of the use of AI and creating these videos and sort of...

harassing, we're gonna assume it's teenagers or kids harassing your loved ones, your parents into getting you a pet. Would this, I need to know, reach out to me, dr.redford at vet905.com. Would this make a difference? That you're not sure if little Jimmy is mature enough to take care of the pet. You know he wants it and then he shows you this video. But, and then geez, Iams is gonna have your data and then they're gonna get to try and sell you some food.

But I am as a good company. you know what? ⁓ you can always give it a try. Now the last one, you guys have been very patient listening for about 30 minutes. I hope you're still with me. We're going to talk about this last story now. and then that'll be it. It's a quick one. Don't worry. ⁓ so my father texted me out of the blue. Thanks dad. ⁓ I'm just going up cause we were talking about some get togethers and we're talking about our cholesterol and my cholesterol.

Which is super low by the way, which is awesome. Um, I don't know if I'd mentioned that, but yeah, I'm very excited. All these supplements. can have my buddy Igor on soon who helped me, uh, uh, lower my cholesterol without medication. am not anti drugs. Uh, but I do try and say no to drugs as, uh, Barbara Bush was it? No, it wasn't Barbara Bush. Was it Reagan? Nancy Reagan. She used to say, just say no to drugs. Just say no.

Um, I don't know if she was probably wasn't talking about, uh, prescribed stuff with your doctor, but either way, if you can lower your cholesterol and keep it low without medication, then that's, uh, that's great. Um, okay. So my dad texted me at the end of tonight's the national. CBC news, the last seven minutes, they had a segment about a six legged cat that needed amputation of two legs. Have you ever heard of this? Um, the news program repeats, you can catch it.

But I'm going to basically play you the video here, the audio of it, because I think it tells the story. And ⁓ let's go from there.

way to go poly. We normally call polydactyl cats poly. Polydactyl means many digits. Poly in Greek means many or very or more and dactyla or dactyla is ⁓ digit. So if you get cats with extra toes, they're called polydactyls and we often call them poly. But I guess this one would be polypodia, ⁓ many legs, podia.

podiatrist foot, it means leg in Greek. I know you guys probably don't care about Greek, but whatever, it's important to me and it's part of my vet life. So there you go. And it's good to know where these words come from. I found out, I was always having trouble remembering what the Greek word for chest was. It's ostithos or stithos. O is the article like the or a. So stithos. And I finally remembered it.

When I found out what the word for stethoscope is in Greek, is stethoscope. So this makes sense. Stethoscope, stethostetho chest. I never forget that word anymore. There you go. I'm helping you guys become multilingual. ⁓ so you learn a lot here at vet life with Dr. Cliff. So Polly, basically I'll, I'll throw up the video on my, ⁓ or the, the, ⁓ X-rays on my Instagram page. ⁓

The Polly's basically got two legs coming out of the sternum. and while they seem functioning, meaning Polly can move them a bit, they're not functional in that they can't hold any weight. They're actually kind of upside down. So the, the paw, pads are pointing upwards. ⁓ it's like this weird sort of set of wings almost.

that are there, but, ⁓ looking at the X-rays, think this is going be a very easy surgery to remove these limbs. ⁓ and no dad, I have not seen this in a cat. Now at university of Guelph, I was a student between, if you include my one undergrad, undergrad year, I got into vet school. Pardon me. I got in vet school after one year. ⁓ and then it was five years once I was there. So I kind of got out of there pretty quick. I was just a baby when I graduated at 24.

So I was thinking I was there from 92 to 98 approximately. ⁓ When I was there, they had ⁓ like skeletons and in the anatomy classes, right? And they had a two-legged or two-headed snake. A two-legged snake would be pretty interesting. They had a two-headed snake. ⁓ And, ⁓ but when I was there final year on large animal medicine rotation.

⁓ I was taking care of this calf that was probably three months old and this calf had spoiler alert, had an extra limb. Now that's not why he was at the hospital. It was at the hospital because I had an upper respiratory infection. It was all snotty nosed and sneezing and gross and whatnot. ⁓ but, so we would have these, we would have like families, like people of the public going through and we would be giving tours and we would introduce them to this, to this.

calf and talk about its upper spiritual infection. And then we would wait, we'd have these little fun bets about when someone was going to go, wait a minute, what the hell is that sticking out of its shoulder? ⁓ cause basically it had a, a, a front limb, a forelimb, which was much smaller sticking out from between its shoulder blades. ⁓ and then drooping over to the right side. And it basically looked like a tiny mutant limb.

And we were just like, oh, that's just his extra fifth limb. And they're like, what? And we'd explain it and da da. And then every once in a while, especially it was a farmer's kid, some kid would say, can you still eat that leg? Is it still good meat? And the reality is we're like, I guess, I don't think there's anything illegal. Like if this calf, I think it was a meat calf, I'm not sure, if this calf ends up going to slaughter eventually.

Even if it's a dairy cow, it'll eventually go to slaughter and, and might be used for meat for other things. ⁓ or for really bad hamburgers. don't know. they might actually use that, use that limb, but, ⁓ I ate meat meat at the time. I don't, I don't anymore. but, the reality is, is, is like, would, you could tickle its toes, tickle its little hoofs, its digits, ⁓ on, ⁓ on that.

fifth limb and it would like, like Twitch, it would act like you're it's getting tickled. So it definitely felt that it could move it around a little bit, but it wasn't bothering them. Whereas with Polly, these, these limbs are definitely bothering. ⁓ I'm going to assume her by the way they spelled it definitely bothering her. So that's it. So dad, no, I have not seen this and it sounds like this little cat's going to do great. And finding it a home is going to be pretty easy because people do love stories about rescues.

So I hope you guys enjoyed this. Please share it. Please like it. Please give me a good comment. Do all those things. Please send me in questions, email me and please, please, please watch the film. If you're in Canada, the link is on the summary page and that's it. Thanks for watching. Pardon me. Thank you for listening. Be kind to animals, be kind to each other, be kind to yourself.

And even be kind to the Toronto Maple Leafs when you see them on the golf course. What a horrible blow out that last game was. All right. Cheers guys. Bye.