Summary: Hi there this is Krista with episode number 114 On the wag out loud pawdcast, are you aware that Sundowners syndrome happens in our dogs too? Well, just like humans as our pups grow older, they experience various health issues including behavioral changes. sundowning in dogs is believed to be caused by age related issues such as the breakdown of the central nervous system, oxidative stress, and brain cell death. is your dog wandering, getting stuck, pacing or barking for no reason? More often in the evening or the nighttime? these could all signal sundowning in dogs. Welcome to the wag out loud podcast where we are obsessed with bringing you helpful tips on canine health care, nutrition, and overall well being. If you'd like to support the show. Check out the amazing online events, products and resources that I personally recommend on the Wag Out Loud website. I'm your host, Krista and I'm super excited to be bringing you yet another tail wagging episode. Hi there dog lovers, thank you so much for taking the time to listen in, and for your interest in your dog's health and wellness. Today, we are so honored to have Dr. Marty Greer with us. And she is going to chat about how has dog ownership changed in the era of COVID? And what can you do for your dog? Dr. Greer, thank you so much for spending time with us today. Why don't you introduce yourself and tell us why you wrote the book Your Pandemic Puppy? Sure. So I've been blessed with a career that I love. I've spent 39, almost 40 years crawling around the exam room floor with puppies with clients with just like I have the best job in the world. All day, I get to work with clients, I get to help them with their pets, I get to help them with managing their breeding programs. I just feel really blessed to have had so much fun with a career where I really do get to play with puppies every day and all day. So the inspiration from the book was sort of a multitude of different things that all coalesce. one was COVID started. So I had some time out of my schedule that I wasn't going to be traveling I normally am traveling quite a bit in the spring and the fall, and doing presentations. But because of COVID we were grounded. So we were home. And I realized at that point, I had a little extra time on my hands. I love to write. So I thought well, I'll just rewrite my exam room material. So I'll just write like a 20 page handout and it'll be good and I'll just get everybody up to speed on what's new with vaccinations and heartworm and flea and ticks and spaying and neutering and all that. So that the material I have in my exam rooms is fresh, but at the same time, I had clients and other people in my ear talking about how many people were staying home and how they were all trying to acquire a new puppy or a new kitten. And the concerns that many people in the industry had about how that's going to look when people started to return to work and to school, leaving their dogs alone when they'd been used to a year or more 100% of our clients of their owners being home with their pets. So we were really concerned about that. And we wanted to keep dogs from entering back into rescue back into Humane Society, and keep those dogs in the loving homes that had decided that during COVID, it was an appropriate time to get a new dog. Wow! thank you for doing that. Because yes, it is a thing. And I think all of us can agree that the past 14 months have been super challenging and downright difficult. But one of the positives and you mentioned it is that COVID puppies and rescues adoptions were up. I think it's 40% more than the year before. And with that, I think a lot of people have discovered that their dogs are even more amazing because they spent so much time with them, and have formed even stronger bonds. So what do you think we've learned about dogs as a part of the family unit during this crisis? Well, I think people have come to appreciate their dogs, they've enjoyed being home with them, the dogs have enjoyed having people home. What we did think was pretty funny is at the beginning, we were seeing dogs for things that we normally wouldn't have seen them for, it would have been typically that someone would maybe call or just take care of something themselves, like, My dog is now having four stools a day. And we'd say well, how many times a day are you walking them.? But we used to walk them once. But now I walk them in the morning before I start homeschooling the kids, and then we walk them. And pretty soon you realize that the dog is getting four walks a day. And of course the dog is going to have more opportunities. And yes, they are getting more attention. And yes, they're getting more snacks. And yes, they're getting more food, but they're also getting more exercise and they're getting more attention. So people are picking up on things like that things like lumps and bumps, things like their breath doesn’t smell good things that ordinarily would have kind of gone by the wayside. I think cats are kind of looking forward to people going back to work. They're like, really, you've been home long enough. And I really need to catch up on some sleep episodes that I've been missing out on so yeah, exactly Could you go? But what we also noticed was that we were seeing people that had never had a puppy or a dog before as an adult. So a lot of people had put off dog ownership. They have kids that are you know, in grade school, high school, and their kids were saying, Yeah, but mom, you promised us a dog all the time, and there's not a better time. So we started to see clients that had dogs as children that had never been responsible for selecting, raising and socializing an adult dog or dog to adulthood as an adult person. So it changed the dynamics of pet ownership, we had a lot of people coming in that really didn't know how to manage these dogs. And the other concern was making sure that we were managing them so that they didn't develop a separation anxiety when people went back to work so that they would be able to be crate trained. So that when they started going back to the grocery store, or work or school or whatever they happened to need to do the dentist, whatever, that the dogs were able to self soothe, were able to manage themselves at home, whether they were crated or left loose in the house or left in some confined area, that the dogs understood how to behave. And they were just comfortable in that setting. Because with people home 24 hours a day, or at least one person home all that time, the dogs were being raised in an environment that wasn't sustainable. That's absolutely right. And you alluded to it earlier, when you said we've been feeding more food and treats and I know that a lot of veterinarians are noticing increased rates of obesity and obesity was already an epidemic before COVID. And I think I read 30% of American dogs were overweight before the pandemic. So now with our quarantine 15 that I know a lot of us experienced. What do you say to people as far as how to check for the correct weight in their dogs? And what would what should we be doing to make sure that they're slim and trim? Sure. So you should be really careful that they're not eating any excessive amounts of food that you're basically feeding the same caloric intake as you were before. So that might mean a little bit less dog food if you're a little heavy on the stacks. The snacks can consist very comfortably of fresh fruits and vegetables with the exception of grapes and raisins which of course we know are toxic and onions and potatoes and corn which are kind of either starchy or potentially toxic. So we want to avoid those. But if your kids or if yourself you're looking at a snack and you're having you know fruit or vegetable that's a great opportunity for your dog to have that with you. You can cut back a little bit on their dog food and have up to 10% of their food be some other kind of snack like fruits and vegetables. And then of course the exercise. So if this time of year you'd like to go out and spend more time outside and spend more time walking, that's a great opportunity for your dog to start going out and Be with you. Now that the weather is nice, and in most parts of the country, it's warm, but not too warm, and it's rainy, but not too rainy. And it's just a really great chance for us to be outside with our dogs and get them used to that extra amount of exercise that they might have missed out on during the colder weather. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Can you describe what it looks like for us to actually check our dog's weight, I know the rib test, how do you actually do that? The rib test is a great one. And you you can do this really easily. Basically, what you want to do is take your own hand. And what you want to do is make a fist and feel the back of your hand, it's not your knuckles, but the back of your hand, you can feel those four bones. That's what your dog's rib cage should feel like. If it feels like the palm of your hand where it's in that little heel part of your hand where it's soft and squishy. That's a dog that's overweight, it feels like the back of your hand. That's where you can feel the ribs. That's ideal. But if it looks like you can see the same kind of protrusion as you would when you make a fist, and you look at your knuckles, that's too thin. So it's a really good tool for people to use, because it's something that they have right in front of them, they can feel it, they can see it, they can relate to it. So it's really handy. Now there are going to be differences from one breed to another. But unfortunately, even the most athletic dogs are frequently thought of as being too thin when they're at an ideal body weight because Americans have become accustomed to their dogs being a little on the soft and squishy side. So our dogs should be fit, they should be able to keep up with you on walks. and that type of thing runs of course, are a different story, you have to be really careful with running especially with really young puppies or exercising really young puppies too hard. But if your dog is fit, they should be able to keep up with you on walks. And in fact, you know, you walk probably too slowly for your dog to be really interested in a lot of the things that you're doing. Like when you're walking, the dog is trying to sniff over there and look over there and check this out. Check that out. So our pace can be a little bit boring. But don't keep your dog just right at your heel. right in that heeling position all the time that you're on a walk, the dog should have a chance to smell posts and check out the fire hydrants and sniff the neighbor's flowers and you know, kind of check things out so that they have some stimulation on the walk too. it's not just hardcore, put your nose down and March as fast as you can up and down the sidewalk. So the dog should have fun. And of course, if you have a place that's safe for the dog to go and be off leash, that's ideal. Not everybody's in that situation. And you have to be really careful with dog parks, some dog parks are safe. And some you have to be really aware of, especially if you have a young dog or a really small dog. Not every dog in the dog park is necessarily safe with your dogs. So just be really aware of that dog parks can be fun, but they aren't always completely safe. So be be thoughtful about it, you know, be smart about it. Just like go into the beach with broken glass, you've got to be really careful that it's always a safe place for you and your kids to be. That's a great recommendation. I think we all know that our dogs take on our stress. And of course, we have been super stressed the last year. So I just wanted to ask you, are you seeing more dogs coming in with anxiety or health issues related to all of the unease that we've had within our own families? You know, we've seen a little bit of it. But the other thing that we've seen is the some of the dogs that are coming through rescues have gotten off to a pretty rough start in life. And we are being more lenient with them. At this point, there are fewer people willing to euthanize for behavior than used to be. So we have to be really aware that some of our dogs are just high stress dogs that are going to need some kind of behavioral intervention. And I want people to feel really comfortable with the opportunity to use behaviorists and also the opportunity to use your vet for behavioral management drugs. And there's nothing wrong with admitting to your veterinarian or your behaviorist, that you're struggling with a behavioral issue, whether it's separation anxiety, or generalized anxiety, or whatever behavioral issue your dog might have. It might be thunderstorms, it might be some other kind of noise phobias. But a lot of dogs carry baggage with them. And we don't always know where they've come from, what their early life was, like, how they were socialized how they were raised, what their genetics are, because some of these dogs that are coming through rescues are randomly sourced and not purpose bred. So they tend to come with more baggage than some of our purpose bred dogs. Now that's a generalization and it certainly doesn't apply to every single dog but I do want people to be aware of this. And to not be embarrassed not to not be afraid to say I'm struggling with depression, anxiety. I'm struggling with noise anxiety. I need help with this. And don't be afraid to ask your veterinary professional for medications that are appropriate. It doesn't mean that you're weak doesn't mean your dog is weak. It just means that we have tools now that we didn't Always have, that we can use to make your dog's life much easier. So you know, the little Snoopy cartoon with pig pen with that little black cloud that, or Charlie Brown that kind of has that little black cloud that follows him around, take them with a little crowd of death, or dogs shouldn't go through life under this little black cloud, they should have a happy, wonderful life. And there are many veterinarians who are really skilled at this. There's actually an association of behavior of veterinarians, there are great behavioral training people, and there's so much happier, and there's so much easier to live with and you should enjoy living with your dog, it shouldn't be a struggle. And people really don't want to get rid of the dogs that they've brought into rescue. They really want help. So don't hesitate to ask and if your veterinarians not familiar with it, look online. Like I said, there's an American Association of veterinary behavior, veterinarians that you can look up, there are people in your area that you can very comfortably contact and get some help with and some of these are even able to do telemedicine consults, not all of them. But some are able to do telemedicine consults. And what's cool about that is through the wonders of cell phones, see your dog in its own environment, see how things are looking in their life and help you sometimes even with a long distance, recommendation for how you can do things to make your dog's life much more comfortable and much more enjoyable. That's great advice. And I know that myself, I'm a believer in integrative approaches as are a lot of our listeners. So there are so many different treatments and modalities that we can look at to help our dogs with behavioral issues as well. And you mentioned telemedicine, so I want to go back. First of all, give a shout out to all the veterinarians and their teams for stepping up to care for our pets during the pandemic. Wow, you guys shifted I mean, I sat in the parking lot. You know, you guys had to come out, get my dog take him in. It was a whole different experience and telemedicine was available as an option. What do you think we're gonna see in the future? I know a lot of facilities practices are still doing the wait in the parking lot routine. Is that going to continue? Do you think we'll see more telemedicine calls? Oh, I think there's definitely going to be an increase in telemedicine because there are absolutely things that we can do better through telemedicine that we can hands on in the exam room, like I said, seeing their behavior, witnessing certain types of things like seizures, it's so much easier to do through telemedicine than trying to capture an event when you can't replicate it in the exam room. So I definitely think telemedicine is here to stay. the states are struggling. Each state has got their own set of laws on how telemedicine works for veterinarians. And they're all struggling with how to make it work so that it's safe and that we have a valid veterinary client patient relationship and the veterinarian that you're seeing has the ability to make recommendations, medical and others for your pet. So I definitely think telemedicine is here to stay. There are many platforms that have been developed in the last few years making video conferencing with your veterinarian a real thing. Some of them are allowing the veterinarians to charge for their time, which is really appropriate. If you're spending 30 minutes with a veterinarian, they should be monetized they should be paid for their experience and their expertise. So I think it's a great thing. In our personal practice, we only let one person into the exam room at a time since the start of COVID. We did not ever shut down completely but many veterinary clinics have and certainly if you have a doctor or team members that are immunocompromised, that might have to stay in existence for a while. We know there are plenty of veterinarians and veterinary staff out there that might be on chemotherapy or have some other kind of treatment for cancer or something else. And obviously, they need to keep themselves and their staff safe so that they can continue to practice medicine. But in our practice, we've let one person come in at a time and the other thing that we've done in our practices. For the last seven years, we've been planning a drive thru veterinary Wellness Center. And we did complete the construction of that about two months ago. So we now have clients that can pull into our garage as a patented system so they can pull into the garage they can have their pet either in the back of their SUV or minivan on an exam table in the garage with them or in an exam room that's visible through the window. So we now have clients that can be a participant in their veterinary visit without having to do it electronically. Now, if you don't have that option, electronic still works great. Because yes, your dog can be in the exam room or your cat can be on the table and in the treatment area. And you can be communicating through the telemedicine platform, looking at how the veterinarian and their staff is managing your pet talking you through the history talking you through the physical exam findings, discussing treatment options. It's really pretty cool what we can do through some of these platforms, so that you can be a participant in their care and in fact when we have one client in the exam room then we'll often have the other clients, that the spouse may be sitting in the vehicle. And so we just conference them in through FaceTime or AirVed or whatever platform we want to use for telemedicine. And then that client can be a participant in that whole discussion and not have to have the spouse go home, and try to repeat everything that you can. Because it gets to be really difficult to, you know, they say, Well, what do they say about this? And you're like, Oh, I don't really remember or Yeah, they said this, but I, but you wanted to ask something else. And so it's, it's really great to be able to use some of the technology that currently exists. And we're going to see continuing to be developed for our clients for our communication tools, because they can just get better and better. That is great. Good for you guys to think outside the box. I love it It’s been a lot of fun. Well, that's cool. I hope other practices do something similar, because it's nice to have options, for sure. Were most people understanding during all the new processes during the past year? Most people have been really good about it, they understand the safety factor that we need to keep our staff safe. I mean, we're in a small exam room with somebody for 15 or 20 minutes. And, and their pet and you know, they have the entire family in there just really increases the density and the risk of developing any kind of infectious disease, not just COVID. But other things as well. I mean, most veterinarians have seen a healthier staff during this because we're not picking up the flu, and we're not picking up colds, we're you know, we're washing our hands, we're wearing gloves, doing things that we wouldn't have done before. So, in general, yes, clients have been really accepting of it, they understand they want to be safe. They, they want their pets to be safe, but they still want their pets to receive the care that they need. And like you said, there's an increase not only in pet ownership, but we've also seen an increase in the number of visits per pet. So it made making veterinary visits. To get into your vet is more difficult. Almost every veterinary clinic is overwhelmed by the number of appointments that we're trying to see. And if you're doing curbside service, it does take longer to do each appointment, because of the transition piece between appointments, we've had to disinfect rooms between clients, we've had to cut down on our density, there's just been a lot of things we've had to change. We've had a few clients that have been a little touchy, I think some of them are just in general kind of mad at the world. They're frustrated, they're tired of being home. Yeah. And sometimes we're the only social contact the clients had in a week, they don't go to the grocery store, they don't go to Walmart, they don't run errands. They're not going to PTA meetings, or soccer games or any, any after work activities. So sometimes we're their only social context for the week. And it makes it really hard for them. They're like so glad to see a person and have a face to face conversation. They're pretty excited. And then of course, there's the really emotional times where we would ordinarily just reach out and hug someone. And I know they've said this on the human side as well is when you're losing a pet when or when you're having something really fabulous happen. some really great news that your pet is healthy again, or that you've just had a litter of puppies or something really emotionally exciting. clients want that connection they want that hug I miss just shaking people's hands when I'm being introduced to them. It is just a really different experience, you lose a lot of facial expression behind a mask, you lose a lot of interaction through a video camera. So it has been more difficult to communicate. We've had more clients get kind of grouchy and kind of touchy about things. And so we all just have to take a deep breath and really be nice to one another and realize that everyone's under a lot of stress. Everyone's working really hard to make this system happen. And we're all trying really hard every veterinary clinic is just swamped, and they're trying really hard to get the care that everybody needs. But it's not always very practical to make sure that everybody gets the appointment when they need it. Most veterinary clinics are booking out several months from just routine care, because a year ago, we were not allowed to do any of the routine care. So things got pushed back. And now with an increase in pet ownership, our caseloads are much heavier. And our staff needs to get home and needs to decompress and needs to have their free time. And so it's been a real challenge to make everybody happy to keep the staff happy. And and to keep the clients satisfied with the kind of care that they're getting because it feels different. Yes, well, a big virtual hug to all of the veterinary practices out there. You guys have been doing amazing jobs. I just want to thank you for that. And in closing, let's touch on separation anxiety because it's inevitable. With a lot of dogs that have been your shadow. And when you start to leave, What tips do you recommend for separation anxiety? Well, I'm a big fan of using crates or some kind of a confined area when you're not going to be able to supervise the dog, especially young dogs. We see a lot of young dogs in particular, chew up things that aren't safe. We've seen toxicities. We saw a lot of marijuana toxicity at the very beginning of this Because people were their kids were coming home from college and not necessarily very tidy with how they were keeping their supplies. So we did see some interesting toxicities and some interesting foreign bodies, some, you know, just increasing numbers of dogs chewing up underwear and things because they were anxious because they were nervous because of changes in the household. So absolutely, the dog needs to be accustomed to being in a crate or some confined area that you can puppy proof and make it safe. So they don't chew through electric cords and into backpacks, and all the other things that can be unsafe. But they need to learn how to be alone in a crate how to be alone in the house so that they aren't distressed by that. So it's going to require practicing, create training and then practicing being gone. And initially, you want to be gone for very short periods of time, and the dog just has to become accustomed to that new routine. So you can put him in a crate or in a small room, just the first time or two just for literally a second or two. It takes a long time to build up to five minutes, it doesn't take as long to go from five minutes to an hour. But those first few minutes of the first few hours can be very challenging to get a dog accustomed to. I love the use of the kinds of metal muffin tins that we can buy at the store. They're great, you can put dog kibble mixed with yogurt in them or some put, just water in your dog kibble, you can mix all kinds of fun things with it, put it in the freezer, have it frozen and ready to go so that when you're getting ready to go to work in the morning, you take that out and instead of the dog gobbling down their food in the first 10 seconds that you put it down, you get ready for work or school, you latch the crate with the muffin tin. it needs to be a metal one that is silicone like because the silicone ones are too chewable, latch it with the crate door closed and the muffin tin inside. So your dog is now looking at the muffin tin and going, wait, my breakfast is in there. And I really wish you would hurry up and get going to work because I have a busy day ahead of me now. So you can do some really fun things to kind of shift your dog's mindset about instead of being put in a crate and being told, well, I'll be back in four hours. Good luck, right, you can now say, look, what I have for you. This is really great. I know you haven't had breakfast yet, you're going to love this. But it's going to take you two hours to eat your breakfast. And by the time they're done eating their breakfast, they're tired. So now they're going to take a little bit of a nap in the crate, it's good to have a neighbor come in or go to care.calm or some other service that you can hire somebody to come in the middle of the day, so that the dog get out to go potty and get some exercise, get some snacks, those kinds of things. So now as you're transitioning back to work, you're not just going to say, okay, Monday, we go back and you're going to be alone for 10 hours, I hope it goes well for you Bye. Because it's destined to fail, it's destined that your dog is going to be distressed, you're going to be worried about him. And even if you do something like put a video camera on him with furbo, or some other kind of video camera while you're at work, you're going to be worried about him and you're not going to be focusing on what you should be doing. So it's really important that we transition them that we teach them that they know that they can be alone that they know they can be safe and they know you're coming home. So that you put them back into a routine that they get used to a few minutes at a time and then a couple of hours. And so they they don't start to dread the fact that you're putting on your work shoes instead of your fun shoes, but that they know you're coming back, and then they're going to be safe, and they're going to be okay. And when you get home, you're going to do all kinds of fun things. But it does take a transition, you can't just walk out the door one day and say I'm sure you'll be fine, you were good when I was home with you, I'm sure you'll do fine without me. Because they may not we really have to be aware that dogs can be destructive, they can do dangerous things to themselves and your home. So there's nothing wrong with using a crate or an ex pen or some other way that you can confine the dog so that they're safe, and they're happy and they're content and you've given him stuff to do while you're gone. So stuffed stuffed toys, puzzles, muffin tins, all kinds of activities that are really safe for them. You need to think it through and and really plan ahead and know what your dog loves and what they're not allergic to and what they want to do and how they can spend their time so that they're happy and content in your absence. I totally agree. And I'm a believer, don't get all excited when you leave. Or when you come back. It's just okay. Fido I'll see you later. And then when you're back, you're you know, you're not having them jump up on you and high pitched voice. It's just part of the normal everyday routine, just be calm. Yep. They will get really wound up if you let them. Oh, absolutely. And they feed off of you. So right. And if you feel guilty about leaving them, they're going to know that they're not going to be happy. And they have to realize, you know what, if I'm going to buy your dog food and I pay your for your veterinary visits, I'm going to buy you the next new treat, I have to have a job, I have to have an income, you're going to have to stay here by yourself for a little while and you'll be fine. Sometimes they're better with another pet. Sometimes they're not you really have to assess each individual pet and what their needs and wants are and how well they get along. You don't want to leave two dogs alone together that you can't trust that they'll be safe together they might have some resource guarding that happens while you're gone. So be really careful with how you set up those, those environments so that your pet can be successful, they can be happy. You need a couple of months to transition your pet into this new lifestyle. Yes, totally agree. Well, Dr. Greer, I could talk to you forever. But unfortunately, we're running out of time. So where can everybody find out more about you? And your book, Your Pandemic Puppy? Well, it's available on Amazon. Your Pandemic Puppy on Amazon It's the only book called Your Pandemic Puppy there. My name is Marty Greer. I have my veterinary clinic website. And I also have the pandemic puppy website, you can find me on Facebook @YourPandemicPuppy you can find me at Revival Animal Health, you can find me at Veterinary Village. I'm happy to communicate with you if there's anything I can do for you. Please feel free and go out. Take a look at the book. If you know somebody that's getting a new puppy, get the book for them before because it'll help with pet selections. And give them a chance to read through it for people that are purchasing a dog as a purpose bred dog, get the book ahead of time, if you're getting a rescue dog, get the book ahead of time and be prepared with the supplies and the behavioral kinds of work that you need to do. It doesn't just go through behavior. It goes through all the medical care of spaying and neutering recommendations, which are different now than they were in past years. New vaccination protocols. It's all in there. It's very up to date. It was published in November. So it's a very up to date current book with all the new kind of information that the current contemporary pet owner, regardless of their age group should know about pet ownership. Dr. Greer, we can't thank you enough, everybody. Check out Your Pandemic Puppy on Amazon. And thank you for being with us. Dr. Greer. This was just fantastic information. And let's set up our dogs for success. Thanks for listening. 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