Radio 2SM Breakfast Segment #17 with Kaye Browne

VET Talk Radio Podcasts

This week:
Kaye shares some key tips to keep pets happy, warm and pain-free over winter including food and grooming!
Plus...
What's the secret to chill-proofing indoor & outdoor dog-beds and what's re the alternative options to help pets deal with monster rain/storms?
Finally.. Dog-jackets – practical options to keep you and the pooch happy.
00'00" - Welcome Ron Wilson
00'06" - Winter Tips-Jackets/Grooming + Inside or Outside?
02'24" - Winter Diets - How Much Is Too Much?
03'52" - Storms & Rain - How to Keep Things Calm
05'43" - Best Doggy Jacket Materials + Raincoats
07'20" - Next Week - Why Do Dogs Have Tails!
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
RON: With the onset of these wintery conditions is the focus of our pet segment this week with Kaye Browne from VETtalk On-Hold... Kaye good morning!
KAYE: Good morning! - Have you got your winter gear out yet?
RON: I've got mine out and i'm thinking about what i've got to do for the dog uh it's a bit chilly out there it's a bit wet and I guess we have to make adjustments not just for ourselves but also for our pets we've dragged the old jackets out of the cupboard and of course they get longer fur at this time of year all of these things we need to to look at how do we change our care patterns for our pets as we get into these colder months?
KAYE: Ok... well the most important thing is if you're feeling the cold then your pet is feeling the cold. Cats are a bit better than dogs because they'll actually find a nice warm spot on top of the fridge whereas dogs rely on us quite a bit and although it's tempting to let them grow their hair long in winter please don't what happens for all the dogs that need to get groomed regularly I'm talking about all the oodles and various things and I've had Poodles and Bischons and goodness knows what, is if we leave them longer in winter they actually need more grooming and they can actually get quite matted especially if you accidentally leave the jacket on for a week at a time so it's really important to be putting the jacket on and taking it off. If the coolest time of the day is at night-time the jacket goes on at night or if you're going out for a walk but don't leave it on all the time because you can get terrible knots and then when you try to brush them out it actually hurts the dog's skin.
RON: I know with horses if you leave the horse blanket on the hair doesn't grow so long is that also the case with dogs?
KAYE: Unfortunately no!
RON: Okay well that's one problem we can't solve just by leaving the jacket on is there a difference the way you treat animals that are indoor and outdoor in these conditions?
KAYE: Definitely outdoor dogs definitely need to have a raised bed so if they've got a kennel set up then you need to put in a nice big block of foam you know the kind that you get at the supermarkets or you know the fruiterer put in layers so that it's going up a bit higher and make sure the beds bit raised so they're not on cold hard tiles or cement (RON: what a good idea!) and make sure that you then put in a nice comfortable bed inside. I had a relative whose dog actually preferred sleeping outside even in the cold weather but they did have an electric blanket for them!
RON: Oh yeah I would too! Now let's talk about diets during winter do we need to look at adjusting our pets diets as the winter cuts in?
KAYE: It's interesting the vets and scientists have looked at this and they thought oh well you know perhaps animals and pets aren't as active during winter so they don't need to eat so much and that we should be cutting back, then they actually did some tests and found that in fact nutritional needs go up particularly for very young pets and older pets and let's face it, pets get older much quicker than we do so an older pet could be anything from five if it's a very large breed or eight if it's not quite such a big breed but yeah you need to just boost their nutrition look at what you're giving them and it's... you know I'm a huge fan of topping up with natural foods that we've cooked for ourselves some of the extra steamed veggies and things they can have sweet potato pumpkin very good pumpkin's very good for their intestines uh it helps stop them and it helps them go!... but very definitely a little bit more in the way of fatty meats as well don't be frightened of fat... dogs in particular and cats have a much shorter digestive system so they you know can digest things much quicker and they get the nutrients out much quicker as well so don't be frightened of increasing it. If they start getting a bit too cuddly well just trim it back a bit but I think you'll find that they'll do better with extra nutrition.
RON: Storms and rainfall... our pets get very very upset during those noisy times those noisy weather events, how do we go about looking after them better in those sorts of conditions?
KAYE: In an ideal world we'd have time to desensitize them and we give probably off youtube or somewhere some of those storm sounds and start playing them very gently and feeding treats to our dogs when it's not actually a storm season so they're "oh when I hear that kind of noise good things happen and I get cuddles and then mum and dad organize a nice little den for me!" because when animals get scared they naturally go looking for somewhere safe and that could be under the table under a sideboard cupboard but somewhere where they feel safe and where there's a nice sense of where they've been before you know perhaps one of their old beds you can never have too many beds for dogs by the way! I won't tell you how many my little girl had last time! Ahh yes one here one there one everywhere and a couple in the car... but yeah those lovely new squishy long-haired ones or they look long-haired they're ideal and they're actually called calming beds for a good reason because the animal can actually get in snuggle in and it's a bit like snuggling up to mum or the other puppies from when they were kids.
RON: Gives them a feeling of security apart from anything else...
KAYE: Yeah it does indeed I mean you can go down the path of getting anti-anxiety medication from the vet but hopefully you won't need to go down that path if they know that it's safe and if you can organize if it's forecast for a storm then maybe make sure the curtains are drawn early leave the TV or preferably the radio on 2SM and make sure that there's some noise there 'cos if they can hear stuff they can get frightened.
RON: Yeah... we did mention briefly there things like doggy jackets now the materials they're made out of do animals have any rejection of synthetic materials or are we better to stick to wools or cotton?... any advice in that area?
KAYE: Well I personally have tried a variety of jackets. The very first jacket I tried on my first dog and of course we all experiment on our first child, he thought it was a game and so he ripped it off in pieces, so I learned very quickly to get something that's pretty sturdy and that feels nice on them so, I like wool blends, certainly you can get some linen blends. Bamboo well they use a lot of chemicals to treat bamboo so some of those things labelled natural bamboo aren't particularly natural but I think some of the polyester blends are absolutely fine and they're also good because you can throw them in the washing machine and that's a good idea because you know they can get a bit woofy fairly quickly especially if where you've gone out for a nice brisk walk you know and perhaps they've rolled over because it's good fun and they might have a bit of mud so get something that's you know practical... and there are things you know you can even get raincoats for dogs. There's a great company in Melbourne that makes really good quality jackets for dogs. Yap Wear... I've known the lady that runs that. It's all Australian stuff and I do like the quality of the jacket she makes because they last forever.
RON: All right, well that's some good advice on what we need to do through these colder months of the year to look after our pets and I enjoy... well I don't know there's something extra about good cuddles with your pets during these colder months everyone seems to get more out of that. Now next time we talk we're going to talk about interpreting the actions of your dog's tail and you know something I've never thought about but when I look at my dog uh yeah her tail actions there are many different types and we're going to try to interpret what all of that means.
KAYE: Mmmm… and why they have them at all and why some breeds just naturally only have tiny little stumpy tails there's a lot of information that they've now deduced into tail action so gives new meaning to the idea you know we'll keep an eye on the tail..
RON: All right we'll talk about all that next time Kaye... Kaye Browne from VETtalk On-Hold.