Featured Quote:
With your toenail trimmers, you do want to hold them parallel to the bottom of the pad.
How to Clean your Dog's Ears
How to Brush your Dog's Teeth
How to Give Your Cat a Pill
How to Trim your Dog's Nails
Today we're going to show you how to trim your dog's toenails. Things you're going to need are some styptic powder, some nail trimmers that are going to be appropriate to your dog's size, and potentially some treats or something delicious that they love to snack on.
This is Yuki, and we're going to show you how to trim his toenails. So you're going to want to start out just by isolating a toe. Find out which one you're going to cut. Yuki has very long toe hair, so we're going to have to kind of push some of that back just so we can get a nice good visualization of what we're going to do.
Here on the dog's toenail, and he's a really good example, you can see that there's this lovely pretty pink section, and then there's a white tip. The pink section is called the quick, and that's what you want to avoid kind of cutting when you are trimming their toenails. You just want to trim anything that's white.
Okay, so we are going to start. With your toenail trimmers, you do want to hold them parallel to the bottom of the pad. So if you can see - it might be a little bit hard to see with so much hair - that here's the bottom of his pad, and his toenail extends a little bit past that. So, for a nice safe cut, you want to cut even and parallel with that pad.
Don't be afraid to go slow and just do a couple of little bits at a time. You don't have to do the whole foot or the whole toenail all at once. with him, he can get a little bit nervous, so we're just going to take little mini bits and give him lots of breaks, and lots of praise in between.
Good boy, Yuki. Okay, so again you want to do it nice and flat across the cut. Good boy. Good job, handsome. And some peanut butter. There you go, good boy.
And just like that, you can work your way through the toenails. Again, you don't have to do them all at once. You don't have to do them all at the same time. So if you want to break it up, one toenail a day, or one foot a day. It helps kind of desensitize your dog, make it easier for you to cut their toenails.
Acupuncture: The Story of Tamale
Featured Quote:
...and acupuncture just kind of fits into that non-invasive, drug-free, alternative therapy.
Video Transcript:
Hello, I’m Dr. Moore. There are two types of acupuncture that I do. Just dry needles, which is maybe what most people have seen pictures of. It's just the insertion of needles in acupuncture points. I also do electroacupuncture, think of it like a deeper stimulation of those acupuncture points.
Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories or opioid-like medications, of course, they all come with their set of side effects, and chronic medications can sometimes lead to issues, so acupuncture is a really alternative nice to be able to manage pain. Of course, that's not the only thing, but that's the most common thing that I use acupuncture for.
I think it's a really great tool to have when you're looking at treating the animal holistically. There are people that don't want to reach for drugs exclusively and want to try more natural approaches like physical therapy, Chinese herbal medicine, and acupuncture just kind of fits into that non-invasive, drug-free, alternative therapy.
There are some people that seek out acupuncture alone. That's really what they're after is an Eastern medicine approach. And then other people that maybe I'm treating them in a Western medicine manner and we've hit a plateau, and I feel like we could do more, and I'll make the suggestion, and sometimes an owner's interested, and sometimes they're not.
Of course, she's an older kitty, and we don't expect her to run and play like a two-year-old cat at the end of this, but we want quality of life for her. We want her to not be in pain. We want her to be social, like she was previously. We want her to be able to get to her food bowl, to her litter box, go wherever she wants to in the house comfortably. That's our goal with Tamale.
Creating a Stress-Free Experience for your Pet
Featured Quote:
Most importantly, we just take our time and we really don't rush it at all.
Video Transcript:
Hi, I'm Doctor Amanda Moore. I wanted to talk today about some of the things that we try to do for our pet patients to help reduce stress that's associated with coming to the vet clinic.
One of the first things that we'll do for dogs especially is the walk-in through the lobby, put them on the scale. The scale can be a scary thing because it's a little bit wobbly, so we use treats as a distraction, or some other type of positive reinforcement, to get them on and off as quickly as possible.
You know, an exam can actually be kind of a stressful thing, and so we'll vary it up a little bit. Maybe do an exam in a different location, not necessarily in the exam room. If there's a dog that's really, really nervous about being on a hardwood floor surface or even just coming into the clinic, I've done exams outside to help distract them and certainly during a normal exam. Most exams don't happen outside, but during the normal exam in the clinic, we'll use lots of treats and positive reinforcement to distract them along the way.
Another thing that we'll use for our dogs is a pheromone spray called Adaptil. It's something that we'll spray maybe on the bandana and tie around their neck. It's not something that you or I necessarily will smell, but it is a calming spray that really does help us; it’s stress relief for dogs in a variety of situations.
Similarly, when we have cats come to visit us, we will utilize a spray called Feliway.
So when you bring your cat in to come see us, we do like to make it as stress free as possible so we use special pheromones that help calm your cat down and what you do when you come in is, we'll spray a towel with the pheromones and then we'll place that towel over your cat's carrier so they can calm down and not have to see what all is going on in the clinic and they can distress that way.
If they need to, we can let them sit in there and just relax for a little bit when we take them out for their exam, but this just helps relieve some of that stress of being in the clinic.
Most importantly, we just take our time and we really don't rush it at all.
How to Give Your Cat Subcutaneous Fluids
Featured Quote:
We love to teach owners how to do this at home. It means you don't have to bring your cat into the clinic.
Video Transcript:
Today, I'm going to do a demonstration video on how to give your cat sub Q fluids. This is a really common procedure. We love to teach owners how to do this at home. It means you don't have to bring your cat into the clinic. It's low stress for your cat, and it can just be a life-saving procedure, especially for cats with kidney disease, diabetes, and chronic constipation. There are several reasons that we might recommend this, but kidney disease is the most common reason. And it's something that we want owners to do on a somewhat regular basis—of course, follow your vet's instructions, whether it be a couple of times a week, daily, or less frequently than that.
What your vet is going to do is set you up with is a bag of fluids, an IV extension set, and some needles. And what you're going to do when you get this set up, this one's already set up, but basically, you insert the spike set into the fluid bag. You're going to put a needle on the end of the IV set. I'm going to go ahead and change the needle to show we always use a new needle each time. There's usually a little protective cap. You just twist that off. And then, twist this right back on so it can't come back off. There's a little screw-top right there.
And then, there are several pieces on this IV extension set where you can clamp the fluids off so that it doesn't leak out and make a mess. This one rolls up and down. It's clamped right now. And then this one just takes a peek. If you're like, "My fluids aren't running," it's probably because something's clamped. So make sure everything is open. If it's the first time you're using this bag of fluids, you want to prime the line. Go ahead and run the fluids through until you get a few drips out of your line. This line is already primed, so I don't need to do that.
Your vet will tell you how much to give each time you're giving it. Each of these little dash marks is 100 CCS. Most cats will get 100 to 150; maybe some larger cats get 200 CCS. And so, you'd go from like the two to three or the three to the four for 100 CCS. Make sure you know where you're starting. In this case, we're starting at 500 CCS. That's how much is locked in this bag—monitor how much you're giving.
Gunther here is a perfect patient. He is going to be happy to demonstrate how this is done. Most people can do this by themselves, but if you've got somebody else to help you give some head scratches and be a distractor, offering their favorite treat will keep the cat in one place. You're going to remove the cap of the syringe, and right here, kind of behind their shoulder blades, there's plenty of skin and subcutaneous space. You're going to lift and create this tent. And see, my finger can go right in there. We're going to go about parallel with the back. I’ll sometimes give the skin a little bit of a twitch for a distraction, and I just go straight in.
He tolerated that well. Most cats do. Now, I'm just going to, with one hand, hold that in place. Sometimes you can let go of that completely. I'm going to unroll this so that it's all unclamped. And now, with this bag, I'm going to squeeze it. And I can see in this chamber, the fluids are flowing nicely, so I know everything is nice and open. And Gunther's being great. If he wants to move just a little bit, that's okay. But you don't want to chase your cat while you're doing this, so keep them in one place.
I can do this with one hand, give him some head scratches. He's pretty happy to be here and being still for me. I'm going to watch this, and you'll get an idea of how long it takes and how quickly it's flowing. I'd say it takes somewhere between a minute and a half to two minutes for about 100 to 150 CCS for most cats. It's pretty quick. Keep an eye on your needle to make sure fluid isn't leaking out, and they haven't moved. You can see there's kind of a hump here of fluids that have gone in.
I’m not going to pull it out right now just for the sake of the video. If you were finished, measure your fluids. He got about 50 CCS in that time. You're going to lay that back down, clamp this back off again so now the fluid can't leak. When you're taking this out, you're going to pull it straight out, but put a little bit of pressure where the needle was because sometimes fluid likes to leak out.
I'm going to set this down with the cap on, and I just hold pressure just for a few seconds. But see this hump right here? You will notice that. And with a little bit of time—20, 30 minutes, maybe even an hour—the hump settles with gravity, maybe over their shoulder, even their elbow. And that's no big deal at all.
I think that is everything. Giving your cat SQ fluids can be so helpful for these kidneys and kidney cats that need fluids. And it's something that you can learn how to do at home, so I hope this helps.
