Veterinarian Answers Pet Questions From Twitter | Tech Support | WIRED

i'm veterinarian dr molly mcallister and this is my dog jack today we're here to answer your questions on twitter this is vet support [Music] at don't forget chaos asks why don't we keep squirrels as pets we keep rats rabbits mice etc why not squirrels i'd like a pet squirrel no you wouldn't squirrels do not make good pets they are destructive they have teeth and claws and they will chew things up squirrels are not social animals in fact they will turn on people including handlers who have raised them from babies and number three squirrels are not able to be litter trained or trained in any way shape or form all in all squirrels don't make good pets stick with your dog your rabbit your mouth or even a rat at santeesha asks where do these hair balls come from if you own a cat you've certainly seen them grooming they spend hours of their day quite literally grooming themselves by licking the fur that takes the loose hair and oftentimes they tend to swallow that and rather than digest it the cat's gi system enables them to gather that hair up and regurgitate it so they do spit it back up and that ends up being the nice hair ball that we find probably on our nice carpet and that is just the nature of cats so at laurie mercad asks what causes obesity in cats and dogs it's when the calories that they consume exceed the calories that they burn so it's a mismatch and how much we feed them and how much activity they get because we control that and then let's make sure that they get lots of exercise as well because it's good for all of us all right at shumei asks why my sugar glider have so many problems crying face sugar gliders you know they are an exotic animal they have some husbandry challenges they require a unique environment so that's number one here's another big thing about them you know sugar gliders glide therefore they love playing and you've got to have a safe enclosure or space for them to play because otherwise one of the most common things that happens with sugar gliders is trauma they glide into a curtain and they break a leg or they get strangled they end up somewhere they're not supposed to be and they get stuck they get scratched they get hurt so you've got to make sure you've got a safe place for your sugar glider the other pieces they're pretty sensitive little critters they can dehydrate in a matter of hours if they don't have access to enough water they're also very susceptible to toxins and so they eat a variety of fruits and vegetables and if you don't clean what you buy from the store well enough you can actually poison your sugar glider by giving them food that's contaminated at levels that wouldn't impact you or i but that do impact the sugar glider so at the end of the day if you're gonna have a sugar glider you got to make sure you know what you're getting into and you got to make sure you partner with a veterinarian who can help you make sure you're providing that sugar glider with the right environment and the right home and lifestyle to keep them healthy and safe as long as possible at nate hank zee asks why are hedgehogs banned as pets in new york city yet people keep finding tigers in apartments you know taylor swift has at least two full jaguars and a goose now hedgehogs in particular they are illegal in the five boroughs of new york city the reasons are because number one they can carry diseases that can be transmitted to other animals foot and mouth disease is the big one and number two oftentimes exotic animals are prohibited because if they were to escape they could do significant harm to the native wildlife in the area and that's the case with hedgehogs in new york city here's the thing exotic pets are a handful you gotta be careful with what you're getting into because they have unique needs in terms of the environment they need to live in so whether t swift is doing it or not we all should think twice or maybe three times before we adopt an exotic animal as a pet at colorful girl asks is cat urine toxic i think it is no i wouldn't recommend drinking it i wouldn't recommend injecting it but it's not toxic it's just urine at el push underscore old people 3 asks how do dogs get cancer like i'm sorry but are they smoking or something here's the thing with dogs they get cancer for a lot of the same reasons we do first of all genetics they can just be predisposed certain breeds are predisposed to certain types of cancers for example we know that german shepherds and boxer dogs have a much higher likelihood of developing a cancer called hemangiosarcoma we also know that for example dogs with short hair can be more prone to developing something called a mast cell tumor but also just like us dogs are a recipient of what's in the environment around them so we know people sometimes get lung cancer even though they never smoked a day in their life same thing happens with dogs they live in the household where someone is smoking they're close to contaminants or toxins think about where a dog's nose is all day they're down on the ground so we don't always know why a dog gets cancer but what we do know is they're exposed to the same kind of environments that we are and so the same things that cause cancer in people can cause cancer in dogs unfortunately okay for this question i'm gonna need to call on the expert let's call in jack jack come on so at it's me lexi1 asks are you supposed to brush a dog's teeth and the simple answer to that question is yes we find that about 80 percent of dogs that come into our hospitals and 85 of cats between the ages of 3 and 10 come in with evidence of dental disease so jack here is a great example of a dog who will let you brush his teeth and it's something that you can start with any dog or a cat from a young age jack sit good boy so one way if you've never done this before is to use a finger toothbrush so what's important is we call it flip the lip you flip the lip up you take a look at their teeth and you do a gentle scrub and then with bigger dogs or pets who are used to it you can actually use a special modified toothbrush that fits a dog's mouth you flip the lip and you go ahead and brush their teeth to remove that bacteria and that that early source of dental infection or dental disease that we might find in our own teeth the teeth provide a really great surface area for bacteria to grab hold and as they begin to climb up under the gums they have really easy access to the circulatory system and once once those bacteria get into the circulatory system they spread throughout the body so here's the thing when it comes to taking care of your pet's teeth the reality is that they lead a shorter life than us a more accelerated life and so we should be taking care of their teeth to the same degree as we take care of our own if not even more the next question from at pets q and a is what's the best way to cut a dog's nail what's really important is that you get your dog used to having their nails trimmed and this is something that you can start with as a puppy because many dogs don't normally don't naturally like to have their paws touched so to cut a dog's nail you want to look closely and differentiate between the pink living flesh of their nail and the white part which is the same as the white part of our nails as it grows out beyond the beyond the blood vessels now this can be much harder to do in a dog with a dark nail and it's also important to recognize that the more often you do it the more frequently you trim their nails the easier it becomes they that helps the blood vessels to recede so you're less likely to do what we call quicking them which means that you've cut it too short and you've actually cut into the sensitive tissue but i can show you here just a little bit where you find just the tip of the nail insert it through the trimmer quick trim his are so short that all i'm having to do is just scrape off the very edge of them make sure your dog gets used to you holding his paws and gets comfortable with that idea and do it on a regular basis at yuba vet tech posts a question of the day how is heartworm spread and what is heartworm this is a fascinating question because heartworm is preventable it is extremely serious if dogs and cats acquire it but it is preventable so heartworm disease what is it well it's a parasite that's transmitted by mosquitoes the mosquito bites a dog it picks up some baby parasites they develop within the mosquito and the next dog or cat that mosquito bites gets that heartworm disease those worms then spend about six months living in that animal until they take up residence in the heart where they mate they reproduce and they produce their own little baby parasites when a dog or cat acquires heartworm it is fatal unless treated it is treatable in dogs although quite expensive and quite risky it is not treatable in cats so the end of the story we need to prevent it this is a really important question this year because we know that because of temperature and climate changes that are expected in 2022 there will be a higher incidence of heartworm so if you aren't using heartworm preventative for your dog and cat today go talk to your veterinarian every pet should have beyond heartworm preventative every month of the year at gracerasner asks why the hell would you declaw a cat do you know what decline a cat actually is it's amputation of the end digits of their fingers to remove their claws and that actually has been shown to result in long-term chronic pain for cats who have been declawed you know the veterinary hospital that i work for banfield along with many others does not condone the practice of decline cats anymore it does not generally solve the problem it's intended to solve which is cats scratching or clawing and it is painful and harmful to the long-term well-being of our cats so let's not de-clock hats let's talk to veterinary teams about what other options are available for them at kj young428 asks the question what are the benefits and negative effects of neutering a male dog number one minimizing overpopulation if they're neutered they can't reproduce so we won't have unwanted puppies there are a couple of other benefits one being that neutering a dog causes some behavior changes primarily important to most pet owners is that it diminishes their likelihood of roaming the other thing that's related to that sort of wandering behavior is that unneutered male dogs are more likely to be hit by a car that's really just secondary to the fact that they're out wandering about but there are a couple of reasons like that that make it wise to neuter a dog if you don't have any intentions of breeding them at pet md asks what is grain free pet food really logistically grain free pet food means that the pet food has taken traditional ingredients like wheat and corn and replace them with something like legumes or potatoes so the food still has a carbohydrate source but it's been changed from a grain to a non-grain here's the thing we really have to get at with this question is is grain free actually better and the reality is that what is most important in any pet food is the nutrients that are conveyed to the pet the fat the protein the carbohydrates the minerals the vitamins etc so what you want to look at for a food is not whether it's grain free or not but you want to look at the overall nutrient profile and definitely talk with your veterinary team to find the right diet that suits your pet's unique nutritional needs atmosin rio's mom asks if i gave my horse worm medicine in june but i do not believe it was a good brand can i give him another dose i think he needs it if i can find any with all the weirdos buying it humans should not be buying horse medicine for humans it's for horses if you dewormed your horse in june and it's july for example you don't need to de-worm them again horses generally need to be dewormed in the spring and the fall worst comes to worse your vet can run what we call a fecal examination on your horse's feces on their poop on their manure and find out if it does indeed have parasites and need to be dewormed that's a foolproof way you can cause harm by deworming a horse when they don't need it because we can actually cause resistance against the medications that we use to de-worm horses in those parasites that that do exist in the environment so at survivor kitty asks okay advice what's the best way to get a cat to take its medication without being attacked first of all if you're lucky enough to have a dog or cat that will take their medication and their food make sure you talk to your vet and get something that's suitable to provide to them in that form they also make some great treats that you can buy over the counter that have little holes in them that enable you to put a pill or a little bit of liquid so you can give your pet a treat as you medicate them and many pets will take that some require the use of a little more intervention for example we make something called a pill gun which helps you to take the pill get it to the back of your pet's mouth and kind of shoot it in so that they swallow it without too much resistance so if it's not working talk to your veterinary team and there's definitely alternatives out there so those are all the questions we have time for today but jack those were some great questions weren't they yeah [Music]

Channel: WIRED

Views: 1,617,166

Keywords: animal facts, dr. molly mcallister, innovation, molly mcallister, ott tech support, pet support, pet support wired, pet vet, science & technology, tech support vet, vet, vet answering questions, vet answers questions, vet for animals, vet support, veterinarian, veterinarian answers questions, veterinarian support, vets animals, wired, wired animal support, wired pet support

Id: IUwqf08-FKU

Length: 13min 16sec (796 seconds)

Published: Thu May 05 2022