Transcript
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Every year, millions of people around the world make New Year's resolutions, but have you ever thought about making resolutions in your role as a pet parent?
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Well, we did, and so that's what we're gonna talk about on today's episode.
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So stay tuned.
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You're listening to Starlight Pet Talk, a podcast for pet parents who want the best pet care advice from cat experts, dog trainers, veterinarians and other top pet professionals who will help you live your very best life with your pets.
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We also share inspiring rescue and adoption stories from people who've taken their love of pets to the next level by getting involved in animal welfare.
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My name is Amy Castro and I'm the founder and president of Starlight Outreach and Rescue and a columnist for Pet Age Magazine.
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I've rescued thousands of animals and help people just like you find the right pet for their family.
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My mission is to help pet parents learn all the ways that they can care for, live with and even have fun with their pets, so they can live their very best lives and their pets can too.
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Welcome to Starlight Pet Talk.
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I'm your host, amy Castro, and we are coming to you live, my best friend Bev and I, to kick off our second season of Starlight Pet Talk.
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And what better to do when you're talking about a new season and a new year than to talk about resolutions, and I just happened to be the other day looking around the internet at New Year's resolutions, because I hadn't made any.
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And I started thinking to myself well, do pet parents make resolutions for themselves, as pet parents, to do better by your pets?
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And sure enough, there were tons of articles out there about what you can do to be a better pet parent, what resolutions you can make.
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And so then I got really conniving and decided I was going to ask ChatGPT what would be the top 10 New Year's resolutions for pet parents for 2024.
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And so, very kindly, chatgpt set me up with top 10.
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So what I figured Bev and I would do?
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First of all, we're not doing all of these resolutions, and I don't want you to try to do them either, because I mean, what do you think?
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happens when you.
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But what do you think?
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If you tried to do all of these, what's going to happen?
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You set yourself up for failure, that's right.
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You're going to be a big failure, and so therefore, we don't want you to do all of them, but we're going to go through the 10 and kind of discuss our feelings about them and maybe you can pick two.
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I think two or three is probably more than enough to get you started, and they may be.
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Some of these things might be things you're already doing and some of them might be things you haven't really thought about.
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So let's see what we have.
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Are you ready, bev?
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I am ready.
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Okay, all right.
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So number one on our list, or actually ChatGPT's list, was regular veterinary checkups, and I'm a big believer in this, although I will say that I can sometimes fall behind on my schedule with my pets.
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But you have a million pets, I know that's the problem, isn't?
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it.
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I have one.
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Yeah, she's got one pet and so it can be a challenge to keep up with your pets, but it is really important that we do the regular checkups for our pets.
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I think a lot of times people think, well, my pet's only two, my pet's only three, it doesn't need to go to vet, it's not sick.
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What's your thought on that?
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I think if you have a regular checkup you might be able to catch something very, very early.
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So you can spend a few dollars on a regular annual, semi-annual vet checkup and they can catch something early, rather than four years down the road where it's a huge surgery.
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So just do the regular checkups, everybody's happier for it.
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Yeah, once a year, and we've talked about that on past episodes.
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We've talked about pet insurance in season one.
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That can make those types of things more affordable.
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But yeah, I definitely agree that you can definitely do some really good preventative screening and save yourself some money down the road, even for things as simple as getting their teeth checked when they're at the vet, because you wait until that's gone too long and you're looking at a really, really extensive not only extensive and expensive dental treatment.
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But why wait until your pet's teeth are so bad that they have to have all their teeth pulled out?
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So when the check engine light comes on on the kitty, take the kitty for a checkup, that's right or the dog or the dog, and especially for those of you who have bigger dogs.
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Bigger dogs aren't gonna have the same dental issues that little dogs are, so unfortunately those of us who have smaller dogs in the mix you're gonna deal with those issues a little more often.
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So the sooner you get in, the more you do as far as maintenance, the better off you're going to be.
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Yeah, well, one of the things that I like about my dentist and this is probably something we could all do with our pets too is when I'm sitting there in the chair waiting for the dentist to come, they're already gonna start booking my six month appointment.
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So certainly something you can ask your vet about While you're checking out and you get that next year's appointment scheduled.
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Get it on your calendar, put it on your Google calendar, set yourself some reminders.
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It is important to do those check-ins and how often they are.
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Notice we said regular week.
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I did mention annual, but not every pet may need annual.
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Talk to your vet about it.
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Maybe your two year old cat can go every other year for a couple of years to a certain age.
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But that's a conversation you definitely want to have with your veterinarian.
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Can I ask a question about large dog teeth problems versus small dog teeth problems?
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Is that common or why the difference?
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I don't know why, but it is common that smaller dogs just their teeth go bad, they yellow, they get a lot more tartar buildup than bigger dogs, sometimes like a big dog.
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My dopamine pincher was a prime example.
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He died at 13, never needed a dental treatment.
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And then I've got Tinky the little.
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What is she like?
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A six pound Chihuahua and she's had I mean she almost needs one every year, every other year at the most.
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Because the tartar gets built up and she's lost a lot of teeth because I didn't keep up with it.
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So I'm trying to do a better job on that front, all right.
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Number two was balanced nutrition, and we've talked a ton in season one about balanced nutrition and obviously it's going to depend on the animal.
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I mean, we're talking about all pets at this point, so part of it would be, I'm sure, doing, you know, doing your homework about your particular species of pet, but also drilling down to how old is the pet, gender of the pet all of those things can impact what they might need.
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Nutrition wise, I know you do a lot of little different things when you feed Cuzzy.
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How does that play out and why?
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Why not just throw down the bowl of food I wish?
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I could All my other cats I've ever had in my life.
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You can leave a dish out and they self-regulate.
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Here comes Cuzzy and my neighbors can attest to this too what, how regulated it has to be.
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So when I first got him, he was a stri and I put down a bowl of food like I would normally, and he ate the.
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I mean, we're talking like this much food.
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He ate the entire thing.
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I didn't know he was gonna eat the whole thing.
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He cuts the food, it was huge ate the whole thing and then, of course, barfed it up the next day or whatever, and it was just.
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It was a nightmare.
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Sorry, I have to regulate it and just through a series I mean, if you listen to the other podcast about the stuff that I've done to regulate him, we'll call it whatever.
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It's quite complicated but he has to be portion-controlled, he has to have a special diet, he has eating complications, but it's very complicated but it's manageable if you do the work and figure out what's gonna work best for him.
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Each pet is different.
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Obviously, I can't leave food down for him, so it's gotta be on a timer and it's gotta be, unfortunately, prescription.
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So it's expensive, but he's totally worth it.
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Yeah, yeah.
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And so the concept of balance includes a lot of different things.
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Obviously there's the nutritional balance, which he'd want to talk to your vet about.
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I know there's so much controversy out there as to grain free, not grain free, can food versus dry food.
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Should you cook your own food?
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And I don't wanna advise in any real direction, although I will say that I have switched my cats from dry to canned food because cats are kind of chronically dehydrated and we've talked about that before on the show.
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But that's something definitely talk to your veterinarian about what that balance is about.
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The other thing I would say is think about measuring, because that's one of the things the vet always asks well, how much food are they getting?
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And I am notorious because I have so many pets that I did it today.
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I scooped out like seven cups of food into a giant container and then went around and dumped it into people's bowls and then I kind of use their body type, like if somebody starts looking fat, then I kind of mentally think, okay, maybe I should cut them back a little bit.
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Maybe that'll be one of my new year's resolutions this year is to really determine how much each animal needs and measure that out appropriately.
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I mean, there's no reason where I can't gather up all the bowls and dole out and I was doing it for a while and I just got lazy, especially because we've got these extra fosters in the house.
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So I think, measuring the food, so you, number one, you can tell your vet this is exactly how much I'm eating, and then they can say it's too much, it's not enough.
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Whatever the case may be, it's also probably better for the pet, just on a daily basis, not to be.
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One day I get three cups of food, one day I get one, and they're all kind of messed up that way.
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What about treats?
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Cause that's another thing that kind of came up in the little search.
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I am not a treat giver.
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We have them and occasionally we'll do it from a training perspective, but I'm not somebody that just generally gives my cats or dogs treats, do you?
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do treats I do, but because Kasi is so food motivated, his regular dry kibble, which only gets about two tablespoons a day, he likes it so much I can use those as treats so I know he's guaranteed to get the same nutrition.
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But then also I'm afraid to give him Other treats that I don't really know the ingredients or how it's gonna affect him, because he did have a the stones in the urinary, yeah, and that was very scary, very expensive.
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Don't want to do it again.
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So I'm very careful about what I give him.
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So his regular dry food works good for treats.
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And then he gets like occasionally like freeze dried chicken, oh nice, so it's just guaranteed chicken, there's nothing else, yeah and whatever.
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But yeah, that's like the only treats he gets.
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But he definitely gets treats, unlike in this house.
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Yeah, well, you know when I think about it, when you think about from that standpoint, when I was originally saying treats, I was thinking like packaged.
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I won't name any brands, but a Lot of the treats that you buy that are pre-packaged have a lot of junk in them and they're really unhealthy, especially if you give too many, and not only from a weight gain but just from a stomach upset.
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But I will say that my animals do get, like people food, treats, and that's something you want to be careful about.
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How you dole, yeah you think about the salt.
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You know, yeah, yeah, I mean I'm not giving him, like you know, a little piece of chicken, a piece of broccoli, use some fruit.
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You know, like today you were, you're eating an apple, right, and it's like, yeah, I, you know, I would have given him a chunk of apple if I was sitting outside with him and actually on that prescription diet thing, I mean, you really could Navigate that without having a mouth to do some more research on it.
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Yeah, yeah, that'll be my nearest resolution.
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There you go, you know.
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Another thing too would be just keeping up with knowing what they weigh.
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You know that's one of the things that I always and I don't look at it for myself waistline, but I am constantly watching my pets waistline and it's like, do they have a waist?
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Or like my chihuahua tinky, for a while there she just kind of looked like a tube.
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You know she had no waist where she should have had a waist, and now she's got a nice little waist, but she's not overly ribby.
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So knowing and that's something you can get out in Google you know there's condition charts with.
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You know, with different scales about body type, you know, based on whether you can see ribs, fine things like that, but you know that's for dogs and cats, I'm not sure about other critters right, I remember seeing that for the first time at the vets office.
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If you're looking straight down at your cat, you know you have the head and the neck and then the chest and then the you know Nipping in at the waist or whatever.
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And I started looking at my cat differently, looking straight down to him, yeah, and see, you know, if we do monitor his weight, but it's always nice to see that he does have a shape, yeah, and then he's fine, he doesn't need to add anymore, he doesn't need to lose any.
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So he gets plenty of exercise to he does.
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Yeah, that's true so so, yeah, just you know, know what's, know what's an appropriate weight or weight range for your pet and obviously monitor that so that you're staying within that zone, because especially losing weights in pets if they start to get overweight.
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We were driving somewhere the other day.
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There's an elderly couple walking a really fat dog.
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It was really having chunky, yeah, really having trouble walking and it's like it's so easy to it's.
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It is so easy to control what your pet gets or doesn't get, because they can't get it themselves.
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They're not opening the fridge and taking out food themselves.
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So, but as humans it's so hard.
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Oh, just give him a little, oh just little, cream cheese or a little this little, that next thing you know he's got joint problems and he's having difficulty breathing walking down the street.
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Yeah, terrible.
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Yeah, all right, moving along, number three, daily exercise routine.
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And when I think one of the mistakes that pet parents make along this front or at least many do, I did, and it comes up a lot when we do adoptions because people will say, well, I can't have a big dog because I don't have a big yard.
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So somehow people equate the fact that if I open the back door and my dog runs out, that that's adequate exercise and for some animals it might be adequate exercise but for others it might not.
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And especially with cats, people think oh well, you know, cats run around the house, so they're climbing things and are they getting enough exercise?
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So again, you're gonna have to monitor, you know, obviously, talk to your veterinarian, base that on your animals, I think, health, their physical condition as well as behavior, because I think they're a lot of times.
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Dogs that aren't getting enough exercise and cats that aren't getting enough exercise Are more prone to getting into mischief and causing trouble and being bothersome around the house.
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Sometimes that's usually the key factor.
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Yeah like when they start, when he starts to be a jerk.
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That's when we know it's time to put the harness on them and we go outside or bust out some you know a play toy or something.
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They'll tell you when it's time to burn off some energy.
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Yeah, they're good at that.
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Yeah, and if you have a big, like a big dog, you know thinking that taking my big dog for a walk is not gonna be adequate exercise.
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I'm gonna need to do something else.
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So that's I know.
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When we had our Doberman, I had a Walkie dog, which was this awesome bicycle.
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I still have it, I just don't have a bike, but I had this walkie dog bike attachment and that allowed him to be able to run, because I couldn't run.
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Even back then, when I was thinner, I couldn't run fast enough to really get him to burn Steam off.
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There's got to get that cardio up and burn all that energy off.
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Yeah, yeah, muscles.
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Yeah, for their brain.
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Yeah, definitely something to take into consideration to when you're thinking about what kind of pet, because, like around here, we see a lot of cattle, dogs, we see huskies, we see things like that, and a lot of men up in shelters.
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Because people don't realize their need for Exercise and so many of us are sedentary, sitting around on the couch is not getting that in all the exercise that it needs and that's not exclusive to dogs.
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Because you exercise, you're like I don't really exercise my cats, yeah, but he let's me know like the three of them maybe exercise.
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I think so too.
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Yeah, and him in the house by myself, with you know just the two of us.
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He starts climbing the walls and he becomes a jerk.
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He just becomes an absolute pest.
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So out we go, burn it off.
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Be a cat in the brain, be a cat, yeah.
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But you have a harness and a leash or a long.
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I know you got harness on a leash, but it's a very long leash.
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So if you see something that he wants to run after it, he can do that ridiculous zoomies and do that outside so he can run like I don't know 50 feet, 100 feet, whatever, and there's a long Rope that's attached to the leash and he can like burn that off and he doesn't keep running.
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For some reason he stops.
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I don't know why he waits for me to walk up to him.
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He's very good that way, but it just you just know he's just burning off that electric energy that they all have.
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When everybody, how's a pet, knows about zoomies and that's what he'll, he gets to do that, but he does it outside, so it works out really well.
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He gets to see the sunshine and the birds and he tries to attack turkeys which are three times bigger than him.
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He chased a deer one time he chased a deer in the backyard.
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That's right, yeah, yeah, making that a part of the routine.
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I think it, you know, not just something that's sporadic, just like we should all have an exercise routine.
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Maybe that's what I need to set as another resolution for this year.
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All right.
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Number four was training and enrichment.
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You know that's beyond the exercise is.
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You know there are other things that you can do that will mentally challenge your pet cat, dog or otherwise.
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That's In many ways just as good as learning exercise.
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So I know that's something that Kelsey's been doing with her dog is pretty.
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I don't know if y'all remember producer Kelsey.
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He was on our live episode.
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She's got this crazy dog named Gigi and Gigi has all kind of food puzzles that she does and snuffle Matts and things like that oh.
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Yeah, yeah, so that was the new one.
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I actually got her that as a Christmas present, but then I did couldn't wait to give it to her, so I gave it to her late.
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But yeah, there's a little button pass.
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You've probably seen, if you've seen the videos on tick tock or Instagram, things like that, where the dogs are communicating.
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I'm not sure how far I buy the whole communicating thing, but I haven't done my homework so I'm not gonna poo poo it, but I do think that an animal can, you know, can know that a certain sound or whatever it might be.
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I mean, people have trained their dogs to go, you know, to let them know they need to go outside by Nudging the doorknob or ringing a bell or whatever it might be.
00:16:33.080 --> 00:16:45.264
And so this one just is just a little button and it says outside, and she recorded it with her own voice, so it's Kelsey saying outside, and then the work and the practice is to teach you, gigi, to Step on the button.
00:16:45.846 --> 00:16:46.868
You just have to be consistent.
00:16:46.868 --> 00:16:48.152
Yeah, make it work, yeah.
00:16:49.221 --> 00:16:51.566
So and that's I think you know, with with training in general.
00:16:51.566 --> 00:16:59.049
I mean, that's so many of the problems that we see with Animals that people are trying to relinquish is a lack of training.
00:16:59.049 --> 00:17:12.949
I think people Either they don't put any time into training and they let that, especially with puppies, you know they let that puppy get big and now it's hard to train it because it's a big, 80 pound dog that's jumping all over you and jumping all over the furniture, climbing on the counters, things like that.
00:17:12.949 --> 00:17:30.767
Or people will have a tendency and I've been guilty of this in the past is you're all excited about the new puppy, so you take the puppy to puppy kindergarten and they learn sit and maybe even stay and come, but then we don't practice that over time and, yeah, they start running their own agenda.
00:17:30.906 --> 00:17:34.907
At that point and as a puppy, it's really cute that they're jumping up on the furniture and jumping up on you.
00:17:34.907 --> 00:17:40.230
Oh, he loves me, he's jumping up, but, like you said, when he's 80 pounds you're not so fun anymore.
00:17:40.230 --> 00:17:45.144
Or if you're going to go out for dinner and you dress nicely and they jump up on you, because that's what we do all the time.
00:17:46.468 --> 00:17:52.884
Or people come over, nobody wants that and people will say it's okay, it's okay, it's like no, it's not okay.
00:17:52.884 --> 00:17:54.603
I'm constantly working on.
00:17:54.603 --> 00:18:00.532
We've got one dog here named Sassy that she just can't, she just doesn't give up.
00:18:00.532 --> 00:18:01.534
She wants to get up on you.
00:18:01.534 --> 00:18:03.748
Now she is totally blind, so that could be part of it.
00:18:03.748 --> 00:18:07.430
Maybe she just needs that more physical connection.
00:18:07.430 --> 00:18:14.113
But nobody wants, or most people don't want a 50 pound pit bull claw on them up.
00:18:14.113 --> 00:18:29.751
So you just got to work on that consistency and I think the idea of engaging in their natural engaging activities that are their natural instincts, kind of like what you're doing with Cuzzy and letting them go out and hunt things and be in the outdoors but, safely where he's not able to get away.
00:18:30.039 --> 00:18:34.652
Anyone who has a cat knows that when they have an empty cardboard box, that's always a great cat toy.
00:18:34.652 --> 00:18:37.528
Cut a couple of holes in it and they're in and out there investigating it.
00:18:37.528 --> 00:18:40.611
It's all that mental stimulation that they need, not just the physical stuff.
00:18:40.611 --> 00:18:42.298
Yeah, definitely All right.
00:18:43.441 --> 00:18:49.353
Number five is one that I've been remiss in some forms and fashions.
00:18:49.353 --> 00:18:53.450
But I also don't have high maintenance pets from the standpoint of grooming.
00:18:53.450 --> 00:18:55.145
But number five is grooming and hygiene.
00:18:55.145 --> 00:19:01.653
So that includes beyond just brushing, but things like teeth brushing, nail trimming.
00:19:01.653 --> 00:19:08.490
A lot of times people think they can't do that themselves and you actually can do a lot of that yourself and you save yourself some money that way.
00:19:08.839 --> 00:19:14.292
But the more you get your animal used to that routine, the easier it's going to be.
00:19:14.292 --> 00:19:22.268
Like I've had so many people say to me when I'm sitting at Pet Supplies Plus and we're getting ready to adopt out a cat and I'll say, well, let me just cut her nails real quick.
00:19:22.268 --> 00:19:23.189
Oh, you can do that.
00:19:23.189 --> 00:19:26.203
And they're like oh, freaked out, Like, oh, my other cat won't, let me do that.
00:19:26.203 --> 00:19:26.866
He'll tear me up.
00:19:26.866 --> 00:19:34.020
And it's like well, because we start when they're little kittens and getting them used to it and making it a positive experience With dogs.
00:19:34.020 --> 00:19:40.190
Some dogs are more resistant to that than others, but I think getting them in that habit early is a big thing.
00:19:40.190 --> 00:19:47.746
And another thing too if you're new to, let's say, nail trimming, just as an example, nobody said you have to do all four feet in one sitting.
00:19:48.086 --> 00:19:53.884
Yes, and I think too many times people think they've started and now they're going to fight the dog or the cat or whoever.
00:19:53.884 --> 00:19:54.728
It is all the way.
00:19:54.728 --> 00:20:00.327
Maybe you do two nails, you give them a treat and you let them go, praise them and move on to something more fun.
00:20:00.380 --> 00:20:02.968
I've done that with Cuzzy and I try to remember which foot I've done.
00:20:02.968 --> 00:20:05.165
He's only got claws on his back feet.
00:20:05.165 --> 00:20:07.103
I didn't do it, he came that way as a stray.
00:20:07.103 --> 00:20:08.468
He was declawed in the front.
00:20:08.468 --> 00:20:11.880
So I try to remember like that, lift, lift, lift, right, left.
00:20:11.880 --> 00:20:13.204
I'm like, oh, which one did I do first?
00:20:13.204 --> 00:20:13.866
I try to remember.
