If the case is that it did have a couple of IV injections of Cefazolin or had some oral antibiotics, then I think it’s a good idea to go ahead and repopulate the gut with probiotics. 

Anyway, the synbiotics that you may or may not be familiar with, now comes in a capsule and it is shelf stable for two weeks. So, I would do that daily for a week, then every other day for a week, and then probably once a week after that.

What are the possible alternatives when you are having difficulty keeping up in adding more kibbles? 

If you’re having trouble in keeping a weight on your pets then you most certainly will feed them kibble which is a good nutritional source for your beloved pet. However, getting caught in a lockdown and running low in kibble supply as well as having troubles in accessing fresh vegetables is a little dicey too.  

So, if you can’t find kibble or remember that when that goes away, that’s more than just carbohydrates, it’s protein, it’s also some fats and things of that nature so you’d want to try to balance it out a bit better if possible. Having said that, what we would do is add up to a tablespoon of fat. 

Use your coconut oil or olive oil or some other fat source per meal add that in and then also add up to a cup of rice per meal so that’s what you can do to kind of help keep weight on them.

What are the well – respected international air transit companies available when the international travel restriction ends?

Thinking about bringing your pets to another country when the international travel restrictions are lifted reminds me of a client that did take Queen Mary from New York to London because that’s the only way she found to have her dog travel back to Europe with her without having to put him in a cargo hold.

I don’t know of any well – respected international animal air transit companies but most commercial flights during the winter will allow transit in the cargo hold. When we were considering travelling to Europe this summer, it became abundantly clear why we weren’t going to do that. What we found was that Iceland air, flies out of Reykjavik to the closest one was which is New York City or maybe Boston and so that was about a five – hour flight. 

The other option would be to go to Canadian air which will fly from Toronto into Ireland to Dublin and which is a little less awful. I think you can get from Morocco up to London or Dublin so I hope that is helpful. Everything is challenging particularly because there were some deaths.

What are the possible things you can do to remove the gooey sores in between your dog’s toes?

Mr. Hank Heron has gooey sores in between the toes in his back feet and the rest of them are fine. And so, her vet wants to use Chlorhexidine and if it doesn’t clear up, she wants to try an antibiotic. 

And he just had an antibiotic after lump removal so, what do we do about this? There are a couple of things we can do. One, to use apple cider vinegar. Soak the feet in an epsom salt solution because it’s going to help draw out all of the yucky stuff in between his toes and will help kill stuff off which is a great option so do that a couple of times a day. 

Dry the feet really well and then use that apple cider vinegar spray. Mix up an ounce of apple cider vinegar in a pint of water, spray that in between his toes and go for a walk. 

The other thing you can use there too if they’re really yucky, is the zinc – based diaper cream to help kind of dry stuff up. But if they’re really red and icky and infected, we can also look at doing something like colloidal silver when he’s already had oral antibiotics and this is popped up. However, the concern is if we give more antibiotics it’s going to make the situation worse. 

The other thing I would suggest you work on, is to get the gut back under control. Work on cleaning up the gut, repopulate it with probiotics and get them back in charge so that they are helping the body produce good bugs to bring the inflammation down, and help to control skin infection, things of that nature. 

You know, treating everything topically is an effort but at the end of the day, it’s going to help create more comfort for your pets and prevent this from turning into a nightmare too.

 Should we worry in sedating or anesthetizing our dogs to remove a mass growing on them?

If your veterinarian has done a fine needle aspirate and sent that off to the lab and told you it’s a lipoma, frankly, I wouldn’t worry about this unless you were going to have a dental done then in that case, I would go ahead and have it removed. I think, more than anything else that the mass is just going to grow and end up taking more space on the side.

Unless you’re doing anesthesia for a specific reason, I wouldn’t worry about it. If this takes off and grows like a bat out of hell for some reason then I would definitely take this off. And if your veterinarian has not done a fine needle aspirate, it’s definitely time to do that instead of just guessing that it’s a lipoma. If that makes sense. 

For the questions regarding proteins, is you are having a hard time in finding beef that you can afford then you can get what you can get. If pork is easy to get then that’s what you should get a hold of as an alternative source of protein other than beef.

What can you give to your dogs for itching caused by allergies?

Apoquel and cytopoint both manipulate the immune system. I think and I frankly don’t know which one is better or worse. The cytopoint is given every six weeks because it is a checkpoint inhibitor. 

However, there’s some discussion about whether it contributes to cancer development. I, frankly, don’t know for sure. But you know if you suppress the immune system long enough something’s going to do something it shouldn’t same thing with apoquel, the trade name for cyclosporine which is a medication that is used to suppress the immune system for a myriad of reasons. 

It started off on the human side for organ transplant rejection, we also use it for autoimmune disease and things of that nature. A natural approach, such as quercetin and nettles can offer safe, long lasting results. Add the tendon nettles immediately and see if that’s able to help bring things down. The goal is not to have your dog need the apoquel again by giving her querceting and benadryl. 

What are the best dental chews for dogs to help remove tartar?

Wondering what are the best dental chews for dogs other than veggie dents which are mostly just made up of cornstarch which doesn’t seem as such a good plan. I really like marrow bones so I think you’ve got to just go really carefully. 

For a little guy and a puppy get a couple of inch thick slices, take the marrow out as you suggest or take out the vast majority of it. And by the way, save it to throw in your next batch of crockpot that’s what we’re ending up having to do with Mona because she has become fat sensitized after eating half a pound of raw bacon and a jar of bacon grease including the glass. How she has survived these things are a mystery. 

Take the marrow out and then just put a thin rim of coconut oil, peanut butter, things of that nature. And when I say that, I mean you’re going to smear a light layer on the inside just to kind of get them restarted but often when the bones are fresh, they’re pretty delicious so I would definitely go for that. I hope that helps. 

If you’re not familiar with it, you can visit thisdogslife.com. Andrea Huspeni has some really awesome products for dental care. One is a powder and one is a chew that even Pepe loves, so check that out. 

What is the best thing to do when your dog’s allergies keep on ratcheting up?

One would stop using cytopoint considering that it manipulates the immune system and resort to using allergy shots. If this allergy stuff is something that’s kind of ratcheting up, then this is when I would look at doing allergy testing. 

The company I’ve liked using in the past is Heska because they have an oral hyposensitization theraphy and so when the allergies are due to things like molds and dust mites especially, the oral hypersensitization therapy works wonderfully so that way you can avoid getting these immune suppressant drugs on board. I hope that’s helpful. 

I used therabiotic complete powder for a number of years but there’s some advantages to these capsules and one is that, they don’t turn into a sticky mess which is a problem over time with the powder. The second one is that the capsules are shelf stable meaning you don’t have to have them in the fridge so I hope that helps.

Should a dog taking gabapentin be given milk thistle or something from time to time to help clear her system?

  I sure would give milk thistle even if the dog is taking gabapentin regularly. I think gabapentin has very few side effects especially at a low dose other than sedation but still I mean, the body has to clear it so that’s where I would use at least a week, a month of milk thistle to kind of help clear the decks. And then maybe once or twice a year go through a bottle of liposomal glutathione. 

For those of you that are not familiar with it. Glutathione is the master antioxidant for the liver, and the reason that I like using it is because this liposomal product actually does what it’s supposed to do and it can get into the system and do its thing much more effectively than a lot of the other encapsulated products. 

Moreover, if your dog has some early liver disease and you’re seeing some elevated alkaline phosphate but no symptomatology, what I would suggest is liposomal glutathione and also hepatic support from standard process so if you’re not familiar with that, they use a lot of whole food products to help support living function including some sylimarin which is the active ingredient from milk thistle, although I think they call it liver support but that’s been a really good combo for early liver disease. 

In addition, I think liquid milk thistle is a great thing as well if you decide to add in hepatic support because there’s sylimarin in there. And if your dog has elevated liver enzyme, I would use that probably twice a month just to kind of clean things out once you get those values down to normal if that makes sense.

How do I give your pets a shot without hitting a vein?

Allergy shots should be given under the skin so the best thing to do if you inadvertently hit a vein is to just back out and, you know if the medication is contaminated with blood, if it’s not too much , you’re safe to just kind of pick the skin up and go to a different spot and inject it there. 

If it’s a fair amount of blood then I would discard whatever you’ve got and just start over with a fresh dose. In giving subcu injections, from time to time you’re going to hit a vein periodically but the vast majority of time you can just pull it out and go from there.  

So that’s what I have for you today. We do have a Memorial Day sale going on so it’s ten percent off of anything in the store. Probably on Wednesday we’ll have a great sale to kind of kick it off and we’ll go from there so until next week you all have a fantastic week. I’m Dr. Ruth Roberts your pet’s ally.