Spay & Neuter: Affordable Pet Care with East Village Animal Hospital

It's Eric here from Love the North, and we're going to be talking about senior pet care, end of life. Jill, what happens with senior pet? So what is a senior pet? So, generally, senior pets is when you get up into your teens. You get a 10, 12-year-old cat starting to enter into(...) senior life. You've got 14, 15-year-olds, you've got- What about dogs? Are we talking about cats to dogs? Both. Okay. Once your dog's really like over 10, you start to get a little bit of a- You start to need to think about things that are available to keep him comfortable in his senior years. I mean, you think about us as people, right? So when we start to get old and we get a little, "Well, I'm not sure. I'm not going to." You might be good. I'm getting there. You're getting there. So you might have creaky bones, right? You might be able to stiff in the morning when you get up. I hear the feet cracking the first couple of steps. That's a bad sign. So, well, I'm just saying you're starting to age, right? Oh, yeah. Just saying. Anyway, so we need to- As humans, we take leucosamine, we start to take supplements. We might see our doctor, get maybe some scripts to help us get through some senior years a little more comfortably. You can offer your pet the same thing. So a lot of people don't realize that.(...) There's products on the market. Like we just had our 25-year-old, Josiah, our cat, die. She would have easily died at 20 had we not been giving her the senior care that she required. Meaning that- So cats stop eating, for example, do cats first. Cats stop eating when they're in pain or can't smell their food generally. They'll stop eating. I've got a little cat. I've got a little cat. The cat's almost a year, about a year old. That little butter ball, he's getting fat.

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Okay, so you look at your food. You may want to adjust your quality of food or your quantity of food. Oh, the quantity for sure. Yes, and how much food is he getting? I believe in free feeding and all of our animals are free fed. However, you do have to still- Free feed doesn't mean you always have food in the bowl. It just means you're not measuring it. But throughout the day, it should be grazing and it should go empty at some point. So they should graze. They should be gobblers. But they shouldn't have food in there all the time. It's a really- it's a balance, right? To do it properly. It's really a balance. So back to the care of cats, they generally will reduce their eating. And that's when people say, "Well, you know, he started to get thin and he's- I noticed he lost weight this year, last year or two." So there's things you need to look at in cats, and one is their teeth. Because they tend to have dental problems. That will slow them down. What do you look at for their teeth? Well, it's so tartar. Okay. Cats can get gingivitis badly compared to dogs. Like they get a- and they can even have-(...) if they've had exposure to certain vitals,(...) they can have really bad teeth. How can you clean- just before we go any further, how can you clean their teeth? Well, you can. Some people, they have like a little type of- it's like it was like a little rubber glove and it goes over top and put a little bit of paste on it. Oh, yeah.(...) But I mean, if- or you can look at like dental food, which is a larger kernel than the regular cat kernel. Okay. And it's meant to break down the tartar when it's harder, crunchier, and when they chomp down on it, it tends to break off tartar.(...) But the best thing is cleaning. And you actually don't even have to go to your vet's for basic cleaning. There's actually Vet Tech that offers a service here in town.(...) And she offers just a vet cleaning, like a teeth cleaning or, you know,

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advice on teeth to keep them healthy. But actual dental work, you should be seeing your vet. And you should have those checkups. This is why regular vet care is so important. So people- I don't want you to make people flip the gums of their cats or dogs. Flip the gums? Flip the gums and have a good look at themselves. Oh, yeah, I've never- I'll do it to my dog, but I won't- I'll never touch the cat's mouth. Want to bite you? You never know. It's a cat.(...) No, they're pretty good about it. But it's just- yeah, cats are a little more fanky about being handled, especially around their heads than a dog is. So for cats, like I said, you know, when they get into those senior years, they want to be looking at their teeth because teeth will affect whether they can- well, first of all, it goes to heart health, just like as humans, your teeth go to your heart health. Animals are remarkably the same as humans. So that's where we want people to start thinking of them in that sense when it comes to their health care. Okay, so again, back to the teeth, get them cleaned, or keep an eye on them as far as even, you know, getting the dental food,(...) you know, regular cleanings, helps save money on extractions, which are very expensive. Dental work sometimes for cats, if they eat full-month extractions for rotten teeth, they can be four or five thousand dollars. Do they get dentures after?(...) No.

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(Laughter) That's the one difference that we don't do in human versus- Are they eating through a- are they eating through a straw? Like, okay, so when you say an extraction, are there all the teeth coming out? Yeah, sometimes you- like we just did when we were doing one this week there, a senior cat, he's 16, and he needs some dental work. He might need five or ten teeth out. This is bad, but I wonder if the cat would talk, what would he be saying?

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(Laughter) Oh, if he was your cat, he would say, "You don't know if he was my cat." Okay. So it's very important, right? My girl just had her- most of her teeth out last year, okay, because she had a condition called stomatitis. So, somewhere along the line, she was a barn cat, so she had exposure to various viruses that can cause(...) down the line stomatitis. It's an immune- it's, you know, they have a lower immune system, so(...) she's prone to stomatitis. And she had it, and we had almost all of her teeth, but she still has her remaining 4-canis. Now, at some point, they may need to come out, too. She's only six years old. So, that's what I say about people, you know, look at the lip of your cat and see how teeth are doing. And this is why regular vet care, because when you take your cat into a vet, the first thing they're going to check is their teeth. They open their mouth, look at the back of their throat, teeth. We were just going to do a dental on a cat that came in to us when I was about 8 years old, 8 or 9 years old, and it came to us for surrender. We were going to do the dental work, and when they actually opened their mouth, they found a tumor at the back of their mouth. So, we actually had to use the 9-support thing. And she was young, you know, so, could do dental work. But, so you'll notice that cats stop grooming themselves as much. Their fur doesn't look as smooth as it normally does. Those are all hints that you probably need to be looking in the mouth. So, senior care at dental is number one.(...) The other thing with senior care, when you're getting senior care, and I said about stiff bones as humans, we get stiff bones. So does your cat. They get arthritis, they get joint(...) problems just like your dogs do. In the cats, we do,(...) they offer now a shot called salencia. It's a monthly injection for arthritis. So, it keeps your cats more comfortable. So, our store cat, José, she was on for about 4 plus years. So, that's why she lived as long as she did. She wouldn't have lived as long if we hadn't been giving her the vet care that she needed. Because when she hit 20, that's more than just a teenager, that's an old girl. So, when you should be speaking with your vets, that's why your regular vet care is important. Because when you get to those ages and you start telling your vet, "My enemy is a little slow getting up. He's not, maybe, you know, looks a little sore, doesn't jump the same way on the couch." You know, those sort of things. We have little bralishots available for the dogs, and we have salencia shots available for your cat. And they're just a monthly shot. You go in, the vet tech gives it to you, and it just helps them, you know, it helps them stay more comfortable. Because when(...) pets are in pain, that's when they start to deteriorate other health-wise. All the work can start to deteriorate. And cats can mask it a lot better than a dog? Yes. Generally, a dog will let you know if they're not feeling well in a matter of days or weeks. Cats can mask it for months, right? They can still be purring. People think, "Well, they're eating, drinking, peeing, pooping, and they're still purring." Right. It's great, but that doesn't mean anything. A lot of people think that, you know, that means they're happy, healthy. It's important because when you go into a vet office, whether it be your cat or your dog, they actually, when you see them palpate underneath your cat and they're feeling for a fine shot, they're feeling all their organs. Okay. And to give you an example, I had a doctor's tutor there at Martindale a couple years ago. I had a cat, and I was drinking a lot of water, and it just was off. And I thought, "Well, it's two yards, only about a year, a year and a half, so it can't be a kidney failure, can't have diabetes, so what would it be?" So we take him to the vet, and Dr. Jim was feeling underneath, and he said, "You know, something feels funny in the kidney area." He goes, "Let's do an x-ray." It turns out that cat only had one kidney.(...) And the fact that he sees his vet, this is when people go, "Well, you know, he looks fine to me." Well, we're not vets. I mean, even if it's all my experience in training, I wouldn't have known that there was something wrong in his kidney area. And he got that just on a basic exam. Right. So basic exams are very important. So most clients are about $250 a year for cat or dog to get your basic exam, just to, you know, get a professional looking at your cat, I mean, or your dog. You can tell by even when you see that they'll open the eyes, they'll look at the color of the veins, because the color of the veins in your dogs, or your cats can tell them things of organ functions, right? So there's so many things that us as humans, and I'll tell you, I used to think I was a good pet owner. I used to think my animals did that all the time, thought I had them a lot. And then when I fell into rescue, you know, I was calling the vets out every night on emerges, on things that weren't emerges. So finally they said to me, you know, "Here, we're going to teach you up a little bit, you know, teach you a few things, and then you'll know when to call the emerge button and when not, because it was getting expensive." So, and that's when I started to learn. And I'll tell you, what I thought I knew as a good pet owner, and what I know today, I only wish people could share that 25 years of knowledge. And that's why we were trying to share. Because, you know, people don't realize how important that exam(...) is for your pet. And a lot of people who own cats, think while they're indoors, they don't go outside.

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They still need this. Your organs still function, or they're not functioning, or their teeth, or you can still be bad even though they're an indoor or outdoor cat. So, going back to the cat food,(...) for example, right now, because my cat's only a year old, we still have little bits, like the food is small. Yeah, but if you think you should be off the kitten, by the way. And sometimes I find that if you do have bigger bone and bigger type cats, that you think are going to be hefty, move their kitten, move them off kitten a little earlier. And you know, if you move them off, we sometimes we do like eight months, eight, nine months, we'll flip over to adult.(...) And you can look at the type of food you feed. Some brands just have our lower grammage of fat, you can read the bags.

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Some are more of a stripped down protein. So, you know, it's all about understanding food and how it works for your animal, and as well, quantity. Some people put like three days worth of food in a bowl, they'll do that. Your kids don't have to do that. Or is that you doing that? No, it's the kid's job. They wanted a cat. Well, maybe the kids are giving a little too much, or maybe how many treats are they giving? Did you look and see how much, you know, what kind of treats are you giving? How many calories in the treats? Because there(...) should be a limit in the day of how many treats you're giving your cats. How many bon-bon's you're giving them? Absolutely, just like us humans, right? So, like you say, there's lots to know about the human. And with sad and sad breeds, we've got a lot of people who are on lower fixed incomes. And we had three this week whose pets died at home. And it's sad. I mean, it's heartbreaking to watch your animal die in front of you because you don't have money to go to a vet because the emerge bill is four or five hundred dollars to get in the door. And then emerge fees are another, you know, euthanization. So you're eight, nine hundred, a thousand dollars to euthanize a pet. I mean, you're a dreich and it usually comes last minute. So we say to people, think ahead. If you've got a senior pet, get it checked out. See where it is in the health scale. See if you're, you know, approaching that end of life. And then maybe let them go while they're still, you know, before the suffering starts. And if you, for people who can't afford the regular prices in clinics, if you're on a fixed income, if you're a senior, and you have a certain income level,

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East Village Animal Hospital, you know, go to East Village Animal Hospital.(...) And they're Southern Ontario clinics. They have a northern clinic now. They visit in our clinic every month. They're there for a couple weeks a month. And, you know, we're happy to treat. They can apply through their program through the south and they come right here and separate. And they can have their pets treated. They can have them assessed.(...) They can have end of life euthanization done. Better than in a local, there's a local pound here in a Zelda. He's not a city pound, but he does outlying areas. And he is doing euthanizations for cheap. And people are saying, well, you know, I only paid. And I go, well, your dog, your dog or cat did not get the same death that it would in a vet office. So you need to make sure that you're in a vet office or done by a veterinarian who has the prescribed proper drugs to put your dog or cat down humanely. Because you don't want them to suffer. No, you don't. And they can. And if it's not done well, they can suffer even at euthanization state. So we say to people, if you have a senior pet, please don't wait till the end. And don't be intimidated by the big numbers you're hearing other people say. We offer a program through East Village Animal Hospital to have senior pets looked at, examined. And if end of life is coming near or needing to be done, the prices are very affordable. So you can give a humane death and ending to your pet's life. They give us 15, 20 years of love, right? Yeah. Because it's giving back at least a dignified death. So senior pet care, you know, start, if you haven't seen a vet,(...) look up our East Village Animal Hospital, come by and get an exam done. And at least you know the status of your cat or dog and if you have any concerns going on. Make the things you want to look for in cats,(...) particularly is weight loss. When you see your cat is losing weight, a lot of times you're headed into either diabetic states or you're looking at kidney failure and those need to be identified. Other things than losing the weight is increased water. So if their water intake is they're drinking big bowls of water and their peas are large in the litter box,(...) those are big signs that they need to see a vet right away. So you know what, give us a call at PetSafe if you're not on email or on the internet, you know, to look up East Village Animal Hospital, you can apply there. They do a screening program for income. But if you can't, call PetSafe at 705-692-3319 and we can hook you up with the clinic to look at getting your pet(...) examined and see how they're doing. So end of life pet care is just as important as daily pet care. Absolutely. And more important at the end of life, because that's even us as seniors, right? We get medication, we get extra care in our later years. Yeah. And so we need to make sure pets get that too. And we're here to provide that. I believe that all animals deserve proper vet care, just like us humans deserve health care. Just like the hospice. Absolutely. But for your little fur baby. Yeah. Okay.(...) Jill, good to see you. See you soon.