Posts by Laura Reeves
423 — Cancer Specialist Provides Important Tips on Early Detection
Cancer Specialist Provides Important Tips on Early Detection
Dr. Lori Cesario DVM DACVIM (Oncology), Owner, Canine Cancer Academy, joins host Laura Reeves for a life-saving conversation on early detection of cancer in our dogs.
Whether the signs are fleeting and faint, or rapid onset and obvious, Cesario provides tips and tools to help our dogs live longer and healthier lives by catching cancer early.
“Cancer can honestly look like anything,” Cesario said. “A toenail or skin infection. Or it could just look like your dog is a little tired or has a nosebleed or is drinking a ton of water and normally he doesn’t do that.
“So I think the best place to start is just knowing what is normal for your dog and trusting your instincts. Is this normal and this something new isn’t normal. If something changes and is either getting worse or just isn’t getting better, and what your vet suspected just isn’t turning out to be the reason, just don’t blow it off. Pursue it until you have an answer.
“I had a client who did a lot of dock diving with her dog. That dog was just so energetic, so full of life walking down the street, you’d never know there was anything wrong with her. At her most recent dock diving competition, she just wasn’t diving as far as normal. So her incredibly astute owner just said ‘ya you know, I just don’t think somethings right.’ So she took her in for a blood test and the blood test showed that she was just a little bit anemic. Her red blood cell count was a little bit low. They decided to do an ultrasound and found a mass in the spleen.”
Some specific cancers and warnings signs Cesario described include skin tumors, mast cell tumors and hemnagiosarcoma.
“Skin tumors can come in all shapes and sizes,” Cesario said. “We all want them to be benign. The difficult thing about skin tumors is that there are some malignant tumors, especially things like mast cell tumors, that can look exactly the same as a benign tumor, like a lipoma. We’ve all felt lipomas. They’re just the squishy thing under the skin, not too exciting. But whenever a dog develops a new skin mass, you always ask your vet to sample it and get a diagnosis.”
“Our Eyes Aren’t Microscopes”
Cesario reminds listeners of a few warnings signs, but insists that the best answer is to get a tissue sample for a firm diagnosis of visible masses or lesions.
“If you see a mass and it’s waxing and waning, that’s very common with mast cell tumors,” Cesario said. “If you are noticing something like that, don’t think that you’re just making it up in your head. It could very well be a mass. You’re not losing your mind. I tell people to just draw a little black magic marker with a sharpie around the mass (and watch if it increases or shrinks). If it’s a fast growing mass, if it’s open or ulcerated or hairless, very pink, that can also be a mast cell tumor. The only way to know is to sample it.”
Cesario also references the long-awaited blood test for cancer antibodies as a potential game changer in early detection of these deadly diseases.
“(Researchers) have developed a blood test that detects antibodies that the body has produced against the tumor. It sounds like the one that they’re going to release first is a blood test that can detect antibodies against hemangiosarcoma,” Cesario said.
422 – Exploring the Caravan Hounds of India
Exploring the Caravan Hounds of India
Neil Trilokekar (in photo with Caravan Hound puppy) returns for part two of this fascinating conversation with host Laura Reeves. The Caravan Hounds story is equal parts intrigue and investigative work through the mists of time, with a frisson of danger and a large helping of reverence for the common man.
“First and foremost it’s a hunting dog,” Trilokekar said. “They hunt largely for hare and fox. Fox ’cause it’s a vermin and hare for food. In the old days, they would also take blackbuck which is type of gazelle, but that doesn’t really happen these days. So it’s a hunting dog, but it also is general alarm around the property. They are not aggressive. They’re not supposed to be super guardy or aggressive.
“(They are a) typical sighthound. Reserved, kind of cat-ish in their mannerisms. Personality wise, they are reserved like most Asiatic sighthounds. Most of them, they’re raised in a very rough manner, the ones that live in villages. But they still end up being very easy-going dogs. They know how to interact with the world. I’m very impressed with their characters.
“(The Caravan Hound is) a very ‘dry’ dog. Lean dry musculature. Minimalistic in design, if you think about it that way. Very square or even slightly shorter than they are tall. Very deep chested with a really good tuck up. Not a very long loin, it’s a fairly moderate loin. The top line is fairly level more like an Afghan type top lines. Fairly level or there might be a very slight incline from the Withers up to the hip bones, not sloping down from the Withers sloping slight incline and the hip bones are prominent. Angulation is very moderate. They have very refined head. There’s two basic head types in the breed, but even what they call the more moderate head is a very refined head to begin with.
“Thin skin. The coat is a very unique coat. Nearly the only breed that I’ve felt the coat on which is kind of the same is some Shar Pei have a similar coat that they call a horse coat. That really hard bristly hair. I think some of the Chongqing Dogs might have a similar coat too. It’s very sparse. It’s almost hairless on the undersides and it looks glossy when you look at it from afar like it gleams but you touch it and it’s got like a bristly harsh feel to it. It’s a very short coat like you can see the skin through the coat. That’s definitely a very unique and prized characteristic of the breed.
“Colours, they are usually very drab colours so they blend in with the land over which they work. They work over black cotton soil largely and so you get a lot of blacks, you get a lot of seals, shades of seal and also some of the dogs work over red soil so you get Reds and fawns and occasionally get a grey. Not blue, not a dilute like a grey, grey. Generally, a lot of old hunters and breeders, village people, they do not accept brindle and they do not accept parti colours, ’cause those are thought to have been brought in with Greyhound influence. There is not high incidence of feathered caravan hounds. Out of all the people I know and they had a meeting of 50 different people that have known the breed for years and years there was two people that have seen a feathered caravan hound born.”
421 – Find a Spot, Make a Spot: SniffSpot for Dogs and Their People
Find a Spot, Make a Spot: Sniffspot for Dogs and Their People
David Adams, founder of SniffSpot, joins host Laura Reeves to share details of the hot new alternative to dog parks.
“The easiest way to say it is AirBNB for dog parks and here’s how it works,” Adams said. “So the people that are using Sniffspot to rent yards, they’re dog owners, they’re trainers. Some of them are traveling and they need safe and private spaces to exercise their dogs, train their dogs what have you. It’s actually a huge need, especially since more dogs are living in cities and suburban areas. Public dog parks, it’s important to have them just like public parks and they’re free and open and that’s great, but it also has a flip side, which is that there’s no control over who’s there, often they’re underfunded, under maintenance, not cleaned frequently …
“How we’re serving this need is by letting anyone turn land or their yard or their facility into a private dog park. It’s a very easy process to go through. The host can help dogs. There are a lot of dogs that need this and you can actually make pretty good income. We have hosts that are pushing up towards $2000 a month in income through renting out their space on Sniffspot, so it can actually make a big difference.
“We protect our hosts. All of our users are signing a waiver before they can even come use (a spot) …it acknowledges that everything that happens is the responsibility of the user at the spot and they’re using at their own risk. If there ever is a problem from a liability perspective we also provide $1,000,000 of liability insurance with each booking. If there’s ever a problem with damage, like let’s say the gate gets broken or something else we provide damage protection to hosts as well.”
420 – Living History on the Silk Road
Living History on the Silk Road
Asiatic Sighthounds: Landrace to Distinct Breeds
Dedicated dog enthusiast and researcher Neil Trilokekar joins host Laura Reeves on the fascinating topic of Asiatic Sighthounds and their development from the landrace dogs of the Silk Trail over the Millenia.
Listeners may remember Trilokekar as part of our panel discussion of “new” exhibitors. This extended conversation touches on his personal
Caravan Hound from India. Photo credit: Neil Trilokekar
journey searching for authentic Caravan Hounds in his homeland.
The recent news of researchers nailing down the DNA of some sled dogs as a landrace, prompted the opportunity to dig into the endlessly intricate history of the elegant dogs of Central Asia. Additional DNA studies gather more information on the evolutionary development of landraces and the breeds that follow.
Landraces in dogs are defined as “dog or any livestock animal has been bred without a formal registry, although their breeders may have kept written or informal pedigrees of their animals.” These are distinguished from dog breeds which have breed standards, breed clubs and registries. Trilokekar expands on this concept in relation to the breeds about which he is passionate.
“My understanding of the concept of landrace as it relates specifically to Asiatic sighthounds, which is what I’m most familiar with,” Trilokekar said, “is that this type of dog which we could refer to something similar to saluki, probably originated in Mesopotamia or somewhere in Central Asia at one point. Then just through the natural course of human history kind of spread out to various parts of Asia, and in some cases North Africa as well, and evolved through selection by the local populace or the demands of climate and terrain and the local game into different breeds or types however you choose to see it.
Sloughi from North Africa. Photo courtesy Erika Wyatt
“…let us presume this Asiatic sighthound type originated in Mesopotamia and from there spread into Afghanistan and became the type of dog we now refer to as an Afghan hound. They needed more hair because it was cold, and a slightly different structure to work in different terrain. … and spread out to North Africa, where it became the Sloughi.
Azawakh from Central Africa. Photo courtesty Patrick Guilfoyle.
“So this is my understanding of what a landrace is. Something that occurs naturally because of human history more than someone sitting down and, for example like Louis Doberman saying I’m going to create history. I think it varies depending on the location, on the population. The Tuareg bred their dogs (Azawakh) to resemble camels, which they value above all else, so therefore you have the standing rectangle shape. That’s an active thing versus the passive. The population’s like this is the ideal of beauty for them so they are going to create dogs that resemble the camel, whereas I would
Saluki (smooth). Photo credit Kathy Jones.
imagine the Bedouin that is a more passive role because they are going solely on bringing dinner in.”
Watch this space for part two of this detailed and passionate conversation, continuing with the Caravan Hounds in India.
419 – Juniors: Skills That Apply in High Powered Careers
Juniors: Skills That Apply in High Powered Careers
Carley and Cameron Simpson join Laura Reeves for a frank, inspiring conversation on how the skills they acquired as top tier junior handlers have influenced their high powered career paths 20 years later.
Work ethic, timeliness, handling disappointment, setting goals, confidence and the edge of determination carried them from rural Washington to the sets of Hollywood and the tracks of international bicycle competitions.
“So really the work ethic and the loyalty and determination and consistency, it all came from having these animals,” Cameron said, “and having to take care of them and knowing that they depend on you, there’s no option to not take care of them.
“It taught us our work ethic. To this day it’s very noticeable in my work environment that I definitely work a lot harder and I take my job very seriously. Anything I do, I put in 100%.”
“Currently I produce television,” Carley said. “I’m an executive producer, just finished up with a Netflix series. (T)imeliness is something I feel every day in my work. Literally we are starting on time and it’s thousands of dollars every minute we go over you know or 10s of thousands of dollars it can be. So the importance of being at a ring at 8:00 AM because you know that that judge is not gonna wait for you has directly translated into my job today.
“When I was in juniors I worked for a number of handlers and I remember I would put post-it notes on my mirror in my bedroom. One of those goals that I had written was to win the Garden. I worked my butt off every little step to try to get to that goal. That goal was always in the back of my mind for everything I did growing up and working with dogs. I didn’t win the Garden, but the fact that I made the finals, the fact that I got Third (in Juniors) it was a cherry on top. That to me was winning. When you learn to work at such a high level in a competition like dog sport, it directly translates then into your later life. You want to always achieve that high level of success again. You’re always working toward, ‘Can I get there. Can I get to that highest level.’”
The only woman in the room
“This (is a) career where it is very uncomfortable to be the only woman standing in the room,” Cameron said of her work in the high-end bicycle industry. “And it’s even more uncomfortable to be the only woman standing in the room who knows more than all of the men in the group and it only takes that little bit, just that break of ice, before everybody else in the room is like, ‘oh OK, yeah we see you as a human, you know we see you as a person, and as an advisor and as an employee, as a helper. All of that has been from dog shows. It’s been from just kind of having that (attitude) of ‘maybe I don’t belong here but I’m going to try anyways’ or I’m going to observe and adapt the situation to win.
“That was something that my mom always taught us. She had this quote, it lives with me every day, which is ‘Life is a game. Play it.’ And I think I took that to the Max. Especially with juniors. If there was a judge who was very eccentric and I could tell that you could win by doing A, B or C, I would do that. A judge who wanted you to look at her every 3 seconds, I did it. I tripped and fell and I won… so it was things like that. I would never show a dog like that, that’s not my style. But that was the game right then and that was the game to win.
“Carley and I are strong enough to realize that we have to love what we do in order for us to put the energy into what we do. We have to love it and so both of us really took that to heart early on. I can’t sit at an office and do this exercise. I have to go out and get a job that it’s gonna push me, that’s going to teach me, that’s ever changing, that’s growing, that has a ton of demand and that’s what we both did. I mean both of us hold very unique jobs in very competitive industries.”
Aim for the Top
“It doesn’t matter what the task is at hand,” Cameron said. “Do it better than anyone else around you. Then you won’t have to do it again and can achieve something better after that. No matter what you’re doing, if you’re going to show this dog study the ring, study the judge, study the game and play it. Don’t just go in half-ass and try to see what you can do. That’s never really gonna work.”
418 – Cancer: Genetics, Environment or Both? Study Seeks Answers
Lori Cesario DVM DACVIM (Oncology), Owner, Canine Cancer Academy joins host Laura Reeves in a conversation about Cancer in dogs. Cesario breaks down what we know and what we don’t know about cancers, genetic basis, environmental triggers and more.
“I would say that we don’t know more than we know, unfortunately,” Cesario said. “I always feel like I leave people wanting a lot more when I have clients ask me why their dog developed cancer. Hopefully that will change. A lot of smart people are working really hard to find more information.
“The big picture is typically no one thing is going to 100% cause cancer in any one dog or person. So we’re looking for risk factors. So does your dog being a certain breed increase risk for developing a certain type of cancer? Or does a certain environmental component increase his or her risk for developing a certain cancer. In people we have some information about certain diets or components of diet increasing certain types of cancers. We’re really lacking a lot of that information in veterinary medicine.”
Cesario notes an important and wide-ranging study of Golden Retrievers that is seeking to answer some of these questions.
“The Morris Animal Foundation is running this study … they have 3,044 Golden retrievers participating and the goal is really to follow these thousands of Golden retrievers over their entire lifetime and get really an exhaustive amount of information. From what is going on in their environment, with their diet, with their genetics, to really determine what nutritional genetic, and environmental factors contribute to cancer and other diseases.
“Not only are they doing routine physical exams, not only are they collecting blood and hair and toenail samples on a regular basis, but they are asking the family questions like does your dog live with a smoker? Do you have carpet or hardwood floors? What does your dog eat? Does it eat vegetables? What type of vegetables? OK bell Peppers, what color Bell Peppers? How many Peppers? Does your dog swim in the pool? In a pond? At the beach? In the ocean?
“So, they’re getting as much information as possible and then they’re banking all of this data and other researchers can use the data. Then over time, they’re finding out which of these dogs develop certain diseases which don’t. We know that up to 65% of goldens will die of cancer, unfortunately, so they decided to run a parallel study called the Golden Oldies study. They are currently recruiting dogs. So basically, they’re looking for Golden Retrievers, purebred ideally, AKC registered better, 12 years old or older that don’t have cancer currently that have never had cancer.”
The link for the Golden Oldies study:
https://www.morrisanimalfoundation.org/golden-oldies-contact-form
417 – Dale On…. Designing a Kennel Building or Dog Room
Dale On…. Designing a Kennel Building or Dog Room
“I think in order to enjoy your animals to their fullest and everybody to have a good quality of life,” Martenson said, “you have to have the proper facilities. That is one of the most important things is having the right facilities for your dogs that you’re gonna be keeping, showing, raising …
“A dog room is a good gateway into getting a kennel going. The first rule of having your dog room is ventilation. You do not want to have common shared air with your kennel and your home. A separate air system is absolutely a necessity, whether that be a window unit or an exhaust fan. Ventilation is the key to good canine health and it also makes a nice place for you to work. Spend on a dehumidifier. All of those things will really help a lot because humidity level with animals being kept indoors is something you really have to keep an eye on.
“You have to know what you can do with your zoning, what can be allowed with that. It’s really critical, whether you have a dog room or particularly as you add a separate building, to know what the laws are and adhere to them.”
Important considerations:
- access to exercise (ie exterior door from dog room)
- covered exercise area
- isolation area for puppies/bitches in season
- evacuation plan
Dale and Laura discuss dog doors for kennel runs, flooring options from gravel to concrete to paver stones, sanitation, fencing options, and more.
“(The space) doesn’t have to be a veterinary clinic, it can just be cute. It just has to be comfortable for your dogs, something easy to clean, easy to take care of your dogs and the rest will fall in place,” Martenson said.
416 – Neonates: 6 Danger Signs to Watch for in Your New Litter
Neonates: 6 Danger Signs to Watch for in Your New Litter
Doctor Marty Greer joins Host Laura Reeves to talk about a topic that is near and dear to both of them. Troubleshooting guidelines for neonates and baby puppies.
“About the time you think you know it all is when somebody puts their thumb on you and says ha just kidding,” Greer said.
Greer’s four “Hs” for newborn puppies are:
- Hydration
- Hypoxia
- Hypothermia
- Hypoglycemia
“We need to start with making sure that the puppies get delivered quickly enough that they can get out of the birth canal, out of the sack, out of the C-section, whatever direction they come out, get the sac off the face, airway cleared and oxygen delivered as quickly as possible. That’s really critical to good health, good brain development and the whole rest of the cascade starts with that,” Greer said.
“Hydration goes along with food,” Greer observed. “With a puppy, if they’re not nursing, they’re going to dehydrate and if they’re gonna not nurse, they’re going to have low blood sugar. These all intertwine.
“It’s really important that we keep the puppies nursing. If they’re not adequately nursing then the way to assess that is going to be if they’re not gaining weight and if their urine color isn’t a pale, pale yellow. Puppies should not have a dark colored urine after the first time that they urinate. So it should be pale yellow. The puppy should be gaining weight. You can’t really assess hydration on a puppy the way you do an adult dog or cat where you pinch the skin on the back of their neck and see if it seems tacky or sticky because puppies don’t have enough body fat to have that work the way it does another ages of animal. So we really have to look at urine color and weight gain.
Danger Signs
“You’ll see a puppy that seems weak, seems lethargic, seems listless. It may be really quiet or it may be crying. It just depends on the puppy and what stage in which they are.
“I see a puppy off by itself, it may not be that the bitch pushed the puppy away. It may simply be that that puppy needs to be warmed, needs to be hydrated, need some oxygen. You do those three things — you feed it, you hydrate it, you warm it up, you get oxygen. And boom. All of a sudden, that puppy regains its strength and it starts to compete and be back with the rest of the group very quickly.
Listen to today’s episode for more tips from Dr. Greer.
For more information in previous episodes, check out some of these links.
https://puredogtalk.com/podcast/127canine-herpes-and-puppy-fatalitiesdr-jean-doddspure-dog-talk-2/
https://puredogtalk.com/podcast/14-dr-gayle-watkins-2-breeders-guide-to-neonatal-puppies-2/
415 – Legal Beagles Bring Support to Dog Breeders
Legal Beagles Bring Support to Dog Breeders
The legal beagles at Good Dog join host Laura Reeves to talk about their brand-new legal Resource Center. Ivy League-educated, top Manhattan legal firm attorneys are putting together an entire package of legal services for dog people.
“Dog breeders can and should be empowered with the law,” said Cat Matloub, Good Dog’s Head of Partnerships & Legal Affairs.
“When we started out at Good Dog, we very quickly realized the need for legal support for dog breeders in a few different areas. We identified five key areas where we can provide real valuable legal support and protection to breeders and help them protect their rights, their dogs, their programs and all of that. The five key areas are number one, how to protect breeders’ legal rights and that’s anything from support if there are ever any issues with animal control or breeders being unfairly targeted or their dogs being targeted.
“We do a lot of assisting with stolen photos and content that’s stolen from breeders. That is an enormous area where the public is continually misled and scammed. It’s contributing to the sort of horrible state of affairs that it is out there for a lot of puppy buyers. So we actually are able to get that content taken down on our breeders’ behalf. We have direct lines to the hosting companies of all these websites now and so breeders can come to us anytime.
Defense from scammers
“We help provide protection to our breeders if they’ve been scammed. If they’re worried about being scammed, we provide secure payment systems so that no breeders can ever be scammed.
“We also create things like ongoing rights to a dog, so if it’s breeding rights or rights to not have the dog bred, or co-ownership, how you can protect yourself and make sure that those rights are protected under the law.
Public Education
“With respect to protecting legal rights, we do a lot of educating the public in terms of helping them understand why breeders do things and why they shouldn’t get upset or unfairly attacked.
“Another huge area for us is legislation advocacy and overreaching regulation. What we do is we provide materials in our legal Resource Center. Letters, statements of fact, an advocacy sort of explaining why regulations are harmful, template letters that can be sent to folks that are breeders in the area and they can go speak at the council.
Contract assistance
“The other three big categories (include) contract assistance. There are so many contracts in the dog world. So sample contracts, annotated with explanations, different provisions calling out where state law applies, all of that in our legal Resource Center. What provisions to include, health care and deposit agreements, all that.
“Another big area that we provide support in is mediation services and support. Whether it’s amongst breeders or club members or breeders and puppy buyers, having an objective third party there has been enormously helpful in those situations. And then a general category of legal support more broadly, with questions around regulation and things like that.”
414 – Harness the Dog Power: Dryland Mushing Sports
Harness the Dog Power: Dryland Mushing Sports
Chelsea Murray joins host Laura Reeves to talk about dryland mushing and dog powered sports on land versus on snow.
“You don’t have to be a super athlete to do it … regardless of dog size or human size or your capability, there are lots of different ways that you can get involved with this sport,” Murray said.
“Canicross is dog powered running. So, think of sled dogs. Think of the Iditarod or the Yukon Quest, where you’ve got dogs out in front and they’re pulling and powering that sled. It’s the same exact concept, but you’re running, so they are attached to the human. If you attach them out in front of a bike or a mountain bike, that’s called bikejoring. You can also do it with a scooter. You can do it with carts and rigs. You can also do it on cross-country skis, which is skijoring. So lots of different ways, depending on where you live, that you can get involved.
“It’s relatively new in the US. It originally got started as a way to do some cross training for sled dogs, to keep them in shape and keep them fit when they didn’t have snow. (It) has been very popular in the UK for awhile and now is kind of making its way over into the US. The US does host a variety of both sanctioned and non-sanctioned events so if you look for him you can find them.”
The two main international governing bodies for sanctioned races:
https://sleddogsport.net/
http://www.isdra.org/
US Specific:
http://www.mushingusa.org/membership.htm
For more recreational runners/racers people can look at their local mushing or sled dog club (if they have one) for local races and then can look into CanicrossUSA for non-sanctioned canicross races.
Murray gives harness recommendations, training tips and guidance for those of us with concerns about safely harnessing our “dog power.”