Pet Smart: Choosing Wisely, Caring Responsibly Part 2

In this conversation, Dr. Levy and Dr. Wilson discuss the often humorous yet serious challenges faced by veterinarians when dealing with pet owners. They emphasize the importance of clear communication between pet owners and veterinary staff, highlighting how crucial it is for owners to provide accurate information about their pets' health. The discussion also touches on the need for pet owners to be proactive in understanding their pets' needs and symptoms, as well as the significance of maintaining proper medical records for their pets.

Takeaways

• Pet owners often lack awareness about their pets' health needs.
• Clear communication with veterinary staff is essential for effective care.
• Veterinarians rely heavily on the information provided by pet owners.
• Understanding pet symptoms can lead to quicker diagnoses.
• Pet owners should keep detailed records of their pets' health.
• Being proactive about pet health can prevent serious issues.
• Veterinary staff are not mind readers; they need accurate information.
• Respect and kindness towards veterinary staff can improve the experience.
• Pet owners should prepare notes before visiting the vet.
• Education for pet owners is crucial for better pet care.

Chapters

• 0:00 Understanding Pet Anxiety and Socialization Needs
• 0:55 Preparing for Veterinary Visits
• 4:10 The Importance of Accurate Pet History
• 11:07 Recognizing Symptoms and Seeking Help
• 15:42 Keeping Medical Records for Pets

Transcript

Dr. Levy (00:36)
And the other thing I wanted to talk about too was preparing. So, you know, now you have takeaways on picking out this pet and whether a pet is good for your lifestyle, but also when something is wrong with your pet and you have to bring them to the doctor.

to the vet

Dr. Wilson (00:55)
You

Dr. Levy (00:56)
I don't even know where to start on this. So for one, please come with information. Come with information that the history is just one of the most important things. It is not just a series of questions. Be nice and kind to...

your receptionist and your technicians that are asking you these questions because they are just they're doing their part and they're also trying to put the pieces of this puzzle together. I'm like, this role as a veterinarian involves a high level of investigation because...

Dr. Wilson (01:39)
Yeah, I mean

like it's like we're kidding around. Okay. Am I aging myself right now? Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Dr. Levy (01:46)
You know, if

the cats and the dogs, if the patients could speak, then things would be so much easier, you know, and that is not the case. However, you are the one that this baby lives with. So you are the one that I would assume would have the most information about the pet.

Dr. Wilson (01:55)
.

I mean, I think it's probably really important to know how long this dog has been vomiting blood. It's the key time, you know, just a little bit. You know, maybe when, when did you change the diet? Because now, you know, we're having explosive diarrhea or who, you know, when it

Dr. Levy (02:24)
Yes.

Dr. Wilson (02:29)
Did the cat have a string toy ever? Or do you not know? Okay, well, I I'm, know, plication on X-ray. So I'm trying to figure it out. You know what I mean? I mean, then you ask me what's wrong. I'm missing some things. So I'm gonna do my best here. And I'm to speculate and say, at some point this was going on. Please, you know.

Dr. Levy (02:32)
Bye.

Mm-hmm.

Goodbye.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Mmm.

Dr. Wilson (02:55)
Bear with me because I don't have all the pieces because you're the owner. I can only see what I can see and I can only go based off of what you tell me, whether it be the truth or not. You know, and sometimes we gotta dig through that truth or that not hope and find the truth, you know, like our marijuana babies. So yeah. Yeah. I don't give a damn.

Dr. Levy (02:59)
Yes.

It is

Yes, yes.

Yes, there is no saying,

okay, like granted I do not.

I don't live in a state where that is allowed, okay? Unfortunately, where it's not legal, not allowed, but it's not legal here in Texas. However, I don't care. I don't care if you are partaking in that and your dog has also partaken in that as well. I just need to know. And I can tell by the signs and sometimes the smell.

Dr. Wilson (03:30)
Mm-hmm.

And...

Dr. Levy (03:54)
Like if you coming in there smelling like weed, and now your dog got some neurological issues or they, you know, drooling. They fall, they walking and they falling to the side.

Dr. Wilson (03:56)
Baby. Death.

RULES!

Hahaha!

Dr. Levy (04:10)
then I can only assume, you know, one can only assume that this is the cause, but, and then, you know, there are tests.

Dr. Wilson (04:18)
I am. Look, I am the police.

I'm not the police.

Dr. Levy (04:22)
police. But if you, because not all clinics have like the drug test. I personally have not worked at one that has had them, but there are some that do have them that are test for like meth. I think it has marijuana on there, but I know for sure it has like meth or heroin on there. So

Dr. Wilson (04:28)
Yeah.

Oof.

why

your dog got meth and heroin though? Anyway, that's wild. Weed is one thing. Baby, get your dog at ice in the system.

Dr. Levy (04:48)
girl. Now that's wild, that's wild.

Yeah, yeah, so we.

That one, the other stuff, then yeah, y'all both need some assistance. yeah, y'all both need some help and that's okay. But I don't care about that. I'm not gonna report you. Just if you can provide that information, it could probably save you some money too. Because now I'm gonna...

Dr. Wilson (05:02)
Yeah, I think the bell is together.

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Levy (05:19)
you know, based off the symptoms, I'm going to be adding, you know, diagnostics or tests on there. But if you tell me, OK, this is what happens, then I may be more so focused on just supportive care. Like I'm going to do supportive care regardless. But then I may not feel like we have to necessarily do all these other things because we know for a fact that it was because of the weed. And in some cases,

Dr. Wilson (05:26)
Right.

All right.

But the

Dr. Levy (05:48)
Yeah.

Dr. Wilson (05:48)
difference between supportive care and now I think you should get an MRI.

Dr. Levy (05:53)
Yeah, right, right. We need to send

you for a referral to the neurologist, you know? So that, yeah, that information is helpful, just telling us what actually happened. And then I know in some cases you may not know, but I feel like I get a lot of I don't knows for it to actually be true. And also the people that you sending up there with your pet, like,

Dr. Wilson (05:59)
Right.

I forgot. husbands Cousins. I'm just the grandma. I'm the 18 year old nephew.

Dr. Levy (06:21)
yes, cause they don't be knowing nothing.

Dr. Wilson (06:29)
Well I know just as much as you do.

Dr. Levy (06:31)
They don't know nothing. They just bringing the pets up there to, you know, be seen, but they have no information. And in some cases, like the owner is out of town. So now your pet is here. We can't get in touch with you. It's one thing if you at work or something, they on a cruise and now we, no one can get a hold of you if Fluffy is at the hospital.

Dr. Wilson (06:48)
They on the cruise to the Caribbean.

Dr. Levy (06:56)
looking like, what am I doing here? Why am I here? And the cousin or whoever that you had come up there, and you know these husbands, I love my husband. Whenever I have had to see him up there, which is very rare, I'm like, try to see, just send them with as much information as possible, because they don't be knowing. They don't be knowing, yeah. Yeah, so.

Dr. Wilson (07:15)
Write it down.

Dr. Levy (07:18)
I'm not opposed to having somebody come in your place because at the end of the day, the most important thing is taking care of the baby. But write a note, type a note, send a text message, an email or something. Like you could even contact the clinic in advance. Like, hey, know, such and such is bringing Fluffy up there. These are all the symptoms. This is when it started, this is what we noticed.

Dr. Wilson (07:25)
Here you

Okay.

Dr. Levy (07:43)
or my caretaker noticed while I was gone, this, this and that. Some of them come up there and they be on point. They know what they're talking about. And even the owners, mean, I've had owners take really, really good notes, especially if they have a pet with like a chronic condition.

Dr. Wilson (07:51)
Yeah.

Dr. Levy (08:03)
They have notes on when the pet was fed, when they got water. I have had a lady, she knew the volume of water that she gave.

Dr. Wilson (08:11)
I  know that's right.

Dr. Levy (08:13)
She measured the water. So she knew the difference like in what the values from what was administered to what was consumed and wasn't consumed. The feed, she had the times, a whole chart.

Dr. Wilson (08:33)
Yeah.

Dr. Levy (08:33)
for

the bathroom times everything. And if the pet vomited, like she just had a note of it all. And I just thought there was just A plus. And she was like, it's really easy. And I'm like, I'm glad you think that. Because if that's all you had to do, then sure. know, cause this was a, she was an older woman. So like she was at home.

Dr. Wilson (08:43)
I'm all about.

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Levy (08:59)
with her pet and that was the only pet she had and so that was her focus and so she had the time and I realized we don't all have the luxury of having that kind of time on our hands.

Dr. Wilson (09:12)
do not

guess what in the morning you let the dogs out if you got a fence you let them dogs they keep their kids together you make breakfast you doing all these things I don't know what fluffy has diarrhea cuz he's outside in the in the dark because it's dark outside now in the dark you know punching his life away like he he his stomach hurting and I don't even know cuz I'm trying to put some school clothes together that's it so I get it

Dr. Levy (09:21)
right.

I don't know.

No.

Exactly.

I get it. I get it. I do get that. And that's why I do think it's important to, you know, spend that time, spend the time that's necessary. Cause most of the time they don't realize it until maybe Fluffy has an accident inside the home. And you know, by that time Fluffy done had diarrhea.

Dr. Wilson (09:40)
Thank you.

Mm-hmm.

Baby, his bowels are through. They're through. They're inflamed beyond recognition.

Dr. Levy (10:05)
I've been having diarrhea for two weeks now. Like let me go in the house and see if he notice now.

Dr. Wilson (10:13)
Help me! Help

me! Oh my god!

Dr. Levy (10:20)
And so I do just, do want to commend the owners that when they do see it, cause I know that life, you know, be lifing So I do commend the owners that when they do see stuff like that, that it's like, okay, we need to go, you know, ahead and take them in and do something about this. And, and it's different levels to that, you know, it's the ones that do know all the moves and it's like, okay.

They throw up that one time in the morning and then they already on the phone getting him into the vet after that one time.

Dr. Wilson (10:54)
Yeah,

yeah, yeah, have you tried I don't know we coming we're coming in okay

Dr. Levy (10:58)
And I'll...

Dr. Wilson (11:02)
All right. See you in a minute.

Dr. Levy (11:07)
And

I don't wanna shoot them down, you know, because I understand the concern, especially if the dog has never vomited before, but in my mind sometimes I'm like, it just happened the one time, like, because for my own pet.

Dr. Wilson (11:10)
No.

Wait.

Yeah, baby This Kato got a funny stomach. He's gone through some things. Okay, he's lost some weight But I already know because you ate something you wasn't supposed to because you you're sorry So you all right,

Dr. Levy (11:31)
Yes Yes Right, yes

Dr. Wilson (11:39)
But of course, I have things in my arsenal that are gonna be seen in the clinic, too. So it's gonna be completely different. Like, I give him some stuff in his stomach, he gonna be all right. So I'll give you that little, that one, just one time. Cause he'll do that. He'll do that for fun. He'll do that for fun. So I'm like, okay, we can work it up.

Dr. Levy (11:39)
it is a girl. Yes, yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes! Yes!

Yeah, we're

gonna work it up and see. So you have the different levels of that where it's like, they do one thing one time and five minutes later they in the clinic doors already versus the ones where it's like they've been vomiting for months and they've lost

10, 20 pounds. And they're like, I just, you know, at that point they're like, I just realized, you know, they just lost all this weight. And I'm like, okay, but we've been vomiting for months.

That's the part I can't get over. We've been vomiting for months, or we've had diarrhea for months, or for weeks. You've known about it and nothing has been done. Some of these are challenging because it's somebody who may have had diarrhea and we're actively trying to treat them and do things to help improve the diarrhea or resolve it.

Dr. Wilson (12:36)
I'm sorry, it's not

What?

Yeah.

Dr. Levy (13:02)
for a pet that has had to suffer or even with the skin issues where it's like, okay, the skin, this has been going on for months.

Dr. Wilson (13:12)
now now Nambu is bald.

Dr. Levy (13:12)
And...

about

and believe in.

Dr. Wilson (13:18)
All his gatherwag, just all kinds of scratched up skin. I mean, he got a hole in his back then because he'd been mutilating himself.

Dr. Levy (13:26)
Right.

And now we have to, miracle has to be performed now. And that's the thing too is, okay, so now, you know, we're here. We've had this issue for months and we're here. It's not going to necessarily resolve in days, you know, it's not going to be an overnight fix. Like, it may also take weeks and months to heal.

Dr. Wilson (13:47)
No, this is.

yeah. yeah.

Dr. Levy (13:53)
and that's

gonna probably take multiple visits. So you're probably gonna have to come back for a follow-up. You know what I'm saying? These are realistic expectations that it's just not realistic in people's minds.

Dr. Wilson (14:02)
Okay.

No, I mean that's why we laugh at them but the the one vomit people the one vomit one-time person that look I ain't mad at you because you go down that road you go down that road baby Sometimes it ain't no coming back from it. So Come on in. Come on

Dr. Levy (14:14)
Yeah.

My man, it's you.

Mm-mm.

Come on in,

go to your follow-ups to make sure that it's healing appropriately. And if it's not, yeah, go to your re-checks. And if it's not healing well, you don't have to wait till your re-check. Like, if we're not getting better, and if you don't see improvements or progression over the next few days, like some...

You know, it's not gonna necessarily be healed, but if we're not going in the right direction and your recheck is not till a week or two weeks from now, do you need to call the clinic. Call them. I get a lot of people that will come to me after an issue started at another clinic. They never went back for their recheck or things, so things probably didn't get better.

Dr. Wilson (15:00)
Right.

Dr. Levy (15:15)
or it went away and came back, but they never went back to the previous vet. They just decide, I'ma just go somewhere else. I'ma go to a new vet. And it's like, okay, then they come and then we starting over. Especially if you ain't got no records with you. If you don't have no records from the previous vet, and this is a long ongoing situation, I'm gonna have to start over from scratch.

Dr. Wilson (15:27)
So I know that.

Dr. Levy (15:42)
You know, like I'm gonna probably have to do the same test that they already did. And I would like to not necessarily have to use the same medication because if it didn't work, I would like to try to find something better, you know, that works for your pet. Like that's why keeping records is really important. Keeping all that stuff together. I'm like, think about your own health.

Dr. Wilson (15:52)
Right.

Get you

a little folder and put on it.

Dr. Levy (16:09)
Yeah, get a folder and put the medical records together.

Yeah, especially if you have a sickly dog. don't have, there's no bank that we can go to, no medical bank that we can go to to get the records from your pet. you know, if you don't, some of them don't even know the name of the clinic that they.

Dr. Wilson (16:21)
Right.

Yeah, the one down

on I don't know anything about this place.

Dr. Levy (16:35)
So keep up

with the medical records and have real expectations because now I'm gonna have to treat, you know, something that somebody else started, like treating. And if it didn't get better, go back. And if you wanna go to somewhere else, cause maybe you didn't have a good experience, then that's perfectly fine.

But I do think that, you know, seeing things through is, it's beneficial. And like I said, if it don't get better, don't wait till the recheck, cause it's gonna be worse. my goodness.

Dr. Wilson (17:02)
on the channel.

There. Yeah.

You know.

And that's also, you know, lessons learned. They don't know any better in that moment, but listen, we'll do better.

Dr. Levy (17:22)
But yeah, so just to get off of my little rant, I will. I can say that it will be helpful. And this is one of the things that I wanted to have in the book that I was talking to you about in regards to helping prepare pet parents, because I'm very passionate about

educating them so that they can be better advocates for themselves and for their pets. And so this was not necessarily to bash, but it is, it was a venting session. And it's meant to just kind of share the perspectives that we have and how you can better help us because

Dr. Wilson (18:00)
Yeah.

Dr. Levy (18:05)
If you can help us, we can help you more efficiently. So definitely having a timeline of when symptoms have occurred is helpful. The frequency, how often something has happened. And it gives us a better idea of if this is something that's chronic, that's been going on for a long time, or if it just started.

Dr. Wilson (18:29)
or if it's a related thing now, so if it's actually something new,

Dr. Levy (18:29)
You know?

Yeah, changes in your lifestyle, changes in diets, changes in treats. If other people in the household are feeding the pets, that you may not, that drops something, whether it was food or medication.

Dr. Wilson (18:36)
Thank

You have an older person on our code that may have dropped something.

Dr. Levy (18:53)
and making sure you keep your stuff locked up and separate your medication, separate from your pet's medications, and then being mindful of, right, if those things may have fallen on the floor, because I definitely know I've experienced those type of situations where owner may have dropped their medication and the dog hurried up and came and ate it. so knowing what that medication is,

Dr. Wilson (19:14)
Right.

Dr. Levy (19:18)
is also helpful because then we can look up possible side effects, you know, for those particular medications that your pet may could possibly have or endure. So all of that information, like we're not just asking questions because I see people get so annoyed when they get asked all these questions, but it's not for fun. Like it is us trying to

put these pieces together to make sense of things. We do not know everything and that's why the history and the information that you can provide as the pet owner is essential.

Dr. Wilson (19:57)
Right. And yall think we know everything. I appreciate it. know, I do know a lot. But for real, I just think it's, you know, important to understand that, you know, we just, people just like everybody else and we have to win this scenario just like Daveeta was talking about. sorry, Dr. Levy was talking about earlier.

Dr. Levy (20:02)
Mm.

Mm.

Yeah.

Dr. Wilson (20:20)
you just gotta be cognizant of the information that you're given because again, we're doing it based off of what you tell us and what we put the pieces of the puzzle together. And if you come across a person like me, I am not gonna care about you getting an attitude about the questions.

Dr. Levy (20:29)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Wilson (20:40)
that we're asking. I'm going to directly explain to you through your attitude, because I'm sensing it. I have bedside manner, but I also am a person. I'm not going to let that control this environment. So be upset. But I'm going to take care of your pet So it just is what it is. So you know.

Dr. Levy (20:40)
I'm gonna go to I'm gonna go sleep.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Dr. Wilson (21:04)
like this.

you

Dr. Levy (21:05)
Well,

I think we drugged that one. I'm sure there's other things that we can talk about in regards to that, but I think that one was drugged on.

Dr. Wilson (21:13)
Yeah.

Big fish trying to drag, they were at the sea. It's okay, it's okay. It's okay.

Dr. Levy (21:19)
And I hope, right, I hope that was

helpful. I hope it was helpful for somebody.

Dr. Wilson (21:26)
Yeah, even if you just have

Dr. Levy (21:29)
Okay, well, we'll conclude this one and we'll see y'all next time.

Dr. Wilson (21:30)
Thank you.