July 10, 2024 • 55 mins
In this episode of In The Vet’s Office, Abby Smyers (animal rescue advocate and wife to Dan Smyers of Dan & Shay) stops by with one of her four rescue pups, Macaroni. Abby shares how she first got involved with animal rescue and how it quickly became her life’s passion. Abby opens up about her dog Joy’s recent cancer diagnosis. Joy was diagnosed with sarcoma, a soft tissue cancer, after Abby discovered a mass near her tail while out for a walk. Dr. Josie was one of Abby’s first calls and helped build out the care team that has taken are of Joy in recent months. Abby & Dr. Josie go in depth about the journey from diagnosis to how Joy is doing currently. In the intro to Abby’s interview, Dr. Josie also sits down with her co-host, radio personality Shannon Ella, to dive into the Case of the Week – an owner that came in asking for a mammogram for her 10-month-old dog, which led to an interesting discovery! A listener calls in to ask for help preventing ear infections in his dog that loves the water and another caller asks Dr. Josie when she can start taking her puppy on runs. After the interview, Dr. Josie and Shannon wrap up the episode with PAW & ORDER where Dr. Josie details things she’d never do with her own pets including not keeping an eye out for ring worm on your pets that are highly contagious to humans.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Yeah, you're listening to In the Vets Office with doctor
Josie Horchak.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
All right, welcome to in the Vets Office.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
I am your host, doctor Josie, and as always, we
have the lovely Shannon.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Here is her co host.
Speaker 4 (00:24):
Hello. How are you? I'm great?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
How are you? I'm good.
Speaker 5 (00:27):
How's the Vets Office been lately? Any exciting things going on?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Or yeah?
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Actually this week I had a great case. I had
a lady come in just to kind of paint the picture.
She's probably seventy years old, like an older woman, very Southern,
thick Southern accent. You can tell she's definitely like smoked
cigarette or two in her.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Day, yep.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
And I walk in and she's like, doctor Josie, I
need you to give my dog a Mamma Graham. And
I'm like, oh no, Mamma Graham. I was like, ma'am,
I'm so sorry. We don't do those here. And she
starts busting out laughing. She's like, I know, I know,
but I do need you to do a titty check.
And I'm like, okay, all right. I'm like, I love
(01:06):
my job. I love my job. I'm like, what do
you mean by a titty check? She's like, well, you know,
they're swollen, they're bigger. Just something's going on. And we
know what's going on, girl o lord and her dog
was only ten months old, so I'm thinking maybe she's
about to go into her first heat cycle, right, and
so you know, I do my thing, get on the ground,
(01:27):
do a full exam, and lo and behold, her breast
tissue is extremely engorgedus like, very very thick. It is
not just her going into a heat cycle. And I'm like,
you know what, can I borrow her for one second
and come back in And she's.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Like absolutely, I want to do a titty check.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
I want to do a titty check. And we take
her back to the treatment area. I stick an ultrasound
probe on her belly and there are eight heart beats.
Oh wow, she's very pregnant. She is very pregnant. I
go back in the room and I say, is there
any chance she's been in contact knowing full and well
she has, has she been in contact with an intact
to me out? And she says no, well yes, actually
(02:03):
you know her brother who's also ten months her litter mate,
and he's not neutered yet. And I was like, wow, Oh,
she's pregnant with her brother's puppies. And it really made
me think. You know a lot of owners and it's
no fault of their own. Don't realize that once they
hit six months of age, like they can make babies,
and yeah, you don't think about it when.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
They're with their brother.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
You think they're like they're like you.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Know humans, You're like, oh, they're with their the siblings, they're.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Fine, right exactly. But the case, no, mother nature took over. No,
and the titty check ended up being a pregnancy check,
and she is gonna have puppies.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
We'll see. What was this.
Speaker 5 (02:37):
Woman's reaction when you were like, you're about to have
eight puppies.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Oh, her jaw was on the floor, hands on the bench.
She was like, oh my god.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
I was like, I'm so sorry, Like, please do not
pass out in this hospital.
Speaker 5 (02:49):
So wait, does she have the puppies though, Like, does
she have more than one?
Speaker 3 (02:53):
She has just the brother and sister from the same litter. Okay,
so she bought brother and sister. Yep, Okay, yep, you
bought two puppies at the same time, a boy and
a girl, and neither one had been neutered or Spain.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yet two for ten special. She got the two for
ten special.
Speaker 5 (03:08):
Exactly buy two puppies and you get eight exactly one
of them.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
That's wow.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Never a dull moment, y'all, Never a dull moment.
Speaker 5 (03:16):
Yeah, that's like something you just don't think about. Like
we bought German shepherd puppies my mom did when we
were in kindergarten and they were brother and sister, and
I don't think we ever thought about, no, you know,
the possibility of them. Yeah, I'm making babies, not making
fun of her in the slightest You would never even
think of it. And then it just, yeah, happened. So yeah,
that was our case of the week. All right, on
(03:36):
to some listener questions.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
Hello, well, my dog loves to swim all the time
and he just keeps getting air infections.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
I don't know what to do about it, so please help.
This is a great question.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
We see this all the time in the summer, and
really usually it tends to be in dogs with those big, long,
floppy ears. Yeah, they'll get moisture trapped inside their ear
canals and then it starts this vicious cycle of getting
ear infections. And so what I tell owners is you
want to buy an ear cleaner. All ear cleaners are
not made equal. Definitely get the medicated one from your veterinarian,
(04:10):
the ones on Amazon and Chewy. There are some crazy
ear cleaners out there that probably won't do much of
anything or can make things worse. Right, and then I
recommend every single time without fail, after they go swimming
or you give them a bath, probably like thirty two
minutes to an hour after, I recommend washing out their
ear canals. And I think that people are surprised when
they hear that because they're like, wait, we don't want
(04:31):
moisture trapped in their ears, but now you're telling me
to like dump ear cleaning solution into their ear canals.
But there's different drying ingredients like salicylic acid and ingredients
like that that get down into deeper parts of the
ear canal and get that moisture out. So it's really
really important if your dog loves to swim clean their
ears out every single time.
Speaker 5 (04:51):
I did not know that because we are dog coas.
She's always in the pond whenever she gets a chance,
and she definitely she doesn't have like the big floppy ears,
but she's always got just like uncomfortableness after So yeah,
you should be actually rinsing them out technically after they swim, yes,
every single time. Interesting and don't buy, like kids, your
phones for them to swim with him?
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Now your plugs, No, your plugs. And people are always saying, well,
how do I clean their ears? And there's really no
exact science to it. I flop that ear over and
I pour the cleaning solution into their ear canal until
you see it pooling.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
There's really two separate parts to their ear.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
It takes like a hard ninety degree turn way deep
down in the canal, and you want it to trickle
all the way down there, so just dump it on in.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
All right.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Yeah that's good to know.
Speaker 5 (05:35):
And I mean, yeah, you'd think like you wouldn't want
to put more liquid in there, but it's actually, yep,
the solution, Yep, exactly, solution is the solution. Okay, all right,
do we have any more questions?
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Hey, doctor Josie. So I just got a new puppy.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
He's really energetic. I love running and I really want
to start taking him on runs with me. How old
does he need to be before I start taking him
on runs? Thanks?
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Puppy owners Love to ask this question, and I think
we get like maybe a little scared because you read
things online. And so if your puppies out running around
the yard, you're going for walks like that is great.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
We want them to be active.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Now, if you're like a marathon runner, and yeah, clock
and miles on concrete and pavement, that's where we need
to be careful. Sort of a rule of thumb is
most dogs growth plates close around twelve months of age. Now,
the bigger the dog, the later that can be. It
can be all the way up to like eighteen months,
even twenty four months, and really big, like giant breed dogs,
so like your Bernise Mountain dogs, your Great Danes. Granted
(06:32):
those dogs are not probably running marathons, so they get
any sat Bernards exactly going on a five k exactly.
But if you have like a Vishla or a wimern
or or a Pointer, those kinds of dogs that are
great running buddies, I say, wait until they're year of
age and then you can really you know, from there,
don't put them into a twenty six miler, but from
there they can start running with you and they should
be perfectly fine.
Speaker 5 (06:53):
Yeah, because I think you probably in your mind, you
think like, oh, the more exercise the better for puppies.
That'll like tire them out, and you know they're they
have so much rambunctious energy. But yeah, he'd probably have
to be careful. And there's just breeds that are like
made for running and not. Like we had a German Shepherd.
I used to love running with her, but I was
always so scared too, just because they're notorious for having
hit problems. So I never would like run further than
(07:16):
you know, a mile.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Yeah, I think I think you're so right, Like a
lot of it is you know your dog better than
anyone and just watching them and they're going to tell you,
like when they're tired. You're gonna know when they don't
want to be going another mile. Like you really have
to be kind of in tune with how they're feeling
and so yeah, if they're limping, if they're kind of
holding back, if they're not, if they don't seem super
interested in it, it's not about you, it's about them,
(07:38):
So go finish the rest of your miles and let
them hang out on the couch.
Speaker 5 (07:41):
Yeah, that's why I had a French bulldog Boston Terrior
mix because I was like, she is not going to
want to run marathons with me. Okay, she's not built
for this, and neither am. I knew she's lucky to
get around the block.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Yeah exactly. I didn't buy her thinking we are going
to run together.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
I love that.
Speaker 5 (07:57):
All right. Well, I'm so excited about our special guest
on the show today. I feel like she has such
an interesting story with her pet journey. So who's coming up?
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Yes, we have Abbi Smiers in the Vets office today.
She is one of my very dear friends and also
the wife of Dan Smiers from Dan and Shay. She
has really dedicated the last decade of her life to
dog rescues. She works at Wags and Walks here at Nashville.
She's been very involved with Proverbs, which is another dog
(08:27):
rescue here, and is really just an advocate for all animals,
whether it's the birds in the trees, the deers in
the yard. She's just always looking out for all of
them and is just such a kind and loving soul.
So I'm excited to have her in. She also has
four rescue dogs herself, and I get to help take
care of them.
Speaker 4 (08:44):
So today's episode would be.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Great, awesome. Let's welcome Abbie Spiers.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
Welcome to in the vet's office. Abby Smiers. I'm so
excited to have you here.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
So happy to be here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
You're welcome Anne Today, as everyone knows, perfect, she sat
right on cue. This podcast is biod and she brought
with her the lovely Macaroni.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
This is Macaroni. She's so good, Yes, Macaroni, we call
her mac.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
She has the best ear. She's just perfect in every way. Yeah,
one ear crazy, straight up, one ear down. You actually
have a tattoo of her little years.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
I love that.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
My friend Andrew drew it for me and then I
got it tattooed because I love her ears so much.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
It's so cute.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
So we have a lot of ground to cover today.
Before we dive in, I have to tell one of
my favorite stories about you.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Abby.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
And I really like to walk our dogs together. And
I think it was last summer whatever, last year. Sometime
you text me about twenty minutes before we're supposed to
go on our walk and you're like, I'm so sorry,
I'm not gonna be able to come over. Here's why,
And you send me a picture and it's this tiny
newborn baby deer.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
The cutest thing that's ever existed. It was so cute.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
It was so cute.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
And I call you and I'm like, whatever you do,
do not come on this walk.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
You must stand vigil over this deer.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
It did not need any saving. And I learned, Yeah,
but I thought I needed saving.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
But you stayed in your house all day, yeah, watching
this baby deer.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Yes, because I was so concerned something was gonna happen
to it. It's the cutest thing you've ever seen. Yeah,
I also am so I love deer. I think they're
just really magical.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
And Abby has a water bowl out you guys in
her front yard for deer.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
We're in a drought.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
We're in a drought.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
We're in a drought.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
How are they gonna find?
Speaker 3 (10:27):
And honestly, the last night, one of the last times
I was over your ring doorball camera, your outdoor camera
picked up a deer drinking out of the water bowl.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
You were the first person to ever see them because
they never use it. They just like look at it
and consider drinking it and never do. And then finally
my hard work paid off.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
I was kind of like laughing at you in my head,
I'm like yeah, right, like is gonna drink out of
this bowl?
Speaker 2 (10:48):
And then sure enough it did.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Okay, anyways, back to the baby deer and you're like,
what do I do?
Speaker 2 (10:53):
I'm like, I don't know. They don't teach usice in
bed school.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Also, I'm recognizing that we're gonna be talking about animals,
and I'm like automatically using this like.
Speaker 4 (10:59):
Way your voice and when I'm talking to animals, and
so like.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Ah, it's oh, I love it. So you called the
wildlife person.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
I did because I had never been around a baby deer.
I love them, but I and it was I don't know.
It was just in a very strange spot where our
house was situated. There wasn't anywhere for the mom to
really go, so I didn't know why I would have
left the baby there. It was a very weird spot
to leave it, and so I thought it was abandoned.
But lo and behold called a wonderful wild deer wildlife rehab.
(11:34):
Her her name is Deborah. I have her contact now
in my phone and it has her birthday, so I
always know when her birthday is.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
Too. Talked to her again, but I know when her
birthday is.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
And it says like what age too, that's amazing, but
love her and she told me so. Now that everyone
knows this about baby deer, if they are laying still,
which this one was completely silent and with their head down,
they're doing exactly by nature what they were born to do.
So when they're born, they are born odorless and silent,
and mom is obviously not so she leaves to go feed,
(12:09):
and they are protected because predators cannot find them. I mean,
my dogs had no idea that it was there the
whole day I did.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Yeah, no, of course.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
I first set a camera standing watch doll i U
star Ferbo.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Camera and moved it from the dog's room and so
I could like watch them outside.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
I got an update like every forty five minutes. It
was amazing and it was so cute.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
And so then later that evening, you're happy, you let
your dogs out.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
This is when it goes down. You let your dogs
out into the front yard.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Yep, to use the restroom. They had no idea the
deer was there. The deer was on the sideyard.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
No big deal.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
I have been watching this thing all day.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Like basically my own child. And it's mother, Yeah, it
was its mother. And then and then you found out
that it had.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
A clearly do not trust free.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Yes, Mom came flying of nowhere, truly out of nowhere.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Jumps in your dog, jumps your massive fence.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
You guys, this is caught on her camera at her
front house, like security footage. You're out there, and then
all of a sudden, you can see Dan come running outside.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Well, I was in the living room and I could hear.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
Him yelling no, no, no, and.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
I thought the dogs were going after something because they've
been known to chase a bunny or and he I
can just hear him screaming. I look out the window
and I see the mom in the front yard chasing
the dogs. He's chasing the deer and it's.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
I mean, it's it's the funniest.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
It was like he kind of already looks like Vince
Palm and he's a Steelers fan.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
He was like going left, fake and right. The deer's
like juking him. It's like steps on ghosts.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
At one point, the deer stepped on ghosts. So then
I of course called Josie. I'm like, cause he's gonna
be okay. But yeah, and so Dan. But the funniest
thing is, I'm like what was your And that's what
everyone wanted to know when they saw the video, like
were you going after the dogs? Are you going after
the deer? He was just like one or the other
because he at one point dives, takes a fall, He
(14:10):
took the hot mess.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Took one for the team, and I just want to
say he won dog Dad of the Century for me.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
It was amazing. I'm gonna have to post this video
so everyone can see.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
But also I'm like, how rude that I protected your.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Child all day and then you're try and attack my own.
I know all that to say, if you ever find
a baby deer.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
And just leave it alone, leave it alone alone, go
about your wife, your dogs inside.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
And keep your dogs inside.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
Mac so Abby and I first met because she's super
duper involved here in the dog rescue community. How did
you get involved? Like have you always been involved in
dog rescue? How did that come to be?
Speaker 1 (14:44):
So it's been ten years almost exactly. I was working
at Warner Music Nashville, which is right down the road
from us, and someone was cooing in the hallway and
I was like, what's out there? And there was this
puppy and my coworker, Rebecca was fostering this little puppy
named Kathy, Sweet Kathy. And I don't know what it
(15:08):
was about this dog.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
I just had.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
I guess had rescue dogs growing up. My dad rescued
a couple of dogs, but I just wasn't super well
versed in the rescue world, and my mom had had
Little be Shawn's. I had a lab at the time
that I got from a breeder, and I just didn't
really know anything. But this fairal brown dog just stole
my heart. And I Textan was like, should we get
(15:32):
this dog?
Speaker 4 (15:32):
He was like, bring her home?
Speaker 1 (15:34):
And so brought her home that day and as a foster,
and two days later we text the organization and said
we were going to keep her. But it was actually
the very first ever Pimp and Joy Week that the
Bobby Bones Show has done with Amy and honoring her mom,
and so it was like the very first one ever.
There were signs all over Nashville about Pimp and Joy
(15:57):
and so we when we adopted this dog, I was like,
I think we need to name her Joy. We did
this amazing thing, We rescued a dog, and so that
is Joy and Joy, I always say, is just the
reason that I am who I am and what I
do because from there I got involved with the rescue
that she was at Proverbs twelve ten animal Rescue here locally.
(16:18):
They're a wonderful organization, that right, I got Biggie from Yeah,
sweet big, Yeah, They're wonderful, And so I just started volunteering.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
And then from there Dan and I.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Probably fostered about forty dogs, and I just really fell
in love with rescue and rescue animals. And now we
have four and I would have a hundred more if
I could. But they I five years ago, I guess
it was met our friend Catherine, and she was also
just rescue girly, and so we hit it off very quickly,
(16:51):
and when she wanted to start Wags and Walks, I
was like fully in support because even Levon, who's the
director of Proverbs, will tell you there is a lot
of room for rescue in Glastown. There is especially in
the South exactly, and just extreme overpopulation here and we
just don't and as Nashville grows, that problem grows, and
(17:11):
we're not really fixing the problem with spey and neuter
or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
So there's just going to be.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
A lot more dogs and a lot more people, and
so when Catherine started WAGS, I just wanted to be involved.
Catherine's one of those people where you're like, she's gonna
do something amazing no matter what it is, and we're
just all really lucky that.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
It's dog related.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
And so I've been helping her for the last five years,
and then I started doing development for her. I do
development partnership consulting and then as well as run her
development committee.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
Which you are on.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
What you're aware of it because you are a member
of it, yes, And so it's just been it's just
a huge part of my life advocating for it. I
always say I never want to judge anyone or make
anyone feel bad or wrong for however they choose to
get a dog. As long as you were taking care
of that animal, that's all I care about. But if
(18:06):
I can just talk about my experience in rescue and
with rescue animals and advocate for them and just even
just showing whether you get it from a republe breeder
or hopefully rescue, just show the level of care that
I give my animals, so that they want to care
for their animal in the same way. That's more my
(18:29):
goal and I always wanted to just it was something
I felt like was an uphill battle. For the ten
years that I've been in rescue in New York, in LA,
in major cities Austin, rescue is just what you do.
It's cool, it's fun, like there's these huge rescues, and
it just was never that in Nashville, and I just
felt like there was, as weird as that sounds, there
(18:50):
was a market for rescue, and yeah, because it wasn't
It was more an educational thing. People just didn't think
to rescue, and once we could get them to and
educate them too, you can see how amazing it is.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
And I think that we're doing that with Wax Oh
for sure. Exciting, absolutely because they're awesome and Mac, you're
being so good she is, She's like, see, rescues are perfect,
you ow, Q we are.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
One of the things that we had bonded about at
the beginning was we both had dogs from breeders.
Speaker 4 (19:32):
Yes we did.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
You had Miller, your lab and I had Luca, my
great Dane. And it's not to knock like there are
some amazing breeders out there that do a really good job.
And it's like you said, it's no judgment on those
that decide to get dogs from breeders, But I think
once you had a rescue dog, like it really changes
your perspective.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
It does.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
My situation with Miller ended up being really unfortunate. I
did so much research and it's not even a knock
on the breeder.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
They're a really, really reputable reader.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
But he was just never really well and he ended
up passing really young, and it was obviously devastating.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
But outside of.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
That, you know, I started getting involved with rescues, starting
with Joy, and it just I don't know, there is
there's just this Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
I feel like they just look at connections. Yeah, like
I know you saved me, they do, they know, yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
That's Miller was the best dog, so sweet, ten out
of ten, good boy. But I just don't feel like
he ever needed me.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
He was a trust fund baby.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
He was These dogs need.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Me, yeah, I mean yeah, exactly, this close to death truly,
if you think about it, like they wouldn't probably wouldn't
be alive if it wasn't.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
And I think they feel that way still every time I.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
Ve you house, Yeah, exactly make it.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Yeah, it's so true. I mean I just think it
like really changes your perspective. And I don't know if
it makes us like gives us.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Like a martyr complex or something.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
I don't know, but I just feel like even more
attached to them, and just the thought of the life.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
I lived before.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
And it's true and Oakley, like when my Shepherd was
on about to be ethanized.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
You just think about it and it really just and
he's so gorgeous.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Changes the way you think about things. Yes, he's a
good boy. He hasn't come to the podcast yet. Well,
just the little guys.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Well, he needs to be with his friends here. Yeah,
I know his hair can mix in.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
With all the other the other dog care I know
our prayer podcast set up. We've got dog hair just
everywhere at this point.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
It's like my house. It's fine, exactly.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
Okay, so you've got your four dogs, yes, currently give
us the rundown of each one.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
So I touched on Joy a little bit. Yeah, we're
going to circle back to circle back to her. I
know we're going to talk about her a lot to Yeah,
but so I'll keep her breathe. Yeah, but she was
number one name during Pimp and Joy Week more than anything. Yes,
she used to be Kathy. She was Faral Mama, but
she was not the Faroh mama. Born to a Farah mama,
(21:53):
she was one of nine puppies and she they just
all are kind of inherently. I keep in touch with
some of her siblings, and they're just all inherently little nervous,
shy born to the wilderness dogs.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
She's truly one of the most innately shy dodgs I've
ever met.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
But she is also the best dog in the world
is She is so obedient and sweet and lovely. Yes,
she is just a little hesitant, yeah, of everything, understandably so,
but she could not be sweeter. And she is the
best thing in the entire world. I love her so much.
(22:32):
And then after that, we were fostering this dog, Natchez
was his name. He was found dodging cars on Natchez Trace,
hence the name, and he actually was our very first
foster dog. And in that time of fostering him, he
was so funny. When I was volunteering at Proverbs, he
was brought in off the streets acting so scared, hiding
(22:58):
in the back of a crate like shivering. So of
course they told me he didn't have a foster. So
I called Dan. I was like, can we foster our
first dog? And he said sure. And that's one thing
about Dan if he will never tell me no. People
al was like, oh is Dan like, won't let you
get any more dogs? I'm like, no, I have to
make a dog.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Dan's the problem.
Speaker 4 (23:16):
Dan always says yes.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
So I get this little Natchez dog hit a sweater
because it was winter, and we go home and he
is an absolute terror, like in the best way.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
He's like, I'm so shy, he's so sweet.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
But I was like, you duped me, and I instantly
fell in love with him.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Is that chief?
Speaker 4 (23:35):
That is now chief?
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Oh my god?
Speaker 4 (23:36):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (23:37):
And then over that like foster time was actually when
Miller got sick and died, okay, And I had already
been like, I don't know how I'm going to give
this dog up.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
I love him.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
But Dan had just started his career. We were traveling
so much. Anyone who like knows the country music start,
I mean, artists are gone. He was gone like two
hundred and fifty days a year. And so I was like,
there's just no world in which we can have three dogs.
And as a single mother has a single mother and
obviously not the way that I ever anticipated anything happening.
(24:10):
But Miller unexpectedly passed and I remember calling Levon the director,
just bawling and saying, Miller passed away.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
But also, I have to keep Natchez because I can't
get rid of another dog. And he became Chief, and
him and Dan are like pretty tight.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
They are so tight. Yeah, and he is absolutely hilarious.
He's so opinionated and so bossy. And we had no
idea by giving him the name Chief. He was named
after the Kansas City chiefs, but he just fully embraced
that personality. He was like, I am I am Chief.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
If one of his siblings like kind of walks by her,
looks at him, heried hook.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
Like grimlin like Chief.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
If anyone knows the like mister, I think it's mister
Bubb's Instagram account. He's like a little Chihuahua mix brown
thing that is really really growlly. They are the same, yea,
the same thing, are separated at birth. And then right
before Dan and I got married, we were asked to
foster a dog and I said no because we were
(25:10):
about to get married. I was planning a wedding and
it was a lot. And then they know that I'm
a sucker. So they sent me a photo of this dog.
It's just that this is what he looks like. And
he looked I don't know, he looked maybe like a
fifty pound husky mix of sorts. But what got me
was he was gray. His whole neck and chest were gray,
(25:32):
even though he was an all white dog, because he
had been chained outside. And so I, again being me,
I said, okay, we'll take him and we'll figure it
out with the wedding. Or I think I said I
need him moved before my wedding.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
And so he came.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
We go to pick him up, and they brought out
an eleven pound dog to us, and I was like,
this is not the right dog.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
I was going to say when you said fifty, I
was like, did you mean fifteen?
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Yes, well he looked big in this photo. And then
bring him out They're like, no, this is They were
calling him ghost Pepper, and so they were like this
is ghost Pepper. I'm like, no, this is a big
like I'm picking up a big dog and this was
ghost Pepper. And so we brought him home and he
is now a ghost. But even though I protested getting
a dog before our wedding. Dan was in charge of
(26:19):
getting their outfits for the wedding, and we were still
fostering Ghost, and we did our engagement photos and Chief
and Joy were in the engagement photos.
Speaker 4 (26:27):
Ghost was not. He was just our foster dog.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
And then their outfits showed up in the mail and
there was a dress for Joy and two tuxedos. I
was like, Dan, did you get Ghost a tuxedo? And
he said yes, I did. I said, okay, well, Ghost
is in our wedding photos, then we're obviously keeping him.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
He was like, that was one thousand percent my plan.
So he was in the wedding.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
He did not leave after that then.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
And he's really obsessed with you.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Oh yes, gho, Ghost, say his mom. He cares about
nothing in this world but me. Yeah, truly, it's we
will talk about what is happening with Joy here shortly.
But all the other dogs, when Joy was at the
vet all day, they were all acting weird.
Speaker 4 (27:09):
Ghost could not care.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Less because he cares just as long as I'm there,
He's either going to be in my closet or be
in my lap.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
Otherwise.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
I feel like every woman owner deserves that kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
I mean, it is unconditional, it's unconditional and loves me.
Speaker 4 (27:23):
He does.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
He's a mom's boy, he does.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
I always make fun of not make fun but like
I'm like the moms that have boy sons and they're
just like obsessed with They're like, okay, that's crazy, but
like I kind of get it.
Speaker 4 (27:33):
Yeah, I'm mind to get it. No, he loves me
more than anything. And now we joke.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
I'll always say to a ghost, I'm like, your dad
didn't even want.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
To keep you. He's like, that is not He's like.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
I bought the tuxedo.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
Okay, I can't let him know that it was me. No,
he loves me too much. Yeah, Frank, it's heart well.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Noisy okay, okay, yeah you kick well. Noisy over here
is like is it time to talk about me?
Speaker 4 (27:57):
Like hello?
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Then a couple of years later came this one. Oh
also though the ghost thing back to ghost really quick.
The gray from his chain. He just to like talk
about rescue and how awful things can be sometimes. This
little thing that I thought was not that it is
ever okay to chain up a dog, but a dog
(28:20):
being chained in someone's front yard also led me to
believe this was a bigger dog. Why anyone would have
a heavy chain on a dog, but let alone. And
he was eleven pounds and he's probably he's healthy now,
so he's probably eighteen. But he was just this emaciated
eleven pound little thing.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
Yeah, I mean a chain probably weighed more than him
a thousand percent. Yeah, it was awful, harol.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
It took us like two months to get to shampoo
that gray.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
Out of him.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
Yeah, I mean, just some of the shape that these
pets come into the rescue and is just it makes
you question humanity.
Speaker 4 (28:51):
It does, true.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
That's a Roney's That was amazing.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
She was like, what is that figure?
Speaker 3 (29:03):
We are back? Mac just saw a strange man behind
the set. I may have peed myself a little. That
was a very loud.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Bar and the anti I mean just like, no, I'm
just gonna lay down, she says, And I'm good I.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
Saved you all here. You're welcome than you for be
on guard. While Mac came into the picture as if
another foster fail.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Of course, Taylor's oldest time.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Yes, she I hadn't fostered in a minute, and so
they asked Proverbs asked if I wanted to come pick
out a puppy to foster, and I said sure, and
I actually went to pick up a completely different dog
and she was sitting there and they're like, well, she
needs one too, So I was like, I kind of
like this one.
Speaker 4 (29:44):
And so she came home.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
She did have the ear like that when she was
really little, and it was the cutest thing.
Speaker 4 (29:52):
That's the one.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Be one straight up. It's the cutest ear in the
whole world. And so when she was really really little
they were doing that. I was like, this dog and
I knew right away I was gonna have a hard time.
Speaker 4 (30:06):
But you don't know if it's going to stay like that. No,
you have no ise.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
So the fact that it did well and it went
down for a minute. I went to the gym one
day and came back.
Speaker 4 (30:15):
In the ear was down.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
I was like, oh, sad, and then lo and behold.
A couple weeks later, back up and it has never
never gone away.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
It doesn't really.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Make sense either. The ear is so thick and so heavy.
There's just no world in which it should stand up.
Speaker 4 (30:28):
No, but all accounts, she is the most special dog.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
So this one was definitely my choice. I couldn't live
without her.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Yeah, she's your girl.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
I love her so much, and she is just one
of a kind in every way.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
It really is one of the I'm not sure I've
ever met another dog like her in my life.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Everything about her, she has like a weird, funny gait
when she.
Speaker 4 (30:52):
Walks, the ear eternal puppy.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Yes, she's now five, but everyone who meets her thinks
she's six months old. Still. Yeah, acts like a puppy,
looks like a puppy.
Speaker 4 (31:02):
She's perfect.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Yes, we love her. We love her tremendously.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
So last time at least's Joy. Yes, and you've kind
of already told us a little bit about her.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
I didn't know her name was Kathy. That's a fun
fact for me today. Not a great name.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Joy is much better. Yes, And recently, you guys have
been through a bit of a healthy journey. Do you
want to walk us through what's happened?
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Yes, And you can chime in if I miss make
any mistakes, as you've been right there with us. And
I was on a walk with Mac and Joy and
it was interesting because early in the walk, Mac being
Mac pulled pretty hard when Joy was peeing and she yelped,
(31:45):
and so I made sure everything was good.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
Everyone was good.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
We walked, and towards the end of the walk, I
was like, oh my gosh, there is a huge mass
on her backside and right to the left of her tail,
And of course I immediate called you and I got
her into the vet the next day, and I would
have thought it was a hernia, possibly as a non vet,
(32:11):
because it happened right after Mac pulled a swelling ye
something from that initial poll. I took her in the
next morning and a different vet did a little sample,
did an ultrasound and didn't see anything. Nothing about it
looked very strange and so well, I shouldn't say that.
(32:34):
Everyone thought it looked strange, but nothing was coming up.
Speaker 4 (32:37):
So we went home.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
Yeah, and for listeners, what we will often do if
there's a new growth and I think it's really interesting too,
for you to be like, hey, it looked like.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
It literally just popped up.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
A lot of times they can, you know, new bumps
on our dogs can slowly grow, but there are times
when it quite literally will pop up overnight.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
I started to like second guess myself a little bit,
being like, would I really not see this? But anyone
who knows me knows. I am with these dogs one
hundred percent of my life, and I just don't think
I would have not noticed something like that. I'm so
hyper aware of them, and Dan hadn't noticed anything. And
even I have Sweetbrook who comes to my house to
(33:20):
trim their nails every three weeks, and she when I
saw her the next time, she was like, no, that
was not there. So I was like, okay, this really
I am not I'm like this did this was not here,
And so initially it was just potentially a hematoma. I
was told to put a warm compress on it a
few times a day and then go from there. And
(33:41):
when Josie got back in town, she was like, it's
weird that it hasn't gone down at all. I'm gonna
come over and get my own sample. So she was
coming over already to go on a walk where I
did not find a baby deer.
Speaker 4 (33:52):
So we did indeed go successful.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Well, we did indeed go on the walk, and so
she came over and got samples herself, and then from
there it kind.
Speaker 4 (34:02):
Of yally spirals escalated.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
Yeah, whenever we get a sample from a new growth,
it's called doing an aspiration. So a fine needle aspirt,
and it can be really difficult sometimes to get an answer.
We call it an F and A because we're taking
such a tiny needle. We're sticking it into a growth,
so it's a really small sample size and some growths
will exfoliate cells really easily and we can look under
(34:26):
the microscope and be like, oh, yeah, this is definitely
what this is, and others can be really difficult. And
in Joy's case, her sample did not exfoliate cells very well. No,
I did not, so in looking under the microscope, it
was a lot of red blood cells, which is like
okay if we hit a blood vessel, and then there
was some a couple questionable cells where I was like,
(34:47):
m I think we should have the pathol just look
at this. Yeah, So then we sent it off to
the pathologists.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Yes, and then it unfortunately came back with what is
indicative of sarcoma, which I know a lot about now,
so I can say this too, asking Josie, but is
a soft tissue cancer. And what is interesting about this
whole scenario with Joy has been that it came up
(35:14):
out of nowhere. We immediately got her into surgery. Josie
referred me to this incredible surgeon. His name is doctor Powinski.
We love you, doctor Powinski, and we love sharks.
Speaker 4 (35:26):
He loves sharks. I've learned this like the animal sharks, sharks.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Since Joy has been recovering, she has different sets of
pajamas and I sent her in with shark pajamas the
other day and he was like, wait, did you guys
do that for me? And I was like what, And
he wears sharks on his surgical yes, and so he
thought I knew that, but I didn't. But now I
will always put her pajamas for him. But he has
(35:54):
just been so wonderful, So thank you for that recommendation.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
And never on this podcast thought we'd be saying we love.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
Sharks sharks, but yes, he has just been wonderful. And
he removed the mass. Originally, this has probably been what
three weeks a month now in a lot yea while.
It's gone by very quickly, but so we he removed
the mass. It's in a really tricky spot, like I said,
to the left of her tail, so the incision was
(36:20):
pretty big. He got surrounding tissue as well, and then
sent it off And again back to this kind of
being a weird situation, this sarcoma is more likely than
not a grade one or a grade two tumor, and
so they would we would just move on like he
would remove it. We'd get clean margins and then just
(36:40):
keep an eye on it from there. But unfortunately, Joyce
came back as a grade three, which is more likely
to spread, more likely to come back, YadA YadA, all
of the sad, horrible things that I'm not gonna get
into because I'm emotionally drained.
Speaker 4 (36:56):
But all the bad stuff.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
And so the option from there were not.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
To interrupt you yas for listeners because other people are
maybe in the same situation.
Speaker 4 (37:06):
As I want YadA YadA.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
No, no, no, you can YadA YadA, I want you to.
I just think that for other listeners out there, when
you find a new growth on your dog, like exactly
what Abby did, is like the path that I would recommend,
so you get an as for it to maybe potentially
get an idea of what's going on, and then from there,
even if you don't get an answer, hopefully you do.
I recommend going into surgery, taking it off, and sending
(37:29):
it out for biopsy, because that's going to tell us
exactly what it is did we get it all and
what do we need to do going forward?
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Absolutely, and to touch on that too, I remember sitting
there for that first surgery and doctor Pointski being like,
you know, there is a chance that we'll send this
off and it'll be absolutely nothing. And he wasn't saying
that to like get my hopes up. He was saying that, like,
this surgery is expensive. I'm like I said to him,
I said, if you told me that payment was my
(37:57):
left arm, but or my right arm, my dominant one,
that's fine too, like both arms, but I would save her.
Speaker 4 (38:03):
I would have given him both arms.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
So I told him, please, we will do whatever is
necessary for do not worry. And so but unfortunately it
came back worst case scenario, which was highly unlikely. And
so after that first surgery and we got the pathology
report back on the mass itself, knowing that it was
(38:26):
grade three and he did not in that initial thing,
we did not get clean margins, and so the options
were radiation, which found out does not happen in Nashville.
You got to travel somewhere from that, and it's also
really hard on a dog, especially a nervous dog like Joy.
Another option is to just watch it and do nothing,
(38:46):
which is obviously not an option in our household. And
then the third was a second surgery where they would
kind of just do the same thing but try to
get better margins, and he felt very confident that he
could do that with a second surgery, so in having
faith and trust in him and doctor Josie, we sent
(39:09):
her back in and thankfully we just got news that
he did get clean margins, so he was able to
get everything this go around. The soft issue he sent
back in came back with no cancer, so that was
step one in all of this and obviously really great news.
Since then, it we're just having a really hard time
(39:29):
keeping her incision closed because it's in a really tricky spot.
Every time she sits or stands, or peas or or
does anything a dog does, even without extra activity, she
is putting a lot of tension on it. So we
have now gone to treating it as an open wound,
which smells awesome.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
It's really it's a challenge.
Speaker 4 (39:52):
It really smells.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
I will say to silver lining in this whole thing
has been her Jammy.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
Oh, her jammys are the best we've got.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Strawberry Jami Sharks Lamas yeah, and diverse to match. I
mean it's wonderful, it's really really good. So yeah, the
jammys are great. We're going in for bandage changes and
working on it, and then once we can get this
little thing to heal up, we will head for chemo.
Speaker 4 (40:20):
Yeah, we'll do chemotherapy.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
We've got an amazing oncology team here in Nashville, and
the biggest part with her condition is where the primary
tumor was is clean now clean with margins, and so
that is going to give her a great prognosis.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Absolutely, And again I'm learning about zarcoma, so with that
grade three tumor, it's just the reason we know that
there isn't any spread in terms of visible tumors because
we've done X rays, but they're still about I don't
know what it's like forty or fifty percent chance of
microscopic spread because of the grade of her original mass.
(40:56):
So well, that's why we're going. I know a lot
of people are wondering why. Yeah, I'm going to get
because I've shared this on Instagram. Yes, if we've removed
it with surgery, why are we still doing chemo? And
that is why we are still doing.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
Just in case there's any little spread.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
Just to be safe. And I've also learned that chemo
and dogs is quite easy.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
Yeah, that's a really good point.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
I feel like, you know, chemotherapy and humans, we really
target every rapidly dividing cell in the body, and humans
it can be really taxing on them. And dogs we
definitely prioritize their quality of life a little bit more so.
Although yes it's effective, we're not like they're not down
and out. They tend to be, you know, solve their
appetite and their tails wagging like they're very much.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
They don't lose their hair for the most part. So yeah,
I've heard and I know that. I mean, you've talked
to Joyce Oncologist more than I have. I actually have
not talked to her, but I've heard she's wonderful, amazing. Yes,
doctor Powinski said she's wonderful as well.
Speaker 4 (41:57):
But doctor Lucas, Lucas, way to meet you.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
I for me, this has been and I haven't really
shared this with you, but this has been like a
really great reminder for me and like just made me
develop even more empathy for owners and my clients and
that so often I'm calling people and giving them bad
(42:23):
news and all.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
Just not that I'm.
Speaker 3 (42:25):
Cold hearted, but I'm a little bit desensitized where I'm like, Okay,
this is what it is, this is what we need
to do next. Like I'm very like, of course empathized greatly,
but this is what we need to do to take
care of this. And then I hang up the phone
and I don't hear from them again until the next step.
And so being with you throughout this is just like
reminded me that when I hang up the phone, all
the flood of emotions that is happening on the other end,
(42:48):
and like how deeply attached we are to.
Speaker 4 (42:50):
Our animals and when I like to.
Speaker 3 (42:53):
Think about it, yeah, I mean, it's just you know,
it has just reminded me.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
And I have a lot of empathy for you for
having to be that person because I know, and I'm
so grateful to you for walking with us through all
of that, because it has been so helpful and because
I know it's not I've been a hot mess and
that's not super.
Speaker 4 (43:14):
Fun beautifully true. I don't know about that, but anyway,
thank you.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
I appreciate it. It's been something. But I'm I'm optimistic
and positive and I will do everything I can for her.
But I know we've talked about this, and I was
talking to her surgeon about it too the other day.
It's just I think with it being Joy, I would
I don't want anything ever it happened to any of
my dogs, But it's just this heightened thing of she
(43:42):
is such a part, like she is the.
Speaker 4 (43:44):
Reason I am who I am.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
She's why I'm in rescue, She's why I have become.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
A decade of Yeah, I am your purpose.
Speaker 1 (43:52):
I feel like I'm just the dog girl to so
many people, and that is why.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
Right, it's all her.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
I am absolutely yes, She's been a huge part, a
big part of my life.
Speaker 4 (44:03):
You too, Mac, don't.
Speaker 3 (44:05):
Worry like I want to. Mac is like almost half
asleep at this point.
Speaker 4 (44:10):
She's so funny because she can be.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
So so exuberant and then just so chill, so.
Speaker 4 (44:15):
Chill, and you've just got the dirtiest face. Figure.
Speaker 3 (44:20):
Well, I know Joy is going to do great, and
she's in the best of hands. I mean, she's got
a medical tea. She has a whole medical bigger than
most humans ever.
Speaker 4 (44:28):
Get.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
I got someone else you the other day, like, is
she seeing just like her normal bet for this I
was like, oh no, she has multiple bets on colleges,
the surgeon.
Speaker 3 (44:39):
I've got my friend. Yeah, I mean this is this
goes nationwide.
Speaker 4 (44:46):
She's a fancy girl pretty much.
Speaker 3 (44:48):
Okay, Well, on a brighter note, we always like to
end this podcast with is there anything that you do
at home when you're in the quiet of your home
and people aren't watching, Like funny silly with your animals?
Speaker 4 (44:59):
I know thousands of things.
Speaker 1 (45:02):
So one thing that I think is very funny that
Dan does is he says he needs to get them
soft goods and also, we don't have any rules in
our house with our dogs. Sorry trainers listening. They run
the house. That is just you just pay the mortgage exactly.
It is one thousand percent their house. So they are
(45:23):
already on soft goods. They are on couch, bed, chair,
whatever else. But he doesn't think that's soft enough for them.
So then when it's time for us to like watch TV,
he gets out all the soft goods. So there are blankets, pillows.
I mean, it's just covered in soft goods. And I
know a lot Like we were on the road last
weekend and he was like, do they need soft goods?
Speaker 4 (45:45):
And they're fine? They're sitting on the couch for like
one minute, They're going to be okay, Dan, all of
the soft goods we have after dinnertry and they are
so accustomed to it they know, like the second I'm
putting down my fork to finish Mimi, because they know
they get their treat as soon as I'm done eating,
So after dinner treat, they go straight to the cabinet
(46:06):
after dinner, night cap. There's so many I'm dying.
Speaker 3 (46:09):
I need you to send me a picture of them
having soft good will that soft goods.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
Time, so many soft goods. That is so many.
Speaker 3 (46:15):
Soft good I have said at once, I will say
it again. I want to come back as one of
your dogs in my next night, living the dream we'd
love to do. You have send me pictures. You're like,
is it okay for me to feed them this? And
their bowl is like a healthy little mix of dog food, strawberries,
a blueberry and apple slice, a carrot. I'm like, oh
my god, it's amazing.
Speaker 4 (46:34):
They do get banana time as well.
Speaker 6 (46:35):
With Dan when he's making a smoothie banana time, he
gives up half of his banana for a smoothie because
the other half goes to the dogs and he slices
it up and spreads almond butter on each individual slice
of banana.
Speaker 4 (46:49):
I don't know who do you think the bigger sucker is?
You were Dan? Oh, that's a great like who's the
disciplinarian more so than.
Speaker 1 (46:55):
They definitely respect me more than I think, because just
inherently because I'm the one that's always around. I mean
their mama, Yes, and we It's just it's like hilarious
to watch us walk around the house because it's just
me and then like my little train of like dogs.
Speaker 4 (47:14):
Just running around at all times.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
I love that.
Speaker 4 (47:16):
It's really it's really wonderful.
Speaker 2 (47:18):
And it's nice with him being on the road so
often and traveling.
Speaker 1 (47:20):
You've got your crew, got my buddies, and you guys
get to go too sometimes.
Speaker 2 (47:24):
Yeah, how do they do when they're on tour?
Speaker 1 (47:26):
They actually do great. They're really good. Chief and Joy
I've done it for so long. And Max pretty adaptable,
and so his ghost he's just like he's like.
Speaker 4 (47:34):
As long as my mom's there, he's like, give me
a soft good and my mom and I'm good, that's good.
My mom rite up my blank.
Speaker 2 (47:41):
So they just hang on the bus like, can you
just do it?
Speaker 4 (47:43):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (47:43):
Yeah, we will walk around like if we're somewhere nice,
like there's always, you know, a.
Speaker 4 (47:48):
River right near the arena wherever you are.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
We'll go on a walk and hang and then during
the show they just chill.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
I'm coming back as one of your dogs, like to
have you. That is amazing.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
We would feel on.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
I'll be a cha I might bite, but you know.
Speaker 4 (48:03):
I love a chiwa.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
I do got a soft spot.
Speaker 3 (48:05):
Well, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you
for sharing your story with Joy. I know I will
be falling along because I am very much invested in vested,
but all the listeners as well. And if you don't
fall abby, you should because watching her and her dogs.
Speaker 4 (48:19):
Is mostly just dogs that I am sharing about Joy. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
Maybe sharks now too, so I do like the ocean.
Speaker 4 (48:25):
Yeah, very fair.
Speaker 2 (48:26):
Well, I love you very much, Thank you for coming on.
Speaker 4 (48:29):
Thank you for having me. You're welcome.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
Bye.
Speaker 4 (48:33):
Did we nail it? We did it.
Speaker 5 (48:39):
All right, What a great conversation with Abbi Smyers. And
we will definitely be keeping Joy in our prayers and
just keeping up with her journey and seeing how they're doing.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
Unfortunate but I'm glad that they have you. Yeah, all
the good vibes for Joy.
Speaker 3 (48:54):
It's so I mean, we touched on it in the interview,
but it's so important to catch things early. So yeah,
anytime I'm your pets have a new lumper bump like that,
just getting them into your vet because it is a
time sensitive situation and the fact that Abby caught it
so quickly, really you know, hopefully means that Joy will
have a much better prognosis.
Speaker 5 (49:12):
Yeah, and as a testament to the owner that she
is too, because she's obviously someone who really pays close
attention to her animals, hundreds everything so really really awesome
just to hear her. And if you follow Abby on
social media, you will be able to keep up with
all their adorable rescues because they are so daring cute.
Speaker 3 (49:29):
Yes, at Abby Smeiers on Instagram. Her dogs are adorable.
All of her content is amazing, So give her a
follow for sure.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
All Right.
Speaker 5 (49:37):
One of my favorite parts of the show always we
are heading into paw and Order this week.
Speaker 1 (49:44):
All right.
Speaker 3 (49:44):
For paw and Order this week, number one is I
would not forget to run an annual fecal on my dog.
I feel like so often we think about annual blood
work or an annual your analysis and their vaccines that
oftentimes the fecal will kind of get overlooked.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
But this time of year it always makes me.
Speaker 3 (50:02):
I just always remember how important it is, and we
just see so many GI parasites. I actually just had
a dog the other day throw up an entire worm.
We're doing a wellness examine. This dog is totally healthy
and I'm like touching his belly, listening to his heart,
and all of a sudden, it's throws up an entire
worm comes out.
Speaker 4 (50:18):
I'm like, oh big.
Speaker 3 (50:19):
It was like probably this no for those who can't see,
like six inches, maybe like pretty big, a long round worm.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
You see.
Speaker 5 (50:25):
People like the thing now is the parasite clids that
like humans are doing. He was like, I am doing
my own parasite cleans everyone.
Speaker 2 (50:31):
I'll show you humans.
Speaker 4 (50:33):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (50:34):
The owner was like green in the face.
Speaker 4 (50:36):
I'm like, it's.
Speaker 3 (50:36):
Okay, You're like I have had you know, he knows
that my face explode on my face, sir, A worm
is nothing nothing.
Speaker 4 (50:45):
Once again, I love my job.
Speaker 3 (50:46):
I love my job, but yeah, I know it sounds
it is disgusting, But GI parasites are really easy to
take care of, and if they're not taking care of,
they can cause long term effects.
Speaker 4 (50:55):
So run an annual fecal I think people.
Speaker 5 (50:57):
Like I know me as a dog owner, when you
go to the vet and they're like, we're going to
have to do a fecal test, you just dread it
because you're like, I have to go home and I
have to put this poop in a cup and then
return it back to the vet. I think that's why
people don't overlook it. They overlook it because they're.
Speaker 4 (51:12):
Like, I don't want to do this, Yeah, yeah, you
got it, you got us poo.
Speaker 3 (51:16):
Or just if you're going in for your dog's annual,
just no, and just pick it up preemptively, bring it
in a little baggy and just bring it with you.
Speaker 5 (51:22):
Okay, So you can do that. It's not going to
like absolutely affect the sample.
Speaker 3 (51:25):
As long as it's like within the last twelve to
twenty four hours, you're good to go. My French bulldog
always vets office walk in every single time she'd poop
in the vet's office.
Speaker 2 (51:35):
And I don't know why.
Speaker 5 (51:36):
She was not a poop in the house kind of dog,
but she was like here's my fucal sample.
Speaker 2 (51:40):
That's a good girl. That's the kind of patient we need,
right in the front, giving me a sample right off
the bat.
Speaker 4 (51:46):
Yep, for sure.
Speaker 3 (51:47):
Okay, number two, I would not forget to ask my
vet if what my pet has is zoonautic zoonotic means?
Can a human can track this disease from their animal? Hey,
if your pet has a cough, if it has a
skin rash, if it has a tummy ache. I think
it's always a great idea to be like, hey, can
I get this? Can my cat get this?
Speaker 2 (52:08):
Children get it?
Speaker 1 (52:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (52:09):
Can you're the ones that are gonna be touching it?
Speaker 4 (52:11):
Yep?
Speaker 2 (52:12):
Exactly.
Speaker 3 (52:12):
And I actually I had a case a few weeks
ago where this cat came in and he was super
itchy and had lesions all over his face and I'm
looking at him. I'm like, you know, this could be bacterial.
I'm not entirely sure what's going on. And I look
at the owner and she has this like perfectly circular
lesion on her arm and I was like, does that itch?
Speaker 2 (52:32):
And she was like, yeah, it really itches.
Speaker 3 (52:33):
And I was like, you know, I'm not a human doctor,
but I'm pretty sure that's ringworm. Yeah, and cats carry ringworm,
and I'm pretty sure your cat probably gave it to you,
so and lo and Beholdy ended up testing him and
he did have ringworm, and the owner got better. But
it's just h Yeah, just good to know if you
can contract it from your animal. Most of the time, no,
but in the instances you can, it's good to know.
Speaker 4 (52:54):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 5 (52:55):
Ringworm with horses is always something like that is a
little more obvious on them. And I've had so many
friends of mine that have just not paid attention and
ended up with that ringworm.
Speaker 3 (53:06):
Yeah, it's so interesting ringworm. Like ten of us could
be in a room handling a cat with ringworm, and
seven of us wouldn't get it. But then there's the
three like people, some people, for whatever reason, are so
susceptible to it.
Speaker 2 (53:17):
I always get it. You always get I just look
at him and I get it.
Speaker 4 (53:20):
I'm like ding it, Okay.
Speaker 3 (53:24):
Number three, I would not say my pet isn't in
pain when it's limping, and this isn't no fault at
all to owners, but a lot of times would I'll
see it is. A dog will come in it's limping,
and they'll be like, yeah, but like, you know, he's
not in pain.
Speaker 4 (53:36):
He's doing fine, And I'm.
Speaker 3 (53:38):
Like, actually, my job as a veterinarian is to detect
when animals are in pain, because they can't tell us,
so I have to be an advocate for them. Obviously,
limping is a pretty clear indication that something's uncomfortable. And
so even though your pet might still be eating and
drinking normally wanting to go for a run. I know
my dog would go running on three legs if he
had to, Like he would never say no to a walk.
(54:00):
That doesn't mean that they're not in pain and in discomfort,
and so it's something to be like take pretty seriously.
Speaker 5 (54:04):
And they're people pleasers dogs are, so they're like, Okay,
I'll suck it up and we'll just go for our
walk because they want to be with you.
Speaker 2 (54:11):
Exactly.
Speaker 5 (54:12):
I think of that too, Like if I sprain my ankle,
I can still eat and go to work and you know,
get ready for the day.
Speaker 2 (54:16):
But it doesn't mean I should be walking around.
Speaker 3 (54:18):
Yeah, and doesn't mean you don't need some mighty profile
to get through your deaths, some painkillers okay.
Speaker 2 (54:22):
Yeah exactly.
Speaker 5 (54:23):
Yeah, So yeah, that's good to know because I think too.
There's a lot of dogs that go a little hard
sometimes when they're playing fetch and stuff, and like we've
had that happen where one of our dogs had like
sprained her foot and so she'd be fine, but then
when she'd play, she'd start limping a little bit.
Speaker 2 (54:38):
And you know, at the.
Speaker 5 (54:39):
Beginning we were like, oh, she'll be fine, but no,
she needed she needed a little anti inflammatory.
Speaker 3 (54:44):
Yeah exactly. Yeah, So just you know, keeping an eye
on them. And it's not always about eating and drinking
and want to go do things. I mean, it's all
the other signs too, So for sure important to know.
Speaker 5 (54:54):
Awesome, Well, it was so great to have Abbie Smiers
on the show today and for everyone listening, don't forget
you guys can rate and review.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
Wherever you guys listen to podcasts.
Speaker 3 (55:02):
And feel free as always to reach out. My Instagram
handle is at doctor Josie Vett. Feel free to submit
your questions, any feedback comments you have.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
We want to hear it all.
Speaker 5 (55:12):
Yeah, thanks for joining us in the Vet's Office.
Yeah, you're listening to In the Vets Office with doctor
Josie Horchak.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
All right, welcome to in the Vets Office.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
I am your host, doctor Josie, and as always, we
have the lovely Shannon.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Here is her co host.
Speaker 4 (00:24):
Hello. How are you? I'm great?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
How are you? I'm good.
Speaker 5 (00:27):
How's the Vets Office been lately? Any exciting things going on?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Or yeah?
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Actually this week I had a great case. I had
a lady come in just to kind of paint the picture.
She's probably seventy years old, like an older woman, very Southern,
thick Southern accent. You can tell she's definitely like smoked
cigarette or two in her.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Day, yep.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
And I walk in and she's like, doctor Josie, I
need you to give my dog a Mamma Graham. And
I'm like, oh no, Mamma Graham. I was like, ma'am,
I'm so sorry. We don't do those here. And she
starts busting out laughing. She's like, I know, I know,
but I do need you to do a titty check.
And I'm like, okay, all right. I'm like, I love
(01:06):
my job. I love my job. I'm like, what do
you mean by a titty check? She's like, well, you know,
they're swollen, they're bigger. Just something's going on. And we
know what's going on, girl o lord and her dog
was only ten months old, so I'm thinking maybe she's
about to go into her first heat cycle, right, and
so you know, I do my thing, get on the ground,
(01:27):
do a full exam, and lo and behold, her breast
tissue is extremely engorgedus like, very very thick. It is
not just her going into a heat cycle. And I'm like,
you know what, can I borrow her for one second
and come back in And she's.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Like absolutely, I want to do a titty check.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
I want to do a titty check. And we take
her back to the treatment area. I stick an ultrasound
probe on her belly and there are eight heart beats.
Oh wow, she's very pregnant. She is very pregnant. I
go back in the room and I say, is there
any chance she's been in contact knowing full and well
she has, has she been in contact with an intact
to me out? And she says no, well yes, actually
(02:03):
you know her brother who's also ten months her litter mate,
and he's not neutered yet. And I was like, wow, Oh,
she's pregnant with her brother's puppies. And it really made
me think. You know a lot of owners and it's
no fault of their own. Don't realize that once they
hit six months of age, like they can make babies,
and yeah, you don't think about it when.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
They're with their brother.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
You think they're like they're like you.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Know humans, You're like, oh, they're with their the siblings, they're.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Fine, right exactly. But the case, no, mother nature took over. No,
and the titty check ended up being a pregnancy check,
and she is gonna have puppies.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
We'll see. What was this.
Speaker 5 (02:37):
Woman's reaction when you were like, you're about to have
eight puppies.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Oh, her jaw was on the floor, hands on the bench.
She was like, oh my god.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
I was like, I'm so sorry, Like, please do not
pass out in this hospital.
Speaker 5 (02:49):
So wait, does she have the puppies though, Like, does
she have more than one?
Speaker 3 (02:53):
She has just the brother and sister from the same litter. Okay,
so she bought brother and sister. Yep, Okay, yep, you
bought two puppies at the same time, a boy and
a girl, and neither one had been neutered or Spain.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yet two for ten special. She got the two for
ten special.
Speaker 5 (03:08):
Exactly buy two puppies and you get eight exactly one
of them.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
That's wow.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Never a dull moment, y'all, Never a dull moment.
Speaker 5 (03:16):
Yeah, that's like something you just don't think about. Like
we bought German shepherd puppies my mom did when we
were in kindergarten and they were brother and sister, and
I don't think we ever thought about, no, you know,
the possibility of them. Yeah, I'm making babies, not making
fun of her in the slightest You would never even
think of it. And then it just, yeah, happened. So yeah,
that was our case of the week. All right, on
(03:36):
to some listener questions.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
Hello, well, my dog loves to swim all the time
and he just keeps getting air infections.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
I don't know what to do about it, so please help.
This is a great question.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
We see this all the time in the summer, and
really usually it tends to be in dogs with those big, long,
floppy ears. Yeah, they'll get moisture trapped inside their ear
canals and then it starts this vicious cycle of getting
ear infections. And so what I tell owners is you
want to buy an ear cleaner. All ear cleaners are
not made equal. Definitely get the medicated one from your veterinarian,
(04:10):
the ones on Amazon and Chewy. There are some crazy
ear cleaners out there that probably won't do much of
anything or can make things worse. Right, and then I
recommend every single time without fail, after they go swimming
or you give them a bath, probably like thirty two
minutes to an hour after, I recommend washing out their
ear canals. And I think that people are surprised when
they hear that because they're like, wait, we don't want
(04:31):
moisture trapped in their ears, but now you're telling me
to like dump ear cleaning solution into their ear canals.
But there's different drying ingredients like salicylic acid and ingredients
like that that get down into deeper parts of the
ear canal and get that moisture out. So it's really
really important if your dog loves to swim clean their
ears out every single time.
Speaker 5 (04:51):
I did not know that because we are dog coas.
She's always in the pond whenever she gets a chance,
and she definitely she doesn't have like the big floppy ears,
but she's always got just like uncomfortableness after So yeah,
you should be actually rinsing them out technically after they swim, yes,
every single time. Interesting and don't buy, like kids, your
phones for them to swim with him?
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Now your plugs, No, your plugs. And people are always saying, well,
how do I clean their ears? And there's really no
exact science to it. I flop that ear over and
I pour the cleaning solution into their ear canal until
you see it pooling.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
There's really two separate parts to their ear.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
It takes like a hard ninety degree turn way deep
down in the canal, and you want it to trickle
all the way down there, so just dump it on in.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
All right.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Yeah that's good to know.
Speaker 5 (05:35):
And I mean, yeah, you'd think like you wouldn't want
to put more liquid in there, but it's actually, yep,
the solution, Yep, exactly, solution is the solution. Okay, all right,
do we have any more questions?
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Hey, doctor Josie. So I just got a new puppy.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
He's really energetic. I love running and I really want
to start taking him on runs with me. How old
does he need to be before I start taking him
on runs? Thanks?
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Puppy owners Love to ask this question, and I think
we get like maybe a little scared because you read
things online. And so if your puppies out running around
the yard, you're going for walks like that is great.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
We want them to be active.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Now, if you're like a marathon runner, and yeah, clock
and miles on concrete and pavement, that's where we need
to be careful. Sort of a rule of thumb is
most dogs growth plates close around twelve months of age. Now,
the bigger the dog, the later that can be. It
can be all the way up to like eighteen months,
even twenty four months, and really big, like giant breed dogs,
so like your Bernise Mountain dogs, your Great Danes. Granted
(06:32):
those dogs are not probably running marathons, so they get
any sat Bernards exactly going on a five k exactly.
But if you have like a Vishla or a wimern
or or a Pointer, those kinds of dogs that are
great running buddies, I say, wait until they're year of
age and then you can really you know, from there,
don't put them into a twenty six miler, but from
there they can start running with you and they should
be perfectly fine.
Speaker 5 (06:53):
Yeah, because I think you probably in your mind, you
think like, oh, the more exercise the better for puppies.
That'll like tire them out, and you know they're they
have so much rambunctious energy. But yeah, he'd probably have
to be careful. And there's just breeds that are like
made for running and not. Like we had a German Shepherd.
I used to love running with her, but I was
always so scared too, just because they're notorious for having
hit problems. So I never would like run further than
(07:16):
you know, a mile.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Yeah, I think I think you're so right, Like a
lot of it is you know your dog better than
anyone and just watching them and they're going to tell you,
like when they're tired. You're gonna know when they don't
want to be going another mile. Like you really have
to be kind of in tune with how they're feeling
and so yeah, if they're limping, if they're kind of
holding back, if they're not, if they don't seem super
interested in it, it's not about you, it's about them,
(07:38):
So go finish the rest of your miles and let
them hang out on the couch.
Speaker 5 (07:41):
Yeah, that's why I had a French bulldog Boston Terrior
mix because I was like, she is not going to
want to run marathons with me. Okay, she's not built
for this, and neither am. I knew she's lucky to
get around the block.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Yeah exactly. I didn't buy her thinking we are going
to run together.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
I love that.
Speaker 5 (07:57):
All right. Well, I'm so excited about our special guest
on the show today. I feel like she has such
an interesting story with her pet journey. So who's coming up?
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Yes, we have Abbi Smiers in the Vets office today.
She is one of my very dear friends and also
the wife of Dan Smiers from Dan and Shay. She
has really dedicated the last decade of her life to
dog rescues. She works at Wags and Walks here at Nashville.
She's been very involved with Proverbs, which is another dog
(08:27):
rescue here, and is really just an advocate for all animals,
whether it's the birds in the trees, the deers in
the yard. She's just always looking out for all of
them and is just such a kind and loving soul.
So I'm excited to have her in. She also has
four rescue dogs herself, and I get to help take
care of them.
Speaker 4 (08:44):
So today's episode would be.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Great, awesome. Let's welcome Abbie Spiers.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
Welcome to in the vet's office. Abby Smiers. I'm so
excited to have you here.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
So happy to be here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
You're welcome Anne Today, as everyone knows, perfect, she sat
right on cue. This podcast is biod and she brought
with her the lovely Macaroni.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
This is Macaroni. She's so good, Yes, Macaroni, we call
her mac.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
She has the best ear. She's just perfect in every way. Yeah,
one ear crazy, straight up, one ear down. You actually
have a tattoo of her little years.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
I love that.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
My friend Andrew drew it for me and then I
got it tattooed because I love her ears so much.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
It's so cute.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
So we have a lot of ground to cover today.
Before we dive in, I have to tell one of
my favorite stories about you.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Abby.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
And I really like to walk our dogs together. And
I think it was last summer whatever, last year. Sometime
you text me about twenty minutes before we're supposed to
go on our walk and you're like, I'm so sorry,
I'm not gonna be able to come over. Here's why,
And you send me a picture and it's this tiny
newborn baby deer.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
The cutest thing that's ever existed. It was so cute.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
It was so cute.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
And I call you and I'm like, whatever you do,
do not come on this walk.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
You must stand vigil over this deer.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
It did not need any saving. And I learned, Yeah,
but I thought I needed saving.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
But you stayed in your house all day, yeah, watching
this baby deer.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Yes, because I was so concerned something was gonna happen
to it. It's the cutest thing you've ever seen. Yeah,
I also am so I love deer. I think they're
just really magical.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
And Abby has a water bowl out you guys in
her front yard for deer.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
We're in a drought.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
We're in a drought.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
We're in a drought.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
How are they gonna find?
Speaker 3 (10:27):
And honestly, the last night, one of the last times
I was over your ring doorball camera, your outdoor camera
picked up a deer drinking out of the water bowl.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
You were the first person to ever see them because
they never use it. They just like look at it
and consider drinking it and never do. And then finally
my hard work paid off.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
I was kind of like laughing at you in my head,
I'm like yeah, right, like is gonna drink out of
this bowl?
Speaker 2 (10:48):
And then sure enough it did.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Okay, anyways, back to the baby deer and you're like,
what do I do?
Speaker 2 (10:53):
I'm like, I don't know. They don't teach usice in
bed school.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Also, I'm recognizing that we're gonna be talking about animals,
and I'm like automatically using this like.
Speaker 4 (10:59):
Way your voice and when I'm talking to animals, and
so like.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Ah, it's oh, I love it. So you called the
wildlife person.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
I did because I had never been around a baby deer.
I love them, but I and it was I don't know.
It was just in a very strange spot where our
house was situated. There wasn't anywhere for the mom to
really go, so I didn't know why I would have
left the baby there. It was a very weird spot
to leave it, and so I thought it was abandoned.
But lo and behold called a wonderful wild deer wildlife rehab.
(11:34):
Her her name is Deborah. I have her contact now
in my phone and it has her birthday, so I
always know when her birthday is.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
Too. Talked to her again, but I know when her
birthday is.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
And it says like what age too, that's amazing, but
love her and she told me so. Now that everyone
knows this about baby deer, if they are laying still,
which this one was completely silent and with their head down,
they're doing exactly by nature what they were born to do.
So when they're born, they are born odorless and silent,
and mom is obviously not so she leaves to go feed,
(12:09):
and they are protected because predators cannot find them. I mean,
my dogs had no idea that it was there the
whole day I did.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Yeah, no, of course.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
I first set a camera standing watch doll i U
star Ferbo.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Camera and moved it from the dog's room and so
I could like watch them outside.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
I got an update like every forty five minutes. It
was amazing and it was so cute.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
And so then later that evening, you're happy, you let
your dogs out.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
This is when it goes down. You let your dogs
out into the front yard.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Yep, to use the restroom. They had no idea the
deer was there. The deer was on the sideyard.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
No big deal.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
I have been watching this thing all day.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Like basically my own child. And it's mother, Yeah, it
was its mother. And then and then you found out
that it had.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
A clearly do not trust free.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Yes, Mom came flying of nowhere, truly out of nowhere.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Jumps in your dog, jumps your massive fence.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
You guys, this is caught on her camera at her
front house, like security footage. You're out there, and then
all of a sudden, you can see Dan come running outside.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Well, I was in the living room and I could hear.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
Him yelling no, no, no, and.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
I thought the dogs were going after something because they've
been known to chase a bunny or and he I
can just hear him screaming. I look out the window
and I see the mom in the front yard chasing
the dogs. He's chasing the deer and it's.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
I mean, it's it's the funniest.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
It was like he kind of already looks like Vince
Palm and he's a Steelers fan.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
He was like going left, fake and right. The deer's
like juking him. It's like steps on ghosts.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
At one point, the deer stepped on ghosts. So then
I of course called Josie. I'm like, cause he's gonna
be okay. But yeah, and so Dan. But the funniest
thing is, I'm like what was your And that's what
everyone wanted to know when they saw the video, like
were you going after the dogs? Are you going after
the deer? He was just like one or the other
because he at one point dives, takes a fall, He
(14:10):
took the hot mess.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Took one for the team, and I just want to
say he won dog Dad of the Century for me.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
It was amazing. I'm gonna have to post this video
so everyone can see.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
But also I'm like, how rude that I protected your.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Child all day and then you're try and attack my own.
I know all that to say, if you ever find
a baby deer.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
And just leave it alone, leave it alone alone, go
about your wife, your dogs inside.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
And keep your dogs inside.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
Mac so Abby and I first met because she's super
duper involved here in the dog rescue community. How did
you get involved? Like have you always been involved in
dog rescue? How did that come to be?
Speaker 1 (14:44):
So it's been ten years almost exactly. I was working
at Warner Music Nashville, which is right down the road
from us, and someone was cooing in the hallway and
I was like, what's out there? And there was this
puppy and my coworker, Rebecca was fostering this little puppy
named Kathy, Sweet Kathy. And I don't know what it
(15:08):
was about this dog.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
I just had.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
I guess had rescue dogs growing up. My dad rescued
a couple of dogs, but I just wasn't super well
versed in the rescue world, and my mom had had
Little be Shawn's. I had a lab at the time
that I got from a breeder, and I just didn't
really know anything. But this fairal brown dog just stole
my heart. And I Textan was like, should we get
(15:32):
this dog?
Speaker 4 (15:32):
He was like, bring her home?
Speaker 1 (15:34):
And so brought her home that day and as a foster,
and two days later we text the organization and said
we were going to keep her. But it was actually
the very first ever Pimp and Joy Week that the
Bobby Bones Show has done with Amy and honoring her mom,
and so it was like the very first one ever.
There were signs all over Nashville about Pimp and Joy
(15:57):
and so we when we adopted this dog, I was like,
I think we need to name her Joy. We did
this amazing thing, We rescued a dog, and so that
is Joy and Joy, I always say, is just the
reason that I am who I am and what I
do because from there I got involved with the rescue
that she was at Proverbs twelve ten animal Rescue here locally.
(16:18):
They're a wonderful organization, that right, I got Biggie from Yeah,
sweet big, Yeah, They're wonderful, And so I just started volunteering.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
And then from there Dan and I.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Probably fostered about forty dogs, and I just really fell
in love with rescue and rescue animals. And now we
have four and I would have a hundred more if
I could. But they I five years ago, I guess
it was met our friend Catherine, and she was also
just rescue girly, and so we hit it off very quickly,
(16:51):
and when she wanted to start Wags and Walks, I
was like fully in support because even Levon, who's the
director of Proverbs, will tell you there is a lot
of room for rescue in Glastown. There is especially in
the South exactly, and just extreme overpopulation here and we
just don't and as Nashville grows, that problem grows, and
(17:11):
we're not really fixing the problem with spey and neuter
or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
So there's just going to be.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
A lot more dogs and a lot more people, and
so when Catherine started WAGS, I just wanted to be involved.
Catherine's one of those people where you're like, she's gonna
do something amazing no matter what it is, and we're
just all really lucky that.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
It's dog related.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
And so I've been helping her for the last five years,
and then I started doing development for her. I do
development partnership consulting and then as well as run her
development committee.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
Which you are on.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
What you're aware of it because you are a member
of it, yes, And so it's just been it's just
a huge part of my life advocating for it. I
always say I never want to judge anyone or make
anyone feel bad or wrong for however they choose to
get a dog. As long as you were taking care
of that animal, that's all I care about. But if
(18:06):
I can just talk about my experience in rescue and
with rescue animals and advocate for them and just even
just showing whether you get it from a republe breeder
or hopefully rescue, just show the level of care that
I give my animals, so that they want to care
for their animal in the same way. That's more my
(18:29):
goal and I always wanted to just it was something
I felt like was an uphill battle. For the ten
years that I've been in rescue in New York, in LA,
in major cities Austin, rescue is just what you do.
It's cool, it's fun, like there's these huge rescues, and
it just was never that in Nashville, and I just
felt like there was, as weird as that sounds, there
(18:50):
was a market for rescue, and yeah, because it wasn't
It was more an educational thing. People just didn't think
to rescue, and once we could get them to and
educate them too, you can see how amazing it is.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
And I think that we're doing that with Wax Oh
for sure. Exciting, absolutely because they're awesome and Mac, you're
being so good she is, She's like, see, rescues are perfect,
you ow, Q we are.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
One of the things that we had bonded about at
the beginning was we both had dogs from breeders.
Speaker 4 (19:32):
Yes we did.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
You had Miller, your lab and I had Luca, my
great Dane. And it's not to knock like there are
some amazing breeders out there that do a really good job.
And it's like you said, it's no judgment on those
that decide to get dogs from breeders, But I think
once you had a rescue dog, like it really changes
your perspective.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
It does.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
My situation with Miller ended up being really unfortunate. I
did so much research and it's not even a knock
on the breeder.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
They're a really, really reputable reader.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
But he was just never really well and he ended
up passing really young, and it was obviously devastating.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
But outside of.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
That, you know, I started getting involved with rescues, starting
with Joy, and it just I don't know, there is
there's just this Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
I feel like they just look at connections. Yeah, like
I know you saved me, they do, they know, yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
That's Miller was the best dog, so sweet, ten out
of ten, good boy. But I just don't feel like
he ever needed me.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
He was a trust fund baby.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
He was These dogs need.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Me, yeah, I mean yeah, exactly, this close to death truly,
if you think about it, like they wouldn't probably wouldn't
be alive if it wasn't.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
And I think they feel that way still every time I.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
Ve you house, Yeah, exactly make it.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Yeah, it's so true. I mean I just think it
like really changes your perspective. And I don't know if
it makes us like gives us.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Like a martyr complex or something.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
I don't know, but I just feel like even more
attached to them, and just the thought of the life.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
I lived before.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
And it's true and Oakley, like when my Shepherd was
on about to be ethanized.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
You just think about it and it really just and
he's so gorgeous.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Changes the way you think about things. Yes, he's a
good boy. He hasn't come to the podcast yet. Well,
just the little guys.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Well, he needs to be with his friends here. Yeah,
I know his hair can mix in.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
With all the other the other dog care I know
our prayer podcast set up. We've got dog hair just
everywhere at this point.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
It's like my house. It's fine, exactly.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
Okay, so you've got your four dogs, yes, currently give
us the rundown of each one.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
So I touched on Joy a little bit. Yeah, we're
going to circle back to circle back to her. I
know we're going to talk about her a lot to Yeah,
but so I'll keep her breathe. Yeah, but she was
number one name during Pimp and Joy Week more than anything. Yes,
she used to be Kathy. She was Faral Mama, but
she was not the Faroh mama. Born to a Farah mama,
(21:53):
she was one of nine puppies and she they just
all are kind of inherently. I keep in touch with
some of her siblings, and they're just all inherently little nervous,
shy born to the wilderness dogs.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
She's truly one of the most innately shy dodgs I've
ever met.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
But she is also the best dog in the world
is She is so obedient and sweet and lovely. Yes,
she is just a little hesitant, yeah, of everything, understandably so,
but she could not be sweeter. And she is the
best thing in the entire world. I love her so much.
(22:32):
And then after that, we were fostering this dog, Natchez
was his name. He was found dodging cars on Natchez Trace,
hence the name, and he actually was our very first
foster dog. And in that time of fostering him, he
was so funny. When I was volunteering at Proverbs, he
was brought in off the streets acting so scared, hiding
(22:58):
in the back of a crate like shivering. So of
course they told me he didn't have a foster. So
I called Dan. I was like, can we foster our
first dog? And he said sure. And that's one thing
about Dan if he will never tell me no. People
al was like, oh is Dan like, won't let you
get any more dogs? I'm like, no, I have to
make a dog.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Dan's the problem.
Speaker 4 (23:16):
Dan always says yes.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
So I get this little Natchez dog hit a sweater
because it was winter, and we go home and he
is an absolute terror, like in the best way.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
He's like, I'm so shy, he's so sweet.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
But I was like, you duped me, and I instantly
fell in love with him.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Is that chief?
Speaker 4 (23:35):
That is now chief?
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Oh my god?
Speaker 4 (23:36):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (23:37):
And then over that like foster time was actually when
Miller got sick and died, okay, And I had already
been like, I don't know how I'm going to give
this dog up.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
I love him.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
But Dan had just started his career. We were traveling
so much. Anyone who like knows the country music start,
I mean, artists are gone. He was gone like two
hundred and fifty days a year. And so I was like,
there's just no world in which we can have three dogs.
And as a single mother has a single mother and
obviously not the way that I ever anticipated anything happening.
(24:10):
But Miller unexpectedly passed and I remember calling Levon the director,
just bawling and saying, Miller passed away.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
But also, I have to keep Natchez because I can't
get rid of another dog. And he became Chief, and
him and Dan are like pretty tight.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
They are so tight. Yeah, and he is absolutely hilarious.
He's so opinionated and so bossy. And we had no
idea by giving him the name Chief. He was named
after the Kansas City chiefs, but he just fully embraced
that personality. He was like, I am I am Chief.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
If one of his siblings like kind of walks by her,
looks at him, heried hook.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
Like grimlin like Chief.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
If anyone knows the like mister, I think it's mister
Bubb's Instagram account. He's like a little Chihuahua mix brown
thing that is really really growlly. They are the same, yea,
the same thing, are separated at birth. And then right
before Dan and I got married, we were asked to
foster a dog and I said no because we were
(25:10):
about to get married. I was planning a wedding and
it was a lot. And then they know that I'm
a sucker. So they sent me a photo of this dog.
It's just that this is what he looks like. And
he looked I don't know, he looked maybe like a
fifty pound husky mix of sorts. But what got me
was he was gray. His whole neck and chest were gray,
(25:32):
even though he was an all white dog, because he
had been chained outside. And so I, again being me,
I said, okay, we'll take him and we'll figure it
out with the wedding. Or I think I said I
need him moved before my wedding.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
And so he came.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
We go to pick him up, and they brought out
an eleven pound dog to us, and I was like,
this is not the right dog.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
I was going to say when you said fifty, I
was like, did you mean fifteen?
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Yes, well he looked big in this photo. And then
bring him out They're like, no, this is They were
calling him ghost Pepper, and so they were like this
is ghost Pepper. I'm like, no, this is a big
like I'm picking up a big dog and this was
ghost Pepper. And so we brought him home and he
is now a ghost. But even though I protested getting
a dog before our wedding. Dan was in charge of
(26:19):
getting their outfits for the wedding, and we were still
fostering Ghost, and we did our engagement photos and Chief
and Joy were in the engagement photos.
Speaker 4 (26:27):
Ghost was not. He was just our foster dog.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
And then their outfits showed up in the mail and
there was a dress for Joy and two tuxedos. I
was like, Dan, did you get Ghost a tuxedo? And
he said yes, I did. I said, okay, well, Ghost
is in our wedding photos, then we're obviously keeping him.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
He was like, that was one thousand percent my plan.
So he was in the wedding.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
He did not leave after that then.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
And he's really obsessed with you.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Oh yes, gho, Ghost, say his mom. He cares about
nothing in this world but me. Yeah, truly, it's we
will talk about what is happening with Joy here shortly.
But all the other dogs, when Joy was at the
vet all day, they were all acting weird.
Speaker 4 (27:09):
Ghost could not care.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Less because he cares just as long as I'm there,
He's either going to be in my closet or be
in my lap.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
Otherwise.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
I feel like every woman owner deserves that kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
I mean, it is unconditional, it's unconditional and loves me.
Speaker 4 (27:23):
He does.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
He's a mom's boy, he does.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
I always make fun of not make fun but like
I'm like the moms that have boy sons and they're
just like obsessed with They're like, okay, that's crazy, but
like I kind of get it.
Speaker 4 (27:33):
Yeah, I'm mind to get it. No, he loves me
more than anything. And now we joke.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
I'll always say to a ghost, I'm like, your dad
didn't even want.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
To keep you. He's like, that is not He's like.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
I bought the tuxedo.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
Okay, I can't let him know that it was me. No,
he loves me too much. Yeah, Frank, it's heart well.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Noisy okay, okay, yeah you kick well. Noisy over here
is like is it time to talk about me?
Speaker 4 (27:57):
Like hello?
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Then a couple of years later came this one. Oh
also though the ghost thing back to ghost really quick.
The gray from his chain. He just to like talk
about rescue and how awful things can be sometimes. This
little thing that I thought was not that it is
ever okay to chain up a dog, but a dog
(28:20):
being chained in someone's front yard also led me to
believe this was a bigger dog. Why anyone would have
a heavy chain on a dog, but let alone. And
he was eleven pounds and he's probably he's healthy now,
so he's probably eighteen. But he was just this emaciated
eleven pound little thing.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
Yeah, I mean a chain probably weighed more than him
a thousand percent. Yeah, it was awful, harol.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
It took us like two months to get to shampoo
that gray.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
Out of him.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
Yeah, I mean, just some of the shape that these
pets come into the rescue and is just it makes
you question humanity.
Speaker 4 (28:51):
It does, true.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
That's a Roney's That was amazing.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
She was like, what is that figure?
Speaker 3 (29:03):
We are back? Mac just saw a strange man behind
the set. I may have peed myself a little. That
was a very loud.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Bar and the anti I mean just like, no, I'm
just gonna lay down, she says, And I'm good I.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
Saved you all here. You're welcome than you for be
on guard. While Mac came into the picture as if
another foster fail.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Of course, Taylor's oldest time.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Yes, she I hadn't fostered in a minute, and so
they asked Proverbs asked if I wanted to come pick
out a puppy to foster, and I said sure, and
I actually went to pick up a completely different dog
and she was sitting there and they're like, well, she
needs one too, So I was like, I kind of
like this one.
Speaker 4 (29:44):
And so she came home.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
She did have the ear like that when she was
really little, and it was the cutest thing.
Speaker 4 (29:52):
That's the one.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Be one straight up. It's the cutest ear in the
whole world. And so when she was really really little
they were doing that. I was like, this dog and
I knew right away I was gonna have a hard time.
Speaker 4 (30:06):
But you don't know if it's going to stay like that. No,
you have no ise.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
So the fact that it did well and it went
down for a minute. I went to the gym one
day and came back.
Speaker 4 (30:15):
In the ear was down.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
I was like, oh, sad, and then lo and behold.
A couple weeks later, back up and it has never
never gone away.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
It doesn't really.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Make sense either. The ear is so thick and so heavy.
There's just no world in which it should stand up.
Speaker 4 (30:28):
No, but all accounts, she is the most special dog.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
So this one was definitely my choice. I couldn't live
without her.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Yeah, she's your girl.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
I love her so much, and she is just one
of a kind in every way.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
It really is one of the I'm not sure I've
ever met another dog like her in my life.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Everything about her, she has like a weird, funny gait
when she.
Speaker 4 (30:52):
Walks, the ear eternal puppy.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Yes, she's now five, but everyone who meets her thinks
she's six months old. Still. Yeah, acts like a puppy,
looks like a puppy.
Speaker 4 (31:02):
She's perfect.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Yes, we love her. We love her tremendously.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
So last time at least's Joy. Yes, and you've kind
of already told us a little bit about her.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
I didn't know her name was Kathy. That's a fun
fact for me today. Not a great name.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Joy is much better. Yes, And recently, you guys have
been through a bit of a healthy journey. Do you
want to walk us through what's happened?
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Yes, And you can chime in if I miss make
any mistakes, as you've been right there with us. And
I was on a walk with Mac and Joy and
it was interesting because early in the walk, Mac being
Mac pulled pretty hard when Joy was peeing and she yelped,
(31:45):
and so I made sure everything was good.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
Everyone was good.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
We walked, and towards the end of the walk, I
was like, oh my gosh, there is a huge mass
on her backside and right to the left of her tail,
And of course I immediate called you and I got
her into the vet the next day, and I would
have thought it was a hernia, possibly as a non vet,
(32:11):
because it happened right after Mac pulled a swelling ye
something from that initial poll. I took her in the
next morning and a different vet did a little sample,
did an ultrasound and didn't see anything. Nothing about it
looked very strange and so well, I shouldn't say that.
(32:34):
Everyone thought it looked strange, but nothing was coming up.
Speaker 4 (32:37):
So we went home.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
Yeah, and for listeners, what we will often do if
there's a new growth and I think it's really interesting too,
for you to be like, hey, it looked like.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
It literally just popped up.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
A lot of times they can, you know, new bumps
on our dogs can slowly grow, but there are times
when it quite literally will pop up overnight.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
I started to like second guess myself a little bit,
being like, would I really not see this? But anyone
who knows me knows. I am with these dogs one
hundred percent of my life, and I just don't think
I would have not noticed something like that. I'm so
hyper aware of them, and Dan hadn't noticed anything. And
even I have Sweetbrook who comes to my house to
(33:20):
trim their nails every three weeks, and she when I
saw her the next time, she was like, no, that
was not there. So I was like, okay, this really
I am not I'm like this did this was not here,
And so initially it was just potentially a hematoma. I
was told to put a warm compress on it a
few times a day and then go from there. And
(33:41):
when Josie got back in town, she was like, it's
weird that it hasn't gone down at all. I'm gonna
come over and get my own sample. So she was
coming over already to go on a walk where I
did not find a baby deer.
Speaker 4 (33:52):
So we did indeed go successful.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Well, we did indeed go on the walk, and so
she came over and got samples herself, and then from
there it kind.
Speaker 4 (34:02):
Of yally spirals escalated.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
Yeah, whenever we get a sample from a new growth,
it's called doing an aspiration. So a fine needle aspirt,
and it can be really difficult sometimes to get an answer.
We call it an F and A because we're taking
such a tiny needle. We're sticking it into a growth,
so it's a really small sample size and some growths
will exfoliate cells really easily and we can look under
(34:26):
the microscope and be like, oh, yeah, this is definitely
what this is, and others can be really difficult. And
in Joy's case, her sample did not exfoliate cells very well. No,
I did not, so in looking under the microscope, it
was a lot of red blood cells, which is like
okay if we hit a blood vessel, and then there
was some a couple questionable cells where I was like,
(34:47):
m I think we should have the pathol just look
at this. Yeah, So then we sent it off to
the pathologists.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Yes, and then it unfortunately came back with what is
indicative of sarcoma, which I know a lot about now,
so I can say this too, asking Josie, but is
a soft tissue cancer. And what is interesting about this
whole scenario with Joy has been that it came up
(35:14):
out of nowhere. We immediately got her into surgery. Josie
referred me to this incredible surgeon. His name is doctor Powinski.
We love you, doctor Powinski, and we love sharks.
Speaker 4 (35:26):
He loves sharks. I've learned this like the animal sharks, sharks.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Since Joy has been recovering, she has different sets of
pajamas and I sent her in with shark pajamas the
other day and he was like, wait, did you guys
do that for me? And I was like what, And
he wears sharks on his surgical yes, and so he
thought I knew that, but I didn't. But now I
will always put her pajamas for him. But he has
(35:54):
just been so wonderful, So thank you for that recommendation.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
And never on this podcast thought we'd be saying we love.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
Sharks sharks, but yes, he has just been wonderful. And
he removed the mass. Originally, this has probably been what
three weeks a month now in a lot yea while.
It's gone by very quickly, but so we he removed
the mass. It's in a really tricky spot, like I said,
to the left of her tail, so the incision was
(36:20):
pretty big. He got surrounding tissue as well, and then
sent it off And again back to this kind of
being a weird situation, this sarcoma is more likely than
not a grade one or a grade two tumor, and
so they would we would just move on like he
would remove it. We'd get clean margins and then just
(36:40):
keep an eye on it from there. But unfortunately, Joyce
came back as a grade three, which is more likely
to spread, more likely to come back, YadA YadA, all
of the sad, horrible things that I'm not gonna get
into because I'm emotionally drained.
Speaker 4 (36:56):
But all the bad stuff.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
And so the option from there were not.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
To interrupt you yas for listeners because other people are
maybe in the same situation.
Speaker 4 (37:06):
As I want YadA YadA.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
No, no, no, you can YadA YadA, I want you to.
I just think that for other listeners out there, when
you find a new growth on your dog, like exactly
what Abby did, is like the path that I would recommend,
so you get an as for it to maybe potentially
get an idea of what's going on, and then from there,
even if you don't get an answer, hopefully you do.
I recommend going into surgery, taking it off, and sending
(37:29):
it out for biopsy, because that's going to tell us
exactly what it is did we get it all and
what do we need to do going forward?
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Absolutely, and to touch on that too, I remember sitting
there for that first surgery and doctor Pointski being like,
you know, there is a chance that we'll send this
off and it'll be absolutely nothing. And he wasn't saying
that to like get my hopes up. He was saying that, like,
this surgery is expensive. I'm like I said to him,
I said, if you told me that payment was my
(37:57):
left arm, but or my right arm, my dominant one,
that's fine too, like both arms, but I would save her.
Speaker 4 (38:03):
I would have given him both arms.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
So I told him, please, we will do whatever is
necessary for do not worry. And so but unfortunately it
came back worst case scenario, which was highly unlikely. And
so after that first surgery and we got the pathology
report back on the mass itself, knowing that it was
(38:26):
grade three and he did not in that initial thing,
we did not get clean margins, and so the options
were radiation, which found out does not happen in Nashville.
You got to travel somewhere from that, and it's also
really hard on a dog, especially a nervous dog like Joy.
Another option is to just watch it and do nothing,
(38:46):
which is obviously not an option in our household. And
then the third was a second surgery where they would
kind of just do the same thing but try to
get better margins, and he felt very confident that he
could do that with a second surgery, so in having
faith and trust in him and doctor Josie, we sent
(39:09):
her back in and thankfully we just got news that
he did get clean margins, so he was able to
get everything this go around. The soft issue he sent
back in came back with no cancer, so that was
step one in all of this and obviously really great news.
Since then, it we're just having a really hard time
(39:29):
keeping her incision closed because it's in a really tricky spot.
Every time she sits or stands, or peas or or
does anything a dog does, even without extra activity, she
is putting a lot of tension on it. So we
have now gone to treating it as an open wound,
which smells awesome.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
It's really it's a challenge.
Speaker 4 (39:52):
It really smells.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
I will say to silver lining in this whole thing
has been her Jammy.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
Oh, her jammys are the best we've got.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Strawberry Jami Sharks Lamas yeah, and diverse to match. I
mean it's wonderful, it's really really good. So yeah, the
jammys are great. We're going in for bandage changes and
working on it, and then once we can get this
little thing to heal up, we will head for chemo.
Speaker 4 (40:20):
Yeah, we'll do chemotherapy.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
We've got an amazing oncology team here in Nashville, and
the biggest part with her condition is where the primary
tumor was is clean now clean with margins, and so
that is going to give her a great prognosis.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Absolutely, And again I'm learning about zarcoma, so with that
grade three tumor, it's just the reason we know that
there isn't any spread in terms of visible tumors because
we've done X rays, but they're still about I don't
know what it's like forty or fifty percent chance of
microscopic spread because of the grade of her original mass.
(40:56):
So well, that's why we're going. I know a lot
of people are wondering why. Yeah, I'm going to get
because I've shared this on Instagram. Yes, if we've removed
it with surgery, why are we still doing chemo? And
that is why we are still doing.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
Just in case there's any little spread.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
Just to be safe. And I've also learned that chemo
and dogs is quite easy.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
Yeah, that's a really good point.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
I feel like, you know, chemotherapy and humans, we really
target every rapidly dividing cell in the body, and humans
it can be really taxing on them. And dogs we
definitely prioritize their quality of life a little bit more so.
Although yes it's effective, we're not like they're not down
and out. They tend to be, you know, solve their
appetite and their tails wagging like they're very much.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
They don't lose their hair for the most part. So yeah,
I've heard and I know that. I mean, you've talked
to Joyce Oncologist more than I have. I actually have
not talked to her, but I've heard she's wonderful, amazing. Yes,
doctor Powinski said she's wonderful as well.
Speaker 4 (41:57):
But doctor Lucas, Lucas, way to meet you.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
I for me, this has been and I haven't really
shared this with you, but this has been like a
really great reminder for me and like just made me
develop even more empathy for owners and my clients and
that so often I'm calling people and giving them bad
(42:23):
news and all.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
Just not that I'm.
Speaker 3 (42:25):
Cold hearted, but I'm a little bit desensitized where I'm like, Okay,
this is what it is, this is what we need
to do next. Like I'm very like, of course empathized greatly,
but this is what we need to do to take
care of this. And then I hang up the phone
and I don't hear from them again until the next step.
And so being with you throughout this is just like
reminded me that when I hang up the phone, all
the flood of emotions that is happening on the other end,
(42:48):
and like how deeply attached we are to.
Speaker 4 (42:50):
Our animals and when I like to.
Speaker 3 (42:53):
Think about it, yeah, I mean, it's just you know,
it has just reminded me.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
And I have a lot of empathy for you for
having to be that person because I know, and I'm
so grateful to you for walking with us through all
of that, because it has been so helpful and because
I know it's not I've been a hot mess and
that's not super.
Speaker 4 (43:14):
Fun beautifully true. I don't know about that, but anyway,
thank you.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
I appreciate it. It's been something. But I'm I'm optimistic
and positive and I will do everything I can for her.
But I know we've talked about this, and I was
talking to her surgeon about it too the other day.
It's just I think with it being Joy, I would
I don't want anything ever it happened to any of
my dogs, But it's just this heightened thing of she
(43:42):
is such a part, like she is the.
Speaker 4 (43:44):
Reason I am who I am.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
She's why I'm in rescue, She's why I have become.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
A decade of Yeah, I am your purpose.
Speaker 1 (43:52):
I feel like I'm just the dog girl to so
many people, and that is why.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
Right, it's all her.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
I am absolutely yes, She's been a huge part, a
big part of my life.
Speaker 4 (44:03):
You too, Mac, don't.
Speaker 3 (44:05):
Worry like I want to. Mac is like almost half
asleep at this point.
Speaker 4 (44:10):
She's so funny because she can be.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
So so exuberant and then just so chill, so.
Speaker 4 (44:15):
Chill, and you've just got the dirtiest face. Figure.
Speaker 3 (44:20):
Well, I know Joy is going to do great, and
she's in the best of hands. I mean, she's got
a medical tea. She has a whole medical bigger than
most humans ever.
Speaker 4 (44:28):
Get.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
I got someone else you the other day, like, is
she seeing just like her normal bet for this I
was like, oh no, she has multiple bets on colleges,
the surgeon.
Speaker 3 (44:39):
I've got my friend. Yeah, I mean this is this
goes nationwide.
Speaker 4 (44:46):
She's a fancy girl pretty much.
Speaker 3 (44:48):
Okay, Well, on a brighter note, we always like to
end this podcast with is there anything that you do
at home when you're in the quiet of your home
and people aren't watching, Like funny silly with your animals?
Speaker 4 (44:59):
I know thousands of things.
Speaker 1 (45:02):
So one thing that I think is very funny that
Dan does is he says he needs to get them
soft goods and also, we don't have any rules in
our house with our dogs. Sorry trainers listening. They run
the house. That is just you just pay the mortgage exactly.
It is one thousand percent their house. So they are
(45:23):
already on soft goods. They are on couch, bed, chair,
whatever else. But he doesn't think that's soft enough for them.
So then when it's time for us to like watch TV,
he gets out all the soft goods. So there are blankets, pillows.
I mean, it's just covered in soft goods. And I
know a lot Like we were on the road last
weekend and he was like, do they need soft goods?
Speaker 4 (45:45):
And they're fine? They're sitting on the couch for like
one minute, They're going to be okay, Dan, all of
the soft goods we have after dinnertry and they are
so accustomed to it they know, like the second I'm
putting down my fork to finish Mimi, because they know
they get their treat as soon as I'm done eating,
So after dinner treat, they go straight to the cabinet
(46:06):
after dinner, night cap. There's so many I'm dying.
Speaker 3 (46:09):
I need you to send me a picture of them
having soft good will that soft goods.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
Time, so many soft goods. That is so many.
Speaker 3 (46:15):
Soft good I have said at once, I will say
it again. I want to come back as one of
your dogs in my next night, living the dream we'd
love to do. You have send me pictures. You're like,
is it okay for me to feed them this? And
their bowl is like a healthy little mix of dog food, strawberries,
a blueberry and apple slice, a carrot. I'm like, oh
my god, it's amazing.
Speaker 4 (46:34):
They do get banana time as well.
Speaker 6 (46:35):
With Dan when he's making a smoothie banana time, he
gives up half of his banana for a smoothie because
the other half goes to the dogs and he slices
it up and spreads almond butter on each individual slice
of banana.
Speaker 4 (46:49):
I don't know who do you think the bigger sucker is?
You were Dan? Oh, that's a great like who's the
disciplinarian more so than.
Speaker 1 (46:55):
They definitely respect me more than I think, because just
inherently because I'm the one that's always around. I mean
their mama, Yes, and we It's just it's like hilarious
to watch us walk around the house because it's just
me and then like my little train of like dogs.
Speaker 4 (47:14):
Just running around at all times.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
I love that.
Speaker 4 (47:16):
It's really it's really wonderful.
Speaker 2 (47:18):
And it's nice with him being on the road so
often and traveling.
Speaker 1 (47:20):
You've got your crew, got my buddies, and you guys
get to go too sometimes.
Speaker 2 (47:24):
Yeah, how do they do when they're on tour?
Speaker 1 (47:26):
They actually do great. They're really good. Chief and Joy
I've done it for so long. And Max pretty adaptable,
and so his ghost he's just like he's like.
Speaker 4 (47:34):
As long as my mom's there, he's like, give me
a soft good and my mom and I'm good, that's good.
My mom rite up my blank.
Speaker 2 (47:41):
So they just hang on the bus like, can you
just do it?
Speaker 4 (47:43):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (47:43):
Yeah, we will walk around like if we're somewhere nice,
like there's always, you know, a.
Speaker 4 (47:48):
River right near the arena wherever you are.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
We'll go on a walk and hang and then during
the show they just chill.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
I'm coming back as one of your dogs, like to
have you. That is amazing.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
We would feel on.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
I'll be a cha I might bite, but you know.
Speaker 4 (48:03):
I love a chiwa.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
I do got a soft spot.
Speaker 3 (48:05):
Well, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you
for sharing your story with Joy. I know I will
be falling along because I am very much invested in vested,
but all the listeners as well. And if you don't
fall abby, you should because watching her and her dogs.
Speaker 4 (48:19):
Is mostly just dogs that I am sharing about Joy. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
Maybe sharks now too, so I do like the ocean.
Speaker 4 (48:25):
Yeah, very fair.
Speaker 2 (48:26):
Well, I love you very much, Thank you for coming on.
Speaker 4 (48:29):
Thank you for having me. You're welcome.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
Bye.
Speaker 4 (48:33):
Did we nail it? We did it.
Speaker 5 (48:39):
All right, What a great conversation with Abbi Smyers. And
we will definitely be keeping Joy in our prayers and
just keeping up with her journey and seeing how they're doing.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
Unfortunate but I'm glad that they have you. Yeah, all
the good vibes for Joy.
Speaker 3 (48:54):
It's so I mean, we touched on it in the interview,
but it's so important to catch things early. So yeah,
anytime I'm your pets have a new lumper bump like that,
just getting them into your vet because it is a
time sensitive situation and the fact that Abby caught it
so quickly, really you know, hopefully means that Joy will
have a much better prognosis.
Speaker 5 (49:12):
Yeah, and as a testament to the owner that she
is too, because she's obviously someone who really pays close
attention to her animals, hundreds everything so really really awesome
just to hear her. And if you follow Abby on
social media, you will be able to keep up with
all their adorable rescues because they are so daring cute.
Speaker 3 (49:29):
Yes, at Abby Smeiers on Instagram. Her dogs are adorable.
All of her content is amazing, So give her a
follow for sure.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
All Right.
Speaker 5 (49:37):
One of my favorite parts of the show always we
are heading into paw and Order this week.
Speaker 1 (49:44):
All right.
Speaker 3 (49:44):
For paw and Order this week, number one is I
would not forget to run an annual fecal on my dog.
I feel like so often we think about annual blood
work or an annual your analysis and their vaccines that
oftentimes the fecal will kind of get overlooked.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
But this time of year it always makes me.
Speaker 3 (50:02):
I just always remember how important it is, and we
just see so many GI parasites. I actually just had
a dog the other day throw up an entire worm.
We're doing a wellness examine. This dog is totally healthy
and I'm like touching his belly, listening to his heart,
and all of a sudden, it's throws up an entire
worm comes out.
Speaker 4 (50:18):
I'm like, oh big.
Speaker 3 (50:19):
It was like probably this no for those who can't see,
like six inches, maybe like pretty big, a long round worm.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
You see.
Speaker 5 (50:25):
People like the thing now is the parasite clids that
like humans are doing. He was like, I am doing
my own parasite cleans everyone.
Speaker 2 (50:31):
I'll show you humans.
Speaker 4 (50:33):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (50:34):
The owner was like green in the face.
Speaker 4 (50:36):
I'm like, it's.
Speaker 3 (50:36):
Okay, You're like I have had you know, he knows
that my face explode on my face, sir, A worm
is nothing nothing.
Speaker 4 (50:45):
Once again, I love my job.
Speaker 3 (50:46):
I love my job, but yeah, I know it sounds
it is disgusting, But GI parasites are really easy to
take care of, and if they're not taking care of,
they can cause long term effects.
Speaker 4 (50:55):
So run an annual fecal I think people.
Speaker 5 (50:57):
Like I know me as a dog owner, when you
go to the vet and they're like, we're going to
have to do a fecal test, you just dread it
because you're like, I have to go home and I
have to put this poop in a cup and then
return it back to the vet. I think that's why
people don't overlook it. They overlook it because they're.
Speaker 4 (51:12):
Like, I don't want to do this, Yeah, yeah, you
got it, you got us poo.
Speaker 3 (51:16):
Or just if you're going in for your dog's annual,
just no, and just pick it up preemptively, bring it
in a little baggy and just bring it with you.
Speaker 5 (51:22):
Okay, So you can do that. It's not going to
like absolutely affect the sample.
Speaker 3 (51:25):
As long as it's like within the last twelve to
twenty four hours, you're good to go. My French bulldog
always vets office walk in every single time she'd poop
in the vet's office.
Speaker 2 (51:35):
And I don't know why.
Speaker 5 (51:36):
She was not a poop in the house kind of dog,
but she was like here's my fucal sample.
Speaker 2 (51:40):
That's a good girl. That's the kind of patient we need,
right in the front, giving me a sample right off
the bat.
Speaker 4 (51:46):
Yep, for sure.
Speaker 3 (51:47):
Okay, number two, I would not forget to ask my
vet if what my pet has is zoonautic zoonotic means?
Can a human can track this disease from their animal? Hey,
if your pet has a cough, if it has a
skin rash, if it has a tummy ache. I think
it's always a great idea to be like, hey, can
I get this? Can my cat get this?
Speaker 2 (52:08):
Children get it?
Speaker 1 (52:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (52:09):
Can you're the ones that are gonna be touching it?
Speaker 4 (52:11):
Yep?
Speaker 2 (52:12):
Exactly.
Speaker 3 (52:12):
And I actually I had a case a few weeks
ago where this cat came in and he was super
itchy and had lesions all over his face and I'm
looking at him. I'm like, you know, this could be bacterial.
I'm not entirely sure what's going on. And I look
at the owner and she has this like perfectly circular
lesion on her arm and I was like, does that itch?
Speaker 2 (52:32):
And she was like, yeah, it really itches.
Speaker 3 (52:33):
And I was like, you know, I'm not a human doctor,
but I'm pretty sure that's ringworm. Yeah, and cats carry ringworm,
and I'm pretty sure your cat probably gave it to you,
so and lo and Beholdy ended up testing him and
he did have ringworm, and the owner got better. But
it's just h Yeah, just good to know if you
can contract it from your animal. Most of the time, no,
but in the instances you can, it's good to know.
Speaker 4 (52:54):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 5 (52:55):
Ringworm with horses is always something like that is a
little more obvious on them. And I've had so many
friends of mine that have just not paid attention and
ended up with that ringworm.
Speaker 3 (53:06):
Yeah, it's so interesting ringworm. Like ten of us could
be in a room handling a cat with ringworm, and
seven of us wouldn't get it. But then there's the
three like people, some people, for whatever reason, are so
susceptible to it.
Speaker 2 (53:17):
I always get it. You always get I just look
at him and I get it.
Speaker 4 (53:20):
I'm like ding it, Okay.
Speaker 3 (53:24):
Number three, I would not say my pet isn't in
pain when it's limping, and this isn't no fault at
all to owners, but a lot of times would I'll
see it is. A dog will come in it's limping,
and they'll be like, yeah, but like, you know, he's
not in pain.
Speaker 4 (53:36):
He's doing fine, And I'm.
Speaker 3 (53:38):
Like, actually, my job as a veterinarian is to detect
when animals are in pain, because they can't tell us,
so I have to be an advocate for them. Obviously,
limping is a pretty clear indication that something's uncomfortable. And
so even though your pet might still be eating and
drinking normally wanting to go for a run. I know
my dog would go running on three legs if he
had to, Like he would never say no to a walk.
(54:00):
That doesn't mean that they're not in pain and in discomfort,
and so it's something to be like take pretty seriously.
Speaker 5 (54:04):
And they're people pleasers dogs are, so they're like, Okay,
I'll suck it up and we'll just go for our
walk because they want to be with you.
Speaker 2 (54:11):
Exactly.
Speaker 5 (54:12):
I think of that too, Like if I sprain my ankle,
I can still eat and go to work and you know,
get ready for the day.
Speaker 2 (54:16):
But it doesn't mean I should be walking around.
Speaker 3 (54:18):
Yeah, and doesn't mean you don't need some mighty profile
to get through your deaths, some painkillers okay.
Speaker 2 (54:22):
Yeah exactly.
Speaker 5 (54:23):
Yeah, So yeah, that's good to know because I think too.
There's a lot of dogs that go a little hard
sometimes when they're playing fetch and stuff, and like we've
had that happen where one of our dogs had like
sprained her foot and so she'd be fine, but then
when she'd play, she'd start limping a little bit.
Speaker 2 (54:38):
And you know, at the.
Speaker 5 (54:39):
Beginning we were like, oh, she'll be fine, but no,
she needed she needed a little anti inflammatory.
Speaker 3 (54:44):
Yeah exactly. Yeah, So just you know, keeping an eye
on them. And it's not always about eating and drinking
and want to go do things. I mean, it's all
the other signs too, So for sure important to know.
Speaker 5 (54:54):
Awesome, Well, it was so great to have Abbie Smiers
on the show today and for everyone listening, don't forget
you guys can rate and review.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
Wherever you guys listen to podcasts.
Speaker 3 (55:02):
And feel free as always to reach out. My Instagram
handle is at doctor Josie Vett. Feel free to submit
your questions, any feedback comments you have.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
We want to hear it all.
Speaker 5 (55:12):
Yeah, thanks for joining us in the Vet's Office.
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