Ask the Vet

37. Celebrating Veterinary Assistants with David Brathwaite

• The Animal Medical Center

Share episode

Dr. Ann Hohenhaus interviews David Brathwaite, Patient Care Manager in AMC's Diagnostic Imaging Service. Tune in as they discuss:

  • What is Diagnostic Imaging?
  • David's 22-year career journey at AMC from Assistant to Patient Care Manager
  • The role of a Veterinary Assistant
  • The imaging machines that David maintains
  • What percentage of AMC patients go to radiology for imaging?
  • How animals are x-rayed with a "hands-free" technique
  • Interesting cases and animals that David has seen
  • The challenges and rewards of David's role

Also on this month's show: 

Do you have a pet question for Dr. Hohenhaus? Email askthevet@amcny.org to have your question answered on Ask the Vet's Listener Q&A.

Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter!

We want to remind our listeners that this program is for informational and educational purposes only and intended to substitute for professional veterinary medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. The Animal Medical Center does not recommend or endorse any products or services advertised by Sirius XM. Welcome to Ask the Vet with Dr. Ann Hohenhaus. This is the place to talk about your pets and get advice for the top veterinarian from the Animal Medical Center in NYC. Hear from the leading authorities on animals and ask your questions. Now here's your host, Dr. Ann Hohenhaus. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Ask the Vet podcast, where we explore the fascinating world of animals and the remarkable human animal bond connection. I'm your host today, Dr. Ann Hohenhaus. I'm a senior veterinarian and director of health Information here at the Schwarzman Animal Medical Center, where we're broadcasting from today. This month, we celebrate Valentine's Day with our favorite two and four legged loved ones. And in the veterinary industry, at veterinary clinics and hospitals across the country will also celebrate important work. And contributions are by veterinary assistants. And to that end, I want to be talking with my colleague, David Brathwaite. He's a patient care manager in AMC's Diagnostic Imaging Service, and he will share some of the work our veterinarians just since do every day to keep AMC running smoothly and efficiently. And he'll also talk about his 22 year journey at AMC from an assistant to a manager at the Schwarzman Animal Medical Center is New York City's only level one trauma center. And we've been doing our work here for 110 years, taking care of the pets of New York City and beyond. If you're simply seeking advice on maintaining your pet's health, I'm here to help. Just send me your questions. We have an email. It's simple. Asksthe vet at AMCNY dot org and I'll answer your questions on next month's ask of that program. If you don't have a pen and pencil, don't worry. I'm going to give our email address again later in the show. But for those of you who have it, once again it's Ask the vet at AMCNY dot org. And now it's time for the Trending Animal of the Month. It's time for the Internet's most talked about animal. A beautiful six month old golden retriever puppy is the newest official team member of the world's largest cruise ship called the Icon of the Seas. Chief Dog Officer Rover has the possum responsibility to bring joy and happiness to the 2350 crew members and the 5610 guests on board. That's like 8000 people on the ship. I mean, it's a huge number. Her handler is Alison Hubble, and she's always by Rover's side to make sure that rover gets all her naps, some treats and exercise while patrolling the 1200 foot long ship for Curious Minds, 1200 foot long ship is equal to three and a half football fields. Whoa, whoa. That is, like, really big. This sweet pup and her handler actually started their seafaring journey together while on the Freedom of the Seas cruise ship before they came to Icon of the Seas. Icon of the Seas sets out on its inaugural sail from on January 27th. And it's been reported that rover has been taking daily walks, hanging out on the bridge with the captain and has already made herself at home throughout the trip. Rover will have the chance to get off the ship and enjoy stops in the eastern and western Caribbean and at Royal Caribbean's Private island of the Bahamas. But don't worry, because all of the guidelines set out by the American Humane Society are being carefully followed to ensure that rover has a great life on deck. For some amazing photos of Chief Dog Officer Rover. Follow her on Instagram at at Chief Dog Rover. And now I'm pleased to introduce David Brathwaite and he's our special guest this month because there is a hospital wide celebration coming up here at the Schwarzman Animal Medical Center that will recognize the commitment, compassion and vital work of our veterinary assistants. There will be appreciation, meals, snacks, apparel, gift cards, raffle prizes and themed celebrations. To talk more about what an assistant does and there are opportunities for growth at AMC, I'm happy to welcome David to our show today. He's been at AMC for 22 years. Started as an assistant, worked his way up to a team leader and now is a patient care manager in AMC's Diagnostic Imaging Service. And we're going to come back. I'm going to ask David to tell people what diagnostic imaging is, because I think most of you out there maybe don't know. Welcome to the show, David, and thank you for joining me on Ask the Vet podcast. Thank you. Good afternoon. Back to my house. I want to I want you to tell our listeners when I say that you're in charge of diagnostic imaging. What is diagnosis? Imaging? Diagnostic imaging. There's where is a department that takes all imaging for the hospital, which consists of X-rays, MRI, CT, Ultrasounds. And do we have anything? What about radiation therapy? Is that imaging? Yeah, radiation therapy is imaging, which really we don't really deal with radiation oncology, but it is part of imaging as well. Yeah. So, so for our listeners out there, radiation therapy is they use radiation to treat cancer. But David's group uses radiation to make diagnoses. So it's a different between it. They both use radiation, but diagnostic imaging gets images for diagnostic purposes and radiation therapy uses radiation for treatment. Yeah. So it's it's an interesting we use some of the same modalities and yet those two groups of doctors at AMC. employ those techniques differently. So, you know, I've been at AMC for a long time to. But can you tell us a little bit about your 22 year journey here at M.S. that ended you up as the patient care manager in the in diagnostic imaging? Yes, I started at the Animal Medical Center in 2001 as an assistant and patient services, where majority of the time I made sure all cages were clean, helped with handling, restraining and assist all nurses with placing I.V. catheters. I also helped make sure patient care was 100%. After a few years, I transferred into the clinic area of the hospital to interact more with clients as a release assistant, where I release all pets that were going home and help clients understand their medication. That would help have close to be a perfect care. So. did you have to tell people their dog had to wear a cone? Yes, we had to tell them dog. We had to wear a cone. We had to give medical help them understand the medication and how many times they had to give medication during the day. Yeah, people hate those cones. Yeah. I don't know. Who do you think hates the cone more? The pet or the owner? I think the patient. Yeah. Yeah. See, I would say the opposite. I would say people, I get so many complaints. All. Does he have to wear a cone? I don't want him to have surgery. If you have to wear a cone. They really don't like it at all. Yeah. After my time as a release assistant, a lot of coworkers used to come to me for help, and I felt at that time I would love to be a leader here at the Animal Medical Center. So our position opened up as a clinic assistant level two, as we used to call it before changing to team leader, I decided to spread my wings and take on that position where I help trained, guide and help my fellow coworkers anything and any way that they need it. In 2011, my father passed away and I had to give up the position to take some time off to help my mother in Barbados. In 2013, I returned to New York and decided to come back to the Animal Medical Center because being here, I know there would be a lot of a lot more to accomplish. At that time, I joined the Emergency and Critical Care Department and the radiology team to image help assist with critical patients. May of 2021, I became a team leader of the radiology department working with Dr. Fischetti Department, head of radiology, who taught me so much about imaging. I also work with Nancy Patsos who was then the manager of ICC and Radiology. That taught me a lot of the administrative areas here at the Animal Medical Center. I figure since Nancy was moving up, chief of chief veterinary technician, and being that I learned so much as a team leader, why not try being a manager? And when did you move up to being a manager? November of 2023. So you're just a baby in that role? Yes. And so I just want to be sure that our audience understands her. When David says C, he means emergency critical care. Sometimes AMC's a busy place and so we shorten any words that we can to the minimum amount we need to communicate. And so that is easy. C is our abbreviation for the Emergency Critical Care Service. So what does the manager do different from a team leader? As a manager, you do payroll, you would do performance reviews. A lot of the time. You would do equipment management opposed post team leader. They do a lot of team leaders do a lot of training and help guide the team when you're not on the floor with them during the day. And and so radiology has some of our biggest machines. Are you in charge of keeping those babies running? Yes, I am. So tell our audience what machines when I say we radiology as the big machines. What? What do I mean? We have the X-ray. We have the X-ray machines. We have two ultrasound machines here. We also have the city and MRI machines, which mostly Corrado Picarelli is in charge of. But I mostly keep the maintenance on the X-ray and the ultrasound machines. Yeah. So radiology can't do his job if it's machines aren't working at at all. If David is not keeping those machines running, then none of us are getting our jobs done. Because. Do you think there's any patients that come to AMC that don't go through your group? No. I believe that majority, 90, 95% comes to radiology for imaging. Yeah. And that's that shows our our listeners how important David's team is to us because we can't we can't make a move if radiology is not working and if there's a machine down there's a collective groan in the hospital. So that's why David's role is so important to us being able to do our job, taking care of Pat. So during the 22 years you've been at AMC, can you talk a little bit about who encouraged you to be growing and improving professionally? I want to say coming to work every day and working with the great people kept me going. In times when, you know, you have an administration that believes you can do it. And when they tell you, don't hesitate to reach out to me if you have questions is a great feeling. So that mostly kept me going ahead and my medical center gave me encourage me to try to go further in my career and now talk about what a veterinary assistant does. So this month that we're going to later on this month, we're going to celebrate the veterinary assistance. What what can you share about what a veterinary assistant does? Because I don't think that the average person recognizes what the veterinary assistants do. Assistants plays a big part here. Animal medical Center assistants assist ensure all patients are clean, all cages are clean. They usually stock the wards they are assigned to assistants also must make sure the laundry is in the ward for patients to have a comfortable home while they hear the assistance. Help with taking patients outside to avoid way and feed and transferring to different areas of the hospital. They handle and restrain patients for anything from examinations to blood draws, I.V. catheters, procedures. And I look at it as you name it, they assist with it. So up radiology, I think that the X-ray assistants have a really they must have something magical about them because they can get pets to hold still for X-rays just by sweet talking them. How does that work? Some pets are more difficult than others. We have a technique here now which is a hands free technique where we use sandbags for for ray patients. So I feel when you are gentle with them and with patients, they more listen to them when you're rough. Yes, I think you're 100% right on that point. And so when David saying hands free, it means human hands are not in the x ray area. When the pet is being X-rayed. Now someone sees the pet and someone's behind, you know, turning the x ray machine on and off. But to protect our staff, the radiology group is able to get pets positioned and to stay in that position so we can get perfectly positioned x rays for Dr. Fisher. He doesn't want x rays other than perfectly positioned ones. And so that I think that is one of our our diagnostic imaging assistant's best features is their ability to X-ray almost every pet without having to have a person exposed to the x ray beam. So we've talked a little bit what assistants do. So then assistants help the licensed veterinary technician. And can you talk a little bit, Drew, comment? Do you have technicians in your group in radiology? No, we don't. And so the technicians in radiology, well, we have some they must not be in your half of the group because some of them are in CT. In an MRI. MRI? Yes. They they run the machines up there. But as far as downstairs with ultrasound and X-rays, we don't have the technicians. We have all assistants. Okay. And then upstairs where our CT and MRI are, those require anesthesia. And so the the license veterinary technicians are responsible for not only running those big machines, but also for the anesthesia, working with the anesthesiologist to have those pets anesthetized safely for those procedures. Yes. So what's your day look like from when you clock in in the morning and to your clock out at night? A typical day for me is now very busy. I'm starting off. I usually will wake up around six and check my emails to make sure if any team members are out for the day or if they're running late. When I get into work, I normally check in on everyone to make sure everyone is okay and they say good morning if they need help with x rays or ultrasound. I also with a system and getting the job completed. Some days are busier than others depending on the load of emergency cases, appointments and in-house patients we have most of the time. Unless I have a meeting or check in with my director for Liza Lopez, I usually assess wherever assistance is needed and then that just goes on all day where you're helping and checking with what's going on with your group. And then how do you wind the day down? One of the day down? I usually will be in the office getting ready for my next day agenda. And as a manager now, do you have to do a lot of meetings or you're still mostly on the floor? No, I do a lot of meetings, but I'm in between, you know, some in the morning. Sometimes we have a lot of meetings and in the afternoon. So I'm in between. So, you know, almost all the patients, as David's already said, come through radiology. So some of the cases that come through were very critical. Can you talk about some of the interesting ones that you've seen? Yes, I've seen well, I've seen hit by cars. I've seen patients that have drank bleach on while they were working police dogs. I've seen some some critical patients that I think one time I saw one that had a stab wound. So we do have we do get some a lot of critical patients. And what about what what are the interesting things you've seen on X-rays? I have a personal few favorites, but order yours X-rays. I've seen a lot of a lot of objects, such as needles. I saw a needle and thread stuck in a dog, stowed. I saw a ball, a ball, saw coins, corn on the cob, gravel, sand. I even saw a ring one time. dogs. Actually, I think exotics had an x ray were a turtle, had eaten part of someone's necklace. I don't know what the appeal for the turtle was, but. But you could see like the loop where you hook one side of the necklace to the other so it goes around your neck. It I find it astounding the things that pets eat. Last week, week before there was a dog. I'm like, What is this x ray? And the dog had eaten a toothpaste tube and you could see the you know, the point where the toothpaste comes out. So I guess it must have been tasty toothpaste or at least to that dog. And then we had a dog that ate a tape measure. That was the kind of tape measure that your mother had when she was having up your pants or something. You know, that kind of fabric, one with a little metal end on it. It Now, why would a dog eat that? I'm just I'm always astounded. And every single day there something new that you find that a pet has decided to eat for itself. I find it just amazing. So what do you think the most challenging aspects are of being the diagnostic imaging manager? I want to say that at times you don't know what kind of day you are walking into. For me, I'm training can be challenging with the radiology department when you're trying to teach everyone how to do X rays or to learn our computer system. Also challenging to me is a lack of communication I find challenging. A lot of times. And the performance for the week. Yeah. Yeah. I think that we get compared to x rays that we see from other places. We have these very beautiful, perfectly positioned x rays, which is clearly a tribute to David's team because they're the ones responsible for getting that perfectly positioned to X Right. So what do you think the most rewarding part of your job is on the rewarding aspects is when I see a patient going home that has been hospitalized for about a week or longer that we had to image every day. And that's when I say my performance, you know, is what made the patient be a success to go home. Yeah, it's always good to see them going home. We had a jog today and it just taking the dog back to the owner after it had been downstairs to David's team for a chest x ray. That dog was so happy to see its owner and you know, it was only down to x rays are fast and the dog was only gone a half an hour. But, but the dog was so happy to be going back to its owner. Now, those are really good moments here at the Animal Medical Center is, you know, seeing those pets going crazy in the waiting room when their people come back to get them. So AMC has all kinds of animals that come here. What are some of the more memorable animals besides dogs and cats that you've taken care of? I've worked with a lion years ago that came from the Ringling Brothers. I have also worked with pigs. Chickens. Remember one time we had a horse in the parking lot that we had to work on years ago. We had monkeys and we even imaged Lemur one time from the Bronx Zoo. yeah. That horse story is a really famous AMC story, which almost sounds not true, but the horse couldn't really fit into the building. We're not set up for horses. Was it a horse? I think it was a police horse, wasn't it? Yes. And the police horse got hit by a car. Yeah. And so the policeman brought us the horse because it was bleeding badly and it probably needed some, you know, quick attention before it got transported to an equine veterinarian. And so AMC is not really set up for horses, but they set up a MASH unit for the horse in the parking lot downstairs and brought fluids and medicine and all kinds of stuff to to get the horse so that it was okay to transport in its trailer. We might have even stitched it up. Partly, yes. I can remember doing some stitching with Dr. Akin. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, AMC appreciates the work that the police force does. We take care of a lot of their dogs. And so we we're always happy to help them take care of the animals that help to make New York City run. So that but that was that was an exceptional experience was the horse get treated in the parking lot so what else what have I not asked you about that's important for the public to understand about your job. I want to say my my duties as a patient care manager. And then we went over a few, which was my duties as a patient care manager here. Then more medical center's payroll, maintaining all the equipment, scheduling performance reviews, helping the teams in all areas, communicating with our management to help run a great hospital, and most of all, learning. Learning to be the best manager I can be. And you know, David, that's a great comment because everybody at AMC learn something every day and it's it's really easy for me to see how much I learn about how to take care of pets better from my colleagues here. But I think that that's an important part of learning that we probably don't celebrate often enough, and that is the learning that goes on, not just the veterinary learning, but but the other types of learning, like learning to be a great manager. And I think that is just a fabulous way to end this segment. So I want to just thank David Brathwaite, manager for Diagnostic Imaging. Thank you so much for joining us here today on the Ask the Vet podcast. And thank you for having me back. Hold my house and we're going to have a great party to celebrate assistance. We thank you. So we know that keeping your pet healthy is very important to our listeners. And with that said, I hope you'll reach out to me if you have a question about your pet's health and I'll respond to your question on next month's Ask the Vet podcast, just email me at Ask the Vet at AMCNY dot org. We have a short break coming up, but please stay tuned because there's a lot of interesting animal news stories. When we return, we're back with Dr. Ann Hohenhaus on Ask the Vet. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to Ask the Vet. There are so many stories in the news. It was really hard to choose just a few for this month's Animal News. It's time for animal headlines. The biggest animal news from across the world. I bet you have a best friend, right? Could be your old high school friend, your college roommate, maybe even your sibling. Well, 13 year old Sarah Sutcliffe's best friend is a quail. Not just any quail, but a quail that she hatched from an egg purchased at a local grocery store in Manchester, England. Long story short, after three weeks of warming and nurturing the egg in her bedroom, Sarah hatched a quail that she named Pebbles. Over the next six weeks, Pebbles grew while living in a mesh dog crate with a heater and a brood lamp. Soon after, Sarah's mom brought home a harem of six female quail so Pebbles could start living among his own time and maybe even have some chicks of his own. Happily, Pebbles is now settling in with his gaggle of female quails, and they're all living in an outside chicken coop in the family's backyard with occasional visits into the house. Just for fun. If you want to see a video of pebbles the quail with his pebble with his quail harem just Google pebbles the quail for photos and video. Our second story is about a woman who was walking her dog along a wooded trail in Pennsylvania. The dog stopped in its tracks and started sniffing anxiously at a pile of leaves. Now the woman could see there was something moving in the leaves and some feathers, but she couldn't make out what it was. So she sent a Facebook post to the Raven Ridge Wildlife Center and the rescue was confirmed. The creature was an injured Great Horned Hour. Yikes. And they moved quickly to help. Wildlife rehabilitator Tracy Young could only speculate that the owl may have been sprayed in the face by a skunk since it couldn't stand. It was shivering, couldn't open one of its eyes and was cold and dehydrated. The rescuers immediately activated emergency triage procedures to try and save the injured animal. They put the owl in an incubator, gave it fluids and medications, and constantly monitored at the rehab center. And initially, the rescuers really worried that the owl wasn't going to make it. But happily, the resilient owl made a full recovery and was released into the wild. And as the rescuers watched, it was clear that the owl knew exactly where she was and wasted no time in taking off directly into the trees for amazing photos of this owl in Pennsylvania. Just Google injured great horned out Pennsylvania. This story has a really important piece of information in it for anybody out there who runs across an injured wildlife. Most states require that you are a wildlife, a licensed wildlife rehabilitator, and so veterinarians can keep wildlife as an emergency in an emergency situation and take care of it. But really injured wildlife. Go to a wildlife rehabilitator, which you can usually find on the state website under like Natural resources or Wildlife Rehabilitator or Fish and Game tab on your state's wildlife. And that's how you can find a wildlife rehabilitator or to come and do what they did for this injured owl. So, yes, your veterinarian will help, but your veterinarian is not really the people that are lice unless you're veteran who happens to also be a wildlife rehabilitator. So at AMC we get wildlife brought in and then we call the appropriate rehabilitator or who comes up takes them away, but we hang on to them. Oftentimes, our friends at the police bring in injured wildlife, so we then take care of our final story that I wanted to share with you today is there are two new YouTube channels with music designed to relax your pets. The YouTube channels simply named Relax My Dog and Relax My cat have accumulated over a billion views with nearly 3 million total subscribers. An innovative Amman Ahmed say that really fast ten times. He pioneered the idea of music for pets and tapped into a post-pandemic trap when separation anxiety among pets got worse. I listened to both channels and well, it's worth a listen, especially if you have an anxious dog or cat. And it may not be evidence based science, but they do have some soothing playlists. So for those of you with an anxious dog or cat, just Google, relax my dog or relax my cat on YouTube. And now it's time for some questions from our listeners. Our first question is from Debbie C. She says, Hi, my dog has protein in her urine. We've tried Telmisartan five mg, but it makes her sick. She doesn't want to eat and she's not her happy self. What can be done for her? So Telmisartan is a drug that helps stop the kidneys from leaking protein and it is often used as a blood pressure controlling medication in people. So there are other drugs in that are cousins to telmisartan. There are other drugs in different classes of drugs. And I think that what Debbie C. needs to do is go back to her veterinarian and say, This isn't working for my dog, and what other medications can I have to control? The protein in the urine. Protein in the urine is not normal. It tells us that there's a problem with the kidneys and it can it contributes to damage to the kidneys. So you want to stop that protein leaking in the kidneys to protect your pet's kidneys so that they stay healthy. So I think that Debbie C. needs a trip back to her veterinarian and explain that the dog's not doing well on Telmisartan and your veterinarian will come up with a new plan or may decide that the dog needs to see a specialist to get the protein in the urine under control. Good luck, Debbie, with your pooch. Our next caller is Scott from San Bernardino, California, and he sent in his question. Scott asks, We have an eight year old tabby cat named Diana. She lives indoors, has all her vaccinations and is in very good health. My question is, why does she sleep so much during the day? Could all this sleep mean that something's wrong? So cats sleep about 90-95% of the day? And so it sounds it'd be really hard to know your cat was sleeping too much simply because they sleep so much. So if Diana is sleeping the same amount she always does, that's this is probably normal for Diana. If she's eating and drinking and not losing weight, then I think Diana is probably just fine. And this kind of behavior is typical in the feline world where lions and tigers will have a huge burst of energy when they hunt for for their dinner and then they eat their dinner and then they sleep for hours and hours and hours while their body digests their food. So this is typical feline behavior. Whether your feline is laying on the sofa or laying out somewhere in in South Africa. But if Scott is really worried about Diana, then certainly a trip to the veterinarian is a reasonable thing to make sure that she is just sleeping because she's a cat. And our final question is from Cindy in Seattle. Her question is, over the years, my German shepherd, Marty, would always tilt his head to the side. When we talked to him, it seemed like he was listening and trying to understand what we were saying. It was kind of cute. Marty is now ten years old and he seems to be tilting his head much more frequently, even if he's just sitting or laying down. My veterinarian said. His ears are fine, there's no infection. But Marty keeps tilting his head. Should I be concerned? Let's go back a little bit. I absolutely agree that dogs tilting their head when you're talking is just adorable. And we probably over the centuries have selected for dogs who do that because we all think it's really cute. And so I think there was recently a study that actually about how we've selected for dogs that do that head tilting behavior because we think they're listening to us when probably they're saying, would she be quiet? I just want to take a nap. But if Marty's head tilting is increased and his ears are okay, I still would be a smidge concerned about Marty and wonder, is he dizzy in any way? Is the head tilted even when Marty is standing up? Because a tilted head when a dog is standing up suggests maybe a balance or a neurological problem. And so I might think about having Marty looked at again by my veterinarian or ask your veterinarian if there's a neurologist nearby that may be Marty could see a specialist and make sure that this head tilting doesn't indicate some sort of neurologic problem. So thanks so much to, Cindy, for reaching out to us. And we'd love to hear how Marty's doing if you get a chance to update us. And when we come back from our second break, we'll have news from the Animal Medical Center and the Yucatan Institute. We're back with Dr. Ann Hohenhaus on Ask the Vet. Welcome back to Ask the Vet podcast. We now have the news from AMC’s Usdan Institute for Animal Health Education. Most of you I think I've heard of canine distemper, which is a highly contagious and potentially fatal disease that affects a dog's respiratory, intestinal and neurologic systems. The symptoms of canine distemper can resemble other illnesses such as rabies, and distinguishing between distemper and rabies requires specific testing. So over the last 50 years, canine distemper has been on the decline in North America because we have a safe and effective vaccine for dogs against canine distemper. But dogs who have not received a full vaccination series and puppies who are too young to have completed their vaccination series, are especially vulnerable to canine distemper. So I'm not bringing this up randomly. I bring this up because recently the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has reported that they have found skunks and raccoons infected with canine distemper virus here in New York City. So to protect your dog from canine distemper, they used an Institute for Animal health. Education has a few recommendations for you. First, make sure your pet's canine distemper vaccinations are up to date. In general, that vaccine is a series as a puppy, a booster at one year and then a booster every three years after that. But check with your veterinarian on what they think is best for your dog. If your dog is outdoors, keep them on a leash, because then can keep them away from wild animals and don't feed wild animals in your backyard on your back step or don't feed your pet outdoors because that food attracts wild animals and that brings wild animals and potentially canine distemper closer to your dog and finally avoid exposing you're not quite finished with their vaccination series Puppy two Unknown Dogs until the puppy is fully vaccinated and unknown dogs would be found in places like dog parks and dog runs in your local city. That's not a place for puppies that have not been vaccinated yet. Now we want to remind everyone that February is National Pet Dental Month, and according to the U.S. Institute, this is a good time to focus on your pet's oral hygiene because it helps them to live a longer and healthier life. So to help you learn more about proper dental health for your pet, I want everyone to know that they're invited to attend the next used and pet health event, which will be Thursday, February 22nd at 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. AMC's Dr. Ada To, resident veterinarian on our dental service, will discuss common dental diseases in dogs and cats. She'll describe how to properly care for your pet's teeth at home and the role of veterinary dentistry in your pet's health care. As always, the Usdan event is a online event hosted via Zoom. So you have to register because if you don't register, we don't know who you are and we can't send you an email with the link to the program so you can email Usdan Institute at AMCNY dot org to register for free access to timely and relevant health articles for upcoming pet health events, video tutorials, and other pet parent education resources. You can check out. AMC's Usdan Institute for Animal Health Education at AMCNY dot org backslash Usdan Institute. I'd also like to take a minute to give a big shout out to a previous ask to vet podcast guest and also my colleague Judith Harbor, who is AMC social worker. Judith's wonderful work in facilitating AMC's pet loss group was spotlighted in a recent New York Times article entitled Grieving The Loss of a Pet. They Want to Help. So if you've recently lost pet, certainly consider reading that article. But you can also come to a pet loss support group online sponsored by AMC with Judith as the facilitator. And you can find that information on AMC's website. I want to especially thank my special guest, David Brathwaite, for joining me today and a big shoutout to all my listeners for your continued support. After that podcast just ranked fourth on Feedspot’s 45 Best Pet Podcast. Don't forget, if you want to know more about your pets health or looking for advice, just email me at Ask the Vet at AMCNU dot org and I'll answer your question on next month's asked of that program. The asks of that podcast can be accessed on the series app across all major podcast platforms and also from AMC's website, which is AMCNY.org. Thanks to you all. All of this is thanks to AMC's long standing partnership with Sirius XM. Don't forget to check us out on Social on Facebook at the Animal Medical Center, on Twitter, it's @AMCNY, or X, as it's called now, and on Instagram it's also @AMCNY. I'd appreciate it if you take a quick moment to give after to that podcast or review and like and subscribe. So you always get our new episodes as soon as they drop. And I'll look forward to getting together again next month for another Ask the Vet podcast. Have a great month, everyone.