39. How Service Dogs are Helping Veterans with PTSD with Dr. Maggie O'Haire

Dr. Ann Hohenhaus interviews Dr. Maggie O'Haire, a noted researcher in the field of human-animal interactions. Dr. O'Haire's work is paving the way for understanding how service dogs can make a tremendous difference in the lives of veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Tune in as they discuss:

• How the Organization for Human-Animal Interaction Research and Education was named
• Dr. O'Haire's inspiration to study human-animal interactions
• The ways Dr. O'Haire persisted in studying a relatively new field with few opportunities
• The difference between service dogs, emotional support dogs, and therapy dogs
• What is cortisol and how does it relate to post-traumatic stress disorder?
• How having a service dog impacted veterans' stress physiology in Dr. O'Haire's study
• How Dr. O'Haire hopes her work will improve health care for veterans
• The pros and cons of a national certification or registration body for service animals
• Dr. O'Haire's next project
• In addition to veterans, who can service dogs help?

Also on this month's show: 

• Viral trending animal story about Albert, the "gentle giant" 750 pound alligator seized from a home in New York state
• Animal news, including new research showing that 25% of Labrador Retrievers carry a genetic mutation that predisposes them to obesity
• Pet Health Listener Q&A 

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!

Transcript

0:00

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 give us a call to ask your questions. Now here's your host, Dr. Ann Hohenhaus. Hello and welcome to Ask the Vet a podcast for people who love their pets and want the latest in Pet and Animal News. I'm your host. I'm Dr. Ann Hohenhaus. I'm a senior veterinarian and director of Pet Health Information here at the Schwarzman Animal Medical Center in New York City. Today, I have the honor of welcoming Dr. Maggie O'Haire and pay close attention to that last name because it plays into the work she does. She's a noted researcher in the field of human animal interactions. Her work is paving the way for understanding how service dogs make a tremendous difference in the lives of veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. And I'm really looking forward to our conversation. The Schwarzman Animal Medical Center is the only level one veterinary trauma center in New York City. And that coupled with our 113 years of being the very best place for pets in New York, makes it an extra special place. If you want advice on keeping your pet healthy or have a question on a medical condition that your pet has, I'm here to help. Just send me your questions at Ask the vet at AMCNY dot org and if you don't have a pen or pencil to write that down, I'm going to give that email address again later on in the show. So you send in your questions and then I answer them next month here on Ask the Vet. And now it's time for our Trending Animal of the Month. It's time for the Internet's most talked about animal. Albert was a 12 foot long 750 pound alligator, and he was seized by animal conservation officers in Hamburg, New York. So I had to look up where Hamburg, New York is. It's kind of south of Buffalo, long ways away from New York City. After his owner, Tony Cavallo, failed to renew his dangerous animal license, which allowed appropriately trained individuals to own animals deemed dangerous for education or exhibition purposes. So Albert, who was born and raised in captivity, has been cared for by Mr. Cavallaro for more than 30 years and has lived in a custom room in his owner's house that included heated floors, an indoor pond and a waterfall. I'm thinking it sounds actually pretty good, especially the way it is here today in New York, which is cold, rainy and damp. Despite his love of reptiles and the luxury accommodations that Mr. Cavallaro's provided, Albert, his license expired in 2021 and he failed to bring the holding area into compliance with the change in regulations for possessing dangerous animals. Another issue was that Mr. Cavallaro allowed other people, including children, to pet Albert the alligator, which just sounds like poor judgment on all the adults involved in that process. As part, children were even allowed to get in the pool with Albert, and these actions really provided the grounds for Albert's removal even after the license application was renewed. Albert is now under the care of a veterinarian and a licensed caretaker, while the Department of Environmental Conservation works out a permanent housing accommodation for Albert the Alligator. Kind of a sad story, actually. I mean, I think if you had your pet of 30 years taken away, you'd you'd feel bad to. So I'm really pleased today to welcome Dr. Maggie O'Hare. Dr. O'Haire is an internationally recognized Fulbright scholar. She might be like the smartest person we've ever had on the show. And she's the associate dean for research and a professor at the University of Arizona's College of Veterinary Medicine. She earned a B.A. in psychology from Vassar College, which is actually not too far from here, And her Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Queensland in Australia. Her research program at the University of Arizona focuses on the unique and pervasive ways that humans interact with animals from household pets to highly trained service animals. Her findings have been instrumental in demonstrating the effects of human animal interactions for the past decade. Dr. O'Haire has been researching the impact of service dogs on veterans. Her most recent study has captured widespread interest for its findings on service dogs and cortisol awakening responses in veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. Shedding light on the fuselage advantages of these service animals provide. Dr. O'Haire, thanks so much for joining me today on Ask the Vet. Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. So if you look at Dr. O'Haire's website and Dr. O'Haire's name is spelled a little bit unusually, it's O’Haire and Dr. O'Haire or someone in her lab has taken her last name and made it into an incredible acronym about the work that her lab does. So you want to tell us I'm fascinated by people who can come up with stuff like that because I'm not smart enough to be able to do that. Or did you change your last name to the acronym? That would be a better story. I enjoyed that. I might start telling people that. So I was trying to come up with a name for my lab and the name of our field is human animal interactions. I had human animal interaction, research and education, and the O on the front made it too easy to go for the organization for Human Animal Interaction, research and education. And it was just too good to be true. It gave everyone in the lab a good chuckle and it stuck. So we are O'Hare. So did you. So did you have a big lab meeting to do this or you just sat one day and said, if I put an O in front of my lab's name, it'll be my name. I was brainstorming. It was, you know, sort of at the whiteboard writing out different things. And the puzzle came together so nicely as if it were a game of Scrabble. It just, it just fit. And when I shared it half jokingly with the team, they just all thought it was too good to be true. And then we had to go for it. Yeah, it really it really is. It's absolutely the best of acronyms that are descriptive, because sometimes the acronyms get a little, you know, crazy sort of thing. Yes. Before we go into the specifics of your research, I'd like to know how you got from Vassar to studying human animal interactions. What was the spark for that area of study? Well, I'm glad you mentioned Vassar in New York, because that's really where it all got started. So I was a psychology major at Vassar College. And, you know, you all had that experience where your professor says, for this one you can write an essay on a topic of your choosing. And I thought I was so clever in coming up with the idea of how children interact with animals in their empathy. And it turns out I wasn't the only one to come up with that idea. There was, in fact, just 45 minutes away from Vassar College in upstate New York, the Green Chimneys School, which is the world leader in providing animal assisted intervention for children in a school setting. And so that research led me to them. And I drove out there. I met with their clinical department, with their directors, and I said, this is wonderful. What kind of research internships do you offer? I would love to participate. And they said, Thank you for driving out here. We do not do research, internships. It was nice to meet you. And I said, might want to consider that you could because you're doing all this incredible work. But there hasn't been data to show what's happening in to validate the incredible work that you're doing. And they listen to you. They heard me and they appeased me. So they did let me come as a senior Vassar College student to do an internship, which they helped me create. So I went there once a week for a year to help them develop research programs, to evaluate the impact of interacting with animals for the children. And that's really what sparked my passion for this field, is that there are people out there doing incredible work and they are far too busy to take a step back and validate and assess their outcomes. And and perhaps they might be biased if they did. And it really takes an independent outsider to come in and do that. And so that's what inspired me. And I had perhaps a winding journey from there to get to where I am now. But I'll try and succinctly summarize it. Essentially. After that, I went to Australia to do a Fulbright Fellowship on human animal interaction. It was going to be the dream set up working with a psychologist and a veterinary end, which is what you need in this field. I flew all the way across the world, I got the funding and I showed up and they said, The psychologist has quit. There's no more funding and there's no project. Again, thank you for coming, but there is nothing for you yet again, I was told. So I decided to take that as an opportunity to come up with something different and to study the interactions between animals and children in a way that was more affordable. Instead of doing service dogs who would be expensive. I worked with the local that college who was doing research on guinea pigs in their studies. They didn't need the guinea pigs after day two of their life. It was a breeding study so they could either be euthanized or come to me for free to socialize them and get them engaged in these programs. And I developed a research portfolio around that and fast forward ten years later, I was able to come back to Vassar College to give a talk on the work that I was doing. And someone came up at the end of the talk from the audience. It was the professor that I had, and he pulled something out of his pocket and it was the essay that I'd written a decade ago on human animal interaction. He had kept it and it was just an amazing full circle moment to see that, you know, this is a relatively new field. There aren't a lot of opportunities in it. And to make those you really have to pave the way. You have to say yes in the face of no and find a path. And the fact that he had saved that and they had felt me valuable enough to invite me to talk about it ten years later just kind of was really meaningful for me and has shown the value of continuing to persist in the path of studying something that has historically been understudied and my vision and my passion is to create opportunities for students now so that they don't have to receive quite so many no’s or fly around the globe to get more no's, but that they can actually study this and we can grow the science around human animal interaction. So green chimneys. I had a wonderful experience with the green chimneys people every year the Cathedral of Saint John, the Divine Way up on 110th and Cathedral Parkway in New York, has a blessing of the animals, where people bring their pets to church and the animals get blessed and they have a huge procession of animals up the Cedar of Saint John. The Divine is like the fourth largest church in the world, so it's huge. And the Green Chimneys, people brought animals and processed up the center aisle of the church with these animals, which was so much fun. I have so many pictures of of turtles and there were camels. And then after the church service, the green chimneys, people stay outdoors on the lawn of this beautiful cathedral. And then people can look at the animals and interact with them, you know, depending on whether it's the right animal like Albert, the alligator, maybe. No, but but, you know, the turtle was fine. He just wanted to sit there. And people have a wonderful full day visiting with those animals from green chimneys. So it's that's one that's for all New Yorkers, not just kids that can go to Green Chimneys school. That's a very special one, I think. Anyways, Yes, they're incredible group and they're sharing as much as they can with the community. So that's yeah, so I hope that's going to come back that, you know, the pandemic kind of squished that for a little while. But I'm hope it's going to come back. So because your area of research is about assistance, animals, can you talk a little bit about the difference between a therapy dog and an emotional support dog? And how were they different? What do they do? I'm glad that you asked that at the front because it is something that's so widely misconstrued and for rightly so. There's a lot of different categories and it's constantly evolving. But I'd say the three key ones are first, we've got service animals. These are animals that are trained to perform a task to help mitigate a disability. So these are animals who have to meet standards of behavior. They are allowed public access and they really work with an individual with a disability. Next, we have emotional support animals, and I think those two can be confused and emotional support. Animal is actually a companion animal who lives with a person and provides As for the title emotional support for potentially depression, anxiety or other areas of mental health. They do not have to be trained to do any specific tasks. They don't have to meet behavior standards and they're not allowed public access in most places. And then the third category is a therapy dog. Now, these are really, again, companion animals, but they are volunteers with their person, their handler, and they often go to places like hospitals, nursing homes, facilities to provide joy, support and enrichment to the clientele there. So the therapy dog sees many people, whereas emotional support and service animals are with their one person. One is trained to do tasks to mitigate a disability the service animal and one provides. So the emotional support, the emotional support animal. So your research is about service animals and so the the dogs that you're studying are service dogs for these veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. And you looked at cortisol. I think probably for our audience, we need to talk a little bit about what cortisol is and how why it's important and how you measure it. Before we talk about your study findings, I agree that's a great plan. So cortisol is a stress hormone and we are interested in veterans stress hormone physiology. So we know that individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder experience heightened levels of stress. That changes the bio physiology of how they respond to stress in their everyday environment. Cortisol is one of the most well-studied metrics of this over time. It's also a useful analyte for us to look at because you can collected non-invasively and saliva. So we were working with veterans all throughout the United States and they were able to collect their saliva, pop it in the freezer, and then send it to us overnight so that we can analyze it in the lab. You know, that means that they were getting a phone call from someone on my team asking them to send us their spit. So it was an unusual experience for some, although through the pandemic, we've seen that it's more common to be collecting saliva for various medical reasons. So with that, what I want to say about cortisol and PTSD is that we were looking at the cortisol awakening response. So that's right. When you wake up in the morning for a healthy adult who does not have PTSD, what you expect to see is right after you wake up, there's a big rise in cortisol and then it kind of falls and wanes throughout the day. It's a diurnal pattern that happens every day. For someone who has PTSD. What we typically see is they have such heightened arousal and stress at all times. Their body is not responding in the same way anymore. So you see a really blunted pattern. They wake up in the morning and you don't see that rise in cortisol anymore because their body is constantly on edge and it is no longer reacting in the same way. So we were curious if we had a group who received a service dog compared to a group who did not, would that impact their stress physiology and the way that they respond to waking up and going about their day? So that's the overview of what cortisol is and why we selected a study in this population. And could you do that? Could you collect dog spit and study cortisol in dogs fit to you? Absolutely. Can. And in our current study we could have opted to do saliva in both. However, to assess cortisol in the dogs, we're actually going to be doing fecal samples a few reasons for that. And really the most salient one is that it's easier to collect in a dog, right? Every year for their annual physical. You're used to collecting their fecal sample. Honestly, if you take your dog for a walk, you know how to collect their fecal sample. Whereas saliva is a little bit more invasive for a dog, right? You need to get inside their mouth. You know, they're they have sharp teeth. They might not like it. It's not everyday for them. So in our current work, we're doing saliva as the noninvasive preferred option for humans and fecal sampling as a noninvasive preferred option for dogs. You can absolutely do it both ways. Both. But humans tend to respond better to giving us their spit than their fecal samples and dogs tend to respond better to us just collecting what we were already going to collect anyways rather than getting in their mouth. So. So now we can go back to what were the findings about this recent cortisol study in your veterans? Yes. So we were fascinated to see that for veterans you've had a service dog for only three months. They had a significantly different cortisol stress physiology pattern than veterans who did not have a service dog. That is for a group that came in with the same level of symptomology. Having the dog changed how their body responded to stress in the morning. And so it's slightly counterintuitive, but what that looks like is a and actually an increase in the rise in cortisol in the morning for those who have a dog, which is showing a healthier pattern that you're supposed to see when you wake up in the morning responding to be awake and being awake and entering your day compared to a group that is blunted and not showing that rise anymore. So we were able to measure on a physiological level how having a service dog impacts the stress hormones of veterans with PTSD. So it helps the veterans cortisol return to the normal pattern. That's correct. Even though it's higher, which is higher, always sounds bad, right? In this case, higher is not bad. Higher is good. That's correct. So it's nuanced and it's certainly the case that it's more typical of a healthy adult without that mental health diagnosis to have a rise in the morning, your body's waking up, you're ready for your day compared to a body that is used to being on edge and hyper alert at all times and does not respond anymore. So just for our listeners out there, we have talked periodically on this show about cortisol in dogs, and it's mostly surrounding a disease where dogs bodies make too much cortisol all the time called Cushing's disease, and then we have some other dogs whose bodies stop making cortisol altogether, and that's called Addison's disease. And those two diseases are kind of yin and yang. One is too much cortisol, one is not enough cortisol, but these veterans have neither of those diseases. These veterans have a stress, really a disease of stress, correct? Absolutely. That's correct. It's incredible the amount of stress that they're facing every moment of their waking hours and even at night. One of the greatest struggles that they present to us is that they have so many nightmares that they're actually scared to close their eyes and go to sleep at night. And so for our veterans who have a service dog on a on a validated instrument called the Fear of sleep inventory, they had significantly less fear of sleep with their dog in their bed or in their room or in their home. They're able to get in bed and close their eyes and rest for the first time that they can remember. And and that's really powerful for us to be able to capture that for the first time. So are the dogs trained in any way to sleep with the the veteran or this is just because they're dogs. That's what they do you know different organizations have different philosophies around this. Some organizations will train in nightmare interruption. So if the person is flailing around or moving and the dog sees that they're asleep, they'll wake the person up, provide deep calming pressure, or lay next to them. Other organizations do not train for that. Find the dogs naturally, instinctively do that anyways once they're bonded with the human. And I would say it's really up to the veteran themselves, the location of where the dog sleeps. However, I would say to your point, a lot of dogs, if given their preference, will choose to be near their human regardless of how they're trained. Yeah, I don't think you have to train most jobs. I stayed at a friend's house and the next thing I knew there was a dog like tunneling under the covers. And I was like, How are you Jasmine? She she must have been cold wherever she was, and she got right under the duvet. So what is your research going to tell these? I'm sure these veterans have psychiatrists and physicians that take care of them. So how was what you're doing going to help improve the health care for our our veterans? I would say that health care improvements are one of the main goals of our research, and that comes from many different levels. It comes from the veterans side where they feel that they're receiving great benefits, but it's not being understood or believed by those around them because it doesn't have an evidence base behind it. I would say that research is also hopefully going to help the clinicians themselves. I have so many clinicians, doctors reach out to me and say, I have someone walk into my office and they want a letter for a service dog. What do I do? And it baffles me every time because if you think about any other area of medicine, someone comes in with difficulty seeing a heart problem, the doctor looks at the evidence base, knows what skin to run, runs the scan, looks at results, looks at evidence, knows what treatment to provide. You know, it's just wild to me that at this stage we don't have that level of evidence for a service dog as well. And clinicians are asking for it. And then I would say the third piece is really around policy and the public. Without education, resources and research, it's hard to set up policies that support veterans to bring the dogs where they need to go and to support the public to know how to interact with and understand what that means and who they are and how to support them. And I think that draws on the first one of the first questions you asked. You know, what is a service dog compared to an emotional support dog compared to a therapy dog without evidence, resources and education. It's confusing for the community on how to proceed in these scenarios so your veterans have trouble taking their service dogs, places that they need their dog to go with them. Yes, that's correct. And so actually, just this morning, I was in a Ph.D. comprehensive oral exam where the person's entire program of research was around these public access denials, the stigma and the potentially civil rights violations around individuals who have a disability such as PTSD and are not able to proceed in the setting where they need to go to go about their day. And what she was finding is that is actually more salient often for individuals with what we call invisible disabilities, because it's hard to know whether that service dog is legitimate or needed or required and it can create more barriers. So when you get a service dog, you don't get a card that says, You know, Rex, here is my service dog, and he need like a driver's license or a passport that gets Rex where he needs to go. And in fact, that's one of the biggest misconceptions, is that that certainly does not exist. There is no national certification or registration, body or process for service animals. In fact, there's been a lot of debate on whether or not that would actually be helpful. And in fact, you cannot look it up. You can't do you can't cross-check someone's credentials. You there are two questions you can ask if you come across someone, if you're a business and you want to know if the service dog is legitimate, you can ask. One Is the animal a service animal required because of a disability and to what work or task has the animal been trained to perform? And that's it. There's nothing else you can do at this point to determine legitimacy. You know, New York loves its dog, so I know we see dogs, lots of places in New York. I just I'm surprised that other people maybe they just don't know that these are how important these dogs are. You know, AMC takes care of lots of service dogs. The ones that are easy to identify are, you know, seeing eye dogs because the person can't see. They have a dog with that special harness. You're kind of like, okay, you know, I know what you're doing. It's it's harder. I'm sure, for some of these other service dogs. But but we've we take care of a lot of them here, and we know how much they're loved and how important they are to the people who use them. So do you think back on policy, part of the reason those questions are really limited is because of hip hop, right? You know, health, privacy. Yes. And I think also out of respect, in a sense, you know, you can't ask someone to do a show and perform what test they usually do because that is disrespectful. And I think parts of it are around removing barriers for the individual and yes, also certainly to protect their confidentiality around whatever disability status they may have. So what's the solution? I love that you're asking this. We just spent 2 hours debating this in this person's oral exams for their Ph.D. and I think it's really complicated. Some people want to see that national registration or certification system, an ID badge, they think that would be clean and solve the problem. However, that creates a lot of barriers and burdens on the individual with the disability. So going through whatever process or payment that is required to get, that is actually something that may impinge upon their ability to do the things they need to do and maybe too high of a barrier for them. So I think that if you can solve this problem, that would be wonderful. And the the the field has yet to come to a solid solution. And I think part of what's needed now is really just better public education on how to support these teams. Because if we had a more inclusive society that, you know, was respectful and welcomed animals where it was safe to do so, then perhaps this would be less of a problem. So I can also see that registering animals or meeting certain standards would be burdensome to the organizations that train as well. I don't think those animals are well funded probably by any means. They're probably not for profits. And so it it's a it's a double barrier. It's a barrier to the the person needing the service dog, but it's also probably a barrier to the people that train those dogs, which is a art onto itself. Yes, indeed. They are often nonprofits and all the organizations that we work in the largest ones provide these dogs completely free of cost to the individuals who apply for and need them. So it's certainly an area where that's another reason we're hoping to do more research, is because one of their barriers is receiving more funding to meet the demands and the services that they need to offer and without an evidence base behind it demonstrating, quantify what's happening. It's hard for them to, you know, overcome that funding gap or that waitlist barrier for so many people who need dogs. So what's your next what's your next project? So you've got cortisol, you're measuring cortisol in dogs, cortisol in people. I know researcher doesn't have like a giant whiteboard with the next ten projects on it where you go from here, where from here, that's one of my favorite things. We will certainly never stop having questions so that the two next steps that are currently on our radar is that we're running a trial right now called Serves the Service Dog and Veteran Experiences Study. And it's the first nationwide randomized clinical trial on the efficacy of service dogs for veterans. So the work we've talked about today is in a non randomized trial, and historically it's been thought nearly impossible to do a randomization process. Obviously, if you think about it, you're randomized to not get a dog. Do you want to still do the trial? So we've actually been able to partner with organizations, with veterans who now understand the importance of that randomization piece and the trial is underway. So we'll have the first RC t or randomized clinical trial evidence on service dogs. So we're very excited about that. Our team is talking with veterans as we speak. They're going to be collecting saliva on the human's fecal samples in the dogs. We have a suite of other measures. We have a wristband that tracks their sleep and activity levels. We do a process where we ping them on their smartphone throughout the day to ask who they're with, what they're doing, how they're feeling. So we'll have a wealth of data over a 15 month period for individuals who get a dog after baseline compared to those who don't. So wow, that trial is going on. That's a new age funded trial. We are fortunate enough to have just successfully received notice from the Department of Defense that we have a new grant coming after that, which I'm really excited about to partner with the clinical community. And there's been a challenge because some of those in the clinical community feel that there are other evidence based services for PTSD. Why go for a dog that's going to get in the way of you accessing them, but you should be accessing elsewhere? And so for the first time, we get to partner with these clinicians and find out whether a dog might actually help someone engage in evidence based care versus not. And if you think about it, if before the dog, you're home alone in your basement and you won't leave your house or talk to anyone, and then you get the dog and you can do some of those things, you may have a better shot at actually accessing treatment, going to the doctor and engaging in services that are really challenging for treating PTSD if you have the support of your service dog. So we're really pleased to be able to partner with the Department of Defense and some incredible clinicians to provide the services so that we can get some answers about that. And hopefully get veterans with the best suite of services possible that they deserve to feel better. So I know your work is really focused on veterans and and I'm not saying it shouldn't there well-deserving of these dogs but what if you have what if there's a family listening to this and they have a child that has a seizure problem or an autistic child or some other non-veteran who thinks maybe a service dog would help? What how do you start? Yes, absolutely. And I have focused a lot of my talk today on veterans because that is the nature of the paper we were discussing. However, we certainly have a suite of other areas that we are researching, including both of those that you've named. So we've done a lot of work on service animals for children with autism in their families. And what's fascinating there, especially when it's a child with a disability, is that the dog tends to be partner not just with the child, but also another family member, a parent, a sibling. And so we can see impacts not just for the individual, but also for their family and their community. And that's really been powerful to see how it can impact not just one person but everyone around them. So we see some really beautiful games for children with autism in the areas of social functioning and also in sleep. We found that children with autism who have a service dog are more likely to be able to sleep independently in their room through the night. Compared to those who don't. And now everyone else listening to this podcast today might feel really rested and think that's not important. But I can assure you that sleep is critically important to all of our well-being and functioning and has true flow on effect. So that was certainly an exciting finding. And then in the other areas of seizure detection or other medical mobility areas that the dogs are helping with, we've also done a lot of work in those areas to look at. It's not just the fact that the dog turns on or off the lights that is amazing and very impressive what dogs can do, but it's actually also about the support that the dogs provide to the human on many levels that they're unable to get elsewhere. How they feel confident, supported and safe throughout their day when they have that partner with them, and how the animal can help connect them to others in their society. I mean, we have research that shows if you're walking by yourself, you're much less likely to have someone smile and say hello than if you're walking with your dog and we see that for individuals in the disability community where it's helping to create social fabric that connects them to those around them. So I would say for anyone listening who, you know is interested in this, there are incredible service dog providers out there who offer dogs free of charge for those that are eligible. If you're interested, you want to learn more, see if it's something that might be a fit for you. Certainly check out their resources because one of the most neat things about dogs, in fact, is that they're so versatile and can be trained to do so many things, unlike other treatments which are a little more narrow. So I was at a service dog fair once and they were having a demonstration of what dogs could do and there was a child with some disorder I don't remember, and it caused the child to unpredictably run away from the family member they were with. And of course, run away means run into the street where it was dangerous. And they got this very sturdy Labrador who was tethered to a belt on the child's round, the child's middle. And when the child started to bolt the dead weight, Labrador just laid down on the street and the child couldn't go anywhere because that dog was laying down. And there's no actually, there's no adult that can make a Labrador move if it doesn't want to. And so this provided this huge safety net. So the child see, it's exactly what you're saying about the veterans. The child could go out and go places safely because that dog kept the child from running out in the street and getting hit by a car. And the veteran can go out with their dog because they're emotionally more safe when they have that dog. And it's just it's a different kind of safe. But who can imagine that a dog can keep a kid from running in the street? I'd be like, How are we going to do that? These trainers are so incredibly clever about what they do. I would agree. So I want to just thank you so much for joining us today. I think we could talk for the whole hour, but I have people who have questions about their pets that I have to answer shortly. So if you're interested in learning more about Dr. O'Haire's work, then you want to go to her website, which is human animal interaction dot org or big giant one word. And I thank you so much and I wish you luck with this NIH study because I know that is an enormous amount of work, but it will be so important to the people that you serve. Well, thank you so much. And thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Now, I know that keeping your pet healthy is very important to you. 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 with the answer to your question on next month's Ask the Vet podcast, just email me at Ask the Vet at AMCNY dot org. We've got a short break coming up, but please stay tuned because there are lots of interesting animal stories. When we return, we're back with Dr. Ann Hohenhaus on Ask the Vet. Welcome back, everyone. To ask the vet, it's time for the animal news. It's time for animal headlines. The biggest animal news from across the world. Madeleine Landecker, a ten year old aspiring veterinarian, spotted a rare pink grasshopper while walking to her family barn in Benton, Arkansas. The grasshopper, who she named, Molly, has a condition called a rip rhythm, which is a genetic mutation that causes overproduction of red pigment. And thus, Molly is pink. Pink grasshoppers are less able to camouflage themselves and are more likely to be eaten, making Madeline's discovery quite remarkable. Madeline is no stranger to insects. As a nature enthusiast, she frequently takes in injured bugs she finds and let them rest at home until they feel better. The pink grasshopper Millie was missing a leg, probably because she was pink and someone tried to eat her, but somehow she escaped. So Madeline decided to hold on to Millie and study her. Millie got to visit Madeline's classmates at school so everyone could see this very interesting insect. Madeline is going to keep Millie for now, and Kurt continues to study her. Millie just got a good deal. She's in a terrarium set up by Madeline with plenty of grass to eat. And Madeline even made sure to find a smaller brown and black grasshopper named Billy to keep Millie happy. Our second story is about Labrador Retrievers. They seem we've already talked about Labradors today because when they lay down, you can't get those dogs to move. Some of them you can't get to move because they seem to become enormous. Because they are always, always hungry. Well, science may now have an explanation. New research conducted at the University of Cambridge in England found that about 25% of Labrador Retrievers have a mutation in their poem Seed Gene, and that gene increases their appetite and decreases the rate at which they burn calories. And of course, this explains why your Labrador can gain weight needing nothing but air. During this study, the labs were given various tests, including one where they were tempted by a sausage in a box. They could see and smell the sausage, but they couldn't get to it. The labs with the OMC mutation tried much harder to get the sausage than the labs without it suggest, noting that the gene helps to control a Labrador's insatiable interest in food. Let's hope someone can figure out a medication to turn that gene off and keep Labradors at their ideal body conditions. For our third story today is probably my favorite. There was a recent birth at the Attica Zoological Park in Athens, Greece. A rare pygmy hippo was recently born. Now, for those of you haven't been lucky enough to see a pygmy hippo in a zoo, Pygmy is kind of not really the right name for these things. These are about the size of a full grown adult pig, meaning 4 to 600 pounds. So pygmy is its pygmy compared to a real hippo. But it's not really pygmy compared to other animals that we see. And certainly a pygmy hippo would not fit in your house. The birth of this baby pygmy hippo has generated a lot of excitement since it is a critically endangered species with an estimated population in the world of only 2000 to 2500 of these in the wild. Conservation efforts to increase the numbers of pygmy hippos are facing a lot of challenges, particularly due to the scarcity of male pygmy hippos. To create more baby hippos. Therefore, conservationists are particularly elated that the newborn is a boy. Sue Breeding programs are vital to protecting and repopulating endangered species, and every precaution was taken when the zookeepers discovered their female was expecting. She was trained to get into the correct position, needed to do ultrasounds and other veterinary examinations. Pygmy hippo pregnancy lasts about 6 to 7 months and give birth to only one calf. So every baby pygmy hippo is especially precious. The newest pygmy, but was still really young and is sticking close to for the next few months. And so he's not on view in his outdoor enclosure. But we hope this little guy does really, really well and becomes a key to survival of this particular species. And now it's time for questions from our listeners. Our first question is from Samantha in Connecticut. She asks, Can a dog become anxious by looking out the window? My two year old have a niece recently started lying on top of our couch and staring out the window. Now, every time someone walks by her house, she barks and runs from the window to the door. Should I not let her look out the window even though she loves it? Is it too stimulating for her? I think, Samantha, that your two year old happiness is just behaving like almost every dog that I know. Yeah. And the fact that she runs from the window to the door means she's hoping someone is going to come in and visit her. And I wonder if she's lonesome or she needs more stimulation to keep her engaged and busy, rather than that it's overstimulating to have people walk by the window. And so I would think about some puzzle toys for this happiness puzzle. Toys are toys that you can hide little bits of food and treats in, and the dog has to work to get those snacks out of the toy, helping to keep their mind engaged and keep them busy rather than them maybe hoping that the stranger walking across the front sidewalk is going to come in for a visit. So I think maybe that they have even used a little bit of environmental enrichment and there are a lot of puzzle toys. If you just type in puzzle toys and Google, you will have so many choices and they come in different levels to you. So I would start with the low level puzzle toys, and you can work up to more complicated ones. Thanks so much, Samantha, for sending in your question. The next question is from Emma B, and that is what's inside a dog's anal glands and how often do they need to be emptied? So the first part of that question is easy. Anal glands are glands, and glands secrete things. So the pancreas is a gland and it secretes insulin that you need to help digest your food and keep your blood sugar down. Anal glands secrete this brown stuff that smells really bad and probably is a leftover from when dogs were wild. They used the scent glands or the glands to mark their territory. Anal glands are specific to carnivores, so we will see anal glands in dogs and cats and ferrets and other wild carnivorous animals. How often a dog's anal glands need to be emptied is a good question. Some dogs never seem to need them emptied and other dogs seem to need to have them emptied. All the time. So I think that for sure, you know, your dog's anal glands need to be empty when it's sliding its behind on your carpets or the floors because that tells you that they're itchy or bothering in some way. If your dog's not sliding, they may not need to have their anal glands expressed. And certainly as part of a routine physical exam, many veterinarians do erectile exam to feel the anal glands, make sure they're normal, not impacted, not affected, don't have a tumor associated with them. And then I always just empty them as a matter of course. But there's no routine amount of time that anal glands need to be emptied. It's kind of on an as needed basis. Anal glands that are always inflamed or the dog that's always sliding its fanny on the ground might have allergies. And so if your dog is sliding all the time and yet the glands are empty, one of the considerations would be, does your dog have allergic skin disease? So be sure and remind your veterinarian that your dog is sliding. And our last question comes from Emily here in New York. And Emily asks, Can cats have too much catnip? So I would have said no until my friend Stephanie's cat, she left him with a brand new catnip toy. And when she came home, he she thought he'd had a stroke. She wasn't sure. She brought him to the emergency room and ultimately it was decided it's never happened again. And she controls his access to catnip. So I do think that either there is some high test catnip out there or possibly a cat who's very sensitive to catnip. And yes, you probably need to then supervise your cat when it has catnip. And if it start to really get either weak or droopy, take that catnip away. I would have never believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, with my friend's cat. And don't forget, if you want to know more about your pet's health, just send me an email at the Ask the vet email. That's ask the vet at AMCNY dot org and I'll answer your questions on next month's ask about program. And when we come back from the break, we'll have news from AMC and the Usdan Institute. We're back with Dr. Ann Hohenhaus on Ask the Vet. Hi, and welcome back to our last segment of this month's Ask the Vet podcast. We have interesting tidbits from the Usdan Institute at the Animal Medical Center. Each year, more than 4.5 million people are bitten by dogs in the United States, and the most frequent victims are children. To bring attention to this situation, the second week of April is national Dog Bite Prevention Week, an initiative which aims to educate the public about preventing dog bites. I think most people would be surprised that the dogs that bite children are not usually random strange dogs that child has never met before. They are typically dogs that belong to the family or dogs that belong to friends that come over. And those are the dogs that are most likely to bite children. So for parents listening, it's really important to teach children how to safely approach a dog. There are three steps. The first thing you do is you want the child to ask the owner or the handler of the dog if they can pet the dog. And if the owner says no, then you need to respect that because the owner knows that maybe the dog doesn't like strangers or the dog doesn't like children, or the dog is sick or painful some way, in which case its response to being petted might be unexpected. Second, after permission is given, the child should slowly put the back of their hand towards the dog, see how the dog reacts. And if the dog sniffs and appears calm, then the child can gently pet them on their side or back and then quietly walk away. And following those steps will help to protect your child against dog bites. Always remember to be respectful of your dog's personal space. And dogs have personal space. They do not want you to take their food away from them. They do not want you to take their phone away from them or their toys away from them. Don't make large startling noises or disturb a dog when they're sleeping because that might frighten the dog and then they're going to lash by biting because that's their protection mechanism. And if your dog goes into its crate or is hiding under the bed or sleeping, that's a time to leave the dog alone because sometimes you just want to go to your room and hang out and you don't want anyone to bother you either. And respect that in your dog. Now the you stand Institute for Animal Health Education has a lot of information specifically designed for children. Our children's education page is a central resource for parents and caregivers who want to teach their young learners about topics in veterinary medicine, animal science and responsible pet ownership. So you just need to go to our webite, which is AMCNY dot org, and look for children's education or children's resource courses in the search bar. And that will take you to a whole host of activities that you can do with your children, especially on a horrendous rainy day like today. Living in the city presents unique challenges for pets, from navigating crowded sidewalks to adapting to life in high rise apartments. It's important to understand these factors to safeguard your pet's well-being. So on May 16th, at 6 p.m. Eastern Time, AMC's Carly Fox will present a seminar on expert tips to help your pets flourish in an urban environment. Dr. Fox is a member of AMC's Emergency and Critical Care Service, and she's going to talk about some of the emergencies that we see that are unique to our urban environment. As usual, this event is free and hosted on Zoom, so you have to sign up on our Web site because if you don't sign up, we can't send you the Zoom link. So don't forget, our Web site is AMCNY dog org backslash events will get you to the registration page for free access to timely and relevant pet health articles, upcoming pet health events, video tutorials, and other pet parent resources. Check out AMC's Usdan Institute for Animal Health Education. Just go to AMCNY dot org and then an upper right ribbon across the top. You just search on education and all these resources will come up. Today I want to give a special thanks to my guest, Dr. Maggie O'Haire, for joining me in a big shoutout to all my listeners for your continued support. The Ask the Vet podcast is ranked fourth on FeedSpot’s 45 Best Pet Podcast. Don't forget, if you want to know more about your pet's health or well-being, you can email me your questions at Ask the Vet at AMCNY dot org, and I'll happily answer your questions on next month's show. The Ask the Vet podcast can be accessed on the serious app across all major podcast platforms and also on AMC's website. Thanks to our long standing partnership with Sirius XM, don't forget to check AMC out on social media on Facebook, we’re the Animal Medical Center and on Twitter and Instagram, AMCNY I really appreciate it. If you could take a quick moment to give the Ask the Vet podcast a review and like and subscribe to it so you'll receive all our new episodes. And now I have to say goodbye for another great show, and I will look forward to seeing everybody on next month's episode. Thanks and have a great month.