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Is Anesthesia Risky for your Pet? With Dr. Andrea Looney

• The Animal Medical Center

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In this episode of "Ask the Vet" Dr. Ann Hohenhaus talks with Dr. Andrea Looney, Senior Veterinarian at AMC and board-certified specialist in Anesthesia and Analgesia, about how anesthesia is safely administered to pets. They discuss why the idea of anesthesia can make pet owners feel uneasy -- especially because general anesthesia involves a loss of consciousness -- and what goes on behind the scenes to keep animals safe and comfortable during procedures.

Topics include:

  • Dr. Looney’s childhood around animals and her love of goats
  • Why people may be anxious about their pets undergoing anesthesia
  • How anesthetic plans are customized for each individual patient
  • Which vital signs are closely monitored during anesthesia
  • The subtle physical signs that veterinary staff look for when a patient is under anesthesia
  • Why “flat-faced” breeds like Frenchies present unique challenges

Also on this month's show:

  • Viral trending animal story featuring the giraffe who gave birth to a calf weighing 132 pounds
  • Animal news, including a look at how humans resemble their pets, the small-clawed otters with a knack for escaping, and unlocking the secret mechanisms of a cat’s ability to purr.
  • Pet Health Listener Q&A, with topics including hysterectomy options for small dogs, signs of kidney disease in cats, and what causes a cat to have different colored eyes.

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.

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We want to remind our listeners that this program is for informational and educational purposes only, and not 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 Ask the Vet, the podcast for people who love their pets and want the latest in pet news and health information. I'm your host, Dr. Ann Hohenhaus. I'm a senior veterinarian here at the Schwarzman Animal Medical Center, and I'm also the director of pet health information. Today we're going to talk about anesthesia. It's a routine procedure here at AMC, but it's often misunderstood by pet owners, resulting in a lot of anxious feelings when they hear that their pet needs anesthesia. In reality, it's a safe and carefully controlled tool that allows us to perform surgeries and diagnostic procedures without pain or stress. When managed by trained professionals like my guest today and using modern equipment to monitor patients. Anesthesia is very low risk in most healthy pets, so to understand how it works and why, it's not something to fear. My colleague, Doctor Andrea Looney, who's a board certified specialist in anesthesia and analgesia and is also a senior veterinarian here at the AMC, will be on later in the show. 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 we've got 115 years of caring behind that statement. If you're seeking advice on maintaining your pet's health, I'm here to help. You just need to send me your questions to Art Ask the vet email, which is cleverly named AsktheVet@amcny.org. And if you send me your questions, I'll answer them on next month's show. We've got some really great questions today. And now it's time for our trending animal of the month. It's time for the internet's most talked about animal. At the Greenville Zoo in South Carolina. Autumn. The giraffe recently gave birth to her seventh calf, a healthy male born on June 7th. Well, that's a good one. The seventh calf on the seventh. This newborn made quite the entrance, measuring over six feet tall and weighing 132 pounds. At his first veterinary exam since he was born, the yet unnamed calf has been doing great nursing, regularly bonding with his mother, charming visitors as he explores the outdoor paddock. His early milestones have been shared with fans worldwide through the zoo's 24 hour giraffe cam. And you can check him out at Greenville Zoo Foundation Dawg backslash camera. You can probably also just Google Autumn, the giraffes camera, and it'll come up. That's what I did because the Hawks I was watching fledge last week, so I had to find a new animal cam to watch. And so Autumn and her baby are going to be my new cam. And now it's my pleasure to welcome my colleague, Doctor Andrea Looney. Doctor Looney is a senior veterinarian and board certified specialist in anesthesia and analgesia here at the Schwarzman Animal Medical Center. She earned her DVM degree from Cornell University, where she also completed residency in anesthesiology. She later returned to Cornell as a senior lecturer in pain management, palliative care and rehabilitation, and went on to teach at Tufts University and serve as a consultant in human medical centers throughout the Albany area. Here at AMC, Doctor Looney brings her decades of experience to our anesthesia service and a deep commitment to keeping patients comfortable and safe through every step of their care. So, Doctor Looney, thanks so much for joining me here on Ask the Vet. And thank you so much for having me and, appreciate the opportunity to speak to you. Also appreciate the opportunity to be on Sirius XM. I'm a big fan. Always have been. Just love the radio stations. So thank you so much for having me. You know, I love the radio too. I grew up riding around in the truck with my dad, listening to the radio as a child, and so I, I listen to the radio all the time just because I can do other things and I don't really have to watch, you know, TV, you feel like you have to watch or you hear a big noise and then you're like, what just happened? Where? On the radio. They explain everything to you because you can't see them. So I'm with you. I like the radio. So I always like to begin these conversations by asking my guests about their pets. Do you currently have any at home, or do you have a special pet that influenced your path to veterinary medicine? No. It's a it's a great question. And, yes, I, I'm very fortunate to have grown up in a household in the rural areas. And my dad was a, farm guy. So we were really fortunate that he grew up around chickens and cattle. And my mom was so open to us bringing home almost anything, whether it be a snake or a lizard or a frog. My sister brought home tons of pocket pets, and many of them got loose in the house. So we were very fortunate to have that opportunity to grow up around animals. And we had tons of dogs in the family. I now share my home with a herd of goats, and, I spent a lot of time at Cornell teaching in the large animal clinic and working on both horses and small ruminants, and I just really fell in love with them. So I'm fortunate to have those in my life right now. So do you go to mow the lawn? They do. They mow more than that. I, they they also mow the golf course next door when they get out. They occasionally will mow the lawn, neighbor's flowers, things that they shouldn't be mowing. But, I'm very I'm lucky that I have a great neighborhood, and people know that they are very food oriented as, as you might remember from riding around, maybe with your dad there. You show them the right piece of grass or foliage and they're yours for the day. So, wherever that goes, they will go. So they're easy to get back in. But they've been wonderful, wonderful companions to have. I've had them for about 10 to 12 years now, and they've all been brought in to various hospitals and left. And so I took them home thinking I only have them for a couple of years, have 1 or 2, and then that one by one I kept getting more and more animals added to that herd. So it's been great. So are they just pets or do you have baby goats too? They were babies at a time. At one point in time, I had babies. One, one mom, I had had actually five. I guess that's quintuplets. And, Yeah, it was unbelievable to have the mom and two babies right now. And, they were wonderful. And they had a lot of visitors when they were babies around when they got older, and they're just hungry. There aren't as many visitors because they're bigger, but they are really wonderful animals. They're very, very pet oriented. They do not milk. We don't do any, any milking with them or they're not wanted for their coat. So I'm fortunate. They're just like big cats in in the, on the lawn. One of my favorite videos of all times on YouTube is Baby Goats in Pajamas. They're they're adorable. They've got these little to dramas on, and they're, like, bouncing around and they're just cute and colorful and you can't help but, like, smile when you see baby goats in pajamas on YouTube. For listeners, just Google baby goats on in pajamas because they're really, absolutely adorable. I think that maybe you're like the first person with goats that we've had on the show, or that this is admitted to having goats on the show, but they're they're really cute. I, I agree with you. There. Just adorable. So back to the topic at hand. Because I could kind of talk about animals all day and a seizure can sound really scary to a lot of pet owners and pet owners for goal procedures that their pets probably would benefit from because of their anxiety over anesthesia. So why is it so anxiety provoking? And how can we help reassure people when their pet really needs to undergo an anesthetic procedure? Yeah, those are great questions. The anxiety, I think has really grown in our age of internet. Right? It's not uncommon to have either ourselves or family members, let alone our pets, need to undergo a procedure that requires sedation and or anesthesia. And we're concerned about that because it's a very altered state of consciousness about which we have very little control for ourselves. So we think the same for our pets, and we worry about them, of course, when they undergo anesthesia. There's also a lot of information on the internet, which for lack of saying that it's a non founded, I won't, but science behind a lot of that information is not as readily available or as reliable as we'd want. So people read that a certain breed or a certain species is maybe more prone to problems under anesthesia, and they get worried, reasonably and about what we can do as as veterinarians, to assure owners that the anesthesia has become more safe is to really invite them to look at the literature in terms of some of the guidelines and standards that are now published by the American Animal Hospital Association, by the World Society for veterinary medicine, by the American Association of Feline Practitioners. These are all great organizations that have put out amazing guidelines on how we, as practitioners and small practices and large alike, should, do anesthesia and are required to do anesthesia using the appropriate drugs. The appropriate approach to our patients. And each one of those patients is an individual, as well as using the same techniques that we would utilize if we were a human nurse anesthetist. So trying to assure our clientele that we know we are better trained and that we are approaching anesthesia utilizing these standards that are published, we're using science to kind of guide us in shepherding their patient, through this unconsciousness or this altered mentation and getting them out on the opposite side, back to enjoying the family, eating, drinking, playing, chasing the newspaper and the garbage truck down the road just as they were prior to the incident. So an anesthetic plan really begins before the pet is getting ready to roll into the operating room. It begins when a veterinarian like me says, oh well, I really think that tumor that you have needs a biopsy, for example. So can you walk us through how that whole process unfolds? As as this customized plan that you talked about is made up for each patient. Yeah. And that's that's a great question. And I'm so glad you can approach it from your standpoint too, because the patients that you see, require a lot of imaging and of course, a lot of treatments that require that sedation and anesthesia. So what we start thinking about when we hear a problem list and a patient that's going to require, further diagnostics and or procedures is the general health of that patient. We're trying to look at that patient not as a four legged creature in front of us, but as a problem list, and try to prioritize in that problem list, really, what's going to affect some critical body systems? Just as a human nurse anesthetist tries to pay attention to more, critical body systems like the heart, the kidneys, the lungs, the airway, the brain, the nerves. We're we're training to do that. When we're looking at that patient and what we're thinking about, it's putting together a plan that complements that problem list that doesn't make it any worse, and that tries to route around that problem list in ways that will support that patient through that altered consciousness state and get them up on the opposite side of it. So the planning of that is really looking at that patient more as a prioritization of their problems, picking out the appropriate drugs and techniques that are going to circumvent those problems, not make them any worse, and support those very, very critical body systems that that patient's going to need to get through that event and metabolize all those drugs, let alone get through the problem that they have. That's kind of how we would approach it in a, very individualized way. Within a large institution like Animal Medical Center, in terms of daily practice and space and neuters, most veterinarians approach the patient exactly the same way. They try to think about that patient's health list and what goes into that patient and esthetically, in terms of drugs and techniques, is made to complement that health system and to try to not make that those problems any worse. So let's give our listeners a concrete example. So I have a patient that needs his tumor biopsied, and it has a little heart murmur. What what are you going to do to adapt an anesthetic protocol to that patient? Yeah, that's a perfect example because a heart murmur is a very common problem right out in practice. What we're going to look at in terms of the heart murmur is really the intensity of it and how it is causing changes in the hemodynamics of that patient. Is there a fluid building up in the lungs of that patient? Is the patient's pulse rate and rhythm appropriate or is it inappropriate? And how we can choose drugs that will not only take away the pain of the procedure, but also take away the anxiety of that patient, as well as really support that heart in its disease state. So I guess the first thing we would think about with that patient is trying to make sure that we get a very good physical exam, gauging the regularity of the pulse and the rate of that pulse, as well as the clarity of the lungs, and maybe getting a few more diagnostics like a chest radiograph to assess how things are going in a blood pressure reading on that patient, and using that information to choose the appropriate drugs. You know, we have, it's almost like a, a chef looks at a shelf of spices. We have a shelf of drugs that we can utilize to take away anxiety, to help with pain, to relax that patient, and furthermore, to give that patient some amnesia. Right. So we're going to combine those drugs together around those findings about that heart murmur. And to allow that patient an appropriate sedation event, so that you as an oncologist can have that patient still not feeling pain, appropriately and sedated and not anxious. And you can get your samples and we can get the big diagnostics that you need to provide an appropriate plan for the oncology of the patient. Okay. That really breaks it down very well. And I hope that our listeners, understand how carefully any patient that's enough to hear gets looked at before we undergo an anesthetic procedure. Now, once that Pat is in the operating room or in the procedure room, you have to keep them under anesthesia. So what kinds of vital signs are you and your team monitoring most closely, and what kind of equipment you use to do that? Yeah. Another great point of our job, which is really, really one of my favorite jobs because it involves a lot of troubleshooting and I like feel it figuring out puzzles. So, we will take that patient after making sure that the utmost of supportive care is underway, that we're maintaining its oxygen levels, and it's ventilation appropriately, that we're maintaining its blood pressure and its rate, heart rate and rhythm appropriately, using a number of different what we call multi parameter monitors. And these are basically nothing more than a very nice television screen that has been modified to show us a, rhythm of the heart, a calculated heart rate, oxygenation numbers based on, very specific probes that monitor both carbon dioxide and oxygen levels and blood pressure, which is basically taken every 3 to 5 minutes for that patient. So these multi parameter monitors are actually nowadays even anchored into the anesthesia machines. So they're so in sync with the anesthesia machine that delivers a gas inhalant to that patient. That the minute that patient goes on that we press the screen to start. And those monitors start to monitor that patient. One of the things, though, that I really want to hone in on is it's not only the monitors that make a big difference to the patient and us monitoring them and maintaining their safety, but it's the personnel that are around that patient as undergoes anesthesia. We have certified veterinary technicians and nurses, that are so well trained and not only looking at those monitors, but interpreting the data that that monitor collects with very subtle signs in the changes of that patient's eyes, their response to touching, palpation, their grimacing of their mouth, the flaring of their nostrils, very tiny little things that make a ton of difference in an anesthetized patient that really make the difference and maintain the safety of that procedure. And make me sure that you, as a clinician at and at Animal Medical Center, gets the proper opportunity to get all the data and surgery and procedures done, that you need to make sure that that patient gets the best care. So just for the listeners out there, I would say that most people listening in have never seen a pet under anesthesia. And even if you yourself have been anesthetized, they're like, when it happens, they're like, count backwards. And so you go ten, nine and then you don't remember anything until you're in the recovery room. So you don't actually even know what you look like under anesthesia because of that amnesia situation that you've just talked. Right. So the patients that we have on this gas machine that and he's talking about have a breathing tube placed through their mouth and into their windpipe, and that tube is secured in by tying it in place with the little bow. And then they're hooked up through tubes to this machine that delivers the gas but also has like it's not really even a TV screen. It's like a mini TV screen these days. The motor parameter monitor is like about the size of a big loaf of bread. They're not. They used to be huge. Now they're like tiny and we roll them around the hospital as as people need them because these are on wheels. And then the pets often in a toasty, warm hot air blanket called a BAIR hugger, which is not BEAR. It's BAIR but why would it be BAIR, is that the person who invented it? That's a good question. I don't even know the answer to that, and I probably should imagine it should be on my boards. But it's it's good though. It's a great name. Yeah. A forest hot air blanket, right. Yeah. And so they in a Bair hugger and they are positioned on the table for their procedure. However, it works for the surgeon who's doing or the medicine person who's doing an endoscopy for example. So and then clustered around that patient on the table is probably someone from Andy's team and a surgeon or a person doing the procedure. And then because he's a teaching hospital, they'll be like more people clustered around that patient, either learning how to do anesthesia or learning how to do endoscopy, or learning how to do surgery. So every pet under anesthesia probably has at least three people, if not more people, hovering over it to make sure everything is going okay. So that's correct. It's a big group, right? When we really think about it, we have many, many levels of support. But, the people that are there to do the procedure as well as the people that are there to do the anesthesia and the sedation as well as the people that are there to, do the prep of the area and the equipment, which is an unbelievable luxury to have that staff and to have all of them working so well together so intricately. It's really a it's really a great thing. So you're in an operating room and you mentioned to the that your staff is looking at even what the nostrils of the patient are doing underneath their little Bair hugger. So what do you do when. Well, first of all, what do abnormal nostrils look like under anesthesia? And then what do you do about it. Yeah. So we we look very closely at the, the lines of the eye around the animal, kind of the what we call a grimace scale. And these are been published scales actually, for both children and for various species under anesthesia. But what we're looking at are, the way that what we call the cranial nerves, the nerves that control our facial expressions and our patients facial expressions are responding to the actual procedure or surgery. An example of one of those responses is called the palpebral response. And we want a patient that is in the appropriate depth of anesthesia to have a little bit of a response, but not certainly not a brisk one. The animal's blinking and looking around, the nostril flare. What we're looking for in certain species is the not only the degree of flair, but whether that patient has any type of tightening of its muzzle or its nostrils. That can tell us just so much about the depth of anesthesia. And we take that information into account with all the things that are on that screen, that and talked about the blood pressure, the oxygen and carbon dioxide levels, as well as the levels of true anesthetic gas that are in going into that patient through the endotracheal tube that we place in them. And we combine it to kind of make a judgment call every 2 to 3 minutes on where that patient's mental status is and what the depth of anesthesia is, so that we're we're constantly modulating based on those trends, the safety of that patient and the reversibility of the, drugs that we have on board, whether they be the gas anesthetic or whether they be the injectable drugs that we have placed on board. But those tiny little signs of facial expression, they call it cranial nerve function, really can tell us so much about the depth of anesthesia. And human nurse anesthetists will use exactly those same types of signs and combine those same types of output and monitoring, with the parameters that we talked about, the oxygen levels, the heart rate and regularity, the blood pressure. And again, every 2 to 5 minutes, or we're modulating the depth of anesthesia based on all that input. So it's not just a monitor screen that the patient gets hooked up. That's that's really judging the depth. It's the personnel that judge that monitor screen and modulate the anesthesia appropriately based on all these little signs. You know, one of my mentors and, and you probably had the same mentors at, at Cornell taught me it's it's really not about having the the best equipment in the world. It's about really having the knowhow on how to evaluate that patient from the ground up. So if you were on an island, you're capable of evaluating that patient with no equipment whatsoever. And I know and you do that extremely well as an oncologist, you can be, you know, in the middle of nowhere and you'd have an exact diagnosis and a good plan on that patient. Just from your experience and your great physical exam techniques. And we just modify that a little bit under anesthesia. Well thank you. So I want to talk a little bit about our friends, the Frenchies or really more generally those dogs just kind of squashed faces, which we call in doctor talk brachycephalic breeds, we see a lot... Frenchies are the number one breed that we see at the animal Medical Center, and they present some challenges for our friends in Doctor Looney’s group. Do you want to talk a little bit about how you approach a delicate case like that? Yeah, that's a that's really a problem. And again, as I stated, these are such common creatures walking through our hallways. I'm really glad that, many specialty hospitals, Animal Medical Center in particular, are very knowledgeable about all the complex problems that go with these patients. And it's hard to know where to begin. Not only do they have a, a facial malformation that is continuing into their upper airway and into their nose, throat, oral pharynx into their lungs, but they also have associated gastrointestinal issues and neurologic issues, that go along with the breed to breed specificity. So these are considered breeds at risk of anesthesia. And ironically, just over the last 5 to 7 years, we've gotten a lot of information out published in the literature on how we can make anesthesia much safer for these patients and what problems that they carry with them that we should be aware of. So we kind of start, you know, when we see one of these patients needing anesthesia, our primary concern with any patient is airway patency. And what that means is kind of evaluating how air is going to flow from the outside of the patient into the lungs, get across from the lungs into the bloodstream, and then get whatever drugs we deliver up to their brain and their central nervous system. So that airway patency is something that's very different in these patients. It's a very squished airway. It's a redundant airway. It's an airway that's already irritated. And especially this time of year. Oh, in the heat and humidity it's really irritated. So having the appropriate equipment, to get a, tube into the right orifice, down the trachea of these patients and do so minimally without any aggravation of their already existing problems, is something we're thinking about all the time. You know, the next thing we're thinking about is because they have trouble breathing. So many of them are plagued with gastrointestinal issues and trying to reroute around the possibility of of the animals becoming nauseous, especially in, you know, I probably know this, but every time we we go through anesthesia, our GI system kind of takes a hit. So these animals are going to take a little bit bigger one. And trying to evaluate how we're going to protect that tummy the best. Not not allow vomiting or nausea. Try to to make sure that their motility goes in one direction. And finally neurologic, many of them have so many issues in terms of their, mobility, but more so in terms of their brain function and those cranial nerve functions being already altered from the pressure that's in their neck, in their head. So evaluating them and esthetically is a bit more challenging. Finding vessels to put catheters in is very challenging. So we're constantly trying to look at these patients in terms of a multitude of other options that we don't use, and other patients paying special attention to the right equipment to get their airway secured and to prevent that GI and vomiting, nausea, symptoms that goes along with anesthesia. So, I'm getting a signal here from our producer who says we have used up all our lot of time. And so I want to take this opportunity to thank Doctor Looney for this informative discussion and hopefully for making some of you whose pets need to undergo anesthesia a little bit less anxious about this misunderstood area of veterinary care. Thank you so much for having me in and Sirius XM. Thank you so much. Just love your radio stations, The Highway and Yacht Rock radio. And and again, this program is wonderful. As a member of AMC and very proud to work next to you. Oh thank you. And if you want to learn more about anesthesia and veterinary medicine, Doctor Looney will lead a free webinar for pet owners called Anesthesia

and Your Pet :

Easing Fear, Explaining the Facts. On Thursday, July 31st at 6 p.m. and I'll tell you more later about how to register for this great seminar. Now, I know that keeping your pet healthy is very important to you. And with that said, I hope you reach out to me. If you have a question about your pet's health, I'll respond to your question on next month's Ask the Vet podcast. All you have to do is email me at AsktheVet@amcny.org, we have a short break coming up, but stay tuned because there's lots of interesting animal stories when we return. We're back with Dr. Ann Hohenhaus on Ask the Vet. Hello everyone and welcome 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. So there's a long standing joke which Norman Rockwell captured in his famous painting waiting for the vet. And that joke is that people look like they're pets. But it turns out that there may be some truth to that. Idea. A team at the Max Planck Institute in Germany recently analyzed several studies and found that humans and their pets really can start to look alike, thanks to a mix of psychology, selection and shared lifestyle. In a series of experiments, participants were able to match photos of pets and their owners with striking accuracy, often using facial cuz like ice shape, structure, and expression. The results point to an unconscious tendency for people to choose animals that look subtly similar to themselves, but resemblance may also develop over time. Researchers have observed that shared daily routines, environments, and emotional attunement can lead to alignments in posture, movement, and facial tension. Sometimes referred to as emotional synchrony, this phenomenon underscores the depth of the human animal bond and suggests that the connection between people and pets is written not just in behavior, but in appearance as well. Our second story comes from the Wildwood Zoo in Marshfield, Wisconsin. Two Asian small clawed otters made a name for themselves last month by escaping their enclosure not once, but twice in two days. In the first incident, the otters dug a tunnel under their fence, just like in The Shawshank Redemption. Zoo staff discovered the escape quickly and returned the otters to their habitat, reinforcing the tunnel area so they couldn't get out. But the next day, the otters slipped out again, this time through a different exit point. Once again, they were promptly located and recovered without incident, so the exhibition was temporarily closed while improvements were made to the enclosure, security and zoo officials stressed that the otters never posed a threat to the public, but described them as clever and determined. You know these sound it sounds a little scary, like small clawed otters, but they're not. They're really cute. They're little furry things and they're just adorable. And then when they have babies, they float on their back and the babies float on their tummy. So otters, I love otters. I think they're just so adorable. Our final story today is about cats. So for most pet owners, a cat her is a sound of comfort. That soft, rhythmic vibration that signals contentment. But until recently, the mechanism behind purring remained a mystery. Now, a new study may have unlocked the secret. Researchers have identified special pad like structures in cats vocal cords that allow them to produce the low frequency purring vibrations without using any active muscle control. This means cats can purr continuously while breathing, sleeping, or recovering from an illness. I wonder if they can purr if Doctor Looney has them under anesthesia. Well, we're going to have to ask her that question when we see her next time. So for years, scientists believe purring required a series of conscious muscle movements on the part of the cat. But these findings suggest the sound may be produced passively, more like a snore, only much more regulated. This research was led by scientists at the University of Vienna and published in Current Biology. And the information adds to our understanding of how such a simple sound can have such a profound effect on both cats and their humans. And now it's time for everyone's favorite questions from our listeners. Today, our first question comes from Sophie is C. Sophie wants to know which type of hysterectomy offers the best long term outcomes for a very small dog. I'm particularly interested in understanding the pros and cons of the following options ovary sparing spray, traditional spray, or an overactive me. Also, does AMC perform all of these procedures? Thank you. So I'll answer Sophia's last question first. Yes, I checked with our surgery department, and AMC is able to perform all of these procedures. So let me just talk a little bit about the differences. So the traditional spay removes the ovaries and the uterus. And the point behind the spay is that you remove the ovaries. The dog doesn't come into heat. And you remove the uterus. The dog can't get pregnant. So that and all of these procedures make a dog not be able to get pregnant, which is the main reason people have their dogs spayed. If you do an ovary, ovaries sparing spay, then the ovaries are left in place. That means the hormones still function, but without a uterus, the pet can't get pregnant. So an ovary sparing spay the dog still comes into heat twice a year, is still attractive to male dogs who might want to meet with the dog, and still has that blood spotting associated with the heat cycle. And for many people, that is a deal breaker because they spay their dog because it decreases the mess. So an ovary-sparing spay leaves the ovaries there. It's probably more like having your tubes tied if you no longer want to have any more children. And then an ovariectomy simply removes the ovaries, but not the uterus, and the ovariectomy, or removing the ovaries, not the uterus, is probably quite analogous to the traditional spay that removes the ovary and the uterus. An ovariectomy is typically done laparoscopically or minimally invasively. So it just depends on what your goals are for having your dog spayed. Do you want to not have heat cycles? Then you need to do an ovariectomy, or a traditional spay if you want your dog to continue to have a reproductive cycle, then the ovaries stay behind and a surgeon can talk to you about the pluses and minuses of doing those procedures in your dog, because the person who will do those procedures knows your dog best, and can give you the best advice about which one might be optimal for your dog. Great question. Thanks so much, Sophia, for emailing in. Our second question comes from Christine M. Christine asks, how early do signs of kidney disease start to show up in cats, and are there things I can do to catch it sooner? So most cats with early kidney disease don't have any signs at all. And so you're right, there is a way to catch it earlier, and that is to see your veterinarian once a year and to have a routine panel of blood tests done, which will pick up changes in kidney test. Also, taking a urine sample from your cat to your veterinarian helps them assess the kidney health as well. And if your veterinarian starts to see changes in the blood test or changes in the urine, then they may say, oh, I think your pet has early kidney disease. And suggest some interventions to improve kidney health. The main intervention that we have would be to feed that cat a kidney friendly diet. So you are completely in control, Christine, in detecting this early because you can do it through blood test and urine test at your regular veterinarian's office. Our last question today comes from Jamie C. And the question is, I've seen dogs with two different colored eyes, and I was curious what causes that. And is it ever a sign of a medical issue? So two different colored eyes. It's called heterochromia iridum. Hetero means two. Chromia is color, and iridum is the iris or the colored part of the eye. And dogs with like one brown eye and one blue eye would be considered a dog with this genetic abnormality. Although it doesn't affect vision. And the two colored irises occur not only in dogs, but they occur in cats and humans as well. Although I don't think I've ever met a person that had two colored eyes, but the internet says it happens. Most of the time these two different color irises is a genetic situation, and although we can see two colored eyes in cats, in domestic shorthair cats, it tends to be more common in Turkish Vans, Turkish Angoras, Sphynx, Persians, Oriental Shorthair, Japanese Bobtail cat and in dogs, these two colored irises are common in Siberian Huskies, Australian Shepherds, and Great Danes. However, Jamie is right. If you had a dog or cat with two eyes that were brown, and all of a sudden one eye was red, that might indicate a disease process going on. Maybe there was hemorrhage into the eye. Maybe the eyes inflamed. Or even worse, there's a tumor in the eye. So if you get a kitten and the kitten at six months of age has two different color eyes, this is probably a genetic feature and is of no concern. But if your ten year old cat all of a sudden has two different colored eyes You need a trip to the veterinarian because something is wrong. I hope Jamie, you just have a cute kitten with two different colored eyes and that you're asking this question out of curiosity rather than medical need. But good luck. If in fact you think there's something wrong with your dog. And after a short break, we're going to be back with news from AMC's that Usdan institute. We're back with Dr. Ann Hohenhaus on Ask the Vet. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to today's third segment of the Asks the Vet podcast. I'm lucky today to bring you important information from AMC’s Usdan institute. As we head into the hottest part of the summer, we have some simple ways to keep your pets safe on hot, humid days. First, remember, dogs and cats don't cool off the way we do. Dogs pant to regulate their body temperature, and cats mostly rely on grooming and finding cool surfaces. What that means is, if your cat's panting, it's really too hot and you need to get it cooled down quickly. On a really hot day, your dog and cat may not be able to cool themselves on their own, and so you need to help them out a little bit. So on hot days, you want to keep your pets indoors. Ideally in the air conditioning and ideally with plenty of access to cool fresh water. If your dog is one of those kind of messy drinkers, you might want to freeze some water in their water bowl, and then they can take a super two hours. That big chunk of ice thaws over the course of the day. Or put a few ice cubes in their water just to keep it cool through the course of the day while you're way working at the office. Now dogs have to go outside, but if you're going to take your dog out on a hot, sticky day, be sure that you stick to short walks early in the morning or later in the evening when it's cooler and when the sun is not at its peak in the sky, because that's when your dog is most likely to overheat. Don't forget to take water with you. Let your dog rest in the shade. And also remember that if you have a black coated dog, that black coat acts as a heat sink and they just soak up the sun and will overheat even more quickly. If you have your dog outdoors and the dog is overheating, what you would see is that the dog would be panting nonstop, drooling, and not just like a little drool, big sick, drooling slobber balls everywhere. Their skin is hot, they're weak, they stumble, or they just want to lay down and you can't get them up again. If that happens, that's starting to be an emergency and you need to get them home or get them to the veterinary emergency clinic. Now for overheated cats, they tend to be restless. They need to do a lot of grooming because they're trying to cool off. They would drool like a dog. Or as I said earlier, the cats opens their mouth and starts panting. That cat is really hot. Keep in mind that our flat face dogs like pugs, bulldogs, Frenchies and flat face cats like Persians are very much prone to overheating because that abnormal respiratory system that Doctor Looney talked about in our first segment also keeps the pet from cooling themselves with panting very efficiently, because they have a much shorter surface to cool and so these pets are at risk when they're under anesthesia and they're at risk on a hot day. Remember, never, never, never leave your pet in a hot car because the car will heat up in a minute. And even if you run to the post office, that pet can die. While you're in mailing a letter. So never leave the pet in a hot car, even in the shade, even with the windows cracked, be sure to try and take something so you can cool your pet off if you're out. So you could use a spray bottle to spritz your dog or cat. Wipe your cat down with a damp cloth. But if you really are worried about your pet, don't waste time and head straight to the emergency room. When it comes to heatstroke, quick action can make all the difference between your pet recovering and not now. If you're looking for more trusted pet health information from things like seasonal safety to behavior to preventive care and medical conditions, don't forget to visit our Usdan web page, which is amcny.org, and just type Usdan in the search bar or click on the pet health information spot in the ribbon at the top of the page. I want to thank Doctor Andrea Looney for joining us today to talk about anesthesia, and also remind our listeners that there will be a free webinar called Anesthesia and Your Pet Easing Fear Explaining the Facts by Doctor Andrea Looney, who was on our show today. That webinar will be Thursday, July 31st at 6 p.m. and like all Usdan webinars, this event is free, but you have to register so we can send you the zoom link. Don't forget, if you want to know more about your pets well-being or looking for pet health advice, just email me here at AsktheVet@amcny.org, and I'll answer your questions on next month’s Ask the Vet Podcast. The Ack Vet Podcast is available on Sirius XM app across all major platforms and also on AMC's website. All of this thanks to AMC's long standing partnership with Sirius XM. Don't forget to follow us on social media. On Facebook, it's the Animal Medical Center and on X, formerly Twitter and Instagram @amcny. I'd appreciate it if you took a moment to give the podcast a review, and be sure to like it and subscribe so you receive all the new episodes as soon as they drop, and I'm looking forward to seeing all of you next month for another episode of Ask the Vet. Thanks everyone for tuning in and see you again soon.