Benadryl, Tylenol, Pepto: What’s Safe for Your Pet?

Amy Castro (00:00.352)

Ever wonder if you can give your pet something from your own medicine cabinet? Well, in this episode, I'm talking with my friend Dr. Zoo from Family Animal Hospital in Friendswood, Texas, about which over-the-counter meds are safe for pets and which ones could be dangerous. So don't reach for that bottle until you listen to this episode.

Amy Castro (00:23.534)

you've reached the Pet Parent Hotline, your lifeline to practical solutions for your toughest pet parenting challenges. I'm your host Amy Castro, and I'm here to help you cut through the noise and turn expert advice into step-by-step strategies so you can stop chasing your tail and start enjoying life with pets again.

Amy Castro (00:47.768)

can't even count how many late night texts I've gotten that start with, hey, quick question, can I give my dog, fill in the blank, Benadryl, ibuprofen, Claritin, Pepto-Bismol, and look, I get it, you're trying to help your pet feel better and you don't wanna overreact, but you also don't wanna miss something serious. The problem is most of us aren't vets and neither is that rando in your Facebook group who confidently swears that their dog takes ibuprofen all the time with no problems.

On the flip side, I've seen people rush their pets to the emergency vet, drop 1,500 bucks, and then find out it was something they could have safely treated at home for five. So today we're cutting through the chaos and the confusion surrounding the issue of over-the-counter medication. What's safe, what's not, and how to stop guessing. So Dr. Zoo, thank you for coming back to our Very Fine Show.

Thank you for inviting me again. I appreciate it.

And I know this is a tricky subject and I don't want by any means for anybody to listen to this episode and say, now I know exactly what to do for my pet. But the reason I wanted you to talk about this subject is I was out doing some Google searching and I typed the words, can I give? And the things that popped up were all related to over-the-counter human medications that people were asking if they could give their pets. And my first thought was, well, shoot, you should be asking your vet, not.

Dr. Google. Better to ask Dr. Google than to ask in your neighborhood Facebook group because those people are morons. Or better not to ask at all and just make an assumption, right?

Dr. Zoo (02:20.354)

Yeah, be safe for sure. And hopefully we can give them some guidance on that. know, the disclaimer as you're kind of hinting at is obviously if you can talk to your veterinary professional first, that's always the better thing. Sometimes it is you're in a pinch and sometimes it's the financial pinch as well. I mean, we understand that we call that now the spectrum of care in veterinary medicine where we want to be able to help owners have reasonable expenses with their animals, but still give their pets the best possible care.

And so my disclaimer is when you have a good relationship with your veterinarian and they know your pet, they know its background, its illnesses, I do get calls from my clients, hey, I'm about to go out of town, this is happening or the contractors are coming over, I don't have time to come by, can I give?

XYZ. Yeah. And because I know that Fluffy is a seven year old, know, her liver's fine, her kidneys are fine, because we just did blood work or that she has a sensitive stomach, I can maybe advise some things over the phone in those cases. Yeah. But if it's a complete stranger, I don't know anything about their pet and they're one in free advice when they call. That's a whole nother situation. I know I'm not going to put them and their pet at risk. And they might see it as withholding information or whatever it might be. But at the same time, I'm thinking I need to protect them and their pet from things that they don't understand per se.

So maybe today we can give some guidelines of definitely some safe areas or maybe some other ways to handle it.

Well, and you mentioned the contractor thing, and what I would say is there are things we can predict in life, and there are things that we can't predict in life. And so as much as we can predict, I'm going on a trip and I'm going to need something for my pet, the contractors are going to be here for a week nailing on the roof and my pet's going to flip out. Try to talk to your veterinarian because even though these medications that we're going to talk about might help in some instances.

Amy Castro (04:10.2)

There's nothing like something that is specifically designed, A, for animals and B, to have a particular effect, right?

particular potency, safe, balancing both effects and safety at the same

Yeah, yeah, definitely. So predict what you can, but let's assume something comes up. And I was just sitting here thinking, when we were talking before we started recording, rather than kind of going down this long list of, can I give my dog this, this, this, this, this, really when you look at why people, what people are searching for, yeah, what's the motivation? Why are they wanna give their dog X, Y, Z? That it tends to fall into a couple of categories. One would be for some reason their dog is injured or in pain.

So they're looking for some type of pain reliever. The other thing would be gastrointestinal. So they've got diarrhea, they're vomiting, whatever the case may be. And then the third thing would be some type of allergy symptoms or a bee sting, a bug bite, whatever it might be. Or they've heard that the XYZ allergy medicine sedates their pets. So I'll give that for the 4th of July. So let's start with pain relievers first. So people ask things like, can I give my dog Tylenol?

Ibuprofen, Motrin, children's Motrin, like maybe that's better.

Dr. Zoo (05:24.394)

Yeah, that is one of the categories that is so variable about how animals react to those things. And there are more risks than benefits to that sort of thing that I honestly just say stay away from those things unless they're prescribed by your doctor. So when it comes to medications that there's the categories we call NSAIDs, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories, and that's where things like ibuprofen and leave fall under then there's aspirin and Tylenol and they work similarly. But the risks are

great in the sense of liver toxin, kidney toxin, GI ulceration, and you might be trying to fix the little lip or something that he hurt himself that was going to heal on its own, probably if you just confined him, but then you might accidentally poison your pet with those drugs causing something way more serious than his little lip that he had or that little stubbed toe or whatever it might be. So in that case, there's other first aid type of things that you're able to look into and...

Basically, there are safer things like immobilizing your pet or treating with heat or cold. You can't hurt them with that sort of thing. While an over-the-counter drug like Tylenol, for example, for sure, in cats is almost pretty instantly toxic for them. While ibuprofen or too high of a concentration of aspirin, you might cause them to have stomach ulcer that could make them bleed internally or vomit or something like that. So best to avoid.

So just out of curiosity, and we don't necessarily even have to include this, but I was just sitting here thinking, you know, if somebody has a 15 pound cat and they've got children's Tylenol drops that they gave their nine pound infant, like I can see why people would think that would be safe. It's just the physiology of how cats process.

It's their liver and how they process it. they break down, they have certain enzymes that break it down into a very potent and very hard on their system byproduct. While humans, we just don't have those same kind of enzymes. And then dogs have it too, they just don't have quite the number of that enzyme. But over time, they can have the same kind of effects as well. So that's why we don't take those risks if we can avoid it.

Amy Castro (07:28.366)

So better, like you said, to confine them, put them in a crate, keep them in a certain room, don't encourage activity if they're limping or they stepped on something.

That's right. so, which we're going to talk about later, Benadryl might help sedate them, for example, a little bit. That might even be something you could give to keep them still and not, because they're used to being with you on the couch and following you around the house. Up and down, up and down. Yeah, up and down. And that's not good for an injury. So there are other ways that you can encourage them to stay relaxed. So we'll definitely cover that one. And then heat and cold. I like using cold compress 10 minutes for swelling type of thing, anything swollen.

And then something warm, if they're maybe painful in an area, but you don't see significant swelling, you can use something warm, like throw a towel in the dryer and then wrap that towel around that area for 10 minutes. At the most is all you would need. Same for the cold, you could use an ice pack, you could use your bag of peas, but a lot of animals get kind of weirded out by that sort of thing. So another thing would be to wet a towel and throw it in your freezer until it's cold enough that if you wrapped it around an area that was swollen, you could give that 10 minutes.

safe, you can't hurt them with it. That's right. Yeah. You might annoy them, but that's about it. Yeah.

Yeah. I was trying to think of keeping an ice pack on one of my pets. I could see the heat. They'd probably like that. Maybe not the ice. Let them have a Lick Mat with some peanut butter. Yeah.

Dr. Zoo (08:46.442)

Yeah, could do that. you know, and sometimes the cold water that comes out of like a water hose or a faucet sometimes isn't good enough. example, not here, not here. Yeah, we're in Texas. is. Yeah, that yucky, leek borne feeling. Yeah, no, no. But if you if you were in the area where you could do that, you could run cold water for 10 minutes or use a sink sprayer or use a shower head where you can kind of lock them. You know, if you have one those showers with the glass walls, doors, for example, you can maybe lock the pet in there and.

was that like 98 degrees?

Dr. Zoo (09:15.618)

do a 10 minute cool water rinse, just let the water flow over the area that seems to be painful for 10 minutes.

stand in a cold bathtub, like with a couple inches of clothes.

Was that the bucket challenge?

Make them stand in

And I have, and we do that sort of thing even at our own hospital. You know, we have access to all kinds of drugs, but we do 10 minute hydrotherapies for lot of wounds and injuries and it makes a significant difference. It's just for five minutes minimum, 10 minutes max is all you need. 10 minutes can feel like a long time sometimes.

Amy Castro (09:48.839)

I always feel that way when I'm giving them a bath and you have to leave medicated shampoo and it's like, here we stand.

just talk videos while we're doing this, you know?

All right, so let's move on to the antihistamine. So a lot of people asked about Benadryl, Claritin. And the first thing that came to mind to me is, and I know it's not funny, but it's funny. The videos of the poor pups that have gotten their face stung by a bee and it's, I know.

Yeah, their faces like a butter balloon

A balloon animal. A balloon animal. Yeah, exactly. I'm out there on, of course, happens on a Sunday or Friday night, and people will run their animals to an emergency vet and run up a pretty hefty beasting. So how do I know when it's okay to give something else or...

Dr. Zoo (10:30.36)

Build after build.

Dr. Zoo (10:36.01)

Yeah, would say, the main thing, no matter what are the kind problems we're talking about, if the respiratory gets affected, that's when you probably want to see the vet as soon as possible.

So like they're breathing heavy or they're having coughing, having trouble breathing.

You can hear their breathing, the speed of their breathing is dramatic. Anything that is out of the ordinary for breathing, probably go and get the injections and be done with it. But let's say they just have kind of the swollen eyes or the eyebrows. Let's say they're licking their paw a little more, that sort of thing. You could try an over-the-counter antihistamine. And Benadryl is the fastest acting, but it's the shortest acting. And then you do have things like Claridins or Dekanolagra. Those are also very safe. They don't, they're not...

as fast acting, but they do last longer. So it's always like a little trade off with medicines, it seems. But so with Benadryl, it's one milligram per pound. And that's true for all the animals, cats and dogs and the people apparently. But that being said, there are a few liquid versions of those that have xylitol for a flavoring. So just just be real careful if it's like a children's prep or a yum, you know, made it look delicious, great flavor, cherry, whatever. The flavorings are not bad or evil. There are

artificial cherry and grape flavorings that are fine, but as long as they're not sweetened with xylitol, which is an artificial sugar, then you should be able to

Amy Castro (11:54.431)

And that's the same stuff that they talk about like in the gum where animals have gotten into the gum and they get sick.

diet peanut butters. Yeah, there's a bunch of things now that have xylitol and basically cause a life-threatening low blood sugar, even cause seizures if the blood sugar gets low enough. It can eventually affect the liver and the kidney too. Definitely avoid xylitol in any way, or form. So there's a few kids' medicines that are flavored that way. As long as you're just double-checking that if it's a flavored type of thing, it doesn't have xylitol, one milligram for every pound of animal. If your animal's small enough, you're lucky enough to be able to probably just...

weigh yourself and pick them up and do the math and find their weight that way. But your bigger animals, you may be doing some, what was the last weight at the vet? The good news is if you give a little bit more than that with Benadryl, Claredons or Jagega Allegra, you're not going to hurt them with it. They might be a little more sleepy and that's probably the other reason that people are going to use that. And so we might talk about higher doses of those things for sedating an animal if you're going to use it for that purpose.

Yeah, so let's go ahead and talk about that. So the sedation, because you're going in the car or it's 4th July and there's going to be New Year's, you know, we do a lot of fireworks here in Texas, but I think there are probably better prescription type things that you could get if you thought about it in advance.

much better things. More for potency, again, potency and safety being balanced because not everybody, not every animal reacts to Benadryl the way that you want them to. In fact, some get this weird hyperactivity with it. Safe, but they can be very antsy. And so it's not, it's not slam dunk thing, but you would go maybe like instead of one milligram per pound, you might do like a milligram and a half per pound, for example, and try to get them to be a little more sleepy. Any of those?

Amy Castro (13:19.074)

That didn't work, it's just-

Dr. Zoo (13:35.948)

drugs, Benadryl, and even the Lentur-Vet prescribes you, the sooner in advance you use them, especially before the adrenaline kicks in from something stressful, the more potent it's going to be. like, let's say nighttime is when the firecrackers start, you might start giving it at noon. Don't wait until the dark.

Yeah, don't wait till they already start freaking out. Because even then it's going to take what, 30 minutes or so? They're already wound up. Yes.

Sometimes two hours. The windup is very much certain brain chemicals, including adrenaline that just gets released and or cortisol, your stress hormone that gets released and will literally counteract the way those drugs work in the bloodstream.

So why, so be stings or some type of a bug bite that causes swelling, the fireworks, why else would somebody, I guess just general, like my dog is itching.

Itchy, yeah. I have had clients say, he was just tearing himself up. He started making himself bleed and that sort of thing. And I would love for them to feel free and safe to use an antihistamine in a situation like that. In a situation like that, you might start with the Benadryl, because we talked about how it's fast acting and it is potent, but then take over with the more long acting antihistamine like Claridaz, Rurvetech, or Allegra. And those have more or less ranges that are, I even create.

Dr. Zoo (14:49.134)

created a little cheat sheet at my clinic to give to my clients. But a 10 milligram Zyrtec or a 10 milligram Clare 10, and that is basically their regular strength or whatever it might be, is safe for almost all sizes of animal. So it may not be a whole lot. For like a 100 pound dog, I have used, for example, two tablets of Clare Nurner Zyrtec twice a day for very, very itchy, bigger animals. Because dogs do metabolize it a lot faster than people do. Again, they have...

different kind of enzymes in their liver. So they break things up faster in this case. And so that means that they use it up faster. It's not going to last 24 hours in them like it would last in us, for example. So I would say start with your one milligram per pound Benadryl, get that sort of high level of inflammation down a little bit and then switch to your at least one tablet of Claritiners or Tec. Again, when I have good relationships with my clients, they'll sometimes call me and say, can I give this or can I give that?

using that cheat sheet, will definitely say try X, Y, or Z and try this off as little as this as much as that. And not because I'm worried about safety because the good news is antihistamines are very safe, but more because I wanted to actually work for them. And so if I had their last recorded weight and I can actually calculate for Fluffy because I saw her last and I know how itchy she generally is and how much to recommend. So that does help. But it's very safe to give an antihistamine, especially Benadryl, one milligram per pound.

And then adding on either as a retec or clarinet for a general itchiness.

Yeah, so for long term, so like I know that my daughter has her dog Gigi and she brought her to you and had allergy testing done and she did allergy shots because she was so itchy. Like is an over the counter like a Claritin for a dog a good long term solution or not necessarily?

Dr. Zoo (16:39.662)

I think every dog is different, just like every person has different allergies. Like I only get allergies this time of year or if I do the lawn versus some people wake up stuffed up and they can't breathe in the morning. so for that reason, the more severe types of allergies, you're gonna definitely wanna see your doctor and try to figure out something more potent or better and make their lifestyle better. Cause itching is a terrible, like if you ever had hives or an allergic reaction and you're doing that all day long, it really affects quality of life in a bad or sad kind of way.

And even to the point where they maybe have a little odor or they feel good to pet them and so the owners start to kind of push their pet away, then that starts to affect quality of life. So for long term, especially if an animal is more severely itchy, you're gonna wanna see your doctor about that. But for like the weekend to get to your bed or because this one time they were exposed and suddenly they're itchy, but they're not usually regularly itchy, it's fine to your antihistamines. And I do have dogs and cats that I see in my clinic that

maybe they're there for annuals. And we talk about the itchiness, because I might see a little area that looks a little red or puffy, that looks like a hint of allergy. And I'll say, well, yeah, occasionally she does this or that. And then I pull up my antihistamine cheat sheet and say, look, here's all the over-the-counter safe ones. Since your dog is a 10 on the itching scale, he's more like a one, two, a three, you can use antihistamine. And because I know your pet and its weight, I can even tell you what's the max and minimum, and here's multiple options. So, you know, that does help. But they do actually have

this itch scale that's out there and it goes from one to 10 essentially and 10 is like they're tearing themselves up literally like you walk in from grocery shopping perfectly normal looking skin and there'll be this bloody patch of skin when you come back to because they don't torn themselves up and those are obviously the higher levels of itching.

What about from a cost-effectiveness standpoint? I is it if somebody has a mildly itchy dog to just buy some over-the-counter Claritin, like I know Kelsey went, I have no idea what she paid for the allergy testing and the allergy shots, but I know the plus is the dog's now not itchy and we don't have to worry about giving something every day. So there's a cost benefit that kind of goes into that.

Dr. Zoo (18:42.862)

Yeah, that definitely depends on the level of itch and if we do antihistamine level of itch versus prescribed something and hers was, you know, quite irritated. So we went on the more aggressive but obviously long-term effects wise better way of treating it. And yeah, think cost wise allergy testing is going to be with the treatment plan is at least 400. It's going to go up from there because that might be just the test but it may not include your doctor's exam.

Maybe if there's currently a problem, we might start them on the medicine currently to try to calm down the itching while we're waiting for the allergy shots to kick in. So yeah, there's still some costs, but the long-term is not chasing your dog around every day with the pill, that sort of a thing. If the itching is minor, again, on the lower end of the scale, then it would be more cost-effective if an antihistamine actually works to do that. What I do try to tell my clients is maybe don't ignore allergies because they can lead to secondary infections like air infections or...

skin infections or pop hat infections or even anal gland infections. Nobody wants to talk about that. But those things, those stocked to cost because now, he's in pain and I have to go see the vet and others, have to get medicine for that ear infection when the underlying causes allergy. And maybe having that discussion, we can actually save you on costs for having to come in with multiple ear infections or multiple other skin or other parts of the body infections. If we can invest in our over-the-counter, Clareden, I often say,

mean, you don't have to buy the brand name, you can buy the store brand. And it is less than cost, but it's pretty potent and effective, it seems like on animals. So yeah, is definitely, you got to do that cost benefit analysis when you're trying to decide what route you want to treat itching with. But antihistamines are a good go-to if they work. I'd say if I had their percentage on the animals that I see in my clinic, I probably would say up to 30%. I might even be able to have them use an antihistamine long-term.

But that's because I do ask a lot of questions, because I don't think people always understand what allergies look like in their pet. think they think of it like how we are. We sneeze, we cough, we get eye goop. That's not the same with animals. They lick, they scratch, they'll...

Amy Castro (20:49.099)

And some of that behavior is normal, like a dog's scratch or dogs lick themselves.

to soothe themselves and so there's this borderline. So yeah, do think knowing what you're looking at helps and sometimes that's where again your vet comes in to help you know what you're looking at. But until then, a nice experiment is let's say you do give a benadryl and they are not licking or itching as much, you've probably proven to yourself, there's an allergy problem. Maybe I should look into this some more.

Yeah, or there's the anxiety piece too, know, like that's a whole other subject for another time. All right, let's talk about GI. So that's, know, to me, it's either going to be the diarrhea or vomiting. Vomiting always scares me, like for people to try to self-treat that.

Man, yeah.

Dr. Zoo (21:33.432)

For vomiting, there really isn't anything that's just like a slam dunk. Again, that's safe for true vomiting, but you can use the common sense stuff. I guess one thing actually that if you can convince your pet to eat it that could be a natural is ginger. It's true for people as well as for animals that it can calm and soothe the gut. Do dogs like the taste of ginger? I would say not all of

ginger snaps. Would those work? How much ginger's in a ginger snap?

They're pretty healthy. say they're probably low fat. Maybe try a couple of ginger snaps. But there are a few things that you can get that have ginger in them. So like there's teas that you could probably get. I'm just sort of thinking out loud on this one. again, can't hurt them with ginger. Very safe option. So that might help. But on the diarrhea side, there are definitely more things that you can use over the counter or the gas that goes with the diarrhea or the discomfort. Like sometimes you can see your pet's tummy looks kind of...

loaded a little bit, that sort of thing.

At the time my dog ate a whole bag of kitten food and then suddenly she looked like a hippo. Yeah, it's baby.

Dr. Zoo (22:38.354)

my gosh, yeah, yeah. And then I always think, well, that'll teach it, then. So like, are you going to leave the pantry open again? Yeah, God dang it.

Will they do it again the next?

Amy Castro (22:47.65)

People had asked specifically about Imodium and Pepto-Bismol.

Different, yeah. Imodium has luparamide in it and luparamide is something that kind of slows a hyperactive gut down. So let's say like your pet is having diarrhea, sometimes they're having it like every 30 minutes or every hour. so that can slow the gut down. And one dose of that is fine, unsafe to give. Their regular strength one is fine. But you know, more than one dose, if you're slowing the gut down and maybe your gut is trying to get rid of something not great in there,

Well, that's what I was going to ask in the end. That's why it scares me. It's one thing to deal with a little itching. It's another thing, your dog's foot hurts and maybe you didn't do so great in handling that. But if they're vomiting for a darn good reason or they've got diarrhea for a darn good reason and you're now just self-treating, where's the line when you're like, you can't, you need to take it to a vet or even an emergency vet if it's that.

Yeah

Yeah, yeah, I usually give a number. Like if your dog is vomiting more than once or twice a day, let's say, then you better see the vet, especially if they're acting depressed or sad or lethargic. Like if they're like, I'm hyper and great and I vomited over there and you can go clean that up, mom. And then they just are going out and chasing their toy. You might see if they're going to vomit again, that sort of thing. And you may also feed them like half of what you normally feed them or again, that bland option. And of course, just monitor closely.

Dr. Zoo (24:14.304)

And for diarrhea, if it's again a frequency, because the more frequently they either vomit or diarrhea, they dehydrate and that's where they get into the danger zone. So, and that's why the frequency matters. So let's say they're a twice a day pooper or a three time a day pooper. And each time they poop, it's a little loose or a little bit diarrhea. Okay. Maybe you can give a dose of Imodium and again, go back to your bland food. We're going to talk about some other natural things like probiotics and fiber and stuff too. But let's say within 24 hours, that's.

one dose of Imodium bland food, something natural isn't doing the trick. See your doctor about that. Gross as it might be, if you can bring a poop sample with you, that could be really helpful.

Notice the keyword is sample, not the entire pile from your St. Bernard.

Okay, that's gross to even measure out poop. But the idea is that by the they get to the vet, a lot of times they've emptied out and that might be where you're actually looking for the source of the problem. And so we're talking about problems that are going to be persistent, right? So if one dose of Imodium, regular strength, and some natural things limiting some of the protein doesn't knock out the diarrhea within 24 hours to your doctor. And so basically we're talking about like a 12, 24 hour window of seeing if a

You can't get a sample.

Dr. Zoo (25:28.302)

Home remedy does the trick. If it doesn't, then you're probably going to need to follow through. Again, I've had great client relations with certain people and I just saw their pet, the exam wasn't a big deal. In other words, the animal looked great on their exam. I might say just bring the poop. That can save you on cost versus the whole examination thing. So having that good relationship can really give you a safety net in a lot of cases and ends up cost-benefit ratio being worth it down the road too.

So then, so yeah, so if diarrhea is happening at unpredictable times, not their usual pooping times, and it's happening, let's just say, especially like every hour, every two hours, they're going to dehydrate, they're going to get into trouble. You can still give the one Imodium, that's not going to hurt anything, but yes.

And is that for cats,

And especially kittens, oh my gosh, they can get dehydrated from diarrhea within a couple of three hours. Like I just fed her dinner and then I came back and she's laying laterally. In the rescue world, I'm sure you've seen some of that where they're just, and sometimes I can't even control it, it's just kind of coming out. Especially in rescue, because who knows what kind of parasites they're dealing with and fighting and you're having to kind of fix it up. That's tail end of all that. yeah, so, and just like human babies too, from what I hear.

Yeah, but-

Dr. Zoo (26:43.182)

Never had one of my own, but they dehydrate easier than adults. So little puppies, little kittens, they're gonna dehydrate faster. You might only give it one or two episodes of this sort of vomiting or diarrhea and be like, okay, we're going to the doctor because they can't handle it. They can't compensate as well. They also are more likely to get hypoglycemia, low blood sugar. And that's, again, a life-threatening situation. They could have a seizure from something.

So don't mess around with that with the little guy.

Little guys are very delicate. Yeah, for sure. For sure. and they're not fully vaccinated usually either. So it always could be the infamous Parvo or Pam Lute or something. They're horrible. They're horrible things. But because they don't have the full immune system, it could be worth the peace of mind to make sure that they don't have some.

I

Amy Castro (27:27.414)

Yeah. So that's a good point for people who are listening that have new pets, new puppies, new kittens. It's like take everything a little more seriously even than you would an adult animal that could handle riding it out a little bit.

That's right. That's right. Let's get away putting it.

So we've hit the issue of pain, bug bites, itchiness, GI stuff. But what about for the person that says, I'd rather not give, maybe I don't have those drugs on hand, those human drugs on hand. What would be some things we might have in our pantries, in our kitchen drawers, or in our stash, don't say stash, that we could give instead that might help with some of these issues that we've talked about.

Yeah, so let's talk with the guts since we were just talking about guts here. Just like in people, probiotics and fiber are great for especially for diarrhea and they are good for things like gases as well. So probiotics, like for example, of course they make a bunch of doggy ones now you can find them all over the place. But if you have the one for your kids or if you have one for

Absolutely, very, very safe. There's no such thing really as too much probiotic. So it might be wasteful, but you you got your one capsule you take, maybe open that capsule. If it's a bigger dog, give it the whole capsule. If it's a little dog, maybe half a capsule. If it ate the whole capsule, that would be fine. That's the nice thing about some of these natural things are very safe. Yogurt is kind of an option. 50 % of my dogs that I see are lactose intolerant. so though yogurt, plain,

Dr. Zoo (29:00.51)

know, unflavored yogurt has a lot of good probiotics in it. Sometimes a dog might go, okay, you milk, not good. So if you've given your dog a dairy product before and they never had a weird reaction, then maybe use a nice heaping tablespoon of yogurt, Greek again, and plain would be good, as they're gonna be the most probiotic count on those. And then fiber wise. So the big thing about fiber is you're always gonna need more than you think you're gonna need. And again, you really can't give too much. I jokingly will say, you know, if you give a lot, you might.

And orange poop might come out because you used an half a cup of pumpkin.

that's what was gonna say. Fiber in what form? Over here, I put it away. When I go to bed at night, I take these two little, I'm terrible about taking medicine. Like I won't take pills, but if it's a gummy, then suddenly it's like my treat before I brush my teeth. So I take my two little gummy fibers, and I'd have to check them for xylitol, but they are sweet. But like, I mean, are you talking about like that kind of fiber? Or you mentioned the-

Yeah, because for that, especially if you're already having trouble, you really have to use a lot of fiber. I don't think the gummies are going to probably be enough without using a bunch of the gummies. yeah, the gummy ones are more expensive. I've definitely done some shopping. And I'm like, okay, I'll buy these capsules, even though they're not as fun, but they're half the price. But another natural fiber that might come in a capsule, might be a easier, is psyllium husk fiber.

share in that.

Amy Castro (30:25.644)

No, it's

Yeah. Which is really what's in Metamucil, but with a Metamucil, it's like a little orange flavoring apparently.

Now know for a fact you can buy that like in a jar. Yes.

and just scoop it out and sprinkle it on. And it's pretty much tasteless, flavorless, hypoallergenic, you know, so you can, even if you have those sensitive skin animals, for example, you could use that. A tablespoon is the least that I would use. I might go up a little further from there, but if you only put a small amount, that's not gonna really affect as well as you want it to. So on fiber, again, it's better to err on the higher amount than not enough of it.

What about rice? Because when I worked at the vet, when people had diarrhea, we would tell them, not we, the vet would basically tell them to boil some hamburger meat, get the fat off, and then boil some rice, and then give that as a thing. And it seemed like it certainly didn't hurt.

Dr. Zoo (31:13.428)

No, it didn't hurt, but I do think it helps mainly because those are very easily digestible things and it kind of gives the gut a chance to calm down. So rather than for fiber reasons, it's more like I'm still getting nutrients. Actually your guts, when they absorb nutrients, a lot of what they absorb is to feed themselves. And so for them to heal, they need to still absorb nutrients. so low fat, maybe one to three ratio of a meat to a carb like rice is good more because it's very

calm and easy and bland on the stomach. So fiber, you want to kick it up to more like a soft vegetable fiber. So it might be something like carrots. I saw a product called, it's like something, someone's perfect poop. And it's basically all dehydrated carrot, shredded up. And yeah, when you open the container, it's like an orange powder. You're just kind of plopping that onto the food.

Like you can buy canned pumpkin that's pureed. Obviously you don't buy the pumpkin pie stuff because that's... But I'd never seen like mushy canned carrot.

For you, not for the dog.

Dr. Zoo (32:15.662)

Yeah, not strained unless you go to the bathroom. If it's a small enough animal, it might be cost effective to do it that way. If it's a Labrador, you'd have to like dump like four. But they do, and the vegetable section, have cut carrots, kind like you have cut green beans that are basically boiled because they're soft. You could probably even throw those in the blender if you wanted to puree it. But a lot of dogs will eat carrots because they have that natural sweet tint.

That's what I was going to say, you do the baby food?

Amy Castro (32:26.412)

Just boiling up some carrots and mashing them.

Dr. Zoo (32:43.402)

Taste to them. Yeah, and same thing for the sweet potatoes butternut squash I mean honestly any of your squashes is zucchini yellow squash anything like that if you want to get you know super organic and gourmet at the same time for them you could potentially prepare something like that it's all either steamed or boiled you obviously I mean you could give some of those things raw, but most

Either. Or if they eat it, they're gonna eat it whole.

And then what is it gonna do for the gut? So the puree is nice in that sense. What else?

I CBD when we were talking before.

Yeah, so CBD is good as a natural pain too. Yeah, I didn't mention that earlier, but you're right. Absolutely. CBD has been studied in lots of ways. Most importantly, it's been studied for its safety factor and it's safe as long as it has the THC removed and most of the product. That's the fun part. They can get weird, they can get uncomfortable, can in some cases.

Amy Castro (33:15.63)

I'm not paying for relaxation

Amy Castro (33:31.966)

part.

Dr. Zoo (33:40.378)

Hypoglycemic, I've seen a few of those. It's very weird to see their reaction to it. They're not enjoying it, that's for sure. But the CBD part, when it's isolated, it's anti-anxiety. It helps with pain. We think it may have antioxidant, anti-cancer effects too. I mean, obviously that is still being studied, maybe even hotly debated. But definitely we do see improvement in pain and we do definitely see anti-anxiety.

Again, about a milligram per pound. Most of the stuff that I see out there, because he's kind of expensive, I feel like is maybe even a little bit lower dosage than I would normally use. I know that sounds counterintuitive, but yeah, is definitely, especially for pain, or if I even want to really sedate an animal in the sense of like a firework or something like that versus he's just hyper around the house kind of thing, then I'm gonna go for a milligram per pound if I can.

Are we talking about like buying a specific pet CBD product or a human CBD product? Is it the same thing? I mean, it's more about the...

There's less guesswork if you buy a pet one. Guesswork being like, did they remove the THC? Is there xylitol in there? That sort of thing. Again, when you have a good relationship with your vet, I don't want to sound like a broken record, but I'll have a client say, well, I have this. I don't use it. Can I use it on my pet? And I'll be like, give me the label. Let me look at it. And then I can go and do the nerdy scientific stuff and be like, okay, yes or no, this particular one is not safe.

But there are a lot of pet options and it's probably better, safer again, to do less guesswork to just pick a pet option.

Amy Castro (35:16.002)

Yeah, and they have the pet, well they do it for humans too actually, they have liquid version. Don't ask me how I know that. Just kidding. Yeah, I mean it's just easy to kind of squeeze it over their food. They have chewables and things.

That's right. Sometimes it's a fun cookie. Sometimes if it is a liquid, you can put it more in the gum tissue and it will absorb faster. It does absorb a little faster that way. Sometimes people will say, well, I think she swallowed it whole instead of letting it sit on her gums. It's better to get it in the dog than not at all. It's way down. It'll find its way in. worry. NCBD may be anti-nausea and they use it, unfortunately, for people who are going through chemotherapy and they use it for both nausea and pain.

This is a one.

Dr. Zoo (35:55.982)

So it may, it may be, we haven't studied that part, I don't think in animals very well yet because we're looking at it more in other things or more like, you know, if there's no harm done, that's the kind of thing. Can we use this natural thing? So sometimes that's where the initial research really comes.

Yeah. And the other thing I would say, just because I did an article on this for Pet Age magazine about when these people first started giving CBD to the dogs is that not all CBD is created equal. That's right. So you should, if you're going to get it, source it from a place that has very, very clear laboratory results that they publish. Outside third party testing that publishes how much that batch actually has of the CBD in it because it can really.

You know, it can be labeled CBD and have 2 % CBD in it.

You be either wasting your money or you could be throwing it the wrong direction where the concentration is not necessarily unsafe, but then again, maybe not very helpful if it's having side effects, for example. Luckily, not very many side effects with CBD. But yeah, if it's not potent enough, then you're throwing your money away.

Yeah. All right. Well, I think we kind of covered the gamut there to kind of get some found data. Yeah. So now instead of Googling, you can listen to this podcast episode.

Dr. Zoo (37:03.106)

people out.

Dr. Zoo (37:07.63)

I'm gonna definitely link this one to my clinic website because I know people are always asking and googling before they even call me sometimes like, okay, but you know, come on. I know you call me. Yeah. Yeah. Or we just, it's at 2 a.m. know, you know, who's going to answer the phone.

Sometimes we don't want to bother you because we can call.

Amy Castro (37:24.75)

Exactly, exactly. right. Well, Dr. Zoo, thank you for being here with us again today. And for those of you out there, know, share this episode with your friends too, because we don't need them asking Dr. Google. We've given you some, at least some foundational advice. And obviously, check with your own veterinarian. Don't wait for an emergency. Check in advance. Find out what's best for your pet and be prepared where you can. But in case of emergency and you didn't do that, at least you have a foundation of some advice here today.

Yay, so fun!

Amy Castro (37:55.288)

Thanks for listening to the Pet Parent Hotline. If you enjoyed the show, don't keep it to yourself. Text a friend right now with a link and tell them I've got a show that you need to hear. And ask them to let you know what they think. And remember, your pet's best life starts with you living yours. So be sure to take good care of yourself this week and your pets.

Amy Castro (40:27.34)

And remember, your pet's best life starts with you living yours. So be sure to take good care of yourself this week and your pets.