In this episode of the Speaking of Pets Podcast, hosts Janet and Alice dive into a topic that many pet owners find both amusing and concerning: the health of our pets’ bowel movements. With a flurry of questions from viewers about poop, vomiting, and diarrhea, they welcome their go-to gastrointestinal expert, Dr. Adam Rudinsky.
Join the conversation as Janet shares hilarious anecdotes about her friends sending her pictures of unusual pet poop, while Dr. Rudinsky explains how a pet’s feces can serve as a window into their overall health. Learn about what constitutes healthy poop, when to be concerned, and why some pets indulge in strange eating habits, like munching on grass or, dare we say, goose poop!
The discussion covers a range of topics, including:
- Signs of gastrointestinal distress in pets
- The mysteries of why dogs eat things they shouldn’t
- The importance of fecal samples during annual vet visits
- Insights on common parasites like Giardia and their zoonotic risks
- The effectiveness of dietary interventions versus medications for gastrointestinal issues
- Debunking myths around home remedies like canned pumpkin and metronidazole
Whether you’re a seasoned pet parent or a new owner, this episode is packed with valuable insights and lighthearted banter that every pet lover will appreciate. Tune in to find out how you can help keep your furry friends happy and healthy, one poop at a time.
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All footage is owned by SLA Video Productions.
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Listen to the podcast here
Pet Digest: Understanding Poop, Vomit, And Everything In Between -Dr. Adam Rudinsky
Decoding Pet Bowel Movements: A Crucial Window Into Pet Health
Janet, we have been getting so many questions from viewers about poop, vomiting, and diarrhea. We’ve got vomiting cats all over. We’ve got diarrhea in the house. You know our GI expert, Dr. Adam Rudinsky. I don’t even know that we’re going to be able to get all these questions in. Welcome, Dr. Rudinsky. We’re so glad to have you. I know Janet’s going to start with a question.
I’m so excited.
Thanks for having me.
It’s our pleasure, especially a fellow Buckeye. My friends are always saying, “Can you ask your sister? My dog had grass in their poop.”
I just do skin.
I have pictures of poop across the country. Can you talk about healthy poop and when a dog or cat owner should be concerned about their pet’s poop?
I get that. I’m excited to be here talking about that because if you’re talking poop, vomiting, diarrhea, or anything like that. That is my bread and butter. That’s what the whole life is focused on at this point. I feel well within my wheelhouse. From an owner’s perspective, I usually like to emphasize that the bowel movements that our pets are having are a window into their health. We hear that all the time on different commercials and stuff.
It’s funny because I try to empower and give agency to owners to investigate their animals’ feces or poop. It’s because if they do that, they can help me help them. The big things you want to be watching for are frequency, change in consistency, change in color, or any of the behaviors that go along with having a bowel movement. If my dog is straining or having any other difficulty, pain, or whatnot associated with that. Those are red flags that you’re going to want to get evaluated by your veterinarian.
I empower pet owners to become confident poop investigators. The more they understand their pet's stool, the better I can help them. Share on X Investigating Quirky Eating Habits: Dietary Deficiencies vs. Instinct
Here’s another odd question. Why do some dogs eat grass or goose poop? That’s famous in our house. They eat things that they shouldn’t be eating. I’ll say, “Knock it off,” and she’ll stop. Is there a craving?
There are a couple of different things. Some of it is what you’re saying. It’s the love of the game. That’s what they like to do. There’s some enticement to that. I have invested a lot of money in robotic litter cleaners at my house to try to quickly get rid of my cat’s poop. Yet my dogs are quicker than any AI technology that can be made to deal with that feces.
We call those sandy appetizers here.
Especially with my St. Bernard and his jowls, I know he’s done it because he wipes that litter down my arm afterwards. It’s great. You are all welcome to come over for dinner sometime. In reality, it may or may not be abnormal. I try to chunk it into three big categories. Sometimes, you just get lucky with this pet that has a quirky behavior.
The second category is when animals eat random things, like what we would call pica. It can be related to abdominal disease, gastrointestinal disease being one of the most common. That third category is that it can be a behavioral thing. It is a soothing behavior for them. It may be related to anxiety or something else that’s going on in their environment.
The dog that’s sitting right here is a Golden Retriever rescue. She was a mill dog. I’ve got to get out there like you. As soon as she poops, I’m out there at 2:00 in the morning with an umbrella. I was wondering. Do you think she does that because she was confined in a puppy mill with puppies, and she did that to clean up after the puppies? I’m wondering if that’s almost behavioral with her.
It very well could be. If we think of whelping and dogs that are giving birth, that’s part of it. Licking and ingesting placental matter and other things are fairly typical birth behaviors around that time. I can see a way that that could be extrapolated out into something that they’ve adopted into a normal behavior.
On that note, I know that owners read things like put hot sauce in it. Are there things people shouldn’t give their dog to make them stop eating poop? You’ve read all these things. I’m sure those can be harmful.
People give the dog hot sauce. It comes out in the poop. Does it make it unpalatable?
They put it on the poop. Would you address that?
In general, why I go against that is because so many of these animals may actually be doing this for some behavioral reason. You may particularly magnify that or worsen it indirectly by trying to correct it. I typically try to use positive reinforcement. “I see you running towards the flock of geese, and where they’ve been defecating. How about you come back and get this treat that doesn’t make me want to vomit when you lick me instead?”
Good thinking.
Managing Parasites and Lower Gut Inflammation: Fiber vs. Special Diates
It was a Christmas when the vet said to me, “I think your dog has Giardia. You guys have to go home and do poop samples.” It’s not a holiday until your whole fam needs a poop sample. What is Giardia? Can you get it from your dog or cat?
Giardia is probably one of the most common parasites that we’re dealing with. It’s an interesting infection in dogs and cats because it can sometimes be a bystander. It can sometimes be an actual clinical problem. In both scenarios, we are interested in whether it’s there and how to clear it because, to your point, Janet, it can be something that’s zoonotic.
People can get Giardia. Luckily, we don’t see that happen very commonly. It’s not something like if you’re sitting on the couch, don’t start side-eyeing your dog. It’s okay. You have a low risk there with proper hygiene and stuff at home. It is something that carries that importance that we want to deal with for sure.
I had a client from Florida. She is a former client of mine. She also adopts rescue Golden. The dog has been having mucus in the stool and fresh blood. They’re seeing an internist there. They increased the fiber. They can still go higher. Consequently, when that didn’t totally help, they went to a hydrolyzed diet, thinking it could be a food allergy. That was a disaster. Everything came out like water.
What’s hydrolyzed?
It’s for food-allergic dogs. They went back to the fiber. She was asking me about that. When you do see the dog’s poop, for example, when you see fresh blood or mucus. What does that say to you, Dr. Adam?
That’s a good example of what we were talking about way at the beginning. As an owner, if you can come in and provide me with data like that, descriptors of what the feces look like. It helps me figure out what’s going on and where a dog coming in with mucousy poop and poop that is waterier in nature, has bright red blood, or those sorts of things. All are indicative of a problem in the colon or that last part of the gut.
I’m going to manage it completely differently. In fact, dogs with disease of that section of their gastrointestinal tract are much more fiber-responsive. It would make sense why that fiber diet worked well for that Golden and why a hydrolyzed diet, which tends to be a little lower in fiber, didn’t work so well. Even though it would work great for other types of cases.
On that note, would you address canned pumpkin? I heard that’s passé now.
Vet med and canned pumpkin have been around. They’ve been in this love affair together here. They are happily going. If you look at how much fiber an average animal would need to respond to a diarrhea cause, we have one study that characterizes that. If you were to give something like Metamucil. I try to do that same thing with canned pumpkin.
I’d have to give three or more cups of canned pumpkin to get that same effect per meal. Unless you’re putting your dog on a full canned pumpkin diet. I don’t advise it. You just can’t do it. We think of canned pumpkin as, holistically, a good source of fiber. Fiber in your everyday diet as a healthy animal is different than the fiber you might need for management of fiber-responsive disease.
That’s why people are all about this canned pumpkin because it’s fiber.
We’ll see all kinds of things online. It’s like, “Feed your dog or cat some canned pumpkin, or put green beans in their food.” It’s any of the high fiber foods you or I would eat. You can’t get the same effect with it. The dogs love it.
They love it. It’s in some of the treats you buy. It says pumpkin. What’s that coffee flavor?
It’s a pumpkin spice latte. It’s our fall PSLs.
Pitfalls of Self-Medicating Diarrhea and Dangers of Outside Hunting
What about Kaopectate? Even though I’m a dermatologist, I still get calls. First of all, when a dog or a cat would poop in the exam room of my office, people were so embarrassed. I’m like, “I’m glad it’s normal.” I’m sure, Adam, you feel the same way. When I go to pick up their poop, it’s normal. It’s a happy day. I’m happy about it. People should not be embarrassed when their dogs poop, especially if it’s normal. That’s a good thing. What about Kaopectate? People would ask me about that.
If I broaden that out, there are lots of things that we routinely think of. Statistically, everyone on this call has had diarrhea at some point. We don’t escape it in life. No one does. We often don’t manage it except with your Imodiums, your Kaopectates, Pepto-Bismol, and those types of medications. There is a place for those in veterinary medicine.
The biggest reason why we often advise against it is mostly that it’s hard in an animal to know whether you have a bad Thursday diarrhea. Whether you have diarrhea that’s signaling bad liver disease, kidney disease, or something like that. Without knowing the cause, it’s harder to make recommendations with that, especially in contrast to things like fiber, which is going to be safe across the board.
I love that fiber’s in vogue. It seems natural. It can’t hurt. Could you address that about how Imodium cannot be good in certain dogs with a genetic problem?
There are a few different things we can think of in terms of dogs that have sensitivity to the type of drug Imodium is. You can have an overdose or side effects associated with that. Even if Imodium does what we expect, Imodium is going to slow the gut down. It’s not going to move it along. If I accidentally use that and say an infectious situation where I want to get rid of that infectious organism. I may have the opposite effect of what I intended.
You’re trapping it.
There is discomfort and all that.
Who wants to trap that? We have two cats who are in and out. In again and out again. They’re killers. I’m going to be honest. What are the dangers of that? They don’t eat it. It’s more like fun.
It’s like, “Mom, look how good I did.” It depends a little bit on what they’re eating, to be honest. The catching is probably less of a concern, but you can get some infectious organisms that can come through from predation. Versus inspected meat or something like you would get from the grocery store, and add to the food.
There are some risks with it. We don’t honestly see a ton of that. In general, cats that are out engaging in those behaviors do have a higher incidence of a lot of different infectious diseases. If you provide information when your cat or dog is having a problem, that can be reflected in what diagnostics and treatments you might use.
The information you provide when your cat or dog is sick helps determine the most appropriate diagnostics and treatment. Share on XWhat if the cat kills the chipmunk, but then the dog eats the chipmunk?
I’m going to tell you a quick story. My colleague had this beautiful Bloodhound. He was the sweetest dog in the world. He used to carry this toy around all the time. They had let him out at the end of the night and went to bed. She and her husband are in bed. He sets the toy down next to them. She goes to throw it off the bed to get him to move. She realizes he had swapped his toy out for a dead squirrel that he brought in from the yard.
It was sitting on her pillow. I make her tell me that story once a year because it warms my heart to hear about her resting her head next to this dead squirrel. Once again, you have that same issue. A lot of the risks or infectious risks that you have could affect both cats and dogs alike. If one’s killing and one’s eating, it is a potential risk for both of them.
The cat kills it. Our dog eats it, then the dog comes in and licks me. It’s going right down the pike.
Correct.
We had a live bunny. Don’t tell our friends. It was in the center of our dining room table with the cat lying there like, “Look at what I brought home.” I’ve never seen a nose move so fast. I have to tell you how I solved this. Rubber gloves protect you from everything. I put on the Playtex rubber gloves. I got the giant long barbecue tongs. I opened the sliding glass door. The cat went out. Everything was good. I was pretty hysterical there for a few months.
In particular, cats are going to be cats. You have a lot of that.
It’s their job.
Feline GI Realities: Chronic Vomiting and the Fecal Transplant Frontier
Speaking of cats, I want to ask Adam a question about cats, but to add to that story, my friend is a dermatologist in Dallas. He is Dr. Reid Garfield. I love Dallas stories besides Aggies, and that crazy business going on there. He goes out to the garage to feed his dog. He has the food in a plastic bin, which you’re not supposed to do. You can put it in the bag in the bin. He opens it up. He’s looking over there. He reaches in. There’s a possum in there. Adam, is vomiting normal in cats? I know that’s a big, open-ended question, but when should an owner be concerned?
That’s an open-ended question, but a good one because that is, in my world, one of the biggest areas of misinformation. If you get online and you look at tons of information out there for pet owners, it will say, “Normal vomiting this. Normal vomiting that.” I always liken it to imagine if we were having this show here, and then I vomited all over my keyboard. We wouldn’t all just keep moving on with our day. Hopefully, someone would be like, “Adam, are you okay?”
It’s a hairball.
I don’t know. I might click off.
It’s the same thing. If you notice that your cat is vomiting once a week or even once a month, that’s still an abnormal thing. How severe it is might reflect how aggressively I go after it as a clinician, but it is still abnormal. It’s not a normal thing. Alice, to your point, one thing that’s interesting is if you look at like wild felids or cats in the wild, or even feral cats. You don’t find hairballs in those colonies. That’s something very unique to our domestic cats and probably multifactorial in that manner. Once again, we often treat it as, “It’s just my cat.” Maybe it isn’t a major problem, but it shouldn’t also be looked at as a normal thing for them.
I wonder if those cats in the wild’s predators could find them. The vomit would be interesting. Is it necessary to have fecal samples done every year when I take my dogs and cats in for their annuals?
Best practice is yes. There are two things that we get into. Dogs are exposed to such a wide variety of things. If we think of even the behaviors we were talking about before, what they’re ingesting, and what’s on the ground, it’s always easier to treat something before it’s a problem. Non-clinical parasitism is easier to treat than, “My dog won’t eat and is having diarrhea all over my white rug.” The other thing we notice about cats, which a lot of them are living exclusively indoors, is that they can still get parasites just from our shoes going in and out of the house, and other things like that. No one’s quite immune to it.
We did an interesting study here that showed, particularly in youth. There’s a lot of benefit to that. The first half of the lifespan has a much higher incidence of getting those parasites. If you did have to pick and choose, that might be an area where I’m going to focus on it more aggressively in my dogs when they’re young, or my cats when they’re young. Maybe pull back as they get older. Put those resources towards other preventative health approaches.
What is going on in the veterinary medicine world with fecal transplants?
You’ll hear it called FMT or fecal microbiota transfer or transplant. They are essentially all talking about the same thing. I liken it to a probiotic on steroids. It’s the Arnold Schwarzenegger of probiotics. It is essentially taking the bacteria out of those feces. You’re not giving all the particulate associated with it as well.
You are giving that back to the animal for the same benefits that the bacteria in our guts are under normal circumstances. We have this complicated ecosystem in our gastrointestinal tract. We’re heavily reliant on it. You can look at any pop culture news source, such as news articles. They’re constantly talking about that. This is another way to modulate that or affect it, or to treat animals that might have disruptions in it.
On that note, though, can you speak a little bit about probiotics? I deal more with food allergies. People would say, “I had them on a probiotic. I’d see it was an over-the-counter one. It’s not monitored by the FDA.” What’s your opinion on probiotics?
You hit some of the biggest points. Probiotics can be a good tool in the toolbox. We, as pet owners, like them. We, as veterinarians, like them. The key with a probiotic is that it isn’t regulated in the same way as a drug. We have studies documenting that some less reputable probiotics don’t even have what they say they have in them. It is buyer beware. Your veterinarian is probably in the best position to counsel on individual needs because the last piece of the puzzle with the probiotic is that you need the specific probiotic for the specific purpose. It’s not just what I found at the grocery store.
The example I use with clients is if you’re buying me a new puppy for my birthday, I’m going to be super excited. If I’m thinking of a St. Bernard, and you show up with a Toy Poodle. Those are two different types of dogs. I have both of them. I’m not slamming either one of those breeds. They’re all dogs. We all have probiotics, but if you want this one, that’s a certain kind of probiotic. If you want that one, that’s a different kind of probiotic. You need to be careful. You can’t just use whatever.
The Brain-Gut Axis: High-Drive Breeds and Metronidazole Side Effects
What questions do you have, Al?
I’ve got a couple. Before I retired, we were seeing quite a few German Shepherds that were very anxious and couldn’t keep weight on. I don’t know if that’s poor breeding. My technician used to call them, “They got stringy.” She’s right. They were pacing all the time and were nervous. I wonder if that’s GI-related or food-related. Are you seeing that?
I am seeing that. We are now managing a ton of those dogs. That breed in particular has a high incidence of it, but we see it in almost every breed. Particularly, those high drive, high intelligence breeds are prone to it. What is going on with it is essentially like irritable bowel syndrome in people, or where behavioral health meets gut health.
If anyone gets nervous and has diarrhea on a big wedding day or other things like that. You’re getting an upset stomach from nerves. That is the connection between our brains and our gut. It’s there. We see some of those dogs that develop these big behavioral disorders. It affects their gastrointestinal health or vice versa. Their gastrointestinal health is intricately related to their behavioral health.
The brain and the gut are deeply connected. A dog's behavioral health can affect its gastrointestinal health—and its gut health can influence behavior, too. Share on XIs that when you look at the microbiome and maybe employ a probiotic?
A lot of our therapies are going to be similar. Once again, our good old friend fiber is the dietary approach that’s been shown to be most effective in those dogs. I always say German Shepherds are born fiber-deficient, so get on it early. Most of our tools are the same. Except for the big difference with inflammatory bowel disease, where there’s inflammation in the gut. That’s where you might use anti-inflammatory steroids and other medications like that. If I’m dealing with irritable bowel syndrome, I’m not using this because I don’t need it. I don’t need the side effects that come with it. I’ll manage them differently.
Janet, I’m guilty of this, too. Gidget has stress colitis. She’s from China. She’s a China rescue. Anything different, Janet will tell you when they come from Connecticut to visit. Sometimes, Gidget gets upset. I throw a little metronidazole to her. I know research tells me not to do that, but could you comment on that?
I would love to comment on that. Some of that research is mine. It’s close to my heart.
I only gave her one tablet for two days. It’s probably just a placebo effect for me.
That’s largely what it is. There are a couple of points on that. There is this fervor amongst veterinarians and clients, where metronidazole is our Holy Grail. It’s shining down on us from above. Our studies have shown that there are better methods. Dietary therapy works better than metronidazole. Fecal transplants work better than metronidazole.
I don’t want to ruin my blender.
The other thing is that metronidazole actually does injure the gut in and of itself. Other studies have shown that it doesn’t seem to do that much. The biggest question you have to ask yourself when your dog, Gidget, gets an upset stomach is, statistically speaking, that’s going to resolve on its own most of the time. What I’m trying to do with treatments is swing that pendulum to be a little bit shorter. It appears that metronidazole worsens that effect in the long run.
As I’m giving it to her, I’m thinking that, but I’m still giving it to her.
Give her ginger ale and some saltines, and we’re all good.
Put on the Sunday morning television, let him eat the chicken noodle soup, and it’ll be back on track. It’s a very interesting thing because we’re fighting something. For my whole early career, we used that. It is such a benchmark. It’s hard for our profession to change because it’s been so rapid that we’ve had this new data to show that what we thought was working wasn’t actually working the way we thought.
Severe Constipation in Felines: Identifying and Treating Megacolon Early
Janet, I know you’ve never heard of this. Could you comment on megacolon in cats?
It sounds like the end-all be-all of colon. For anyone tuning in to this who maybe isn’t so colon-obsessed. The colon’s the last part of the gastrointestinal tract has a large storage function. It’s where the feces firm up. Cats, in particular, get a disease, which we don’t know a ton about. What happens is that it loses its function and dilates. You get this kind of colon that used to be able to contract and push feces down so they can ultimately be defecated or have a bowel movement.
In this scenario, it becomes flaccid or relaxed so much. These cats get severe constipation, or what we call obstipation, where they can’t even defecate. It’s a pretty severe disease. It’s something that we try to encourage owners to keep track of what’s going on with their cat’s bowel movements. If I told you your cat isn’t going to defecate quite as often, if they’re otherwise acting normal, that’s like, “Let’s scoop.” The more we can intervene early in those cases, the more likely we can try to hopefully prevent the development of something like that.
Is that surgical?
It can be. We usually try medical management first, which would be diet, laxatives, and medications to try to make the colon work better. In cases that become severe or require a lot of intervention and aren’t manageable like that anymore. There are surgical options that are considered more of a last resort.
Good luck getting that laxative into that cat.
That’s the key.
Isn’t that sick?
Don’t let them think about it as a cat owner. If they have to prescribe something, I’m like, “Can you inject it?”
For sure, especially if all of a sudden, I’m telling you, “Give these three medications three times a day.” Sometimes, we do have to go different routes, especially in our cats.
Tell us about your pets.
I will because I’m never going to pass up on that question, but one more thing that popped into my head. AI is all over the place now. Some companies are developing litter box monitoring systems that owners can get. It can identify which cat is going to the bathroom. Your cell phone can be your tracking tool. It’ll just text you reports and those sorts of things.
I’ve read about this.
Imagine being on a date. “Thank God, she pooped.” It’s normal. Most men would run like fire. It’s a crazy cat lady. The ones that stayed are keepers.
That’s the key right there. It’s a litmus test.
Better yet, “A minute. I’ll be right with you. I need to check my litter box.”
That’s a good one.
“We’re golden.”
“The poop is good.”
I’ve read about this AI. We have two cats. We used to have three or four. We took a big Rubbermaid bin, a blue bin, and made it giant. We have two giant ones because they like those. The cat doctor, Alice, was like, “Litter is key.”
I thought some people tuning in might love those because they’re so fascinating. It takes so much of that responsibility away from us and gives us the information we need, which is nice.
Can you imagine you’re going to be getting all these emails from your patients, “Litter box?”
Honestly, if I were to pull up my email right now, what you’ll see is the 25 people who send me pictures of their animal movements each day. I have one client whose dog’s bowel movements I fixed. She still sends me a weekly poop picture. She puts her hand next to it for measurement purposes.
I love that. That’s what I miss about being retired.
She’s one of my favorites. She’s the sweetest owner. She is reporting.
It was the cat or the dog. There was a giant worm in it. I call Alice. She goes, “You have to pick that up. You have to take that to the vet.” I put it in this triple Ziploc with the rubber gloves. I take it to the veterinarian. The assistant goes, “Okay.” I’m like, “Get excited. There’s a big worm in there.”
She’s eating her sandwich while she’s looking at that. This is veterinary medicine.
I wanted her to bow because I had put it in that.
It’s this feat that you’ve accomplished. This is when we first started doing fecal transplants. One of my colleagues here at OSU is the chair of our fecal bank group. We have a product that we use as well as the commercial available. In the infancy of this, we used to use other household animals. Alice, you have two Goldens.
One would have healthy poop, and the other one wouldn’t. We would sometimes try those. This owner brings in the poop for us to process. She hands me the bag. It’s a bag of diarrhea. I was like, “I’m not going to be able to use this. Is your other dog now having diarrhea as well? We need to rethink.” She goes, “No, that’s mine. I couldn’t get the dogs to go.” She says that to me while I’m holding this bag.
How did she get it in that bag? I’m just saying.
Janet, you had to take your poop sample. I don’t even want to picture how you did that. I can’t imagine.
It’s like the astronauts, when they poop in the bag.
My Pilates teacher had gut issues. We start talking about it. She goes, “Did they hand you the paper French fry container?” I went, “I will never look at French fries again.” It’s a little dish. I’m like, “Am I going to aim?”
Maybe you have a kidney stone. You have to pee in the hat.
When they had poop samples from the 5-year-old and the 7-year-old, we had to go to the pediatrician and get the kit and all this stuff. The pediatrician’s laughing her ass off. She goes, “Here’s the trick. You put Saran Wrap over the toilet.”
That’s a trick, too. You do that in college.
It was to get the kid to poop on the Saran.
It’s all these little tidbits.
Let’s get back. Let’s get out of the toilet.
I want to ask Adam. I’m obsessed with these blenders with the poop in them. How do you sterilize those?
We do it very differently from the time that it would be washed and autoclaved. It is a strict lab process. Now, everything is processed through more benchtop research techniques. It’s disposables, and then everything’s banked and sterilely handled.
Do you prefer Hamilton Beach?
Autoclaves are different. Getting back to the diarrhea in the bag, how did you explain to her?
Why did she bring her own poop?
It had to be dog poop. That’s what I’m saying.
I feel like I could hire a psychology PhD student to investigate what happened in this scenario.
It’s the brain-gut axis.
We just talked about it. I said, “I also can’t do that. I don’t have authorization to use any of that.”
He’s so sweet, instead of, “What are you thinking?”
“I don’t want you to take any offense, but I’m going to throw your feces in the garbage can now.”
You didn’t blend that one up. Out of the pooper, let’s talk about your pets.
Clinical Rewarding Moments: From Brachycephalic Rescues to Geriatric Felines
I want to hear about Adam’s pets.
I’ve got seven in my house, and then I’ve got some chickens and some koi out of my house. There are seven in my house. I have four dogs and three cats. I have a St. Bernard, a Gordon Setter, an Irish Setter, and a Toy Poodle.
I know who you got the Gordon from. I bet I know.
Mary?
Yes.
She’s a surgeon at our hospital.
It’s Dr. Mary McLoughlin.
She is so wonderful. I walked in to get a surgery consult with her one day. She’s like, “Do you want this puppy?” I was like, “I’m an adult. I can’t be making rash decisions.” I was like, “Thank you, Mary, but no.” Fifteen minutes later, I walked back in. I was like, “I’ll take it.”
What did you name the Gordon?
His name’s Ivan. I’ve got my three cats. They’re all rescue brachycephalics, the ones with the flat face. I’m constantly cleaning their eyes and nose with all their rescue problems.
Is that a breed of cat?
Brachycephalic is pugs and bulldogs. It’s the ones with the shorter skulls. People know the dogs more. With cat breeds, mine are an exotic shorthair, a Persian, and a Himalayan, which are all very closely related.
They’re fancy.
Speaking of that and flat face. There’s a lot of promotion, and not by vets that I know of, but of the people that make them, of raised bowls for cats. Does that help with GI issues? Is that a fallacy?
There’s a little data in dogs that helps with certain situations, but then contradicting information came out. I usually tell people, “You figure out for your pet what works best for them.” It’s more of a trial and error rather than a prescriptive directive that I give, if that makes sense.
I always tell people, 'Figure out what works best for your pet.' It's often a process of trial and error, not a one-size-fits-all prescription. Share on XIf you see the cat going, could you bring that in a pedestal?
It is Gold-plated.
It’s like in the commercial where the Persian cat’s eating out of the Waterford crystal.
That’s what I’m saying. Ours is a metal bowl on a tray because they’re messy.
When I think of it, I have a 21-year-old cat, Capri. She’s in renal failure, and so all the food I can get into her and liquid, I’m happy to do. I wash her bowls more than I wash my own. I’m always washing Capri’s bowls.
You give her a little bit, a lot. All day long, you’re giving her stuff.
I’m her servant.
Cats love a clean plate, too. My dogs will eat off the floor or the ground. Cats are like, “I’m going to need this very specifically.”
Cats love it when you wait for them.
Dr. Rudinsky, what is the most rewarding thing about your profession?
It has changed over my career.
It’s the once-a-week poop report.
It’s the diarrhea bed.
We’ve settled on fecal pictures with their hands next to them. I have one of the best jobs in the world because I’ve got a lot of different aspects that have helped me over the years. I can contribute through my research. I can contribute through teaching. I can contribute by seeing patients. Most veterinarians would agree. It’s coming to a place where you see more animals than people. We love the people side of it, but you can’t be a workplace where you’re mostly surrounded by dogs and cats.
You sometimes get annoying things. I was examining a cat. I was flea combing it for chylotillamites because we had a big infestation of chylotillamites in Cleveland years ago. As I’m combing, the cat is on the exam table. I am talking to the owner. She said to me, “His problem is he’s sneezing. Those mites can crawl into and out of the nose.” I’m thinking, “Would you just let me do my job?”
We don’t know that stuff.
I know you don’t. I explained that. To Adam’s point, if I had the cat back in the treatment room, I could be doing this fast. I love explaining. Education is part of what we do every day but sometimes, it gets to you.
The payoff for any of that is probably whether it’s that story I told you about the feces or the picture. It’s what we have in common. Whether you’re in the industry or not, or have a pet. We are all obsessed with our animals and because of that, we are all neurotic lunatics.
We are anxious to talk about our pets.
The things we do are so weird. The stories are endless. It’s phenomenal. I encourage it. Bring on your weirdness.
Every vet can write a book. I would love to read every one of them because it’s a fun book.
Dr. Rudinsky, here’s our question. What is your pet or human peeve, other than the person bringing in the bag of their human diarrhea? That’s off the table.
That was a cute story.
What would be good is if I gave you a nice political answer and then you tied that against all my residents and students being, “Here’s all of his grievances.” The thing that I get the most flak for, animal-wise, is that I’m not a kitten person. I adopt all old cats. I love old cats.
Me, too.
I would take 500 geriatric cats. I feel like they’re the sweetest, most wonderful things. I’ve fostered some kittens. When everyone goes into the cat ward, everyone’s rushing to the kittens. They’re like, “Adam, what’s wrong with you?” I’m over there with this 2-pound calico that’s 25 years old. That’s where my heart is. It is not quite a pet peeve, but it’s definitely something that I get made fun of a lot for.
Twice, we’ve had sibling kittens because Dr. Alice said, “You’ve got to get two together.” I have to say, it is two tons of fun. It’s a lot of fun. It’s different with cats and kittens. Our two cats are siblings, a boy and a girl. The boy will not even come near me. I move too fast for him, but the girl will. The boy cat will go to my husband and our sons and snuggle up. Me, nothing. We can’t figure that out. It’s weird.
Some of them are like that. You never know what you’re going to get.
Do all of your cats get along with the dogs?
Yes. I get either sick or older cats. A lot of mine were adopted. My dogs are usually puppies, so I can condition them. They’re not going to stress the cats or anything like that.
We haven’t had a pet peeve being kittens before.
I’m going to get canceled for that. I’m sure.
This has been great. Thank you for all the information.
This has been so much fun.
I had a good time.
This has been something. Thank you.
We can’t thank Dr. Adam Rudinsky enough. Janet, we have to have him on again because we want to hear more about the fecal transplants.
I want to hear more about poop. I’m digging it.
We’re going to call it a day. I apologize for my two Goldens wrestling, as OJ used to say, underneath my chair here. This is Dr. Alice Novotny Jeromin, one of the Novotny sisters.
This is Janet Novotny King from Cleveland, Ohio, saying thanks for tuning in. Don’t forget to like us and follow us. Thank you, Dr. Rudinsky, for joining us.
I’ll be back any time. It was wonderful.
Thank you.
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About Dr. Adam Rudinsky
Dr. Rudinsky is an Associate Professor -Tenure in the Small Animal Internal Medicine service at The Ohio State University Veterinary Medical Center. He received his DVM degree from The Ohio State University, completed a small animal rotating internship at Purdue University, and then a combined residency in internal medicine and MS degree at The Ohio State University. Following residency training he completed two post-doctoral research fellowships in Mucosal Immunology at The Ohio State University and Microbial Pathogenesis at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. He is now on faculty at Ohio State as a staff internist, research scientist and member of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine. His current clinical and research interests include gastrointestinal endocrinology, chronic enteropathies, pancreatic and hepatic disease, mucosal immunology, and the intestinal microbiome as it relates to disease pathophysiology and treatment.