The Science Pawdcast

Season 6 Episode 37: Mammoth Hunters and Veterinary Ventures with Dr. Amber Pisle

• Jason Zackowski • Season 6 • Episode 37

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Ever wondered how the Clovis people survived 13,000 years ago? Discover the secrets revealed by stable isotope analysis that prove they were more than just gatherers—they were expert mammoth hunters! Plus, enjoy some mammoth-themed humor to lighten the prehistoric revelations. With these insights, we unravel the mysteries of early American expansion and the extinction of Ice Age giants, all while celebrating the rich tapestry of our ancient past.

In an engaging conversation with Dr. Amber Peisel, we explore the world of veterinary medicine beyond the clinic doors. From her roots in Ohio to her impactful work in Toledo, Dr. Peisel shares her journey and the broad scope of careers in veterinary medicine. Learn about the diverse paths within the field, from food safety to crisis response, and the significant role veterinarians play in public health and research. Her insights offer a firsthand look at the challenges and triumphs faced by those who care for our beloved animals.

Facing the realities of pet healthcare and the emotional demands on veterinarians, this episode tackles the tough topics of financial preparedness and the ethical dilemmas of euthanasia. With Dr. Peisel's personal anecdotes and experiences, we shed light on the importance of open communication with pet owners and provide comfort to those making difficult decisions. Concluding on a lighter note, we share amusing animal stories and intriguing genetic facts, celebrating the quirks and joys our pets bring into our lives. Join us for an episode filled with discovery, compassion, and a touch of humor.

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Speaker 2:

Hello science enthusiasts. My name is Jason Zukoski. I'm a high school chemistry teacher and a science communicator, but I'm also the dog dad of Bunsen and Beaker, the science dogs on social media. If you love science and you love pets, you've come to the right place. Put on your lab coat, put on your safety glasses and hold on to your tail. This is the Science Podcast. Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Science Podcast. We hope you're happy and healthy out there. This is episode 37 of season six.

Speaker 2:

Well, we got the podcast out this week. It's been a push till Christmas. If you have a job like Chris and I do with the public around Christmas time, you are running on fumes trying to get your kids the kids you teach engaged all the way up until when Santa Claus comes. It's difficult in high school. I can't imagine how much of a gong show it is for my elementary school counterparts. So if you do teach elementary school or you know somebody who teaches elementary school around Christmas time, hats off to you. Well done. You'll notice there's a bit of an error with my audio in the front bit. When Chris and I recorded our section, my my Rodecaster was on the wrong setting and I don't have time to fix it. So I'm sorry for the poor audio quality. You can totally listen to it. You can hear what I'm saying. It's just maybe not up to the normal quality, so my apologies there, all right.

Speaker 2:

Well, what's on the science podcast this week? In science news and pet science, we kind of have a linkage between the early indigenous people and eating mammoth and the dogs. They may or may not have started to domesticate. Our guest in Ask an Expert is Dr Amber Peisel, who's a veterinary doctor, and we get into, you know, some of the ups and downs of being a vet. We love our vets I mean, they save Bunsen's life the surgical team and the vet tech team all of them. So we just wanted to highlight some of the goods and bads of being a vet doc, and Dr Peisel does a great job of humanizing the profession. So give it a listen.

Speaker 2:

Okay, the bad joke why are woolly mammoths always invited to parties? Well, they sure know how to break the ice. All right, one more. What is huge, shaggy and has 16 feet and sounds terrible? Well, a woolly mammoth barbershop quartet, oh God. All right, on with the show, because there's no time like Science Time. This week in science news. We're going to go back 13,000 years to when the Clovis people lived across North America.

Speaker 3:

It's a fairly significant discovery because scientists provided the first direct evidence that ancient Americans relied heavily on mammoths and other large animals for food. The article was featured on the December 4th cover of Science Advances. And what they did is? They used stable isotope analysis to directly model the diet of a Clovis woman through the remains of her infant named Anzick 1 from a 13,000-year-old burial site in Montana, and prehistoric diets were previously inferred indirectly through tools and prey remains. So this study illuminates human expansion across the Americas and perhaps the extinction of large ice age mammals.

Speaker 2:

Now the interesting thing, Chris, is I just covered carbon isotopes, like two days ago with my science class and that's what they used in the study. So they took the remains of this infant, analyzed the carbon isotopes, which is carbon-12 and carbon-13. Over time those decay into carbon-14 and carbon-15. So just one more quick little science lesson Isotopes. These isotopes indicate the type of food that you would eat and they reflect your trophic level. They also give a picture of how much radioactive carbon you would have eaten and they have a pretty good idea for what the signature would be in mammoth bones based on what mammoths ate. And they found that same signature in the little baby.

Speaker 3:

So what do we know about the Clovis people? Jason?

Speaker 2:

Like I said, they lived across North America 13,000 years ago and up until really recently it was assumed their diet was more a gatherer type society. They would gather herbs and berries and whatever they could get from the wild. It turns out they were deadly hunters. Anthropologists have long thought that was a possibility because the Clovis people were able to move and spread rapidly across the Americas, probably because they were more hunters and mammoth was widespread and would fill up an entire tribe if you were able to take one down. So you had way more food than using most of your day scrounging for berries in new areas that you're unfamiliar in.

Speaker 3:

So previously there were assumptions that small mammals were a part of their diet, a larger part, but it turns out that small mammals were a smaller part of the Clovis diet.

Speaker 2:

And when they looked at the remains and different tools from that time and the tools they found were giant hunting tools that you would use to take down huge game like a woolly mammoth and, as you mentioned, chris, a large part of their diet came from woolly mammoth. The end result is about 40% of the diet of these people, the Clovis people, came from mammoth and the rest were from things like elk and bison, though the diet resembled something like a scimitar cat, so that's an extinct cat. That was a mammoth specialist, so the thing that ate the mammoth the most. The diet of these people resembled, more so than other predators like wolves or bears.

Speaker 2:

The researchers highlighted that the Clovis people probably used Eurasian hunting techniques, which included things like spear, throwing the bow and arrow and drive hunting. And, chris, we are familiar with drive hunting in Alberta because that's a famous place in Southern Alberta that's head smashed in Buffalo jump, where the natives of Alberta, the indigenous populations, would basically drive the buffalo off cliffs and if you could bring them down that way, you didn't have to spear them. So it was group coordination, and communication was huge Also, they were trappers, and snares too was huge Also. They were trappers and snares too, so they brought all of these honed to perfection hunting techniques from Eurasia when the early Clovis people or their ancestors crossed that land bridge from Siberia.

Speaker 3:

Another interesting part of this study is the ethical collaboration with the Indigenous communities of Montana, wyoming and Idaho, and the tribal representatives really appreciated that inclusive approach and having dialogue which allowed tribal concerns to be addressed.

Speaker 2:

So the idea, I believe, was they found the remains and in years past scientists or museum folk would just scoop up that stuff and not necessarily take into account any of the feelings of the ancestors of the Clovis people right. The grave was found in. The remains were found in Montana.

Speaker 3:

So that does highlight the importance of collaboration when doing heritage related research.

Speaker 2:

Now I know you're a vegetarian, Chris, but I am curious what a mammoth steak might have, might taste like oh, I'm not. But you have to think back to the Clovis people. It was a massive part of their diet, not unlike probably, cows and pigs. For people who are meat eaters in North America, probably 40% of the protein or 40% of their calories might come from pig and cow meat.

Speaker 3:

But, honestly, this research definitely reshapes the perception about how Indigenous people thrived by hunting dangerous and dominant animals like the mammoth. Think of it, Jason a mammoth.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, if I saw a mammoth, I don't think I'd have the bravery to take one on. That's bananas they're as big as an elephant, plus they're shaggy.

Speaker 3:

They're like the Snuffleupagus.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I wouldn't want to eat a Snuffleupagus.

Speaker 3:

No.

Speaker 2:

All right, folks, that's science news for this week. This week in pet science, we have yet another study that's come out that is pinpointing the point when the dog became our best friend. So what's going on with this study? Like, where'd this study come from, chris?

Speaker 3:

This study is from the University of Arizona and it explores the interactions between indigenous people and early dogs or wolves in America.

Speaker 2:

Now there's a little bit of a connection here, because the last story we just did on the Clovis people was about 13,000 years ago. The study that we're looking at right now indicates some pretty close relationships between humans and canines dating back 12,000 years ago, which is 2,000 years earlier than previously known in the Americas. So we're getting back in time to the woolly mammoth, just like our last story.

Speaker 3:

It's like time travel. It's like a time travel machine.

Speaker 2:

I did do some other reading that there may be evidence that the Clovis people did have trained wolves or dogs early, early dogs to help hunt mammoth. So we have a connection right there again.

Speaker 3:

So this study does contribute to the broader understanding of the peoples of the Americas and their relationship with the canines. And in 2018, researchers unearthed a 12,000-year-old canine tibia at Swan Point, alaska, and what they found was through radiocarbon dating that placed the canine's existence near the end of the Ice Age, so right around the time when we were talking about the woolly mammoth. And furthermore, in 2023, another excavation uncovered an 8,100-year-old canine jawbone, also in Alaska, and so both of those findings suggest signs of possible domestication.

Speaker 2:

So here's the smoking gun as it would, when they look at the bones using radio dating, it would. When they look at the bones using radio dating, it revealed a diet rich in salmon. So we're talking about those, the wolf, or possibly domesticated wolf? Yeah, they were rich. The bones had a diet rich in salmon. Again using that radioactive carbon dating, now that is bananas, because wild canines at the time didn't eat salmon. It was super uncommon. So that points to human involvement in providing them food. Because wild canines, like wolves, basically only hunted land animals, it was super weird that they would have salmon unless that salmon was being fed to them by some friendly humans unless that salmon was being fed to them by some friendly humans.

Speaker 3:

However, jason is not yet confirmed as the earliest domesticated dog. So that swan point canine does mark the earliest known evidence of human canine relationships in the Americas. However it isn't fully yet confirmed as the domesticated dog. Genetic analysis suggests that the canines were behaviorally similar to dogs but not genetically related to modern dog populations. So the modern dogs that we think of now they may have been tamed wolves rather than fully domesticated dogs.

Speaker 2:

All right. So not necessarily started selective breeding of the wolves, but maybe there are some more friendly wolves that were fed salmon to hang out with those early humans, the indigenous population.

Speaker 3:

So it could be the behavioral but not genetic alignment of the findings with modern dogs. So it's that behavior.

Speaker 2:

It was the start of the friendliness, not necessarily the structure.

Speaker 3:

And then that friendliness may have been passed down.

Speaker 2:

I love that. I love that. So what's the moral of the story, chris Cause, this is a short little study. Do we have a moral of the story? I think I have one, but you go ahead if you've got one.

Speaker 3:

Be nice to dogs, because they're all good dogs.

Speaker 2:

I think the path to a dog's heart is through fish.

Speaker 3:

Just like the path to your heart is through your stomach.

Speaker 2:

Oh, like smoked salmon. I would do anything for smoked salmon salmon. You know the stuff we got from costco. Yeah, oh, my god, it is like candy.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that stuff is delicious you were like I bought some smoked salmon, is that okay? And I said absolutely I don't care, I don't eat it. And then you were squirreling it away and eating it like it was like a prized possession.

Speaker 2:

Oh, so good. I can see why some wolves wanted to be friends with humans if they were given that stuff. One thing we should end with. That's another really fun moral, chris, is that every culture, that when we look back in time to when things were easily, you can trace writings and stories. The Egyptians loved their dogs, the Romans loved their dogs, and dogs have been regarded as mystical companions by the indigenous communities all over North America. It seems, as wolves became dogs, that bond is pretty timeless. It's rooted in history and it's rooted in culture all over the world, which is just so sweet.

Speaker 3:

It is so sweet and now I want to go spend time with our dogs.

Speaker 2:

I want some smoked salmon.

Speaker 3:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

That's Pet Science for this week. Hello everybody, here's some ways you can keep the science podcast free. Number one in our show notes sign up to be a member of our Paw Pack Plus community. It's an amazing community of folks who love pets and folks who love science. We have tons of bonus Bunsen and Beaker content there and we have live streams every Sunday with our community. It's tons of fun. Also, think about checking out our merch store. We've got the Bunsen stuffy, the beaker stuffy and now the ginger stuffy. That's right, ginger, the science cat has a little replica. It's adorable. It's so soft, with the giant fluffy tail, safety glasses and a lab coat. And number three if you're listening to the podcast on any place that rates podcasts, give us a great rating and tell your family and friends to listen too. Okay, on with the show. Back to the interviews. It's time for Ask an Expert on the Science Podcast, and I have veterinary doctor Dr Amber Peisel with us today. Doc, how are you doing today?

Speaker 1:

I'm doing pretty well. How about yourself?

Speaker 2:

I'm good, I'm good. Where are you calling into the show from? Where are you in the world?

Speaker 1:

I'm in Toledo, Ohio.

Speaker 2:

Ohio. Oh, I think you may be one of the first guests we've had from Ohio.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's a pretty big state and it's honestly it's funny. Most people joke that everyone's trying to leave Ohio. It's one of the reasons we have the most astronauts originating from any state.

Speaker 2:

but yeah, and have you. Are you an ohioan? Yes, ohioan, sorry, did you grow?

Speaker 1:

up okay yeah, I grew up in Akron and went to college in Maryland and that's where I met my now then boyfriend, now husband. When I was going I then went to Ohio State's College of Veterinary Medicine for vet school and when I went to apply for jobs, the only place that was hiring in the country for new grads was Toledo. So I ended up here. So that's where I've been ever since.

Speaker 2:

Nice, nice. I was born in the province of Canada, alberta, and I live here. I like where I live. It's a great place. So there you go. So you're a veterinary doctor. When you were young, were you all into animals? Were you an animal kid?

Speaker 1:

Oh, absolutely. I was about three years old and I walked up to my father and I said, dad, I'm going to be a veterinarian one day, and he flabbergastedly looked at me and said that's a really big word for you to say, patting me on the head and sent me away. Through the years it was always my passion and that sort of stuff. I always connected a little bit better with animals than people in some cases and through the years we did some greyhound rescuing and things like that and I would always be the kid that would bring home the stray cat, the stray dog, find the squirrel on the side of the road that needed help, all those sorts of things. Through the years I did contemplate other things. At one point I wanted to be a sign language interpreter or a fashion designer, but I always came back to veterinary medicine and the big thing that really solidified it for me was I was in like late middle school, early high school, and my dad gave me a couple of books to read because I was a voracious reader at that age, and he gave me the series of books by James Harriet, who's a famous British veterinarian. He writes about his time in the 1950s in rural Yorkshire in England, and he was talking about the transition from basically every veterinarian treats only cows and horses to treating small animals as well. And then he also, my dad, gave me a series of books by a guy named Gerald Durrell which most people have never heard of unless they've actually read his books.

Speaker 1:

But he was the founder of the Jersey Zoo, which is in England as well, and he was one of the first conservationists. He was actually one of the first ones that was going out into the wild and capturing specimens to bring them back and try and make sure that we had captive bred populations. And that really resonated with me and for a really long time I wanted to be a zoo animal veterinarian. But as I grew up into veterinary medicine and things like that, I realized that number one. It was a lot of work and there was a lot of politics involved in Zoo Vet Med and there was also a lot of kind of difficulty. Given my background that would not have made it a great space.

Speaker 2:

But I found my niche in small animal medicine and been there ever since okay, okay, it's interesting to hear everybody's like a vet's career path, a scientist's career path, if we have younger folk that are listening. Like I teach high school so I think some of my students actually listen to my podcast. Shocking, but that's one of the things I like. Like you can have all of these different pathways and that's a good thing, and you will find your pathway to what you want to do in life.

Speaker 1:

And I will say that some of my classmates, most people that go into veterinary medicine, they either do. There are some colleges that offer like a specific pre vet path or pre med path or things like that but there are also people that will go what's called a non-traditional route. One of my classmates actually had her undergrad degree was in ballet and she went on to become a veterinarian and she's a practicing small animal veterinarian in Ohio now. I had some classmates that went through the army and served their four years and then came and had their schooling paid for by the US Army and that sort of stuff, with the agreement that they would obviously go on to care for the military dogs and those sorts of things after the kid.

Speaker 1:

And the really wild thing that most people don't realize about veterinary medicine is it's a very broad field. It's not just clinical practice. It's not just clinical practice. It's everything from food safety. So any sort of meat, dairy poultry product that you eat has been inspected by a at least in the United States, by a veterinarian along the way in the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration, that help ensure that things like research and that are conducted ethically that the animals are cared for.

Speaker 1:

There are veterinarians in regulation and that sort of stuff all over, and I think a big one that a lot of people don't realize is, with this recent pandemic, the people that are primarily trained for that are actually not human doctors, it's actually veterinarians. We are actually trained in vet school for mass casualty events and things like that, and I actually went through an entire thing where I had to learn how to put a hazmat suit on and how to triage people in mass casualty events, and they actually did during COVID, which was definitely tragic for a lot of people.

Speaker 1:

They actually called the veterinarians to help in hospitals in some areas.

Speaker 2:

So Is that? Can I? It may be disturbing for people listening, but as a mass casual, let me start that again. A mass casualty event with animals is that, like you know, a flock of birds or whatever at a farm get some kind of flu and they all have to be culled.

Speaker 1:

No, I'm actually talking about human mass casualty events.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I'm so sorry, doc, I'm so sorry. No, that's okay, no, no.

Speaker 1:

So we do deal with things like that as well, like where there are avian influenza outbreaks and things like that and having to figure out how to humanely cull flocks and that sort of stuff. But no, we are trained in how to triage people, so we're not considered first responders, we're considered second responders, but they train us how to do that. But a lot of epidemiology and things like that follow animals Because if you think about it, COVID, from what we understand, came from bats. Things like swine flu, avian influenza, most of the epidemic pardon me, most of the pandemic and other problem diseases are actually what we call zoonotic, so they are diseases that are carried either from and or to people and animals.

Speaker 2:

No idea, I had no idea that was a training thing that's got. That's very interesting.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and it's something a lot of people don't realize that we are trained for a whole bunch of things. There was even at ohio state when I was there. They have a combined what's called mdp or not mdphd it's a dvm with a master's in public health, mph and dvm combined degree, because a lot of people that go into public health are actually veterinarians.

Speaker 2:

I am just stunned. That's not something I was even on my radar. That's so interesting.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and it's a lot of people get this and there's a lot of TV shows that show small animal veterinarians, large animal veterinarians, exotic veterinarians and the work. That's what I do, and day in, day out, as I care for people's pets, and it is a very important part of veterinary medicine. But it's such a small part of it that people see that's. The general public only sees that part a lot of the time. They don't really see the full breadth of everything that veterinarians do on a daily basis. I have a friend who works for the FDA. I have another friend who works for the USDA and they do. They ensure that our food is safe. They ensure that our drugs are safe. They ensure that the animals are treated humanely.

Speaker 2:

So do you think, doc, that's because you're like, you're the public face of your profession? If I was to. I know there's people that work on the that aren't veterinarians. I know they exist and they work in various government agencies keeping things safe, but I couldn't name a single one of them unless they were a friend or family member. But I could name like six vets just because you see them every day, right, or they interact with your pets.

Speaker 1:

Right, and it is a little bit different because there are different public, public facing figures that are involved in veterinary medicine. But it's and I think that's one of the things we're trying to get people to understand exactly what veterinarians do, because people, as I said, there's a lot of. There's a current bill in Colorado to try and create what's called a mid-level practitioner, similar to the nurse practitioners that we have for human medicine, and basically what they're trying to do is make our veterinary nurses, which I call them veterinary nurses technically the term is veterinary technician, but it's not a. They're still trying to figure out the best term for them. But veterinary technicians go through similar schooling to RNs and they are trying to create kind of mid-level. They are trying to create kind of mid-level profession to address a so-called shortage of small animal veterinarians.

Speaker 1:

But there isn't really a shortage of small animal veterinarians because the problem isn't a supply problem, it's a pay and adequate job protection kind of problem. Most of the areas that don't have veterinarians, either they don't have the infrastructure to support a full-time veterinarian or they're in areas where it's very difficult to convince people to move. So it's in a rural area where you're going to have a veterinarian. Okay, you're a small animal veterinarian, but now you're on call 24-7, 365.

Speaker 2:

For cows and horses.

Speaker 1:

Not even necessarily, even for small animals, because a lot of states have rules that you have to have some sort of emergency coverage after an hour, you can emerge in an area where it's an hour or two drive to a big city, kind of thing.

Speaker 1:

Exactly, and a lot of that time. It's very hard to convince especially new grads or non-established grads to move to these areas, because it's scary to be a new grad, it's scary to go out there and push yourself out there. But it's also difficult because can we really support that veterinarian? Is there enough income? Is there enough to support them to have a good life? And another big problem with it is the unfortunate cost of education for veterinary medicine. Now, this isn't necessarily a problem in Canada, because a lot of that is more federally subsidized, but in the United States the average veterinarian is graduating with somewhere in the range of $200,000 to $300,000 in student education debt.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's enormous. That's a huge burden.

Speaker 1:

It is. And the problem is that when you are making and it depends, covid actually helped this a little bit but when your starting salaries are on par with an RN, it's hard to justify being able to make those payments. And that sort of income disparity from the debt to income ratio is what they call it. And the hard thing is, if you want to start a business, having that education debt means most banks won't risk giving you loans. Okay, now we have a new grad who wants to go to a rural area, but they can't get a bank to give them money to start a business. So we're again stuck.

Speaker 2:

So the problem is that oh sorry, go ahead, no go ahead.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, the problem is that we have this kind of disparity where people in certain areas don't necessarily have options for veterinary care, but it's not because of a lack of people, it's because of other factors ever have and more and more people are going into small animal practice because it used to be that everyone was a large animal practitioner. It used to be, I think, in the 70s and 80s. It was like 60% were going into large animal and 40% were going into small animal. Now it's probably closer to 80 to 90% are going into small animal. We have enough practitioners. It's just a matter of the distribution. People don't want to live in small towns. They can't live in small towns because of family or whatever. It's a conundrum and I don't think there's a simple solution to any of it. But it's definitely different from when I graduated Because, as I said, when I graduated there were seven applicants for every job opening across the United States, and now you have seven job openings for every applicant that's graduating.

Speaker 2:

It is interesting to hear some of the challenges for folks that listen to our show, our animal lovers. They listen to the science podcast for that reason and a lot of our viewership or listenership is from the state, so it's good to hear those challenges of the profession. So I appreciate you bringing that up with us today.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and it's definitely something that's not an easy thing to talk about, because no one likes talking about money right, it's uncouth and considered rude, but it's a reality of veterinary medicine that we can't ignore. We can't push it to the side. There is a disparity between what we are paying to become a veterinarian and what we are earning. I could have easily gone into human medicine if I wanted to, but the joke is that we go into veterinary medicine because people are gross when you're dealing with human medicine stuff and that sort of stuff. It's a little bit easier when you're dealing with a dog or a cat than it is with a person in some people's mind. But the thing is that I could have easily gone into human medicine. I would have probably had the same level of debt, but at this point in my career I would probably be making five to six times what I am currently.

Speaker 1:

And it's so there's also this the veterinarians used to be one of the most trusted professions in the United States. It used to be that everyone was your friendly neighborhood veterinarian and everyone was your best friend. And now there's becoming this push to see veterinarians as money-grubbing. And it's not about money-grubbing. It's not about that. It's about being able to pay our bills paying for the medical equipment, paying for the medicines, paying for our employees and all of those sorts of things. And it's hard because there are going to be situations where people can't afford the care for their pets or, you know, we can't do the best medicine for whatever reason, and it makes it difficult, but it's I want. I guess the biggest thing I'd want people to know is that it's it hurts us to when those kinds of situations happen.

Speaker 2:

It's not just on your side when those kinds of situations happen, it's not just on your side. Yeah, we've spoken before that, just advocating for folks who are thinking about getting a dog or a cat, just keeping your eyes open that serious medical injuries or disorders or diseases are incredibly expensive and you need to either think about getting insurance for your pet or start saving. So our big social media accounts have been pretty transparent about that and it goes over pretty well, but there's always a few people that it rubs them the wrong way, that are we being elitist and not letting people without money have pets, and that's maybe not the goal of that, but it's, you know. It's raising awareness that if you can't afford to take care of your pet, there's going to be hard decisions in the future.

Speaker 1:

Yeah and I have. I can't say I've never met a veterinarian that would say bad things, because there's bad apples in every bunch and things like that. But I would say the average veterinarian will give you options. We're going to tell you best medicine. We're going to offer to do what is best for your pet and if you're honest with us and say, hey, I can't afford this or hey, is there some way we can do X, y or Z, the veterinarian is going to try and work with you because ultimately, we do get into this profession to help pets. We're not trying to cause problems or those sorts of things. We're just trying to help the animals as best we can. So it's I think that's one of the biggest things is I tell people just be honest with your veterinarians In general. We're not going to judge you. I can't make guarantees for anyone, everyone, because I'm not all powerful that way but we won't judge you. We're going to do what we can to help you.

Speaker 2:

So that's good. That's a really good thing to to let people know it might take some of the stress away for folks that are in a bit of a financial bind.

Speaker 1:

I like that and it is well, and I grew up in. I grew up when we had money and we didn't have money and there were various times that things were different and difficult for some people in my family and there were times where our pets didn't necessarily go to the vet as often as they should, and I know that now, but there was nothing I could do about it as a kid. But I know that our veterinarian, when they would come in, would treat them the same way as they would treat anyone else and that's just that's my goal for everyone is. I'm going to treat your pets the way I would want me and my pets to be treated.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's I like that. And sorry, excuse me, I'm getting over a cold. I apologize for my voice.

Speaker 1:

It's fine.

Speaker 2:

Good kind of like segue perhaps into some of your time working in ER, because that's, I believe, where you started your career.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I spent the first year out of school at the local ER here and it was definitely challenging because it's not at all what I was anticipating. I was anticipating going into your traditional small animal practice, seeing your pet giving vaccines, maybe deal with an ear infection or things like that. And Toledo is basically a suburb from Detroit, so we see we're not urban, we're a suburban area, but we do still see a fair amount of injuries and things like that. And I think it was definitely a struggle going into ER for a number of reasons for me. But the biggest struggle was not being able to anticipate anything because you could be sitting there one minute and the next minute you have five patients that are all critical and you need to see them right away.

Speaker 1:

I learned a lot and I learned how to triage and how to care for those really critically ill pets, but the biggest problem for me, especially as a new grad, was I didn't get to see any healthy pets.

Speaker 1:

There was no such thing as a healthy pet at the ER. It was all okay, I have this raging ear infection. That was probably the best case scenario was I have a skin infection or a cut or an ear infection, but it went all the way to serious illnesses like Parvo canine Parvo virus, which unfortunately can be deadly for puppies, and things like hit by cars, or I even saw a dog that had gotten shot in the spine, things like that, and it was just. It was very difficult for me because there was no while we had happy moments. It was mostly very dark and that it made it challenging. I loved getting to know my mentors and getting to learn as much as I could, but it just wasn't for me and I applaud all of the veterinarians out there who are emergency veterinarians because I know it's not for me and it's not what I want to do for the rest of my life.

Speaker 2:

That's good you were able to identify that. I know veterinary medicine has a very high percentage of things like depression and, just to give everybody a warning, the suicide rates are higher in people who are vets and I can't imagine the stress level of working in a pet like an ER for animals, where some days are just everything's a rush and every patient is critical.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and it is a very difficult situation. And you are right about the mental health crisis in veterinary medicine. There's a group out there called Not One More Vet, which is it was started as a way to try and prevent the suicide rates of veterinarians Because if you look at the statistics and it depends on where you get your statistics veterinarians on average are three times more likely to commit suicide than any veterinarians and veterinary professionals are three times more likely to commit suicide than any other profession and that's a really sad statistic. And if you look at like the, they talk about the professions that are most likely to commit suicide. Top, I think, is air traffic controllers, although that's decreasing over the years with things like computer assisting and that sort of stuff. But veterinarians are typically in the top five to 10 of those numbers. And I think part of it is because of, as I said before, the stress of the financial aspects combined with the stress of not being able to talk to our patients and having pets that might not like us and all of those sorts of things. But a big part of it, I think, also comes down to the fact that we can get what's called we call it emotional whiplash, so in the ER it's not as common, because most of the time you're dealing with very critical pets that are ill, so you're not going from a very sick pet to a healthy pet. But in small animal practice or even large animal practice, there can be an appointment where you have a euthanasia and then the very next appointment is a new puppy and you immediately have to go from comforting a client about losing their pet to excitement about the new puppy and it's just that kind of swing Pardon me that swing of emotion can really affect. And that's one of the things.

Speaker 1:

I always get comments, or not always, I'd say probably at least once a week I get a comment from someone either along the lines of I couldn't be a veterinarian because I couldn't put animals to sleep, or this must be the toughest part of your job. And I always tell people that it really isn't, because euthanasia and it's a tough topic. So I apologize in advance for talking about this, but euthanasia literally means good death. That is the literal translation of what that word means. And when we are talking about euthanasia, we're talking about giving a peaceful passing to a pet. It's a gift, it's something that we can provide them, that we can help them ease suffering, and whether that's physical or mental and that's another controversial thing is if we have pets that are having severe behavioral issues or that are severely stressed, and things like that, which we don't have the time to get into here.

Speaker 1:

But it's definitely something that is challenging because it is you have to figure out, as a veterinarian, where your own line lies as to what constitutes a quote unquote valid reason for euthanasia. But in my mind, it is a gift. It is something that we can give a pet, because there are a lot of, a lot worse things than just slipping away into sleep surrounded by your family. Now there are days where that's tougher, when I was in the ER, unfortunately, we know of in veterinary medicine. It's the unspoken thing. There is a quote unquote euthanasia season, typically between the holidays, so from like Thanksgiving in the United States through the new year, there are a lot more euthanasias. There are a lot of theories as to why that is, but I remember one of the days when I was working at the ER. I worked a 10 hour shift and ended up with 12 euthanasias in a 10 hour shift.

Speaker 3:

I worked a 10 hour shift and ended up with 12 euthanasias in a 10 hour shift.

Speaker 1:

That was a tough day. That was a day I went home and I basically cuddled with my cats and went to sleep.

Speaker 2:

I tell our vets this and I'll tell you right now that I just have so much respect for the work that you do and thank you, thank you for being that, that line of defense, and perhaps the last, the last line for all of the animals we love so much.

Speaker 1:

So, doctor, thank you so much and I appreciate it. And one of the things is that I don't do it alone. I have a wonderful team that surrounds me, and actually it's ironic that we're recording this today, because tomorrow starts National Veterinary Technician Week in the United States, which is where we celebrate all of our veterinary technicians and all the hard work that they do. But we aren't a solo, but it is ultimately. It all rests on my shoulders at the end of the day the decision to perform that euthanasia, to perform that surgery, to give the medications and all those sorts of things. But it's a privilege and it's something that I don't take lightly, to be able to provide services for pets. So I like that.

Speaker 1:

You said that.

Speaker 2:

I like that you use the word and not to not to stay too long on this topic, but no absolutely.

Speaker 2:

It's helpful for folks that are potentially going to go through it, and we were told this when we lost our golden before Bunsen, who she? We chose euthanasia for her is that it was a good death for her, like it was a peaceful death. And had we chose not to do that, her death would have been agonizing, like awful, and that's the last thing you want to do. You love your pet so much and you're going to have to say goodbye at some point due to what's happening. The grief isn't going to change, but the decision was a lot easier.

Speaker 1:

And one of the things that I tell people when we are going through the discussion on euthanasia is there's there's two things I tell people is I say you are going to feel guilty, you're going to feel like you made that decision, that you ended your pet's life, but know that it is often the best option when X, y or Z is coming down the line, when we have some illness or things like that. The other thing that I tell people is typically, even through the grief, I have yet and I'm going to knock on wood when I say this I have yet to have someone come back and say I let go too soon. The only feedback I've ever gotten is I waited too long, so talk with your veterinarian and they can help guide you through that decision. And it's not. It's never an easy decision.

Speaker 1:

I, unfortunately, about two and a half three years ago, I lost. I went from having I had a small little dachshund and two cats and we ended up. I went from having I had a small little dachshund and two cats and we ended up I in the space of about eight and a half months.

Speaker 1:

I lost all three of the pets and it was yeah, it was a tough situation, but I knew at the time and I know now that it was the right decision, because the dachshund ended up with congestive heart failure that was non-responsive to medications and she just she was going to have to live in an oxygen cage for the rest of her life and that's not fair to her. My cat the one cat ended up with a brain tumor that was not operable. The other one ended up with severe end stage kidney disease that would not have been treatable. There there are things that are worse than passing away in the arms of your pet or your family.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

So it's a tough situation and I always tell people it's. You're going to grieve. It is okay to grieve and you're going to feel guilty, you're going to feel all kinds of things. Talk to your vet about it and talk and ask what is saying, what is making you say, hey, this is an option. Or is this an option? Because I have people ask me when their pets are starting to get older, when do I make that decision? And I there are whole kinds of resources, all kinds of resources out there about how to make that decision when it's time, those sorts of things. And it's not a one size fits all answer. It's going to depend a lot on circumstances and things like that, but it's something that definitely you should talk with your veterinarian about, talk with your family about, and know that it is not an easy decision but sometimes it's the.

Speaker 2:

I appreciate you talking candidly about this. Every time we post about pet loss, people have so many stories right Like. We do have very large social media accounts and those posts do resonate. So I'm really hopeful that folks who are listening to this have some comfort from your words. Thank you very much, doctor. If you don't mind, I just have a question for you. After your time and you did mention the background you're in a clinic setting now and you have a bit of a reputation of being a doctor house. Like vet, I would just. What's that about? I'm just so curious.

Speaker 1:

So you're always taught in whether it's human medicine, veterinary medicine, etc. You're always taught to look for the patterns, because certain diseases do certain things right. They follow a certain pattern. If you have a pet present so let's say you have a cat present with a nice hair coat, it's dropped a lot of weight, it's yowling all night, it's still eating or it's even eating more. Maybe it's even eating more, maybe it's becoming aggressive. The first thing you look for is hyperthyroidism. It's one of the main roulettes that you look for because that's what they do.

Speaker 1:

I get a lot of patients that present with either the symptoms of a disease that look absolutely picture perfect, like it's the textbook case of hyperthyroidism, and then we do the blood work and it's normal. Or I have these patients that are presenting with diseases that have not really been diagnosed, and actually one of them was my own pet, lilo, the one I was talking about before. She was a dachshund and I happened to be reading Javma, which is similar to the JAMA, the journal of the AVMA, and I was reading this article and it was talking about what's called Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, which is a collagen disorder that they see a lot in people, and it was an article and it was literally a picture of a dachshund and they were talking about how they diagnosed Ehlers-Danlos in this dachshund. And I looked at my dog and I looked at the article and I read all of the descriptions of all of the problems, because we had been trying to figure out what was going on with my dog, because we would leave her at home and come back and she would be have a wound on her side and no evidence of any like sharp objects or anything or any evidence of anywhere she could have hurt herself, couldn't figure out how she was hurting herself. So eventually, through some testing, we did actually find out that she had Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which is incredibly rare. I think she was one of 15 that they had documented for one of the people's cases. She also had some sort of weird glycogen storage issue where she couldn't really make her own glucose.

Speaker 1:

She was definitely a very odd duck, but I have tons of cases throughout my career that are just they present with these either really weird diseases or really weird presentations for normal diseases. So I got a little bit of a reputation with our local internal medicine doctors that I'm just be like. I'm sending you another one, I need you to help me, and they will, but it's just. The old saying is, if you hear hoof beats, you look for horses. And in my mind I'm looking for the horses, but I'm also ready for the zebra to come running up and scare me.

Speaker 2:

So something from left field exactly very cool, do you think? Like some of it? Do you think it's luck like you've just rolled the dice and you've got a bunch of 20s in a roll?

Speaker 1:

I would say I'd have to say those would be ones I am a dnd those would be crit fails, oh critic sorry, I got my dnd dnd nerd.

Speaker 2:

Those would be crit fails. Oh sorry, I got my D&D backwards.

Speaker 1:

Yes, they're crit fails. Crit fails are really like you're stumbling upon things like that. But I think it's also just that we're becoming, possibly, that we're becoming more in tune with animals and are doing more kind of baseline diagnostics to find some of these weird problems we are human. Medicine has been advancing very quickly over the past 20 or 30 years and even in the past 10 years since I've been, or almost 15 years now that I've been practicing veterinary medicine has been advancing and I think we're starting to recognize the value of preventative or screening blood work and we're finding more problems. So then we can chase down more problems and figure out exactly how common is X, y and Z and those sorts of things. So I think part of it is that, but I think also part of it is just luck of the draw that I just happened to end up with the weird cases.

Speaker 2:

I don't know if you know, are the story of Bunsen and what happened to him, our Bernice mountain dog.

Speaker 1:

Didn't he have a Conococcus? Was that what it?

Speaker 2:

was Conococcus cyst. Yeah, and he may be the only. Crazy rare, right, Crazy rare and he may be. We were told he may be the only dog in all of Western Canada to present with that and by far the only dog with one that large, because it was 10 pounds when they removed it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I remember following along with his case and I'm going oh no, they had to do a splenectomy. Oh no, that's not good. And then you came up and said it's a kind of caucus, and I'm like I remember learning about that in parasitology because they every so one of the weird quirks is that when they are testing certain meds, so a kind of caucus is a tapeworm and when they are testing certain meds, so echinococcus is a tapeworm, yeah, and when they test tapeworm preventatives, they test it against echinococcus because that's the hardest one to treat.

Speaker 1:

Yep, and it's. But I remember they're like, oh, you'll never run across this, you'll never find a case of echinococcus. It's not, we don't see it.

Speaker 2:

Our surgeon. You had that. Yeah, like surgeon is like this brilliant, very respected surgeon that saved bunsen's life loved this guy to death. He's yeah, I know we had. Everybody was asking me like what is this? And we're like I have no effing idea. That's what he said. I have no, that's what he wrote down on the because they sent it away to get tested in the lab and that's what he said he wrote down. I have no effing idea what this is.

Speaker 2:

And it took the university, like the vet program, the researchers there, like a month to identify it because obviously they would have went through a bunch of cancerous screenings and it would have come back negative.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's. It's a very unusual diagnosis. It's, from what I remember, it was something that was found in I don't want to say this phrase, but third world countries and places with poor sanitation is more where you find it, from eating bad meat and those sorts of things. The fact that he had that is just.

Speaker 1:

I'm still flabbergasted, that's the first case I've ever heard of and I follow a lot of weird veterinary blogs and things like that, so it's definitely I'm sure your surgeon will be writing it up in some journal or something at some point.

Speaker 2:

Oh, we're told. Yeah, so we're told. I appreciate this. Leading into the Bunsen story, it's something our fans are. They just can't get enough of.

Speaker 1:

I have to say I have a soft spot in my heart for Bernoulli and the Bernoulli and Ginger mauling.

Speaker 2:

Oh my God, they're so funny. We don't have footage of it, but now it's like they canoodle, like they lay on the ground and Ginger gets close to him and nuzzles him and Bernoulli licks her and then nibbles her. So we don't know if that's a mauling, because I'm not sure what their relationship's turning into. It's very odd.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes there are no thoughts, only vibes. And you just got to go with it.

Speaker 2:

That's what's happening. I so appreciate you giving up some of your time to talk about your vet practice and some really powerful words of wisdom around tough subjects. We do have two standard questions we ask all of our guests about. One is for them to share a pet story from your life, and that may be preaching to the choir, but I was wondering, doc, if you have a memorable pet story you could share with us.

Speaker 1:

Not necessarily a pet, but a funny animal story.

Speaker 1:

I worked for a summer at the Philadelphia Zoo in the education department and one of our jobs was we worked on a rotation with what's called the enrichment department, and the enrichment is designed to bring happiness or help stimulate mentally the zoo animals that we cared for.

Speaker 1:

And one of the days it was a really hot summer that summer and the enrichment lady decided that we should give our cows in our petting zoo a swimming pool, like a kiddie pool, to play in and splash in. She said, yeah, just go put it in the pen with the cows and fill it up. And then blah, blah, blah, blah and I go and I look at the cows and they're all in the far corner. It wasn't a huge area but they were in the far corner. So I'm like, okay, I can just quickly open this gate, put the kiddie pool in and then I can fill it with the hose from the side of the gate. And I opened the gate and those cows if you know, cows can be pretty darn quick when they want to get somewhere- oh, yeah, they run way faster than you.

Speaker 2:

They're not even, you can't even.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, so they charged me. So then I'm standing there, I threw the kiddie pool in and I'm trying to slam this gate in their face and I'm thinking, oh great, these cows are going to escape. And then I have to call for an escaped animal at the zoo and everyone's going to freak out because it's an escaped animal, but it's just a cow. I finally managed to get the gate closed, but I learned my lesson that day is that cows are a lot faster than you think they are. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And what's even faster than a cow, a angry bull I've because I grew up in like rural alberta, which is like texas. Yeah, don't lots of cows, don't mess with beef, don't mess with beef cow, mamas or bulls, just don't. And even worse than that is buffalo, because there are some places. They're raising buffalo, they're strong oh, they're huge, they're huge you know those big wire hay bale holder, things that they have feeding shoots out in the fields for cows.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

I saw a buffalo pick one of those up and move it. I don't like a thousand pounds. Yeah, don't mess with cows.

Speaker 2:

That's a great animal slash pet story with cows, that's a great animal slash pet story. And then the last thing we challenge our guests with as we wrap is to share a super fact with us. It's something that you know, that when you tell people blows their mind a bit, and I was wondering if you had a super fact for us, doc.

Speaker 1:

I actually do. Do you know why calico cats are almost always female?

Speaker 2:

I know they're almost all female, but I don't know if I know why.

Speaker 1:

Okay, and it's specifically calicos. Tortoise are also in this, so tortoiseshell cats are also in this, but it's more calicos. So it has to do with genetics. And when you have a calico cat, typically what they do is they have two X chromosomes, One of them codes for either the brown or black tabby colors and one of them codes for the orange tabby colors. And then what happens is our body can't have cells that have two X chromosomes activated, because that's just extra chromosomes and that doesn't work. You have too many genes active.

Speaker 1:

So what our body does is when we are fetuses and developing, it'll randomly turn off an X chromosome in each cell. So it depends on which X chromosome gets turned off, as to which color is predominant on that patch of fur. So you'll have some that are orange, some that are tabby, but then how do you get the white color? They also have a gene on a different gene that turns off color entirely. That leaves the white patches. So in order to have a calico cat, they have to have two X chromosomes. So you have, basically, each cell has a chromosome that is either active for the orange color or the black color, but then they can also sometimes have that third option which is no color at all, and it's really interesting because then if you have a male calico which I actually have seen two in my career again going back to that Dr House thing they are XY males, so they have a double X chromosome which they shouldn't have.

Speaker 2:

Oh, interesting. I love that Genetics in animals is so cool.

Speaker 1:

It is, and it's really interesting. The other interesting thing is that every cat or kitten in a litter can have a different father.

Speaker 2:

Oh my goodness, is that similar with dogs too? Like dogs can have yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it just depends on what all that happens. So it's why you can have some puppies that look nothing like mom and look nothing like who you thought dad was.

Speaker 2:

Oh my goodness, yeah, bernoulli's dad looks like a bit of a mush brain. So there you go.

Speaker 1:

I have one of those two currently. Oh yeah, she's got three brain cells, and every once in a while she'll run into a wall and knock one out, and then she'll grow back over a couple of weeks.

Speaker 2:

But she's a good girl. Golden retriever Beaker, our golden, is such a sweetheart. We love her so much. Yeah, it's hard to get upset with mush brain dogs because they just try their best.

Speaker 1:

They do, they try so hard to be good, they just can't help it.

Speaker 2:

Thanks for the genetics lesson. That was a cool, super fact. Doctor, thank you so much for giving up your time to talk with us. Again, I want to thank you and I'm sure everybody who's listening wants to thank you and vets for doing the work that you do to protect and care for our pets. When we need your help, vets are there, and I just can't say enough about how thankful I am for the care that our dogs got and for the work that you and your fellow colleagues do.

Speaker 1:

I appreciate it a lot and it's as I said, it's a privilege to be able to care for people's vets. So I just think, whatever deity exists, that I get to do this on a daily basis.

Speaker 2:

That's it for this week's show. No family section. We're all a little burnt out. Adam is wrapping up university, so he's busy. We are trying to keep our heads above water, so this is a bit short and sweet podcast this week. Special thanks, of course, to our guest, dr Amber Peisel, and to our PawPak community for supporting us. One of the perks is you get your name read at the end of the show. Take it away, chris.

Speaker 3:

Bianca Hyde, mary Ryder, tracy Domingue, susan Wagner, andrew Lin, helen Chin, Tracy Halberg, amy C, jennifer Smathers, laura Stephenson, holly Burge, brenda Clark, Anne Uchida, peggy McKeel, terry Adam, debbie Anderson, sandy Breimer, tracy Leinbaugh, marianne McNally, fun Lisa, Shelley Smith, julie Smith, diane Allen, brianne Haas, linda Sherry, carol McDonald, catherine Jordan Courtney Proven, donna Craig McDonald, catherine Jordan Courtney Brovin, donna Craig, wendy Diane Mason and Luke Liz Button, kathy Zerker and Ben Rathart.

Speaker 2:

For science, empathy and cuteness.