Andy Roark DVM MS

Dr. Doug Mader joins us to talk about all sorts of zoonotic diseases. Together, Dr. Doug Mader and Dr. Andy Roark on the Cone of Shame Veterinary Podcast to discuss the zoonotic diseases found in exotic animals but also your common cat and dogs. They explore the history of salmonella in the pet trade, the risks of psittacosis from birds, and the potential for parasites like the dwarf tapeworm to infect humans. This episode is packed with valuable information for veterinary professionals and pet owners alike. Don’t miss Dr. Mader’s insights on protecting both animal and human health. Gang, let’s get into this episode!

You can also listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Soundcloud, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts!

LINKS

Dr. Doug Mader: https://www.dougmader.com/

The Vet at Noah’s Ark: https://www.dougmader.com/order

Dr. Know It All Card Game: https://drandyroark.com/product/dr-know-it-all-card-game/

Dr. Andy Roark Swag: drandyroark.com/shop

All Links: linktr.ee/DrAndyRoark

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Dr. Doug Mader is a triple board-certified veterinary specialist and has been a veterinarian for over three decades. He is an internationally recognized speaker, has written three best-selling medical textbooks and numerous book chapters and scientific publications, and has had long standing pet columns in the Long Beach Press Telegram, Reptiles magazine, and the Key West Citizen. Dr. Mader is the recipient of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Award, the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine Alumni Achievement Award, and the Fred L. Frye Lifetime Achievement Award for Veterinary Medicine, and is a seven-time winner of the North American Veterinary Community Speaker of the Year award and a four-time winner of the Western Veterinary Conference Educator of the Year award. He is also a fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine in the UK. Dr. Mader practiced in California for many years, but today lives and works in the Florida Keys.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Andy Roark: Welcome everybody to the Cone of Shame Veterinary Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Andy Roark. Guys, I got, oh, such a great episode for you. They’re one of my favorite episodes in a while. I know I say every episode is a great episode. They generally are pretty darn good episodes. I really have been blessed to have great guests come on, but today I’ve just got one that I really, really love.

It’s my friend, Dr. Doug Mader. He is a exotic animal veterinarian. You’ll hear me gush about him when he comes on, but he is such a storyteller. He’s talking about zoonosis today, man. If this is how zoonotic diseases were taught in vet school, I would have been a straight A student in parasitology and in zoonosis.

It was such a fun episode. We talk about sewage turtles and typhoid mary and one eyed cold and, and weight loss tapeworms and just all kinds of incredible stories. On our way to discussing real zoonotic disease considerations when we’re seeing exotic pets. So anyway, guys, this is such a wonderful blend of practical, pragmatic medicine that’s great for doctors, technicians assistants, pet owners, and also just really interesting facts and stories that just make it so I could just keep talking to Doug all day. Anyway, I’ve gushed and swooned enough. Let’s get into this episode with Dr. Doug Mader.

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: This is your show. We’re glad you’re here. We want to help you in your veterinary career. Welcome to the Cone of Shame with Dr. Andy Roark. 

Dr. Andy Roark: Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Doug Mader. Thank you for being here, my friend.

Dr. Doug Mader: Hi Andy, it’s always a pleasure. I appreciate the honor to be invited back.

Dr. Andy Roark: You are so kind and humble. You’ve been a mentor of mine for a long time. You’re someone I’ve always respected, one for your work in vet medicine, and two you are an accomplished writer. Your book The Vet and Noah’s Ark is one that I always recommend when people say, what are your favorite books about veterinary medicine, especially for pet owners?

You talk about being an exotic animal vet in Los Angeles during the time of the LA riots in the nineties, which I remember you write basically in a series of short stories. And so I just, I always enjoy your stuff. It’s stuff I can sit down and read a story or two. And so anyway, I appreciate you being here.

You are triple boarded. You were mostly known for exotic animal medicine. You have written, I think, three textbooks. You have won The Speaker of the Year Award at a VMX probably more times than you can count. And at Western, you were just such an accomplished speaker and presenter.

You are so matter of fact. And I think that’s something I’ve always really admired about you. And it’s something that I, as a presenter have really tried to take away, is that you’re very matter of fact, you very much get down to what veterans actually see and your directive. Look out for this make sure you’re doing that make sure you don’t mess up this way. And I just I you are someone I I deeply enjoy learning from and so i’ve been watching I’ve just watched what you put out and what you write and things i’ve seen you writing recently about some zoonotic disease is stuff that has sort of come up and I wanted to sort of bring you and ask you About it because this is something that is sort of a hot topic.

I think a lot of it comes from leptospirosis recently. ACVIM just did a position statement in 2023 about leptospirosis and zoonosis. And so it kind of put zoonosis back on my radar. And then I was looking and reading from you, and you were talking about zoonosis in a very practical way that I don’t think a lot of people think about.

And so let me just kind of start, stop there before we get into specifics and sort of open it up and say, zoonotic disease, what are veterinarians sort of missing? What are the things that you think get lost in these conversations? 

Dr. Doug Mader: All right, that’s a super good point and thank you for the kind words in the intro. I appreciate that. For the sake of getting back to the very, very basics for those of you that are listeners, a zoonotic disease is a disease that people can catch from animals. You know, one of the classic diseases that we’ve all learned about since we were little teeny kids is something like rabies and rabies, in certain parts of the country is a serious, serious issue. Because it lives endemically in certain wildlife populations like raccoons, foxes, skunks, and things like that. And, there are certain places where people are allowed to keep those as pets. Fortunately, it’s not a huge issue as a zoonotic disease here in this country.

But, it’s one of the, I think it’s, it is, if it’s not number one, it’s in the top few killers of zoonotic diseases in people in the entire world. You know, and I just got back from Africa, and it is a huge, huge issue there. Because they don’t vaccinate down there and prevent it. But, that brings up the point of zoonotic diseases about other pets that we work with.

And, you know, I do a lot of work with exotics. And there’s a lot of misconceptions. So giving me this platform to share some of those with our listeners, I think is really important. So we can clarify some really important things. And also I want to share this with you because I know there’s a lot of veterinarians and veterinary assistants and nurses out there.

And you need to be aware of this because for legal reasons in today’s country, if you don’t cross all your T’s and dot all your I’s and say something incorrectly, it could come back to bite you. So I think one of the big ones that I see a lot of and I’ve actually been involved as an expert witness for the AVMA on a few malpractice cases is salmonella.

And I know you’ve heard about it. You know, it’s, it’s one of those diseases that when you say salmonellosis, the first thing you think of is, oh, reptiles. Okay, and that’s legit because that’s where it kind of came to the forefront and back in the late 60s early I know some of our listeners were born then but it’s important to know where this started. There was a pet store.

They were selling the pet trade sold these little things called penny turtles And I don’t know if you remember, they were

Dr. Andy Roark: I remember yeah, well they used to sell them beside the road like in Florida. You know, they have the little plastic terrariums and the little red ear sliders, right? Yeah.

Dr. Doug Mader: Exactly. And they were selling them across the country in Ben Franklin stores, Crest, Five and Dimes. And they became so popular that foreign countries, especially China, wanted to get, get them. And they were buying them as pets, supposedly as pets. And the interesting thing is how they were raised.

Because they are in such popular demand, these people in Louisiana had these large sewage ponds, where they recycled human waste. And they found that the turtles were thriving in the human sewage ponds and they didn’t have to feed them because the turtles were just eating basically human feces in the sewage ponds.

You can imagine living in a sewage pond, what diseases you’re going to pick up. Well, the big one was salmonellosis. And so they were selling these baby penny turtles all around the country. And back in the early seventies, they were having up to 300, 000 cases a year in children. And finally, in 1975, the USDA got wise and said, hey, wait a minute.

We’re selling baby turtles that are grown up in sewage ponds in the pet trade and kids are getting sick. Duh. You know, what’s wrong with this picture? So in 1975 USDA put a ban on the sale of pet turtles less than four inches in length or any live turtle eggs. And it’s funny because the reason they picked less than four inches of length is because they measured, somebody did a study and they measured the mouth size of children.

And if you’re getting anything bigger than four inches, they wouldn’t be able to put it in their mouth because kids tend to do that well that it worked because it cut the cases of Salmonella way down, but it doesn’t stop the fact that kids still play with the turtle and then eat their peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but it did bring up, you know, and it educated the public about the disease and the fact that they just basically cut out the sale of the baby turtles, pretty much.

I wouldn’t say stop the disease, but stop the problem that they were having. But they were still allowed to export it to China. So that’s still an issue and it was, it’s actually still being done. So that’s, that’s kind of where it all started. And the Association of Reptile and Amphibian Veterinarians, they got together with the CDC and came out with a white paper.

And the white paper states basically that you should just assume that every reptile, not just baby turtles, every reptile carries salmonella. There’s over 2, 400 serotypes of salmonellosis, and there’s been well over 200 documented serotypes that a reptile carries. And basically all 200 plus serotypes that the reptiles carry are potentially zoonotic to humans.

So it’s a legitimate concern. Okay. Now, I don’t want anybody to go out and flush their reptiles down the toilet. That’s the last thing in the world we want to do. So what we want to do is just kind of put it in perspective. I can guarantee you that I have probably had salmonellosis in my career.

I don’t ever remember having it. But, I work with pet turtles, I work with alligators, I work with crocodiles, I work with large tortoises, large sea turtles, and I’m exposed to it on a regular basis. If you’re healthy and immunocompetent most likely if you get salmonella, you’re gonna get diarrhea for two or three days, and usually it’s self limiting, it goes away.

And most of us don’t run to the doctor every time we get diarrhea because we just wait till it clears and it does. And that, you may have had it and it’s that simple. Now, there is an at-risk population and children under 5, the written guidelines are children under 5, seniors over 65 pregnant women, people that are on immunosuppressive drugs like prednisone or chemotherapy, people that have immunosuppressive diseases such as HIV.

They’re much more susceptible to salmonella or any other potential infectious disease. So those groups, what I would encourage them to do, I would never discourage them from keeping them as pets because that human animal bond is priceless. You know, everybody needs that, but I would encourage them to talk to their veterinarian and also talk to their human physician and have your veterinarian’s card with you when you talk to your physician and say, please call my vet and talk to them about it because human doctors.

They just want you to get rid of everything. Oh, you’re on prednisone? Get rid of your bird. Well, I’ve had the bird for 30 years. It’s dangerous. Get rid of it, I’ve had the snake for 25 years. Well, get rid of it. You don’t need to do that. You just need to be educated. The key is, with any of these zoonotic diseases, is hygiene.

You know, you walk into any public restroom in a restaurant and what’s the sign that you see in the mirror in every single restroom?

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah

Dr. Doug Mader: Employees, watch your hands, right? Same common sense. If you have pets at home, and I don’t care if it’s a reptile or something else, and Andy, did you know that dogs carry it, cats carry it, birds can carry salmonella. Cockroaches carry salmonella.

I live down here in the Florida Keys and we have those cute little hermit crabs. Hermit crabs carry salmonella, seagulls carry salmonella. Salmonella, because there’s so many serotypes, is carried by many, many, many different species. And we are potentially susceptible to any one of those. A lot of times, like I said, people will have it and they can carry it and they may not even show signs.

Or if they do, they’re so mild, it doesn’t dawn on them that they’re not feeling good. You know, I think the classic story is Typhoid Mary and she was a food worker and I believe she ended up there. There were like 50 deaths associated with this one person working in a kitchen before they finally figured out that she was the one spreading the disease.

So it is transmitted by fecal oral contamination, so that’s why you’re not supposed to put baby turtles in your mouth. And just like the signs in the restaurants you know, if you’re playing with your pet turtle or your hamster or whatever pet you might have, dog or cat, use common sense, wash your hands before you go and make the peanut butter and jelly sandwich or eat the Kentucky fried chicken that’s finger licking good.

Simple common sense. Other things like we don’t clean out the turtle bowl in the kitchen sink where we prefer human food. Simple, simple things like that can make all the difference in the world. I think people need to realize that. Now, the other thing is too, and this is very important. This is getting more on the technical side for the veterinarians and the veterinary technicians and nurses.

And that is, there’s a really fine line when it comes to a lot of the animals that we see, we deal with. I’m sure you’ve heard of this movement called you know, the, the antibiotic stewardship.

Dr. Andy Roark: Antibiotic stewardship. Yeah. Mm hmm

Dr. Doug Mader: Okay. And the concept is that we don’t want to just throw antibiotics at anything that’s not feeling good because we’re too dumb enough to figure out what it is or we’re too lazy enough to do diagnostics or we think our clients don’t want to spend the money.

We should always offer the five star, the gold, you know, the gold standard. And if the clients can’t do it, then we need to do a workaround. In a perfect world with antibiotic stewardship, you know, we don’t really want to put an animal on an antibiotic if we don’t know what it has because bacteria, and we’re talking about salmonella right now, have an ability to form resistant forms.

And salmonella is notorious for developing antibiotic resistance. Notorious for it. And so we as veterinarians, let’s say, and I’m going to share this case with you because this is an actual case. One of my, one of my cases that I helped the AVMA with, some owner and they had a small child, a five year old child.

They had a pet savannah monitor, which is a kind of a small to medium sized lizard. Really calm and monitored. Very, very friendly and make really good pets. And, the monitor squirms around the house and runs around on the floor. And a little five year old runs around on the floor, plays with the monitor, crawls on his hands and knees, pets the monitor.

And the monitors are great. They make really good pets. And then, sadly the child got sick. As it turns out, the owner had taken the monitor to the veterinarian, and the monitor was having diarrhea. And so, the veterinarian sent the monitor home on a drug called Baytrol, which you know, Enrefloxacin, very commonly used drug in veterinary medicine. The monitor had developed, it turns out, in hindsight, it’s always 20 20, it turned out that the monitor had salmonellosis, and then the child got salmonellosis. But the problem was that the vet never had cultured the monitor, never figured out what it was, they just randomly put him on Baytril.

The monitor developed a sensitivity to the enrofloxacin, which reacts with the ciprofloxacin that they use in humans. And so the child ended up getting salmonellosis from handling the monitor. And when they went to test the child, it actually got meningitis, it got pretty sick. They cultured the CSF and it had fluoroquinolone resistant salmonellosis

Dr. Andy Roark: Wow.

Dr. Doug Mader: So they couldn’t use the ciprofloxacin. So they ended up, I think if I recall the case correctly, they ended up treating it, believe it or not, with IV chloramphenicol. And that’s something that we don’t even, they don’t even learn in school anymore, but the child did fine. It healed up perfectly.

Everything went fine, but the owners turned around and sued the veterinarian because it was determined because they cultured the lizard, they cultured the meningitis and it was the same serotype. So they determined that the child got it from the vet. And of course they sued the vet because the vet put him on an antibiotic that created the resistant bacteria and never once.

Discussed zoonotic diseases with the owner and the five year old child. You can see how that whole thing could have been prevented. Being thorough.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. I get that. Have a conversation. Yeah.

Dr. Doug Mader: yeah, even, even something as simple, and we used to do this all the time was just have handouts, how to care for your pet monitor, how to feed your pet monitor, diseases carried by pet monitor that could potentially affect humans, you know, this is what you should do, and always contact your physician. Little handouts like that, you give to the clients, you document it in the record, clients are given, you know, a new pet handout kit, and all that kind of stuff will protect yourself.

And then if the client turns down the, culture and sensitivity, you can say, well, they were warned and, you know, we told them about potential for resistant organisms. We told them about the potential and the necessity for washing your hands. And they chose to ignore all of our advice, puts it back in their case.

But, and of course, in that situation, the veterinarian did, did lose in, in at the board. It’s an easy thing to prevent. It just takes a tiny bit of effort.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. That’s tough. 

 I have got some huge news. My new card game is out. That’s right. If you are a fan of the last card game that me and my team made, it was called what’s on my scrubs. You’re going to love our brand new card game. It’s called Dr. Know It All. It is a trivia game meant to be played in teams. It’s a mixture of trivia and BS and it is guaranteed to make your team laugh. 

All of the questions are meant to be challenging for your whole team. They are based on the difficulty level of the VTNE exam. So this is the veterinary technician national examination. It is great to play with your veterinarians. It doesn’t need your veterinarians. It can be toned up and down in difficulty. We have a number of different ways to play the game so that if you have a newer team or a team that is learning we can tone the game down very quickly and make it fun and engaging and educational for them. 

And if you have got a bunch of vets that want to go hard in the paint, we can go hard in the paint game to turn up to that level. It’s really flexible that way. 

It is going to be fun and your people are going to enjoy it. It is made to be played in small teams. That’s the team building part. 

Just like regular trivia when you go to the restaurant or the bar and so it is perfect to be played in five minute bursts. 

You can put it at the beginning of your staff meetings just to make people laugh. You could do a couple of rounds of trivia and then get into your business. Or You can just say, Hey guys, we’re going to have a team meeting. We’re just going to do some trivia. 

 And then everybody’s going to leave with a smile on their face. I wanted to make that for you. I had such a great time with our first game. 

I think this game is going to be really fantastic. I think people are going to really love it. Head over to drandyroark.com right now to learn all about it and get your copy sent to either you or your practice. Let’s get. Get back into this episode. 

Dr. Andy Roark: Do you feel like there are other sort of zoonotic diseases that are sort of attributed to exotics that, that maybe unfairly so tied to those species, does that make sense?

Dr. Doug Mader: You know, I think the next one that we see, and I don’t see it as much, I don’t think in general, we see it as much now as we did before when they were, or, you know, I go back a long time and in Southern California, there used to be a lot of birds that were imported and a lot of them were smuggled across the border from Mexico

and we would frequently see Psittacosis. And psittacosis goes by a bunch of different names. Psittacosis is caused by Chlamydia Psittaci. And in humans, it’s called Psittacosis if the person gets it from a psittacine, like a macaw. It’s called Ornithosis if they get it from something like a dove.

So the name changes depending on the origin of the disease, but it’s the same disease. And it’s a bacterium called Chlamydia Psittaci. And oftentimes, you know, there are some species where they don’t really show signs. They don’t show signs that they’re sick. Chickens, ducks a lot of the smaller birds, the passerines, don’t show real signs that they’re sick with psittacosis, whereas some of the larger psittacines, they get the infamous one eyed cold, they call it, or they get the tracheitis, the bronchitis, they can develop pneumonia and psittacosis.

Dr. Andy Roark: Why do they call it the one eyed cold?

Dr. Doug Mader: Because frequently, especially in things like cockatiels. They get conjunctivitis and for some reason it seems to affect one eye, and so the bird will be there and have a real swollen eye and the other eye will look normal. And so the breeders nicknamed it the one eyed colt. So that’s where that came from.

And again, oftentimes some of these birds are carriers. And, you can get it fairly casual contact and it’s spread through the feces that are dried out and then aerosolized, or it’s spread through things like feather dander. So if you have a bird that’s fluffing up and preening and, and Fluffs itself and dander flies everywhere and you inhale it.

It’s spread via the lungs and there’s even some belief that it can be spread possibly by fecal oral contamination If you’re cleaning cages from birds that are sick and then you contaminate yourself that way But the big thing is just a respiratory component to it. So you know again, that’s reasonably easy to test for. There are ELISAs, fluorescent antibody tests, PCR tests, of course cultures that can be done.

They can run up a fairly good size bill if you do all those different tests. But I, I strongly recommend that anybody that gets a new bird make sure that when they buy the bird they get it with a vet warranty that, okay, you have five days to take it to your veterinarian and have it tested.

And psittacosis is certainly one of the things that’s readily, easily testable. And I think every bird should be tested for it. And again, fortunately the rules have changed. You don’t see as much imports anymore. You know, where I used to see probably two or three cases a week back in Southern California, now it’s, it’s not that common.

If I see one a month, that’s pushing it. Now, some of the big bird vets may see more, but I still see quite a few birds and it’s not that common. It’s one of those diseases in humans. That if you get it, most humans, again, if you’re in the immunocompetent group, which means you’re healthy, you might get the chills or a little cough or the sniffle or a head cold.

And then self limiting, but if you’re in one of the at risk groups, it could turn into fulminant pneumonia and potentially be lethal. So it’s nothing to no, no, no joke intended. Nothing to sneeze at. Don’t take it lightly. It’s a serious consideration. So especially when you’re dealing with birds from an unknown source, Oh, Hey, you know, I’ve got this bird I’m selling out of my trunk. Come in and look at…

Dr. Andy Roark: Right. Yeah, the old swapmeat bird. Yeah.

Dr. Doug Mader: Oh, back in the days, man, when they, when they had the swap meets and the birds are coming from Mexico, they would paint them. And I would not, not uncommonly, I would see these Amazons come in and they would be painted pink or they’d be painted a light purple, or even one day I had one come in, it was spray painted gold and people would buy these birds.

Why in the world they would buy something like that? I have no idea, but they would.

Dr. Andy Roark: They would sell spray painted birds? I mean, I, I thought.

Dr. Doug Mader: People did.

Dr. Andy Roark: I, I, I assumed that that would be so toxic to the bird, right? Like they, just the the fumes from paint and things like

Dr. Doug Mader: It is extremely, and don’t try this at home. Please don’t do that, but it’s amazing. how people would see a blue, I mean, a completely blue or completely pink, rare pink bird, parrot from Mexico, and then they would buy it. Absolutely boggled my mind.

Dr. Andy Roark: I saw you writing recently. You’re talking about sort of parasites and exotic animals. Talk to me a little bit about, about the dwarf tapeworm.

Dr. Doug Mader: Oh yeah, that’s another one. Dwarf tapeworm is a, is a tape worm that’s carried mostly in like rats and mice and smaller rodents like that. Hymenolepsis nana, hymenolepsis diminuta, the two common names. But dwarf tapeworm is all you need to know. And it is, it’s infectious to people. Now what’s interesting is that if you have one of these rats, oftentimes you don’t see perglottids in the feces like you do, like in a dog or a cat that has tapeworms and everybody knows that, you know, and the owner comes in with the rice that are in the poop, you don’t see that with this.

So what ends up happening is that people have these pets. Again, they clean their cages. They don’t use common sense. They don’t wash their hands. And then there’s a direct contamination with contaminated feces. Or in the case of like diminuta, they actually have to have an intermediate host, but with nana, there can be direct contamination,

and then people can fecal, oral contamination. The people can get the tapeworms too. Used to be years and years and years ago. It wasn’t true, but this story is true. You could actually go on the catalogs and you could buy tape rooms. And it was a method that people would use for weight loss. They say, well, if you take the tape rooms, you eat them, you would lose your weight.

When you get down to the weight to where you want to be, then you go to see your doctor. They gave you a pill, you kill the tape room, and then boom, you’ve lost the weight and you didn’t have to change your diet. Well, that wasn’t true. It’s not true now, but they used to sell them. And if you Google it, you can actually see the old time ads where people could buy therapeutic tape rooms.

So people that have rats and mice and pets like that, they don’t lose weight. But typically what happens is oftentimes you might get stomach pains, you might get more burrigimus. Sometimes you might develop diarrhea. If you get a heavy enough load of tapeworms, it can certainly cause fever. And if you get sick enough, you’re not going to eat.

So if you don’t eat, you’re going to lose weight, but you don’t lose weight directly because the tapeworms compete with the nutrients, you lose weight because you’re sick with a parasite. Fortunately in humans, it’s. Again, literally taking a pill and just like with the dog and then you, it kills a parasite and it’s gone, but it’s

not super common in purpose bred rats and mice, but if you have a situation where rats that live outside or mice that live outside can get into your food where you store your food and contaminates the food that you feed your pet rat, and certainly it’s a possibility. Some other things that we need to think about mites. There are several species of mites. There’s actually. Documented cases of people getting mites from pet snakes and the mites won’t breed on you because you’re not a definitive host, but they’ll bite you and they’ll suck your blood and suck your lymph and it can cause a nasty rash.

There are mites that of course, everybody’s familiar with sarcoptes and cats, right? and mange that people can get. Rabbits can carry several different species of mites that people can catch. Certainly there’s a lot of lice. Now most lice are very species specific. So if you have a guinea pig that’s covered with lice and the child brings it home or has it, the lice could jump on the person.

But again, they’re highly species specific, so the lice will usually fall off. So just be aware of some of those things. There are other things, we talked about salmonella, but there’s other bacteria too, like campylobacter, can certainly cause diarrhea and that’s carried by a number of different species.

And whereas salmonella, usually if you’re exposed to it 12 to 24 hours, you’re going to show signs. Campy can sometimes it can take two to three days. And so oftentimes the person gets diarrhea and they forgot, Oh yeah, four days ago I played with somebody’s pet hamster. So some of these diseases are a little bit harder to find.

Again, if you look it up, there’s, God, there’s dozens of different types of zoonotic diseases that we can get from our pets. And again, it’s not just exotics, it’s dogs and cats as well.

Dr. Andy Roark: We’re going to run out of time here. Doug, I tell you, I could listen to you tell stories all day. I mean, just sewage turtles, typhoid Mary, the one line gold. It’s amazing. Final thoughts here. Parting words. We, you talked about a lot of different diseases. If there’s one thing that you could sort of stress to veterinarians, nurses assistants.

What would be sort of your your parting thought

Dr. Doug Mader: Andy, that’s a great question. The reason I get up in the morning and I’ve been doing this for four decades is because of the human animal bond. You know, my goal when I get up in the morning is I want to promote and prolong the human animal bond as best as I possibly can. And so here I am, we just spent all this time talking about diseases we can catch from animals.

I don’t want that to scare people because you can get a lot more diseases and get a lot sicker by hanging out with people. Then you can’t with a lot of these animals. How many times have you shaken somebody’s hand, gone to the movies, sit on an airplane, and then you get sick. So don’t be afraid of all these different diseases.

The thing is just be educated, use common sense, good hygiene. I can’t stress that enough. Put up signs in your exam rooms, put up signs in your treatment rooms, wear gloves when appropriate, wash your hands, knock on wood. I’m one of these types of people that rarely, rarely get sick, but I also, one of these people, I probably wash my hands 40, 50 times a day.

Everything I do, I’m washing my hands as soon as I’m done doing it, and that’s a huge key, just to keep from passing on diseases. And anybody that works in the healthcare field, or the animal field in general, I don’t care if you work in a dairy farm, a chicken farm, and a pet store, or a veterinary office, just use common sense.

Wash your hands frequently. Wear gloves when possible. Keep areas disinfected. Don’t mix animal food with people food. Don’t clean animal cages where you make human food. Don’t store animal parts in a human refrigerator where you have human food. Common sense. Which a lot of people lack, but common sense goes a long way.

Dr. Andy Roark: That’s outstanding doug where can people find you online?

Dr. Doug Mader: Oh, I have a website. It’s a real easy one to remember. It’s just Doug mater. com. And from there, if you’re interested in some of my non technical writing My Vet at Noah’s Ark, my novel has done extremely well. I’m very humbled at the reception it’s gotten. It’s won several awards. And that’s available online through my website, or you can go to amazon.

com and get it. I’m also on social media on Facebook and Instagram.

Dr. Andy Roark: Outstanding. Guys, thanks so much for listening everybody. Thanks, to Doug Mader for being here. Take care of yourselves gang We’ll talk to you later on

All right, guys, that’s what I got for you. I hope you enjoyed it. Thanks to Doug Mader for being on because I said this at the beginning to his book The Vet at Noah’s Ark is really a good book. I’ve given it as gifts is it is a neat book for people who think veterinary medicine is really interesting.

I was actually asked I was asked by PBS. When the all creatures great and small show was out if there was a book about veterinary medicine I would recommend to viewers of the show. It was really hard because there’s a lot of really good books. All Dogs Go To Kevin by Dr. Jessica Vogelsang is one of my favorites.

Lucky Dog by Dr Sarah Boston is another great one. I know I’m forgetting something. I’m gonna deeply offend somebody or hurt their feelings. But I’ve got a list gave them a couple and they said, no, we need one. And I gave them Doug’s book The Vet at Noah’s Ark. And it’s just because it’s really an, it’s a neat story about exotic animal medicine.

I think a lot of vets, we know what we do in our job. It’s interesting to see someone who practices a totally different type of medicine, but also the backdrop of the LA riots in the 1990s is just a really interesting place for him to tell the story. And I don’t know, there’s just a lot to it.

So anyway, if you’re a reader out there and you want something good to pick up, check out check out his book. Gang, that’s enough from me. Take care of yourselves, everybody. I’ll talk to you later. 

Dr. Kris Otteman joins us to discuss the critical topic of recognizing and reporting animal abuse within veterinary practices. On this episode of the Cone of Shame Veterinary Podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and Dr. Otteman emphasize the importance of practical, action-oriented approaches to identifying signs of abuse and neglect. Dr. Otteman provides guidance on documentation, communication with authorities, and navigating the complexities of suspected abuse cases. Veterinarians and veterinary staff will learn valuable insights on how to be effective advocates for animal victims while maintaining their professional roles. This episode is essential for anyone in the veterinary field committed to protecting animal welfare.

You can also listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Soundcloud, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts!

LINKS

Victim to Verdict: https://www.victim2verdict.com/

Animal Legal Defense Fund: https://www.aldf.org/

Victim to Verdict Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/victim2verdict/

Dr. Andy Roark Swag: drandyroark.com/shop

All Links: linktr.ee/DrAndyRoark

🎉 Special Offer for Cone of Shame Podcast Listeners! 🎉

Attention, veterinary professionals! For a limited time, listeners of the Cone of Shame podcast can gain access to our online course, “Victim to Verdict: The Veterinarian’s Role in Animal Cruelty Investigations”, for just $49! This in-depth certificate course equips you with the tools and knowledge to play a critical role in recognizing, documenting, and assisting in animal cruelty cases, all from the convenience of your own schedule.

Expand your expertise and strengthen your commitment to animal welfare with this unique offer. Simply use the promo code V2VCOURSE$49 to secure your spot at this special price and join the community of veterinarians making a difference! Offer ends 12/31/24!   Download your free evidence placard template to ensure accurate documentation in animal cruelty investigations.

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Dr. Kris Otteman’s journey into veterinary forensics began as a teenager in Klamath Falls, where she first reported the neglect of a donkey she discovered while riding her horse through the woods. This early experience ignited a passion that would define her illustrious career. With 34 years of veterinary and leadership experience, Dr. Otteman now serves as the President of Victim to Verdict LLC and forensic veterinary consultant to the Animal Legal Defense Fund.

A pioneer in veterinary medicine, she co-founded Banfield, The Pet Hospital, and played a crucial role in developing the nation’s first shelter teaching hospital at the Oregon Humane Society which provides care for over 12,000 shelter pets annually. Dr. Otteman’s expertise in veterinary forensics has led to significant advancements in animal cruelty investigations, and she has shared her knowledge as a courtesy faculty member at Oregon State University, University of Florida Maples Center for Forensic Medicine, and through numerous national and international presentations.

Dr. Otteman’s dedication to animal welfare extends beyond her professional achievements. She has served on multiple boards, including the Oregon Veterinary Medical Licensing Board, Banfield Charitable Trust, and is the current board president of the International Veterinary Forensic Sciences Association. Her contributions to veterinary education and animal welfare have earned her the prestigious OSU/CVM Alumni Fellow award. Residing in Washington with her family, Dr. Otteman continues to inspire and lead with her unwavering commitment to improving the lives of animals.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Andy Roark: Welcome, everybody, to the Cone of Shame Veterinary Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Andy Roark. Guys, I have a really good episode today. This is Dr. Kris Otteman is with me, and we are talking practically about spotting animal abuse in our practice. I know that doesn’t sound super fun. I know that doesn’t sound super rosy.

Guys, first of all Dr. Otteman is a fantastic communicator around this topic. She keeps it really clinical. She keeps it super practical and and action oriented. I took so many notes from such a short podcast. It’s amazing. She gets right into it. She presents this information in a really non emotional, as unupsetting as possible way.

And just. Oh, it’s so so valuable. I’m really proud of this episode. Guys, I hope you’ll take a moment and and listen to it maybe get your team to listen to it. If not consider taking the information here digesting it presenting it to your people. Just because guys we need more awareness about what to do when we see animal abuse in our in our hospitals. And honestly, we need to know what animal abuse in our hospitals looks like. So, anyway, great episode.

Super useful. I promise it’s worth your time. I promise it is going to do the best job it can possibly do of not being heavy and not bringing you down, but really giving you good tools that are going to make you feel empowered. So anyway, that’s what we’re doing today. Let’s get into it. 

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: (singing) This is your show. We’re glad you’re here. We want to help you in your veterinary career. Welcome to the Cone of Shame with Dr. Andy Roark. 

Dr. Andy Roark: Welcome to the podcast. Dr. Kris Otteman. How are you?

Dr. Kris Otteman: I’m well, Andy. Thank you. How are you? 

Dr. Andy Roark: I am, I’m great. I’m, I’m so glad to have you here. You are such an interesting person. You have had such a rich career. You’ve done so many things. You, You recently wrapped up doing some work on the master’s program at the University of Florida. Go Gators!

You are on the faculty at Oregon State University’s College of Vet Medicine. You are the author of a rather interesting book that we’re going to talk about today. You are the author of Animal Cruelty Investigations, A Collaborative Approach from Victim to Verdict, and, and it’s, it’s, it’s pretty, it’s pretty intense title, pretty intense title.

You came onto my radar when one of my good friends, Dr. Caitlin DeWilde, who writes for Today’s Veterinary Business, and she she has a business called the Social DVM, and she’s just very, very sharp. She just reached out to me, and she was like, You need to talk to Kris Otteman. She is, she’s fascinating.

The work she’s doing is really, really important. And people just have no idea about what animal abuse looks like when it comes into vet practices. And so I, I just want to start there and kind of open up is that? Is that true? Do you believe that most veterinarians and vet teams don’t know what they’re looking at when animal abuse cases or animal cruelty cases come into the practice?

Dr. Kris Otteman: You know, I think so, like thinking back when I first got out of vet school, I felt really armed with all these diagnostic and treatment tools and enthusiasm, but I, it was not on my radar to think about someone intentionally, especially intentionally neglecting or abusing an animal. And then, fast forward all these years, we’re really still not structured to teach a format in vet school or even post doc to clinicians to help us understand how to recognize, report, and be a voice for the animal victim.

So yeah, I do think, I look back, I know it was walking right by me in the exam room or I did large animal, even like out in the field. But I didn’t. I didn’t, it did not come onto my radar in terms of how to affect a change and help, you know, other doctors and vet teams address this for our communities.

Dr. Andy Roark: I tend to be, I don’t know, I don’t like to say naive, but I, I tend to look for the best in people and just kind of assume the best. I’m, I am confident. I just don’t have thoughts about animal abuse or neglect come into my mind, I don’t think, unless there’s something extreme that happens, you know what I mean?

It’s just, it’s not something that I have It’s, it’s not in my search image and when you’ve been talking about this and looking at your book I’m confident that I, that I have missed, I’ve missed some tricks. Can we start at sort of a high level and just as, as someone who is probably not looking for these things, help me get my head around, just to start with, what, help me, help me understand sort of the, the problem and then kind of what I should be looking for.

Dr. Kris Otteman: Right. That’s a great question. You know, I’m definitely a rose colored glasses person like you, Andy, tend to like just be looking for the bad actor or thinking, oh, you know, this is bad. I just never, operate that way. And so this has been really interesting from my perspective to put it under that lens of vet med as something just to keep on my rule out list.

So I, what I would say is, you know, veterinarians and vet staff are going to get these cases kind of three main ways. It’s going to be part of your regular job if you’re in animal control or maybe an animal shelter where I practiced for many years, because it’s just going to be part of your job to work these out.

The second way you’re going to get it is some detective, law enforcement, prosecutor, somebody’s going to call you and say, Hey, Andy, I hear you’re a vet in the community. I’ve got this case. Would you look at the records? Would you look at the animal? What, what do you think? That may catch us completely off guard.

I would say it usually does in the cases, even in the last week that I’ve worked on, those have come that way. And the veterinarians are completely wait, what you want me to look at what, and then the, the. The third way that these come up is just recognizing it, like, you know, just those times in, in your career when you, maybe you’re in an exam room, and someone’s telling you how this cat got injured, and you’re thinking, I’m not sure if I’m really being a critical thinker here.

Does that, story match that finding? So, you know, if like blunt force trauma and maybe you do x rays and you see repetitive, repetitive injury pattern, for example, you’re like, yeah, that, you know, that doesn’t really add up that, Oh, I was just trying to bathe the cat or something like. Don’t ever bathe a cat, we all know that.

But, yeah, so that’s kind of what I, I think about the three ways you get it and how it can catch us off guard, for sure.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. I, I actually had one of those cases, number two, where the detectives reach out and say, hey, you know, you’re a veterinarian and they wanted me to do a, a necropsy. And I ended up sort of being involved in this case. Of course, I, I just happened to be working that night when they came in and, and like now I’m, now I’m sort of in this, but I felt wholly unprepared and I didn’t know, you know, I, I answered their questions and, and sort of worked up the cases.

I wouldn’t work up a case, but it was It was definitely kind of, just kind of jarring it and really kind of out of the blue. Kris, when, when people are presented with these sorts of cases, so, let, let, let’s start with the, you know, with the, with the shelter or animal control, you know, work, things like that.

Or if a detective sort of comes in with an animal or something, what are the types of things that, that I should sort of be looking for? What am I trying to document here? What are the, what are the findings that are important for me to pay attention? Cause again, a lot of times this, this just isn’t on my radar.

Dr. Kris Otteman: Yeah, I, I think that’s great. I mean, kudos to you for stepping up and taking the case because it does, it does kind of jar you, like you said. It makes you feel a little unease. Like, what’s the difference? And the way I like to explain it is we, as veterinarians and vet teams, we have a great toolbox, right?

We know how to methodically look at things and document our findings. And an animal cruelty case or a suspected case, it’s really just including a little more detail. So we’re going to take more photos. We’re going to write down more notes, communication notes about what the person that presented the animal or the detective said.

So getting started, it’s just important to know I already have those tools as a vet. I, I know I can just work through this methodically and thoroughly. I’m just going to do an different, a little bit of different documentation. For a real practical example, if you get a live animal in and you think it may have been in a part of a case, you’re going to take what we call five view photos.

So you’re just going to go click, click, click. You’re going to get front, back, sides, and top of the dog or cat so that you can identify it. and document how it looked when you got it. That’s something we wouldn’t normally do in clinical practice. We would just click the BAR box, right? Or, or, whatever.

So, yeah, I think just, just knowing some of the tips that have that are available. And that’s one of the reasons I wanted to write the book and put these protocols in the back about just those specific things that differentiate a physical exam from a forensic exam. Because I know veterinarians, we want to do the best we can and we want the tools, right?

And we’re always learning. We have to be always learning. So, yeah, I think that’s how I approach it.

Dr. Andy Roark: That, that, that’s super helpful. Again, like the five for you photos totally makes sense. Not on, not on my radar. That was just, I guess, I hadn’t, I didn’t think of it. Now you say that I’m like, Oh, yeah, obviously that make, that’s gonna be helpful or useful, but I, it was not something I had, I had considered for. 

Dr. Kris Otteman: No, me neither. No, that’s totally normal. Or like the other photography thing we tell is like far, mid, and close up. So like if you see a dog with maybe an injured eye, you’re going to document, Oh, the dog’s back here. I can see it’s Lulu. Oh, now I can see I’m looking at the eye. Oh, now I’m close up so I can see the injury.

We don’t do that in practice, but that’s incredibly helpful in a forensic report because it shows yes, that was the animal and yes, this was my medical finding. So, It isn’t really any different. I think the documentation is the big difference. But I would say that the CSI effect has been difficult for our profession because everybody thinks this is all about blood spatter, projectile angle, DNA interpretation, and I just like to say, you know what, Doctors, we can do this because we’re going to use our clinical skills and just know some of the basic things that will help us through.

We don’t have to be like, you know, on Bones or something.

Dr. Andy Roark: know it probably sounds bad, but like the the far medium close photos totally make sense again I don’t think that would occur to me in practice I would be the doofus who gets pictures up close documenting the wound and then someone would say that’s not our dog and I would say of course it is you think I’m lying and like I just it completely makes sense.

It was just the idea that it would, that it would not be the pet. That just never occurred to me.

Dr. Kris Otteman: Yeah. Yeah. You wouldn’t, you know, I mean, we get those on our texts all the time at home at night, right? Hey, Andy, what is this on my dog? And it’s like this little photo on your iPhone and you’re like, where is it on the dog? I don’t know. It looks like, but yeah, so it’s just a different, it’s looking at it through a different lens, it’s slightlydifferent. 

Stephanie Goss: Hey, Cone of Shame listeners. . This is Stephanie Goss. Co-host of the Uncharted podcasts with Dr. Andy work. And I’m jumping in here for a second, because one of the number one things. That people ask Andy and I, and all of our colleagues on the Uncharted team about when we go to other conferences we go to events is. Hey, how do I teach my team? 

How to handle conflict? We get asked that by other leaders. All the time. And I get asked by fellow technicians, fellow CSR’s, kennel support members. Hey, how do I get better at talking through conflict with other people on my team. Because conflict is a part of life. And the reality is it is a. A big part of life in general that we don’t talk about. 

And so our team decided it was time. Past time to tackle conflict head-on and so our Uncharted the team has been working hard on a new certificate for veterinary medicine and Andy and I are so excited to say that it is almost here now. Now, I’m going rogue and jumping in here with y’all, but I can’t entirely entirely spill the beans. 

I can tell you that the Uncharted team has put together and awesome certificate on the foundations of how we as people handle conflict and how to get better at it. And so if you want to learn how to talk better to other people on your team. If you want to learn how to handle conflict, even in your personal life. Head over to Uncharted.com/conflict Our team has put a mailing list together. 

Sign up for this mailing list, it’s different than the Dr. Andy mailing list. This one will get you all of the details as soon as they are ready to drop for the certificate. And were not going to want to miss out. It almost ready. And now, 

back to the podcast. 

Dr. Andy Roark: for the third type of case that comes in, the one that we recognize walking into the exam door we’ve got, let’s, let’s take your cat, for example, and they say, oh, you know, I was bathing the cat or whatever, and I’m doing x rays, and this cat’s got multiple healing, and Orthopedic wounds things like that, and I think this is not, this is not right at all.

What, what does that reporting process look like, Kris? Like, where, where do I, where do I go with this idea? Which, of course, I would probably still question myself. I’d probably be like, ah, it doesn’t look good. It doesn’t look right. What are, what are the steps that I can take?

Dr. Kris Otteman: Yeah, that, that’s just, that is the most common feeling I think that we have as colleagues is like, what do I do? So the first thing is just get that basic training on knowing how to document, just photos, documenting, communication And then be prepared by knowing who in your jurisdiction you report to.

Now this can be a little tricky because it’s different based on county and state that you live in. But a really quick easy way is to go to the Animal Legal Defense Fund website, click on your state, look at your jurisdiction, ask around in your area, who do I report suspected animal abuse to? And then you can also find out, am I a required reporter?

Because in most states in the United States now, veterinarians are required to report suspected animal abuse. And so, and we’re also in many states we are not subject to civil or criminal liability when we report in good faith. So, those are important things to know. Go look and find your laws.

Understand who to report for, report to. It’s usually okay to just call local law enforcement and they will guide you. Oh, you know, they might say in some jurisdictions you need to call the local animal control. You need to call this humane society. They have sworn officers or we will take the case. So, you can always start with law enforcement.

Dr. Andy Roark: So. I’m just sort of thinking through what this actually would look like going down in the practice. So I’ve got the cat. I’ve done my documentation. I’ve called, you know, the person in my area that I’m supposed to call. Or I’ve called law enforcement and communicated this. So now I’m hanging up the phone.

I’m still in the clinic and I’ve still got the cat and the person is presumably still waiting in the exam room is so like, where do I, where do I go from this? Do you, do you go in and you say to the person, Hey, I have these suspicions or I’m going to have to hold on to your animal. Do you, do you generally go on and let them take the pet and know that law enforcement is going to follow up with them?

Like I, I don’t mean to be naive, but honestly I, I have

Dr. Kris Otteman: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. This is a super common and excellent question. You know, I think it is a lot about judgment. How is it going in that relationship in the room? In this scenario, many times the person presenting the injured pet, it’s typically a cat or a small dog, the person that did the abuse is likely not there.

And so the veterinarian and technician can have an opportunity to say, tell me more about how you think this happened. Who, who could have had access to your kitty today or in the last few days? Have you noticed any other injuries in the last few months? So you can do a little bit more of your own basically interview in terms of getting clinical information that’s relevant to what you’re seeing.

If you really think, especially if the animal is in urgent, you know, an urgent situation and really needing to be kept, then of course, do whatever you can do to keep the animal in the hospital. Maybe the client goes home, signs a release for care while you wait for law enforcement to come on the scene.

And then really, it’s important for the veterinarian to understand we are not the investigator and we are not the judge and jury. We are the expert that can tell the story for the animal in terms of what this could have been like for the animal, how it could have hurt. or not what the injuries are.

Are they permanent? Are they fatal? And so on. But then the investigator will come to us and say, Okay, Andy, show me your report. What did you hear? What did you see? And then they need, they will take it from there.

Dr. Andy Roark: So, Kris, the way this sounds to me, and again, it is, I think, I think it sort of clicked into my mind here, basically what you’re saying is, I’m going to work this case up like another case. I’m going to go back and say, you know, let’s, let’s go back into the history. And that, that’s really kind of, kind of, at least, at least how I kind of hear it is, what else could have happened?

Is there other people who could have been there? You know, things, things like that of, of, in, in my mind, you know, I don’t know, I’m always, I’m not, I don’t see myself as an interrogator, I don’t see myself as an investigator, but I can take a pretty darn good clinical history, and I definitely am good at looking at diagnostics, going back to the owner and saying, well, what I’m seeing here is not lining up with these things, let’s, let’s talk more, let’s go more deeply into possible causes of what could be going on here, and I think that those are muscles that I already have.

That I, that I, I think I can lean into, and that also doesn’t feel out of character for me. So I go, okay, I can go back into this, I can continue to document, I can look for, you know, continue my diagnostic workup, quite honestly, is sort of how I would, how I would sort of frame it.

Dr. Kris Otteman: Yeah, I think that’s framed exactly right because we aren’t expected and we should not step into the role of law enforcement or investigator, right? We’re not trying to get a confession in the exam room. We’re really just trying to, exactly like you said, suss out that history a little bit more you.

Because that will lead us to maybe further diagnostics, more notes in our report, and it will help shed light on whether or not this could have been an accident or it was intentional. So, that’s a really great way to explain it.

Dr. Andy Roark: Well, I really like the fact that you pointed out the person who is doing animal abuse is probably not the person in the exam room. And I think that that helps me to go, okay, I feel more comfortable continuing, you know, the history taking and going back and talking to this person. And it helps, I think it would help me in the moment to say, well, this is probably the person who’s in this room.

Wow. My initial reaction should be that person should die. It should not, that’s not, that’s not, that’s not where we are. You know what I mean? It’s probably, probably not them. You know what I mean? Let’s not make assumptions. Let’s continue to do our workup. Get our, get our story, get our history, document, document, document.

I, I think that all, you’ve made this much more accessible to me in my mind. So this is really helpful. So at this point, we’ve done our diagnostics, we’ve communicated with the appropriate person. I’m going to go ahead and definitely link up the Animal Legal Defense Fund website in the show notes so people can check that.

I need to go check that because I don’t know who my person is. And so this has been hugely valuable. The, the idea The, the five, the five view photos, the, the far, medium, and close photos, like very, very, very useful information. I feel like at this point we’ve got law enforcement involved. I’m gathering as much information as I can.

I actually feel like I can be a good supporter of this pet and an advocate for this pet. And I’m not in over my head. I, I feel like I know, I know what I’m doing and I’m not, you know, acting. I’m not, I’m not turning into Supercop. Like that, that’s, I, I feel like I’m in a 

Dr. Kris Otteman: Right. Yeah. And you can write up a summary and give it to whoever’s going to be taking it off your hands and and feel good about that contribution and then they’ll take it from there. So, that’s huge. 

Dr. Andy Roark: Kris, is there anything else I should have top of mind here? Because I feel like we’ve walked through this pretty well. I’m going to put a link to your book in the show notes so people can check it out. But any, anything in the process that we haven’t talked about that, that I should, I should make sure that I keep top of mind.

Dr. Kris Otteman: I think as far as the process goes, it’s always just great to not only have a lifeline to who you’re going to report to, but is there somebody in the profession or a colleague that you would want to talk through? Just like doctor to doctor, we talk about internal medicine cases, or derm, or ortho, or whatever.

Is there somebody else in your community? You want to call Kris, call Kris, call somebody to just say, Hey, I’m seeing this. What are the other tips that I need to be thinking about to get through this and come up with a succinct report? We don’t want to leave cliffhangers in our report, but we don’t want to make accusations that are not founded.

It’s not our job. We want to be thorough. We want to be, you know, helpful, but not retaliatory or judgmental. So it is a tricky walk. I would say, you know, looking at the resources that you mentioned, one of the things that, that I did with my colleagues is take a lot of the book and create an online asynchronous course for people who are interested for vets, vet techs, law enforcement, just to get some of these basics, having, you know, who do you call?

How do you do this? Having a policy in your practice that upholds reporting. Because you would be surprised, some practices have a policy that says we won’t report because we don’t know for sure. And that’s, that’s the opposite way we want to go. But yeah, look at, look at the course, look at the book, look at Animal Legal Defense Fund, our website, Victim to Verdict

has some good resources and links that would help. And of course I’m always available to colleagues around the country. Love to help our profession and the animals that we love and help us be the voice.

Dr. Andy Roark: Kris, you are so great. Thank you for what you do for our profession. Thanks for what you do for the pets. I am going to link up Victim to Verdict website as well. The, the, the online course, things like that. Guys, take a look at this stuff. Check it out. It’s something that we should all be up on and just be, at least have in our search image.

So, Kris, thank you so much for being here. You’re just, just amazing. Guys, thanks for tuning in. Take care of yourselves, everybody! 

Dr. Kris Otteman: You’re welcome. Thank you. Thank you, Andy.

Dr. Andy Roark: And that’s what we got for you guys.

Thanks for being here. Thanks to Kris for being here. Thanks for sticking with me. This is super important. It was really good to get this information out to people and it’s just I mean I was really honest in the podcast to say I didn’t know a lot of this stuff. That’s just I have some sort of rose colored glasses. I tend to think the best about people and I just don’t tend to look at people and think that they could be animal abusers or that their pets could be abused.

I don’t want to live in that world where that’s the first thing that I think. But I think it’s good to have it lurking in the back of my mind. And I think in the future, you know, pay attention and make sure if something does come through my doors, I want to catch it. And I want to say something about it and I want to put a stop to it.

And that’s inspiring to me. So anyway, guys, take care of yourselves. Be well. I’ll talk to you later on.