Marty and Laura tackle the high cost of vet care, everything from WHY the cost is so high to pro tips on ways you can help keep costs manageable.

Laura said, "I ran across (an article) in a magazine called Money Wise, and it says that half of America's 87,000,000 pet owners have decided against vet treatment. And it it continues that for many Americans, the cost of caring for their pets has become unbearable. A Gallup poll found 52% of US pet owners say that they've had to put off veterinary care because of the cost. A whopping 7...

Foxtails and Algae and Snakes and Alligators, Oh My!

Summer vacation with dog as co-pilot, as Marty and Laura discussed last month, is well under way. Today they bring important information to help keep your pet safe in the late summer at various locations around the country. Whether it's foxtails, blue green algae, poisonous snakes or alligators, your pet can encounter a variety of environmental challenges.

Skunks and porcupines also get rolled into this wide-ranging conversation about what to avoid and what to do if you can't avoid some of these dangers for your pet.<...

A Day in the Life: Answers to Your WTF Questions at the Vet

Marty and I talk a lot. Like we talk pretty much, maybe not daily, but we talk every week. And I interact with people on a daily basis who work in veterinary clinics. I think it's really hard, sometimes, for us as clients to appreciate what's going on in the veterinary clinic. 'The receptionist just snarked at me. I've been sitting here for 45 minutes, like, what the F?'

So I thought it would be really great if Marty would talk to...

Bombproofing Your Pet for the Big Booms

Marty and Laura tackle the big booms of summer, fireworks and thunderstorms, and how we can bombproof our pets ahead of time.

LR: You made a comment to me last week when we were together that I thought was so great. We were talking about our phobias, your fear of heights. My claustrophobia. And you're like, 'we don't know why we have these phobias. Dogs don't know why they have their phobias either.' And I just thought that was such a genius comment that I'd never really...

Blastomycosis and Other Fungal Infections

Marty and Laura discuss the dangers of blastomycosis and other fungal infections for our pets as well as their humans.

"Blasto tends to be the upper Midwest," Marty said. "It's frequently found in areas where wood chipping has taken place, so places that trees have been cut down or chipped or garden centers and you know, things along those lines.

"There are other parts of the country that have other kinds of fungal infections. So it's not like if you don't live in Wisconsin that you're safe from...

Osteoarthritis Diagnosis and Treatment

Marty and Laura tackle the topic of osteoarthritis in our pets, diagnosis, treatment and the differences between cats and dogs with this disease.

Oral Hygiene from Teeth to Gums to Beards

Marty and Laura discuss oral hygiene including teeth, gums and beards. Keeping your pet's teeth clean means brushing them. There are no magic cures.

Oral health impacts the pet's overall physical health directly, Marty said. She recommends visiting the Veterinary Oral Health Council's website to learn about approved and accepted products that can help reduce the severity of periodontal disease in our pets.

"It's not just about how they smell," Marty said, "because (tartar buildup) does have a bad odor to it. It's about their...

Geriatric Cats and Why They Lose Weight

Marty and Laura tackle the topic of skinny old cats, why they lose weight and how to prevent these geriatric diseases.

Cats are NOT, as Laura theorized, “fluffy house plants.”

“Lots of people know when they have a kitten that they need veterinary care,” Marty said. “They need vaccinations, they need deworming, they to be spayed or neutered, all the stuff. And then a lot of cats never see their veterinarian until they're 14, 15, 16 years old in some cases.

Summer Vacation with Dog as Co-Pilot

Marty and Laura drop useful tips and share hilarious stories about summer vacation with dogs.

Top tips from the Pros:

Spring Tune Up for Your Dog

Marty and Laura get you and your buddy off the couch and ready for the spring weather.

"The most important thing is to not overdo it because the tendency is it's finally spring, it's finally nice out. I'm going to go garden all day, I'm going to go on a long hike, I'm going to cut the grass, I'm going to clean the garage, I'm going to do all this stuff that turns out to not really be conducive to not being physically conditioned for it. And it could...

Encephalitis, Meningitis and More

Marty and Laura tackle a really tough topic today, talking about encephalitis and meningitis and other assorted brain and spinal cord inflammation.

“These are scary because the dogs get very sick and it's a very difficult diagnosis to make,” Marty said. “It usually requires some advanced imaging, some advanced testing. It's not an easy diagnosis to nail down and it's not an easy treatment to develop.

This category of illness is complicated due to the variety of causes, from bacterial infection to autoimmune mediated, and the vagueness of the sympto...

Do Stuff with Your Dog, Safely!

Marty and Laura are talking puppercise today with a great run down of the fun stuff to do with your dog and how to do it safely. They even throw in a little philosophy. Like, what is “hiking?” Are we climbing cliffs or strolling on a volksmarch. Hosts discuss.

Back on track, our intrepid hosts cover communicating with our dogs. How to hear what they’re trying to tell us, whether it’s that their feet are hot or they’re tired and need a rest period.

A discussi...

Managing Grief Over Pet Passing

Marty and Laura are joined by Lindsay Stanton, grief coach and author to discuss managing grief after losing a pet.

"At the end of the day, grief and trauma run down very parallel paths," Stanton noted. "And depending on the type of grief that you're experiencing, it can be extremely traumatic. And depending on the way the person or pet passed, it can be extremely traumatic."

"If you're really a dog person or really a cat person, you understand the gravity of that loss," Marty said. "And society...

Types, Causes and Treatment of Seizures

Marty and Laura take on the tough topic of seizures in our pets. They break down the types of seizures, what may cause them and treatment options based on the cause.

Sparked by a listener request to cover the topic when a client dog had a hypoglycemic seizure in a groom shop, this episode is for everyone who owns a dog. All dogs and cats can experience a seizure whether from low blood sugar, ingestion of toxin, various diseases and what is known as “idiopathic epilepsy” which literally means seiz...

Pros and Cons of Dog Parks and Doggy Day Care

Marty and Laura debate dog parks and doggy day care, weighing the risk versus the reward of each.

Dog parks and doggy daycare are convenient solutions to busy schedules. But they do have downsides. We're here to help walk you through some of the considerations.

"Some (doggy daycares) are run really well," Marty noted, "so I don't wanna say that they're all negatively associated. But there are some that have really done well and some that are really not done well.

"...

Home Alone

Marty and Laura tackle separation anxiety, a tough topic for folks trying to manage returning to office life while keeping their pooch entertained.

A lot of “pandemic dogs” that have never had 30 seconds of being by themselves, find a new way of life more challenging.

“So there are some things that you can do to help prepare them for being left alone,” Marty said, “whether it's to go to work or something more significant. And some of them are pharmaceutical and some are non-pharmaceutical. It’s okay to use pharmaceuticals if you need the...

How do We Give Our Dogs the Best Chance at a Long Life

Marty and Laura walk through best practices for giving our pets the best chance for a long life.

Our hosts share their experiences with losing dogs in old and young ages, while providing detailed recommendations to help our pets live long, productive lives.

“So preventive care is going to be probably the most important,” Marty said. “And that means routine blood work. That means routine dental cleanings, that means the right nutrition.

“There's some really important things that we can d...

The whole one year of human life is 7 years of dog life; some of that isn't right.

But it kind of gives us a feel for what we think of puppy, teenager, adult, elder. Marty and Laura walk through those life stages and some of the things that we can do to ease or utilize those times that we have with our dogs. Everyone says it's too short, and they're right. So we talk about some ways to look at it differently and to understand it better.

"Teenagers need to learn boundaries," Marty said. "Teenage...

Aquarium authority (and audio engineer extraordinaire) Lance Woodruff joins Laura while Marty is on a globe-trotting tour of meetings.

Lance walks us through Laura's "box of fish" and everything above and beyond in the colorful and spectacular world of home aquariums.

Filtration, salt or freshwater, fish friends (and frenemies!), tank size, and decorations—we cover the basics of Aquarium 101.

The Eclipse filter – everything in one top for the aquarium:

https://www.marineland.com/products/aquariums/bio-wheel-aquarium-kit.aspx

More beginner information on Marineland filters:

https://www.marineland.com/info...

Marty takes Laura and listeners through the entire pantheon of cat life! 

“Cats are not small dogs and dogs are not big cats,” Marty says. “So cats are a species unto themselves, and they have their own special wants, needs, desires, techniques, food, everything. It's a little different with the cat.

“This is why a spay or neuter in a cat at six or eight months is very appropriate. Now, I don't like to see them spayed or neutered when they're itty-bitty babies. I still think that there's some risk that goes with that. You know, tho...

Marty and Laura take a deep dive into what does and does NOT constitute an emergency for your pet.

"Your dog scratching at his ears, not an emergency. You can wait. Cat can't urinate. That is an emergency," Marty says.

With the nationwide difficulty finding and accessing emergency services for our pets, a little bit of knowledge can save you an enormous amount of time, grief and frustration.

From bloat to dog fight to bloody stools, we take you through the details of what can and can't be managed at home.

...

Marty takes us to school on understanding blocked cats.

“Cats have a very serious medical condition when they cannot urinate. And you can only imagine how A, painful, and B, dangerous, that is, for cats, and it's almost always male cats. I can tell you, I can count on one hand the number of female cats I've seen obstructed, but male cats, pretty commonly. It accounts for about 3 % of all veterinary hospital admissions, so it is a common disorder.

“If you have a cat that's urinating inappropriately, male or female, blood in the urine, not in t...

Marty and Laura tackle some tough topics around when and whether to spay or neuter our pets.

Research has shown that early spay/neuter in dogs causes an increased incidence of several cancers as well as cruciate ligament tears and increased odds of both problematic and nuisance behaviors.

“They don't routinely spay and neuter dogs in the European countries and they don't have a pet overpopulation problem. They don't have a mixed breed overpopulation problem. So when I've traveled in Europe and you go places on the train or go to a restaurant or a ca...

Marty and Laura get waaaaaay into the creepy, the crawly, and the one-celled organisms… All of your pets’ potential parasites in one itchy episode.

Learn about a “tick quest,” “tick nests” that could be under your bed, the potential role of ticks as vectors for diseases up to and including cancer, and more parasitology than you even knew was out there.

Catch up on the life cycle of fleas, the scourge of heartworm and mosquitoes, even “Kissing Bugs.” Then venture into the “bowels” of veterinary medicine with updates on one-celled organisms and actual worms that attack our pets.

Marty and Laura work through what vaccines to give, when, and to which pets. We have science-grounded, fact-based, experience-tested knowledge for everyone.

Marty’s observations:

I think there's a lot of misunderstandings about vaccines, and I hope we can help clarify some of that information. I'm going to start off by saying that I don't want to come off sounding like I'm pro-vaccine or anti-vaccine.

When Jean Dodds and Ron Schultz started talking about vaccinations being given more frequently than they needed to be, I was one of the first people that got on...

Marty and Laura discuss recent concerns and listener questions regarding "bird flu" and the potential harmful impacts on pets and humans. 

Bird flu (H5N1) has caused the death of pet cats, wild cats at a sanctuary, and at least one person in the US. Marty’s recommendation is to feed a prepared diet. If pet owners insist on feeding non-commercial food, they should be sure it is properly cooked to kill potential pathogens.

From the CDC (Centers for Disease Control):

Preparing food:

For poultry: Cooking poultry and eggs to an int...

Puppies under six weeks of age need four meals a day. Most people don't get their puppies until they're at least seven to 10 weeks old. By seven to 10 weeks, three meals a day is appropriate. They should be fed three meals a day until they're six months old. At six months, you can drop to two feedings a day. Two meals a day are appropriate after six months of age for the rest of their lives.

Until then, feed three meals a day because their stomachs, colons, and intestinal tracts are small. The rule of thumb is...

Easy Fix for Top Reason People Rehome Pets

Hot Take #1: Crate training is a good thing. It's an amazing thing. It's a great tool. 

And Hot Take #2: Housebreaking is really simple when you crate train your dog.

“It’s not easy, but it’s simple and it’s absolutely essential, because the number two reason people don’t keep their dogs is housebreaking issues. Number one is biting, and number two is housebreaking. In the cat world, it’s the other way around. Cats that don’t use the litter box—that’s the number one issu...

We have advice for both dogs and cats and maybe even some small critters. Cats do better when they are brought into the home at the same time and age.

“When you double the number of cats, you quadruple the number of litter box issues that you have,” Marty says. “Number one, cats need to have one litter box per cat plus a spare, no matter what. So if you have eight cats, you need nine litter boxes. 

“If you think you're just going to bounce a new cat into the household, then it's all going to...

Dogs, cats, and even rats are on the topic list for Marty and Laura today as they discuss how to choose the best pet to fit your home and family.

They’ll guide you through the process of finding the perfect companion for your lifestyle, making sure your new pet is a good match for your home and everyone in it.

"Home is where someone runs to greet you when you walk in the door." Let’s make sure that someone is the right fit! Marty blows up Laura’s brain with news about cat collar...

Get the inside scoop on Marty and Laura’s backgrounds, including a fun twist where Marty interviews Laura!

Hear about Marty’s journey back to college at 50 to pursue her law degree, why The Marty & Laura Show is a better source of pet advice than Dr. Google, and how a conversation in the women’s restroom sparked the idea for the show!

Marty and Laura bring their unique brand of pet knowledge to the larger pet-loving public in The Marty & Laura Show, launching on Jan. 1, 2025.

We’re excited to bring you these fun, fact-bas...