It's Night Side with Dan Ray. I'm WBZ Koston's Radio.
Our number two away here at BZ. My name Morgan W. Junior, filling in for Dan Ray. Dan will be back. I'm expecting on the twelfth of August next Monday. I'm here tonight until midnight tomorrow and Friday as well, eight to midnight. And I want to tell you that my next guest is the president and director of Licensed Wildlife Rehabilitator at Hair of the Dog and Hair is spelled Hare and that's in Massachusetts. And remember, the heat is dangerous to
injured wildlife and domestic pets. Dehydration happens quickly, and you have to kind of watch out, not just for your pets, but depending on where you live, there may be squirrels or raccoons or rabbit apossums in your immediate neighborhood, in your yard. You've got to pay attention to make sure that they two are healthy. Believe it or not, squirrels can fall out of trees. And if you don't believe me, my guest, Mariel McCann can speak to that. Marielle, Welcome to BESY and good evening to you.
Thank you so much, good evening to you too.
Now, how is it that a squirrel can fall out of a tree?
Now, generally there's two ways that I usually see, maybe three. Two ways that I usually see are if their babies and their mama isn't around anymore, whether you know it's a hawk or you know different ways. Then when they get hungry enough, then they'll start looking for food and they find a way down. And we always say the bravest one comes down first, so they'll climb down in hopes to find food somehow, even with their little eyes closed.
And so then they'll be crawling around the ground looking for someone, sometimes with some facial injuries, that sort of thing. And then they'll find their local rehabber like myself or there's a bunch of us listed on mass dot gov. Find a rehabber and you can find one close to you, and then we can give you great advice on whether they need help or not. In that situation, one hundred percent, it needs help, Okay.
And now I'm going to say people, you've heard this. I know listening to BZ during the day, the newscasts repeatedly tell you about not just animals, but our kids don't leave pets and kids in the hot car while you run to buy bread and milk from the store.
Don't do that, Oh absolutely so in ten minutes on a seventy five degree day, in ten minutes, your car goes up to ninety degree. So you know, if you have an English bulldog or a French schees are so popular now. Any of those short nosed dogs, they have a hard time recovering, so anytime left in there then it's really dangerous, very quickly for them. You know, there's stats obviously, if it's a ninety five degree day, ten minutes,
it's one hundred and fourteen in your car. So we are thankful that Massachusetts did make the law that now we can we do something about it. So if you see a pet that isn't a car and you're worried about it, there are rules and steps to take to
save that dog or cat. Sometimes that happens as well, but reaching out to your local police station or animal control officer and trying to find the owner, and if you can't, then you can't and that owner is out a new window replacement costs and up to one hundred and fifty dollars fine be because pets are important to the state of Massachusett.
I'm going to make our conversation personal. This is Mriol and Morgan. No go back one. It's about Joseph. I know that Joseph. I know Joseph loved you, and you love Joseph, but.
I certainly did.
Joseph never wrapped his tail around your neck, did he.
Well, you can only be so special, you know.
Right, Joseph would consistently if I'm in bed, he would come into the bedroom and wrap his tail almost completely around my neck.
Yeah, he was pretty pretty close to perfect.
And I know Nancy told you the story about the flesh off. I'm not going to tell the story again on the air, but next time you speak to Nancy Hafer, retell that story to you. No, I'm going to ask people if you want to call him six one, seven, two, five, four, ten thirty or eight eight, eight, nine to nine, ten thirty. And Mariel, we hit thirty eight states with our signal and also parts of Canada, so you've got a wide audience if you want to call it. Maybe some go ahead.
There may be some wildlife. I'm not familiar, not familiar with rehab wives in some of those other states. Right, I have advice for our ones in Massachusetts.
Okay, And if you were calling from an area that does have wildlife raccoons, possums, rabbits, mariell can speak to quick care. But always if you can let a professional know. What's that eight hundred? You didn't mention an eight hundred number, but you did mention a number that allows you, an everyday citizen to get in touch with professionals. What is that information?
Well on Massachusetts. So Massachusetts is the mass dot gov, so every state will have their own wildlife listing and mass dot gov. Find a Rehabber is the fastest and easiest way to find a local rehab rehab center near you, and it will give you phone numbers and how to contact and what animals they take care of, and everyone can give you advice on whether an animal even needs help. We never want to we never want to take in
a baby that it's mama's looking for it. So calling an educated rehabber is the way.
To go for that.
Okay. I've got to break coming up in about a minute, and I'm going to ask you to touch on these two subjects. Rabies are obviously something that people need to be aware of and ticks. Tell a lot of people don't know what a tick looks like, and they don't know where to look for a tick on their dog a cat. I remember when I was a kid, I
used to spend summers in a community called Plimpton. We had family down there and they had a big old dog and my aunt Margaret, every now and then would have to pull ticks off this dog because the dog ran into the brush consistently chasing whatever. And a lot
of people may have never had to do that. So I want to talk about rabies and ticks and again, people, if you want to call in Mario mccanna's hair and she can help you with the care and proper treat meant of your kitty, your puppy, your iguana, whatever you may have. Six one, seven, two, five, four, ten thirty eight eight, eight, nine to nine, ten thirty and the show's night side. The time is nine point fifteen and the temperature is sixty six degrees.
Now back to Dan ray Li from the Window World night Side Studios on w b Z, the news radio.
Dan is off. I am here Morgan right, Junior, and I'm speaking with the president and Director of Licensed Wildlife rehibator. I was doing so well until I got to that word rehabilitator at hair Hare of the Dog in Massachusetts. Her name is Mariol mckainn, and Mariol before the break, I want to know about ticks and I wanted to know about rabi's. Which one do we tackle first?
Well? I deal with both relatively routinely at this point. Now, raccoons are the majority of what I rehab They're my favorite. I say that about a lot of species, but they're my favorite. So both ticks and rabies is something that raccoons deal with routinely. Kick Why is that?
I'm sorry for interrecting, but why is that a common malady that we find within not just raccoons, but rabbit, squirrels, et cetera. Why do they seemingly have a great proliferation of that disease.
Well, there's different levels of risk for different species, and rabies and bats. Raccoons and bats are up at the top that we see in Massachusetts. So it's certainly something that I'm aware of. I'm not afraid of, but I'm aware of the reason that I'm we take it so seriously because it does transmit to humans and it is one hundred percent. I say one hundred percent. There has been some cases of people you know surviving through, but they're never the same. But you know, once you get symptoms,
you can't fix it. So every single raccoon that is rehabbed and released from hair of the dog is fully vaccinated against rabies as well as other live other diseases as well. But rabies is you know, something that it's caused by, uh, It's spread through the animal biting another animal. So any fighting, any communication you know, these social animals is more apt to spread more rapidly. I feel as if, you know, without the actual data to the end of the year, it feels like I'm seeing it a little
bit more this year than I have others. I don't know why, but you know, I've known of a couple other rehab as well that have dealt with it more this year than they have others. I am very thankful to the USDA and mass Doc GOV for helping to support and do testing and epidemiology for helping to educate us through whether an animal is at risk or not and what signs they're showing and what we should do if we are if you know, if we're worried about that.
I think, yeah, ticks. So we're lucky now. You know, when you were a kid in visiting Limpton, which is close to me here in Pembroke, right, you know, we didn't have the same medications and preventatives that we do now we're I'm very thankful of all the different options that veterinarians have for for ticks and fleas that it
is so much better than it used to be. But ticks are so much more common now too, so we're kind of it's a double edged sort physical removal of ticks, finding them in those spots behind the ears, in the ears, on the belly where there's less spur, you know, seeing
those you can always send pictures to your vet. I can't tell you how many times a client has tried to pick a nipple off for a day and a half and then find out that it wasn't a tick, right, So you know that sort of education, having a relationship with your veterinarian is really important and showing what you know. They can educate you on the different pros and cons of flea preventions and tick preventions that works for you, you know, it depends on what you're most worried about.
Wire ticks so common among deer. I mean you even hear the phrase deer ticks, that's how common.
It's a type of Yeah, it's a type of tick, and they it's a social animal thing as well. They're always walking through you know, they're going through the grasses and they're covered. It's hey, it's better than the ticks with moose up north of us. You know, they have it worse than us. I always hear. So you know, what we have to do is make sure that the wild stays wild. And you know, we're encroaching on all of their land. They don't have anywhere to go, so
they're in your yards and spreading stuff. But really, the majority of wildlife that I get in, whether they're injured or orphaned, they have some sort of ecdo parasite, so just a parasite that lives on the outside of them, and fleas and ticks. The animals are covered in them, so it's not just here, they're they're all getting them.
You mentioned people have sent in photos and other communicates to you. What is your website? So if somebody listening right now has a question and they want to get in touch with you, how do they do it.
Yeah, we're hair offthdog dot org and and as you said that, it's hair h A R E. And so they can send in questions. There there's a section where you can you know, you can donate, you can contact me, there's things to purchase if you know you want to help support. Everything goes directly to the rehab and the care of the animals, and or texting me at seven
seven four two seven seven zero seven five five. Pictures are always a huge help I can that way, I can see you know, sometimes I can tell that an animal needs to be rehabbed immediately based off the picture. I don't even need the story in the background. And that can be hugely helpful. Or I can help you find the resource that can help you.
Okay, why is it in this day and age listening right now? Thirty eight states worth of people and parts of Canada. Tomorrow somebody's going to put little Peppy a little fife in the cage in the back seat and wind up the windows. What does it take to get across the people? Don't do that? Leave the dog at home for goodness sake?
Yeah, I don't know. We want to bring our pets everywhere. They're family. I totally get that, but there's a lot of our animals we are breeding to be very cute in that cuteness. Those all those breakycephalic I say, the short note dogs, the bulldogs, they cannot recover. So you know, German shepherds are longer nosed dogs can recover a little bit better. But they don't want to be in your car. Are They don't want to be tied out outside your car that it just leaves them at home. Go run
your errands and then bring them inside. Keep them inside, take your walks in the morning or the evening when it gets a little bit cooler, and that can be really helpful as well. Some people tell me that their dogs, like if they don't get their run, if they don't get their jog, if they're not outside playing, then they're so anxious use use their brain more than their body on days that it's riskier for them. Teach them a
new trick. Using that brain will also settle that anxiety to when they can't be out and use in exercising because you don't want to. You know, if they start doing that frantic panting, that over drooling, labored breathing, big, wide chested stance. You're going to have to bring them to the er, so it's not worth the risk.
I remember as a kid, and I couldn't tell if it was Channel four, five or seven, but one of the weather people had a story on in the middle of summer. The pavement was so hot you could fry an egg, and they cracked open an egg right on a downtown sidewalk. If it's that hot to fry an egg, imagine if you are walking barefoot, as your dogs have to, their paws are not meant to absorb that type of heat. Talk to the listeners about what you can do to protect your pet's feet from walking on hot pavement.
So the general rule of thumb is if you can put the backside of your hand down on pavement and it's comfortable, then they'll be okay. But if you hold it down there for five ten seconds and it's burning, I mean, that's their paws burning. And so we see lots of burns, and you know, cares of those popads because of heat. They do sell plenty of shoes, they sell, there's tons of products for that, but really keeping them off of pavement walking, you know, like I said, walking
in the morning or the evening is really helpful. And you know they have go on grass. Go on grass. It's more fun anyway, you know you.
Can, yes, but some people necessarily don't have that option. Let's say you live in the core of the city. There's not necessarily you might have to walk I half a block to get to the park area with his grass.
Yeah, then I would go with the shoes. So they do sell dog shoes. Some are better than others, and that you just want to make sure that they're good rubber sold bottom ones that stay on nicely, and then just making sure that when you get home and they're not wearing them anymore, that their feet are knife and dry, and you know it didn't gather too much moisture in between the toes or anything like that.
All right, As you know, I am a cat owner, so I want to talk more now about cats. And I don't know why people put a cat on a leash, because that's just not natural for them. But when we come back from the break, let's talk about cats or anything you want to talk about out there where I've already got a call from Weymouth six one, seven, two, five, four, ten thirty or eight eight, eight, nine to nine, ten thirty.
This is Nightside. My name is Morgan, Morgan White Junior, and I've got Mario McCann with me, and we're talking about your pets. Time and temperature nine thirty sixty six degrees.
You're on the Night Side with Dan Ray on w B Boston's.
Yes, you've got night Side and Dan is not here. I'm Morgan, my guest Mariel McCann and tell you what Mariel before we go to the question I put to you before we took the break. Let's take a phone call because she's been holding for five minutes. Linda and Weymouth, thank you for calling in. Welcome to Night's Side.
Hi, greetings, enjoy the show you. I have neither a cat nor a dog, but I'm a dog can't lover. And I listened to your radio and i've stationed and I've heard in the morning the mosquitoes are out. Yet I just heard from her the ticks are not out in the morning. Can you help me flip the coin better?
Yeah, so that's not the morning and evening advice. That's for the heat itself ticks her out all day. It really feels like every day. Now, even in the winter time, we're getting some breakthroughs. Anytime it gets above I think thirty surrey thirty six degrees, we start seeing ticks wake up and start looking for a meal. So they're a risk regardless the morning and evening. That's for temperature and more shade at those times too, So it's for those safeties.
You're going to want to use your tick prevention year round regardless. And mosquitoes as well, because as we know, they can carry the heartworm disease.
Okay, yeah, because maybe I misheard it or missed one of the words on it, but thank you for clarifying. So morning and eating are okay odd times. But check check your animals anyways.
Yeah, absolutely, yeah, absolutely, especially.
I know what if you have an outdoor dog. But then I mean you've got a doggie door in your kitchen and the dog comes and goes on their own into the backyard. If you have a backyard bushes and trees and shrubs, you may have tick issues.
Check the check the animal always, every day, every day, even if you have indoor pets only and you're coming in and out, you're out in the garden and you come inside.
Sometimes we'll bring them in and then they'll stay on the pets.
So that's yeah, I get nervous. Excuse me, I get nervous just walking around on the grass.
Right, yeah, I understand all but you know you don't want to stay indoors all the time. Go out and have fun, but you know, be aware of your rests. Absolutely all right, Linda, thank you for the call.
Hope we've helped.
Thanks for clarifying. Thank you, bye, thank you.
All right. I asked this question before the people that attach a leash to a cat. It's you and I both know it takes a lot to train a cat too.
No, when they're little, No, when baby someone love it. I have no problem with that. I don't minding a baby carriage or a dog and a baby carriage. Oh yeah, no, I've learned. I've learned to love it. Absolutely all right.
I'm wrong, but I just think you're not wrong. I just think that some felines, I mean, you see the well you used to see the lion tamers and the circus or the old Sikh Freed and Roy and Vegas shows they're dealing with Yeah, yeah, you're dealing with four hundred pounds tigers and lions and whatnot. I think that felines resist training when it comes to that sort of thing. I could be wrong.
Yeah, you might be. You might be on this one.
Okay, All right now I'm gonna shift right in mid sentence.
Let's talk about got you trained great?
Has me trained great? Has me trained? Believe me? Let's let's talk about food. You see these commercials on TV telling us that food X, type of food X is better than type of food? Why coming from you? What are the better foods for our pets? Deal with dogs first and then cats?
Well, this can be wildly controversial, and I am fine with whatever people want to do as long as they're doing it right. So if you're gonna cook it home, great, work with your vet, Work with a vet that will do that. Work with a system like balance it dot com, something that will help you to make sure that you're doing it balanced and correctly. You know, if you're doing raw food, make sure that it's food that's made to
be raw. You can't just go to the grocery store and pick up any food that is supposed to be cooked fully and then feed it to your animal. It's dangerous for you and the animal. For more of the processed kibbles and things like that. I personally, I think that you know, switching every so often is good for them. Doing that slowly, although that can be very controversial. Some can have some GI issues and some problems with that.
So you know, you have to find out from your vet, whoever your trusted person is, who is in line with you on what kind of food you want to be feeding a dog. And if you're already feeding something and everything is wonderful, great stick with that. Want to commercial change your mind or anything like that unless your vet tells you.
There are these commercials that tell you this is food meant to be stored in the refrigerator. And I remember when I was young and I have a dog, cannil rationing out the can was good enough. But nowadays that's just not the way to look at what you should give to your dog.
Yeah, I mean, there really is pros and cons. So, you know, the canned food has less of hydration. But sometimes, you know, we talk about different additives and what the process was to get it canned and get it shelf stable, and you know, when look dry stuff with the additives are that sort of thing for you know, I personally I home cook for my three dogs, but I don't for my two cats because it's too much to do properly for cats for me at the point.
Oh, the cats are calling you all kinds of name under their breath. Yeah, the dogs get cooked food. What do we get?
The cats will get some, but they it's hard to balance the cat's diet without getting kind of gross. So we do us personally. We do the majority of gently cooked whole foods, but it is prepackaged. It is a company that makes it for cats and then the dogs. We home cooks for the dogs because we have nothing better to do. I guess I'm not sure.
Okay, all right. I remember the old days when everything was from Purina and then all of a sudden gravy train came around, which, because it was an activity, you put the gravy train nuggets for like for bitter term in your feeding bowl and add water and now it's supposed to be a gravy type of treat for your doggie.
Yeah, you might be aging yourself. I think I remember those commercials.
I am aging.
I am aging myself. Yes, And I'm going to.
Tell you I remember the burgers. There are little burgers. Yeah, I grew up.
Well, I remember that. You used to have to break them apart.
Yeah. Yeah, she loved those. She loved those. She lived a long time. But it's different. Things are different now. We're breeding dogs differently. They're more sensitive than they used to be. There's you know we're we're doing. We're doing a lot of breeding. I'm going to I rescue English bulldogs. So we have a lot of problems we're up against.
I'm going to tell you a quick story. Then they have to take a break. I used to own this is in the eighties. Brother and sister German shepherds. He was bigger than she. He was easier for me to train. I had them. I had bought books and videotape on how to train German shepherds, both to voice commands and to hand gestures. You live in the city. You want your dog to understand commands instantly. When it came defeeding them,
I tried each of them with their own bowl. She would eat all of his and then half of hers, leaving him half.
She sounds smart, and then.
I figured, okay, I'll work this out. I just had one bowl. She would eat first, eat half of what I put in the bowl, leaving him half. He knew not to go near the bowl until she had finished what she was going to consume. That was the system, the way they had worked it out as brother and sister. She was in charge.
It sounds like an excellent partnership.
Yet and still he was the alpha dog when we went out, and he would be first to obey a command of stay, go, let's move. And in the house she was in charge.
Yeah, yeah, yes, don't don't you see that routinely? That makes perfect sense to me.
Well, it took a while for them to train me to that level of behavior. Anyway, let me take my final break. Anyone else might want to do what Linda did. You want to call in and speak to Marion McCann, who is here to help us understand better ways to treat our pets, especially during the summer. Six one, seven, two, five, four, ten thirty eight, eight, nine to nine, ten thirty. This is night Side. I am Morgan. You should know who you are. Time and temperature nine forty five sixty six degrees.
Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World Nightside Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Dan is not here. He'll be back on Monday. I'm Morgan. I am here and my guest Mario McCann is with me until the top of the hour. Bradley J. Will be here next hour for you legendary fans of BC and WBC in history. Bradley J. Will be here shortly after ten o'clock and Mario, we have a call from the Catskills upstate New York. So Margie and the Catskills, thanks for taking the time to call. Welcome to night Side.
Thank you. My first question will be I imagine Massachusetts has a DEC agency.
What is the EC.
It's an agency in New York State, the Department of Environmental Conservation. Okay, is there one in Massachusetts?
Mario?
Well, I'm under the Department of Fish and Wildlife, so that's who we get all of our rules and support from, as well as RAM, which is the Wildlife Rehovers of Massachusetts Association of Massachusetts. So that's who I am generally under.
Well, I'm glad there's not a DEC in your area. Their publicity is if you have a wounded animal, you see an injured dear people in New York State call the DEC. Those of us that have been around fifty years or more like myself. That's the last agency of the government you want to call. Their number one goal is to get as the animal. So it's just unbelievable. If they show up at your house, that's the end
of the animal. So we find that working with our local police department, if there's a problem, they know the local animals, they will try everything to preserve the animal's life.
Okay, So in Massachusetts, we do have the Department of Environmental Protection, so we do have environmental officers and our everyone that I've come in contact with has been wonderful. They'll only you know, they only euthanize if it's in the best interest of the animal. Deer that you mentioned, there's lots more rules for deer because they are so much more dangerous with like one on one with people,
so rehabbing them. The instances that we find that they're rehabible deer are much lower than there are other species. But our EPO, so our Environmental Protection officers are really wonderful in Massachusetts thankfully. So you know, I'm glad that we don't deal with the same problems, and you found a way around it to find trusted officials near you to help with that. But I've heard wonderful things out of the New York Wildlife rehabber is also though you guys have a great network too.
You know it's great we have. Thirty years ago was the first time I saw a deer on my property. I have only two acres, but at borders a far not deer, but bear, and I haven't seen a bear in thirty years.
Now.
There's bears all over town anytime the day. Do you have bears up there?
I love that Massachusetts have plenty of bear.
I love it. I love it.
Black bear we actually did for the first Yeah, black bear. We had them for the first time last year on the property. And I just in love, just in love. But we you know my you know, my family took me to Maine all my childhood. It really is one of my favorites. Maybe someday they'll be down here enough that I can rehab, you know, get special permission to rehab some black bear. That would be a dream.
MARGIN tell you one little story before I let you go.
Margie, hold on, hold on, now, let you tell you a story. You live in the cat Skills, right, I know that the Catskills as a resort area has changed drastically over the past thirty forty years. Did you or do you live near the property that was called Grossingers.
Oh, that's a see, the cats skills are very different. I'm in Woodstock, which is very rural. Sixty nine percent of our town is Floris. But I all everyone knows Grossingers and all the resorts, and it's really funny. They're all ethnic. So you have the Jewish cat skills and the Irish at skills, and to this day there still is that going to the cat skills. But you know what did in all those resorts when airplane trips came in.
Before that, there was railroads and cars, and people came to the cat skills once they could fly off someplace. That's what killed it.
Well, I used to play groceringers. I played grocerers on three different occasions.
What a beautiful place it was.
And this is a real fast story. Then I'll let you tell the story you started. My then wife and my son, who was two years old. I brought them with me on one of my trips up there, and my son couldn't walk as of yet, and he was crawling around all the rooms. Obviously wild wall carpet and his favorite toy was up on the bed and he was on the floor. The first time he ever took a step was at Grossingers. He got up, walked over to the bed, reached for his toy, got his toy,
went back to play on the floor. True story. Now, MAR'TI tell you a story.
Okay, it's very brief. The last bear, well, no, not the last one, because they're all over. But I'm very fortunate on this one. For some reason, I didn't open my door in the morning. I decided to look out the window before I opened the door, and I look out and there are three of the cutest small black bear cubs sitting down in my driveway. And I thought, thank god, I hadn't open the door, and I'm just watching them. They're sitting there, very attentive, looking into my carport,
and I figure, what's going on? In my carport? I had empty bins, these huge bins, well they came flying out through the air and gte were empty, and the three little cubs were taking it all in as education. And then the huge mama, she must have been two three hundred pounds, she came out disgusted. There was nothing in the bins, and she gathered them up and then I really worry because they'd have no road since whatsoever. You know, I was so lucky to see them all
cross the road. But that's my beer cub tail. Thank you so much, Morgan, Margie, thank you for taking the time to call.
Don't be such a stranger. Good night. Now that goes Margie and Mario. One more time. I want you to tell people your title, how they can get in touch with you, either electronically or your phone number, and any of the details you want to share with my audience. So I'll give you a full minute.
Sure. So, hair offodog dot org is our website. We are on Instagram and Facebook as well, and that's where we usually post most of our updates and you know what animals we're getting in and what procedures we're doing. Sometimes in the busy season it gets quieter because I either have to take care of animals or post on Facebook, you know, one or the other. And then that's also where you can donate a list of supplies, Amazon, wish lists, Venmo and PayPal however you'd like to help. We also
connect with other rehabers in the state of Massachusetts. We couldn't do it without other rehabers. We're always looking for more rehabbers, so by all means, please email me at Hair ofthe Doog Farm at gmail dot com. And especially if you're interested in becoming a rehaber. If you have any medical background or animal background, it's a plus, but it's not necessary. But there's always a need for more of us.
And here and hair is spelled like the rabbit h A r.
E h A r e. Yeah, people don't. I'm surprised that people that don't know the saying of hair of the dog take a hair of the dog that bit you, right, and the old hangover cure, but so we called it hair of the dog, you know, to keep you from being hungover. And so that's our joy is doing this.
Mariol Thank you very much, and I'm going to have you on again in the fall to talk about separate issues of fall and winter for your pets. You take care and I've really enjoyed this.
Thank you, Thank you so much for having me.
Bye bye, Mario. All right, everybody, Bradley Jy. Next hour time nine point fifty eight, temperature sixty six degrees