[00:00:01] Speaker A: The Michael Hatfield remax team presents real estate and more.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: Bay Area real estate is different than all of America and why? What's up with buyers? What's on sellers'minds? How is the market? And much, much more.
[00:00:17] Speaker A: Now here's your host, Michael Hatfield. Welcome to real estate and more show, talking about a sense of family and a sense of community. Our topic today focuses on how very much a pet can make your home a home. We have this morning one of the most esteemed and trusted veterinarians in the Bay area to share his daily experiences in keeping man's best friend and women's best friend as well. Healthy, an amazing man who cares about your pet. He practices with a primary focus on canines and felines. We are fortunate to have Dr. Armand Babud of Oaktree Animal Hospital in Danville with us today to discuss some of the latest on animal care. Welcome, Dr. Armand.
[00:01:05] Speaker C: Thank you, Michael. Thanks for having me.
[00:01:07] Speaker A: Great to have you on the show, sir. Great. You keep these little bundles of joy happy for us. Dr. Armand, how do you do that? I mean, what is your game plan to deal with so many people, with all of these family members that are actually pets?
[00:01:23] Speaker C: Well, Michael, this is actually a joy for me. I don't consider this as a job. I consider it as part of my life. I really enjoy it.
I had difficulty picking what I want to do when I was young. I wanted to be a geneticist and then I wanted to be a dentist. But I decided that I want something that I actually enjoy. And this field actually bring enjoyment every day to my life.
Of course, it also has its tough time. We deal with, in an average day, we deal with a lot of different cases.
We deal with excited, cute puppies and kittens and giving them vaccines and enjoying them. And then we go to some of the tougher cases and just challenging cases, which, again, that's the exciting part of the medicine. People get to know us a little bit more in detail of what we do, and they know I live in the same city that my hospital is. And that makes it even more fun because my neighbor is Also, not only they're my neighbor, but they're also my clients. Sasha, are also you?
[00:02:40] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely we are. I wrote a little article at one time. It was called the home is not a home without Harley. And Dr. Arman is taking care of Harley, and he's doing such a phenomenal job with our puppy, and we're so grateful for it. I noticed as an industry trend, Dr. Aman, there's a shortage of pet veterinarians predicted for 2023 and beyond. I see that you have expanded your days open and daily hours at your animal hospital to seven days a week and open until eight each night. Was this industry shortage of vets the reason you did this or just because you wanted to make sure that folks got their animals taken care?
[00:03:25] Speaker C: You know, one main reason that we opened the hospital or we started the hospital in Danville was, again, as I said, my neighbors, I lived in a neighborhood that is very family oriented and people would from time to time they knew that I'm a veterinarian and they would come to me and they would ask me, hey, my dog just ate, for example, this chocolate, or they just ate something that they were not supposed to do. What should I do? I would tell them to go to their veterinarian and get a visit. However, most of veterinarians are closed after six. Again, main reason is because there is a shortage, shortage of not only veterinarian, but even more important is staff, supporting staff, which is a very important part of our field.
And due to those, again, we have to either close earlier or have shorter hours or won't be able to see that many appointments. People call and we are fully booked. I'm sorry, we cannot see you. And we'll send them to emergency hospitals or 24 hours. And those are a little bit different set up than we are. They only see emergencies and not all the cases are total emergency, but again, we have to send it to them because it's after hours.
[00:04:42] Speaker A: After hours.
[00:04:44] Speaker C: One main reason again, I wanted to not open a hospital, but open a hospital that take care of that issue, at least to some extent. We make a little impact on people's requests. My neighbor's request a hospital that is open seven days a week open till late hours. Again, we are not extremely late, but till 08:00 p.m. Which is better than six or 05:00 p.m. And we are planning to. As soon as we get more staff and more veterinarian, we are going to expand to possibly later. Wow.
[00:05:16] Speaker A: Yeah. I had a client one time that took her little, I think it was a shih tzu dog, to an animal hospital and they couldn't get to her and wasn't really good. So I think she went elsewhere. But it seems like when you care about what you do, you're going to make these extra efforts to help folks and their family members. And there's no way that you can say that a puppy or a dog is not a family member. They're big time part of the community. So in the community, we're really grateful that you're doing that and that you're being participating and trying to deal with the veterinary shortage and taking care of our pets. So thank you for that. I noticed you went to the coveted school of Veterinarians, the University of California, Davis. A great teaching university, is it not?
[00:06:11] Speaker C: Yes. In fact, I went to University of California, Davis for my undergraduate. I was a genetic major. I went to University of California, Davis and I loved it. But after that, I decided to change my major and I went to a Ross university in Caribbean island. And I finished my last year transfer to Oklahoma State University in Silwater and finished my, got pretty much my DVM in Oklahoma State University and moved to Bay area. And I did one years of extensive internship. And then I decided to start my hospital. I worked for a few other veterinarians, then I started my hospital.
[00:06:57] Speaker A: Well, we're sure glad that you did. For sure. Your practice is specialized in taking great care of the dogs and the cats primarily. You don't do lizards or things like that, do you?
[00:07:09] Speaker C: We don't.
When we go to school, they teach us, they telling us for all the animals, and everyone goes to the same school, whether if you're a small animal such as dogs and cats or your equine or your food animal or your exotic animal, we all go to the same school. But when we come out of this school, we can focus on one in some area.
When I went to Oklahoma State University, a lot of people would do mixed animals because the culture is a little bit different there. People have big farm, they have two dogs, cats and two horses and five pigs and lots of different, exactly different animals. And veterinarians, when they go to visit, they take care of the dogs as well as the cats, as well as the cows and everyone else.
[00:07:58] Speaker A: Why not equine? It seemed like equine would be really exciting. We have a good friend that has Sherman Arabian horse ranch. And man, I tell you, they take great care of those horses, the Arabians, they breed them. And I know that there has to be a very good veterinarian taking care of those horses as they go along through life. Why not that?
[00:08:22] Speaker C: For know, equine medicine is amazing field. I actually loved it when I was at a school.
I focused a lot on it. But when I came back to Bay area, I noticed that people like it a lot when you focus in whether a small animal or just equine. And equine is a different setup a lot of time. You don't necessarily have a hospital you go to horses because it's very difficult to transfer sick patients. Some, there are hospitals that they are 24 hours, they have MRI, they have all type of equipments, but most of the time it's a different setup. You have your van or you have your turk and you get in it and you go visit the animal. And again, I loved it. But when I came in here, I decided to focus more on small animal and that's what I picked.
[00:09:17] Speaker A: That's what you picked, what you wanted to do. Some guys like to fly military airplanes, other guys like to fly airliners. Some people don't even care what they fly as long as they're flying. You actually do surgery as well, do you not?
[00:09:30] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:09:30] Speaker A: What's your specialty?
[00:09:31] Speaker C: Well, I'm not a board certified surgeon. However, during my internship I showed extra interest in surgery and I was always welcome to go to surgeries and I learned a lot. I learned a lot of different skills from amazing surgeons again.
And I decided to help out as much as I can.
In the surgical field. We do few surgeries that I would feel comfortable doing, spay and neuter, which.
[00:10:02] Speaker A: Is.
[00:10:04] Speaker C: Very common surgery in our field. A lot of veterinarians can do that one.
[00:10:10] Speaker A: We're going to take a short break. We'll be right back.
[00:10:16] Speaker D: Welcome to the real estate minute with remax expert Michael Hatfield. Michael, tell us about home inspections.
[00:10:22] Speaker E: Inspections are key elements in the home buying process. Professional inspectors determine the condition of a property. If a problem arises in an inspection, your agent guides you with solutions to keep your deal intact.
[00:10:34] Speaker D: Who pays the expense of doing an inspection?
[00:10:36] Speaker E: Sellers often conduct pre market inspections before placing their home on the market. Most buyers get their own inspections when in contract. Whoever orders this service typically pays for it. If repairs are needed, repair costs may be negotiated.
[00:10:50] Speaker D: Does experience help with inspection issues?
[00:10:52] Speaker E: The more experience an agent has, the better he is able to solve inspection problems for you.
[00:10:57] Speaker D: Call 925-32-2775 now to schedule an appointment or complimentary home analysis. For excellence in real estate, call the Michael Hatfield remax team at 925-322-7775 or go to michaelhatfieldhomes.com.
[00:11:14] Speaker A: Now back to our show.
[00:11:17] Speaker F: We're talking with Dr. Armand Babud of Oaktree Animal Hospital in Danville.
[00:11:25] Speaker C: Sometimes we remove a small mass or tumor. We do dentistry, we do some dental surgeries. Again, nothing too fancy. There are board certified dentists that they can do the more advanced surgeries for us, but we do some surgery, we do a lot of surgeries and we also work with a team of board certified surgeons the way that they work is they have their normal job. They work at their specialty practices. However, under days off, they can come to our hospital and they can perform the surgery at our facilities. The benefit of us versus other one is just a little bit lower in the cost of anesthesia and everything else, as well as cost of surgery.
[00:12:13] Speaker A: You have a lot of love for those pets because you've been dealing with a history of them for some time. It would seem like that history is really important. You know who the mom and daddy are? We're mom and daddy humans, but you know who they are. And it's definitely a very important thing to folks these days. And do you ever tend to forget a little bit that you're working on somebody's family member, or do you constantly get brought back to the truth of that?
[00:12:42] Speaker C: When people come to us, we know that these pets are not just pets. They are part of the family. And I have clients that they would go above and beyond, and they do everything. And this is majority of our clients.
People are realizing that these are just not just, not animals. They're just part of. They have emotion, they are part of our life.
They help us. They support us as much as we support them. They teach us as much as we teach them. And these are important things. And again, I see clients, I don't talk to the patient. I talk to the clients most of the time to get my information.
And these clients, again, they're always reminding us that this is part of my family. And we always remember that. We notice that. We appreciate that, and we try our best to treat their dogs like my dog.
[00:13:45] Speaker A: I understand. You know, the thing about I noticed with Harley, the longer I have spent with him, the more that I realize that that german shepherd knows a lot more than I ever gave him credit for. And I've taught him if he wants to say yes, to double blink his eyes, his eyelashes, and he can actually communicate with a yes or by not blinking a no. And you think, oh, you're crazy, Michael. You're just crazy. But no, it's not true.
This is a good time to introduce the fact that Dr. Armand gave Harley this new, it's almost a miracle drug about a week ago. And he said, we're going to give it a try and see if it helps his arthritis. And dogs, when they get arthritis, they don't, hey, my hips ache or this or that. They just don't do all of the things that they've been doing. Well, as a week has passed, this miracle drug seems to be taking effect. He's doing, wanting to jog a little more. He's wanting to do helicopters in the entryway. And he's certainly got his big dog bark going because there were a couple of guys came to the house earlier today. I saw him on ring and died. But I think dogs just know more than we give them credit for. And if we pay attention to that, not only is your relationship with them better, but at least you're not thinking that. They're thinking, hey, what a dumb, this human, dumb person this human is. Do you know the TPLO surgery for dogs? What do you know about that?
[00:15:29] Speaker C: Well, TPLO is the most common orthopedic surgery in the United States. It's pretty much when the dog tear up their coercive ligament. Coercion ligament in human term, it's also known as ACL. Like a football player, basketball player. They tore their ACL.
In veterinary medicine, the surgery is performed completely different than the way that they fix it in human.
And pretty much the orthopedic surgeon will come in and he will perform it. This is a little bit more advanced surgery, but again, it's so common that we'll do it on weekly basis. We have dogs that they come in, they start showing lameness, and we'll take an x ray and then we'll sometimes send them for taking an MRI and we'll diagnose it and we'll consult with the surgeon and the surgeon will fix it.
[00:16:34] Speaker A: Our harley had one, too. It's probably because we weren't walking them. Guess, you know, you got to keep them active every day. And I think that the benefit is mutual because they keep us active every day, too.
So we're talking with Dr. Armand Baboud. He has the oak Tree Animal Hospital in Danville.
Do you actually do those tfklos yourself or do you have a surgeon that actually does that as a colleague or how do you like to do that?
[00:17:06] Speaker C: I don't do them myself, and the reason is because I don't have enough experience. Again, the board certified surgeon, usually they will perform it. They have a lot more experience than me. And they will come in and we'll take care of the anesthesia part and period anesthetic blood work and everything else that we need to do beforehand. And the surgeon will come in, they would evaluate it, they would look at the x rays, and they will perform the surgery at our hospital. That's fabulous, Michael. Just for listeners who don't know what TPLO is, TPLO is Stanford tbl plateau level, osteotomy sorry about that.
Tbl plateau level osteotomy. It is a short term for the surgery that, again, they change the angle of the knee so the knee doesn't pop out its place.
[00:18:00] Speaker A: Wow. Yeah, I know with Harley, it took him a while to recover from it, but I guess that's standard. Once you tear one of those things, it's a real issue. So keep walking your dogs and keep letting them walk you, is the way I see it. I noticed also you have an education and experience in some veterinary acupuncture. Where would you apply that?
[00:18:22] Speaker C: Well, Michael, believe it or not, acupuncture is becoming a big part of our field.
When I started veterinary medicine, at first I didn't believe in it because they taught us at the school to some extent about acupuncture. But the focus was not. Focus was mostly on the western medicine. I remember on the last year of my veterinary medicine when I was at Oklahoma State University, I had to pass the rotation. One of the rotation was acupuncture. And at first in my mind, I said, okay, I'm going to pass this rotation and move on and move to the actual medicine.
But however, when I started it, we would see these patients that they would come into our hospital. We had to, as student, we had to bring them, carry them in because they couldn't walk. They were so weak on their legs and they were painful. Some of them were patient that they were experiencing chemotherapy and they were just not feeling good. And this amazing doctor that we had, she would do acupuncture on them. And this patient, right after one session, they would walk back to the car, they would walk back home, which again, knowing that dogs don't have as much pleasibar effect as we do, I decided that, okay, it is actually working. It is good. So after I finished my veterinarian school, I decided to expand my knowledge, and I went to qi institute in Florida, and I learned traditional eastern chinese acupuncture.
[00:20:02] Speaker F: This is the real estate and more show. I'm your host, Michael Hatfield. We're talking with Dr. Armand Babud of Oaktree Animal Hospital in Danville. It's interesting, I read this quote from C. S. Lewis. It says, we treat our dogs as if they were almost human. That is why they really become almost human in the end.
Now back to Dr. Baboud. He's talking about the benefits of acupuncture.
[00:20:32] Speaker C: And I'm so glad that I did it. Not only it added to my knowledge, but also it opened up my mindset that there are alternative medicine, there are integrative medicine that if that western medication doesn't work, doesn't mean that there is no other option. There are other ways to take care of one problem.
[00:20:56] Speaker A: So it gives the doctor another arrow in his quiver, so to speak, to attack illnesses for your pet. That's really cool. I had never would have thought that acupuncture would been a big deal, but listening to someone of your stature talk about it is very helpful.
Arthritis is a tough thing for dogs. As they get older, you start getting a little rickety. This drug, I've been really impressed with it with harley, and he is very much a part of our know and we want to take great care of him. And having partnership with you and your animal hospital has just been really helpful. Thank you. Thank you.
[00:21:41] Speaker C: Thank you. My pleasure.
[00:21:42] Speaker A: But this one type of medicine just seems to be working.
Does it work on humans?
[00:21:49] Speaker C: Well, I don't think there is alternative in human yet this medication have been used. It just became FDA approved in the United States.
It's by a company named zoidis.
And I used it in the past two and a half months that we've been having it in our hospital. I use it in probably about 20 to 30 patients and I've been getting about 80% positive feedback. And people are telling me that, why didn't you have this medication before? And I told them, I said, because it wasn't FDA approved. We knew about it, but it wasn't available to us. And now I'm glad we have option. Again, this is the beauty of medicine, that it's not a formula. There is not just one formula for when you have arthritis. There are so many things nowadays that we can do again, maybe not to fix it, but to manage it, manage the pain and slow down the progression of arthritis, which is very important.
And again, I believe it's the same thing in human medicine as well. There is not much that they can do to fix it, but we can manage it.
[00:23:02] Speaker A: Well, you know, another area that is interesting is people need to take care of their pet's teeth because there's so much later in life. One guest said today, she said on the back nine, meaning the back nine holes, and she was referring to the age of 50 through the end of the dash. But you need to take care of your pet's dental issues. If not, then there's a lot can go wrong with them, right?
[00:23:30] Speaker C: Yes, that is correct. So dental issue, not only it benefit the dental oral hygiene, but also it's important for the general health of a patient. Those plaques and tartars that they built up on the teeth, they are filled with bacteria. And that bacteria, the first place that they go to, they go to the blood and they go to the heart. So it is important to keep a good oral hygiene. The dog's teeth or cat teeth are very similar composition than similar to human teeth. And we have to, again, if we don't do daily brushing and daily cleaning, the plaques and trotters and calculus can build up.
And again, a lot of time, we see some dogs getting dental cleaning almost once a year.
Even though that they clean the teeth.
[00:24:25] Speaker A: On daily basis, it's going to make them last a lot longer, longevity wise, I would think, you know, an interesting thing that we've noticed in our home also, and maybe it's just me being crazy, but if Harley's not in the house, the second I open the door, it's not that I don't hear his bark or is showing up, but there's a presence there. And I think most pet owners feel this presence with their children, which is dogs and cats. But we immediately, both of us feel that his presence is not there. Might be with Nance on a walker, might be at the vet, he might be wherever. But it's amazing how that sensing of that is in a pet owner's mind. I think, I don't think I'm the only one's crazy, am I?
[00:25:12] Speaker C: No. Again, I'm even the same way. And as soon as I walk into home, I have two dogs and two cats, and they all come in, they all bark at me, they all welcome me to the home, and they put a smile on my face every single night.
[00:25:27] Speaker A: Every single night. And what's funny is that they'll greet you and you leave for three or four minutes. You come back, they'll greet you the same way again. So if you have a bad day and you want to get on the positive side of things, all you have to do is leave the house, come back, let them greet you, and go away again. Come back, let them greet you again. It's quite an interesting exercise to make your day great.
[00:25:49] Speaker C: And you know, Michael, it's a good point that you brought up. This is something good that we always tell you to teach our dogs how to sit, how to shake. These are good things to also learn from them. They don't take anything personal. They forgive you, they love you no matter what, and nothing stay in their mind or heart too long, even if you yell at them the next day, they come and kiss you and they come and play with you and they forget about things.
[00:26:20] Speaker A: Now, this is a question coming from my wife. She says, as we get close to Christmas and New Year's and the holidays, do you believe it isn't a great time for man and woman's best friend to come into our lives? Should a person adopt a pet this time of year or maybe wait till after the first or so? What are your thoughts on that?
[00:26:40] Speaker C: Well, I don't think there is a perfect time.
I should say it in a different way. There is no bad time to adopt a pet. It's always a good time. If you can, if you have the ability, if you have the time, I would say do it. Charisma is always a good time because we are home. We can spend more time with them. We can get to know them a little bit better, but there is always a good time.
[00:27:03] Speaker A: How much joy do you want in your life and when do you want to start it? It's like, when do you want to start eating ice cream?
[00:27:11] Speaker F: I surely enjoyed speaking with Dr. Armand Baboud, veterinarian of Oak Tree Animal Hospital. It's located in Danville. Thank you for being on the show, Dr. Armand. You've been listening to real estate and more show interesting people like Dr. Armand, topics of the day like man and women's best friend. And of course, we talk about real estate. You can listen to archived real estate and more
[email protected]. Slash radio that's michaelhatfieldhomes.com Slash radio. After airing, the real estate and more show is available on demand on Spotify, Amazon, iTunes, iHeart and most major podcast directories. I'm your host, Michael Hatfield, and we're.
[00:27:54] Speaker E: Going to be right be back with.
[00:27:55] Speaker F: Our next special guest.
[00:27:57] Speaker A: Stay tuned.
