Unlocking the World of Animal Physical Therapy with Dr. Sugerman and LVT Ken Woods
Dive into the world of animal physical therapy with host Dr. Sugerman and LVT Ken Woods. In this episode, Ken shares his journey from becoming a Licensed Veterinary Technician to a Certified Canine Rehabilitation Practitioner. Learn about the latest techniques and insights in pet rehabilitation, from underwater treadmills to therapeutic lasers.
What You’ll Learn:
Ken Woods' Journey: Explore Ken's unique journey from becoming a Licensed Veterinary Technician to obtaining certification as a Canine Rehabilitation Practitioner.
Evolution of Animal Rehabilitation: Learn about the evolution of animal rehabilitation, with Ken's insights from starting in 2006 when the field was just emerging.
Key Conditions Addressed: Understand the common conditions treated in animal physical therapy, such as arthritis and CCL tears, and how rehabilitation aims to improve the quality of life for pets.
Modalities and Techniques: Discover the various modalities and techniques employed in animal rehabilitation, including hydrotherapy, laser therapy, and floor exercises.
Hydrotherapy Insights: Gain insights into hydrotherapy, specifically underwater treadmills, and how they benefit pets by reducing stress on joints and aiding in the recovery process.
Certification Process: Learn about the extensive certification process for becoming a Canine Rehabilitation Practitioner and the dedication required for success.
Role of Laser Therapy: Understand the role of laser therapy (photo biomodulation) in managing pain, inflammation, and promoting healing in animals.
Integration of Pet Insurance: Recognize the importance of pet insurance in covering the costs of animal rehabilitation and ensuring comprehensive care.
Duration and Frequency of Therapy: Get insights into the optimal duration and frequency of animal rehabilitation sessions, balancing progress and pet comfort.
Diversity of Patients: Explore Ken's experience treating various animals, from dogs and cats to a pygmy goat, highlighting the versatility of rehabilitation practices.
Ideas Worth Sharing:
""We try to fix the defect or the deficiency in the dog or the cat. The goal is to get them back to their normal function."" - Ken Woods, LVT
"Pet insurance covers it. So everybody should have pet insurance." - Ken Woods, LVT
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Read The Transcript:
Dr. Sugerman: [00:00:00] Hi, and welcome to Vetsplanation. I'm your veterinary host, Dr. Sugerman, and I'm going to teach you about veterinary medicine. In this podcast, we can dive deeper into the understanding of what our pets are going through and break down medical terms into easier to understand chunks of information. Just a quick disclaimer, this podcast is for informational purposes only.
This is not meant to be a diagnosis for your pet. If you have questions about diagnostics or treatment options, please talk to your veterinarian about those things. Remember, we are all practicing veterinary medicine and medicine is not an exact science. Your veterinarian may have different treatment options and different opinions.
The information I provide here is to help pet parents have a better understanding about their pets. If you like our podcast, please consider sharing this podcast with at least one friend or just somebody else who has pets as well. Now, let's jump into this week's episode.
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Vetsplanation. I'm your veterinary host, Dr. Sugerman. And today we're here with [00:01:00] Ken. Thank you so much for being here. So Ken is an LVT at our clinic and he has so many letters after his name. But I'll let him explain that in a bit. But he does all of our physical therapy here.
So I'm really excited to get to talk to you about this because there's just so much in the world of physical therapy that people don't know about animals.
Ken Woods: True.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. Yeah. So can you tell me first of all, like, how, how do you become an LVT?
Ken Woods: In my case I took classes in California, many, many years ago. I did it that way. Now, I think there are internet programs and local programs. Also, maybe coupled with an AA degree.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. Absolutely. Then, so tell me how you went from being an LVT now to working with rehabilitation.
Ken Woods: After becoming an LVT, I worked for some surgeons, like our local places, Blue Pearl and Summit, that we did surgery all day long.
And there were all [00:02:00] these gimpy animals back in the day and this is when the animal rehab was just starting. I did it in 2006. We weren't even sure if it was going to catch on, so I just happened to be at the right place at the right time. And, I looked around the hospital and said, this is going to be a good thing.
And I started taking my classes. And when I started, there were no internet classes. So I had to go to each one of these different modules through the University of Tennessee. And then as I was going, I would try to do some of these TPLOs, post operative passive range of motion and icing on my off hours. One thing led to another.
Dr. Sugerman: Nice. Was Tennessee the only place that did that at that time?
Ken Woods: At that time. Yeah.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. Now, there's quite a bit, right?
Ken Woods: Yeah. There's a few more. As a rule, they are open to veterinary technicians, veterinarians, and human PT.
Dr. Sugerman: Oh, interesting.
Ken Woods: The human PT guy [00:03:00] or gal gets more animal experience, since they know a lot of the, exercises and whatnot.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah, that's really interesting. I didn't even know that human ones could, human PTs could do that. Very cool. So what did you have to go through then to become certified in this?
Ken Woods: A lot of different classes. Just more anatomy, more hands on training with dogs. How are we going to get the dogs to do the exercises?
Food is a good motivator.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah.
Ken Woods: Yeah, took me probably two years to get through all that. They left the time frame open because they knew it was difficult for people. A lot of travel involved and then you had to go to Tennessee to take your written test and a practical.
Dr. Sugerman: So it's quite a lot that you had to go through in order to get your certification, right?
Ken Woods: And they always want it done underneath the veterinary umbrella, so no one's doing it in their garage.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah, and so how does it work? So I saw you had so many letters after name, right? So are those certificates or what? What are those?
Ken Woods: I'm a certified so [00:04:00] technically I'm a CCRP certified canine rehabilitation practitioner. It's the technical term. What about all those other letters? I'm also a small animal massage In the state of Washington, you have to be licensed to do that. It's odd, but.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. Yeah.
Ken Woods: So I had to go to a physical class for that, and then get certified, and then apply for a license. But that, that does work in with the rehabilitation.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I know even when you go to human rehabilitation, when humans have a problem, there's lots of massage, icing, heat. Plus all the physical therapy things that you're doing, so it definitely makes sense for you to do massage with that as well.
And then, so can you tell me what is physical therapy?
Ken Woods: We try to fix the defect or the deficiency in the dog or the cat. It could be a pulled muscle or a [00:05:00] broken leg that's been set and fixed and now it needs to relearn to use the leg. The goal is to get them back to their normal function. Whatever that might be. Might be sitting on the couch, might be an agility dog, or some working dog.
Dr. Sugerman: So what are some of the most common things that you see then for physical therapy?
Ken Woods: Arthritis is always high on the list. Young dogs, old dogs. Probably the number two is an ACL tear.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah.
So in dogs we call it CCL tears.
Ken Woods: Correct.
Dr. Sugerman: People ACL tear, but basically what it's like, Oh, I hurt my knee or I hurt the ligament in my knee. That's essentially what they're talking about is like there's a ligament that tears in the knee.
Ken Woods: Yeah. Classic football player injury.
Dr. Sugerman: Exactly. What about a lot of back dogs?
Do you have a lot of back dogs that you see? Yeah.
Ken Woods: A lot of back pain. Often these dogs will have an MRI or a workup. They may not be a surgical candidate and they, maybe they're getting better on their own already. So we [00:06:00] try to take what we have and strengthen that back. Do see a lot of dogs that have had surgery on the back. Just depends on how severe the injury was and how motivated the dog is.
Dr. Sugerman: Do you see a lot of them that have not had surgery. Back dogs that you can help.
Ken Woods: Yes
Dr. Sugerman: Great.
Yeah, that's a big thing for us, especially in ER, is we have a lot of back dogs that surgery is very expensive, and so I constantly talk about coming to do rehabilitation.
Ken Woods: Yeah, first assist the rest. Get over that initial pain and then get them strong. Practice using those feet.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. Fantastic. And then with the therapy, is it like a lifelong therapy or is this just over a couple months that you're doing? Like with humans, we think about it as it's what your insurance covers, right? So how does this work with our animals?
Ken Woods: As a rule, the goal is to get them fixed and back home. Some of the more chronic dogs, maybe they need a tune up periodically.
So I have some dogs that come in every [00:07:00] couple of weeks, every three weeks, four weeks. And just to keep them at a certain level of fitness, it depends on how much mom and dad are going to do at home. I can give them a long list of exercises to do, but it's hard.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. So it sounds very much like human medicine, again, where you're like, we're doing physical therapy here, but also giving the pet parents like something to do at home.
Ken Woods: Yes. Lots of homework.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. Yeah.
Ken Woods: Because they're only seeing me for 45 minutes once a week. It's not going to fix it, but we can start and there are obviously things we can do here that we can't do at home. It's a culmination.
Dr. Sugerman: Exactly. Can you tell me what things you do have here, what things do you usually work with?
Ken Woods: Oh, we do a lot. We have all the floor exercises, the massage, and of course the underwater treadmill. It's a big one.
Dr. Sugerman: That one's a very cool one. Yeah, my dog did that and she loved it.
Ken Woods: We do a lot of different things. Oh, we have a machine called the Shockwave, therapeutic laser. So there's a lot of different modalities.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. Which is great. I know that, I've seen some other [00:08:00] physical therapy places that only had just the floor exercises. But I feel like that's just not enough for them.
Ken Woods: Yeah, I understand that a lot of people don't have the space. It takes a lot of space. And valuable space, usually to the animal hospital.
But you need, it needs to be a combination of all the modalities.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Are there other physical therapists in the area as well, or is it pretty much just you?
Ken Woods: No, they're not in the immediate area. Down south towards Olympia, Seattle, and up north of seattle.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. So pretty much you're the guy for Tacoma, essentially.
Ken Woods: Yes.
Dr. Sugerman: Nice. Alright. And then, can you tell me more about hydrotherapy? Like, how does that help dogs to be in water?
Ken Woods: Yeah. Now, in my case, hydrotherapy is an underwater treadmill. Also, it can be considered swimming in an open pool or something.
Dr. Sugerman: I'm sure for smaller dogs. I have a great dane, so she didn't, I don't know that she would fit for swimming, but.
Ken Woods: Yeah, there's a lot we can do. For the older dog, we can slowly raise the water and the water's 90 degrees, so it's [00:09:00] nice and warm. So we can essentially have them walking on the moon with less gravity, less stress on the joints.
And if they're recovering from that CCL tear, it's going to help them gradually use the leg. And then we slowly lower the water, it gets a lot harder. Over time we can build up strength. And I have a few dogs that come in that aren't injured, that are either a show dog or some kind of athlete that just comes in for a workout.
And if they do a couple miles in 13 inches of water, that's a lot of work.
Dr. Sugerman: Wow. Yeah. Sounds like it. That's really cool. I didn't know that you did dogs that weren't in necessarily for injuries.
Ken Woods: It's nice because then you don't have to worry about anything. You just put them to work.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. And then you said food is a really great motivator for them too, right? To be able to get them to walk.
Ken Woods: Yes. To get them to walk, we can use peanut butter on the glass. So they can walk and lick. And for our floor exercises, to get them to do what we want.[00:10:00] Because they don't know. They don't know why they're here, what they're doing.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. Exactly. I remember when my dog had done it, she just put her feet, her back feet on the side so she didn't have to walk, but...
Ken Woods: Everybody's seen that cat in the back of the treadmill with one little foot trying to walk.
Dr. Sugerman: Exactly. So how do you like, how do you adjust them then to get them to walk on it if they do that?
Ken Woods: First, I always go in with them for their first experience. I got my fishing waders on. And that helps maybe help them get centered. They usually bounce back after a while as they stand on the side and they come back to the middle.
They're also in a leash and a harness so you have a little control. Sometimes they want to stop.
Dr. Sugerman: Are you walking backwards or are you putting your feet on the sides? I'm putting my feet on the sides. I was like, are you getting lots of like backwards walking exercise while you're doing this?
Ken Woods: Get my steps in.
Dr. Sugerman: Exactly. But backwards, yeah. And then, you also mentioned about laser therapy. So can you tell me more about laser therapy? What do you use that for?
Ken Woods: Yeah, that, you [00:11:00] also hear it referred to as photo biomodulation these days. Covers the wider range of light and its wavelengths.
We use it a lot for pain, inflammation, those back dogs that didn't have surgery. And it's just making different wavelengths of light that are soaking in to the dog's body at a cellular level.
Dr. Sugerman: Nice. So really for a lot of the information purposes, I remember you could also use it for lots of other things as well.
There was like ear problems and all sorts of things. And it was really interesting to see how much you could use.
Ken Woods: Yeah. I think we're just scratching the surface of what we can use the machine for.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah, absolutely. And then what do you use shockwave for?
Ken Woods: Shockwave is a machine that doesn't shock the dog, but it creates sound vibrations. And it is fairly loud, and it sends the sound vibrations through the animal's tissue, creating inflammation.
[00:12:00] And then the body thinks it's a new injury. It has all these wonderful healing properties that can help kick in.
Dr. Sugerman: Nice, so bringing more blood flow, more inflammatory
Ken Woods: Excellent for those ligaments and tendons that don't have a lot of blood flow.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah, those take forever to heal. You can heal from a fracture faster than you can heal from a ligament.
Ken Woods: Spraining. Yeah.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah, nice. And then what about the floor works? What do you use most of your floor work for?
Ken Woods: Maybe you get a dog that doesn't like the water. Or we can use these balance discs or the Cavaletti rails that they have to step over. So that engages their core.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. So you're just trying to get other muscles stronger.
Ken Woods: Mm hmm. And I think the dogs, typically they enjoy it. So it's something they want to do. So we can just teach it as a trick almost.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. Yeah. Nice. And then, so what about, is physical therapy really expensive?
Ken Woods: I think it can be, but pet insurance covers it. [00:13:00]
Dr. Sugerman: Yes.
Ken Woods: So everybody should have pet insurance.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah, absolutely. I harp on that all the time. Definitely have to have pet insurance. Yeah. Yeah.
Ken Woods: And again, the pet insurances only cover if it's done by a licensed or certified rehab person.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. So pretty much all of them cover you doing it, essentially.
Ken Woods: Correct.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah.
Ken Woods: Yep.
There are some other doggy swim pools in the area, and the insurance will not cover those.
Dr. Sugerman: Okay. I know, too one big thing I was talking about, is they have to have had the insurance before any injury occurs 30 days beforehand. So that's always something to keep in mind, right? You can't just get the insurance and then suddenly start going to physical therapy. With the physical therapy then, like, how do you normally do like paying for it?
Do you have packages that you do, or do you normally do just one per session?
Ken Woods: We have an initial intake. If it's a dog we've never seen before or just meet it for the first time, that's always done in conjunction with veterinarian at the [00:14:00] hospital. Make sure it's healthy and safe and it can go through physical therapy.
And then there are a price for individual sessions. If somebody just wants to do one a month or they're not real serious about it. But I suggest most people buy a package of five or 10, they get a price discount and we can just pick away at those as we go.
Dr. Sugerman: Nice. And you said usually your session is about once a week, right?
Ken Woods: Once a week seems to work really well for owners and the pets. And if they're doing great, we can spread those sessions out, go every two weeks or every three weeks. And the stronger they get, the more they can do.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. And then those exercises that you send home with them, do you have like handouts for them? Or is there some way you should show them how to do it?
Ken Woods: I usually show them. I really like to have the owners present in the room because the animal likes that too. So we can physically show them. There are some great YouTube videos out there on how to do some stuff.
Dr. Sugerman: Nice. Yeah. I really do like that you have them in the room to like see how they're [00:15:00] progressing and make the pet more comfortable as well.
Especially with the weird environment, like the weird sounds and stuff.
Ken Woods: Oh, it's an animal hospital. There's dogs barking.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And your, your office is like in a really nice area, in the back of a hospital, which is really nice.
Ken Woods: Fortunately, we can sneak in the back door.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. Exactly.
Ken Woods: Avoid the lobby full of barking dogs.
Dr. Sugerman: Exactly. You don't have to walk through the, the crazy ER area. Yeah. And then, do you think that surgery can be avoided with some of the things that you do? Like with CCL tears, or with back problems.
Ken Woods: It's just, it really depends. That's a tough one.
Because there are some dogs that do well. Time will tell. Often, they can also sprain that ligament. They don't have to have a full tear. And those dogs can do okay. If it's, if it's torn, it needs surgery. Surgery is the gold standard. And for dogs that can't, they have a health condition or some reason they can't have surgery, there are custom knee braces available.
Dr. Sugerman: [00:16:00] Yeah, I saw it. I think you have them around or something, right? Yeah, they're really cool custom knee braces. Yeah.
Ken Woods: Yeah, but they, they're probably halfway to the surgery. Yeah. It just depends.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. Do you, and if I remember correctly, I think you have them bring everything to you to have it fitted. Is that right?
Ken Woods: Yes. Yeah. It needs to have a cast of the leg made. The person making the brace would then fill that with their foam, and they'd have a representation of the dog's leg. They'd make it custom for each one, and then there's a little bit of a fitting process.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah, yeah. Is that something that they wear as like a lifelong thing after that?
Ken Woods: They can. Typically we like them to wear it when they're going outside, or going on their walks, or folks are working in the yard. Maybe not around the house.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. I'm sure it's also irritating to wear constantly.
Ken Woods: You have to have a wearing schedule where you start out just a few minutes a day, work up to an hour or two.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. Which is way different than humans, right? Like we think about somebody who puts the brace on and [00:17:00] you keep it on all day until you go to bed, go to sleep, wake up, put it right back on, right?
Ken Woods: Correct. Yeah.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. So I've had my random species treated by you. So I've had my dog treated by you. And I've had my duck treated by you as well. What other species have you done?
Ken Woods: Let's see. One rabbit. One pygmy goat.
Dr. Sugerman: A pygmy goat, nice.
Ken Woods: Pygmy goat was great. Let's see, what... I got to do a penguin with a therapeutic laser at the zoo. They also had a bird called a hornbill that we lasered. We get the occasional cat.
Most of the cats don't do the water, but often the cats can do the floor exercises if it's that kind of cat.
Dr. Sugerman: How do you motivate the cat?
Ken Woods: It has to be a food motivated cat.
Dr. Sugerman: Okay. Like my duck was actually very food motivated because she loved lettuce. And have you done any of your guinea pigs?
Ken Woods: I have lasered a guinea pig.
Dr. Sugerman: Yep. Nice.
Ken Woods: I think they liked it.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah, I'm sure. They love, I don't know. They [00:18:00] just love attention in the first place yeah, nice. With the cats, what were most of the cats that you had to deal with? What were they for?
Ken Woods: The current cat that comes in on a weekly basis is 16 and very arthritic.
Dr. Sugerman: Ah, yeah.
Ken Woods: Other cats some type of neurologic issue that didn't have surgery. They're just trying to retrain them to walk. I think there was a cat with a broken leg, but it didn't take long for it to, they figured out that the leg's fixed and they started using it right away.
Dr. Sugerman: Oh good. So they had it repaired and then they're just coming in for physical therapy.
Nice. Okay. And then, so with my duck, my duck had a ligament problem in the knee. So what were some, you said the penguin had what now?
Ken Woods: Arthritis along its spine because they probably lived twice as long as they shouldn't.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. What about the pygmy goat?
Ken Woods: The pygmy goat was, had an undiagnosed neurologic issue.
It was found with a zip tie around one of its back [00:19:00] legs. That probably did some nerve damage. So that was with the Puget Sound goat rescue.
Dr. Sugerman: Nice, I was going to say, that's a lot of money to put into a goat so that's really nice.
Ken Woods: He did quite well.
Dr. Sugerman: Good. Good. How long did he end up having to see you for?
Ken Woods: He only saw me twice, and then they fitted him with a little wheelchair.
Dr. Sugerman: Oh, nice.
Ken Woods: That he could still walk in. To take some of the load off of that bad leg. And he seems to be doing fine as far as I know.
Dr. Sugerman: Do you do a lot of work with dogs in wheelchairs?
Ken Woods: A fair amount. Yeah. It's good for those paralyzed dogs that aren't going to walk again. Totally gives them a whole new lease on life.
Dr. Sugerman: Do you help them try to fit for a wheelchair or recommend?
Ken Woods: Now it's real easy. You can get online. People typically do it at home if they're comfortable with taking a few measurements. And then after they get the wheelchair, maybe bring it in and we can make sure it's set up correctly.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. At what point do you feel like with those back dogs, they should go to a wheelchair rather than waiting. [00:20:00]
Ken Woods: Yeah. If they've had surgery or they continue to decline, we don't want to do the wheelchair too soon as the dog gets lazy, and then it depends on the wheelchair. But after some amount of time, you just know that Fluffy's not walking or it's not going to get much better. Then it's time to go to the wheelchair.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. A neurologist once told me that it was also because you want to have more stability formed from the skeletal structures, before doing that as well. Especially broken back dogs, especially, not putting them in a wheelchair right away.
Ken Woods: Get everything healed up, and they're strong.
Dr. Sugerman: Okay. And then how can people find you at this point?
Ken Woods: I'm at Sumner Veterinary Hospital, so I'm sure I'm on the website. Say probably Google animal rehab in Western Washington. I'll come up.
Dr. Sugerman: And they just call in, talk to the receptionist about how to get an appointment with you?
Ken Woods: Mm-Hmm.
Dr. Sugerman: Okay, perfect. Was there [00:21:00] anything else you wanted to mention?
Ken Woods: I don't think so. I think we covered everything. I think so.
Dr. Sugerman: Okay, cool. Thank you so much, Ken. I really appreciate you coming on.
Hopefully we'll be able to talk about it on another topic soon, because I know that there's so many questions that people have about just physical therapy stuff in general.
Ken Woods: As they funnel in the questions, you can direct them to me or I can help you answer them.
Dr. Sugerman: Sounds good.
Alright, thanks Ken.
Ken Woods: Thank you.
Dr. Sugerman: Hey guys, if you want to see Ken's set up, by the way, and all the cute animals that he's worked on, including my duck. You're welcome to check out this episode on YouTube. We're going to have some of those pictures on there, if you aren't already on YouTube. So we're going to talk about our animal fact for today.
So today I decided to talk about penguins in honor of Ken's physical therapy that he did on a penguin, which I think is really cool. Penguins are also just really cool as well. I'm sure people know the general facts, about them, that they're flightless birds, they're usually black and white, except for there are some species that are not black and white, and that they're really great swimmers, right?
They're built for swimming. But [00:22:00] did you know about with the black and white, like why they're black and white and how that helps them? So they're black on their back and they're white on their stomach, and that actually helps to camouflage them.
So if you think about, if you're looking down from the sky into the water, it's really black, right? And so if the penguin is swimming, you're going to look at its black back. So it's camouflaged into the bottom of the ocean. What if you're a shark? You're a shark looking up. You go through the water up to the sky.
The sky appears whitish, bluish but mostly whitish. And if you're looking up, you'd be looking up at the penguin's stomach, which means you'd be looking at a camouflaged penguin through the sky. So they actually have a good reason for being black and white, which I think is really cool.
Also, like when they're in the water, they need to stay really warm and waterproof, right? They are able to do this because they have this oily gland that they use to preen themselves. It's on their back by their tail. But they'll preen themselves or like [00:23:00] basically clean themselves or cover themselves with oil.
That makes their feathers really waterproof and windproof at the same time. Now let's talk about their eating habits. So they eat really salty fish. They take up tons of water when they're swimming. And so what do they do with all this extra saltiness or sodium that's in their blood vessels, right?
So they have all this really saltiness to their blood vessels. And they need to get rid of that somehow. So they have this really special gland called a supraorbital gland that filters out the salt in their bloodstream and then they're able to pump it out of their nostrils.
So supra refers to above and orbital refers to the eye socket. So it lives just like right around the eye socket. It's like right above the eye. It just filters out that salt so that all that salt leaves the body through their nostrils. And that makes them look like they actually have a runny nose all the time.
So it makes them look like they have a cold constantly. So they have a runny nose, they're sniffling, and then you'll also see them shake their head a lot because [00:24:00] they're trying to get rid of all that excess salty brine. Is your kid a rock collector? Mine are. So are penguins. Some male penguin species give female penguins a rock as a gift in order to woo them.
And then the female puts those rocks in the nest that she makes. Also, I might mess up the, this name, but the Adélie penguin, I believe it's called. They want a very particular type of rock. So these, it's these little tiny pebbles that are left behind these melting glaciers, and these penguins will walk long distances with these pebbles in their mouth just to add them to their collection of rocks.
Speaking of long distances, the Emperor Penguin, which is the largest penguin of our present time. But there's actually a larger penguin real quick, the largest penguin had been a prehistoric penguin, and it's called a Colossus Penguin. Anyways, the Emperor Penguins, they do this annual file march to their breeding grounds every year where they walk [00:25:00] more than 70 miles in freezing weather, back to their breeding grounds where they were originally born.
They have to be able to get back there, there's no map or anything, right? They have to figure out how to get back there walking 70 miles. So for people who've seen the movie Happy Feet, you probably know a little bit about this and know that once they get back to their breeding grounds, they have this really unique song that they sing to help find their perfect mate. And then they'll usually mate for life at that point.
Also speaking of movies, have you noticed that most movies put penguins together with polar bears? That would actually never happen in real life, because penguins live in the southern hemisphere, while polar bears are found in the north pole. So maybe you'll see them with Santa Claus, but not with penguins.
In fact, the most northern penguin is actually the Galapagos penguin, which is found below the equator. Plus, we think of penguins living in these really snowy, icy places, right? Like, when you think of a penguin, you immediately think of snow and ice. But there's actually only seven [00:26:00] species of penguins that live in these wintry places like Antarctica.
The rest of them live in tropical locations like South Africa, South America, Australia, and New Zealand. And lastly, this is for all the kids who think that poop is just so funny. Mostly I'm talking about my daughter. But anyways, penguin poop is actually pink because of all the krill that they eat. Which is also what makes the flamingo pink.
But the flamingo's poop is actually not pink. Sorry. Alright, with that, I hope you learned something new about these really cool flightless birds. And then if you have any questions for me, as always, you can email me at suggs, S U G G S @ VetsplanationPodcast.Com. Or you can find me on social media.
I tend to be on Facebook the most, but I'm pretty much on all of them. Plus, we would really appreciate it if you would share this podcast with somebody you know. Hit subscribe wherever you're listening and leave us a review. We want to keep our podcast going and we really need help to do so. Thank [00:27:00] you again for listening and please remember always to keep your pets happy, healthy, and loved. Thanks everybody.
Thank you guys for listening this week. If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or you just want to say hi, you can email me at Suggs, S U G G S @ VetsplanationPodcast.com or visit the website at VetsplanationPodcast.com or find us on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok at Vetsplanation. Thank you all for listening and I'll see you back here next week.