Posts tagged "dog health"

Are you reading this at work? That's OK; we won't tell your boss. It's Friday afternoon and you're dragging. You can't wait to go home to find your best pal wagging his tail and jumping up and down with excitement from being so happy to see you. We get it: you miss your dog. Your dog probably misses you too while you're away all day. The thing is, some dogs miss their owners a little bit too much. Being away from you might be causing your pooch some serious emotional stress. That's more than just "missing you." It's separation anxiety.

Last week we featured a video from the folks over at The Doggie Dish, and many of you responded positively to it. So here's another Doggie Dish video featuring dog bloggers from across the Internet discussing the stressful issues of separation anxiety, and what you and your dog can do to ease the pain of being away from each other.

Promeris is a veterinary treatment used to control fleas in household pets. As part of a Paw Nation series providing background about the medical problems your pet may suffer, we spoke to Dr. Russell Welfare, veterinarian and owner of the North Powers Animal Hospital in Colorado Springs, Colo., to get some insights about the drug. You should always consult your veterinarian before giving medicine or supplements to your pet.

What is Promeris?
Promeris is a relatively new flea control product that has two primary ingredients: Metaflumizone and Amitraz. Metaflumizone affects the nervous system of fleas and Amitraz affects the nervous system of ticks. It is important to note that Promeris for cats doesn't contain Amitraz and will not be effective against ticks.

Ear mites are a somewhat common affliction for dogs. As part of a Paw Nation series providing background about the medical problems your pet may suffer, we spoke to Dr. Lawrence Gerson, graduate of the University of Pittsburgh Veterinary School and founder of the Point Breeze Veterinary Clinic in Pittsburgh.

What are the signs that my dog has ear mites?
When a dog has ear mites, their ears will have a dark, waxy appearance.

How common are ear mites in dogs?
Ear mites in dogs aren't terribly common. You might find them in kennel dogs or in strays.

As spring arrives, balmy weather and blooming nature will lure pets and their owners into the great outdoors. But the season also brings unwanted guests: fleas, ticks and other pests.

While there are differing points of view on the best and safest choices for protecting your pets, if you want to go the all-natural route, there are many options to consider. To welcome in the warmer months, our friends at Zootoo rounded up some of their favorite all-natural flea and tick products to help your pets stay pest free all season.

A potent spray with a mild, pleasing scent, the Herbal Protection Spray from Dr. Harvey's helps prevent pests from making a home in your dog's fur, bedding or apparel. The mild formula features an all-natural ingredient list that includes neem and citronella oils -- common components of nonchemical flea and tick products -- as well as witch hazel and cedarwood oil, both natural astringents.


Featuring a sporty design and a comfortable fit, the Natural Fly Repellant Dog Collar from Fly Free Zone is a powerful, convenient weapon in the war against fleas and ticks -- as well as flies and mosquitoes. The collar's primary component is citronella, which seems to work as effectively in dog collars as it does in outdoor candles. And our tester dog showed no signs of discomfort from the collar's adjustable, sturdy construction.

Heartworms in dogs are easy to prevent but difficult and costly to cure. Our friends at WebMD Healthy Pets asked Sheldon Rubin, 2007-2010 president of the American Heartworm Society, to separate facts from the myths about heartworm infestations in dogs.

Q: How do dogs get heartworms?
A: Only by the bite of an infected mosquito. There's no other way dogs get heartworms. And there's no way to tell if a mosquito is infected. That's why prevention is so important.

Heartworm disease has been reported in all 50 states. And the bite of just one mosquito infected with the heartworm larvae will give your dog heartworm disease.

Heartworm disease has not only spread throughout the United States, but it's also now found in areas where veterinarians used to say, "Oh, we don't have heartworm disease." Areas like Oregon, California, Arizona and desert areas -- where irrigation and building are allowing mosquitoes to survive. And if you have mosquitoes and you have animals, you're going to have heartworms. It's just that simple.

It takes about seven months, once a dog is bitten by an infected mosquito, for the larvae to mature into adult heartworms. They then lodge in the heart, lungs and surrounding blood vessels and begin reproducing. Adult worms can grow up to 12 inches in length, can live five to seven years, and a dog can have as many as 250 worms in its system.

Poor dogs. They're often the accused and blamed, regularly being named in excuses such as "The dog ate my homework," or the general "The dog did it." Be honest, how often have you blamed your dog for a bit of your own, er, GI distress?

I make sure that we -- my family and I, dog included -- eat a nutritious diet, and we have some healthy gas going on at home. However, our dog Siena has taken it to an entirely new level. After a recent long and loud toot from Siena, my husband and I began to worry if something was amiss. Thankfully, writing for Paw Nation has its perks: Access to experts!

A Normal Albeit Unpleasant Biological Function
Gas is normal in dogs and can vary considerably from pet to pet and even breed to breed. The gas that dogs experience isn't that different from what humans have and is a normal biological function. An excess of gases in the intestinal tract produces flatulence. These gases can come from swallowed air, the biochemical process of digestion, the bloodstream or bacteria that live in the intestinal tract.

Amy D. Shojai is a certified animal behavior consultant and the award-winning author of 23 pet care books, including "Complete Care for Your Aging Cat" and "Complete Care for Your Aging Dog."

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For centuries, people created fanciful stories to explain puzzling animal antics. Many of these myth-understandings about cat and dog behaviors linger on, even though modern veterinary and behavior experts have uncovered scientific explanations for these issues. Here we lay 12 common myths to rest.

Myth 1: Dogs and cats enjoy being hugged. People are by nature touchy-feely creatures. Dogs and cats on the other hand, grab and hold prey, and "hug" during mating or fighting. Pets may enjoy nuzzling and getting affection akin to hugging, or there may be a reason why they should be sensitized to being hugged, but it is good to remember that your pet may also confuse a hug with aggression.

Myth 2: Cats seek out people who hate cats. It can seem that way. A cat lover's admiring stares and "kitty, kitty, kitty" calls can be off-putting. So in a crowded room, a cat often seeks the only person ignoring her. Besides, cat lovers may already smell like strange cats, so she'll be more attracted to the cat-free-zone human.

Myth 3: Dogs that are aggressive are showing dominance. Actually, it is fearful dogs that most often aggress to make a scary situation go away. A top dog rarely aggresses because other dogs accept he's the boss. You do however see pushy dogs learn to use snarls to get their way, or clueless adolescent dogs act up because they've gotten too big for their furry britches and want to challenge the real boss.

Each week, Ben Westhoff shares the ups and downs of owning Pippi, the dalmatian mix he and his wife Anna adopted as a puppy in late 2009, and the first dog Ben's ever had.

Back in April, Anna wrote about her trying experience meeting Pippi's first vet. Not only did this woman lack a decent bedside manner (implying Pippi had behavioral issues. As if!), but she pushed to prescribe Pippi a bunch of pointless medicines and treatments, including an unnecessary antibiotic and a preventative lyme-disease treatment (despite the fact that she already had a recent negative lyme-disease test). The experience left Anna exasperated, and many of you readers commiserated with us.

After that semi-traumatizing incident, we found a new vet from a friend's referral. Though this one was a bit further away -- getting there, it felt like we bypassed every outlet mall in northern New Jersey -- she was well worth it. For one thing, she didn't make us feel like Pippi was a freak just because she was a bit nervous and squirmed when her ears were being cleaned. The "puppy wrangler" had to be called in -- a short brunette with arms thicker than mine -- to contain and calm Pippi while the medication was being squirted into her floppy ears, but the team helped put us and our dog at ease. They smiled, joked, and truly seemed to enjoy being around her. They also were quick to praise what we were doing right, rather than only criticizing.

Stamps Spotlight Shelter Animals
Set to debut April 30, these adorable 44-cent stamps promote shelter animal awareness and encourage adopting homeless animals. The stamps will be available for purchase at your local post office, or pre-order online.

ASPCA Donates $1,000,000 To NYC Homeless Pets
Through the nonprofit Mayor's Alliance for NYC's Animals, a coalition of animal rescue groups, the ASPCA will funnel a million bucks to help the city's needy animals. While the NY Daily News reports that it's not yet clear whether any of those funds will aid the recently slashed budget of New York City Animal Care and Control (the nonprofit currently contracted to run the shelters in the city), it is certain that some of the money will go toward transferring animals from shelters to rescues and aid low-cost spay-and-neuter programs.

Shortlist For Large Conservation Prize Announced
Six finalists have been announced for the $100K Indianapolis Prize for Conservation, and it looks like big cats and marine animals are popular this year. The finalists are Snow Leopard Conservancy founder Rodney Jackson, Cheetah Conservation Fund founder and executive director Laurie Marker, Blue Ocean Institute founder Carl Safina, University of British Columbia seahorse expert Amanda Vincent, Mexican conservation strategist Gerardo Ceballos and Iain Douglas-Hamilton, the president and chief executive of Save the Elephants. The Indianapolis Prize was initiated by the Indianapolis Zoo and is the "the largest individual monetary award for animal conservation in the world and is given as an unrestricted gift to the chosen honoree."

Sparkles the Fire Safety Dog meets Frankie the Walk 'n' Roll Dog.
Sparkles -- who you might already know -- met up with another special dog, Frankie, to teach school children some very important lessons. Fire safety was a big part of the presentation, but they also focused on how to handle adversity and being different, something with which Frankie, a dachshund in a wheelchair, is quite familiar. And that's not all. These tech-savvy dogs shared their message with a Canadian classroom via Skype.

Preventing pregnancy in an unspayed dog is a huge challenge -- that is, unless your dog is wearing her chastity belt.

Yes, a chastity belt. It sounds medieval – and there is some metal mesh in the construction of the Pet Anti-Breeding System (PABS) -- but dog trainer and inventor Dexter Blanch tells Paw Nation he's just keeping up with the needs of dog owners' today. Made to buckle on the rear end of a female dog in heat, the PABS allows her to get rid of waste but blocks an interested male dog from making too close a connection.

We talked to Blanch from his home in Shreveport, La. to find out more about his "holistic" approach to preventing pooch pregnancies:

When we heard about this, we laughed, but it sounds like it could work.
That's everybody's reaction, and actually I can understand it, really.

How did you come up with the PABS idea?
I've been a dog trainer for 41 years and I knew it was a needed product. But it really hit me one day when I was hunting with one of my registered female dogs and we came across a bunch of male dogs. She was a young dog and was learning so I needed to keep her in the field but her heat cycle came at the wrong time, and I was like, wow, suppose something were to happen.

My wife Anna and I had no idea. Turns out that when we acquired our puppy, we also received a Hoover upright free of charge! Our canine vacuum will consume almost anything within reach, including food we've dropped on the floor, socks, underwear, snow and even part of our down comforter. Yesterday, inexplicably, she wolfed down a wad of paper towels. A few days before that, she chewed up my favorite wooden stirring spoon. Perhaps the worst offense was when Pippi obliterated one of Anna's notebooks. It had been full of information Anna needed at the office, and required her to explain to her boss that our dog literally ate her homework. "I felt like such a moron," she says.

Perhaps we should count our blessings. After all, since the great diarrhea incident of early February, Pippi hasn't consumed anything that has aggravated her stomach. Also, she tends to stay away from the furniture and, of course, hasn't nipped any people.

And yet it's expensive to replace and replenish household items and foodstuffs, and we worry about Pippi's well being. Surely bits of wood can't be particularly conducive to digestive-tract health. For this conundrum we turn to you readers. We've been doing our best to keep potentially edible items out of her reach, but beyond that, what can we do? How do we ensure that young Pippi doesn't find herself at the vet with, say, an eggbeater in her stomach?

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Both cats and dogs can suffer from halitosis, aka bad breath. The number one cause of bad breath is periodontal disease, although it may also be caused by gastrointestinal disease, kidney disease, poor diet or sinus infection. Just like in humans, periodontal disease occurs when saliva, bacteria and food particles form plaque on the teeth. If untreated, this can develop into gingivitis and later periodontal disease.

There are a number of home remedies that are often recommended to help freshen your pet's breath, such as adding garlic, parsley or fenugreek to their food, but do these really help? According to Dr. Brett Beckman, a veterinary dentist and oral surgeon form Port Charlotte, Fla., although these remedies may prevent you from having to endure the foul odor of your pet's breath, they offer no benefit to your pet whatsoever and may even be harmful.

"The odor is produced by a population of infection producing bacteria that live in the pockets between the gum and the tooth," Dr. Beckman tells Paw Nation. "The smell that causes bad breath is a result of their waste products that accumulate in the gum pocket. Unless these bacteria are mechanically removed, they will continue to destroy the gum, making the pocket larger and eventually destroying the bone," explains Dr. Beckman.

There are ways to prevent plaque build-up on your pet's teeth and so avoid bad breath and its subsequent health risks. Dr. Larry Baker, owner of Northgate Pet Hospital in Decatur, Ill., explains that brushing your cat or dog's teeth with pet toothpaste, which contains less fluoride than human toothpaste, is the best way to keep plaque in check. This special toothpaste even comes in beef and chicken flavors that your pet will love.

"It is really not necessary to brush any surface other than cheek surfaces, where most of the tartar collects and causes bad breath," Dr. Baker says. "Once removed, it will come back, regardless of what is done in most cases, just much slower when you brush daily. The next best thing is Oravet, a wax that can be easily applied to cheek surfaces of teeth with your finger or a brush. It just takes a few seconds and helps to keep plaque and tartar from forming," says Dr. Baker.

Once the tell-tale brown tartar stains have formed on your dog's or cat's teeth, the only way to remove it is through professional cleaning by a veterinarian. Mechanical removal of the bacteria is done under general anesthesia. However, Dr. Beckman warns that cleaning alone may not remedy the problem. "Pockets and bone loss must be evaluated with dental x-ray to make the correct diagnosis and treat the problem correctly."

You can find out more about keeping your pet's teeth healthy and which products are available by visiting the Veterinary Oral Health Council.

Mangy mutt! It's an oft-uttered exclamation to stray dogs in the movies, but by and large, mange is misunderstood. There are three types of mange: demodectic mange (red mange), cheyletiella, and sarcoptic mange (scabies). Paw Nation spoke to Dr. Steven Kasanofsky, Medical Director at Riverside Animal Hospital in New York City, to get the scoop on red mange.

What is red mange?
Demodectic mange, better known as red mange, is a skin condition caused by the Demodex canis mite, that actually lives in dogs' hair follicles. In most dogs, these mites don't cause problems, as pets with healthy immune systems are able to keep clinical signs at bay.

What are some signs of red mange?
Clinically, red mange often appears as scaly red lesions with some hair loss, most commonly appearing first on the face (especially around the eyes and at the corners of the mouth) and also on the neck and paws. There can be just one or two lesions (localized) or the lesions can cover a larger portion of the body (generalized). In more severe cases, the lesions can be accompanied by crusting, pain, and deep skin infections.

Who is most susceptible to red mange?
Mange is most often seen in animals with compromised immune systems. Puppies (with not-yet-matured immune systems) and older dogs (with debilitated immune systems) are most likely to get mange. Animals who are under intense stress and/or malnourished are also at a greater risk.

Dog eye discharge -- we've all dealt with it. In fact, it's a rare morning when our pups wake up without a bit of icky goop in the corners of their eyes. Yes, we know: eeeewwww.

However, there's a difference between the harmless daily discharge that occurs in all dogs and dog eye discharge caused by an infection or disease. According to PetPlace.com, abnormal dog eye discharge can appear suddenly or gradually and can come in many forms, including somewhat clear and watery, mucoid (or gray and rope-like), mucopurulent (meaning it's a thick yellow-green color) or bloody. Watch the tissue around the eye for irritation and puffiness, and remember that, generally speaking, more discharge means a more serious problem.

These different types of dog eye discharge have a few possible causes. A problem with the tear duct can prevent normal tear drainage, or there could be excess tear production caused by eye pain. Inflammation of the eyelid, cornea, iris or blood vessels in the eye can cause this, or it could be due to another problem, such as corneal ulcers, lens displacement, or another defect within the eyelid.

If your pet seems otherwise perfectly normal, try cleaning the area with a warm, damp cloth and flushing the eye with saline solution, says Natural Dog Health Remedies. However, you should never use human eye drops or other human eye medications on your dog.

If the problem isn't resolved in a couple of days, or if your dog seems at all bothered by the eye (acting differently or rubbing the area), get to your vet right away for an accurate diagnosis.