Posts tagged "medicine"

In an age where all of your pet's necessities can be purchased online, it only seems natural that its medication should be available through the click of a mouse. While a multitude of online pharmacies provide a convenient and often inexpensive way to obtain prescriptions you'd normally purchase at the vet's office, many veterinarians warn against using them.

Risk #1: Pharmacy Could be Selling Counterfeit or Inferior Medicine
A major concern for most veterinarians is the source of the medications sold by online pharmacies. "Many online pharmacies are not well regulated," said Dr. Michael Farber, Practice Owner and Chief of Staff at West Chelsea Veterinary. "Not all of these sites are licensed to sell drugs. Some sites are not based within the United States, so many of the medications they're selling are foreign-made or bootleg, and may not be exactly what has been prescribed by the vet."

Counterfeit products, expired products, and "products replaced with lesser products under the same name or category" may put your pet's health at risk, warned Farber.



Risk #2: Even High Quality Products Can Degrade During Shipping
Quality control also worries many veterinarians when their clients purchase medication from online sources. "There is no real quality control that I'm aware of with most online pharmacies," said Dr. Alan Stewart, Internal Medicine Specialist at San Francisco Veterinary Specialists. "When medications are shipped under the correct conditions, they're safe to use, but medicines shipped improperly in extreme hot or extreme cold may become damaged."

Sometimes it seems like our trouble-making pets will eat anything. Their hoovering ability comes in handy when you spill chicken soup on the floor (tongues being just as good as mops). But unfortunately, it's all too easy for our pets to get into substances that can harm them.

The ASPCA Poison Control Center recently released a list of the top 10 poisons that affected cats and dogs in 2009. So take note, and be sure keep these toxic substances far away from your pets in 2010!

Human Medicines
Human drugs were the top cause of pet poisoning in 2009, the ASPCA reported. Last year, the Poison Control Center managed more than 45,000 calls from people whose pets had swallowed pills such as pain relievers, cold meds and antidepressants.

Insecticides
One of the most common insecticide problems was misuse of flea and tick products. Make sure to talk to your vet about how to properly use these products.

Human Food
Most people know chocolate is dangerous to dogs. But did you know that grapes, raisins, avocados and products containing xylitol (like sugar-free gum and candy) can also be harmful to your pets?

Plants
Dozens of common houseplants, including azaleas, rhododendrons, sago palm and kalanchoe are dangerous for pets. Lilies are particularly toxic for cats, and can cause deadly kidney failure.

Vet Medicines
Almost 8,000 cases of pet poisonings in 2009 involved pets that were given medicines incorrectly. Make sure you follow instructions and talk to your vet about how to safely apply over-the-counter and prescription medicines for your cat or dog.

Four years ago, scientists decoded the canine genome. Already that research is beginning to pay off -- not only for our four-legged friends, but for human medicine, too.

A team of scientists from Tufts University, the Broad Institute and the University of Massachusetts Medical Center recently zeroed in on a gene in Doberman pinschers that's associated with compulsive behavior like licking and pacing, the Boston Globe reported. Now researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health are taking a close look at that same gene in humans with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

Compulsive behaviors are common in certain dog breeds, according to a news article on the Broad Institute's Web site. Bull terriers can chase their tails repeatedly. Compulsive Dobermans may lick or suck their flanks until they develop bleeding and skin infections. "It really is a hindrance for other normal activity and it often doesn't stop at bodily harm," Broad Institute scientist Kerstin Lindblad-Toh said in the article.

To get to the root of the abnormal behavior, the research team took DNA samples from 150 Dobermans, some of which showed compulsive behaviors. They then scanned the dogs' genomes and singled out a gene called CDH2 that seems to be linked to the condition, the Broad Institute reported.

Understanding the genetic basis of compulsive behavior could someday lead to treatments for dogs -- and perhaps for people with OCD, which affects some 2.2 million American adults, according to the Boston Globe.

For kids, it's a spoonful a sugar that helps the medicine to go down. For dogs, it's cheese.

The video below from HowCast teaches you how to get your dog to pop meds without needing a team of helpers to manhandle your pup. Luckily, canines tend to be much more comfortable having fingers shoved down their throats than their feline counterparts!

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