Posts tagged "vet"

Just like the demise of the sole family medical doctor, small veterinary practices are disappearing. Vets are expanding their practices with new facilities, state-of-the-art technology, additional vets, and larger staffs. But despite the many improvements, a human touch may be lost in shuffle. Bigger is not always better.

If you notice that your vet's level of service isn't the same as it used to be, it might be time to change vets. Here are some warning signs to consider if you and your pet find yourselves in this situation:

- Is there a long wait and/or increased fee to see your vet?

- Does the staff lack a personal touch? Do they treat your concerns properly by returning your calls and relaying telephone messages correctly? Do they become confused as to you and your pet's identities?

- Are there new charges for things like calls to have blood test results explained, or asking your vet a question if you're there for a routine service that doesn't require his or her presence?

By Dr. Patty Khuly, via Vetstreet

Each year, I write about the new stuff I learned throughout the course of the year.

This annual post is usually aimed at the geek in you--and all my interesting findings from 2011 happen to be science-based and fall well within the sphere of veterinary medicine. (Although some of my favorites trend toward the more personal.)

SEE ALSO: Secret Lives of Cats: 9 Things Your Cat Won't Tell You

So here, in no particular order, are the top seven veterinary things that inspired me in 2011.

1. Tuna With Lemon Works Best to Tempt Finicky Cats
For some reason, the new tinned tuna "with a hint of lemon" has improved my trapping efficacy. One of my clients suggested it and I'm now hooked. Try it if you're trapping or looking for something new to help inspire your finicky feline to eat.

2. Liposuction for Lipomas Is Worth Considering
I wrote about this yesterday. Sure, it's cool and less invasive, but it still begs the question: Is this a necessary procedure or should it be considered a cosmetic one best avoided?

SEE ALSO: Do Any Dogs Need Sweaters or Coats? Only These 3 Do

3. Older Dogs Benefit From Rehab
Rehabilitation for pets is quickly gaining more respect and popularity - so much so that general practitioners like myself are turning to rehab facilities for help with our patients.

Although this is great news, it isn't always a feasible approach for budget-strapped owners. And not every pet needs to attend a fancy facility to take advantage of routine rehab techniques, which is why I've started to offer my clients simple exercise tips for older canine patients, in particular.

There's no reason every pet owner shouldn't have access to such basic knowledge, especially if they're motivated to improve their older pets' mobility, agility and overall quality of life.

4. The Veterinary Services Market Is Booming
A research group recently predicted that the veterinary services market will grow by nearly 3 percent next year, an uptick that's fueled by rising pet ownership. The economic prospects for 2016 are even better, says IBISWorld, a publisher of industry research. The latest report predicts revenue growth for the veterinary market of 3.8 percent per year through 2016 to $35.4 billion.

5. Sand Impaction Requires Emergency Surgery
In the same way that canine gastric dilatation-volvulus (aka "bloat") almost always calls for emergency surgical attention, goats require the same approach in the case of dire impactions - especially if you live in sandy places like South Florida.

I learned this last month when my goat Tulip's rumen impaction led to her death within 24 hours of becoming symptomatic. (Ten pounds of sand were recovered with her cremation.) It's sad to have to learn things the very hard way, but that's sometimes how things go.

6. Cat Declawing Should Be Reconsidered
If you read my post last week on the subject, you'll know I've become increasingly intolerant of this procedure - even as a last resort for a destructive cat who'd otherwise have to find a new home or face euthanasia. I haven't always taken such a hardline stance, but we wouldn't be interesting if our beliefs and values didn't evolve over time.

7. Treating Feline Cavities Is Easier With X-rays
I guess I should have known this by now, but I didn't. Extracting a feline gumline cavity (feline resorptive lesions) is so much easier when you use an X-ray machine. That way, the offended tooth's crown can be drilled away, which is simpler than making incisions in the gumline - and less painful and cheaper, too.

How about you? Did you learn any cool things this year? Or answer this: What do you wish your vet had learned in 2011?

The 7 Things Pet Owners Do That Drive Veterinarians Crazy
by Dr. Patty Khuly, via Vetstreet

It's a tough subject to tackle. After all, veterinarians do plenty of annoying things, too. But this particular post is all about you - well, not you, but the annoying yous among you. Not that most of you deserve this, but some of you just might! So without any further hedging, let me launch into the most annoying things pet owners do.

1. Answer Their Cells
Need I say more? Is there anything more annoying and disrespectful than answering a phone call while your vet is delivering her state-of-your-pet's-health address? OK, it might be worse if you dug out your phone to initiate a call midexam, but only by a smidge. They're both just plain rude.

SEE ALSO: Dog Missing for 8 Years Turns Up!

2. Bring Their Kids
I dearly love children (mine mostly, but yours can also be cool), but very young or badly behaved children are an unnecessary liability in a veterinary environment. It's hard enough to keep pets safe - much less kids. So unless your children are old enough and/or chill enough to hang out in a vet setting, they should probably stay home.

One exception: If your pet has an emergency and you have no one to care for your kids, you are most definitely excused. We'll understand. Call ahead and we may even assign an employee to keep tabs on them so you can concentrate on what's wrong with your pet.

Every veterinarian offers basic care such as vaccinations, neuter surgery, and parasite control. But today, just as in human medicine, veterinary specialties offer modern techniques that go "beyond the basics."

Here are just a few "wow" techniques now available to our cats and dogs. Most are available only in university settings or specialty practices. Ask your veterinarian if these or other procedures might have special benefit for your fur kids.

Back Injury Treatment
An innovative preventive procedure pioneered at Oklahoma State University called laser disk ablations treats dogs with a history of back pain. Instead of surgically removing damaged disks (as in conventional treatment), lasers zap the spinal needles inserted through the skin into the disks, to vaporize the problem material--no incisions, no muss, no fuss--and no disks left to prolapse. A number of specialty veterinary practices now perform this procedure.

Bone Cancer Limb Sparing
Limb-sparing surgeries allow dogs and cats with bone cancer to keep the affected leg, rather than amputating the limb. Surgeons remove only the diseased bone. They then replace it with a donor bone from a deceased pet, or use a living section of bone from a healthy part of the pet's leg. Other times, a metal rod takes the place of the bone. It takes about sixteen weeks for the graft to fuse to the dog's existing bone and heal.

And in the most WOW-medicine of all, the section of radius bone with the offending tumor is removed. Then a one-inch section of healthy bone cut from the stump end is slowly moved 1 mm per day-prompting the healthy bone to grow/heal new bone in about 4 to 6 months.

Vision Surgery
Pets with eye injuries or ulcers benefit from corneal transplants performed by veterinary ophthalmologists. Older dogs may develop problems that cause the cornea to turn blue, and the small central portion is removed and replaced. Cats sometimes develop eye problems resulting from chronic herpes virus infection that cause the cornea to turn brown and die. A partial thickness corneal graft can correct the defect, and in about six weeks the eye heals and looks clear and beautiful. Pets that develop cataracts also can benefit from the same surgery that treats people.

Kidney Transplants
Kidney transplant can save pet lives. Cats seem particularly accepting of the procedure and don't have the high rejection rate the way dogs and people do. Don't worry, no kitties are killed to provide organs-instead, the feline that donates the kidney gets adopted as part of the arrangement. It's been reported that 59 percent of the cat transplant patients were still alive six months after surgery and 41 percent were still alive three years after surgery--some have lived for a decade or longer. About five universities and private specialty practices offer cat kidney transplants.

Cartilage Transplant and Stem Cell Therapies
Arthritis, dysplasia and other joint problems damage cartilage and make movement painful. An innovative procedure patterned after human techniques harvests healthy normal cartilage (often from the patient's other joints) and transplants it in plugs in the damaged area. The bone/cartilage plugs grow more cartilage, which spreads and covers the deficit.

Vet-Stem Regenerative Medicine employs a concentrated form of adult stem cells derived from the pet's own fat tissue to treat tendon, ligament, and arthritic conditions of horses and dogs. The veterinarian collects about two tablespoons of fat from the patient, which is shipped to the Vet-Stem.com laboratory in San Diego, California. Once processed, the stem cells are shipped back to the veterinarian in ready-to-inject syringes, and the stem cell treatment is injected directly into the injured site. Any extra can be stored at the Vet-Stem Bank for future treatments.

Heart Repair
Open-heart surgery currently remains limited to a few universities, and UC Davis Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital is the only place in the US that has regularly scheduled procedures for animals. They can do pretty much any procedure performed on humans, and employ a cardiopulmonary heart-lung bypass machine that allows the heart to be stopped for one to two hours.

One surgical procedure replaces defective valves with cow or pig tissue. Leaking heart valves is common in small animals, especially very small dogs. Surgery requires a six- to nine-person team to carefully monitor the patient before and during the invasive surgery. The entire surgery lasts five hours or longer.

Some dogs now benefit from pacemakers. But the most common congenital heart disease, patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) affects miniature poodles and German shepherds most often. Texas A&M and other specialty practices use catheters (long flexible tube) threaded through the arteries to fix the problem, sometimes by placing stainless steel fiber-embedded coils into the hole. The fibers stimulate clotting, which shuts off the hole.

Research has led to new diagnostic tools, new surgical procedures, new prevention options, and new uses for existing or novel drugs. These innovative veterinary options not only save lives but also extend a pet's longevity and improve the overall quality of life. And that's just doggone good for everyone!

Amy D. Shojai, CABC, is a certified animal behavior consultant and the award-winning author of 23 pet care books. She also writes for http://www.puppies.About.comand http://www.cats.About.com and appears on Animal Planet's CATS-101 and DOGS-101. Check out Amy's latest book, Pet Care in the New Century: Cutting-Edge Medicine for Dogs & Cats on Red Room, where you can read her blog.

Feline leukemia is a potentially deadly virus that afflicts household cats. As part of a Paw Nation series providing background about the medical problems your pet may suffer, we spoke to Dr. Cynthia Leveille-Webster, professor of veterinary medicine in the Department of Clinical Science at the Tufts University Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, to get some insights about the condition. You should always consult your veterinarian before giving medication or supplements to your pet.

What are the signs that my cat has feline leukemia?
The two most common signs are anemia, which makes your cat weak, and reoccurring infections. Additionally, leukemia may lead to cancers, such as lymphoma, which can affect internal organs.

How common is feline leukemia?
About 2-3 percent of cats in the United States are infected with feline leukemia, or FeLV. The incidence, however, has decreased in the past 15 to 20 years -- likely to due to a FeLV vaccine and good quality diagnostic tests. A vet can take a drop of a cat's blood and tell within 10 minutes whether it has leukemia. I don't see it much in my practice at Tufts, but it still exists and we must be vigilant about it.

How serious is feline leukemia?
It is fatal; most cats die within two years of a diagnosis. On rare occasions a cat may carry the leukemia virus and not become infected. The FeLV vaccine is not effective in cats already infected.

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.

Many readers expressed concern about our post from a couple weeks ago, in which we noted that, despite Pippi's traumatizing experience at the kennel earlier this year -- she got frighteningly sick and lost a bunch of weight -- we decided to bring her there again during a recent vacation. "Please reconsider," pleaded one Doggie Diaries reader. "I don't understand why you would put Pippi back in the same situation that made her so miserable before," said another.

Trust us, we would prefer to board her with a friend or have someone come look in on her at our house, but we just moved to a new town and don't really know anyone here. As for why we returned to the same kennel, well, we couldn't isolate exactly why she had a bad time before, and weren't sure it was their fault -- she'd stayed there previously without incident. Otherwise, we'd had great experiences with that kennel, which is also home to our vet.

Amy D. Shojai is a certified animal behavior consultant and the award-winning author of 23 pet care books, including "Complete Kitten Care" and "Pet Care in the New Century: Cutting-Edge Medicine for Dogs & Cats."

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Cats get the short end of the health care stick. According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, cats visit the vet much less frequently than dogs. It's not that felines are healthier (although cats do hide illness better) but many cats hate the vet so much their owners find it easier to just skip it. But even healthy cats need well exams once or twice a year.

Cats are adept at protecting themselves from stranger danger. What's familiar is safe, while anything new or different raises kitty suspicions. A vet visit delivers a triple whammy by changing the cat's routine, environment and exposure to strangers. Here are seven reasons cats hate the vet and how you can ease the angst.

Negative Crate Expectations. Cats learn very quickly to recognize cause and effect. The appearance of the cat carrier prompts kitty disappearing acts if used only for vet visits. Make the carrier part of the furniture and add a fuzzy bed or catnip toys inside to create a pleasant association.

Ever been at your vet's office when a fellow pet owner let his cat crawl over other clients? Or had someone's unrestrained mongrel take a chunk out of your thigh as you ambled innocently by with your totally chill pug? These things have happened to us here at Paw Nation and though the second incident hurt more the first, both are, at the very least, breaches of pet etiquette. While your vet might not advertise waiting room policy but there are unspoken rules you should follow.

In "USA Today," veterinarian Patty Khuly offers 10 waiting-room dos and don'ts on which we reasonable pet people can agree including when to restrain animals and smart ways of dealing with a packed waiting room, and more. The main message is that pet owners need to do their part to keep animal chaos to a minimum and be proactive about safety and comfort for both pets and humans at the doctor's office.

Check out the list to see if you've been behaving yourself, or if you and your furry friend have been in unknowing violation of some vet petiquette. Then tell us Paw Nation, have you had any unfortunate mishaps in the vet waiting room?

A: Many pet owners come to me with questions about dogs and chocolate. The topic is especially timely now, when Halloween candy is in so many homes across the US. During the holiday season in general vets see an increase in visits from owners whose dogs have ingested chocolate simply because there tends to be more of it lying around the house. The reason we see chocolate ingestion more in dog than cats is because dogs will often eat anything that smells good whereas cats are more picky.

Chocolate contains theobromine, an alkaloid of the cacao plant. Though the amount found in chocolate is safe for humans to ingest, theobromine is harmful to dogs because they metabolize this alkaloid more slowly than humans do. Not all chocolate contains the same amount of theobromine: milk chocolate contains less then semi-sweet chocolate, which contains less then baking chocolate.

A dog that has eaten chocolate may exhibit symptoms including (but not limited to) vomiting, diarrhea, hyperactivity, tremors, seizures, racing heart rhythm progressing to abnormal rhythms and, in severe cases, death. Other problems associated with chocolate ingestion include the high fat content in some chocolate products, and pancreatitis, which can also be seen post-ingestion.

If you know or suspect that your dog has eaten a piece of chocolate, contact your veterinarian. If possible, make sure to describe the type of chocolate and amount consumed. Your veterinarian can perform a simple mathematical formula that will determine whether or not the amount your dog ingested is toxic and requires immediate veterinary care.

During the holiday season -- especially Halloween -- be sure to keep chocolate out of reach of your animals.

Holidays are a time of fun and relaxation, but emergencies can still happen. With your regular vet out celebrating, what do you do if your pet needs medical attention? Head to the vet ER.

It's smart to know in advance where your local vet ER is. Have the number and location in a handy place, like tacked onto your fridge or saved in your phone. According to PetsMatter, it's important to remember that sick or injured animals might not act quite like their normal, lovely selves. Even if they've never shown an iota of aggression in their lives, pets can bite or scratch if they're injured or not feeling well. They're hurting and scared, so instinct may come into play.

Sally Ryan, DVM, of Affiliated Emergency Service in Eden Prairie, Minnesota recommends that, if possible, you muzzle an animal you're taking into emergency care to avoid a bite. A basket muzzle (which allows them to pant) is best, but a scarf or belt can do the trick. However if the animal is having trouble breathing, is unconscious, or is vomiting, do not muzzle. Ryan also advises against splinting an injured limb. It might help humans, but in animals, it can actually cause more pain.

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