Onions are highly toxic to dogs and cats. Fortunately, most cats have better sense than to eat onions, but onions that have been cooked with a tasty sauce may be attractive to both species. Grocery store onions are not the only culprit. Wild onions growing as volunteers in your yard are just as poisonous. Even [...]
Body Condition Score (BCS) is a 5-level or 9-level means of assessing whether one’s pet is too thin, too heavy or just right. Our hospital subscribes to the system using five divisions of body condition, as does Hill’s Pet Nutrition, who supplied the chart below. Parameters measured in Body Condition Score are: ribs tail base [...]
Dawn writes: We gave our 9 yr old, 95 lb German shepherd his 4th dose of Trifexis Sunday-Jan 8, 2012. Today- Jan 10, we had to have him put to sleep. Our veterinarian would not believe that the medication had anything to do with his symptoms: no appetite, disorientation and labored breathing. We kept waiting for [...]
You got a new puppy or kitten as a Christmas present. Now you need some guidance. Your first concern is to be sure the pet is physically well, and stays well. The only way you can know that is by making an appointment with your veterinarian for a thorough examination and stool test for intestinal [...]
Is your dog sneezing? Are you sure he’s not snorting? Do you know how to tell the difference? A sneeze is a violent, involuntary response to an irritant, usually located in the upper respiratory tract, especially the nasal passages. Dust, pollen, molds, foreign material such as a blade of grass, these are all things that [...]
Rabies. Perhaps the most-feared word in infectious diseases. Rabies is found on every land mass on the planet except for a few islands. While the average American’s risk of contracting rabies is extremely small, the danger lies in the fact that, once contracted, the disease is almost uniformly fatal. You may read about an exceptional [...]
I can relate. Many dogs suffer from motion sickness when riding in an automobile. As an avid bass fisherman, I don’t have any trouble when on inland waters, but cruise ships send me looking for a rail to launch over! Motion sickness, also called car sickness, occurs when emetic centers in the brain are stimulated. [...]
On Monday we discussed core vaccines for cats. Today we are discussing non-core feline vaccines. The Feline Immunodeficiency Virus Vaccine can cause problems in diagnosis of natural disease. While FIV, like FeLV, is a uniformly fatal, untreatable disease, transmission is more difficult, so FIV is included on the non-core vaccine list. Other protection is available [...]
Cat vaccination schedules are among the most controversial feline topics currently being discussed. Almost everyone is in agreement about kitten vaccination schedules, as presented in the chart below: Kitten Age Vaccination Administered 6 weeks Panleukopenia, Rhinotracheitis, Calicivirus, Feline Leukemia Virus 9 weeks Panleukopenia, Rhinotracheitis, Calicivirus, Feline Leukemia [...]
Dog vaccination schedules are among the most controversial canine topics currently being discussed. Almost everyone is in agreement about puppy vaccination schedules, as represented in the chart below: Age of puppy Vaccinations to be administered 6 weeks DHLPP* 9 weeks DHLPP*, Bordetella 12 weeks DHLPP*, Bordetella 15 weeks DHLPP*, Bordetella and Rabies 18 weeks (many [...]
Despite advanced in modern medicine, there are still many unknowns. The cause of Alzheimer’s disease, fibromyalgia, among many others, eludes researchers. And, so it is with feline hyperthyroidism. While the condition is anything but uncommon, and successful treatment is available, we still don’t know why cats have begun to suffer from it since the first [...]
I’ve stated before that I love the saying, “Do something, even if it’s wrong,” but that I love it because it’s funny, notbecause I think it’s a good approach. That turned out to be the case with a patient I saw today. She had been in pain over the weekend and the owner had begun [...]
“Boosters” is a concept that is often misunderstood by pet owners. Biologically-speaking, in administering a booster vaccination, your pet’s doctor is seeking to initiate an anamnestic response from the immune system. Anamnestic comes from the Greek word anamnesis, meaning “a recalling.” Shadow received 15-week booster vaccinations today, right on schedule. When a “first” vaccination is [...]
I wrote about Hill’s Prescription Diet k/d yesterday and the occasion of recommending it brought back a memory that is probably more than twenty years old. I don’t recall the old black Labrador retriever’s name, but I do remember that, after performing laboratory tests for him, his chemistry profile showed some low-level kidney and liver [...]
I was having a discussion with a devoted pet owner shortly after she overheard a client in our clinic lobby say that she “spent $1000 to get her dog’s right knee fixed and she wasn’t going to spend anything on the left one.” Tucker had surgical removal of a mass, which turned out to be Mast Cell [...]
Pyometrais a condition of the “intact” or un-spayed female dog or cat. The Latin prefix “pyo” means “pus,” and the suffix “metra” refers to the uterus. Therefore, the literal translation is “pus in the uterus,” but the condition is more complex than that. Some clinicians use the term pyometritis. The “itis” suffix refers to the [...]
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