Archive for the ‘Pet Stories’ Category
Flea Prevention: A Good Investment!
From www.healthypet.com!
Many owners are lulled into a false sense of security because they don’t see visible signs of fleas on their pets. They may think that they can afford to forego preventive treatment. However, fleas are good at hiding in your pet’s haircoat and in the environment. Their bodies, sleek and thin, are extremely well adapted for scurrying and disappearing in dense fur, especially near the ears, tail, head, and groin. Unless you are expressly looking for them, you may never actually see them. When infestations are mild or emerging, many owners may think that their pet’s itching or scratching is part of its normal grooming behavior. Cats, in particular, being the fastidious groomers that they are, are very good at grooming fleas off of themselves. That, however, doesn’t stop new fleas from jumping on them.
Fleas are well adapted to survive a broad range of environmental conditions and are very capable of surviving indoors year-round, even during winter. Keep in mind that the adult fleas you may or may not see on your pet represent only 5% of the flea population. The other 95% are lurking in various immature stages in your pet’s immediate environment — in bedding or carpeting or hiding in hard-to-reach crevices. While flea pupae normally hatch in about two weeks, they can exist in a suspended state for weeks or even months when environmental conditions aren’t just right. This dormancy period means that you may have a continually emerging source of new adult fleas for up to several months, even after you have started treatment. Most topical or oral flea-prevention medications require the adult flea to actually be on the pet or to ingest a blood meal in order for the flea to be killed. And, the environmental sprays that must be used in extreme infestations aren’t always effective against all of the life stages of immature fleas, particularly if pupae have hidden themselves in hard-to-reach places.
In addition, fleas are ubiquitous in the environment, and it is easy for pets to pick them up while outside. Fleas can be carried into your yard and even into your home by local wildlife, such as raccoons and mice.
Be Pound Wise, Not Penny Foolish
These special life-cycle and environmental adaptations can lead many owners to think that flea-prevention products don’t work and aren’t worth the investment, because they may continue to notice new fleas. The reality, however, is that they do work and are highly effective over time when used as directed. The best way to avoid fleas is to use one of the many proven topical or oral monthly flea-prevention products that are available on the market. These products are very safe and easy to use. Be sure to ask your veterinarian for recommendations on how to prevent and control these pests.
Please click here to continue to the full article at www.healthypet.com.
Arthritis and Your Pet
Arthritis
Step One – Your Veterinarian
The first step in caring for your pet with arthritis is making sure the disease is diagnosed correctly. The symptoms of arthritis can be hard to distinguish—animals can’t complain about their aching joints, so all that pet “parents” see is a response to pain. Animals with arthritis might avoid the activities they used to enjoy, stop jumping onto the furniture, or they might nip or seem upset when touched. Some animals may become depressed or change their eating habits; others may simply seem grumpier than usual. These symptoms can also indicate very serious problems, however, such as hypokalemia (low blood potassium) in cats, cognitive dysfunction, or certain cancers. To be sure your pet is healthy, it’s important that you take you pet to the veterinarian if you suspect she has arthrit is.
Your veterinarian can also help your pet by finding out what kind of arthritis she has, using a combination of a medical history, physical exams, X rays, blood tests, and occasionally tests on the fluid inside the joint or MRI imaging. Though it is relatively uncommon, sometimes arthritis can be caused by a bacterial infection inside a joint or an autoimmune disorder. These are treated with different medications than the more common osteoarthritis. Arthritis caused by hip or elbow dysplasia can sometimes be treated surgically. Your veterinarian needs to rule out these options before you move on to treating your pet’s arthritis.
Osteoarthritis, also called degenerative joint disease, is the most common type of arthritis in animals as well as in humans. Most elderly dogs and cats suffer from osteoarthritis to some degree. Over time, the cartilage that cushions joints wears down and bones start rubbing against each other. As the condition progresses, the friction can wear down and damage the bones themselves. This kind of arthritis can occur anywhere there is a joint, though it is most common and causes the most pain in the weight-bearing joints like the shoulders, hips, elbows, knees, and ankles. It can be easily seen in large-breed dogs, because their frames have to carry the most weight, but cats and smaller dogs are affected as well. Though there is no cure for osteoarthritis, it can be managed well through medical treatment, environmental adaptation, and diet and exercise.
Treating Your Pet Right
After diagnosing your pet’s arthritis and determining the severity of the disease, your veterinarian will decide which treatment will be most effective in treating her. In recent years, many new medications have made the treatment of arthritis much more promising. Your veterinarian might prescribe steroids and anti-inflammatory drugs to decrease the swelling in joints and make movement easier. Some veterinarians also recommend dietary supplements, which fortify the cartilage in damaged joints. It is very important that you not try to medicate your pet’s arthritis on your own, however, as human anti-inflammatories and supplements can be dangerous for animals. Acetaminophen (Tylenol) is toxic to cats, for example, and cats metabolize aspirin extremely slowly and are easy to overdose.
Please click here to continue to the full article from HealthyPet.com!
Just How Important Is A Pet Seatbelt?
By Stacy @ Trupanion
I’ve written about the importance of pet safety in cars in the past because it’s an issue I feel very passionately about. My own adopted dog of nearly three years had a car seat belt in her size before I even brought her home.
After reading a very well-written and in-depth article on Mother Nature Network, I became inspired to post a reminder to all pet owners. While I won’t go into as much detail as they did, I will highlight the key points and encourage you to check out their article.
- The article says, “According to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA), diversions that last more than 2 seconds increase your risk of crashing.”
- Driving with a dog in your lap is like driving with a bag of groceries in your lap and hinders your ability to control the steering wheel effectively.
- On top of that, if your airbag deploys, your precious pet not only gets smashed between you and the bag, but also prevents the airbag of doing its job.
- “Traveling at just 30 miles per hour, an unrestrained 10-pound dog will exert roughly 300 pounds of pressure in an accident, according to Jennifer Huebner-Davidson, traffic safety programs manager for AAA. Without a safety restraint, that pint-size pooch can injure other passengers or get hurt on impact.”
Click here to read the full article at Trupanion.com!
Is My Pet In Pain?
Clues to Detecting Fluffy and Fido’s Painful Secrets
To protect themselves from predators, animals naturally hide their pain. Your pet may be suffering even though he isn’t showing obvious signs. Advancements in veterinary science have decoded subtle telltale signs of animal distress. Observing your pet’s behavior is vital to managing his or her pain. How well do you know your pet? Use these five clues from the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) to help you understand your pet’s body language.
Clue 1: Abnormal chewing habits
If your pet is showing abnormal chewing habits, such as dropping its food or chewing on one side of the mouth, it may have a dental disorder or a mouth tumor. Additional signs may include weight loss, bad breath or excessive face rubbing. Routine dental checkups are important to prevent and treat dental disorders and related pain.
Clue 2: Drastic weight gain or loss
Pain directly influences your pet’s weight and eating habits. Animals carrying excess weight have an increased chance of tearing ligaments and damaging joints. Pets with arthritis or muscle soreness may not want to access their food because bending over is uncomfortable. Arthritis pain may also cause pets to gain weight while their eating habits remain the same due to lack of exercise. Pain can also cause animals to loose their appetites which will lead to weight loss.
Clue 3: Avoids affection or handling
Did Fluffy used to be active and energetic, but now sits quietly around the house? Avoiding affection or handling may be a sign of a progressive disease such as osteoarthritis or intervertebral disc disease. Although your pet may appear to be normal before petting or handling it, the added pressure applied to its body may expose sensitive and painful areas. Hiding is also a sign of pain. Because the animal is hurting, she will hide to avoid a vulnerable position (this allows the pet to prevent painful interactions).
Clue 4: Decreased movement and exercise
Osteoarthritis or joint disease is the most common cause of pain. Pets that limp may be reluctant to go up or down stairs, exercise, or play. Weight and joint injuries can also go hand-in-hand. Losing unnecessary pounds will help overweight pets decrease pressure on sore joints and reduce pain. Consult your veterinarian about exercises, diets and medical therapies that can help improve your pet’s health.
Please click here to continue to the full article at HealthyPet.com!
I Can’t Believe He Ate That!
Foreign body @ Michigan Road Animal Hospital:hospital type pacifiers
Dogs and cats eat some pretty darned crazy things! Sure, I can understand nabbing a loaf of bread from the kitchen counter or sneaking some “kitty roca” out of the litter box. But why on earth eat a sewing needle, panty hose, Lego pieces, or mama’s favorite diamond earrings? Just when I think I’ve seen it all, something new surprises me.
Dogs, more so than cats, tend to be “repeat offenders.” I recall one Labrador in particular who had six surgeries over the course of his lifetime to remove socks lodged within his intestinal tract (in spite of counseling his humans repeatedly on picking up their socks). As many surgeries as this dog had, we should have installed an abdominal zipper!
Not all cases of foreign body ingestion have such happy endings, particularly if the foreign object has perforated through the wall of the stomach or intestinal loop. This allows leakage of nonsterile gastrointestinal contents into the normally sterile abdominal cavity resulting in widespread inflammation known as peritonitis. With emergency surgery and post-operative intensive care, many of these patients survive, but it is certainly becomes a big deal, both for the patient and the pocketbook.
Esophageal foreign bodies are notoriously difficult to remove, particularly if they’ve been lodged for more than a day or two. (The esophagus is the muscular tube that transports food and liquids from the mouth down into the stomach.) Even if the foreign object is successfully removed, the resulting inflammation within the esophagus can result in the formation of a stricture (narrowing of the esophageal lumen) and chronic, severe swallowing difficulties.
Some dogs and cats are lucky. The foreign objects they eat pass freely without any ill effects. I see the not so lucky ones with objects that have become lodged within their gastrointestinal tracts. There are two means to retrieve a gastrointestinal foreign body, surgery and endoscopy. An endoscope is a long telescope device that can be passed through the oral cavity, down the esophagus and into the stomach and upper portion of the small intestine. The endoscope allows visualization of the inside lining of the bowel and its contents. A grabber type instrument can be deployed through a channel in the endoscope to grab the object and then pull it out through the mouth. Endoscopy requires general anesthesia, but it is often preferred over surgery because of its less invasive nature.
In order for endoscopy to be of benefit, the foreign body must be located within the esophagus, stomach, or the very upper part of the small intestine (this is as far as the endoscope can reach). Some objects (coins, needles, tennis ball fragments, cloth) are well suited to being removed endoscopically because they are more “grabbable.” Objects that have traveled further down the gastrointestinal tract (beyond reach of the endoscope) or are without “grabbable” surfaces (large rounded bones, balls) are better retrieved surgically.
Please continue to the full article! Click here.
Dogs Teach Us What Really Matters
by Dr. Tim Hunt, DVM
from the awesome folks at petsblogs.com
Most everything I have learned that is really important about life I learned from a dog. It sounds corny, but it’s true. They give back so much.
I got my first dog when I was 20 — I had always had cats, mice and guinea pigs as a child — but since then I have been making up for lost time. Today I own 40 outdoor dogs and two that live indoors. The outdoor dogs include Alaskan Huskies that love to pull sleds. I have been racing sled dogs for 17 years, but I wish I had started even earlier in life.
First and foremost, my dogs have taught me how to be patient and to let things develop rather than to push them through. When I am racing my dogs, everything has to work in harmony, all 16 dogs plus me for 80 miles at a time.
In long distance sled racing, we are often on the trail 10 or 12 hours. Then we stop to rest for about the same length of time. Mushers and dogs learn to pay attention to each others nuances, good and bad. Dogs let you know exactly how they are feeling, and they lavish attention on you. It builds your confidence.
I had never before felt as confident as I did in 2009 when I finished the most famous dog sled race of all, the 1,150-mile Iditarod in Alaska. It took me 15 days and we finished 52nd, dead last, but I was ecstatic crossing the finish line and taking the “Red Lantern,” the award given the last team to finish this grueling trek.
Lesson 1: Crawl Before You Quit — Racing a team of sled dogs cross the Alaskan wilderness I learned the meaning of endurance from my dogs. There are 25 checkpoints where you can send your gear ahead of time, but most of the time we camped in the wilderness. It was cold that year, 40 degrees below zero and 40 mph winds, but the dogs plugged on. I didn’t think I had it in me, but they showed me otherwise.
Lesson 2: Wag More, Bark Less — In a race like the Iditarod, you and your dog team experience extreme emotional ups and downs. In the race and while training, you try not to let your dogs know when you are down or they will pick up on it and it will “sour the team.” If you can maintain your composure, though, their exuberance will slowly bring you back where you need to be. I learned this when I hit a huge low point at about the sixth checkpoint. I thought my team was worn out and I had actually decided I would take them home. But when I went to feed them, they jumped up with so much enthusiasm that I realized it was me that needed more rest. I slept a couple more hours and when we hit the trail again they took off like a shot. I realized at that point that so much of racing depends on attitude — a great lesson for all of life.
Which Dog Is the Hero?
Plenty of people would be likely to grab their hankies upon hearing the story of Zurich, a Labrador retriever and service dog who diligently cares for a woman who can no longer walk or speak. Or Ricochet, a dog who helps special-needs children and people with disabilities by surfing with them.
There’s also Sadie, a brave K-9 and arson dog who has worked hundreds of fires and whose efforts have led to numerous arrests. And then there’s Roselle, a guide dog who calmly directed her handler down 1,463 stairs of stairs at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 and who even maintained her focus and poise when the pair got hit with debris and engulfed in dust.
Zurich, Ricochet, Sadie and Roselle are among the truly amazing pups that will be honored at a red-carpet, star-studded event at the Beverly Hills Hilton on Saturday, Oct. 1. That’s the night of the inaugural American Humane Association Hero Dog Awards, when eight four-legged finalists will be in attendance with their human handlers. Their stories will be shared via video tributes, and each dog will be presented with a special Hero Dog award. At the end of the evening, one of the dogs will be named the American Hero Dog of the Year.
Other canine finalists include:
—Stacey Mae, a therapy dog who has helped collect thousands of teddy bears from around the world for sick children in hospitals;
—Bino, a military working dog and patrol K-9 who has served in Iraq and has masterfully helped the U.S. Border Patrol with narcotics detection;
—Harley, a hearing dog who has given his owner self-confidence and a feeling of equality with others that she had not experienced before, and
—Sage, a K-9 and search-and-rescue dog who has participated in numerous missing persons searches, including the search for U.S. soldiers in Iraq and for teenager Natalee Holloway in Aruba. Sage also has helped with recovery efforts after Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Rita and the Sept. 11 terrorist attack at the Pentagon.
Myth Busting: Pet Dangers Decoded
From old wives tales to internet-based scares, pet owners often find themselves in a fog of half-truths and outright lies when it comes to keeping their animals safe.
Luckily, “America’s Veterinarian” Marty Becker dropped by “Good Morning America” today to do a little myth-busting.
Thanks to the Humane Society of New York, two lovable pets, Romeo and Pringles, joined Becker today on “GMA.” CLICK HERE to learn more about the Humane Society of New York and how to adopt a pet.
Web Extra: CLICK HERE for some more surprising pet dangers that could be in your home.
Small Amounts of Chocolate Are Deadly to Dogs: Myth
Many pet owners think that just one bite of chocolate kill your dog, but the truth is, a large dog would have to eat a lot of milk chocolate to get sick — more than a couple of pounds.
But even though chocolate is not necessarily deadly, that doesn’t mean you should give it out as treats. “The rule of thumb is, the darker the chocolate, and the smaller the dog, the more dangerous it is,” Becker said. Please click here to continue reading the full article.
Dog Devours Diamonds
By Jill Rosen @ The Baltimore Sun
The dog eats the chicken bones in the park. The dog eats the homework. But it’s not everyday that the dog swallows $10,000 in precious stones.
But one hungry pup in Georgia did.
According to Georgia’s WALB, it was a cutie-pie named Honeybun.
When $10,000 worth of diamonds went missing from John Ross Jewelers in Albany, the store owners immediately suspected Honeybun — a store pup who’s more mascot than guard dog.
While Honeybun’s owners were helping customers, the little dog — who looks to be a Pomeranian — jumped onto a chair, and then onto a desk. On top of the desk were four packs of loose diamonds.
By the time the owner returned, there were only three packs. Click here to go to the full article!
Dog Won’t Leave Fallen Navy SEAL’s Side
Photo credit: Lisa Pemberton
As reported by KPBS
Navy SEAL Jon Tumilson had a very close friend in his life – his dog, Hawkeye. Tumilson, a former San Diego resident, was killed August 6 in the Chinook helicopter crashthat also claimed the lives of 29 other American servicemembers.
Tumilson’s funeral was on Friday in Rockford, Iowa at Rockford Senior High. Hawkeye was one of the 1,500 souls who attended. As you can see by the gut-wrenching photo on the right, Hawkeye refused to leave his master’s side during the service.
The picture was taken by Lisa Pembleton, Tumilson’s cousin. Pembleton contacted Home Post with this message:
Hawkeye is/was his loyal “son”. To say that
he was an amazing man doesn’t do him justice. The loss of Jon to his
family, military family and friends is immeasurable. I hadn’t planned
on taking any pictures other than with family. However, from my seat
at the funeral, I felt compelled to take one photo to share with
family members that couldn’t make it or couldn’t see what I could from
the aisile. This is that photo…
Pembleton also informed Home Post that a memorial fund has been set up in Tumilson’s memory:
