National Poison Prevention Week

In December we did a blog about Christmas Concerns and Holiday Hazards. We would like to expand on the list for National Poison Prevention Week (March 18-24) and to help keep your home pet safe all year long. The ASPCA has its own poison control center and their phone number is 1-888-426-4435. If your pet every gets into anything that could potentially be a poison, it is important to get a call out to the ASPCA as soon as possible. They do have a $65 fee. Their website also has a few lists that you can look through. I found the following information and added a few extra notes: 

Foods to Avoid Feeding Your Pet

• Alcoholic beverages
• Avocado
• Chocolate (all forms)
• Coffee (all forms)
• Fatty foods – especially if your pet has pancreatitis.
• Macadamia nuts
• Moldy or spoiled foods
• Onions, onion powder
• Raisins and grapes
• Salt
• Yeast dough
• Garlic
• Products sweetened with xylitol – Such as sugar free gums/mints.

Medications to Avoid

Common examples of human medications that can be potentially lethal to pets, even in small doses, include:

• Pain killers – including Tylenol and the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications like Advil, Aleve, etc.
• Cold medicines
• Anti-cancer drugs
• Antidepressants
• Vitamins
• Diet Pills

Common Household Hazards

• Fabric softener sheets
• Mothballs (Naphthalene)
• Post-1982 pennies (due to high concentration of zinc) – We did see a case of poisoning by a penny a few years back and would highly recommend keeping your change in your piggy bank to avoid unwanted ingestion.

Omega 3 Fatty Acids

Omega 3 fatty acids – Check out what they can do for your pet: 

The science behind Omega-3 fatty acids: These are considered essential fatty acids. We need them for our bodies to work normally. Because essential fatty acids (ALA,DHA,EPA) are not made in the body or are inefficiently converted, we need to get them from our diet. 

Omega-3s have a number of health benefits. Omega-3s are thought to play an important role in reducing inflammation throughout the body -- in the blood vessels, the joints, and elsewhere. In other words, Omega-3s are good for pets with allergies, otitis externa, arthritis, ACL injuries, etc. 

 

The fun stuff: Omega 3 Fatty Acids come in a variety of forms to help your pet out. We have a hypoallergenic cheese flavored chew here called Catalyst. Most pets love them! Each chew has 3000 mg of fish oil so it is easy to dose. The formula for how to give Omega-3s can be simplified into giving about 1000 mg of fish oil per 10-20 pounds of body weight depending on the condition. 

With all oils it is important to work up to the appropriate dose. You start off low and increase the dose a little bit every couple days. This will prevent your pet from getting digestive upset from the oil.

Holiday Concerns

Be careful how you deck your halls! The holiday season is generally a time of family togetherness in which even our pets participate. One’s thoughts generally are far from thoughts of injury; however, one must be aware of some important seasonal hazards in order to insure a happy holiday season.

RIBBONS & TINSEL
These are of special interest to playful cats and kittens who see these materials as toys (or prey) to be chased, pounced upon, chewed or swallowed. While chasing and pouncing pose no health threats, chewing and swallowing do, as these strings or “linear foreign bodies” can catch in the GI tract, leading to bunching of intestine as the body tries in vain to move the string or ribbon through. This is a life-threatening condition requiring surgery for correction. Supervise animals who play with string closely.

ELECTRIC LIGHT CORDS
These are also tempting to cats who like to play with string as well as to puppies who are teething and interested in chewing. If a pet bites through an electrical cord, it could result in a severe burn to the tongue which causes the pet’s lung to fill with fluid, causing respiratory distress. This is also an emergency requiring immediate veterinary attention.

CHOCOLATE
Many people do not realize that chocolate can be a poison. Unsweetened baking chocolate carries a much higher dose of the toxin “theobromine” than does milk chocolate, but even normal milk chocolate can be dangerous; a small dog sharing candy can wind up in big trouble. Clinical signs of chocolate poisoning include hyperexcitability, nervousness, vomiting, and diarrhea and death.

POINSETTIA
Consuming this festive-looking plant can be irritating to the mouth and stomach of the dog or cat that chews on or eats it. Contrary to popular belief, poinsettia is not specifically toxic.

MISTLETOE
The fact that there are several types of mistletoe makes it difficult to predict the clinical signs of poisoning. Some mistletoes produce only stomach upset while others may lead to liver failure or seizuring. Consider mistletoe to be a hazardous substance and keep it inaccessible to pets and children.

COOKING
Keep pets out of the kitchen during the hustle and bustle of the season. The last thing you want is for someone you love to get underfoot and get burned from spillage.

DIETARY INDISCRETION
We all like to include our pets in Holiday meals along with the rest of the family, but try to keep in mind that sudden rich diet changes are likely to upset a pet’s stomach. Vomiting and diarrhea are not uncommon. If leftovers are of an especially fatty nature, the pancreas may become inflamed and overloaded. This condition is serious and may require hospitalization

Real Bones are Bad

Real bones & the damage they can cause our dogs:

Bones can cause damage to the GI tract:
Real bones can cause perforation of the GI tract.  This is a serious concern and would require surgery to repair.  Impaction of the GI tract can also occur as a result of feeding real bones.  Not as common, but still a concern, is aspirating bone particles into the lungs.

Bones can cause damage to the teeth:
Real bones are also a concern, because they can fracture the teeth.  The tooth that usually gets injured is the upper fourth pre-molar teeth.  This tooth is a 3 rooted tooth and if fractured, requires root canal therapy or oral surgery to extract the tooth and root. We hear a lot of hype that dogs should get real bones, because wolves get real bones or (following statement from the American Veterinary Dental College) that “Dogs are carnivores – they chew on bones in the wild. However, AVDC does not recommend cow hooves, dried natural bones or hard nylon products because they are too hard and do not mimic the effect of a dog tearing meat off a carcass. These hard products are associated with broken teeth or damaged gums.”

Dental Care

A pet needing oral care is something we see so often around here. Heavy tartar, gingivitis, fractured teeth, periodontal disease, etc. are a common finding at routine annual exams. We also hear a lot about how horrible everyone’s pet’s breath smells. 

Daily oral care is vital in keeping your pet’s oral cavity healthy. As humans we our taught to brush our teeth 2-3 times daily, floss regularly, and visit the dentist every 6 months. Animal’s teeth do not receive this same care and that can lead to tartar, gingivitis, periodontal disease, etc. There are products out there that are easy to use daily if your pet does not allow brushing. Hills & Purina both make a dental diet that is a large kibble designed to scrub away plaque. Maxiguard OraZn is a blue gel that contains zinc to reduce the bacterial count in the oral cavity. There are also enzymatic rawhide chews to help reduce the tartar build up.

Even with daily oral care, routine dental cleanings should still be done. Dental cleanings are done under general anesthesia. We do pre-anesthetic exams and blood work to ensure your pet’s safety under anesthesia. The dental cleaning includes an oral examination, periodontal probing, ultrasonic scaling of teeth above and below the gum line, polishing with prophy paste, and oral cavity irrigation with chlorhexidine rinse.

Until December 31, 2012, our periodontal therapy prices will be reduced by $50!!!

Food Information

We are hearing a lot lately about good and bad diets for pets. We are all very concerned about what to feed our furry friends. Of course we want to make sure we are giving them the best possible nutrition, but what is that exactly? 

In order to determine what makes the best pet foods, we need to first talk about some of the myths of pet food advertisers. The pet food market is a multibillion dollar industry and everyone wants a piece of the pie, so a lot of these companies are trying to find a new angle to get in. The veterinary nutritionists feel that these companies are marketing by using guilt. One of the biggest myths that we are hearing right now is that corn is bad for dogs or that it is a common allergy for dogs. Corn is a natural and wholesome ingredient loaded with a lot of really great benefits for your pet. In a recent article that our staff read, it was stated by 4 board certified veterinary nutritionists that corn, wheat, and soy are usually innocent when accused of causing food allergies. The top allergens for our pets are usually the protein source they are ingesting if in fact they do have food allergies. 

We’ve been hearing that a lot of people believe that you can tell everything about your pet’s food by reading the ingredient list. The ingredient lists of pet foods, however, are often misleading. For example, a dog food could claim that corn is not the number one ingredient in their pet food, and certainly have the protein source as the number one listed ingredient, but corn could in fact be the majority of the kibble. The way to achieve this is by weighing the protein source prior to dehydrating it and weighing everything else after it has been dehydrated. Water weighs a lot! The other thing that these tricky companies do is to split the ingredient into multiple categories. Corn, for example, might be split into corn meal, whole corn, corn starch, etc. They do the same thing with rice, soy, barley, etc.  The better part of the bag to read is the AAFCO statement. You want to make sure that the food underwent studies and is not just “formulated” to meet your pet’s needs. It should also be listed for a specific life stage whether it is puppy or kitten, adult maintenance, or senior. A food listed for all life stages is one that has been either tested or formulated to fit the needs of a puppy or kitten. Puppy & Kitten food is generally higher in calories and not the best food for adult or senior dogs to be on. 

Did you know that there are also a large number of companies that do not make their own pet food? These foods tend to have less quality control than companies that make their own food.  "Diets from pet food marketing-distribution companies that don't make their own foods may potentially fluctuate more from batch to batch than a company where it's all done in-house".  "Royal Canin, Hill's Pet Nutrition, Nestle Purina and Iams PetCare will control all aspects of development, manufacturing and sales, so there is more company oversight of the pet food process." "These are also the companies that are investing in research that promotes veterinary medicine and veterinary nutrition."  stated Dr. Weeth, a diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Nutrition. (Veterinary Practice News, Volume 24/Number 9).

All in all, PVAH recommends feeding a high quality pet food such as Iams, Royal Canin, Hills Science Diet, Purina One or Purina ProPlan. We also recommend that everyone base their pet food choice on research and not on marketing. Every pet’s nutritional needs are different and we can help you decide what food would be the best o

Otitis Externa

We are seeing a lot of otitis externa this time of year. Some symptoms you may notice are a bad odor from the ear, shaking the head, scratching the ears, or even debris in the ears. The doctors do recommend routine ear cleaning to help prevent this.  Otitis externa is inflammation or “infection” of the external ear canal. It is almost always caused by allergies and can often lead to a secondary yeast or bacterial infection. There are different types of allergies that can cause otitis externa from inhalant to food allergies. 

Step 1: Instill a liberal amount of ear cleaner into the ear canals. The ear cleaner should be gentle on the ears. We recommend using one that does not contain alcohol, such as Epi-Otic Advance. 

Step 2: Massage the cleanser into the canal by rubbing the base of the ear. This step also breaks up the debris.  

Step 3: Wipe out what you can see and reach with a cotton ball. Dogs and cats have “L” shaped ear canals, so you will not be able to reach in far enough to hit the ear drum. You do not want to use Q-Tips down in the canal.  

Step 4: Instill any medications as prescribed by Dr. Emmert or Dr. Diemer.