Are you preventing Heartworm Disease?

With spring and warmer weather upon us, mosquitoes will be making their appearance anytime. Heartworms are transmitted by the bite of an infected mosquito. This is a major health concern for your pet!

Signs of heartworm disease include: coughing, difficulty breathing, panting, decreased exercise tolerance or even sudden death. Pets may not show signs until very late in the course of the disease and that is why annual blood testing is recommended.

However, heartworm disease is easily prevented with either a chewable tablet or a topical medication placed on the skin between the shoulder blades. Both types of preventative are used monthly. If you have a difficult time remembering to treat your dog monthly, we now have an injection that will last six months.

Let’s not forget our feline friends. Although cats are not the proper host for heartworms, some cats can contract the disease. Identifying cats with heartworm disease is very difficult, but the infection can be easily prevented with use of monthly and/or topical medication.

Misfortune of bad teeth...

This is Chip – he is my dog. Chip has the misfortune to have been born from a mother and father who both had bad teeth. Chip is nine years old. He is about ready to have his third dental cleaning. (He doesn’t know it yet). 

He was on my lap the other night and his breath grossed me out. I immediately carried him to the kitchen counter (my in-house exam table) and did an oral exam. Diagnosis—halitosis due to bacteria in mouth with grade II dental disease.


Grade I= good teeth and oral health

Grade II=gums red and mild to moderate tartar

Grade III=tartar and gingivitis beginning periodontal disease

Grade IV=advanced periodontal disease diseased or loose teeth.

When is the last time you looked at your pet’s teeth? Or did you just not want to look?

The number one abnormal finding on routine physical exam in dogs and cats is obesity. The number two problem is dental disease. The best way to help your pet have good oral health is to brush it’s teeth. 1% of my clients brush their pet’s teeth. Unfortunately for Chip I am in the 99% and likely so are you. Brushing is the best but there are other things you can do if you can’t brush.

Some options for you at home to care for your pets teeth with a lot less work are:

• Hill’s Prescription Diet T/D (a fiber matrix tooth food) used as treats. This is what I do for Chip. He gets 4 a day.

• Greenies treats work well, he gets one of these occasionally.

• Dentahex oral solution (like mouthwash for dogs) you wipe it on and it helps clean the teeth. I wipe his teeth when his breath smells.

These products work and we have them available at the clinic.

There are other products as well. You can find other oral health care products in many stores. It is easy to make a claim to help keep teeth clean. It is another to have been tested and given the VOHC (Veterinary Oral Health Council) seal of approval. If a product has this seal it is a good product. Others I can’t speak for.

See how you do answering a few questions about your pet’s oral health.

1. True or False?  If your pet’s teeth are nice and white they are OK.
2. True or False?  Hard food always keeps your pets teeth clean.
3. True or False?  Bones are good for your pet’s teeth.
4. True or False?  Bad teeth can lead to heart, liver and kidney problems
5. True or False?  Bad teeth are painful.

Answers:

1. False. The mouth isn’t OK just because the teeth are white if the gums are swollen or red.
2. False. Hard food helps only if the pet chews the food well. Most swallow their kibble whole.
3. True. As long as bones don’t break the teeth they help but I have seen a lot of broken teeth and my dog never gets bones!!!
4. True. Bad teeth do a lot of damage that can go unseen until serious problems crop up.
5.  True. Did you ever have a tooth ache? Our pets don’t show us tooth pain except occasionally drooling or dropping their food when they try to eat. None the less they hurt.

Poisons and Your Pets

Did you know the ASPCA has a poison control hotline for pet owners? In my 3rd year of veterinary school, as part of a toxicology course, I was required to shadow at the Animal Poison Control Center in Urbana, Illinois. I found it to be very interesting and up until my experience there had no knowledge of the poison control center and the services they offer to pet owners. They have a hotline available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year! Calls do require a $65 fee, but if your pet is microchipped there are certain microchip companies that will pay for calls to the hotline.

The poison control center is equipped with trained professionals that are standing by to answer your calls. What I found most interesting was the technology they utilize – computer programs that will allow them to enter a pet, its weight, along with the possible poison ingested and the amount, allowing calculation of how high a risk the pet is for toxicity for that particular ingestion. From there they can instruct you how to proceed which involves anything from just monitoring your pet for clinical signs of illness to inducing emesis (vomiting) to remove a recently ingested poison, to advising contact with your veterinarian as soon as possible.

In 2013, the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center in Urbana, Illinois, handled nearly 180,000 cases exposed to possibly poisonous substances. Topping the list for the sixth year in a row were prescription human medications. Nearly 20% of all calls were from owners whose pets got into medicines intended for human use. You can visit the ASPCA Animal Poison Control website (www.aspca.org) for the top ten list of toxins of 2013.

Some common household toxins to be aware of if you have pets include chocolate, coffee, alcohol, avocado, macadamia nuts, grapes/raisins, yeast dough, raw/undercooked meat, eggs, bones, xylitol (which is discussed in more detail in a previous blog by Dr. Johnson), onions, garlic, chives, milk, and salt. Visit the website for additional information on these toxins as well as plants that can be dangerous to your pet.

It's a relief to know that if you are unsure if a substance your pet ingested is toxic you can always get a hold of someone for advice, and it is a lot more reliable than Dr. Google! The number for the poison control hotline is (888) 426-4435.

Holiday Season means delicious foods and... Pancreatitis

As the holiday season draws near, gathering with friends and family dominate many of our plans for the upcoming months. Many times, our furry family members are right there with us enjoying the festivities. But before you let your pet indulge on treats from the parties, be aware that it can put them at risk for serious consequences.

Pancreatitis commonly occurs due to increases of lipoprotein (complexes of lipid aka fats and protein) in the blood. These lipoproteins in the blood are increased when pets eat things like fatty steak, pork, bacon, greasy French fries, etc. Pancreatitis can also occur secondary to inflammation of the liver or bile duct causing lack of blood flow and trauma to the pancreas. High levels of calcium, toxins, or infectious disease can be other causes of pancreatitis. Certain breeds are affected more than others. These include the Miniature Schnauzer, Miniature Poodle, and Cocker Spaniel. The Siamese cat also seems to be at higher risk. The average age of dogs presenting with pancreatitis is 6½ years but it can happen at any age.

The gland secretes enzymes and digestive juices that help the body digest food. The pancreas also produces hormones that help regulate the glucose taken from food. Dogs typically present with gastrointestinal signs like vomiting and/or diarrhea. They can be sluggish, depressed, not want to eat, run a fever, be dehydrated, and have abdominal pain.

Diagnosis of pancreatitis often includes blood testing to rule out other organ involvement like the kidney or liver. Blood enzymes like lipase and amylase are often increased on a standard full chemistry. There is also more specific testing looking at enzymes that only come from the pancreas. Sometimes inflammation of the pancreas shows up on an x-ray but it’s just as important to rule out a foreign body in many cases.

Treatment of pancreatitis is based on controlling the signs being shown by the disease. If severe enough, it may be recommended that the pet stay hospitalized. Often times, they need fluids given either IV or under the skin. We give anti-vomiting medications by injection to calm the stomach. Pain medication is often important to keep the pet comfortable. If the pet is still vomiting or having diarrhea, we will fast the pet for 1-2 days to allow the pancreas to rest. After that time, the key is addition of small amounts of low fat food. Lean meats like drained, rinsed hamburger, chicken, or rice are good places to start. If the pet still won’t eat, sometimes we need to resort to a feeding tube to put liquid food directly into the patients stomach. Often antibiotics are included if bloodwork shows an infection or if we haven’t been able to confirm pancreatitis. Chronic or recurring pancreatitis requires long term administration of low fat food. If severe, diagnosis and complete treatment can get quite costly.

So, lets keep those pets happy and healthy over the holidays and I hope I don’t see any of you on emergency for pancreatitis.

Cats! by Dr. Joachim

 It is no secret that I am a cat lover. Don't get me wrong, dogs are great, too, but there is a special place in my heart for the furry felines (and the not so furry, for that matter...I'm looking at you sphinxy)! I could go on to say that if they happen to be orange this only ups the ante. The staff here for the most part knows that if there is an orange cat in the facility I am to be notified right away. The technicians have gone out of their way to come out of an exam room to plop an orange cat in my lap, especially when they know I am having a particularly stressful day. I owe my love for cats to my own orange cat, Oliver. I adopted him my first year of vet school, and he has been with me ever since. He was my shadow all throughout vet school; keeping me company while I spent countless hours studying, even if only to sleep on his bed next to my desk till all hours of the night and early morning...and in true cat fashion to often sleep ON my desk or ON my books, keyboard, lap, back of my desk chair, etc. (cat people, you know what I am talking about)! 

Now that I am part of the family at Pine Bluff Animal Hospital, I have been working on educating myself about a cat-friendly practice. There are 86 million owned cats in the US and 78 million owned dogs yet there are twice as many cats than dogs that never see a vet. 39% of people say they would only bring their cat to the vet if the cat was sick. It is just as important that a cat sees us at least yearly for health checks and preventative care such as vaccines, fecal tests, etc. Senior cats, cats that go outdoors, have exposure to outdoor cats, or already have chronic diseases such as Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV or feline AIDS) and/or Feline Leukemia Virus (FeLV) are among the many that should visit the vet even more frequently than just the basic yearly health checks. Just because a cat is healthy as perceived by their owner does not mean it does not need to see a vet. We see sick AND healthy pets and checking in with our fantastic felines once a year can increase the likelihood that we will catch an early disease state while it is still manageable.

Some of the hallmarks of a cat-friendly practice are found in the waiting room and traced all the way to the very back of the hospital where pets are boarded. Staff that is knowledgeable about the least stressful restraint and handling techniques and understand the little idiosyncrasies of cats can make all the difference in our feline visits. We've already made some small changes at our hospitals and will be working towards more in the coming months. My ultimate goal is to increase our feline visits by making them as minimally stressful on our owners AND their special cats. In the meantime, I encourage you to bring your cat in if it hasn't been seen by a vet in awhile (or ever). And if it is orange...be prepared :)