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All the best for Christmas and the New Year from all of us at Ingleburn Veterinary Hospital. It’s been a busy year treating a big variety of problems, and doing lots to prevent your pets getting sick. Many thanks to everybody who has sent us Christmas cards. It’s nice to get such positive comment.
The staff here now consists of Mark, Peter, Nicole, Roslyn, Mahala, Yuri, Gina, and even Bronwyn is coming back for a few weeks in January. Kylie has been working at the Guide Dogs at Leppington, but will move with them to Windsor. We have two new staff beginning on a part time basis. Meghann Kuchar is a local girl from Ingleburn, and will be an extra hand on some weeknights. Sandra Borg will be working on the weekends.
There have been some interesting new developments that we hope you have found appealing too, like the Reward Card and the Referral Bonus Card. Feedback so far is that these ideas are popular.
This idea is working so well we’ve decided to keep it! You can book a dental check up for $19.50 instead of the normal consultation fee. It seems that a lot of people find this the right price to bring their pet in for a dental check, so a lot more are getting done. Since dental problems are very common but preventable, this is good news for our patients. If they do need treatment, it’s much cheaper and better to allow us to detect dental disease early, before it becomes a serious problem for your pet. Appointments are essential. Also, ask for a copy of our "Dental Disease in Dogs and Cats" leaflet.
Our first course was a great success and had remarkably few teething troubles, thanks to Nicole’s great work. One of the most boisterous breeds of dog is the Dalmation, and strangely Nicole had 3 Dalmations in the first group! It was noisy and busy. The second course is already well underway, and has no Dalmations. Unfortunately we won’t be having a January course as Nicole will be away. Courses will resume in February. Puppies must be aged between 7 and 12 weeks when they start the course. The cost is $65 for the 4 week course.
Puppy Preschool teaches puppies what is acceptable social behaviour. It is important to start them off on the right paw, as it is much easier to teach the puppy the correct behaviour first, rather than try and correct bad behaviour later, when the pup has had 6 months or more to learn it.
Related articles: Puppy Preschool, Course Notes, NL6: Puppy Preschool
Don’t forget to bring your Petcare cards at each visit. Already two people have managed to fill them in and claim reward dollars. When you make a purchase, we write the amount on your reward card. After 12 entries, you get the average of those entries as reward dollars, Reward dollars can be spent on any product or service we provide.
Remember, there are terms and conditions, such as:A full list of the terms and conditions is given out with each card, but we have plenty more at the front desk.
Related articles: PetCare Reward Card Scheme, Terms and Conditions, NL5: New Pet Care Reward SchemeThe back of our business card is now a Referral Card. Remember to write your name on it and give it to anyone you recommend to come here, so they get a 50% discount on their first consultation fee, and you get a $10 bonus credited to your file.
Related articles: NL6: Reward Scheme for Client Referrals
Most people know by now that heartworm is a big problem in dogs. All dogs in this area should be on heartworm prevention tablets. However, its now accepted that cats should be on heartworm prevention too. To quote the American Heartworm Society Bulletin:
The symptoms of heartworm in cats can be anything from sudden death, inflammation of the brain from wandering worms, coughing and difficulty breathing to vomiting. While it is difficult to diagnose, we have diagnosed several infections recently.
For a while now, we have had chewable tablets for prevention of heartworm in cats. These are called Heartgard FX, and are not a normal tablet, but a cat sized chewable treat. However, so far not many of our feline patients are on prevention medication. Thankfully this appears to be changing with the release of the new product we mentioned in the last newsletter, called Revolution, which will be discussed in the next column.
Related articles: Heartworm Disease (in dogs)
We’re hoping you have noticed our improved radiology service. Recently we acquired an automatic Xray film processor! Big deal, you say? Well, not only does it save time in the darkroom but gives us consistently better quality Xrays which are instantly dry and able to be examined immediately, so we can get answers faster. As well as this, many of you will know that we have two of the top specialist radiologists in Australia visiting us. Both Graeme Allan and Robert Nicoll are renowned specialists in radiology and ultrasound, and they have been visiting us roughly every two weeks for most of this year to give their opinion on the Xrays we’ve taken and perform ultrasound examinations. All cases of heart disease in cats, most heart problems in dogs, plus lots of abdominal problems and other problems should be examined by ultrasound. With Robert and Graeme visiting, we can often get them done here, or we can organize referral sooner.
Sabu the Siamese cat we mentioned in the last newsletter is going well now, but its been a rocky road. You may remember he was hit by a car in September. His broken jaw and leg have completely healed and all the pins and wires have been removed. His jaw and leg are completely back to normal and getting a fantastic workout on the tops of wardrobes. In the meantime Sabu has had kidney failure, another serious crisis, from which he is now recovering very well.
Related articles: NL6: "Sabu" and his broken bones
In mid October, an exasperated client asked us, "Isn’t there anything available yet that covers everything in cats?" Well, she was pleased, because the day before, the new product Revolution had arrived. We’re particularly enthusiastic about Revolution in cats. This is because it covers all parasites in cats except Tapeworm. It kills flea eggs, larvae and adults, prevents heartworm, kills ear mites, and kills the intestinal worms roundworm and hookworm. What’s more, it’s a "spot-on" product like Frontline that you apply just by squeezing a small tube onto the skin on the back of the neck. That means a whole lot less stress from giving tablets to cats. In fact because it controls fleas, and the main tapeworm in cats is the flea tapeworm, it may be argued that you don’t have to worry about treating tapeworms as often as in the past. We’ll be recommending tapeworming, every 6 months, just like we do for dogs having Sentinel or Interceptor.
Revolution contains the same class of chemicals as all the dog heartworm preventions, the ivermectins, and these seem to be particularly safe. It’s also safe to give to cats already infected with heartworm. Because of this and because tests are less accurate in cats, we don’t recommend a heartworm test in cats before starting on prevention medication. Revolution is safe to give to kittens (and puppies) as young as 6 weeks of age, and to pregnant and nursing adults.
Do you wash your cat? So long as you wait 2 hrs after putting Revolution on to bath them, it is still fully effective.
Revolution is also for dogs and appears to be a great product for them too, preventing heartworm, killing fleas, and ear mites, but also killing a kind of itchy mange mite called sarcoptes. However, it doesn’t cover intestinal worms in dogs.
Related articles: Heartworm in Cats (see above), Heartworm Disease
(Whichever millennium we’ll be in!) Once again, best wishes for everybody, and of course we hope you all have healthy pets but bring them to us when they’re not! As it says in the box below, we’ll be open on New Year’s Eve until 5pm.
New Year Opening Hours
New Year's Eve from 12noon is a public holiday.
However, we were very busy last year,
so we will be open until 5pm that day.
Open New Year's Eve :8am-5pm
New Year's Day: 10am-12noon
Sunday January 2: 10am-12noon
Monday January 3: 10am-1pm