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Welcome to our spring newsletter. Once again, we have contributions from Mark, Alison, Dani and myself (Peter). This issue includes the following articles:
The last two articles are illustrated with case reports on patients that we have treated recently at the hospital. As always, we'd appreciate any comments you have on our newsletter, and any suggestions for future issues.
- Peter
Cartrophen Vet is a treatment for osteoarthritis. It is not a new product. We've been using it here at Ingleburn for years and have many satisfied patients. Recent research findings have proven just how effective Cartrophen is.
Rather than simply relieving the symptoms of pain, Cartrophen acts directly on the pathology within the joint that causes the pain. As a result, a course of 4 weekly injections is able to provide up to a year's relief in many cases. The manufacturer makes the following general recommendations:
Arthritis treatment must be tailored to the needs of the individual patient. If you suspect arthritis, we suggest you make an appointment to have your dog examined and assessed. We can advise you on a management plan, which may include anti-arthritic drugs (such as Cartrophen Vet), pain relief, weight loss, diet and exercise. For more information visit the arthritis page on our web site or ask us for a free booklet.
Related articles: Cartrophen Vet - brochure, Cartrophen - Vet User Guide
Well, not quite that much, but read on. In this newsletter, you'll find the tale of one of our patients, Chloe, and her tangle with a corncob. In the same hectic week that she was in hospital, we also had two other dogs with complicated medical or surgical problems that took a lot of time, thought, material, stress, and specialist resources to resolve. This included intravenous fluid (and lots of it for a big dog), X-rays, laboratory tests, medications, hospitalisation, ultrasound, surgery and more. Fortunately all are doing well. But two of these patients cost over $2000 each to treat; and while Chloe is now totally recovered, the other two will need ongoing management for diabetes and other problems.
Why are we telling you this? To highlight the potential benefits of pet health insurance! There are a number of good schemes available that will pay 80% of the bill for accident and illness and we know that insurance can mean the difference between successful treatment and euthanasia.
We have brochures and application forms for most of the major policies, as well as our own leaflet listing the features of each of them. Give us a call and we can mail this information to you. It is of course also on our web site (along with links to the sites of each of the insurers) at www.ingleburnvet.com.au/insurance
Related articles: Pet Health Insurance
Congratulations to our recent and upcoming graduates: Brutus Lee, Nero Ashford, Bailey Munro, Zoe Weekes, Napolean Morouco, Misty Leake, Bubbles Slattery, Squeek Slattery, Biff Wright, Fatty Tovio and Shrek Rochecouste.
Nicole is enjoying her maternity leave and has no immediate plans to return to full-time employment. But we are pleased to welcome her back on Wednesday nights when she is running our Puppy Preschool classes.
Related articles: Puppy Preschool
If you've phoned us recently, you may have noticed that we now have messages playing over the phone while you're on hold. They include brief information about some of our services and other topics that may be of interest to pet owners. Of course we'll always try not to put you on hold! Feel free to ask us for more information about anything that you hear in these messages. We'd also welcome any other feedback you'd like to give on this new service.
Springtime is puppy time & puppy time is parvo time. Unfortunately many puppies will be for sale these next months with NO protection against potentially fatal diseases. Canine parvovirus is a disease that effects dogs of all ages but is more serious in young pups and old dogs. It attacks the intestines causing loss of appetite, abdominal pain, uncontrollable vomiting and bloody diarrhoea. Puppies become severely dehydrated and will often die within 2-3 days without treatment. Even with intensive veterinary care some pups will die.
Parvovirus is transmitted in bodily fluids, especially faeces and vomit. Parvo is known to live in the soil for around 8 years. You won't have any idea whose paws have walked in what park, which dogs are parvo carriers or where they went to the toilet.
Parvo virus is preventable!
Puppies require an initial course of 2 or 3 vaccinations followed by a booster every year to keep their immunity "topped up". (See Vaccines - How do they work? for more details). Puppies are not protected until they have completed their full course of puppy vaccinations. Traditional vaccines require that 3 shots be given to puppies to protect against parvovirus. The Protech Duramune vaccines used here at Ingleburn require only 2 shots - one at 6-8 weeks of age and a second at 12-14 weeks. Yearly boosters are still required.
Tips:
Staff training is a continual part of our aim to provide our patients with high quality health care.
Mark attended an evening seminar in July on renal disease in cats and heart disease in dogs. He has also recently taken a 1-day course for coffee connoisseurs, though he hasn't yet convinced us how that benefits his patients!
Peter attended the Australian Small Animal Veterinary Association Annual Conference for a week in August. This covered a variety of topics on internal medicine in both dogs and cats including endocrine diseases (such as diabetes) and updates on the most effective drugs to treat infections, heart disease and cancer.
Dani recently completed Certificate IV in Assessment and Workplace Training, which qualifies her to teach and assess veterinary nursing students.
Related articles: Staff
Regular vaccinations are an essential part of the health care of almost all of our pets. Dogs, cats, rabbits and ferrets all need a course of vaccines when they are young, followed by regular boosters. These vaccines help to protect against a variety of viral (and bacterial) diseases. But how do they work?
Well, we could fill pages trying to fully answer this question, but in essence the answer is quite simple. Vaccines trick the body into thinking it has been infected with a disease. The body's immune system then responds by creating cells and antibodies to fight the apparent threat. Of course, the vaccine poses no real threat of infection. It does NOT contain any actual virus capable of producing the disease. But having responded to the vaccine, the immune system remembers how to fight that disease. If your pet is later exposed to the real virus, it is able to mount a quick and effective response; killing off the virus before it's able to produce disease.
Unfortunately, this memory effect doesn't last forever. Over time, the memory cells die off and the body can forget how to fight the disease. Regular booster vaccines act as a reminder to the immune system to ensure that this doesn't happen. Just how often these booster doses are needed is the subject of ongoing research. The current recommendations are to give an initial course of 2 or 3 vaccines to puppies and kittens, followed by annual boosters. We will of course keep you informed of any changes in this regime.
Vaccines can be given only to healthy animals. If your pet is sick, their immune system may be busy fighting off a real disease, and will be unable to respond properly to the vaccine. Remember that the vaccination is only one part of your pet's yearly visit. The annual health check is also extremely important. We perform a full physical examination as part of each yearly visit. This can detect early signs of disease in your pet before they develop into something more serious. Don't forget that one year to us is about 7 years for a dog or cat – and a lot can change in that time!
Here's a brief reminder of the vaccines currently recommended for our pets:
More information about vaccines can be found on our web site: www.ingleburnvet.com.au. If you have any further questions regarding the vaccination of your pet, please don't hesitate to phone and ask one of our staff, or use the Ask the Vet service on our web site.
Related articles:
Wounds can vary from neat surgical wounds (such as desexing) to difficult wounds, such as those from dog fights. But all wounds are influenced by the same factors that may slow or prevent normal healing.
The process of wound management may include:
Closing the wound (if appropriate) with sutures or staples.
Not all wounds can be closed completely. Contaminated or draining wounds
(such as cat fight abscesses) may have rubber drain tubes placed,
to keep a small hole open and allow fluid and discharge to drain away.Strong antiseptics and very salty water can actually cause damage to new cells and prevent healing. The safest solution to use at home is sterile saline from the chemist. Alternatively, you can make a saline solution by adding a teaspoon of salt to one litre of boiled water and allowing it to cool. Ideally, any solution used should be warmed to body temperature.
We use a variety of bandages for different purposes, but in most open wounds we apply three layers. The first layer is a non-stick-dressing sheet that sits on the wound, and will soak up any discharge without allowing the wound to dry out. The second layer is a padding layer for comfort and the third is a stronger outer layer to provide support.
We often use a bandage called Vetflex as the outer layer, as it sticks to itself (but not to the skin or coat) and if applied without too much pressure, provides good support. A stronger adhesive bandage like Elastoplast may be used where it is difficult to keep a non-adhesive bandage in place.
Slow healing of wounds can be due to infection, poor blood supply, necrotic (dead) tissue, excess movement or trauma. Therefore, it is important to stop pets licking or chewing at their wounds and to keep them reasonably quiet and calm. It is commonly mistaken that dogs need to lick at wounds to improve healing, but the action of repeated licking can actually damage the new cells and cause infection inside the wound. Dogs that lick at wounds constantly require a special collar (or bucket!) to prevent this.
All wounds require care and monitoring at home.
In many cases we will give specific instructions on the care of a particular wound when the patient is discharged from hospital. If you have any doubts, please ask a member of our staff. For all surgical wounds, we ask you to look at the wound each day to make sure there isn't excessive swelling, redness, discharge or a foul smell. If these are present, seek veterinary attention, as fast action will result in faster healing!
Blood tests and other pathology services are important tools, used in the diagnosis of various illnesses. At Ingleburn we use a combination of in-house testing and external pathology laboratories to give you and your pets the best possible service.
In-house Tests are those tests done here in the hospital by members of our staff. We have the equipment and necessary training to do many basic tests on-the-spot. These include:
urinalysis (urine tests)In-house testing gives the fastest possible results, and is particularly important in critical cases where a quick diagnosis is needed and for monitoring treatment.
External Pathology Laboratories are used for tests that require more advanced equipment or training. Specialist veterinary pathologists review (and comment on) all results. Couriers from our pathology service routinely visit our hospital 3 times a day, ensuring the fastest possible results. Morning samples will often see results faxed to us the same day, whereas results from samples sent in the afternoon or evening will usually be available overnight. We also have a link into the lab's computer system to ensure that results are accurately transferred into your pet's medical records.
Related articles: Services
If we have your email address then you should have already received a copy of this newsletter via email. Spam is the term used for unsolicited commercial email. We hope you don't consider our newsletter to be spam! But we are aware that some of our newsletters are being returned to us even though they are sent to valid email addresses. Your ISP (internet service provider) or your own software may be blocking our messages as spam. If you think this may be happening to you, you can add our address to your list of approved senders.
Emily is an 8½ year old female Toy Poodle, who arrived at our hospital after some episodes of vomiting. Her owner had noticed that she had been quieter than usual for a while, but she had been eating normally, until that day. After asking some questions, we found that the owner had seen the following signs:
When we examined Emily, we found that she was overweight and had a very painful abdomen. Her temperature was normal, but it looked like she had some diarrhoea stuck around her bottom.
We admitted Emily into hospital, took blood for blood tests and placed her on a drip to prevent dehydration and help support her while we waited for the lab results. The results came back the next morning and indicated that Emily had pancreatitis.
The pancreas is an organ that lives next to the stomach. It produces enzymes that play a role in digestion. In dogs with pancreatitis, these enzymes start destroying the cells inside the pancreas itself.
Dogs that are most likely to be affected are:
Pancreatitis can be acute (it can happen suddenly) with no apparent cause or be a recurring problem, and can range from being mild to severe. Some cases of pancreatitis can be fatal, even with the best medical care.
We treated Emily by continuing the drip for another 4 days. We also withheld food and water to reduce production of digestive enzymes (which could cause further damage to the pancreas). In addition, she received medication to stop her from vomiting, pain relief medication and antibiotics to prevent complications of the disease.
Emily was able to go home after 5 days in hospital and is now fully recovered. She is now being fed a low-fat diet to prevent the disease from recurring.
To help prevent the disease, avoid feeding meals that are high in fat and if your pet is overweight, ask us for advice! Also, prompt treatment of pancreatitis is very important, so if your dog is showing persistent vomiting, please seek veterinary attention as soon as possible.
For more information, refer to our Pancreatitis handout, which is also available on our web site.
What's the most common object that causes blockage of dogs' intestines? The list of things that have caused blockages would be very long and include such things as cooked bones, balls, plastic tags, string, rocks, and sticks. One thing that seems more common to us is corncobs, especially cobs that have been cut up to about 2cm thick slices. In medium to large dogs, corncobs seem to be just the right size to pass out of the stomach and along the intestines for a while until they eventually get stuck. Diagnosis of this is difficult because blockage is only partial at first, so the dog may not look extremely sick and may even improve with initial medical treatment. Corncobs (and many other objects) don't show up on X-rays and may not show up on ultrasound.
The reason we've thought to mention this now is that recently one of our patients, Chloe Fishbourne, did become blocked by a corncob and her story illustrates the difficulty in diagnosing and treating this problem.
Chloe is a 4 year old Border Collie X Cattle Dog who is normally very lively and friendly. She came in for vomiting, and was extremely unwell. When the cause couldn't be identified on examination, she was admitted to hospital for intravenous fluids. Blood tests and X-rays failed to reveal the cause of her problems.
However, Chloe was improving with treatment. She had stopped vomiting, looked better and after 2 days was offered food which she ate immediately. The plan was to send her home the next day if she still looked good. However, the next morning she had vomited again and was still not as bright as normal.
With our ultrasound specialist calling in that day, we decided to get an ultrasound done. The ultrasound showed a 2cm shadow in her abdomen. The intestines were enlarged above that point and normal below. This is typical of a blockage by a foreign body.
The next day she had exploratory surgery here at our hospital. A corncob was found lodged in her small intestine and was removed. Since then Chloe has made a total recovery.
The moral of the story?
Make sure your dog can't get access to corncobs! Be aware too that the food bowl
might not be the only place your dog eats from - the garbage bin and compost heap
may also be seen as great sources for extra tasty treats!
We don't plan the articles that far ahead so who knows? We're hoping to write something soon about thyroid disease in cats or maybe diabetes in dogs and cats. Perhaps you'd like to make some suggestions!