Dr. Glynn's Vet Blog
Chinese chicken jerky treats cause kidney disease, death in dogs
This link will take you to the ABC news story.
I have not seen any cases so far.
Giardia in dogs and cats
Testing for the intestinal protozoa parasite Giardia is routinely done at my office during the course of annual examinations. This once flawed test has improvedto the point that we are catching almost every case from just checking a poop sample. Here's the funny part - many of these patients don't need to be treated even though they test positive.
Dogs and cats that have diarrhea and are positive for Giardia should be treated. Nuff said.
Asymptomatic dogs and cats that test positive for Giardia might need to be treated, it depends on the circumstances.
Because Giardia is a known human pathogens many vets prefer to treat even the asymptomatic patients. 20% of Giardia belongs to the Assemblage A, the group of Giardia that can be passed to humans. That means 80% of Giardia is not a threat to humans.
My advice to pet owners is that asymptomatic animals should be treated in households where somebody might potentially catch Giardia from their pet. Households that are at risk for Giardia typically have immunosuppressed people, very young children or seniors.
Giardia is common in the environment in water sources that have not been chlorinated.Giardia is spread in the feces. Reasonable hygiene is adequate to keep food and water from becoming contaminated with giardia from pet feces.
Treatment for Giardia is imperfect and failures are common. As many as 40% of Giardia cases require repeated treatment(s) to clear the organism . A follow up poop sample is needed to confirm the infection has been cleared.
If your pet has diarrhea I will run a poop sample to the lab and see if Giardia is the source of your problem. While treatment can be frustrating it is worthwhile. Symptomatic animals typically respond quickly toa saqfe and inexpensive medication given at home.
The best ways to stop itching!
Itchy pets are usually allergic to one of three things. The most common is fleas. Food allergies and pollen allergies are common as well. Let's look at these causes one at a time.
Fleas.
My advice is to prevent them rather than try to kill them later. The best products are available as topicals or oral preparations given monthly. I recommend you skip using pesticides in your house and yard and on your pets unless these products fail you. They won't.
For topicals I prefer Revolution. For oral products I prefer Trifexis. Both products kill fleas and prevent heartworm. Revolution also prevents ticks, mange and ear mites. Trifexis prevents intestinal parasites. Both of these top notch products are available to our clients here at the office on First Street. Please ask for them at our front desk and start using them now- before you have fleas. Use both year round.
Got fleas already? Come see us for some free personalized advice, every case is a little different..
Food Allergies.
Pets develop allergies only to foods that they have eaten in the past. They are only rarely allergic to food ingredients they have never had before.
We can use this! I recommend we go for six weeks feeding 100% new food, zero treats, and see if it helps. Better? Try the old food again. Worse with the old food? Your pet is now diagnosed with food allergy! Feed your pet special food for the rest of its life and everything should be fine, at least until he becomes allergic to the new food. It is an imperfect world.
My favorite choices for food trials are foods made by Natural Balance. They are available at For Other Living Things in Sunnyvale. I recommend the duck and potato food for dogs or the duck and green pea food for cats. They love them!
If this first food trial fails don't give up, try again. My second favorite food trial is done for six weeks feeding only Z/d Ultra by Hills, sold here at my office.
Here is an article to read before starting a food trial.
Seasonal Pollen Allergies
If I could cure pollen allergies I would start by treating my wife. Unfortunately for my wife and all allergy sufferers we really just manage their symptoms. We do not cure these patients, most allergies last a lifetime.
Drug choices
The perfect drug would be cheap safe and effective. Sorry Charlie, that drug has not been invented yet. So I use three kinds of drugs to stop itching, depending on the case and the client's wishes.
Antihistamines are cheap and safe but..... only work about 40% of the time.
Steroids like prednisone are cheap and effective but.....are not safe for long-term use.
Cyclosporine, the drug of choice for allergies in dogs, is safe and effective but..... costs money.
All drug choices and doses should be cleared with your veterinarian before starting.I recommend getting your pet examined ast is important to treat secondary yeast and bacterial infections with prescription antibiotics and anti yeast medications, usually pills given at home for one to two weeks, sometimes longer.
A word of caution- there is a lot of junk out there on the market. Pet ownerslove, love, love special soaps, shampoos, oils, lotions and potions of various sorts. Beware! "Natural" and attractively packaged products are almost always ineffective. They just don't work. Sorry.
The Trifecta
Ok, now we can talk about the worst case scenario. These three causes of itching are not mutually exclusive. Your poor pet can have all three of them at once! These pets are practically allergic to everything on the planet, reacting to fleas, food and pollen. You may need Super Vet to sort things out.
A veterinary dermatology specialist can evaluate and treat your pet by referral from your regular vet. If the referring vet does a good job this is usually not necessary to get a dignosis but can be helpful for formulating weekly allergy injections that can be given at home. These hyposensitization shots are safe, moderately effective, slow to work (four to sixteen months) and expensive. This lifetime treatment plan is appropriate for patients that do not respond to the above treatments. Try your regular vet first. If you don't get the result you want after a few visits using the treatments above then ask for a referral to a veterinary dermatologist for a second opinoin if you want to try hyposensitization.
Chocolate Toxicity Calculator
It's that time of year again- Halloween. Many of us will be buying huge bags of candy, eating most of it and passing the rest out to kids. What if the dog gets into the stash and eats it all?
No problem if...
the dog is big enough
the chocolate is cheap enough
or
the dog only eats a measurable amount and that amount is small
So if you know your dog's weight in pounds, how much and what type of chocolate he ate you can plug these numbers into this nifty calculator and see if you have an emergency on your hands.
CLICK HERE to check it out
Three Great Tips To Brushing Your Pet's Teeth
I like to think of what we do now in at home veterinary dentistal care as roughly equivalent to American Civil War dentistal care for people. The concept that if you brush your teeth you get to keep them is still alien to many pet owners.
Periodontal disease is the most common problem any veterinarian sees on a daily basis in the exam room. It is epidemic in house pets. Most often it has progressed to the point that a patient needs to go under general anesthesia to have calculus scaled off the teeth by a team of veterinary nurses and doctor. You can save a lot of money if you don't let it get to that point simply by brushing your pet's teeth. And they get to keep their teeth. Bonus!
If I make it very, very easy for you will you do it? I have one requirement for success- I want you to do this every day. Deal?
The perfect is the enemy of the good. I've sold many veterinary toothbrushes and tubes of nasty looking toothpaste to well intentioned pet owners over the years. I know the vast majority of clients take these wonderful tools home and put them in a drawer somewhere and break them out about once a month, maybe once a year. Very few owners will get off the sofa, go get the toothpaste and toothbrush, brush their pets teeth, go rinse off the disgusting toothpaste from the disgusting toothbrush and go back to their sofa- much less on a daily basis. So I'm going to make this so easy you don't have to get off that precious sofa. Tonight when I'm sitting at home watching Jeopardy on television and the Pepsodent commercial comes on the TV there is an excellent chance that even I may remember to do what I am telling you to do.
First we have to make the equipment minimal. I like 3". x 3" gauze pads, you can buy them at any drugstore. They will save you hundreds of dollars in veterinary bills so don't cheap out on me here, buy a bunch.
Second, put many of these gauze pads beneath the cushions of your sofa or very near wherever you sit with your pet every night.
Third step? Actual toothbrushing. Wrap one of the gauze pads around your index finger and reach into your pet's mouth. Try rubbing on some teeth. You may see that a vile yellow slime now covers the gauze pad. This is plaque and it used to be on your pet's teeth. I can usually do this to all the upper outside teeth in about 10 seconds.
The beautiful part about this is that I don't have to get off the sofa. If I were to get off the sofa my cat would not be there when I got back with the tube of toothpaste and toothbrush. And I might miss my beloved final Jeopardy question and my world would crumble.
If you would like to see a video of a cat getting its teeth brushed along with instructions from a much more sophisticated group than myself please check out this link from Cornell veterinary school. Perfect technique! It shows (in many tiny step) how to do what I think you can do pretty quickly on your own with a gauze pad instead of a toothbrush. The important thing is to get the upper outside molars- that is where I see the vast majority of problems. Conversely it doesn't seem nearly as important to get to the lower teeth or on the lingual surface of any teeth, upper or lower. It would be great if we could all do things the way Cornell does this wonderful video. Good luck with that. Knock yourself out. I know you guys, 99% of you won't do it daily. With my technique you get the majority of the benefit with a minimal investment of time and effort. But please, remeber to brush daily!
Cool treat tube for dogs (and maybe cats too)!
A client came in last week and I examined her worried hyperactive dog. She told the dog to sit and then reached into her purse. She brought out a tube full of something brown, vile and disgusting. She rewarded the good dog with a squirt from the tube . Voila! Instant calm dog!
I asked her what was in the tube and she said "Tripe!". Ughhhh. But the dog really liked it. She got the tubes at REI in the backpackers kitchen section. Sunday I went to check it out. Two tubes for 5 bucks. Score!
I loaded my tubes up with some leftover chicken and sausage gumbo that I ran through a blender first. My 14-year-old Labrador Retriever, Coco, who is usually indifferent to my commands, went totally nuts for the stuff and she instantly became the world's most obedient dog. Pretty slick!
The best stuff for treating minor wounds
A client recently asked me what kind of stuff they should use when his cat gets a minor scratch. I had to give him more than one answer of course, as is my style. Most people don't understand the difference between antibiotics and antiseptics and usually use the wrong one left of their own devices.
Fear not! I am here to help you!
Antiseptics are things like hydrogen peroxide, iodine, chlorhexidine, bleach, etc. . These things kill all kinds of organisms effectively and we really don't have to worry about drug resistance. They are my first choice when I see a fresh wound, especially one that is superficial.
Antibiotics are things like the Amoxicillinn, Neosporin and triple antibiotic creams. They come from the drugstore, usually in little tubes. In my opinion they do not work for nearly as well on wounds and have very little use in veterinary medicine, you're almost always better off using an antiseptic.
For deep penetrating wounds I love antibiotics. The classic example is a cat bite. It is hard to get an antiseptic deep into the tissues of some tiny little puncture wound. It's time to go see the vet when you get one of these bites and we usually use oral antibiotics. If we don't use such antibiotics on day one or date two after a bite wound it is very common to see an abscess form that may require surgical drainage on day three or day four after a bite wound.
Recently I was at a conference that mentioned how abscesses in cats especially are pretty much walled off from the immune system so that evenoral antibiotics cannot reach them. Maybe it's because I've been using them for so long but I find it very hard not to send patients with abscesses home without an oral antibiotic.
My rule of thumb for clients at home is to treat scratches that do not go full thickness through the skin with topical antiseptics. We sell chlorhexidine here over-the-counter and it is very very useful for that purpose.
If a bite wound does go full thickness througho the skin it is worthwhile to have it examined by a veterinarian. He will probably prescribe antibiotics on day one or day two and contemplate surgical drainage if an abscess forms, usually on day three or date for after a bite wound.
New insights in feline dentistry
Last month I went to the Western Veterinary Conference at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Resort in Las Vegas. The municipality of Las Vegas and possibly the entire state of Nevada is deeply disappointed in me- I stayed at the Holiday Inn Express, attended thirty six lectures and did not gamble a dime. I did manage to sit in on some dental lectures given by our local veterinary dental specialist Dr. Steven Holmstrom. I learned a lot, as I always do from his excellent lectures and labs. Here is the best stuff I found out.
Dr. Holmstrom spoke at length about tooth resorption in cats, a common and painful malady that every vet sees almost daily in practice. Unfortunately these poor cat's affected teeth need to be extracted as they are painful and they never seem to get better. Worse yet we really don't know what causes these teeth to go bad, I've always chalked it up to just plain old bad luck. Two new theories were put forward and I think together they may go a long way towards explaining tooth resorption in cats.
Here's a link you can go to link you can go to that shows the problem.
You can also find this in an encyclopedia section of my website under links we love at LosAltosvet.com.
The name has changed over the years but the disease has remained the same. "Cavities" worked well I thought for most of the 1970's and everybody was happy with that name. Then in the 1980's, when veterinary dentistry really got going as a specialty, those wacky specialists named the same lesions "neck lesions" because they were found at the neck of the tooth more often than the crown or the root. Turns out we now know they can often be found on the root or crown so that old name is no more. In the 1990's the same problem was renamed and voila, "feline oral resorptive lesions" ( FORL's) were born. Still too easy to say and remember the next new name was "feline odontoclastic resorptive lesions". I was not much affected by the name change because I just kept on writing down FORL in my records. This year the fourth new name is just plain old "tooth resorption". Most cat owners, being reasonable people, still call them cavities. Why all the name changes, you ask? So vets can go to conferences at swanky joints in Las Vegas, hob nob with veterinary dental specialists and keep up with the changes in nomenclature, of course. But I digress.
Vitamin D plays many complex roles in the body but it is fundamentally involved with calcium and phosphorus metabolism. It is available in the diet and is activated by sunlight. The new theories link tooth resorption to vitamin D in two different ways, diet and sunlight.
We may be feeding our pet cats too much vitamin D. Dr. Holmstrom cited an article where commercial cat foods were measured and they found that 41% of them had 30 times the okay level of vitamin D. Pet food manufacturers are now taking steps to correct this and I hope it will result in feeding healthier cat foods and seeing fewer cats with tooth resorption in the near future. Good luck finding that info on pet food labels. Here is a link to a good pet store who can help you find the foods that have OK levels of vitamin D.
The other study Dr. Holmstrom mentioned found that tooth resorption is not seen as frequently in outdoor cats. We don't know why that is but since vitamin D is activated by sunlight it's entirely plausible that sunlight- or rather the lack of sunlight- predisposes cats to tooth resorption.
The rest of Dr. Holmstrom's lectures that day were devoted to extracting teeth and I won't bother you with the technical information that I find so helpful with my efforts to manage these distressing cases. For now my advice is to try and find cat foods that meet but don't exceed vitamin D levels recommended for cats. I am not sure if letting your cat outdoors is worth the risk, I have always been a huge proponent of keeping suburban cats 100% indoors as there are many things out there that are much worse than potential tooth resorption. Try to get your kitty cats some sunlight several times a week, especially if you have had previous tooth resorption problem (cavity).
Canadian Sled Dogs Killed
Outdoors Adventures in Whistler, BC killed up to 100 dogs in two days last April when their sled dog business for tourists dried up after the winter Olympics left town. Unbelievable.
Cat litter- you can't have too much
How many cats do you have? How many litter boxes do you have? The cats should not outnumber the litter boxes.
My rule of thumb is one litter box per cat and at least one extra. In my house we have three cats and seven litter boxes. I know that's a little bit extreme but litter is cheap and carpet is expensive. Once a cat looses its natural inhibition against house soiling it is very difficult to retrain them to use the litter box. Buy a carpet cleaner- check out the Bissell Spot Bot on our "links we love" page if you need an excellent small carpet cleaner.
Irate cat owners may be surprised to learn that very few cats eliminate outside their litter box because they are mad or trying to express some other complex emotion to the owner. It usually just means the litter box is dirty. Eliminating outside of the box actually serves a function for cats, especially in a multiple household. It is a way of marking territory.
When we get a case here that a cat is eliminating outside the box we check a urine sample just to make sure the cat is urinating normal urine. Some conditions like urinary tract infections and bladder stones make the urinating uncomfortable for the cat. The cat then associates that pain with the litter box and starts looking for other places to urinate. We are happy to find these cats have something treatable as our success with medical problems is actually much higher than with pure behavior problems. House soiling can be a life-threatening problem in some households so we take these problems very seriously.
if the urine is normal then our job is to make the litter box as attractive as possible. Sometimes will do a litter box smorgasbord- a collection of litter boxes filled with different types of litter, covered and uncovered, scented and unscented. I will do up to 12 at once. Once the cat has voted we provide multiple litter boxes and throw the litter out daily. If that solves the problem we are lucky. Some cats require medications, pheromone sprays or even behavior modification therapy. It is far easier just to have a lot of litter boxes and always get the cat checked out anytime they eliminate outside the litter box!
