ALS Ice Bucket Challenge Can Help Your Pets, Too!

The ice bucket challenge to raise money for ALS research is everywhere, but did you know it can help your pets too?

ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) is a degenerative neuropathy that causes human patients to lose their ability to use their muscles to move.  Dogs can suffer from a similar nervous system disease called canine degenerative myelopathy.  This disease causes dogs to slowly loose function of their hind legs until they can no longer walk and begin having incontinence issues.  Like ALS, there is currently no cure for canine degenerative neuropathy. 

Due to a recent "One Health Initiative", scientists and doctors from veterinary and human medicine are sharing their research with each other better than ever before. So, research in human medicine is being used to address diseases seen in veterinary medicine, and vice versa.  This means that ALS research funded by money raised from the ice bucket challenge has the potential to provide treatment options for not only human ALS patients, but also dog neuropathy patients. 

Whether you donate to the ALS Association (http://www.alsa.org/) or an organization that funds veterinary research such as Morris Animal Foundation (http://www.morrisanimalfoundation.org/), support for medical research is important to help veterinarians and human medical doctors continue to improve the care provided for their patients. Another way to help is to ask your legislators to maintain current federal funding of medical research. 

In summary: Dumping a bucket of ice water over your head to raise awareness of the need for funding of ALS research may help develop treatments for dogs (and other animals) suffering from similar neurologic diseases.  

Members of the Pine Bluff Animal Hospital participated in the ALS #icebucketchallenge!

Post by Kacie Frese.

Intestinal Parasites: What’s Lurking In Your Yard?

There are three common intestinal parasites that not only infect your dog or cat, but can also infect you and your family. Those parasites are roundworms, hookworms and giardia and they are found in sandboxes, soil, grass, and water. The parasites are released through an animal’s feces and the eggs can live in the environment for months. Transmission occurs by ingesting the worm egg, drinking contaminated water, or penetration of the skin by larvae. 

In our pets, infection with these parasites can cause allergic reactions, blood loss and anemia, digestive problems, and damage to internal organs. People infected with these same parasites may experience digestive problems, liver and lung damage, partial or total blindness, and itching skin lesions. Early detection of intestinal parasites is the first step in control and protection.

The Companion Animal Parasite Council (CAPC) recommends the following fecal test schedule:

      • Puppies and Kittens: 2-4 times a year
      • Adult pets not taking a broad-spectrum heartworm preventative: 
        2-4 times a year
      • Adult pets taking a broad-spectrum heartworm preventative: 

        1-2 times a year

Some action to protect your pet and family include:

      • All year us of a broad-spectrum heartworm preventative

      • Remove pet feces from your yard as often as possible

      • Keep sandboxes covered when not in use

      • Wash hands after working in the soil or playing with pets

      • Teach children not to eat dirt   

By following these simple tasks,
we and our pets can safely enjoy our time spent outside!

Cats!

 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 :)

Turtles and Lizards and Snakes, Oh My!

Exotic pet medicine is an exciting field of veterinary medicine that can greatly differ from the traditional care given to dogs and cats. Many different species are considered “exotic pets” including small mammals, birds, reptiles, and even fish. As you can imagine, the practice of medicine on a rabbit is greatly different from a goldfish.

If you have an exotic pet, the first step is to simply call and ask your veterinarian to see if he/she is comfortable seeing that species. Even veterinarians who see exotics do have some limitations. For example, I will not see monkeys, miniature pigs, or spiders. Some veterinarians who do not have a lot of experience with certain animals may be comfortable with seeing your pet initially, but may have to refer you to another veterinarian if there is an issue that they do not have the right equipment or supplies to treat (just like we have to do with some of our dog and cat patients). You can also ask if your veterinarian is a member of any special organizations. My biggest interest is reptiles, so I am a member of the Association of Reptilian and Amphibian Veterinarians and attend an annual conference to learn about cutting edge topics and share stories about interesting cases with other reptile veterinarians.

When you bring your exotic pet to the vet, make sure you bring all of your pet’s “husbandry” information with you. “Husbandry” refers to the way exotic pets are kept and includes details about their diet and habitat. This is the biggest difference between exotic pets and dogs / cats. Most exotic pets require specific temperature, moisture, and lighting requirements. Even the best owners cannot perfectly replicate the natural environment or diet exactly the same as the animal would experience in the wild. So, we continually re-evaluate husbandry, especially on animals that are sick. If your veterinarian asks you specific questions about how you keep your pet or offers you advice on possible improvements, this is only because the vet is trying to help you keep your pet as healthy as possible.

The internet is not a bad place to look for husbandry requirements, but do not trust everything you read online. Care sheets from websites of exotic animal hospitals are more reliable than a random message board. Also, please remember that recommendations are always evolving based on new research to help us adjust the husbandry standards to provide the best care for our exotic pets. There are many older resources out there that were considered reliable until research proved that alternatives were better.

One example of an outdated resource is a reptile textbook from the 1970’s that I recently came across. In its time, this book was considered a reliable resource. Within the book is a strategy recommending putting turtles in the freezer to induce anesthesia. This technique is now considered very cruel. The same type of outdated information is out there for husbandry techniques for many exotic pets, so please be careful what you follow. If you have any questions, please ask an exotic veterinarian for recommendations for trustworthy resources.