Puppy Parvo Death

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One thing that really upsets all of us at our veterinary clinic is losing a puppy to parvovirus.

Today we lost a puppy that had apparantly been bought from a breeder but turns out that the lady selling the pup was a trader and not a breeder. This is not illegal but it is major animal welfare issue. Very young pups are taken from their mums and moved halfway across the country to be sold. Usually via an advert in the Friday Ads!

The pup often has been born into dirty and disease ridden conditions and is then stressed by a long journey. The virus incubation period is such that things often don’t start to show up until the pup has been bought and transported to their new owners. Once the symptoms of the terrible diarrhoea start to show to be honest the die is cast and no treatment is likely to be successful.

The poor Jack Russell pup we lost today was a typical case, bought about a week ago the diarrhoea started yesterday. He went downhill very quickly despite some routine treatments for a tummy upset. The alarm bells started ringing when their was no improvement and tests confirmed our worse suspicions the poor pup was Parvovirus Positive.

The owners sadly elected for euthanasia to stop the poor dog’s suffering.

If you are thinking about getting a puppy, ask your vet about the best place to get one. Have you though about rescue dog? And before going to see a pup take the advert to the vets and let them have a look. They may be able to warn you off certain vendors.

 

Pup with parvo

Puppy with parvovirus

 

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Wow what a busy month!

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I am so sorry that I have not been able to post much during the last month. It has all been a bit manic at the clinic and we have been rushed off our feet. Two of our long term cancer patients unfortunately lost their courageous battle with lymphoma, my own cat had three bladder stones removed, and one our nurses’ cats had a bowel tumour removed. We also had a beautiful 3 year old dog die of an untreatable hereditary liver disease which was just horrific for all of us involved with her care. We have also seen a lovely dog with hereditary glaucoma.

On a brighter note we have seen loads of new kittens and puppies. Performed successful operations on a number of cats with hyperthyroidism and removed some grotesque tumours from some dogs. Dentals, always a common procedure, have been even more common than normal.  So as you can see quite a busy month with some fairly rare and interesting cases. I will expand on some of these in the following weeks. February is also shaping up to be very busy so the posts may be a bit sporadic. Watch this space!

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Poorly Pet Chicken

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Chickens are becoming very popular pets and in the main they are pretty healthy. However just like other species that we care for as pets. As their lifespan increases we start to see age related diseases.

The chicken had not been “right for 5 months”!

A case that came in this week was an old chicken that had no been “right” for 5 months. Ideally we would have seen the case a little earlier as the poor bird was extremely thin by the time I got to see her. She was still eating and drinking excessively, and had a nasty diarrhoea. I could also feel something hard in the abdomen.

Was she egg-bound?

We were hoping that it might be a case of being egg-bound, where usually due to imbalances in the diet lead to electrolyte imbalances in the blood, specifically Calcium and Phosphate ratios. We see a number of these cases each year and so far we have had successful outcomes for these cases with aggressive treatment.

Radiographs or X-rays suggested a tumour.

However in this case x-rays did not confirm that she was egg-bound in fact it suggested a tumour was present. After discussing possible further investigations with the owner unfortunately the poor bird was put to sleep.
Tumours and cancers are not uncommon in our pet cats and dogs and now we are seeing more and more in our pet chickens as well.

Pet Chicken

Poorly Pet Chicken

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Cat with Shark like teeth!

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Another unusual case I have seen this week. A cat with extra teeth. Although all the teeth were healthy, because there were too many teeth in the mouth, the teeth were overlapping. This overlapping was allowing food to get trapped between the teeth and then sit there festering. Not good, infection from the rotten food was likely. So we decided to remove the extra teeth and create “room” for the other teeth to function properly. I am just glad I didn’t get bitten by this cat. It would have been like being bitten by a Great White Shark!

Extra tooth

Extra Tooth

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Balding Hedgehog

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It always amazes me what people will take on as a pet. Today I had a client come in with a Pygmy Hedgehog. It was actually quite cute and liked to be petted – although it is a bit of a prickly experience. The client had 7 others at home!

Could it be ringworm!

The problem was the poor thing was losing its spines and had an skin problem that was also affecting its ears. One worry was the possibility of ringworm – actually a fungal infection and not a “worm” at all. This can infect people as well, a so-called zoonosis, so we had to check for this.
But I suspect the problem was actually skin mites, so we are treating for them and I will see the case back in a fortnight. I will keep you posted with her progress.

hedgehog

hedgehog

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Dog Shot – and survives.

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Very occasionally when we are investigating a problem with find something that we really aren’t expecting. This unexpected finding is often what we call incidental in that it is not causing the symptoms we are investigating and indeed is often causing no symptoms what so ever.

The dog had been shot!

Whilst I was away in Lapland my locum Kevin saw an interesting case with an unusual incidental finding – the dog had been shot!

The dog had recently been imported from Ireland.

The dog was a rescue dog, recently imported from Ireland by a breed rescue charity. The new owners had not had the dog all that long just a few weeks. The “problem” was that the dog had gone lame, Kevin had the dog in and took some x rays to have a better look at the joints. What he wasn’t expecting was to see a whole load of shotgun pellets on every x-ray he took.

Pellets everywhere you looked!

There were pellets in the chest, pellets in the legs, pellets pretty much everywhere you looked, but amazingly none of these pellets seemed to be causing any problem. They certainly were not the cause of the lameness.

Cats shot by airguns is quite common.

We obviously don’t know the full history of this dog so we have no idea why he ended up shot. I have seen many cases that have been shot but typically these are usually single pellets ie from an airgun rather than a shotgun and nearly always in cats, I have never seen this in a dog. Just goes to show that even after more that 20 years experience something new comes along when you least expect it.

Chest x-ray with pellets clearly visible.

Chest x-ray with pellets clearly visible.

Shotgun pellets in elbow

Shotgun pellets in elbow

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Vet to Santa Claus

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A House visit to Father Christmas.

Wow, what a weird week, we took a phone call asking for a house call and home visit. Ok, what’s weird about that you may ask? Well the caller was none other than Father Christmas himself.

Vet Checking the Reindeer.

So I am at this very moment in Lapland at the airport after having been to Santa’s house and stables. Every year Santa gets all his Reindeer checked by a vet before the big day arrives, just to make sure they are all fit and healthy. Well this year he chose me to be that vet.

Santa Claus

Father Christmas

The Elves give a helping hand.

Lapland is very very cold. It has been minus eight degrees whilst I have been here. But Santa and his helper Elves made sure I had a special suit to wear that kept out the cold. He also allowed me to have a go at Husky sledging and I checked over the Huskies for him as well. Lucky fleas are not a problem in Lapland as it is so cold but I still had to worm all the dogs, and puppies for him.

Husky Puppies

Husky Puppies

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

I am pleased to say that all the reindeer passed as fit and healthy, although when I mentioned to Santa that Rudolph’s nose was not very red he told me something I never knew. That Rudolph’s nose only goes red on christmas eve and christmas day.

Mrs Claus’ Porridge

This morning I had just enough time to have some rice porridge with the elves , made by Mrs Claus’ fair hands, before I had to say goodbye to Snowballs, my favourite elf, and head off back to the airport to fly home. Well what a house visit!

Father Christmas' Reindeer Rudolph

Santa's Reindeer Rudolph

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Pet Passport rules relaxed

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The department of the environment, food and rural affairs (DEFRA) has announced the new pet passport rules that will come into force on 1st January 2012.

Dogs, Cats and Pet Ferrets will now be able to travel more easily.

The changes will mean that the rules on rabies vaccination for entry into the UK will now be in line with the rest of Europe.
Dog, Pet Ferrets and Cats travelling between the UK and the EU or listed other countries will, from the 1st January 2012 need to:

  • Be Microchipped
  • Be Vaccinated against Rabies
  • Have waited 21 days after the rabies vaccination BEFORE entering the UK, EU or other named countries.
  • Have an EU Pet Passport Document.

Currently there is a requirement for the pet to have a blood test to show the rabies vaccination has worked AND a six month wait before entry into the UK. This requirement is to be scrapped.

The risk of rabies in the UK will increase but is still very low.

The loosening of the requirements is believed to increase the risk of rabies reaching the UK, however the risk is deemed to be extremely low.

For further information please go to the defra website.
Dog Nose

 

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Frosty the Hamster receives a warm welcome.

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Frosty the Hamster dumped on our veterinary clinic’s doorstep the other day has finally made it to his new home. I could not take him home the first night as I had cycled into work that day and did not fancy balancing the cage on my handlebars for the 13 mile journey home.

Oh no my road home was closed!

The next night, my children expectant, there was an accident on the road I use to go home and there was a massive diversion. A journey that normally takes me 40 minutes on my bike took 90 minutes in the car! By this time all the kids were in bed.

Frosty officially welcomed home.

The next morning Frosty was officially received and what a welcome. The kids loved him and he in turn behaved beautifully. He seemed to enjoy being stroked and held and thankfully did not bite anyone!

Frosty gets some presents.

Today is my eldest’s birthday and Frosty is officially her pet now. Bizarrely a whole load of her birthday presents opened this morning seem to be for Frosty. Still she does not seem to mind and got very excited at Frosty’s new house and tunnel and even his new food bowel and a water bottle that doesn’t leak.

All the kids are besotted with Frosty so I think he has landed on his feet. I will keep you posted.

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Weird case – kitten with no anus.

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We do a lot of work for a fantastic local cat charity called Worthing Cat Welfare. Today one of their carers phoned up to say that she thought she had “a cat with no bum”. Now that sounds quite outlandish but I have known this lady for many years and she is pretty knowledgeable and is definitely very observant so I did not dismiss her claim.

There was no anal opening.

On examining the kitten it was indeed true that there was no anal opening. Instead a film of skin where the anus should be. However the poor cat was obviously defecating, I say obviously because the kitten was covered in faeces. Where this mess was coming from was easy to establish  as the kitten started to pass faeces from her vulva as I examined her. This is not a common problem, in 20 years I have never seen a case such as this.

The digestive system and urinary system had joined together inside.

This is not good. The proper anatomical structures had not developed properly in this cat. The anus had not formed and the colon/rectum has somehow fused with the genito-urinary tract to create a fistula. That is to say the digestive tract and the urinary tract has become connected. Thus faecal material was exiting the body using the pipework that the kitten would usually urinate with. The problem of bacteria in the faeces getting further up the genitourinary tract causing cystitis or a kidney infection was worry. Not only that trying to establish the nature of the connection between the two systems, gut and urinary would be difficult and depending on the nature of the connection would it be operable? The other big issue was this would be pretty specialist veterinary work and very expensive. Probably outside the budget of the small charity. Unfortunately this case may not have a happy ending.

No anus

A kitten with no anus.

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