Posts in Category: Cats

If you want to be proactive about saving your pet’s life, regular veterinary visits, pet insurance and keeping a cat indoors only are certainly high on the list. But the most powerful tool of all could be about the size of a grain of rice: a microchip.

With a little planning, creating a beautiful garden that is also pet-safe is doable, writes emergency veterinarian Denise Petryk, who provides a list of toxic plants and dangerous fertilizers and chemicals. Younger animals will eat anything and are at higher risk for toxicity, but even exposure to small amounts of some toxic garden components can be harmful to pets, Dr. Petryk warns. The Seattle Times/Tails of Seattle blog (5/10)

AVOID the 10 most dangerous, most toxic plants:

— Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea), pictured right — vomiting, diarrhea, weakness, cardiac failure, death.

— Japanese Yew (Taxus cuspidata) — tremors, difficulty breathing, vomiting, seizures, death.

— Jerusalem cherry (Solanum pseudocapsicum) — vomiting, seizures, depression, trouble breathing.

— Lily of the Valley (Convallaria majalis) — vomiting, heart trouble, disorientation, coma, seizures.

— Lily (Lilium species) — kidney failure in cats — ALL parts of the plant, even in small amounts.

— Morning Glory (Ipomea sp.) — vomiting, diarrhea, agitation, tremors, disorientation, ataxia, anorexia.

— Nightshade (Atropa belladonna) — drooling, vomiting, diarrhea, depression, slow heart, weakness.

— Oleander (Nerium oleander) — diarrhea, trouble breathing, tremors, collapse, incoordination.

— Precatory Beans (Arbus precatorius) — severe vomiting and diarrhea, tremors, fever, shock, death.

The 10 most common plants that can cause drooling, vomiting, diarrhea — AND if ingested in larger amounts — more serious health problems:

—

— Hydrangea, above

— Azalea

— Boxwood

— Daffodil (bulbs are more toxic than leaves and flowers)

— Tulip (bulbs are more toxic than leaves and flowers)

— Rhododendron

— Iris (Gladiola)

— Elephant’s ear

— Clematis

— English ivy

The 10 most surprising problem plants:

— Apple (the seeds contain cyanide)

— Plum, cherry, apricots and peaches (the pits contain cyanide)

–Onions, chives and garlic (cause anemia)

— Potato and rhubarb plant leaves (vomiting)

There are some wonderfully safe annuals and perennials:

—

–Astilbe (Astilbe sp.)

–Bee Balm (Monarda sp.)

–Begonia (Begonia sp.), pictured right

–Bugbane (Cimifuga racemosa)

–Butterfly flower (Schianthus sp.)

–Calendula (Callendula sp.) –Catmint/catnip (Nepeta sp.)

–Coleus (Coleus sp.), pictured right

–Columbine (Aquilegia sp.)

–Coneflowers (Echinacea purpura)

–Coral Bells (Heuchera sp.)

–Cosmos (Cosmos sp.)

–Goat’s Beard (Aruncus dioicus)

–Impatiens (Impatiens sp.)

–Nasturtium (Tropaeolum sp.)

–New Guinea Impatiens

–Petunia (Petunia sp.)

–Phlox (Phlox sp.)

–Primrose (Primula sp.), pictured right

–Queen of the Meadow (Filipendula ulmaria)

–Roses (Rose sp.)

–Snapdragons (Antirrhinum sp.)

–Spider flower (Cleome sp.)

–Turf Lilly (Liriope sp.)

–Violet (Viola sp.)

–Yellow Corydalis (Corydalis lutea)

–Zinnia (Zinnia sp.)

The non-plant concerns in the spring include fertilizers, pesticides, slug bait, mulch, and garden tools. Talk to your local nursery about the safest options, read labels carefully and store everything safely in sealed containers or out of reach.

Try natural products like vinegar for weeds, coffee grounds, beer and salt for slugs, and soap and water as a natural pesticide.

Avoid cocoa mulch as it comes from chocolate manufacturing and can contain substances that will cause minor chocolate poisoning (vomiting, diarrhea, hyperactivity) as well as general irritation to the mouth, stomach and intestines.

Many of our mature dogs (and almost all of our cats) are discriminate — they might sniff but they are not inclined to eat plants.

Grass is often the exception and in small amounts, common grasses are safe. Ornamental grasses can be very irritating to the mouth, throat, and nose so if you have a big grass eater, it is safest to avoid these plants.

Remember that puppies and kittens are always an exception. They will generally eat ANYTHING! It still makes most sense however to always pick the safest plants possible for our spring flower gardens and our deck pots.

Horticulturists employed at our favorite plant nurseries are excellent resources for pet safe plants and gardening products. The ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center has a fantastic guide to pet-safe gardening and a wonderful collection of plant pictures and toxicity information here . PetPlace.com also has an array of informative articles written by veterinarians about toxic plants and gardening.

The three most common spring garden problems we see in our busy Tacoma pet emergency room include dogs ingesting SLUG bait poison (metaldehyde), dogs ingesting decomposing things out of the compost pile, and Lily ingestion or sniffing by cats.

A few bites of slug bait can cause horrible tremors. Quick emergency treatment is critical.

A compost pile snack can also cause tremors or it may cause drunk-like behavior or vomiting and diarrhea. Here too, quick emergency treatment is essential for a quick recovery.

Lilies are highly toxic to cats. It is safest to avoid all lilies — both as cut flowers as part of a bouquet or as a garden plant. Potential sniffing of the flower and inhaling the pollen can even be a problem to our cats.

Enjoy your garden but do your research first. Prevention is so much easier than sick animals and treatment.

Dr. Denise Petryk

Dr. Denise Petryk graduated from the Western College of Veterinary Medicine in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, in 1991. Later this year she will complete her MBA at Pacific Lutheran University. For the last 20 years she has enjoyed the fast pace of emergency medicine and enjoys the satisfaction of explaining things clearly to pet owners. At home, she has a family of six — two hairy dogs, one short-haired monster dog and three perfect cats — and a big yard full of safe plants!

Photos from The Seattle Times archives

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Heart disease is common in dogs and cats and can be an important cause of illness.

Unlike many other health problems, heart disease often profoundly limits a pet’s survival. An important statistic for pet owners to consider is about 10 per cent of dogs that present to veterinarians for care suffer from heart disease. In cats, it has been reported 15 per cent of apparently healthy cats have an underlying heart condition.

What these two statistics clearly tell me is heart disease is prevalent and therefore annual checkups play a vital role in the early identification of heart disease and helping keep your pet healthy.

Heart disease in dogs and cats falls into two categories: congenital and acquired.

Congenital problems manifest at birth and can be due to genetically inherited disorders or arise from problems during pregnancy. Acquired disorders are more common, and usually develop in adulthood or old age.

Recent research in veterinary medicine has identified some inherited disorders that occur later in life in purebred dogs such as the boxer and Doberman pinscher, and in purebred cats such as the Maine coon and ragdoll. In the past several years, genetic tests have been developed to identify these heart disorders and more will be available in the future.

An annual checkup is one of the best opportunities to identify heart disease in dogs and cats.

The annual physical examination includes an assessment of the heart with a stethoscope and evaluation of the peripheral arterial pulse. This examination allows your veterinarian to identify heart murmurs and arrhythmias, and assess if the heart is too weak.

Heart murmurs occur when there are leaks in one of the four heart valves or one of the valves does not open completely. An abnormal communication in the heart can also create a murmur. Arrhythmias are abnormalities of heart rhythm, causing the heart to beat irregularly, or too slow or too fast.

Many forms of heart disease result in a weakened heart, which in turn can lead to heart failure, where the heart cannot pump a sufficient amount of blood through the body. While continuing to work harder to pump blood, further heart damage can occur.

Early detection of these abnormalities through regular checkups helps your veterinarian identify the cause of the heart abnormality and its severity, which goes a long way toward early treatment and offers the best chance for a cure or long survival.

Depending on the nature of your pet’s heart condition, your veterinarian has an array of additional tests to help identify and assess the severity of the heart disease. Chest X-rays are used to evaluate heart size and reveal congestion in the lungs, which is an indicator of a weakened heart.

An electrocardiogram and 24-hour holter exam can assess the heart rhythm. A cardiac ultrasound exam measures the strength of the heart and identifies structural defects. Recent work shows that early treatment with medication can have a significant effect on both survival and quality of life.

As well, many congenital disorders can be treated and cured, but early detection and intervention are key to a good outcome.

The annual checkup is also the best means to help dog and cat breeders identify the healthiest purebred dogs for breeding purposes. This is an important way to limit the number of puppies with congenital and inherited disorders.

In conclusion, annual checkups are an essential way to keep your pet free of clinical signs of both heart disease and other disorders.

Dr. Michael O’Grady is a board certified cardiologist and was on the faculty of the University of Guelph, Ontario Veterinary College. His current research projects at the University of Guelph include diagnosis and management of cardiomyopathy and chronic degenerative mitral valve disease. O’Grady currently practices cardiology at Toronto Veterinary Emergency Hospital, a 24-hour emergency and referral hospital in Scarborough.

If you are an animal lover, your pet is probably one of your best friends. When that best friend is facing the end, it’s tough to say goodbye.  In this NBC29 Special Report, we look at the difficulty of deciding when it is time to say goodbye and your options afterward.

When animal lovers adopt a pet, they make a commitment to care for them, even when they’re sick and close to death. Most humans will outlive their companions, and the end of life for pets can bring deep grief and raise a load of questions.  When that happens, we humans get very emotional.

When dealing with a pet with a terminal condition, people often have a difficult time deciding whether to euthanize, or when the time is right to end their companion’s suffering.

John Dove has two cats, Krogie and Mocha, and cherishes the friendship he has with them. “I don’t have any children, but if I had children, I don’t think I could love them any more than I love my animals, they’re my kids essentially.”

Dove recently experienced the profound pain of losing an animal when his 12-year-old cat Scamper had a stroke.

“And then all of a sudden, he let out a yelp and I looked around at him and he was hyperventilating very heavily, so it looked like something was really wrong,” he said.

A quick trip to an emergency veterinarian divulged the dilemma a lot of pet owners face. “So at that point I had to make that very painful decision.”

Dr. John Andersen deals with clients who face euthanizing their beloved pet. “We’re in control and there’s a time we just have to make that really hard decision.”

Dr. Andersen is not only a pet owner, he is also a veterinarian in Albemarle County and says he understands the deep human-animal bond. “They’re a best friend, they’re kind of a confidante, they’re an explorer with you, they provide a lot of things.”

Only last year, his dog Kaya died after a prolonged battle with cancer. “When we had our dog, I was not married, just a bachelor. She took me through that and getting married and having kids,” he stated.

After 30 years of practicing in a clinic, Dr. Liz Palmer decided to start a mobile veterinarian service specializing in end of life care for pets.  So when a pet goes from having good and bad days to bad and worse days, she can help with in-home euthanasia.

“When an animal gets very, very old, it can be very stressful to bring them to a clinic. They can get very nervous or confused,” she stated. “I hear an awful lot, that ‘I would prefer my animal to die naturally’…barring a heart attack in their sleep, I think dying naturally is overrated.”

Dr. Andersen says some people have such a tough time letting go, they often put off the inevitable. “If I hear regrets from people, it’s often because people feel like they waited a little bit too long and when they look back, they have this image of their animal suffering.”

After Dove decided to end his cat Scamper’s suffering, he took his buddy’s body to the Charlottesville Albemarle SPCA for cremation.

The SPCA offers private cremation for $130.00 and a variety of decorative tins for people to choose.  “You leave your animal in their care and a day or two later, they call you and tell you the ashes are ready,” Dove said.  Dove has Scamper’s picture and tin displayed at his home in memory of his beloved companion.

Paws and Remember is a company that offers everything from jewelry stamped with paw prints, key chains that carry ashes, to tiny caskets.  The Staunton company also provides cremation, most packages start at about $150.00 and go up from there.

But some pet owners can’t afford any extras.  Paws and Remember general manager Todd Dean says “If they don’t want their pet’s cremains back, then we will place them in one of these gardens here.”

The company has above ground crypts and a place where people can visit and leave flowers or pictures of their pets.

Since the death of Kaya, Dr. Andersen has adopted a new playmate for his other dog Boon. She’s an 8-week-old black lab named Ruby.  Dove did the same for his other little cat Krogie. He adopted a playful 3-year-old named Mocha from the SPCA. The new addition to the family gives Krogie a friend, but can never replace Scamper.

When he thinks back on the loss, Dove says “Love your animal as much and as often as you possibly can because you never know. I mean it almost doesn’t seem fair in a way that they don’t live longer than they do.”

For people who are struggling with the decision of whether to end their pet’s suffering, Dr. Andersen says the meaning of the word euthanize might help:  it means “good death”.

By Carrie Harrington
Marin Humane Society

As the number of Americans who are overweight has grown, studies show that the same statistics apply to our companion animals. About half of all dogs and cats in American homes are overweight or obese, up slightly from 2010, according to a recent study by the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention.

And although owners may think their pudgy dog or cat is cute, all that extra weight spells trouble the some 85 million U.S. pets who are considered overweight.

And many pet owners are finding that the extra pounds on a pudgy cat or dog can lead to severe secondary health problems. Just as diabetes, joint problems, and heart disease are more common in people who are obese, these diseases also are more common in overweight animals. The average cost of veterinary care for a diabetic dog or cat in 2011 was more than $900, according one pet insurance company. Treatment for arthritis and cruciate ligament tears in dogs, which can be caused by the strain of an overweight frame that weakens joints, cost pet owners an average of $2,000.

Last week, an interesting article the cost of pet obesity was published in the Wellness section of the New York Times. To read the complete article, entitled “Paying the Price of a Fat Pet,” click this link.

From Dr. Mark Peterson’s Animal Endocrine Clinic Blog

Posted: 18 Apr 2012 06:36 AM PDT

From Dr. Mark Peterson on the Animal Endocrine Clinic Blog
Question:
Gracie, our 8-year old, spayed female DSH has just been diagnosed with hyperthyroidism, based on the finding of a high serum T4 value (12.4 μg/dl; reference range, 1-4.7 μg/dl). We only did her blood work in anticipation of a dental cleaning, and are shocked by this news. 

Gracie has no symptoms whatsoever of this disorder. She eats and drinks a normal amount; her diet has been mostly high quality, grain-free dry food (she never liked or ate canned until very recently, also grain-free).  She has shown slight weight loss, but only because she was overweight and we were controlling her intake — trying to get her to loose weight.  Her behavior and attitude are positive; no change from before. Her coat, skin, and eyes all fine. Hydration is fine. Digestion and bowels fine (no vomiting, no diarrhea). Just some bad breath (hence the dental). 

Our vet feels nothing upon palpation of her thyroid. If anything, she may have a slightly high heart rate (212 beats per minute taken at vet’s…possibly nerves), but her blood pressure was fine (averaged 128/77 out of 5 readings).

We had the T4 test run a second time at a different lab and it came back high again at 11.2 μg/dl.

My question to you is this….in your years of experience with hyperthyroidism, has there ever been an occasion when the T4 values have receded on their own, without medication or irradiation? I ask this because Gracie is so young and has no symptoms. 

I would not want to irradiate her thyroid if there is any possibility of this being a “passing phase” in her life. However, I am quite aware of the dangers and complications of hyperthyroidism, and do not want to play around with her health. With everything else so “normal,” I would be willing to wait a month or two and recheck her if you think there’s any hope in doing so. Are you aware of any current research indicating that T4 numbers can fluctuate in a young cat? More than any other factor, it is her young age that makes me question whether these T4 readings are permanent. 

My Response:
No, I’ve never seen a hyperthyroid cat go into remission. Cats with hyperthyroidism all have one or more benign thyroid nodules, generally benign tumors or adenomas (see Figure below). These thyroid tumors will not go away spontaneously once they have formed (1-4). The only way to cure this disease is by use of radioiodine (I-131) to irradiate the adenomatous thyroid nodule(s), or by use of surgery to remove the abnormal thyroid gland (1-6).

It’s sounds like you think that a cat of 8-year’s of age is too young to develop hyperthyroidism. But we do occasionally see cats as young as 6 years of age, and very rarely, even as young as a year or two (1-4,7).That all said, I’m bothered that your veterinarian is not able to palpate an enlarged thyroid tumor with a T4 value that is clearly quite high. You might want to have another veterinarian palpate Gracie’s neck to see if they can identify one or more thyroid nodules. If they cannot and the serum T4 remains high, it would be very useful to do thyroid scintigraphy (ie, a thyroid scan) to document the presence or absence of a thyroid tumor. Thyroid scintigraphy is the most sensitive diagnostic test we have to confirm the presence of hyperthyroidism in cats (8-10), and we use this procedure routinely in my practice.

You certainly could monitor the T4 value again in a month or two, especially since Gracie is stable. But it certainly does sound like she has hyperthyroidism and will need to be treated at some time in the near future.

Who can resist those big puppy-dog eyes, floppy ears and fluffy tail? In a new study to be released by the ASPCA, “physical appearance” is the top reason given for picking a particular puppy at an animal shelter.

With cats, it’s a different story: “Behavior with people” was what convinced most adopters to choose a particular adult cat.

The research, conducted by the animal-advocacy organization from January through May of 2011, involved five shelters across the country. About 1,500 adopters filled out questionnaires explaining how they knew the cat or dog was “the one.”

By understanding why people choose the pets they do, the ASPCA hopes to increase adoption rates and ensure adopters go home with a perfect match. It’s particularly useful for shelter workers to know that appearance is often a deciding factor. They can then counsel adopters about behavior and other traits that might be overlooked.

“As an animal behaviorist, it was interesting to get inside the human animal’s head,” says Emily Weiss, vice president of shelter research and development with the ASPCA.

The study supported findings from previous research showing that animals that approach the front of the cage when a visitor nears have a much greater chance of being placed in a new home. In the new study, many of the adopters who were asked, “What did this pet do when you first met him/her?” specified a social interaction, such as an approach, a meow, a lick or even jumping on the visitor.

“That interaction is important for the human animal—not just entertainment, but in choosing their next friend,” Dr. Weiss says.

—Beth DeCarbo

Reasons Given for Picking a Pet

Note: Respondents were able to pick multiple reasons.

A version of this article appeared April 18, 2012, on page D3 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: BIG CHOICES | Selecting a Pet.