VetInfo Digest December 1997
This Issue
Be Careful of Holiday Toxins and Dangers
Common Mistakes Made by Veterinarians
Pet Foods
A reminder: Rabies
New Products
Our best Christmas present from a client:
Be Careful of Holiday Toxins and Dangers
This is the time of year when pets can be exposed inadvertently to toxic substances or tempting taste treats that can be dangerous. One "toxic" plant you don't have to worry much about is the poinsettia, though. These plants are either nontoxic or only slightly irritating to the gastrointestinal tract, depending on the reference source. On the other hand, mistletoe berries are poisonous and it is best to be very careful when hanging mistletoe so that pets are not exposed to the berries. Even one or two berries of this plant may be fatal. Even the products used to help plants make it through the holidays can be a problem. Some of the solutions used to make the Christmas tree last through a long holiday season can be pretty irritating to mouth or stomach tissues. If you add these to the water in your Christmas tree stand you should be sure that pets can not drink the water.
Plants are not the only problems. Holiday food treats and decorations can be dangerous to pets. It takes a fairly large amount of milk chocolate to cause poisoning problems in dogs and cats but a whole box of chocolates is likely to cause diarrhea at the least and may be toxic to smaller pets. Tinsel strands seem to be very attractive to cats and these will often cause severe problems, often requiring surgical removal to prevent the death of the cat if they are ingested. For some reason, almost every season a dog or cat in our practice eats a Christmas tree ornament or even one of the light bulbs off the tree. Chewing on the extension cords to the tree lights or the electric train around the tree sometimes leads to problems, too. The abundance of food found at holiday tables presents a danger even if it isn't cooked by your mother-in-law who believes in partially thawing the turkey then cooking it a 200 degrees. We see a definite increase in pancreatitis around the holidays due to pets getting fat laden table scraps. At least one dog a year manages to eat the whole turkey carcass and has a major case of constipation in a day or so. Try to resist the urge to cover the pet's food with the extra gravy and put the trash out of reach of pets after an attractive meal!
Pets sometimes have a really hard time adjusting to the increases in family activity around the holidays. They may not handle the stress of house guests well. Often just scheduling a few minutes at approximately the same time each day to spend playing with your dog or reviewing those obedience exercises can make the holidays a lot easier for an anxious canine. Cats are a little harder to reassure and it is sometimes best just to make sure they have a safe haven in the house where the guests can't find them, especially the very young guests. Make sure their litter pan is private, too.
If you are going to board your pet for the holidays make sure their vaccinations are current well before the time for boarding and check to see if there are special vaccination requirements at the boarding kennel, such as requiring Bordetella (kennel cough) vaccination. Make sure you have all the contact numbers for wherever you will be written down for the kennel, pet sitter or veterinary hospital. You might even consider giving your vet written permission to treat your pets in your absence, especially if your relationship with your vet is not close enough to be sure he or she would be comfortable caring for the pets without your permission. Do not tranquilize pets for air travel if you are taking them with you, unless you are absolutely certain it is necessary. A recent review of pet deaths during airplane trips revealed that most of the pets who died had been sedated. The effects of sedatives are intensified at higher altitudes and even though cargo holds are pressurized they are at a lower atmospheric pressure than is found at ground level. If you do have to sedate a pet follow the veterinarian's directions EXACTLY. It could save your pet's life!
If you take a little time to prepare and think about the special risks holidays impose your pet should be safe. Just in case, make sure you know the number of the emergency veterinary hospitals in your are and can drive by it to be sure you can find it an emergency when you may not be thinking as clearly as on an ordinary day.
Common Mistakes Made by Veterinarians
I hesitated on what to title this section. After all, if I can write a list of common mistakes made by veterinarians, why do they keep making them? If I'm being honest, I even have to say, why do I keep making them? The reason is irritatingly simple. Veterinarians are people, too. People make mistakes and sometimes they make them over and over again. With that out of the way, these are some of the things veterinarians tend to do that could be a problem for your pet, in no particular order.
If your dog has been itchy for a long time, even if the condition is partially responding to medications, it is important to be sure that a skin scraping has been done to rule out mites. Not checking for mites is one of the most common mistakes made by veterinarians. This happens because skin scrapings are usually negative and certain patterns of hairloss or clinical symptoms strongly suggest other diseases. Mite infestation (mange), particularly with Sarcoptes mites, is curable. Make sure your vet checks for this problem!
Veterinarians frequently take X-rays to confirm a problem or to help plan surgical procedures in orthopedic injuries. They are instantly attracted to the area of damage they know to be there or to an obvious injury. Not looking at the rest of the X-ray is a common mistake and it can be a costly one for your pet. I know of several instances in which more than one injury was visible on X-rays but only one was seen -- and so only one was treated. The best way to make sure your vet looks at the whole X-ray is to ask questions about it. If you ask, "What is this?" at several points on the X-ray it will make your veterinarian look at all areas. Most vets like to show people what they can see on an X-ray so your vet probably won't mind -- and he or she might see something else that is important to your pet's health.
Male cats have no obvious differentiating features on the abdomen to distinguish them from females. Many veterinarians have spent time looking for a uterus in a male cat due to this. Usually this happens when the owner says they have a female cat and no one checks at the veterinary hospital checks. For a very long time this never happened at our practice but I have joined the club of vets who have tried to spay a male cat. It is important that you know the sex of your cat for sure when you schedule spaying or neutering surgery. If you do not know for sure what sex your cat is, please let your veterinarian know. While there is really no good excuse for trying to spay a male cat you can help prevent it from happening.
Many veterinarians are more sure of their ability to interpret lab work than they are of their ability to judge the status of a patient based on physical exam. This is especially true early in a veterinarian's career. This can be a major mistake if there is a laboratory error. While that might seem to be unlikely, a clinical pathologist who spoke at a seminar I attended said that lab errors occur at a rate of about one in twenty tests. Since most lab panels contain that many tests, or more, it is likely that there is at least one value on a lab panel that has some degree of error. If your veterinarian is misled by a lab value and initiates treatment for a condition that doesn't exist or does not treat for one that does, this can present significant problems. Veterinarians rarely recheck lab values. This may be due to cost considerations but it is also sometimes due to a faith in the lab that is unjustified. It is very important that you ask your vet to double check lab values when you have any question at all about the results or anytime that a very drastic course of treatment is based solely on laboratory signs. It is worth the cost of a second lab panel.
My wife, who is also a veterinarian, says the biggest mistake that most veterinarians make is not asking the client what they want from the visit. If you have a goal that your vet seems to be missing, persist until he or she understands!
Pet Foods
Many clients ask me a simple question, "What is the best food to feed my cat (or my dog)". If it had an easy answer everyone would be happier with me.
A great deal is known about nutritional needs of pets. A great deal more is unknown about the nutritional needs of pets. This means that there is a lot of room for people with differing beliefs to make claims about their pet foods which often conflict with claims made by other people. Some of the people making these claims really believe that they can improve the health of dogs and cats with their products. Some of them are just trying to make money and are willing to mislead people to do so. It makes the situation pretty confusing.
So what do you do?
Most pet foods sold by major manufacturers are adequate to meet your pet's nutritional needs. To be sure, check the bag to make sure it meets AAFCO standards. (American Association of Feed Control Officials). This is an organization dedicated to ensuring that pet foods meet standards that ensure they meet nutritional requirements without causing problems from nutritional excess. It is probably slightly better if the food meets AAFCO feeding trial standards but these are pretty basic it doesn't seem to add a lot of protective value for a food to meet these additional standards.
Veterinarians are bombarded by claims from different food manufacturers, just like consumers. If these claims are made by a company the veterinarian trusts he or she may promote the food as the "best" but you should be wary of these claims. Veterinarians have more nutritional courses than many health professionals but few can claim to be nutritional experts. Those that are experts usually say that the best food is the one that makes a particular patient look and feel their best -- and that the food will vary from pet to pet. I am not sure how to find the absolute best food but I know many veterinarians who change the foods their dogs eat every six months or so. Their opinion is that we do not know enough about dog food to really trust one company's food for the entire life of a pet.
Some of my clients want to make foods for their pets. I think it is entirely possible to do this successfully but that it is very very important that no one use one homemade recipe to feed a pet for an extended period of time. If you elect to make food for your pet please get several recipes for food from reputable sources and change recipes occasionally. I think that it is very important not to feed raw meat or raw organs to pets. Just like in humans, raw meats are a source of E. coli and Salmonella bacteria which can cause food poisoning. While there is not an exact correlation, if the guidelines of the "food pyramid" recommended for people are followed a diet will probably be OK.
Why shouldn't you feed table scraps? The simple answer is that you shouldn't do this because your dog or cat will train you to feed it the food it likes. Most of the time this will be an all meat diet, a high fat diet or some other imbalance will occur because your pet only likes certain foods. If you are resistant to training by your pet and can feed a balanced diet of table scraps it is entirely possible to feed a dog in this manner. Assuming you eat a balanced diet, too! It is much harder to be sure that you will meet your cat's nutritional needs using human foods. For cats an occasional treat is fine but you probably ought to stick to cat foods if at all possible. You don't think your dog or cat is smart enough to train you to feed it certain foods only? Think about it a little. I bet your pet has already done this.
Nutritional claims are made by many manufacturers of nutritional supplements. The boldest of these have started a whole new class of "foods" known as "nutriceuticals". These are products such as Glycoflex (TM), Cosequin (TM) and many others. It is hard to evaluate the claims made by manufacturers of nutriceuticals because they don't have to meet the same standards as manufacturers of pharmaceutical products do. This makes it harder to decide whether to use them or not. For the most part these appear to be safe products. If you can afford them and buying them doesn't interfere with purchasing or using medications known to work and be safe for a condition then there is no reason not to try them. On the other hand, try to be objective about the effects if you can. If they aren't really helping it probably doesn't make a lot of sense to keep using them.
A reminder: Rabies
Three people have died of rabies this year in the United States. One from New Jersey, one from Montana and one from Washington (the state, not the capitol). Fifty-six people have been treated with rabies vaccinations following exposure to rabid animals in Virginia this year. Rabies occurs worldwide.
Rabies continues to be a major problem. Pets can be a link between the wild and humans so please makes sure that you keep your pet's rabies vaccinations current!
New Products
Feliway (TM) has been approved for use in the United States for the treatment of spraying behaviors in cats. It is also reported to have a calming effect on cats which can make travel or other stressful situations a little easier for cat owners. This is a pheromone product. The theory behind its use is that cats will not spray on surfaces with feline facial pheromones on them. Reports from Europe seem to indicate that this is a pretty successful product when used according to directions. It must be sprayed on all vertical surfaces that a cat might be tempted to spray, after they have been cleaned of previously sprayed cat urine if necessary, so it involves some work on the client's part. We have not tried this product yet. If we do find someone with an interest in its use we'll try to remember to give an update on how successful it is.
Anipryl, (RX ; l-deprenyl generic) has been approved for the treatment of uncomplicated hyperadrenocorticism, or Cushing's disease. This medication can take several months to relieve clinical signs of Cushing's disease which is the reason it is recommended for uncomplicated cases of Cushing's when this time lapse before effectiveness will not cause problems for the pet. A pet with Cushing's disease and diabetes would not be a good candidate for the use of Anipryl, for instance. So far the anecdotal results of treatment with this medication vary with some veterinarians having good success and others less success. This is a hard medication to evaluate from a laboratory test standard since it doesn't always change lab results even though clinical signs of the disease subside. At present it appears that monitoring clinical signs such as frequency of urination and water intake is the best way to decide how effective Anipryl is.
Our best Christmas present from a client:
Not many clients can afford a present like this but a client of ours gave us a thousand dollars for Christmas - twice!. The catch? She wanted us to use the money to help pets that wouldn't be helped otherwise. This made it easier for us to help clients whose pets needed expensive procedures but who could not afford them. A number of pets and pet owners benefited from this generous gift but it was also very good for our staff. Every veterinary hospital staff member's heart is touched by a pet or a family in need sometime during the year. It is frustrating to wish to help while simultaneously understanding the need to be paid for most cases in order to be able to equip a hospital and pay staff salaries. Having a reserve to draw funds from for special cases was a truly special gift, made even more special by the trust that we would use it appropriately. Our benefactor wishes to remain anonymous but we thank her and hope that her act of kindness is repaid if she is ever in need.
We thank you for your support of our website, vetinfo.com, through the purchase of our newsletter. We sincerely hope that you are helping us to help pets and pet owners all over the world. Copyright, TierCom, Inc., 1997 This page was last edited 06/21/04
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This page is authored by
Dr Michael Richards, DVM
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