Pawcurious Vet Blog: With Pet Blogger and Veterinarian Dr. V

Howliday Gift Guide: Inside my house

For today’s reviews, I chose three items I’ve used in the past week and one I’ve wished for this week.

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Howliday Gift Guide: Haute Dogture

Being an animal lover comes with its share of stigmas and stereotypes. Perhaps there is some truth to the idea that we are more likely than our un-petted counterparts to have some stray cat hair on our clothes, for example, but to assume said clothes are more schlumpy than those of your average person is just not right. I prefer to think of it as fashion-forward: cruelty free fur. It’s a revolution, actually.

I would say my time in the frumpy world of yoga tracksuits had more to do with two kids running around than having pets in the house. I love nice clothes. I just never get a good excuse to wear them.

Which brings me to my point: Expressing oneself as an animal lover does not need to be mutually exclusive with being chic. You do not need to resort to novelty Malamute socks, for example, or these “sheek and stylish sequined vests“. (I do recommend clicking on that link, just because it’s worth seeing once in your lifetime, but you might be slightly traumatized.) Isn’t it time we showed the world we are not a collective bunch of people walking around with “Nothing Butt (insert choice of pet)” shirts?

So for today’s edition of the Howliday Gift Guide, I chose some pet-related couture that even Tim Gunn would approve of. These aren’t practical pieces, but personal expression pieces rarely are. Carry on. (more…)

Got Recipes?

OK, so I got a bee in my bonnet to collect recipes for dog and cat treats. Why not? It will be fun. Then we can do an old-fashioned recipe exchange, kind of like those cookbooks we used to do when we were in elementary school and it would be “Mrs. Jones’ Famous Peach Cobbler” featuring canned peaches, marshmallows and graham crackers. I think my mother still has a couple of those cookbooks falling apart in the pantry.

If you have a treat, cookie or dish recipe you’d like to include, you can e-mail it to me at drv@pawcurious.com. I might have someone who volunteered to put them into a pdf e-book format, but if that doesn’t work out I can still make them available here. I haven’t figured that out yet.

This is a low-key project- I just thought it would be fun to share what we’ve been making since I noticed so many of you also like to cook stuff for your pets.

(No copyrighted recipes, please! And please note: Out of necessity I reserve the right to omit anything with potentially toxic ingredients. Like that grape onion chocolate sundae.)

Happy Day!

I hope everyone is as happy and as stuffed as we are! I’ll be out watching Harry Potter and giving the dogs a post-Thanksgiving Furmination, so I’ll catch up with you all on Monday. In the meantime, get ready- next week is going to be exciting!

Debuting Monday and continuing for the week is the Pawcurious Holiday Gift Guide 2010, featuring reviews, a giveaway a day, and the debut of the 2011 Pawcurious Calendar!

The fish curse continues, sorta

I went to feed the new betta tonight and I couldn’t find him in the tank. I fully admit that I cursed like a sailor as I peered around the tank (at least the kids weren’t around to hear it.)

Then, I spotted him- chilling in the little filter: you know, the little box that hangs off the back of the tank? How the HECK did he get in there? The only thing I can possibly fathom is that he got sucked up the tube that pulls water into the filter. He seems like he would be too big for it, but apparently I was wrong. He went all Augustus Gloop on me.

He looked at me, abashed, floating listlessly in his one inch of space. I dumped him back in the tank and breathed a sigh of relief, at least for now. At least this time I figured it out before he kicked the bucket.

Is life in our household really all that bad? Free worms, regular water changes, the cat leaves you alone. Really, life is good as a V betta. I seem to keep getting the emo fish who can’t wait to escape the horribleness of my home.

When I took Koa into the specialty hospital a couple of weeks ago, I noticed they had a small betta tank, just a bowl, actually, in the exam room. When I relayed my tale of woe, the vet chivalrously offered the betta to me, which I thought was very kind. “He’s been here for 5 years,” he told me.

5 YEARS. 5 years of being subjected to daily scrutiny from strange cats, dogs, and children, some of whom are possibly radioactive, and the fish is fine. I have a fish for 5 weeks and he manages to get himself dead every time. I told him the fish was probably much safer there than in my home, which is some Bermuda Triangle vortex of fish doom, and obviously I was correct in that assessment.

I hadn’t actually gotten around to naming the fish- paranoia, perhaps, or simply playing the odds- but I think Augustus is quite fitting. Or perhaps Lazarus. Or Lucky, in the ironic sense. Augustus Lazarus Lucky the Great. I like it.

Give thanks

I was recently asked, “What are you grateful for?”

Well shoot, what am I not grateful for? I am blessed with a healthy family and people and pets who love me. The rest is gravy (to start throwing in Thanksgiving puns.)

But I think the question was more specific to veterinary stuff, so let me start with telling a story:

When one of my dogs was diagnosed with melanoma, I did what any good general practitioner would do and bundled her off in the car to the specialist. In our area, we are fortunate to have not one but several veterinary oncologists, including one who specializes in radiation oncology (which is the treatment of choice for this type of cancer.)

We sat in the exam room and he outlined the course of treatment: it was intensive, involving multiple anesthesias, and fairly expensive. It is the sort of thing most owners probably cannot or would not do due to the expense and time involved. I understand that, and I respect that. It is not for everyone.

We also talked about other things, our families and careers and all that stuff you talk about when you are chatting with someone with whom you have a lot in common. “I’ve stopped telling strangers what I do for a living,” he said.

“Why?” I asked, figuring it was the same reason I don’t: too many people pumping me for free advice. (more…)

Your Questions Answered: Funniest Exam Room experience (and giveaway!)

It’s late and dark, so I’m going all Blair Witch on you.

Your turn! It’s time for another FETCHING TAGS giveaway!

To enter, you can either:
1. Tell me a funny experience from your own work

or 2. Ask another question for me to answer.

All the world’s a vacation

When you’re a dog, life is pretty good. You get up, eat, run around, eat some more, play, go to sleep. Lather, rinse, repeat. There are no job responsibilities, no mortgages, no bills to pay. Life is at is most simple and best when it is the same, day in and day out.

So when dog owners go on vacation, they find themselves stumped at how to top perfection. For all its pretty packaging, high end “dog resorts” are usually some variation of the same formula: staying in a kennel with twice a day feeding and walks. Compared to the comforting daily routines, this may seem less like a great getaway and more like punishment to your average dog.

And don’t even get me started on cats: I can’t count how many cats in boarding facilities stop eating and drinking to the point of clinical dehydration and constipation. I always recommend vacationing cat owners try and find someone to take care of their cat in their own home whenever possible. (more…)

Even dog-girls get the blues

I weighed Kekoa on Tuesday and I am happy to report that she is back on track at 74.5 pounds- one more pound gone! She really is a trooper. She has this great talent of utilizing her lower center of gravity to butt Brody out of the way when they are jockeying for position at feeding time, so despite her shrinking weight she still had mad leverage skills.

We ran into someone who hasn’t seen Koa since shortly after she came to live with us in March. He was floored. “She’s so shiny!” he said. “And so skinny!” I told him about the Nulo Challenge and how well Koa was doing on the food, how Brody was also scarfing it up and also how jealous Koa was that Brody’s ration was quite a bit more (darn that slow female metabolism.)

I also told him about Koa’s nerve sheath tumor and my conversation with the oncologist. I excised the mass with generous margins but, without knowing what it was, I didn’t take radical measures and cut out muscle and bone. The path report showed the margins were not clean. In short, there is microscopic tumor left that will likely regrow.

There are three options: (more…)

CSI San Diego: Ichthycide

8 am: Call from residence. Hysterical woman claiming discovery of dead body. Police dispatch to scene.

8:10: Arrive on scene, met by disheveled homeowner. Led me to kitchen and pointed to metal dog food bowl. Called for backup. (more…)

Mercy, not mercenary

A client whom we have never seen previously arrived at 6 o’clock to euthanize her cat.

“Who made this appointment?” I asked, miffed. My staff, usually well versed in how to handle these situations, made the appointment without so much as a “Why?”  Or, even better, “Let me make sure that’s OK with the doctor.”

“I told her she needed to talk to you first,” said the person who made the appointment.

“That is not the same thing,” I re-explained, “as telling her she needs to talk to me to MAKE SURE I AM OK DOING THAT. Have we ever seen this person?”

“No.”

“Do you know why she wants to euthanize?”

“No.”

“Do you know who her prior vet was?”

“No.”

“Has she already signed an estimate for the euthanasia, therefore sitting in the room with the expectation that I am just going to go in, say hi, and euthanize her cat?” (more…)

Home For the Holidays: let’s make some magic!

I despise the week between Christmas and New Years.

Why? Because without fail, I see piles upon piles of new holiday pets. Pets from pet stores, whose owners overpaid for them and can then not afford to treat them for the parasites, distemper, or congenital disease they all too often wind up with. It happens every year.

In 1999, Mike Arms at The Helen Woodward Animal Center decided to change that. With 14 local shelters, they launched the “Home for the Holidays” campaign to encourage people to adopt a pet instead of buying one.

To say that it was a success is a bit of an understatement. Since its modest beginnings in 1999, Home 4 the Holidays has seen the placement of 4.6 million pets, including dogs, cats, rabbits, reptiles, and birds. It has grown from 14 Southern California shelters to over 3,500 animal organizations in over 21 countries.

Helen Woodward has partnered with Iams to make this program a worldwide movement. This year’s goal is to adopt 1.5 million animals and donate 5 million bowls of food to shelters in need. You can help make this a reality! Here’s how: (more…)