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

Giveaway Tuesday: On the Go Kits from VPI

Congratulations to our winners: Quinn, Pamela J, Shelly, Elizabeth and the Lab Crew, and Oralia!

For going on a year now, I’ve been suspicious that Kekoa might have Cushing’s disease. Her symptoms have waxed and waned, certain bloodwork values have gone up and down, but I haven’t quite been able to pin it down.

Have I tested her? Oh yes, I have, over and over. And ACTH stimulation tests, if you haven’t had the pleasure, don’t come cheap- even to us vet types. The tests for Cushings continue to come up normal. So I wait, and a few months later test again. It adds up. Like Mulan, my “free” Golden who waited an entire year before blowing out her cruciate ligament and needing a several thousand dollar TPLO, no pet truly comes cheap, not even a free one.

It’s hard to convey that to the average owner, though. The true cost of pet ownership can be pretty significant, depending on what life and fate throws your way. Sure, $800 for a pug puppy sounds like a lot at the time, but just you wait until you have to throw in the soft palate resection, the cherry eye repair, and the cryptorchid neuter. When owners aren’t prepared for those unexpected expenses, everyone suffers- most of all the pet. (more…)

The Sixth Sense

We all have heard the amazing stories: a dog who can sense when an epileptic seizure is about to take place, some disturbance in the electromagentic field or something that alerts the dog to an impending event.

Or maybe those pets who sensed an earthquake or tsunami was bearing down, and ran for higher ground long before the people figured out what was coming.

Or Oscar the cat, the gentle hospice feline who had a way of knowing when a person was about to pass on, and always managed to find his way to them to snuggle in their last hours.

Animals know things we don’t, and it bugs us as humans when we can’t figure out how they do it. So we wonder, and study them, and doubt their abilities, but at the end of the day all we can do is marvel at the amazing gifts they possess.

Granted, some skills, some sixth senses, are more useful than others. Take Apollo, for instance. (more…)

The true hero of the story: a Pet Doctor Barbie Post

A couple times a year, I take a stroll through Toys R Us to see if there is a new Pet Vet Barbie being inflicted upon the masses. There’s a cat vet one, which I bought just because she has a slide on the exam table and that alone was worth the price- I mean, what cat doesn’t love going down a slide at the vet clinic?- but that’s not what really got me excited.

The Barbie I had to grab was the Fashionista Barbie. Those babies have moveable joints. MOVEABLE JOINTS! Now, why fashionistas need moveable joints but astronauts, veterinarians and bakers do not is beyond me, but maybe the good folks at Mattel just spend too many hours watching Paris Hilton contort on the red carpet and not enough seeing how women with actual jobs have to bend from time to time.

So anyway, I immediately took this Barbie, changed her clothes out for a pair of scrubs, and threw her into the Pawcurious Clinic to see what would happen. It quickly became apparent that she was so versatile and helpful, that she wasn’t actually a pet doctor at all.

She was, in fact, a tech. Now that’s a doll Mattel could really do something with. (more…)

Much love to tech support

You know how every year, at the Oscars, they host the Technical Awards at some crummy second rate venue in downtown LA and they get a B-list celebrity to come host it? Those people work their butts off to make the movies look good but all they get in return is some lame hotel dinner and maybe a 30 second clip shown at the Oscar telecast. Tech support never gets any love.

Sometimes I feel a little bit of similar guilt about the tech support here at pawcurious. It’s just a party of one- my husband, but he puts in a lot of time making this site work. He gamely adds buttons to sidebars and widgets to the site and takes awesome pictures of cupcakes even after he’s had a very long day and most likely would rather be reading NFL forums.

This site wouldn’t exist without him. Truly. I would have been way too daunted to set this thing up by myself. He set up the Facebook and the Twitter too, and basically forced me to utilize them. He was correct, of course, because you need those things too, but I tend to like to just stick to jabbering and pounding on the keys and let him wrestle with all that technical gobbledegook. Too much work.

That is pretty much the story of our lives, truth be told. (more…)

Guest post: One is the loneliest number

My mother-in-law is a cat person. She loves the dogs too, don’t get me wrong, but some people are dog people and some people are cat people, and she is a cat person through and through.

Her most recent cat passed away a couple of years ago, and I’ll be the first to admit I am surprised she is still cat-less. I think the urge is calling to her, though. There have been hints dropped and a wayward cat dish randomly winding up in the living room and suggestions of visits to the local cat rescue. I give it another month or two, tops.

“Did I tell you I’m thinking of getting another cat?” she asked me this weekend at her birthday party.

“I think my husband mentioned it,” I replied.

She looked over to see if my father in law was listening, and confirming that he was, she casually amended her statement: “Well, I actually think I should get two. They need company, really.”

His eyebrows raised six inches or so before he interjected that this was indeed news to him, but of course now that it’s been said out loud, in front of witnesses, he unfortunately has little recourse to try and talk her out of it. This is the same tactic I use with great success. The V family men put up with a great deal in the name of animals.

Truth be told, she has a point. Adopting cats in pairs is a time-honored tradition in shelters, with the advantage of not only getting more kitties into homes, it gives them a pre-bonded playmate, assuming you get two cats who have already been living together. So it is very timely that the Found Animals Foundation in LA just submitted a guest post on the advantages of adopting a 2Fer during kitten season. One might say it was fate. My father in law is probably ruefully shaking his head as he reads this, by the way. I hope I am still welcome in the house.

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Giveaway Tuesday: Iams Sensitive Naturals and Simple and Natural

Congratulations to our winner, Elena! I hope your pet loves the food!

I spend a lot of time reading pet food labels. I usually have to shoo off at least three well meaning but unhelpful store employees every time I’m at the store. Sometimes I’m reading to make sure it’s a good choice for Brody and Koa, and sometimes I just pick up a bag of cheapie food to remind myself of the crummy stuff that’s out there.

I know I’m not alone in this- it seems like every time I go into the store, from a pet food boutique to a big-box super center, the pet food section is devoting an increasing amount of space to premium foods. Fortunately for us, pet food manufacturers are also taking note of this trend and coming up with lines that appeal to the more particular buyers out there.

This week, Iams launched 2 new products in its Healthy Natural Line: Sensitive Naturals and Simple and Natural. To get a little more information on the new products, I conducted an e-mail interview with Dr. Marcie Campion, a nutritionist at Iams. And for one winner I have a 25 pound bag of either formula to give away. (more…)

Wherever I may roam

The fourth of July was lovely. And thank goodness for that, because the fifth was pretty brutal, as it has remained since then. Humid, sticky, 100 degrees plus, the sort of weather that leaves you glued to the couch by your own sweat, unable to get up even if you wanted to, which you don’t. Brody goes outside long enough to jump in the pool, then hightails it back into the house to allow it all to evaporate in a nice sauna-dog-smell combo.

I used to call this “Hawaii hot.” But now, now I call it “Amazon hot.” It’s funny how something like a heat wave can trigger so many memories. If I’m going to be sitting around in this kind of heat, it would be nice to at least be somewhere as awesome and awe-inspiring as the Amazon. I miss it, even though I was only there for half a heartbeat.

I miss the verdant fields populated by lackadaisical bovines:

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It’s better in pairs

Today I saw a bumper sticker that gave me a good laugh: Discover Wildlife- Raise Twins.

I couldn’t imagine. My two kiddos are 20 months apart and that is zoo enough for me. Two at the exact same age would probably be more than my rickety knees and/or delicate psyche could handle.

Pets, though, are another story. As much as I look on in horrified fascination at people with 4,5,6 kids and wonder how the heck they stay sane and solvent, I could very easily imagine myself waking up to four dogs running amuk. I kind of love that. Four dogs, three cats, a turtle, a small goat, and a handful of chickens. That would be amazing. Of course, I’d have to get a divorce in order for that to happen, but if my husband were as nuts as me, I’d totally go there. (more…)

Behold the power of the internet

I’ve spent a lot of time rubbing my temples in frustration at the things people pull off the internet and read as gospel- everything from “How To Assemble a Home Bloat Kit at Home Depot” to “Drug Dosing for your Cat” including, of all things, deadly Tylenol. The DIY instructions out there run the gamut from the harmless-but-useless to the downright killer.

On the flip side, the internet can also be an absolute godsend. I say this not only as a medical professional, but as a patient and a caregiver. Our healthcare professionals are pressured to see more and more patients in smaller increments of time, meaning that time we used to have to really talk with our doctors is shrinking away. It’s less pronounced in the veterinary profession than in the medical profession, at least so far, but the trend is still going in that direction.

Professor Pawsy doing a little internet research

Let’s take the example of feline diabetes. You bring your cat in because he’s been drinking a lot, and you think it’s probably just the heat, but hey, he’s getting on in years so you just want to be sure. Several hours and a few hundred dollars later you’re back at home with insulin syringes, prescription food and your head spinning from the turn your life just took. It’s 10 at night and you’re still trying to digest all the information. (more…)

Happy Fourth!

Give me your burgers, your corn,

Your soggy shortcakes yearning to be eaten,
The yummy refuse of your grill galore.

Send these, the castoff, crumbs and chips to me,
I lift my mouth unto the golden bowl!

A very joyous Independence Day from Lady Liberty and…er….Lady Liberty.

Partay!

It’s a big weekend. A big, big weekend here in North America. To all my Canadian friends- Happy Canada Day! And to my American partners in crime, I hope you’re getting the barbecues cleaned off and ready to roll!

The Fourth of July is the number one day for pets to run off. Number one. So while you are busy perfecting your burger recipe and figuring out how many ears of corn you need for Monday, take just a moment to do a couple of things to keep your pet safe: (more…)

DNA comes full circle

I remember when DNA tests first became routine in crime scene investigations. It was groundbreaking. Murders decades old being solved, sinister crimes committed by evildoing masterminds brought to justice by the tiniest speck of blood. Those sure were the days.

Now, we use DNA to bust people for not cleaning up after their dogs. How far we have come.

Sherlock Bones is on the case. (more…)