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

Product of the week

Emmett the good sport is currently taking antibiotics and pain meds to combat the swelling and bacteria from Easter Smackdown 09. He usually takes his Rimadyl with no complaint- it’s a chewable beef flavored tab- but he’s less than enthused about his Clavamox.

Normally I just stick the pills in peanut butter and he’s happy to take them that way, but my husband is mightily protesting my use of his Jiff stash for such purposes. I’ve also been known to hide them in aesthetically pleasing swirls of pressurized Kong stuffing cheese flavored product, but I ran out of that last week. I suppose I could just manually put the pills in his mouth, but I hate doing that when I have a pet who is perfectly happy to take them in a food product.

I remembered at this point that we have a box of Greenies Pill Pocket samples, which I have been sending home with clients and getting good feedback on, so what better time to give them an official test run than now?

They are pretty great.

Emmett took them with no problem- of course, he’s a Golden and he has been known to eat trash and diapers, so I don’t know how discriminating his palate is. But what I really like is how easy they are to use.

It’s like a little squishy can with no lid. You put the pills inside the pocket, and seal the top off with your fingers. It’s much neater than peanut butter or making a meatball out of canned food. I admit it. I am lazy. I like to do these things with maximum efficiency, and anything that leaves me with no sticky fingers or utensils is aces in my book.

Per the website, you can also put liquid medications in the pill pockets. Clever little product! Emmett and I both give it two paws up.

Terrible product of the day

I’ve spent lots of time pointing out fun, helpful, and interesting things that a pet lover might be interested in, but today I want to show you something that is a really stupid idea.
The Walky Lock car lock may, in fact, be just about the worst idea I’ve seen in a long time.

This is basically a little prop that holds the back of your trunk open just a wee bit. It’s kind of like rolling your window down, except it will cost you $20.

The ad says, “How many times have you rushed your shopping because you felt guilty about your dog being “caged” in your car. … The WalkyLock is the ideal solution when you need to leave your dog inside the car for a short period of time, while you’re shopping or visiting a friend.”

Oh, I beg to differ! Leaving the back hatch cracked 6 inches doesn’t give you carte blanche to go running around the mall or drinking lattes with your BFF. This is a false sense of security and it does NOTHING to make your dog safer.

If you’ve ever left your dog in a car on a warm day, thinking, “It’s not that hot…” PLEASE STOP.

Study after study has shown that the temperatures inside a car can skyrocket, even on a relatively cool day, even in very short amounts of time. If there is direct sunlight, your car acts like a little heat trapper even when the outside temperature is nice and cool. People and pets have died of heat stroke when it was 70 degrees out. And cracking the windows doesn’t do a thing, nor does this useless product.

Just a couple of weeks ago I was out having lunch with my kids when I saw a little dog’s head pop up in the back of a Suburban in the parking lot. The back windows were, of course, cracked about 2 inches. It was 82 outside, and the car had been there for 45 minutes. As I was calling the police to come break the windows, the cashier managed to find the dog’s owner- enjoying a smoothie in the air conditioned restaurant while his dog slow-boiled in his car. The bitterest irony was that the place had outdoor seating, where dogs were allowed.

Needless to say, this product does not get the pawcurious seal of approval.

Scientific progress goes boink

(Extra points to anyone who knows the title reference without Google!)

At least a couple times a week, a client with a particularly hard to deconstruct mutt asks me, “So what do you think my dog is? I’ve heard schnauzer/chow/Yorkie/pit bull but I’m not really sure.”

I look at the dog and hazard a guess. “Well, he does have Australian shepherd eyes, and his tail looks like a chow chow….” and we both shrug.

Sometimes, people are obviously misinformed. “I bought this Pomeranian/chihuahua mix from a great breeder in North Dakota,” said one owner to me, petting her 30 pound dog who looked like neither a Chi nor a Pom. The breeder told her he wouldn’t top 10 pounds. Caveat emptor, my friends.

At the end of the day, though, it doesn’t really matter, does it? Your dog is your dog regardless of his genetic history. The type of people who adopt a mutt aren’t the types who are going to be overly concerned about breed breakdown. Nonetheless, sometimes people are genuinely curious about their dog’s lineage, and to that effect, modern science has provided an answer.

The Wisdom Panel is a DNA analysis of dogs that compares a dog’s DNA to 157 AKC breeds. All it takes is a blood sample, and in return you get a written report breaking down what breeds your dog is made up of, and in what percentages.

I’ve sent out a few of them, and it’s fun to see what comes back. Sometimes you get the obvious- OK, this 50 pound fluffy gold dog is 75% Golden Retriever- and sometimes you get something out of left field, like a 15 pound dog that is 15% Rottweiler.

It provides what I would estimate as 0.01% medically important information, but it’s very interesting and pretty easy to do. The kit is available online, at some vets, and I’ve even seen them in the checkout aisle of a big national petstore chain.

Canine Cuisine, Part Three: So, what should I feed my dog?

In Part 1 of the Canine Cuisine trilogy, Name that Food,  I talked about how the name of the pet food itself gave you clues as to its content. In Part 2: Name that Ingredient, I went into detail about some of those baffling ingredient names you see on the back. In the last installment, I answer the omnipresent question of, “What should I feed my dog?”

This is probably one of the most frequently asked questions I get asked as a veterinarian. I wish I could make it easy for you and just say, “Feed Brand XXX,” because that would make life a lot easier for all of us, but I can’t in good faith do it. Not until I get a sponsor*, at least. (kidding!)

If you want to see the dog world version of the breast milk versus formula debate throwdowns that seem to overrun most parenting forums, hit up a dog forum at some point and look up the food debate. It gets ugly. They duke it out like the Hatfields and the McCoys, blood and hair flying around, twisted limbs flying into the air over the seemingly innocent question of what one should put in the dog’s dish. In one corner, we have the BARF extremists- not that all BARFers are extremists, mind you- swearing that raw meaty bones and chicken necks cure all ailments from skin allergies to cancer, vets don’t know squat about nutrition, and all kibble feeding dog owners are morons. In the other corner, we have the old-school people who insist they have raised 15 generations of champion schnoodles on Ol’Roy, vets don’t know squat about nutrition, it is just as good as any other brand on the market and how dare you say they are a bad owner. The truth, I think (ok, I know), is probably somewhere in between.

So what should you feed your dog?

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Helping hands (and rears)

About 2 years after I adopted Mulan, she had a TPLO surgery. This is a pretty invasive knee surgery, and as part of the requirement she was on cage rest for 6 weeks. She had a very difficult time getting up, and I had to assist her.

We were pretty low tech in vet school, and whenever we needed to assist a pet in getting up we would use a towel looped around their abdomen. This is also what we do at work. It works fine, but getting the towel around a recumbent animal and then supporting 40, 50, or more pounds with your hands in that towel gets fatiguing pretty fast. There are some slings on the market to make it easier, but none of the ones I have used seemed to be any easier.

But this- this product looks awesome. I love how the sling loops around the legs, making it much easier to get on and off, and is long enough so that you aren’t hunched over the dog holding onto their weight while they walk around.

If these had been around when Mulan had her surgery, I would have definitely sprung for one. And towards the end of her life, when she could no longer make it up the stairs to my daughter’s room, it would have been wonderful. I wish I had known about it then!

Pssst….don’t click if you’re easily grossed out…

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Cruelty Free made easier

I suppose this isn’t directly related to my job, but I think the concept is one that is of interest to many of my 5 readers so I thought I would share this with you.

Long before I became a veterinarian, I was a mini animal rights activist in training. I remember being 6 and hassling my mother mercilessly about her rabbit fur coat: “Eeeeeew mom, that is soooo ugly! Why are you wearing dead bunnies? We live in California! Yuck!” etc etc. She actually stopped wearing it because I hassled her so much.

As I got older, I turned my eye on the cosmetics industry. When I was 16, my neighbor hired me to babysit her kids. It turns out she was a Mary Kay saleslady*, Cadillac and all. Imagine my surprise as she closed the door behind her, leaving me surrounded by piles of those evil pink plastic compacts up to the ceiling. Quelle horreur! She tried to sell me some stuff, I gave her an earful in response, and that was by mutual agreement the last time I babysat for her.

I’m not the best animal rights person, really- I only recently went vegetarian and I’m not sure being vegan will ever happen, but I try. My brief foray into lab animal medicine only solidified my resolve that there is just no need for cosmetics testing on animals- not these days. Not anymore.

“Cruelty-free cosmetics” is a big catchphrase these days, and companies love to slap that on their label to make it more appealing to people like me. Statements like “this finished product is not tested on animals” only mean so much, though, right? How do you really know the product was created start to finish in a humane way?

I’ve seen the leaping bunny logo on a few of my favorite beauty items but I didn’t know what it meant until recently. From their website:

“Eight national animal protection groups banded together to form the Coalition for Consumer Information on Cosmetics (CCIC). The CCIC promotes a single comprehensive standard and an internationally recognized Leaping Bunny Logo. We are working with companies to help make shopping for animal-friendly products easier and more trustworthy.”

I love that. If you click on the link you will see the 8 organizations, which include the HSUS and the Doris Day Animal League. The FAQ discusses their standards in more detail, but in a nutshell the product must be free of animal testing with every phase of production, not just the finished product.

The shopping guide is great and covers not only cosmetics, but household items. And pet shampoo! See, it’s related to this blog!

I’m printing out the pocket guide and making a newly concerted effort to use as many of these products as I can. Will it change the world? Maybe not. But it’s a step in the right direction, and that is always a great thing.

*Mary Kay did stop animal testing many years ago, I suspect in no small part because of Berkeley Breathed and the not so great publicity they got via Bloom County, but this happened BEFORE that ended. I still don’t like their makeup though. Sorry.

Good stuff

I’m not a fan of tennis balls as dog toys. Few vets are.

One, they’re a choking hazard. You would be amazed at what a determined retriever can lodge in their gullet.

Two, they are TERRIBLE on dog teeth. When a dog chews on something wiry and abrasive, be it their own itchy fur or the felt on a tennis ball, it has a sandpaper effect. The teeth on a chronic ball chewer can be worn down to the gums. It’s called attrition, and it’s not pretty.

That being said, I may not be a fan of tennis balls- but a lot of dogs are. And I can lecture and wave and gesticulate all I want, but I still see legions of pet owners hitting the park every weekend with their Chuckits and a bag full of old tennis balls, vet admonishments be damned.

Can we agree on a compromise? Ballistic Dog makes a softer dental tennis ball meant to be easier on the dog’s teeth. Your dog will never know.

The alternative is a gummy, toothless old dog. They don’t make dog dentures. I checked.

Pet pick of the week: The Blocky Dog 3 way leash

Walking a big dog can be a big proposition. Without the use of my beloved Gentle Leaders, for instance, getting Emmett down the block without dislocating my shoulder was a dicey proposition. And when Mulan was in the mix? Forget it.

So yes, I do love the Gentle Leaders, and that is nothing new. But when I saw my friend the trainer walking her rambunctious German Shepherd on a clever 3-way leash, I had to know what it was.

Check this baby out- the Blocky Dog Lock n Lead has two features that are really super cool:

1. The extra loop at the bottom of the leash allows you to quickly rein in your dog. It’s also removable.
2. There is an extra ring towards the end of the leash, which allows you to create a huge loop so instead of holding the leash by your hand, you can loop it around your chest, like this guy:

Admittedly this is not the most fashion-forward look (maybe it’s the pink), but it’s functional, and big dog people are definitely into function.

Walking a big dog hands free is something I never thought I would see, but I saw it live and in action. I really need to get one of these. This was the main reason I wasn’t ever able to take dogs and toddlers out at the same time- just not enough hands for crowd control, even when the toddler was on his own leash.

I really thought I was going to have to grow another set of arms.

Pet pick of the week

I live in a pretty warm climate, and it’s a common occurrence for me to be in a hot parking lot calling the cops on a dog panting away in a boiling car. Conversely, it’s hard for me to forget the story of the dog abandoned in a van in a New Hampshire airport parking lot in the dead of winter, who miraculously survived. It amazes me how many people seem to think non-humans are somehow immune to the effects of temperature.

Granted, the types of people who make poor choices like that are not the types who would probably be interested in a climate controlled pet carrier, but for the rest of us who think about it on a regular basis, it’s a pretty cool idea (get it? ha ha!)

When I travel with my pets in the car we are obviously at a comfortable temperature for me, so I’m not entirely convinced this is a must-have for all people who travel with their pets. On the other hand, given the airlines’ increasing reluctance to take on the liability of putting pets in cargo, I can see this being a fantastic idea for people sending their pet by plane. I was in a rough situation the other day with a man who had to ship his dog from Los Angeles to Florida. The airline required that I sign a statement saying the pet could tolerate temperatures of 25 degrees. He couldn’t, really- the dog lived in Southern California. He wasn’t acclimated to that any more than the owner was.

Yes, the chances of the dog being in those temperatures for any significant length of time were pretty low. Yet on the off chance they were forced to make a stopover in Boise and the connection got delayed, and the dog sat on the tarmac freezing into a fur-sicle, guess who would get sued if he ended up dying of hypothermia? Good old Dr V, who never should have signed a statement saying it would be fine. The airlines have put us in a really bad position there- they won’t ship without that statement of acclimatization, and most vets are uncomfortable making a blanket statements that “this pet will be fine in both boiling and freezing scenarios, so if something goes wrong, don’t blame the airline, blame me.” Then the owner is stuck at the airport, usually yelling at me on their cell phone.

Next time a client tries to arm twist me like that, I’ll simply write, “This pet can tolerate temperatures between 25 and 80 degrees” (this is what they requested) “as long as they are in a revolutionary climate-controlled pet carrier.”

When satin lined coffins are out of the question

Mulan’s ashes arrived back from the pet memorial park in a very nice cedar box. I took the box inside the house, and placed it on the counter next to my keys, whereupon my 4 year old immediately honed in and asked what was in the box. “Memories,” I told her, then whisked the box out of her hands before she tried to open it.

Right now Mulan is resting on top of the TV. It is the only place where she is safe from kid-hands and misplacement. I feel badly that I haven’t picked somewhere more permanent yet, but in life Mulan liked to be there in the living room best of all, so in some ways it’s rather fitting. I’m debating what to do from here. My last dog who I had to put to sleep, Nuke, arrived from a different crematorium in a crummy floral print tin and I was in a bit of a hurry to get him somewhere more dignified, so I buried his ashes under a pepper tree in our yard. Unfortunately, we ended up moving 2 years later and I am to this day consumed with guilt about abandoning him to strangers.

I am oddly (well, not that odd, I guess) defensive about dignified comportment of a pet. To me how we treat animals in death is just another reflection of the respect we had for them in life. I’ll never forget Charlie, a little dog we saw for the first and only time last fall. The owner was debilitated, so her sons brought the dog in for euthanasia. They could have cared less and were combative about my need to examine the dog before committing to doing the euthanasia. Poor Charlie was a total disaster, obviously in the end stages of some sort of (undiagnosed, untreated) chronic disease, and I agreed at that stage euthanasia was the best option. The sons complained about the price, but paid for the euthanasia with communal cremation, and left before the deed was done.

Imagine my surprise when, two weeks later, Charlie’s ashes arrived back at the clinic. Apparently, a staff member had checked the wrong box, and Charlie was given an individual cremation. Thinking that perhaps the owner would still like to have the ashes, we attempted to call them, but they had provided a false phone number. “Well, that stinks,” said one tech, and started to take Charlie over to the trash can.

I had what could only be described as “strong words” with the tech, and within a few moments Charlie was sitting on my desk. I wasn’t quite sure what would be right or fitting, not knowing anything about the dog, but I eventually decided on a small park by my home to be as good a place as any. So after work the next day, I headed to the bank of a tiny creek at the park, and scattered his ashes. In the end, did it matter? Not really. Not to anyone but me. But that is enough.

Mulan, on the other hand, wasn’t that fond of the park. She liked to be at home. Her, I know. We went out and bought a maidenhair tree, because the little yellow leaves remind me of her ears. When we plant it, I will mix some of her ashes in the soil. It still feels like not enough, though.

My sister insists that when she dies, she wants to be turned into a Life Gem. When they first came out, you used to have to ship the whole body to the Life Gem place- augh- but now they have refined the process so you can get a diamond made out of a lock of hair, which is so much better. The thought of wearing my sister- my whole sister- and constantly living in fear of losing her down the drain is a bit creepy to me. If you have the money to spend (and it isn’t cheap), they do offer the service for pets too.

Much as the idea of wearing Mulan as a cheery yellow diamond is appealing, in these times of recession it isn’t going to happen. I kind of like these little lockets that hold a bit of ashes in them. Is that creepy? I find them appealing, actually. Keeping your pet close to your heart as they have been for so many years. I will tell you the one option I never considered: Freeze drying my pet (warning, link contains photos). As much as I love Scrubs, the fact that JD and Turk have a freeze dried dog in their house is a constant source of discomfort for me when I watch the show. Yuck. Who would do this? Really? That makes turning someone into a gem look positively dignified. Thank God my sister isn’t asking me to do that. I can picture my daughter, circa 2045 in therapy: “Well, it all started the day Auntie K came back from the freeze drying place…”

Practice Limited to Animals Only

I wonder how many people truly think getting a pet is good practice for being the parent of a human. I know countless people who use this as an initial excuse to get a pet, but I’m talking about people who have actually gone and done both. God knows it seems like a good idea at the time, when you are young and dumb, when you have neither. Taking care of one living thing, and doing it well, should naturally be a good predictor of being caretaker to another, right?

The first clue I should have had that this really isn’t the case is my abysmal record with flora. I grew up next door to my grandmother, a transplant from the Old Country who could take clippings from your lawn mower and turn them into the Hanging Gardens with a garden hose and sheer will. To get from my house to hers, I would traverse the backyard, winding through the towering green vines of cucumbers, tiptoeing through rows of cabbages, solemnly parading past the Virgin Mary plaster statue presiding over a flowering rows of color, and arrive at her doorstep where she was invariably nursing some sort of injured bird back to health. Her vibrant green thumb and gift with all things living continued its genetic march through to my father, where it then hit a brick wall and drowned in a sea of weed eater, a precious gene lost to the world.

My lineage is more accurately traced through the maternal side, starting in Ireland where we managed to destroy an entire country’s harvest of potatoes. My Black Thumb of Death then fled the scene of the crime, parading over the pond where it co-mingled with some French Canadian lumberjacks to produce my mother, who provided for me a lovely house filled with teapots, doilies, and the finest, most beautiful silk roses money could buy. We had not a single real plant in our house growing up. Not for lack of trying, mind you. My mother left countless brown withered stalks in her wake before declaring the house a plant-free zone and telling my dad if he wanted real plants he was welcome to grow them outside.

When my husband and I purchased our first house, I cheerily mentioned my plan to buy some lovely silk ferns and I saw the blood drain from his face. No fake plants, he declared, himself the progeny of another Eliza Doolittle of all things Green, and I made a genuine attempt to keep a plant, any plant, alive in the house. I failed miserably, each and every time. Plants are hard to keep alive. They don’t meow in your face if you’re late watering them; they suffer in silence, leaving you to discover their wilted, limp remains peering accusingly up at your from their resting place on the counter. Dogs and cats are much easier; their very existence is a constant reminder that there is a need to be met. And if you forget, even for a hour, god help you.

Despite my rotten track record with plants, I surged forward into animal ownership with an underlying certainty that I would succeed in this venue, and I was right. I found that I excelled at animal care. But I was wary, wary of making any assumptions about my ability to be a human parent simply because I could mind the cat well enough. Sadly enough, I was entirely correct in my extrapolations. I am pretty sure I am a middling to fair human parent at best, my tousle-headed, sticky fingered hooligans a living, breathing testament to my mediocrity as a raiser of humans. I have a theory that while you may love plants, pets, and people, there is only one category in which you truly shine. This is a theory I just made up right this second to make myself feel better, so if you are the gardening genius who raises Champion Airedales, 10 pound heirlooms and a house full of Yale grads, just keep it to your smug little self and let me bask in the glory of my singular gift, ok?