Live Long and Prosper, Third in a Series

So here it is, a couple of days late due to a little techno hang up. (I couldn't find any pictures to use for this post even though I have saved many over the past couple of months in anticipation). I think the glitch has something to do with my abandonment of the Blackberry Storm that I have hated for two years and the acquisition of the yet to be mastered Droid Ally. However, I think that my technology foibles can be another whole series of posts for some future date. I'm not here to talk about phones or apps, or even my laptop computer which seems to spend more time at a certain apartment in Brooklyn than it does on my lap. I'm here to talk about one of the most important things you can do to help your pet live a long and healthy life. We've covered vaccines and Nutrition/weight control. Now it's on to oral health.

Now this doggie seems to have nice, shiny, white teeth. You might say, "Gee, the gums look a little red and maybe I detect some staining on that upper 4th premolar." (big tooth with two points). You might also wonder why this dog has a clear tube coming out of it's mouth, and why Kim's fingers are so close to the aforementioned pointy teeth. Well, as you might have guessed, this dog is sleeping and it's teeth didn't look like this a little while ago.

They looked like this. (Cue the horror movie dramatic music)

Yes, it's true, someone probably let this dog lick them on the face and couldn't imagine why it's breath smelled like 2 week old dead fish. But bad breath is not the only problem that we see with dental disease of this degree. As you can imagine, this dog's mouth must hurt. Go to your dog right now. I'll wait, bring him or her back to you computer. Now sniff his breath. Lift his lip carefully like Kim was doing in the first picture. If you smell rotten eggs or see any staining on the teeth, or worse, if you see tarter and red gums like this you call your veterinarian first thing in the morning, hang your head in shame and make an appointment to have your pet's mouth examined and the disease treated. That's right, disease. Oral disease is a painful condition that leads to tooth loss. Infections in the periodontal pocket can cause abscesses. Cat's (not pictured here due to the aforementioned tech issues) also get cavity like lesions that expose the nerves. Bacteria can get into the blood and cause kidney disease, heart valve disease, and liver abscesses. Toxins from these heinous bacteria make your pet feel like crap. This is serious stuff. Oh, I know, your pet is too old for anesthesia and dental treatment. Horse Hockey! (for all you Col. Potter fans). Old age is not a disease but rotting teeth are. Have your vet perform a complete physical examination, including the oral cavity. This, along with some basic blood work will determine the safest way to treat your pet's mouth.

See, here's another dog with horrendous teeth. This guy isn't going to be so lucky. Once the teeth were cleaned and radiographs were taken, it was determined that not all of the teeth could be saved. That's right, we had to make the phone call that owner's hate to hear, "Mrs (fill in your name if you haven't been taking care of your dog's teeth.) we have finished Fluffy's cleaning and radiographs and we have to extract several teeth" The owner always gasps and asks how the dog will eat. I tell them, "better than he is eating now because these teeth are loose and painful."

Notice how clean the teeth left behind are? Notice how many are missing? And this is only one side of the mouth. I assure you that the other side looks much the same. Do not let your pet's teeth get like this. Your veterinarian should be examining your pet's teeth at every wellness visit. You should ask your veterinarian if your pet's teeth are OK and if yes, what you should do to keep them that way. If no, what do you have to do to treat this disease. Once the mouth looks like the pre pictures above, no amount of brushing, or treats, or prayer will clean them. I have to clean them. Then you have to work out a home care program and do your part. Oh, yeah, when your veterinarian tells you the teeth are bad, don't answer with, we just had his teeth cleaned last year. Look in the mouth and have the doctor show you the problem. Then the two of you need to come up with a plan to treat the problem and then prevent the problem from coming back so soon.

You may have noted a bit of terseness in my tone for this post. You are correct, I am ranting again. Next to overfeeding your pet, not taking care of it's mouth may be one of the worst things you can do. It will decrease lifespan and will make for a horrible quality of life for both of you.

I'll calm down now. I hope no one got bitten looking in their pet's mouth. I should have warned you to be careful earlier. I also wanted to thank my associate Dr. Brian Spar for the photos. He has an I phone and he will be glad to tell you how much better it is than any technology I could ever posses. (wait until his I phone 4 starts dropping calls). Also, special thanks to Kim Green for helping to display the oral cavities. She is our Licensed Veterinary Technician and she does our dental cleanings and takes the oral x rays for our patients. She will also be the one calling you to tell you if we need to do extractions or additional work.

One more post in this series, then it's on to another topic. I think there is an over/under poll going on as to how many days it will take me to finish off the series. I was really good for the first two.

Keith Niesenbaum, VMd

www.CrawfordDogandCatHosptial.com

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Live long and prosper, #2

So this could be a first, but I'm actually blogging according to some pre-arranged schedule. Two weeks in a row, keeping to the topic of what you can do to help keep your pet healthy. Last week, I talked about regular vaccinations for your pets. I know everyone read and enjoyed it but in case you need to review, just check it out here.

This week is a topic that is near and dear to my heart and one that will cost you nothing and save you a bundle in veterinary bills over your pet's life. I'm talking about nutrition and fitness, or more specifically, controlling your pet's weight. I touched on this topic briefly in the past, but obviously no one was listening to me because I keep seeing overweight pets. Well it's time to take the gloves off and get down and dirty. If you have an overweight pet then this is for you.

This is a fat cat. It's not cute, (OK, maybe a little), it's fat. There are a whole slew of diseases that fat cats get more often than normal weight cats. First thing that comes to mind is diabetes. Yes diabetes as in your cat has a high blood sugar, will get severe complications and need insulin injections for the rest of it's life diabetes. Fat cats also are more prone to arthritis. Studies have shown that a large percentage of older cats have arthritic changes on radiographs. These cats may suffer in silence. Once can only imagine how carrying around this extra weight will make things worse. Overweight cats also have a higher incidence of respiratory disease, heart disease, and certain tumors. If that's not gross enough, they also have a higher incidence of constipation. You haven't lived until you've had to sedate a cat to pull obstipated poop out of it's butt. DO NOT LET YOUR CAT GET FAT!!! Talk to your vet about appropriate diets, especially after spay or neuter surgery as this will alter your cat's metabolism, lowering their caloric needs. I'll not get into details here, but try to avoid high carbohydrate diets, and stick with a large proportion of canned food that is higher in protein and fat. Think Catkins (Atkins) diet, as I cross over some copyright law line and walk all over Dr. Atkins' name. If there is interest, we can look deeper into this topic in the future. Some blogger guru said that I should keep my posts at around 800 words and those who know me know how hard that is, so lets move on.

OK, dog owners, you didn't think I was going to let you off the hook did you? Dogs get fat too. Actually, it was a run of fat, crippled, could not get up off the floor, dogs that made me decide to write this whole series of articles. I actually had to put a 135 lb Golden retriever to sleep because it was so fat that it had Pickwickian syndrome. Follow the link, I didn't make it up and it is a great SAT vocabulary word for my younger readers. Fat dogs have degenerative joint disease, increased risk of torn ACL ligaments, hip dysplasia, heart disease, and a total lack of vitality. Is it worth giving into that begging at the dinner table? Just say no!

Now I just got back from a half Ironman triathlon this weekend. I don't just throw this out because I want you to know that I can complete the 70.3 miles, even in the brutal heat, (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride, 13.1 mile run) but because I want you to know that I know what a battle this is (weight control that is). I spent a day getting passed by guys and gals that looked like this greyhound in the picture. We don't have to limit our pets diets until they look skeletal. A Labrador will never look like this guy, and the poor pugs will develop body image issues just looking at the photo. The point is, we all have an ideal body weight and we need to get there to stay healthy.

So, what's a pet owner to do? Feed a healthy diet. Feed to body condition, that is to say, if the amount you are feeding is leading to weight gain, cut it back. If your dog doesn't eat the food that you put down every time, in 3 seconds, but is maintaining weight, you do not have to top dress it with pan drippings (fat), or chicken breast, or hamburger, or anything. And exercise. This is tougher for cats than for dogs, but 20 minutes with a laser pointer every day will do wonders, if it doesn't make you crazy. And dogs need to walk, or run (breed dependent) every day, twice a day if possible. I go crazy when people tell me they exercise their dog every Saturday for 10 minutes if the weather is good. I look at them and realize that they are on the same type of exercise program. They should check with their doctors and veterianarians to make sure that they are starting out on a healthy, suitable program, then get off the couch people, and grab a leash, it's good for both of you. Take a spouse out with you and the dog, talk to each other meet your neighbors. (unless you live up at like 173rd street, then maybe you should leave your neighbors be and make sure you have a big dog and walk before dark.)

Some dogs (not most cats) like to swim. Great exercise. But I have to say, if they learn to ride a bike and pass me at my next triathlon, I'll have to find another athletic activity. My ego can only take so much. I can take being passed by the old men and women, but the first time a dog takes me down at an Ironman event, I'm done.

So, now I'm out of ideas for the next three posts on what you can do to keep your pet healthy. Give me some ideas. If I have any hope of keeping to this schedule, it will be up to you. This idea came for crazyboutdogs on twitter. Follow her at www.twitter.com/crazyboutdogs. Follow me at www.twitter.com/knvet and become a fan of our facebook page at Crawford Dog and Cat Hospital

Keith Niesenbaum, VMD

www.CrawfordDogandCatHopsital.com

Live long and prosper, the first installment

It seems that I have been seeing so many sick pets in the office lately. OK, not so much serious illness, although there has been our share of that, but sort of chronic, debilitating things, mostly things that could have been prevented if a little care had been taken. So, rather than rant and rave as we all know I can, I decided to take a more constructive course and write a series of articles on things that you can do for your pets to help them live to their normal life span with a good quality of life. Some of these things will involve your veterinarian, some of them will be lifestyle changes for you at home. I figure on five articles and only have topics for the first two lined up. So this is your chance to leave me some suggestions for future posts.

New pets are a new chance at a healthy pet so let's start with your new puppy or kitten. I think the the most important thing you can do is get them vaccinated. Now, before you get into an uproar about the evils of over vaccinating our pets and how vaccines are responsible for everything from allergies and autoimmune disease to global warming and vampires, I think you need to sit back down and continue reading.

I'm not talking about vaccinating with every vaccine on the market whether it is effective or not. I'm not talking about vaccinating every pet for diseases that they have no risk of ever being exposed to. You need to have a rational discussion with your veterinarian about your pet's anticipated lifestyle and the risk factors associated with this life style. It should be obvious (although I know it always isn't) that a dog that lives on the 53rd floor of a Manhattan high rise and never goes out, even to pee, does not need the same vaccines as the Field Trial Labrador that summers on Shelter Island and competes upstate on a regular basis. (for those of you not in New York you can substitute your own low risk and high risk locations). I'm not neglecting cats either, indoor cats do not need the same vaccines as those that go out. (shame on you if you let your cats go out)

I have worked in areas where vaccination was not emphasized. I have seen cats die of Feline Leukemia or Calici Virus infections. I have seen dogs die of Parvo and Distemper. These diseases are all preventable with adequate vaccinations.

I hate when I see a new puppy or kitten and it has been vaccinated every week from the time it was 4 weeks old. This sort of over vaccination may well cause damage to the immune system and all sorts of problems for the pet in the future. We start our dogs and cats at around 6 weeks of age with core vaccines and vaccinate every 3 - 4 weeks until they are 16 weeks old. Other vaccines are added through the vaccine period according to each pet's risk factors. Do not vaccinate your pet according to some generic vaccine program. At our practice we tailor an individual program for each pet and your vet should do the same. Don't add a vaccine just because it is only a couple of bucks more and you think you are getting a good deal. Save that for the supermarket.

Adult dogs are vaccinated periodically. Some vaccines need to be boosted yearly, some every three years. Some owners prefer to have antibody levels measured to see if pets need boosters at all and this blood test can be done for some of the vaccines on an annual basis.

Vaccines are not always benign. The purpose of vaccination is to stimulate the immune system to fight disease. There can be adverse reactions ranging from tenderness at the injection site, to fever, to severe anaphylactic reactions. There is some evidence that some vaccines can cause tumors in cats in rare instances. Your veterinarian should be prepared to help you balance the risk versus the benefit for each vaccine that he or she is recommending.

Once we have done all that we can to prevent possible fatal or seriously debilitating infectious diseases with a customized vaccination schedule we will move on to discuss things that you can do as your pet matures.

I'm still open to suggestions so leave a comment and let me know what you think. Those of you who don't agree with what I said in this post shouldn't be shy either, let me know what you think.

The links in this post go to my web page, an excellent source for information written by board certified veterinarians. The search function is on the library page and is open to anyone to use as a source. Oh, it's free. Oh, I won't try to sell you anything. No ads, it is an informational web site. There is a particularly good photo of me on the staff page. (If I do say so myself).

A special shout out to a friend on twitter that recommended this topic. You should follow by clicking on this link to the twitter page.

You should also become a fan of ours on Face Book. Crawford Dog and Cat Hospital. Here, I'll make it easy, just click on this link. We have started a weekly give away and we post it on our website. This week's goes until Thursday (tomorrow) so check it out asap and stop by to pick up your prize if you are in the area.

Keith Niesenbaum

www.CrawfordDogandCatHospital.com

www.TheVetsChoice.com