Pet travel
Pet travel is often fraught with unknowns and unpredictable outcomes so it’s best to look at it with a good dose of humor. I’ve written an article about pet travel (car) and another about pet air travel - which is another thing altogether. Happy reading.
Just another note - brachycephalic dogs eg short snout dogs like pugs and bulldogs don’t cope with travel in general so if you are travelling with these dogs, do take extra care especially if travelling on a hot day. Need I say this - NEVER EVER leave your dog or cat locked in your car (even if you’ve wound down the windows a little to allow for airflow) - the car can heat up in a matter of minutes and your pet will suffer dehydration and subsequent organ failure.
Feline (Cat) Liver Disease
Liver disease in cats can occur for a variety of reasons and treatment has usually been restricted to keeping the cat’s appetite up - most cats with liver problems feel nauseous and don’t want to eat and end up losing weight. Dietary management with low protein diets are a help as it reduces the workload the liver has to perform. Supplementation with vitamins is also helpful because the liver isn’t functioning at its best and vitamin deficiencies could arise. The latest development thing is a product called SAMe (short for S-adenyl-methionine). It has been found that supplementation with glutathione which in itself is an anti-oxidant has a protective effect on liver cells and is now another treatment option that can be added to manage liver disease in cats. The proprietary name is Zentonil. Ask your vet about it. It’s not a prescription drug and you can get it online.
Dog bites and children
Another day, another child bitten severely by a dog. The media has a field day, the parents of the child obviously distraught, the dog is filmed growling savagely at the cameras, the call for government legislation on pit bulls and banning the breed altogether. The government concedes and suddenly you find paradoxically, because it’s now a ‘banned’ dog breed, people are now paying extra just to buy these pups ‘before they run out’ as ‘trophy dogs’. I have nothing against pit bulls personally. I treat them like I do all other dog breeds howbeit with a little more care taken to watch its body language with more diligence than I would say a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel if only because I know of the pit bulls propensity to turn very quickly and bite.
What appals me is that people seem to think that slapping a government law on banning the breed and fining the owner and putting the dog down is going to put an end to the problem. How far do you extend the dog breed ban? What about Rottweilers and German Shepherds? They have their fair share of attacks on children too? Where do you draw the line? What steps have the government and the vets in an attempt to educate the public (especially children) about how to behave around dogs?
Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE dogs and I couldn’t for a minute imagine a life without them but I really feel that in our urbanization of the world at large, we’ve forgotten that dogs are animals with instincts. We treat them as part of the family - human almost and we forget that all animals have instincts, some of these instincts are more honed in some dog breeds than others. How is it that most of these dog bite attacks are in children? Personally I think it’s because we’ve neglected to educate them about dogs and how you should relate to them. The television hasn’t helped much, a lot of the shows that these kids watch portray puppies as ‘cute’ and dogs being happy, licky pets that will put up with everything you throw at them. Most children at my son’s school upon seeing a dog will rush up and pat it or cuddle it regardless of all the obvious body cues that the dog is giving that it’s not in the ‘cuddling mood’. Is that proper ‘animal etiquette’? We have neglected to teach children that to run from a dog is to entice it to ‘give chase’, to do a tug of war game with a dog is to ask for trouble, to stare at a dominant alpha male dog is a challenge, to scream and carry on and flap their hands everywhere in front of a dog is to excite some to point of no return.
The anatomy of a dog bite (and I don’t just mean those little nips you get from a Maltese) but the full on dog attack and assault where it’s almost a frenzied predator-prey situation. Children exhibit a lot of ‘prey’ behavior. They are noisy, they are highly animated, they are small, they are constantly moving (often running). Other reasons for children receiving a higher proportion of facial bites compared to adults is that they are more likely to be staring straight into the dog’s eyes - inadvertently giving the dog a ‘challenge’. More submissive dogs would probably take it in their stride but dogs with stronger personalities are more often than not going to rise to that challenge and bite. So what do you teach your children? Just as we teach them about stranger danger, we need to teach them about dog danger.
1. NEVER pat a dog you don’t know without first asking the permission of the owner.
2. Don’t EVER start by patting a dog on its head (which is what most of us do) - that’s actually a very ‘demeaning’ gesture and whilst submissive dogs are okay with that (they are all too happy to please), not all dogs will take kindly to it.
3. The correct way to approach a dog is from the side, making no eye contact (not directly) with the dog, offering a fist to allow the dog to sniff first.
4. NEVER leave your children out in the backyard unsupervised with the dog. I know this sounds extreme but prevention is ALWAYS better than cure. There are dogs who have been known to bite children they’ve lived with most of their lives. If you are planning to leave the children in the backyard, lock the dog up, or tie it up and give STRICT instructions for the kids to leave it alone.
5. Vigilance is the best prevention. When you see play escalating to a point where Rover is getting all hyped up and excited and has started the odd nip in play - it’s time to STOP.
6. Teach your child that if they happen upon a stray dog that is wandering the streets, the BEST thing they can do is to STAND AS STILL AS A POST, arms on their side, eyes looking away from the dog. If the dog comes up to sniff them, they are to remain as STILL AS A POST. Running away will only encourage the dog to give chase. When the dog leaves (they can cast sideway glances at the dog just to check where it is BUT NEVER straight at the dog’s eyes), then they can continue to walk slowly away from the scene. They should then tell an adult and report that a dog has been loose.
That’s enough to digest for a day I think 
Next time I’ll put down things you should do in the event of a dog bite.
Cats and hepatic lipidosis or fatty liver disease
Cats don’t cope well when they don’t eat. That’s because most cats don’t metabolize fats well so when they stop eating and their body starts to go into ’starvation’ stage and moves those fat stores in an effort to generate enough energy for the cat’s body, it inevitably encounters problems. That’s when cats end up with what is called hepatic lipidosis or fatty liver disease as some people know it. The fat just ends up in the liver and the liver starts to suffer signs of damage resulting in jaundice in the cat. Jaundice in the cat is most commonly seen in the whites of their eyes - a hint of yellow. It’s harder to see in the gums but with cats that are heavily jaundiced their gums will start to have that yellow tinge as well (superimposed on the pink). What’s worse is that a jaundiced cat actually feels nauseous so if it didn’t feel like eating before, it REALLY won’t feel like eating now. The cause of the initial lack of appetite in the first place could be sickness eg cat flu - cats with blocked up noses can’t smell very well and that often makes them pickier eaters. Other reasons could be stress related eg a new cat in the household, overseas visitors etc. Most times when these cats come into the surgery, the vet usually has to rehydrate them with fluids and then they get forcefed blended cat food or baby food. A lot of cats then get sent home with the owners having to continue this regime until the cat is over it’s nauseous state (when the body decides that it’s not starving anymore) and eat on its own. Some cats will refuse forcefeeding and make it impossible to carry it out on a daily basis. With these cats a feeding tube is usually inserted into their tummy and they get fed that way - pretty invasive stuff but it’s a life saving procedure that has saved many a cat.
Dogs - a tribute and a warning
I feel that a tribute to dogs is due here. If only because as I was patting my 12 year old Labrador cross who’s been steadfastly at my side for all those years, I realized that he had put up with so much of me and despite all my failings, still thinks the world of me and has never failed to brighten my day no matter how bad it’s been. Now was that long enough statement? It’s no wonder that they are man’s best friend. Happiness is hugging a warm furry puppy and equally lovely wet kisses!
Which I guess is why I feel so incensed when I see dogs that are brought into the vet surgery who have been found by some well-meaning stranger because they’ve found them wandering aimlessly on the roadside. Imagine the confusion, the bewilderment, the sense of betrayal! Obviously their previous owner had decided that they couldn’t care for the dog anymore and just dumped the poor thing on the side of the road. It’s no wonder that pound dogs have so much ‘baggage’. Some are frightened to death of men who have obviously abused them in their past lives. Others are petrified of car rides because their last ride was the one that ended up with the dumping on the side of the road. Still others will follow you around the house and won’t allow you to leave their sight for fear of ‘losing you’ again…
So my warning to all pet owners who are well-meaning and want to take in a pound dog is that they need a lot more care and loving than most puppies that you get straight from the breeders. That’s not to say that they won’t make wonderful pets - and they do, but you just need to be prepared for the long haul. There’s nothing worse than a pound dog who’s been adopted with the best of intentions only to be returned a week later because it was destroying furniture when left on its own (a trait common in dogs with separation anxiety). One dumping is bad enough, twice is doubly worse.