Using Treats To Teach Your Pet

Many dogs are extremely food motivated.  We can use this as an excellent training tool. Here are a few tips to consider when using treats as a training tool. 1. Once your pup is consistently responding start varying the reward. A positive word or a rub behind the ear is great. This will prevent the dog from thinking a treat is coming every time they respond to a command. 2. Use very small soft treats that the dog can eat quickly. They need to be able to quickly finsh the treat and have their attention back on you.  3. Take the treats into account when considering the daily caloric intake. If youare using alot of treats you need to dial the daily ration back.

Holiday Pet Health Hazards

Tis’ the seasons to eat, drink, and be merry. The holidays are a time when we all have the tendency to over-indulge.  Unfortunately many of us indulge our pets during the holidays as well.

 

If your house is like mine there is always a lot of food and a lot of chaos during the holidays.  This can be a recipe for disaster for the dogs and cats.  Any long time dog owner will have a story about their dog that ate a whole plate of cookies, a bunch of brownies, or in my case almost an entire pork roast.  Any cat lover can tell you any one of a number of stories about the cat and the Christmas tree. What cat doesn’t love to play with ornaments and eat tinsel?

 

Most of the time, these mishaps result in funny anecdotes that we recount fondly with our families. However, sometimes they can have serious consequences.

 

Everyone has heard that chocolate can be toxic to pets, but how much do they have to eat before it is a concern? Here is a good rule of thumb to use: 1 ounce of milk chocolate per pound of pet, 1 ounce of semi-sweet chocolate per 3 pound of pet, and one ounce of bakers chocolate per 9 pound of pet are enough to create toxicity in animals. The take home message here is that if your lab eats an M&M off the floor, no worries, but if your yorkie eats a couple of squares of bakers chocolate you need visit your veterinarian. 

 

What about the delicious pork roast? If an animal consumes a significant amount of fatty food and their system is not used to it, pancreatitis can develop. Pancreatitis is inflammation of the organ that secretes digestive enzymes into the small intestines. The most obvious signs are generally vomiting and diarrhea. If left untreated, pancreatitis can lead to death.

 

Another concern is the potential for obstruction and puncture of the GI tract by the bones that your pet might ingest.  Almost all veterinarians can tell you multiple stories about bones they have surgically removed from dogs.  We are usually able to remove these obstructions without to much trouble but sometimes the obstruction will rupture through the intestines causing peritonitis, an infection of the abdominal cavity. This is an extremely serious life threatening condition.

 

Many holiday decorations can also be a hazard to your pet.  Plants such as poinsettias, holly, mistletoe and lilies can cause mild to severe intestinal upset.  Tinsel and ribbon are especially hazardous to cats.  Cats tongues are covered with little hook like structures that catch and hold on to the tinsel or ribbons making ingestion and subsequent obstruction a common holiday occurrence. 

 

During the Holiday Season, if your pet behaves strangely, begins to vomit or have diarrhea, or is in pain, don’t delay in calling your veterinarian’s office. Often early intervention can prevent more serious complications.  Remember an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  So play it safe this holiday and stick to pet food and safe holiday decorations. 

Why Board my animal at Animal Medical Care?

We occasionally have clients ask us why they should board thier pets with us rather than a boarding only facility. There are a variety of reasons and we wanted to take a few minutes to point out the advantages of boarding your pet with your veterinarian. First and foremost we know your pet. We know its personality. We know any and all of the medical issues that it may have. If your pet becomes ill while it is boarding his or her doctor is on the premises.  Many of the pets that are boarded are geriatric patients that need special attention and medication.  All of the boarders are medicated by trained technicians that immediately notify the doctors of any changes in your pets condition. We have skilled groomers available to give your baby a bath and a haircut before going home. All of our boarders are let out for fresh air in our spacious runs on a continously rotating schedule. All dogs are let out a minimum  of three times a day. In summary you should board your dog at AMC because we care  and want them to have the best boarding experience possible.

Britt's Progress

In one of our last blogs we had written about Britt a Labrador Friends of the South rescue dog. Britt had severe osteo-arthritis because of hip dysplasia. We had performed FHO's on both of his hind legs (see previous blogs and articles).

Britt came in last Saturday for a visit with his foster mom and he is doing great. He has lost almost 10 pounds and he is walking much better than he was before surgery already. We are so pleased that we could help sweet Britt out.

He is still looking for a permanent home so please contact us if anyone is interested.

Flea infestation? Here are some helpful tips to get it under control.

1) Don't expect to give your animals one dose of flea prevention and have it taken care of.

2) Don't expect to use cheap OTC flea preventions.

3) Do expect to spend multiple months on the problem if you truly want to resolve it.

4) Go to you veterinarian and get a minimum of three to four months of prevention for each animal. My favorite product is Comfortis. Frontline, Advantage, and Advantix are also great products. It is ideal if your pet is on these year round, but expect to give them for a minimum of three months to get an infestation under control.

5) After making sure that you know how to apply them correctly put a dose on all of your pets.

6) Get your house treated. You can either purchase area sprays and flea bombs or get the house treated by an exterminator. This step is extremely important.  Around 90% of your infestation is not on your pet,but in the larval or egg form in your carpet or other areas of the house (see past posts on the flea pyramid). If you don't treat your house multiple times you will have the egg and larval forms hatch out and you will be back to square one.

7) Repeat in one month.

8) Repeat again in one month. Again, if you have your pets on prevention year round you will never run into this situation.

Hip Surgery on 7 year-old lab

Britt is a seven year old yellow lab that has been suffering from severe arthritis in both of his hips. After evaluating him we gave his rescue organization two options; a total hip replacement, or a femoral head osteoctomy.

 A hip replacement replaces the head of the femur (the ball) with a  titanium implant and replaces the  acetabulum (the socket) with a  ceramic or teflon implant.  This produces the best odds for a complete return to function, but it is an extremely expensive surgery.

A femoral head osteoctomy (FHO) removes the ball of the hip joint and the body forms a fiborous scar tissue capsule around the end of the femur.  With proper post-operative re-habilitation most dogs achieve normal to near normal hind limb function and are not constantly in pain from arthritis.

Britt's rescue organization opted for an FHO on both hips.  We performed the surgery two weeks ago. After two or three days of helping Britt get up and walk he was up and around on his own. Within a week he was starting to trot. Britt will have ongoing re-hab for a few months but we feel we have eliminated arthritis pain in his hips for him. We were sad to see Britt go home, he is a great dog.

 If anyone is interested in adopting Britt contact Labrador Friends of the South.