Are YOU Ready for Heartworm Season???

It is FINALLY spring and that means so many wonderful things! Warm weather, sunshine, birds singing, flowers blooming..... but it also means prevention for our pets. That's right, folks! Heartworm season is upon us, which means that it is also flea and tick season. Time to get Fido and Fifi on a heartworm and flea and tick preventative if you have not already. It is acutally very important to have had your pets on on heartworm prevention year round, but if you missed out on this, it's not too late to start now! Let's get them protected BEFORE all of our nasty bugs start coming out of hibernation.

But which one to choose? There are so many preventatives available both over the counter and from your veterinarian. It can be very confusing, but I am here to help take the confusion and frustration out of searching for just the right product. There unfortunately is not just one miracle product out there - you will most likely end up having to use a combination of a couple of different products. SO, first and foremost: You know all of those products you can buy over the counter that are REALLY cheap? THROW THEM AWAY!!! They work for a short period of time, until your frisky lab goes running into that pond for a swim or needs a bath because (YUCK!) he just rolled in who knows what outside. As soon as those cheap, over the counter products get wet, they wash off and need to be reapplied. In addition, you have to be VERY careful to read the weight range for proper dosing for your pet AND be sure you are not accidentally using the dog product on the cat. These products can be very toxic to your pets if given at the wrong dose or for the wrong type of animal. Steer clear of these products.... they do not work and will not save you any money in the long run!

Instead, purchase your products from your veterinarian. He/she will be able to tell you all about them and ALL of the companies that carry vet only products have been researched and are guaranteed. The doses are safe, and will not cause harm if accidentally reapplied or if accidentally put on the cat..... Now I am not saying that you should do this, but the overdose level is very high before you would see any problems from the product. SO, having said that, here are MY recommendations for heartworm, intestinal parasite, flea, and tick prevention:

Interceptor (Novartis) - This is a heartworm preventative which also protects against intestinal parasites, such as hookworms, roundworms, and whipworms (which can be VERY difficult to treat). Interceptor is one of the most complete preventatives available. It is a small chewable tablet that is given once monthly, year round. Heartworm disease can make your pets very sick and can be fatal.

Frontline (Merial) - Since Interceptor does not protect against fleas and ticks, you will need something that WILL keep your pets protected against these nasty bugs. Frontline kills fleas and ticks, and is applied topically, directly to the skin once monthly. In my opinion, Frontline is THE best flea and tick product available. You may still see fleas and ticks on your pets, but the Frontline is working.... it does take a little bit for the bug to come into contact with the product, and then it begins to work. So don't be alarmed if you see ticks crawling..... the Frontline is not a repelent, but it is doing it's job.

Advantage Multi (Bayer) - This is a relatively new product to the market (at least for our clinic) and this is a GREAT product (especially for cats) because it gives you the most bang for your buck. It is a bit more expensive than the others mentioned above, but it protects against the highest number of parasites in one product that anything else out there. Advantage Multi protects against heartworm disease, TWO different life stafes of the flea (so it is killing the flea at the adult stage and the larval stage), hookworms, whipworms, and roundworms (and for cats, will protect against ear mites). It does not protect against ticks, so my recommendation is to use this with Frontline. The other really good benefit to the Advantage Multi is that it is a topical product, so you never have to give pills. This is especially nice for cat owners who have a difficult time giving their frisky felines pills, or for dogs who have allergies to food or are picky about treats. Advantage Multi is also a once monthly, year round application.

And now I know what a lot of you are thinking..... why not just buy my products from the online pharmacies? After all, it's much cheaper than what I would pay at my vet right? Not necessarily. Places like 1-800-PetMeds may SEEM cheaper (and in some cases might be) but they are not a reputable company. My clinic beats online pharmacy prices, and the reason we do this is so we can give products that are guaranteed and SAFE for our patients. PetMeds purchases their products from veterinarians and other vendors who are NOT the actual company that makes the products. Therefore, those companies (like Merial, Novartis, and Bayer) who make the preventatives will not guarantee products purchased from PetMeds. In addition, there is no guarantee where PetMeds will be sending the product from..... you may receive something in the mail that does not even contain the medication you think it does. A perfect example of this is a client at my clinic who purchased all of her products from PetMeds, and received them with the labels written in a different language! YIKES! PLUS, when you purchase from PetMeds, you will not receive the rebates and special offers from the companies who make the products, so are you really saving money then? The answer is NO! Avoid the online pharmacies and buy directly from your veterinarian!

Now we know that we should be treating our pets once monthly with these products, but do we really know why we should be (other than the fact that our vet told us to?) Well, I am going to help you to understand WHY it's important to be using preventatives and WHY we should give them or apply them year round.

Heartworm disease: This is a NASTY little worm that is carried by mosquitoes. When a dog or cat is bitten by a mosquito, that increases the risk that he/she will become infected with heartworms. Heartworms travel through the bloodstream, and live in the heart and lungs..... So imagine how much damage those little guys can do! Heartworm positive pets often are very sick with coughing, vomiting, diarrhea, lethargy, etc, and they can die very easily from Heartworms. We give the heartworm preventative to kill anything that Fifi or Fido may have picked up in the last 30 days, so our preventatives are working retroactively. This is especially important in the summer time when mosquitoes are active, but we should be keeping our pets on heartworm preventative year round.

But mosquitoes aren't out in the winter time, so why not just give the preventative in the summer months? Well, because in addition to killing and preventing heartworm disease, heartworm preventatives also protect against intestinal parasites (worms that can live in the GI tract and cause LOTS of problems). Our pets can still pick up intestinal parasites when it's cold outside because they live in the GI tract of animals. So if your neighbor's dog who has roundworms poops in your yard, and then Fido goes out and eats that poop.... well guess what just happened? Now Fido has roundorms too. And wild animals carry intestinal parasites also. I see a lot of wild animals outside in the winter (deer, racoons, rabbits, etc). So we give the once monthly preventative to keep our pets safe against intestinal parasites, even in the winter. Intestinal parasites can cause vomiting, diarrhea, weight loss, lethargy, anemia, and in rare cases, death. AND humans can get certain intestinal parasites too, which is especially important when thinking about children and how they play with and interact with pets.

Fleas and Ticks: These little guys are creepy and GROSS! NO ONE wants to have fleas or ticks in their home, but the first place Fido is going to get them is outside in your backyard - from the grass, from the trees, from the rabbits and squirrels that live in your yard, from the neighbor's outdoor cat. SO, the best protection you can provide is to apply the flea and tick preventative once monthly, especially during the warm months when these parasites are in abundance. Flease can cause many problems, including anemia and they can carry tapeworms, which your pets can get from ingesting the fleas! YUCK! Ticks carry Lyme disease, Anaplasmosis, and Ehrilchia, and these are things that humans can get also. These diseases make both pets and people very sick. So keep the ticks off of Fido and you will keep the ticks off of you (you don't want Fido brining in ticks from outdoors so that YOU can get bitten by them!)

In addition to using preventatives on our pets, it is best to have them tested each year for heartworm disease, intestinal parasites, and for tick borne diseases. A blood test will tell us if Fido is positive for heartorm disease or any of the tick transmitted diseases, and we look at a poop sample to check for intestinal parasites. But what's the point in testing if your pets are already on a preventative year round? How many of you give the heartworm pill and then walk away? How do you know that Fido didn't spit it out or vomit it up in the yard later? One client at our clinic discovered a pile of heartworm pills behind the sofa that her dog was not eating! And how many of us have missed a dose or forgotten for a couple of months to give the preventative? If you purchase a heartworm preventative and give it year round, many of the companies will pay for treatment if Fido does show up positive for heartworm disease or intestinal parastites. And we test for the tick transmitted diseases because ticks can still bite sometimes with the preventative in place, especially in very heavy tick popluated areas, and we want to make sure that we can treat an infection before it becomes a huge problem. And while there is a vaccine availble to help protect against Lyme Disease, there is no vaccine available for Anaplasmosis or Ehrlichia.

It is also very important to make sure we are having stool samples checked on our pets for intestinal parastites on a yearly basis..... Again, the company will pay for treatment, and because so many parasites can affect humans, (ESPECIALLY children) we need to make sure we are keeping our pets protected (and treated if necessary) to keep US protected.

One other note.... Indoor only cats need to be on protection too. Just because Fifi does not go outside, doesn't mean that the outdoors can't come INSIDE. How many of you have ever seen a mosquito inside their homes? I certainly have, and it only takes ONE bite from a mosquito to infect your cat with heartworm disease! So let's make sure we are all applying a yearround heartworm preventative to Fifi also! THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AN OUTDOOR ONLY MOSQUITO!!!

Heartworm Season is Here....
Are YOU Ready?

Goodbye, My Friend......

My new post is dedicated in memory of Maude, my parents' miniature schnauzer. We were all very sad to have to say goodbye this week, as she became very sick very suddenly. She died peacefully. We will all miss Maude terribly, and love her more than words can say. The pain of losing her is indescribable. She is at the Rainbow Bridge and is happy, and that gives me great comfort and peace knowing that.

Rainbow Bridge

Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge. When an animal dies that has been especially close to someone here, that pet goes to the Rainbow Bridge. There are meadows and hills for all of our special friends so they can run and play together. There is plenty of food, water, and sunshine, and our friends are warm and comfortable.

All of the animals who had been ill and old are restored to health and vigor. Those who were hurt or maimed are made whole and strong again, just as we remember them in our dreams of days and times gone by. The animals are happy and content, except for one small thing; they each miss someone very special to them, who had to be left behind.

They all run and play together, but the day comes when one suddenly stops and looks into the distance. His eyes are intent. His eager body quivers. Suddenly he begins to run from the group, flying over the green grass, his legs carrying him faster and faster.

You have been spotted, and when you and your special friend finally meet, you cling together in joyous reunion, never to be parted again. The happy kisses rain upon your face; your hands again caress the beloved head, and you look once more into the trusting eyes of your pet, so long gone from your life but never absent from your heart.

Then you cross the Rainbow Bridge together....

Goodbye, my friend......

February is Dental Health Month!

February is Dental Health Month for pets! This means it's time to get your furry friends into the vet for an oral exam, and the sooner, the better! Your vet will be able to identify problems with your pet's teeth, such as gingivitis, calculus accumulation, or mobile, missing, or fractured teeth. Having your pet's teeth cleaned and treated on a regular (every 6 months to 1 year is the recommendation) will help keep him/her healthier longer. Calculus that forms on the teeth is caused by bacteria that can enter into your pet's bloodstream and cause infections and disease to major organs (heart, liver, kidneys, to name a few) that can make your pet very sick. The bacteria can also cause tooth roots to become infected and abscess, which can cause your pet a lot of pain and discomfort, teeth to fall out, jaw bone loss, and bad odor from the mouth.

But this is just the beginning - once your vet has had a chance to get a good evaluation of the inside of your pet's mouth, the next step is to schedule the actual cleaning, especially if your vet finds any suspicious teeth. This will require general anesthesia so that your pet will stay sleeping during the procedure. Prior to going under anesthesia, it is important that you have the necessary bloodwork done to ensure there is nothing abnormal that will make anesthesia unsafe for your pet. This generally should include a CBC and Profile, and sometimes a urinalysis and thyroid check for older pets. If any abnormalities do show up, your vet will be able to discuss with you how to correct the problems so that you can move forward with Fido's oral care.

Once your pet in scheduled and under anesthesia, the technician and vet will have a much easier time determining if there are any major dental issues. This will begin with a cleaning - sometimes there is so much calculus accumulation that makes it difficult to see a fracture, abscess, or root exposure. By cleaning the teeth first, this allows the technician to see what is underneath the calculus and really be able to evaluate the teeth for major dental disease. The cleaning involves using hand scalers (exactly the same as when we have our teeth cleaned at the dentist) and an ultrasonic scaler, (which is a high speed, vibrating instrument that breaks up the calculus much easier than hand scaling alone can do) polishing the teeth (again, exactly the same way our teeth get cleaned at the dentist), a fluoride application, and finally a plaque barrier sealant is applied to help prevent the reccurance of bacteria and plaque. This is a temporary sealant that needs to be reapplied weekly, and there is a kit available for pet owners to do this at home (I will get more into that later).

After the cleaning and polishing, the technician will probe in between the tooth and gum (the gingival sulcus) to measure for any deep pockets that can occur from infection - the bacteria can eat away at the root and cause the gingiva to pull away from it, causing a pocket. The vet will then do a second oral exam (remember, the first oral exam is done in the exam room while your pet is awake) to check for the same things - fractured mobile, or missing teeth, abscesses, gum recession, root exposure, deep gingival pockets, or any signs of oral masses or tumors. This time it's much easier to do a more thorough exam with your pet sleeping.

Once the technician and vet are able to identify any problems, then radiographs are taken to view the roots below. This will allow the vet to see if there are abscessed or fractured roots, (you cannot always tell just by looking at the tooth) or bone loss. Sometimes radiographs are not required if the calculus acummulation is mild and the teeth have no problems as mentioned above, but most of the mouths that I clean are in need of oral surgery. And that is where the radiographs lead us most of the time - Oral Surgery.

If we find tooth root abscesses, more times than not, the tooth (or teeth) will need to be removed surgically (extracted). It sounds horrible, but it's not as bad as most pet owners think, and here's why:

1) Prior to anesthesia (while your pet is still awake), he/she is given a preanesthetic pain injection to ensure that there will be pain relief "on board." We do this, even if we are unsure that oral surgery will be needed, just because we want to have that available in the body when your pet needs it the most. This makes for a much smoother anesthesia and recovery from anesthesia.
2) Prior to any oral surgery, the extraction sites are blocked with a local anesthetic (think Novacaine) which will numb the area(s). The block will last for about 6 to 8 hours.
3) Once the infected tooth, root, and bone are removed, the infection is essentially gone and not able to infect other teeth or other parts of the body (we still put your pet on antibiotics post-surgically to ensure that the infection is wiped out completely). This also means that the pain will be gone for your pet, and he/she will be feeling so much better (a lot of our furry friends hide that they are feeling crummy and we as pet owners don't notice until they begin acting so much better afterwards!)
4) The extraction sites are treated with a synthetic bone product that will fill the empty space and allow faster healing (it gives the bone something to grab onto). Then the extraction sites are closed using an absorbable suture material. So no dry sockets for our pets like we humans have to deal with! (think wisdom teeth - Yikes!)
5) A pain injection is given post-surgically also.
6) We will send you home with antibiotics (as mentioned above) and pain medications for your pet, so he/she remains pain free after surgery.
7) Pets really do just fine eating with missing teeth or no teeth at all. You can still feed kibble - just moisten it with water to soften it, or feed canned food. You will not notice much of a difference, if any, with your pet's appetite - in fact, he/she might be eating much better afterwards because the mouth is feeling so much better!

So we're done with the cleaning, radiographs, oral surgery, and recovery, and now Fido can gow home with you. You're all done, right? WRONG! Once the mouth has healed, you need to begin following a routine dental maintenance schedule at home. Why let all of your hard-earned money go to waste that you just invested in your pet's mouth? If you don't follow a home regimine, then that is eventually what will happen.

Brushing is the best choice, and it does not have to be a big production. It should really only take 5 minutes per day (I always suggest to pet owners to brush Fido's teeth when you brush your teeth at night, and make that a DAILY routine!) And you really only need to brush the outside surfaces of the teeth, since this is where the plaque and calculus will accumulate the most. Begin slowly if your pet is not used to having his/her teeth brushed. Eventually your pet will view it as a treat, because pet toothpaste usually tastes really yummy! Your vet should be able to provide you a dental kit which should include a toothbrush and a toothpaste sample. Have a technician show you how to get started with brushing the teeth if you are unsure.

There are other dental products available that can be used in conjunction with brushing (not to replace brushing!) Remember the plaque barrier sealant I mentioned above? (it's called Oravet) (r) It gets applied during the cleaning, but will need to be reapplied at home. This is a once a week treatment, and again, only needs to be applied to the outside surfaces of the teeth. It helps prevent the bacteria from forming plaque on the teeth.

Another great product available are dental diets - I recommend Hills (r) t/d or IVD (Royal Canin) (r) Dental Diet (these are both only available through vets). They come in different sizes (feline, small bites, and large bites). The food is a larger kibble that pets have to work on chewing, and while they are doing this, it helps to scrape plaque off of the teeth AND releases an enzyme that helps to clean the teeth. Pretty nifty, huh? AND it is a completely balanced diet, so you can feed this as Fido's main food (or use it as treats).

There are several different types of dental chews available for both dogs and cats. Many of them are not safe to be given because they are too rich and can cause digestive problems, or are too hard and can break teeth (YIKES!) I recommend C.E.T. (r) chews or Tartar Shield (r) chews and treats, which are sold only through vets. These both are soft, pliable rawhide chews that help to remove plaque as they chew, but also release an enzyme to help clean the teeth, and both are availble for dogs and cats! If you have a pet that has allergies to food, these may not be the best choice.

Make note that there are certain breeds that will chronically have periodontal disease, despite your efforts of home oral maintenance, and the recommendation is to schedule an oral exam every 6 months (and most likely have the teeth professionally cleaned that often too). For some pets who have chronic gingivitis and dental disease, your vet may want to do several courses of antibiotics to keep the infection under control in between cleanings. Talk to your vet about your pet's specific dental needs, and have them help you get started on a new plan today!

Dentistry is SO important for our pets (just like it is for humans), and continuing to keep the mouth healthy is going to help to continue to keep your pet healthy!

Remember:
Pets Have Teeth Too!!!