Saturday, July 20, 2013

Environmental enrichment for the apartment-dwelling cat

(c) Anne Fawcett 2013
Channeling Jurassic Park: Moisie does her best impression of a velociraptor.
I recently met and rapidly fell in love with Moisie, female domestic shorthair and - like all the best pets - rescued from a local shelter. She is now an exclusively indoor-dwelling apartment cat who has a fantastic life. She gets plenty of attention from her human cohabitants and makes use of all surfaces, including her incline scratcher (I swear by these things - corrugated cardboard has taken the heat off the furniture in my house).

Moisie engages with her incline cat scratcher. Scratching is normal behaviour for cats, and they need some sort of outlet.
She's also big into strings and things. One must be cautious with cats and string as it is easily swallowed and can turn into what we in vetland refer to as a linear foreign body (LFB). Often anchoring at the base of the tongue or pyloris, the LFB is then pushed through the gastrointestinal system by peristalsis and becomes taut, potentially damaging the gut. Any linear objects should be locked away securely when you are not supervising your cat.

Moisie is entertained for hours by a simple string.

Exercise is vital for all animals, and play is one form of providing a workout and entertainment together. And when they get tired (although Moisie has enviable stamina), what better way to end a play session than flopping down on a soft rug.




Friday, July 19, 2013

Vet School on TV





Maybe I don't have enough vettiness in my life, but I'm a sucker for a vet TV show and the ABC has delivered yet again.

Vet School follows eight vet students through fourth and fifth year, and I have to say the teaser (if you can't view it on this page in your browser, you can view it here) looks more gripping than an episode of RPA.

Its on ABC1, 8pm, from July 26. According to the advance publicity, the producers were granted "unprecedented" behind the scenes access to students in their fourth and fifth years of veterinary science. 


Ahhh...these photos bring back memories.





Thursday, July 18, 2013

Links roundup: Hendra virus, aquarium fish, respiratory physiology, luxury dog boarding and phodography

Skeleton of Tsavo the lion, viewed at Werribee Open Range Zoo in Victoria.
This complete lion skeleton once belonged to Tsavo, who died at around 15 years of age weighing 194kg. If you look closely you will note that he was declawed in preparation for a life in the circus. Fortunately he was spared this fate and lived out his days at Melbourne Zoo.

The NSW Department of Primary Industries has issued a bulletin updating veterinarians on the challenges of diagnosing Hendra virus, specifically that absence of fever does not exclude Hendra as a differential diagnosis. More information can be found here and information on collecting samples here.

The Centre for Veterinary Education is offering TimeOnline courses, including a new course on pet and aquarium fish (info here, taught by exotics vet Alex Rosenwax) which covers anatomy and physiology, husbandry, emergency medicine and care, examination, anaesthesia, surgery radiography, water quality, microscope diagnosis, common diseases and therapeutics. It looks excellent.

For those of you who don't see many fish, the TimeOnline on respiratory physiology, taught by Katrin Swindells and Ryan Ong, also looks great (info at this link). It reviews respiratory patterns and diagnosis of common causes of dyspnoea, monitoring (capnography, pulse oximetry, response to therapy), supportive care and optimising oxygen support.

On a lighter note, this week I came across the Paw Seasons, a dog boarding facility that I'd book myself into. I am sure Phil would enjoy a break at this establishment. (And if you need to see some dogs running on a beach, click on their summer movie).

Dog photographer Ron Schmidt takes unusual dog portraits which you can view at www.looseleashes.com I can't help but being drawn to the Boston terrier behind the newspaper.




Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Housekeeping: lovin' this blog

white kitten
Moisie and her reflection. 

A couple of people (I'd love to say a few million but alas not) have asked what's the easiest way to follow this blog. Aside from getting up every morning and typing www.smallanimaltalk.com into your browser, you can follow this (and indeed all of your favourite blogs) by clicking the bloglovin' button on the right of your screen (I've included another one below).

Follow on Bloglovin

The great thing about bloglovin' is that it sends you one unobtrusive little email each day with links to new posts from ALL of the blogs you follow - without you having to check up on them every day. There's nothing more disappointing than visiting your favourite blog to find that yesterday's or last week's post hasn't been updated...bloglovin' saves you the hassle. Then you click on the post you want to read and bloglovin' takes you to the site.

You can follow and unfollow blogs easily, as well as like, unlike and share posts. The other thing I love about it is that when I signed up I got an automated email from co-founder Daniel Gren saying if there's anything the powers that be at bloglovin' could do anytime, just drop them a line. I did just to test it out and he replied!!!



Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Nine things I learned: feeding pet birds, bearded dragons and tumours in rats

exotics vets
Drs Mike Cannon, Robert Johnson and Brendan Carmel in front of the impressive fish tank at Bova Compounding.

It was a dark and stormy night two weeks ago when I ventured south to Caringbah to Bova Compounding laboratory for a CE evening on exotic pets. It was an evening of revelations for a number of reasons, not least of which this was my first tour of a compounding pharmacy. I expected a hokey little pharmacy, but the facility was sparkling white, with quality control that was mind blowing and quarantine protocols that brought to mind those scientists-in-white-space suits scenes in infectious disease movies.

As a vet I utilise this facility a lot as many medications don’t come in doses or formulations appropriate for my patients (for example, compounding pharmacists can turn almost any pill into a fish or liver flavoured liquid for the less pill-friendly canine and feline patients, and even combine medications into one pill so there are less tabletting "events" each day).

Needless to say, exotics vets dispense compounded medications a lot to ensure that the appropriate dose and the right formulation is given to a patient. Anyway, it was a wonderful opportunity to have a peek behind-the-scenes.

But that isn’t the main thrust of this post. The three speakers were three of my favourite exotics vets: Michael Cannon of Cannon & Ball Veterinary Surgeons, Brendan Carmel of Warranwood Veterinary Centre, and Robert Johnson of South Penrith VeterinaryClinic.

bird
Birds should not be fed all-seed diets. Most of us know that, but do you know why?
Dr Cannon commenced with a passionate discussion about feeding birds. We’ve been getting it wrong for years: feeding pet birds exclusively on all-seed diets leading to all kinds of health problems including obesity, hepatic lipidosis and even atherosclerosis.

  • Birds in the wild spend around 70 per cent of their lives foraging for food. This entails exercise, variation in diet and environmental enrichment. The average pet budgie is simply served a bowl of seed in its cage, so it simply has to lean over and dig in. It’s a tragic picture. But there are plenty of ways to feed birds more creatively including providing a varied diet, providing exercise and environmental enrichment and training birds to “work” for food (for example, making packets of vegies which parrots can unwrap).
  • Dr Cannon recommends offering seed for ten minutes only, then removing it and providing vegetables (and did you know sunflower seeds contain a higher percentage of fat than a Mars Bar or McDonald's french fries?)
  • Human foods toxic to birds include chocolate, avocado, cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and rhubarb leaves.

Rats can develop pituitary adenomas, which are difficult to diagnose and challenging to treat.

Dr Carmel discussed treatment of geriatric rats. We’re all familiar with geriatric rats that suffer from vestibular disease, which is often presumed to be secondary to otitis media.
  • In fact, some of these rats are suffering from spectacularly large pituitary adenomas. These are visible as enormous lesions on MRI (or post mortem in deceased patients).
  • Clinical signs of pituitary adenomas include head tilt, circling, a wide-based stance, ataxia and proprioceptive deficits.
  • The incidence is lower in ovariectomised rats (Dr Carmel performs ovariectomy rather than ovariohysterectomy in rats). It may be possible to reduce oestrogen levels with GnRH agonists such as Deslorelin implants, but it is difficult to conclude whether this will reduce the incidence of pituitary adenomas in rats.

bearded dragon pet health
A bearded dragon contemplates some blueberries.

Dr Johnson provided some fantastic insights about pet bearded dragons.
  • Over-handling is associated with numerous health problems, including metabolic bone diseases and constipation. Often it is the devoted owners who report that they spend their nights watching TV with their beardie on their shoulder who are guilty of over-handling. According to Dr Johnson, while those beardies are enjoying “The Voice”, they’re also not at their preferred environmental temperature and thus may not achieve their preferred optimal body temperature.
  • I never knew that lizards become more omnivorous as they mature, more commonly enjoying fruit, vegies and some flowers (apparently they love dandelions. What a beautiful image).
  • When casting fractures in beardies and other lizards, Dr Johnson sometimes uses Elastoplast and then applies Vetbond on top of this to “set” the cast.
In truth I learned a gazillion things and walked away with a fantastic set of lecture notes, but it left me with the feeling that the best vets don't just know how to treat their patients in the consulting room: they have an excellent understanding of how those animals live at home.

Monday, July 15, 2013

Advice for new graduate veterinarians

mentors new grads
Still green: that's me, circa 2004, assisting Dr Max Zuber perform a lung lobectomy in a cat. Good mentors can support you through the intern and new grad process.

Being a vet, I won't deny, can be the best job in the world. But being a new graduate can be challenging. I remember one day when I, freshly minted, was struggling to intubate a dog with an overlong soft palate. We'd been taught how to intubate normal dogs. We'd been taught gold standard anaesthetic protocols. But it turns out the things you need to know - like how to deal with anatomical variation and alternatives to intubation - are things we are often not taught, at least not directly.

I felt like a failure. I felt out of my depth. I questioned my career choice. The dog was fine. I was sole charge so had no one to ask. I called a colleague from a neighbouring practice, a lovely woman I'd never met before, and asked if she could come and help. She drove over, gave me a hug and said "I would not want to relive my first six months out of graduation if you paid me a million dollars".

The dog was intubated uneventfully, the surgery was routine, and this wonderful fairy godvet who appeared hadn't made me feel embarassed or ashamed. I intubate animals daily, even those with overlong soft palates, large wounds, defects or lesions...but we all have to learn new skills and the bottom end of that learning curve can be confronting.

So my advice is to build a support team you can call on - whether over the phone advice, a boss who can scrub in on that spey, friends you can confide in, a sympathetic dog (have you ever met an UNsympathetic dog?).

Jenny Moffett, from Ross University, told me about a site for new graduate veterinarians. www.newvet.org is a site supported by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeon's charitable trust and is a portal for advice on a range of topics including practical skills, clinical knowledge, being on call, making mistakes, clients, patients dying, personal life, and what else is there if clinical practice just isn't for you. 

Its great that someone has started to put these resources together in such an accessible site.