23/04/2008 by Arielle.

I had to publish this and no, it is not a case I had a chance to see (although I do get to see some funny cases!).

Apparently this dog sat right down in this exact spot on her owner’s strapless adhesive bra!

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17/04/2008 by Arielle.

I was so impressed with an owner’s ingenuity today. She has a 14 year old Dalmatian who is quite amazing for his age.

He has the strongest of hearts and all that is starting to go at his exceptionally old age for such a big dog; are his backlegs.

He takes PLT tablets that act as anti-inflammatories and help as he has a degenerative nerve condition as well as arthritis in his backlegs. He is also on a diet of joint supplements.

When he gets up, he really struggles as he is quite a big Dalmatian. Instead of slinging a towel under his belly to help hoist him up, his owner has stitched 2 ‘handles’ on the 2 ends of simple padded ovenglove as shown above. She then uses this to help him up. She even found some oven gloves with a black and white spotty pattern to match her dear old Dalmatian!

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16/04/2008 by Arielle.

I was so happy to send little old Poppy home today. She had Yorkshire Terrier written on her files but she looked like a little overweight, balding grey crossbreed.

She has been in the hospital for 4 days as we diagnosed pancreatitis. This condition is extremely painful.

The pancreas (as shown above) is an extremely important organ in the body. Not only does it secrete insulin to control the levels of glucose in the body; it also secretes enzymes into the intestines to help break down the food that passes this way.

Any condition ending in ‘itis’ means inflammation so a pancreatitis is an inflammation of the pancreas. This means that it secretes far more enzyme than it should as it is inflamed or swollen and these enzymes quite literally ‘digest’ the area around the gland. This leads to a severe inflammatory condition in your pet and when Poppy came in 4 days ago; she was in severe pain.

Affected dogs sometimes walk with a ‘prayer dog’ position as they are in so much pain in their abdomens. This is made even worse when we do our examinations on the table and squeeze their abdomens between our fingers.

Other signs occur such as vomiting and a yellow diarrhoea (all of which poor Poppy had).

We admitted her straight away, put her on a drip as it is so important that NO food goes through her intestines as this sets off more digestive enzymes being secreted. She had a nil per os sign hung on her cage which means nothing to eat.

We gave her strong painkillers by injection and antibiotics and sent off a blood sample to the laboratory to confirm pancreatitis as the levels of certain enzymes that we could see from our own blood test, pointed to this horrible disease.

Long term management of pancreatitis involves a change of diet to a purely low-fat diet. I remember a dog in the past with this condition. He had eaten a piece of Kit-kat no larger than a thumbnail and it set off his pancreatitis. He came in in severe pain again and the owners were very cautious of any fatty food after that.

Poppy was so happy to be off her drip, out of pain and see her beloved owners again. I sent her home with some tins of Hills chicken and rice and the owners were going to keep her on a long-term low fat diet. She did need to lose some weight, but it seemed a harsh way of going about it with her illness!

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14/04/2008 by Arielle.

Quincy came in for his routine vaccinations today. He is an 8 year old Greyhound. When I went through to the waiting room to call him as it was his turn next; he was asleep on the waiting room floor and his owner was quietly reading a book with her glasses perched on her nose. They made such a happy picture - they could have been in their own relaxed home.

He slowly roused himself when he heard his name and his owner put her book away. Normally, dogs will sit and shiver in the waiting room with fear of what is to come, but not Quincy.

He stood quietly as I examined him and did not even flinch when I vaccinated him (unusual for a greyhound as they have a low pain threshold with their thin skin).

As I spoke to his owner, Quincy again made himself comfortable and stretched out on the consulting room floor to sleep. Apparently this wonderful laid back attitude to life is what made his doting owner choose him.

She went to a Greyhound Rescue 4 years ago. The kennel housed about 10 ex-racer Greyhounds that were all barking and jumping up. Quincy stood out as he had squeezed himself into a tiny basket and he just looked at her through all the chaos and noise with a gentle, pleading look. That was that, they have been devoted to each other ever since.

On hearing his history, I told the owner that my 10 year old son had left me his reading book on my bed as he thought I would enjoy it. It is Born to Run by Michael Morpurgo and is all about a Greyhound. I admitted to her that even though it was a children’s book, I had so enjoyed it but it had made me cry so much as it is written so poignantly. She laughed as her 10 year old son had left it for her too to read and she had also cried!

Greyhounds certainly are one of my favourite breeds.

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02/04/2008 by Arielle.

I was made aware of Macadamia nuts being poisonous to dogs. Maddy was spayed a few days ago. Feeling sorry for her, her owners gave her some chocolate which had macadamia nuts in it (one of my favourites!).

They were very good to be so honest as we phoned the poison bureau and were told that Macadamia nuts are poisonous to dogs. She made a good recovery but she was unable to stand for a few days.

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