Scratchings-and-Sniffings

Tapeworms

  Remember when you were a kid and Mary Poppins was popular, or maybe when you rented the movie for your kids when they were little? Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious was the word that we all went around singing as the longest word we knew.

As a vet student we learned a lot of really long latin names especially for parasites. Today we are going to discuss Dipylidium caninum and Taenia taeniaeformis; the most common tapeworms of dogs and cats, respectively.

But before that, I can't resist giving you the latin name of the spiny headed stomach worm of the pig.

Macracanthorhynchus hirudinaceus. Try dropping that one at your next cocktail party.

OK, back to tapeworms. Frist of all, they don't cause very serious disease in dogs or cats and if your dog or cat eats eats prepared food and your cat is an indoor cat, you don't have much to worry about.

Hookworms

As I was reading my previous post on round worms I was struck by how gross the activity of these worms can be. As a veterinarian I often lose sight of what pet owners must be thinking when they read about worm larvae migrating through their dog's body, or, in some cases, the organs of the owners themselves.

Yuck.

My wife reminded me of one particularly disgusting event that illustrates how vets sometimes view the world differently compared to most normal people.

We were living in Seattle at the time, or more accurately, near Seattle almost in the foothills of the Cascades. We bought eggs from our neighbors and used their chicken manure on our garden. The eggs were great. Fresh and tasty, right out of the hens. We grew huge strawberries too.

Cats and Personality: Not All Rugrats

When I opened IE today, Yahoo had the picture shown here, with a caption that read, "What kind of cat are You?" from About.com. The picture had me cracking up, and was just what I needed. Today is the end of a very busy week. Laughing is high on my list of activities I would like to engage in. Tom brought Wabby in to see the pic, but...she really didn't seem interested. Naturally, her response was, "Are you going to feed me?"

Well, how could I resist...I had to go take the quiz. You should, too. I'll let you know that I'm a...

 

Alltop: Scratchings and Sniffings Makes the Grade

Guy Kawasaki, yes, THAT Guy Kawasaki, of Art of the Start fame, recently created (along with a guy in a home office - to which I relate - one gal at a kitchen table, and one 'Guy' in United 2B) a site or directory, if you will, that gathers RSS feeds about many, many topics...all in one place...for easy use and consumption. (can you consume RSS feeds? Hmmm...)

The site is called Alltop - and it highlights what the founders consider the top content on the web. Wow! What a concept -- all my favorite feeds in one place! Unlike some other aggregators, this is a collection of feeds with relevant content across specific topics. I have a Bloglines account...so I can access my favorite blogs there, but...I find that cumbersome, anymore.

With Guy's Alltop site - there are business links, career links, culture, geekery, people, and even pet links! Which is why I'm writing about it here. We got in. Guy sent me a personal email to let me know Scratchings and Sniffings made it in the pet category. 

How kewl is that? We made it into Alltop - which means, they like us! They really like us!

Check it out...I bet you'll like it as much as I do.

Thanks for adding Scratchings and Sniffings to Alltop Pets, Guy!

Family-Style Food Fit for Fido

Recently I had the pleasure of speaking with Nina Leigh Krueger, Director of Marketing for Beneful® Dog Food, at Purina. I had been bugging the folks at Purina to let me talk to some brand managers... to get the inside scoop on things.

I'm going to share the conversation in today's post, and continue it next week on Thursday the 22nd. If there is new news, so to speak, down the road, I'll share that, too. I find it enlightening that Purina is willing to give us a peak inside their product development. I wish I had recorded the conversation cause Nina and I did a lot of laughing while we talked about creating this dog food. That's girls for ya.

To quote from a press release Beneful sent out when they introduced Beneful® Prepared Meals, "Succulent real meat and poultry, wild rice, barely, pasta, spinach, green beans, and carrots. Sounds like the perfect ingredients for a delicious nutritious family-style meal...fit for a dog."

Doesn't that bring images of the Beneful TV commercials to mind? All those wholesome ingredients showering down? That caught my eye, the first time I ever saw it. "Veggies for dogs?" I thought.

Indeed.

Common Intestinal Parasites

Yvonne got a note from Greg, a frequent visitor to S&S, about an unfortunate incident involving whip worms. He was wondering if we couldn't do a little something on the subject of intestinal parasites and maybe even do an S&S Out Loud segment on this topic at some point in the future.

Whip worms are not usually a serious problem for dogs. On rare occasions infections can cause an inflammatory reaction in an area of the intestine called the cecum leading to weight loss, diarrhea and even anemia. This is pretty rare and most infections go unnoticed unless the eggs are seen in a fecal exam.

On the other hand, infections from two other common intestinal worms can be serious for both pets and people.    

One 800 Save A Pet

Both of my pets came from our local Humane Society. We just naturally think of Lollypop Farm as the place to go for pets of all sorts. I can honestly say that Wabby Wibby and Carmel have been, and still are, the best pets in the world. Both are elderly now and have their issues (we need to talk to Dr. Larry about one certain issue, but that can be an Scratchings and Sniffings Out Loud soon), but they are loving and fun and warm and delightful. So, we dutifully recommend your local Humane Society for adopting a new pet.

Another place to find and adopt your next pet is 1-800-Save-A-Pet. This is a Purina sponsored site, much like S&S is a Purina sponsored site, but the sponsorship is just a small part of what we're all about, S&S and 1-800-Save-A-Pet. We're about pets. We're about saving dogs and cats and making sure they find good homes.

At 1-800-Save-A-Pet you'll see a celebrity endorser - Drew Barrymore - right on the homepage, but that's just a smidgen of what's there. Drew, bless her lil' heart, is a great eye-catcher (she's a favorite actress of mine, and was even before I discovered her connection to 1-800-Save-A-Pet), but I encourage you to hop around the site and really discover the power behind this organization.

Visit the TV Show, where you'll see more celebrities talk pets. The best part is Pia and Pickles, though.

Visit the Find a Shelter page to locate a shelter near you.

Visit the Spay and Neuter page and find a whole list of helpful links for having your pet neutered, and why you should do so (and if I sound like a broken record about that, so be it; neutering is just good pet parenting)

I don't see a blog yet...but, maybe one is coming. Maybe I'll call and find out.

In the meantime, visit Pia and Pickles and enjoy. This site deserves your attention...and your donations. Keep our pets healthy by promoting humane adoptions. 

Dogs are the real endurance athletes

Last week was my favorite week of the year in Silver City. Our town is host to the five day bicycle stage race called The Tour of The Gila. It is one of the top races for domestic pro and top amateur teams in the entire country.

It's also one of the hardest races of the year. Lance Armstrong almost raced it the year he won the Tour of Georgia a few years back. Most of the locals are glad he stayed away. Too much attention from the national media for our little town.

We hosted this year's top amateur team, Team Legacy Energy, from Fort Collins, Colorado. It was really fun for me having 5 really talented bike riders and their chef stay at our house for 6 days.

My wife was slightly less enthusiastic, but she really likes "her boys," as she calls them.

I think it was Daniel, the chef taking over her kitchen that gave her pause, but when she got a taste of Daniel's cooking, she warmed to the idea pretty fast.

New TV Series: Housecat Housecall ™

I keep thinking today is Friday. Or, maybe I'm wishing today was Friday. It's been one of those over the top weeks with too much going on. Not so much that I neglect my Carmel or my Wabby Wibby, though. As a matter of fact, Wabby has been pretty needy, lately. Might be old-age catching up with her. I can't complain, I like it. (this is her in her most normal pose...on the sofa)

Today seems like a good day to announce that I'll be writing some kewl content prolly once a week, directly from the sponsor of this blog, Purina. No, they aren't 'feeding' me content. I asked if I could get information on some of the exciting things that are happening at Purina, and they said ok. Mind you, the content I'll be sharing is stuff I find interesting or useful. I know I've been curious about how things operate at Purina, and I bet some of you are, also. Things like the Incredible Dog Challenge (which I never knew about before starting this blog), and other stuff, too. Well, I have been bugging them to share, and they've finally caved! (ok, I wasn't too over the top, I was polite, and they finally saw the light - why not share some of their stories with my petblog readers?)

Therefore, my first bit of news...exciting news...is about cats. We talk so much about dogs, and I LOVE dogs... always have...but, I love cats, too. When I got this notice about a new reality show sponsored by Purina® Cat Chow® (Wabby has been eating Cat Chow for a long time), I knew it had to be the first on my list of stuff to share.

Siezures and Epilepsy in Dogs

It's surprising to many people just how common epilepsy is in dogs. Maybe is has something to do with the popularity of certain breeds.

Beagles, Dachshunds, Labs and Golden Retrievers are very commonly affected and these are among the most popular breeds around. And after that Beagle won Westminster this year, you can bet that Beagles will get even more popular.

It's important to differentiate true epilepsy from all the other potential causes of seizures.

Seizures can occur secondary to a host of medical and metabolic conditions and, as such, are considered to be intra cranial (brain) and extra cranial (everything else) in origin. Seizures due to epilepsy or to something like a brain tumor are intra cranial in origin while a seizure from ingestion of a toxin or something metabolic like hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) are from extra cranial causes.