Scratchings-and-Sniffings

Senator Kennedy and His Dog, Splash

By now we have probably read an account of the life and myriad accomplishments of Senator Ted Kennedy. By any stretch of the imagination he had a full and meaningful life and many of us are indebted to Senator Kennedy for legislation he helped shepherd through the Senate. It would certainly be nice to have him now as we debate meaningful reform for our broken health care system. 

Whether we always agreed with him politically or not one thing we pet lovers share with Senator Kennedy is a love and appreciation for dogs. His gift of a Portuguese Water Dog puppy to the President and his family overshadowed his own story about his relationship with his dog, Splash.

 

Most politicians like to have their pictures taken with dogs and babies to show how down to earth they really are. I can just imagine some handler rushing in to brush away the dog hair and the dog as soon as possible so the pol can get off to the next photo opp awarding a blue ribbon to some 4H kid at the state fair.

 

Not so with the Senator. Splash, AKA Champion Amigo's Seventh Wave, was his constant companion.

The Time Factor: How Do They Know It's Dinnertime?

The easy answer to how your dog or cat knows it's dinnertime is: training and routine. Most of us have a routine - we get up, eat breakfast, even if it's just coffee, go off to work or whatever, then eat lunch, off again, and at 5 or 6, we eat dinner.

Our pets get used to that routine and know that dinnertime is...5 or 6 (or 7, whatever). My problem with this is that my cat thinks dinnertime is 3:00 in the afternoon. She has never been fed at 3:00 in the afternoon. Dinnertime at our house is between 5-6. I try to feed her at 5, if I'm home. If I'm out at a meeting, I feed her when I get home.

This sudden desire to eat at 3:00 (yesterday she started pacing and wailing around 1:30!), started just a year or so ago. Wabby is 16, going on 17, and I wonder if this is an "old-age" issue. I will have to check with Dr. Larry.

Is Your Pet Lonely? Check These Symptoms

I continue to learn so much from writing this blog. Not only from Dr. Larry - who shares his expert vet advice and insight on a regular basis - but from Purina®, itself. Or, rather, the Purina brands who work hard to help us keep our pets healthy and happy. Funny, isn't it - how a "slogan" can be so true? They do work hard to make sure our cats and dogs are not only healthy, but happy.

Here's a case in point - helping pet parents understand separation anxiety in their pets. Yep. Your dog could be suffering from this right now. Why? Because, "Pets that have spent more time with a family during the summer can get separation anxiety as children prepare to go back to school." That from our own Bill Craig, who helps us understand PurinaCare® Pet Health Insurance, over at the pet health insurance blog.

Keeping Pets Healthy in This Economy

I answer five pet-lover-submitted questions a week for the Purina ONE® website. It's a fun little project and some of the questions I answer serve as fodder for S&S posts. I choose the questions I answer and I make my choices based on general appeal. Does the question reflect something of universal appeal that many pet lovers can apply to their own situation? If so, I answer it.

I don't answer questions that ask me to second guess what another veterinarian has done or recommended. I'm not saying they are always right or that I might not have handled something differently. It's more about the vagaries of communication and someone's recollection of events. More often than not something is lost in translation and it's just not appropriate to comment if you don't have all the facts. 

 

I don't answer questions involving acute, serious illness or accidents either. My answers often show up days if not weeks after I write them. Not very useful in an emergency.

Scratchings & Sniffings Out Loud: Dr. Grace and Dr. Larry Discuss Allergies to Pets and more

In this session of Scratchings & Sniffings Out Loud, we conclude our discuss of allergies, both human to pets, and pets to grass, weeds,food, etc. As you know from the other sessions, pets are often allergic to food and may need a special diet. But, there are a lot of mysteries to this term "allergies" and Dr. Grace and Dr. Larry attempt to educate us on how to deal with allergy issues.

Little story: according to my allergist I'm allergic to everything under the sun. He advised me to get rid of my rugs, my drapes, and my pets. As if! I left his often shaking my head, wondering if he's actually from another planet! Get rid of my pets... absurd! (and guess what...that was years ago, I'm still here, and I still have pets, without a whole lot of problems!) But, listen up to the details...

Another Rally to Rescue®: Honoring Rescue Pets

It's that time of year. Purina® Pro Plan® is once again sponsoring Rally to Rescue® - "Doing More for Pets", including Rescue Stories. All to honor rescue pets that have achieved great things - and overcome huge odds.

We're all for all rescue sites, here. We're for rescuing dogs and cats and birds and reptiles - if you read this blog regularly, you know that we write about rescue sites quite a bit. I've even written about Rally to Rescue, before.

This year, Rally to Rescue is taking their show on the road. You can follow their progress on their website and add your voice, too. If you have a rescue dog, give a holler and tell us about him or her. Tell us the story - we all love stories.

Temporal Myositis Questions

We've had two interesting comments on the recent post we did on temporal myositis. Apparently there is not a lot written about this autoimmune disorder.

One reader wanted to know whether her 11 1/2 year old Aussie was suffering from this problem. It is primarily a disease of young to middle-aged dogs but it could occur in an older animal. 

 

A muscle biopsy was done on her dog but the results were inconclusive. Muscle biopsy is the most reliable diagnostic tool for temporal or masticatory muscle myositis (MMM). A particular type of inflammatory cell is seen in the affected muscle on biopsy. In the chronic form of MMM there would also be evidence of fibrosis or muscle scarring. I'm not sure why the results were inconclusive. Maybe there were not enough of the particular cell type to make the call. It might be a good idea to repeat the biopsy but other conditions should be ruled out, too.

Trials and Tribulations of Life with a Dog

Somehow, life with a dog is more complicated than life with a cat. At least, that's been my experience. Cats have their issues, of course - but dogs get into more trouble and seem likely to be injured more often than cats. We're speaking of indoor cats, btw. Outdoor cats are exposed to more disasters than I care to note, here. Our previous cat was an outdoor cat and he was always coming home with ... issues that needed vet care. Wabby is a happy indoor cat. She is growing old gracefully.

But, I digress. This post is about dogs and the strange things that happen to them, regardless of how careful you are with them. For instance, many years ago our Carmie went out to have a few minutes chasing squirrels in the backyard and came back in limping. I didn't think much of it, but when it was a bit worse the next day, we took her in to the vet. She had a cruciate ligament tear, something Dr. Larry discussed last year on this blog.

How did she do that? We don't know. Just running around the back yard, the vet said. How crazy is that? Carmie healed well, and quickly, and we put the incident out of our minds.

Ethics of Euthanasia

Literally millions of adoptable pets are euthanized each year due to overpopulation. There are simply too many unwanted dogs and cats for the available humane organizations to handle. This is an unfortunate fact for all of us who love animals.

Of course there are many ways to decrease the numbers of unwanted animals and we've discussed them all on the pages of the blog. We can spay and neuter at an early age. We can keep cats indoors and we can support trap and neuter programs for feral cats. We can teach basic obedience so bad behavior does not become the reason for giving up a pet.

 

We should do all these things and even if we do, we'll still have a problem, albeit a smaller problem. But that's not the point of this post.

 

Yvonne got an e-mail from a reader about a subject that doesn't get talked about much. What about healthy animals? Of course many healthy animals are euthanized at animal shelters every day due to simple overcrowding, but what about at veterinary clinics? Should veterinarians euthanize a healthy pet at the request of the owner?

The Truth about PitBulls

I don't know the truth about pitbulls. I only know that dogs, most dogs, are good creatures. I know that at one time German Shepards were vilified (people hated them because they were considered dangerous). And, I know that little dogs like chihuahuas can be terrors - as we had one and woe be it to the human who rubbed her the wrong way! She couldn't do a lot of damage, but she was pretty ferocious! (she never bit anyone, she just made a lot of noise - but it was scary!)

I looked up some information on pitbulls, not only because of the fact that they've been in the news so much lately, but because as far back as 10 years ago, pitbulls were considered unsuitable for families. And yet, even then, their supporters defended them to the hilt...as we defended German Shepards, back in the day. Frankly, it comes down to the people - how you raise your dog will determine how it behaves.