Pet Project

(Update July 2013: We just got back from a road trip to Texas.  Before we left, I got our dog, Saffron, vaccinated against rattlesnake venom.  I’m surprised how many people still don’t know there’s a rattlesnake vaccine available for dogs (and horses)!  It doesn’t completely protect them—you still must immediately get them to a vet if they’re bitten–but it lessens the damage caused by the bite and may buy you some time.  Please note that it’s a 2-part vaccine, so you need to get it a month in advance if you’re traveling to a place with rattlesnakes.) I was on the Texas Gulf Coast recently walking my parents’ Yorkshire Terrier, CoCo, in some pastureland.  I was being really careful to keep an eye out for snakes, when I noticed a brightly colored caterpillar CoCo had disturbed.  Not 2 seconds later, I heard this scary noise. CoCo had found a good sized rattlesnake.  I got her to stop being a terrier long enough to scoop her up.  Fortunately, neither of us was hurt.  But as a result, I learned about the rattlesnake vaccine (Crotalus Atrox Toxoid) which a lot of y’all might already know about, but that I’d never heard of up here on the NW Pacific Coast. The vaccine is made by Red Rock Biologics from inactivated Western Diamondback venom and causes an immune reaction so that if your dog is bitten, antibody titers bind and neutralize the venom.  The vaccine is meant to buy you time.  If your dog is bitten, you still need to get her to a vet immediately. According to the manufacturer’s FAQ, if your dog is bitten the vaccine should: decrease pain reduce swelling reduce tissue damage aid in a quicker recovery However, there are concerns about the vaccine.  Dr. Valerie Wiebe, Pharm.D details reservations about the vaccine & why the UC Davis Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital does not recommend its use in a 2010 post: insufficient data on the efficacy of the vaccine in dogs dogs who have been bitten must still be immediately taken to a vet for emergency treatment the type of snake that bit the dog may not be covered by the vaccine, for instance the Mojave Rattlesnake’s venom (a neurotoxin) is not protected against In a 2007 update from UC Davis Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital note that the Red Rocks Biologic rattlesnake vaccine’s “product license is currently conditional as efficacy and potency have not been fully demonstrated.” I think it’s important to point out Dr. Wiebe does note that: …in patients that are at very high risk, and in areas where treatment may be substantially delayed, the rattlesnake vaccine may buy time for the owner to get their animal to a veterinarian and may potentially decrease the overall severity of envenomation. So what to do?  If your dog is at high risk of running into a rattlesnake, talk to your vet in depth about the vaccine.  Voice your concerns, ask lots of questions, find out how long your vet has been administering the vaccine, if there have been any problems, and find out if your vet thinks the vaccine has helped in cases where dogs have been bitten.  Ask friends and neighbors about their experience with the vaccine.  Ask people at the dog park and your pet supply store.  Make an informed decision and don’t get distracted by brightly colored caterpillars.

So many dog bites can be prevented if people just understood a little more about dog behavior, which in turn means there could be far fewer injuries to people and far fewer dogs killed.  Remember, any dog can bite. Another important thing to remember is that our behavior is based on simian behavior, while dogs’ behavior is very different and very canine.  One of the most striking differences is how we hug & kiss other humans.  In the canine world, just about everything about a hug and a kiss is extremely rude and potentially threatening—forced face-to-face contact, wrapping your arms around them, squeezing them, etc.  Dogs prefer to approach each other more from the side instead of face on, putting a paw on the back of another dog (unless in play) is really pushy, holding another dog down (unless in play & they take turns) is also pushy and rude.  That’s what our simian hugging and kissing is to a dog.  Most of our amazing dogs learn to tolerate our rude behavior, but not all of them do and even the ones that have may react if they’re stressed, scared, or injured. Let’s take the opportunity of Dog Prevention Week to educate others and even ourselves.  Talk to your kids, grandkids, neighbors, mail carrier, UPS person, etc. Here are some of my favorite resources: How to properly greet a dog.  Great illustrated comparisons between improperly greeting humans and improperly greeting dogs.  You can also download a free poster. A great video and article on how to prevent dog bites in children.  “The humans assume that dogs should put up with children no matter what, when even humans canâ€t put up with their own kids all the time. Human parents have babysitters, spouses, family members and baby cribs and play pens to help give them relief from caring for and dealing with their kids yet they expect the household dog to get along no matter what.”  An excellent interview with Victoria Sitwell on tips to keep dogs from biting.  Punishment is about the worst thing you can do for the dog and it puts your safety at risk. Download a free poster on how to recognize signs of fear in your dog’s body language. 2 free posters showing how kids should and should not behave around dogs you can download for free. The AVMA has a brochure on preventing dog bites. Dr. Sophia Yin even has a free PowerPoint presentation on dog bite prevention you can download to use with school children, scout groups, 4-H, etc. The superb book, Dogs Bite: But Balloons and Slippers Are More Dangerous, by Janis Bradley.

Have you heard The Tobolowsky Files.  I heard an episode this weekend about an unexpected love story with a pretty revolting dog.  Pooch is a pitiful dog who shows up in Stephen Tobolowsy’s life one day and causes him to consider what is it that makes a dog your dog? That’s Not My Dog

Here’s a fun story from the radio show, Vinyl Cafe, for your Friday. What starts as a bit of dog sitting for one small dog, turns into much more. Advance the little do-hickey to about 24:10 to get to the start of the story.  (Thanks to Connie for helping confirm the spelling of ‘do-hickey’.) http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/vinylcafe_20100515_31858.mp3

If your dog has a wound it’s not supposed to lick or worry, your vet will likely send you home with an Elizabethan collar.  They’re also called e-collars, lampshade collars, or cone collars.  Whatever you call them, they’re the pits and you won’t appreciate how awful they are until your pet needs one.  Animals wearing Elizabethan collars have reduced vision, run into furniture & walls, have a hard time reaching their food & water bowls, and have a difficulty getting comfortable—not what they need when they’re hurt or sick. Just days after we got Saffron, we found out she hadnâ€t been properly restrained after she was spayed–in fact she rode home from the vet in the back of a pick-up. She had to have a compression bandage (that’s the towel with masking tape wound around it) and an Elizabethan collar. I think she worried about what kind of loony people she was living with now who would put her in such an crazy get-up.  E-collars add more stress to an already stressful situation, but you still need to keep your pet from licking or scratching or pulling out stitches.  The thing is, get one before you need it because you may need to order it and so you can make sure you have the right size.  Then if something happens you’re prepared.  Here are some other options. __________________________________________________________ The BiteNot Collar avoids all the problems that come with the Elizabethan collar like reduced vision, hitting furniture, etc. with the collar, and difficulty reaching food and water bowls.  It’s made from a length of plastic with good velcro closures.  The inside and edges are well padded with high quality foam.  It also has a strap that goes behind the front legs to keep everything in place. __________________________________________________________ This collar doesn’t look quite as durable as the BiteNot Collar, but it is more versatile and looks useful for trickier tasks. You cut this collar to size and you can customize it. It can also be cut for a splint or used like a compression bandage for the abdomen. And it can be used on dogs, cats, even birds. (It was originally made for a bird named Hagar who had a feather plucking problem.) __________________________________________________________ Here’s a handy do-it-yourself alternative for protecting an incision or wound site on your pet’s torso from Instructables. You’ll find good instructions for making a body sock or “cat jacket” out of an old t-shirt. This could also be used on dogs, rabbits, ferrets, etc. It might not be enough to stop an obsessive pet from messing with their stitches, but I think it would work with a lot of pets. A side benefit could be that wearing this body sock might help curtail their activity, which is another post-surgery need. Try it out! __________________________________________________________ I love it when people care for their pets so much they’re not willing to settle for a crappy status quo. Tasi Stampoultzis developed the Optivisor for his dog, Billy.  Don’t miss this video of Billy showing off the Optivisor. Other E-collar alternatives have addressed the need to keep pets from fussing with stitches, bandages, or wounds on their torso, legs, or tail, but so far nothing has addressed keeping a pet from scratching at their face or eyes. The Optivisor protects the eyes and the upper part of the face from scratching.  The Novaguard protects the whole face.  Both leave the ears free so the pet can hear, but that also means the ears are not protected, so if your pet is scratching its ears these won’t stop it. (Note: the sizing is for dogs, but I wonder if the smallest size would work for cats.) It looks like you have to get them from veterinary ophthalmologists. __________________________________________________________ The Trimline Collar is a flexible, lightweight collar that is held in place with a drawstring.  Looks like it could work for a laid-back cat, but I’m not sure how well this will hold up to repeated uses by a dog. __________________________________________________________ The Comfy Cone is a soft collar that can be folded down if needed and is held in place by your dog’s collar.  It’s made of a 1/2 inch of foam sandwiched between durable fabric and it has reflective tape for night time use.

Wow! Brad Stone created an extra special home for his adopted kitties and he documented it on his blog. Check it out—he gives some good tips on what he did. First he created catwalks in his house to give the furred ones perches to prowl. Check out the fun video of a kitten exploring the catwalk. Then he chiseled a hole in the outer wall of his house so his cats could use the catrun he built. Don’t miss this video of the cats checking it out for the first time. But, Brad still wasn’t satisfied, so he built a 15ft x 24ft cat enclosure with a fenced walkway connecting it to the first catrun. Kitty heaven!

osseointegration Scout lost his leg after getting hit by a car, but now he’ll be getting an implanted prothetic leg. The implant is a revolutionary approach to a prosthetic that uses bio-integration where bone and soft tissue grows into a honeycomb of metal over time. Check out the video of Scout. The surgeries are being preformed by Dr. Robert Taylor from the Alameda East Veterinary Hospital in Denver and who has been featured on Animals Planets Emergency Vets and E-Vets. Dr. Taylor partnered with BioMedtrix to create this prosthesis utilizing osseointegration. Scout isn’t the first dog to benefit from an implanted prosthetic from Dr. Taylor. Triumph, a Husky, was found in Turkey with both back legs cut off, but international efforts brought her to the U.S. and eventually to Colorado for the groundbreaking surgery. Triumph had numerous surgeries, but you can see from this video she is now up and running. Soldier also got an implanted prosthetic leg. Soldier was found after three days of being tied to a tree on a shooting range. Don’t miss his story and the people at Best Friends Animal Society who cared for him. Especially Kristi , who cared for, trained, and rehabilitated Soldier for five months and then drove him to his new adopted home in another state. Be sure to see the video of Soldier.

Ginger the cat hid in her owner’s open suitcase, got zipped up inside it, and ended up taking a two hour plane trip to Toronto in the outer pocket of the suitcase. (see video) Ginger was mistaken for a turkey on the security x-ray, but was not discovered, so the suitcase was loaded onto the plane. Once at the hotel in Toronto, it was another couple of hours before her owner unpacked and discovered the feline stowaway, making it about a seven hour trip for Ginger. It’s possible Ginger has developed a taste for travel or just really wants to get away from that dog chasing her in the video—she’s been caught hiding in the suitcase again.