Veterinarian Saves Puppy That Weighed Only Half a PoundMarch 16, 2016March 1, 2016 marked the day that a 0.5-pound female puppy was brought into the San Jose Animal Care Center in Calif. She was cold to the touch, had pale to gray gums and was barely responsive. She was hypothermic, hypoglycemic and dehydrated. Unfortunately, without the puppy’s mother to provide warmth and frequent feedings, the puppy’s likelihood of survival was slim. Sharon Ostermann, DVM and the rest of the veterinary team feared the puppy wouldn’t even live another half hour. In her Tails of a Shelter Vet blog, Dr. Ostermann wrote that she and the veterinary team gave the puppy heat support and prepared an intraosseous catheter. The team, however, had never done one before and didn’t have the specific medical supplies needed for one. Instead, they used a spinal needle as a catheter. “The area over the puppy’s left hip was shaved, a local anesthetic was injected into the area, and the skin was scrubbed as if prepping for surgery. The needle was placed into the femur, and it was determined to be in the correct position.” Tales of a shelter vet The veterinary team ensured the correct placement of the intraosseous catheter. …
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Veterinarian Creates Way to Make Senior Dogs’ Lives a Little EasierMarch 7, 2016Clients with senior dogs may come in to your veterinary office with a host of complaints. Their senior dog has trouble eating or getting up and down stairs. Maybe their senior dog needs help standing up or isn’t as active as he once was. Perhaps their senior dog can’t grip the floor as easily as he could when he was younger and is now prone to slipping. That was the complaint Julie Buzby, DVM found in her practice. She has been a practicing veterinarian for 19 years, but earlier in her career, she became certified in veterinary acupuncture and chiropractic. Due to that, she started seeing more geriatric dogs than she normally might have. “Most of the senior dogs I treated were improving with medications, herbs, supplements, and alternative therapies,” Buzby said on Dogster.com, “but my clients worried about their dogs slipping on the floors at home. I understood their frustration.” After opening her own clinic and then selling it in 2008, she moved with her family to South Carolina where she works in a veterinary clinic part-time. It was there, at an annual open house in 2011, that the idea for a product that would …
NCSU Veterinarians, Duke Doctors Join Forces to Fight CancerMarch 4, 2016Cancer is a terrible disease. We’ve all been affected by it either personally or through someone we know (I just lost my aunt to cancer two weeks ago). It seems that it’s more and more prevalent nowadays, not only affecting our human loved ones, but our animals as well. Chances are you’ve treated some of those animals who were (or are) afflicted with cancer. Some have survived; some haven’t. When they do, it’s often deemed a miracle. One such miracle came in the form of a 13-year-old Labrador Retriever named Eliza almost one and a half years ago. She was placed in a clinical trial at North Carolina State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine after a diagnosis of nose and mouth cancer, The News & Observer reports. Her symptoms started with a swollen snout, before she began bleeding from her mouth. The veterinarian informed Eliza’s owner, Lynne Murchison, that the Lab had about five weeks to live. At most. Unwilling to give up, Murchison searched for — and found — a clinical trial at NCSU’s vet school. It was for oral tumors. According to The News …
Study: Many Shelter Dogs Mislabeled as ‘Pit Bull’February 18, 2016Many shelter dogs are often mistakenly labeled as a pit bull, according to a new study by the University of Florida. The study, which was recently published in The Veterinary Journal, identified the inaccuracies through DNA testing. “Animal shelter staff and veterinarians are frequently expected to guess the breed of dogs based on appearance alone,” said Julie Levy, DVM, Ph.D., a professor of shelter medicine at the UF College of Veterinary Medicine and lead author of the study. “Unlike many other things people can’t quite define but ‘know when they see it,’ identification of dogs as pit bulls can trigger an array of negative consequences, from the loss of housing, to being seized by animal control, to the taking of the dog’s life. In the high-stakes world of animal shelters, a dog’s life might depend on a potential adopter’s momentary glimpse and assumptions about its suitability as a pet. If the shelter staff has labeled the dog as a pit bull, its chances for adoption automatically go down in many shelters.” The past few decades have brought an increase in ownership restrictions on breeds including pit bulls and …
Veterinarian Comforts Dog by Eating Breakfast with Her in Her CageFebruary 17, 2016Andy Mathis, DVM, runs Granite Hills Animal Care in Elberton, Ga. Just like other veterinarians, he treats many animals. While most of his (and your) patients are likely pets, the occasional stray comes in. For Mathis, that stray came in the form of a female pit bull. Dubbed Graycie, the dog was “emaciated, starved (20 pounds), dehydrated, hypothermic (temperature of 95), anemic… with a vaginal prolapse,” the Granite Hills Facebook page states. Mathis first considered euthanizing Graycie, but wanted to give her a chance, with the encouragement of friends and Facebook fans. He took her to the veterinary teaching hospital at the University of Georgia. Their treatment resulted in improvement of her temperature, rehydration and the temporary reduction of her prolapse. A urinary catheter was also put in place. Graycie returned to Mathis’s care a couple days later. From February 1 through 8, she ate on her own, gained some weight and her blood levels improved. Her urinary catheter was removed on February 8 and the following Thursday Mathis spayed her. Mathis wrote in the Facebook post that Graycie hasn’t been eating comfortably, so he’s taken to eating his breakfast with her in …
What to do When Gums Overgrow Their BoundariesFebruary 8, 2016A 5-year-old male Rhodesian ridgeback presented to me for evaluation of proliferative gingival enlargement over the maxillary canine teeth. Historically, the owner noted a flap of partially detached gingiva over tooth 104, which had since become completely detached, resulting in the unique combination of gingival recession over most of the lateral portion of the tooth and gingival enlargement over the mesial, distal and palatal surfaces of the tooth (Figure 1). John Lewis, VMD, FAVD, Dipl. AVDC Figure 1: The right maxillary quadrant showing generalized gingival hyperplasia and gingival recession over the labial (vestibular) surface of the right maxillary canine tooth (tooth 104). Tooth 204 had a similar appearance, though more irregular, with a large circumscribed area of enlargement toward the distal portion of the crown (Figure 2). Nearly every tooth in the mouth was affected at least mildly by gingival enlargement, though the canines and incisors were affected most severely (Figure 3). The appearance of the gingiva over teeth 104 and 204 likely was due to the following events: Gingival enlargement results in pseudopockets. Pseudopockets allow for hair, plaque and debris to be trapped …
App Can Help Eradicate Rabies in IndiaFebruary 1, 2016Rabies could be eradicated from street dogs in India with the help of a new smartphone app, a new study published in the journal BMC Infectious Diseases declares. Researchers are using the app to track free-roaming dogs that have been vaccinated against rabies. According to the study’s abstract: “Over 20,000 people die from rabies each year in India. At least 95 % of people contract rabies from an infected dog. Annual vaccination of over 70 % of the dog population has eliminated both canine and human rabies in many countries. Despite having the highest burden of rabies in the world, there have been very few studies, which have reported the successful, large-scale vaccination of dogs in India. Furthermore, many Indian canine rabies vaccination programs have not achieved high vaccine coverage.” Monitoring them in this way has enabled vets to vaccinate 70 percent of the dog population in the City of Ranchi, which is the threshold needed to minimize the risk that the disease is passed to people. Adopting the approach more widely could help to eliminate rabies from people and animals, the researchers say. Teams vaccinated more than 6,000 dogs in …
University of Guelph Researchers Get Funding for Canine Cancer StudyJanuary 28, 2016Researchers at the University of Guelph have received a $100,000 grant from Ontario Centers of Excellence (OCE) to further their work to improve cancer therapy for dogs. Brenda Coomber, BSc, Ph.D., the principal investigator, will work with Rna Diagnostics of Toronto to study dogs with advanced lymphoma. This project builds on her research begun in 2013 with the company. “Ultimately, our goal is to ensure that all dogs with lymphoma get the best treatments we have available,” said Dr. Coomber, a biomedical sciences professor in the Ontario Veterinary College (OVC) and co-director of U of G’s Institute for Comparative Cancer Investigation. “Since lymphoma in dogs is very similar to lymphoma in humans, the results of this study may also improve our understanding and treatment of human cancer.” Certain molecules called biomarkers can help predict disease outcome or response to therapy in order to improve treatment. Rna Diagnostics has developed a novel biomarker test called an RNA disruption assay (RDA), intended to pinpoint cancer patients unlikely to respond to chemotherapy, according to the university. Coomber used RDA previously at OVC’s Mona Campbell Center for Animal Cancer to …
A Journey Through Canine OsteosarcomaJanuary 14, 2016Originally published in the January 2016 issue of Veterinary Practice News. Did you enjoy this article? Then subscribe today! My wife pointed out a slight swelling on the left distal radius of my beloved great Dane, and my heart sank instantly. Canine osteosarcoma hit me very personally that day, July 22, 2014. Taylor Dane, as we named her, had come into our lives eight years earlier as a beautiful 7-month-old from Great Dane Rescue. Her original owners had relegated her to a lonely existence, isolated in their backyard. Having spent her early important socialization months isolated from new people and pets, she was terrified. At first, we had to keep a house leash on her, even indoors, just to be able to get hold of her. But as her fear turned to trust, Taylor took over our house, and my heart. I have had many dogs since childhood, dogs that I have loved dearly. But never had I experienced the depth of connection that I would have with Taylor. A tall and elegant fawn female, Taylor …
3 Breed Groups Fund Canine Cancer StudyJanuary 12, 2016Researchers led by University of Minnesota Professor Jaime Modiano are launching a study of hemangiosarcoma, an aggressive cancer in dogs. The disease is prevalent in golden retrievers, Portuguese water dogs and boxers. Three breed groups— the Golden Retriever Foundation, the Portuguese Water Dog Foundation and the American Boxer Charitable Foundation—pledged $432,000 to support the research project. “Hemangiosarcoma is the cause of death for an estimated one out of every five golden retrievers in the United States,” said Dr. Modiano, VMD, Ph.D., of Minnesota’s College of Veterinary Medicine. “Portuguese water dogs and boxers also have an especially high risk for this disease, which is devastating for all dogs.” The research team wants to learn more about hemangiosarcoma and possibly find ways to prevent it. “Hemangiosarcoma is incurable partly because the cancer is detected at a very advanced stage when it is resistant to conventional therapies,” Modiano said. “Thus, an unconventional approach to improve outcomes for hemangiosarcoma patients will involve effective methods for early detection and for disease prevention.” The American Kennel Club’s Canine Health Foundation announced the $432,000 grant Jan. 6 and will oversee the funds and the scientific progress. “The collaboration between these three breed club foundations and …
