Virginia-Maryland Steps in to Fund Lifesaving SurgeryApril 1, 2016Mary Lou would have been euthanized had it not been for the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine, which not only accepted the 8-week-old mixed-breed puppy as a patient but underwrote the full cost of her surgery and care through the Compassionate Care Fund. The situation was bleak when Mary Lou was referred to the Veterinary Teaching Hospital in Blacksburg, Va. Her jaw had been fractured on one side and pulverized on the other when a cow stepped on her. Mary Lou was referred by a humane society in Summers County, W.Va., which likely would have had to euthanize her had Virginia-Maryland not intervened, said volunteer Beth Vuolo. Mary Lou made it through surgery and was adopted after she recuperated. The Compassionate Care Fund is used hundreds of times a year to help injured animals like Mary Lou. Donations help pay for surgery and other expensive treatments for animals whose owners are unknown or unable to pay. The Veterinary Teaching Hospital provides $70,000 to $80,000 in aid every year. Animal lover Garnett Smith is one of the fund’s biggest donors. “I just wanted to make sure if someone had love …
SPONSORED CONTENTMore life to love for patients with certain types of canine CHF. See how different formulations help dog owners manage certain types of CHF in their pets. + Learn More
Texas Vet College to Offer Voyce Pro Wellness Monitoring ProgramApril 1, 2016Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences will begin offering the Voyce Pro Wellness Monitoring Program to all patients beginning in April. This will be the first veterinary college and teaching hospital to offer the technology, created by i4C Innovations Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Intersections Inc. Voyce Pro enables remote observation of canine patients’ biometric data, including resting heart and respiratory rates, intensity of activity, quality of rest and calories burned. The data will be used to drive better patient health and practice outcomes, according to the company and college. “As an organization, we strive to shape tomorrow’s veterinarians while providing our clients an unmatched patient experience, and integrating the latest advancements in veterinary medicine and technology is essential to our success,” said Eleanor M. Green, DVM, Dipl. ACVIM, Dipl. ABVP, the Carl B. King dean for veterinary medicine at the college. “We look forward to incorporating Voyce Pro into our hospital and benefitting from the remote monitoring and objective data provided by this exciting new program.” The partnership between Voyce and the college developed as a result of the …
Merck Unveils Diabetes AppMarch 31, 2016Merck Animal Health is throwing a bone to U.S. pet owners and the hundreds of thousands of diabetic dogs and cats by offering the free Pet Diabetes Tracker app. “To help ensure the longterm health and well-being of a pet, successfully managing the various facets of the disease and treatments is critical,” said Madeleine Stahl, DVM, associate director of scientific marketing affairs at the Madison, N.J., veterinary drug maker. The Pet Diabetes Tracker enables owners to use a smartphone or tablet computer to input daily information, such as blood glucose levels, food and water intake, body condition and weight—all factors in keeping a pet’s diabetes in check. The app also allows the pet owner to track insulin dosages, set reminders for when to re-administer doses or reorder insulin, and send status reports directly to the veterinarian. Merck Animal Health. Screenshot of app. “I think pet owners, especially those with a newly diagnosed pet, will find this app an incredibly useful tool because it puts all the pertinent diabetic health information at their fingertips,” Dr. Stahl said. The app may be downloaded from
Kindred Hopeful of Potential for Equine, Feline DrugsMarch 31, 2016Kindred Biosciences Inc. is pushing to bring two new drugs to market: Zimeta (dipyrone injection), for treating fever in horses, and KIND-010, for weight management in cats. The Burlingame, Calif., company announced the filing of the effectiveness section as part of Zimeta’s New Animal Drug Application (NADA). All remaining technical sections were expected to be submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration by the end of March. It’s potentially good news for equine practitioners. “Dipyrone will be very familiar to seasoned veterinarians,” said Peter Morresey, BVSc, Dipl. ACVIM, Dipl. ACT, a veterinarian with Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington, Ky. “While never approved in the United States, dipyrone enjoyed widespread usage for control of fever and pain before withdrawal from the market in 1995. “If approved, it will be available again in the United States in an FDA-approved formulation,” Dr. Morresey added. In other news, a field test using 32 cats showed the effectiveness and safety of KIND-010 for the stimulation of weight gain in cats under clinical conditions. At the second week of the field study, the mean weight of …
A 'Chastity Belt' for Dogs?March 31, 2016It might sound like a 15th century solution to a 21st century problem, but amid the clamor for pet owners to get their dogs spayed or neutered and prevent unwanted litters comes a device that’s basically a chastity belt for female dogs. Dexter Blanch, owner of Shreveport, La.-based Highly Favored Creations, invented the Pet Anti-Breeding System, or PABS, as a fabric patch that covers a female dog’s nether region and is affixed using a series of straps. If pet owners knew of the problems linked to early spaying, Blanch said, they might be inclined to welcome PABS as a stopgap until their dogs are older. He cited studies that point to the possibility of shorter life spans, joint disorders and increased cancer risk in female dogs spayed before 18 months old. The dog-owning public has been slow to embrace PABS, which Blanch launched in 2013 as a way to protect one of his favorite female hunting dogs, who he might want to breed one day, from randy males. “Perhaps … the proponents of traditional early spay and neuter practices don’t trust American …
Dog Found Shot, Paralyzed Makes Remarkable Recovery Thanks to Vet PhysiotherapistMarch 30, 2016Back in October, a dog named Saint was found shot and tied to a tree, left for dead. He was in bad shape and paralyzed in the hind legs. According to a Go Fund Me page, “It was later discovered that he had several pellets lodged in his spine that caused ruptured discs and neurological damage. Due to the efforts of animal control and the Sherriff's department of Parker County, Saint was rescued. Arlington, Texas residents Alan and Stacie Brown saw the story and stepped in to foster Saint and provide a loving home for him. Since then, Saint has been receiving free physical therapy from the Veterinary Referral and Emergency Hospital of Arlington and has progressed tremendously.” That’s thanks to the efforts of Steve Hooker, physiotherapist and lead technician for the Veterinary Referral and Emergency Hospital. According to his bio, Hooker is a Certified Canine Physical Rehabilitation therapist (CCRP) from the University of Tennessee, and his special interests include rehabilitation and physiotherapy, neurodiagnostics and Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy. When he heard of Saint’s case, he immediately wanted to work with him. He got his wish too, …
Cat Gets Accidentally Shipped 260 Miles Via PostMarch 28, 2016Cats love boxes, no one will dispute that. But for Cupcake, a Siamese cat who lives in the Falmouth in Cornwall, England, that love of boxes got her accidentally shipped more than 260 miles away to the town of West Sussex. Cupcake’s owner, Julie Baggott, was sending out a package of DVDs, and didn’t realize that her cat had crawled into the box. That’s how Cupcake ended up with Ziffit Towers, the package receiver, a whole 8 days later. Towers immediately rushed Cupcake to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA). The RSPCA then took Cupcake to nearest Grove Lodge Veterinary Group, who they treated her for dehydration. Cupcake responded well to treatment, despite being “quite scared, quite nervous,” as Ben Colwell of Grove Lodge Vets told the BBC, which the ABC reported. “[Cupcake] seems quite relaxed and unconcerned and is sitting in her kennel in our cat ward waiting for her family,” the Grove Lodge Veterinary Group wrote in their blog. They pointed out that Cupcake was microchipped and that was how they were able to find her owners. “On arrival, we …
Veterinarian is Out to Change How We Feed CatsMarch 28, 2016Cats instinctively want to hunt for their food, but satisfying that need hasn’t always been easy or convenient for pet owners. That’s a problem that Elizabeth “Liz” Bales, VMD,, set out to solve, and it led her to create the No Bowl Feeding System for cats. nobowlcat.com Dr. Elizabeth "Liz" Bales “I was so discouraged after years and years of my own profession knowing what cats needed but not having a way to help my patients,” Bales writes on the No Bowl Cat website. “I invented the solution myself. My invention, The NoBowl Feeding System, is the safe, clean, easy way to bring back the hunt with the dry food that you are already feeding. I consulted with the world’s leading feline veterinarians, veterinary nutritionists and veterinary behaviorists and then worked with an accomplished team of inventors and designers to create The NoBowl Feeding System — an indoor hunting system that will help keep your cat happy and healthy.” Using the No Bowl system helps satisfy a cat's natural instinct to hunt and, according to Bale, and solves a number of behavioral problems, including: Not sleeping through the night Gobbling up …
Veterinarian Designs App to Help Dog Owners Determine Their Mutt's BreedsMarch 25, 2016Want to know what makes up your mutt? There’s an app for that. Best part? That app was designed by a veterinarian. Specifically, Lauren Schluterman, DVM, of the Bowman Road Animal Clinic in Little Rock, Ark., designed the “What’s My Mutt?” app. The creation came about because so many clients wanted to know the breeds made up their dogs. She had also adopted her own dog, Indy, and was working to determine what her dog's origins were. With DNA testing too expensive for many of her clients, Schluterman decided to start work on a more inexpensive approach. What's My Mutt? Lauren Schluterman, DVM, with Indy. The app took around 3 years to make. Schluterman created an algorithm that takes “dominant features of 65 different dog breeds that create mutts,” reports THV11.com. “We tested the algorithm on about 1,000 dogs before the official launch. The goal of the app is for it to become a tool for animal rescue and shelter groups or people looking to adopt a dog with a certain size or personality. The more people that use it, the more data is collected,” …
New Company Takes Aim at the Canine Genetic Test MarketMarch 25, 2016A new canine DNA test will be available sometime this spring through Embark Veterinary Inc., a startup company that officially launched in mid March. The Austin, Texas-based company aims to shake up the dog DNA testing market by bringing cutting-edge science and insights directly to pet owners, according to co-founders Adam Boyko, Ph.D., chief science officer and assistant professor of Biomedical Sciences at Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, and Ryan Boyko, chief executive officer. The brother team has spent the past decade learning about dogs, everything from the inception of the human-canine bond to the best ways in which to care for these four-legged friends. In the course of their quest to understand the domestic dog, they have discovered many of the things that make every breed and every individual dog unique. This led to breakthrough research on the origin of the domestic dog near Central Asia more than 15,000 years ago. The Embark DNA Test will track more than 200,000 genetic markers, offering ancestry analysis as well as an extensive overview of both genetic disease risk and heritable traits, allowing users to understand their dog’s health, plan …
