pet connection

Imagine, if you will, that you’re at a major airport (as I was a couple times last week), and you’re about to pass through security. Which is the better and safer option: the full body scanner, or a properly-trained dog? Last week, that very question was the subject of a noisy, contentious Congressional hearing.  From CNN.com,

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, led the dog caucus, arguing that canines are cheaper and less invasive than body scanners. Dogs are exceptional at sensing explosives, do not require software upgrades, don’t depreciate with use and might even be able to detect bombs implanted under a person’s skin.
“The single best way to find a bomb-making device or bomb-making materials is the canine,” Chaffetz said.

And dogs are widely accepted by the public, he said.

“Who doesn’t like dogs?” chimed in Inspector William Parker, head of Amtrak’s K-9 unit.

Canines are missing one thing that body scanners have, Chaffetz said. Lobbyists.

“That’s what the problem is,” Chaffetz said. “If you look at those lobbyists who pushed through those machines, they should be ashamed of themselves, because there is a better way to do this and it’s with the canines.”

Transportation Security Administration Assistant Administrator John Sammon promised to look into feasible (and potentially more intelligent) alternatives to the scanners we endure today.

Oakland Zoo’s new veterinary hospital: In the past, any time the well-regarded Oakland Zoo needed veterinary care for its animals, they had to be shipped more than an hour north, to the world-class hospital at the University of California, Davis. Now, according to SFGate, Oakland will have their own facility.

The Oakland Zoo broke ground Wednesday on a state-of-the-art veterinary hospital to treat its 600 animals and help train veterinary students. When completed next summer, it will be the largest zoo veterinary hospital in Northern California, second statewide only to the hospital at the San Diego Zoo.

“This is a tremendous step up for us,” said the zoo’s director, Dr. Joel Parrott. “It’s the beginning of a new era for the zoo.”

It won’t come cheap. The hospital will cost $10.8 million, but it will be able to handle everything from the zoo’s smallest amphibians to their largest mammals.

The latest from Joplin: Our own Phyllis DeGioia reports for VIN News on the ongoing progress being made in Joplin, Missouri’s recovery from May 22′s devastating tornado.

Veterinary clinics are not quite back to life-as-usual, but they’re well on their way.

Dr. Jim Christman’s Parkview Animal Hospital is operating out of a trailer in the clinic’s parking lot. Early reports that the clinic would close permanently were erroneous; the clinic will re-open in mid-August.

“The entire inside was destroyed and the back wall and runs were torn apart, but as far as the structural part, it was okay. We had to replace bricks on the front,” said Rachel Schwartz, a receptionist at Parkview. “All of our boarders were okay. We lost some clients; we had several that passed away.”

Dr. Ben Leavens of Main Street Pet Care also lost a few clients to the tornado, though he has no tally of how many among his 15,000 patients were affected.

Work on his 10,000-square-foot clinic and 5,000 square-feet parking structure isn’t quite done – the roof was lost and water damage was extensive, and the HVAC system destroyed – but the business has been open since July 5. “We’re extra busy now that we’re open,” Leavens said. “All areas are up and running.” That includes grooming, boarding and day-care services.

In a little less than two months, Joplin has made tremendous progress.

News from north of the border: I was in Toronto all last week, and I brought back two great stories. One, sent in by reader Anne Ahiers, tells us about a blog you should read, called I Want a Pound Dog. Additionally, I found a refreshing column by Amberly McAteer in Toronto’s Globe and Mail about the heartwarming surprise of finding the right shelter pet.

Tortoise news: Good news/bad news stories in the hard shell world, courtesy of SchnauzerFan. First the good news: a reunion in Iowa that will make you smile. Sadly, we must bid a sad farewell to Methuselah (pictured at right, circa 1954), who passed away at one hundred thirty years of age.

“I’ve known Methuselah since I was around 3 years old, so losing him is like losing an old, good friend,” said John Brockelsby, director of public relations at Reptile Gardens. “I had a lot of daily contact with him so having to say goodbye was very sad.”

By the way, the boy riding Methuselah in the picture is Mr. Brockelsby, when he was probably around three years old.

News of the weird: Once more, I must warn you the following story is not from The Onion. It was sent to me by Susan Fox, who tirelessly scours news tickers for the strangest, most head-shaking tidbits she can find, then generously forwards them to me so I can share them with you. This story is hard to stomach and even more difficult to believe (do check out the dog’s name), but I have to have faith that SFGate didn’t make it up. Nobody’s that demented.

I always like to hear from readers, especially if you have tips, and links for interesting stories.  Give me a shout in the comments, or better yet, send me an e-mail.

Photo credit: Bomb-sniffing dog, cnn.com. John Brockelsby and Methuselah, RapidCityJournal.com

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Good morning, and happy Monday! (That was sarcasm.) This is Christie Keith, covering the weekly news round-up for David S. Greene, who is in a bunker at an undisclosed location this week.

Is your dog’s processed pet food exposing him to dangerous toxins? Scientists at Indiana University have discovered chemicals used as flame retardants are present in the blood of pet dogs at levels 5 to 10 times higher than those found in humans (although st ill lower than those found in cats in an earlier study). From Science Daily (h/t to CathyA):

Venier and Hites report on an analysis of flame retardants in blood from 17 pet dogs, all of whom live primarily indoors. They also examined samples of the dry dog food that made up the pets’ diet, attempting to determine if food was a major source of PBDE exposure.The average concentration of PBDEs in blood from the dogs was about 2 nanograms per gram, about five to 10 times higher than the levels found in humans in the few studies of human exposure that have been done in North America.

In dog food samples, the researchers found PBDEs at levels averaging about 1 nanogram per gram. That is much higher than levels found in meat and poultry sold as food for humans, suggesting the PBDEs in dog food may result from processing rather than from the food sources.

Wow, let’s just totally miss the point. A ban on shopping for puppies while drunk? How about a ban on treating dogs like shoes, instead?

Doogie Howser, DVM? A new 6-year undergrad/vet school program will be launching at Lincoln Memorial University in Tennessee next year. Which means, as the American Veterinary Medical Association‘s SmartBrief newsletter comments, your pet may be treated by a veterinarian only six years out of high school.

The Great Corgi Caper. David sent me dire warnings of what he’d do to me if I didn’t use this video of a Corgi aiding and abetting his sister to… well, you’ll see.

David always likes to hear from readers, especially if you have tips, and links for interesting stories. Give him a shout in the comments, or better yet, send him an e-mail.

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I love medical words. Seriously, where other than the world of medicine do you get use words like siphonapterosis, cholecystoduodenostomy, or pheochromocytoma? They just roll off the tongue, and I get the same sensation saying them I as I do when I eat fine European chocolate. Sort of a lusty, tongue-coating warmth.

As fun as they are to say, the lust for them has to exist for the recipient as much as it does for the speaker. If I am talking to a fellow doctor, a long medicalese w0rd can convey paragraphs worth of information in a just a few (admittedly unwieldy) syllables.  Even though they are long and seemingly complex words, if every one involved digs their meaning, they become a sort of shorthand and we can get down to the healing portion of the work at hand. Everyone is on the same level, and information transfer from one brain to the next is smooth.

If the person listening is a non-doctor, though, as better than 99% of the world is, these wonderful words that pack so much meaning into just a few letters strung together work the opposite magic. The listener ends up confused, ill-informed and tunes out the speaker.  The transfer of information from one brain to the next comes to a screeching halt. Not only is the information not transferred, future attempts at communication falter because the listener no longer trusts the speaker and stops caring what they have to say because they know they won’t understand it.

We have seven brand new, fresh-out-of-the-package doctors at Purdue right now. They constitute our new class of interns. They have just spent four years filling their Broca’s area with these lusty European chocolate words, and they are itchin’ to use them. They have rightly earned the privilege of acting like a doctor, and, along with the stethoscope and lab coat, the lingo is part of the costume that we wear as we play doctor.

This, on occasion, causes problems.

We live and die by clients. They bring the animals in for us to treat, they pay the bills that keep the lights on, and they need to be an active and informed part of the medical decision making. But, they are usually neurotypicals and their mother tongue is usually Normalese. If they are flummoxed by a barrage of medicalese and don’t know what is going on, the process gets that much harder. The interns all go through the same arc of learning. They confuse the first couple dozen owners with their ginormous medical lexicon, suffer through the same quizzical stares and then, gradually, learn to speak civilian.

I did the same thing. I went through the same process. I don’t hit the mark all the time (due to my love of big words, sometimes I let some slip through) but I think I have developed a pretty good ability to talk to pet owners on their level and tone down the jargon. I think it helps people see that I am human, too, (for the most part) and I can explain things without resorting to buzzwords.

What has been your experience? Have you had conversations with your MD or veterinarian that left you wondering what is going on? Have you nodded through these, thinking ‘what the hell is he talking about?’ Or, have you stopped them and said ‘what does that mean?’  Do they communicate clearly so you can understand what is going on, and what the options are, or do they leave you with a head full of questions and ears ringing?

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Dr. Tony Johnson wrote about his approach to helping pet owners make decisions about their pet’s care. He discussed whether, or how far, a veterinarian should push clients to make these decisions. Compounding the dilemma is the common reality of the client being understandably paralyzed by uncertainty, guilt or fear.

I’m frequently called on to help after a friend’s (or client’s) pet has been diagnosed by their veterinarian. I’m not a vet (nor do I play one on TV), but I worked in the veterinary profession for more than twelve years, and I’ve written extensively about pet health. People trust me, and I take that trust seriously.

Obviously I can’t, nor would I want to, diagnose or prescribe. That’s what veterinarians do. What I can do is help those who ask my advice understand what their pet may be facing. I can talk them through the options their vet has already presented, and perhaps add a few others.

The challenge with trying to help others make veterinary decisions is two-fold. One, I can only go on what the person is telling me. Anything they tell me is inevitably filtered through their own understanding of the medical facts, and often colored by fear and worry. Two, I don’t want my friend to lose confidence in her vet, especially if it’s a veterinarian they’ve trusted for many years. But sometimes, there are situations when I intuitively feel that a vet is not doing all they could. And when that’s the case, I feel that I need to speak up.

I was recently faced with a situation where a friend’s cat was diagnosed with multiple, serious problems, one of them a pretty significant heart issue. The attending veterinarian did a very minimal work up. She omitted some very basic tests that were considered minimum standard of care at any clinic where I’ve ever worked. She never mentioned the possibility of a referral to a specialist. Worst of all, she completely dismissed my friend’s serious concerns when her cat didn’t improve.

The question for me was: how far do I push? Like Dr. Johnson, I usually try to come up with options. I also try to avoid the question “what would you do if it was your cat?” The decision I would make may not be the right decision for that pet or that person.

I pushed pretty hard in this particular situation. I didn’t want my friend to feel like she wasn’t doing enough for her cat. I also didn’t want her to stay with a veterinarian who, to my thinking, was not doing enough for her patient. I know I caused quite a bit of anxiety for my friend, a first-time cat owner who was overwhelmed with everything that was coming at her. Yet, I felt that I owed it to my friend, and her cat, to keep pushing.

The good news is that my friend eventually changed veterinarians. Her new veterinarian appears to be thorough, and the cat is doing better.  But for me, the question remains unanswered: how hard do you push a friend? Are there times when you should just not speak up?

Image credit: Flickr creative commons (MowT)

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When your pet’s veterinarian says the sky is blue, do you feel a need to run outside and check?

I’m constantly bombarded by emails from pet owners who seem to feel that way, so much so they often don’t take even clearly very sick pets to the veterinarian, but instead waste time writing me 20-page missives on every symptom their pet has expressed for the previous several weeks.

When I ask why they haven’t taken their dog or cat to the vet, sometimes the answer is money. But most of the time, it’s a screed ranging from general distrust of the entire veterinary profession to the occasional full-blown conspiracy theory heavily tinged with paranoid delusions.

Setting aside that last group, whose problems are beyond the scope of a pet writer, it really worries me that so many people have let one or a few bad experiences with veterinarians turn them away from getting necessary care for their pets. From my column today on SFGate.com:

I’ve had bad experiences with veterinarians. I’ve also had terrible haircuts and gone to dishonest auto mechanics. Nonetheless, I keep getting my hair done and my car fixed — and taking my pets to the veterinarian.

Good veterinarians have knowledge and experience, as well as access to diagnostic testing, that no pet owner — and no pet writer, either — can have. Condemning the entire profession for the unethical behavior of one or a few individuals is irrational and dangerous for your pet if it means he doesn’t get necessary care.

But trust should never be given unquestioningly, simply because someone has a “DVM” or “VMD” after her name. Trust is something the veterinarian has to earn.

Obviously, once a vet has been treating your pets for years, you can trust him based on his track record. But there are plenty of times we can’t rely on a vet we’ve had for years — when we move, while traveling, when our vet retires, or when a pet needs immediate care and his regular vet isn’t available.

I’ve written before about how to find a veterinarian who practices excellent veterinary medicine. Here are the tips I use to decide whether or not a veterinarian deserves my trust:

The trustworthy veterinarian knows he doesn’t know everything. No one is omniscient. I have no problem with that. While I would assume any veterinarian knows a great deal more than I do about general medical issues relating to pets, I don’t expect him to be an expert on every single medication, condition or obscure article in a medical journal.

But when I ask him a question he can’t answer I do expect him to respond by saying, “I don’t know, let me check on that.” Veterinarians who try to bluff to preserve their authority, or worse, imply you’re being fussy, bothersome or over-protective for asking in the first place, don’t deserve your trust.

For example, my dog Rebel, who died in 2009, had a very rare genetic condition that most vets will go their whole careers without treating. I understood that even the best veterinarian was going to need to do some research to treat him.

As long as the veterinarian understood that, too, everything was fine. But the minute a vet dismissed my questions or the information I was giving him about my dog, I was gone. Not because I wanted him to replace his judgment with mine, but because he was doing so not on the basis of his greater knowledge or expertise, but arrogance or insecurity.

She keeps up with the profession. This one seems like a no-brainer, but I’ve met a few veterinarians who seem proud of the fact that they still practice to the standards of the year they graduated from vet school.

One veterinarian I saw in San Mateo County — fortunately now retired — bragged to me about how he didn’t use modern anesthetic gases because he felt it was better to keep using the methods you were most familiar with.

“Even if they’re more dangerous than newer, safer drugs?” I asked him in amazement.

Even so, he insisted. I guess the prospect of learning the new methods of anesthesia was just too much change for him to contemplate.

Bottom line: If you ask how the veterinarian handles anesthesia or pain management and are brushed aside with outdated information, it’s time to walk.

Read the rest of my tips here.

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