pet connection

Last week, word hit the street that Novartis Animal Health received FDA approval for an oral non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) for use in cats — the very first such medication for felines.

This is great news. Cats have traditionally been the also-rans in the world of veterinary pharmaceuticals — an afterthought, if thought of at all. I have been a practicing veterinarian for 25 years, and continually frustrated at how few medications get into my hands are approved for use in cats. So my response to this news is, huzzah!

The chemical name of the new drug is robenacoxib, and the trade name is Onsior.

It’s important to understand the context in which this product is approved. From the document in the Federal Register, it is approved for “control of post-operative pain and inflammation associated with orthopedic surgery, ovariohysterectomy, and castration in cats weighing at least 5.5 pounds (2.5 kg) and at least 6 months of age, for up to a maximum of 3 days.”

Always best to start with the precise verbiage associated with the approval of such a product. Looking carefully at the language of this approval, it is a fairly narrow application — an oral formulation, around surgery, only for 3 days, cats must be at least 6 months old and weigh at least 5.5 pounds. The recommended dose is 1 mg/kg given once daily, and Onsior comes in a 6 mg tablet.

From the information I could find, the tablets are not designed to be split, though I need to confirm that detail. Limitations aside, this is the very first oral NSAID made available to veterinarians specifically licensed to use in cats as part of a post-operative pain management regimen.

I’ll take it, restrictions and all.

The licensure process means that we have data demonstrating both efficacy and safety in the target specie (the cat). It also opens the door for ongoing research into using this drug for other painful conditions in the cat such as trauma or wounds, and the biggie, osteoarthritis.

Is this the “magic bullet” for cats? Nope. No such thing. As with any pharmacologic tool in our “pharmatarium,” Onsior demands the same respect as any other NSAID. Common sense cautions for the veterinary practitioner considering this medication include not using this (or any NSAID):

• in a cat with GI ulcers
• at the same time as a corticosteroid
• with another NSAID
• for a cat who is dehydrated
• for a cat with impaired kidney, heart, or liver function.

These precautions fall into the category of advocating for what is best for the patient, and looking at the condition of the whole patient before making a decision.

Perhaps this approval will open a door for more scrutiny and attention to what else our feline companions need to enhance their health, wellness, and comfort.

What do other cat-lovers think?

Photo credit: Dr. Robin Downing

Share & Enjoy

Facebook	Twitter	Google Buzz	Digg
Technorati	StumbleUpon	Delicious	Email

Undercover photographic evidence has been used countless times to expose things like public corruption and police brutality. However, did you know that secret video proof of animal abuse can land you in jail? In Iowa, Florida and Minnesota, legislation is working its way through state houses to outlaw what has always been a common tool for animal advocates. From the New York Times:

A bill before the Iowa legislature would make it a crime to produce, distribute or possess photos and video taken without permission at an agricultural facility. It would also criminalize lying on an application to work at an agriculture facility “with an intent to commit an act not authorized by the owner.”

While the laws are meant to keep animal activists from revealing some farming practices (like shocking treatment of dairy cattle exposed in recent years), the proposals will also help keep puppy-mills behind the curtain of secrecy. They  could even protect poorly run shelters from being exposed (cough cough, Memphis, cough cough), argues the website care2.com:

The legislation proposed in Minnesota attempts to crack down on activists who have exposed repeated animal welfare violations. Among its provisions, the bill targets anyone who documents an “image or sound” of animal suffering in a sweeping list of “animal facilities,” including factory farms, animal experimentation labs, and puppy mills.

According to Will Potter, author of “Green Is the New Red: An Insider’s Account of a Social Movement Under Siege,” Minnesota’s House File No. 1369 goes even further.

The bill, introduced by six Republicans, also includes a number of other provisions that have popped up in “eco-terrorism” bills and “animal enterprise terrorism” laws over the years. Similar legislation has also been introduced in Florida and Iowa to target undercover investigators.

The Minnesota bill includes a number of dangerous parts. Among the most important:

1. “Animal facility interference.” This provision targets those who, without the owner’s consent, “produce a record which reproduces an image or sound occurring at the animal facility.” Even worse, it targets those who “possess or distribute a record which produces an image or sound occurring at the animal facility.”

Translated: Taking pictures and videos is illegal, but so is uploading them to YouTube for public consumption. Anyone else have a problem with this?

Community supported agriculture for pets! I have friends from Maine to California who participate in community-supported agriculture (CSA) programs. Perhaps you do it in your area. But here’s a new wrinkle: CSA for dog food. Kim Thornton sent me this link from the Village Voice, about Jake Dickson of Dickson’s Farmstand Meats in New York.

The new “dog-food program,” Dickson explains, “allows us to close the loop completely so we’re nearing zero waste.” The parts that he doesn’t have much use for, such as the 80 pounds of beef liver he receives each week, make ideal canine sustenance. But rather than just package and sell them as is, Dickson partnered with Stacy Alldredge, a dog trainer and canine nutritionist who, Dickson says, “is a big advocate of cooking real food for pets.”

Great idea. Use naturally-grown agricultural products that would otherwise go to waste, give dogs fresh, nutritious meals, and support local farms. Everybody wins. To see how this concept works already, check out the SFRaw co-operative, to which Christie and Gina both proudly belong.  It’s a little different in operation, but the local, sustainable and humane ethic is the same.

“I’m not asking you. You’re not nice.” Dogs beg people for food. Not exactly a news flash, is it? Here’s the kicker: it seems dogs know who to ask, by paying close attention to how people interact with each other. This article from The New Scientist article on the finding is frankly scaring me. (thanks, Patti S.)

Luxury in Boston for all: The Boston Globe spotlights the trend we’re developing here in the Boston area for creating –  and supporting –  ultra-luxurious vacation spots for pets. As a Red Sox fan, I found this next snippet irresistible.

At Fenway Bark, the best room in the house, the 72-square-foot Owner’s Box, costs $150 per night. True, that’s almost as much as the $155 average daily rate for human hotels in the Greater Boston area, according to the Massachusetts Lodging Association, but it does come with unlimited dog-owner Skype sessions, bottled water upon request, and custom-made beds with 6-inch orthopedic foam.

The Skype was a perk that Tara Philbin of South Boston could not resist. Before heading off to her bachelorette party in New Orleans Saturday, Philbin downloaded the Skype app so she could chat with her boxers Declan and Kiera.

I particularly like Fenway Bark‘s website. Check it out, unless you’re a Yankees fan, in which case you should just move on to the next paragraph.

Highlights from around the Pet Connection Blogosphere. Recent posts I particularly like from our distinguished blogroll:

A shout out to Ingrid: Our own Ingrid King‘s personal blog The Conscious Cat has a post I particularly like. This one is about World’s Best Cat Litter and how they’re supporting shelter causes in Texas.

Woo Woo! Photo essay posts from Three Woofs and a Woo always make me smile.

Happy Tax Day: Love this cartoon from SmartDogs.

Finally, speshal nom from icanhascheezburger.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

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: Memphis Animal Shelter video snapshot courtesy of YesBiscuit.wordpress.com.

Share & Enjoy

Facebook	Twitter	Google Buzz	Digg
Technorati	StumbleUpon	Delicious	Email

True confession: I really hate doing pet product reviews. It’s not that I don’t have opinions. I have lots of them. It’s just that most of the stuff I’m asked to review is cheap plastic crap destined for the land fill, or doggy junk food. But, as I write in my SFGate.com column this week:

(T)hat doesn’t mean I don’t love stuff — I do. I just want items that are truly useful, and of good quality. And I want a clear conscience, so when I review something, it’s always a product I bought with my own money, on my own initiative, and one that I really use.

I realized just how much I value some of my favorite dog products when I tried to narrow down the packing list for an upcoming cross-country trip.

The dogs and I will be spending our summer in Michigan, and anything that’s going to earn its place in our tightly-packed U-Haul is definitely a “must-have” product in my book.

My test dogs are Kyrie, a 69-pound, 12-year-old borzoi with arthritis and a long, shiny coat that looks quite glamorous but is a grooming nightmare, and Rawley, a 103-pound, one-year-old Scottish deerhound with a propensity for long-distance running and sofa-cushion destruction.

These are the products Rawley, Kyrie and I can’t live without… (Read the rest here…)

Hint: The Kong Wobbler is number one!

Photo: Jack, one of the dogs at the Maddie’s Fund office. He belongs to Shelley Thompson, who found him on an Alabama roadside and adopted him. Thanks, Jack, for being such a great model! I tried to take some photos of Rawley — that’s his crate in the back of my car — but dark dog in a dog crate interior equals a bad photo!

Share & Enjoy

Facebook	Twitter	Google Buzz	Digg
Technorati	StumbleUpon	Delicious	Email

This week Dr. Becker and I are wrapping up “Your Cat: The Owner’s Manual” for publication next spring with the fantastic assistance of Jana Murphy and our own Kim Campbell Thornton, not to mention the scores of top veterinarians and other experts we’ve ask for input and review to make sure we have the latest and greatest in  feline information. And just 15 days after that manuscript goes to the publisher, the book we wrote last spring, “Your Dog: The Owner’s Manual,” gets its official launch by Dr. B on “Good Morning America.”

He’ll stay in NYC to do a circuit of national shows, make a fast stop in Princeton, NJ, for a book-signing, and then fly to Houston to meet me, my dog McKenzie, and a 45-foot wrapped bus and a  crew consisting of tour manager, bus driver and a couple of tour assistants to help with events and drive the chase car. On April 25, we start our BIG Bus Tour, with a series of events in Houston, then hop on the bus for the drive to New Orleans … then Tampa … then Miami … then Jacksonville … then … well, you get the picture. Our days will start before dawn with media interviews, then a lunchtime event for veterinarians, then a public event at a PETCO. Every day, five days a week, for seven weeks.  (Above is what the bus will look like, so please wave if you see us!)

Yes, it’s completely insane, as all truly wonderful ideas are.

We’ve been planning it for months, and at times we weren’t sure we’d pull it off. The number of moving pieces in a tour like this is truly astonishing, and if any one of them doesn’t fit just so  the whole enterprise is in peril. But we locked them in, one by one, with the help of Dr. B’s agent’s team and my own much-appreciated Sacramento graphic designer and web team, as well as our publicist, Kathie Kerr, whom you’ve already met.

For those of you near one of those 30 cites, I hope you can turn up and say hello. Here are the details. But really, that’s not what I’m writing about today.

I have four dogs, one cats, eight chickens and two ducks. Getting personally ready for this tour is, for me, something akin to planning the invasion of Normandy. Although I’m not an inexperienced traveler, packing to be away from home for nine weeks (I’m leaving early for Texas to visit with my friend Mary on her ranch before the trip) is pretty challenging. At least McKenzie, who’ll be the official tour dog, doesn’t need to pack clothing — two simple vests with her name on them (one red, one purple) will be her entire wardrobe for the tour, along with some fancy leashes and collars. Throw in some tennis balls, a lot of poop bags, 40 pounds of Honest Kitchen, some probiotics to help prevent G-I upsets (I’ll be on my own probiotics as well!), Frontline and Heartguard, a crate, some shampoo and the all-important tennis balls (so important I list them twice) and she’s set.

Not so me.

Every week we’ll have a day for laundry and rest, sometime two, so there’s that. But I still have to pack enough “business casual” to get me through five or six days straight, with enough diversity to handle everything from heat waves to downpours. Oh, yes, and since my role (in addition to dog-walker) is reporting on the tour, my biggest challenge is electronic: Coordinating the laptop, iPad, videocam, smartphone and digital SLR for a continuous stream of updates to multiple media platforms  — including McKenzie’s page! Honestly, I love that stuff, so the actual work of it is a challenge I can’t wait to tackle. But the packing? Ohhhhhh … hate.

Then there’s the home front issue, and in this, I got lucky. A former colleague who’s between homes will be staying at the house with his dog, caring for the animals who remain here, Ilario and the poultry. Since he’s a writer, he’ll also be taking over my pet duck’s popular Facebook fan page.

As for the three dogs not traveling with me: Drew is staying up north with regular blog commenter Susan Fox. Faith, the youngest retriever, left for Mary’s ranch a month ago (I’m taking advantage of the opportunity to get the youngster field-trained, since Mary’s one of the best field trainers around). Woody and McKenzie will drive to Texas with me, and Woody will then stay on the ranch for a vacation — although I doubt Mary can stand to keep from putting more training on him, too!

You know … now that I type it all out, the fact is most everything IS locked down, and I’m in great shape! I guess really, there’s not much else to do but enjoy the adventure. And yes, I intend to!

Share & Enjoy

Facebook	Twitter	Google Buzz	Digg
Technorati	StumbleUpon	Delicious	Email

The invitations start a couple weeks before Global Pet Expo, just a trickle of e-mails that grows steadily as the countdown to the massive trade show’s opening nears. By the time you hop on a plane for Orlando, you swear you’ve heard from every one of the hundreds of vendors, sometimes multiple times, each begging you to visit their booth and find out about their products. I’m not an easy sell when it comes to pitches, and I prefer to mosey through the aisles on my own. So I mostly ignore the entreaties, and it wasn’t any different last week at GPE until a text message came through on smartphone Friday morning:

Would you like to meet Nina Ottosson? She’ll be in our booth today at 3 p.m.

Now you’re talking! I’m on my way!

I’m not one to be wowed by “celebrity”; in fact, I asked our Ericka Basile to look in on the whole Cesar Millan shebang because I couldn’t be bothered. Victoria Stillwell was being honored at the media reception I skipped. The year before … Rachel Ray. Whatever. Got nothing against any of them, just couldn’t care less. Same with actors, sports starts, politicians. Not even actors/sports/politicians, and as proof I offer Arnold Schwarzenegger, who I almost literally bumped into outside a Sacramento eatery a couple years ago and all I said was, ” ‘Scuse me, governor” and kept walking. (He didn’t say anything, but one of the bodyguards grunted.)

But Nina Ottosson? I had to know: Why? When? How?

When I told our David Greene I was going to interview Nina Ottosson, he observed it was the first time he’d ever seen me at all star-struck. Well, sure. I mean seriously, does someone just wake up one morning and decide to start inventing the coolest line of dog toys ever? How does that happen, exactly? So off I went, in search of answers. And yes, to meet Nina Ottossson.  David tagged along to shoot a video interview, and Ericka to get some pictures.

Nina  was to be at the booth of  The Company of Animals, a U.K. based business founded by Dr. Roger Mugford, himself more than a little bit famous in dog training and behavior circles, and also as charming and friendly a person as you’d care to meet. He showed me a picture of his prized Devon bull and we talked a few minutes about sustainable small-holding farming while we waited for someone to find where Nina had gone. She turned up shortly, and happily started talking about how she came to design interactive dog toys, stopping now and then to find the word she was looking for in English (she’s Swedish).

First surprise? She isn’t — or at least wasn’t — a dog trainer or designer when she started, some 20 years ago.

“I was a normal dog owner, a nurse by training,” she said. “I had two children very quickly, and I didn’t think my dogs were getting what they needed. I was always aware that dogs have four legs and one brain, and they all need exercising. So I began.”

She labored in obscurity for many years, she said, and the initial reaction to her work was not encouraging. “I was working as a nurse by day and working on this at night,” she said, waving her arm at a display of her toy collection. “People said I was crazy. But I believed so hard this was good for dogs, and I kept at it for 10 years without much success.”

Finally, a behaviorist saw one of her products and contacted her … then a couple of veterinarians … the word spread and she was on her way. About five years ago she finally broke through with some international recognition, and now, with those two children all grown up, she’s making a living at the work she loves.

“It’s about building relationships,” she says. “And also recognizing that all dogs need something to keep them busy, working and happy. These are toys all dogs can use, even the very old. And they’re toys every pet-owner can use, as well. In fact, I’m really happy to tell you that these toys are used by people who have service dogs. A disability doesn’t keep anyone from helping a dog get some exercise. In Sweden, we’re now using these toys in nursing homes, with stroke victims using them to interact with dogs, and it’s really helping them!”

Nina has two new toys coming out soon. She showed them to me but made me promise not to write about them, so I won’t. But I will say I’ll be among the first to order them, but my dogs won’t be the first to try them: Everything she designs is tested by her own Bouviers first.

Before we left the booth, she handed me a toy to use as a giveaway. It’s the Dog Brick, which just happens to be the toy McKenzie’s puppies played with when they were seven weeks old, and also the toy I sent with them to their new homes. I don’t really have time to set up running a real contest, so you’re going to have to trust me to draw randomly for a winner. Put “NINA OTTOSSON” in your subject line and send an e-mail with your name and mailing address to McKutie@gmail.com by 9 a.m. PT on Friday, and I’ll choose a winner then.

Bonus: Here’s Nina Ottosson talking about her creations:

.

.
Image: Me and David interviewing Nina Ottosson (taken by Ericka)

***
Oh, and speaking of Victoria Stillwell, she came by to say hello to Dr. Mugford while I was interviewing Nina Ottosson, so a got a couple minutes with her, too. Smart, charming and real. I liked her. A lot. Here we all are with Dr. Mugford:

.

Right after this picture was taken, someone asked, “Can we get another without … uh … whoever you are?”Ha!

Share & Enjoy

Facebook	Twitter	Google Buzz	Digg
Technorati	StumbleUpon	Delicious	Email