Shedding is a top complaint for dog owners, but there’s one quick tip you can use for quick, short-term control.
If you’re entertaining or visiting someone else’s home, use a light mist of hair spray on your dog beforehand. It will keep the hair mostly on your pet instead of your clothing or the furniture.
Be sure to pick a product that’s free of harmful ingredients. If you’re not sure, ask your veterinarian!
Are you risking unexpected veterinary expenses because of misconceptions about how pet insurance works?
When I partnered with Embrace Pet Insurance in an educational campaign to end economic euthanasia, I heard from a lot of pet owners and veterinary colleagues about their problems with pet insurance, most of which were based on outdated or incorrect beliefs.
I’m glad to see Embrace has tackled nine of those misconceptions head-on in a recent article on their website. It includes:
1. Pet health insurance doesn’t get in the way of your relationship with your pet’s veterinarian; it removes a financial barrier that’s already there. With a good pet insurance plan, you and your veterinarian can make decisions based primarily on the best interest of the pet and your vet’s medical advice, rather than money. Your pet insurance company won’t be involved with treatment decisions in any way.
2. There’s nothing to gain, and plenty to lose, by waiting to get insurance for your pet. Just like you can’t get covered for a wrecked car after it’s already been in an accident, or buy flood insurance when your house is already four-feet deep in mud and water, you can’t buy insurance to pay for an illness your pet already has. You have to have active coverage when the issue first becomes apparent in order to receive benefits. You can understand my heartbreak when friends call me from the emergency vet looking to sign up for pet insurance—by this point, it’s too late to get covered for that condition.
3. Pets who have had past illnesses or injuries can still be insured. Pet insurance companies will cover your pet in spite of a prior health issue. For example, if your dog has a history of fatty lipoma tumors, we won’t cover any additional lipoma treatments. However, if your dog develops cancer, it’s covered! If you’re not sure about what’s pre-existing or related to a pre-existing condition, ask one of our agents about a medical history review of your pet’s records.
4. Genetic conditions are covered. While not all pet insurance companies have the same policy, Embrace doesn’t view genetic conditions as pre-existing as long as they have not been diagnosed or shown clinical signs/symptoms before the policy was purchased or during the waiting period.
Read the rest here.
We are so fortunate that our dogs and cats are living longer than ever before and have access to the highest levels of veterinary care. At some point, though, just as with people, nothing more can be done. That doesn’t always mean that euthanasia must be the next step. More and more, people are turning to end-of-life programs that help to ease a pet’s journey out of life in a way that maintains comfort, while giving his family extra time with him.
Known as “pawspice,” a term coined by veterinary oncologist Dr. Alice Villalobos, it allows people and veterinarians to work together to increase survival time, ensure quality of life, relieve pain and recognize when it’s time to say goodbye. That philosophy of maintaining quality of life honors the human-animal bond, Dr. Villalobos says.
“Pawspice is not abandoning the disease,” she says. “It’s palliative medicine that involves treating the disease.”
Palliative medicine includes pain management, infection control, nutritional support and complementary therapies, such as acupuncture or massage. Pets who receive it often have longer survival times, giving human and animal more time together before the pet’s death.
If you have a terminally ill pet, talk to your veterinarian about a pet hospice plan. One of the things you’ll need to do is to assess your animal’s quality of life. Answering the following questions can guide you. Score criteria on a scale of 0 to 10. A score of 35 or higher suggests good quality of life, while a lower score may mean you need to make changes to improve your dog’s or cat’s situation or consider whether it’s time to let him go.
Find out if your pet is a good candidate for pawspice care, and how to discuss it with your veterinarian, in this week’s Pet Connection.
The FDA issued a stern warning to the manufacturers of certain tear stain removers, saying that the products contain a drug not approved for cats and dogs.
From their announcement:
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is issuing warning letters today to companies manufacturing unapproved animal drugs to remove tear stains in dogs and cats. These products, including Angels’ Eyes, Angels’ Glow, Pets’ Spark, and exported products Glow Groom and Health Glow, have not been reviewed by FDA for safety and effectiveness. These tear stain removers also contain the medically important antibiotic tylosin tartrate, which is not approved for use in dogs or cats, nor for the treatment of conditions associated with tear stains. Tear stain remover products are used to treat tear staining conditions around the eyes of animals, which, in particular, is associated with a condition called epiphora, mostly in cats and dogs.
FDA has serious concerns about unapproved animal drugs. Unapproved animal drugs are not reviewed by FDA and may not meet FDA’s strict standards for safety and effectiveness.
These tear stain drug products may be subject to additional enforcement action should the products continue to be marketed, such as seizure of violative products and/or injunction against the manufacturers and distributors of the violative products.
To read the FDA’s warning letter to Angels’ Eyes, made by a company called I’m a Little Teacup, click here.
To read the FDA’s warning letter to Angel’s Glow, made by Blanc du Blanc, Inc., click here.
To read the FDA’s warning letter to Petaware, the maker of Pets’ Spark, Glow Groom, and Health Glow products, click here.
Are avocados toxic to pets? It depends.
A reader wrote saying she hears all the time that avocados are bad for dogs, but her boyfriend’s dog eats them all the time and looks and feels great.
My Pet Connection co-writer and I had heard avocados are toxic for pets, too, so as we started investigating the topic. We learned that while an ingredient in the seed (pit), bark and leaves of an avocado plant contain an oil-soluble toxin called persin, it’s not toxic to dogs and probably isn’t toxic to cats, either. It can kill birds and horses, however.
Here’s more of what we found out:
While avocados might not be toxic to dogs and cats, that big pit could cause an obstruction in the esophagus, stomach or intestinal tract if a pet tries to down it. You don’t want to have to deal with the bill for that emergency surgery. And any food that pets eat in large amounts could cause an upset stomach or diarrhea, especially if it’s something they’re not used to.
So a little bit of plain avocado probably isn’t going to poison your pet — with some important exceptions. Pet birds such as canaries, cockatiels, parakeets and large parrots are highly sensitive to persin, as are horses and cattle, and it can be deadly to them, (board-certified veterinary specialist in emergency critical care and toxicology) Dr. (Justine) Lee says. Never give your bird access to avocados in any form. Eating them can cause breathing difficulty, congestion and liver and kidney failure. Some birds may be saved with rapid treatment, but for many, it’s their final meal.
You can learn more about persin toxicity, as well as how to help your dogs beat the “back to school” blues, and more, in this week’s Pet Connection!