Is "blood work" important for my pet?
One of the most common questions I receive from friends about their pet’s veterinary care is one about the necessity of blood work for their pets. Often a veterinarian will request or even require that blood work be performed prior to a surgical procedure or before a prescription can be refilled. Does this sound familiar? Not only veterinarians ask for this information, but your own medical doctor requests the same. Why is it important?
Pet pals on airplanes!
Many airlines allow you to take your pets with
you on exotic vacations- check out this Fox News
has some great advice on doggy airlines!
Identification tags on an appropriately
fitted collar will expedite the return of your
lost pet!
Make sure the information is current.
Microchipping may assist in a pet’s safe return
should he/she slip out of a collar. Protect them
… they can’t protect themselves.
♥
Spay and Neuter!
For every human born in this country today, 45 cats and 15 dogs were
born. Do you have room at your house? Spaying and neutering your pets is
a simple and effective way to make sure we only have as many pets as we
can love.
10 Safest Cars for Pets
Bark-Buckle Up and Edmunds.com recently
announced a list of the Top 10 Pet Safe
Vehicles, based on areas available for
crates, crash-test ratings and other
bonuses cars offer that would make it
easier and safer to travel with a pet:
Raw pet food is a controversial topic among pet parents, veterinarians, industry, health
professionals, and government officials. So why feed our domesticated pets a raw diet? Are raw
diets really better than cooked food (canned and kibble)?
Pet Food: Then and Now The history of commercially prepared pet food is a relatively short one; cooked pet food has
only been available since the mid- 20th century. Prior to that, dogs and cats were fed table scraps or
left to fend for themselves. Cats, and to a lesser extent dogs, would hunt and consume raw prey
whole. Dogs are slightly different and are typically viewed as scavengers living in close association
with humans and eating garbage or any small prey they could catch. While these types of pre-
commercial diets would not be considered complete and balanced according to current AAFCO
guidelines, they were more consistent with the natural diet of our pets’ evolutionary ancestors.
Today, pet parents have access to several brands of commercially prepared raw frozen diets, such as
Nature’s Variety, that provide complete and balanced nutrition in a biologically and physiological
appropriate format.
Click here to read the whole article! (pdf)
E.P.A. to Review Safety
of Pet Flea and Tick Products
EPA advises: don't use dog products on
cats!
"Cats are particularly sensitive to an
insecticide called permethrin, the
active ingredient in some spot-on flea
and tick treatments. According to a
study published online in The Veterinary
Journal, cats overdosed with permethrin
insecticides can suffer tremors,
seizures, excess salivation, vomiting,
loss of appetite and death. Steven R.
Hansen, a veterinary toxicologist with
the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center,
said there have been cases in which a
cat has been poisoned by grooming a dog
that had been treated with a permethrin
pesticide, but such events, he said, are
"extremely rare.""
Read more (New York Times)
There’s A Top
for Every Kettle!
by Georjette Thomas,
One Of A Kind Pets I never knew
how true the declaration
was until witnessing
it for myself.
...read more...
