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Small Animals Blog

Block Bladders in Cats

Cats with blocked bladders urinate more frequently, and sometimes in abnormal places. They show signs of difficulty or pain when urinating and sometimes cry out when they try to urinate. There can be blood in their urine. Cats often lick themselves excessively as well. With little or no urine passed at all, your cat will become increasingly distressed. The blockage also means that the kidneys can not remove toxins, electrolytes and fluid from the body. This will cause serious problems that can be fatal. A urethral obstruction is therefore a true emergency, so contact the clinic immediately if you suspect your cat may have this!

 

Choosing the right puppy for me

Picking the right puppy can be a big and a tough decision and should not be taken lightly.

There are a lot of factors that need to be considered before making this choice.

Here are a few questions to consider:

· What size dog you would like? as they wont stay small for long

· Do you mind if their coat sheds? and do you have time for grooming?

· Does anyone in the house have allergies?

· How much time will you have to exercise your dog?

· Do you have enough space for a big dog?

· Can I afford a dog and its on going care?

Getting a new puppy is exciting; however it’s a big commitment, lasting many years. With this in mind it is important to make the right decision. You don’t want to be getting a Great Dane puppy in a flat in the middle of town as there won’t be enough space for it, even some small breeds in a flat will not be suitable, i.e a fox terrier as these dogs are very energetic and require a lot of mental and physical stimulation.

Having a puppy requires a lot of your time and attention, with toilet training, obedience, socialisation, mouthing, teething and stimulation. For the first couple of years of its life – it will be hard work! So if this is not suitable for your lifestyle or time commitments, then you can always adopt an adult dog, or consider fostering.

If you would like some advice on what breeds would be best suited or if now is even the right time,  pop in to one of our clinics and ask to speak to one of our friendly nurses.

         

Mister Bo Jangles

Mister Bo Jangles came to the clinic on the 1st of Aug, when Tessa our vet examined him, his breathing was not right, and he was working harder than normal to breathe. He had recently been hit by a tractor. X-rays were taken of his chest, identifying that he had a diaphragmatic hernia.

The diaphragm is made of muscle and tendon, its role is to separate the lungs in the chest, from the organs in the abdomen. A diaphragmatic hernia occurs when severe trauma causes the diaphragm to tear, and then things that should be in the abdomen move in to the chest cavity. Causing breathing difficulties as the lungs struggle to expand properly as their space has been taken up from the organs from the abdomen.

Mister Bo Jangles was taken to surgery to remove the abdominal organs from his chest, back to where they belong. In fact, most of his intestines and his liver had moved into his chest! Once this was surgically corrected, we then had the difficult task of trying to stich up his diaphragm. This was very hard as it is such a small space to be working in, and to ensure that there are no leaks in the diaphragm that could cause further complications.

During the surgery Brian the vet had the help of three nurses as it was such a high risk anaesthetic. He had one nurse dedicated to manually breathing for Mister Bo Jangles, as when you open up the abdomen and there is a hole in the diaphragm, it can no longer function to inflate the lungs. One nurse was closely monitoring the difficult anaesthetic. Also another nurse was scrubbed in holding vital organs out the way so that Brian could reach the tear in the diaphragm.

After the surgery a chest drain was placed to remove any excess air that had built up in the chest cavity. Mister Bo Jangles stayed in the hospital for three days having his chest drained every few hours. Once the air being drained had reduced the drain was removed and he was able to go home on strict rest. On follow up he has made a full recovery and is back to himself helping his dad out on the farm but keeping his distance from any moving tractors.

Pyometra Scare

Brown was brought in to see us because she was unwell, drinking & urinating a lot and not eating. Vet Brian ran an ultrasound over her abdomen and confirmed she had what's called a pyometra. Uterine pyometra is a condition affecting cats and dogs. It involves the uterus filling up with very nasty fluid making the animal very unwell. 
Brown underwent surgery to remove her ovaries & uterus. After 3 days of observation in the clinic she was back to her happy self and was able to go back home to her family! 💕
The second photo shows an example of a healthy dogs uterus and the 3rd photo shows Brown's uterus, clearly enlarged and filled with fluid.

Pyometra can occur 4–8 weeks after a bitch has a season. Sometimes owners will see a nasty discharge from the vulva. The dog will become more unwell, drink more, eat less & become lethargic. Once a bitch is older than six years, the risk of pyometra increases significantly.

The only way to protect bitches or queens from pyometra is to have them spayed. There are a lot of other health benefits associated with early spaying. Once a bitch has her first season the risk of developing mammary tumours later in life jumps from 0.5% to 25%. This steadily rises over the years to over 70% in bitches over six years of age.

  

++ PET OF THE MONTH - DECEMBER ++

Charlie came in to the Hawera clinic at the start of December feeling very unwell, he had been vomiting, and refusing food – very unlike him. Vet Adele could feel a hard lump in his tummy, and after x-rays and ultrasound were performed it was decided that Charlie needed a major abdominal surgery.

During surgery we found an intussusception (where part of the intestine, telescopes or slides inside itself). This portion of Charlie’s intestines had to be surgically removed, as the intestine had started to die off. The two open ends of intestine and colon were joined together, to form the first anastomosis (joining) of small to large bowel that we have ever performed here at TVC!

It was a risky procedure, but Charlie recovered very well and is now home with his loving family, trying to steal the other cats biscuits once again!

Maine Coon Love 🐾

 🐾❤️  Jaxx and Indie are now both over 8kgs and still growing!!
Nurses Natalie and Holly may be the ones getting carried on the next visit! 😝

++ PET OF THE MONTH - AUGUST ++

Budd came to see us as he was salivating a lot and it was slightly bloody in colour. He was playing fetch with his owner and ran to catch a stick but the stick got stuck in the ground and Budd ran into it. 
After his pre-med we were just able to see a very small part of the stick in the back of his mouth, in his soft palette. Budd had a full general anaesthetic and we were able to remove the stick that had broken off.
It was 6cm in size and left a hole in the back of his throat. After a good flush out of any other bits of stick left behind, some painkillers and antibiotics, he was able to go home.
Budd was such a wonderful patient and we hope the freak accident won't put him off playing fetch in the future!

++ PET OF THE MONTH - APRIL ++

Merlin was found and brought to us by the SPCA at the beginning of the year. His coat was extremely matted, dirty and probably very uncomfortable. Merlin was given the VIP treatment from our nurse team, washed, shaved and given plenty of love. He was re-homed to a new loving owner (Nurse Holly) who brings him in every couple of months to keep on top of his thick coat. Look at him today, a very clean, super friendly, beautiful looking cat!

It is so important to keep on top of your pet's grooming, if you dread the thought of trying to hold your cat still while trying to cut off a dag or two please give our nurses a call. All too often we have pets come in with scissor injuries that could be avoided. We are always more then happy to help where we can.

    

Beanie stays on all fours!

Beanie came home one day limping with an open wound on his back left paw after being missing overnight. His xray showed he had some broken, displaced and dislocated toes. With only one remaining functional toe and a big open infected wound it was unknown how he would cope and if it would in fact heal once operated on. In order to save his leg, it was decided to remove the broken and dislocated toes, preserve the one functional toe and the all important metacarpal pad. Because there is not much skin to play with around the paws and there was a lot of infected tissue, it was expected that the wound after surgery would open up to a certain extent. These wounds are managed as “open wounds” with bandaging and heal up quite well from the edges to the middle of the wound.

With two months of cage rest and some very attentive and dedicated owners, we managed to save Beanie's leg and he has recently got the OK to go outside.

Beanie is managing well with his one toe now and is very happy to be able to be back outside on 4 legs. 

Fleur

Fleur first presented to us as a very sad 10 week old Labrador. She had swollen joints and was reluctant to move, had weeping sores throughout her ears, over her face, and around her vulva. Fleur was also running a fever. After a thorough workup she was diagnosed with Juvenile Sterile Granulomatous Dermatitis, otherwise known as Puppy Strangles. This is an uncommon disease that strikes mostly puppies under 4months of age. They develop acute facial swelling, and enlarged lymph nodes, with sore spots developing on the face, in the ear, around the eyelids and the muzzle. These sores are initially sterile (have no known viral or bacterial component) however that can change as they weep and are open to new infections. Fleur was already unlikely to have this disease, but as her symptoms show, she had a bad case of it – less than 25% develop a sterile suppurative arthritis (the cause of her stiff, swollen joints) and fever. With early diagnosis puppies usually have an excellent prognosis. As you can see through the photos Fleur recovered well, and at her most recent visit, for her final puppy vaccination, was a beautiful, bouncy, healthy Labrador.

Fur ball anyone?

It was all hands on deck this morning with Aisha the 6 year old Leonberger in for a groom! A large black rubbish bag was filled with her excess hair, weighing in at 1.1kg! With summer around the corner Aisha will be feeling a lot more comfortable with a lighter coat.

   

Socks for Lunch!

Having just retrieved four stockings from the stomach of a blue heeler last month, we thought it would be a while before we had another case of a dog eating something silly.

But then George the Labrador walked through the door. Although he was pretty bright initially, he was vomiting frequently; and most worrying of all -  he’d lost his appetite (it takes a lot to put a labrador off his dinner). When we opened him up, the problem was obvious - a large wooly sock lodged in his small intestine. 

We removed the sock (after checking its pair wasn’t lurking elsewhere inside) and his intestines immediately looked happier.

We are delighted to report that he is making an excellent recovery - so much so that when he came in for his post operative check last week, his mum told us that he’d made a spirited attempt to swallow down a beanie hat just that morning…

  

Peppa

Introducing Peppa, an interesting case who came to our Hawera Clinic recently. Peppa is a very lovely one year old Blue Heeler who had an unfortunate incident with a pair of stockings.  She decided that she would like to eat them!  Peppa presented to us with vomiting and a painful abdomen (stomach).  We took some xrays of her abdomen to see what was happening and could see that her intestines were not normal and appeared to be gathered up in one area. Peppa had a linear foreign body and required surgery.  Linear foreign bodies occur when animals eat something long and thin which works its way through the intestines and causes the guts to bunch up and creates a blockage. Another classic example of this is when a kitten swallows some string.  We gave Peppa a general anaesthetic and opened up her abdomen and found the offending stocking. Three incisions were required to remove the whole length of it, two in her small intestine and one into her stomach.  Peppa improved in leaps and bounds after her major surgery and is now back to her happy self.  We hope Peppa has learnt her lesson and doesn’t decide to eat any more items of hosiery ever again!

  

Meg

Occasionally we get a case that reads like a good thriller - with an engaging character to root for, a strong plot with interesting twists, a race-against-time sense of urgency and, of course, a happy ending.

Meg’s visit to us ticked all of these boxes - which is why we’ve chosen her as our Pet of the Month for July.

Meg arrived with a very pale and mysterious demeanour - in this case caused by having half the amount of blood that a fit, healthy farm dog ought to have. In a neat piece of misdirection, she had been recently mated, and despite circumstantial evidence pointing to this as the prime suspect, the cause turned out to be something quite different. 

We had to work rapidly - Meg was continuing to lose blood and her condition was deteriorating - but with no diagnosis, we didn’t have a treatment plan. Being after 5pm, the external labs were shut so we had to figure out an answer quickly - and without their help.

After several tests and some detective work, we discovered the problem, and following a surprised corroboration by her owners, our prime suspect was ruled out as a red herring - and a new culprit was found - rat bait. Meg had been seen trying to sneak off with half a cake of the poison just two days previously. We started treatment immediately but we still needed to find a hero dog willing to donate their blood to step into the breach. Luckily Harley was on standby - a lovely big dog who is happy to trade blood for a bag of tasty dog food. 

We waited anxiously to see whether Meg would accept the new blood - which she did - and we were all relieved to see her gum colour turn from off-white, to a pale pink. 

By the next day, Meg was up and about and eating her breakfast. This is a photo of Meg and nurse Holly taken at Meg's check up appointment a week later - and we are delighted to report that she is well on the way to recovery!

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