Share Christmas with Your Pets

Tinsel, Toys and Turkey

Over Christmas, dogs and cats have access to all sorts of things they would not normally see. Please enjoy the festive season with your pets, but be careful of the following:

Chocolate is toxic to dogs and cats. There's a lot of it about at this time of year. Be careful,especially with chocolate advent calendars and Christmas tree decorations

Tinsel can cause blockages in the intestine; do not allow pets to chase or eat it. The same applies to gift ribbon.

Don't feed your pets rich foods they are not used to. These can cause sickness and diarrhoea. Stick to a good quality dog or cat food as usual.

Give good quality, safe toys to you pets as Christmas presents. Make sure that the toys are tough enough and of the correct size for the recipient. Remove any features which your pet could chew off and eat.

If you have any Veterinary problems over Christmas or New Year, please telephone us as usual. If we are not available, our emergency services will be on call ensure your pets have the best treatment available.

Firework Treatment Starts Now

I love fireworks and look forward to Bonfire night, but there are lots of people and pets out there who don't.

Many dogs and cats are scared of fireworks, and need treatment to help them cope. For more information, read the article on our new look website.

Every year we treat pets who are terrified of fireworks and we have found that the best ways to help your pets are

Medicate - treat them and treat them early. The medications work best if they are started several weeks before fireworks are expected and continue for at least a week afterwards. There are several drugs which are used in combination to treat this phobia.

Change your behaviour - don't reassure them, either distract them or jolly them along. Shutting the curtains and playing music to block out noises can also help. (Just avoid the 1812 overture, 'cause they might not like the cannons!)

Den - make your pet a den where they can feel safe and secure

Prevention - use the special CDs to teach your pet not to be scared.

Additional excellent information can be found at the sound therapy website.

Not just dogs and cats

I thought you'd like to see a picture of one of the more unusual creatures we have treated recently.

We commonly have tortoises visiting the practice, as Mike Jessop, one of our partners has a special interest in tortoises and reptiles. This Sulcata tortoise was a rather memorable patient. It took two of us to carry him.

He had an operation under a general anaesthetic and is doing well.

Here's Leanne, our trainee nurse helping him back to bed.

Pet Smile Month

September is National Pet Smile Month and we are doing our bit to support dental care by offering free dental checks to any dogs or cats registered at the practice.

Dental disease is vastly under diagnosed and under treated in the UK. Studies show that 80% of dogs and cats have gum disease by the time they are three years old.

Initially dental disease is reversible, but it leads to reddened painful gums, tooth root exposure, holes through the enamel into the sensitive pulp and eventually loss of teeth. This is of course painful for your pet.

The trouble for many owners is that animals do not show signs of having a painful mouth until late in the course of the disease. Many owners never check their pet's mouths and are surprised when we show them what is going on. Yellowing tartar, broken teeth and smelly breath may be lurking inside your pet's mouth. Have a look today, or even better, let us look for you.

All pets who have a dental examination during Pet Smile Month will be given a free dental care guide and a goodie bag containing a fingerbrush, toothpaste and information about dental care. For owners we are offering 10% off dental procedures booked and performed during September and the same discount on dental care products.

To find out more about Pet Smile Month visit
http://www.petsmile.org/home.html
or ask one of our vets, nurses or receptionists and look out for more about dental disease during the month of September.

Congratulations to Leanne

Sorry for the silence on the blog, but I've been so busy that I haven't had a chance to update recently. With the schools off, our vets, like most other families have been on holiday, so those of us who were left behind have been really busy.

I wanted to use this blog to congratulate Leanne Roberts, our trainee veterinary nurse who passed her first set of nursing exams this week. Leanne has worked very hard all year and we're very proud of her.

Veterinary nursing takes a lot of commitment from the students. Most veterinary nurses work full time; attending college once a week on a day release basis and studying in the evenings and at weekends. The two year course involves college assignments, examinations and a portfolio based on the cases they help to treat whilst they are in practice.

The portfolio involves a large number of case reports, of varying lengths covering all aspects of animal management and veterinary care. In order to complete it, the nurses have to research and learn a huge amount of information.

One of our other nurse trainees attends a full time four year course at Bristol University. This will give her a degree in veterinary nursing, which includes equine nursing and advanced medical and surgical nursing.

Because they have this level of knowledge and understanding of a range of subjects, we encourage our nurses to promote pet health in their free nursing clinic. These cover a variety of conditions including dental care, pain clinics, puppy and kitten health monitoring, weight loss clubs and the after eight club for senior pets. As with human nurses they can measure blood pressure, analyse urine and take and process blood samples.

We're really proud of our nurses and the commitment they show to pet health care. Look out for them the next time you're in the practice and if you have a question about your pet's health, then ask away.

New Ultrasound Machine

We've just had out new ultrasound machine delivered and we're very pleased with it. We had an older machine, which was top of the range when we got it ten years ago, but obviously technology has moved on since then and we felt that we should do so too.

Whilst the images on the old machine were ok, we wanted something better - picture the difference between a old black and white television and a high definition, flatscreen tv.

We were particularly interested in getting better pictures of dog and cats' abdomens. With an ultrasound machine we can look at all sorts of organs in a conscious animal, avoiding the need for anaesthetics. Of course we can look for pregnancies and the reproductive tract in both males and females, but we can study other organs including their liver, kidneys, spleen, intestines and bladder.

Because the new machine also has a Doppler function, we can look a blood flow within blood vessels and the heart. This will allow us to investigate a whole range of heart and other conditions. We can watch the blood flow in different directions, as with this picture of jugular blood vessels.

We can also measure across the heart to see if the chambers are narrowed or the heart wall is thickened.

We're looking forward to using the new machine to help treat dogs and cats. I think it looks a bit like Wall-E, the robot in Pixar's new film; I'm hoping it's not smart enough to develop a life of its own, whilst we're out.

Identichips Reunited

In a lovely finish to our microchip month, there was a fantastic example of why it is worth having your pet identichipped. A dog who belongs to one of our clients, had been missing for almost a year, when he was taken in to our emergency service in Ystrad Mynach.

They scanned him, because he had been found as a stray and he was reunited with his owners later that evening.

The same week, two dogs who had been involved in a road traffic accident were brought in to our surgery in Merthyr Tydfil. Because they had been identichipped, we were able to contact the owner and after treatment, they were returned home.

Articles in the Merthyr Express and Cynon Valley Leader telling Cringer's story can be found at

The chips are up for Cringer

Cringer comes home