Ask questions and share about your pet's health to help others.
Christina Chambreau, what do you consider safest while effective tick preventive?
My cat has been dragging her rear and licking it excessively. She has not responded to deworm medicine or more liquid in her diet (incase of constipation). I noticed a white discharge from her vagina. She is fixed and about 7yrs old.
5 weeks ago my cat was diagnosed with acute pancreatitis with pli levels of 28.5. She’s been on prednisolone since then but her current levels are over 50. Is this drug causing the levels to be so high?
I have a very skittish and small cat that has been eating off and on for the last 2 weeks. She will come out for feeding but only eat a little but will revisit later to munch a little more. I’d say she is eating 50% of what she normally does. Nothing has changed- food, environment, placement, etc. I read how to safely put the cat in the crate, but our problem is just catching her. She only comes out from her basement territory for feeding and late night love when things are calm. She does sleep with us. I have tried trial runs to catch her but she either runs as I approach and darts through her basement cat door where she disappears or if I do get my hands on her she screams, wiggles, scratches and out of fear of hurting her or me I let go, those claws are sharp! In the evening during love time I blocked the cat door and tried to catch her, she flipped out. I tried enticing her with food and cat treats, she is too smart for that, lol. My wife can handle her more than I can and she too has tried without success. We have never been able to pick her up and hold her. She appears and acts perfectly normal. My wife is worried about her and if this continues, she thinks a vet visit may be in order (yet another vet visit, we should buy stock, lol). If we ever get her to the vet, she is their problem then, lol. She is 3 years old and other then when she was a kitten, has never been to the vet because of the above reasons. She is indoor only. Any advice on how to catch this wild crazy cat without hurting her or us?
She sounds super cute and a handful 🙂 Dont have anything to add, but have an injured kitten that im handling who sounds very similar to yours before she got injured. Didn’t know a drop trap even existed until now. i like it! Will try finding one for my next vet visit.
My 6 month pug puppy diagnosed with hip dysplasia. The vet has said with rest this should correct itself in next 6 month but everything iv said says this is not the case!! Advice needed ….do I need a second opiniom???
His xrays showed hip dysplasia but told to rest him (very hard when he is an excitable crazy pup). But reading on treatment options there’s a number that can only be done before arthritic changes begin to show or under 1 year of age…..by time he goes for next xrays he will be over a year!! I feel like will be offending the vet if I ask for a referral
Hi Amy,
I’d like to share something that was suggested to me here and did wonders. Keep reminding yourself that you, your puppy and your vet are on the same team! Show your vet and the staff that you are grateful, it could be something small like simply smiling and saying thank you, a helium balloon with some chocolates or anything small to show your appreciation will go a very long way.
I think that step would help the vet not to feel offended and instead be part of the follow ups.
Its never bad to have a second opinion 🙂
Warm wishes to you and your puppy,
Caroline
My dog is vomiting and pooping blood and not eating her breakfast (just breakfast) and we have already taken her to the vet and she couldn’t find anything and gave us special food but it doesn’t seem to work. What could possibly be wrong?
One of the challenges of conventional medicine is a limited number of both diagnostic and treatment options. Depending on what your vet said yesterday (I assume after Dr. Krista’s comment you did call the vet back) this may be a time to seek integrative care.
I
strongly recommend finding an integrative veterinarian with whom to work because they are trained in many different approaches, including using conventional
drugs only when absolutely needed. Working with one can increase the chance
that your cherished companion can live a long and healthy life after recovering
from this current problem. There are good ones and great ones, and a few
homeopathic veterinarians will consult by phone or email. You can go to the web
sites for each type of holistic practice and use their referral list to find
one near to you. If this interests you, please read my article on selecting a holistic vet at my site. Many practitioners are members of only one or two of the
organizations, so you do need to go to every site to find who is near you:
1. Wide range of other treatments: http://www.AHVMA.org, American Holistic Veterinary
Medical Association and http://www.civtedu.org.
2. Homeopathic veterinarians (these can often help you by phone if no other
holistic practitioners are nearby that you like): http://www.theAVH.org and http://www.DrPitcairn.com.
3. Chiropractic and Osteopathic – http://www.animalchiropractic.org;
http://equineosteopathy.org/ (they
treat dogs, too)
4. TCVM (Acupuncture and Chinese medicine): http://www.IVAS.org,
http://www.aava.org & http://www.TCVM.com
5. Herbal
– http://www.VBMA.org
Hi Amy,
Im not an expert but i don’t think its normal that they haven’t found what’s wrong. Maybe if she needed more time for test results or more info from your end like if your dog ate something spoiled or if he has diarrhea or something… Contact your vet again and tell her the special dog food isn’t working. If the vet keeps saying “i dont know” I’d always go for a second opinion just as you would with a child. Vomiting and pooping blood are signs that the dog needs medical attention.
Hope she feels better soon,
Caroline.
Laboratory studies need to be done on her if they have not been already. Specifically, a blood panel. One concern that comes to mind is immune-mediated thrombocytopenia which is what my girl, Hannah, died of. You did not mention her age? Hannah was 5-weeks short of 8 years old. Older dogs are more susceptible to immune-mediated diseases – just like humans. However, immune-mediated diseases can affect younger dogs, too. Just like humans.
The key signs for immune-mediated thrombocytopenia would be a blood panel that showed low platelet counts because they are being consumed through an immune-mediated process. Low platelets when the count reaches to a certain level – about 50,000 – can lead to spontaneous bleeding in both the dog and the human. Platelets are responsible for our clotting mechanism. i.e., without them, we will freely bleed and bruise (both, internally or externally) without a means of quelling the loss.
This will, then, lead to low red blood cell count as the dog or person will not be able to manufacture replacement cells to make up for the loss. The dog will be anemic. Dogs are stoic creatures and they can become pretty darn anemic before they will show us physical signs of their anemic state. They are people-pleasers and will compensate for their anemia.
With spontaneous bleeding, a dog can have gastrointestinal bleeding which would lead to bloody stools. The colon could be bleeding which would produce bright red blood per rectum or the bleeding could be higher up in the stomach or small intestines which would produce black and tarry stools.
Bleeding in the stomach can cause nausea and vomiting in the dog and person because blood is a somewhat caustic product. My Hannah was not vomiting but she had no appetite when the illness was clinically apparent. Unfortunately, I lost her because the veterinarian did not bother to carefully look at her laboratory studies that I had ordered.
In 5 days she will be 3 years old. And she is a beagle. I think I’ll go back to vet
This puppy is the last of a large litter, he was one of the only ones who would keep a clean crate/puppy pen. When the ground froze he discovered the practice of eating poo when he was outside in our fenced in yard. He was neutered a week and a half ago and we thought it would be an opportune time to remedy the poo eating issue since we had to leash walk him. He now refuses to poo outside, we do take him out every 1-2 hours and give a high value treat for pottying outside. He will go in his crate immediately after coming in and will immediately eat it. It almost seems that since I won’t allow him to eat what is in the yard he is just going to make his own snack. I will add that he is a very quick learner, he learned sit and down in an evening. He is very driven by treats and praise. He will urinate outside and looks to me for a treat and praise as he is going. He does not like to be in a messy crate, we know almost the moment it is soiled as he barks/whines and we clean it up. He will only poo in his crate, I do tether housetraining pups to me to eliminate the possibility of accidents (I try to set them up for success) and he has not accidents in the house. He will poo in his crate once I have exited the room where his crate is. I of course can smell the moment he goes, I run in the room and catch him eating it. I have gone as far as letting him out to potty in a pen thinking maybe he does not want to potty with an audience, I watch from a nearby slider but have only “caught” him pooing outside twice in a week and a half, both times I was able to deliver praise and a high value treat as soon as he was done. Lastly his crate is appropriately sized for him, it is a wire folding style crate that is just tall enough for him, he has enough room to lay, stretch out and turn around. This is something I would like to rectify as I know it will be a potential problem in a forever home.
Your puppy is just being a ……puppy! Sometimes the art of pet parenting is like the TV show Survivor–Outwit, Outsmart, Outlast.
Be diligent in cleaning up after your puppy poo’s. Do not give him the chance to play with or eat poo. Try placing the puppy on a leash when you take him outside to relieve himself, and do not allow him to inspect his poo. Distract him from by calling him to you, and when he responds appropriately, reward him with a treat and verbal encouragement (go crazy and act like he is the BEST PUPPY ON THE PLANET!) and then take him inside before you go back to pick it up.
If he hates poo’ing on the leash this is where the “Outlast” portion of the program comes into play. You just have to wander around the yard with him until he does it.
Some have found that adding meat tenderizer or natural additives to the puppy’s food makes a big difference, since these additives cause the stool to have a particularly unappealing smell that will discourage him from eating it. If you cannot immediately clean up the stool, or if there are some old stool piles in your yard, you can spray it with hot pepper sauce or mouth wash. It is more effective to just clean up after the puppy.
A good resource for puppy training is The Complete Idiots Guide to Dog Training. You can check it out of your local library. Good luck!!
Walking helps the bowels move. How about taking him on a walk when he comes out of his crate, and after he eats his meals. The walking will get him eliminating and you will have him on a leash to control his movements while you pick up the poop. This may work faster/better than turning him out in the yard and waiting, or wandering around the yard while he decides if he is going to poop or not.
It may also be so exciting to be out and about that he forgets he wants to poop inside where he can snack.
Good luck!
Thank you for the suggestions. I actually had given more info in the details when I posted that I am doing all of these. This isn’t a typical housebreaking issue but more of a compulsion to eat stool. The issue of eliminating in his crate began AFTER I restricted him from eating poo outside. In the past year alone I have fostered 30 puppies, all were well on their way to being housetrained when they were adopted. As a board member of a local rescue and seasoned foster I provide support to adoptive families on the subject of house training. My approach to house training is to set a dog up for success eliminating the possibility for accidents and rewarding appropriate elimination. I vary my method according to the dog as not all dogs respond to the same method. I have had great success with training dogs who have come from horrendous living conditions, spending months in their own waste.
There are products out there to make the poo taste bad and most of them (I believe) have the main ingredient of MSG, which is the same thing as meat tenderizer. Dr. Foster and Smith has a product called Dis-Taste, but I’m sure there are others. If a dose of MSG isn’t harmful, give it a shot!
Hello Jennifer. My Great Dane did this and then my Golden Retriever starting doing it. Learned behavior? I agree with Dr. Mag’s suggestions. I taught the leave it command and do not leave them unattended when it is ‘potty time.’ I tried to read a lot of remedies for this issue. What I found was mixed reviews on the food additives to deter the poop eating. I read about nutritional deficits and remedies. What I read and think was going on with mine was most dogs like to keep their play and living areas clean. Sometimes when a mother has a new litter, she will demonstrate this issue to keep the area clean for her pups. I too have a fenced in back yard which doubles as their play area when I cannot take them out in the unfenced area. I taught the leave it command and keep the area clean of feces. Somehow, imo, your dog has associated the crate pooping as safe but then cleans the area since it is his ‘safe spot.’ It took a few weeks to dissuade my dogs from doing this. Still, if I am not diligent about watching over them and keeping the area clean, the issue will persist. Your reaction whether positive or negative outside, may be influencing what the dog believes to be ok so he returns to his ‘safe’ area and only poops when he thinks you are not paying attention (because of your reactoin?) then gobbles the tasty morsel up for maybe cleaning? I found with my dogs when there is an unwanted behavior/issue the best reaction is no reaction. Remember, running to the crate to stop him may be interpreted as him doing something wrong so he tries to ‘destroy’ the evidence. It is learned somehow.
An anecdote. My very sensitive Great Dane when she was young had what I perceived to be separation anxiety when my wife and I would leave. We would come home and rugs would be chewed, pillows destroyed, etc. I would come in and immediately react, negatively. I posted on here and in short, the response was it was my fault. I was at first offended thinking I was a great doggy parent, but then I thought about it. My Dane associated our leaving with her getting negatively in trouble when we came home. This caused her great stress and her acting out was a reaction to fear and anticipation. I quickly changed my behavior. When I came home I would simply clean up what was destroyed and before leaving I would remove anything I could. I did not react. She would cower in her chair while I cleaned. I simply went about my business without noticing her. When I was done, once she came out of her chair, I acknowledged her and said hello. It was my responsibility to break the association, not the behavior. It took a little time, but we became successful. Now when we leave, we make it no big deal. When we come home, it is not a big deal. She isn’t afraid of us leaving and her ‘just’ getting in trouble when we come home. We no longer come home to destroyed items or a fearful dog. I personified her hiding in her chair with her knowing she did something wrong. Nope. I taught her that when we come home I would yell at her so she anticipated that with great stress and fear.
Maybe, without knowing it, we teach our dogs to do negative things. The hard part is realizing and accepting it then correcting OUR behavior.
Good Luck!!!
” The issue of eliminating in his crate began AFTER I restricted him from eating poo outside.” Maybe he learned it is not ok to poop outside?
my dog has diarrhoea she has had it a few days but she seems happy enough i have just gave a dose of pro-kolin should i feed her
Three weeks ago we transitioned our Siberian husky from proplan to blue wilderness and since Monday he has had loose stool and last night he had diarrhea twice and the second time was real bad. What should I do to calm him belly down?
We changed from proplan to blue because we heard good things and we wanted to feed our 3 dogs better but now maybe not such a good idea.
i have to be honest…i used to feed blue wilderness. i LOVED that food…until they changed the formulation. it caused serious problems for my IBD-sufferer cat, so i stopped feeding it. it caused him uncontrollable diarrhea. my other cat also starting having bouts of diarrhea after the change, so i switched to Wellness.
maybe try Wellness CORE? we have had quite a bit of success with it.
Laura- that’s what one of my friends said too that they changed the ingredients. My husky could not stomach the blue so now we’re dealing with diarrhea bland diet and reintroduce what we use to feed them.
i’d say it’s been about 3 years? basically, when they started advertising heavily on TV and in the papers, it was immediately after they were purchased by another company. that’s when they changed the recipe…and it’s a shame, because it used to be a great food.
other options i’d consider: Horizon Pulsar, Costco’s Kirkland grain-free, Merrick (this didn’t work well for my dog but it does for many others, and it’s very affordable), Acana and Orijen (though these may be too rich…tread lightly here). if you hit Pet Valu up in Perry Hall, they should have free sample bags of some things to try.
How long for Drontal Plus to kill tapeworm and could the death of the worm cause stomach upset? (no vomiting, just upset)
The safest may take more patience while discovering what works best for each dog/person/location.
http://www.ShooTags.com make tags for people, dogs and cats that work in milder situations.
Noni – http://www.real-noni.com – orally as a treat. Several veterinarians started taking it and giving it to their dogs and cats after an herbal conference in Kauai (where it is
raised) and reported dramatic reductions in ticks.
Many essential oil sprays – VEtriScience has VetriRepel that you can get through my website, http://www.Myhealthyanimals.com; http://www.cedarcide is good to spray the perimiter
of your property and use topically; wondercide.com (similar); and others; Neem & lemon grass are best per Dr. Winston;
Other internal products: by Earth Animal;
dog wise has a great tick puller. Mostly I do not mind if there are one or two ticks to pull.
finally, if a pet is healthy, they will be MUCH less likely to acquire an active tick borne disease, so that is still the main goal.
I haven’t tried the Shoo Tags yet, but I have found nothing really work for ticks — that is also not harmful to dogs and cats in the long run. I take the management approach:
After every walk where the dogs get into tall grass or shrubs, or into piles of leaves, each dog gets a quick comb with a very fine comb (similar to a flea comb — I use a Greyhound brand extra find tooth comb with 1 inch long teeth) that captures even the smallest tick. Some days I will comb as many as 20 ticks from my terrier that needs to put his head into every hole he finds.
Then that night or the next morning while we are relaxing on the sofa or in bed, I slowly work my finger tips thru their fur all around their head, ears, collar and chest (where most ticks attach), feeling for the tick or two that got missed by the comb. I keep an air-tight jar on the coffee table and one on my night stand to drop the ticks I find into so I am not jumping up to flush the little buggers, then I empty the jar every few days into the toilet and flush.
The last thing I do, just to be sure — is have my dogs tested for Lyme and the other tick diseases each time they go to the vet (once or twice a year usually). Three of my 4 dogs have popped positive for a tick delivered disease in the last 3 years (different diseases, different times of the year) — dispite having all my dogs on Revolution year round (to prevent heartworm and mange since we have mange in the foxes on the property). Revolution doesn’t seem to kill the ticks in my experience, and it so it cannot prevent them from giving Lyme and the other diseases to my boys.
I am going to give Christina’s recommendation of Shoo Tags a try.