A New Chapter

I am sitting at my desk with an almost empty glass of wine trying to decide how to make our big announcement.

After all after you move, get engaged, get married, have a baby, graduate from high school and college, you get to send an announcement , SO why can’t we announce this?

“We are excited to announce the arrival of Coot and Loon. They are the newest addition to our family at 7 and 8 pounds respectively. They arrived to our home on August 29, 2012 courtesy of their foster home at Jarrettsville Veterinary Center.”

How crazy is that? Announcing the arrival of our latest bundles of joy?

I don’t have children? I haven’t had an engagement party, a baby shower, a house warming, why can’t we have a new cat adoption announcement?

I have every intention of having these two as a part of my family for at least two decades. That’s three times longer than the average time someone lives in the same home. I think I am perfectly sane and within reason to make a really big deal about this. I should be shouting their arrival from the rafters and searching online for a super cute papery ensemble that accurately reflects my joy, excitement, and long term responsibility and commitment.

Perhaps adopting a cat (or two) is equivalent to buying an article of clothing or even a piece of furniture to some (hence their lack of fanfare and celebration), but for me it is on par with adopting a baby (or twins!).

It is a lifelong commitment (based on previous experience I expect every bit of twenty years) to raising a kind, gentle, affectionate soul who greets me at the end of each day with a hug, a purr and a gentle head butt.

We will spend their formative years going over which behaviors are appropriate, (purr, knead, cuddle, and keep us company through all of the long days and nights of life), and those that are inappropriate (killing small defenseless creatures, sharpening claws on furniture, jumping on the counter, and hissing at our brothers and sisters).

That’s my job after all, to be their parent, to help guide them, provide for them, to accept them as they are, the intricate complicated individuals that they are, and to love them unconditionally.

That's it, I'm websurfing for the perfect card. Be warned friends, they will be arriving soon!

Coot and Loon officially became members of our family two weeks ago. I had just lost my dear 20 year old Midnight to a long fierce battle with kidney disease. She is the second to last member of the crew I adopted in the early 90’s. There were 12 in all. Only Donner, my three legged, (he lost his front right leg to cancer three years ago), and last of the Christmas kitties remains. I have started a new clan of cats with Wren, and since her arrival a year ago, Magpie (Joe changed Sprout to Magpie), and the Tuxedos Coot and Loon) have arrived. (Note to self; I don’t think I will go back to the days of 12 again. It’s an awful lot of litter to clean and too many cats to keep from getting behavioral issues).

For now we are taking our time to provide every member with a safe and secure home. There is a highly regimented system for everyday and a short and long term plan in place to maximize our likelihood of success in integrating every member into our family. I will go into my suggestions for introducing a new cat into your home at a later date, but for now, things are a little on the trial basis. We will pay special attention to see whose personalities work with whose, and who needs a little more time to acclimate. I will also spend lots and lots of time with each of them individually to determine their own individual needs and wants. It is a new chapter and a new beginning and the first few steps and weeks are imperative to a long happy healthy life together.

Meet the new kids!

Coot and Loon

Coot, the happy, relaxed cat. Seems to be adjusting to his new home fine.

Loon, the female.
Ear-tipped because she came from a colony of all black and white cats,
and her original owner needed a way to distinguish who had
and had not been spayed/neutered.
She is sweeter than Coot, but a little more timid.

Coot, belly-up again.



Loon.

The entire gang.
We go for a walk together at the end of every day.
Everyone gets along well, and there is mutual respect and trust between the cats and dogs.
Everyone stays with us, and we live far away from a road, or any other people or pets.
We are very fortunate to have our secluded private spot,
and all of the pets are trained to stay with us.
From left to right: Wren, Loon, Jekyll, Magpie, Charleston,Coot.

The entourage headed back to the house.

Oh! How I love my kitties!

The World's Fattest Dog. (More Reality Hard-To-Believe Drama)

One adorable Dachshund is on a mission to lose a whopping 40 lbs, relinquishing his title as world's fattest wiener dog.

Obie, who currently weighs a staggering 77 lbs, was rescued by Portland resident, Nora Vanatta, after he was almost fed to death by his previous owners, reports Oregon Live.
Currenlty twice the size of an average doxie, Obie has been placed on a strict diet to shed the excess pounds.


A dog lover with two healthy and active dogs of her own, Vanatta first heard about Obie's plight through the Oregon Dachshund Rescue on Facebook. A relative of the dog's elderly owners pleaded for someone to help the 5-year-old over-fed doxie.

Vanatta, who has a degree in animal science and is a certified veterinary technician, stepped up to the challenge and now faces the difficult task of getting Obie into shape.

Vanatta is working with a dog food brand to feed Obie a low-fat, high-protein diet, reported Oregon Live.

Despite the extra pounds, Obie is still in fairly good health; however, he cannot engage in regular exercise. According to the Sun, Obie has been introduced to a special hydrotherapy regime. When he loses a little weight, a treadmill will be added to his workout routine.

"My hope is that he can be an inspiration to any person or animal trying to lose weight. It is so important to introduce pups and kids to a healthy lifestyle and food choices as early as possible," Vanatta stated on the Biggest Loser, Doxie Edition Facebook page.

Consider making a donation to Obie's weight-loss challenge here. Check out pictures of adorably chubby dog:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/10/obie-the-obese-dachshund_n_1871369.html

The Hantavirus, Yosemite, Colo.,

One of the most feared and dreaded subjects in vet school is Bacteriology.

We lovingly called it "Bac-T." Every class gets a pseudonym. Most to provide a connotation of the despair it will inflict on your college life.

This class is the formal introduction to all of the diseases that affect animals and stem from every tiny micro-scopic organism. It is a whirlwind of bugs with incredibly confusingly long and unpronounceable names. The binder for this class alone took up two 4-inch binders. It was mind-numbing, back-breaking, and boring. For most of us that hour of class it was sheer hell each day.

After you get through the vernacular,the toe-tripping terminology, the microscopic content, and accept that you have to pass the class to graduate, you realize that this class is exactly like the 5 stages of grief. You "deny" that 1 subject can constitute 8 inches of paper, you are "angry" that you have to learn about bugs when you want to study mammals, you "bargain" with your psyche that you can in fact remember all of this minutia, you get "depressed" when you fail (and by fail I mean I got a 20, yep, 20 % on my first pop quiz), then you "accept" that those before you have done it, so you can, will, and have to, too.

After the first half of BacT was done I sort of realized that I liked bugs. Well, maybe not the bugs themselves, I liked the diseases. Of them I liked bubonic plague, (I like saying the name, soo full of impending doom,,,and such an interesting disease, weird, I know, that's the beauty of biology). I also like hantavirus. So when one of these guys make the news I have to read every last article.

I think that even though I am oddly fascinated by these diseases I don't think I will ever meet them in person, (a very, very, good thing because they are very, very, deadly), because the Mid-Atlantic area, which is where I practice has no cases. Those Colorado, Rocky Mountain Vets get the cool diseases. I get Lyme, (boring, and not at all fun to say).

When you get out of school you learn that these little bugs you spent so much time trying to remember are the cause for great loss and personal devastation. I know that for me it is always far easier to understand, appreciate, and recognize disease when it has a "real story" behind it.

I have seen dogs die from Lyme disease. When I find myself in the exam room trying to talk an owner into vaccinating, I think about why I think this particular vaccine is important I remember sitting with those dogs, watching them die a death of organ failure over 2 or 3 days. For the owners it often comes as a blindsided blow. Their dog was fine a few days ago and now there is no treatment available and certain death in front of them.

Here is a recent article on hantavirus.

I had a friend on facebook tell me that he just left Yosemite park and he is worried about his daughters health.

These diseases are real, and they really take lives every year. If I could do vet school over again I would sit in class and put the stories to the diseases and appreciate what 8 inches of paper means to lives around the globe.

Yosemite officials trap, kill mice after hantavirus outbreak

Mike Groll / AP, file

A female deer mouse has a monitor attached to her left ear at the Adirondack Ecological Center in Newcomb, N.Y. Yosemite National Park is trapping and killing the deer mice, which can carry the deadly hantavirus, after an outbreak there over the summer.

By Reuters

SAN FRANCISCO - Yosemite National Park has begun trapping and killing deer mice whose growing numbers may have helped create the conditions that led to a hantavirus outbreak that has infected eight park visitors, killing three, public health officials said Tuesday.
Yosemite officials in recent weeks have warned 22,000 people who stayed in the park in California over the summer that they may have been exposed to the rodent-borne lung disease, which kills over a third of those infected.

---

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has also sounded a worldwide alert, saying visitors to the park's popular Curry Village lodging area between June and August may be at risk. Park officials have closed nearly 100 tent cabins in Curry Village infested with deer mice, which carry the virus.

"From an ecological perspective, it appears that there was an unnaturally high population of rodents in the area. We are being proactive and reducing the population," Danielle Buttke, a veterinary epidemiologist for the National Park Service, told Reuters.

California's Yosemite National Park is warning more than 20,000 past visitors they are at risk of exposure to the potentially deadly Hantavirus after it claimed another victim. Three people have died out of a total eight people infected after using cabins in the park this summer. NBC's Janet Shamlian reports.

Buttke said the mice were being trapped in several areas of the park for monitoring purposes but believed they were being killed only in the Curry Village area, using snap traps.
Seven of the eight people confirmed to have been infected are believed to have contracted the virus in the village, while one stayed elsewhere in the park.
Yosemite doubles scope of hantavirus warning to 22,000; third death confirmed
'Perfect storm'
Public health officials trapped three times as many deer mice in the park's Tuolumne Meadows last week than were caught in a 2008 period, indicating that the deer mice population has grown, said Dr. Vicki Kramer, chief of vector-borne diseases at the state Public Health Department.
Dr. Charles Chiu, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, said the growing deer mice population might help explain the outbreak.
"This could be an explanation for why we're seeing this particular cluster," Chiu said. "What you may have is the perfect storm of conditions: Increasing prevalence of deer mice and campers with the same or common exposure to (lodging) infested with deer mice."
Officials are concerned that more Yosemite visitors could still get sick because the virus can incubate for up to six weeks after people breathe it in. There is no cure for the syndrome but early detection and hospital care increase survival rates.

The CDC warns that thousands of campers at Yosemite National Park could be at risk for the hantavirus. NBC's Miguel Almaguer reports.
The virus can cause severe breathing difficulties and death. Early flu-like symptoms include headache, fever, muscle aches, shortness of breath and coughing.
Mice's role in ecosystem
Last month, authorities began trapping rodents in Yosemite to examine whether deer mice there were more likely to be infected with the hantavirus than deer mice elsewhere, Buttke said, but found they were not.
When authorities first identified the Yosemite hantavirus outbreak, rangers balked at the idea of trying to exterminate the deer mice, arguing that the mice play an important role in the Yosemite ecosystem.
US officials sound worldwide alert for Yosemite hantavirus
But when they realized the deer mice population had swelled, they decided to thin it in an effort to rebalance the ecosystem, Buttke said. She theorized that weather combined with visitors bringing in food led to Yosemite's abundance of deer mice.

Deer mice release hantavirus in their urine and droppings. People can contract the virus when they breath contaminated air. Children rarely contract the virus, probably because it is often transmitted when adults sweep or vacuum droppings or cut and stack wood.
'Fortunate to be alive': Girl, 7, contracts bubonic plague at Colorado campground

People usually contract the virus in small, confined spaces with poor ventilation. They also can become infected by eating contaminated food, touching tainted surfaces or being bitten by infected rodents.
The disease has killed 65 Californians and some 600 Americans since hantavirus was identified in 1993, but it has never been known to be transmitted from one person to another.

The full article is available at;

http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/12/13821471-yosemite-officials-trap-kill-mice-after-hantavirus-outbreak?lite

Baby Brea

I received a text message last night that Brea had passed away very early this morning at the veterinary neurology facility.

She had been referred by us to a neurologist because she had been experiencing some severe back pain that had progressed to her not wanting to move. She had come in last week with reluctance to move and we quickly thought that it might be her back.

Back pain is rather common in dachshunds and beagles. But based on Brea's recent history of illness I was concerned that she might have meningitis.

Meningitis is inflammation of the meninges. In veterianry medicine we usually mean inflammation of the covering of the spinal cord. It is very painful and usually the result of an infection, although many times we don't know how or why it decided to land there. It is a very serious disease and can be very difficult to treat. You see your brain and spinal cord are protected by a protective tissue that keeps the bad stuff out of our most important and most valuable place, our brain and its peripheral extension, our spinal cord. When disease gets in it is now sealed in. There aren't the same super effective defense mechanisms in place here so the infection can lie undetected by our body, but wreak havoc on our primary nervous tissue. To diagnose this disease we need a spinal tap. This is not a procedure general practitioners do. We like to send these tests to the neurologists. (Something about a big long needle piercing into the spinal column gets us spooked, although all of the neurologists I know tell me it's actually easy to perform. I'll take their word for it).

Brea's arrival with yet another disease had us all scared. It was just a few weeks ago that she left the hospital after a 3 week stay from one of the worst cases of pneumonia that I had ever seen. Now she has severe pain that seems to be coming from her spine? OMG! How can 1 little sweetest-dog-ever, have another terrible affliction? My first thought is that this episode MUST be related to her last episode. We ran blood work, took her temperature and looked for any sign of progressive infection. Everything in the infection category was negative. Yet her exam still looked like spine, inter-vertebral disc disease, (IVDD). I called the neurologist to ask for his opinion. I didn't want to deal another crushing blow of devastating and expense to treat disease to Brea's family.

He agreed that she probably wasn't a meningitis case, but also agreed that we probably shouldn't start her on a steroid initially. We sent Brea home last week with lots of pain medications and a plan that if she wasn't better in 2 days, or if she worsened that she would go to the spine center.

Two days later she was not better, and she was sent to the neurologist to try to identify her source of pain and to try to figure out how we could lessen it.

Brea had a myelogram and it identified a disc in her spinal cord at the level of her cervical spine at C2-C3. The "higher" your disc disease is the more paralysis it usually causes. A disc at the cervical area will affect all four legs, versus a disc at your lumbar area affects your rear limbs. Also the nerves that control your vital organs live high up to. If you injure your spine at the very top (high cervical area, right by the base of your brain) it can actually stop your ability to breathe.

At 3 am Brea died. The consensus is that she must have extruded more disc material or she was so pyrexic (elevated body temperature, can happen from pain), that her breathing stopped. She had done fine during her myelogram, and was at the hospital for observation and pain management, but slated to be discharged for home care in the morning.

As soon as I heard about Brea I called her family. They are wonderful, kind people who have done more for any dog than anyone I have ever met. The first time I saw Brea was within 24 hours of them adopting her. They knew she was sick, but they adopted her anyway. And even though I wasn't sure that she would live through the day from her pneumonia they decided to try to save her. They stuck by her despite needing three weeks of hospitalization. As she got better she blossomed into a happy energetic inquisitive beagle. They had gotten her to help ease the anxieties of their other dog, Beau. Beau only knew Brea for a few short weeks. Between being quarantined for her first and last illness Beau and Brea only had a few weeks together.

There wasn't anything I could say to comfort Brea's parents. All I could say is how sorry I was, and how incredibly unfair it all seemed.

I sat on the phone trying to hold back tears and telling them how wonderful little Brea was and how incredibly lucky she was to have found them. What I really wanted to say was, "How can this have happened?" Not to place blame, because I just don't think there is any to point at, but how can that little bundle of baby beagle who was so adorable, so irresistible, abandoned, almost died a few months ago, have died from this? How could she be so young, and have been dealt such a shit hand?"

I told Beau's family that we would help them find a new friend for Beau. That I know they are shell-shocked and don't even want to think about it, but I will help them find and foster a healthy friend for Beau, who still needs someone to keep him from being alone and afraid.

I know I get too emotionally involved with my patients, but "Why?" I just don't have the answer to "Why?"

I am heart-broken for baby Brea and her family.

Such is medicine, I just doubt I will ever stop asking "Why?" It happens when you get emotionally involved, but I guess I will never stop doing that either.

To read Brea's blog please go to:

http://tinyurl.com/8lyjxnh

'This one's on me,' A story to share by Bo Brock, DVM

I am an avid journal reader.

I especially love the 'end of the journal stories.' They are always light-hearted, poignant, and emotionally touching.

This one hit home for me so I wanted to share it with you all.

It is a story that I think every veterinarian who is still practicing for the sheer love of the job feels is the purpose of their career.

Written by Bo Brock, DVM for DVM360 September 2012 edition.

Stampede: 'This one's on me'

Twenty-eight years of friendship takes a toll when the end is in sight.

Sep 1, 2012By: Bo Brock, DVMDVM NEWSMAGAZINE

Bo Brock, DVM I had worked on Leonard's horses since they were 8 years old. Now, as I approached the two geldings from across a field of west Texas clover, they were 28. Leonard was a crusty old codger who'd been a cowboy in Borden County for 75 years—it was all he'd ever known. His wife had died the previous September after they'd spent 55 years together, raising cattle and living off the land. The ranch house they spent their lives in got water from a windmill and electricity from the sun and wind. Their lives were as fulfilling as any I'd ever seen. This trip across the clover to catch the two old horses was bringing tears to my eyes. These geldings had spent their lives serving Leonard and his wife and they had both worn out at the same time. It was time for them to be put to sleep. Leonard had stayed back at the barn. He had his arms draped over the top rail of a pipe fence and his hat pulled down over his eyes so we couldn't see the tears streaming down his cheeks. Dr. Emily Berryhill had come with me to the ranch. She was the intern at our clinic and hadn't been around long enough to know the history of Leonard, so I filled her in as we ambled across the field to catch the horses. I looked over and saw tears in her eyes. Emily hadn't seen this side of the gruff cowboys who come to our clinic—the side that cries when his favorite horse is at the end of its life. She was now experiencing it firsthand. Leonard had arranged for a neighbor to dig a hole under the only tree visible for miles. The plot was the perfect place for these two old geldings to be buried—it was their favorite spot to spend the day. They could see their barn and get back to it in a hurry if need be. They could watch the cars pass on the county road in the distance. They could see the cliffs on the canyon to the west and watch the hawks ride the updrafts. These two critters loved to be in the shade that tree offered, and that's where Leonard wanted them buried. It's an awful job, killing a man's best friend. All of the memories of rounding up cattle and the stories of how those horses had gotten Leonard out of a tough spot filled my mind as we laid the last one to rest in that hole. My trip back across the clover field to say goodbye to Leonard was a long one. I dreaded seeing his wrinkled eyes filled with the memories of how much he loved his horses. We came through the last gate and hung the halters on their hook in the barn. I patted Leonard on the back and told him it broke my heart for him to have to do say goodbye to them but assured him it had been the right thing to do. He looked up from under his hat and the emotion of 28 years of friendship ending on that day poured down his weathered cheeks. "I'll be to town in a couple of days and I'll get you paid, Doc," he told me. "Thanks for coming out here and doing that." "You owe me nothing, Leonard. I couldn't live with myself if I charged a man to kill his best friend." "But you drove 75 miles to get here, Doc," he said. "I gotta pay you somethin'." I paused and thought a bit. Experiences like this are why I dreamed of being a veterinarian when I was a kid. I get to work with the salt of the earth, people who understand the bond between people and animals. It's the essence of what veterinarians do and it has nothing to do with state-of-the-art equipment or making money. I kept those horses happy and going for most of their lives and I was a part of laying them to rest when their days were done. Leonard appreciated that. He knew that taking care of critters from start to finish was simply what the local veterinarian did. "You've been paying me for 20 years, my friend," I said. "This one is on me." Dr. Bo Brock owns Brock Veterinary Clinic in Lamesa, Texas.

The article can also be found at;

http://veterinarynews.dvm360.com/dvm/Veterinary+news/Stampede-This-ones-on-me/ArticleStandard/Article/detail/785828

AAHA and AVMA Raw Protein Statement

August 15, 2012 Volume 10 issue 32

FDA expands jerky investigation The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is expanding its investigation of jerky treats to now include duck and sweet potato jerky treats. Read more Law prohibts animal cruelty offenders from working with animals A new bill signed into law in Massachusetts will prohibit anyone convicted of cruelty to animals from working with any animal, including in veterinary hospitals. Read more 49 human illnesses from Diamond recall According to a July 20 report from the global food safety blog eFoodAlert, the number of pets and humans sickened by a Diamond Pet Foods recall has continued to rise. Read more AAHA joins AVMA, passes raw protein statement Feeding a raw protein diet can endanger the health of both people and animals, according to the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA). AAHA plans to release a position statement discouraging pet owners from feeding raw protein diets later this week. The second major veterinary group to take a stand on raw protein diets in recent weeks, AAHA says it is doing so because it wants to strengthen the valued relationship between human and animal. "We value the relationships between our pets and their families – we want to strengthen the human-animal bond by keeping both pets and people as healthy as possible," said Michael Cavanaugh, DVM, executive director of AAHA. AAHA joins the likes of the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), which passed a policy discouraging the feeding of raw protein diets at its yearly conference in San Diego in early August 2012. AAHA leaders say its statement on raw protein diets was actually developed and passed by its board of directors prior to the AVMA policy. According to AAHA, the statement was developed without any input or knowledge from the AVMA. The text of the AAHA statement emphasizes the danger of feeding pathogenic organisms to animals that may then shed those organisms through their stool, creating danger for both humans and animals that may come in contact with it. Read full article. . For the entire article please see the link below: http://trends.aahanet.org/VetNewsArticle.aspx?key=20d25a74-c446-4634-93c2-4a16a107ee81 What I find most interesting is the number of very angry, skeptical, and passioante Raw feeders who have posted comments to the ad. I will whole-heartedly attest to the fact that I am NOT paid by any company, I recieve no royalties, or compensation from anyone. I have no allegiance to AAHA, the AVMA, or anyone other than my clients and the well-being of every animal on our planet. I am not trying to sell commercial dog or cat food from any company but I am trying to educate people to help take better care of their pets. For more information on my blog about RAW diets please see;

http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4667516629745731439#editor/target=post;postID=7301419632962055173