In this installment of Vet Tips, Dr. Tripp Stewart discusses Gastric Dilatation-Volvulus in detail.
© 2012 Greenbrier Emergency Animal Hospital. All rights reserved.
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PODCAST: Gastric Dilatation-Volvulus
January 27th, 2012PODCAST: Heartworm Disease
January 6th, 2012In this installment of Vet Tips, Dr. Tripp Stewart discusses how heartworm disease spreads and affects dogs, cats and ferrets. He argues that prevention is the key to avoiding expensive treatment.
© 2012 Greenbrier Emergency Animal Hospital. All rights reserved.
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Nicotine Toxicity in Pets
December 16th, 2011Recently here at Greenbrier Emergency Animal Hospital, we had a patient that presented with full body tremors, was drooling, was excited, and started vomiting and experiencing diarrhea. The owner had stated the dog was normal in the morning, and the dog’s presentation condition was consistent with her getting into something. However, after asking the owner numerous questions, we were unable to identify what the dog potentially could have ingested. It wasn’t until the next morning, when the owner was smoking, that she noticed several cigarette butts in front of her house were missing.
Nicotine toxicity in dogs and cats is more common than most people think, and it is especially common in pets with owners who leave cigarette packs out or toss cigarette butts outside. Nicotine is most commonly found in cigarettes, cigars, nicotine gum and candy, and nicotine transdermal patches. The average cigarette (depending on the brand, blend and whether it is marketed as a “light cigarette”) contains 13-40 mg of nicotine, and it doesn’t take much nicotine to cause problems — the lethal dose for a dog is 9.2 mg of nicotine per kilogram of your pet’s body weight. Incidentally, an average cigarette butt contains about 25 percent of the nicotine present in an unsmoked cigarette, so they can be toxic as well.
Nicotine gum actually has to be chewed — not swallowed (which most dogs will do) — to release nicotine. However, the sweetener xylitol, which is also toxic to pets, is often added to nicotine gum.
Once nicotine is ingested, signs typically develop within 15-90 minutes. However, in some cases it can take hours for symptoms to emerge. Initially you might see your pet being hyperactive or acting overexcited. They might also start drooling, experience vomiting or diarrhea, or even look like they are having trouble breathing. At higher doses or for longer exposures, your pet might show signs of weakness, start twitching or having muscle tremors, have an elevated heart rate, collapse, and even die. So nicotine toxicity is a potentially life-threatening condition.
As with any toxicity, early treatment and diagnosis are crucial, so be sure to bring your pet to your regular vet or to Greenbrier Emergency Animal Hospital. If your pet is not already vomiting upon arrival, a drug is typically given to make them vomit. Activated charcoal is also administered to help absorb nicotine from the GI tract. Your pet will also likely be put on IV fluids; started on antacids; and given oxygen, if they are having trouble breathing. Usually within 24 hours of treatment, your pet should be almost back to normal (although diarrhea can sometimes take 1-3 days to resolve).
Our cigarette butt eater here at Greenbrier came through just fine, but the experience should serve as a reminder to all pet owners who smoke: Keep your cigarettes, cigars and other nicotine-containing products out of reach of your pet. And think twice before just tossing that cigarette butt!
© 2012 Greenbrier Emergency Animal Hospital. All rights reserved.
Cranial Cruciate Ligament (CCL) Rupture in Pets
November 28th, 2011One of the most common problems we see at Greenbrier Emergency Animal Hospital is lameness, and one of the most common causes is a cranial cruciate ligament (CCL) rupture.
The cranial cruciate ligament is found in the knee and prevents abnormal rotation of the joint, much like the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in humans. When the CCL ruptures, pets experience different degrees of lameness in the hind end. The injury typically isn’t acute, but rather stems from chronic degeneration that ultimately leads to lameness from a seemingly minor event (e.g., running in the yard or engaging in normal activity). Overweight pets; pets with abnormal conformation of the knee joint; and certain dog breeds, including Labradors and Rottweilers, are more predisposed to experiencing these kinds of injuries.
So what should you do if your pet is lame? Take him/her to your primary care veterinarian or Greenbrier Emergency Animal Hospital in Charlottesville, Virginia, to have the problem evaluated. On physical examination, the veterinarian may find “cranial drawer,” a term used to describe abnormal movement in the knee after a ligament rupture. Some pets have such strong musculature surrounding their knee that they may need to be sedated for the vet to be able to feel the abnormal movement. Next, the vet will likely recommend radiographs (x-rays) of the knee.
So what happens if your pet has been diagnosed with a CCL rupture? Most pets do best with surgery. Some smaller pets can recover with conservative therapy, which includes pain medication and strict exercise restriction for several months. Larger pets most often need surgery, and there are several different surgical options, depending on the pet’s size. Even with surgery, your pet will have to be exercise-restricted, but the recovery period is often shorter — and overall improvement often better — with surgery.
Now, when we talk about strict exercise restriction, we mean STRICT. No running, jumping, playing, chasing, being off-leash, jumping on the bed or roughhousing. As the rupture begins to heal and pets start to feel better, they will likely want to run and jump, and that type of exertion too early in the recovery process is one of the main reasons for surgical failure. What’s more, pets diagnosed with cruciate ruptures are more likely to rupture the cruciate in the other knee as well, and such a likelihood is increased if they are not exercise-restricted appropriately. So following a CCL rupture, keep your pet as calm as possible; sometimes it can be hard and seem like forever, but it will pay off in the end!
Another tip that will help with the recovery process is keeping your pet from licking at the surgical site — you may need an e-collar (a cone that goes around your pet’s head) to make that happen. Another cause of surgical failure is infection, so make sure your pet is taking all medications prescribed by your veterinarian.
One more important step in recovery for many of our patients is weight loss. Losing even just a few pounds will improve the recovery period and decrease the chance of having problems in the other knee. Weight-reduction plans as a preventive measure can reduce the risk of tearing the cruciate in the first place.
If your pet has been diagnosed with a cranial cruciate rupture and you have any questions, please call your primary care veterinarian, or give us a call here at Greenbrier Emergency Animal Hospital.
© 2011 Greenbrier Emergency Animal Hospital. All rights reserved.
Food Bloat (Overeating) in Dogs
November 4th, 2011With the holiday season right around the corner, the thought of eating oversized, high-calorie meals is probably on a lot of people’s minds (for better or worse). But for most dogs, eating a large meal is probably on their mind all the time, holiday season or not. Yes, dogs love to get into food, beyond what’s given to them in their doggie dishes, and recently Greenbrier Emergency Animal Hospital has seen an above-average number of dogs that have done just that. From getting into the cat’s free feeder, to eating human party food left on a counter, to breaking into a cabinet where 8 pounds of dog food was stored, to entering a neighbor’s doggie door and gobbling up another pup’s food, we have seen quite a variety of overeaters lately. And while for people, apart from a bit of indigestion, eating a big feast might not seem that much of a problem, going on a food binge can become very serious very quickly for our canine counterparts.
When a dog has overeaten, many owners will notice their dogs acting restless and unable to lie down in a comfortable position. They may also start panting, drooling or even acting like they want to vomit (including frequent retching, with little to no food being brought up). The most telltale sign, however, is a distended abdomen that is hard to the touch. If you observe any of these symptoms, act quickly and bring your dog to your regular veterinarian during the day or Greenbrier Emergency Animal Hospital after hours. These symptoms can also be signs of an even more serious problem called GDV, in which the stomach can twist in your pet’s abdomen.
Overeating causes the pain receptors in a dog’s stomach to stretch, which in turn causes the discomfort they experience. The majority of ingested food is usually very dry in the stomach, so fluids from other parts of the body are often absorbed into the stomach, potentially causing your pet to become dehydrated quickly. The GI tract is also considered a shock organ, so any compromise to blood flow or fluid volumes is a serious concern.
In an overeating situation, when your pet arrives at our Charlottesville vet hospital, baseline radiographs are taken to see the size of the stomach, and additional radiographs are usually taken at 12 hours and 24 hours after presentation. An IV catheter is placed, and your dog is started on IV fluids and pain medications. We also tape-measure your dog’s abdomen to monitor changes in size and walk them every hour to help increase blood flow to the GI tract. Your dog’s heart rate and pulse are also monitored every hour. Inducing your dog to vomit when their abdomen is distended is usually contraindicated, as it could potentially rupture the stomach. In addition, with the stomach so distended, it can be difficult for them to vomit.
In more severe cases, depending on how your pet is doing, he/she may be sedated to have the stomach lavaged (which is sort of like stomach pumping) to help remove food. If foreign material is suspected or the food cannot be removed with tubing, surgery may be warranted. Thankfully, with aggressive fluid therapy and support care, most dogs do well after 24 hours.
In any case, be sure to take appropriate measures to keep your dog from getting into unintended food sources, and take caution the next time your pet overeats — as a “food bloat” can be far more serious than it looks.
© 2011 Greenbrier Emergency Animal Hospital. All rights reserved.
PODCAST: Rat Poison and Pets
October 14th, 2011Unfortunately, many pets get into toxins — even toxins that were meant to get rid of pests like mice and rats. An extremely common type of toxicity is rodenticide, or rat poison. There are three main groups of rat poison used, and they can all be very toxic to dogs and cats (and our exotic pets, too).
Patients that have the best prognosis from this type of toxicity are usually those that are actually seen eating the rat poison by their owners, who then bring them in for treatment right away.
© 2011 Greenbrier Emergency Animal Hospital. All rights reserved.
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Red Eye in Pets
September 23rd, 2011Red, irritated eyes are common presenting complaints in emergency veterinary medicine. To help narrow down the cause of the redness, at Greenbrier Emergency Animal Hospital we typically ask pet owners a series of questions, since eye problems can occur for many different reasons. For instance: Did your pet recently run through a field or play with a cat? Has your pet been around other pets? Is your pet having any other problems? Did this redness just start to appear, or has it been around and getting worse over time?
Some causes are more obvious than others. Playing with a cat, playing rough with a dog or running through heavy brush normally indicates trauma (a scratch) and potentially an ulcer on the cornea, the clear covering of the eye. When the cornea is injured, it can cause a large amount of pain and lead to serious complications, and such an event might also result in having a foreign object lodged in the eye.
But there are other causes of eye redness as well. Infections (bacterial, viral and fungal); inflammation of the tissues around or in the eye; increased or decreased pressure of the eye (known as glaucoma, and uveitis, respectively); systemic diseases; autoimmune diseases; decreased tear production; allergies; problems with intraocular structures (such as the iris and the lens); and even cancer can also lead to red eye.
So if your pet has red, irritated, teary eyes, or is squinting, give your primary care veterinarian or Greenbrier Emergency Animal Hospital a call as soon as possible. We can perform a variety of tests to determine the cause of the irritation and prescribe medications to help your pet feel more comfortable and treat the problem. One important note: Do not allow your pet to scratch at his or her eyes if he/she is suffering from red eye — scratching will only make it worse. You can use an e-collar, otherwise known as “the cone that goes around your pet’s head,” to deter them from scratching. And don’t wait to bring your pet in! Some eye problems can become very serious if left unattended.
© 2011 Greenbrier Emergency Animal Hospital. All rights reserved.
Maggots: A Nasty Problem in Pets
September 2nd, 2011It’s that time of year again …
One of the least favorite times of year for most emergency staff is what we in the veterinary community like to refer to as “maggot season.” While most people only think of maggots growing in spoiled food or on things that are no longer alive, maggots can also be a problem in our live pets.
Maggots are fly larvae (an early stage of fly development), and a maggot infestation is called myiasis. When looking for a suitable place to lay their eggs, flies are usually attracted to things with decaying or rotten smells. In our live pets, attractive sites for flies can include infected bite wounds, areas of fur that are matted with urine or feces, skin folds, infected ears, ruptured skin masses, hot spots and surgical incisions, to name a few. After about 1-3 days, the eggs hatch. At first, the maggots will feed on dead skin or debris. But when that food source runs out, they release an enzyme in their saliva that starts digesting healthy skin. The enzyme can cause small holes in the skin, and then the maggots can actually burrow underneath the skin. They can also tunnel into the rectum or vagina of a pet. With time, the maggots can start releasing toxins that can make your pet sick very quickly, leading to fever, lethargy and shock.
So if you find maggots on your pet, get them to a vet immediately, where they will be able to clip and clean the underlying cause and remove the maggots. Some pets might need to be hospitalized and placed on IV fluids overnight, in addition to being started on antibiotics.
One of the biggest problems we’ve run into lately concerning maggots is false information on the Internet about getting rid of them at home — attempting to do so can make our job harder and further complicate your pet’s health. The problem is that the majority of information out there is geared toward killing maggots in food, not on your live pets. Some of the worst recommendations out there include the following — DO NOT ATTEMPT ANY OF THESE MEASURES:
- Placing gasoline, oil, kerosene or lighter fluid on maggots is not a safe remedy. Besides potentially being a local irritant, if your pet ingests that kind of fluid, they can aspirate some of the material into the lungs.
- Pouring straight bleach on the maggots is another unwise treatment recommended online — doing so can be very irritating to the eyes and act as an irritant to the lungs as well.
- Pouring powdered lime on your pet also is not a good idea, since it can cause vomiting, diarrhea and GI tract ulceration.
- Another very bad idea, placing boiling water on maggots, is something your pet would not appreciate, to say the least. Doing so can cause severe burns.
- There is also information about using over the counter permethrin products to kill maggots. This would be something I would be very wary of doing on a cat. Cats are very sensitive to permethrins (an insecticide in many over-the-counter flea preventatives), and they can lead to intense muscle tremors and seizures.
- Finally, using hairspray on the maggots is another unwise tip — doing so probably won’t kill them, and will only serve to give your pet a stiff hairdo.
The best method for keeping maggots off your pet is preventing them in the first place. During the summer months, if your pet lives outside, make sure they get their fur clipped for the season. Do daily cleaning of any soiled outside bedding. And if your pet has a skin infection, bite wounds or surgical incisions, keep them inside until they are healed. Also, be sure to have all wounds evaluated by a veterinarian!
© 2011 Greenbrier Emergency Animal Hospital. All rights reserved.
PODCAST: Giardia … cha cha cha …
August 26th, 2011Diarrhea has a number of causes, but one that we’ve seen quite a bit in our patients recently is Giardia, a parasite that is transmitted in stool (Giardia can be transmitted to humans in this way, but people most often get this parasite from contaminated water). Once a pet is infected, it will typically take 5-12 days in dogs and 5-16 days in cats for the parasite to be found in the stool — however, diarrhea can occur before the parasite actually shows up in the stool.
To diagnose Giardia, your veterinarian will need a fresh stool sample from your pet. As this parasite cannot be detected by the naked eye, the doctor will examine the sample under a microscope. Sometimes the test may need to be repeated, as this parasite can shed intermittently — so while an initial test may come up negative, further tests may come up positive. A newer variety of test is the “snap test,” which tests for Giardia proteins in the stool. The snap test does help improve diagnosis; however, while almost all veterinarians have the capability to look at a stool sample under the microscope, the snap test is less readily available, and not all veterinarians will be able to offer it.
© 2011 Greenbrier Emergency Animal Hospital. All rights reserved.
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Hemorrhagic Gastroenteritis in Dogs — Severe Bloody Diarrhea
August 19th, 2011Recently we’ve had quite a few cases of hemorrhagic gastroenteritis (HGE) at Greenbrier Emergency Animal Hospital. The good news with HGE is that, seeing blood in their dog’s stool, many owners will bring them in immediately, allowing us to start treatment right away, greatly improving the survival rate and minimizing hospitalization time. HGE sometimes can be mistaken for colitis, an inflammation of the colon that presents with mucousy, blood-tinged stool. Patients with colitis — which we also see a lot of at Greenbrier — usually are bright and alert and can be treated as outpatients. Dogs with HGE, however, usually present with lethargy and very bloody, watery or mucoid diarrhea, and in severe cases can present in shock from dehydration. The diarrhea in cases of HGE has often been described as “strawberry jam-like”. Occasionally HGE causes vomiting as well.
The etiology or cause of hemorrhagic gastroenteritis is unknown but is thought to involve any one of the following: allergy, stress, parasites, or bacteria. Small breed dogs are affected most often, but any dog can get HGE. It is believed that when the condition is present, the permeability of the GI tract is increased, allowing protein and plasma to leak into the bowels and causing the dog to become severely dehydrated. The diagnosis usually is made based on the description of the diarrhea and a simple blood test that looks at the levels of protein and red blood cells. A very high level of red blood cells, low levels of protein and very bloody diarrhea is diagnostic for hemorrhagic gastroenteritis.
We treat HGE with high levels of IV fluids. Occasionally, dogs with low protein will need an additional type of IV fluid to boost the protein level. Other treatments might include antibiotics (since one theory holds that hemorrhagic gastroenteritis is caused by Clostridium, a form of bacteria), GI protectants, and antiemetics or antinausea medication. If untreated, HGE can be a life-threatening disease. Once placed on IV fluids, most dogs will need to be hospitalized for 1-3 days and then will be fine. But it is extremely important to seek veterinary care immediately if your dog has a bloody stool.
© 2011 Greenbrier Emergency Animal Hospital. All rights reserved.