Heartworm Prevention month

For those of you who may not be aware, Dr. Burrows, who lives in the Tanque Verde Valley got West Nile last fall. It took a bit of chasing to diagnose it, and when they finally did, all they could tell her to do was wait it out. Luckily for Dr. Burrows other than feeling pretty punky for a few weeks and having a bizarre tingling in her fingers that lingered for a month or so, the symptoms were very mild.

Which brings us to heartworms; heartworms do not affect people or they would be far more frightening than West Nile. They affect cats and dogs, and as the name suggests these worms migrate and live out their lives in the arteries around the heart.

What links these two diseases is the mosquito. Mosquitos account for more human deaths worldwide than any other animal. Arizona, with its dry climate is home to 46 varieties of mosquito according to the Arizona Department of Health. Mosquitos, the things that we, as Arizonans, take great pains to claim that we do not have are very much a part of our world. And as Dr. Burrows shows, not only do we have them, but they are carrying dangerous illnesses. (and yes, she picked up West Nile here)

No one wants to see their pets get sick, and every decision that we as pet owners take is a part of a balancing act between cost (not neccessarily financial) and benefits. We elect to put our dogs on tick prevention in the off chance that they may come into contact with a tick carrying a debilitating or fatal disease, or we deem the annoyance of tick products, their cost, their unsavory feel in our pet's coat, their toxicity no matter how small, too high and use them sparingly during travel.

This is a cost/benefit analysis and we, as pet owners do it every day. However, the only way this equation works is through education.

So, what we want pet owners in Southern Arizona to know, and what we strive to reinforce every day, is that the tightrope between cost and benefit that we have been walking for some time when it comes to heartworms has swung and that the danger of this disease, its rising prevalence in our coyote population, the increased interstate travel of your neighbors (and yourself) have all made the risk of doing nothing too high.

No one, not even veterinarians talked about heartworms in Southern Arizona even 15 years ago. But part of the belief that something isn't here is not looking for it. It was the advent of easier heartworm tests that saw an upswing in positives across Pima County. After Katrina and the dispersal of heartworm positive Katrina dogs into area shelters, veterinarians who hadn't already, felt a need to step up monitoring and prevention efforts.

Sadly, the numbers indicate that at least two or three of the dogs in our practice are, at this very moment, positive for heartworm. Perhaps they have no symptoms, or they have an occasional cough, or they are slightly more lethargic and the owners have put it off on age. We want to find these pets and help them feel better, and more importantly, we want them to stop carrying this deadly parasite in their blood.

The hearts represent all of the dogs who have come in so far this March who are protected against heartworms

We urge you, if you haven't already, to come in, have a heartworm test done and put your dogs on heartworm prevention.

Heartworm disease is devastating. It is expensive and awful to treat, while being largely inexpensive (around a $120 a year for a 100# dog) to prevent. The prevention that we use, Heartgard Plus also prevents against roundworms and hookworms.

Have we seen your cat lately?

Cats account for over 50% of the pet population, however, nationwide they account for fewer than 30% of vet visits. Why is that?

Actually, The answer is complex, but two recent events will help explain both the reasons why cats rarely see the vet (especially in Tucson where all of our cats are indoors) and why they really should be seen more often.

I have been in the veterinary industry for over a decade, and so, I would hope that at least some of my constant carping about poor pet care would have rubbed off on my family.

Alas, my own sister who just acquired a kitten called to ask if her kitten, now that she has had all her shots will ever need to see the vet again. 'Really?!' I thought, "you've got to be kidding me!? Have not heard one word I've been saying?' Then because I assumed my sister couldn't hear the ranting in my head, I decided to share it with her. She was impressed with my passion if not my actual words, which in the end amounted to a, "Yes!!"

Then my own mother, whose evil cat finally succumbed at age 21 after years of hyperthyroidism and slowly escalating kidney numbers, explained to me how her year and half old cat didn't need a rabies shot because it was indoors. This time I didn't rant, I sighed, after all if the people closest to the veterinary profession don't understand that their own beloved cats should receive regular veterinary care maybe it wasn't their fault but mine - or in the case of the profession - ours.

After all, we are the messengers and if the message isn't getting out it certainly rests on our shoulders to investigate why.

Of course, in the case of my own family I was able to explain that cats are prone to painful dental disease and that only regular visits will uncover this, and that I personally know of two cases where indoor animals were exposed to rabies and subsequently euthanized because of overdue vaccinations (one was a case of a bunch of indoor cats exposed to a rabid bat that got into the house, the other was a Labrador chased through the doggie door by a rabid skunk).

And so, maybe one on one conversations are the way to go. So, that is where we will have to start, with each pet owner, on the phone or in person, with the simple question, "have we seen your cat lately?" We hope that this will trigger a discussion that will ultimately lead to better cat care by the very people who care most for them, their owners.

We at Ventana Animal Hospital are making a concerted effort to speak better to cat owners, to address their concerns and treat their cats. We have a skilled cat guru in the person of Alaina Rhodes a Certified Veterinary Technician, she, working in concert with cat specialists and our doctors, will be driving some of the changes that cat owners will be seeing in how their cats are handled in our practice, our renewed focus on cat owner concerns and a better feel for cat needs.

Alaina, who wrote several of the blog posts you will see in the coming weeks has dedicated her professional career to feline care. She has worked with the Heritage Shelter as an interim director and knows first hand what happens when we, the veterinarians entrusted with their care fail to speak out for cats. Cats are often relinquished because of easily solvable urinary issues and avoidable behavioral misunderstandings.

We take feline care seriously and are striving to express that with renewed enthusiasm to our clients. We our launching our initiative with a cat-focus month. We will have two cat adoptions during the month of April, we are partnering with Boeringer-Ingelheim to provide staff education, and we will be having cat focused contests both within the hospital and out in our community. Our neighbor, Risky Business and the vaccine manufacturer Boerhinger-Ingelheim have both generously donated towards our raffle with the proceeds benefiting Tucson Two Tails Feline Rescue. I hope you will join us in our renewed efforts to provide proper veterinary care to the cats within our community.

The first contest starts right here. As you may have noticed, this post contains no photos. This is because I personally have no cats, so, if you would like to have your cat's photo included in our upcoming blog posts, please post them on Facebook, and the photos with the most likes win. It's that simple!