Senior Summer!

One of my favorite questions is: "how old is my pet in human years?" Interestingly that answer differs with the species and breed being discussed. A 10 year old chihuahua is a great deal younger than a ten year old mastiff. There are charts here in the hospital that will tell you that your ten year old cat is 56 years old while your 75 pound German Shepherd is 66 years old.

To make things simple we in the veterinary profession have created the phrase, "senior at seven" as a basic guideline to help us remember when we need to begin discussing senior care.

Senior citizens make up the vast majority of both the general pet population and the population here at Ventana. The good news about this is that it means that we are all doing something right.

Preventive care is what has allowed us all to reap the benefits of our pets' longer lives. Luckily as your pets have aged, and as the pet population too has aged, the veterinary community has adapted to to help this new population stay even healthier longer.

One of our senior citizens, Joy, resting after a hard day

Senior pets benefit from a holistic approach to care. Just as we have found that all things are interconnected in human medicine, it is the same with our pets.

Senior pets can suffer the same issues that humans. We see increased issues with joint mobility, weight gain, diabetes, thyroid issues, heart problems and the like. The good news is that many of these issues can be addressed if caught early enough.

Because pets age faster than humans, it behooves us to have them seen more often than yearly. A lot can happen in five years if you are in your sixties. We recommend twice yearly exams. This helps us better monitor fast changing issues such as dental health, weight and behavior.

Many things seen as a 'normal' sign of aging are not. Getting "slow" usually means getting sore. Changing behavior can be caused by early cognitive dysfunction, sight issues, hearing issues or pain. Drinking more or eating smaller meals can also be signs of illness.

While knowing the signs of illness are important, so too is well-checks with your veterinarian. We are better able to assess heart function, weight changes, dental health and feel the abdomen for abnormalities.

If you ask any one of us what we do for our own pets as they age you will receive the same answer - we all do annual blood panels on our senior pets. Even though all of our pets live with educated (one would hope!) veterinary professionals, we have all learned two valuable things over the years: 1) we cannot see what is going on inside our pets - no matter how good we are, and 2) vigilance pays off.

Everyone has a story about a perfectly healthy pet who came in for a routine exam or blood work and we found something that would have otherwise missed. We all like these stories, especially (obviously) if they have happy endings
. We hate seeing pets who have become symptomatic with disease and we catch things too late to help, or too far along to easily turn around.

We all love our pets or we wouldn't be in this profession. This is why often you will get the most candid answers when you ask us what we ourselves do with our own pets. At Ventana Animal Hospital, we consider that our gold standard. We offer nothing to you that we ourselves would not want offered to our own pets, and we will never offer you lesser care than we ourselves provide our own pets.

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.

Tucson Cold Wet Noses

Last Saturday we hosted the local rescue group, Cold Wet Noses at our hospital. Usually stationed at PetSmart, Cold Wet Noses brought out a dozen dogs and a couple of cats and set up in our largest exam room.

Please give me a home. I'm an Aussie, that makes me great!

In spite of the low gray clouds and persistent drizzle, many people came into the hospital looking for a new forever friend.

A 100% volunteer program that fosters dogs and cats, Cold Wet Noses helps unwanted dogs and cats find new and loving families. Cold Wet Noses currently has 130 dogs in need of forever homes. You can see pictures of pets up for adoption at www.Tucsoncoldwetnoses.com.

I want someone to throw a ball for me and take me for walks

During the month of February Ventana Animal Hospital is holding a raffle to benefit Cold Wet Noses. Please stop in and buy a few raffle tickets, the prizes were kindly donated by Patterson Veterinary (a veterinary supply company - thanks Todd!) and PetSmart. We have $70 dollars in gift certificates up for grabs, and 100% of the proceeds go to helping Cold Wet Noses provide homes for these dogs and cats.

Additionally, Cold Wet Noses is always looking for foster homes, so if you can provide a home for a while, please contact them. They can only rescue as many pets as they can place in foster care, so every little bit helps.

I can keep your feet warm.

Thank you to Ronnie who put this whole thing together, and to all of our clients who were so understanding of a slightly more crowded than usual parking lot and reception area.

All photos were stolen from the Cold Wet Noses website, and are dogs in need of forever homes.

January Success!

Whoops! it's been a while! We just got so busy with the holidays and Weight Loss Month that we let the blog slide.

Ventana Animal Hospital is not only a Certified Weight Loss Clinic, but we have two Certified Pet Weight Coaches (Liane our Hospital Manager and Rebecca a Certified Veterinary Technician). Both have taken the time to do 10 hours of continuing education to help our patients remain slim and healthy throughout their lives.

8 year old Aussie wrestling the stick from 13 year old German Shepherd

We decided to join the frenzy of weight loss habits changing at the New Year to kick off our own Weight Loss Month. So far so good. We have a poster up in the lobby with our weight loss candidates and they are currently vying for some really nice goodies for the pet who loses the most before the end of March.

Active breeds like border collies can gain weight quickly

Purina Pet Foods has helped us out by offering a whopping $10 off their excellent prescription pet food, OM and their senior weight loss diet (with glucosamine for joints) JM. Check out their weight loss plan online.

Most importantly we helped educate clients on the value of keeping their pets slim. Slim pets live an average of two years longer. They also live those two years (and countless more before) with fewer health issues and more mobility.

Many people think that pets slow down as they age, and while that may be true in some cases, in most cases, even as their racing days lie behind them, slender dogs remain happy and active throughout their lives. Weight gain makes dogs and cats uncomfortable. It makes joints ache and muscles strain. It can cause ligament tears and joint pain.

Kitty, an 8 year old Aussie playing in the mud

So, a huge THANK YOU to Rebecca and Ronnie who helped plan Weight Loss Month. Also a round of cheers to CJ, Gracie, Buddy, Misha, Frank, Pippin and Mary whose owners have stepped up in an effort to help them live healthier, happier, longer lives.

If you would like to know if your pet is overweight, just give us a call at 299-1146 and ask to make an appointment with Becca for a weight evaluation. She can help you formulate a weight loss plan.