Should I Neuter My Pet?

The main reasons that we neuter dogs or neuter cats are to prevent breeding, to reduce behavioural problems and avoid medical problems later on in the animal’s life. We castrate male dogs, cats or rabbits and we spay female dogs, cats or rabbits.

Dogs

Spaying your bitch within the first two years of her life greatly reduces the risk of her getting mammary cancers when she is older, since there is a direct link with dogs that haven’t been neutered growing mammary cancers as they get older. It also can prevent a potentially fatal womb infection called pyometra. The risk of ovarian and uterine cancers is also removed, since when the bitch is spayed, her ovaries and womb are removed. Another advantage of spaying a dog is no messy seasons with the risk of mismating pregnancies or bitches running off in search of mates.

Generally we spay bitches in-between seasons, after they are 6 months old but we will be happy to spay a bitch before their first season as long as they are mature enough and are not about to come into season. This may suit some home situations where there is also an entire male dog in the household and a season will be unduly stressful. The first season in a bitch is variable and can happen anytime between 5 and 18 months of age!

Castrating male dogs is often behavioural reasons. It does tend to calm male dogs down and if performed within the first three years will tend to stop spraying behaviour. Where there is a tendency for your male dog to be aggressive, early neutering can again help to reduce this behaviour, before it becomes too established.

Medical reasons to castrate a dog include; preventing prostatic problems which are common in dogs over 7 years of age, and preventing testicular cancers. (These are particularly common if your dogs testicle(s) haven't yet descended) - If your dog doesn't appear to have any testicles or there is just one present then it is likely the other one is either still within the abdomen or within the inguinal canal in the groin . Vets generally  recommend castrating dogs with these retained testicles as they are much more likely to turn cancerous and you can't examine them to check!

What should I feed my Pet?

Nutrition plays a vital role in preventing serious diseases. Like people, animals fed poor quality food can suffer bone disorders such as ricketts, suffer inflammatory bowel disease, poor growth, and be more susceptible to infections.

Dogs

We recommend feeding a well balanced complete food. There is currently a fashion for the BARF (bones and raw food) diet,  which we do not recommend. We see many dogs on these foods with severe intestinal infections such as Salmonella and Campylobacter.

A complete dry dog food is a good choice and has the added benefit of helping to keep teeth clean! Some people like to give some tinned food as well. This is not needed with a complete diet, but may keep pets happy. However some of the more expensive wet foods can be too rich for a lot of dogs and cause diarrhoea in more sensitive dogs. Here at Abbeyfields we use Hill’s and Purina Proplan for our dogs.

Vets generally recommend feeding your dog at least twice a day.(Puppies should be fed more often- go to puppy feeding advice). Feeding several smaller meals helps to prevent a condition called bloat. IA particular risk in large breed dogs, it is also advisable to feed these breeds from a raised dish and never walk it straight after food to minimise the danger.

Gastric Bloat and subsequent GDV (Gastric Dilation Volvulus) can be an acutely life threatening condition. The stomach enlarges with gassy, fermented food and twists round on its axis. Affected  dogs will become rapidly lethargic, will try and vomit with no success and their  stomach will swell inside the abdomen. Urgent veterinary attention is needed, often Out of Hours  to save your dog in this situation. There is a high mortality rate. Steps to prevention are therefore  very important.

Remember to avoid  overfeeding your dog, particularly by giving treats above its daily ration.Obesity in pet dogs is a real concern. For example, feeding one piece of toast to your dog is the equivalent to feeding them a hamburger. The problems of obesity in dogs and cats are wideranging – arthritis, risks of heart and airway problems, plus skin fold infections, fatty livers and so on. The list is endless.
Abbeyfields Vets in Rocester run our own Pet Fit Club to help overweight pets lose weight We have seen some dramatic results and are always pleased to offer free advice .

So called Life stage diets are the norm these days. There are excellent diets to address a range of problems – growing pups, senior dogs, or those with medical disorders  like kidney disease or arthritis in dogs. We stock  a range of these special diets for animals with particular needs including;

Should I take out pet Insurance?

We encourage all clients to take out pet insurance.

If your animal has an accident or becomes unwell, insurance means that both Practice and Clients can do all that is needed without worrying about costs. The existence of the NHS means that people don't realise the true cost of medical treatments. Never having to pay for family members except a prescription charge, they can be shocked at the expense of treating pets for non routine events. But these costs are worked out allowing for all the expertise, equipment and medication your Pet requires.

Offering care to the best of our ability, means we use the same anaesthetics that are used in Paediatric medicine, we have modern equipment including a digital x-ray machine and blood testing machines for comprehensive testing including clotting profiles and hormone testing. We provide our own “out of hours” service so that in an emergency your pet does not have to travel to a distant surgery.

Such Veterinary treatment does come at a cost and compromising on cost can unfortunately mean compromising on some aspects of care, or referral perhaps.

That is why we urge you to get your pet insured.

Pet insurance will often also cover 3rd part liability, emergency kennelling costs and advertising if your pet gets lost or strays. All insurance policies have an excess which is deducted from any claim. People often get confused about their “Insurance Excess”. This is payable normally as a single cost to the pet owner,  when a claim is made. Much like with house or car insurance. It is important to understand that even if several claim forms are submitted for a long course of treatment, the Company should only deduct one excess and pay out the rest of the  claims for the year without further deduction. (One exception can be much older pets, where some Companies charge an excess as a percentage).

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When and how often do I need to vaccinate my Pet?

It is very important to keep your pet up to date with their vaccinations to stop them from becoming very poorly against important diseases, which are preventable.

Dog Vaccinations

We give Puppies two  injections, generally two to four weeks apart , from  8 weeks of age. We then repeat the injection with an annual booster. We vaccinate dogs against the diseases – Leptospirosis (Weils disease in humans), Distemper virus, Hepatitis, Parvovirus, Parainfluenza and also Bordetella (Kennel Cough). All of these diseases can cause immense suffering and can be highly fatal.

If people stop vaccinating their pets then these organismas  will become much more prevalent in the general population  and there is then the risk of an Outbreak of disease. At that point, all the pets that have “got away“ without being vaccinated for many years, are suddenly at much greater risk of disease, than their vaccinated neighbours.

Here at Abbeyfields we do not over vaccinate animals. We follow the recommendations for each vaccine; some parts of the dog vaccine will be only given once every three years depending on official recommendations. Most years Abbeyfields takes part in National Pet Vaccination Month, which is usually in May, where reduced priced restart vaccination courses will help if your pet has gone overdue.

When and why do I need to worm my Pet?

Dogs

It is very important to keep up to date with worming your Dog.

We recommend worming all dogs at least once every 3 months. If you have small children, or your dog eats raw food, then you should worm them monthly.

Puppies, under 6 months old, need to we wormed every month.

Dogs need to be wormed frequently against tapeworm, roundworms and also lungworm. It is important to worm with a product from your Veterinary Surgeon as these are generally much more effective than Pet Shop wormers, which can be sold with no prescription. Veterinary wormers will also will treat lungworm which is a highly fatal disease. The intermediate carriers for these worms can be fleas, slugs, snails, small mammals, eating faeces and raw meat.

Don’t forget if your dog travels abroad, to continue to worm; worms like heartworm are prevalent on the Continent. Our Vets at Abbeyfields can advise you further upon protocols and preferred worm brands.

My Pet is scratching what can be wrong?

The most common cause of an animal scratching is some form of parasite on the skin such as a flea, louse or mite.

My Pet has smelly breath, how do I make it better?

The major cause of a pet to have smelly breath is dental disease.

It is very common for pets to develop problems with their teeth, as they do not brush them like we do. Dental problems often go unnoticed until there is a severe problem such as a tooth root abscess that causes a swelling on the side of the face. It has recently been shown that dental diseases can lead to kidney abscesses and disorders of the heart valves, so it is very important that any problems are readily picked up.
Here at Abbeyfields in Rocester we will regularly monitor your pet’s teeth at every annual vaccination and at 6monthly intervals between, where we have concerns. We also have specific dental awareness months where we offer free dental checks.

There are ways to prevent your pet getting sore teeth and these include;

My dog has a cough, is it kennel cough?

Many people assume that if a dog has a cough, then it must be kennel cough. However there are a variety of reasons why a dog may cough.
Kennel Cough is best described as a syndrome caused by several bacteria and viruses. The two most common infectious causes are Bordetella bronchiseptica bacteria and the Parainfluenza virus. Many other organisms can be involved to a lesser degree.

An infectious cough like kennel cough  can be picked up from kennels or anywhere where your dog comes into close proximity with another dog, perhaps the park or the Dog Training Club. We strongly recommend vaccinating against Kennel Cough as it is highly contagious and requires a long treatment course to resolve it. The kennel cough vaccine protects against Bordetella and parainfluenza. Whilst there may be other bugs involved, it as been proven that vaccinated dogs are much more likely to miss the infection, or any clinical signs of infection are greatly reduced and recovery is quicker.

Another common cause of coughing, especially in older dogs is heart disease. When the heart begins to fail, fluid can accumulate in the chest , which causes a cough. Furthermore , if the heart enlarges it can press on the wind pipe and also trigger a cough. Heart disease needs assessment and staging for the best possible approach to treatment.

Other causes of cough include;

Lungworm – a worm that invades the chest and causes bleeding problems and coughing.

Heartworm - another worm that is seen in pets that travel abroad (For more info go to pet travel scheme pages)

Inflammatory airway diseases such as asthma and a condition called pulmonary fibrosis or COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) in Westies.

Chest tumours

A collapsing windpipe (trachea) – common in Yorkshire terriers and other small dogs

An inhaled grass seed

Other chest infections

My Pet has a Lump, is it Cancer?

If your pet develops a lump of swelling, which you haven’t previously noted, then you must get it checked out by a Vet.

There are many causes for a lump including an abscess, an injection reaction, a foreign object such as a migrated grass seed or shotgun pellet, a hernia, and a tumour. Often lumps in pets are not cancerous and there may well be nothing to worry about, but cancerous lumps in pets can come in all shapes and sizes.

The lumps that concern us most tend to be those related to the mammary glands, those in the lymph glands (lymphoma) and those that develop in the skin. Internal lumps and cancers can be harder to spot, and your pet may need more investigations to find this, or may indeed present with signs which don’t automatically make you think of a mass.

Mammary lumps in dogs can be highly malignant with 50% of them being nasty. Our policy at Abbeyfields is to remove or at least sample all mammary lumps. We always find that mammary masses turn malignant in the end. Removal is best, but sampling and staging helps us to achieve large enough margins for clinical cure and gives a long term prognosis to our owns.

Another tumour that concerns us is one called a Mast Cell tumour. This is a skin tumour, most commonly seen in Boxer dogs, which can be quite aggressive in its nature. Often these masses release histamine and become itchy. It is important that these are removed with a massive margin of safety, since Mast Cell tumours tend to extend long roots into surrounding  tissue. Don’t be surprised if we need to may a bigger skin wound than expected in these cases.

Often lumps can be well treated. If we are concerned ithat a mass is a malignant cancer, but unsure as to its exact nature,  we may well test the lump with a “fine needle aspirate” or a biopsy. Subsequent removal allows us to plan wide margins if we have identified the type of cancer beforehand.

Some masses require follow up treatment such as chemotherapy at the Practice. Alternatively radiotherapy can be offered on referral, but this is rarely needed.

My Pet can't get up, what could be wrong?

There is always a concern if your pet can’t get up and you should always seek urgent advice from your Veterinary Surgeon.

It could be that it has painful joints, it has been hit by a car (RTA), there is a back problem, a heart problem, a stroke, a high temperature or it is bleeding internally.

If your Pet is slowing down and just not quite as quick out of its bed as it once was it could well be that  arthritis is setting in. Arthritis, or degenerative joint disease, (DJD) is an extremely painful, aching, condition and should not be ignored for your pet’s quality of life. If treated in its early stages, the long term prognosis for an arthritic animal is much better than if it is left untreated, as this disease  is a self perpetuating condition.

Radiography is always worthwhile, together with careful clinical examination of affected joints. There are lots of medications available – joint supplements plus differnet classes of pain killers or analgesics. Dog and cat  painkillers are increasingly safer and more effective and can bring a new lease of life to affected pets. Similarly special nutritional diets for joint disease can help the approach to pain relief in a previously never considered way.

When joints become so diseased or end staged,  sometimes only a salvage procedure will suffice. We have an increasing number of pets on our records who have undergone surgery – to fuse collapsed and diseased wrist joints or replace worn out hips. For these pets the results have been amazing; pain hasn’t just been controlled, it has been eliminated, and these pets have  regained a youthful and active life.