What Price, Love?

Jo and Holly
A great friend of mine spent an afternoon last week taking his daughter's pet rat to the vet.


Here's his story:


I went to the vet today.....with a rat.

The facts:

Cost of a *new* Rat from Petco: $10
Vet bills today: $74

Conversation with Jo and her Dad:

"Well Jo, I could have brought
you 7 rats today and had $4 in change."

Joanne replies, "Yeah, but that's
the cost of loving your pets."

Dad had no response!

And we're glad he didn't! Good job, Dad!

Just for Fun

This holiday weekend in the United States will have all sorts of new barbecue and picnic ideas being tried out for this Memorial Day. The one on the left may not be as good as some others, but it sure is cute... Enjoy...

Veterinarians as Partners

Eileen Mitchell wrote an interesting piece in last Saturday's San Francisco Chronicle that I have spent some time thinking about.

She is a regular contributor to the paper and writes about her beloved dog, Elvis, who is a rescued greyhound. I look forward to each of her stories, and feel I've come to know Elvis via her column.

In this piece, she writes about her devotion to her veterinarian and the care he takes in treating Elvis. She outlines the extensive training and competition within veterinary schools, concluding that vets aren't in it for the money but for their love of animals. This has been my observation as well.

All this information is a backdrop to the main part of the story, which is not everyone feels so warmly about their vets. A friend wrote her an email in which one of the most scathing quotes is:

The fact that veterinary science has developed expensive tools to attempt to prolong the appearance of life in pets is not an advancement, but premeditated criminal theft. If you want to do something really valuable, expose the scam that is veterinary medicine.

Harsh.

Truth be told, there there are many of us who have had to face these wrenching end of life issues with our pets. It's an emotional tornado where each decision can seem wrong, where we find ourselves second guessing everyone's motivations, including our own. Is it any wonder that the vet wouldn't be a prime target in all of this too?


Not Tuesday, but a really cute Tabby!

I had the most beautiful tabby cat, Tuesday, who was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism at age 15 years. She took oral medication for a while, and for a couple of months, she did well. Then things began deteriorating for her. My vet at the time laid out the options: radioactive iodine treatment or surgery. Both required traveling to a hospital which was over 8 hours in driving time away. Without the advanced treatment, she would die of the disease in short order.

The questions went spinning though my head: Was this the right thing to do? Is this what I needed to do as her guardian? Is this something she would want? Or was I thinking only of myself, trying to prolong her life past its natural end because I didn't want to deal with her death? Was the vet "selling" this treatment, knowing she probably wouldn't survive? Looking at Tuesday's thin, frail body, I couldn't believe she'd come through these invasive treatments healthy and strong, but I didn't want to say no just in case I was wrong.

Here's the conclusion I came to: As Tuesday's pet parent, I needed to make a decision that was in her best interest. Whatever the vet told me was seen as data that I could consider in making the decision, but it would be my decision and no one else's. I couldn't have the vet or anyone else make the decision for me, and I wouldn't try to analyze anyone's motivations for their input. Things were hard enough without trying to read people's minds.

I decided against the surgery and radiation treatment. We put Tuesday on another medication which addressed her pain, and I took her home and made her as comfortable as possible in a hospice environment. When it was clear she was in more pain than the medication could cover, I took her back to the vet for her last visit, and through gushing tears, said goodbye to her as she was euthanized.

These are never easy decisions and I truly believe there is no one right path. There was a time I turned over my credit card to the vet for another cat, Chatty Cathy, because she needed her hip rebuilt after being hit by a car. As I was paying in advance for the $1500+ estimated bill, I told the vet, "I don't even like this cat all that much." But I was her caregiver, and when I adopt a pet, I do so for the best interest of them throughout their life. Chatty Cathy was young, less than a year old, and the prognosis was good that she'd come out of the surgery fine. She did, and lived another 12 years before dying of cancer.

Maybe my experience with veterinarians has been more positive than Eileen's friend. And as Eileen points out, every profession has its shady side. I'd like to think that if I sensed a vet was trying to guilt me into a procedure as this article describes, I'd find another vet for another opinion. Because the best outcome for our pets is to have a strong partnership with a veterinarian so they can live their lives to the fullest. And in the end, isn't that what it's all about?

In Today's News...

Two alerts arrived from the FDA:

• Yes, another expanded pet food recall. The list includes:
  
• Doctors Foster & Smith lamb and brown rice adult dog food
  
• Shop Rite Redi-Mix dog food
  
• Lick Your Chops kitten and cat food
  
• Shep Chunk Style dog food
  
• 8 in 1 Ferret Ultra-Blend Advanced Nutrition Diet
  
• Bulk Lamb & Brown Rice Formula dog food
  
• Health Diet cat food chicken & rice dinner
  
• Evolve Kitten Formula
• And, as our pets live longer, there's now additional help for dogs experiencing congestive heart failure, which is more common in smaller dogs - Vetmiden is the first drug approved in over ten years to help manage the symptoms, which from the article are listed as:

Signs of congestive heart failure include fatigue and weakness, decreased ability to exercise, shortness of breath (fluid build up in the chest), increased respiratory rate, coughing, weak or irregular pulses, rapid or irregular heart beats and distended abdomen (fluid build up in the abdomen).

A Special Kind of Healer

Patrick McGill and Izzy
Today's San Francisco Chronicle features a wonderful story of how a homeless miniature poodle found her calling in visiting patients and providing love, support, and hope at UCSF's Children's Hospital.

The article outlines why Izzy is such a great choice for this work and how her trainer, Francis Metcalf, has been working with her to make sure she continues to excel at her job.

And Izzy doesn't keep her special touch for the kids only - the story covers the benefit and joy she brings to the staff as well as parents who may not be able to hold their children but can cuddle with Izzy and get the support she so generously shares.

You'll just feel good reading this article and learning how one small being can bring so much benefit to those dealing with some very difficult situations.

Fun Stuff Today

This great picture shows the power of maternal instinct - a dog in Paomaling Zoo in Jinan, capital of east China's Shandong Province, feeds her puppy and three tiger triplets after they were rejected by their mother (the downside of maternal instinct).

Also, a great quote picked up from a daily calendar I have:

Did you ever walk into a room and forget why you walked in? I think that's how dogs spend their lives.

- Sue Murphy

Lily

Also, an earlier post on wagging tails promised observation of Lily's tail wagging and whether she tended to wag in the direction that was observed in the lab - left for danger, right for safety and happiness.

I can report that her tail not only goes waaay to the right when happy, but her hips move in the same direction too - this is a dog that puts everything into her overall joy for life.

She's one week into a two week stay with me. I hesitate to try and validate the leftward wagging since I'd then have put her in the unsavory position of perceived danger. We're here to have fun, so we'll leave it at that, knowing that happy dogs definitely wag to the right.

Happy Thursday.

Additional Dry Foods Recalled Today

I'm now in the habit of checking the FDA recall list each time before I head to the store.

An alert just came into my mailbox for Royal Canin's Sensible Choice and Kasco dry dog and cat food products. They were sold in 20-pound bags at pet specialty stores nationwide with date codes from July 28, 2007, to April 30, 2008.

There are several varieties of each being recalled, please check here if you feed your pet either of these brands.

The Fallout from Tainted Food

Two very interesting articles were published by the Wall Street Journal last week on the ramifications of so much pet food (over 100 brands) being recalled because of contamination due to melamine. Some highlights:

• Oddly, the Food and Drug Administration has not updated it's estimate that only 16 dogs and cats have died because of the poisoning. That number was too low the minute Menu Foods released their list of affected products. With additional products being recalled since, it's simply a joke. Who do they think they're kidding? It would be better for the FDA to work with the vets and come clean on the numbers, as veterinarians are now reporting dealing with thousands of cases of renal distress and failure.
• An estimated 50 class action lawsuits have been filed, and there's a push to include pain and suffering along with the hard financial numbers: how much you paid for your pet, the vet bills over their lifetime, the food you've purchased, and the care given due to the poisoning. This is a tough one, folks. As the author of Pet Plaintiffs comments:

  As the owner of two dogs that have been conferred full citizenship in my own household, I can sympathize with those who have been victimized. But I also know that if these efforts succeed, suits involving pets will soon come to resemble the rest of our civil justice system, benefiting lawyers and a few litigants at the expense of the rest of us. Owners, trainers, rescue groups and humane societies that do valuable work will all be vulnerable to potentially enormous liability and forced to pay more for everything from vet care to insurance.

• Since the veil has been lifted on the number of companies that use one source (Menu Foods) to produce their private label, economy, and premium foods, there's all kinds of rethinking going on whether it's worthwhile to pay the higher price for a premium label. In 101 Brand Names:

  In the past, branded pet foods had an emotional advantage: Many owners were loath to give low-quality food to their pets. But even veterinary nutritionists say they have difficulty telling brands apart. "The money you spend on a [premium-brand] diet does not always equate with the quality of the food," says Andrea Fascetti, associate professor of nutrition at the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of California, Davis. "There are no requirements around calling something a 'premium' or 'super-premium' product."

• In the same article, one pet food manufacturer responds with:

  P&G argues that even products with identical ingredient lists aren't necessarily equals. "A less-expensive brand can copy an ingredient list but might not have the same combination to the way the recipe is put together," says company spokesman Kurt Iverson. The quality of ingredients and the way they are combined affects how nutrients are absorbed by the animal, he says.

You buy this argument? I don't. And neither does a vet I was chatting with earlier today. He wrote:

I'm not so sure that I will recommend feeding only home cooked food, but many of my local colleagues and I are skeptical about recommending these brands when they are using an outside source to make even some of their foods.

Chocolate and Lily
And a thought on the lawsuits. I can tell you that if my guy Chocolate or my girlfriend Lily were affected by this crisis, there is no doubt that I'd seriously consider a lawsuit to send a message to the manufacturers that this is not acceptable and there is a price to pay when not injecting caution at every stage of food production. But if we all did this, the larger result brings ramifications that would hurt us, along with the vets and other service providers (walkers, groomers, boarders, etc.) that are, more often than not, sole proprietor businesses that care for our pets because they love them as much as we do. As Steve Malanga states in Pet Plantiffs, accidentally running over your neighbor's cat could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars if we let this spiral out of control. Instead, he suggests an alternate plan, which benefits us now and later:

The pet food scare has prompted an overdue scrutiny of our imported pet and human food sources, and it should prod China, a major exporter, to impose higher standards on its farmers and wholesalers. But opening up our court system to pet pain-and-suffering awards will do little to address that problem.

Let's do this instead.

If you are Cooking...

...for your pets now, here's a comment I've pulled from an article on homemade pet food. I'm seeing a lot more posts like this, where simple home cooking over a long period of time will miss key ingredients our pets need to thrive. The last sentence is key: check in with your vet for any significant change in their diet.

Please do not give your dogs bones of any sort. I work at an animal hospital, and dogs that have been given even the "safe" bones have been brought in on an emergency basis for exploratory surgery to remove the splinters caused by the dog breaking the bone up. This can occur with ANY type of bone.

As to the rest of the article, there are many other foods not mentioned in this article which can cause severe problems with dogs or cats, even if they do not cause problems in people. Onions are not good for dogs or cats, and even certain fruits have been linked to internal organ failure in pets. If you plan on feeding your pets home-made diets, please research, research, research. We see many cases of home-diets that cause severe intestinal problems, including pancreatitis. Variety may be good, but too much can cause just as many problems as you think you are fixing.

If your pet's system has grown accustomed to packaged diets, do not change over all at once. Please take the time to really research your ingredients, and speak to your veterinarian about any drastic diet changes.

What We Can Learn From Them

This pictorial story arrived in my mailbox last week. It's a great way to spend some time this weekend thinking about and being inspired by the courage of our pets and the people dedicated to sharing their lives with them.

Hurricane Rescue Story

The story begins with the rescuers finding this poor little guy they named Ralphie that

someone had already taken under their wing but weren't equipped to adopt;

Ralphie, scared and starved, joined his rescuers...







I wouldn't think anything could live thru this...
but we were wrong.













This little lady survived that wreckage.











Here she is just placed in the car - scared, but safe.











and then... no longer alone!











Instant friends, they comforted each other while in the car.











Add two more beagles found after that.
the more, the merrier!








Oh boy, a new traveler to add to the mix...
(note: the cat coming over the seat needing shelter...)
now just how is this going to work???












It's going to work just fine, thank you very much!








Wow! The things we learn from our animal friends...
If only all of mankind could learn such valuable lessons
as this. Lessons of instant friendship. Of peace and harmony
by way of respect for one another -- no matter one's color or creed.

These animals tell you... "It's just good to be alive and with others."

Yes, it surely is.

So... Live, love, laugh.

In Memory of Pele

Last week, Pele, the black lab that lives across the street, died. I've been surprised by how much I've been thinking about him, and now want to honor his memory.

Pele was a big guy, close to 100 pounds, and everyone loved him except for Chocolate. In my very first blog entry, I hint that Chocolate is a very friendly guy with one exception. That exception was Pele. I think Pele was a threat to Chocolate's self appointed alpha ranking on the street. For the five years that Pele was part of the neighborhood, there was a constant, uh, pissing match between the two. Each watered each others shrubbery on a regular basis whenever they'd be out for walks.

There was an altercation between the two last summer where Chocolate wore Pele's patience thin (Chocolate had this obnoxious habit of running tight circles around Pele when they did see each other off leash), and after seven stitches and a $300 vet bill, Chocolate was still none the wiser about what his ranking should be on the block (hint: not alpha).

But here's what's important about this story and why I bring it up now. Pele was an important member of my neighbor's family, but he was also a part of our lives too. I didn't realize until this week how much each pet on the block gives depth and personality to the neighborhood. Knowing that I won't see Pele come out the front door anymore makes me very sad. He was such a sweet guy and he will be missed by everyone who came to know him.

A note on how Pele died. On a warm Spring day last week, Pele jumped the fence and was visiting neighborhood houses. Many garage doors were open, and Pele came upon and ingested rat poison. He died at home that evening, when the vet and his family thought he was past the worst of it.

Our neighborhood is close to our downtown center, and rats are a part of our lives. There are ways to address the problem that doesn't involve poison. My sure-fire cure is Minnie, my tortoise shell cat, who delivers at least one dead rat every other week. Not always pleasant to clean up, but I'll deal with that any day over risking hurting an unintended victim.

If you find you need to place poison out of any kind, please think about how it might be accessible to an inadvertent visitor or unintended victim. Pele's life was cut short, and we on the street all feel the loss. Our neighborhood is a little less exciting today without him here. We will miss you Pele, may you rest in peace.