Pawcurious Vet Blog: Pet help, stories, and information with Dr. V

Today I am delighted to have a guest post from Dr. Nancy Kay, a veterinary internist and author of the must-have guide for being a good health advocate for your pet, Speaking for Spot. In today’s post, Dr. Kay gives some tips for how to wade through the complex issue of pet vaccination and what you can do to make the decisions that are right for you and your pet. Thank you so much Dr. Kay!

During my last year of veterinary school, I recall how scary it was when a new canine virus—parvovirus—seemed to appear out of nowhere. Highly contagious, it spread like wildfire throughout the United States, causing severe illness and often death. It was a downright frightening time for veterinarians and the clients they served. Fortunately, an effective vaccine was rapidly developed, and this horrible new virus was downgraded from a rampant deadly infection to a preventable disease. Thank goodness for vaccines! They provide a remarkable means of preventive health care for dogs.

As invaluable as vaccinations are for protecting canine health, determining which vaccines are appropriate and how frequently they should be administered are no longer simple decisions. In my book, vaccinations are no different than any other medical procedure. They should not be administered without individualized discussion and consideration of the potential risks and benefits.

Gone are the days of behaving like a “Stepford wife” when it comes to your dog’s vaccinations — it’s no longer necessarily in his best interest to vaccinate simply because a reminder postcard has arrived in the mailbox.

Consider the following:

• There are currently 14 canine vaccinations to choose from! Back in the days when I was just a pup there were only five, and decision-making regarding vaccine selection for an individual dog was far less complicated.

• Over the past decade we’ve learned that, for some vaccines, the duration of protection is far longer than previously recognized. In the past we vaccinated for the core diseases (distemper, parvovirus, and rabies) annually. We now know that these vaccinations, when given to adult dogs, provide protection for a minimum of three years and, in some cases protection is life-long.

• The duration and degree of immune protection triggered by a vaccine is variable, not only based on manufacturer, but from dog to dog as well.

• Other than for rabies (state mandated), vaccination protocols are anything but standardized. There are no set rules veterinarians must follow when determining which vaccines to give and how often they are administered. Unfortunately, some vets continue to vaccinate for distemper and parvovirus annually even though we know that these adult vaccines provide protection for a minimum of three years. Some vets give multiple inoculations at once, others administer just one at a time.

• Increasingly clear-cut documentation shows that vaccines have the potential to cause many side effects. While vaccine reactions/complications are still considered to be infrequent, they can be life threatening.

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I live in Southern California. We don’t have thunder. We have earthquakes. In fact, we just had one 5 minutes ago. It was a 5.9. I’m still shaking. My point is, while I can tell you all about how to handle earthquakes (freeze and pray), thunderstorm phobia is really not my area of expertise.

Fortunately for all of you, as we stand on the cusp of thunder season (so I hear), I have the pleasure of having guest blogger and trainer extraordinaire Eric Goebelbecker from Dog Spelled Forward, one of my favorite dog blogs, to talk about this issue.

Eric and his family live in New Jersey, where they have plenty of thunderstorms. I “met” Eric through the Brody Awards earlier this year, then later in person at BlogPaws in Columbus. I’m so pleased to have him here today and I hope you all enjoy having a trainer perspective on a very common problem!

About two years ago, after she was already a mature dog, Caffeine started displaying thunderstorm phobia. It came out of nowhere — and is one of the most frustrating problems I have ever had to deal with in my own dogs. She was terrified, and nothing I could do would really help.

She would pace the ground floor of our home panting and salivating heavily and then she would whine not just when thunder sounded, but with each lightning flash and when wind buffeted against the house.

Thunderstorm phobia is the most frequently diagnosed sound phobia in dogs. It often accompanies fears of wind and rain (like my dog) and can also present with a fear of other sounds like airplanes, fireworks, and backfiring cars. Phobic dogs typically pace, whine, shake, salivate and seek attention from their humans. read more >>

Today, I decided little Kekoa might enjoy a day at doggie daycare. Why not? I had a reservation I wasn’t going to be able to use for Brody anyway.

Why is that, do you ask? Poor Brody is persona non grata at doggie daycare. You see, he has warts. Canine viral papillomas, to be more specific- a common affliction in dogs, seen most often in young pups who go to dog parks, or, erm, doggie daycares.

So no matter that this very place is the most likely reason he got it in the first place, until those lesions are gone, he can’t attend. I understand the reasoning, and policy is policy. It is a contagious disease after all, though the vast majority of cases result in a small amount of harmless though ugly lesions that resolve on their own in a month or two.

A month or two is no big deal, unless of course you’re talking about Brody- a dog who LIVES for this, who spends the entire workday tearing around the facility 100 miles an hour. If he doesn’t spend the full day tearing around the facility, he is either home eating stuff, or at work, wreaking havoc with the resident cat. For this reason, I am trying an experimental therapy that has been shown in some studies to induce remission in about 15 days.

The azithromycin arrived today, special ordered from a compounding pharmacy in Brody-size (see, I really do use human drugs all the time! Azithromycin is the drug you might know as a Z pack.) Keep your fingers crossed that it works.

Back to the beginning of the story- so we had reversed positions, with Kekoa in daycare and Brody with me at work. Neither of them liked it much. Koa received a sad face on her report card, which stated, “Not a good day for her. She sat in the corner all day and didn’t want to play with any of the dogs. Maybe next time she might meet a friend.” How sad is that? Meanwhile Brody spent the day with me, sequestered and sulking.

So keep your fingers crossed that this stuff works. We all will be much happier that way.

One of the prices we pay for living in paradise (aside from traffic, cost of living, and all of that manmade stuff) is sharing the land with the lovely rattlesnake.

Generally speaking, they aren’t too difficult to deal with if you are your average suburbanite- just leave them be. It’s not like they’re Boomslangs that drop randomly out of trees onto your head (I had nightmares after learning that little factoid); they sun themselves on rocks and other exposed places trying to be left alone. They give you warning rattles. They are fairly non-confrontational.

Of course, none of this matters to an overexcitable dog. Which is why starting every spring, veterinary clinics and emergency rooms are flooded with sick, puffy faced dogs who got a little too close to a rattler. Unfortunately, some die. Treatment, even if it works, is very expensive. The rattlesnake vaccine may confer some protection, but does not eliminate the need for treatment after a snakebite. The best treatment is prevention.

A local Meetup group I belong to coordinated a Rattlesnake Avoidance clinic this weekend. I’ve heard about the classes, though I’ve never done one myself. Given my suspicion that this will be a pretty prolific snake season, in conjunction with Brody’s sincere enthusiasm for wildlife, I decided to check it out.

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People ask me on a regular basis what kind of toy they should give their dog to chew on. We go through the usual: Bully sticks, rawhides, Greenies, Kongs (each with distinct advantages and disadvantages.) We eliminate the problem items I never recommend: pigs ears, cow hooves, dried femur bones. For the most part, we can find something that most dogs can use.

Sticks, by the way? I don’t recommend them. (My husband took this picture when I wasn’t around.)

About once a week, an owner asks about their Super Duper Nutty Chewer. The kind who eats a bully stick in 10 minutes. The kind who demolishes the heavy duty Black Kongs. And to those owners, I say: Good Luck.

There are Blue Kongs- they’re like the secret menu item at In N Out, hardly anyone knows about them. Did you? They’re a little harder to find (some vets carry them.) They are even stronger than Black Kongs, and impregnated with barium so if Cujo manages to rip some off, you can at least see where it wound up.

I haven’t found someone who’s used one yet, though, so please let me know if you have any thoughts on them. Or if you have an insane hardcore chewer and have some other idea, let me know. I’d like to have more constructive advice for these owners than “hide your shoes and pray for the best.”

Fleas stink. No doubt about it. They make your pet miserable, you miserable, they carry parasites, and they’re gross. Worse still, once they take up residence in your home, they can be very difficult to get rid of.

Why is that?

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