“There will never be an effective vaccine against feline herpesvirus (FHV) and feline calicivirus (FCV)” our virology lecturer asserted to my 4th year vet class. That was 1974. By 1976 as a fresh-faced new graduate in Waitara I was using the newly launched cat vaccine. Snuffles is the common name for the disease caused by these two viruses. Snuffles sounds quite innocent but in those pre-vaccine days snuffles was often a severe disease. Kittens would present with their eyelids gummed together with the severe inflammation and pus. Sometimes the eyeball was ruptured. Some were unable to eat beca ..read more

Scout’s Story Scout was semi-comatose in the back of the SUV when I went out to check on him. Murray had rung earlier to say Scout was ill after eating compost some hours before. “I’ve seen many dogs ill from eating compost but never comatose”, I commented. “But compost can contain any number of nasty fungal or bacterial toxins that can damage liver, kidney and brain” “My wife loves making compost”, Murray said. “But what green stuff does she put in it”, I jested. We carried Scout inside to the treatment area by the ICU and the team got to work sorting oxygen and IV fluids. Normally we have to ..read more

As a resident of Queen’s Gardens I am sure Rabbit has gone by many names. But when I saw him “Rabbit” for unknown reasons popped into my head – and stuck. I am unsure how long he had lived at the Gardens for, but if you are a frequent visitor you may remember seeing him, feeding him on occasion, and have noticed that he is gone. Read on – it has a happy ending I promise.   Rabbit was brought into the Halifax Veterinary Clinic by a concerned member of the public – and rightly so. He was riddled with lice, emaciated and unable to walk. A veterinary examination determined he had a parasite ..read more

Slug Bait At this time of the year Nelson home gardeners are in full swing. One of the frustrations for gardeners is having garden pests destroy our good work. A few slugs can demolish a bed of lettuce seedlings overnight. Slug baits containing metaldehyde are probably the most common garden pesticide poisoning we see. Cats are rarely affected. The baits seem to hold no interest for cats – even the curious ones. No, it is dogs who discover the baits amongst the lettuces and gobble them up. Many brands like Yates Blitzem have added a repellent which it is claimed will prevent ingestion by pets ..read more

How can I recognise anxiety in my pet? More pets run away, get lost and/or injured during fireworks season than any other time in the year, and let’s not forget it’s not only Guy Fawkes night we have to be concerned about. These types of festivities usually start before the 5th of November and continue to take place well into the New Year.  In many instances, we find the dogs struggling with anxiety-related issues are also the ones suffering from a lack of confidence and low self-esteem in general as these often go together in dogs.   Self-esteem – what we see in our dog’s body ..read more

Prostate problems in dogs are common but are rarely as dramatic as Choco’s (see separate story). The most common signs are straining as if to pass stools (tenesmus), blood dripping from the penis, urinary tract infections, urinary leakage or sometimes difficulty peeing, and pain in the hindquarters.   The common feature with all prostate problems is some degree of prostate enlargement. This is initially diagnosed by rectal examination, but sometimes the enlarged prostate can also be felt in the abdomen. Then the diagnostic challenge facing us as vets is to find out what disease proce ..read more

Tapeworms hit the headlines last week! The image of a slithering tapeworm segment reportedly found in a burger went viral (wrong metaphor!) last week. It looked to me like a freshly cast segment (proglottid) of the common tapeworm associated with flea infestations in dogs and cats – Dipylidium caninum. That has been confirmed by a noted parasitologist. It seems far more likely to have come from the domestic environment than the burger outlet. It does give us a healthy reminder that there are a lot of gross parasites of people and pets and that we need to follow some simple rules to manage them ..read more

In this past week we have seen several dogs with canine cough and received a flurry of phone calls from concerned owners whose dogs had typical symptoms. For many, the initial description is “I think there might be something stuck in my dog’s throat”. Dogs don’t have to have been in boarding kennels to catch canine cough. Of course, like children at boarding school sharing germs, having many dogs in one place increases the chance of spreading respiratory disease. This is why boarding kennels, doggy daycares, & groomers all insist on your dog being fully up to date with vaccinations well be ..read more

Because pets get cancer too, and it is not just the old ones. I remember my 10 year old son Thomas coming to me one morning saying “Dad, Bartok has got a big lump on his neck”. Bartok was our 9 month old Viszla puppy. Viszlas have very short coats and I was handling him all the time. No way he had a big lump that I hadn’t seen! “Don’t be silly, Thomas” “He has! It’s as big as the end of my thumb”. And indeed he had. It was about 1.5cm in diameter and had an oozy surface. It didn’t really look like a cancer. I took him with me into Halifax, collected a sample of cells from inside the lump by in ..read more

  Betty is an amazing girl with a very sweet temperament approaching her fourteenth year.   She has always led an active lifestyle but over the last few years her doting family noticed she was starting to slow down a little. Her movements were becoming stiffer. She stopped wanting to jump into the car or onto the bed. Seemed tender in her lower back and started losing muscle mass in her hind quarters.   Through a combination of reviewing Betty’s past versus present functionality, palpation, observation and x-rays it was determined that Betty is suffering from arthriti ..read more