June 2012

The weather has been unbelievable here in the Pickering, Ajax, Whitby, Scarborough area. Now, I love the heat, but this is hot. Despite the heat and humidity I still went out for my training run last night. We were warned to keep properly hydrated and cut the run short if the heat was too much. We planned to run down by the Pickering – Scarborough waterfront – it could be cooler there.

The beginning of the run was great – we were in the shade.  After being in our air conditioned veterinary clinic all day I was actually looking forward to being outdoors. Ten minutes into the run I could feel my heart pounding. Man it was hot. And to think we were running 10km at a tempo pace, which means as fast as you can. My water supply was diminishing and we were only at the 2k mark. It actually wasn’t that bad until we turned a corner by the wind turbine in Pickering and we hit dead air. There was no wind, just heat and humidity.

My heart was pounding, my head was hurting and all you could hear was the heavy breathing of us runners. I started to think we were nuts running in the hot weather and the looks we were getting from passersby was incredible.  By the time we got up to Bayly and Liverpool I thought I had hit the wall. My legs were cramping, my head was hurting, my heart was pounding, and my breathing was heavy. I thought of the recent incidences of dogs being left in the car. This is probably how they felt.  At least we can sweat.

Heat stroke is serious. Why do people continue to leave their pets in cars?  One incident is too many but to now hear of 3. Has anyone experienced heat exhaustion/stroke?  Let me tell you what happens with your pet.

The first sign your pet may show is panting. The heart muscles become damaged resulting in heart failure. Blood flow is compromised and it becomes more difficult to breathe. Breathing may initially be normal but as the lungs fill with fluid, breathing becomes laboured and will sound noisy or wheezy. As the brain swells from fluid, your pet will act “drunk” and stagger around and may even seizure. The colour of your pet’s gums should always be nice and pink, but with heat stroke they can look red before they become pale or even blue in colour. They can also turn yellow indicating destruction of red blood cells or from the liver failing. The intestinal tract and kidneys can also be affected.  You may notice red pin point marks on the skin or gums or what looks like larger bruises on the skin. The result of this multi organ failure is Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation (DIC) or in other words, Death Is Coming!

The goal of emergency treatment is to lower core body temperature as soon as heat stroke is suspected. This can be accomplished with tepid water baths, hosing down your pet and using fans to blow cool air onto them. Do not place your pet in an ice bath because this will impair heat dissipation. Even placing a cool towel on their body will impair their ability to cool.

Get your pet to your veterinarian as soon as possible so further measures can be taken. This is not to be taken lightly. Your pet can die from heat stroke.

As we were coming to the end of our run the sprinkler systems were on by an apartment complex. We ran through them like 5yr olds through the sprinklers. What a relief.

Wishing you the best, Dr. Kathleen Fulop.

Veterinarian Blog 2012
Amberlea Animal Hospital serving Durham, Pickering, Ajax, and Whitby, Scarborough, and the GTA

My Yukon and Charley keeping hydrated at a friend's house in Pickering Ontario.

Here in Pickering Ontario we are experiencing some extreme temperatures. As a result, our veterinary clinic has received a lot of questions about how to keep your pets cool. Here is a little known fact, dogs and cats have sweat glands in their feet. And cats will pant like dogs to keep themselves cool. So a quick way to cool your pet is to put their feet in cold water or let them wade around in water (courtesy of OVMA).

Please be careful this week. Not only for yourselves, but for your pets. Make sure you and your pets are well hydrated and ideally, stay indoors where it is cool.

Wishing you the best, Dr. Kathleen Fulop.

Veterinarian Blog 2012
Amberlea Animal Hospital serving Durham, Pickering, Ajax, and Whitby, Scarborough, and the GTA

One day in March we received a phone call at our veterinary clinic here in Pickering from a distraught client in Ajax – there was a cat laying on their porch with blood coming out of it’s nose.  “ Dr. Fulop, you have to help it. You have to put it out of it’s misery”.  Animal Control couldn’t come out for the cat until the next day and the client was afraid that the cat wouldn’t make it. I asked if they could bring the cat to the Amberlea Animal Hospital for me to look at. They were afraid to touch the cat but managed to get her into a cage and brought her to us.

Mrs. Pickles was very weak and dehydrated when she arrived at our veterinary clinic. Photo for the "Found Cat" poster.

Mortified at what we were going to see, we were prepared for the worst.  Blood from the nose – could she have been hit by a car? Could she have been attacked by another animal?  The client arrived in tears. My technicians brought the cage to the back treatment area while I went up to console this distraught client. I thanked her for bringing in the cat and told her that we would take care of the cat.

My heart was pounding as I walked back to the treatment area. All I had was a vision of a cat in very rough shape and had all intentions of humanely euthanizing this cat if it was suffering. As I approached the cage I could see the cat sitting up in the carrier. Ok, this is a good sign.  As I got closer I could see a bloody discharge coming from its nostrils. We didn’t know what to expect, but we took the cat out of the carrier and out came the skinniest cat you had ever seen. And she was purring!! We quickly checked for a microchip in hopes that we could contact the owner, but unfortunately there was no chip to be found. I performed a physical examination and other than the nasal discharge she didn’t appear to have any trauma to her. You could see the faces of my technicians light up as I said nothing was broken and no wounds were found anywhere. She was in rough shape though. She was missing a lot of fur, had large crusts all over, her ears were packed with ear mites and she was very itchy. Her eyes were very hazy and she was missing some teeth. Based on this she was assessed to be 16 yrs of age!!

I feel this cat had a story to tell us, perhaps about a long journey she may have taken and how she had to fend for herself. We offered her some food and she ate like she hadn’t eaten in weeks. Our hearts melted for this cat. I didn’t have the heart to call the Humane Society because we feared she would not be adoptable.  We treated her for an upper respiratory tract infection, treated her for ear mites and fleas, dewormed her and yes, she did have the scabies mite and we treated her for that as well. We are making every effort to find the owner of this cat. We have put up signs in the Ajax neighbourhood where she was found as well in surrounding Whitby and Scarborough area and we even posted her picture on Kijiji. Someone did respond to the Kijiji posting but in the end never even came to see if she was their missing cat. We are still looking for her owner, but in the meantime we have made the decision to keep her and we call her Mrs. Pickles.

Veterinary staff giving Mrs. Pickles' first bath in the veterinary clinic.

Veterinary staff having fun blow drying Mrs. Pickles.

Pickles is a character. She has her little routine every day. We greet her in the morning, she comes out for a stretch and heads up to the front reception area, scratches the carpet and has a good roll. Then she sits in front of the door and stares outside. I wonder if she misses her life outdoors or if she is thankful to be safe inside. We love her little strut, with her severely arthritic legs. She comes for her scratches and pets and then she heads back to her cage.

Here we are 3 months later. We love this cat. She had a bath the other day, which she actually enjoyed and didn’t even mind being blow dried. In one respect we are very saddened that no one came forward to claim Mrs. Pickles, but we are so happy that she did come to us and we have been able to nurse her back to health and provide her a safe environment.

Mrs. Pickles snuggling with Sam. Sam is one of our veterinary staff's Golden Retriever.

Wishing you the best, Dr. Kathleen Fulop.

Veterinarian Blog 2012
Amberlea Animal Hospital serving Durham, Pickering, Ajax, and Whitby, Scarborough, and the GTA

This past Friday the Pickering, Ajax, Whitby, and Scarborough area experienced an intense storm, which served as a reminder of the upcoming summer storm season in Ontario. So this week I thought it might be helpful if I talked a bit about what veterinarians call “storm phobia”. I have some experience with this topic as one of my  two golden retrievers, Yukon, used to be very afraid of storms. My husband and I got Yukon at 10 weeks of age from a family wanting to give him up, and we had no clue that he was fearful of storms.  I wish you could have seen the look on his face when he experienced his first thunderstorm with us. His eyes were huge. I thought they were going to bug out of his head, and then he bolted when the lightening struck. It was obvious that we needed to work with Yukon to help him get over his fears. Here is what we did:

1). We addressed Yukon’s symptoms right away. Since storm phobia is considered a progressive behavioural issue, meaning that it can get worse with each storm, it is important that even mild signs of anxiety to storms be addressed. Watch for signs of repeated yawning, lip licking/smacking, pacing, signs of restlessness, whining and howling, and shivering/shaking. Fearful pets often try to escape from storms by hiding in closets or under beds or the sofa.

Fear of storms can be debilitating for your pet.

2). We modeled “appropriate” behaviour. Given that pets often look to us, and other pets in the family to figure out how they should be feeling in any situation, it is important that you act calm and relaxed during storms. I think pets pick up on that energy and behaviour and adjust theirs accordingly. For Yukon, I think the fact my husband and I are not bothered by storms, and we tend to carry on business as usual during them, and the fact that our other Golden, Charley, tends to sleep through storms, was reassuring to Yukon that there was nothing to be afraid of.

3.) We also used distraction. In Yukon’s case he loves to play with the soccer ball. So during a storm we would take the dogs to the basement and my husband, Charley, and myself would play soccer. Because of his fear, Yukon was not very interested in playing at first, but eventually his desire to play overcame his fearful feelings and he joined in the game. Again, I think seeing the three of us having fun, even with the crashing and booming of the storm, reassured Yukon that things were going to be ok.

4.) We established a “safe” place for Yukon to escape to during a storm. We used a crate, and placed it in the basement where the sounds would be muffled and the lightning flashes were not as obvious. We placed a comforter in the bottom of the crate and heavy blankets over the top to help mute the sounds and left the door open because we didn’t want him to feel trapped. Before the next storm, we spent a lot of time associating his safe place with positive experiences, like treats, food, play, etc. This is important because you may not always be home when a storm occurs, and at least your pet will have a comforting place to ride out the storm in your absence.

Although we did not need to do this for Yukon, another technique is to desensitize your pet to the sounds associated with storms. I have suggested this technique to a couple of clients and they both found it helpful. Desensitization involves playing a sound recording of thunderstorms at a volume that is audible to your pet but does not create any fear or anxiety in your pet. Then, over repeated sessions the volume is slowly increased until your pet is no longer affected by the storm sounds. For this technique to work it must be done over several months, it is not a weekend fix. If you turn up the volume too quickly, before your pet is accustomed to the present volume, your pet could regress. You need to be patient. Also, this should be done during the non-storm season. If your pet is showing no signs of stress at a specific volume, you can give them treats, food, or play in order to associate the storm sounds with a positive experience – known as counter-conditioning.

Now, in Yukon’s case the level of fear was relatively mild, but with more severe cases of storm phobia medication may be required, in association with the techniques suggested above. There are medications that can be administered to help calm your pet and more natural products like pheromone diffusers and collars, the “Thunder Shirt” and other natural supplements. Each pet is different and some things may work better for some than others. Be prepared to try different things until you find what works best for your pet.

I hope these suggestions help. For Yukon they were effective, and he now sleeps through storms.

As always check with your pet’s veterinarian to discuss the best program to help your pet’s sensitivity to storms.

Wishing you the best, Dr. Kathleen Fulop.

Veterinary Clinic Blog 2012
Amberlea Animal Hospital serving Durham, Pickering, Ajax, and Whitby, Scarborough, and the GTA