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How do you buy toys and chews for your dog that keep them happy and safe? Whether toys are on your new puppy checklist or you just need to keep your dog amused, every dog owner needs to know what’s good.
We vets see what happens when things go wrong. Here’s our guide to what not to let your dog chew and what chew toys we recommend for dogs.
Continue reading “Choosing Safer Dog Chew Toys”
‘At A Glance (Details Below)’ Emergency Care
‘At A Glance (Details Below)’ Emergency Care
I get asked all the time if dogs and cats have good memories. You might be surprised by what I think.
We really want to know:
Kira came to us last year in a lot of trouble. She was weak, lethargic, her heart rhythm was chaotic and her pulses were weak and irregular. She was in heart failure: the likely culprit was a heart muscle disease called dilated cardiomyopathy with a secondary atrial fibrillation.
She was treated with a drug to improve heart function, and a second drug to control her atrial fibrillation. Like many dogs, she responded well. But what is her future?
Continue reading “Do Dogs Get Heart Attacks Or Strokes”
I’ve spent the last month introducing my new kitten Grendel to our dogs. Let me tell you, it’s not easy.
Most of us love having dogs and cats in our lives. This means we often expect these two different species to get along. It doesn’t happen automatically and if it’s not handled well it can end very badly. Here are some key points to remember.
Continue reading “How To Introduce A Cat To Dogs”
If you want to feed treats to your dog or cat it’s important to know how to find safe and healthy options. Below are treat ideas using Jerky | Fruit & Veges | Raw Bones | Commercial & | Homemade Treats from us and thanks to our Facebook community.
Continue reading “Healthy Treats for Dogs and Cats”‘At A Glance (Details Below)’ Essential Facts
Recently we saw a 9 week old puppy who came from the breeder 7 days earlier. The day before we saw her she had started coughing, and by that night it had become very bad. Being a Boxer puppy, she wasn’t letting it get her down but you could see she wasn’t her normal self.
She has kennel cough. She hasn’t been around other dogs so where did she get it from?
Continue reading “Help! My Dog Has Kennel Cough”
Have you ever had this zoo experience? It takes a careful and patient observer. You’re enjoying watching an animal moving around their exhibit (after all, many animals are asleep or aren’t even visible) when suddenly you realise “hang on, this animal is doing exactly the same thing over and over again”?
This is stereotypic behaviour and it’s the bane of every zoo. Here’s the polar bear at Seaworld on the Gold Coast in 2007 who would do this for hours on end.
Continue reading “Why do dogs chase their tail?”
‘At A Glance (Details Below)’ Essential Facts
When we were kids we used to ask these questions. Then we stopped. Finally, here are the answers!
Continue reading “Wet Noses Howling and Digging”
‘At A Glance (Details Below)’ Emergency Care
Pets are generally good for your health, both physical and mental. If pets were dangerous to be around, I suspect we wouldn’t have got so in love with them in the first place. But there are a few diseases you should know about just to be sure…
Continue reading “What can I catch from my pets?”
‘At A Glance (Details Below)’ Emergency Care
Every dog owner needs to know how easily heat stroke can harm their dog.
Heat exhaustion is caused by excessive body temperature. Anything over 39C is abnormal but heat stroke typically occurs at over 41C.
Runt. What a powerful word. It instantly brings to mind images of poor, sickly puppies destined to never be as healthy as their brothers and sisters.
What if the whole idea of the runt of the litter is a myth? Well that’s what I think, anyway. My 20 years tell me you can take home the smaller puppies without having poorer health, as long as you follow a few basic rules…
Continue reading “Myth 29: The runt of the litter”
“I thought you can’t bath a dog more than once a month”. We hear this almost every day when we tell someone how the right bathing strategy can help their dog’s skin (read how to bath dogs later). This has to be the most common and widely held myth of all and it deprives dogs of a great way to soothe their itchy skin. However, there is an element of truth to it.
Continue reading “Bathing Dogs: How Often To Bath, How To Do It”
Everyone says large dogs die sooner than small dogs. You hear it on the TV, in the park, and it’s been said as long as anyone can remember. Just google this blog’s title and you’ll see what I mean. But is it true?
Continue reading “Do big dogs have shorter life spans?”“Watch out. Those dogs are crazy, they bark and dig and destroy things.” This is what Daisy’s owner was warned when he told his friends he wanted a heeler.
Luckily for him and Daisy he didn’t listen and followed his instincts. And he is now able to enjoy one of the closest and happiest dog-owner relationships you will ever see. Read how he did it.
Continue reading “Myth 25: Heelers, Kelpies and Collies are crazy”
We’re so excited that one of our patients has a pacemaker that we can’t stop talking about it.
Jack came to us a few months ago with a history of falling over at home. From the moment of his first examination it was clear there was something very wrong with his cardiac rhythm. A good heart creates a rhythm you can dance to but this beat would empty the dance floor.
Continue reading “Jack gets a pacemaker”
I’m going to start with an admission; my dogs have been fat. This will come as a relief (and possibly a delight) to those thousands of dog owners over the years to whom I’ve discussed their dogs’ weight. Today I’m going to explain why this happens to all of us, how to judge your dog’s weight and how to decide how much to feed them.
The guidelines written on dog foods are almost never right for your dog.
Continue reading “Myth 24: You feed a dog by following the instructions”
Here I go again! Another unbearably cute puppy picture in the paper and all I can do is complain!
There’s no question that adorable images of a Shar Pei puppy and a Scottish Fold kitten from the Adelaide Advertiser melt the heart. So why do most vets see something different when we look at these pictures?
Continue reading “Myth 23: Choosing a cute pet is harmless”Update 2019: South Australian laws on dog and cat breeding now make it harder for people like Gary Taylor to continue. However, we still have a problem with pet shops selling sick puppies!
See also an update below from 2016 from after the trial.
Continue reading “The puppy and dog breeding scandal continues”
This is Toyah’s gift to all dogs with itchy skin. She had mild dermatitis for a while and her owners quite rightly thought a bath would help. They found a nice-looking soothing shampoo with tea tree oil and gave her a good clean. Instead of getting better, her dermatitis got dramatically worse, and three days later when she came to us her skin was looking angry and sore.
Continue reading “Myth 21: Tea Tree Oil is good for my dog’s skin”
We’ve known Mia since she came bounding in to the clinic twelve years ago and started stealing our soft toys.
These days she still has a go but though she’s a puppy at heart, she’s old and has significant arthritis. However, her quality of life is good. A few weeks ago, her owner noticed Mia being a bit unsteady and wondered if it could be the arthritis treatment. We thought that was unlikely and so did a home visit to check on her.
Continue reading “Myth 20: My dog is too old for surgery”
Whether to desex or neuter your male dog is one of the most important decisions you as a pet owner will make. It’s not a simple decision; there are pros and cons plus a good amount of misinformation which utterly defy a simple answer.
Continue reading “The Truth About Neutering: Desexing Male Dogs”
This is Micki. He’s so happy and active that this is the best photo we could take. But he wasn’t always so perky. Last year he started having seizures and his very concerned owner brought him to us. There was nothing remarkable found on his physical exam, so we took blood for haematology and biochemistry, as we always do when dogs are having seizures.
Continue reading “How Micki’s seizures were fixed by a new diet”
‘At A Glance (Details Below)’ Essential Facts
In these days of the ‘Cone of Shame’ most people know that pets shouldn’t lick their wounds. But there is also a long folk tradition that licking and saliva are good for healing. So where is the truth? Somewhere in the middle, as I will explain.
Continue reading “Myth 18: Dog saliva is good for wounds”
We all love funny animal pictures but sometimes we come across ones that are just so wrong we can only shudder. It’s when the interpretation of the animal’s behaviour results in them being blamed for behaviour where they are actually the victims.
Listen to anyone who owns a dog (myself included) and you will hear them talking to their dogs in complex sentences. But what do dogs hear?
Continue reading “Myth 17: My dog understands what I say”
The most common bleeding disorder in dogs after rodenticide poisoning is a low platelet count.
Platelets are the small darkly stained blobs in this blood smear (the larger ones are red blood cells). They don’t look like much but they perform an essential function.
Continue reading “Thrombocytopenia or Low Platelets in Dogs”
We all have different opinions on how much and how often dogs should be walked. Each of our three vets offers their opinion.
After reading, why not try one of our eight best Adelaide walks or Adelaide’s off leash beaches?
Continue reading “Myth 12: My dog doesn’t need walks”
Just to to prove it happens to us all, here is Loki’s recent health emergency and some advice on how to identify and avoid pet poisons.
Four days ago Andrew’s 9 week Jack Russell Terrier was doing his usual morning routine of running around the garden seeing what could be destroyed or eaten. He was of course under supervision but all the same was darting in and out of sight among the bushes. All seemed fine but only ten minutes later he suddenly looked extremely unwell, vomited and passed diarrhoea. It was obvious something was terribly wrong so he was immediately rushed to the surgery.
From time to time all of us need to transport our pets in the car, and it’s important to make these trips as safe as possible, both for the pets and for us people travelling in the car with them. One of our nurses, Jackie, recently alerted us to a problem with many harnesses as you will read below.
Continue reading “Safe car travel for pets”
If there is there a saying that makes a dog trainer more cranky I’d like to hear it. This myth is responsible for a world of missed opportunities for our senior pets. Take it from us- the only thing stopping our pets learning through life is our own prejudices.
Continue reading “Myth 10: You can’t teach an old dog new tricks”In our daily work the problems we see cry out to be publicised so we can warn others. The joy of writing these blogs is that these articles sometimes seem to write themselves based on what we are seeing and doing. There is no better example than this week’s. It might almost seem amusing to read these stories, but the results can be severe and lifelong.
Continue reading “Myth 8: My dog knows when to stop”Following our killjoy post about Christmas hazards, now we’re going to tell you why your pet doesn’t need treats! And why they are happier without them.
Don’t worry. We’re not going to report you to the RSPCA if you occasionally give in to those pleading brown eyes. We know treat feeding comes from the heart and later I even talk about ways to do it well. But we do hope that after reading this you will feel less like you have to give the treat, and less guilty if you don’t.
Continue reading “Do Dogs Need Treats?”
A lot of people make this mistake and it’s easy to see why. Puppy preschool is all about socialising dogs and if there’s a dog at home, surely this is enough. However, if anything, having a dog at home makes pups less social. I’ll explain why this is so.
Continue reading “Myth 4: My second dog doesn’t need puppy preschool classes”I think the popularity of vet television shows might explain why this could be my most common question from dog owners:
Ted and Millie have been seeing us for over six months now. Ted has a joint problem, recently diagnosed and treated, while Millie has mostly just ‘come along for the ride’. A few weeks ago, however, Millie developed itchy skin associated with pinpoint scabs on the head.
Continue reading “A Tale of Two Dogs, One Skin Problem (and a surprisingly simple answer)”[mapster_wp_map id=”25809″]
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By Andrew Spanner BVSc(Hons) MVetStud, a vet in Adelaide, Australia. Meet his team here.