142 North East Road, Walkerville. Ph (08) 8344 2000
What do the diseases we protect your dog from actually look like?
Click here to see vaccination protocols for dogs or continue reading to learn about these important illnesses.
Continue reading “Explained: Parvo, Distemper, Hepatitis & Kennel Cough”
There’s something no-one in the cat food industry wants to talk about. Up to now, neither have I. It’s not quite a secret but it’s certainly an unpleasant truth we like to avoid.
It’s about the amount of carbohydrate in cat diets.
Continue reading “Whats wrong with cat diets?”
Vitamin D is an essential part of any balanced diet. What you may not know is how dangerous it can be. Let me show you three poisonings that have already happened, and a fourth that just might.
Continue reading “Vitamin D poisoning”
Have you been told you should change your dog to a grain-free or a low carbohydrate diet? Perhaps you’ve wondered why vets are fairly quiet about it all. I’m going to show you some evidence that might just ease your mind
If there’s one thing that always makes me sad it’s ‘hard rubbish’ time. I ride my pushbike to work past the unwanted gear piled up on the kerbside and it gets an animal lover down.
It’s not the waste or mess that bothers me; it’s something common and very specific that we vets don’t usually get to see. These things.
I’ve seen two new patients this week that made me mad. Not because of anything the owners or patients said, but the advice they received.
“He’s too old to have an anaesthetic. It’s too dangerous.”
Continue reading “Dog and cat anaesthetic safety”
We get asked every day to clip dog and cat nails. We’re happy to do it, but we’re also aware that sometimes it’s best to say no. Other times, it’s an absolute must, but must be done perfectly.
Even after all these years nail clipping remains one of the most difficult jobs I do. You can do it but here are some things we want you to know first.
Continue reading “Clipping dogs and cats nails”
Cleaning a cat’s teeth? ARGGH. Before you throw your hands up in horror, here’s a secret: it’s easier than dogs! You just need to know how. Here we will tell you what you can do for dental care in cats.
Continue reading “Cleaning cats teeth”
It’s unlikely there will be enough information to catch these people. We need you to help. We also need you to be aware of what they are doing.
That’s Arkie above. He was found wandering the streets near Walkerville Vet and brought to us, as are so many other stray pets. Usually all we do is scan their microchip and make a phone call to reunite them with their owners.
Continue reading “Dog Rescue Scam Foiled By Dr Sky”
Many dog owners come to us thinking that if their dog chews biscuits it will protect their teeth. Sadly this is not always true. Here we will tell you which biscuits can help dental care, and what else can prevent gum disease and tooth decay in your dog.
Continue reading “How To Keep Dogs Teeth Clean”
‘At A Glance (Details Below)’ Emergency Care
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
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”‘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”
Sometimes cats don’t drink enough, and we worry. Sometimes they drink too much and we worry more! Cats’ drinking habits give us more worries than almost anything else.
Why is it so hard to know?:
‘At A Glance (Details Below)’ Emergency Care
Can we help you by talking about euthanasia? We’ll try to talk about:
We find that the less mystery there is about euthanasia the less there is to fear. If you have concerns we hope we can put these at rest.
Continue reading “Euthanasia”
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.
In the 1990’s something weird was happening to cats in Adelaide. It may have been happening sooner but it was certainly in full swing when I graduated in 1994. It was dramatic and awful, and we really couldn’t explain it at the time.
Continue reading “Does my cat need heartworm prevention?”‘At A Glance (Details Below)’ Rapid Care
The fact that you are reading this means that you probably know how to use a smartphone. What you may not know is how useful your smartphone can be for your pets. These amazing pieces of technology are not only changing our lives but those of our pets as well. Here are some of the ideas we see:
Continue reading “How you can use your smartphone to help your pet”
“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”Please, please, don’t ever think you are wasting our time! When you tell us something isn’t right, we’re not going to ask for proof. You know your pet better than anyone so you are the first person to see your pet’s illness. Sometimes, at the vet we won’t even be able to see the problem but we’re always going to take it seriously.
Continue reading “You’re NOT wasting our time!”
Going through the grief of losing my beautiful old cat made me understand how we shouldn’t go through this alone. To avoid thinking about the death of our pets is natural but it leaves us terribly unprepared when the moment arrives. I know these discussions will be unwelcome to many and understand if they create feelings of anger or distress, for which you have my sincerest apologies.
Here are my suggestions to help you or others through this terrible time. Remember that everyone’s individual experience of grief is different and not all these will apply to each case. And it will get better.
Continue reading “Dealing with the loss of a pet”
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”
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” Do you have a friend with ‘cat breath’ or ‘dog breath’? We joke about it, sometimes tell them off for it, perhaps even suspect them of eating something foul.
The truth is that bad breath doesn’t come from the stomach and it isn’t just from the food. Instead it’s often the only sign of a painful dental problem.Thankfully, more and more owners now bring their pets in just because their breath smells bad.
Continue reading “What Causes Bad Breath?”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”Many of our cat-owning clients will already know how much we hate the name ‘cat flu’. The name comes from a time when we didn’t fully understand what these viruses were. These are serious diseases with often lifelong consequences for the infected cat. Here are the stories of four such cats: Felix, Sooty, Princess and Twitch.
Continue reading “The Unusual & Severe Effects Of Cat Flu”
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”
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.
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”
Update 2018: visit this page for details on the ongoing Senate inquiry into pet food safety.
Perhaps the biggest scandal of pet ownership in Australia is that there is no independent monitoring, testing or licensing of pet food products, and nowhere to turn when they cause harm. And equally shocking to vets is that it is easier to buy flea control products that are neither safe or effective than it is to buy good ones.
Continue reading “Myth 7: If it is sold for pets, it must be safe”Pippin is a bunny who lives with her mate in an outdoor tunnel home they have excavated by themselves.
Pippin came to us last week with a history of an inability to use her hind legs, which seemed to happen overnight.
When we examined her, she was unable to walk, seemed paralysed on her hind legs, and as a consequence was heavily urine-soaked.
In Adelaide, Rabbits, Chickens, Ducks, Guinea Pigs, Native Mammals and any other small pets commonly live in outside hutches, pens or coops. And without their owners being aware of the risk, they are in great danger. If they are not adequately protected, one night can be all it takes to lose them. Please read on but this story may be upsetting for some.
Continue reading “Myth 5: My backyard is safe at night”I think the popularity of vet television shows might explain why this could be my most common question from dog owners:
Update: this was one of my first blogs, and still one of the most important. Now you can also visit our pages on treating arthritis or pain in cats or dogs.
My dog will cry if he is in pain or,
My cat will tell me if she has painful joints; and so on….
That is, a pet owner can tell when a pet is in pain.
Continue reading “How To Know If A Cat Is In Pain”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)”One month ago Toby came to us for what he may have thought would be his routine annual check up. “Just an unwelcome poke and a jab and I’ll be back on the lounge where I should be.” He was wrong. His story is a common one and illustrates how owners who are diligent can turn ‘just a vaccination’ into a life-saving moment.
Continue reading “Case study: Toby’s deadly secret”