Tails from a Cat Vet

Allergies

2012-01-27T09:01:00.000-08:00

When I think of allergies, I think of horses.

When the topic of allergy comes up during an appointment, I brace myself for the look of confusion on the clients face. Very few people readily accept the idea that their cat has an allergy because many owners look at cats as a low maintenance pet that isn't supposed to have wierd problems. The most difficult discussion I had regarding allergies occured on my dermatology rotation in veterinary school. We had a horse with chronic skin disease that had seen several different vets and tried many different therpies before they came in for a referral to Texas A&M. After doing what needed to be done, we were confidant in the diagnosis, yet the client argued incessantly as if eventually we would say "just kidding".

Unforunately, getting past that difficult conversation can seem easy relative to what may follow. Here are some highlights...

Everyone wants problems to go away permanently - with allergy one hopes for control rather than cure.
Sometimes it can take many months before an effective regimine will be found - be patient.
There are many tests that may need to be run first including culture, skin scrapes, blood analysis, and biopsy. The cost of a dermatology workup CAN be significant.
A cat with flea allergy many have absolutely no evidence of fleas because the cat has cleaned up the clues.
If food is the culprit, that "lamb and rice" food likely isn't going to cut it. True allergy foods use either extremely exotic proteins or something called hydrolyzed proteins.
A cat with food allergy may not positively respond to all of the allergy diet options. If the first one doesn't work after 30 days, try another.
The "blood allergy testing" that Dr. Google likes doesn't work well at all.
Some of the drugs used to control allergies MAY then lead to other problems down the road. This is why that "allergy shot" needs to have a veterinarian's consent prior to administration.

Why we recommend a yearly rabies vaccines

2012-01-15T10:00:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure if it's the lean financial times or concern for over-vaccination, but I feel like an increasing number of cat owners have been debating the benefits of having their pet receive a rabies vaccination. I'd like to explain why I vaccinate my own pets and why I recommend every pet owner to do the same.

I would agree that the likelihood of someones indoor cat being exposed to rabies is extremely low, but the fact remains that throughout the year, rabid animals are identified in the Houston area. To my recollection, we've have one rabid horse recognized within the few months, and at least 3 skunks as well during 2011. Of course, this is nothing to say of the bat population in Houston. My perspective is that, even though the likelihood of rabies exposure remains low at this time, the consequence of getting rabies is so horrible that it's irresponsible not to protect yourself and your pets.

Rabies leads to brain inflammation and death. If your pet were to get bitten by a rabid animal, and it doesn't have protection from the vaccine, you are going to lose your pet AND possibly put your own life at risk. It's just not worth it.

So let's say you like to live dangerously - ask yourself one other question. If for some unfortunate reason your pet were to bite anyone, would you be OK having your pet killed and tested for rabies? The health of any human is always going to be held as paramount to the health of your pet. If you were to have a house guest that gets bitten by your unvaccinated cat, that house guest's physician would likely ask for your cat to be euthanized so that the brain may be tested for rabies. If your cat is current on the rabies vaccination, all that would be needed is 10 days of quarantine and observation.

As far as vaccinations go, the rabies vaccine is one of the most highly regarded in terms of effectiveness. In terms of safety, most of the rabies vaccines tend to be extremely safe. However, there are some vaccine variants can carry a slightly higher risk than others. When a veterinary facility is purchasing vaccine, there are actually options to consider in regards to brand, cost, and components. It is worth inquiring what rabies vaccines your cat will receive. Many years ago, I was quite excited to know that the city of Houston would allow for three year rabies vaccines to be administered as I felt that it would be definitely better to give vaccine less often. However, discouraging data exists suggesting slightly higher risk of three year rabies vaccinations in some cats.

I understand that in lean times budgets need to be re-evaluated. Let's recognize that this is one area not to fool around with.

An invoice is not a medical record

2012-01-08T09:54:00.000-08:00

Last week a stranger screamed in exaltation over the phone when I responded that, yes, we do board cats which need therapy such as subcutaneous fluids. Apparently she had a plane to catch in 2 hours and her primary clinic doesn't do such a thing. I explained that I had two conditions. First, I must be allowed to assess the cat when it gets to our hospital so that I can be certain we won't have any surprises during boarding such as a horrid parasitism or difficult to control issues like unrelenting vomiting. Second, I must be allowed to review the cat's medical record so that I can understand what sort of challenges the cat has faced in the past and anticipate any curve balls the cat may throw my way during the stay.

She was happy to consent to the first, and assured me that she had in her possession the second. Unfortunately, what walked in the door 20 minutes later was not a medical record.

To all of you cat lovers who keep a thick file at home with all of your invoices, I say good for you. Unfortunately, that manila folder offers a veterinarian a limited glimpse into the cat's history. Sure we can see when a vaccine was given, but what brand was it and where was it administered? I can see that blood work was run, but what were the values? I can read that a medication was dispensed, but what was the dosing?

A complete medical record is going to give a comprehensive history of everything that your cat has received. It provides the raw data that will allow a second opinion to come to its own conclusions. After eight years, I have been told countless times that I was meeting with a cat who suffered true bacterial urinary infections, but reviewing the record confirmed my suspicions that an antibiotic was truly not what the cat needed for comfort. It's going to tell me if a cat's heart rate typically falls around one value, so that when I hear that it's different than usual, there may be a problem. By seeing the weight consistently fall around 11 pounds, I know something is up when our scale shows 9 pounds.

I'm not saying you should toss those invoices, but understand their limitations.

A note on cat bites...

2012-01-01T17:52:00.000-08:00

Every once in a while I will be surprised when a client asks me whether they should be concerned that their cat just sunk teeth deep into their arm. Apparently they didn't have parents like mine.

We have a small farm in Shiner, TX. Story goes that there was this unfortunate fellow in Shiner 25 years ago that had some misfortune involving a fish hook, a cat, and his upper lip. I don't remember the details, but horrible things ensued. I seem to think he died. I just know that I was really really freaked out, and that's how I learned to fear all the nasty stuff in cat mouths. Due to this, I've always tried my best to play it safe around those teeth.

In retrospect, my understanding may have been influenced by my being a child and my fathers tendency for exaggeration...but an important lesson was passed on. As I was able to escape the fear of my father's tales, I came to understand that nasty bacteria tends to live in feline mouths through my studies at vet school. Cat bites can be bad! Really bad. I've known of colleagues to be hospitalized for days because of a bad bite. A few of our clients have had surgeries on their hands because of a bite.

Hospitalization... Surgery...

Bad, bad, bad.

I don't want to drum up fear about the cats we live with, but we need to respect some things as well. Cat bites can be really nasty, and if you have broken skin because of an accident with any cat, don't take a chance and consult your physician.

This post is gross...

2011-09-11T18:35:00.000-07:00

So if you are eating something while you read at the moment, you might just want to leave this web page and come back much later.

When adopting a new pet, you might find yourself faced with the question of whether you should spay your female cat. I've known some people that decide against it, and they don't realize that sometimes a big issue can develop down the road. It is possible that the reproductive tract will have an infection develop within the uterus - this is called a pyometra. When a pyometra is starting, the body is sending white blood cells to the uterus as quickly as possible to control a bacterial infection. These cells are killing bacteria, dying all the while, and as this continues, more and more pus accumulates. The organ distends as a result, and bad things start to happen.

This first image was taken a few weeks back during surgery. The cat's head is to the left of the picture. The two tubes going to the right are the uterine horns. In the center of the image, there is a clamp on the cat's cervix.

This second image is of the pus draining from the organ. The goal is to not have the pus drain into the belly - had this cat fallen off a counter, that uterus could have burst and killed the cat in short order.

Before we shot that photo, we placed the organ on the scale and got a reading of two pounds. Appropriately, the 8 pound cat that entered the surgical suite left the clinic weighing 6 pounds.

I was told "don't buy an umbrella stroller"...

2011-08-29T08:51:00.000-07:00

This thing is a hit!!!

What is it about hair bands?

2011-08-19T14:20:00.000-07:00

Our youngest cat Miranda loves to eat ribbon. It drives me nuts. Are wrapped presents in the house? Hide them before Miranda knows. Does our daughter's stuffed lamb have a bow? Cut it off. We know Miranda loves to eat ribbon, yet somehow we find vomit with ribbon in the carpet every 4 months (and we only have 1 carpeted room!). I'm also sure some of her poop has had it too, because we've pulled some from her rectum before.

After a long day at work, I really don't want to look at a sick cat. And I certainly don't want to drag one up to the clinic for a surgery in the middle of the night. Luckily, this has yet to happen, but some of our clients have not been so lucky.

When a cat eats something that we have to surgically remove, we'll refer to that as a "foreign body surgery". If your cat has eaten a piece of foam, that foam is now considered a foreign body - an object that is does not belong in the cat.

Foreign body cases usually present as a young cat who cannot stop vomiting and now refuses to eat. Sometimes we can touch the belly and know that it's there. If the object if very small, we may not feel it but we might feel air accumulating behind it. If the object is very dense, it may be detected by shooting x-rays at the belly to develop an image known as a radiograph. Some foreign body cases are very tricky and evade detection on exam and radiographs. In those instances, a vet may order a barium study or perhaps an ultrasound that will find the item.

When I get the sense that I might be dealing with a foreign body, I usually ask if the cat likes to play with hair bands. It would seem that 1/3 of the time, I will remove hair bands during these surgeries. Recently I achieved a personal best in most hair bands removed in one surgery. The first image shows a bulging stomach that I've exposed through an incision on the belly. The stomach was very hard, and perhaps the size of a robust grapefruit. In this picture, I have cut into the stomach and have started to pull out some black hair bands.

This is a emesis tray with the hair bands.

How many bands are in that tray? I started to count, flung some stomach fluid in my face, and decided the picture was good enough.

Sharing with friends

2011-07-19T11:33:00.000-07:00

If you have the square footage and budget to support it, I cannot emphasize enough the benefits of having more than one cat in the house. I say this not so much for your enjoyment (although there's that advantage as well), but for your cat's sanity while you are away. While it took a little time for our two cats to accept each other, they now are more than happy to share prime sleeping spaces.

Problems can arise when a cat lives alone and is bored. Many spend too much time at the food bowl...others can become destructive towards furniture...it's even possible for a cat to get aggressive towards people if they don't have a healthy outlet for exercise and play. No matter how much time I may spend with my cat, my home pales in comparison to their natural habitat where a cat's exquisite senses are stimulated to the max. Toys can be a great supplement when you are out of the house, especially if you keep a rotation that upholds each ones novelty. However, a feline companion is the best toy of them all - unpredictable, engaging and creative.

Surprise!

2011-04-11T07:50:00.001-07:00

Even though our daughter wasn't due till April 15, my wife and I found ourselves driving up to the hospital around 10 pm on March 10. By 4:47 am the next morning, Anna was here. She came right at 35 weeks - and after a thorough check by neonatologists, we were told that all seemed in order. Then, the pediatricians stated that despite her early arrival, Anna was "rated 36+". Cue sighs of relief. For me, one of the next hurdles was going to be the transition at home with our four pets. Thankfully, that has gone smoothly as well. Our two dogs are calmly interested, our younger cat Miranda has ceeded control of Amanda's lap to Anna, and Pinkie has been the opposite of what we expected. I really expected problems with our older cat, as she tends to get alarmed by any sort of commotion and doesn't back down from a fight. Thus far, Pinkie has been very affectionate, and wants to hang out with the family, possibly more so than any of the others. So far, so good.

My very own adverse event

2010-12-02T13:50:00.000-08:00

So considering my present status, my wife urged me to get a flu shot this year - all things considered, she'd rather not add on the flu to her list of grievances. As a veterinarian, I am no stranger to vaccinations - I strongly support the recommendations of the AVMA and the AAFP on vaccine use having read up on how things were before we could protect cats against panleukopenia and such. Regarding my own vaccinations, I make sure that I am up to date on my own rabies vaccine status, tetanus, etc etc... But up till this year, I had never gotten a flu shot.

So, two days AFTER getting my flu shot, I started feeling funny. I would suddenly get dizzy, and I'm sure I was raising eyebrows at work when I would suddenly adopt a wide legged stance in exam rooms. While the dizziness was lousy, my hearing loss had me even more alarmed.

Yes, at the age of 32, I suddenly couldn't hear much out of my left ear.

I went to my general practitioner. He looks in my ear, says everything looks fine, than asks how many guns I have fired in the past few days. None. Then he asks my many gunfights I have witnessed in the past few days. None. Finally it's decided I must be getting old.

So, now I'm 32, cannot hear out of my left ear, don't hang around guns often enough to justify my problems, and am getting old.

I try to explain that sudden hearing loss in a 32 year old is surely something to worry about, but he's pretty insistent that once you hit the crap age of 32, you should realize that your body has been shutting down for the last 10 years. I do manage to get the name of a specialist that might be of some help, but frankly, given everything that's been said so far, I have no idea if I want to try out his recommendation.

Thankfully, I took a leap of faith. The otolaryngologist was superb. Sure, having a nasal lidocaine bath and impromptu nasal scope is a rude awakening, but this guy was pretty no-nonsense in regards to taking me seriously. He confirmed I had dramatic hearing loss, and after a bunch of tests, introduced me to something called idiopathic sensorineural hearing loss.

I've learned a lot these past weeks. Antivirals are really expensive - I'm just not sure how the Valtrax lady on tv can find it in her to smile so darn much. And as hard as the antivirals are to swallow, prednisolone really isn't a lot of fun when you are a human (cat's tolerate it fairly well, and it's a go-to drug for a handful of ailments). Fingers crossed, I've got my hearing back presently, and there is hope that it will stay that way. As to why it happened, the specialist is pointing at my flu shot. He says that he avoids the flu shot personally for fear of exactly what happened to me. It's not terribly common (or else I'm sure more people would be talking about it), but it happens.

It's called an adverse event. When drugs and vaccines are studied and approved, it's accepted that there will be outliers that can have funny things happen to them from the drug or vaccine. It's a sort of compromise I suppose. Just because I should avoid a similar flu shot down the road doesn't mean that millions of others who won't lose there hearing should fail to benefit from the protection that the vaccine may provide. While I would love to not have spent so much money to regain my hearing, I'd rather focus on the fact that my body isn't shutting down just yet. I need a bit more time to find a better gp.

Naomi needs a home

2010-11-04T14:38:00.000-07:00

Naomi came to us last March through a good samaritan who works for Saint Thomas University. As you can see in the first few photos, she was in pretty rough shape. Her tail was reduced to a stump of dead tissue, her right rear leg was pointed in the wrong direction, and she had a large abscess over the right side of her neck.

After spending a little time with her, we knew that she was a very special cat. Despite her injuries, she was purring and loving on us. Due to the generosity of many of our clients, we have a small fund available that helped to pay for the costs associated with her wound management, pain control, anesthesia, surgery, and physical therapy. Here are a few photos from then:

It's been eight months since Naomi came to us, and she's proven to be a wonderful cat to have around. If I need a break, she's usually the one I go to visit to be cheered up. She has good social skills, proving to be a good friend to both Guiness and Puff. Despite her handicap, she is very playful and has been known to run chariot races across the clinic. Sometimes she even talks to you.

With my small house and 4 pets already, bringing Naomi home might make me very happy but would most certainly push my wife over the edge. While it pains me to admit this, she really needs to find a new home where she can get much more individualized attention and be free to roam more often than a veterinary hospital can allow. If you or someone you know is wanting to have a petite sweetheart enter your life, please keep Naomi in mind.

Continuing education

2010-07-23T14:40:00.000-07:00

So to keep a veterinary licence, you have to pay up each year to officially attend sanctioned continuing education sessions - at least 17 hours. Nevermind that the profession is learning so much so quickly that if you dream of staying relevant, you have to regularly pour over journals and message boards.

Last year my c.e. was a bit dull, so this last week Amanda and I headed out to San Francisco for the PacVet Conference. We figured that if all else fails, we can always go have fun in the city. Thankfully the speaker selection was fairly decent. I learned that as far as surgeons are concerned, there are two (that I know of so far) who do a really good job of keeping your attention and reassuring you that won't get in too deep. For the second time, I had the pleasure of seeing Howard Seim talk on a variety of techniques such as the urethral floss - perhaps I'll post photos if a good one arises. As far as how tight I should do my knots on small bowel, he recommends "like a kiss with just a little bit of passion." And who knew that someone would convince me to bring nursery items into the surgical room. More on that later...maybe.

So of the 18.5 hours that I logged at PacVet, I'd say that perhaps 75% was really engaging, and that's 75% better than what I experienced elsewhere in 2009. The icing on the cake was what happened on the final night, and it had nothing to do with PacVet. About 10 days prior, I began researching concerts that would be held in town during our stay, and my mouth hit the floor when I saw what was listed for July 18 at the Great American Music Hall.

The first tape that I ever bought was recommended to me by my close childhood buddy Peter. It was Pork Soda, by Primus. Now for a guy whose music knowledge was based on what my folks played in the house (country and 60's), Primus blew my mind. I must have analysed that album backwards and forwards. Pretty soon, I was delving into Frizzle Fry (my favorite), Seas of Cheese, and an early live album of theirs.

Now Peter and I grew up in the Catholic church, and frankly, our priests didn't really entrall us with their sermons. So we both figured it would be easier to stay awake by playing in the small choir that played at 9:30 am. Practice was on Wednesdays, and his folks would usually drive us home. If his sisters were in the car, they would usually torture us with Amy Grant cassettes. Finally having enough, we started rumors in the back seat of the minivan that Amy Grant was engaged in extramarital childbearing and other sins of the flesh - well, Peter's mom caught wind of the stories and promptly threw those in the trash.

What replaced Amy Grant? Primus. And what did I see was showing at the Great American Music Hall? Primus!!!

So Primus doesn't tour much anymore for whatever reason. It's a shame really, because they have a really solid catalogue. The side projects from Primus have been decent, but it's the original material that I love the most. The tickets were set to go on sale Friday at noon - if you wanted an appointment that day at that time, you didn't get one. I was on that page constantly hitting refresh until the gates opened. Depending what you read, the 600 tickets were gone in anywhere from 1 to 10 minutes. I dragged Amanda along (she enjoyed it btw), and she may have been the only one present who had no idea who they are. It was amazing. The fire marshall showed up...and stayed nodding his head to the music. I told Amanda that I cherished that day more than our wedding day, which isn't true of course, and she didn't slap me. She knew how much fun I had. If you have any interest, a much better review (with set list) can be found here... http://spinningplatters.com/2010/07/19/show-review-an-evening-with-primus-at-the-great-american-music-hall-7182010/

Long time, no post...

2010-05-20T13:49:00.000-07:00

I post to this about as much as I use my gym membership, and I've been thinking I should just cancel the latter. The insanity at the clinic has abated for a moment (I had a cancellation), so I suppose now is as good time as any to get in my quota.

So what to talk about? Well, here's an image from yesterday morning. What you are looking at is large intestine on the left, with small intestine emerging towards the right. No, that's not normal - it's called intussusception. The gut has telescoped in on itself right at the division of the small and large intestine (the "ileocolic junction"). Those can be particularly nasty if one doesn't get to it in time. The last time we had one of those, it was a surgery I worked in during a lunch break a few months back, and the tissue was dead, so I quickly cancelled a few appointments and set to removing that section of bowel. The cat from yesterday had a much better outcome (don't worry - both cats are alive and well - one just has a shorter GI tract). With some patience and gentle massage, we were able to undo the intussusception. We found that the bowel was thick at several different points, so we collected biopsy samples and are awaiting the results. I suspect that once we get our answer as to underlying disease, we'll be able to treat the problem and prevent this from recurring. With the age of the cat, I am most suspicious that inflammatory bowel disease is at play, and those cases usually do quite well with medical management. I certainly wasn't expecting that we would have to operate on the cat, but when we realized what was happening, we knew we had to go to surgery or we would likely lose the patient.

Beware the internets...

2010-01-11T13:48:00.000-08:00

I remember back in school my professors were laughing about how we would be entering the profession at a time where our clients could easily go online and find all sorts of crazy ideas to try. They seemed to think it would make our jobs a bit more difficult.

In so many ways, they were right. Just last week, to be nice, I read thru a website that an owner was raving about saying that she had found the cure for her cat's ailment. Wouldn't you know, it involved having the cat drink raspberry wine vinegar.

I have a potato salad recipe that uses raspberry wine vinegar. That tastes pretty good. But having my cat drink the stuff straight up?!? Maybe we should chase it with jagermeister?

There are some really good sites out there however. If you have a cat with asthma, I recommend www.fritzthebrave.com. It has some good video on how to use an inhaler, and even helps you get the right equipement. If they could only find a way to make flovent not cost so much...

While doing some online study today, I found that a respected colleague has a website with a lot of great cat nutrition information. Rather than re-invent the wheel, I suggest you visit www.catinfo.org. If you and I have talked nutrition before, a lot of it will sound familiar, but sometimes it helps to hear things in a different voice.

Just because a cat is scared...

2009-06-11T15:06:00.000-07:00

Two months ago a married couple brought their cat to me, and the experience was so depressing, that I still haven't been able to shake that bad feeling.

At the start of the day, I reviewed my appointment book, and was caught off guard to see that we had a client coming to the clinic for the first time, and they were requesting euthanasia. Ending a cat's life is tremendously taxing emotionally, and I cannot imagine doing so without knowing why. However, within seconds of looking at the cat later that day, I had no doubt that this cat needed to be put to sleep. She was a walking skeleton with a low core body temperature and a dull mentation. I knew it was the proper move, so I didn't inquire as to the course of events preceding the visit. She was on course to pass away within days, but was obviously suffering, so I had the staff get ready to perform the procedure.

What I didn't expect was the look I got when I looked into one of the owner's eyes. She wanted to be sure there was nothing that could be done. I confidently assured her that was the case, but what I couldn't say was that if she had only come sooner, we would have likely been able to avoid this day. That just brakes my heart. From examination, it was clear to me that the cat's condition was brought on by an uncontrolled endocrine disease called hyperthyroidism. This is something we now have the opportunity to CURE with just one injection, yet this cat was dying from it.

Now, hyperthyroidism is not necessarily a walk in the park, and there is money and other factors to consider, but this family never gave themselves the opportunity. Once upon a time, someone told them their cat was a bad cat, and they should never bring that cat back to their clinic. And they did just that. They loved their cat, but they never had it examined again at any veterinary clinic because someone suggested that it was "mean."

There are no mean cats, just scared ones; and just because a cat is scared, it shouldn't be deprived of medical care if that is what the family wants. Seeing that couple cry their hearts out in front of a complete stranger tells me that they wanted just that. If you have a cat who behaves defensively in the veterinary clinic, don't fret over it. A good vet is going to know when to reach for a little chemical restraint (with your permission of course), and you'll be able to keep your beloved companion healthy into their golden years.

If your pee pee hurts, what would you do?

2009-05-03T09:41:00.000-07:00

My mother left me a voice mail this week asking if I could take time to call a friend of hers and offer advice about a cat. From what I gather from my mother, this cat has been urinating on items throughout the house rather than using the litter box as it had for years prior. Mother’s day is just around the corner, so I figure I’d try to be a good son and call the friend. I get an answering machine and a four day course of phone tag ensues.

Since I haven’t been able to directly talk to this peson, I figured I’d write to everyone who has had this problem and wasn’t sure what to do.

Cue the title: if your pee pee hurts, and you’re a cat, what would you do?

In its daily routine, a cat’s most common activity is sleeping. The second most common activity is grooming. In the cat’s mind, cleanliness is akin to godliness. So urinating around its kingdom is against the code. Watch a healthy cat in the litter box from time to time. They walk up to the area, access the situation, and sniff around for the right spot. They manage some complicated pose so that tinkle doesn’t taint their prized coat, and then spend a minute covering their waste so they don’t have to stare at it. (You with the cat who has never covered its waste, we’ll get to you later)

For me to imitate a healthy cat in a litter box, I would have to start off by contemplating the contours of my toilet. Then I’d have to stand on the tank and aim for the water, after which I would flush and pull out the scrub brush so that no one knew I was there. My wife can only dream of this scenario.

So a cat never WANTS to not use a litter box. The cat must be trying to tell you something, right? Yes and NOOOOO! I say “NOOOOO!” because before a veterinarian is allowed to speak during a urinary consult, they have to listen to the person rationalize what the cat must be mad about. It MUST be mad. It’s my new lover…it’s that I’m going out of town too much…it’s that it hates me…it’s my new dog… They then think that if they don’t dump their significant owner, or stay at home all the time, or get rid of the dog, then the problem will never go away.

This is almost never the case.

Your cat is trying so tell you something, but it’s more akin to when your car engine makes a funny noise. It would better to view it as follows: my cat (or car) is doing something differently, so it’s time to have things checked out.

Here is an incomplete list of problems that would explain urination on the couch (and many include pee pee pain): 1. interstitial cystitis 2. Urinary crystals 3. Urinary stones 4. Arthritic pain 5. Diabetes 6. Kidney disease 7. An undesirable litter box that we put up with for years but just can’t stand anymore 8. Another cat claims it as territory 9.. Urinary tract infection

Why is urinary tract infection last on that incomplete list? It’s just not that common in cats. Retrospective studies suggest that urinary tract infection accounts for less than 3% of all cases in cats under the age of four. If antibiotics appeared to help out your young cat, brace yourself for the problem to resurface within the year.

Here’s an incomplete list of diagnostic tools used when a cat urinates on a couch: 1. Proper history collection 2. Thorough physical examination 3. Urinalysis 4. Radiography 5. Ultrasonography 6. Urine cultures

Here’s an incomplete list of therapies that might help (dependant on the problem): 1. Anti-inflammatories 2. Increasing water consumption 3. Pain control 4. Getting a large, non-mechanical, non-hooded litter box far away from the dryer you just put your tennis shoes in 5. Insulin 6. Amitriptylline 7. Surgery 8. Antibiotics

So, if your cat is peeing around the house, please consult a veterinarian (in person). This is one of the most common reasons for cats to come to a veterinary clinic, and if you are patient and allow the clinic to properly work up the case, most of the time you’ll be able to get a return to normalcy.

Why is the network down?

2009-03-16T11:29:00.001-07:00

No room for me...

2009-01-19T12:15:00.000-08:00

Well, I suppose I'll post an update finally.

First up, an explanation for the photo. Amanda snapped this one a few days ago as we were getting ready for work. This image explains why I sometimes great my morning appointments with droopy eyes. Where's one supposed to sleep with conditions like these? We bought a new mattress a short while back from one of those places which apparently keeps the mattresses on the delivery truck circling you neighborhood so they can deliver it before you could possibly return from the store where the order was placed. We had a decision to make...queen size, or ridiculous size. We'll we didn't anticipate the above, and queen was elected for (settle down my frugal heart). Shortly there after, this started to happen. I guess the old mattress really was that bad. That's Pinky on the right, so you know where I sleep. She seems to prefer my knee caps...I don't know why. Mabel's orientation above is deceiving as well because in that position there is no feasible way for her to kick me thru the night. It's nice to see them getting along though.

I've hit my word goal already, so hooray! Maybe I won't be so tardy next time. Can you believe I actually considered trying to make a post per day for the new year? I would like to throw out another book recommendation though, because this one was so compelling I finished it in just three sittings. It's called Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam by Pope Brock. Yes, Mrs. Jay, I know that should be underlined by I have no earthly idea how to do that. Man that book is great. It's about this quack in the early 20th century who, despite not having a legitimate medical degree, got thousands to people to allow him to surgically "implant" goat glands into their nether regions and made something equivalent to $14 million a year doing so. This guy was dangerous, and 42 known deaths were reported at his clinic up thru 1930...more surely occurred because the accounting doesn't go beyond 1930 and also doesn't include people who went home to die. He was also pivotal in the development of some modern day political campaign techniques (narrowly missing being elected governor not once but twice), radio advertising, and the dissemination of country music through North America (I'm talking to you Big and Rich). Fascinating stuff.

Sexual identity crisis...

2008-10-03T14:04:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year, one of the vet techs told me that she could not figure out how to get a patient's rectal temperature. I was bewildered to hear this and went to see how one of my patients could be offering such a challenge to a very capable employee. Here's what I found...

For orientation, the tail is heading above this image, and the legs are below. This cat has only one opening on it's rear. Up at Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine, there is a hallway that contains hundreds of preserved mutated body parts demonstrating improper embryological development. I hated that hallway, and now I'm finding myself eager to leave the room. So I did, and madly scrambled for a veterinary reference that could explain what I was seeing. The best I could figure, I was faced with a very rare situation - persistent cloaca. Essentially the fecal and urinary orifices are one and the same. The owner is in love with this cat, so I suggested she prepare herself for a lifetime of recurrent urinary infections (imagine what would happen if a sewer were in your shorts). I also suggested that the cat appeared to be female so we would plan on performing a spay procedure in the months ahead, reserving extra time to address any funky findings when we open up the belly.

So a few months went by, and this cat re-appeared in the office for a follow-up examination. Before I walked in the room, I heard that the owner was laughing that I had mis-identified the sex of her cat. Here is what I found...

Here's a close-up...
Yes, indeed, those are some pretty large testicles - certainly something I did not expect.

Our Daily Meds

2008-07-14T09:10:00.000-07:00

If I hear disturbing things bit by bit over time, I may develop a subconcious awareness to a problem, yet lack the urge to really act much on it. Sometimes it takes a concise collection of information to wake me up and that is why I enjoy visiting the Houston Public Library's website (someone else can go throw their money at Borders).

Of course, one has to have a source of suggestions when it comes to what is worth reading. I love the nature of the Cat Clinic in that I have picked up many suggestions from clients during examinations. Other times a review in the NY Times Book Review will get me, and if Bill Moyers liked it, well... (I may not sit around on Friday nights to watch him immediately, but he has earned a season pass from the DVR).

So Bill Moyers spent some time interviewing Melody Peterson about her book Our Daily Meds and off I was to the HPL website. Sure enough they have it ready for me by the next week. This book should be essential reading for anyone who has an interest in either their own or a loved ones health...actually, this book simply needs to be read BY EVERYONE. Essentially, the author was assigned by the New York Times to go out and develop stories about all the wonderful new drugs hitting the market and how these drugs were enhancing our lives. While it's not all gloom and doom (there are certainly a ton of drugs new to the market over the past decade that really do benefit my patients), there is a ton of disturbing things going on within the pharmaceutical companies that is having far reaching effects. This book has gotten me to wonder about what some of the advertising has driven a few of my friends to do, and helped explain one of the reasons Texas' state university tuitions have been skyrocketing. Most likely, you've read it all before, but Melody Peterson's text helps to bring a lot of the information together so the reader can have a better grasp on the problem. Most notably, whereas many authors seem content to make us upset and not give us suggestions on how to act, this one doesn't shy away and I would hope that as more citizens pick up this book, we'll be able to drive a positive change that puts patients back before profits.

Soft Paws / Mates of State

2008-06-11T08:34:00.000-07:00

So with the wedding fast approaching, the balance of the house has been off set as what was once a residence for 2 (me and Pinkie) has turned to a residence of 5. Like baby-proofing the house, Amanda and I have had to address the consequences of having 2 really happy feline atheletes romping around and playing king of the mountain. Part of this has been not only keeping those tiny fingernails trimmed, but adorned in soft paws. I'm always impressed by how well cats use these, and since we have long trained them to allow for nail trims, ours behave fine for the applications. Yet, as it turns out, the sound of soft paws on the bedroom window is much akin to nails on a chalkboard. That was what woke me up this morning at 5 am. Now I need to figure out how to keep that grating noise from occuring - since getting the birds out of the yard isn't an option (she's trying to get them), we'll need to get creative with window treatments.

On the music front, a last minute heads up: Mates of State are performing at Warehouse Live this Thursday...and as a added bonus the Headlights are the first band to perform that night. Both are really solid and should be worth the groggy feeling Friday morning.

Born Ruffians put on a great show last night

2008-03-13T15:08:00.000-07:00

So Amanda and I found ourselves at a great concert last night where there was literally maybe 17 folks in attendance who were neither in the band or employed by the club. 17 audience members. If it was some crap band, then I can understand it. However, it was a really great show. If I can be enthralled at 12 pm with worth the next morning, it's a great show. While I realize that not everyone who reads this blog would be a fan of the music (my mother would surely find it confusing), if at least one person is turned on to a couple of great secrets then I feel like I've accomplished something on this front.

First of all, the band: Born Ruffians. They have this new album called Red Yellow and Blue. It came out on the 4th of March and ended up serving at the soundtrack for the camping trip we had at Lake Texana over the weekend. Now it's not going to be my favorite album ever by a long shot, but I listen to a lot of music, and this band brings a lot of excitement to a sometimes boring landscape. Along with the new Cadence Weapon and maybe the latest Jens Lekman album, it has really grabbed my attention. I like the album, and there certainly should have been more folks in attendance - at least 20. If you have the chance, give it a listen.

Second thing Houstonians less than 40 should be aware of is pegstar.net. The only two concerts I've seen this year that was worth attending were both promoted thru pegstar (Born Ruffians and Fiery Furnaces). The shows promoted are pretty diverse, and its nice to see pegstar doing their part in bringing oustanding outside-the-mainstream acts to Houston.

Cat lovers unite!

2008-02-25T15:06:00.000-08:00

I know this blog has been all over the place, and I figure I might as well take it in one other random direction. I would like folks to consider writing a letter or email to the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) in support of proposal by the American College of Veterinary Nutrition (ACVN) to that would amend the bill that regards how pet foods are labeled.

Feline obesity opens the door to a slew of problems such as diabetes, certain liver diseases, and dingleberries. Seriously, if you want to try to prevent certain illnesses, keeping your pets at a healthy weight helps tremendously. Part of the problem with doing this is that most pet food companies are not very forthcoming about how many calories are in the food you are feeding. Rather than listing it on their product, many times the consumer is forced to contact the company for the information. Change the brand or flavor, and then you have to call again...

At this time, the AAFCO's bill does not require caloric information to be provided. What the amendment would do is make it so that all pet food labels would have to list the data on the product in relation to practical measurements (ideally it would say how many calories per cup or can as opposed to per bag or case). The amendment has been languishing in committee for 2 years now, but if enough consumers express their support, maybe we can get the proposal to move forward. Send a friendly email to Sharon@aafco.org and let them know that we want easier access to caloric information.

The tooth that never showed up...

2008-02-19T15:00:00.000-08:00

During our wellness visits, there are some health problems that we commonly see. Then there are issues we might never see again. Here's a story of one such example.

The particular cat in mention really didn't have too much going on as a kitten, except that when the baby teeth fell out, one of the adults never showed up. I really didn't think too much of it...perhaps this tooth wanted to be fashionably late. I asked the owner to keep an eye on the area, and call me to let me know when it shows up. Well, after a few months, we began to get concerned because it never did. So we decided to do some investigation. For comparison purposes, here is what the upper right area of the cat's mouth looks like on radiographs (generated by xray):
For this cat's young age, this is a good looking canine tooth. Here's a radiograph of the area in question:
That ain't right.

So, in an area where we saw nothing but gum, there was indeed something hidden - a malformed canine tooth. Cutting to the chase, because of the abnormalities seen, we do not have reason to suspect this tooth is suddenly going to get better. Rather, the fear was that should we do nothing, eventually some sort of dentigious cyst would form and we'd have a huge painful mess on our hands.

With a degree of trepidation, we decide to cut into the area, and this is what we see:
So just under the gum, there is a very tiny portion of the tooth visible. To allow for elevation of this tooth, we use our drill to remove some bone and other material, thus allowing for better exposure.
At this point, I have created just enough space to help get that fat root out of the socket.
This is the point of the surgery where the technicians find me much easier to be around (I can get fussy when I am worried that I might break a fragile tooth). So with the hard part out of the way, we clean up the borders of the bone and gum, pack the socket with a bone graft, and close up the area with suture.
The mouth now looks much like it did to start with, only without a ticking timebomb hidden within. Score one point for preventative oral surgery!

2008 Resolutions... (failing miserably)

2008-01-03T19:51:00.000-08:00

As part of my new years resolutions, I thought maybe I should try to post a little bit each day for 2008 here. Let's see - it's January 3rd already?!? I don't do well with those darn resolutions: I did finally manage to quit biting my fingernails back in 2000 (gross, sad and true) and started reading the paper while eating breakfast every day since 2001 (currently I like a little Brown Cow yogurt, a biscuit that starts off frozen but turns delicious in 18 minutes, and a banana...and a latte). But this blog goal isn't looking promising. I saw an article once where some guy talked about he would post a blog daily and it did wonderful things for his life. Hmmm.

And it's been a few months with the blog, I know. Things have been taking up my time. Most importanly, there's the wedding planning, and we finally made our wedding website go live. It can be found at http://www.mattandamanda.us if you have a hankering to check it out.

OHHH! So here's Huckabee thanking Iowa on my television, and who is standing resolutely behind him but but the one and only Chuck Norris. How random is that? Let's hope that http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com/ gets updated soon.

Did you use your heartworm preventative this month?

2007-10-22T10:12:00.000-07:00

In an April 2007 post, I talked about a Dr. Nelson from Beaumont Texas who found adult heartworms in 10% of the cat's that he necropsied at a local shelter back in 1997. While that finding, amoung others from veterinarians, did much to help us realize that cats are not immune to the parasite, we now believe that the problem may be even worse than originally thought, as was presented at this years American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine Forum. Out of Auburn University, Dr. A.Ray Dillon and Dr. Byron Blagburn have shown that the parasite doesn't even need to mature into adults to cause problems. Once the larvae leave the mosquito and enter the cat's body, they may cause significant lung issues, now defined as "heartworm-associated respiratory disease." Arterial disease is also at play from the actions of the larvae both when growing and after dying. To quote Dr. Julie Levy from the University of Florida, "It appears that even transient exposure to immature parasites can leave cats with substantial lung pathology that may persist long after any trace of the parasite has been eliminated."

Still have questions? Visit www.knowheartworms.org or feel free to call me at the clinic.

In related news, my study on the frequency of mosquitos sneaking in the house while I take out the trash is nearing completion. OK, well, maybe there is no such study, but all you folks who feel that your indoor cats have never seen mosquitos need to reconsider, as we still do not have a cure for the problem once it happens. We may be able to manage some of the cases, but it is often only after a lengthy diagnostic workup and usually relies on luck and steroids.

Going above and beyond...

2007-09-25T13:03:00.000-07:00

Being a vet has it's ups (kittens) and downs (car accidents), and everything in-between. Sometimes a day can go by that I see so much illness that it gets a bit depressing. On days like those, I like to think back to some of the patients I've seen that really defy the odds and give me reason to root for the hopeless cases. One such cat is quite young and goes by the name of Ty. Ty was born with a few defects, ranging from a tiny eye socket to a malfunctioning intestinal tract. Truth is, most folks would have taken one look at Ty and not given her a chance. Fortunately for her, Ty's owners have really gone the distance and have offered her a very high quality life. Especially with the gut problem, this has meant putting up with a lot of crap. Seriously...the cat has a problem defacating. Now, Ty is by no means out of the woods, and likely will continue to have a life with some extrodinary challenges, but she has had much more of a quality life than I think anyone else could have offered her considering the circumstances. Another case that raises my spirits is a cat by the name of Tabitha. Again, when the average person is told that their cat has a cancer creatining a blockage in the intestinal tract, they may be prone to not get too involved. That is certainly similar to my own situation with Quincy and his brain cancer. There are plenty of times where therapy is attempted against an intimidating cancer and things don't go the way we desire. Tabitha is not such a case. Her surgery earlier this year went quite well and therapy has proceeded smoothly to to point that we appear to remain quite healthy. Now I don't mean to remember Ty and Tabitha as a rationale to be some maverick on every ill cat that walks thru the door, but rather, to know that sometimes bleak situations can still have good outcomes.

Squirrel Medicine 2047

2007-08-24T13:11:00.001-07:00

40 years ago, the thought of a cat only clinic seemed absurd no doubt. Equally absurd might be the prediction of a squirrel veterinary clinic opening forty years from now. If she isn't retired by then, I think Lynn would be an excellent candidate to join the staff of this clinic. After all, our receptionist is the only person I know with the decency to cover her eyes when in the presence of copulating squirrels. And just today, with absolutely no gear to protect against an assault, she daringly rushed to the rescue of a squirrel who got trapped inside (yes inside) one of the clinic's bird feeders. Lynn, I salute you!

Pouches

2007-08-24T06:51:00.000-07:00

One of the more common discussions that I have with clients revolves around whether one should feed their cat canned cat food or dry kibble. Just recently another option has entered the field for me. The brand of food that I choose for my cat (Wellness) has started offering four varieties of food delivered in a pouch. This isn't neccessarily revolutionary, as Royal Canin, Whiskas and a few other brands have been offering a similar pouch for some time...the difference is that Wellness is only brand of the bunch that offers the high quality I demand for Pinkie.

So what is so special about cat food in a pouch? Canned food relies on high temperatures to destroy microorganisms, and in the process this heat can denature proteins to detract both from taste and potentially nutritional quality (I believe that the recipes are formulated to tailor for this possibility). The pouch cat food relies on a clean enviroment for the food preparation, so high heat isn't needed to kill bacteria. Bottom line, it should taste better. If you are interested in seeing a difference for yourself, go check out the soup isle in the grocery store and pick up both a can of soup and a box of soup. Boxed soup, made in a similar way that the pouch cat food is made, tastes a ton better in my opinion.

So what does Pinkie think? Well, she just about went crazy when I brought it home last week. I choose the duck and turkey variety to avoid giving her any fish or beef protein, and she licked the bowl clean. It costs a bit more than I am used to however, so I don't know if we're going to completely switch over. Currently, I will feed her a 12 once can over a three day period, and that keeps my daily expense quite low. If I were feeding Pinkie with 3 oz cans however, I would consider making the switch. The cost is the same, there is less material waste with the packaging, and it seems to be the superior product.

You can learn a lot from your dog...

2007-08-14T12:49:00.000-07:00

Well, sure I love cats so much that I work at a feline only veterinary facility, but it doesn't mean that I don't love dogs as well. This last Saturday I put my dog Quincy to sleep after struggling to live with a brain cancer. He was a really great friend, and I thought I'd share some stories about the infamous "Mr. Q"

Quincy loved to go on runs, and was perfect on the leash. He helped me train for my marathon back in 2002, although I never let him go further than 18 miles. Did I mention that he could handle 18 miles?!? I always had to be careful when moving my tennis shoes, because if he saw me with them, I was pretty much going to at least walk him around the block.

Quincy also loved to swim. As it turns out, he could swim for over an hour. I learned this at a park in College Station which had a bunch of ducklings in it. He had his eye on them, and kept swimming after his idea for a mid-day meal. I do not endorse duckling consumption by pet dogs, but really, what could I do as he was deaf to my pleas to stop. The crowd that day really gave me a hard time about it, and I thought that I would have to jump in and drag him out. After 40 minutes I noticed he was getting slower and shortly after an hour he climbed out and collapsed in exhaustion. Thankfully the ducklings were really good at diving to get away from him.

Quincy could not ride the bike, so we never contemplated triathlons.

While he never dined on waterfowl, Quincy enjoyed chickens, possums and a lot of other wild animals. I don't hunt (I don't eat much in the way of meat either), but I bet he would of loved it if I did. The day he caught the chicken was quite eventful. We were at Shiner and I was trying to sleep. Amanda let the dogs out and then proceeded to yell after Quincy as he headed to the neighbors chicken coop with an agenda. Amanda was distressed to see all the feathers flying from down the road, and then finally woke me up when she could tell that he was bringing something back. In vet school they teach you a humane way to kill a chicken quickly. I never expected that to come in handy, but I sure didn't want this beat up bird to continue to suffer from my dogs hunting instinct.

Quincy loved women. If you were in the room, and you were a woman, that is where he wanted to be. My canine Casanova had some smooth moves.

When I was in vet school, Quincy and I would pass the time dressing him up. Perhaps I shouldn't admit this, but then again you've never seen how handsome he looks in a hat and tie. On occasion he would sport a red bandanna and looked pretty sharp.

Quincy was a lover, but also a fighter when times called for it. My third year of vet school someone broke in to the house while I was there and he made his presence known.
He also had beef with my dad's cattle, but they didn't pose near as much threat. One time he got a little too close to the bull who then proceeded to knock him in the head. I was studying neuroanatomy at the time, and found quick application of my study materials that day (he turned out fine).

Quincy taught me a lot about vet medicine. I learned how to convince a dog to stop eating cat poop. He also taught me what happens when a dog eats a ton of ibuprofen, a lesson I doubt I'll ever forget. (He decided to eat a bottle when I was out of the house and went into kidney failure...Scott Ipsen was my roommate at the time and thankfully found Quincy and rushed him to the vet hospital at which he worked).

Quincy really enjoyed a nice yard. Thankfully he was still in good health by the time I bought my current house, so I have good memories of him ripping thru the bushes.

Unfortunately he didn't get to enjoy my yard as much as I wanted. About a month after I moved in, he started acting a little off, and would walk in really tight coordinated circles to his right. Things got so bad that he barely wanted to get out of his dog bed. By the time we recognized his brain tumor, we placed him on steroids and were able to get a few more months of quality of life for him. But this past Saturday, things were just not what he wanted.
Rather than let him suffer, we helped him move along under the pecan tree. Folks who have never had the pleasure of being close to a pet may find it weird to think of people getting torn up by such a loss, but it's pretty rough stuff I'd say. Whenever I am at home, my pets are almost always there at my side. Sure they can stir up trouble some of the time, but mostly they shower you with unconditional love and gratitude. I really think that there is a lot going on a subconscious level between us and our pets, and their absence can really become quite a huge void. Quincy certainly has been a huge part in my life, and while I'm glad to know he won't be in any more confusion or discomfort, I'll miss seeing him after a long day of work.

Another concert to get excited about...

2007-07-24T15:13:00.000-07:00

Apparently Jimmy Swaggart once called music the new pornography, and one of my favorite groups over the past few years is The New Pornographers. All three of their albums are loads of fun, filled with the kind of pop that a person could only dream of hearing on terrestrial radio. Now Houston's concert scene has been disappointing me for the past several months, but though there is new reason to get excited when November 1st rolls around. Both The New Pornographers AND Spoon will be performing together at Warehouse Live. This will be my third time to see both of these bands, though the first time to see them the same night. It's sure to be a great show.

Funny cat names

2007-07-17T13:44:00.000-07:00

A lady brought in a cat she recently adopted just this past week. I chuckled when I saw the file read that the cat's name was "Lexis". As it turns out, the receptionist had not misspelled the name. The client commented that whoever had named her must have been "new money".

Incorrect spelling was much more common up at a different facility I worked in. One time I looked at a chart to find the patient's name written as expresso. Hooked on phonics for the loss I suppose.

Ode to the internet pharmacy...

2007-07-12T08:52:00.000-07:00

Well, it's summertime again and the fleas are as bad as ever. I don't mind fleas in 2007 - we actually have stuff that works and is safe. I remember as a kid loading up the dog and cat into our Ford van and driving to the Shell station on FM 2234 where they had a vat of flea dip on Saturdays. On the way back I was in charge of holding my cocker spaniel Rusty in the back of the van while my mom rushed to get the sopping mess back in the yard - that was no fun. We also used flea collars - since they were mainly for fashion, I always wondered why most of them were a plain white color...couldn't they add a design?

So yes, it's 2007. I love that the products we have work without hurting my animals. Let's talk about why I hate flea control.

It isn't free.

So why is this a problem? Because practical folks are going to notice that the stuff isn't free. Now, let's not get into costs of bulk product, and shipping, and stocking etc... That all is just a fact of business. And the folks who make the stuff worked hard to get it so I figure they deserve to make a living. But it isn't free.

The first possible problem I see is investigation into products that use methoprene and pyrethrin (the active ingrediants of over the counter products). Both are cheap and readily available at stores like Fiesta and most pet stores. Methoprene alone is safe and great at what it does (it makes the eggs not hatch) but it lets the adults continue to live and is not the solution many people want. It will NOT kill your cat. Pyrethrin products might. They work ok at killing fleas for a week or so, but there is the little problem of pyrethrin toxicity that can lead to vomiting and neurological issues like seizures.

So over-the-counter flea control isn't the best choice. What's the other problem that stresses me out? You betcha that it's Betty White! (ok - maybe it's the internet pharmacy that pays her to do television commercials).

Let's keep it simple: the companies who make the products do not sell to internet pharmacies. But why believe me? Call them. Please. Call Merial and Pfizer and just ask. They'll tell you all about it. They'll talk to you about quality control concerns and expired repackaged product and "sub-distributors" and all that nasty stuff that I loathe to discuss. Then call the internet pharmacies and hear what they have to say - then call Merial again...then call the internet pharmacies...then you can understand my frustration.

What do I see? I see product that doesn't work sometimes. Every now and then someone will show me a cat on those products and the cat is covered with fleas. 99% of the time the product was thru a "sub-distributer" and I can't do a darn thing about it. So if it's 2007, and we still don't have a cure for heartworm disease, and you are using a defective flea/heartworm control product, there is not a thing I can do.

Screw the byproducts...

2007-06-28T14:33:00.000-07:00

Gravy was an important food group in the Filip household back in the day. I would dare think that at least 60% of our meals involved it. There was steak and gravy...fried chicken, with gravy...pot roast (you better believe that meal had some gravy)...worse of all was this dish called "chili meat gravy". Oh, it was terrible, but my dad loved the stuff, and my mom (who ruled the kitchen) loves my dad, so we ate it. Now, at the same time, we got many of our vegetables from the farm, and a majority of the meats we ate came from our own pasture, so maybe I had that going for me. All in all though, I think I could have eaten a little healthier as a child.

When I moved on to college, I made friends from outside the gravy belt, and my diet improved. As I ate better, I felt better. I found that I had less headaches, and my energy really improved. I haven't looked back since. Around the time I graduated veterinary school, I was starting to consider the possibility that maybe the same applies for our pets. Of course, I wasn't all the way there by the time I started working in the summer of 2003. I remember a few weeks into my job, I was recommending a therapeutic diet for a cat's diabetes. I had plenty of studies demonstrating that the particular formulation I was recommending dramatically improved clinical outcomes, and worked hard to explain that to the client over the phone. The client didn't want to use the food because it contained a good amount of byproduct in it. While I would love to think that my memory is failing me on this, I am pretty sure the conversation reached a point where I exclaimed "screw the byproducts and just use the damn food". I don't think I ever heard from them again.

I chuckle to think back to that embarrassing incident because these days I feel much more like that client did at the time. I think we have to be much more critical of what we are feeding them... Let us consider byproduct, which the Association Of American Feed Control Officials defines as...

"The non-rendered, clean parts, other than meat, derived from slaughtered mammals. It includes, but is not limited to, lungs, spleen, kidneys, brain, livers, blood, bone, partially defatted low temperature fatty tissue, and stomachs and intestines freed of their contents. It does not include hair, horns, teeth and hoofs. It shall be suitable for use in animal food. If it bears name descriptive of its kind, it must correspond thereto."

Part of my veterinary training included having an understanding of the beef industry and the workings of an industrial slaughterhouse. When processing beef, a lot of times you are going to be seeing portions of an animal that is extremely bruised from repeated antibiotic injections (you know, for the natural infections they may pickup in those lovely feed lots). Other times you see muscle that has had bots and other creatures migrate through. None of this stuff is what you would ever consider eating, but it has been deemed fit for our pets. Now I hear the argument that in the wild cats will eat all different portions of their prey, but lets not forget that they are not hunting within our industrial food complex. I think there is an important difference, and you won't hear me say "screw the byproducts" any more these days. Like I replied to an earlier post, we vote with our dollars. It's time we demand that more pet food companies step up the quality.

Discovering the Donkey

2007-05-17T07:01:00.000-07:00

Amanda started her final year of veterinary school last week, and her experiences on her current rotation has brought to mind a patient I hadn't thought of in a while. She is currently on the equine orthopedic surgery rotation, which is a two week session that all small animal focused students simply love (not really). Many of the rotations in vet school can be very taxing, and when it is a subject that you will likely never use as a vet down the road, it becomes that much more tedious to make it through. When I was on a similar rotation back in 2002, I ended up having a very wild experience.

The day I started my equine internal medicine rotation, I was assigned an infant donkey named Discovery. His mother had passed on not too long after giving birth to him, and he did not have much going in his favor. He was quickly confined to the isolation ward because of his problems involved some infectious disease issues. Taking care of an extremely young animal is enough work as it is, but the protocols we go through when a patient is in a proper isolation ward make things take MUCH longer. I would check in on him every few hours, and in order to do so, I would first have to put on a ridiculous protective outfit that includes full body disposable coveralls, thick plastic boots, gloves, hair bonnet, and mask. This usually took at least 7 minutes to do. By the time you have finally done this, you better hope that you have everything you need, because if you have to go get anything, you are required to take it all off before leaving and then put on a fresh outfit upon re-entry. I frequently forgot at least one item that I needed. While my classmates were sleeping at 4:40 am, I was in the isolation ward...when they were eating lunch, I was in the isolation ward - for TWO WEEKS, I felt like I lived in the isolation ward. Once I got excited that we were going to take some radiographs, thinking we would get to leave the isolation ward for a change... Nope! They brought the equipment to the isolation ward.

So what sort of person spends thousands of dollars to try and save their infant donkey? The same person who likes to talk to said donkey over the cell phone. Yes, one of the things I had to remember to bring was a cell phone for the donkey. The first time I had to do this, I figured it wouldn't be a huge deal, but she liked to talk - I would hold the phone a few minutes to his ear, check and find that she was still talking, shrug my shoulders and keep waiting. Some of these one-sided conversations lasted 10 minutes! In the beginning, when it was over, I would quickly move on to my other tasks. After a few times though, I would talk with her a little bit - she would ask if the donkey was responding to her voice, and I would reveal how he blinked his eyes or flicked his ear. Maybe it was just a normal body movement (the opinion I kept to myself), or maybe it was him communicating back (of this she was sure).

So was my rotation a ton of work? Oh yeah. I was exhausted. I didn't mind because I was the one Discovery loved to see (I had the coveted milk bottle). I wish the story had a happy ending, but despite all our efforts, Discovery never left the facility. On the final day of my rotation, yet another problem arose and we figured it wasn't meant to be. I'm sure his owner has found a new friend to talk to by now, but for me, Discovery is likely the only donkey that I'll care for. Could it be that you never forget your first donkey?

Worst CD review ever...

2007-05-08T14:55:00.000-07:00

Not really sure how to say this: Got a new album and I can't stop playing it. The artist is Feist and the album's name is The Reminder. Check it out.

More challenges...

2007-04-26T14:58:00.000-07:00

A few posts back I vented a little bit of frustration about the challenges of feline heart disease. I just finished reading up on some of the latest regarding feline HEARTWORM disease. The more we find out about it, the scarier it gets - our cats NEED to be using heartworm prevention (mine have been all their life). Here's a link to a great website that discusses it in further detail:

http://www.vin.com/WebLink.plx?URL=http://www.knowheartworms.org/nelson.asp

I send you to this page of the website because I want you to get to know one of the vets who has been instrumental in increasing awareness. Just in case you don't have it in you to visit that page, here's something that he wrote recently that really should get your attention:

"In 1997 I was...in my 18th year of practice along the upper Texas gulf coast where heartworm disease (HWD) was, and still is, a major problem in DOGS. My practice administered adulticidal therapy to 4 to 6 dogs and diagnosed about twice that many every WEEK. That's a lot of heartworms (HW) but we rarely diagnosed HWs in a cat. That year, Feline Heartgard was introduced and clients were asking me if they needed to put their cats on HW preventive. My response was NO, it was rare, a freak of nature issue and we only diagnosed a cat with HWs every once in a Blue Moon. Having said that, I did a literature search on the incidence of HW in cats and found very little information. So I arranged with our local shelters to have the euthanized stray cats delivered to my practice for necropsy. My intent was to prove a certain pharmaceutical company wrong. I was going to prove that feline HWD was indeed a rare disease. The first week I necropsied 8 cats or I should say my technician necropsied 8 cats. We found adult HWs in THREE. That certainly got my attention. To make a long story short, we necropsied 259 cats over a one year period, tested them for FeLV, FIV and HW antibodies. We found adult worms in 25 cats (9.67%), antibodies in 26% of all cats tested, and that there was no correlation between the FeLV/FIV status and HW infections."

Heartworm disease is out there, and you're cat is at risk, EVEN if you cat never goes outside. All it takes is one mosquito bite, and according to the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine, somewhere around 25 to 33% of the cats they see with heartworm disease are indoor only cats. Mosquitoes are responsible for transmission and can get inside your house. Over the next few months, you are likely to start seeing television commercials about a new cat product that protects against heartworm disease. My hope is that it will further raise awareness to help to save lives and reduce disease.

More recalls to come most likely...

2007-04-20T06:47:00.000-07:00

It's been a sad few weeks reflecting on the status of our food industry, and more concerning news has come up over the last few days. Looks like a contaminated rice protein has been implicated. Know that we are keeping abreast of the situation, and if any products that have moved through our facility have come up as suspect, we will be making an effort to contact you. (At this time, only two products we have carried - Hill's MD dry and Royal Canin Hypoallergenic HP 23 dry - have been recalled). The latest food to be implicated is by Natural Balance - unfortunately, we have to suspect that more foods will be discovered over the next few days.

Silent but violent

2007-04-19T13:46:00.000-07:00

While some folks would associate the title of my post with something else entirely, I have heart disease on my mind at the moment, and that's how is strikes me. For all the detail that one can put into a physical examination, sometimes cardiac disease can be extremely elusive. Sure, there are times where you hear a murmur, or the history obviously fits in with heart disease, but there are many times where the heart sounds absolutely normal up to the day a cat dies of a heart attack. I just got off the phone with a client whose cat whose heart disease has been in stealth mode until very subtle signs appeared the other week. The cat was walking a little strangely, and we were able to identify a congenital problem with the knees that could account for that. The problem was, the cat barely improved on pain control. We tried stronger medications, but still no improvement. A few days later, the appetite was reduced, and we were left scratching our heads. Thankfully, we moved to have the cat stay in the hospital, and finally a clue presented itself that perhaps the problem was with the heart. Fast forward a bit, heart tests were conducted, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy was identified, and appropriate management was implemented. 6 days later, things are just about the way they always were.

This is what I would ask you to focus on: a cat showed no signs except for a slightly different walk, showed absolutely no signs of heart disease on exam, but is just about normal now that the heart disease is being treated.

So heart disease can be silent on exam - and from time to time, a cat will die and no one knew things were heading that way. I saw a different cat last week who did show obvious abnormalities on exam: this cat had a heart murmur so loud that both Dr. Cornelius and I initially thought we were listening to the cat rapidly breathing. While this unsuspecting client was expecting a routine visit in preparation for a health certificate and a flight to England, what she received was the upsetting news that her cat had dramatic heart abnormalities that we aren't even sure how to treat. We convinced her to have a boarded cardiologist weigh in on the findings, but I just cannot imagine what can be done (within reason). This cat definately should not fly, and will very likely no longer be with us in 2008.

Am I giving up on this cat - certainly not - but I am being realistic about our limitations regarding treating certain diseases. And feline cardiology is among the most frustrating sections of feline medicine given how every few months a new study comes out that completely contradicts the previous one. This reality makes certain days very challenging, and sometimes there just aren't enough cute kitten exams to compensate.

Ah - the blue hair...

2007-04-16T20:32:00.000-07:00

So I've been kicking myself in the rear about not posting to this blog (as opposed to my other super secret scandalous one which I update hourly) and have been debating this Monday evening whether to post or to go to bed. Of course, I check in on Dr. C's blog to see who's the bigger slacker on this endeavor and wonder how she knows about the blue hair. Guess it will be something to bring up in rounds Tuesday.

For the record, when I was a third year in vet school, I had this very strange lady cut my hair several times. My hairline was still decent (I wasn't a vet yet you see) and hair actually got in my eyes because we kept it long. So one day she convinced me to try highlights and the next thing I knew I was sporting large potions of platinum. While I cringe to think back on it, at the time I thought it looked splendid. That same crazy lady gave me hair product to help style the mop on my head - some was blue - I put it in my hair maybe once, probably to annoy my manager at Wings and More - I do not know how this information got out.

So that's that. Hopefully I'll get around to posting something relevant to cats next time.

Pinkie and Miranda

2007-03-22T09:27:00.000-07:00

I usually sit in this chair to read and watch the television - this was a time when I was not allowed to. Pinkie is the one on the right, Miranda on the left. Every night around 10:30 pm, they play pretty rough, and Pinkie will scream like the sky is falling. During those times, I try to remember images like this to know that they really do like each other.

A Valentine's gift idea for your music loving boyfriend...

2007-02-14T09:29:00.000-08:00

Well, it's Valentine's day, and some of the folks at the clinic are bitter, while others are scrambling for last minute gift ideas. Recognizing how stressful this can be, I thought I'd offer a great gift idea if you have a boyfriend who loves music. Speaking from personal experience, whenever I notice certain arm movements from Amanda's side out of the corner of my eye, it's a soul crushing experience as I just know that the music is just a tad too loud and she's going to turn it down a little. So the next time you are driving together in the car, and a great song starts playing, reach over to that dial and turn it up. Oh, man - he's going to love it! When you see the smile hit his face, throw in a little "Happy Valentine's Day" and you're done! No gift wrap required!

Progression of the profession...

2007-02-09T07:16:00.000-08:00

One of the many reasons I chose to work exclusively on cats concerned the wealth of new information we are now getting regarding feline medicine. For a long time, cats were viewed as small dogs, and treatment protocols were extrapolated from our studies with what turns out to be a significantly different species. If you browse through the veterinary journals from ten years ago, you cannot find near as much feline specific information as you do today. In fact, today's feline content takes up more than half of some of my favorite sources. It's very exciting and rewarding to be involved in an areas of the profession where such dramatic improvements in quality of care is being attained.

As another example of veterinary medicine progressing in the right direction, veterinary dentistry seems to really be coming into full form with increasing numbers of general practitioners purchasing and utilizing advanced dental equipment. Now, while I only recently graduated in 2003, the small animal dentistry curriculum was very limited where I trained. I would dare say that out of four years of school, I attended perhaps only eight hours of lecture on the subject and had only one dental case which I had to share with four other students. Truth be told, I found dentistry to be very uninteresting.

A harsh reality hit me in the face when I started working here. Trained on how to pay attention to my patients during physical examination, one of the most common problems I was recognizing was painful dental diseases such as periodontitis in the cat. That summer of 2003, the excitement of being a new veterinarian quickly turned to terror as I madly scrambled to figure out how to overcome my inadequate knowledge of dentistry.

Up next: Going from "plucking wigglers" to discovering the true meaning of dental prophylaxis. Also, the benefits of having a supportive employer.

No, I'm not kickin' it with Leroy

2007-02-05T19:58:00.000-08:00

So I got tons of stuff to read. Currently I am really enjoying a book called The Omnivore's Dilemma which I'll likely post on a bit later. I also have tons of journals to tear thru. Since I am about to move into my first house, I have begun packing and have decreed that the journals must not go. I also have a stack of the random Sunday New York Times sections which I want to scan before recycling. This may sound odd, but I really am just trying to get my $5 worth. So the last thing I should be doing is reading Dr. Cornelius's blog at 10 pm on a Monday night - yet I did and you'll do yourself a favor to check it out. I nearly destroyed my keyboard after snorting out some milk on it because of the line regarding an old lady recommending crack cocaine for the flu.

Which brings me to a surreal experience on that subject which always makes me laugh because I felt it to be so absurd. So I am with a friend trying to meet up with another friend, and of all places, we're supposed to hook up at Denny's. No, we don't intend to eat at Denny's, but for whatever reason, it made sense at the time to do it this way. So, there we are, at Denny's - something like 3 o'clock in the afternoon and the place is dead. We're standing in the entry area to get out of the cold, and we keep scanning the parking lot for cars bearing our friend. After standing in this strangly quiet diner for a few minutes, we notice some movement. This guy who had been standing at the trunk of his car since before we got there, starts slowly strutting around the building. I know he is heading for us. After all, there are absolutely no customers in the entire place. I'm like a deer in headlights, not sure what is about to go down. Finally, he steps on in, and just stares at me eventually murmuring "you kickin' it with Leroy?"

I am dumbfounded. Who is Leroy? What about me makes this guy think that I am there for him? Here you have me, being me - looking at him, who looks about the exact opposite of me - is it possible that we could have a mutual friend? Alas, I reply "no...man...I'm not sure I even know a Leroy." The guy looks a me a bit longer, nods his head, and then slowly returns to his pervious post. We were so utterly confused, and from that day on we loved joking about that odd day at Denny's. Years later something clued me in to the true meaning of that exchange - guess I must have looked to be suffering the flu.

A sudden change in attitude

2007-01-29T19:52:00.000-08:00

Around 6 weeks ago a client brought one of her cats into the clinic for treatment of something quite basic, but a whole new problem arose when she went back home that day. Despite a long relationship, one of the cats decided that he really just didn't like the other cat after all, and raging intercat aggression has ensued ever since. We've tried a number of behavioral techniques too numberous to lay out here, and having no luck, have started reaching for behavioral modification drugs such as prozac. Thankfully, what is going on with these two cats isn't too common, but it's something I have seen before. The last time it happened, the client was the one who stumbled on the solution, and I'll never forget it. There were three cats involved, all having solid black coats. Two of the cats just began attacking the third for days after he had returned from a routine dental cleaning. We eventually realized that the problem was the new patch of white on this cats neck, something the clinic created when we had to shave a small patch of hair to collect a blood sample. The owner thought to fashion a black silk stocking for her cat to wear around his neck, and a harmony was restored.

Scuba diving cat

2007-01-25T08:49:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Amanda for this link.  Gave me a much needed chuckle between appointments.

http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=7435480002368724581

If fried chicken is what it takes...

2007-01-23T08:41:00.000-08:00

A few weeks back this cat name Gorby came into the clinic for some gastrointestinal issues. She's going thru her sweet sixteen, and she's seen her share of problems. She's a cancer survivor (fibrosarcoma), has inflammatory bowel disease, and hyperthyroidism - at least those are the dieases we know about. We have some difficulty keeping her gut disease under control, and every now and then something strange will throw things out of wack. So, a few weeks ago, she's having some vomiting and diarrhea, and we start our workup trying to isolate the issue. Pretty soon, we see on the abdominal ultrasound that there is an obstruction in her intestines. Of course, one of the last things we are considering is that she would have eaten something she shouldn't have. Young silly kittens do things like that - not old pros like Gorby...right? So of course we are scared of cancer, and we move in late Friday afternoon to see what we can find surgically. Sure enough, it was a tiny plastic ball; the kind you would find in a cat toy. Good to know she's still having fun at her age.

So it's now about 7 pm Friday night, and we're feeling pretty darn good. Not only did we find the problem and find it easily correctable, the owners are going to have her transfered to 24 hour care to make sure her recovery is smooth. This is great for me, as I know I won't have to drive up to the clinic at 3:30 am to be able to fall asleep without worrying about how a patient is handling it's post-operative time. As the days go by, we find her electrolyte problems are returning to normal, and she seems more comfortable - only one problem - she's not too keen on eating. Early on, the question was asked if Gorby could be fed fried chicken after her surgery. Uhhhh, no! Last thing we want to do with a cat with GI disease is then to go anger its pancreas. So another few days go by, and I'm starting to sweat. Gorby should be trying to eat more cat toys in my mind, but instead she's being moapy and not wanting to eat. So again, the question is asked.

Turns out Gorby was driving with her dad several years back, and a visit was paid to the Kentucky Fried Chicken. Gorby seemed game, so dad picked up some extra spicy for himself and original recipe for the princess. She could have cared less for the blend of seven herbs and spices, but loved the spicy stuff.

Well, I had run out of options short of placing a feeding tube and an order of chicken was placed. As it turns out, she loved it, and ate like a champ. Two days after that she was asking for her regular cat food as well and has made it past one more bump in the road. But don't think it's ok for anyone else to start feeding their cats fried chicken.

TV on the Radio

2007-01-21T17:28:00.000-08:00

Well a combination of my natural hesitancy to contribute to this blog and a stomach flu has kept me away from the computer lately, but I have emerged from my week of nausea to discover that Houston is about to have a really great band swing thru town. TV on the Radio is going to be playing at the Meridian March 6. So yes, it's a Tuesday night, but judging from their performance at this years Austin City Limits Festival, it should be a great show. I have both their LP's, and have enjoyed them thoroughly - but why take my word? Go see what pitchfork.com has to say about them.

Why Whole Latte Love rules...

2007-01-10T16:57:00.000-08:00

I don't know why, but when my espresso machine acts up, I get really upset - not mad, but upset at the thought of a day where I am unable to brew my own coffee. This past weekend, I was doing some routine cleaning on my machine, and as it turns out, I screwed something up. I bought my machine from a site called Whole Latte Love, and ever since, I have found them to be the most helpful group of people around. Just as before, I called them up, talked to their technical support team, and recieved instructions via email on how to fix my specific problem. I am so thrilled at how easy they make things for me.

Just had to share that. If you are looking for a high end coffee machine, consider visiting WholeLatteLove.com. I have a Gaggia Synchrony Compact and have found it to be an excellent machine. My creations beat Starbucks any day of the week.

Merry Christmas Opie

2006-12-27T14:26:00.000-08:00

While I try to remain impartial, Opie has to be one of my favorite patients. He is a prime example of how some cats will manage to defy the odds. Shortly after I started working here in the summer of 2003, I conducted a physical examination to see how well his diabetes was being managed. Something in his belly felt different to me, and within a few days we realized he had a really bad cancer involving his spleen. As we weighed our options, we ultimately decided to remove his spleen in the hopes of buying him some time. While this type of surgery is not conducted too commonly in general practice, we managed to get him through it and back home. Because of the nature of his cancer, he went home with a guarded prognosis. Back then, I was certain he would not be with us for long. That following December, things were looking especially bad, and I remember how much Opie's family wanted him to survive to see Christmas. I cautioned the family that the chances seemed slim. Christmas 2003 came and went, and Opie kept trucking along. For the most part, he has maintained a very high quality of life, with just a few bumps in the road every now and then. We know his cancer is still there - you can literally see the cancer cells in his blood sample. Every December, we have the same conversation regarding his chances to be around on Christmas day, and for four years now, he has pulled through. I just want to say Merry Christmas to Opie, and thank him for teaching me how strong some cats can be.

Forming bonds

2006-12-19T09:27:00.000-08:00

Well, it’s been 10 days now, and the two cats are practically best buds. To my surprise, Pinkie is sharing several of her prized resting spots, mainly the back of the couch and wherever Amanda is at the moment. Last night, as Amanda was working on the computer, one of the cats was lounging in front of her, the other on her lab. Every now and then, positions were exchanged. In Pinkie’s eyes, Miranda might just be the best toy ever. It used to be that she would have to pester me to chase her around, but now she has a much more agile playmate. They are gently pouncing on each other, batting toys around, and wrestling without much issue. Every now and then Pinkie will call a time out, but play usually resumes within a minute. One of the stranger games they play involves the cat carrier – Pinkie likes to go hide in it, and then the two will exchange paws thru the various openings. Miranda has been known to shut the door on occasion, but Pinkie is patient as we move to re-open it for her. As close as they are, I hope that they don’t learn too much from each other…I would rather minimize the number of cats who like to sleep on the oven (I cannot keep Pinkie away from the warmth of the pilot light) and how many animals can open Tupperware that hides cat food (Miranda’s thing).

Introducing Miranda

2006-12-08T09:00:00.000-08:00

So with some reluctance on my part, it looks like we added a member to the family this week. Amanda has convinced me that, yes, we do want another cat in the mix, and I’ve been getting to know her over the past two days. She has an even smaller frame than Pinky, if that is possible, and she has been fitting in nicely. Before I left for work today, I swear that I witnessed them Eskimo kissing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskimo_kissing) so I am optimistic that they will be long term friends. She has a lot of cute qualities – likes to sleep in odd positions – paws under the doorframe when you close the bathroom door – overly optimistic about what she can jump onto – but my favorite is how she attacks the cat wand. Right now I have some feathers at the end of the string, and she goes after it like her life depends on it. When the feathers pass between her paws, she looks like Sugar Ray Leonard working a speed bag. After doing this for a few minutes, I know that I need to reward her by allowing for her to “make the kill”, and what ensues is utter hilarity. She clamps down on the toy and just starts moaning continuously and she slowly transports it to the other side of the house. Not wanting to leave her alone with something that might necessitate surgery (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_body), I work to take it away, but only after a game of tug of war. Eyes full of determination, she will plant all four paws into the ground and brace her body in an effort to keep the prize. I hope she's getting some rest while I'm away at work, because I'm sure the feathers will escape my desk drawer later tonight.

'tis the season for peppermint mochas

2006-12-07T08:23:00.000-08:00

In order to get my veterinary degree, I had to survive seven years of studying up at Texas A&M; turns out, to keep my license, I still have to do a lot of studying under the guise of "researching a case". Much of the material is pretty boring stuff, and if they don't suffocate you with some complex pathophysiology, some papers will just play games with you. They may get you excited about the possibility that their latest data is going to give you the answer you need, only to say at the end that more data is needed. A person has to figure out a way to survive, and mochas have allowed me to do this.

For my first 3 years of college, I actually never touched a drop of coffee, but I was studying. I'd study in all sorts of crazy places - the basement at the MSC, a vacant office sized closet in the vet building, in a video arcade - something about a unique setting really got the juices flowing. I would find a spot, use it for a while, and then it just wouldn't work for me. Finally, I discovered Sweet Eugene's coffee house in College Station. There was something about that setting that really allowed me to concentrate.

After studying at Sweet Eugene's for many months, I began to feel guilty that I wasn't actually buying anything from them. Up to that point, I thought I hated coffee - out of a feeling of obligation, I figured I'd give it a go. They had helped me stay in school after all; I felt it was the least that I could to do spend a buck there. My friend Amy suggested a "Snickers Latte". The rest is history.

I continue to make use of coffee houses for studying on occasion, but the cost really adds up. Five years ago, I bought my first espresso machine for the home - I was broke, so the $15 contraption from that garage sale fit the bill nicely. In retrospec, it was a clunky thing, but it did a decent job and saved me some money. Back in the summer of 2003, to celebrate my graduation from veterinary school, I decided to visit wholelattelove.com and buy myself an Italian engineered superautomatic espresso machine. I don't freely admit the amount of money I spent on it, but we have grown very close. I sent it in to the shop once. I actually cried when it came back to me.

So this all brings me to the title of this post - the peppermint mocha. It's wintertime, and many coffee houses have this offered as a seasonal drink. It's quite good, but it's one of the most expensive things they sell. I recently set out to see if I can recreate this experience at home and the answer is a resounding yes.

The recipe:
1. Start frothing 10 oz of milk to 180 degrees F. I cannot recommend Horizon's organic milk enough.
2. Heat up your cup for 30 seconds in the microwave (the drink stays warm longer that way).
3. Mix 2 - 3 tablespoons of a high quality chocolate syrup with a tad less than 1 tablespoon of Monin peppermint syrup in your cup.
4. Place the cup back in the microwave for another 30 seconds.
5. Pull 2 shots of espresso into your cup
6. Add your heated milk and enjoy.

I think it's time to go read up on a case!

Yes, my cat is named "Pinkie"

2006-12-05T15:31:00.000-08:00

I adopted my current cat Pinkie as a rescue back in April 2004, and we made our first trip to the farm just a few months later. Well, that sentence sounds strange unless you know that my family has a small farm out in Shiner, Texas. It’s been in the family for close to 100 years now, and we like to use it as a retreat, although we tend to do much more working than relaxing while we are there.

Anyways, with Pinkie in tow, I called my mother to make sure that the house was cat proof. Members of my family would cringe to see me write this, but we’ve seen our share of mice in Shiner. They like to conduct chariot races from time to time, so we act accordingly. With an inquisitive cat on the prowl, however, our “equipment” needs to be put away. My mother promised me that all was in order.

The weekend started off great. I don’t remember what we did exactly, just that it was stress free. Pinkie was having a blast as she ran thru the house to sniff every nook and cranny. Then, while I was sitting in the living room watching the TV channel out of Victoria, I heard the wildest commotion erupt. It sounded like the farmhouse was under an aerial assault, but everything seemed to focus on this erratically moving object that was zipping thru the rooms. It took me a good minute before I realized that it was my cat. By the time I cornered her, she was hyperventilating with her eyes bulging out. One entire side of her body was stuck to a rat trap made of plastic and extremely sticky glue. Looks like mom missed something.

I was clueless on how to fix this situation. In a clinic setting, I could easily reach out for sedation and get her to calm down before she entered a metabolic crisis, but my drugs were hundreds of miles away. The most I could figure is to try applying firm pressure and slowly peel it off. Visions of a skinless Pinkie filled my mind. Just as I took a deep breath to pull it off, Pinkie bolted again.

As luck would have it, during this next episode of frantic sprinting, Pinkie plowed thru one of our decorative piles of extension cord – and the sticky trap stayed behind! She finally stopped underneath one of the beds, relieved to have the plastic off of her body. She looked so pitiful with patches of missing hair and steaks of golden glue running along her body. The worst of it over, I cradled my shaking feline and set to researching the remedy.

As it stands now, I now know what to so in such a situation. If fact, about a year ago, I actually had a phone call regarding this very problem. The glue comes out with vegetable oil! I always chuckle when I think back to that, and how Pinkie smelled like popcorn for weeks thereafter. She also didn’t leave my side for at least a month – some folks ask me how they can turn their cat into a lap cat – this method worked for me, but I don’t recommend it.

The weight ends

2006-11-29T12:16:00.000-08:00

So after pouring through feline nutrition papers by veterinarians such as Deborah Greco and Deb Zoran, I felt invigorated! Their writings were a breath of fresh air that went against conventional wisdom and simply made sense. The idea was to consider that cats have been around for millions of years hunting for their food, but now we were feeding them something very different. We were making a strict carnivore eat like an omnivore - we were making a creature built for protein get by on carbohydrates.

If you want a bit more detail on this subject, find the weblink "Feline Weight Management" under the "General Linx" section of our website.

So I broke the news to my mother - unless she wanted her cat to become a painful arthritic patient, she was going to have to stop feeding dry food and switch to a high protein canned food. Now, as it stands, I am her only child. She hid her disdain for the idea very well.

Next person I remember talking to is a colleague of mine who I hold in extremely high regard. Given that he too works at an all cat facility, I was eager to hear what he was doing with this new information. Turns out he was watching and waiting, wanting to see what happens as other veterinarians go thru the trouble of explaining the latest in feline nutrition.

Well, I wasn't go to let his skepticism hold me down. I was young and eager and ready to spread the good news! What happened after that was very educational. I discovered the bumps in the road. Here's the short list:

some cats will not eat wet food
some people will not buy wet food (smell and cost)
many cats are psychotic about an empty food bowel
many people like to travel
no one likes to be awakened in the night by their cat
old habits are hard to break
traditionally quiet cats can discover they have vocal cords
some people get offended when you suggest their cat is obese

Ahhhhhh, discouragement! But, there have been successes! There's my own cat who has become much more active since maintaining her lean body weight of seven pounds. There is Stevie who dropped four pounds and became much more playful. Best of all is Sebastian who went from the low 20's to around 13 pounds - given that his owner drops in frequently for supplies, their accomplishment enters my mind often and encourages me to keep an optimistic view for future patients.

Returning back to my original story (see previous post), it looks like I have two more cats to add to the list. The reason that they weighed significantly less than before is because at the prior examination, we had talked about current feline nutrition and the guy decided to give it a go. When I asked him what he did to make it work, he responded that he just stopped the dry food and switched to canned... He acted like it was as simple as changing a lightbulb! Why can't it be that easy every time???

Heavy Thoughts

2006-11-27T12:41:00.000-08:00

Some folks just have it easy.

A client brought two cats in last week for their annual exam, and as I started working on the first one, a huge red flag went off in my head. This cat weigh two pounds less than the previous year. Considering that this is a 9 year old patient, possible disease processes start running through my mind, and I conduct the physical examination looking for the usual suspects like kidney issues, hyperthyroidism and other "diseases of older cats."

Well, really this cat just looked great. While it had gone from 8.5 pounds to 6.5, it was in excellent body condition and no other problems were noted on examination. So I enter my notes into the medical record, and move on to the next cat only to discover it had gone from 20 pounds to 16! And then it clicked...

Time for a flashback:

It's the summer of 2003, and I am fresh out of veterinary school when I get a call from my mother. Being a new graduate, every day seems impossibly busy so the last thing I want to hear about is that she just backed the car over her cat and now it's not moving. My mom is interested in adopting a wait and see sort of approach, and I beg to differ. Cut to the chase, by the end of the week, her cat is doing much better, except that I had to correct a fracture by creating a false hip. Bottom line, the cat is going to do great, as long as it stays lean - excess weight will likely lead to chronic pain in this sort of situation.

So that was really the first time I had to sit down and construct a serious dietary plan for a patient. Hate to admit it, but my vet school put more emphasis on food animal nutrition than on feline nutrition. And even though one of my instructors actually wrote a widely sited (and in my mind revolutionary) article on the dietary needs of cats, somehow it was never chosen as a lecture at my school.

So I read it, and it blew my mind. And then I checked her references to find additional source material, and I got really excited. If what they were saying was correct, then we (veterinarians and the cat food industry) had been looking at things all wrong. I now had a plan. Now to but it into action!

Next time: Great expectations meet reality check.

Moving on

2006-10-20T08:48:00.000-07:00

Well, shoot. So it’s a beautiful day in Houston, and a nice chill is in the air. Cases have slowed down for the morning – I think I have time to run over to Diedrich Coffee! This makes me happy.

I really love this part of Houston. If you want great food, it’s everywhere. Art-house cinema: Landmark River Oaks and the Angelica. Breakfast: Empire Cafe and the Daily Grind. Under the radar live music: Proletariat and Walters. CD’s: Sound Exchange. Books: Bookstop. I could go on and on and on…

So it’s a sad day because it looks like one of my favorite coffee locations is shutting down. Now, Diedrich Coffee is a chain with locations outside of Houston – I’ve been to one in Denver – so by my demented logic, it should be avoided. But the one on Westheimer never felt like one. To me it always felt like a neighborhood coffee shop – the kind that is so hard to come by these days. Walking thru their doors brings a smile to my face and can make the worst day seem just fine. Now maybe it’s the way that they carried me thru when my Gaggia was in the shop for a month a few years ago, or how I studied for my national boards and many other vet school exams there, but I just love that building. I even had this crazy idea that if I were to acquire this clinic, I’d relocate it to the other side of their complex to take advantage of a more flexible floor plan and to be able to walk over for great coffee whenever needed. Heck, we could even have a running tab at Diedrich, and send clients there for a complimentary drink while they wait on us to finish up.

Well, it isn't happening.

So maybe a miracle will happen – I know that I am not the only one with an attachment to that business – but my best advice would be to get there sometime soon to attain closure. And if you’ve never been, you better hurry up – that place is a gem.

A little history for you...

2006-10-18T14:03:00.000-07:00

I never tire of relating the legacy of our clinic on West Alabama - its one of a pioneering spirit. That's how I see it, considering that when it opened in 1973, it was the first cat only veterinary facility in Texas, and the second to open in the United States. It was founded by Dr. Billy Pennings, and there's a good story behind it. There is a nice article on the clinic to the right of our front desk - hopefully one day we'll get around to putting it on our web-page.

One could use a lot of different words to describe Dr. Pennings, but brave is the one that sticks out in my mind the most...

Why "brave" you ask? Well, this last weekend I bravely attended my 10 year high school reunion, and a large part of the event involved wide eyed response from my classmates when I told them that I only worked on cats. Only one person really got it (thanks Velissa!) - the rest acted like I told them that I just came back from another planet. I also got much of the same reaction from many of my vet school classmates prior to my graduation. Now, if you are reading this, then most likely you are a client, prospective client looking for a cat only facility, or a close friend, and to you a cat only facility seems like a pretty nice deal. BUT, as my class reunion reminded me, there are still plenty of people who hold you suspect for seeing cats in such light.

When Dr. Pennings opened the Cat Veterinary Clinic, there were far fewer like-minded individuals, and to me, it had to take a lot of courage to follow thru with her vision. But follow thru she did, and her actions played a part in the advancement of feline medicine. At this time, there are at least 6 cat only vet clinics in Houston alone. How things have changed!

Things to remember...

2006-10-16T08:19:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite memories at the clinic:

A client has brought her daughter along for her cat's annual exam. The cat is really well behaved, and the daughter is both polite and inquisitive, so after auscultating the chest, I offer my stethoscope to her so she can hear what the heart sounds like. Her eyes light up in excitement, and I remember one of the reasons why I love veterinary medicine. Unfortunately, I have passed the earpieces to her in a way that she ends up putting on the instrument backward. This makes it much harder to hear a heartbeat, and her facial expression tells me that she cannot hear much. To remedy this, I ask that she "turn it around", and instead of flipping the stethoscope so the earpieces face down her ear canal, she physically turns her body 360 degrees, trying her best to keep the instrument on while she struggles to hear her cats heart.