Pet Vets

Are you feeding bones to your dog?

2010-10-28T23:06:00.000+08:00

Traditionally, people feed their dogs bones. In cartoons, dogs chew bones happily and salivate over them. Dogs do enjoy chewing bones, but bones are not good for your dogs!

Bones including all forms of bones, ranging from chicken bones to beef bones, are dangerous to all dogs. Bones are often been chewed into sharp pieces before dogs can swallow them. The bones cannot be digested in the dog's digestive system and they will hurt your dog's digestive tract.

Bone eating dogs will have a variety of symptoms. Small bones such as fish and tiny chicken bones may choke the dog. Some dogs suffer from vomiting while some may have bloody diarrhea (raw or dark brown or black blood in loose poo). This is because the sharp ends of bones erode or worse puncture the intestines wall which in turn irritates the bowel. Some dogs, however, will encounter constipation, which is due to the pain of trying to pass out the sharp bones. The worst consequence of bone eating is the pieces of bones blocking the intestines which may lead to death if not treated immediately. In this severe case, the only solution is surgical treatment to remove the bones that block the intestines.

If you still want to give your dog bones, then switch to raw hide bones instead, which is safer and yet satisfy your dog's bone eating instinct!

Canine Hip Dysplasia --Common Doggie Disease

2009-08-14T20:03:00.003+08:00

Some veterinarians do not know the exact treatment for Canine Hip Dysplasia (CHD) after definitive diagnosis. Many clients are not even aware of it. In order to improve life of our cute loyal buddies, let me explain briefly about CHD.

Canine Hip Dysplasia (CHD) is a very common disease in large to giant breed doggies. It is an abnormal development of hip joint and occurs bilaterally. The disease is characterized by joint laxity in juvenile dogs and secondary osteoarthritis in older dogs. Affected dogs have hips that are structurally and functionally disease free at birth.

The cause of this disease includes:
1. Inheritance

2. Environmental factors which affects expression of the phenotype

3. Non-genetic factors which influence the progression of hip dysplasia.

4. Rapid growth, especially between the 3rd to 8th month of life.

5. Overnutrition or overweight

6. Inadequate development of pelvic muscles

7. Hormones such as T3, T4, growth hormones...

Clinical signs are:

1. Lameness

2. Abnormal gait such as bunny-hopping

3. Reluctant to move and decreased exercise tolerance

4. Refuse to do stairs

5. Difficulty in rising and jumping

6. Lameness after strenous exercise

7. Flat rumps with wide hip

8. Narrow stance in rear legs (toes pointed outward)

9. Clicking sound of the hip joints in young dogs

10. Wobbly gait in rear legs in very young dogs (8-16 weeks old)

11. Change in disposition, maybe aggressive due to painful hips

Conservative Treatment (non-surgical):

1. Weight control

2. Exercise control

3. Physical rehabilitation

4. Pain relief

5. Long-term cartilage protecting agents

75% of dogs treated conservatively recover. Howvever, These are not enough. To improve your lovely dog's life and also allowing the hips and legs to quickly return to their normal functions, surgical treatment is the best choice. Orthopaedic surgery is usually not simple and requires experienced veterinarian.

Surgical Options:

1. Juvenile pubic symphysiodesis (JPS) done in puppies less than 5 months of age, with mild to moderate hip dysplasia.

2. Triple pelvis osteotomy (TPO) done in young dogs between 5 to 10 months of age.

3. Excisional myectomy done in young and mature dogs but have limited value of treatment.

4. Total hip replacement (THR) done is mature dogs where bone stop growing. The femoral head and neck are replaced by protheses (fake), where it may or may not loosen over time. This is a salvage procedure.

5. Excisional arthroplasty (EA) or femoral head and neck osteotomy where the femoral head and neck is chopped off to form a false fibrous joint. This procedure is the last solution. If you are having financial, medical or size constraints, this method is the best choice. This salvage procedure is done in dysplastic dogs with degenerative joint disease (DJD).

So, the treatment choice depends on the owner himself -- YOU. Surgical treatment is definitely more costly than medical treatment but the results are usually promising. There are not many veterinarians in Malaysia who can perform these bone surgeries very well.

I can roughly tell that JPS sugery costs about RM600. If includes everything (anesthesia, hospitalization, drugs, medication, fluids...), it will cost approximately RM1100. The TPO costs about RM 3000 per leg. In other words, if both rear legs are affected, then you will have to spend RM6000 to treat the dog. However, 2 TPOs are done separately. Veterinarians will not do both TPOs on both rear legs at the same time.

How to prevent?

1.Onset, severity and incidence can be reduced by restricting the growth rate of puppies

2.Limiting food intake and thus body weight in adult dogs

3.All breed susceptible dogs should be screened for hip dysplasia at the age of 4 months

4.Breed only dogs with normal hips

If you have any dogs with hip dysplasia, Please.... please... please.... bring it to the vet
immediately. Make the best option for your dog. Interested in these surgeries, I am always happy to recommend you to the SUPERVET Dr Yeoh!!! You will never regret for his treatment!

LOVE YOUR DOG. KEEP THEM HAPPY AND HEALTHY.

TREAT THEM AS HOW YOU WOULD WANT PEOPLE TO TREAT YOU.

Complaints about UPM Veterinary Hospital

2009-04-04T19:37:00.002+08:00

#27
01-03-2009, 02:57 AM
Cat80plus
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Junior Member

Join Date: Jan 2006
Posts: 25

UPM - first, their charges keep spiralling. more importantly, are u aware that they use live dogs supplied by the pounds for testing and experimenting of drugs. do u want to support this kind of organisation where the trainees are not trained to have compassion for animals? there is some cruelty going on in upm behind the high wall. if u want to know more, go to www.petfinder.my thread is dbkl cruelty to animals. the animals used for testing are in terrible condition. if u want a good vet, there are some excellent ones in private practice. Dr Toh (st angel) - suggest u look for her only in this clinic, Dr Nor (upm) is wonderful but not the organisation that she is with. Dr Ben (Taman Desa).BOYCOTT upm - they are as bad as dbkl and all dog pounds in torturing animals.a true animal lover will not stand by to watch animals being tortured and used in experiments and testing. upm - quite uncivilized and bloody hypocrites like dbkl - organizing dogathons and whatnots - what the hell for? behind the scenes they are torturing animals who can't speak for themselves. the people who know what is going on and choose to keep quiet are equally as guilty and will face retribution like the culprits themselves. silence is consent - that means those who keep quiet are consenting to the acts of cruelty.even if they were to give free service, i will not step into that hellhole. i regretted that in the past, i've frequented that despicable place but at that time i didn't know.
__________________http://www.tails-unlimited.com/http://syruth.wordpress.com/

Somebody seems very unhappy with UPM veterinary Small Animal Hospital. He/she is expressing his/her anger in a supposed to be happy forum. When i read this forum, I got really pissed off. What do you think?
I understand what is going on inside UPM. There is NO so called torturing or cruelty or any sort of cruel testing and experimenting on poor animals. This person does not understand what is going on and simply accused the Veterinary Faculty and Small Animal Hospital. He could be sued to court. Dogathon is merely an annual doggy fair to raise funds to help the strays as well as educate people about stray animals. Many people are enjoying this events with their pets. Come on, get to know the truth before making wrong accuse!