Best Friends - by Malcolm Riordon DVM

 

2013 and 2012 Columns

 

December, 2013      Returning the Feline Gaze

 

When I play with my cat, how do I know that she is not passing time with me rather than I with her? - Montaigne

 

November, 2013      'Till Death Do They Shed

 

There is no dog - or breed of dog - that does not shed. You may have a Chinese Crested or a Mexican Hairless Chihuahua, but what little hair they do have still goes through the universal hair cycle. Each hair has a phase of growth, a phase of remaining in place while no longer growing and, then finally, each hair is shed from the skin.

 

October, 2013         Animals and Earthquake Prediction

 

That animals can sense impending earthquakes is legend. The earliest records of animals 'predicting' earthquakes by showing unusual behaviors just beforehand was chronicled in Greece, 400 BC. Rats, weasels, snakes, and centipedes had been seen – it was written — to depart their niches for safety several days before a destructive earthquake.

 

September, 2013     Let's Get the Kitty Declawed - Or Not

 

Let's Get the Kitty Declawed - Or Not - Very often an owner's request to declaw their cat will fall by the wayside simply with the information that declawing is not something we, as veterinarians, do automatically or even routinely.

 

August, 2013          Amnesty for Millions and Millions of Community Cats - Part II Paradigm Shift

 

As shown in last month's Best Friends (Amnesty for Millions and Millions of Community Cats), cat population control in the USA has — with exceptions —  failed to meet its goals.  Important too is that those goals have been based on myth and unsubstantiated assumptions.

 

New conclusions and policies have been shaping up and are beginning to be implemented at shelters across the nation. What are these paradigm shift changes and how do they look in action? They include . . .

 

July, 2013                Amnesty for Millions and Millions of Community Cats

 

Every year across our nation literally millions of cats are taken into city and county animal control shelters.  Ghastly high percentages of those cats are euthanized.  In California the average live release rate of cats from animal control shelters for 2010 was only 28%.  Nationwide,  animal control shelters take in far more cats than they will ever adopt out.

 

June, 2013               Dogs - They Know

 

Many of the incredible, fascinating attributes and qualities of man's best friend were inherited from their ancestor, the gray wolf.

 

May, 2013               "Tell Me Honey — Do Cats Have Sex??"   Note:  duplicate of May, 2014 article  

 

In an ongoing forum, Virbac Animal Health has veterinarians submit 'The funniest question you've ever been asked by a client.' Just about daily we have to hide incredulity behind the mask of a serious and respecting manner.  Part of the problem is that these moments arrive unannounced, from one second to the next. Below are some of the comments submitted by long suffering veterinarians:

 

April, 2013               The War on Fleas: Intel / Strategies / Myths

 

This enemy can replenish itself with new, ever larger generations every three weeks during the war's warmer months. This enemy does not retreat in winter; their life style is to retrench and subsist. Their reproductive cycle (eggs to pupae to larvae to new adults) in cooler weather may slow to every three months.

 

March, 2013            Profile of a Person Who Poisons Pets

 

Statistics overwhelmingly reveal that the person who poisons pets is most often a person in the pet's home — the owner or another household member!  Despite the best of intentions, it comes down to a lack of awareness. The pets' suffering, owner expense, and the cruel guilt of poisoning one's own pet is common yet avoidable.

 

February, 2013         City-Tricks for Hick-Ticks   Note: duplicates February, 2014 article

 

The undisputed findings that visually made breed identification is mostly inaccurate and has led to a recommendation that veterinarians stop attempting to assign breed labels to non pure bred dogs whose origin they do not know for sure.

 

January, 2013          What is He?

 

Any place where a dog and at least two people are gathered, the question will arise: "What is he?" This question is universally understood as the opening of a conversation in which speculations will be exchanged on what pure bred ingredients the dog in question has.

 

December, 2012      Like a Puppy Pile

 

There have been many times she has cried and said things, snuggled in all close and warm, her face buried wet and salty into mine. Damp soft sobs, breathing, murmuring words. I've never minded. In fact, I like it. That's just how my Best Friend and I are. Fifteen years of togetherness, we know each other's ways. But her crying is different this time, she's not saying things, she's holding me tighter.

 

November, 2012      Hard Road for Blackie

 

In the world of pet adoption, black cats and dogs are more likely to be euthanized than their lighter colored brethren. This extends even to puppies and kittens. A black dog or cat can take twice as long to get adopted — if they get adopted at all. These unfortunates — among unfortunates — accumulate and in the type of shelters which must take in every animal that is turned over to them, it is mostly those that have been there the longest who are euthanized to make room for the endless stream of new admissions.

 

October, 2012         Diagnosis: "High Rise Syndrome" in Urban Cats

 

This may sound like some urban legend, but in fact "High Rise Syndrome" refers to the typical types of injuries that are seen when cats fall from a significant height  — anything from two stories to twenty stories or more. Veterinarians at just one major New York City veterinary center, especially during the warmer months when more apartment windows are opened, see an average of five cats a week that have fallen from high rises.

 

September, 2012     "A Window Into the World of Free-Roaming Cats" - The 'Kitty Cam' Study Done by the University of Georgia

 

How many of us cat enablers have — at least a time or two — become consumed with curiosity over where kitty goes or what kitty does on their walkabouts? Do they have an agenda, an itinerary, a route and schedule? How did they get that limp, or lose that tuft of fur? What's the story with the paint on their tail? Where is their brand new collar and tag?

 

August, 2012          How Dogs and Cats Overcame Their Drinking Problem

 

In having to drink from a standing position with their head down, our best friends had to have a method to overcome gravity — how to lift water when they drink. This drinking problem was overcome by necessity long ago — yet our understanding of their method of drinking was not accurate until 2010/2011.

 

July, 2012                A Biscuit for Your Thoughts

 

A recent article in Science Daily described a scientist's offhanded effort that eventually should mark a breakthrough in the field of that perennial favorite question: "What do our dogs think?," a field presently based on surmise and guesswork.

 

June, 2012               OMG!  —  O Mi Gatos!

 

Cats step with both left legs, then both right legs when they walk or run. They place each hind paw (almost) directly in the paw print of the corresponding forepaw, minimizing noise and visible tracks. The only other animals to do this are the giraffe and the camel. The domestic cat is the only species able to hold its tail vertically while walking.

 

May, 2012               The Number of Pets Receiving Veterinary Care Has Been Decreasing in the 21st Century!

 

For at least the last ten years companion animal veterinarians have seen an alarming decline in the number of pet visits at veterinary clinics. This is despite the pet population having increased during the same period.

 

April, 2012               Manage a Straight Face

 

Earlier this year, Virbac Animal Health asked veterinarians to submit ‘The funniest question you've ever been asked by a client.' It is just about daily where we have to hide incredulity behind a serious and respecting manner.

 

March, 2012            The Dog Ate That?

 

Dogs have it in them to 'wolf' food down when the occasion presents – there may not be another chance for a long while.  And when chewing on an object, things can get so intense, appetites can become so stimulated, that reflexively a dog will just swallow the item. The lack of experience and innate curiosity of young dogs leads to a philosophy of eat it now, and ask questions later. Whatever the reasons, we have all heard stories of things dogs have eaten and how it either passed or had surgery to remove it.  Such stories seem to give bragging rights to the owner - owing to the significantly heightened status of dogness that is achieved with such feats

 

February, 2012         Cat Haters 101

 

It has always been of interest to me that some fellow humans seem possessed by dislike, fear, phobia, or outright hatred of cats. Looking around it seemed that the ideas and explanations – to me - clustered around four basic areas. The first three are familiar turf, but the last, reptilian brain-stem reaction was an interesting, valid sounding fresh idea.

 

January, 2012          City-Tricks for Hick-Ticks    Note:  duplicate of February, 2014 article

 

The talent show of dealing with ticks on our pets seems a lightning rod for drama, freak-outs and myths.  How is it that so many pet owners are under the spell of the exact same myths and closely held beliefs?  It must be that old-school oral traditions can still carry the day.

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

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