Canine Healthcare

Vaccinations

Why does your puppy need to be vaccinated?

Puppies are born without a fully developed immune system. By nursing their mothers and drinking antibody-rich milk (colostrum), they get temporary immunity against illness. However, this protection wears off somewhere between the ages of 8 and 18 weeks. This leaves your puppy with no defense against some potentially fatal diseases that affect puppies.

Puppy Vaccination

Puppies are ‘temporarily’ protected against many diseases by antibodies received through their mother’s milk. These maternal antibodies decline in the first few months of their lives, however until they drop sufficiently they can also neutralize vaccines. This is why a series of vaccinations is necessary in a puppy.

Adult Dog Vaccination

The immunity from puppy vaccination weakens over time and your pet can again become susceptible to disease. Annual health checks and booster vaccinations, as required, will provide the best protection for the life of your pet.

What We Routinely Vaccinate Dogs Against:

• Parvovirus – a highly contagious viral gastroenteritis. Depression, loss of appetite, severe vomiting and diarrhoea containing blood are some of the symptoms. Death can occur very quickly.
• Parvovirus – a highly contagious viral gastroenteritis. Depression, loss of appetite, severe vomiting and diarrhoea containing blood are some of the symptoms. Death can occur very quickly.
• Distemper – a highly contagious disease producing symptoms such as conjunctivitis, nasal discharge, convulsive seizures and spinal cord damage. Treatment is often ineffective.
• Hepatitis – in puppies can cause sudden death, whilst adult dogs can experience, weakness, fever, diarrhoea, loss of appetite and bleeding.

Optional:

• Canine Cough -a complex disease caused by a bacterium and a virus. Affected dogs will have a hacking cough persisting for weeks. In puppies and old dogs the disease can be devastating.
• Leptospirosis in dogs, sometimes referred to by the short-hand, lepto in dogs, is an infectious disease caused by bacteria in the genus Leptospira.

Puppies are vaccinated at the following ages to provide them with full immunity.

• 6 - 8 weeks
• 10 - 12 weeks
• 16 weeks

To maintain immunity throughout their life, puppies and dogs require vaccination once every 12 months.Some components of the vaccine provide immunity for 3 years, others for only one year. Each program is tailored to the individual dog. The vaccines will protect the dogs from diseases such asDistemper, Infectious Canine Hepatitis, Parvovirus and Canine Cough

Microchipping

This unique form of identification is an easy, yet permanent way to bring your pet home quickly should your pet become lost. The microchip is a tiny electronic device, about the size and shape of a grain of rice. It is implanted beneath your pet's skin between the shoulder blades, and stays there for your pet's entire life. This procedure is as easy and fast as a vaccination.

Each microchip has a unique number. This number, along with information about the owner and pet, are added to a National Companion Animal Register. Most veterinary hospitals and animal shelters have electronic scanners for detecting and reading these implanted microchips. If a lost pet is found and a microchip is scanned it is easy for you to be contacted

For more information on microchipping check the NZCAR website or contact us.

Fleas and Deworm

Fleas are most often seen during the warmer months but as we keep our homes nice and warm throughout winter, we see fleas all year round. Only a small part of the adult flea population actually lives on your pet. The fleas’ eggs and larvae live in the environment and can survive for up to a year, so it is important to not only treat your animal(s) directly for fleas but also decontaminate the environment as well.

Fleas have a life cycle, that takes 3 to 8 weeks to be complete, but can however take longer.

• Adult fleas: They live on animals, so they can infest your pet, where they lay eggs.
• Egg: After they are laid on your dog or cat, eggs can be spread all around your house or yard when your infected animal scratches or lies down. These eggs hatch into larvae, usually on your carpets, sofa or bed.
• Larva and pupa: They form cocoons, where they hatch and become adults that infest your pet.

The problem starts with a few adult fleas jumping on to your pet, at the park, on a kennel/cattery or even in your own garden. From here the lifecycle of the flea begins and they can breed at an enormous rate. Actually, it could take only one flea to produce thousands of more fleas.

Dog and Cat flea symptoms

Sometimes you can see fleas jumping off your pet’s body or moving on your pet. You can even see spots like grains of pepper scattered on your pet’s skin surface (fleas faeces), but most of the times you will not be able to understand if your pet has fleas or not.
What you may see are common symptoms that are caused by flea infestation, such as:

• Excessive scratching/itching
• Restlessness
• Licking or chewing more than normal in certain areas of your pet’s body
• Shaking the head often
• Scratching the ears
• Red spots on the skin

In rare cases, your pet can develop more serious symptoms.

If your pet shows any of the above signs, you should bring your pet to the clinic as soon as possible:

• Pale pink or even whitish gums, fatigue, especially after exercise and play, which are all signs of anemia (especially in a severe infestation, or in elderly or very young animals that are at greater risk to lose much blood)
• Painful dermatitis, caused by an allergic reaction to flea saliva, called Flea Allergy Dermatitis. If your dog or cat has flea bite hypersensitivity, it can develop a skin reaction, usually around the tail area in dogs or anywhere in cats, where you can see swelling. Even the biting of a single flea can cause the beginning of your pet’s allergic reaction, which will lead your pet to pruritus or “itching”. As a result your pet can damage its skin by constantly scratching, chewing or licking. This damage can lead to hair loss and probably to secondary infection.

Can you get fleas from a dog?

If your pet has fleas, you can get some fleas on you. However, human skin is not warm, dark or moist enough to provide an ideal environment for fleas. As a result, fleas prefer the nice fur of your dog. In the worst case you will experience some fleas biting. You usually notice flea bites as a cluster of small red bumps. In some cases you could develop an allergic reaction to these fleas bites.
However, fleas will not choose you as a host and when they find a chance they will jump back to your pet. So it is better to concentrate on eradicating the flea infestation from your pets and your home.

What is the best flea and tick prevention and treatment for your dog?

All it takes is one flea to produce thousands more fleas, so the best way to prevent fleas is to start a flea preventive treatment program as soon as you bring your pet home.

There are a lot of flea treatments available today, but not all of them are suitable for all animals. Also, some treatments are also effective against ticks and mites whereas other treatments are not. At Clive Cottage Vet Clinic we can advise you on which treatment is most suitable for your pet’s species, breed and size and actual needs.

The effective options for flea and tick treatment in dogs are:

• Spot on Treatments (Topical products) – Most of these kill adult fleas, so stop the lifecycle completely. They also kill fleas which jump onto your pet when outside the household. Only some of them kill flea larvae. Spot ons are applied to the back of the dog or cat’s neck. Most of them are given once a month and only some of them every three months.
• Collars (Seresto): Flea collars repel fleas and cause them to die or move to the tail and fall off. Some collars emit active ingredients that also kill fleas and ticks on contact. These collars can last up to 8 months, and they’re more affordable than the other available treatments. However, pest collars are more effective at combating ticks than fleas, because the collars rest around the dog’s or cat’s neck. So if ticks is a bigger problem for your pet, than a collar can be a great option. Also, they cannot treat an infestation, they are effective at preventing flea infestation instead.

How to get fleas out of your house

When your pet brings fleas to your house, treating only your pet to get rid of the fleas sometimes is not enough. You have to also clean your house from the flea infestation.

These are the things you can do to clean your house from fleas:

• Vacuum your house often. Discard the vacuum bag into a bin outside your house.
• Steam clean your carpets to kill all fleas on them (in case of heavy infestations).
• Wash all your bedding with hot water and soap, especially these from your pet’s favourite resting area.
• Clean thoroughly your yard as well, using products that are not toxic for your pets.
• Pay special attention to have all your pets treated for fleas (including cats that frequent in your yard).

Please call us to discuss an appropriate flea control program for your pet.

Intestinal Worming advice

There are two broad categories of worms that may affect our pet dogs and cats, intestinal worms and heartworms. Please see our heartworm page for more information.

Intestinal Worms

Worming is one of the first health care issues pet owners need to address as pups and kittens are the most susceptible. As their name suggests, intestinal worms are parasites that live inside your pet’s intestines. These worms range in size from small to surprisingly large (up to 18cm in length). Regardless of their size however, they all have negative, and potentially deadly effects.

Most species of animal, as well as humans, can be infected with intestinal worms including dogs, cats, rabbits, horses, fish, birds and reptiles.

We recommend that puppies and kittens are wormed every 2 weeks from when they are 2 weeks of age until 12 weeks of age.They should then be wormed every month until 6 months of age and from then on every 3 months for the rest of their lives.

Common intestinal worms in Australian pets are:

• Roundworm
• Tapeworm
• Whipworm
• Hookworm

If your pet has a large number of worms it may find it difficult to maintain body condition and it can lose weight. In some cases it can cause vomiting, diarrhoea and even anaemia (a low red blood cell level). Occasionally, heavy intestinal worm burdens can cause death.

Worms sometimes have complex lifecycles which involve a period of existence and development outside your pet. Understanding the life cycle of a specific worm is important so that strategies for treatment and prevention can be designed and implemented. For instance, some tapeworms need to pass through fleas to complete their lifecycle, so flea prevention is an important method of controlling tapeworms.

It is important to maintain a routine worming treatment for your pets, to reduce the incidence of infection and to reduce environmental contamination. There are many worming treatments available for the various worm infections that occur in our pets.These are available as tablets, spot-ons, or pastes. Re-infection is a common problem, particularly in pets that are in contact with a heavily contaminated environment. Another very important reason to worm your pets is to protect your family; as children in particular can become infected with certain dog and cat worms.

Below are some tips to consider regarding worm prevention:

• Promptly clean up pet faeces
• Practice good hygiene, always encourage children to wash their hands regularly (especially after playing in dirt or sandpits, playing with pets or prior to eating)
• Prevent children from playing where the soil may be contaminated
• Keep your pet's environment clean
• Always dispose of dog faeces in public parks and playgrounds

Nutrition

An animal’s diet plays a very important role in sustaining its health. The right diet must be balanced and must cover all its needs. We must take care in administering the correct food, depending on age, breed and general condition (pregnancy, nursing). Apart for maintaining good health, a correct diet can help maintain good dental, joint and fur conditions. Along with regular exercise and veterinary care, careful nutrition is the best way you can contribute to your pet's prolonged good health.

How do you make sure your pet's diet is healthy?

We strongly recommend that you:

• Feed premium pet foods. Premium foods offer high-quality ingredients, are made by companies specialising in nutritional research, and show a solid track record of quality and palatability. Feeding generic pet foods may lead to obesity, irregular bowel movements, or excess intestinal gas.
• Make sure the food is fresh. When you purchase pet food, check for freshness and purchase only the amount necessary for your pet. Store pet food in a cool, dry place and keep it tightly closed. Discard uneaten food and always place fresh food in a clean bowl. In general, hard food (or "kibble") is preferred for maintaining dental health and minimizing tartar build-up. Soft, canned food tends to be more palatable and can be stored for longer.
• Feed the right amount. Ask us or check the label for how much to feed according to your pet's ideal weight (not necessarily the same as their current weight). Avoid feeding pets as much as they want or feeding a large amount at one time. Doing so can lead to obesity, gastrointestinal upset, or even bloat, a life threatening condition.
• Maintain a daily routine. A regular schedule will help your pet keep normal bowel movements and avoid indoor accidents. Younger pets need to be fed more frequently, as they are usually more energetic and burn more calories.
• Avoid "people" food. Your pet's digestive system is simpler than yours and can be easily upset by changes. Feeding table scraps will result in an unbalanced diet can cause stomach upsets or even life-threatening inflammation of the pancreas.
• Dogs and cats both require foods in their diets which encourage chewing and teeth cleaning. This may be raw meaty bones, chunks of meat (especially for cats) and various other dental chews (See Dentistry). Any of these items need to be counted as calories and the rest of the diet adjusted accordingly
• Cats in particular require plenty of water with their food and at least part of their diet should be wet food.

Your pet's nutritional requirements will change as they age. Puppies need puppy food because it is higher in energy, calcium and protein, but feeding it to an adult dog can lead to obesity. Likewise, older pets need diets restricted in fat and supplemented with fibre for their optimum health. Many premium senior diets also contain additives to assist in the management of arthritis and can make your pet more comfortable.

Please give us a call to discuss your pet’s nutritional needs. We will tailor a diet specifically for your pet that will give them the optimum quality and length of life.

Desexing

If you are not planning to breed from your pet, desexing is recommended as it makes for a more amenable pet. It reduces the likelihood of many unwanted behaviours, some serious diseases and obviously unwanted kittens. The desexing procedure is a day surgery involving a general anaesthetic and surgical removal of the uterus and ovaries or testicles, as appropriate. We recommend that this is done at around 6 months of age

What do I need to do?

Before surgery:

• Make a booking for your pet’s operation.
• If your pet is a dog, wash them the day before surgery as they are unable to be washed after until the stitches are removed. It is important that the patient is clean as he or she is about to undergo major surgery.
• Do not give your pet food after 8pm the night before the operation and do not give them any water after 8am on the day of surgery, unless advised otherwise.
• A blood test may be performed prior to surgery to check vital organ function, this takes a "peek" inside the patient and help pick up any abnormalities which may influence the safety of the anaesthetic and procedure.
• The vet will perform a thorough physical examination before sedation.
• Some pets will require intravenous fluid support during surgery. This will be discussed with you prior to the procedure.
• To ensure your pet is as comfortable as possible, all pets receive pain relief prior to desexing and to take home for a few days after the procedure.

After Surgery:

• Keep your dog restrained and quiet as the effects of sedation can take some time to wear off completely.
• Keeping them quiet is also essential to allow the wound to heal.
• Food and water should be limited to small portions only on the night after surgery.
• Follow any dietary instructions that the vet has provided.
• Ensure all post-surgical medications (if any) are administered as per the label instructions.
• Ensure your pet’s rest area is clean to avoid infection.
• Check the incision at least twice daily for any signs of infection or disruption (eg. bleeding, swelling, redness or discharge). Contact the vet immediately if these symptoms appear. Do not wait to see if they will spontaneously resolve.
• Prevent your pet from licking or chewing the wound. Special cone-shaped collars assist with this problem. A single chew can remove the careful stitching with disastrous effects.
• Ensure you return to us on time for routine post-operative check-ups and removal of stitches.

Puppy socialisation and training

Puppies have a small window of opportunity to get the most out of learning things about life early on. Dogs learn for their entire lifespan but we can help them adjust to our world easier if we can positively expose them to lots of things between 6-18 weeks of age.

Attend puppy class and learn the basics to positive training. Click here for more information.

Senior Dogs

As animals age, it is important that they have more frequent and more extensive examinations. Clinical screening provides a baseline assessment for future comparisons and regular laboratory testing (at least annual) is recommended for all senior pets. This includes blood testing, liver and kidneys and urine tests.

During the senior health checks, we will discuss changes in your pets behaviours and other aspects of care for your pet including dental health, nutrition, weight control, parasite control, mobility and vaccination requirements.

Early detection of problems gives by far the best chance of successful management of most conditions. Our goal is to keep your pets healthy for as long as possible, enjoying a good quality of life free from discomfort.

Talk to one of our senior care experts to get the most out of the time you and your pet have together.

Arthritis in pets

If your pet is showing signs of stiffness and seems unwilling to play, jump or climb the stairs, they may be suffering from arthritis. Arthritis is difficult to spot in cats and dogs due to their reluctance to show pain and discomfort.

Adapt their environment to make life easier. Provide them with warm, soft sleeping spots away from any drafts or damp. Use ramps in areas they can no longer climb. Ensure that they are getting regular exercise and their diet and weight are closely monitored.

A range of supplements is available to reduce inflammation and pain caused by arthritis. Our Vets can advise you on which products are best to use.

Eight tips on how to keep your senior pet looking and feeling great!

1. Regular health check-ups - just as senior citizens have regular check-ups and tests, it's important for your pet too. We recommend Bonnie has a check-up every six months.
2. Healthy teeth - healthy inside! Keep your pet's teeth and gums clean.
3. Love and time - your pet is changing, they many not hear or see you like they used to, so give them your patience and attention.
4. Formulated diet - especially for seniors without the extra calories. Help your pet to maintain a healthy weight as there are various senior pet problems relating to obesity.
5. Watch, be observant! - if your pet changes in appearance, behaviour or appetite, this may be a sign of illness. Make sure you let your veterinarian know immediately.
6. Let's get physical - maintain a regular exercise program that your pet can manage.
7. Environment - prevent the stress of ageing and look out for suitable modifications that can be made to your pets living quarters to make life easier.
8. Creatures of habit - older pets love routine, if possible try not to change their daily schedule.

Pet Insurance

There are a number of good pet health insurance policies available. It is certainly a good idea to insure your kitten as we can't predict what sort of mischief he/she may get up to in the future

Southern Cross Pet Insurance has a free cover for your kitten if they are in between 6 and 20 weeks of age. The free cover includes:

• Six weeks of free health cover
• Cover for unexpected vet bills up to a total of $1,500

For more information click here or ask one of our lovely Vet Nurses.