A night in the life of an emergency room veterinarian
Veterinarian Anne Currah has been working the graveyard shift at Southeast Portland VCA Animal Hospital for nine years, and this article shares a typical night. The hospital is filled with animals suffering from trauma, intestinal obstruction, pancreatitis and asthma, and the waiting room is full, too. Treating animals in such serious condition means dealing with death is inevitably part of the job, alongside delivering life-saving care. Discussing euthanasia is difficult, according to Dr. Currah, but important. “You have to have a really big conversation up front,” she said. “Do we continue, considering the prognosis and the cost?” The Oregonian (Portland) (5/6)
“Go tell Watson’s owners they can come say goodnight,” Currah, 38, tells a nurse.
She has her night cut out for her. As the only doctor on staff at the Southeast Portland VCA Animal Hospital tonight, she’ll deal with countless emergencies dire enough to compel pet owners to visit the vet at ungodly hours.
The nighttime routine:
Tonight is a bad one for emergency room visits, and already the waiting room at 13830 S.E. Stark St. is backed up with asthma attacks, severe arthritis flare-ups and unspecified illnesses.The swing shift doctors have already seen twenty walk-in patients, plus the usual flow of appointments. The parking lot is packed.
When she arrives, Currah drops her bags, slings a stethoscope around her neck, and immediately begins treating patients.
Just like the emergency room, a brigade of nurses does the initial work of taking temperatures and checking heart rates. Then Currah steps in. Her first patient is an asthmatic cat.
“It’s a common cat thing, especially during changes of season” she says, flipping the pages of Plumb’s Veterinary Drug Handbook to find the appropriate dose of medicine.
Next, an old dog with a horrible ear infection.
At about 11 p.m., Currah gets her biggest challenge of the night thus far. An extremely overweight miniature pinscher whose arthritic back hips have him yelping in pain.
Currah’s bedside manner with the family is as professional as they come. She soothes the dog, who remains calm while she gently pulls his hind legs and feels his spine in search any hidden problem.
“It could be bone spurs or a pinched nerve, but it’s hard to tell without further tests,” she tells the owners.”
More likely, it’s a flare-up aggravated by the dog’s weight problem. She leaves the owners to consider whether they want to proceed with further tests.
A rare trajectory:
Currah is among the tiny fraction of people who have had the same career ambitions their entire life.
Before she could read or write, she wanted to be a veterinarian.
“That’s all I wanted to do, and all I thought about,” she says.
When fellow teens were scooping ice cream and flipping burgers, Currah spent summers volunteering, then working for pay, at vet clinic.
She attended undergrad at The University of Findlay in Ohio, then returned to Oregon for veterinary school at Oregon State University.
She got in on her first try, a rarity in a career track with an admissions process more selective than medical school.
Currah has spent nine years working nights. She doesn’t mind.
The long shifts — typically from 9 p.m. until at least 7 a.m. — mean she only works three to four days each week, leaving more time to spend with her three young children. Currah sleeps while they’re at school, and has time to make dinner and tuck them in before leaving for work.
Tonight, she’ll be on her feet until the daytime doctors come in to relieve her.
“Sometimes, you don’t have time to eat or pee,” she says. “Other nights, I could sit and read a book all night.”
Just like the ER:
The VCA hospital is a far cry from your family vet’s office.
Their relative level of sophistication and size is akin an emergency room versus a family doctor’s office.
As patients drop in, nurses write their name and condition on a clear glass wall. Doctors hustle back-and-forth from exam rooms to the wall, where they scrawl their initials next to the patient they’ll help next.
It’s organized chaos in here, but things usually die down by 3 a.m., Currah says.
Just past the entryway from the waiting room, a small, gray shaggy dog is in rough shape. He’s not moving–not even his eyes–and hospital staff members crowd around him. Things look bad. Bad is common on the night shift, where most visitors are coming in from car accidents or dog attacks.
“You have to have a really big conversation up front,” Currah says. “Do we continue, considering the prognosis and the cost?”But if this shaggy dog can be saved, VCA is as well equipped as any to perform the procedure.
There are digital X-ray machines and heated ventilators against the far wall, centrifuges for blood work against the front wall. The air smells of cleaning solution. Fluorescent lights shine down on polished linoleum floors. Animals recovering from surgery sleep in cushy beds with intravenous liquid drips hanging from the cage door.
Cold, brightly-lit surgery rooms and a dental station await use at the building’s rear, while consultation rooms are located just beyond the reception desk.
Room 6 is the saddest room. No operation tables or medical equipment reside here. Just a black leather couch, soft lighting and calming floral art on the wall. This is where Currah takes people whose pets are being euthanized.
Some owners make the decision easily, with the belief that veterinary treatment shouldn’t be pursued beyond vaccinations and minor health issues. Others will spend thousands trying to save a beloved family dog, even when success isn’t guaranteed.
Currah knows it’s not an easy decision. Like most vets, she has pets. Two family dogs, Honey and Chelsea, recently died. They’ll get another someday, but for now the Currah household includes two cats and a tankful of hermit crabs.
“We’ll get another little doggie, when the right time comes,” she says.
For tonight, she’ll get her doggie-petting fix in the hallway, where a happy golden retriever awaits his owners after successful treatment.
–Kelly House
Caring folks at Angel Fund saved Skipper’s life
In June, 2011, Kathy Mullins’ dog Skipper had a problem. “We’d take him out in the yard and we’d notice immediately that he couldn’t urinate. He was trying very hard and he was straining and he just couldn’t. And that went on a day or so. Eventually little drops of blood started coming out.
“And you can imagine, I started panicking.” Mullins took her dog, a five-year-old Pomeranian-Toy Poodle mix, to Irvine Boulevard Animal Hospital in Irvine where Dr. David Driscoll examined him. “I’m thinking he has some kind of blockage,” the veterinarian told Mullins, “probably some stones. But I won’t know for sure until we do x-rays. I might be able to do this without surgery. But I can’t guarantee that. It could be that he has to have surgery.’”
Mullins said: “So I’m thinking ‘Oh, Lord!’ First of all, you don’t want your pet to suffer and you don’t want to lose your pet but you’re also certainly thinking about the financial end of it. At the time, I didn’t have a job. I was working at some temporary jobs. That was the only thing I was able to get at the time. And I was between temporary jobs. It was a really difficult time.
“So Dr. Driscoll did the x-ray and I was able to scrounge up a few dollars for that so that he could determine exactly what was going on.” The x-ray showed that Skipper had bladder stones – “quite a few of them.” Mullins recalled, and the doctor said that surgery would be needed to save Skipper’s life.
“Dr. Driscoll was able do a procedure to alleviate the problem that seemed to buy us a little time. It was getting to the point where the bladder could have ruptured. And he told me about Angel Fund. It took us a day or two to arrange for them to help us.
“The people at Angel Fund were very nice. And we were able to get Skipper back in there and schedule the surgery. I couldn’t sleep and I was crying the whole time and my three daughters were very upset.
“But everyone was very kind. We still talk about it to this day. How Angel Fund and the doctor and the other people at the hospital – people cared. And that was so touching for our family, that they cared about our pet and they cared about us. And so we still get to enjoy our Skipper. They saved our dog.”
Angel Fund contributed $500 to help pay for Skipper’s surgery and Irvine Boulevard Hospital slashed its bill by $700.
Kathy and David Mullins, who lived in Irvine when Skipper was sick, have since moved with their three daughters to Ashland, Ky. “We feel very blessed. It was such a hard time then and there were some caring people who helped us and saved our dog and we are very grateful.”
Dogs and owners share bacteria
People living with dogs harbor betaproteobacteria and actinobacteria, microbes that normally inhabit the tongue and feet of dogs, as part of their microbiome, according to a recent study. Whether the bacteria pose health concerns was not addressed in the research, but previous work has found that exposure to bacteria can help humans prevent infection and even allergies by priming the immune system. National Public Radio/Shots blog
Well, it looks like there really is such as thing as a dog person.
Humans who share their homes with canines also share the similar bacterial houseguests on their skin, ecologists Tuesday in the journal eLIFE.
In fact, two dog owners who don’t even know each other have about as many of the skin bacteria in common as a married couple living together.
The signature doggie blend is a mixture of harmless bacteria from their tongues and paws, the report finds. Microbial sharing from pooch to person occurs primarily through two routes: tongue to skin and paw to skin.
That’s right, dog owners have bacteria from Fido’s tongue and paws flourishing all over their bodies.
There wasn’t an analogous germ signature for cat owners, the scientists say. Cats are more selfish?
Dogs, cats and people are all coated in microscopic critters. They cover our skin, grow in our mouths and completely dominate parts of the gut. Your body has about 10 times more bacterial cells than human cells and up to a thousand different species.
Collectively, this microscopic zoo is called the . And it plays a in human health. It helps to set your metabolism, fine-tune your immune system and even freshen (or sour) your breath.
To see how canine cohabitation could alter the species in this zoo, and his team at the University of Colorado, Boulder, characterized the bacteria shacking up with 60 families – 25 of them had at least one dog, including big breeds, like German shepherds, Labrador retrievers and huskies.
The scientists took samples from each inhabitant’s forehead, palms or paws, tongues and poo. They then sequenced the DNA in each sample to determine which species of bacteria were living there.
Humans living together shared similar bacteria at all three body sites: skin, mouth and gut. But for dogs, it was all about the skin.
Two types of pooch bacteria were flourishing on dog owners’ skins: , a group of critters that hang out on dogs’ tongues, and , which live in soil and like to nestle in the nooks of dogs’ paws.
These findings are “consistent with a common occurrence of oral–skin transfer between dogs and their owners,” the authors write.
Looks like, all those slurpy dog kisses really do have a long-lasting effect on your skin’s ecology.
Could they also affect your health?
This study can’t say. But we do know that innocuous bacteria on the skin the immune systems learn the difference between good and bad germs. And allergies can crop up when this ability short circuits.
Recent have even linked up contact with pets when we’re young with a decreased risk of allergies and autoimmune disorders later in life.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go snuggle up with my very stinky German shepherd.
Tool designed to shed light on feline cardiac health, quality of life
Tufts University veterinarians Lisa Freeman and John Rush have developed a cardiac health questionnaire and scoring system for use in cats, and they say it helps veterinarians and owners start conversations about overall cat health in addition to providing an accurate assessment of feline cardiac disease. Symptoms of feline cardiac disease are subtle because cats are adept at masking their symptoms, Dr. Freeman says. She says the Cats Assessment Tool for Cardiac Health gives veterinarians another way to refine their assessment of feline health. The research was published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association. PhysOrg.com
Cats hold their own counsel. Independent, solitary, even mysterious, they’ve long fascinated their owners with their aloofness. But the very qualities that appeal to their human companions can also make it difficult to tell when they’re sick. One of the most common feline ailments, for example, is heart disease, which affects 10 to 15 percent of cats. All too often, though, the signs are noticed too late.
Even when heart disease is diagnosed, owners still can find it difficult to tell how much their pets may be suffering. “They might keep eating and acting normally,” she says, “but when owners look back, they may realize they missed quite subtle signs.”
For that reason, Freeman and Tufts veterinary cardiologist John Rush have developed a questionnaire for cat owners and veterinarians to determine how heart disease affects feline quality of life. The survey, known as CATCH (Cats Assessment Tool for Cardiac Health), will be helpful in testing new treatments for heart disease.
Studies of humans with heart disease have found a relationship between quality of life and survival rates. In companion animals, where euthanasia is an option, quality of life can help owners make end-of-life decisions about their pets.
Studies published in the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine in 2010 and the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA) in 2008 found that 93 percent of cat owners and 86 percent of dog owners, respectively, would trade a longer life for their pets for a shorter, higher-quality one.
Another study by Freeman and other researchers published in JAVMA in 1999 found that 79 percent of dogs that were euthanized were considered by their owners to have had fair or poor quality of life—most likely the case with cat owners as well. Seven years ago, Freeman and Rush helped design another questionnaire to help owners of dogs with heart disease assess their pets’ quality of life.
The 18-point canine questionnaire asks owners to identify symptoms—difficulty breathing, coughing and trouble eating and sleeping—as well as behavioral changes, such as less time spent with family and the inability to play fetch. Called FETCH (Functional Evaluation of Cardiac Health), it rates dogs on a scale of 0 to 5—with 0 meaning “not at all” and 5 meaning “very much”—for an overall score of 0 to 65.
Adapting the canine questionnaire for cats proved challenging. While some criteria, such as difficulty breathing, could signal heart disease in both cats and dogs, others, such as coughing, are uncommon in cats with cardiac problems. Still other behaviors, such as difficulty taking medicine or seeking out solitary locations, could point to cardiac problems in dogs, but are common in healthy cats.
Freeman, Rush and their colleagues piloted the questionnaire with owners of 75 cats at three veterinary hospitals: Tufts’ Foster Hospital for Small Animals and hospitals in Pennsylvania and California. After tweaking some of the questions, they administered it to a larger group of 275 cat owners. In the end, the researchers found a close correlation between the results of their survey and the International Small Animal Cardiac Health Council classification for feline heart failure. They published their findings in JAVMA last spring.
The CATCH score also provided broader information about the general well-being of cats beyond the diagnosis of heart disease—data that could offer a better basis for determining the effectiveness of new drugs and other treatments in clinical trials. “We are really working on better ways to diagnose, prevent and treat heart disease in cats, and this is just one of our tools to get to that goal,” says Freeman.
In addition to its benefits for clinical research, Freeman says cat owners could use CATCH to assess overall quality of life in their pets. In fact, the CATCH score might be less important than the questions themselves, which may give owners and their veterinarians a jumping-off point for conversations about the well-being of an animal.
“A lot of vets have expressed interest in this because cats are so hard to evaluate,” Freeman says. The CATCH questionnaire may make cats a little less mysterious—at least when it comes to diagnosing heart disease—but no less captivating to owners who care about their pets’ quality of life.
Journal reference: Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 
Provided by Tufts University
Ailments of the lower urinary tract in cats
Cats are frequently brought to the veterinarian because they are having difficulty urinating, which may be accompanied by urinating outside of the litter box, urinating more or having blood-tinged urine, writes veterinarian Roxanne Vandermeer. A common issue is idiopathic feline lower urinary tract disease, writes Dr. Vandermeer, who points out that other conditions, such as cystitis, urinary tract infection and cancer, must be ruled out before diagnosing FLUTD. Any cat straining to urinate should be evaluated by a veterinarian who will perform an exam and an analysis of the cat’s urine and may recommend further testing. Fitness Goop (4/3)
One of the most common reasons cats are taken to their veterinarians is because they are straining to urinate. In addition to the straining, these cats are often showing other clinical signs like increased frequency of urination, urinating in inappropriate places and passing only small amounts of urine at a time. Sometimes the owners also report noticing blood or a red/pink discoloration to the urine. All of these signs can be seen for multiple different reasons including bladder stones, crystals in the urine, cystitis (bladder wall inflammation), urinary tract infections, urethral plugs, trauma, neoplasia (cancer) and idiopathic (cause unknown) feline lower urinary tract disease (FLUTD), to name the most common.
The majority of cats presenting with the above-mentioned clinical signs fall into the idiopathic FLUTD category. Before a cat can be said to have idiopathic FLUTD the other recognized causes of urinary tract disease have to be ruled out. Even after extensive work up and diagnostics more than half of these cases yield no specific cause and can thus be classified as idiopathic FLUTD.
In order to diagnose a cat with lower urinary tract disease your veterinarian will want to do at least a physical exam and a urinalysis. Additional testing that may be indicated include: a urine culture, blood work, x-rays and ultrasound imaging.
Treatment of feline lower urinary tract disease depends on the underlying cause, if one can even be identified.
Bladder stones either need to be removed surgically or may be amendable to dissolution with an appropriate therapeutic diet depending on what the stones are composed of.
Some crystals in the urine can be normal but if they are found at abnormally high levels or if an abnormal type of crystal is identified then diet modification may be all that is needed to resolve the problem.
Cystitis (bladder wall inflammation) in cats is usually idiopathic, in other words we can’t identify a specific cause. It’s believed that stress plays a major roll in its development and that is why we often see a flare up of cystitis in cats that have recently moved to a new home or if a new family member/pet/roommate has come into the picture. Minimizing stress, optimizing litter box hygiene, encouraging water intake, diet modification, changing the type/location of the litter box and litter can all be beneficial. This can be a painful condition and these cats are often given some pain medication initially. Weekly subcutaneous (under the skin) injections of medication that promotes the protective lining of the bladder can be given once per week for at least 4 treatments.
Bacterial urinary tract infections (UTI’s) are actually quite rare in young to middle aged cats. Cats appear to be innately more resistant to bacterial UTI’s than dogs due to their differences in anatomy and the higher concentration of their urine. Urine also has substances that inhibit bacterial colonization. A urinary tract infection can be diagnosed via a urine culture and then treated with an appropriate antibiotic based on the culture results. Urinary tract infections are more common in older cats that have other conditions that predispose them to UTI’s such as diabetes or kidney disease.
Urethral plugs are usually composed of either crystals or a proteinaceous substance and can cause a life-threatening blockage of the urethra (the duct by which the urine is conveyed out of the body from the bladder). This obstructive form of feline lower urinary tract disease is seen almost exclusively in male cats. If you notice your male cat straining to urinate but producing no urine you must get him to a veterinarian immediately. The veterinarian will have to sedate or anesthetize your cat to remove the blockage and hospitalize him for at least 24 hours to make sure that he does not re-obstruct. 50% of these cats will have a recurrent obstruction in their lifetime.
Trauma to the urinary tract can be sustained in many ways, the most common of which is cats that are hit by cars or that fall off balconies. A bladder rupture requires surgical intervention whereas less severe trauma may be amendable to more conservative medical management.
Cancer can affect the urinary tract and needs to be properly characterized and staged before the best treatment options can be determined.
Idiopathic feline urinary tract disease, which is the most common form of disease affecting the lower urinary tract in cats, is treated in much the same way as cystitis. Diet modification, pain medication, stress reduction, anti-inflammatory agents, glucosaminoglycans (promote the protective lining of the bladder), and litter box hygiene are all used to treat and manage this disease. This can be a very frustrating disease for owners and veterinarians alike because of the lack of an identifiable cause and the high rate of recurrence despite treatment.
Scientists ID virus that causes Theiler’s disease in horses
U.S. scientists have used RNA analysis to identify the virus that causes Theiler’s disease, a type of equine hepatitis that has stumped veterinarians for nearly a century. The virus, called Theiler’s disease-associated virus, or TDAV, belongs to the same family of viruses that cause hepatitis C, yellow fever and dengue fever. Nature (free content)
A team of US scientists has now discovered that the disease is caused by a virus that shares just 35% of its amino acid sequences with its closest-known relative. The team named it Theiler’s disease-associated virus (TDAV), and published the discovery in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences1.
Led by Amy Kistler at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research in Emeryville, California, the team responded to an outbreak of Theiler’s disease at a farm in which eight horses had suddenly developed hepatitis after being injected with an antitoxin to prevent them from developing botulism. The researchers used next-generation sequencing to analyse RNA samples from the antitoxin and from two of the horses, and assembled the complete genome of the new virus. The virus was found in every one of the eight horses, as well as in the animal (from a different farm) that was the source of the contaminated antitoxin.
“In the span of a few months, we were able to sequence and validate a virus that had gone undetected for almost a century,” says Kistler. She thinks that traditional virus-hunting techniques failed to find TDAV because they rely on strong similarities to known viruses, or on the ability to culture the mystery culprit. By contrast, her team sequenced everything in their samples — an approach “that meant we didn’t have to know what we were looking for”, she says.
Progress check
To better understand the role of the virus, the team inoculated four healthy horses with the contaminated antitoxin. Within ten weeks, all of them carried TDAV in their bloodstream, and one later showed rising levels of liver enzymes that suggested liver disease.
Although the researchers did not purify the virus before injecting it into the horses, Pablo Murcia, a virologist from the University of Glasgow, UK, says that “they have a strong case: I will be very surprised if TDAV turns out not to be the cause of equine serum hepatitis”. “Now, a new question arises,” he says, “where does this virus come from?”.
It is also possible that there is another unknown virus behind Theiler’s disease. After all, human hepatitis can be caused by at least five viruses.
TDAV belongs to the family Flaviviridae, which includes the viruses behind yellow fever, dengue fever and hepatitis C. It is most closely associated with a genus of newly discovered viruses called Pegivirus, and is the first of these to be convincingly linked to disease.
“The challenges in culturing [pegiviruses] mean that we’re only now getting an understanding of how widely distributed and significant they are,” says James Wood, who studies animal infections at the University of Cambridge, UK. He hints that some studies on new pegiviruses may be published in the future.
Neutering drug could be approved this year
The FDA is expected later this year to approve the use of a drug called Zeuterin that provides a nonsurgical alternative to neutering male dogs. It is hoped that the less invasive method will help curb pet overpopulation. 
AnnArbor.com (Mich.)
By Lorrie Shaw AnnArbor.com Community Contributor
As someone who is as immersed in the world of animals as I am, one topic — pet overpopulation — is something that comes up multiple times per day in conversation, especially on social media. And it’s no wonder: animal rescues and humane societies are inundated with dogs and cats who need permanent homes. Although the numbers of those waiting to be adopted are not limited to young animals, the litters of puppies and kittens that are seen are certainly a stark reminder of how much work needs to be done when it comes to getting pet populations under control.
Educating the public about the problem is paramount: humans are the ones who have the ability to discern where the problems lie, and where the best solutions are.
First, understand that from a biological standpoint, we are in a battle with pets.
Reproductive success drives evolution, pure and simple. It’s the strongest biological factor in any species. Biology has a way of taking over, jumping any hurdle that is put in its path and compensating. The pets themselves have no control over their biological drives, and therefore can’t curb their behavior when it comes reproducing.
That’s why spaying and neutering have been the go-to tactic to making an effort to getting pet overpopulation under control. It’s safe, effective and, best of all, it’s permanent.
In 1972, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals made a policy decision that rocked the boat: from then on, every animal adopted from their shelters had to be spayed or neutered — a real shift in forward thinking.
Now, this policy is standard when adopting from most any shelter or rescue.
But is the message of how easy and effective spay and neuter procedures are getting through to the public-at-large? That’s a good question. Here we are four decades later, and we’re still battling stereotypes and biology.
Some people cite the cost of the procedure as something that stands in the way of their scheduling the procedure. (It’s actually pretty affordable.) Perhaps the misconceptions surrounding the idea of neutering that keep people from having it done. (‘It’s emasculating!’)
A new frontier of pet sterilization — the non-surgical route — just might get people to rethink the issue.
Last year, I wrote about one new drug, Esterilsol, (as it’s known outside of the United States), and how it was being tested for approval by the Food and Drug Administration in countries like Guatemala and the Dominican Republic.
The good news is that the drug is expected to have full approval for use by the midpoint of 2013 here in the U.S. as a non-surgical option for neutering dogs.
Known as Zeuterin in the U.S., the drug is a safer, faster and much less invasive way to sterilize male dogs age three to ten months.
It works like this: Zeuterin (a solution of zinc gluconate; zinc is a natural spermicide) is injected into each testicle — leaving it incapable of producing sperm.
No anesthesia is needed, and the procedure is much easier, compared to the traditional surgical option. For these reasons alone, zinc neutering could be a boon to shelters.
Canines who have been Zeutered have a microchip implanted or are tattooed with the letter “z”.
One drawback to surgical neutering is that it involves eliminating the source of testosterone production, therefore leaving the animal no benefits of what the hormone offers — like protecting metabolic functions. With Zeuterin, testosterone is only lowered by about half.
The surgical option has been long-touted as a way to reduce mating behaviors and to calm male dogs down. Feedback given by owners and custodians of dogs who have been sterilized with Zeuterin indicate that the same behaviors have been suppressed.
For more on zinc neutering, click here to read Dr. Marty Becker’s recent piece on VetStreet.
Time and love help heal war-zone dog’s wounds
Post-traumatic stress disorder among military dogs has gained some recognition, but strays also seem to suffer the effects of a difficult life in a war zone, writes Jessie Knadler, whose soldier husband rescued their dog Solha from Afghanistan. “Right away, I could tell there was something different about this dog,” Knadler writes, recounting months of destructive, difficult behavior that seemed to be best explained by the scrappy, dangerous life Solha led as a stray. “All we could give her was time, love, freedom, and lots of exercise and discipline. Is that how to treat canine PTSD? I don’t know. But Solha is a different, calmer dog today than she was a year ago.” The Daily Beast (3/13)
My husband seemed OK when he returned from Afghanistan. It was the dog he brought with him who appeared to have PTSD. By Jessie Knadler.
Around this time last year, I got a new dog. Her name is Solha. Solha is from Kandahar, arguably the most dangerous place on earth. She was rescued by my husband, Army reservist Maj. Jake Wilson, during his deployment to Afghanistan in 2011–12. Solha arrived at our place in Virginia four days before Jake himself was due to arrive home from his yearlong tour.
Right away, I could tell there was something different about this dog. She was a mangy, wiry, desperate-looking thing, hopelessly underweight with bags under her eyes and fur that felt bristly and oily to the touch. But it was more than that. There was a hardness behind her eyes. Deprivation and exhaustion were etched upon her face. She was twitchy, feral, and cunning. She intimidated me, even though Jake assured me over email I had nothing to worry about.
I was raising our 1-year-old daughter by myself at the time, so my hands were somewhat full. The day after Solha arrived un-housebroken, I confined her to crate for an hour to introduce the concept of crate training while we went out to run an errand. When we came home, Solha had smashed out of the crate. The crate’s door and hinges were made of metal. As I picked up the mangled, bent prongs littering the perimeter, I pondered the super–canine strength she must possess in order to hurl herself out of a small metal enclosure.
I wasn’t dealing with Lassie.
Within three days, Solha had chewed through three leashes—one made of wire—and one harness. She got into two serious dogfights with much larger male dogs, and showed zero signs of playing the female submissive. The only way I could contain her in those first few crazy weeks was to confine her with a chain the size of a python (“the Michael Vick special,” my brother-in-law Mark called it). A couple of weeks after Jake got home, Solha scaled a 10-foot-high horse stall and perched atop a wooden divider like a chicken until she could be coaxed down. Then she meticulously chomped four more leashes and left them in a neat little pile like a toddler’s plate of broken spaghetti, as if to say, don’t f–k with me, I’m from Afghanistan.
Attention is being paid right now to military dogs coming home from combat exhibiting signs of post traumatic stress disorder. Four-legged PTSD is manifested in behavior like nervous exhaustion, distress, confusion, or forgetting routine commands. I don’t doubt that for a moment. Dogs absorb death, deprivation, and random gunfire as acutely as any soldier. Some 50 dogs have come home with symptoms of PTSD, according to researchers at Holland Military Working Dog Hospital at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in Texas.
She chomped four more leashes and left them in a neat little pile like a toddler’s plate of broken spaghetti, as if to say, don’t f–k with me, I’m from Afghanistan.
My experience with Solha has made me wonder if it’s not just dogs on the frontlines who suffer trauma, but the stray animals who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, forgotten casualties of war. Right now, there are hundreds of thousands of stray, nonmilitary animals—dogs like Solha, cats, donkeys—caught in the crossfire of war who live a waking nightmare every day of their lives in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia. These are countries with little steady food or water supply or basic infrastructure, where land mines are only a paw print away, and, in the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, where dogs are typically reviled by the local population. Rocks are thrown at them. They’re beaten and starved. In a land where resources are scarce, and spay-neuter initiatives are only starting to make inroads, this is not surprising.
Day after day in Kandahar, Jake would see large packs of feral dogs roaming the countryside, as wild and dangerous as wolves. Some lacked tails and ears, a sign they’d been hacked off so they would last longer in a dogfight, still a popular sport among some Afghans in certain back-alley quarters. (The ears and tails are removed to prevent a superficial wound like a gnawed tail or mutilated ear from ending a fight too early; the aim is to kill or be killed.) A feral dog in this condition is likely to have either escaped or been deemed useless and released. Strays tend to loiter around U.S. and NATO military bases seeking handouts, even though U.S. soldiers are often instructed to shoot dogs on sight in the event the animal is carrying rabies (most normal soldiers, reminded of their own pets at home, prefer to look the other way).
“Dr. Google” is not an expert on pet cancer
It’s not uncommon for owners to search online for answers to their heart-wrenching questions when a pet is diagnosed with cancer, but they should proceed with caution, writes veterinary oncologist Joanne Intile. A trained veterinary oncologist is the best resource for owners with pets who have cancer, notes Dr. Intile, but she says veterinarians must approach all communication regarding cancer diagnosis, treatment, prognosis and even Internet research with patience and compassion. PetMD.com/The Daily Vet blog
The Internet can be a dangerous place for owners of pets with cancer. The sheer amount of virtual information available immediately at one’s fingertips is astonishing; bordering on overwhelming.
As an example, a quick search of the phrase “canine cancer” in a popular search engine returns over 3,240,000 hits. “Canine lymphoma” yields over 1,050,000 hits, while “feline lymphoma” reveals a mere 565,000 hits. How can an owner sift through all those pages and discern the “good from the bad” when it comes to learning more about their pet’s diagnosis?
When a diagnosis of cancer is made, owners are often placed in the difficult position of having to make decisions regarding diagnostic tests and treatments for their pet, frequently with limited information. This can lead to a feeling of helplessness and depression, or even defensiveness at times. I think it’s natural to turn to the Internet as a source of information, self-comfort, and self-education.
What I’m not so sure of is when exactly did entering phrases or words into a search engine begin qualifying as “research?” Having endured many years of rigorous academic training, when I think of actively researching a topic, it conjures up images of pouring over textbooks and critically reviewing clinical studies. To me, it means learning objective facts and studying information for accuracy of content, not clicking on random websites and reading unsubstantiated opinions backed typically by emotion rather than truth.
It is not unusual for owners to come to their first appointment armed with notes, printouts, suggestions, and/or questions they have garnered from searching their pets’ diagnoses on the Internet. My visceral reaction is typically one of tempered insult. I’m the one who endured many years of education and training and have several years of experience working as a clinical medical oncologist, yet I often joke in some cases that the (in)famous “Dr. Google,” who never went to vet school, once again has managed to usurp my recommendations. It’s challenging for me to remember that the intentions behind my clients’ questions or suggestions are typically pure. Owners simply lack the medical knowledge to review the Internet information accurately, but they really only want the best care and best treatment options for their pets.
I’ve discussed before how I understand that a diagnosis of cancer can be emotionally provoking for owners, and a common frustration many will express is their complete lack of control over the situation. Owners cannot alter progression of the disease once it occurs, they are simply told, “Here are the facts and here are the recommendations.”
An example would be an owner focusing on nutrition and diet after a diagnosis is obtained. What food their pet ingests is one of the few things pet owners can control in an otherwise uncontrollable situation. It is also one of the most Internet-searched topics owners will discuss with me during an appointment. Unfortunately, the lack of evidence-based information supporting nutrition as playing a role in the outcome for animals with cancer makes it difficult to make solid recommendations.
This isn’t to say I can’t relate to the need to try to learn as much as possible about a diagnosis, and I’m aware of how daunting terminology related to science and health and medicine can be for individuals not trained specifically within those subjects. The vocabulary is unfamiliar, anxiety provoking, and even uncomfortable for some. Equally as challenging on my end is determining how to present complicated diagnoses and treatment options in terms the average non-medically inclined individual can understand. Despite my best efforts, even with the most medically educated clientele, I know the emotional aspects surrounding a diagnosis can create barriers to truly understanding the technicalities.
Following initial consults, I provide owners with an in-depth written summary of all the points discussed during the appointment. I believe this is something unique to the veterinary profession. Think about the last time your human MD counterpart provided you with a written summary of any aspect of your visit. Even with the information literally in hand, it’s not uncommon for owners to specifically ask for websites they could use to better understand all the topics I’ve discussed. I’m not sure I will ever understand the need to turn to non-validated sources of information when it comes to learning about health and disease, but I do understand my obligation to being able to point people in the right direction.
Therefore, I generally recommend websites directly affiliated with veterinary schools, professional veterinary organizations, and websites run by respected and prominent veterinarians and advocate such pages as resources for owners seeking additional information. I also have no problem discussing the pros of seeing another medical oncologist for a second opinion when appropriate.
I think one of the main reasons I enjoy being able to write weekly articles for petMD is because I feel it is my small way of contributing factual information about veterinary oncology on the Internet. Though I’m still frequently challenged by owners about something they read on a website or through an online forum, I try to maintain patience when these topics come up.
I take comfort in knowing there are good resources for pet owners, and that I play an active role in keeping truthful information available to a large-scale audience, one week at a time.
Is your veterinarian America’s Favorite Veterinarian?
If you think your veterinarian should be recognized by the AVMA at this year’s AVMA Annual Convention, nominate him or her for the American Veterinary Medical Foundation’s America’s Favorite Veterinarian contest by writing about him or her on the organization’s Facebook page. The winning veterinarian and the client each receive $250 cash, as well as travel and lodging for the award event in Chicago. The winning veterinarian also receives free registration to AVMA’s conference.
Is your veterinarian your hero? Would you like to see your veterinarian honored at the upcoming convention of the American Veterinary Medical Association by the American Veterinary Medical Foundation?
The story you tell may be dramatic, a veterinarian saving a pet’s life….or might be a story of compassion, how end of life was handled. Maybe your story is a bit off-beat, about a veterinarian helping a turtle to win a race.
You can enter your story in the contest, America’s Favorite Veterinarian, conducted by the American Veterinary Medical Foundation. Any story about any veterinarian, if the story touches you – it will likely touch the judges. Those judges will narrow the entries to a final 12 – then it’s up to you to vote. So, appropriately, America will chose America’s Favorite Veterinarian.
Clients are encouraged to nominate their veterinarians through the Foundation’s Facebook page. Submit a photo of the animal alone, with themselves, or with the veterinarian, along with a short story—250 words or less—on why the veterinarian deserves to be America’s Favorite Veterinarian.
The winning veterinarian will be honored at the AVMF Impact and Partner Breakfast July 21 during the AVMA Annual Convention in Chicago. The winning veterinarian and the nominating client will each receive a $250 cash prize. In addition, each will receive a free night’s stay in Chicago, plus travel expenses for those outside the area. The veterinarian will also receive complimentary registration to the convention. Perhaps, best of all – you can thank, you can celebrate your veterinarian in a public way.
The contest runs through June 1. Nominations will be presented to a panel of judges: Dr. Bernadine D. Cruz, a chair of the former AVMA Council on Communications; Ginger Brainard, chair of the America’s Favorite Veterinarian Task Force; Kimberly Topper, from the AVMF board of directors; Dr. Susan Giovengo, senior director of Central Garden & Pet Co. and myself, and this is a great honor for me. Tell your friends. Share this post. And write about your veterinarian.
Everything the non-profit American Veterinary Medical Foundation does is designed to benefit veterinary medicine, promote animal well being, and enhance research, so that we will be even better prepared to deal with difficult problems of animal health today and in the future. The AVMF also facilitates the rescuing of animals in times of disaster.