All About Our Pets(Pics, Advice, Etc)

Veterinary Science Graduate Certificate from UofI
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@EngrSC Sorry for your loss. That dog is adorable.

@lentilsmom He looks like a working-line cocker to me. You could do the embark genetic testing or whatever to confirm if you wanted so you can tell people you know for sure. I mean his color is like a golden but the head shape is spaniel-like and size is right for a cocker.
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Rubber buckets make great tug toys
 
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In other news I tried Tux's goat coat from last winter on and I think he grew a bit... :laugh:
 
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Dog 🐕‍🦺 and Egg 🍳
 

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Happy Halloween from a spooky goat-st 👻🐐
 
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Doctor-S said:
Does anyone have experience with the Bissell ProHeat 2X Revolution Max Clean Pet Vacuum?

My brother has 2 senior dogs and they're leaving wet messes on his carpets.

Like the vacuum? Don't like it?

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This being in the vet forums, I have to wonder why they’re having urinary accounts in the house. But unfortunately nothing helpful to contribute to the actual question! I think as long as it has a carpet cleaning function and not just vacuum suction, it would be worth a try. Remember to use enzymatic cleaners too :)
 
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Isn't it true that at some point incontinence can just be something you can't do much about in older cats and dogs, and you just have to live with and clean up? Like in some cases, after all treatable causes have been ruled out or addressed? Without it being immediate grounds for euthanasia? That's how it is for humans at some point often at least. I love learning how pets are different, of course.
 
that redhead said:
This being in the vet forums, I have to wonder why they’re having urinary accounts in the house. But unfortunately nothing helpful to contribute to the actual question! I think as long as it has a carpet cleaning function and not just vacuum suction, it would be worth a try. Remember to use enzymatic cleaners too :)
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Thanks for your post @that redhead.

I asked him. He said the dogs only did it a few times, when they were excited. They were thinking about getting a new vacuum anyway - so that's why they were asking around about vacuums that work well for home use and pet use.
 
Crayola227 said:
Isn't it true that at some point incontinence can just be something you can't do much about in older cats and dogs, and you just have to live with and clean up? Like in some cases, after all treatable causes have been ruled out or addressed? Without it being immediate grounds for euthanasia? That's how it is for humans at some point often at least. I love learning how pets are different, of course.
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When I have a quality of life discussion with an owner who isn't sure if euthanasia is right for their pet, I tell them I have two tiers for quality of life: 1) are they eating, drinking, pooping, and peeing without concern, and is their behavior "them"? 2) are they doing 3/5 of their favorite things?

If the only things wrong out of those two tiers is incontinence (urine or feces or both), but the other 7-8 factors are okay, a lot of owners are able to tolerate that for a while. But there's a point where the constant mess starts to wear on the human-animal bond. And quality of life for the animal can go downhill due to urine scald and such because some owners simply aren't willing/able to do what the patient needs.

For a lot of people incontinence isn't the end of the line for the pet. But for some family situations, euthanasia isn't inappropriate for some incontinent pets.
 
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Crayola227 said:
Isn't it true that at some point incontinence can just be something you can't do much about in older cats and dogs, and you just have to live with and clean up? Like in some cases, after all treatable causes have been ruled out or addressed? Without it being immediate grounds for euthanasia? That's how it is for humans at some point often at least. I love learning how pets are different, of course.
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It depends, I've found that incontinence can be a tricky workup and that often "incontinence" isn't actually true incontinence and owners need a different conversation. For example, incontinent dog may actually be anxious and pee in the house when startled or alone. Could have a stone and just unable to hold it well. Could actually be PU/PD with the litany of underlying causes of that. I've also seen several where people say the dog is incontinent but it really just has such severe arthritis that it will sometimes struggle too much to get up and soil itself instead. I don't think incontinence alone is often the deciding factor for recommending euthanasia, but underlying causes definitely could be. Some owners also just know their pets and feel the dignity aspect of being incontinent is important to them. Similarly, incontinent pets need a lot of home care to avoid things like scald, which can be extremely limiting on the owner's lifestyle in ways that may be incompatible (not saying this is necessarily a convenience thing - for example, with my work hours I could not humanely manage one of my pets in a diaper unless they came to work with me or they would be getting scald and sores).

I actually also had one of these cases in school that was a golden retriever puppy coming in for evaluation for ectopic ureters and we ended up diagnosing her with primary polydipsia instead lol
 
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Crayola227 said:
Isn't it true that at some point incontinence can just be something you can't do much about in older cats and dogs, and you just have to live with and clean up? Like in some cases, after all treatable causes have been ruled out or addressed? Without it being immediate grounds for euthanasia? That's how it is for humans at some point often at least. I love learning how pets are different, of course.
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The thing that is frustrating is that there are SO many possible rule outs, both directly related to the urinary tract but also to most other major systems as well, and so few people want to work up their older pet. AND getting the “right” answers to even the most basic work up questions is tough when your patients can’t talk and their owners may not be interpreting things correctly. So yeah, it mostly ends up being a scenario where the owners accept that their elderly pet is “incontinent” because “they’re getting old and that’s just what happens” when in reality it might be something treatable :shrug:

As for immediate grounds for euthanasia, I think the others have summed it up well: even if it’s “just” true incontinence, house soiling can absolutely impact the pet and owners QOL and degrade the human-animal bond. I have rejected a case of what I perceived to be convenience euthanasia in an older cat who was peeing in the house (I suspected behaviorally) because the wife point blank refused to do anything whatsoever. But there are certainly times where house soiling is the a part of the euthanasia decision and fairly so.
 
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I don't think this counts as asking for veterinary medicine advice but...

any tips on getting two gregarious senior cats ready for a newborn to join the household? I read somewhere about playing the sound of a baby crying in advance for a few weeks? People also said to put out the baby items like swing and all that, but with something in it so cat doesn't think they should sleep there. Thoughts?

My friend's cats who are very skittish seemed to have no issues getting used to a baby.

I once subletted my apartment in med school while I was gone for summer (leaving my cats there) to someone with an infant that crawled, there was a baby gate and in the small apartment the cats basically took to living under the futon on the other side of the gate by the renter's report. After about 3 months I guess one of the cats finally came out to meow at the baby. I'm sort of wondering if the adjustment was more difficult because the baby was an ambulatory creature right off the bat and of course the people were new too.

Anyway, as busy as I'll be with a newborn I'd love it if my cats didn't feel like they had to live their lives hidden for so long. Not sure what I can do to facilitate bonding (but not sleeping on baby's face of course).

And I wonder if I should enforce boundaries like not letting them be in the same room as me and baby and bassinet? They're already not really allowed in the nursery room but it won't be for a while that baby sleeps in there. Should I not allow them to curl up with us while I breastfeed baby? Should I try to get my partner or parent to hold the cats while I feed baby?

Maybe this sounds terribly neurotic wondering all this, but these guys were my first babies and I don't want them to be too unhappy and I still want to see them around lol.
 
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Crayola227 said:
I don't think this counts as asking for veterinary medicine advice but...

any tips on getting two gregarious senior cats ready for a newborn to join the household? I read somewhere about playing the sound of a baby crying in advance for a few weeks? People also said to put out the baby items like swing and all that, but with something in it so cat doesn't think they should sleep there. Thoughts?

My friend's cats who are very skittish seemed to have no issues getting used to a baby.

I once subletted my apartment in med school while I was gone for summer (leaving my cats there) to someone with an infant that crawled, there was a baby gate and in the small apartment the cats basically took to living under the futon on the other side of the gate by the renter's report. After about 3 months I guess one of the cats finally came out to meow at the baby. I'm sort of wondering if the adjustment was more difficult because the baby was an ambulatory creature right off the bat and of course the people were new too.

Anyway, as busy as I'll be with a newborn I'd love it if my cats didn't feel like they had to live their lives hidden for so long. Not sure what I can do to facilitate bonding (but not sleeping on baby's face of course).

And I wonder if I should enforce boundaries like not letting them be in the same room as me and baby and bassinet? They're already not really allowed in the nursery room but it won't be for a while that baby sleeps in there. Should I not allow them to curl up with us while I breastfeed baby? Should I try to get my partner or parent to hold the cats while I feed baby?

Maybe this sounds terribly neurotic wondering all this, but these guys were my first babies and I don't want them to be too unhappy and I still want to see them around lol.
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I have a decent handout on this, I'll send it to ya
 
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He's not really a pet but he's super cute :love: We'd been dealing with sporadic porcupine quilling events throughout the fall, and I finally found the culprit a few weeks ago! I named him Horace. We relocated him... and he came back... relocated him again... came back... so this last time we took him 10km down the highway to a wildlife preservation area with lots of trees. We released him and he waddled off and climbed this tree and started eating. He was super chill with us so we could walk right up to him and say hi. It's been a couple weeks now and we're secretly sad he hasn't come back, but I do appreciate not having to pull quills out of my horses once a week lol.
 
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Merry Christmas from Santa's newest reindeer 🦌
 
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Merry Christmas all. This girl got a new leg (pancarpal arthrodesis) for her Christmas (2 weeks post-op). She recently earned wearing a shirt though

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The other one wasn't too sure what to make of the packing material for our furniture that finally arrived!

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Been -40º or lower with the windchill for the last week... tomorrow it's supposed to warm up to a cool -6º, but then back to -40º for all of next week. Thankfully Ducky likes to snuggle 😅
 
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They were extremely tired after a long drive back to school.
 
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The girls being cute on New Years. Sadie is getting better at cuddling because of her super cuddly sister.

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~looking for advice~

I really want to get a cat in the near future but my boyfriend is allergic. Both of my cats passed away last year and I really miss having a lil feline around. My bf and I will be moving in together soon so new pets need to be a joint decision. I've heard that female, long haired, and lighter colored cats tend to be better for people with allergies. I also know that there are shots people can get but am not sure how well they work. Does anyone have any advice or experience with successfully handling cat allergies?

I know it's a long shot but I just thought I'd ask if anyone had any tips. I would hate to adopt a cat because it's *supposedly* less allergenic only to find out that my bf is indeed very allergic to it and we can't keep it. We've thought about fostering cats in the future so that we can test out living with them and hoping one is a foster failure. But for now, it's no kitties for us unless I can find a good solution. I'm just thankful he isn't allergic to dogs
 
puppydogtor said:
~looking for advice~

I really want to get a cat in the near future but my boyfriend is allergic. Both of my cats passed away last year and I really miss having a lil feline around. My bf and I will be moving in together soon so new pets need to be a joint decision. I've heard that female, long haired, and lighter colored cats tend to be better for people with allergies. I also know that there are shots people can get but am not sure how well they work. Does anyone have any advice or experience with successfully handling cat allergies?

I know it's a long shot but I just thought I'd ask if anyone had any tips. I would hate to adopt a cat because it's *supposedly* less allergenic only to find out that my bf is indeed very allergic to it and we can't keep it. We've thought about fostering cats in the future so that we can test out living with them and hoping one is a foster failure. But for now, it's no kitties for us unless I can find a good solution. I'm just thankful he isn't allergic to dogs
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Probably the fostering thing might work well, so you can end up picking one he doesn't react as much to. There is also a new food by Purina (LiveClear) that is supposed to help reduce allergens. I have no idea how effective it is - but here is the related paper. Note I haven't actually read that paper and evaluated its merit. Of course if the cat ever needs to be on a different diet that becomes a problem.

Otherwise depending on how severe the allergy is, I know people have done the allergy shots, and then rely on antihistamines for bad flare-ups. I don't know if there is any scientific backing to the statements about sex or coat length or color being a factor.
 
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At least for me, vacuuming once a day and having an air purifier has allowed me to have cats irregardless of breed despite my allergies.
 
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Thanks for the info! I actually had my one cat on LiveClear for a few years since I started dating my bf. He didn't notice a difference, but perhaps I just need to vacuum daily :)
 
Animal Midwife said:
At least for me, vacuuming once a day and having an air purifier has allowed me to have cats irregardless of breed despite my allergies.
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Was going to say this, routine cleaning and having good air filters/purifiers helps a lot. Also if you happen to have asthma! Routine laundry, especially if the cat sleeps with you, is also helpful. I am allergic to cats despite owning them my entire life and also found that the longer I was around the same cat the less issue I had with that specific cat vs others. Obviously I was still allergic and I had different reactions to different cats, but the overall intensity of my reaction to one went down the longer I had it
 
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vetmedhead said:
Was going to say this, routine cleaning and having good air filters/purifiers helps a lot. Also if you happen to have asthma! Routine laundry, especially if the cat sleeps with you, is also helpful. I am allergic to cats despite owning them my entire life and also found that the longer I was around the same cat the less issue I had with that specific cat vs others. Obviously I was still allergic and I had different reactions to different cats, but the overall intensity of my reaction to one went down the longer I had it
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This is how I am with my dog allergies too
 
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Sweet baby came to work to have a dental done by my not-quite-a-specialist-but-close co-worker to evaluate a very worn canine... Lost 9 teeth but the canine wasn't one. Now she's high af on her second dose of hydro because I can't have her be an ounce painful after I apparently had her live with ouchie teeth for way too long. She needs love reacts to counter the future bullying she is sure to receive as a malinois missing teef

P.s. peep the blep
 
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Just wondering ...

Have you noticed any interesting behavior in cats after they receive transdermal Buprenorphine?

My cat recently had her lower canine and premolar extracted (resorption).

She was prescribed transdermal buprenorphine following the surgery.

After I apply the buprenorphine to her inner ear, she becomes excessively loving, cuddly and affectionate, for hours.

She rolls all over the floor, purrs loudly, rubs her head all over me, licks my hands and arms, and sprinkles kitty kisses all over me.

Does that have anything to do with transdermal buprenorphine and cats?

[Note: based on my experiences in human medicine, this same type of behavior does not occur in humans who receive buprenorphine.]
 
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