Arlington Animal Clinic

Pet Food Recall: Diamond, Wellness, Kirkland and more.

Arlington Animal Clinic — Mon, 21 May 2012 16:13:22 +0000

Diamond Pet Foods has decided to voluntarily recall some dry foods due to possible salmonella exposure, which could affect both you and your dog or cat. People are actually more susceptible to salmonella than pets, especially toddlers and the elderly, but your pets are also at risk. To make things more confusing, a wide array of pet foods are processed in the Diamond plant, and as such should be avoided as well. Those brands include:

Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover’s Soul
Country Value
Diamond and Diamond Naturals
Premium Edge
Professional
4Health
Taste of the Wild
Apex
Kirkland
Canidae

Pet owners who are unsure if the product they purchased is included in the recall, or who would like replacement product or a refund, may contact Diamond Pet Foods via a toll free call at 866-918-8756, Monday through Sunday, 8 AM to 6 PM EST

The Facts About Chicken Jerky Treats and Fanconi Syndrome

Arlington Animal Clinic — Fri, 04 May 2012 17:06:13 +0000

There has been lots of talk lately in the media about connections between chicken jerky treats and pet health. Owners have suspected that these treats have lead to sudden death, kidney failure, or even Franconi Syndrome. However, both veterinary professionals and the FDA have yet to find a link between the two. As the FDA stated in March, “No specific products have been recalled because a definitive cause has not been determined.” In fact, many of the reported cases involve dogs who are considered geriatric and could have developed kidney failure due to the natural aging process.

If your dog enjoys these treats or you’ve been considering introducing them into your pet’s diet, there are a few important points to be aware of:

The key word here is TREATS. Be sure that you’re feeding small amounts only as these treats are not meant to replace a balanced diet. Too many treats of any kind can certainly lead to stomach upset, nausea or vomiting.
The FDA has extensively tested these treats for salmonella, malamine, metal toxins, and more. When available, they’ve received and tested samples from owners who suspected the treats had negatively affected their pet. The FDA has not found any contaminants in any of these samples. Read their report here.
Purina, owner of Waggin Train Dog Treats, has opened a hotline to directly address questions or concerns from dog owners who have used or are considering purchasing the chicken jerky products. You may call them at 866-283-2923.
Franconi syndrome is almost always genetic and rarely develops due to ingestion of toxins. Certain breeds are more prone to the disease, such as Basenji, Minature Schnauzers, Norwegian Elkhounds, and Shetland Sheepdogs.
There has not been a recall of these treats due to lack of evidence.

At the end of the day, though, you should never feed your pet anything that makes you uncomfortable or worrisome. There are hundreds of treats on the market, and chicken jerky is just one of them. In addition, don’t forget about healthier treats that you can pick up at the grocery store, such as carrots or snap peas.

If you’ve had any experience with chicken jerky treats, be it good or bad, we’d love to hear about it! Please use the comment section to share your experience with fellow dog owners.

Losing a Pet: Mourning the Loss of A Friend

Arlington Animal Clinic — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 16:11:24 +0000

If you’ve entered the clinic lately, you’ve seen a new addition to our wall – canvas pictures of our beloved Icicle, more commonly known as “Ice.” Ice lost his battle with cancer in February and the clinic just doesn’t feel the same without him. Thanks to our friends at Forget-Me-Not pet crematory, Ice’s remains are in a beautifully personalized urn overlooking our waiting room.

As a way to honor him and what he meant to all of us, we ordered the pictures from a website called Canvas4Life and have enjoyed seeing his face everyday. Lots of other companies provide this service as well, such as Canvas On Demand and even your local Walgreens or CVS.

Losing a pet is an incredibly difficult process, but there are plenty of resources out there to help you through it:

Speak to a Tufts Veterinary student through their Pet Loss Support Hotline at 508-839-7966
Good Grief Pet Loss Support Group: Meets Wednesdays from 7:00-8:15 pm at 661 Massachusetts Ave, Suite 14 right here in Arlington.
Set up a Tribute at a website like Chance’s Spot or Rainbows Bridge and interact with others who are going through a similar situation.
Visit a bookstore or Amazon to purchase a book about the process.
Did we miss something? Please feel free to use the comment section to share what helped you through this trying time.

Young Canine Mom Looking for a Home

Arlington Animal Clinic — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 17:03:00 +0000

We were contacted about a young multi-breed dog looking for a home. The description we received is below:

We have a stray dog that came to our neighbors here in South Carolina and then had 7 puppies. We have found homes for all of the puppies but hoping to find a fabulous home for the Mom. She will be coming to the Mass/NH area this weekend (April 14/15). She is a multi breed, medium size, tan with a black nose/face. She is very sweet, kind, and follows you around. She is good with cats, other dogs, and horses. She is recently spayed and has had all of her shots. She appears to be approx 1 1/2 – 2 yo. The nicest/kindest dog I have ever met.

Please call Alison 603-345-0382 or Apltrefarm@aol.com if you can give her a home!

Massachusetts Has The Most Lyme Positive Cases in New England

Arlington Animal Clinic — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 16:20:59 +0000

Did you know that the number of Lyme positive cases in Massachusetts DOUBLED from 2004 to 2009?! According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control, Massachusetts also has had more Lyme positive cases than any other state in New England. With such a mild winter this year, ticks are coming out in record numbers and even affected the Maine moose population this February. Yes, you read that correctly – ticks are active even in the winter! Here are a few other facts from TickEncounter Resource Center that every pet owner should know:

Tick bites and tick borne diseases are 100% preventable
Only deer ticks transmit Lyme disease bacteria
For most tick-borne diseases, you have 24 hours to find and remove a feeding tick before it transmits an infection
The easiest and safest way to remove a tick is with a pointy tweezer
One bite can change the your pet’s life!

Please be sure to protect your animals from fleas and ticks. We recommend using Vectra – learn why it’s different from other preventatives here.

Tick Identification Chart - Click to Enlarge

Sugar, Squirrels and High Rise Syndrome

Arlington Animal Clinic — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 16:17:32 +0000

It’s always fun to see Boston in the national news, especially for something as uplifting as Sugar’s survival! For those who haven’t yet heard, Sugar is a 4 year-old female cat who fell 19 stories from a Boston apartment building; despite a few small contusions on her lungs, Sugar was otherwise unharmed. Her story has inspired a lot of conversation about “High-Rise Syndrome,” the theory that cats are more likely to be unhurt if falling longer distances than shorter ones. In other words, many veterinarians agree that a cat has a better chance of escaping unscathed if he or she falls from 5 stories (opinions here are varied, usually between 5-9 stories) than from just 1 or 2.

One major component of this is that after cats right themselves to land on their feet, they flail around in the air and give themselves drag, essentially acting as a flying squirrel. As they sprawl out, they slow themselves down to make for an easier landing. At approximately 5 stories high, they reach their high point of velocity and relax, which also eases their landing.

Luckily for Sugar, the building has vowed to install screen windows on all floors to prevent more flying cats

Sugar, age 4

Food, Glorious Food!

knurse — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 20:10:19 +0000

Food, Glorious Food! Hot Sausage and Mustard! How does one choose the proper diet for a pet? What are the important facts about finding a good food? There are a lot of misconceptions out there, and quite frankly most pet food companies are capitalizing on the ignorance of the consumer.

Myth #1 – Pet foods containing corn or corn meal are bad. WRONG

In actuality, corn is a great source of protein for your pet. Corn meal used in dog foods is processed so that it not only provides adequate nutrition, but it also helps to aid the digestive process. Whole grains contribute valuable nutrients including vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids and fiber to diets while helping to keep the fat and calories low. Unless your dog/cat has a specific food allergy to corn or other grains, they are a vital part of your pets necessary nutrition. Wolfs in the wild are omnivores, and likely get to eat a meat meal 1-2 times monthly. The rest of what they would eat is what ever they can forage for, and that includes raw grains. I have not seen too many wild Pomeranians, Cock-a-poos or Weimaraners … if a wolf does not require “meat” as it’s number 1 protein source, than neither does your dog.

Myth #2 – The ingredient list is a good way to determine the quality of a pet food. WRONG

Pets require nutrients, NOT INGREDIENTS. This approach to determining nutritional needs of a pet is entirely subject to intentional manipulation by the manufactures. When you are looking at an ingredient list, what you are really looking at is the list according to how much each ingredient weighed prior to being cooked. Have you ever noticed how much raw hamburger meat or chicken weighs before and after cooking … Meat looses weight after being cooked, the water cooks out and evaporates, the fat drips out … In short, ingredients like meat, and fresh vegetables will be listed higher than dry ingredients because of their pre-cooked water content even though their percent by volume after being cooked will lend fewer nutrients to the overall diet. Some manufactures even add the same ingredients on the lable more than once … chicken meat, chicken fat, chicken byproduct … IT’S ALL JUST FREEKIN’ CHICKIN’! Additionally, they also add certain ingredients just to increase the appeal of the diet to the consumer. Flax seed for example, is thought to be hugely beneficial to humans for everything from preventing heart disease, to joint inflammation. Flax seed in a pet food … doesn’t make any sense … dogs and cats CANNOT process flax seed at any level, therefore it is of absolutely no benefit to your pet! Instead of looking at the ingredient list, look at the “guaranteed analysis” of the food. It will list the amount of “necessary nutrients” in plain terms as a percentage.

Example: Crude Protein …….. Min …….. 27% ……..270g/kg

This means that all of your protein sources like chicken meat, chicken byproduct and yes … corn make up a minimum (Min) 27% of the food that you are feeding. This percent is measured AFTER the food has been cooked. 270g/kg means that for each 1 kilogram of food in the bag, 270 grams are guaranteed protein.

If the pet food product you are interested in does not provide a “guaranteed analysis” … that is a RED FLAG that either there is something that they do not want you to know, or that they do not know themselves. This does not necessarily mean that the food is bad, but it does mean that the company has not done the quality control research to be able to provide the consumer with the most accurate information about their food.

Myth #3 – By-products can contain hair, hooves and floor sweepings that are bad for my dog. VERY WRONG

AAFCO (Association of American Feed Control Officials) definitions of mammal by-products specifically exclude hair, hooves, horn, hide trimmings, manure and intestinal contents, as well as anything that is not specifically part of the carcass (floor sweepings for example). By-products are mainly organ meats and entrails. They provide more nutrients than muscle meats on a per weight basis. They are even considered delicacies of human diets in other countries (eg. Tripe, Haggis).

Myth #4 – I only want to feed my pet “Human Grade” meat. WRONG

The term “human grade” has absolutely no legal meaning in the pet food industry. Pet food manufactures have contracts with the same slaughterhouses as human food manufactures. Once the a product is destined for inclusion in pet food, it is no longer fit for human consumption by definition. Different parts of the exact same animal may be destined for both human and pet markets. Therefore, products that claim to have “human grade” meat are boundless.

Myth #5 – Feeding raw diets are better because they are closer to their natural diet NOT WRONG … BUT DEFINITELY NOT RIGHT EITHER

Let me explain … Although there are particular food products that we as veterinary professionals DO recommend, any balanced diet that your pet is thriving on is perfectly fine with us. That being said, there is currently no evidence that raw diets offer any benefits over cooked diets. Any claims otherwise are anecdotal at best. Raw diets, as well as home cooked diets, are most often in and of themselves not well balanced and do require supplemental nutrition like a multi-vitamin. If your animal does well on the raw diet (with said multi-vitamin) then great! Some caution should be given when choosing your raw diet because there is substantial evidence that these diets may be associated with dental fractures, bacterial and parasitic infections and other health concerns in pets. There is also potential risk to people, especially those that are immunocompromised such as young children, the elderly and patients receiving immune modifying drugs or who have cancer.

I’m sure that there are more than a million more misconceptions about pet nutrition, and If you have any other questions or concerns, feel free to ask. We here at Arlington Animal Clinic recommend Hill’s Science Diet, Purina, Royal Canin, and Iams/Eukanuba. All of the aforementioned companies have proven clinical research behind their products. They all provide the “guaranteed analysis” ad nauseum. It is widely speculated that companies pay veterinary professionals to recommend their products. This is probably the most widely believed, and completely ludicrous myth circulating. Neither our clinic, nor our veterinarians, get a stipend from any of the food companies that we endorsce. We believe in the product because the research is there to back it up. Each individual diet has gone through rigorous clinical trials, and is tried and true in practice.

When it comes to diets, be smart, be safe, and above all … be consumer savy.

Farewell To Our Feline Friend

knurse — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 15:00:32 +0000

Farewell To Our Feline Friend

While passing through Arlington Animal Clinic, you may have seen a majestic white cat strutting his stuff in the hallway. His name was Ice, and he was our friend. Diagnosed with Lymphoma 4 years ago, he managed to beat the odds, and finally succumbed to the disease on February 9th, 2012.

It was almost 10 years to the day that he was left at our door. We gathered in the office to be with him during his last moments, he was sprawled on the couch as he usually was. We passed stories of his exploits and adventures, we smiled, we cried.

I would like to take a moment to share some of our memories with you:

Ice epitomized what it meant to be a cat. He walked where he pleased, with a look on his face … you could just tell how proud of himself he always was. He wanted what he wanted … exactly when he wanted it! We always made sure that never went wanting for anything, as much food, treats, toys as he could handle. Still often times we would see him in the kennel, reaching his arm into someone else’s cage … stealing their food. It must have somehow tasted better when it wasn’t his … he would steal our lunches if we looked away for long enough. He tried to make off with bread and butter on several occasions. During his chemotherapy, his appetite was down and one of the nurses started cooking little tiny cubes of chicken for him. He became so demanding of this chicken, he would actually chase us around asking for it. If we ignored his request, he’d take swipes at our legs or use them as his personal scratching post. He made us laugh! He knew we were there to take care of him, and he tried to take care of us whenever he could. It’s no secret that some cats are so fearful at the vet, that they exercise their flight or fight response mechanisms, and while we usually emerge with all 5 fingers and toes on each hand and foot, sometimes they’re a little mangled. When these “caution” cats would come into the clinic, we not only had to secure the cat but also the room. If we did not … sure enough Ice would come running to our aid. When he would get through our barricades, he would attempt to defend us from the wild beasts. Not a very good idea, we realize, but there he would be pleased as punch with himself for defending our honor.

Ice, we are thankful for the time you spend here on earth. We will think of you often, and remember you always. In loving memory, “Ice” Brown 1997-2012.

Jerkey Jerkey

knurse — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:37:32 +0000

Raw hide and jerkey products continue to cause controversy in the veterinary community. Some caution against, some say it’s great for chewing. Some say it depends entirely on the dog doin’ the chewin’ ! Adding to the contention, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has now issued a new warning that EVERYONE should pay attention to whether you are pro or no.

According to a Nov. 18th 2011 update, there has been an increase in the number of complaints fron dog owners and veterinarieans alike regarding jerkey correlated illnesses associated with jerkey products coming out of China. The agency urges consumers to who feed chicken jerkey products in particular to watch for any of the following signs of illness:

a decrease in appetite
a decrease in activity
vomiting and/or diarrhea (bloody vomiting and/or diarrhea)
an increase in water consumption and/or urination

If signs of illness develop, or persist for a period longer than 24hrs. dog owners should consult their veterinarian. Although most dogs appear to recover, there are existing reports to the FDA involving dogs that have died.

The FDA and several other U.S. animal health diagnostic laboratores are working on a cause for why these products are causing associated illnesses in dogs. They have not identified any contaminants as of yet.

Pet’s New Year’s Resolutions: Weight Loss, Exercise and More

Arlington Animal Clinic — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 16:39:55 +0000

Whether they swear by the tradition or vow that it’s a waste of time, most people seem to have strong reactions to the concept of new year’s resolutions. However, if you’re on the fence about it, why not start with a new year’s resolution for your pet?! In the next calendar year, you can make goals to stay up-to-date on your pet’s vaccinations, finally get your pet’s teeth cleaned, work on socialization and more. Check out the ASPCA’s suggestions here.

Another great idea is to combine your own resolution with your pet’s. If you’re vowing to get more exercise, for example, make sure to increase your pet’s exercise as well! Does your pet need to drop a couple pounds? Resolve to improve your pet’s diet in addition to your own and you have an automatic diet partner.

Check out more ideas below and please let us know your own suggestions!