Thanksgiving Tips to Keep Your Pets Safe

Thanksgiving is just around the corner which means the folks at VSES are getting prepared to be here if you need us. Below are some pet safety tips so that you and your furry companion can avoid visiting us and instead stay home with the rest of your family on the holiday.

Turkey NO NO’s: Everybody has that relative who likes to ‘help’ prepare the meal--by telling you exactly what you are doing wrong. We too have some advice on how to prepare the turkey but it has nothing to do with how you stuff the bird. Do not feed your pet raw or under cooked turkey-it could contain harmful bacteria called salmonella.  Do not let your pet near the turkey carcass. Bones of any size could cause severe digestive tract issues if consumed by your pet.

Keep These Items Out of Reach: If your four legged friend is like any other, they are very VERY curious. To ensure their safety make sure alcohol, raw yeast dough and cake batter is not left unattended. The ingestion of any of these items can lead to a life threatening emergency requiring hospitalization.

Party Etiquette: Thanksgiving is a time for friends and family to get together and enjoy one another’s company. However, your animal companion may not share the same sediment. If you find Uncle Ben’s laugh to be roaring and terrifying, chances are so does your dog. Some animals find large groups or strangers in their house quite distressing.  If they are nervous or have a tendency to bite it is best to separate them from the Thanksgiving festivities.

 If you (or your sister’s kid) decide to feed your four legged friend a sample of your Thanksgiving feast a few small pieces of turkey, a bit of grandma’s mashed potatoes or even a lick of Aunt Susan’s pumpkin pie should not cause a problem. However, be sure not to allow your pets to overindulge, as their stomachs are more sensitive than ours. Too much of Thanksgiving’s bounty could give them some serious GI issues like vomiting, diarrhea or the worst of all- pancreatitis. To be safe, we recommend you keep your pet on their regular diet.

We understand accidents happen and we will be here if you need us. If you have a concern or think you may need to bring your furry companion in do not hesitate to call us or come in. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is just around the corner which means the folks at VSES are getting prepared to be here if you need us. Below are some pet safety tips so that you and your furry companion can avoid visiting us and instead stay home with the rest of your family on the holiday.

Turkey NO NO’s: Everybody has that relative who likes to ‘help’ prepare the meal--by telling you exactly what you are doing wrong. We too have some advice on how to prepare the turkey but it has nothing to do with how you stuff the bird. Do not feed your pet raw or under cooked turkey-it could contain harmful bacteria called salmonella.  Do let your pet near the turkey carcass. Bones of any size could cause severe digestive tract issues if consumed by your pet.

Keep These Items Out of Reach: If your four legged friend is like any other, they are very VERY curious. To ensure their safety make sure alcohol, raw yeast dough and cake batter is not left unattended. The ingestion of any of these items can lead to a life threatening emergency requiring hospitalization.

Party Etiquette: Thanksgiving is a time for friends and family to get together and enjoy one another’s company. However, your animal companion may not share the same sediment. If you find Uncle Ben’s laugh to be roaring and terrifying, chances are so does your dog. Some animals find large groups or strangers in their house quite distressing.  If they are nervous or have a tendency to bite it is best to separate them from the Thanksgiving festivities.

 If you (or your sister’s kid) decide to feed your four legged friend a sample of your Thanksgiving feast a few small pieces of turkey, a bit of grandma’s mashed potatoes or even a lick of Aunt Susan’s pumpkin pie should not cause a problem. However, be sure not to allow your pets to overindulge, as their stomachs are more sensitive than ours. Too much of Thanksgiving’s bounty could give them some serious GI issues like vomiting, diarrhea or the worst of all- pancreatitis. To be safe, we recommend you keep your pet on their regular diet.

We understand accidents happen and we will be here if you need us. If you have a concern or think you may need to bring your furry companion in do not hesitate to call us or come in. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Meet Friday!

Friday came to VSES back in January of 2015.
Friday, a 6 year old Burmese, was seen by her regular veterinarian because she had not been acting like herself. She was depressed and not eating. Her blood work showed that Friday was battling renal failure. Her veterinarian recommended that she transfer to VSES for continued care and support.

A feline's kidneys can stop working effectively over time as the cat ages. However, an acute onset of renal failure (brought on by trauma, toxins, shock, infections,etc.) or chronic kidney disease can be a serious issue. A cat's kidneys help manage blood pressure, remove waste from the blood, and make hormones and red blood cells.

When Friday was brought into the hospital in the beginning of the year, she transferred over to our Internal Medicine department, with Dr. Michael Koch, Diplomate ACVIM, for further diagnostics and treatment of her disease. The Internal Medicine team worked their magic to get her eating again and back to her normal self. After about a week of treatments in-hospital, Friday went home!

We were lucky enough to hear from Friday's mom recently. Here's what she had to say:

I wanted to let you know, Nov. 20 has passed. That was the 10 month anniversary of Friday’s hospitalization. She still seems to be doing fine. 

In August, she pushed out a screen, caught a chipmunk and brought it back to us. She is playful and active and, if you didn’t know she’s running on a wing and a prayer, you wouldn’t know she was sick. However much time she has left, she’s had a great year.

This Thanksgiving, we are thankful she’s still with us. Great job!

We love to hear updates from our clients and we hope that Friday, along with all of our past patients, are still living life to the fullest.

If your pet was ever treated by VSES, we would love to hear from you! Please feel free to send any pictures and updates to vsesoffice@gmail.com

What is an LVT?

Veterinary Specialists & Emergency Services is a 24 hour veterinary emergency and specialty referral facility. We are the only hospital like this in our city--the next closet being 100 miles away and over an hour's drive. This means that we are always busy and require staff around the clock! Our staff is like no other. We are so honored to have such devoted, hard working, and compassionate employees in our facility who work hard for the patients every day.

This is why we are finding ways to say thank you to our staff this week during our annual Staff Appreciation week. We're going to be doing all kinds of fun things to show the staff how much we appreciate what they do every day. It just so happens that this week is also National Veterinary Technician Week! Although we value our technicians and the rest of the staff every day of the year, we like to use this week to honor them for the high-quality veterinary care they execute.

You might want to know what a Licensed Veterinary Technician (LVT), or "Vet Tech", does; well, that can vary depending upon the type of hospital and where the hospital is located. We were lucky enough to get some insider information from one of our vet techs at VSES. Jen has 14 years of experience in the field, and has been a technician with VSES for half of those years! We asked her what it is like to be a technician at an emergency/specialty hospital and her is what she had to say!

 Emergency LVTs working on an IV catheter for this patient.

 You never know what the day will bring when you are an LVT in an emergency/specialty practice. Our emergency technicians generally see and care for some of the most severely ill and injured patients in our area. This means that they have some advanced skills that are not seen in general veterinary practices--such as placing jugular catheters, arterial catheters, urinary catheters (in both male adn female dogs), and excellent venipuncture skills. 

Along with these skills, our technicians are typically working during some very sad and stressful situations because of the nature of the cases that come through our front doors. Patients that have been hit by a car, bloat, urinary obstruction, and dog fights are just a few of the types that we see on a regular basis. The LVTs are then expected to perform all of their tasks--such as drawing blood, placing intravenous catheters, administering medications, taking radiographs, and monitoring breathing and patient comfort--during very critical and chaotic situations. Once patients are stabilized, our technicians get to follow up with after care treatments like monitoring vitals, administering medications, blood transfusions, and general husbandry care. 

Surgery LVTs helping a patient recover after surgical repair of wounds from
a dog fight.

The specialty technicians can have their own similar challenges. In many cases, a critical patient may be transferred to a specialty department for a more advanced look into the problem. In these instances, the staff is typically moving quickly to try and coordinate many of the treatments and procedures between departments in the most efficient way possible so that appropriate care can begin immediately. For general specialty patients that come in on appointments, the cases tend to be extremely complex. This is because patients are typically referred to us by their primary care veterinarian when their doctor feels that the pet requires a board-certified specialist with increased knowledge and experience in a specific area such as surgery, internal medicine, diagnostic imaging, ophthalmology, neurology, or dermatology. 


Simply put, any technician at an emergency/specialty hospital has to know their basic LVT skills and knowledge plus the skills and knowledge needed to work with complex and critical cases. One thing remains equal across all veterinary technicians (and all other staff members) in any field of veterinary medicine: no matter where they work, they all have the same goal to care for and keep patients as comfortable as possible. People in veterinary medicine work for animals. At VSES, we do that 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. So, we thank all of our staff (and all veterinary staff) for all that they do around the clock to provide care to the animals of the world!

Dog Vs. Dog -- Canine Bite Wounds

Even play time can get out of hand. Remember, play time should
be bouncy and loose. If any of the dogs playing becomes
stiff/rigid, you should intervene before a fight begins.

As an emergency veterinarian I see bite wounds in dogs almost on a daily basis. The severity of these wounds can vary from just small lacerations to serious life threatening injuries. Frequently they involve a larger dog biting a smaller dog and/or multiple dogs attacking another dog. The scenarios where bite wounds occur are a myriad, but frequently occur at dog parks or other areas where people bring their pets to walk or run off leash. They can occur while out walking your dog on the street or even in your own yard. They can also occur among your own dogs. What is important is to know what to do in case your pet is bitten by another dog. There are many factors that affect what the best course of action is, but having your pet examined by a veterinarian as soon as possible after the bite is probably the most important.

If dogs are currently fighting do not try and grab or otherwise touch the fighting dogs as this can escalate things and you may be bitten as well. You can try to distract them with a loud noise such as banging pots or garbage can lids together, spraying with a hose, or try to get in between them by opening a large umbrella or folding chair. Once the fight is over, assess the dog(s) and begin first aid.

If the dog is small, it may be best to wrap them up in a towel or use a muzzle to safely restrain them as to prevent them from biting you; when an animal is in pain, they are more likely to bite in response to being touched. If you do not have a muzzle, one may be fastened with some gauze--a leash could work for a larger dog. If there are any bleeding wounds, direct pressure on the wound is the best to stop the bleeding. Avoid the urge to put anything on or in the wound as most over the counter topical medications such as hydrogen peroxide are not meant to go in open wounds and can cause more harm than good.

Remember, what is on the surface is not the entire
injury. Most often, bite wounds are worse than they
appear from the bacteria and crushing force of the bite.

As stated earlier, the best thing to do is to get your dog to your regular veterinarian or veterinary emergency facility as soon as possible. After your dog has been examined, in many cases, wound exploration under sedation or general anesthesia will be recommended by your veterinarian. I am often asked why we are unable to just clean the wound and put some sutures in it. The answer is that what you see on the surface is just the "tip of the iceberg". Bite wounds, by nature, cause crushing injury to the skin and tissue below. They carry hair, debris, skin bacteria, and bacteria from the biting dog's mouth--embedding them into the tissue. These wounds need to be surgically explored to remove damaged and contaminated tissue and flushed with sterile saline to remove bacteria and debris. Many of these bites will cause large pockets under the skin and may need to have drains placed to prevent fluid accumulation after the wound is closed. Antibiotics and pain medications will likely be prescribed and follow up exams will be rquired to remove drains, monitor healing and remove sutures or staples. Some wounds may dehisce (break down) because some crushing injuries damage the blood supply to the skin and this may not be apparent at the time of the initial injury. Repeated surgery and/or open wound management and skin grafts may be required for more severe wounds.

In summary, bite wounds in dogs are one of the more common injuries seen in veterinary practice. They can happen in almost any scenario imagined, have a wide range of severity and often need to be surgically explored to asses/treat the damaged tissue under the skin. Examination by a veterinarian is recommended in almost every case and frequent follow up to monitor healing.

Written by Joseph Wilder, DVM, DABVP

Hydrating Your Pet This Summer -- Mia's Story

We all enjoy spending time outdoors in the summer with our dogs, but it is important to keep them hydrated and cool to lessen the risk of heat-related illness. Our four-legged companions, unlike us, don't sweat to cool themselves and while we see them panting we may not realize the amount of water they are losing. They lose water and dissipate heat through a process called evaporation, which is the endothermic process of a fluid changing to a vapor.

By panting, dogs bring large quantities of air in contact with the mucosal surfaces of the nose and mouth. This allows them to dissipate heat, provided the air is cooler than the surface it is moving over. Your dog's ability to cool himself through this method effectively decreases as humidity increases; therefore, it is important to consider the heat index. The heat index combines air temperature and relative humidity in an attempt to determine the human-perceived equivalent temperature. So, while we are sweating away and realize we are becoming dehydrated, we don't realize that "Fido" is dehydrated. Once dehydrated, dogs are less able to cool themselves through evaporative cooling--much like a car without water in the radiator. They will rapidly overheat and suffer from heat stroke.

There are several things that can be done to help maintain adequate hydration and avoid heat stroke. First, make sure your dog has plenty of fresh water before, during and after being outside. If you are planning on taking your dog out for an extended period of time, bring along water and offer it every 15-30 minutes. Plenty of pet-friendly water bottles with dishes are available online or in your local pet and sporting goods stores.

Watch your dog for symptoms of dehydration. These include a tacky feeling when the gums are touched and the skin becoming slow to return to its natural position when pulled up. Other signs include excessive panting and a rapid heart rate. It is a good idea to evaluate your dog prior to going out so you have an idea of what his normal hydration is like. This being said, most veterinarians find it difficult to determine when a dog is less than five percent dehydrated; therefore, if you feel your pet is dehydrated it is better to err on the side of caution and stop your activity. If you suspect your dog may be dehydrated, you should offer him water and find a cool place in the shade for recovery.

To avoid dehydration in the summer sun, avoid activity in the middle of the day and allow your dog time to get used to warm temperatures. In other words, don't take him for a long walk on the first warm day of the year. Consider, also, your dog's health and breed. Dogs with heavy coats, pre-existing respiratory conditions (whether acquired or congenital) or who are overweight are at considerably more risk for having trouble as temperatures and humidity increase.

Finally, remember to never leave your dog in the car. The temperature inside your car can rapidly rise over forty degrees in an hour. The majority of the increase in temperature occurs in the first half hour. Studies have shown that having the windows "cracked" does not sufficiently decrease the temperature rise and there is virtually no difference in the temperature after one hour. So, when transporting your four-legged companions to your favorite outdoor activity, do not leave them in the car for any length of time.

This summer while you and your pup are out enjoying the weather, remember to keep his hydration and the forecast in mind. Pay careful attention to cues your dog may give that he is over-exerting himself in the heat. It is better to underestimate your dog's fitness and overestimate his dehydration than to take a chance with heatstroke.

Written by Tom Linnenbrink, DVM

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Heat stroke has been one of the major ailments we have been treating at VSES in the last few weeks. Dogs have been coming in after being left in cars on some of the hottest days, or even left outside without water or shade. The latter is the case for Mia. Mia was found by neighbors who spotted her outside and unresponsive, without proper shelter or hydration. They were instructed by Operation Gypsy Inc.-- a local volunteer group who is dedicated to located and recovering lost, missing, stray, abused and neglected pets--to call the authorities. The neighbors then began measures to cool the pup while authorities were on the way. The police instructed the owners to send this pup to our hospital for treatment and when they didn't consent to proper care, she was seized by animal control and brought to VSES.

We treated Mia for the symptoms of heat stroke and in a few days she was ready to go into foster care with a local rescue group, Rescued Treasures. Operation Gypsy Inc. is raising donations to fund the costs of this little pup's treatments at VSES. Because of the quick response of her rescuers, Mia is now able to run and play with her new foster family with her second shot of life.

The summer is at its hottest now and this week temperatures will climb into the low nineties. Please contact your veterinarian if you are unsure of what you can do to keep your pets cool or if you think your pet may be suffering from heat related ailments.

Mia's foster family sent us this wonderful video of Mia loving life and getting the chance to be a young, happy pup!