King Wyatt!

Wyatt is an adorable patient at VCA Veterinary Referral Associates. He has had three brain surgeries with our neurologist, Dr. Steven Steinberg.

I call him ‘King Wyatt’ because he rules the Critical Care Unit whenever he is here. Because of time constraints, I made him an official crown with construction paper, tape, and a roll of cotton gauze. When it was complete, he paraded around the hospital wearing it and brightened everyone’s day. His Mom, who is a local veterinarian, loved it too and said that seeing the crowned Wyatt made her day as well!

Natalie Baker

CCU technician

Categories: Canine Brain Tumor Surgical Considerations, The Veterinary Patient

Staff "Pup"date: Debbi and Dewey!

Check out this week’s “pup”date! Our Marketing Manager, Debbi, picked up her adorable Frenchton puppy, Dewey, last weekend. The first thing she did was have him checked out by the veterinarian. We are happy to say that he was given a clean bill of health. Check out Dewey’s first picture with his first veterinarian, Dr. Vega!

Categories: dogs, Our Team, staff pets, The Veterinary Patient

What To Do if Your Dog Has Intervertebral Disc Disease?

Intervertebral Disc Disease (IVD), also known as Degenerative Disc Disease or a “slipped disc,” is a very dangerous and painful ailment for your dog. If untreated, this issue will cause your dog extreme pain, and even rapidly cause total and irreversible paralysis.

Categories: The Veterinary Patient

How To Administer Fluids to Your Pet

Administering Fluids to Your Pet

Categories: The Veterinary Patient

How to Treat Diabetes in Dogs and Cats

Veterinary Centers of America has compiled some of the best Diabetes Mellitus related information for treating dogs and cats available. Below Dr. Tina Conway gives a short overview. For more detailed information go to:

Categories: The Veterinary Patient

Cage Confinement Tips for Dogs With Spinal Diseases

The vast majority of dogs with mild to moderate spinal disease--especially when intervertebral disc prolapses are suspected--do amazingly well with STRICT cage confinement. This is in most cases this is more important than any medications we can put a dog on. Actually, in many cases, medication actually increases movement and increases the recovery time.

So how do you cope with cage confinement? Typically, it’s harder on the owner than it is the dog. But remember—it’s for the best!

How To Cope With Cage Confinement

Below are some tips to get you and your dog through cage confinement:

• The best cages are the fiberglass airline carriers. The floor space should be just large enough for your dog to turn around, but no larger. Extra space can be taken up with a cardboard box or pillow if the cage is too large. Here are two different examples of cages to use. We don't endorse any specific kennel brand. The wire cages are not perfect--animals with paresis in particular can get their feet caught in them—so be cautious.
• Food and water in the cage is best but some animals are too messy and may require these activities occurring outside of the cage.
• The first 48 hours usually set the tone for this confinement. If every time your dog whines you go to them, they will want you sitting there all of the time. Putting them somewhere where there isn’t a lot of activity and foot traffic is usually best.
• Your pet should be restricted to going out-of-doors--no more than three times per day. and that is just to use the bathroom--no exercise!
• A re-examination after the two weeks is strongly suggested. We are very active in canine rehabilitation training and we believe that rehabilitation activities can prevent recurrences.
• Evaluations at each out-of-doors trip to be sure your pet is continuing to improve are very important.
• If your pet isn’t making steady progress and improvement, we should be contacted immediately. Continued improvement should be expected and any loss of progress may be very important. Large changes from walking to paralysis should be considered emergencies. Call us immediately.

For more information, contact VCA-VRA today.

Categories: The Veterinary Patient

Does Your Dog Have Degenerative Myelopathy?

Degenerative Myelopathy is a diagnosis that no pet owner wants to hear. But with a simple at-home test, you can point to an answer. Of course, it is important to always consult a professional at VCA-VRA if you have any questions.

Signs of Degenerative Myelopathy in Dogs

Being on the lookout is important with this disease—it does not cause pain in your dog, so they won’t actively whimper or cry. Also some of the serious signs—loss of bowl control and the loss of functionality in limbs—do not come until late in the disease. If you notice that your dog is moving slowly, or suspect a spinal problem, here are some things to look out for:

• The condition is slowly progressive and unrelenting
• Your dog begins to drag one a hind limb, followed by a spreading of this asymmetry through a side of their body
• It is unresponsive to the medications that are commonly used for spinal conditions, such as corticosteroids and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications

Keeping your dog active is a great method of prevention.

About Degenerative Myelopathy

In 1973 the disease was first described by Dr. Skip Averill, who thought it was a degenerative condition of the mid-thoracic spinal cord. He thought it primarily affected German Shepherds, Collies, and mixes of those two breeds. While clinical signs had been noted years before, it was thought previously to be the result of compression of the spinal cord from ossifications within the dura—described as ossifying pachymengitis. However, in the mid-70’s, it was learned that several other breeds of dogs having similar symptoms.

Although a great deal of anecdotal information was presented on the internet, very little hard data was available to add to the science of this disease. Within the last few years, it became a serious problem in Corgis. Dr. Joan Coates and Dr. Gary Johnson and their co-workers have found a genetic association in this disease that has been found to be statistically relevant.

Unfortunately, the test will only determine if a dog can get the disease. But fortunately, false negatives are virtually unheard of. This means that if one's dog is negative for this disease with this test, our science today tells us they don't have DM.

In addition, a genetic link has been found between the dog disease and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)—commonly called Lou Gehrig's disease.

VCA-VRA supports this test. Not because it is perfect--but because this diagnosis is frequently used when a dog has an undiagnosed spinal cord condition. There are other diseases that are progressive and some of them are not fatal. Degenerative Myelopathy, to the best of our knowledge, is always fatal. We encourage owners to perform this simple, at-home test and see if their dog is negative. If so, they should consider further testing to find out whether their dog has a similar-looking neurologic condition.

Resources

For some more information bout degenerative myelopathy, check out these links:

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/02/02/0812297106.full.pdf+html

http://www.caninegeneticdiseases.net/DM/ancmntDM.htm

http://secure.offa.org/cart.html

Categories: The Veterinary Patient

Veterinary Medicine: It's All in the Journey

I was blessed by a great beginning to my veterinary neurology career. I became hooked on the nuances of a vast, complex system that was an enigma to most, but a rather straight journey through every neuron and pathway that controlled an animal's body, envisioned and shared through the eyes of a great teacher, Dr. Skip Averill.

This journey, though, didn't solidify until I was exposed to a mentor who was truly in awe of what he didn't know and what at the time was unknowable. A mind that was able to avoid the pitfalls of oversimplification but with an efficiency of language on the edge of the sacred, he produced short concise sentences that avoided faithfully an unknown or unproven thought. This, my greatest teacher, mixed language skills and knowledge in a way that made those in his presence self-conscious of their own communications. This ability was lost on most and incomprehensible for many. In a setting, where too many were in awe of what they knew, this was a fresh way of projecting knowledge that was too unique for many to grasp. This was my second teacher Dr. Sheldon Steinberg (no relation to me).


The slide from studying and grasping the intricacies of what was known to the arena of appreciation of what wasn't known, ignited a passion in me to try to recognize the truth when available and feel the power of what wasn't understood on a continual basis. I have yet to put my arms around these topics with clear and efficient language but the groundwork for the thought processes is strongly in place. Every known becomes shrouded in the uncertain. Every diagnoses is challenged. Every truth is held up to the light, looking for that crack that shows its insides to be different than expected.

Many think that we in veterinary medicine are hamstrung by patients that can't convey by language the simplest of facts but this is a total misconception. Our history taking skills are well honed, our powers of observation must be strong, our hands must be determined, our senses on edge but ask any veterinary clinician if they miss verbal communication with their patients and they will invariably state that they hadn't even noticed it was missing.

The "toys of medical science" have brought a new dimension to our quest to discover but have not hardly replaced our most basic of tools. In this state of transition we have made some serious missteps. We often confuse the paperwork with the patient. We often convince ourselves that we have a diagnosis when we may be simply close to one. We often believe the patient recovered because of us, when in fact it was in spite of us.

Mastery of a skill, it has been said, takes about ten years. Those of us who are in the hands-on professions know what dues have to be paid to become skilled, but there are few joys that can compare with holding a beloved pet in ones hands and through skilled manipulation determine the most productive next direction and from that step determine the most productive treatment options and from that step see the most beautiful gaze of thanks from an owner and their animal friend, who now have a diagnosis and hopefully a successful treatment ahead of them.

Categories: The Veterinary Patient, VRA's History