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Ticks
and Disease
For an extensive review of “Tick-borne pulmonary disease:
Update on diagnosis and management” from the staff members of
the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Stanford
University Medical Center, Palo Alto, California, see the
journal Chest, Vol. 116(1), 1999.
This technical
paper is written to assist physicians, describes the different
tick species that serve as vectors of infectious diseases to
humans and the symptoms they cause. Bear in mind that these tick
species may feed on canine blood and may infect the dog with the
same or similar organisms that can infect humans. The article
has an extensive bibliography, for those who wish to delve into
the scientific and medical literature, and excellent tables on
tick borne diseases and their diagnoses and management.
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Toenail
Clipping: Trim
Without The Trauma
The sound of clicking on the parquet floor may be telling you
that its time to trim Sheba’s nails. Dogs’ toenails,
especially if they aren’t worn down from regular exercise on
rough surfaces, need to be properly cared for.
Helping hints
Your
dog’s nails should just touch the ground. Any longer and they
may cause her trouble in getting proper traction for walking.
They can also break easily, and extremely long nails may become
ingrown, which is painful.
How do you when it’s time to cut your dog’s toenails?
There are a few telltale signs. First, if you have wood floors,
the sound of clicking nails is a good indicator. If your
scratches you when she jumps up to say hello, or her nails snag
your favorite bedspread, you can assume a trim is a good idea.
Check her nails if you notice her licking a paw: You may not
realize it, but she could have a painful broken nail. Being
vigilant about checking the state of your dog’s toenails is
especially important if she has very furry feet.
Doing the
deed
If
you’ve been trimming your dog’s toenails regularly since she
was a pup, you probably an easy time getting her to sit still
for it. Otherwise, you may need to have someone hold her while
you do the clipping. You might easily get bitten trying to hold
your dog and clip her nails at the same time.
The one absolute essential for quick, easy toenail
cutting is having good, sharp clippers. You have to be careful
not to the quick, the blood-rich skin (dermis) located inside
the nail. Dark nails can be especially troublesome, as the quick
is much harder to see. Start on the end of the toenail and make
several nips with the clippers. When you start to see moisture
on the tip of the nail, you know you’re near the quick and
it’s time to stop (the moisture is fluid from the area around
the quick). Don’t forget to clip dog’s dewclaws. Those are
located higher up on the leg and, because they don’t normally
get worn down, they can easily become ingrown.
If you do accidentally cut the quick of the nail and it
bleeds, apply pressure using a bandage, or use a styptic pen,
styptic powder, flour, cornstarch, or silver nitrate to stop the
bleeding. You may also press the nail into a bar of soap and
drag it gently, which will stop the bleeding and cause no harm
to the dog.
Ask your veterinarian to demonstrate proper nail-clipping
technique. If you cannot do the clipping yourself, your
veterinarian or groomer can do it for you. Veterinarians will
often clip toenails when dogs are under anesthesia during
surgical procedures, as well.
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Veterinarian
Groups Opposed to Ear Cropping, Tail Docking
The American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) and the
American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) both came out
publicly warning that there is risk in the standard practices of
ear cropping and tail docking, as currently done for many dog
breeds.
Although some of these surgeries have ostensibly been
performed to prevent hunting breeds of having long tails that
can be injured during the hunt, nowadays they serve a purely
cosmetic function, as the AAHA and the AVMA statements indicate.
Neither the AAHA nor AVMA suggests that veterinarians refuse to
perform such surgeries, but the trend is not to do them.
Both ear cropping and tail docking are outlawed for show
dogs in Canada and the Untied Kingdom. Tail docking been more
illegal in Norway and effective Jan. 1 of this year, dogs with
docked tails can no longer be imported into that country.
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