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Category: Health Page 3 of 4
Can dogs eat the fruit, Durian?
There is very little online information on this that I can find but apparently yes but in small quantities only, if the links referenced at the end of this post are accurate. :P
For a while there, every time we visited the vet we were informed that Donna’s weight had gone up again. The vet is an hour’s walk away, so it didn’t make sense to walk our overweight dog over in the hot sun just to weigh her regularly. A two-hour walk there and back is generally too much for our princess dog to handle as well. Donna is not handbag size, and she gets worried when her feet are not firmly on the ground, so the best way to weigh her is to get her to get on our digital weighing scale (for humans :P) herself. Hah!!
But of course, she did have this habit where she will view all new things I try to introduce to her suspiciously. So it took time to get her to get on the weighing scale on her own accord. Practising doggy parkour outside helped a lot. Once, she got the concept of “up-up” outside, she totally got that I wanted her to get on the weighing scale. Doesn’t mean she is that happy to be there though.
This is how we weigh the dog – on the human’s weighing scale!
And since she was supposed to be on a diet, we had to cut back on the treats. So I ended up giving her her meals while she sat on the weighing machine.
Conditioning the dog to like being on the weighing scale by giving her food rewards in that position
Pretty soon she had cued in to what was happening and couldn’t wait to hop on the weighing scale and go into an automatic sit the minute it landed on the floor. But in the case of this video below, she was perhaps getting bored of the exercise because it was the 3rd or 4th take already :P
First time for me using the vine app to take looping videos. It takes some getting use to as one needs to tap and hold in order to record the video. The first take was bad because towards the end her head got cut off by the frame :P
While it took some time to get a good 6-second take on Vine, the actual posting of the video thereafter was quick and easy. However, this also means that there is no selection of filters that one can apply to the video and there is no small list of music to layer over the movie, in the case of people like me, who cringe to hear myself speaking on the video :P
Is your dog having success at doing something you have trained together? Fame him :) Details on eileenanddogs.
I feel like a Doomsday Prepper!
So the officially reported PSI index hovers around 300 and at one point it was 400 today. Hazardous all the way~
Seniors, mums-to-be, children and people with heart or respiratory problems are advised to don the N95 respiratory mask when outside and in general to avoid outdoors. Healthy persons should also be masked if “prolonged and strenuous outdoor activity is unavoidable.”
But what about dogs who need their daily walks? And some dogs are outdoor dogs, what about them?
Keep all pets indoors during the haze and if your rabbits or small pets are kept in balconies, bring them in. They are especially at risk for smoke inhalation due to their small lung capacity. Smoke inhalation can cause chronic pneumonia and can be fatal if the animal is no longer able to compensate. Note any signs of breathing difficulty and bring them to your vet immediately.
And the Mount Pleasant Animal Medical Centre says:
Animals have an increased sensitivity to foreign particles and constant exposure to polluted air may place them in the position to develop respiratory problems.
Pets that are in greater danger include:
- pets with heart/lung disease
- young pets less than 1 year old
- geriatric pets above 6-7 years old
- pets with debilitating conditions, e.g. kidney, liver problems
- pets with eye conditions
However, the advice they posted on their Facebook pages should probably apply to all pets:
- Keep pets indoors where possible
- Do short but more frequent toilet breaks instead of long walks
- Wipe down face, body and paws thoroughly with damp cloth after walks
- Use artificial tears 2-3x daily to flush away possible eye irritants
- Turn on air conditioner/fan where possible
- Change water bowls often
- Monitor for redness in eye, abnormal eye discharge, excessive sneezing or coughing. If observed, seek medical attention
- Monitor PSI and PM2.5 levels via the NEA website at http://www.nea.gov.sg/psi/
- PSI
- PM2.5 (PM2.5 concentrations measure smaller particles that can settle in the lungs.)
- less than 40 = safe (– Donna and I go out for short walks due haze period)
- more than 40= unsafe – Donna and I go out for loo breaks
In terms of the possible effects of smoke haze on pets:
- Irritation of the nose and throat
- Increased mucous production
- Tendency to cough
- Eye irritation, redness and discharge
- Lung problems if severe; bronchitis, asthma
- Skin irritation; rashes
In general, its good to have your regular vet clinic’s contact number as well as the nearest emergency after-hours vet contact. So if the above effects manifest themselves excessively or your pet is finding it hard to breathe, you’d be able to reach medical attention quickly.
I’ve consolidated the points above from 2 posters. You can view the original information at here and here. And also news references here and here.
And why do I feel like a Doomsday Prepper? I spent a good part of the morning calling and hunting for N95 masks to no avail. They are just not in stock and if they are, there are long queues or sold out the next second. We are not too concerned for ourselves since we are healthy adults but it would be nice to get some for our older parents and grandparents. Of course, getting stubborn parents/grandparents to wear them is another matter!! :P
The fat dog is too chill to be a doomsday prepper! :P
Fat, lazing around pets. The tragedy of pets living in small apartments with busy working humans? A result of over feeding or treating? Perhaps we were guilty of both.
Feeding a pet plenty of food is not kindness to a cat/dog. Check out Paying the Price of a Fat Pet and also Health Risks in Overweight/Obese Dogs to be in the know.
So I wrote that our dog had been consistently gaining weight towards the end of a recent post, until we took steps to cut back on fatty canned food, take her out to more exercise (which our fat dog had no stamina for really…) and get our fat dog on her feet more often at home. Ok, technically she was just overweight, not obese, but she did look like a huge lazy lump pictured above right?
If Donna has a voice: “Oy, who you calling fat!”
Anyway, Donna finally has curves…the right ones. You know, not that curving bulge in her tummy or around her ribs and rump.
If Donna has a voice: “Oy, stop calling me fat! I am warning you.”
Actually you know she doesn’t care. Donna’s true voice:
Gimme food. Food good. I eat more food at the shelter than here. I can even eat all the good stuff in Buddy’s (her cellmate) food and leave him with the leftovers. That old man dog is nice to me, not like you.
You can of course appreciate why Buddy got skinnier as the fat dog got fatter eating two shares of food. Poor buddy. Now where was I?
Oh yes, as I was saying, this not so little girl has some curves going in the right direction now, woohoo~
You can view the bigger chart here, via Fat dog to skinny dog: How we did it.
The last we weighed, Donna was around 15.4-15.6kg. For this weight, the vet had advise that she was still over weight but Donna can stay around this range if she does not gain any more weight. Given the vet’s feedback, Donna is perhaps at 6 according to the chart. Abdominal tuck apparent, discernible waist but my untrained eyes can’t really see her ribs. Heh. :P
Finishing up this post with the continued objectification of my dog to further explore the topic of “Curves” in the weekly photo challenge. :P
The curves of her black and tan coat and her dew claw.
The curves of her short hair as they work their way around the curves of her legs. I particularly like this last one of her legs.
The air quality deteriorated this week as the winds brought in the haze from Indonesia created by forest fires and agricultural practices that include the use of fire to clear land.
Before haze,
After haze, as you can see buildings in the distance are obscured.
Before haze even with the rain, one can see the shadowed hills lying behind the buildings in the distance.
After haze, that rolling relief is obscured.
It’s still not too bad near home although the smoky, burnt smell in the air is palpable. In the city to the south of the island where Mr P works, the visibility was even worse he said. Still a health advisory was issued, and we are to keep indoors. This comes on top of our dengue threat. We are just at the starting of the dengue season.
And since we are a kiasu nation, face-masks and mosquito-repelling plants are apparently snatched up as soon as they hit the shelves.
And all this means, outdoor walks for Donna may have to be shortened depending on the PSI index. Donna’s bored, but at least she gets to enjoy the super rare treat that is air-conditioning.
The neighbourhood street cat? Not so lucky.
Ah this stupid haze, retreat! Retreat!
Actually, he/she was more retreating from a trigger-happy human and her dog. Hah!! I’m sorry for harassing the neighbourhood cat. It was not harmed in anyway, and Donna was walking and stopping with me the whole way and not a threat to the cat either. ;)
You know the Adopt, Don’t Buy slogan? It makes sense if one wants a pet and is not picky about the breed. Save a life from a shelter and they can get more injured/unwanted strays off the street.
Note: The newspaper has copyright over the newspaper. So I’ll be obliged to take it down if requested to.
The last time we had to feed Donna any pills was when she came down with the kennel cough. At that time the pills were really small and it was easy to just hide it in scoops of canned food and hand feed her to make sure the pill goes down her throat with her food.
This time for her being poisoned by a hydrangea leaf, we were issued bigger pill capsules as well as a bottle of syrup that smelled strongly of mint. Definitely not easy-peasy items to hide in scoops of canned food.
I had never really tried to pry Donna’s mouth opened before on my own. Like hello, dog newbie here! That looks like a lot of teeth.
But when I first found her with the bit of hydrangea leaf that she had spat on the floor, I just pried her mouth opened without overly thinking things. It was really not difficult, and she did not really give much of a struggle. And that really gave me confidence to just pry her mouth open and pop the larger pills in her mouth. (She wouldn’t eat it on her own if you just offer it to her like one would a treat, so…). But just prying her mouth open and popping it in doesn’t help because her highness will do that tongue flicking thing until she migrates it from the back of her tongue to the front or side of her tongue where she can conveniently flick it out onto the floor again. And all the while her posture will be screaming urghh, yuck! at you. And when she is done, you may be sure she will fill you in on her disapproval with a loud snort or two, hack maybe even three. Not that her displeasure counts, because I’ll still want those pills in her for her own good.
So nowadays, maybe it sounds a bit bad but I just stick a finger at the side of her mouth to pry it open, pop the pill in and hold her muzzle close very gently since she doesn’t even struggle and wait for her to swallow. And I do mean wait because that dog can hold that pill in her mouth and just sit still as a rock for however long it takes until the capsule dissolves and she decides to swallow rather than to continue have the mess of dissolved capsule and powder coating her tongue.
Oh yes, she can look unimpressed until the pill disappears down her throat and it is time for a treat. I treat her after each and every pill she swallows but I don’t think that has helped her to decide to swallow it faster to get at the treat faster. The good thing is she is not averse to pills and will sit there and calmly wait for you to pry her mouth open, versus the more compulsive panic she displays when you need to squirt stuff in her ears to clean them.
Do you have a better way to feed pills to a dog? I would love to hear since my achievement in that area is only to force it in and make her swallow.
Even before the fish and the dog came along, we had the plants. My very blighted wrightia religiosa, my blighted by association dracaena frangrans on one end of the balcony and on the other end, my water sucking hydrangea.
The hydrangea is not a very common or popular houseplant in my country, I don’t think. Except over Chinese New Year, when households will buy for decorative purposes and then throw away. So it is probably not common knowledge over here at least that the hydrangea is poisonous to dogs.
Hydrangeas are one of those interesting plants with cyanogenic glycosides. Basically, this means that under times of stress, the plant can have available CYANIDE, which is extremely toxic…The plant does contain irritants that can cause Gastrointestinal irritation (GI), and most of the time mild self-limiting GI upset can be seen – mild vomiting and diarrhea. In larger ingestion, you can see more severe vomiting and diarrhea, and hyperthermia has been reported. Some cases can develop vomiting or diarrhea with blood. The treatment for hydrangea toxicity is supportive / symptomatic care. – via justanswer.com
I love the large bushels of flowers that the plant produces, so we never really considered getting rid of the plant for the dog’s safety. And Donna had scant curiosity for the plant anyway, she spent most of her time in the living room and I can count on one hand the number of times she ventured onto the balcony by herself.
And so we thought we could trust her to leave the plant alone.
Aigh… our complacency had its downfall.
I suppose it was inevitable Donna eventually decided to sample a leaf.
I was in the kitchen at the time but could hear her bell and tag clanking from the balcony. As usual, I went to check because we don’t really think the balcony is the safest place for the dog considering the posionous plant and the potential for free fall down more than 20 floors to smack on the landscape garden below.
I was too late to witness anything but the circumstantial evidence.
A quarter of a leaf torn off. Half of it spat on the floor. The other half not in her mouth, but one can smell the zesty scent of greenery hurriedly swallowed in that recalcitrant maw of hers.
I was vexed. I didn’t know what to do, or what was going to happen. Perhaps she could detect I was vexed, she gave me gentle licks on my leg as I stood watching the bit of leaf lying limply on the floor.
She was lively still, hardly dying.
Should I make her drink lots of water? Not that I know how to do that. She drank at her own time, her own discretion.
Should I still feed her her dinner that was already on the kitchen counter.
The vet’s reception was always busy. They didn’t pick up my phone call. I sent an email. I googled.
I found an answer here.
Since she seems fine now, she’s probably going to be ok, although is she’s showing any signs of respiratory distress, take her immediately to your veterinarian.
For now, I would not feed her for 12 hours to allow her GI tract to settle. You can offer her small amounts of water beginning 2 hours after her last vomiting episode – if she can hold down the water, you can slowly allow her to have more at 1 time, until you can leave the bowl down for her.
When you do feed her, I would recommend a bland diet for 1-2 days of boiled chicken and rice – fat free, and a little broth, just to be on the safe side. She could have a very irritated or even ulcerated stomach lining. No treats or human food for 3-5 days.
You can also administer 1/2 of a 10 mg pepcid (if you have one) when you begin offering water. This may help with stomach upset, and can be repeated every 12-24 hours.
If she continues to vomit, or develops other symptoms, please see your vet.
Since it didn’t seem advisable to feed her and the rain had stopped, I took her out for a slow leisurely walk, which is something that we usually do at that time of day anyway. Perhaps fifteen minutes later, Donna started to vomit. A small round pile of yellowish muck about the size of a mug. And she would continue to hurl five times more. When she ran out of yellowish muck, she puked white foam.
Apart from the times she sat down and threw up, she was still very active and spent no time wasted inspecting the grass.
But by the sixth time, we decided enough is enough and took her to the vet.
Like the last time we were there as a walk in, we were the last to see the vet. The vet tech recommended no water for Donna while we waited. A patch of hair on her neck was shaved off, a blood test was done.
The results, the levels for her liver was slightly high, about 10points higher than normal. Otherwise, she wasn’t in any pain or discomfort, being still lively and frankly recalcitrant and perhaps unaware of her misadventure.
But oh is she serving her penance now, in the form of regular doses of disgusting gut protecting pills and supplements containing milkthistle among other things. She hates the minty taste and snorts her disgust every time I shoot the liquid down her throat with a syringe. What to do? Doctor’s orders.
Another blood test two days later found her liver levels normal again.
And we are now vigilantly closing balcony doors whenever we are not in the living room with her!
Pictured left: Donna at the vet looking at the cleaner vacuuming the floor on the other end after closing time. We were still waiting to pay vet bills and to get her medication. It wasn’t too bad since we could laugh at “The Noose” which was playing on TV.
I made this dog spray quite some time ago but didn’t use it that often because for a while Donna was fearful of being sprayed at. But what with the insect bite allergy, scratching and some skin abrasion, I probably should start using it more often. Here’s the instructions for making your own!
