Month: March 2020

150 We were still open!

Yes we are still open! That seems to be the Number One question my staff is getting on the phone. We are using “Curbside appointments “ like most vets. I am using telemedicine to examine the patients. So far we have “seen” dogs, cats, and even a rabbit!

We are doing grooming ( until the city , county or state says we can’t), but no boarding.

Dr Frank Pena is here in person on Fridays.

We are filling medications, medicated diets, and doing lab work. It is now fully Spring so it is very important to keep those dogs and outside cats on heart worm, flea, and tick prevention.

We are referring truly sick pets that need hospitalization or surgery to the Center for Veterinary Specialty and Emergency Care at 2700 Lake Vista Drive on Hwy 121 near Costco. They are open 24 hours a day. 972-820-7099.

In the vet news: a cat in Belgium who lives with a corona virus positive owner has tested positive. That makes 2 dogs and 1 cat in the whole world. In the US, my laboratory company  Idexx, has run thousands of Covid-19 tests on dog and cat samples with no positives. Should the need arise to tests pets, they are ready to go. I don’t think it will happen, unless this darn virus mutates.

Until something changes, we will be open and ready to serve your pet needs, while staying safe. Let’s all use this time to slow down, reconnect with our new 2 legged and 4 legged families, while staying healthy. We are in this for the long haul.

149 Open with Curbside Appointments

Here at Garden Ridge Animal Hospital we have decided to stay open with curbside appointments so we can serve the pets and still maintain social distancing. And lots of sanitizing.

Curbside appointments work like a “drop off” but the human stays in the car. We use phones to communicate and pay. We are still getting our supplies from our distributors and prescription foods and can still fill prescriptions. And we work closely with our online pharmacy, Vetsource, to make online shopping easy and convenient.

We are close to rolling out a Telemedicine option for minor illnesses. Stay tuned.

We are getting a lot of calls about if COVID-19 is zoonotic. We have no evidence that it is, but the one 17 year old Pomeranian in Hong Kong that tested positive back on February 24 was just released after 2 negative tests. Then went home, died, and no autopsy was performed. It is very easy for this virus to linger in droplets one an animals fur or feathers and allow transmission person to person just like a door knob or light switch. Don’t let pets be around a coughing person.

148 Covid 19 and Garden Ridge Animal Hospital

As this pandemic reaches the US, Texas, and now Dallas, I have four concerns:

1) This is an airborne human virus. We are ramping out our sanitation even more than usual. I am sure no one wants to get sick or infect their loved ones. People might not have symptoms and still be infectious. Please don’t be offended if we not only sanitized the exam table, but also the chairs, doorknobs and light switches. I won’t be shaking hands or hugging people for a while. We will have Clorox wipes out for clients to use at the checkout counter, and our credit card Point of Sale Debit terminal can use “tap” as well as chip insert, if your phone or card is enabled. I want our clients to be assured we are doing everything we can to keep our hospital virus free.

2) We might be short staffed if we get sick. We are a small business and will soldier on. We might have to get creative (telemedicine) for rechecks and refills of medicines. If we have to close temporarily, we will post it on the website- www.gardenridgevet.com

3) We might have future drug shortages. The AVMA is monitoring the manufacturers closely, but there could be interruptions in our supply lines. If your pet is on a prescription medicine or diet, you might try to keep a 30-60-day supply at home “just in case”.

4) There might be fears that dogs (or cats?) might be “carriers” of the disease. As of March 4, 2020, there was one asymptomatic dog in Hong Kong that has tested positive twice whose owner is sick with Covid 19 . Pet hair could certainly carry this aerosolized virus around. If you get sick, it is recommended you let another family member take care of the pet and avoid contact.

147 Lessons from the Parvo Epidemic in 1970s

All the news about the human novel Corona virus outbreak is bringing back faint memories of the Canine Parvo Epidemic in 1978/79. Actually, dogs do get a Corona virus, mostly with mild GI signs like mild Parvo. It was never contagious to humans. Humans get a  respiratory parvo disease, called Fifths Disease, that has a rash like a face that has been slapped.

Way back in the dark ages of 1979, I was just being accepted in the Texas A&M Veterinary College, so I wasn’t in clinical practice yet. There was a mutation of a suspected feline or mink parvo virus, CPV2, that ran through dogs of all ages all over the world with severe vomiting, bloody diarrhea, shock, and death if not aggressively treated. It stripped the linings of the gut, allowed for bacteria to enter the bloodstream, caused septicemia, and wiped out the white cells that fight infection, which often lead to death because NO dogs had any immunity. It hit puppies and even old dogs, with a high fatality rate. Fortunately, Parvo is mostly an unvaccinated puppy disease. Many of us seasoned citizens remember with horror how devastating this disease was. And how bad it smelled.

First we discovered it was transmitted from the vomit and diarrhea, not airborne. We had to figure out the incubation (5-10 days), and how long the recovered dogs shed virus AFTER recovery(2-3 weeks!). We had trouble getting good confirmatory tests and the treatment (though mostly fluids and antibiotics for days) was expensive and cost prohibitive for many. Many dogs died. Fortunately, it didn’t affect people or cats. Some vets had whole parvo wards. I treated a 12-year-old dog for parvo in 1981 at vet school. We had a special Isolation Ward for highly contagious cases. We used a lot of bleach to disinfect cages, so we wore gloves and boots. We were worried about tracking around the hospital or bringing it home to our own dogs.

Initially, vets reached out to the only vaccine we had, feline panleukopenia. It was for the wrong species and didn’t work well. It was several years before we had good vaccines, that had lasting immunity. I remember when we vaccinated every 6 months for parvo. The technology for diagnosis took years to mature, but now we have a quick in-house swab test that gives us results in minutes. It still has flaws, and have false negatives early in the disease, or if the puppy is still nursing and has maternal antibodies. We even rarely see a false positive for a few days after vaccination. The virus had a few more minor mutations over the last 40 years, so we do see occasional outbreaks, but we have it mostly under control now. Some breeds seem more susceptible, like the Rottweiler, Doberman Pinscher, Labs, and Pit bulls.

I hope and pray we get this Covid 19 virus under control quicker than we did Canine Parvovirus. I am optimistic about improvements in testing, treatments, and vaccination. But I am realistic, so for now am focusing on sanitation and avoiding this novel virus in humans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canine_parvovirus