On April 30, 1990, I opened Garden Ridge Animal Hospital. My ex-husband and I envisioned a free-standing homey small animal hospital where we could be our own bosses, grow a business, raise children, engage in our community, and have a wonderful life. The business succeeded, but the marriage failed in 1997 shortly after the birth of my son, Wayne. Life went on, I met a wonderful man in 2002, we married, and today we are celebrating 15 years of marriage.
Here I am 30 years later, and it has been a wonderful ride. The technology, computers, websites, and medicines, children and my hair color have changed, but the fundamentals of the human-animal bond, examining a pet, doing surgery, and communication with staff and owners are steadfast. The types of patients I have seen has changed slightly over the years, especially since I started seeing exotic pets like rabbits, ferrets, birds, reptiles, and pocket pets (rodents, hedgehogs). The last six weeks have been a crazy period, but we are still open for business. I am missing seeing my clients, many I have known for close to 30 years. I even have two clients I knew before 1990 from the first practice I worked at in Dallas, Hines North Animal Hospital.
I have been blessed with fantastic staff, pet parents, wonderful patients, lots of interesting cases, and social involvement. I have been on the City of Lewisville Animal Control committee several times, serving 6-8 years all together, most recently during the construction of the new Animal Shelter by Railroad Park. I have lead Girl Scout troops, Cub Scout troops, and hosted numerous scouting merit badge events. I have done Career Days at the High School level and Middle School level. I have worked with child daycares for Bite Prevention. We treat classroom pets. We work with pet stores to keep their critters healthy.
Lately, I have gotten involved with the Medical Reserve Corp in Denton, and Ham radio out in East Texas where we have a small cattle ranch and Airbnb lodge. My mom is alive and well, but cannot drive, so we do a weekly “lunch”, and run errands. And I get to enjoy my granddaughter in Flower Mound!
Achievements:
AAHA certification since 2006
Fear Free Certification since 2017
Best Animal Hospital People Choice Award
Best Landscaping award in 1995
I had hoped to do something special for the 30th anniversary. Something like a big open house, or a big 30% off sale, but that is not going to happen during the time of the Coronavirus. Maybe I will just have to do it for the 31st anniversary!
I hope to see ya’ll soon! Stay safe. Hug your pets.
Month: April 2020
155 Rabbit Hemorrhagic Fever Outbreak in Texas
Finally, something that does not involve the Corona virus! It does involve another highly contagious and highly fatal viral disease of animals, specifically bunnies, both pet and wild species. It is not contagious to people (not zoonotic). Rabbit Hemorrhagic Fever is not new in the world but is new in the United States. Worldwide, there are 2 different strains, RHFV1 and RHFV2. The latest outbreak here in Texas is RHFV2, and it spread from New Mexico this month, mostly from wild rabbits because of the coronavirus has cancelled all the rabbit shows.
Who? We have several pools of rabbits in Texas. I mostly deal with individual pet rabbits, but some people raise rabbits commercially for show or meat or fur. There are Rabbit Shows just like there are Dog Shows. I saw hundreds of rabbits at the Fort Worth Stock Show in February. Wild bunnies, like jackrabbits and cottontails, are a slightly different species but are also affected by RHFV2. Currently, RHFV2 is limited to rabbits, domestic and wild, in the Texas Panhandle (Lubbock) and TransPecos (El Paso) parts of Texas
What? It is a virus from the calicivirus family (not coronavirus). For the symptoms, think Ebola for rabbits. This virus causes life threatening bleeding in a matter of days, from exposure to symptoms, and they die quickly by bleeding out.
“The time from infection to first signs of disease may be up to nine days. Affected rabbits may develop a fever and die within 36 hours. Infected rabbits may appear dull and be reluctant to eat; have congested membranes around the eyes; show signs of nervousness, incoordination or excitement; and/or make paddling movements. They may have trouble breathing. Upon death, they may have a blood-stained, frothy nasal discharge. Infection with the RHD virus causes lesions throughout internal organs and tissues, particularly the liver, lungs and heart, resulting in bleeding. Mortality rates range between 40% and 100% for RHDV/RHDVa and 5% and 70% for RHDV2.” Lisa Wogen, VIN, April 14,2020.
How? How did this virus get here? We are not sure, but it is in Texas now. For wild rabbits, it is easily spread through birds and lice and biting insects. For domestic rabbits (pets and rabbitries), it is easily spread from materials such as bedding, food, water, and clothing of handlers. If all bunnies “self-isolate” from others, they cannot catch it through the air. This is easy enough for pet bunnies, maybe hard for commercial rabbittries, but impossible for wild rabbits.
Where? Currently, it in just in far West Texas and the Panhandle. We fear it will spread in wild rabbits to the DFW area eventually. When it is here, we will have to think twice about letting house bunnies outside to play in the backyard.
When? Now is the best time to start strict biosecurity if you have bunnies or visit friends with bunnies. In Spain and France, there are approved vaccines for RHFV1 and RHFV2, but we do not have easy access to those. Vets in Texas are pooling together to get special permission to import vaccine, but we do not have a price or timeline yet. Stay tuned.
Why? We don’t think this was intentional or malicious, unlike the outbreak in Australia in the 1990s to control wild rabbits. It just happened.
This is big news in the bunny world. I will be “hopping” to stay on top of it!
https://www.aphis.usda.gov/publications/animal_health/fs-rhdv2.pdf
https://www.tahc.texas.gov/news/brochures/TAHCBrochure_BiosecurityRabbit.pdf
http://www.cfsph.iastate.edu/Factsheets/pdfs/rabbit_hemorrhagic_disease.pdf
https://tscra.org/viral-disease-confirmed-in-wild-texas-rabbits-die-offs-reported/
154 Ivermectin to Treat Covid-19?
Some of you may have heard or read about a study that showed some efficacy of using ivermectin to kill corona virus. I was excited when I first read the headline because I have gobs of ivermectin and its cousins (selamectin, moxidectin, milbemycin) in the form of chewable dog heartworm prevention and large animal products (Ivomec) in pour on and injection forms. Heck, I even use diluted cattle Ivomec when I treat little hedgehogs and mice for mites!
But alas, the article is very clear that they were only testing infected cells in a Petri dish with ivermectin, and that is not going to help us right now. So, don’t go crazy and order some cattle Ivomec and ask me the human dose.
Ivermectin is used in many species, including humans (which I can’t prescribe for) as a tablet for parasitic worms (intestinal strongyloidiasis and onchocerciasis) and topical formulations for the treatment of external parasites such as headlice and skin conditions such as rosacea.
When ivermectin was first approved for use in dogs as monthly Heartgard tablet (not even the chewable), it was a really big deal, because before that we had only had daily DEC ( Diethylcarbamazine= liquid Dirocide or chewable Marmaduke tablets) and it tasted nasty. Some good old boys figured out the ingredient, ivermectin, was in the horse paste, and started giving it to their dogs, based on the weight compared to a horse dose. It was highly inaccurate, and some collie type dogs have a weird genetic mutation (MDR1), that makes them VERY sensitive to ivermectin class drugs and other drugs, and these “horse doses” caused neurological signs, seizures, and death. True story. The research finally revealed that dogs need a super tiny dose to prevent heartworms (about 1.5% as much as the deworming dose/# for horse), and it was safe for all dogs, even those with MD1 mutation.
Veterinarians will be closely watching the research of why a dewormer will kill a virus, and I pray we find a simple, inexpensive cure for this darn Sars-Co-2 virus soon. Until then, don’t eat your dog’s heartworm prevention. He needs it more than you do.
153 Tiger By the Tail
As you may have heard over the last few days, one tiger in the Bronx Zoo in New York City recently tested positive for Sars-Co-2 ( the virus that is causing Covid-19 illness in humnas). It really did. And that contradicts what we have generally thought about this corona virus.
I have spent a lot of time this week learning more about this situation in animals. This virus, Sars-Co-2, is new but the first one (Sars-Co-1) that caused SARS in early 2000s has been extensively studied in animals. First, animal get many corona viruses themselves. Dogs and cats have at least 3 that I have clinically seen, so they aren’t rare. They are as common as “the common cold”. Some cause respiratory symptoms, some cause gastrointestinal symptoms.
Researchers over the last 15 years have been seeing if the human Sars-Co-1 could infected animal species like dogs, cats, horses, and ferrets. It can. It rarely goes to dogs, occasionally to cats, and easily to ferrets. So it stand to reason that the new coronavirus could theoretically be transmitted to those species.
Tigers are in the same animal family as domestic cats. The Bronx Zoo cats were not in close proximity to a known infected human, but must have come in contact through the bars to an asymptomatic human zookeeper. One zookeeper noted that several cats has upper respiratory symptoms, and the decision was made to anesthetize ONE to test, out of an abundance of caution. So one tiger did test positive, and we assume all would have but weren’t tested.
So cats (all types) CAN contract the corona virus from humans. That is confirmed.
But can cats be carriers and spread it back to humans? That is the big question and several veterinary laboratories have been doing extensive ( >5000 tests) on cats, dogs, and horses worldwide since February to see if we have any positives in the population. All tests have been negative so far, and they think they have a very specific test. The test by Idexx isn’t available commercially where a vet like in me in private practice can order it, but if the situation changes, it might be.
So YES CATS CAN BE INFECTED from humans (reverse zoonosis), but we don’t believe them to be INFECTIOUS TO HUMANS.
We kind of already knew that after the 2 positive house cats in Europe (that were in households with sick humans) recently. Both of those cats has respiratory symptoms but neither required hospitalization.
Scarier still for my practice with ferrets, is that FERRETS are MORE susceptible to coronaviruses than cats.
In conclusion, if you are sick, stay away from your pets, especially cats and ferrets. Let someone else take care of them. And if we see a sick cat, we will assume it is a cat virus, keep it away from other cats, and maybe run some cat virus panels before we even think about Sars-Co-2.
151 Coronavirus Anxiety can be Contagious to Dogs and Cats
Many vets are getting phone calls from clients who are concerned that their pets are “acting out” in this time of anxiety. This would be completely normal whenever owners are experiencing anxiety or depression themselves. And it would be surprising if any pet parent who is watching the news isn’t experiencing stress,anxiety,fear, or depression. I have been using Fear Free Techniques to manage fear, anxiety and stress in pets for over 3 years now with fantastic results.
Ways Pets Act Out
Seeking attention
Destructive behavior
Not being able to settle down
House soiling
Aggression
Depression
Things Pet Parents Can Do
Keep a normal routine for yourself and pets
Stay calm yourself
Lots of exercise-go for a walk (if allowed); throw the ball in the backyard
Give your pet at least an hour alone for their “me time”
Try to stay on the same diet, feed at the same time
Calming OTC pheromones like Adaptil for dogs and Feliway for cats that can be purchased online
Things Vets Can Do To Help
Behavioral consults over the phone/telemedicine
Medications for anxiety like Trazadone for dogs and Gabapentin for cats
And lastly, plan proactively for your pets care in case you get sick and someone else has to care for your pets temporarily. Decide who the caretaker would be and write down what your pet eats, when they eat, what are three favorite treats, what medications they tske, and special habits they have. Try to keep two weeks worth of food and 30 day supply of meds.
Our pets can give us great emotional support at times of high stress like this, but we have to be there for them too. Give them a hug- as long as it doesn’t stress them out!