DrAndyRoark.com

Articles, Videos, & Training on Pets & Veterinary Medicine

Care

Cone of Shame: The Serious Health Problem You Don’t Know Your Pet Has

by

You might think your pet’s pearly white teeth mean their mouth is totally healthy. Not so, unfortunately.

When it comes to pet dental health, there’s a little more to the story. These fast facts will walk you through the hidden problems in your pet’s mouth.

1.) Surprisingly, white teeth don’t always mean a healthy mouth

 

White teeth are great, and you certainly don’t want tartar build-up, but the color of your pet’s teeth isn’t necessarily the most important thing to check.

Those seemingly clean chompers aren’t necessarily telling you the whole story. Signs that infection may be lurking can be found by examining your pet’s gums.

2.) Yikes! Don’t miss the tell-tale signs of infection

 

 

 

The health of your pet’s gums is actually more important than the health of their teeth. Infection in the gums can lead to a whole host of issues for your furry friend.

Check gums for signs of infection, such as:

  • Redness
  • Swelling

If you are noticing any of these signs, notify your trusted veterinarian immediately.

3) What if we just let it go a while?

 

 

Issues with your pet’s mouth can do a lot more than just prevent your pet from getting a hot date.

Left untreated, infections in your pet’s mouth can lead to bad breath and tooth loss. But that’s not the worst part…

4) Problems in your pet’s mouth can affect vital organs!

 

That bacteria in your pet’s mouth has to go somewhere. When dental issues are left untreated, your dog or cat may develop heart, liver or kidney disease.

Want more info on keeping your pet’s mouth healthy?

In this episode of Cone of Shame, I debunk 5 major mouth myths. More questions? Ask your trusted veterinarian or veterinary technician at your pet’s next visit!

 

Danielle K. Lambert Archer headshotDanielle is a veterinary practice manager and the founder of SnoutSchool.com, a website dedicated to teaching veterinary hospitals to use social media effectively. You can get her 5 favorite social media tools here, or follow her on social media to see excessive photos of her Brussels Griffon. She’s @DanielleSnout on Twitter & Instagram!

Cone of Shame: The Joy Of Dog Scavenger Hunts

by

We know dogs need exercise and mental stimulation, but sometimes it’s rough to accomplish. What do we do if it’s too cold out to play outside? How can you entertain your pup if you’re super busy?

Making feeding time into a scavenger hunt game is one simple way to exercise your pet’s mind and body. Make pets expend mental and physical energy to get that treat! Dogs are natural scavengers, and they’ll love spending time searching for food. (You already know this if your dog has ever gotten into your trashcan).

It may sound a little crazy, but in just 3 simple steps, you can turn meal time into an engaging indoor scavenger hunt for your furry friend.

1.) Snag some simple some store-bought food puzzles and toys

You don’t need store-bought items to make this work, but they can certainly add variety to your scavenger hunt.  You should always check with your veterinarian to ensure the chew toys and puzzles you’re using are safe, but here are a few ideas:

2.) Create your own DIY dog food puzzles

Make your dog food scavenger hunt even more engaging for your pet with common household items and some simple tricks:

  • Wrap dog food up in a blanket
  • Put kibble under cups or bowls
  • Hide treats in little piles around your house

3.) Add in some exercise

Bring your dog’s scavenger hunt to the next level by adding in a little bit of exercise. Simply tossing kibble for your dog, getting him to run back and forth to retrieve it, can burn off excess energy indoors.

Want more tips on exercising your dog indoors?

In this quick, four minute episode of Cone of Shame, I talk about my own dog’s favorite indoor games, give more details on scavenger hunts, and share bonus tips to wear your pup out without leaving the house.

Eat This, Not That: The Top 3 People Foods Poisonous to Dogs

by

Which human foods are the MOST poisonous to dogs?

It’s hard to resist the longing stare of a begging dog, and most of us can’t resist slipping our dog some people food a little now and then. If you’re going to do it, at least make sure what you’re slipping Fido in the palm of your hand isn’t going to hurt him. In this episode of Cone of Shame, we focus on 3 of the most dangerous people foods for your pet.

 

 

1.) Chocolate

Chocolate is confusing. We’ve all seen dogs get into chocolate but be totally fine. Here’s the thing- there are two ingredients in chocolate that are particularly dangerous: caffeine and theobromine.

 

Ingesting caffeine and/or theobromine can cause vomiting, seizures, and muscle tremors. In some cases, it can be fatal.

 

caffeine ingestion dogs


Why do some dogs seem okay after eating chocolate?

 

  1. Some dogs are more sensitive than others. Chocolate toxicity is heavily dose dependent and smaller dogs are at higher risk.
  2. Not all chocolate is created equal- the darker the chocolate, the more of the toxic components it contains.

 

[tweetthis]Semisweet chocolate is particularly bad for #dogs, & baking chocolate is the worst![/tweetthis]

What should you do if your dog eats chocolate?

 

Contact your veterinarian immediately. If it has been less than 2 hours since your dog ingested chocolate, making them vomit might be the solution. Beyond that, your dog will likely need to be hospitalized for supportive care.

 

Andy Roark COS subscribe banner

2.) Xylitol

 

This ingredient is popular in human foods and products, but you might not know what the heck it is! Xylitol is a natural, sugar-free sweetener that can be found in chewing gum, peanut butter, cake mix, toothpaste, and hidden in all sorts of other items common in your purse and around the house.

 

What’s scary about xylitol is tiny amounts can be very, very toxic to dogs.

 

[tweetthis]A 20lb dog that eats 1 gram of xylitol will have life-threatening low blood sugar 10-15 min later![/tweetthis]

 

After low blood sugar, dogs may experience death of the liver or liver failure. This stuff is terrifying! If you see signs of xylitol ingestion, get your dog to the vet immediately.

 

xylitol poisoning in dogs

3.) Grapes and Raisins

Pet’s kidneys can be seriously damaged by grapes and raisins, and we don’t know why. It doesn’t seem to matter which type of grape is ingested, nor if they’re organic or not.

 

How many grapes or raisins does it take to cause toxicity in dogs?

 

We’re actually not quite sure, as reactions seem to vary widely between individual pets.

What are the signs of grape or raisin poisoning in dogs? 

 

Signs are often non-specific. The first thing pet owners usually see is pieces of grapes or raisins in their dog’s vomit. Signs of severe kidney disease don’t show up until 1-3 days after grapes or raisins were eaten. At this point, damage to the kidneys has already been done.

 

[tweetthis]If #pets ingest grapes or raisins, don’t wait to call your veterinarian! [/tweetthis]

 

When it comes to grapes and raisins, dog owners often regret not doing more when they had the chance. Just like with chocolate, if we can get the dog to vomit within the first 2 hours, we might be able to do some real good. Beyond that, supportive care at the veterinary hospital will be necessary.

You Need This Flea Prevention Song on a Playlist

by

Think your pet doesn’t need flea prevention? Kelsey Beth Carpenter RVT is back with possibly the single greatest song about fleas ever created.

[tweetthis]The catchiest song about flea prevention you’ve ever heard[/tweetthis]

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the DrAndyRoark.com editorial team.

The Realities of Human Error In Veterinary Surgery

by

Helmut* was one of my cancer patients. He also had a painful, nonvisual eye. The eye ended up giving him more trouble than the tumor and the owner elected to have it removed. She had it removed by a board-certified ophthalmologist (not at the hospital I work at, I hasten to add). There was a horrible mistake made. The normal, visual eye was removed and it wasn’t until after it was over that the veterinarian realized the mistake.

The client received a phone call during surgery to ask her what she wanted to do. She said to go ahead and remove the painful eye, because it was nonvisual anyway and it was affecting his quality of life. She then tried her best to rehabilitate her newly blind dog, but he didn’t adjust. He was almost deaf as well, and the acute and complete loss of his vision was too much for him. She euthanized him several weeks later, right after Christmas last year. This was and is a nightmare for all involved, especially for Helmut.

How could this happen? And, I am sure you are thinking. Who did this? Well, to answer the second question, it doesn’t matter and to answer the first, anyone could have made this mistake. It was human error. There is a culture of shame and blame in veterinary and human surgery that prevents us from talking about medical errors. It is so much easier to assign the blame to an individual, rather than a system or institution. Wrong site and wrong side surgeries happen in both veterinary and human surgery.

[tweetthis]A culture of shame and blame in veterinary surgery prevents us from talking about medical errors. [/tweetthis]

Could this have been prevented? Absolutely. Dr. Atul Gawande has worked with a team and the World Health Organization to develop an exquisitely simple system to prevent errors like this in human surgery, a surgical checklist.

Checklists are used extensively in the airline industry to guard against human error. They are new to human and veterinary medicine, which shocks most people in the airline industry. The checklist is there to ensure that the routine things that are easy to forget or miss are systematically communicated and verified. Confirming the patient’s identity and surgical site/side, ensuring that antibiotics were given in a timely fashion, ensuring that the team has discussed potential complications or steps that are not routine preoperatively, and counting instruments and sponges.

Businessman Preparing Checklist

Dr. Gawande tested the surgical safety checklist and found a significant reduction in morbidity and mortality at six different hospitals in the developed and developing world. He wrote about the surgical checklist in his book, The Checklist Manifesto. (I highly recommend this book!) I started using a checklist as soon as I finished reading Atul Gawande’s book in 2010. Now I can’t imagine doing surgery without one.

Fluffy red cat on warm radiator near grey wallThe effect of the checklist is several-fold. It focuses and empowers the team, it allows for a double-check system, it is an efficient way to go over the critical information about a case in an organized fashion, it ensures that sponges and instruments are counted in and out, and it changes the work culture for the better. The medical term “retained” surgical instrument is an indication of the bizarre blaming culture in medicine. In this case, the abdomen is blamed for actively hiding the instrument inside, rather than the surgeon forgetting it in there.

Since the surgical safety checklist came out, there has been a flurry of papers in human medicine confirming its efficacy in reducing complications in different areas of surgery. What followed is another flurry of papers on implementing the checklist and how to deal with institutional or personnel resistance to the checklist. Surgeons often resist because they are offended by the suggestion that they might make a mistake and they complain that pausing for the checklist will slow them down. The checklist is actually a faster and more efficient way to convey information once it is implemented.

I would argue that you don’t have time not to use the checklist. Further, the checklist is not there to protect incompetent people. Incompetent people will be incompetent with or without a checklist. It is there for people that are people. We all get tired, make mistakes, get distracted, rush when we shouldn’t rush, or forget to let team members know something that may improve the outcome in a case.

Most communication failures in medicine are due to either occasion or audience. Occasion, meaning that the timing of the information was suboptimal, and audience, meaning that the information was not conveyed to relevant team members. The checklist helps with this because it brings the team together at timely breaks to ensure that everyone is on the same page at the right time. The other less common communication failures include: content, meaning that the information is wrong, (checklist may not help here) and purpose, meaning that you work with a dick. (Checklist can not help you with this either.)

So, if you are not already, consider bringing a checklist system into your surgical practice. It will bring order to the chaos on your busy days. It will make your technicians happy because it will help them to do their jobs better. It will help to keep your procedures moving. It will improve the communication of your whole team. Most importantly, it may help prevent you from ever making the mistake that Helmut’s veterinarian made.

[tweetthis]You don’t have time not to use the checklist.[/tweetthis]

These veterinary horror stories rip through our profession and become legends of veterinary lore. Usually, they are accompanied with an unhealthy dose of shame and blame and they lack a concrete method to prevent these errors. That is ulcer-inducing and wholly unhelpful. Medical errors and adverse events are a part of veterinary and human medicine. Surgical checklists can help us to pick up on the preventable ones so that a wrong side surgery becomes a near miss in your practice and not a devastating surgical complication.

*Name of pet has been changed

5 Tips to Keep Cats Happy at the Vet Clinic

by

Do you dread taking your cat to the veterinarian? In the first Cone of Shame of season 2, learn tips for keeping your feline family member calmer on the way to vet visits!

 

 

[tweetthis]How do you keep your cat calm during a visit to the veterinary clinic? #ConeOfShame[/tweetthis]