Bright Eyes & Bushy Tails

Transcription

1 Bright Eyes & Bushy Tails Housecall and Full-Service Veterinary Clinic 3005 Highway 1 NE Iowa City, IA (319) July 10, 2002 Quarterly Newsletter Jennifer Berger, DVM Allan Berger DVM, PhD Dear friends and clients, Thanks to those of you who participated in our open house! While people had a great time, Nothin the cat did not appreciate being locked out of the festivities (lower photo). She complained bitterly that her next-door neighbor was boring (stuffed) and that she was unable to share the food (steal it all for herself). We also saw many of you at the Iowa City Animal Care and Adoption Center at their Adoptathon last month. We present the answer to our annual Adoptathon raffle question below. Bright Eyes & Bushy Tails has been a lot busier this spring, and that s a good thing. We are trying to expand the hours that we re open so that people can stop by for medication refills even when Jennifer Berger is out on housecalls. However, please telephone first to make sure we re open. Then we can also be certain to have the medication or prescription food ready. Alternatively, if you live in the Iowa City/Coralville area, ask us to drop the refill off to your home. With one week s notice, we can almost always deliver. As usual, we have big plans for this summer. We would like to re-design the entranceway to the clinic to open up the reception area. Look for pictures in next quarter s newsletter. We plan to get an endoscope soon, a device that allows us to look into the stomachs of dogs and cats without surgery. As far as we know, this will be the first endoscope in the Iowa City area (the closest is Cedar Rapids). An endoscope is an ideal way to remove bones and toys that become stuck in a dog or cat s throat (esophagus or trachea). It s also a non-surgical way to evaluate sick pets with long-term vomiting or diarrhea. Annual Raffle Question On June 7-8, Bright Eyes & Bushy Tails Veterinary Clinic sponsored a raffle at the Iowa City/Coralville Animal Shelter. How many bones in the jar was our way of focusing attention on pet overpopulation. We had 97 entries total.

2 There were 187 biscuits in the jar. The range of guesses was from 50 to 381. The average guess was slightly low at 141 biscuits. The second half of our raffle question was more interesting. Starting with two cats (one male and one female adult, un-neutered), how long would it take before there were a total number of cats equal to the number of bones, assuming no illness and no premature mortality? Here are the parameters we considered important for the solution: 1. A cat must reach the age of 7 months before sexual maturity. This is an average; some cats are ready to reproduce at 6 months, others must reach 8 months or so. 2. Gestation period (length of pregnancy) is 64 days 3. Average of 5 kittens per litter 4. Litters are 50% female/50% male. 5. Assume 2 litters per year Female cats can become pregnant three weeks after giving birth during breeding season, for a theoretical average of 3.8 litters or 19 kittens per year. Thankfully, breeding season is not year round. We assumed 2 litters spaced 92 days apart for each female cat, starting with the first pregnancy when the cat reached 7 months of age. With these numbers and an assumption the first few litters would be average (alternating between females/3 males and 3 females/2 males per 400 litter), cat #182 will be born on month number 27. Guesses at the Adoptathon ranged from 3 to months (average guess of 20.7 months) Month Other researchers have forecast kitten numbers well beyond the 2 years we predicted. At 7 years, kitten #781,250 will be born. Even if one limits each cat to a single year of reproduction, one reaches 174,760 cats at 7 years. Feral cat populations are studied frequently, because cats have important impacts on human health and the environment. Human health effects are most notorious in the Middle East, where rabies is very common. A feral cat caught in Israel is generally a dead cat due to the fear of rabies. Where we live in the U.S., we worry most about toxoplasmosis (a parasitic disease cats can give people) and cat scratch fever (a severe infection from cat bites and scratches that, while uncommon, can be fatal). Environmentally, free-roaming cats have been blamed for contributing to a recent decline in the United States songbird populations. Birds comprise approximately 20-30% of a free-roaming cat s diet. There is no accurate count of the number of feral cats in the U.S., but estimates range from 10 million to 50 million. If each cat eats 1 or 2 birds per day, you can do the math. Our question regarding how long it takes to get to 187 cats assumes adequate food and no illness or mortality. How reasonable are these assumptions? On one hand, local cat colonies tend to stay much smaller than 187 cats. There simply isn t enough food to support that many cats in close proximity. As colonies get larger, cats

3 get sick, starve, or leave and migrate to other areas. As anyone who has tried to catch and remove cats from a farm knows, if you get rid of the local cats new ones move in very quickly. However, when there is sufficient food and migration is impossible, colonies can grow to much larger sizes. Scientists introduced 5 cats as pets to Marion Island in the Sub-Antarctic area of South Africa in 1949 (the island is about 10 miles long and approximately round in shape). In 1975, the cat population was estimated at 2,139 as a single colony. An unscientific report put the number at 3,400 in Such a high concentration of cats is an unpleasant thing. They fight over territory, they go hungry, and unvaccinated cats in close contact get a lot of illnesses. A colony s territorial behavior can be exploited as a means of population control. As most farmers know, once a barn gets a few cats, they keep other cats away. If you can spay and neuter the cats on a farm, you get no new kittens. And because the adult cats aren t reproducing, they have lower food requirements. The stable population remains much healthier. One study showed that after a vaccinate-alter-and-release program, 70% of the cats survived at the site of the study for up to 5 years. So, spay and neuter your cats! Spayed female cats have a lower incidence of cancer. Decreasing the free-roaming cat population helps the environment, reduces public health risks, and also contributes to animal welfare. With between 5 million and 7 million cats euthanized in animal shelters in the U.S. each year, we don t need more litters.

4 Barb s Corner: Fleas and Ticks by Barb Evans-O Donnell Spring has sprung, the flowers are beautiful, the warm weather has returned, (mostly) and so have the fleas and ticks. In addition to being a nuisance, both fleas and ticks can cause serious medical problems, some of which can be transmitted to humans. There are approximately ONE THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED different types of fleas associated with mammals. Fortunately, only a few of them are medically important to dogs and cats. Fleas can jump up to one hundred fifty times their own length, which is equivalent to a person jumping over thirty buses parked end to end! Female fleas can lay up to twenty eggs at a time, with total offspring totaling from four to five hundred per female. As blood suckers, fleas can cause anemia in some animals. Other symptoms of fleas could be intense itching and/or allergic dermatitis. They can also transmit tapeworms to YOU and your pets. You can determine if your pet has fleas by simply combing him. If specks of black dirt appear in your comb, apply water to the dirt. Dirt that turns red is a sign of fleas. The dirt is actually the stool of the flea that contains the blood of the affected pet. It is much easier and cheaper to prevent a flea infestation on your pet and in your home, than to treat an existing infection. Ticks are also blood sucking parasites that can transmit various diseases to humans and pets. One of the most common is Lyme disease, which is caused by a bacterium known as Borrelia burgdorferi. Although deer ticks are most commonly associated with the transmission of the disease, research has shown that other species of ticks can also harbor the bacterium. Lyme disease in humans has become the most common tick-borne disease in the United States, and is considered to be one of the fastest growing infectious diseases in the U.S. Dogs are certainly exposed to Lyme disease, although only some dogs become sick from it. Dogs are also are capable of harboring the bacterium and spreading the disease by infecting new ticks. While your dog cannot directly infect you with Lyme disease, fewer ticks is always a good thing. If you find a tick attached to your dog, carefully remove it with tweezers, pulling back slowly and steadily to ease out the tick s mouth parts. Dog Complaints 1. Yelling at me for barking...i M A DOG, YOU IDIOT!! 2. Taking me for a walk, then not letting me check stuff out. Exactly whose walk is this anyway? 3. Any trick that involves balancing food on my nose...stop it. 4. Dog sweaters. Have you noticed the fur? 5. Any haircut that involves bows or ribbons. Now you know why we chew on your possessions when you're not home. 6. Taking me to the vet for the big snip, then acting surprised when I freak out every time we go back. 7. The slight of hand, fake fetch throw. You fooled a dog! What a proud moment for the top of the food chain, you nitwit. Frontline Plus, a topical product that we recommend, will kill ticks for a month. It also kills fleas for up to six weeks in cats and up to three months in dogs. The Preventic collar is exclusively for ticks. Prevention of fleas and ticks will be advantageous not only to your pet, but to YOUR health as well.

5 Remodeling Work The remodeling we did over the winter (drywall, finishing exam room 2) was completed by JP s Home Repair. Jeff did a great job, and we recommend them whole-heartedly. If you are in need of any remodeling or repairs for your home or business, contact Jeff Powers at (319) or Next Newsletter: October 2002 As always, ideas for topics for the next newsletter are welcome. Gratefully yours, Jennifer and Allan Berger