Banfield's Applied Research and Knowledge team has released a new study showing that the risks for periodontal disease increase 20 percent each year of a pet’s life. Nearly four out of five dogs over the age of 3 years has dental disease. In our practice, 68 percent of cats and 78 percent of dogs over the age of 3 have oral disease, and that is usually periodontal disease.

They also confirmed the link between dental disease and heart disease, especially endocarditis and cardiomyopathy. The worse the periodontal disease was, the stronger the correlation appeared. Although dental disease is often perceived as not being all that significant to pets, this highlights the serious nature of the disease. Another factor pet owners often overlook is the degree of pain associated with dental disease. Because our dogs and cats don't exhibit easily detectable signs of pain, it is often misunderstood that periodontal disease does indeed cause pain.

If you ever wonder whether your pet has significant dental disease, please ask one of our veterinarians or licensed veterinary technicians. We don't want disease to go undetected, especially when we can correct it!

Steve McBride, DVM

I'm reporting today from the North American Veterinary Conference in Orlando, FL. In addition to being a very nice break from the Michigan winter, the conference is chock-full of great presentations. One I attended yesterday really caught my attention. We now have evidence based on thousands of blood tests on our canine and feline patients to validate laboratory testing of apparently healthy pets. In studies conducted by our laboratory, Antech Laboratories, over 20% of clinically normal dogs and cats seven or more years of age have abnormal findings on routine "Senior" blood tests. I've been an advocate of laboratory testing for early disease detection, but now I'm even more committed. Please, please make sure your furry friend has had laboratory testing in addition to his or her semiannual physical examination!

Here's another interesting statistic. 25% of clinically normal dogs seven years of age or older had abnormal findings on abdominal radiographs. I often feel lucky if I can get a patient's "human" to do routine laboratory testing for them, let alone radiographs. I'm going to try harder to convince you to have that done as well. It's in my patients' best interest. If we can discover problems earlier, we can do something significant about them.

Steve McBride, DVM

The FDA has created a database listing all the recent pet food recalls. This will make it much easier to find information regarding recalls, especially since there have been so many this past year or two.

Steve McBride, DVM

There are many dangers to cats who are allowed outside: car traffic, parasites, diseases, traps, poisons, hunters, cruel people and altercations with wildlife. However, one of the most dangerous, and yet seldom recognized dangers to your cat is the coyote. In Michigan, coyotes are becoming a rapidly-increasing danger to unsupervised small pets, especially cats.

Coyotes are smart, adaptable, and extremely adept at staying out of sight, even living in rural areas and in close proximity to humans. If you think you don’t have coyotes in your area because you don’t see them, think again. Diminishing natural habitat from development and the growing population of both humans and coyotes increases their presence in urban areas.

Coyotes are resourceful and move into areas where they can find food sources, cover and water. They can range from 8 to 12 miles, and the range size will depend on available food sources, as well as the number of other coyotes in the area.

One of the coyotes’ favorite and easily attainable food sources is, unfortunately, the small pet, especially cats. Cats (as opposed to dogs) are most often allowed to range outside with little supervision and have become a favorite of the urban coyote. Small mammals are preferred foods, however, they will eat nuts, berries, seeds, plants, frogs, snakes, birds, garbage, and carrion. Some learn to kill larger animals such as goats, sheep, calves and poultry.

Coyotes rarely attack humans. However, coyotes that are fed become accustomed to people and present a human safety risk, in addition to a danger to your small pet. People should never intentionally feed or attempt to approach, touch or tame a coyote. People are most likely to see coyotes during their breeding season, which occurs in Michigan from mid January into March. As fall approaches, pups begin dispersing from the den site to establish home ranges of their own. These young dispersing animals sometimes wander into urban areas. Coyotes are active day and night; however, peaks in activity occur at sunrise and sunset. Coyotes generally feed at night.

Reduce your risk of attracting coyotes:

• Eliminate all outside food sources, especially pet foods
• Put garbage out the morning of pickup day
• Clear out wood and brush piles; they are good habitat for rats and mice and may attract coyotes
• Good husbandry practices, guard animals, and coyote control measures can help to protect livestock
• Do not allow pets to roam free when coyotes are present - keep pets indoors or accompany them outside, especially at night

For more information go to: http://www.michigan.gov/dnr

Tam Norton
Veterinary Assistant and Feline Aficionado

The U.S. Department of Agriculture and Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine confirmed that the H1N1 virus has been isolated from a 13 year old cat that was experiencing difficulty breathing and a loss of appetite. As I mentioned in the previous posting, if you have symptoms of influenza, please take the same precautions with your pets as you would with your human family members to prevent spread of the virus.

For additional information on the H1N1 virus, please visit the CDC website.

Steve McBride, DVM