Natural Flea Repellents

More and more of my clients, writes veterinarian Dr. Laura Pasten (a founding member of Petlane), are requesting a natural, herbal or holistic flea control - they are concerned with having toxic chemicals on their pets or around their children.  Here are some of my tips for herbal flea control:

Flea control should first start with a diet rich in essential fatty acids - one which doesn’t include chemical preservatives or reed dyes. Pets eating a quality pet food, containing antioxidants and essential fatty acids (I of course recommend Petlane’s Pure Woof Gold and Pure Purr Gold), have fewer problems with fleas - it’s a proven fact.  With a proper diet, most companion animals have a strong immune system and protective factors in their skin to minimize problems with parasites. 

There are two natural flea control products that my clients have given favorable reports for:

• Neem Oil: This is the oil from a Neem tree and is a substance that has been used for many years - over 100 pharmaceutical active substances have been identified in the Neem tree, and it has many medical references for human and pet medication.  One study showed that this decreased the flea load on Greyhounds by 53%-93%. The one cautionary note about Neem Oil is that can and has caused topical reactions. I found Neem Bug Free Repellent at MotherNature.com
• A Homemade Flea Spray:   In a 16 oz. spray bottle, mix the following:  2 tablespoons cider vinegar; 1 cup Avon’s Skin-so-Soft (Avon carries a variety of Skin-So-Soft product - the one most frequently mentioned on the internet is the bath oil); 1 cup water; 1/8 teaspoon oil of citronella (optional - don’t use if your pet hates the smell).  Rub into your pet’s coat to repel fleas and mosquitoes.

So, if you try one of these products, I naturally hope it works for you.  Please share your successes or failures with me so that I can tell others.  Let’s make those fleas flee!

Music Really DOES Soothe the Savage Beast

In the first book in the Harry Potter series, Dumbledore says something to effect of “Music! A magic beyond all we do here!” (I apologize Harry Potter fans for a slight paraphrasing - I’m quoting from memory)  And indeed, later on in the book, Harry is able to use music to lure the otherwise vicious three-headed dog named Fluffy into a sound sleep.  Somewhat to my amazement, a study was published in 2007 demonstrating that easy listening and classical music (in contrast to silence or talk radio) really does decrease arousal levels in dogs!

The particular study I read was done using a CD called Companion Music which features a blend of easy listening melodies and nature sounds.  The study showed that dogs’ arousal levels were significantly lower when the CD played (this in contrast to the dogs’ arousal levels during periods of silence or listening to talk radio).  We played the CD here at the office and all of us started yawning within minutes!

In 2008, CBS reported similar findings.  They reported the results of a study conducted by a veterinary neurologist Dr. Susan Wagner.  Wagner reported that her study found that when slow classical music was played for shelter dogs, more than 70 percent became noticeably calmer.  Both these studies suggest that playing simple classical music may be a good way to help dogs with separation anxiety, or to help any dog stay calm in stressful situations (e.g. thunderstorms or trips to the veterinarian).

Have you tried playing music for your dog?  What type of music does your dog like?

Dog Park Experiences - Or Lack Thereof

As the summer weather rolls in, dog parks start seeing a decided increase in attendance. That is unless of course you are a dog that belongs to my family. I live about 40 minutes from a fantastic dog park called Pt. Isabelle. It has everything a dog could want. Tons of open space for running, a larger flowing river for splashing, and miles of trails to explore (not to mention lots of friendly dogs and people with pockets stuffed with treats!). About 10 years ago, my parents had two Hungarian sheepdogs (a Puli and a Komondore). They loved the dog park - at least initially. Once they learned about the existence of beaches, we would pull up at the dog park, they would stick their heads out the car door, determine that Pt. Isabelle was in fact NOT the beach, and literally refuse to get out of the car. We spent a lot of weekends at the beach.

Now we come to present day. Jade, my 6 year old Cavalier, basically detests the outdoors. He will tolerate dog parks only because they have a wealth of interesting smells for him to examine. Shana, who is a 3 year old Coton should, by all rights, love dog parks. She has a ton of energy, loves to go on walks, and adores playing chase. She would love to play with Jade but Jade usually wants nothing to do with her. Generally the only way Shana can get Jade to chase her is if she has a treat that Jade wants. As a result, Shana spends a lot of time attempting to play chase with the cat (who is a surprisingly good sport and sometimes even initiates the game herself). When we go to a dog park however, all Shana wants to do is be held or chase a tennis ball (unless some other dog wants to chase it too and then forget the tennis ball idea). And yes, this includes small-dog only dog parks.

A few days ago, a friend said “you should write some blog postings about dog parks!”

“Write WHAT?” I responded. “A treatise on dog parks with the best smells for your dog? A comparison of the comfort level of available benches - since when I go with Shana I spent most of my time sitting down with her on my lap?”

However, I love the idea of being able to write about dog parks. So I am appealing to you - my readers! I would like to hear from you your thoughts about the following:

• What makes a good dog park?
• Where is the best dog park in your area?
• Are there types of dogs that are better suited for dog parks than others?

I look forward to hearing your thoughts!

How To Tell If Your Dog Is Overheated

Splash. Squelch. Hearing these sounds, I stopped dead in my tracks. “Oh no,” I said not daring to turn around. “What are the odds that those noises mean something other than what I think they mean?”

Normally sounds like “sploosh,” “splash” and “squelch” come from Shana, my mom’s 3 year old Coton who absolutely loves water. When we hike, she finds romps in every water source we pass. Shana however was sitting in the shade, about 5 feet in front of me. She cocked her head and gave me a puzzled look at my question (I think she was trying to figure out if the word “treat” factored anywhere into the sentence).

That meant the noise had to have come from my 6 year old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Jade. And sure enough, I turned around to find that Jade had plopped down smack in the middle of the only mud puddle we had passed on our two hour hike. His paws and belly were covered with brown muck, and he was looking extraordinarily pleased with himself. What made this situation so odd that Jade is terrified of water. He avoids lakes, rivers, streams, and damp pavement at all costs. He even drinks from his bowl with his head cocked to one side because that way only one of his ears gets wet instead of both of them.

On this particular day, Jade’s extremely unusual behavior told me two things: 1) I was going to have to have my car shampooed before I could consider letting anyone ride in it and 2) Jade was overheated.

Hypothermia (overheating) is not uncommon in the spring and summer months. The most common causes of hypothermia are animals being locked in hot cars, engaging in heavy exercise in hot weather, and being left outside without adequate water and shelter. According to the book, Pet First Aid, signs of hypothermia include:

• Excessive panting and/or difficulty breathing
• Bloody diarrhea or vomit
• Salivating
• Depression, “acting drunk,” or seizures
• Collapse

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Dogs who are suffering from hypothermia need to be cooled down and immediately taken to a veterinarian. One of the bets ways to cool a dog down is to place water soaked cloth on the dog’s chest, paws, neck, and abdomen. Even after your dog has cooled off, he needs to be seen by a veterinarian. Consequences of hypothermia can include respiratory and kidney problems and seizures or swelling of the brain. Even if your dog seems fine, these consequences can sometimes not show up for hours or even days. Your veterinarian will be able to tell you what symptoms you should be on the lookout for.

Jade by the way is 100% fine. During our hike I had stopped frequently to give him water and let him rest in the shade. Although he had been panting heavily, he showed no other signs of hypothermia was smart enough to cool himself down when he decided he was too hot. By the time we got back home, Jade (who was so tired he practically had to be carried the last 100 yards or so of the walk) had recovered sufficiently to run at light speed for the bedroom when I turned on the hose to rinse of the mud from his “cool down” bath.

How To Trim Your Cat’s Nails

The Internet is filled with great tips for trimming your dog’s nails. My favorite suggestion is to smear a line of peanut butter across your fridge at the same height as your dog’s mouth. You can quickly trim your dog’s nails while your dog is licking off the peanut butter. Cats however are not nearly as susceptible to bribes as dogs. My parents have occasionally managed to distract their cat Symphony with a large piece of roast beef, but more often than not she takes a few bites of the roast beef, comes to the realization that someone is trimming her claws, and demands to be put down immediately (and it’s amazing how slippery and wiggly a little 9lb. Balinese cat can suddenly become).

Based on what I’ve read (and on talking to cat owner’s), here is the easiest way to trim a cat’s nails:

1) Hold your cat so that her back rests against your stomach with her feet facing outward (it’s best if you’re sitting down). Cats like to go backward when they’re upset or scared, so holding your cat in this position is the best way to keep her from escaping.

2) Gently squeeze the first paw on which you want to trim the nails. The nails will automatically extend. Don’t worry, you are not hurting the cat as long as you squeeze gently!

3) Identify the quick (a cat’s nail has two parts - a white part and a red part. The red part contains the nerves and blood and is called the “quick.”). Cut about 1/2 way between the tip of the nail and the end of the quick (if you’re worried, it’s better to err on the side of caution and cut lower rather than higher).

Depending on your cat’s patience level, you may have to cut the nails in two batches (front paws one day and back paws later). I also recommend using a nail clipper as opposed to a nail file (which yes do exist for pets). Most cats will barely hold still long enough to let you clip their nails, I have yet to meet one who has the patience for a full nail-filing session.

I would love to hear from you if you have a favorite cat nail-trimming trick!

Carriage Horse Controversy - Conclusion

Having presented both sides of the Central Park Carriage Horse controversy, here is the presentation of my own belief: I believe that the carriage horses are well-loved and well-looked after.  In order to back up my statement, let me address the three main problems that were discussed in yesterday’s post.

LIVING CONDITIONS
Activists have claimed that carriage horses live in inhumane conditions.  They claim that the horses wallow in their own filth, live in poorly lighted and poorly ventilated stalls, and do not have enough room to turn around or lie down.  In 2007, CBS 2 HD took hidden cameras into the five stables that house the Central Park carriage horses.  Four of the five stables proved to provide their horses with fine living conditions.  CBS drew specific attention to Shamrock Stable which featured “extra wide stalls with lots of bedding, and [where] the horses get four months ‘farm vacation’ every year.”

One stable in contrast did appear to have “questionable” living conditions.  The stable was called West Side Livery and the horses appeared to be living in the very conditions cited by animal rights activist.  In particular the horses lived in cramped, dirty stalls with little to no bedding.  It is interesting to note that The ASPCA visited West Side Livery that same year and “did not issue any summons, finding the stable met ‘minimum standards.’”  I find it a bit strange that one of the very organizations protesting these types of conditions failed to take action upon encountering “questionable” living conditions.

WORK RELATED INJURIES AND DEATHS
The Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages stated that, since 2006, 3 carriage horses have died and 6 people have been hospitalized owing to carriage related injuries. In contrast, PETA states that at least 800 racing thoroughbreds die each year in North America alone because of injuries.  And in an attempt to help protect the horses’ well-being, carriage horses are only allowed outside Central Park after 9pm when the traffic is lighter.

The carriage horse owners themselves have even fought to better the working conditions of their horses.  According to a Newsweek magazine article, after the death of one of their horses, “the New York Horse and Carriage Association…[issued] a safety plan that requires additional harness straps on the horses, and driver training. It…also called on the city to ban live and amplified music near horse staging areas, to provide hitching posts to tie the horses up, and additional water spigots, in addition to better drainage for horse waste.”

EXPOSURE TO POLLUTION
Horses in the wild and domesticated horses have about the same life span - around 20 years.  It would seem a logical conclusion that domesticated horses should actually have significantly shorter life spans if the exposure to pollution was that detrimental to their health.

Historically, horses posed more of a health hazard to humans than humans did to horses.  A blogger for the New York Times discovered that, in 1908, 20,000 humans died from “maladies…created mainly by horse manure.”  Horses too suffered health problems that today can be easily treated.  In 1880, the New York City Sanitation Department reported removing 15,000 dead horses from the streets.  These horses died from a combination of overwork and disease (such as distemper).  While the death of a horse is always tragic, I sometimes find that it helps to put the current death rate in perspective.

Well you’ve heard my views.  Now I want to hear from you.  Should the horse and carriage industry be banned?  Tell me why or why not.  And remember, if you believe an animal is being abused, please do not stand by.  Report the abuse to the proper authorities.

W-K9 Individual Pet Tax Return

In approximately one month, the lines at the post office are expected to grow to gargantuan proportions and tax accounts will be working 24 hour days. As citizens across the United States look for tax deductions, I propose that the following series of deductions be made available to pet lovers across the country:

Carriage Horse Controversy - Part II

“We’re trying to keep a 19^th century tradition alive in the 21^st century!” That seems to be the rallying cry for those who believe that the tradition of offering horse and carriage rides to tourists should come to an end.  This post looks at some of the reasons a handful of veterinarians, animal activists, and one city councilman are fighting to put a stop to the horse-drawn carriage tourist trade.

There appear to be three main components to the argument to ban horse-drawn carriages.  First, activists point to the fatality rate of carriage horses.  In an undated posting, the Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages stated that, since 2006, 3 carriage horses have died and 6 people have been hospitalized owing to carriage related injuries. Just to put this in perspective, PETA states that at least 800 racing thoroughbreds die each year in North America alone because of injuries.

Second, there is a fair amount of controversy over carriage horses living and working conditions.  Claims have been made that the horses live in stalls that do not allow them to turn around or lie down (although horses stand the majority of the time, they do need to be able to lie down for approximately four hours in a 24 hour period).  Veterinarian Holly Voorheesville, in a 1989 letter to the New York Times writes “The majority of the horses are housed in unsafe, unhealthy and inhumane conditions. Most of the stables are firetraps, housing horses on second and third floors, in stalls too narrow for their occupants and on pitted floors that permit pooling of urine and manure. Stall cleaning and bedding seem nonexistent, ventilation and light are grossly inadequate, and access to water is rare.”

Third, protesters claim that the horses are forced to work under unhealthy and inhumane conditions under which the horses work.  According to an article in  Newsweek “studies have shown that animals exposed to pollution have suffered emphysema, cancer and accelerated aging.”  The same article suggests that animals are being forced to work in both extreme cold and extreme heat.  The article states that “in New York horses are supposed to be taken off the roads if temperatures reach above 90 or below 18 degrees Fahrenheit, but official weather readings are frequently an inaccurate reflection of the actual temperature on the streets. In summer, for example, the temperature of the asphalt on the street can be 50 degrees higher than a standard weather report, according to a Cornell University study, and humidity can add another dozen degrees on top of that.”

Should the horse and carriage trade be banned from New York?  What are your thoughts?

All About Fleas

In yesterday’s blog posting, I talked about alternatives to chemical weed killers. The number one response to this posting: “This is great information! Now what do you have on non-chemical flea repellents?” While I admit that I’m not terribly knowledgeable about this subject, I do have a fantastic resource in Petlane’s partner and friend, veterinarian Dr. Laura Pasten. In response to the cry for help on this topic, Dr. Pasten wrote me a wonderful article on flea control. The article contains lots of great information so I have decided to break it down into three parts with the information parceled out over the next few days. This first posting will tell everything you ever wanted to know about fleas and why it is so important to engage in flea control in the first place.

Fleas are more than an irritant - they are basically used hypodermic needles, spreading disease from one host to another.  This is because they suck blood from their host (usually cats and dogs as far as our companion animals); the blood would clot in their mouth parts if they did not inject an anticoagulant into the capillary first-with this anticoagulant comes some of the blood, including any viruses or bacteria, from the flea’s previous host. 

Fleas like to live around the butt or anus - they ingest tapeworm eggs which mature to become infective within the flea. As a side note, the only premarin in shampoo cipro treating clamydia trachomatis way a dog or cat can get tapeworms is by ingesting a flea (during grooming) which has a tapeworm larva within it. Dogs and cats won’t get infected with tapeworms by eating tapeworms or by eating or sniffing feces with tapeworm eggs - to become infective, the tapeworm egg must mature within a flea and then be ingested. 

Fleas will drink the blood of both pets and people - but they prefer to feed on pets, because pets are closer to the ground and easier to hop onto, and because pets have warmer body temperatures than humans (The average temperature of a person is 98.6, and that of a dog or cat is 101.5).  Female fleas will probe and bite an average of seven times in a grouping before locating a blood vessel in the skin.  The saliva they leave with each bite can cause a localized allergic reaction (flea allergy dermatitis).  After feeding on the pet’s blood, the female flea deposits her eggs and droppings (flea dirt) on the pet’s coat, which drop off, to develop and hatch later, both outside and inside your home.  The pooped out blood and eggs look like grains of pepper.

Many of my clients think these black specks around the tail base are merely dirt.  I either use a flea comb (a very fine toothed comb you can purchase at any pet store) to capture some flea dirt or the fleas themselves, or I ask the guardian to groom their pet (especially the tail region) over a white piece of butcher paper.  Take any of the black specks and put them in a drop of water-if it is flea poop or dried blood, the water will turn pink around the black speck.

Our companion animals can become debilitated (or more prone to disease) as well as anemic from fleas.  And, all of us have seen the terrible cases of itching and dermatitis that flea allergies can cause, driving our pets to distraction.    Flea control is not just recommended - it is essential.

Tips For Bathing Your Dog

My dogs have recently been changing color on their daily walks. They go out white (Shana) and white with brown spots (Jade) and come back almost solid black. Shana tends to be muddier then Jade because she is more inclined to go exploring; Jade is convinced he will melt if he touches water, but a lot of dirt and mud still manages to find its way onto his paws, legs, and belly.  Shana is not crazy about rinsed off when we come home but she tolerates it; Jade however literally runs and hides behind the curtains when he hears me turn the water on in the sink. 

Seeking advice, I turned to professional animal behaviorist, Gail Green.  Specifically I asked how to teach a puppy to, if not love being bathed at least tolerate it, and how to help an older dog become comfortable in the bathtub.  Here are Gail’s suggestions:

If you are conditioning an older dog, you want to start by putting him in a dry bathtub.  Put a towel in the bottom of the tub so the dog doesn’t slide around.  Sit in the tub with him (yes, I’m serious), feed him some of his favorite treats, and then get out with him.  Repeat this process every day as often as you can.  In, out, in, out, etc.  Feed him dinner in the tub whenever you can.

After your dog comes to look forward to this time, dampen the towel and do the same activities. When your dog becomes comfortable with that, put an inch of water in.  Continue the positive interaction and treats in the tub.  Slowly (s-l-o-w-l-y) increase the amount of water, with all the positive treats (he only gets these, his favorite treats, when he is in the tub - no other time).  Then begin to slowly put water on his back (small scoop, treat, small scoop, treat, etc.)  Next step includes shampoo, and so on until your dog become completely comfortable with bath time. 

Use the same procedure when training a puppy.  The only difference is that the process can go much faster.  The bottom line is: baths equal fun and treats and love.