Contrast Study

[mothbug-deactivated20200626]

anyone else compulsively buy nice things for their pets when they’re sad

[drferox]

How do you feel about giving a dog or pet something that can be toxic in high doses but with just the right amount, has health benefits? Say like, garlic. My brother wants to use it to treat the round worms we suspect our dog has. I've looked at some websites talking about it, but the American Kennel Club does say that there isn't consistent, conclusive results to say it'll really benefit her. We are still taking her to the vet, of course. Thanks for being such a great blog to follow :)

Garlic does not treat worms.

Garlic does not treat fleas.

Garlic does not treat or cure anything and it has no therapeutic health benefits for dogs or cats.

It contains vitamin C, but dogs and cat’s don’t require vitamin C in their diet, they are capable of synthesizing their own.

It is a pet hate’ of mine that people still seem to get real parasites confused with fictional vampires when it comes to garlic.

There is no benefit to feeding garlic to dogs or cats and it will become toxic in large amounts, or chronic exposure. Onions and garlic have the equivalent toxic potential as chocolate.

I would consider it a personal favor if people would finally be done with this myth.

[two-tails-and-some-scales]

Linking on from this, while I’d never consider using garlic for medicinal purposes I’ve heard it can help entice dogs to eat in small quantities? Victoria Stilwell (British dog trainer - ‘it’s me or the dog’) recommended it for a Yorkie to help get it onto dog food from human food, saying that making it smellier makes it more enticing? Is there any truth in this do you reckon? Or is it just best to avoid garlic all together?

[rocketscienceandbrainsurger-blog]

There is no reason to feed garlic in any quantity to a dog. There are plenty of ways to switch a dog onto a new diet that don't involve poisoning it, and I don't see any reason to want to give your dog a taste for garlic and risk the dog going after more of it in the future. Garlic is toxic to dogs, it will cause hemolytic anemia, it will make them very sick, and it has no benefits to them.

[theexoticvet-deactivated2022070]

But I Googled it!

The internet is a wonderful thing and ranks up there with some of the greatest inventions of mankind. There is almost nothing that exists or doesn’t that cannot be found and learned about. We do it so often and without even thinking that we have a term for it: Googling. I love looking things up and falling into a Wikipedia hole. Personally I have lost entire evenings simply trying to look up how to re-pot an orchid only to learn about the Haber-Bosch process before somehow ending up reading about art nouveau. Often I preach that there isn’t an excuse not to know about something because information is so readily accessible. But there is a dark side to Google.

In my real life as well as online I often see people advising against medical care for their pets, telling them to Google something first. This happens often here after I give advice, usually “go see  a vet” and someone will say nah you can just Google what to do. The problems are many but the main ones are that regardless of what anyone says, you cannot diagnose diseases via internet. If you look up vomiting and not eating in cats you will come up with dozens of things that cause these symptoms. Let’s say you decide its cancer and decide there is nothing to be done so just try to provide comfort for your cat. Finally you take the cat in to the vet and the vet finds thread under the tongue. Turns out your cat ate a sewing needle and this could have been treated but the needle ruptured through the GI tract and caused a fatal infection. This actually happened.

The other issue is that I portray myself as a veterinarian online (and in fact, really am one). If some guy on a reptile forum tells you your bearded dragon has metabolic bone disease and it dies even after you give calcium, it’s sad but reptile forum guy won’t suffer consequences. If I as a veterinarian internet diagnose your dragon as having NSHP but really it has atadenovirus I could be accused of practicing without a valid client patient relationship and could be fined or even lose my license. Atadenovirus often mimics the exact signs and symptoms of NSHP and is untreatable, contagious, and fatal. The above scenario is also real and happened to a colleague of mine.

So please understand that nobody can diagnose your pet over the internet and it really is in the best interest of your pet to go seek veterinary care if you have a question, but as a vet I really can’t give specific advice for your pet because of that reason and also because it could endanger my license. People in forums and Tumblr generally mean well but if your pet dies they don’t have any skin in the game and it doesn’t affect them, always keep that in mind. Continue being kind to one another and offering general advice but if you are concerned enough that you reach out to a vet online, you need to go see one in real life.

[mothbug-deactivated20200626]

every time I talk about my mineral collection my boyfriend reminds me of the time he was helping me move and he made the suitcase full of rocks joke when he was unknowingly lugging around my literal actual suitcase full of rocks

[legogradstudent]

Glancing at his university’s first e-mail concerning the new academic year, the grad student reflects upon his dismally unproductive summer.

[theexoticvet-deactivated2022070]

I've changed my birds diet from mostly seeds to pellets and green leaves 1 week and half ago but they've only been eating the pellets for 5 days and their feathers look amazing?? They're shiny and the birds are more energetic. Is this possible in 5 days or am I imagining things?

Great job changing your birds over to a much healthier diet! They will live much longer, healthier lives because of it and you should be proud. They could possibly be more energetic but it is highly unlikely that there has already been a change in their feathers. After a few months of eating healthy I bet you will notice an actual improvement in the feathers though.

[drferox]

Could you say a little more about chemo/radio therapy for us vetlings? Currently I vehemently disagree with their use in many cases, indeed if I had an osteosarcoma case in my own dog I would probably go for amputation alone and manage conservatively. I'm not sure owners understand that radio/chemo is different in animals than humans. Plus it gives owners too much of a chance to draw out life when in the dogs interest, euthanasia is much kinder. Better a day too soon than an hour too late.

Using chemotherapy or radiation therapy instead of palliative care or euthanasia is kind of a personal call.

To begin with, many humans already have strong opinions about chemotherapy based on their own life experiences. If they themselves have undergone cancer treatment, or have cared for someone who has, they have likely already made up their mind about whether they would consider this type of treatment. And that’s fine, as long as they don’t suddenly change their mind when the palliative care stops working.

Not all cancers are the same. Osteosarcoma is a nasty piece of work, for example. The chance of  ‘cure’ might be too low for one owner to consider, but another owner might consider it worth the attempt.

Haemangiosarcoma is another nasty tumor, and chemo protocols after surgical removal can extend a dog’s life by 6 months. Now, that might not sound like a lot of time to you, but when the survival time without chemo is more like 40-60 days, you might be tempted.

Some types of lymphoma even have a 20% chance of ‘cure’. ‘Cure’ in this case meaning a 3 year or more survival time. For a young animal, you might decide that’s worth a shot.

Chemo can be done in a general practice clinic, but it’s advisable to at least consult a veterinary oncologist for an up to date protocol. Cancer treatment is advancing all the time, way to fast for me to keep up with it. Once you ave a protocol, doses can be compounded and given at the regular clinic.

The thing about chemo treatment in pets is that if the animal is getting too sick, we stop. We give it a break, change the protocol or lower the dose so the animal isn’t being made excessively sick. (A few hours nausea on treatment day might be acceptable, but prolonged nausea, inappetance or other side effects are not). Pets don’t lose their hair with chemo. If it isn’t working, we back off. We always have the option to back off.

Radiation therapy has to be done at a specially equipped clinic. It can cause hair loss, hair bleaching, or radiation burns so is generally used for select solid tumors only, like mast cell tumors or brain tumors. Truthfully I don’t know as much about this treatment as chemo because it’s not as accessible and not as many people pursue it, but I do know where to send them if they’re interested. 

Often with these treatments in veterinary medicine we’re not aiming for a ‘cure’, just an good quality extended life. The aim is not to make the pet sick, and we back off if that is happening.

[rocketscienceandbrainsurger-blog]

Because owners tend to have such strong feelings about chemotherapy and radiation therapy based on their experiences with human cancer, it's important to discuss how the goals are different and how animals tolerate these treatments very well, because we are using much lower doses with the goal of improving or maintaining quality of life. We can't explain to an animal, the way we can to a human, that they'll feel awful all the time /but/ we're trying to cure your cancer, so it's worth it! All they understand is the here and now, so the goal with many courses of cancer treatment is instead to keep the cancer at bay while we can, while minimizing side effects, and extend the animal's lifespan without compromising too much on quality of life.

[unbfacts]

Scientists bred extremely sexually attractive male mosquitoes whose offspring are unable to breed. So these mosquitoes will hopefully dominate the mosquito gene pool, and in a generation or two, billions of mosquito larvae will be reproductive dead-ends.

[darkenedgamr]

Mosquitos deserve this for being little buggy assholes.

[c0ld-h4nds-deactivated20181105]

Mosquitos can be safely removed from the Ecosystem without any significant damage, whereas it can save countless people from disease.

[thetapunk]

how are we going to feed the fox bat?

[artisticautistic]

In the lack of mosquitos in the fight for resources, the other insects in the area will rise in population, leaving the bats and frogs and spiders with much to eat still.

[thetapunk]

awesome, also i learned that fox bats eat fruit not insects

[artisticautistic]

Coolio

[growing-despite]

Is no one going to address how scientists literally had to go “aight we have to make the most BANGIN mosquito possible. The SEXIEST thing these bloodsuckers have ever SEEN”

[celtic-pyro-deactivated20230725]

Every one of them looks like this:

[veterinaryrambles]

This is how we eradicated screwworm from the United States! Screwworm is a horrifying disease where giant botfly larvae will eat up healthy animal tissue - imagine being attacked by giant maggots just because you had the misfortune to be outside. The US was losing millions of dollars and animal lives/productivity to screwworm until the eradication program went through in the fifties. It worked and it was awesome! When you’re dealing with an insect whose species name is hominivorax (man-eating), take no prisoners. Glad to see the mosquito is also getting its comeuppance… suck it, malaria and heartworm!

[rocketscienceandbrainsurger-blog]

The screwworm eradication didn’t involve breeding of sexually preferable males, it involved flies that had been irradiated to make them sterile. Male screwworm flies mate multiple times, while females only mate once, so the idea was that if enough flies were released, we’d increase the probability that a wild female would mate with a sterile male and produce eggs that never hatched. It only thus took one generation of flies to eradicate screwworm. Mexico and Panama helped a lot, not only financially, but also with the plant to produce sterile flies and the manpower to carry out eradication efforts.

[japotecture]

[caveisgettingdeleted-deactivate]

Thank you clam man

[nobrainsnothanks-deactivated201]

forever reblog

[rocketscienceandbrainsurger-blog]

[horreurscopes]

a few fun octopus facts:

their arms are similar to our tongues in that their muscle fibers are  oriented in three different directions 

octopuses are disconcertingly strong (anecdotal evidence says that a 15 inch wide octopus was as strong as the scientist handling it)

on that note that same scientist said that when her octopuses escaped she would have to run behind them, “like cats” (paraphrased from sy montgomery’s the soul of an octopus)

aquariums have “octopus enriching programs” so they don’t get bored and fuck shit up in their tanks

they are crazy smart like. really. really fucking smart 

but we can’t compare their intelligence to ours because our evolution branched from the same common ancestor so long ago we cannot comprehend how they think

it’s believed that their intelligence evolved when they lost their shell, and had to adapt to predict how countless of different prey and predators would act, how to avoid them, distract them, lure them or trick them 

they visualize how other creatures are going to act, which means they have have awareness that others are individuals which is a type of consciousness but i can’t remember what it’s called right now 

like, they use tools 

they have distinct personalities 

aquarium octopuses are socialized from a very young age and even though in the wild they are solitary creatures they become extremely friendly with enough human exposure

sometimes they dislike people for no apparent reason and will shoot water at them

they have three hearts 

each of their arms has a tiny brain that controls movement and sensory input on its own i shit you not

they are color blind and yet they can camouflage their color and nobody knows how 

they can change the color and texture of their skin faster than human eyes can keep up with it

great pacific octopuses are white when they are peaceful, and red when they’re excited 

aquarium octopus have escaped their tanks and slithered down pipes into the ocean 

escaped their tanks to eat the fish in other tanks 

escaped their tanks to go fight other octopuses cuz they were bored

octopus fight club

learned how to take photographs

cost thousands of dollars by flooding new floors

they can feel, taste, and smell with their suckers and all of their skin

they enjoy tasting their food by slowly moving it through their suckers instead of shoving it in their beaks

they can rewrite their rna. no, really

the only reason why they haven’t evolved to take over as the next dominant race is because they’re doing pretty well  in the ocean so there’s no need for them to adapt further 

there’s a ton more but i’m so overwhelmed by love i can’ think of any at the moment i’m going to cry

read the soul of an octopus by sy mongomery no she didn’t pay me i just love octopuses so much 

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

Also:

learned to shoot out the annoying light over the tank

hid in floor drains when caught out of their tanks by researchers

hid the shells of crabs stolen from a tank under a third, unrelated tank

Sy is a wonderful human and a great researcher. NEAq actually named a GPO after her in honor of all her work on octopuses. (Or octopi, or octopodes - they’re all correct). Definitely read that book. 

[sdzoo]

Black-footed cats, Yuna and Sawyer, may resemble your average house cat, but they’re pawsitively unique. As the smallest African species, black-footed cats are naturally rare and considered Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of Endangered Species. Visitors to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park can get a glimpse of this secretive pair in Nairobi Village next to the fennec fox.

[respectfulmemes]

[overheardatthezoo]

This giraffe enclosure is infested with rats!

A woman says to a zookeeper whilst pointing at meerkats (via overheardatthezoo)

Meerrats

[drferox]

I asked a few months ago, but I'm assuming you either didn't get it or didn't want to do it, so thought I'd ask one more time: would you mind giving us your thoughts on cocker spaniels? C:

Mate, you’re on Anon. I’ve got no idea whether I’ve got your ask or not, most of my asks are anonymous. Also, the breed analysis posts have a super long waiting time, I still have 20-something waiting to be done, and only do two a week.

Please note the disclaimer. Theseposts are about the breed from a veterinary viewpoint as seenin clinical practice, i.e. the problems we are faced with. It’s notthe be-all and end-all of the breed and is not to make a judgementabout whether the breed is right for you. If you are asking for anopinion about these animals in a veterinary setting, that is what youwill get. It’s not going to be all sunshine and cupcakes, and isnot intended as a personal insult against your favorite breed. Thisis general advice for what is common, often with a scientificconsensus but sometimes based on personal experiences, and is not aguarantee of what your animal is going to encounter in their life.

Is there is only one thing I would like the you to learn from this post, it’s that Cocker Spaniels, of both types get the most atrocious, nightmarish ear infections I’ve ever seen. They’re the ‘classic’ breed for drug resistant infections, due to their heavy, hairy, floppy ears. (yet, hmm, nobody insists on cropping the ears of this breed to reduce ear infections like they do for others, proving once again that ear cropping is about aesthetics only). Whether it’s chronic yeast infections, or multi-drug resistant pseudomonas, these dogs often have difficult, recurrent ear infections and some will even require ear canal ablations to help reduce symptoms.

Their skin in general isn’t that great either ,whether it’s because they have allergies, atopy or seborrhea, many Cocker Spaniels have chronic skin issues, and often smell rather bad. Sometimes the condition is so long term that the owners don’t even notice the smell any more.

Speaking of smell, sometimes it’s not the ears, or he skin. Sometimes it’s teh dental disease that smells like the dog has a sewer in its mouth.

They are also prone to both Entropion and Ectropion, where the eyelid either rolls in or rolls out instead of sitting neatly against the eye. This can cause chronic pain and corneal irritation. They are also predisposed to Dry Eye (ketatocinjunctivitis sicca) which caused the eyes to  not produce adequate tear films, leaving to drying out of the cornea and potentially ulcers and pain. This requires lifelong medication.

From an internal medicine point of view, these dogs are more likely to develop chronic hepatitis, but with the prednisolone so many of them are on for skin and ear issues I secretly wonder if that’s related.

Epilepsy is more common than average in these dogs, and while very rare Rage Syndrome is a related condition that is probably best known in this breed.

And just to make the skin even harder to manage, this breed is predisposed to Hypothyroidism, and the only dog I’ve ever seen actually develop myxoedema coma as a result was a cocker spaniel. Oh, and almost forgot the classic Immune Mediated Haemolytic Anaemia, where for no good reason the body decided to destroy its own red blood cells. This list is not complete either, but they’re the conditions that I see most commonly, or that are most clinically significant.

[rocketscienceandbrainsurger-blog]

Congestive 👏 heart 👏 failure 👏

[rocketscienceandbrainsurger-blog]

I had a dream (nightmare??) where I was in this huge old opera house, and all my friends had tickets to some fashion-show-auction thing but I didn't. So I wandered up the stairs and entered an open door in the hall, and it was someone's apartment. And then, all these cats began to climb on me and bite me, all over my arms and legs. A man came out of the other room and said, "quick, the only way to get them off is to put them in water." He kept a bathtub full of water just for this purpose. I stepped into the bath and lowered the cats into the water and they began to DISSOLVE. They left behind their teeth marks and some of them left behind their TEETH. As soon as I stepped out of the bath, more cats came to bite me.

[vet-and-wild]

Things I’ve learned spending the summer working in wildlife rehab

–Never trust wildlife. The second you trust that they will do something or stay somewhere is the second they fly off the table and give you a heart attack.

–I have no maternal instinct for human babies, but every time I hold a baby squirrel or bunny in my hands I’m ready to kill for them.

–Baby mink and baby weasels are the cutest things in the world.

–Trying to grab a squirrel is like trying to grab water.

–Adult squirrels are the devil. They WILL bite you and it WILL hurt. Even if they’re half dead, never assume they can’t bite you.

–If you are bit by any kind of wild animal, even if it barely breaks the skin, wash your hands immediately and bandage it. There are a lot of nasty diseases/infections we can get from these animals. Especially rodents; their bites are nasty.

–An angry bat is one of the most distinctive sounds in the world. 

–Goose bites hurt less than you’d expect but crow bites hurt more than you’d expect.

–Just because an animal isn’t a rabies vector in your area doesn’t mean it’s no big deal if they bite you. There are plenty of other diseases we can get from wild animal bites.

–People will try and take care of wildlife and they will do a terrible job and feed them garbage.

–Don’t mess with snapping turtles. Just don’t.

–A lot of the orphan babies brought in are totally healthy and not really orphaned at all. People just assume that an animal is orphaned if they can’t see the parents at all times.

–People don’t always understand why we have to euthanize animals and they will get very mad about it.

–Turtles are very resilient and can survive devastating injuries. Also never assume a snapper won’t bite just because it’s injured. I had a snapper with part of her face missing try to take my finger off.

–Wear gloves. You never know what an animal has.

–All baby birds look at least a little bit like Bernie Sanders. 

[rocketscienceandbrainsurger-blog]

There’s a difference between a rabies vector and an animal that can get rabies. Rabies vectors are species that are considered to have their own strains of the virus. Any neurologic mammal could contract rabies and before dying a horrible rabies-induced death, could give rabies to you by biting you. We don’t, for example, have canine rabies in the US; dogs are not a reservoir for rabies in the US, but they certainly can contract fox or bat or raccoon or skunk strain rabies, just like any other mammal. Even non-neurologic wild mammals that bite you really should be euthanized and tested for rabies, and in some states that is the LAW when it comes to working with wildlife species. Don’t assume that you cannot get rabies from an animal that isn’t considered a “rabies vector species” in your area. You can.

Fun fact. Great horned owls love to eat skunks so please don’t get taloned by a GHO if they’ve come into your clinic in the last 24 hours. They may well have skunk saliva or neural tissue residue on their talons and inoculate you with rabies.