Our clever friend Professor Elliott has been scribbling away about kidney disease in cats again.

I know you thought kidney failure was just what made old cats skinny and drink a lot, but of course, when you start to look at it more closely, it’s WAY more complicated then that.

One of the problems is that by the time we start to see signs of kidney failure - weight loss, poor appetite, increased thirst - the poor dears have probably already lost about 70% of their functional kidney tissue, so it begins to look like a salvage job right from the start.

Feeding them a low protein-high carb diet so they don’t produce some much nitrogen waste (urea) is a good start. Dietary change is the single most important thing affecting life expectancy in these cases.

Feed them wet food to increase their water intake so they don’t get so dehydrated (they can’t concentrate their urine so well any more).

There are prescription medicines available - ACE inhibitors like Fortekor - that help to maintain maximum blood supply through these tired old kidneys. Your vet has to prescribe these.

Some vets are also very keen on using appetite enhancers like vitamin B12 to keep their interest up. Kaminox, if they’ll accept it in their food, helps balance the potassium levels and maintain levels of essential amino acids and B vitamins.

Now here’s the tough one. One of the complications of chronic kidney disease in older cats is that they become less able to get rid of excess phosphates from their bodies. Instead, they combine the phosphate with calcium leached out from the skeleton and, left to their own devices, allow it to settle in the remaining kidney tissue. This can further reduce the kidney’s blood supply and ability to function normally.

What can we do about this?

Reduce the dietary intake of phosphates and add a phosphate binder such as Ipakitine into the food.  This is important even if their blood phosphate levels are still apparently within the normal range.

So now you know.

Plenty of water.

Low protein, low phosphate food. Ask your vet about prescription diets.

Phosphate binders. 

We talk a lot about raw food feeding and encourage the owners of the pets that come to see us to think about adding at least some raw food to their pet’s diets.

In fact we get pretty excited about the sight of our dogs munching away on raw chicken wings. I used to buy a tray of them from the supermarket and put them in the freezer, and then defrost them one at a time for Bruno to eat for breakfast. It was always one of the high points of his day.

Yes I know, the public health people are probably already freaking out about salmonella and E coli as we speak, but our experience is that it really doesn’t seem to be a problem in practice. The pets love it, the bones in a chicken wing are great for their teeth and the meat protein is pretty much in the form that nature intended. This is important when we see so many cases of food intolerance or allergy in dogs.

You know, the ones that ‘can’t eat lamb’ or ‘chicken goes straight through him’

I was at a major veterinary conference earlier this year and heard one of the American speakers saying that it was now well established that the process of cooking meat made it more allergenic, that is to say, more likely to provoke an allergic reaction. I questioned him about it afterwards to make sure tht I’d heard it right. The academic establishment stating that raw food was actually better for you - it is less allergenic, less likely to cause digestive problems.

But the next step, actually recommending raw food feeding, was too much for him to take…

 All of which is a lengthy preamble to the bit about our man in Kazakstan. I had a phone message at the clinic saying that the owners of Lettuce the Rhodesian Ridgeback, curretly resident in Astana, were having problems finding suitable food for her now that they could no longer rely on the supply chain of prescription food in Kazakstan.

Now I may well be well travelled, but my knowledge of downtown Astana is not great, certainly not to the point where I’d know the local pet shops and food suppliers. The answer?

Go raw!

I think it just got to be Lettuce’s lucky day…

Now there’s a curious event for you.

It’s not every Sunday that you see the vicar mounted on horseback in all his lime green silken livery, with the ex-Lady Mayor alongside in her purple finery and the local councillor - who curiously appears to be French - in a lurid blue frock coat sort of affair, complete with a frilly neck thing, conducting a church service to a congregation of….horses.

Oh and 2 Jack Russells, a Cavalier (very appropriate), 2 Retrievers, a Boxer recovering from Cushing’s Disease, a smattering of other terriers, a black Labrador, 6 policemen and all but the partridge in the proverbial London plain tree.

This was the 41st annual blessing of the horses at St John’s Church, Hyde Park, and we were there again with our stand, collecting money for the International League for the Protection of Horses.

The regular congregation had a service at 10, followed by coffee, sherry or champagne (this is Hyde Park, darling) as the crowds gathered for the spectacle. Horses, ponies, shetlands, carriages, children and adults gathered in the neighbouring streets before parading through and gathering in front of the padre.

We sang hymns, we listened to readings and prayers as we honoured and blessed our animal friends and companions. It all seemed very appropriate as our clinic has been there since 1872, which must make it one of the oldest in the country. It’s very lifeblood must have been the horses of London for a good part of it’s history.

The service over, the horses paraded round the streets again before passing in front of the podium to collect their rosettes. And the sun beamed down on us throughout. It’s enough to make you love London all over again…

Saw a peice on the news today talking about novel cross-breed dogs. How this managed to be national news at a time when the economy is falling apart, the housing market is in freefall, gas stations are running out of petrol, Ireland has rejected the Lisbon treaty and the great satan (Bush) is in town, I’m really not sure.

But there it was, a cute little puppy. Suddenly all was well and we were able to share a little Andrex moment.

I saw an old patient of mine the other day. Not so old in real time, but at 10 years, this particular Labrador was really feeling his age. We sat and talked about pets and mortality, how their shorter lives inevitably meant that we’d have to go through this unspeakable sense of sadness as they became decrepid in front of our very eyes.

A local colleague had said to them that there’s nothing quite so sad as a broken old Labrador bravely struggling against the odds to keep going then finally having to give up. And then nothing quite so happy and nuttily joyful as a new Labrador puppy crashing around the place.

Do we hate them aging so much partly because we see the same thing happening - albeit in slightly slower motion - to ourselves, our parents, our friends? How come our friends all seem to age a little bit faster than we do? I mean, WE don’t look quite that saggy so we?

I digress. Labradoodles we know (and yes, Poo-adore would have quite the same resonance, apt though it might be in some cases, filthy creatures). Puggles we know. In fact we have several. One Puggle, curiously enough, actually belongs one of the muggles who makes the Harry Potter films.

But a Yorkshire terrier/Chihuahua cross - what are we going to call that?

And yes, we do have a Jack Russell / Shih Tzu cross as well. I think Tzu Russell is more dignified than the other obvious combination.

But back to the serious business. It didn’t cheer me up greatly to read accounts of police donking anti-Bush protesters on the head, drawing blood and generally trying to create the impression that anyone in their right minds thought that the war in Iraq was good idea.

It wasn’t a good idea at the time. Millions of people paraded the streets of our beloved capital to say that they thought killing people was probably not the way to go. And it’s still not a good idea as millions more - on both sides - have suffered since.

And now that our economies are in such a parlous state, it’s probably not such a bad idea to cast an eye on the hideous mountains of cash that have been squandered on warmongering and ‘rebuilding’ of the war zone, and quietly imagine what else could have been done with it.

Somebody say hospitals? Schools? Public transport? Third world poverty/starvation/health/debt?

At one of the anti-war rallies, my favourite placard had a picture of George W with the slogan ‘Nasty Bush’ written above it. As the holder walked past, the reverse of the banner had a picture of a demure but nonetheless entirely naked lady with the words ‘Nice bush’.

A lighter moment of political incorrectness in a mass protest against politics being, well, incorrect.

You’d never guess that this was the office of an internet company that acted as a free information source for pet owners, that dispensed veterinary medicines and sold animal health supplements, accessories, feed additives, toys, that we lived and breathed animals pretty much 24 hours a day…

You could only maybe tell by the work experience visitors that we have.

Bruno of course was the lord and master, but in recent days we’ve had Luna the labrador sitting and shaking under the desk, Wilbur the dachshund chasing his football anytime anyone cared to watch him, Cholmondley the extremely scruffy minature schanuzer (erstwhile house companion to Prometheus the cat) wandering around and looking at the door without raising enough impetus to try to escape and now today it’s the turn of Meg and Penny the Jack Russells.

Food bowls, water bowls and toys litter the floor. Each time the doorbell rings, a head is raised in the folorn hope that this might represent a walking opportunity. Realising that another delivery coming in is unlikely to involve them going to the park, sleep intervenes…

But we did have one major internet drama today when our internet provider shut us down because one of the computers had started sending out huge volumes of spam. Leah had noticed it apparently chattering to itself just yesterday but we’d been distracted by other events and ended up not doing anything about it.

When everything was shut down as a security precaution, we set about the appropriate scans, checks tests, cleanups etc.

Hours later, having followed the official protocol, trojan horses were identified on one of the laptops. 13 of them. That must make nearly a squadron.

The only problem was the frightfully clever anti-nasty software we were running resolutely refused to do anything about them.

Izzy quietly suggested that maybe she should run ’some anti-trojan horse software’ she had. BANG SPLAT WHOOSH.

All gone. Seemed a bit weird for a moment that this animal health internet company had to go out and shoot a bunch of horses, but we consoled ourselves with images from Monty Python and the Holy Grail / Spamalot with the Trojan rabbit.

Nothing against rabbits, of course..

So Rabies is back in the UK…

I guess it reinforces the value of having the Pet Travel Scheme and Quarantine system. Because if we didn’t, those rabid puppies would have been wandering the streets of the UK, and we would have ourselves a full blown rabies outbreak, which would probably have involved the wholesale slaughter of countless innocent pets and wildlife.

As it is, they were confined in the quarantine kennels, the pups have been safely euthanased, and the staff members who were bitten have all been treated and should be fine.

The pups had been ‘rescued’ from the streets of Sri Lanka and brought back to the UK by a charity, to try to give them a better life over here.

All very praiseworthy, but of course slightly cuckoo in the grand scale of things.  

That said, of course we have our fair share of overseas rescue patients at the clinic, from Lefty the street dog from Thailand to the highly pampered Simmi who had to be brought out overland from war torn Beirut last time it kicked off there (the owners refused the British Embassy emergency airlift because they wouldn’t fly the cats out), and numerous cats from the alleys of Hong Kong, with their stubby little tails.

But wholesale import of animals? Seems a little like the reverse of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut - more like using a toffee hammer to demolish a skyscraper.

Having spent a number of years working in so-called third countries on animal welfare projects, I personally would far rather see the effort and resources spent there in the field than concentrated on a few essentially randomly selected cases.

I remember very well a huge row with one of the council members of a charity I used to work for, who wanted to move heaven and earth to rescue a single donkey with a hip injury. All very worthy but that would have meant diverting funds away from simple treatments in the field that would have improved the lives of hundreds of other animals. It that tough environment, just didn’t make sense.

But for her that one animal was paramount. Why? ‘Because I’ve seen it.’ But then she did have a rather over-blown idea of her own importance…

We deal with the Pet Travel Scheme all the time, issuing passports and advising pet owners on the intricacies of the system. The biggest pain is the obligatory 6 months wait after the vaccination and blood test, but this latest episode might help to shift the emphasis from ‘what a pain to have to wait so long, we’re going to have to change our travel arrangements’ to ‘thank goodness the barrier is still there’.

We love the sales reps coming into the practice, but then again we don’t get out much and a new face brings with it at least the possibility of some idle amusement.

Sure, they come to sell something, but the trade off is they bring technical information and gossip. And are easy targets if you enjoy poking good natured fun.

And we hunt in packs.

Not letting them get a word in edgeways for a while is a good softening tactic.

Singing the praises of a rival product pretending you thought it was one of their company’s sometimes works well.

I had a cold call on my mobile the other day. Not a veterinary call but from a young man in a call centre asking what mobile phone insurance I had. Not being in the habit of giving out personal information to strangers I suggested that it was none of his business. Affronted, he claimed that he was ‘not trying to sell me something’.

At which point he finally lost me. Best not to tell lies, I find.

Back to the pharmaceutical company rep.

We were talking about what sounds like a great new product called Zylkene. It’s a ‘novel product proven to help manage stress in dogs and cats’.

Now this is quite a big issue, particularly in an inner city practice. It’s a derivative of casein, one of the milk proteins. It acts on the Gaba A receptors in the central nervous system, you know the ones…

In an instant, she’d lost me. Gaba A sort of rhymes with Gabba Gabba Hey which took me back to the mid 70’s and the Ramones with Pinhead.

I drifted back into the conversation, and put the idea to one side that this might be just a rather expensive glass of milk for my anxious patients, as I realised that this might actually be a fantastic product.

Available any day now…watch this space

A study just published in the august journal the Veterinary Record looked at levels of parasites in cattle in organic farms as opposed to a similar group of ‘ordinary’ farms. This comes against a background of the rising level of liver fluke infestation that is causing some concern.

The non-organic farms routinely used anthelminthics - parasite-killing drugs - as part of their management regime for all their animals, whether they appeared affected by parasites or not.

Organic farms are not allowed to use such medication unless an animal is actually ill with parasites. Instead they have to rely on more traditional methods such as grazing their cattle on reseeded pasture, moving their stock regularly onto new clean pasture, grazing calves with sheep or a combination of all three.

The result?

Both groups had similarly low levels of parasites, indicating that control strategies on both groups  were effective.

Where many had suspected that the wholesome animal-welfare-friendly image of organic farming might in fact be hiding more serious health issues for cattle, for this study at least, their fears appear groundless.

Organic really is good for us and the animals on these farms.

It gets slightly worse for the animals on all systems of course when, despite our concerns about their welfare, we kill them and eat them.

For years now there’s been such competition for places at the veterinary schools that they have had a tough time choosing who to select as future students.

From amongst the piles of A-level over-achievers, the heads of schools, the ones that have spent years of their lives doing Saturday work at the local vets, travelled to the far ends of the earth to do worthy voluntary work in orphanages or sailed single-handedly to Sydney and back whilst writing award-winning poetry, they have always tended to choose those with high IQs.

And as we have touched on previously, many of those that survive vet school are a pretty miserable lot. In fact we are 4 times more likely to commit suicide than the average Joe in the street.

Quite an achievement for such a sought-after profession, I’d have thought.

It is now suggested that your ability to achieve ’success’ or happiness in life is more related to your emotional intelligence or competence (EQ) than on your intelligence (IQ).

And it’s beginning to look as if the veterinary school selection process might be inadvertently selecting extremely bright students some of whose emotional ability is less well developed….

Interestingly enough, there are other specific groups of people that also have high IQs but low EQs.

Amongst those affected with mild autism, for example, are many with Asperger’s syndrome. These people may well get top A levels, honours degrees and so on but they have little ability to cope with their own or others emotional issues. They find it difficult to relate to others or indeed to have any level of emotional mastery.

So next time you go to your vet looking for some emotional hand-holding at a difficult time in the life of your pet, consider the idea that beneath the cool surgeon’s amour, your vet might be struggling as much or even more than you are to cope with the vicissitudes of life, death and all between.