Don’t wash the dog!! It is amazing that, after all these years of veterinary practice, I still love the 12 week old puppy vaccination appointment! Many of my colleagues are perplexed by my love of such a ‘mundane’ consultation; but it is here that I often feel I can do my best work. By putting in place good husbandry practices from this early age, I can help to prevent this pet from returning to see me time and again with chronic disease complaints. One of my biggest bug bears is to see the new puppy come in and in response to my standard question “Do you have any health concerns with Fido that you have seen over the past few weeks?” is the owner who says,  “yes, he is really itchy. I have washed him each week in the puppy shampoo recommended by the pet store and I have applied the flea treatment recommended but he is still scratching all the time”. Itchy Dog And the new owner is invariably surprised when I plead “Please stop washing the dog!”. No more baths at least until I have seen you next month! “But they were covered in poo from the breeder!” they exclaim. “He needed a bath!” That may be – but he doesn’t need more. Specialist dermatologists agree. The fastest way to predispose a pet to developing atopy (allergic skin disease) is to too frequently wash the pet in shampoo and to neglect the gut microbiome. Even pet shampoos strip the skin of vital oils, dehydrating the skin and compromising the skin barrier function. Once the skin becomes dehydrated, it suffers tiny cracks, or microfissures in the outer layer. These cracks let in allergens to the deeper layers of the skin where they stimulate receptors and interleukins to start the inflammatory cascade. The beginning of itch! What can you do to protect your puppy’s skin? The best way to protect your puppy’s skin is to avoid washing him in shampoo. Sure, if he needs a bath, you can wash him in warm water to get the dirt off. Or if […]

The month of August is upon us again and traditionally, vet clinics have touted the importance of pet dental health by promoting dental services during this month. I find this amusing since the importance of dental health is not just for the one month per year. I did a little digging.  Guess what I found? The Australian Dental Association (people, not pets this time) also promote the importance of dental health during the month of August. It seems we vets have jumped on the human dentists’ bandwagon… Dental Health Week, which takes place in the first full week of August, is the Australian Dental Association’s major annual oral health promotion event. Its aim is to educate Australians about the importance of maintaining good oral health in every aspect of their lives. The Importance of Oral Health I strongly agree that the importance of a healthy mouth cannot be overstated.  Pets are no different from people here. The beginning of poor dental health is the beginning of decline for so many of our pet cats and dogs. Sadly, many pet owners see bad breath or brown teeth as a ‘natural aging sign’ of their pets and do not treat it as the serious health issue that it is. We have always maintained that the best way to care for your pet’s teeth is to feed them a fresh food diet with raw meaty bones. The high carbohydrate content of processed dry foods actually sticks to the teeth.  This creates the perfect environment for the bacteria that cause tartar to grow and form their protective biofilm. Fresh food with a need for chewing reduces the ability of these bacteria to bind to the teeth and gums. But what to do if your dog does not tolerate raw bones? Or your cat just refuses to eat anything other than kibble. We know that not all pets happily eat the ideal diet. And although we can sit and advise you to just ‘wait it out’ or keep on trying those bones, there are just some pets who cannot and these pets need some other form of help. Our recommendations So, what products […]

The fundamental reason you shouldn’t feed kibble to a cat. We’ve all been there haven’t we? Stuck in the aisle of the pet food store trying to choose the best quality food for our furry felines. They sleep there on the couch all day looking for all the world like an angelic fluffy cushion, but at dinner time (or 5am breakfast time) the inner hunter emerges and they demand what they want. And if we don’t have their ideal meal planned that day, they let us know about it. So here we are again, staring at rows upon rows of meals for cats,.  Trying desperately to reconcile the taste demands of our ‘Lord and Master’ with our desire to feed them food that will keep them well. Being influenced by our budget, and that nagging doubt you’ll never find the ‘best food’ anyway. Does it even exist? Well I’m here to tell you that if you are looking on the shelves of the pet food store, then no. You are not going to find the ‘best food’.  Because we all intrinsically know that good quality, fresh and wholesome food is not found in a bag or a can in the long-life storage area of the store. Real food goes off. Fresh food needs to be chilled or frozen. Fresh food is not ‘convenient’. Why do cats need fresh food? Our furry feline friends are highly evolved as master hunters. They are obligate carnivores who are so successful in their hunting prowess that they have discarded all other nutritional adaptive measures that would mean they can eat a varied diet. They are finely tuned to eat a diet consisting of small animals, several times per day. These might be mice, rats, lizards, rabbits, frogs, insects and birds and yes, they do eat the gut contents of small prey. They do not eat vegetables, grains or grass. This evolutionary elitism means that cats are designed to eat raw diets, raw meat, organs, bones, skin and feathers. Unlike dogs who have adapted to living with humans and eating their food, cats have done […]