Does my pet have cancer?

Our companion pets live safer, healthier and longer lives now more than ever before. Along with longevity can sometimes come the increasing risk of cancer, often an old-age disease. What do you need to look for to protect your pet?

Although cancer can strike different tissues and organs (and this can be different in dogs and cats), there are some common signs and warnings that you can watch for. None of these need induce panic; just be sure to have your veterinarian check your pet if you are concerned.

@Franke_Dogg is a twitter patient of ours and he is having his teeth cleaned today.  He is a 5 year old, neutered male, dachshund. He developed IVDD (intervertebral disc disease) last september and has not much use of his back legs.  He is starting to get more use of them everyday.  Just not walking like he used too.  But his teeth developed a lot of tartar on them and it became time for his annual teeth cleaning. 

We are doing extensive blood work to make sure he is ok for anesthesia and if he is we will scrape that tartar off his teeth.  Then he will have pearly whites and good breath again. 

If you want to follow his story and you are on twitter his twitter name is @frankie_dogg and his momma's twitter name is @katebuckjr, who is writing his story.


He is so far so good.

The worst cases fall under the category of BDLD (big-dog-little-dog) interactions, or else they happen when cats end up on the business end of a dog's maw. In these cases, the aggressors are usually out to kill — and they can make pretty neat (and expensive) work of it.

 

Then there's the adverse human-animal event we occasionally observe — as in, you're taking in a civilized tea at your neighbor's house and the egregiously dominance-aggressive cat hurls itself at your daintily outstretched pinky finger.

In my experience, it's cases like these that bring out the best and worst in humanity.

Two recent examples from the annals of Dr. Khuly's diverse and interesting clientele:

• The owner of a Presa Canario (insanely big dog) whose notoriously dog-aggressive female got out last month and crushed the neighbor's (also inadvertently-free-roaming) bischon in her mouth.

In the end, the bischon didn't make it. But the Presa's owner handled everything with the kind of grace all humans involved in these sad cases should. What with our initial work-up and transfer to the specialists (which this dog's non-owner handled personally), $10,000 must have changed hands over the course of three days. And the Presa guy didn't blink. Not once. Bless him.

It's at this point we can only hope he applies more of his financial wherewithal to fencing instead of financing my profession's continued existence in cases whose outcomes I'd rather not revisit.

• How about the owner of a trained attack dog purchased exclusively for family protection? Two weeks ago, the mail carrier ignored the prominent "Bad Dog" sign, bypassed the mailbox at the curb, and let herself into the gated yard, package in hand. When the sleeping dog awoke to find the potential evildoer in his yard, he managed to claw a leg. No bite. Just a rough scratch and a frightened mail carrier.

Three police cruisers and one disgruntled postal worker later, this dog had been branded "dangerous." He got the first of a three-strikes-you're-out (as in, euthanasia) violation for doing pretty much what he's supposed to do, after the owner followed every single regulation pertaining to the keeping of such a dog.

Then there was quarantine for rabies (as if you could get rabies from a scratch) and the expense of veterinary visits for pepper spray inhalation — all because some humans feel pet owners and their pets deserve to be punished when animals act like animals, regardless of the circumstances.

Clearly, animal aggression has a way of eliciting a wide range of human behavior. Which is why I'd like to offer my advice for pet-bite etiquette on both sides of the equation:

1. Stay cool and keep it civil.

I tend to think simple bites between friends, family, neighbors and even strangers should be settled amicably (non-legally) with the biter's family offering to pay for any reasonable expenses incurred.

Nonetheless, if your pet injures a human in any way, legal experts say you should talk to a lawyer. You may be liable for damages present and future. This is what my client in the above example should have done to attempt to resolve his dog's "dangerous" distinction.

•2. Determine what isa "reasonable" expense.

Paying for "reasonable" veterinary costs is the norm for adverse pet-pet interactions. But this gets murky. How much is "reasonable" given the widening gap between what's doable and what's affordable? Ideally, the offender's owner should be willing to pay for whatever costs the affected pet's owner thinks is fair — and that might amount to $60, $600, $6,000 or $60,000, depending on the situation. The top end is why lawyers sometimes get into it.

•3. Go ahead, call the cops.

It's OK to call the police if your pet gets bitten out in public by an owned animal unknown to you. How else to be sure if the animal has been vaccinated and that you'll be compensated for your "loss" (i.e., veterinary expenses)?

•4. Choose the vet.

The afflicted pet(s) should go to the vet of the owner's choice. I've seen plenty of situations where the owners of the animals argue over which of their vets should handle the case. And that's not right. You wouldn't take your kid to another's pediatrician just because his patient treats the kid who bit her on the playground, right? Plus, there's a saying about foxes and henhouses that fits in here somewhere.

•5. Take responsibility for your own role.

If you're injured by an animal, you shouldn't expect compensation in a setting where the animal was justifiably defending himself or his property (and the property was so marked in accordance with the law). Similarly, assessing your own role in allowing your Chihuahua to go off leash and attempt to befriend a leashed Rottweiler is critical to determining your right to compensation in the event of an attack.

Accepting responsibility for our pets foibles — and our own — is part of belonging to a civil society. If only more common sense and civility were applied to our pet-on-pet and pet-on-human interactions, I wouldn't have to write a column like this.

 By Gabrielle Jonas

To the baggage handlers loading Buddy's kennel onto American Airlines Flight 1526 from Fort Lauderdale to Chicago's O’Hare Airport last November, the four-year-old pit bull seemed sedate, but otherwise in good health.

But when baggage handlers in Chicago pulled him off the plane, they made the heartbreaking discovery that Buddy had passed away. A veterinarian examining Buddy found no cause of death, and the case was closed, according to a Department of Transportation Pet Incident Report.

Unfortunately, Buddy's tragic story is not an isolated incident for pets traveling in the baggage hold of an airplane. From November 2008 to December 2009, a tally of DOT reports revealed 27 deaths and seven injuries of pets on domestic airlines.

The Humane Society of the United States warns pet owners that pets should not travel by airline unless absolutely necessary. Although baggage holds are an adequate environment for most pets, some can subject animals to temperature extremes, poor ventilation, and low oxygen levels, according to the HSUS.

The fear of unfamiliar smells and piercing sounds during take-off can lead to injury as well. In November, a dog unloaded from Alaska Airlines Flight 645 from Phoenix arrived in Seattle in a “distressed state."

However, if air travel is unavoidable, there are several ways to reduce the risks. “If your pet must travel by air, your best option is to keep him on board with you,” advised the HSUS.

In response to a 2005 federal regulation requiring airlines to report mishaps, some airlines have put an end to pet cargo transport altogether.

Each airline can set its own rules about in-cabin transport of pets, from the size of the carrier to the weight of the pet. Some airlines consider the carrier part of the carry-on allowance, charging for additional carry-ons.

While considering whether to transport your pet by air, you should also take possible restrictions by pet breed into account. Some airlines, taking note that brachycephalic, or short-nosed, dogs are more likely to suffer in airplane transport, restrict those breeds from coming on board.

"Certain breeds such as brachycephalic dogs and cats may have difficulty with air travel," the American Veterinary Medical Association said, noting the respiratory issues that go along with those cute flat noses.

As a result, British Airways will not accept bulldogs, pugs or Pekineses, although the airline will accept cross-breeds. The airline will also not accept pets so sedated they cannot stand up.

Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air will fly brachycephalic dogs and cats, but at the owner's - and pet's - risk. Those dogs include the American pit bull, American Staffordshire, Boston terrier, Brussels Griffon, bullmastiff, bull terrier, chow chow, Dutch pug, English bulldog, English toy spaniel, French bulldog, Japanese boxer, Japanese spaniel, Pekinese pug, Shih Tzu, Staffordshire bull terrier, terrier, bulldog, pug, and boxer.

The feline snub-nosed breeds flying at their own risk are the Burmese, Exotic, Himalayan, and Persian.

Are there some airlines that have a better track record than others? The statistics generally correlate with the total number of an airline's flights, but certain carriers go the extra mile to keep pets safe and happy.

Continental Airlines, for example, received an award for excellence from the Independent Pet and Animal Transportation Association for its PetSafe program. Continental's customers can track their pet's journey on its cargo website while their pets earn travel miles throughout the trip.

Continental also offers a dedicated 24-hour live animal information desk, as well as personal handling in climate-controlled vehicles for hub connections when temperatures climb above 85 degrees Fahrenheit, or 29.5 degrees Celsius.

Although touted as a PetSafe feature, such climate control is in fact a mandate of the Federal Animal Welfare Act, which prohibits airlines from exposing pets to extreme temperature for more than 45 minutes between terminal and plane, or for more than four hours in a holding facility.

The Welfare Act also prohibits pets from being exposed to temperatures less than 45 degrees Fahrenheit or 7.2 degrees Celsius. Perhaps for this reason, Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air will refuse acceptance of a pet if airport temperatures at the origin, destination, or connecting airports exceed certain limits.

Protecting the airborne pet is ultimately the owner's responsibility, so common sense can carry a pet a long way. According to the AVMA, owners would be wise and compassionate to choose early morning or late evening flights in warm weather, and midday flights in cold.

And, cautions Alaska Airlines, try to stick to direct flights for a healthy landing.