Nanaimo Veterinary Hospital

July first marks the date of the 7th province to elect to ban declawing in cats! New Brunswick joins British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island who have already made the decision to ban non-medical declawing of cats. This is a positive step forward for the welfare of cats in BC and around Canada.

This may mean a shift in our thinking of how we cohabitate with our indoor cats. Scratching is a normal behavior for cats. They will scratch vertical or horizontal surfaces, depending on their flexibility, surroundings and reason for wanting to scratch. Scratching helps to shed their nails and strengthen their grip.

Younger cats tend to enjoy scratching on tall vertical surfaces where they can stretch themselves out.  Older cats who may be dealing with osteoarthritis tend to shift their scratching habits to horizontal surfaces. Cats will often scratch after a good stretch when waking up from a nap, which may be on the horizontal surface they wake up on.

Scratching posts or blocks should be made available for your cat to exhibit their natural behaviour in a healthy and acceptable way. There may be locations in the home that your cat prefers to scratch, it is often easiest to place the scratching post in that location. This may mean that a post is placed beside a couch corner to protect the couch…

Cats will often like their cat trees and posts by windows to watch the world outside.

Products like Feliway Friends, a feline interdigital pheromone, can be used to encourage scratching of a desired area. For instance, it can be placed on a scratching post to encourage scratching of it instead of the couch…

There are many types of scratching objects, cardboard wedges or carpet blocks, jute twine wrapped poles or be creative and create your own!

I love the cute little inch worms crawling around on leaves in the summer. I even had a toy one to ride when I was a kid! These are NOT the type of worms we are referring to when we talk about worms and your pet. We mean internal parasites that eat nutrients from your pets’ intestines, stealing food from them!

There are many different species of internal parasites, but all have the same goal in mind (though they don’t really have a brain like us…) which is to use their host (your pet) as a source of food and shelter. Internal worms are usually introduced to the pets’ intestines by means of ingesting a worm egg. These are microscopic and the pet is totally unaware of eating it. Higher risk meals would include poop, dead carcasses or contaminated meats, usually from hunting wildlife. Once they ingest the egg, it is able to hatch and become a baby worm called a larva. Sometimes the larva is ingested directly and the egg stage is skipped. The larva will grow to become an adult and be able to reproduce more worm eggs. Many eggs are shed into the environment for other unsuspecting animals to eat through the feces of the infected pet. It takes most worms only a few weeks from egg to adulthood!

Testing for worms is done by examining your pet’s feces for worm eggs. If worm eggs are found, you have a diagnosis of intestinal worms. If worm eggs are not found, if could mean-there are no worms, there is an all male or all female worm population and they cannot reproduce alone or the worms are too young to be able to produce eggs.

Dewormers will kill the adult stage worms and older larval stages but not the eggs or younger larval stages. This is why regular deworming is recommended for pets that hunt or eat poop and why more than one deworming may be needed if there is a known worm burden present.

Dr. Alex Kirkham

Of the 40 recognized tick species in Canada, the Western blacklegged tick (Ixodes pacificus) and the Rocky Mountain Wood Tick (Dermacentor andersoni) are the two primary ticks found on Vancouver Island. Adult ticks can be identified by their eight legs and hard shell (most species), though the larval stage only has 6 legs.

Ticks are obligate feeders, meaning they require a blood meal to survive. The tick has 3 life stages in which they will be active feeders: the larval, the nymph and the adult stages. Ticks may feed on a single host or multiple hosts. The blacklegged tick and rocky mountain tick are 3 host ticks, meaning that they will feed from a different host for each life stage.

Ticks do not run, jump or fly to find a host to feed from. Many species of ticks will seek a host by means of “questing”, where they will climb to a taller area, such as the high point of grasses with their legs outstretched and wait for a passerby. Ticks are capable of detecting subtle changes in temperature, carbon dioxide concentrations and movement and travel towards these changes in hopes of finding an animal to latch onto to feed.

Ticks can be found in wooded areas, grassy areas and even inner-city parks. Risk of tick exposure is anywhere nature is, whether that be city park walking or mountain hiking. Assessing your pet’s risk is important in order to protect them from tick bites and tick-borne diseases such as Lyme disease, Canine Granulocytic Anaplasmosis and Ehrlichiosis in dogs.

Doing a thorough tick search of pets after outdoor activity is recommended. Removing ticks can be done safely with the use of gloves, tweezers or tick twisters. Tick twisters are an easy way to safely remove ticks by lacing the twister below the mouthparts of the tick and twisting it off. If tweezers are being used, be careful to place them parallel, close against the skin and pull upwards without squishing the tick. Clean the bite area with a gentle soap or anti-septic and avoid picking or rubbing the skin as this can increase chances of local infection.

Using a tick preventative is recommended for dogs and cats that live an at-risk lifestyle.

Check out the Pet Tick Tracker for maps of ticks submitted by pet owners and tips on how to submit tick samples online for continued surveillance of ticks in our community.

https://www.petsandticks.com/

Dr. Alex Kirkham

Spring has sprung and so have the number of dogs and cats we have seen with those pesky fleas. In our warm and moist climate here on the island we see fleas all year round however spring and fall provide optimal conditions for the flea life cycle.

Fleas are amazingly fecund. An adult flea can lay up to 50 eggs per day. Those eggs quickly hatch into larvae then molt and turn into pupae and finally back into adults. As soon as the adult emerges it looks for a host to take a blood meal. The entire lifecycle can occur in as little as two weeks when conditions are favorable.  The only stage of the lifecycle that is on the dog or cat is the adult stage. The rest of the lifecycle is in the environment. Theoretically this means that 1 flea could turn into 50 adult fleas in as little as two weeks. They are also able to pause the life cycle for several months if environmental conditions are unfavorable.  Flea pupae can lay dormant waiting for favorable conditions for months before emerging as an adult.

Fleas are more than just a nuisance for pets.  Of course we all know that scratching or itching can be a result of flea infestations but did you know that some dogs or cats can be covered in fleas and not itch at all while for others a single flea bite can cause a severe hypersensitivity reaction that can last for weeks.  This is called flea allergic dermatitis and can result in severe itch, hair loss, scabs, crusts and skin infections.  Fleas also can be responsible for disease transmission. Fleas can carry tapeworm in their gut that can be transmitted to the dog or cat when they eat the flea.  Bacterial blood disease such as mycoplasma haemofelis and Bartonella henselae (cat scratch fever) can also be transmitted by the flea. In severe infestations anemia can become a problem due to blood loss from the flea bites themselves.

Fortunately there are many safe and effective flea preventatives and treatments available for dogs and cats. Due to our favorable climate for fleas year round prevention is generally recommended in most cases to avoid infestations. Our knowledgeable staff is happy to help if you have questions about flea prevention or flea products don’t hesitate to give us a call or stop by the hospital.

Dr. James Kirkham