From Nat Geo:

“An expert in large farm animals and pets, with a “you name it, and we’ll treat it” attitude, this house-call-making veterinarian has seen it all.  Dr. Pol works 14-hour days to help the diminishing population of family farmers survive by playing an integral role in keeping local farmers’ livestock healthy and in turn, their businesses profitable. He’ll travel across rural Michigan to care for every family pet and head of livestock in need of his expertise and kindness, treating numerous patients, including horses, pigs, cows, sheep, alpacas, goats, cats, dogs and even an occasional reindeer.

With such a busy practice, we are on call right alongside Dr. Pol as he treats a variety of cases, including two dogs with faces stuck full of porcupine quills, sick horses that may need to be put down and a pig with an abscess that needs to be drained.  We’ll also get a front-row seat as Dr. Pol examines a cow to check for pregnancy by reaching his arm into the rectum and feeling the ovaries.  For local farmers, while many of these animals are their livelihood, others are a part of their extended family. “

I remember this lifestyle – I started out my practice in a rural farm practice treating everything from the performance horse to the dairy cow to the show goat to the feeder pigs to the farm dog. It was a fun part of my veterinary career. I look forward to watching this show and having fond memories of what the veterinary life has to offer and then realizing how happy I am to be doing what I am now.

Check out this video – I remember palpating cows! When I was a student I had gone to California to the large dairy’s there and I had palpated 300 cows in one day!

The Incredible Dr. Pol: Vet and Wild

Premieres Saturday, October 29, at 9 p.m. ET/PT—Special Premiere Time

Dr. Pol receives an emergency call from a client who finds her horse down and fears he may not make it. Suffering from a spinal cord injury, he decides to give the horse a cortisone shot. Will he survive? Dr. Pol’s son, Charles decides to extend his visit to help his father with the work overload. His only request—to palpate a cow. But trouble creeps up when Dr. Pol and Charles perform an emergency futotomy, an intense procedure to extract two dead fetuses from a cow in hopes of saving the mother’s life.  And, the clinic celebrates its 30th anniversary with a special pig roast with old friends, former employees and longtime clients.

If you have been paying attention the last year or so you have been hearing and reading that here in the US we have developed some resistant parasites in our horse population. How did we develop these resistant parasites? Well to be honest our deworming protocols. In our zeal to have a clean worm free horse population we have instead developed worms that are resistant to treatment.

SO what to do? There are reports everywhere saying we should deworm regularly only with ivermectin, and others saying we should only deworm after testing to be sure our horse has parasites, and others still saying use a rotational deworming program but base it on the time of year rather than just every 30 or 60 days. However very little information is out there on how to actually prevent your horse from being infected in the first place. Well it is a matter of equine parasite management.

In equine parasite management one needs to first consider the actual risk of your horse being infected by parasites. The risk for a horse stabled and fed inside a barn and turned out by itself in its own personal dry lot is going to be much less than another horse that is kept in a small pasture with 5 other horses. With a horse in the environment as the latter, it is going to be near impossible to prevent infection from parasites, so one has to be dedicated to management of the pasture to prevent an overabundance.

The rules of equine parasite management -

1. Clean up the manure in the pasture/turnout – a minimum of once a week this reduces the amount of eggs being delivered to the pasture and also the larva.
2. If you feed hay and/or grain, feed inside the barn or at a minimum in a bunk off the ground and in an area separate from the pasture. If you do feed in a bunk outside place the bunk on a concrete pad or limestone. Clean feed buckets and bunks regularly.
3. If possible divide your pastures and rotate the usage allowing a rest period to help kill off parasites.
4. Test each horse’s manure regularly (once every 2-3 months) for parasites. One horse can be a high shedder and be the main infector and another have a very low parasite count. Knowing the high shedders will help you manage those individual horses and keep them separate from the rest of the herd if possible. Also you can treat the horses that shed and treat each horse as an individual which actually helps the entire herd.
5. Deworm any new horse prior to introducing them to your herd.

Other Sources for deworming and horse parasite control

Two Horses, Adjoining Pastures–Two Wildly Different Deworming …

The worm load for the mare? Very small–only 34 (which is the number of eggs per gram), which makes her a “low shedder” of worm eggs. According to thi.

http://myhorse.com/blogs/horse-care/two-horses-adjoining-pastures-two-wildly-different-deworming-needs/

A Chilling Thought About Horse Deworming Schedules | MyHorse …

Like you, I’ve read many conflicting horse deworming schedule reports. And it seems that for every horse deworming program based on a rotational drug.

http://myhorse.com/blogs/horse-care/a-chilling-thought-about-horse-deworming-schedules/

Every Horse Boarder’s Nightmare: A Young Horse’s Death from Severe Worm Damage and the Ten Commandments of Parasite Control

From the very day that newly-initiated horse owners pick up their crisp new how-to horsecare book or go to that first horse health lecture, the first commandment of horse health management echoes in their ears: Thou shalt worm thy horse religiously.

http://blogs.equisearch.com/horsehealth/2011/10/13/horse-worm-strongyle-clot-thromboembolism/

A cute video explaining the new concepts for deworming -

Superworm.m4v

Eggzamin Superworm – Drug Resistant Parasite in Horses. Time to rethink our deworming strategies.

It is that time of year again it’s Chocolate season! It starts with Halloween and ends at Christmas. This is where us humans gain several pounds due to good food and even better candy. Chocolate is a favorite of mine and truly a favorite of many. However our dogs should not be indulging in chocolate, it is toxic to them. Depending on how much your dog weighs and how much your dog eats will decide whether your dog will be OK, have gastrointestinal symptoms, have seizures or even die.

It is the theobromine that is in chocolate that is really toxic to dogs and certain chocolate is much more toxic than other types. Depending on how much theobromine is in the chocolate will decide on how toxic. For example White Chocolate has very little theobromine and it takes quite a large amount to be toxic in dogs, in comparison baking chocolate or real cocoa is highly toxic to dogs, because it has a lot of theobromine.

Usually I tell people to go to the cool interactive chart offered several years ago by National Geographic – it still available here – National Geographic Chocolate Chart

However this year a fellow veterinarian, Dr Marie from AskAVetAQuestion.com offered me a free Chocolate Toxicity Calculator to put right here on my site. So thanks Dr. Marie!

Calculator provided by Ask A Vet Question.

Canine Case of the Week is Bear a special dog with Intervertebral Disk Disease in the cervical spine. What makes Bear special is that he is also a cancer patient, OK he is a good dog too! Bear is one of my lucky patients that has been able to take advantage of the new information about acupuncture I have learned from the Chi Institute in my process to acupuncture certification.

 Bear is a 10 year old neutered male black Lab. He was diagnosed with Osteosarcoma of the jaw in December 2010. The tumor was wrapped around his lower canine and it bled every time he ate. When it was discovered that it was cancer Bear underwent surgery to have the front third of his lower jaw removed. He recovered fine from the surgery and no longer had bleeding every time he ate.

Shortly after his jaw surgery he started limping on his left front leg. Of course thinking the worse his owner brought him right away to a specialist and discovered that no the cancer had not spread but actually Bear had a strained tendon in his elbow. The specialist injected the elbow with corticosteroid and the limping improved. Unfortunately he developed a neck problem 2 weeks afterwards.

Bear has had issues with his neck for a long time. He would be stiff and a little painful to the touch. His owner would give him aspirin and in a day he would bounce back, however this time was different. He did not bounce back and in fact became worse. He could not turn his head to the left without being in pain. Back to the vet Bear went. His cervical spine was radiographed and luckily no signs of cancer, but also no significant findings for a problem relating to his pain in the neck. He was diagnosed with Cervical Intervertebral Disk Disease or Cervical IVDD. An MRI could be done to confirm the diagnosis but with the expense, the fact that an MRI may not be as reliable as once thought for diagnosis of IVDD, the fact that Bear has gone through a lot already and most important the owner was not wishing to put Bear through another surgery and only wants him comfortable for how ever many months she has left with Bear, an MRI was not performed and Bear was given typical conservative pain management pharmaceuticals – muscle relaxers and pain relievers. He did this for a couple of months. It did not help enough and in May it became much worse. He could not raise his head comfortably and he was placed on more pain relievers. In June when nothing else seemed to be helping Bear’s owner called me.

My first visit Bear was mildy depressed but still happy to visit. He could not raise his head very well, looked uncomfortable and certainly could not turn his head left. He was not sleeping well at night. He was very painful when touching his neck or trying to move his head. I spent time massaging and doing chiropractic adjustments to help relieve some of his tension and pain. I also prescribed Gabapentin for the neuropathic pain since none of the pain relievers he was on were seeming to help.

A week later I revisited and readjusted. He was improved. His pain was mostly gone but he still could not turn his head to the left.

The next week I revisited again and now he could turn his head about 50% to the left and still no pain. I adjusted him again and was happy with the progress. However Bear had other plans with his new found reduction in pain.

The problem with giving a dog pain relievers, or doing modalities such as chiropractic or acupuncture is that they do relieve pain. The problem with relieving pain is that the area is still healing and can take 12 weeks to heal completely, but since there is no pain the dog will use the area like there is nothing wrong. If the dog feels better and does something it should not it can re-injure the area and start the whole cascade of events all over. That’s what Bear did!

He was happy feeling better and became excited one day. The owner knew that she needed to keep him calm and not do any activity with him, but Bear had other ideas and decide to play hard for a couple minutes and re-injured himself. When I saw him we were back to square one! He was in pain again and could not turn his head at all. We started over. I massaged and adjusted him and and was coming back the next week, after my trip to the Chi Institute.

Monday, after my course work at the Chi Institute I visited Bear He was out of pain but still could not move his head to the left. I had some small needles that I usually use for horse legs. I did some acupuncture for Bear’s neck and I have a laser machine and lasered a few acupuncture points as well. The treatment lasted about 20 min. After the treatment was over, Bear got up shook all over and whined at the door. He went out, went to the bathroom, came back in and went right for his toy box. The owner and I were quick to tell him – OH NO. She told him to go lay down. The owner and I could tell he was feeling very spunky and wanted to play. He felt very good. So I went onto my soapbox and told her how he needed to rest and definitely needed to be confined and not allowed to play. The problem with acupuncture is that they feel too good and can re-injure themselves. All the while I was talking (preaching) Bear was laying with his right side against a wall, obviously upset that he was told he could not play, and at one point the owner and I looked at him and he looked back at us. It only took a couple seconds for it to register that he was turning his head to the left to look straight back at us!

Here was a dog that had for months not been able to turn his head to the left and I thought I had made some big progress with the chiropractic treatments to get him to turn his head 50% of the way and now he was turning his head like nothing was ever wrong. He had no pain and had full range of motion from one 20 min treatment of acupuncture.

Today I visited Bear and he is almost completely normal. He is off all the medications except for the Gabapentin which he has started weaning off. He has a little limp in his left front leg but his neck shows no sign of pain and has about 90% range of motion. I treated him with electroacupuncture today and will visit him again in two weeks.

I have a new found respect for acupuncture and will be incorporating it more and more in my treatment protocols. I will be suggesting it to clients more frequently and eventually I can see that my practice will be a Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine practice using herbs and acupuncture with some chiropractic and physical therapy added. Thank you Bear for the excellent results that were way beyond my expectations. With more treatments I am hoping to help him with his elbow pain and extend his life comfortably despite living with an aggressive cancer.

Calm down horse people, all this EHV-1 hysteria is getting to me. As of today there are less than 40 horses that have contracted Equine Herpes Virus 1 from being exposed at a national cutting show in Odgen, Utah. Despite what certain news outlets are reporting it has not spread yet. Think about it there are over 7 million horses in the US, less than 40 have contracted the disease and less than 5 have died – 0.00057% of the population is definitely NOT an epidemic.

Yesterday I was a little disappointed in one of The Horse’s articles relating to the outbreak – EHV-1 Outbreak: Number of Confirmed Cases Rising. The title of this article and definitely the first line in the article really irritated me. Here is a respected health journal and they are playing to the hysteria that is building. Worse yet with the line, “It’s been nearly a week since the first indications of a neurologic equine herpesvirus-1 (EHV-1) outbreak began to surface, and the outbreak shows no signs of slowing down.” they certainly are continuing and even promoting that hysteria. I tweeted my disapproval with two tweets -

Stephanie Church the Editor-in-Chief responded back to the tweets with a tweet of her own -

I agree with their mission and the responsibility they have placed on themselves which is why The Horse is an excellent source for articles on health for your horse (I have blog envy for sure). I said so and reiterated my displeasure with that specific title and first line of the article. Stephanie understood and followed up with this tweet -

I am glad that Stephanie commented and listened to me explaining my displeasure and in the end seemed to be more conscious of what I was trying to say. I’d like to expand and clarify my position, first by saying that The Horse is by no means the problem here. They are still one of my most trusted sources for information about the outbreak. I also want to say that I am concerned about this outbreak but not to the point that I have seen some people and owners out here on the internet. On top of the hysteria, the misinformation is horrific. I can not believe with as much good information being repeated in many different reputable areas that there still is misinformation being given, even by veterinarians! And not only misinformation but information that may be detrimental to your horse’s health rather than helpful.

The Facts about this EHV-1 Outbreak

• EHV-1 has been around a very long time and it is unknown at this time whether this outbreak is caused by a new strain.

• EHV-1 causes respiratory disease, abortions, foal deaths and/or neurologic disease. If a horse obtains the neurologic form it is not a death sentence.

• This outbreak has been limited to the horses that were exposed at the cutting show in Odgen, Utah and their stablemates. It has not spread to other horses.

• Containment/Quarantine is the best defense against spread and it appears that at this time it has been contained by quarantining the horses that have been exposed.

• Vaccination is ineffective against the neurologic form and controversial.

Reliable Sources for EHV-1 Information

• AAEP – EHV Owner Resources
• UC-Davis College of Vet Med – Center for Equine Health: EHV-1
• The Horse – Equine Herpesvirus (EHV)
• USDA – APHIS – Equine Herpes Virus type 1

A Few Words on Vaccination for EHV-1

First and foremost – the vaccine will NOT protect your horse against the neurological form of EHV-1. There were neurologic cases of EHV-1 in horses that were vaccinated every 3 to 4 months with an approved vaccine in the last outbreak. At this time there is not a labeled or  approved product to protect your horse against the neurologic form. There is good reason for this – because there is not one that will protect against it!

There is promise though and break-throughs in research. The modified live vaccine shows some promise and did protect in one study of 5 horses, but still seemed ineffective in the outbreak a couple years ago. New advances in vaccine technology with recombinant DNA vaccines and Chimera type vaccines are also showing some promise but still are not available or ready to prove they are effective.

One of the biggest problems with the current vaccines, besides not being effective against the neurologic form, is the duration of so called protection. The vaccines currently available only protect for 3 months or so. (In some horses as little as a few weeks) So this means that if you really wanted to properly vaccinate you would need to vaccinate every 2-3 month, but it still will not prevent the disease and may only limit symptoms. It does prevent virus shedding which could possibly be of some benefit to limiting the exposure to other horses.

This is where my opinion comes in based on experience with the immune system and evidence from other species (cats and dogs). It is not advisable to be stimulating the immune system with a vaccine multiple times a year especially once every 60 days, unintended consequences may occur. In dogs and cats it has been proven that annual vaccination can and does cause immune system disorders such as allergies, auto-immune disorders and even cancer. Why would the horse be so different? And we are not talking about annual vaccination; here we are talking about giving a horse a vaccine every 2-3 months that’s 4 to 6 times a year. Talk about over vaccinating! It has not been proven in horses to have detrimental effects but it really has not been researched either. So in my opinion why would you risk your horses immune system to try and protect against a disease that it can not protect against? It is possible that the reason we see an increase in the neurologic form of the disease in vaccinated animals is because of over-vaccination. No research just an opinion based on other species experience with over vaccination.

In the end just remain calm horse owners. Be educated and informed. Pay attention to where the disease has occurred and realize that taking your horse to a show is a risk, but why do you have the horse in the first place?

With the wider acceptance of raw feeding for dogs, meaning feeding uncooked meats, with bone and vegetables and seeing how it is helping a number of dogs with health issues and improving overall health for dogs,  a couple of companies are reaching out to vets and have veterinary programs to help veterinarians determine when and how to institute a raw feeding program for their clients.

Nature’s Variety has a program helping vets become more aware and more knowledgeable about raw feeding. I have their vet packet in front of me, which is filled with information and ways to find out more information. Interesting information such as case studies, online resources and a good explanation on why their raw food is safe, using High Pressure Pasteurization (HPP) which kills harmful bacteria but does not affect proteins, enzymes, nutrients, prebiotics, vitamins or minerals.

Nature’s Variety has been helping vets get over the other hurdle of feeding raw by going through the process of AAFCO food trials to be certified complete and balanced. According to NV they are the 1st and only raw food company to have done this; not that it matters to most raw feeders, but it does matter to the scientific community including veterinarians.

Some of the disease conditions that vets use nutrition to help treat that can be benefited by raw feeding are food allergies, obesity, digestive disorders, skin and coat disorders and diabetes.  I am really impressed by this company taking the time to try and integrate the raw feeding world and bring it to the scientifically based veterinary community that many times is concerned with new and non-traditional ways of treating pets and improving their health.

What are your thoughts? Would you like to see more companies like Nature’s Variety go mainstream and try to connect with more veterinarians or do you think raw feeding is a fad and will die off or become a cult for a select few?

I received a question about horse chiropractic. Leah did not understand what her horse chiropractor was saying to her, so I attempted to help her understand a little about chiropractic -

If the femur was truly out either in the hip joint or the joint of the tibia and the femur in the hind leg, then wouldn’t the horse be unable to use the leg?  Is it possible for these joints to be out of place?  And if so is it possible to realign them with a chiropractic adjustment?
Thank you very much for the information.
Leah

My explanation -

Leah,

Now you are talking the difference between a medical luxation and a chiropractic subluxation. When a chiropractor or someone talking about chiropractic says that a joint is “out” they do not mean that the joint is totally displaced. If it were totally displaced or luxated, yes the horse would be unable to walk initially and it would be very very painful. You would know and would be calling your vet right away if you saw this problem. It would be like if the leg was broken.

However when a chiropractor using the lay term the joint is “out” it is a very simplistic and often misinterpreted way to describe a subluxation. A subluxation in chiropractic terms is a joint that is not moving effectively or efficiently. When a joint does not move correctly then it affects the tissue surrounding the joint as well, reducing blood flow and nerve conduction around the joint. This is what causes the symptoms or possible long term chronic sometimes subclinical  (meaning you can not tell there is a specific problem at the moment)  issues. A chiropractic adjustment is an attempt to reset the joint, to correct the movement and thus correct the nerve conduction and blood flow around the joint. I am also giving you a simplistic description – one that is easier to understand but more descriptive than the joint is out. There are books devoted to trying to explain what occurs with a chiropractic adjustment.

The resetting of the movement of a joint does involve chiropractic adjustments and sometimes even muscle massage to help the joint return to normal function. It may take several adjustments to have the joint return to normal function. Also there are times due to stresses on the joint such as biomechanical changes from conformation or activity of the horse (jumping, dressage, barrel racing, etc) or even vices such as weaving, cribbing, circling that can affect the success of an adjustment. Other problems such as bad teeth alignment, bad hoof balance, poor saddle fit or even an unbalanced rider that can have an affect on the animal and the success of a chiropractic adjustment. Lastly physical problems or pathologic problems such as strained ligaments, torn muscles, arthritis, or even synovitis which is inflammation in the joint can affect the success of an adjustment. In my practice I use chiropractic as a tool to help discover these underlying issues. I do the adjustments but also look at the animal as a whole and help the owner/rider/trainer understand why the horse is not moving correctly and we fix the problems we can and those we can not we help by continuing to do chiropractic adjustments to correct the biomechanics as best as we can to help the horse move the best we can help it move.

I hope this answers your questions.

I hope it helps others understand what I do as an animal chiropractor. Here is a video of me doing an adjustment on a horse.

OK So this really is not THE 10 Best Websites For Dog Lovers but rather a difference of opinion to an article on Business Insider with the same title.  I firmly believe there is no such list as the 10 BEST websites. Opinions change,  websites change at a rapid pace, and it is difficult with all the information available out there and with all the websites out there what criteria do you use to say a website  is THE best? So why am I writing this then?

It is blatantly obvious in Evan Britton’s article The 10 Best Websites For  Dog Lovers (click for the article) that the sites he chose are not based on proper research but something else. I am not sure if it is, as some of the commentors wrote, just the paid or sponsored websites that are being mentioned in the list or ignorance. Is it he threw a list together with no research and just put familiar names he knew just so he could promote his own two websites in the list…and what is with that? I know I am very proud of my own website here and I do promote it but to call it one of the top websites for dog lovers is reaching a little and so is Evan.  I don’t know how he formulated his list but in my opinion it is NOT the best list.

So I decided using my own dog knowledge with a slant on what is best for a dog’s health, based on popularity of the passionate dog owners, caretakers and professionals that I interact with, along with finding some of the least biased information I could on the topics Evan suggested in his list, to formulate what I would consider THE 10 Best Websites For Dog Lovers list. Please passionate dog lovers please correct my list in the comments and we can provide an even better list than THE best.

1. Pet Food – OK just giving a store and a big chain at that as your BEST website for dog food? There are some big changes happening in the pet food industry especially with the dog food recalls going on. Many pet owners need more knowledge about pet food and what is best for their dog. Besides there are so many online stores that will ship dog food to your door with the same if not better customer service than PetCo. Not that PetCo is bad just not the best. How about a couple websites telling you which dog food is the best and why?
Dog Food Analysis and Dog Food Scoop. These two sites will help you choose the best kibble for your dog that is if you are not cooking for your dog or feeding raw which would be better for most dogs anyway.

2. Dog Breeders – Not even going to go there.  Full disclosure here – I have a purebred, but for a specific purpose and if you want a purebred for a specific purpose then fine do research and choose an appropriate breeder by going through the appropriate channels which is not going to the website mentioned on Evan’s list! However if you are looking for a family pet and want to really feel good about getting a dog that really needs you check out one of the best websites for dog adoption – Pet Finder

3. Puppy Names – his website was mentioned here. Um – Ok it probably is a fun website but whatever – NOT a 10 best website.

4. Dog Whisperer & 9. Common Dog Problems – Both of the sites he mentions for these categories are single person trainers. One trainer is not the best for everyone. Even though these sites provide a lot of information for helping you, they provide a lot more by purchasing something. Fine everyone needs to make a living, but is Cesar’s Way the best way? Well even Cesar himself will tell you that it is best if you are having behavior problems with your dog to have a trained professional work personally with you to help solve the problem. So why not a website that will provide you the information to search for such a trainer? Purdue University has a dog behavior modification course and provides a list of individuals that have completed the course. Another list of trainers can be found at Truly Dog Friendly, which is a list of trainers that use training methods that are pain free.  Or if you want to do it yourself but can’t decide which method/s to use how about a scientific approach to dog training? Although this website is old (2001) it provides excellent information on training from an educational/scientific standpoint Dr. P’s Dog Training & Behavior. It provides opinions from many different perspectives not just one trainer and one method.

5. Dog Health – He got one right here! But isn’t this where I promote my own website?
Have to admit it, VetInfo is a good solid source of information. With that said, your best source of information about your dog’s health is the veterinarian that is taking care of your dog.

6. Dog Insurance- with all the articles out there bantering back and forth as to whether or not pet insurance is even worth the premiums, I think it is bad form to single out one insurance company as the best. This is especially bad, when you go to the review sites about insurance companies and you find that although the one Evan chose is one of the most popular here in the US, it is not the best as decided by consumers. So now if you do decide that pet insurance is something you want to look into,  how about looking into the choices you have and deciding for yourself which insurance company is right for you – Pet Insurance Review An unbiased look at the options for insurance companies, with customer reviews and ratings.

7. Dog Breeds – OK Dog Breed Info does provide the information on dog breeds but it is not as slick or cool as Animal Planet’s – Dog Breed Directory

8. Labradors – um – his own website I see. Well how about my breedist views – Border Collie

already did 9 back at 4 since they are basically the same thing.

10. Pet Travel Guides – Another one right! Dog Friendly is a cool website helping dog owners find places while traveling that are dog friendly.

Full disclosure – I do not own or operate any of the sites in this list.