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Heat Stroke: Prevention, Symptoms and Treatment

July 14, 2013 By Sunny Lim

Last month’s news about how a dog died while being left unattended in a vehicle serves as a reminder to all of us of how your pet can be a victim of heatstroke and complacency. Especially in Singapore where the whether is constantly hot throughout the year, it’s easy for accidents like these to happen to anybody.

We humans have a more efficient way of dispersing body heat through perspiration and what we are able to tolerate might not be necessary so for our fur friends. Just imagine the horror of wearing a fur coat and just dispersing heat from your tongue and paws.

Admittedly, it’s terribly hard to know if poochy is overheating. Take my dogs for instance, the moment I take out their leash to take them out for a walk and their pupils dilate, heart palpitate and pant like they’re back from the walk. But as most good owners would agree, common sense and being meticulous would definitely prevent tragedy from happening.

Make sure that:

You don’t leave any pets in an unattended vehicle in the afternoon even with the windows wind down and under a shade.
They have access to cool, clean water at all times.
Your pets have access to shade.
They are not muzzled for extended period of time when outdoor. If need be, loosen the muzzle.
Refrain from strenuous activities during the morning and afternoon.
You give them sufficient rest in between activities. It’s easy to forget that while everybody’s having fun.
Older pets or pets with health condition should be given exercise during cooler periods of the day.

What’s dangerous about getting a heatstroke is that it is difficult to assess an early stage heatstroke and when your pet starts showing signs of symptoms, the body is already in a critical stage. A dog’s normal body temperature is around 38-39 degrees Celsius. If their body temperature reaches 41 degrees Celsius and up, the overheating will cause irreversible damage to the organs.

Symptoms of heatstroke:

Excessive panting and salivating
Disorientation
Bright red gums and tongue. Gums will turn pale as shock sets in.
Vomiting
Diarrhea
Weakness

If you notice signs of heatstroke, treat your pet immediately. The precious minutes before it reaches the vet can make a difference between life and death.

Treatment:

Move to a shady area.
Spray your dog down with cool water. Do not use cold water as this will constrict blood vessels, slow down blood flow, reducing heat dissipation from the body and can even cause shock to the system from the sudden change in body temperature.
Wet towels, shirts and place them in between their groin and neck. Constantly wipe their paws and ears with a cool, wet towel. These areas accumulate and dissipate heat the most.
Allow the dog to drink cool water bit by bit. Do not force feed, do not allow your dog to gulp nor should ice cold water be fed.
If the condition seems to be improving, dry them with a towel to prevent their temperature from falling further and seek veterinary assistance immediately. It’s easy for pets to suffer from shock even when your pet might seem fine.

Health: 5 Indoor Activities You Can Do With Your Pets During the Wretched Haze

June 20, 2013 By Sunny Lim

Poor Fido must be wondering why we’ve been cutting down on walks. But Fido doesn’t care if there’s the haze, it just wants to play! Even with the haze it shouldn’t let it dampen your mood and deprive your pets from important stimulation. Try some of these indoor activities for pets, it’s a great way to build a strong bond between you and your pets.

Hide and Seek

Not only good during this period, it’s great way to expend energy for dogs with too much energy and for us who have too little.

How to play this game:

Throw a treat on the floor and issue the command ‘Find it!’ at the same time. Do this for a few times and just let Fido have fun picking up the treats.
Have Fido sit or stay while you allow it to observe you hide a treat where it can see and reach. Go back to your dog and encourage it to find the treat. Also repeat this for several times.
Finally, have Fido stay stationary while you hide treats in places varying in difficulty. Have your dog work as hard as it can and don’t be too eager to help when they can’t find the treats. Show them only when they seem to lose interest.

Teach new tricks

You have no excuses this time. Using the usual time used for walks, reinforce basic commands or teach them tricks that you’ve seen that Jack Russel perform on YouTube.

Toys and games

How can anyone miss this out? Simple and everybody has fun. Even watching them play is a real joy on its own. It’s tiring to keep throwing and throwing toys for them to fetch (I may seem perpetually tired, but another reason to keep fetching games short is because the sudden stopping action when they pick up the toys causes stress on their joints.)

If you have more than one dog, why not make them play tug-o-war? Or if you have some cash to spare, get them some new toys that you can stuff treats into. Not only is it stimulating and can be hours of fun, it’s able to distract them and mitigate symptoms of separation anxiety that causes them to bark/whine excessively and lick/scratch themselves.

Shiatsu

Yup, massage. A great skill to learn that’ll help dogs relax and improve their well-being. It’s also a great activity to soothe a fearful dog during a thunderstorm.

Grooming, spa treatments

Not because I’m a pet groomer, but because since you have the time, why not spend it grooming your pet? Not only does grooming keep your pet clean and healthy, it’s a time for bonding and getting your pet accustomed to the grooming process. Besides that, you can also prepare some DIY spa treatments to pamper your pet and at the same time treat skin ailments.

If you find any of the suggestions interesting, internet is really a great resource to find more information and solutions catered to your pet. But above all, stay safe and it won’t hurt staying indoors and keeping your activities minimal for a week (hopefully just a week). Sometimes less is indeed more.

Nutrition: How to evaluate the nutritional value of canned food

April 26, 2013 By Sunny Lim

Have you ever looked at the label of a can of pet food and wondered why the guaranteed analysis of their nutritional content is so different as compared to their dried counterparts?

For example, the protein level in canned food typically seldom exceeds 10% whereas dried food typically has 20-30% protein.

If so, is canned food less nutritious?

The answer is quite simple if we think about it. The main difference between wet food and dried is as the name implies, the moisture content. It’s just like a tablet of vitamin C into a glass of water. In its concentrated form (tablet), there’s 1000mg of vitamin C and even when it’s dissolved, the amount of vitamin C in the solution is still the same.

Therefore, to make meaningful comparison between wet and dried food, we have to remove their moisture content through calculations and compare them on a “dry matter basis”.

Calculations

Let’s say you want to calculate the protein level of a particular brand of canned food which looks like this:

Crude protein: 10%
Fat content: 8%
Moisture: 80%

If we were to remove all the moisture, we would be left with 20% dry matter (100% minus 80% moisture). To find the amount of protein (or any nutrient expressed as a percentage) the dry matter has, divide the amount of protein by the amount of dry matter, which in this case looks something like this:

10 (Protein level) / 20 (Dry matter) * 100% = 50%

So in this instance, the amount of protein (50%) in this particular brand of canned food actually has more protein than most brands of dried kibbles.

As for dried food, their moisture levels usually hovers around 10-15% and for kibbles with a guaranteed analysis of 28%, you will find that their protein level will be around 30% using the dry matter basis of calculation.

That said, higher levels of protein or fat is not an indication of quality and it all depends on what your pet needs. Pets who are overweight or suffering from kidney problems might worsen their condition if fed on a high protein or fatty diet. Secondly, nutritional analyses is just a reference and again, it does not reflect the quality of the food. Hair, nails, feathers etc. are all sources of protein. That’s why food vastly different in price may have exactly the same nutritional analysis. So don’t be fooled, be informed.

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