Cats

The Feline Immunodeficiency Virus or “Feline AIDS”

The Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV) is type of retrovirus (a lentivirus) that affects cats all over the world. It causes an acquired immunodeficiency syndrome which means it interferes with our cats’ immune system, lowering its defences, and causing them to be more vulnerable to opportunistic infections and other diseases.

The way this condition develops and its impact on the cat’s body is quite similar to the human acquired immunodeficiency virus (HIV). For this reason, this condition is often referred to (“feline AIDS”) and it serves as model for the study of infections with human immunodeficiency virus.  It is very important to highlight that despite the similarities between FIV and HIV, FIV only affects cats and cannot be transmitted to us humans.

After infection, the virus can be found in the affected cat’s blood and saliva. This virus is transmitted among cats mostly through bites and fight wounds. As a result, adult entire male cats that have access to the outdoors tend to be most commonly affected. The virus can also be transmitted from infected queens to their kittens.

The Feline Immunodeficiency Virus doesn’t cause very serious clinical signs initially. From the point of entry the virus goes to the nearby lymph nodes and starts reproducing, eventually spreading to other lymph nodes throughout the body. This leads to a generalised enlargement of their lymph nodes often accompanied by fever.

Some cats will deteriorate progressively after being infected, some cats may just present recurrent illness, needing veterinary care more often than non-infected cats, and for many cats the disease progresses to an asymptomatic phase, during which they don’t display any signs of disease. This stage can last for several years.

Eventually, infected cats suffer a decrease in their immune surveillance and they will become more predisposed to other conditions, as well as secondary infections resulting from bacterial, fungal, protozoal, or parasitic infections.

Clinical signs of infected cats include loss of appetite, fever, poor coat condition, diarrhoea, inflamed gums (gingivitis) or mouth (stomatitis), skin problems, respiratory problems, conjunctivitis, immune-mediated diseases, neurologic conditions, and tumours. The most common tumour in these cats is lymphoma and they are 5 times more likely to develop them.

With proper care most cats infected with FIV are able to live many years and even die from other causes, in no way related to their FIV infection.

All cats should be tested for FIV. It is recommended to keep an infected cat indoors to prevent spreading this virus to other cats. This also protects FIV-infected cats from any secondary disease which can be very beneficial, given their impaired immune system. Any new cat being brought into your household should be quarantined and tested before being introduced to the other house cats.

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Horses

Anaemia in Horses

Anaemia is one of the most important haematological signs in mammals and horses are no exception.

It’s not a disease but a signal that something might be really wrong with your animal. Anaemia manifests as a consequence of many diseases and problems that cause one or several of these:

  • Loss of blood
  • Destruction of red blood cells
  • Lesser red blood cell production

We can classify anaemia as regenerative or as non-regenerative. The difference between these two situations is that regenerative anaemia happens because of blood loss or destruction of red blood cells and there will be a response from the bone marrow to correct this while a non-regenerative anaemia is a product of an insufficient production from the marrow to respond to loss of red blood cells.

This is usually spotted when it becomes a big enough problem to impair tolerance to exercise, depression or reduced ingestion of food. Other signs that may indicate anaemia are high respiratory rate and heartbeat, yellow tinted sclera or mucous membranes, weight loss, increased urination or pale mucous membranes, among others depending on primary cause.

Of course, many of the problems that can cause anaemia may take a long time to develop and horses may be able to create mechanisms to compensate for the lowered capacity to transport oxygen.

This leads to a sort of subclinical yet chronic anaemia that only flares up during exercise and leads to reduced performance and a very high heartbeat.

As we’ve mentioned, anaemia is secondary to a whole host of other issues and they include everything from trauma that causes haemorrhage, iron deficiency, kidney disease, bacterial toxins like Clostridium, autoimmune haemolytic anaemia to parasites, cancer or various viral diseases.

The underlying cause of anaemia can be a very severe condition, as stated above, so if you think your horse might be suffering from it do not hesitate to contact your vet!

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Cats

Cat Colonies: Fascinating Social Environment

Most of us are aware that our rambunctious doggies just love to interact, with other dogs, with us, with other animals, with puddles… and cats, on the other hand, are a bit more reserved with their social lives.

Well, behaviour scientists say that the solitary cat, at least as far as our domestic felines go, is not quite their natural state. Cats will organise in groups called colonies quite often as long as food conditions allow them to, in fact, the only way for cats to choose to live solitary lives is if their environment has food so dispersed it cannot sustain more than one cat in a given location.

So! Cats are awesome colony buddies and of course, we want to know how those are organised. Colonies are generally centred around female cats and their kittens because we have found that, turns out, cats prefer contact with relatives over non-relatives and do recognise non-colony cats. Of course, unrelated cats without colonies may integrate a new colony but this is a very gradual process because colony cats may react with aggression if non-members approach their resources.

All of this proves that cats, even among relatives, have other cats they prefer to interact with and cats they may have a harder time cooperating (A bit like a family holiday gathering). This means that social structure in colonies is a complex issue and savvy cat owners know that its sometimes a bit hard to introduce a new cat to a household with other cats.

To make sure everything purrs along smoothly, make sure that you don’t just abruptly shove everyone in together. Let them realise there are new colony mates through smell and sight before letting them contact each other. A top tip as well is adopting more than one related cat at time for owners who wish to have multi-cat households. This ensures a greater chance for positive behaviours and cohesiveness of the group.

Our purring partners are pretty fascinating creatures with very well developed social behaviours and organisation, much more than what we give them credit for!

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Dogs

Whiskers – Not just for cats!

While whiskers on kittens may be a few of our favourite things, did you know that dogs also have whiskers?

Whiskers are called vibrissae, special hairs with tactile capacities found on several places of the body. So, what’s the difference between these vibrissae and normal fur or human hair? Generally speaking, normal hair or fur is much thinner and isn’t connected to any special motility (the exception being the smooth muscle that makes hair stand on end) or sensory organs.

Vibrissae, on the other hand, have several muscles associated to them that allow for an interesting range of motion and also nerves connected to them so they can actually feel when they are touched or moved. Most mammals have these amazingly talented hairs though we seem to be one of the few exceptions and they can be found on the face and above the eyebrows in dogs.

Their function and their histological components are still under investigation but we think that they serve as an extra sensory component to the facial structures like eyes and skin. For instance, touching an eyebrow vibrissae on a dog will make them blink and they will move away their whiskers before they are touched. Another proposed function is navigation, though dogs have much smaller vibrissae than cats or rats it’s still possible they use tactile hairs to ‘poke around’ their environment and avoid obstacles.

Care should be given to not trim these! They are not normal hair, they serve important tactile and navigation purposes so keep these fancy whiskers away from the shears, especially in dogs that might have visual difficulties.

All in all, vibrissae are definitely not just the domain of our feline friends and there’s a whole fascinating way these animals interact with the world we can only try to guess at.

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Horses

Equine Metabolic Syndrome The How and the Why

Equine metabolic syndrome (EMS) is a disorder of several systems which has several similarities with a human variant.

There are several things that may be happening in a horse with Equine Metabolic Syndrome but predominantly we know that obese animals, animals with genetic predisposition for it, animals that are in young pastures or under exercised animals. They will generally have several issues with their fat metabolism, insulin resistance and an actual increase in circulating insulin.

One of the big consequences of EMS is laminitis and is usually when you are going to notice something might actually be wrong with your equine partner. So, what’s the connection between a metabolic syndrome and hoof issues? There are several proposed mechanisms but we know that consuming a higher than usual load of water soluble carbohydrates causes insulin to surge in concentration and also the excess of carbohydrates being fermented will create an inflammatory response that causes laminitis.

This situation often happens when animals are given access to rapid growth pastures where there is a lot of rain and then an abundance of sunlight or also excessive amount of concentrates in their diet. These pastures are both large sources of water soluble carbohydrates and of overfeeding that might lead to obesity, one of the most important predisposing factors for EMS.

Good news though, it’s quite the manageable condition if it can be adequately recognised by owners.

While laminitis is the chief complaint of horse owners with EMS, there are several other signs that might indicate they are suffering from a metabolic imbalance that needs to be corrected.

Don’t forget to check your horse for not only lameness but also: obesity, large fat deposits on the neck or chest, preputial or mammary gland swelling due to fat deposits and oedema and ill formed hooves with divergent rings that indicate past episodes of laminitis.

If you have a horse that keeps on weight well and doesn’t seem to require all that much feed, they might at be at risk of developing obesity and insulin disorders so it’s important to keep a close eye on these horses.

Is your horse looking like they might have EMS? Give a call to your vet and find out the best way to figure out for sure.

Remember the sooner the diagnosis the better this condition can be managed!

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Cats

Practical Tips to Enrich Your Indoors Cat’s Life

Environmental enrichment has a very important role in the lives of indoor cats.

These cats are often under stress for many different reasons and this is not always obvious to their owners. Many cats are unable to express their normal behaviour: playing, hunting, scratching, climbing to high spots and even simply hiding when they don’t want to be bothered. Some cats struggle to deal with their social environment by not getting along with other cats or humans in the household. The reasons are many and over time, all this causes damage.

Through the cooperation of vets, cat behaviourists and scientists it has been proven that indoor cats living in underenriched environments can suffer from chronic stress and anxiety, obesity, and feline idiopathic cystitis among other potentially serious medical conditions. It can also trigger behavioural changes such as urine marking, house soiling and even some types of aggression.

In order to improve your cat’s quality of life be sure to provide different types of resting areas and hiding spots to avoid unwanted interaction. Cats cope with unpleasant situations by retreating and hiding. You can use cat trees, shelves (so they have access to high places) and cardboard boxes in their favourite rooms of the house.

There should be at least one litterbox per cat but the ideal formula is to have one more litterbox than the number of cats in the household. Resting areas, feeding and drinking spots should increase in number depending on how many cats live in the same household.

Scratching vertical or horizontal surfaces (depending on your cat’s preference) are also recommended, and a wide variety of toys such as toys with the owner’s scent, toys on wands, egg cartons with treats hidden inside, and balled up pieces of paper.  It is also a good idea to rotate them so they always have “new” toys.

Cats enjoy the different stages of hunting so they will have a lot of fun if you divide your cat’s daily ration and put it on multiple places in your home, under furniture, rugs or even using food toys. This means cats can search for food/snacks around the house and get them from the toys which simulates hunting behaviour.

Environmental enrichment for cats is about finding and implementing ways to make their environment more interesting, complex, and engaging in a way that allows and even promotes their normal, natural behaviour.

These changes have a low cost, are easy to implement and will improve dramatically your cat’s health and welfare, reducing and even preventing the previously mentioned health disorders.

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Dogs

Cataracts

Let’s gaze into the eye today and look at one of the most common causes of blindness in our dogs.

Cataracts are defined as the opacification of the lens, which is to say that the part of the eye that acts as the focal point for light no longer lets light pass through it. The crystalline lens, as it is called in anatomical terminology, acts exactly like the lens on cameras, telescopes or glasses. It sits right behind the iris and is going to bounce light to the retina on the far back of the eye.

As it stands, it’s one of the pivotal structures involved in eyesight. Its transparency is given by fibres that are continuously produced which means that anything that might affect the fibres themselves or their replenishing and growth process will, most likely, lead to cataracts.

So, how can lens fibres be damaged in such a way that leads to visual impairment? Osmotic imbalances created in complications from Diabetes Mellitus due to high glucose in the blood stream, inflammation in the anterior chamber of the eye that causes deficient nutrition to the lens and hereditary factors that compromise lens fibre renewal are the leading causes of cataracts.

Many other issues may cause this condition like trauma, nutritional deficiencies, electric shocks, radiation therapy and even just old age.

What to look out for? If you look into your pets’ eyes you might notice they appear to be cloudy, this is quite indicative of cataracts but beyond it, your dog might have difficulties walking around the house, might be bumping into things more often, might be more easily startled by a sudden approach, might feel disoriented in unfamiliar environments which are all signs of progressive blindness.

This is a progressive condition, so it usually just gets worse. How much worse will depend on the underlying issue and the individual animal but don’t delay in consulting with your vet!

There are several treatment options and your vet will be more than glad to help you with any questions you might have about managing cataracts and what they can do to help. Remember, the sooner the better!

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Cats

Mammary tumours in cats

A malignant tumour is a type of mass that is composed of abnormally fast and uncontrolled multiplying cells that may or may not travel from the starting site to other organs. This type of malignant cell migration is called metastizing and they usually travel by the bloodstream or lymphatic vessels.

Malignant tumours cause local destruction and invasion of tissues and metastasis cause far away destruction of other organs. If left untreated or if it can’t be treated, they are most likely fatal.

Mammary tumours in cats, unlike in dogs, are overwhelmingly malignant. For dogs, about 50% of the tumours found won’t be malignant whereas cats have only about 5% to 15% chance of mammary tumours being benign.

It is a highly metastizing type of cancer, with over 90% of cats having metastasis found in necropsy. The most common sites for metastasis are lung and the regional lymph nodes near the primary site, but any other organ can be affected by cancer proliferation.

The causes for these are largely unknown but Siamese cats have been found to have twice the risk of developing mammary tumours, which points out that at least where that breed is concerned it may be of genetic origin.

There is a predominance for middle aged cats around 10 to 12 years of age and overwhelmingly more in female cats. Male cats present with about 1% to 5% of mammary tumours so if you see an odd lump on your male cat’s abdomen or chest, don’t rule out mammary cancer.

These masses may have several different presentations, they can be soft or firm, the skin can be intact or it may have ulcers and the glands closer to the pelvic area seem to be slightly more affected.

It is important to investigate all odd masses that you may find in your cat. If you feel a mass contact your practice as soon as possible. There is a chance it might not be cancer at all! There are other problems like abscesses or overgrowth due to oestrus that create palpable masses but just in case it is cancer, the sooner it is found the better!

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Horses

Demystifying colic


Colic is one of the horse owners most prominent nightmares and with good reason. Worldwide, it causes serious medical and economic problems in the equine population being only second to old age in terms of overall fatality rate. Colic sometimes seems so very unpredictable as some horses have a bit of pain and recover with simple medical treatment while others have to undergo surgery and still don’t make it.

The first thing that’s important to know about colic is what it is. Colic is defined as a manifestation of abdominal pain so it’s not actually a specific disease but a clinical sign associated with an immense number of diseases, which accounts for its often-unpredictable progress.

Adding to this, most of the times pinpointing the underlying condition of colic might involve complex exams and as such the cause of the colic remains undiscovered. Fortunately, this is because many cases of colic will be resolved with minimal intervention and attempting to pinpoint the cause would end up too invasive or too costly.

Most of the times the colic will be a problem of the gastrointestinal tract, also called a ‘true colic’, but problems in other body systems like uterus or obstructions of the bile ducts can also cause colic.

There are many ways a horse can signal they are experiencing abdominal pain, usually the first thing an owner will notice is lack of appetite and less ingestion of food. They may also be oddly restless, lie down more often, bite or kick the abdomen and as the level of discomfort progresses they might roll around or get up and lie down repeatedly.

Of course, each horse has its own personality and the severity of these signs might not correlate with the severity of the underlying disease.

One of the most important things to know when confronted with the possibility of a horse having a colic is that it must have prompt veterinary assessment. The vet will try and determine if it’s an uncomplicated problem or if it’s an issue that’s likely to complicate and after that they’ll decide on the best course of action.

If you think your horse might be exhibiting abdominal discomfort, give your vet a call as soon as possible. The sooner a proper evaluation is done, the better chance of having a good outcome!

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Cats

Feline Infectious Peritonitis

cats-36-feline-infectious-peritonitis

Feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) is a well-known yet relatively rare disease in cats caused by a massive immune-mediated response to an infection by the feline coronavirus.

There is a high rate of infection with coronavirus in cats, but only a small percentage of these cats will develop a serious clinical disease. This is due to the fact that there are virulent and non-virulent strains of the coronavirus. However, when this happens nearly all cats will die from this pathology.

This disease has several forms that can be broken down into effusive and non-effusive forms. The effusive form is better known among cat owners and it causes, among many other things, an increase in abdominal width due to fluid build-up while the non-effusive form will target organs like liver, central nervous system, kidney or eye and damage them severely.

With so many systems that might be affected, the clinical signs of a cat with FIP are myriad. Cats may present with diarrhoea, vomiting, weight loss, cloudy eyes or eyes that change colour, transient fever, distended abdomen, depression, among others.

It is more prevalent in young kittens, aged 3 months to 2 years of age and the incidence decreases sharply after 2 years of age. Cats on catteries or multicat places are at more risk than single cat households and FIP is a major problem in breeding catteries. It does not cause infertility or abortions but it does cause stunting in cats. Having kittens of observably different size of the same age and litter is cause for suspicion of coronavirus infections.

Important things to know is to always make sure to bring in coronavirus free cats into catteries and breeding centres, isolate infected cats from other cats and keep an eye on clinical signs in kittens.

It’s a disease that cannot be cured but always bring in your cat to the vets, there are plenty of things that can be done to give them better quality of life.

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