Holiday Pet Survival Guide

Give up the toys! 

I'm pretty sure pets love the holiday season just as much as I do. Think about it - for a month or two shiny new toys get hung up all over the house, the whole house smells like food, and lots of gullible friends and relatives wander in and out who are much more likely to fall prey to puppy-dog eyes and give you some of whatever they've got handy. And, if you're lucky, you get into enough trouble for a visit to your favorite person - the veterinarian!

Okay, so maybe we aren't your pet's favorite person (second favorite? third?). Unfortunately, that is an all-too-common holiday scenario. So, if you'd like to give Muffy the gift of staying away from me this season, read on for simple tips to keep pets safe and healthy during the holidays.

They Call It "People-Food" For A Reason
Human foods may agree quite well with pet's mouths, but they often disagree quite strongly with their stomachs. While eating random table scraps and treats usually just causes a day or two's discomfort, there are very, very, very  (!) serious problems that may result:

• Many common foods - and holiday treats in particular - can be deadly toxins for pets.
• Pancreatitis is a life-threatening condition that may be triggered by fatty foods.
• Bones - all bones - commonly result in fractured teeth, intestinal obstruction, and even stomach perforation.

Last but not least, holiday treats are a leading cause of Food-Amplified Tissue (FAT) syndrome, which can take a year or two off your pet's life (and lead to a lecture from me about putting Muffy on a diet).

Curiosity Can Kill The Cat - Decorate Carefully!
The holidays bring lots of exciting things for pets - shiny tinsel, ribbons galore, electrical cords running everywhere, and a big green scratching/climbing post right in the living room!

• Strings and ribbons can be deadly if ingested - aside from causing blockages, they can saw right through intestines - and the only thing more interesting to most cats than string is a shiny string. Keep tinsel and ribbon well out of reach or avoid them entirely.
• Anchor your tree to the ceiling or wall to keep anyone from tipping it over. Fake trees are best, too, since pine needles can also poke through intestines if ingested.
• Missletoe, Holly, and Ivy can all make your pets ill. Check out this link from the ASPCA for a laundry list of other problem plants.
• Try to keep all those extra electrical wires neat and hidden.
• Don't leave candles unattended, and make sure pets can't reach them or otherwise knock them over.

Curiosity Can Kill The Cat (Again) - Keep Things Tidy! 

These bars will not hold me. I will eat
your toys, and garbage, and shoelaces.
I will eat them all.

My wife is going to laugh when she reads this - me, telling people to keep things neat and clean. But, a big part of keeping pets from getting into things they shouldn't is preventing access, so:

• Clean the kitchen as you go, and don't leave bowls of candy and the like out where pets can reach them.
• Pick up all the wrapping paper and ribbons immediately after opening gifts. December 26th is usually paper/ribbon/string foreign body day at the ER.
• Don't let the kids (or your husband) leave new toys laying around, else they get confused for chew toys, food, or both.
• If you have a ferret, lock it in the bathroom with food and water until late January. Okay - that's a little extreme, but those buggers get into everything!

Respect Pet's Personality and Space 
Some pets are social butterflies, but many just get stressed by the all the people and commotion that come with holiday parties. It's never wrong to put the furry kids in a room of their own for the evening and let them have some peace and quiet. And even if they do enjoy a good party and are given roam of the house, you should provide a room or crate for them that's off-limits to guests in case they do need some alone time. New Year's Eve is a particular problem for many pets, with the potential for lots of noise and even fireworks - this article offers some tips for pets with noise fears.

Also make sure any random children the in-laws drag along only get to interact with pets while supervised, as kids who aren't used to pets usually don't understand "boundaries" at all. Or, suggest putting the kid in the spare room with food and water while the pets roam free. That usually goes over poorly with their parents, though.

Choosing Pet Gifts

Best. Christmas. EVER!

I'm all for a new toy or special treat for the holidays. Seriously, send me something. Oh, and get the pets something too - just be thoughtful in your selection.

• Toys should be resistant to shredding into small, ingest-able bits. 
• Also avoid super-hard chewables like Nylabones. These are a big cause of fractured teeth. My rule of thumb: bit down hard on it yourself - if there's no give or the pressure hurts you, Muffy shouldn't have it either. Plus, it's really amusing for anyone walking by in the pet isle.
• Avoid treats made in China, or anywhere else with questionable regulatory oversight.

Educate Your Guests

You, dear reader, are smart enough to take all this advice and avoid any unexpected visits to me and my ilk this holiday season. But it's all for naught if you set a couple dozen folks loose in your home who really think Muffy needs that turkey bone, chocolate candy, ball of yarn to play with/eat...or that despite her pulled back ears and snarl, she really just needs a belly rub right now. Make sure your guests know what is and isn't okay. If educational enlightenment doesn't seem to work, consider threatening them with fruitcake. Works for me.

Two final tidbits: make sure all pets have up-to-date ID (tags, microchips, or both) in case someone leaves a door open, and check out this article if you plan to travel with Muffy this season. Happy holidays!

Pet Vaccines 103 - How Vaccines Do (And Don't) Work

So, we've talked about the diseases we commonly vaccinate for in the first (canine) and second (feline) articles. Now we'll offer up some answers for the questions we commonly field about vaccines.

How do vaccines protect my pet from disease?

That's a deceptively simple question, considering how complicated Muffy's immune system is. The basic idea is easy enough to grasp, however. In order for your immune system to fight off an invading disease, it first needs to identify it. In the cellular soup that is the living body, when something new and harmful comes along it can take some time to identify it - time you often don't have when under attack by disease. Remember how much of the town got wiped out in Invasion of the Body Snatchers before folks figured out how to tell who's who? So, vaccines contain bits of the offending virus or bacteria that have been rendered harmless, giving your immune system a "heads up" on what to look for if infected in the future. That means they can take care of the enemy before it becomes a problem, instead of wasting time trying to figure out who the enemy is.

What's actually in those vaccines?

There are three basic types of vaccines. 

• Killed vaccines are basically busted-up bits of a virus or bacteria. They contain important proteins your immune system can recognize and learn to differentiate in the future, but everything's dead so the virus or bacteria can't spread or cause disease. 
• Modified live vaccines actually can multiply in the body, but they've been altered by the kids in the lab so they no longer cause disease. These generally produce much better immunity since your immune system gets exposed to a lot more virus. 
• Recombinant vaccines take the best of both worlds - generally, a harmless virus (yup, probably the majority of viruses out there cause no real harm) is injected with a few genes that allow it to produce a few proteins that are specific to the disease we want to vaccinate against. It's sort of like a good samaritan going door-to-door with photos of annoying door-to-door salesmen so you know when not to open the door.

Are vaccines 100% effective?

Realistically, nothing is 100%, but most manufactures claim efficacy of 100% or at least the upper 90's for the "core" vaccines. Non-core vaccines like leptospirosis, FeLV, and FIV sport lower numbers but are generally still pretty good - in the case of lepto, sometimes even if disease isn't prevented, a reduction in severity could be life saving. 

It's also worth noting that a very small percentage of animals will be "non-responders" to a particular vaccine - for whatever reason, there immune system won't recognize and mount a response. Another potential reason for failure is mishandling of the vaccines, which generally are sensitive to temperature - this is the main reason buying and giving vaccines yourself is a bad idea. I threw out $800 worth of vaccines a few months back when a refrigerator died over the weekend - I frankly don't trust the kid at the feed store or the businessman running a mail-order outfit to do that.

What's "herd immunity?"

Okay, so no one's ever actually asked me about the concept of herd immunity. But it's worth bringing up here. Basically, the idea is that if you create immunity to a disease in a majority of a population through vaccination, the individuals who don't develop immunity (from failure or lack of vaccination) get a sort of second-hand protection, since you've drastically decreased the odds of them being exposed to the disease. Imagine 100 people in an office. If 90 of them get flu shots, you've just reduced the risk of exposure to the flu at the office by 90% for the other 10 folks. So, even if a vaccine isn't 100% effective for everyone, if everyone gets it they'll be well protected regardless (and that's how you end smallpox, kids). 

As an aside, this is why I tend to think of vaccination (both animal and human) as a social responsibility - those 10 folks who didn't get the flu shot are not only freeloading on everyone else's vaccines, but they're serving as a potential reservoir for the disease, too.

So, two big questions remain - how frequently should pets be vaccinated, and what are the risks of vaccinating (hint: they're a lot less than not vaccinating). We'll get to them next, but for now I'll let "herd" immunity serve as an excuse to leave you with the following video.

Pet Vaccines 102 - Common Feline Vaccines

For the the first article on canine vaccines, and a discussion of rabies, click here.

Cats are not just small dogs that will agree to relieve themselves on ground-up clay. They have their own medical (among other) quirks, their own diseases, and with the exception of rabies, their own unique vaccination needs. This article discusses those vaccines and the disease they prevent. Rabies vaccination is recommended (and legally required) for cats as well; we discussed that in the prior article on canine vaccines so I won't repeat myself here.

Feline Distemper Complex (FVRCP)
This is the standard combination vaccine for cats, along the lines of the canine "parvo combo." I'll be the first to admit all the different names and acronyms make talking about it confusing. Most vets, and their medical records, use the acronym FVRCP; I've underlined the letters that acronym comes from below in an attempt to clarify.

• Feline Viral Rhinotracheitis (Herpes) and Calicivirus: These are two separate diseases, but they are so similar in how they affect cats that we tend to lump them together. Both primarily cause transient upper respiratory symptoms - sneezing, nasal discharge, lethargy and the like (rhinotracheitis = inflammation of the nose & windpipe). Infection is permanent, and both viruses may flare up temporarily any time the animal is stressed - just like cold sores in people. Herpes commonly causes ulcers on the eyes, while calicivirus more often causes oral ulcers. Both are highly contagious between cats, so it's no surprise that many cats are infected as kittens. So why vaccinate everyone then? Well, if you don't have it you don't want it - and equally important, vaccinating everyone reduces viral spread through the population in the long run.

• Panleukopenia (Feline Parvovirus or Feline Distemper): Yeah, this one has too many names. Here's the scoop - this is very closely related to canine parvovirus, and typically produces the same sort of disease - vomiting, diarrhea, etc. In kittens it also is very effective at damaging white blood cells, hence "panleukopenia," which translates to "all white cells decreased." That's important because that means their immune system is suppressed and thus they become very likely to get secondary diseases. And, in neonates, the disease may damage the nervous system, resulting in problems similar to canine distemper. So that's where all the names and confusion come from. Fortunately, a very effective vaccine comes from your veterinarian so your cats hopefully never need to worry about those details.

Non-Core Vaccines

• Feline Leukemia Virus (FeLV): This disease primarily affects white blood cells, potentially turning them cancerous (leukemia). However, the most common effect is a depression of the immune system, leading other illnesses to be more severe and predisposing to secondary infections when sick. It is transmitted via saliva, and cats are most susceptible when young. Thus, an initial series is recommended for all kittens, and adult boosters are recommended for cats that spend time outdoors - potentially exposed to other cats. Since cats may be infected for years before showing signs, testing is also recommended for all cats when young.

• Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV): In many ways similar to FeLV, FIV is basically the feline equivalent of AIDS. It is capable of dramatically depressing the immune system, leading to potentially fatal opportunistic infections. The virus must enter the bloodstream directly, making bite wounds the most common manner of transmission. Vaccinated animals will test positive, meaning there's no way to differentiate vaccination from a sick animal in the future. Considering the efficacy of FIV vaccines is somewhat questionable, vaccination is recommended only on a case-by-case basis, primarily for outdoor male cats - since guys, as always, are more likely to fight. 

So there are your kitty shots in a nutshell. The next article in the series will cover questions about vaccine types, frequency, and risks. Stay tuned!