Animal Drug Investigation Reveals Pet Medication Often Doesn't Work

KentuckyFC writes: "Americans spent an estimated $14.2 billion on veterinary care for their pets in 2013 — and that doesn't even include proprietary health diets and food supplements. Put another way, pet owners pay about $850 annually in veterinary expenses per dog, and about $575 per cat. Factor in the emotional energy we invest in keeping our companion animals healthy, and you'd hope for high confidence in the end results. But when one journalist investigated the science behind the meds being used to treat his aging dog's osteoarthritis, he was in for a nasty surprise. Glucosamine and chondroitin food supplements? Next to useless. Tramadol to kill pain? It's probably just getting dogs high. The one treatment that's been proven to help, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug called carprofen, is often left on the shelf because of fears — likely overblown — that it might damage dogs' kidneys. In part, you can blame this sorry state of affairs on a lack of financial incentives for drug companies to run clinical trials on animals. But often, vets aren't paying attention to the studies that have been done. If we want our dogs and cats to receive the best possible medical care, we need to ask our vets some tougher questions about why they think the drugs will work."

Comments

Fish antibiotics

[Anonymous Coward]

I stock my bunker with several different types of fish antibiotics, which are in reality just like the ones people use that you need a prescription to get. Things like Keflex, Cipro, etc are all good to have around.

Re:Fish antibiotics

[Anonymous Coward]

When it comes time that you have to treat an infection how do you know which to use? Honest question. Are you skilled in making that judgement and/or have microbiological facilities?

Re:Fish antibiotics

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly I hadn't thought that far ahead, but I know you can go online and find information. I probably should try to find a one page cheat sheet and laminate it and keep it in the cabinet with the medicine. Good call.

Re:Fish antibiotics

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you verify whether they are still effective? Shelf-life is a serious concern, and antibiotics are stored under specific conditions to maximize their effective lives. Dosing with an expired drug can have all sorts of unpleasant effects because the resulting chemicals may be worse than just nonfunctional.

In general it’s true that animal antibiotics are largely the same as those intended for human delivery, and many a veterinarian uses their office supplies on themselves. But even animal antibiotics are stored under specific conditions and are disposed of when they expire. That’s not just for commercial gain, it’s to ensure that the drugs do what they’re supposed to and not something unpredictable instead.

Re:Fish antibiotics

[Anonymous Coward]

Rather than a one-page cheat sheet, try keeping a copy of the Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy handy. It’s available online for free, but the printed form is inexpensive considering the extraordinarily extensive coverage. The Brandon/Hill list could get you a few more references in case you have to survive without any access to medical expertise.

In ordinary life you should still see actual medical professionals, but if you’re isolated from any sort of medical care then appropriate books and emergency drugs are the next best thing. Study up too, there are a lot of emergency conditions that need immediate treatment.

Re:Fish antibiotics

[DarwinSurvivor]

Honestly I hadn't thought that far ahead

Gotta love someone who has a bunker full of fish antibiotics but forgets to think ahead...

Re:Fish antibiotics

[wonkey_monkey]

Honestly I hadn't thought that far ahead, but I know you can go online and find information.

Today you can.

Re:Fish antibiotics

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, because when there's at a point at which you're contemplating using fish antibiotics stockpiled in a bunker pausing to do a quick Google search is a realistic option.

Re:Fish antibiotics

[grogdamighty]

And this is how I plan to survive the zombie apocalypse: advertise loud and proud that I'm a board-certified pediatrician and can tell you when to use all these cool drugs you looted.

Re:Fish antibiotics

[Immerman]

I was about to say the same thing. Expecting the internet to remain readily accessible while you hide in your bunker from the collapse of civilization seems... optimistic at best. I have no doubt many dedicated people will go to great lengths to try to keep the main arteries functioning and the most important data archives online, but that doesn't do you much good unless your bunker is in the basement of a major university or other internet nexus. I don't expect the phone/cable/cellular technicians responsible for bringing access to individuals will have anywhere near the same level of visionary dedication.

Re:Fish antibiotics

[ColdWetDog]

How do you verify whether they are still effective? Shelf-life is a serious concern, and antibiotics are stored under specific conditions to maximize their effective lives. Dosing with an expired drug can have all sorts of unpleasant effects because the resulting chemicals may be worse than just nonfunctional.

In general it’s true that animal antibiotics are largely the same as those intended for human delivery, and many a veterinarian uses their office supplies on themselves. But even animal antibiotics are stored under specific conditions and are disposed of when they expire. That’s not just for commercial gain, it’s to ensure that the drugs do what they’re supposed to and not something unpredictable instead.

Bullshit. Expiration dates are randomly created in order to push products through. There is ** very little ** science about long term storage - most of it from the military and most of it saying that the shelf life is quite a bit longer than advertised.

And there is one class of antibiotic that is known to breakdown into something (relatively) toxic - that's the tetracyclines. Don't stockpile those. The rest of the drugs just get a little less potent. The bigger issue for most people in Scenario Zombie is 1) When to partake of your precious antibiotic store 2) which antibiotic 3) how much and how long. The Merk Manual is a good start, but best to friend your neighborhood doctor (or ICU nurse).

Re:Fish antibiotics

[arglebargle_xiv]

Bullshit. Expiration dates are randomly created in order to push products through. There is ** very little ** science about long term storage - most of it from the military and most of it saying that the shelf life is quite a bit longer than advertised.

The military has to stockpile medication for long periods of time, so they have an incentive to find out what the real shelf life is. Our military (deliberately obscuring who "our" is since I don't know if this was made public and couldn't be bothered checking) did long-term ageing tests on commonly-stockpiled stuff and found that medication stored for a decade was still 98% as effective as fresh stock. They're still waiting for the 20-year time period to come up to re-check it again.

Re:Fish antibiotics

[pepty]

There is ** very little ** science about long term storage - most of it from the military and most of it saying that the shelf life is quite a bit longer than advertised.

Actually there's quite a lot.Talk to a formulation chemist. Every drug formulation that is legal to sell has been left in storage at various temperatures and tested over time. Companies that have faked doing this have been banned from importing drugs to the US. Most drugs do just lose potency over time, but manufacturers have the goad of liability lawsuits when setting expiration dates. In general if you want something to last as long as possible: seal it tightly, put it in the dark at a constant temperature of -20 C. No defrosting.

Re:Fish antibiotics

[Miamicanes]

I think it's safe to say that if society is in a state of collapse and normal medical care doesn't exist anymore, the risk that a particular antibiotic will be sub-optimal due to age or storage conditions lies rather low on the hierarchy of concerns. Especially if it IS stored under optimal conditions from the moment of purchase.

One semi-drug that IS insanely unstable is methylcobalamin (which is actually vitamin B-12, in a form that can cross the blood-brain barrier and is a wonder drug for cats with diabetic neuropathy). The problem is, there's no shelf-stable form of it, so it has to be FedEx'ed in an ice chest every 2-3 months, stored in an opaque container in the refrigerator, and loaded into the syringe in the dimmest light possible to keep it from losing potency. You almost have to treat it like film in a darkroom. But god, that stuff was magic for my kitty and worth every penny. In two weeks, he went from being barely able to walk without twitching and resting with his nose on the floor to climbing stairs, climbing onto and off of the bed, and holding his head up.

There ARE oral sublingal forms of methylcobalamin, but every USP human formulation contains xylitol, which is toxic to cats. The only brand (as of last year) that's xylitol-free and explicitly made for cats is Zobaline (the feline-safe version of Xobaline). It's debatable how much benefit the cat will actually get from sublingal methylcobalamin compared to the injected form, but if you DO decide to try it, make SURE it's xylitol-free.

Re: Fish antibiotics

[cthulhu11]

It seems awfully convenient that *every* drug expires after exactly a year.

Re:Fish antibiotics

[LunaticTippy]

Bunkers aren't for using, they're like a pacifier for paranoid types. They don't have to be logical or work, they've never been needed before so they might as well be full of action figures and styrofoam peanuts.

Before somebody pipes up with their "this time the world's really gonna end part 32767" if the shit really hits the fan, your bunker ain't gonna help you.

What else is new?

[Anonymous Coward]

So? Often the HUMAN drugs don't work either, but we still pay billions out each year for them, and don't get me started on the "homeopathic" and "vitamin" crazes.

Re:What else is new?

[bluefoxlucid]

What's worse is we push profitable drugs. I put myself on phenotropil (a high dose--people recognize the stimulant effect at 100mg, but reading ADHD research and doing molecular composition and mass analysis I've figured out it should be about 20-25mg twice per day), and that's had miraculous effects on the ADHD--and the dissociation (which I've tended to use as a tool--but holy shit being a part of the real world is overwhelming), and even the sociopathy (emotional centers of my brain are hooking back up). Of course, Dextroamphetamine and Methylphenedate are more profitable... oddly enough, since they're also insanely generic. Adderall is multiple Dex salts and a 12.5% load of Levoamphetamine salt, which have widely varied half-lives so not really a good idea.

The worst part? Phenotropil's side effects include a headache from my brain starting to cannibilize itself for required acetylcholine--this is the same headache you get from studying too hard--so I'm also intaking a crazy amount of choline supplements (about 1200-1500mg/day)--and insomnia. Methylphenedate? Psychosis. Dex? Also psychosis, but less severe than Methylphenedate. They're both systemic toxins, as well as neurotoxins; phenotropil is well-tolerated and is neuroprotective. The dosage window is pretty narrow--high enough for a clinical effect, but not so high as to induce nasty side effects or toxicity, is hard with MPH and Amphetamine; Phenotropil it's just avoiding tolerance to the stimulant effect, which is why I said the dosage should be lower (I'm taking 100mg every day, but 25mg twice per day would be better; the same low-dose tactic is used to avoid Dextroamphetamine tolerance, which follows the same mechanism).

In short: the drugs as prescribed are horribly bad for you; the drugs that aren't prescribed have fewer side effects and are probably (not proven, but believed with rather high confidence) actually good for you. Phenotropil is neuroprotective: it prevents brain damage.

I take a B vitamin ... out of habit now, I guess. I was previously using SAM-e to maintain a hypomanic state, which requires B9 and B12 to prevent headaches and other side effects. Megavitamins are useless, and vitamin supplementation is only useful if you're deficient. Choline supplementation is probably the only universal one for that--250mg CDP Choline/day supplementation would be good for most people--but even that's not strictly necessary.

Re:What else is new?

[Anonymous Coward]

Good God, it sounds like you're a train wreck

Re:What else is new?

[flyingfsck]

and the best thing is that he actually thinks he is doing OK now. It must really 'good stuff' he is on.

Re:What else is new?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a perfect example of knowing enough to be dangerous. You're making all these blanket statements decrying prescribed drugs that are well understood while promoting drugs that are not prescribed based upon some unproven beliefs, and creating and promoting a cocktail of vitamins and supplements that you believe might counteract negative effects of these drugs that no doctor prescribes for what you're doing... Danger, Will Robinson! I sense someone about to fall off the cliff into quack-land!

Re:What else is new?

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing that set me off was the second sentence: "molecular composition and mass analysis". I'm a chemist and I don't even know what is meant by "molecular composition". I assume he has access to a mass spec for the mass analysis part but I don't see how that would help determine the dosage. Then all the this countered by that talk. Quack indeed.

Re: What else is new?

[Anonymous Coward]

The IT equivalent of this is called Frankensteining. The origin of this kind of behavior no doubt started in some kitchen ("Taste this!"). Its really all about self-indulgence vs. self-control. Self-medicating is very popular, but only the truely out of control manic maniacs really get so emotionally intimate with their own customized chemical cocktails.

Re:What else is new?

[sjames]

Of course, arguably the homeopathic drugs are just as effective as the prescriptions with less harmful side effects at 1/100th the cost.

If you're going to buy placebos, buy the cheap ones :-)

Re:What else is new?

[Dunbal]

Yeah suddenly everyone is taking Crestor because Atorvastatin apparently is no longer good enough once the patent expires.

Re:What else is new?

[Anonymous Coward]

For all the reading up you've done, you never once read up on the placebo effect, or self selection bias?

Re:What else is new?

[arglebargle_xiv]

Of course, arguably the homeopathic drugs are just as effective as the prescriptions with less harmful side effects at 1/100th the cost.

DANGER DANGER DANGER DANGER!

Homepathic pet medicine can be extremely dangerous. I gave some to my cat once. Two days later she died of an overdose while drinking from her water bowl.

Re:What else is new?

[bill_mcgonigle]

It sounds like he doesn't know the term "molecular weight". Or, even just % active ingredient.

Re:What else is new?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well it's good that it worked for you. But it's stupid to assume that it would work for everyone. Racetams have an entirely different mechanism of action than amphetamines, or phenethylamines like methylphenidate. For some of us, there's absolutely nothing that can replace a direct dopamine boost with limited action on other neurotransmitters.
And while I haven't specifically taken phenylpiracetam (are you supporting Name Brand Phenotropil?), a headache would be a much worse side effect than any that I experience from a clinical dose of amps. Which is none. There's nothing particularly narrow about the dosage window either. And toxicity? Perhaps I need to recheck the research but I don't see legions of brain damaged ADHD patients. Don't conflate use with abuse. People who abuse those drugs take many times the amount prescribed. The sudafed/red phosphorous/iodine methamphetamine addict rotting in his shack isn't like the Desoxyn (also methamphetamine) patient in high school.

That post is just as problematic as the crap put forth by big pharma sales guys.

Re:What else is new?

[bluefoxlucid]

Placebo effect is kind of bounded. You can't placebo away dissociation or an inability to focus, just like you can't placebo away cancer or alzheimers.

Re:What else is new?

[bluefoxlucid]

Phenylpiracetam actually carries a phenyl group. Methylphenedate and dexamphetamine also carry a phenyl group, which is where the primary effect of those comes from. Phenylpiracetam causes the same stimulant effects as amphetamine, mainly, as well as the same physical changes in relation to tolerance--that being a reduction in density of D2 dopamine receptors and a loss of dopamine sensitivity.

Phenylpiracetam has the phenyl stimulant mechanism of action and the racetam mechanism of action. Both.

Mark Shriner edited an interesting research compilation, although there's piles and piles of these. Assertions of toxicity aren't much covered, but there's some discussion about getting high off Methylphenedate and Dexamphetamine. The main concern is that the amount required for pharmacological effectiveness is fairly close to the amount that causes euphoria; comparisons to cocaine are made for a neurological reference, but not really for magnitude or toxicity's sake.

Dexamphetamine is better than Methylphenedate by far, which is why it's now much more prescribed. I mean really, there's a medical condition called "methylphenedate psychosis", and it's almost guaranteed if you're on MPH for more than a year. They had me on anti-psychotics because of MPH psychosis--this was routine and common. Adderall causes worse psychosis, but much less often.

I could always have a friend run a clinical trial. I mean hell, they let them get away with anything here. A couple dudes I knew in college had an ad up for clinical trials for... wait for it... spiritual meditation while under the influence of psylocybin. Sponsored and conducted by the university here (John's Hopkins). This goes on constantly--we've got kids in college genetically modifying HIV and injecting it into people with cancer to try and cure cancer (spoiler: it worked). It's everything from incredible medical breakthroughs to just probing around for more information about what happens when you get high. You can't deny that ADHD research is interesting, or that the similarity in known mechanisms of action doesn't make phenotropil a good candidate drug. This is a perfect medical research topic for a Ph.D..

Just bought a puppy

[GodfatherofSoul]

I felt like our initial visit was almost like getting cased by a grifter; like they wanted to see how much I was willing to shell out. They started me out with a sample of a deworming med then asked for a stool sample from the pup which of course showed some parasite that had to be treated with another med. So, I've had her 2 weeks and besides vaccinations she's already been exposed to 2 medications. And, each visit has been a setup for another visit in the weeks to come. I just feel like i'm getting sucked into a merry-go-round of perpetual medication and unnecessary care. But, I'm not a professional so I don't have much ability to make judgements.

A human doesn't need that much attention if he's healthy.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Anonymous Coward]

Um what are you talking about? A human absolutely DOES need that same kind of attention if they're healthy. You're talking about the equivalent of a child in the first year of life, not a 20-year-old college kid. Kids go in to see the pediatrician about 4 or 5 times in their first year for routine check-ups, vaccinations, boosters, and more. Then, after that, they pretty much see the doctor for a checkup each year indefinitely. How is that different from what you're seeing with your puppy? You also have to remember, for a dog seeing the vet once a year, that's equivalent to a human going every 4 or 5 years or so based on how rapidly their body ages in relation to a human's lifespan.

Also, most human children don't come from a puppy mill or spend time eating dirt, plants, and bugs outdoors- if they did they'd also be tested and treated for parasites as necessary.

If you're feeling like you're being grifted at this point when your vet is just offering you appropriate and practical medical care for your pet, you're setting yourself up to be a difficult, irresponsible pet owner. Please don't go that route and at least, as this poorly though-out original article mentions, at least ASK your vet why you need to do something and how/why it works if you're not sure rather than just assuming you're being scammed and doing a disservice to your pet.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[g0bshiTe]

There's the option to seek another opinion too. If you are unsure consult another vet.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[cold fjord]

You could always get a second opinion. Know anyone that could recommend someone they trust? Maybe a farm vet?

Re:Just bought a puppy

[gurps_npc]

Humans that live like most dogs do in fact need that much attention.

The typical human living in an area that is poor enough to never use toilet paper has multiple parasites living in it. Often the human gets it by eating whatever food is in front of it.

Now, some dogs do in fact only eat gourmet meals. But quite a few eat anything they can - including things that used to be in their body but are no longer.

I am not saying the Vet you saw was not pulling a fast one on you.

But there is at least a chance he was being a good vet.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[FuegoFuerte]

The best thing I can suggest is to go to your local farm supply store instead of the vet, for anything but the most serious symptoms. They typically have the medications readily available for a reasonable price, and will often have people knowledgeable enough to point you in the right direction.

Case in point: My cat had a nasty eye infection, and I decided I didn't want to spend the time, effort or money to pack up the cat and go to the vet. So I went to the local farm supply store and said "hey, my cat has goopy eyes that aren't clearing up, and in fact seem to be getting worse. Do you have anything for that?"

They sold me a small tube of ophthalmic antibiotic ointment intended for cats/dogs, gave me brief instructions on how much to use and how to apply it without putting the cat's eye out, and about $10 later I was on my way home. It cleared up the cat's eyes in a couple days, and I had plenty left over and have used it on a couple occasions since then. In total, I probably saved at least $500 in vet bills, since I've used it to treat 2 cats on 2-3 occasions each over the past several years.

The same type of store will often have good wormers, earmite meds, etc., so as long as the animal has classic symptoms that are easily diagnosed (and again, if in doubt just describe the symptoms to someone working at the store), they ought to be able to help you.

Most of the small animal problems that only a vet can fix, can instead be fixed for about $0.06 at home. Large animals like horses, cows, etc. are different, and may warrant a call to an actual vet. Just about the only thing that's probably worth a visit to a vet for a cat/dog is to have them "fixed" (which really ought to be called "broken" in my opinion - not because it shouldn't be done, simply because it's removing functionality).

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Antipater]

most human children don't...spend time eating dirt, plants, and bugs outdoors

I'm not so sure about that one...

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Anonymous Coward]

De-worming/anti-parasitics and vaccines are not what this article is talking about (the article says as much). Those work fine and if you value what they offer, are worth the money, much like heart worm preventative medicine. If your puppy had worms, they needed to be treated. Nothing scammy about that at all.

Return visits to make sure the meds cleared the parasites are routine and not scammy (assuming you're just dropping off poop and getting the news).

A human with worms will need that much attention.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[GodfatherofSoul]

1.) It's a dog. She sniffs shit. I raw feed and she can and has been fed spoiled meat that would kill a human being.
2.) My dog isn't from a puppy mill; she's from a reputable breeder
3.) Lots of other pets and livestock don't get the same levels of medical care and do quite fine

Re:Just bought a puppy

[GodfatherofSoul]

I thought about that and I've been looking at other vet recommendations, but if this is just industry practice, how would I know who's good and who's not? I found the vet reviews to be pretty consistent in my area.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[CubicleZombie]

You think that's bad? Wait a few years until there's some kind of real problem and they come at you with a $3000 proposal for treatment and an application for a consumer credit account. No joke. People get very emotional about their pets. I knew a woman who put her dog through chemotherapy on credit and couldn't pay her rent.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[pooh666]

Hopefully you don't live an an area where you are short on options, otherwise RUN. We ran into a vet very much like you are talking about. I won't go into the details of the $2000 fart when we though our dog was dying and we took him in OVERNIGHT, they gave her pepcid ac.. Our new vet just told us the dog needed to lose weight, got us on a great food to help do that along with our own being careful to not supplement with treats/dinner scraps, no such issue for years now. What was worse, it is like you said, you could feel you were being taken, almost massaged, their bent was on herbal everything, they acted like every animal needs its concoction of suppliments. Right after our first visit we started getting emails from their list pushing all of that, including the standard scams of small dog teeth cleaning, basically everything they could think of to make a penny.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Anonymous Coward]

There are definitely unscrupulous vets out there. My wife is a vet tech and worked for one vet who would very routinely "prescribe" treatments that he knew were absolutely unnecessary. Disgusting, but hey, someone's gotta pay for that fancy house in the hills

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Bert64]

Animals build up a natural resistance to things they encounter all day, and nature kills off those who lack suitable resistance to the hazards of their environment... Wild animals often live in dirty environments and eat questionable foods, and yet they are usually just fine. It's when you keep an animal away from nature that its immune system is likely to be weaker.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[tibit]

If your dog was healthy, it wouldn't need that much attention either. Worms in dogs and cats is a very common thing. If you did what dogs do, you'd have worms too.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Anonymous Coward]

A human doesn't need that much attention if he's healthy.

I'm going to call BS on that one. Take the age old method of "1 Dog year is 7 Human years" (which isn't all that precise, it varies given the age of the dog, but close enough for Slashdot) How many times to you think the average child needs to see a pediatrician in the first 3 years of their life? How about just vaccines and checkups, let alone problem exams? I hope you've been spayed or neutered...

Re:Just bought a puppy

[tibit]

That's one of the most informative posts for today. Thank you!

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a lot of bad products alongside the good ones at the local stores. At many farm supply stores, they have none of the good products. The ratio of good products to bad products is not in your pet's favor if you haven't asked a vet which ones are actually safe. (A phone call to the vet to confirm doesn't cost anything, by the way.) For example, commercial off-the-shelf flea & tick medicines and collars that cause anything from minor skin infection to major problems like necrosis and skin sloughing off under the collar are very commonly sold for a few years and then disappear/get recalled under mysterious circumstances. You're gambling on whether you're going to cause huge damage to your pet if you just do what you feel like doing with medications!! Don't just go there and assume that the stock boy is going to know more than a vet!

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd be surprised by the level of spoiled meat - red meat that is - that you can get away with eating.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Gr8Apes]

The de-wormer is necessary. The stool sample, after the first clear one, provided you're not on a farm or next to wilderness, can be your last. What you lose is the ability to have the de-wormer company pay for your pet's care, should they get worms, as there's some kind of warranty. (Got that from my vet, I think we've only done stool samples when the dogs were sick, which we've only done once in the past 5 years, maybe more)

All that aside, my old dog does have arthritis, and takes Tramedol as needed. I see a definite improvement within a half hour or so after giving her a pill. I've also tried without giving her a pill to see if she would improve, and she has not. Since her arthritis varies with the weather and her daily health, she's not on a regularly scheduled regimen. It appears from observation, at least, that Tramedol does alleviate some arthritis pain. Probably much like some arthiritis / pain meds help humans, but not all are helped by the same drugs.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Anonymous Coward]

This whole checkup business is idiotic and purely a money spinner. Maybe if the typical american diet was healthier...

Re:Just bought a puppy

[sandytaru]

I had a friend who skipped a routine checkup because she was super busy - the manager of a plant she owned had quit, and she had to move up there and take care of things for months. She didn't go to the doctor again until she started to feel ill. Turns out she had fact growing pancreatic cancer - and she was dead within another six months. If she had gone to get her regular checkup done, they would have caught it before it hit stage IV and she would have had a much better prognosis. DO NOT SKIP YOUR ROUTINE CHECK UPS. $100 this year, or $100,000 next year if you're lucky enough to survive? It's not worth the gamble.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[sandytaru]

I used to think that until I watched Nat Geo Wild. Even predators get body parts bitten off, get infections, and die from diseases.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[sh00z]

2.) My dog isn't from a puppy mill; she's from a reputable breeder

There's your problem. Get a shelter mutt. They are healthier, more easygoing, and you can feel like you're contributing to the solution, not the problem. Says the former owner of a cocker spaniel from a "reputable breeder" that developed cataracts at three years old.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[GodfatherofSoul]

You know I've suspected that but I'm not willing to try! This whole raw feeding movement has really changed a lot of my perceptions about eating. Another reason I'm wary of vets is how so many of them respond when they hear about raw feeding dogs.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[The Grim Reefer]

1.) It's a dog. She sniffs shit. I raw feed and she can and has been fed spoiled meat that would kill a human being.

Yes. Most dogs can do that. Kids can eat chocolate, grapes, macadamia nuts, and avocados. Dogs can't. People used to give chicken bones to infants when they were teething. Again, not a smart move for a dog. Different species, different digestive tracts.

2.) My dog isn't from a puppy mill; she's from a reputable breeder

You previously stated your dog had worms. If this is the case, then it's not a reputable breeder. Or perhaps you have found a crappy vet. It can't hurt to go to another for a second opinion. At least you'll know.

3.) Lots of other pets and livestock don't get the same levels of medical care and do quite fine

Yes, and lots die early and in misery from lack of medical care. Do you have a point?

Re: Just bought a puppy

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no routine screening for peek pancreatic cancer. No check up would have picked it up.

I'm a palliative care MD and see this cancer far too often. Almost always stage 4. Easy to blame someone for 'missing' this (either MD or patient themselves) but it's just crappy luck.

That being said, unexpected weight loss, sweats, pain = see a doctor!

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Anonymous Coward]

On a visit to the vet with an older female dog they prescribed some kind of hormone. Pills seemed kind of expensive so I searched online and found a much cheaper source, but needed the prescription from the vet. When I asked for the script without buying the drug from them they acted like I had just doused the dog with gasoline and set her on fire. They did offer to sell the meds at a somewhat lower price, but it didn't matter, I never went back to them. I'll pay for the professional service but don't try to rip me off selling at inflated prices.

And don't get me started on optometrists selling glasses and contact lenses

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to think that until I watched Nat Geo Wild. Even predators get body parts bitten off, get infections, and die from diseases.

To add to that, any long time hunter can tell you about a kill that they started to gut and realized the meat was "maggoty" (i.e. visibly full of parasites).

Wild animals can and do get very, very sick. We tend to treat animals based on either or emotional or financial investment in them, not because they are somehow weaker than their native relatives.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[tlhIngan]

I felt like our initial visit was almost like getting cased by a grifter; like they wanted to see how much I was willing to shell out. They started me out with a sample of a deworming med then asked for a stool sample from the pup which of course showed some parasite that had to be treated with another med. So, I've had her 2 weeks and besides vaccinations she's already been exposed to 2 medications. And, each visit has been a setup for another visit in the weeks to come. I just feel like i'm getting sucked into a merry-go-round of perpetual medication and unnecessary care. But, I'm not a professional so I don't have much ability to make judgements.

Don't be surprised if your vet is taking you for a ride.

First off - if they say you need medications, ask for a prescription. Then go to your local pharmacy to get it filled - the drugs are exactly the same. You'd think they'd be cheaper as animal ones get marked "Not for human consumption", but no. Your pharmacy has the same medications at often reduced prices compared to the vet.

And there are tons of meds and treatments that are completely unnecessary. CBC Marketplace did an investigation and found many areas where one could save some money.

In fact, don't be surprised at all if your vet refuses to write an Rx for you - selling meds is one of their big money makers.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Algae_94]

Kids go in to see the pediatrician about 4 or 5 times in their first year for routine check-ups, vaccinations, boosters, and more.

The key words you are missing are "if healthy". All of those things you mentioned are absolutely not needed for a kid to live if there's nothing wrong with them. Vaccinations should be done, but many people have been skipping that lately.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[lancelet]

So wait, you're advocating going to people with even less knowledge than an average vet?

The main problem with your suggestion is that, in the early stages of virtually every disease, you and your farm supply store buddies will have no idea whether a condition is serious or not. In fact, in many cases, neither will a vet without the aid of special equipment or serial monitoring. Are your cats "goopy eyes" an infection or a corneal ulcer? Is your supply store dude just gonna whip out his ophthalmoscope and some staining compound to check that for you? What about lumps on your dog? Gonna change its diet, or actually get a biopsy done to check for cancer? How about grass seed injuries? You just gonna whip out a flick knife and cut that bastard out, or do you think your dog might want some pain killers with its skin incision? Etc, etc, etc.

On another topic, your advice won't work in countries like Australia or the UK, where antibiotics are unavailable without prescription (you know, because of this annoying thing called antibiotic resistance).

Re:Just bought a puppy

[AdamHaun]

Wild animals often live in dirty environments and eat questionable foods, and yet they are usually just fine.

No they aren't. They die in large numbers. Take housecats, for example -- indoor average lifespan is >12 years, outdoor average lifespan is 5 years. Stray dogs live 1-2 years on the street, but average 11 years in a home.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[FuegoFuerte]

They key is to find a good farm supply store with knowledgeable staff who've been there for a while. I'm fortunate to live near one that used to board race horses (and may be doing so again, I'm not sure - they stopped for a while). The majority of their staff have worked closely with animals (including the above-mentioned ridiculously expensive equines) for years, and so the store a) doesn't tend to sell cheap crap and b) knows to give a good recommendation.

They also now have an on-site vet clinic (as of this past summer), so if they don't know they can find out easily. So no, I wouldn't trust your average pet store staff at , you need to find a good farm supply store with good staff.

Also, the staff won't necessarily know more than a vet, but they'll very frequently know enough. I don't know more than a vet, but I know that an eye infection that doesn't clear up in a few days needs antibiotics, I just don't readily know which ones. The staff at the store knew that part and had a good ophthalmic ointment intended for such infections. I'm not going to trust them for DIY spaying instructions (neutering perhaps), I'll leave that to the vet.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[MachDelta]

Another reason I'm wary of vets is how so many of them respond when they hear about raw feeding dogs.

Most vets make quite a lot of money pushing sponsored foods (Science Diet, etc), so they balk when you feed them anything else. Food is a good sized reoccurring expense for a pet, so why wouldn't a vet want to take a cut? The reality is, those specialty vet foods are generally worse than almost anything you can find at a dedicated pet food store (yet still above what you'll find at most supermarkets - that shit should just be labeled "Animal Cruelty in a Bag"), and almost certainly worse than raw diets.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[whoever57]

What makes me most angry is the treatment for Giardia. From what I have read, the most effective treatment is Panacur, which is available without prescription.

Yet, I have experienced vets prescribing something else before the cheap and effective Panacur, because Panacur is not approved for use against Giardia. Panacur is approved for use by dogs, just not for treatment of Giardia.

Ineffective treament means more diarrhea and more tests ($$$$) -- more discomfort for both dog and owner.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[lancelet]

And before I forget... ALWAYS finish a course of antibiotics. Even when you think the symptoms have gone. NEVER "save it over for later".

Re:Just bought a puppy

[GodfatherofSoul]

Funny you mention that since it's what I was told she had. I never saw any problems w/ her poop before or after.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Anonymous Coward]

This FUD has been brought to you by your local veterinarian, reminding you to go to your local veterinarian to buy a six month supply Frontline flea preventive for a measly $150 dollars. What you don't want to spend that kind of money? Well that Frontline being sold in Walmart or Fred Mejier will make your pet's skin fall off. So buy from your local vet at the price we choose to sell, otherwise your pet will die a horrible death.

Signed.

Your local vet

Re:Just bought a puppy

[lancelet]

It somewhat depends on how nicely you'd like to treat your companion animals. Before modern medical care, average post-infant human lifespan was around 30 years (note: average, NOT maximum). I agree with your basic premise, but you could equally say that human medical care is also unnecessary, if you're willing to accept the decreased average lifespan, much greater susceptibility to infection and disease, etc. I do find it amazing that anything the medical establishment advocates actually works, but the figures speak for themselves.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[lancelet]

If there's a university veterinary clinic near you, go to them for answers. University clinics are normally a level above most practices in terms of their knowledge about latest research and methods.

Here in Australia, I know of vet practices which had a bad name (among vets, I mean!) because they were cutting corners and ultimately both doing and charging too little per client so that they could cram in more consults. This included things like not giving vets enough time to conduct proper physical exams of the patients, not wearing gloves during surgeries, and re-using syringes and other equipment that should be single-use. Consequently, the staff turn-over of these places was huge (they always had job ads for vets, that everyone knew to avoid). However, they were rated very highly by clients (or by The Internet, which is where I looked for that information) for seeming efficient and cheap.

In the case of one of these practices, minor complaints from employees stacked up enough over the years that the vet board stepped in and enforced proper procedures. However, it takes a lot of complaints before something like that will happen, and of course the vet industry is so small that nobody likes burning bridges with a former employer, even a dodgy one.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Anonymous Coward]

In most places in the world the doctor will treat you for the obvious disease and, if that doesn't work because you've got something more unusual, he'll move on to the expensive tests and monitoring.

Why wouldn't I apply the same standard to an animal? If the cat's got goopy eyes I'll treat the infection it probably has. If that doesn't work I'll ask a vet. And if the investigations are too expensive the cat is out of luck.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Anonymous Coward]

And of course you can tell if a kid is healthy without going to the doctor. I mean, if they look fine they're obviously fine, right?
Dumbass.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know where the fuck you live, but that's not legal in the US. Real veterinary medications are prescription only, just like human medications. You can't just go to the store and buy veterinary ophthalmic antibiotic without a prescription from a vet.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Dahamma]

2.) My dog isn't from a puppy mill; she's from a reputable breeder

You previously stated your dog had worms. If this is the case, then it's not a reputable breeder. Or perhaps you have found a crappy vet. It can't hurt to go to another for a second opinion. At least you'll know.

Wrong. Most puppies, no matter where or how they are born, have roundworms. They are fairly endemic in small numbers and transmitted by the mother in the womb. It's normal, and not a big deal to treat. You can leave it alone and hope your puppy manages to gets enough nutrition to thrive and fight them off, or you can spend a bit and deworm. But why anyone would want to get a new puppy and play survival of the fittest with it is beyond me (and pretty horrible). Not to mention roundworms can potentially spread to people is it worth a bit of money to *you* not to get worms? :)

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Anonymous Coward]

Are your cats "goopy eyes" an infection or a corneal ulcer?

This. One of my cats recently developed vomiting and diarrhoea. Probably just a bug, right? A dose of Panacur, a bit of high fibre food, job done right? Ah, except it turns out she has a rather nasty parasite. Oh and buy the way it's contagious so my other cats are susceptible. Oh yeah, and humans.

I'm sure the dude at the farm store would have caught that one.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Anonymous Coward]

"Just about the only thing that's probably worth a visit to a vet for a cat/dog is to have them "fixed" (which really ought to be called "broken" in my opinion - not because it shouldn't be done, simply because it's removing functionality)"

"Downgraded" is probably even more accurate.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Dahamma]

If you do this, I assume you also provide appropriate fruits and vegetables? (i.e. not one of many that are toxic, but enough that the dog gets a well-rounded nutrition).

Dogs are not like cats who live mostly on protein - they are omnivores that can benefit from foods like carrots, pumpkin//sweet potatoes, cantaloupe, some greens, blueberries, apples, etc (but not onions, garlic, grapes, avocados, etc which vary from mildly GI toxic to potentially deadly anemia).

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Gavagai80]

While your point is probably correct, those numbers need to be adjusted for cars. Outdoor cats and dogs are killed by cars in extremely large numbers.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Anonymous Coward]

You couldn't be more wrong about that. Being married to a vet and thus also knowing many more in the industry, I can tell you that they make very little from pet food sales and certainly don't get any "sponsorship" other than a discount on that brand of food for their own pets (and even that isn't much of a discount these days). In fact, in my wife's hospital they don't even carry anything but prescription food because there is no profit in it, and even those only carry low single-digit profit margins to justify the space they take up in inventory.

The reason many of them react strongly to a raw diet is that it's usually a pretty bad diet for the animal. Not necessarily in concept (though dogs are NOT obligate carnivores so the "raw" diet sure as hell better include veggies and other items to balance the animals needs as well), but often in execution by the owner. The "specialty" foods that most vets sell are actual prescription diets for specific things (like kidney failure, bad food allergies, etc.) and the general foods they sell are high quality and not worse than what a pet food store carries other than to say that the pet food store will have a larger selection by design and some of it may be better and some of it may be worse for a given pet.

Sounds an awful lot like you did a couple hours of reading on the internet and decided you know more about canine nutrition than the doctor that spent 8 or more years of college learning this stuff.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Dahamma]

Lots of other pets and livestock don't get the same levels of medical care and do quite fine

THIS is not particularly good reasoning. The human race survived a long time without modern medical care, but a lot more babies survive to adulthood with proper modern medicine. The same is true for puppies.

Sure, deworming (and you don't need a second opinion on *that*, almost all puppies have roundworms and they will be a lot more likely to thrive if you treat them, just look it up), monthly flea and tick medication (possibly with antiparasitics to prevent heartworm or reinfestation of roundworm), vaccinations, etc are going to cost you, but the alternative is basically leaving it all up to a game of "survival of the fittest" with your new puppy. Why would anyone want to go through all of the effort of raising a puppy only to leave some simple but effective basic health maintenance up to chance?

Not to mention, some of these parasites are transmittable to *you*. While fleas or even ticks might just be highly annoying in your home, you really don't want to get roundworms.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[mooingyak]

The human race survived a long time without modern medical care, but a lot more babies survive to adulthood with proper modern medicine.

Exactly. And that's what makes historical life expectancy numbers so wacky looking. If you made it to about 5 years old you had a decent numbers of years ahead of you, but the child mortality rate was horrific by modern standards.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Arkham]

They key is to find a good farm supply store with knowledgeable staff who've been there for a while.

Or, you could find a good vet who does their job well and charges a reasonable price for their expertise, which you will not find at a feed store.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Anonymous Coward]

And the last guy who didn't forward this message to all his friends got hit by a bus on the way home from work. Look, I'm sorry for your friend, I truly am, but let's be realistic here. She skipped a routine checkup for a few months, and then went to the doctor when she was feeling bad and was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, dead 6 months later. That's some aggressive cancer right there. Even if her prognosis might have been better if it was caught 6 month earlier by how much and at what cost? If you get cancer you still have to treat it, and the treatment costs what it will cost. If saving money is what you're worried about, the best solution is to stop going to the doctor entirely. The majority of your medical expenses will come at the end of your life, usually trying to repair or stave off a severe illness or death. If you want to save money, don't go to the doctor and die early.

Of course, that's sort of a silly way of looking at things, we usually balance cost, duration and expected quality of life vs medical care, not just plain costs. And that's even assuming what you're doing will even find your disease. I don't think I've ever had a routine checkup that would have caught pancreatic cancer until I was already symptomatic, and frankly I doubt your friend's routine checkup would have either.

I'm not saying routine checkups are bad things, they're better than a kick in the teeth, but be realistic about what you're actually doing, spending money on essentially a feel good measure with some basic health advice and screening thrown in. Regardless of whether you spend $100 this year, if you have cancer, you'll definitely be spending $100k next year, no amount of annual checkups will save that cost.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Anonymous Coward]

you sound like a vet

Re:Just bought a puppy

[The Grim Reefer]

2.) My dog isn't from a puppy mill; she's from a reputable breeder

You previously stated your dog had worms. If this is the case, then it's not a reputable breeder. Or perhaps you have found a crappy vet. It can't hurt to go to another for a second opinion. At least you'll know.

Wrong. Most puppies, no matter where or how they are born, have roundworms. They are fairly endemic in small numbers and transmitted by the mother in the womb. It's normal, and not a big deal to treat. You can leave it alone and hope your puppy manages to gets enough nutrition to thrive and fight them off, or you can spend a bit and deworm. But why anyone would want to get a new puppy and play survival of the fittest with it is beyond me (and pretty horrible). Not to mention roundworms can potentially spread to people is it worth a bit of money to *you* not to get worms? :)

I didn't say that they didn't have worms at any point. A reputable breeder will have wormed them already and have detailed records of this and all vaccinations and a vet schedule and records for the parents as well. . I've never heard of any good breeder that would send puppies home that have not been wormed. You sure as hell aren't going to take a dog home from a good breeder and have to go to a vet to discover it has worms.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Dahamma]

I didn't say that they didn't have worms at any point. A reputable breeder will have wormed them already and have detailed records of this and all vaccinations and a vet schedule and records for the parents as well. . I've never heard of any good breeder that would send puppies home that have not been wormed. You sure as hell aren't going to take a dog home from a good breeder and have to go to a vet to discover it has worms.

Well, that depends on how old the puppy is. Most breeders will let (and encourage) you pick up a puppy at 8-10 weeks (once it's weaned) at which point it will have had max 1 deworming (2-3 are required) and 1 DHPP shot (of 3 required). And you have to wait longer before giving other required or optional ones like rabies, lyme, lepto, etc.

Not only have I had several dogs over the years and have family friends who raise and train/show dogs, my Dad is a veterinarian with 40 years of experience. The conventional wisdom is "all puppies have worms" and since that's true 90%+ of the time, it's not really even worth bothering to test for them before deworming (better safe than a false negative, so the test would just needless add to the cost though the owner is always welcome to search their poop for free :).

Re:Just bought a puppy

[bill_mcgonigle]

There are also some meds that are available there marked for farm animals and not for pets (some regulators have gotten to them). If you've ever gotten through a science lab class, you'll have no trouble looking up the proper dosing for pets and determining the correct dose. Just don't be an idiot and mix up your units - you can save a few thousand bucks but if you can't do science math, don't lose your pet over it. And, no, they don't put dog poison in cow meds - it doesn't work that way (sorry, Internet trolls).

Re:Just bought a puppy

[pepty]

. Why would anyone want to go through all of the effort of raising a puppy only to leave some simple but effective basic health maintenance up to chance?

People choose brachycephalic dog breeds that can't breathe freely without being intubated, breeds that go lame because of hip displasia, breeds that can't jump because their overelongated spines will fracture, and breeds that can only give birth by c-section. With some breeds down to 7 yrs average lifespan, I don't think "survival of the fittest" enters into the minds of some of the dog owners that do keep up with regular care for their pups.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[pepty]

Vets do sell a lot of questionable shit, like lysine for for feline herpesvirus. The idea makes sense: in vitro you can disrupt herpesvirus reproduction by swamping it with lysine when it needs arginine. The first study that looked at it in actual cats sounded promising, so companies started bottling it and vets started selling it. Unfortunately pretty much all of the papers over the past 10 years have been inconclusive or negative - including the follow ups by the author of the original paper. Doesn't seem to get in the way of sales though.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Dahamma]

Very true in many cases... maybe that's the reason I have always liked the working/sporting breeds, since they were traditionally selected more for their practicality than their "interesting" physical traits.

And though dysplasia has in the past been a problem in those working breeds, it's now testable and no reputable breeder will breed a carrier (and non-breeding owners should spay or neuter their dog so a carrier can't pass down the gene).

Re:Just bought a puppy

[pepty]

For decades now reputable breeders have been turning dogs into unhealthy freakshow breeds that can't breathe, can't jump, can't run, and can't give birth without a c-section. I'm not sure that's a recommendation.

Re: Just bought a puppy

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll see your anecdote and raise you an "my vet gave my whole family HIV". I bet the guy at the feed store wouldn't have killed my whole family.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Miamicanes]

Nature is wildly overrated. A captive-bred tiger, lion, leopard, jaguar, or cougar in Florida or Texas has double the average lifespan of his or her cousins in the wild.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Firethorn]

They are fairly endemic in small numbers and transmitted by the mother in the womb.

That assumes the mother has worms, doesn't it? My parents acted as 'breeders' for a little while - though how much of a business you can call it with ONE breeding female who sleeps on the bed when she's not sleeping with the puppies I don't know.

The interesting part of it was watching her housetrain her puppies. She knew they weren't supposed to do that in the house, she taught them not to a lot quicker than humans can.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Dahamma]

That assumes the mother has worms, doesn't it?

But they usually do. Even when there are NO signs for months or years, roundworms encysted in muscle tissues in females resume their cycle after they become pregnant. Hence the endemic part (and also why when properly deworming and spaying, there are rarely problems).

In fact, this is the whole reason roundworms are so prevalent in (and dangerous to) puppies. Once the dog's immune system has developed the worms usually encyst and only become a problem during pregnancy or if their immune system is compromised.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[AssholeMcGee]

Prescription drug companies!!

What more needs to be said?

They've bitched and moaned over losing profits but have more then enough to buy off the FDA, or federal regulations/laws/rules, and politicians..

By no means I'm I making fun of you, I have pets myself, and I care for them because they each have there own personality, but I will not be taking them to a vet when they get sick. I question the drugs that they claim are same for humans, [that's bullshit} let alone animals. You go online or even ask a vet which foods you can and cannot give a pet, the list gets lengthy, but its okay for the animal to down pills!!!!

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Reziac]

Actually, roundworms are not precisely a parasite; they're closer to a symbiote. Recent research found that exposure to roundworms helps kickstart the nursing puppy's immune system. And per DNA studies, it appears that the two species evolved in tandem.

It is possible to raise puppies that are entirely free of roundworms, but I've found it's not such a good idea -- aside from the potential immune setback, they are also very prone to neonatal diarrhea and are more inclined to develop overgrowths of coccidia and giardia (which are also normal inhabitants of the canine gut, can be cultured from almost any dog, and are more of a problem to the puppy when they get out of hand). You're better off to treat parasite-overgrowth symptoms when and IF they occur, rather than rock the boat by unbalancing the normal gut's assorted freeloaders.

Not much different from how using too much antibacterial soap messes up the mix of your skin's micro-inhabitants.

[I am a canine professional with over 40 years experience. I'm not just pulling this out of my ass or from the ravings on some pet forum full of tyros and neos who've had one dog and think they're experts.]

Re:Just bought a puppy

[ewieling]

My cat had an aggressive cancer of the mouth a few months ago. The vet took a biopsy to confirm. I was told I could euthanize him or I could spend thousands of dollars on chemo multiple times a week at a facility a 4 hour drive away and hope against odds it worked or I could do nothing and he would get worse and worse until he died. The best advice they gave me is that there is nothing wrong with choosing to euthanize your pet. After about 6 weeks of doting on my cat and trying to make his remaining time the most awesome ever -- when he stopped eating and slept all the time I took him to the vet one last time. It felt like I murdered my best friend, but I still believe it was the right thing to do.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Reziac]

Erm... actually there is no DNA test for hip dysplasia, nor is it a single gene (tho it appears, per pedigree analysis, to be largely the result of one dominant and one recessive). You can xray and evaluate hips that way, but it will not tell you which dogs are 'carriers'.

Nor is it necessarily wise to cull out all the carriers from a given gene pool (ie. breed). Sometimes such culling unwittingly removes necessary genes as well, and leaves you in a worse state than before. This happened in one breed that had assiduously culled inherited blindness ...and wound up with a fatal disorder becoming prevalent instead. It's best to breed away from problems as much as you can, but sometimes you can't replace the rest of the dog. This is especially true in rare breeds whose gene pool is already too small (and steadily shrinking thanks to the spay/neuter craze).

Also, individual status is not very informative. A dog with excellent hips but several dysplastic littermates is usually a much worse breeding risk than a dog with marginal hips but no dysplastic siblings. Ditto for not so much parents, but the grandparents.

In short, you have to know your bloodlines, or that OFA certification is just groping in the dark. In one rare breed I was involved with for many years (then rare enough that most fanciers knew every dog of that breed in the U.S.) a particular stud dog who was himself dysplastic proved to be THE best source for normal hips in the breed as it then existed in the U.S. Conversely, the lines founded on a dog that had certified normal proved to have, on average, terrible hips.

[I am a canine professional. I breed working dogs, 14 generations of my own line to date. I founded the OFA and CERF breed club representative programs and was a breed club rep myself for 19 years. I think I might have a few more clues than average.]

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Reziac]

A lot of the defective genes in dogs occur across multiple breeds. Frex, cataracts occur in almost all breeds (prevalence varies from breed to breed). In any mutt, your risk of such a widespread defect are the same as the average of its ancestors' risks. Mutts don't magically 'lose' the bad genes just because they're mutts.

In fact, they're more likely to have issues, because at least in purebreds, there's been some effort toward reducing their incidence (frex, the incidence of hip dysplasia is about 1/4th of what it was when broad screening started in 1962 -- and the species average for affecteds started at about 45%). No one does genetic screening on randomly-bred mutts.

Mutts are around 1/3 to 1/2 of the canine population, but in my observation, they comprise 90% of the average vet's 'problem dog' clientele. What does that tell you??

[I am a canine professional with over 40 years experience. I pay attention to these things.]

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Reziac]

No. A very small subset of winning-at-all-costs breeders have bred to extremes, because in the show ring, the more-extreme dog usually beats the correct dog -- and for that you can equally blame judges who are too easily swayed by "if some is good, more is better". This is much more of a problem in Europe than in the U.S. (the really extreme examples in the U.S. are all from Euro bloodlines), but it's been contaging across the ditch along with those top-winning imports.

These bred-to-win show dogs are not the majority by a long stretch, except in very rare breeds, where a few show breeders can control the entire gene pool. The current craze for neutering every 'pet quality' (often meaning non-exaggerated) puppy is not helping matters.

Some venues (UKC shows in particular) still reward dogs of correct (not exaggerated) type, particularly in working breeds. I myself have finished 56 UKC champions, all of 100% working lines and type (including the only 100% fieldbred Lab to get a Best In Show anywhere in the world since 1974).

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Reziac]

Also (speaking from over 40 years pro experience in dogs) as a general rule you will get more cost-effective and often better advice from that old cow vet, who does things the practical way he's found works, rather than the by-the-book way that costs hundreds or thousands of dollars but doesn't really have better results.

And you are right -- a growing proportion of modern pets' medical and behavioral aliments are directly attributable to the spay/neuter craze. A few references:

http://www.associationofanimal...

http://www.plosone.org/article...

http://saova.org/articles/Earl...

http://www.naiaonline.org/pdfs...

Re:Just bought a puppy

[pepty]

Working breeds are a different story, but bulldogs, daschunds, and other exaggerated breeds in the US are still problematic even if they aren't bred for competition.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Reziac]

Not necessarily. There are free-whelping, free-breathing bulldogs, and sound hunting-type dachshunds. And rather contrary to popular belief (especially among strictly show breeders!), the people doing the best job of preserving the older, sounder, more correct types, are the *gasp* so-called 'backyard breeders' (who just want a good-natured, healthy, attractive dog, not a big winner) and the commercial breeders (who don't want to be saddled with health or temperament issues, both of which can be expensive to maintain).

An interesting point I learned from a commercial breeder, about French Bulldogs: look to the *sire* for puppies that can be born naturally. (The beef cattle producers are all nodding and saying "I told you so.")

Re:Just bought a puppy

[CubicleZombie]

Same thing happened to a cat I had for 12 years. Liver cancer. The vet also told me I could put her through surgery and chemo, but that it would be wrong to do that to a cat. That was a surprising thing to hear from someone who stood to make a pretty big profit off me, and I was emotional enough at the time that I might have done it. That was 15 years ago and thinking about that still brings tears to my eyes.

You did the right thing for your friend.

Re: Just bought a puppy

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus Fucking Christ - I'm sorry, but people like you are just so tiring! Lysine works reasonably well to control herpes virus in cats, even if most of the evidence is anecdotal from tens of thousands of pet owners and their vets. I'm not even going to get into any further than to say this: do you know what a year of lysine treatment costs for a cat? $10. That's TEN dollars. You think a vet is pushing that because of some agenda or is trying to make money off it? It's pretty simple: it seems to work, has no deleterious side effects, and costs ~$1/month, so what's the problem?

It's not like a placebo effect for the damned cat, and if an owner sees the sores clear up for their massive $10 investment, then that doesn't seem particularly questionable to me.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[sh00z]

I don't know what kind of 'canine professional' you are, but it's clearly not in the area of veterinary science. Yes, it's true that mutts don't 'lose' bad genes, but they have DIFFERENT bad genes than pure-breds do. The probability of expression of recessive traits is reduced drastically through hybridization. It's basic Mendelian inheritance. If both 'pure bred' parents carry an autosomal recessive disorder, the probability of expression in the offspring is 1/4, and the probability of the offspring also being carriers to the next generation is 1/2. If one of the parents is without the allele (different line or a 'mutt'), then the chance of expression is zero, with a 1/4 chance of the offspring being a carrier. Just look at human equivalents like cystic fibrosis or sickle-cell disease.

The problem with the canine industry is that people continue to breed dogs that are carriers of recessive disorders endemic to their breeds. It appears that the worst abuses--breeding of dogs actually afflicted with the diseases--has gone down, but your observation of a 90% 'problem dog,' medically, does just not line up with what veterinarians have told me and what I have observed in my 40 years of owning and loving dogs. I have NEVER seen a mutt with tear staining or cherry eye, and yet both are extremely common in the pedigreed animals I've encountered.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Reziac]

Breeder and trainer, and I can do any sort of veterinary work that doesn't involve surgery inside the body (mainly because I don't own anaesthesia equipment). My experience across 44 years covers about 3000 dogs. I've had 14 generations of my own line to date.

Sorry, but you are wrong about the genetics. A mutt can only have the genes its ancestors gave it. They are not 'hybrids'. Genes like cataracts, PRA, von Willebrand's disease, MDR1, multiple genes influencing hip dysplasia, and a host of others occur across many breeds. Mix two breeds (however unrelated otherwise) that both have a risk for cataracts, and chances are the mutt offspring can also have cataracts.

The initial test matings for inheritance of PRA was done with crossbreedings of Poodles and Labradors: both have the same type of PRA; breeding a carrier or affected Lab to a carrier or affected Poodle has exactly the same results as you'd get with carrier/affected matings in purebreds. This is a cut-and-dried example, but there are many more that aren't so easily delineated.

Yeah, if you were to do a cross where the two (or several) breeds share NO defective *recessive* genes, none of the defects carried by either parent will show up IN THE FIRST GENERATION. Breed two of those offspring together, tho (which is a very common situation with mutts) and you'll start seeing the recessives expressed.

With dominants, if one parent is affected (mutt OR purebred), 50% of its offspring will also be affected. This is why so many mutts with some herding ancestry have the MDR1 defect. It behaves as an incomplete dominant, so "carriers" still have some problem with ivermectin and related drugs. Since the majority of mutts are not on heartworm prevention, there's no selection against the defect in mutts.

Likewise, any mutt with Doberman ancestry (and a number of other breeds) is at the same risk for von Willebrand's disease as its Dobe ancestor (tho this is usually somewhat self-limiting in the case of injury -- say, if the animal requires surgery -- carriers bleed more and longer, but affecteds will bleed out on the table).

Beyond that, the most typical issue in mutts, outside of orthopedic issues (which are also very common) seems to be skin problems not related to diet. This may itself be a result of crossbreeding -- where due to the chance losses with each generation, you no longer reliably have, say, gene A suppressing gene B (because the mutt is Aa rather than AA). Homozygosity has its value too, ya know.

The real problem with today's purebreds isn't the exaggeration in some show lines, or genetic defects. It's that most show breeders don't let natural selection do its job. Culling has fallen out of favor.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Reziac]

Forgot to mention... covert crossbreedings are often how a defect gets INTO a breed that was formerly free of it. Examples that leap to mind:

Cataracts got into one Lab line from a Chesapeake cross in the early 1950s (I've traced it back to a single Chessie and a particular kennel). This particular type of cataract was not previously seen in Labs. (Nuisance, not blinding, but still, it's there.)

Central neuromuscular myopathy in Labs appears to be a 'mutation' if you didn't know the dog who's been pegged as the point source... but back in his day, a lot of us who knew the dog strongly suspected he was a greyhound cross. (At the very least, he was not the dog his pedigree claimed.) Come to find out, CNM also occurs in racing greyhounds. Hmm.

A heart valve defect occasionally found in fieldbred Labs traces back to a dog born in 1946. This dog's sire was (per info of the day and a radical disconnect of type) not the Lab his pedigree claims, but a black Pointer imported from England.

"Silken Windhounds" are most likely (contrary to the original breeder's claims) basically a mix of Sheltie and Whippet. They commonly have the MDR1 gene, which is not found in any other sighthound but is common in Shelties. Hmm.

Yep, crossbreeding, the panacea.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[cwsumner]

most human children don't...spend time eating dirt, plants, and bugs outdoors

I'm not so sure about that one...

There seems to be some evidence that children that -don't- spend time in the dirt with the bugs, have a tendency to develop allergies.

The theory is that the immune system, without enemies to fight against, has a tendency to get too sensitive and attack the wrong things.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Reziac]

PS:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu...

Re:Just bought a puppy

[FuegoFuerte]

In my experience, you'll seldom find one in a vet clinic either. Similar to person-doctors, there are good ones, and there are reasonably priced ones, and on incredibly rare occasions you may find someone who falls into both categories. Most of the time though, they'll just want to sell you an expensive test and lab work, when the reality is I don't care what pathogen is giving my animal the shits, I know a broad-spectrum antibiotic will fix it and don't need lab work.

A good person-doctor will say the same - when I travel, my doctor gives me a small prescription of broad-spectrum antibiotics and says "if you get traveler's diarrhea, take a few of these 12 hours apart. If it doesn't get better find local medical care."

Some things just don't need to be over-thought.

Re:Just bought a puppy

[sh00z]

So, that shows that there's really no difference health-wise, so both of our experiences anecdotally are skewed. I also never asserted what you said in claiming of cross-breeding as a panacea--I was just trying to make the point that "accidental" breeding can result in a dog that is just as wonderful as anything with a 200-year pedigree. AND that in the realm of pets or companion animals, making room in your heart and home for a mixed breed is of more benefit to society than going out to find the "best" in terms of bloodlines. I do see the benefit of consistency in dogs to shepherds and others whose livelihoods depend on the dog performing to a certain standard, but the rest of us shouldn't care. We'll see how the mixed breeds fare in the agility trials at Westminster this week...

Re:Just bought a puppy

[Reziac]

I've had good crossbreds and shitty purebreds, and of course the reverse. But it's a helluva lot easier to breed what you want (working ability, physical type, health, temperament, attitude) when you start with known entities. I have behavioral traits in my kennel that I've traced as far back as 1940, and other traits that I can identify as far back as 1880, which lets me select for or against them by breeding toward or away from a given line, which in turn lets my customers pick what they want. Would you have that luxury with a mutt? Would you even know its parents, let alone its grandparents and other ancestors? It's a crap shoot. It may score, or it may fail, but no one is selecting against the bad traits. (Here's a stat for ya -- rescues are about 18% of pets, but commit 50% of the serious bites. Rescues are mostly mutts.)

Agility (and the training methods that go with it) is an anomaly. Its main thrust is that it's fun for the dog, first and foremost. We've spent 10,000 years breeding the selfishness out of dogs, and in just a couple decades, agility has us right back with the wild type that prefers to do its own thing rather than do man's thing. It may be loads of fun for all in the present, and some really good dogs excel at it too (in fact they tend to be the very top competitors) but on the whole it's doing the future no good at all. It's rather like feelgood education in humans.

Animal Testing

[WoodstockJeff]

Why would you want to risk getting attacked by PETA and other animal rights organizations by doing testing on animals? Heck, you can't even shampoo a dog without someone getting upset!

Re:Animal Testing

[mythosaz]

I only use pet meds that have been tested on human prisoners.

Re:Animal Testing

[CanHasDIY]

Why would you want to risk getting attacked by PETA and other animal rights organizations by doing testing on animals? Heck, you can't even shampoo a dog without someone getting upset!

You should see how butthurt they get when you mention that you had your pets spayed or neutered.

Re:Animal Testing

[Clueless Moron]

Animal medicine should be approved only after it has undergone extensive human testing. It seems only fair...

Re:Animal Testing

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny story tangentially related to animal testing.

My dog has very little hair at the end of her snout and is susceptible to sunburn there. I ended up having to go to one of those lotion/skin care boutique places at the mall to get the right sunblock. I asked the girl there if this was safe to put on a dog. She said, "we don't test our products on animals." So I proceeded to lay a guilt trip on her that they should test on animals so that "my cute little puppy" wouldn't get sick.

Re:Animal Testing

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah so butthurt they have a page dedicated to doing it on their website saying it's the single most important thing we can do to help animals.
How about you stop talking out your ass because it sounds like crap.

http://www.peta.org/issues/companion-animal-issues/overpopulation/spay-neuter/

Re:Animal Testing

[The Grim Reefer]

I only use pet meds that have been tested on human prisoners.

I work in the medical field. The joke about new drugs and procedures is that they get tested on Europeans first, then dogs. It's mostly a way to alleviate the frustration of how many things the FDA won't allow to be used in the US for what ever stupid reasons they have. But it makes me chuckle when I hear a doctor say it.

Re:Animal Testing

[rts008]

On a serious note:
Don't feed your dog chocolate, or give your cat Tylenol...both are toxins for the respective species.

(I don't have mod points, so please accept this as a 'virtual' +1 funny in lieu)

Re:Animal Testing

[Andtalath]

And totally moronic since European rules are way stricter in general.

Re:Animal Testing

[Muad'Dave]

Tylenol will kill dogs, too. Our two little darlings yanked my wife's computer bag off of a table, ripped it open, and proceeded to eat several rapid release Tylenol. Since it was fast-acting, inducing vomiting would've been useless, so a trip to the emergency vet, activated charcoal, a bunch of liver protectant meds, a two night stay, lots of liver enzyme testing, and about $2000 later, they're ok. Only the male had eaten any, it seems, as shown by his liver enzyme levels. He probably ingested somewhere between 2000 and 4000 mg.

Re:Animal Testing

[rts008]

Tue that tylenol overdose will harm dogs also, but that is true for most mammals.[note recent med. adversaries to limit humans intake of acetaminophen(tylenol) for humans]

I was merely pointing out that feline species are extremely sensitive to tylenol...more so than any other common pet.

Cats are thought to be evolved from desert dwellers, and conserve water by concentrating their urine far more than dogs do.
That is one of the reasons cat urine stinks so badly. They are already 'pushing the kidneys to their limits' on a normal basis.
Thus there is not really a safe therapeutic dose of tylenol for cats, but there is a safe therapeutic dose for dogs [see definition for 'therapeutic dose'], although other NSAIDS are preferred to tylenol.

I'm glad to hear that you did not lose your little darlings(no sarcasm intended), sorry it was so costly though.

I'm just trying to share important info about vet. med. that I possess with my fellow /.'s, who may not have this knowledge, as I can see from comments over the years that there are a lot of 4 legged companions with /.'ers here.

Human medicine and veterinary medicine are very much alike, but there ARE some huge differences sometimes!

Off-topic question:
Did your username derive from Herbert's "Dune"?
if so, smartly done sir.

Re:Animal Testing

[Muad'Dave]

I was merely pointing out that feline species are extremely sensitive to tylenol...

That's for sure. I was told that if one of my cats had eaten even a tenth of a capsule, it would've been quickly fatal.

Did your username derive from Herbert's "Dune"?

Indeed it does! Thanks for the compliment. Several hours after a huge meal, I hear Stilgar's voice in my head saying "Muad'Dave has called a big one!"

some people also need to accept...

[Anonymous Coward]

...that most pets only live around dozen years, so the vast majority of pet owners are going to see them die regardless of how well they're being taken care of.

Re:some people also need to accept...

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't plan for them to somehow live forever, just to live comfortably while they do. Just because your pet is going to die eventually doesn't mean you should let it die (painfully) now.

Re:some people also need to accept...

[g0bshiTe]

Which is why I had my dog put to sleep when she had a seizure, probably treatable, but she also had cancer and was 14 and had lost hear hearing about a month prior to the seizure. At that point all I could picture was leaving for work in the morning the dog having a seizure upstairs and taking a tumble down the stairs in the dazed and confused moments afterward and then lying there in pain broken for 8 hours until I got home to find her.

She went to the emergency vet that night and was put to sleep.

She is loved and missed, this was 4 years ago.

Re:some people also need to accept...

[Anonymous Coward]

+1 SadButTrue

Re:some people also need to accept...

[Aighearach]

Same as with a human, when they get older you can focus on hospice care to reduce pain and make sure they feel loved, or you can just kill them as soon as they have some aging pains.

There is generally not a need to give a lot of veterinary care to a pet outside of that analysis. The article suggests why; there is a lack of real and helpful medical care available for pets, even if you go to a vet.

What surprises me is how many people come up with a totally different answer to that for their pets than they do for their human relatives. So much for being part of the "family."

Re:some people also need to accept...

[Aighearach]

Yep, same as for grandma.

Re:some people also need to accept...

[Penguinisto]

...that most pets only live around dozen years, so the vast majority of pet owners are going to see them die regardless of how well they're being taken care of.

True, but it's a cost/benefit calculation, with some very subjective factors.

A few years back, I had a dachshund that was roughly 14-ish years old (the rescue we got her from had to guess at her age when we got her at ~2yrs old). She had a habit of chasing squirrels at all costs - the last one had her hit a tree wrong and break her back. The choice was either a $6,000 surgery that would have still left her paralyzed and in need of care, or a $100 lethal injection and cremation. I wrote the check for $100, but only after having to talk the missus out of the more expensive option. Why? Well, my wife was already an emotional wreck over the ordeal, and putting a .38 slug through the dog's head, while perfectly humane IMO, would have definitely made for an ugly turn in my marriage.

To the missus, the benefit still outweighed the cost. To me, it was the opposite: the dog had lived a long and happy life, she was an awesome companion, but putting it out of its misery was the best course of action IMHO.

That was five years ago or so... now we have two more, and they're a positive joy to have around.

Re:some people also need to accept...

[Penguinisto]

Well, pets are pets. They share no genetic lineage or source with you. Pets completely lack senescence.

I figure that unless there is at least some emotion disturbance, there is a clear and sharp distinction between Fido and Grandma, and how you would treat each of them at the end of their lives.

Re:some people also need to accept...

[Aighearach]

They share no genetic lineage or source with you.

So people who are adopted don't take care of grandma? Or wait, do they?

Pets completely lack senescence.

False. A complete absurdity.

Re:some people also need to accept...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, no. Granny will have to almost certainly have to suffer through several pointless, painful, and expensive tests and treatments before we allow her to die. Generally, our end-of-life care is better for animals because there's no government or insurance company willing to keep a dead dog's heart beating while the owner persists in denial. Granny probably knows when she's dying (unless it's due to dementia), but will tolerate quite a bit if it makes her family feel better. So we'll do a few rounds of horrible, useless chemo, or perhaps put a feeding tube in her to prolong her misery when she can't think well enough to eat.

Re:some people also need to accept...

[DaFallus]

I just put my 16 year old dog to sleep about two weeks ago because of seizures. The first time she had a seizure I took her to the emergency vet ($200 and no real answers), followed up by a trip to our regular vet the next day to get blood drawn for labwork. The labs all came back normal, which strongly suggested a mass in her brain was the cause. Our vet had suggested getting a $1500 MRI scan, but after three seizures followed by long periods of restlessness and the fact that her personality had completely changed over the past year, we decided that it was simply time to say goodbye. I was with her at the end, and it was by far the most difficult experience in my life so far.

Re:some people also need to accept...

[dryeo]

I really wish we could have put my dad down a couple of weeks before he died. Riddled with cancer, those last couple of weeks were not pleasant for him. Why is it that we treat our pets better then our old people?

Re: some people also need to accept...

[Anonymous Coward]

senescence: I don't believe that word means what you think it means.

I mean, by very definition, pets do get old. Perhaps you meant to use the word "sentience"?

Re:some people also need to accept...

[g0bshiTe]

I feel that pain. Like losing family.

I know what was worse for me was the feeling I somehow betrayed her.

I've heard it said that when our pets are ready they let us know, I know I had started to get the feeling it was her time months prior to the seizure. Still a hard thing to do, but it's much better than watching them suffer in pain.

Here we are 4 years later, I've thought about getting another dog, but there will never be a replacement for Knuckle-dog. (cross between a Knucklehead and a dog), that's what I called her. Sharp Pei Manchester Terrier mix.

Re:some people also need to accept...

[g0bshiTe]

Pets may lack senescence but you can not argue they don't feel emotion at least dogs.

I've seen dogs mope, be depressed when another dog dies, they get uneasy and panicky, they can be loving and gentle, they can be rambunctious.

I think it's these traits that have endeared dogs to us. They have four legs but are similar to that respect to us.

Re: some people also need to accept...

[Anonymous Coward]

Pets don't lack senescence: they get old and die like everything else. People are confused and seem to be searching for the word "sentience".

Re:some people also need to accept...

[Anonymous Coward]

I really wish we could have put my dad down a couple of weeks before he died. Riddled with cancer, those last couple of weeks were not pleasant for him. Why is it that we treat our pets better then our old people?

I went through a very similar situation a couple of months ago with my old man and thought the same thing. There is nothing, and I mean NOTHING worse than watching a loved one lay there while their body shuts down and there's nothing you can do to help them.

If I'm ever told I'm terminally ill I'm going to swallow a .380 hollow point.

Re:some people also need to accept...

[Aighearach]

Notice how completely different the last weeks of cancer are from, "I had my dog put to sleep when she had a seizure, probably treatable, but she also had cancer and was 14 and had lost hear hearing about a month prior to the seizure."

Imagine if your dad had a treatable seizure, early stage cancer, and was losing his hearing. He might still have years of life left. Certainly, most people would find it really awful to make that decision for him.

Re:some people also need to accept...

[dryeo]

The poster never did say what stage the cancer was at and I assumed a later stage. He also said his dog was 14 which depending on the breed could have been awfully close to end of life so it's hard to judge exactly what he meant and you seem to have interpreted it more optimistically then I did.
But yes, the idea of putting my dad down was unthinkable in the earlier stages of cancer even though it was almost guaranteed fatal. (Had a friend who was given 6 months and he survived for over 10 years once he quit medical help so you never know)
The best part of the whole thing was that he wanted to die at home and my mom did everything possible to make that happen. Very little hospital time as that is what he really didn't want.
Also learned how fast a doctor could make a house call when it came to filling out a death certificate and how the funeral industry tries to take advantage of grieving family. Bastards claiming that you had to spend thousands for a cremation when all that was needed was a cardboard box rather then a fancy casket.

Re:some people also need to accept...

[Penguinisto]

They share no genetic lineage or source with you.

So people who are adopted don't take care of grandma? Or wait, do they?

The adopted kid and Grandma do have distinct human DNA, or do you think differently? ;)

Re:some people also need to accept...

[Aighearach]

You and the dog do have distinct mammal DNA, in fact, you share most of your DNA. Or do you think differently? ;)

Re:some people also need to accept...

[Anonymous Coward]

Same as with a human, when they get older you can focus on hospice care to reduce pain and make sure they feel loved, or you can just kill them as soon as they have some aging pains.

There is generally not a need to give a lot of veterinary care to a pet outside of that analysis. The article suggests why; there is a lack of real and helpful medical care available for pets, even if you go to a vet.

What surprises me is how many people come up with a totally different answer to that for their pets than they do for their human relatives. So much for being part of the "family."

Part of that is social pressure, euthanasia still isn't widely accepted even if it's legal. It also generally can only be agreed to by the person who will terminate their life, not a trustee. I'm not sure they still have to, but I think technically the patient must "pull the trigger" so to speak, it's doctor "assisted" suicide, the doctor sets it up, the patient administers the final lethal injection, gas or whatever.

Some people lead rather full lives in hospice, some are in perpetual agony, if I have early onset alzheimers I hope I figure it out early enough so I can say my goodbyes and off myself in a lucid moment. I know my religious relatives think people in agony should "stick around" so we can learn compassion and service or whatever, seems like cruel post-hoc justification to me, but YMMV.

Owners spend that much?

[Anonymous Coward]

"$850 annually in veterinary expenses per dog"

That can't be right, can it?

Re:Owners spend that much?

[mythosaz]

It's not clear if that $850 is figured out by dividing dogs owned by dollars spent, or if that's gleaned from veterinarians and pet med providers divided by their customers.

I suspect it's the later.

I know numerous pet owners who haven't ever spent a dime on their pet outside of bags of kibble and a flea collar or two. $850 might be the average, but it sure isn't realistic of what one might actually spend. Double or triple that, I'd hazard. More if you're in a "nice" neighborhood.

Re: Owners spend that much?

[colinnwn]

That is way low for 2 of our dogs and way high for the other 2.

Re:Owners spend that much?

[alexander_686]

It could well be. While the average may be $850, the amount spent does not follow a normal bell curve distribution. IIRC, it takes the local human society about $200 to $300 to get a puppy ready for adoption (shots, spay/neuter). The average is dragged higher by spay/neuter, foreign object surgeries (dog ate something it shouldn’t.), oncology, knee surgery, etc. I know that a few cats get kidney transplants each year – owner of the sick cat has to adopt the donating animal.

Re:Owners spend that much?

[EthanBernard]

I'm a cat owner. This average sounds about right to me. But keep in mind that this is an average, not a median, and the average is skewed upward by a small number of people* who spend thousands a year to fix problems that inevitably arise in their older pets. Cat chemotherapy, for example, costs about $100 a week.

*Who are these people? The wealth distribution of the united states is also highly skewed, with a long tail at the high end.

Re:Owners spend that much?

[rossdee]

Its much cheaper if you go to 1-800-PETMEDS..com

and you save a trip to the vet too..

(but seriously, how do you know whats wrong with your dog if you don't take him to the vet first?)

Re:Owners spend that much?

[tibit]

$850 a year - the heck? For our cat, we pay about $110 for yearly checkup/vaccination, and that's it. An occasional infection/irritation with steroids+antiobiotic was another $80 or so. That's in a US city of more than a million, BTW.

Re:Owners spend that much?

[sjames]

The real question is why does the owner's medical treatment cost so much more.

Re:Owners spend that much?

[Algae_94]

This is why the average is a terrible metric to quote in this case. A couple pets having major surgical procedures done will skew it very high. The median would be a better statistic for this.

Re:Owners spend that much?

[Anonymous Coward]

Insurance. Incidentally, look for rising vet costs too. My vet recently started pushing brochures for some pet insurance company. For the last 8 years, my vet's prices have been relatively stable, all of a sudden all the procedures the insurance "covers" have gone up dramatically.

Re:Owners spend that much?

[Firethorn]

(but seriously, how do you know whats wrong with your dog if you don't take him to the vet first?)

Because it's a recurring issue? Because you've seen it before on different dogs?

Yikes.

[mythosaz]

I'm not sure I spend $850/year on my own medical care.... ....although I'm sure that'll go up as I get older -- before ending abruptly.

"A woman in England paid over $17,000 for her cat to spend six days in an oxygen tent to cure its paralyzed larynx. The cat showed its gratitude by briefly holding eye contact."

Re:Yikes.

[the eric conspiracy]

You hope it ends abruptly. All too often it's a slow death from cancer or Alzheimer's that bankrupts your family.

Re:Yikes.

[mythosaz]

The adults in my immediate family (parents, siblings) all have medical power of attorney documents and clear instructions to never leave us in a situation where we're left to suffer or "burden" the family. We're all slated for cremation, with the ashes to go to anyone who might want them. None of us have a special desire to be remembered by a pile of cremains.

There are situations like Alzheimer's which could quite likely suck for everyone, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

We've dealt with a few cancers now, and we've (as a family) made the decisions to take treatments based on expected quality of life around it.

Pet related, I've had a few animals put down. Sad, but death is (mostly) a fact of life.

[With only 100 billion humans ever having lived, 7% of us are still alive today, making "being human" only 93% lethal to date...]

Re:Yikes.

[g0bshiTe]

We had a cat go anemic and the vet said transfusion or the animal would die, we took him home and after 4 days of not eating and 2 of not moving and us force feeding him iron supplement and chicken soup we thought he was done for. I made one last call to the vet cause I knew if the animal didn't eat and drink it would die, the nice assistant I talked to said the cats that won't eat sometimes responded to baby food you know the gerber first stage chick or turkey, so I hit the grocery store on the way home and picked up a jar, got home popped the jar open in front of him and placed the lid that had a bit on it in front of him, that tongue came out like nothing I've ever seen before, over the next two days we fed him a bit every hour from the jar, he made a full recovery, this was 8 years ago, he still lives with us.

Total cost, $40 vet visit, $0.60 for the baby food.

Re:Yikes.

[Carnivore]

You joke, but keep in mind that eye contact is a threatening gesture to most animals, cats especially. They show you that they trust you when they blink and look away. "I trust you enough that I feel comfortable not watching you". This is probably the source of the truism that the allergic person gets all of the attention: The cat lover stares and yells, "KITTY" while the allergic person avoids eye contact and is perceived to be the lowest threat.

You can squeeze your eyes shut a couple of times and watch cats do the same. It's fun!

Re:Yikes.

[x0ra]

I am stupid enough to like dangerous stuff, so if Alzheimer pops off, there is a high probability of chances I will end my own life... abruptly.

Re:Yikes.

[Anonymous Coward]

None of that seemed like trouble at all.

Re:Yikes.

[Anonymous Coward]

$850 a year per capita is more than the government is spending on the new heath care plan, aint it?

Re:Yikes.

[Reziac]

I don't know how TFA got its numbers, but per the big pet industry group the average expenditure is about $300/year. I suspect they have more clues.

However, the money in vet practices now is all in specialties, and pushing stuff that ignorant city folk will buy into, like homeopathy. I've watched it change across over 40 years as a canine professional, and not for the better. In the past 20 years, vet charges have increased at roughly 20x the rate of inflation.

The Placebo Effect...

[Anonymous Coward]

...placating the hell out of pet-owners. Pets, not so much.

Re:The Placebo Effect...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes it's a placebo effect, and sometimes it's not. My dog had Hypertrophic Osteodystrophy (a bone growth dissorder) as a puppy (most of his litter died from it) and the treatment for it was heavy doses of prednasone - horrible stuff long term, especially for a growing animal since it completely halts their growth, but the side effect in this case was the treatment - if the bones are going to grow wrong, stop them from growing at all. That worked, but then the dog had a prednasone addiction - taking him off of it (in the proper medically prescribed way) resulted in his hair falling out, and itchy sores all over his body. End result: dog was on prednasone (minimal dose that didn't cause withdrawl symptoms) for the rest of his life. Sadly, the first trick my dog learned wasn't "shake a paw" or "play dead", it was "say aaaaaahhh"...

Dental health is

[denis-The-menace]

Dental health is probably the only real thing you do can stay on top of that really helps.

Bad teeth == much shorter life

And humans are no different.

I have no doubt this is true in the whole

[colinnwn]

But or dog has had hip trouble for 6 years. The first 5 we did nothing but keep him on glucosamine. The few times we took him off due to laziness or questioning it worked due to the Vet mentioning conflicting research, our dog noticeably declined. And within 2 weeks of him going back on it, he got better.

Re:I have no doubt this is true in the whole

[Gothmolly]

Also, glucosamine tablets seem pretty tasty to the dog, so we use them as once-a-day treats after the morning walk.

Re:I have no doubt this is true in the whole

[LNO]

I have the same anecdotal experience. We had a toller with hip dysplasia. When his food was supplemented with glucosamine/chondritin/MSM, he was able to walk up and down stairs and jump up on the bed. When we stopped for a period of weeks, he was unable to do that without vocalizing in pain. Restoring the supplements caused the symptoms to go away.

I recognize that they're clinically unproven - and if we saw no benefit on it we'd go right to Rimadyl as needed. I've tried it for my creaking arthritis and seen no benefit whatsoever, so it's ibuprofen for me.

Re:I have no doubt this is true in the whole

[glavenoid]

There was a very noticeable improvement in my friend's cat's gait when she (the cat) began taking a Cosequin supplement, so unless the placebo effect works for animals there was almost certainly something in the capsule that was beneficial to the cat.

Re:I have no doubt this is true in the whole

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely, we too have had great success with Cosequin. Kitty started getting stiff, had to help it up and down things, put it on Cosequin, and she was much, much improved.

We've had good success with all of the meds and regimens for our pets (well there was an antibiotic that just made the cat puke it back up, so we stopped that and got another). We can't recommend our Vet highly enough.

Re:I have no doubt this is true in the whole

[Anonymous Coward]

Placebo effects are seen in both patient and researcher.
There's a good reason for double-blind trials.

Re:I have no doubt this is true in the whole

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to agree, the glucosamine supplements made a noticeable difference in my cat. He was having persistent mobility issues, and they largely resolved after a few weeks on the tablets. He also happens to go fucking bonkers for them, which is fun because I never gave him treats nor did he want them before.

Re:I have no doubt this is true in the whole

[Anonymous Coward]

+1

I have a 12 year old boxer. Same thing. If I stop the glucosamine for a couple days he is noticeably stiffer getting out of bed and walking around.

Re:I have no doubt this is true in the whole

[Anonymous Coward]

In the case of veterinary medicine, placebos work on the owner. You took the dog off of glucosamine noticed a decline, and decided it was because the dog was off the pill. In reality, even when on the pill, the dog would have experienced the same decline, but you wouldn't have noticed it because you believe the pill was doing something for the dog. Dogs with joint problems have good periods and bad periods. If you continued to leave the dog off the pill, the dog would have gotten better anyways because that is the nature of arthritis.

Re: I have no doubt this is true in the whole

[colinnwn]

For the first 5 years he had no periods of decline that didn't occur during the few times he was off glucosamine. It was only after glucosamine wasn't sufficient after 5 years that the vet prescribed Metacam, which seems to barely make a difference, but we've left him on it.

I'm aware of the potential for observation bias and anecdotes aren't scientific. I'm also aware of the low threshold for efficacy even for approved drugs, and while a study may not find statistically significant correlation on the whole, that doesn't mean some individuals weren't greatly benefited. In the end if you feel something is really beneficial and the risks are low, you just got to Let the science be damned . Sometimes the science catches up with you.

Re:I have no doubt this is true in the whole

[Anonymous Coward]

I do volunteer work at an animal shelter. I've seen literally hundreds of dogs with hip or elbow dysplasia that wouldn't even get up because of the pain. After two weeks on chondroitin/glucosamine they were able to not only get up but go about their business more or less normally and have a spectacularly increased quality of life. So, whoever says chondroitin/glucosamine is next to useless is a big fat liar, ignorant, or malicious. Possibly all three.

Also, carprofen (Rimadyl) is effective as a short term anti-inflammatory because all it can do is exactly that, manage inflammation. It does absolutely nothing to treat the underlying condition that causes the symptoms. Treating a dog with ostheoarthritic condition on carprofen alone is fucking stupid. Next time you have a tooth/gum infection just pop some ibuprofen and hope it goes away, see how you like them apples. And yes, prolonged used of carprofen has been proved to be nefrotoxic. Of course, if your dog is only taking it for a week or two there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Re:I have no doubt this is true in the whole

[capedgirardeau]

The placebo effect does affect animals. At least some of the placebo effect can be due to the attention, interaction and care the patient receives in the process of getting the fake/non effective medication or treatment and the same thing can impact animals if they get more attention/affection during the "treatment".

Also, since the placebo effect only works on subjective symptoms like self reported pain or ease of movement, if a person is doing the evaluating for the animal, they can make the same biased evaluations of the subjective symptoms, just about the animal instead of themselves.

Painkillers are effective _because_ of the euphori

[Anonymous Coward]

The primary reason why opioids work as painkillers is specifically because they get you high. They dont really kill pain so much as they make you not care that you're in pain. So tramadol getting the dogs high means its working. Except the biggest problem with tramadol is that it works as an SSRI/SNRI first, and then its primary metabolite, O-desmethyl-tramadol, is what works as a pain killer (affecting the kappa and mu receptors). Tramadol is more of an antidepressant than a painkiller, which makes its addiction significantly worse (ask anyone who has withdrawn from antidepressants).

Doggedly

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

"Glucosamine and chondroitin food supplements? Next to useless."

Gee. Just like in humans. Imagine that.

Don't forget to buy your dog and cat food with lots of grains and carrots in it, for their health! [nods furiously with shit-eating grin].

Re:Doggedly

[arglebargle_xiv]

"Glucosamine and chondroitin food supplements? Next to useless."

Gee. Just like in humans. Imagine that.

Damn, beat me to it. For people who are wondering about this (but my granny takes it and she says it helps), look at the results of the GAIT trial. It's indistinguishable from placebo for most people, except for a small subset that no-one can explain. This, and the placebo effect (but mostly placebo) is what accounts for the various "but it helped my dog/cat" posts on here.

Don't forget to buy your dog and cat food with lots of grains and carrots in it, for their health! [nods furiously with shit-eating grin].

And electrolytes. Don't forget the electrolytes. It's what cats crave.

Rimadyl = carprofen

[LNO]

When I read this, I was surprised that there was no mention of Rimadyl, as that's been the go-to NSAID for our dogs after surgeries. One google later let me know that Rimadyl was, indeed, carprofen, and I read the article again with that in mind.

Three times does "carprofen" appear in the article:
"Its examples include one relevant to Kaleb, considering the effectiveness of glucosamine and chrondroitin versus an NSAID called carprofen in treating dogs with osteoarthritis. The bottom line: “Carprofen is superior to glucosamine/chrondroitin supplements in reducing the clinical signs.”"
and
"We plan to get some fresh tests to see how stable his kidney function is, and talk to our current vet in San Francisco about whether it’s time to try carprofen. "

If you're using non-proven supplements to treat your pet's pain instead of veterinary-recommended NSAIDs, then, yeah, perhaps it's time to talk to your current vet about whether it's time to try the painkiller that is clinically superior.

Re:Rimadyl = carprofen

[kwiecmmm]

In the rest of the article he explains his reluctance to put the dog on carprofen because it had the possible side effect of causing kidney and liver damage to the dog.

Then he later found out that wasn't proven by clinical trials, but it was still something that his vet warned him about originally. So he was listening to his vet.

Glucosamine

[DaveAtFraud]

Not a clinical trial or a valid sample size but our elderly cat was making a noise that seemed to indicate she was having some discomfort whenever she jumped down from wherever she'd gotten to. Our vet suggested glucoamine so we gave it a try. Seemed to help. Cat no longer makes what sounds like a pain noise as she does her normal cat things. We've had her on glucosamine for a couple of years now. Ditto for the neighbors and their rottweiller with hip problems. Seemed to help her, too.

Cheers,
Dave

Re:Glucosamine

[Anonymous Coward]

My mum started taking Glucosamine (as MSM) for her osteoarthritis and it works great for her. Granted, it could be just a placebo effect but after six or seven years working full time as a librarian, it must be having some effect to keep her going without pain.

Evidence based medicine

[Anonymous Coward]

"But often, vets aren't paying attention to the studies that have been done."

Newsflash, if you go a (human) doctor that isn't practicing in the university setting and is over the age of 40-50, a significant proportion of them aren't going to know the majority of the studies that have been done since they finished med school/residency either. That's what happens when you aren't diligent about reading journal articles and going to training courses (real ones, not glorified drug company golf vacation "courses") after you finish your postgraduate training. I'm sure the same happens in veterinary medicine, although possibly at a slower speed given the rapidity at which human medicine advances due to the vast amount of resources devoted to human R&D.

***** ************, M.D., PGY-4 resident

Re:Evidence based medicine

[Anonymous Coward]

Some jurisdictions require a certain amount of Continuing Medical Education courses per year or so. Some of the CME offerings are indeed “drug company golf vacation ‘courses’”, but of course your mileage may vary. In Canada it’s a bit more strict, so RCPSC and CFPC are less lenient than various State requirements in the USA.

Also it depends on the specialty but people have to get recertified every seven to ten years or so. I guess Old Fart doctors might have some stuff grandfathered in, though.

Par for the course...

[lancelet]

I have a PhD from a veterinary school in Australia, but I've also worked extensively on research in humans, including work funded by a branch of the US military. My undergraduate degree was Mechanical Engineering; I work in biomechanics. My wife is a vet.

My response to this article is that this guy ought to do more digging in human medicine. He clearly cares about his dog, and that has prompted his discovery of just how little actual science is being done. Good start! However, the situation is not dramatically different in human medicine, especially in areas without major financial drivers. Sure, more papers are being published for humans, but the actual rate of progress and clinical evidence for many practices is roughly comparable. His observation that human medicine leads the veterinary world is entirely correct, but that's simply because more people are able to get funding for research in humans, which is reflective of the vastly larger human medical industry in comparison with the veterinary one. Welcome to the world of research!

Instead of complaining about vets, who are under-paid by the standards of other medical professionals (just Google the Australian Bureau of Statistics figures, for example), the author should be advocating MORE money be spent on animal care, which would then increase the industrial incentives for research. As someone in the business of getting grants in the veterinary world, I can attest to the fact that there simply isn't money available to pay for most of what we would like to do. So sure, this is something to complain about, but complaining about the veterinary profession itself for the shortcoming, while simultaneously accusing them of disinterest or financial motives, is just plain stupid.

Re:Painkillers are effective _because_ of the euph

[bluefoxlucid]

Yeah, but that comes with all kinds of shit... morphine is awesome, then you come off morphine and go "oh man this sucks". If I'm already in pain, I think I'll just live with it. Or kill myself. Nobody has ever given me a good story about having had morphine in the hospital. Ditto Xanax... had a coworker who said when he left his Xanax prescription behind it was ... a bad couple weeks.

The only real reason they give you opiate drugs for pain is because of the whole killing yourself thing. Yeah, pain can be that bad.

Story not complete BS, 1 important detail missing

[Anonymous Coward]

Pet medication does indeed work. That part of the story is BS.

However pet medicine only works if you are human

Kitty Thyroid medicine

[KatchooNJ]

Thankfully, I am 100% confident that my kitty's thyroid medicine does work; she has hyperthyroidism from a benign tumor on her thyroid. It was VERY obvious that it was having a positive effect when the vet put her on it and I saw her plump up and feel tons better. Vomiting was another symptom... and that ceased. Another symptom was that she was dropping weight, which was scary because she was always hungry despite getting skinnier and skinnier. In fact, once she was on the medicine, she got a bit chubby and we ended up having to lower her dosage. She then trimmed down to normal weight and we keep her on a managed dose; she needs to be on it forever. No doubt at all that this particular med works. Forget the name offhand, though.

Re:Kitty Thyroid medicine

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Probably L-Thyroxine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

Top Models pop the things Dr. House-style to stay thin. Which is extremely dangerous, but try to tell that to a Top Model . . .

How Many Pets Are Forced To Use SLASHDOT BETA?

[Anonymous Coward]

has your beloved pet been forced into the SLASHDOT BETA program?

Counterpoint

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe I just got an awesome vet, but we've spent loads on our pets and we consider is money well spent. One was for a back surgery that gave my dog the ability to walk for 8 more years(was not cheap) and a $5 every 3 months drug to stop seizures. Aside from that our vet has worked with us to keep our costs down and not overprescribe. Sometimes if we get the alternate we have to push to not have useless tests, but generally we don't even have to do that.

Re:Painkillers are effective _because_ of the euph

[blindseer]

Having taken tramadol myself I can say that it is quite effective at relieving pain. It also tends to keep me from sleeping. The withdrawal from it was unpleasant, just taking it once can give dizziness and nausea for hours after it wears off.

I hate tramadol but it seems some people really like it because of the intense high it can give. After the bad experience with tramadol I was able to convince my physician to give me codeine and hydrocodone (not at the same time) which works much better for me. Because of the crazy laws we have I could get truly high inducing levels of tramadol without much issue but getting opiates without liver killing levels of NSAIDs to go with it requires an act of Congress.

I believe that codeine should be over the counter medications. The NSAIDs I was given before were ineffective and were likely poisoning me. I got a clue on how bad that stuff was when my physician scheduled me for a liver and kidney function test. The number of people that are hospitalized or die from Tylenol overdose every year is staggering. The people that die from opiate overdose do so largely because the quality control of street drugs is questionable.

I also have to wonder how many opiate overdoses were not actually an overdose of the opiate, but instead an overdose of the Tylenol or NSAID that is usually mixed with it. I'm sure the big money in medicines want to keep any overdoses quiet when they can. When they can't they'll blame it on the "evil" opiates. It not only makes the drug makers look good, it makes the DEA look good.

Got off on a rant there. Anyway, tramadol isn't so great. NSAIDs and Tylenol work for mild pain. The best stuff is the natural stuff, codeine. People, and their pets, have been taking it for thousands of years. It's safe and effective. Overdose is only a real issue when concentrated to insane levels to get high. If you're getting high off codeine then you're doing it wrong.

Depends on the vet

[future assassin]

there's quite high percentage of them knowing since we think of our pets as children they can rip us off, For example one of my cats got hit by a car or neighhbour that didn't like my cats kicked him (hes still has all of his fingers since I couldn't prove it was him) my vet didn't answer the phone that night (2am) so had to take home to an "emergency hospital" 5 hours later I was $1600 poorer. I got a hold of my vet and he was like WTF? Why didn't you keep phoning till I woke up? Anyways with his own tests/x rays/meds/3days in the hospital I paid $285 and most of it was for the test

Sooooo a year so goes by and my cat is paralyzed on the front lag/paw and he starts to chew on it. It as getting quite bad and always has to bandaged up. Well I figure Im going taking him to a "feline" only vet, to see about the front leg getting amputated after he took off his bandaging and chewed the crap out of his paw. Well he was treated good for a measly $500 but my other vet was on holidays and i needed to be done. Well I got a quote for the leg amputation LOL $4000!!!!! Oh oh and I get a special anesthesiologist from the US to come in on the amputation. All me and my wife could do was sit there awkwardly and just blink for 5 min LOL. Soo I said yah ok we'll be contact you don't contact us. Well my vet quoted me $800 all in with out me saying anything about the price fom the other vet.

You want a good way to see how much the vet is getting from pushing commercial cat/dog food talk to them about your pet going on a RAW diet. The open minded one will give you a break down on benefits of each one the one that's in it for themselves and money will make you feel like you will couldn't possibly understand animal nutrition and only they know (which is usually only a few weeks of training) what is the best food.

Re:Depends on the vet

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. I actually lost count of the number of ways you demonstrated being a complete fuckwit in that post.

Re:Painkillers are effective _because_ of the euph

[Gr8Apes]

They're careful enough in hospitals to only give you enough morphine to take the immediate edge off the pain. They also won't give it to you for very long unless you're an ICU patient. Then you get "lesser" pain meds, which they seem a whole lot more likely to give you lots of. Everyone I know always has leftovers, we even took a bunch of bottles to a pharmaceutical dump to prevent them from getting into the general environment.

Vets run a nice racket

[50000BTU_barbecue]

Always with the pushing of expensive boutique-brand pet food. I told my vet my cat likes Friskies and she was shocked, she told me it's like feeding them McDonald's. I asked her why the Canadian Veterinary Association puts their seal of approval on the can then? No easy reply there. But I have heard the same "McDonald's" quip from several different vets and boutique owners that I wonder if the companies send their reps with the same story to sell their food?

Re:Vets run a nice racket

[Anonymous Coward]

If you care for your cat, giver her fresh meat. The gunk that's been sitting in a can or little plastic bag on a shelf for X months, commonly called "cat food", is completely void of micro-nutrients. Raising her on that sort of junk is a sure way of having her pass at 10 years of age, rather than 20.

Re:Vets run a nice racket

[Anonymous Coward]

We've had plenty of cats make it way past 10 on good quality dry cat food (Iams), only rarely supplemented with meats. None has made it to 20 yet, but that's uncommon for cats, even strictly indoor ones.

- T

Re:Vets run a nice racket

[Anonymous Coward]

It trust that you try your best to take care of your pets, but sorry to say, dry-food is not good quality food. Read parent about micro-nutrients. Dry-food is not about feeding your cat or dog properly, because you can not seriously say that dry-food is better than fresh food. Dry-food is about what is cheap and convenient to the owner, that's it. Like parent said: if you care for your pet, give them fresh food.

Re:Vets run a nice racket

[Anonymous Coward]

There was no link in the GP, so I went looking for good quality studies (ideally, peer-reviewed) on this, but found little. I thought I had at least found something reasonable from a real DVM, but I got no farther than this sentence before stopping wasting my time (emphasis mine):

Now of course he was getting holistic treatment with homeopathy, acupressure, Reiki, etc.; but without "good groceries," the body can't heal!

Homeopathy? Really? Any DVM should know better, and any level of acceptance of homeopathy immediately brings into question that vet's reasoning abilities. Not that I've found scientific evidence supporting "acupressure, Reiki" and whatever else he had put his poor cat through, but homeopathy is such complete and utter balderdash that there was no point in continuing. I suspect his cat must have willed itself into health just to halt all the woo to which it was being subjected...

I shouldn't even need to bother to mention the recent TV ads for one of the new "healthier" cat foods where the ad states that house cats are descended from the Lynx. If they cannot even get something as simple as that right, why should I trust their formulation, particularly as there is hardly any regulatory oversight of the industry, and there are so few board certified veterinary nutritionists that it is very unlikely that these new pet food companies have even one on staff? People are being sold expensive cat foods with "organic", "natural", and other marketspeak which has no regulated meaning in the context of pet foods. People are being told to avoid foods with meat by-products in the ingredients, when that is exactly the sort of meat (essentially, organ meats) cats need.

I recognize that dry foods aren't ideal, and adjust accordingly. However, a disturbing array of misinformation around cat and dog food has sprung up in recent years. Otherwise smart people are falling for the hype and FUD, perhaps because they assume that these products are properly regulated, when that couldn't be farther from the truth.

And don't get me started on the way these boutique pet foods have jumped on the anti-gluten bandwagon. For the record, cats don't have an analogue of celiac disease, though there is one breed of dog that has trouble with wheat gluten, but I forget which breed. Nevertheless, several of these new pet food companies are preying on people's ignorance about gluten, a problem shared with an increasing share of human food marketing. In a few cases, pet food ads have implied that corn gluten is also a problem, which isn't even true for humans who actually have celiac disease. Don't fall for the marketing FUD.

- T

My Dog Loves Me!!!

[onkelonkel]

Belief - "My dog is my best friend. My dog loves me!"

Reality - "You live alone with your dog. Your dog will be eating your remains 8 hours after you drop dead."

"supplements" don't work

[umafuckit]

This is a bullshit article. The basis for it is that food supplements didn't (and don't) work but an NSAID would probably have worked. No shit. It's well known that the supplements industry for people is mostly snake oil. Of course it will be more so for pets. There are plenty of references on the net if you search, but in case you're lazy I just found this one. If a drugs works, there may be side effects (as with the NSAIDs in the TFA). This doesn't mean that "pet medications don't work." It means you need to do your research and not believe the crap it says on the packet. If people stopped buying this shit, the companies would stop selling it.

Re:"supplements" don't work

[CopaceticOpus]

Did you read the article, by chance? It doesn't say that "pet medications don't work." It says that sometimes they don't work because they're prescribed even though they're not supported by evidence.

You also said that people need to do their research... which is the same conclusion written in the article! Gah.

The surprising thing is that it is often vets making these poor recommendations. I expect many average folks without veterinary degrees to make these mistakes. Vets should be held to a higher standard.

Re:"supplements" don't work

[umafuckit]

I read enough of it. The article claims to talk about medicines ("what if the drugs are worthless") but spends most of its time discussing supplements, which are not medicines and do not require clinical trials to be conducted in order to be sold. That is why the article is BS.

Yes, TFA talks about one opioid with dubious utility in dogs. There are also human drugs that likely do not work. Dodgy drugs are a problem. But the article isn't telling us very much about that. Instead it informs us that snake oil won't help our pets.

700+$ per year ?

[aepervius]

Look my older cat is 8 year old, and I paid 60 euro per year for it. About 36 euro in 3 vets visits 12 euro per visits, the rest was the price for , 2 vaccination, and 1 de-worming. My younger cat is 5 year old same price. Even counting the castration which was maybe 60 euro , how the heck do they cam eto such horrendus price ? I have to count all food, cat toilet stuff and playtoy to come to 700+ euro top.

Re:700+$ per year ?

[lancelet]

The figures come from a "pet owners survey", run by an association of pet product manufacturers. They aren't actual veterinary industry figures and have nothing to do with professional veterinary bodies.

For reference, my wife is a vet (in Australia), and her practice charges $45 for a consult. Even including routine meds, a client would probably have to visit her four times per year to reach the "non surgical" amount quoted in that survey, which would be quite rare except perhaps for puppies and geriatrics.

methimazole?

[mekkab]

Transdermal methimazole works a treat, too!

trials on animals...

[nurb432]

It isn't just about the financial aspect, its also about the cruelty part of experimenting on living creatures that cant say they are suffering.

At least a human can say something: ' hey, i don't feel right '...

Tramadol

[Anonymous Coward]

My dog had a canine (a literal canine canine) tooth removed last summer and the vet gave him tramadol. It obviously did nothing, as he cried softly all afternoon and through the night.

Re:Painkillers are effective _because_ of the euph

[mekkab]

Mod parent up. Sometimes it isn't about "curing" diseases, it's about comforting the patient.

Good and Bad Vets

[cob666]

Out current vet is great. He makes house calls which is much less stressful for our cats. He doesn't seem to be aggressive about prescribing medication but will often tell us if there is a human OTC equivalent we can use when possible.

A good friend of ours has a cat that was chewing its fur off and required a cat food that is only available by prescription and she wasn't able to get it where she lived. Our vet recommended something similar and wrote us a prescription so we could get the cat food for our friend. After about 7-10 days there was a noticeable improvement in her cat's fur and about 6 months later her fur is fully grown back. She has the cat on 1/2 prescription food now and it seems to be working.

As with anything else, one should be wary of vets that are treating illnesses that are not visible and cost money to treat. As with human doctors, it's also wise to get a second opinion on these things.

Americans don't know how to care for animals

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm often appalled at how mistreated animals are in America. Not intentionally, but because they've been indoctrinated by a culture that doesn't know better.

Lots of visits to vets to get shots for this and that, dunking the kittens in soapy and foamy baths because you've seen someone post their "bath time!" pictures of it on the Internet, and so you think it's cute and how you care for kittens, special diets and supplements, appalling "pet care" products like the Thundershirt, and excessive "training" because Americans seemingly can't just share their time with pets as companions, they require their pets to do, be and behave as they want. They want their pets must be submissive and "trained", and in this regard Americans are often not friends of animals, but keepers of animals.

I often see memorials and other posts on forums like Reddit where people mourn their dog or cat who died from "old age" or "natural causes" at a young age, usually before 10. Some even use the wording that cats and dogs "last" 10 years, like they're some sort of accessory for the home. It's like saying humans are old at 40. All our cats have lived to see 17, our oldest was 24, and not once have any of them been to the vet. You believe in all this weird "pet care", and yet your animals die half-way through their natural lifespan. Hmm why is that.

If your animal has health complications or even dies at 10, then you've not been taking care of her properly, and most likely it's because you've raised her on a poor diet. If you thought hard little lumps of dry-food and meat and grease and chemicals sat in a can at room temperature (commonly called cat or dog food) for 6 months was proper food for an animal, then think again. If you yourself can't be raised on bits and lumps of dried meat and canned foods, why do you think an animal can?

Re:Americans don't know how to care for animals

[DustinB]

I think unfortunately most Americans are asied on bits and lumps of dried meat and canned foods. I'm American and our culture here is very much to toss in our mouths anything tasty. There is absolutely zero awareness that our bodies are both physically and chemically comprised of the nutrients we ingest. I try to inform others about this and am often looked upon as a health nut for just encouraging ingestion of real food. Nothing extreme, just actual food. We are raised on foods that solely come from packages, whether plastic or metal so the idea of real food perplexes many.

Re:Americans don't know how to care for animals

[Anonymous Coward]

You are either a liar or a statistical anomaly. I'm trending towards liar.

Re:Americans don't know how to care for animals

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither. I am an observer, and I speak sincerely of what I see. Lying doesn't come into it, how's your logic? You probably don't see it because you're one of the people I speak of, am I right?

Test the drugs on humans!

[Anonymous Coward]

That'll work, right?

We all know that drugs that are tested on animals are then 'safe' for use on humans, right?

(Except that 92% of the drugs that work on animals (or rather, SOME species of animals - they could be useless in other species and still make it to 'clinical trials') FAIL human experiments - AKA 'clinical trials').

How about unicorns?

[hurfy]

hmm, I'll have to ask about this if the surgery on my unicorn goes well.
My cat would probably like me to stop calling her a unicorn also :) She has a horn growing out of the side of her back leg the vet would really like to remove. She doesn't have a problem with it but the vet would like to remove it before it develops an absyss or something. Vet hasn't seen one so big or high up before...there really is an inch and a half long horn on her side.
She is getting old (16 minimum) and you can see she is slower getting up and down now :(

What investigation?

[ttucker]

The article seems to be loosely based around a single anecdote? Is there something I missed?

its just a clip racket.

[Anonymous Coward]

That sky high prices have forced me to never own a pet again. It is not fair to the pet.
Tooth care for a little dog was higher than for my teeth.
And that was at the spca so called less costly bull.

No species discrimination here.

[Anonymous Coward]

$14.2 B tip of the iceberg while Humans starve - at least we can't be accused of being speciesist.

Dogs have stronger stomach acid

[Paul Fernhout]

and also shorter intestines than humans: http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/qu...

So, dogs can eat a lot of old stuff that would make humans very sick.

BTW, Dr. Pitcairn is a much better than average source of nutritional advice from a vet:
http://www.amazon.com/Pitcairn...

My wife is a veterinarian

[Arkham]

My wife is a veterinarian and I cringe when I see stories like this. Some sensationalist with no medical knowledge skims a few studies or reports and makes a sensationalist article that has no basis in science or fact.

Tramadol is a good drug that helps a lot of animals with chronic pain. Cosequin helped my dog with hip dysplasia to be more comfortable for his last few years. Like many human drugs, efficacy varies by the patient, but the reality is that veterinarians as a whole are great people who truly love animals and would not prescribe things that did not work.

Re:My wife is a veterinarian

[rts008]

Good that your wife stuck through to the end and made it! It's a tough row to hoe.

...the reality is that veterinarians as a whole are great people who truly love animals...

Very true, they DEFINITELY are not in it for the money, as there is none. (generalized statement-there will always be exceptions)

I don't know the current statistics, but 1990-1995 approximately 30-35% of human medical students were veterinary med school washouts.

Vet med is hard, and does not pay near as well as human medicine, so you really have to want to help animals to be a vet.

I have a vet med degree, worked in the field for several years, then went back to construction due to the low pay.

We can't care much for each other on this planet(human and other animals), but we like our material goods so much that we destroy everything and everyone around us to acquire them to show the surviving ones how important we are. Shame on us....

I love my vet

[Anonymous Coward]

The summary is total ignorant bullshit, but let's set that aside for a minute.

My vet is awesome. Dogs evolved and adapted to subsist on anything. Dogs can literally eat anything (that isn't overtly poisonous) and survive. My dogs dig up truffles and eat them. They eat mushrooms that grow on the ground. They eat bugs, wild blackberries, grubs, worms, and the occasional squirrel they're able to catch on our farm. My vet says this is perfectly healthy for them and how they've survived for thousands of years.

Yes, Tramadol works. It's not a silver bullet, just like Morphine is not a silver bullet for people. You can still be aware of your discomfort, even if you don't feel the pain at full magnitude. That does not mean the drug "is useless."

Yes, Glucosamin/Chondroitin and MSM do benefit our 17 year old ostio-arthritic Ridgeback. Shit. He's SEVENTEEN, living on shit he digs up out of the ground, and an occasional meal of leftovers and some kibble from time to time. We had x-rays that confirmed his arthritis, started him on the supplements, and 6 months later his x-rays were nearly clean. The stuff works if given consistently and at the right dose.

Occasionally, if he plays too rough with our younger dogs, he gets in a little bit of pain. Luckily the big guy likes Tequila, because that just takes care of everything if an aspirin is not enough (aspirin, by the way, is the absolute best anti-inflammatory pain medication for joint pain in both humans and animals).

Our dog died shortly after Rimadyl/Carprofen

[Paul Fernhout]

This was just after it came out around 1997. My wife and I had gotten a dog from a shelter about two years earlier, who turned out to be likely in retrospect much older than we had thought. Still, she was our "baby", as we did not have any kids then. And she was truly a wonderful dog, gentle as a lamb, but with a fearsome bark, looking a bit like a wolf. She would follow us everywhere and would spend all day laying by my feet as I programmed. She had started limping a bit from arthritis. I gave her baby aspirin which seemed to help. Our vet suggested this new "wonder drug" just out called Rimadyl. Our vet never to my recollection suggested any other options like glucosomine. I did not want to try Rymadil because the baby aspirin was working well and in general I think most drugs are best avoided, but my wife accused me of being mean to the dog, and I foolishly gave in and we bought the medicine from the vet (a conflict of interest?). We put our dog on half the prescribed dose.

Well, for a few weeks it was indeed wonderful. Our dog was prancing like a puppy at first. It was just amazing. Then a couple months later, she just collapsed in the middle of the day. We brought her to the vet. The vet did not know what it was. It was the early days of the web and we turned there for help. There were a bunch of report of Rimadyl causing just this sort of thing. A post my wife made from around then in our desperation (we got some private replies too):
https://groups.google.com/foru...

I can't prove Rimadyl killed our dog, but it was very coincidental. We took her off Rymadyl, and she lasted about a month after that, with me carrying a 70 lb dog outside several times a day to do her business in the yard, with her otherwise laying on the couch or a mat all day. We finally put her to sleep when she could not even keep her tongue in her mouth (probably we waited too long). The vet denied the connection to the end, saying instead that or dog must have had liver cancer and the Rymadyl was somehow helping her with the pain, and encouraged us to put her back on it -- which we would not.

The important thing to be aware of is that Rimadyl/Carprofen is at best a pain killer. It does nothing to improve underlying health, and likely it can cause disease in some dogs. You roll the dice with your dogs life when you try it, as this other similar example suggests:
http://www.stevedalepetworld.c...
"For both dogs, the answer seemed like a no-brainer - Rimadyl (generically called carprofen), the drug is particularly suited to treat osteoarthritis. Within days, Bernie was his old self, bounding up and down stairs - at least as much as any corgi can bound - and again he loved to be petted. Today, he's still on the twice daily pill that his owners say brought Bernie back to life. George's results were less dramatic, but Townsend noted at least some improvement, so she continued to use Rimadyl for about a month. Then, one morning George suddenly got very sick. He could barely move, he couldn't keep food down. George's condition worsened and within days he was being cared for by vets around the clock; he was no longer able to stand and could barely keep his head up. Townsend fails in her attempt to hold back tears as she recalls, "I looked into his eyes and George told me 'enough.' We ended his suffering on October 13, 1997.""

See also:
http://www.srdogs.com/Pages/ri...

For some health advice on pet nutrition to fix underlying problems, try Dr. Pitcairn:
http://www.amazon.com/Pitcairn...

Part of that book on arthritis:
http://books.google.com/books?...

Re:Our dog died shortly after Rimadyl/Carprofen

[glaucopis]

Rimadyl kept our last lab mobile for eight years as her arthritis got progressively worse. We understood that it does suddenly kill some dogs so we used the lowest dose that provided relief, but the quality of life it gave her was worth the risk. She was still taking her daily walks up to the day her body gave out at 14 and we put her to sleep. Maybe the Rimadyl finally caught up to her, probably it was just old age, but either way she had a good life thanks to the drug.

Vets absolutely should warn you that it can kill your dog. I've heard it compared to Vioxx -- a miracle pill, if it didn't kill you. And if someone's dog's arthritis is minor enough to be managed on glucosamine, they should be thankful and go that route. But if your dog's in serious pain, Rimadyl works. If it shortens your dog's life, a short, pain-free, mobile life is preferable to an animal than a longer, painful, immobile one.

I find it sad that in all the hoopla over Rimadyl some people are now choosing to give their pets a longer life over a higher quality one, prioritizing their fear of losing their pet over treating their pet's pain. Losing a pet hurts, but I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I knew that I had chosen to let my dog live in unnecessary pain.

Re:Our dog died shortly after Rimadyl/Carprofen

[Paul Fernhout]

Thanks for the reply. Glad you found something that worked for your dog though. However, six seems pretty young to get arthritis for a dog? Did your vet ever talk to you about nutrition and arthritis?

I feel the biggest issue is that for many there are other ways to manage arthritis (including nutrition) that are not mentioned in the rush to cover up the pain...

Smart brains taste better. so advertise away! nt

[Anonymous Coward]

Smart brains taste better. so advertise away! nt

Let me get that for you.

[sgt scrub]

you can blame this sorry state of affairs on a lack of financial incentives for drug companies to run clinical trials on animals unless the results can also increase breast size, lengthen erection times, or grow hair for humans.

FTFY

animal husbandry

[Anonymous Coward]

used to be a practical course that used to teach kids a lot about biology, responsibility, agriculture and a multitude of other aquired knowledge.
Vets are mostly placebos for owners well meaning but clueless expectations. we have all met people that declare they prefer the company of their pets to other people.
The people are sociopaths.

no not really...

[Connie_Lingus]

"Tramadol to kill pain? It's probably just getting dogs high."

uhhh no it's not...i've taken Tramadol and it doesn't get you high at all. in fact alot Doctors like to prescribe it as a substitute for narcotic pain meds that actually *do* work and *do* give one a nice pleasant buzz.

Re:Painkillers are effective _because_ of the euph

[swb]

There was an FDA panel that recently recommended or closely recommended removing all acetaminophen from opiate medications because of the serious risk of liver toxicity from acetaminophen.

Doctors who under-prescribe opiate-APAP medications contribute to it because people who don't get enough relief pile on maximum doses of acetaminophen per that bottle without understanding the total amount they're getting when they include the acetaminophen-containing opiates they also take.

Doctors who prescribe adequate quantities (pill count) of opiate-APAP meds run into trouble when they under-prescribe the opiate content and patients take too many total pills to get relief without paying attention to acetaminophen content.

They'd be better off prescribing 7.5-325 vs. 5-325. Superior pain relief with far less risk of liver toxicity.

I recently had a severe hand injury that involved emergency surgery. Got sent home with 80 5-325 Percocets and had to do the math for my wife to make sure she didn't poison me with the acetaminophen. They could have given me a half dozen 30mg Oxycontin for the first few days and then a third of the Percocets @ 7.5-325 for follow on and had overall lower risk of drug diversion and addiction and liver toxicity. Whatever nominal anti-inflammatory value the acetaminophen has could have been replaced or supplemented with a methylprednisolone course.

The people who do like this risk are of course the drugs police who believe it helps stop diversion and illegal drug use because it lowers the street value of these meds because serious street users can't concentrate them into large doses for injection, which of course the most desperate don't care about and end up with liver problems on the taxpayer's dime.

Fido's getting high? So what?

[swb]

Why are we applying our ridiculous, counter-productive calvinistic morality to pet comfort and pain relief?

It's bad enough that the drugs police, drug policy and our obsession with the idea that someone, somewhere may be enjoying themselves interferes with our ability to ameliorate pain in humans. But dogs? Even if the effect is principally anxiolytic, why would we worry whether a dog is high if its suffering is decreased?

Re:Painkillers are effective _because_ of the euph

[blindseer]

I used to take codeine with APAP until I complained of stomach pain to my physician. I don't recall how much APAP was in those pills, I think it was 500 or 600mg. The physician first offered some sort of antacid which bothered me, I was already taking something with side effects so I was reluctant to just take more drugs. I asked if I could instead get the codeine without the APAP, she reluctantly agreed.

With the new formulations of the opiate/APAP mixtures I recently switched to hydrocodone/APAP at 7.5/325. I usually cut them in half to reduce the amount of APAP I take at a time. I agreed to the switch to the hydrocodone/APAP because the process for getting the prescription is easier (less paperwork than with an opiate alone), the pills are larger (makes them easier to cut), and the APAP dose was small enough that I thought it'd be easy enough to tolerate. I haven't been taking it for too long just yet, seems to be working for me so far.

This is all a sham to me. The real druggies already figured out how to separate the APAP from the opiate. When surfing the web to find out what the clinic was giving me I found all kinds of ways on how to distill the good stuff from the bad stuff. I never tried it myself, found no need to. I don't take the stuff to get high, I take it for pain.

In researching my prescriptions I saw all kinds of ways people found out on how to get high. I also saw that our federal prisons are full of people locked up for drug crimes. It's got so bad that the US DOJ is thinking of ways to reduce sentences for these people. At some point the government is going to have to reconsider what we consider punishable drug offenses. I saw that an estimated 30 million people will admit to using a controlled substance, we can't lock them all up.

Tramadol works.

[sg_oneill]

I'd wager that tramadol actually is working. Having been on it to recover from some *savagely* painful throat surgery a few years back, the stuff worked amazingly well. Possibly better than the morphine I was being weened off.

Cannot let this one pass by unchallenged....

[rts008]

The teeth cleaning bit is NOT a scam.
The bacteria species that commonly reside in a canine mouth eventually migrate into the bloodstream via the gum line and LOVE to set up camp in the valves of the heart. The valves will then start malfunctioning.

So not cleaning your dog's teeth is a good way to shortening your dog's life from heart disease.

When I was in med school (I am a state certified veterinary technician), when we had a surgery lab, if the dog's teeth were NOT cleaned after surgery while the dog was recovering from anesthesia, you failed the lab.

Most people will not pay to have their dog anesthetized just for a teeth cleaning, so ANY surgery that is done, teeth cleaning is also done(in my experience at, no charge) because it is so important.

Three things you should plan on with a dog:
1.) Get them vaccinated properly.
2.) Heartworm prevention (the heartworm larvae are transmitted via mosquito bites, migrate to the bloodstream by TUNNELING through precious Fido's body, the camp out in the heart chambers to mature)
3.) Regular teeth cleaning (my personal recommendation is once a year, or at least once every two years)

Those three plus the usual common sense stuff like: good food, plenty of fresh water, comfortable lodging, and loving companionship all are an excellent ROI for you and your four legged pal.

The rest of the stuff you described sounds like quackery though, glad you found a good vet.

BTW, don't take my word for it, find someone you trust that's a vet or vet tech, and ask them about the teeth cleaning, or educate yourself. It is not hidden or secret knowledge.
 

Re:Cannot let this one pass by unchallenged....

[Sardaukar86]

Thanks, that was a great post and very informative.

I have a fifteen-year-old girl with terrible teeth that need to come out. Unfortunately she's prone to seizures and the advise is against attempting general anaesthetic, so the only option is painkillers and the occasional antibiotics (which I absolutely ensure are completed).

A couple of years of this and she now has a heart murmur. Whilst this is not unusual in older dogs, from your post it does cause me to wonder if the valves of her heart have become infected as a result of the rotten teeth.

I've since met someone who cleans her little dog's teeth after every meal. Her dog was seven years old at the time and had the most perfect teeth I've ever seen on a dog. According to her it was no trouble to clean the teeth if you start young and begin with something tasty like peanut butter as the 'toothpaste' to get them into the idea. A bit of effort but perhaps worth it for the dog - and the vet bills!

I like animals, they're tasty......

[rts008]

Now that you mention it, as far as PETA is concerned, I would announce I was experimenting on animals WHOLESALE scale....just to lure them into the killing zone of the ambush...claymores and willy pete FTW!

I wouldn't actually do any experiments on animals, but I would not mind treating PETA with a dose of their own medicine. I have no animosity towards other animal rights groups that I have heard of.

BTW, shampooing dogs? Meh....I shampoo mountain lions just for entertainment! ;-)

A bit of hyperbole from us both, but in your case not by much, I'll admit.

Re:I like animals, they're tasty......

[Firethorn]

Now that you mention it, as far as PETA is concerned, I would announce I was experimenting on animals WHOLESALE scale....just to lure them into the killing zone of the ambush...claymores and willy pete FTW!

Naw, I shoot them with tranquilizer darts before hauling them off to my illegal mad-science lab. Normally it takes about three days before they start begging me to do my testing on animals.

Re:I like animals, they're tasty......

[rts008]

I like your style. :-)
Can I subscribe to your newsletter?

Although I would suggest a paralytic like curare, so the 'cheap dates' can encounter the full experience and not pass out.

Re:I like animals, they're tasty......

[Firethorn]

Most tranquilizers don't actually knock you out. Besides, the dart is simply for my convenience while I relocate the subjects to the lab. Once there I administer the counter after securing them.

Catahoula hog dog

[the_Bionic_lemming]

I live in the upper midwest and I rescued a deep south catahoula. When the temp drops and the air dries out I have to clean his ears often since they dry out and develop some yuck in them. If I don't clean out the ears with q-tips or a wet rag, he'll start scratching them with his hind leg and cause himself some pain.

If I notice that he yelps when scratching, and kick myself for missing a cleaning, I clean up the ear with a warm wet rag, then swipe it with some benedryl gel, then feed him a "doggie aspirin" that my parents gave me that they had for their dog he's fine.

So a month or two ago, Beaker yelped, , so I cleaned him up, and did the bendryl bit, and went for the aspirin, but couldn't find it. So I drove to the open vet (it was a sunday) that I stopped going to over two years ago since they decided that all dogs they treated !!!HAD TO HAVE A YEARLY FECAL EXAM!! or else they wouldn't care for the dog.

I asked them why they had to have !!!A MANDATORY FECAL EXAM!!! once a year when if the dog had one, and the did some coprophagia a bit later, the MANDATORY FECAL EXAM was just a useless waste of money. They refused to answer.

So, since they were the only ones in the area that were open, I asked them for doggie aspirin. The lead Nurse looked at me like I was an idiot. I explained all I needed was an analgesic to help my dog from suffering for a day or so and I was informed that I had to pay 120 for the vet to look at the dog before I could get any help.

I tried to explain that i knew exactly what his problem was, and just wanted to ease some irritation for a day or two, but I was stonewalled.

Turns out that my doting parents with the "Doggie Aspirin" were referring to GNC's "Dog Aspirin" which is just acetylsalicylic acid. Humans can't have that any more, but it's still the pill of choice for horses, cows, pigs, and yes, dogs. Like anything, it's to be used sparingly with feeding, and a dose of that once in a great while helps if your animal is in pain.

Beaker did just fine on one tablet. Needless to say, the money mill that refuses to treat animals unless they get their tithe - does not get any cash from me. It pisses me off to no end that you can't walk into a vet and explain the problem and just get some simple pain medication for an animal without tithing the high priest.

Re:Catahoula hog dog

[hey!]

Err... Humans can't have aspirin anymore? Granted it's become less popular for pain relief now that acetaminophen and ibuprofen are available, but plenty of people are taking baby aspirin regularly for heart attack and stroke prevention.

Re:Catahoula hog dog

[the_Bionic_lemming]

read the ingredients.

All the "aspirin" I've seen for humans has the active ingredient of NSAID - not acetylsalicylic acid.

When I went to the walgreens pharmacy and asked for acetylsalicylic acid they looked it up in their book and that's only contained iiin "Powdered Aspirin" which they do not sell anymore. I went to 8 different places and not one type OTC medication had acetylsalicylic acid listed.

I only found it in an animal feed place, as a pain reducer for horses and pigs.

Now, wiki had this to say

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...

Which means it may contain "Aspirin" , but did they use acetylsalicylic acid - why not list it?

Re:Catahoula hog dog

[Muad'Dave]

Asprin IS the US Adopted Name for acetylsalicylic acid.

Re:Catahoula hog dog

[the_Bionic_lemming]

Great! Awesome!

They Why is the active ingredient in most OTC remedies List NSAID and do not list "Aspirin"?

If it Contains acetylsalicylic acid (brand name Aspirin) then it should Say "Aspirin" or "acetylsalicylic acid" instead of NSAID , Right?

In fact why do NONE of them list "Aspirin" or "acetylsalicylic acid" ?

Re:Catahoula hog dog

[Muad'Dave]

I'm sorry you have trouble with simple reading comprehension.

From this site for 500mg Bayer Aspirin (click on "ingredients"):

Active Ingredients

Aspirin 500mg (NSAID)Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug, Pain Reliever/Fever Reducer

Note that the only active ingredient is ASPIRIN, which is an NSAID - that's why they show that. NSAID DESCRIBES the aspirin, it is NOT an ingredient separate from aspirin.

Here's another example of a description in the ingredient list:

Active Ingredients

Calcium Carbonate (500 mg)Antacid

Note that "Antacid" DESCRIBES Calcium Carbonate and is not an ingredient in addition to it.

Here's one that shows only aspirin:

Active Ingredients

Aspirin (81 mg)

Inactive Ingredients

Black Iron Oxide , Colloidal Silicon dioxide , Cornstarch , FD&C Yellow 6 Aluminum Lake , Hypromellose , Microcrystalline Cellulose , Polydextrose , Polyethylene Glycol , Polyvinyl Acetate Phthalate , Propylene Glycol , Shellac Wax , Sodium Alginate , Sodium Bicarbonate , Stearic Acid , Talc , Titanium Dioxide , Triethyl Citrate

And another one

Re:Catahoula hog dog

[the_Bionic_lemming]

So, would you like to place a wager that the active ingredient in Bayer is actually acetylsalicylic acid and not a cheaper variant of a NSAID ?

Re:Catahoula hog dog

[the_Bionic_lemming]

By the way, I have not tried to be rude or insulting in any manner. So I am collecting my coup.

Thanx!

Re:Catahoula hog dog

[Muad'Dave]

I didn't say you were rude or insulting, just ignorant. You can't seen to comprehend what you read. Coup rejected.

Re:Catahoula hog dog

[Muad'Dave]

Yes I would take that bet. I don't know if you're being intentionally obtuse or are truly unable to understand what you read. Aspirin is the common name for acetylsalicylic acid. Acetylsalicylic acid is a member of a class of drugs called NSAIDs - NonSteroidal AntiInflammatory Drugs. All aspirin is acetylsalicylic acid. All acetylsalicylic acid is an NSAID.

Re:Catahoula hog dog

[the_Bionic_lemming]

I never said it wasn't included with NSAID, so again I will post the link I posted earlier.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...

and include a snippet which I presume you might of missed..

The most prominent members of this group of drugs, aspirin, ibuprofen and naproxen, a

"Group of drugs" - plural - when it says NSAID on the label it can be from a group of different drugs - So when you buy that brand name it might be ibuprofen, it might be naproxen, it might be acetylsalicylic acid.

All YOU know for sure is that the product you purchased contains a NSAID, regardless of what the brand name says. The name Aspirin is used when selling a NSAID. That means it contains one of the group of drugs that are summed up as NSAID. I'll bet that it's the cheapest of the bunch. Better for profits that way..

Re:Catahoula hog dog

[the_Bionic_lemming]

Nope, I've reread it. I've still claimed the coup.

Have a nice day!

Re:Catahoula hog dog

[Muad'Dave]

I'm sorry - your ignorance is simply astounding, or perhaps your trolling skills are epic.

The name Aspirin is used when selling a NSAID. That means it contains one of the group of drugs that are summed up as NSAID. I'll bet that it's the cheapest of the bunch. Better for profits that way..

That is ludicrous - and would also be illegal. If the word Aspirin appears in the ingredients, THAT'S WHAT'S IN THERE. As I unsuccessfully tried to explain, the word NSAID is not an ingredient, it is a description of what type of drug aspirin is. Did you not see the antacid example? Are you now going to rant that 'antacid' is an ingredient and not a description?

Are you going to claim that this medication can have any "Pain Reliever / Fever Reducer" in it since the ingredients are listed as "Acetaminophen (500 mg)Pain Reliever / Fever Reducer"?

I tell you what, take a bunch of pills to your local college chemistry department and have them do a mass spec analysis on them - you'll find that what I'm saying is true.

If I've not convinced you by now, I will never be able to bring you out of your delusional world. Good luck finding 'pure aspirin'.

Re:Catahoula hog dog

[the_Bionic_lemming]

Again,

The active ingredient is NSAID.

There are no Aspirin brand tablets that have any other ingredient listed.

So all you can be sure of is that the "Aspirin" you have purchased contains an ingrdient that is the group of NSAID.

And I'll count a second coup now! Thanx!

Mod parent informative

[Anonymous Coward]

Pancreatic cancer is so lethal because the pancreas is poorly innervated. By the time "something hurts", the cancer has already spread. Instead, look for those signs parent mentioned.

Getting to the root of the problem....

[rts008]

Why are we applying our ridiculous, counter-productive calvinistic morality to pet comfort and pain relief?

Because the dog might enjoy the high, and not go to heaven? (sarcasm)
IIRC, there is no mention of animals going to heaven, but I could be wrong about that.

The "You're either with us, or you're the enemy" mentality predominately displayed strikes me as completely opposite of what Christianity is about.

It seems to be a 'with us, or against us' binary choice.
I honestly don't see much difference in Christianity and Islam. Both seem to follow the same rhetoric, just using different terms.

Blame the 'moral majority' is the answer to you question. They are trying to drag us all into their version of what I call hell.

Disclaimer:
There are some exceptions I've experienced to my delight, but they are overwhelmed by the above stated behavior of the majority I have encountered.

Nutty pet owners

[mendax]

I have a hard time believing that people are spending hundreds of dollars on average in vet bills on their pets. My beloved but very evil black cat goes to the vet once a year to get her shots and a quick physical. $100 max. She's an indoor cat, very healthy, eats dry food mostly but gets a bit of Greek yogurt from me sometimes, and has never seen let alone eaten a mouse. Spending these big bucks on a healthy pet is nonsense.

Oh boy

[Powercntrl]

What's worse is we push profitable drugs. I put myself on phenotropil (a high dose--people recognize the stimulant effect at 100mg, but reading ADHD

The "push" for any ADHD drugs comes from the medical community's belief that they may provide the opportunity for ADHD patients to lead a better life. The reality though, is that it's easier to push pills than accept the fact that someone with ADHD will learn differently, socialize differently and may not have the same range of employment opportunities as the majority of people in the first world. Of course, no one wants to hear something along the lines of "You're not cut out for college and should just take up a trade.", so the pills start a'popping.

Interestingly, some long term studies have shown that ADHD meds aren't exactly Felix Felicis. It seems your likelihood of being successful with ADHD is roughly the same, regardless of whether or not you take medication. Link

You might want to give some thought to what's wrong with a society that expects you to overclock your brain to keep up with it. Not everyone lives this way.

Re:Painkillers are effective _because_ of the euph

[Anonymous Coward]

Got off on a rant there. Anyway, tramadol isn't so great. NSAIDs and Tylenol work for mild pain. The best stuff is the natural stuff, codeine. People, and their pets, have been taking it for thousands of years. It's safe and effective. Overdose is only a real issue when concentrated to insane levels to get high. If you're getting high off codeine then you're doing it wrong.

Codeine maybe a great pain medication but there are good reasons why it isn't available over the counter. It is abusable and the amount required to get high or overdose is dependent on your genes. For example, children getting the standard dose of codeine after tonsillectomy have died from respiratory depression - http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DrugSafety/ucm313631.htm#professionals.
    It is also the base for making Krokodil aka desomorphine - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desomorphine. It can also be converted back into morphine and heroin.

Yea I have re thought treatments too

[Anonymous Coward]

I personally feel for minor aches aspirin is just as safe for short periods and have stopped anti worm medicine and simply do a yearly blood test.
My dogs are house kept and I feel why over medicate for low risk issues like worms for a house dog? I'm sure the vet makes a bit off me buying this medicine but my dogs get sick for days after treatment and tried different meds for anti worming. All seem to have the same bad effects.
Like people you need to question if a treatment is effective or just a way to profit or ease owners minds of a problem that probably does not even exist for the animal.

Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most medication often doesn't work. Old news.

Re:Painkillers are effective _because_ of the euph

[Anonymous Coward]

Tramadol does not get you high. It tricks your perception of pain so that you are mostly pain-free. There is no euphoria with this medication. People who attempt to get high with Tramadol have to abuse it, because there is no high feeling, which actually trends with admin mindsets today making it bad for those of us who just enjoy a mobility that we would otherwise not have without it. It does not work as an anti-depressant with me, but actually alleviates my pain. I use only the least amount necessary to that end. I have severe nerve damage in my feet, chronic lower back pain and maladies in my stomach and digestive track. I have to stop taking it from time to time just to help assess where my body stands from the symptoms I suffer. I have never experienced withdrawl from that process. Granted, maybe treating the symptoms is not an optimal choice, but being cut open for exploritory surgery is not that great of an option either, especially when the end result will amount to more pain and continued discomfort. Death will be eventual regardless.

Re:Painkillers are effective _because_ of the euph

[blindseer]

Everything can be abused. People will eat too much, run too much, sleep too much, drink too much water. I've read about people that get addicted to eating the stuffing inside couch cushions. People will take large amounts of antihistamines to get high. People drink brake fluid to get drunk.

Every drug is dangerous. Have you read the warnings on the stuff you buy from the pharmacy? They all have some sort of overdose risk, risk of a certain population being sensitive to it, and side effects that can be dangerous. People die from Tylenol, the most used pain killer in the world. Just like certain people are sensitive to codeine there are certain people that are sensitive to Tylenol.

Everything is a precursor to something. Sugar is a precursor to alcohol. Gasoline is a precursor to desomorphine. Matches are a precursor to desomorphine and methamphetamine. Are we going to make matches and gasoline available only by prescription now? It might cut down on arson but I doubt it will have an effect on drug abuse. People drink brake fluid to get drunk.

The same reason to keep codeine from being over the counter are the same for Tylenol, alcohol, and a huge number of other already readily available medicines and materials. Everything can be abused. Everything is dangerous, Everything is a precursor to something else that is even more dangerous.

Thanks to the ever increasing controls on whatever might get us high we can't get a decent cold medicine without a prescription. It had no effect on the number of people abusing drugs, they just find more creative ways to slowly kill themselves.

I remember when my mom could no longer just buy syringes off the shelf for my diabetic sister. It was about the same time that AIDS was making the news for spreading so quickly. I have a suspicion that this is more than coincidence.

Thanks to the DEA we have more people dead than high. I don't see that as an improvement.

Details at 11:00

[CHIT2ME]

Human drug investigation reveals that human drugs sometimes don't work. Details at 11:00!!!