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Top story: Arthritis awareness

With the cold weather, short day length and grey skies, many of us don't feel like exercising or going out. Have you considered that a reluctance to exercise is also a sign of arthritis in our more senior pets?

Other clues might be an alteration in behaviour like being more withdrawn or grumpy or being unable to groom.

If you think that your pet might be showing any of these signs then please book a vet appointment where we can discuss what is best for you and your pet. Arthritis can be managed effectively; it does not have to be a problem!

Braveheart Award February 2012

Honey is a two year old Chinese Crested Dog. She has been particularly brave on more than one occasion recently.

Honey had been sneezing and coughing on and off for a while last year. We had taken x-rays, run blood samples and sent away swabs from her nose. We had treated her with antibiotics as there was an infection but the treatments we were giving her only seemed to take away her symptoms temporarily.

We decided to perform a rhinoscopy on her. This is a small camera that goes into the nose so that we can see the structures of the nasal cavity to check that there was no abnormality causing her to sneeze and cough.

To our surprise we found a piece of twig around 5 cm long!!! This is a huge size for any dog but Honey is only 6 kg! She recovered well from this procedure and there was no more sneezing.

Honey's most recent bravery was when she gave birth to puppies. She started whelping (labour) during the night and had given birth to two healthy puppies. She had been ultrasound scanned at approximately four weeks pregnant and we had seen at least five puppies. We use ultrasound to confirm pregnancy but we are often not able to give an accurate number in a litter due to their positions in the uterus.

Her contractions seemed to stop after the first two puppies had been delivered. It can sometimes take a while between puppies but Mrs Burree became concerned and brought Honey to us to have a vet check her over. The vet gave her an injection to get her labour moving along and let her go home for Mrs Burree to closely monitor. Honey’s labour was still not progressing so we opted to take her forward to surgery and perform a caesarean. She had to have a full general anaesthetic for the caesarean.

A dog’s uterus is divided into two ‘horns’, this means that the puppies line up in two rows. The two puppies that had been delivered at home had come from one horn and there were three in the other. The first puppy of the other horn had become stuck so was unable to be delivered normally.

Unfortunately the stuck puppy passed away along with one other. The last puppy was successfully revived by one of our nurses. Once Honey was awake from the surgery, we introduced her puppy to her. She took to being ‘mum’ straight away. She soon went home to be re-united with her other puppies, where they are all happy and healthy together.

"Many thanks to all that helped with Honey so quickly! I'm just so happy we managed to keep these three lovely pups, and that Honey is doing so well, you really would not have thought she has been through so much!"
Dianne Burree and Honey