1440 E. Powell Blvd.
Gresham, OR
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What can I do to keep my kitten from being bored while I’m away at work?
If you’re away for long hours and your cat is home alone, he may not be getting enough stimulation for his mental and physical well-being.
To banish boredom, provide your tabby with a variety of toys. Ping-pong balls and stuffed mice can do wonders to perk up your pet. Dry treats inside a cat ball are entertaining…and tasty, too! It’s a good idea to rotate toys every few days. (more…)
This month we are featuring Dudley, a sweet Golden Retriever. He became a patient of ours only two months ago but has already had our doctors and other specialists hard at work. He underwent surgery for Liposarcoma and Malignant Peripheral Nerve Sheath Tumor removal in December. Recovery has been an uphill journey for Dudley, his owners, and Dogwood Staff. Through surgeries, antibiotics, pain management, constant monitoring from his owners, strict orders of relaxation, and some hospitalization on occasion he is recovering exceedingly well. Dudley always seems to have a smile on his canine face and greets you with such enthusiasm whenever he comes into the clinic. The staff and doctors could not be happier with such a happy-go-lucky attitude.Â
Do puppies have unique nutritional needs?
All those wildly energetic antics we love to see in puppies require energy from food… lots of food. A three-to five-month-old puppy uses two to four times as much energy, pound for pound, as an adult dog. Puppies therefore need a highly digestible, energy- and nutrient-dense diet about four times a day.
On the other hand — or other paw — you don’t want to overfeed a puppy. Baby fat is neither cute nor healthy on a dog of any age. So when you’re feeding, follow label instructions and consider your canine’s lifestyle and activity levels. Consult your Veterinarian through all of your puppy’s growth stages, and remember — that puppy has some obedience tricks to learn, so save room for a few treats.
– Dr. Andrea Looney, DVM for the “Purina® Animal Instincts”
We are collecting food for pets and their people. All donations will go to SnowCap Community Charities. SnowCap provides emergency food boxes for families, many of whom also have hungry pets. Those pets need pet food, so they don’t get food the people need, too. We are collecting for both!
Last year, we collected 799 pounds of food for SnowCap! Our goal this year is 1200 pounds!Â
SnowCap Community Charities helps the needy in our East County community. For more information, visit http://www.snowcap.org/.
Needed:
Collars, leashes, and beds are also welcome, but not in as much need. If you are purchasing food to donate, large bags of dry food go the farthest, as SnowCap opens them and distributes ziploc bags. We are also accepting cash donations, which will purchase even more pet food!
Several clusters of canine parvovirus in Portland and Gresham have prompted state and county animal welfare officials to remind pet owners to ensure their dogs are vaccinated.
The outbreak was discovered last week after a dead dog was discovered in a Dumpster, says Mike Oswald, director of Multnomah County Animal Services.
The dog was sent to Oregon State University’s Veterinary Diagnostics Laboratory as part of an investigation by MCAS officers, who have confirmed three additional cases in Northeast Portland and Gresham.
Parvovirus is a highly contagious disease transmitted through fecal-oral transmission, says Dr. Emilio DeBess, Oregon Public Health Division veterinarian.
It’s commonly spread by puppies walking on contaminated soil and then putting their paws to their mouth.
While it is the beginning of Parvo season, “it’s not usually this severe this early,” DeBess says. “The lack of vaccinated animals is usually what leads into this.”
Symptoms are typically lethargy, severe diarrhea and vomiting, and in some cases, cardiac problems. Treatment can last from five or seven days to two weeks and can be very expensive; without treatment it can be deadly.
That’s why DeBess and Oswald urge dog owners to keep dogs at home until they have received the parvo vaccine, which comes in a series. Puppies can be vaccinated by the time they reach five to eight weeks old. If you’re not sure if Fido has had the vaccine, call your vet.
“It’s just one of those things about being a responsible owner,” Oswald says. “In these economic times where people are more financially challenged, it’s critical that animals are getting the appropriate shots.”
by Monique Balas, Special to the Oregonian
Genes that block FIV are implanted in eggs before fertilization to give cats intrinsic immunity to a disease that has no natural immunity, no vaccine, no cure.ROCHESTER, Minn. — Mayo Clinic researchers have developed a genome-based immunization strategy to fight feline AIDS and illuminate ways to combat human HIV/AIDS and other diseases. The goal is to create cats with intrinsic immunity to the feline AIDS virus. The findings — called fascinating and landmark by one reviewer — appear in the current online issue of Nature Methods.
Feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) causes AIDS in cats as the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) does in people: by depleting the body’s infection-fighting T-cells. The feline and human versions of key proteins that potently defend mammals against virus invasion — termed restriction factors — are ineffective against FIV and HIV respectively. The Mayo team of physicians, virologists, veterinarians and gene therapy researchers, along with collaborators in Japan, sought to mimic the way evolution normally gives rise over vast time spans to protective protein versions. They devised a way to insert effective monkey versions of them into the cat genome.
“One of the best things about this biomedical research is that it is aimed at benefiting both human and feline health,” says Eric Poeschla, M.D., Mayo molecular biologist and leader of the international study. “It can help cats as much as people.”
Dr. Poeschla treats patients with HIV and researches how the virus replicates. HIV/AIDS has killed over 30 million people and left countless children orphaned, with no effective vaccine on the horizon. Less well known is that millions of cats also suffer and die from FIV/AIDS each year. Since the project concerns ways introduced genes can protect species against viruses, the knowledge and technology it produces might eventually assist conservation of wild feline species, all 36 of which are endangered.
The technique is called gamete-targeted lentiviral transgenesis — essentially, inserting genes into feline oocytes (eggs) before sperm fertilization. Succeeding with it for the first time in a carnivore, the team inserted a gene for a rhesus macaque restriction factor known to block cell infection by FIV, as well as a jellyfish gene for tracking purposes. The latter makes the offspring cats glow green.
The macaque restriction factor, TRIMCyp, blocks FIV by attacking and disabling the virus’s outer shield as it tries to invade a cell. The researchers know that works well in a culture dish and want to determine how it will work in vivo. This specific transgenesis (genome modification) approach will not be used directly for treating people with HIV or cats with FIV, but it will help medical and veterinary researchers understand how restriction factors can be used to advance gene therapy for AIDS caused by either virus.
The method for inserting genes into the feline genome is highly efficient, so that virtually all offspring have the genes. And the defense proteins are made throughout the cat’s body. The cats with the protective genes are thriving and have produced kittens whose cells make the proteins, thus proving that the inserted genes remain active in successive generations.
The other researchers are Pimprapar Wongsrikeao, D.V.M., Ph.D.; Dyana Saenz, Ph.D.; and Tommy Rinkoski, all of Mayo Clinic; and Takeshige Otoi, Ph.D., of Yamaguchi University, Japan. The research was supported by Mayo Clinic and the Helen C. Levitt Foundation. Grants from the National Institutes of Health supported key prior technology developments in the laboratory.
