Jan 24 2008
Winter Health Tips for Pets
Veterinarians at the North Pole Give Expert Advice on Winter Care
(ARA) – Dr. Margaret Eastman wasn’t born at the North Pole. She was attracted to life in the town of North Pole, Ala. (located near Fairbanks), in part by her love of dog sledding. While studying veterinary medicine in Wisconsin in the early 1990s, she saw her first dog sled race and she was hooked.
Since moving to the North Pole in 2004, she’s become a winter pet-health expert. She’s served as a veterinarian on the world-famous Iditarod dog sled race — a 1,150 mile race between Anchorage and Nome, Ala. — and also as head veterinarian on the Yukon Quest, a 1,000 mile dog sled race.
Upon arriving in Alaska, she had some surprises. Dehydration is an important consideration on a cold day, Dr. Eastman says. Cold air is dry air, and, contrary to common assumption, pets do not hydrate themselves well by eating snow, it chills the body and a large amount of snow melts down to a tiny amount of water.
“In the cold Alaskan air, it’s easy to dehydrate,” she says. “Older dogs are especially susceptible. You think it’s not a problem in winter because it’s not hot, but if you’re out for a long walk with your dog on one of those beautiful winter days, keep in mind that you need to stop for water just as often as in the summer.”
Dogs love snow, but thin ice should be avoided. “It’s not uncommon for a dog to fall through the ice,” Dr. Eastman says. “Dogs don’t judge ice well, and, once they fall in, it’s very difficult to get them out. Use some common sense around lakes and rivers in the wintertime.”
Dr. Stuart Nelson Jr., has worked on the Iditarod as a veterinarian for over two decades, including the last 13 years as the chief of veterinary staff. He and his staff of about 45 must be ready for any canine ailment. All 1,200 sled dogs must have physical examinations, electrocardiograms and other tests within 14 days of the race. And the dogs are randomly tested for performance-enhancing drugs. He said he was attracted to the sport because he admires the dogs and compares them to marathon runners in their abilities and physique.
“I’ve always been interested in animal athletes,” he says. “These dogs are very hardy. Working on the race, we have very few incidences of frostbite in the animals. We’re far more vulnerable than dogs to frostbite.”
Winter Pet Checklist
Pets in many parts of the country face extreme temperatures in the winter and face winter dangers. Drs. Nelson and Eastman and the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) offer these cold weather tips:
* Watch cats for frostbite. “With cats, the tissue on the ears is very fragile, and it’s not uncommon to see frostbite,” Dr. Eastman says. Frostbitten skin is red or grey in color and may slough. Apply warm, moist towels to thaw the frostbitten area slowly until it appears flushed and contact your veterinarian immediately.
* If you have an outdoor cat, check your car engine before starting your car. Many cats seek out the warmth of a car engine on cold winter nights, and starting the car with them on top of the engine block can be deadly.
* Most pets should be brought inside during the coldest days of winter. If a pet must be kept outdoors, Dr. Nelson recommends that it be provided a dry dog house, some insulation such as straw, a constant source of fresh water (a heated bowl can be a great comfort) and also it’s very important that the animal be naturally, gradually introduced to the cold with the change of seasons. An indoor dog cannot be moved into the backyard in January, because it will not have built up a thick, warm winter coat.
* In the wintertime, an indoor dog may need slightly less food, because the house pet may be less active than in warmer months, but outdoor dogs require more fuel to keep warm. For example, Dr. Nelson says Iditarod sled dogs feast on about 10,000 calories a day, with up to 80 percent of the calories coming from fat. An average house pet of the same size might eat about 1,500 calories a day. Talk to your veterinarian to get dietary tips for your pet.
* Far more dangerous to pets than icy weather are chemicals commonly used in the wintertime, such as road salt and antifreeze. Antifreeze tastes good to pets and small children but is highly poisonous. Keep any containers well out of reach and clean up any spills. Road salt can dry out and crack the paw pads of a dog and will cause stomach upset if a pup licks it off. Remember to clean your dog paws after a winter walk.
* Dr. Nelson says that booties are used by sled dogs to protect the webbing between toes from injury, and they also can help protect against road salt for city pets.
* Dog jackets and sweaters are also recommended for outdoor dogs during extreme weather, and for indoor dogs that haven’t built up a full winter undercoat. Dr. Nelson explains that these jackets need only cover a dog’s torso to help keep the animal warm and comfy. “We almost never see frostbite around the extremities of a dog,” Dr. Nelson explained.
For more information on winter health for dogs and cats, and any other health questions or concerns about your animals, please visit the AVMA Web site at www.avma.org.
Courtesy of ARAcontent
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- Five Tips for Keeping Pets Healthy and Vet Bills Down
- Sources for Cat Health Advice
- The Importance of Cat Health Care
- How to Choose the Right Pet Health Insurance Plan
- Improving Cat Urinary Health
Here is a great tip to protecting your pet in any kind of weather. When a pet goes missing or even lost it is so important that we proactively react to the situation. Taking steps to protect your pet prior to having this scary and overwhelming incident happen. These steps include always keeping a collar on your pet with I.D Tags. Having your pet micro-chipped and registering them properly. Never leaving them outside unattended, this could lead to their escape as well as giving the opportunity for someone to steal your pet.
Making sure that you’re pet (s) are registered properly is vital to helping them return home. There are many companies that you can register your pet with. One of these companies is called http://www.helpmefindmypet.com they provide not only a registry but they also have created a proactive lost pet alert that is sent out in up to a fifty mile radius to all Shelters, Rescues, Veterinarians, Municipalities, Groomers, Kennels, Pet Industry, and Members. People find lost pets; if your community is aware that you’re pet is missing this will create a local involvement resulting in more pets being reunited with their families. Prevention and preparation is essential to keeping your family together.
Dr. Nelson claims he’s concerned about the winter health of dogs. Yet, he works for the Iditarod, a race with a long well-documented history of dog deaths, illnesses and injuries. In the blistering cold during the race, dogs get penile frostbite and frostbite of the scrotum, ears, tails and flanks. The Iditarod is fueled by greed and mushers desire for fame and attention. The dogs get no benefit. For more facts, visit the Sled Dog Action Coalition website, http://www.helpsleddogs.org.
Here’s a short list of what happens to the dogs during the Iditarod: death, paralysis, penile frostbite, bleeding ulcers, bloody diarrhea, lung damage, pneumonia, ruptured discs, viral diseases, broken bones, torn muscles and tendons, vomiting, hypothermia, sprains, fur loss, broken teeth, torn footpads and anemia.
At least 133 dogs have died in the Iditarod. There is no official count of dog deaths available for the race’s early years. In “WinterDance: the Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod,” a nonfiction book, Gary Paulsen describes witnessing an Iditarod musher brutally kicking a dog to death during the race. He wrote, “All the time he was kicking the dog. Not with the imprecision of anger, the kicks, not kicks to match his rage but aimed, clinical vicious kicks. Kicks meant to hurt deeply, to cause serious injury. Kicks meant to kill.”
Causes of death have also included strangulation in towlines, internal hemorrhaging after being gouged by a sled, liver injury, heart failure, and pneumonia. “Sudden death” and “external myopathy,” a fatal condition in which a dog’s muscles and organs deteriorate during extreme or prolonged exercise, have also occurred. The 1976 Iditarod winner, Jerry Riley, was accused of striking his dog with a snow hook (a large, sharp and heavy metal claw). In 1996, one of Rick Swenson’s dogs died while he mushed his team through waist-deep water and ice. The Iditarod Trail Committee banned both mushers from the race but later reinstated them. In many states these incidents would be considered animal cruelty. Swenson is now on the Iditarod Board of Directors.
In the 2001 Iditarod, a sick dog was sent to a prison to be cared for by inmates and received no veterinary care. He was chained up in the cold and died. Another dog died by suffocating on his own vomit.
No one knows how many dogs die in training or after the race each year.
On average, 53 percent of the dogs who start the race do not make it across the finish line. According to a report published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, of those who do cross, 81 percent have lung damage. A report published in the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine said that 61 percent of the dogs who finish the Iditarod have ulcers versus zero percent pre-race.
Tom Classen, retired Air Force colonel and Alaskan resident for over 40 years, tells us that the dogs are beaten into submission:
“They’ve had the hell beaten out of them.” “You don’t just whisper into their ears, ‘OK, stand there until I tell you to run like the devil.’ They understand one thing: a beating. These dogs are beaten into submission the same way elephants are trained for a circus. The mushers will deny it. And you know what? They are all lying.” -USA Today, March 3, 2000 in Jon Saraceno’s column
Beatings and whippings are common. Jim Welch says in his book Speed Mushing Manual, “I heard one highly respected [sled dog] driver once state that “‘Alaskans like the kind of dog they can beat on.’” “Nagging a dog team is cruel and ineffective…A training device such as a whip is not cruel at all but is effective.” “It is a common training device in use among dog mushers…A whip is a very humane training tool.”
During the 2007 Iditarod, eyewitnesses reported that musher Ramy Brooks kicked, punched and beat his dogs with a ski pole and a chain. Brooks admitted to hitting his dogs with a wooden trail marker when they refused to run. The Iditarod Trail Committee suspended Brooks for two years, but only for the actions he admitted. By ignoring eyewitness accounts, the Iditarod encouraged animal abuse. When mushers know that eyewitness accounts will be disregarded, they are more likely to hurt their dogs and lie about it later.
Mushers believe in “culling” or killing unwanted dogs, including puppies. Many dogs who are permanently disabled in the Iditarod, or who are unwanted for any reason, are killed with a shot to the head, dragged or clubbed to death. “On-going cruelty is the law of many dog lots. Dogs are clubbed with baseball bats and if they don’t pull are dragged to death in harnesses…..” wrote Alaskan Mike Cranford in an article for Alaska’s Bush Blade Newspaper (March, 2000).
Jon Saraceno wrote in his March 3, 2000 column in USA Today, “He [Colonel Tom Classen] confirmed dog beatings and far worse. Like starving dogs to maintain their most advantageous racing weight. Skinning them to make mittens. Or dragging them to their death.”
The Iditarod, with its history of abuse, could not be legally held in many states, because doing so would violate animal cruelty laws.
Iditarod administrators promote the race as a commemoration of sled dogs saving the children of Nome by bringing diphtheria serum from Anchorage in 1925. However, the co-founder of the Iditarod, Dorothy Page, said the race was not established to honor the sled drivers and dogs who carried the serum. In fact, 600 miles of this serum delivery was done by train and the other half was done by dogs running in relays, with no dog running over 100 miles. This isn’t anything like the Iditarod.
The race has led to the proliferation of horrific dog kennels in which the dogs are treated very cruelly. Many kennels have over 100 dogs and some have as many as 200. It is standard for the dogs to spend their entire lives outside tethered to metal chains that can be as short as four feet long. In 1997 the United States Department of Agriculture determined that the tethering of dogs was inhumane and not in the animals’ best interests. The chaining of dogs as a primary means of enclosure is prohibited in all cases where federal law applies. A dog who is permanently tethered is forced to urinate and defecate where he sleeps, which conflicts with his natural instinct to eliminate away from his living area.
Iditarod dogs are prisoners of abuse.
Sincerely,
Margery Glickman
Sled Dog Action Coalition, http://www.helpsleddogs.org