Toffee's story

This is Toffee with Keeley. He was just having a look upstairs as his outlook had been very boring for a few days. He was hospitalised at the clinic after being ill since the middle of July . As he is over 11 years old and he has not been eating well and had been very lethargic it was decided that tests should be done. He appeared to have a problem digesting his food and so was put on a drip and given special food and medicines.
After looking very sorry for himself for a number of days he began to perk up and was even barking to get attention – a very good sign. We got used to him sitting, taking no notice of anyone and so it was great to see him cheering up. He has now gone home to his owners which we are sure will be the best medicine!

Get Chipped!!

Does your cat wander for days? Does your dog do Houdini impressions and try to escape at any opportunity?

Even if the answer to these questions is No, one day they may not come back when they're called, the workmen might leave your gate open, a shed might look like an interesting place to explore.... Any of these situations can happen to our pets at anytime and its always worrying when we dont know where they are. One easy solution to help reunite you and your favourite furry friends is to have them microchipped.

A tiny microchip - the size of a grain of rice - is painlessly inserted under the animal's skin with a needle (just like an injection). Once in, the microchip cannot move or be seen, but can be read by the scanner. This chip has a unique number which is logged in a central database along with the owners contact details.

If a stray or injured animal is found to have a microchip, the Local Authority, Vet or animal

welfare organisation contacts a national database to find the owner's details. The owner then can be contacted and reunited with their pet.

Note to remember - If you move house you MUST contact the database company to advise them of the changes or we may not be able to get you and your loved ones back together again as quickly

This is Otto, an 8 week old weimeraner owned by the Fairweather family. He has just started his vaccination and worming course and will be back in a fortnight to complete the course. He will then have to wait a week before he can run on the floor where other dogs are, i.e; parks, the stray etc. It is important to protect him against canine diseases as they can be fatal. We vaccinate against Distemper, Hepatitis, Parvovirus and Parainfluenza. An annual booster is needed after the initial puppy course. It won't be long before Otto can run and play free and no doubt cause some mischeif on the way! Look at those ears!

Jess Kerwin

Meet Jess Kerwin

Here she is with Sarah Kitwood feeling a bit sorry for herself. Jess has a history of eating things she's not supposed to and is a bit accident prone,especially with her paws!

At the moment we are investigating a possible liver problem as she has not been herself and was even ill on her trip to the Lake District! We have looked at the possibility of a liver biopsy and have done tests to try to work out the exact problem. She has been given a drug to help improve the antioxidant levels in the liver which are essential to maintain and protect its function. Along with this she has been given a special Sensitivity Control diet. She will be monitored to see how she progresses with a biopsy as a further possibility. Of course such a test is quite invasive and we hope will not be necessary.

Meet Ulrick, a 6 week old guide dog to-be. He is feeling a bit peeky in the picture where he is on the consulting room table, as you can see. He came in with a history of vomiting and diarrhoea with slight blood. He was given some initial treatment but didnt respond as well as we would like ( upset stomachs are quite common in puppies) so we hospitalised him and put him on a drip as a suspected parvo virus case. A faecal sample sent to the laboratory confirmed this.

The other pictures show him after he started to recover his appetite after being on the drip. He was barrier nursed which means using disposable gloves/aprons when handling him and keeping him isolated from other dogs. As you can see he is eating now and feeling much better. He is one of the lucky ones with a milder form of the disease, as many dogs die from parvo virus which is why vets always stongly recommend regular vaccinations.

I am Hannah Cooper, I went to Shamrock Vets for a week's work experience. I really enjoyed all the jobs I was given and found it very interesting whilst in the consultation room. All the staff that I meet during my visit were extremely friendly and made my experience exciting and fun. I hope to return and see everyone again when I bring my animals for their check up's !!!!

This is Sue who has been with us for 9 years now and is extremely experienced. Of more recent times she has worked mainly part time for family reasons and does a lot of reception work.

She is always friendly and smiling, helpful to clients and always tries her best to sort out any queries or problems our clients may have with regard to their pets.

Multi-purpose worm/flea treatment: Advocate

Isn’t this cute?

But not when it turns into this!!!!!












Even if you are not a gardener you are probably not all that fond of slugs and snails but did you know they pose a great risk to our pets? Unfortunately, as with many conditions, it is the parasites carried by the host animal that cause the problems. In this case it is the lungworm which causes the damage. It is actually a nematode worm Angiostrongylus vasorum and it is spreading from “hot spots” such as Surrey further north and if an animal is infected it works it’s way to the heart and can cause symptoms such as coughing, depression, weight loss, fits, vomiting, diarrhoea, weakness and paralysis.
As animals play in the undergrowth or drink from puddles they are liable to accidentally ingest the parasite and frogs can also harbour it.
The good news is that the sooner it is treated the better the prognosis, but as ever prevention is better than cure and although conventional worming tablets do not treat this parasite, treatment is relatively simple and a prescription-only spot-on product can be obtained from us. This treatment also controls other worms, fleas and mites, which means it is possible to address lungworm and a number of common parasites in one application. It is called “Advocate” so you know what to ask about on your next visit.

Tigger the Dalmation

Meet Tigger the dalmation. Tigger presented with a growth approximately 1.5cm in diameter on the underneath of her neck. Please see the picture at the top which is supposed to be a picture of it. Tigger is only 6 months old and didnt think much of holding still with her neck held up whilst we took a picture, so she wriggled. Hence the pic is slightly out of focus. She was better at having a picture taken of her face though, as you can see on the bottom picture, especially when we promised her a dog biscuit if she held still.

Back to the lump. We advised the owner that we should take a fine needle aspirate of the lump which means sticking a fine needle in to the lump, with local anaesthetic cream applied on the skin over the lump first. No actual general anaesthetic is required for this quick procedure. After taking the aspirate from the lump we prepare smears and examine them under the microscope. Pamela, one of the partners at Shamrock, is a trained cytopathologist having also had 14 years experience of working at a veterinary diagnostic laboratory. In this case the lump turned out to be a histiocytoma which we suspected from the clinical appearance. Histiocytomas are a type of a tumour and they most commonly occur in young to middle aged dogs. They are interesting in that the body's own immune system fights these tumours and most times they will spontaneously regress within 4-6 weeks.

The beauty of doing a fine needle aspirate is that in cases such as these, the dog may not need to have an operation. The more old fashioned approach used to be to remove lumps and then get them analysed. Much better to do a preoperative assessment, and in some cases such as this one, the dog may not even require surgery.

Duckling Days

We had a new arrival in the practice last friday. A gentleman phoned as his mother had been gardening and accidentally cracked an unhatched duck egg!. He later brought it down to Shamrock to be checked out. It was covered in bits of broken shell and pretty lifeless, we didnt have high hopes for it, nevertheless I wrapped it in a blanket and put it on a heater pad for the night as that is all that could be done initially.
On saturday morning, to my amazement, I came in to find a little fluffy duckling cheeping at me!. He came home with me over the weekend and every day after work. He very much enjoyed a quick swim in the sink or bath and food thrown to him a, as well as sitting with me and watching a bit of TV. By day five I was concerned for his future as a duck as he thought that I was his mother!, after a few phonecalls I decided to take him to a rescue place near Skipton where he would join other ducks and ducklings and be kept safe until releasing him next spring. My house is very quiet without him now but I know he will be happier in his natural surroundings.

,
Keeley

From the office (2) Insurance Claim Forms

As most of you will know we provide the service of filling in your insurance claim forms. This can be straightforward or complicated depending on how many conditions you are claiming for. We have to fill in the veterinary side of the form, photocopy the forms, store the copies and send the claim off with the clinical history and amount you are claiming. Now we have the new (ish) computer system we are able to take advantage of the collaboration between Petplan and VetEnvoy. VetEnvoy is the company that provides a computer link between our computer system and Petplan, enabling us to send claims electronically. The benefits of this are a saving of time and less paperwork and paper usage – and for the client the claim should be settled quicker. If Petplan have any queries they can ask for more information by email and it is hoped that eventually other pet insurance companies will follow suit. Also for you, the client, the advantage is that you only have to fill in the smaller Electronic Claim Authorisation Form. We have a stock of these forms so why not try it and and let us know if you feel your claim is paid more efficiently. Judith (Practice Adminstrator)

Hello, it's keeley (nurse),



I thought I would share a clip of my 8 month old cat, "Doobie", playing with her new "kong Hugga Wubba"!. These marvellous toys contain catnip and have various textures to them for ultimate entertainment!



We have a new range of toys in the practice which are recommended by Roger Mugford (animal behaviourist) aimed at stimulating natural behaviour and of course pure good fun, please call in if you want to find out more about these products, my cats love them!

This is Tracy our nurse who is also interested in wildlife. At this time of year we seem to have a few poorly baby hedgehogs brought to us. We would urge anyone who brings wildlife to us, including birds, only to bring it if they truly think it is injured in some way. Otherwise we support the RSPCA campaign to leave wildlife where it is. Most birds and animals will have a better chance of survival if left in the wild.

Most of the injured or poorly hedgehogs we see tend to have lungworm, ticks, maggots or abscesses and infections. They are usually found by people because they are so poorly. Although we do try and treat them where possible, they rarely survive, unfortunately, when they are very ill.

Where hedgehogs are quite well, we do rehome them with one or two contacts we have with people who can look after them till old enough to release.However we do still stress, best to leave well looking animals where they are.

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside.....

Theres nothing better than spending a weekend at the seaside, which is exactly what we just did. I was a little bit apprehensive about how my very nervous 8 year old Border Collie was going to cope with sleeping in a tent and seeing the sea for the first time so using a DAP collar to help relieve some of her stress and using Zylkene tablets to calm her nerves (I think I needed some too) we were off, bucket and spade (and ball) in hand!

To my amazement she had a very quiet night sleeping in the tent, probably due to a good run before bedtime, only growling a couple of times as people wandered past but didnt bark at all (shes never that quiet at home!). So after a good nights sleep we headed for the beach. Very nervously she went down on the the sand, not sure about the squidgy stuff between her toes but soon forgot about it when she saw her trusty tennis ball! Slowly we headed nearer & nearer the sea until she was getting her feet wet. Very quickly she lost all her fear of the water and was jumping through the waves to get her ball and digging in the sand to get .... who knows but she had fun!

I was really proud of her this weekend, she was incredibly brave considering she normally walks round puddles on the street, although when we went to the park yesterday she still walked round the puddles so perhaps we've got a little way to go yet!

By Sarah (Vet Nurse) & Charlie (the dog)

From the office:
This is to introduce myself - Judith from the office. You will see that I am really a cowgirl at heart and like nothing better than to ride the range in Colorado. In my other life I take care of the accounts at Shamrock which involves sending out accounts and dealing with financial matters. Does anyone remember Miss Harbottle from “If only they could talk” by James Herriot? She was the bane of Siegfried's life – brought in as a model of efficiency but in her severe clothes and brogue shoes continually harassing the vets about the petty cash, the bills and bad handwriting! Well, I'm not a bit like that!
I also get involved in sending the Insurance Claim forms off, so you may get a phone call if anything needs clarifying. Since we introduced the new computer system my job is much easier more enjoyable and I also see the animals as they come in and out and occasionally sometimes I get lucky and am “borrowed” to help with them too!

Molly

This is veterinary surgeon and practice partner Pamela Singleton. With her is Molly who has recently suffered from a cut leg. She has had it stitched up but unfortunately it is still taking a while to heal. Meanwhile she is having to put up with this lampshade on her head which she feels is embarrassing and annoying.Molly is getting quite used to her visits down to Shamrock and always seems happy to see us. Definitely a contender for the dog with the waggiest tail.

Knaresborough Bed Race 2009

Saturday 13th June 2009 Knaresborough Bed Race. Team Shamrock came in 7th place which is brilliant, out of a field of 86 teams. Check the bed race website for details of how this event works. This year the fancy dress theme was music and Shamrock did Irish music, what else, with the bed dressed as a harp, the runners dressed as famous Irish singers and accompanying children dressed as Irish dancers or rugby players, and the Irish wolfhound, pictured, dressed as herself!
The weather was great, a fantastic day was had and we raised .... money for saving the native British red squirrels. Details of exact amount to follow.