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