What to do in the event of a dog attack in the UK

Dog attacks - Everybody I seem to meet has had a problem with their dog being attacked by an owner who cant control their dog/s or wont take any responsbility. Even on sunday a terrier went for Monty and the owner just walked off. It is difficult to collect any details about the person but really every dog attack should be reported to the DOG WARDEN and then they can start to build up a picture of what is happening. Even if you have very few details PLEASE STILL REPORT TO T...HE DOG WARDEN!!!!! PLEASE SHARE THIS WITH EVERYBODY YOU KNOW WHO HAS A DOG OR KNOWS SOMEBODY THAT HAS A DOG..........

1. So try and get details from the person. Ask around the village or walk and see what you can find out about them (that is how I found the owners of the collie that nearly killed Hardy). When you start talking to people they can know the person or dog or know of others that it has attacked.
2. Try and take a photo of the person/dog - I know this isnt always easy but it is evidence
3. Try to get a registration number, car make and colour - this is how I knew who had attacked my friend's dog (Barney) as their car had a company logo on it
4. Try to take names of people who are witnesses or names of the people that you are told have had their dogs attacked
5. Be specific on location, date and time - the dog warden says this means that the area can be patrolled to catch the dog walker
6. Take pictures of all injuries and keep vets bills
Who to report dog bites to:
1. If a dog bites you contact the police but also contact the police if you know that a dog has attacked multiple times. They may not be interested but push it and least it is on record.
2. Always report to the dog warden and keep telling everybody to do the same - people are getting away with murder (literally!!) because people either don't know what to do or they dont think they have enough info or they don't think it will do any good - YES IT WILL!!
3. I have talked to the RSPCA about this. The RSPCA were very kind and went out to visit an owner that had attacked a previous dog but now they dont really have the resources. However, they did advise me that if it was a serious attack or you know of multiple attacks ring their cruelty line to see if there is anything they can do

Please email me on info@animalstalk2me.co.uk if you have had any experiences or advice

Prepare your pet for the baby's arrival

Please contact me on info@animalstalk2me.co.uk to book a session

I am so fed up with dogs (and cats) being dumped at rescues because the owner is having a baby!  Firstly a pet is not a throw away item and secondly pets and children can live happily side by side - and it is good for the children to look after something!

But you need to prepare your dog/cat for a new arrival because they will not understand the crying, the smell!, the nappys everywhere and the fact that the toys on the floor are not now theirs!

So at least 3 to 4 months before the baby is due you need to start to do the following:

1. buy a cd or record the noise of crying and play it during the day so the animal gets used to it
2. start laying down nappys, wipes, creams, changing mats on the floor so the pet gets used to leaving them alone
3. buy a doll that cries and carry it around and show it to the pet
4. Start putting the child gates up and training your pet on how to stay behind them or go through them
5. Take them and show them the bedroom, cot, mobiles etc so there is nothing new or unfamiliar when the baby arrives

So when the baby comes home you need to introduce your pet and not keep saying "Get away".  Obviously you never leave the pet and the child alone (the pet should be used to this by now).  But you must ensure that when the baby is asleep that you give your pet your full attention - remember your pet was your baby before the baby!  They will feel jealous and put out and will  most probably think they have done something wrong.  So please watch out for a change in behaviour.  My book has several stories in where dogs become very upset and even start to self harm because they have lost their owners affection and feel they have done something wrong.

So then you have to train your baby to treat your dog with respect.  No pulling, tugging or sticking pencils up their nose!  Your pet must have a safe place to retreat to (which is why a crate is a good idea) so they can have some peace and quiet.  A dog will warn a child with a little growl (this is how they keep their puppies under control) so it is your responsbility to remove the child and let the dog know that it is ok.  Dont keep shouting at the dog as you will make it nervous and you will lose trust.  Why not contact me for a session and we can sort out any problems?

ticks and how to protect you and your animals from them really easily!

please contact me on info@animalstalk2me.co.uk

In the UK we are getting a lot more ticks now because of our wetter summers.  In 26 years of having dogs not one of mine got a tick until we had Monty.  Being a puppy he ran into the undergrowth at the woods and came back with two - I was horrified!!!  We have an amazing little device that you put around the neck of the tick and screw it until the tick is removed.  But first of all you need to spot the tick and then hold your dog still enough to get it out without leaving anything!  Polly reacts really badly to them with a huge lump and lots of screaming - which is not like her.

So as a homeopathy I started looking at alternatives.  There are a lot of sprays that you spray on the fur but at the moment essential oils disagree with me so I couldnt use them.  Also the tick an enter a part that isnt sprayed.

So I contacted Ainsworth pharmacy and they supply a tick remedy.  So I thought I would give it a go.  So I gave them a tablet once a day for a week, then every other day for a week and got it down to 1 tablet a week.  And guess what - NO TICKS IN TWO YEARS!!!  It is so easy to do.

People are now getting ticks and this is causing Lymmes disease and because it is not common doctors are having trouble identifying it.  So the tick remedy would work brilliantly for humans as well.  I heard about one woman who walked on Exmoor and then would go to a shop to get the owner to remove the ticks from her and her dog before she went home!!!  Why would you put yourself at risk like that.

Go to Ainsworths website and order Ticks Caninie (it works for humans as well) 30c.

Throwing a stick for a dog

Everyday I see owners throwing sticks for their dogs and letting them chew them.  I have seen many dogs that have fallen on sticks and they have gone through the roof of their mouths causing great damage.  Also chewing sticks can cause bits of stick to stick through vital organs and can cause pancreatitis which is very serious.

You can buy plastic sticks which are great and are much better for your dog!!!

Is Your Pet Receiving Any of These Useless Vaccines?

By Dr. Becker

Today I have a very special guest returning for a second time to talk with us and give us the tremendous benefit of his knowledge, Dr. Ronald Schultz.
Dr. Schultz heads up the Department of Pathobiological Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine. He’s joining me today on behalf of an important project he’s been involved with for several years – the Rabies Challenge Fund. The purpose of the fund is to determine the duration of immunity conveyed by rabies vaccines, with the goal of extending the required interval for rabies boosters to five and then to seven years.
Dr. Schultz has agreed to spend some time today, in the first half of our two-part discussion, talking about core and non-core vaccines in cats and dogs.
I asked him first to briefly explain the difference between the two types of vaccines.

Core versus Non-Core Vaccines

Dr. Schultz replied that several years ago, the American Association of Feline Practitioners (AAFP) decided to look at all the USDA-licensed vaccines that were available for cats. They put them into categories, with the first and most important category being the core vaccines, which are those vaccines that every cat should receive.
Then they went back over the list looking for vaccines that should not be given to any cat, and placed those in a category called not-recommended vaccines.
All remaining vaccines on the list – those that didn’t fall into either the core or not-recommended vaccine categories – were placed in a third category called non-core or optional vaccines. These were to be given based on individual need, after considering a number of factors. So that’s how categories of vaccines came into existence.

The Feline Leukemia Virus (FeLV) Vaccine: Should Every Cat Receive It?

In the most updated feline vaccination guidelines, the feline leukemia virus (FeLV) vaccine has been moved from the non-core to the core category for kittens. Dr. Schultz says he would like to see every kitten receive two doses of the vaccine, administered from two to six weeks apart. (If the interval is longer than six weeks, you must start the protocol over.) He feels that with those two doses and a re-vaccination at one year, we can immunize a large percentage of the cat population against feline leukemia.
Dr. Schultz says the new guidelines recommend revaccination (after the kitten series and the one-year booster) every two to three years, but he doesn’t believe boosters after age one are necessary – especially given the development of age-related resistance.
I asked Dr. Schultz if he thinks even strictly indoor cats with no exposure to other cats should receive the FeLV vaccine, and he thinks they should (I don’t) – mainly because indoor cats very often become outdoor cats. In situations where a cat truly will never go outside or be exposed to other cats, there’s no need for the vaccine. But in Dr. Schultz’s experience, even people with the best intentions don’t wind up keeping their pet indoors at all times.
Dr. Schultz points out that the goal is to achieve population immunity. If the problem of persistently viremic cats (those who carry the virus) can be eliminated through kitten vaccination programs, the disease can be extinguished. Dr. Schultz says his colleagues in Switzerland tell him they have essentially eradicated the feline leukemia virus from that country’s cat population. Switzerland is about the size of many states in the U.S., and Dr. Schultz believes we could eliminate the virus state-by-state, if we did what Switzerland did.
He says he’s been talking to colleagues in Hawaii, trying to convince them to attempt to eliminate it there, since feline leukemia has been a real problem in that state’s cat population for years. Hawaii also has a large feral population, which doesn’t mean the feral cats are any more a threat than housecats. Studies of feline leukemia in feral cats indicate that the prevalence of persistent viremia is no higher than in pet cats – in fact, it’s actually higher in pet cats.
I asked Dr. Schultz if he had concerns about the feline leukemia vaccine and vaccine-associated sarcomas. He answered that initially there were just two types of vaccines linked to injection-site sarcomas in cats, adjuvanted leukemia vaccines and adjuvanted rabies vaccines. Dr. Schultz says it’s important to keep in mind that all adverse reactions to vaccines, including the development of tumors, occur in genetically predisposed cats. In the case of an adjuvanted vaccine, that vaccine in a predisposed cat is more likely to lead to an injection-site sarcoma than a modified-live vaccine.

What About the Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV) Vaccine and the Chlamydia Vaccine?

I asked Dr. Schultz about the FIV (feline immunodeficiency virus) vaccine for cats. He replied that he does not recommend it. He said when it’s used, there must be at least three doses for the primary immunization, and then annual revaccination. One of the major problems is that there are strains of FIV floating around that the vaccine doesn’t protect against.
In addition, while FIV is a concern, the percentage of infected cats is fairly low. We just don’t see it a lot. FIV isn’t even considered in reviews of what vaccines are necessary for the shelter population.

I asked Dr. Schultz about the chlamydia vaccine. He doesn’t recommend it, either. The vaccine is primarily designed to reduce the incidence of feline infectious respiratory disease complex. In the shelter population, the vaccine hasn’t been helpful, and chlamydia is rare in pet cats. There’s also a feline bordetella vaccine Dr. Schultz does not recommend, because it hasn’t proven beneficial for shelter cats.

Is There Any Need to Run Titers on Cats?

Next I asked Dr. Schultz if he is seeing more cat owners requesting antibody titers these days. He answered that no, very few cat owners bother titering. He says he’s not sure there’s any real need to titer for cats because there’s only one disease we can effectively titer for, and that’s panleukopenia, which is essentially feline parvovirus.

Why Dr. Schultz Prefers the Term “Protective Antibody Testing” to Titering

Dogs are of course a different story, and Dr. Schultz definitely recommends antibody testing. I asked him what terminology he prefers – does he even use the word “titer”? He replied that he prefers either “protective antibody testing” or simply “antibody testing” instead of titers. This is because many tests today return yes-or-no results rather than titers.
Titer tests tend to become a numbers game, whereas tests that return a result of either “yes” (the animal has antibody at a level considered protective) or “no” (the animal does not have antibody at a level considered protective) give the information everyone needs, and no one has to get mired in trying to understand what the titer numbers truly mean. It’s much less confusing and should help veterinarians and pet owners make better decisions about revaccinations.
As I discussed with Dr. Jean Dodds in a recent interview, the whole subject of titers is tremendously confusing. Many veterinarians recommend revaccinations because they simply can’t sort out titer test results. They feel it’s easier to just revaccinate – especially when boarding kennels and grooming salons that receive titer test results often don’t understand them or accept them as proof of a dog’s immunity.

Vaccination or Revaccination is NOT a Guarantee of Protection Against Disease

Dr. Schultz points out that what many people fail to understand is that vaccination or revaccination is by no means an assurance that the animal is protected. He has seen dogs that have been vaccinated repeatedly who have no antibody. When challenged (exposed to a disease), they are susceptible. And that includes rabies vaccines. Dr. Schultz has seen dogs that have been vaccinated five or more times against rabies that have no antibody. In the case of rabies, distemper and parvo, if there’s no antibody, the animal is not protected.
To demonstrate that fact, and to demonstrate that dogs can have lifelong immunity after receiving distemper and parvo vaccines, he keeps them in a distemper and parvo-free environment after their puppy shots. He does not revaccinate them. Seven years later, he checks their antibody levels. If there is antibody present, he challenges them with the virulent virus itself, and they survive it. If they don’t have antibody, he doesn’t challenge them because there’s a high likelihood they will get sick and die.
The presence of antibody, even at low levels, means the immune memory response will kick in and within hours the dog’s body will bring the infection under control. There will be infection, but it won’t cause disease. There’s a big difference between infection and disease. And in fact, reinfection without disease isn’t a bad thing because it leads to natural stimulation of the immune response. A few vaccines can provide sterile immunity. It is called this because the antibody produced is able to completely prevent the virus from infecting the animal, and so can’t reproduce itself. Vaccines that provide sterile immunity are almost always against viruses that produce systemic rather than local disease.
So for example, parvo and distemper vaccines provide sterile immunity for life in most cases, similar to measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines in humans. Dr. Schultz uses the example of his own case of measles when he was 5 years old. There were no measles vaccines back then. But 50 years later, he had his blood drawn for a demonstration for his veterinary students. He sent the blood to the State Laboratory of Hygiene at the University of Wisconsin and they performed a variety of serologic tests. His measles antibody response came back at a level considered protective. Now, how did Dr. Schultz have protective immunity 50 years after being naturally immunized with measles? He can thank his memory effector B cells.
Dr. Schultz explains the discovery of these long-lived plasma cells is fairly recent. They reside in bone marrow and are programmed to continue to produce antibody. A dog that lives on average 15 years will still have long-lived cells that produce antibodies to distemper or parvo at the age of 15.

Useless Vaccines and Why Some Are Still on the Market

The good news is that distemper and parvo are really the only two life-threatening canine diseases still active in our environment. Giardia, for example, is an unfortunate disease, but it’s not life threatening. And according to Dr. Schultz, the really good news is that the giardia vaccine is no longer on the market.
I asked him about the dental plaque vaccine, and he said there’s more good news – it’s no longer on the market, either. It was in clinical trials under USDA authorization for four years. At the end of the four years, when they looked at the results, it was clear the vaccine didn’t work. It was taken off the market, and according to Dr. Schultz, credit is due Pfizer, the manufacturer of the vaccine, because they were willing to pull it.
I asked Dr. Schultz why he thinks some of these totally unnecessary vaccines ever enter the marketplace to begin with. He believes that very often there is some potential for those vaccines to provide benefit. But he also feels it’s critical that there’s a test period that actually determines whether vaccines do or don’t meet the requirements for licensure. Dr. Schultz believes the USDA is looking much more carefully at those types of vaccines now than they used to because these days we understand much more about what immunity is, how to measure it, how it protects us, and how it translates into an effective vaccine.
Dr. Schultz says one of his “favorite” vaccines is the canine coronavirus vaccine. He calls it “a vaccine in search of a disease.” This vaccine came into being back in the late 1970s when canine parvovirus first appeared. No one recognized parvo yet, but dogs were getting sick and many of them also happened to have coronavirus.
As it turns out, every animal has coronavirus -- even puppies. Dr. Schultz says it’s actually a beneficial virus. It doesn’t cause disease by itself. When scientists finally discovered the minute, spherical virus we now know as parvovirus, they found what was making the dogs sick. Meanwhile, Dr. Schultz and some of his colleagues were able to demonstrate that corona, in coexistence with parvo, could enhance the virulence of parvo.
In the 1990s, Dr. Schultz published studies that looked at what benefit the canine coronavirus vaccine might provide in the case of even a dual infection. What it provided was … nothing. But the vaccine still exists even though it has no value. Why? Because veterinarians still buy it. As Dr. Schultz explains, the only thing that removes a licensed vaccine from the market is if the manufacturer discontinues it. That’s what happened to the giardia vaccine and the porphyromonas (dental plaque) vaccine.
So if your vet says your dog needs the canine coronavirus vaccine, you can argue against it because you know its history