Take extra care in the driveway
You get home from a day at work or you finally get home with the car load of poking and prodding children and pull up the drive. As you turn down the stereo or shout at the kids for the millionth time, you just notice something on the drive as you pull in but it is too late and bump.
That’s where I come in and one night we had two car accidents in a row. It was a beautiful still warm evening and I guess all the cats were lying on the nice warm drive. Over half of all the car accidents we see are in their own driveway. The cats or the dogs feel comfortable there and they recognise the sound of your car and don’t think that they might need move. If it was someone else’s car they would probably be off in an instant to check it out.
Luckily, we managed to repair the furry felines with their assortment of injuries.
So please take extra care in the driveway at the moment as all our friends are enjoying the warm weather and the kids might be doing the same. Remember, a really good safety tip is ‘‘turn the car around when you get home as then you won’t have to back out when leaving’’, which is also a huge cause of accidents in a driveway.
But the other common problem this week (apart from an epidemic of fleas) is scratching and, in particular, itchy and sore feet.
Raja is a robust and slobbery black lab that bursts through the door he is so excited to see me. Wearing a wetsuit some days would be better. Raja had a painful problem that he needed help with. His front feet had become very swollen and sore with nasty inflamed weeping areas in between his pads. He came in not knowing which foot to stand on.
This seems to be a more common problem in the labradortype breeds but we also see it in others. It is commonly caused by a contact allergy with certain types of grass and particularly in the early and late summer humid months.
There are other causes that will give a very similar appearance to the feet and sometimes we need to do skin biopsies to rule out other contributing things such as fungal infections or mites.
For Raja, he has begun a long course of antibiotics, along with some much-needed painkillers and anti-inflammatories. Ideally, keeping his feet dry would be nice (but impossible) and once the inflammation has settled down he will be having weekly application of a great little pad spray, which will help prevent any recurrence of the problem.
Itchy feet in some patients can also be an all-year-round thing. Check out some of those previously white but now brown dogs’ feet (for example, some bichons or poodles). The brown staining is caused by saliva as they lick them constantly. The itchiness is part of a more generalised skin allergy called ‘‘atopy’’, but that can be a topic for another day. We call it ‘‘feet and rears’’ or ‘‘feet and ears’’, as a lot of these little guys will itch both or all of these places. Feline hunters are not immune to feet problems either. We see an unusual disease in these guys where only the main pad in one or all four feet swells considerably and becomes very soft and can even open and develop a raw bleeding area. These can be difficult to cure in some, but usually a course of strong antiinflammatories will get those cute pads back to normal.
Anderson’s Veterinary Hospitals in Palmerston North, phone 357 9993 for Pitama Rd or 356 9993 for Hokowhitu, open till 7pm Monday to Friday and open Saturday and Sunday.
Turn the car around when you get home as then you won’t have to back out when leaving.