A WORD WITH THE VET

CARING FOR YOUR PETS

Paisley vet Neil McIntosh, of Abbey Veterinary Group, shares his views with you every Thursday.

Today, Neil discusses the hidden dangers of calcium.

When we think about nutrition, calcium is one of the good guys.

It apparently builds strong teeth and bones”

Children’s yoghurts, cheese, dog biscuits and treats all have added calcium”

It must be a premium product surely, this calcium?

But, actually, despite the ridiculous hype, it’s not.

It’s cheap, it’s tasteless, it’s only chalk and it can be dangerous.

Oh sure, every breeder will know the risks of eclampsia — that life threatening condition of lactating bitches that can be cured with a single injection of calcium.

I grant you that every owner of a giant breed dog will worry — inappropriately, as it turns out — that they are not packing enough calcium into their pets’ bones.

But too much calcium can be far more dangerous than too little.

Look at that pregnant bitch, for example. Give her additional calcium during her pregnancy and she will go into ‘storage mode’, making eclampsia after she whelps far more likely.

Take Snoopy, the boxer. Two weeks ago, he was a happy-golucky, healthy, bouncy, young dog. Today, he is a shadow of his former self.

He’s thin, lacking in muscle and he has the worried, gaunt expression on his face that only severe illness can produce.

He may have permanent kidney damage and he will need a special diet and medication for some time.

His owners spent their holiday money on his treatment, but they are just content that Snoopy is here at all.

Because, for a long time, none of us thought that Snoopy was going to make it.

And yet, he didn’t contract some terrible infection. He wasn’t knocked down by a bus. He didn’t develop a tumour.

All that Snoopy did was chew a tube of his owner’s psoriasis cream, called Dovonex.

This is a common treatment for the difficult, irritating skin condition that affects many humans.

You might think a little tube couldn’t possibly do harm to a big dog.

It is, after all, perfectly safe to use on human skin. But then you would be very wrong.

Like many psoriasis creams, Dovonex contains a vitamin D derivative that, when swallowed, causes a massive increase in blood calcium levels.

This causes dullness, inappetance and vomiting and the kidneys are damaged as they struggle to cope with the calcium deposited within them.

Only intensive therapy with intravenous fluids, diuretics and steroids can save the day. If you are lucky.

Snoopy is not alone — he’s the third dog in as many weeks that we have seen as a result of the canine theft of human psoriasis cream.

So far, all have survived — but only just.

There are other examples of the dangers of calcium.

Ingestion of some rat poisons can cause effects similar to those produced by Dovonex.

An excess of the mineral in the diet of young, rapidly growing dogs has been implicated in a number of bone and joint abnormalities.

It is worth remembering that calcium, like many vital substances, only remains one of the good guys when taken in moderation.

In excess, it can be very dangerous.