Poor ratty’s taken a turn

OUR VET DAVID GRANT WORKS HIS MAGIC

QMy son’s rat has been having funny turns. He goes quiet, trembles and then seems to lose consciousness for a few minutes. Then as quickly as it began he recovers back to normal. Can anything be done for this?

AThere are various possibilities and I think getting a veterinary consultation is worthwhile. In your letter you also mentioned a couple of bouts of red tears and sneezing.

The red tears, caused by a pigment, are a sign of stress in rats and the sneezing could suggest a respiratory infection. This can lead to pneumonia, with a few warning signs such as the ones you have seen.

I would start by checking the cage to ensure there is no damp bedding and that there is good ventilation and plenty of space.

In the absence of respiratory disease I think a central nervous system disease is possible. This could be affecting the middle ear, an inflammation of the brain, or a tumour. Theoretically a tumour could be seen on an MRI scan, but it is technically very difficult, and in any case surgery would not be possible.

For the first two suspects it might be worth discussing with your vet to see if a course of antibiotics would help. Several of those commonly used in rats cross the blood brain barrier and therefore might help.

There are also some drugs used in epilepsy in dogs and cats that have successfully reduced the frequency of rat seizures, if nothing else helps.

My eight- year- old cocker spaniel has a lump on his chest that is getting bigger. Similar lumps were diagnosed a year ago as lipomas. Are these

pre- cancerous? Does anything further need to be done?

ALipomas are benign tumours of subcutaneous fat tissue. They are fairly common in dogs, but rare in cats. In a survey of my own cases of canine skin tumours, they accounted for five per cent. Some vets, as yours did, will use a fine needle to collect cells and make the diagnosis themselves by staining these cells and examining them under the microscope.

Lipomas never spread but they can cause problems in other ways. They tend to occur in prominent locations, on the chest, thorax and legs, and can grow up to 30cm in size.

This results in them becoming cosmetically unacceptable.

In some locations, particularly on the limbs, they can infiltrate between muscles and cause lameness due to occupying space and pressing on nerves.

There is a very rare malignant fat cell tumour called liposarcoma. In the 700 dogs I examined, I only saw one case, and it represents the only one I have personally treated. Liposarcomas appear to arise independently and not from a lipoma, and although they only rarely spread they can be difficult to remove and may therefore recur.

Lipomas are generally easy to remove and I recommend you talk to your vet to arrange surgical removal when it’s convenient. The outlook following surgery for lipomas is good.

David Grant MBE was a vet at the RSPCA Harmsworth Hospital for Animals. Email questions to him at pamperedpets@ express. co. uk. David is unable to enter into individual correspondence