Where do you draw the line?

The tuxedo kitten was roughly 5 months old, tremoring, teeth chattering, kitten paws jerking, and disquieting to see. Unfortunately, it's a common sight. Owners, hoping to save a few bucks dose their cats with OTC dog flea products and the pet ends up paying the ultimate price. With Sargeants, BioSpot, TopSpot, Haartz and other permethrin-based flea products, the story is the same.

These owners had dosed their dog and saved one drop for the cat, reasoning that the box only says it's not for cats due to the total tube amount. To be fair, two of the most common and safe veterinary flea products, Advantage (imidacloprid) and Frontline (fipronil) are able to be dosed out from the large dog tube. This information is causually tossed around on pet information sites, cost-saving pet boards, and also by word of mouth. As the information makes it's way into pet owner minds, the safer brandnames lose out to cheaper and more conveniant alternatives. We see the outcome at the e-clinic and it's heartbreaking.

The tremors caused by the flea product raised the kittens temp above 105F putting the kitten at risk of brain damage and DIC. Valium and injectable methocarbamol reduced the violence of the tremoring only slightly. Two more doses of methocarb hardly made a dent. This was a very serious case and the kitten needed hospitalization.

The good side, if that can be said, of permethrin toxicity is that it has a good outcome if it's caught early enough and treated agressively. Unfortunately. the populace that tends to buy discount, OTC flea products is not the populace that has funds to treat the results.

The owners kept stressing they applied only ONE drop, nothing more, but that's all that it takes for the poison to take effect. We bathed the cat after the first dose of muscle relaxant, but dermal absorbtion is rapid. Our goal is to reduce further exposure from additional product on the fur.

Unfortuantely for the kitten and the owners, the kitten was regarded as a "just a free barn cat" (their words) and thus not worthy of spending money for additional treatment. I'm reasonably sure the owners will never make this mistake again. Holding the little shivering body while it received the euthanasia solution is tough knowing how good the prognosis can be...as long as owners give it a chance.

Everyone has the line they draw in the sand when it comes to pet treatment. For some, any treatment is too much, for others, no amount is too much. We currently have a dog that came in a week or so ago as an HBC with a fractured thoracic vertebrae. It had no tone in it's hind end and limited deep pain. The dog was older, dependable, loyal, and running off-leash with it's owner. It took one second for something to catch it's attention across the road and off it dashed.

The owners made the tough decision to go to surgery. Today, I watched as the dog eagerly wagged it's tail as we lifted it into it's cart. It's starting to bear weight with assistance. It's also unbelieveably expensive treatment. We're talking about a new car type expense.

The contrast between the two cases is fascinating. Two preventable cases. Two poor choices by owners. The "easily" treatable case never gets a chance and the case which involved intense neurosurgery, expense, and guarded prognosis gets the go-ahead. The value of a life is assigned a price tag, a property value.

Where do you draw the line?

MRSA - Our own doing

My mother sent me a link to an article she read. The article discussed methods of transmission of various zoonotic diseases including MRSA. It mentioned cats as a common denominator in homes which have been identified to contain MRSA. The article goes on to make this statement:

"Before you banish your pet from the house or vow to keep them at arm's length, Dr. Becker points out that the goal is to get rid of the risk, not the pet. "If you lose the intimacy, you lose the healing power of pets," he says. Dr. Becker offers several solutions to minimize the risk of catching a disease from our pets. High-tech solutions include using an antimicobrial shampoo on our pets to combat MRSA..."

O.M.G.
Seriously?
How about also recommending you visit your vet for a dose of a beta-lactam?

Dear Dr. Marty Becker, please stop whoring yourself out to the pet owning population if you're going to continue to endorse the flippant use of antimicrobial products. This is partially what has gotten us into this MRSA mess in the first place.