Heartworms alert - know the warning signs to save your pets health!Written by S.A. Smith
Has your pet recently been coughing, eating less, or being more lethargic than usual? If so, it is possible that your pet is infected with heartworms and may need immediate help and attention. Heartworms may infect a host for up to 2 years before any signs or symptoms are visible, and often when they are diagnosed it may be too late for some pets.Heartworms are an infectious parasitic transmitted by mosquitoes that invades major organs in dogs and cats like lungs, pulmonary arteries and heart. Heartworms grow and multiply within pet body and can survive for up to 5 years. Heartworms cause damage and block smaller arterial vessels in your pets key organs leading to organ damage and a multitude of health complications. The symptoms of a heartworm infestation are often difficult to recognize or may be overlooked or discounted as merely flu or cough-like symptoms. Coughing, weigh loss, lethargy, rapid heart beat, poor coat condition, diarrhea and loss of appetite are common symptoms. Treatment to rid a pet of adult heartworms is a costly vet procedure and involves exposing your pet to arsnic poisoning treatments to kill adult heatworms - a procedure that can be fatal for aged pets or ones in deteriorating physical condition.
| | What Footsie taught us !Written by graham and julie
We have just inherited a rag, tag and bobtail of a dog called ’Footsie’. She was found three weeks ago wandering around outside a local restaurant for a couple of days looking for food. Paula, a woman who takes responsibility for stray animals in this part of island, took her in and started to look after her. She soon found that, Footsie has such a quiet, loving nature but is definitely not a ‘looker’. She wouldn’t win any awards at Crufts. Pure white coat, almost albino type eyes but a protruding bottom set of teeth which means she always has canine tooth on left and several of her other teeth showing. But, as we said, a lovely temperament. Very playful, loving and peaceful. Paula took her to local vet for a check up and found that Footsie is about 12 to 13 months old and had recently, within last three weeks or so, had puppies. The vet gave appropriate medicines to help her during whelping period. But otherwise was in good health. She also had a chip in her ear but when they checked computer system found that registration had not been completed properly and only an out of use phone number was registered. So: no chance of finding original owner. For next few days you could see Paula and Footsie walking around village and after a couple of days it became more and more obvious that Paula was getting very attached to ‘Footsie and Footsie to her. After all, Paula had taken her off street and shown her a lot of love and affection. The only problem is that Paula specialises in cats. Wild street cats; and so there was no room in apartment for Footsie. The result: Footsie spent nights in Paula’s car and days in her office. It wasn’t long, no more than a couple of days before people in village began to notice Footsie. About a week later a young guy approached Paula and asked if he could take her for his parents. Their dog had recently died and so he thought she would be an ideal replacement. An ideal loving dog, especially for an older couple. Footsie loves sitting on people’s laps! The deal was done. Paula agreed and Footsie was taken by young man, placed in his car and taken on local ferry to next island where his parents live. Unfortunately his father did not like Footsie. For whatever reason he said he did not want her in house. Although his mother quite liked her it was an impossible situation. So she had to make return journey.
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