Blogging With the Doctors » 2010 » July

It’s tough to see animals die, particularly for veterinary team members who have entered a career based on their love for animals. But for some veterinarians in Baghdad, Iraq, killing animals is necessary to protect the city’s residents.

The Baghdad government has assembled 20 teams of veterinarians and police shooters tasked with killing stray dogs following increased reports of dog attacks in the city. Since April, the teams have killed about 58,000 of the region’s strays, according to the Associated Press (AP).

With open-air markets and a bustling city scene beginning to return following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Baghdad, dogs are finding more food and having bigger litters, according to the AP report. Officials say that attacks have increased steadily and, in Baghdad, children have been bitten and even killed. There are not believed to be any dog shelters in Baghdad, according to the AP.

What do you think? Are these animal control methods justified, or have officials gone too far? Post your comments.

Two studies recently completed at the University of California – Davis are proving that dogs can help children improve their reading.  The study involved children in the third grade.  The children read to dogs once a week for 10 weeks.  They then ran a second study with home schooled children.  In the first study the dogs were brought to the school, participants showed a 12% improvement in fluency and a 30% increase in the second study.  In the second study the children read to the dogs at the UC Davis campus.  The study provides multiple benefits, the children and the dogs enjoy each others company.  Additionally,  75% of parents reported that their children read aloud more frequently.

The researchers concluded that the patient, non-judgemental attention that the dogs offer is key to bringing about the changes in the children’s attitude toward reading. One child noted that “the dogs don’t care if you read really really bad so you just keep going. ”

Source usdavis.edu

Welcome to the blog of Hopewell Animal Hospital!!  We are in the process of updating our web site and plan to provide more information as time goes on.  We would like to provide information on this blog that may be important for the health of your family and pets and may be more detailed then we can discuss in an examination.  In addition, our blog will give you the opportunity to start a dialog with us about controversial topics.  As we find new information we will provide it to you and we welcome the opportunity to learn from you as well.

There are, however, some rules that we must adhere to.  Obviously we want this to be a respectful dialog and no inflammatory or defamatory comments should be made.  Additionally, we can not answer specific questions regarding specific pets, only generalities.  For questions about a particular case or pet please feel free to contact the office by phone  845.221.7387 or email.

We look forward to your comments and welcome your participation on this blog.

Sincerely,

Dr. Kim Buchanan

Dr. Jerry Scheck

So immunology is the study of the immune system, how and why it works.  The goal of the immune system is to protect the body from invading bacteria , viruses, and parasites.

The basic structure of the immune system is the antigen.  The antigen is something that is from outside the body such as a virus.  This antigen then stimulates a response from cells within the blood stream.  This response is called an antibody.  Remember the antigen and antibody for later.

There are 2 major components to the immune system the innate and adaptive immunity.  Innate immunity is the simplest of the systems, it is a generalized non-specific protection mechanism and  it starts to work within hours or even minutes of an invasion or attack by an antigen.  These defense mechanisms can include the skin or cells in the body that attack the invading virus or bacteria.

Adaptive immunity is where all the action is.  This arm of the immune system is antigen specific, that is specific cells will respond to specific threats.  Once the invader is recognized by the adaptive immune system it creates tons of cells to attack the invader.  Additionally, cells known as memory cells are produced.  These cells stay around for a long time and help the body to respond faster if the offending antigen shows up again.

So lets sum this up, the body is being bombarded with viruses from outside the body, the skin is the first line of defense, if the virus gets into the body the adaptive immunity must take over.  When the body has seen the disease in the past the memory cells are able to mount a quicker response and make billions of cells that attack the virus hopefully before it is able to create much damage to the body.

This is the basic principle of the vaccination.  We introduce a small amount of the disease via the vaccine and hope to cause an immune response that creates memory cells.  Now here is the rub….how long do the memory cells last?  The size of the initial response to the vaccine is related the antigen driven response, the more the response the greater the number of memory cells.  The problem is that we do not want to make the pet very sick with the vaccination.  So the ultimate answer is that the memory cells can live a very long time and according to some research at Emory University these cells can even outlive the host.

Here is where the problem occurs, we do not have an easy way to measure the number of memory cells in general practice.  The other problem is that each animal responds to a vaccine in a different manner.  So two different animals can respond to the same vaccine in different ways.

In our next installment we will look at  vaccine titers.

As we all have seen recently there is a lot of controversy concerning the use of vaccinations in both humans and animals.  I would like to use this area to discuss the pros and cons of vaccines for your pet.  At our hospital we evaluate the life style of each animal, as well as their human companions, to decide which vaccines are appropriate for their specific situation.

The first controversy to discuss is which vaccinations are needed and why are they needed. Most veterinarians, including the AVMA (American Veterinary Medical Association) http://www.avma.org/issues/vaccination/default.asp AAHA (American Animal Hospital Association) https://secure.aahanet.org/eWeb/dynamicpage.aspx?site=resources&webcode=CanineVaccineGuidelines and the Association of Feline Practitoners http://www.cfa.org/articles/health/vaccination-guidelines.html agree that there are core and non-core vaccinations.  The core vaccinations are considered essential for the health and well being of the pet.  For dogs these vaccines may include, rabies, distemper, and parvo virus vaccinations.  For cats, core vaccines may include rabies, panleukopenia, rhinotracheitis and calici virus.   Non core vaccinations are used for certain specific conditions.  For dogs there are several examples of this type of vaccine such as leptospirosis, bordetella, lyme vaccine, giardia vaccine and canine influenza, non core vaccines for cats include feline leukemia, FIP and FIV vaccines.

There are many things to consider when deciding which vaccines your pet needs.  Risk assesment might include evaluation of your pets lifestyle,the number and type of pets that you have, the presence of immune suppressing disease in the people in the household.   For example, outdoor pets have a much greater risk for disease than a completly indoor pet.  If you take your pet hiking or hunting again, the risks change.  With cats, most risk involves indoor vs. outdoor cat, but certain indoor situations could provide your cat with more risks than other situations. Other considerations include your pets age, health status and prior vaccine status.

In future installments on this blog we will discuss each vaccine, the pros/cons of each.  Additionally, we will discuss the idea of vaccine titers, modified vaccine schedules, and situations where no vaccinations are indicated.  Before we can have this discussion we need to have a basic understanding of immunology.  Nothing fancy…. not too medical but it is important to understand what we are trying to accomplish with the vaccine.