Friday, September 25, 2009

Veterinary industry marks World Rabies Day


In support of World Rabies Day efforts, two manufacturers of veterinary rabies vaccines are raising awareness of the disease and working to combat its spread in Africa.
Intervet/Schering-Plough Animal Health has announced that it will again sponsor rabies vaccine donations to the Afya Serengeti project. In recognition of the urgent need for global rabies control, veterinarians in the United States can participate in canine rabies vaccination and donation program to save lives in the Serengeti region of Africa.
Each day, approximately 100 children die from rabies. In Africa alone, around 25,000 people die from this horrible and preventable disease each year. Kept as both pets and working animals, domestic dogs are an essential part of everyday life in the Serengeti, yet they account for 84.2% of rabies cases. Controlling the disease in domestic dogs means reducing deaths from rabies in children.
For every dose of select dog and cat vaccines purchased by US veterinarians between September 1 and December 31, 2009, Intervet/Schering-Plough Animal Health will donate a dose of canine rabies vaccine to Afya Serengeti, which means “Health for Serengeti” in Swahili. By vaccinating and keeping pets healthy here in the United States, veterinarians and pet owners can extend help to Africa to control this devastating disease.
Afya Serengeti is a rabies control project that works to control rabies in this region of Tanzania by vaccinating domestic dogs. These dogs are responsible for more than 8 of 10 cases of the deadly disease. Pet owners become part of this important cause when their pets are vaccinated with a Continuum canine or feline vaccine, Nobivac Lyme or Canine Influenza Vaccine, H3N8.
Intervet/Schering-Plough Animal Health has committed up to 250,000 doses worldwide to the project this year, of which 150,000 will come from the United States. To date, the support of veterinarians throughout the world has enabled the global animal health company to donate more than 900,000 doses as well as subsidize the purchase of a vehicle for the delivery of vaccines to a larger geographic area.
Veterinarians can visit www.afya.org to make a donation, learn more about the issue, and view videos about the impact of the project on the Serengeti region.
In other news, the Student American Veterinary Medical Association (SAVMA) chapters competed to raise funds for rabies prevention and education programs. This year's winner, Kansas State University (K-State), earned an on-site rabies symposium sponsored by Merial, held on Sept. 19.
"Rabies awareness and education is critical to public health and safety in the United States and around the world," said Ralph Richardson, DVM, dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine at K-State. "Kansas State University is committed to efforts that help prevent rabies and is excited to be the host of the Merial Rabies Symposium."
With the recent passing of George Baer, DVM, MPH, the "father of oral rabies vaccination," this year's event had a special meaning. Baer was regarded as an international wildlife rabies expert and was credited with developing one of the first oral vaccines that eliminated red fox rabies from several countries in Western Europe. In recognition of his efforts, the 2009 rabies symposium was dedicated to him.
In addition to the symposium, Merial supports other rabies awareness and educational efforts, including the sponsorship of nine rabies training seminars for Noah's Wish, an international nonprofit organization that rescues and cares for endangered animals during natural disasters.

Issue Date: Veterinary Forum
September 2009
(Vol 26, No 9)


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Sunday, June 14, 2009

South Korea on alert over residues in duck meat

26 May, 2009

Korea banned the import of Chinese heat-processed duck meat after discovering an antimicrobial: cloramfenicol in duck meat. Korea has prohibited the use on animals since 1991.
The National Veterinary Research and Quarantine Service (NVRQS) said it found 1.0 parts per billion of Chloramphenicol in a 3.8 tonne-shipment of meat from a Chinese meat exporter.
The ban will be imposed until Henan Huangchuan Huaying Poultry Corporation-Meat Products Co. can determine the exact cause of the contamination and ensure that tainted meat is not shipped to South Korea in the future.
Source: Poultry Med

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Tuesday, May 26, 2009

What does swine flu do to piglets?

Issue Date: Veterinary Forum
May 2009
(Vol 26, No 5)


What does swine flu do to piglets?

BANGKOK, Thailand — Researchers studying the effects of H1N1 influenza in a group of piglets have found that all infected animals showed flu-like signs 1 to 4 days after infection and were shedding virus 2 days after infection, according to Virology Journal.

Roongroje Thanawongnuwech, DVM, PhD, led a team of researchers from Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, who infected piglets 3 weeks of age with both the H1N1 strain of swine flu and the less dangerous H3N2 subtype.

“The results demonstrated that both swine flu subtypes were able to induce flu-like signs and lung lesions in weanling pigs,” Thanawongnuwech said. “However, the severity of the disease with regard to both gross and microscopic lung lesions was greater in the H1N1-infected pigs.”

All infected pigs developed respiratory signs, such as nasal discharge, coughing, sneezing and conjunctivitis. On pathologic examination, lung lesions large enough to be seen without a microscope were observed. According to Thanawongnuwech, “these lesions were characterized by dark, plum-colored, consolidated areas on lung lobes and were most severe 2 days after infection, especially in the H1N1-infected pigs, where approximately one-third of the lung was covered.” The course of infection was limited to 1 week or less. None of the animals died.

Veterinary Forum

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Sunday, May 24, 2009

Choosing a dog breeder.

Most people are very interested in animals, especially dogs, wanted to have an apartment or house. Dog breeder is a person, you can contact if you want a pure-bred dog. But the problems that dog the breeder reputation and you should make sure that the person who, after the animals are healthy and they are. Easy to see ads in local newspapers, but it is recommended to ensure that breeders of dogs selected by the Board. How to select the dog breeder?

The aim of this paper is to propose some ways to tell if a person responsible and trustworthy or not.

Search Reference

In general, a dog breeder is responsible and professional and very careful with the reference: if it can be extended, the characteristics of each person, a professional who is interested. A good dog breeder to provide information about the past and the dog gets a phone number or a contact. You can see the effect. You can always contact breeder dog, which has contributed to some of your friends because you can say you are responsible for it.

You will be asked a series of questions

A good dog breeder may be that animals and humans have many more questions for you. They wanted to ensure that the animals are in the right environment, people in the law because it is very important. They have information about your life and the economy, or if you have children or not, the size of houses and gardens and other issues to ensure that the dog is the right place with the right family. If the dog breeder does not ask all these questions with regard to money and you can not see the dog well.

Risks and Insurance

A professional dog breeder has all the dogs and puppies for sale through medical tests mereka.Yet, there are some problems that can be observed after several months or years. Golden Retriever, for example, can be a problem, it is dysphasia, genetic errors in the hip joints of animals that can not be seen until the animal is several months. In this case, a good dog breeder will not trouble to give the money back, or what circumstances. genetics of this problem can be avoided by selective breeding, but there are many chicken because hereditary disease, while some of them as hereditary effects.

Another way a dog breeder

Internet and local newspapers, but some places where you can a dog breeder. You can also try to pet stores and veterinarians, and exhibition of dogs. This means that if a dog breeder is reliable for success and love for dogs and performance that you did.

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Friday, May 22, 2009

"Alternative" Medicine on your pets

Field of alternative medical treatment animals is to analyze and consider the various things that have a direct impact on the life of your pet. Including the practices that use a combination of conventional and alternative methods to find the best answers to solve problems in your pet.

Many veterinarians who understand the alternative treatment of dog and cat, to provide a comprehensive evaluation that includes the behavior, nutrition, environment, emotional stress and other factors on your pet. Veterinarians recognize that this practice will provide a variety of additional services beyond the standard physical examination continued.

You can now create a revitalized with alternative healing gem necklace on your pets. The question is why I must have with this?. Yes necklace can now be offered on alternative your pets. On the internet offered a lot of sales of accessories for your dogs and cats online.

Aromatherapy is also an effective complementary therapy in the psychological treatment, the condition of restlessness, stress, and depression. Could not be denied a relationship between the baud memory. The term refers to the use of aromatherapy perfume or essential oil. This oil is a concentrated perfume (essences) are taken from plant sources such as wood, flowers, fruit, root-akaran, leaves and resins.Do you know breathe with the calm that is a matter of psychological activate positive emotional responses of the brain that control memory and emotion?

Do not you want your pet healthy and stylish? For that use an alternative method such as aromatherapy and the necklace can make the dog and cat you become more healthy and stylish.

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Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Fish and Humans May Share Pain Reactions

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. Fish don't make noises or contort their faces to show pain when hooks are removed from their mouths, but a Purdue University researcher believes they feel that pain all the same.
Joseph Garner, DPhil, an assistant professor of animal sciences at Purdue, helped develop a test that showed goldfish can feel pain and that their reactions to it are much like that of humans. "There has been an effort by some to argue that a fish's response to noxious stimuli is merely a reflexive action and that the fish didn't really feel pain," Garner said. "We wanted to see if fish responded to potentially painful stimuli in a reflexive way or a more clever way."
Garner and Janicke Nordgreen, a doctoral student at the Norwegian School of Veterinary Science, attached small foil heaters to the goldfish and slowly increased the temperature. To prevent any physical damage to tissue, the heaters were designed with sensors and safeguards that turned the heaters off at certain temperatures.
For the test, half of the fish were injected with morphine and the others received saline. The researchers believed that those receiving morphine would be able to withstand higher temperatures before reacting if they actually felt the pain. However, both groups of fish showed a response at about the same temperature.
Because both groups of fish wriggled at about the same temperature, the researchers thought the responses might be more like a reflex than a cognitive reaction. The reflexive response is similar to people involuntarily moving their hand off a hot stove.
However, subsequent observation of the goldfish in their home tanks found that each group exhibited different behaviors.
"The fish given the morphine acted like they always had: swimming and being fish," Garner said. "The fish that had received saline — even though they responded the same in the test — later acted differently. They showed defensive behaviors that indicated wariness, fear or anxiety."
Nordgreen said those behavioral differences demonstrated that fish can feel both reflexive and cognitive pain.
"The experiment shows that fish not only respond to painful stimuli with reflexes but also change their behavior after the event," Nordgreen said. "Together with what we know from experiments carried out by other groups, this indicates that the fish consciously perceive the test situation as painful and switch to behaviors indicative of having been through an aversive experience."
Garner believes that the morphine blocked the experience of pain, but not behavioral responses to the heat stimulus itself.
"If you have a headache and take a painkiller, the pain may go away, but you can still feel the presence or discomfort of the headache," Garner said. "The goldfish that did not get morphine experienced a painful, stressful event. Then 2 hours later, they turned that pain into fear," Garner said. "To me, it sounds a lot like how we experience pain."
The findings could raise questions about slaughter methods and how fish are handled in research. Garner said standards of care could be revisited to ensure fish are being treated humanely.
A paper detailing the finding was published in an online version of Applied Animal Behaviour Science.

source : http://www.vettechjournal.com

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Friday, May 8, 2009

Great advice to start training your rabbit

Mini Loop rabbits, all kinds of rabbits are very intelligent animals that are capable of waste trained, making it a total of more easy to assess as domestic servants. Although the formation of waste or rabbit type animal, for that matter, the first thing to note is that you need lots of patience, with positive reinforcement, which consists of praise and good health, kind treatment.

Here are some tips and trips to monitor the bed for your mini-LOP rabbits with the base, you should immediately:
- Cage: Even if your mini-LOP is a house and the animals must be free of the house, while the time needed to verify that everything is "Bunny-proofed," Most rabbits are all still a cage, and Above However, the waste to form a much simpler procedure.

To begin to teach your rabbit, the recovery of its waste box close to the field inside the cage in the corner, who chose as his name "Bad area. Once the idea that the area where he had to go, and you can read a little out of the house near the cage.

- Articles for cleaning up: some of the key you want on hand for cleaning after mini-cutting and the inevitable accidents, they also have white vinegar, which is excellent for cleaning urine stains, bleach to disinfect water at regular intervals, and is a hand vacuum or whiskbroom man and to clean.

The urine of a rabbit certainly very strong, strong smell, they go to the stain and remove it as soon as possible.

- Roll-top box: Although you can have a mini-LOP, with more than one area is generally recommended, as rabbits tend to spend much time on their waste.

- Launch: The type of bed is largely dependent on your rabbit and their own habits. It is, hands away from certain types of waste, not suitable for rabbits, as the nature, too dusty, which allows you to your pet is difficult, more and more popular or pieces that cat litter, which are introduced into the digestive tract and intestinal tract.

Your rabbit is necessarily nibble on waste so you want to make sure that what you have in the area will not be hurt in the process.

Some rabbits of the owner of the election of hay, in which each type of cats, and even newspapers, you save the urine, but no odor control. One way to check the newspaper box from the bottom of the waste and then, a handful of hay or straw, for the urine of rabbits in your body and feet.

Remember that, despite their best efforts in training, its mini-LOP yet Pills Drop waste scattered around the outside of your house to mark the territory as their own. This does not mean that your rabbit does not give lessons, or are unable to provide training, but it is a presentation of normal rabbits.

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