What makes a veterinary specialist so ‘special’?

Veterinary specialists may not be as “special” as we sometimes think we are, but there’s a lot that goes into the making of one.

When you see your family veterinarian for most of your small animal (meaning dog or cat) routine veterinary visits, you are probably seeing a general practitioner, or GP.

Most GPs have gone through four years of undergraduate college (usually resulting in a bachelor’s degree, which I always thought was odd for the married ones), followed by four years of veterinary school, after which most are granted the degree of Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, or DVM.

One school, just to be difficult, doles out their degree in the vibrant, living language of Latin and uses Veterhinoninarius Medium-rare-iciniuius Doctorfeelgoodius (I am pretty sure I got that right) or VMD. So, if you look on your veterinarian’s business card, you can tell right away if they went to one of the normal 27 schools that are not in Pennsylvania (DVM) or to the one school that has gone all batty and needs to be different, and also has piercings, tattoos and keeps its snake at the dojo just to show how unique it is (VMD).  Note: I have many, many special Penn Friends, and my gentle and loving ribbing about their weirdness, degeneracy and insanity should not be misconstrued as evidence that I think they are weird, degenerate, or insane.

So, your average vet goes through eight years of training to be where they are. Some schools allow the four year undergrad to be fast-tracked, but for most US veterinarians, eight years is the norm.

However, if you elect to specialize, after your internship you apply for and hopefully obtain a residency (so called because the doctors frickin’ live in the hospital, the duty hours are so long) in the area you want to specialize in. It could be surgery, oncology, cardiology or, as in my case, emergency medicine and critical care. Some people, insane people, elect to specialize in more than one area at a time and are known as “double-boarded,” which means that someone should have taken two very large boards and beat some sense into them.

The 2- or 3-year residency program immerses you in the discipline at hand and gives you the skills you need to, a) become a specialist and, b) pass a big-ass test known as a board exam. Most board exams are 2-3 day sadism sessions that leave the test-takers with little self-respect, stomach lining or bladder control.  Most folks take 2-3 months off from work to study for the board exam, usually living in a cave, not bathing and gnawing on a haunch of deer while surrounded by textbooks. (Vegetarians gnaw on a haunch of cauliflower).

During my board exam, among other things, I had to do a pretend surgery on a balloon. If the balloon popped, I failed. I was sorta hoping I would get extra credit for twisting the balloon into the shape of a kitten afterward, but no go.

Once you pass the test, as if by magic you are certified in your specialty and given magical powers, a cape, a tie pin and a swift kick in the ass.

As an example of what a specialist does, let’s look a little closer at surgeons. They are very special people.

Any veterinarian can do any surgery. Your family veterinarian, for example, could elect to do a kidney transplant if they felt competent and you agreed to the procedure (please sign here and write me a check for $15,000. Thank you for your patronage). But many surgeries (beyond spays and neuters and some abdominal procedures like foreign body removals) are done by specialized veterinarians who are board-certified in surgery.

There are lots of talented GP surgeons out there (and some GPs who are better than some boarded folks I have met), but, as a general guideline, the more complex and risky procedures are referred to boarded surgeons if the GP and pet owners think it best. Surgeons are amazing at what they do, and I have the deepest respect for them. I have seen a good surgeon put a busted and well-nigh unrecognizable pet back together, looking for all the world as if almost nothing ever happened.  They can be as close to an artist as a veterinarian is ever likely to get (except, of course, for my balloon animal art).

Just like any of us bipedal hominids shuffling about this rock, though, surgeons are mostly just normal people who have the world go in and out of their bodies through the same holes the rest of us do. Some of them tend to be a little on the vain side, though; I worked with a guy once who wore pointy orange shoes to work every damn day, convinced they were the apex of fashion.  Little elfy numbers they were, curled up at the tip in a let’s-see-what-Santa-is-making-in-his-shop-today way.

Some surgeons, though, run the risk of over-stating either their skillset or the benefits of surgery in general; not every condition known to man or beast can be fixed with a swipe of the scalpel in their well-manicured and bronzed hands.

The same principle also applies to internal medicine. This is the branch of medicine that deals with giblets; kidney, intestine, pancreas, liver – all of the variety meats. Internists are detail-oriented specialists who will gleefully listen to pet owners describe their pet’s bowel movements in excruciating detail. Repeatedly.

They have cases that play out over months or years, and are adept at long-term, complex case management. I could never be an internist, as my memory span is about the size of a baby newt (called an ‘eft’) – this is why I chose emergency medicine; hit by car – fixed up in 2 days – off to home, Bob’s your uncle. Emergency medicine doctors have flings with their patients, internists have marriages.

This is just a wee overview of what goes into making a specialist. So, the next time you see your veterinarian, or your veterinarian refers you to a specialist, tell them ‘thank you’ for all the schoolin’ and maybe ask for a balloon kitten.

Image credits: Both images from flickr creative commons. Top: cpeachok. Bottom: sean94110.

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The kindest cut: A better way to spay

May 24, 2011

In this week’s syndicated newspaper feature, Pet Connection advisory board member Dr. Timothy C. McCarthy, a board-certified surgeon in the Portland, Ore., area who has pioneered the application of many minimally invasive diagnostic and therapeutic techniques that are now becoming the standard of care, talks about “The Kindest Cut” — a better way to spay.

The first spaying I ever watched was in a small rural practice in 1958 when I was 13 — the same time I first became interested in veterinary medicine.

The surgery was performed using ether and catgut suture from a spool that had to be manually threaded onto a needle. There was no surgical cap, mask, gown or gloves, and only a postage stamp-sized surgical drape. There was no pain medication, and the ovaries were pulled up to the incision by tearing their attachment to the abdominal wall. This was the state of the art at that time.

Today, nearly all aspects of spaying have improved. We have better anesthetics that have minimal negative effects on the patient. We use individual sterile packages of suture with attached needles made using the same synthetic suture material used in human surgery, which causes minimal tissue reaction and is completely removed by the body with time.

We also use caps, masks, gloves and gowns, and use drapes of adequate size to prevent any contamination of the surgical field. We no longer need to pour antibacterial agents into the surgery site. Aggressive pain management with drug combinations is used before surgery to block pain before it starts, and the medications are continued during the post-operative period.

However, we are still using the same barbaric blind tissue-tearing technique to rip the attachment of the ovaries away from the abdominal wall. This technique does work — because we’ve been spaying dogs and cats this way for more than 50 years. But now there is a better way: laparoscopic spaying. It changes our technique from tearing tissue blindly to cutting tissue where we can see what we are doing, and it is the final step toward achieving modernization of this surgery.

Can our pets be windows into understanding human obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)? From Dr. Marty Becker and Mikkel Becker:

“Like people can have compulsive behaviors, such as famously washing their hands until their skin is raw, animals can have similar behaviors,” veterinary behaviorist Dr. Nicholas Dodman, director of the Behavior Clinics at Tufts University’s Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine in North Grafton, Mass., told the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants 2011 Conference in April.

“We’re on our way to proving compulsive behaviors may be genetic,” Dodman said. “If it’s true in dogs, there’s a good bet it’s true in people.”

Compulsive disorders in dogs are associated with what they were bred to do. Dogs bred to chase prey or herd are more likely to chase shadows or light. Research in Dobermans with flank sucking has shown a link between their behavior and a specific alteration on a chromosome for dogs with this disorder. Some cats, primarily Oriental breeds, such as Siamese, may compulsively suck on fabric, a behavior commonly called “wool-sucking.”

All this and more in the complete feature, here!

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Dog Busts Out of Yard to Run Half Marathon

A proud Dozer rocks his medal

A 3-year-old goldendoodle somehow got out of his yard and joined the Maryland Half Marathon at about the 5-mile mark. Dozer was seen at several points throughout the course, lapping up water and trotting along with whatever humans he’d find himself near. No one realized he was a solo runner.

He ran the seven or so miles, and trotted jauntily past the cheering crowd at the finish line. He looks genuinely proud in this video as he crosses the finish line at the 2:14:24 mark.

You go, Dozer!! (At first I thought he was wearing booties, but it looks like he went through some mud or puddles along the way. He was sore for a couple of days, his owners report, but he is AOK.)

The race benefits the University of Maryland’s Greenebaum Cancer Center. There were many people in attendance that day who have lost loves ones to cancer, and he added a happy moment to the event. And he’s continuing his mission to help: He has his own Runner Page on the race’s site, and is raising money for the cancer center, with a goal of $10,000. Check out what he had to say about his involvement:

Wow…I just finished my very first Half Marathon! I was sitting in front of my house on Sunday morning when a bunch of runners came running by. They looked like they were having such fun so i decided to join them. I forgot to tell my Mom that I was leaving and she was really upset! Everyone was really nice to me so I just kept running passing first a sign that said Mile 5 then Mile 6 and so on until I saw this big sign that said Finish and everyone stopped running. Along the way i heard people talking about raising money for Cancer Research and I heard stories about people’s loved ones. I was moved to take action so I set up this page to help out. I had to walk all the way home after the race and Mom didn’t find me at home until the next morning…..boy was I sore!! I overheard my Mom talking to the people who put the race on and they are coming over to give me a medal! Now I am resting and looking back on the great journey. Please help by donating to my page..Dozer”

And speaking of a medal, here’s a video of him getting his finisher’s medal. And once again, he looks extremely proud, don’t you think? (And maybe a little sore?)

Good dog, Dozer.

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The BIG Bus Tour in the Emerald City

May 25, 2011

After two days in his home state of Idaho, Dr. Marty Becker and crew pushed westward ho, rolling into the wet and wonderful (and very, very green!) city of Seattle for their next stop on the BIG Bus Tour.

It’s all part of a celebration of the release of “Your Dog: The Owner’s Manual: Hundreds of Secrets, Surprises, and Solutions for Raising a Happy, Healthy Dog.” Dr. Becker, Gina Spadafori and McKenzie the Dog will be at the PETCO at 2617 196th St. SW in Lynnwood, on Wednesday, May 25, from 12:30 to 2:00 PM. Come on down! Bring your dogs!

Early risers can catch Dr. Becker live on KCPQ TV Q13 on Fox Morning News at 8:45  AM.

The entire tour schedule is at DrMartyBecker.com. You can also follow Dr. Becker on Facebook and Twitter, and McKenzie on Facebook and Twitter.

Photo: Dr. Becker’s accountants, Doug and Valeria Pollow, drove over from Twin Falls to Boise to say howdy!

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High-Speed X-Ray Video Reveals Secret to How Dogs Drink

Dogs aren’t the world’s most dainty drinkers. Give a thirsty dog a bowl of water and get out the umbrella. The tongue scoops, the water splishes and sploshes everywhere. Cats, on the other hand, seem to have a quiet elegance to their drinking. It’s almost meditative to some cat owners.

But this is not the time for cats to start feeling a smug superiority. (Well, no more than usual.) Science is revealing that cats and dogs both use the same techniques to get water into their mouths. Cats just tend to do it with more grace.

Dogs, for all their apparent sloppiness when taking in liquids, are actually pretty sophisticated drinkers, say scientists (Photo: Wonderlane, Flickr Creative Commons)

A study in the journal Science last year explored the science behind the cat lap. Using high-speed video, researchers were able to dramatically slow down footage of a cat drinking. They found that when the tip of a cat’s tongue barely touched the water’s surface, the water stuck to it. When the cat pulled her tongue back in, the movement created a water column on the back of her tongue, and the cat snapped her jaws around it after every lap before it could fall out.

Researcher Alfred Crompton, of Harvard University’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, wanted to see how different the water-guzzling experience was for dogs. Scientists and most dog owners have assumed that a dog uses his tongue as a ladle, scooping up liquid in a haphazard, decidedly doggy way, with none of the finessed fluid mechanics employed by felines.

So Crompton took a high-speed camera and an X-ray camera and let his dog Matilda enjoy a big cylinder of broth. (See video above.)  “At first, it looked like dogs were scooping, but that is a snare and a delusion,” he said in a BBC article.

Interestingly, it turns out that the water that was collected in the ladle part of Matilda’s tongue dropped off her tongue before hitting her mouth. It turns out dogs use their tongues to get the conveyor-belt-like flow of liquid down his throat just as a cat does, Crompton reported in the Journal Proceedings of the Royal Society Biology Letters.

The main difference was that while a cat’s tongue barely touches the liquid, a dog’s plunges all the way in, willy-nilly.

He explained in a BBC article that the difference may boil down to lifestyle habits in general: “Cats are just a little more particular about the mess they make. They always like to be neat and clean and to tidy themselves up. They curl their tongue backwards and lay it onto the surface of liquid without penetrating it, so they don’t make a mess.

“Dogs on the other hand are a bit more exuberant – they don’t worry about spreading the liquid around and making a mess.”

But what happens when water is in a dog’s mouth is pretty astounding. I’ll let an article in LiveScience explain:

They found that dogs take a few laps before they actually swallow. Once the liquid is in the mouth, the dog brings its tongue in contact with the roof of its mouth, trapping the liquid between its tongue surface and the ridges on its palate. Then the dog extends its tongue again, still keeping it in contact with the roof of its mouth.

“This is the really cool part,” Musinsky told LivesScience. “Because the tongue is maintaining contact, but it’s also sliding out of the mouth.”

As the dog brings another chunk of liquid up with its tongue, the tongue drops away and the first bit of liquid goes to the back of the mouth. Repeating the cycle again, the dog brings a new sip of water to the front of its mouth, swallowing the first lap of water and moving the second toward its throat.

“You’ve used the tongue and palate as sort of a conveyor belt,” Crompton said.

You can see this mechanism at work in the video above.

So next time your dog goes to whet his whistle, you can watch him and admire him for everything he has to do to get it from bowl to throat.

Just don’t get too close while he’s doing it.

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At Least the Goldfish is OK?

(Thanks Billy B for sending this my way)

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

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I’m Writing a Book on Soldier Dogs, and Could Use Your Help!

Jake was not happy when he learned that Dutton Penguin wanted a solo head shot of me. He has grown used to always being at my side for my dog-writing photos. So we let him sit at my feet and we cropped him out. He'll never know. (Photo: Laura Altair Hanson)

My professional life is going to change dramatically for the next several months, Dogsters. I’m giving up all my freelance writing and editing jobs — except my Dogster blog! — to take on a very exciting new project: A book called Soldier Dogs, about incredible four-footed troops and their handlers.

I’ve been reading books on war dogs and dogs in history for a long time, and I’ve been writing about these amazing soldier dogs whenever possible. I am in awe of their feats, their loyalty, their enthusiasm for the job, and all the high-tech trappings used by some dog/handler teams.

So when literary agent Deirdre Mullane contacted me about writing a book on military working dogs (MWDs) after it came out that a dog was a vital part of the Navy SEAL raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound, I went right to work on the book proposal. It was the perfect fusion of my journalistic background and my fascination with these extraordinary dogs.

With very helpful guidance and editing from Deirdre, and the super agenting skills of my regular agent, Carol Mann (they decided to co-agent the book), we ended up with a bidding war among publishers last week. Once I spoke with Dutton Penguin executive editor Stephen Morrow, I knew I had to have him as my editor. I was thrilled when this worked out, and we’ve embarked on this remarkable project together.

The book is going to be a tremendous amount of work in a short time, but I am thrilled. The end result is going to be riveting. Soldier Dogs will look at every facet of military working dogs’ lives, and will tell engaging true stories of the extraordinary courage of dogs under fire, and the soldiers who share their fate. The book will explore the heroism and heartbreak of these faithful four-legged warriors and their devoted handlers.

Here’s how you might be able to help:

I’m looking for really interesting true stories about these dogs and their handlers — stories that demonstrate the deep bond between them, or exciting stories, or anything that help shed light on how they live and work together.

Sergeant Martinez and his dog, Argo II, practice an "over the shoulder hold" that helps build trust (U.S. Air Force photo/Airman 1st Class Allen Stokes)

If you know any military dog handlers (past or present, although present handlers will likely have to get the OK to speak with me) who have intriguing stories to tell about their time with their MWDs, I’d love know more about them, and to be able to communicate directly with the handlers. If they are not available for whatever reason, I could talk with their parents or spouses. You can go to my fledgling Soldier Dogs website and click on the “Contact” button to leave a secure message for me.

I’m also looking for people who adopted retired military dogs – especially people who still have the dog.

Note: Please don’t leave detailed information in comments below, as I might not be the only person writing about this topic right now! That said, I greatly welcome general comments below. If you don’t feel like heading to my website to contact me, you can leave a comment below simply asking me to contact you; I can view email addresses on my end, so I’ll email you back.

Please feel free to send this message out on Facebook,  interest groups,  and any veterans’ groups, local military organizations, or anywhere you think there might be stories. And while you’re out there, come on over to my Facebook page and Like it if you like!

I’ll be providing updates there as the project moves along.

Thank you!

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Life at the dog park: Who says Darwin nominees have to be human?

Some bird who appears to be too foolish to pass on her genes decided to place her nest of babies in a short tree in our dog park.

You got it: bird nest, short tree, dog park. Can you define filicide?

It is the shortest, smallest tree in the 8-acre park. Needless to say, my English Setter — a bird dog — is 100 percent obsessed with what’s in the nest. Dodger’s not OCD for nothing, you know. He has broken branches trying to get at the nest. He is so obsessed that he loses his typically semi-decent recall and, much to the amusement or disgust of other dog owners, I cannot always call him off. In utter humiliation I sometimes end up chasing him around the tree. It’s kind of like glaring at a driver who nearly nailed you and the driver refuses to even turn his head to look at you. In this case, Dodger is the bad driver.

Usually when I feel this way, I want to flip the bird at someone, but in this situation it’s wrong on so many levels.

Hoping against hope that the babies would be ready to leave the nest soon and thus end their canine harassment, I asked my brother-in-law, David Gjestson, who spent his career as a wildlife expert in Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources, when the babies would fly the proverbial nest.

Me: Please tell me the baby birds leave the nest soon. It’s been about two weeks now.

Wildlife Expert: Ya. They’ll hop down on the ground before they can fly and be eaten fast!

Alrighty then. Let’s all join hands and sing about the joys of the food chain or the circle of life.

How long do baby birds stay in the nest? It depends on the species, and I have no idea what species is in the nest, but 10 to 12 days.

That poor mother bird must feel as though she has purchased real estate in a ghetto into which the lowest facets of bird society are cast. Sometimes I know how she feels.

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Panhandling Pooch Not Mistreated, Says ASPCA

An image from the Stop Abusing Coffee Facebook page points out what witnesses say is a shock collar under the bandana Coffee always wears in public

As promised, an update on Coffee, the NYC dog who sits outside the city’s major-league ballparks and panhandles in costume for hours at a time with a pipe in her mouth. Some baseball fans and dog lovers believe Coffee sits so long because when she would try to lie down, her owner would surreptitiously shock her.

An ASPCA veterinarian examined Coffee, a 5-year-old pit bull mix, at her owner’s home in Queens.The vet said Coffee performed all her tricks without a shock collar, just with voice control, according to the Associated Press.The animal-welfare organization said it would continue to keep an eye on the situation, and would examine her at some point during a stint at a ballpark.

Meanwhile, fans of the Stop Abusing Coffee Facebook page are outraged.

“I would not enjoy clinching a pipe in my mouth with no hands to take it out and rest my jaw, all the while sitting in 95 degree temps with a fur coat and a T-shirt on, waiting for my “MASTER” to click his remote on my shock collar. If that how he trains dogs, I would suggest he is not the great dog trainer he calls himself. Whether this is abuse by definition of the law or not, it is inhumane, uncompassionate AND TRASHY to make this dog pander for money. GET A JOB MAN!”  writes one upset Coffee friend.

Dogsters, what do you think? Has the ASPCA done enough? Should investigators have asked what that object around her neck in photos is, or visited her during one of her work days? Of is finding a happy, wagging dog who seems healthy evidence enough that she’s not being mistreated?

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Fixing our nation’s shelters: Yes, there ought to be a law

May 25, 2011

It’s true: I was against legislating shelter reform before I was for it.

But a string of particularly horrific stories of abuse and neglect in our nation’s shelters, as well as watching our economy crash and burn because we’d gotten to the point where we were basically letting Wall Street “regulate” itself, have combined to turn me into a shelter reform flip-flopper.

That’s why I’m now strongly supporting passage of laws based on the model “Companion Animal Protection Act” (CAPA) in every state in the U.S. From my column today on SFGate.com:

It’s more than a little disturbing to consider how little actual “shelter” homeless pets receive in some agencies bearing that name. Take Tennessee’s Memphis Animal Shelter, for example.

Conditions there were so bad that they prompted a high-profile sheriff’s raid on the facility in 2009. Investigators found animals starving to death and going without water; there were even allegations of dog-fighting going on at the agency

After the raid, the city installed webcams inside the facility so citizens could see what was going on behind the scenes, but even then, conditions didn’t improve all that much.

Blogger Shirley Thistlewaite, who has been covering the situation in the Memphis shelter for more than a year, posts webcam images from MAS several times a month.

Some of the images show dogs being dragged, terrified, to the kill room. Others show cats being poked with sticks by staff members. There are examples of workers violating city policies, of pets escaping from kennels and cages, even of a puppy being hauled to his death, dangling from a worker’s hand that was holding a fistful of the loose skin on the puppy’s back.

If you’re tempted to dismiss the situation at MAS as an aberration, think again. Other animal control facilities may not have webcams in their backrooms, but volunteers and animal rescuers frequently report abuse and neglect in shelters all over the country.

[....]

I don’t normally get on board the legislative express when it comes to reform. I think that education and advocacy are the best approaches to take when trying to change things. In fact, when (CAPA author Nathan) Winograd proposed that San Francisco adopt its own version of CAPA at a meeting of the city’s Animal Welfare Commission two years ago, I didn’t agree. I thought it was micromanagement. I thought it was government run amuck.

I’ve changed my mind. There are simply too many abuses going on in too many shelters, and too many of them are going unpunished or even uninvestigated. The provisions of CAPA are not outrageous, and most of them are being used already by the best shelters in the country, including animal control agencies in Reno, Nev., Charlottesville, N.C., and Ithaca, N.Y.

Read the complete article, including about the launch of Rescue-50, a joint project of Winograd’s No Kill Advocacy Center and the Florida organization No Kill Nation, to pass CAPA nationwide, here.

Photo: Puppies in a feces-smeared cage in a “shelter,” courtesy of Nathan Winograd.

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