Are you watching the Westminster Dog Show?

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I am (and I can't believe the Pomeranian didn't win the Toy Group!  What is it with poodles?), with occasional cutaways to the Olympics.  Of course, I'm grading papers at the same time.  I don't know if you've noticed, but many of the commercials during the dog show are dog-related, which makes sense, and some of them talk about what the companies are doing for dogs.  The one that really struck me as odd is the one for Progressive Insurance.  It follows the ones from their ongoing ad campaign with the goofy cashier who gets all worked up over discounts.  It's not available for viewing on their website at this moment, but you can check via the link above to see if it's up yet.  They don't give any details, but the implication is that your dog is covered by them through insurance that covers your car or home.  I gotta ask.  What exactly does this mean?  Does it cover emergency care, or what?  
As you probably know, I'm a great advocate for health insurance for pets (and people, too, of course, all the more so since I do not have health insurance myself).  I find myself of two minds about this commercial.  I like the idea that they are covering pets in any way, and I hope it makes people realize that insurance for pets is a good idea, but I also think that it might make people think that this kind of coverage is all you need.  It's not.  You need basic health insurance so that you won't have to make decisions based on what you can afford rather than what the dog needs.  This is especially worth remembering in February, which is the dental health month for pets.  Even though most vets offer a February discount, it is still an area of care that a lot of pet owners neglect, many because of the cost.


Off the soapbox now.  Check out the WKC website.  The poster for this year's show is fabulous.

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Dogs with Flu, Cats and Ferrets, too!

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Yes, dogs get the flu!  By now you've probably heard or read the reports of pets getting H1N1 (the first one I saw was around Christmas).  It seems that they are catching it from their owners.  And, it's not just dogs.  Cats and ferrets have gotten H1N1, as well.
From what I've seen, there needs to be some educational efforts made about this danger.  We're being inundated with instructions on how to wash our hands and other common sense disease-prevention practices, but the information we really need is not being spread around.  When you wake up feeling crummy, how do you tell whether it's even serious enough to see a physician in the first place?  If you find out you actually have the flu, do you know how to protect your dog from it?  What symptoms should you watch for?

And that's not all.  I think most pet owners are familiar with the idea of zoonotic diseases-- that is, diseases humans can get from their pets.  Vets certainly have enough pamphlets on this in their offices.  But we don't think about the possibilities of infecting our pets, who just love to lick our hands whenever possible.  We also don't stay current with animal versions of everyday human illnesses, such as influenza that they can get that is not the same as any flu that hits humans.  To make a good start, I think that every pet owner should visit the Center for Disease Control's website on canine influenza, especially people whose pets are often in contact with other animals (my brother-in-law belongs to a group that meets regularly at our local dog park, for example, and it's a busy place).  There is a vaccine for canine influenza (this is the H3N8 strain).

When you have a pet with a chronic illness (a dog with diabetes, perhaps?), even mild infections can become serious in a hurry.  The best advice I was ever given came very soon after Tony was diagnosed with diabetes.  Oddly enough, it came from one of my students, who had a part-time job at an animal clinic.  She told me that after she had gotten a puppy, she picked the brains of everyone at the clinic on every topic that occurred to her.  One of the senior vet techs told her that she should set aside a little time each week to give the dog a little massage and "examination" to have a way to tell if something had changed.  From that point on, I did that, and caught several problems early on.  Of course I totally missed a few serious problems that either came on suddenly or were not really visible.

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A miscellany for a cloudy day

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First of all, considering the situation in Haiti, I can't urge you strongly enough to go to thehungersite.com and click on the "click to give" box, and then do the same at The Animal Rescue Site (use the tab at the top of the Hunger Site page, or click on the icon to the right of this page).  Your clicks produce funds for both causes -- the advertisers' money goes directly to help.  It's free, but if you can afford to make a donation you'll find all the information you need to do so.

When I was looking for information to help Tony fight his cancer, I missed a terrific resource, and I'm sort of appalled at myself, since it's part of Dogtime.  Go to http://dogtime.com/canine-cancer.html for a wealth of information on all kinds of canine cancer.  They also have articles on canine diabetes.

Yesterday was my first day back to work after the semester break, and I was very surprised when a colleague asked me if I had gotten a new dog yet.  In fact, I think my jaw dropped for a moment.  I've already decided that I want to wait until I'm in a better financial position.  It's going to take a while to recover from the costs of Tony's last year. 

Speaking of which, every time my four-year-old niece has visited since Tony died she has asked where he is.  Each time this has happened, I've explained things to her.  However, she was over the day before yesterday, and I finally realized what was going on.  This time she asked in front of her father, who asked her, "Where do you think he is, Caroline?"  She thought for a moment, then she said that Tony was with Bogie and Grandpa, meaning that he was in heaven.  Alex said, "that's right."  She seemed satisfied; what she was trying to do, I guess, was to get confirmation of this idea.  We'll see if she asks again next time she's over.