Anything For Animals

posted by admin on Apr 26

There are dozens of veterinary surgeries in your area - but how do you choose the best one for your needs?

All vets have to be fully qualified to run a surgery, and all nurses have to be in training or fully qualified, but receptionist don’t have to have any training or qualifications at all - but then neither do ‘dog trainers’, ‘dog walkers’ or ‘dog sitters’.

So it is important to make sure that you are happy with everyone in the veterinary team.  But what else should you consider?

Price:
I put this first - although many would say that it was the least important.  If you have pet insurance, then cost of treatment is virtually irrelevant as all costs - bar your excess - will be covered by the insurance company.  So no need to worry about anything other than getting your pet the best available medications and treatments.

However, it is always worth knowing the cost of the basic routine things as these may be too low for the insurance to cover - or not covered at all, like vaccinations, neutering, nail clipping, tail docking and wormers etc.

Location:
Proximity to your vet is very helpful in case of emergencies or if you just want to nip to the vets in your lunch break for a routine appointment - but you need to think about what that surgery can offer.

For example, not all surgeries offer overnight care or specialist care, and some don’t invest in larger machinery - so if you take you injured puppy to your nearest vet, they may then need to send you to a more distant vets to get the work done - and this may be a different company too.  Therefore, if might be wise to register with a vets that has everything onsite in the first place.

24-hour treatment isn’t offered by all surgeries either - they sometimes share with other vets.  So you could call your normal surgery (5 min drive) at 2 am and they recommend their emergency surgery which happens to be a 45 minute drive away - when if you had checked a vets that is 10 minutes from your house may have their own 24 hour emergency vet!   

Your Pet:
The above 2 examples are more likely to affect you if you have a dog or a cat, but if you have an exotic pet like a skunk, snake, parrot or tortoise, then you may be best to find a vet that specialises in that species rather than take you chances with a ‘normal vet’.

Although a ‘normal’ vet is qualified to medicate and treat all animals, they may not have the continued training in exotics that a specialist has, so might not be able to offer the best solution to your problem - no matter how close they are to your house!

And, they may not have the equipment necessary to deal with it anyway - for example - a boa constrictor wouldn’t last too long in a dog pen, and I know for a fact that most vets do not keep glass tanks and humidistats in their back rooms!

Same goes for horses and goats - I can’t imagine you can just walk into your local surgery with one of those!

posted by admin on Apr 22

When choosing small rodents, hamsters and mice are 2 of the most popular pets - but what’s the difference?

 There are many many many types of small animals you can now buy to share your home, but the hamster (not hampster) is one of the leading choices amongst pet owners - with the ‘teddy bear hamster’ being a popular color.  However, there has always been a small following for mouse lovers - and now they are becoming common in many pet stores, more people are trying them for the first time.

So, what exactly is the difference between them?

Here, we take a quick look at the best of each and their basic requirements - and how to choose between them!

Tanks Or A Cage?
Hamster cages are everywhere and come in all shapes and sizes, and unlike bird cages, hamster cages are usually not as tall - unless they have several layers.  They also come with a house, wheel and maybe some tubes to play in.

However fun they look, the distance between the bars for most hamster and bird cages is too big for a mouse - and a little one could easily just climb straight through and escape!  If you can fit your finger in through the bars, a mouse can get out - I’ve seen it!

Therefore, you either need to buy a specific mouse cage (which has tiny gaps between the bars) or ideally get yourself one of the many fish tanks that are available, or a plastic rodent cage instead.

What Do Mice Eat?
Unlike hamsters that get by on one of the standard grain and biscuit mixes (with a bit of fresh veg every so often), mice tend to do better on a higher protein mix, like that fed to rats.  And ideally very little cheese as it upsets their tummy!

They tend not to overeat, and they don’t tend to hoard their food like hamsters do.  The number of hamster videos online showing a hamster shove all it’s daily food into it’s mouth pouches and run off only to empty it all out into it’s little house and come back for more testify to this rather wasteful and expensive (although funny) habit of hamsters!

How Long Do They Live?
A hamster could easily live up to 18 months, or up to 3 years if you are lucky!  Whereas a mouse will rarely see past it’s 1st birthday!

Saying this, both can die as young as 6 months for no reason other than they just do!

Can They Live Together?
Hamsters and mice can never live together.  Syrian hamsters (the most common type) are not animal friendly - and they won’t even live with other Syrian hamsters, let alone a mouse!

Mice on the other hand usually get on fine together if introduced properly and in the right sized cages or tanks. Although, just like people they can occasionally fight each other, or just want to live alone, so don’t assume yours will live together forever!

And unless you want constant mouse babies, I suggest you keep mice of the same sex!

Do They Come In Different Sizes?
Mice are tiny little things, and although they are so small, they are easy to hold - and being that they are active throughout the day, they are less likely to be grumpy when you pick them up (as hamsters sleep during the day they are usually always grumpy when you wake them up!).  If you want bigger mice - get rats!

However, Syrian hamsters are as big as they come (unless you want a groundhog) but they do come smaller.  Dwarf hamsters need mouse-style cages or tanks, but they can live together!  There are 3 types of dwarf hamster; Russian hamsters, Chinese dwarf hamsters and Roborovski’s dwarf hamster - non are really suitable for tiny children though.

Still not sure?  Well mice have long tails - so check with your mum first if you live at home!

posted by admin on Apr 15

This new Act was introduced to make sure that all pets in England and Wales had a basic standard of care.

Whether you are the owner or the keeper of a pet, whether it is large or small or indoors or outside; you are responsible for adhering to the ‘rules’ of this Act, and violation of them could result in the confiscation of your pets and possible criminal prosecution (up to 51 weeks in prison and up to a £20,000 fine).

The guidelines are very easy to understand (and many would say; obvious), and so abiding by them should be easy for any animal lover.

As a pet owner or keeper, you have a legal duty to ensure the welfare of the animals in your care, and you must ensure that the following ‘needs’ are considered at all times:

A Suitable Environment:
This means that it needs to be suitable for that particular animal; for example a horse and a gerbil will have very different ’suitable’ environments!

A Suitable Diet:
This means that it needs to be a suitable diet for that particular animals; for example a dog and a canary would need very different ’suitable’ diets.

Suitable Housing:
This means that they need housing that is suitable for each particular animal.  This is on 2 levels; firstly it must be suitable for each particular animal in the sense that a cat and a tarantula cannot both be kept in the same size cage; and secondly on a compatability level, that a cat and a tarantula should never be kept in the same cage, whatever it’s size! 

To Exhibit Normal Behaviour:
This means that the housing you keep it in and the food you feed it allows the animal to grow and develop normally for it’s breed or species without deformity.  It also means that the animal can move about with ease and isn’t mentally stressed or seen to be suffering in any way. 

Be Protected from Pain and Suffering, Injury and Disease:
This means that the animals must not be kept in conditions that will affect their growth, completely restrict their movement or in a dangerous or hazardous environments.  It also means that if they do become injured, sick or diseased that they will need to be seen by a qualified vet and medical treatment and pain relief (if necessary) sought.

If you are in any doubt about to how to properly care for your pet, ask your local vet or pet store, or contact an animal charity like Dogs Trust or PDSA for advice.

posted by admin on Apr 10

The weather is getting warmer - so you might as well go out and enjoy it!

So why not consider re-homing a dog or puppy over the next few weeks so that you have got a friend to take with you!

There are thousands of dogs out there that just need a loving home.  You don’t need to go to the ‘big’ rescue centres to find them, there are plenty of private or small scale re-homing centres that have a few pets out there for you to choose from.

There are a few things you need to do before they will consider you, but all their ‘adoption rules’ are there for a reason - they follow their own principals.  So some centres will want you to just be a stable home for their dogs, others will want you to prove that you are right for the dog (including no kids if the dog doesn’t like kids, no cats if it doesn’t like cats, and so on) and yet others want you to fence in your entire garden, not be too old and sometimes to never have a job again so you can be at home with it for ever!

Obviously, you need to do your research to find out which policies suit your needs - and of course to find a dog that you actually like in the first place! However - if you are re-homing a dog for the ‘good deed’ of finding a dog a home, then shouldn’t you take the one that noone else wants?

If you only want the cute pretty little ones that everyone else wants, then who is going to love the old or ugly looking ones?

Things To Consider Before Starting Out:
So, if you are considering re-homing a new pet, then just check out the following list to make sure you have everything covered:

1) If you want a specific pedigree dog breed, then be prepared to wait.  Hoping that someone wants to give up their Rhodesian Ridgeback or Japanese Akita is a long shot, so do you want a dog now, or do you just want that breed and you will wait up to 5 years or more until it arrives?

2) If you want a pretty, cute or young dog, then join the queue!  Most people want their dog to look a certain way, and for it to be young, so you will be added to a long list of people who are already waiting!  If you want to give an older or less fluffy dog a home, then you could well get your new pet a lot quicker!

3) If you want to use the ‘big charities’ then be prepared to make some changes to your home or lifestyle.  They will require proper fencing in your yard, several meetings and ‘checks’ before you even choose a dog, and there could be ongoing visits after you have taken your new dog home.

4) If you have young children, other dogs or cats, a full time job, or live in a flat - you could well not get the dog you choose anyway!  Many re-homing centers these days find the right home for the dog’s needs - not yours.  So if that cute dog you like has been deemed ‘unsuitable for families’ or that giant mastiff ‘chases cats’, then you won’t even get a look in!  They might offer you a tiny teacup dog instead!

5) If you want your dog quick - then start now!  Even with the simplest procedures, there could still be a few checks and changes to be made to your home!  The sooner you get going - the sooner you can be out there enjoying the sunshine with your new ‘Fido’!

posted by admin on Apr 6

If you know the name of what you are looking at - you can understand and enjoy your environment more!

I know that just being in the countryside can be pleasant enough on it’s own - but some times you see something amazing or unusual - and you want to know more.

By learning what to look for when you see something new can make this really easy - and can avoid disappointment!

I remember seeing a great little purple flower out on a walk, and wanted to know what it was, so I took a picture of the flower - all proud of myself and headed home.

The Problem:
You’d have thought that by looking for the flower in my book was all I had to do - but no.  There were lots of similar purple flowers in there - as well as similar shaped flowers that were generally white but could be pink or purple!  So I didn’t know which one it was.

They all had different shaped leaves in the pictures though - if only I had taken a picture of those too!

Having learnt from my mistake; next time I found a great flower - I made sure I got a photo of the leaf as well - but still no!

I hadn’t bothered to read the descriptions last time - just looked at the pictures, so I hadn’t realised that sometimes the underside of the leaf or the number or flowers on each stem was more important!

However, the more I tried to identify plants, the more I knew not only what features to record - but I knew all the things that it was not.  For example, if I see a small purple flower now - I know what a dog violet and and a vetch look like by heart, so I can eliminate them from my search!

And this way, I will be able to identify insects more easily, as certain butterflies only feed on certain plants, for example so I can look out for them too!

Birds And Mammals:
The same goes for animals too.  If you see a little bird with white on it’s wings - don’t just think that will be enough to identify it - look for the important things for birds.

These include things like length and shape of the tail, any stripes going through or above the eye, shape and colour or the beak as well as what it was doing at the time.  Was it on the ground, on a feeder, hanging off the side of a tree, on the beach, in a pond or was it hovering in the sky?

This is also true of mammals.  They are often not easy to see - but what time you see them, what month you see them and where you are when you see them is all very important when you are back home with your reference book!

And when you see predators like a kestrel or owl, you know there must be prey about like voles and mice!

You can build a whole food web up of your local woods or parks, and this will help you know what should be out there for you to see!