Anything For Animals

posted by admin on Apr 19

Traveling with your cats or dogs can be fun, but taking them into another country needs careful planning.  However, travel around Europe just got much easier with the PETS Travel Scheme - and here is a quick run down….. 

If you are thinking of entering the UK with your cat or dog, you have 2 options to legally do so:

1) 6-months Quarantine
2) A PETS Passport

Basically, the UK is rabies-free and they would like to keep it that way - so they make sure that all possible carriers (mainly carnivorous mammals) are regulated on entry.

This includes both domestic and wild animals that enter the country (by human intervention) and as a result cats and dogs are included in these regulations and as a result need to be proved to not carry the virus.

The only way to guarantee this is to successfully vaccinate the animal and wait 6 months before giving it the ‘all-clear’.

Why 6 months?
The incubation period for the rabies virus (the time it takes from infection to the animal showing symptoms) is around 6 months.  It can be shorter or a bit longer - but 6 months is the accepted incubation period for governmental legislation.

Therefore, if the dog had contracted rabies the day before it entered the UK, it will very likely become symptomatic within 6 months.  As it would have been in quarantine kennels all this time, there is no risk of that dog having passed it on to any other dogs, cats or other mammals.

So Why Is There No Quarantine With The Passports?
The reason is simple.  To acquire the PETS (Pet Travel Scheme)Passport, the cat or dog still needs to wait for a 6 month period to elapse before being allowed to freely enter the UK.

This means that if you find a stray do in Spain and want to bring it to the UK, you have to obtain a valid PETS passport - which takes over 6 months.  Basically the period of ‘quarantine’ is still there, but the dog or cat doesn’t have to spend it in a kennel.

How To Get Your PETS Passport:
Obtaining a PETS passport is very simple and involves 5 simple steps.  Basically you are individually identifying your cat or dog permanently and then proving it has enough rabies anti-bodies in it’s blood to protect against a new rabies infection.

The first 4 steps are to get the passport in the first place and will take at least 7 months from start to finish:

1) Get your cat or dog micro-chipped
2) Get you cat or dog vaccinated against rabies
3) Get a blood test result to prove you pet is protected
4) Obtain an official PETS passport from a qualified vet

The final step needs to be carried out within a 24-48 hour window on your entry or return to the UK:

5) Obtain official Tick and Tapeworm treatment

What Next?
To travel around other countries in the EU does not usually require the PETS passport, but many have their own regulations for transporting your pets.  And these guidelines are mainly for your entry to the UK, so always check the current legislation with DEFRA (UK) or other national body before traveling with your pets.

The PETS passport is valid for as long as the rabies vaccine is in date, so make sure that you do not let it expire by even 1 day - otherwise you will have to start the process all over again!

posted by admin on Jul 6

History of Rabies in Cats and Dogs.

Rabies - a word derived from the Sanskrit, ‘to do violence’ - which was also known in Latin as ‘the madness’ - is apparently one of the oldest documented diseases of humankind. The symptoms described in ancient literature are exactly the same as we see now in modern times.

Various people through the ages, tried to work out where it came from and how it was passed on, mainly due to the effect on humans, which was - before 1900 - madness and certain death!

During the early part of the nineteenth century, European scientists proved in experiments that saliva from rabid humans and dogs would infect healthy dogs. This confirmed the centuries-old suspicion that the cause of rabies being transmitted from one animal to another was associated with the saliva of the rabid animal.

Step Up Louis Pasteur…. 
Perhaps the most famous of all medical experiments involved the early use of a rabies vaccine in humans by Louis Pasteur, which had proved successful only in dogs. On July 6, 1885, he administered his first ‘human vaccine’ to a 9-year old boy who had been attacked by a dog - which almost certainly had rabies. The boy was given thirteen separate injections over the following 2 weeks, and survived.

However this isn’t the end of the rabies story. Only certain countries have cheap and plentiful access to the modern versions of these vaccines. Even now, only developed countries can get vaccinations at a low cost prior to infection at a low cost, and not every country even has access to the vaccine given after infection.

Facts like these go to explain why there were still 55,000 reported human cases of rabies last year alone, with no doubt a large number more that went unreported in isolated communities across the globe.

Rabies Today: 
WHO claim that a huge majority of infected humans last year were children under the age of 15, who were bitten, scratched or licked (on broken skin) by feral or domestic but free roaming dogs. Many of these children were just unable to get treatment either because of where they lived or the very high cost.

Even in areas where the vector animals are being targeted for oral vaccination in baited foods it is not always successful. Worldwide, the percentage of animals ingesting the vaccine is not above the necessary threshold for total control or eradication. Baiting has been successful in areas of Europe, but even the United States cannot seem to control this disease (Hawaii is only rabies free due to it’s isolated location).

It would seem as though the world will have rabies for some time to come.

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posted by admin on Jun 7

Identifying Dogs With Rabies. 

There are 2 recognised forms of rabies - although both are from the same virus - they just react in the animal in different ways and so show different symptoms. They are known as either:

Furious rabies
Dumb rabies

In ‘furious rabies’ as it’s name suggests, the dog will become progressively more and more excitable, to the extreme in some cases. These episodes usually last only a short time, but may last several hours.

During these episodes, the dog may become aggressive and may snap and bite, sometimes this is just at imaginary objects. They may also develop a depraved appetite and as a result will chew and eat anything. In some cases the dog runs away, and will walk or run many miles before returning home, and may seem very calm during these treks.

Initial clinical (identifiable) signs include pyrexia (raised temperature) and a change in temperament, for example a placid dog becoming grumpy or to start growling. Some dogs may go the other way, and become more placid and seek affection, or they may hide away in corners or under beds. The site of the infection - the bite wound - may become pruritic (intensely itchy or irritated).

As the disease progresses and begins to attack the nervous system and brain, signs of paresis (muscle weakness) occurs, mainly of the legs and tail, although the dog may still have some control over it’s movement. It may also start to have difficulty swallowing, and possible asymmetry and distortion of the face. In dogs or cats there is NO evidence of hydrophobia (fear of water) that is a well publicised feature of human rabies.

Eventually the animal will die during a violent seizure.

Dumb rabies is far more common of the two, but with little or no signs as with furious rabies.

In dumb rabies there will be progressive paralysis of the limbs and distortion of the face with drooping jaw and eyelids. There can also be squinting of the eyes, drooling of saliva and difficulty in swallowing, due to the damage to the nerves.

The animals will eventually become comatose and die.

Although there are 2 categories of symptoms recognised by vets, the distinction in real life is not always so clear. In all cases though, death usually occurs within 7-10 days following the onset of clinical (identifiable) signs.

Is there a treatment for rabies?
There is no current treatment recommended or practised for dogs with rabies and as a result, it is always fatal.

The only way to protect your dog from death is to have it vaccinated prior to infection with the current program of rabies vaccine (speak to your vet for exact details).

This is not because there is not enough known about the virus, but because it is such a direct and often fatal effects on humans. Basically, due to this high risk to humans - The Department for Environment & Rural Affairs (DEFRA)  in the UK, advise that any animal found to have the virus is isolated immediately and that they are informed. When the animal dies (usually within a week or two), it is sent to them for testing to confirm the virus was responsible.

A rabies outbreak is just too much of a risk, so this disease is taken very seriously.

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posted by admin on May 31

Rabies Shots For Cats And Dogs

Preventative vaccines are widely available in the UK and the US for our pets and livestock, at a small cost. The program of vaccination depends on the type of vaccine being given, as there are several types available for different animals, containing various active ingredients and length of protection.

There are 2 main types of vaccine:

Inactivated - Contains sufficient antigens (which stimulate an immune response) and no live virus of any type.
Live - Containing a live virus of a slightly different strain which does not cause the actual disease.

There have been reports of the live vaccine causing actual rabies in cats which already have a known immune suppression like FeLV (Feline Leukaemia Virus) or FIV (Feline Immunodeficiency Virus). Their bodies simply do not have the resources to produce a sufficient immune response to an actual virus. This can also be found in humans with weakened immune systems.

Vaccine Programs
Initial vaccination involves a single injection. Kittens and puppies of 3-4 months can be vaccinated and given regular boosters throughout their lives. Adult animals need to follow a slightly different vaccine pattern, but will be protected at the same level, if regular boosters are continued.

If bitten by a rabid animal, vaccinated animals can usually produce enough antibodies to fight off the virus before it enters the Central Nervous System (CNS), thereby ridding themselves of the attack before clinical symptoms appear. So, it is possible that you may never even know that your pet was infected.

However, once clinical signs (identifiable symptoms such as drooling or paralysis) appear in an un-vaccinated animal, the disease is already in the CNS and brain, and is nearly always fatal.

Can a dog have a reaction to a rabies shot?
As with any animal and any vaccine, there is the possibility that the additional ingredients used in the vaccine material could react with the chemistry of the animal involved; as can happen with egg and milk allergies in human vaccines.

As a result, there may well be dogs that have an allergic reaction to a rabies shot, but sometimes the result of the vaccine far outweighs the odd animal that could react to it’s ingredients.

Vaccines need to reach a certain %age threshold in a population to be really successful, so the more people that avoid the vaccine for just the minimal chance that their one pet could have a reaction, are as a result, seriously jeopordising the safety of humans around the globe.

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posted by admin on May 24

A Natural Treatment for Rabies?

The simple answer is ‘No’.

There isn’t even a chemical treatment for rabies that any medical body would recommend for animals due to the risk to humans.

Basically, it is such a dangerous and difficult to treat disease, that there is no point risking an outbreak of any kind, so the animal must be kept totally isolated until it’s death.

If you suspect and animal as having rabies, you should always report this immediately to a vet or the police at any time day or night. The risk to humans and other animals is just to great, and if the virus gets into domestic animals, then everyone is at risk, including other wildlife, pets, livestock and, of course, you.

As the virus may be present in saliva before these signs develop it is very important to isolate animals which have been bitten and observe them.

The Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food (MAFF) in the UK and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) in the US must always be called if there is a suspected case of Rabies. The dog, cat, bat or other animal will be humanely destroyed to protect the brain, and the head is sent to the labs for investigation.

There is no ’safest rabies vaccine for cats or dogs’, there is only one rabies vaccine, and the only way to prevent your pet getting rabies is to vaccinate it.

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posted by admin on May 20

Animal Carriers of the Rabies Virus.

Rabies can spread through ANY type of mammal population in any country; so both wildlife and domestic pets are at risk.

Although any mammal can become infected, it is usually the following groups that pass the virus onto humans and domestic animals:

Carnivorous (meat eating) animals
All cat and dog species (foxes, wolves) as well as vampire bats.

Insectivorous (insect-eating) animals
Usually only bat species (but there are lots of bat species!!!).

Omnivorous (a bit of everything) animals
Including neighbourhood pests (raccoons, skunks, squirrels) and monkeys.

Generally in any region, there will be the most common vectors for the disease - those animals that are most likely to carry the virus and pass it on to humans and domestic animals. In Europe it is the Fox, in the North America it’s the Raccoon, South America is the domestic dog, as with Asia. However there are always many other wild mammals that could become infected with the virus by one of these and then become the carrier themselves.

90% of reported rabies cases last year were in wild animals, with the most of the recent cases in the U.S being from infected bats. Worldwide, the World Health Organisation (WHO) reported 55,000 human cases of rabies last year alone, mostly children being bitten by dogs.

Can I get rabies from a rat bite?
Do squirrels have rabies?
Do chipmunks get rabies??

Small rodents (such as squirrels, rats, mice and chipmunks) and lagomorphs (such as rabbits and hares) are almost never found to be infected with rabies and have not been known to cause rabies among humans in the United States.

You can still pick up all sorts of other nasty things from a wild animal bite - including tetanus - so any bite should be flushed and treated as soon as possible, and if you are regularly in close quarters with wild animals, you would be best advised to have any recommended vaccinations and take extra care at all times.

How do you tell if a bat has rabies?
Bats are also common mammals who spread rabies, but most do not appear to or actually have the disease. Unfortunately, you cannot tell if a bat has rabies just by looking at it; rabies can only be confirmed with laboratory testing, usually only after it has bitten someone and been caught!

To minimize the risk, it is best never to handle any bat, or try to corner or get too close to a trapped bat. In the UK, (which is classed as rabies free due to its strict quarantine measures), you are not legally allowed to handle a bat or approach and disturb a bat roost. You must report any ‘found’ or ‘injured’ bats to the Bat Conservation Society, who will help catch or dispose of the animal safely and legally.

Mammals which spread rabies:
Raccoons continued to be the most frequently reported rabid wildlife species (37.7% of all animal cases during 2006), followed by bats (24.4%), skunks (21.5%), foxes (6.2%), and other wild animals, including rodents and lagomorphs (0.6%).

Cattle, horses, deer and other herbivores (grass and plant eaters) can become infected with rabies and although they could potentially transmit the virus to other animals and to people, this rarely occurs.

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posted by admin on May 17

Rabies Symptoms in Cats.

If you are unlucky enough to live in an area with prevalent rabies, then you would hope that your cat never got affected, but as there are many wild animals that carry this virus in the US - see Common Carriers of the Rabies Virus article - you will either need to get your cat vaccinated or watch out for the tell-tale signs of infection to protect yourself and other pets.

Luckily for cats however, they are less likely to get infected with rabies than dogs, but this does not mean that they will not get it, and in fact several cats a year (in the US) are reported to have contracted this virus. So how does a cat get rabies, and what are the symptoms of rabies in cats?

How does a cat get rabies?
The virus can only get into the cat from the saliva of an infected animal through broken skin or an open sore, so any bite-like wound or unidentified scratches should be treated with suspicion if living in an area known to have rabid wildlife. The site of the wound may become very itchy for the cat, and it may be chewing or scratching this area intensely.

Also, as the virus may be present in the saliva of an animal before it shows any outward signs of having rabies itself (i.e. a very normal looking raccoon could be infected), it is very important to isolate any pet cat which has been bitten by an unknown animal and observe them for at least a week for any changes to their personality or health.

If precautions are not taken, an infected pet cat could pass this on to other pets in the neighbourhood because the pattern of the disease is known to cause an infected animal to become more violent than normal, and therefore more likely to bite something else to pass on the virus in it’s own saliva. What it bites though, could be a human.

What are the symptoms of rabies in cats?
Initial rabies symptoms in cats include pyrexia (raised temperature) and a change in temperament. It is possible that the cat may become more placid and seek your affection, or they may hide away in corners or under beds, or go on longer than normal walks.

There are 2 recognised forms of rabies that cats can be identified as having, depending on the symptoms they show; known as either furious rabies or dumb rabies.

In furious rabies the cat will likely become more and more excitable, in episodes lasting anything from a matter or minutes to several hours. During these episodes, they may become more aggressive, possibly snapping and trying to bite other pets or their owners. They may also just snap at imaginary objects. Cats are also reported to stay very energised and may arch their backs continually.

Many cats with this form of the disease develop a depraved appetite and will chew and eat almost anything they can get hold of. 

As with any animal, the disease will progress quickly, and may include paresis (muscle weakness) in the legs and the tail. The muscles of the face and neck are also affected, commonly resulting in difficulty swallowing, possibly with the classic ‘foaming at the mouth’ which is really just the sick cats way of dealing with the paralysis and it’s nervous state (of the nervous system as this virus travels around the body in the nerve fibres). It may also display an asymmetry and distortion of the face.

With furious rabies, the cat will eventually die during a violent seizure.

Dumb rabies is far more common, with little or no signs - hence it’s name. There are some common traits though and these include a progressive paralysis of the limbs and distortion of the face with drooping of the jaw and drooling, along with difficulty swallowing. This can also affect the eyes, with drooping of the eyelids and squinting.

In this form, the cat will become comatose and may die more peacefully.

Is there a treatment for rabies?
There is no current treatment recommended or practised for cats or dogs with rabies and it is always fatal as a result. The only way to protect your cat from death is to have it vaccinated prior to infection.

This is not because there is not enough known about the virus, but because it is such a direct and often fatal effects on humans. Basically, due to this high risk to humans - the Department for Environment & Rural Affairs (DEFRA)  in the UK, advise that any animal found to have the virus is isolated immediately and that they are informed. When the animal dies (usually within a week or two), it is sent to them for testing to confirm the virus was responsible.

A rabies outbreak is just too much of a risk to humans, so this disease is taken very seriously.

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posted by admin on May 14

What’s the Safest Rabies Vaccine for Cats?

The answer is: the one your vet recommends.

Basically, your vet can only recommend the one rabies vaccine the world has to your cat. Obviously, for each individual animal your vet will consider it’s medical history and lifestyle and balance this against the relative risk of it coming into contact with a rabid animal. In the States, this can be quite a high chance, so the rabies vaccine is your cats only defence against the disease.

I’ve heard of cats reacting to vaccines…. 
Yes, of course it is possible that one cat in a million may react badly to the vaccine, just as humans can, but the unfortunate injury or death of one animal is nothing compared to the amount of cats that could die of rabies if they were not vaccinated against rabies.

However, for a vaccine to work, it needs to be administered to an effective percentage level, for example 85%. This means that over 85% of the population needs to be vaccinated in order to keep the disease in check.

What it means is that if the percentage of animals fall below that level, the overall vaccine program for that region or country will start to break down.

Putting it in simpler terms, if you cover 85% of your cat with a specific flea treatment, it is likely you will kill all the fleas and not see any more for some time. However, if you only use flea treatment on 50% of your cat, it is likely that you will not kill ALL the fleas, and soon our cat will be overrun with them again as they breed.

This is how all vaccines work, so your vet will always recommend it in endemic regions - it keeps you beloved cat protected, and all the other local pets will benefit from it too.

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posted by admin on May 11

Rabies injections for humans come in 2 main forms:

Pre-Exposure Vaccines - A course of vaccinations as a preventative measure administered before any possible exposure.

Post-Exposure Treatment - A course of treatments after a suspected rabid animal bite, lick or wound, with further treatment after a positive diagnosis.

The virus can remain latent for up to 4 weeks after the initial bite or contact ith the infected animal, but 3 weeks is the more common. Then clinical signs begin to show.

It all depends on the site of the infection: it will reach the CNS faster if the bite is to the head or neck; the severity of the bite - the larger the site the more exposed the tissues are and the dose of the virus - how much got in off the rabid host

Rabies Symptoms in Humans:
The first symptoms of rabies are usually non-specific and suggest involvement of the respiratory, gastrointestinal and/or central nervous systems. In the acute stage, signs of hyperactivity (furious rabies) or paralysis (dumb rabies) predominate. In both furious and dumb rabies, paralysis eventually progresses to complete paralysis followed by coma and death in all cases, usually due to respiratory failure. Death occurs during the first seven days of illness without intensive care.

Post Exposure Treatment - The most effective mechanism of protection against rabies after possible exposure is to wash and flush a wound or point of contact with soap and water, detergent or plain water, followed by the application of ethanol, tincture or aqueous solution of iodine.

Anti-rabies vaccine should be given for more serious exposures (larger wild animal bites, especially around the main veins and neck) as soon as possible according to WHO recognized regimens. All immunosuppressed patients will be treated as soon as possible after identification.

Suturing (closing the wound) should be postponed, but if it is necessary immunoglobulin must first be applied. Where indicated, anti-tetanus treatment, antimicrobials and drugs should be administered to control infections other than rabies.

Treatment should be started as early as possible after exposure, but in no case should it be denied to exposed persons whatever time interval has elapsed. There is no longer any pasteur rabies injections in the stomach, it is through a concentrated vaccination schedule that the sidease is approached now.

Where the animal is almost certainly identified as having rabies, immediate attempts should be made to identify, capture or kill the animal involved, to prevent further human risk, but also to test the animal - as it could not be infected at all, saving the human victim from further isolation and treatment.

Pre-exposure immuzation - Human deaths from rabies can be effectively prevented by vaccination, either pre-exposure vaccination or as part of post-exposure treatment.

Vaccines of cell-culture origin are preferable for pre-exposure immunization of humans, since they are safer and more effective than nerve-tissue vaccines.

Pre-exposure vaccinations should be given to all animal and health professionals who could come into contact with an infected animal, including veterinarians, animal handlers and wildlife officers, and other individuals who are living in or travelling to areas where rabies is endemic.

Periodic booster injections are recommended for persons at continuing risk of exposure to rabies, usually every 5 years although can be more regularly with those working with rabies cultures and around or with animals in endemic regions.

Rabies is currently an incurable disease once full blown, however, immediate post-exposure treatment initiated at an early stage using modern rabies vaccine can be 100% effective in preventing death.

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