DEAR DR. FOX: When our 4-year-old English bulldog developed canine epilepsy, she was prescribed phenobarbital and potassium bromide to control the seizures.
Once we started her on a diet of cooked ground beef mixed with food from Sojourner (all natural, human-grade dog food mix -- www.sojos.com), she stopped having seizures. We also eliminated as much sodium chloride (table salt) from her diet by reading the dog-treat labels closely.
We used the heartworm medication Interceptor, since Heartgard did not agree with her.
I hope this may help some of your readers and their dogs. -- C.G., St. Louis Park, Minn.
DEAR C.G.: Thank you for confirming the importance of looking at what dogs who suffer from epilepsy are being fed. The benefits of providing good nutrition for our pets -- and children, too -- with whole-food ingredients rather than highly processed ingredients and food-industry byproducts far outweigh the slightly higher costs; ditto for organically certified foods over conventionally grown.
It continues to almost give me a seizure every time I receive a letter like yours, because there is evidently a great need for veterinary clinical nutrition to be put into practice.
The kind of science behind the creation of "junk" manufactured pet foods is tied to the dollar, aimed at the formulation of diets for dogs and cats with the lowest-cost ingredients. The formulation of most mainstream manufactured pet foods is extremely simplistic. This means ensuring adequate proportions of fat, fiber, protein and starch, regardless of quality and the source.
This profit-driven downward spiral of the pet-food industry was in part responsible for the deaths and chronic sickness of thousands of dogs and cats after the inclusion of an ultra-cheap protein filler imported from China as wheat gluten.
We can't simply put the blame on Chinese racketeers or the Food and Drug Administration, which has neither the staff nor the funds to inspect much more than 1 percent of all imported-food materials.
DEAR DR. FOX: I love cats, but have had problems with their nails clawing at the furniture and carpets. I regularly took mine to the vet to have their nails clipped. I asked how it's done, and my husband and I now do it.
It takes patience, a lot of petting and treats, and our cats aren't very happy about it, but it's better than having them declawed. (I know a few people who've had this done, and the cats seem meaner because of it.) -- K., Amsterdam, N.Y.
DEAR K.: I wish more cat owners would do the same when their cats claw things they shouldn't. With proper handling and restraint (that may mean having a helper), one can easily snip the sharp ends of the claws off with a nail trimmer. Most cats get used to a routine nail snipping.
All cats should have suitable scratch posts in the home. The simplest is a well-secured, three-foot-high log or board that is covered with outdoor carpeting or wrapped in coils of thick hemp rope. Spicing with catnip tea can make the scratch post more attractive.
No cat needs to be surgically declawed, a procedure that actually removes the first part of the finger/toe, not just the nail. This procedure can make some cats permanent cripples. Yet veterinarians routinely perform this operation at the same time kittens come in to be spayed or neutered, even though these young animals are not known to be destructive clawers. So the cruel mutilation is justified as a "just in case" prevention, a position that's unconscionable. I find it both curious and disturbing that declawing is still acceptable in America while it is unheard of in many other countries where cat lovers are united in accepting cats' rights to keep their claws. Having claws is part of their nature, and if scratching and clawing ever become a problem -- in spite of appropriate early training -- there are correctives that make the routine declawing of cats an unwarranted abomination.
To order Dr. Michael W. Fox's newsletter, Animal Doctor, on providing the best care for your animal companion, send a check or money order for $2 and a long, self-addressed, stamped envelope to Newsletter, P.O. Box 167, Wickliffe, OH 44092.
Copyright 2008, United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
