Q:
We have several fruit trees on our property and this year, Nemo
got sick eating fruit off the ground that we didn’t pick up.
Q: We have several fruit trees on our property and this year, Nemo got sick eating fruit off the ground that we didn’t pick up. He’s a lab cross and normally he has a strong stomach but he wants to eat almost anything. Our neighbor told us that our walnut tree might be dangerous for him because walnuts are poisonous to dogs. Is this true?
A:
By themselves, walnuts are not toxic. But their shells can cause an irritated stomach (gastritis) or even an intestinal blockage. Besides all that, they’re high in oil, making them a fattening problem for dogs that are already overweight.
But your neighbor’s warning is about a different problem with walnuts. There’s a black mold that can form on their husk or shell, and this mold can be deadly poisonous. It usually only appears after rain or moisture from fog gets on the nuts on the ground. But I’ve seen at least two dogs that were seriously ill after eating nuts that had just fallen off the tree.
The symptoms are dramatic. Heavy drooling, nausea, vomit and tremors are the most common signs. The tremors are the real danger to this toxin. Without treatment, they rapidly turn into whole-body convulsions. These patients develop hyperthermia and can quickly die without treatment. The symptoms look very similar to those of a dog with snailbait toxicity.
Needless to say, the best answer to this problem is prevention. Keep the ground around your walnut trees clean. Don’t allow Nemo any access to moldy walnuts and he’ll never have a problem.
Q:
Our kitten, Wonder, fell from a bookcase and broke her leg. It’s her thigh bone and the vet wants to do surgery to fix it. We were amazed at the cost of this surgery. But she explained that the only way for the bone to heal straight is to put a plate on it. Why can’t the leg be put in a cast, the way that a broken leg on a person is treated?
A:
There are two important points to your question. First, let’s talk about how Wonder’s leg can heal from this injury.
In order for broken bones to mend, the individual fragments at the fracture site must be immobilized so a bridge of new bone (called a callus) can develop. Adequate healing takes a long time; 5 weeks for young animals and as much as 5 months for older patients. A lot depends on the age and overall health of the patient. This bridging callus can only form if the bone fragments are held tightly together.
Some broken bones can be treated with simple casting. The cast must have a snug fit on the leg and the patient can’t be too active (no jumping and running allowed!). Any excessive movement of the leg can loosen a cast and make it useless for healing. Kittens (like your little Wonder) can easily cause problems with a cast just because of their high energy level and movement.
But a bigger problem is her anatomy. Like all cats and dogs, her upper leg tapers from a large to a smaller diameter from the hip to the knee. Her leg also has a natural bend in it at the knee. This is considerably different than the structure of a human thigh, which is straight and is the same size from one end of the bone to the other. Here’s what this means; a cast on a human leg can remain snug, properly immobilizing those bone fragments well so that a simple fracture can heal. But a cast on a kitty’s leg will constantly try to slide down her leg and fail to hold the bone fragments snug. A cast on Wonder’s leg just won’t work.
Still, there are probably several ways to approach Wonder’s fractured leg (as the old saying goes, there’s more than on way to “skin a cat”). So what can you do? I think you should get a second opinion from another veterinarian. Ask your first vet to send the x-rays to someone else for evaluation. After reviewing the films and looking over your injured little girl, he or she can give you a better idea what might be the best choice for treatment.
Now, what about the expense for all this? None of us like this question. But here are some unfortunate facts. Charges for medical care (both for animals and people) have gone way up in the past few years. This is mainly due to increase costs in all facets of the medical professions. Everything from medical supplies to pharmaceuticals, to payroll taxes, to workers’ compensation costs (in California, these premiums are huge!), to compliance with the rules of OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration). Veterinarians, like other business people, have seen their expenses rise precipitously in the past few years. Running a business has become much more complicated and more expensive over the past decade and this is reflected in higher fees for any type of service. Whether we like it or not, the veterinary profession is a business and has to keep up with costs. This is one reason that veterinary insurance programs for pets have become increasingly popular.
So get a second opinion and then do what you think will be best for Wonder girl. With time she’ll heal and be jumping like a kitten all over everywhere again … but not on bookcases, we hope.
