Talbot Road Veterinary Services

12/04/2024

Wowza Wednesday!

Today, Dr Emily and RVTs Amanda and Emily welcomed this handsome boy into our equine suite for some serious dental work!

Last month he was diagnosed with a condition known as EOTRH (equine odontoclastic tooth resorption and hypercementosis). This excruciating disease occurs in older horses and involves the body breaking down normal tooth structure and replacing it with a very firm tissue called cementum. It typically affects the incisor teeth and the recommended treatment is extraction to prevent further pain and damage to the jaw bone.

The x-ray shows characteristic bulbous roots of some of the teeth which can be seen again when looking at the teeth that were removed. The tip off to take X-rays? Dr Emily noticed on his annual exam that the upper incisors were abnormal looking, had bruising of the gums and were extremely sensitive, requiring high doses of sedation to even examine them. (Another reason why only a licensed veterinary professional should ever float your horse’s teeth and do an oral exam!) Based on those findings x-rays were recommended.

The good news is that with some good pain medication, sedation and local freezing this guy made it through surgery amazingly and was back home eating a mash by this afternoon!

If you have any suspicions that your horse may have this condition don’t hesitate to give us a shout!

12/03/2024

A Talbot Tuesday apology from miss Cookie:

Cookie would like to apologize for the stinkier-than-usual aromas that may be smelled around the clinic in the next few weeks. She recently had surgery at the Ontario Veterinary College to fix an abdominal hernia (surgery went well!), and is now on stall rest for about a month to ensure the incision site remains clean and the sutures intact.

As owners, even Dr. Emily and Eric have to follow post-op instructions!

12/02/2024

Happy holiday season, from our family to yours! ❤️🐶🐱🐭🐹🐰🐴🐮🐔

11/27/2024

Happy Talbot Tuesday from Costa Rica!

Dr. Carleigh and her husband Jarrett were recently on a belated honeymoon, and they were lucky enough to see some pretty cool wildlife. We doubt we'll be seeing any crocodile patients soon, though! 🐊

11/24/2024

Savvy Sunday!

Topic: Scripting out to human or pet pharmacies

As the cost of living rises all around us there is an increasing number of clients requesting that their pet’s medication be scripted out to either human pharmacies or popular online pet pharmacies. Although this may seem like a great way to save a bit here are a few reasons why we encourage you to think twice!

1. Legitimacy & Safety! Several popular products, particularly flea/tick/heartworm prevention are available online for cheaper than they can be purchased by vet clinics from the company directly. Seem fishy? That’s because it is! The vast majority of companies that manufacture pet veterinary products ONLY sell to veterinarians…this means that many of the “too good to be true” products are actually look-alikes that may not be safe for your pets as they won’t have undergone the required safety trials to be approved for sale to veterinarians

2. Education & follow up! Most “pet” pharmacies are actually owned and run by human pharmacists which is a scary concept! Veterinarians have a minimum of 7 years post-secondary education to be able to accurately understand the pharmacokinetics behind each drug they use and apply it to the differences found within each species. Human pharmacists will have an excellent understanding of the drugs themselves BUT will be lacking the knowledge to know how a drug might be metabolized, absorbed etc within each species. For example, cats like Twix can often require 4x the dosage of some drugs compared to dogs and yet there are other drugs that they can’t safely take at all! If a non-veterinary pharmacy doses a script incorrectly or your pet has an adverse reaction it will be very difficult for your family vet to help with if the drug didn’t come from them directly.

3. Small business vibe! Just like Walmart can sell things for cheaper than an independent grocer can, so too can large pharmaceutical companies sell for cheaper than a privately owned clinic. That being said, in order to afford having important medications on hand for immediate dispensing, to have staff members to count and recheck scripts and qualified veterinarians to appropriately prescribe them, a vet clinic needs to have at least a baseline income from drug sales. So while you may save a few dollars a month on average (depending on the medication), you’ll be supporting large corporations and making it difficult to small businesses to uphold the same quality of care they strive to provide. Not to mention the amount of it can take veterinarians to jump through the hoops of sending scripts that are accurate (despite human pharmacies often having different concentrations of drugs) and follow open times of other pharmacies which are often closed over lunch or earlier in the afternoon than a vet has time to phone at. This can increase the time you wait in order to get your pet’s medication and is the reason we have a scripting fee.

Finally, there are a few instances where scripting out is appropriate. These mainly include accessing drugs that aren’t readily available through a veterinary supplier.
Otherwise, we strongly encourage you to go through your vet directly and to select the “animal formulated”/brand name versions such as the feline metacam (at a lower concentration for safer dosing) that Twix is showing off as much as possible!

- From the Talbot road family to yours ❤️

11/20/2024

Talbot Tuesday - Throwback!!

Can anyone guess which TRVS member this adorable child turned into? 😏

11/12/2024

Talbot Tuesday - enrichment adventures 🏅

We are in the presence of an elite athlete! Lilly belongs to our lovely receptionist Etta (or should we say, Etta belongs to her!). Lilly is small and sassy but don't let that fool you - she is fast and formidable!

Here you can see Lilly basking in the glory of a successful weekend doing scent work. Activities like scent tracking, agility, dock diving, etc. are excellent ways to not only keep your dog's body AND mind active, but also to strengthen the bond between you and your dog.

I think we may need to ask for Lilly's paw-tograph!

11/05/2024

Nugget says, "It's Talbot Tuesday!"

FAQ: Why do I need to have an exam to be a client - and why every year?

A: Ontario veterinarians practice under the Professional Practice Standard of their regulatory college, the CVO. Every animal treated must have what is called a VCPR: a veterinary-client-patient relationship.

A VCPR is established between a veterinarian (or other vet in the same practice), an owner (client), and each animal under that client's care. Our veterinarians are required to have a valid VCPR before providing treatment, giving advice, or prescribing any medications.

A VCPR must be maintained, which involves, at minimum, a brief annual exam. This is true even if there are no concerns and/or no vaccinations due.

Keeping an active VCPR with Talbot Road ensures priority booking whenever possible, enables our veterinarians to give advice when appropriate, allows for prescriptions to be refilled/renewed as appropriate, and maintains access to after-hours care.

10/31/2024

*EDIT please bring your own chairs if you’d like to sit!

Friendly reminder for everyone who signed up for the joint injection talk that it’s THIS Monday!
See you there! 🐴

10/31/2024

Myrtle says Happy Howl-o-ween everyone!

10/29/2024

Talbot Tuesday - Staff Spotlight!

Emily - Registered Veterinary Technician

Please welcome Emily, the newest addition to the TRVS Technician Team! Emily recently joined our clinic on the small animal side, and will soon be working on the large animal side, as well.

Education: St. Clair College, 2021

Family: Emily lives with her parents and many animals, including Bailey (a Mastiff cross), H***h (a Golden Retriever), goats Bonnie and Clyde, Sebastian the cat, Shadow the Morgan horse, and Mo, an Arabian cross.

Hidden talent: Emily was an impressive tap dancer back in the day!

Our staff pick 3 words to describe her: Reliable, attentive, dedicated

What is your favourite thing about working in veterinary medicine?: "Monitoring surgeries/anesthesia and helping to advocate for patients."

What completely non-veterinary-related things do you enjoy?: "Riding and spending time with my horses. I also spend a lot of my time helping out with my grandpa's Morgan horse breeding business."

If you were to win a small lottery and had to add something fun to the clinic, what would it be?: "An equine therapy/rehab area!"

10/25/2024

10/22/2024

Talbot Tuesday FAQ: Why can't medical concerns be addressed during vaccine appointments or meet-and-greets?

A: Our doctors want to ensure that all medical issues are thoroughly addressed and discussed. Vaccine appointments are scheduled for less time, as our patients are presumed at the time of booking to be stable, and therefore not requiring any diagnostics or treatments. Adding unexpected concerns to a visit often means falling behind on our schedule, which is unfair to other clients and patients, and involves use of limited team resources.

If you have concerns that may affect your animal's vaccination, please notify the clinic in advance so that we can reschedule and/or arrange a medical appointment if necessary.

If you require a medication refill or nail trim, please inform our team **at the time of booking**.

Thank you so much for your understanding.

This message brought to you by Bentley and Chance!

10/18/2024

Sugar-glidin' into the weekend - Happy Friday!

10/16/2024

Please take a moment to educate yourself on this brutal topic!

10/15/2024

This Talbot Tuesday, we are celebrating two special additions to TRVS family. They are not only new to us, but pretty new to the world, too!

Dr. Emily and Eric are excited to welcome foals Toast (palomino) and Cookie to their fur family. These girls have already settled in, and are (mostly) on their best behaviour!

Do you notice anything special about Cookie? 👀

10/13/2024

UPDATE: Thank you to everyone who reached out. We are delighted to have had many inquiries about Pocket, and will be putting his current family in touch with those who have expressed interest ☺️

In need of a home:

This is Pocket, a ~3 year old castrated male goat. Sadly, Pocket lost his penmate this past week, and has been quite lonely on his own. His family is looking to find him a new home where he can thrive as a pet (not for commercial/food use). Pocket can be shy with people but is a nice fellow! He is currently located in the Ingersoll area.

If you think your farm may be a good fit for Pocket, please email us at [email protected] with the subject line "Pocket", and we can put you in touch with his current family. We hope to find this boy a happy ending!

10/11/2024

Good Morning and Happy Friday!

Please be advised that our regular appointment bookings for our hospital will be closed on Monday October 14th, 2024 for Thanksgiving.

We will still be offering emergency after hour services for our existing clients (Patient has been seen within the last year). Please call the clinic phone number at 226-931-5362 and leave a voicemail for the oncall Veterinarian for further assistance should you need our emergency services.

In order to better understand what should constitute a middle of the night call we’ve created a chart with examples for each species of urgent (should be seen within ~24 hours) versus emergent (needs to be seen immediately or within a very short time period). Only emergent cases should prompt a late night/early morning call.

Dogs:
Urgent case examples: Not eating, vomiting, lethargy, fever, smaller wounds

Emergent case examples: Broken limb, non-productive vomiting/gagging in a large breed dog, toxin ingestion (chocolate, grapes, rat poison, anti-freeze etc), a wound with uncontrolled bleeding, seizures lasting longer than 5 minutes, sudden onset paralysis

Cats:
Urgent case examples: Not eating, vomiting, lethargy, fever, smaller wounds, struggling to p**p

Emergent case examples: Male cat unable to urinate, broken limb, toxin ingestion (grapes, lilies etc), wounds with uncontrolled bleeding, respiratory distress, sudden onset paralysis

Horses:

Urgent case examples: Off feed, fever, leg that is suddenly swollen but without trauma, lethargy, smaller wounds

Emergent case examples: Broken limb, colic signs (call vet to help triage the seriousness), wounds with large amounts of bleeding or that are overtop/near joints, choke, any birthing complication, down and unable to rise

Ruminants (Cattle, goats, sheep):

Urgent case examples: Off feed, fever, lethargy, small wounds

Emergent case examples: Uterine prolapse, birthing difficulties, “down cow”, bloat, sudden onset paralysis